Another casualty of the coronavirus pandemic: The taxi industry

Taxi driver Becaye Traore would often begin his day at the Courtyard by Marriott in Chevy Chase, where he could easily catch a $75 fare to Baltimore-Washington International Marshall Airport. But these days, there’s no reason to hurry to the hotel at dawn because he knows there will be no one waiting for a ride. The coronavirus pandemic and the Washington region’s stay-at-home orders have brought an end to the good times when Traore made up to 15 trips a day and $300 or more in fares. He picks up a fare or two a day now, typically to and from one of the area’s medical facilities. “If you get $50 [a day], you are lucky,” said Traore, 53, of Silver Spring. The pandemic has been a blow to cabbies all over the region — and nationwide — the latest challenge for an industry already hit hard by disruption in recent years with increased competition from ride-hail services such as Uber and Lyft. Taxi trips have dropped by as much as 90 percent in the region, according to data from regulators and companies, leaving thousands of drivers jobless. Those like Traore, who are still hanging on, risk exposure to the novel coronavirus and are surviving mostly on government-subsidized fares. During the day, when the streets are eerily empty, they are ferrying the elderly or people with disabilities to medical appointments and delivering meals to seniors unable to visit closed community centers. At night, when Metro stops running — earlier than normal because of the pandemic — their customers are mostly hospital employees and other essential workers. So far, there have not been any reports of covid-19 deaths among taxi drivers in the Washington region, and some local industry leaders said they aren’t aware of any driver who has tested positive. But the stories of transit, ride-share and taxi drivers killed by the virus across the country are concerning. “These guys are out there in a taxicab and don’t know who they are transporting,” said Roy Spooner, who manages Yellow Cab, one of the largest taxi companies in the District. “They are front-line people, and they don’t have any access to protective gear.” Just like others in critical jobs, taxi drivers are going store to store trying to find masks, gloves and disinfecting supplies. Given business is down, the extra cost of purchasing cleaning supplies to keep their taxis sanitized has


A New Yorker cartoonist got covid-19. So he drew this public warning.

Day 5 was the worst. The debilitating symptoms from covid-19 came in waves as Jason Chatfield remained horizontal in an empty house in Tulsa. He didn’t want to down food. He had trouble sitting upright enough to drink water. And despite his need for sleep, the fever and shivering kept him awake for hours at a time. “You have God-awful fever-dreams about anything from time travel to Frasier Crane,” Chatfield says of his surreal, sitcom-laced mind-set, as well as “pain in your hips and back. . . . It’s quite the ride.” Chatfield, 35, is a New York-based cartoonist and comedian who decided to get far from the city in early March. He and his wife Sophie, 32, took up their friends’ invitation to spend the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic on a remote farm in rural Oklahoma. The irony is, they believe they contracted covid-19 while traveling west. Chatfield, an artistic contributor to the New Yorker, Mad and Wired, has created an online comic about a dozen days of suffering the symptoms, titled “Covid-19 Diary.” The headings to describe his ordeal include “Denial,” “Netflix and the Chills,” “Pass Out in the Shower” and “Pan(dem)ic.” The National Cartoonists Society president drew the comic partly as a public service, and partly as an emotional response to people who don’t seem to be treating this pandemic as a grave threat — from passersby to some politicians to friends in his native Australia sharing memes and websites claiming the virus was a hoax. “I’ve been curtailing my exposure to social media since the beginning of the pandemic for my mental health, but when I did my daily check-in, I’d become increasingly upset at seeing people not take the virus seriously,” says Chatfield, who returned home after he and his wife fully recovered. “It made me angry — not just at people here in New York, but people in other states bleating about reopening everything, having been deceived by disinformation and conspiracy theories.” Plus, Chatfield feels chastened himself by having been less careful at one point. He and his wife had been vigilant in New York, even bleaching banisters in their building that houses many older tenants. They also disinfected their plane seats as they flew out of LaGuardia shortly before the city was ordered to shelter in place — about two dozen passengers on a 175-seat flight. Once they experienced symptoms while


leaving the farm of their two friends, who never contracted covid-19. At first, Chatfield denied he had the disease — even as his temperature reached 105 degrees. “You think, ‘Other people get this. How could I possibly have this?’ ” he says of the reaction he calls early-onset exceptionalism. “I’ve since heard from other people who have had it that this is a common mental reaction: ‘Oh, it’s probably nothing. It’s probably just the flu.’ ” Chatfield was still in denial during Day 2, but his symptoms worsened. “You think your teeth are going to fall out from chattering,” he says. “You can’t get up to go to the bathroom because you’re too dizzy, and you certainly can’t shower.” By Day 5, the cartoonist writes in the comic, he felt “punched in the face” by the virus: “You realize you lost your sense of smell three days ago. Also taste.” His breathing became more labored, at one point sounding “like the sound Coco Pops make when you pour milk on them.” He began to think about his own mortality. “There were a few moments there where I regretted watching ‘Outbreak’ and ‘Contagion’ while I was horizontal,” Chatfield says. “I had to really focus on my breathing all day. It was like being in the world’s longest Lamaze class,” he continues. “I feared if I fell asleep and couldn’t focus on my breathing, my lungs wouldn't get enough oxygen and I’d pass out in my sleep — but luckily, I had my wife looking after me.” On Day 7, he called the local health department for a covid-19 test. Two days later, he got the positive result. Upon reflection, he wishes he’d gotten tested sooner, but he hadn’t wanted to burden the hospital system. He was coughing, constipated and contagious. Then on Day 12, as he was improving, Sophie showed symptoms. Given all her care for him, he “returned the favor and donned the nurse’s outfit.” Now back in New York, he and his wife are zealous about disease safety. “We’re still acting as if we have it — wearing gloves, masks and taking every precaution to ensure we don’t inadvertently spread the virus through some other means,” Chatfield says. “We all have a responsibility to stay home and flatten the curve, especially in New York City.” Read more: New Yorker coronavirus cover shows Trump with a mask over his eyes


A reader asks Answer Man: Didn’t there used to be giraffes at the National Zoo?

storm with no cover so a birthing giraffe would not be disturbed.” The zoo insisted the weather was not dangerous. In the end, it was Griff who went outside and gave birth. The zoo named her 150-pound calf Stormy. Pregnancy is hard on any mammal, but imagine being a giraffe: You’re pregnant for 450 days, and you sleep standing up. Even so, many giraffes were born at the National Zoo. Between 1966 and 1976, 15 giraffes were born there. One — Cecilia, born in 1966 — was named after Cecilia Gabriel, secretary to the head of the Smithsonian, S. Dillon Ripley. In July 1997, a newborn African Serengeti giraffe was named Aaron, after Aaron David Goodrich, a Starbucks employee killed a month earlier at one of the coffee outlets near Georgetown. The name was in recognition of his father Lawrence’s work as a volunteer in the Elephant House. What became of all these giraffes? Some stayed at the National Zoo. Some were sent to other zoos to support breeding programs, as is common. Some did not survive into adulthood. Of four calves born in the fall of 1976, two died. Two years later, 5-day-old calf Lee died of a urinary blockage. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, giraffes were among the animals at the zoo whose care was questioned. In 1998, an 18-year-old Masai giraffe named Lionel vomited and choked to death after being anesthetized for a hoof trim. The veterinarian did not file the requisite official notes on the procedure. In 2002, giraffes Ryma and Griff died of age-related dental and digestive problems. The zoo declined to release their records to the media, citing medical privacy. As a result of these and other issues, the American Zoo and Aquarium Association in 2003 gave the zoo a one-year, provisional renewal of its accreditation, instead of the usual five-year renewal. The zoo addressed the problems and regained its full accreditation in 2004. When it came time to expand the Elephant House, the zoo decided to focus on elephants instead with its $56 million Elephant Trails complex. A Nile hippo named Happy was moved to the Milwaukee County Zoo, and Randle did what so many active retirees do: headed to Florida. Might giraffes ever return to Washington? “Our scientists are currently studying behaviors and movements of giraffes in East Africa because their populations are mysteriously on a fast decline,” Steve Monfort,


Maryland sees worst day of covid-19 deaths as region charts course for economic recovery

also calls for coronavirus patients to receive two negative tests at least 24 hours apart before being removed from isolation. “Beyond protecting Plaintiffs’ rights, ordering Defendants to take precautions to lower the risk of infections for Plaintiffs also benefits the public health,” Moss wrote in his ruling on a class-action lawsuit brought by the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs, the ACLU of the District of Columbia, and the law firm Arnold & Porter that seeks emergency relief on behalf of three St. Elizabeths patients. “As the record in this case demonstrates, continued spread of the virus at Saint Elizabeths threatens the health and lives of patients and staff,” Moss wrote. Kaitlin Banner, the deputy legal director for the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs, said the hospital patients have been particularly vulnerable to infection because they are kept in a confined area for psychiatric treatment. “As COVID-19 sweeps through the Hospital they lack the ability to protect themselves and are entirely dependent on the Hospital, which failed to take some of the most basic measures to prevent the spread of the virus,” Banner said in a statement. Moss ordered the District to provide twice-weekly reports detailing its efforts to comply with his ruling. “The report should identify every symptomatic patient removed from isolation and the basis for the decision to remove that individual from isolation and shall indicate the number of exposed patients subject to isolation,” the judge wrote. A spokesman for the Department of Behavioral Health did not immediately respond to a request for comment Saturday. Maryland’s 76 new deaths brings the state’s total to 882, with another 142 people hospitalized since Friday. Hard-hit Prince George’s County added 15 deaths and a record of 392 cases overnight, while neighboring Montgomery added 17 deaths and 256 infections — its highest single-day increase. Virginia reported 26 additional fatalities, for a total of 441. Nearly half of the state’s 106 new hospitalizations were in Fairfax and Arlington counties. In a new feature unveiled on its website Saturday, Fairfax County’s health department reported that Latino residents have been hit the hardest, making up about 46 percent of the 2,745 known infections there as of midday Saturday. African Americans, who have been disproportionately affected in the District and across the country, represent 10 percent of all cases, while Asians make up nearly 15 percent. antonio.olivo@washpost.com joe.heim@washpost.com rebecca.tan@washpost.com


