A mink may have infected a human with Covid-19, Dutch authorities believe – CNN

A mink may have infected a human with Covid-19, Dutch authorities believe – CNN

Illinois Threatens to Fine Defiant Businesses as Reopening Tensions Rise Nationally – The New York Times

Illinois Threatens to Fine Defiant Businesses as Reopening Tensions Rise Nationally – The New York Times

May 19, 2020

Heres what you need to know:

Illinois makes it a misdemeanor for business owners who flout pandemic restrictions.

The owners of restaurants, bars and other establishments in Illinois that open too soon can now be charged with a Class A misdemeanor under a measure enacted by the governor.

Gov. J.B. Pritzker, a Democrat, filed an emergency rule on Friday that his office said was intended to prevent the spread of the coronavirus as a growing number of businesses defy stay-at-home orders across the country.

In Illinois, where a stay-at-home order remains in effect through May, a Class A misdemeanor carries a punishment of up to a year in jail and up to a $2,500 fine. The rule also applies to businesses such as barbershops and gyms, according to Mr. Pritzkers office.

Jordan Abudayyeh, a spokeswoman for Mr. Pritzker, said in an email Sunday that the measure provided an additional enforcement tool for businesses that refuse to comply with the most critical aspects of the stay-at-home order.

As of Sunday, 4,177 people had died from Covid-19 in Illinois, according to state health officials, and there have been 94,191 confirmed cases of the virus.

Conservative state lawmakers have criticized the measure. Senator Dan McConchie, a Republican and a member of the Senates Public Health Committee, called it an affront to the separation of powers in a Twitter post on Sunday.

Ms. Abudayyeh, the governors spokeswoman, said that bringing misdemeanor charges against business owners was not a first resort.

Law enforcement has relied heavily on educating business owners about the order and always first discusses the regulations with business owners to urge compliance, she said. Only businesses that pose a serious risk to public health and refuse to comply with health regulations would be issued a citation. The rule gives law enforcement a tool that may be more appropriate and less severe than closing the business altogether.

In neighboring Wisconsin last week, the state Supreme Court struck down the states stay-at-home extension, siding with Republican legislators in a high-profile challenge of the emergency authority of a statewide official during the pandemic.

Governors struggle to find the right balance on reopening.

The pain of the coronavirus shutdown, in terms of wrecked economies and shattered lives, has been unmistakable. Now, governors across the country are contemplating the risks of reopening, particularly if it produces a surge of new cases and deaths.

This is really the most crucial time, and the most dangerous time, Gov. Mike DeWine of Ohio, a Republican, said on the CNN program State of the Union on Sunday. All of this is a work in progress. We thought it was a huge risk not to open. But we also know its a huge risk in opening.

The push to reopen has been fueled by swelling frustration, as unemployment soars, businesses declare bankruptcy or announce they cannot survive the shutdowns, and fears intensify about enduring economic devastation. Some businesses have even reopened in defiance of state orders.

Gov. Gavin Newsom of California, a Democrat, said on CNN, I deeply understand the stress and anxiety that people have, that entire dreams have been torn asunder because of the shutdowns, their savings account depleted and their credit ratings destroyed.

The question is, he added, how do you toggle back and make meaningful modifications to the stay-at-home order?

But governors also acknowledged concerns about a fresh resurgence of the coronavirus, and they are haunted by images of restaurants and stores packed with patrons with uncovered faces.

This is a virus were still learning a lot about, Mr. DeWine said.

The response to the virus has been defined by the balance between trying to curb the viruss spread and trying to minimize the economic harm. In much of the country, the pendulum has swung toward favoring the economy.

The shift has come as the national figures for reported new cases of the virus have declined in recent weeks, and as more states have allowed a wider array of businesses to return to operation. More than two-thirds of states have relaxed restrictions significantly. California, New York and Washington are among those partially reopening on a regional basis. Illinois, Michigan and New Jersey remain fully shut down.

This economy will recover; it may take a while.

Jerome H. Powell, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, said that while he expected the U.S. economy to recover from the sharp and painful downturn brought about by the coronavirus, that process would take time potentially until the end of 2021.

This economy will recover; it may take a while, Mr. Powell said in a preview of the CBS program 60 Minutes, which is scheduled to air Sunday evening. It may take a period of time, it could stretch through the end of next year, we dont really know.

Asked whether the economy could recover without an effective vaccine, Mr. Powell suggested that it could make a start, but not get all the way there.

Assuming that theres not a second wave of the coronavirus, I think youll see the economy recover steadily through the second half of this year, he said. For the economy to fully recover, people will have to be fully confident, and that may have to await the arrival of a vaccine.

The interview with Mr. Powell, which CBS said was recorded on May 13, follows a blunt speech he gave the same day, warning that the economy may need more financial support to prevent permanent job losses and waves of bankruptcies.

Wondering what a coronavirus test is like? Watch Cuomo get swabbed on live TV.

transcript

transcript

Im going to show you how fast and easy it is to take the test. And demonstrate why there should be no reluctance. This is Dr. Elizabeth Dufort, who is in the appropriate P.P.E. wear. Nice to see you, doctor. You make that gown look good. Head up a little bit. Head up. Close your eyes. Close my eyes. Why do I need to close my eyes? You can question the doctor. Thats OK. Why do I need to close my eyes? For comfort. Comfort. It might make you tear a little bit. If I fall asleep? Then well have you sit down. Thats it? Thats it. Nothing else. Told you. Thank you very much, doctor. That is the whole test. Im not in pain. Im not in discomfort. Closing my eyes was a moment of relaxation. There is no reason why you should not get the test.

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo provided a lasting image on Sunday for fellow New Yorkers who may be apprehensive about getting tested for the coronavirus he invited a doctor to stick a swab up his nose during his live news briefing on the pandemic.

It is so fast and so easy that even a governor can take this test, Mr. Cuomo said.

Mr. Cuomo then stood up and turned to a doctor, who was holding a cotton swab and was wearing coveralls, a face shield and gloves. Camera shutters clicked furiously as the doctor guided the swab up the Mr. Cuomos nostril.

Thats it? he said. Thats it? Nothing else?

New York has the capability of conducting 40,000 tests per day at 700 sites, said Mr. Cuomo, who noted that testing would be critical to monitoring the spread of the virus as the state begins to reopen.

There is nothing about this test that should intimidate people from not taking this test, he said.

Calling into a golf broadcast, Trump says he wants big, big stadiums loaded with people.

In a telephone appearance during a televised charity golf exhibition Sunday, President Trump said he enthusiastically supported the return of live sporting events during the pandemic.

We want to get sports back, we miss sports, Mr. Trump said during NBCs broadcast of a skins game match involving Rory McIlroy, Dustin Johnson, Rickie Fowler and Matthew Wolff. We need sports in terms of the psyche of our country. And thats what were doing.

While Sundays exhibition was contested without spectators, Mr. Trump said he hoped that future events would be teeming with fans.

We want to get it back to where it was, we want big, big stadiums loaded with people, he said.

He later added, We want to get back to normal where you have the big crowds where theyre practically standing on top of each other, not where theyre worried.

I would love to be able to have all sports back, Dr. Fauci said. But as a health official and a physician and a scientist, I have to say, right now, when you look at the country, were not ready for that yet.

Thirteen sick sailors seemed to recover. Then they tested positive again.

Thirteen sailors aboard the virus-stricken aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt have retested positive for Covid-19 after seeming to have recovered from the disease, Navy officials said on Sunday.

The infected sailors, who had all tested negative twice before reboarding the Roosevelt in recent days, have been removed from the warship to self-quarantine. The Roosevelt has been docked in Guam since March 27 as Navy officials wrestle with how to deal with sickened sailors, disinfect the vessel and prepare for it to resume operations in the Western Pacific.

Navy officials have said they are aggressively screening and testing as crew members return to the Roosevelt after quarantining at the U.S. military base in Guam, as well as at hotels and in other lodging there. Officials on the ship are requiring masks and repeatedly cleaning and sanitizing to prevent another outbreak of the virus, which has infected about 1,100 crew members since March. One sailor has died.

About 2,900 of the 4,800 crew members are now back on board. They are under strict orders to report to doctors the slightest cough, headache or other flulike symptom. In the past week or so, the new testing even turned up a sailor who tested positive for tuberculosis. That set off a wild contact-tracing scramble that found no other cases on board, Navy officials said.

The results of the Navys latest investigation into events surrounding the Roosevelt are due by the end of this month.

Recent research in South Korea suggested that dozens of patients there who had tested positive a second time after recovering from the illness appeared to be false positives caused by lingering but likely not infectious bits of the virus.

You could feel it going through your veins. A teens battle with a virus-linked syndrome.

When a sprinkling of a reddish rash appeared on Jack McMorrows hands in mid-April, his father figured the 14-year-old was overusing hand sanitizer not a bad thing during a global pandemic.

When Jacks parents noticed that his eyes looked glossy, they attributed it to late nights of video games and TV.

When he developed a stomachache and didnt want dinner, they thought it was because I ate too many cookies or whatever, said Jack, a ninth-grader in Woodside, Queens, who loves Marvel Comics and has ambitions to teach himself Stairway to Heaven on the guitar.

