NASA is on an epic roll. But can it keep the momentum going?

After years in which NASA seemed like an afterthought in the national consciousness and was at the back of the line when the federal budget was allocated, the space agency appears to be on a roll. It’s basking in the successful completion Sunday of the first crewed space mission launched from U.S. soil in nearly a decade and the launch last week of a new rover to Mars. It’s already planning its next astronaut launch, perhaps as soon as next month. The question now is: Can it maintain its mojo? NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine is hoping to capitalize on the moment, seeking to leverage the recent triumphs and the run of good news they’ve generated into support for NASA’s expansive new budget requests. He made that clear at an event in Houston Sunday evening where he welcomed NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley home and said their exploits were proof that NASA does great things. It could do more, if only Congress would agree, he said. “What I’m asking our members of Congress to do is look at what we’ve done with what we have,” he said. “And if you fund us at our budget request level, we will be on the moon. . . . The next step is we’re going to the moon and then onto Mars. This is about momentum. It starts today, and it finishes when we put an American flag on Mars.” In an interview Monday, he said the agency was only getting started, reeling off a series of major missions to come that he hopes will galvanize interest in space and congressional support. Next year, the space agency is planning to fly its Orion spacecraft on a trip around the moon without astronauts, as well as two robotic missions to deliver science experiments to the lunar surface. If all goes well, it would also launch the $9.8 billion James Webb telescope in 2021, and the first-ever mission to Jupiter’s Trojan asteroids. But the coronavirus pandemic could impact all of those schedules. And the funding for NASA’s flagship mission, the Artemis program that would return astronauts to the lunar surface by 2024, is mired in a political debate. The White House has requested $25.2 billion for NASA next year, a significant increase that would help fund Artemis. NASA had originally planned to send astronauts there by 2028, but the White House directed the space


In Dagestan, a covid recount adds to questions on Russia’s overall numbers

MOSCOW — In Russia's Dagestan region, the official coronavirus figures started to seem suspicious to residents back in April. The mountainous republic in the North Caucasus region along the Caspian Sea was reporting just two to three fatalities per day from covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, at the time. That didn’t add up when a single village might hold five funerals in one afternoon. Dagestan’s officials eventually acknowledged that the real number of coronavirus cases and deaths was probably much higher. And, in the process, Dagestan became a point of reference for questions on the overall tallies in Russia, which reports the world’s fourth-largest number of confirmed cases but a mortality rate that is about a fifth that of U.S. per capita figures, according to Johns Hopkins University data. For the Kremlin, its claims of a low death rate are hailed as a tribute to Russia’s medical system and the leadership of President Vladimir Putin. Any attempts to challenge that narrative — such as whether coronavirus cases and deaths are often misclassified — are quickly slapped down by Putin’s government. But Dagestan’s recount is much harder for Moscow to dismiss. Responding to local pressure, Dagestan’s health minister acknowledged in a May 16 interview with a local blogger that the official coronavirus numbers were likely a sliver of the reality. At the time, Dagestan was reporting about 3,500 confirmed cases and just 29 deaths. The health minister, Dzhamaludin Gadzhiibragimov, then said the total number of people infected with coronavirus and community-acquired pneumonia exceeded 13,000, with more than 650 dead. The reason for the disconnect: Dagestan was counting coronavirus and pneumonia separately because of insufficient testing capacity. (More than two months after Gadzhiibragimov’s admission, Dagestan’s official numbers — 445 deaths and approximately 9,300 cases — are still lower than those he first quoted.) Even so, the case of Dagestan points to wider debates over Russia’s counting methodology, especially the possibility of deaths from coronavirus-infected patients being attributed to related causes, such as pneumonia. “If you go to dinner with 10 people in Dagestan now, probably seven would say they had coronavirus,” said Ziyatdin Uvaisov, the head of Patient Monitor, a Dagestan-based nongovernmental aid organization. Russia has lifted most of its coronavirus-related restrictions, saying its infection curve has peaked. In a meeting with government health officials Wednesday, Putin said “the number of new cases is now practically two times lower


not the coronavirus. Rosstat’s May numbers, which were released on July 10, cited 7,444 people dying in Russia because of the coronavirus, but an additional 5,008 people — counted separately even though they were diagnosed with covid-19 — died of other illnesses that developed in large part because of the disease, or from unrelated causes. Even with the numbers divided into separate categories, the statistic agency’s figures are higher than those put out by Russia’s main government-run coronavirus website. It said 3,686 people died of the coronavirus in May. “It just shouldn’t be that the number of newly discovered cases would be the same or nearly the same every day,” Raksha said. “I’m a statistician. I know how actual figures look like and they’re really volatile. Except for maybe Moscow, the statistics on this website are just absolute crap.” Russia has been sensitive to scrutiny of how it counts coronavirus deaths. In May, the Foreign Ministry condemned some foreign media for reporting that the country’s coronavirus death toll might be much higher than government officials were saying. When asked why the mortality rate was so low in Russia, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told CNN in June: “Have you ever thought about the possibility of Russia’s health-care system being more effective?” Raksha, who first published his suspicions on Facebook before speaking to the New York Times, said he was reprimanded for his comments and then eventually pressured to resign from his position at Rosstat. The agency did not return requests for comment. Raksha said that for the month of June, of the 60 Russian regions that were expected to upload their registration statistics — things such as births, deaths, marriages and divorces — to Rosstat, half of them did not. Some regions provided the numbers for everything but deaths, he said. “They were probably too afraid, because there were too many deaths and they’re afraid to be punished,” he said. In Dagestan, Magomed Magomedov, editor of the independent Chernovik newspaper in the capital, Makhachkala, said local officials initially didn’t want “to worry the population” with reports of the outbreak spreading rapidly. “That was the reason why, at the beginning, people here didn’t take the infection seriously,” Magomedov added. “But then when people started dying in mass and we had 600 or 700 new patients in the hospital, it wasn’t possible to hide this information anymore.” Within days after the health minister’s


NASA astronauts aboard SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule splash down in the Gulf of Mexico

entering the area, numerous boaters ignored the Coast Guard crews’ requests and decided to encroach the area, putting themselves and those involved in the operation in potential danger,” the Cost Guard said in a statement, adding that it would launch a “comprehensive review” of the operation with NASA and SpaceX. “We had all the clearance that was required at landing. That capsule was in the water for a good period of time and the boats just made a bee line for it,” Bridenstine said. “It’s a big area we have to clear and it’s probably going to take more resources. ... We need to do a better job next time for sure." Technicians aboard the Go Navigator also briefly delayed opening the hatch because of a build-up of harmful fumes around the capsule. Mission controllers detected higher-than-appropriate amounts of “hypergolic fumes,” or fumes that could explode when coming in contact with one another. Tests found no toxic fumes inside the capsule. NASA and SpaceX said they also took extra precautions because of the coronavirus pandemic. The crews on the ship were tested and quarantined, and everyone was to be wearing masks. Each of the astronauts gave a thumbs up sign as they were wheeled off the spacecraft on a stretcher — a routine practice for astronauts who’ve experience prolonged period without gravity. “Thank you for doing the most important parts and most difficult parts of human spaceflight, sending us into orbit and bringing us home safely," said Behnken, who was first out of the capsule. "Thank you very much for the good ship Endeavour.” Hurley came out moments later. "For anyone who’s touched Endeavour, you should take a moment to cherish this day given everything that’s happened this year,” he said. Behnken and Hurley were scheduled to fly back to Houston Sunday to be reunited with their families. Hurley and Behnken are both married to astronauts they met in their astronaut class 20 years ago. While Hurley’s wife, Karen Nyberg, is no longer in the astronauts corps, Benhken’s wife, Megan McArthur, is. She’s scheduled to fly to the space station in the spring of 2021 on the very same spacecraft that brought her husband home Sunday. Before that happens, NASA and SpaceX will evaluate the capsule to make sure it performed as expected. If all goes according to plan, SpaceX’s next human spaceflight mission could come within six weeks. CORRECTION:


Undergraduates approach new school year with hope — and uncertainty

was eager to get started. A political science major, she especially looked forward to being in Washington in a momentous election year. “My whole life I’ve wanted to go into politics. It’s something I’m passionate about, and there’s no better place to go than Washington, D.C., to be part of that culture,” she said in an interview last week. “Even though freshman year is not going to be what I expected, it’s still going to be this great experience to catapult me into the next part of my life.” On Monday, McAuliffe learned that the catapult had boomeranged, at least for now. George Washington announced that all classes would be online-only and that on-campus housing would be provided for only a small number of students. “I was honestly really surprised, because George Washington had such a thorough plan for reopening this fall, but I still think it was the right decision,” McAuliffe said in a text message Monday. “Although it is disappointing to me and all my peers, the pandemic has taken far too many lives and I would not want to contribute to any further spread of the coronavirus. I’m proud that George Washington was able to make the responsible choice, but I’m sad that it will cost me my first semester of college.” Kayah Woodford, who is entering her sophomore year at Ohio State University, says the pandemic is taking away experiences she’ll never get back. “There’s no energy or atmosphere like being on a college campus. Everybody loves being a Buckeye,” she said. “But covid has been so devastating. I feel like these are the best years of my life and I’m missing out on them. I crave the normalcy that I took for granted just a few months ago.” But if the pandemic closed school, it opened an unexpected opportunity for Woodford. After George Floyd’s death in the custody of Minneapolis police officers, Woodford, 18, formed an anti-racism project in her hometown of Bexley, Ohio. The experience of organizing and running the project made her think about learning in a classroom vs. the real-world experience she was gaining this summer. “I considered taking a year off. My organizing effort is like a full-time job,” she said. “I’m doing a lot for the project, and I can only imagine where it would go if I could devote all of my efforts to it. I ask myself, ‘What’s


