There’s a front-runner for Kamala Harris’s Senate seat — but Gavin Newsom could surprise us all

Dan Morain is the author of “ President Trump’s election machinations aside, California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) will soon select a Senate replacement for Kamala D. Harris after she is sworn in as vice president. Newsom certainly could use a diversion after L’Affaire French Laundry. As service workers struggle to get by in the coronavirus pandemic and many of us Californians forgo dining out, the governor and his wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, spent the evening of Nov. 6 celebrating the 50th birthday of a lobbyist friend at the French Laundry. That’s the three-star Michelin-rated restaurant in the Napa Valley town of Yountville, where the wine list includes a bottle of cabernet sauvignon for $50,000 and the tasting menu is available for $350. A photo from the gathering showed the governor and his wife, without masks, sitting at a crowded table for 12, with members of more than three different households. Newsom has apologized. On Sunday, his office announced the Newsom family is in quarantine after three of their children came into contact with a California Highway Patrol officer who tested positive for covid-19. But a week after the San Francisco Chronicle’s state capitol reporter, Alexei Koseff, broke the French Laundry story, our foodie governor still faces withering charges of hypocrisy. California’s covid guidelines urge restaurants to limit the size of single-table seatings and to avoid mixing of households, so Newsom technically might have been complying with recommendations, but the do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do stench was unmistakable. The governor no doubt would dearly love to, as he would say, flip the script. The list of Harris’s potential Democratic replacements is long: California Secretary of State Alex Padilla; California Attorney General Xavier Becerra; Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis; California State Senate Leader Toni Atkins; Reps. Karen Bass, Barbara Lee and Katie Porter; and Long Beach Mayor Robert Garcia. Any one of them would be an intriguing pick. Former San Francisco mayor Willie Brown, who gave Newsom his start in politics, is pushing the governor to replace Harris with someone who is Black. But in a state where 40 percent of the population is Latino, Newsom probably is leaning that way. Garcia, the least well known of the potential choices, has faced the ravages of the pandemic. His mother and stepfather both died of covid-19 this summer. But he has no experience mounting a statewide campaign. Becerra has won statewide and made his name by suing the


How graft and incompetence aggravate the effects of climate change in Central America

Elisabeth Malkin is a freelance journalist based in Mexico City who has covered Central America for more than a decade, most recently for the New York Times. As Central America buckled under the force of two fierce hurricanes that struck within days of each other this month, the presidents of Guatemala and Honduras issued a plea. Their small countries are among the most vulnerable in the world to climate change, they said, but they are not the cause of it. The leaders called for the quick release of international funds earmarked for developing economies to cope with the effects of climate change. Their suffering populations have no time to wait for the gears of the global bureaucracy to engage, they said. All true, of course, but there is more to the story. Experts say that warming oceans caused by climate change are leading to more intense storms that release more rain and move more slowly than in the past. Both Hurricanes Eta and Iota made landfall on Nicaragua’s Mosquito Coast this month as Category 4 storms. Eta lingered for days, and its heavy rains caused flooding and landslides that killed scores of people. Some 100 people are missing after a waterlogged mountainside collapsed in Guatemala’s central highlands, burying a remote village. By focusing on climate change, though, the region’s presidents were diverting attention from another kind of responsibility that is closer to home: their own failure of governance. “Corruption kills,” a former United States ambassador in Guatemala once told me, and nowhere is that more evident than when natural disasters strike. Decades of graft, incompetence and neglect aggravate the effects of extreme weather and cripple the response. Two years ago, the Fuego volcano in Guatemala erupted, and the lava and burning rocks that tumbled down its slopes buried a town in their path and incinerated hundreds of its residents. Even though the Guatemalan volcanology institute issued warnings in time for a hillside golf resort to evacuate, the country’s natural disaster commission lacked the manpower and experience to evacuate the doomed town. It was not even clear how many people lived there because there was no recent census. Three years earlier, heavy rains caused the wall of a ravine to collapse, engulfing a settlement on the outskirts of Guatemala City and killing hundreds. Officials had warned for years that the neighborhood was at risk but took no action. Corruption touches everything.


Transcript: Coronavirus: Leadership During Crisis with Colorado Gov. Jared Polis

2, 3, 400 million, to really do in the next few weeks. The shovel-ready projects part we can wait until the legislature convenes in the normal session, which is January. But we do have a one-time fund carry-forward to be able to help Colorado recover a little bit sooner than hopefully some of the other states can. MR. COSTA: How much is Colorado looking for in 2021? If, let's say, President Biden, February 1, 2021, and you're all talking about a stimulus package. What does Colorado need? Can you give me a number? GOV. POLIS: Well, again, I hope it's before January 20th-- MR. COSTA: Understood. GOV. POLIS: --really a bunch of it needs to occur. A lot of our small businesses--restaurants, bars--just won't be able to make it to then, and frankly, a lot of folks who relied on unemployment, that emergency unemployment runs out in late December. And that means rent. And, you know, if we have this eviction crisis it could lead to a foreclosure crisis. We all remember the '08 meltdown. That was a long tail on that foreclosure crisis. Remember, '09, '10, neighborhoods boarded up, lawns dying, houses being auctioned off, a slow workout. If we don't want to create a banking crisis, if we don't want to create a foreclosure crisis, we need to help renters now, over these very difficult next few months, to bridge until the vaccine. So frankly, you know, February and March, I'm sure there will be some action for Congress to take, but it's simply too late for the biggest part of it, which we really need Congress to get done in the immediate future. MR. COSTA: You are a Democratic governor with a business background. When you are talking to business leaders in Colorado, what are their concerns at this critical juncture? You speak their language. You know their issues. What are they worried about as winter approaches? GOV. POLIS: I think businesses all want to do the right thing, and frankly, what the Paycheck Protection Program did is it afforded them that space to do that. Without that federal aid, of course they prioritize being able to meet payroll, keeping the lights on, and they are going to do what it takes to do that. But if we give them that space through another federal PPP or program like that, I'm confident that they are good partners


The Daily 202: Picking Blinken for State previews how differently Biden will govern than Trump

has to be stored at negative 70 degrees Celsius, or Moderna’s, which is stable in refrigerated conditions for only 30 days and must be frozen at minus-20 degrees Celsius after that.” It is also cheaper to manufacture. “With nationwide coronavirus hospitalizations topping 80,000 and case counts on the cusp of 200,000 a day, officials and experts are giving their final pleas for caution in the days before Thanksgiving,” Paulina Firozi, Lena Sun and Hannah Knowles report. “Average cases reported each day in the United States have jumped nearly 15 percent in a week, according to data tracked by The Post. Deaths are also on the rise, with some communities overwhelmed by the bodies — in El Paso County, Tex., the National Guard was called in to help the morgues. … "Anthony S. Fauci, the country’s top infectious-disease expert, said he understands that many Americans are experiencing ‘covid fatigue’ after months of pandemic restrictions, now tightening again in many places. But traveling over the holidays and ignoring public health guidelines are ‘going to get us into even more trouble than we’re in right now,’ he said. “The pressure on health-care resources has spurred many leaders to roll back reopening. Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak (D) on Sunday announced a ‘statewide pause’ of at least three weeks starting Tuesday, with stricter capacity limits for many businesses, a decreased limit on gatherings and a more extensive mask mandate. … Los Angeles County, home to 10 million people, also announced new restrictions Sunday, ordering restaurants and bars to shift to takeout, drive-through and delivery only. … More than 1 million people went through Transportation Security Administration checkpoints in airports nationwide on Friday, according to data released daily by the agency, and more than 980,000 travelers were screened Saturday. The number of travelers screened Friday was the second-highest single-day rush since March 16. … Operation Warp Speed chief Moncef Slaoui “said Sunday that the federal government will be ready to start shipping vaccines within 24 hours after a candidate receives emergency authorization from the FDA. He noted that the CDC and its Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices must review the data and recommend who should get immunized first. … Pfizer filed for emergency authorization for its vaccine on Friday. The FDA has announced that a committee of external advisers will meet Dec. 10 to make recommendations to the agency on whether to authorize Pfizer’s vaccine. Slaoui


Steve Sisolak (D) on Sunday announced a ‘statewide pause’ of at least three weeks starting Tuesday, with stricter capacity limits for many businesses, a decreased limit on gatherings and a more extensive mask mandate. … Los Angeles County, home to 10 million people, also announced new restrictions Sunday, ordering restaurants and bars to shift to takeout, drive-through and delivery only. … More than 1 million people went through Transportation Security Administration checkpoints in airports nationwide on Friday, according to data released daily by the agency, and more than 980,000 travelers were screened Saturday. The number of travelers screened Friday was the second-highest single-day rush since March 16. … Operation Warp Speed chief Moncef Slaoui “said Sunday that the federal government will be ready to start shipping vaccines within 24 hours after a candidate receives emergency authorization from the FDA. He noted that the CDC and its Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices must review the data and recommend who should get immunized first. … Pfizer filed for emergency authorization for its vaccine on Friday. The FDA has announced that a committee of external advisers will meet Dec. 10 to make recommendations to the agency on whether to authorize Pfizer’s vaccine. Slaoui said the advisers will meet Dec. 17 to review the shot developed by Moderna, which has not yet filed for clearance for its vaccine.” “Many schools that brought large numbers of students back to campus are dispersing them for the rest of the year — discouraging back-and-forth holiday travel — and pondering how much they can resume operations in January," Nick Anderson and Susan Svrluga report. "The CDC warned … that college students traveling home should be treated as ‘overnight guests’ and take appropriate precautions. But many are unlikely to take the rigorous quarantine steps that public health experts advise.” “Community health centers and small doctors’ offices, AIDS clinics and homeless shelters are struggling with a scarcity of protective gear to buffer workers from harm, their budgets and buying power unable to compete with large medical institutions,” Amy Goldstein reports. “Most U.S. hospitals and health systems have, over the pandemic’s nine months, stitched together systems and improvisations to acquire masks, gowns, gloves and other personal protective equipment. Yet many small health-care and social-service settings continue to suffer from shortages they expect to grow worse. A New Orleans mission for the homeless and addicted finally gave up searching for masks after