But over the next 10 days, Jack felt increasingly unwell. His parents consulted his pediatricians in video appointments and took him to a weekend urgent care clinic. Then, one morning, he awoke unable to move.

He had a tennis ball-size lymph node, raging fever, racing heartbeat and dangerously low blood pressure. Pain deluged his body in a throbbing, stinging rush, he said.

You could feel it going through your veins and it was almost like someone injected you with straight-up fire, he said.

Jack, who was previously healthy, was hospitalized with heart failure that day, in a stark example of the newly discovered severe inflammatory syndrome linked to the coronavirus that has already been identified in about 200 children in the United States and Europe and killed several.

Colorado offers an alternative, much lower, count of its Covid-19 deaths.

What is the difference between deaths among Covid-19 cases and deaths due to Covid-19? In Colorado, that distinction in wording changes the total by about 30 percent.

Until Friday, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment had been including anyone who had Covid-19 at the time of death in the official total, a practice consistent with the C.D.C.s counting criteria. By that reckoning, Colorado had 1,192 deaths as of Friday.

But the state said it would now also report a lower figure those for whom the disease is considered the sole cause of death, with no other complicating factors. Counting that way knocks the states total down to 892.

Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat, defended the change on Sunday.

The C.D.C. criteria include anybody who died with Covid-19, he said on Fox News. What the people of Colorado and the people of the country want to know is how many people died of Covid-19.

Health experts have warned for weeks that inconsistent reporting protocols and insufficient testing have led to an undercounting of coronavirus deaths nationally. North Dakota and Alabama have both experimented with death counts similar to Colorados new approach, but have continued to report the C.D.C.s way.

Mr. Polis acknowledged that the virus, which he called a bad bug, can be particularly dangerous for older people and people with underlying medical conditions those who would be most likely to be excluded from the states sole-cause count.

As Alaskas salmon season opens, another coronavirus case adds to concerns.

A second fisheries worker in Alaska has tested positive for the coronavirus, adding to fears that the isolated fishing towns that have so far avoided infections could face challenges as thousands of seasonal workers pour in for the start of Alaskas summer seafood rush.

State officials said the positive case was identified Friday in the city of Dillingham. The infected worker, an employee of Trident Seafoods, had recently arrived and tested positive at the end of a mandatory 14-day quarantine.

Earlier this month, a worker who had arrived in the fishing community of Cordova also tested positive.

Some locals have expressed concern about the fishing season, which began in Cordova with the pursuit of the famed Copper River salmon. In Dillingham, hospital leaders at the Bristol Bay Area Health Corporation had requested that the fishing season remain closed, arguing that the arrival of thousands of outsiders put the community at risk.

To prepare for the influx of workers, state and local government officials have put in place strict quarantine procedures, social-distancing requirements and aggressive testing. Some companies are requiring their workers to stay on site, where the seasonal crews often sleep in bunkhouses.

State officials said the worker who tested positive in Dillingham was removed from the area. None of that persons contacts in the city have so far tested positive.

Congress appears no closer to a deal on further stimulus spending.

The passage of a $3 trillion stimulus package by the House on Friday appeared to bring Congress no closer this weekend to a deal on coronavirus aid, as pleas for more assistance collided with a conservative push to wait and see whether staggered state reopenings and previous aid packages arrest the economic free-fall.

The Republican-controlled Senate is not expected to take up the legislation that the Democratic-controlled House approved on Friday. Instead, the Senate will turn to a number of pending nominations before an expected Memorial Day recess. Speaker Nancy Pelosi urged Republicans to reconsider.

Time is of the essence, she said in an interview aired Sunday on the CBS program Face the Nation. In the past bills, they put forth their proposal, and then we worked in a bipartisan way that we anticipate now.

They may think its OK to pause, but people are hungry across America, she added. Hunger doesnt take a pause.

Republican leaders have played down what Democrats say is an immediate need for relief, arguing that it was too early to allocate additional funds after Congress previously passed close to $3 trillion in relief.

Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, has laid down a red line, saying that strengthening liability protections for health workers and businesses moving to reopen must be part of any future package.

Ms. Pelosi said on Sunday that she had no red lines, but she singled out a provision in the bill passed on Friday that would strengthen federal protections for essential workers.

The best protection for our workers and their employers is to follow very good OSHA mandatory guidelines, she said, referring to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. That protects the workers, protects their lives, as well as protects the employer if they follow the guidelines. Remember, when people go to work, they go home.

The legislation the House passed on Friday, which Democratic leaders acknowledged amounted to an opening offer, faces some opposition from within their party, including in the Senate.

I think what Pelosi did in the House it is significant, said Senator Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent who caucuses with the Democrats. I have some disagreements with it, and I want to see the Senate improve on it.

Fall school openings are shrouded in uncertainty.

A major question on the minds of many parents is whether their childrens schools will reopen in the fall. So far the plans and guidelines that have emerged are a patchwork, and state leaders are divided about whether it is possible to have the schools ready in time and what it will take to do it safely.

Gov. Jared Polis of Colorado said on Sunday that starting the school year open would not guarantee that they stayed that way. There might be times, if theres an outbreak at a school, that it has to convert to online for a period of weeks until its reasonably safe to return to school, he said on Fox News Sunday.

Governor Polis said his state was considering measures like staggering start times, class schedules and breaks to minimize crowds in hallways.

California will proceed slowly and methodically in allowing crowds to gather again anywhere, including schools, Gov. Gavin Newsom said on Sunday, and that may mean that some schools in the state reopen while others remain closed.

Its all predicated on data, on science, not just observed evidence, he said on CNN. Each part of California is unique.

Both governors noted that while children were not often affected as severely by the virus as adults are, they were potential spreaders.

This is no question from an epidemiological perspective that this is a less severe, almost infinitesimal fatality rate for kids, Mr. Polis said. But the thing is, kids live with parents, they live with grandparents, kids are around teachers, so thats where it gets a little bit more complicated.

Health issues that affect minority groups are making the pandemic worse, Azar says.

Alex M. Azar II, the secretary of health and human services, suggested in televised remarks on Sunday that the high death toll from Covid-19 in the United States, compared with other nations, was due at least in part to the prevalence of underlying health issues in minority communities.

Unfortunately, the American population is very diverse, and it is a population with significant unhealthy comorbidities that do make many individuals in our communities, in particular African-American minority communities, particularly at risk, Mr. Azar said on the CNN program State of the Union, adding, That is an unfortunate legacy of our health care system that we certainly do need to address.

The host, Jake Tapper, pressed Mr. Azar on whether he was trying to place the blame for the pandemic on its victims. I want to give you an opportunity to clear it up, Mr. Tapper said, because it sounded like you were saying that the reason that there are so many dead Americans is because were unhealthier than the rest of the world, and I know thats not what you meant.

Mr. Azar responded: We have a significantly disproportionate burden of comorbidities in the United States obesity, hypertension, diabetes these are demonstrated facts that make us at risk for any type of disease burden, of course, but that doesnt mean its the fault of the American people.

The federal agency that issues visas is almost broke.

The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, the federal agency that administers the countrys lawful immigration system, says it could be insolvent by summer, and has asked Congress for $1.2 billion to stay afloat.


The rest is here: Illinois Threatens to Fine Defiant Businesses as Reopening Tensions Rise Nationally - The New York Times
Trump administration to extend border and travel restrictions related to coronavirus – CNN

Trump administration to extend border and travel restrictions related to coronavirus – CNN

May 19, 2020

The latest slate of restrictions indicate that while the United States moves toward reopening, the federal government is not ready to ease measures put in place in March that largely sealed off the US to stem the spread of Covid-19. The strict rules also have the effect of continuing to curb immigration to the US.

"Those restrictions do expire here on the 21st of May. We will likely look at expanding those restrictions, as the country continues to be a phased opening approach, state-by-state, governor-by-governor, so we're taking a look at that as well," acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf told reporters last week.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau also suggested last week that the US-Canada border would likely remain closed through June. The agreement as it stands forbids any non-essential travel, although commercial traffic continues.

A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson told CNN, "The United States has great appreciation for the efforts of our partners in Canada and Mexico to ensure that North America is working together to combat the pandemic caused by the novel coronavirus. Although a formal decision has not yet been made, the United States will continue to maintain the current restrictions on travelers crossing our land borders for non-essential purposes for as long as is necessary, while supporting cross-border activities that protect our economy, health and supply security, and critical industries."

CNN reached out to the White House for comment.

The limits of travel at the US northern and southern borders are one of a series of changes related to the pandemic. In March, the Trump administration also invoked a public health law, citing the coronavirus, that allowed for the swift removal of migrants apprehended at the border -- a move that raised concerns among officials involved in compiling data who believed it to be driven by political motivations. That order is also expected to be extended.

The rules curbing immigration have raised concern among immigrant advocates, lawyers and public health experts who argue restrictions appear to be intended to halt immigration, not to serve a public health purpose.

On Monday, more than two dozen health experts at leading public health schools, medical schools and hospitals cast doubt about the basis of those restrictions.

Behind the scenes, the push to limit immigration during the coronavirus pandemic has been led by Miller, according to administration officials. After the President's April proclamation limiting green cards, Miller cast the move as a first step toward reducing the flow of immigrants coming into the United States.