Mexico’s president wanted a transformation. Now he is failing as a crisis manager.

the country manage such a feat amid the worst global economic downturn in a century? Other than publicly displaying his peculiar brand of magical voluntarism, López Obrador has been characteristically short on details. Mexicans haven’t taken well to the president’s antics. López Obrador’s approval rating has steadily declined. Only 47 percent of Mexicans currently support him, a 17-percentage-point drop over the past year. Overwhelmed by the severity of the crisis, the increasingly unpopular López Obrador has slowly retreated into himself. He has once again gotten into the habit of blaming his critics for the consequences of his mistakes. For years, the president has routinely gone after the press, identifying certain voices and news outlets, such as the newspaper Reforma, as part of a plot to erode trust in his agenda. Lately, though, Mexico’s president has delivered his proclivity for conspiracy theories and bullying of critical, independent voices in a more ominous tone. On Wednesday, López Obrador complained about Mexican journalism’s supposed corruption and lack of competence. From the bully pulpit he has afforded himself through daily news conferences, López Obrador whined about several news outlets, criticized the work of specific journalists, whom he denounced as “conservatives,” and complained about the lack of positive coverage for his government. “Most of the journalists are rotten,” he said. “We don’t have professional journalism in Mexico.” López Obrador’s hostility toward critics would be less concerning if it weren’t happening in the middle of a crisis or if his paranoia hadn’t recently ventured into the absurd. In true Trumpian fashion, he has now begun to see celebrities as eager conspirators as well. A few weeks ago, in an interview with the journalist Jorge Ramos, Mexican soccer player Javier “Chicharito” Hernández ventured a modest opinion on López Obrador. “He could be doing much more,” Hernández said. “Instead of going forward, we are going slightly backward." Days later, just as López Obrador seemed to be willfully ignoring basic social distancing recommendations — by, among other things, traveling across the country while declining to wear a protective mask or use hand sanitizer — Mexican singer Thalía turned to Instagram to ask her millions of followers to stay at home. Finally, with the pandemic severely stressing the limited resources of hospitals in Tijuana, Mexican actor Eugenio Derbez took to social media to read a letter from a local doctor asking for support for the city’s medical staff. López Obrador


Trump expands battle with WHO far beyond aid suspension

called on him to resign, saying the WHO plays a “vital role” but that they have lost confidence in him. Organizations that work with the WHO have said that while it could have responded to the pandemic more quickly, attempts to undercut it are misguided. “WHO is not a mere ‘middle man.’ WHO plays an indispensable multilateral role and is the only organization with the global capacity, reach and mandate to support the response to a pandemic that is threatening every country on Earth,” said Sheba Crocker, the vice president for humanitarian policy and practice at Care USA. The Trump administration is considering keeping some funding for the WHO to fight polio and the coronavirus in seven countries, Bloomberg News reported on Friday. The move could serve as an acknowledgment that certain WHO programs are not easily replaceable, but one senior U.S. official cautioned that no final decision has been made on the exemptions. Some conservatives defended rerouting funds away from the WHO, arguing that the organization has paid insufficient attention to emerging pandemics and that channeling money through it is no guarantee that health crises will be handled in a more efficient way. “WHO spends a lot of money on things other than communicable diseases,” said Brett Schaefer, a fellow at the Heritage Foundation, noting the organization’s work on heart disease, cancer and health emergency programs. While acknowledging that funding piecemeal global health efforts could lack a global perspective, he countered that the U.N. system, which includes the WHO and the U.N. Children’s Fund, can also be “fragmented and duplicative.” U.S. attendance at WHO-related events has begun to slip, officials said. On Friday, the United States did not participate in the launch of a WHO global effort on vaccines and drugs related to coronavirus. WHO leaders “really, really” hoped for U.S. attendance and asked Washington repeatedly to participate, a WHO official said. HHS Secretary Alex Azar did not take part in this month’s virtual G-20 meeting of health ministers because he was celebrating Easter, a spokeswoman said. For weeks, the Security Council has been working on a resolution calling for a global cease-fire pertaining to armed conflict in response to the pandemic. A draft offered by the French and viewed by The Post urged member states to “share timely and transparent information regarding the outbreak of COVID-19” and “support the full implementation of the WHO International Health Regulations.” That


As they rushed to maintain U.S. meat supply, big processors saw plants become covid-19 hot spots, worker illnesses spike

when they became available. Smithfield workers said it wasn’t until the past week or two. On Saturday, county health officials said they ordered Smithfield to close its plant in St. Charles, Illinois, until it can address issues related to employee safety and protective equipment. “If you’re not in a casket, they want you there,” said Sonja Johnson, a former Smithfield worker at a packaging and distribution facility. “All they were worried about was making sure we were coming to work.” JBS, Smithfield and Tyson all strongly defended their efforts to protect their employees from the coronavirus. Smithfield and Tyson said they started taking preventive action in February, including educating workers about covid-19, the illness caused by the novel coronavirus. JBS said it took action in mid-March. All three companies said they have stepped up sanitation, have taken steps to ensure social distancing and are checking temperatures as workers report for their shifts. All say they are now requiring quarantines for employees who have tested positive for the coronavirus and for those in close contact with them. Government officials have repeatedly praised the meat industry for its essential role in the national food supply during the crisis. Vice President Pence has called the workers “heroes.” And even as much of U.S. industry pulls back in the face of the pandemic, meat company officials have argued that they have a special responsibility to continue operations. “It is impossible to keep our grocery stores stocked if our plants are not running,” Smithfield chief executive Kenneth Sullivan said in a statement announcing the closure of the company’s Sioux Falls plant this month. The companies did not receive clear requirements about what they had to do. The guidance released by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration on March 9 said employers should offer surgical masks or respirators to workers who could be infected with the novel coronavirus, especially if they work within six feet of one another, a circumstance that is common for meat workers. But OSHA also said it would not enforce such regulations so as not to overly burden companies during the pandemic. “This all could have been prevented. Workers are paying with their lives and their health because their industry decided not to implement basic safety precautions and OSHA decided to bury its head in the sand and tell workers ‘You’re on your own,’” said Debbie Berkowitz, a former senior OSHA official


employee tested positive for the coronavirus. JBS said it ordered masks on March 19 and did not receive them until April 2. Wearing masks was not made mandatory until April 13, the company said. Face shields for those working on the slaughter line were distributed Friday when the plant reopened from its county-ordered closure. JBS did not directly dispute the findings of county health officials. But in a statement to The Post, Bruett said plant managers encouraged workers with covid-19 symptoms to remain at home. In response to the county’s order, Bruett said, the plant has “enhanced daily symptom and fever screening and testing procedures for workers before entering the facility." JBS and the union have announced a $4 an hour pay increase for workers at all of JBS’s plants because of the increased hazards the workers face. Hands-free temperature measuring devices are also being brought in. JBS is the world’s largest meatpacking company, with its U.S. operations including 60 beef, pork and poultry plants across the nation. Employees at Greeley, echoing the concerns of workers at other plants, have raised a host of additional issues with how the company communicated with employees about the viral outbreak. On March 18, the company posted a notice on its Facebook page — the place it usually communicated with workers — that union president Cordova said many employees interpreted as an appeal from the federal government for them to report to work. The company message said: “The U.S. Government has identified the food supply as a critical infrastructure industry and has stated we have a special responsibility to maintain normal work schedules on behalf of the Nation. We take this responsibility seriously.” On March 24, according to JBS’s Bruett, educational materials were posted inside the plant, encouraging employees to stay home if they were ill and providing advice on correct hand washing and social distancing. However, copies of the posters provided to The Post did not include instructions to workers to stay home if they had covid-19 symptoms. Such educational materials also were not posted on the company’s Facebook page until after the plant was closed. Bruett said company supervisors were given covid-19 training in mid-March and were told to encourage workers with symptoms of the virus to stay home. On the day of its first covid-19 detection — March 26 — JBS posted another announcement on its Facebook page, saying it would


An Arab doctor and an ultra-Orthodox Jew find common ground in a covid ward

JERUSALEM — When Jesse Michael Kramer was hospitalized with the coronavirus, he realized as soon as the doctor in the spacesuit introduced himself that it would be a rare encounter. Kramer is an Israeli ultra-Orthodox Jew; Fadi Kharouf is a Palestinian Muslim. “Fadi, it’s an Arab name,” Kramer, 75, said as he recalled his time at Jerusalem’s Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital, once he was back home convalescing in the ultra-Orthodox neighborhood he seldom leaves. “He was very good to me.” Such unlikely meetings have become more commonplace after the pandemic struck with particular fury in Jerusalem’s most insular and religious Jewish enclaves, just a few miles — but cultural light-years — from the Arab neighborhoods where Kharouf and other Palestinian physicians and nurses live. The pandemic has created a bridge between their worlds. Hundreds of Jewish covid-19 patients are being treated by Arab practitioners they might never meet outside the hospital. Sick Palestinians are getting care from Jewish medical staff they might otherwise avoid. For many health-care workers, exhausting themselves shift after shift, this shared fight against a common enemy has provided a boost of mutual esteem amid the dark days of crisis. “I am sure we may have extremely different political views, but they are very respectful to me,” said Kharouf of his Jewish patients, who are mostly from ultra-Orthodox groups, known here as Haredim. For his part, Kharouf, 30, has learned much about Judaism’s strictest sects. He has helped covid-weakened men wrap the leather straps of the ritual prayer tefillin around their arms. He has learned many of their dietary laws. Preparing to enter one of the hospital’s three covid wards on a recent afternoon, he paused while zipping up his tear-proof hazmat suit to recall a few Hebrew words of the Mourner’s Kaddish prayer, which he has heard recited at many bedside deaths, sometimes by family members he has helped patch in via cellphone video. “I am proud of my Palestinian culture,” he said. “I have many things to criticize about what is happening in the outside world. But in here, we are all just humans.” Israeli hospitals were already known as one of the country’s few cultural crossroads, a place where everyone from Jewish settlers to Palestinian activists comes to receive nationalized health care, and to deliver it. Israel’s Arab minority, which makes up 20 percent of the population, is well represented in the ranks of


