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28/03 / Medicines/Shortage / Lupus patients having trouble getting drug named as possible treatment for COVID-19 / FPS Health
27/03 / India/Medicine/ Hydroxychloroquine, Trumps prescription for Covid-19, gets tougher to buy in India / ThePrint
29/03 15:19 / France/Medicine / French expert says second study shows malaria drug helps fight coronavirus / RTL Today/AFP
29/03 /Vaccine/Trial / Fighting COVID-19: Kaiser Permanente Launches First Vaccine Trial / GVWire
28/03 / Vaccine/Analysis / Why a Covid-19 vaccination wont end the pandemic / Ladders
28/03 20:35 / USA/Vaccine / USC Working on Coronavirus Vaccine / NBC LA
28/03 20:06 / Vaccine/Research / The more vaccine projects we have, the better our chances / Guardian
28/03 14:12 / Turkey/Vaccine / Turkish scientists working on COVID-19 vaccine / HURRIYET
28/03 13:09 / Medicine/Dangers / Doctors and experts warn of the risks of using malaria drugs to treat COVID-19 / LA TIMES
28/03 12:30 / Russia/Medicine / Russia Creates Anti-Covid-19 Drug / SPUTNIK
28/03 10:10 / Vaccine/Timeline /Coronavirus vaccine: when will it be ready? / GUARDIAN
28/03 09:00 / Vaccine/Technology / AI Can Help Scientists Find a Covid-19 Vaccine /WIRED
27/03 / Vaccine/Industry / Developing a vaccine takes 10 years. Sanofi seeks to do so within 18 months / CNBC
27/03 / Vaccine/Mutation / Is the coronavirus mutating? / LiveScience
26/03 / UN/Vaccine / Life-saving vaccinations must not fall victim to COVID-19 pandemic UNICEF chief / UN News
26/03 / Australia/Vaccine / Australia enters 4,000 healthcare workers in trial for coronavirus vaccine /Reuters
24/03 / UK/Vaccine / U.K. gov backs push to start COVID-19 vaccine trial in April / Fierce Biotech
23/03 / USA/Vaccine / The first study of a potential coronavirus vaccine will soon start recruiting healthy volunteers in Georgia at Emory University / Business Insider
Alex Azar had sounded confident at the end of January. At a news conference in the hulking H.H.S. headquarters in Washington, he said he had the governments response to the new coronavirus under control, pointing out high-ranking jobs he had held in the department during the 2003 SARS outbreak and other infectious threats.
I know this playbook well, he told reporters.
A Yale-trained lawyer who once served as the top attorney at the health department, Mr. Azar had spent a decade as a top executive at Eli Lilly, one of the worlds largest drug companies. But he caught Mr. Trumps attention in part because of other credentials: After law school, Mr. Azar was a clerk for some of the nations most conservative judges, including Justice Antonin Scalia of the Supreme Court. And for two years, he worked as Ken Starrs deputy on the Clinton Whitewater investigation.
As Mr. Trumps second health secretary, confirmed at the beginning of 2018, Mr. Azar has been quick to compliment the president and focus on the issues he cares about: lowering drug prices and fighting opioid addiction. On Feb. 6 even as the W.H.O. announced that there were more than 28,000 coronavirus cases around the globe Mr. Azar was in the second row in the White Houses East Room, demonstrating his loyalty to the president as Mr. Trump claimed vindication from his impeachment acquittal the day before and lashed out at evil lawmakers and the F.B.I.s top scum.
As public attention on the virus threat intensified in January and February, Mr. Azar grew increasingly frustrated about the harsh spotlight on his department and the leaders of agencies who reported to him, according to people familiar with the response to the virus inside the agencies.
Described as a prickly boss by some administration officials, Mr. Azar has had a longstanding feud with Seema Verma, the Medicare and Medicaid chief, who recently became a regular presence at Mr. Trumps televised briefings on the pandemic. Mr. Azar did not include Dr. Hahn on the virus task force he led, though some of the F.D.A. commissioners aides participated in H.H.S. meetings on the subject.
And tensions grew between the secretary and Dr. Redfield as the testing issue persisted. Mr. Azar and Dr. Redfield have been on the phone as often as a half-dozen times a day. But throughout February, as the C.D.C. test faltered, Mr. Azar became convinced that Dr. Redfields agency was providing him with inaccurate information about testing that the secretary repeated publicly, according to several administration officials.