Photos | How tourist attractions around the world look during the pandemic

As the coronavirus continues to put a damper on long-awaited travel plans, we’re still finding ways to make the days go by just a little faster. Around the world, music venues, sports stadiums and other gathering places are adapting to pandemic-influenced lifestyles. Entertainment that is normally indoors is now outside. When not possible, indoor spaces are frequently sanitized and given capacity limits to ensure social distancing. Events have even headed to virtual venues, with cities finding unique ways to enforce safe practices. It’s a different way of living, but our new “normal” has proved there are still ways to enjoy life’s pleasures. Read more: Photos | An inside look at Disney park reopenings around the world If you can’t get to a national park, appreciate their beauty with these 11 photos Anonymous neighbors and rooftop views: Three photographers’ dispatches from isolation


Montgomery County health officials tell private schools to start school online

So has every major public school in the Washington region. Like Gayles, school leaders elsewhere argued that they had to act because the United States has failed to contain the coronavirus. The country recently hit a dark milestone of at least 150,000 virus-related deaths, according to a Washington Post tally, and at least 4.5 million cases have been reported. In Maryland, there have been at least 89,000 cases and 3,500 virus-related deaths, per a Post count, and rates of infection rose steadily throughout the month of June. Montgomery County has been especially hard-hit, reporting the second-highest number of cases (more than 17,600) and the highest death count (at least 789) in the state. As infection rates ticked and then soared upward over the summer, politicians, scientists, teachers’ unions, parents and school administrators went to war over whether and how to reopen school buildings. The science is inconclusive: Although many children do not appear to become seriously ill or die of covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, it is unclear how easily they spread it. A recent report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that more than three-quarters of the children and staffers at a Georgia sleep-away camp in June became infected after spending less than a week together. Still, guidance on the CDC website recommends that schools reopen, although critics have charged that government health officials are buckling to pressure from the president. Gayles’s announcement left some parents reeling. Leslie Zarrelli, mother to a junior high student at St. Andrew Apostle School in Kemp Mill, said she feels bewildered and disappointed. Zarrelli had watched the Catholic elementary and middle school take exhaustive precautions to ensure the safety of its roughly 300 students, preparing for health screenings and spacing out desks. The school, which charges roughly $8,400 per student, had offered families a choice between three models, Zarrelli said: 100 percent in-person learning, three days of in-person learning each week and fully virtual learning. Zarrelli, confident in the preparations, had picked the first option. “I know social distancing would have been possible, because I went up to the school and saw the classrooms with the desks apart,” she said. “I felt very comfortable — and now it seems like at the 11th hour, they’re just pulling the rug out from under these schools.” It’s unfair, she said, that St. Andrew won’t get a chance to try


Colombian guerrillas are using coronavirus curfews to expand their control. Violators have been killed.

released with a warning, to seek assistance on their own. “Absolutely no one helped us,” Paredes, a prosecutor in Tumaco who handles domestic abuse cases, said from the safety of a neighboring city. “One person approached us, because I screamed. I begged for help because my friend was bleeding out horribly. He came close to the window of our car and told us, ‘Hey, quiet, because here, it is prohibited to help.’ ” Human rights groups, community leaders and government officials say a toxic slate of leftist guerrillas, right-wing paramilitaries and drug cartels are using the outbreak to consolidate control over parts of a country still reeling from the aftermath of five decades of armed conflict. The increasingly violent competition shows the power of the pandemic to deepen preexisting societal challenges and loosen the grip of government in fragile states. “For these groups, this isn’t a health issue,” said Gimena Sanchez-Garzoli, Andes director at the Washington Office on Latin America. “It’s about exerting social control on the population.” While the government of President Iván Duque is focusing on a worsening coronavirus outbreak — the country has reported more than 204,000 infections and nearly 7,000 deaths — the draconian measures imposed by armed groups are serving at least two purposes: to expand control over roads and communities central to narcotrafficking and illegal mining, and to reinforce their standing as the absolute rulers of their territories. The conditions here echo a global trend of armed groups moving to supplant weak governments during the pandemic. The Taliban in Afghanistan, Comando Vermehlo in Rio and MS-13 in El Salvador, among others, have imposed their own curfews and, in some instances, distributed food, masks and disinfectant in areas they control. But the Colombian groups have distinguished themselves in the level of violence they’re applying to enforcement. Observers fear they’re accelerating an already dangerous drift away from the 2016 peace accord that ended the 52-year conflict between the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or the FARC. Critics blame Duque, who opposed the peace accord before he became president in 2018, for the slow pace of promised land reform and faltering efforts to reintegrate former FARC fighters into society. They say his conservative administration has not done enough to stop the killings of leftist community leaders and ex-rebels. Now, FARC dissidents — guerrillas who have taken up arms again, or never put them down


The Daily 202: PR_8-04-2020_ProdTest04_ML - THIS IS A TEST - PLEASE IGNORE!!

but also a fast track to put its people back to work, a powerful public health tool to protect its citizens and a precious resource to reward allies.” “For a time, early in the pandemic, when Latin America was mostly a spectator watching outbreaks in China, then Europe, then the United States, there was hope that when the coronavirus arrived here, things would be different. The climate was warmer. The people were younger. The governments had more time to study the mistakes made elsewhere, and to prepare,” Terrence McCoy reports. “Weeks later, more than a million people have been infected, tens of thousands are dead, and those hopes are gone. … More than 31,000 [have died in Brazil]. … Peru has now confirmed twice as many infections as China. Mexico has suffered more than 10,000 deaths. Officials in Chile, now in the throes of one of the world’s most explosive outbreaks, warn that the hospital system in Santiago is teetering at capacity. The World Health Organization has declared Latin America the new epicenter of the global pandemic.” Rebel threats, secret burials and shuttered hospitals mask the spread of the pandemic in Yemen. The president wants top health officials to approve a vaccine by year’s end, and this could lead to cutting corners. “The goal is to instill confidence among voters that the virus can be tamed and the economy fully reopened under Trump’s stewardship. In a meeting last month with Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar — who is overseeing the effort called Operation Warp Speed, along with Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper — Trump pushed Azar repeatedly to speed up the already unprecedented timeline," Yasmeen Abutaleb, Josh Dawsey, Laurie McGinley and Carolyn Johnson report. "Some scientists and even several people close to the White House worry that his fixation on the timeline, combined with his past dismissal of scientists’ recommendations, could put regulators under intense pressure to approve some sort of limited use of a vaccine before it has been adequately vetted for safety and effectiveness.” “The Trump administration this month announced that one of its largest pandemic-related contracts would go to a little-known biodefense company named Emergent BioSolutions. … The $628 million deal to help manufacture an eventual vaccine cemented Emergent’s status as the highest-paid and most important contractor to the HHS office responsible for preparing for public health threats and maintaining the government’s stockpile of emergency


With bad coronavirus news at home, Trump points misleadingly to rising cases abroad

to other nations. “With the exception of New York & a few other locations, we’ve done MUCH better than most other Countries in dealing with the China Virus. Many of these countries are now having a major second wave. The Fake News is working overtime to make the USA (& me) look as bad as possible!” Trump tweeted early Monday. He has said the United States is doing better than Europe, where infections largely peaked earlier; better than South Korea, which has a fraction of the cases and deaths of the United States; and better than Mexico, where Trump also says his partial border wall is helping keep Americans safe from the virus. “You take a look, why don’t they talk about Mexico? Which is not helping us. And all I can say is thank God I built most of the wall, because if I didn’t have the wall up we would have a much bigger problem with Mexico,” Trump said during a “Fox News Sunday” interview with Chris Wallace late last month. It’s a familiar pattern of deflection for Trump, who routinely spreads the blame to perceived antagonists including the news media, Democrats or foreigners. But the comparisons don’t always mean what Trump thinks they do, as with his erroneous claim that the high U.S. caseload is a function of more testing rather than wider underlying infection. “Cases are up because we have the best testing in the world and we have the most testing. No country has ever done what we’ve done in terms of testing. We are the envy of the world. They call and they say the most incredible job anybody’s done is our job on testing, because we’re going to very shortly be up to 50 million tests,” Trump said in the Fox interview. “You look at other countries; they don’t even do tests. They do tests if somebody walks into the hospital, they’re sick, they’re really sick, they test them then, or they’ll test them in a doctor’s office. But they don’t go around have massive areas of testing, and we do. And I’m glad we do, but it really skews the numbers.” The portrait is misleading at best, according to public health experts. “Most of the observations the president makes about the virus are inaccurate,” said Cheryl Healton, dean of the School of Global Public Health at New York University. She pointed to