Since then, aides have been developing follow-up actions that could limit the number of guest workers, which were a key exemption from the first action. Among the categories being raised are H-1B visas intended for highly skilled workers and H-2B visas, which allow employers to bring foreign workers to the United States for temporary non-agricultural jobs, such as landscaping, hospitality and other industries.

The suspension of the Optional Practical Training program, which allows foreign students to be temporarily employed in a job in the US related to their area of study is also being considered, according to a source familiar with the discussions.

Together, the series of changes by the administration have severely limited entry to the US.

Customs and Border Protection, the agency tasked with US border security, referred 59 migrants to USCIS, which processes asylum claims, who expressed fear of torture if they were to be returned. Under the new policy barring most migrants at the border, the threshold to be exempted from expulsion is a claim under the Convention Against Torture, according to a Homeland Security official.

Previously, other asylum claims would be reviewed, but amid the pandemic, the administration has further limited access to humanitarian protections for migrants, claiming it is in the interest of public health.

CNN's Paula Newton contributed to this report.


Read more here:
Trump administration to extend border and travel restrictions related to coronavirus - CNN
Life in China’s Wuhan After the Coronavirus Lockdown Ends – The New York Times

Life in China’s Wuhan After the Coronavirus Lockdown Ends – The New York Times

May 19, 2020

They have delighted in the small things, like getting bubble tea and takeout noodles. They have rediscovered places like the neighborhood playground. They have searched for new vocabularies to describe their losses.

For more than two months, the people of Wuhan, China, lived under lockdown as their city buckled beneath the weight of the coronavirus that emerged there. Then, gradually, cases ebbed. On April 8, the lockdown was lifted.

Now, the residents of Wuhan are cautiously feeling their way toward an uncertain future, some of the first in the world to do so. There is trauma and grief, anger and fear. But there is also hope, gratitude and a newfound patience.

Here are four of their stories.

Elation and Relief

Her friends had posted all over social media: The milk tea shops had reopened! Wuhan was coming back!

But when Rosanna Yu, 28, took a sip of her first order in two months, she was unimpressed. Did you guys forget how to make milk tea? she posted jokingly on WeChat in late March. How is it this bad?

Still, disappointing milk tea is better than none. And while normalcy and good bubble tea may still be out of reach, just the prospect has Ms. Yu feeling buoyant.

In early April, after the lockdown eased, Ms. Yu and her parents visited a park to admire Wuhans famous cherry blossoms. Officials had urged residents to stay home when possible, but we just couldnt sit inside any longer, she said.

She recently took a video of the long line at a local restaurant for takeout hot dry noodles, Wuhans signature dish. She now has to pause for traffic before crossing the street a burden that has never felt less like one.

Seeing a lot of cars, Im actually so happy, she said.

Her optimism is born, in part, of luck. None of her friends or family were infected. The lockdown was hard at first, but she soon distracted herself by learning to bake crullers and sweet buns.

Some things are undeniably harder. Ms. Yu quit her job as a secretary last year, planning to look for a new one in January. But her parents now want her to wait until the fall, for safety reasons.

She rarely sees friends, because there is nowhere to go; dining in at restaurants is not allowed.

But for the most part, Ms. Yu has embraced Wuhans new normal. She plans to keep baking. She may take online classes.

And she has discovered a new kinship with her neighbors. During the lockdown, residents who were barbers offered free haircuts. The neighborhoods group chat, formed to coordinate bulk grocery buys, has became a virtual support circle.

This was my first time feeling like the entire neighborhood, and all of Wuhan, was all in something together, working toward the same goal, Ms. Yu said.

ANGER AND ALIENATION

Liang Yi has not been home to Wuhan in the four months since he fled town right before the lockdown was imposed.

If he can help it, he wont ever be back.

We have a son now, Mr. Liang, a 31-year-old marketing professional, said of himself and his wife. If we can create better circumstances for him, then we dont want to live in a city like Wuhan anymore.

Around the world, many are eager to return to the lives they had before the coronavirus. But for some, that return has become impossible, even undesirable.

As the outbreak ravaged Wuhan, Mr. Liang who had hunkered down with his wife and 2-year-old son at his parents home about 75 miles from Wuhan stewed over the governments initial denials of the outbreaks severity. He fumed over its early refusal to allow hospitals to test many suspected cases, including that of his friend, who was sent home to self-isolate.

Yes, the Wuhan authorities eventually brought the outbreak under control. But he could not forgive them for allowing it to explode in the first place.

This epidemic really must be related to the Wuhan governments governing ability, he said. It makes me feel that living in this kind of city is unsafe.

Now, as other Wuhan residents greet their newly reawakened city, Mr. Liang who has lived in Wuhan for eight years, and in the surrounding province his whole life is preparing his goodbyes.

He will have to return to Wuhan once, maybe in June, or whenever he feels the virus has truly gone. He will sell his property there, and he and his family will move elsewhere in China. Eventually, he hopes, they might immigrate, perhaps to Canada.

Its a last resort, he said. This is overturning your entire life. It means starting over.

Grief and Regret

In the months after his mother died from the coronavirus, Veranda Chen searched daily for new distractions. He read Freud and experimented in the kitchen. He joked on WeChat about opening a restaurant. Its signature dish, he said, would be called remembering past suffering, and thinking of present joy.

But recently, cooking has lost its appeal. His mother used to ask him to cook for her, but he had said he was too busy applying for graduate school.

I thought, Ill focus on getting into my dream school, and then after that, I can put all my time into doing the things theyd always asked me to, Mr. Chen, 24, said of his parents.

Now, theres no chance.

Mr. Chens mother fell sick when the outbreak was at its height. An overwhelmed hospital turned her away on Feb. 5. She died in an ambulance on the way to another. She was 58.

She and Mr. Chen had been close, though they had often struggled to show it. She had insisted on saving money for his eventual wedding, rather than indulging a trip to the tropical island of Hainan. He considered her old-fashioned and often felt smothered.

After she died, he realized he had so many questions he had wanted to ask her about her childhood, about his childhood, about how she had seen him change.

Mr. Chen had to learn to grieve in lockdown, when the usual rituals of mourning were impossible. He couldnt see his friends. His father wasnt around, either; he had tested positive and was in a hospital.

Mr. Chen turned to Tinder not for romance but for conversation. Sometimes, talking to strangers is easier than talking to friends, he said. They dont know anything about your life.

Now that Mr. Chen and his father are reunited, they, too, are searching for new ways to talk.

They dont discuss his mother; his father finds it too painful. But Mr. Chen wants to invite his father to go fishing, and to ask him the questions he never asked his mother. He also wants to learn from him how to stir-fry tomatoes and eggs, a traditional dish his parents used to make.

He is most fixated on getting into a psychology program. After his mothers death, that plan feels more urgent than ever. I want to use it to ease other peoples suffering, he said.

Patience and Vigilance

Spring in Wuhan marks the start of crawfish season. Crawfish braised, crawfish fried, crawfish coated with chilies and always devoured with family and friends.

But Hazel He doesnt plan to have another feast like that until at least next year.

Anywhere where there are crowds, there is still some degree of risk, Ms. He, 33, said.

Avoiding risk shapes everything Ms. He does these days. Though residents are allowed to move around the city again, she still chats with her friends by video. Before going outside with her 6-year-old son, she peers out her window to make sure no one is around. She recently let him play on the swings near their apartment again, but they dont leave the neighborhood.

The anxiety is not nearly as overwhelming as it had been in the early days of the outbreak, when Ms. He would cry while watching the news, and her son would ask her what was wrong.

But, like others in Wuhan, she is still approaching normalcy only tentatively, understanding just how fragile the victory is.

Just last week, six new cases were reported there, after more than a month of no new reported infections.

Wuhan has sacrificed so much, Ms. He said. Taking care of ourselves is our responsibility to everyone else.

Ms. He is unsure when her company will resume the face-to-face meetings that are core to her job as a recruiter, but she reminds herself that her mortgage is manageable. She will have to wait until at least July to register her son for elementary school. But for now she is content to practice arithmetic with him at home.

Its as if we were running a race, and Im currently 50 meters behind, she said. But as long as I catch up later, its the same.


Read more:
Life in China's Wuhan After the Coronavirus Lockdown Ends - The New York Times
Coronavirus pandemic in the US: Live updates – CNN International

Coronavirus pandemic in the US: Live updates – CNN International

May 19, 2020

The University of Notre Dame announced in a statement today that students will return to campus for their fall semester during the week of August 10, two weeks earlier than originally scheduled.

The university also announced that it will forgo fall break in October and end the semester before Thanksgiving.

Notre Dame students were sent home in mid-March due to the Covid-19 pandemic and completed their spring semester through remote learning.

By far the most complex challenge before us is the return of our students to campus for the resumption of classes in the fall semester, the universitys president, Rev. John I. Jenkins, said in the statement.

The university said its plan for the fall will include comprehensive Covid-19 testing, contact tracing, quarantine and isolation protocols, social distancing and mask requirements, and enhanced cleaning of all campus spaces.

As part of its planning, the university has identified facilities to isolate students who test positive and quarantine students who have been in close contact. These protocols will continue throughout the semester and as long as necessary, the university said.