In one instance, Mr. Azar appeared on Sunday morning news programs and said that more than 3,600 people had been tested for the virus. In fact, the real number was much smaller because many patients were tested multiple times, an error the C.D.C. had to correct in congressional testimony that week. One health department official said Mr. Azar was repeatedly assured that the C.D.C.s test would be widely available within a week or 10 days, only to be given the same promise a week later.
How can you help scientists and the world tackle covid-19 and coronavirus? By staying at home. That is one way. The other is by Folding@Home. Now, we are not talking of you folding yourself in comfortable bed and do social distancing. That helps too. But by the Folding @ Home we mean you helping scientists fold proteins fancy word for simulating basic proteins and find out how they behave within the coronavirus so that an effective vaccine can be created against the virus. This you can do through the covid-19 project at Folding@Home, a distributed computing project.
Now, this all sounds quite technical and in some ways it is. But not for regular users who can contribute to the project. To help scientists trying to create a vaccine for covid-19, all that people need to is install the Folding@Home software on their computer or laptop and then let it run as it simulate the virus proteins.
Viruses also have proteins that they use to suppress our immune systems and reproduce themselves, notes Folding@Home project on covid-19. To help tackle coronavirus, we want to understand how these viral proteins work and how we can design therapeutics to stop them.
Understanding proteins and simulating is best done with super computers, but there aren't enough super computers in the world for all the protein folding that needs to be. One solution is distributed computing, which lets anyone with a computer or laptop join a grid and then use the collecting computing power to do simulations.
Engineering and Scientific problems are often so difficult that we need to solve them on supercomputers (such as Archer, Summit, Sierra, etc). Problems like finding a cure for Covid-19 through realistic simulations are so challenging and compute-intensive that the combined computing power of topmost supercomputers in the world is less to find the solution quickly, writes Dr Lokesh Ragta, a CFD scientist in Scientific Computing Department at Daresbury Laboratory, UK. To share your resource, you just have to download the software Folding@home, install it, run the same and keep your computer running for as long as you can. That is it. This is all that is required from your side.
The software run Folding@Home on a computer can be downloaded from the project site (https://foldingathome.org/start-folding/). The covid-19 project at Folding@Home was announced a while ago and it already has millions of users from across the world contributed to the distributed computing. The project is supported by many big tech companies, including Intel, Google, Nvidia, Oracle and others.
Samuel Mangera at Kenyatta Universitys Arboretum in Nairobi. One of his messages to the coronavirus: We also cannot afford to pay you too much attention especially with a huge plague of locusts at hand. PTP Studios hide caption
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PTP Studios
I met Sir Lucky Samuel Mangera just days after the Kenyan government had begun shutting down flights and schools and asking people to stay at home. Kenya has reported 31 cases of COVID-19 and over the past two weeks, the government has been rolling out a more and more stringent lockdown, which now includes a curfew.
We met at a bar, past Nairobis industrial area. The bar was completely empty, but on the way there, I saw people paying little mind to the new restrictions: Men, women, children were out on the streets, buying and selling produce; they were boarding crowded buses and without the masks weve gotten so used to seeing on TV in other countries.
I wanted to meet Mangera after I read one of his Facebook posts. It was an open letter to the new coronavirus.
Dear Corona virus,
Welcome to Kenya. A few things you should know. Here we dont die of flu, dont be surprised if you fail to succeed. Usishangae [Dont be surprised], everything fails in Kenya.
The post pointed out the constant struggle of living in Kenya and the many ways Kenyans are let down by the government. It pointed out that when this new epidemic arrived here, there were already many other things Kenyans had to worry about from disease to traffic deaths. It is a sentiment Ive heard from other Kenyans and something I heard often in Democratic Republic of Congo when I was covering the second largest Ebola outbreak in history.
Kenya is not excited to host coronavirus, Mangera wrote. The locusts a historic infestation that experts warn could eat through much of Kenyas food got here first. We also cannot afford to pay you too much attention because we really really broke, he wrote.
I laughed at thatline.
I looked at Mangera sitting on the far side of the table. Hes a college student who writes poetry and makes films. Hes slim and waits for a reaction to his words with a mischievous grin. I tell him while his post is funny, its also really sad.
He nods in agreement. He said thats what he wanted to capture the humor you have to have to live in a place as tough as Kenya.
Honestly, Kenyans are hardcore people, he said. So I wanted to express how Kenyans are survivors in a comic way.
