Conspiracy theories run rampant when people feel helpless. Like now.

their world, however meek or grand, the more likely they are to seek out some method of restoring control — to fight their sense of powerlessness. The covid-19 pandemic is the ultimate power grab: No one knows when the threat will subside, what the economic impact will be or when a vaccine will be available. When events are, in actuality, out of our control, the psychological burden can be alleviated by turning to alternative explanations for events. In this case, we might choose to believe that covid-19 is a Chinese bioweapon, created in a lab and intentionally spread to cause harm. Alternative explanations such as this not only explain why things are as they are, but also incorporate the fact that one has no control over the situation. Conspiracy theories nicely meet these criteria. Admittedly, they are ill-defined, illogical and, usually, just plain bizarre. But conspiracy theories aren’t attractive to people because of these qualities, but rather for the subconscious functions they serve. A conspiracy theory can restore control — you know what happened and why, and you have the psychological relief to know that it was out of your control! The story is similar when it comes to anxiety and uncertainty. The pandemic has increased people’s worries about their physical, mental and economic health in both the short term and distant future. Conspiracy theories cannot remedy these circumstances. However, they can explain why these horrible circumstances have manifested and provide peace of mind that they are of no fault of one’s own. Choosing to believe that the coronavirus is a hoax or that the threat has been strategically exaggerated for political purposes — two popular variants of covid-19 conspiracy theory — can reduce anxiety by playing down the severity of the circumstances. A purely psychological effect, to be sure — but, then again, we primarily live in our own heads. The coronavirus has manipulated these psychological states in a way that a laboratory experiment never could. Sure, we could ask subjects to think about a time when they felt powerless in reacting to an unexpected life event that was out of their control, or anxious about impending downsizing. We could even expose people to information designed to make them feel anxious, powerless or uncertain. These types of experiments tell us about the basic mechanisms at the heart of these psychological states, how they could potentially impact other beliefs and


and uncertainty. The pandemic has increased people’s worries about their physical, mental and economic health in both the short term and distant future. Conspiracy theories cannot remedy these circumstances. However, they can explain why these horrible circumstances have manifested and provide peace of mind that they are of no fault of one’s own. Choosing to believe that the coronavirus is a hoax or that the threat has been strategically exaggerated for political purposes — two popular variants of covid-19 conspiracy theory — can reduce anxiety by playing down the severity of the circumstances. A purely psychological effect, to be sure — but, then again, we primarily live in our own heads. The coronavirus has manipulated these psychological states in a way that a laboratory experiment never could. Sure, we could ask subjects to think about a time when they felt powerless in reacting to an unexpected life event that was out of their control, or anxious about impending downsizing. We could even expose people to information designed to make them feel anxious, powerless or uncertain. These types of experiments tell us about the basic mechanisms at the heart of these psychological states, how they could potentially impact other beliefs and behaviors. But the pandemic has — in real time, in the real world — dialed each of these psychological states up to 11: the perfect storm, which should produce some of the most fertile breeding grounds for conspiracy beliefs that we are likely to actually observe. This explains why surveys reveal that more than 30 percent of the American mass public expressed belief in at least one of many conspiracy theories about the origins and nature of the coronavirus. This polling was conducted in early and mid-March, a distant memory today, when the pandemic had just begun to find acceptance among governmental leaders and attention by the mainstream media. Thirty percent may seem low. But consider two important caveats. First, beliefs with the potential to affect behaviors that are crucial to limiting the damage of the virus — social distancing, hand-washing, wearing masks in public — have the most impact at the outset of a global pandemic. Restricting the spread of the virus is key. Second, the psychological impact of the pandemic — in terms of anxiety, uncertainty and powerlessness — probably has only grown since these early polls, and it’s likely to continue to do so as the cumulative


The White House’s self-serving approach to estimating the deadliness of the coronavirus

When a draft report prepared by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention emerged on Monday, the White House was quick to disavow one of its most contentious determinations: that the number of deaths from covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, would pass 3,000 a day by the end of May. Such a surge would mean more than 100,000 deaths overall by that point, prompting the administration of President Trump to quickly point out that the data “is not reflective of any of the modeling done by the task force” focused on battling the virus. What Trump and the White House stand by, however, is disconcerting in another way. Shortly after the CDC report leaked, a leading model from the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation was updated to indicate that more than 134,000 people might die of the virus before the end of July. That was a significant increase from the IHME’s most recent prior version of its model, which showed fewer than 80,000 deaths in that same period. Shortly before boarding Air Force One for an event in Arizona on Tuesday, Trump was asked about the shift in the IHME model. After all, his administration had at one point used the IHME data to make its case for social distancing measures aimed at limiting the virus’s spread. Trump was asked if he was willing to accept the new projections. “Those projections are without mitigation,” Trump replied. “We’re doing a lot of mitigation.” He then quickly transitioned. “And we have to keep our country — our country wants to open,” he said. “The governors — it’s in their hands, but our country wants to open. … I created the greatest economy in history, the greatest employment numbers, the greatest success in history. And then one day, we had to close it down. We’re going to beat those numbers, and I’m going to beat them soon.” Setting aside the inaccurate assertion about the “greatest economy,” Trump’s mid-reply reversal of emphasis is remarkable. His push to get the economy running again is, after all, directly opposed to strong social distancing efforts. To claim that the country is “doing a lot of mitigation” and also that the economy would be back at full strength “soon” is like claiming that your favorite dessert is ice cream and also that you’re severely lactose-intolerant. The two simply don’t overlap very


Local Digest: D.C. police arrest man in connection with fatal shooting in Southeast

THE DISTRICT D.C. police have arrested a man in connection with a fatal shooting last month in the Shipley area of Southeast Washington, the department said in a statement. Ravel Mills, 25, of Temple Hills, Md., was charged with first-degree murder while armed. He was arrested Monday. The shooting occurred about 6:50 p.m. on April 18 in the 3400 block of 24th Street SE. Police said the victim, Toussaunt Strong, 28, of Clinton, Md., was struck several times, including in the chest, and died at a hospital. An arrest affidavit filed in D.C. Superior Court says several surveillance cameras captured the victim being chased for several blocks, running through backyards and jumping over fences. It was not clear where during the pursuit he was hit. One person told police that Strong and the suspect had been in a dispute that began two years ago and stemmed from a robbery. Another witness described the two men as being on opposing sides in a neighborhood rivalry. Mills’s attorney with the Public Defender Service did not respond to an interview request. — Peter Hermann A 38-year-old man was fatally shot Monday in the Truxton Circle neighborhood of Northwest Washington, according to D.C. police. The shooting occurred shortly before 10:30 p.m. in the 100 block of Q Street NW, near Florida Avenue. Police identified the victim as Stanley Maurice Dawkins, who lived in Northwest Washington. A police report says Dawkins was shot in the head and died at a hospital. Authorities said there was no description of a possible shooter. The shooting was one of several violent incidents in the city Monday night into Tuesday. In Northeast and Southeast Washington, four people were shot, including teens ages 13 and 17, and two others were stabbed. Police said none of those victims had injuries believed to be life threatening. — Peter Hermann


During the pandemic, Russia and the U.S. have these 3 things in common

in the current crisis seems to follow this pattern. Like in the United States, policymaking involves many levels of government bureaucracy and official input. 3. Russia is reporting incomplete figures In every country, the coronavirus crisis has laid bare the limitations of even the best and most transparent data to reduce uncertainty in real time. Experts and pundits alike have suggested Russia’s coronavirus data is incomplete or even manipulated. Similar debates about statistics in the United States have centered around case identification and death counts. These debates reaffirm the essential role of numbers in modern politics. Russia’s data capacity is tremendous, powered by meticulous number-crunching bureaucrats. But the focus of this data isn’t always relevant to the problem at hand. Russian government reports are replete with figures of the number of people examined by mobile medical brigades, coronavirus hotline calls, people on sick leave, border temperature checks, regulatory documents issued, etc. As in the United States, when government officials report on numerical minutiae such as the quantities of protective gear delivered to prisons, the goal is to show that the government is doing something — even if the figures have little connection to concrete results. While the reporting of numbers is crucial for transparency, numbers on their own don’t produce accountability. Are Russia and the U.S. really comparable? Experts have criticized the Russian and U.S. responses to covid-19. Some point to structural problems such as unequal access to health care in the United States and inadequate medical infrastructure in Russia. Others focus on Putin’s hands-off approach or Trump’s inconsistency as major problems. It may be popular to compare Putin and Trump’s leadership styles — and highlight their cozy relationship. But as the covid-19 crisis shows, it’s not possible to simply sort “good” or “bad” policy into democratic or authoritarian categories. But comparing Russia with the United States is useful in another way. As political scientist Joel Migdal observed, “States … may be subject to coming apart at the seams simply because there are so many seams.” The more mundane details of governance, such as task force meetings, infrastructure funding and data collection happen far below the level of the president with career policymakers and bureaucrats. This work may be the everyday glue that holds together the seams of authoritarian and democratic systems alike. The TMC newsletter is changing shape! Sign up here to keep receiving our smart analysis. Caress Schenk