Other schools: Purdue University, Rice University and Creighton University all announced plans to cancel fall breaks and end face-to-face instruction before Thanksgiving earlier today.


Read the rest here: Coronavirus pandemic in the US: Live updates - CNN International
Coronavirus Contact Tracing Jobs Are on the Rise – The New York Times

Coronavirus Contact Tracing Jobs Are on the Rise – The New York Times

May 19, 2020

When Jessica Jaramillo calls someone to talk about the coronavirus, she usually starts with something like this:

Hi, my name is Jessica. Im calling on behalf of the San Francisco Department of Public Health. Im part of a contact-tracing team, and our job is to reach people who have come into close contact with someone who has been diagnosed with Covid-19.

Ms. Jaramillo, 41, a San Francisco Public Library district manager in ordinary times, has made dozens of such calls so far, all in Spanish. She began contact tracing, or seguimiento de contactos, this month.

She is one of more than 11,000 people across the United States who are calling people with advice about containing the spread of Covid-19, according to a survey conducted by NPR. (That number has most likely grown since the survey was first conducted in April.)

The work is mostly phone-based and can be done from home. The jobs can be full- or part-time, often with an hourly wage of $17 to $25; some include benefits. They differ from one place to the next in part because training and recruiting efforts have largely fallen to state and local governments (and some of the programs have already run into problems, both practical and political).

As communities begin to open up and more people venture outside their homes, the job is expected to become more crucial and more difficult.

If you can do contact tracing, you can get ahold of this before it runs through a community like wildfire, Ms. Jaramillo said. Then youre saving someones grandmother, or their uncle.

As a public employee who had signed up to be a disaster service worker, Ms. Jaramillo was ready to serve her community in the event of, say, an earthquake. She did not expect a pandemic.

Ms. Jaramillos phone conversations unfold according to the needs of the people on the other end of the line. If they need testing for Covid-19, she can refer them for an appointment. If they have symptoms, she might recommend isolation. If they worry about survival in quarantine, she can connect them with food-delivery services.

And if they worry about privacy, Ms. Jaramillo assures them that their information is secure. Her training involved a primer on the federal regulations protecting confidential health information, and she works with encrypted software. Ms. Jaramillo and other San Francisco contact tracers do not share the names of people who have a Covid-19 diagnosis with the people they call.

Contact tracing is not a silver bullet, said Dr. Mike Reid, an assistant professor at the U.C.S.F. School of Medicine.

But he said the old school approach of San Francisco and other health departments which is based on education and empowerment, not tracking apps like the ones Google and Apple are working on can bring communities together and build capacity to handle future crises.

In a time of isolation, theres something appealing about a job that calls for human connection. And for some, the work is a way to punch back at a pandemic that has pummeled the national economy.

And the opportunities vary from state to state; Massachusetts and California were among the earliest to adopt widespread Covid-19 tracing programs.

Kevin Williams, 27, a writer and driver in Columbus, Ohio, thought he would give contact tracing a shot after the states Department of Health announced last week that it was hiring at $18.59 per hour.

If they call me back and I get an interview, then great, he said. I really dont have a hell of a lot of options right now. But also, I just dont feel like these jobs are real. Are they actually contact tracing, or do they just want to look like theyre doing the right thing?

He did not hear back, and by Tuesday, the job posting on the Health Departments website had been removed. Over 9,000 people applied to do contact-tracing work with the state, according to the department.

And although Ohio officials have called for 1,700 contact tracers, those were to be deployed largely by local health departments. The state job Mr. Williams applied for had been seeking only 100 people.

Oscar Baez, 33, a Foreign Service officer, had better luck. He was evacuated from his post in Jerusalem in March and returned to Boston, where he grew up.

Mr. Baez, who is from the Dominican Republic, has used Spanish, Portuguese and Arabic to communicate with the people he calls in the Boston area.

This is an opportunity to go on offense, track down exposures to this virus and limit the spread, he said. It requires heart.

Contact tracers dont work alone. The process starts with investigators who reach out to people with Covid-19, and those conversations yield contacts for tracers.

After those calls are made, there is follow-up work to be done to help people find resources like food pantries and financial assistance.

Were asking people to quarantine when they may not have baby formula for the next day, or they might not have food to feed a family of eight, Mr. Baez said. So how can we ask them to stay home if they dont have financial assistance and social support?

Mr. Baez found this job through Partners in Health, which has helped Massachusetts officials recruit and train more than 1,700 people. Thats only a fraction of the more than 41,000 who have applied through the organization.

John Welch, a director of operations with Partners in Health, said he was impressed with the range of people who wanted to help. They included retired health care workers, furloughed public employees and former hospitality workers.

If their computer skills are lacking a little bit, we can help boost that, he said. But whats really important in the middle of an epidemic is empathy.

Contrace Public Health Corps, an organization helping health departments across the United States recruit tracers, received more than 50,000 applications in recent weeks, mostly from women, said Steve Waters, the chief executive.

While a college diploma is not always required, Mr. Waters said the best candidates have a bachelors degree and some background in health care services.

Diversity is important, too.

Cultural literacy is key to developing trust with someone you are cold-calling, particularly in minority or distressed communities, which are some of the worst hit, Mr. Waters said.

And Mr. Baez, whose diplomatic career has taken him to countries including Haiti, China and Brazil, is now putting his skills to use in the neighborhood where he grew up, speaking to immigrant families much like his own.

I see the date they tested positive, and its at the same community health center that I went to for physicals as a kid, he said. Every single day is different. Im hearing many, many individual stories that are depressing, inspiring and uplifting all at the same time.


Originally posted here: Coronavirus Contact Tracing Jobs Are on the Rise - The New York Times
The Pandemics Long-Lasting Effects on Weddings – The Atlantic

The Pandemics Long-Lasting Effects on Weddings – The Atlantic

May 19, 2020

Social-distancing measures are likely to make big wedding celebrations essentially impossible for the rest of this year. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention still recommends that Americans cancel gatherings of more than 10 people for organizations that serve higher-risk populations, and many states have imposed limits on the number of people who can gather for any sort of party or event.

Read: A guide to staying safe as states reopen

Dave Grossman, who lives in New York City, was supposed to get married in April at an old luxury hotel 25 miles outside the citybut in early March, New York State officials directed residents to cancel any gatherings of more than 50 people. Grossman and his fiance initially rescheduled their wedding for August, but then the venue announced it was closing for the remainder of the year. Now theyre not sure when, or where, theyll get married.

Grossman, 44, and his fiance, 40, both had a specific vision for what they wanted their wedding day to look like. Watching their dream crumble before their eyes, Grossman said, has been devastating: This was supposed to be the most exciting timelike, Were getting married soon! Instead, its all stress. Naturally, though, the idea of a smaller, more low-key wedding is now starting to look more and more appealing to the pair.

When the coronavirus first hit, Kristen Maxwell Cooper, the editor in chief of the wedding website The Knot, initially saw a lot of couples push their ceremonies to later this year. But the pandemic has become a more prolonged ordeal than many of those couples expected at firstso some are turning to what Maxwell Cooper and her team at The Knot have dubbed mini-monies, for miniature ceremonies. Small enough to comply with size limits on gatherings and also to responsibly practice social distancing, these are pared-down, minimalist events with usually around 10 peoplejust their family, maybe, she said. Some or all of the ceremony may be virtual. They may have a virtual officiant or something like that. Maxwell Cooper added that most of the couples shes seen opt for the mini-mony still plan to have a bigger celebration later on, after restrictions have lifted.

Read: We need to stop trying to replicate the life we had

Amy Jones, a wedding planner in Connecticut, told me that a few of her clients whose weddings were planned for spring and summer 2020 have chucked their original plans for a big event and gone the mini-mony route. This is especially true of those who want to get married on the sooner side so they can start a family. But more common, as Jones and other people who work in wedding-adjacent industries told me, are the clients who are (perhaps optimistically) rescheduling their weddings for the same weekend next year. As a result, scores of weddings that were supposed to take place in 2020 have been moved to 2021, and they land on the calendar on top of the weddings that were already planned for 2021 before the coronavirus arrived.


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102-Year-Old New York Woman Recovers From Coronavirus – NPR

102-Year-Old New York Woman Recovers From Coronavirus – NPR

May 19, 2020

Sophie Avouris, 102, recently recovered from the coronavirus. She was a baby when the 1918 influenza pandemic spread across Europe. She lived through the Great Depression and World War II before emigrating from Greece to the U.S. in the 1950s. The Avouris Family hide caption

Sophie Avouris was a newborn in Greece when the 1918 influenza pandemic spread through Europe. Now, at 102, she has survived a coronavirus infection in a Manhattan rehabilitation center.

Not many people can say they have lived through both events.

"We just didn't think she would be able to make it," her daughter, Effie Strouthides, told NPR. "The doctor told us we couldn't come to visit her, but if it gets really serious and [toward] the end they would allow us to come and see her. So we were prepared for that."

In March, Avouris was recovering from hip replacement surgery in the Mary Manning Walsh nursing home in Manhattan when her doctor noticed something was off.

"She's a very talkative lady," Dr. Taimur Mirza told NPR. "She's the person that will often come up to the [nurse's station] and start up a conversation with the nurse or myself. She speaks Greek only, so in my case, I use Google Translate on my phone, and when she stopped doing that is when I got worried."