Coronavirus immunity remains big question mark for a country eager to reopen

published Tuesday in the journal Science. The authors noted that two other coronaviruses in circulation, which cause common colds, result in about 45 weeks of immunity on average. If the new virus follows that pattern, it would probably create annual outbreaks, they found. In one small study 30 years ago, 15 people volunteered to have coronavirus 229E, which causes common cold symptoms, squirted up their noses. Ten became infected, and eight developed cold symptoms. A year later, all but one of them returned to be reinfected again. The majority were reinfected, but those who had been ill before did not develop cold symptoms. Moreover, the period during which the patients shed the virus, and were potentially contagious, was shorter. The new virus, SARS-CoV-2, is genetically similar to the first SARS virus — hence the “2” — but it affects people differently. It is not as lethal but is more easily spread. Many people who are infected do not develop symptoms at all and yet can potentially transmit the virus to others. A report from China that has not yet been peer-reviewed found a wide range of antibodies among people with mild cases of the virus. Most strikingly, younger people had fewer antibodies in the wake of the disease — and 30 percent of those sampled had low levels. Some individuals had no trace of antibodies. That has raised the question of whether a person with a mild infection, one confirmed by the sensitive PCR test, might still be susceptible to a second infection. A report out of South Korea has raised that issue more directly. Health officials said 91 patients who had recovered from the virus, a diagnosis confirmed by a negative test result, had subsequently tested positive. They might not have been reinfected, however. The tests are extremely sensitive and could have detected lingering traces of genetic material from nonviable virus. Because the virus does damage to the lungs, one possibility is that the debris getting cleared out could leave fragments of viral genetic material circulating in the body, Vineet Menachery, a virologist at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, pointed out on Twitter. Korean officials are taking samples from the patients who tested positive to try to grow the virus in a dish, which will be the true test of whether the people were still shedding live virus. They expect results in two weeks. Someday, the


The Washington Post and Yale School of Public Health form the Covid Counting Consortium (3C) to understand the impact of covid-19 on the U.S.

The Washington Post and the Yale School of Public Health today announced a partnership to form the Covid Counting Consortium (3C) to research and report on the impact of covid-19. Journalists, engineers and data scientists from The Post will collaborate with a group from Yale’s Public Health Modeling Unit that also includes experts from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Roskilde University, and Aledade to analyze data from a variety of sources. Legacy.com has also agreed to provide obituary data for reporting purposes. “The United States leads the world in coronavirus diagnoses and casualties with the death toll surpassing 50,000 in recent days. Data from U.S. health systems is beginning to unspool the full story of the coronavirus’ impact and we hope this partnership can shed more light on the true extent of the virus’ effect,” said Emilio Garcia-Ruiz, managing editor for digital at The Washington Post. “This work will complement The Post’s narrative storytelling, which continues to seek ways to spotlight survivors and victims of a virus that has permeated American life to a depth not experienced in generations.” Among the group’s initial tasks will be investigating how revised case and death totals could change our understanding of the virus. The consortium will use data modeling to examine the gap in officially reported cases and those likely coded as other diseases, employing the data for reporting purposes and in graphics and other visuals to help readers better understand the impact of the virus. “We are thrilled to be partnering with The Washington Post to help bring rigorous quantitative analysis to the complicated task of interpreting complex public health data. Along with public health and modeling experts from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Roskilde University, and Aledade, we look forward to contributing to the Post’s reporting on this important topic.”, says Dan Weinberger, associate professor of epidemiology at Yale School of Public Health. The Post today published the first story to come out of this collaboration— U.S. deaths soared in early weeks of pandemic, far exceeding number attributed to covid-19— looking at the overall death rates in seven states with high covid-19 deaths and also an unusually high rate of death in diseases that present similarly, like influenza and pneumonia. Explore The Post’s comprehensive coverage of the coronavirus.


Fearing cuts, non-revenue college sports look for ways to ‘weather this storm’

coronavirus. Cancellations such as these have prompted questions about the lavish spending within football and men’s basketball programs. For major athletic departments, eliminating an entire non-revenue program might save the same amount as shaving off a fraction of the budget devoted to football. Where a department chooses to make this cut can indicate what its leaders value, and the perceived success of an athletic director is generally based on a school’s performance in football and men’s basketball. “If the program was viable before this took place, then it will be viable after this takes place,” said David Berri, a sports economist and professor at Southern Utah. “So that suggests to me [that] what’s going on here is athletic directors are using this as an excuse. I just don’t buy the argument that in response to a temporary crisis you need to cut an entire program. If you were interested in cutting things, there are things in football and men’s basketball that you could cut.” With much of the decision-making outside of their control, coaches of non-revenue teams plan to minimize their programs’ expenses proactively to protect their futures. “What I saw in the dot-com bubble burst, there were issues with revenue,” said Thom Glielmi, the longtime Stanford men’s gymnastics coach. “A lot of programs were in jeopardy, and budgets were being cut. They had to really buckle down and figure out a way to be less of a burden, so I think that’s what’s coming.” Just 15 men’s gymnastics teams remain in Division I, down from 59 in 1982. Those schools produce a majority of the athletes on the U.S. national team. Some stay in their college towns to train as postgraduates, so any reduction of programs could hurt the sport not only at the college level but at the elite level, too. In 2016, the NCAA reported that more than 400 members of the U.S. Olympic team were future, current or former college athletes. “The funding model, generated largely through football, supports a pretty important mission to our society,” Central Florida Athletic Director Danny White said, referencing that Olympic pipeline. “I hope we can find ways to protect it, as we hope to protect all sorts of things that are important to our society, as we go through these challenging months ahead.” Some sports have begun discussing creative cost-saving measures. Men’s gymnastics has considered hosting one or two virtual


Coronavirus Digest: Judge orders masks to be worn in D.C. courts

THE DISTRICT The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and the U.S. District Court in Washington are now requiring all visitors and encouraging all courthouse staff members to wear masks to combat the spread of the novel coronavirus. The order by Chief U.S. District Judge Beryl A. Howell, which took effect Monday, is the latest safety measure taken by the federal courthouse in Washington in accordance with public health authorities’ and District officials’ guidance. The order requires all visitors — including contractors, litigants and the general public — to wear a mask or “face covering for their nose and mouth” continuously during visits to public areas of the courthouse, including courtrooms. Visitors without a mask shall be provided one by the court upon entry or, if none is available, will be asked to make alternative arrangements to avoid entering the building. Court staff members are being asked to wear coverings in public and nonpublic areas of the courthouse, such as hallways and elevators, unless space allows people to stay six feet apart, Howell’s order said. — Spencer Hsu MARYLAND Maryland will soon release data on covid-19 outbreaks at its nursing homes, which account for 40 percent of the state’s total cases. The information, to be published on the state’s covid-19 website this week, will include the names of individual facilities and how many cases and deaths have occurred among residents there. “Keeping Marylanders informed and being transparent with the facts continues to be at the heart of our response to covid-19,” Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) said in a statement on Monday. His remarks come days after the state health department said it would not identify nursing homes with outbreaks. A department spokesman told The Washington Post last Wednesday that “the disclosure of this information serves no public health purpose,” and that the identity of nursing homes with outbreaks “falls squarely within the state’s confidentiality provisions.” At least 255 nursing homes in the District, Maryland and Virginia had novel coronavirus cases as of last week, nearly double the number from April 11. More than 2,000 staff and residents have been infected, but relatives of patients say they have been largely kept in the dark about the situation inside these facilities. Some told The Post that they had not received updates about their loved ones in over a week; others said nursing home employees declined to tell them


‘The Clone Wars’ proves yet again that Darth Maul is the most tragic Star Wars character

he will, just barely bests Maul in battle. When he begins to fall to his death from dangerous heights, she uses the Force to levitate him in the air until the clone trooper cavalry arrives to capture him. “Let me go,” Maul shouts. “Let me die.” The screams let out by Maul represent what it has been like to follow the brilliant execution of his resurrection on “The Clone Wars,” frustratingly knowing an opportunity was missed for a similar resurgence in live-action. “The Clone Wars” brought an end to the cries of those who thought a perfectly crafted villainous idea like Maul had been put away too soon. He was given a new life on the series, a new voice (Sam Witwer) and a new storytelling path. And because “The Clone Wars” is officially a part of the canon of Star Wars, an opening was available to bring Maul back to the live-action movies as well, if the timeline was right. So when he showed up at the end of “Solo” and looked to be a key player for future sequels to the film, it felt like a victory for those who always wanted more of him. Then “Solo” underperformed at the box office, followed by word that future stand-alone Star Wars films were on hold. It was like Obi-Wan Kenobi came and sliced the live-action Maul dreams of many in half. This is a character whose popularity rivals that of the almighty Darth Vader. The spark that Vader’s brief, lightsaber-wielding return in “Rogue One” provided fans could have been equally as bright in a future Maul moment, especially if we look at his past. In his debut in 1999′s “Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace,” Maul (and the amazing athletic display of actor Ray Park) was the embodiment of George Lucas’s decision to wait almost two decades for special effects technology to catch up to his imagination before revisiting his franchise. His lightsaber match against Qui-Gon Jinn and Kenobi in “Episode I” has yet to be topped. But for so long, Maul was more or less a Star Wars human highlight reel: Visually spectacular, yet vocally disappointing. His presence was unforgettable, but the few lines he had were not. When he was torn in two at the end of “Episode I,” it appeared we had all borne witness to an incredible galactic flash in the pan. As “The


