What would NCAA eligibility relief for spring sport athletes entail? Athletic directors explain.

During the week when sports skidded to a halt, college athletes around the country watched their seasons abruptly end, sometimes without as much as a final team meeting to offer closure. Once the NBA suspended its season March 11 after a player tested positive for the novel coronavirus, similar decisions rippled through the U.S. sports landscape. The careers of college athletes have finite terms; they’re not simply bound by injury or skill but by the NCAA’s ticking eligibility clock. Athletes have four seasons to play for their colleges, and the 2020 campaigns had just begun for spring sports such as baseball, softball and lacrosse. The day after the NCAA canceled its winter and spring championship events, an NCAA committee announced its leadership "agreed that eligibility relief is appropriate for all Division I student-athletes who participated in spring sports,” with details set to be finalized later. While praising the NCAA’s quickness in addressing the issue, athletic directors warned that this announcement doesn’t equate to an official decision. The NCAA’s Division I Council — which includes athletic directors, other administrators, faculty athletics representatives and athletes — will discuss and vote on eligibility relief and related issues Monday. For athletes, extended eligibility would help amend a lost season. Morgan State Athletic Director Edward Scott played baseball at the University at Albany. When envisioning himself reacting to this news as an athlete, Scott said, “I would have called my coach and my athletic director trying to figure out what I’ve got to do to get that year back.” Those are the conversations athletes at Morgan State, a historically black university in Baltimore, will now have with Scott. Administrators and coaches agree that eligibility relief is the fair and reasonable resolution these athletes deserve. It aligns with other NCAA rules, such as redshirting because of an injury, that help preserve their four seasons of play. “When something outside of your control takes away the ability to compete — and usually we think of an injury — you get that year back,” Tulane Athletic Director Troy Dannen said. “And this is something certainly outside the control of the student.” But beneath that rosy outcome are myriad challenges, ones that athletic departments are prepared to handle but could strain programs with less money. Roster rules and scholarship limits will need adjustments. Coaches sometimes recruit — and players occasionally commit to programs — with graduating classes in mind.


‘It’s no different from New York’: Urban centers nationwide gird for catastrophic virus outbreak

think about other states that have even older and less-healthy populations, and fewer hospital beds available,” said Retsef Levi, a professor of operations management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who has developed modeling tools designed to help public officials prepare for the spread of the novel virus and the disease it causes, covid-19. Deborah Birx, the White House’s coronavirus response coordinator, said last week that the task force was anticipating challenges in parts of the country beyond the existing epicenters of New York and New Orleans, as well as Washington state, which reported the country’s first death from covid-19 last month. She pointed in particular to Illinois’ Cook County, which includes Chicago, as well as Wayne County in Michigan, which includes Detroit. The virus is spreading inland “following intense introductions into coastal areas,” said Joseph Eisenberg, professor and chair of the epidemiology department the University of Michigan’s School of Public Health. International comparisons are scarce, he said, given the size of the United States compared with Italy or South Korea, and the reluctance here to enlist the “fairly draconian methods” used to contain the outbreak in China. “Without sealing off borders, even just a few cases can seed transmission to a new state,” Eisenberg said. “Because Chicago and Detroit are important hubs, there also could have been introduction at various points in time, with the intensity now building.” The danger is already being felt on the ground, where the rapid spread of infection in major metropolitan centers is driving up the numbers in Illinois and Michigan, which by Friday had reported 3,026 cases and 3,657 cases, respectively. The MIT modeling suggests that Northwestern Memorial Hospital, a premier center in Chicago, will be overrun once the infection rate reaches 3 percent — the figure reported in Italian cities as they began testing more consistently. At that level, the hospital, which is among those weighing a do-not-resuscitate policy for infected patients, would have about 1½ patients per intensive care unit bed. Meanwhile, health officials warned that the virus would not respect city limits. “It’s not like there’s a wall around Chicago,” said Allison Arwady, Chicago’s public health commissioner. “A lot of the patients we serve come from surrounding parts of the state, even other states.” Faced with data showing the virus could quickly engulf the city and its surrounding suburbs, which had nearly 2,000 cases by the end of the week,


66 nursing home residents test positive for coronavirus as Maryland cases surge

The Washington region’s tally of confirmed coronavirus cases continued to climb Saturday, with Maryland seeing a record surge in confirmed cases, including an outbreak in a nursing home that has sickened 66 residents. More than 2,000 people have tested positive for covid-19, the disease the virus causes, in the District, Maryland and Virginia, and 34 people have died — 20 in Virginia, 10 in Maryland and four in the District. Maryland reported its biggest single-day increase in positive coronavirus cases on Saturday morning — 219 new cases, before the cases in the nursing home were recorded hours later — and Virginia saw another substantial jump — 135 — the states’ health departments said. Maryland now has 1,058 reported cases, and Virginia has 740, by The Washington Post’s count. On Saturday night, Maryland officials reported more bad news: the outbreak at Pleasant View Nursing Home in Carroll County. Gov. Larry Hogan (R) said in a statement that 11 residents are hospitalized, and 55 more are sick. Rebecca Travels, administrator of the nursing home, referred requests for comment to the Carroll County Health Department. The District also reported 38 new cases Saturday night, bringing the city’s total to 346, by The Post’s count. New patients who tested positive in the District included 15 people in their 20s and 30s and a man who is 98. The most recent Maryland deaths included the first two fatalities in Baltimore — a woman in her 60s and a woman in her 80s, Mayor Bernard “Jack” C. Young (D) said Saturday — as well as a beloved Prince George’s County high school basketball coach and school counselor. Terrance Burke, who worked at Northwestern High in Hyattsville, was known for helping the most troubled students. School officials said he died on Friday. His death came as a shock to his five children, who said he had asthma but was otherwise healthy — working out regularly and eating well. The 54-year-old had been sick for about two weeks, they said. After he fell ill, he told his daughter Chanel Parker that he would take a trip to Jamaica when he got better. Burke’s youngest daughter, Arnetha Burke, is a kindergarten teacher at Gladys Noon Spellman Elementary in Prince George’s County — she wanted to follow in his footsteps. She said her father “really saved a lot of people and influenced a lot of people to get out off


After $25 million stimulus, stunned NSO players receive one-week notice from Kennedy Center

the Association any contractual basis for failing to comply” with its collective bargaining agreement. Rutter told her staff earlier in the week that she was suspending her $1.2 million salary until the crisis ended, saying she needed to be the first to sacrifice and that more cuts were coming. Weekly payroll for the musicians is $400,000, an arts center spokeswoman said. “Without concerts and the corresponding ticket revenue, it is an unsustainable strategy to pay musicians to stay at home during this forced and still undefined quarantine period,” Rutter said in a statement on Saturday. “These cuts combined with anticipated administrative staff furloughs and potential layoffs may seem drastic, however, we know the only way through this is for all union and non-union employees to participate in the solution. The other unions within the Center have also experienced this furlough and are not or will not be receiving compensation.” According to Rutter’s statement, the $25 million would “provide long-term cash flow for essential personnel to ensure that we can reopen the Center and re-employ our staff and musicians.” In an interview earlier this week, Rutter noted that a two-month closure, representing the most optimistic scenario, would result in income losses of $20 million. Cellist Steven Honigberg, a member of the orchestra since 1984, posted the news on Facebook. “This is of course shocking news to the 96 symphony musicians under union contract — and this despite a $25 million boost earmarked specifically for the Kennedy Center in today’s passed historic stimulus bill that is designed to help employees maintain footing during this pandemic war,” Honigberg wrote. “This edict from Kennedy Center’s President Deborah Rutter, out of the blue, is illegal in various forms and will certainly be contested by expensive lawyers. Thanks (NOT) Deborah for your compassion for the musicians of your National Symphony Orchestra in this time of unprecedented peril. This is not OUR fault.” When reached Saturday, the orchestra’s spokeswoman said she had just learned of the decision. Rutter could not immediately be reached for comment. In February, the coronavirus forced the orchestra to cancel a trip to Japan and China that would have taken place this month — its first international tour under the baton of Gianandrea Noseda. Another highlight of the season, “Beethoven at 250,” featuring the orchestra performing and recording all nine symphonies between May 28 and June 14, has not been canceled. peggy.mcglone@washpost.com michael.brodeur@washpost.com


While the sports world falls silent, esports and streamers fill the void

sharp increases in first-time Twitch app downloads in Europe. Greece, Italy and Spain had increases of 50 percent, 41 percent and 26 percent week over week, according to Randy Nelson, Sensor Towers’s head of mobile insights. In the United States, first-time installs had increased by 14 percent week over week as of March 16, but Nelson pointed out that the figure was still about 8 percent under the average weekly installs for 2020. Increased interest in gaming is also evident on other fronts as people seek alternatives to live sports and its accompanying aspects. DraftKings reported a 12 percent increase in active players of its League of Legends fantasy league and featured its biggest contest for the event: a $60,000 prize pool. The paused state of the sports world is giving people who have heard of esports but may not have had time to check them out a chance to do so. It also promotes opportunities for content creators, already celebrities to younger audiences, with a surge in school-age viewers with more time on their hands with the closing of educational institutions. In Italy, for example, there has been a 66 percent viewership spike in minutes watched from the first week of February to the second week of March when the national quarantine began, according to StreamElements, which provides tools for streamers’ online broadcasts. “I think all streamers should try to stream during the daytime to help keep school-age kids busy and engaged,” Turner “Tfue” Tenney, the world’s most-watched streamer, wrote in a text message to The Washington Post. “Personally, I will be streaming earlier and I will be encouraging kids to stream so parents can go on the Twitch app and see them. … “Sadly with all major sports halted, there’s a huge void, you know. ... I think all we can do as gamers is say, ‘Hey, guys, watch us game on Twitch and enjoy our entertainment.’ Maybe we can game with out-of-work pro athletes and get everyone on the platform and get through this." Some of the athletes who have expressed interest in joining the gaming community include the NBA’s Trae Young, Luka Doncic and Ja Morant. Longtime streamers such as fellow pro basketball players Josh Hart and Meyers Leonard took part in a Call of Duty tournament to raise money for coronavirus relief efforts. The migration of game-enthusiast athletes to the streaming world was foreseen by