TSA records its busiest travel weekend since March

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) recorded its highest number of weekend passengers since the coronavirus pandemic began in March, with over 3 million people traveling in the past three days. The surge comes despite Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance advising against Thanksgiving travel because of mounting covid-19 cases across the nation. Sunday was the busiest travel day since the beginning of the pandemic in March, according to TSA spokesman Daniel Velez, with 1,047,934 passengers. TSA screenings surpassed a now-rare amount of 1 million screenings on both Friday and Sunday; Friday was a slightly lower travel day with 1,019,836 travelers screened. On Saturday, TSA saw 984,369 travelers. The new peak comes as U.S. coronavirus cases have also hit a new high, and just in time for Thanksgiving week — which typically brings the busiest travel day of the year on Wednesday. In the past week, daily new coronavirus cases in the United States surged by nearly 14 percent, according to data tracked by The Washington Post. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention took a firm stance last week: “Travel may increase your chance of getting and spreading COVID-19. Postponing travel and staying home is the best way to protect yourself and others this year.” Before this past weekend, passenger levels at U.S. airports had surpassed 1 million passengers once in October. “TSA has been diligent in our efforts to ensure checkpoints are clean, safe and healthy for frontline workers and airline passengers, implementing new protocols and deploying state-of-the-art technologies that improve security and reduce physical contact,” TSA Administrator David Pekoske said in a news release at that time. Now, with U.S. infection levels higher than they were in the early days of the pandemic, many states are implementing stay-at-home orders or tightening their entry restrictions ahead of the holiday travel season to require quarantines or coronavirus testing. Read more: Canceling holiday flights? These are the latest airline policies. These 3 tools can help you navigate quarantine and testing policies by state Why TSA PreCheck is a better idea than ever


Transcript: Chasing Cancer with Jeffrey Drebin, MD, Noopur Raje, MD & Lisa Ray

in March and April, we closed some operating rooms to convert them to ICU spaces. We had an edict from the government to avoid any nonessential surgeries. And we had limitations on PPE and concerns for safety of our staff and patients. So, during that time, we dropped down to probably, at the low, close to 20 percent of our normal surgical volume. Now, that was only for a few weeks and we ramped back up relatively quickly, but there was a period of time when we had far fewer available operating rooms, and we had to work very carefully across disciplines with our nurses, our anesthesiologists, our neurosurgeons and all the members of the department of surgery to stratify which patients really could not wait and which could potentially be postponed for weeks or even months. MS. ABUTALEB: And when you did get back into the operating room and started, you know, scheduling those surgeries again, what have been some of the extra precautions that doctors and patients have had to take? DR. DREBIN: So, as I mentioned, we are testing all patients before surgeries or any invasive procedure within 48 hours of the procedure. We test all inpatients on a regular basis, currently every three days. We test all staff, those who are in COVID-facing positions, every week; and other staff, every two weeks. And so, we've really managed to make the space within our four walls a very safe space from the point of view of COVID. It was always our hope, and I think we achieved it, to make it safer to be in the hospital than it is to be in the grocery store, and we hope to continue that. MS. ABUTALEB: Dr. Raje, what have been some of the biggest challenges for you in treating your patients this year? DR. RAJE: So, you know, I would agree with Dr. Drebin. You know, when we first started off, as you know, Yasmeen, the northeast was affected first. And when we--March and April was when we saw the surge to begin with. We had to adapt very quickly and I think, as he's mentioned, cancer care continues. And we as an institution, we as a cancer center, adapted quite rapidly to the COVID surge, wherein we knew we had to take care of our COVID patients as well as our cancer patients. And as you know,


A birthday lunch left 15 Texas relatives battling covid-19: ‘Please don’t be like my family’

a 36-member team to assist in morgues in El Paso, as the state reported 13,763 new cases on Saturday, according to The Post’s coronavirus tracker. At least 20,556 Texans have died of covid-19. People of color, including Latinos like the Aragonez family, who are Mexican American, continue to suffer increased mortality rates from covid-19, a Post analysis found. Although health officials keep tracking superspreader events at large gatherings like weddings, smaller get-togethers like the Aragonez’s indoor lunch have driven the latest spike of coronavirus cases — a trend that could dramatically worsen, health experts warn, if Americans ignore the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines urging people not to travel for the holidays this year. On Nov. 1, one of her cousins texted a group of relatives inviting them to his house for an impromptu and belated birthday celebration. “You wanna come over for fajitas?” he asked. The Aragonez family had all agreed at the beginning of the pandemic to avoid any gatherings with people outside of the family, including church services, bars, and indoor and outdoor dining, and also planned to work from home as much as possible, Aragonez said. They also cut down on their usual weekly family gatherings to once-per-month, socially distanced outdoor gatherings. “Everyone said yes, just because we have all been taking care of ourselves very well since the start of the pandemic,” Aragonez said of her cousin’s invitation. “… Our family put a strong emphasis of taking care of yourself every day so that we could see each other with more peace and not be scared of contracting covid-19.” Eight members of the Aragonez family drove from Arlington to Fort Worth for the birthday lunch at her cousin’s house, where four other relatives lived. The plan was never to gather indoors, Aragonez said, but as family members arrived, people congregated in the living room, where for a couple of hours, everyone sat around the couch without masks, sharing fajitas and chocolate cake. “It really was: ‘Hey, I’m coming in’ and everyone started talking,” Aragonez said. “They naturally gravitated to the living room. ... It was not like we were, ‘Let’s all hang out inside.' We fell back into our old habits.” The next day, one of the cousins who had attended the lunch texted the group. “I did not wake up feeling well,” she wrote. “How are you feeling?” More and more relatives


The Health 202: Trump may have made it easier for Biden to go after the drug industry

by Regeneron Pharmaceuticals is designed to prevent people infected with the coronavirus from developing severe illness and was given to Trump when he was treated for covid-19 last month, The Post’s Laurie McGinley and Carolyn Y. Johnson report. But the treatment, which is time-consuming and complicated to make, is expected to be in short supply. The drug is a cocktail of two monoclonal antibodies, a type of treatment that mimics the body’s natural defenses to a virus. It’s the second drug of this type to be cleared by the Food and Drug Administration after Eli Lilly & Co.’s drug received authorization earlier this month. “Regeneron executives said on the company’s earnings call in early November that they project having enough doses for 80,000 patients by the end of November, and 300,000 total doses by the end of January,” Laurie and Carolyn write. With the U.S. approaching 200,000 coronavirus cases a day, health care providers expect shortages, and some doctors worry that the treatments won’t find their way to the communities that most need them. An additional challenge comes from the fact that the treatment must be administered by intravenously, potentially requiring health care providers to set up separate infusion spaces to ensure that contagious coronavirus patients don’t receive infusions alongside people with compromised immune systems in infusion centers. Anthony S. Fauci, the country’s top infectious-disease expert, told CBS News’s “Face the Nation” that although he understood “covid fatigue,” people traveling over the holidays and ignoring public health advice would “get us into even more trouble than we’re in right now.” The warning came as more than 80,000 Americans are hospitalized with covid-19. The CDC recommended against traveling for the holidays on Thursday, a warning that came after many people’s holiday plans were already set. Holiday travel is surging. More than 1 million people passed through the nation’s airports on Friday. Although that is less than half of the 2.5 million people who traveled through U.S. airports in 2019, it represents the second-highest single-day rush of airline passengers since the start of the pandemic, Derek Hawkins and Hannah Knowles report. Experts caution that a negative coronavirus test is not a greenlight for socializing, especially indoors. Tests are only a snapshot in time, and even with the more accurate PCR tests, people infected with the coronavirus can receive a negative result, especially if they take the test soon after exposure but before


Baby panda at National Zoo is named Xiao Qi Ji

The National Zoo’s baby giant panda finally has a name. The cub’s name is Xiao Qi Ji, (SHIAU-chi-ji), which translates as “little miracle” in English. The panda cub is now 3 months old. The zoo ran a contest in which the public could vote on a list of names. After five days, the zoo said nearly 135,000 votes came in, and Xiao Qi Ji was the winner. It was one of four Mandarin Chinese names that zoo officials put online for the public to pick. In a statement Monday, zoo officials said, “giant pandas are an international symbol of endangered wildlife and hope, and Xiao Qi Ji’s birth offered the world a much-needed moment of joy amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.” It added, “His name reflects the extraordinary circumstances under which he was born and celebrates the collaboration between colleagues who strive to conserve this species.” The zoo is closed due to the pandemic, but viewers can see the baby panda on the online panda camera. All pandas at the zoo move to China when they are 4 years old as part of the zoo’s breeding agreement with China.