She got a fever the same day and tested positive for the coronavirus.

Her daughter was worried. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that 80% of people who died of COVID-19 in the U.S. are 65 or older.

"The second time I spoke to her, she kept saying how sick she felt and that she couldn't even talk on the phone," Strouthides said.

Despite her age and congestive heart failure, she got better after two weeks. She has been asymptomatic for six weeks, although she continues to test positive for the virus.

"Even when she was really sick the doctors said she was still kind of spry. She would joke around a little bit or smile when he would come in. And I thought yeah, that's my mother," Strouthides said.

Avouris' doctor and daughter attribute her recovery to her strong constitution and also maybe her lifelong Mediterranean diet but the true reasons still remain a mystery.

"She's a fighter," Mirza said.


See the article here: 102-Year-Old New York Woman Recovers From Coronavirus - NPR
Does Texas really rank high in coronavirus recoveries? – The Texas Tribune

Does Texas really rank high in coronavirus recoveries? – The Texas Tribune

May 19, 2020

In explaining his cautious optimism about Texas response to the novel coronavirus, Gov. Greg Abbott has often homed in on one cheery-sounding figure: the number of Texans he says have recovered from the virus, which, he boasts, tops that of almost every other state.

The Texas figure, which stands at 28,371, is not an actual tally of the patients no longer experiencing any symptoms, but instead an estimate based on a string of assumptions about the virus longevity. And its difficult to say where Texas really ranks in recoveries, in part because many states, including most of the countrys most populous California, Florida and Pennsylvania do not report the number at all. PolitiFact Texas recently rated Abbotts claim about Texas high ranking half-true.

Some states dont report how many patients have recovered because it simply isnt feasible to track everyone who tested positive for the virus, and there are too many conflicting methods for estimating the count.

And experts say recovery estimates mean little: There is no cure for the new coronavirus, so the number of recoveries best reflects how many people have fallen ill from the virus in a given state the more infections, the more recoveries.

At a press conference Monday, Abbott made a slightly different claim, reporting that with the help of our hospitals, our recovery rate is one of the best in the country. PolitiFact found earlier this month that Texas ranked 16th for recovery rate among states that are reporting recoveries. A spokesman for the governor did not return a request for comment about his source for the claim.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention uses clinical criteria to determine when a person is recovered enough to stop self-isolating: either a negative coronavirus test, or improvement in respiratory symptoms and fever over a period of several days.

Texas calculates its recovery total by splitting surviving patients into two groups: an estimated 20% who require hospitalization and an estimated 80% who do not. Texas considers the surviving patients who required hospitalization recovered after 32 days and those who did not require hospitalization recovered after 14 days.

Its working with the tools you have and the knowledge that you have, said Angela Clendenin, an epidemiologist and biostatistician at Texas A&M University School of Public Health. The formulas are sound. They make logical sense. But at the same time, knowing that that's probably the closest we can get to an estimate doesnt always mean its going to be highly accurate.

Many coronavirus patients are never tested because they are asymptomatic or only mildly symptomatic. As many as tens of thousands may not be captured in the states figures, Clendenin said.

And the 14-day recovery assumption may be off base, with some patients reporting long-term health impacts. How to classify the people who experience lasting respiratory issues as a result of the virus?

Other states calculate the number differently or not at all.

It would take a lot of resources to track status on each individual daily until they recovered, said Will Finn, a spokesman for the state of Washington. Because of that, the state is not able to track recoveries, he said.

A spokesperson for Floridas health department said some states and countries measure a case as recovered when a person has had COVID-19 for more than 14 days, while others [rely] upon hospital discharge data neither of which completely capture recovery of the full COVID positive population.

Michigan, for example, includes patients who are alive 30 days after the onset of the illness.

If states are using different criteria, then comparisons are not meaningful, said Shelley Payne, a professor of medical education at the University of Texas at Austin. Tracking the number of new infections and the rate of infections is more important, Payne said.

White House guidelines do not identify recovered patients as a metric states should consider when weighing how fully to reopen, and Abbott hasnt identified it as one either. But the recovery total he boasts about does factor into another important metric for the state: its hospitalization rate.

Abbott has said he uses the hospitalization rate to determine how much to reopen the states economy. The hospitalization rate is calculated using the estimated total of recovered patients.

That rate, which the state reports has been decreasing, is calculated by dividing the number of people who are hospitalized by the number of active cases, a figure arrived at by subtracting the estimated recoveries from total confirmed cases. That means the important metric is based on the states recovery estimate.

Abbott has also boasted that the states estimate of recovered COVID-19 patients has surpassed the number of patients with active COVID-19 cases. But that is only logical, because the number of estimated recovered patients accumulates over time. It would require a spike in cases for the number of active COVID-19 patients to overtake the total number of patients who have recovered over a period of more than two months.

Disclosure: Texas A&M University and the University of Texas at Austin have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.


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Does Texas really rank high in coronavirus recoveries? - The Texas Tribune
U.S. and China Trade Coronavirus Accusations, Sparking Fears of a New Cold War – The New York Times

U.S. and China Trade Coronavirus Accusations, Sparking Fears of a New Cold War – The New York Times

May 19, 2020

Britains government promised 100,000 daily tests. It delivered, but at a cost.

On May 1, a visibly relieved Matt Hancock announced that the British government had exceeded its target of 100,000 coronavirus tests a day. As health secretary, Mr. Hancock had set the goal after enduring intense criticism for the countrys lagging coronavirus testing program.

He called the milestone an incredible achievement.

But leaked documents and interviews with doctors, lab directors and other experts show that the push to hit the April 30 deadline and arguably salvage Mr. Hancocks career placed a huge strain on public laboratories and exposed other problems that are now slowing efforts to further expand coronavirus testing.

Days before the deadline, some hospitals in England were given 48 hours to rapidly expand testing to thousands of health care workers and patients, even though they were not exhibiting any symptoms of the virus, the documents show.

At the same time, public labs across the country raced through limited supplies of the chemical reagents needed to carry out a flood of tests after the government promised to replenish their supplies. Two weeks later, some labs still havent received the stocks they need, forcing some to reduce the number of new tests they can process, several lab managers said.

Britain has recorded the most coronavirus deaths of any country in Europe, and Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his Conservative government have come under mounting criticism for an often-inconsistent response to the pandemic, especially on testing.

The pandemic is battering U.S.-China relations, raising fears of a new Cold War.

Evil. Lunacy. Shameless. Sick and twisted. China has hit back at American criticism of its handling of the coronavirus pandemic with an outpouring of vitriol as acrid as anything seen in decades.

The bitter recriminations have plunged relations between China and the United States to a nadir, with warnings in both countries that the bad blood threatens to draw them into a new kind of Cold War.

At about the same time, China, citing the urgency of the pandemic, demanded that the United States promptly pay its delinquent United Nations assessments, which by some calculations now exceed $2 billion. China, the second-biggest financial contributor to the U.N. budget behind the United States, fully paid on May 1. The United States responded by saying it customarily pays assessments at years end and that China was eager to distract attention from its cover-up and mismanagement of the Covid-19 crisis.

The cycle of tit-for-tat statements and actions is solidifying longstanding suspicions in Beijing that the United States and its allies are bent on stifling Chinas rise as a global economic, diplomatic and military power.

Hard-liners are calling on Beijing to be more defiant, emboldened by the Trump administrations efforts to blame China for the rising death toll in the United States. Moderates are warning that Beijings strident responses could backfire, isolating the country when it most needs export markets and diplomatic partners to revive its economy and regain international credibility.

Now, the clash with the United States over the pandemic is fanning broader tensions on trade, espionage and other fronts disputes that could intensify as President Trump makes his contest with Beijing a theme of his re-election campaign.

Our Southeast Asia bureau chief describes parenting through the pandemic.

Hannah Beech, the Southeast Asia bureau chief for The Times, is based in Bangkok and covers conflict and natural disasters in about a dozen countries. Among them is Myanmar, where she has reported on the militarys campaign of ethnic cleansing targeting the Rohingya Muslim minority. In the course of her reporting in the region, she has met children whose parents killed themselves as suicide bombers and others who watched as soldiers bayoneted their relatives.

I didnt want to be that parent, the one who talks about how when I was a child I had to walk uphill both ways, in the snow, just to get to school.

For one thing, I spent some of my childhood in Bangkok, where I now live with my husband and two sons. There is no snow in Bangkok and not much uphill.

So when my boys, ages 10 and 12, ask me at dinner what I did on a reporting trip going away again, as they call it I often hesitate.

Well, Mama interviewed women who were raped when they were trying to flee their homes, doesnt seem quite right for the dinner table. Or, Well, Mama put Mentholatum under her nose because it makes death smell a little less bad.

But I dont want to coddle them either. My husband and I ensure that the kids eat what we eat, even if its okra. We make them read The Times.

I find myself, too often, comparing them, in their privileged bubble of international school and summer camp in Maine, to the boy I met in a refugee camp or the girl with the big eyes who lost her parents in one of Southeast Asias drumbeat of disasters: earthquakes, tsunamis, typhoons, landslides, floods, plane crashes, bombings.

Brazils health minister stepped down after less than a month.

