As epidemic menaces refugee camps, the Middle East’s most vulnerable face a deepening nightmare

most densely populated part of the Middle East. Overall, 11 million Syrians have been displaced by the nine-year war, half inside Syria, half living as refugees across the Middle East, including in Turkey, Jordan, Iraq, Egypt and particularly Lebanon. All are vulnerable to the worst effects of the pandemic. “When the virus hits overcrowded settlements in places like Iran, Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Greece, the consequences will be devastating,” Jan Egeland, secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, said this week. “There will also be carnage when the virus reaches parts of Syria, Yemen and Venezuela, where hospitals have been demolished and health systems have collapsed.” Health experts hope that the relatively young average age of the displaced will help keep the death rate low. (In some centers, more than 60 percent are children.) And for now, no camp outbreaks have been reported. In some cases, the camps’ very isolation may be slowing the appearance of the virus within their fences and walls. Access to Gaza, for example, is tightly controlled by Israel, which has largely sealed the enclave’s crossings to Israel and Egypt. Aid workers there are using the time to prepare for what they view as the virus’s inevitable arrival. “There is no reason to believe the virus will detour around Gaza,” said Gerald Rockenschaub, head of World Health Organization operations within the Palestinian territories. “We have to be ready.” The Palestinian Ministry of Health is focused on an aggressive program of isolation to keep the virus from gaining a foothold in the enclave of 2 million people and eight refugee camps. Without enough kits to test all arrivals, anyone returning from outside — at this point, mostly patients who had been seeking non-coronavirus-related medical treatment in Israel — is quarantined for two weeks within converted clinics, schools and hotels. If an outbreak does begin, Gaza, which suffers daily rolling blackouts and unsafe drinking water, is ill-equipped to respond. There are only 60 intensive-care beds in the territory, 70 percent of which are in use. Officials have built an emergency 38-bed field hospital. But efforts to bring in supplies are faltering as borders close around the region. The WHO’s normal two-day supply route from Dubai via Jordan now takes two weeks. Supplies of vital equipment, particularly respirators, are hampered by collapsing global supply chains. “We had gotten respirators from Italy, but now we cannot,” said Abdel Nasser Soboh, the


Don’t forget our loved ones, trapped in Egyptian prisons during this pandemic

voyages in Egypt,” making Egypt a hotbed that exported the pandemic around the world. University of Toronto researchers estimated at least 6,000 coronavirus cases in Egypt, with the government reporting only 210. Yet Egypt’s response has been exponentially slower than the likely spread of the virus. Instead of pushing for widespread testing and transparency, Egyptian authorities withdrew the press accreditation of a Guardian journalist who reported on the University of Toronto findings. With regard to prisons, the government has suspended visitations for 10 days, and arrested four women who protested the imminent danger to their loved ones in prison. This pandemic is one of humanity’s most lethal enemies. And there is no path to its defeat without collective effort. This effort must include eliminating conditions where it can spread like wildfire. Egyptian President Abdel Fatah al-Sissi can save face and win much-needed political capital by doing the sensible and humane thing: decreasing prison capacity by releasing all vulnerable prisoners, such as the elderly, prisoners with underlying health complications and all pretrial detention prisoners. As Egypt prepares for a possible lockdown or curfew, this should be a priority before it is too late. I cannot hide my debilitating fear for my unjustly imprisoned dad, who is 61 and high-risk because of his diabetes, hepatitis C, high blood pressure and six years of imprisonment. I fear for Ziyad El-Elimay, a young human rights defender and former member of parliament who suffers from diabetes, high blood pressure and asthma. I fear for the thousands of innocent souls who are forgotten and neglected, and for their families whose suffering was already too great to bear. Let us not forget the most helpless across the world and in Egypt’s prisoners. Let us support and amplify the calls for their release. It is our collective responsibility to make sure those prisons — graveyards of the living — do not turn into graveyards of the dead. Read more: Mohamed Soltan: I was in prison with Mustafa Kassem. His death is a tragedy for Egypt — and the U.S. Ezzedine C. Fishere: Egypt’s music ban is part of a more disturbing cultural repression Ezzedine C. Fishere: Hosni Mubarak is dead. But when will we get to bury Egypt’s authoritarian regime? Mohamed Soltan: Egypt’s Sissi is arriving in the White House more authoritarian than ever Jackson Diehl: This holiday season, spare a thought for Americans held in foreign prisons


As the Pentagon records its first coronavirus death, U.S. troops and their families question what’s next

dependents and 31 among contractors. That’s up from 67 service members, 15 civilian employees, 26 dependents and 16 contractors on Friday. Senior defense officials have unveiled a cascading series of new protective measures, including an announcement Friday that the Army will close all recruiting stations and rely solely on “virtual recruiting” online. Senior defense officials also suspended nearly all nonessential travel for eight weeks beginning March 13, limited access to its military installations and even relaxed grooming standards for sailors so they do not need haircuts as frequently. U.S. Central Command, which oversees operations in the Middle East, announced Friday a 14-day quarantine for all troops before they deploy to protect forces already in the region. But other protective steps have been scuttled, at least for now. In North Carolina, after military spouses expressed concerns on Facebook, the commanding general of Camp Lejeune responded in a memo Friday. “I know there is concern over why our installations remain open especially when whole cities have been ordered to shut down,” Maj. Gen. Julian D. Alford wrote. “We can still be open and meet our mission of providing support to our operating forces and their families, as long as we do it safely and responsibly by adhering to the recommendations of our Public Health Emergency Officers.” That doesn’t make sense to Radcliffe. “Why keep nonessential personnel at work and possibly risk the lives of these spouses and children? It is pointless and disappointing,” she said. “I expect more out of military leadership, especially given the commander in chief’s advisement to isolate yourselves if at all possible.” A Defense Department employee who works in the Camp Lejeune area, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said many contractors and civilian employees continue to report to work, operating flight simulators in close quarters with Marines and performing other tasks. A military planning document obtained by The Washington Post shows that senior Army and Navy officials discussed stopping the training of all recruits, but the Pentagon rejected the idea last week, citing concerns about detrimental effects to the military. “We operate our training facilities year-round to keep up with our need to recruit new military members,” said Jonathan Rath Hoffman, the chief Pentagon spokesman. “Shutting down training for an extended period could cause a gap in our personnel pipeline that would take time to clear.” Senior defense officials have


Fairfax, Montgomery counties report first covid-19 deaths

Both Northern Virginia and Montgomery County, Md., recorded their first coronavirus deaths on Saturday, and Virginia, Maryland and the District all reported double-digit increases in infections as the pandemic continued its march into the region. Fairfax County authorities said a man in his 60s who had been hospitalized for covid-19 had died, the third reported coronavirus death in the commonwealth. His name and hometown were not released. The Maryland Department of Health said a woman from Montgomery County, who was in her 40s and had underlying health conditions, also died of coronavirus. Her death was the third in the state related to the pandemic. On Saturday, authorities prepared for the cases to multiply: Virginia eased rules for adding hospital beds, and Maryland deployed the National Guard to set up testing sites. Prince George’s County police said officers will begin taking nonviolent crime reports over the phone. And Virginia’s attorney general advised local governments that they may conduct public meetings regarding coronavirus electronically. The first known covid-19 death in the District was identified as a leader in the Franciscan Monastery. The death had been announced on Friday, but he had not been identified. On Saturday, he was identified as John-Sebastian Laird-Hammond, 59, a member of the monastery since the late 1980s. The monastery’s superior, Father Larry Dunham, said Laird-Hammond had been battling leukemia for years. Dunham said he received a photo of Laird-Hammond’s thermometer a few days ago showing 103.5 degrees. “My knees started to buckle,” Dunham said. “I said, ‘please try to get better.’ . . . He always recovers. He always finds a way. But he didn’t find a way. That’s what I’m really trying to get my head around.” On Saturday, Virginia reported 38 new cases, and Maryland saw a 41-case jump. The District announced 21 new cases late Saturday. There are now 447 known cases of coronavirus in the region, and six deaths. New infections included a D.C. woman who works at MedStar St. Mary’s Hospital in Leonardtown, Md., and the pastor of Crossroads Baptist Church in the Baileys Crossroads area of Fairfax County. Those who attended services with him last Sunday were advised to self-quarantine for 14 days. In Loudoun County, two more school employees tested positive as well, bringing the total to three. Others infected included a Montgomery County police officer and a Metrobus driver who worked out of Metro’s Bladensburg bus division. Four of


Many Americans’ biggest worry right now is April 1 rent and mortgage payments

Since Nicole Kane lost her job as a Hoss’s Steak and Seahouse waitress last Monday because of the spread of the novel coronavirus, all she can think about is April 1 — when her mortgage and car payments are due. Kane’s husband works at Panera Bread, which is open for takeout in their small town of Lebanon, Pa., but business has been slow, making the couple fearful for his job as well. The family has three children and two car loans. Desperate for cash, Kane started delivering dinner for DoorDash but makes much less than she used to. “Suspending mortgage and car payments for three months would be the biggest impact for my life,” said Kane. “DoorDash is helping, but it’s not going to be anywhere near what my family would need.” In interviews with more than a dozen laid off workers and small business owners, nearly all said their biggest economic concern was paying the rent or mortgage in April. Many people across the country have monthly payments that exceed $1,000. The median monthly rent in the nation is just over $1,600, according to Zillow, an online real estate database company. The median mortgage payment is $1,400. Congress is rushing to finalize a massive aid package to help laid off workers and small business owners. The latest version includes a one-time $1,200 check for most adults and $500 per child, but Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said the earliest that money could arrive is April 6. Not everyone will receive it then. Most rent payments are due April 1. Landlords typically charge a fine if payments don’t arrive by the 5th. Millions of Americans don’t know how they will get the money in time to make rent. The nation has 40 million renters, who tend to be younger. Black and Hispanic families are twice as likely to rent than white households, according to the Pew Research Center. “I will take a credit hit before I would let anyone go hungry in my house,” said Rob Holland of Cincinnati, who has nine people living in his house including children and grandchildren. He is a freelance worker, directing big corporate events, all of which have been canceled through the summer. Holland’s mortgage payment is $1,300. He also spends several thousand dollars a month on food for the family and health care since he has Crohn’s disease. “If I can’t stay healthy, I


The coronavirus has upended the world. But what exactly is it?