Gaza life lightens up for Ramadan as lockdown eases with epidemic at bay

is proof that containment works,” said Gerald Rockenschaub, who runs World Health Organization operations for Gaza and the West Bank from Jerusalem. Given that success so far, Rockenschaub had no objection to easing some of the restrictions on movement and business activity as long as the loosening came with strong warnings to continue physical distancing, hand-washing and other personal protective measures. For many Gazans, Ramadan has meant some respite from the long slog. But if the bustle of Ramadan has made life feel a little more ordinary, it is far from a regular Ramadan. Celebrating pandemic-style has meant curtailing the usual social outpouring and instead contending with a devastated economy. “This year my husband Mazen and I decided not to receive guests as was the custom every year,” said Mayssa al-Masry, 41. Instead, the couple have been visiting family by day and celebrating alone at night with their five children. That suits their sense of safety as well as their budget, which shrank dramatically when Masry lost her job as a project coordinator for a local nonprofit that shut down during the outbreak. “We are in lockdown, under siege, and now I have no income because I lost my job,” Masry said. The Palestinian Ministry of Health eased its restrictions on restaurants Sunday, allowing them to seat customers if they remained appropriately spaced apart. That has returned a faint pulse to Gaza’s normally busy nightlife, but business remains far below the usual evening rush. Spacing hasn’t been a problem with the five or so customers a night willing to venture out so far, said Emad al-Rayyes, manager of the Lighthouse Restaurant. “It is really hard for me to see the place empty without people,” Rayyes said. “I feel bad for the workers.” Flower growers who now would normally be cutting their roses and carnations for hotel lobbies and banquet halls across Europe and the Middle East are instead feeding them to goats. “We were awaiting the arrival of the spring and summer season,” said Lubbad Hejazi, 20, whose family owns a three-acre flower farm near the city of Rafah. “But there is no longer any demand for flowers except in scarce quantities and at cheap prices. So they have become livestock feed and landfill waste.” At least one industry has stirred to life during the pandemic. Gaza’s once-thriving textile factories have been repurposed to meet the booming need for masks


Man fatally shot in Truxton Circle neighborhood of Northwest Washington

A 38-year-old man was fatally shot Monday night in the Truxton Circle neighborhood of Northwest Washington, according to D.C. police. The shooting occurred shortly before 10:30 p.m. in the 100 block of Q Street NW, near Florida Avenue. Police identified the victim as Stanley Maurice Dawkins, who lived in Northwest. A police report says Dawkins was shot in the head and died at a hospital. Authorities said there was no description of a possible shooter. The shooting in Northwest was one of several violent incidents that occurred in the city Monday night into Tuesday. In Northeast and Southeast Washington, four people were shot, including teens ages 13 and 17, and two others were stabbed. Police said none of those victims had injuries believed to be life threatening. The area of Truxton Circle, a triangle-shaped neighborhood bordered by New York, New Jersey and Florida avenues, has struggled with crime as it slowly gentrifies. The area includes the volatile corner of New York Avenue and North Capitol Street. Police say violent crime is down more than 50 percent in the community this year compared with last year, though Monday night’s shooting was the second homicide there this year. A 34-year-old man was killed in February in the 100 block of N Street NW, near Dunbar High School, three blocks south of Monday night’s shooting. Police arrested a suspect in that shooting; a department spokeswoman said investigators do not believe the incidents are related. That case is pending. Over the Memorial Day weekend in 2017, a series of shootings in Truxton Circle, including a gun battle in which up to 40 bullets were fired and another that left eight people wounded, one of them fatally, shook the community. That fatal shooting, which remains unsolved, occurred in the same block on which Dawkins was killed Monday. A police spokeswoman said there is no indication that the Memorial Day shooting is linked to the killing on Monday. D.C. Police Chief Peter Newsham toured the neighborhood after that violent weekend three years ago, speaking with residents surveying damage by bullets to their cars and homes. He talked with longtime homeowners and newcomers living in refurbished rowhouses.


The Cybersecurity 202: Coronavirus tracking apps spark security concerns

or expose reams of data that could be used to identify infected people. This could be attractive to hackers working for adversary government, too: The United Kingdom government, for example, started piloting an app on the Isle of Wight today that collects anonymized data about users’ self-reported coronavirus symptoms and the people they’ve come in contact with via Bluetooth and stores it all in a central computer bank. A similar Australian app also sends data to a central computer system that’s accessible by public health officials but only if the user tests positive for coronavirus and consents to the sharing . They fear governments and companies might collect more information than they need to, keep it longer than necessary or use it for purposes unrelated to the pandemic such as sharing it with law enforcement. Amnesty International’s U.K. Director Kate Allen warned in a statement the United Kingdom’s app is “opening the door to pervasive state surveillance and privacy infringement, with potentially discriminatory effects.” Google and Apple, meanwhile, are developing a similar Bluetooth-based system that public health agencies across the globe can use to alert people who might be infected with the virus -- but it stores all the data on people’s phones rather than sending it to an external server. Apple and Google are developing the underlying software for use on their systems but relying on government health agencies to build the apps, which Washington has not yet decided to do though some U.S states are planning to build apps using the system. That’s likely better for users’ security and privacy because there’s no central database of information for hackers to target – but it also limits how useful the information is for public health services trying to combat the virus's spread. The companies also imposed a slew of new limits yesterday on how public health agencies could use the apps, including banning them from being linked with GPS location information, which government officials say would help pinpoint outbreaks. Most of the contact tracing apps released by Western governments are limited to collecting anonymized information about users’ infection status and the people they’ve been in contact with. But a slew of commercial apps for checking coronavirus symptoms and sharing information about the disease ask for far more information such as users’ age, gender and zip code, all of which can be used to figure out a person’s identity. “It


History, scenic views and community connections kept these restaurants in business for decades. Now, they’re adapting.

The closure of area dining rooms has forced restaurateurs to get creative with their offerings: You’ll find Michelin-starred restaurants offering make-at-home meal kits, chefs delivering takeout dinners, and sports bars offering CSA-style vegetable pickups. But when a restaurant is known as a destination for something beyond food, such as a beautiful natural setting or as the go-to spot for neighborhood Little League teams, pivoting to takeout and delivery isn’t so easy. Martin’s Tavern It’s a similar story at the Vienna Inn, which is celebrating its 60th year of chili cheese dogs and cheap beers. The Little League trophies and old sports photos on display give this dive a timeless feel, but now, the focus is elsewhere. The Inn now offers delivery within a five-mile radius “which is something we’ve never done,” says marketing coordinator Nancy Green. Most orders are for pickup, which isn’t new, but “takeout’s never been popular at the Vienna Inn,” she says, “because everyone came and ate inside. It’s a gathering place.” Still, the Inn has adjusted to its new reality, offering “Build Your Own Chili Dog” kits and growlers of beer, and delivering sandwiches and lunchboxes to Inova Fairfax Hospital and first responders. As coronavirus closures stretch on, we checked in on some of the area’s longest-serving restaurants to see how they’re dealing with the crisis. And amid all the worries, layoffs and pivots to new sources of income, there’s still some optimism. “Martin’s has been through a lot,” Billy Martin says. “My great-grandfather started the tavern during the Great Depression, and we survived. I’m hopeful we’ll get through this as well.” Ben’s Chili Bowl No restaurant in Washington has been worried about more than Ben’s Chili Bowl. The U Street icon opened in 1958, and its chili-slathered half smokes famously survived the 1968 riots, Metro construction and gentrification. Some, including the owners, the Ali family, feared that an extended coronavirus-related shutdown might be the end of the soulful lunch counter, visited by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Jesse Jackson and former president Barack Obama, and loved by generations of Washingtonians. The satellite locations on H Street NE, in Rosslyn and at Reagan National Airport all closed in late March, leaving the original to soldier on with delivery and takeout. While takeout has always been a feature at Ben’s — have you ever tried to get a seat on a Saturday night? — the business


Americans widely oppose reopening most businesses, despite easing of restrictions in some states, Post-U. Md. poll finds

businesses: gun stores, dine-in restaurants, nail salons, barbershops and hair salons, retail establishments such as clothing stores, along with gyms, golf courses and movie theaters. The most significant opposition is to reopening movie theaters, with 82 percent of Americans saying they should not be allowed to open up in their state. There is also broad opposition to reopening gyms (78 percent opposed), dine-in restaurants and nail salons (both with 74 percent opposed). Gun stores are next, with 70 percent saying they should not be reopened, followed by barbershops and hair salons (69 percent opposed) and retail shops such as clothing stores (66 percent opposed) and golf courses (59 percent opposed). Opposition to opening businesses is just about as high in the states that have loosened restrictions so far as states with stricter restrictions. In both sets of states, majorities of residents oppose reopening all eight types of businesses measured in the poll. The push to reopen has been driven by Trump and largely by Republican governors, and the poll shows Republicans are far more supportive of opening businesses than Democrats. Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents overwhelmingly oppose opening all types of businesses tested, while Republicans and Republican-leaning independents range from mostly in favor of opening (61 percent for golf courses) to mostly opposed (59 percent for dine-in restaurants). As with support for opening businesses, the poll finds partisan differences in how comfortable people are going to stores and restaurants. Majorities of Republicans and independents say they are comfortable going to a grocery store, but a majority of Democrats say they are not. Just 10 percent of Democrats say they would be comfortable eating out at a restaurant, compared with 22 percent of independents and 36 percent of Republicans. No matter the party, personal worry heavily shapes attitudes on reopening. Among the majority who are at least somewhat worried about becoming seriously ill from the coronavirus, roughly 8 in 10 oppose opening barber shops and retail stores in their state. Among those who are less worried, smaller majorities say both types of business should be open. The gender gap is especially notable on the reopening of most of the businesses listed, with men more supportive than women in most cases. Fifty-six percent of men oppose allowing gun shops to open, a view held by 82 percent of women. For restaurants and nail salons, only about a fifth of women say they should