Big 12 sets football schedule of nine conference games, one nonconference matchup

adjusted 2020 football season because of the novel coronavirus pandemic. The 10 schools in the Big 12 will play all of the other teams in the conference, as usual. Those matchups are expected to begin “sometime between mid- to late September,” the conference said in its announcement. The lone nonconference game will take place before those intraconference matchups. The Big 12 will hold its championship game Dec. 12 or 19. “I would like to salute the work of our university presidents and chancellors, athletic directors, coaches, medical advisors and administrators who have worked tirelessly and collaboratively during these extraordinary times,” Commissioner Bob Bowlsby said in a statement. “We believe this change provides the best opportunity going forward. However, we will undoubtedly need to be flexible as we progress through the season in order to combat the challenges that lie ahead.” The Big Ten, Pac-12 and SEC will play conference-only schedules this fall. The ACC announced an 11-game schedule with one nonconference game, which would have allowed some storied in-state rivalries to be played this year if the SEC had chosen a similar model. Eliminating nonconference games gives the leagues more flexibility with scheduling, particularly if coronavirus outbreaks within teams force cancellations or postponements. Professional sports leagues, such as the NBA, WNBA and NHL, have had success returning to play inside bubbles, which keep players and personnel separated from the public. But that setup is not possible for college football, which will resemble MLB with its return-to-play model in home markets. The St. Louis Cardinals and the Miami Marlins have had major outbreaks in the MLB season that started July 23. College football programs returned to voluntary workouts in June and will soon begin fall camp. Numerous schools have had coronavirus cases within their programs, and some have had to temporarily shut down workouts. Similar outbreaks during the season could prompt chaotic rescheduling. The NCAA’s recommendations for returning to play amid the coronavirus call for 14 days of quarantine for those who have come in close contact with someone who tested positive. The guidelines note that “this could mean an entire team (or teams).” Read more: Pac-12 football players threaten boycott if health and social justice demands are not met On a call with SEC leaders, worried football players pushed back: ‘Not good enough’ As the NCAA asks Congress for help on NIL legislation, lawmakers want more rights for college athletes


Those surges in coronavirus cases in other countries that Trump keeps talking about? They aren’t like ours.

to 100 percent of that July 22 high (including, obviously, July 22 itself). You’ll notice that cluster of averages in the 30 to 45 percent range. That’s the plateau we reached in late May and early June of about 22,000 new cases a day. From there, the daily numbers went back up. Now compare the United States with Spain, as Trump demanded. Yes, the past two weeks saw more cases than the two weeks before that — but well off the country’s high of about 8,000 cases per day. That’s an important point here, too: Spain’s peak constituted about 173 people for every million residents, while the U.S. peak made up 207 cases per million. The recent surge has led not to a new high but an uptick to about 2,000 cases a day, or about 43 cases per million. That’s the pattern in France and Germany, too. Yes, the daily average number of cases has increased over the past month, but to small fractions of the highs each country saw. In other places, like South Korea, there hasn’t been a significant number of new cases at all. Speaking with Swan, Trump pointed to Moscow and Brazil. Russia overall hasn’t seen a significant recent increase, relative to its high point. It’s been seeing daily cases at about half that peak. In Brazil, the pattern looks more like the one in the United States. We will let you be the judge of whether it is a point in Trump’s favor that his management of the virus mirrors that of the idiosyncratic, near-autocratic leader of Brazil. Trump has also noted the recent increase in Australia, where the number of new cases has indeed grown of late. But again, we’re talking about a high of 499 cases a day — less than 1 percent of the U.S. peak and about 20 cases per million residents. To Trump’s point, Indonesia has seen a new high in daily cases (constituting seven cases per million residents). So has Mexico, a point Trump likes to make when claiming the pandemic has made the wall on the southern U.S. border that much more necessary. As we’ve pointed out, a closed border is probably more desirable for Mexico, given that its high in daily cases is about one-ninth that of the United States. The country saw about 54 residents per million being infected at the daily peak, a quarter


D.C. schools took a wise step to help prevent something worse than coronavirus

District, which serves some 200,000 students, and, in our own backyard, Fairfax, Montgomery and Loudoun counties, whose remote starts cumulatively affect nearly 435,000 students. Given the difficulties in ensuring the virtual participation of students this spring, it’s hard to imagine districts will tell their students that they can’t participate in remote learning in the fall without a vaccination form. This leaves huge numbers of students potentially at risk for preventable infectious diseases. While closing schools may mitigate the danger from the coronavirus, it doesn’t guarantee that children won’t congregate and risk catching other diseases. When schools are meeting virtually, thousands of parents, many with unvaccinated children, will have to find child care somewhere. As established child-care centers are increasingly strained, parents will look to informal child care or new facilities that lack typical vaccine regulations. Many parents are also opting out of traditional school in favor of small “learning pods,” or micro schools made up of several community families. It is doubtful participating families will have any vaccine regulations. Children will gather even if schools are closed, but because many more of these children will be unvaccinated, there will be increased risk of diseases more dangerous to them than covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. The mercilessness of this pandemic means public health authorities, who already have their hands full because of the coronavirus, must find a way to raise vaccination rates for unvaccinated children, often without relying on schools and their typical role as a backstop measure. They will need to identify children who may be congregating in unknown, often unregulated child-care arrangements without safeguards for vaccinations. As authorities in New York City and Michigan will attest, failure to do so could pose serious threats to children’s health. If authorities can’t figure out how to solve the problem of falling vaccination rates while schools are closed, we may have more dangerous outbreaks to worry about than just the coronavirus. Read more: Leana S. Wen: Here’s what it could look like if schools reopened today Leana S. Wen: As the toll of covid-19 worsens, the U.S. has three options Joseph G. Allen and Richard Corsi: We can — and must — reopen schools. Here’s how. David Von Drehle: This spring, the virus made our decisions for us. It’s doing the same with schools. Danielle Allen: We missed one chance to open schools safely. Here’s the new, more expensive, option.


We all have a stake in SpaceX’s success. The pandemic ought to make clear why.

the end of the Cretaceous period. Most scientists now believe this was caused by a massive meteor, more than six miles across, that crashed into Earth near what is now the Yucatán Peninsula. New mountains were thrown up in an instant, tsunamis battered the coasts, forest fires ravaged the continental interiors, aerosols were thrown skyward that, along with the smoke from the fires, dimmed the sun and lowered temperatures. Most of the planet’s known species weren’t adapted for this harsh new environment, and in the aftermath of the great meteor, approximately three-quarters vanished. Most educated people are aware that a meteor killed the dinosaurs, but prefer not to meditate on its corollary: If another meteor like that hits, humanity might well be among the species that go extinct. Such collisions are a regular event in the long history of our planet; even now, astronomers keep recording a disconcerting number of near misses. A robust space program thus offers us two kinds of important protection: First, we could eventually develop the capacity to detect and deflect a potential collision; and second, even if we were unable to do so, part of humanity could be elsewhere when disaster hit, allowing the species to survive. It may seem silly to plan against a cosmic disaster that last happened millions of years ago — especially when there is a microscopic yet deadly threat stalking us right now. But note that until March, it struck most people as pretty silly to worry more about a pandemic than about threats from overgrown bureaucracy or the seasonal flu. And indeed, modern public health efforts had lowered the yearly risk of such a contagion significantly. It’s just that over a sufficiently long timespan, those low annual risks accumulate into something more like a certainty — and you never know, in a given year, whether this is the time humanity wins the lottery — or, rather, loses it. So even if your spirit isn’t moved by the thought that a species of weak and hairless plains ape has somehow managed to vault itself once again toward the stars, you should still care about our progress in that direction. The more people we can put into space, the more likely it becomes that we will be able to keep everyone safe at home. Read more from Megan McArdle’s archive, follow her on Twitter or subscribe to her updates on Facebook.


Covid-19 has exposed the flaws in how we finance hospitals

Though covid-19 has filled hospital beds in hot spots across the country, the disease has walloped hospitals’ financial well-being. Throughout the spring, the industry claimed financial losses of $60 billion a month because of postponed elective procedures. Health-care workers, lauded as heroes, have seen their wages cut even as they are pressed into service to battle the virus. The pandemic has been so bad for hospitals because the health-care system was designed around profit rather than care. Administrators created specialty departments to generate profits, overselling high-priced surgical and technological procedures instead of aiming to provide needed, affordable care for everyone. Covid-19 has laid bare the cost of those decisions. Starting in the early 20th century, hospital administrators and physicians found that innovations like X-ray and radiotherapy devices returned revenue greater than expenses, unlike the sort of day-to-day care hospitals traditionally provided. Eager to capture these profits, administrators purposefully developed high-tech specialty units as profit centers at the expense of less-lucrative services. They prioritized “super acute” specialty centers over badly needed general acute-care services, such as treating people with infections, asthma attacks, mental health crises and injuries from car wrecks. Hospitals were not the only institutions driving this change. Insurance companies, which grew significantly after World War II as medical services and costs increased, agreed to pay more for procedures than for office visits or general acute care to offset the high costs of equipment and specialists. This created incentives for hospitals to build facilities for specialties with procedures reimbursed at the highest possible rates, rather than necessary services that promised lower rates from insurers. The most common methods of financing hospital construction and specialty infrastructure compounded the situation. Business tycoons and their wealthy foundations funded the construction of many specialty-oriented academic hospitals in the 1920s as tax-deductible philanthropy. Following two decades of very little hospital construction during the Depression and war years, government took up the slack. The federal Hill-Burton program initially provided grants to build community hospitals, although it limited the program to communities with the financial means to pay for hospital care, meaning the federal government was subsidizing community hospitals in wealthier areas. In the 1970s, this program switched from grants to loan guarantees, which increased not only the inequities but also the power of the finance industry that profited from the loans. This period marked a critical moment when the financial sector began to play a major


Bill aimed at reshaping U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee passed by Senate

