Category: Corona Virus

As stressful as it always is for students applying to college, this year it's all that and then some for the admissions officials trying to decide whether to admit them. Because of the pandemic, many students will be applying without standardized test scores and several other metrics admissions officers at selective schools have long relied on, leaving colleges scrambling to figure out what else they might consider instead.

"So many things that were sacred in the college admissions process may not be sacred anymore," said Angel Prez, CEO of the National Association for College Admissions Counseling, and former head of admissions at Trinity College in Connecticut. "Colleges and universities are reinventing a process that hasn't changed in over 50 years in the span of a couple of months [...] and they don't have another choice."

Indeed, students' applications may be missing not only SAT and ACT scores, but also a semester or two of grades, since schools switched to pass/fail grading when they went online, or closed altogether. Schools will also have to make do without a semester's worth or more of extracurricular activities sports, band, theater, volunteering and anything else that would help distinguish applicants from one another.

The near-panic is reverberating on campuses around the nation, where deans are used to taking much more staid and studied steps.

"This definitely is a little bit of a revolution," said Shawn Abbott, vice provost for admissions, financial aid and enrollment management at Temple University.

"We're careening down a very different path of the mountain, that we're not used to, at the same time that the ground is still shifting underneath us," said Kedra Ishop, who just left her post heading up admissions for the University of Michigan to become vice president for enrollment management at the University of Southern California.

"I don't even know where to begin," Jeff Schiffman, director of undergraduate admissions at Tulane University, said with a sigh. "We're going to have to hit the reset button hard on this one. It's going to take a compete retraining of how we review applications and what we're looking for. We're kind of figuring it out as we go."

Further complicating the question, students will be missing different pieces of applications, so the review won't be the same for everyone. And while not having test scores won't hurt a student, schools said, having good scores could certainly help.

"We've asked students to give us what they might have available to them," Ishop said. "So we may not normally use [Advanced Placement] scores, or writing samples, but we've told the students give us what you think best represents you in an academic space and let us see what we can do with that."

By most accounts, students' recommendations and their essays will get a closer read. And admissions officers will pore over transcripts looking for academic rigor and any patterns that help bear out a student's academic profile. They'll be working overtime trying to triangulate each piece of the application they have, to make up for what they don't.

"The time and intensity that will be involved in the upcoming year is terrifying," Abbott said. With some 35,000 applications expected to come in without standardized test scores or "a nice, easy, clean grade-point average that we can hang our hat on," admissions officers will have to "take a deeper dive into each file and dig deeper into each candidate."

But here's a tip for students thinking about their essays this year: Schools said they should think twice before submitting 650 words on "How I Spent My COVID-19 Staycation." As Tulane's Schiffman cautioned, COVID fatigue is real.

"I'll use myself as example. I've had to cancel my wedding four times," he said, with a laugh. "Everyone is going through something, so I don't think [admissions] folks are going to want to relive it over and over and over again with 45,000 applications."

Schiffman is quick to add, however, that admissions officers understand the pandemic has created truly extenuating circumstances for many students, and they will be paying close attention to a new short question about how it's affected students that has been added to this year's Common Application.

"We're real people who are also experiencing COVID," said Whitney Soule, senior vice president, dean of admissions and student aid at Bowdoin College in Maine. "We're also worried about people we love who are sick. We're also not able to see people that we need to see or go places we really need to go. We're living with a lot of the same stresses. So we understand what [students] will be telling us, and we're sensitive to it, and we care about it."

Some schools, such as Tulane, are adding a new interview option, hoping to fill in for the face-to-face encounters that used to happen at college fairs and recruiting trips to schools.

Other colleges, such as Bowdoin, are leaning on more innovative options. Fortuitously, it recently launched a new element to its application, offering students the chance to give an impromptu answer to a short question, such as "When is the last time you felt inspired and how did you proceed?" or "If you had no Internet or phone for the afternoon, what would you do?"

When the app flashes the question, students have 30 seconds to think, and two minutes to answer, as the app video records the whole thing. As intimidating as it sounds, students generally take a laid-back approach, videotaping in their kitchen as their mom walks by, outside sporting a Bowdoin sweatshirt, or even kicking back in bed.

"They're 17-year-olds who are answering a question on the fly," Soule said. "They can't prepare for it. They can't get advice. They can't polish it."

Her team loves having such an authentic glimpse into how students think, what motivates them or their sense of humor. "It's really hard to bomb," Soule said, and every video tells the team a lot about an applicant.

"Just the mere fact that a student's willing to do it is impressive," she said. "That in itself says something important about the student."

With that kind of extra tool, and as one of those colleges that had already made SAT and ACT test scores optional, Bowdoin is a step ahead of many other schools forced to go cold turkey this year.

"I just got off a Zoom [call] with most of my admissions directors, and they're all looking a little green at the prospect of what's before them," said Jonathan Burdick, vice provost for enrollment at Cornell University. The admissions team will be hunkered down for a couple of months of training, he said. But ultimately, Burdick said he believes the pandemic-forced experiment, along with the current national focus on racial equality and justice, is going to turn out to be "a true blessing" for admissions.