Brazils health minister, Nelson Teich, announced on Friday that he was stepping down less than a month after taking the job, after clashing with President Jair Bolsonaro over the presidents refusal to embrace social distancing and quarantines.

While governors and mayors in much of the country have urged Brazilians to stay home as much as possible, Mr. Bolsonaro has implored them to go out and work, arguing that an economic unraveling would be more damaging to the country than the virus. This week he classified beauty salons and gyms as essential businesses that should remain open.

Brazil has recorded more than 200,000 confirmed infections and over 14,000 deaths, and those figures, among the highest in the world, are rising sharply. Experts say the numbers grossly undercount the toll extent of the epidemic because Brazil has limited testing capacity.

Officially, Brazil is recording more than 800 deaths per day, second only to the United States.

During a news conference Friday afternoon, Mr. Teich did not provide a reason for his resignation.

Life is made up of choices, and today I chose to leave, he said. I didnt accept the job for the position itself. I accepted it because I thought I could help the country and its people.

A replacement had not been announced as of Friday afternoon. It was unclear whether Mr. Bolsonaro intended to appoint a new minister with medical expertise. The second-highest ranking official at the ministry, Eduardo Pazuello, is an active-duty Army general who has been in the job a few weeks.

Germany enters recession as its economy, Europes largest, grinds to a halt.

The German economy suffered its worst contraction since the 2008 global financial crisis, shrinking by 2.2 percent in the January-March period from the previous quarter as the shutdown of activity to halt the spread of the coronavirus pummeled growth. Those figures, combined with a revision downward to the economic growth tally for the end of 2019, mean that Germany has entered a recession.

The German government, which reported the data on Friday, said the biggest hit came in March and will probably be worse in April, when consumer spending, capital investment and exports a major driver of growth in Germany fell off a cliff.

Things will get worse before they get better, Carsten Brzeski, the chief eurozone economist at ING, said in a note to clients.

While the worst of the pandemic is beginning to ease, with Germany and other countries slowly easing their lockdowns, Germanys contraction was a reminder that even if the virus dissipates, the economic fallout could put pressure on the European and global economy for months or years. Germany is not only Europes largest economy, it is one of the most dynamic in the world.

Germany and its neighbors are spending hundreds of billions of euros in fiscal measures to stem the damage, and economists say more stimulus will be needed. Still, the huge fiscal support that Germany has provided to businesses and individuals, equal to around 30 percent of gross domestic product, could allow it to exit the economic crisis earlier and stronger than most other countries, Mr. Brzeski wrote.

Nations led by women offer lessons in handling an unprecedented crisis.

And like several other countries that have done well in handling the pandemic, they are led by women.

These successes may not prove anything intrinsic about womens leadership, but could, experts say, offer valuable lessons about crisis management.

For starters, the presence of a female leader can signal that a country has more inclusive political institutions and values. That bodes well for a handling a crisis: Taking information from diverse sources and having the humility to listen to outsiders are crucial for successful pandemic response, Devi Sridhar, the Chair of Global Health at the University of Edinburgh Medical School, wrote in the British Medical Journal.

Ms. Merkels government, for example, considered epidemiological models, the input of medical providers and the success of South Koreas efforts. By contrast, governments in many countries with high death tolls have relied primarily on their own advisers, with few channels for dissent or outside views.

President Trumps refusal to wear a mask aligns with a common view that a strong leader exhibits a swaggering notion of masculinity projecting power, acting aggressively and showing no fear.

Women, however powerful, often have to avoid such behaviors or risk being seen as unfeminine, said Alice Evans, a sociologist at Kings College London.

Male leaders can overcome gendered expectations. But it may be less politically costly for women to adopt cautious, defensive policies because it does not violate perceived gender norms.

Ms. Ardern, after imposing a strict lockdown, addressed New Zealand via a casual Facebook Live from her home. She expressed empathy for the anxious and offering rueful apologies to those startled by the emergency cellphone alert that announced the lockdown order.

Filmmakers are working again in Iceland and Australia. Heres how.

Baltasar Kormakur, the Icelandic director best known in the United States for Everest and Contraband, turned to a color-coded armband system to get his Netflix sci-fi series Katla back into production in Reykjavik after the coronavirus shut it down in mid-March.

The producer Lucas Foster made the difficult and expensive decision to isolate his entire cast and crew in a small town in Australia to make a reimagined horror film based on the Stephen King short story Children of the Corn.

The two filmmakers are among the few who have found their way back into production amid a pandemic. Everyone wants to know how they did it.

Mr. Kormakur uses armbands to keep groups of people apart: Those wearing yellow can be near the camera; the actors, and the makeup and costume professionals wear black and spent most of their prep time in a cordoned-off area of the set; and the producers, script supervisors and visual effects people wear red and are sequestered near the monitors. A lucky few have blue armbands, giving them access to all areas of the set.

This way we could monitor each other, he said. Its hard with crews. People have a tendency to roam, and its easy to lose control of it.

On Mr. Fosters set, the cast and crew were required to fill out wellness questionnaires at the beginning and end of each day. Temperatures were checked. Surfaces were sanitized.

During one particularly challenging sequence shot at night, the actors were dressed in neoprene suits both to keep them warm and to offer them another level of protection when they came in close contact during the scene.

Ty, a British rapper known for a lyrically thoughtful, musically polyglot approach to hip-hop and for serving as a bridge between generations of British rap, died on May 7 in London. He was 47.

His death was announced on a GoFundMe page that had been established by a family friend, Diane Laidlaw, while he was hospitalized with complications of the coronavirus. He was placed in a medically induced coma, woke from it and later died of pneumonia.

In the late 1990s and 2000s, just before the early flickers of the rap-adjacent genre known as grime presaged a sound and scene with a firm British identity, Ty was among the most adventurous British M.C.s a wordplay-focused scene-builder indebted to American movements like the Native Tongues and the New York underground. Though he received critical acclaim, including a nomination for the prestigious Mercury Music Prize in 2004, he often expressed his frustrations with how the more commercial strains of hip-hop tended to shut out unconventional voices.

Ty didnt fit neatly into any hip-hop archetypes, in England or anywhere else. I hate the word alternative, he told The Independent in 2008. I hate the word off-key, I hate the word jazzy and I hate the word laid-back. Im not a laid-back person.

But even though he was difficult to neatly categorize, Ty was widely respected for his relaxed but complex storytelling. Charlie Sloth, the British hip-hop D.J. and radio host, called him a true foundation of UK rap in a Twitter tribute.

Chinas economy, now a bellwether, shows hints of recovery. Can it last?

Many countries have been watching Chinas economic performance closely because it is several months ahead of the rest of the world in coping with the virus, which has sickened more than 4.4 million people and killed more than 300,000. The Chinese economy shrank in the first three months of this year for the first time since Mao Zedong died in 1976.

Factories caught up on orders that they had struggled to fill earlier this year, when the coronavirus pandemic raced across the country. The countrys industrial production was up 3.9 percent from April of last year, better than most economists expected. Production had been down 1.1 percent in March from a year earlier and had plunged in February, when the virus outbreak was at its worst in China.

But shopping and fixed asset investment stayed weak. Retail sales were down 7.5 percent in April compared to a year earlier, marginally worse than economists expectations.

We should be aware that given the continuous spread of the epidemic abroad, the stability and recovery of the national economy is still faced with multiple challenges, said Liu Aihua, the director general of the agencys department of comprehensive statistics.

Strong exports kept factories busy last month. Many factories were catching up on orders placed while Chinese cities were locked down. But orders for further exports have stalled, according to surveys of purchasing managers.

Despite the progress, tens of millions of migrant workers are unemployed. Many white-collar workers have suffered pay cuts. Weak consumption has some economists wondering how long China can sustain an economic rebound.

For Britains unlikely national hero, The first step was the hardest.

Tom Moore is charming, droll and confoundingly energetic. At age 99, he was mowing the lawn and driving his car. When he broke his hip 18 months ago, he bought a treadmill to speed his rehabilitation.

Hannah Ingram-Moore, his daughter, said she knew her dad was a good story, but nothing could have prepared them for the media whirlwind that has swept Mr. Moore, a decorated World War II veteran, to superstardom.

He has become a one-man fund-raising powerhouse for Britains National Health Service, a national symbol of British pluck and an all-around hero all by doing 100 laps of an 82-foot walk on the brick patio next to his garden in Marston Moretaine, a tranquil village an hour north of London.

The first step was the hardest, he said in an interview conducted by video link. After that, I got into the swing of it and kept on going.

It was his daughter who suggested posting a charity challenge online to try to raise 1,000, about $1,220, for the N.H.S.

He did a bit better than that.

Before long, news outlets from multiple continents were broadcasting pictures of Captain Tom ambling with his walker, military medals gleaming on his blue blazer. With deaths mounting and the economy crumbling, he was an antidote to a time with no actual antidotes.

Mr. Moore, who turned 100 on April 30, raised 32.8 million.

He drew a direct line from the beleaguered health workers of today to the soldiers of his generation.

In the war, we were fighting on the front line and the general public was standing behind us, Mr. Moore said. In this instance, the doctors and nurses and all the medical people, theyre the front line.

Sweden stayed open while much of Europe was shut. New numbers show the toll.