Freed of briefing duty, wounded Trump airs full collection of grievances on Twitter, retweeting claim of ‘coup attempts’

Trump managed to find time to keep tweeting. Once he was finished slamming the Times, Trump pivoted to a broader attack against journalists. Only this time, he wasn’t focused on their coverage of the country’s pandemic response. “When will all of the ‘reporters’ who have received Noble Prizes for their work on Russia, Russia, Russia, only to have been proven totally wrong (and, in fact, it was the other side who committed the crimes), be turning back their cherished ‘Nobles’ so that they can be given to the REAL REPORTERS & JOURNALISTS who got it right,” Trump tweeted, referencing allegations that his 2016 presidential campaign colluded with Russia, one of his greatest sources of irritation. Trump concluded his tirade, which spanned three separate tweets, threatening, “Lawsuits should be brought against all, including the Fake News Organizations, to rectify this terrible injustice.” In another thread, Trump also took swipes at Fox News, a network that is home to some of his most vocal supporters. It didn’t take long for “Noble Prize,” “Nobel” and “Pulitzer Prize” to start trending on Twitter as Trump’s detractors rushed to mock the president over what appeared to be both a spelling error and a misunderstanding of what awards are given to journalists. After deleting the tweets, Trump argued that “Noble Prize” was supposed to be “sarcasm,” falling back on the same defense he used to explain his controversial comments about injecting disinfectants into coronavirus patients. “Does anybody get the meaning of what a so-called Noble (not Nobel) Prize is, especially as it pertains to Reporters and Journalists?” Trump tweeted. “Noble is defined as, ‘having or showing fine personal qualities or high moral principles and ideals.’ Does sarcasm ever work?” Critics, however, didn’t buy Trump’s explanation. Still, Trump continued his tweetstorm undeterred. For about an hour and a half Sunday night, Trump went on a retweeting spree, sharing a slew tweets that largely consisted of conservatives disparaging Democrats and more broadsides against the media, including The Post. Trump took a quick break from politics to promote a video of a young girl singing a duet of “You Raise Me Up,” writing, “Great!” Among Democratic leaders, Trump seemed particularly interested in targeting House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Biden. In addition to retweeting criticisms of Pelosi’s response to the coronavirus outbreak, Trump highlighted unflattering videos of Biden. One clip showed the Democratic presidential candidate stumbling over his words


The mysterious clotting in covid-19 patients

Post Reports is the daily podcast from The Washington Post. Unparalleled reporting. Expert insight. Clear analysis. Everything you’ve come to expect from the newsroom of The Post. For your ears. Martine Powers is your host, asking the questions you didn’t know you wanted answered. Listen online. Doctors say that a blood-clotting complication is killing coronavirus patients. What is a W-shaped economic recovery? If you wash your hands a lot, it doesn’t mean you’re “so OCD.” Here’s what it’s really like to have it. If you want to learn more about OCD, there are helpful resources at iocdf.org.


Social distancing stakes are high for sprinter Noah Lyles, who suffers from asthma

Noah Lyles doesn’t usually do things quietly. At track and field meets and on social media, at the starting line and certainly the finish line, all eyes tend to find him. He is fast, colorful and always looking to put on a show. But as the novel coronavirus pandemic lingers, the sprinter finds himself training out in public but also in near-anonymity. With gyms and track facilities near his Clermont, Fla., home shut down for more than a month now, Lyles has taken to public parks and soccer fields to squeeze in his daily workouts. “It’s very low-key,” said Lyles, a two-time world champion who is among the medal favorites at next year’s Tokyo Olympics. “Nobody really knows [we’re] there.” The 22-year-old hits the park at 7:30 each morning. His coach, Lance Brauman, is usually already there, along with an assistant and a strength coach. Their gym is now mobile, with all of the equipment — including barbells, heavy bumper plates and plyometric boxes — packed into the back of two trucks. “Now we’re just randomly lifting weights in a park,” Lyles said. Lyles and his brother, Josephus, turned pro shortly after graduating in 2016 from T.C. Williams High in Alexandria. They relocated to Florida to train with Brauman at the National Training Center, a part of the Orlando Health South Lake Hospital that includes full track facilities. But it closed March 20 as the virus spread, and Brauman had to take his show on the road, trying out different area parks with his runners. “It’s difficult but doable,” Brauman said in a recent phone interview. State guidelines meant Brauman’s runners could no longer train as a large group, so now he works with a handful at a time. When the Lyles brothers finish their session, Brauman and his mobile gym stay put and a new group of runners starts up. Lyles knows he is vulnerable to the coronavirus. He has suffered from asthma since childhood and said he contracted the swine flu in 2009. “We’re not going out because of social distancing, seclusion, keeping distance,” Lyles said. “But other than that, I don’t really have to do too much different. I just have to be more conscious of it. So who I’m hanging around at practice is probably the biggest concern I have to take into account.” The brothers will lift weights in the parking lot or even in


Covid-19 quickly kills some while others don’t show symptoms. Can genetics explain this?

attack, cancer or other deadly diseases. Or the differences can reduce risk, as is the case of several genetic variants that protect individuals from HIV infection. Figuring out how genes influence responses to the virus could help the development of effective treatments or vaccines, or even point to an existing drug that could be repurposed as a covid-19 drug. Such repurposing is not new: Aspirin was developed as a painkiller but is commonly used as a blood thinner to prevent heart attack. In early March, we started talking about the possible role of genetics in responses to the virus. When we reached out to fellow geneticists in other countries, we quickly realized that we weren’t the only ones thinking along those lines. A few weeks later, we launched the Covid-19 Host Genetics Initiative, which aims to bring together scientific groups around the world to study the role of the human genome in explaining covid-19 severity and susceptibility. What have we learned so far? From a scientific perspective, the effort is in its infancy, but we expect to have first study results by the end of May. For a completely new kind of global genetics collaboration, we are moving at an unprecedented speed. Such swift progress demonstrates how, in a worldwide emergency, even when many researchers have had to put their laboratory work on hold and stay home, scientists from many disciplines will quickly step forward to help. Within just a few weeks of our building a website and posting on social media, more than 600 scientists from more than 45 countries joined this collaborative effort, registering more than 150 different studies aimed at gaining insight into the genetics underlying covid-19 variability. Progress on this research relies on citizen participation. Many of the studies involve research in biobanks, which have already collected DNA and medical histories of several million people in Britain, the United States, Finland and other countries. In these studies, researchers can cross-reference covid-19 cases with these resources to learn new information about covid-19 risk and protection. Many other studies are starting up in hospitals and academic medical centers to look at covid-19 patients with different symptoms. All of these studies, and biomedical progress in all diseases, depend on the willingness of individuals to consent to having their DNA and medical information used in research. Many more studies will emerge over the coming months. Some of us are searching


May. For a completely new kind of global genetics collaboration, we are moving at an unprecedented speed. Such swift progress demonstrates how, in a worldwide emergency, even when many researchers have had to put their laboratory work on hold and stay home, scientists from many disciplines will quickly step forward to help. Within just a few weeks of our building a website and posting on social media, more than 600 scientists from more than 45 countries joined this collaborative effort, registering more than 150 different studies aimed at gaining insight into the genetics underlying covid-19 variability. Progress on this research relies on citizen participation. Many of the studies involve research in biobanks, which have already collected DNA and medical histories of several million people in Britain, the United States, Finland and other countries. In these studies, researchers can cross-reference covid-19 cases with these resources to learn new information about covid-19 risk and protection. Many other studies are starting up in hospitals and academic medical centers to look at covid-19 patients with different symptoms. All of these studies, and biomedical progress in all diseases, depend on the willingness of individuals to consent to having their DNA and medical information used in research. Many more studies will emerge over the coming months. Some of us are searching for genetic markers associated with disease severity and outcome. Others are focusing on how the immune system might be affecting the course of the disease. Much work is left to do, and how this research will play out remains an open question. Nonetheless, these past few weeks have shown us that at a time when so many of us are physically distant from one another, when borders are closed and travel restricted, we as scientists are still finding ways to come together, build new ties and openly collaborate, all motivated by a single, common goal: helping to stop this awful disease. Read more We need smart solutions to mitigate the coronavirus’s impact. Here are 27. Bobak Parang: Covid-19 is posing serious questions about cancer treatment. There are no easy answers. Bill Gates: Here are the innovations we need to reopen the economy Michael S. Saag: Rushing to reopen will be lethal. Just look at ‘Jaws.’ Ronald J. Daniels and Marc H. Morial: The covid-19 racial disparities could be even worse than we think Leana S. Wen: 7 things the administration is getting wrong about testing


U.S. deaths soared in early weeks of pandemic, far exceeding number attributed to covid-19

