Congress has taken a break from dealing with covid-19. The rest of us don’t have that luxury.

diagnostic testing and tracing. The Suppress Covid-19 Act sets a goal of suppressing the disease by supporting full diversification of our testing options. This includes innovation; an expanded testing market capable of supporting both scaled-up use of rapid point-of-care tests and much faster turnaround time on conventional testing; and full implementation of testing and tracing programs by states. In diagnostic testing, we have been too dependent on the two main commercial labs (Quest and LabCorp) and a handful of testing platforms. But models now exist, for instance at the Broad Institute in Massachusetts, for building testing labs with nonproprietary tools. Also, genome sequencing labs, such as Ginkgo Bioworks, have figured out how to build the systems of sample collection and data accessioning necessary for them to process tests. They have received a contract from the National Institutes of Health testing “shark tank” program and are rapidly scaling up and, ultimately, these labs will have capacity to operate at millions of tests a day. They have already shared their lab and system plans with public health officials around the country. Additionally, the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority recently approved grants for innovative point-of-care tests with rapid results on high-sensitivity tests. With all this, we can elevate our supply of tests to another level. We also have work to do organizing demand. One of the hardest parts of fighting covid-19 is that data has to be integrated among health-care systems, public health systems, labs and providers of tests. To control covid-19 consistently, health officials need to know where positive cases are appearing. States have been working hard to stabilize markets for testing and to implement public health systems capable of tracking the disease and responding to hot spots. This has involved intensive labor. State, local and tribal health officials are in the process of converting public health infrastructure that might be analogized to a network of country roads into a fully developed interstate highway system. Their hard work is grit in action. Will Congress match them? Read more: Catherine Rampell: Brian Klaas: Life here in Britain is largely returning to normal, highlighting Trump’s failures in America The Post’s View: No one wins a vaccine race if public confidence is lost Leana S. Wen: We can’t open schools safely if we don’t face facts about the risks The Post’s View: Trump’s executive orders won’t cut it. Congress needs to make a deal.


Britain says it overcounted coronavirus death toll by 5,377

Coronavirus Resource Center. Ordinary people, too, still follow the numbers closely, feeling fear or relief in their rise or fall. Even with the adjustments, Britain has still suffered one of the highest overall death tolls in the world, behind the United States, Brazil and Mexico. The country remains the highest or among the highest, depending on how the counting is done, in Europe. Public health experts have long warned about the pitfalls of “false precision,” as exact numbers of cases or deaths reported may be off, for all kinds of reasons, by a wide margin. Tallying and comparing covid-19 cases and deaths is tricky. The number of cases depends on how many tests are carried out, especially among the asymptomatic. The number of deaths depends on how they are measured — by counting excess mortality over time, for example, or looking at death certificates to see if covid-19 is mentioned, or recording positive tests and then seeing if the tested patient dies. As it turns out here, if a person once tested positive for the coronavirus and died even months later, that death would be counted by Public Health England (PHE) as a covid-19 death — until Wednesday. That it took months into the epidemic to correct the flaw in reporting is unsettling, experts say, as Britain is known as a world leader in the epidemiology of infectious disease. The “statistical anomaly” was first cited in a paper published July 16 by Yoon K. Loke of the University of East Anglia and Carl Heneghan of Oxford University. The pair noted that people living in England were increasingly concerned that PHE figures showed a relentless toll of more than 100 covid-19 deaths a day into July, long after the epidemic’s April peak and after the nation’s lockdown was loosened. This was in stark contrast, they noted, to the more reassuring recovery in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, where there were many days with no covid-19 deaths. As it turned out, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland were counting their deaths differently. Taken to its logical extreme, by the official Public Health England definition, “no one with COVID in England is allowed to ever recover from their illness,” the researchers said. A day after the paper appeared, British Health Secretary Matt Hancock called for an urgent review into how coronavirus deaths were recorded in England. The government paused reporting death tallies from Public


Man fatally stabbed in Northwest Washington

A man was fatally stabbed in Northwest Washington, according to local police. D.C. police said the incident unfolded around 12:46 p.m. Wednesday in the hallway of a residential building in the 1300 block of Missouri Avenue in the Brightwood neighborhood. When officers arrived, they found a man with stab wounds. He was pronounced dead on the scene and later identified as Sa’id Grey, 40, of Northwest. A reward of up to $25,000 is being offered for information that leads to an arrest and conviction of those involved, according to police. The District has seen 120 homicides so far this year, according to tracking by The Washington Post. That’s a roughly 20 percent increase over this time last year.


Covid-19 surges back into nursing homes in coronavirus hot spots

cases. Much of the surge is blamed on younger adults who flocked to bars, restaurants, beaches and parties, where some picked up the infection. Many of them displayed no symptoms but were highly infectious to others — including the staff and visitors of nursing homes. Like the pandemic itself, the phenomenon is both urban and rural at this point. In 26 Mississippi counties, many of them sparsely populated, deaths in long-term care centers account for more than half the total covid-19 deaths, state records show. Mississippi currently has 178 outbreaks in long-term care facilities. In Lauderdale County, for example, 56 of the 94 deaths were in nursing homes, mainly during the early days of the pandemic, said coroner Clayton Cobler. Twelve of the county’s 13 nursing homes saw at least one death, he said. Now, with the virus surging again, Cobler said he is wary of another surge in deaths. “We’ve gotten noncompliant,” he said, citing younger people partying, particularly at the beach. Some states also relaxed nursing home visiting rules in the late spring as conditions improved. And the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a study this week showing that residents of a Maryland nursing home who received dialysis treatment outside the facility became infected in much greater numbers than those who did not receive that care. When a team led by Grabowski examined nearly 3,000 nursing homes for the factors that led to a covid-19 outbreak, they found some circumstances had more influence than others. Facilities were more likely to have at least one case if they were in urban areas, were not part of chains and had a larger percentage of residents who were African American. The state where a nursing home is located also mattered. But the odds of having an outbreak were not affected by having a prior infection violation, a large number of residents on Medicaid or receiving a five-star rating, the highest available, from federal reviewers. Ownership of a facility also did not appear to factor into whether an outbreak was likely. Another recent study found that nursing homes with larger staffs were better able to limit outbreaks when they occur. Usually, this is done by separating infected and uninfected residents and stepping up other infection control measures, Grabowski said. Mark Parkinson, president and chief executive of the American Health Care Association, said about 10 percent of the staff in the


Covid-19 death toll rivals fatality rate during 1918 flu epidemic, researchers say

The increase in deaths in New York City during the early months of the covid-19 pandemic rivals the death toll there at the peak of the 1918 flu pandemic, according to an analysis published Thursday. The comparison, published online in the medical journal JAMA Network Open, found that the number of deaths from all causes was roughly equal during the two peak months of the flu epidemic and the first 61 days of the current outbreak. The H1N1 flu pandemic eventually killed 50 million people a century ago, about 675,000 of them in the United States. The current pandemic has claimed at least 746,000 lives worldwide, about 162,000 of them in the United States, according to a tally kept by The Washington Post. “For anyone who doesn’t understand the magnitude of what we’re living through, this pandemic is comparable in its effect on mortality to what everyone agrees is the previous worst pandemic,” said Jeremy S. Faust, an emergency physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston who led the team that conducted the data review. (The AIDS epidemic has killed more than 700,000 people in the United States since it began in 1981.) There were 31,589 deaths from all causes in New York during the peak period of the flu epidemic, about the same as the 33,465 tallied in the 61 days after the first death on March 11 of this year, the analysis shows. New York in 1918 had a population of 5.5 million people, so the death rate of 287 per 100,000 person-months was greater than the 202 of the current covid-19 pandemic. Person-months is a way of measuring the number of deaths in a population during a specific period of time. But the current outbreak has seen a more dramatic rise in “excess deaths” — the number of fatalities above what would be expected in a normal year. With better medical care, public health, hygiene and medicines such as antibiotics, New York typically has about half the death rate of a century earlier — about 50 per person-month instead of 100. So the current outbreak has quadrupled the death rate, while the flu pandemic nearly tripled it. “Because baseline mortality rates from 2017 to 2019 were less than half that observed from 1914 to 1917 . . . the relative increase during early covid-19 period was substantially greater than during the peak of the 1918 H1N1


Local digest: Woman shot in head while riding in car on I-695, police say

Police responded to that location before realizing the vehicle that had been struck was on M Street. According to a police report, the driver told the officer that his passenger “was shot while he was driving on the highway by unknown suspect or suspects.” Police said the woman had been in the front passenger seat. Homicide detectives are investigating because of the severity of the woman’s injuries. The woman’s mother said she has not been able to visit her daughter in the hospital because of coronavirus concerns. She said she saw her daughter by video and that she was able to “make a couple of moves with her arm.” She was not able to speak. The mother said she did not know the person who had been driving the car or where her daughter had been going. She works at a grocery store. — Peter Hermann A man was fatally stabbed in Northwest Washington, according to local police. D.C. police said the incident unfolded around 12:46 p.m. Wednesday in the hallway of a residential building in the 1300 block of Missouri Avenue in the Brightwood neighborhood. When officers arrived, they found a man with stab wounds. He was pronounced dead on the scene and later identified as Sa’id Grey, 40, of Northwest. — Dana Hedgpeth MARYLAND Eighty advocacy groups are mounting a campaign to press the Maryland General Assembly to reconvene in a special session to tackle the economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic, including an expected surge in evictions and massive cuts to the state budget. The groups, which sent a letter to Senate President Bill Ferguson (D-Baltimore City) and House Speaker Adrienne A. Jones (D-Baltimore County) last month, said they are stepping up their efforts with plans that include rallies, marches, digital ads and text messaging. Leaders of the groups, which include CASA of Maryland, Progressive Maryland and the Maryland Center on Economic Policy, say it is imperative that state lawmakers meet before their normal 90-day session in January to consider emergency protections for renters and workers and a settlement of a lawsuit over inequitable funding at historically Black colleges and universities. Spokesmen for Ferguson and Jones declined to comment. Several states have planned special sessions amid the pandemic, including Virginia, where lawmakers will meet on Tuesday. Maryland’s last special session was held in 2012 to consider votes on taxes and an expansion of gambling. — Ovetta Wiggins


