As Iowa reopens, workers are being forced to choose between a paycheck and their health

was furloughed a few days later. Because she was laid off, she qualified for unemployment: $137 a week, after taxes. Since then, Neider has rarely left her second-story apartment here off rural Highway 22. Her daughter brings her groceries, meticulously wiping them down with disinfectant. On grocery day, Neider ties her keys to a long piece of string, which she carefully lowers from her balcony, allowing her daughter to unlock an outside entrance and leave the bag inside at her front door. Neider moved here to help care for her 6-month-old grandson, but she has seen him only twice in six weeks, from her balcony. “I’m so terrified of getting sick that I have shut myself away,” Neider said. What has made her even more anxious in recent days is what she knows is coming: the call to go back to work. “I need to work. I can’t afford not to,” she said. “But I am scared to death.” Last week, Iowa joined a growing number of states that have started to reopen amid the pandemic. Although there was never an official statewide stay-at-home order, Gov. Kim Reynolds (R) eased restrictions in 77 of the state’s 99 counties, allowing restaurants, gyms, churches and other businesses to open at limited capacity, even as coronavirus cases in the state continue to rise. On Wednesday, Reynolds signed a public health order allowing the partial reopening of businesses beginning Friday in the state’s 22 remaining counties, including retail stores and enclosed shopping malls, as long as they operate at 50 percent capacity. The order covers some of the largest population centers in the state, including Des Moines and Cedar Rapids. The move comes as more than 200,000 Iowans have filed for unemployment in the past six weeks — the highest number reported since the Great Depression. The state has paid out more than $327 million in benefits since April 4, according to the governor’s office. For some states, including Iowa, there is concern that some workers may choose not to return to work because they are earning more from unemployment benefits than they were on the job. While workers receive about half or less of their usual salary in regular unemployment benefits, they also receive a $600-a-week check as part of the $2 trillion federal stimulus bill signed by President Trump in March. Reynolds has urged Iowans to return to their jobs, if they


My company makes covid-19 tests, and we’re exhausted. But will our efforts be enough?

Madhushree Ghosh is senior director of global strategic partnerships at the biotech firm Thermo Fisher Scientific. The views expressed are her own. A friend of mine asks me via text: “How many tests do you make?” I know what test he’s referring to. “5 million,” I respond. “That’s good, right?” The company I work for, Thermo Fisher Scientific, manufactures tests for covid-19. We’re the people behind the people who are behind the front-line health-care workers. What we do affects how you’re treated in the emergency room. And we are exhausted. We have been operating on military-like protocols — uniform and time-bound. If you’re going to call this a war, then you need soldiers. And we are soldiers, whether we signed up or not. Our orders: Assemble, test, quality check, release, seal, ship. No time to lose; lives are at stake. You don’t become a diagnostics researcher or a scientist for money. In fact, many of us aren’t even classified as essential workers. Regardless, we are rule followers in diagnostics. We have to be; if we don’t follow the rules, lives are affected. We work nonstop against this invisible pathogen so others could or may break the rules and we could eventually end social distancing. But all this will be pointless if social distancing isn’t paramount for all people, governments and countries now. The first case of covid-19 in the United States was confirmed on Jan. 21. Diagnostic tests were available two months later. By that time, we were in the epicenter of this pandemic. On Friday the 13th (yes, indeed) of March, President Trump announced a public-private partnership with companies, including the one I work for, to combat the pandemic. In March, my company released its first Emergency Use Authorization kit for covid-19, designed to handle 94 samples in under three hours. We ramped up production to 5 million per week by April. Roche, a diagnostics behemoth, offered its own 400,000 tests per week. The tests are shipped to reference labs and hospitals every day. Were we prepared? No. But did diagnostics teams react fast enough? I’d say yes. This virus is like no other, so the human response, must be like no other, too. If a diagnostic test kit fails quality-control checks, it’s not released. That holds true for all test manufacturers. Our manufacturing team works 24/7 on these checks. Our commercial teams have also worked nonstop since January.


The Daily 202: Five moves signal Trump’s attention is moving beyond the coronavirus crisis

out guidelines for staff to deal with potential, as well as confirmed, coronavirus cases, Military Times reports. “That starts with screening at all MEPS, which includes taking a temperature and answering questions about symptoms and potential contact. If an applicant fails screening, according to the memo, they won’t be tested, but they can return in 14 days if they’re symptom-free. Anyone who has been diagnosed with COVID-19 will have to wait until 28 days after diagnosis to report to MEPS. Upon return, a diagnosis will be marked as ‘permanently disqualifying’ for accession. Recruits can apply for waivers for all permanently disqualifying conditions, including surviving COVID-19. However, without any further guidance for exceptions dealing with COVID-19, a review authority would have no justification to grant a waiver.” “Louie Bonaguidi had been mayor of this tiny city set among high desert buttes and Native American reservations for just a matter of hours last week when the governor called. ‘I want to congratulate you on your election,’ New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham told him. ‘And give my condolences, because we’re locking your city down.’ Bonaguidi was not disappointed to hear that state troopers would be deployed to blockade all roads into Gallup. He was relieved,” Robert Klemko and Griff Witte report. “Less than an hour’s drive east on historic Route 66, in the even smaller city of Grants, the mayor was fighting a very different enemy last week: the governor. Mayor Martin ‘Modey’ Hicks was screaming at state troopers he had derided as ‘Gestapo’ and leading a rebellion against Lujan Grisham’s statewide stay-at-home orders. He was encouraging local businesses on the city’s hard-luck main drag to defiantly reopen. There was no sense shutting down the economy, Hicks said, just because of a virus that, like the flu, needed to be left to ‘take its course.’ The disparate reactions from two mayors within the same region of a single state reflect America’s ever-widening gulf in the struggle against covid-19. … The lightly populated county surrounding Grants, Cibola, has seen just 74 confirmed novel coronavirus cases as of Wednesday. In neighboring McKinley County, home of Gallup, there have been 1,274, or about 30 percent of the state’s total.” “Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan announced Wednesday that the state would slowly begin to ease his stay-at-home order, granting permission for certain outdoor activities and allowing doctors to schedule some elective surgeries,” Erin Cox, Fenit Nirappil, Laura


predictors of infection and death rates than underlying health conditions. Gregorio Millett, vice president of Amfar, the Foundation for Aids Research, said the findings suggest that black people will be more vulnerable to the pandemic as states begin to reopen businesses and public spaces.” “The global search for a treatment targeting the novel coronavirus has led to an unlikely potential savior: a cocoa-colored llama named Winter, whose blood could hold a weapon to blunt the virus,” Karin Brulliard and Carolyn Johnson report. “She lives at a research farm in Belgium with about 130 other llamas and alpacas. And like all of them, she produces a special class of disease-fighting antibodies — tiny, even by antibody standards — that show early promise in laboratory tests in blocking the novel coronavirus from entering and infecting cells. In a paper published Tuesday in the journal Cell, an international team of scientists reports that these petite antibodies, harvested from Winter’s blood, were used to engineer a new antibody that binds to the spiky proteins that stud the surface of the novel coronavirus, ‘neutralizing’ its insidious effect. The study, through preliminary, points to a possible treatment. Other efforts to create more-traditional antibody drugs are moving forward fast, with the hope they could provide a bridge until there is a vaccine.” “Most new Covid-19 hospitalizations in New York state are from people who were staying home and not venturing much outside, a ‘shocking’ finding, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said,” CNBC reports. “The preliminary data was from 100 New York hospitals involving about 1,000 patients, Cuomo (D) said at his daily briefing. It shows that 66% of new admissions were from people who had largely been sheltering at home. The next highest source of admissions was from nursing homes, 18%. … He said the information shows that those who are hospitalized are predominantly from the downstate area in or around New York City, are not working or traveling and are not essential employees. He also said a majority of the cases in New York City are minorities, with nearly half being African American or Hispanic.” “E.U. policymakers offered a grim forecast, predicting that even if the handling of the crisis goes smoothly and societies do not need to shutter again now that many have started easing restrictions, the economy of the European Union is expected to shrink by 7.4 percent in 2020,” Michael Birnbaum reports. “By comparison, Europe’s


Masks, temperature checks, shorter weeks: A state plan outlines how school could change in Maryland

When schools reopen in Maryland, students could be wearing masks and getting temperature checks as they arrive. They could be assigned to smaller classes, with desks spaced six feet apart, and find playgrounds that are marked to keep them socially distant. Face-to-face instruction could take place just one day a week, followed by four days of learning from home. It could be that math classes are taught in person but English classes aren’t. Or that children in certain grades are on campus while others learn remotely. All are possibilities outlined by state officials in a new 54-page education recovery plan that lays out what school could look like as covid-19 restrictions ease. It is meant to guide Maryland’s 24 school systems, each of which will adopt its own approach. One thing it makes clear: School as it was is no more, at least not for the near term. “The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the landscape of education more dramatically than any other phenomenon in the history of our state school system,” the report reads. “An event of this magnitude will definitely impact how we provide education to students.” State Superintendent of Schools Karen B. Salmon unveiled the plan Wednesday as she announced that schools in Maryland would be closed for the rest of the 2019-2020 school year. She called it a comprehensive plan designed as not a mandate but as guidance for school systems “as they begin to consider how they will bring students and educators back.” How soon that could happen remains unclear. Salmon said schools could reopen partially during stage two of the governor’s three-stage recovery plan, but a full return of the student body would be a part of the final stage. The timing of each stage is based on pandemic data. Montgomery County Superintendent Jack R. Smith called the education plan “a really good start” and said he hoped students could return to their schools in some form in the coming months, even though it would be “strikingly different than any of us have seen school in the past.” “I think schools will open in the fall, potentially even in July or August, for summer programming and opportunities for recovery of learning,” he said. “I hope that they do.” Cynthia Simonson, president of the Montgomery County Council of PTAs, said the document marks an important step toward hammering out what’s next. But she wondered about the


Temporary morgue opens at Maryland ice rink; D.C., Virginia and Md. add 108 known coronavirus deaths

The number of known coronavirus cases in the District, Maryland and Virginia was 52,695 on Tuesday, with 27,117 cases in Maryland, 20,256 in Virginia and 5,322 in the District. The number of virus-related deaths reached 1,390 in Maryland, 713 in Virginia and 264 in the District, for a total of 2,367 fatalities. [ Here are some of the most significant recent developments as the region responds to the pandemic of the novel coronavirus, which causes the disease covid-19: • Maryland officials have leased a massive ice-skating complex in Laurel for use as a temporary morgue during the coronavirus crisis. • Ocean City will open its boardwalk and inlet starting Saturday, officials said, but cautioned that a stay-at-home order is still in effect. • Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam (D) said he expects to ease some restrictions on nonessential businesses soon, but D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser on Tuesday urged residents to remember that the city is under a stay-at-home order and to use caution as the coronavirus outbreak continues. • The District, Maryland and Virginia added 108 known coronavirus-related deaths on Tuesday, with most of them in Maryland, as well as 1,625 new cases across the three jurisdictions. When might local restrictions ease?