Transcript: The Future Reset: Ending Energy Poverty

commission, it's a major focus. And so, the African Development Bank brings in that perspective of how are we going to bring together the capital to help the kinds of transitions that we have. The commission was rounded out by many, many others I won't go into by name. But for example, investors in infrastructure like Africa 50, but government and quasi-government officials who will have enormous responsibilities which we will--can be--perhaps come back to--and a number of individuals who have long experience in, for example, initiatives such as Power Africa, which was started in the Obama administration to address the electricity and lighting needs in Africa specifically. But you're also right that the energy access issue is not one just in developing countries; clearly, that is the major focus. Hundreds of millions of people without proper energy access, one could argue about a third of the global population without adequate energy services. But, you know, right here in the United States, frankly, if one goes to things like the Native American lands, one finds a very, very disheartening lack of energy services in many cases. So, this is a big problem. It's absolutely critical. And I would just say that, as well, you mentioned briefly COVID. When the commission started just over a year ago, I don't think any of us dreamed that today, because of the COVID crisis, we probably have more people without electricity access than we had a year ago, because many who gained access--you know, these countries always catch the cold first when there's a global event, and the economic impact has led to many people not being able to afford anymore the access that was so hard won over these last years. MS. SELLERS: Right, right. Dr. Songwe, you're on this commission, and the goal is universal electricity access, as we said. That's going to involve partnerships between policymakers, utilities, investors. What do those partnerships look like? How are you moving towards them? And what are the barriers in different parts of the world? What are you up against? MS. SONGWE: We have done a couple of--actually, we're not up against as much as it is trying to see whether we can bring the right coalitions together. And I think first the coalition and the commission is one of them. Secretary Moniz has already talked about the fact that we have the private sector,


understood is standardization of these programs, whether they are large-scale programs or small mini grid/off grid programs, those work quite well because then you can standardize it. The investors know what to expect, the countries know what to offer, and it makes it much easier to close on those deals. MS. SELLERS: Secretary Moniz, could you talk to us about the technological advances, data analytics and other progress that can make a big difference in this area? MR. MONIZ: Well, certainly the technology progress in providing energy, and in particular clean energy, has been very, very dramatic. The solar energy, wind energy, including the storage that one needs to be able to use the--for example, the solar energy at night as opposed to during the day, the rapid cost reductions here, I think, are going to provide dramatic opportunities to have support for Africa to build out quite rapidly of the new energy technologies. But a couple of points I do want to emphasize. We have to recognize--and one of the--one of the pillars really of the commission's work has been that we cannot look at off-grid and on-grid solutions as kind of two different things. We need the integration of on- and off-grid solutions, because the issue--it isn't about ideology in terms of how one best to--just to have distributed generation or the like; it's about universal access. And the universal access solutions are going to have to be looked at in an integrated way with the combined urban and rural populations of these countries. Technology is going to allow that to happen more easily. But I think actually it's probably worth stating, that just like everywhere in the world, the projections, the demographic projections, are for continued enormous urbanization in Africa. So, I think we need to not have, you know, everything looks like a nail because I have a hammer. We have multiple technologies, multiple ways of integrating them. Using IT--you alluded to IT, for example--using IT to really serve the population that needs universal access. In saying that, again, something you alluded to earlier, Frances, maybe we'll come back to it, but the reality is--and frankly, when I speak with Africans who are very knowledgeable about the developments in energy that are needed--that would include Vera--the--they all say that, look, we have to have in Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, a real focus on economic development, on industrialization.


College football has been battered by covid. What’s most startling is our acceptance.

Michael Locksley is isolating at his Olney home, the latest college football coach to test positive for the coronavirus. His Maryland team didn’t play Ohio State this past weekend. His Maryland team won’t play Michigan State this weekend. He is increasingly not the exception. He is the norm. “We knew going in, and I think all of us — whether it’s the Big Ten and all the other Power Five conferences — understood what we were getting into when we made the decision to play,” Locksley said by Zoom on Thursday, the day Maryland announced the cancellation of Saturday’s scheduled date with Michigan State. “I don’t think there’s been any surprises with any of us.” That’s the striking thing about all of this: the norms we now accept. The virus is here. It has killed more than 250,000 Americans. There is not yet an approved vaccine. Football is trying to rage forward. The virus is beating it back — from the SEC to the Pac-12 to the Big Ten and back again. Feel like flipping on the alma mater Saturday? Check the schedule first — and make sure it’s updated. “As I’ve talked to our team, I’ve assured them that this is not a Maryland thing,” Locksley said. “This is a national landscape thing.” So what sort of season remains here? Not just for 2-1 Maryland, which has three more scheduled regular season games. Not just for the Big Ten, among the conferences using Elmer’s to hold together its schedule. But in totality. Over the past three weeks, the virus has wiped out 41 games. That number isn’t carved in granite, either. Wait an hour, then check back for updates. There are bound to be some, particularly because cases are skyrocketing — a million new cases nationwide in a week, according to data compiled by The Washington Post. “I want to remind everyone that this is not a football-spread virus or a sport-spread virus,” said Yvette Rooks, the assistant director of Maryland’s university health center who is monitoring the athletic department’s testing results. “It is a community-spread virus.” That is an important thing for all of us to understand. Football isn’t alone in spreading the virus. But football is being played in communities where the virus is spreading. Therefore, an impact on the sport is all but inevitable. It’s another bridge we seem to have crossed: being comfortable staging games


‘Can’t eat a gift card’: Rural food banks fight to put turkeys on the table

for many other providers feeding the millions of Americans pitched into hunger since March. The past year had seen a once-in-a-century pandemic. A manic stock market. Ten million pink slips and viral photos of cars in miles-long lines at food handouts. An estimated 8 million Americans had slipped below the poverty line since May, and more than 50 million Americans — or 1 in 6 people ― were expected to experience food insecurity by year’s end. And that tide of need is likely to surge again soon. Without intervention from the federal government, the clock will run out on federal unemployment insurance and a nationwide eviction moratorium, leaving 12 million without benefits and 40 million renters at risk of eviction — all of which will affect food access, particularly in rural areas where food pantries are scare. “We are expecting the need to rise significantly,” said Michael McKee, chief executive of the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank, a distributor that partners with more than 200 pantries across rural Virginia. “Our concern, beyond the sheer numbers, will be the ability of our partner agencies to handle that surge.” Ames had spent nearly a decade at the food bank, bending her seemingly endless energy and cheer into feeding Fauquier County’s hungry. The past year had meant new faces there at noon for the food bank’s daily distribution, new names and backstories for Ames to remember, new requests for donations and help she never had to make before. Ames believed those 600 turkeys weren’t just another meal, but a sign of stability for families that had little of it in the past eight months. “I made a promise,” Ames would later explain. So after learning about her predicament, Ames stepped outside toward a whiteboard near her loading dock. At the top, Ames had an employee write “Turkey Donation Goal: 600.” Beneath it, she wrote the date — Nov. 11 — and the number of turkeys the food bank had now: 25. They had 10 days to get 575 more. Like similar organizations anchored in cities and suburbs, food banks in rural areas have seen a spike in demand since the pandemic hit in March. But rural pantries run into their own unique challenges, according to Blue Ridge’s McKee. “The pantries we are working with are in rural areas, so they’re smaller and they rely entirely on volunteers mostly in their 60s and 70s,


600 civilians were killed in massacre in Tigray, Ethiopia’s rights commission says

beaten to death with sticks, stabbed with knives, machetes and hatchets, and strangled with ropes, according to the report. Many others were severely injured and property looted or destroyed, the commission said. “The killings, bodily and mental injury, as well as the destruction that went on throughout the night . . . indicate the commission of grave human rights violations which may amount to crimes against humanity and war crimes,” the commission said. The Ethiopian Human Rights Commission’s findings could not be independently verified, but they echo similar accounts reported earlier by Amnesty International, which cited witness statements, photos and videos as evidence. The commission’s findings, the result of a week-long investigation in the town, are the first evidence of possible war crimes being committed in Tigray, where government troops and TPLF forces have been fighting since Nov. 4 in a conflict many fear could destabilize the Horn of Africa. Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed in a statement called the commission’s findings “heart-wrenching” and urged the international community “to condemn these atrocious acts of crimes against humanity.” There was no immediate response to the commission’s report from the TPLF. The regional government and refugees fleeing the fighting have accused government forces of targeting ethnic Tigrayans. The commission warned that the death toll from the massacre could be much higher, as many people were still missing and bodies were hidden in fields outside the town. Survivors told investigators that some residents in the town hid people in their homes, in churches and in farm fields as the Samri gangs raided the town. “The unimaginably atrocious crime committed against civilians for no reason other than their ethnicity is heartbreaking,” the commission’s chief, Daniel Bekele, said in a statement, calling for the perpetrators of the attacks to be brought to justice. Abiy, who comes from the Oromo, the largest ethnic group in Ethiopia, on Sunday issued a 72-hour ultimatum to Tigray’s leaders and combatants to surrender before government forces attack the capital Mekele, with a population of about half a million. The deadline is Wednesday. The conflict erupted when Abiy sent troops to Tigray after the TPLF army and local militia attacked government military bases in the region and tried to steal artillery and other military equipment. The conflict spread across the border to Eritrea when Tigrayan forces fired several rockets at its capital and sent at least 40,000 refugees fleeing into Sudan.


