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Businesses race to battle back new coronavirus restrictions as U.S. faces deadly new surge

to zoos in an attempt to bring the state’s outbreak back under control. “We’re very concerned about closing businesses now,” said Sandra McDonough, president of Oregon Business and Industry, an advocacy group that is part of the coalition. “And we’re not sure that’s really going to address the spread, that’s the issue.” The group instead called on the state to redouble its efforts on testing and focus on the spread of covid-19 through private social gatherings, particularly ahead of Thanksgiving. The arrival of the lucrative holiday season has added even more urgency to some of the lobbying efforts. More than half of Americans say they aren’t planning any holiday travel this year, according to a poll conducted by the U.S. Travel Association. More than a quarter of Americans say they expect to spend less on gifts over the coming weeks, according to a survey conducted by Gallup. The downturn threatens to deliver another blow to some retailers that have already experienced significant revenue shortfalls this year. The potential for additional sky-high losses appears to have emboldened the industry to look more skeptically — and fight more aggressively — against new or heightened restrictions viewed as onerous for some retailers. The National Retail Federation, for example, has taken aim at states including New Mexico, which under an order issued in October required shops to close if they experience four or more workplace cases of covid-19 over a two-week period. NRF invoked state open-records law Tuesday to try to force New Mexico’s leaders to turn over more information about how they devised the policy in the first place. Stephanie Martz, the retail lobby’s general counsel, said the group is likely to oppose the kind of broad shutdowns many states instituted in the spring. “We know more about how this spread than we did in March,” she said on Friday. “The answer cannot be that we make the same decisions now that we made in March.” Hours later, New Mexico had done precisely that. Michelle Lujan Grisham, the state’s governor, imposed a two-week lockdown shuttering shops, gyms and other businesses deemed nonessential. In doing so, she stressed the state had tried “targeted crackdowns” and other measures to bring the pandemic under control for months — without success. “The public health data make clear, however, that more aggressive restrictions are not only warranted but essential if we are to prevent mass casualties,” she said.

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The Technology 202: YouTube alternative Rumble highlights conservatives' move to more hands-off social networks

being an echo chamber for both right-wing news, but also for misinformation," Joan Donovan, an expert in online extremism and disinformation and research director of the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University, told CNN. Conservatives flocking to these new services say the major companies have gone too far in labeling or otherwise limiting the spread of false election content on their services. But many liberals and misinformation experts believe they haven't gone far enough in stopping the spread of baseless election fraud claims. YouTube, particularly, has faced backlash for not removing video pushing claims of election fraud without evidence. In some instances, they've blocked such videos from pulling in advertising money, and otherwise limited their distribution on the platform. But such videos remain viewable. Twitter, meanwhile, has been notably aggressive recently in labeling false claims from Trump and his allies about election fraud. However some believe the company should go farther, and have called for Trump to be deactivated from the platform. This debate is expected to be in the spotlight this week as Twitter chief executive Jack Dorsey and Facebook head Mark Zuckerberg testify before Congress. The hearing was called in response to the steps the companies took to limit the spread of a New York Post article about alleged emails belonging to Hunter Biden. (The Washington Post has not substantiated the emails.) But it's likely lawmakers will delve into more recent events. Republicans said in a news release that the hearing would “provide a valuable opportunity to review the companies’ handling of the 2020 election.” SpaceX launched four astronauts to the International Space Station on Sunday, Hamza Shaban and Christian Davenport report. SpaceX's Dragon capsule recently became the first privately owned and operated spacecraft certified by NASA for human spaceflight. SpaceX and NASA already have a second mission scheduled for March. The launch marks the next step in private space companies' partnerships with NASA. It's less clear what that relationship will look like under a Biden administration. The agency probably will have a renewed focus on Earth science and combating climate change, Christian reports. Biden congratulated SpaceX and NASA on the launch. SpaceX founder Elon Musk did not attend the event because of a recent coronavirus diagnosis. “It doesn’t matter if you’re Elon Musk or Jim Bridenstine,” Norm Knight, NASA’s deputy manager for flight operations, told a news conference Friday evening. “If you

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Boris Johnson, in self-quarantine, says he’s ‘bursting with antibodies’

the back garden, so he will not have to be in contact with any staff members. Johnson on Monday said that he felt great and that because he previously had the disease he was “bursting with antibodies” but that he would self-quarantine for two weeks as “we got to interrupt the spread of the disease.” He added that he would continue to govern by video conference. “Plenty more to say via Zoom, of course, and other means of electronic communication,” he said. It is unclear how much of his schedule will change. His official spokesman, who is not named because of traditional protocol, said Johnson may address the House of Commons on Wednesday for the weekly session known as Prime Minister’s Questions. But he could also easily send a substitute. Johnson’s quarantine comes at a rugged moment. Two weeks into a national lockdown — which has shuttered businesses but not schools — the virus is still roaring throughout Britain, with nearly 25,000 daily infections, 168 deaths and 1,922 patients newly hospitalized on Sunday. The country’s death toll since the start of the pandemic is at 52,026, the highest in Europe. It’s also crunchtime for Brexit negotiations. Britain has yet to secure a post-Brexit trade deal with the European Union, even though its transition period will expire at the end of the year. Simon Coveney, Ireland’s foreign affairs minister, told RTE on Monday that the talks are “not in a good place.” He said a “very, very wide gap” remains between the two sides’ positions on fishing rights and government subsidies. Meanwhile, Johnson’s government has been consumed by infighting. Last week, power struggles led to the dramatic departure of Cummings, Johnson’s pugnacious chief aide and mastermind behind the successful Brexit campaign. Two weeks of self-quarantine, political commentators suggested, might get in the way of Johnson’s effort to “reset” his agenda. Matt Hancock, Britain’s health minister, told Sky News on Monday that the prime minister was “well” and “absolutely full of beans.” Commentators took the reports with a pinch of salt, noting that when Johnson was ill in the spring, his office continually said he was in “good spirits,” even as he was being rushed to the hospital and then ICU. Johnson has previously said that he thinks his weight made him more susceptible to the virus. He he has since dropped pounds, going for early morning jogs with his dog, Dilyn.

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Either elected leaders the world over are wrong about the pandemic, or Scott Atlas is

result. Sweden has since implemented new legal restrictions aimed at containing the virus after a spike in hospitalizations and deaths. Atlas’s insistence that somehow more cases don’t lead to significantly more deaths is baffling. There is by now a demonstrated relationship between cases, hospitalizations and deaths that comports with common sense: More cases means more people in the hospital and, then, more deaths from covid-19, the disease caused by the virus. The current surge in cases nationally began in mid-September; data from the COVID Tracking Project shows how hospitalizations and deaths each increased after the surge began. As we’ve reported, there’s a fairly steady relationship between the number of cases and hospitalizations and the number of deaths that follow. Since Aug. 1, the average number of deaths on a day is about 1.7 percent of the number of new cases 16 days prior. The average number of deaths is about 2.2 percent of total hospitalizations 15 days prior. In other words, if 150,000 people contract the virus today, on average, we can expect there to be more than 2,600 deaths a day in two weeks’ time. The actual figure has been slightly lower in recent days, given the rate at which new cases are being added. If we manage to hold at 1.5 percent of new cases leading to new deaths, that’s still 2,250 deaths per day — a rate that matches the worst period of mid-April. It’s worth noting that this ratio is not significantly better than many other countries, including both Sweden and Canada. In other words, more new cases in the United States have led to a higher percentage of deaths here than in other countries. (These figures are relative to the 16-day period, which is the most significant period in the United States and fluctuates with aberrations in the data.) What’s important to remember is that increased hospitalizations introduce risks unrelated to the virus. Swamping hospitals with covid-19 patients fills up intensive care units which are then unavailable to other critically ill patients, like those in car accidents or those suffering from other acute trauma. Even if we are better able to treat coronavirus patients, there’s a downside to allowing the virus to spread wildly. Atlas’s advocacy within the coronavirus task force for a policy allowing the virus to spread widely was met with internal resistance, as The Washington Post reported last month. With Trump’s blessing,

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Pandemic leads tens of thousands of international students to delay plans to enter U.S. colleges, survey shows

Tens of thousands of international students have paused their plans to enroll in U.S. colleges and universities this fall amid the novel coronavirus pandemic, threatening a key source of revenue for higher education, a new survey shows. The Institute of International Education reported Monday that international enrollment fell 16 percent this fall at more than 700 schools it surveyed. The flow of new international students into U.S. institutions plummeted 43 percent from the previous year. Nearly 40,000 international students have deferred enrollment, the institute reported, as the pandemic continues to wreak worldwide havoc on plans for travel and education. The numbers pose a huge challenge for schools that rely heavily on international students to meet revenue targets and bring diverse viewpoints to campus. “We’ve never had a decrease like that,” said Allan E. Goodman, the president and chief executive of the nonprofit institute based in New York. But Goodman predicted that the phenomenon will be temporary. “What we do know is when pandemics end, there’s tremendous pent-up demand,” he said. When it is safe to resume travel, Goodman said, schools will be “dealing with surges of students that have deferred.” The coronavirus crisis led to widespread shutdowns of U.S. campuses in March as authorities sought to control the spread of the pathogen. The disease caused by the virus, covid-19, has killed at least 245,000 people in the United States. Schools this fall have taken a variety of approaches, delivering courses online, in person and in hybrid fashion. Colleges are feeling an overall enrollment squeeze. Counting domestic and foreign students, the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center reported in September that head counts were down 1.8 percent compared with the previous year. That was fueled by a decline in undergraduates among all racial and ethnic groups. Many international students who already were in the country when the pandemic began have stayed on or near campuses. But those who needed to travel to the United States, especially first-time students, have encountered significant hurdles. Some chose to take classes remotely from their home countries if they did not defer enrollment. The survey, a snapshot of fall trends, was released alongside a more comprehensive annual report the institute produced with the State Department. That report, called Open Doors, showed the number of international students in the United States fell 1.8 percent in the 2019-2020 school year. But the total — 1.075 million international students —

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Man fatally stabbed on 16th Street NW, the D.C. police say

A man was fatally stabbed Sunday night in the Mount Pleasant area of Northwest Washington, and an arrest has been made in the death, D.C. police said. Andrew Tillman, 38, whose address was not known, was stabbed shortly after 7 p.m. in the 3100 block of 16th Street NW, police said. He died at a hospital, they said. Police said Dedan Williams, 49, of Northwest, was arrested Sunday and charged with second degree murder.

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The Daily 202: Trump eggs on boos that previous leaders shushed

cases of covid-19 in the study. … It is …. expected to reach its endpoint in seven to 10 days … [Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel] anticipates a vaccine might begin to become available to those at high risk in the second half of December. Unlike Pfizer, which invested $2 billion of its own money in researching and developing a vaccine, Moderna is part of Operation Warp Speed, the government initiative designed to erase the financial risk of vaccine and therapeutics development by providing upfront funding to companies and helping coordinate the trials. Moderna received $2.5 billion from the U.S. government to support research, development and manufacturing of its vaccine candidate, whereas Pfizer signed a contract to sell doses to the U.S. government.” “The milestone came one week after the country hit 10 million cases, a testament to just how rapidly the virus is spreading — the first 1 million cases took more than three months. This new wave has increased covid-19 hospitalizations past the peaks seen in April and July, straining health-care systems and pushing some reluctant Republican governors to enact statewide mask mandates for the first time,” Paulina Firozi and Hannah Knowles report. “Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) on Sunday announced sweeping new limits on gatherings for three weeks — including a ban on indoor dining at restaurants and bars, and a halt to in-person classes at high schools and colleges. Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (D) also laid out a slew of new rules, which prohibit indoor social gatherings with people outside one’s household and indoor service at restaurants, bars and more. … New Mexico and Oregon on Friday ordered extensive new statewide shutdowns … North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum (R) on Friday issued a statewide mask mandate and new capacity limits on businesses." “In the states where the virus is spiking highest — particularly in the Upper Midwest — Republicans made substantial gains down-ballot. Often they did so by railing against the very tool that scientists say could best help arrest the virus’s spread,” Griff Witte reports. "Victories in state and local races have allowed GOP leaders to claim a mandate for their let-it-be approach to pandemic management, with pleas for ‘personal responsibility’ substituting government intervention. As hospitals fill and deaths climb, it’s a philosophy that public health experts warn could have disastrous consequences this winter. … “In Iowa, cases have grown by nearly 180 percent in two

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Local Digest: Man is fatally stabbed on 16th Street NW

THE DISTRICT A man was fatally stabbed Sunday night in the Mount Pleasant area of Northwest Washington, and an arrest has been made in the death, the D.C. police said. Andrew Tillman, 38, whose address was not known, was stabbed shortly after 7 p.m. in the 3100 block of 16th Street NW, the police said. He died at a hospital, they said. Police said Dedan Williams, 49, of Northwest, was arrested Sunday and charged with second-degree murder. — Martin Weil MARYLAND Hyattsville Police Chief Amal Awad will resign next month to take a job as chief of the Anne Arundel County Police Department, city officials announced Monday. The resignation will take effect Dec. 16, according to a statement. Awad, who began her law enforcement career in the early 1990s as a Prince George’s County officer patrolling the Hyattsville area, joined the Hyattsville force in the spring of 2017. Nearly two years later she became the city’s first Black, first woman and first member of the LGBTQ community to become chief, officials said. City officials named Deputy Chief Scott Dunklee interim chief. — Clarence Williams A police officer in Prince George’s County fired a gun at an armed man as officers were serving a warrant. The incident happened in the 4300 block of Telfair Boulevard in the Camp Springs area. At a news conference early Monday, Assistant Chief Hector Velez, the county’s interim chief of police, said the man fled out the back of an apartment and was armed. An officer fired a service weapon at the man, and the man then ran back into the apartment, where he was arrested, police said. They said the man was not injured. An investigation continues. — Dana Hedgpeth

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Washington Post Live to host “Virus Hunters”: A Conversation with Christopher Golden, PhD and Kendra Phelps, PhD

The Washington Post brings together epidemiologist Christopher Golden, PhD, and field scientist Kendra Phelps, PhD, to discuss National Geographic’s new series about how scientists are piecing together cultural, medical and environmental factors to trace the origins of deadly diseases and help stave off future pandemics. Tune in on Friday, Oct. 30 at 4:00 p.m. ET. The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed how vulnerable the world population is to the next deadly virus. Understanding how these viruses spread through human populations and where they come from is vital to prevent the next global public health crisis. Stream live here. In partnership with National Geographic.

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Transcript: Chasing Cancer

that. MS. WINFIELD CUNNINGHAM: Well, absolutely. And recovering from the virus, I know that you're joining the fight to find a drug therapy to try to combat it. Can you talk a little bit about that progress? DR. JUNE: Sure. One of the main issues with COVID is not just--it's the number of people who actually require hospitalization and that advanced care. So, the asymptomatic or low-symptomatic patients who stay out of the hospital, actually, then most of them become immune and contribute to herd immunity. So, the problem we face right now, as you know, is overcrowded hospitals and lack of beds and intensive care units. So, if we could give a medication to people as an outpatient that could keep them from ever getting hospitalized, that could have a huge--relieve a big burden on the medical care system. One approach is to prevent the inflammation that causes secondary damage in the lung, and so tuning down--it's counterintuitive, but tuning down the immune system appears in several models to decrease the need for hospitalization and death. The RECOVERY Trial that came out this summer showed a 40 percent reduction in death using an immunosuppressant, that pill dexamethasone, which is an immunosuppressant, which is really counterintuitive. Everyone thinks that when you have an infection, you need to jazz up the immune system, and so now it looks like what we need is a balance, not too much and not too little. MS. WINFIELD CUNNINGHAM: Well, this idea that the immune system can actually be so revved up that that is the thing that can cause death, I remember reading about the 1918 flu, and this seemed to also be one of the causes of death. Can you explain to our audience a little bit more about how that works? DR. JUNE: Yeah. That's exactly right, Paige. They've now found--so this is pretty amazing. They've been able to reconstruct the 1918 virus using molecular biology and sort of paleo molecular biology techniques, and then they took what we think is a standard flu virus--so this is influenza A--or put in the reconstructed 1918 pandemic virus into monkeys. Those monkeys had a much more severe infection and died compared to monkeys who got the standard flu that we face pretty much every year that's not a pandemic. So that virus killed actually more young people than old. The traditional flu virus mostly

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Transcript: Chasing Cancer

So, we have tried our best to not only protect our family but also educate people that, well, you don't wear a mask and you're being cavalier and you don't take it seriously, you are actually endangering Nusayba. And you are endangering your elders. And so even now, slowly but surely, we've seen that some people are hesitant, resistant. There's disinformation. There's stubbornness, but I try to shamelessly use the example of my daughter. I'm like, "This girl lived through cancer. Are you telling me that you can't wear a mask to protect her? Come on." And so, for those of you who don't wear masks, please wear masks. I'm not the doctor. Sarah, they'll listen to you. I'm an English major. DR. KURESHI: Echoing Waj's message, absolutely. I mean, we--besides Nusayba, like he said, we have so many vulnerable communities, and Waj brought up Black and brown communities. And that's not because of anything genetic. That's because of racism and other socioeconomic factors that makes those communities more susceptible to COVID and higher mortality rates of COVID by far. So, for all of our vulnerable patients, our vulnerable communities, please--we're researching vaccines. We're researching medications. That's great, and I love the work that Dr. June is doing. But we want to also put a plug in and say we know that--and he said this already. We know that masks work. We know that PPE works in terms of like hospital providers. We know that social distancing works. So, we should practice what works, and hopefully, moving forward with our new administration, we will have that model for our country and we will move in a more positive direction. But please think about all of these patients. I'll just say as a family medicine physician, it's not about just mortality rates. It's also about people who get coronavirus and are living with long-term effects of it in terms of chronic cough, in terms of chronic fatigue, body aches. I see it all the time. So, I think we talked about mortality rates, but we're not talking about really how people are unable to work, for some people are really affected by this, and these were people who did not have health conditions before. So, it's really for the betterment of everybody. MS. WINFIELD CUNNINGHAM: Sarah, I want to--you mentioned a vaccine, and of course, we got really big news this

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TEST V3 with Force Webview

is authorized, but the general principles have been discussed for months. You may qualify for earlier access because of your job: Health-care workers and first responders are likely to be among those prioritized. People who have essential jobs, such as teachers and food workers; those who are at higher risk because of their age; and those who have underlying conditions that increase their risk for severe disease are also likely to receive earlier access. Healthy younger adults who don’t have medical conditions or high-risk jobs are likely to begin to get vaccinated starting in April, but not everyone will be able to get the shots immediately. And children aren’t even included in most coronavirus vaccine trials — Pfizer is the first company to expand its trial to people 12 and older — so they probably will be among the last to get access. “I would say starting in April, May, June, July — as we get into the late spring and early summer — that people in the so-called general population, who do not have underlying conditions or other designations that would make them priority, could get” shots, said Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. The Moderna vaccine is stored frozen at minus-20 degrees Celsius, but it keeps for a month at refrigerator temperatures. This could make it easier to distribute to pharmacies and to rural areas that don’t have specialized freezers. The vaccine from Pfizer and BioNTech must be kept at an ultracold, minus-70 degrees Celsius. The company has created its own GPS-tracked coolers filled with dry ice to distribute it. Each vial of the Pfizer vaccine holds five doses when diluted. Once thawed, the undiluted vial can be kept in a refrigerator for only five days. A diluted vial can be kept for only six hours before it must be discarded. Both vaccines require two doses. Pfizer’s booster shot will be given three weeks after the first one; Moderna’s is spaced four weeks later. If cleared, these two will be the first vaccines using messenger RNA technology ever approved for human use by the Food and Drug Administration. It is different from more traditional vaccines, which often use a weakened or dead version of a virus, or a laboratory-generated protein. Both vaccines use a snippet of the virus’s genetic code to instruct cells to build the spike protein on the surface

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The architect of Britain’s political culture war is gone. The culture war will go on.

trading orbit. That involves the reintroduction of border controls to a system that was based on removing them. Goods moving to and fro will need customs declarations, safety and security documentation, regulatory checks and proof that they comply with the complex processes to be installed in Northern Ireland. The poetry of national sovereignty sold by the Brexit campaign — of a dynamic national destiny unchained from the continent — will change into the grim remorseless prose of regulatory and customs compliance. Johnson will be unable to blame himself or the Brexit he backed for this incoming disaster. So he will instead have to blame the Other: dastardly Europeans abroad, traitorous Remainers or ill-prepared businesses at home. And in doing so, he will be replicating the same tactic Cummings taught him — to take objective reality and urge voters to ignore it on the basis of their tribal allegiance. He also has a problem with the broader non-Brexit culture war. Electorally, he is trapped in the nativist straitjacket Cummings designed for him. The Conservative members of Parliament elected in northern pre-Brexit seats know that their only chance for reelection is to keep the focus on identity issues over economic ones so they can hold the former Labour voters they won in 2019. This will entail a continuation of attacks on BBC, “woke” politics and symbols of perceived political correctness. But there is one way in which Britain’s experiment with populism might truly be coming to an end. It is not political, but strategic: Johnson is now set on his course without the man who was most committed and competent at delivering it. For all of Cummings’s failings, he was genuinely convinced of the culture war, eager to deploy it at every opportunity and effective at pursuing it. Johnson has none of that instinct. So now the government is trapped in an unenviable position: deploying a political program that it has lost the ability to articulate. And that, in the end, will provide more of the confusion, contradiction and inadequacy that has typified Johnson’s time in power so far. He is trapped in a prison of his own making. And the jailer has walked off with the key. Read more: Boris Johnson’s master class in how not to respond to a pandemic Boris Johnson is discovering that Brexit only works when it’s a fantasy The collective madness behind Britain’s latest Brexit plan

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Transcript: The Future of Work with Humu CEO Laszlo Bock & ORCAA Founder Cathy O’Neil

stakeholders, like, for whom it might fail, and we might--and we have to name what their concerns would be, what would it mean to them to fail. And for example, in that--in that context, we had immigrant rights groups join the conversation so that they could say what would it mean for them that the DMV fraud detection system would fail. And that's generally true of the ORCAA clients, is that we go in and we talk--we facilitate a conversation between the stakeholders of an algorithmic context about what it would mean for them to fail, and then we build tests to see whether the most worrisome scenarios are, in fact, happening or not, whether we can stop worrying about them. MR. SCOTT: And in your opinion, what would effective government regulation look like? Do we need a federal agency that oversees the use of tech exclusively? MS. O'NEIL: That's such a great question. Thank you. And it's such a timely question. Well, listen: The good news is, we already have a lot of existing laws that are simply not being enforced in the era of big data. As I mentioned, there are algorithms in insurance, in credit, in hiring, and in the justice system. They all have laws. And the question is, like, to what extent are they compliant with those laws? And most of the answer is, we don't know because the regulators are, to be honest, not completely sure of how to check, how to ask an algorithm, are you fair? What does that mean? What does it mean for a hiring algorithm to be fair, or an insurance algorithm not to be racist? And it's an ongoing question. I'm not saying that they should have already figured this out, but it is something we have to figure out urgently. And to that point, I would argue that instead of having every regulator sort of bone up on the technology to--required to do these audits, it might make more sense to sort of endow one regulatory body--like the FDA, for example, I'd like to call it the FDAA, potentially, the Food, Drug and Algorithmic Administration--to sort of do the same thing for algorithms that they do now for drugs, which is to say, is it safe, is it effective? And "effective" would mean does it work at least as well as the current system, because usually algorithms