The thing is, out here you dont have to look far to find death. The roads are filled Proboxes, station wagons that zig-zag the country at high speeds, sagging with passengers and cargo. In Japan, the cars were recalled by the manufacturer for being dangerous.
Here in Kenya we survive by Probox, he said, because we dont have an alternative.
Mangeras open letter to coronavirus is full of bravado but also an admission of a deep vulnerability.
We are more likely to die of a cholera attack than to be killed by you. For us, every day is a run escape from death. We are the walking dead. Death is part of our lives the shadow that lingers over us from the time the umbilical cord is cut and buried behind the house to the time we fundraise for expensive arrangements to bury a no longer useful block of dead meat.
As we talked, one other customer walked into the empty bar. He opened a laptop and jumped on the phone. He told the person on the other end that hes worried. Kenyans live hand to mouth. How will they stay home? How will they survive this lockdown?
Mangera admitted that this is the first time he had been out of his house for days. He had a cough and he was terrified he might have CoVid-19. But in his writing, there is no fear.
Death can befall us anytime and we are not scared. It if comes, let it come. Why worry over what we cant control? Everything dies right? Even you corona will die!
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When historiansmarkthe start of this nation's coronavirus nightmare, theywill cite Jan. 21, 2020, the date a Washington state man in his 30s who had visited Wuhan, China, was confirmed as the United States'first COVID-19 case.
Since then, this global crisis has mushroomed into a national defining moment with as yet untallied cultural and economic repercussions. No one questions whether we will be talking about this for generations.If there is debate, it is over the proper historical comparison.
Is this likethe 2008 financial crisis, 9/11, World War II? Or perhaps, as someeconomists predict and news that 3.3 million people applied for unemployment last week suggests,will this be remembered as a periodof deep loss and poverty, something likethe grim 1930swhen unemployment hit 25%.
This will be very economically disruptive and an analogy to the Great Depression is the closest to what we may face, says Stanford University economics professor Matthew Jackson. These huge events can have profound changes on the views and beliefs people have.
That we are in for difficult months and perhaps years ahead seems commonly accepted, as virus deaths mount, hospitals are overwhelmedand a decimated service-based economy spursa $2.2 trillion wartime-scale bailout package in Washington, D.C.
But if there is cause for optimism in these bleak times, historians, economists and writers say, it is born out of the fact that we as a nation can choose to seize this moment to create an even greater society better poised to protect its citizens from future crises.
In this Nov. 24, 1933 file photo, unemployed men wait outside the State Labor Bureau in New York. The epic hardship of the 1930s is the best-known depression in American history, and some economists are concerned the repercussions of the COVID-19 crisis could send the U.S. reeling back to those difficult times.(Photo: AP)
There are precedents for bold responses to watershed American events.
The Depression gave rise to the Social Security Act, which promised citizens financial safety in their later years. World War II drew women into the workforce and minorities into the military, leading to the equal and civil rights movements. And the 2008 financial meltdown gave rise to banking regulations and renewed scrutiny of illicit financial tools.
The possible positive national reactions to the COVID-19 crisis which as of this writinghas infected more than 120,000 Americans and killed more than 2,000, out of a global tally of 680,000 sickened and more than 30,000 dead are myriad.
They could include a renewed appreciation of governments role in grappling with unprecedented crises, a remaking of manufacturing pipelines so they rely less on foreign suppliers,and a rekindled appreciation for friends and neighbors, experts say.
As tough as things look now, I do see us possibly demonstrating a sense that were all in this together, says Joseph Margulies,a law professor at Cornell University in New York and author of What Changed When Everything Changed: 9/11 and the Making of National Identity.
Margulies notes that in contrast to WWII, when Japanese-Americans were rounded up and interned, and the Red Scare, when those suspected ofCommunist leanings wereblacklisted, this debacle has governors from New York to California saying the same thing,'stay home,' and they mean everyone, not one group.
At the moment, most cultural observers note that the sharp political divide that existed before the virus arrived still persists.
Thats evident in everything from the squabbles that erupted as Congress debated the size and scope of the bailout, to the ongoing tension between President Donald Trumps desire to see the nation re-open for business next month and a range of health officials countering that the worst is yet to come if life is allowed to resume prematurely.
A mask-wearing man in the Philippines walks by an iconic poster from WWII America that depicts Rosie the Riveter, a fictional factory worker meant to inspired Americans of both sexes to pitch in to the war effort during the 1940s. Our coronavirus crisis could inspire the same kind of unified national effort at recovering from the epidemic, historians say.(Photo: Aaron Favila, AP)
But some semblance of a unified national direction will be critical to rebounding from this historic moment, given the as yet unknown shifts inthe way we shop, work, travel and learn, says Matthew Continetti, resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank.