For bird-gathering volunteers, coronavirus means a freezer full of carcasses

in and check the collection, protect the collection or add to the collection,” said Christina Gebhard, a museum specialist in the division of birds. “Above all else, we cannot contribute to science.” Researchers have been doing their best to organize and catalogue photos of the collection from home, but they’re itching to return to the museum. Officials say no such return is in sight. “The Smithsonian is reopening its facilities to the public and essential staff where and when it can safely,” spokesman Ryan Lavery wrote in a statement. “I hope the lack of clarity on a projected timeline is understandable given the uncertainty around the coronavirus.” So far, there are 165 birds from Lights Out Baltimore in the collection, and some of those are likely to feature in a Natural History Museum exhibition tentatively planned for fall 2022. Called “Dark Skies,” the exhibit will focus on the “global issue of how man-made light is influencing nature and our relationship with the night sky,” Lavery said. The birds haven’t contributed just to scientific research but also to a changing landscape in downtown Baltimore. Thanks in part to Lights Out’s record-keeping, a few of the city’s worst offenders when it comes to avian collisions have taken steps to become “bird safe.” Perhaps most notably, the National Aquarium covered a glass wall surrounding its Australia exhibit in a dotted film a few years back so that birds could detect it. On the film, a collection of dense and sparse dots spell out “National Aquarium” vertically along the building’s edge. “That’s what’s kind of so amazing about it is, it’s doing, you know, this really great work, and it just looks like it was meant to be there,” said Jacqueline Bershad, the aquarium’s vice president of planning and design. The aquarium plans to redo the glass on its rainforest exhibit in a few years, and it will use frosted glass this time, Bershad said, so that the panes are visible to birds. There are also plans to rid the aquarium’s courtyard of lighting that shines upward, since such fixtures can confuse migrating birds. It’s a constant battle and a uniquely morbid hobby, but volunteers say it’s rewarding, too. “One out of four is a rescue, and that one out of four can really keep you going,” Jacks said. “You started your day at 5:30 in the morning, and you rescued a bird. How


Airport lounges have always been a luxury. But are they worth it in a pandemic?

After most airport lounges shut down in response to the coronavirus pandemic and resulting decrease in air travel, some are opening again — and attempting to hold on to the same allure they had pre-covid. For weary travelers who could afford or expense them, airport lounges once served as a port in the storm. Access to the exclusive spaces was possible in several ways, whether through paid entry, a perk of your credit card, airline loyalty program status or a top-tier plane ticket, among others. Lounges promised travelers an elevated airport visit, with perks like peace and quiet, complimentary food and alcohol, better WiFi and, in some cases, spa services. Then the pandemic changed everything. Many “high-risk” amenities have been taken away. Food and drink services have been altered. And the potential of being in closer quarters with others may leave travelers questioning whether the lounges are worth the price (or time) anymore. Are they a worthy investment in the covid-19 era? Some in the industry are making that case by marketing themselves as high-end, highly sanitized hideaways. On its website, Priority Pass, an airport lounge access membership company, advertises that airport lounges are becoming more important havens for travelers, welcoming them back to a “new age of safety and luxury” where they can “avoid the crowds, stay safe." When the pandemic began, Priority Pass reached out to its customers to find out how travelers were feeling about lounges. Andy Besant, managing director for travel experiences for Collinson Group, which oversees Priority Pass, says customers were still keen on visiting lounges during their travel, but they wanted to make sure there were new procedures to address the pandemic. “There’s still huge appetite for both airports to commercialize their space and from the [lounge] brands to really promote the customer experience of travel, which still has that whole high romance and emotional attraction around it. And I don’t think that will change post-pandemic.” Priority Pass’s Besant says that at this time, about 60 percent of their lounges worldwide have reopened with a set of health and safety standards. Many of the new changes seem like pandemic common knowledge now: implementing social distance guidelines and contactless check-in; removing communal newspapers and magazines; moving furniture to promote social distancing; training staff on use of personal protective equipment (PPE); and more thorough cleaning and disinfection recommendations. Depending on the location of the lounge, face


Maryland public defender complains of ‘superspreader’ court hearings

After Maryland recently stopped scheduling jury trials amid a nationwide surge in coronavirus infections, the state’s chief public defender says lawyers, clients and others remain at risk of catching the virus because some courts are still holding in-person hearings that amount to “superspreader events.” Paul DeWolfe, who oversees public defenders in all Maryland jurisdictions, complained in a letter to the state’s chief judge last week about a failure to “scale back on judicial proceedings” in Maryland’s district courts, where judges handle minor cases that DeWolfe said should be postponed or dismissed as a public health measure. These hearings “are indoors for extended periods of time in contravention to the now-universal guidance to avoid such interactions unless essential,” he said in a letter to Chief Judge Mary Ellen Barbera. “My staff has been on the frontlines providing representation in criminal cases, and exposing themselves to increased risk of contracting the virus” at in-person hearings on “nuisance” matters. “In Charles County, a recent docket included four individuals charged with failing to pay restitution,” DeWolfe wrote. Another case involved “a 2019 theft charge for $2. Howard County attorneys have seen numerous cases for driving on a suspended license where the license is no longer suspended. . . . Virtually every county has had similar cases, some with judges and court staff who have tested positive for covid.” Unlike Maryland circuit courts, where felony cases are tried, district courts handle less-serious matters, without juries. “I urge you to require that in-person . . . misdemeanor proceedings that do not involve an incarcerated client or domestic violence be postponed” until the pandemic ends, DeWolfe told Barbera. In early October, Maryland’s court system began operating somewhat normally for the first time since the pandemic began. Under the fifth phase of a progressive reopening, courts were allowed to abandon virtual hearings in favor of in-person courtroom interactions with mask-wearing and social distancing. Amid the fall surge in cases of the novel coronavirus, however, Barbera this month ordered the judicial system to revert to Phase 3 of the reopening, meaning that certain restrictions were reimposed, including a return to online video proceedings in some cases and a halt to jury trials in circuit court through the end of the year. Suzanne Delaney Pelz, a spokeswoman for the chief judge, declined to comment on DeWolfe’s Nov. 19 letter or on district court operations since Barbera’s Phase 3 order took


Ethiopia’s Tigray conflict reflects unresolved ethnic tensions

also resent the normalization of relations between the central government and Eritrea, which shares a border with Tigray. Border disputes caused a 1998-2000 war between Ethiopia and Eritrea. The prime minister’s decision to sign a peace treaty with Eritrea’s government in 2018 ended the territorial dispute. Although this move led to Abiy being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, the detente with Eritrea has left many in the Tigray region feeling marginalized. The conflict puts “ethnic federalism” under scrutiny Did Ethiopia’s governing system contribute to the conflict? Ethiopia’s centuries-old monarchy fell in a 1974 military junta takeover, further contributing to ethnic tensions. Two movements in particular, the TPLF and the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), pushed back against what they perceived as the domination of the Amhara ethnic group and the Amharic language. In 1991, the military regime collapsed and a resulting EPRDF coalition took power. Despite comprising only 6 percent of Ethiopia’s population, the Tigray enjoyed disproportionate power and influence in government after 1991. The central question facing this coalition was how to govern Ethiopia in a way that guaranteed respect and freedom for all ethnic groups. The resulting constitution allows every ethnic group the right to self-government in their own defined territories, while institutions in each region are allowed to use the local language. In this framework, ethnic groups administer their internal affairs by setting up their own legislative, judicial and educational institutions. Ethnic federalism in Ethiopia allows for self-determination by ethnic groups, up to and including secession. This is a radical departure from the norms of state-building in the broader African context. Under the EPRDF coalition, Ethiopia experienced rapid economic growth and stability. But its human rights record was problematic and regional representation was not always truly democratic. While Ethiopia’s experiment with ethnic federalism appeared to keep the country from sliding into civil war, the low-level repression that minority groups experienced suggests that political power remains concentrated in the central government. The conflict in Ethiopia exposes the fragility of the country’s experiment with ethnic federalism — the approach some scholars have seen as a way to mitigate conflict in societies that are highly polarized along ethnic lines. However, there is little empirical consensus on whether ethnic federalism is an effective way to manage diverse societies. Some studies suggest that federalism can help reduce interethnic conflict in multiethnic countries. Other studies show that federalism exacerbates conflicts. What happens next? The


The last covid-free places on earth have something in common: Travel shutdowns

Before 2020, the remote islands of the South Pacific were more accessible to leisure travelers than ever before. Thanks to affordable global air travel, little-known places such as Tonga, Vanuatu and the Cook Islands welcomed thousands of visitors annually from all over the world — up until the coronavirus pandemic hit. Now those islands are some of the only remaining corners of the globe where the coronavirus doesn’t exist, thanks to their total suspension of inbound tourism and other nonessential travel. The islands of Samoa, which include the U.S. territory of American Samoa, closed to nonessential travel in March and have not recorded any confirmed coronavirus cases. To enter, U.S. citizens must hold permanent residency and request permission from the Samoan Health Ministry to travel on a commercial flight to Samoa through Auckland, New Zealand, before quarantining for 14 days. Despite recent reports of a sailor testing positive for the virus in quarantine before then testing negative, the World Health Organization categorizes Samoa and American Samoa as covid-free. According to the U.S. Embassy in American Samoa, masks are not required in public. The tiny island nation of Tuvalu has no reported coronavirus cases and does not allow visitors who have been in any countries where the coronavirus is present within five days before their arrival. Travelers from a high-risk country must get medical clearance from Tuvalu’s government to enter, according to the U.S. Embassy in Tuvalu. Only citizens of Tonga “returning by special arrangement” are allowed to enter the string of islands, which has had zero confirmed coronavirus cases. One weekly flight is available from New Zealand, which requires strict quarantines. Cruise ships and yacht sailings to the nation have been banned “until further notice,” according to the U.S. Embassy in Tonga. The little-known archipelago of Palau has not reported any coronavirus cases and closed off international travel in March when the pandemic began. Since April, a mandatory 14-day quarantine has been required for “all travelers with a travel history from or through COVID-19 affected geographical areas,” according to the U.S. Embassy in Palau. In October, the Cook Islands, which are accessible via air from New Zealand, announced a continuation of its air-travel border closure “until further notice.” Only residents can leave and enter the islands, and they are required to quarantine in New Zealand before reentering with a negative coronavirus test result. “If you have already booked your travel


Curator offers a diagnosis for what’s ailing art museums — and how they can recover

could be deaccessioned and that money could go for general operating costs. The problem with the Baltimore situation is firstly, the museum is not in a situation of financial crisis, and secondly, the objects chosen did not fall within the previously understood set of terms that justify deaccessioning. For instance, if you have four Clyfford Stills, you could think about deaccessioning one. But if you have only one Clyfford Still, and he painted it specifically for your museum, you are breaking a trust with the artist and your public. Marcel Duchamp once said you shouldn’t say anything about a work of art until it is at least 50 years old, because what could you possibly know about it? It’s way too soon to deaccession any of those three objects. We don’t know yet the fullness of the story we will tell about 20th-century art. Do we need the gay Andy Warhol’s “Last Supper,” made at the beginning of the culture wars, when America was having a vicious fight about how its educational and cultural institutions were becoming increasingly secular? You might need that painting to tell that story one day. And to say that you have enough abstract expressionism so you don’t need your one Clyfford Still, to me, is just an abdication of complex and intelligent art history. But my biggest problem with the move is that I don’t believe in this either/or scenario: that you can either have this collection of masterworks or you can have a well-paid staff and a diverse collection. If you want staff diversity, equity and better wages, then the trustees sitting around the table have to get on board with that. I appreciate that there might not be $55 million sitting around the BMA trustee table right now. But that money exists and things can always be re-budgeted. Budgets reflect ethics — so redo your budget. Q: A: Q: A: When we care for objects, we’re not just caring for the objects. If we’re doing our job well, we’re caring for the person who made that object; we’re caring for the people who look at that object; we’re caring for the ideas contained within that object. In 20 years of acquiring objects for museums, one of the things I would always say is, “This isn’t for us now. This is for someone 100 years from now, that they might understand who we were.”