Tokyo Olympics set to begin on July 23, 2021, organizing committee says

NBC, which holds U.S. broadcast rights and supplies a large chunk of the IOC’s revenue for the Games. Mori said that a spring Olympics was considered but that holding the Games later allows more space to complete the many qualifying events that have been postponed by the virus outbreak. “We wanted to have more room for the athletes to qualify,” he said. The IOC said the same heat mitigation measures that were planned for this year will be implemented for 2021. Last year, the IOC decided to move the marathons out of Tokyo to the cooler northern city of Sapporo. Postponing the Olympics presented an avalanche of logistical challenges, but having a new date provides a timeline for organizers and the IOC’s task force to arrange venues, lodging and broadcast schedules. But the date will have significant effects on other events. The track and field world championships were set to take place Aug. 6-15, 2021, in Eugene, Ore., but World Athletics said it supports the new date for the Olympics. “This gives our athletes the time they need to get back into training and competition,” it said in a statement. “Everyone needs to be flexible and compromise and to that end we are now working with the organizers of the World Athletics Championships in Oregon on new dates in 2022 for our World Athletics Championships.” The 2021 world swimming championships are scheduled for July 16-Aug. 1 in Fukuoka, Japan, and officials from FINA, which governs the sport globally, have said they will be flexible with dates but that they are not as interested in postponing their championships for a full year. “The IOC has had close discussions with the relevant international federations,” Mori said. “I believe the [international federations] have accepted the Games being held in the summer.” Mori and Tokyo 2020 chief executive Toshiro Muto have warned that the price tag for rescheduling the Olympics will be “massive,” with most of the expenses borne by Japanese taxpayers. Venues will have to be rebooked, and the Olympic Village already had sold hundreds of apartments to private parties to occupy after the Games. Muto promised transparency in calculating the costs and deciding how they will be divided, the AP reported. “Since it was scheduled for this summer, all the venues had given up hosting any other events during this time, so how do we approach that?” Muto said. “In addition, there


The great conundrum of Pablo Escobar’s hippos

Pablo Escobar probably didn’t intend to undermine the basic philosophies of wildlife conservation. Nevertheless, we can add that to the complicated legacy of the ruthless Colombian drug lord. In the 1980s, Escobar decided to make his own personal zoo on his palatial estate in Antioquia, Colombia, illegally importing animals from across the world, including four hippos. When Escobar died in 1993, the government removed the animals to zoos and wildlife sanctuaries. Wrangling the grumpy hippos, however, proved too big a task. So there they remained without any natural predators, ready to breed like crazy. Today, Escobar’s herd has grown to upward of 100 strong. To residents, they are a threatening menace, but among scientists their presence is the source of spirited debate. Are Escobar’s hippos “invasive”? Or are they “introduced”? Are they threatening the local ecological community? Or are they helping to “rewild” the area? The answer is far from clear, but the debate could change the way we think about preserving habitats. Hippopotamus amphibius The Escobar hippos are doing the same in Colombia, and many scientists worry they could dramatically affect the ecosystem. Their waste might alter water chemistry, resulting in algal blooms that could kill off fish. Others fear that by roaming the shores of Colombia’s Magdalena River, they could build new channels and reshape the region’s water flow. But those concerns assume that the ecosystem as we know it today is what it’s supposed to look like. And as a study published last week in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Science shows, that assumption is far from certain. Hippos actually fit snugly into an essential part of Colombia’s ecosystem, the paper reports. South America was once home to many large herbivores, including a semiaquatic rhino-like creature known as a notoungulate. It was also home to the giant llama, which was similarly responsible for grazing and nutrient recycling in the ecosystem. But those megafauna disappeared thousands of years ago, largely thanks to humans. The study is a reminder that habitats are not static things; they are constantly changing and adapting. And as the paper details, humankind has long filled the holes left by extinction with other “invasive” species. In North America, for example, the last known native species of horse died out between 11,000 and 13,000 years ago. It was only during the Spanish conquest that escaped domestic horses repopulated the American Great Plains. Now, they


NFL owners to formalize 14-team playoffs on Tuesday conference call

NFL owners are expected to formally ratify the expanded playoffs, set to begin in the 2020 season, when they speak Tuesday via conference call, according to multiple people familiar with the league’s plans. The vote is to include how teams will be seeded for the postseason and which TV networks will carry the games, and the discussion also is set to cover which days the additional games will be played. The owners’ vote on the new playoff system, which increases the postseason field from 12 to 14 teams, is considered a formality. “Yes, it will pass,” one person familiar with the situation said. The additional playoff games were included in the owners’ negotiations with the NFL Players Association on their recently completed collective bargaining agreement, although the owners maintained they had the right to unilaterally expand the playoffs under the previous CBA. The details are expected to be formalized during Tuesday’s conference call. Under the proposed format, seven teams in each conference qualify for the postseason instead of the current six. Only one team in each conference, rather than the current two, receives an opening-round bye. That makes for six first-round games — three in each conference — instead of a total of four. What is yet to be formalized: which networks will carry the extra games and when they will be played. The league could schedule three games for Saturday and three for Sunday on that opening playoff weekend. Or one of the games could be played on Monday night, although that might create a competitive disadvantage for that winner the following weekend. The owners also are to be briefed during Tuesday’s call by Allen Sills, the NFL’s chief medical officer, and are to discuss the league’s plans for the upcoming draft. The conference call comes in place of the annual league meeting that had been scheduled for this week in Palm Beach, Fla., but was canceled by the NFL because of the novel coronavirus pandemic. Commissioner Roger Goodell informed teams last week that the draft will be held as scheduled April 23-25. The live events in Las Vegas associated with the draft have been canceled, and it will be a TV-only event. The owners are not scheduled to consider any rule-change proposals Tuesday. Those discussions have been postponed until the owners’ meeting scheduled for May 18-20 in Marina del Rey, Calif. That’s when the owners would take a


The most counterintuitive prediction about world politics and the coronavirus

Ordinarily Someone with even a passing familiarity of these films, particularly since “Fast Five” (2011), knows that the characters keep stressing that whatever they confront is “the best of the best” or “mission freaking insanity.” Every challenge is “next level” or a “game-changer.” Increasingly, this is the kind of language that people are using to describe the coronavirus’s effect on world politics. The hard-working staff here at Spoiler Alerts has been paying close attention to how the Ideas Industry has attempted to process the effect of the coronavirus pandemic. There has been a lot of very good work written on the fly about possible shifts in global order or second-order effects that remain beyond the horizon. Already, there are meta-analyses of how this will affect the think-tank world. I do not necessarily disagree with much of this work. It is likely that there will be some knock-on geopolitical effects from the combination of a pandemic and the economic shock to the global economy. As an intellectual exercise, however, it is worth considering the counterintuitive claim: that after the pandemic has died down, nothing much will have changed. This is not to say that diseases play no role in international relations. That is flatly false. We know that a plague had transformational effects on Athens during the early years of the Peloponnesian War. The Black Death had significant effects on European history. Disease was one of the most powerful engines that facilitated colonization. There is nonetheless little discussion of how the 1918-1919 influenza epidemic affected great power politics in modern international relations discourse. The outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome in 2003 did not deter China’s rise in the international system. The 2009 H1N1 pandemic caused barely a ripple in international relations. Neither the 2014 nor the 2019 Ebola outbreaks in Africa affected great power politics. To be sure, all of these events had significant impacts on numerous people. After-action analyses changed aspects of global health governance for the better. Did any of the events listed in the paragraph above transform world politics? No, no, they did not. Will the novel coronavirus accelerate the end of globalization as we know it? It is certainly true that restrictions on migration might rise — but that was always the least globalized portion of the global economy. The lack of global governance certainly suggests more unilateral restrictions and efforts to diversify away from global


Passports, TSA PreCheck, Global Entry and Real ID: What you need to know

The coronavirus pandemic has disrupted much of the travel industry, but many government services are still available for travelers who need to renew documents or program memberships. The federal agencies in charge of passports and the Trusted Traveler programs are still processing first-time applications and renewals, with some alterations. Here is an update on the latest protocol and procedures. The State Department is accepting passport renewals, which do not require in-person interviews; you can mail in all of the required forms and payment. First-time applicants must appear in person at a passport acceptance facility, such as a public library or post office. Many of these businesses may be closed or not accepting passport applications to comply with a local ordinance, so call in advance. Do not disregard guidelines in your area by venturing outside: In most cases, dropping off a passport is not considered essential at this time. The agency warns that the processing time could be longer than the usual six to eight weeks. In addition, the department is suspending expedited service and closing more than 20 passport agencies around the country and Puerto Rico with one exception: Officials will still assist Americans with “mission-critical” activities. If you have an immediate emergency (within 72 hours), such as a serious illness or death, that requires travel abroad, you can make an appointment at a passport agency or center. Bring proof of the emergency, such as a note from the mortuary or physician, to the facility, along with your application, supporting documents and travel reservations. To make an appointment, call the National Passport Information Center at 877-487-2778 during weekdays from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Eastern time and on Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Call 202-647-4000 during nonbusiness hours. Applicants who requested expedited service on or before March 19 will still receive their book within two to three weeks. Travelers who applied in person at a passport facility on or before March 19 will be offered a choice of picking up their passport or having it sent by mail. “The processing of submitted enrollment applications has not been impacted by covid-19,” said Lisa Farbstein, a spokeswoman for the Transportation Security Administration. “For TSA PreCheck applicants, there is currently no delay in receiving a Known Traveler Number if an applicant is approved.” Many enrollment centers remain open, though they may have altered their hours. Be mindful that the centers are


