The Technology 202: Democrats introduce bill to protect data collected in coronavirus pandemic

of Americans regardless of the type of technology used or who created it," said Sara Collins, policy counsel at Public Knowledge in a statement. "It is critical that Congress continue to work to prevent this type of corporate or government surveillance from becoming ubiquitous and compulsory.” Several privacy advocates criticized the Republican bill for falling short on enforcement mechanisms. Welcome to The Technology 202, our guide to the intersection of technology and politics. Our top tabs Amazon has been quietly lobbying against a Portland, Ore., law that would hurt its commercial interests in facial recognition technology. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. (Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP) The company spent $12,000 last year lobbying against legislation that would ban use of the technology by government and businesses in the city, Kate Kaye at One Zero reports. Banning business use goes a step further than proposed legislation in other areas, including Amazon's home state of Washington, where the company largely stayed out of a recent legislative fight over facial recognition. But Amazon's Rekognition facial recognition software has signed on clients including the NFL and CBS. Oregon's Washington County Sheriff's Office also uses the system. (Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post). “To be very blunt, they’re concerned about their bottom line,” said Portland City Council Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty, who supports the proposal and has met with Amazon. “They’re going to lose sales if they are not able to sell equipment that allows them to collect data.” Hardesty says Amazon got involved to weaken the legislation, which privacy advocates have accused Microsoft of doing in Washington state. Amazon was drafting its own federal facial recognition legislation to pitch to lawmakers, though the coronavirus pandemic has derailed the federal debate. Taiwan's largest chip maker will announce plans to build a factory in Arizona. Memory modules. (SeongJoon Cho/Bloomberg News) The plant, which could open as soon as 2023, could accelerate efforts by the U.S. government to reduce the reliance of American companies on Asian suppliers, Bob Davis, Kate O'Keeffe and Asa Fitch at the Wall Street Journal report. Both the State and Commerce departments, which played a key role in efforts to secure American technologies from spying, are involved in the plans for the new plant. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. is the world's largest contract manufacturer of silicon chips. That makes its entrance into the U.S. market a boon for President Trump. Trump has prioritized


Md., Va. reopen some businesses with limits

Virginia and Maryland dipped their toes into reopening Friday as governors of both states gave the yellow light for some businesses and houses of worship to carefully restart operations after the deadly coronavirus pandemic forced a shutdown that lasted more than six weeks and wreaked economic havoc across the region. The changes took effect at midnight in Virginia and will begin at 5 p.m. Friday in Maryland. But with the orders have come much trepidation and, in some cases, decisions to postpone reopening until new cases decline and testing protocols are improved. While parts of the region reopen, the District and its suburbs remain in a virtual lockdown. Much of Northern Virginia kept stay-at-home orders in place, as did suburban Maryland, where coronavirus outbreaks have been most severe. D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) has ordered the shutdown through at least June 8. Baltimore and Richmond have also remained closed. [As parts of the region prepare to reopen, top Md. Democrats say it’s too soon] The regional shutdown has been devastating for workers and business owners. More than 103,000 jobless claims were filed last week in the District, Maryland and Virginia, bringing the number of people who have sought jobless benefits in recent weeks to 885,000. In the Maryland and Virginia counties that have begun to reopen, the emphasis is on caution. Conditions for reopening prioritize safety, social distancing and cleanliness. In Virginia, restaurants already licensed for outdoor seating can reopen at half capacity with social distancing requirements. Barber shops and hair and nail salons can open for appointments and with strict guidelines. Nonessential retail stores can open with limits on the number of customers allowed in the store. Employees are required to wear face masks, and customers are strongly encouraged to wear them. [When and how will Virginia reopen?] While religious organizations can hold services, gatherings must be at 50 percent capacity and are subject to other safety requirements. Movie theaters, concert venues, amusement parks, bowling alleys and indoor gyms remain closed. “Virginia will slowly and deliberately ease some of the restrictions, but not all,” Gov. Ralph Northam (D) said. In Maryland, many similar precautions are in place, although restaurants remain closed for in-person dining. Gov. Larry Hogan (R) is replacing a statewide stay-at-home order with a “safer at home” policy that relaxes some restrictions. [When and how will Maryland reopen?] The new policy allows some nonessential retailers to


One-third of D.C. covid-19 fatalities linked to nursing facilities

D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser signs a wall ahead of a news conference to showcase the conversion of the Walter E. Washington Convention Center into an alternate medical site on Monday. (Salwan Georges/The Washington Post) About a third of the District’s covid-19 fatalities have been residents of skilled nursing facilities, the city announced Friday, further illustrating the devastating toll of the pandemic on the elderly, injured and sick. Even as businesses in farther flung areas of Virginia and Maryland celebrated their first cautious steps toward reopening, the number of new coronavirus cases and deaths in the region continued to mount, and officials made clear that a return to normalcy was not yet on the horizon. “Today is a big step for us, moving into phase one,” Gov. Ralph Northam said at his Friday briefing in Richmond, before urging Virginians to remain vigilant about washing their hands, staying home when possible and wearing masks in public. “The last thing that we need as a health issue, the last thing we need as an economic issue is to have to go back to where we’ve been. So let’s work together and not let that happen.” The Maryland Association of Counties canceled its massive August convention in Ocean City for the first time in its 90-year history. The event is a fixture on Maryland’s political calendar. Baltimore City Council Vice President Sharon Green Middleton, who serves as MACo president, said the organization’s board of directors did not make the decision lightly. “Our ways of life have been uprooted and we are all working together to keep ourselves, our families, and our vulnerable community members safe,” she said in a statement. “To that end, my colleagues and I … feel that the most responsible and respectful decision available to us is to cancel this year’s MACo Summer Conference.” The District, Maryland and Virginia reported 77 new deaths and 2,077 new infections on Friday, boosting the total caseload across the three jurisdictions to 72,529. In less populous and hard-hit parts of Maryland and Virginia, nail salons, barbershops, furniture stores, exercise studios and other establishments rolled out the welcome mat for customers eager to restart their lives after weeks of quarantine. Virginia eased some restrictions at midnight; Maryland was set to do so at 5 p.m. “I am just so excited to reopen I know I had to pop some champagne right at 5 p.m. tonight,”


The Daily 202: Billions are out of work and millions of kids could die from coronavirus’s economic fallout

major outbreak so far, is now a tinderbox set to explode as thousands of workers return from the Dominican Republic, many bringing the virus with them. This is expected to spark a flare-up that the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere will be unable to handle.(Kevin Sieff) Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador pushed back yesterday on an independent report from his own government indicating that the pandemic could drag 6.1 million to 10.7 million of his countrymen into extreme poverty. Meanwhile, authorities postponed restarting the country’s auto and mining industries by two weeks. (Teo Armus) In Yemen, the number of people dying with coronavirus symptoms is spiking as hospitals shut down. Only 803 tests have been conducted so far in the country, even though at least 385 people died over the last week with what appeared to be covid-19. (Sudarsan Raghavan) Ai Feng, 6, parades up her block in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York on Thursday. (Mark Lennihan/AP) Here in the United States, the economic outlook is stark. A Federal Reserve survey A Census Bureau survey Seventy-five percent of small The Labor Department reported Thursday that roughly 3 million people filed for unemployment benefits last week Studies show rising unemployment is connected to deaths of despair. Welcome to The Daily 202, PowerPost’s essential briefing for decision makers. More on the federal response Ousted official Rick Bright testified that it might take years to develop a vaccine ready for widespread distribution. Bright, “who filed a whistleblower complaint after he was removed from a senior post at the Department of Health and Human Services last month, said his superiors dismissed urgent warnings in January and early February about an impending shortage of N95 respirator masks. Bright also said the administration delayed potential work on a U.S.-made vaccine by not acting fast enough or forcefully enough to press China for samples of the virus. And Bright said his removal showcased how, generally, politics overtook science as Trump took center stage in responding to the U.S. crisis,” Aaron Davis, Yasmeen Abutaleb, Felicia Sonmez and John Wagner report. “Bright alleged he was reassigned to a lesser post and locked out of his email account as director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority after pushing back against plans for the government to invest in unproven covid-19 treatments such as the anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine. … “Bright also went further, painting a bleak


the Seattle-based executive director of Main Street Alliance, an advocacy group for small businesses. ‘When the economy recovers, it won’t recover with the same level of diversity.’ … In the District, thriving commercial corridors from U Street to H Street and from Connecticut Avenue to Maine Avenue could lose some of the businesses that fueled the city’s renaissance and made the surrounding residential communities so appealing.” UBS estimates that roughly 100,000 stores nationally will close over the next five years, which is more than triple the number that shut during the previous recession. (WSJ) Top Maryland Democrats say it’s too soon for the state to begin reopening. “Across the region, there were 93 new coronavirus deaths and 2,310 new infections reported on Thursday,” Michael Rosenwald, Ovetta Wiggins and Emily Davies report. "Maryland accounted for nearly 1,100 of those new infections, versus the state’s 751 new infections the day before. … Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, who exempted Northern Virginia from the reopening several days ago, announced Thursday that he would also delay the change for Richmond, at the city’s request, and for Accomack County on the Eastern Shore, where there are several poultry processing facilities that have experienced outbreaks. In Maryland, Baltimore City joined Montgomery and Prince George’s counties in opting out of [Republican Gov. Larry] Hogan’s reopening.” Virginia’s monthly tax receipts dived by 26.2 percent in April, compared with the previous year, according to the first monthly revenue report, while Maryland expects to lose at least $925 million in tax revenue by the end of June. It is expected to balloon to $1.2 billion if Congress doesn’t pass another rescue package. (Erin Cox) Metro and Metrobus will require that all passengers wear masks starting Monday. (Justin George) Chinese American novelist Yu Lihua, the author of more than two dozen books that guided her mostly Chinese-speaking readers through topics including heartbreak, divorce and identity struggles, died from the virus at 90 in a Maryland retirement complex. She was the mother of Washington Post reporter Lena Sun, who has helped lead our coverage of the contagion. (Michael Laris) The Trump presidency Then-national security adviser Michael Flynn speaks at a White House press briefing in February 2017. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post) The EPA will not limit perchlorate. The chemical is “linked to potential brain damage in fetuses and newborns and thyroid problems in adults,” Brady Dennis and Juliet Eilperin report. “The move, which