Is it safer to take a short trip during the pandemic?

Syeda Amna Husain, a pediatrician from Marlboro, N.J., who has been advising families on the safety of road trips. “But if you come in close contact with others or share public facilities like restrooms or picnic areas, there is still a risk there.” Of course, exposure to someone who is infected can happen whether you’re on a three-day staycation or a three-week safari. “If you get close to someone who happens to be infected and they cough or sneeze toward you, an infection could occur within minutes,” warns Dale Bratzler, chief covid officer at the University of Oklahoma in Norman, Okla. “So regardless of the duration of the trip, you need to keep yourself safe by wearing a mask during any public transport or when around anyone outside of your travel companions. Also, practice social distancing and avoid crowds — particularly indoor crowds.” Rashid Chotani, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, says travelers often overlook the little things when they’re on the road. “Gas pump handles and credit card keypads are high-touch areas and could have the virus present,” he says, noting that covid can survive for hours or even days on hard surfaces. His advice: When you get out of your car, wear a mask and disposable gloves made of nitrile or latex. Turn the gloves inside-out and dispose of them after using them, and sanitize your hands after getting back in the car. So when it comes to whether it’s safe to take a short trip during the pandemic, the answer is a little complicated. “There are three key factors,” explains Jaimie Meyer, an infectious-disease specialist at Yale Medicine in New Haven, Conn. “First, where you’re going; second, how you’re getting there; and third, what you do while you’re there?” Meyer says that once you consider these critical factors, short trips may make the most sense. “They meet a lot of key criteria. They involve relatively local or regional travel, they may be reachable via private vehicle, and precautions and regulations may be similar to what you experience at home.” As for Kemp, the short trip to Amelia Island with her daughter was a success. “Being by the ocean is always, for me, something I find to be peaceful and comforting. And spending one-on-one time with my daughter was the icing on the cake,” she said. “So I’m glad we went.”


A 70-year-old came out of retirement to teach nursing. She died of complications from covid-19 after a student exposed her.

difficult for her because she had all these plans,” said Meda-Schlamel, 47. She kept herself occupied by closely following the spread of the coronavirus, particularly in her adopted hometown of New York, which became the center of the pandemic. “All she did was sit there and watch it and talk to everyone about what she was seeing,” Meda-Schlamel said. “She was very well-informed.” She spent some time as an informal consultant for her previous job, providing advice on how to quarantine and monitor students who fell ill. But she wanted to do more. So in April, Meda applied to Collin College to teach high school juniors and seniors who were interested in nursing careers. The school promised the students would maintain a safe distance and wear masks, her daughter said. She began teaching in August. As a former high school dropout, she connected particularly well with students who struggled with the class, her daughter said. “She understood that sometimes you need a little bit of encouragement and support, and that alone can open doors for people,” Meda-Schlamel said. “She wanted to be that person opening doors for others.” In an email to the college on Monday, President H. Neil Matkin said that on Oct. 2 Meda was in contact with a student who was showing symptoms including sneezing, coughing and watery eyes, Inside Higher Ed reported. Although everyone was wearing masks, the lesson taught that day prevented Meda from socially distancing from the students, he said. Meda learned the student had tested positive on Oct. 9, the president said, and two days later, began exhibiting symptoms. She was admitted to the hospital on Oct. 17. “She was hopeful that she would get out of it because her last words were ‘I’m going to fight. I’m New York strong,'” her daughter said. She received two antibodies transfusions and a dose of remdesivir as she battled pneumonia, but doctors had to intubate her on Oct. 28, Meda-Schlamel said. She died of heart failure on Nov. 14. Her work will live on through the dozens of students she worked with, Meda-Schlamel said. “For her, this was also a service to her country, being able to usher nursing assistants into the work field during a pandemic when they are most needed,” Meda-Schlamel said. “I hope that students realize the compromise that their teachers are putting themselves in and recognize that they are themselves heroes.”


DOJ agreement requires Realtors to offer transparency on real estate commissions

Real estate agents’ commissions have always been a bit mysterious to buyers. Sellers must negotiate their commission with their agent and determine how much of a commission to offer their buyer’s agent and therefore know how much will be paid at the closing table from the proceeds of the sale. Buyers, who in effect pay those commissions because they’re the ones making the purchase, typically don’t know how much either their agent or the seller’s agent will be paid. That’s about to change. Responding to a lawsuit filed by the U.S. Department of Justice, the National Association of Realtors agreed sellers’ agents must publicly disclose the commission they offer to buyers’ agents for properties listed on a multiple listing service site. In addition, buyers’ agents will be obligated to tell their clients about the compensation they are being offered. Buyers’ agents won’t be able to describe their services as free to the buyer and must be transparent about how they get paid. Some multiple listing services such as the Northwest Multiple Listing Service (NWMLS) in Seattle have already begun publishing buyers’ agent commission offers. Redfin real estate brokerage has been publishing its buyers’ agent compensation offers for about 18 months. “This settlement will usher in a new era of price competition for real estate agents,” Glenn Kelman, CEO of Redfin real estate brokerage, said in a statement. “No one knows better than Redfin how hard it is for an agent to offer homebuyers a better deal when the fees brokerages charge are a secret. Redfin has saved homebuyers hundreds of millions of dollars in commissions, but until now, customers couldn’t really compare prices between brokerages. “This settlement will let any real estate site show how much a buyers’ agent stands to earn on any sale. The fees for representing a seller are already competitive because the sellers’ agent discloses her fees up front. Now the fees for representing a buyer will become competitive too, which can save consumers billions of dollars every year.” However, Stephen Brobeck, a senior fellow at the Consumer Federation of America, believes that settlement between the NAR and DOJ doesn’t go far enough to encourage competition between agents. “The settlement will discourage blatant discrimination against discount brokers and the steering of buyers to high-commission properties, but will fail to significantly increase real price competition,” Brobeck said in a statement. “Only the uncoupling of commissions, so that


The Health 202: Coronavirus survival rates in the United States haven't improved since the summer

with Alexandra Ellerbeck Some Americans downplaying the novel coronavirus insist improved treatments have made the virus far less deadly than last spring. But that’s a far too rosy take. It’s true that better treatments are now available, but their impact isn’t nearly big enough to avoid an impending surge of deaths, expected to soon exceed 2,000 a day in the United States. And while the case fatality rate declined early in the pandemic, it hasn’t budged since the summer. “It’s been rock solid stable since July, around 1.7 percent,” said David Dowdy, an associate professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “If anything, I think there is a concern it will go up again because we’re seeing hospitals reaching their capacity.” There’s no doubt health providers have discovered best practices for treating seriously ill covid-19 patients since the onset of the pandemic, along with some new therapeutics. In the past two weeks the Food and Drug Administration has given emergency approval to two monoclonal antibody treatments, one from Eli Lilly and another from Regeneron Pharmaceuticals. The treatments are designed to prevent infected people from developing severe illness by imitating the body’s natural defenses. They’re given to non-hospitalized patients, typically those who are at increased risk for severe illness due to either age or an underlying condition. President Trump received monoclonal antibodies when he was treated for the coronavirus in October. “Monoclonal antibodies, which are concocted in laboratories, are proteins that mimic the immune system’s ability to attack the virus,” The Washington Post’s Laurie McGinley and Carolyn Y. Johnson explain. “In a clinical trial, the Regeneron drug reduced hospitalizations or emergency room visits when given to people at high risk of developing severe disease. It was also shown to reduce the amount of virus in people’s bodies.” In a call with reporters yesterday, top Trump administration officials said they’ll be shipping out enough of Regeneron’s antibodies treatment for 30,000 patients — and plan to ship out enough for another 50,000 patients next week. “If you have tested positive for covid-19 and are at high risk for severe disease, we may have treatment options that can help you,” Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said. The U.S. case fatality rate — which is the number of people who die out of everyone diagnosed — was around 5 to 6 percent in the springtime. That’s partly because fewer people


Head home or hunker down? The Thanksgiving covid dilemma.