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We still haven’t decided what it means to ‘beat’ the pandemic

any breakthrough outbreaks and keep the virus out of the city, state or country. In practice, the main tool for containment is an aggressive test-trace-isolate program: Test people with covid-19 symptoms quickly and often, and whenever anyone tests positive, isolate them and identify and quarantine all of their contacts, ideally in specialized facilities that can help protect their families. Travelers from outside the area are, likewise, put through a long and closely monitored quarantine process before they can move freely. This is the strategy taken by China and New Zealand, among others. It has the distinct advantage that, if it’s successful, people can more or less go on with their lives as normal once containment is achieved, with perhaps some moderate social distancing and mask use to slow any breakthrough outbreaks. However, the downsides are numerous: If this strategy is only put in place after cases are widespread in a country, lockdowns must be aggressive and last for months to eliminate transmission, putting significant strain on the economy. The systems that might make a test-trace-isolate program most effective (e.g., cell-phone-assisted contact tracing) may be seen by some to infringe on civil liberties. But perhaps the biggest challenge of the crush and contain strategy is that until there is a vaccine, the population remains susceptible to outbreaks because of lack of immunity. That means there is no end to the requirement for ongoing vigilance against the virus and the associated costs until a safe and effective vaccine is widely available. Flatten the curve An alternative to attempting total elimination is to allow transmission to continue but to try to keep it low enough that health-care systems are not overwhelmed and vulnerable populations can be easily protected. This “flatten the curve” strategy aims to avoid the strict measures needed to eliminate transmission, and it allows the population to slowly accumulate the immunity that will result in long-term herd protection against the virus. If well implemented, a flatten-the-curve strategy can be adaptive to epidemic conditions in specific locations — relaxing measures as we accumulate community immunity to the virus and reinstituting them when case counts begin to grow because of seasonal fluctuations in transmission or other factors. Though some entertained the idea of a “crush and contain” approach with early lockdowns, since late spring, we have more or less been following a “flatten the curve” strategy in the United States, with individual states

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Transcript: The Path Forward: Combating COVID-19 with Alexander Hardy, CEO of Genentech

studying this right from the very early days of the pandemic. We first heard anecdotal reports from China and Italy from clinicians who were using it to address the cytokine release syndrome stage of the disease. This is in the patients in the latter part of the disease where they get a significant immune response triggered by the virus. And you have to damp down the immune response. That's the hypothesis. And we very quickly developed Phase 3 studies. It's really important. I think it's one of the learnings that I think we have as a society around COVID, is that nothing replaces robust, well-controlled clinical studies to really ask the question of the clinical utility of interventions. And so, it was really important that we had those Phase 3 studies. And a number of them have now read out, and we've discussed those results with the FDA. The results are mixed. There's some positive end points and findings and some negative findings. And so, we continue those discussions with the FDA. And specifically, we are waiting for another Phase 3 study, which is looking at the combination of ACTEMRA with Remdesivir. This is the REMDACTA study. And that will be important to see if there's an additive or synergistic effect between the two medications in again treating patients in the more severe stage of the disease. And we should get those results in the first part of next year. And so that will be very important to see those findings, and then we'll of course discuss them with the FDA in about--and determine, you know, what role, if any, does this drug have in the treatment of COVID. MR. IGNATIUS: There's one more therapy I want to ask you to comment on for our viewers, and that's the nasal spray that it's said that could be sprayed in your nostrils and have the effect of killing the virus right at that point where you might be acquiring it. Do you think that's a promising approach? MR. HARDY: You know, David, I don't know enough about that. But I would say that it's--you know, as I just mentioned, it's just so important that we really rely on well-controlled clinical studies. There is obviously so much pain, suffering and in many cases false hope provided as people grasp for potential solutions. And it's--of course it's very nice to think that something

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Transcript: The Path Forward: Combating COVID-19 with Alexander Hardy, CEO of Genentech

Diagnostics. We actually have five different COVID-19 tests. As of October, we've delivered more than 30 million of them. The initial tests were laboratory-based highly accurate PCR tests. The latest developments that we're working on are more rapid tests at the point of care, easier to administer, eventually hopefully self-administered and easy to administer and produce in those rapid results. And I do think that's going to be enormously important stage of getting ahead of this disease. MR. IGNATIUS: And I'd ask you what advice you'd give on this question of testing and related issues of travel and social contact, our many thousands of viewers who are trying to make plans for Thanksgiving and wondering should I go see my relatives this year, should I get tested beforehand, should I get tested after I arrive. I don't want to ask you to be a public health advisor, but you know a lot about testing and what's available. What would be some basic advice you'd give to your family, say, based on what you know? MR. HARDY: Well, I think every family is having that--having that discussion. If they're not, they should be having that discussion and thinking really carefully. And I am not a public health official, and of course we should be primarily--we should all be listening to them, but then having those discussions. And you know, there's tremendous excitement about the vaccine developments. There's excitement about the therapeutics. We can't get ahead of ourselves right now. That's what I would--I would say. That's the discussion that I'm having with my own family, with two daughters in college who potentially are coming home with the usual group that we have Thanksgiving, that have elderly family members. You know, we're not going to have a normal Thanksgiving this year. That's just the reality of where we are with this disease at this stage. MR. IGNATIUS: I want to ask you about one of the most painful issues associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, and that's the unequal impact it's had on communities of color, among poorer socioeconomic groups. And it's a deeply disturbing aspect of this pandemic. I know that your company is trying hard to think about ways to lessen this differential, this especially harsh impact. Talk a little bit about this problem and how you at Genentech are thinking about how to respond to it. MR. HARDY: You know,

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A NASA official asked Boeing if it would protest a major contract it lost. Instead, Boeing resubmitted its bid.

on the performance of these HLS contracts.” Typically, violations of the Procurement Integrity Act are situations where contractors receive inside information they use to their benefit to win a contract. In this case, Boeing still didn’t win the contract — its revised bid arrived well after the submission deadline — but “there are rules and processes that shouldn’t be taken lightly,” said Scott Amey, the general counsel for the Project on Government Oversight, a watchdog group. “Boeing should have known better,” he said. “If they tried to use that info to revise their bid, they could equally be on the hook for a Procurement Integrity Act violation because they were trying to use it for their benefit.” POGO has catalogued 80 instances of Boeing misconduct since 1995, resulting in nearly $1.5 billion in fines. The highest-profile case involved Air Force contracting officer Darleen Druyun, who steered contracts to Boeing and received a lucrative job at the company, as did her daughter and son-in-law. She was sentenced to nine months in prison. Michael Sears, then Boeing’s chief financial officer, received a four-month prison sentence after admitting he gave her the job in exchange for inside information. The loss of the lunar lander contract was another embarrassment for Boeing, which has been a NASA partner since the dawn of the Space Age. The company was once so trusted that NASA initially gave Boeing only a limited review of its safety culture while forcing its rival SpaceX to go through a comprehensive audit after Elon Musk, SpaceX’s founder and CEO, took a hit of marijuana on a podcast broadcast on the Internet. But at the end of last year, Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft suffered multiple software problems during a test flight without astronauts on board that forced the company to redo the mission. It also has been reeling since the fatal crashes of two 737 Max airplanes that killed a total of 346 people. Its stumble on the lunar lander contract opened the door for other companies. A team led by Blue Origin, including Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Draper, won an initial contract worth $579 million. Dynetics, which teamed up with the Sierra Nevada Corp., received $253 million, and SpaceX won $135 million. In addition to Boeing, another company, Vivace Corp. of San Antonio, was eliminated early in the source selection process, according to NASA’s source selection document. But it doesn’t say why

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How do travel bubbles work? 4 questions, answered.

In the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, even as nations shut their borders and airlines struggled with record-low passenger levels, there was a lot of optimism about “travel bubbles” — a controlled return of quarantine-free air travel between designated cities or countries. Since then, with few countries’ outbreaks truly under control, there has been far more chatter about potential travel bubbles than there have been actual bubbles implemented. But this weekend, Asia’s first bubble, between Hong Kong and Singapore, will finally make its debut. The two cities’ “Air Travel Bubble,” set to start Sunday, will test whether regions can safely partner in a return to quarantine-free travel in the pandemic era. The practice could soon emerge in other places, including North America, as scientists learn more about the coronavirus and as nations inch closer to offering vaccines. So: How do bubbles work? Here’s what you need to know. Sometimes called a travel corridor, a travel bubble is a partnership between two or more places with similar rates of covid-19 that allows for quarantine-free leisure travel in both directions. The first large international travel bubble to make headlines was a potential agreement between Australia and New Zealand, both of which had very low coronavirus caseloads early in the pandemic. The two nations hoped to implement a bubble in September, but those talks sputtered when Australia saw a rise in cases in August. While travel from New Zealand to Australia may not require quarantining, New Zealand still has strict quarantine requirements in place for all arrivals. The Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania created Europe’s first quarantine-free bubble in May. By July, however, the European Union’s “Re-open EU” initiative had rendered it redundant. You could, in theory, call Re-open EU — which allowed for controlled travel within the border-free Schengen Area and Britain — a travel bubble, although the E.U. and Britain did not. In that agreement, nations were allowed to set their own restrictions and pace beginning in July, but rising coronavirus cases curbed free travel again not much later: England, for instance, recalled quarantine-free travel conditions with Spain two weeks after allowing travel there. Many E.U. nations implemented new restrictions as coronavirus flare-ups emerged, and since October, many nations have again implemented shutdowns or travel limitations, with quarantines and testing required. (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have since reestablished their own bubble.) Hong Kong and Singapore, by contrast, have

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Senate passes bill that would allow U.S. to pursue doping conspirators abroad

A sweeping anti-doping bill that has sparked both global intrigue and controversy was approved by the Senate on Monday and is now poised to empower the United States to prosecute bad actors around the world involved in tainting competitions and victimizing American athletes. The Rodchenkov Anti-Doping Act, named after the whistleblower who helped expose Russia’s state-sponsored doping scheme, passed the House last year and now goes to the White House, where it awaits the president’s signature. While the bill was championed by U.S. anti-doping officials, it faced resistance from the World Anti-Doping Agency, which is charged with establishing and enforcing policy for major international competitions, such as the Summer and Winter Olympics. In addition to providing protections for whistleblowers, the legislation calls for prison sentences of up to 10 years and fines of up to $1 million for conspirators involved in doping schemes that cheat U.S. athletes. The bill does not target the athletes specifically, allowing them to then step forward as whistleblowers and cooperate with investigators. “This is a banner day for clean athletes everywhere,” said Jim Walden, attorney for Grigory Rodchenkov, the former director of Moscow’s anti-doping laboratory. “Obviously, the United States is often at the forefront of these anti-corruption issues. Hopefully, rule-of-law nations everywhere will join and pass similar measures so that the United States could be part of a network of countries that take these issues more seriously. Clean sport hangs in the balance, and together, locking arms and making sure there’s meaningful enforcement, we can restore confidence in international sporting events.” While the White House hasn’t publicly stated whether President Trump intends to sign the legislation, the administration’s drug policy office welcomed news of the Senate’s passage of the bill Monday. “Bad actors who enable unfair competition should face legal consequences — a position shared by legislators on both sides of the aisle in the U.S., and by athletes around the world,” an official with the White House’s Office of National Drug Control Policy said in an email. “It is our hope that WADA sees this development as a positive step that fortifies clean sport for the betterment of worldwide athletic competition.” But WADA has long questioned the legislation, concerned that the United States is overreaching in its efforts to police international sport. The bill, in effect, gives one country the ability to investigate and mete out punishments for infractions that take place anywhere in

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There’s a dark undercurrent to the notion of decriminalizing drug use

It’s simply not true to say “The war on drugs isn’t working” [editorial, Nov. 13] and assert that it is “difficult to know how new drug laws will affect drug usage.” There is a record on both points. Monthly recreational drug use is down almost 40 percent from the 15 percent use rate in the 1960s and 1970s to 9 percent now. Imagine what the numbers for use, car crashes, treatment and hospitalizations will be if the new Oregon all-drugs decriminalization is implemented. Luckily, Congress, aware of these risks, and despite efforts by Big Pot financial interests to repeat the mistakes of Big Tobacco, has resisted. Federal law on illegality remains and supersedes state laws Treatment is a better approach than prison for the individual and society where possible. That’s why drug courts mandating treatment have increased from 12 in 1995 to more than 3,000 now. Imagine if we decreased by 40 percent the heart attacks, diabetes, cancer, poverty or hunger. Would we say those efforts were a failure? No, we’d say great, but we have more to do. The same is true for drug policy. Robert S. Weiner The writer was director of public affairs for the Office of National Drug Control Policy from 1994 to 2001. Read more letters to the editor.

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Transcript: Post Live Election Daily with Sen. Robert P. Casey Jr. (D-Pa.) & Sen. Patrick J. Toomey (R-Pa.)

think he was about 68 when he got elected governor. So, there's always inspiration out there. MR. COSTA: President-elect Biden, of course, from Scranton. Are you privately pushing for the presidential library--and I know this is down the line--to be in Scranton, Pennsylvania rather than in Delaware? SEN. CASEY: Bob, we haven't gotten that far down the road. We're still at 47,000 in the margin and still climbing. We at least want to certify the results before we talk about a presidential library. But I would say this, Bob: When you consider the issues that Joe Biden talked about a lot in the campaign, I think set forth a real detailed plan, the virus and jobs--as I like to call it--or the virus and the economic ditch that we're in, you can see those challenges right here--or I should say right there, I'm in Washington today--but in Pennsylvania. Number one, we have still have a very high unemployment rate. September, 518,000 people out of work, a little more than 8 percent, and that's low from where it was in April through August. And then, secondly, we have a raging virus, numbers going way up in Pennsylvania, 243,000 cases, roughly; and more than 9,000 deaths. So, just in Pennsylvania, you can see the two challenges that confront the new administration. MR. COSTA: Is a stimulus package going to be the first priority for President Biden? SEN. CASEY: Well, I hope it doesn't have to be his first priority upon taking office. I hope that we can get something done this month or in December. I think that's what we should try to do. And when I say "something," I mean something robust, something substantial, not just a very limited scaled-down proposal that Leader McConnell has set forth a couple of times. We need a big, bold, robust relief strategy, relief bill, really. And I think it should concentrate at a minimum on at least three groups of Americans: older citizens, a real strategy to get the nursing home case number and death number down. Over 91,000 people have died in nursing homes. That's an abomination, a failure for the greatest country in the world. We have--you know, 91,000 represents resident deaths as well as worker deaths. We have to get that down and I have a strategy to do that if we fund it. Secondly, I think communities of color need

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What’s in a name? For animals at the National Zoo, all sorts of considerations.

It’s once again time to pick a name for a celebrity infant at the National Zoo. Frankly, I like all the candidates for the 3-month-old giant panda: Fu Zai (Mandarin Chinese for “prosperous boy”), Xiao Qi ji (“little miracle”), Xing Fu (“happy and prosperous”) and Zai Zai (a nickname for a boy). All those names fall into a category I call “country of origin.” That’s when a zoo animal has a name that is in some way related to where it comes from, either through geography, history or language. The panda name sweepstakes got me thinking about other names at the National Zoo. I did a quick survey and came up with a rough taxonomy of animal names. Call me the Carl Linnaeus of the beastly moniker. Other country-of-origin names include two immense Russian wolfhounds donated to the zoo in September of 1892 by Byron C. Daniels, U.S. consul at Hull, England. The dogs were called Sokorouchai and Outechka. I don’t know what those names mean, but they sure sound Russian to me. Wrote a reporter for the National Tribune: “The hounds are of the famous Borzoi breed, a strain for ages past the peculiar property of Russian nobility, and they can boast a pedigree almost as remote as that of their autocratic sovereign, the czar.” Around that time, the zoo also had a lion, said to be the largest in captivity. It was named Lobengula, after a 19th-century king in southern Africa. In 1911, zoo superintendent Frank Baker reportedly resorted to chance to choose the name of a new baby hippopotamus. According to the Washington Herald: “Last Friday, when the girl baby hippo arrived at the zoo, she was nameless. . . . Dr. Baker grabbed an atlas, shut his eyes as he opened the page at Africa. Then he jammed his finger down on the book and reopened his eyes. His finger pointed to Mombasa.” Mombasa Some wild animals have distinctly Anglo names. In 1904, Menelik II, the king of Abyssinia — present-day Ethiopia — donated a lion to the United States. The zoo could have gone with “Menelik” or something Ethiopian. Instead the lion was named Joe. In 1927, rubber magnate Harvey Samuel Firestone donated a pygmy hippo to the zoo. It was named William Johnson Hippopotamus, although everyone called him Billy. Billy was famously virile, siring offspring with a pair of females, both of whom had

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The Daily 202: Biden’s early moves foreshadow a cautious presidency

of the Hoover Institution or the university.” “Jodi Doering, an emergency room nurse in South Dakota, was overwhelmed Saturday night. Her patients were dying of covid-19, yet were still in denial about the pandemic’s existence. It’s like a ‘horror movie that never ends,’ Doering wrote on Twitter,” Paulina Villegas reports. “Her anxiety and despair is shared by many health-care workers who are facing a dramatic surge in … patients who, despite being severely ill, are reluctant to acknowledge that they have been infected with a virus that Trump has said will simply disappear. Doering said she has covid-19 patients who need 100 percent-oxygen breathing assistance who will also swear that they don’t have the illness … ‘Their last dying words are, 'This can’t be happening. It’s not real,’’ Doering said, adding that some patients prefer to believe that they have pneumonia or other diseases rather than covid-19, despite seeing their positive test results.” “There is record demand for travel nurses, who take out-of-town assignments on short-term contracts of 13 weeks or less at elevated wages. Per-diem nurses, who are willing to take a shift or two in their local hospitals, have been pressed into service. The military is chipping in. And still, in some places, it is not nearly enough,” Lenny Bernstein reports. "Staffing in U.S. hospitals, particularly among nurses, has reflected a patchwork of local shortages in recent years … But now, the once-in-a-century pandemic is exposing the liabilities of this just-in-time, cost-conscious approach at some hospitals, chronic staff shortages in others and the toll of the pandemic on an exhausted workforce.” Former first lady Michelle Obama urged Republicans to respect the election results after reflecting on how painful it was for her to do so in 2016: Senate Republicans sent a fundraising text signed by Donald Trump Jr. that appears to admit that Biden won by suggesting that, if Democrats win the two Georgia seats, they’ll take control of the chamber. That could only happen if Kamala Harris is vice president: Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) had a tense moment with Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska), who was presiding over the chamber, when he asked him to put on a mask. Sullivan declined to do so: Stephen Colbert said executive mismanagement is the primary reason why the pandemic has not been controlled in America: Seth Meyers took a look at Trump’s Twitter “concession”: And comedian Sarah Cooper spoofed Trump’s lawyers:

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An outbreak at a group home and a frantic effort to Clorox wipe the virus away

it was in the midst of a mess that could not be so easily wiped away. Clorox started running its manufacturing plants 24 hours a day. The company had been bracing its shareholders for a mediocre year. Instead, in sales, stock price and surveys of whom Americans trust, Clorox would become one of the pandemic’s biggest winners, and wipes its most coveted trophy. On March 6, 240 of those canisters were loaded into a box truck, along with $1,945 worth of disinfecting spray, hand soap and jugs of bleach, all bound for the Arc of Greater Prince William County. President Trump was a week away from declaring a national emergency. But at the nonprofit, Donna Shipman was already preparing for chaos. Before she became a supervisor, Donna had worked as a direct support professional like Angela. She understood that to someone with intellectual disabilities, even the slightest change in routine could feel like their world had imploded. Soon, every day would bring the cancellation of something the nonprofit’s 2,200 clients depended on. Then came weeks of comforting caregivers who’d been kicked and bitten by group home residents in distress, calming parents who’d been barred from visiting their children, apologizing to staff members they couldn’t afford to keep. By the time Clorox was warning Americans not to ingest bleach as Trump had suggested, disabled communities were battling outbreaks. At a state-run facility in Illinois where half of the 336 residents are nonverbal, 237 of them and 160 of their caregivers had tested positive by mid-November. Four employees and seven residents there have died. Though large facilities like it still exist in at least 36 states, decades of abuse allegations, lawsuits, court decisions and Justice Department interventions have whittled away at their numbers. In Virginia, just one remains. The Trump administration has refused to track outbreaks at such institutions or in group homes, meaning there is no national count of how many people with disabilities have become infected or died of the virus. But on May 13, the Virginia group home learned its fifth resident had indeed tested positive. Donna unlocked the closet where she’d stashed the Clorox wipes and other supplies and carried them to her car. Unaware that she, too, would soon be showing symptoms, she delivered the wipes to their final destination. She could see the anxiety in the caregivers, who in the days ahead were going to be

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Trump’s election fraud allegations suggest military voters uniformly supported him. It’s not so.

as a whole, various demographic groups within the military hold different opinions, much as civilian demographic groups differ. People join the military for a variety of reasons, and not just because they hold conservative beliefs Many Americans assume that people join the military for reasons often associated with conservative views, like support for the military or conceptions of patriotism and honor. However, people join the military for many, highly varied reasons. One of the strongest predictors of who will serve is family background. Those with family who served are more likely to join. But other motivations abound. While many are motivated to serve out of a sense of duty and a belief that military service is honorable, a survey of junior enlisted Army personnel revealed that they are equally — if not more — likely to cite occupational benefits such as pay, travel opportunities and job security. While Republicans remain more likely to enlist than Democrats overall, these diverse motivations further undercut the narrative that members of the military would have been likely to vote in lockstep for Trump. Indeed, recent polls suggested that career military personnel disapprove of the Trump administration and were leaning toward Biden. The military values its professional military norms The higher you go in the military, the more its members care about upholding professional norms in which civilians command the armed forces and military leaders stay out of politics. Many in the military have been asking the president to stop treating the services as political tools because doing so undermines their valued norms of staying above the political fray. Scholars of civil-military relations have been warning about what’s lost when Trump uses the military as a political prop, threatening the public perception that the military is an apolitical or nonpartisan institution. Although Democrats have also been guilty of politicizing the military, Trump has been very open about claiming that the military rank and file “love” him, as if to borrow public respect for the military to gain political support. This summer, Trump had Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, appear with him after Trump had Park Police use tear gas against Lafayette Square protesters. Many retired military officials criticized Milley, who later apologized. Nevertheless, the Trump campaign showed Milley in a political advertisement, reportedly without the general’s consent. Current and former members of the military objected that such acts violated

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Behind the tally, names and lives

As the battle against the Islamic State raged in Iraq in March 2017, Ahmad Bashar Abdullah managed to escape the militants’ grip and slip into newly freed areas of his native city of Mosul. But his mother, sister and other relatives remained in militant-controlled territory, where fighters were forcing civilians out of their homes and using them as human shields against the bombs raining down from the sky. The militants forced his family, and dozens of others, into a nearby house. That the large concrete structure had a basement, unusual in the area, appeared to offer a degree of security. But when Ahmad reached his mother via satellite phone before she left the family’s home, she was still terrified. He tried to soothe her. “Security forces will arrive soon,” he said. Ahmad later learned that his mother’s worst fears had been realized. Responding to sniper fire against allied Iraqi forces, an American aircraft, operating with erroneous intelligence that no civilians were inside the building, dropped a GBU-38 bomb, carrying nearly 200 pounds of explosive material, on the concrete structure. The bomb, U.S. military officials subsequently concluded, ignited an even more powerful cache of explosives that the militants had stored inside the building, collapsing the structure and killing more than 100 civilians. The dead included Ahmad’s mother, Najlaa; his sister, 20-year-old Teeba; his grandfather Thamir, and his twin uncles, Ali and Rakan, and their wives. In all, 32 of Ahmad’s relatives perished. “From that day on I’m not the same person,” Ahmad said by telephone from Mosul earlier this year. “People ask me what I want. I tell them I want my mother and sister back.” Ahmad’s relatives are among the civilians killed in events that are being documented with an unprecedented level of precision in a new accounting of the U.S.-led war against the Islamic State. Using U.S. military geolocation data being made public for the first time, U.K.-based watchdog group Airwars has pinpointed locations, some of them to within a meter squared, for hundreds of strikes resulting in more than 1,400 civilian deaths. The analysis represents a breakthrough in advancing public understanding of the war’s unintended impact and provides a new basis for potential compensation payments to families of those killed. The effort comes as the United States and its allies wind down a six-year-long air campaign against a group that, at the height of its power, controlled an

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Flights with rapid testing are being dubbed ‘covid-free.’ Here’s why that is a myth.