How India plans to put 1.3 billion people on a coronavirus lockdown

As of March 24, India’s 1.3 billion people are in a three-week lockdown in response to the novel coronavirus pandemic. Prime Minister Narendra Modi gave citizens only a few hours’ warning before announcing: “Every state, every district, every lane, every village will be under lockdown.” India had already moved swiftly to restrict domestic and international air travel amid the outbreak of the virus that causes the disease covid-19. The government had suspended visas and quarantined passengers arriving from China, Italy, Iran, South Korea, France and Germany. Starting March 22, all international commercial flights were banned from landing in India until April 14. On the same day, all passenger trains, interstate buses and metro services were also suspended. Here’s what you need to know about India’s preparedness for weathering this pandemic, and the potential effects of the government lockdown. 1. What is India’s covid-19 situation? India had more than 1,000 coronavirus cases as of Sunday and 27 deaths. The government maintained for a long time that there was no evidence of community transmission in the country. But people without any travel history or close contact with infected persons have also tested positive, and on Sunday, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare acknowledged the likelihood of “limited community transmission.” These relatively low numbers mask larger concerns about testing levels. The government’s original strategy was to test only symptomatic travelers and symptomatic contacts of those confirmed to be infected. It has since broadened its testing strategy to also include symptomatic health-care workers, hospitalized patients with severe acute respiratory illness, and direct and high-risk contacts of confirmed patients. As of Friday, India had conducted only 27,688 tests. Government labs currently can process about 9,800 tests per day. And 29 private laboratories can also test for the novel coronavirus, for an additional capacity of up to 12,000 tests per day. Even with an adequate number of test kits, testing rate is low due to the limited number of laboratories that can process the results. Private laboratories are also allowed to charge up to $60 per test — even though 200 million women have been guaranteed just $7 a month under the government’s relief package. 2. How is India’s health infrastructure coping? The country’s public health infrastructure is overstretched, making it particularly challenging in the event of widespread community transmission. Official figures tell the story: 1 doctor per 11,600 people, 1 isolation bed per 84,000


The U.S. military’s role in the coronavirus response is likely to grow

Last week, President Trump activated the National Guards of California, New York and Washington in support of the novel coronavirus pandemic relief effort. Trump used the authority under Title 32, which means the federal government will pick up the bill while governors retain operational control. By March 26, governors from the other 47 states and three U.S. territories, as well as the mayor of the District of Columbia, had also called up National Guard members under their control using state funds, bringing the total of National Guard personnel involved in the response to nearly 12,000, in addition to thousands more active-duty personnel and reservists. These mobilizations prompted rumors and conspiracy theories. Some claimed the military was preparing to institute massive shelter-in-place quarantines and enforce curfews throughout the country. Others implied that the military was planning to institute martial law, where it would assume responsibility for governance in place of incapacitated civilian leaders. Both these scenarios are highly unlikely. But the U.S. military is likely to play a large supporting role in the pandemic response, just as it has during other domestic crises. Here’s how. The military’s role is likely to grow Secretary of Defense Mark T. Esper has stated that the Department of Defense wants “to be the last resort” in relief efforts amid the outbreak of the coronavirus that causes the disease covid-19. The 2018 National Defense Strategy — unlike previous defense guidance — contains no mention of the military’s role in pandemic response, instead prioritizing great power competition with China and Russia. This reluctance is understandable. The military is not a substitute for a public health infrastructure and cannot be expected to lead the charge against covid-19. Pulling active-duty assets and personnel away from their primary missions creates real costs in terms of training and military readiness. Speed and capacity It’s about manpower, organization and logistics The Defense Department will probably deploy medical assets such as field hospitals and mobile labs. And the USNS Comfort and Mercy hospital ships will add capacity to treat non-coronavirus patients in New York and Los Angeles, respectively. Military laboratories will also contribute to vaccine development, something they have excelled at throughout history. But the most substantial military contributions are likely to focus on what the military does better than civilian agencies, especially at a large scale: providing manpower, organization and logistics quickly. Large numbers of young, healthy military personnel can clean and


The Daily 202: Coronavirus model touted by White House assumes social distancing will stay in effect through May

Rio favela to take a crowded bus to the wealthy seaside district of Barra da Tijuca. But the family she serves there now frightens her. It’s the rich — those who can afford to travel or study abroad — who brought the novel coronavirus to Latin America. But it’s the poor, she believes, who will pay,” Terrence McCoy and Mary Beth Sheridan report. “Imported by the wealthy, the virus is now reaching into impoverished communities, at times through domestic employment, infecting people with fewer resources to combat the disease — with sometimes deadly results. Rio’s first death was a maid who is believed to have caught it from her employer.” We still don’t know which approach is more successful. “South Korea has won global praise for swiftly making coronavirus tests widely available and has already tested more than 394,000 people. It has found 9,583 infected people. Japan, a country whose population of about 127 million is more than twice that of South Korea, has conducted more than 48,000 tests on approximately 28,000 people and found 1,724 cases,” Simon Denyer and Carolyn Johnson report. “For weeks, Japan has been gripped with a debate. Is the country seeing fewer infections than South Korea simply because it is testing fewer people? Is the Japanese government marshaling its resources wisely, or burying its head in the sand?” “As always when it comes to its relations with the West, Moscow’s main currency is disinformation, and it spends lavishly. A European Union document, obtained by Reuters, finds that Russia’s state-controlled media has used the public health crisis to undertake an ambitious disinformation campaign in the West whose goal is to sow the seeds of panic and distrust,” the Post Editorial Board notes. ”The falsehoods, conveyed on Twitter and YouTube, among other platforms, blamed the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for concocting the virus, or said it was a bioweapon devised by the Pentagon. … Russia is not the only offender. The spokesman for China’s foreign ministry, Zhao Lijian, has cast doubt on the fact that the virus originated in the Chinese province of Wuhan, suggesting baselessly that it had been introduced there by the U.S. Army. … The [CDC], alarmed at the swirl of rumors, unfounded speculation and lies, has pleaded for the public not to share it. Unfortunately, Russia’s meddling in 2016 proved that America is fertile ground for such information wars.” Twitter has become


Trump moves the coronavirus goal posts, pre-spinning 100,000 deaths as ‘a very good job’

On Feb. 26, when there were 15 reported cases of the novel coronavirus in the United States, President Trump predicted the number of cases would soon be “down to close to zero.” On March 5, he hailed the fact that there were about 3,000 deaths worldwide but only 11 in the United States. On March 9, he noted that there were just 22 U.S. deaths and compared the virus to the seasonal flu, which has killed 37,000 people this year. On March 13, he said the 2009 swine flu had killed 14,000 people in the United States and called the Obama administration’s response to it “a disaster.” On Sunday night, the same president set the goal posts for his administration’s response to the coronavirus in a very different place. In a White House briefing in the Rose Garden, Trump referenced new data from his task force and said that between 100,000 and 200,000 deaths would represent a victory over the coronavirus. In doing so, Trump seemed to suddenly embrace coronavirus projections that he had previously shrugged off and downplayed. Rather than put an optimistic spin on what lies ahead, he instead sought to use the most dire projections to pre-spin his administration’s response as a success. As The Washington Post’s Philip Rucker reported, Trump pointed no fewer than 16 times to the most dire projections of 2 million or more U.S. deaths in the Sunday briefing. This was most prominently projected in an Imperial College London study that spurred a more aggressive response in the United States and Britain two weeks ago. “So you’re talking about 2.2 million deaths, 2.2 million people from this,” Trump said. “And so if we could hold that down, as we’re saying, to 100,000 — it’s a horrible number, maybe even less — but to 100,000. So we have between 100 and 200,000, and we altogether have done a very good job." Trump added, “But to point to up to 2.2 million deaths and maybe even beyond that, I’m feeling very good about what we did last week.” As The Post’s William Booth reported when the Imperial College London study came out, that 2.2 million figure was a worst-case scenario in which virtually no precautions were taken — and Trump, to his credit, acknowledged that at one point Sunday. The number was halved if the two countries were more aggressive: But it was significantly lower