Israel brings new firepower to the coronavirus fight: The army

JERUSALEM — Israel, desperate to rein in a resurgent coronavirus outbreak, has called in the army to take over testing and contact-tracing operations, part of a major restructuring of its pandemic campaign that includes naming a "corona czar" intended to be insulated from political pressures. The expanded role for the military will include the deployment of about 3,000 additional soldiers and civilian staff to aid in testing and contact-tracing programs, including the call-up of about 2,000 reservists, an Israel Defense Forces spokesman said. “Operation Alon” will be led by a brigadier general of the IDF’s Home Front Command out of a base near the city of Ramla and will begin its work in the coming days, the spokesman said. As of Tuesday, Israel had recorded more than 85,300 coronavirus cases and 619 deaths. The decision to transfer the testing and tracing operation from the Health Ministry to the military was the first major action by Ronni Gamzu, a physician and former hospital administrator who last month was named the country’s first coronavirus coordinator. He said shortcomings in the ministry’s effort propelled the move to elevate the army, a step that had been resisted by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “The Ministry of Health has failed to cut the rate of infections,” Gamzu said in an interview. The military, meanwhile, is considered one of Israel’s most adept institutions. “They can strike missiles from the air,” he said. The delay in assigning a bigger pandemic role to the military had frustrated many in Israel’s public health community, who have touted the military’s logistical prowess and its long-standing preparations for any biological and chemical attacks. Hagai Levine, chairman of the Israeli Association of Public Health Physicians, said health officials had long assumed that the military would take a lead role in any major outbreak and had regularly gamed out pandemic scenarios with IDF officers. But even as some of Netanyahu’s rivals called for the IDF to do more, including Benny Gantz, the alternate prime minister and current defense minister, the military had taken on only spot missions. Most notably, the army operates “corona hotels,” where asymptomatic and mildly ill patients quarantine while infectious. Now it will take on the central mission of expanding the nationwide testing and tracing campaign. Commanders said they hoped to shorten the average time to get test results from five days to no more than 36 hours. The changes are


The pandemic will make movies and TV shows look like nothing we’ve seen before

crew to determine who is allowed on set. “Zones” dictate where those cast and crew can go. These changes might seem technical, but they hint at the far-reaching effects the virus will have on final screen products. Interviews with 12 executives, writers, agents and producers across the Hollywood spectrum suggest a dramatically transformed world of entertainment. Until a vaccine comes along, they say, covid-19 will change what Americans watch as dramatically as it has where they work, shop and learn. Forget the new normal — movies and TV are about to encounter the new austerity. Crowd scenes are a no-go. Real-world locations will be limited. On-screen romance will be less common, sometimes restricted to actors who have off-screen relationships. And independent films — that tantalizing side dish in the U.S. entertainment meal — could be heavily scaled back. “A lot of people believe this is just about getting back to work,” said Mark Gill, a producer and former head of Warner Independent Pictures, the studio unit responsible for independent hits such as “Slumdog Millionaire” and “Good Night, and Good Luck.” “They don’t realize the massive cultural impact we’re about to face.” For most of its history, Hollywood created entertainment based on a simple premise: Shuttle in large numbers of people and move them around at will. That’s certainly true of crews. But it especially applies to extras, the low-paid day laborers who pack sets and off-camera holding areas in order to create dense crowd scenes — and, in turn, lend the work real-world atmosphere. Such scenes have of course been part of some of the most memorable moments in Hollywood history. From “Ben-Hur” to “Braveheart,” on-screen entertainment has become indelible thanks to hundreds of people you’ve never heard of packing tiny spaces, then moving as one when the cameras roll. Yet the virus has essentially made these hires impossible. Many don’t want to risk their health for a $100 paycheck and remote shot at background glory, and producers don’t want to take on the liability even if they did. “Braveheart" used about 1,600 extras, many from the Irish Army reserves. Experts say the movie couldn’t come close to being shot today. “Those of us in the entertainment business are not used to being told ‘no’‚” said Lucas Foster, a longtime Hollywood producer who counts the 2005 romantic-action hit “Mr. & Mrs. Smith” and last year’s Oscar-decorated blockbuster “Ford v Ferrari”


it “Isolation.” He required filmmakers to use only the materials and people they were in lockdown with, even prohibiting Zoom and other technologies. “I think we’re going to get a very cool effect that mirrors what people are going through,” Crooker said of his work. “But I don’t know that every movie that gets made would want to look like that.” One consequence of the virus could turn out to be the movies that don’t get made at all. Some of the most beloved films of the past two decades, from “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” to “Whiplash,” “Little Miss Sunshine” to “Fruitvale Station,” were independently financed. But before rolling cameras, independent productions require insurance policies to protect them from workplace lawsuits, along with completion bonds, in which a guarantor assures they will step in with funds to finish the movie if production is halted. Experts say no company will cover covid-19 with either policy, effectively preventing production. “Covid is an absolute disaster for the independent-film industry,” said Sky Moore, a partner in the corporate entertainment department of the Los Angeles law firm Greenberg Glusker who has spent several decades putting together film financing deals. “The lifeblood of independent-film financing is loans, and loans need insurance. Now you have this massive hole in the middle of all of it.” Moore believes the toll will be vast. “I think 50 percent of the independent industry goes away,” he said. (Movies financed by large studios do not buy these policies; Netflix or Disney would just absorb a shutdown or lawsuit as the cost of doing business.) Even if they can work around the insurance issues, many independent films won’t get made because they simply won’t have the money. “It’s already hard to get funding for a lot of these movies,” said Shaun MacGillivray, a producer who makes large-scale independent documentaries. “And now you’re telling investors the budget is going to be 30 percent higher?” The independent-film world is trying to push ahead, slowly. The Sundance Film Festival, the epicenter of the indie-film business, where companies like Hulu and Netflix sometimes pay more than $10 million for an independently financed movie, will hold a partially physical, partially virtual edition in January, albeit at just about half the length. “We are reminded daily of the power of what is made newly visible to us, the importance of what we look at,” Tabitha Jackson, the


What we know about the Beirut explosions and their aftermath

German embassies, were also affected. The stream of injured strained the capacity of hospitals, according to the Lebanese Red Cross. In the aftermath of the explosions, concerns also emerged over the release of potential toxins into the air. The exact cause of the blasts remains to be determined definitively. Mohammed Fahmi, the Lebanese interior minister, said the devastation was probably caused by the explosion of a stockpile of ammonium nitrate. Via a spokesman, Lebanese Prime Minister Hassan Diab said several thousand tons of the chemical had improperly been stored for the past six years. “It is unacceptable and we cannot remain silent on this issue,” he said. While many signs point to negligence as the main culprit, Lebanese President Michel Aoun said investigators were also looking at the possible role of “external interference” in the chain of events that triggered the explosions, according to MTV, a Lebanese broadcaster. Arms experts said the explosions were consistent with the key characteristics of ammonium nitrate detonations. According to legal documents, court correspondence and statements by public officials obtained by The Washington Post, a cargo ship flying the flag of Moldova was carrying the approximately 2,750 metric tons of ammonium nitrate when it made an unscheduled stop in Beirut in 2013 on its way to Mozambique from Georgia. Given the risky nature of the material on board, court documents said, port authorities put the cargo into port warehouses to await “auctioning and/or proper disposal.” But the cargo just sat there, despite attempts from several officials to seek guidance on what to do with the volatile material. President Trump said last week the blasts were a “terrible attack,” but no evidence has yet emerged that the explosions were set off on purpose. U.S. military officials said they were still examining the incident. The leader of Lebanon’s powerful Hezbollah warned against blaming the Shiite militia, rejecting allegations that Hezbollah exerted control over the site. The chemical compound is a white salt and an oxidizer — it fuels fires by supplying oxygen. Without a detonator, pure ammonium nitrate does not explode, which is why it is considered safe to use as an agricultural fertilizer. But storage of ammonium nitrate with organic materials — especially liquids that can leak and readily mix, such as vegetable or fuel oil — poses serious risks, said Marc-Michael Blum, who headed the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons laboratory until last


The newest way to silence journalists: Jail them during a pandemic

The same global health crisis that is helping the resurgence of authoritarian rule around the world claimed the lives of three imprisoned journalists last month. Mohamed Monir Their avoidable deaths drive home the point that no other event or political trend in recent memory has been more destructive to press freedom than the covid-19 pandemic. Keeping journalists in prison or arresting them for covering current events has radically different implications in the current health crisis. Detainees are far more likely to get ill or even die due to a lack of adequate care. That was the fate of Monir, an Egyptian journalist whose arrest I reported on last month. Monir was charged with spreading fake news in an appearance he made on Al Jazeera criticizing the Sissi government’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic. The 65-year-old reporter contracted the virus in pretrial detention and died on July 13. At least 10 journalists have been arrested in Egypt since the pandemic began. Askarov, an ethnic Uzbek, had been in prison for 10 years when he died July 25. He was arrested in June 2010 for his coverage of civil conflicts in southern Kyrgyzstan, and had spent years reporting on corruption within the law enforcement apparatus. In 2016, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights found that Askarov was being arbitrarily detained on political grounds. But that didn’t deter the government from keeping him in detention despite failing health. At the time of his death, Askarov had been moved to a notorious prison near Bishkek, the capital, where he was also denied adequate medical care. While the Kyrgyzstan authorities have not officially confirmed that covid-19 was the cause of death, Askarov’s wife and other observers say there’s little doubt. Romero was an investigative journalist who exposed fraud at the highest level of government in 2015. He caught President Juan Orlando Hernández funneling public funds from the national social security system to his own election campaign. “I know they can kill me, and if that happens, the person responsible is the president,” Romero reportedly said at the time of his arrest in 2019. Defamation, the charge for which Romero was serving a 10-year sentence when he died, was decriminalized earlier this year. He should have been released. Following Romero’s death, Honduras’s former president Manuel Zelaya called it a murder carried out by the Hernández regime. “The order was given that he serve an unfair


European countries rushed to house the homeless during the coronavirus crisis. Advocates worry the changes won’t last.