Malls are reopening, with masks, social distancing and hand sanitizer-spritzing doormen

with plans to expand to 49 properties in 10 states Monday. Tapestry, the parent company of Kate Spade, Coach and Stuart Weitzman, reopened 40 of its stores for curbside pick-up. Best Buy plans to phase in 200 stores this month. Meanwhile, Macy’s, the nation’s largest department store chain, will open 68 stores Monday, with the rest of its 775 stores coming onboard in the next six to eight weeks. But there will stark differences from pre-pandemic norms: Customers will not be allowed to try on makeup or dress shirts or get bra fittings. No ear piercings or alterations, either. Employees, meanwhile, will be required to get temperature checks and wear cloth masks. The company is also adding plexiglass barriers at cash registers and providing hand sanitizer at entrances, escalators and checkout counters. But even with the precautions, analysts say it will be difficult to persuade shoppers to come in and spend. More than 30 million Americans have filed for unemployment benefits in the past six weeks, and many more say they’re worried about possible job cuts and furloughs as the effects of the shutdown continue to ripple across the economy. That has led to steep declines in consumer spending that analysts say will worsen in the coming months. “Some people will go to the mall, but there are so many others who are afraid to go out or don’t have money to spend,” said Neil Saunders, managing director of GlobalData Retail. That didn’t stop the dozens of shoppers who lined up Friday outside Ingram Park Mall in San Antonio, waiting for it to open. William Luna, 42, had come, wearing a homemade Spiderman-themed mask, in search of an exclusive Batman figure. Though he disagrees with the governor’s decision to reopen the state, he said he’s getting tired of sitting at home. Plus, he figured, there wouldn’t be much of a crowd at the mall. “I don’t like being locked up,” said Luna, who is disabled and cannot work. “But I also understand.” Inside the mall, signs warned customers about keeping their distance, and stickers on the tile floor indicated where people should stand. Vitamin World imposed a two-shopper limit, while Rack Room Shoes allowed 24 at a time. Most national brands were closed, but about a dozen locally owned retailers opened their doors. Jewelry kiosks and cookie vendors were busy preparing for foot traffic. At least a dozen people waited


Scientists hope to hunt down ‘murder hornets’ before they decimate U.S. bees

As if 2020 weren’t terrifying enough, now we have to worry about ‘murder hornets.’ The world’s largest hornet — the size of a matchbox — is known for invading honeybee hives, decapitating all the bees in a matter of hours and carrying the mangled thoraxes back to feed their young. In other words, Asian giant hornets are literally murderers. And now they’re in the United States. The Washington State Department of Agriculture is trying to track down the fearsome insects, also nicknamed “yak-killer hornets” or “giant sparrow bees,” after officials received and verified four reports of them in December in the northwest part of the state. They were also spotted in two sites in the Canadian province of British Columbia in the fall. In a New York Times story that made the term “murder hornets” trend on Twitter on Saturday, Conrad Bérubé, a beekeeper and entomologist in Nanaimo, Canada, described being stung by an Asian giant hornet as “like having red-hot thumbtacks being driven into my flesh.” The hornets primarily attack insects but will direct their aggression toward people if they’re threatened. Their quarter-inch stingers, which can penetrate beekeeping suits, deploy a venom potent enough to dissolve human flesh. Absorbing multiple stings can be deadly. The nervous system can shut down, and an allergic reaction may occur and cause anaphylactic shock. The insects kill roughly 30 to 40 people each year in Japan, where they’re most common. The giant hornets are primarily a danger to bees. Scientists are hunting for the insects, whose queens can grow to two inches long, in hopes of rounding them up before they become rooted in the United States and destroy bee populations that are crucial to crop pollination. “This is our window to keep it from establishing,” Chris Looney, an entomologist at the Washington State Department of Agriculture, told the Times. “If we can’t do it in the next couple of years, it probably can’t be done.” Some insects native to the northwest United States have been confused for the invasive hornets, but real Asian giant hornets have distinctive qualities: large orange and yellow heads with teardrop eyes, black-and-yellow striped abdomens and papery wings that span up to three inches. A colony of Asian giant hornets can kill nearly 30,000 bees in a few hours. The attack begins when a scout finds a new hive and marks it with a pheromone secreted from glands


In one month, the meat industry’s supply chain broke. Here’s what you need to know.

means a diminished revenue stream. They can hold on for only so long while they feed and maintain their animals. The United States has a lot of meat in freezer storage. The USDA reported 921 million pounds of chicken in storage last week and 467 million pounds of boneless beef, which includes ground meat as well as more premium roasts and steaks. But there are challenges to using frozen beef, pork and chicken to offset shortfalls from meat processing-plant closures. Purdue’s Lusk said a lot of the product in cold storage was packaged for restaurants and food service — huge cuts and whole muscles that may not be easy to repackage for home use. Much of it would require thawing, re-butchering to yield more manageable portions for home use, and then repackaging. Repackaging frozen meat introduces food safety hazards. Because experts don’t advise refreezing meat, it would have to be sold unfrozen. And laborers for that kind of skilled work are in short supply. Many of them work in the meat-processing plants that are currently closed or operating at diminished capacity. Others are grocery store butcher counter workers, many of whom have been repurposed to stock and clean stores because of surges in consumer purchasing. Some of the meat in frozen storage, Lusk said, was slated for export, hung up by coronavirus outbreaks that shut down ports worldwide. “USDA reports on inventory and cold storage suggest we have more pork, beef and chicken in storage than compared to the same time last year,” Lusk said. “If processing capacity falls even more and prices continue to rise, that stuff in storage has got to be pulled out.” Sales of plant-based meats in the eight weeks ending April 18 were up 265 percent over the previous eight weeks, said Bruce Friedrich, founder of the Good Food Institute, a trade group for plant-based food. He said conventional meat sales were up 39 percent for that same period. As with many other grocery items, demand has outstripped supply in some places, leaving some store shelves bare. Friedrich said that these supply issues are a function of transportation bottlenecks, and that no plant-based meat facilities have been closed because of coronavirus outbreaks because “facilities are significantly more automated and it’s easier to socially distance because there’s no chopping up carcasses to create the cuts of meat.” He said that before the pandemic, plant-based meat companies


closures. Purdue’s Lusk said a lot of the product in cold storage was packaged for restaurants and food service — huge cuts and whole muscles that may not be easy to repackage for home use. Much of it would require thawing, re-butchering to yield more manageable portions for home use, and then repackaging. Repackaging frozen meat introduces food safety hazards. Because experts don’t advise refreezing meat, it would have to be sold unfrozen. And laborers for that kind of skilled work are in short supply. Many of them work in the meat-processing plants that are currently closed or operating at diminished capacity. Others are grocery store butcher counter workers, many of whom have been repurposed to stock and clean stores because of surges in consumer purchasing. Some of the meat in frozen storage, Lusk said, was slated for export, hung up by coronavirus outbreaks that shut down ports worldwide. “USDA reports on inventory and cold storage suggest we have more pork, beef and chicken in storage than compared to the same time last year,” Lusk said. “If processing capacity falls even more and prices continue to rise, that stuff in storage has got to be pulled out.” Sales of plant-based meats in the eight weeks ending April 18 were up 265 percent over the previous eight weeks, said Bruce Friedrich, founder of the Good Food Institute, a trade group for plant-based food. He said conventional meat sales were up 39 percent for that same period. As with many other grocery items, demand has outstripped supply in some places, leaving some store shelves bare. Friedrich said that these supply issues are a function of transportation bottlenecks, and that no plant-based meat facilities have been closed because of coronavirus outbreaks because “facilities are significantly more automated and it’s easier to socially distance because there’s no chopping up carcasses to create the cuts of meat.” He said that before the pandemic, plant-based meat companies were already scaling up to meet increased demand, but that they are quicker to respond to world events than more conventional animal agriculture. “If you want animal-based pork, you have to plant enough soy to feed the animals, you have to grow breeding animals for years, then it takes 10 months from birth to slaughter. It entails much longer lead times and razor-thin margins at every step,” he said. Correction: An earlier version of this article said Mayo Clinic