where Minot sits had ballooned from 11 to 115 as of Tuesday. Masters knows two guys who have died of the disease — an Air Force buddy and a friend in town. The other day, his grandson and daughters came down with covid-like symptoms. “It’s starting to hit a little closer to home,” said Masters, 70, who runs a classic-car restoration shop. “A lot of people have passed away.” On Thursday, Masters expects little, if any, talk of politics. Although his family supports Trump, they recognize Joe Biden as the president-elect. “Whatever the majority chose, that’s it,” he said. “That’s how it works, and we just have to go with it.” The gathering will be smaller than usual, but Masters said his family will still have a good time. He already knows what joke he’ll be telling: “A guy goes to the doctor and asks, ‘When is this pandemic going to be over?’ And the doc says, ‘I don’t know — I’m a doctor, not a politician.’ ” Jerline Baltimore works as a patient safety advocate at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami, as does her mother, Elvita Rojas. They have taken the virus seriously from the start. Rojas bought air cleaners and makes everybody take off their shoes before entering the house. “My mom created a sanitation area,” said Baltimore, 33. “The person coming in has to take off their shoes, wipe them down and spray the bottoms with alcohol. Then they go directly to the bathroom to wash their hands.” But even for Baltimore, a holiday without family was unthinkable. “You have to see Grandma and Grandpa at Thanksgiving,” she said. In her Dominican American family, the holiday is normally an hours-long, multi-household affair: “You have dinner in your home, and then you spend the evening house-hopping. Neighbors come over with food. It’s a big, shared event. You’re continually eating and celebrating throughout the night.” Instead of turkey, there’s pork. Baltimore’s grandmother used to roast a pig in a pit in the backyard. Side dishes are rice and pigeon peas, potato salad with mayo and beets, and a Dominican specialty, pasteles en hoja, painstakingly made by her aunt with plantain leaves, root vegetables, beef and spices. This year, there will be no visits with neighbors, no delivery of meals to homeless people, no pork. (The family is going with fish to protest the treatment of workers at virus-ridden meatpacking


D.C. adds tougher coronavirus restrictions as infection rates continue to rise

you will be held accountable,” he said. “Please, for the love God, please, wear your mask. The end of this pandemic is coming, and that should motivate all of us to save lives along the way.” The week began in Maryland with another populous suburban county reimposing restrictions on social gatherings Monday, when Howard County announced groups will be capped at 10 people indoors and 25 outdoors, including weddings and sporting events. Religious organizations, retail shops, indoor theaters and outdoor entertainment venues are not subject to the cap, which is stricter than statewide rules. “At this point there is widespread community transmission of covid-19, and every individual action we take is vital to controlling and limiting the further spread of this virus,” Howard County Executive Calvin Ball (D) said in a statement. “The alarms are sounding, and if you haven’t already, rethink any plans to host or attend a large gathering with family and friends.” D.C., Maryland and Virginia on Monday reported 5,039 new cases. That lifted the rolling seven-day average of infections in the region to 4,824 — the 20th consecutive daily record. Virginia reported a record number of coronavirus infections Monday, with 3,242 new cases lifting the state’s seven-day average to a high of 2,343. Virginia also reported four fatalities. The state’s jump in numbers was, in part, because of delays in reporting as the Virginia Health Department’s computer system was shut down for upgrades. Maryland reported 1,658 new infections and 14 deaths, while D.C. reported 139 new cases and two deaths. Across Maryland, Virginia and D.C., the seven-day average number of people hospitalized with coronavirus-related illnesses stood Monday at 2,805 — up from 1,655 at the start of November. In Arlington County, almost half of people infected with the virus early this month said they might have been exposed at work, the county Health Department reported Monday. About one-third of the 539 people diagnosed with covid-19 said they came into contact with someone who already had the disease, mostly at home, contact tracers found. But 48 percent of those diagnosed between Nov. 3 and 16 said they had gone to work, 38 percent said they had gone to restaurants, 17 percent had traveled outside the region, and 12 percent had attended a large gathering such as a wedding, funeral or party. The Health Department said it is not clear whether those sites were definitive sources of infection.


Planning on Thanksgiving holiday travel? Many in the D.C. area are staying put.

residents not to let their guards down and to remain vigilant about wearing masks and social distancing, 89 percent of those surveyed said they would not be traveling. The Maryland Department of Transportation on Monday asked residents to avoid nonessential travel. It’s a significant shift from previous years, when the Thanksgiving exodus would begin a week earlier as people plotted how to avoid the inevitable crush of holiday traffic. Regular commuters were warned to leave their offices early on Wednesday to avoid delays. The Capital Beltway became a sea of brake lights. This will be the first Thanksgiving in more than a decade that fewer people plan to travel for the holiday when compared with the previous year, according to AAA Mid-Atlantic. But not everyone is staying home. Roadways and airports might be more crowded than in previous months, but the volume will be a far cry from previous years, officials said. The Transportation Security Administration reported it screened more than 1 million passengers Friday and again Sunday — something that has happened only three times since the pandemic began in March. “We’re seeing more people on a daily basis than we have in the last few months,” said Christina Saull, spokeswoman for the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, which manages Dulles International and Reagan National airports. Even so, Saull said passenger volumes are down about 60 percent compared with 2019, when trade group Airlines for America projected 30.6 million people would travel over a 12-day period around Thanksgiving. Saull said travelers are largely following requirements to wear masks and practice social distancing. She said free masks are available at airport information desks. Many airlines also are making masks available. In a briefing with reporters last week, TSA Administrator David Pekoske said the agency expected its busiest days around the holiday will be Wednesday and Sunday. He also encouraged those who are traveling to be patient with others because it will be the first time many are traveling since the pandemic began. Pekoske emphasized changes the TSA has made to screening procedures to protect travelers and its workers. Officers are required to wear masks and gloves. Gloves will be changed out following each pat-down and if a passenger requests they be changed, he said. Pekoske said acrylic barriers have been installed in areas where travelers come into contact with TSA officers and passengers are being asked to place their boarding passes


Maryland football resumes practice in preparation for Indiana game after coronavirus outbreak

resiliency and positive outlook Coach Locksley and our team has had,” Athletic Director Damon Evans said in a statement Monday. “The team went through weight training this morning and will practice this afternoon. We are optimistic that we will be able to play this Saturday at Indiana. As we have done throughout, we will continue daily testing, monitor those results and base all decisions upon those results.” In the statement, Evans said he and Locksley “have stayed in constant communication and he’s feeling good.” Eight players tested positive between Nov. 5 and Nov. 11, and an additional 15 players tested positive between Nov. 12 and Nov. 18. Any player who tested positive after Nov. 7, the day Maryland won at Penn State, will not be available against Indiana. Some players who tested positive later in the two-week span will also miss the Terps’ next game at Michigan. Big Ten protocol requires players who contract the virus to sit out 21 days so they can isolate and then go through health screenings before returning to play. Maryland does not release the names or positions of players who have tested positive, and the school has not provided more specific testing data beyond cumulative results for week-long periods. Since Nov. 19, only one team member had a positive result during daily antigen testing, but the confirmatory PCR test was negative. On Sunday, every player’s PCR test came back negative. Wisconsin is the only other team in the Big Ten that has canceled games because of an outbreak in its program. The Badgers dealt with an outbreak of a similar size and also managed to return to play after missing two games. As cases of the coronavirus rise across the country, the college football calendar is facing more disruption as the season progresses. Eighteen games were canceled or postponed this past week. Before the Terps had to pause team activities, they won back-to-back games against Minnesota and Penn State. After the matchup with Indiana, the Terps have games scheduled at Michigan and vs. Rutgers. The season is scheduled to conclude the weekend of Dec. 19, when all Big Ten programs will face the team in the opposite division in the same spot in the standings, with possible tweaks to avoid rematches. Despite the two-week hiatus, Maryland is still in position to earn a spot in a bowl game for the first time since 2016.


Maryland and Virginia nursing homes battle explosive covid-19 outbreaks — again

The second wave has reached the region’s most vulnerable. Amid soaring coronavirus caseloads in Maryland, Virginia and D.C., some nursing homes have begun to report explosive new outbreaks of the novel coronavirus among residents and staff, affirming the worst fears of family members and health officials. Despite stringent shutdown measures in place since March, widespread community transmission has allowed the highly contagious virus to creep back into facilities through asymptomatic employees, threatening the elderly residents most at risk of dying. The spike in cases in Virginia, Maryland and D.C. since August has not yet been followed by a notable surge in deaths. But health experts note that fatalities often lag several weeks behind new infections, and warn that the uncontrolled spread of the virus in nursing homes could lead to a significant jump in deaths of covid-19, the disease caused by the virus. In rural localities, a large outbreak at even one long-term care facility could tip the health system into chaos. Some government officials are alarmed. Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) on Tuesday severely limited indoor visitation at nursing homes and announced that all facilities must test staff twice a week. Maryland health officials also say they are ramping up on-site visits and doubling the number of employees dispatched to nursing homes as “rapid response teams.” County officials say they’re stockpiling masks and gowns, concerned that the nationwide surge in cases will again disrupt supply chains, as happened this past spring. Nursing homes are better prepared now than they were nine months ago, experts say, but some challenges — such as shortages of staff and protective equipment — persist. Systemic problems, including low wages, mean that many nursing homes are still relying on contract employees to fill shifts, inadvertently enabling the spread of the virus. “We never truly fixed the problems,” said Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. “There were just a lot of Band-Aids.” In Virginia, at least 200 staff members and 380 residents have contracted the virus since the start of November, officials say. A disproportionate number of outbreaks are in the southwest part of the commonwealth, where cases have been skyrocketing. In Roanoke City, where test positivity is higher than 10 percent, nine of 11 long-term care facilities have active outbreaks. In Maryland, new weekly infections among residents and staff members at long-term care facilities have increased tenfold since the