American Business Is Split on Partisan Lines Over Virus Recovery

The politicization of Americans’ views about the Covid-19 outbreak, including whether to wear a mask, extends to small businesses. Firms in the Northeast and in Democratic-leaning states are more anxious about the future than their peers around the country, with many expecting economic pain from the Covid-19 pandemic to last longer than six months, a new U.S. Census Bureau survey shows. The survey of around 90,000 firm shows that, while every U.S. region is affected by the outbreak, the extent of financial damage and people’s attitudes toward it vary widely by state. About 40% of respondents in blue-leaning states of Vermont and Hawaii, as well as Washington, D.C., see it taking more than half a year for business to return to normal. However, only 18% of those surveyed in the GOP strongholds of West Virginia and Idaho see it taking so long, the data show. The Census Bureau hopes the weekly survey will give policy makers and decision makers in the private sector more timely information about what’s happening in the economy and how the pandemic is shaping it. The bureau collected the information from April 26 to May 2. Not surprisingly, small businesses in states with the most severe Covid-19 outbreaks had some of the most worrying responses, while states in less affected places were more optimistic. About 39% of respondents in hard-hit New Jersey reported having fewer employees over the past week, the second highest rate after only Puerto Rico. Businesses on that island territory also reported some of the most severe financial effects of all U.S. states and territories, including the most respondents saying the virus has had a “large negative effect.” Also, business people in industries crippled by the virus, such as accommodation and food services, reflected outsize pain. For example, more than 47% of small businesses in lodging and restaurants nationwide reported a decrease in their number of paid employees during the past week, compared with 27.5% of all respondents. While the survey didn’t ask about politics, the results indicate businesses in blue-leaning states have more pessimistic outlooks, while respondents in red-leaning states were more bullish. That could stem from the more severe outbreak in the Northeast, but also could reflect partisan differences over the issue. Among the 10 states where the highest percentage of businesses expect it to take longer than six months to fully recover, eight voted for Hillary Clinton in the 2016


country, with many expecting economic pain from the Covid-19 pandemic to last longer than six months, a new U.S. Census Bureau survey shows. The survey of around 90,000 firm shows that, while every U.S. region is affected by the outbreak, the extent of financial damage and people’s attitudes toward it vary widely by state. About 40% of respondents in blue-leaning states of Vermont and Hawaii, as well as Washington, D.C., see it taking more than half a year for business to return to normal. However, only 18% of those surveyed in the GOP strongholds of West Virginia and Idaho see it taking so long, the data show. The Census Bureau hopes the weekly survey will give policy makers and decision makers in the private sector more timely information about what’s happening in the economy and how the pandemic is shaping it. The bureau collected the information from April 26 to May 2. Not surprisingly, small businesses in states with the most severe Covid-19 outbreaks had some of the most worrying responses, while states in less affected places were more optimistic. About 39% of respondents in hard-hit New Jersey reported having fewer employees over the past week, the second highest rate after only Puerto Rico. Businesses on that island territory also reported some of the most severe financial effects of all U.S. states and territories, including the most respondents saying the virus has had a “large negative effect.” Also, business people in industries crippled by the virus, such as accommodation and food services, reflected outsize pain. For example, more than 47% of small businesses in lodging and restaurants nationwide reported a decrease in their number of paid employees during the past week, compared with 27.5% of all respondents. While the survey didn’t ask about politics, the results indicate businesses in blue-leaning states have more pessimistic outlooks, while respondents in red-leaning states were more bullish. That could stem from the more severe outbreak in the Northeast, but also could reflect partisan differences over the issue. Among the 10 states where the highest percentage of businesses expect it to take longer than six months to fully recover, eight voted for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election (including the District of Columbia). Among the 10 states where the fewest expect it to take so long, nine voted for President Donald Trump. For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com ©2020 Bloomberg L.P.


A majority of Americans going to work fear exposing their household to the coronavirus

A glove discarded by a delivery person sits in a small oil slick in the rain-spattered parking lot of a grocery store in Silver Spring, Md., on April 30. (Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post) Even as most Americans spent the past two months hiding indoors, Damion Campbell has been rushing into retail and grocery stores in Columbia, S.C., each day. The 45-year-old owns an information technology company, and his clients rely on him to keep their cash registers operating. Just a few months ago, Campbell didn’t think much about touching surfaces that may not have been washed for days or longer, or chatting with employees while he does his work. But now, Campbell finds himself applying his military training to his civilian job. In the age of the novel coronavirus, that means stocking up on disinfectant wipes, always wearing a mask and never staying in one location for more than an hour, he said. “You keep your head at the swivel, be aware of your surroundings, and avoid patterns,” said Campbell, referring to lessons he learned as a Marine deployed to Iraq nearly two decades ago. “You are constantly looking over your shoulder.” http://www.washingtonpost.com/video/national/coronavirus-killed-his-only-son-four-days-after-the-funeral-he-was-back-at-work/2020/05/08/14d81304-f69d-4075-87a6-2b86b49a0ee0_video.html (REF:oconnore/The Washington Post) With tens of millions of Americans preparing to return to work as more states relax stay-at-home orders, Campbell’s experiences offer a preview of the new challenges that businesses and employees will soon face as commerce begins reopening in a new era of anxiety and apprehension. A Washington Post-Ipsos poll of more than 8,000 adults in late April and early May found that nearly 6 in 10 Americans who are working outside their homes were concerned that they could be exposed to the virus at work and infect other members of their household. Those concerns were even higher for some: Roughly 7 in 10 black and Hispanic workers said they were worried about getting a household member sick if they are exposed at work. Nearly 1 in 3 Americans — and over half of those with jobs — have continued to leave the house for work at least once a week as the virus has spread and states have issued stay-at-home orders, the poll found. More than one-third of people still going to work said they or a household member has a serious chronic illness, and 13 percent said they lack health insurance themselves. Nearly 8 in 10 Americans leaving home to work said


The pandemic’s big political losers

with 252,000 recorded infections as of Thursday — and Moscow’s mayor says the number in the capital may be three times Monday’s official count of 115,000. Yet Mr. Putin is already moving to lift restrictions on the economy. On Monday, when a record 11,656 new cases were reported, he told Russians it was time to go back to work. The price of the Kremlin chief’s disengagement is mounting. Russia had reported 2,305 deaths from the virus as of Thursday, but many experts believe that number is grossly understated, too. An analysis by the Financial Times showed that the toll could be 70 percent higher, based on mortality records in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Then there is the damage to the Russian economy, which Mr. Putin compounded by engaging in an oil price war with Saudi Arabia that drove prices to historic lows. The International Monetary Fund now estimates the Russian economy will shrink by 5.5 percent this year, and much of the foreign reserves the regime has accumulated in recent years will be drained. [ The Opinions section is looking for stories of how the coronavirus has affected people of all walks of life. Write to us. ] Mr. Putin himself has suffered two big setbacks in addition to his plunging poll numbers. He was forced to postpone a referendum last month that would have ratified constitutional changes allowing him to remain in power until 2036, when he would be 84. And he was unable to stage a much-anticipated celebration of the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany last weekend that was to be attended by world leaders such as China’s Xi Jinping and France’s Emmanuel Macron. Few are predicting the pandemic will bring about Mr. Putin’s downfall. But then, there is also no sign his regime will soon gain control over the virus. Russians, like Americans, are suffering the deadly consequences of their president’s mix of arrogance and fecklessness. The difference is the latter can vote for a change in November. Read more: Michael Carpenter: Putin has just made two huge mistakes — and his timing couldn’t be worse Vladimir Kara-Murza: Vladimir Putin has a popularity problem — and the Kremlin knows it Garry Kasparov: Russia claims it has covid-19 under control. The facade is cracking. Jackson Diehl: The winners and losers of the coronavirus’s global test of governance The Post’s View: This is Trump’s greatest failure of the pandemic


Iran’s clerics have bungled their coronavirus response, stoking doubts about their rule

ISTANBUL — The Iranian cartoon shows two traditional healers, including a turbaned cleric, preparing to treat a coronavirus patient on all fours with beakers of camel urine and violet leaf oil, remedies hailed by some clergymen as surefire cures for covid-19. On the wall hangs a picture of Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, donning a nurse's cap and putting a finger to his lips, signaling critics to remain silent. The sketch was posted last month on the Telegram channel of a mainstream news outlet, the Iranian Labor News Agency, before being swiftly taken down. Its appearance, however brief, represented a rare criticism of Iran’s ruling religious establishment by the media and came amid a wider outcry among Iranians over the role played by the Shiite Muslim clergy during the pandemic. Since Iran’s outbreak first erupted in the holy city of Qom, religious leaders have resisted calls for quarantines, protested orders to close shrines, cast the coronavirus as an American conspiracy, and promoted traditional or Islamic medicine as a panacea for covid-19, the disease it causes. Their actions have angered senior health officials and stoked long-existing doubts within the Iranian population about whether the clergy are fit to rule. In Iran, a Shiite theocracy, clerics preside over and participate in all matters of the state. But their botched response to the pandemic may be weakening the clergy’s political stature, at a time when its influence was already under pressure, political analysts say. As the religious elite fumbled and deaths from the virus mounted — Iran has now reported nearly 7,000 deaths and more than 118,000 infections — the country’s powerful security services have stepped in to conduct disease surveillance, disinfect public spaces and even oversee victims’ burials, a role long reserved for civilian authorities and Shiite clerics. The pandemic, Iranians inside the country and analysts say, has highlighted the clergy’s dwindling relevance while granting the armed forces an opportunity to consolidate power. It’s a dynamic with implications for Iran’s political future, as the battle heats up to succeed Khamenei and a more modern middle class grows tired of theocratic government. “The clergy’s apparent resistance to the state’s virus control mandates will likely be marked as a point of no return for public mistrust of clerics and suspicion about their ability to serve as rational authorities in the political or social sphere,” Mehdi Khalaji, a fellow at the Washington Institute for