The governance structure of Olympic sports in the United States would receive renewed oversight aimed at protecting young athletes from the kind of abuse that roiled the gymnastics world and upended the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee under a bill approved Tuesday in the Senate. The Empowering Olympic, Paralympic and Amateur Athletes Act passed the Senate by unanimous consent Tuesday. The bill, which was introduced in July 2019, had bipartisan support, and lawmakers are hopeful for a quick passage in the House. The bill gives Congress the ability to dissolve the USOPC’s board of directors and to decertify individual sports’ governing bodies for their failures. It also calls for an oversight commission charged with a top-to-bottom examination of the USOPC and the 1978 Amateur Sports Act; aims to increase athlete representation in governing bodies; and calls for more funding and independence for the U.S. Center for SafeSport, the government-created entity charged with policing and preventing sexual abuse in Olympic sports “Despite the Olympics being postponed and everything that is going on around the world today, I’m grateful that we’re able to deliver good news and take this step today,” Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), who co-sponsored the legislation, said on the Senate floor. “We are not done. We intend to keep that promise and get this bill across the finish line.” After the legislation passed, USOPC chief executive Sarah Hirshland issued a statement thanking the senators for their work on “this important legislation.” “It will cement increases in athlete representation in the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic movements, improvements in athlete safety protections, and increases in transparency and accountability in our system,” she said. “The USOPC board recently approved the second phase of the most sweeping governance reforms in recent history. Building on that commitment and this legislation, we will move rapidly to implement reforms to address any outstanding provisions from this bill.” In the wake of the gymnastics sex abuse scandal involving team physician Larry Nassar, USOPC officials have made regular visits to Capitol Hill and the organization has taken on a series of overhaul measures, including many called for in the Senate bill. The organization has replaced its chief executive and its board chair and has striven to instill an athlete-first culture, increasing resources for its Athletes’ Advisory Council, boosting athlete representation on the board of directors and committees, and aiming for greater transparency. On Monday, the organization released its


Trump is resurrecting the census’s horrific history

Karen Bass, a Democrat, represents California’s 37th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives. Stacey Abrams, a Democrat, was minority leader of the Georgia House of Representatives from 2011 to 2017. To tell the story of America, we must see who lives within her borders. The census is the constitutionally protected tool wielded every 10 years to take stock, assess the accuracy of our national narrative, and ensure a fair and equitable distribution of political power and money to the places where people live. The mandatory decennial count is laid out in the founding documents of our nation. Over time, we have bettered its process from its original horrific approach. For nearly a century, for every five black Americans, only three were included in the count — the despicable Three-Fifths Compromise built on the assumption that each Black person was subhuman, three-fifths of one. After the Civil War, the 14th Amendment eliminated this practice and, now, the Constitution guarantees an enumeration of “whole” persons. Unfortunately, in 2020, a century and a half later, the current president is regressing toward that more dishonorable history. His recent executive action to exclude undocumented people from the census holds terrible echoes of erasure and exclusion. The memo is clearly a repeat of his previous efforts to stoke fear of immigrants, refugees and communities of color and to distort the true picture of America. Along with this fear tactic, the Trump administration is stealthily trying to end the 2020 Census early, without accurately counting Black, Latino or Native American communities, whose response rates currently trail the national average. Asian and Pacific Islander communities are also at risk of being undercounted. Worse, the Trump administration wants to use the coronavirus pandemic as an excuse to use a flawed statistical tool that will cement the erasure of these populations. The consequences of that erasure will be dire. Every 10 years, the census count is used to allocate federal funds and to reallocate political power through reapportionment and redistricting. At stake is the annual distribution of $1.5 trillion for everything from schools to health care to the roads and bridges we drive on. Undercounted communities will get less than their real need. This will be particularly felt in communities of color which have been disproportionately ravaged by covid-19. Make no mistake, the ramifications will be felt nationwide as it would guarantee a crippled systematic response that would


John Hume, Nobel laureate who championed peace in Northern Ireland, dies at 83

signed, the Nobel Committee in Oslo awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to Mr. Hume and David Trimble, the Protestant leader of the Ulster Unionist Party, “for their efforts to find a peaceful solution to the conflict in Northern Ireland.” While political observers credited Adams and other leaders with helping to forge the agreement, the committee cited Mr. Hume as “the clearest and most consistent of Northern Ireland’s political leaders in his work for a peaceful solution.” Interviewed after the Nobel announcement, Adams told the New York Times that “there would be no peace process but for his courage and vision.” On a visit to Derry in 1995, President Bill Clinton called Mr. Hume “Ireland’s most tireless champion for civil rights and its most eloquent voice of nonviolence.” The Good Friday Agreement came after years of struggle for Mr. Hume, who waded through tear gas as a fledgling politician and once tried to defuse a standoff between demonstrators and British paratroopers, who responded by hosing him with purple dye and arresting him. As the peace negotiations continued, his home was firebombed, his car burned out. “Ireland is not a romantic dream; it is not a flag; it is 4.5 million people divided into two powerful traditions,” he said during the peace process. “The solution will be found not on the basis of victory for either, but on the basis of agreement and a partnership.” The oldest of seven children, John Hume was born in Londonderry on Jan. 18, 1937. His father was a shipyard laborer who found it difficult to hold down a job after World War II because of discrimination against Catholics, and his mother worked in a shirt factory to support the family. Mr. Hume received a government scholarship that enabled him to attend secondary school and was a seminarian for three years before changing course. He studied French and history and received a master’s degree from St. Patrick’s College in Maynooth, near Dublin. Returning to Derry, he taught at a Catholic grammar school, organized credit unions and in 1960 married Patricia Hone, who gave up her teaching career to support Mr. Hume’s political work. She and their five children survive him. “I’ve often said I’ve been a parcel and Pat delivers me,” Mr. Hume told the Guardian in 2001. “We are a team.” Mr. Hume was elected to the Northern Ireland Parliament in 1969, helped found the SDLP


Federal officials warn of seasonal spike in polio-like condition that mostly affects children

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned parents and caregivers Tuesday to watch out for an uncommon, polio-like condition that mostly strikes children, usually between August and November. Acute flaccid myelitis The disease is very rare, but a quick response is critical once the weakness sets in; the disease can progress over hours or days and lead to permanent paralysis or respiratory failure, according to a report issued Tuesday by the CDC. Among 238 cases in 2018 reviewed by the CDC, 98 percent of patients were hospitalized, 54 percent required intensive care, and 23 percent were placed on ventilators to help them breathe. Most patients were hospitalized within a day of experiencing weakness, but about 10 percent were not hospitalized until four or more days later, possibly because of failure to recognize the syndrome, the report said. Limb weakness, difficulty walking and limb pain are often preceded by fever or respiratory illness, usually by about six days, the CDC said. Hundreds of U.S. children have been affected, and many do not fully recover. A number of viruses — including West Nile virus, adenovirus and non-polio enteroviruses — are known to produce the symptoms in a small number of people who become infected by those pathogens. But enterovirus, particularly one dubbed EV-D68, appears to be the most common cause, the CDC said. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases is working on a vaccine for EV-D68. Thomas Clark, the deputy director of the CDC’s division of viral diseases, said the coronavirus pandemic may force doctors to evaluate patients by phone or telemedicine, but he warned that they should not delay if they suspect the syndrome, which is considered a medical emergency. It is unclear whether mask-wearing, social distancing and other measures that have been taken against the coronavirus will limit the outbreak of acute flaccid myelitis expected this year.


Congress must intervene to make sure Trump doesn’t sabotage the census

congressional districts, pushing the deadline back from Dec. 31 to the following April. The administration agreed. Now, however, the administration is abandoning its support for that delay. At the same time, it has also cut short the door-knocking phase by a full month, saying that operation must be completed by Sept. 30. Door-to-door outreach is essential to reach communities of color and other marginalized groups — exactly the people who Trump wants to leave behind. The House-passed version of the latest relief measure includes an extension of the head count deadline. That was not included, however, in the Senate Republican proposal. It is imperative that the final package include an extension. Denying the Census Bureau adequate time to navigate covid-19 makes clear that the president wants to decide who counts and who does not in the United States. In the event that Trump does not serve a second term, cutting the census short would ensure that decisions about congressional apportionment are made under his presidency. By its actions, the administration is forcing the bureau to neglect millions of people of color, rural residents, people with disabilities and others by disrupting the modified timeline crafted by experts. At a recent press briefing, Census Bureau Associate Director Albert Fontenot stated unequivocally that due to covid-19, it is too late for the bureau to finish census operations properly and report initial results by the December deadline. Census Bureau Director Steven Dillingham testified before Congress that he wasn’t informed of the president’s order to exclude undocumented immigrants from apportionment until he read about it in the press. The census is foundational to democracy. And, when done right, it is the nation’s best reflection of “We, the People.” No one, not even the president, should get away with undermining a complete and accurate count for partisan gain. Failure to complete the census well will fail all of America at a perilous moment. The 2020 Census must do what the Constitution demands: Count all people. Read more: The Post’s View: Excluding undocumented immigrants from the census is doomed to fail, but Trump is all in The Post’s View: Trump’s push to spoil the census — and make Democrats disappear Paul Waldman: Trump tries one more time to rig the census Leah Litman: Trump lied to the Supreme Court. His new census order proves it. The Post’s View: The census is coming. The government is not ready.