The National Security Council sounded early alarms about the coronavirus

The covid-19 pandemic is first and foremost a public health crisis — but it is also a massive national security challenge. That aspect of the crisis is being managed by a leaner, quieter National Security Council staff that sounded early alarms about the danger — even as others played down the threat. The NSC’s behind-the-scenes role has been overlooked by critics narrowly focused on whether the folding into the NSC of a previously separate “pandemic office” resulted in what’s seen as the administration’s chaotic response. But the NSC was actually calling for more robust action and working to get more health officials involved. Throughout January and much of February, senior Trump administration officials heatedly debated the scope and scale of the coronavirus pandemic, which had emerged from China and was spreading around the world. New national security adviser Robert C. O’Brien and his deputy, Matthew Pottinger, were among those pushing early for strong action. Pottinger, who lived in China as a Wall Street Journal reporter during the SARS crisis, had witnessed how the Chinese government deals with internal crises and knew they were underplaying the problem. Before Vice President Pence took over the White House Coronavirus Task Force in late February, Pottinger led the interagency meetings to respond to covid-19. Fluent in Mandarin and intimately familiar with the Chinese government’s pattern of lying and obfuscation, he and O’Brien repeatedly pressed other top officials to take the threat more seriously. “The guy who was co-chairing most of the task force meetings before the vice president took over, reported on and lived through the SARS breakout in China,” a senior administration official told me. “Pottinger maintains significant contacts in the region that have proved very useful in providing context and information for us as we have been dealing with the crisis.” Some other top Trump administration officials at the time were not convinced. The NSC pushed hard to cut off travel from China, which was announced by the State Department on Jan. 31. Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff at the time, said in late February the media was exaggerating the threat in an effort to bring down President Trump. (Mulvaney was pushed out in early March.) Two officials told me that Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin also resisted calls from the NSC and the State Department for early moves that Trump now touts — including the travel bans from


The coronavirus crisis is stripping bare Europe’s deep fractures

enforcement authority. The disparities in Europe’s national emergency health-care capabilities mirror its economic inequalities: Germany has the most critical care beds among E.U. members; Portugal has the fewest. Though it has more than 62,000 reported cases, Germany has seen fewer deaths than others. The pandemic is both a health and an economic crisis, and on the economic front, European leaders have simply returned to their old and unresolved fights over shared debt. Northern European creditor countries show no interest in permanently underwriting the indebted southern members, where the crisis has been most dramatic. The E.U.’s two main sponsors, France and Germany, are deeply divided over this issue: Paris champions the weaker south while Germany, the champion of the well-to-do north, stands firm. Importantly, the E.U. has relaxed its debt and deficit rulebook a bit, but unless there is agreement to transfer massive amounts of cash to the neediest members, the E.U. will continue to politically and economically fracture along north-south lines. The E.U. has also returned to its unresolved differences over border control and migration. One of the most central tenets of the E.U., the free movement of people (as well as goods), has been already been irreparably harmed. Internal European borders were erected by several European countries during the 2015-2016 migration crisis. The pandemic will only cement this reality as countries impose new travel restrictions. The coronavirus will not cause the immediate downfall of the E.U., but it is leaving it a hollow shell. As one senior European official warns, without action, it could become “devastated and broken.” With borders again in place, future debt support unclear, and lack of tangible solidarity, the decades of European treaties, rules, directives and regulations now seem meaningless and limited as the region mobilizes against the coronavirus. Conducting business as usual will fail. Should the European ideal of solidarity and cohesion cease to have meaning for most of Europe’s citizens, it could also tragically begin to spell the end of the project itself. The E.U.’s accelerating decline means that one of the key pillars of the Western democratic world is shaking badly at a time when Russia and China are presenting competing visions of the future. A fragmented and disjointed Europe would be a disaster for not only European nations, but also for the United States and democracy globally. Read more: Henry Olsen: Coronavirus could damage the euro zone Carl Bildt: The coronavirus


Republicans were more concerned about Ebola than they’ve been about coronavirus. Here’s why.

science research has long shown that partisan messages have a big influence on public opinion. When party leaders take diverging positions on issues, the public usually follows their lead — especially on new and complex issues like the respective threats from Ebola and covid-19. Take the scientific issue of climate change, for example, where partisan elites’ influence over public opinion is particularly powerful. Public opinion about climate change shifts based on whether Democrats or Republicans in Congress are focusing more on the issue. Climate change opinions also polarized after the media began covering it as a partisan issue — with particularly pronounced polarization emerging between well-informed Democrats and Republicans who were seeing increasingly partisan messages about where their side stands. The same partisan polarization pattern has emerged with the coronavirus pandemic. A recent analysis of NPR-PBS NewsHour-Marist polls by The Washington Post’s Philip Bump showed that in February, Democrats and Republicans weren’t divided about the coronavirus. But after a month in which Trump told Americans that the coronavirus outbreak is under control, the share of Republicans who saw the virus as a real threat plummeted by mid-March. YouGov-Economist polls also show that partisan polarization over the coronavirus closely tracks the president’s rhetoric. In February, those polls found only modest differences between Democrats and Republicans in how concerned they were about an epidemic in the United States; by early March, that had expanded into a large partisan divide. But now that the president and Fox News shifted their tone last week about the pandemic’s seriousness, that gap is again starting to close. Those partisan patterns were even be found in Google search behavior. As I noted in an earlier TMC post, Republican areas of the countries were much less likely to Google “coronavirus” up until mid-March. Similarly, Google searches for “hand sanitizer” began to differ by political geography between March 1 and 12 — but disappeared again after Trump declared a national emergency over the coronavirus outbreak on March 13. Taken together, then, these results strongly suggest that the president’s rhetoric is a major reason so many Americans didn’t take the coronavirus threat seriously earlier. That’s reinforced by a long line of academic research on the power of partisan messages. At the same time, these findings suggest that Trump’s and other prominent Republicans’ renewed efforts to downplay the coronavirus threat will once again show up in some Americans’ opinions and behavior.


Instacart’s workers will strike for safety protections and hazard pay. A lifeline of groceries could be caught in the middle.

Gig workers for the grocery delivery app Instacart are planning an emergency strike starting Monday to protest the company’s lack of worker protection during the coronavirus pandemic, a move that is likely to cause waves in the already-disrupted grocery space. Instacart has become a lifeline for some consumers during the outbreak as more states order residents to shelter in-place. Gig workers “It’s so scary to be in a grocery store right now, and so scary to be around swarm and mobs of people,” she said. “I would convey to customers that we are also doing this out of interest in protecting them.” Instacart workers are asking for hand sanitizer and disinfectant, an additional $5 per order in hazard pay, as well as for the default tip to be set to 10 percent, rather than 5 percent. They are also seeking an indefinite extension of pay for workers impacted by covid-19, including “anyone who has a doctor’s note for either a preexisting condition that’s a known risk factor or requiring a self-quarantine.” The strike will continue until Instacart, which has raised $1.95 billion in venture capital, according to Pitchbook, agrees to the terms, according to a Medium post outlining their terms. Hours after news of the strike broke, the company published a Medium post announcing some small additional measures for workers, including additional bonuses for in-store shoppers, shift leads, and site managers, a small percentage of its 200,000-person workforce. Instacart also extended the 14-day benefit for those diagnosed or in quarantine by an additional 30 days. “Our goal is to offer a safe and flexible earnings opportunity to shoppers, while also proactively taking the appropriate precautionary measures to operate safely,” spokesperson Natalia Montalvo said in a statement. “They’re so tragically predictable,” said Bain. “Walk-off is still on, this addresses one of our four demands, and it’s the least meaningful, because workers can’t actually access the sick pay.” Instacart was already struggling to keep up with the surge in demand. The company said on Monday it was seeking to hire an additional 300,000 workers, who are not considered full-time employees. Amazon’s Prime Now also been experiencing disruptions. (The Washington Post is owned by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.) Earlier in March, before as many people were sheltering in place, Montalvo told The Post that growth has surged by 10 times in California and Washington and by 20 times in New York and that


Ask Amy: Covid-19 may reveal some basic blessings

harsh northern climate where I live, spring creeps up in agonizingly tiny steps. Yesterday, I saw the first signs of fiddlehead fern breaking through the forest floor. I am reminded that, despite everything, spring will come; I hope I am not forced to wave at it through the window. I reached out on social media, asking people to share stories about plans delayed or denied, and many people pointed toward our creativity and quirky humanity as a faint silver lining to burnish this seemingly dark time. Some examples: Faced with an empty facility, workers at the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago released the penguins to roam the halls — and filmed their adorable escapades, as they went on a “field trip” to meet other animals. Jarrett Krosoczka, author and illustrator of the wonderful graphic memoir “Hey, Kiddo” (2018, Graphix) is offering free daily online drawing tutorials for kids who are homebound (check his YouTube channel). For foster youth who have aged out of the foster-care system, their college campus might be their only home. The organization Together We Rise is helping to arrange and pay for housing (togetherwerise.org). Storytime from space has videos of in-orbit astronauts reading inspiring stories for children. From space! Check storytimefromspace.com for videos to share. And . . . many of us are learning to cut our own hair! Lisa wrote: “My husband works across the country and travels home on the weekends. We have been doing this for about eight months, with me staying behind until our boys finish their senior years — one in high school and one in university. He is now working from home until further notice. So now he is able to stay for an extended period of time. We have all missed each other so much and waking up with him home on Monday morning was our silver lining.” Diane wrote: “I think we’re going to find a lot of good comes from this. If it’s one thing I’ve learned in life — in a time of crisis, we come together.” Janet wrote: “Perhaps we can use this time to really take stock and realign our lives to make certain that we give the most time to that which is most valuable — our loved ones. Also, to focus on helping those who don’t have the safety net that we might be blessed with. It’s a tall order, but worth trying.”