The Washington Post. With no end to the pandemic in sight, many experts say the homeless need ongoing help finding long-term accommodations, rather than one-off meals and temporary rooms. Whether some of the new measures stick remains to be seen. For years, FEANTSA and other organizations in Europe have lobbied for housing first or housing-led models. The idea, initially popularized by activists in New York City in the 1990s, is to focus on permanent housing rather than temporary shelter beds or halfway homes. While advocates continue to push for such policies in the United States and some municipalities have experimented with them, the approach has received widespread resistance. Many experts in Europe say governments could save money in the long term and get closer to solving the problem by addressing a central cause, a housing market that cannot provide for the most vulnerable, rather than accumulating costs by treating symptoms, like the need for a bed or shower on a given night. By one estimate, at least 700,000 people are on the streets or in shelters on any given day in the European Union, according to Spinnewijn. In a recent report, FEANTSA estimated that if the E.U. allocated 3 percent of the subsidies in its covid-19 recovery plan, it could “immediately rehouse all homeless people across Europe in dignified conditions for an entire year.” There is a broad consensus behind housing-first policies among anti-homelessness advocates in Europe. Critics argue that housing should be determined by the choices and responsibilities of individuals — not the state and taxpayers. But when the pandemic hit, the housing-oriented approach proved the easiest way for some governments in emergency mode to get people off exposed streets and out of crowded shelters. “The idea that you need homes for people instead of shelters finally sort of sunk in,” said Rina Beers, a senior policy adviser for Valente, a Dutch organization focused on homelessness. In 2009, the Netherlands had about 17,000 homeless people. The estimate is now 40,000, although Beers said the real number is likely higher. Middle-aged men used to dominate the homeless population, but in recent years it’s become younger and begun to include a larger share of families. The country of about 17 million is short 300,000 housing units, Beers said, which is the crux of the homelessness problem. Early in the pandemic, the government told local authorities not to worry about the extra


After Beirut’s ruinous explosion, a family waits for a call that never comes

friends of those missing gathered around, displaying photographs of those unaccounted for. “The woman I can’t forget was old, she was carrying a photograph,” said Joseph Khalil at Beirut’s Geitawi hospital. “She said that she’d visited three hospitals before this and she couldn’t find him. I can’t get her out of my mind.” Across Beirut this week, medical groups have set up tents where relatives can provide DNA to help identify missing relatives. Ibrahim’s family would like to share DNA samples, but from Tripoli they don’t even know where to begin. They know only Tripoli and no one in Beirut but their son. Rania has shared Ibrahim’s picture on social media with her phone number. The lone takers were journalists. “No one has seen him, no one knows anything,” she said, her voice trembling as she broke into tears. “What do we do? He’s gone and we’re still here. Tell me. What do we do?” As the oldest child of seven, Ibrahim was cheeky as a boy, Rania said while interviewed in her home Thursday. One day, he slammed the door behind her when she walked into the bathroom and then danced uproariously to music as she yelled at him while stuck inside. Years later, he would copy his father, Jamil, once a driver for the city’s teachers, sitting on a lounge chair and pretending to turn the steering wheel as he told his brothers and sisters to settle in for the ride. As he grew older, life got more difficult. The country was in a slow-burn economic crisis even before the latest financial upheaval, which has seen the value of the Lebanese currency plummet and food prices triple. Ibrahim dropped out of school to help the family earn money but moved repeatedly between jobs. Jamil wanted him to find something steady, and they had a fight. Ibrahim felt inadequate. In confidence, both told relatives they were eager to reconcile. But when they came together, they argued more and more. One night in late December, Rania asked finally that he find a permanent job. “It never occurred to me that he would head to Beirut. It’s not what I told him . . . it’s not what I asked,” she said. He left quietly from the cramped apartment in early January. He called the family occasionally, but as fights with his father intensified, Ibrahim stopped calling. The number they had


NCAA pulls plug on all Division I fall championships except for top-tier football

The NCAA officially canceled Division I fall championship events because of the novel coronavirus pandemic. NCAA President Mark Emmert’s announcement Thursday was essentially a formality given the number of conferences that have already postponed fall sports and the board of governors’ requirement that at least 50 percent of schools participate in a season for a championship to be held. The decision includes all fall sports apart from the top-tier Football Bowl Subdivision, which the NCAA does not govern. There will be no fall championships for men’s and women’s cross-country, field hockey, men’s and women’s soccer, women’s volleyball, men’s water polo and the Football Championship Subdivision. Emmert said the NCAA hopes to hold a “legitimate championship” for athletes who participate in those sports in the winter or spring. Meanwhile, the College Football Playoff plans to move forward with its national championship, even though four of the 10 FBS conferences have canceled their fall seasons. Two Power Five conferences, the Big Ten and the Pac-12, announced this week the postponement of fall sports. The Mid-American Conference and the Mountain West Conference also decided against playing football this fall. “We don’t know right now what the season will bring, but as a committee, we are ready to use the protocol and the expertise of the 13 people who have been charged with selecting the teams,” Iowa Athletic Director Gary Barta, the College Football Playoff’s selection committee chair, said in a statement Thursday. “The committee’s task is to rank the teams based on what happens on the field.” Last week, the NCAA directed its three divisions to determine whether they’d hold postseason championships for fall sports. Division II and Division III quickly canceled their events, citing logistical and financial challenges. The six FBS conferences moving forward with fall sports are the SEC, the ACC, the Big 12, the American Athletic Conference, the Sun Belt Conference and Conference USA. With the NCAA’s decision to cancel championships, athletes at those schools would not be able to compete for a national title this fall. For instance, a volleyball player in the SEC could compete in a regular season and for a conference title but not an NCAA championship. For a fall championship to be held in the winter or spring, at least half of eligible schools would need to participate in a postponed season. Emmert said many schools have indicated they’d want to pursue that option. “We


Mosquitoes are swarming after recent heavy rains in the D.C. area

do some people attract mosquitoes more than others? Mosquitoes are attracted to CO2 [carbon dioxide] and lactic acids found in sweat from our bodies, and heat. Some people have more lactic acids and produce more heat, making them more attractive to mosquitoes. What is the best mosquito repellent? There are many types of repellents, and people react differently to each of them. However, the products containing blends of essential oils and picaridin are working well. How do you treat yards and properties to eliminate mosquitoes? It always starts with an inspection of the yard and exterior of the home to identify water collection points. Next, remove water where possible and apply larvicides to collection points that can’t be removed or redirected. A professional will use an adulticide and insect growth regulators to the resting areas. The purpose of the applications is to get ahead of the mosquito life cycle while disrupting breeding sites via the removal of water collection points. Do all mosquitoes die when the temperature falls to a certain temperature? There are several genuses of mosquitoes that overwinter, or go into a state of diapause [a delay in development] as the days become shorter and the temperature falls below 50 degrees. Do you know why some people get itchy welts from mosquito bites, and other people don’t? Is it an allergic reaction? Yes, some people have more of an allergic reaction to the proteins in the mosquitoes’ saliva. This condition is often called skeeter syndrome. Do all mosquitoes feed on nectar? Do they have other food sources? And how does the mosquito use blood? Yes, all feed on some form of nectar from flowers, aphid, or plant juices. The female requires a blood meal to fertilize the eggs. The male’s purpose as with many insects is to inseminate the female and die. Most male mosquitoes only live a week or two depending on the species. They have no other food sources. What mosquito diseases are most common in the U. S.? West Nile virus is the most prevalent disease, along with dengue, chikungunya, and various types of encephalitis. Malaria averages about 1,500 cases per year. However, it is caught pretty quickly and doesn’t have the opportunity to spread aggressively. Yellow fever is rare and is usually contracted outside of the U.S. For this article, I wanted to include a current mosquito photo and video from the 2020 swarm


National Zoo announces that female giant panda may be pregnant

States to do so, Baker-Masson said. “In the middle of a pandemic, this is a joyful moment we can all get excited about,” said Neiffer, who conducted the ultrasound. “We are optimistic that very shortly she may give birth to a healthy cub,” he said in a statement. “We’re watching [Mei] closely and welcome everyone to watch with us on the panda cams.” In an interview, Neiffer said some clues started emerging on ultrasounds about 10 days ago. Images showed “tissue growing that was not the uterus,” he said. On Friday, he was able to get “10- to 20-second video clips of her abdomen,” he said. “Immediately, the structures that we saw last week were much bigger, and I was convinced that we were looking at a fetus.” Neiffer said he was unable to see the heart, but there was “nothing that indicates that we have a fetus that’s in distress. . . . It’s all going the way it should, for now.” “I’m hedging my bets that we’re going to see something within the next four days, maybe sooner,” he said. “I’m optimistic that she’s going to produce babies. Whether or not they’ll be alive . . . we’ll have to wait and see.” Neiffer said he did not think the quiet during the zoo’s shutdown had anything to do with the pregnancy. He noted that Mei has gotten pregnant in the past when the zoo was open and going “full tilt.” “So I don’t believe that’s the case,” he said. He said the zoo’s panda pregnancy team would meet and make sure everyone was ready. “It takes a village to raise a panda — or at least get one out,” he said. Mei was artificially inseminated on March 22 with frozen semen that had been collected from male giant panda Tian Tian. Mei has had numerous “false pregnancies,” which are common in giant pandas and happen when the animal exhibits early signs of pregnancy but no cub appears. That is not the case this time, the zoo said. Mei Xiang has given birth to three surviving cubs: Tai Shan, Bao Bao and Bei Bei. Tai Shan was born in July 2005 and now lives in China. Bao Bao was born in August 2013 and moved to China in February 2017. By agreement, all cubs born at the zoo are sent to China when they are 4 years old.