WHAT DO we know about the new coronavirus? Thanks to a remarkable outpouring of shared research, its characteristics are coming more clearly into view every day. A spiky, round or elliptical juggernaut, measuring from 60 to 140 billionths of a meter across, has turned the world upside down in just a few weeks. What is it? The virus belongs to the family Coronaviridae, which are RNA viruses with relatively large genomes. The SARS-Cov-2 virus has 29,891 nucleotides. That’s twice as large as an influenza virus genome. What’s more, the coronavirus family undergoes relatively rapid genetic “recombination” in nature, including mutations that enable the virus to adapt to new hosts and environmental niches. In this case, the genetic blueprint probably came initially from nature, perhaps from bats. A cousin of this virus is SARS-Cov-1, which caused an epidemic of severe acute respiratory syndrome in 2002 and 2003 that began in China and ended with 774 deaths in 17 countries. The genetic material in the current virus is an 82 percent match for the earlier SARS virus. Another type of coronavirus found in bats is an 89 percent match for the current virus. Not every mutation changes behavior, but even a minuscule change in the genetic makeup may have given the current virus the characteristics that allowed it to survive, thrive and unleash the current pandemic. The virus is an opportunistic parasite with a singular mission: dock on the surface of a cell using its exterior spikes, then penetrate and hijack the cell to replicate, creating millions more copies of the virus with its genetic code. In the coronavirus family, some strains cause only minor illness such as common colds and, in others, disease more serious than covid-19. Two related viruses, the one causing SARS and the one causing Middle East respiratory syndrome, or MERS, are more lethal, but the current virus is more transmissible, lodging in the upper respiratory tract, the nose and throat, where it is easily expelled by a cough. Another characteristic accelerating transmission is that an infected person can be contagious several days before any symptoms show up. A cough or sneeze expels virus particles in aerosol droplets, which can remain in the air for hours. Also, there’s evidence of survival on plastic and stainless steel for up to 72 hours. The current virus leads to acute respiratory distress in some people, filling lungs with fluid, constricting their


rapid genetic “recombination” in nature, including mutations that enable the virus to adapt to new hosts and environmental niches. In this case, the genetic blueprint probably came initially from nature, perhaps from bats. A cousin of this virus is SARS-Cov-1, which caused an epidemic of severe acute respiratory syndrome in 2002 and 2003 that began in China and ended with 774 deaths in 17 countries. The genetic material in the current virus is an 82 percent match for the earlier SARS virus. Another type of coronavirus found in bats is an 89 percent match for the current virus. Not every mutation changes behavior, but even a minuscule change in the genetic makeup may have given the current virus the characteristics that allowed it to survive, thrive and unleash the current pandemic. The virus is an opportunistic parasite with a singular mission: dock on the surface of a cell using its exterior spikes, then penetrate and hijack the cell to replicate, creating millions more copies of the virus with its genetic code. In the coronavirus family, some strains cause only minor illness such as common colds and, in others, disease more serious than covid-19. Two related viruses, the one causing SARS and the one causing Middle East respiratory syndrome, or MERS, are more lethal, but the current virus is more transmissible, lodging in the upper respiratory tract, the nose and throat, where it is easily expelled by a cough. Another characteristic accelerating transmission is that an infected person can be contagious several days before any symptoms show up. A cough or sneeze expels virus particles in aerosol droplets, which can remain in the air for hours. Also, there’s evidence of survival on plastic and stainless steel for up to 72 hours. The current virus leads to acute respiratory distress in some people, filling lungs with fluid, constricting their ability to breathe, especially those who are already suffering another malady. The virus is not invincible. It is sensitive to ultraviolet rays and heat, and hand-washing works. Biomedical researchers are racing to discover therapies to stop it from infecting people, perhaps with an antiviral drug that would disable those exterior spikes, or a vaccine that would instruct the human immune system to attack it. Hopefully, we can bend the curve slightly in favor of people and stop the pandemic. But even if science triumphs this time, genetic recombination and mutation will go on.


How the coronavirus will change our lives forever — from music to politics to medicine

If history is any guide, not much will change in the wake of the covid-19 pandemic. During the influenza scourge of 1918, disorder was everywhere: As one American letter writer suggested, “The whole world seems up-side down.” Roughly 1 in 4 Americans caught the disease, and as many as 2.5 percent of them died. Almost half the fatalities were people between 20 and 40 years old — the very adults relied on as parents, breadwinners and leaders. Desperate to control the pandemic, public health officials prohibited public gatherings and closed schools, churches and other institutions. They even placed restrictions on funeral services: Many communities prohibited anyone other than adult members of the immediate family to attend, and the bodies of the deceased were routinely barred from being taken into churches or chapels. When the pandemic subsided, people rushed to regain their sense of equilibrium and normalcy: While Americans had proved remarkably compliant with health officials’ initial demands, they were reluctant to keep those restrictions on their lives — even as many communities faced a subsequent wave of the illness. Certain habits did change. Americans never returned to the common drinking cup, outlawed during the crisis and previously common in schools, offices and railway cars; they frowned on public spitting. Public health leaders celebrated their success in providing basic education on sanitation and personal hygiene. But the deaths of 675,000 Americans did not spur a remaking of the health-care system. Progressive era reformers had failed to create a national health insurance program, and despite the pandemic, their efforts withered in the 1920s. As influenza ransacked their communities, many Americans clung to the familiar, adhering to established ways of doing things. Men and women faced pressure to respond to the pandemic according to gendered norms. In letters and diaries from the time, women openly discussed their fears and their experiences of loss; because they were assumed to be innately self-sacrificing and skilled at caregiving, women were called upon to be nurses. Men, meanwhile, were expected to exhibit only strength and stoicism; they expressed guilt and shame when illness required them to take to their beds. People of color continued to face segregated health care: Philadelphia opened emergency clinics for white residents but did nothing for its African American community. Eventually, a local black physician organized their care. In Richmond, African American patients could visit the new emergency hospital, but they were relegated


and caregivers more frictionless, isn’t a cure-all for such problems, but it can ameliorate them, and it’s long been underused. One reason, in addition to the lack of tech platforms and training, is that health insurers have declined to cover “virtual” doctor’s appointments. But they’re doing so now, and we expect they’ll continue. Traditionalist doctors have also been nudged toward trying an unfamiliar model of care by this shock to the health-care system. Long term, the telemedicine revolution could reshape how we help patients manage chronic disease and practice preventive care, by making it far easier to stay in touch. The shift could also make it less difficult for doctors to reach patients in remote areas. The pandemic may change medicine in other ways, too. Patients have been sharing with us their profound anxieties — and doctors, nurses and others are returning to the roots of the profession by recognizing anew how important it is to listen to, and empathize with, such concerns. Medicine is a clinical enterprise, but it also requires compassion that can be lost amid a focus on the latest treatments. The coronavirus has heightened the concern, too, about burnout among physicians and staff on the front lines of health care. It’s tough to comfort an exhausted, crying physician when you shouldn’t touch each other, because of social distancing, but thousands of physicians are finding ways to connect and share our experiences — whether on social media, through first-person accounts on physician-focused podcasts, or other means. After the pandemic, keeping this spirit of collaboration and connection alive, and drawing on technology to achieve this goal, will produce a better health care experience for everyone. Pandemics have always been the enemy of dense, urban life. Cities, where people live in close quarters and mix with people from other places, are ideal breeding grounds for contagions. So far, by contrast, there have been comparatively few coronavirus infections in the vast middle of the United States, particularly in the rural reaches. When the bubonic plague devastated Europe, as the historian William McNeill noted, the cosmopolitan centers of Renaissance Italy fared far worse than the reaches of Poland or other parts of Central Europe. Those grandees who could, like some contemporary wealthy New Yorkers, fled to their country homes, where the chance of infection was slighter. Even before covid-19 hit, large urban centers like New York, Los Angeles and Chicago were


Walmart issuing cash bonuses to hourly workers, hiring another 150,000 employees

stayed open, though at reduced hours, to allow staff to replenish inventory and do more extensive cleaning. Business has been brisk as shoppers pile cleaning supplies, toilet paper, food and other essentials into their carts. On Wednesday, the company announced U.S. stores would be open from 7 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. It designated a special shopping hour for customers older than 60 — who are at an elevated risk if they contract the virus — on Tuesday mornings beginning on March 24. They will be allowed to shop an hour before the location’s designated opening time. It also set buying limits on paper products, milk, eggs, cleaning supplies, hand sanitizer, water, diapers, wipes, formula and baby food. That’s little respite for many employees, though, who in some cases have been working through the night to sanitize the stores and restock shelves. Reinforcements may be on the way with the planned 150,000 new hires. Walmart said it would cut its two-week hiring process down to 24 hours through an online portal. It contacted “industry groups representing restaurants and hospitality,” according to the company’s statement, to offer employment opportunities to workers that lost their jobs because of the covid-19 crisis. Restaurants all over the country have been forced to close because of public health orders but in some jurisdictions are allowed to continue running a carryout-only business. Travel and hospitality sectors are beginning to see large-scale job casualties as demand for airfare and lodging craters. Manufacturing has been hit hard, too, with major automakers idling North American plants over fears the virus could spread and a looming recession that will probably soften consumer demand. “We know millions of Americans who are usually employed at this time are temporarily out of work, and at the same time we’re currently seeing strong demand in our stores,” McMillon said in the statement. “We’re looking for people who see Walmart as a chance to earn some extra money and perform a vital service to their community.” Earlier this month, Walmart waived its worker attendance policy through the end of April for employees who felt unsafe or unable to come into work. Employees in mandated quarantine zones can receive two weeks of paid leave that will not count against vacation or other leave time. Infected employees will receive two weeks of paid time off and are eligible for another 26 weeks of fully or partially paid leave.