This week, United Airlines announced a trial of flights between Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey and London Heathrow where every passenger receives a rapid coronavirus test before boarding. The program runs until Dec. 11 and is part of “the airline’s free transatlantic covid-19 testing pilot program.” Rapid antigen testing technology displays results in minutes, unlike the more accurate polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests now required by many destinations for entry. (The United Kingdom does not require Americans to get tested before arrival, but it does mandate a 14-day quarantine.) The flights were called “covid-free” in reports by Forbes, CNN and other travel sites. But it’s misleading to call something “covid-free,” especially a flight with only rapid antigen testing, said David Freedman, an infectious-disease specialist at the University of Alabama, who has reviewed studies on in-flight transmission. This week, the Food and Drug Administration updated its guidance on the rapid-test technology, saying that rapid tests are intended for use on people showing covid-19 symptoms and have a far lower accuracy rate than the preferred PCR tests. “Rapid tests are under emergency use authorization, and so they have not gone through full FDA scrutiny … most are 70 to 80 percent as sensitive as a PCR test,” Freedman says. In other words, he stresses, “they miss about 20 to 30 percent of cases that a PCR would pick up.” Rapid antigen tests recently made headlines when SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk said he took four in one day, receiving split results of two positives and two negatives, before conceding he “most likely” has covid-19. While headlines dubbed the flights “covid-free,” airlines have not. United said in an email that “United has said this is the first of its kind transatlantic testing program which guarantees customers over two years old and crew test negative before departure.” German airline Lufthansa, a partner with United, is trialing similar flights. The term appears to have been attached to reports about rapid-tested flights since September, when Forbes covered Alitalia’s coronavirus-tested flights. Premise Health, which is providing the rapid-test service for United’s Heathrow-Newark flights, says it is aiming to provide another layer of safety to passenger, and not a covid-free environment, until a vaccine is available. “No test is perfect, which is why we see testing as part of a layered approach that includes other safety measures to help prevent the spread of covid-19, such

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Flights with rapid testing are being dubbed ‘covid-free.’ Here’s why that is a myth.

positives and two negatives, before conceding he “most likely” has covid-19. While headlines dubbed the flights “covid-free,” airlines have not. United said in an email that “United has said this is the first of its kind transatlantic testing program which guarantees customers over two years old and crew test negative before departure.” German airline Lufthansa, a partner with United, is trialing similar flights. The term appears to have been attached to reports about rapid-tested flights since September, when Forbes covered Alitalia’s coronavirus-tested flights. Premise Health, which is providing the rapid-test service for United’s Heathrow-Newark flights, says it is aiming to provide another layer of safety to passenger, and not a covid-free environment, until a vaccine is available. “No test is perfect, which is why we see testing as part of a layered approach that includes other safety measures to help prevent the spread of covid-19, such as wearing masks,” Premise Health President Jami Doucette said. “There are hundreds of antibody, PCR and antigen tests that have received emergency use authorization, and accuracy varies by specific test, not just the category of test.” United has been notifying all customers booking the route that they would be required to take a rapid test. “If someone didn’t want to be tested, we then accommodated them on another flight or provided a refund,” United spokesperson Robert Einhorn said in an email. Freedman points out that even if PCR tests were given to everyone onboard, no flight can be guaranteed to be covid-free. All coronavirus diagnostic tests can and do miss contagious passengers; rapid antigen tests are just more likely to miss them. And, he says, the risk of a coronavirus-infected individual being on your flight depends on the amount of cases that exist in the area at the time of travel. “Right now, there’s so much covid out there that the chances of one covid-positive person sneaking by and onto a flight, even if everyone is tested, is substantial,” Freeman says. “The airlines just want to do something to sway passengers that their particular plane is safer on that day.” Read more: A travel group report says flying is safe. The doctor whose research it cited says not so fast. Is it safer to fly or drive during the pandemic? 5 health experts weigh in. Teen on family trip spread the coronavirus to 11 relatives across 4 states after a negative test, CDC says

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Murder hornets sound terrifying. But should we really be so scared?

virus, the source of the current global pandemic — the latest in a long line of migrant microbes, some destructive, others not. (Some scientists believe that studying invasive species might help us to combat the spread of diseases such as covid-19.) Yet there are also plenty of invasive species that, while they might have a certain nuisance value, don’t wreak widespread destruction. The ubiquitous house sparrow is one; so, too, is the butterfly bush, which provides food for countless insects in the United States. To ecologists, each new introduction of an exotic species to North America is an uncontrolled biological experiment with unknown long-term results. As far as murder hornets are concerned, agricultural authorities probably won’t be able to extinguish them all. Getting rid of the two established populations in British Columbia and Washington state would be like successfully killing every mosquito in your backyard on a summer’s evening with a fly swatter. Is there reason for alarm? Yes, but probably not because of any direct threat to humans. There are lots of venomous bugs in the United States, and these new arrivals don’t appear to be unduly aggressive, unlike the Africanized honeybees — yep, “killer bees” — that caused such consternation in the mid-1980s in the Deep South. More worrisome is the species’ possible impact on the honeybee-reliant commercial pollination systems in agriculture, which could potentially cause billions of dollars of economic harm. Think of the Mediterranean fruit fly’s depredations in California, Florida and Texas. So how well will the Asian giant hornet adapt to the varied environments in the United States? It apparently evolved in humid forested environments. Recent ecological modeling indicates the hornet might remain confined to the Pacific Northwest over the next two decades. The only other true hornet in North America is another introduced species, the European hornet. This slightly smaller species is now widespread in the United States, and most people aren’t even aware of its existence. It’s also known to be a predator of honeybees but seems to have had relatively little impact on their numbers in the United States. This gives us a reason not to worry about its larger relative. Here’s the thing. There are more than 91,000 species of insects in the United States. The Asian giant hornet will become one more member of that huge group of species. Like so many introduced exotic species, it probably will have no

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Murder hornets sound terrifying. But should we really be so scared?

are lots of venomous bugs in the United States, and these new arrivals don’t appear to be unduly aggressive, unlike the Africanized honeybees — yep, “killer bees” — that caused such consternation in the mid-1980s in the Deep South. More worrisome is the species’ possible impact on the honeybee-reliant commercial pollination systems in agriculture, which could potentially cause billions of dollars of economic harm. Think of the Mediterranean fruit fly’s depredations in California, Florida and Texas. So how well will the Asian giant hornet adapt to the varied environments in the United States? It apparently evolved in humid forested environments. Recent ecological modeling indicates the hornet might remain confined to the Pacific Northwest over the next two decades. The only other true hornet in North America is another introduced species, the European hornet. This slightly smaller species is now widespread in the United States, and most people aren’t even aware of its existence. It’s also known to be a predator of honeybees but seems to have had relatively little impact on their numbers in the United States. This gives us a reason not to worry about its larger relative. Here’s the thing. There are more than 91,000 species of insects in the United States. The Asian giant hornet will become one more member of that huge group of species. Like so many introduced exotic species, it probably will have no serious effects, other than scaring people who are already frightened of creepy crawlies. A sting from one, in most cases, will be little more than a painful badge of courage. We have no evidence at this stage that the species will become widespread. It might just become a curiosity confined to the dark conifer forests of the Pacific Northwest — something like Sasquatch. Hysteria over a potentially invasive species is understandable, but it’s not a basis for good policy. Most invasive species, once established, can’t be eradicated. We need to focus all our energy on containing those exotic species that pose the most threat. Murder hornets aren’t one of them. Read more Bruce Beehler: The feel-good animal comeback photos mean little in the grand scheme of the environment Bruce Beehler: What a bobcat sighting tells us about a rewilding Washington Robert Gebelhoff: Coyotes are poised to invade South America. Humans are to blame. Helaine Olen: We’re in danger of killing off the biodiversity that makes our way of life possible

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What flight attendants want you to know about traveling during the holidays

The surge in coronavirus cases across the United States has millions of Americans questioning whether they should travel for the holidays. Nonetheless, flight attendants are gearing up for another busy period of hectic airports, packed planes and holiday traffic. It has been an incredibly challenging year for those in the profession. Throughout the pandemic, tens of thousands of flight attendants were furloughed as the airline industry faced some of its worst job losses in history. Those lucky enough to keep their jobs are adjusting to elements of the new normal, such as policing passengers for coronavirus policies and wearing personal protective equipment. We asked four flight attendants to share their advice from the front lines of pandemic travel to help those planning on flying this holiday season. After volunteering to take about seven months off during the pandemic, Jalisa Robinson, who is based in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., is back to flying for JetBlue. While she has noticed that travel is picking up again, Robinson is not anxious about flying. “I haven’t had really too many worries, because I feel it’s just a part of life,” she says. Passengers following coronavirus precautions give Robinson confidence in flying. When she boards a plane, she wipes down common surfaces and makes sure she is washing her hands constantly. Her advice to travelers is to do the same. “Don’t let your guard down; take the precautions,” she says. However, there may be such thing as too many precautions. Robinson says travelers should avoid going to extremes with their PPE choices, as some can do more harm than good onboard, particularly in the case of emergency. Avoid wearing bulky gear like a hazmat suit that can be difficult to see out of and limit movement. “Protect yourself, I’m all for that. But make it comfortable and feasible in case something else happens that you need to move quickly,” Robinson says. Danario Green was optimistic about returning to work as a JetBlue flight attendant after taking a five-month voluntary leave earlier in the pandemic. His first few flights came with some jitters, but now Green has eased back into the routine and feels comforted by the precautions JetBlue is taking to keep staff and travelers socially distanced, and by how frequently plane air is filtered. Green says one frustration of the job is dealing with passengers who take off their masks beyond eating or drinking. He

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After fleeing to Sudan, Ethiopians from Tigray recount brutal killings

into Sudan each day. A wave of 27,000 refugees has already poured into Sudan since the conflict erupted this month, and humanitarian groups on the ground were overwhelmed, the agency said. “People are coming out of Ethiopia really scared, afraid, with stories saying they have been fleeing heavy fighting,” said agency spokesman Babar Baloch. “There is no sign of the fighting stopping.” Abiy ordered troops into Tigray on Nov. 4 after the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) attacked federal military bases and attempted to access artillery and military equipment. He has demanded that the TPLF, which for decades was the dominant political force in the country’s multiethnic ruling coalition, hand over control and ordered Tigray’s security forces to lay down their arms. He has ignored growing international calls for negotiations to end the fighting, saying he will negotiate only when the rule of law is restored in Tigray. The violence spilled across Ethiopia’s northern border over the weekend when Tigrayan forces launched rockets at Eritrea’s capital, Asmara, blaming it for siding with Addis Ababa. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in a statement Tuesday blamed the TPLF for what he called “its blatant attempt” to cause regional instability and condemned the missile attacks on Eritrea. He urged all sides to show restraint, protect civilians and open up humanitarian corridors so that aid workers could help those in need. “Civilians, including U.S. citizens, should be protected from harm and be provided with humanitarian assistance and safe passage out of the conflict,” Pompeo said. Abiy, who last year won the Nobel Peace Prize, warned Tuesday that federal troops were closing in on Tigray’s capital, Mekele. “The final critical act of law enforcement will be done in coming days,” he said. Ethiopia says its air force struck unspecified TPLF targets outside Mekele on Monday and “liberated” four areas on the eastern front. U.N. rights chief Michelle Bachelet expressed concern that the war could spiral out of control and raised the possibility that war crimes may have been committed. Amnesty International, citing witnesses, said last week that it had evidence of a massacre of civilians stabbed and hacked to death in the town of Mai-Kadra in Tigray, days after the conflict first flared. At the temporary camp guarded by the Sudanese army, Zam Zam said food and blankets are running low amid the surge of refugees. She and others are waiting to be moved

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Navy football has third consecutive game postponed

The Navy football team had its third consecutive game postponed because of a coronavirus outbreak. The American Athletic Conference announced Wednesday that the game between Navy and South Florida scheduled for Saturday in Tampa was called off because of positive tests at USF. Navy hasn’t played since a 51-37 loss to SMU on Oct. 31. Games against Tulsa and Memphis the past two weeks were postponed because of an outbreak on the Naval Academy grounds. The Midshipmen have one more game scheduled for Dec. 12 against Army in West Point, N.Y., where the annual event was moved after local safety guidelines prompted a venue change from Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia. Cadets and midshipmen will be permitted to attend the game. South Florida has one more game scheduled for Nov. 27 against Central Florida, so both teams have the first weekend of December open as a possible landing spot for a rescheduled game. Navy, however, is also trying to make up its other two postponed games. The Midshipmen took a nearly two-week break from in-person football activities while dealing with the outbreak at Navy. They returned to the field Friday and had been preparing for USF this week, but they still didn’t expect to have their full roster available. “Really excited about this game,” Navy Coach Ken Niumatalolo said Monday. “Our practices on Friday and Saturday, our young men were just excited to get out of their rooms. Just that part, getting out of their rooms, some of our more spirited practices. Just the fact of being able to get out of their rooms is definitely beneficial for them.” Niumatalolo spoke Monday about having to be flexible during a 2020 season that is different from anything college football has previously seen. From the cancellation of spring and summer workouts to no tackling in preseason practices to online position meetings, Niumatalolo has been consistent with his message. “We’ve been dealing with this for so long, you just keep rolling,” he said. “The approach I’ve taken with our guys … I’d imagine when they’re overseas and they’re in deployment or they’re on a ship in the Middle East somewhere, things change. You might have a mission, and things change, and you adapt. “I have no idea — that’s just me watching movies. I don’t know if that’s how it works. I’m just saying, you’re going to have to adapt in life. You’re

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Some — but not all — Republicans are finally wising up about the coronavirus pandemic

How many sick and dying constituents does it take for a Republican governor to require the use of the most straightforward public health measure to slow the spread of a deadly pandemic? We’re starting to find out: So some GOP governors, including Doug Burgum in North Dakota and Kim Reynolds in Iowa, have finally instituted mask mandates. Does this have anything to do with President Trump’s defeat in this month’s election? Let’s hope so. First, though, we should understand just how terrifying the covid-19 situation has become, across the country but particularly in certain states. Tuesday was the deadliest day in six months, with over 1,700 Americans dying, according to Johns Hopkins University. One study estimates that more than 3 million Americans have active infections and could be contagious. North and South Dakota are now two of the worst coronavirus hot spots in the entire world. As Kailee Leingang writes in The Post, in North Dakota, they’ve simply given up contact tracing because there are so many people infected that the task has become impossible. Across the country, hospitals don’t have enough staff to deal with the deluge of covid patients. And Thanksgiving is next week, when people traditionally travel to gather with their family and friends. Many of us won’t this year, heeding the warnings from public health officials. But many will, and the result will likely be an increase in infections and deaths. Even now, there are holdouts among Republicans. South Dakota Gov. Kristi L. Noem (R) — who urged people to come to the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in August where they’d crowd into bars without masks, and welcomed President Trump for a tightly packed and largely unmasked event at Mount Rushmore in July — is still resisting. “I knew that South Dakotans could be trusted to exercise their personal responsibility, and each and every one of these people have proven me right” she wrote in a statement last week describing her recent encounters with some South Dakotans who have yet to fall ill. We can’t go back and rerun history to figure out what would have happened if Trump hadn’t made the decision to politicize mask-wearing. But he did, turning a refusal to wear masks into an emblem of Republican identity. We’ve been suffering the consequences: Nearly a quarter of a million Americans have died from covid-19, with many more deaths to come, and Trump’s administration has

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Family of American kidnapped in Afghanistan fears he will be ‘left behind’

Charlene Cakora is glad more U.S. troops will be coming home from Afghanistan soon. But she also is filled with dread that the drawdown announced this week will complicate efforts to find her brother. Mark Frerichs, a civilian contractor, was abducted in Afghanistan in January and hasn’t been heard from since. “I think it’s bad news,” she said of the troop reduction plan in a telephone interview from her home in Illinois. “We want the troops home, but we don’t want Mark to be left behind.” The Trump administration says it will roughly halve the number of troops in Afghanistan, from about 5,000 to 2,500, by mid-January. Under a deal between the United States and the Taliban signed earlier this year, all American and NATO forces could be gone by May, if certain conditions are met. It is unclear whether the force reduction will minimize U.S. leverage in finding Frerichs and another American, Paul Overby, who disappeared in Afghanistan in 2014 while researching a book. Both are believed to have been taken by the Haqqani network, an insurgent group that is an offshoot of the Taliban. President Trump has prioritized negotiations for the release of Americans held captive abroad and claims to have secured freedom for more than 50 from some 20 countries during his time in office. U.S. officials call them hostages, though some were imprisoned by foreign governments, mostly under dubious charges. The State Department has offered $5 million under its Rewards for Justice program for information leading to the location, recovery and return of Frerichs and Overby. And the United States has won the release of Americans even in countries where there are no troops. Little is known about the fate of Overby, a 77-year-old author, who vanished in 2014 in Khost province near the border with Pakistan while working on a book about the Afghan conflict. He had planned to cross the border into Pakistan and was trying to arrange an interview with the head of the Haqqani network when he disappeared. His family, contacted through an intermediary, declined to comment. Frerichs, 58, was abducted on Jan. 31 this year. A former Navy diver, he had been living in Kabul for a decade working on construction projects as an engineer. He is believed to be alive and relatively well, despite being held by a militant group that has been designated a foreign terrorist organization. Zalmay Khalilzad,

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Trump’s military cuts in Afghanistan highlight an array of divisions in a 19-year-old conflict

Administration would be tumultuous, but the haphazard nature of President Trump’s decision will harm our national security and jeopardize countless American, Afghan, and Iraqi lives,” Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) said in a statement. But other Democrats who have called for the end of U.S. wars said nothing or found common cause with the president’s instincts. Rep. Adam Smith (D.-Wash.), the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said he had spoken with new acting defense secretary Christopher C. Miller and believes that “reducing our forward deployed footprint in Afghanistan down to 2,500 troops is the right policy decision.” Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) and Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) addressed the issue on a bipartisan basis in a letter to the Pentagon. As veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, the two lawmakers said they have “grave concern” about the cut and asked how it will be handled. “Additionally, we continue to be concerned by the growing ISIS activity in Afghanistan and Iran’s influence in Iraq,” they wrote. “Intelligence shows that both issues are destabilizing factors in a critical region, and minimizing our military and diplomatic footprint allows malign forces to fill the vacuum we create.” Veterans — some politically active, others not — also hold an array of viewpoints. Tom Porter, the executive vice president of government affairs for the nonprofit Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, said his group has not yet polled its members about the president’s latest decision. But in its 2020 survey of members, 28 percent said they think the U.S. war in Afghanistan was worth it, and 34 percent said it was somewhat worth it. Others were either neutral or held dimmer views about the conflict. Porter, who served one tour as a Navy officer in Afghanistan, said he is concerned that Trump’s decision may create a scenario in which President-elect Joe Biden may have to make a politically difficult decision about whether to add troops in Afghanistan later. He cited the departure of U.S. troops from Iraq in 2011 and the bloodshed that took place in 2014 as the Islamic State swept across parts of the country. “I would hate for that same kind of thing to happen again,” Porter said. “I know there is going to have to be date that we have to leave there. We just want to make sure it’s under the right circumstances.” In an appearance Wednesday, the new acting Pentagon chief

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Kennedy Center cancels live performances through spring. Honors are still on, with a different look.

The Kennedy Center is canceling all scheduled live performances through April 25 as well as next summer’s slate of Broadway touring shows, pushing its pandemic-related closure into a second year, officials announced Wednesday. The annual Kennedy Center Honors — already postponed to March 7 — will be produced in late spring using a hybrid format of virtual tributes and live performances. The cancellations will result in the permanent layoffs of 38 employees who had been furloughed, adding to the 64 who were laid off in July, when the arts center also eliminated 47 vacant positions. The administrative staff has been cut by 36 percent since the start of the pandemic, said Kennedy Center president and chief executive Deborah Rutter. With the new cancellations, the national arts center has nixed more than half of an already limited 2020-2021 season and incurred earned revenue losses topping $80 million, Rutter said. “It’s such a complicated, complex and confusing time,” Rutter said Wednesday. “I believe this is clearheaded. We’re confronting reality. We’re doing everything in our power to address the circumstances we find ourselves in. But all of this is beyond our control.” More than 384 ticketed events have been canceled starting in January, including the Washington National Opera’s planned productions in May and July of “La Bohème” and “Blue” and the national tours of “Jesus Christ Superstar” (May 25-June 13), “Freestyle Love Supreme” (June 8-13), “Oklahoma!” (June 22-27), “Dear Evan Hansen” (June 29-July 18) and “The Band’s Visit” (July 28-Aug. 8). Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater performances, originally scheduled for Feb. 2-7, will be moved to June 22-27. The arts center closed in March, when government officials banned large gatherings to prevent the spread of covid-19. Almost immediately, the center laid off about 800 hourly and part-time workers and furloughed several hundred more. Congress provided $25 million in relief funding, and the arts center spent $19.8 million on salary and benefits for employees for the first six months of the shutdown. Rutter said the $4 million balance is being used for current salary and benefits costs. “The Cares Act made it possible for us to get through last year. Without it, I can’t imagine what would have happened,” Rutter said. She declined to say whether the arts center is seeking additional federal aid. The center now has 264 administrative employees, down from 411, 153 musicians in its two orchestras and about 70 part-time

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Kennedy Center cancels live performances through spring. Honors are still on, with a different look.

including the Washington National Opera’s planned productions in May and July of “La Bohème” and “Blue” and the national tours of “Jesus Christ Superstar” (May 25-June 13), “Freestyle Love Supreme” (June 8-13), “Oklahoma!” (June 22-27), “Dear Evan Hansen” (June 29-July 18) and “The Band’s Visit” (July 28-Aug. 8). Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater performances, originally scheduled for Feb. 2-7, will be moved to June 22-27. The arts center closed in March, when government officials banned large gatherings to prevent the spread of covid-19. Almost immediately, the center laid off about 800 hourly and part-time workers and furloughed several hundred more. Congress provided $25 million in relief funding, and the arts center spent $19.8 million on salary and benefits for employees for the first six months of the shutdown. Rutter said the $4 million balance is being used for current salary and benefits costs. “The Cares Act made it possible for us to get through last year. Without it, I can’t imagine what would have happened,” Rutter said. She declined to say whether the arts center is seeking additional federal aid. The center now has 264 administrative employees, down from 411, 153 musicians in its two orchestras and about 70 part-time workers, including stagehands, theater managers and ushers, who are hired intermittently, Rutter said. Salary cuts of 25 percent for senior executives and 10 percent for those earning $75,000 that were implemented this summer will continue. After originally taking no compensation for three months, Rutter increased her salary to 25 percent in mid-June and began taking 50 percent in mid-September. Her annual pay is about $1.3 million. David McIntyre, president of Local 22 of the International Alliance of Theatrical and Stage Employees, the union representing about 400 stagehands, questioned the center’s attempt to present large-scale events this winter when most venues were not. “It was clear things weren’t going in the right direction quite a while ago,” he said. “Until we get the virus under control, I don’t understand why they were even trying to plan a season.” The union’s contract with the arts center expired in September and negotiations are stalled, said McIntyre, who predicted regular activity at the arts center would not return until the fall. “They are pretty committed to what they view as necessary cuts,” he said. But Peter de Boor, a French horn player in the Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra and chairman of its orchestra