Swedens coronavirus outbreak has been far deadlier than those of its neighbors, but the country is still better off than many others that enforced strict lockdowns.

By late March, nearly every country in Europe had closed schools and businesses, restricted travel, and ordered citizens to stay home. But one stood out for its decision to stay open: Sweden.

The New York Times measured the impact of the pandemic in Sweden by comparing the total number of people who have died in recent months to the average over the past several years. The totals include deaths from Covid-19, as well as those from other causes, including people who could not be treated or decided not to seek treatment.

In Stockholm, where the virus spread through migrant communities, more than twice the usual number of people died last month. That increase far surpasses the rise in deaths in American cities like Boston and Chicago, and approaches the increase seen in Paris.

Across Sweden, almost 30 percent more people died during the epidemic than is normal this time of year, an increase similar to that of the United States and far higher than the small increases seen in its neighboring countries. While Sweden is the largest country in Scandinavia, all have strong public health care systems and low health inequality across the population.

Its not a very flattering comparison for Sweden, which has such a great public health system, said Andrew Noymer, a demographer at the University of California at Irvine. Theres no reason Sweden should be doing worse than Norway, Denmark and Finland.

Slovenia becomes the first country in Europe to declare its epidemic over.

Slovenia became the first European country to declare an end to its national coronavirus epidemic on Friday, easing border crossings into the small Alpine country for residents of the European Union and announcing that classes in some schools and day care centers would resume as early as Monday.

Its a success, and we did it together, Jelko Kacin, a government spokesman, said at a daily televised briefing on Friday.

The spread of the coronavirus in Slovenia is under control and there is no longer a need for extraordinary restrictions, the government said in a statement, but added that preventive measures such as social distancing and wearing masks in closed spaces would remain in place for the population of some two million.

Slovenia moved quickly and early to introduce measures to stem the spread of the virus, with the government declaring a nationwide epidemic on March 12 and imposing tight restrictions on movement around the country as the disease ravaged neighboring Italy. The public has largely abided by the tough rules and the number of deaths and confirmed infections from the virus has remained comparatively low.

With the new announcement, citizens of E.U. countries can now freely cross into Slovenia at designated border crossings, the government said. But citizens outside the bloc will have a 14-day quarantine period after entry.

Earlier this month, the government began easing restrictions and lifted the ban on movement within the country. Last week, cafes, shops and museums reopened and public transportation resumed. Cultural events in theaters and concert halls will remain suspended at least until the end of the month.

But throughout the crisis, the right-wing government of Prime Minister Janez Jansa has faced criticism, with the opposition accusing him of exploiting the pandemic to silence critics, including the nations public broadcaster, and empower police.

Forget soda and snacks. These vending machines are selling the new essentials: Masks.

As public life begins again in Germany, face masks have become an essential accessory, required in schools, in museums, on public transportation and in most businesses.

Now a number of the countrys ubiquitous vending machines Germany has nearly 580,000 are being restocked to provide easy access to masks.

At least six leading vending machine operators are now offering masks and disinfectants in their machines.

We recognized early on that there is a real need to obtain the most important hygiene articles quickly and easily in order to actively counteract the spread of the coronavirus, Manuela Zimmermann, the head of Selecta Germany, a large operator that will restock 500 of its machines to carry masks and disinfectants. Our machines are there, where the people are.

A mask is 2 euros ($2.17) at a Selecta machine.

Holger Ballwanz, the director of a vending machine company in Berlin, has taken the idea one step further, introducing a tiny vending machine designed to just sell one item face masks.

His company Flavura, which typically specializes in coffee vending machines, came up with a design he calls the Maskomat, which he says is easier to set up and maintain and takes up less space than a traditional vending machine.

Imagine I get to the barber and realize Ive forgotten my mask in the office, he said in a telephone interview. A barber could have one of those in the shop.


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U.S. and China Trade Coronavirus Accusations, Sparking Fears of a New Cold War - The New York Times
The NHL’s coronavirus pause – The keys to play resuming, latest on the 2020 draft, testing and more – ESPN

The NHL’s coronavirus pause – The keys to play resuming, latest on the 2020 draft, testing and more – ESPN

May 19, 2020

9:08 AM ET

Emily Kaplan

Greg Wyshynski

It has been 67 days since the NHL hit the pause button on the 2019-20 season because of the coronavirus pandemic. As the cancellations and postponements around the world of sports continue, there have also been continuous nuggets of new information being provided regarding the potential resumption of the season, the draft, the playoffs and how it all impacts 2020-21.

As players, executives and fans continue to adjust to the new normal, we will provide updates every Monday, answering all the burning questions about the various angles of the NHL's relation to the pandemic. Although on-ice action remains on the shelf, there have been some intriguing developments since last week's update. Get caught up here:

Emily Kaplan: Another week passes, and we have nothing firm to report. On Tuesday, commissioner Gary Bettman appeared in a virtual town hall hosted by the San Jose Sharks. He said ending the season without awarding a champion is "not something I'm even contemplating." That tracks with what we've heard behind the scenes: the NHL league office is bullish on concluding the 2019-20 season.

Los Angeles Kings president Luc Robitaille told season-ticket holders Thursday that it seems the NHL is "leaning toward" jumping right to the playoffs instead of trying to conclude the regular season, confirming what we reported last week. (The working plan is a 24-team playoff field, which would include bubble teams such as Chicago and Montreal, but as with everything, that's subject to change).

The NHL and NHLPA's jointly appointed Return to Play Committee convened Tuesday and Wednesday and kept working over the weekend. A person on the committee's calls told ESPN that he is "optimistic" they will be able to announce something soon. The group, which is a mix of NHL and NHLPA execs as well as a handful of high-profile players, has been hashing out protocols for what the return would look like. That includes:

How long training camps need to be (roughly three weeks is the current word) and the playoff format

How quarantine and testing procedures would work (for example, since Russia has seen a spike in cases, would players who spent time there be forced to self-isolate for 14 days upon return?)

What happens if someone tests positive (deputy commissioner Bill Daly has said that the NHL wants to get to a point where one or two positive tests won't shut the entire operation down)

Players' desires to bring their families with them to hub cities (something the NHL is expected to accommodate)

There is serious momentum heading into Monday's board of governors call, and many are hoping the NHL and NHLPA could announce a return-to-play package as soon as this week. While we have nothing concrete just yet, this week is shaping up to be a critical one in the NHL's quest to get back onto the ice this summer.

Kaplan: Not quite. The NHLPA executive board consists of 31 player reps, one from each team. Each of the player reps is responsible for taking the pulse of his teammates. Once a return-to-play proposal is presented, the NHLPA executive board would determine whether a full vote should take place.

Greg Wyshynski: At the moment, there doesn't seem to be any momentum for restarting the season with all 31 teams. The pushback from players on teams far outside the playoff picture, combined with the logistical nightmare of every team reconvening at centralized sites for the sake of a dozen games has, for the moment, muted enthusiasm to play out the regular season. Instead, a 24-team playoff format is on the front burner as a way to finish out the season and satisfy those teams on the bubble that were a few points out with 10-12 games remaining.

Dallas Stars GM Jim Nill said it's the equitable way to involve teams around the playoff bubble that didn't have a chance to win their way in during the last dozen games of the season.

"The tough part is that if you're a team that was sitting on the bubble, challenging for a wild-card spot, playing great hockey and then it shuts down, you're going to think you were playing your best hockey and had a chance of making it, and they probably did. Those teams are going to want a chance. To do that, you have to expand past 16 teams," Nill told ESPN late last week.

"The league has to do the best for the game. I think it's important to expand the playoffs. There are just too many teams that are two to three wins from each other. To be fair to everybody, for the welfare of our game, I think it's important that we look at the larger format. If it's 24 teams, we're all for that. It's important for every market that's in those situations to be a part of it."

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As has been previously reported, plans are for six teams to cluster at four centralized arena sites, most likely aligned by division. While initial reports indicated that alignment could include sub-.500 teams in the Buffalo Sabres and Anaheim Ducks, that's not the case: The New York Rangers and Chicago Blackhawks would likely be a part of a 24-team format, with the Rangers realigned to the Atlantic Division "hub." (Plans for Chicago are a little more murky.)

The new wrinkle is that the NHL may not jump directly to the playoffs. One scenario would have the teams at the hub arenas facing each other in a round-robin to determine playoff seeding. Another scenario would have the Nos. 1 and 2 seeds meet in a short series to determine who earns the top seed, while the other four teams play each other to determine who advances to the round of 16.

This format would help satisfy an objective for the NHL and an objective for the NHLPA. The players have been adamant about playing some games before jumping into the intensity of the playoffs. But these games will also help NHL teams meet the obligations of their local broadcast rights and sponsorship agreements. Every dollar they can make in a season restart is one they won't have to credit back on next season's contracts.

Is this going to happen? An NHL source tells us that it's "really too early to say" that the round-robin format is the one they'll settle on. Another NHL source said "it's on the front burner, but that changes daily." Still another said it's not even set in stone that there will be four centralized locations for the restart.

But in the end, the path to the postseason is only one piece of a gigantic puzzle. "The playoff format is less of an issue than where we do it and when we do it," one NHL team executive told us.

Kaplan: Testing. It's all about the availability and procurement of coronavirus tests.