Much of life comes to a standstill as countries shut themselves off from the rest of the world

if they don’t do something,” Durán said. The U.S. announcement that it would close its borders with Mexico, as well as Canada, sparked an immediate outcry over the fate of thousands of asylum seekers being held south of the border. “I’ve been preparing for my hearing, but now I don’t know if it will happen,” said Daniel, a 20-year-old Venezuelan asylum seeker with HIV who declined to give his full name for fear of repercussions from authorities. Daniel, who was stuck in Piedras Negras, Mexico, has a U.S. asylum hearing scheduled for March 31. “With my immune system, I need to be very careful.” In continental Europe, leaders rushed guards to reoccupy long-disused border posts to start turning away nonresidents. Trucks backed up for dozens of miles on either side of Poland, which imposed a particularly stringent quarantine on anyone entering the country, leading to fears that other parts of Eastern Europe would soon run out of supplies. “Right now there are two very strong feelings,” said Latvian Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkevics, whose country was caught on the isolated side of the Polish blockade. “One, ‘Let’s close down everything.’ Another is, ‘Wait a minute, we have seen we are too interconnected.’ ” Live updates: Illinois, California, New York and Florida increase restrictions because of coronavirus E.U. leaders in Brussels moved quickly to allow truck transportation to continue, fearing that shortages of medical supplies could worsen the pandemic. But by week’s end, there were still pileups at borders across the continent. In sub-Saharan Africa, sweeping travel restrictions have gone into effect despite only 353 confirmed cases across its 48 countries as of Friday, according to the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Nearly every country has imposed total or near-total entry restrictions on nonresident foreigners and suspended issuance of new visas. More than a dozen have closed airports to international flights. Karen Mwalo, 34, was planning a marital ceremony with her husband known as an “itara” on April 18, in which Mwalo’s family would visit the homestead of her husband’s parents in western Kenya. Some family members were coming from as far as Denmark and the Netherlands. “We can’t go ahead,” said Mwalo, who said they have postponed their plans until at least July. It is “not good to be risking people. You never know. It’s already a breeding ground here.” Brazil, which has at least 700 confirmed cases of


‘Get yourself home’: Thousands of Americans stranded abroad as money, patience run out

But we need to get out of this country.” From Cusco to Casablanca to Cape Town, thousands of Americans like Rico are currently stuck overseas as the rapidly expanding pandemic has caused a cascade of countries to close their borders. As their money, medications and patience run out, Americans have watched in mounting frustration as other countries have quickly evacuated their citizens. Feeling abandoned by their government, thousands have turned to social media for help and solace, joining online groups with names like “Americans Stuck in Peru,” “American Citizens Stranded In Guatemala” and “Stay Strong, Quarantine On.” Their sense of panic deepened on Thursday when the State Department announced American citizens overseas should return to the United States immediately “unless they are prepared to remain abroad for an indefinite period.” The announcement, coupled with the initial lack of a plan to help Americans come home, has drawn criticism from lawmakers whose inboxes are filling with emails from furious constituents trapped overseas. “This is a source of great frustration,” Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) told The Washington Post. “This administration has made a mess of this by failing to take the necessary actions. We’ve been working for weeks to try to get these Americans who are stranded abroad a way to get home. We’ve watched as other countries have chartered airlines to get their citizens out.” In a briefing Friday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo again said Americans overseas should rely on “commercial departure options” whenever possible but also announced the creation of a “repatriation task force” to help U.S. citizens come home. “We’re trying to get people back from these places where air travel has been disrupted, and we will get that done over time,” he said. That announcement came the same day that the Air Force ferried 89 Americans — including the U.S. women’s football team — home from Honduras and a handful of chartered flights began arriving in the United States from Morocco and Peru. The sudden closure of borders and cancellation of flights shocked many Americans overseas, even though some admitted that relatives — or their own common sense — had advised them against leaving the United States in the first place. Rosalie Malsberger was barely two days into a scuba diving trip on the Honduran island of Roatan when a note was slipped under her hotel room door. “Dear Guest,” it said in English and Spanish.


Chinese American cartoonist finds satire in coronavirus crisis — with a perspective from both cultures

Chen Weng knows from coronavirus hot spots. The artist was born in Wuhan and now lives in Seattle, so it was only natural her online comics would steer toward commentary about covid-19. Weng, who draws under the comic title Messycow (her “World of Warcraft” avatar), typically writes about the daily stresses of family life as a wife and mother. But in January, with her hometown under quarantine, she started drawing crisis-themed comics and publishing them on the Chinese app WeChat, sparking a sizable following and making her a prominent cartoon chronicler of the virus’s social effects. “People in the rest of the world might not have known much at the time, but it was all people cared about in China,” says the artist, who has family in Wuhan. “I followed the news closely and experienced a lot of emotions.” To channel those emotions creatively, she took a humorous tone with the comic “Quarantine Makes Life Better,” which depicted a faux-news report of characters coping with stay-at-home life. “I was hopeful,” she says, “and wanted to lighten the spirit a bit because most of the news was intense and heavy.” She also created the comic “A bat’s Magic Realism story,” which, she says, “made fun of all the ridiculous things that happened in China” during earlier stages of the outbreak. It includes panels of citizens grabbing at a single surgical mask, as well as doctors behind bars. As the health crisis worsened, she couldn’t maintain the same playful approach. So she drew the comic “How social media drove me crazy recently,” which she says garnered 3.7 million views, according to WeChat numbers. She has amassed more than 100,000 followers on Instagram and Facebook combined, many of them this year. The comic was popular, she says, because it reflected the way many people were feeling during this fast-changing pandemic. There’s “too much information every day,” she says. “Good, bad, real, fake. We were exhausted and confused. And we just didn’t want to care anymore.” As covid-19 cases increased rapidly this month in the United States, Weng touched on the topic in her ongoing digital series “Messycow Comics,” which publishes on the Andrews McMeel syndicate’s GoComics site. In the strips — some of which were adapted from her longer comics in China — the mother character observes consumer panic amid the pandemic, shouting about the emotional hoarding of toilet paper and face masks.


Seven days as a ‘wartime president’: Trump’s up-and-down command of a pandemic

swept across Europe, and even after the first reported case in the United States on Jan. 21, Trump tried to wave off the danger. He was then in the throes of the impeachment battle and distracted by the Democratic presidential primaries. The president accused the media of perpetuating a hoax, arguing that news organizations were drumming up hysteria over the growing public health crisis as a way to hurt his presidency. The nadir for Trump came March 6, when he visited the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention headquarters in Atlanta and appeared to make a mockery of the scientists’ warnings. He then decamped for the extended weekend to Palm Beach, Fla., where he played golf and hung out with friends at his Mar-a-Lago Club, which itself turned into a coronavirus petri dish. Trump’s public posture began to shift, however, once the financial markets started to plummet. He was particularly taken with the numbers — not just the cratering Dow Jones industrial average but also the briefings he received from Vice President Pence, multiple times a day, with fresh data and figures showing how the virus could devastate the nation if left unchecked. A new study released earlier this week by the Imperial College London — which projected that 2.2 million would die in the United States alone if no steps were taken to curb the outbreak — was particularly influential among Trump’s inner circle. Trump also was influenced by his conversations with business leaders and wealthy supporters, who lit up the presidential phone line with angst and alarm over the Wall Street meltdown. Their message: Get it together. The world’s collapsing and you’re flaunting that you don’t care. Trump then took a series of steps in quick succession to try to gain control over the spiraling crisis. He delivered a prime-time address to the nation. He banned travel from Europe. And he declared a national emergency. Though Trump claims his Jan. 31 restrictions on travel from China as evidence that he always has taken the coronavirus seriously, one senior White House official said his March 11 announcement prohibiting most travel from countries in the European Union — a critical diplomatic ally and trade partner — helped truly underscore for Trump the severity of the crisis. Trump was angry that his error-riddled prime-time Oval Office address to the nation, in which he announced the Europe ban, was widely panned, and


We came to work for you. Please stay home for us.