Clearly, the cost of the virus in lives and resources will pale in comparison to the way life may change for us all, he says.Just like terrorism before it, this pandemic may present real challenges to civil liberties that well have to grapple with.
Continetti points out that at the core of the American ethos is freedom, which also can translate into a rejection of government-issued rules meant to ensure public safety. That could create problems if, say, the government were to echo moves by some Asians nations and track virus carriers via their cell phones and closed-circuit TV cameras.
I dont think most Americans are ready to embrace that, he says.
The coronavirus has robbed us all: Let yourself mourn the loss, experts say.
As this COVID-19 emergency eventually turns into a state of persistent vigilance, what could be on the horizon for us is in fact is a difficult push and pull. On the one side, a desire to return to our pre-virus lives at all costs; on the other, an acknowledgement thatnothing will evertruly be the same.
Continetti says what is coming next will represent a true paradigm shift, one in which a society long driven by the pursuit of happiness at all costs may have to rearrange its social and moral priorities.
Its a noble and frightening future were facing, he says. But it may also give us a newfound sense of national solidarity.
Volunteer Art Ponce is handed a box of sterile swabs and gloves from a donor at a Sacramento County collection site in Sacramento, California this week. The state was among the first to declare local and state-wide self-quarantining for residents in an effort to stem the tide of COVID-19 cases.(Photo: Rich Pedroncelli, AP)
A few things should happen rather quickly as a result of this seminal moment in our history, one that undeniably has parallels to the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918, says Rice University historian Douglas Brinkley.
Among them are a renewed appreciation for science, a rekindled admiration for doctors, and a funding bonanza for government health institutions such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a once mighty and now underfunded institution that by most accounts has been caught flat-footed by this pandemic.
In U.S. history, whatever rises to a level of national concern gets funding, and health should rise sky high, says Brinkley, noting that, in contrast, the impact of 9/11 was felt mostly in the northeast and Hurricane Katrina in the Deep South. Coronavirus is touching everyone, so what officials wont want to be prepared for the next outbreak?
Brinkley, who is working on a book about the environmental movement of the 1960s and 70s, is hopeful that another reaction to this historical turning point will be a more urgent focus on curbing climate change.
Many scientists believe that new viruses are bound to spread as global temperature rises lead to the migration of animals. There are suspicions COVID-19 may have jumped species from pangolins, an exotic scale-covered mammal that is illegally hunted in parts of Asia.
You cant wipe out rain forests in Brazil and not expect to have a health care payback,says Brinkley.
When will coronavirus end?What wartime and human kindness can tell us about what happens next
Another sober realization bound to hit Americans across the economic spectrum is how globally interconnected the economies of all nations have become.
That phone youre holding or the car youre driving may be designed or built in the U.S., but countless such products invariably have many parts made in countries whose manufacturing plants are now at risk as employees get sick as governments order shutdowns.
The virus will end, well have a vaccine in 12 to 18 months, but what will the world economy look like after 12 to 18 months of stagnation, let alone if the virus comes back, says Jerald Combs, professor emeritus of history at San Francisco State University and author of The History of American Foreign Policy from 1895.
Combs says that as the virus impacts supplier countries such as India and China, U.S. manufacturing ultimately will have to find new ways to make products or face economic hardships. Such adjustments could be required of American companies for years, given it remains unknown whether the current viral threat is an aberration ora preview of whats to come.
World War II had a huge impact on American society in so many ways, but they had one advantage over what were dealing with, says Combs. They knew at some point the war would end. We, on the other hand, are still not sure.
A tourist wears a mask to help avoid getting coronavirus as she stands next to the statue of former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill in Parliament Square in London, where Prime Minister Boris Johnson recently announced he has tested positive for COVID-19.(Photo: Matt Dunham, AP)
To get a sense of just how much this Defining Moment has us concerned, consider that author Erik Larson has received what he calls a surprising amount of messages from readers who have found a sense of solace in the pages of his new book, The Splendid and the Vile, which chronicles how Winston Churchill successfully led British resistance to the relentless Nazi onslaught of 1940.
People must simply be getting lost in a time when you had this catastrophic threat to a nation and a charismatic leader pulling them through it, says Larson. Theres this heroic clarity to that time, Churchill defying Hitler and rallying the public saying were all in this together. I guess maybe people would like that now.