‘The food supply chain is breaking’: Tyson Foods raises coronavirus alarm in full-page ads, defends safety efforts

products as part of its coronavirus relief package and asked for pork processors to gain access to the Small Business Administration’s Payroll Protection Program. The NPPC has already succeeded in securing $3 billion in product purchases and $1.6 billion in payments to hog farmers, but believes that sum isn’t enough. A signal of the troubles confronting the meat industry is an increase in stock price for Beyond Meats, Inc., a company that makes plant-based substitutes for meat such as its well-known “Beyond Burger.” After falling in March as stay-at-home restrictions were implemented around the states, Beyond Meats’ stock price soared by 41 percent between April 17 and April 24. It was the company’s largest weekly gain since going public almost a year ago, Bloomberg reported, but did not fully restore the price to its level before social distancing restrictions began. Since the pandemic reached the United States, grocery stores have been struggling to fill shelves as worried shoppers load up on food. Some grocers have already seen meat prices jump as supplies have constricted, particularly for pork and beef. And many farmers unexpectedly have more food than they can sell, after schools, hotels, and restaurants closed to encourage social distancing. Already, dairy farmers have been forced to dump excess milk and chicken processors have had to smash hundreds of thousands of eggs each week. Tyson Foods claimed in its Sunday ad that if the closed plants don’t reopen soon, farmers may have to “depopulate” cows, pigs and chickens that were destined for the dinner table. Industry experts have estimated the existing closures have already reduced the production of beef and pork by up to 25 percent. The Food and Drug Administration said on April 14 that there are “no nationwide shortages of food,” although the agency acknowledged consumers may see some products in short supply at grocery stores as stocks are temporarily low, in part because of people panic-buying staples like milk, eggs and flour. Tyson Foods said in a statement last week that the company is testing its employees for the novel coronavirus before reopening its shuttered plants. The company has also installed infrared scanners to detect fevers and has said employees will have their temperatures checked before shifts when the plants resume work. “It hasn’t been easy and it’s not over,” John H. Tyson wrote in Sunday’s ad. “But I have faith that together, we’ll get through this.”


Carlin Isles, rugby star and track hopeful, sees ‘blessing in disguise’ in Olympics delay

has been essential the past few weeks. When he is at his mother’s house in Ohio, for example, he will sprint up and down the living room steps over and over. It’s a simple, no-frills exercise that can be every bit as effective as a high-priced stair climber at a health club. “You can use the steps for speed or conditioning,” he said. “You can do a bunch of reps, up and down, up and down. But I’m usually working on being powerful, striking the ground and being fast and efficient. It’s all about force, exerting force into the ground.” It’s a far cry from what he is used to. Rugby sevens is a team sport, and the U.S. squad is based in Chula Vista, Calif. Isles typically would train from 7:45 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., a stretch that included a 90-minute gym workout and at least two on-field sessions with teammates. He also would mix in a lot of side work, mostly focused on sprinting. In addition to the rugby tournament, Isles has his sights set on competing in the 100-meter dash in Tokyo. He had a lot of emotional energy invested in competing this summer, so the decision to postpone the Games by a year took time to process. “I was ready. My body was great, and I was feeling good,” he said. “So at first, it was like, ‘Dang,’ because I was ready to peak, ready to perform.” But he quickly started thinking about what another year could mean. Isles, usually the faster player on the pitch, isn’t one to waste a lot of time. A longtime sprinter, he knew nothing about rugby when he offered his services to USA Rugby as a 22-year-old. In 2016, he found himself in the Olympics barely four years after his first rugby practice. So with an extra year to train, Isles figured he can put on an even bigger show next summer in Tokyo. “It kind of hit me: ‘You know what? I can get better. I can improve in so many areas,’ ” he said. “So I had to change my perspective. When I did that, it made things better. I’m going to use this time. This isn’t a couple of weeks or months. I have a long time now to get faster. So I think this is going to end up being a blessing in disguise for me.”


Doggy outings in an age of social distancing: How to keep you and Fido safe and healthy in the great outdoors

Road and Anacostia Drive SE Across the Anacostia River from Navy Yard Riverwalk and Yards Park (which is officially closed) via the 11th Street Bridge, Anacostia Park and its Riverwalk Trail offer wide open spaces for even the most socially distant humans and dogs. Walk on the paved path along Anacostia Drive, on the street itself (now closed to vehicles between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m.) or on the fields (closed to athletics). The trail continues north and connects with Kingman and Heritage Islands, which are open. Parking at Anacostia Park is limited: If you’re driving, park in the lots off Good Hope or Nicholson streets SE. Wheaton Regional Park 2000 Shorefield Rd., Wheaton Just outside the Beltway, this park has a four-mile network of winding, hard-surface paths as well as five miles of natural-surface trails. To accommodate walkers during this time, Montgomery County has also closed portions of Little Falls Parkway, Beach Drive and Sligo Creek Parkway to vehicles between Friday at 9 a.m. and Sunday at 6 p.m. Walker Mill Regional Park 8001 Walker Mill Rd., Capitol Heights Located a few miles east of the District, just inside the Beltway, this 500-acre park has a scenic and hilly paved walking path and plenty of shoulder for your dog and you to wait for passing pedestrians. Henson Creek Trail 1770 Tucker Rd., Fort Washington Dogs asking for longer walks have options at Henson Creek Trail, which stretches 5.7 miles in Prince George’s County. From the parking lot at Tucker Road Athletic Complex, take the wide paved trail along the stream, over pedestrian bridges and eventually through community parks and neighborhoods. C&O Canal 6100 Clara Barton Pkwy., Bethesda A favorite spot for locals, the C&O Canal towpath offers miles of sniffing opportunities. Limited parking is available at Lock No. 6, just north of the District border, but closed at Great Falls, Fletchers Cove and Carderock. From the Lock 6 lot, head north or south. Off the towpath, discover narrow scenic trails dotted with yellow and purple blooms. Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts 1551 Trap Rd., Vienna With performing stages dark, nature takes the limelight at this typically popular venue. Beyond the paved paths are two miles of hiking trails, rocky and interesting loops that will keep your dogs on their toes. The trails pass through 65 bird-filled acres of forest and cross over a small gurgling creek.


Md. governor cites ‘encouraging numbers’ in starting to loosen restrictions; state cancels school through academic year

The number of known coronavirus cases in the District, Maryland and Virginia was 52,695 on Wednesday, with 27,117 cases in Maryland, 20,256 in Virginia and 5,322 in the District. The number of virus-related deaths reached 1,390 in Maryland, 713 in Virginia and 264 in the District, for a total of 2,367 fatalities. Here are some of the most significant recent developments as the region responds to the pandemic of the novel coronavirus, which causes the disease covid-19: • Gov. Larry Hogan (R) is altering his stay-at-home order, saying elective medical procedures will be allowed to resume Thursday. He also broadened the list of safe outdoor activities to include golf, tennis, boating, fishing and the opening of state beaches for exercise, but cautioned that social-distancing measures are still needed. • District officials released a map Wednesday showing a breakdown of coronavirus cases by neighborhood for the first time. Earlier maps showed the number of cases broken down by ward. The map shows that among the top spots for positive tests are Columbia Heights (298 cases), 16th Street Heights (273 cases) and Chinatown (249 cases). • The District has lost $1.7 billion in travel spending and is bracing to lose $163 million from the cancellation of 22 conferences at the convention center, officials said Wednesday. Elliot Ferguson, head of the city tourism arm Destination D.C., said officials are already thinking about how to bring tourists back — starting with those within driving distance. • Two days after Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam (D) said he expects to ease some restrictions on nonessential businesses by mid-May, D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) said Wednesday that D.C. residents are still under a stay-at-home order and she had no updates on when she would lift restrictions set to expire May 15. When might local restrictions ease?


The urgent quest for a coronavirus treatment involves door-to-door blood collection and a llama named Winter

Scangos, chief executive of Vir. “The problem with this whole approach is you have to scale before you know if your drug works. Because if you don’t [scale], and your drug works — now it’s a year before you can provide any reasonable number of doses, and that’s not a situation that anyone wants to be in.” The fastest way to a coronavirus treatment would be to repurpose an existing drug with a long safety record. To that end, scientists are pulling many time-tested drugs off the shelf to see whether they show promise in laboratory experiments and are moving some into the clinic. But antibody treatments could provide a powerful and targeted way to quickly develop a new drug that not only treats the disease but also could prevent people from becoming ill. Much of this research already has a head start based on experience with severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). Marasco developed a library of 27 billion human antibodies from blood samples taken from hospital staffers in the late 1990s, which he then used to develop experimental therapies for SARS and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS). Those therapies were licensed to companies, but government and commercial interest evaporated when those viral outbreaks petered out. Marasco is working now on antibody therapies for the novel coronavirus, confident that this time things will be different. Winter’s part in the battle against coronavirus disease began in 2016, when researchers immunized her with spike proteins from MERS and SARS. Then they drew her blood and isolated antibodies, one of which showed potential for neutralizing MERS, and another of which neutralized SARS, said Daniel Wrapp, a co-author of the study and graduate student at the University of Texas at Austin. The Texas team, working with colleagues at the U.S. National Institutes of Health and Ghent University in Belgium, was trying to develop a universal vaccine for human coronaviruses, four of which are common and cause cold-like symptoms. While the researchers were hoping to find a single antibody that could target all the coronaviruses, the “consolation prize” was finding two that showed promise against MERS and SARS, Wrapp said. They were writing up what they’d learned from Winter when the novel coronavirus emerged. They quickly got to work. Soon, they’d found that a new antibody — which they created by linking two copies of the llama antibody that had hindered the original SARS —


Carrot cake, cinnamon buns and cookies: These takeout treats will brighten your mood

