Category: Corona Virus

TOKYO As the world tries to get a handle on the coronavirus and emerge from paralyzing lockdowns, public health officials have repeated a mantra: test, test, test.

But Japan went its own way, limiting tests to only the most severe cases as other countries raced to screen as many people as possible. Medical experts worried that the approach would blind the country to the spread of infection, allowing cases to explode and swamping hospitals.

It hasnt happened. Japan the grayest country in the world and a popular tourist destination with large, crowded cities has one of the lowest mortality rates from Covid-19 among major nations. The medical system has not been overwhelmed. And the government never forced businesses to close, although many chose to.

This week, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe declared Japans battle against the outbreak a resounding success, taking the country off an emergency footing a sort of lockdown lite that lasted only a month and a half.

By doing things in a uniquely Japanese way, we were able to almost completely end this wave of infection, Mr. Abe said, adding that what he called the Japan model offered a path out of the global pandemic.

Its still unclear, though, exactly what accounts for Japans achievement and whether other countries can take lessons from its approach. Critics say Japan undercounted coronavirus deaths. And some warn that further waves of infection could undermine the governments self-congratulatory pronouncements.

Instead of testing widely to understand and limit the viruss spread through the general population, Japan has focused on quickly containing small outbreaks through contact tracing. Instead of dictating strict constraints on daily life, it has focused on educating people about measures like social distancing and gently prodding them to follow along.

Theories for the countrys relatively low mortality rate run the gamut from cultural attributes widespread mask wearing, a practice of regular hand washing, a near absence of physical greetings like hugs and handshakes to just plain luck.

A combination of many other factors, including government measures and changes in behavior among a public that feels strong pressure to follow the rules, could also be at work.

Individual actions may seem small or mundane, said Keiji Fukuda, an epidemiologist who directs the School of Public Health at the University of Hong Kong. But, he added, the cumulative impact of all of those efforts across the entire country to really implement some kind of distancing may have been substantial.

Whatever the formula, Japan has so far succeeded in keeping deaths low. The country has recorded fewer than 900 deaths even as the United States and European countries have reported tens of thousands.

Epidemiologists say widespread testing for the virus is important because it allows officials to isolate those who test positive, and to track trends in infection rates to help determine when it is safe to reopen schools, businesses and other places where people congregate.

Researchers at Harvard have said the goal should be to test nearly everyone who has at least mild flulike symptoms, as well as an average of 10 contacts for each person who tests positive.

Countries like South Korea and China that faced fast-growing outbreaks early in the pandemic quickly ramped up testing. China performed more than three times as many tests in Wuhan in a single day than those Japan has conducted nationwide since Feb. 18 about 455,000 tests on around 278,000 people.

Japan initially told people who suspected they were infected with the virus not to seek help unless they had experienced a fever for four days, or two days if they were over 65. Even some people with seemingly severe symptoms were refused, provoking theories that the government was trying to hide the true extent of the problem.

Medical experts said the guideline was intended to conserve hospital resources. A national law on infectious diseases mandated that anyone who tested positive, even those who were asymptomatic, had to be placed in one of the countrys few isolation wards, creating a strong disincentive for doctors to test patients with milder symptoms.

The Japanese government also said early on that test kits must be rationed because they were in short supply. That argument has since faded, however, as Japan has never used even half of its testing capacity on any given day, and it has increased its testing capacity to just over 24,000 a day.

Japan has since eased its rules to allow those who test positive but are asymptomatic to stay in hotels. It is preparing to begin limited testing for antibodies, hoping to get a better grasp of the number of people who have been infected. It also plans to introduce a smartphone app to help with contact tracing.

Despite the constrained testing for the virus, the rate of positive results has dropped below 1 percent, a fact that the governments expert panel on the virus says demonstrates that current testing levels are sufficient.

But a group of prominent Japanese academics, businesspeople and other figures has called on the government to take a much bolder step: build a capacity of 10 million tests a day and offer testing to anyone who wants it. Consecutive negative results, the group argues, could allow people to fully resume social and economic activities.