Washington region’s coronavirus death toll hits 51, a record 16 fatalities reported in one day

“limiting non-essential visitors, deploying rigorous screening protocols to identify potential symptoms among residents and team members, restricting new resident move-ins, and shifting to individual resident engagement activities.” Added Kessler: “We have also ceased communal dining and are serving meals in each resident’s suite to promote social distancing.” Maryland’s weekend surge also was fueled by cases at an eldercare facility. The outbreak, at a facility in Carroll County, northwest of Baltimore, represented the county’s largest single-day increase, with 72 new cases, bringing its total to 82. The outbreak, announced by Hogan late Saturday, was at the Pleasant View Nursing Home. At least 66 residents are infected, he said. On Sunday afternoon, county health officials announced that one of the infected patients, a 90-year-old man, died late Saturday. “This is extremely serious because of the vulnerable nature of the residents,” county Health Officer Ed Singer said. “We have 66 people with underlying medical conditions who are infected with this virus.” Pleasant View, located in Mount Airy, is struggling to maintain its staff, Singer added. Some employees have called in sick, while others are being isolated after coming into contact with patients. To help, the county has contacted temp agencies and put out a call for volunteers. “They’re under a lot of stress right now,” Singer said, urging members of the public not to call the nursing home unless necessary. A majority of the infected patients are still at the nursing home and will not be moved unless they require a higher level of medical care. As of Sunday, all residents have had their samples collected for testing, said Maggie Kunz, spokeswoman for the Carroll County Health Department. Slightly under a dozen individuals have tested negative, and a few more were awaiting test results. Residents who have tested negative are being cared for in a separate area and starting this weekend, all employees are fully equipped with protective equipment, including face masks and gowns, Kunz said. It is not immediately clear how the virus entered the facility. Pleasant View has restricted access to its campus to essential visitors and staff since March 10, Kunz said. During a site inspection last week, Carroll County health officials said the facility appeared to be following all the necessary guidelines for senior-living facilities. “Everyone’s trying their best to fix this,” Kunz said. At Liberty University, a recent graduate taking online classes who lives off-campus tested positive for


Zoos worldwide debut unbearably cute babies

The Philadelphia Zoo had a big reveal last week. Its baby sloth bear ventured outside for the first time. Social media followers could watch as the 3-month-old, the first healthy cub at the zoo in 23 years, ambled around its log-filled yard with mom Kayla. Zoos around the world have had similar moments in the past month with monkeys, an elephant, a Bengal tiger and three litters of polar bears. As most zoos are closed because of the coronavirus outbreak, we thought readers might enjoy a peek at these little fuzzballs. We hope the photos make the wait until zoos reopen a bit more bearable. kidspost@washpost.com


Coronavirus collides with Latin America’s maid culture — with sometimes deadly results

analysts expect the region’s everyday structural inequities to accelerate the spread of covid-19, the disease the virus causes. Imported by the wealthy, the virus is now reaching into impoverished communities, at times through domestic employment, infecting people with fewer resources to combat the disease — with sometimes deadly results. Rio’s first death was a maid who is believed to have caught it from her employer. “You have a clear division in terms of class,” said Joaze Bernardino-Costa, a sociologist at the University of Brasilia. “It was not a disease that was spread by the poor, but now it is spreading through the whole population.” In Mexico, some of the first clusters involved people returning from ski trips in Vail, Colo., which has grown into what the Jalisco state governor described as “our main front” in combating the disease. In the Dominican Republic, a posh wedding in the resort town of Cap Cana — at which guests poked fun at the disease with fake nursing outfits — became a contamination cluster. In Brazil, with more than 3,900 confirmed cases, the most in Latin America by far, the virus came from Europe and is now tracking more broadly into society. One wealthy woman who contracted the coronavirus in Italy is believed to have infected her 63-year-old domestic employee, Cleonice Gonçalves. Gonçalves died at a small hospital in her hometown of Miguel Pereira, a remote mountain village a two-hour drive from the tony community where she worked. Her family blames the boss, who they say withheld information of her illness. “She died because of her boss’s lack of empathy,” sister-in-law Ana Maria Trotta Gonçalves wrote on Facebook. “Unforgivable, this attitude.” The employer has not been named or spoken publicly. Analysts say Latin America’s mutually dependent culture of domestic employment could become an impediment to stopping the spread of the virus. The poor rely on the wealthy for income. The wealthy depend on the poor for cleaning and cooking. In a region where 8 percent of women are domestic employees — the highest rate in the developing world — no one knows how long social distancing and isolation can last. “We don’t know how this movie will play out,” said Luis Alvarez, head of a civic group called “Hola Vecino” — Hello Neighbor — in San Pedro Garza Garcia, perhaps Mexico’s richest town. Many homeowners, he said, “are people who don’t know how to


How the Tokyo Olympics delay complicates USA Basketball’s Dream Team plans

This story has been updated. Rarely has a gold medal felt as trivial as it did this week, when the International Olympic Committee announced that the 2020 Tokyo Games would be postponed because of the novel coronavirus. For USA Basketball, there was plenty at stake this summer. The program’s chase for a fourth straight Olympic gold. A revenge tour following a dismal seventh-place finish at the 2019 FIBA World Cup in China. A triumphant send-off for Gregg Popovich, the legendary coach seeking a career-capping gold medal. The possibility of a fourth Olympic appearance for LeBron James, basketball’s biggest superstar, and an Olympic debut for Stephen Curry. Like everything else these days, those story lines will have to wait. “USA Basketball is in full agreement and support of the decision … to postpone,” American basketball’s governing body said in a statement Tuesday. “ … The health, wellness and safety of the world, as well as our athletes, coaches, staff and fans is USA Basketball’s No. 1 priority and this postponement was necessary to ensure that. As further details become known, USA Basketball will work toward fielding and best preparing its Olympic basketball teams for 2021.” The process of constructing a roster isn’t top of mind right now, with the NBA’s season suspended and the coronavirus’s death toll climbing. But the one-year delay will have major roster implications, at minimum, and it could create a direct schedule conflict if the NBA resumes play this summer. Two pieces that won’t change: Managing Director Jerry Colangelo and Popovich, who both recommitted this week. The good news: Colangelo, who has headed USAB since 2005, need not worry about the impact of aging or retirements, and the one-year delay could buy him some time with notable names who dealt with injury issues this season. James, who will be 36 next summer, is easily the oldest serious candidate in the player pool. He remains one of the NBA’s top talents and is under contract with the Los Angeles Lakers through the 2021-22 season. The rule that would have applied this summer still will apply next summer: If James wants to play, a spot will be waiting. Kevin Durant was weighing the possibility of playing in Tokyo, his business partner, Rich Kleiman, told The Washington Post last month, but he would have been just 13 months out from tearing his Achilles’ tendon. Rather than working his way back


As coronavirus cases explode in Iran, U.S. sanctions hinder its access to drugs and medical equipment

ISTANBUL — Sweeping U.S. sanctions are hampering Iranian efforts to import medicine and other medical supplies to confront one of the largest coronavirus outbreaks in the world, health workers and sanctions experts say. The broad U.S. restrictions on Iran’s banking system and the embargo on its oil exports have limited Tehran’s ability to finance and purchase essential items from abroad, including drugs as well as the raw materials and equipment needed to manufacture medicines domestically. The Trump administration has also reduced the number of licenses it grants to companies for certain medical exports to Iran, according to quarterly reports from a U.S. Treasury Department enforcement agency. The list of items requiring special authorization includes oxygen generators, full-face respirator masks and thermal imaging equipment, all of which are needed to treat patients and keep medical workers safe, doctors say. The tough measures are part of a U.S. “maximum pressure campaign” against Iran, adopted by the Trump administration after it unilaterally withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal Iran had signed with world powers. Iranian medical workers and global public health experts say it is not possible to determine exactly how much U.S. sanctions have affected Iran’s capacity to fight a virus that by official counts has infected more than 35,000 Iranians and killed at least 2,500 — some estimates put the toll far higher — while spawning outbreaks in other countries. But they say it is clear that the Iranian health-care system is being deprived of equipment necessary to save lives and prevent wider infection. “There are a lot of shortages now. . . . [Hospitals] do not have enough diagnostic kits or good quality scanners, and there is also a shortage of masks,” said Nouradin Pirmoazen, a thoracic surgeon and former lawmaker in Iran. Pirmoazen, who now lives in Los Angeles, said that he is in regular contact with former colleagues and students at the Masih Daneshvari Hospital in Tehran, which is part of Iran’s National Research Institute of Tuberculosis and Lung Diseases. “Medical staff who want a specific type of medicine or equipment are having difficulty transferring money outside of Iran due to the sanctions,” he said, adding that doctors and nurses at Masih Daneshvari have been overwhelmed by the crisis. An employee of a major pharmaceutical company in Iran who spoke on the condition of anonymity said that “the sanctions have definitely made the import and production processes longer


sales of oil on the global market, removing restrictions on its banking, insurance and shipbuilding sectors, and expanding permitted exports. The Trump administration, like its predecessors, has technically maintained an exemption from sanctions on the sale of humanitarian items to Iran. The Treasury Department recently approved a Swiss-sponsored mechanism allowing for the trade of food, medicine and other supplies with Tehran, without triggering U.S. sanctions. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo touted the move at a March 20 news conference. “The whole world should know that humanitarian assistance to Iran is wide open. It’s not sanctioned,” he said. “We’re doing everything we can to facilitate both the humanitarian assistance moving in and to make sure the financial transactions connected to that can take place as well.” In practice, however, the U.S. restrictions — including penalties for conducting business with a range of Iranian banks and companies, including the Central Bank of Iran — have discouraged Western counterparts from trading with Tehran. To use the Swiss humanitarian channel, for example, companies must provide extensive information to the Treasury Department every month about the Iranian beneficiaries of the goods. The documents must include, among other things, the Iranian companies’ business relationships, financial details and a written commitment from distributors that they will not allow the goods to be sold or resold to Iranian individuals or entities under sanction. European officials have likened the reporting requirements “to a ‘fishing expedition’ for information about the commercial relationships with European and Iranian firms,” Batmanghelidj said. According to Mohsen Zarkesh, an OFAC sanctions attorney at the Price Benowitz law firm in Washington, the sanctions exemptions don’t guarantee an unimpeded flow of humanitarian goods to Iran. He said that the United States has created “a legal and business environment equivalent to walking through a compliance mine field.” “My experience shows that as the compliance burden of exports to Iran increases . . . companies of all sizes abstain from engaging in any form of trade with Iran,” Zarkesh said. The U.S. embargo on Iran’s oil exports has also cut off a key source of foreign currency, which the government needs to pay for imports. Pharmaceutical companies in Iran say the government has limited the foreign currency made available to purchase foreign drugs and to obtain materials required by Iran’s robust manufacturing industry to produce medicine. The bottlenecks created by the sanctions have contributed to recent shortages of certain


The U.S. faces two disastrous scenarios. There’s a third option.