"I think there's actually a tremendous opportunity here to wed the deep interest in a more diverse, more interesting student body, and the opportunity to reconsider afresh what makes a student outstanding and well-prepared for Cornell," he said. "That's a good revolution."

One change many colleges are considering is to put more focus on students' character. The "character movement" has been growing for a while, but the pandemic is fueling interest among many, including Abbott.

"We're thinking about how we might extract characteristics that we would value at Temple, something perhaps like citizenship, or social justice, or tenacity," he said. "I think probably every college and university in America right now is having that kind of soul-searching conversation."

Indeed, this past spring, the agenda planned for the annual conference of the Common Application was quickly scrapped and replaced with sessions for admissions officials on how to consider "personal qualities" in the application process. The keynote speaker was Angela Duckworth, the University of Pennsylvania professor famous for her work on "grit" and other "character skills," "life skills" or "noncognitive skills."

"Whatever you call them, the take-home message is these things matter, and in some cases, matter as much as IQ," she told the gathering over Zoom. Duckworth urged schools to pinpoint first what character skills they value most and then advised how they might begin to mine students' applications for hints of those, such as through extracurricular activities and teacher recommendations. But she also warned them not to count on any convenient character yardstick anytime soon.

"I think challenges are enormous," Duckworth said. "We're really in the early, early stages of the measurement of personal qualities, and there is no panacea."

That's been frustrating for schools that have been early adherents to the character movement, such as Swarthmore College, which has been trying to suss out students with intellectual curiosity, for example, and creativity, generosity and problem-solving skills. Jim Bock, vice president and dean of admissions, said so far it's based on more of a "feel" than any real measure. "We've always valued [those characteristics.] But how do you grade it? We struggle with that."

Prez of the National Association for College Admissions Counseling said he is optimistic better tools will come, and more schools will buy into the idea that students deserve credit for skills such as persistence, willingness to take risks and the ability to overcome adversity. In the long term, it's key to his hopes for a "complete reinvention" of the admissions process that will expand college access and diversity in admissions. He said the pandemic has already proven that schools can pivot faster than many thought, and he hopes that ultimately hastens further changes. For the short term, however, he worries.

"My biggest concern for next year is 'Are we going to widen the gap in higher education for those students that are disadvantaged in our society?' And I think the answer is 'yes,' " Prez said.

It's true, Prez noted, that some changes this year may make the playing field a bit more level. Among them are the de-emphasis on standardized tests, which many see as biased, and the move to virtual visits, which erases the edge long enjoyed by students who could afford to travel for campus tours, and those fortunate enough to attend the high schools that college recruiters tend to visit.

But, on the other hand, wide discrepancies in access to the Internet, and to college guidance counselors tend to exacerbate inequities. Already, it seems to have driven a drop in students filing for federal student aid. USC's Ishop said schools need to work out new ways to make sure those students are engaged and supported.

"It'd be easy to take the easy way out, which is [to say], 'That doesn't work in this environment, and so we're not going to do it.' Instead, we really do have to double down on those efforts, even though they may be a bit more difficult," Ishop said.

Another challenge for schools this year may be managing what could be a significant aberration in the number or quality of applications they get. It's unclear if applications will go up or down, Swarthmore's Bock said. "Students [may] submit less because they couldn't actually see campuses [in person]," he said, or because of financial constraints due to the pandemic. Or, they may "hedge their bets and submit more."

Temple's Abbott said he thinks it may be the latter. Without ACTs or SATs as a "reality check," he said he believes more students may have inflated ambitions and may be more tempted to "throw their hat into the ring" at more "reach" schools.

Given all the uncertainty, colleges said they may look more closely for signs that a student is truly interested in their school. And some said they may lean more heavily on early decision applicants this year. But even that is uncertain. The early applicant pool may be more competitive this year, if it swells with students who are also sick of uncertainty.

And some colleges said they may be more skittish about early acceptances this year; given what's already missing from students' transcripts, they may end up deferring more early applicants, and waiting for their fall semester grades, just to be sure.

Still, schools said students may emerge the winners from all this turmoil. While schools are bracing for a rough year, the net-net for students may be a unique opportunity, as those who might have been "prematurely judged" on less-than-stellar SAT or ACT scores may now get a more careful consideration.

"We really haven't historically gone to that level of minutia detail in evaluating one's candidacy for admission," Abbott said. "Now, we're sort of going to have to, and [students are] going to get a closer look and a chance to stand out in [the] admissions process through other attributes."

Mike Riley, executive director of the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers, agrees. He said he doesn't expect colleges to "get this right in one admissions cycle." But he said he takes heart in the progress already underway and also hopes this year's forced experiment will bring longer-lasting changes.

"Once campuses find that those students do just fine, and the sky doesn't fall without standardized tests, this could eventually become the norm," Riley said.

Continued here:

How The Coronavirus Has Upended College Admissions - NPR

A North Carolina dog that died after suffering an "acute illness" earlier this month has tested positive for coronavirus, officials said Monday.