As the country has seemingly defied the odds, many public health experts, including some in the government, have warned against drawing any definite conclusions from Japans experience.

They caution that Japan is not in the clear yet, and that a second or third wave of infections could strike at any time. As more data on deaths from this year becomes available there are indications that Tokyo has undercounted dozens of coronavirus deaths the picture may not look quite as good.

Some say Japan may have a large hidden population of asymptomatic cases. Shigeru Omi, the deputy head of the governments expert panel on the coronavirus, told lawmakers that the real number of infections could be as much as 10 or 20 times as high as currently believed. Japan has reported fewer than 17,000 cases, versus more than 1.7 million in the United States.

Norio Sugaya, an infectious diseases expert at Keiyu Hospital in Yokohama, noted that Japans mortality rate, while vastly lower than those in hard-hit countries like Spain or Britain, is one of the worst in Asia.

In February, an outbreak of the virus aboard the cruise ship Diamond Princess left officials scrambling. The response was widely seen as a disaster, but health experts turned it into a learning opportunity.

Epidemiologists and public health experts used the data from the ship to help develop a framework for stopping the viruss spread in Japan.

The approach emphasized reducing peoples exposure to the conditions that led the pathogen to spread on the ship. A public education campaign urged people to avoid the Three Cs closed spaces with poor ventilation, crowded places and close contact.

On TV talk shows, hosts took a no question is too stupid approach to talking about the virus, assuaging viewers anxiety and stressing the basic science of prevention: wash your hands, wear a mask, keep your distance from others.

At the same time, community health centers raced to investigate clusters using a monitoring system that had been developed to trace cases of influenza and tuberculosis.

Another key factor may have been Mr. Abes decision to close schools in late February, well before almost any other country. The decision was hugely unpopular, but it appears to have provoked an almost instantaneous change in behavior, according to polling conducted by researchers at Hiroshima University.

The day after the announcement, the percentage of people who were avoiding crowded places nearly doubled, rising to almost 60 percent. By mid-March, it was over 75, the study found.

In April, as cases began to spike, Mr. Abe declared a state of emergency. Businesses were requested to close or reduce their hours. People were asked to make only necessary trips. There were no penalties, but many complied anyway.

Makoto Sasho, 50, decided to close his grilled eel restaurant in the Meguro neighborhood of Tokyo and focus on delivery and carryout, despite assurances from the government that businesses like his could continue table service.

We conformed to societys expectations of us, he said, adding that when I thought about the future, I knew we absolutely could not be responsible for a cluster.

As Japan now begins to reopen, some experts fear that people will begin to let down their guard.

In a speech on Monday night, Mr. Abe emphasized that the end of the state of emergency did not mean a return to normal life.

What we need to aim for, he said, is establishing a new normal.

Mr. Sasho said that his customers were clamoring for him to reopen, but that he was not sure he was ready.

Its a new way of life, he said. Maybe Ill just stick with delivery and takeout.

Motoko Rich contributed reporting.

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Testing Is Key to Beating Coronavirus, Right? Japan Has Other Ideas - The New York Times

As political leaders across the United States seek to make informed decisions about when to reopen based on inadequate scientific information, 2,500 men in an Ohio prison may hold the key to releasing the rest of the country from coronavirus lockdown.

Such widespread infection in our crowded prisons is a reminder of why we need decarceration. At the same time, it has created an opportunity for research that, if conducted ethically, could shed light on this disease at a time when testing of the general population remains limited and unreliable.

Some research has been conducted already. For example, an ongoing study by Harvard researchers and the National Commission on Correctional Health Care has measured the prevalence of Covid-19 among incarcerated people and correctional staff and revealed a lack of access to testing and personal protective equipment.

But much more is needed. A comprehensive health evaluation of a huge group like the Marion residents who have been universally exposed to the virus but arent necessarily showing symptoms, would provide data that is sorely lacking in existing studies that focus primarily on very sick people or death tolls. The findings could provide government officials, businesses and universities some of the answers they need in order to reopen safely.