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Maryland crime report

Due to concerns over the novel coronavirus and social distancing, •Destruction to a vehicle •Destruction of property/vandalism •Theft from a vehicle •Thefts of vehicle parts and accessories •Tampering with a vehicle •Attempted vehicle theft •Credit or debit card theft •Identify theft •Lost property •Telephone misuse •Trespassing The following were among incidents reported by Anne Arundel County police. For information, call 410-222-8050. Annapolis Area Foxwood Ct., Glen Burnie Area Foxridge Lane, White Water Ct., Crain Hwy., Crain Hwy. near Hidden Brook Dr., Ritchie Hwy. and Furnace Branch Rd. E., Ashmore Ave. and Pebblebrook Lane, Edgewater Area Lee Airpark Dr., Severn Area Pioneer Dr. and Arwell Ct., Due to concerns over the novel coronavirus and social distancing, Center St., Center St., Gemini Dr., West St., Bay Ridge Rd., Dock St., Hillsmere Dr., Janice Dr., Norwood Rd., Park Pl., Taylor Ave., Tyler Ave., W. Washington St., Chester Ave., Due to concerns over the novel coronavirus and social distancing, citizens are encouraged to report certain incidents online at hcpd.org or by calling 410-313-2200. These were among incidents reported by Howard County police. Columbia Area Twin Knolls Rd., Black Star Cir., Cloudleap Ct., Santiago Rd., Hayshed Lane, Quiet Hours, Centre Park Dr., Sandalfoot Way, Stonebrook Lane, Swan Point Way, Yellow Bonnet Pl., Columbia Rd., Swan Point Way, Vantage Point Rd., Elkridge Area Old Washington Rd., Jessup Area Washington Blvd., Laurel Area Gorman Rd.,

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A rapid at-home covid-19 test — for under $50 — just got FDA approval

nurse or processing with high-tech lab equipment. Under its emergency use powers, the FDA also authorized Lucira’s test for medical settings like doctor’s offices, hospitals and urgent care centers. Patients ages 13 and under must have the test administered by a medical professional. In recent months, companies have been racing to see who could be first to provide an at-home test, Wan reported. Many manufacturers said the test could be especially helpful this winter, with infections surging and consumers wanting to get tested before holiday gatherings. “At a time when so many people feel like they’ve lost control of so much of their lives, it would put power back in their hands,” Mara G. Aspinall, a biomedical diagnostics professor at Arizona State University, told The Post last month. “That’s no small thing.” Scientists have weighed the merits of two different ways of detecting the virus. Some of the two dozen or so companies trying to develop home tests have focused on polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests, a molecular process that is more precise but also more expensive and takes longer. Many more manufacturers are close to developing at-home antigen tests, which detect proteins on the surface of the virus. But these rapid tests are less sensitive, producing false negatives that could give people a false sense of security. In July, the FDA issued guidelines noting any at-home test must be accurate and easy enough for untrained people to use without confusion. Antigen tests sold directly to consumers must be more accurate than those used in medical settings up until now, the agency said, because consumers at home will be left to interpret the results on their own. Lucira said on its website that the company’s at-home test relies on molecular nucleic acid amplification technology, which is designed to detect whether an individual is shedding the coronavirus that causes covid-19. Before the pandemic, the manufacturer was focused on developing similar technology for an at-home flu test. The FDA’s emergency use authorization for the Lucira home test requires prescribing health professionals to report test results from patients according to local, state and federal requirements. Doctors and public health specialists had expressed worries about reporting and receiving data from at-home tests, because labs are not involved. These experts fear that without clear mechanisms, the country would be flying blind as it navigates the pandemic. William Wan and Laurie McGinley contributed to this report.

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Astronauts on the space station discuss SpaceX’s rocket, sleeping quarters and Baby Yoda

He had flown on the space shuttle and the Russian Soyuz. And now after flying the SpaceX Dragon capsule, Soichi Noguchi is only the third person, after John Young and Wally Schirra, to travel to orbit in three different vehicles. Asked Thursday how the three compared, Noguchi didn’t hesitate. “For the record, Dragon is the best,” the Japanese astronaut said. “Short answer.” During their first news conference since arriving at the International Space Station on Monday night, the astronauts who blasted off Sunday evening said their escape from Earth’s gravity was a thrilling ride atop a spacecraft that on the ground appeared restless, grunting and vibrating before being unleashed into the skies, a fury of nine engines churning through thousands of gallons of propellant. “You can just tell it wants to get off the ground,” mission commander Mike Hopkins said. “It’s definitely ready to go, and it just leaped off the pad. It was amazing.” The mission followed a test flight in May that ended NASA’s long, ignominious absence from human spaceflight since the space shuttle was retired in 2011. With that successful mission, which sent NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley to the station for two months, NASA then proceeded with the Crew-1 flight, making the Dragon capsule the first privately owned and privately operated spacecraft to be certified by NASA for human spaceflight. The crew of four — NASA astronauts Hopkins, Shannon Walker and Victor Glover, as well as Noguchi — lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Sunday evening, and arrived at the station about 27 hours later. They’re scheduled to spend six months on the orbiting laboratory conducting science experiments, including one, proposed by Michigan high school students, that will examine how spaceflight affects brain function. On Monday, the Dragon docked itself autonomously with the station, while it orbited Earth at 17,500 mph, and the astronauts sat by, monitoring the spacecraft but staying off the controls. Asked whether it was difficult to be hands off, Glover, a Navy fighter pilot with more than 3,000 flight hours in more than 40 aircraft, including 24 combat missions, said that “it wasn’t an issue.” “The rocket, the Falcon 9, performed superbly, the way it was supposed to,” he said. “Dragon performed superb.” The crew joined NASA astronaut Kate Rubins and Russian cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Sergey Kud-Sverchkov, who arrived at the station last month. Now

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Stimulus funds really do keep people home, our research finds

With coronavirus rates surging, elected officials in both red and blue states are again considering new restrictions on households and businesses. Some governors and mayors have imposed new shelter-in-place orders as a last-ditch measure to avoid overloading hospitals beyond their capacity. But lockdowns remain controversial. New survey data suggests that just half of Americans would comply with a month-long stay-at-home order; a third would refuse, up from just 15 percent in April. Many think that public attitudes about these health orders simply reflect partisan beliefs. But our new research shows that underlying household economic security also shapes compliance with these governmental directives. Here’s how we did our research States and cities in the spring of 2020 turned first to shelter-in-place ordinances to try to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus. To study willingness to abide by these orders, we wanted to find a way to accurately measure compliance in a way that could be compared across different towns and cities, as well as over time as different cities and states adopted and retracted those orders. We didn’t want to rely on public opinion surveys asking respondents whether they complied with such orders, since claims can be different from actions. Instead we examined large quantities of geolocated cellular phone device use patterns. We used raw data from the data analytics company UNACAST. They estimate such information as the number of people who are living in a home; the average time spent at home or outside; and changes in the average distance a user traveled. Aggregated to the county level and compared over time, this information can be used to assess compliance with orders to shelter in place. We obtained access to records that covered nearly all U.S. counties from February through July 2020. To determine how economic conditions shape compliance, we looked at differences in when states and municipalities rolled out their lockdown orders during March 2020, when the pandemic began. Counties vary in many ways, but for this analysis we focused on differences in average household income. We also took account of other factors that might influence county residents’ willingness to comply, including how severely each county was hit by the coronavirus, unemployment levels, population density, partisanship and where residents can get news. Economic security matters We found that in counties where large proportions of residents were in economic distress, residents were less likely to stay home than residents of

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Australian special forces executed 39 prisoners and civilians in Afghanistan, report finds

investigators found that a small but influential group of its soldiers consciously put aside the rules of war and adopted a “self-centered warrior culture” that led to prisoners being killed and radios and weapons being planted on the victims’ bodies. Those who opposed these soldiers were intimidated into silence, which prevented reports from reaching commanders. “The report notes that the distorted culture was embraced and amplified by some experienced, charismatic and influential noncommissioned officers and their proteges who sought to fuse military excellence with ego, elitism and entitlement,” Campbell said at a news conference in the capital, Canberra. “We are a nation that stands up when something goes wrong and deals with it, and that’s what I intend to be part of.” Afghanistan’s presidential office said on Twitter ahead of the report’s release that Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison had spoken by telephone with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani to express regret over the abuses and to promise that justice would be served. Australia’s Foreign Ministry had sent a letter of apology for the actions of Australian forces, it added. Campbell was in charge of Australian forces in the Middle East during part of the time the unlawful killings took place. The actions came to light when some soldiers told journalists stories of alleged war crimes, which some experts initially greeted with skepticism. A special unit has been established by the government to amass evidence and prosecute the soldiers, some of whom still work in the army. The families of Afghan victims will be offered compensation, Campbell said. An SAS unit, the 2nd Squadron, will be abolished and its name retired, he said. Governor General David Hurley, the country’s ceremonial leader, will be asked to revoke a meritorious unit citation awarded to Australia’s special operations task force in Afghanistan between 2007 and 2014, he added. There is no guarantee the investigation will result in convictions. Testimony provided by some 423 witnesses to the investigation is not admissible in court, and there is no certainty the tightly knit special forces soldiers will give evidence against one another in public trials. Investigators found some soldiers used techniques to avoid giving information that they had been taught to use if interrogated by the enemy. There is also the possibility of future political interference. British governments obstructed investigations and prosecutions of war crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq, according to Human Rights Watch, an advocacy group.

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The Technology 202: Facebook content moderators want safer pandemic work conditions and hazard pay

to by the company into an account that can be carried to a new job and redeemed for benefits like health insurance. In addition to lobbying state and local officials, the coalition will also advocate for federal policies. The coalition also aims to help local businesses “compete in an increasingly online economy” and increase “transportation and delivery equity," it says. Labor advocates have criticized the plan as another attempt by the companies to avoid paying for protections guaranteed to workers classified as employees under the law. “The American economy and the way people work has fundamentally changed, yet public policy hasn’t kept up," Whitney Brennan, spokesperson for the App-Based Work Alliance, said in a news release. “Our country’s antiquated benefits system doesn’t reflect how people are working and living in the 21st century.” CNN The board temporarily voted to block certification of votes in Detroit on Tuesday but later reversed its decision. Hartmann, who now wants to walk back his vote to certify, shared a widely debunked election conspiracy theory "hammer and scorecard," which alleges that a package of CIA computer programs hacked the election. The theory was debunked by DHS's former cybersecurity chief. Los Angeles Times reporter Del Quentin Wilber Hartmann also shared numerous from OAN, a network favored by Trump, that hospitals were inflating covid-19 numbers and that the recent announcement of a promising covid-19 vaccine was politically motivated. Facebook's fact-checkers labeled the video about hospitals as false. The judge in charge of the case said he wants to set dates before the holidays so both parties can begin legal discovery, Brent Kendall at The Wall Street Journal reports. The government currently has a list of more than 100 potential witnesses, a list that could grow if states bringing their own antitrust investigation against Google chose to merge cases. More industry news: Apple cuts some App Store fees, but critics call it a ploy to avoid regulation (Reed Albergotti) The alerts are available in 15 U.S. states, territories and D.C. Want to learn more about how they work and how to turn them on? Geoffrey A. Fowler wrote this handy guide. That Pig Couch on Craigslist? Not for Sale. (Also, Not a Couch.) (The New York Times) Rockefeller Center’s scraggly Christmas tree is deemed ‘a metaphor for 2020’ (Travis M. Andrews) The Last Children of Down Syndrome (The Atlantic) The competition keeps getting younger and younger these days.

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Smithsonian, National Gallery to close as coronavirus cases spike

The Smithsonian will close the National Zoo and the seven museums it had reopened in stages since July and the National Gallery of Art will shutter its galleries in response to the Washington region’s recent spike in coronavirus cases. The Smithsonian’s second pandemic-related closure will begin Monday and will last at least through January, officials said. The National Gallery of Art will close Friday at 4 p.m. Similar shutdowns were announced earlier this week in Philadelphia and Chicago, representing the start of a second wave of shutdowns eight months after covid-19 first prompted widespread closures. National Gallery of Art Director Kaywin Feldman and Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie G. Bunch III decided to take action after monitoring the recent rise in coronavirus cases being reported. “We both expressed growing concern about the increased number of cases in the region and across the country and came to the conclusion that caution needed to prevail to protect our visitors and staff,” Feldman said. The National Gallery of Art opened its sculpture garden in mid-June, its ground-floor galleries (to limited capacity) in July and some of its main galleries in the West Building just a few weeks ago, on Oct. 26. All will probably remain closed through January, although the museum will continually evaluate the situation. “It can’t help but feel like a step backward,” Feldman said about the decision. “But what’s different this time is we can see the light at the end of the tunnel. The prospect of a vaccine lifts our spirits. We have big plans for next year and lots to look forward to. We need to keep people safe in this period.” The Smithsonian began a multistage reopening July 24, when the National Zoo and the National Air and Space Museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Va., were the first to welcome back visitors after being closed for four months. The Smithsonian American Art Museum, the National Portrait Gallery, the National Museum of African American History and Culture and the Renwick Gallery reopened Sept. 18, with the National Museum of American History and the National Museum of the American Indian opening their doors a week later. The Hirshhorn Museum’s sculpture garden and the Smithsonian gardens surrounding its administration building reopened in August and will remain open now. The decision to close the museums and zoo was made out of caution, Bunch emphasized, adding that cases are projected to rise

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Smithsonian, National Gallery to close as coronavirus cases spike

while we are closing the buildings, the Smithsonian is still open online,” he added. Other cultural organizations — in the Washington region and nationally — have had to close or cancel events because of the pandemic. The Kennedy Center this week canceled live performances through April, as well as the Broadway shows it had booked for the summer. On Tuesday, the Philadelphia Museum of Art and five other institutions announced they would close Friday for six weeks because of changes in government directives. The Art Institute of Chicago announced Tuesday evening that it would close Thursday. “It is extremely discouraging to close our doors at a moment when, during a normal year, we would be preparing to welcome even more visitors for the holiday season,” the leaders of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University, the Barnes Foundation, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and the Eastern State Penitentiary Historic Site wrote in a joint statement. “We understand that it is vitally important to ensure the safety and well-being of our staff, visitors, members, and volunteers and we support the efforts of our government and medical professionals in reducing the spread of the virus.” Other major art museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Museum of Fine Art in Boston and the Museum of Fine Art in Houston, are tracking their local coronavirus numbers and coordinating with their colleagues. “The governor and mayor have not requested closure of museums or any nonessential businesses or nonprofits,” said Kenneth Weine, a Met spokesman. “We will continue to be in touch with city and state officials and public health leaders and follow their lead; however, we believe that we can continue to operate safely.” The new closures will harm an already fragile field. A survey from the American Alliance of Museums released this week found almost one-third of museums remain closed after eight months and more than half of museums have had to furlough or layoff staffers. About 30 percent of museum employees are out of work, according to the survey of 850 museum directors conducted last month. The survey also found that the museums that have reopened were attracting 35 percent of normal attendance, a level that is not sustainable long-term, according to the report. Museums anticipate losing 35 percent of their income this year and about 28 percent next year.

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Smithsonian museums, zoo to close as coronavirus caseload in D.C. region hits record for 16th day

The greater Washington region reported more than 5,000 new coronavirus infections Thursday — a record for a single day — with weeks of sustained increases prompting the Smithsonian Institution to close facilities that had reopened to the public. Maryland, Virginia and D.C. reported 5,077 new cases Thursday amid a national surge that has seen several states set records in recent days. It lifted the Washington region’s seven-day average number of daily new cases to 4,109 — about twice the number being reported at the end of October. It’s the 16th straight day that the region’s average daily number of cases has hit a record. The Smithsonian Institution cited the caseload rise Thursday while announcing it will temporarily close eight facilities in the Washington region that had reopened. It did not announce a reopening date, but officials said the closure will last at least through January. Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie G. Bunch III said the decision to close the museums and National Zoo was a precaution, adding that caseloads are projected to rise after Thanksgiving, typically a busy time for the museums. The Smithsonian began reopening July 24, when the National Zoo and the National Air and Space Museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Va., welcomed back visitors after four months. The closure is the latest in new restrictions added across the Washington region as caseloads have jumped. D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) said Wednesday that she would impose new restrictions “soon” to combat the rise in cases. Virginia and Maryland — as well as several of Maryland’s most populous jurisdictions — also have reimposed pandemic-related restrictions in recent days. Maryland reported a record 2,910 new cases Thursday, shattering the previous high set five days before. It lifted the seven-day average number of daily new cases in the state to 2,119 — the 16th consecutive daily record — which is triple the average of the final days of October. Maryland also reported 21 additional deaths. Virginia reported 1,954 new cases Thursday, sending its seven-day average to a record 1,823 daily infections. The state also recorded 36 new fatalities. D.C.’s 213 new infections Thursday lifted its seven-day average to 167 daily cases, approaching the record of 194, set May 6. The city also reported two new fatalities. D.C. police this week said they have asked all members of the department who worked during demonstrations in the city Saturday to get tested

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Tyson Foods managers had a ‘winner-take-all’ bet on how many workers would get covid-19, lawsuit alleges

As the novel coronavirus ripped through a pork processing plant in Waterloo, Iowa, in April, Tyson Foods supervisors not only kept the facility open — they also placed bets on how many workers would catch the virus, a recent wrongful death lawsuit claims. More than 1,000 employees eventually tested positive amid the outbreak, which eventually shut down the meat-processing plant and spurred harsh condemnations from local officials who said the company had failed to provide the necessary protections for its workforce. Isidro Fernandez, who worked in the Waterloo facility, was one of the workers who fell ill in April. He died on April 26 from complications of covid-19, the lawsuit says. At least five other employees at the plant died, the Associated Press reported. Fernandez’s son, Oscar Fernandez, sued Tyson Foods earlier this year over the conditions in the plant and allegations that the company misinformed workers about the extent and severity of the outbreak. “Despite an uncontrolled COVID-19 outbreak, Tyson required its employees to work long hours in cramped conditions,” the lawsuit alleges. “Moreover, despite the danger of COVID-19, Tyson failed to provide appropriate personal protective equipment and failed to implement sufficient social distancing or safety measures to protect workers from the outbreak.” The suit was first filed in Iowa state court, and Tyson Foods later asked for it to move to federal court, the Iowa Capital Dispatch reported. An amended complaint with new allegations was filed on Nov. 11. In addition to failing to properly prevent the spread of the virus, Tyson Foods managers turned the risk into a game, the amended complaint alleges. One of the plant managers allegedly “organized a cash buy-in, winner-take-all betting pool for supervisors and managers to wager how many employees would test positive for COVID-19,” according to the lawsuit. Early in the pandemic, U.S. meat-processing plants struggled to contain outbreaks inside their facilities, where employees normally work in proximity. Complaints surfaced in the spring that the many of the nation’s largest meat-processing companies had failed to provide masks to workers who could not maintain at least six feet of distance from co-workers during long shifts. Tyson Foods was forced to shut down several facilities, including the Waterloo plant, for weeks. A Tyson spokesman declined to comment on the allegations made in Fernandez’s suit. But a spokesman pointed to new precautions that were put into place after the spate of covid-19 cases in

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Even without a transformative agenda, President-elect Biden can tackle covid-19

As the global covid-19 pandemic enters another phase, we are once again reminded of how unprepared and wholly inadequate our political institutions are for dealing with large-scale public health emergencies. The United States leads the world in most confirmed covid-19 cases and has the highest proportional mortality rate. While the Trump administration has blundered in approaches to stave off greater calamity, the outcome of the 2020 presidential election has raised hopes that the United States might turn a corner in its response to the pandemic. Yet, the election of Joe Biden, a long-established political figure, is hardly a fundamental political recalibration. Progressives on issues from immigration to climate change to criminal justice reform are wary of Biden’s bipartisan approach and centrist orientation. Such concerns are hardly unfounded, given Biden’s track record of concessions to the credit card industry, his role in the 1994 crime bill, the fact that just last year he promised corporate billionaire donors that under his administration, “nothing would fundamentally change,” and the fact that his current transition team includes high-ranking members of the banking and defense industries. But on covid-19, there may be reason for hope that even the most corporate-friendly politician can lead a somewhat effective response to public health emergencies. An apt historical comparison is center-right conservative Sen. John C. Spooner (R-Wis.), who, albeit in a different context, led congressional efforts to modernize federal public health infrastructures around the turn of the 20th century. Then as now, corporate interests understood that only a coordinated federal response could tackle the dangers of large-scale public health crises. Thus, Biden would not be the first moderate political figure to be concerned about too much structural change while at the same time embracing moderate reforms to meet a public health emergency. At the turn of the 20th century, Spooner enjoyed the reputation of being a noted friend of corporate interests in Washington. After having spent much of his early career as a railroad lawyer, Spooner, as one of the most influential power brokers on Capitol Hill, often facilitated corporate-friendly legislative compromises, even on ostensibly progressive landmark achievements such the Hepburn Act on railroad regulation or the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906. But while looking out for big business first and foremost, Spooner also understood when more nuanced reform was critically needed, especially during a public health crisis. Already during the late 1890s, as yellow fever outbreaks

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Los fusiles de francotirador que fluyen hacia los cárteles mexicanos revelan una década de fracaso estadounidense

lo que sucede cuando los cárteles están mejor armados que la Policía”, dijo un funcionario de seguridad mexicano, quien habló bajo la condición de anonimato porque la investigación seguía en curso. El mes siguiente 23 personas, incluidas cuatro policías, fueron asesinadas cuando hombres armados abrieron fuego en Villa Unión, a 70 minutos de Eagle Pass, Texas. Los investigadores recuperaron seis fusiles calibre .50. La ATF rastreó uno de ellos a una tienda de armas en los suburbios de Houston. Cinco personas han sido acusadas de una supuesta operación para traficar armas desde Texas. Los funcionarios estadounidenses dicen que han respondido a las solicitudes de México para mejorar la coordinación. Las autoridades fronterizas incautaron más de 350 fusiles y pistolas con destino a México en puntos de control durante el año fiscal 2020, la mayor cantidad en al menos una década. Eso representa apenas un poco más de 0.1% de las armas estimadas que se trafican cada año, cerca de unas 250,000. La ATF afirma que ha incrementado su presencia en México en 20% durante el último año, con el objetivo central de rastrear armas recuperadas. Aun así, los funcionarios dicen que tienen una capacidad limitada para efectuar arrestos a menos de que exista evidencia de una operación de tráfico. “Hay una variedad de factores que los agentes y fiscales pueden considerar, como armas de fuego encubiertas en un espacio oculto de un vehículo, pero no hay nada inherentemente ilegal en conducir cerca de la frontera con armas de fuego en tu auto”, afirmó Thomas Chittum, director adjunto de operaciones de la ATF. Los mexicanos ven una desconexión más profunda entre el enfoque de Estados Unidos en la guerra contra las drogas y la falta de acción para ayudar a detener el flujo de armas poderosas. “Imaginemos que los criminales estuvieran disparándole regularmente a la Policía estadounidense con armas calibre .50”, dijo Grillo. “Eso seguro causaría un escándalo y la población vería cómo las personas son por lo general capaces de comprar estas armas con la misma facilidad con la que compran una pistola”. Traducción de Gregory Escobar. Las datos de los homicidios provienen del Secretariado Ejecutivo del Sistema Nacional de Seguridad Publica (SESNSP) de México. Edición de texto: Frances Moody y Martha Murdock. Gráficos: Adrian Blanco. Edición de gráficos: Armand Emamdjomeh y Tim Meko. Edición de fotografía: Chloe Coleman. Edición de video: Alexa Juliana Ard. Diseño y desarrollo: Joanne Lee.