airway, and more urgent issues that take place in the hospital setting. These days, it’s the healthy kids coming in for minor surgery who worry me. One minor surgery (ear tubes) has morphed from one of the safest, most satisfying procedures on the planet to potentially one of the deadliest. This procedure is performed under something called “general mask anesthesia,” in which an infant or child inhales two anesthetic gases while being supported via a mask and bag ventilation by an anesthesia specialist. The mask always fits snugly, but it is never a perfect fit. There is often a little bit of a leak of the child’s exhaled respiration that wafts out to the room. Normally, that’s no big deal. But these days, the patient could be spreading respiratory droplets containing the deadly virus to a room full of people. Strike that. To millions of people. In the case of this virus, each infected individual has the potential to infect three other people — and each of them can spread it to three more: 3 x 3 = 9. Those nine can each spread it to three more: 9 x 3 = 27. Those 27 can spread it to … well, you get the point. Do this 13 times and you will get to more than 1 million. Last week, you could sense these virtual millions in my operating room, although there were just five of us caring for one patient. Ear infections had made this toddler miserable, and medicine hadn’t helped. So even though this is ostensibly an “elective” procedure — the kind we’re now being advised to postpone — we decided to go ahead. We donned our protective gear, including N95 masks, surgical masks on top of those, eye protection, gowns and gloves. This is a major procedure in and of itself, even before the patient goes off to sleep. After the procedure, we doffed our gear. There is a method and precise order to this. It takes time and practice. Most people, health-care workers included, get it wrong, and mistakes only act to spread the virus. And what about that distinction between “elective” and “necessary”? The difference isn’t always as clear as you might think. What about the child who’s up all night screaming, tormented by fevers caused by ear infections? An ear-tube operation, a five-minute procedure, could relieve that. Helping that child could also put millions


Coronavirus cases surge at nursing homes as workers battle ‘almost perfect killing machine’

for the elderly, covid-19 is an almost perfect killing machine,” said Mark Parkinson, president and CEO of the American Health Care Association (AHCA), during a recent CNN interview. Jeffrey Duchin, the public health officer in Seattle’s King County, warned that the tragedy at Life Care was not a fluke, noting conditions there are no different from “any long-term care facility, anywhere in the country.” “This could happen anywhere,” Duchin said. While nobody has pinpointed how the virus entered the home, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that staff members working in multiple facilities and “limitations” in infection control helped propel the virus through the home and others in the area. Almost 40 percent of nursing homes nationwide had at least one infection control “deficiency” in 2017, which could include staff failing to wash hands, according to the Kaiser analysis. Infection control is complicated and requires robust staffing and sustained monitoring often found in hospitals but less so in short-staffed nursing facilities, Duchin said. “The unfortunate truth is that long-term care facilities do not have the same infection control resources on a daily basis that acute care hospitals have,” he said. “They’re not required to have the same amount of infection control, oversight of their work or training. And they don’t have funding to bring on people to do that routinely.” At Life Care, county health officials said, a typical night shift had nine people for 120 residents. “It’s difficult for staff who are working very hard and sometimes understaffed at these facilities to take on that responsibility,” Duchin said. “So for all those reasons, I think you’ll see around the country that these facilities are going to be hit very hard by covid-19, just like they’re hit very hard every year when we have an H3N2 influenza season.” Indeed, Kirkland is hardly alone. On Wednesday, officials in Florida reported that residents or workers at 19 elder care facilities had tested positive. In Oregon, possible cases were being monitored at 97 long-term care facilities. In Washington, at least a dozen elder care facilities have reported cases. Outbreaks at several facilities raised alarm because of how quickly they spread to other residents: At one nursing home near Chicago, 46 residents tested positive, state officials reported this week. At another in Lander, Wyo., eight tested positive, and one in New Orleans has 23 cases, including five dead. The nation’s nursing homes


In hard-hit areas, testing restricted to health care workers, hospital patients

president’s previous assertions that anyone who wanted a test “could have one” will lead many with mild cases to squander finite resources. “I’m just scared there’s going to be mass confusion when people find out there is a testing site, are worried about their covid status, and they’re going to mob the testing site,” said Michael Fraser, executive director of the association that represents state health directors. “It’s confusing to people to hear that testing is being made available in a much more convenient way, and they think, ‘Hey, this is great, let’s get tested.’ ” New York City’s Daskalakis said people with a manageable fever and cough who aren’t at high risk for severe illness should assume they have covid-19. Seeking a test exposes health care workers administering them and wastes resources, since nothing would change for those individuals based on their results, he said. There is no approved treatment for the disease. A “negative” test could also provide false reassurance as covid-19 has become widespread, he said. When one of his patients with symptoms — who sought a test against his advice — got a negative result, Daskalakis told the person to presume he had the disease anyway and to isolate himself. New York’s Mount Sinai Hospital, which treated the state’s first coronavirus case, is testing only a minority of the hundred-plus patients with respiratory symptoms who come to the emergency department each day, said Jolion McGreevy, the emergency department medical director. “The default assumption is yes — anyone who comes in with any kind of fever, cough, respiratory symptom, flu-like illness, we’re making the assumption that they have this,” he said, based on the prevalence of community transmission in New York. “It’s very likely you have it. There’s no benefit for you to test.” Other county and state health officials are sounding similar warnings, weeks after federal officials announced 1.1 million tests had been shipped out and another 4 million were coming. Los Angeles County health officials advised doctors in a letter Thursday to give up on testing patients as a strategy to contain the outbreak, instructing them to test patients only if a positive result could change how they would be treated, the Los Angeles Times reported. The department “is shifting from a strategy of case containment to slowing disease transmission and averting excess morbidity and mortality,” according to the letter. That same day, Sacramento county


‘Wolf Warrior’ strives to make China first with coronavirus vaccine

of the national strategic system.” China wants to rewrite its role in the coronavirus story from source to savior, to show — as Chen herself said — that it is living up to its “responsibilities as a great power and its contribution to humankind.” But it also wants to show China’s scientific prowess at a time of increasing competition in almost every endeavor. “We must be aware that the development of a vaccine is a battle that China cannot afford to lose,” commentator Mu Lu wrote in the nationalistic Global Times newspaper this week, calling it “life-and-death.” Chen, for one, appears conscious that she’s in a race, saying her efforts would be no slower than the 12-week time frame that President Trump set for American researchers. CanSino Biologics, a company based in Tianjin that is working with Chen, said Tuesday that it’s looking for volunteers to test its vaccine, a genetically engineered recombinant adenovirus vector labeled “Ad5-nCoV.” Chen, 54, is credited in China with developing a nasal spray that helped protect health-care workers against severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in 2003 and with making significant contributions to treating Ebola during the 2014-16 outbreak. She went to Wuhan on Jan. 26, days after the government conceded the virus could be transmitted between people, and has since been working at the Wuhan Institute of Virology to develop a vaccine. State media have lauded her efforts as the most promising among nine possible treatments that Chinese scientists are developing. One Shanghai-based researcher, Xu Jianqing, has given himself a shot of a vaccine he first tested in mice and monkeys. But he has said that, unlike with SARS and Middle East respiratory syndrome, the host and the pathway of the novel coronavirus remain unclear, hampering vaccine development. Scientists say the coronavirus is most likely to have begun in bats and then jumped to an intermediate carrier, perhaps pangolins, before mutating into a form that humans could catch. Chen has said the earliest her team can start clinical trials is April. But there’s little detail about what trials have begun — and whether Chen received her own vaccine. Commentators have expressed skepticism online, suggesting that the photo showing her receiving an injection was dated and doubting that a rapid solution was possible. Leo Poon, professor of public health laboratory sciences at Hong Kong University, said viewing the development of a vaccine as a competition is


The arts will recover from the coronavirus, as they did after 9/11. But they might look a lot different.

In 2008, a California nonprofit organization ran a multiplayer online game it titled “Superstruct.” Among the scenarios the Palo Alto-based Institute for the Future considered in its futurist simulation was the cultural impact of a disease they called Respiratory Distress Syndrome, a massive pandemic similar to the coronavirus. “This was foreseeable as something that was highly likely,” says Elizabeth Merritt, founding director of the American Alliance of Museum’s Center for the Future of Museums, a D.C. think tank that studies trends and challenges likely to affect the museum world. Merritt, who participated in the Superstruct game, says one scenario involved the government mandating that public gatherings be limited to 10 people or fewer. That led museum leaders involved in the online game to consider offering smaller tours, and online access. Now the future has arrived, in the form of covid-19, and the reality is in some ways worse than the 2008 simulation. Laura Lott, president and chief executive of the American Alliance of Museums, estimated on Tuesday that 60 to 80 percent of American museums had already closed entirely to the public, a number that could quickly rise to 100 percent as more states and municipalities grapple with the necessity of social distancing. When museums close to the public, they don’t even have the option of small, 10-person tours. And the closures sweeping across the field are for an unknown period, with unknown but likely devastating financial impacts both on their budgets and the more than 725,000 people they employ across the country. As the extent and impact of the coronavirus situation have become ever more clear this week, arts and cultural leaders are dealing with myriad unknowns particular to their fields and specialties. Zoos and natural history museums have living collections that require constant care, no matter what is happening in the outside world. Art museums borrow and loan art. Should they find staff to return borrowed works that are now shuttered inside mostly empty buildings? “It isn’t just turn off lights, close the doors, and go home,” Lott says. Performing arts groups are not only cut off from an essential source of revenue — the “earned income” of ticket sales — but also from possible future revenue. The virus outbreak happened during the season in which many performing groups are asking their patrons to buy annual subscriptions, an essential source of steady funding through the year that may