The death could mark a rare, potentially fatal case of COVID-19 in a pet, though it's still unclear if there were other underlying conditions that contributed to its death.

The dog was brought to the NC State Veterinary Hospital in Raleigh on Aug. 3 after showing signs of respiratory distress earlier that day, the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services said in a statement.

The person who brought the animal to the hospital told staff members that a family member had previously tested positive for coronavirus, though a later test returned negative results, the department said.

Citing patient confidentiality, the department did not provide additional information about the dog or the person who brought it to the hospital.

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The dog died the same day, a department spokeswoman said. Samples taken from the dog that were tested in a diagnostic lab returned a positive result, a result confirmed by the U.S. Department of Agricultures National Veterinary Services Laboratory, the statement said.

Investigators were still trying to determine why it died, the statement said.

Only a handful of animals in the United States have contracted the disease, according to a list maintained by the Department of Agriculture. Most of those infections have occurred after contact with people who had coronavirus, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The department says the risk of animals spreading the disease to people remains low.

As of Aug. 7, when the agriculture departments list was last updated, it had confirmed 13 cases among dogs in eight states, including an earlier positive antibody test in North Carolina. Several cats have also contracted the disease, according to the list. So did eight lions and tigers at the Bronx Zoo.

Last month, National Geographic reported that the first dog to test positive in the United States a 7-year-old German shepherd from New York named Buddy died on July 11, six weeks after he was confirmed to have the disease.

The magazine reported that Buddy had lymphoma when he died and its unclear how much the cancer and the virus contributed to his death.

Michael San Filippo, a spokesman for the American Veterinary Medical Association, said most dogs that have contracted the disease are asymptomatic or show only slight signs of infection.

That "seems to indicate that this is not a major problem for dogs," he said. "But we have more to learn, like how it might combine with other conditions to cause more serious problems. Were still advising caution with keeping pets away from people who are ill, and to practice social distancing with your pet and other pets and people outside your household."

Tim Stelloh is a reporter for NBC News, based in California.

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North Carolina dog that died after 'acute' illness tests positive for coronavirus - NBC News

MEXICO CITY A gray Suzuki stopped outside the General Hospital of Mexico and deposited a heaving Victor Bailn at the entrance. He had refused to come to the hospital for days, convinced that doctors were killing coronavirus patients. By the time he hobbled into the triage area and collapsed on the floor, it was too late.

Papito, breathe! his wife screamed. Please breathe.

Within an hour, Mr. Bailn was dead.

Mexico is battling one of the worst coronavirus outbreaks in the world, with more than 52,000 confirmed deaths, the third-highest toll of the pandemic. And its struggle has been made even harder by a pervasive phenomenon: a deeply rooted fear of hospitals.

The problem has long plagued nations overwhelmed by unfamiliar diseases. During the Ebola epidemic in 2014, many in Sierra Leone believed that hospitals had become hopeless death traps, leading sick people to stay home and inadvertently spread the disease to their families and neighbors.

Here in Mexico, a similar vicious cycle is taking place. As the pandemic crushes an already weak health care system, with bodies piling up in refrigerated trucks, many Mexicans see the Covid ward as a place where only death awaits to be avoided at all cost.

The consequences, doctors, nurses and health ministers say, are severe. Mexicans are waiting to seek medical care until their cases are so bad that doctors can do little to help them. Thousands are dying before ever seeing the inside of a hospital, government data show, succumbing to the virus in taxis on the way there or in sickbeds at home.

Fighting infections at home may not only spread the disease more widely, epidemiologists say, but it also hides the true toll of the epidemic because an untold number of people die without ever being tested and officially counted as coronavirus victims.

Many Mexicans say they have good reason to be wary of hospitals: Nearly 40 percent of people hospitalized with confirmed cases of the virus in Mexico City, the epicenter of the nations outbreak, end up dying, government data show, a high mortality rate even when compared with some of the worst coronavirus hot spots worldwide. During the peak of the pandemic in New York City, less than 25 percent of coronavirus patients died in hospitals, studies have estimated.

While the statistic may be imprecise because of limited testing, doctors and researchers confirmed that a startling number of people are dying in Mexicos hospitals.

During a surge of cases in May, almost half of all Covid-19 deaths in Mexico City hospitals occurred within 12 hours of the patients being admitted, said Dr. Oliva Lpez Arellano, Mexico Citys health minister.

In the United States, people who died typically made it five days in the hospital.

Doctors say more patients would survive if they sought help earlier. Delaying treatment, they argue, simply leads to more deaths in hospitals which then generates even more fear of hospitals.

The distrust is so pronounced that relatives of patients in Ecatepec, a municipality outside Mexico City, stormed a hospital in May, attacking its employees, filming themselves next to bags of corpses and telling reporters that the institution was killing their loved ones.

After seeing videos of what happens to people inside hospitals, screw that, said Mr. Bailns brother, Jos Eduardo, who had recently spent 60 days at home recovering from his own bout with what he believes was the coronavirus. Id rather stay home and die there.