After years of research that brought him close to heart and mind of the legendary British prime minister, Larson is convinced Churchills message today for any nation facing the defining challenge that is the coronavirus threat would be inspirationally simple.
Says Larson: Hed have been quick to say that this is not the apocalypse, all our institutions will survive, our world will endure, and we will go forth when this is over.
Follow USA TODAY national correspondent Marco della Cava: @marcodellacava
Read or Share this story: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/03/29/coronavirus-crisis-response-reshape-american-history/5079760002/
Customers at this take-out window in Miami on March 20 were not practicing social distancing. Scott McIntyre/Bloomberg via Getty Images hide caption
Customers at this take-out window in Miami on March 20 were not practicing social distancing.
Within the past few weeks, the COVID-19 pandemic has derailed my plans and expectations for my first year of medical school. It has canceled trips and internships. It has moved classes and social interactions online, dissolving my community as I knew it.
As a healthy, 20-something, I know that if I contract COVID-19, I am less likely to die than older adults like my parents or those with preexisting conditions.
So why should teens and 20-somethings give up hanging out with friends? Why should we let a virus dictate our lives?
That kind of cavalier attitude is present among young people. My newsfeed has been rife with reports of young people at California beaches before widespread beach closures, and at neighborhood brunches and even "coronavirus parties" held in defiance of the guidelines for social distancing.
On a personal level, I know that some of my acquaintances still travel, passing through multiple airports on a pleasure trip. Others host gatherings or attend wine parties in each other's homes with an open invitation to all who can come.
Yet my social media is also filled with powerful calls to stay home and, if you must go out, to physically distance yourself from others.
Even young people with good intentions could be contributing to the spread of the virus. I know of people seeing different friends each day in small gatherings. They may figure there's no harm in an intimate get-together, but this practice is risky. All it takes is one unsuspecting person who's infected for spread to occur. From there, contagion is exponential.
I believe young people can change the course of the pandemic. We can try to forget about the pandemic and live as if we're in the relatively carefree past.
Or we can act as role models, leading the charge in supporting public health measures and act as role models.
Assuredly, everyone has an obligation to physically distance. I think, however, young people have a unique obligation in minimizing the spread of coronavirus.
Some of us are understandably hesitant to accept the challenges of social distancing measures. As a friend suggested, we are trying to salvage our lives during a pandemic that has canceled everything. We've lost our semester of campus life and milestones like graduation. We've given up our spring breaks and have no idea about summer. So we may feel like victims of these unfortunate times.
I do not believe that it is a useful way to view this new reality. Unquestionably, we have all lost something. But we stand to lose something much greater if we do not do our part in mitigating the pandemic.
First of all, our own health is at risk. Even though the danger of COVID-19 may be greater for older generations, many of us are becoming infected. Whether we get sick or remain asymptomatic, we are spreading the virus and contributing to a possible collapse of health-care systems. And some young patients are dying.
We also risk our moral character in how we chose to respond to the pandemic.
In the months I have been in medical school, I have had the privilege of learning about a profession at the front lines of this pandemic and the values and virtues embodied by health workers. Two fundamental virtues benevolence and justice can be embodied by us all.
How can our actions during this pandemic attest to our moral character? Social distancing is benevolent because it will benefit others and prevent avoidable harm. Fulfilling the needs of the elderly and those isolated people who are immunocompromised, undocumented or underinsured is just. And, what underlies these virtues is our shared responsibility in this public health emergency: to put the needs of others before our own.
I'd like to appeal to my peers: If there has ever been a time for altruism, for self-sacrifice, this is it. Our communities and countries need us in overcoming one of the biggest crises of our lives. This is an opportunity for us to rise to the occasion and lead the charge through small ways with a significant impact.
For the goal of flattening the curve preventing deaths and a health-care system collapse from a crush of patients we must physically distance ourselves. We need to limit our in-person contacts and instead log into quarantine apps to connect with friends or loved ones. We should follow public health guidelines because the data show it will reduce deaths and prevent us from getting sick.
If we expect health-care workers to help the sick and be at risk, then we should be prepared to do our part. Beyond just staying home, we can also join efforts to build solidarity from afar. Right now, some of our peers are calling those isolated, donating what they can or fundraising for non-profits that serve as social safety nets. What we do now is critical not only to our country and the lives of others but to our moral character as well.