Most schools should close and stay closed through winter

the week ending Nov. 19, there were more than 144,000 new cases of covid-19 in children, by far the highest weekly increase since the pandemic began. Imagine you’re a teacher who works in a poorly ventilated classroom for multiple hours a day. It’s challenging to keep physical distancing, and there’s a high likelihood that one of your students has the coronavirus and could transmit it to you. Being told that school transmission isn’t the main driver of community spread is hardly reassuring when you’re the one shouldering the individual risk. One in 4 teachers are older or have chronic health conditions that predispose them to serious illness if they contract covid-19. Others might have household members for whom exposure is more likely to result in hospitalization or death. It’s important to note that many proponents of keeping schools open cite studies that show low risk of transmission when effective mitigation methods are put in place. Some well-resourced schools have implemented measures including decreased classroom capacity, improved ventilation and strictly enforced mask-wearing. Some have even moved entire classes outdoors. With all these measures, students, teachers and staff have a much-reduced risk of acquiring covid-19. But most schools lack the resources to implement such changes. Why haven’t there been more cases in schools if many schools haven’t implemented all those safety measures? A few things are possible. Maybe there have been more infections than we know about. Children with covid-19 tend to be asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic. Testing is limited, and it’s hard for parents to find testing sites for younger children. Parents wishing to keep their kids in school might not want to know the result; some mothers are reportedly forming pacts to not test their kids. Reporting is also an issue, with many states reporting cases only if they are proven to have occurred in school. That kind of epidemiological link depends on robust contact tracing, which is not occurring in many places because of overwhelmed public health systems. (North Dakota, for example, has given up contact tracing.) There is no national dashboard; compilations of school outbreaks are self-reported. Without a national mandate for regular testing and trusted reporting, we simply won’t have evidence that there isn’t greater transmission in schools. As the aphorism goes, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Meanwhile, some metrics indicate dangerously high levels of community spread. Twenty-eight states have test positivity rates over


Maryland football is back on the field after a coronavirus outbreak, but challenges remain

When Maryland’s football team returned to practice Monday, Coach Michael Locksley watched his players work through plays and could provide input to his coordinators if necessary — all from his home in the Washington suburbs. After back-to-back cancellations, the Terrapins now have a game in sight with Saturday’s matchup at Indiana, but the team is still wading through the challenges spawned by a coronavirus outbreak that infected 23 players and seven staff members, including Locksley. “It’s business as usual,” Locksley said Tuesday during a virtual news conference. “The difference is that I’m just not at the office physically.” The Terps paused practices nearly two weeks ago after positive results began to emerge from daily testing, but they have finally returned to preparation that resembles a typical game week despite the absences of players and staffers. Locksley has to be isolated for 10 days, compared with the required 21-day wait before players can return to play, so he will be available to coach against the No. 12 Hoosiers. Until then, he’ll watch practice on a live stream and attend meetings through Zoom. It’s a familiar setup. That’s how the program operated for months after sports halted in March. Locksley meets with the staff virtually every morning. He sets the practice plan. The coaches develop a game plan together. They convene again after practice. Locksley met with the offensive players as usual Monday. He did the same with the defense Tuesday afternoon. The weekly schedule hasn’t changed, and the program prepared for these circumstances. Chad Wells, the team’s video coordinator, had developed a contingency plan for a situation that prompted the need for a live stream. Drew Hampton, the director of equipment operations, has his phone at practice and can relay messages from Locksley. Plus, three members of Maryland’s staff — offensive coordinator Scottie Montgomery, wide receivers coach Joker Phillips and analyst Ron Zook — have head coaching experience. More than a dozen After Maryland’s players returned to campus in the summer, workouts paused because of nine cases of the coronavirus among athletes and staff. The team had practiced a few days in August before the Big Ten canceled the fall season, only for that decision to be reversed a month later. Just before the conference committed to playing this season, Maryland’s athletic department dealt with a large outbreak across many teams that prompted football practices to again halt. The latest spike


Which Trump official has coronavirus now? This reporter always seems to know first.

If you want to find out who in the Trump administration has tested positive for the coronavirus, you should probably just set an alert for Jennifer Jacobs’s tweets. The Bloomberg News reporter has emerged as the preeminent source for intel on covid-19 cases in and around the White House. Before she helped break the story on Friday that Donald Trump Jr. tested positive, she was the one who first told the world — and many in the White House — about the positive diagnosis of Trump’s close aide Hope Hicks in early October, a watershed revelation followed hours later by President Trump disclosing his own positive test result. “Jennifer Jacobs owns the White House covid beat,” said ABC chief White House correspondent Jonathan Karl. “She seems to know the test results of the president’s inner circle before just about anybody else on the White House staff knows. It’s really remarkable.” It’s an only-in-2020 beat, covering the health emergencies of White House officials, many of whom have bucked their own administration’s public safety recommendations, such as mask-wearing, as the virus has spread within one of the world’s most secure office spaces. Months before the Hicks diagnosis, Jacobs broke the news that Robert C. O’Brien, Trump’s national security adviser, had tested positive, and before that, that Vice President Pence was self-isolating after an aide was diagnosed with the coronavirus. But it was her bombshell reporting on Hicks, an aide who may spend more time than any other staffer with Trump, that highlighted the White House as a potential covid-19 hot spot. On Oct. 1, at 8:09 p.m., she tweeted that Hicks, who had traveled aboard Air Force One for the first presidential debate and a rally in Minnesota, tested positive. The resulting story by Jacobs and fellow Bloomberg News correspondent Jordan Fabian revealed that Hicks first felt ill while in Minnesota for the rally and quarantined while returning home on Air Force One. “White House officials had hoped to keep the news about Ms. Hicks from becoming public, to no avail,” the New York Times reported at the time. Shortly after the Bloomberg News story broke, Trump acknowledged during an interview on Fox News that he was awaiting his own test result. Hours later, the president revealed he had tested positive, a stunning and destabilizing development that had officials discussing the continuity of governance should his condition worsen. Positive diagnoses were also


Officials tell public to stay home. Is anyone listening?

Vietnam and China had success with swift measures that combined targeted restrictions with strong communication. Taiwan has never had a full shutdown, Phillips pointed out, because people are conscientious about wearing masks and reducing interactions with others. But in the United Kingdom, where Phillips lives, weeks of a curfew weren’t enough to stop the escalation of cases. “The most expensive way to deal with the virus is to delay the pain until the point when you have to put the economy into a lockdown,” he said. Several vaccines have proved effective and in coming weeks probably will be approved and begin to be distributed. But that will take months. The short-term future of the pandemic in America — and the severity of the crisis that President-elect Joe Biden will inherit Jan. 20 — depends largely on individuals’ choices in the coming days and weeks. Pandemic fatigue, personal hardships and a lack of financial resources have combined with anti-government sentiment and science denialism to drive a wedge between what public health officials say should be done and what people are actually doing. Despite pleas from officials to limit travel, more than 3 million passengers went through Transportation Security Administration checkpoints at airports from Friday to Sunday. And Sunday was the busiest travel day since the pandemic’s start, TSA spokesman Daniel Velez said. Compliance with quarantine guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has also been spotty, spurring the agency to prepare new recommendations that, when finalized, would ask people potentially exposed to the virus to isolate for seven to 10 days rather than the more burdensome 14 days currently recommended. In addition, many people remain unpersuaded that the novel pathogen and covid-19, the disease it causes, warrant sweeping restrictions on commerce, schooling, sporting events and other cultural activities. They don’t think the virus is as dangerous as public health experts claim. These attitudes to some degree echo President Trump’s message that the “cure can’t be worse than the disease.” But they are also shaped by personal experiences over the past nine months, said Michael Mugavero, an infectious-disease physician at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. “What is the public health messaging that aligns with people’s very real, lived experiences?” Mugavero said. “At the end of the day, for most people, their lived anecdotal personal experience supersedes any broader health data.” Political leaders and the general public alike are loath


Coronavirus is roaring back in parts of Asia, capitalizing on pandemic fatigue

than 300 a day, and Hong Kong recording 73 new confirmed cases on Monday — compared with more than 150,000 a day in the United States. Yet the infection rates are still high enough to ring alarm bells, especially given the high proportion of elderly people in places like Japan, as winter approaches and doors and windows close against the chill. Pandemic fatigue is a key ingredient, experts say. After many months of restrictions and with cases seemingly under control for a while, people have become tired of the rules, bored with staying at home and complacent about the risks. On Tokyo’s streets this past week, everybody has been wearing a mask. But bars and restaurants have been packed with people who have cast their face coverings aside. “Our control measures rely on voluntary behavior change,” said Hitoshi Oshitani, a professor at Tohoku University’s Graduate School of Medicine who is a member of the government’s coronavirus advisory team. “And it’s getting more difficult to persuade people to change behavior. Even though the number of cases is much, much higher than in March or April, people are quite relaxed.” Kang Do-tae, South Korea’s vice health minister, warned Tuesday of a “triple bind” of asymptomatic patients, transmission among young people, and colder weather in which the virus thrives because of increased indoor activity. “The unforeseen development of the third wave forewarns an even harsher and harder winter,” Kang told government officials at a meeting to discuss the coronavirus response. As the peak of flu season approaches and hospital beds fill up, that complacency is increasingly dangerous, experts say. But there have also been policy blunders, U-turns and misfires that have given the virus the opportunity to spread. To rescue its economy from a record slump, the Japanese government launched the Go to Travel and the Go to Eat subsidy programs in July and October, respectively, offering to repay consumers up to half the costs of flights, hotels, meals and other expenses. The aid brought welcome relief to industries floored by the pandemic, but it also helped the virus to penetrate new corners of this island nation. On Monday, the governors of the northern prefecture of Hokkaido and the western prefecture of Osaka announced they were withdrawing their regional capital cities from the subsidy program, a decision the central government reluctantly endorsed the next day. Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike also raised concerns Tuesday.