But many people who die at home in Mexico or even on the way to the hospital are never tested for the virus, so they are not counted as coronavirus victims. Instead, they fall into a statistical black hole of fatalities that are not officially tied to the pandemic.

Even by the official count, Mexico has already suffered more coronavirus deaths than any other nation but the United States and Brazil. And the government said recently that during a period of over three months this spring, there were 71,000 more deaths than expected, compared with previous years an indication that the virus has claimed many more lives than the official tally suggests.

Adding to the confusion, political leaders here, as in many countries, have sown doubts about the virus and the need to seek medical care. The hugely popular president, Andrs Manuel Lpez Obrador, said he uses religious amulets and his clean conscience to protect against the coronavirus, and he has advocated fighting the pandemic at home, with the help of families, rather than in hospitals.

Nearly 70 percent of Mexicans said they would feel unsafe taking their loved ones to the hospital during the pandemic, in a survey published last month. A third said they would prefer to care for their relatives themselves.

Now the nations top health officials have begun pleading with Mexicans to stop resisting medical care.

Its very important that late care doesnt contribute to death, Hugo Lpez-Gatell, the health official leading the countrys response to the virus, said at a news conference last month. Please, go to hospitals early, especially people who are most at risk.

Many are wary of the costs that come with a hospital stay. And in a country plagued by rampant government corruption, the fundamental distrust of the authorities often extends to doctors and nurses in public hospitals.

At the General Hospital in Mexico City, where Mr. Bailn died, suspicion was running high. No one had wanted to come to the hospital, a place that seemed to swallow their loved ones and leave them outside, with few updates to calm the nerves. Everyone had a theory about the real cause of the virus and the destruction it had unleashed.

Modesto Gmez, whose wife was inside, heard the government was letting elderly people die of the virus because they had expensive pensions. Hctor Mauricio Ortega, whose father was intubated there with a Covid infection, said he believed doctors were purposely infecting people with the virus because countries have a quota of people who need to die every year.

Ral Prez woke up in a panic on the benches outside the entrance. It was his 16th day sleeping there after his sister went in for brain surgery.

He said he had met seven families of patients who had come in for another illness and then died of the coronavirus.

People think maybe theyre injecting them with something or killing them in there, he said.

Mr. Prez didnt believe the rumors at first, but then doctors told him that his sister, who was still intubated after her brain surgery, had tested positive for coronavirus. Now he was frantic, calling all of his relatives, telling them the hospital wanted his sister dead.

They are letting people get infected, he said. They just want to get rid of one more patient.

Dr. Lpez, Mexico Citys health minister, said that rumors of malicious medical practices had been widespread. Doctors were supposedly stealing the fluid from peoples knees, or trading their fingerprint data gleaned from oximeter readings.

There was a big fake news campaign spreading rumors that health workers were attacking people inside hospitals, profiting from their death, she said.

Dr. Ernesto Nepomuceno said that in his clinic in Iztapalapa, a poor neighborhood in Mexico City, doctors perform oximeter readings on themselves to show patients that they are measuring oxygen levels, not recording personal data.

We have to make great efforts to put people at ease, Dr. Nepomuceno said.

Two days before Mr. Bailn was wheeled into the General Hospitals intensive care unit, he visited a doctor in his tiny hometown an hour outside the capital. His oxygen levels were low, but he begged his wife, Fabiola Palma Rodrguez, not to drive him to the hospital.

Please dont take me there, I dont want to die, she recalled him telling her. By the time Mr. Bailn relented, he was already ravaged by the disease.

After a local hospital turned him away, he made the trip to Mexico City. He died on a stretcher in the General Hospital, Ms. Palma said, before doctors could intubate him.

I would have taken him earlier, but we were both too scared, Ms. Palma said. It is so unfair. I took him there alive and brought him back home dead the same day.

Aurora Arzate Nieves died on the same day as Mr. Bailn, in the same hospital, about 30 hours after being admitted. The matriarch of a tightly knit Mexican family, Ms. Arzate, 83, was known for her green mole dish and strong will. Her sons practically had to drag her to the hospital.

That decision was tormenting Eduardo Gutirrez Arzate as he said a final goodbye to his mother, who was zipped into a bag inside a Ford minivan converted into a hearse by a funeral company near the hospital.

Pawing at the window, Mr. Gutirrez begged his mother to wake up.

I felt really guilty when I saw her, he said, standing outside the crematory, black smoke billowing overhead.

She was scared of everything having to do with the coronavirus and of hospitals, where shed be surrounded by depressed people, instead of by her family.

I asked her in that moment to forgive me, he said. I asked her to forgive me for taking her to the hospital.

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Mexicos Coronavirus Struggle Worsened by Fear of Hospitals - The New York Times

Notre Dame President Apologizes for Photos

Aug. 11, 7:20 a.m. Rev. John I. Jenkins, president of the University of Notre Dame, has apologized for letting several students take photographs of him that were not safe.