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These 3 tools can help you navigate quarantine and testing policies by state

Since the coronavirus pandemic began in March, many states have implemented rolling travel restrictions that change often. The coronavirus case rates in both a traveler’s origin and destination can determine if a trip across state lines — even a short one — could result in necessary tests or quarantine. Now with a surge of U.S. infections, even more states are updating their policies and tightening their restrictions ahead of the holiday travel season. If you’re planning to drive or fly out of state soon, leave tracking the dizzying restrictions to the professionals. Several months into the pandemic, there are user-friendly resources that track the most up-to-date quarantine and testing rules in the United States so you don’t have to. Here are a few options to bookmark. Travel organization AAA doesn’t require you to have a membership to use its online covid-19 travel map, which details the latest state and local travel restrictions and provides links to local resources about protocols. Citywide, countywide and statewide rules are mapped out, with statewide restrictions color-coded to denote which states have quarantine or testing requirements, mask mandates, or stay-at-home orders in place. The interactive also allows you to view total coronavirus cases by state or county, and also denotes existing border closures and roadway checkpoints. A mobile-friendly road-trip planner from AAA, TripTik.AAA.com, can also help plan your road trip if you want to determine which rest stops, gas stations, restaurants and hotels remain open along your route. In September, United Airlines launched its own color-coded map of U.S. travel restrictions aimed at air travelers. The color-coded map shares coronavirus restrictions (or lack thereof) for every state — breaking down interstate restrictions, health forms required for entry at the airport, and local conditions, like whether restaurants, nonessential shops and museums are open. Clicking into each state will show more in-depth details, including mask requirements and links to local health departments. For international travel, United also has a global version of the map with country-specific information. For an in-depth look at the nitty-gritty of every state’s coronavirus restrictions, government relations company Multistate created a dashboard of state and local policies organized by jurisdiction. By scrolling down the alphabetical list to a state or local jurisdiction in question you can see the exact details of its existing travel rules, gathering restrictions and current phase of reopening. Links to local health orders, mask mandates and school closures are

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More lessons from the pandemic

The Nov. 15 editorial “To catch a killer” ​was spot on as far as the world’s need to learn from the current pandemic to prevent the next one. It identified several concrete steps but omitted one. ​A​ travesty​ occurred​ in ​April​ when President Trump, based on a comment from a far​-​right media outlet​, ​knee​-​jerked and ordered that the National Institutes of Health revoke its funding for a major bat disease study in China that has been looking for the next likely source of an outbreak. The NIH withdrew a highly rated five-year, $3 million grant for a bat disease study f​rom​ ​the expert U.S. zoonotic disease team, the ​EcoHealth Alliance​, because a minor part of their grant included collaborating with a Chinese research institute. ​ Mr. Trump’s ​desire to​ punish China led to this ill-informed example of cutting off our nose to spite our face. We will have less predictive knowledge about the next pandemic, and even ​our​ knowledge of the present coronavirus outbreak has suffered because of this grant being tampered with​. The Biden administration should add ​fully ​restoring ​a ​​robust ​cooperative ​zoonotic disease ​research​ program​ with China to its agenda. Both countries will benefit. ​ Peter T. Jenkins The writer is senior counsel of Many thanks to Theresa Thanks also to Ms. Vargas for calling out President Trump and his role in this tragedy. His total lack of leadership and shunning of responsibility continue to hamper the fight against this deadly virus, as the casualties rise to unprecedented levels. Although Koporulin did not die from the novel coronavirus, the pandemic was the cause of his dying alone. So many families have been negatively impacted in so many ways by Mr. Trump’s ineffectiveness and selfishness. Karen Gibbs Read more letters to the editor.

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The pandemic is triggering another disaster: Untreated diseases

ONE DISASTER ought to be quite enough, but the pandemic is triggering another. Collateral damage to global public health is now spreading. The chief problem is that other diseases are going untreated. Especially worrisome is the disruption to measles and polio vaccination campaigns. Historically, measles and polio vaccination has been highly successful. Measles inoculation is estimated to have prevented 23.2 million deaths from 2000 to 2018. Eighty-three countries have been certified free of measles. But the disease began a rebound after 2016. According to the World Health Organization and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the number of reported measles cases surged in 2019 to the highest in 23 years. Global measles deaths have climbed nearly 50 percent since 2016, claiming an estimated 207,500 lives in 2019 alone. The chief reason for the rebound was a failure to vaccinate children on time. Now, the pandemic has added to these woes. Lockdowns and transportation disruptions have contributed to postponed inoculations, and fears of contracting the virus have kept people from getting shots. “This has resulted in plummeting uptake of vaccination in many countries, falling to as low as 50% in some countries during the crisis,” the WHO and UNICEF report said. Also, measles and polio vaccination campaigns were initially paused during the pandemic to prevent infection of health workers and communities. “The result of the pause is that more than 94 million children have missed out on measles vaccination alone,” the agencies said. More than 60 planned polio vaccination campaigns in 28 countries were paused, out of concern for safety of the workers and the need to use existing infrastructure to respond to the pandemic. Now there are growing polio outbreaks; wild poliovirus transmission is increasing in the two remaining countries where it is endemic, Afghanistan and Pakistan. “Left unchecked,” the two agencies declared, “this situation poses an increasingly high risk of explosive outbreaks and potentially further international spread of both polio and measles.” The WHO and UNICEF are calling on countries to resume immunization — with precautions — and to respond to urgent outbreaks, while appealing to donors for an additional $255 million for measles and $400 million for polio vaccination campaign support in middle-income countries that are not eligible for aid from GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance, which helps low-income countries finance and develop vaccines. The pandemic has also taken a toll on programs for HIV, tuberculosis and

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Shoppers are panic-buying toilet paper. This time, there should be enough to go around.

Consumers are panic-buying key items again as the coronavirus surges across the country — paper towels, disinfecting wipes, baking mixes and wine — but this time around, grocery chains and food manufacturers say they will be able to meet America’s urge to hoard and keep supply chains moving, even during the holiday season. While Kroger, Giant, Target and other grocery chains have reinstated limits on high-demand items such as paper goods and disinfecting wipes, causing anxiety among shoppers, retailers and supply chain experts say they do not expect a return to the panicked hoarding and empty shelves of the spring. “I’m not going to be a Pollyanna and say things are perfect,” says Geoff Freeman, the chief executive of the trade group Consumer Brands Association. “But we are fundamentally in a different place than we were in March and April. Even retailers rationing is a demonstration of lessons learned. The psychology of empty shelves causes a vicious cycle.” Grocery chains say they were too slow to place limits on high-demand products early on and are trying to prevent hoarding so there isn’t another round of shortages. Retailers and manufacturers say they’re less panicked about widespread shortages now that they’ve spent months simplifying their supply chains, adding shelves and workers to fulfillment centers, and taking other measures to counter panic-buying. However, they don’t rule out the prospect of price spikes or local or temporary shortages due to transport bottlenecks. “We saw a major demand spike in March and April, and we’re certainly seeing another wave now as case numbers crest again across the country,” says Nick Green, chief executive of Thrive Market, an online grocer that specializes in organic food and products. “This time around, it’s a little bit of everything: cleaning products, toilet paper, cold and flu medicine, shelf-stable food. There’s less fear than there was at the beginning of the pandemic — people aren’t as worried that stores are going to run out of toilet paper or that grocery stores will be completely empty, but they’re definitely shifting their consumption habits again.” Green says Thrive Market has doubled the number of drivers in its two fulfillment centers in Nevada and Indiana and has added vertical shelving to store more inventory and to increase its ability to anticipate and handle surges in demand. The company is also buying more products directly from brands, instead of relying on third-party distributors, he

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Shoppers are panic-buying toilet paper. This time, there should be enough to go around.

may carry a four-day supply of milk and suddenly you had people loading up on a two-week supply — but we’ve plateaued,” says Paul Ziemnisky, the executive vice president of global innovation for the trade organization Dairy Management. He says to expect plenty of milk, cheese and sour cream (although he says butter is always a little tight around the holidays). And from row crops to specialty fruits and vegetables, the supply chain is solid, according to USDA cold storage data released Oct. 22. “Much has changed since March in terms of preparation and adaptation throughout the food supply chain,” says American Farm Bureau Federation President Zippy Duvall. “While the system is better prepared for a spike in purchasing, we’re hoping the public now realizes our food supply is safe and strong, so we don’t see widespread panic purchasing." Despite such confidence, retailers say they’re beginning to see spurts of increased demand, particularly in regions where shutdowns are imminent. Online toilet paper company Who Gives A Crap says sales in Ohio, which began a new round of curfews and business restrictions, have doubled in recent days. Company executives say they’ve tripled the amount of inventory in their warehouses and increased staff by 50 percent. Boxed.com, a website that sells household products in bulk, says sales of essentials have doubled since last week, as shoppers stock up on cleaning and disinfecting products (up 134 percent from a week ago), baking mixes (132 percent), wine (126 percent) and toilet paper (123 percent). “People are hunkering down again,” said Chieh Huang, the company’s co-founder and chief executive. “It’s not the ‘Oh, my gosh, the world is ending’ panic we saw in early April, but we’re definitely moving in that direction.” Darleen Gillyard, who lives in Passaic, N.J., is preparing to stock up on cat litter and refrigerated food for her two cats, TeeCee and Choo Choo. Back in March, when the first round of shutdowns took hold, she struggled to find basics such as paper towels, tissues and masks. Since then, she has begun stashing packages of toilet paper in her attic and keeps her freezer stocked with extra meals. “Right now, everything is okay — most of the stores are still stocked, but I’m scared that we’ll have to scramble for basic items again,” the 63-year-old said. “The last time, I went crazy looking for things because the shelves were completely empty."

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As the coronavirus tears through rural Maryland, an ultramarathon plans to race on

the start of the race and whenever they’re grouped with other runners on the course. The event did not initially require testing or quarantining, and it still permits spectators at the start and finish lines. Even if these protocols are adhered to, Fabre said, they may not work. She said masks that get wet, either from water or sweat, are less effective than dry face coverings. And she said air particles emitted during strenuous activity can travel farther. “Even if you try to remind people what not to do, maintaining those six feet of distance or wearing your mask, it is hard for people to be entirely compliant, especially when they’re doing exercise,” she said. Even if runners are experiencing mild symptoms, Shoham said, ultramarathoners tend to run through pain or illness and “could be in denial about what’s going on.” After running for upward of eight or nine hours, their judgment could be compromised, and many could become lax in their precautions on the course. And, he pointed out, trail races tend to be social events, with runners often grouped together. Even on the course, where the trail narrows, the line of racers backs up behind a slower runner and bunches together at choke-points. The event’s website as of Friday afternoon said only 12 of the 1,200 spots in the race field remained available. It made no mention of possible refunds and said registration fees would be deferred to a future race in the event of cancellation. Kyle Herrig signed up for the event in the summer when coronavirus numbers in the region were much lower. With a couple of marathons and a handful of half-marathons under his belt, he was eager to tackle his first ultramarathon. The JFK 50 Mile race was one of the few options available. “I ultimately made the call to withdraw from the race,” he said. “It seemed selfish to me to engage in nonessential travel to the race and potentially put myself and others at risk of spreading covid.” There will be no trophy or results list to record his effort, but Herrig plans to instead run 50 miles this weekend by himself near his New York home. “And that’s part of what I don’t understand,” he said. “People would probably be bummed if they canceled, but you can still do the underlying activity on your own.” Erin Cox contributed to this report.

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Ethiopia’s military chief calls WHO head Tedros a criminal supporting a rebel region

the public faces of the international effort to fight the coronavirus pandemic that has ravaged the world, he is also a high-ranking member of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), the political party that rules Tigray and is now in open conflict with Ethiopia’s central government. “This man is a member of that group, and he has been doing everything to support them,” Berhanu said. Tedros was Ethiopia’s health minister from 2005 to 2012 and then its foreign minister until 2016, when the TPLF dominated the coalition that ruled the country. It was with great fanfare in Ethiopia and across Africa that he was selected to be the first head of the WHO from the continent. His colleague at the WHO, Africa Regional Director Matshidiso Moeti, defended him. “I know Tedros. I know him as somebody who is passionately promoting global health, promoting the good health of people and promoting peace, because it’s only in the context of peace that we can deliver good health for people,” she said at her agency’s regular Thursday briefing. Tedros’s sudden fall from grace in his home country relates to the severe crisis Ethiopia is experiencing after Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed ordered the army into the rugged, northern Tigray region to arrest TPLF leaders and remove them from power. The operation followed weeks of deteriorating relations between Abiy and the Tigrayan leadership that culminated in a preemptive strike by Tigrayan forces against an Ethiopian military base. Hundreds of people have died, and at least 30,000 have fled Tigray into neighboring Sudan, with reports of heavy fighting and ethnically motivated massacres of civilians. Information from the region has been scarce, however, because Internet and phone lines have been cut. Years of heavy-handed, TPLF-dominated rule of the country until Abiy came to power in 2018 have left a legacy of resentment toward the Tigrayans, one of the country’s many ethnic groups. Since the operation began Nov. 4, hundreds of Tigrayans in the capital and elsewhere have been arrested or told not to come to work. Rising international concern over the fighting has prompted offers of mediation from neighboring African countries as well as the African Union. On Thursday, President-elect Joe Biden’s foreign policy adviser Antony Blinken said he was “deeply concerned about the humanitarian crisis” and the reports of ethnic violence, and he called on both sides to end the conflict. This report has been updated.

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CDC recommends against Thanksgiving travel amid surge of coronavirus cases

that “postponing travel and staying home is the best way to protect yourself and others this year” and offers questions Americans should ask themselves before making a trip. Among those questions: whether anyone included in Thanksgiving plans is at increased risk of becoming very sick from covid-19, the disease caused by the virus; and whether cases are high or increasing or hospitals are overwhelmed in a traveler’s community or destination. Those wanting to travel should also consider whether they or those they plan to visit recently had contact with others and whether they would need to take a bus, train or airplane, where distancing could be more difficult, the CDC said. “If the answer to any of these questions is ‘yes,’ you should consider making other plans, such as hosting a virtual gathering or delaying your travel,” the new guidance says. “It’s important to talk with the people you live with and your family and friends about the risks of traveling.” It is not only travel that the CDC is advising against. Officials also recommended avoiding gatherings involving members of different households, clarifying that a household member is a person who has been living in the home for at least 14 days. Students returning from college should stay isolated before leaving campus and limit indoor interactions with relatives once home. “It’s bringing together the members of the separate households where the risk is,” said Erin Sauber-Schatz, head of the CDC’s Community Intervention and Critical Population Task Force. The Thanksgiving holiday comes as coronavirus cases have skyrocketed across the United States, with the seven-day average of new cases hovering at more than 160,000 on Thursday, according to Washington Post tracking. The nation’s death toll since the start of the pandemic reached 250,000 on Thursday, and on Wednesday alone, nearly 1,900 deaths were reported, marking the deadliest day since May. The worsening national picture has heightened concerns about Thanksgiving, with public health experts fearful that travel and traditional gatherings could contribute to the surging infections. “I’m just as tired of this pandemic as everyone else is,” Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the Georgetown Center for Global Health Science and Security, said in an interview. She urged that precautions be taken despite the fatigue and the desire to see family members. “This year, we’re doing Thanksgiving over Zoom, even though my parents live 45 minutes away.” Virtual gatherings, or celebrations with only the

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Maryland, with 15 more players and its coach positive for coronavirus, cancels Michigan State game

that has canceled games because of the virus. When the Badgers had an outbreak in their athletic department, they missed games against Nebraska and Purdue before returning to play this past weekend. The Terps paused team activities Nov. 11 and have not practiced since. That evening, the team moved into a nearby hotel to create a pseudo bubble while players continued to be tested daily. The players left the hotel as planned Sunday, but the team has not been able to return to practice. Rooks said the number of new cases within the program decreased over the weekend before an uptick early this week. The cases were traced back to three sources, Rooks said, declining to elaborate further. Locksley, who is isolating at home, first reported symptoms Monday evening. He cannot return to team activities for 10 days, but that does give him time to resume on-the-field coaching duties before the Indiana game if Maryland plays. The Big Ten requires players who contract the virus to sit out for 21 days so they can go through cardiac screening before returning to the field. Locksley spoke with Michigan State Coach Mel Tucker on Monday and said the Terps were preparing to play. But the team never received the go-ahead from the medical staff to resume practice. The Terps will have a similar wait in the upcoming days, with their game at Indiana scheduled for Nov. 28 and no clear timetable for returning to practice. The Terps dealt with outbreaks within the athletic department once teams began returning to campus this summer. The football program paused workouts in early July after nine athletes and staff members tested positive. The athletic department had a spike in cases in early September when 46 athletes, spanning 10 teams, tested positive for the coronavirus. Since the summer, 135 of roughly 550 Maryland athletes have tested positive, according to data released by the school. “Any time you have student-athletes who are sick or in this case that have contracted the virus, you do have concerns,” Evans said. “When you take a look at covid, we knew that going into this, this was uncertain. … Our goal was to make sure that if we decided to get back to participating and competing, which we did as a conference and an institution, that we put in the appropriate medical guidelines and protocols. And I believe we have done that.”

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Maryland is far behind on drug policy reform

drug addiction as mainly a medical and psychological issue rather than a criminal issue. D.C. voters approved a referendum that would make the enforcement of laws against entheogens — naturally occurring hallucinogenic substances derived from plants, fungi and amphibians and used for religious or spiritual purposes, among the lowest law enforcement priorities. Although the law refers broadly to entheogens, the primary focus appears to have been so called magic mushrooms, whose primary active constituent is psilocybin. In neighboring Virginia, Gov. Ralph Northam (D) recently said the commonwealth would “move forward with legalizing marijuana.” The legalization of medical marijuana and decriminalization of possession of small amounts of the drug have eased the burden on Maryland’s criminal justice system, but the failure to move to full legalization means that the state is losing access to millions, potentially billions, of dollars in tax revenue. Considering the huge cost of pandemic-related closures and programs, the state needs this revenue now more than ever. Though many other businesses have suffered badly during the pandemic, business at medical marijuana dispensaries has been booming. Because of the conflict between federal and state law (marijuana is still a Schedule I drug — the most restrictive category and the same as that for heroin and cocaine), legal marijuana dispensaries have to deal with cash because of their inability to work within the legal banking system. Despite this obstacle, marijuana businesses are providing a major tax benefit to states and localities. Since recreational marijuana was legalized in Colorado in 2014, tax revenue from marijuana sales have reached more than $1 billion, according to the Colorado Department of Revenue. In Washington state, 2019 marijuana tax revenue totaled $395.5 million, $172 million more than that from liquor. Moving beyond the de-escalation of the war against weed, Oregon, which legalized marijuana in 2014, approved the decriminalization of personal use quantities of drugs such as cocaine and heroin and legalized therapeutic use of psilocybin. It is particularly ironic that Maryland, home to the world’s leading center on psychedelic research — the Johns Hopkins Center for Psychedelic & Consciousness Research, launched in 2019 — still treats psilocybin as a Schedule I drug without therapeutic use. The center’s director, psychologist Roland R. Griffiths, began conducting research on the therapeutic potential of psilocybin 20 years ago. He has conducted a series of carefully controlled studies with promising results in areas ranging from helping terminally ill cancer patients

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Saudi critics use Group of 20 summit to highlight human rights concerns

BEIRUT — As Saudi Arabia prepares to virtually host the annual Group of 20 summit meeting in Riyadh on Saturday, human rights groups and the families of jailed Saudi dissidents are mounting an unusually vigorous campaign aimed at highlighting the kingdom's abuses and the plight of political detainees. Saudi Arabia announced in September that the annual, typically lavish gathering of the world’s largest economies would be held online because of the coronavirus pandemic — a setback for the modernizing country, which had envisioned the event as a chance to showcase its successes. But along with the challenge of hosting a toned-down virtual G-20 summit, Riyadh is facing a wave of calls urging world leaders to boycott or downgrade their attendance if demands for the release of Saudi female activists and other conditions are not met. The calls — from Saudi and international human rights groups, and also U.S. and European lawmakers — have confronted the kingdom with a barrage of criticism unlike any since the killing of journalist and Washington Post contributor Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi agents two years ago, while forcing normally circumspect Saudi leaders to publicly defend their policies. “Saudi Arabia seeks to have a leading role, but the leaders from other countries have a moral obligation to ask Saudi Arabia to improve its record on human rights,” said Alia al-Hathloul, the sister of jailed women’s rights activist Loujain al-Hathloul, whose plight has become a rallying cry for the kingdom’s critics and who recently renewed a hunger strike to protest her detention. United Nations experts have called for her release, warning that her health is deteriorating. Saudi Arabia is the first ­Arab-majority nation to assume the year-long presidency of the G-20, which is made up of 19 countries and the European Union. The designation was a diplomatic coup for Saudi’s de facto leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who has quickly risen to global prominence with an agenda to overhaul the oil-rich kingdom’s economy and conservative society. But while Saudi organizers set the two-day summit’s official theme as “Realizing Opportunities of the 21st Century for All,” human rights groups sought to amplify what they said is Mohammed’s darker legacy: the silencing, harassment, arbitrary jailing, disappearance and torture of his opponents. Although pressure in some circles has been building, no G-20 members have announced plans to withdraw from the summit. Even so, the criticism has prompted an unusual public

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Maryland football is ‘committed to getting back,’ but timeline for return is unclear

With its season interrupted by a coronavirus outbreak and its staff and roster riddled with positive tests, Maryland’s football team will begin the familiar process of wondering if and when it will be able to resume practices ahead of a scheduled Nov. 28 meeting with Indiana. The Terrapins attempted to return to practice all week, and even limited time on the field could have allowed the Terrapins to play Michigan State as scheduled Saturday. But as the team continued to test daily for the coronavirus, cases among players and coaches grew, toppling the team’s chances to practice and play. In the past two weeks, 23 Maryland players and seven staff members, including Coach Michael Locksley, contracted the virus. The Terps had to cancel games against No. 3 Ohio State and then Michigan State. Maryland’s game at No. 9 Indiana is still a week away, but its attempted preparation for the Michigan State game should provide a guide. As Maryland attempted to return to practice this week, “we had all types of contingency plans,” Locksley said. As long as the team could practice twice — even if those sessions were on the same day, with one in the morning and another in the afternoon — Locksley was optimistic the Terps could play. The program never received the necessary clearance to practice, but that flexible timeline offers encouragement for Maryland’s chances to resume team activities in time for the Indiana game. However, positive tests next week again could derail the program’s return. Speaking Thursday during a virtual news conference, Locksley and head team physician Yvette Rooks would not forecast too far ahead regarding the outlook for the Indiana game. Rooks said she’ll continue to assess the team’s testing data and “it’s a day-by-day process.” The team moved into a hotel Nov. 11 and stayed through Sunday. The number of new cases decreased over the weekend, Rooks said, but the number grew again early this week, which prevented the Terps from returning to practice. A similar uptick in the coming days could hinder Maryland’s ability to start on-field preparation for the Hoosiers. “We're committed to getting back,” Athletic Director Damon Evans said. “We're committed to doing things to get everything under control so our student-athletes in the sport of football can get back to doing what they love to do, and that's playing this game.” Other college football teams have dealt with similar

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More than 50 private and public schools faced outbreaks in recent weeks