Some sweet news: Even as D.C. area restaurants focus on abbreviated takeout menus, it’s still possible to order dessert. “We’re open three days a week, and two out of three of those, I just see [the pastries] flying out the door,” says Aja Cage, pastry chef at Annabelle in the District. “I think people are gravitating toward comforting themselves. I want to make things people like, and hopefully in this environment I can brighten someone’s mood a little bit.” Takeout dessert menus are big on feel-good favorites such as cinnamon buns and cookies, which tend to travel well. Here are seven spots that are offering treats perfect for Mother’s Day — or any day. Shortly after transitioning to takeout only, Unconventional Diner added four desserts to its “Stay at Home Supper Club,” which offers comfort food for two. “People kept calling and asking, ‘When can I get your carrot cake?’” chef David Deshaies recalls. So he and his wife, pastry chef Ana Deshaies, curated a selection of treats that go for $6 each: Tres Leches cake, raspberry cheesecake, the sought-after carrot cake and a mocha sundae. If you opt for the ice cream, expect a hot brownie tucked into cool caramel and coffee-infused ice cream. 1207 Ninth St. NW. Open daily for takeout and delivery. unconventionaldiner.com. Cage approached the Dupont Circle restaurant’s carryout menu the same way she would any menu, with the added requirement that desserts be portable. She landed on three options: key lime goat cheese cheesecake ($9), chocolate mousse cake with raspberry sauce ($9) and a trio of cookies ($8). The cheesecake is “creamy and dreamy,” she says: The lime is juicy, the graham cracker crust is slightly salty and the goat cheese adds tang. The mousse is “basically chocolate on top of chocolate, with a base that’s like a cross between a cake and a brownie.” It’s drenched in ganache and topped with vanilla whipped cream. And cookies were a no-brainer, Cage says, since they’re fun: Each order consists of a salted chocolate chip cookie, an oatmeal currant cookie and a snickerdoodle. 2132 Florida Ave. NW. Open Thursday through Saturday for takeout and delivery. annabelledc.com. When Cedric Maupillier first put chocolate mousse on Convivial’s menu, he called his mom and asked her for the recipe she used during his childhood. The result is among the trio of desserts that Maupillier’s Shaw restaurant is offering to-go. In


She begged her virus-stricken partner to go to the hospital. He refused until it was too late.

at the time, and it would be three weeks before a Seattle hospital patient would be announced as the country’s first coronavirus fatality. But when an autopsy was completed on Dowd last month, the cause of death was revealed as covid-19. The findings upended the pandemic’s timeline in the United States and underscored a startling fact: the virus wasn’t just killing people in emergency rooms or ICUs. According to official data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, roughly 7 percent of covid-19 deaths through April 28 occurred at home, compared with 73 percent in hospitals and 19 percent in nursing facilities or hospices. But an investigation by The Post found that many covid-19 deaths went uncounted in March and early April: There were nearly twice as many additional deaths in the United States as were publicly attributed to coronavirus at the time. Data from local governments suggests that many of those additional deaths were people dying at home of covid-19. In Santa Clara County, where Dowd lived, at-home deaths were up 17 percent in March compared with a year earlier, according to the San Jose Mercury News. In the District And in New York City, where the number of people dying at home has increased tenfold, at-home deaths make up 3 percent of confirmed covid-19 deaths but a quarter of those suspected to stem from the disease. Though data remains scarce on those who die at home of covid-19, their ranks include the old and young; the frail and fit; the ill-prepared and health-care professionals. Some, like Dowd, succumbed early in the pandemic without ever realizing they had covid-19. Others suspected they had the deadly virus but died without knowing for sure. On Long Island, a 99-year-old died at home after being unable to get tested. In Palm Beach, Fla., a 33-year-old nurse’s test came back inconclusive. Two weeks later, her husband found her lifeless on the couch. And in Columbia, S.C., Tim Liszewski had been awaiting his test results for a week when the fever that had hovered around 102 degrees suddenly dropped. But when his fiancee came downstairs the next morning, she found the 60-year-old liberal political activist slumped near his computer. Both of them, she later learned, had covid-19. “We never considered going to a hospital because we didn’t have shortness of breath or tightness in the chest,” Maris Burton told The Post, adding that


Hogan vetoes sweeping $4 billion schools reform package; Md. regulators fine nursing home with most virus deaths

The number of known coronavirus cases in the District, Maryland and Virginia was 56,598 on Thursday, with 29,374 cases in Maryland, 21,570 in Virginia and 5,654 in the District. The number of virus-related deaths reached 1,503 in Maryland, 769 in Virginia and 285 in the District, for a total of 2,557 fatalities. Here are some of the most significant recent developments as the region responds to the pandemic of the novel coronavirus, which causes the disease covid-19: • State regulators are fining Sagepoint Senior Living, the Maryland nursing home that has reported the state’s highest coronavirus-related death toll, for failure to use appropriate personal protective equipment, failing to separate residents with suspected or known covid-19 cases and not obtaining lab results in a timely manner, according to a letter to the facility sent Wednesday. • Figures released Thursday by the Labor Department indicate 134,533 people in the District, Maryland and Virginia filed for unemployment benefits for the week that ended May 2. In the seven weeks since social distancing measures shut down all but essential businesses, more than 781,000 people have sought jobless benefits. • The Washington region saw a continued rise in coronavirus cases Thursday, bringing the daily total in the District, Maryland and Virginia to 1,989 new cases and 106 deaths. • D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) on Thursday reiterated that the city’s reopening would not come until there’s a sustained decline in new infections, even as the governors of Maryland and Virginia announced plans to start lifting restrictions. In Maryland, state parks and beaches reopened at 7 a.m. Thursday for boating, camping, fishing and tennis. When might local restrictions ease?


Amid coronavirus pandemic, fewer Maryland, Virginia residents seek ER treatment

lost their jobs during the past seven weeks, according to federal data released Thursday. Both Northam (D) and Hogan (R) have allowed medical facilities to resume performing elective surgeries. On Thursday, state parks and beaches in Maryland reopened for boating, camping, fishing and tennis. Northam announced this week that he plans to lift some restrictions on nonessential businesses May 15, allowing residents to go to dine-in restaurants, get haircuts and shop at retail stores if those establishments follow social distancing guidelines. In the District, where the rate of infections and deaths is much higher, Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) has not followed suit. On Thursday she warned that a premature reopening could further damage the local economy. “There’s no vaccine right now, and as governments and communities open up, more people will get infected,” Bowser told Fox 5. “A measured and safe approach is what’s best for the District in terms of our health but also for our economy. We don’t want to be back to square one in the fall.” The tally of known infections in the District, Maryland and Virginia climbed by 1,989 on Thursday, with the three jurisdictions reporting 106 more covid-19 deaths. Eight were in the District, bringing the city’s fatality total to 285. Elderly residents again made up the majority of the new fatalities in the city, where the poorest, predominantly African American wards have been the hardest hit. Maryland reported 66 additional deaths, bringing its count to 1,503. Among them: an inmate in his 60s from the Roxbury Correctional Institution medium security prison in Hagerstown who marked the third covid-19 fatality in the state prison system. A total of 61 inmates and 171 correctional officers in the system have been infected. Virginia reported 32 new covid-19 deaths Thursday — and reported 24 for Wednesday, after technical glitches delayed the release of that data by 24 hours. The continuing economic pain in the region showed in federal jobless data released Thursday. An additional 134,533 area residents filed unemployment claims last week, about 15,860 more than the previous week. Maryland’s weekly total nearly doubled, with 65,262 residents filing for unemployment. The jump might be due partly to the fact that “gig economy” freelance workers and self-employed residents were allowed to file jobless claims online for the first time last week. There was also a backlog of applicants, after the state’s new unemployment site crashed the same


Frank Ruta’s roast chicken, Rasika’s palak chaat and more takeout wins from D.C.’s top chefs

Strip an esteemed restaurant of its ambiance and service, and you’re still left with starry cooking. The food might be staged in a box or a bag, but your eyes, nose and tongue will be quick to note the polish, time and attention therein. That was my impression in a week of exploring takeout from some of Washington’s leading culinary lights. Three of the featured restaurants are helmed by chefs whose dedication to their craft resulted in regional James Beard awards. Another establishment, newly opened this spring, played to a full house before the coronavirus came along. The cooking from each is a reminder of what we’ve lost since March and what we hope to experience again — albeit on their turf rather than ours. Anyone who knows anything about Frank Ruta’s résumé can probably guess what dish has been his bestseller at Annabelle. Suffice it to say that as many as 45 roast chickens a night have flown out of his restaurant kitchen in Dupont Circle. The entree, he says, “travels well and is good for leftovers.” Sure, but it’s also one of the best of the flock around town. Spurred on by citrus peels and warm spices and prepared on a wood grill, the chicken is masterful. Ruta might want to attach a warning to whoever is responsible for the carving: Pierce the taut skin and watch the juices fly. Flaky biscuits in the carton make the signature even more of a draw. In Ruta’s hands, even a workhorse like salmon, which he briefly brines in lemon and aromatics, tastes fresh. Flanking the grill-striped Atlantic catch is the most sumptuous potato salad around. Leave it to the former White House chef to nestle diced potatoes, yellow with turmeric, in a dark green wrap of ramp leaves. His pasta is basically a billboard for the season, with artichokes and snap peas poking out from pale yellow noodles, slightly undercooked so they arrive al dente. “We play to our strengths, and we do what we can,” says Ruta, whose vendors leave their goods at a back door to minimize contact. The same talent behind the biscuits, Aja Cage, is responsible for dessert. If her moist and fragrant pineapple cake is in the mix, seize a slice. Otherwise, my default is goat cheese cheesecake tweaked with harrisa-lit honey. 2132 Florida Ave. NW. 202-916-5675. annabelledc.com. Open 4 to 8 p.m. Thursday through


Who is Judy Mikovits in ‘Plandemic,’ the coronavirus conspiracy video just banned from social media?