"In a few instances, over recent days, I stopped for photos with some of you on the quad," Father Jenkins wrote to students. "While all of the scientific evidence indicates that the risk of transmission is far lower outdoors than indoors, I want to remind you (and myself!) that we should stay at least six feet apart. I recognize that it's not easy, particularly when we are reuniting with such great friends. I am sorry for my poor example, and I am recommitting to do my best. I am confident you will too."

--Scott Jaschik

Financial Aid Applications Lag for Low-Income Students

Aug. 10, 12:45 p.m. Applications for federal and state financial aid for college are a leading indicator of how many students will enroll in and complete a college degree. A University of Michigan study shows that those applications have not increased with the additional need created by the coronavirus pandemic

The study found no increases in Michigan in students filling out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid and the Tuition Incentive Program, Michigan's largest state scholarship program for low-income students.

"It is worrying that we haven't seen any aid application expansion, and particularly that the gaps based on race or school income level have widened. FAFSA and TIP completion rates would need to be even higher than normal to keep up with the challenges created by the pandemic," said Kevin Stange, associate professor at the Ford School of Public Policy.

-- Scott Jaschik

Report: Big Ten Votes to Cancel Football Season

Aug. 10, 12:06 p.m. University presidents in the Big Ten Conference, one of the NCAA Division I "Power Five" conferences, voted to cancel the 2020 football season, The Detroit Free Press reported. The conference had originally planned for conference-only competition, but has faced increased pressure over the last week from athletes organizing to improve health and safety measures for play amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Other Power Five conferences, which include the country's top college athletics programs, are expected to make announcements about the fall season early this week, ESPN reported. Division II and III leaders decided last week that they would cancel fall athletic championships, and the first conference in the Football Bowl Subdivision, the Mid-American Conference, postponed fall sports on Aug. 8.

-- Greta Anderson

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Live Updates: Latest News on Coronavirus and Higher Education - Inside Higher Ed

A huge wave of evictions is gathering pace across the US, with tens of millions of people facing the looming prospect of being ejected from their homes with the expiry of federal government protections.

A moratorium on evictions from most federally backed housing, along with a $600-a-week unemployment benefit, helped ensure many Americans avoided being made homeless from an economic crash sparked by the coronavirus pandemic.

But these protections expired at the end of July and a slew of evictions are starting to unfurl across the country, while party leaders are at an impasse over further economic relief and a slew of stopgap measures from Donald Trump are on an uncertain path.

A picture shared widely on the internet described eviction cairns in New Orleans, showing belongings heaped beside the road, reportedly from a family of six that had been evicted from their home after being unable to pay rent.

According to the Aspen Institute, a non-profit thinktank, at least 30 million Americans out of the 110 million who live in rental housing are at risk of eviction by the end of September.

The organization warned the Covid-19 crisis will cause long-term harm to renter families and individuals, disruption of the affordable housing market and destabilization of communities across the United States.

The lapsing of eviction protections means that many people, unable to afford rent or mortgages, have been plunged into a precariously vulnerable situation. Theres tremendous urgency, Diane Yentel, president of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, told NPR. There are millions of renters who cant sleep at night because they dont know what theyre going to do if they become homeless.

The fresh disaster to stem from the pandemic is set to reach all corners of the US. A study by UCLA found that as many as 120,000 households in Los Angeles county, including up to 184,000 children, will probably become homeless when evictions resume.

Meanwhile, in South Carolina, 52% of renters cannot afford their rent and risk eviction, with about 185,000 evictions possible across the state by the end of the year, according to Stout Risius Ross, a consultancy firm.

A lot of the safety net things that people relied on are gone, said John Pollock, coordinator of the National Coalition for a Civil Right to Counsel. Stripped of federal assistance, and with many states also scaling back help, many people are having to rely upon savings or credit in order to retain their homes.

On Saturday, Trump signed an executive order on evictions that the White House said would address the situation. In the action, the president vowed to defer payroll taxes, waive student loan payments and secure unemployment benefits, albeit at a lower rate of $400 a week. The order also pledged to help renters facing eviction, although all of the measures were provisional on other actions or studies, and sowed confusion and controversy about certainty and timescale.

Im protecting people from eviction, Trump said on Saturday. Youve been hearing a lot about eviction, and the Democrats dont want to do anything having to do with protecting people from eviction.

However, the order doesnt actually extend the moratorium on evictions, nor provide any rental assistance to those unable to pay. Instead, it orders federal agencies, such as the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, to look at options for protecting renters. Housing advocates attacked the order as a toothless gesture.

The president alluded to stopping evictions, but the executive order fails to provide any meaningful relief to the millions of renters who are at risk of losing their homes, Yentel said. President Trump failed even to use his existing authority to reinstate the limited federal eviction moratorium that expired on July 24, which covered 30% of renters nationwide.

Deferring evictions is only one part of the action required, advocates argue. Even though many landlords have been barred from removing renters unable to pay until now, the owed amount of rent has continued to accumulate, meaning that tenants will face a huge bill once protections are lifted. About half of landlords are small, family-run operations, meaning that they, along with renters, may require substantial financial assistance to avoid ruin.