Tim Searchinger is a research scholar at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public & International Affairs at Princeton University. Anthony LaMantia is a professor at Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine and Virginia Tech University. Gordon Douglas is professor emeritus of medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College. The United States now likely confronts two disastrous and unsustainable scenarios. One is to keep the country in severe isolation for the next year or more until a coronavirus vaccine can be developed. The other is to return to occasional periods of something like normal life, to be followed by intermittent isolations to knock back new outbreaks. Under either option, the suppression of spending will plunge the economy into a deep recession, and even directly ordered business closures will mean tens of millions unemployed. Even with intermittent isolation, hospitals would likely be overwhelmed and many people would die. It is also difficult to imagine how either scenario can be sustained, particularly because the strongest benefit of social distancing comes from reducing fatalities for the elderly and the less healthy. Those young and healthier facing financial catastrophe will face overwhelming pressures to return to work, to reopen their businesses and to push government to relax restrictions. So, what’s the alternative, beyond discovery of a successful drug cocktail that would take the pressure off hospitals? We suggest a strategy of massive testing that goes far beyond the group currently being tested — those most likely infected. Instead, we need to test as many people as possible. If we know who is infected, who is not and who has recovered, we could greatly relax social isolation requirements and send both the uninfected and the recovered back to work. Although our health-care system is now struggling to produce enough tests even for those who are likely infected, we recommend a massive mobilization that would allow hundreds of millions to be tested. There are two types of tests, and expanding both would be necessary. The polymerase chain reaction, or PCR, test now in use identifies the genetic signature of the live virus and can identify those very recently infected. It requires someone to take swabs and package them, use of a PCR machine and trained professionals to run those machines. The second type of test, a serology test, looks for antibodies or other proteins in the blood formed by the immune reaction to infection. These tests, still in


First U.S. death confirmed; travel restrictions announced affecting Iran, Italy and South Korea in response to coronavirus

The Trump administration Saturday announced additional travel restrictions affecting Iran, Italy and South Korea in response to the coronavirus outbreak following the first death from the virus in the United States. Vice President Pence said the existing travel ban on Iran would extend to foreign nationals who had been in that country the past 14 days. The State Department also is increasing its warning advising Americans not to travel to parts of Italy and South Korea affected by the virus. Right before the White House’s news conference, health officials in Washington state confirmed a person diagnosed with coronavirus in King County has died. President Trump described the patient as a “wonderful woman” and a “medically high-risk patient” in her late 50s, at the news conference. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention later said it had mistakenly described the patient’s gender in a briefing to Trump and Vice President Pence, and local health officials clarified the deceased was a man with underlying conditions. More coronavirus infections were reported from South Korea to France to Qatar on Saturday as health officials in Washington state, Oregon and California reported another worrying development: new cases among people who have not traveled recently to countries hit hard by the outbreak or come into contact with anyone known to have the disease, which public health officials refer to as community transmission. Washington state on Saturday announced three new cases of the virus — including the person who died — with circumstances that suggest person-to-person spread in the community. The other patients were a health-care worker at a long-term nursing facility and a female resident in her 70s from the same center. California has reported three cases of community transmission, two of which are in Santa Clara County and one of which is in Solano County. Illinois reported a third case Saturday but did not say how the person may have gotten the virus. Here are the latest developments: Mapping the spread of the coronavirus


The world’s indigenous peoples, with tragic history of disease, implore outsiders to keep coronavirus away

From the Canadian Arctic to the Brazilian Amazon to the Australian coast, indigenous groups are racing to protect themselves from a familiar foe that has historically threatened their very existence: the rapid spread of foreign infectious disease. Fifteenth-century Europeans introduced smallpox and other diseases to the New World, decimating upward of 80 percent of the indigenous population. The 1918 flu pandemic wiped out entire villages. Now, as the novel coronavirus advances, indigenous groups are locking down and imploring outsiders to stay away. The pandemic is exacerbating deep-seated health and socioeconomic inequities throughout the world. Analysts say that makes indigenous peoples particularly vulnerable. In many communities, key services such as water and housing are chronically underfunded. Many are remote, leaving residents no choice but to travel long distances to access anything beyond basic health-care services. And indigenous peoples may suffer from higher rates of chronic illnesses, underlying conditions that can put them at greater risk of severe complications from covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. “You combine all these factors together and what you see is a perfect storm of risks,” said Jeff Reading, a health sciences professor at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, B.C. “If the virus gets into a community . . . it will spread like wildfire.” Anna Banerji, director of global and indigenous health at the University of Toronto’s medical school, said the coronavirus is particularly dangerous for tribal elders, who occupy a special place in their communities as knowledge keepers and language holders. “To lose, potentially, some elders or many elders all at once could be really devastating,” she said. Here’s how some indigenous communities are preparing. The checkpoint went up in the Cree community of Waswanipi in central Quebec earlier this month. Michel Awashish was in charge — and what he saw troubled him. Too many people were traveling to and from Montreal and Ottawa, where cases of the coronavirus were ticking up. As the coronavirus spread quickly through Quebec, it inched closer to Waswanipi. So it sealed itself off to nonresidents. Returning residents must self-isolate for 14 days. “We’re taking it very seriously,” Awashish said. More stringent measures, such as banning travel outside Waswanipi, are possible, he said. But the town’s grocery store sells only basic items, so its 2,000 residents often need to travel to a larger market in Chibougamau, about an hour away. Indigenous people made up a disproportionate number of


Facing coronavirus travel bans, the Mormon church has chartered jets to bring thousands of missionaries home

place long enough, you find a love for the people,” Andrewsen said. “And even though you don’t want to leave and a part of you just wants to stay, there’s not really anything you can do about it.” Avery Barnes, 20, took time off from her Spanish studies at Brigham Young University to move to Italy as a missionary in early 2019. By February of this year, as the coronavirus outbreak spread rapidly across Europe, Barnes understood the situation in Italy was getting worse. She saw local headlines and learned that entire communities were going into lockdown. But she had software installed on her phone that prevented her from checking certain sites and had also been transferred earlier this year to Malta, where life was continuing more normally than in Italy. But earlier this month, as President Trump announced new rules governing travel from Europe, she was sent home to Los Angeles via London. It wasn’t until she reached home, she said, that she was “really able to compare [the situation in Italy] with the rest of the world.” On her long flight home, she said, she mourned her service coming to an end. She had pictured a different homecoming. As is tradition for many returning missionaries, she would have addressed her congregation on one of her first Sundays back, sharing lessons she had learned abroad. Friends from high school and family members would have gathered to hear her speak. But with her congregation now closed for in-person services, Barnes doesn’t know when she’ll have the chance to make those remarks. “It’s a very small thing, but it’s something that makes it feel like I just reverted back to normal life and I don’t get to have a lot of closure,” she said. Instead, back in L.A., where residents have been ordered to stay home, Barnes is passing the time by helping out with her younger brother’s remote learning. She hopes to eventually find tutoring work and return to campus in Utah next fall. But with so much about the future uncertain, she said, even some of those plans feel “more just like dreams at the moment.” Read more: Coronavirus on the border: Why Mexico has so few cases compared to the U.S. Under coronavirus immigration measures, U.S. is expelling border-crossers to Mexico in an average of 96 minutes Van Gogh painting stolen from Dutch museum closed because of coronavirus


Your hospital shift is done. You ditch your contaminated scrubs on your porch.

to roll them down from the waist after untying the knot in the front, attempting not to touch the outside of the pants as they roll off your legs. This is tricky, and you have definitely keeled over before, attempting to do this awkward maneuver after working all night. You have left a towel on the porch, and you unfold it now and drop the pants right into the center of it. It will eventually serve as your DIY biohazard bag when you are ready to bring everything inside. Your shirt is next, and you attempt the same move you did with the pants: rolling up from the waist, trying to slip your head and arms out of the holes without touching the outside too much. There is no evidence that you can catch the virus from breathing in particles that pass over your mouth from a shirt that may be a fomite, but you hold your breath anyway as you pull the shirt past your face. There is no evidence. But there is never any evidence when a disease is so new. “No evidence” doesn’t ease the gnawing anxiety about the statistics from Lombardy, in northern Italy, where 20 percent of health-care workers got sick with the virus. It’s better to be safe. So the shirt gets dropped on top of the pants in the middle of the towel. Now you are standing in your underwear and socks on your porch in the bitterly cold morning air. You are praying that none of your neighbors are watching this. You quickly grab your phone, which you have kept in a Ziploc bag during your shift and bleach-wiped about 25 times through the course of the night. You text your partner, “Conning in. Pleae keep rhe kids aqway. Will showee first.” You know he’ll understand. Now you wait. This part is brutal. You kick yourself for not doing this before you started disrobing. Somehow, you always forget. You jump up and down a little, trying to generate some heat. Are the neighbors watching? Is this somehow going to wind up on the Internet? Oh God. Finally, your partner texts you back a thumbs-up emoji, and you rip off your socks and throw them onto the towel as well. You carefully fold up the corners of your towel-bag like some perfectly wrapped parcel from hell, grab your jacket and unlock the door.