of social distancing. When museums close to the public, they don’t even have the option of small, 10-person tours. And the closures sweeping across the field are for an unknown period, with unknown but likely devastating financial impacts both on their budgets and the more than 725,000 people they employ across the country. As the extent and impact of the coronavirus situation have become ever more clear this week, arts and cultural leaders are dealing with myriad unknowns particular to their fields and specialties. Zoos and natural history museums have living collections that require constant care, no matter what is happening in the outside world. Art museums borrow and loan art. Should they find staff to return borrowed works that are now shuttered inside mostly empty buildings? “It isn’t just turn off lights, close the doors, and go home,” Lott says. Performing arts groups are not only cut off from an essential source of revenue — the “earned income” of ticket sales — but also from possible future revenue. The virus outbreak happened during the season in which many performing groups are asking their patrons to buy annual subscriptions, an essential source of steady funding through the year that may now dry up. And individual performers find themselves facing different daily challenges, but all with the same dire consequences. Jazz musicians, for example, often rely on the European circuit of summer festivals for a substantial portion of their annual income. Will any of that happen? Chris Denby, chief executive of the Advisory Board for the Arts “I would venture a guess that 30 to 50 percent of the festivals out there would have significant difficulties surviving during a period in which they would have to eliminate an entire season,” he said. And for performers, it isn’t just about income. The work of musicians, dancers and actors and actresses is grounded in making physical and emotional connections to other people with their bodies. Singers and people who play wind and brass instrument use their lungs to make that connection, and the new virus attacks the lungs. “When you are talking about diseases that affect the lungs, you think of wind and brass players,” says Margaret M. Lioi, chief executive of Chamber Music America, a service organization for chamber musicians, who are largely self-employed, without paid sick leave or family leave. “It is a serious illness. Nobody knows.” “Nobody knows” is the


State Department says 13,500 Americans stranded abroad have asked for help

is all caps.” The effort to repatriate Americans has become the main focus of the State Department as it has suspended all routine visa operations and reassigned personnel to the often-complex task of getting people out of countries as borders and airports close. Many Americans in countries that have imposed travel restrictions have complained that the diplomatic missions have not been reachable or provided inadequate assistance. Roughly 10 million Americans are expatriates who reside in foreign countries and an unknown number are tourists or abroad on business trips. The State Department already has evacuated 5,000 Americans starting with about 800 flown out Wuhan, China, where the virus originated. A second official said the State Department expects to evacuate at least 1,600 more Americans over the next five days. “We prioritize people, taking account of their vulnerability,” the official said. “If somebody is 70 years old and has an underlying condition such as diabetes or heart disease, that person has priority over a hale and hearty 20-year-old.” The State Department has adopted new policies for voluntary, authorized departures, so some diplomats and civil servants have returned to the United States. They have been assigned to help evacuate Americans. Other employees have also been enlisted, including some who normally work on economics, diplomatic security, public affairs and legislative affairs. The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity under State Department rules for briefing reporters, said the window is rapidly closing for commercial flights. In some places, civilians have been flown out on U.S. military flights when space was available. The State Department is working with the Defense Department to see if more flights and spaces can be arranged. Officials also are working with foreign governments to arrange evacuations on private chartered flights. Flights taking undocumented immigrants back to their countries also are returning to the United States with American civilians. “We’re hearing from people in very remote parts of the world,” the first official said. “It’s complicated.” In Peru, for example, diplomats are trying to move Americans out of areas reachable only by airplane, at a time when the Peruvians have shut down internal air travel. International flights are limited because the civilian side of the Lima airport has been closed, and the military part of the facility has less capacity. “I hesitate to guarantee we can move every person,” the official said. “But we will move very large numbers.” carol.morello@washpost.com


Spain hated being linked to the deadly 1918 flu pandemic. Trump’s ‘Chinese virus’ label echoes that.

disease names. That guidance came much too late to help Spain. As World War I was winding down, a deadly pandemic had erupted in several countries, but under wartime censorship, the news was kept secret. Spain was neutral in the war, and Spanish officials made the mistake of cabling London to say that “a strange form of disease of epidemic character has appeared in Madrid.” London newspapers jumped on the story, calling the illness the Spanish influenza or the Spanish grip, because the symptoms resembled the French grippe. At first, the news was not taken seriously. “When flu bowled over the good señors and señoritas of Madrid, there was a panic,” wrote one London journalist. Before long, “flu had its run in Spain and was soon found to be a gentle, jolly little disease — almost sporty.” As flu casualties skyrocketed in Europe and the United States, a Spanish medical official protested the Spanish name connection in an Oct 1, 1919, “Letter from Madrid” published in the Bulletin of the American Medical Association. The disease in Spain was “sudden in its appearance, brief in its course and subsiding without leaving a trace,” the official wrote. When the epidemic began ravaging other countries, he wrote, “we were surprised to learn” people were calling it “the Spanish grip. … The germ may have increased its virulences and its power of diffusion in Spain, but it is evident that this epidemic was not born in Spain.” By then, nations were pointing fingers at one another. Spain also called the virus the “French flu,” claiming French visitors to Madrid had brought it. “Germans called it the Russian Pest,” wrote Kenneth C. Davis in his book, “More Deadly Than War.” In a precursor to today’s crisis, “The Russians called it the Chinese Flu.” Many people “leaped to the conclusion that this new evil, like early evils, must be traced to Germany,” one newspaper reported. The New York Times quoted a U.S. Army official who speculated that germs might have been planted by enemy agents put ashore from German submarines off the East Coast: “It would be quite easy for one of these German agents to turn loose Spanish influenza germs in a theater or some other place where large numbers of persons are assembled.” There were even rumors that the germ was being put in Bayer aspirin. Spain’s protest was overwhelmed by the media reports


The Daily 202: Trump leads from behind on the coronavirus, invoking federalism to excuse his dithering response

No big deal — the service can be tiring. The next day at the gym, his muscles ached. He became fatigued, feverish, slightly dizzy. ‘I kept telling people I felt spongy,’ he recalls. ‘Like a kitchen sponge.’ Mike Saag, 64, an infectious disease doctor in Alabama, developed a cough, like a smoker’s hack. He was bone-tired, his mind foggy. About five days in, the misery intensified. … “In sharing their experiences, they are helping to demystify this alarming contagion. Covid-19 can be a severe illness, even deadly. But it varies from person to person, and most people with a confirmed infection do not require hospitalization. … This is a slow-developing illness, and it lingers, the whole process typically playing out in weeks rather than days.” Losing your ability to smell and taste may be a clue that you're infected. “On Friday, British ear, nose and throat doctors, citing reports from colleagues around the world, called on adults who lose their senses of smell to isolate themselves for seven days, even if they have no other symptoms, to slow the disease’s spread,” the Times reports. The coronavirus may have a weakness. “Although there are incidents of rampant spread, as happened on the cruise ship Diamond Princess, the coronavirus more often infects clusters of family members, friends and work colleagues, said Dr. David L. Heymann, who chairs an expert panel advising the World Health Organization on emergencies,” the NYT reports. “No one is certain why the virus travels in this way, but experts see an opening nonetheless. ‘You can contain clusters,’ Dr. Heymann said. ‘You need to identify and stop discrete outbreaks, and then do rigorous contact tracing.’” A team of researchers published a list of them on Sunday night on the web site bioRxiv. “Some of the medications are already used to treat other diseases, and repurposing them to treat Covid-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus, may be faster than trying to invent a new antiviral from scratch,” per the Times. Lupus and rheumatoid arthritis patients suddenly can’t access their crucial medication because Trump tweeted it out as a potential, but unproven, treatment, ProPublica notes. Gilead Sciences, a major pharmaceutical company, is halting access to an experimental drug used to treat the novel coronavirus in emergencies. As Italy’s death toll leaps by hundreds each day, a frantic Europe is scrambling for hospital beds, ventilators and medical supplies. Governments extended lockdowns


across the world Canada said last night it will not send any of its athletes to compete at the Tokyo Games this summer, becoming the first country to refuse to participate. Australia later said it wouldn’t participate either. (Rick Maese and Des Bieler) “The American disease expert, a medical epidemiologist embedded in China’s disease control agency, left her post in July,” Reuters reports. “‘It was heartbreaking to watch,’ said Bao-Ping Zhu, a Chinese American who served in that role, which was funded by the [CDC], between 2007 and 2011. ‘If someone had been there, public health officials and governments across the world could have moved much faster.’ Zhu and the other sources said the American expert, Dr. Linda Quick, was a trainer of Chinese field epidemiologists who were deployed to the epicenter of outbreaks to help track, investigate and contain diseases.” Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis President James Bullard told Bloomberg News on Sunday that the unemployment rate could hit 30 percent between April and June because of mass layoffs. “Millions of Americans don’t know how they will get the money in time to make rent. The nation has 40 million renters, who tend to be younger. Black and Hispanic families are twice as likely to rent than white households,” Heather Long and Renae Merle report. “Federal actions announced last week would protect more than 30 million homeowners from eviction, but they do not cover the nation’s 40 million renters. HUD issued a 60-day moratorium on evictions for homeowners who are unable to pay their federally backed mortgages,” Jessica Contrera and Tracy Jan report. “While some governors, mayors, city councils and judges are taking action, most state- and municipal-wide moratoriums on evictions last only a few weeks … Without a national moratorium on evictions, housing advocates say, some of the country’s most vulnerable people will lose the homes that could keep them from contracting the virus.” The overall tally of known covid-19 cases in this area rose to 586 on Sunday. There were 221 known cases in Virginia, 245 in Maryland and 120 in the District, in addition to eight related deaths. Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam (D) emphasized the likely long duration of the pandemic and suggested schools may need to be closed for an extended period. D.C. officials announced restrictions to limit public access to the Tidal Basin, where people have been crowding to see the cherry blossoms,