Amal Cheema is an M.D. candidate at the Geisel School of Medicine, Dartmouth College, class of 2023.
On March 18th, researchers in France circulated a study about the promising experimental use of hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malaria drug, in combination with azithromycin, an antibiotic, as a treatment for the disease caused by the coronavirus. The study was neither randomized nor peer-reviewed, and other scientists soon criticized its methodology. But Tucker Carlson, on Fox News, highlighted the work. The next day, President Trump promoted hydroxychloroquines very, very encouraging early results. He added, mentioning another unproven therapy, I think it could be, based on what I see, it could be a game changer.
At a White House press briefing on March 20th, a reporter asked Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, whether hydroxychloroquine could be effective in treating covid-19. The answer is no, Fauci said, before yielding the microphone to Trump, who countered, May work, may not. I feel good about it. Thats all it is, just a feeling, you know, smart guy. A few days later, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director-general of the World Health Organization, said, Using untested drugs without the right evidence could raise false hope and even do more harm than good.
Trumps quackery was at once eccentric and terrifyinga reminder, if one was needed, of his scorn for rigorous science, even amid the worst pandemic to strike the country in a century. Yet his conduct typified his leadership as the crisis has intensified: his dependency on Fox News for ideas and message amplification, his unshakable belief in his own genius, and his understandable concern that his relection may be in danger if he does not soon discover a way to vanquish COVID-19 and reverse its devastation of the economy.
New York City now faces a troubling and astronomical increase in cases, according to Governor Andrew Cuomo, and the emergency is overwhelming hospitals, straining drug and equipment supplies, and threatening to cause a shortage of ventilators. The grim course of events in the city is a canary in the coal mine for the rest of the country, Cuomo said, and leaders elsewhere must take decisive action lest they, too, become inundated. Trump, though, spent much of last week promoting a contrarian gambit that has been percolating in the right-wing media. He said that, to revitalize the economy, he would like to lift travel restrictions and reopen workplaces across the country within weeks, perhaps by Easter, which is on April 12th, because, as he put it repeatedly, we cant let the cure be worse than the problem.
Public-health experts immediately warned against such a reversal of social-distancing rules. The virus will surge, many will fall ill, and there will be more deaths, William Schaffner, a specialist in preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University, told the Times. When a reporter asked the President whether any of the doctors on your team had advised him that a hasty reopening was the right path to pursue, he replied, If it were up to the doctors, they may say, Lets keep it shut down... lets keep it shut for a couple of years. Public-health specialists have said no such thing; they have spoken of a conditions-based approach (You dont make the timeline, the virus makes the timeline, Fauci has said), while advising that, to save the most lives, local leaders must wait to lift restrictions in their areas until the data show that the virus has stopped spreading. Trump said that any loosening of rules he might seek around the countryhe mentioned Nebraska and Idaho as possible siteswould be based on hard facts and data, but he also said that he chose Easter as a target date because he just thought it was a beautiful time.
It is true, as Trump also argued, that enormous job losses and an all but certain recession caused by the pandemic will harm many vulnerable Americans, and claim lives, as ill people without health insurance, for example, forgo care or struggle to get it at stressed clinics and hospitals. Yet, at least in the short term, over-all mortality rates fall during recessions; the reasons for this arent fully clear, but social scientists think they may include the public-health benefits of a decrease in pollution, as a result of the slowing economy. In any event, the case the President made for hurrying an economic revival against the advice of scientists was morally odious; it suggested that large numbers of otherwise avoidable deaths might have to be accepted as the price of job creation.
Public-health officials spoke frankly to the press about the catastrophic prospects of the Presidents Easter folly. (President Trump will have blood on his hands, Keith Martin, the director of the Consortium of Universities for Global Health, told the Times.) Trump responded on Twitter by lashing out at the LameStream Media for reporting such forecasts, calling the press the dominant force in trying to get me to keep our Country closed as long as possible in the hope that it will be detrimental to my election success. Last Wednesday, after Mitt Romney, the only Republican who voted to convict the President, on a charge of abuse of power, during the Senate impeachment trial, announced that he had tested negative for COVID-19, Trump tweeted mockingly, Im so happy I can barely speak. At the White House briefings, surrounded by the sorts of civil servants and experts he habitually disdains, Trump has adapted awkwardly to the role of solemn unifier. When he leaves the podium to tweet nonsense at his perceived enemies, he at least provides his opponents among the countrys homebound, screen-addled, and anxious citizenry with a galvanizing dose of his immutable obnoxiousnessa splash of the old new normal.