Fox News and Trump allies keep floating debunked theories about an inflated coronavirus death toll

website — for pneumonia deaths — to argue that the coronavirus death toll was inflated. The apparent drop-off in pneumonia deaths, they argued, suggested pneumonia deaths were being wrongly coded as coronavirus deaths to juice the numbers. Fox News’s Tucker Carlson even did a segment on it. The only problem? The data was, again, lagging. And it didn’t even account for the time period in which coronavirus deaths began to rise significantly. As I wrote then: This theory has apparently been shelved — and for good reason: Now that the data have actually arrived for recent weeks, they actually show the number of pneumonia deaths has spiked, rather than dropped. By the same logic featured here, that would suggest coronavirus deaths might actually be undersold, because some are reported as being due to pneumonia. On the same show, Fox News analyst Brit Hume lodged one of his own oft-repeated theories about an inflated death toll, suggesting that people who have underlying conditions who die in the brief period after contracting covid-19 might have in fact somehow died of those underlying conditions. The theory was also floated the next day during Fox’s daytime programming. Except Deborah Birx, a leading medical expert on the White House coronavirus task force, quickly quashed that idea. “Those individuals will have an underlying condition, but that underlying condition did not cause their acute death when it’s related to a covid infection,” Birx said. “In fact, it’s the opposite.” The other leading medical expert on the coronavirus task force, Anthony S. Fauci, followed up by warning against such “conspiracy theories.” Even Trump himself has rejected the idea that coronavirus data are incorrect. Despite retweeting a claim that mortality is being inflated because infection rates are underreported, Trump last week assured, “I can only say what we’re doing; we’re reporting very accurately." He added: “It’s very important to us to do very accurate reporting, and that’s what we’re doing.” But Trump has sent other signals on this, including with that retweet and with the early argument that the virus is being weaponized against him as some kind of “hoax.” So apparently the idea of an inflated coronavirus death toll is something that just won’t go away, no matter how easily debunked the various theories are — and even as there is much more convincing evidence that it’s actually understating the number of deaths. This post has been updated.


‘Hamilton’ run postponed as Kennedy Center extends closure through Aug. 8

Washington’s 14-week run of “Hamilton” is the latest casualty of the coronavirus-related closures, as the Kennedy Center announced Monday that it will remain shuttered through at least Aug. 8. Set to open June 16 and run through Sept. 20, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s groundbreaking musical will be postponed because the production cannot be presented “in accordance with the health and safety guidelines set forth by government officials and the CDC,” according to the arts center. Kennedy Center executives are working with the musical’s producers to reschedule. Another spring highlight, the National Symphony Orchestra’s “Beethoven at 250” celebration, set for May 28 though June 14, has been scrapped for now, and will be rescheduled for sometime next season. The number of events at the Kennedy Center that have been postponed or canceled now exceeds 1,000. Kennedy Center president and chief executive Deborah Rutter was not available Monday. In the announcement she described the move as necessary to ensure the safety of artists, staff and patrons. “During unprecedented moments in history we look to the arts and artists for hope and creative reflections of humanity, but at this time we are not able to gather physically, communally, as we have before,” Rutter said in a statement. “I am heartbroken by these necessary steps that have emptied our halls that are usually bursting with the sights and sounds of creative genius.” About 250 staff members who were furloughed last month learned Monday that they will be out of work until at least June 7, extending the original five-week leave to at least nine weeks. Health benefits will continue through June 30, according to a letter sent to the furloughed employees by Barbara Polk, chief human resources officer. “Information regarding reinstatement, furlough extension or other changes to your employment status will be sent to your personal email address by May 29, 2020,” Polk wrote. The arts center’s insurance company has agreed to extend health benefits through Aug. 30 if needed, according to Kennedy Center spokesman Brendan Padgett. Senior-level pay cuts remain, and some of those executives “will be furloughed on a rolling basis in the coming months,” he said. The extended furloughs come on the heels of an agreement reached Saturday between the arts center and the Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra. The musicians in the ensemble, which performs with the Washington National Opera and for many Kennedy Center dance concerts, agreed to a 25 percent


hope and creative reflections of humanity, but at this time we are not able to gather physically, communally, as we have before,” Rutter said in a statement. “I am heartbroken by these necessary steps that have emptied our halls that are usually bursting with the sights and sounds of creative genius.” About 250 staff members who were furloughed last month learned Monday that they will be out of work until at least June 7, extending the original five-week leave to at least nine weeks. Health benefits will continue through June 30, according to a letter sent to the furloughed employees by Barbara Polk, chief human resources officer. “Information regarding reinstatement, furlough extension or other changes to your employment status will be sent to your personal email address by May 29, 2020,” Polk wrote. The arts center’s insurance company has agreed to extend health benefits through Aug. 30 if needed, according to Kennedy Center spokesman Brendan Padgett. Senior-level pay cuts remain, and some of those executives “will be furloughed on a rolling basis in the coming months,” he said. The extended furloughs come on the heels of an agreement reached Saturday between the arts center and the Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra. The musicians in the ensemble, which performs with the Washington National Opera and for many Kennedy Center dance concerts, agreed to a 25 percent pay cut for the remaining weeks of guaranteed work this year. The orchestra’s health-care benefits will continue without interruption. Padgett said the agreement “amounts to a 28 percent savings.” “While these cuts represent real sacrifice for our members, we are grateful for the annual employment guarantees that protect us somewhat, and our thoughts are with our fellow center employees whose employment contracts (individual and collective) do not afford them similar protections,” Peter de Boor, a horn player and the chairman of the orchestra committee, said in an email. “We recognize that this terrible time requires sacrifices from everyone, including us, to preserve these institutions.” The musicians have been negotiating with the Washington National Opera and the Kennedy Center since March. The agreement is similar to the deal with the musicians of the National Symphony Orchestra, which was reached after the Kennedy Center told NSO members they were being furloughed. Padgett said that no decisions have been made regarding events past Aug. 8, including the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor and the Kennedy Center Honors.


Draft report predicts covid-19 cases will reach 200,000 a day by June 1

A draft government report projects covid-19 cases will surge to about 200,000 per day by June 1, a staggering jump that would be accompanied by more than 3,000 deaths each day. The document predicts a sharp increase in both cases and deaths beginning about May 14, according to a copy shared with The Washington Post. The forecast stops at June 1, but shows both daily cases and deaths on an upward trajectory at that point. The White House and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention disavowed the report, although the slides carry the CDC’s logo. The creator of the model said the numbers are unfinished projections shown to the CDC as a work in progress. The work contained a wide range of possibilities and modeling was not complete, according to Justin Lessler, an associate professor of epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, who created the model. He said he didn’t know how the update was turned into a slide deck by government officials and shared with news organizations. The data was first reported by the New York Times. “I had no role in the process by which that was presented and shown,” said Lessler, who added that the data was presented as an “FYI” of work still in progress to officials within the Federal Emergency Management Agency. “It was not in any way intended to be a forecast.” The estimates showing an increase to 200,000 cases and 3,000 deaths daily are high compared to other epidemiological models. Many models, while not as high, are also predicting increasing cases and deaths as states move to reopen. Lessler said that while the exact numbers and charts in the draft document may differ from the final results, they do show accurately how covid-19 cases could spiral out of control. He said 100,000 cases per day by the end of the month is within the realm of possibility. Much depends on political decisions being made today. “There are reopening scenarios where it could get out of control very quickly,” Lessler said. One federal official said the data was presented at a recent briefing for the National Response Coordination Center, a part of FEMA, which coordinates federal support during major incidents and emergencies. The official, who was not authorized to discuss internal government briefings, spoke on the condition of anonymity. It was not immediately clear whether the projections, which also


Northam says he’ll probably ease some restrictions in Virginia on May 15

doing everything we can to limit our travel to essential trips and following the guidelines?’ ” Bowser said at her news conference. The city continues to face stark disparities in cases of infection, officials said Monday. The impact on African Americans — who make up 46 percent of the city but nearly 80 percent of covid-19 fatalities — has drawn the most attention. But LaQuandra Nesbitt, the director of the D.C. Health Department, said that per capita infection rates have been worse among Latinos and Hispanic residents and that the heavily Latino Columbia Heights neighborhood has become among the hardest hit. The city has seen about 1,200 infections per 100,000 Latino and Hispanic residents. That compares with about 820 cases per 100,000 for black residents and 175 cases per 100,000 for white residents. Latinos have also been disproportionately affected in Virginia’s Fairfax County, making up 55 percent of 4,615 cases. Nesbitt said the share of D.C. cases linked to congregant settings such as nursing homes has declined from nearly a third in mid-April to about 16 percent, though such facilities continue to see high death rates. As of Monday, 70 residents of long-term care facilities in the District have died of covid-19, city officials said. That’s more than a quarter of all covid-19 fatalities in the District. In all, 247 residents at long-term facilities and 85 staff members have tested positive. Two employees have died. D.C. hospitals reported 447 covid-19 patients on Monday, with 130 in intensive care and 91 on ventilators. That’s a slight increase from April 27, when 435 were hospitalized, with 124 in intensive care units and 84 on ventilators. “This virus has not left the District,” Bowser said. “We need to be mindful that we can only contain the virus if we don’t spread it to one another.” The District reported seven new covid-19 deaths on Monday, for a total toll of 258. It also added 154 cases, down from 219 on Sunday. Maryland added 36 new deaths and 946 new infections, with more than half of those positive tests located in the D.C. suburbs. Virginia added 24 new deaths — the lowest number in six days — and 821 new infections. The D.C. Council is scheduled to vote Tuesday on emergency coronavirus legislation that would cap commissions charged by meal-delivery services, require landlords to offer payment plans and force insurers to pay business interruption claims.