of a crime and that the arrest was intended to intimidate her. But the local prosecutor in Washoe County, Nev., charged her with allegedly stealing computer data and other materials from her former lab at the Whittemore Peterson Institute. The criminal charges were eventually dropped in June 2012, after the Whittemore family encountered its own set of legal troubles that discouraged the Washoe County prosecutor from pursuing the case. In an email to The Post, Mikovits described the charges as “baseless.” Before the charges were dropped, a lab employee reportedly signed an affidavit claiming that he had removed notebooks from the lab and stored them in his mother’s garage before delivering them to Mikovits, the New York Times reported. “Mikovits informed me that she was hiding out on a boat to avoid being served with papers from [the Whittemore Peterson Institute],” the employee said in the affidavit, according to the Times. After her legal mess, Mikovits wrote her first book with anti-vaccine advocate Kent Heckenlively in 2014, called “Plague.” Their second book, “Plague of Corruption,” was published by Skyhorse Publishing this year and was listed as No. 1 on Amazon’s bestsellers list as recently as Friday morning, beating out presales for Stephanie Meyer’s upcoming addition to the massively successful “Twilight” series. Across the Web, skeptics of the coronavirus pandemic have rallied behind the book and the conspiracies promoted in “Plandemic.” The film trended on Twitter and racked up 1.8 million views on Facebook before the platform removed the video, The Post reported. University of Colorado at Denver professor Jennifer Reich, who studies the anti-vaccine movement, explained why so many people are willing to believe the unsupported claims Mikovits has made about the coronavirus pandemic. “The claims Mikovits makes highlight uncertainties people feel right now,” Reich told The Post in an email. People who do not have “firsthand knowledge” of a pandemic victim may question the statistics officials have been reporting on infection and death rates, Reich said. More than 75,000 people have died of covid-19 in the United States, which Reich called a “staggering number,” but that translates to about 230 deaths for every 1 million people, she said. That means many people in the U.S. have not seen the impact of the pandemic in their communities, and some of those people are resistant to “trust expert views on the significance of this pandemic and sacrifice a great deal individually."


D.C. police arrest suspect in January killing in Shaw neighborhood

An 18-year-old man was arrested Thursday in connection with a fatal shooting in January in the Shaw neighborhood of Northwest Washington, according to D.C. police. William Whitaker, of Southeast Washington, was charged with first-degree murder while armed. Police have charged Whitaker in the shooting of Malick Cisse, also 18, of Northwest Washington. He was shot Jan. 8 about 11:30 p.m. in the 1300 block of Seventh Street NW, outside the Gibson Plaza Apartments near N Street. Authorities provided no other details and did not discuss a possible motive. Additional information is expected after Whitaker makes his initial appearance in D.C. Superior Court, possibly Friday afternoon.


Here’s how college students can return to campus in the fall

those who are most likely to suffer adverse health effects from covid-19. Although college students generally fall into an age category that has not experienced significant negative impacts or mortality because of the coronavirus, others they interact with, such as faculty and staff, may be at higher risk. There isn’t a one-size-fits-all roadmap for schools looking to bring students back to campus. But there are a few considerations and recommendations that apply to potential solutions. First, institutions should put in place a comprehensive testing and contact tracing program for any student attending class in person or living on campus, any faculty member offering instruction, or any support staff or administrators regularly interacting with students. They should consider testing faculty, staff and students when they arrive on campus (or require the results from a recent diagnostic test before returning) and continue a regular testing regimen as the school year goes on. Future scientific innovations, such as serology tests that can accurately determine who might be immune to the virus, will give academic communities even greater reassurance. Many colleges already have communications systems that allow them to notify students and affiliates of emergency situations on campus via SMS or email. These systems should be adapted to furnish test results, inform recipients of possible exposure to the virus and assist in contact tracing when cases are identified. Second, institutions should consider how they will handle residential and other on-campus environments where social distancing may be difficult. Additional monitoring of people entering campus buildings, such as through temperature checks, will probably become the norm. Given that many universities do not have excess residential capacity or space, it will be difficult to create physical distance between students in dormitories. Staggered returns to campus might be needed. In addition to promoting hand hygiene, as well as mandating mask-wearing while in most on-campus buildings, institutions should engage in additional cleaning and sanitation of high-traffic areas such as bathrooms, gyms and common rooms, to build confidence in a return to on-campus life. Third, because faculty and administrators on campuses are more likely to be older or have health conditions that make them more susceptible to covid-19, special attention must be paid to mitigating risk for the more vulnerable. This may mean a continuation of distance learning in some cases, or staggering course offerings so that the initial terms of the 2020-2021 academic year (the fall and winter quarters


Humidity and heat extremes are on the verge of exceeding limits of human survivability, study finds

add to emerging evidence that, at the local and regional scale, climate changes can be more extreme than global averages suggest, and have more severe impacts. Matthew Huber, a heat-extremes researcher at Purdue University who was not involved in the study, said excessive combinations of heat and humidity are not a widespread health concern yet but probably will be as global warming progresses. “We expect these extreme wet-bulb values to be rare but to become more common as the world warms,” he said in an email. “That this is observed to be happening is therefore exactly as we would predict from standard models of global warming, but it is disturbing to see it happening in real time. “It will only get worse and more widespread from here.” In the Washington region, which is notorious for its hot and humid summers, the results show moderate levels of heat and humidity have increased significantly since 1979, although extremely high wet-bulb temperatures are not yet commonplace, said study co-author Colin Raymond of NASA. The region’s all-time maximum wet-bulb temperature is 87.2 degrees (30.7 Celsius), set at Newington, Va., on July 18, 2013. Parts of the Middle East have endured suffocating levels of heat and humidity in recent years, producing off-the-chart heat-index values — another metric showing the combination of heat and humidity. In July 2015, Bandar Mahshahr, a city in southwest Iran, registered an air temperature of 115 degrees (46 Celsius) and a dew point of 90 degrees (32 Celsius). The computed heat index for this brutal combination was 165 degrees (74 Celsius), among the highest recorded. However, the U.S. National Weather Service cautions such conditions are so extreme that they are beyond the limit the heat index was designed to calculate. The highest known combination of heat and humidity occurred in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, according to Christopher Burt, author of “Extreme Weather: A Guide & Record Book.” On July 8, 2003, the temperature hit 108 (42.2 Celsius) with a dew point of 95 (35 Celsius). Both the Dhahran and Bandar Mahshahr temperature and humidity pairings equate to wet-bulb temperatures readings around 95 (35 Celsius), at the theoretical survivability limit. The two cities lie adjacent to the Persian Gulf, where water temperatures can soar into the 90s. In another recent example of extremely humid heat at a Middle East location adjacent to water, on June 26, 2018, the coastal city of Quriyat, Oman,


Covid-19 is causing problems even in Antarctica, as this photographer found out

to the spread of covid-19, Delano still believed that travel on the AP Aquiles would happen. At first, it looked like the journey would continue as planned. But Delano also had a sense of foreboding about the trip stronger than any he had had during his many years of reporting. “With the pandemic closing in, and the prospect of no further communications with the outside world for weeks, I felt for the first time in almost three decades of reporting that I’d made the wrong decision continuing with the journey south,” he said. With those thoughts running through his head, Delano climbed aboard the ship. He and others were given brief physical examinations by the ship’s doctor. Delano was still unnerved, saying, “My blood pressure had spiked higher than it ever had in my life and, judging from the doctor’s reaction, I was not sure if I would be allowed to continue with the ship, if it did not come down,” he said. “My head space was clearly affecting my body.” It wouldn’t matter in the end, though, because the next morning the trip was canceled. Delano returned home to Japan, where he has been based for many years, and he was greeted by the new reality created by the spread of the virus. After being questioned about his health and travel history and having his body temperature checked with an infrared temperature gun, he finally made it onto an express train heading to his home in Tokyo. He was the only person on the train that let him off at Shinjuku station, one of the busiest in the world. But everything was empty, leading Delano to observe that, “Tokyo felt like Fukushima in the spring of 2011 … except that this invisible menace was a global one and more deadly. I never imagined I would ever have to say such a thing. … The world I’d returned to had changed profoundly.” In Sight is The Washington Post’s photography blog for visual narrative. This platform showcases compelling and diverse imagery from staff members and freelance photographers, news agencies and archives. If you are interested in submitting a story to In Sight, please complete this form. More on In Sight: These photos explore how rising sea levels are affecting Miami ‘Human overconsumption of the planet’s animals and natural resources imperils life as we know it, leading to the potential extinction of


We are on the wrong track

and (c) the president’s unqualified son-in-law failed to solve the problem of providing safety equipment to medical workers. Undoubtedly, there is much more. Mr. Daniels “earnestly hope[s] that our public officials, who are acting on the best (they believe) intelligence available to them, have chosen wisely.” Because he “hopes” so does not mean that the administration has done so. Likewise, we should not have to accept these judgments on faith. Corruption and incompetence thrive when citizens are told to withhold judgment. Martha Solt The novel coronavirus lockdown has blurred the boundaries between humankind and wildlife. Flamingos are flocking to Mumbai in record numbers. Wild monkeys are roving the streets of Delhi. My Northern Virginia neighbors are spotting coyotes in their backyards. In light of the pandemic and subsequent decrease in human intervention, wildlife is flourishing and making a surprise appearance at the fore of our culture. The Wildlife Corridors Conservation Act (WCCA) of 2019, introduced to the House by Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.), would ensure that, post-pandemic, millions of species can thrive in peace in wildlife corridors on protected lands. Our representatives must prioritize solutions to the public health and economics crises, but there are opportunities to tackle low-hanging fruit. Why not quickly pass environmental bills that most constituents agree upon? The WCCA is wildlife’s best chance for federally funded space to thrive. And, perhaps, one day, coyotes could prowl freely in their own dedicated habitat. Caroline Heilbrun The writer is a volunteer with the Endangered Species Coalition. The May 3 Arts & Style It recalls a talk by the great Spanish director Carlos Saura, who came to the Kennedy Center after the fall of the Spanish fascist dictator Francisco Franco in 1975. At the time, Mr. Saura had just come out with his film “Mamá Cumple Cien Años,” which was nominated for an Academy Award in the best foreign language film category. He had to avoid the censors for most of his moviemaking career. Mr. Saura predicted (accurately as it turned out) that Spanish filmmakers would stop being as creative as they were formerly because they did not have to fight against Franco’s censors. If any light can be seen in this long, dark tunnel, perhaps it is that we are all called upon to be more creative than in our normal lives, to survive and flourish in these dark times. Lynne Bernabei Read more letters to the editor.