In the early weeks of the coronavirus epidemic, the United States recorded an estimated 15,400 excess deaths, nearly two times as many as were publicly attributed to covid-19 at the time, according to an analysis of federal data conducted for The Washington Post by a research team led by the Yale School of Public Health. The excess deaths — the number beyond what would normally be expected for that time of year — occurred during March and through April 4, a time when 8,128 coronavirus deaths were reported. The excess deaths are not necessarily attributable directly to covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. They could include people who died because of the epidemic but not from the disease, such as those who were afraid to seek medical treatment for unrelated illnesses, as well as some number of deaths that are part of the ordinary variation in the death rate. The count is also affected by increases or decreases in other categories of deaths, such as suicides, homicides and motor vehicle accidents. But in any pandemic, higher-than-normal mortality is a starting point for scientists seeking to understand the full impact of the disease. The Yale analysis for the first time estimates excess deaths, both nationally and in each state, in those five weeks. Relying on data that the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) released Friday, the analysis paints a picture of unusually high mortality that will come into sharper view as more data becomes available. The analysis calculates excess deaths by using a model to estimate how many people probably would have died absent the pandemic, and then subtracting that number from the overall deaths reported by the NCHS. The analysis suggests that the deaths announced in the weeks leading up to April 4, based on reports from state public health departments, failed to capture the full impact of the pandemic. Those incomplete numbers were widely cited at a time when many states were making critical decisions about closing businesses and taking other actions to stem the spread of the virus. The analysis also suggests that the death toll from the pandemic is significantly higher than has been reported, said Daniel Weinberger, a Yale professor of epidemiology and the leader of the research team. As of Sunday, more than 54,000 people had been killed by the novel coronavirus, according to numbers reported by state health departments and compiled by


The Post. “It’s really important to get the right numbers to inform policymakers so they can understand how the epidemic is evolving and how severe it is in different places,” Weinberger said. The national tally also shapes the public’s perception of how serious the disease is, and therefore how necessary it is to continue social distancing despite economic disruption. The figure has political implications for President Trump, who initially played down the threat of the virus and whose administration failed to ramp up covid-19 testing quickly, allowing the virus to spread undetected for weeks. Some of Trump’s defenders have claimed that covid-19 death figures are inflated because they may include people who died with the disease but not of it. “The death toll is being held up by everyone, really, as a pretty direct metric for assessing the competence of the federal response,” said Jeremy Konyndyk, a former USAID official who helped lead the U.S. response to the Ebola outbreak and other international disasters during the Obama administration. The problem of undercounting coronavirus deaths is not unique to this pandemic or to the United States. In many countries, insufficient testing is a major obstacle to understanding the scale of the pandemic. In the United States, public health experts say reporting lags, along with the fact that nearly every state initially counted only cases in which the coronavirus was confirmed through a test, contributed to an incomplete picture of deaths in those early weeks. The NCHS recently started keeping its own tally of covid-19 deaths, separate from the tallies based on states’ reports to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The NCHS’s tally, based on death certificates, attempts to correct for reporting lags and includes cases that lacked a lab confirmation of the coronavirus. But even the NCHS covid-19 death total from those early weeks — 10,505 as of Sunday — is only two-thirds of the excess deaths in the Yale estimate. No jurisdiction has been as aggressive as New York City, the U.S. epicenter of the epidemic, in revising its death counts from those early weeks. As of Saturday, the city had added 2,542 covid-19 deaths to those figures, driving the total from that period up to 5,085. The newly added deaths were almost equally split between cases that were confirmed through lab testing and cases that were deemed “probable” covid-19 deaths based only on symptoms and exposure. The


pandemic. In the United States, public health experts say reporting lags, along with the fact that nearly every state initially counted only cases in which the coronavirus was confirmed through a test, contributed to an incomplete picture of deaths in those early weeks. The NCHS recently started keeping its own tally of covid-19 deaths, separate from the tallies based on states’ reports to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The NCHS’s tally, based on death certificates, attempts to correct for reporting lags and includes cases that lacked a lab confirmation of the coronavirus. But even the NCHS covid-19 death total from those early weeks — 10,505 as of Sunday — is only two-thirds of the excess deaths in the Yale estimate. No jurisdiction has been as aggressive as New York City, the U.S. epicenter of the epidemic, in revising its death counts from those early weeks. As of Saturday, the city had added 2,542 covid-19 deaths to those figures, driving the total from that period up to 5,085. The newly added deaths were almost equally split between cases that were confirmed through lab testing and cases that were deemed “probable” covid-19 deaths based only on symptoms and exposure. The revisions brought the covid-19 total for New York City closer to the Yale analysis’s estimate of 6,300 excess deaths during that period. A handful of states The Yale analysis estimates that, excluding New York City, approximately 1,700 more New York state residents than would be expected had died as of April 4 — far more than the 1,022 counted as covid-19 deaths. Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo (D) acknowledged at a news conference last week that his state’s tally is “not an accurate total number of deaths, in my opinion.” “That number is going to go up,” he said. “Those deaths are only hospitalization or nursing home deaths. That does not have what are called at-home deaths.” The family of Long Island resident Adrian Sokoloff say they believe he is one of the uncounted. The retired owner of a pet products company, he had just celebrated his 99th birthday when he started showing symptoms of covid-19 on March 19, his daughter Karen Sokoloff said. His family said his pulmonologist diagnosed him with covid-19 because of spiking fevers and coughing — and because two of his caregivers had come down with chills and lost their sense of taste, a telltale sign of


Teachers, parents and principals tell their stories about remote learning

his virtual classroom. He worries about what is happening in their homes, which are often tiny apartments in Queens, New York, where covid-19 has taken a staggering toll. In the Midwest, Fort Wayne elementary school teacher Eileen Doherty struggles to teach her inner-city students. She is dismayed by the differences between what her own children who attend a suburban school have when compared with those she teaches. One mom explained to her why schoolwork was not her first priority: “I am just trying to feed my children," Between April 8 to April 13, 2020, the Network for Public Education surveyed teachers and educators across the United States to find out how they were responding to and coping with the emergency closing of school buildings due to covid-19. The survey was distributed to our mailing list of 350,000, shared online via social media, and then subsequently shared by teacher, administrator, and family groups. Here’s who responded: 7,249 public school teachers, 5,536 public school parents, and 354 public school administrators responded. About half of the educator respondents reported that their own children are remotely learning, therefore it is possible that approximately half of the parent respondents are educators themselves. Responses came from every state. In the educator surveys, urban, suburban, small city and rural districts were represented in proportions similar to the United States at large. Suburban parents were over-represented in the parent survey; however, 33 percent of respondents lived in urban centers or small cities. A majority of teachers (56 percent) taught in schools in which over half of the students received free or reduced-price lunch. Thirty percent taught in schools where the proportion of low socio-economic status students exceeded 80 percent. In addition to the surveys, we conducted nine in-depth interviews with educators and parents from around the country to gain insights into emergency remote learning during the covid-19 pandemic. What follows is an account of what we found. You can find all three surveys and their results here. Only 19 percent of teachers reported having completely adjusted; over 50 percent said their adjustment was difficult, and nearly 31 percent were, at the time of their response to the survey, still struggling to adjust. While 41 percent of parents reported that their child had adjusted and was able to complete assignments, 22 percent reported that their child was still struggling to adjust. Emily Sawyer is the mother of five in


Antibody testing suggests virus hit D.C. weeks earlier than estimated

antibody testing. Serology tests can determine whether the body has developed antibodies in response to the virus, and widespread antibody testing has been touted as a possible way to determine who can safely return to work. However, it is still unclear whether recovery from covid-19 confers immunity, or if so for how long. In a brief issued Friday, the World Health Organization said, “There is currently no evidence that people who have recovered from COVID-19 and have antibodies are protected from a second infection.” It cautioned against the use of “immunity passports” for those with positive serology tests, saying they may “increase the risks of continued transmission.” On Saturday, the organization added that it expects that most people who are infected with the virus will develop an antibody response that will provide some level of protection, but the level or length of protection is unknown. “So far, no studies have answered these important questions,” the organization tweeted. Additionally, the reliability of the antibody tests is not a sure thing. Dozens have entered the market without the Food and Drug Administration's approval; only four had FDA authorization as of Friday, and even those are not 100 percent accurate. Eileen West, the doctor who tested Hughes, is using a test awaiting FDA approval, manufactured by Hangzhou Biotest Biotech and distributed by Premier Biotech. The same test was used in a Stanford University trial published last week, West said, adding that it is considered to be “well over 90 percent accurate.” West said she is about a third of the way through administering 360 tests as part of an initiative by Ms. Medicine, a women’s health-care network that is also offering 1,200 drive-through tests in Cincinnati. Of 110 she has administered, five have been positive, she said, adding that two of the patients with antibodies had had household contact with confirmed coronavirus cases and one had been exposed to someone in the workplace who had it. Among them, only Hughes reported feeling ill as early as February, she said. West said the Fairfax County Health Department told her it did not have a system in place for reporting antibody test results, and she had not yet tried the D.C. health department. “The antibody information is so new it isn’t clear they desire that information as yet,” she said. The rate of positive tests in her study closely matches the 4 percent rate found


her boyfriend during a college break, and Hughes attended services at Citizen Heights Church in Tenleytown. At one point her husband lost his sense of taste and smell — symptoms now commonly associated the virus, though they did not know that at the time. By the end of February, as the epidemic raged through northern Italy and Hughes still felt rotten, she began to wonder whether she might have it. On Feb. 28, she went to a second doctor. “At that point, she saw my symptoms and where I had been, and she suspected it,” she recalled. Hughes said that doctor, who practices in the District and Maryland, called at least one local health department and was told that no testing was needed. “She was quite concerned and told me to have a chest X-ray,” Hughes said, adding that the X-ray was normal. Since then, testing sites have been opening across the region, but only for people with a doctor’s referral, who then have to pass a screening put in place by the hospital or clinic doing the testing. Results take three to seven days to get. On March 7, the day the rector tested positive, Hughes finally felt better. But the more she learned about covid-19, the more convinced she became that she had had it. When she heard West administering the serology tests to anyone who wanted one, she made an appointment. Hughes tested positive for the antibodies; a separate test for the virus itself was negative, meaning that if she had it, it had cleared her system. Her husband, whose sense of smell and taste had returned, tested negative for the antibodies. Although it is unclear whether she is immune, Hughes said the antibody test provided much-needed clarity. “We know that something happened to us, and we would like some kind of proof or understanding of what it was,” she said. Hughes said she is still practicing social distancing, washing her hands frequently and wearing a mask, knowing that even if she is immune, it is possible to spread the virus by touching contaminated surfaces. She feels fortunate, because her case resolved on its own and because it didn’t spark the intense fear and dread that now surround the presence of symptoms. “I wasn’t fearful when I had it, because I didn’t know that I had it,” she said. “That was such a blessing, looking back.” tara.bahrampour@washpost.com