More people in District dying outside of hospitals during pandemic

a national trend. The Washington Post has reported that the United States recorded 37,100 excess deaths — beyond what would normally be expected — from the beginning of March through mid-April, nearly 13,500 more than are now attributed to covid-19 for the same period. More than 67,000 people across the country have died of covid-19, with over 1.1 million confirmed cases, though it is widely believed those numbers are an undercount. Jurisdictions count cases and deaths differently. Some include probable cases, even if testing is not performed, and few test the dead. The D.C. medical examiner’s office did not immediately have a demographic breakdown on the deaths occurring outside hospitals to include the race or ages of the deceased. Nearly 80 percent of the District’s 258 known deaths from covid-19 are of African Americans, and the virus is hitting hard in wards disproportionately affected by poverty, disease and trauma. D.C. officials fear the spike in on-scene death cases might be affecting the city’s most vulnerable populations in similar ways. “I think where we have had divisions and inadequacies in our city, the pandemic magnifies them,” said Kevin Donahue, the deputy mayor for public safely. Donahue said officials believe some people may be putting off needed treatment because they are scared of contracting the coronavirus at a hospital. Many routine procedures, and some more-urgent ones, have been postponed during the pandemic. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) discussed the city’s at-risk population at a Monday news conference during which she updated residents on the pandemic. She emphasized that hospitals remain open to treat illnesses and emergencies that have nothing to do with the coronavirus and are safe to visit. “It’s kind of a mixed message in some ways because we’ve told everyone to stay home, but that doesn’t mean stay home if we need medical care,” Bowser said. D.C. Health Director LaQuandra Nesbitt described symptoms of heart attacks and strokes, and she put up a slide reminding people that “every minute counts” in a medical emergency and that they should not hesitate to call 911. “We will be well prepared to take care of them,” Nesbitt said. D.C. officials say hospital capacity is adequate, though preparations are underway for a possible surge. The Army Corps of Engineers has transformed the Walter E. Washington Convention Center into a makeshift hospital, with the hope it will not be needed. Even as the number of


States relax coronavirus restrictions as U.S. fitfully seeks steps toward normalcy

in mid-March. Most have extended that halt into the summer without announcing specific plans for restarting. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said it remains “too hard to tell at this point” whether international travel will reopen by the end of the year but made a pitch for U.S. residents “to explore America” in the meantime. Mnuchin’s comments came during an appearance on Fox Business Network in which he said that Trump is looking for ways to “stimulate” safe domestic travel and that he anticipates demand will start coming back. “Our priority is opening up the domestic economy,” he said. “Obviously for business people that do need to travel, there will be travel on a limited basis.” He then made a pitch for visiting sites in the United States. “But this is a great time for people to explore America,” Mnuchin said. “A lot of people haven’t seen many parts of America. I wish I could get back on the road soon.” Meanwhile, Kroger, one of the biggest grocery chains in the world, announced it would begin to offer free coronavirus tests to its front-line employees amid persistent public pressure for food markets to protect their workers. The company’s health-care division will start to provide the testing to associates this month “based on symptoms and medical needs,” Kroger said in a statement. The tests will be conducted through self-administered kits and the company’s public drive-through testing sites. Kroger said it was already testing employees working in hard-hit areas of the country. Dozens of grocery workers have died of covid-19, the disease the virus causes, and thousands have tested positive. As the virus continues to rage internationally, other countries are also looking for ways to move toward normalcy. Australia and New Zealand, for example, are discussing the notion of a “travel bubble” that would allow people to resume journeys between the two countries across the Tasman Sea without quarantine restrictions, though such a move is still probably weeks or months away. In London, a government spokesman confirmed Monday that a temporary hospital created to help patients during the height of the pandemic would be “placed on standby,” as the need for beds has decreased. Israel continued its incremental easing of lockdown restrictions, announcing that beginning Thursday, shopping malls and open-air markets will be allowed to reopen, families can visit close relatives, and weddings and funerals of up to 50 participants will be permitted.


We’re going to have to find a way to coexist with the coronavirus

find when we go back out into the world? It is hard to imagine how large crowds, such as those for sports events, can safely gather before there is a vaccine. We may have to watch sports on television — assuming the immunity status of the athletes is known, and arrangements can be made that allow them to stay healthy and compete safely — and provide our own crowd noise. But what about other situations in which we’re used to being in close quarters? Restaurants can try social-distancing their diners, but fewer tables mean less revenue; many probably will not survive, at least not with their current rents and business plans intact. Retailers must meter the number of shoppers allowed in stores at any given time, and browsing may be more nerve-wracking than pleasurable. Cinema houses will suffer, if they even reopen, and I wonder whether the experience of watching a film amid a crowd will become a thing of the past. The drive-in theaters that are just barely keeping the movies alive right now might make a more permanent comeback. Airline travel presents an especially tough problem: People need to move from place to place, yet airliners offer a captive audience for opportunistic germs. I don’t know whether we’ll ever require travelers to present “immunity passports” along with their government IDs. But at a minimum, I think there will be temperature checks to identify those who might have the active disease and be spreading it, and perhaps even rapid testing such as the screening Emirates Airline is rolling out. Governments and major health insurers have wisely decided to make covid-19 testing, treatment and medications free of charge. That is one emergency measure that should be made permanent — and expanded into a national system of truly universal health care. This pandemic offers a vivid illustration of the fact that the health of the individual depends on the health of the community. And we are a community, whether we like it or not. Self-interest and the common interest are one and the same. Businesses that reopen without adequately making customers feel safe will fail. Widespread recklessness will lead to new shutdowns and more economic pain. We are all in this together. Some of us may not like that, but the coronavirus doesn’t care. Read more from Eugene Robinson’s archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook.


The Middle East’s leaders are continuing their march to self-destruction

Covid-19 hasn’t unleashed its full force on the Middle East — yet. If or when it does, it is expected to overwhelm the region’s fragile health services and leave behind a trail of pain and destruction. Common sense suggests that such a crisis should rearrange priorities in the Middle East. It should help rulers and opposition groups understand that good governance, not identity feuds, is their main challenge, and that improving health services, expanding access to clean water and ensuring safe housing cannot be achieved by repression or Islamization. The covid-19 crisis should also remind Middle Eastern states that protecting national security requires regional integration, not rivalry with neighbors. This is an opportunity for these states to overcome their historic resentment and become an integral part of the global order. Finally, the crisis should remind Middle Eastern leaders of the urgent need to restructure their states’ archaic regulatory institutions and prepare their economies for post-coronavirus realities. Unfortunately, there is no sign of any of the above happening. If anything, Middle Eastern states seem to be digging their heels deeper. The crisis seems to offer Middle Eastern rulers more reasons for repression, from extending emergency law and expanding executive powers in Egypt to further muzzling freedom of speech in Persian Gulf states, Morocco and Algeria by criminalizing “spreading rumors” about the crisis and the ways in which governments have handled it. Instead of building a coalition to reform their flailing health sectors, Middle Eastern rulers are using their control over the media to convince their populations that everything is fine and blame shortcomings on imaginary enemies. Egypt is a good example: It is rife with claims that its ministry of health has a tight grip on the pandemic and had developed a cure for covid-19 that it shared with China and then Italy, enabling both countries to curb the spread of the virus. On the other hand, opposition groups have yet to show a sign of readiness to face the real challenge of governance in their failing states. So far, their strategies remain focused on contesting power, whether by peaceful protests or by violence. In the middle of the crisis, frustrated Lebanese protesters started setting their failed banks on fire, while Egyptians marched against covid-19 in Alexandria. As for radical Islamists, they continue their anachronistic fight undisturbed, with their Sinai attack last week killing or injuring 10 military personnel, according to


Egypt to further muzzling freedom of speech in Persian Gulf states, Morocco and Algeria by criminalizing “spreading rumors” about the crisis and the ways in which governments have handled it. Instead of building a coalition to reform their flailing health sectors, Middle Eastern rulers are using their control over the media to convince their populations that everything is fine and blame shortcomings on imaginary enemies. Egypt is a good example: It is rife with claims that its ministry of health has a tight grip on the pandemic and had developed a cure for covid-19 that it shared with China and then Italy, enabling both countries to curb the spread of the virus. On the other hand, opposition groups have yet to show a sign of readiness to face the real challenge of governance in their failing states. So far, their strategies remain focused on contesting power, whether by peaceful protests or by violence. In the middle of the crisis, frustrated Lebanese protesters started setting their failed banks on fire, while Egyptians marched against covid-19 in Alexandria. As for radical Islamists, they continue their anachronistic fight undisturbed, with their Sinai attack last week killing or injuring 10 military personnel, according to the Egyptian army. Nor has the crisis affected how Middle Eastern states view each other either. The two countries with the highest number of covid-19 cases in the Middle East, Turkey and Iran, carry on, with Qatar, their rivalry against Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates. Their confrontations in Libya, Yemen and Syria continue to shape the civil wars there. This rivalry also continues to plague political processes in Iraq and Lebanon, with devastating consequences for local populations. As for moving beyond historical resentment and fears, covid-19 seems to push Middle Eastern countries in the opposite direction. Instead of seeing the crisis as reason for renewed and better globalization, as Jordan’s King Abdullah II recently argued for in The Post, most of the region is drowning in conspiracy theories attributing the pandemic to an American plot. In March, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei echoed these theories, rejecting a U.S. offer to help Iran fight the virus on the grounds that maybe U.S. “medicine is a way to spread the virus more.” And if anyone entertained hopes that the pandemic would prompt Middle Eastern states to prepare for post-coronavirus economic realities, their recent competition to ravage the oil market, depleting