The pandemic might hold the key to freedom for an American hostage in Iran

of national security offenses stemming from flimsy charges. Both men are suspected to have been infected with the covid-19 virus while in custody, and both governments have called for their citizens’ release on humanitarian grounds. Iranian officials say a swap is being negotiated, while U.S. officials deny the reports. Several other governments, as well as the United Nations, are trying to leverage the pandemic, which is threatening the lives of prisoner populations in Iran, to broker the release of foreign prisoners held there. In April, the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights issued a statement calling on Iran to immediately release foreign and dual nationals who were at risk of being infected by the virus in the country’s crowded and unhygienic prisons. White is one of thousands of prisoners furloughed after the covid-19 outbreak. Another who was conditionally released is U.K. national Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, an aid worker who was arrested more than four years ago on unfounded national security charges. Zaghari-Ratcliffe is essentially under house arrest at her parents’ home in Tehran, forced to wear an ankle tag monitoring her whereabouts. Yet the authorities have not allowed the temporary release of a number of other foreign nationals. Among those who remain in Tehran’s Evin Prison are Siamak Namazi, a U.S. citizen, and environmentalist Morad Tahbaz, who holds both U.K. and U.S. citizenship. Urging their immediate release, the U.N. statement referred to the danger faced by Tahbaz and other prisoners who “are over 60 years old and could experience serious health consequences from COVID-19 due to their age, including loss of life.” Also in this category is Anoosheh Ashoori, 65, a citizen of the United Kingdom who was arrested and accused — without evidence — of spying for Israel while in Iran to visit his aging mother. He has now been held for 1,000 days. Younger prisoners face even more dire conditions. Kylie Moore-Gilbert, an Australian and U.K. dual-national university lecturer who was officially invited to Iran to deliver a series of talks, was arrested in September 2018. She has been held in solitary confinement at Evin prison’s section 2A, which is under the control of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. She has spent the entire time in solitary confinement. On Thursday, the Center for Human Rights in Iran reported that Moore-Gilbert has attempted suicide three times in recent months. To be clear: I take no issue with


Airlines slash routes, outlook and executive pay on coronavirus fallout

stock repurchase program. Speaking at the J.P. Morgan Industrials Conference, Delta executives said that the global outbreak has cut net bookings by at least 25 percent, a drop-off they expect will worsen. Executives said most of the uncertainty surrounded domestic travel, with CEO Ed Bastian noting that the fear that’s now keeping travelers home is “more akin to what we saw at 9/11,” as opposed to some broader economic force. American Airlines, meanwhile, said it will scale back peak summer international flying by 10 percent. Those cuts include a 55 percent reduction in trans-Pacific routes as the outbreak continues to exact a toll on China, South Korea and Japan. American will also reduce domestic flying in April by 7.5 percent. “Given American’s geographic exposure (74 percent domestic), we’re less concerned about the impact of the airline’s reduced service to Asian countries … and more concerned about decreased domestic capacity and demand,” Morningstar’s Brian Bernard wrote in an analyst note. Meanwhile, United Airlines said Tuesday that its CEO and president will forgo their base salaries through at least the end of June, and that it plans to cut 20 percent of flights indefinitely until it sees demand pick up. The carrier said that domestically, net bookings have plunged about 70 percent. Gross bookings in Europe and the Pacific are down 50 percent and 70 percent, respectively. Southwest Airlines CEO Gary Kelly also is taking a 10 percent pay cut as the carrier contends with steep declines in bookings. (The decision was first reported by the Wall Street Journal and later confirmed by The Washington Post.) According to public documents, Kelly made more than $7.7 million in 2018, including a base salary of $750,000. Last week, Southwest said it expects to lose $200 million to $300 million in March alone because of the coronavirus, which was first detected in China in late December and has spread to dozens of countries. Kelly also compared the jarring drop in sales to the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, saying the blow to the travel industry “was more fear, quite frankly, and I think that that’s really what’s manifested this time.” Airline stocks have been hit hard over the past month but popped slightly Tuesday as the markets fluctuated on word that the White House was working on economic countermeasures to the coronavirus. Officials haven’t issued any restrictions on domestic travel. But the U.S. Centers


The Technology 202: Tech offices could look very different when employees return

with Tonya Riley Communal tables, shared espresso machines, open floor plans and tiny huddle rooms are the amenities that for years have defined many modern tech offices. When workers return in the coronavirus era, the new hallmarks could be hand sanitizer, touch-free garbage cans and even Plexiglass barriers between workspaces. “There's going to be a lot of evolution of doing similar things but in a more physically distant way, in a more individually packaged way,” said Katie Drucker from Seattle-based A nearly empty parking lot is shown on the Facebook campus in Menlo Park, Calif. (Jeff Chiu/AP) The coronavirus pandemic is poised to forever change the layout of American offices. As President Trump and governors across the country weigh plans to Qumulo, a Seattle-based start-up, plans to space its workstations more than six feet apart in all directions and reconfigure all its conference rooms to let employees maximize distance from each other. Robyn Singh, its vice president of people, says the company is considering many different scenarios, including taking offline popular perks such as the office espresso machine and panini press – at least initially. The company is also thinking about ways to cut down on employees using commonly-touched surfaces, such as door handles. "The safety of our people, of any visitors or customers who come into the office, is our top priority," Singh said. "Whatever we need to be implementing to maintain that within our offices, we will." The company is also starting to think about how to supply new essential items for the office, such as hand sanitizer, wipes and masks for employees. Larger tech companies have far more resources to build back to work plans. They are taking cues from their experiences dealing with other outbreaks such as SARS in Asia to develop their game plan for returning to work. And major tech companies with operations that have already restarted in Asia during the coronavirus crisis can incorporate those lessons from easing stay-at-home orders, too. Intel for instance recently published a plan to return employees to work in phases after local authorities lift stay-at-home orders and see cases in the surrounding communities start to decline. Intel has a mix of different floor plans, with cubicles in some locations and open floor plans in others. The company is working through reconfiguring any work areas where people would be in close contact. Venture capital firms could be a resource


Report details deficiencies at Maryland nursing home with highest covid-19 death toll

illness within a vulnerable population continued,” inspectors wrote. Angelica Whiting, whose mother Cynthia Whiting was a Sagepoint resident who died after contracting covid-19, said Sagepoint initially told the family that her mother had pneumonia and was not tested for the coronavirus. Then the family was told Sagepoint had tested her and the results were negative. But at the hospital April 11, where she was rushed because of gastrointestinal bleeding, doctors said she tested positive. “I’m not surprised,” Angelica Whiting said when told of the regulators’ findings. “I had a feeling they were not handling things properly.” [How covid-19 spread through Maryland nursing homes] Regulators also found multiple instances of poor infection control, citing one example of a resident’s door left open even after the resident developed a fever, cough and shortness of breath. Staff did not always perform necessary hand hygiene protocols, including one social worker who did not wash their hands in between delivering meals, the report said. Neither the administrator nor the director of nursing wore gloves or protective gowns in the main covid-19 unit on multiple occasions, the report found. After residents contracted the virus, there were also issues with patient care, the report found. Nurses did not monitor patients for the potentially serious side effects of the anti-malaria medications that they used to treat the coronavirus, according to an interview that surveyors conducted with the director of nursing. Sagepoint spokeswoman Joyce Riggs did not respond to requests for comment on the report, but said in a statement earlier this week that the facility did its best to sanitize rooms and moved residents who tested positive into separate units with dedicated staff. She said staffing was an issue because of the number of people who quit after the pandemic began. The report underscored the concerns of nurses and nursing assistants who told The Washington Post that patients with covid-19 were often on the same wings as those who were negative, and that staff were asked to move between the wings. Employees also said that they were told not to wear personal protective equipment in March to avoid scaring residents. Riggs denied that earlier this week, saying that the nursing home followed guidelines issued by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which said on March 20 that only staff members working with patients who had tested positive for the coronavirus were required to wear masks. On


U.S. Cases Rise 2.3%; Pence’s Aide Tests Positive: Virus Update

track Covid-19 juxtaposed with its economic impact. The data shows cases on a rising trend on a 14-day basis. EU Keeps Border Shut Until Mid-June (1:23 p.m. NY) The European Union plans to prolong until June 15 a ban on most travel into the bloc, saying the pandemic situation “remains fragile both in Europe and worldwide.” Maintaining the restriction on non-essential travel into the EU for another 30 days is necessary to contain the spread of the coronavirus, said the European Commission, the bloc’s executive arm in Brussels. The measure was introduced in mid-March for 30 days and extended a first time last month until May 15. N.Y. ‘Finally Ahead’ of Virus: Cuomo (12:55 p.m. NY) Governor Andrew Cuomo declared New York is “finally ahead of the virus” after playing catch-up. Total hospitalizations are down to 8,196, from more than 18,000 at the peak. The daily death toll is at about 200, down from a high of nearly 800. “Finally, our destiny is in our hands. And it’s not subject to the whims of the virus. We are in control of the spread of the virus,” he said at his daily briefing. The state has 73 cases of children being affected with the virus with symptoms similar to Kawasaki disease, Cuomo said. New York has had at least one death of a child from the illness, and there may be others, he said. Italy Cases Decline Slightly (12:48 p.m. NY) Italy reported the fewest new cases and daily fatalities in three days on Friday, as the country debates how to pursue a gradual easing of a national lockdown. Deaths surpassed the 30,000 threshold, with a total of 30,201 since the start of the pandemic in late February. Civil protection authorities reported 1,327 cases for the 24-hour period, compared with 1,401 a day earlier. Confirmed cases now total 217,185. Regional leaders are urging Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte to allow businesses including shops to open earlier than May 18, as planned, but the government is insisting it must await data on the spread of the virus since an initial easing of a national lockdown on May 4. Euro Area Agrees on Credit Lines (12:45 p.m. NY) Euro-area finance ministers agreed to let the region’s bailout fund extend credit lines to member governments on concessionary terms, paving the way for countries including Italy to draw cheap liquidity amid an unprecedented spending spree. The