Telemedicine keeps doctors and patients connected at a safe remove

telehealth demonstration projects, including video visits with specialists, for people living far from academic medical centers. Several dedicated telehealth companies have sprung up, often catering to people with no insurance or high deductibles. Each telehealth company has different offerings — but a common visit such as checking symptoms for flu, generally costs under $100 per visit. The limiting factor, Kwang says, had been that most people have little or no health insurance coverage for video visits and doctors often have not been able to be reimbursed for telehealth services. Amid the covid-19 outbreak, that has changed. The increase in telehealth visits has been bolstered by decisions to cover them by Medicare, Medicaid and many private insurers, some of whom have even waived co-pays and deductibles for some visits, especially for ones related to covid-19 symptoms, according to information from the industry’s association, America’s Health Insurance Plans. Aetna, for example, is “offering zero co-pay telemedicine visits for any reason,” and Humana is “waiving member cost share for all telehealth services delivered by participating/in-network providers.” Emily Shevitz, 30, of Kendall, Fla., was grateful for her first televisit in mid-March when she couldn’t get a headache under control, a chronic condition since a near-fatal car accident in 2012. “Because of a weak immune system, I didn’t want to go to urgent care or my primary-care clinic, out of concern I could contract the virus,” she said. Shevitz accessed a telehealth visit through Baptist Hospital in Miami. “I was able to talk to an ER doctor who asked me about my medical history and prescribed . . . medication until I could see my neurologist. It was reassuring that I was able to be seen from the comfort of my own house.” Joe Kvedar, vice president of Connected Health at Partners HealthCare and president-elect of the American Telemedicine Association, which represents the industry, recommends calling insurers to determine telehealth coverage and options. If a doctor does not offer televisits, the insurer may be able to connect the patient to a firm that does, often at no charge or a small co-pay. Other tips include checking whether any information or forms must be signed, having an ID number or password ready if a practice requires them to connect to the visit, finding a quiet and private place for the visit, and charging the device the patient is using. In March, the Department of Health and


Polio was almost eradicated. Then came the coronavirus. Then came a threat from President Trump.

For decades, the United States has worked with the World Health Organization and others to quash polio, beating back to near extinction a merciless disease that once paralyzed hundreds of thousands of children each year. That progress is in danger as the pandemic forces health-care providers to suspend door-to-door vaccination campaigns that have slashed the number of infections. New cases have emerged in Niger and Chad, and fears have mounted about a resurgence in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Although the number of new polio infections has been small — 155 confirmed cases since January — even blips are worrisome, public health experts say, because small increases can trigger explosive outbreaks, especially in poor countries without the resources to combat the virus alone. “The polio virus is being let free,” said Abdul Qadir, a health worker who has spent the past eight years delivering the vaccine in western Pakistan. The polio program also risks becoming collateral damage in a political controversy that could hinder eradication efforts long after the pandemic subsides. Last month, President Trump threatened to cut U.S. funding for polio and every other WHO program over the U.N. agency’s coronavirus response, which he called “China-centric.” In the weeks since, the president and his aides have worked behind the scenes to sideline the WHO. They have also sought to deflect criticism of the United States’ handling of the crisis by pointing to the WHO’s failure to demand more transparency and accountability from China in the earliest stages of the outbreak. While many say the WHO legitimately warrants scrutiny, there is consensus in the public health community that stripping the agency of hundreds of millions of dollars earmarked to combat polio and other diseases could be devastating. “Ultimately, the impact is not on the institution, it’s on health,” said Jen Kates, senior vice president and director of global health and HIV policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation. Of the $893 million the United States sent in the 2018 and 2019 funding period, $237 million was an “assessed contribution” to the Geneva-based agency — a type of state membership due that may prove hard to cut without congressional approval. At greater risk is the “voluntary contribution,” money provided to U.S. agencies for health efforts and then given to WHO programs. The largest share of this money goes to polio eradication, with large chunks to fight vaccine preventable disease, malaria, tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS and the


Russia's coronavirus cases are spiking and the health system is struggling to keep pace

ordered a halt to the use of ventilators produced by Ural Instrument Engineering Plant, part of a state conglomerate Rostec, which also manufactures military hardware and is under Western sanctions over Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea from Ukraine. But the decision raised questions as to how the country will cope as virus cases continue to climb. The Industry and Trade Ministry earlier designated the Ural Instrument Engineering Plant as its sole ventilator supplier, planning to purchase 5,700 units for Russian hospitals, Russian news agency Interfax reported. A ministry spokesman said Monday that an examination must not only focus on the ventilators but on the conditions of their use. Some have suggested that faulty wiring may have caused the fires, with multiple electrical devices in use in ICU wards. The lack of protective equipment and resulting sickness among health workers has seen doctors walk off the job, fearing infection and death. Hospitals have emerged as super-spreader sites, with the infection sweeping through coronavirus wards, known in Russia as “red zone” wards and “green zones” or “clean zones” for other patients. At least 400 hospitals had been identified as hot spots, Russian Health Minister Mikhail Murashko said Wednesday, calling it the kind of thing that “tends to happen.” He said the situation was “tense but controllable.” The St. Petersburg governor, Alexander Beglov, said 1,465 medical workers in that city alone had been infected with the coronavirus since the outbreak of the pandemic, RIA Novosti reported. “The risk of getting covid-19 in the clean zone of a covid-19 hospital is very high,” Alexandra said. She said some students who had been contacted by hospitals to start work had been given no choice on whether they would work in red zones or green zones. “We are talking about very serious infection and forcing students to work with such an infection and calling it practical work is inadmissible,” she said. “It’s a violation of our right to life.” Students including pregnant women, young mothers, those with underlying health conditions that put them at risk and those with older parents whom they could infect, were ordered to work in hospitals treating covid-19 patients, she added. “We are concerned that we won’t have personal protective equipment. There are shortages that we all know about, so where are they going to get the necessary quantities for us?” she said. Alexey Erlikh, head of the cardiological intensive care unit


As it prepares to fly humans, Elon Musk’s SpaceX faces the biggest challenge in its history

expensive. How could an industry be sustainable if it kept throwing away the most expensive part of the rocket after a single use? So he started trying to fly his boosters back to Earth. The effort prompted SpaceX to invent entirely new rocket components and hardware — expanding not just technical capabilities but adding to the vocabulary of space as well. SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rockets were outfitted with “grid fins,” heat-resistant wings that helped steer the 230-foot-tall booster through the atmosphere. It had a quartet of landing legs that would unfurl just before touching down on an autonomous platform, 300 feet long by 170 feet wide, that the company called a “droneship.” And when the rockets crashed, Musk dubbed the fireballs not explosions but “rapid unscheduled disassemblies.” At first, there were a fair number of them, a parade of fireballs, one after the other. In 2014, a rocket hovered over the ocean, then tipped over and scattered debris across the water’s surface. In early 2015, one slammed into the droneship — “close but no cigar” Musk tweeted at the time. A few months later, another crashed and burned. The company eventually released a blooper reel of its rockets blowing up, with a caption for one crash that read, “Well, technically, it did land ... just not in one piece.” To some in the space industry, the embrace of failure was refreshing. When NASA veterans visited Reisman at SpaceX, he said they’d tell him “this place reminds me a lot of what NASA was like during Apollo. So it was kind of like it was almost like taking NASA back to its roots.” Then, in December 2015, another Falcon 9 landed just as an ominous thunder cascaded over Cape Canaveral. Another explosion, Musk thought. But this time, when the smoke cleared, there was no fire. Just a rocket standing triumphantly on a landing pad on the Cape. The sound Musk heard was a sonic boom, not a detonation. “You have to learn those hard lessons,” Shotwell said. “I think sometimes the aerospace industry shies away from failure in the development phase. It looks bad politically. It’s tough. And the media certainly makes a lot of failures. But, candidly, that’s the best way to learn — to push your systems to their limit, which includes your people systems and your processes, and learn where you’re weak and make things better.” Photography by


Nursing homes violate federal disease standards

the virus at bay and that administrators worked early and often with health authorities to contain the spread of infection. Since the outbreak in Kirkland, the privately owned company with more than 200 nursing homes has seen at least 2,000 cases and 250 deaths among residents and staff, according to a Post tally of state data and local media accounts. Five Life Care nursing homes have experienced outbreaks of 100 or more cases. There is no comprehensive national data available to determine whether the rate of infections and deaths at Life Care facilities is higher than at other chains — or how often other chains have been cited for violations after the pandemic began. Nursing homes across the country have been hit particularly hard: About 1 in 4 have reported at least one case of the coronavirus, according to a Post analysis. Around the country, even nursing homes with strong track records have publicly reported cases of covid-19, which is particularly lethal among the elderly. “We have a virus that has attacked our vulnerable populations who have co-morbidities, and that has made this extremely difficult to manage,” said Tim Killian, public information liaison for Life Care Centers of America. “We need help. We need hands on the ground. We need money. We need equipment. We need doctors. And none of that is happening in a significant way anywhere in the country.” The Life Care Center of Kirkland, Wash., suffered the country’s first reported outbreak of the novel coronavirus in February. (John Moore/Getty Images) Killian declined to comment on the specifics of the most recent inspection reports. Life Care President Beecher Hunter said the homes submit plans of correction to the government. “Life Care Centers of America and its affiliated facilities are not perfect; no organization is because it is made up of people, and people are imperfect human beings,” Hunter said in an email to The Post. “. . . Our healthcare heroes will from time to time unfortunately fall below our standards for resident care.” To critics, the size of the outbreaks reflects profound flaws in the company’s management and the treatment of patients, which have been documented for years in lawsuits by families, former employees and federal prosecutors. Time and again, they described a company beset by staffing shortages and compromised care, deficiencies that critics say probably worsened as covid-19 infected hundreds of residents and caregivers. In the