Her family reunion feels unsafe. But her 98-year-old grandma wants her there.

people. But as the pandemic drags on, it is testing relatives’ resolve to remain apart. Summer reunions offer a preview of what could happen later this year, when Americans celebrate their first Thanksgiving and Christmas since the pandemic’s start. The debate about whether to hold reunions has been especially difficult for African American families, for whom large summer reunions are important rituals given extra urgency from the national reckoning on racism. At the same time, Black families also have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic. When Rowe reminded her grandma that a relative in his 20s had nearly died of covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, Davis replied with scripture. “You can’t live in fear,” Rowe recalled her grandma saying. “Faith is what you have to rely on.” As the coronavirus began its deadly march across America, it forced families to make painful concessions. Birthday parties, graduation ceremonies, weddings and funerals were canceled, postponed, downsized or streamed online. Family gatherings that were held anyway sometimes sparked outbreaks. A covid cluster at an Idaho onion-ring factory was traced back to a family reunion. A party of two dozen relatives in Charlotte led to 41 infections. And a family dinner for six in Dallas resulted in 14 people getting sick, one of whom died and another one of whom remains on a ventilator. “You cannot imagine the guilt I feel, knowing that I hosted the gathering that led to so much suffering,” the dinner party’s host wrote. Last week, Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) warned people not to assume spending time with relatives was risk-free. “The number one activity of those who have tested positive recently, reported by a staggering 44 percent . . . was attending family gatherings,” he said at a news conference in which he tightened mask and travel restrictions. “We have people saying, ‘We’re not going out. We’re going to rent a beach house together with 20 or 30 of our family and we are staying home.’ But they are spreading the virus.” Dane Riley was still debating whether to host the biennial Ruffin family reunion at Gum Springs Community Center in Northern Virginia when he learned that a cousin had been hospitalized with covid and was on a ventilator. “That pushed me over the edge,” said Riley, 58, who postponed the reunion until next summer. “I see people having gatherings in their homes, in their


The financial relief plan has worked. But it shows the woeful state of unemployment insurance.

This time, Washington bailed out Main Street. Congress’s multitrillion-dollar covid-19 legislation contained tens of billions in aid for airlines and other large businesses. The Federal Reserve has helped out Wall Street with $2 trillion in asset purchases so far. Yet three pillars of the federal economic response — enhanced unemployment insurance, direct cash payments to 160 million households and the Paycheck Protection Program for small companies — were meant to protect regular folks. And, to a remarkable degree, they have. Even as the economy shrank 9.5 percent between April and June (a 32.9 percent annual rate), and millions lost their jobs, disposable personal income rose 10 percent, due mainly to $293 billion worth of direct payments to families and $300 billion in enhanced unemployment insurance benefits. Consequently, the expected household debt crisis has not materialized. Total credit card debt has fallen from $900 billion in March to $800 billion now, and fewer than 2 percent of accounts are past due, according to the Wall Street Journal. (Of course, shopping and dining out were impossible in many places.) As for mortgages, 30-day past-due accounts have spiked, according to CoreLogic, but “serious” delinquencies — 90 days past due or more — are at a 20-year low, as are foreclosure rates. People are struggling; the poorest most of all. But it could have been far worse. This is as it should be. Government called on the people, essentially, to cease producing goods and services, and so it was up to government to shield them from financial disaster — in effect, to take individual and small business debt onto the national balance sheet. There is no immediate issue of “moral hazard”; the Main Street bailout does not reward speculative excess but compensates for imposed losses. Come to think of it, unemployment insurance, or UI, and direct payments during the pandemic have probably helped stabilize banks, too, since they have had less bad credit card and mortgage debt to write off. Things could have been much better, however. The hastily devised federal response in March highlighted the woeful state of UI in the United States, still mostly a patchwork of state systems, backed up by federal support, which includes dollars from Washington for extended benefits during severe recessions. A typical state program offers 26 weeks of benefits, replacing about 40 percent of wages, but there is wide variation. North Carolina and Florida, for example, provide


Leon Fleisher, sublime pianist undaunted by mysterious hand malady, dies at 92

long the resident chamber ensemble at the Kennedy Center, he performed contemporary chamber music; as music director of the Annapolis Symphony Orchestra and then associate conductor of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, he learned a wide range of orchestral classics. His group master classes at the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, coupled with a stint at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia, produced several generations of leading pianists, including André Watts, Yefim Bronfman and Jonathan Biss. Mr. Fleisher said his physical limitations forced him to think more profoundly about music, to put into words the technique and nuance that before had been instinctive. “Prior to my problems,” he once said, “I would sit down and play to show my students what to do.” In the classical-music world, he became regarded as a guru, known for his ability to untangle pianistic problems, for his inspiration, and for a series of adages including “Practice less, think more.” “One of the problems with young musicians today,” he said in his 2010 memoir, “My Nine Lives,” “is that they come in with such a sense of high seriousness. The idea of how great this music is tends to fill them with awe. But so much of what we do is about these guys just having fun. That earthiness is a very important part of life.” Leon Fleisher was born in San Francisco on July 23, 1928, the second son of Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. His father, Isidor, was a milliner. His mother, the former Bertha Mittelman, had great ambitions for her children and insisted on piano lessons for her oldest son, Raymond. Leon listened in to the lessons, sat down and played them more skillfully than his brother and was soon recognized by his first teachers as a major talent. When he outstripped the teaching abilities of his early mentors, his mother and former San Francisco Symphony music director Alfred Hertz decided he should study with the eminent pianist Artur Schnabel. Schnabel didn’t work with children — he did not want to waste time on basics — but 9-year-old Leon was slipped into a dinner party at the Hertzes’ home and presented for a de facto audition. On the spot, Schnabel made an exception to his policy and admitted him to his class at Lake Como in Italy. Mr. Fleisher’s mother accompanied her son across the Atlantic, then found them a place


Of course Trump’s campaign can’t reject the idea that Trump might seek foreign assistance

allegation that Trump asked Chinese President Xi Jinping to directly assist in Trump's reelection. “Trump said approvingly that there was great hostility to China among the Democrats,” Bolton wrote. “Trump then, stunningly, turned the conversation to the coming U.S. presidential election, alluding to China’s economic capability and pleading with Xi to ensure he’d win. He stressed the importance of farmers and increased Chinese purchases of soybeans and wheat in the electoral outcome." As questions about his interactions with Ukraine mounted last year, Trump specifically suggested to reporters that China should investigate Biden, yielding the sort of information at the heart of Wallace's question. The effort to leverage foreign assistance may not be limited to Trump, either. The U.S. ambassador to Brazil is reported to have asked officials in that country to reduce tariffs on ethanol specifically to aid Trump’s reelection. On Sunday, Wallace pressed Miller on the question. “But can you flatly state that the Trump campaign and the administration will not accept foreign assistance this time?” he asked. “Chris, I said that’s an absolutely silly question,” Miller replied. “We’re going to go and win this race fair and square and it’s the Democrats who are going to — ” “I'm just asking for an — I'm asking for an answer,” Wallace interjected. “It's a — it's a yes or no question, Jason." “Chris, there is no foreign assistance that's happening in this campaign,” Miller said. “But I would ask you to make sure that the Democrats aren't going to do what they tried to pull four years ago because that's exactly — they're going to try to find every possible way to cheat and steal this election, 100 percent." Miller is again apparently referring to the dossier compiled by Steele, a document that has never been shown to have informed the Clinton campaign’s approach and that was not made public until shortly before Trump was inaugurated. And, again, Miller declined — understandably, given his position — to acknowledge the rationale for Wallace’s inquiry. Trump himself was asked a similar question during an interview with George Stephanopoulos over a year ago. “I think you might want to listen, there isn’t anything wrong with listening,” Trump said. “If somebody called from a country, Norway, [and said] ‘we have information on your opponent’ — oh, I think I’d want to hear it." That answer seems more likely to be accurate than Miller’s.


Elon Musk’s spacecraft roared like ‘an animal.’ But astronauts say the SpaceX Dragon flew flawlessly.

had begun two months earlier, when Behnken and Hurley launched from the Kennedy Space Center to the space station. It was the first launch of NASA astronauts from United States soil since the space shuttle was retired in 2011. It was also the first time a private company flew humans to orbit. Along with Boeing, SpaceX, the California company founded by Elon Musk, is under contract to design spacecraft capable of flying astronauts to the station. Hurley and Behken said SpaceX’s Dragon is a heck of a vehicle that endured a fiery, high-stakes ride that went from 17,500 mph some 240 miles high in orbit to bobbing in the sea. One of the most significant events of the return came when the trunk, the unpressurized module that is covered on one half by solar arrays, separated from the capsule. Then it fired its thrusters for the “de-orbit” burn, which put the spacecraft on a trajectory to land. And finally the parachute deployments, culminating a series of events that came with surprising speed. And some force. “All the separation events, from the trunk separation through the parachute firings, were very much like getting hit in the back of a chair with a baseball bat, you know just a crack,” Behnken said. Once they were safely in the water, recovery crews descended quickly on the vehicle to make sure it was safe. But so did a flotilla of civilian boaters, who came uncomfortably close to the spacecraft, which was still loaded with propellant. SpaceX and NASA said they need to do a better job of keeping people at bay next time. But inside the spacecraft, Behnken and Hurley had no idea that they had been greeted by a small navy of gawkers because their windows were so charred. “You could basically tell that it was daylight but very little else,” Hurley said. “So we didn’t really see anything clearly out the windows.” Instead, they pulled out the satellite phone they had on board and tested it to make sure it worked. The first call was to the flight director console at NASA’s mission control center in Houston. “Hi, this is Bob and Doug,” they said. “We're in the ocean.” “Yeah, I can see that,” Anthony Vareha, the flight director recalled on Twitter. After the call ended, his colleague suggested he should have said, “Oh, crap, was splashdown supposed to be today?” By


Migrants at ICE detention centers are sitting ducks because of an inhumane policy