U.N., Arab powers fear wider war in Yemen after separatists declare self-rule in the south

is already in the grip of the world’s most severe humanitarian crisis after more than five years of conflict. This month the first case of covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, was detected, sparking fears that the disease could quickly spread at a time when Yemen is facing deep cuts in humanitarian aid funding. “The latest turn of events is disappointing, especially as the city of Aden and other areas in the south have yet to recover from flooding and are facing the risk of COVID-19,” Martin Griffiths, the U.N. special envoy for Yemen, said in a statement. “Now, more than ever, all political actors must cooperate in good faith, refrain from taking escalatory actions, and put the interests of Yemenis first.” The fresh animosities are a reminder of the multiple wars suffocating Yemen. While the primary, and best-known, conflict pits the Saudi-led coalition against northern rebels known as Houthis, the battle for the strategic port city of Aden and other areas in the south involves two allies within the coalition. The UAE supports the separatist Southern Transitional Council, while Saudi Arabia backs the internationally recognized Yemeni government of President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi. All are against the Iran-aligned Houthis, but rifts inside the coalition have been simmering for more than two years. The STC, which favors splitting Yemen’s south from its north, has long tangled with the Yemeni government, ruled for decades by northerners. The group and the UAE disapprove of Hadi’s alliance with al-Islah, an influential Islamist party. The Saudis view al-Islah as part of Yemen’s political fabric. But the UAE and the STC oppose any role for al-Islah because of its links to the Muslim Brotherhood, a regional political Islamist movement that the Emiratis and other Arab rulers have labeled terrorists. Last August, STC fighters seized control of Aden after four days of clashes that killed as many as 40 people, injured 260 and forced tens of thousands of civilians to flee the city, nestled on the tip of the Arabian Peninsula. That prompted the coalition to target its own allies with airstrikes. In November, the STC and the government signed a peace agreement in the Saudi capital, Riyadh. It was hailed by Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Western powers as paving the way for a broader political solution that would end Yemen’s civil war and humanitarian crisis, which has left millions on the edge


The Finance 202: Joe Biden blasts big banks, corporate America over coronavirus response

proceed cautiously, lest they unleash a second wave … Yet even the most tentative steps have unnerved public health experts, big-city mayors and others who worry that with case numbers continuing to rise, it is too soon to reverse course on a virus that has killed [54,400] Americans … The reopenings come at a time when stay-at-home rules still enjoy widespread support, despite acute economic pain. Polls show that majorities of Americans worry more about moving too quickly to get back to business than too slowly.” New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) eyes May 15 Major retailers ask for uniformity. “ Pelosi promises stimulus funds for “impatient” governors: “Asked about Cuomo’s recent remarks that he ‘would have insisted that state and local funding was in this current bill,’ Pelosi told [CNN anchor] Jake Tapper: ‘Just calm down. We will have state and local [aid], and we will have it in a very significant way. It’s no use going on to what might have been.’ “Mnuchin, asked by ‘Fox News Sunday’ host Chris Wallace whether the Trump Administration supported providing states with $500 billion in relief to pay for ‘first responders and other workers,’ said ‘it will be something we discuss on a bipartisan basis’ with the House and the Senate. ‘This is something we’ll consider, but our focus right now is on execution.’” Republican lawmakers and the White House also disagree: “After years of pillorying the Obama administration over spending and blocking efforts to pump more money into the economy following the 2008 financial crisis, GOP leaders now find themselves struggling with how to balance the need to prop up the struggling economy ahead of the fall’s elections with concerns that too much spending could hurt them with their base of voters.” The goal is to help global supply chains: “While the partnership has been in the works since last fall, it comes at a compelling time now as global supply chains have been upended by the coronavirus pandemic, forcing governments to take unprecedented actions to prop up large and small businesses alike.” Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) doesn't want Chinese students to study STEM in U.S.: “ ‘The students should be allowed ’to come here and study Shakespeare and the Federalist Papers, that’s what they need to learn from America,’ he said. ‘They don’t need to learn quantum computing and artificial intelligence from America.’ ” Today: Tuesday: Wednesday: Thursday: Friday:


Sunlight’s ultraviolet wavelengths have strengths, limitations in disinfecting against the coronavirus

UVB rays, vital for all life and for humans to produce vitamin D and other essential body processes, but also causing tanning, sunburn, skin cancer and wrinkles depending on skin type. Less famous, but more dangerous UVC light never appears on sun block labels because these solar rays are too short to penetrate Earth’s atmosphere. From about 254 to 270 nanometers, these deadly wavelengths, labeled UVGI for germicidal irradiation, rapidly deactivate viruses such as H5N1, swine flu and severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus. Single stranded RNA viruses such as coronaviruses are highly sensitive to ultraviolet radiation, which causes mutations that disrupt replication. But natural UVB from the sun and constant artificial UVC act at vastly different speeds. “Sunlight definitely kills things. It’s just really slow,” said Andrea Silverman, environmental engineering and global health professor at New York University, who studies the role of sunlight in virus decay such as in natural wastewater treatment pond systems. How long would it take to disinfect, for example, a glove hung outside in the sun? Retired biophysicist David Lytle has done modeling on sunlight’s impact in epidemics or in a potential bioterrorist attack with viruses such as Ebola or smallpox in a well-known research partnership with scientist Jose-Luis Sagripanti, then director of the Army’s high-level biosafety lab at the Edgewood Chemical Biological Center in Aberdeen, Md. Lytle calculated that on May 1, two to three hours of midday sunshine would be needed to kill microscopic coronavirus particles (not including larger globules) in Washington and New York City, which receive similar amounts of sunlight in their respective positions near the 39th and 41st parallel north. On June 21, the summer solstice, it would take 1.3 to 2 hours. “That’s impractical in the middle of a city with tall buildings” that cast shadows, Lytle said. Plus, sunlight hits only surfaces such as the tops of parcels left on the porch, but not the other sides or the bottom. And the notion that sunshine disinfected great-grandma’s white sheets hanging on the line, Lytle warned, ignores the boiling wash water before, then wind wafting on fabric, with textures and folds that harbor nanoparticles. “The sunlight is going to be helpful, but it’s not the total answer,” Lytle said. “You still need disinfecting.” This expert sunlight analysis is hardly comforting for people imagining covid-19 germs coating every blade of grass, tree branch, sidewalk and lamppost. Such worries are vastly


Fear, sadness and uncertainty: Waiting for international adoption during a global pandemic

This story has been updated to reflect that the U.S. State Department has issued guidance that says adoptions are exempt from President Trump’s executive order on immigration. For several weeks in early March, my 5-year-old carried a picture in the front pocket of his backpack. Every so often, he’d take it out and look at the toddler in the brown sweater and then with his finger trace the lips that matched his own. His teacher told me he talked about “baby brother” during circle time at kindergarten, unable to contain his excitement over news that I hadn’t shared widely yet in my own circle. His backpack has been hanging by the door of our Chicago house since March 13, the last day my son and his older brother, who is 8, went to school, the last day life didn’t feel suspended. The suitcase I had packed for my trip to Morocco to meet the boy in the picture stayed on my bedroom floor for a few weeks until I finally put it in a closet, unable to deal with the reminder of what almost was. Days before I was scheduled to travel to meet my son and start the process to bring him home, Morocco closed its borders. It is under a quarantine until at least the end of May. We had planned to travel as a family to Morocco this summer to complete the adoption. I now hope I can get to him sometime this fall, which feels optimistic, particularly with increasing rates of infection in the United States and the rush to return to an elusive normal before the virus is contained. Our family is healthy for now, even the little one in Morocco, according to the orphanage director, who sends me pictures through WhatsApp. I am grateful for our health, and for the pictures. But a devastating uncertainty to the global pandemic has caught me by surprise, even though I am familiar with the unpredictability of international adoption. Both of my older sons were adopted from Morocco when they were infants, and I’ve often told people adopting is like being in the first trimester of pregnancy the entire time. Laws change. Countries open and close. In Morocco, I need a judge to grant custody and then the U.S. Consulate to grant the child an immigrant visa, both processes that can be delayed, or not happen at all.