Ever since the pandemic began, the NHL has been consulting with Dr. Bruce Farber, chief of infectious diseases for Long Island Jewish Medical Center and North Shore University Hospital in New York. Farber chats with Gary Bettman and Bill Daly regularly, and provides his expert opinion to the board of governors on conference calls. The NHL declined an ESPN interview request for Dr. Farber; however, the doctor appeared on Bloomberg Radio this past week, which was a revealing look at how he views the current climate -- and what he's probably telling NHL leaders.

Here's Dr. Farber, speaking generally about what professional sports leagues would need to do to resume (while acknowledging he has consulted with one of them): "It can be done, but it has to be done with so much detail, and it's not going to be done the way it used to be done," Farber told Bloomberg. "It will literally have to be in a very closed environment where players cannot leave for a period of time, they'll have to be tested on a regular basis. It's going to be harder for certain sports, like football, much harder, because of the number of people involved. It's not clear that anybody is going to be able to pull it off -- and particularly if there is a shortage of tests. Because you're going to have to test all of these people very, very often. Probably every two days, three days at the most, maybe more often. It's not a matter of just taking the fans out of the stadium and putting on these games. There's a lot of work and a lot of problems."

In the interview, Farber also noted that scheduling will have to adapt -- including the notion that back-to-back games will be more difficult, because of the risk of exposure. He also said he believes resumption of play will have to be limited to a few sites, to reduce travel. That may explain why the NHL really latched on to this four-hub city plan.

Kaplan: Let's first consider what has happened in baseball. As MLB also pushes to return, the league reached a deal with a testing lab in Utah. The lab would provide coronavirus tests for roughly 3,000 baseball players and support staff, but also provide thousands of tests to the public.

Emily Kaplan and Greg Wyshynski take you around the NHL with the latest news, big questions and special guests every episode. Listen here

The NHL is sensitive to ethical concerns of procuring tests -- especially the perception that they are taking them away from the public -- and league sources say there have been discussions about doing something similar to MLB. There have been great strides in the availability of tests and accuracy of them since the pandemic first broke out, but if the NHL resumed today, it still probably wouldn't be in a place where it felt comfortable purchasing the thousands of tests needed. This is because that as Farber is advising, everyone would need to be tested quite regularly (again, he suggested "every two days, three days at the most"). There's also the issue of cost. Each test could retail for about $100 each, which would add up quickly.

There have also been discussions, on a team level, of what precautions would be needed to keep the facilities safe when they open up to players and staff. For example, it might not be realistic to administer swab tests to everyone who comes in the practice facility each day, and the results are not instantaneous enough. So teams are considering other less invasive options, which might be part of the new normal. Neil Glasberg, who is one of the top coaching agents in the NHL, has partnered with a Texas-based company that produces infrared cameras that can detect elevated skin temperatures. The cameras can be installed at buildings' entrances, similar to where you would typically see a metal director. According to Glasberg, several NHL teams are interested. Another issue arising for teams: Who fronts the cost for these extended measures? Would it be the building operators, or are the NHL clubs on the hook?

Wyshynski: Stars GM Jim Nill said that the team has put ice back in their facilities -- but his players aren't the ones using it at the moment. "They're starting to open up now. You're limited to 50 people inside the facility. Everybody has to wear masks, other than when you're on the ice. They're opening it up to figure skaters, people like that," he said.

As more and more states are beginning to reopen businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic, the NHL continues to prohibit players from using team training facilities.

"[The NHL] knows there's going to be different areas that open up at different times, but none of us are allowed to open up our facilities until we get a mandate from the league that everybody can do it," Nill said. "It's not fair if our guys can get up and start skating two or three weeks ahead of everybody else. It's just not right."

So what happens if, say, a player for the Stars wants to use another rink or a gym in Texas?

"That's a great question. We've talked to our people. We've told them what the league rules are. A lot of these players have their own gyms in their houses, things like that. But as far as skating, our guys aren't allowed to skate unless they're injured," Nill said.

While that's correct as it pertains to team facilities, the fact is that NHL players can skate if they want to. They have been skating in Sweden throughout the COVID-19 shutdown. Players back in North America aren't prohibited from getting on the ice, either, although NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly said "the recommendations in place would discourage it."

Wyshynski: The NHLPA executive board was voting over the weekend on whether to extend the deadline on what to do with the players' final paychecks. Please recall that the players deferred those checks from April 15 while deciding whether to contribute all, part or none of them into escrow, in preparation for the NHL's revenue shortfall this season. Revenues are split 50-50 between players and owners; escrow is withheld to make up any deficit. The Hockey News notes that the players' final checks are for around $120 million in sum.

Ultimately, this ties into an underlying aspect of all of this season restart stuff: The lingering collective bargaining agreement conversation between the players and owners.

Kaplan: We're still in a stalemate here, but the longer we go without an announcement, the likelier it is that we won't get a draft in June -- or before play resumes.

The NHL stated its case for an early June draft in a memo circulated to teams earlier this month. The NHL thinks it's prudent for several reasons, including getting a key piece of league business out of the way and capitalizing on a dormant sports schedule to engage with fans. But there was enough pushback from teams (especially GMs) to hold up the deal. Now front offices are getting a little antsy, hoping the NHL will just make up its mind already so everyone can prepare accordingly (as of now, teams have been going full steam ahead, including virtual interviews with draft-eligible prospects). A decision on the draft could be made as soon as Monday afternoon, when the board of governors has another regularly scheduled call.

Wyshynski: As the draft memo indicated, one of the concerns from GMs was that the same team that wins the draft lottery could win the Stanley Cup if it's held prior to a playoff format being established. While that's a real concern, it's not the only one regarding an expanded playoff field's effect on the draft.

"Before it was about 31 teams coming back, but when you have 24 teams in the playoffs, that has an effect on the draft. Bringing more teams into the playoffs that would have made trades knowing they're out of the playoffs a few months ago are now in the playoffs. There's a balance the league has to maintain to figure that out," one team executive told ESPN. "You have the advantage of being sellers [at the deadline] and still getting into the playoffs. A goalie gets hot, the other team gets an injury, things could change quickly. Now you have a team that's picking eighth, and they're in the third round of the playoffs."

But the biggest issue with the draft right now might be timing. The league indicated it needs about a month to ensure the technology of doing a remote draft is refined to the point where it can be a televised event, like the NFL's. It's now May 18. The draft was originally scheduled for June 26 and 27.

Wyshynski: Because of Mitch Marner. The Maple Leafs star expressed his concern for Domi while streaming a video game on Twitch this week. "What if someone gets sick and dies? It's awful to think about, but still," Marner said. "There's dudes like [Max] Domi who has diabetes. If he gets it, he's in [a predicament]."

Domi acknowledged his health concerns. "Being a Type 1 diabetic, it's something that raises some concern. But you really don't know how everyone's going to be affected by this disease. Being a Type 1 doesn't change much. I would handle myself the same way as if I didn't have [diabetes]," he said.

The Canadiens center stressed the seriousness of the coronavirus. "Everyone is affected by this in their own way. A lot of people have been struggling. A lot of people have suffered loss. It's been a really tough time for everyone, and you have to be sensitive to that. You have to understand that this is very real. People have gotten sick from this. People have died from this. All you can really do is do your part, stay at home, stay safe and be respectful of any rules that were put in place," he said.

Wyshynski: While there are a variety of opinions on the players' side about if, when and how to restart the season, two players we spoke with last week were in favor of the league returning to the ice.

"As long as health and wellness is always the first thing we're thinking about, for the players, for the trainers or the equipment managers and everyone else. As long as the doctors from the NHLPA and the NHL have been consulting and they decide it's OK to return to play, I'd be excited to play whichever [playoff] format," said Colorado Avalanche forward J.T. Compher.

New Jersey Devils defenseman Connor Carrick likely won't be back on the ice until the 2020-21 season, but he thinks the NHL will feel a sense of obligation in returning.

"At some point, I feel like there's going to be a desire to contribute to society. And I don't think there's going to be a perfect return-to-play protocol. There's going to be some sacrifice. There's no comparison to the way it was, in my opinion. But at some point we have a responsibility, I think, to provide some entertainment to people out there for whom sports was their resolve and their escape. At some point, it's our job to make the best of what's been a very demanding worldwide event," he said. "I think it's our responsibility as players to not only act in our own best interests, but at some point we gotta get back out there and give the people what they want. They miss their sport."

Kaplan: Keeping with the comedy theme from last week, I was really skeptical of how a two-man improv show would translate into a Netflix special -- let alone an entire series. But I watched a few episodes of "Middleditch & Schwartz" this weekend and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Wyshynski: From the ashes of "Flip or Flop" on TLC is "Flipping 101," hosted by Tarek El Moussa. It's got some "First Time Flippers" DNA combined with that of "Bar Rescue." It's entertaining television if you're someone who likes to see novices shamed for their backsplash choices. I've also fired up "Splatoon 2" on the Nintendo Switch again in preparation of the surprise Splatfest this week. Because despite Fortnite's presence in my life, I apparently need to be embarrassed by even more 9-year-olds on a video game.


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The NHL's coronavirus pause - The keys to play resuming, latest on the 2020 draft, testing and more - ESPN