Postcards fomr a nervous world

Wellington statue outside the Gallery of Modern Art in Glasgow in late April. (Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images) Comfort and ease make you complacent about others. You delude yourself into craving silence and isolation. Why talk when you can message? Gatherings chafe. We have been distancing ourselves socially from each other for a generation. In time, this test will pass and we will talk of values rediscovered. On one recent day, following a week of unseasonal sunshine, more people have ventured into the heart of Glasgow. It’s not that they have become insouciant about social distancing, just that they are wiser now in its ways. The view from the Pnyx in Athens. (Photo by John Psaropoulos) John Psaropoulos, Athens I like to run around the Acropolis. My goal is always the Pnyx, where the ancient Athenians assembled to debate. Ever since the 2004 Athens Olympics, the way there has been a beautiful pedestrian zone. Normally I see only dog-walkers in the morning. The coronavirus has changed that. There are younger, faster runners, some evicted from the now-locked Panathenaic Stadium. The elderly have emerged for a morning constitutional. There are couples, families, friends. [Postcards from Lima, Seoul, Nairobi and San Salvador] There has been a transformation on the streets beyond, too. Gone is the tyranny of motorcycles, whose owners routinely remove mufflers for a bit of extra mileage. I can hear blackbirds marking territory. Nitrogen oxide has dropped by a third. A runner near the Acropolis in Athens on May 6. (Kostas Tsironis/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock) For me, house arrest is deadly to productivity. Outside, from the churches no one may go to, the bells chime mournfully. I sit down. The thoughts fly like startled deer. and I remember nothing of the ideas I had. As European infection curves wilt, I look forward to children going back to school and the possibility of really working. But this crisis was also, perhaps, an opportunity to remodel our economies to offer greater opportunity and equality, as well as to consume less, produce less and save the Earth. I somehow doubt we will do it of our own accord. Read more Transit systems are empty. It is not clear whether riders will return. Here is how Post correspondents have coped during the lockdowns Mapping the coronavirus spread worldwide Today’s coverage from Post correspondents around the world Like Washington Post World on Facebook and stay updated on foreign news


Summer weather could help fight coronavirus spread but won’t halt the pandemic

However, like previous studies, the research from Harvard and MIT found that the transition to summer weather won’t be sufficient to completely contain the virus’s transmission. Other coronaviruses, such as SARS and MERS, have exhibited seasonality, ebbing during periods of warmer weather much like the seasonal flu. Many experts have suspected for months that the novel coronavirus might do the same. The seasonal factors in virus transmission work the other way around, too: A decline in transmission in summer would probably be followed by a seasonal increase in infections in the fall. There are many factors in the seasonal pattern. The virus degrades outside a host cell, and does so more rapidly when exposed to heat or ultraviolet radiation from the sun. Humidity plays a complex role. Research indicates that viruses easily spread in winter in the dry air of climate-controlled spaces. By contrast, higher humidity makes respiratory droplets, the most common vector of virus, drop to the ground or floor more quickly, limiting airborne transmission. Even in summer, most people live their lives indoors, and much of what happens this summer will pivot on how carefully people maintain social distancing and limit contact with other people. In communities that ease the shutdown restrictions, some people will return to office buildings and residences. Viral transmission has been common in confined spaces where people are in close contact. Research published in recent days, looking at how human speech creates small respiratory droplets that can linger in the air for many minutes, has raised anew the question of how the virus spreads and whether some transmission is through these small aerosol droplets. That remains unresolved. David Rubin, director of PolicyLab at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, and his colleagues have incorporated weather factors in the model they have developed showing when and where it will be relatively safe to ease some shutdown orders. “Clearly, I believe weather is impacting it — it’s just not impacting it enough to completely eliminate transmission,” Rubin said. “That’s why we’re still seeing cases in Florida and Texas and Tennessee. It seems to be preventing a big exponential rise in cases.” Multiple early studies provide evidence of statistical ties between temperature and humidity ranges and the geographic regions where this virus has thrived. While none of these studies has been conclusive, they all point to the same general possibility: The pandemic could ease in parts of North America


Iceland Is the Perfect Coronavirus Refuge

The world’s tourism hot spots are gradually reopening after the great lockdown, but they don’t look very alluring. Going to the beach will require spacing out parasols and forgetting about the drinks service, while a city break in Europe might mean keeping a mask on while shopping. Not to mention the quarantines being imposed to limit imported infections, hardly a great way to start a vacation. Public health has become a huge factor in tourism: “Covid-free” is the new five-star rating. If there’s one destination in particular that might turn into an ideal getaway from Covid-19, it’s Iceland. The tiny island nation — population 360,000 — has long been known for its stunning landscapes, views of the Northern Lights, lava caves and other vistas featured in shows like Game of Thrones. Recently it has gained plaudits as a coronavirus case study, having kept its outbreak under control without imposing a messy or draconian lockdown. And it may very well show the way for countries trying to strike a balance between wooing visitors and avoiding a flare-up in cases. From the start of the outbreak, Iceland stood out from much of Europe by having a proactive pandemic plan ready and sticking to it. The country began testing widely for Covid-19 in February, even before its first declared case. It even tested people who showed no symptoms, partnering with a Reykjavik-based company called DeCODE Genetics to do so. Iceland has tested more people per capita than anywhere else. By quarantining and tracing the contacts of positive cases, the country avoided the extremes of either an indiscriminate lockdown or simply letting the virus rip (in the hope of achieving group immunity). The result is a nation with just 1,802 cases and 10 deaths; its estimated mortality rate of 0.6% is lower than that of France, Italy and Sweden. This isn’t to ignore the impact of demographics — Iceland’s median age is about 36, 10 years below Italy’s — or the ease of social distancing in a country whose population density is on par with Montana in the U.S. But effective government planning, trusted scientific advice and testing played a key role. All of these things are now being brought to bear on tourism. Rather than seek out special deals or exclusive “travel bubbles” with certain countries, Iceland’s plan is, from June 15, to offer all visitors the choice between two-week quarantine or a


J.C. Penney Bankruptcy May Not Buy Enough Time

for bankruptcy this month, there may be little for a potential acquirer to pick up. The downfall of J.C. Penney — a chain that grew out of a single store opened 118 years ago in Kemmerer, Wyoming by James Cash Penney — is part and parcel with the long, slow decline of the department store. The concept had its heyday from the end of the Second World War through to the 1980s. Often starting life downtown as Americans moved to the suburbs, these venerable names followed, opening in newly built malls. They focused largely on clothing and the items needed to furnish the homes that Americans were buying. Amid the age of mass car ownership, they were more than happy to drive to these retail attractions. For many years, J.C. Penney was known as a family department store. If not somewhere Americans aspired to shop, it offered good value, and solid styles. In fact, it was a bit like Britain’s Marks & Spencer Group Plc, the sort of place you went for back-to-school gear and basics. But at least M&S sold food — because by the 1980s, the environment for department stores was already darkening. In 1988, Walmart opened its first super-center, adding groceries to its non-food selection to encourage more regular visits. At the same time Target Inc., another mass merchant that combined clothing, home furnishings and groceries, was quietly expanding across the U.S. The mid-market, which J.C. Penney had traditionally occupied, was under attack, not just from discounters, but later the internet, which was rapidly displacing department stores as the one-stop shop, and with cheaper, more transparent pricing. By 2011, in an effort to reinvent itself, J.C. Penney appointed Ron Johnson, an executive from Apple Inc. who built the tech giant’s much-admired retail network. Some of his ideas – a communal space in stores for yoga classes and coffee bars and food stands dotted throughout – were directionally right, even if they never got off the ground. Other concepts did come to fruition and were disastrous, such as ditching the coupons that had driven much of J.C. Penney’s traffic. When Johnson was ousted in 2013, the company apologized to customers in a television commercial: “We learned a very simple thing – to listen to you,” it said in the ad. “Come back to J.C. Penney.” Unfortunately, they never did to the same extent. While subsequent leaders Marvin Ellison,


It’s bamboo time for zoo’s giant pandas

It is crunchtime, you could say, for the pandas at the National Zoo, and it has nothing to do with the coronavirus or any other emergency. It has everything to do with a seasonal staple in the animals’ diet. It is growing season for bamboo in the Washington area, the zoo said Friday, the spring weeks when the tender shoots push upward. That makes it chomping season for the male giant panda Tian Tian and the female Mei Xiang. The zoo may be closed to the public because of the virus, but that seems to have in no way diminished the pandas’ delight in chewing bamboo. It’s in their blood. According to keepers, the zoo said, each ingests 100 pounds daily at the Smithsonian Institution branch on Connecticut Avenue. The quantity is made necessary, apparently, by the fact that bamboo, like many other delicacies, may satisfy psychological needs more than nutritional requirements. It takes a lot of it to provide much useful content. In the wild, pandas find their bamboo where they can. In the Washington region, members of the zoo’s nutrition science department forage for bamboo for the jaws of pandas. Few species own the opposable thumb that gives humans, for example, the power to literally get a grip. But the giant panda has what seems a useful substitute. It is, according to the zoo, an elongated and enlarged wrist bone covered with a fleshy pad of skin. The zoo called it a pseudo thumb, making it possible to grasp bamboo. Add to that large molars and powerful, crunching jaws, and nature has created a creature made for consuming bamboo. Photographs show each of the giant pandas, sitting upright, paws around a bamboo stalk, held as if it were an ice cream cone. The animals appear about to produce the chomping sound that, according to the zoo, is music to keepers’ ears. Read more: Local newsletters: Local headlines (8 a.m.) | Afternoon Buzz (4 p.m.) Like PostLocal on Facebook