The Daily 202: Trump prods appointees and flexes executive muscles in pursuit of election-year advantages

pandemic vs. almost 40 percent for White men and 45 percent for White women, Labor Department data shows. The slow job rebound is leaving many minority families fearful of eviction. Nearly half of Hispanic renters and 42 percent of Black renters said they had ‘no confidence’ or only ‘slight confidence’ they could pay their August rent, according to a Census Bureau survey.” On Reddit, unemployed Americans are “The increase in deaths in New York City during the early months of the covid-19 pandemic rivals the death toll there at the peak of the 1918 flu pandemic, according to an analysis published Thursday. The comparison, published online in the medical journal JAMA Network Open, found that the number of deaths from all causes was roughly equal during the two peak months of the flu epidemic and the first 61 days of the current outbreak,” “New York in 1918 had a population of 5.5 million people, so the death rate of 287 per 100,000 person-months was greater than the 202 of the current covid-19 pandemic. Person-months is a way of measuring the number of deaths in a population during a specific period of time. But the current outbreak has seen a more dramatic rise in ‘excess deaths’ — the number of fatalities above what would be expected in a normal year. With better medical care, public health, hygiene and medicines such as antibiotics, New York typically has about half the death rate of a century earlier — about 50 per person-month instead of 100. So the current outbreak has quadrupled the death rate, while the flu pandemic nearly tripled it.” “The Mexican government calls it a ‘relocation strategy’ — a campaign to convince companies that they’d be safer bringing production closer to the U.S. market, to a country with a newly signed North American trade deal and a warmer relationship to the U.S. government,” “In many cases, these are the same machines that would be tasked with sorting ballots,” Vice News’s Motherboard reports, citing interviews with postal workers, who say no explanation or reason has been given. After the Postal Service warned Pennsylvania that some mail ballots might not be delivered on time because the state’s deadlines are too tight for its “delivery standards,” election officials asked the state Supreme Court on Thursday to extend the deadlines to avoid disenfranchising voters. “Some counties set up drop boxes in the primary election so


Paulina Villegas Vargas joins the General Assignment News Desk

Announcement from General Assignment Editor Keith McMillan, Live News Editor Josh Freedom du Lac and Senior Director of Audience Ryan Kellett: We are delighted to announce that Paulina Villegas Vargas is joining the General Assignment news desk, where she will write breaking news and enterprise stories. Paulina comes to us from The New York Times’s Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean bureau, where she has covered drug trafficking, immigration, regional politics and general news since 2013. Her work with colleague Azam Ahmed on the gripping story about a cartel assassin-turned-informant was part of a series that won a George Polk Award for international reporting. She also reported from a school as parents dug through the rubble after an earthquake and, more recently, from a hospital where it became apparent that coronavirus deaths there were preventable. Before joining the Times, Paulina worked as an investigative political reporter for Mexico’s Reporte Indigo. A gifted writer in Spanish and English who also speaks French, she graduated from the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education and earned a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University. She gained experience in documentary-style film and video production in working on The Weekly. Paulina will be based in Washington when we resume normal operations. In the meantime, please welcome her virtually to The Post, where she will begin on Aug. 31.


The Israel-UAE agreement is Trump’s Nobel moment

When the major newspapers’ headlines and columnists all communicate the same message, something “huge” has indeed happened. “Israel and United Arab Emirates strike historic peace accord,” declared the Financial Times. “Israel to normalise relations with UAE in historic deal sealed by Donald Trump,” added London’s Telegraph. “Trump announces historic peace agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates,” said The Post, while the New York Times headline read “Israel and United Arab Emirates Strike Major Diplomatic Agreement.” The Wall Street Journal announced: “Israel-U.A.E. Pact Sealed After Months of Furtive Talks Among Envoys Trusted by Their Leaders.” The roll of modern trios linked in Middle East history by the title “peacemaker” has expanded to three: There was Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and President Jimmy Carter in 1978; Jordan’s King Hussein, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and President Bill Clinton in 1994; and, in 2020, we have Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed of the United Arab Emirates, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Trump. Sadat and Begin received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1978. Rabin received the same recognition in 1994, sharing it with his Israeli partner in peace, Shimon Peres. Incredibly, King Hussein was ignored and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat also honored that year — though the latter would ultimately refuse a comprehensive accord that would have made a Palestinian state a reality two decades ago. On both occasions, the Norwegian Nobel Committee ignored the key roles of the American presidents. This year, the prize should be shared three ways, and Oslo’s tradition of snubbing U.S. leadership in the region’s peace deals ended. Others may soon join the UAE’s crown prince, who is known as MBZ, Netanyahu and Trump in preferring peace, trade, investment and travel to endless standoff and bitter wars. The kingdoms of Bahrain and Oman are said to be close to joining the UAE in a peace deal with Israel. Saudi Arabia may not be far behind as its rulers consider the long-term interests of the region and the world. Even the Palestinian Authority, full of angry words Thursday, must see the endgame. If the Nobel committee is truly seeking to encourage — and not merely applaud — peace, it would keep one thing in mind: that which gets rewarded gets repeated. “MBZ gained huge status in the Arab World” because of the accord, a senior National Security Council official told me


Noah Lyles’s latest win comes with a salute to Tommie Smith and John Carlos

Lyles has spoken out on racial inequality and police brutality with a fervor and frequency he had not previously shown. On Aug. 2, Lyles, who in the past had shared his work with a therapist, announced on Twitter he had recently started taking antidepressant medication. “That was one of the best decisions I have made in a while,” Lyles wrote. “Since then I have been able to think with out the dark undertone in mind of nothing matters. Thank you God for mental Health.” The voluminous response Lyles received, which included a message from gymnast Laurie Hernandez, encouraged and surprised him. He heard from people, he said, who found his message inspirational and helpful in a time of need. “I’ve probably dealt with it since I was 8 years old, all different forms in different stages of my life,” Lyles said. “It probably just got the worst around April, is the worst I ever had to deal with it. I think it was kind of more like the perfect storm — dealing with covid, having the Olympics postponed. So now you’re like, ‘Okay, where am I putting my attention?’ “And then the Black Lives movement, that was just like the final nail in the coffin, like, ‘I can’t do this anymore.’ My mom came down [to Florida, where Lyles lives] and was like, ‘I think it’s time to put you on medication.’ I was like, ‘Yeah,’ because everything I used to do that worked is not working anymore.” In public, even when discussing weighty topics, Lyles retains the same wide-smiling, buoyant personality he has always shown. In training, he wanted to peak for Friday’s race, he said, treating it as a competitive highlight in an upside-down season. He did not reveal specific goals, but given that his personal best is 19.50, Michael Johnson’s American record of 19.32 is in play anytime Lyles sets foot on the track. “I had big plans,” Lyles said. “Not all of them came true, but it was good to get back out here and especially be racing with my brother.” Lyles did not set any records Friday, but he still delivered a message that may resonate off the track. Read more: Social distancing stakes are high for sprinter Noah Lyles, who suffers from asthma Bill aimed at reshaping U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee passed by Senate U.S. Olympians call for abolition of rule prohibiting protest


Raise a glass to American craft brewing, and the values it embodies!

The breakthrough accelerated when U.S. brewers started to experiment. Sam Calagione at Dogfish Head Brewery was one of the industry’s first wild men, brewing “off-centered beers for off-centered people.” The company rolled out products no one had ever seen, like their 60-, 90- and 120-minute IPAs, named for variations in the hopping process, in a sign consumers cared about the details of beer-making. Others were reviving styles not seen in decades like oatmeal stouts, rye ales and quadruples. By the end of the 2000s, the United States had gone from the beer world’s wasteland to its fertile crescent. Before this alcoholic American revolution, in the rest of the world, beer was good, but staid. German brewers mainly produced the same lagers, Altbiers and Pilseners they had a century prior, and the country’s strict Reinheitsgebot law kept them from engaging in Yankee improvisation. Britain had its consumer-driven revolt, but it focused on preserving the nation’s past rather than driving a new future. The Campaign for Real Ale kept traditional brewing methods and cask ale alive but did little to nurture U.S.-style innovation. The changes American brewers made to the now-famous IPA are the perfect example of the impact of this U.S.-led revolution. IPA stands for India Pale Ale, in reference to the British beers shipped to the Empire’s outposts in India. To survive the journey without refrigeration, the beers needed to be slightly more heavily hopped. A similar need created the Russian imperial stout style, but other than that variation the IPA endured for over a century merely as a small offshoot of England’s dominant lightly hopped, bitter style of beer. Then the Americans took over, and this hidebound brew got weird and wonderful. American brewers used their freedom to expand what an IPA could be. They used hops indigenous to North America such as the Cascade, Chinook, and Amarillo varieties instead of the traditional English Fuggles and Goldings. These American hops were fruitier, spicier, pinier and more aromatic than their transatlantic cousins — and hopheads loved them. IPAs are now the most popular beer style in the craft-brew world, and American brewers continue to push the envelope in terms of alcohol strength and blending styles. Rather than sit on their laurels like Continental brewers had for centuries, the Americans created the modern IPA and kept right on innovating. Craft brew today remains one of the few bright lights in the