COVID-19 HAS exploded at migrant detention centers nationwide, infecting detainees and employees alike and seeding the disease aboard deportation flights to countries ill-equipped to respond, especially in Latin America. The facilities, run by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, are petri dishes of contagion, and the residents — many of whom have no serious criminal record — are sitting ducks in the crosshairs of an inhumane policy. A federal judge has ordered the release of migrant children at two ICE family detention centers in Texas and one in Pennsylvania, having found them at risk to the virus and to spotty enforcement of safety measures. But across the country, scores more facilities have been hit hard by the pandemic, and ICE has been unable to contain it. Roughly 1,000 new covid-19 cases have been diagnosed in ICE facilities since early July, bringing the number who have tested positive for the disease since March to roughly 4,000. That’s roughly a fifth of all those who have been tested, though some were infected before ICE took them into custody. Courts have ordered more than 500 at-risk detainees released, and ICE has released an additional 900 at its own initiative. Those reductions, along with ongoing deportations, have cut the detainee population by 40 percent since March, to roughly 22,000 now. That’s good, but it is clear that the agency’s steps to mitigate the outbreak have been inadequate. It is also clear that testing at the facilities has lagged, proper distancing at some is insufficient, and health care is not equal to the task of containment. At the Farmville Detention Center in Virginia, west of Richmond, nearly two-thirds of 400 detainees have tested positive for the virus in recent weeks. Moreover, ICE has been complicit in accelerating the pandemic’s reach into Central America, the Caribbean and elsewhere, by deporting tens of thousands of migrants since the spring, including some who were infected. At least a dozen countries assert that deportees arrived with the virus. Many were not tested before boarding the flights. On one deportation flight to India in May, 22 passengers — about 15 percent of those onboard — tested positive upon arriving in India. In Guatemala, authorities say more than 160 deportees who have arrived since April tested positive for the virus. “We understand the United States wants to deport people,” said Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei in May. “What we don’t understand is why


country, scores more facilities have been hit hard by the pandemic, and ICE has been unable to contain it. Roughly 1,000 new covid-19 cases have been diagnosed in ICE facilities since early July, bringing the number who have tested positive for the disease since March to roughly 4,000. That’s roughly a fifth of all those who have been tested, though some were infected before ICE took them into custody. Courts have ordered more than 500 at-risk detainees released, and ICE has released an additional 900 at its own initiative. Those reductions, along with ongoing deportations, have cut the detainee population by 40 percent since March, to roughly 22,000 now. That’s good, but it is clear that the agency’s steps to mitigate the outbreak have been inadequate. It is also clear that testing at the facilities has lagged, proper distancing at some is insufficient, and health care is not equal to the task of containment. At the Farmville Detention Center in Virginia, west of Richmond, nearly two-thirds of 400 detainees have tested positive for the virus in recent weeks. Moreover, ICE has been complicit in accelerating the pandemic’s reach into Central America, the Caribbean and elsewhere, by deporting tens of thousands of migrants since the spring, including some who were infected. At least a dozen countries assert that deportees arrived with the virus. Many were not tested before boarding the flights. On one deportation flight to India in May, 22 passengers — about 15 percent of those onboard — tested positive upon arriving in India. In Guatemala, authorities say more than 160 deportees who have arrived since April tested positive for the virus. “We understand the United States wants to deport people,” said Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei in May. “What we don’t understand is why they send us all these contaminated flights.” Advocates and public health officials have urged ICE to accelerate the release of at-risk detainees, who can be fitted with ankle monitors to encourage their appearance at immigration court proceedings. ICE has done some of that; it is critical that it do more. To continue detaining nonviolent detainees as the virus tightens its grip on ICE facilities is pointless and dangerous — for detainees and for employees, scores of whom have been infected with covid-19. It’s past time for ICE to intensify the fight against covid-19, and reassess a policy that has failed to contain a pandemic behind bars.


What the videos of the Beirut blast tell us about the explosion

that the explosion, which killed at least 100 people and injured thousands more, may have been ignited by burning chemicals stored at a warehouse. Many not accustomed to seeing large explosions may conflate mushroom clouds and spherical blast waves as nuclear, said Jeffrey Lewis, an arms-control expert and professor at Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey. “But some of the things we associate with nuclear explosions are just associated with explosions.” A few things can be concluded from the videos, including some filmed before the bigger of the blasts, which Lewis said may have begun when munitions in storage caught fire. A rising cloud of white smoke featured crackling and bright pops consistent with when small munitions — rockets, for instance — begin cooking off, he said. Then a fireball erupts, followed by an orb of white that quickly expands from the blast zone. That is the pressure of the shock wave condensing the moisture in the air, he said. Brian Castner, a former Air Force bomb technician and investigator at Amnesty International, echoed that on Twitter, saying the shock wave “is visible in the humid air.” Lebanese Interior Minister Mohammed Fahmi said it appeared that stocks of ammonium nitrate, a fertilizer that can be used in bombmaking, had exploded. The telltale signs of ignited ammonium — reddish smoke — spewed from the blast, Lewis said. The color is consistent with the chemical compound and comes from nitrogen oxides, the byproduct of which gives smog its reddish-brown tones. Lebanese Prime Minister Hassan Diab linked the explosions to dangerous stocks of chemicals that had been stored at the port since 2014, despite warnings from port officials that the material was not safe. “I promise you that this catastrophe will not pass without accountability. … Those responsible will pay the price,” he said in a televised speech. “Facts about this dangerous warehouse that has been there since 2014 will be announced and I will not preempt the investigations.” Around 2,700 tons were stockpiled, Lebanese President Michel Aoun said. That is near back-of-the-envelope estimates of the size of the explosion, which is around the equivalent of a “few hundred tons of TNT,” Lewis said. Ammonium nitrate is not as powerful as TNT. In 2011, a similar explosion occurred in Cyprus after munitions stored there for years exploded, killing at least 12. Liz Sly, Sarah Dadouch and Louisa Loveluck contributed to this report.


There’s no national testing strategy for coronavirus. These states banded together to make one.

its kind, was approved in May. Rather than detecting the virus’s genetic material, the antigen tests identify a protein on the virus’s surface — a process cheaper and faster than the more complex and more precise polymerase chain reaction tests being used across the country right now. While health experts have heralded the antigen tests as a way to quickly screen large populations, they have yet to be widely available. Quidel spokeswoman Jeannine Sharp Mason declined to comment on any potential discussions with the states. Becton Dickinson did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday. The Rockefeller Foundation will help guide the testing strategy and if necessary extend credit to pay for the tests ordered by the states. “We do need to send a signal to the testing manufacturers that there is a market for these tests,” said Eileen O’Connor, a senior vice president with the organization. O’Connor said the low-cost, rapid-result antigen tests are crucial to have in place before flu season to quickly distinguish between flu and covid-19 symptoms. They could also be used in mass screenings to detect asymptomatic carriers at reopened schools or businesses. But first, she said, manufacturers who see a potential vaccine on the horizon need motivation to ramp up production. The compact comes as states across the country are seeing rising coronavirus caseloads, and governors are weighing a variety of measures to curb its spread. In a letter of intent sent to the Rockefeller Foundation, the governors indicated the rapid test purchase would be the first of several multistate purchases. “We plan to leverage all available resources, collective expertise and proven cooperative contracting capabilities to enable a national cooperative agreement for national testing and tracing actions,” the letter said. The greater Washington region on Tuesday reported 1,940 additional coronavirus cases and 34 deaths, with Virginia seeing an upward trend in coronavirus fatalities.Maryland reported 710 new cases and seven deaths, Virginia added 1,145 cases and 26 deaths, and D.C. reported 85 new cases and one death. While the average daily caseload across the three jurisdictions has mostly held steady in the past week, the average daily death toll has doubled in recent days, standing at 32. The seven-day average of daily new deaths in Virginia stands at 21, its highest level in a month. The five fatalities reported in Fairfax County on Tuesday were that jurisdiction’s largest daily total since July 16.


Rafael Nadal bows out of U.S. Open, citing travel concerns amid pandemic

No. 1 Ashleigh Barty of Australia announced July 29 that she wouldn’t risk international travel to compete at the U.S. Open amid the pandemic. Nadal’s announcement came just hours after the Madrid Open, a staple of the European clay-court calendar, abandoned plans to hold the already postponed event because of the virus’s spread. Tennis would seem a relatively safe sport to contest amid a pandemic — certainly more so than contact sports — because of its natural social distancing. But officials are finding that restarting the men’s and women’s professional tours after a four-month hiatus is vastly complicated by the sport’s global nature. Its four Grand Slams are contested on three continents. And high-profile tuneups and tournaments, such as Washington’s Citi Open and the Madrid Open, are scattered throughout the world. In terms of player safety, it’s the travel that’s proving the major impediment. Wimbledon officials announced in spring they were canceling the 2020 edition because of the pandemic, which reduced the number of Grand Slams this season to three at a time when Federer, Serena Williams, Novak Djokovic and Nadal are battling age and younger rivals to extend their respective career tallies of major titles. Federer, who turns 39 on Aug. 8, leads all men with 20 Grand Slam titles. Nadal has 19. And Djokovic, 33, claimed his 17th major at the season’s outset by winning a record eighth Australian Open. On the women’s side, Williams is without peer in the modern era, with 23 Grand Slam singles titles. She is chasing the one goal to elude her — tying and surpassing Margaret Court’s record of 24 majors — but she turns 39 on Sept. 26. The French Open, which traditionally precedes Wimbledon, has been postponed to Sept. 27, just two weeks after the U.S. Open. That’s a quick turnaround given the difference in time zones under normal times. Given the heightened health risks posed by air travel, the challenge of contesting both is greater. In his social-media posts Tuesday, Nadal referred to this season’s reduced tennis calendar as “barbaric,” even as he thanked tournament officials for their efforts to ensure that events could be safely staged. To limit travel demands on players, U.S. Tennis Association officials relocated the Western & Southern Open, a combined event for men and women, from Ohio to New York to serve as a tuneup, in effect, for the following week’s U.S. Open on