In addition, this research could make more Americans recognize the humanity and potential of incarcerated people, which could ultimately help to end mass incarceration and the very conditions that allowed the spread of the coronavirus behind bars.

The very idea of conducting research on vulnerable populations has a deeply troubled history, most notably with the 1932 Tuskegee experiment, in which African- American men with syphilis were not treated for 40 years, long after treatment became available, so researchers could study the progression of the disease. The Nazis conducted ghastly experiments on prisoners, and U.S. medical researchers intentionally infected prisoners in Guatemala with sexually transmitted diseases.

Given this, any study based on prisoners must be conducted transparently and voluntarily, without exploitation, mistreatment, coercion or risks to the participants. It should also include monitors from prisoner advocacy and civil rights organizations. And it should seek to improve incarcerated peoples well-being by providing them with medical attention and care which are abysmal in most prisons and creating awareness about inhumane prison conditions.

This humanitarian crisis could have been prevented if officials had heeded warnings about the danger of contamination in overcrowded and unsanitary prisons. But this devastating reality also now allows scientists to better understand the effects of the coronavirus within a population that was overwhelmingly and recently exposed to it.

Researchers should therefore study and treat medically residents of the Marion Correctional Institution or a similar prison. This population is large enough to draw statistically significant conclusions, and their exposure was both recent and synchronous, which helps to overcome the problem of asymptomatic people not showing up in the testing data.

It seems a thorough study and analysis of incarcerated people could help to establish the proportions of these groups: 1) people who have not been infected (but still may be vulnerable, unless they are somehow immune or not susceptible); 2) people who are infected and asymptomatic (though likely carriers); 3) people with mild symptoms who have made or will make a full recovery; 4) people with severe symptoms that may result in lasting health damage; and 5) people who have died of Covid-19.

As of now, in society overall, there is no reliable way to estimate the percentage of people who would fall into these five categories, as most of the attention has focused on tracking the raw numbers in Categories 4 and 5. Yet Categories 1, 2, and 3 and especially a better understanding of the proportions across all five represent the key to a national recovery.

One remarkable observation already emerging from the prison data shows how beneficial such a study could be: an analysis by Reuters revealed that 96 percent of those who tested positive in prisons in four states did not experience any symptoms. Of course, it is perhaps early in the infection cycle, and health problems may still emerge. But even if, say, 60 percent of prisoners were in Categories 1 and 2, while most of the others were in Category 3, this would seem to support an earlier reopening. If, however, the final proportions showed that only 30 percent were in Categories 1 and 2, another 30 percent in Category 3, but a full 40 percent in Categories 4 and 5, then the findings would justify much greater caution and a delayed reopening until a vaccine materializes.

True, the U.S. prison population is not fully representative. But since Covid-19 seems to have more harmful effects on men, African-Americans and people with chronic health problems, the findings from a prison study might slightly overestimate and certainly wouldnt underestimate Covid-19s negative health consequences.

I recognize the irony that the countrys failure to protect prisoners now enables research that could protect non-prisoners. But any research on the Covid-19 health responses of incarcerated people should also draw attention to their humanity and desire to contribute, while further accelerating bipartisan criminal justice reform policies.

In this way, incarcerated people could not only help to guide an effective national liberation from the Covid-19 lockdown, but also contribute to much-needed decarceration.

Marc M. Howard (@marcmhoward) is professor of government and law at Georgetown University, and the founder and president of the Frederick Douglass Project for Justice.

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What Can We Learn from the Coronavirus in Prisons - The New York Times

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A van is parked under the front awning of Life Care Center of Casper on May 21. Mass testing of staff and residents did not find more cases beyond that of a resident who died after being hospitalized.

In fewer than 14 days, Wyoming officials have addressed potential and realized coronavirus clusters within at least three long-term care facilities and three childcare centers.