The journal Science asked Fauci why he doesnt step in when the President makes false statements in the briefings. I cant jump in front of the microphone and push him down, he said. Americas public-health system is fragmented and market-driven, conditions that only compound the challenge of quashing COVID-19. In the Trump era, however, decentralization has a benefit: the President is not solely in charge, and in the months ahead governors and mayors will continue to shape the odds of life or death for great numbers of Americans. Last week, Trump reviewed the possibilities for quarantine in New York City, his ravaged home town. He rambled about the stock exchange (Its incredible what they can do), before going on to pledge, If we open up, and when we open up... were giving the governors a lot of leeway to decide how this should be done. We can only hope so.
Coronavirus may be spreading, but it isn't necessary to randomly hoard supplies. Here are some basic necessities to have at home in case of an emergency. USA TODAY
SOMERSET, Ky. Josh Sutton saw this coming months ago.
The virus was far awaythen, barely registering in the minds of most Kentuckians. People still ate at restaurants and watched basketball and talked about politics and planned for that first Saturday in May.
That all changed, of course. And Sutton was ready for it.
He already had a years worth of food, tomatoes and beans picked from his garden and canned in mason jars, along with MREs made for combat troops.
He already owned a box of surgical masks and gloves.
Its something you pick up for a few bucks, he said of those now-coveted supplies. You toss it in your garage or attic and you dont think about it, and when times like this happen you think, 'I already have a box.'"
The shredded beef in barbecue sauce MRE, which included seasoned black beats, tortillas and a tropical punch flavored beverage powder.(Photo: Jim Smilie/The Town Talk)
Sutton, 25, is a father, an independent contractor and a self-described "prepper," one of 700-plus members of the private Facebook group Kentucky Preppers Network. "Preppers" believea catastrophic disaster or emergency is likely and prepare for it.
Turns out they were right.
Sutton and others like him in Kentucky and across the country were stocked up on supplies well before people rushed to strip store aisles bare of toilet paper and guns and bread flour, before efforts to slow the virus spread involved limited or shuttered businesses and calls for social distancing.
He and his fellow preppers have been called survivalists, hoarders, conspiracy theorists living in remote bunkers waiting for the world to end.
But this isnt the time to be smug toward those who derided them, Sutton and others said.
Instead, they see this pandemic as their chance to help their neighbors and teach the larger community about ways they can prepare for the next time.
A prepper is like a boy scout, said Dan Brown, founder of the preppers Facebook group and owner of This Old Prepper supply shop in Richmond, Kentucky, about 30 miles south of Lexington. They keep to themselves, help others when they can, receive help if they need it, share and teach skills to each other.
"Kind of like the Amish.
Coronavirus tracker: How many coronavirus cases are in Kentucky? Where are they?
A Texas native, Brown opened his shop in 2013 in a hard-to-find white building near a self-storage business and a bingo hall.
Its a one-man operation, he said, primarily conceived to pass along lessons born from his country upbringing and honed over the years.
It was mostly going to teach people what to do, he said. If I was going to teach something, I needed some sort of product to give examples.
He sells things like water filters, fire-starters and surgical gut suture. He doesnt keep much in stock.
Its not about the money or business. Its more interacting and helping people learn to get by on their own or keep their families fed. Its not an organized thing whatsoever.
The prepping lifestyle, though, has become big business. An estimated 3.7 million Americans are either preppers or survivalists, according to a 2013 article from 24/7 Wall St., and they have fueled a multibillion-dollar industry that has seen unprecedented growth amid the coronavirus outbreak.
Right now, in this environment, everyones a prepper, said Paul Fulton, president of The Ready Store in Lehi, Utah, which sells everything from freeze-dried foods to water storage and emergency gear. Ive never seen anything like this.
Demand for some food items like canned meals or buckets of freeze-dried, dehydrated food has increased by 2,000% since January, Fulton estimated.
The company has met some delays in getting food from processing plants, but there have been no shortages yet.
People wait until its too late, and when its too late, no one can get food quickly enough, Fulton said. Get ready before the disaster happens. Fix your roof while the suns shining.
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While the virus has left prepper supply stores struggling to meet the demand, its also put an uncomfortable spotlight on the prepping community.
Preppers, by and large, are somewhat leery of attention, in part because of how theyve been portrayed as fringe members of society in shows like Doomsday Preppers on the National Geographic Channel. (Preppers interviewed for this story hate that show but acknowledge its not entirely inaccurate either.)