4, he said. As schools began to weigh the idea — a recommendation, not an order — state data in Maryland and Virginia gave a snapshot of several weeks of school-associated covid-19 cases that health officials described as outbreaks. Eight people at the Bullis School in suburban Potomac tested positive, according to state data this month. In Virginia, Fairfax County’s W.T. Woodson had an outbreak with five cases and Virginia Academy, a private school in Loudoun County, had one with six, according to data released Friday. Many school leaders who responded to inquiries from The Washington Post said that they had reported the cases to local health officials and that contact tracing and quarantining were done as needed. Several said there was no sign of spread of the virus in classrooms. At St. John’s College High School in Washington, President Jeff Mancabelli said D.C. health officials looked into 12 cases at the school after the Halloween weekend. He said because of the school’s hybrid schedules, just two students were on campus after he believes they contracted the virus. The school moved to all-virtual lessons for a period. “We are confident these infections didn’t occur on campus,” he said. At Bullis, Head of School Christian Sullivan said in a Nov. 9 email to families that testing at school Nov. 5 identified a student as positive. “That student was immediately pulled out of class on Friday, classrooms were sanitized, and we worked with the family to identify contacts at Bullis,” he wrote. Sullivan cited two other cases in that message, then reported five more in later emails to families that were obtained by The Post. In-person learning was reduced, according to the emails, which said there was no evidence of on-campus transmission. “If we see many infections in our Bullis community, we will not be able to offer on-campus education between Thanksgiving and the winter vacation,” Sullivan wrote Nov. 17. The school did not respond to inquiries from The Post. Many of the school outbreaks have come to light through recently created school-related outbreak “dashboards.” Maryland and Virginia have them; the District does not. In Maryland, an outbreak is defined as at least two confirmed covid-19 cases among students, teachers or staff within a 14-day period that are “epidemiologically linked” and not household contacts. Local health officials report data to the state. Experts called them a starting point but said they needed

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More than 50 private and public schools faced outbreaks in recent weeks

Head of School Christian Sullivan said in a Nov. 9 email to families that testing at school Nov. 5 identified a student as positive. “That student was immediately pulled out of class on Friday, classrooms were sanitized, and we worked with the family to identify contacts at Bullis,” he wrote. Sullivan cited two other cases in that message, then reported five more in later emails to families that were obtained by The Post. In-person learning was reduced, according to the emails, which said there was no evidence of on-campus transmission. “If we see many infections in our Bullis community, we will not be able to offer on-campus education between Thanksgiving and the winter vacation,” Sullivan wrote Nov. 17. The school did not respond to inquiries from The Post. Many of the school outbreaks have come to light through recently created school-related outbreak “dashboards.” Maryland and Virginia have them; the District does not. In Maryland, an outbreak is defined as at least two confirmed covid-19 cases among students, teachers or staff within a 14-day period that are “epidemiologically linked” and not household contacts. Local health officials report data to the state. Experts called them a starting point but said they needed to expand to be helpful to parents and educators. Leana Wen, an emergency physician and public health professor at George Washington University and former health commissioner in Baltimore, said the dashboards leave many questions unanswered, including how many total cases are linked to each school. She also noted that without surveillance testing in schools and robust contact tracing, it is not possible to capture the extent of an outbreak. “We are not picking up on all the asymptomatic and mildly symptomatic cases,” she said. Meagan Fitzpatrick, an infectious-disease modeler at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, said the dashboard data would be more helpful with case dates, totals by school, clarity about the number of classrooms affected and breakdowns by students and staff. She added that while some schools may maintain there is no in-school spread of the virus, “if they are not testing in the aftermath of a case being found, then they don’t know.” The risks have risen with soaring cases. Before the surge, schools had the benefit of lower case rates in the community, which help protect against in-school transmission, Fitzpatrick said. “When cases are high, the first level of protection is gone,” she said. Fitzpatrick

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A traveler tested negative for covid-19 before a flight. He had the virus and infected 4 passengers.

Health officials in New Zealand, a country that has a strict 14-day quarantine in place for arriving travelers, released a case study on Friday that details the risks of traveling on long-haul flights during the coronavirus pandemic — even if negative coronavirus tests are required before the flight. The report details a coronavirus outbreak linked through DNA analysis to one passenger on an 18-hour flight from Dubai to New Zealand in September. The traveler, who tested negative for the coronavirus with a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test within 48 hours of the flight, was contagious but pre-symptomatic onboard the plane, and infected at least four other passengers. In total there were seven cases linked to the flight, which had 86 passengers onboard. “By combining information on disease progression, travel dynamics and genomic analysis, we conclude that at least four in-flight transmission events of SARS-CoV-2 likely took place,” the study states. “Four of these six related genome sequences were from Switzerland, the country of origin of the suspected index case.” New Zealand’s quarantine protocols make the study a unique analysis because all passengers were monitored and retested during their required 14-day quarantine lodging, which is managed by New Zealand authorities. Most flights, doctors have pointed out, have no way of monitoring passengers two weeks after their travel. “This case speaks to how hard it is to keep infected people off a flight, even if you do PCR testing in a narrow window of time before the flight,” David Freedman, an infectious-disease specialist at the University of Alabama at Birmingham who has reviewed the report, told The Washington Post. “The original case most likely became infectious after he took the preflight test, but in fact was not symptomatic until 71 hours after the flight,” Freedman said. PCR coronavirus tests are estimated to be about 98 percent effective at detecting the coronavirus, which is why they are required by many countries for entry. Of the seven infected individuals, five had tested negative within 48 hours before the flight. The authors of the article say the “transmission events occurred despite reported use of masks and gloves in-flight,” and that stringent masking was required by the airline operating the flight. Freedman points out that the flight length might have impacted masking: “It would have been really hard for people to keep their masks on for the entire 18 hours.” The evidence contradicts an October Department

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The sniper rifles flowing to Mexican cartels show a decade of U.S. failure

sportsman. Homicides in Mexico reached historic highs in 2018 and 2019; 2020 is on pace to set a record. Cartels that once focused on securing drug routes to the United States are increasingly fighting for control of territory, waging gun battles that can leave a dozen or more people dead. The availability of high-powered weapons has transformed that fight. In telephone recordings from the October 2019 ambush in Aguililla, Michoacán, officers can be heard shouting “I’m dying” and pleading for backup as gunfire continues. Mexican officials say at least one .50-caliber rifle and several AK-47s and AR-15s from the United States were used. “It’s a telling example of what happens when the cartels are better armed than the police,” said one Mexican security official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the investigation was ongoing. Twenty-three people, including four police officers, were killed the next month when gunmen descended on Villa Unión, 70 minutes from Eagle Pass, Tex. Investigators recovered six .50-caliber rifles; ATF traced one to a gun shop in suburban Houston. Five people have been charged in an alleged scheme to traffic weapons from Texas. U.S. officials say they have responded to Mexico’s requests to improve coordination on the issue. Border authorities seized more than 350 Mexico-bound rifles and handguns at checkpoints during fiscal 2020, the most in at least a decade. That’s just over 0.1 percent of the estimated guns trafficked each year, roughly 250,000. The ATF says it has increased its presence in Mexico by 20 percent in the past year, with a focus on tracing recovered weapons. Still, officials say they have limited ability to make arrests unless there is evidence of a trafficking operation. “There are a range of factors that agents and prosecutors can look at, such as firearms concealed in a hidden space of a vehicle, but there is nothing inherently illegal about driving near the border with firearms in your car,” said Thomas Chittum, ATF’s assistant director of field operations. Mexicans see a deeper disconnect between the U.S. focus on the drug war and a lack of action to help stem the flow of powerful weapons. “Imagine if criminals were regularly shooting at American police with .50-cals,” Grillo said. “That would surely cause an uproar and people would look at how people are often able to buy these weapons as easily as if they are buying a pistol.” Homicide data comes

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Preserving cultural and historic treasures in a changing climate may mean transforming them

look of these buildings upset some former residents and their descendants. Many people we talked to held deep connections to these places that were part of their personal, family and community identities. Surprisingly, some said they would rather lose some of these buildings than alter them. Other stakeholders — including members of partner organizations and park visitors — had different opinions on what should be done. After Hurricane Dorian severely damaged Portsmouth Village in 2019, park managers made the hard decision to dismantle and remove some of the buildings while restoring others. But an important question remains: What should be done at other highly vulnerable locations? These findings inspired me to explore global, people-centered approaches to preservation and the international policies governing them. Climate change threatens many World Heritage sites. Some are archaeological sites, such as Peru’s Chan Chan, the largest adobe city on Earth, and the ancestral Pueblo cliff dwellings in Colorado’s Mesa Verde National Park. Entire cities — including Venice — and historic buildings such as Australia’s Sydney Opera House are also in harm’s way. Current policy recommendations focus on restoration or defenses, and oppose physical change. The only process that exists is to add sites undergoing physical change to the List of World Heritage Sites in Danger. But adding a site to the “danger” list is politically undesirable because it can generate bad press, reduce tourism revenue and deter funders from supporting rescue efforts. My research calls for a more proactive approach, including preemptive efforts to prevent damage. I see a need for a new category: “World Heritage Sites in Climatic Transformation.” This approach draws on the ecological concept of resilience, which is essentially the ability to survive by changing and adapting. It would allow managers to repair, adapt or even transform vulnerable places. This new classification would place communities at the center of the planning process and create a searchable database of climate impacts and interventions. Transforming heritage sites may be controversial, but the clock is ticking. Researching, designing and constructing defenses takes time. For example, floodgates installed to protect Venice are being tested a decade later than planned. In my view, saving cultural and historic sites from climate change will require a new approach to heritage preservation that includes transformation. Now is the time to think creatively, with input from people whose heritages are represented in these places, to discover new pathways to protecting them.

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‘I just pray God will help me’: Racial, ethnic minorities reel from higher covid-19 death rates

offensive. Fos and other experts argue the clustering of covid-19 cases is more of a social and economic phenomenon. He noted the high proportion of people in such communities who interact daily with the public as essential workers, who often live in more densely packed neighborhoods and multigenerational households, and who might not have regular doctors because they lack health insurance. In addition, minorities face a long history of unequal access to medical care — which may have impacted treatment decisions and outcomes. A study using data from the Society for Critical Care Medicine, posted this month before peer review, found that African American patients were more likely than Whites to receive an older, less-expensive and riskier blood thinner linked to higher mortality from covid-19. Blood thinners have become a critical weapon in the arsenal used by doctors against the disease because many patients with severe disease develop clots. It was not clear whether the administration of that medicine related to insurance coverage, physician preference, or something else. One of the study’s authors, Venky Soundararajan, chief science officer of data firm Nference, wondered whether some doctors chose the older, more established product for minority patients because the newer drugs were overwhelmingly tested on Whites. “If you distill it down to the root causes,” Fos said, “they are ones we have known in our country for years and we’ve just done a very bad job of addressing it. It’s some of the same reasons people are protesting in the streets — police brutality, job discrimination, environmental justice. The coronavirus shows how much racism there is in health as well.” If New York City was the epicenter of the first wave of the pandemic, the stretch of Texas along the Rio Grande Valley near the U.S.-Mexico border is the epicenter of the second. As of this week, four counties in this region had tallied a combined total of 70,000 cases and more than 3,300 deaths. Norma Ramirez, the Democratic chair for Hidalgo County, has said there is not one person in her region “who hasn’t been affected by this horrible virus.” Vanessa Alvarado, outreach coordinator for LUPE, a community group in Texas founded by labor activists César Chávez and Dolores Huerta, said immigration policy and economic challenges have exacerbated the Latino communities’ vulnerability. A Trump administration rule that took effect Feb. 24 makes it more difficult for people to get green cards

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Reports of two promising covid-19 vaccines don’t mean we ‘magically,’ quickly return to normal

extent to which people are protected,” he says, “it’s important to continue to use all the tools we have to keep the virus in check, and that means masks, social distancing and ventilation.” These safeguards will ensure against transmission if the vaccines fail to prevent infection, says William Schaffner, professor of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University. He urges people to be patient. “The average person wants answers yesterday,” he says. “But try to keep in mind that we are still moving at rocket speed.” Some experts say they hope for a level of protection by next summer that will allow us to resume certain activities. “I’m not sure about mass gatherings, such as baseball games, but it is plausible,’’ Reingold says. “Time will tell.” Andrew Badley, an immunovirologist who chairs Mayo Clinic’s covid-19 task force, says the return of any normal activities depends on numerous factors, including how many people get vaccinated. “The only possibility that life will return to normal by summer is if the majority of the population receives the vaccines by then and the early efficacy data is borne out in ongoing studies,” he says. He adds, however: “I think it is unlikely we will be able to vaccinate the majority of the population by then.” Schaffner expects a “substantial improvement” by summer, although probably not a complete return to our former lives. But he adds: “Next Thanksgiving could well be back to near-normal.” The two leading vaccine candidates were developed by Moderna Therapeutics, which reported 94.5 percent efficacy, and Pfizer partnering with the German company BioNTech, which demonstrated a 95 percent success rate, including 94 percent among those 65 and older. Both vaccines involve a new and promising technique based on messenger RNA, or messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA), that use a synthetic form of RNA to trick human cells into making the virus’s distinctive “spike” protein, prompting the immune system to generate antibodies in response. Preliminary findings about their efficacy were based on the number of people who became ill, not on whether the vaccines prevented infection. “Although [preventing infection] might be the ultimate effect, we do not know that at this point,” says Fauci, the nation’s most recognized expert on the pandemic. “The primary endpoint [in these studies] was the prevention of symptomatic infection. So it is conceivable that the vaccine would protect you against clinical disease, but not necessarily protect you against infection.” Schooley

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Canada’s covid-19 crisis needs a targeted response. When will its leaders learn?

Nora Loreto is a Canadian freelance writer. Her new book, “ At the end of October, Statistics Canada released a report that examined the impact covid-19 has had on minority communities. Though the report didn’t receive much attention, the picture it painted was damning: It found that communities with higher shares of people from minority backgrounds have seen more deaths from covid-19. In British Columbia, a province where there were relatively few deaths compared to Ontario and Quebec, the mortality rate, standardized by age, from covid-19 was more than 10 times higher in communities with more ethnic diversity than in communities that were mostly all White. In Toronto, the South Asian community was impacted most, with communities with a South Asian population of 25 percent or higher reaching a mortality rate of 35 deaths per 100,000 people, compared to communities with 1 percent or fewer South Asians, which had a rate of death of 26.2 per 100,000. The data is particularly shocking in Montreal, where communities with a Black population of 25 percent or more had mortality rates of 149.3 per 100,000 people, compared to 88.1 per 100,000 in communities with a population that was less than 1 percent Black residents. This report affirms what has been long known. Back in May, a joint investigation between the National Observer and CTV News tried to understand why the community of Montreal North became ground zero in Montreal’s outbreak. The combination of low incomes, crowded housing and high-rise clusters all helped facilitate the swift spread of covid-19. One month later, CBC journalists correlated income, race and covid-19. While race-based data for those who had covid-19, including those who died, was not collected by public health authorities, CBC’s reporting demonstrated that the mix of race, a concentration of health-care support workers and income was what made Montreal North a covid-19 hotspot. In fact, of the at least 29 health-care workers who have died from covid-19 in Canada, 13 have been Black — 45 percent of known deaths for a group who comprise just 3.5 percent of Canada’s population. Five others were Southeast Asian. The overwhelming majority of the workers who have died have not been white, according to my tracking. And yet, politicians have failed to design a pandemic response that targets the communities most at risk. No provincial leader has developed a covid-19 response strategy that would intervene directly in racialized communities

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Canada’s covid-19 crisis needs a targeted response. When will its leaders learn?

to help them battle outbreaks. Even worse, the premier of Quebec, François Legault, has denied the existence of systemic racism within the province, saying, “My definition of systemic racism is that there’s a system in Quebec of racism, and I don’t think there’s a system. … Why do we have to fight for months about one word instead of fighting together against racism?” It isn’t just Legault. Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s government has not developed any targeted relief measures that would mitigate the virus’s impact within these communities. Though Ford’s government has committed funding to schools in some covid-19 hotspots, there has been no extra money specifically for schools whose student populations are more diverse. There have also been no workplace safety measures passed that help target the relationship between low-income care work and covid-19 spread. Federally, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has spoken about systemic racism. It was even mentioned in the Throne Speech, delivered Sept. 23: “The Government pledged to address systemic racism, and committed to do so in a way informed by the lived experiences of racialized communities and Indigenous Peoples.” But the promises that follow don’t mention covid-19, and there was nothing to improve the various relief programs to help underrepresented communities weather the storm. Refusing to understand the pandemic through the lens of race has allowed the virus to spread. If differences in living conditions, workplaces, communities, schools and health services drive covid-19 spread, then addressing that spread requires politicians to acknowledge its particular impact on racialized communities and act accordingly. As a second wave intensifies across Canada, and many people call for lockdown measures similar to the spring, we have to be clear about how these measures should be imposed. During the first wave, lockdowns immediately stopped covid-19 infections from rising in Toronto among the city’s whitest and wealthiest quartiles. For the rest, their infection rates continued to soar. To slow the spread of the second wave, we need to implement targeted interventions that flow money and services to racialized communities first and to give low-income workers paid time off and access to adequate places to quarantine if necessary. We also need even essential industries to slow down their production, especially if their workers are disproportionately low-income and from minority backgrounds. By slowing the spread of the virus among the most vulnerable, we can help everyone. But this takes political will — and the understanding

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Yemeni rebels claim missile attack on Saudi oil facility as G-20 summit ends

CAIRO — Yemeni rebels on Monday said they fired a missile that hit a Saudi oil storage facility in the Red Sea port of Jiddah, claiming that it was in retaliation for the Saudi-led coalition's involvement in Yemen's war. The assault came hours after the kingdom finished hosting its virtual Group of 20 summit of world leaders. There was no immediate response from Saudi officials, even as videos and images posted on social media indicated a fire burning at a Saudi Aramco complex in Jiddah. Brig. Gen. Yahya Sarea, the spokesman for Yemen’s northern Houthi rebels, said in a tweet Monday morning that “with God’s help and support, the missile force was able to target the Aramco distribution station.” He added that the projectile was a new “winged missile” called the “Quds 2” and had recently become operational. In his tweet, Sarea added a satellite image of what appeared to be the oil storage tanks at the Aramco facility in north Jiddah, along with markers to indicate where the cruise missile struck. “Thanks to God, the injury was very accurate, and ambulances and firefighting vehicles rushed to the targeted place.” On Monday night, A Saudi official quoted by the official Saudi Press Agency confirmed the attack, describing the fire at the facility as caused by “a terrorist attack with a projectile.” The official added that there were no casualties and no disruption in the supply of fuel by Saudi Aramco. The attack followed a meeting on Sunday between outgoing U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the Red Sea city of Neom. The strike also comes as the Trump administration is taking measures to label the Iran-aligned Houthis as a foreign terrorist group in an effort to apply pressure on Iran and its allies An American-backed coalition of regional Sunni powers, led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, has been fighting the Shiite Houthis since 2015. The coalition is seeking to restore Yemen’s internationally recognized government and prevent the spread of Iranian influence in the region. More than 10,000 civilians have been killed, mostly by coalition airstrikes, according to the United Nations and rights groups. Meanwhile, what the United ­Nations considers the world’s ­severest humanitarian crisis has gripped the Middle East’s poorest nation for years, bringing millions to the edge of famine. For more than a year, the Houthis have staged

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There’s a front-runner for Kamala Harris’s Senate seat — but Gavin Newsom could surprise us all

Dan Morain is the author of “ President Trump’s election machinations aside, California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) will soon select a Senate replacement for Kamala D. Harris after she is sworn in as vice president. Newsom certainly could use a diversion after L’Affaire French Laundry. As service workers struggle to get by in the coronavirus pandemic and many of us Californians forgo dining out, the governor and his wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, spent the evening of Nov. 6 celebrating the 50th birthday of a lobbyist friend at the French Laundry. That’s the three-star Michelin-rated restaurant in the Napa Valley town of Yountville, where the wine list includes a bottle of cabernet sauvignon for $50,000 and the tasting menu is available for $350. A photo from the gathering showed the governor and his wife, without masks, sitting at a crowded table for 12, with members of more than three different households. Newsom has apologized. On Sunday, his office announced the Newsom family is in quarantine after three of their children came into contact with a California Highway Patrol officer who tested positive for covid-19. But a week after the San Francisco Chronicle’s state capitol reporter, Alexei Koseff, broke the French Laundry story, our foodie governor still faces withering charges of hypocrisy. California’s covid guidelines urge restaurants to limit the size of single-table seatings and to avoid mixing of households, so Newsom technically might have been complying with recommendations, but the do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do stench was unmistakable. The governor no doubt would dearly love to, as he would say, flip the script. The list of Harris’s potential Democratic replacements is long: California Secretary of State Alex Padilla; California Attorney General Xavier Becerra; Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis; California State Senate Leader Toni Atkins; Reps. Karen Bass, Barbara Lee and Katie Porter; and Long Beach Mayor Robert Garcia. Any one of them would be an intriguing pick. Former San Francisco mayor Willie Brown, who gave Newsom his start in politics, is pushing the governor to replace Harris with someone who is Black. But in a state where 40 percent of the population is Latino, Newsom probably is leaning that way. Garcia, the least well known of the potential choices, has faced the ravages of the pandemic. His mother and stepfather both died of covid-19 this summer. But he has no experience mounting a statewide campaign. Becerra has won statewide and made his name by suing the

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How graft and incompetence aggravate the effects of climate change in Central America

Elisabeth Malkin is a freelance journalist based in Mexico City who has covered Central America for more than a decade, most recently for the New York Times. As Central America buckled under the force of two fierce hurricanes that struck within days of each other this month, the presidents of Guatemala and Honduras issued a plea. Their small countries are among the most vulnerable in the world to climate change, they said, but they are not the cause of it. The leaders called for the quick release of international funds earmarked for developing economies to cope with the effects of climate change. Their suffering populations have no time to wait for the gears of the global bureaucracy to engage, they said. All true, of course, but there is more to the story. Experts say that warming oceans caused by climate change are leading to more intense storms that release more rain and move more slowly than in the past. Both Hurricanes Eta and Iota made landfall on Nicaragua’s Mosquito Coast this month as Category 4 storms. Eta lingered for days, and its heavy rains caused flooding and landslides that killed scores of people. Some 100 people are missing after a waterlogged mountainside collapsed in Guatemala’s central highlands, burying a remote village. By focusing on climate change, though, the region’s presidents were diverting attention from another kind of responsibility that is closer to home: their own failure of governance. “Corruption kills,” a former United States ambassador in Guatemala once told me, and nowhere is that more evident than when natural disasters strike. Decades of graft, incompetence and neglect aggravate the effects of extreme weather and cripple the response. Two years ago, the Fuego volcano in Guatemala erupted, and the lava and burning rocks that tumbled down its slopes buried a town in their path and incinerated hundreds of its residents. Even though the Guatemalan volcanology institute issued warnings in time for a hillside golf resort to evacuate, the country’s natural disaster commission lacked the manpower and experience to evacuate the doomed town. It was not even clear how many people lived there because there was no recent census. Three years earlier, heavy rains caused the wall of a ravine to collapse, engulfing a settlement on the outskirts of Guatemala City and killing hundreds. Officials had warned for years that the neighborhood was at risk but took no action. Corruption touches everything.