A Texas nursing home is happy to be ‘overwhelmed’ by its pen-pal program

In tiny Gatesville, Tex., population 12,000, the mail truck used to pull into Hillside Medical Lodge every day with a few envelopes for the front desk. They demanded little attention, and they did little to disrupt the everyday routine at the nursing home, especially amid the novel coronavirus pandemic. Last week, Hillside posted on Facebook about a new program. It sought pen pals for 52 residents detached from the outside world. Two days later the post had been shared more than 12,000 times on Facebook. Included were photos of each of the residents holding up whiteboards with their names and their interests. Then, letters started arriving from around the world. On Monday, the mail truck had so many deliveries, it had to make two stops. Across the nation, the pandemic has placed hospitals and nursing homes under duress — especially in Texas, which ranks third among U.S. states with more than 500,000 documented cases. Senior citizens accustomed to regular visits from family are isolated. Staff who used to focus on long-term care are tasked with the grave responsibility of preventing outbreaks. But during the past week, both groups have a welcome distraction — an avalanche of well over 2,600 letters and postcards pledging support and companionship. “We now have a mail room,” said Susie Meelbusch-Woods, the nursing home’s director of public relations. “We’ve never had a mail room before.” When the truckloads arrived, the staff converted a conference room into a receiving center. Employees — Meelbusch-Woods, nurses, nurses’ aides, social workers, dietitians, office staff — drained by the stress of keeping residents healthy were staying after their shifts ended to disinfect, sort and deliver mail. The residents’ interests ranged from sewing to farming to baking, and each of them received at least 50 letters. A 97-year-old war veteran named Matt has more than 300. The letters came from around the U.S., as well as England, Spain and one preschool in Thailand. Dr Pepper delivered 16 cases of soda for a woman named Billie who said on her whiteboard that she enjoyed Dr Pepper and family. Supportive pen pals sent coloring books, games and an Atari console. “It looks like the opening of Harry Potter, if you’re familiar, with the letters pouring in,” said Kate Watson, a publicist who helped promote the program. Nellie, who turned 90 in May, said she liked scrapbooking and soon received a basket of scrapbooking materials,


These 3 restaurants make you feel like a neighbor, and we all need a dose of that

know, for swiping with the bounty). His rich, chive-sprinkled lobster roll, flanked with double-cooked french fries in a miniature wire basket, feels like a day at the beach, and a passing tray of spirited “sno-cones” ($6.95 during happy hour!) reveals Bar Charley’s sense of humor. Jerk-spiced pork is sliced, dressed with diced mango and delivered with a little skillet of turtle beans. “I like my beans a little al dente,” says the chef. This diner digs their seasoning: bacon, thyme, red vinegar and a finishing touch of butter to give the beans sheen. Greenbaum, Banks and Harvey sound like a law firm; in reality, they’re three people who just want us to forget the pandemic while we’re in their company. 1825 18th St. NW. 202-627-2183. barcharley.com. Open for takeout, delivery and outdoor dining for dinner 5 to 9 p.m. daily and for brunch 10:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Delivery via Uber Eats. Accessibility: Wheelchair users can be led from the entrance through an alley to the back patio, but restrooms aren’t available. Dinner entrees $18 to $31. The owners’ big hope for little Chop Shop Taco when it opened last year in Alexandria was a convivial place for customers to eat the signature dish “and rub shoulders with strangers,” says chef Ed McIntosh, an alumnus of Matchbox and Great American Restaurants and one of three principals. They count themselves grateful to have had time to build an audience for their brand, housed in a former auto repair shop. Since March, says the chef, “we’re sending out smiles in our food.” He’s got that right. Bite into the mushroom taco and taste the magic created by shiitakes, king oyster and other mushrooms seasoned with house-toasted cumin, cinnamon and coriander. Swipe the bowl of lush guacamole and admire the way it distances itself from the pack with chipotle oil and zesty togarashi in its seasoning. Even beans and rice are elevated from the usual by a paste of cilantro stirred into the oiled grains. Refreshment comes by way of a chopped salad — ribbons of cabbage tossed with chickpeas, corn, cilantro and lime dressing — and a zesty shrimp cocktail served with big, fresh-made chips. The pandemic interrupted the supply of heirloom masa from Mexico, but not the exit of good tortillas from the kitchen. The replacement wraps, from El Milagro in Chicago, also enhance the best-selling chicken taco,


The void in the lives of musicians

I highly commend violinist Jennifer Gersten’s Aug. 9 Outlook essay, “Musicians always crave more time to practice. Now we have nothing but.” Ms. Gersten’s thoughtful depiction of the current situation of the professional classical musician was very insightful. The most profound reflection was her acknowledgment of this “glut of time” we’ve been given, and how “to have ideas, you need constraints, which for us were the auditions, rehearsals and performances dribbled across our calendars.” As conductor and artistic director of the Takoma Park City Community Band, I know community-based musical groups are feeling the same devastating void in our lives. Our calendars, too, are blank slates into the far future. The weekly connection and camaraderie we’ve become accustomed to at rehearsals and performances are indefinitely absent. The nursing homes and retirement center halls where we regularly perform remain silent. When we emerge from the isolation of our practice rooms, gather for the glorious first downbeat, I hope we experience communal music-making with a deepened appreciation. If a John Philip Sousa march falls in the forest and nobody hears it, did it make a sound? We have to believe the answer to be: Yes! Marcia Diehl Read more letters to the editor.


How covid-19-related travel restrictions are complicating the once-simple road trip

can result in exorbitant fines — $1,000 in Connecticut and up to $10,000 in New York. To enforce the quarantine in New York, officials will contact the traveler by phone or text message or conduct an in-person check. If the individual does not respond, the state will turn the case over to the local health department. Other examples in the Northeast: Vermont will waive the quarantine requirement for visitors who are traveling in their personal vehicle and isolated at home for two weeks before the trip or seven days with proof of a negative test. To visit Maine, residents of nonexempt states (New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, New Jersey and New York earned a reprieve) must sign a Certificate of Compliance asserting that they have received a negative test result within 72 hours of arriving or will quarantine for 14 days in Maine. Guests must present the document upon check-in at their lodging or fill it out at the front desk. In anticipation of Maine’s rules, Jeanne and Mark popped into a coronavirus testing clinic in the Hamptons, one of the stops on their itinerary. Mark received his negative result, but Jeanne never heard back. While in Rhode Island, she tried again. In case they didn’t receive her result in time, the couple rearranged the Maine section of their trip, swapping out the coastal town of Scarborough for Acadia National Park, where they could more easily avoid people. The testing facility notified Jeanne of her negative result shortly after they had crossed into Maine. However, they decided to stick with the rejiggered route and savor the natural isolation. Elsewhere in the country, Ohio is advising travelers to quarantine if they originated from a state with a 15 percent or higher positive test rate (currently six states). The Buckeye State updates its list on Wednesdays. South Carolina’s policy is similar but less specific: “Travelers returning home from an area with widespread or ongoing community spread are recommended to stay home for a period of 14 days.” New Mexico’s mandate is even broader; it applies to everyone entering the state and requires a quarantine of two weeks or the length of your stay, whichever is shorter. And for the most epic road trip, Alaska is offering tourists a few options: Submit your negative test result to the Alaska Travel Portal, share proof of a pending test and quarantine while you wait, or buy


Grocery workers say morale is at an all-time low: ‘They don’t even treat us like humans anymore’

where a disproportionate number of workers are women and people of color.” At least 130 U.S. grocery workers have died, and more than 8,200 have tested positive for the novel coronavirus since late March, according to data from workers’ groups and media reports. Grocery stores are generally not required to inform shoppers about coronavirus cases or report them to local health departments, which can make it difficult to get an accurate count. Manners, who has been at Meijer since 2010, says she has never felt so demoralized. At least a dozen colleagues in her department have quit in the past month alone, she says, while those who have stayed are struggling with the workload and the crush of impatient shoppers. “Some customers were appreciative in the beginning, but now they’re just rude,” she said. A handful of co-workers have tested positive for covid-19, Manners said, but anyone who decides to self-quarantine is typically directed to take unpaid leave. And workers who try to call in sick often are being coaxed to come in, she said. “Managers are making decisions on their own, saying, ‘You have a cough but you’ll be okay,' ” said Manners, who is a union steward at her store. “You don’t want to say ‘no’ because you’ll lose your job.” Frank Guglielmi, a spokesman for Meijer, said employees undergo temperature checks and other health screenings before each shift. Anyone who tests positive for the coronavirus or is considered high-risk can apply for as much as four weeks of paid leave, he said. “For the record, we are seeing reduced turnover among our store team members,” he said. The turnover rate for U.S. retail workers has generally risen during the pandemic, Commerce Department data shows. Adding to the stress, many workers say, are new responsibilities, including disinfecting store fixtures and enforcing social distancing and mask requirements. Almost every major retailer, including Walmart, Home Depot and Target, is now asking shoppers to wear masks, although employees say enforcement is spotty and often fraught. Grocery workers have been demeaned, screamed at and even assaulted for reminding shoppers of the new protocols, with some of the most egregious incidents captured on video and shared online. Illinois this week made it a felony to assault workers who are enforcing mask requirements. “The pressure is wearing away at us in great chunks,” said a mid-level manager at a Kroger store in Kentucky, who