Region’s reopening a study in jarring contrasts

Dozens of deaths and thousands of new infections from the novel coronavirus were reported in the Washington region Saturday, even as some areas began welcoming droves of summertime visitors following the relaxation of quarantine restrictions in Virginia and Maryland. The two trends — rising fatalities and newly permitted gatherings in previously restricted tourist towns — stood in jarring contrast, highlighting the uncertainties that members of the public and government officials navigate as the region and country reopen. Officials in the District, Maryland and Virginia reported a total of 78 additional deaths and 2,164 more cases of the virus. (The latter figure is probably a substantial underestimate because of limited testing.) In Virginia, total covid-19 fatalities surpassed 1,000, as 25 deaths were reported overnight. Those somber figures stood uneasily beside scenes in places such as Ocean City, Md., where crowds poured onto the beach and boardwalk to enjoy one of the season’s first warm weekends. Steve Fenwick, manager at Thrasher’s French Fries, said the popular spot on the Ocean City boardwalk had a line of about 100 customers since it opened Saturday morning. Adherence to federal and state recommendations for preventing the spread of the virus appeared sporadic. “I’d say it’s about 50-50 as far as the masks go,” Fenwick said. “Social distancing? For the most part, I see people trying to do it.” At the nearby Hammerheads bar and restaurant, serving food for the first time since Maryland’s lockdown began, general manager Sherri Saunders likewise said it had been a busy day, with a steady stream of customers since the venue opened at 11. “The beach is still pretty crowded and the boardwalk has a ton of people just walking around,” she said. Hammerheads is serving only carryout and has strips of tape on the ground to help people waiting in line stay six feet apart. Most were giving one another adequate space, Saunders said, and her co-workers had been eager to return to work. “We’re a seasonal town,” she said. “This is our livelihood.” The contrast between activity resuming and the continuing specter of disease was evident in Maryland counties. In Anne Arundel County, officials allowed barbershops, beauty salons and churches to reopen with restrictions. At the same time, the county recorded five additional fatalities. Howard County permitted barbershops and shooting ranges to open and religious gatherings of less than 10 people to resume. It reported 39 new infections


Obama tells 2020 graduates: ‘If the world’s going to get better, it’s going to be up to you.' Read the transcripts of two speeches.

Former president Barack Obama gave two commencement addresses for 2020 graduates that were made public on Saturday, telling them in one: “If the world’s going to get better, it going to be up to you.” Obama first spoke at a virtual commencement ceremony for graduates of the country’s historically black colleges and universities (HBCU). He talked about the systemic racism in the United States that harms black Americans and about how the covid-19 pandemic is laying bare long-standing inequities. He also referred to the shooting death by two white men of a 25-year-old black man, Ahmaud Arbery, while he was jogging in Georgia. “You’re being asked to find your way in the world in the middle of a devastating pandemic and terrible recession,” he said.” The timing is not ideal. And let’s be honest — a disease like this just spotlights the underlying inequalities and extra burdens that black communities have historically had to deal with in this country. We see it in the disproportionate impact of covid-19 on our communities, just as we see it when a black man goes for a jog, and some folks feel like they can stop and question and shoot him if he doesn’t submit to their questioning.” Then a video of Obama delivering a different commencement, this one to all of America’s 2020 high school graduates, was broadcast on a show called “Graduate Together: America Honors the Class of 2020.” The transcripts of both speeches are below. Here’s the video and transcript of Obamas XQ National High School Commencement, broadcast on May 16, 2020: And here’s the video of the speech Obama gave to HBCU graduates:


It’s time to use those jaws at the zoo for the bamboo-eating pandas

It is crunchtime, you could say, for the pandas at the National Zoo, and it has nothing to do with the coronavirus or any other emergency. It has everything to do with a seasonal staple in the animals’ diet. It is growing season for bamboo in the Washington area, the zoo said Friday, the spring weeks when the tender shoots push upward. That makes it chomping season for the male giant panda Tian Tian and the female Mei Xiang. The zoo may be closed to the public because of the virus, but that seems to have in no way diminished the pandas’ delight in chewing bamboo. It’s in their blood. According to keepers, the zoo said, each ingests 100 pounds daily at the Smithsonian Institution branch on Connecticut Avenue. The quantity is made necessary, apparently, by the fact that bamboo, like many other delicacies, may satisfy psychological needs more than nutritional requirements. It takes a lot of it to provide much useful content. In the wild, pandas find their bamboo where they can. In the Washington region, members of the zoo’s nutrition science department forage for bamboo for the jaws of pandas. Few species own the opposable thumb that gives humans, for example, the power to literally get a grip. But the giant panda has what seems a useful substitute. It is, according to the zoo, an elongated and enlarged wrist bone covered with a fleshy pad of skin. The zoo called it a pseudo thumb, making it possible to grasp bamboo. Add to that large molars and powerful, crunching jaws, and nature has created a creature made for consuming bamboo. Photographs show each of the giant pandas, sitting upright, paws around a bamboo stalk, held as if it were an ice cream cone. The animals appear about to produce the chomping sound that, according to the zoo, is music to keepers’ ears.


Coronavirus infected apres-ski in the Austrian Alps; criminal probe and litigation now follow

that doctors did not know at that point just how easily infection could spread. And while he denied economic considerations came into play, he conceded officials could have done a better job at alerting tourists. There were few additional details and no official warnings over the next several days. The evening-into-late-night partying continued. “I can’t emphasize it enough,” said Wright, who retreated to his hotel room with a fever, severe headache and fatigue and stayed in bed for the next 36 hours. “If they knew of anything, that was suppressed.” Back in England, his own test came back positive. He and other British and U.S. tourists interviewed by The Washington Post say they would have canceled their trips if information about an increasing number of cases had been made public. The Tregidgo family of New York City — two parents and three adult children who had been looking forward to their first vacation together in a decade — is among them. “If you’re told there’s a high rate of infections and you choose to go, then that’s on you,” said mother Barbara, a medical health clinician. “But we were told there’s no cases.” Before the Tregidgos arrived in St. Anton on March 8, only China, Iran, South Korea and northern Italy had been declared danger zones by U.S. officials. The family says they checked an official Tyrol website that stated there was no risk of coronavirus. They were unaware that shortly before the barkeeper’s diagnosis, Icelandic officials had warned Austria of likely transmission within Ischgl. They even called their hotel for final reassurance. They said a receptionist told them the snow was great and everything was all right. A day after checking in, they realized it was not. Their 22-year-old local guide had a bad cough. Over the next few days, their massage appointments were canceled because the therapist was home sick. Bars were ordered to limit patrons to try to reduce potential exposure. The Tregidgos decided to fly home early, before travel restrictions left thousands of Americans stranded in Europe. Three family members subsequently tested positive for the virus. Though they feel lucky for suffering only mild symptoms, they’d like the legal proceedings to establish accountability. They also would appreciate some compensation for their additional travel costs. Prosecutor Hansjörg Mayr said he would not discuss details of the criminal proceedings until he has reviewed a 1,000-page report by the


State Office of Criminal Investigations, which includes written statements, interviews and documents. Under Austrian law, criminal cases usually precede lawsuits brought by individuals. The class action is likely to hinge “on whether there were culpable, unlawful actions by the authorities,” said Heinz Mayer, former dean of the faculty of law at the University of Vienna. “That seems to be the case.” One of the travelers who contacted the VSV is a man from New Jersey who said he passed the virus to his father. His parent died of covid-19 less than three weeks later. Under the heading for “damages incurred” on the consumer association’s registry, the man wrote: “I don‘t know how to put a human life into financial terms.” The full extent of infection that traces to Austria’s Alps might never be known. German officials estimate that tourists from their country alone account for more than 3,700 cases. In one group of 50 Americans, traveling together from Massachusetts, Colorado, Arkansas and Texas, more than half got sick. Tests showed at least one-third had the coronavirus. Ischgl’s mayor, its tourism officials and representatives of a major ski lift all declined to be interviewed. Among the few locals willing to talk was Bernhard Zangerl, whose family acquired the rustic Kitzloch bar last fall. It is among the village’s après-ski jewels, a lively place that can fit about 200 people. It is where the coronavirus-positive barkeeper worked. People in Ischgl experienced flu-like symptoms in February, Zangerl maintains, which was hardly unusual given that it was winter. He thinks it is “nonsense” that others still consider his employee was patient zero, and he welcomes the criminal proceeding. “It’s good that there is a lawsuit, because then it will be clear which of the authorities mishandled information,” he said. His entire family, including his grandfather and pregnant sister, and all of Kitzloch’s staff contracted the disease. On March 13, the Austrian government acknowledged the covid-19 outbreaks in three Tyrolean resort villages. The announcement came at 2 p.m. Quarantines would take effect within an hour, authorities said. Nobody would be allowed in or out of the hotspot areas. The restrictions lasted until late April. Forster, who headed the emergency response team that took over at that point, defends the handling of the situation and mass departures. He says he simply did not see any alternative. “What do you think happens when you put 30,000 people