Bill Gates is wrong. China’s coronavirus coverup is not a ‘distraction.’

if it conducted an inquiry of its own, and arrested three more journalists for the crime of posting covid-19 articles on GitHub (which is, incidentally, owned by Microsoft). It’s not just about blame. The Chinese government’s refusal to allow international experts to investigate what happened in the city of Wuhan impedes efforts to find treatments and cures. Unless the source is located, the true path of the outbreak can’t be traced and critical scientific information can’t be known. Whether you believe it came from a market, a lab or a random bat flying around Wuhan, Beijing won’t allow any of these scenarios to be examined. We have to solve the origin question to beat the outbreak and prevent the next pandemic. And that’s not the only problem. China still won’t share original virus samples, which many international researchers are asking for. The statistics issued by China are used in models that inform our response. China didn’t report asymptomatic positive cases in its tallies until this month. That information would have been extremely useful months ago. Cooperating with China on the pandemic is crucial, say those who warn against pushing Beijing too far. Yet this is a straw-man argument. Cooperation works only to the extent Beijing is cooperating in good faith. Joining together to find treatments and cures sounds great, but when the U.S. drug firm Gilead sent a sample of the drug remdesivir to China for use in trials in January, a Chinese research institute copied it and tried to patent it for itself. China has a special responsibility not because it is to blame but because it is the first mover in each phase of this crisis. We are nowhere near the end. If Beijing’s behavior is allowed to continue unchallenged, it will continue to abuse our leniency. Every country in the world shares this interest; the United States should lead a more international effort in this regard. Bill Gates is ignoring the facts about China’s actions. But sweeping things under the rug is not how you counter a pandemic; it merely encourages the Chinese government to keep doing what it’s already been doing. We must pursue the facts, avoid the politics and press China to be more transparent and less repressive — for the sake of our economy, security and health. Read more from Josh Rogin’s archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook.


Saudi Arabia is responsible for the slow death of the kingdom’s Nelson Mandela

be considered valid. What made al-Hamid so effective was that he established a discourse from within Saudi Arabia that did not alienate the political traditions or dismiss the local context but rather reinterpreted them in a way that involved the public in decision-making, paving the way for democracy and basic freedoms and liberties. Al-Hamid’s ideas were seen by the state as an existential threat to the Saudi monarchy. In an attempt to silence al-Hamid and his colleagues who called for democracy, the Saudi state banned ACPRA, arrested its founding members and froze their assets. Before journalist Jamal Khashoggi was brutally killed in 2018 by the Saudi government in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, he shared a story with his audience about the royal family’s response to the circulating petitions. At the request of King Abdullah, a committee of influential royals was formed to study the appropriate response to the Arab Spring that Saudi Arabia should take, and how the kingdom could prevent the upheavals that were rocking neighboring countries. With the exception of then-Prince Salman and Prince Khalid al-Faisal, the committee concluded that there should be public elections, democratic mechanisms and more freedoms. However, that process was abruptly put on hold when King Salman ascended to the throne in 2015 and named his son, Mohammed bin Salman, as crown prince. MBS, as he is known, is now the de-facto absolute ruler of Saudi Arabia, dashing hopes for democratic progress in Saudi Arabia. In one of my last conversations with Jamal, he described al-Hamid as the “Saudi Mandela” and lamented the fact that his case did not receive the attention or global outrage that it deserves. Like Nelson Mandela, whose words and movements shattered an apartheid regime, al-Hamid’s democratic legacy will live on in Saudi Arabia. Correction: An earlier version of this op-ed incorrectly stated that Jamal Khashoggi was killed in a Turkish consulate. He was killed in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. This version has been updated. Read more: The Post’s View: Saudi Arabia’s Khashoggi verdict is a mockery of justice David Ignatius: We still don’t have answers on Khashoggi’s murder Agnes Callamard: The Khashoggi verdict is exactly what impunity looks like. It must be denounced. The Post’s View: One year later, our murdered friend Jamal has been proved right Fred Ryan: Why the world won’t forget the horror of Khashoggi’s murder Read Jamal Khashoggi’s columns for The Washington Post


Weightlifter Mattie Rogers sacrificed her living room rug to keep her Olympic training on course

The first few days after concerns about the novel coronavirus pandemic closed Orlando’s nonessential businesses and forced Olympic hopeful Mattie Rogers to train in her garage, it felt like the ground was unsteady under her feet. It wasn’t just the shock, frustration and sorrow the 24-year-old weightlifter felt after the Tokyo Olympics were postponed that had her feeling shaky, though those emotions did take a toll. What Rogers felt training at home was not an existential wobble but a physical one: The floor of her garage isn’t exactly level. And for an athlete lifting more than a hundred pounds overhead regularly, a level platform to stand on is nonnegotiable. “I have all my equipment, but I rent my home, so I'm not actually allowed to level it,” Rogers said in a recent phone interview. “Well, I cut up our living room rug. I made layers, so there's a gradient, and then there's some shopping bags shoved under the lower corner. It's definitely temporary. It's better than drilling things — with that, I have no skill." Her MacGyvered platform in place and extra weights stacked as makeshift lifting blocks, Rogers has resumed her daily training from her garage even though she has no idea when she’ll next compete. The Floridian, who holds multiple American records, had qualified for her first Olympics this summer after narrowly missing a spot in 2016 but had one final event at the end of April before the U.S. team announced its roster. Now, Rogers is in limbo. She can’t take time off in case the final qualifying event is set for this summer, but she and her coach aren’t sure how to schedule her meticulously drawn-up routine so that Rogers is lifting her heaviest at the right time. As a compromise, they chose a date in June. “Hopefully by then we’ll have a better answer, and we can make a better training cycle at that time,” Rogers said. “We would love to take a month off right now so we can really rest, recover and then build back up to the Olympics. But as soon as all of this quarantine is over, they could say, ‘Okay, in two weeks, you have to go qualify to keep your spot.’ It’s kind of like constant stress. It’s definitely better now than the first week that they told us, because it was like: ‘What do you mean I’m not


Europe is loosening coronavirus restrictions. But don’t expect to vacation there anytime soon.

tightly restricted in Europe since March, when the continent’s vaunted open borders closed in quick succession, and the European Union shut its external boundaries to nonessential travel. European leaders credit the combination of those closures and strict social distancing measures with helping them to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus. Now, as governments seek to get their societies moving again without triggering an unmanageable spike in transmissions, they are counting on continued or even reinforced restrictions at their borders to help maintain some level of control. The European Union’s ban on nonessential travel from countries outside the bloc is set to expire May 15. But one E.U. official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss deliberations, said the ban was highly likely to be extended for another month at least. On top of that, some countries are considering mandatory quarantines for international arrivals. British Transport Secretary Grant Shapps told the BBC last weekend that he was “actively looking at” the possibility of a 14-day quarantine, “so that when we have infection rates within the country under control, we’re not importing.” British airline lobbyists objected A provision under consideration by the French Parliament this week would require 14 days of isolation for new arrivals and up to 30 days for people with symptoms. The government has clarified that people from the European Union would be exempt, as would, for instance, truck drivers transporting goods. But it remains unclear whether the measure would apply to travelers from all other countries or only those on a French government list of “zones where the virus is circulating.” Macron earlier voiced particular concern about the United States being behind Europe on the outbreak curve. Within Europe, too, the progression of the virus may influence when border restrictions between countries come down. Thierry Breton, a member of the European Commission who handles tourism policy, told French radio that it is likely that certain areas of the European Union would be open to tourists and others not. He said borders could turn on and off between E.U. countries depending on the outbreak. “It is like this, and it has to be accepted,” he said. “The borders of the pandemic do not match geographical borders.” Austria, which has been confident in its virus management and was among the first European countries to relax its lockdown, has broached the idea of a travel bubble with neighboring Germany,


The Daily 202: 11 states seek DOJ investigation of meat shortages and price hikes amid coronavirus contagion