They also dont exactly want to advertise that they are flush with supplies in the middle of a national emergency.
Because they are private folk, they get looked at differently, Brown said. Thats why a lot of people wont tell you theyre a prepper.
Most in the Kentucky group have a similar origin story, Sutton said. They grew up in the country, learned out of necessity how to hunt and fish, to grow and can food, to feed their families if and when work dried up.
The term prepping just put a name to what they were already doing.
We are normal people, he said. Nothing separates us from anyone else, with the exception of we can look ahead.
The prepper group started monitoring COVID-19 news out of China in late December. Most realized it was only a matter of time before it came to America.
It may or may not affect me adversely, Sutton remembered thinking. But at the same time, I have a mom and dad and grandparents. I have to worry about them.
Since its rapid spread, its kind of been like shelter-in-place, he said.
Hes been to the grocery store twice to buy milk and eggs. He hasnt needed much else.
He and his fellow preppers have reached out to family, friends and neighbors to see if they need help or supplies. From a 50-count box of N95 masks he owned, he said he has four left the rest went to elderly neighbors or friends who are first responders or who work in nursing homes.
Prepping," he said, "isnt about being selfish."
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First and foremost: Early and persistent testing helps. And so does tracking people.
Take the countrys first recorded case. On Jan. 28, a man in Bavaria who works for a car parts company that has two plants in Wuhan, China, was confirmed to have the virus. Within two days, the authorities identified the person who had infected the patient, tracked his contacts and quarantined them. The company stopped travel to China and shut down its plant in Bavaria. The outbreak several other employees tested positive was effectively contained. Across the country, the pattern was repeated. Local health departments and federal authorities worked together to test, track and quarantine exposed citizens.
Germany has also been better at protecting its older residents, who are at much greater risk. States banned visits to the elderly, and policymakers issued urgent warnings to limit contact with older people. Many seem to have quarantined themselves. The results are clear: Patients over the age of 80 make up around 3 percent of the infected, though they account for 7 percent of the population. The median age for those infected is estimated to be 46; in Italy, its 63.
And many more young people in Germany have tested positive for the virus than in other countries. In part, thats attributable to the countrys more extensive testing. But theres also an element of chance and culture. Germany is a skiing nation around 14.5 million Germans go skiing every year and the Austrian and northern Italian Alps are popular locations. This year, after vacationers traveled to one of the centers of the European outbreak, Tyrol, they seemed to bring back the virus with them and spread it.
Closer to home, theres carnival. One of the most substantial early outbreaks occurred at one of the centers of carnival, which involves parades and parties, popular with the young. Hundreds of cases seem to be traceable to a couple who took part in festivities in the town of Langbroich. Both skiing and carnival may have affected the low average age of the first wave of confirmed cases, said Karl Lauterbach, a physician and a member of the Bundestag.
Both early testing and incubation of the virus among the young go part of the way in explaining why the countrys fatality rate is so comparatively low. Its how much and whom we test, Martin Strmer, a virologist who is the director of a lab that is running coronavirus testing in Frankfurt, told me. In general, countries that test less and reserve it for those already very ill, like Italy, have higher fatality rates.
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Just one day after the U.S. surpassed100,000 confirmed coronavirus cases, the nation witnessed another grim figure: More than 2,000 COVID-19 patients have died.
Testing continues to expand across the nation, and the U.S. is seeing daily spikes in the number of reported cases. Nearly 500 coronavirus-related deaths were reported Saturday, up from 1,544 confirmed deaths24 hours earlier,according toJohns Hopkins University's data dashboard.
The death toll was 2,010 Saturday shortly after 6 p.m. ET. That number is expected to rise steadily in the coming days and weeks, and health officials say the number of cases is likely higher due to lack of testing. Nearly 18,000 new cases were reported on both Wednesday and Thursday, according to Johns Hopkins.
More than 120,000 cases have been reported in the U.S.
Cases have been reported in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands. New York has reported the most deaths, followed by Washington, New York and Louisiana, according to Johns Hopkins.
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Health care facilities are stretched thin, and states and cities across the country have instituted shelter-in-place and stay-at-home orders in an effort to curb the spread of COVID-19.
Around the globe, more than 30,000 people have died, and more than 657,000 have been confirmed to have COVID-19. More than 200 countries, areas and territories have reported cases, according to the World Health Organization.
Follow Grace Hauck on Twitter @grace_hauck.
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