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Wave of evictions sweeps US amid impasse over coronavirus protections - The Guardian

How are you doing financially as the coronavirus economy drags on into fall? We're listening. LA Johnson/NPR hide caption

How are you doing financially as the coronavirus economy drags on into fall? We're listening.

It has been about five months since the U.S. economy ground to a halt, thanks to stay-at-home orders imposed to stop the spread of the coronavirus. NPR wants to know how the pandemic has affected your job situation, your household finances, your business if you have one and your ability to juggle work and child care.

Millions of people have had to seek unemployment benefits, business loans and other help to deal with the economic turmoil. Some employers have permanently closed their doors. And some schools are telling families to prepare again for distance learning.

As fall approaches, we want to know: How are you coping?

Please fill out the form below. An NPR reporter may contact you for a story.

Your submission will be governed by our general Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. As the Privacy Policy says, we want you to be aware that there may be circumstances in which the exemptions provided under law for journalistic activities or freedom of expression may override privacy rights you might otherwise have.

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Tell Your Story: How Are You Coping In The Coronavirus Economy? - NPR

The number means the country holds about a quarter of global cases of the virus and also tops the list with the most reported deaths in the world. Of the country's 5,036,387 estimated cases, 162,851 have been deadly, according to data collected by John Hopkins University.

To put the number in perspective, that means the United States has had more Covid-19 cases than Ireland has people. The number of cases is also slightly higher than the entire population of Alabama.

To put the speed in which the number is growing in perspective: It took the country 99 days to reach 1 million, 43 days to hit 2 million, 28 days for 3 million and 15 days to surpass 4 million on July 23. The number has jumped to 5 million in 17 days.

"This is such a sobering number," said Dr. William Schaffner, a professor of infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University.

"That's a huge number of cases and a very large number of hospitalizations and deaths -- and more to come," Schaffner said. "Because over much of this country, this virus is spreading unimpeded because so many folks are not getting with the program to contain it."

As of this week, five states account for more than 40% of US infections: California (with the most cases in the country), Florida, Texas, New York and Georgia.

"Our daily numbers remain low and steady, despite increasing infection rates across the country, and even in our region -- and we had the lowest one-day positive rate since we started," Gov. Andrew Cuomo said in a statement Sunday. "That's an incredible achievement, all thanks to the hard work of New Yorkers."

Florida reported 6,190 new cases on Sunday -- the 13th consecutive day the state reported more than 6,000 cases, according to CNN's tally. There are more than 527,000 cases among residents in the state, according to the state Department of Health.

In Texas, the governor extended his disaster declaration as the state reported its highest seven-day positivity rate: 19.41%. The previous high, 17.43%, was recorded around mid-July. More than 481,000 infections have been reported statewide and about 7,872 people remain in hospitals.

Schools begin welcoming students back

Local school districts will decide what their reopenings will look like, whether they choose to return in-person, conduct remote learning or opt for a hybrid model.

Officials will be "looking like hawks at the numbers," Carranza said. "If the numbers of the positivity rate start inching upwards and if it gets to 3%, we will remote learn for the entire system."

In Georgia, many schools have already reopened.

"I guarantee you, any number of people brought the virus to this event and it will spread among many of the participants and will be taken back to their homes where they will spread it further," Dr. Schaffner from Vanderbilt University told CNN on Sunday. "This is an accelerant of the outbreak that we're having in the United States today."

South Dakota has so far recorded one of the lowest number of cases with about 9,605 infections, according to Johns Hopkins data.

Dr. Carlos del Rio, an infectious disease professor at Emory University, isn't worried about the rally itself because it will mostly be outside, he said. Instead, he said he fears what will happen after hours, when people go to restaurants, bars and begin congregating indoors.

"I'm quite concerned that this event could potentially be a disaster," he said. "There could not only be a lot of transmission there, but a lot of people could get infected there and go back to their home states and take the virus over there."

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US tops 5 million Covid-19 cases, with five states making up more than 40% of tally - CNN

Confirmed cases of COVID-19 have now reached more than 20 million globally, according to Johns Hopkins University & Medicine. The number of confirmed coronavirus deaths now stands at more than 736,000.

The UK has reported its biggest job losses since 2009, after the number of people in work fell by 220,000 in the three months to June.

Japan's banks lent at a record pace in July. Regional lenders worked to boost small firms hit by the coronavirus pandemic, according to central bank data.

Mexico's coronavirus death toll has passed 53,000. The country reported 705 new deaths and 5,558 new cases on Monday it's reported more than 485,000 cases in total.

Singapore's recession was deeper than first thought in the second quarter, reports Reuters. The painful truth is this we are not returning to a pre-COVID world. Recovery will be some time yet, said trade minister Chan Chun Sing.

A retirement home in New Zealand as gone into lockdown, after residents displayed symptoms of respiratory disease.

Papua New Guinea is set to lift a two-week lockdown in its capital Port Moresby, despite reported cases doubling in the past week.

Confirmed deaths are now past 730,000.