Where’s the beef? President Trump signed an executive order last week that designated meat processing plants as critical infrastructure and their employees as essential. He used the Defense Production Act to compel continuing production through the coronavirus pandemic, after several plants closed when they became hot spots for the contagion. But the move did not come soon enough to avert shortages of pork and beef – and rising prices. About 1 in 5 Wendy’s restaurants across the United States do not have the meat to sell hamburgers right now. “It is widely known that beef suppliers across North America are currently facing production challenges,” the fast-food chain said in a statement. “Some of our menu items may be temporarily limited at some restaurants in this current environment.” McDonald’s said it has not had shortages yet. But companies like Wendy’s that use fresh beef in their burgers, as opposed to frozen patties, have taken a more immediate hit. Shake Shack executives said they’re more worried about rising prices for their core product than shortages. “We do not, today, expect a supply issue. However, costs have really jumped,” Shake Shack chief executive Randy Garutti said during a Monday call to announce first-quarter earnings. Chief Financial Officer Tara Comonte added that beef prices have risen significantly over the last month, “with the largest increase being realized over the last week,” according to CNBC. Local news outlets from coast to coast are reporting on strains in the supply chain and restrictions in local stores, Vice President Pence will visit Iowa on Friday to discuss the food supply Hy-Vee is not alone. Costco has limited shoppers to buying three items of beef, pork or poultry. Kroger has limited beef and pork purchases at some, but not all, stores. Stop & Shops in New England have instituted a two-package-per-customer limit. A bipartisan coalition of 11 state attorneys general sent a letter to Attorney General Bill Barr on Tuesday asking the Justice Department to investigate accusations of anticompetitive practices by meatpacking companies in the face of the growing shortages. The attorneys general of Colorado, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Arizona, Idaho, Iowa, North Dakota, Nebraska, South Dakota and Wyoming signed the letter, which noted that they may take state-level action if antitrust officials fail to take action. Fox Business reports that the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association has been asking for this since last month, alleging that the four big


that one strain of the novel coronavirus has emerged in Europe and become dominant around the planet, leading the researchers to believe the virus has mutated to become more contagious. The bold hypothesis, however, was immediately met with skepticism by many infectious-disease experts, and there is no scientific consensus that any of the innumerable mutations in the virus so far have changed the general contagiousness or lethality of covid-19,” Sarah Kaplan and Joel Achebach report. The federal scientists examined a global database of strains causing the disease, finding one strain featuring a mutation dubbed Spike D614G quickly dominated other strains after appearing in Europe. “The mutation affects the structure of a protein, called the spike protein, that is critical to the virus’s ability to infect human cells. The researchers believe this structural change enhances infectivity. … The paper will now have to survive the intense scrutiny of a research community trying to deliver urgently needed information while remaining scientifically rigorous. … The consensus has been that strains of the coronavirus are functionally the same, even if they look genetically different.” “The children, ages 2 to 15, experienced persistent fever and elevated inflammatory markers, similar to a syndrome known as Kawasaki disease. More than half had a rash, abdominal pain, vomiting or diarrhea. Fewer than half had respiratory symptoms. All of the patients described in a bulletin issued Monday were admitted to intensive care and required cardiac or respiratory support, including five who required mechanical ventilation. None have died,” Ariana Eunjung Cha and Chelsea Janes report. “‘We have long suspected that there may be different triggers for KD based on individual genetics. The emergence of this new problem suggests that the new coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, may be a trigger for some children to develop KD,’ wrote Jane Burns, director of the Kawasaki Disease Research Center at the University of California at San Diego, in a letter to families of children who have suffered from Kawasaki disease before. … Four of the children in New York tested positive for the novel coronavirus, while 11 did not. ‘It would be a terrible mistake for parents to worry. The chance for a child up to this point of becoming critically ill is very, very rare,’ said Jeffrey Burns, chief of critical care at Boston Children’s Hospital.” “The bipartisan opposition to a payroll tax cut has not deterred Trump, who has continued to tweet about his


Americans deeply wary of reopening as White House weighs ending covid-19 task force

in Arizona. “And, yes, will some people be affected? Yes. Will some people be affected badly? Yes. But we have to get our country open, and we have to get it open soon.” The developments suggest a country that is anxious and being pulled in two opposite directions. Some governors, backed by protesters and largely supported by Trump, are pushing to resume normal activity in hopes of staving off further economic disaster. But many other governors and public health officials, as well as medical experts, warn that such moves will open the door to thousands more American deaths. On Monday, a modeling group at Columbia University — whose work has been used by New York leaders, as well as the White House — released research showing that even a small increase in the contact rate among individuals will lead to a rebound in transmission and an increase in cases, hospitalizations and deaths. “These findings indicate that most states are not well-positioned to reopen their economies and simultaneously control the spread of COVID-19 infections,” the researchers concluded. New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo (D) said Tuesday that one model the federal government uses to project coronavirus deaths was now forecasting the pandemic could kill 134,000 people overall. That is more than double the 60,000 deaths the same model — created by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington and commonly referred to as the IHME model — predicted last month, he said. “The fundamental question, which we’re not articulating, is: How much is a human life worth?” Cuomo said. On Tuesday, the United States recorded over 22,000 new coronavirus cases and more than 2,400 deaths. The total of those infected now stands at almost 1.2 million. More than 70,000 Americans have now died of covid-19, the disease the novel coronavirus causes. Before revising his prediction recently, Trump had suggested that figure could be an upper limit of the potential death toll. Now the country is sweeping by it on its way to an apparently far higher number, potentially one more in line with the estimates used by the White House at an earlier stage. Jeffrey Shaman, a top epidemiologist who leads the Columbia group, said it is particularly alarming that states are reopening without first developing the tools needed to detect and control the virus. “The rebound will be masked because of the lag in the


shutdown, Trump said Tuesday, “The people aren’t going to accept it.” The challenge for modelers, epidemiologists say, is that they make predictions based in part on human behavior, but that behavior can shift — sometimes driven by the very reassurance or fear produced by the models themselves. “The models are great at helping us think through complex decisions and implications, and they’re sometimes good at predicting the behavior of viruses. But human behavior and politics are sometimes so unpredictable. That’s not something modelers are good at incorporating yet,” said Dylan George, a former Obama administration official who helped oversee modeling efforts during the Ebola outbreak. Polling suggests that despite the economic turmoil, most Americans are far from ready for a rapid reboot of society. More than half, 56 percent, say they are comfortable making a trip to the grocery store, something many Americans have continued doing, according to the Post-U. Md. poll. But 67 percent say they would be uncomfortable shopping at a clothing store, and 78 percent would be uneasy at a sit-down restaurant. People in states with looser restrictions report similar levels of discomfort to those in states with stricter rules. That dynamic, and the national mood, could change if researchers find a promising treatment or make significant progress toward a vaccine. Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer began this week testing multiple versions of an experimental coronavirus vaccine in healthy young people in the United States. At least eight other vaccine candidates are being tested in people worldwide, according to a tracker by the Milken Institute. But there remains much that scientists do not understand about the coronavirus. New York City health authorities warned this week of an unusual inflammatory condition possibly linked to covid-19 that they have seen in 15 hospitalized children, though they noted they are still early in their research. Americans continue to give Trump negative marks for his response to the outbreak, while offering widely positive assessments of their governors, a trend that has been consistent throughout the pandemic, according to the Post-U. Md. poll. Trump’s ratings are 44 percent positive and 56 percent negative, in line with where he was two weeks ago, while governors earn positive marks from 75 percent of Americans. Partisan differences remain sizable, with nearly 8 in 10 Republicans and about 2 in 10 Democrats rating Trump positively. In contrast, governors earn big positive majorities across party lines. Trump and Pence


Gauging the outlook for the luxury housing market

the broader U.S. real estate market scrambling to adjust amid lockdowns and travel bans. But real estate professionals in wealthy locations across the country say they fear the spreading contagion will deal the most severe blow to the upper end of the housing market, a sector that has long relied on a wealthy, globally connected jet set to help keep it afloat. Despite registering a surge in million-dollar home sales in 2019 — rising nationally 11.4 percent compared with the prior year, according to Realtor.com — brokers from expensive pockets across the country say they are already seeing signs that wealthy buyers are pausing as the pandemic unfolds. Foreign buyers — an important slice of the luxury sector — aren’t traveling or are skittish to close expensive property deals that seemed a lock just a few weeks ago. And many local buyers at the higher tier of the income scale are in locations with strict stay-at-home orders that have effectively prohibited open houses and in-person property showings. “We’ve had some buyers hold off on closing deals in this market,” says Louis Birdman, co-developer of One Thousand Museum, a 62-story luxury condominium tower in downtown Miami designed by the late Pritzker Prize-winning architect Zaha Hadid. The high-rise with its private helipad and indoor lap pool is one of the fastest-selling developments in the city. Though the property closed two multimillion-dollar sales in March — including a $19.8 million sale to retired soccer star David Beckham and his wife, Victoria — Birdman says he expects some wealthy clients to wait. “Real estate is a face-to-face business and many clients still want to see a property before buying it,” he says. “At the moment no one is really able to do that.” While buyers are pausing, a growing number of sellers are taking their homes off the market as the pandemic spreads — in some cases to abide by shelter-in-place laws to restrict the contagion. Others simply don’t want their homes lingering unsold on the market as lockdowns are extended. Nationally, the number of newly listed properties declined in March by 15.7 percent compared with the same month in 2019, according to a housing report by Realtor.com. The Washington metro area had 24.4 percent fewer listings in March compared with the same month last year. The spread of covid-19 is already denting the usually busy spring buying season in the District. Pending home


Kim Jong Un did not have heart surgery, South Korea says, tying absence to coronavirus fears

on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence, have said Kim retreated to a beach resort in Wonsan on the country’s east coast after learning in mid-April that subordinates in his vicinity had suffered from a fever. The hiatus was not Kim’s first absence from the public eye this year. He laid low for three weeks between late January and February and was not seen on state media for another 13 days between the middle and end of February. Kim Byung-kee said the North Korean leader has made only 17 public appearances this year, compared with an average of 50 over the same period in previous years, which the NIS linked to a possible coronavirus outbreak in North Korea. Although North Korea’s government insists it has no confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus, it has repeatedly emphasized the threat to the country from the disease it causes, covid-19. The NIS said the virus could have entered the country from China before the border between the two countries was closed in late January. “It cannot be ruled out that there has been an outbreak in North Korea,” Kim Byung-kee said. “Kim Jong Un had focused on consolidating internal affairs such as military forces and party-state meetings, and coronavirus concerns have further limited his public activity.” The NIS said the prolonged closure of the border has added to the economic hardships of North Korean people and temporarily pushed up the price of imports such as spices and sugar, as well as the dollar’s exchange rate against the local currency. That, in turn, caused an outbreak of panic buying among Pyongyang residents, it said, which provided more fuel for the rumor mill surrounding the health of the nuclear-armed dictator. Since then, authorities have cracked down on hoarding and stepped up emergency food imports, allowing prices to more or less stabilize, the NIS said. Meanwhile, there is no sign of a slowdown in North Korea’s efforts to improve its missile defense capability, with weapons tests continuing at a rapid pace this year. The Center for Strategic and International Studies released satellite images Tuesday of a new facility near Pyongyang Sunan International Airport that it said is “almost certainly related to North Korea’s expanding ballistic missile program.” One building within the facility is large enough to accommodate an elevated Hwasong-15 intercontinental ballistic missile “and, therefore, the entirety of North Korea’s known ballistic missile variants,”