NFL hopeful that coronavirus won’t disrupt regular season, but offseason activities at risk

NFL officials remain guardedly optimistic at this point, amid the novel coronavirus pandemic, that they will be able to stage a complete or nearly complete 2020 regular season. But they are increasingly pessimistic about salvaging any of their teams’ offseason programs for players and are wary of disruptions that would accompany the opening of training camps this summer. Those views were expressed by several people familiar with the league’s planning who spoke on the condition of anonymity to offer candid views about the NFL’s prospects to continue operating as normal during the pandemic. While the spread of the virus has caused other sports leagues to postpone games or shut down indefinitely, the NFL has been relatively unaffected, including moving ahead with free agency last week. The dealmaking between teams and players proceeded mostly as normal, even with some teams’ offices closed and with front-office executives, agents and players required to overcome travel restrictions that complicated the ability of players to undergo physicals. League leaders can only hope that conditions improve considerably by the time the scheduled opening of the NFL’s regular season in September approaches. “I’m optimistic we’ll be able to have a season that starts relatively on time,” a person with knowledge of the league’s inner workings said. NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy said the league continues to plan for teams’ offseason programs, training camps and the season, but it will make adjustments if needed. “Our primary concern is to protect the health of the public, players, club and league employees while continuing the essential business of preparing for another exciting season,” McCarthy said in a statement provided to The Washington Post. “We continue to plan for offseason programs and training camps. We will be prepared to make any changes necessary if circumstances warrant as led by medical experts and public authorities.” NFL leaders and team owners know that other pro sports leagues such as the NBA and Major League Baseball must make decisions first. That should provide clarity to the NFL about what can and can’t be done. But in the meantime, the NFL will have to make decisions about other activities. The league has postponed teams’ offseason programs indefinitely. Those programs — including minicamps and practices known as organized team activities (OTAs) — usually begin in April and conclude in June. There is strong sentiment that those programs will be canceled entirely. “I would be shocked if we


Yes, this business still has your email! Here’s how we’re responding to covid-19!

think we’re mad!! Do we sound a little worried to you? That is because we are! Yes, our product is kind of twee and non-vital, but you know what is very, very real? Our employees! Oh, God, they have families! Is there any chance you could buy a gift card or something while we take a reflective pause and try to rejigger our business model completely to accommodate a time in which people cannot transact business in communal locations? Please? !!!!!! Our problem is as real as this email is off-putting! Our faux-cutesy style of corporate communication is really not well-suited to this trying time! Please don’t think of our brand — think of our employees! Fam? Uh, let me see. I, the CEO, (maybe you want to hear from the CEO now?) just want to tell you I am glad you are “keeping the torch running” in this tough time. Here are some ill-chosen emojis! We are also in touch with Uncomfortably Friendly Bank-Coffeehouse Hybrid and Food Subscription Service, and we are closely monitoring all new developments, as befits members of the community of people who unexpectedly have your email address. You may be thinking, “I am not part of the Sam’s Kayak Family, and to be completely honest, I did not know you had my information!” To that we say: We hear you, we see you, and we are so proud to have you in the Sam’s Kayak Family. Yes, you would have thought that after six years, maybe you would have gotten deleted from our database. But we thought in this trying time, you might want to know that the company whose six-page waiver you hastily signed in order to go Drunk Rafting during your friend’s bachelorette had a cogent, thoughtful and mature response to the covid-19 epidemic that was at least on par with if not light years ahead of the federal government’s. Ill-chosen emojis, Your CEO Sign up to receive Alexandra Petri’s columns by email as soon as they’re published Read more from Alexandra Petri: Newton formulated his theory of gravity in a time of plague. We need a miracle, too. Why is the media accurately reporting my coronavirus actions just to be mean? No, I will not leave the bar simply because I am ‘on fire’ Submit a question for Petri’s March 24 live chat Read a transcript of Petri’s March 17 live chat


Giant panda at National Zoo gets artificially inseminated

The National Zoo said Monday that veterinarians artificially inseminated its female giant panda, Mei Xiang, on Sunday morning. Experts used frozen semen from the zoo’s male giant panda, Tian Tian. Signs indicated the pandas were entering breeding season, the zoo said in a statement. Female giant pandas have a 24-to-72-hour period each year when they can get pregnant. “Mei Xiang is 21 and near the end of her reproductive life cycle, but there are pandas who have had cubs when they were older than she is now,” the zoo said in a statement. The zoo is closed because of the coronavirus. But “zoo life continues despite” the virus, said spokeswoman Pamela Baker-Masson. “Due to the successful banking of semen from Tian Tian over the past several years … the team used frozen semen instead of fresh to reduce overall staff contact time,” the zoo statement said. It won’t be clear if the panda is pregnant, or if she’s had what’s known as a false pregnancy, for several months. Mei Xiang has delivered three cubs, who have survived, but has had at least eight false pregnancies. Giant pandas are listed as “vulnerable” in the wild, where there are about 1,800. The zoo’s giant pandas are on loan from China. The loan agreement expires Dec. 7.


Far more people in the U.S. have the coronavirus than you think

is 30 times the testing per capita that we have done in the United States. Exceptional teams are racing to solve testing bottlenecks at local and state levels — Massachusetts is just one example — filling the vacuum left by the complete absence of federal leadership. Regulatory and technical hurdles accounted for early delays. Now that we’re past those, several shortages are getting in the way. We don’t have enough protective equipment for testers, nor swabs for sampling or reagents to extract genetic material from the virus. We don’t have enough physical test kits, or enough human power to run large-scale testing. The result is that we have no idea how many people are infected with the coronavirus or how fast the virus is spreading. For most of the other questions about strategy, the best answer depends on local conditions. Different parts of the world, and maybe even different parts of the country, are in very different situations. The best strategy depends critically on which stage of the outbreak you are in and how much testing is available. This is a subject infectious disease epidemiologists have been thinking about for years. My colleagues and I have been adapting their earlier peer-reviewed work to the present pandemic. One size does not fit all. A few places — many of them islands, like Singapore and Taiwan — have so far kept the epidemic relatively under control. They found and tested most of the initial imported cases; they deployed a skilled public health workforce to isolate people with the virus and trace and quarantine their contacts; and they’ve managed to maintain a “containment” strategy to good effect. The same can be said of Hong Kong and New Zealand. Iceland has combined containment with massive testing of its population. So far, this strategy has worked, and in these places, it would be wise to keep to it unless evidence that it is failing starts to emerge. Containment can work when there are few enough cases that the public health system is able to deal with them and their contacts, so that the workload is manageable, and when a large fraction of cases are tested and identified, so that preventing them from infecting anyone else dramatically reduces the total amount of transmission. For jurisdictions like these, case-based interventions (isolation, contact tracing and quarantine) can be the centerpiece of the control strategy — because they are


After flight back to U.S., a growing number of Costa Luminosa cruise ship passengers have flu-like symptoms

to the U.S.,” the department said. “We gave passengers information at the airport about how to monitor their health, and advised them to immediately quarantine for 14 days after they arrive home.” “Our guidelines have and will continue to change during each stage of a pandemic,” the department added. At least four of the American passengers on the Costa Luminosa have tested positive so far, including three whose results came back while the plane was midflight. During the roughly eight-hour-long flight, multiple passengers had coughs and high fevers — and some lost consciousness, according to a former medic who was on board. In the days since they landed, a Facebook page for passengers and family members has featured messages from those who say that since traveling home, they have developed fevers and coughs, the symptoms associated with the virus. “Seat 24A. Low fever 99.5°-100°, sore throat, dry cough,” read one posting. “Today my fever 38c, sore throat and runny nose. Seat 26j,” read another. On Friday, CDC spokeswoman Kristen Nordlund said the airplane had been diverted to a remote part of the Atlanta airport and the three passengers whose tests were positive were isolated from others. A fourth was sent to a hospital for evaluation. She said all passengers were screened before they were allowed to leave. “Passengers with no symptoms upon arrival were given health information advising them to stay home for 14 days after returning from travel, monitor their health, and practice social distancing as they continued to their final destination,” she said. Roger Frizzell, a spokesman for Carnival Corp., which owns Costa Cruises, said guests had their temperatures taken and were released by French health authorities to disembark before boarding the plane; he said they were each provided masks as a precaution as well. In Atlanta, he said the CDC and Georgia health officials made decisions about how passengers were processed. Health experts have said the cruise industry’s initial resistance to take drastic action as the virus spread — coupled with a deference from government officials, who let the companies come up with their own action plan — put passengers at risk. A study published Monday by the CDC found that as of March 17, covid-19 cases had been linked to more than 25 different cruise voyages. The study showed that cruise ship-linked cases had been detected in 15 states and accounted for 17 percent of all