The World Bank’s 2017 pandemic response fund isn’t working

How do the world’s poorest nations tackle a global health crisis like the current novel coronavirus outbreak? After the 2014 Ebola epidemic in West Africa, the World Bank launched the Pandemic Emergency Financing Facility (PEF) — an insurance-based mechanism to raise money for pandemic responses in low-income countries through “catastrophe bonds” and derivatives. The coronavirus pandemic is exactly the situation for which the PEF was designed. Most of the PEF-eligible countries are reporting cases of covid-19 (the disease caused by this coronavirus) and urgently require billions of dollars to scale up their public health response. So far, the PEF has yet to pay out a single dollar. Here’s what happened and why. The PEF should have helped poor countries fight the coronavirus According to the World Bank, the PEF was “designed to provide surge financing to the world’s poorest countries. … It will make payouts early during an outbreak cycle — before it becomes a pandemic.” The new program promised to blend the best of the public and private sector, “helping to keep 1.6 billion people safe” while “transferring the [financial] risk [from governments] to international markets.” But, as the Wall Street Journal has reported, that’s not how it worked out. Because of its complicated set of triggers, the PEF may not pay out funds to countries until May 15, well after the March pandemic declaration. With coronavirus cases increasing at an exponential rate, these delays cost lives. Moreover, once triggered, the PEF will only release $132.5 million, instead of the maximum possible payout of $275 million. Media outlets and experts are decrying the PEF as a failure for its (non)performance during the 2018 Ebola epidemic in Congo, and now the covid-19 outbreak. So why hasn’t the PEF worked? Social science can help explain: The PEF tried to bring the public and private sectors together, but the two sectors have different priorities, different rules and different incentive structures. Bodies of research (including my own work) document how hard it is to develop mechanisms that bridge these needs at the same time. The PEF’s incentives didn’t work For the PEF to work, it must do two things: attract investors to purchase the bonds and deliver money to low-income countries in the event of a pandemic. But those two imperatives pull in different directions. For one thing, there is an obvious conflict of interests. As former World Bank economist Olga Jonas writes,


Here’s the big problem: Because the cash window was depleted to pay for the Congo’s Ebola response (which did not trigger the investment window) and hasn’t yet been replenished, any payout for the coronavirus outbreak has to come from the investment window. In formulating the PEF payout triggers, World Bank and WHO experts had to make their best guess about what a future pandemic would look like. Looking back, they were haunted by the fear of something like the 1918 flu pandemic, a highly contagious, highly virulent novel respiratory virus that killed from 50 million to 100 million people worldwide. In comparison, recent coronavirus epidemics — severe acute respiratory syndrome and Middle East respiratory syndrome (SARS and MERS) — were of much smaller scope. So the PEF designers set a big payout for a flu pandemic — up to $275 million, to be released in a single payment, with money allocated to countries depending on their population size. For a coronavirus outbreak, the terms were more moderate — layered payments capped at $195.8 million, with money allocated to countries partly based on how many cases they report. And this effectively tied the PEF’s utility to stringent conditions based on imperfect predictions. Covid-19 is exactly the kind of pandemic that PEF designers feared and tried to plan for, except for one key detail. There is a highly contagious, virulent novel respiratory virus racing around the globe, but it happens to be a coronavirus instead of an influenza virus. Thus, because of the way that the rules were set, a lot of the PEF’s money will go back to investors rather than to the countries that desperately need it. And because the amount of money countries receive depend on the number of cases they report (rather than just their population), the PEF puts extra onus on countries to test widely to get the funding they need — something even high-income countries are struggling to do. Private sector solutions don’t always fit public sector problems In April 2019, Larry Summers, former World Bank chief economist and U.S. treasury secretary, described the PEF as “an embarrassing mistake” and “financial goofiness,” saying governments and the World Bank embraced a poorly designed program because they “loved” the idea of private sector involvement. Social scientists show that the World Bank’s approach is not a one-off mistake, but reflects a pervasive phenomenon in governance — efforts to apply


If we want to stop covid-19, we can’t forget the incarcerated

New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo (D) has received praise for his handling of covid-19 from most corners, but over the past two weeks, he has endured criticism for failing to adequately address the public health danger facing the state’s incarcerated population. While Cuomo announced Friday he would order that more than 1,000 low-level parole violators be let out of jails as a means of alleviating the threat of the novel coronavirus, many argue that further action is necessary. Across the country, as officials face news of the first death of a federal inmate from covid-19 and grapple with how far to go to decrease prison and jail populations via tactics such as home confinement and compassionate release, they might find inspiration for action in a lawsuit filed against Cuomo’s father 30 years ago. In 1990, a group of HIV-positive people incarcerated in New York sued state officials, including then-Gov. Mario Cuomo. Some said they were denied access to physicians, necessary prescription medications and adequate food. One, whose condition left him weakened and with no control over his bowels and bladder, reported that he was “frequently left to lie in his own urine and feces.” Covid-19, the disease the coronavirus causes, differs in many ways from HIV/AIDS, but the 1990 lawsuit underscores important realities about the disproportionate impact of disease outbreaks on incarcerated people, who lack control over their living conditions and have limited access to often substandard medical care. The suit should remind officials that while people in prisons may be some of the least visible among the millions facing the global pandemic, they are, quite literally, at the mercy of the government. And they and their advocates are entitled to use the legal system to ensure the protection of their rights and their lives. The 1990 New York lawsuit was hardly an anomaly. It came after a decade when President Ronald Reagan answered the HIV/AIDS crisis mainly with silence, endangering hundreds of thousands of lives while leaving state and local governments to fend for themselves. Mario Cuomo was more proactive than many fellow governors Between 1980 and 1990, when the general prison population doubled from about 300,000 to more than 600,000, and misconceptions were prevalent about how HIV/AIDS was transmitted, many state corrections systems segregated people with AIDS from the general prison population, restricted them from participating in educational and work programs and failed to protect them from


Bolsonaro y AMLO, ¿irresponsables frente al coronavirus? Y el pueblito italiano sin contagiados

Participan la analista política mexicana Denise Dresser, y los periodistas Roberto Maltchik del diario O Globo y Marcello Campo de la agencia ANSA.


The pandemic is about to devastate the developing world

Covid-19 is about to overload health-care systems in Italy, France, Spain, Britain and the United States. But what if you don’t have a health-care system to overload? Liberia, in West Africa, has a population equivalent to Louisiana. But according to one expert, there are just three ventilators for the entire country. Beyond the lucky three who get them, all Liberian coronavirus patients who need a ventilator to live will die. In the coming months, the coronavirus death tolls will be horrific. Yet, astonishing as it may seem to all of us living in lockdown, we are the lucky ones. In rich countries, it is likely that hundreds of thousands, if not millions, will die in the coming months. But if past pandemics are any guide, those numbers are likely to be a small fraction of the body count in the poorest parts of the globe. Every public health problem that we face will be far worse in the developing world. In the 1918 flu pandemic, somewhere between 25 million and 100 million people died. Roughly 12 million of those deaths came from India alone. The Gold Coast (modern Ghana) had a population of roughly 2 million at the time; 100,000 people — 5 percent of the entire population — perished. Unfortunately, similar patterns are likely to play out again, particularly in poor, urban slums. The United States has roughly one intensive care bed for every 2,800 people. In Uganda, it’s close to one ICU bed for every million people. In Dharavi, the largest slum in Mumbai, the population density is roughly 850,000 people per square mile. Take Manhattan and replace every person with 13 people and you’ve got Dharavi. But there’s no world-class hospital ship on the way if a New York City-style outbreak strikes in Mumbai, as now seems inevitable. As Phil Boyle, the British ambassador to Madagascar, explained to me: “Coronavirus challenges in developed countries are immensely greater in the poorest, such as Madagascar.” The island, he told me, has minimal health infrastructure. There are 10 doctors per 100,000 people. (The number is 295 in the United States.) “Families, schools and even some hospitals do not have access to water,” he said. “Hand sanitizer is the equivalent of a day’s salary for most. If developed countries don’t step up, the humanitarian consequences could be considerable.” Those consequences will be magnified because developing countries simply don’t have the government