Runners should wear masks — but not because of science

“JOGGERS,” blares the sign on Washington’s 16th Street NW. “Protect your fellow humans. WEAR A F***IN’ MASK.” The asterisks, of course, don’t appear in the original; the nasty exhortation manages to signal vice and virtue at the same time. And it captures not only today’s rift between the runners and the walkers but also a bigger truth mid-pandemic: Everyone needs to be kinder to each other. The exercise-induced enmity brought on by the coronavirus exists throughout the country. Twitter and Facebook overflow with animus against the fleet of foot. Tales of in-person scoldings and even screamings abound among a populace split between reproach for irresponsible joggers and sympathy for cooped-up amateur athletes trying to escape the apartment without self-suffocating. Those in the former group insist that public health officials say to wear facial coverings wherever we go, and that common sense says panting sprinters are spewing particles with more force then their walking brethren. Those in the latter retort that experts suspect outdoor transmission is unlikely, no matter how high your heart rate and how heavy your breathing. Where you come down on the question may depend largely on a single factor: whether you jog — or, for those who find that language demeaning, whether you run. Pavement wars predate pandemic, of course. Pedestrians weren’t pitted against pedestrians, but they loathed the on-sidewalk bikers. Bikers who stuck to the road bemoaned the reckless driver; drivers, the heedless biker. Exercise empathy has never been our strong suit, and plain old empathy isn’t always easy either. So now runners consider only the agony of trying to bang out a 10-miler with cloth between lungs and air, and walkers only the pain of squeezing against a fence as someone barrels toward them sputtering droplets. The way we do things is right. The way others do things is wrong. Usually the gulf between the two is a matter merely of frustration; now it’s also a matter of fear. And for those of us who are told we’re not being careful enough when we’re convinced we’re being very careful indeed, it’s a matter of resentment tinged with guilt. We never have control over how others act, but right now we feel a painful lack of control over anything. Of course, we want people to live their careful coronavirus lives exactly as we live ours, because seeing our decisions mirrored across the population lets us imagine


Man arrested in killing of woman in apartment in Northwest Washington

D.C. police on Tuesday arrested a man who they say fatally shot a woman last week inside an apartment in Northwest Washington during an argument over money for marijuana. Karlos Antonio Kinney, 20, of Southeast, was charged with second-degree murder. He was arrested by members of the Capital Area Regional Fugitive Task Force. Police said the shooting occurred about 12:45 p.m. Thursday in a ninth-floor residence at the Golden Rule Apartments in the 900 block of New Jersey Avenue NW. Police said the victim, Resha Blount, 25, was found dead in a bedroom. A police report says that after Blount was shot, the assailant pointed a handgun at another woman who was in the apartment and stole her cellphone in an apparent attempt to stop her from calling 911. Police said the assailant left the apartment with the phone. But an arrest affidavit filed in D.C. Superior Court says the suspect left behind the phone belonging to Blount. On that phone, police said they found text messages discussing the purchase of marijuana with a man they later identified as Kinney. The arrest affidavit alleges that the suspect shot the victim four times after they argued over the price for the marijuana.


Civil strife may undermine pandemic response

the outbreak. One hundred years ago, the Mexican Revolution of 1910-1920 that toppled a dictator and ushered in unprecedented social reforms — like widespread land redistribution — ended. It came at a steep cost: From a population of 14.5 million, at least 1 million people are estimated to have died. Seven years of bloody battles, coups, assassinations, U.S. military incursions and localized epidemics played their part, but it was not until the spring of 1918, during a year of relative calm, that a far more efficient global killer snuck south across the border from Laredo, Tex., and began its rampage. Between the spring of 1918 and the winter of 1919, an estimated 500,000 Mexicans lost their lives to influenza — about 3.33 percent of the population. By comparison, the United States, with a population of approximately 100 million, lost 675,000 people to that pandemic. This means that the fatality rate was five times as high in Mexico. Indeed, the Mexico City daily El Nacional reported in October 1918 that “there is not one family in Mexico that has not had at least one sick member.” The numbers defy the popular American narrative of the 1918 pandemic: that it was a consequence of troop movements during World War I and that the European countries fighting in the war were the epicenter of the outbreak and fared the worst. Britain, France and Germany — countries on the front lines of WWI’s horrors — collectively suffered far lower mortality rates (about 1.1 percent) than the rest of the mostly colonized and semi-colonized world (between 2 and 4 percent). Epidemiological research has shown that the United States was likely the origin of the influenza outbreak and the Wilson administration responded poorly, yet it too emerged with a mortality rate that any Mexican in 1919 would have gladly accepted. Why? Because despite all of the factors favorable to the virus, Americans were unified in waging war against an external enemy, whether it was Germany or influenza. And although federal action to fight the pandemic was anemic, local and state governments took strong, if not always consistent or prompt, measures against viral transmission. Whatever individual doubts they might have held, most Americans believed in their leaders. In 1918, Mexico was a very different place. To his credit, the Mexican president at the time, Venustiano Carranza, kept a level head and quickly closed the border with Texas.


Summer travel is still a question mark. But summer airfare sales are here anyway.

the better they’ll be prepared to deal with this.” Because of the unprecedented nature of the pandemic, he said, airlines don’t have historic norms to help inform their forecasting. “They can’t go back to the 1918 flu pandemic,” he said. Air travel has plummeted compared with the same time a year ago, and airlines have slashed routes in response. Carriers have also introduced measures to make travelers feel safer, such as requiring crew and passengers to wear masks, highlighting enhanced cleaning and sanitation processes, and blocking off middle seats to keep people farther apart on planes. Frontier this week said it would guarantee an open middle seat for a charge, prompting a backlash on social media. Most airlines have also introduced more flexible policies around changing or canceling flights. Cases of coronavirus have been reported in all states, and some areas are experiencing community spread of the disease. Travel increases the chances of getting and spreading coronavirus. The CDC recommends everyone stay home as much as possible, especially if a trip is not essential, and practice social distancing. But some figures show that travel at least appears to be clawing back from the lows reached in April as many states start to gradually reopen and ease stay-at-home orders. According to the Transportation Security Administration, more than 130,000 people went through airport checkpoints on Monday. That’s down from 2.1 million a year earlier, but higher than the daily numbers for most of last month. And according to hospitality research firm STR, hotels in the United States were more than 28 percent full for the week of April 28 to May 4. That’s still a huge drop from a year earlier, but higher than the previous few weeks. And the company noted that weekend hotel occupancy in areas that have eased some restrictions suggests some travelers are eager to get back to vacations. “This past week was the first to show solid evidence of leisure demand as weekend occupancy grew in states that have significantly eased mitigation efforts,” Jan Freitag, STR’s senior vice president of lodging insights, said in a statement. “As we have noted throughout the pandemic, the leisure segment will be the first to show a demand bounce back. In weeks prior, the more reasonable conclusion was that hotels were selling mostly to essential-worker-types.” Still to be seen: how much coronavirus infections might increase as more people resume semi-normal activities


We can scale up testing. We’re just waiting on the government to agree.

team of experts convened by the Rockefeller Foundation — of which I am a member — drew up plans for scaling up testing from 1 million to 30 million weekly. The rub is that because huge numbers of tests are needed over a short time, scaling up testing will cost hundreds of billions of dollars. Spending, say, $250 billion for testing is a small amount compared with the trillions of dollars the economy is losing during the pandemic. Moreover, funding a testing surge is imperative to lower the risks that essential workers face during a recovery that stands to disproportionately benefit those who can work from home and who can afford to social distance. Manufacturers of tests and testing supplies, and the providers who deliver covid-19 tests, are facing a unique market failure. Firms generally recoup research, development and other fixed costs over long time horizons. In the highly stylized models described in economics textbooks, producers get paid roughly their marginal costs — the cost of producing an incremental unit of their goods. But the pandemic has upended the usual model. Huge numbers of tests are needed urgently. In all likelihood, presuming a vaccine is developed, the demand for testing will erode in 18 months. That means asking firms to bear huge costs to scale up production and figure out how to deliver tests without the usual runway to recoup startup expenses. Reaching the necessary volume of testing will cost more than we ever would have considered paying pre-pandemic. Congress and the White House have not taken into account this market failure. While trillions of dollars have been allocated toward stimulus, small-business loans and other assistance to ease the pandemic’s economic impact, only $33 billion has been allocated to covid-19 testing. Federal Reserve and congressional actions have buoyed the stock market and eased the financial pain of nonessential workers. But most essential workers — the people powering the daily lives of the millions of Americans sheltering at home — don’t make their money off stocks. Our collective underinvestment in testing places much of the risk of reopening on those who will not proportionally benefit from their own labor. As with much else, covid-19 has disproportionately affected vulnerable communities and blue-collar Americans. Looming disruptions in our food chain highlight the consequences of underinvesting in testing. Scores of essential, lower-paid workers at meatpacking facilities have contracted covid-19. President Trump could have surged