Voices from Kashmir: Inside India’s year-long crackdown

is not good for business. But Indians are the ones who hailed Aug. 5 as a moment of a new dawn for Kashmir. When is the new dawn? Iram Khan, 37, whose father was killed in a shootout between security forces and militants: All I know is that over the past year, the situation has turned bad in Kashmir. We all have grown up with memories of violence. When I was in seventh grade, there was a small get-together at a relative’s house. We were expecting some guests, including a woman who was seven months pregnant. There was some tension in the area. Paramilitary forces shot her. She died on the spot. I never thought that my family would go through a similar tragedy. I was at home in Srinagar [on July 1] when I received a call from my mother. She told me Papa has died in a car accident. She was sobbing. I knew my youngest son, Iyaad, had accompanied my father, Bashir Ahmad Khan. I was sure that he must have died along with my father. When I reached my parents’ home, the neighbors told me instead that my father had been shot. Then one showed me a picture of Iyaad, which had gone viral by that time. He was sitting on my father’s dead body, crying. The cops told my brother that our father was killed in the crossfire after militants attacked a vehicle of the CRPF [Central Reserve Police Force]. But we were suspicious of the police version of events. Our father’s car did not have a single scratch on it. The inspector general of police has assured us they will conduct an inquiry, but nothing has happened so far. I have little hope. There is no possibility of justice in Kashmir. I have been to the spot where my father was killed and talked to people living nearby. All they said was that they had heard a child crying. Even if they had seen something, they wouldn’t say it. I know they are afraid. Iyaad doesn’t understand what death is. He still asks for Papa. Yesterday, I went out to do some work, and he asked me, “Are you going to bring Papa home?” He asks everyone when Papa will come back. I won’t blame any side. But people are sad. There is no happiness anywhere in Kashmir. Every household has a painful story.


Conservation & Sustainability

because that means the owners of these companies are actually having this very tough conversations with those companies. Why? Because they understand that they have to bring down their risk. This is not because they are in love with the planet and they want to save the planet. This is not about, you know, that kind of wonderful la-la land that they would say. No. This is in total protection of their assets. They know that the only way to protect their assets, and, in fact, to grow their assets, is to bring down the risk of exposure to climate change. They know that. They have understood that. Insurance companies have understood that. So, they are pressing their companies. In order to protect their assets and their value they are pressing the companies to do the right thing. Now, unfortunately, it's only 40 institutions, right? It should be every single one. Now they've only been in existence for a couple of years, as a group, and they are bringing every day more and more. So, this is a process, and, unfortunately, we don't have the political conditions to do something like a Marshall Plan. I think eventually, five years from now, we will look back and we will see the many different components that, over time, made up a sort of Marshall Plan, but we're right in the middle of it now. And it is not orchestrated top-down like the Marshall Plan was. It's actually something that is occurring bottom-up, in different sectors, as each sector realizes that the risks are way too high. MS. SELLERS: Thank you both very much for joining me today. Unfortunately, that's all I've got time for. I'd like to thank you first, Ms. Figueres, for joining me today. It was a delight to hear your views. MS. FIGUERES: Thank you. Thank you very much for bringing both Mary and me together. MS. SELLERS: And Mrs. Robinson, it was a delight to see you across the Atlantic as well, so welcome to the show and thank you for joining us. MRS. ROBINSON: Thank you very much. I enjoyed it, as always, with Christiana. We soldier on together, and will continue to. MS. FIGUERES: Thank you. MS. SELLERS: I will be back in a few minutes with Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti. Thank you very much for joining us. [Video plays.] MS. WENDLAND: Good afternoon. I'm


Conservation & Sustainability

and engendering this kind of community-driven oyster reef building project. So, you know, it's really a different mindset, I would say, altogether. And right now, I mean, we had Superstorm Sandy in the Northeast and that was a sea change. You know, no pun intended, with the water lapping at your feet in Chelsea, it was a huge wake-up call that climate change isn't some distant thing in the future. It's something that we need to do now. And I think there is also a big realization that the sort of typical gray engineering fixes, you know, sea walls, et cetera, these are short-term fixes and they're not comprehensive, they're not holistic, they don't think about more like ecological revitalization, risk reduction, and sort of social life in a really holistic way. And that's sort of where I'm hoping to push things. MS. WENDLAND: Sure. And Louisiana has one of the most elaborate coastal restoration plans in the country, which emphasizes using Mississippi River diversions to rebuild areas that have turned into open water, especially south of New Orleans, in order to protect the population center there. So really using engineering solutions to get us out of problems that were, in fact, mostly caused by engineering, like the leveeing of the Mississippi River over the past 100 years or so. So, what are some ways that we can stimulate getting engineers, like the bureaucratic Army Corps of Engineers, to think outside the box? MS. ORFF: Well, first off, I'm super inspired by all the attempts by the Army Corps and the [unclear] and other agencies to really try to address what is a profound challenge to what is America's wetlands. This is an incredible, bountiful, economic, ecological asset in the Gulf of Mexico, and it is imperiled. And I don't think there is any way to not sort of wrap our heads around this, frankly very emotional reality. We have sea levels rising. We need to reduce our CO2. And then we have wetlands subsiding. So, this is creating a kind of an existential threat to this incredible bounty of this ecosystem. I mean, I think there's been a huge amount of progress with the Army Corps of Engineers' Initiative on Engineering With Nature, and so there's really strong directions. But yes, we need to connect the river to its basins and kind of bring back this sort of age-old


FDA commissioner: No matter what, only a safe, effective vaccine will get our approval

Stephen M. Hahn, a physician, is commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration. Since the outbreak of the covid-19 pandemic, developing a safe and effective vaccine has been an urgent worldwide priority: to save lives, and to bolster the public’s confidence in returning to a semblance of normal life. At the Food and Drug Administration and our parent agency, the Department of Health and Human Services, we recognize the vital importance of vaccine development. The framework in the United States to support a covid-19 vaccine is now in place. Testing is underway and manufacturing capacity is rapidly expanding. But let’s be clear: The development effort must adhere to standards that will ensure any covid-19 vaccine’s safety and effectiveness. Large-scale clinical trials already have begun for several promising vaccine candidates. The data from these trials will enable the scientists at the FDA to determine which of these candidates has the greatest potential to provide protection from the virus, what the possible side effects are and how long immunity is likely to last. FDA scientists will need the information to decide whether approval of the vaccine for general use is justified. This fall, we expect to start identifying which vaccine candidates are truly viable. At the same time, our colleagues at Operation Warp Speed, which operates independently of the FDA as a partnership between HHS and the Defense Department, have been arranging for the stockpiling of vials and other equipment needed for a national immunization program. Success will hinge, of course, on the data that emerges from clinical trials. This testing by its very nature takes time: It takes time for the human body to develop immunity, and it often takes time for side effects to emerge. While speed is essential in this global emergency, we at the FDA are committed to maintaining strict scientific principles and protection of those who volunteer as vaccine test subjects. To prepare for the completion of tests and data submission, our agency has announced that any authorized or approved covid-19 vaccine would need to show that it prevents the disease or decreases its severity in at least 50 percent of people who are vaccinated. This is a reasonable standard given the nature and impact of the pandemic. One key element in the FDA’s testing requirements is assuring diversity among the test subjects. All phases of vaccine clinical development should include the people most affected thus far


The Health 202: Why individual models of coronavirus deaths are often wrong

with Paulina Firozi A prominent model highlighted by the Trump administration early in the coronavirus crisis projected in March that deaths in the United States would total about 82,000 by now. But the U.S. death count, now at 153,000, is nearly double that. If anything has become clear over the past five months, it’s that accurately predicting how quickly the novel coronavirus will spread and how many people it will kill several months into the future is nearly impossible. Policymakers are under intense pressure to respond to the public health crisis – and citizens also understandably want accurate numeric predictions on how many coronavirus infections and deaths to expect in the coming months. Cases and hospitalizations now appear to be dropping, but the seven-day average of new U.S. covid-19 deaths topped 1,000 for the ninth day in a row yesterday. And one of the biggest mistakes is focusing on just one model — like the one from the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) above — instead of taking many different projections into account, epidemiologists stress. “You make better forecasts when you make multiple models,” said Nick Reich, an epidemiologist at the University of Massachusetts School of Public Health. “If you rely on just one model, you’re going to be disappointed.” The CDC is funding a University of Massachusetts team run by Reich, who has developed a way to compare and merge more than two dozen different models from universities and analytics groups around the country. The models include the IHME model, along with modeling from the University of California, the University of Michigan, Oliver Wyman and other prominent centers. The group’s website, dubbed the Covid-19 ForecastHub, updates the individual models on a weekly basis and also depicts an “ensemble” curve that combines them. That merged curve predicts 172,446 deaths in the United States by the end of August, although the numbers will be updated today. Before the pandemic hit, Reich had spent the last four years working on seasonal influenza forecasting for the CDC. He stressed that drawing from a portfolio of models is crucial for accuracy — and he applauded the agency for pursuing that approach, even though it has been heavily criticized overall for its pandemic response. “I know CDC has been sort of dumped on throughout this, but for the last eight years they have been a leader in creating this vision