cases,” she said at a news conference. “And we are seeing these situations where in times of eating out, the virus does spread. This is then brought home into the household, where perhaps there are elderly members of the family who have lower immunity.” Opposition politicians slammed the government, saying it was acting too late. Yoshimasa Suenobu, a veteran journalist and a professor of media studies at Tokai University, said it was as though the government was driving a car “without thinking about how to brake.” “A car won’t drive well unless both the accelerator and the brake perform equally well,” he said on Nippon Broadcasting System. In South Korea, which won praise for effectively tamping down the first major epidemic outside China, officials have continued to fight small but persistent outbreaks. Believing it had a second wave under control, the government eased social distancing rules last month. Over the past two weeks, however, more than 60 infection clusters emerged across the country, including at schools, military bases and churches. “Infections from the first and second waves left lingering transmission risks across the South Korean society, which caught fire as social distancing rules were lifted without proper preparations,” said Kim Yoon, a professor at Seoul National University’s College of Medicine, warning the outbreaks could overwhelm South Korea’s contact-tracing regime. “Unlike previous outbreaks which stemmed from few big clusters, the third wave consists of dozens of small clusters that are harder for contact tracers to track,” he added. In Hong Kong, a cluster of infections originating from dance clubs has shattered a weeks-long streak of low to zero local cases. That cluster has emerged as one of the biggest Hong Kong has seen, with more than 130 confirmed cases. The city’s government has moved belatedly to close loopholes that had given the virus a path back, including lax hotel quarantine arrangements for returning residents, who were forced to quarantine for 14 days but could still have visitors. But the financial hub is also battling a similar wave of fatigue and complacency that Japan has experienced. “Seeing videos and photos of the dancing clusters that have gone viral, we can see people totally not respecting the regulations during a pandemic,” Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam said Tuesday, pointing out that people were engaged in close-contact activities without masks on. “It seems like this new wave of infection will be quite severe.”


Covid-19 has shed light on another pandemic of depression, anxiety and grief

Erin N. Marcus is a professor of clinical medicine at the University of Miami and a Public Voices fellow. Along with the resurgence of covid-19, an insidious and less perceptible pandemic has arisen: one of anxiety, depression and grief. It’s a phenomenon I’ve seen among people seeking help in the primary care clinic where I work. I think of the woman who, after her mother and sister died of covid, lost the motivation to take her diabetes medication, or do much of anything else. The man who recovered from covid but who now can’t sleep because of flashbacks to his time in the hospital. The woman whose adult children recovered from covid — but who is so anxious about venturing out of her tiny apartment that her normally well-controlled blood pressure has rocketed to dangerously high levels. My observations are consistent with those of national surveys, which have found significant increases in depression and anxiety during the pandemic. In one large nationwide survey, U.S. adults were more than three times more likely to screen positive for anxiety and depressive disorders, compared with one year earlier. Another survey found a significant increase in alcohol use. Those surveys were conducted in April through June, before the spread of the coronavirus escalated to encompass the entire nation. Today, it’s likely that the psychological toll is much worse. Every person who dies of covid-19 leaves behind, on average, nine close family members — a grandchild, son, daughter, brother, sister, spouse, mother or father. The grief experienced by those surviving family members and friends is a normal reaction to loss. But some psychologists fear that the circumstances of covid-19 — in which people might die unexpectedly or alone, and without the normal rituals of community remembrance such as a memorial service — may increase the likelihood of prolonged grief disorder, a disabling condition that can last years and raise the risk of suicide or alcohol and drug abuse. More than 1 in 10 adult American workers are employed in the health-care sector, and many of them have witnessed events that leave them vulnerable to post-traumatic stress disorder and other psychological consequences. Other Americans have lost their jobs, which itself can cause anxiety and depression. Mental illnesses increase a person’s likelihood of developing other health problems, such as heart disease. They also significantly affect productivity, costing employers billions annually. To get our country on track toward


From a warehouse shelf to a family’s Thanksgiving table, the path of a donated bag of rice

To see how a bowl of rice ended up on the Thanksgiving table of a D.C. family that was grateful for it, we have to look back. To when a 9-year-old girl and her mother stepped into a long line to get donated food for the holiday. To when a Seaton Elementary School administrator — a woman who had earlier seen a man drop to his knees when handed a small bag of groceries — stood in front of a wall of cardboard boxes, knowing what the 25 pounds of food in each would mean to the families who got them. To when a volunteer truck driver, who had found herself struggling to feed her own children during the pandemic, showed up at a warehouse to pick up those boxes. We have to look back weeks, and months, to actions taken by city officials, agreements arranged by a nonprofit and a desperate phone call made by a woman who was supposed to spend this school year teaching children about food but instead has filled her days with trying to make sure they have enough in their bellies. “There is just so much need,” Genesis Caplan, the FoodCorps service member at Seaton, says on a recent afternoon, fighting back tears. Right now, in these days surrounding a holiday that calls for gathering around a table, we are all thinking about food: the food we have in front of us. The food we don’t have in front of us. The food others might have, or not have, in front of them. But a close look at the path a single bag of rice took from a warehouse shelf to a family’s Thanksgiving menu shows just how much effort and collaboration it sometimes takes to make sure people don’t go hungry. This is the story of that rice, as told by some of the people whose hands it passed through before reaching that family. The boxes had already been packed and stored in a warehouse in Northwest Washington when Kate Urbank, the D.C. site director for Food Rescue US, learned about them. An interagency team of city employees began collecting the boxes in April, when the unknowns of the coronavirus were leaving grocery store shelves bare. On the team were nutrition experts who could offer guidance on what items should go into each box based on limited supplies. Among the foods they picked:


As Americans prepare to gather for Thanksgiving, the world watches with dread and disbelief

Foreign observers are watching with trepidation — and at times disbelief — as coronavirus cases surge across the United States, and masses of Americans are choosing to follow through with plans to visit family and friends for this week’s Thanksgiving holiday anyway. It’s been a grueling year. Many have gone months without seeing their loved ones. Thanksgiving travel is down and many families are opting against their usual festivities. But as the pandemic drags on, with shorter days and chillier weather forcing more people indoors, the social isolation is becoming more difficult to bear. Decisions over whether to gather have turned divisive, as experts warn that Thanksgiving includes the key ingredients — a shared, indoor meal and inter-household mixing — that could spark an even worse surge in cases in the coming weeks. It’s a scenario that officials in other countries are trying to avert ahead of other upcoming holidays, such as Christmas and New Year’s. “From Australia, this looks like a mindbogglingly dangerous chapter in the out-of-control American COVID-19 story,” Ian Mackay, an associate professor of virology at the University of Queensland, wrote in an email. “Sadly, for some, this will be a Thanksgiving that is remembered for all the wrong reasons.” Australia has returned to a large degree of normality in recent weeks, with mass sporting events and even the iconic Sydney Opera House reopening. But it only did so after strict regional lockdowns and border closures. Mackay compared large numbers of Americans traveling for Thanksgiving to China’s Lunar New Year celebrations in early 2020 that inadvertently helped spread the virus at a crucial early stage. In some ways, this might be worse. “This time we all know where the virus is, we know how bad it can be, and we can be sure that this event will cause more sickness and some deaths,” Mackay said. The virus “will thrive among all the chances to trigger superspreading events among households and larger gatherings and parties. This is its way.” Yap Boum, a Cameroonian epidemiologist and regional representative for Epicenter Africa, the research arm of Doctors Without Borders, said the willingness of some Americans to risk their and their family’s health to gather for a single day has left him befuddled. “From my perspective, I found it really crazy,” he said of large numbers of Americans choosing to travel for Thanksgiving. “On one hand, you see the people dying,


Amid coronavirus surge, Maryland survey shows many still plan Thanksgiving travel

of the virus has become so widespread in the county that it is increasingly difficult to conduct contact tracing. Officials said they are seeing a growing number of cases associated with family gatherings, youth sports, indoor dining and houses of worship. “It would be easier if there was one type of activity we could isolate,” Gayles said, “but there’s lots of different possibilities now.” In the District, acting D.C. city administrator Kevin Donahue told members of the D.C. Council on a weekly phone call: “We are in the middle of a national wave that’s going to continue to get worse.” A total of 5,522 new infections were reported Wednesday in the greater Washington region: 2,697 in Maryland, 2,718 in Virginia and 107 in the District. The rolling seven-day average of new cases shows Maryland with 2,334, Virginia with 2,495 and D.C. with 150. So far this year, the region’s total case count is just short of 435,000. Deaths reported in the District from covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, increased by four Wednesday to 677. In Maryland, 37 additional deaths were reported, bringing to cumulative total to 4,518. In Virginia, the death toll rose 29, to 4,008. More than 34,000 patients have been hospitalized with covid-19 since the pandemic came to the region. About 3,000 remain in hospitals in Virginia, Maryland or D.C. Maryland continues to lead the region in the number of cases per 100,000 residents. Its seven-day average of cases is 38. D.C. reports 21 cases per 100,000 and Virginia reports an average 29 cases per 100,000 over a seven-day period. While it’s easy to get lost in the statistics, people who watch the numbers closely warn that the data over the next few days may vary greatly. Numbers will probably flatten or drop for several days around Thanksgiving as people put off testing, wrote Erin Kissane at the Covid Tracking Project. Then, next week, testing, case reports and deaths will rise, “which will look like a confirmation that Thanksgiving is causing outbreaks to worsen.” “But neither of these expected movements in the data will necessarily mean anything about the state of the pandemic itself,” Kissane wrote. “Holidays, like weekends, cause testing and reporting to go down and then, a few days later, to ‘catch up.’ ” Any infections resulting from Thanksgiving exposures probably won’t start showing up in the data until the second week of