Olympic hopeful Drew Hunter is used to training alone. Running for others is something new.

for every second he runs under nine minutes. If someone pledges $2 and he runs two miles in 8:45, $30 would go to Real Hope for Haiti. Hunter’s mother will record him on his Instagram account so people can watch live. Hunter’s parents adopted his older sisters, Trisha and Vania, from Haiti. They are now nurses at Fairfax Hospital, on the front lines of the covid-19 fight. When Hunter decided he wanted to raise money for health-care workers, he asked Trisha and Vania what made the most sense. They explained that Haiti could become a coronavirus hot spot and, with little health-care infrastructure, the country would need money more desperately than most anywhere. The idea to stage an event came to Hunter recently, during video conference calls he participates in with local cross-country teams. He listened to kids grow surprisingly vulnerable about how much they missed racing and how isolation had changed their lives. It made Hunter want to lift spirits for those in the running community, even if they didn’t have the means to donate money. “I’m just using what I’m good at to raise money for a good cause,” Hunter said. “If it’s something you need, you can just come on to my Instagram at 5 p.m. on Thursday, you can watch me run for 8½ minutes. If that makes you smile or makes you motivated to go for a run the next day, that counts as a win.” By providing a spiritual lift to others, Hunter also will give himself a physical challenge. Hunter never ran in the world championships last fall. He suffered a torn plantar and broken cuboid in his right foot after making the team at the U.S. championships. He has rehabbed since last fall, and the cancellation of every competition this spring means Hunter has not run publicly in almost a year. The time-trial idea injected a competitive spark into Hunter’s training. “To be honest, I’m terrified,” Hunter said. “I’m putting on spikes for the first time in 10 months. That’s crazy. It’s also a reminder of why I do this. That feeling of when you have nerves, when you have that, that’s a feeling to your core that you care about this. ‘I’m so nervous. How do my legs feel? Am I prepped?’ That’s why we do this: to have these feelings. I have that. I feel like I’ve lost a little


Transcript: Leadership During Crisis: A Conversation with Dr. Scott Gottlieb and Dr. Zeke Emanuel

it does appear that we're reopening. I think there's a lot of pressure on governors and there's a lot of economic hardship and public health consequences of the shutdown, but we're going to be reopening against the backdrop of, at the very least, stable infection at a very high level but probably rising infection in many parts of the country. And so, we have to hope that people continue to take measures to social distance. We have to hope that there's a seasonal effect here that's going to be a backstop against spread going into the summer, or else we can see, you know, sharp rises in the number of cases. Number of cases is certainly going to go up. They're not going to go down as we reopen. We always expected that, that we would see a spike in cases; the question is how much. MS. SELLERS: So, tell us a little bit--there's been a report out of Los Alamos recently about the potential for a mutation of this virus, which could make it more contagious. Is that something you are concerned about, looking into the summer and beyond? DR. GOTTLIEB: Well, I think that that Los Alamos study has to be taken into perspective. What the study was was a computational analysis showing that a certain strain with a particular genetic change in the sequence that codes for the spike protein, which is the part of the virus that it uses to invade human cells. There was a single amino acid-base pair change and that strain became predominant in Europe and then became predominant in the U.S. And they concluded, based on that analysis, that this strain must be more infective, must be more contagious because that's why it became the dominant strain. But it could be what we call "founder's effect." It could be that this strain just got into Europe and then became epidemic there and Europe heavily seeded the United States and so it became epidemic here. There's nothing to suggest biologically that it's more infectious. Something similar happened with Ebola where there were two strains of Ebola. There was a single base pair change in the Region that infected human cells. At that time, we had some cell culture studies, as well, and there was the conclusion drawn that it was more a infectious strain of Ebola and there was a lot of press


capacity that we would have wanted in April and May, we're going to have in June and July. MS. SELLERS: So, that brings me to a reader question I'm hearing from people listening in. This is a question from Bridget Dreary [phonetic] that I'd like to read in Virginia. She says, "In times of crisis, how do you balance relying on proven frameworks and methods while still encouraging creative and innovative solutions?" DR. GOTTLIEB: Well, I think we have been, you know, improvising as we go. We've never dealt with a pandemic before. We are playing off of a playbook in terms of the mitigation that we implemented, but we are improvising as we go to try to-- MS. SELLERS: Because we've had so many warnings about pandemics: We've had SARS, we've had MERS, we have flu. We have respiratory illness every single year and, every five years, we have bad flu. And public health officials have warned about pandemics for decades. So... DR. GOTTLIEB: Yeah, I think a lot of the pandemic planning was geared towards influenza. I'm not sure that we ever anticipated a pandemic with a coronavirus, even though we should have, given the outbreaks of MERS and SARS, to your point. But there was always a thought that if there was a pandemic strain of influenza, we'd be able to get to a vaccine more quickly. And so, the mitigation was intended to be a bridge to a vaccine. Mitigation isn't a bridge to a resolution. And so, that's the challenge we're facing right now. We've implemented the mitigation. We've spared the health care system from being overwhelmed. We've managed to push down the peak of the epidemic curve. But a bridge to what? It's a bridge to persistent spread. And ultimately, we're going to need a technological solution in order to fully resolve this, and that technological solution, unfortunately, is going to take longer than it would have if this was, perhaps, an influenza where we have more experience developing therapeutics and vaccines. MS. SELLERS: So, when do you think we could have a vaccine? DR. GOTTLIEB: Well, I think that we'll hopefully have a vaccine, assuming that the vaccines that are currently in development and in clinical trials--and there was a clinical trial announced yesterday by Pfizer Company. I'm on the board of a very robust phase one/phase two study that's going to be


Where Americans are still staying at home the most

to reopen and will allow restaurants and schools to open May 7. Alaskans and South Dakotans are spending the least time at home, 80 percent on average. South Dakota Gov. Kristi L. Noem was one of seven governors to never issue a stay-at-home order. The state has one of the largest coronavirus clusters in the country, at a Smithfield pork-producing plant in Sioux Falls. Variations on how people move around within states are common and sometimes large, and they often — but not always — follow the pattern of virus outbreaks. In Florida, people in the populous southern counties of Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach, where most of the state’s covid-19 cases have been concentrated and where beaches remain closed, are spending about 4 percent more time away from home than in early April. But people in the adjacent counties of Collier and Monroe, which includes the Florida Keys, were out of their houses 13 percent more as of April 30 than at the peak. Areas of Georgia around Atlanta showed almost no decrease, led by Forsyth County, which barely budged from its peak of 97 percent at home. By contrast, people in rural Dooly County in the central part of the state were going out 12 percent more than they had at their stay-home peak, despite having a covid-19 death rate that is 19 times higher than Forsyth’s. In Arizona’s La Paz County, residents are away from home 25 percent more than they were at the peak — the largest change of any county in the country — and they’re home just 57 percent of the time, roughly the same rate as in early March. In Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix, the difference is just 4 percent off the peak, and as of April 30, people were still home 90 percent of the time. In general, people in rural areas are away more than people in urban and suburban areas, in large part because stores, services and essential workplaces are much farther away and delivery services are rare or nonexistent. But the trend lines are very similar across all types of places. The data clearly shows that when Americans were told it was time to stay home, most people did. It also indicates that they are deciding for themselves when to go back out. About this story Data for this story was provided by SafeGraph, a company that aggregates


The Energy 202: National parks start to reopen as agency ‘worst case scenario’ projects staff hospitalizations

population to require hospitalization because of covid-19 — and for 40 percent to require isolation at some point because of potential exposure to the virus. Park Service spokeswoman Alexandra Picavet said the memo, which was last revised on March 24, was made using a study put out that month by Imperial College London and is “out of date.” The figures in that memo, Picavet added, represent “a worst case scenario.” The memo was obtained by the Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks and provided to The Energy 202. Francis, the group's head, said park sites should reopen only after staff has been properly trained, provided personal protective equipment and given housing that allows for social distancing. “A gap in any of those pieces could cause a spike” in covid-19 cases, said Francis, who also is a former superintendent of the Blue Ridge Parkway. And Bernhardt and his staff add that decisions to close or reopen parks are being made in tandem with governors and other local leaders. “In every case where a state or local public health official has requested a NPS unit close,” Picavet said, “we have done so.” While parks are increasing recreational access, she added, “a return to full operations will continue to be phased and services may be limited.” Though more than 250 of the 419 National Park Service units have remained open in some capacity through the pandemic, a number of the most popular parks — including the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone and Yosemite — have shuttered. The parks closed largely at the behest of local politicians and public health officials who did not want to see nearby communities — often small and lacking in hospital beds — become covid-19 hot spots. Late last month, Trump announced on Earth Day his administration “will begin to reopen our national parks” after making “significant progress against the invisible enemy.” Since then, the president has said he is planning to attend a July 3 fireworks over Mount Rushmore. And he used the cavernous inside of the Lincoln Memorial to host a virtual town hall with Fox News. “Certain states are going to have to take a little more time in getting open, and they’re doing that,” Trump said during the event Sunday. “Some states, I think, frankly, aren’t going fast enough.” Oil prices rallied as some European and Asian countries, as well as some U.S. states, began to loosen