12 firefighters injured in downtown Los Angeles explosion

Engine 9 was the first truck to respond to a call on Saturday night about a fire in downtown Los Angeles. Firefighters entered the one-story commercial building and climbed to the roof — a standard procedure to extinguish a blaze. But soon they heard a rumbling, high-pitched sound — as if jet engines were rearing up. Within moments, the warehouse erupted and a 30-foot-wide fireball forced the responders to retreat. The explosion rocked the area and set multiple buildings ablaze. About 230 other firefighters ultimately reached the scene to extinguish the inferno, which took about two hours. The debris from the building that exploded included the remnants of Engine 9: a charred firetruck, melted helmets and empty fire extinguishers that firefighters probably used to douse their burning comrades. “This quickly turned into an incident that we all dread,” said Capt. Erik Scott, a spokesman for the Los Angeles Fire Department, adding that it was “one of the worst incidents in recent history that we’ve been through.” “We had firefighters driven off the roof, frantically scurrying down the aerial ladder to safety through a blowtorch,” he told The Washington Post, recalling the night. A dozen firefighters were rushed to the Los Angeles County-University of Southern California Medical Center with burns ranging from minor to severe. They are expected to survive, LAFD Medical Director Marc Eckstein said at a news conference Saturday night outside the hospital. Four were taken to the burn unit. Eight remained hospitalized Sunday. Eckstein said that the burns were mostly on the firefighters’ arms, but that some were on their backs, ears and hands. Two firefighters were put on ventilators to treat chemical inhalation. “Things could have been so much worse today,” he said, adding that there’s no evidence that the blast caused the injuries. Fire Chief Ralph M. Terrazas said at a news conference that the firefighters knew to flee from the sound of pressure building. Arson investigators are looking into what sparked the blaze in the building, which is on Boyd Street in the city’s Toy District. The building housed the wholesale business Smoke Tokes, which Scott says makes “butane honey oil.” Butane, an odorless gas that easily ignites, is used in the process that creates hash oil with THC from cannabis. Firefighters arriving at the scene saw canisters of butane on the street outside the building. Hash oil is used in vaporizers, waxes and other


Federal government to begin gathering data on covid-19 deaths in nursing homes

Nursing homes have been directed to report the number of coronavirus infections and deaths to the federal government by midnight Sunday so that health officials can assess the damage the pandemic has inflicted on sick and elderly residents and their caregivers in more than 15,000 homes nationwide. Collecting the data marks the U.S. government’s first attempt to quantify the virus’s impact since an initial outbreak in a Seattle home three months ago killed more than 40 people and then spread to more than 1 in 4 nursing homes nationwide. Federal officials said they will collect the data weekly and publish it online, along with the names of nursing homes, by the end of May. The data will offer a first look at the impact in such states as Texas and Virginia that have declined to identify nursing homes with covid-19 infections. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the federal agency that regulates the homes, said in an alert Friday that the agency “will be taking swift action and publicly posting this information so all Americans have access to accurate and timely information on COVID-19 in nursing homes.” The Trump administration’s plan capped months of frustration over the lack of information in many states as the death toll in nursing homes soared. Some grief-stricken family members said they were uninformed about infections, and disturbing stories emerged of overwhelmed facilities, such as a New Jersey nursing home where bodies piled up. While watchdog groups welcomed the data collection, they said the initiative is long overdue. “It’s going to be ugly,” said Brian Lee, executive director of Families for Better Care, a national watchdog group for nursing homes and assisted-living facilities. “The lid is about to blow off.” While the death toll in federally regulated nursing homes remains unclear, the Kaiser Family Foundation estimates homes and other assisted-living facilities account for 41 percent of covid-19 deaths in the United States, based on publicly available state data. In some states, the share is as high as 70 percent or 80 percent of the total deaths. Nursing homes already must report infectious disease outbreaks to state and local health officials, and federal and state inspectors visit the homes and routinely publish their findings online. But families and watchdog groups complained early into the pandemic that many homes were not complying with the requirements, and most states initially were not publicly disclosing the names of


information in many states as the death toll in nursing homes soared. Some grief-stricken family members said they were uninformed about infections, and disturbing stories emerged of overwhelmed facilities, such as a New Jersey nursing home where bodies piled up. While watchdog groups welcomed the data collection, they said the initiative is long overdue. “It’s going to be ugly,” said Brian Lee, executive director of Families for Better Care, a national watchdog group for nursing homes and assisted-living facilities. “The lid is about to blow off.” While the death toll in federally regulated nursing homes remains unclear, the Kaiser Family Foundation estimates homes and other assisted-living facilities account for 41 percent of covid-19 deaths in the United States, based on publicly available state data. In some states, the share is as high as 70 percent or 80 percent of the total deaths. Nursing homes already must report infectious disease outbreaks to state and local health officials, and federal and state inspectors visit the homes and routinely publish their findings online. But families and watchdog groups complained early into the pandemic that many homes were not complying with the requirements, and most states initially were not publicly disclosing the names of nursing homes with outbreaks. CMS imposed a $611,000 fine on the Life Care Center of Kirkland, the Washington state nursing home with the nation’s first major outbreak, after it failed to report a string of respiratory illnesses in February. Seattle health officials immediately identified Life Care, but most states did not follow suit. Some states cited privacy concerns, but others — such as New York, New Jersey, and Florida — began to report the information as cases proliferated. CMS Administrator Seema Verma initially faced criticism for declining to release the names of nursing homes with infections, but she later declared nursing homes the pandemic’s “ground zero” and unveiled a new “transparency effort” to mandate more information for families, residents and the public. Under the new rules, nursing homes must notify residents and their designated family members about infections, and report key indicators to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention every week. CMS will publish the data and identify the nursing homes, though the names of residents and staff members are confidential under law. Among the data the homes must report are: suspected and confirmed covid-19 infections and deaths among residents and staff, staffing shortages, and access to personal protective


Doctors express glimmers of hope as they try out new approaches against coronavirus

be able to make recommendations. “We do have some treatments that seem to be in very early studies limiting the severity or the length of the illness,” spokeswoman Margaret Harris said. While doctors are still a long way from having a full picture of the virus and its effects, “it is a different world today,” said David Reich, a cardiac anesthesiologist and president of Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. [ Medicine as a field evolves slowly. But during the pandemic, months have been compressed into days, decades into weeks. The knowledge accumulated during the past couple of months was due not to a single eureka moment but rather a steady stream of small discoveries. Yogen Kanthi, an assistant professor of cardiology at the University of Michigan, said the medical community has “a much better idea of what are the major contributors to death and are moving into the next phase of trying some more targeted treatments.” As doctors have begun thinking of covid-19 as an illness that causes both clotting and inflammation problems, he said, the research has pivoted in new directions. “Is there one medication that is going to do all that? My gut tells me it’s more a combination of things,” he said. Kanthi and his rheumatology colleagues who focus on immune issues are launching a study that will look at various combinations of anti-inflammatory drugs and blood thinners to find out whether they work better together, as well as their optimal timing, dosage and mix. [ One medication that has shown promise is a heartburn drug that contains the active ingredient in Pepcid. A study of 1,536 patients found those who took it were more likely to survive, but researchers cautioned it could have been just a coincidence. A study published last week in the Lancet found a combination of three antiviral drugs — separately used to treat HIV, hepatitis C and multiple sclerosis — appeared to hasten recovery in some patients. While the status of certain drugs has been elevated, numerous others — including those with toxic effects that could have been hurting patients — have been largely ruled out. This includes the use of hydroxychloroquine — the anti-malarial drug touted by President Trump and given to coronavirus patients at many medical centers, even by doctors skeptical of the evidence but who had nothing else to offer. Warnings in February about covid-19 from the


Centers for Disease Control and Prevention described a “pneumonia-like” illness making its way around the world. The health agency highlighted three symptoms: fever, coughing and shortness of breath. These first communications, used as part of the criteria for testing and as the basis for hospital preparations, reflected what was known at the time but sent the whole medical response awry. Pascual recalled that as the five Penn Medicine hospitals readied themselves for a surge, they focused on the lungs. Ventilators were lined up in neat rows. Extra staff was called in to train on emergency treatment of breathing complications. But as the ICUs filled with covid-19 patients, surprised doctors began to see dysfunction in other organs: Kidneys. Liver. Intestines. Skin. Even the brain. Pascual called them “curveballs,” and there were a lot of them. [ It was the same at medical centers in other parts of the United States. In New York, Reich was doing rounds at the hospital just as its patient load was accelerating, and a critical care doctor grabbed him in the hallway talking about how strange it was the tubes in kidney machines were clogging. A few days later, he heard from a lung specialist who was seeing an unusual pattern of high carbon dioxide levels in patients, even after giving them large amounts of oxygen. Then, a neurosurgeon called in about unusual clots in patients in their 30s and 40s. [ About 200 miles north at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Mandeep Mehra, medical director of the heart center, and his colleagues discussed what he called “an interesting dichotomy with this infection.” The vast majority, an estimated 80 to 85 percent, of people appear to fight it off without hospitalization while 15 to 20 percent become very ill. “The main question is who are these people and how can we predict them,” Mehra said. “Very clearly, a few facts began to emerge, which is this disease is not just a disease of the virus. Something else peculiar happens to the human body where it creates a dis-regulated response.” Some of the ways doctors may be saving more lives involve simple changes to protocols that have been blown up and reinvented to reflect the idiosyncrasies of a new disease. One of the most important involves diagnosing dangerous but often hidden lung problems. [ Many doctors, nurses and EMTs have described being unsettled by patients showing