positive and did not institute tests, people who work there said. Factory managers also dismissed concerns that social-distancing guidelines were not being followed properly, according to the people, The company said it responded with new policies to improve employee safety and kept factory output high because its products are essential. Sweden Starts Criminal Probe Into Care Home (2:30 pm HK) Swedish prosecutors have launched an investigation into an elderly care home in Stockholm where more than a third of residents have reportedly died after the novel coronavirus spread at the facility. Since the Covid-19 outbreak started, 35 residents at the home have passed away, according to a report from public broadcaster SVT. The facility came under scrutiny after a union safety representative filed a report with authorities, saying staff had moved between infected and healthy residents without changing protective gear. One Million in Johannesburg Need Food Aid (2:15 pm HK) Almost one million people in Johannesburg, South Africa’s commercial hub, are in need of food aid due to movement restrictions imposed to curb the coronavirus pandemic, according to its mayor. While South Africa has less than 9,000 infections, it’s still one of the highest numbers on the continent. Covid Is Type of Virus That Starts in Bats: WHO (2 pm HK) The novel coronavirus belongs to a group of viruses that begin in bats, and it’s still unclear what animal may have transmitted it to humans, Peter Ben Embarek, a WHO expert in animal diseases that jump to humans, said Friday in a briefing with reporters. The virus probably arrived in humans through contact with animals while raising food, though it’s unclear which species, he said. Cats and ferrets are susceptible to the virus, and dogs to a lesser extent, and it’s important to find which animals can get it to avoid creating a “reservoir” in another species, he said. The first human cases were detected in and around Wuhan, and most people had contact with the animal market, though not all, Ben Embarek said. Questions about the origin of Sars-CoV2, the virus that has caused the pandemic, have burned hotter since U.S. President Donald Trump suggested that it came from a lab in China. Scientists who have studied the issue maintain that the virus originated in an animal, and probably entered the human population in November. For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com ©2020 Bloomberg L.P.


We’re changing how we eat. Not for the better.

CSAs and cooking at home is that they have few other choices. And even as they soak pots of beans and plant tomato seedlings behind the house, they are embracing delivery and ready-to-eat meals like never before. When it is all said and done, the real change brought about by the coronavirus won’t be a back-to-the-kitchen movement. It will be a rush toward hyper-convenience at mealtime that could make us more reliant than ever on food prepared by other people. At the start of 2020, going to the grocery store was a deeply ingrained habit, and the idea of subcontracting your food shopping felt wrong. What if your personal shopper chose green bananas instead of the super-ripe ones you like? No wonder just 4.5 percent of all grocery sales in the United States happened online, according to Deutsche Bank. Sales were expected to reach 5.7 percent by year’s end. But by mid-March, pandemic stay-at-home orders made trips to the store downright scary. Downloads for Instacart, Peapod and Target-owned Shipt surged 620 percent, 472 percent and 298 percent respectively between February and April, according to mobile data consulting firm Apptopia. Instacart reported a tenfold rise in grocery orders — twentyfold in California and New York. Thrive Market, an online natural and organic grocery that started the pandemic with 800,000 members, added an additional 100,000, a nearly 13 percent increase, in just six weeks. A lot of people have found that, minus the stress of getting a delivery slot, shopping online for groceries is pretty great. Fabric, a fulfillment company that helps retailers with digital strategy, reported that 70 percent of consumers it surveyed said they will probably continue shopping online for groceries. By the end of the year, it estimates that more than 10 percent of Americans will buy groceries online. People will return to stores, but “most of the newcomers will continue to supplement their shopping with online orders,” predicts Thrive Market chief executive Nick Green. “By now they’ve had five, six, eight experiences online, and the longer this goes on, the more comfortable they get,” he said. The lockdown has also hastened some trends that were already underway. Before the pandemic, eating in America was rapidly becoming an app-driven, on-demand, customizable experience. Virtually anything could be delivered to your door, or ordered ahead on a smartphone and picked up without ever speaking to another human. Delivery by non-pizza restaurants


California and New York. Thrive Market, an online natural and organic grocery that started the pandemic with 800,000 members, added an additional 100,000, a nearly 13 percent increase, in just six weeks. A lot of people have found that, minus the stress of getting a delivery slot, shopping online for groceries is pretty great. Fabric, a fulfillment company that helps retailers with digital strategy, reported that 70 percent of consumers it surveyed said they will probably continue shopping online for groceries. By the end of the year, it estimates that more than 10 percent of Americans will buy groceries online. People will return to stores, but “most of the newcomers will continue to supplement their shopping with online orders,” predicts Thrive Market chief executive Nick Green. “By now they’ve had five, six, eight experiences online, and the longer this goes on, the more comfortable they get,” he said. The lockdown has also hastened some trends that were already underway. Before the pandemic, eating in America was rapidly becoming an app-driven, on-demand, customizable experience. Virtually anything could be delivered to your door, or ordered ahead on a smartphone and picked up without ever speaking to another human. Delivery by non-pizza restaurants rose 18 percent year over year before the pandemic, according to research firm NPD, while third-party orders through DoorDash, UberEats and Grubhub jumped 40 percent in 2019. Even McDonald’s and Taco Bell offer delivery nationwide. Thanks to the shutdowns, many restaurants have shifted to takeout to pay their bills, which means you can now eat meals cooked by a Michelin-starred chef at home — and save money on the booze. Some top restaurants, such as Rose’s Luxury in Washington, sell multiday meal kits with heat, eat and garnish instructions for dishes like lychee salad with sausage, habanero and peanuts. (And scoring a reservation can be as hard as it was when the restaurant was open.) It may not earn restaurants as much as when diners sit at a table, but if customers like it, to-go could provide an additional revenue stream once social distancing ends. It isn’t just tonight’s dinner that can be dropped on your doorstep. Frozen meals, long an icon of lowest-common-denominator dining, are also undergoing a renaissance — in part because of their convenience — with restaurant-quality food replacing the Salisbury steaks and tater tots. Among the things we’ve stashed in our freezer in recent weeks: pizzas


Soaring joblessness could shake U.S. economy, politics for years

Sen. Huey Long of Louisiana to the societal fringes. “Are these institutions, norms and political systems as resilient today? Boy, that’s anybody’s guess,” said Kennedy, author of “Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War,” which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 2000. “The political environment today is more toxic, indeed septic, than in the 1930s.” Believing that today’s highly polarized country will prove as impregnable, Kennedy said, might be “wishful thinking.” The 2008 global financial crisis spawned fierce political movements on the left and the right. As unemployment rose to a peak of 10 percent in October 2009, Occupy Wall Street filled the streets of New York and Washington with protesters. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who calls himself a Democratic socialist, capitalized on a surge of progressive sentiment to mount a strong presidential primary bid in 2016. Populist sentiment on the right, meanwhile, fueled the Brexit campaign in the United Kingdom, which ultimately severed that country’s 47-year membership in the European Union, as well as the unlikely political rise of reality television star Donald Trump. “I have no doubt that the resentments, fears and grievances that people are experiencing right now are going to shape our politics for the next generation very much as what happened after 2008,” said Ron Chernow, author of popular biographies of President Ulysses S. Grant and Alexander Hamilton. The current circumstances are extraordinary. Barely 51 percent of the population is employed, the lowest mark since records began, the Labor Department reported on Friday. More than 23 million workers are without a job. In February, just 5.8 million lacked work. The good news is that 78 percent of the unemployed say they expect to be recalled to their old jobs once the pandemic ebbs. If that happens, the economy could recover quickly. A greater share of temporary layoffs has historically meant a faster economic rebound, according to recent Goldman Sachs research. “If we’re right about the temporary layoffs, then people will go back to work fairly rapidly,” Larry Kudlow, director of the National Economic Council, told reporters Friday. “Not all of them, mind you. But a good chunk.” Still, there are reasons to worry. More than one-quarter of the jobs that vanished in the past two months were in the leisure and hospitality sector, which have been battered by the pandemic. Fears of catching the sometimes-fatal coronavirus are especially acute in businesses with


The surreal experience of flying during the pandemic

Demand for air travel has all but evaporated with the arrival of coronavirus. But airlines are still flying. And now, passengers have to wear masks. Here’s what it’s like to take a flight from Washington, D.C. into Atlanta, the world’s busiest airport.