The UAE has provided a dose of reality in Middle East realpolitik

nature of Jerusalem, which, though located in Israel, is a place of profound significance to multiple cultures. A third factor, closely related to the first, has been the usefulness to various despots in the Middle East of the fiction that Israel’s very existence remained an open question. Populations inflamed against Israel might not notice that their leaders have beggared their countries for personal gain. “Death to Israel” is a slogan that has enabled decades of oppression of Middle Eastern peoples. None more than the Palestinians. They could be celebrating the 20th anniversary of an independent state about now; instead, they remain perpetual refugees due in large part to decisions made in places such as Riyadh and Tehran in pursuit of agendas that have little to do with them except to extend their suffering. Now the most dynamic and powerful leader of the Arab world, the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, Mohammed bin Zayed, has called an end to the self-defeating denial of the fact of Israel. In exchange, MBZ — as he’s known in capitals around the world — forestalled Israel’s planned annexation of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and thereby refreshed the bare possibility of a Palestinian state. MBZ is no liberal Arab recognition of Israel is now very close to critical mass. The most populous Arab nation, Egypt, has taken the step; Jordan, home to the largest number of Palestinians, followed. The UAE is not only the region’s most successful Arab state; MBZ is the patron and mentor of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is known, in a bit of homage, as MBS. The young Saudi ruler carries his own historical baggage as he seeks to follow his role model’s footsteps into a less oil-dependent future. During the century of stalemate, MBS’s family, the House of Saud, has been the primary funder of Islamist fundamentalism around the world. For that reason, putting the past in the rear-view mirror is more fraught for him — but no less necessary. This version of peace is no summer of love in the Middle East, nor is it another misunderstood Arab Spring. It is realpolitik, a gritty weighing of national interests and balancing of rivalries. But in finally coming to grips with the fact that Israel is here to stay, there is a dose of reality in the realpolitik. And that’s progress. Read more from David Von Drehle’s archive.


How the pandemic in each state compares to countries of equal size

One of the complicating dynamics at the heart of the coronavirus pandemic is its variability. That an individual state might have seen broader infection numbers than a neighbor but that counties within that state might have been less affected than others allows those interested to cherry-pick examples to make any desired point. The outbreak in the United States has been severe? Well, President Trump will point out, a number of states have seen relatively few cases. The situation in Georgia is dire? Well, Gov. Brian Kemp (R) might point out that things are worse in some counties than others. These points may be true, but they can also obscure the breadth of the problem, which, in Georgia for example, is severe. On Thursday, the administration pointed to the “widespread and expanding community viral spread” in the state with alarm. The New York Times’s Paul Krugman, a frequent critic of the administration, used an unusual comparison to show how Georgia’s coronavirus response is faring: He compared it to numbers from Portugal, which has about as large a population. His graphs were inelegant and, if we may be pedantic, his analogy wasn’t perfect. Yes, Portugal has about 10.3 million people, close to Georgia’s 10.6 million, but the Czech Republic (also known as Czechia) has a neat 10.6 million. Compared with both of those countries, Georgia’s fared worse on both coronavirus cases and deaths from covid-19, the disease caused by the virus. Krugman’s tweet prompted me to wonder how each of the 50 states and D.C. compared to similarly sized countries. Using data from The Washington Post’s database and from Johns Hopkins University, I identified the country for which there was data that had the closest population to each state and to D.C. In 49 states, the total number of recorded cases was higher than the comparably sized country. In 47 states, so was the number of recorded deaths. There are important caveats. Some states are being compared with island nations which, for obvious reasons, were less likely to see quick introduction of the virus than states which are landlocked or adjoin other states. Broadly, though, the comparisons show that the outbreak has been larger in the United States than elsewhere. Comparing seven-day averages of new cases from Feb. 1 to Aug. 13, the most recent date for which we have data, you can see how the pandemic spread in each state and


The Health 202: Shortages are forcing Louisville's biggest hospital system to cut back on covid testing

reallocation of Hologic’s testing supplies, but said it was from New York and New Jersey to New Orleans to support that city’s outbreak. The spokesperson also said there is no official guidance or rules on where test supplies are distributed. “While there may be instances where the Federal government requests help to assist areas of high prevalence of covid-19, there is no official guidance or rules on prioritized distribution of covid-19 instruments or tests to manufacturers such as Hologic by the White House Coronavirus Task Force, or by federal leads at HHS,” the spokesperson said. When I asked Hologic about Thornbury's email, spokeswoman Suzanne Clancy provided this statement: Hologic is one of the largest providers of molecular tests for COVID-19 in the United States. As such, we are in regular contact with the Federal Coronavirus Task Force as well as many State officials.Because these groups have important information about both disease prevalence and availability of other testing supplies, they can help us identify geographic areas of the greatest need, and we try to accommodate these needs as much as possible. In an email to Steven Stack, Kentucky’s commissioner of public health, Norton said it’s now forced to send all samples to national labs instead of doing in-house processing. Before the reallocation it was processing nearly 750 tests per day internally and sending another 250 tests to the lab, Norton wrote. “The federal allocation and limited national testing has put the Louisville community at risk,” Norton wrote. “If Norton Healthcare cannot get more access to testing, improved turnaround times or changes to the federal reallocation, it will be necessary for us to suspend our large volume of community testing.” Sending samples to a national lab for processing means customers often must wait up to two weeks for results. Testing companies such as LabCorp, Quest Diagnostics and BioReference have publicly acknowledged delays, my colleague Erin Cox reported. Norton also sent emails to Kentucky’s health secretary, as well as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Rep. John Yarmuth (D-Ky.), accusing the federal government of steering testing supplies away from Louisville. “Each time we make a financial investment in a platform for testing to maintain services for the State of Kentucky we find ourselves at the mercy of the Federal Government moving these supplies to other states,” Norton wrote to Yarmuth. But the testing rate is about half that right now – and


Russell Kirsch, computer scientist who scanned the first digital image, dies at 91

Russell Kirsch was a 27-year-old computer scientist and, not incidentally, a new father when he did one day in early 1957 what many parents do and brought a photograph of his baby to the office. His office was the National Bureau of Standards — now the National Institute of Standards and Technology — where Mr. Kirsch was one of the few people authorized to work on the Standards Electronic Automatic Computer, or SEAC, the first programmable computer in the United States. Although rudimentary compared with modern computers, SEAC was revolutionary for its time. Large enough to fill a room, it was used for purposes including Social Security accounting, Air Force logistics and computations related to the hydrogen bomb. Mr. Kirsch — who joked in an oral history with the Smithsonian Institution that he could “confess to having stolen machine time from purportedly more useful products, like the thermonuclear weapons calculations” — envisioned another use for SEAC and future machines of its kind. “What would happen,” he told the San Jose Mercury News in 2009, “if computers could see the world the way we do?’’ To test his question, he chose a recent photograph of himself smiling proudly at his firstborn child. The boy, just a few months old, rests in the crook of his elbow, gazing wide-eyed into the camera that captured the moment in black-and-white. The full image contained more information than the computer could absorb, so Mr. Kirsch snipped out a small piece containing just the baby’s face. He ran the image through a scanner and program that he and colleagues had fashioned. “This was not something he ordered off of Amazon,” Jim Filliben, an NIST statistician and colleague of Mr. Kirsch, said in an interview, describing him as “a computer scientist before there was such a thing as computer science” and a “cross between a computer scientist and an engineer.” The photograph was converted into an image 176 pixels by 176 pixels — a grainy shadow of the dazzling high-resolution photographs snapped today on smartphones, but nonetheless the first digital image. Later ranked by Life magazine among the “100 photographs that changed the world,” it became the foundation for technologies including satellite imaging, CT scans, bar codes and digital photography, according to the NIST. Mr. Kirsch died Aug. 11 at his home in Portland, Ore. He was 91. The cause was frontotemporal dementia, said his son Walden


Dining while infectious is on the rise. Meet D.C.’s restaurant safety enforcers.

know they are in danger of losing business if city officials lose faith in their ability to operate safely. “If we give a reason for there to be a rollback, then there will be a rollback,” Kline said. “Most businesses recognize it’s very important to not only have a safe environment, but project that you have a safe environment so people feel comfortable going out.” Investigators are encouraged to use their discretion in deploying sanctions, Peru said, and most are let off with a verbal or written warning. That was the case when Peru made his second stop at the popular outdoor beer garden Dacha, in the Shaw neighborhood. During his first visit, in late May, he suggested laying out the wooden bench tables in a zigzag formation to leave no question they were distanced. Instead, the bar unmounted the tables and placed blue tape to block off the end of the benches as a way to maintain distance. And they continued to seat customers near the bar in violation of a city prohibition on bar seating because of the proximity to bartenders. Customers paused drinking from beer boots under the visage of a giant Elizabeth Taylor mural to gawk as Peru extended a tape measure to show how people were still seated too closely together. “You made an effort to separate them, so I appreciate the effort,” Peru told a manager. “But it’s still not six feet.” He left them with a written warning for failure to enforce social distancing, as investigators had done for the Dacha location in Navy Yard earlier in the month. Courtney Flantzer, a spokeswoman for Dacha, said inspectors returned Tuesday at the invitation of the beer garden owners to verify the changes to their seating complied with city rules. Inspectors found no violations. She said it’s been challenging to adjust to a pandemic when the beer gardens are normally bustling environments where people hang out for entire summer afternoons in big groups. “We want to be the safest possible environment so people can feel free to relax and have a few beers,” she said. Peru said he saw the exchange at Dacha as more of an opportunity to inform than to punish. “There are a lot of good actors out there,” Peru said. “Tonight was typical. Education, education, education. We’ve been doing that since the closure, and we still want to do that now.”