Bolshoi in the kitchen: Russian ballet is also working from home during lockdown

way the state is willing to help small and medium businesses, it would also help to cover losses for the theaters — and hence also for the Bolshoi,” Urin said in a statement to The Washington Post. Russia’s coronavirus cases started spiking later than its European and Asian neighbors, which means the peak will probably be delayed, too. The country has more than 74,000 confirmed diagnoses. The Bolshoi is far from the only performing arts center struggling. New York’s Metropolitan Opera announced last month that it would cancel the rest of its season because of the pandemic and begin an emergency fundraising effort aimed at covering an anticipated loss of up to $60 million. Washington’s Kennedy Center received $25 million in emergency funding as part of the recent $2 trillion stimulus package, but then it announced a plan to furlough the National Symphony Orchestra’s musicians. After public backlash, the furloughs were called off, but hefty pay cuts replaced them. Valeria Zapasnikova, a ballerina with St. Petersburg’s Mikhailovsky Ballet Company, said she and other dancers have wondered about what a return to the stage will even look like. Once a theater can open, troupes will need some time to practice together again before performing. But then with the painful economic downturn the coronavirus has caused, will people be as willing to shell out money for expensive tickets? Will they have the same appetite to sit in a crowded theater? And if the borders remain closed to tourists, that could be another hit to the prospective audience base. “Do you really think that when we announce the sale of tickets, people will immediately rush to buy them?” Urin told Kommersant. “It will take time for the audience to return to the theater — not only for economic but also for psychological reasons. This epidemic, in my opinion, will change a lot in the relationship between the theater and the audience.” The dining room chairs in Adrian Mitchell and Andrea Lassakova’s apartment are weighed down with large jugs of water to serve as a makeshift barre for the couple’s daily ballet classes. During the 45-minute sessions, they carefully avoid kicking the audience of one — their small dog, Beau. Mitchell is typically teaching the makeshift class. Because the Mikhailovsky Theatre, where they both perform, closed so suddenly, Lassakova didn’t get a chance to grab extra pointe shoes, leaving her with just one worn-down


Are you a veteran or VA employee dealing with coronavirus? Share your experience with The Post.

The coronavirus pandemic has taken a toll on veterans and the people who care for them, and The Washington Post wants to hear those stories. Thousands of veterans have been infected with the virus and hundreds have died at Veterans Affairs hospitals across the country. And the toll for the hospital workers at the front lines has also been unforgiving. A growing number of VA health-care employees have been infected and have died on the job. If you are a veteran who has been infected with the coronavirus, a family member of an ill or deceased veteran, or a VA employee who wants to share your experiences, we’d like to hear from you. Fill out the form below or at this link. If you would like to contact us anonymously, you can submit a secure and confidential tip.


In New York’s largest hospital system, many coronavirus patients on ventilators didn’t make it

percent that some critical-care doctors had optimistically hoped for when the first cases were diagnosed. “For those who have a severe enough course to require hospitalization through the emergency department, it is a sad number,” said Karina W. Davidson, the study’s lead author and a professor at the Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research at Northwell Health. At the end of the study period, 831 — or 72 percent — remained hospitalized, so the mortality rate may be higher or lower depending on how well those patients do in the coming days. In a clarification issued on April 24, JAMA said that if the still-hospitalized patients are included, 3.3 percent of the total number who were on ventilators were discharged and 24.5 percent died. The analysis is the largest and most comprehensive study of outcomes in the United States to be published. Researchers looked at the electronic medical records of 5,700 patients infected with covid-19 between March 1 and April 4 who were treated at Northwell Health’s 12 hospitals in New York City, Long Island and Westchester County — all heavily hit by the outbreak. Sixty percent were male, 40 percent female and the average age was 63. “It’s important to look to American data, as we have different resources in our health-care system and different demographics in our populations,” Davidson said. The paper also found that of those who were hospitalized, 57 percent had hypertension, 41 percent were obese and 34 percent had diabetes, which is consistent with risk factors listed by the Centers for Disease for Control and Prevention. Noticeably absent from the top of the list was asthma. As doctors and researchers have learned more about covid-19, the less it seems that asthma plays a dominant role in outcomes. One other surprising finding from the study was that 70 percent of the patients sick enough to be admitted to the hospital did not have a fever. Fever is listed as the top symptom of covid-19 by the CDC, and for weeks, many testing centers for the virus turned away patients if they did not have one. Davidson said that as a result of that finding, Northwell is encouraging people with underlying health conditions, such as hypertension and diabetes, who are potentially exposed to the virus and who may not have a fever to consult with a doctor sooner rather than later. Correction: A previous version of this story


James M. Beggs, NASA administrator in the 1980s, dies at 94

James M. Beggs, who had a key role as NASA’s administrator in the 1980s in promoting the space shuttle program, then resigned soon after the 1986 Challenger disaster that left seven astronauts dead, died April 23 at his home in Bethesda, Md. He was 94. The cause was congestive heart failure, said his son, Charles Beggs. Mr. Beggs was a onetime Navy officer who worked in the aerospace industry and held top jobs at NASA in the 1960s and later in the Transportation Department. He was named NASA administrator — the space agency’s top position — in 1981. At that time, NASA’s glory days of manned space flight and heroic missions to the moon were a decade in the past, and budget cuts had reduced the agency’s scope and morale. Mr. Beggs sought to restore NASA’s luster through scientific expeditions, strengthened ties to the military and a new space station — which White House budget cutters dismissed as a “motel in the sky for astronauts.” Mr. Beggs secured additional funding for NASA and proved to be a popular and charismatic figure, given to spontaneously quoting lines from Shakespeare. He was skilled at dealing with lawmakers on Capitol Hill and helped rebuild the country’s space program. He foresaw a time when a squadron of space shuttles would be conducting scientific research and launching secret military satellites in space. “There is no telling where our vision and imagination will lead us once we have the space station,” he said in 1985. “As Shakespeare put it, ‘Thoughts are but dreams till their effects be tried.’ ” He stepped up the space shuttle program, with more than 20 successful missions during his tenure, and was instrumental in establishing programs to send members of Congress and teachers into space. By 1985, NASA had 20,000 employees and an annual budget of almost $8 billion. It was a constant battle, Mr. Beggs said, to win support from President Ronald Reagan, who had little interest in the space program. “He was almost technically ignorant,” Mr. Beggs told journalist Joseph J. Trento for his 1987 book “Prescription for Disaster,” about NASA and Challenger. “Not quite, but almost. He grasps a few of the broader concepts, but when you start talking in any kind of detail about the broader aspects of the program, his eyes glaze over.” Mr. Beggs’s tenure at NASA was overshadowed by two events that took place


It feels like the end of the world. So we should get married now.

DUBAI — The world seemed to be falling apart under the weight of the coronavirus pandemic, with Egypt already under a nighttime curfew. Alaa al-Taweel knew it was time to go ahead with her marriage. The plan for an engagement ceremony to be attended by family traveling from the deep south of the country followed a few months later by a wedding suddenly seemed untenable, with more restrictions closing in and no end in sight. So just a few days later, Taweel, 24, and her partner were engaged, in a simple ceremony along the Nile River at sunset as a few friends and family stood appropriate distances from one another. Across the world, the pandemic has forced the postponement of countless weddings, which are top social events of the year in many traditional societies. But some couples are somehow still finding a way to tie the knot — because they just can’t wait or are convinced it’s now or never. “I read a lot about the deteriorating situation in Italy, the number of total deaths every day, I was terrified,” Taweel recalled. “I woke [my partner] up in the middle of night telling him, ‘If the world is about to end, we have to hurry up to live some days together first,’ and he super agreed.” After the Nile engagement earlier this month, everyone hurried home to their Cairo apartments ahead of curfew to video chat on Zoom with those who could not attend. The couple hopes to be married in a few months. Somehow. “We didn’t care a lot about the ceremony. It was about us, me and him and our need to be together,” Taweel said. Many governments have recognized the risk of the virus spreading during weddings and moved quickly to close down wedding halls and ban gatherings. In a tragic case in Morocco, just days before a lockdown was declared, a wedding in the country’s tiny Jewish community and its celebration of the Purim festival resulted in dozens of infections and 12 deaths from the novel coronavirus. In Dubai, the glitzy Persian Gulf emirate known for its high-end lifestyle that even promotes wedding tourism, the industry has been devastated. A multitude of weddings have been postponed, and there is little idea of when they can resume. “Honestly for us, in the events business, we will be the last ones coming back,” lamented wedding planner Stefanie Heller,


As covid-19 deaths mount, Md. Gov. Hogan promises caution as he looks to reopen the economy

A day after Maryland had its worst day of covid-19 deaths — and as fatalities and cases continued to mount — Gov. Larry Hogan (R) vowed that he would proceed with caution as he looks to reopen the state’s economy. During a Sunday morning appearance on ABC News’s “This Week,” Hogan promised all his decisions in the next few months would be based on science. “We’re not going to do anything that’s going to put anybody in more danger,” Hogan said. “I want to get our economy back open just as soon as we can, but I want to do so in a safe way so . . . we don’t cause more deaths or an overloading of our health-care system.” The District, Maryland and Virginia reported 53 new covid-19 fatalities Sunday, bringing the region’s death toll to 1,549, according to a Washington Post tally. The overall number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the District, Maryland and Virginia grew by roughly 1,500, to 35,436 cases. Maryland, which reports both confirmed and probable coronavirus deaths, has the highest toll at 917, after adding 28 Sunday. The state also added 800 new cases, bringing its total number of infected to 18,596. On Saturday, Maryland reported 76 new deaths, its largest single-day jump. Hogan had said last week that he was optimistic that plateauing hospitalizations and ICU bed use in the state meant he could lift his stay-at-home order as soon as early May. But in TV appearances Sunday, Hogan admitted the recent rising death and caseload counts were concerning. He called the spikes a delayed impact of the coronavirus’s spread, which he said had been slowed by effective social distancing measures. The governor pointed out that Maryland has largely avoided a dramatic spike like those that overwhelmed hospitals in New York and New Orleans. He noted that Maryland has not seen an overflow of its health-care system, nor has it been unable to meet demand for intensive care unit beds and ventilators. “We have dramatically flattened and lengthened that curve and lowered those numbers,” Hogan said on CBS News’s “Face the Nation.” But “you can’t stop the virus.” Hogan did not directly answer a question about whether his May timeline for reopening the state remained feasible. He said his staff was continuing to monitor “certain metrics,” as well as “a pattern of numbers.” He also reiterated that any reopening would be coordinated