Northam details plan for Phase 1

an Arlington-based company with properties in Northern Virginia and Maryland, sent out pay or quit notices in April to tenants in some of its locations. But Celia Slater, a company spokeswoman, said that was an error. The company, which caters to low- to middle-income renters, sent follow-up notices informing tenants that they will not be evicted, she said. “We didn’t have any intention to upset people,” Slater said. “We have not evicted anyone. We don’t intend to evict anyone.” The company says it has tried to help tenants find work, navigate the state’s system for unemployment claims and find medical services during the crisis. But with about 21 percent of AHC’s tenants behind on their rent, owing a collective $1.3 million, that kind of support may soon wear thin without federal support for landlords, Slater said. “This is a critical domino situation,” she said. “If we can’t keep the lights on for people, that is going to cause all kinds of economic repercussions for the region’s economy.” Overall, the District, Virginia and Maryland on Friday reported 119 new coronavirus-related fatalities and 2,128 new infections. The District’s 19 new deaths tied a record for the city set April 30. They included a 49-year-old man and three women in their 90s, bringing the city’s total coronavirus-related deaths to 304. Its total number of positive cases hit 5,899. Disparities persist in the latest death count, with 15 of the fatalities being black and 13 having lived in Wards 5, 7 and 8, the poorest parts of the city. Maryland reported 1,111 new cases Friday and 57 new deaths, bringing the total number of cases and fatalities in the state to 30,485 and 1,560, respectively. Virginia reported 43 deaths on Friday, bringing the total in the state to 812. There were 772 new infections reported. The state has recorded 22,342 positive cases. An earlier version of this story misstated data regarding covid-19 deaths in Prince George’s County. An average of nine Prince George’s residents die each day, not each week, of covid-19. Antonio Olivo and Laura Vozzella contributed to this report. Read more: In hard-hit Md. nursing homes, too few masks, tests and workers Md. nursing home with most deaths to be fined $10,000 a day, state says Weeks into shutdown, here’s why so many are still getting sick Local newsletters: Local headlines (8 a.m.) | Afternoon Buzz (4 p.m.) Like PostLocal on Facebook


Local digest: Man dies after shooting in Northeast

THE DISTRICT D.C. police said one of the two men shot Thursday afternoon in Northeast Washington has died. Police identified the victim as 27-year-old Lowell Tolliver. Authorities said Tolliver and another man were shot just around 12:17 p.m. in the 2100 block of H Steet NE in the Carver-Langston neighborhood. — Keith L. Alexander D.C. police are investigating the Friday morning slaying of a 28-year-old man along South Capitol Terrace SW, police officials said Saturday. At about 8:05 a.m., officers were called to that location for a reported shooting. They found Eddie Crist, of no fixed address, suffering from gunshot wounds, according to police. — Dan Morse MARYLAND A man and woman were fatally shot late Friday in what Prince George’s County police described as a domestic-related incident. A third person also was shot, police said, and she was taken to a hospital. At about 11:15 p.m., police were called about a shooting in the 9000 block of Walkerton Drive, which is just east of the Capital Beltway near Route 50. Officers found “two adult females and one adult male suffering from gunshot wounds,” Prince George’s police announced on Twitter. One of the women was taken to a hospital. “The other female and male victim were pronounced dead on scene,” police said. — Dan Morse


South Africa’s alcohol ban during lockdown reveals its deadly drinking habits

“Instead of patching people up with stabbing wounds, nurses can focus on training how to handle covid cases,” Parry said, referencing covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. “Based on our model, at least 15 people who would have otherwise died from alcohol-related traumas are being saved every single day.” Many countries, including the United States, are seeing a spike in excess deaths that outpaces even the confirmed number of deaths attributed to the coronavirus. South Africa’s top government officials are casting the ban, which they tout as a major success, as not only a coronavirus-related measure, but also a social experiment that is providing feedback on how the country’s health-care system functions. “With coronavirus, we have an opportunity to examine issues that have been vexing us in this country for a very, very long time,” said Lindiwe Zulu, South Africa’s social development minister. “Yes, the ban is drastic, but is this not a time for drastic measures?” South Africans drink, get into car crashes and commit acts of domestic abuse at levels well above the populations of most other countries. Sixty percent of drinking-age residents consider themselves binge drinkers, according to a 2016 government report, and the country ranked 159 out of 175 surveyed for road deaths by the World Health Organization in 2018. South Africa’s lockdown began March 27, and the country banned the sale of cigarettes and cooked food. When the government relaxed the lockdown slightly in late April, many hoped these bans would be lifted. But the government has maintained that the benefit to the health system, as well as the added effect of discouraging social gatherings, merits the continued restrictions on booze. Big and small alcohol businesses alike are suffering. South African Breweries, one of the biggest brewers in the world, said Thursday that it may have to destroy 400 million bottles of beer because it can neither sell nor transport them and its warehouses are nearing maximum capacity. Around 2,000 jobs might be cut if the government doesn’t intervene, the Anheuser-Busch InBev subsidiary said. “We live in a society that encourages social drinking — it’s rare people go buy alcohol and go home,” said Katlego Sepeng, who owns a now-closed bottle shop outside of Pretoria. “But I am not sure if I will be able to recover from the impact.” Some critics of the ban question whether alcohol is really responsible for as much


MLB will reportedly shorten 2020 draft to five rounds

In a continued effort by owners to cut costs during the novel coronavirus pandemic, Major League Baseball will reduce the 2020 draft from 40 rounds to five, according to multiple reports Friday. Teams will reportedly be allowed to sign an unlimited number of undrafted players for $20,000 once the five rounds conclude. The draft is slated to begin June 10. The last time MLB shortened its draft was in 2012, when it was reduced from 50 rounds to 40. A March agreement between MLB and the MLB Players Association allowed MLB to shorten the draft to as few as five rounds and move the event to July if need be. As part of the agreement, owners advanced the players $170 million to cover salaries through May but would not be on the hook to pay more if the season is canceled. In return, the union agreed not to sue for lost salaries. MLB is feeling the financial burden six weeks into what would have been the regular season. “We’re going to lose billions of dollars this year, no matter what,” one high-ranking baseball official told The Post this week. “People don’t realize the magnitude of the losses, but they’re huge.” News surfaced Wednesday that MLB will submit a best-case scenario proposal that outlines a pathway to begin the 2020 regular season this summer. The situation is fluid, but MLB’s proposal includes a three-week “spring training 2.0” in June, with games to follow in July. ESPN reported the proposal is expected to be sent Tuesday. MLB was shut down March 12 with the suspension of spring training and a delay to the start of the regular season. Games now are suspended until at least the end of May. MLB is still adhering to federal and local guidelines for public safety and can’t resume play until given the green light from enough municipalities. MLB reportedly would prefer to host games at teams’ home stadiums instead of a centralized location. The Korea Baseball Organization began regular season play without fans this week with specific safety measures, perhaps providing a blueprint for MLB to follow in the event its 2020 season is salvageable. More MLB: Yankees would be biggest winners of MLB’s radical realignment, short season proposal Eric Thames’s self-quarantine included a chance meeting with Bryce Harper Minor league pitcher learned of slaying of wife, child and mother-in-law from Facebook Ex-MLB star Andre Dawson


This is how economic pain is distributed in America

which Hispanics make up more than a quarter of workers, shed nearly a million jobs. Hairdressers, auto repair, laundry and other service industries also saw huge dips in employment, along with education and health care, among others. Among the workers counted in the survey were undocumented immigrants, many of whom are Hispanic and are facing extraordinarily challenging circumstances, Shierholz said. They generally do not have access to the federal safety net, such as food stamps, health care and subsidized housing; nor are they eligible to receive the $1,200 stimulus checks. Many are employed under the table in the food services industry, as hotel house keepers and in construction. “There is huge job loss and zero relief,” Sheirholz said. “So that means the human suffering represented by those numbers are much more dramatic.” Friday’s figures reaffirm results of a Washington Post-Ipsos poll released Wednesday, showing Hispanics and blacks — as well as younger and less-educated Americans — reporting higher rates of job losses. Hamilton said the government’s official unemployment figures do not represent the full picture of economic pain, even before the coronavirus-induced recession. The evolving nature of work means many Americans were underemployed, working without health and retirement benefits in contractual jobs or as part of the gig economy. It’s going to be harder for them to recover, he said. “Blacks are generally the last hired, and they will bear the brunt of this unless we do something transformative,” he said. Hamilton is advocating direct federal income support to deal with the immediacy of the economic calamity, given that black and Hispanic households tend to have less wealth and savings than whites. That could mean another round of stimulus checks, he said, or government grants to companies to keep workers on the payroll. Another step would be to change the way small businesses can access federal loans, he said, given that minority-owned businesses are less likely to have direct lines of credit with banks. He also said the country needs a long-term strategy to help the most vulnerable communities recover once the economy is ready to reopen. Hamilton is pushing for a federal jobs guarantee, with direct government employment, to help Americans get back to work in a more equitable way and make workers less vulnerable to future employment crises. “We need to be thinking about a new future for America that literally gets rid of involuntary unemployment,” Hamilton said.


Report details deficiencies at Maryland nursing home with highest covid-19 deaths

A report released by state regulators Friday offered more detail about claims of repeated deficiencies at the Maryland nursing home with the highest amount of covid-19 deaths of any facility in the state. The issues at Sagepoint Senior Living — which is facing tens of thousands of dollars in fines from the state — included staff leaving open the door of a feverish coughing man, residents who tested positive for the coronavirus not being separated from those who were negative, and staff, including the facility’s managers, not consistently wearing personal protective equipment, according to the report. Sagepoint, a 165-bed facility in La Plata, Md., with the highest rating from Medicare, is being fined $10,000 per day by the state beginning March 30 — when the Office of Health Care Quality began its survey — and continuing until it complies with state regulations. They are the first sanctions the state has levied against a nursing home since the pandemic began. There have been 34 deaths among Sagepoint residents who had covid-19 — the disease caused by the novel coronavirus — according to state data, and 97 residents who contracted the virus. A longtime nursing assistant died of covid-19, and 32 staff members have tested positive. Sagepoint spokeswoman Joyce Riggs said in a statement Saturday that many of the findings in the report are “patently false,” including that staff did not practice good hand hygiene, wear proper protective equipment or separate patients who were positive for the coronavirus from those who were negative. She said leaders at the facility began telling officials about the need for universal testing at nursing homes in February and tested all residents April 6, weeks before Gov. Larry Hogan (R) mandated universal testing at nursing homes. But there was no process in place to ensure that the facility received test results for residents, the regulators found, exacerbating the spread of the virus throughout the month of April. Riggs said she could not speak to some aspects of the report because of concerns about patient privacy. She criticized state regulators for blaming the nursing home instead of providing support. “Without a shift in the paradigm of the agencies that oversee nursing homes from blaming to providing assistance and being supportive, these types of penalties will happen again to someone else,” she said in a statement. The statement did not address investigators’ finding that when the family of one