The costs of the coronavirus pandemic: economic, scholastic and cultural

of value on more than 120 agricultural products — wine and cheese foremost — from European countries in an effort to force an end to European subsidies to Airbus. The tariffs took effect two weeks after their announcement, giving us no time to change strategy. Going into the critical last months of the year, my company held its prices steady and took the financial hit. Now the coronavirus pandemic has come. Business has all but stopped. The government is proposing an enormous aid package. At a time when my business partner and I are forgoing pay in an effort to keep our 12 employees intact, this is really welcome. But we have three 40-foot containers of wine on ships heading to the United States. The tariff cost will be $63,000 to clear the goods out of port. So we may well find ourselves in the absurd position of taking governmental assistance to pay the government its tariffs. Want to help us keep our people employed? Lift the tariffs. By the way, the U.S. wine industry would welcome that, too. Roy Cloud Regarding the March 27 My wife and I have a granddaughter in Texas who has been trying to apply for unemployment benefits since her place of employment closed because of the “separation” policy to try to stop the coronavirus pandemic. So far, she has failed because the Texas computer site crashes, or it will not accept her application because too many people are applying at the same time. I suspect the “true” number of people who tried to apply but failed is at least another 3 million nationwide. Even with the economic rescue legislation, it is unlikely that the needed assistance it authorizes can reach our granddaughter soon enough. Her landlord has agreed not to collect rent for two months, but then it is homelessness for her and our 5-year-old great-granddaughter. We are in Virginia and cannot render assistance to her. What is the administration going to do to speed assistance to workers such as her facing imminent crisis? I have grave doubts that the president and his staff are up to the task. Thomas Stangl More damage is being done Because of the absence of a comprehensive, effective and practiced emergency preparedness plan on the federal and state levels, this epidemic is probably going to kill more Americans than have died in combat since the Korean War. Even


As virus spikes among ultra-Orthodox, Israel deploys security forces to make them stay home

JERUSALEM — Israeli police are cracking down on ultra-Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods around the country, which have emerged as coronavirus hot spots as residents continue to ignore stay-at-home orders and bans on gatherings meant to stem the epidemic. Authorities have carried out raids on synagogues and deployed helicopters, which hover over streets filled with black-clad religious students, after these crowded, insular communities recorded some of Israel’s highest rates of infection. As police have pushed into some of these neighborhoods, violence has broken out. Young ultra-Orthodox men threw rocks at police in Jerusalem’s Mea Shearim neighborhood Monday after officers broke up a gathering at a synagogue and cited residents for straying more than 100 meters from their homes. Thirty residents were fined up to $1,400 for violating health restrictions, and the army sent patrols into the neighborhood Tuesday. Officials are now considering locking down entire ultra-Orthodox areas. Health Minister Yaakov Litzman, himself an ultra-Orthodox rabbi who had been criticized earlier for not clamping down more vigorously, called for police to control access to the city of Bnei Barak after an ultra-Orthodox funeral there drew hundreds of mourners in defiance of police. “There is no public that is exempt from the regulations, and there is no population that can stand aside and not participate in the law,” Litzman said in an interview with the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper. Government officials say most members of the ultra-Orthodox, or Haredi, communities complied with restrictions when they were imposed nationwide more two weeks ago. But some sects have flouted these rules, in Israel as well as in sections of New York, New Jersey and London, as urgent public health messages have failed to penetrate a population isolated by cultural, religious and language barriers. Some Haredi sects lead lives tailor-made to facilitate the spread of a new pathogen, health officials said. The ultra-Orthodox routinely have large families packed into small apartments and interact constantly with others at religious schools, synagogues and ritual baths. Many eschew smartphones, ignore mass media and distrust government authority. “You cannot stop, you cannot even regulate, the spread of the infection inside a family of 10 or 12 in crowded into an apartment of two bedrooms,” said Moti Ravid, medical director of the Maynei Hayeshua Medical Center in Bnei Barak. He expects contagion among the ultra-Orthodox to outpace the 40 percent rate of infection that occurred inside families in Chinese cities. “We will see


Coronavirus pandemic could kill as many as 200,000 in U.S., White House warns

8.6 million residents could eventually contract coronavirus, though he said the vast majority of the cases will result in mild symptoms. Standing in front of the hulking white ship, de Blasio warned that the Comfort’s 1,000 hospital beds represent just a fraction of the city’s medical needs — which he said could reach three times the current 20,000 beds in the city. The New York National Guard deployed a fatality search-and-recovery team to work with the city’s medical examiner to help handle those killed by the virus, authorities said. “With what we know now, we may have to add 40 USS Comforts, as amazing as that sounds,” de Blasio said. Cuomo said the state has had trouble acquiring needed medical equipment, especially ventilators, which he said have become far more expensive as hospitals across the country compete to buy them. He urged the nation to look at his state as a glimpse into their future. “Tomorrow,” Cuomo said, “it’s going to be somewhere else.” The crisis also continued to reverberate globally. Italy, which has recorded the most fatalities of any country thus far, reported more than 800 deaths, bringing its total to more than 11,500, officials said Monday. But Angelo Borrelli, who is leading Italy’s coronavirus response, told reporters that Italy had determined that an additional 1,590 had recovered from the virus, the highest number of recoveries since the first case was recorded in February. The health ministry of Iran, another country struggling with the virus, said that its virus-related death roll had reached more than 2,700, as state media reported unrest inside several of the country’s prisons. Michael Ryan, executive director of the World Health Organization’s Emergencies Program, said at a news conference that the new covid-19 cases now being recorded probably were the result of exposures two to three weeks ago — meaning there will be a lag in how officials can assess the impact of social distancing and other measures. He said officials are hopeful that some of the countries hit hardest, particularly Spain and Italy, are nearly to the point of stabilizing. But even after that, he said, there is much to do. “The question is, how do you go down?” Ryan said. “And going down isn’t just about a lockdown and let go. To get down from the numbers, not just stabilize, requires a redoubling of public health efforts to push down.” matt.zapotosky@washpost.com john.wagner@washpost.com marisa.iati@washpost.com


As the coronavirus threatens Mexico’s economy, its president antagonizes investors

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has become an international symbol of ridicule in the middle of the pandemic. As he continues to flaunt his disregard for prudence — just this weekend he visited and shook hands with the elderly mother of convicted drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán — the number of cases of the novel coronavirus has kept rising in Mexico. The government mulishly delayed the adoption of social distancing and other measures, and now the country is ill-prepared for what comes next, scrambling to persuade citizens to stay indoors. It wouldn’t take a worst-case scenario to overstretch Mexico’s limited health-care resources. Mexico has twice the population of Italy but only slightly more than half the hospital beds. It lacks enough intensive-care units, respirators or even properly trained professionals for a severe outbreak of any illness, let alone the aggressive covid-19. Even if the government manages to somehow contain infection to only 20 percent of the population, half a million Mexicans could die in the next 18 months. And yet, this astounding human cost could be just the beginning of Mexico’s tortuous experience with the pandemic. The country’s economy relies on oil, remittances and tourism. Oil and tourism are already showing dramatic declines, and we can expect remittances from the United States to follow. In a conservative scenario, the country’s tourism industry could lose more than $2 billion over the coming months. The price of Mexico’s oil has plummeted. Some analysts suggest the country’s economy could shrink between 4 percent and 5 percent in 2020. One would think that, in such a dismal economic climate, Mexico’s government would work overtime to fortify the country’s standing with jittery investors. The exact opposite has happened. At the beginning of his presidency, López Obrador supported an illegitimate, unrepresentative and hastily assembled referendum to cancel the construction of a state-of-the-art international airport in Mexico City that had been meant to turn the country’s capital into a transportation hub and strengthen the tourism industry. Even though a third of the airport had already been built, López Obrador couldn’t have cared less: Instead of dealing with alleged corruption with some of the airport’s contracts, the project was abandoned. The consequences were severe, with investors voicing their concerns over the country’s lack of commitment and trustworthiness. Now, in the middle of a crisis that could bring the Mexican economy to its knees, López Obrador has


Kennedy Center furloughs 250 in wake of $25 million federal grant

Less than a week after being awarded a $25 million grant as part of the federal government’s $2.2 trillion stimulus package, the Kennedy Center is bracing for more layoffs. On Tuesday, the arts center announced that it will furlough 250 administrative staffers for five weeks, bringing its temporary layoffs to more than 1,100. The cuts — made days after musicians at the National Symphony Orchestra were told their paychecks would cease April 3 — reveal the deepening financial impact of the covid-19 pandemic on Washington’s preeminent performing arts venue. This latest round of cuts is spread across marketing, development, education, and the National Symphony Orchestra and Washington National Opera administrative departments and is necessary despite the $25 million grant, Kennedy Center President and CEO Deborah Rutter said. “My hope is that we won’t have to do too many more,” Rutter said in an interview Tuesday, noting that all senior executives will participate in rolling furloughs over the next few weeks. Most of the federal emergency funds will be used to cover the salaries and benefits of the reduced workforce over the coming months, she said. Some of it will pay for upcoming artist fees, rent and utilities and additional cleaning and IT upgrades related to the coronavirus outbreak. The arts center closed on March 12 and will not reopen until May 11 at the earliest. Without the federal aid and no staff cuts, the arts center would have run out of money in mid-May, Rutter explained. With the stimulus funds, a $10 million line of credit and staff furloughs, the institution will stretch the cash through September. The arts center earned $123 million in performance, education and ancillary revenue in 2019, about 60 percent of all revenue, according to its annual report. “The chances of reopening as soon as we’d like are small. It may take longer, and we have to preserve as much capital as we can,” Kennedy Center board chairman David M. Rubenstein said Tuesday. Three weeks ago, Rutter laid off 750 hourly and part-time workers, including ushers, stagehands and concession, parking and retail personnel as she tried to contain the financial losses of closing nine theaters for more than three weeks. In addition to having no money coming in, the arts center must refund the price of tickets to the hundreds of events that were canceled. The arts center is being asked to refund about 90 percent