with Virginia and D.C. leaders. Virginia disclosed another 12 deaths Sunday, bringing its fatality count to 453. Five of the new Virginia deaths were linked to Fairfax County, while three came from Arlington. The state also added 604 new cases, raising its total number of infected to 12,995. The District reported 13 additional deaths — roughly the same number it added Saturday — bringing its number of covid-19 fatalities to 179. And it announced 142 new cases of infection, bringing its total number of patients to 3,845. Some of the city’s added coronavirus cases came from the Department of Corrections, which houses 1,440 prisoners. Over the past week, the number of inmates in D.C. jails who have tested positive for the virus rose from 97 to 121, with 13 additional cases reported Saturday. The D.C. government said 68 inmates had recovered from the virus and 792 remained in quarantine. The city said 32 jail employees also were in quarantine, while 37 have tested positive for the virus. One prisoner and one Department of Corrections employee had died of covid-19 as of Saturday. The D.C. Public Defender Service and the American Civil Liberties Union’s District-based affiliate are suing for the release of inmates, arguing that prisoners are at high risk of infection from the virus. A federal judge ruled that the D.C. jail system must overhaul its medical care, cleaning and social distancing procedures, but stopped short of demanding the release of inmates. The weekend also saw the continuation of a coronavirus outbreak at a long-term care facility in Virginia: Sixty-five patients and 19 employees at the Dulles Health & Rehab Center in Herndon were sick with the virus as of Sunday afternoon, according to a spokeswoman. Fourteen residents have died of the virus. Many of the 65 patients have tested positive for the virus or, based on their symptoms, are presumed to have contracted it. Seven employees have since recovered completely and have returned to work, said Jennifer Eddy, a spokeswoman for Commonwealth Care of Roanoke, which provides consulting services to Dulles Health & Rehab Center. In a letter posted on the facility’s website last week, Leslie Ruffner, the administrator of the Dulles Health & Rehab Center, said the facility was screening and monitoring patients “very closely” and that staff members are evaluated before and after their shifts for fevers or respiratory symptoms. Any resident who tests positive, she said,


Covid-19 is ravaging one of the country’s wealthiest black counties

only pharmacist,’ ” said Bowie resident Nicole Boynes, whose husband, Sean, had asthma but kept working at a pharmacy he helped found in Greenbelt. Sean Boynes, a former Air Force captain, died of covid-19, the disease the virus causes, on April 2. He was 46. Nearly 14 percent The 174 county residents who had died of covid-19 as of Sunday, according to The Washington Post’s tracker, include educators, a maintenance worker, a prominent artist and a pastor. One of the youngest victims was Leilani Jordan, 27, who had cognitive disabilities and worked at the Giant supermarket in Largo. As the number of cases continues to rise, officials are promising to put more money toward public health, even as the prolonged economic shutdown decimates government budgets. They are determined to improve wellness and find ways to bring doctors and nurses to the communities they say have too long been ignored. “It’s served as a magnifying glass for challenges we knew we had,” said County Executive Angela D. Alsobrooks (D). “We know that when this is over, we can’t return to business as usual.” Maryland’s first coronavirus death, announced March 18, was a Prince George’s man in his 60s with underlying health conditions. The deaths that followed have been people from poor neighborhoods inside the Capital Beltway and wealthy subdivisions outside of it. A Washington Post analysis found that among the Zip codes with the highest per capita infection rates is 20769, which includes Glenn Dale and has a median household income of $148,800. But there is also 20712, which includes Mt. Rainier, on the border with the District, and has a median household income of $54,800. Of the deaths in Prince George’s for which the victim’s race or ethnicity was reported, 130 were African American, 15 were Latino, and 19 were white, according to county data. Jordan, the supermarket worker, lived in Upper Marlboro. Her mother, Zenobia Shepherd, warned her about the risks of the pandemic, but she said Jordan probably did not fully understand. “She said, ‘Mommy, I’m going to work because no one else is going to help the senior citizens get their groceries,’ ” Shepherd said. “She only stopped going to work when she could no longer breathe.” Shepherd said her daughter’s death made her more aware of the disparities between white and black communities. Recently, she tried to buy respiratory masks in her local pharmacy; there weren’t


black Americans often get, at age 45 or 50, the chronic illnesses that white Americans get at 65 or 70. Part of the reason, he said, is that health care tends to be less available in minority communities. And there is sometimes distrust in those communities of medical providers, who have historically responded differently to black and white patients. “It is a function of how society treats you — whether you need to go to the hospital, or the ICU or need a ventilator,” Thomas said. Patients often require acute care when they arrive at Fort Washington Medical Center with covid-19, said hospital President Eunmee Shim. The intensive care unit has been full for weeks, and doctors are now treating covid-19 patients in massive medical-surgical tents. Joe Jenkins, who owns a funeral home in Landover, had received nearly 500 calls for funerals as of early April, an unprecedented pace that puts him well ahead of the 1,346 funerals he conducted over the course of last year. He has purchased another refrigeration unit, nearly doubling his capacity to store bodies. “It’s a trying time,” Jenkins said. Under an emergency order by Gov. Larry Hogan (R), funerals are limited to 10 mourners or fewer. Those who have lost loved ones to covid-19 are offered only direct burials and cremations. Jenkins decided not to allow viewings, which eliminates the need to embalm bodies, because “the CDC or no one else knows what happens to the virus once someone dies.” Paramedic Jason Rush, who is based at a fire station in College Park, said his crew has treated multiple coronavirus patients who cannot stop coughing. Others do not cough at all, he said, but struggle to breathe. What they all have in common are dangerously low blood oxygen levels. Rush said he wears gloves, wraparound eye protection, an N95 mask covered by a surgical mask and a gown. He worries about exposing his 9-year-old son to the virus but never thinks twice about answering the calls. “We are going to do the job regardless,” he said. Alsobrooks, who grew up in the county, said she personally has received calls for help from constituents who are worried they have the coronavirus. She called an ambulance for one earlier this month who told her he couldn’t breathe. The history of Prince George’s makes the story unfolding there distinct from those in highly segregated cities like Detroit,


This video of mousetraps and ping-pong balls makes crystal clear why social distancing works

A video from the Ohio Department of Health shows a minefield of mousetraps and table tennis balls, row upon row, that turn into a predictable maelstrom of flying debris once a bouncing ball tumbles into view. It’s also a metaphor for the menacing spread of the coronavirus, where just one person interacting with others can produce a chain reaction of devastating consequences. The video is among the clearest visualizations yet of how proximity can turn lethal — and, conversely, how isolation can turn the tide. In the second half of the video, the traps are spaced at greater distances as a table tennis ball bounces across the floor without triggering any hazards. Ohio has been one of the relative bright spots in the United States during the pandemic, with signs pointing to early measures as a reason. Ohio’s Republican governor, Mike DeWine, shut down a fitness expo in Columbus on March 4, just as President Trump downplayed the impact of the virus in the country. And even earlier, the Cleveland Clinic braced for a surge in hospitalizations. The early action may have bought time. Ohio had about 5,100 infections as of Thursday, fewer than a third of the cases in similarly sized Michigan, Pennsylvania and Illinois, with just a small fraction of the deaths reported in those nearby states. The Cleveland Clinic, which eventually beefed up plans to expand from 3,200 beds to 8,000 should the worst occur, held just 150 covid-19 patients (along with 2,000 others) this week and is preparing to scale back some facilities. It is moving to lend medical personnel to cities such as Detroit and New York hit hard by the virus. “You’ve got to make these decisions early. Early means early,” DeWine told The Washington Post. “Every day you wait, you create a bigger problem.” With the pandemic still spreading and case counts rising, it’s too early for certainty on whether Ohio’s actions have spared it the worst of the virus’s impact. Experts caution that infectious-disease outbreaks never move smoothly through a population. They arise opportunistically: A party here or church service there can produce an explosion of infections that quickly puts public health officials behind the disease curve. There is no way to account for luck, good or bad. A case in Chicago demonstrates that grim acceleration. At two events in February — a funeral and a birthday party — one person with


Long-distance couples are used to being apart — but not like this

(Benoit, The Polo Bar both in New York), she had settled into a part-time long-distance relationship. But when her American students were sent home, Fada made a quick decision, rented a car and drove 12 hours north to be with her elderly parents in her native region of Lombardy — now the national epicenter of the pandemic. “By then, I couldn’t get to Italy,” said Bertineau, who was born in France, “So I took the last American Airlines flight from New York to Paris to stay with one of my brothers, near Bordeaux.” The chef self-quarantined for 14 days and is now attempting to create a new semblance of routine. “At least we are on the same time,” he said. “Our daily rhythms are parallel.” Recent conversations between the two have included, “I can’t talk, I have to ming the risotto,” and “You’re making gratin dauphinois? I’ll try it, too.” Will they stay in Europe when things get back to normal? Unclear. They say they will have to weigh their options. For now, there are few options for Hermanus-Pieter Bakker, a Dutch musician, and his partner Karen Nimereala, a former opera singer, now vocal coach to the likes of Mylène Farmer and Sting. Both felt comfortable living a nomad existence between New York and Paris since Nimereala, who was born in Ohio, coached students on both sides of the Atlantic. But when France closed its borders, she was in New York while Bakker was in Paris, and because they are neither married nor legally partnered, Nimereala feared not being allowed into the country. “I had to change my ticket,” she said, “but I didn’t know when I would be able to go.” The couple speaks on the phone regularly, but Nimereala says, “The nights are terribly long.” The nights and the days are long, too, for Lauren Whitmore, a psycho-oncology research coordinator, and Jake Altobello, an attorney. After four years of long-distance dating between New Jersey and Miami, the young couple had just come to the conclusion that they needed to live in the same city when covid-19 struck. “We spent a weekend together in the Bahamas in early March and had plans to meet at the end of the month,” said Whitmore, who experienced 15 minutes of fame when Tom Hanks found her Fordham University ID card in Central Park in 2015 (he tweeted about it to find her