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Transcript: Coronavirus: Leadership During Crisis with Colorado Gov. Jared Polis

2, 3, 400 million, to really do in the next few weeks. The shovel-ready projects part we can wait until the legislature convenes in the normal session, which is January. But we do have a one-time fund carry-forward to be able to help Colorado recover a little bit sooner than hopefully some of the other states can. MR. COSTA: How much is Colorado looking for in 2021? If, let's say, President Biden, February 1, 2021, and you're all talking about a stimulus package. What does Colorado need? Can you give me a number? GOV. POLIS: Well, again, I hope it's before January 20th-- MR. COSTA: Understood. GOV. POLIS: --really a bunch of it needs to occur. A lot of our small businesses--restaurants, bars--just won't be able to make it to then, and frankly, a lot of folks who relied on unemployment, that emergency unemployment runs out in late December. And that means rent. And, you know, if we have this eviction crisis it could lead to a foreclosure crisis. We all remember the '08 meltdown. That was a long tail on that foreclosure crisis. Remember, '09, '10, neighborhoods boarded up, lawns dying, houses being auctioned off, a slow workout. If we don't want to create a banking crisis, if we don't want to create a foreclosure crisis, we need to help renters now, over these very difficult next few months, to bridge until the vaccine. So frankly, you know, February and March, I'm sure there will be some action for Congress to take, but it's simply too late for the biggest part of it, which we really need Congress to get done in the immediate future. MR. COSTA: You are a Democratic governor with a business background. When you are talking to business leaders in Colorado, what are their concerns at this critical juncture? You speak their language. You know their issues. What are they worried about as winter approaches? GOV. POLIS: I think businesses all want to do the right thing, and frankly, what the Paycheck Protection Program did is it afforded them that space to do that. Without that federal aid, of course they prioritize being able to meet payroll, keeping the lights on, and they are going to do what it takes to do that. But if we give them that space through another federal PPP or program like that, I'm confident that they are good partners

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The Daily 202: Picking Blinken for State previews how differently Biden will govern than Trump

has to be stored at negative 70 degrees Celsius, or Moderna’s, which is stable in refrigerated conditions for only 30 days and must be frozen at minus-20 degrees Celsius after that.” It is also cheaper to manufacture. “With nationwide coronavirus hospitalizations topping 80,000 and case counts on the cusp of 200,000 a day, officials and experts are giving their final pleas for caution in the days before Thanksgiving,” Paulina Firozi, Lena Sun and Hannah Knowles report. “Average cases reported each day in the United States have jumped nearly 15 percent in a week, according to data tracked by The Post. Deaths are also on the rise, with some communities overwhelmed by the bodies — in El Paso County, Tex., the National Guard was called in to help the morgues. … "Anthony S. Fauci, the country’s top infectious-disease expert, said he understands that many Americans are experiencing ‘covid fatigue’ after months of pandemic restrictions, now tightening again in many places. But traveling over the holidays and ignoring public health guidelines are ‘going to get us into even more trouble than we’re in right now,’ he said. “The pressure on health-care resources has spurred many leaders to roll back reopening. Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak (D) on Sunday announced a ‘statewide pause’ of at least three weeks starting Tuesday, with stricter capacity limits for many businesses, a decreased limit on gatherings and a more extensive mask mandate. … Los Angeles County, home to 10 million people, also announced new restrictions Sunday, ordering restaurants and bars to shift to takeout, drive-through and delivery only. … More than 1 million people went through Transportation Security Administration checkpoints in airports nationwide on Friday, according to data released daily by the agency, and more than 980,000 travelers were screened Saturday. The number of travelers screened Friday was the second-highest single-day rush since March 16. … Operation Warp Speed chief Moncef Slaoui “said Sunday that the federal government will be ready to start shipping vaccines within 24 hours after a candidate receives emergency authorization from the FDA. He noted that the CDC and its Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices must review the data and recommend who should get immunized first. … Pfizer filed for emergency authorization for its vaccine on Friday. The FDA has announced that a committee of external advisers will meet Dec. 10 to make recommendations to the agency on whether to authorize Pfizer’s vaccine. Slaoui

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The Daily 202: Picking Blinken for State previews how differently Biden will govern than Trump

Steve Sisolak (D) on Sunday announced a ‘statewide pause’ of at least three weeks starting Tuesday, with stricter capacity limits for many businesses, a decreased limit on gatherings and a more extensive mask mandate. … Los Angeles County, home to 10 million people, also announced new restrictions Sunday, ordering restaurants and bars to shift to takeout, drive-through and delivery only. … More than 1 million people went through Transportation Security Administration checkpoints in airports nationwide on Friday, according to data released daily by the agency, and more than 980,000 travelers were screened Saturday. The number of travelers screened Friday was the second-highest single-day rush since March 16. … Operation Warp Speed chief Moncef Slaoui “said Sunday that the federal government will be ready to start shipping vaccines within 24 hours after a candidate receives emergency authorization from the FDA. He noted that the CDC and its Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices must review the data and recommend who should get immunized first. … Pfizer filed for emergency authorization for its vaccine on Friday. The FDA has announced that a committee of external advisers will meet Dec. 10 to make recommendations to the agency on whether to authorize Pfizer’s vaccine. Slaoui said the advisers will meet Dec. 17 to review the shot developed by Moderna, which has not yet filed for clearance for its vaccine.” “Many schools that brought large numbers of students back to campus are dispersing them for the rest of the year — discouraging back-and-forth holiday travel — and pondering how much they can resume operations in January," Nick Anderson and Susan Svrluga report. "The CDC warned … that college students traveling home should be treated as ‘overnight guests’ and take appropriate precautions. But many are unlikely to take the rigorous quarantine steps that public health experts advise.” “Community health centers and small doctors’ offices, AIDS clinics and homeless shelters are struggling with a scarcity of protective gear to buffer workers from harm, their budgets and buying power unable to compete with large medical institutions,” Amy Goldstein reports. “Most U.S. hospitals and health systems have, over the pandemic’s nine months, stitched together systems and improvisations to acquire masks, gowns, gloves and other personal protective equipment. Yet many small health-care and social-service settings continue to suffer from shortages they expect to grow worse. A New Orleans mission for the homeless and addicted finally gave up searching for masks after

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TSA records its busiest travel weekend since March

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) recorded its highest number of weekend passengers since the coronavirus pandemic began in March, with over 3 million people traveling in the past three days. The surge comes despite Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance advising against Thanksgiving travel because of mounting covid-19 cases across the nation. Sunday was the busiest travel day since the beginning of the pandemic in March, according to TSA spokesman Daniel Velez, with 1,047,934 passengers. TSA screenings surpassed a now-rare amount of 1 million screenings on both Friday and Sunday; Friday was a slightly lower travel day with 1,019,836 travelers screened. On Saturday, TSA saw 984,369 travelers. The new peak comes as U.S. coronavirus cases have also hit a new high, and just in time for Thanksgiving week — which typically brings the busiest travel day of the year on Wednesday. In the past week, daily new coronavirus cases in the United States surged by nearly 14 percent, according to data tracked by The Washington Post. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention took a firm stance last week: “Travel may increase your chance of getting and spreading COVID-19. Postponing travel and staying home is the best way to protect yourself and others this year.” Before this past weekend, passenger levels at U.S. airports had surpassed 1 million passengers once in October. “TSA has been diligent in our efforts to ensure checkpoints are clean, safe and healthy for frontline workers and airline passengers, implementing new protocols and deploying state-of-the-art technologies that improve security and reduce physical contact,” TSA Administrator David Pekoske said in a news release at that time. Now, with U.S. infection levels higher than they were in the early days of the pandemic, many states are implementing stay-at-home orders or tightening their entry restrictions ahead of the holiday travel season to require quarantines or coronavirus testing. Read more: Canceling holiday flights? These are the latest airline policies. These 3 tools can help you navigate quarantine and testing policies by state Why TSA PreCheck is a better idea than ever

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Transcript: Chasing Cancer with Jeffrey Drebin, MD, Noopur Raje, MD & Lisa Ray

in March and April, we closed some operating rooms to convert them to ICU spaces. We had an edict from the government to avoid any nonessential surgeries. And we had limitations on PPE and concerns for safety of our staff and patients. So, during that time, we dropped down to probably, at the low, close to 20 percent of our normal surgical volume. Now, that was only for a few weeks and we ramped back up relatively quickly, but there was a period of time when we had far fewer available operating rooms, and we had to work very carefully across disciplines with our nurses, our anesthesiologists, our neurosurgeons and all the members of the department of surgery to stratify which patients really could not wait and which could potentially be postponed for weeks or even months. MS. ABUTALEB: And when you did get back into the operating room and started, you know, scheduling those surgeries again, what have been some of the extra precautions that doctors and patients have had to take? DR. DREBIN: So, as I mentioned, we are testing all patients before surgeries or any invasive procedure within 48 hours of the procedure. We test all inpatients on a regular basis, currently every three days. We test all staff, those who are in COVID-facing positions, every week; and other staff, every two weeks. And so, we've really managed to make the space within our four walls a very safe space from the point of view of COVID. It was always our hope, and I think we achieved it, to make it safer to be in the hospital than it is to be in the grocery store, and we hope to continue that. MS. ABUTALEB: Dr. Raje, what have been some of the biggest challenges for you in treating your patients this year? DR. RAJE: So, you know, I would agree with Dr. Drebin. You know, when we first started off, as you know, Yasmeen, the northeast was affected first. And when we--March and April was when we saw the surge to begin with. We had to adapt very quickly and I think, as he's mentioned, cancer care continues. And we as an institution, we as a cancer center, adapted quite rapidly to the COVID surge, wherein we knew we had to take care of our COVID patients as well as our cancer patients. And as you know,

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A birthday lunch left 15 Texas relatives battling covid-19: ‘Please don’t be like my family’

a 36-member team to assist in morgues in El Paso, as the state reported 13,763 new cases on Saturday, according to The Post’s coronavirus tracker. At least 20,556 Texans have died of covid-19. People of color, including Latinos like the Aragonez family, who are Mexican American, continue to suffer increased mortality rates from covid-19, a Post analysis found. Although health officials keep tracking superspreader events at large gatherings like weddings, smaller get-togethers like the Aragonez’s indoor lunch have driven the latest spike of coronavirus cases — a trend that could dramatically worsen, health experts warn, if Americans ignore the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines urging people not to travel for the holidays this year. On Nov. 1, one of her cousins texted a group of relatives inviting them to his house for an impromptu and belated birthday celebration. “You wanna come over for fajitas?” he asked. The Aragonez family had all agreed at the beginning of the pandemic to avoid any gatherings with people outside of the family, including church services, bars, and indoor and outdoor dining, and also planned to work from home as much as possible, Aragonez said. They also cut down on their usual weekly family gatherings to once-per-month, socially distanced outdoor gatherings. “Everyone said yes, just because we have all been taking care of ourselves very well since the start of the pandemic,” Aragonez said of her cousin’s invitation. “… Our family put a strong emphasis of taking care of yourself every day so that we could see each other with more peace and not be scared of contracting covid-19.” Eight members of the Aragonez family drove from Arlington to Fort Worth for the birthday lunch at her cousin’s house, where four other relatives lived. The plan was never to gather indoors, Aragonez said, but as family members arrived, people congregated in the living room, where for a couple of hours, everyone sat around the couch without masks, sharing fajitas and chocolate cake. “It really was: ‘Hey, I’m coming in’ and everyone started talking,” Aragonez said. “They naturally gravitated to the living room. ... It was not like we were, ‘Let’s all hang out inside.' We fell back into our old habits.” The next day, one of the cousins who had attended the lunch texted the group. “I did not wake up feeling well,” she wrote. “How are you feeling?” More and more relatives

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The Health 202: Trump may have made it easier for Biden to go after the drug industry

by Regeneron Pharmaceuticals is designed to prevent people infected with the coronavirus from developing severe illness and was given to Trump when he was treated for covid-19 last month, The Post’s Laurie McGinley and Carolyn Y. Johnson report. But the treatment, which is time-consuming and complicated to make, is expected to be in short supply. The drug is a cocktail of two monoclonal antibodies, a type of treatment that mimics the body’s natural defenses to a virus. It’s the second drug of this type to be cleared by the Food and Drug Administration after Eli Lilly & Co.’s drug received authorization earlier this month. “Regeneron executives said on the company’s earnings call in early November that they project having enough doses for 80,000 patients by the end of November, and 300,000 total doses by the end of January,” Laurie and Carolyn write. With the U.S. approaching 200,000 coronavirus cases a day, health care providers expect shortages, and some doctors worry that the treatments won’t find their way to the communities that most need them. An additional challenge comes from the fact that the treatment must be administered by intravenously, potentially requiring health care providers to set up separate infusion spaces to ensure that contagious coronavirus patients don’t receive infusions alongside people with compromised immune systems in infusion centers. Anthony S. Fauci, the country’s top infectious-disease expert, told CBS News’s “Face the Nation” that although he understood “covid fatigue,” people traveling over the holidays and ignoring public health advice would “get us into even more trouble than we’re in right now.” The warning came as more than 80,000 Americans are hospitalized with covid-19. The CDC recommended against traveling for the holidays on Thursday, a warning that came after many people’s holiday plans were already set. Holiday travel is surging. More than 1 million people passed through the nation’s airports on Friday. Although that is less than half of the 2.5 million people who traveled through U.S. airports in 2019, it represents the second-highest single-day rush of airline passengers since the start of the pandemic, Derek Hawkins and Hannah Knowles report. Experts caution that a negative coronavirus test is not a greenlight for socializing, especially indoors. Tests are only a snapshot in time, and even with the more accurate PCR tests, people infected with the coronavirus can receive a negative result, especially if they take the test soon after exposure but before

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Baby panda at National Zoo is named Xiao Qi Ji

The National Zoo’s baby giant panda finally has a name. The cub’s name is Xiao Qi Ji, (SHIAU-chi-ji), which translates as “little miracle” in English. The panda cub is now 3 months old. The zoo ran a contest in which the public could vote on a list of names. After five days, the zoo said nearly 135,000 votes came in, and Xiao Qi Ji was the winner. It was one of four Mandarin Chinese names that zoo officials put online for the public to pick. In a statement Monday, zoo officials said, “giant pandas are an international symbol of endangered wildlife and hope, and Xiao Qi Ji’s birth offered the world a much-needed moment of joy amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.” It added, “His name reflects the extraordinary circumstances under which he was born and celebrates the collaboration between colleagues who strive to conserve this species.” The zoo is closed due to the pandemic, but viewers can see the baby panda on the online panda camera. All pandas at the zoo move to China when they are 4 years old as part of the zoo’s breeding agreement with China.

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Transcript: The Future Reset: Ending Energy Poverty

commission, it's a major focus. And so, the African Development Bank brings in that perspective of how are we going to bring together the capital to help the kinds of transitions that we have. The commission was rounded out by many, many others I won't go into by name. But for example, investors in infrastructure like Africa 50, but government and quasi-government officials who will have enormous responsibilities which we will--can be--perhaps come back to--and a number of individuals who have long experience in, for example, initiatives such as Power Africa, which was started in the Obama administration to address the electricity and lighting needs in Africa specifically. But you're also right that the energy access issue is not one just in developing countries; clearly, that is the major focus. Hundreds of millions of people without proper energy access, one could argue about a third of the global population without adequate energy services. But, you know, right here in the United States, frankly, if one goes to things like the Native American lands, one finds a very, very disheartening lack of energy services in many cases. So, this is a big problem. It's absolutely critical. And I would just say that, as well, you mentioned briefly COVID. When the commission started just over a year ago, I don't think any of us dreamed that today, because of the COVID crisis, we probably have more people without electricity access than we had a year ago, because many who gained access--you know, these countries always catch the cold first when there's a global event, and the economic impact has led to many people not being able to afford anymore the access that was so hard won over these last years. MS. SELLERS: Right, right. Dr. Songwe, you're on this commission, and the goal is universal electricity access, as we said. That's going to involve partnerships between policymakers, utilities, investors. What do those partnerships look like? How are you moving towards them? And what are the barriers in different parts of the world? What are you up against? MS. SONGWE: We have done a couple of--actually, we're not up against as much as it is trying to see whether we can bring the right coalitions together. And I think first the coalition and the commission is one of them. Secretary Moniz has already talked about the fact that we have the private sector,

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Transcript: The Future Reset: Ending Energy Poverty

understood is standardization of these programs, whether they are large-scale programs or small mini grid/off grid programs, those work quite well because then you can standardize it. The investors know what to expect, the countries know what to offer, and it makes it much easier to close on those deals. MS. SELLERS: Secretary Moniz, could you talk to us about the technological advances, data analytics and other progress that can make a big difference in this area? MR. MONIZ: Well, certainly the technology progress in providing energy, and in particular clean energy, has been very, very dramatic. The solar energy, wind energy, including the storage that one needs to be able to use the--for example, the solar energy at night as opposed to during the day, the rapid cost reductions here, I think, are going to provide dramatic opportunities to have support for Africa to build out quite rapidly of the new energy technologies. But a couple of points I do want to emphasize. We have to recognize--and one of the--one of the pillars really of the commission's work has been that we cannot look at off-grid and on-grid solutions as kind of two different things. We need the integration of on- and off-grid solutions, because the issue--it isn't about ideology in terms of how one best to--just to have distributed generation or the like; it's about universal access. And the universal access solutions are going to have to be looked at in an integrated way with the combined urban and rural populations of these countries. Technology is going to allow that to happen more easily. But I think actually it's probably worth stating, that just like everywhere in the world, the projections, the demographic projections, are for continued enormous urbanization in Africa. So, I think we need to not have, you know, everything looks like a nail because I have a hammer. We have multiple technologies, multiple ways of integrating them. Using IT--you alluded to IT, for example--using IT to really serve the population that needs universal access. In saying that, again, something you alluded to earlier, Frances, maybe we'll come back to it, but the reality is--and frankly, when I speak with Africans who are very knowledgeable about the developments in energy that are needed--that would include Vera--the--they all say that, look, we have to have in Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, a real focus on economic development, on industrialization.

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College football has been battered by covid. What’s most startling is our acceptance.

Michael Locksley is isolating at his Olney home, the latest college football coach to test positive for the coronavirus. His Maryland team didn’t play Ohio State this past weekend. His Maryland team won’t play Michigan State this weekend. He is increasingly not the exception. He is the norm. “We knew going in, and I think all of us — whether it’s the Big Ten and all the other Power Five conferences — understood what we were getting into when we made the decision to play,” Locksley said by Zoom on Thursday, the day Maryland announced the cancellation of Saturday’s scheduled date with Michigan State. “I don’t think there’s been any surprises with any of us.” That’s the striking thing about all of this: the norms we now accept. The virus is here. It has killed more than 250,000 Americans. There is not yet an approved vaccine. Football is trying to rage forward. The virus is beating it back — from the SEC to the Pac-12 to the Big Ten and back again. Feel like flipping on the alma mater Saturday? Check the schedule first — and make sure it’s updated. “As I’ve talked to our team, I’ve assured them that this is not a Maryland thing,” Locksley said. “This is a national landscape thing.” So what sort of season remains here? Not just for 2-1 Maryland, which has three more scheduled regular season games. Not just for the Big Ten, among the conferences using Elmer’s to hold together its schedule. But in totality. Over the past three weeks, the virus has wiped out 41 games. That number isn’t carved in granite, either. Wait an hour, then check back for updates. There are bound to be some, particularly because cases are skyrocketing — a million new cases nationwide in a week, according to data compiled by The Washington Post. “I want to remind everyone that this is not a football-spread virus or a sport-spread virus,” said Yvette Rooks, the assistant director of Maryland’s university health center who is monitoring the athletic department’s testing results. “It is a community-spread virus.” That is an important thing for all of us to understand. Football isn’t alone in spreading the virus. But football is being played in communities where the virus is spreading. Therefore, an impact on the sport is all but inevitable. It’s another bridge we seem to have crossed: being comfortable staging games

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‘Can’t eat a gift card’: Rural food banks fight to put turkeys on the table

for many other providers feeding the millions of Americans pitched into hunger since March. The past year had seen a once-in-a-century pandemic. A manic stock market. Ten million pink slips and viral photos of cars in miles-long lines at food handouts. An estimated 8 million Americans had slipped below the poverty line since May, and more than 50 million Americans — or 1 in 6 people ― were expected to experience food insecurity by year’s end. And that tide of need is likely to surge again soon. Without intervention from the federal government, the clock will run out on federal unemployment insurance and a nationwide eviction moratorium, leaving 12 million without benefits and 40 million renters at risk of eviction — all of which will affect food access, particularly in rural areas where food pantries are scare. “We are expecting the need to rise significantly,” said Michael McKee, chief executive of the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank, a distributor that partners with more than 200 pantries across rural Virginia. “Our concern, beyond the sheer numbers, will be the ability of our partner agencies to handle that surge.” Ames had spent nearly a decade at the food bank, bending her seemingly endless energy and cheer into feeding Fauquier County’s hungry. The past year had meant new faces there at noon for the food bank’s daily distribution, new names and backstories for Ames to remember, new requests for donations and help she never had to make before. Ames believed those 600 turkeys weren’t just another meal, but a sign of stability for families that had little of it in the past eight months. “I made a promise,” Ames would later explain. So after learning about her predicament, Ames stepped outside toward a whiteboard near her loading dock. At the top, Ames had an employee write “Turkey Donation Goal: 600.” Beneath it, she wrote the date — Nov. 11 — and the number of turkeys the food bank had now: 25. They had 10 days to get 575 more. Like similar organizations anchored in cities and suburbs, food banks in rural areas have seen a spike in demand since the pandemic hit in March. But rural pantries run into their own unique challenges, according to Blue Ridge’s McKee. “The pantries we are working with are in rural areas, so they’re smaller and they rely entirely on volunteers mostly in their 60s and 70s,

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600 civilians were killed in massacre in Tigray, Ethiopia’s rights commission says

beaten to death with sticks, stabbed with knives, machetes and hatchets, and strangled with ropes, according to the report. Many others were severely injured and property looted or destroyed, the commission said. “The killings, bodily and mental injury, as well as the destruction that went on throughout the night . . . indicate the commission of grave human rights violations which may amount to crimes against humanity and war crimes,” the commission said. The Ethiopian Human Rights Commission’s findings could not be independently verified, but they echo similar accounts reported earlier by Amnesty International, which cited witness statements, photos and videos as evidence. The commission’s findings, the result of a week-long investigation in the town, are the first evidence of possible war crimes being committed in Tigray, where government troops and TPLF forces have been fighting since Nov. 4 in a conflict many fear could destabilize the Horn of Africa. Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed in a statement called the commission’s findings “heart-wrenching” and urged the international community “to condemn these atrocious acts of crimes against humanity.” There was no immediate response to the commission’s report from the TPLF. The regional government and refugees fleeing the fighting have accused government forces of targeting ethnic Tigrayans. The commission warned that the death toll from the massacre could be much higher, as many people were still missing and bodies were hidden in fields outside the town. Survivors told investigators that some residents in the town hid people in their homes, in churches and in farm fields as the Samri gangs raided the town. “The unimaginably atrocious crime committed against civilians for no reason other than their ethnicity is heartbreaking,” the commission’s chief, Daniel Bekele, said in a statement, calling for the perpetrators of the attacks to be brought to justice. Abiy, who comes from the Oromo, the largest ethnic group in Ethiopia, on Sunday issued a 72-hour ultimatum to Tigray’s leaders and combatants to surrender before government forces attack the capital Mekele, with a population of about half a million. The deadline is Wednesday. The conflict erupted when Abiy sent troops to Tigray after the TPLF army and local militia attacked government military bases in the region and tried to steal artillery and other military equipment. The conflict spread across the border to Eritrea when Tigrayan forces fired several rockets at its capital and sent at least 40,000 refugees fleeing into Sudan.