Nearly 100 years ago, a man tried to blast off to Venus. Now a documentary crew is on a mission to find the rocket built for that journey.

rocketeers who, in the era before the space race, were applying new technologies to ideas for space travel. With memories of the First World War and the lingering fears of the influenza pandemic still fresh, these men and women looked to the cosmos and channeled the pain of daily life into the promise of discovery in space. “It will not be very long until we know just what we have for neighbors,” Condit wrote about space travel in a 1928 lecture discovered by the filmmakers, “and in the course of the next few years, we will probably be doing business with Venus as casually as we now transact our affairs across the ocean or go for an aeroplane ride of a few thousand miles before breakfast.” Our obsession with, and commitment to, space travel has waxed and waned over the past 100 years or so, as the gravity of life on Earth has pulled our attention in various directions. But today, space seems to be calling to us again after a long silence, and our desire to explore the cosmos is being stoked by a new generation of determined rocketeers. In May, Elon Musk’s company SpaceX launched astronauts from American soil for the first time in nearly a decade, ferrying them to the International Space Station on its Falcon 9 rocket. Musk, along with NASA, now have their sights set on Mars, and the once far-fetched idea of putting humans on the Red Planet seems like a possibility. Condit may have lacked the chops to get to space, but for a moment in time, he had people looking up and believing humans might soon witness an alien world. Condit, the documents show, helped spark global excitement at the possibility of space travel, and in the unfolding story of one of America’s earliest dreamers, we can see reflected the ambitions of today’s pioneering rocketeers, stirring our desire to once again send humans to other planets. The story of how a piloted rocket came to exist more than 40 years before we set foot on the moon is as much about the place where it was created as it is about the early aspirations of space enthusiasts. Morling Avenue in Hampden twists along the edge of a steep hill, a cluster of classic Baltimore rowhouses clinging to its side. In 1927, Harry Uhler lived in the 1400 block. Behind the house, a


‘We’ve got to do better than this’: College students raise alarm by packing bars, avoiding masks

Music blared outside a row of off-campus houses on Saturday near the University of North Georgia as hundreds of students packed the streets and front yards. Virtually no one wore a mask. The huge party in Dahlonega, Ga., captured in a viral Twitter video, was one of a number of mass gatherings around the country this weekend as tens of thousands of students returned to college towns already on edge amid the novel coronavirus pandemic. Local officials from Georgia to Alabama to Oklahoma reacted with horror and anger on Sunday, warning that unless students take social distancing and mask rules seriously, the fall semester could come to a swift end. “Why?” tweeted Walt Maddox, mayor of Tuscaloosa, Ala., above a photo of hundreds of mostly mask-free University of Alabama students outside downtown restaurants. “We are desperately trying to protect @tuscaloosacity.” Some universities are already battling coronavirus outbreaks, including the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill — where four viral clusters have emerged one week after in-person classes started — and Oklahoma State University, where a single sorority house has 23 confirmed cases. There’s no national consensus on how to approach college this fall, with many schools going at least partially online and others trying mass testing of students. But other large schools are welcoming everyone back to campus and relying on masks and social distancing to avoid outbreaks — a plan, as local leaders noted this past weekend, that could crumble if students don’t abide by the recommendations. In Dahlonega, university officials chided the hundreds of students who gathered at an off-campus housing complex for the Saturday night party. In-person classes are scheduled to start Monday for the school’s roughly 19,000 students. “We are disappointed that many of our students chose to ignore COVID-19 public health guidance by congregating in a large group without social distancing or face coverings,” a school spokeswoman told the Gainesville Times. At Alabama’s two biggest schools, football players were particularly vocal in sounding the alarm as they watched fellow students congregate without face coverings. Although many of college football’s biggest conferences have canceled their fall seasons, the Big 12, ACC and SEC are pushing ahead — assuming campus outbreaks don’t interfere. At Auburn University, wide receiver Anthony Schwartz tweeted Saturday that he had “seen crowds of people and none of them are wearing masks.” Chris Owens, a center at the University of Alabama, tweeted


A breakdown of what living paycheck to paycheck looks like

that 4 in 10 U.S. adults would cover the cost of a $1,000 car repair or emergency room visit using savings; Nielsen data from 2015 showed that nearly 25 percent of families earning $150,000 a year or more lived paycheck to paycheck; and a Gallup poll released in December found that a record 33 percent of Americans say they or a family member put off treatment for a medical condition in the past year because of cost. A quarter of Americans say their untreated medical condition was serious. In a 2019 report on the economic well-being of U.S. households, the Federal Reserve Bank determined that nearly 40 percent of U.S. adults wouldn’t be able to cover a $400 emergency with cash, savings or a credit card charge that they could quickly pay off. (This spring, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome H. Powell said that 40 percent of households earning $40,000 or less had lost income because of the pandemic, increasing financial stress and pressure.) All of these studies, by the way, were done before the coronavirus pandemic, which has done nothing to ease the financial pressures so many Americans are facing and in fact has exacerbated them tremendously. So let’s talk about the effect of covid-19 on the unemployment rate. To date, roughly 32 million Americans have filed for some sort of unemployment assistance. This has happened over the past 19 weeks, where the number of first-time unemployment claims has exceeded 1 million per week, an unprecedented number in U.S. history. As of July 30, the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis reported there were more than 17 million continuing claims, an uptick from the prior week and a higher number than just about anything in the modern era. Also, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, the monthly unemployment rate is 11.1 percent, as of July 2. The Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago does a slightly different calculation, and after the release of the latest current population survey estimates and other micro data, believes that the total unemployment rate as of mid-May was about 27.6 percent. These numbers are very high, but we couldn’t find evidence that the number of unemployed had reached the 40 percent number you cite. Since the beginning of the covid-19 pandemic recession, we have seen unprecedented support provided by Congress to the American public in the way of a $1,200 payment to nearly


Vacation shaming during the pandemic is the new hate sport

about the road trip my son and I recently took to Massachusetts to scout out colleges. “Stay home. Be well. Make sacrifices in line with the global emergency that exists. You may be bored; you’ll live. Teach your child this time isn’t going to be perfect, but we must be collectively responsible to get back to normal eventually.” Even before the pandemic, vacation shaming has always been a thing — but mostly relegated to the workplace in our work-addicted nation. Americans don’t come close to getting Europe’s government-mandated four weeks of paid vacation. We even managed to work during 768 million of the paid vacation days we were owed in 2018, according to a study by the U.S. Travel Association. We’re simply not good at checking out and turning off because studies show that we get a cruise ship load of crap when we do. But in the novel coronavirus era, vacation shaming stopped being merely about workplace pressure or our friends’ slow-burn jealousy. Now it’s a moral crusade, backed by science, government restrictions on travel and a host of “grim milestone” news stories about the death toll. Totally understandable in a nation that has seen more than 166,000 virus deaths and skyrocketing unemployment. For people who have lost businesses, graduations, weddings and funerals, or who couldn’t be near loved ones when they died or gave birth, a beach vacation may seem like a selfish and reckless exercise. Plus, science is already showing us that travel is spreading the virus. “We now have enough data to feel pretty confident that New York was the primary gateway for the rest of the country,” Nathan Grubaugh, an epidemiologist at the Yale School of Public Health, told the New York Times. Genetic data showed that New York’s early spring virus boom — and the infected New Yorkers who then jetted across the nation — was responsible for outbreaks in Texas, Louisiana, Arizona and on the West Coast. Since then, many states adopted restrictions and mandated testing. My son and I left Massachusetts right before it enacted a travel order fining any out-of-staters $500 a day if they didn’t do a 14-day quarantine or produce a negative test. But isn’t there a way to travel safely? How are the hundreds of thousands of people who are traveling doing it? “We utilize DoorDash and eat at the Airbnb, buy all our groceries for the road


UNC-Chapel Hill pivots to remote teaching after coronavirus spreads among students during first week of class

students and parents,” UNC-Chapel Hill’s chancellor, Kevin M. Guskiewicz, and provost, Robert A. Blouin, wrote in a statement. “As much as we believe we have worked diligently to help create a healthy and safe campus living and learning environment, we believe the current data presents an untenable situation.” The leaders pointed out a bright side: “So far, we have been fortunate that most students who have tested positive have demonstrated mild symptoms.” In Chapel Hill, clusters of coronavirus cases had popped up in three residence halls and a fraternity house in the first week of the fall term, sending students into isolation and quarantine rooms and raising faculty worries about how far the virus will spread in the campus community. The public health conditions at UNC-Chapel Hill were being closely watched as colleges and universities around the country move this month toward the first day of class, some with entirely remote instruction and others with a mix of teaching online and in person. Among 100 major public universities — two per state — an analysis from Davidson College found that 23 have plans to teach primarily in person or offer a “hybrid” of face-to-face and online. Those with in-person plans, the analysis found, include the universities of Alabama, Georgia, Iowa and Kentucky. Reports have emerged of risky gatherings of students in close quarters, without masks, in college towns including Tuscaloosa, home of the University of Alabama, and Dahlonega, home of the University of North Georgia. A cluster of 23 confirmed coronavirus cases also hit a sorority house at Oklahoma State University. At the University of Notre Dame, which is also one week into its term, there have been 58 confirmed coronavirus cases this month. The prestigious Catholic university, with 12,000 students, is teaching primarily in person. But Notre Dame officials are keeping a close eye on off-campus parties in South Bend, Ind. “That has caused us concern,” Paul Browne, the university’s vice president for public affairs and communications, said. In the week before class started Aug. 10 at UNC-Chapel Hill, 10 students and one employee tested positive, according to the university. But clusters of cases piled up in the residences known as Granville Towers, Ehringhaus and Hinton James, as well as the Sigma Nu fraternity house, according to text alerts the university sent students in recent days. A UNC-Chapel Hill dashboard shows 130 students tested positive last week out of