The Health 202: Nearly 100 million Americans are living under stay-at-home orders as coronavirus spreads

for several days and then abruptly developed shortness of breath, fever and chest pains.” Jerri Jorgensen, a 65-year-old former high school volleyball and track coach, said she never felt symptoms — “never had a sore throat or headache or anything.” “I would do planks, push-ups and put my headphones on, and I’d have really good ’80s rock ’n roll and just dance in the room,” she told The Post. Alison McGrath Howard, a Washington clinical psychologist, described taking her dog outside and feeling like “I’m going to fall down…And my fever is gone, and then it comes back. And while I have been sicker with other things like bronchitis or stomach viruses or really bad colds, this feels like a constant fatigue. It’s the weirdest thing.” Mike Saag, an infectious-disease doctor, said he developed a cough, like a smoker’s cough, and his mind was foggy. “This is not something anybody wants to go through," Saag said. — Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) – the Democratic Party’s liberal leaders whose 2020 prospects have respectively collapsed and faded – are now seizing on the coronavirus response to influence the national agenda, our Post colleagues Sanders has called for a renewed focus on overhauling the health-care system. Warren has pressed Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) on details of the coronavirus relief package. Both have been in touch with former vice president Joe Biden’s presidential campaign. “Many liberals see the response to the virus as a way to enact quicker versions of the broad social changes at the heart of the Warren and Sanders campaigns. The talks could enable Sanders to win policy concessions in a way that eases his own departure from the presidential race,” our colleagues write. “…The apparent political opening for liberal, big-government initiatives has come up suddenly, the result of a shocking pandemic and accompanying economic crisis. Even many Republicans are joining calls for free health treatments, cash handouts to poorer Americans, and significant aid to businesses — a head-spinning twist in a political season that for months saw relentless attacks on ‘socialism’ and ‘socialized medicine.’ ” In case you missed them, here are a few key headlines and developments from over the weekend: What the Trump administration has and hasn’t done: The hardest hit: Movement on Capitol Hill: Concerns mount over resources for health workers: The big picture: — Neil Diamond has a


What the structure of the coronavirus can tell us

Like any virus, the novel coronavirus is a germ that tries to burrow into a cell and turn it into a virus-replicating factory. If it succeeds, it can produce an infection — in this case, a respiratory disease. The type of cells a virus targets and how it enters them depend on how the virus is built. This virus gets its family name from a telltale series of spikes — tens or even hundreds of them — that circle its bloblike core like a crown, or corona. Virologists know from studying its close cousins, viruses that cause SARS and MERS, that the spikes interact with receptors on cells like keys in locks, enabling the virus to enter. Very recent innovations in imaging techniques enabled researchers to peer so closely at the novel virus’s spikes that they created a model of one, right down to the atoms, and are beginning to reveal its secrets. Sugars dot the outside of the spike, just like sugars dot the outside of regular human cells, said David Veesler, a structural virologist at the University of Washington who led a team that visualized the SARS-CoV-2 spike and published a March 19 paper on its architecture. This carbohydrate camouflage makes the virus more difficult for the human immune system to recognize. Each spike is made of three identical proteins twisted together, Veesler said. His team captured images of the ends of these proteins opening in the spike’s cap-like apex before and during the attempt to bind to a receptor. Studies on SARS- and MERS-causing viruses indicate that all three proteins in a spike have to open for it to gain access to a cell. Experts say a vaccine is at least a year away, but they’re coming up with strategies now. One may be able to trigger antibodies that strike areas of the protein that are exposed when it opens, said virologist Vineet Menachery, who specializes in the study of coronaviruses at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston. The holy grail of vaccines, Veesler said, would trigger antibodies that attack a spike’s stem, which is so similar to other coronaviruses that a single vaccine might protect against several strains instead of just one. One treatment avenue may be to block receptors so the spikes have nowhere to attach. Perhaps a concert of strategies could work together against these tiny invaders, each 1,000 times smaller than


a March 19 paper on its architecture. This carbohydrate camouflage makes the virus more difficult for the human immune system to recognize. Each spike is made of three identical proteins twisted together, Veesler said. His team captured images of the ends of these proteins opening in the spike’s cap-like apex before and during the attempt to bind to a receptor. Studies on SARS- and MERS-causing viruses indicate that all three proteins in a spike have to open for it to gain access to a cell. Experts say a vaccine is at least a year away, but they’re coming up with strategies now. One may be able to trigger antibodies that strike areas of the protein that are exposed when it opens, said virologist Vineet Menachery, who specializes in the study of coronaviruses at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston. The holy grail of vaccines, Veesler said, would trigger antibodies that attack a spike’s stem, which is so similar to other coronaviruses that a single vaccine might protect against several strains instead of just one. One treatment avenue may be to block receptors so the spikes have nowhere to attach. Perhaps a concert of strategies could work together against these tiny invaders, each 1,000 times smaller than the cells they infect. After all, the natural human immune response plays defense in many ways at once. Soap — bar soap, liquid soap, laundry detergent and such — is virus kryptonite, which is why the message “Wash your hands!” is everywhere. But Menachery said heat and ultraviolet light are two other ways to neutralize a coronavirus, and each of these methods works in a different way. After about 20 seconds of contact, soap breaks apart the fragile, fatty membrane that holds the virus together. Disinfecting agents with at least 60 percent alcohol puncture and destroy the virus in a similar way. Extreme heat — near boiling — causes the proteins in the spikes to unravel and lose their shape, deactivating them. (A human fever is not hot enough to do this; it’s unclear what effect warm summer weather will have.) And ultraviolet light has been used as a disinfectant for a century in hospitals and water supplies. It shatters the genetic material inside viruses, bacteria and other microbes. However, it doesn’t always work uniformly, Menachery said, and disinfecting UV light can’t be used with people around because it damages human cells.


The Inn at Little Washington, the lifeblood of a Virginia hamlet, shutters for the first time in decades

“We’ve never closed for any disaster or blizzard in 42 years,” said Patrick O’Connell, chef-owner of the world-renowned Inn at Little Washington, nestled in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. But there he was on Friday morning, bidding farewell to overnight guests after breakfast service and not knowing when the doors to his fantasy dining destination, the recipient of three Michelin stars, the French guide’s highest accolade, would welcome back guests. The night before, his staff had attended to a mere 20 people — two seatings of 10 diners, the most the state of Virginia was allowing restaurants or bars to serve as the coronavirus pandemic shuts down almost every facet of life around the country. Departing guests told the chef they wanted to come back the moment the restaurant reopened, to be part of history; staff volunteered to work free, if O’Connell needed them. “It’s kind of a very sweet funeral,” the chef said in a telephone interview from the inn, a member of the prestigious Relais & Chateaux, an association of independently owned luxury hotels and restaurants in 60 countries — most now shuttered, if not by government decree, then by the inability of patrons to reach them, according to O’Connell. “No one is unaffected” by the pandemic. The inn is to Washington, Va., what cars are to Detroit: the engine that drives everything in the 133-resident hamlet, whose budget is basically the food and lodging taxes paid by the establishment. O’Connell has 175 employees on his payroll, only 10 of whom, mostly key managers, weren’t laid off on Friday, which happened to coincide with the staff’s last full, two-week paycheck. A partial paycheck will follow; insurance is covered through April 9. Remaining managers will work for reduced pay. Ahead of sending out the email announcing the layoffs Thursday night, General Manager Bob Fasce said, “My finger hovered over the send key.” “The entire community is affected,” said O’Connell, listing the shops, wineries and other businesses that depend on the success of the area’s best-known employer. He’s in favor of public projects along the lines of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration (WPA) to “keep people busy,” although the need for social distancing puts the notion on the back burner. “Curiously, many people still want to come, get away from the city,” said O’Connell, whose boarders just last week included three men who drove down for


Yes, there is panic. But I’m embracing a slower life.

took a pandemic to slow life down for me. I was unable to make that difficult choice voluntarily. Today, I conversed with neighbors (from a distance) whom I have not seen in months, without anyone’s child calling: “Mom we are going to be late!” We had the gift of time. I am acutely aware of the dangers of the pandemic. My employer, the University of Maryland School of Medicine, is taking all necessary precautions to minimize exposure and preparing for full extension of the health-care system. My sister’s family is currently on lockdown in Italy, a country where the virus is raging and more than 5,000 people have already died of it. And I continue to witness economic hardship for small businesses in my community, now indefinitely closed. I am not minimizing the grave concerns and sobering death rates inflicted by covid-19, the disease caused by the virus, but I know the most important thing my family can do is stay away from other people. And doing that has made me question why it took a deadly disease for my family to enjoy a home-cooked meal together. I rose at 5 a.m. Saturday to begin writing this piece before the kids began stirring and admittedly gave them screen time so I could finish it (just a few hours). I have two other unfinished pieces from previous years that I wanted to work on, but this is the first occasion that I completed this essay. After having some breakfast, my family will begin a jigsaw puzzle on the kitchen table — a definite first. I suspect we might complete it in a week, maybe two. My silver lining is that while I have a heavy heart for the many horrors of this crisis, I have been able to carve out a sliver of peace and gratitude in my home, as I suspect many of you have, as well. Maybe, it’s just in a different way than we were expecting. Erin O’Connor is a clinical neuroradiologist and researcher at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. Read more: Police officers rescued a girl’s birthday. Their kind act was found two months later on body cameras. Coronavirus news has us anxious and sad. Here are 11 things we’ve seen that lifted our spirits. Mom is stuck inside amid the coronavirus outbreak. Teens we never met gave us hope amid hardship. Have a story