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For bird-gathering volunteers, coronavirus means a freezer full of carcasses

in and check the collection, protect the collection or add to the collection,” said Christina Gebhard, a museum specialist in the division of birds. “Above all else, we cannot contribute to science.” Researchers have been doing their best to organize and catalogue photos of the collection from home, but they’re itching to return to the museum. Officials say no such return is in sight. “The Smithsonian is reopening its facilities to the public and essential staff where and when it can safely,” spokesman Ryan Lavery wrote in a statement. “I hope the lack of clarity on a projected timeline is understandable given the uncertainty around the coronavirus.” So far, there are 165 birds from Lights Out Baltimore in the collection, and some of those are likely to feature in a Natural History Museum exhibition tentatively planned for fall 2022. Called “Dark Skies,” the exhibit will focus on the “global issue of how man-made light is influencing nature and our relationship with the night sky,” Lavery said. The birds haven’t contributed just to scientific research but also to a changing landscape in downtown Baltimore. Thanks in part to Lights Out’s record-keeping, a few of the city’s worst offenders when it comes to avian collisions have taken steps to become “bird safe.” Perhaps most notably, the National Aquarium covered a glass wall surrounding its Australia exhibit in a dotted film a few years back so that birds could detect it. On the film, a collection of dense and sparse dots spell out “National Aquarium” vertically along the building’s edge. “That’s what’s kind of so amazing about it is, it’s doing, you know, this really great work, and it just looks like it was meant to be there,” said Jacqueline Bershad, the aquarium’s vice president of planning and design. The aquarium plans to redo the glass on its rainforest exhibit in a few years, and it will use frosted glass this time, Bershad said, so that the panes are visible to birds. There are also plans to rid the aquarium’s courtyard of lighting that shines upward, since such fixtures can confuse migrating birds. It’s a constant battle and a uniquely morbid hobby, but volunteers say it’s rewarding, too. “One out of four is a rescue, and that one out of four can really keep you going,” Jacks said. “You started your day at 5:30 in the morning, and you rescued a bird. How

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Airport lounges have always been a luxury. But are they worth it in a pandemic?

After most airport lounges shut down in response to the coronavirus pandemic and resulting decrease in air travel, some are opening again — and attempting to hold on to the same allure they had pre-covid. For weary travelers who could afford or expense them, airport lounges once served as a port in the storm. Access to the exclusive spaces was possible in several ways, whether through paid entry, a perk of your credit card, airline loyalty program status or a top-tier plane ticket, among others. Lounges promised travelers an elevated airport visit, with perks like peace and quiet, complimentary food and alcohol, better WiFi and, in some cases, spa services. Then the pandemic changed everything. Many “high-risk” amenities have been taken away. Food and drink services have been altered. And the potential of being in closer quarters with others may leave travelers questioning whether the lounges are worth the price (or time) anymore. Are they a worthy investment in the covid-19 era? Some in the industry are making that case by marketing themselves as high-end, highly sanitized hideaways. On its website, Priority Pass, an airport lounge access membership company, advertises that airport lounges are becoming more important havens for travelers, welcoming them back to a “new age of safety and luxury” where they can “avoid the crowds, stay safe." When the pandemic began, Priority Pass reached out to its customers to find out how travelers were feeling about lounges. Andy Besant, managing director for travel experiences for Collinson Group, which oversees Priority Pass, says customers were still keen on visiting lounges during their travel, but they wanted to make sure there were new procedures to address the pandemic. “There’s still huge appetite for both airports to commercialize their space and from the [lounge] brands to really promote the customer experience of travel, which still has that whole high romance and emotional attraction around it. And I don’t think that will change post-pandemic.” Priority Pass’s Besant says that at this time, about 60 percent of their lounges worldwide have reopened with a set of health and safety standards. Many of the new changes seem like pandemic common knowledge now: implementing social distance guidelines and contactless check-in; removing communal newspapers and magazines; moving furniture to promote social distancing; training staff on use of personal protective equipment (PPE); and more thorough cleaning and disinfection recommendations. Depending on the location of the lounge, face

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Maryland public defender complains of ‘superspreader’ court hearings

After Maryland recently stopped scheduling jury trials amid a nationwide surge in coronavirus infections, the state’s chief public defender says lawyers, clients and others remain at risk of catching the virus because some courts are still holding in-person hearings that amount to “superspreader events.” Paul DeWolfe, who oversees public defenders in all Maryland jurisdictions, complained in a letter to the state’s chief judge last week about a failure to “scale back on judicial proceedings” in Maryland’s district courts, where judges handle minor cases that ­DeWolfe said should be postponed or dismissed as a public health measure. These hearings “are indoors for extended periods of time in contravention to the now-universal guidance to avoid such interactions unless essential,” he said in a letter to Chief Judge Mary Ellen Barbera. “My staff has been on the frontlines providing representation in criminal cases, and exposing themselves to increased risk of contracting the virus” at in-person hearings on “nuisance” matters. “In Charles County, a recent docket included four individuals charged with failing to pay restitution,” DeWolfe wrote. Another case involved “a 2019 theft charge for $2. Howard County attorneys have seen numerous cases for driving on a suspended license where the license is no longer suspended. . . . Virtually every county has had similar cases, some with judges and court staff who have tested positive for covid.” Unlike Maryland circuit courts, where felony cases are tried, district courts handle less-serious matters, without juries. “I urge you to require that in-person . . . misdemeanor proceedings that do not involve an incarcerated client or domestic violence be postponed” until the pandemic ends, DeWolfe told Barbera. In early October, Maryland’s court system began operating somewhat normally for the first time since the pandemic began. Under the fifth phase of a progressive reopening, courts were allowed to abandon virtual hearings in favor of in-person courtroom interactions with mask-wearing and social distancing. Amid the fall surge in cases of the novel coronavirus, however, Barbera this month ordered the judicial system to revert to Phase 3 of the reopening, meaning that certain restrictions were reimposed, including a return to online video proceedings in some cases and a halt to jury trials in circuit court through the end of the year. Suzanne Delaney Pelz, a spokeswoman for the chief judge, declined to comment on DeWolfe’s Nov. 19 letter or on district court operations since Barbera’s Phase 3 order took

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Ethiopia’s Tigray conflict reflects unresolved ethnic tensions

also resent the normalization of relations between the central government and Eritrea, which shares a border with Tigray. Border disputes caused a 1998-2000 war between Ethiopia and Eritrea. The prime minister’s decision to sign a peace treaty with Eritrea’s government in 2018 ended the territorial dispute. Although this move led to Abiy being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, the detente with Eritrea has left many in the Tigray region feeling marginalized. The conflict puts “ethnic federalism” under scrutiny Did Ethiopia’s governing system contribute to the conflict? Ethiopia’s centuries-old monarchy fell in a 1974 military junta takeover, further contributing to ethnic tensions. Two movements in particular, the TPLF and the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), pushed back against what they perceived as the domination of the Amhara ethnic group and the Amharic language. In 1991, the military regime collapsed and a resulting EPRDF coalition took power. Despite comprising only 6 percent of Ethiopia’s population, the Tigray enjoyed disproportionate power and influence in government after 1991. The central question facing this coalition was how to govern Ethiopia in a way that guaranteed respect and freedom for all ethnic groups. The resulting constitution allows every ethnic group the right to self-government in their own defined territories, while institutions in each region are allowed to use the local language. In this framework, ethnic groups administer their internal affairs by setting up their own legislative, judicial and educational institutions. Ethnic federalism in Ethiopia allows for self-determination by ethnic groups, up to and including secession. This is a radical departure from the norms of state-building in the broader African context. Under the EPRDF coalition, Ethiopia experienced rapid economic growth and stability. But its human rights record was problematic and regional representation was not always truly democratic. While Ethiopia’s experiment with ethnic federalism appeared to keep the country from sliding into civil war, the low-level repression that minority groups experienced suggests that political power remains concentrated in the central government. The conflict in Ethiopia exposes the fragility of the country’s experiment with ethnic federalism — the approach some scholars have seen as a way to mitigate conflict in societies that are highly polarized along ethnic lines. However, there is little empirical consensus on whether ethnic federalism is an effective way to manage diverse societies. Some studies suggest that federalism can help reduce interethnic conflict in multiethnic countries. Other studies show that federalism exacerbates conflicts. What happens next? The

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The last covid-free places on earth have something in common: Travel shutdowns

Before 2020, the remote islands of the South Pacific were more accessible to leisure travelers than ever before. Thanks to affordable global air travel, little-known places such as Tonga, Vanuatu and the Cook Islands welcomed thousands of visitors annually from all over the world — up until the coronavirus pandemic hit. Now those islands are some of the only remaining corners of the globe where the coronavirus doesn’t exist, thanks to their total suspension of inbound tourism and other nonessential travel. The islands of Samoa, which include the U.S. territory of American Samoa, closed to nonessential travel in March and have not recorded any confirmed coronavirus cases. To enter, U.S. citizens must hold permanent residency and request permission from the Samoan Health Ministry to travel on a commercial flight to Samoa through Auckland, New Zealand, before quarantining for 14 days. Despite recent reports of a sailor testing positive for the virus in quarantine before then testing negative, the World Health Organization categorizes Samoa and American Samoa as covid-free. According to the U.S. Embassy in American Samoa, masks are not required in public. The tiny island nation of Tuvalu has no reported coronavirus cases and does not allow visitors who have been in any countries where the coronavirus is present within five days before their arrival. Travelers from a high-risk country must get medical clearance from Tuvalu’s government to enter, according to the U.S. Embassy in Tuvalu. Only citizens of Tonga “returning by special arrangement” are allowed to enter the string of islands, which has had zero confirmed coronavirus cases. One weekly flight is available from New Zealand, which requires strict quarantines. Cruise ships and yacht sailings to the nation have been banned “until further notice,” according to the U.S. Embassy in Tonga. The little-known archipelago of Palau has not reported any coronavirus cases and closed off international travel in March when the pandemic began. Since April, a mandatory 14-day quarantine has been required for “all travelers with a travel history from or through COVID-19 affected geographical areas,” according to the U.S. Embassy in Palau. In October, the Cook Islands, which are accessible via air from New Zealand, announced a continuation of its air-travel border closure “until further notice.” Only residents can leave and enter the islands, and they are required to quarantine in New Zealand before reentering with a negative coronavirus test result. “If you have already booked your travel

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Curator offers a diagnosis for what’s ailing art museums — and how they can recover

could be deaccessioned and that money could go for general operating costs. The problem with the Baltimore situation is firstly, the museum is not in a situation of financial crisis, and secondly, the objects chosen did not fall within the previously understood set of terms that justify deaccessioning. For instance, if you have four Clyfford Stills, you could think about deaccessioning one. But if you have only one Clyfford Still, and he painted it specifically for your museum, you are breaking a trust with the artist and your public. Marcel Duchamp once said you shouldn’t say anything about a work of art until it is at least 50 years old, because what could you possibly know about it? It’s way too soon to deaccession any of those three objects. We don’t know yet the fullness of the story we will tell about 20th-century art. Do we need the gay Andy Warhol’s “Last Supper,” made at the beginning of the culture wars, when America was having a vicious fight about how its educational and cultural institutions were becoming increasingly secular? You might need that painting to tell that story one day. And to say that you have enough abstract expressionism so you don’t need your one Clyfford Still, to me, is just an abdication of complex and intelligent art history. But my biggest problem with the move is that I don’t believe in this either/or scenario: that you can either have this collection of masterworks or you can have a well-paid staff and a diverse collection. If you want staff diversity, equity and better wages, then the trustees sitting around the table have to get on board with that. I appreciate that there might not be $55 million sitting around the BMA trustee table right now. But that money exists and things can always be re-budgeted. Budgets reflect ethics — so redo your budget. Q: A: Q: A: When we care for objects, we’re not just caring for the objects. If we’re doing our job well, we’re caring for the person who made that object; we’re caring for the people who look at that object; we’re caring for the ideas contained within that object. In 20 years of acquiring objects for museums, one of the things I would always say is, “This isn’t for us now. This is for someone 100 years from now, that they might understand who we were.”

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Is it safer to take a short trip during the pandemic?

Syeda Amna Husain, a pediatrician from Marlboro, N.J., who has been advising families on the safety of road trips. “But if you come in close contact with others or share public facilities like restrooms or picnic areas, there is still a risk there.” Of course, exposure to someone who is infected can happen whether you’re on a three-day staycation or a three-week safari. “If you get close to someone who happens to be infected and they cough or sneeze toward you, an infection could occur within minutes,” warns Dale Bratzler, chief covid officer at the University of Oklahoma in Norman, Okla. “So regardless of the duration of the trip, you need to keep yourself safe by wearing a mask during any public transport or when around anyone outside of your travel companions. Also, practice social distancing and avoid crowds — particularly indoor crowds.” Rashid Chotani, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, says travelers often overlook the little things when they’re on the road. “Gas pump handles and credit card keypads are high-touch areas and could have the virus present,” he says, noting that covid can survive for hours or even days on hard surfaces. His advice: When you get out of your car, wear a mask and disposable gloves made of nitrile or latex. Turn the gloves inside-out and dispose of them after using them, and sanitize your hands after getting back in the car. So when it comes to whether it’s safe to take a short trip during the pandemic, the answer is a little complicated. “There are three key factors,” explains Jaimie Meyer, an infectious-disease specialist at Yale Medicine in New Haven, Conn. “First, where you’re going; second, how you’re getting there; and third, what you do while you’re there?” Meyer says that once you consider these critical factors, short trips may make the most sense. “They meet a lot of key criteria. They involve relatively local or regional travel, they may be reachable via private vehicle, and precautions and regulations may be similar to what you experience at home.” As for Kemp, the short trip to Amelia Island with her daughter was a success. “Being by the ocean is always, for me, something I find to be peaceful and comforting. And spending one-on-one time with my daughter was the icing on the cake,” she said. “So I’m glad we went.”

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A 70-year-old came out of retirement to teach nursing. She died of complications from covid-19 after a student exposed her.

difficult for her because she had all these plans,” said Meda-Schlamel, 47. She kept herself occupied by closely following the spread of the coronavirus, particularly in her adopted hometown of New York, which became the center of the pandemic. “All she did was sit there and watch it and talk to everyone about what she was seeing,” Meda-Schlamel said. “She was very well-informed.” She spent some time as an informal consultant for her previous job, providing advice on how to quarantine and monitor students who fell ill. But she wanted to do more. So in April, Meda applied to Collin College to teach high school juniors and seniors who were interested in nursing careers. The school promised the students would maintain a safe distance and wear masks, her daughter said. She began teaching in August. As a former high school dropout, she connected particularly well with students who struggled with the class, her daughter said. “She understood that sometimes you need a little bit of encouragement and support, and that alone can open doors for people,” Meda-Schlamel said. “She wanted to be that person opening doors for others.” In an email to the college on Monday, President H. Neil Matkin said that on Oct. 2 Meda was in contact with a student who was showing symptoms including sneezing, coughing and watery eyes, Inside Higher Ed reported. Although everyone was wearing masks, the lesson taught that day prevented Meda from socially distancing from the students, he said. Meda learned the student had tested positive on Oct. 9, the president said, and two days later, began exhibiting symptoms. She was admitted to the hospital on Oct. 17. “She was hopeful that she would get out of it because her last words were ‘I’m going to fight. I’m New York strong,'” her daughter said. She received two antibodies transfusions and a dose of remdesivir as she battled pneumonia, but doctors had to intubate her on Oct. 28, Meda-Schlamel said. She died of heart failure on Nov. 14. Her work will live on through the dozens of students she worked with, Meda-Schlamel said. “For her, this was also a service to her country, being able to usher nursing assistants into the work field during a pandemic when they are most needed,” Meda-Schlamel said. “I hope that students realize the compromise that their teachers are putting themselves in and recognize that they are themselves heroes.”

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DOJ agreement requires Realtors to offer transparency on real estate commissions

Real estate agents’ commissions have always been a bit mysterious to buyers. Sellers must negotiate their commission with their agent and determine how much of a commission to offer their buyer’s agent and therefore know how much will be paid at the closing table from the proceeds of the sale. Buyers, who in effect pay those commissions because they’re the ones making the purchase, typically don’t know how much either their agent or the seller’s agent will be paid. That’s about to change. Responding to a lawsuit filed by the U.S. Department of Justice, the National Association of Realtors agreed sellers’ agents must publicly disclose the commission they offer to buyers’ agents for properties listed on a multiple listing service site. In addition, buyers’ agents will be obligated to tell their clients about the compensation they are being offered. Buyers’ agents won’t be able to describe their services as free to the buyer and must be transparent about how they get paid. Some multiple listing services such as the Northwest Multiple Listing Service (NWMLS) in Seattle have already begun publishing buyers’ agent commission offers. Redfin real estate brokerage has been publishing its buyers’ agent compensation offers for about 18 months. “This settlement will usher in a new era of price competition for real estate agents,” Glenn Kelman, CEO of Redfin real estate brokerage, said in a statement. “No one knows better than Redfin how hard it is for an agent to offer homebuyers a better deal when the fees brokerages charge are a secret. Redfin has saved homebuyers hundreds of millions of dollars in commissions, but until now, customers couldn’t really compare prices between brokerages. “This settlement will let any real estate site show how much a buyers’ agent stands to earn on any sale. The fees for representing a seller are already competitive because the sellers’ agent discloses her fees up front. Now the fees for representing a buyer will become competitive too, which can save consumers billions of dollars every year.” However, Stephen Brobeck, a senior fellow at the Consumer Federation of America, believes that settlement between the NAR and DOJ doesn’t go far enough to encourage competition between agents. “The settlement will discourage blatant discrimination against discount brokers and the steering of buyers to high-commission properties, but will fail to significantly increase real price competition,” Brobeck said in a statement. “Only the uncoupling of commissions, so that

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The Health 202: Coronavirus survival rates in the United States haven't improved since the summer

with Alexandra Ellerbeck Some Americans downplaying the novel coronavirus insist improved treatments have made the virus far less deadly than last spring. But that’s a far too rosy take. It’s true that better treatments are now available, but their impact isn’t nearly big enough to avoid an impending surge of deaths, expected to soon exceed 2,000 a day in the United States. And while the case fatality rate declined early in the pandemic, it hasn’t budged since the summer. “It’s been rock solid stable since July, around 1.7 percent,” said David Dowdy, an associate professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “If anything, I think there is a concern it will go up again because we’re seeing hospitals reaching their capacity.” There’s no doubt health providers have discovered best practices for treating seriously ill covid-19 patients since the onset of the pandemic, along with some new therapeutics. In the past two weeks the Food and Drug Administration has given emergency approval to two monoclonal antibody treatments, one from Eli Lilly and another from Regeneron Pharmaceuticals. The treatments are designed to prevent infected people from developing severe illness by imitating the body’s natural defenses. They’re given to non-hospitalized patients, typically those who are at increased risk for severe illness due to either age or an underlying condition. President Trump received monoclonal antibodies when he was treated for the coronavirus in October. “Monoclonal antibodies, which are concocted in laboratories, are proteins that mimic the immune system’s ability to attack the virus,” The Washington Post’s Laurie McGinley and Carolyn Y. Johnson explain. “In a clinical trial, the Regeneron drug reduced hospitalizations or emergency room visits when given to people at high risk of developing severe disease. It was also shown to reduce the amount of virus in people’s bodies.” In a call with reporters yesterday, top Trump administration officials said they’ll be shipping out enough of Regeneron’s antibodies treatment for 30,000 patients — and plan to ship out enough for another 50,000 patients next week. “If you have tested positive for covid-19 and are at high risk for severe disease, we may have treatment options that can help you,” Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said. The U.S. case fatality rate — which is the number of people who die out of everyone diagnosed — was around 5 to 6 percent in the springtime. That’s partly because fewer people

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Head home or hunker down? The Thanksgiving covid dilemma.

where Minot sits had ballooned from 11 to 115 as of Tuesday. Masters knows two guys who have died of the disease — an Air Force buddy and a friend in town. The other day, his grandson and daughters came down with covid-like symptoms. “It’s starting to hit a little closer to home,” said Masters, 70, who runs a classic-car restoration shop. “A lot of people have passed away.” On Thursday, Masters expects little, if any, talk of politics. Although his family supports Trump, they recognize Joe Biden as the president-elect. “Whatever the majority chose, that’s it,” he said. “That’s how it works, and we just have to go with it.” The gathering will be smaller than usual, but Masters said his family will still have a good time. He already knows what joke he’ll be telling: “A guy goes to the doctor and asks, ‘When is this pandemic going to be over?’ And the doc says, ‘I don’t know — I’m a doctor, not a politician.’ ” Jerline Baltimore works as a patient safety advocate at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami, as does her mother, Elvita Rojas. They have taken the virus seriously from the start. Rojas bought air cleaners and makes everybody take off their shoes before entering the house. “My mom created a sanitation area,” said Baltimore, 33. “The person coming in has to take off their shoes, wipe them down and spray the bottoms with alcohol. Then they go directly to the bathroom to wash their hands.” But even for Baltimore, a holiday without family was unthinkable. “You have to see Grandma and Grandpa at Thanksgiving,” she said. In her Dominican American family, the holiday is normally an hours-long, multi-household affair: “You have dinner in your home, and then you spend the evening house-hopping. Neighbors come over with food. It’s a big, shared event. You’re continually eating and celebrating throughout the night.” Instead of turkey, there’s pork. Baltimore’s grandmother used to roast a pig in a pit in the backyard. Side dishes are rice and pigeon peas, potato salad with mayo and beets, and a Dominican specialty, pasteles en hoja, painstakingly made by her aunt with plantain leaves, root vegetables, beef and spices. This year, there will be no visits with neighbors, no delivery of meals to homeless people, no pork. (The family is going with fish to protest the treatment of workers at virus-ridden meatpacking

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D.C. adds tougher coronavirus restrictions as infection rates continue to rise

you will be held accountable,” he said. “Please, for the love God, please, wear your mask. The end of this pandemic is coming, and that should motivate all of us to save lives along the way.” The week began in Maryland with another populous suburban county reimposing restrictions on social gatherings Monday, when Howard County announced groups will be capped at 10 people indoors and 25 outdoors, including weddings and sporting events. Religious organizations, retail shops, indoor theaters and outdoor entertainment venues are not subject to the cap, which is stricter than statewide rules. “At this point there is widespread community transmission of covid-19, and every individual action we take is vital to controlling and limiting the further spread of this virus,” Howard County Executive Calvin Ball (D) said in a statement. “The alarms are sounding, and if you haven’t already, rethink any plans to host or attend a large gathering with family and friends.” D.C., Maryland and Virginia on Monday reported 5,039 new ­cases. That lifted the rolling ­seven-day average of infections in the region to 4,824 — the 20th consecutive daily record. Virginia reported a record number of coronavirus infections Monday, with 3,242 new cases lifting the state’s seven-day average to a high of 2,343. Virginia also reported four fatalities. The state’s jump in numbers was, in part, because of delays in reporting as the Virginia Health Department’s computer system was shut down for upgrades. Maryland reported 1,658 new infections and 14 deaths, while D.C. reported 139 new cases and two deaths. Across Maryland, Virginia and D.C., the seven-day average number of people hospitalized with coronavirus-related illnesses stood Monday at 2,805 — up from 1,655 at the start of November. In Arlington County, almost half of people infected with the virus early this month said they might have been exposed at work, the county Health Department reported Monday. About one-third of the 539 people diagnosed with covid-19 said they came into contact with someone who already had the disease, mostly at home, contact tracers found. But 48 percent of those diagnosed between Nov. 3 and 16 said they had gone to work, 38 percent said they had gone to restaurants, 17 percent had traveled outside the region, and 12 percent had attended a large gathering such as a wedding, funeral or party. The Health Department said it is not clear whether those sites were definitive sources of infection.