Image: Our World in Data

2. Home working here to stay

Almost 80% of chief executives expect remote working to become more common as a result of COVID-19, according to a global survey from PwC.

A blend of office and home working is most likely to be the future norm, PwC UKs chairman Kevin Ellis said.

Companies around the world have shifted to remote working due to lockdown restrictions, and chief executives now expect some of this shift to persist in their own businesses, according to the survey. The research was based on responses from a panel of PwC's 3,500 global clients, surveyed from 15 June to 3 July.

The first global pandemic in more than 100 years, COVID-19 has spread throughout the world at an unprecedented speed. At the time of writing, 4.5 million cases have been confirmed and more than 300,000 people have died due to the virus.

As countries seek to recover, some of the more long-term economic, business, environmental, societal and technological challenges and opportunities are just beginning to become visible.

To help all stakeholders communities, governments, businesses and individuals understand the emerging risks and follow-on effects generated by the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, the World Economic Forum, in collaboration with Marsh and McLennan and Zurich Insurance Group, has launched its COVID-19 Risks Outlook: A Preliminary Mapping and its Implications - a companion for decision-makers, building on the Forums annual Global Risks Report.

The report reveals that the economic impact of COVID-19 is dominating companies risks perceptions.

Companies are invited to join the Forums work to help manage the identified emerging risks of COVID-19 across industries to shape a better future. Read the full COVID-19 Risks Outlook: A Preliminary Mapping and its Implications report here, and our impact story with further information.

3. Suppress, suppress, suppress

World Health Organization Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has issued a clear reminder of the steps and work that's needed in the fight against COVID-19.

To tackle the pandemic effectively, there are two essential elements, he said. "Leaders must step up to take action and citizens need to embrace new measures."

And, by looking at what other countries are doing, you can get a clear picture of what measures have been taken:

"Chains of transmission have been broken by combination of rapid case identification, comprehensive contact tracing, adequate clinical care for patients, physical distancing, mask wearing, regular cleaning of hands and coughing away from others," Dr Tedros said in a media briefing.

"Whether countries or regions have successfully eliminated the virus, suppressed transmission to a low level, or are still in the midst of a major outbreak; now is the time to do it all, invest in the basics of public health and we can save both lives and livelihoods."

Overall, the message is "crystal clear", he said. "Suppress, suppress, suppress the virus."

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COVID-19: What you need to know about the coronavirus pandemic on 11 August - World Economic Forum

Here's a breakdown of the actions, the many strings attached and questions about what they actually accomplish.

Trump described the memorandum signed Saturday as an action providing "an additional or extra $400 a week and expanded benefits."

But in reality, the additional unemployment aid is more complicated than the White House acknowledged and experts say it may not help a lot of the unemployed.

Under the previous unemployment benefit passed by Congress, millions of Americans received an additional blanket $600 a week from the federal government on top of their state unemployment benefits.

States have to chip in. Now, under Trump's measure, the federal government is requiring states to pick up the tab for 25% ($100) of the as much as $400 additional benefit each person may be able to receive weekly in additional aid. On top of that, a state must agree to enter into this financial agreement with the federal government for any unemployed person living there to get any of the additional benefits.

States are in dire financial straits. Many states have already asked the federal government for major financial help. Several experts told CNN there are major questions about how many states may be able to afford the extra cost.

If a state says that it does not have the funds or does want to enter into the agreement with the federal government, the unemployed person in that state receives zero dollars in extra federal benefits (they would still receive the normal state unemployment insurance).

In fact, states have asked Congress to provide them with an additional $500 billion to help shore up their budgets, which have been crushed by the loss of tax revenue amid the pandemic. This has been one of the main points of contention between Democrats, who want to allocate additional aid, and Republicans, who don't want to bail out what they say are badly managed states.

The millions of Americans who've filed for jobless benefits also have drained several states' unemployment benefits trust funds. Already, 10 states have borrowed nearly $20 billion from the Treasury Department to cover their share of payments, which typically last 26 weeks.

Requires a new system. Because Congress has not authorized an extension of extra federal unemployment assistance, the state will have to set up an entirely new system to deliver the additional aid.

"The state has to enter an agreement saying not only can they pay the benefit, but that they have some ability to administer the benefit," said Michelle Evermore, an unemployment expert at the National Employment Law Project.

Building a brand new program could take states months to accomplish, Evermore said. She added Trump needed to do it this way because "in order for states to administer a benefit it has to be authorized by Congress, so they can't use their administrative systems to pay a benefit that hasn't been authorized by Congress."

Few will be helped. Evermore, one of the nation's leading experts on unemployment, told CNN she considered the chances of this effort helping many of the newly unemployed due to Covid-19 "low."

Lastly, according to the memorandum, an individual can only receive the $300 federal benefit if he or she first qualifies for $100 in aid from their state. Evermore said this will cut out a large group of people. "There are so many problems with people getting a benefit under this," she said.

Evictions

The executive action signed by Trump does not reinstate the previous moratorium on evictions, which lapsed in July. The original ban covered mortgages which were backed by federal funds. The nonprofit Urban Institute has estimated that moratorium covered just over 12 million households.