One-bedroom, one-bathroom condo in Hyattsville, Md., lists for $120,000

Many of today’s home buyers are looking for that ideal location where they can walk to restaurants, coffee shops, a grocery store and, if possible, a Metro station. Finding the place with the perfect location typically means the price will be well above a first-time buyer’s budget, but that’s not always the case. While you may not be able to buy a brand-new condo in a prime spot in the District for under $400,000, you can find an older unit in an equally walkable neighborhood outside the city. For example, a unit in the Oglethorpe condominium in Hyattsville, Md., at 4410 Oglethorpe St. #501 is priced at $120,000. That’s well below the median sales price for a home in Prince George’s County, which was $320,000 in January, according to Bright MLS. This unit has a monthly condo fee of $463 that covers all utilities and common area maintenance in the mid-rise building. Annual property taxes are $1,642. The property sold for $115,000 in September 2019 and has been updated. The one-bedroom, one-bathroom condo unit #501 has 730 square feet and has been painted. Other updates include new carpet and new tile flooring in the bathroom. The kitchen, which is mostly enclosed, is adjacent to a combined living and dining area. The unit includes a washer and dryer. Built in 1962, the Oglethorpe is in the Hyattsville Arts District within walking distance of a Whole Foods grocery store, a Yes! Organic Market, a Busboys and Poets restaurant and multiple other shops and restaurants, which are about a half-mile from the condo. The Riverdale MARC train station is also within walking distance, and the area is served by numerous bus routes. The Prince George’s Plaza Metro station and shopping mall are a little over a mile away. The Oglethorpe has unassigned spaces in its parking lot. Assigned schools include Hyattsville Elementary, Hyattsville Middle and Northwestern High, all three rated below average based on test scores by GreatSchools.org. For more photos, click here. For more information, contact real estate agent Bobby Winstead Jr. of Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage at 703-870-8974. Read more Single-family home lists for $335,000 in Hyattsville Six-bedroom, four-bathroom house in Hyattsville, Md., lists for $400,000 Three-bedroom, four-bathroom townhouse in Hyattsville lists for $289,500


China is reporting big successes in the coronavirus fight. Should we trust the numbers?

for promotion, but they weren’t reporting parallel levels of highly correlated statistics like electricity usage. Chinese citizens, business executives and academics had wondered about falsification, but in recent years, cases have been exposed in which local governments admitting falsified statistics. In a working paper with Jiang Junyan, we construct an index of falsification that closely tracks these cases. What does that say about China’s coronavirus statistics? First off, this research highlights the importance of numbers in Chinese political discourse — across a wide bureaucracy, the covid-19 figures serve as the measure of performance. And past findings suggest there are reasons to pay attention to a number of possibilities, including the strong incentives for distortions in officially released data. The primary reason to be skeptical of official Chinese coronavirus statistics is that the initial reporting of the outbreak was suppressed. Local authorities in Wuhan intentionally hid the outbreak, as did national authorities. President Xi Jinping reportedly launched a national response on Jan. 7 but did not make a public statement until Jan. 20. Many Undercounting infections and deaths What else do we know about Chinese coronavirus statistics? Total confirmed case statistics out of China probably underestimate total cases of infection. This is true everywhere, of course, but more so in China than most places. In part, this is understandable — Wuhan’s health-care workers did not have the capacity to test widely in the middle of a total health-care system collapse. If asymptomatic cases were included, experts say the total number of cases in Hubei province could be much higher. An article in the journal Science estimates that 86 percent of Hubei’s cases were undocumented by the time authorities extended the lockdown to Wuhan and other cities on Jan. 23. It is also likely that officials reported lower numbers of deaths from covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. Especially once the central government’s propaganda mission to win the “people’s war” against the virus became clear, numbers shifted to achieve that vision. Such shifts would probably be subtle — not hundreds or thousands of hidden deaths, but instead excluding deaths that could be attributed to other types of pneumonia or heart failure, for instance. The bigger picture is still remarkable What’s more significant in China’s statistics are the limited number of coronavirus hot spots. It appears as if China had just one hot spot, the city of Wuhan and Hubei province, and


The Technology 202: President Trump unveils new supercomputing initiative to fight coronavirus

President Trump announced the White House will join forces with major tech companies to pool supercomputing resources in the battle against the novel coronavirus. Trump said the initiative — which will help researchers gain access to computing power far exceeding that of average consumer devices — could help experts “discover new treatments and vaccines.” IBM helped launch the “COVID-19 High Performance Computing Consortium,” and Amazon, Microsoft and Google also confirmed they would participate. “America is coming together to fight COVID-19, and that means unleashing the full capacity of our world-class supercomputers to rapidly advance scientific research for treatments and a vaccine,” U.S. Chief Technology Officer Michael Kratsios said in a statement to The Technology 202. The partnership underscores how tech companies are working more closely with the White House to respond to the global crisis after years of a contentious relationship. As much of the U.S. economy grinds to a halt, the tech industry Just a few weeks ago, it would have been farfetched for Amazon to join forces with the Trump administration. The Trump administration has long publicly sparred with Amazon Chief Executive Jeff Bezos, who also owns The Washington Post. Amazon Web Services will be providing credits for cloud services and technical support to researchers to accelerate covid-19 research and development. “Working together, government, business, and academic leaders can utilize the power of the cloud to advance the pace of scientific discovery and innovation, and help combat the covid-19 virus,” said Teresa Carlson, vice president of worldwide public sector at AWS. The consortium pools 16 systems that together offer over 330 petaflops of supercomputing capacity, according to a White House news release, and more cloud computing capacity is expected to be added. Researchers can start submitting proposals to use the systems through an online portal, and the partner institutions will review them. A team of public health experts will help assess the public health benefit of the proposals. “These high-performance computing systems allow researchers to run very large numbers of calculations in epidemiology, bioinformatics, and molecular modeling. These experiments would take years to complete if worked by hand, or months if handled on slower, traditional computing platforms, Microsoft and Google will be providing grants to researchers to use high-performance computing. Microsoft says its in-house data science experts are also available to team up with researchers. Hewlett Packard Enterprise did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but


As coronavirus spreads, so do doubts about America’s ability to meet the moment

and restaurants to shut down, Miguel Jara, owner of the iconic La Taqueria in San Francisco’s Mission District, announced he was closing up. He didn’t want his 19 employees, some of whom have been cooking up tacos for decades, to be exposed to the virus. He said he would keep paying them while the restaurant remained closed. “I’d rather take a hit in the bank account than have one of them get sick,” said the 77-year-old, who has been in business nearly half a century. Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer said the fact that everyone is confronting the same problem is a hindrance: No one has been spared the impact, making money tight and resources scarce. But it also helps for everyone to be in it together. “There’s a commonality: Every person, every business, every nonprofit is dealing with it,” said Fischer, who’s been in quarantine after his wife tested positive. “The whole country is focused on covid-19.” While the virus has captured the nation’s attention, Americans getting their news from widely varying sources are being exposed to different versions of reality. Some conservative figures downplayed the virus for weeks, joining Trump to describe concern over its spread as a plot to tarnish the president. Other kinds of misinformation have also spread widely on social media. But more than ever, Silicon Valley’s most prominent social media sites are finding and removing misinformation and other dangerous posts, photos and videos about the coronavirus before they draw large audiences online. Beginning in February, Facebook, Google-owned YouTube and Twitter each put a series of policies in place that prohibit content peddling fake cures, for example, and barring ads that peddle potentially suspicious masks and other preventive measures. They also have dedicated portions of their social feeds to banners and links that direct viewers to more authoritative sources, such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The prevalence of misinformation makes presidential leadership and clarity all the more important in the middle of a national emergency, said Leon Panetta, who served as defense secretary and CIA director during the Obama administration. “This president has been both ambivalent about how to approach this crisis, unsure about the strategy to deal with it and has not been able to, in an honest and direct way, unify the country behind this effort,” he said. “The leadership that is absolutely required by a president of the United States


Amid coronavirus, Israel modifies funeral rituals for first victim

a civil servant and was posted to a succession of overseas missions with his wife, Yona, the daily Ha’aretz reported. She died in 2012. Long retired, Even was one of at least six residents of an assisted-living facility in Jerusalem who might have contracted the virus from an infected social worker, the Jerusalem Post reported. The manager of the facility said the remaining residents were self-isolating in their apartments. Even was taken last week to a special coronavirus treatment ward at the city’s Shaare Zedek Medical Center. He suffered underlying health conditions, according to media reports, and was in serious condition. The virus is known to be especially dangerous to older people and those with underlying health problems. Rachel Gemara, an oncology nurse who volunteered to treat Even and other covid-19 patients in the ward, described the difficulties of delivering care to the infected to the Jewish Journal. Most treatments are delivered remotely, she said; practitioners stay behind protective shields. Much of the communication is by video. Gemara, 32, said the younger, healthier patients in the 20-bed ward have helped care for the older, more seriously affected ones, fluffing their pillows, adjusting their oxygen masks, helping them call their families. “They’re angels,” Gemara said. “It’s heartwarming to watch.” The 40 staffers in the ward are volunteers, she said. Israel, which had one of the highest hospital occupancy rates among developed countries before the outbreak, is straining to keep the pandemic from overwhelming its supply of practitioners and equipment. More than 1,700 doctors and nurses are in quarantine over possible exposure to the virus, the health ministry said Saturday. More than 40 have tested positive for the virus. The Canadian-born Gemara detailed new protocols for the handling of covid-19 fatalities to curtail the further spread of the infection in a Facebook post. Despite the sterile setting, she said, Even’s final hours Friday night were a time of touching compassion. “In the unit, we were in awe as we watched the other patients care for you,” she wrote. “They so badly did not want you ever to feel alone.” Two patients were with Even in his last moment, she said. They placed their hands on his eyes and said the Shema, a traditional prayer at the end of life. Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly listed Aryeh Even’s wife as one of his survivors. Yona Even died in 2012. steve.hendrix@washpost.com