was seeing an unusual pattern of high carbon dioxide levels in patients, even after giving them large amounts of oxygen. Then, a neurosurgeon called in about unusual clots in patients in their 30s and 40s. [ About 200 miles north at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Mandeep Mehra, medical director of the heart center, and his colleagues discussed what he called “an interesting dichotomy with this infection.” The vast majority, an estimated 80 to 85 percent, of people appear to fight it off without hospitalization while 15 to 20 percent become very ill. “The main question is who are these people and how can we predict them,” Mehra said. “Very clearly, a few facts began to emerge, which is this disease is not just a disease of the virus. Something else peculiar happens to the human body where it creates a dis-regulated response.” Some of the ways doctors may be saving more lives involve simple changes to protocols that have been blown up and reinvented to reflect the idiosyncrasies of a new disease. One of the most important involves diagnosing dangerous but often hidden lung problems. [ Many doctors, nurses and EMTs have described being unsettled by patients showing up deathly sick yet without obvious signs of breathing trouble. Patients with “silent hypoxia” may have alarmingly low oxygen levels but show no shortness of breath. The problem results in pneumonia when the lungs are not getting enough oxygen but carbon dioxide is still being expelled. In the beginning, many of these patients were dismissed by primary care doctors as having mild cases — until their bodies became so starved of oxygen they lost consciousness and died. Now doctors are advising anyone suspected of having covid-19 to use oximeters that clip onto the fingers to assess the saturation of oxygen in their blood, and staff at some nursing homes are using them regularly to monitor their residents. Physicians also have improvised new approaches to boost breathing support, including how ventilators are used. One key finding is that a simple procedure of flipping patients on their sides or stomachs in a process known as “proning” — which relieves weight or pressure on the lungs — could return some people’s oxygen levels to normal. Doctors have said they believe this allowed a number of patients to avoid being put on ventilators. Once people are put on the breathing machines, complications can ensue,


Top U.S. bobsledder aims for fourth Olympics while navigating motherhood, pandemic

Motherhood has made her an expert at doing two things at once, rarely on her preferred schedule, and so this past Friday afternoon Elana Meyers Taylor waited for a package to arrive and hoped her 2½-month-old son, Nico, would keep napping a little longer. Meyers Taylor knew there would be complications and challenges when she and her husband, fellow Team USA bobsledder Nic Taylor, decided to start a family between Olympics. She did not assume that would include isolating during a pandemic, making trips to the gym and babysitters unfeasible. She and Nic decided they would need to bring the gym to them: Soon, they would be delivered free weights and a squat rack. By the time she finishes her career, Meyers Taylor may be considered the best American ever at her sport. The path to her fourth Olympics, should she make the team for Beijing in 2022, will be unlike any other. She is navigating the novel coronavirus pandemic and new motherhood at the same time, all while physically recovering from childbirth with an eye on returning to elite performance. The word Meyers Taylor used to describe mothers: superheroes. “At the end of the day, whether you’re an Olympic athlete or not, becoming a mother is an Olympic event,” she said. If not for a new U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee policy, Meyers Taylor said, she might not be pursuing another Olympics. Before this year, the organization’s support of athletes featured a lapse for those who became pregnant. The USOPC provides health insurance and a monthly stipend to elite athletes, who earn those benefits based on the frequency and success of their performances, with criteria decided on a sport-by-sport basis. Female athletes would lose those benefits as they paused their schedules during pregnancy and childbirth. Last year, sprinter Allyson Felix, one of the most decorated Olympians in U.S. history, sparked a conversation with her outspokenness regarding the failure of sponsors and organizing bodies to support athletes who become mothers. USOPC Chief of Athlete Services Bahati VanPelt, who joined the organization last year, called Felix a “leading voice” in pushing the USOPC to create its new policy. Starting Jan. 1, if an athlete qualified for Elite Athlete Health Insurance and a stipend before pregnancy, she would continue to receive them during pregnancy through a full year after giving birth as long as she committed to returning to her sport. “There’s


and MIT found that the transition to summer weather won’t be sufficient to completely contain the virus’s transmission. Other coronaviruses, such as SARS and MERS, have exhibited seasonality, ebbing during periods of warmer weather much like the seasonal flu. Many experts have suspected for months that the novel coronavirus might do the same. The seasonal factors in virus transmission work the other way around, too: A decline in transmission in summer would probably be followed by a seasonal increase in infections in the fall. There are many factors in the seasonal pattern. The virus degrades outside a host cell, and does so more rapidly when exposed to heat or ultraviolet radiation from the sun. Humidity plays a complex role. Research indicates that viruses easily spread in winter in the dry air of climate-controlled spaces. By contrast, higher humidity makes respiratory droplets, the most common vector of virus, drop to the ground or floor more quickly, limiting airborne transmission. Even in summer, most people live their lives indoors, and much of what happens this summer will pivot on how carefully people maintain social distancing and limit contact with other people. In communities that ease the shutdown restrictions, some people will return to office buildings and residences. Viral transmission has been common in confined spaces where people are in close contact. Another new study Research published in recent days, looking at how human speech creates small respiratory droplets that can linger in the air for many minutes, has raised anew the question of how the virus spreads and whether some transmission is through these small aerosol droplets. That remains unresolved. David Rubin, director of PolicyLab at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, and his colleagues have incorporated weather factors in the model they have developed showing when and where it will be relatively safe to ease some shutdown orders. “Clearly, I believe weather is impacting it — it’s just not impacting it enough to completely eliminate transmission,” Rubin said. “That’s why we’re still seeing cases in Florida and Texas and Tennessee. It seems to be preventing a big exponential rise in cases.” Multiple early studies provide evidence of statistical ties between temperature and humidity ranges and the geographic regions where this virus has thrived. While none of these studies has been conclusive, they all point to the same general possibility: The pandemic could ease in parts of North America and Europe during the summer


Rising deaths, busy restaurants: Washington region’s reopening a study in jarring contrasts


Doctors keep discovering new ways the coronavirus attacks the body

the fly about a new disease with more than 78,000 U.S. deaths attributed to it. The World Health Organization’s database already lists more than 14,600 papers on covid-19. Even the world’s premier public health agencies, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, have constantly altered their advice to keep pace with new developments. “We don’t know why there are so many disease presentations,” said Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the Center for Infection and Immunity at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. “Bottom line, this is just so new that there’s a lot we don’t know.” More than four months of clinical experience across Asia, Europe and North America has shown the pathogen does much more than invade the lungs. “No one was expecting a disease that would not fit the pattern of pneumonia and respiratory illness,” said David Reich, a cardiac anesthesiologist and president of Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. It attacks the heart It can begin with a few symptoms or none at all, then days later, squeeze the air out of the lungs without warning. It picks on the elderly, people weakened by previous disease, and, disproportionately, the obese. It harms men more than women, but there are also signs it complicates pregnancies. It mostly spares the young. Until it doesn’t: Last week, doctors warned of a rare inflammatory reaction with cardiac complications among children that may be connected to the virus. On Friday, New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo (D) announced 73 children had fallen severely ill in the state and a 5-year-old boy in New York City had become the first child to die of the syndrome. Two more children had succumbed as of Saturday. That news has shaken many doctors, who felt they were finally grasping the full dimensions of the disease in adults. “We were all thinking this is a disease that kills old people, not kids,” Reich said. Mount Sinai has treated five children with the condition. Reich said each started with gastrointestinal symptoms, which turned into inflammatory complications that caused very low blood pressure and expanded their blood vessels. This led to heart failure in the case of the first child who died. “The pattern of disease was different than anything else with covid,” he said. Of the millions, perhaps billions, of coronaviruses, six were previously known to infect humans. Four cause colds that spread easily each


than women, but there are also signs it complicates pregnancies. It mostly spares the young. Until it doesn’t: Last week, doctors warned of a rare inflammatory reaction with cardiac complications among children that may be connected to the virus. On Friday, New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo (D) announced 73 children had fallen severely ill in the state and a 5-year-old boy in New York City had become the first child to die of the syndrome. Two more children had succumbed as of Saturday. That news has shaken many doctors, who felt they were finally grasping the full dimensions of the disease in adults. “We were all thinking this is a disease that kills old people, not kids,” Reich said. Mount Sinai has treated five children with the condition. Reich said each started with gastrointestinal symptoms, which turned into inflammatory complications that caused very low blood pressure and expanded their blood vessels. This led to heart failure in the case of the first child who died. “The pattern of disease was different than anything else with covid,” he said. Of the millions, perhaps billions, of coronaviruses, six were previously known to infect humans. Four cause colds that spread easily each winter, barely noticed. Another was responsible for the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome that killed 774 people in 2003. Yet another sparked the outbreak of Middle East respiratory syndrome in 2012, which kills 34 percent of the people who contract it. But few do. SARS-CoV-2, the bad seed of the coronavirus family, is the seventh. It has managed to combine the infectiousness of its cold-causing cousins with some of the lethality of SARS and MERS. It can spread before people show symptoms of disease, making it difficult to control, especially without widespread and accurate testing. At the moment, social distancing is the only effective countermeasure. It has infected 4 million people around the globe, killing more than 280,000, according to the Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center. In the United States, 1.3 million have been infected and more than 78,000 have died. Had SARS or MERS spread as widely as this virus, Rasmussen said, they might have shown the same capacity to attack beyond the lungs. But they were snuffed out quickly, leaving only a small sample of disease and death. Trying to define a pathogen in the midst of an ever-spreading epidemic is fraught with difficulties. Experts say