Just something to consider. The new measure only states that "the Secretary of Health and Human Services and the Director of the CDC shall consider whether any measures temporarily halting residential evictions of any tenants for failure to pay rent are reasonably necessary to "prevent the further spread of COVID-19."

No money is set aside to help homeowners or renters. The action calls for the Housing and Urban Development and Treasury secretaries to identify "any and all Federal funds to provide temporary financial assistance to renters and homeowners" who are "struggling" to pay their mortgages and rents because of the coronavirus.

Experts told CNN that it was unclear based on the process laid out for government agencies how long it would take for anyone to see funding from this.

Payroll tax

A deferral, not a cut. The payroll tax measure that Trump signed Saturday does not actually reduce the payroll taxes. It defers the due date for the portion of those taxes paid by employees -- 6.2% for Social Security and 1.45% for Medicare -- through December 31. It applies to workers whose wages are less than $4,000 on a biweekly basis, or about $104,000 a year.

This is similar to Treasury's deferring the federal income tax due date this year to July 15, from April 15.

The payroll taxes would still be due. They would just have been delayed to the end of the deferment period. Companies may not want to stop withholding the employees' share of the taxes from their paychecks for that reason.

Trump also said that if he's reelected, he would seek to forgive the levy and make permanent cuts to the payroll taxes. But the power to change tax law lies with Congress, not the White House.

An idea rejected by Congress. Despite Trump's claims that it's popular, making changes to payroll taxes has not won many fans on either side of the political aisle in part because it wouldn't help the unemployed. Also, any cuts to the levies could hurt the finances of Social Security and Medicare, which are already under fiscal pressure.

When lawmakers temporarily reduced the payroll taxes in 2011, they reimbursed Social Security's trust fund out of general revenue.

Student loans

Trump's directive regarding student loans seems to be the one executive action of the four that will deliver the results as the administration said. This is the only area of the four which doesn't need funding from Congress, state governments or the private sector to fully implement.

An additional three months. The memorandum directs the Education Department to extend the student loan relief granted in the CARES Act until the end of the year.

Currently, loan payments are paused and interest is suspended on federally-held student loans until September 30.

Democrats have pushed for extending the relief for another year and making private student loans eligible.

In March, Trump waived student loan interest by executive order and the administration said borrowers could request a deferment on their payments. Congress later codified that policy into law and took it a step further by automatically suspending monthly payments.

See the article here:

Breaking down the executive actions Trump signed on coronavirus relief - CNN

Another 17 cases of the new coronavirus have been detected in Maine, health officials said Sunday.

Sundays report brings the total coronavirus cases in Maine to 4,042. Of those, 3,625 have been confirmed positive, while 417 were classified as probable cases, according to the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

New cases were reported in Piscataquis (1), Sagadahoc (1), Washington (1), Androscoggin (5), Cumberland (6) and York (3) counties, state data show.

The agency revised Saturdays cumulative total to 4,025, down from 4,026, meaning there was a net increase of one over the previous days report, state data show. As the Maine CDC continues to investigate previously reported cases, some are determined to have not been the coronavirus, or coronavirus cases not involving Mainers. Those are removed from the states cumulative total.

No new deaths were reported Sunday, leaving the statewide death toll at 125. Nearly all deaths have been in Mainers over age 60.

So far, 393 Mainers have been hospitalized at some point with COVID-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus. Of those, nine are currently hospitalized, with three in critical care and one on a ventilator.

Our charts tracking the numbers of active cases, recoveries and deaths both statewide and by county are updated daily.

Meanwhile, eight more people have recovered from the coronavirus, bringing total recoveries to 3,512. That means there are 405 active and probable cases in the state, which is up from 397 on Saturday.

A majority of the cases 2,222 have been in Mainers under age 50, while more cases have been reported in women than men, according to the Maine CDC.

As of Sunday, there have been 191,921 negative test results out of 197,666 overall. Just over 2.5 percent of all tests have come back positive, Maine CDC data show.

The coronavirus has hit hardest in Cumberland County, where 2,088 cases have been reported and where the bulk of virus deaths 69 have been concentrated. It is one of four counties the others are Androscoggin, Penobscot and York, with 563, 152 and 673 cases, respectively where community transmission has been confirmed, according to the Maine CDC.

There are two criteria for establishing community transmission: at least 10 confirmed cases and that at least 25 percent of those are not connected to either known cases or travel. That second condition has not yet been satisfied in other counties.

Other cases have been reported in Aroostook (33), Franklin (45), Hancock (35), Kennebec (170), Knox (27), Lincoln (35), Oxford (53), Piscataquis (4), Sagadahoc (56), Somerset (33), Waldo (62) and Washington (13) counties.

As of Sunday morning, the coronavirus has sickened 4,998,802 people in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands and the U.S. Virgin Islands, as well as caused 162,430 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University of Medicine.

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17 new coronavirus cases have been reported in Maine - Bangor Daily News