Coronavirus invaded the District and Maryland multiple times in March, genetic analysis shows

The coronavirus’s late-winter attack on the national capital region came from multiple, separate introductions, and the pathogen quickly spread among people who had not traveled outside the region recently or had known contact with infected people, according to a genetic analysis of virus samples from more than 100 patients. The study, from Johns Hopkins University scientists, highlights the challenge in preventing the arrival and spread of the highly contagious virus within a region that anchors the Northeast Corridor and boasts three international airports and a highly mobile population. The researchers report high levels of genetic diversity in the 114 genomes they completed, based on samples from patients treated in Johns Hopkins-affiliated hospitals in Maryland and the District from March 11 to March 31. The research has not yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal but has been posted online at the preprint server medRxiv. There are five major genetic groupings, known as clades, of the novel coronavirus, and all five were represented in the viral samples from patients. That suggested a single introduction could not have triggered all of those March infections. Instead, the virus must have been arriving at many different times. Another important finding: The different genetic profiles of the virus infecting people in the Washington region did not correspond to any clear difference in disease severity among patients. Where the virus came from is not covered by the report, and the researchers could not tell if the introductions came directly from places overseas or from points within the United States. A study by scientists at New York University showed that much of the early coronavirus spread in New York City was due to introductions from Europe. “There were probably five or more introductions sometime before the end of March,” said study co-author Shirlee Wohl, a genomics expert at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “Even as early as March, the first three weeks of the outbreak, we were already seeing diversity rivaling the global diversity of this virus.” This latest study and others preceding it provide clear evidence that the United States, and certainly big cities on the East Coast, were dealing with community spread of the virus well in advance of major shutdown efforts, including the Trump administration’s decision to ban travel from most European countries starting March 13. “The number of introductions that occurred would make it difficult to enact a travel ban,


would make it difficult to do anything except screen everybody with a diagnostic test,” said study co-author Peter Thielen, a molecular biologist at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory. The diversity of virus in the national capital region “highlights the connectedness of the region to both the national and global epidemic, and the challenges that would likely confront any control strategy predicated on low rates of introduction,” the report states. The NYU study found that the virus may have been spreading in New York as early as late January. A scientific conference attended by international travelers in Boston in late February has been dubbed a “superspreader” event that seeded the virus in many places in the United States. According to the new Hopkins report, Maryland reported its first case of covid-19, the disease caused by the virus, on March 5. Two days later, the District and Virginia reported their first cases. Those patients were probably infected many days before, Thielen said. Only 22 percent of the patients studied by the Hopkins researchers had traveled to places with known outbreaks of the virus, the report said. All viruses mutate, and by the time the coronavirus reached the national capital region, it had mutated slightly. The Hopkins scientists counted a total of 153 genetic mutations in their virus samples, compared with the reference sample from Wuhan, China, where the outbreak is believed to have ignited. But most mutations actually impair the fitness of the virus or have no effect at all. The Hopkins research did not find evidence that the variants of the virus led to any difference in patient outcomes, regardless of sex, race, symptoms or underlying conditions. “The diversity of virus genetics, clinical symptoms, and patient outcomes suggests that viral mutations are not the main driver of clinical presentation,” the new study states. Several recent studies have suggested that one mutation, known as D614G, has altered the structure of the spike protein of the virus in a way that could potentially facilitate transmission. That mutation is now seen across the planet, including in many of the virus samples in the national capital region, but the scientific community has not endorsed the conjecture that the virus has become more contagious. Thielen pointed out that, without a vaccine, and with relatively few people having been exposed and having antibodies to the virus, the coronavirus is sailing along with no natural or artificial obstacles.


New Zealand leader Jacinda Ardern delays election due to coronavirus outbreak

CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand — Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern on Monday postponed New Zealand's general election, scheduled for Sept. 19, for four weeks as authorities grapple with a new wave of coronavirus cases that has set back the country's pandemic recovery. The decision follows confirmation last Tuesday that several members of a family in Auckland had tested positive for the virus, ending the Ardern government’s record of more than 100 days without a known case of community transmission. Ardern’s move followed calls from leaders of other parties, including Winston Peters, deputy leader of her ruling coalition, to postpone the vote. She denied, however, that political pressure played a role in her decision. “Even if I had not picked up the phone and contacted anyone, I believe this is still the outcome I would have arrived at,” she told reporters, stressing that she had “absolutely no intention” of delaying the vote, rescheduled for Oct. 17, a second time. New Zealand law permits the postponement, as elections dates are set by the prime minister. Judith Collins, leader of the main opposition National party and Ardern’s rival for the top job, welcomed the move, saying in a press statement that it “was always National’s view that to have a fair, democratic election we needed to deal with this second wave of covid-19 so politicians from all parties had a reasonable chance to present their policies, and the public felt comfortable engaging with the campaign without putting their health at risk.” News of a fresh coronavirus outbreak came days after Ardern launched her campaign for a second term at a rally in which she highlighted her government’s success in beating back the virus, declaring that the vote would be a “covid election,” with a focus on economic recovery. Since then, authorities have detected dozens of new cases, including that of a person who fell ill before the Auckland family was infected. While the country’s largest city endures a new lockdown, “patient zero” for the latest outbreak has not been identified and its cause has not been determined. Officials in several jurisdictions globally have cited the coronavirus as a reason for delaying elections, with politicians in Bolivia, Hong Kong and elsewhere accused of using the virus as a smokescreen to restrict voting rights and defer or undermine exercises of democracy. In the United States, President Trump has indicated he would like to see a delay to


What it’s like to be a flight attendant during the pandemic

from me.” Jamie Gibson, an Annapolis-based flight attendant for private jet companies, has felt the same strain. “So much of hospitality and service is body language,” she said. “It’s been interesting to try to navigate half of your face not showing while still trying to show a sense of warmth.” Raven Johnson, who has been a flight attendant for four years, has gone from flying about 100 hours with regional carrier Mesa Airlines to about 30 to minimize her risk of contracting the coronavirus. But she still worries about her decision to continue working during the pandemic. “Am I getting this virus? Am I going to bring this home to my family?" the Houston-based flight attendant says. At the beginning of the coronavirus outbreak, Johnson says she wasn’t allowed to wear a mask or gloves in-flight. She said the flight attendants were told covid-19 wasn’t a big deal, that it was like the flu. That’s since changed. “People at my job were getting the virus because they weren’t wearing a mask at first because no one knew what this was,” Johnson says. Gibson, who’s been a flight attendant for seven years, has been more concerned about her health at hotels than on flights. “We are bringing packs of Lysol wipes to our hotel room, wiping off light switches, doorknobs,” she says. “It’s just a whole new semblance of vigilance when it comes to the hidden surfaces that we touch.” Some flight attendants have felt comforted by airline sanitation efforts. Angel Figueroa, a flight attendant for Southwest Airlines who lives in Ontario, Calif., hasn’t been concerned about catching the coronavirus at work. “Between every flight, they’re coming on and wiping everything down,” says Figueroa, who’s flown with Southwest for 15 years. “Everyone from a flight attendant standpoint is really good about washing your hands, using hand sanitizer, wearing gloves, wearing a mask." Johnson loved spending time with new colleagues exploring new places until the next flight. Now she says crews don’t hang out anymore, both for social distancing reasons and because there isn’t anywhere to go. “I’m on an overnight now and I haven’t done anything all day but stay in bed and watch TV. I brought my own food, so I haven’t even needed to leave the room at all. It’s nerve-racking.” Johnson’s free time once spent seeing cities across the United States, Mexico and Canada is now passed sitting


The Daily 202: Democratic convention will showcase Biden’s front-porch campaign, as fresh polling appears to validate strategy

divided as it is diverse, contains many of the national fault lines that the pandemic has deepened,” the New Yorker reports. “According to the CDC, the infection rate in children 17 and under increased ‘steadily’ from March to July. While the virus is far more prevalent and severe among adults, the true incidence of infection in American children remains unknown because of a lack of widespread testing,” “A stunning number of young people are locked out of virtual classes because they lack high-speed Internet service at home. In 2018, nearly 17 million children lived in homes without high-speed Internet, and more than 7 million did not have computers at home, according to a report prepared by a coalition of civil rights and education groups that analyzed census data for that year,” “Music blared outside a row of off-campus houses on Saturday near the University of North Georgia as hundreds of students packed the streets and front yards. Virtually no one wore a mask,” Ten days ago, Alisha Morris, a teacher in Olathe, Kan., made a spreadsheet tracking covid-19 in schools. She has more than 700 entries as of early Monday, each representing a school that has been impacted by the disease. “At first I thought it was kind of great that I have something to do now — it can help ease my anxiety and become a purposeful task,” Morris told “Seven months into the pandemic, front-line doctors have in many cases become experts in treating covid-19. But they are experts without, for the most part, the most fundamental tool in medicine — solid evidence upon which to base their decisions,” “The National Institutes of Health is preparing to launch a large, randomized trial to formally test different doses of blood thinners, which have been widely used to treat blood clots caused by the virus. Blood plasma from people who have recovered has now been given to more than 60,000 covid-19 patients, but the evidence that it works is still only suggestive. ‘It is unfortunate we don’t have the kinds of data we would like to have now,’ said Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. ‘That emphasizes and underscores something I repetitively talk about: the importance of the placebo-controlled randomized trial. Because if that had been done, we would have the answer to that right now.'" “In a study in Philadelphia, researchers at