winter, barely noticed. Another was responsible for the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome that killed 774 people in 2003. Yet another sparked the outbreak of Middle East respiratory syndrome in 2012, which kills 34 percent of the people who contract it. But few do. SARS-CoV-2, the bad seed of the coronavirus family, is the seventh. It has managed to combine the infectiousness of its cold-causing cousins with some of the lethality of SARS and MERS. It can spread before people show symptoms of disease, making it difficult to control, especially without widespread and accurate testing. At the moment, social distancing is the only effective countermeasure. It has infected 4 million people around the globe, killing more than 280,000, according to the Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center. In the United States, 1.3 million have been infected and more than 78,000 have died. Had SARS or MERS spread as widely as this virus, Rasmussen said, they might have shown the same capacity to attack beyond the lungs. But they were snuffed out quickly, leaving only a small sample of disease and death. Trying to define a pathogen in the midst of an ever-spreading epidemic is fraught with difficulties. Experts say it will be years until it is understood how the disease damages organs and how medications, genetics, diets, lifestyles and distancing impact its course. “This is a virus that literally did not exist in humans six months ago,” said Geoffrey Barnes, an assistant professor at the University of Michigan who works in cardiovascular medicine. “We had to rapidly learn how this virus impacts the human body and identify ways to treat it literally in a time-scale of weeks. With many other diseases, we have had decades.” In the initial days of the outbreak, most efforts focused on the lungs. SARS-CoV-2 infects both the upper and lower respiratory tracts, eventually working its way deep into the lungs, filling tiny air sacs with cells and fluid that choke off the flow of oxygen. But many scientists have come to believe that much of the disease’s devastation comes from two intertwined causes. The first is the harm the virus wreaks on blood vessels, leading to clots that can range from microscopic to sizable. Patients have suffered strokes and pulmonary emboli as clots break loose and travel to the brain and lungs. A study in the Lancet, a British medical journal, showed this may


Australia Seeks China Reply; Brazil’s Cases Surge: Virus Update

China and South Korea have asked Japan to join them in relaxing controls on business travel, the Yomiuri newspaper reported. Australia’s Trade Minister Simon Birmingham has yet to receive a call back from his Chinese counterpart after reaching out to Beijing about an anti-dumping probe into barley exports. Britain will build a vaccine center that will open a year ahead of schedule. Brazil overtook Spain to rank fourth in the world for infections. Italy is taking a “calculated risk,” the premier said, in speeding up the reopening of the nation. Fiat Chrysler Automobiles is seeking an Italian-backed credit line. Key Developments: • Virus Tracker: Cases top 4.6 million; deaths exceed 311,000 • China reported 5 new cases, South Korea added another 13 and New Zealand reported one new case • Vaccine nationalism puts global advocate on Covid front line • China faces angry world seeking answers at key WHO meeting • Hong Kong returnees from South Africa fault quarantine • Broken ventilators spark push to end limits on repairs Subscribe to a daily update on the virus from Bloomberg’s Prognosis team here. Click VRUS on the terminal for news and data on the coronavirus. See this week’s top stories from QuickTake here. China, S. Korea Ask Japan to Allow Business Travel, Yomiuri Says China and South Korea have asked Japan to join them in relaxing controls on business travel as virus cases tail off, the Yomiuri newspaper reported. Japan remains reluctant to loosen what are currently some of the tightest border controls in the developed world, which were introduced over the past few weeks in a bid to help contain the coronavirus. Here’s What It Will Take to Reopen Singapore’s Economy (10:00 a.m. HK) Singapore will this week lay out how it intends to roll back restrictions that had been imposed under a partial lockdown put in place since early April. Officials have said any lifting of restrictions will be done in a gradual and calibrated manner. Here’s a look at their options. China Reports Five New Cases (9:25 a.m. HK) Of China’s five new cases, two were imported and three were locally transmitted, according to a statement form National Health Commission. The three cases are all from Fengman district, the hardest-hit area of of Jilin city. The risk level of Fengman District in Jilin City was adjusted from medium risk to high risk, according to a statement from Jilin


Belgium records highest mortality rate in Europe

figures released Sunday, Belgium has recorded 9,052 deaths from the coronavirus. Of those, about 40 percent are “possible cases,” not confirmed by tests. Most countries do not include suspected cases that weren’t positively confirmed. “Our way of counting things is the most scientifically correct and honest,” Yves Van Laethem, a virologist and Belgian government spokesman, told reporters Friday. [Europe bids adieu to cheek kiss in coronavirus era] Van Laethem showed reporters a slide of calculations from the Economist magazine indicating that Belgium’s official coronavirus toll closely tracks “excess deaths” for the pandemic period — the number of deaths that exceed what would be expected for the period, based on the country’s historical death rates. Belgium attributed 7,559 deaths between March 16 and April 26 to the coronavirus. The Economist estimated that the country had 7,397 more deaths in that time period than would have been expected. By comparison, a team of Yale researchers who analyzed U.S. mortality data in partnership with The Washington Post this month estimated that, with excess deaths as a guide, the true toll could be one and a half times higher than the official number. There are perils to using the method, and to drawing too much from country-to-country comparisons. Full data sets can be slow to roll in, leading to undercounts. The overall excess death estimate could also include other deaths, such as people who died of unrelated diseases because they chose not to seek medical care as a result of the pandemic. And it is subject to other effects of the lockdowns, such as fewer fatal road accidents. But because countries are counting their coronavirus deaths differently, epidemiologists have begun to favor excess death calculations as the most accurate way to track the impact of the virus. Pedestrians walk on the Rue Neuve-Nieuwstraat shopping street in central Brussels on Saturday. (Kenzo Tribouillard/AFP/Getty Images) By the Economist’s analysis, Britain was the worst-hit of the countries it examined, as measured by excess deaths compared to overall population. Spain was second; with Belgium a close third. The newsweekly did not calculate excess death figures for the United States, but estimated that New York City’s excess death rate was far ahead that of Britain. Dense cities have often been hit especially hard. Calculations by the Financial Times show roughly the same picture. Belgian officials acknowledge that the country has been hit hard. “We count very accurately, but that


Austria Coronavirus Alps Ischgl Ski resort investigation lawsuit

that tourists from their country alone account for more than 3,700 cases. In one group of 50 Americans, traveling together from Massachusetts, Colorado, Arkansas and Texas, more than half got sick. Tests showed at least one third had covid-19. Ischgl’s mayor, its tourism officials and representatives of a major ski lift all declined to be interviewed. Among the few locals willing to talk was Bernhard Zangerl, whose family acquired the rustic Kitzloch bar last fall. It is among the village’s après-ski jewels, a lively place that can fit about 200 people. It is where the coronavirus-positive barkeeper worked. People in Ischgl experienced flu-like symptoms in February, Zangerl maintains, which was hardly unusual given that it was winter. He thinks it is “nonsense” that others still consider his employee was patient zero, and he welcomes the criminal proceeding. “It‘s good that there is a lawsuit, because then it will be clear which of the authorities mishandled information,” he said. His entire family, including his grandfather and pregnant sister, and all of Kitzloch’s staff contracted the disease. [Europe bids adieu to cheek kiss in coronavirus era] On March 13, the Austrian government acknowledged the covid-19 outbreaks in three Tyrolean resort villages. The announcement came at 2 p.m. Quarantines would take effect within an hour, authorities said. Nobody would be allowed in or out of the hotspot areas. The restrictions lasted until late April. Forster, who headed the emergency response team that took over at that point, defends the handling of the situation and mass departures. He says he simply did not see any alternative. “What do you think happens when you put 30,000 people under quarantine in a valley?” he asked. “Tourists who are not even allowed to ski anymore?” Everyone fled who could. And from Ischgl, the 17-mile ride out of the containment zone turned into a seven-hour traffic ordeal. It was an exodus on public buses, crammed with tourists and coronavirus. Miranda Green in Los Angeles contributed to this report. Read more: France angered by suggestion U.S. would get first access to coronavirus vaccine by French pharma company Sanofi Germany makes plans to reopen borders, as Europeans eye summer travel As coronavirus travel restrictions keep Chinese tourists at home, a world that has grown dependent on them feels their absence Today’s coverage from Post correspondents around the world Like Washington Post World on Facebook and stay updated on foreign news


Nursing homes have been directed to report the number of coronavirus infections and deaths to the federal government by midnight Sunday so that health officials can assess the damage the pandemic has inflicted on sick and elderly residents and their caregivers in more than 15,000 homes nationwide. Collecting the data marks the U.S. government’s first attempt to quantify the virus’ impact since an initial outbreak in a Seattle home three months ago killed more than 40 people, and then spread to more than 1 in 4 homes nationwide. Federal officials said they will collect the data weekly and publish it online, along with the names of nursing homes, by the end of May. The data will offer a first look at the impact in states such as Texas and Virginia that have declined to identify nursing homes with covid-19 infections. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the federal agency that regulates the homes, said in an alert Friday the agency “will be taking swift action and publicly posting this information so all Americans have access to accurate and timely information on COVID-19 in nursing homes.” The administration’s plan capped months of frustration over the lack of information in many states as the death toll in nursing homes soared. Some grief-stricken family members said they were uninformed about infections, and disturbing stories emerged of overwhelmed facilities, such as a New Jersey nursing home where bodies piled up. While watchdog groups welcomed the data collection, they said the initiative is long overdue. “It’s going to be ugly,” said Brian Lee, the executive director of Families For Better Care, a national watchdog group for nursing homes and assisted living facilities. “The lid is about to blow off.” While the death toll in the federally regulated nursing homes remains unclear, the Kaiser Family Foundation estimates that nursing homes and other assisted-living facilites account for 41 percent of the covid 19 deaths in the United States, based on publicly available state data. In some states, the share is as high as 70 percent or 80 percent of the total deaths. Nursing homes already must report infectious disease outbreaks to state and local health officials, and federal and state inspectors visit the homes and routinely publish their findings online. But families and watchdog groups complained early into the pandemic that many homes were not complyling with the requirements, and most states at first were not