China is exporting its digital authoritarianism

Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; the second, focusing exclusively on information operations, comes from Stanford University’s Internet Observatory. Taken together, the studies tell a story: What China honed at home, it is now bringing abroad to build a world in its image. The Senate report explores how China assembles “multi-modal” biometric portraits of individuals, drawing on data such as DNA samples paired with tools such as facial recognition — and then uses omnipresent cameras, smartphone apps and more to sort people into categories, track their movements and even take preemptive action against those considered threats. This strategy is fully realized in Xinjiang as part of China’s cultural genocide of the Uighur minority, but the expansion of the nation’s Social Credit System promises a wider rollout. China infamously censors its Internet with its Great Firewall, and a new cybersecurity law allows the government legal cover to snoop on civilians’ online activity even within this restricted space. China doesn’t want these capabilities to remain only in China. China physically exports digital infrastructure to more than 60 countries through its Belt and Road initiative, and Chinese companies export surveillance products to developing countries in Africa, South America and Central Asia — helping Venezuela to craft a “Fatherland Card” that monitors citizen behavior, for instance, or facilitating Zimbabwe’s ambitious facial recognition program. The Chinese government also exports laws: Nations that have participated in seminars organized by the regime tend to return home and craft similar cybersecurity legislation. By building influence in global standards-setting bodies, China hopes to shape international guidelines toward digital authoritarianism, too. Finally, China exports ideas. The Stanford report takes this as its primary subject. The “50 Cent Army” of propagandists responsible for boosting pro-regime narratives domestically has turned its attention outward. Through a combination of overt state-sponsored media and covert tactics such as content farms and fake personas, China is trying to convince the world of the same thing it attempts to prove by touting invasive technologies: that closed is better than open and that controlled is better than free. The only bright spot? The trickery isn’t all that sophisticated or convincing — yet. China has a vision not only for itself but also for the globe, and it is doing all it can to turn that vision into reality. To promote a more attractive alternative, the United States must engage with the world rather than retreat from it.


Big Ten football players call for better coronavirus safety protocols

email for athletes and parents to report violations. The Big Ten has already committed to some of the proposals outlined in the letter, such as contact tracing protocols and guaranteed scholarships for players who choose to opt out of the season. The letter also asks that players receive medical redshirts if they miss games after testing positive or because of a quarantine required through contact tracing. The NCAA said all athletes can opt out of the season and will remain on scholarship, but it is still unclear how that could affect their eligibility. Athletes are allowed to play four seasons over five years, but if the player has already redshirted and then opts out of the 2020 season, he would lose a year of eligibility unless the NCAA grants him a waiver. The NCAA said each division must determine eligibility accommodations and inform players of their eligibility status before the beginning of the fall season. The letter from College Athlete Unity addresses financial support for players through short- and long-term coverage of medical expenses related to the coronavirus. The group asks that players be reimbursed for their cost-of-living stipends that were reduced this summer and if the season is canceled, players still receive their scholarships and stipends. At a recent Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, NCAA President Mark Emmert said he is “categorically opposed” to schools having athletes sign coronavirus-related liability waivers. The letter from College Athlete Unity says such waivers should be banned, and the NCAA said Wednesday that schools cannot require these waivers. As teams plan to play with a limited number of fans or no fans, the letter also asks that all players’ families receive free access to the Big Ten Network. The Big Ten season will begin the weekend of Sept. 5 with a schedule that offers flexibility should games need to be rescheduled. Each team has two open weekends, and the Big Ten championship scheduled for Dec. 5 could be pushed back to either of the next two weekends. In the letter, College Athlete Unity requested “objective criteria for shutting down seasons should the pandemic take a turn for the worse or if teams experience significant outbreaks.” Read more on U-Conn. becomes first FBS college football program to shut down season College football players fear stigma of sitting out could outlast pandemic On a call with SEC leaders, worried football players pushed back: ‘Not good enough’


‘Love is not Tourism’: Couples separated by pandemic travel bans are fighting to be reunited

When Corsi Crumpler, a U.S. citizen from Texas, got pregnant last year, she never thought she would be delivering the baby without her fiance Seán Donovan at her side. But because of the U.S. and E.U. travel ban due to the pandemic, he had to remain in his home country of Ireland, forced to witness the birth of their first child by FaceTime in July. Crumpler and Donovan met in Dublin while she was on vacation and have been together since 2019. Before the travel ban, they never went more than six weeks without seeing each other, going back and forth between Ireland and the United States. “Instead of our baby’s birth being one of the most beautiful experiences of our lives, the travel ban has robbed us of something we will never get back,” Crumpler said. Their story is not unique. Since March 14, most foreign travelers from Europe have been banned from entering the United States, and bans remain in place for countries in Africa, Asia and South America. On March 17, the European Union closed its external borders, restricting nonessential travel. The upheaval has left binational couples and families feeling hopeless and wondering when they will be able to reunite with their loved ones. But many have found support in online Facebook groups such as “Love is Not Tourism” and “Couples Separated by Travel Bans,” which are petitioning governments to allow the reunification of binational couples and families, including short-term visits. “The narrow definition of family provided in almost all countries’ travel exemptions has left thousands of unmarried binational couples and families without the ability to reunite and without any end in sight as to when they will be reunited,” said Maggie Foster, who launched “Couples Separated by Travel Bans.” “Many of the couples in our group have been together for years, and some even have children or are expecting a child. However, by the specific wording of most travel exemptions, unmarried couples and families are given no rights to reunite, as laws require a marriage certificate in order to enter the country.” Foster is in a relationship with Alexandre Portier, a French nuclear physics doctoral student in Grenoble, whom she met at a family gathering in France. They had plans to visit each other every two to three months, but now they are just communicating by FaceTime several hours a day. “The time that we were


Big Ten sets football schedules; Maryland adds game against Iowa

play Nov. 14, leaving that as a possible weekend to make up a missed game. “We’re hopeful that this builds an opportunity for us to remain as flexible as we possibly can,” Commissioner Kevin Warren said on the Big Ten Network. The Terrapins will face the six other teams in the East division, as well as games against Minnesota, Northwestern, Wisconsin and Iowa. Maryland plays Minnesota, Wisconsin, Rutgers, Ohio State and Michigan State at home. Maryland plans to begin its season without fans in attendance. The Big Ten announced its decision to move to conference-only schedules nearly a month ago. The SEC and Pac-12 followed suit with conference-only schedules, while the ACC and Big 12 will each play one nonconference game. The University of Connecticut became the first Football Bowl Subdivision school to cancel its football season Wednesday morning. Multiple Power Five players have opted out of the 2020 season, citing their concerns about the coronavirus. Minnesota star wide receiver Rashod Bateman announced Tuesday he will not play this season and declared for the 2021 NFL draft. Big Ten football programs typically play nine conference and three nonconference opponents. Maryland had nonconference games scheduled this season against Towson, Northern Illinois and West Virginia. The Terps have not had organized team practices since the 2019 season. The conference halted all athletic activities March 13, a week before Maryland planned to start spring practices. Maryland football players returned to campus for voluntary workouts in June, but those workouts paused July 11 after nine athletes and staffers tested positive for the coronavirus. The athletic department announced three additional cases during screening July 14-15. No cases were found in the school’s two most recent rounds of testing. Multiple Big Ten football programs have had to suspend workouts during the summer. Northwestern paused workouts Monday following a positive test. Both Michigan State and Rutgers quarantined their teams for two weeks following positive tests. NJ.com reported Monday evening that the number of cases within the Rutgers football program had increased from 15 to 28 players, plus multiple staffers. Read more on Pac-12 football players threaten boycott if health and social justice demands are not met On a call with SEC leaders, worried football players pushed back: ‘Not good enough’ Maryland basketball signs Arnaud Revaz, a 6-foot-10 forward from Switzerland As the NCAA asks Congress for help on NIL legislation, lawmakers want more rights for college athletes


What if the coronavirus vaccine doesn’t arrive soon?

VACCINE OPTIMISM is understandable in these days of anxiety about the virus. Almost every day, there are upbeat reports about a vaccine starting a new phase of clinical trials, and the worldwide research effort spans technologies old and new. Surely a safe and effective vaccine must arrive before too long — as promised, in “warp speed,” such as later this year or early next? A dose of realism would be prudent. Vaccines are truly remarkable medicine and have proved effective in stopping diseases such as measles and polio. But they are not simple to discover, manufacture or distribute. Many research efforts fail. The first clinical trial for an HIV vaccine was in 1987, and there still isn’t one, despite much hard work. As Carolyn Y. Johnson reported in The Post on Monday, once a vaccine is found to be safe and effective, the process will be at the beginning, not the end. Vaccines must be manufactured to exacting standards. Distributing the vaccine fairly to people in the United States and around the world will strain health networks, the supply chain, public trust and global cooperation. This may take months or, quite likely, years. Another reason for caution is that the vaccine timeline depends on human physiology. It may take a while to build up the antibodies to fight the novel coronavirus. A second inoculation may be required. Immunity could be short-lived or partial. Also, it is possible that the first vaccines to win approval may not be perfect, and not work all the time on everyone. As Ms. Johnson points out, the measles vaccine is one of the best, 98 percent effective at preventing disease, but the influenza vaccine is 40 to 60 percent effective most years, because it must be recalibrated to take into account shifting strains. Ideally, a vaccine would prevent the disease, but it is possible one will emerge that lessens severity of symptoms. For all these reasons, it is vital that the integrity of vaccine development, testing and production not be thrown into doubt by haste or political interference that could erode public trust. It is hard to imagine, but next year — or four years from now — we could still be waiting for a vaccine. President Trump abdicated leadership and shunted pandemic response to the states. Now, as his White House task force coordinator, Dr. Deborah Birx, stated on CNN over the weekend, the