The various facilities in Fremont, Washakie, Natrona and Albany counties fell across the spectrum in terms of the severity of their spread. At Worland Healthcare Rehabilitation Center, three residents have died and more than 20 people directly tied to the nursing home have become infected. Multiple people remain hospitalized, as of Friday.

At Caspers Life Care Center, one resident was sick and died days after his infection was confirmed. As of Friday, there are no known other coronavirus cases tied to Life Care; a Natrona County health official said the deceaseds infection is not believed to be tied to his stay at Life Care, which officials described as brief.

A Riverton nursing home Wind River Rehabilitation and Wellness has had at least two staff members infected, a state health official said Friday morning. Fremont County continues to be the hardest-hit area of the state, with 244 of the states 682 confirmed cases. The disease there first presented in another long-term care facility, the states first identified cluster.

Three childcare facilities across the state have all been affected in the latter part of May. Caspers Learning Junction closed temporarily and reopened earlier this week after one child there tested positive; that case is believed to be tied to an outbreak at Wyoming Medical Center. Mass testing at that facility turned up no additional cases.

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Coronavirus found in several nursing homes, childcare facilities over past two weeks - Casper Star-Tribune

Welcome to Poll Watch, our weekly look at polling data and survey research on the candidates, voters and issues that will shape the 2020 election.

The coronavirus has completely overtaken American life and politics, but in polls, most people dont name it as their top voting issue.

Political observers agree that what happens with the virus over the next few months is likely to determine the outcome of the November presidential election, but what they really mean is this: President Trumps response to the virusand how its perceived will probably swing the election. Tied closely to that is how much the economy bounces back.

The two top interrelated issues right now are the state of the pandemic and the state of the economy, and its hard to separate the two, Whit Ayres, a Republican pollster, said in an interview. The real question is what it looks like come October.

In a Kaiser Family Foundation poll released this week, voters were markedly more likely to name traditional issues like health care, the economy and foreign policy as the ones theyll be voting on.

Still, 50 percent said the virus would be very important to their vote for president, and 72 percent said the pandemic would factor into their vote at least somewhat. When asked in an open-ended question what exactly they meant by that, the most common response was some variation of this: How Mr. Trump responds.

From early April to late May, the viruss death toll skyrocketed. Just over 50,000 people had been killed by the pandemic worldwide at the start of last month, but today the death toll in the United States alone is more than 100,000. In that time, governors have called on Mr. Trump to address testing deficiencies usually to no avail and he has often struck a defiant tone when asked why he isnt doing more.

Even among Republicans, approval of Mr. Trumps handling of the virus now runs a few percentage points behind their rating of his overall performanceas president.

Voters in the political middle, including a small share of Democrats who initially gave Mr. Trump the benefit of the doubt, have particularly lost faith in his handling of the crisis. In a Fox News poll published last week, just 29 percent of independent voters gave him positive marks on dealing with the pandemic.

His numbers have also flagged in polling matchups with Joseph R. Biden Jr., the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee; rare is the poll these days that finds Mr. Trump escaping the low 40s in a head-to-head scenario.

In back-to-back Fox polls, Mr. Trumps approval among registered voters on handling the pandemic fell by eight points from April to May; it now sits at 43 percent, roughly even with his 44 percent approval rating over all, according to Fox.

Basically, if you were for Mr. Trump before, you are probably still with him now. If you started out this year generally against him but willing to see how he led during the crisis, you have probably given up on that by now.

Still, it matters that Mr. Trump has proved to have a remarkably high floor. With the Republican establishment and the conservative news media firmly behind him, the president is unlikely to fall far below 40 percent approval. To finish strongly in November, he would need to win back between five and 10 points nationally, relying heavily on persuadable voters.

A lot of it has to do with where people will be economically going into the election, and who they will credit or blame for that, Thomas Sutton, a professor of political science at Baldwin Wallace University in Ohio who runs the universitys statewide poll, said in an interview. At this point in October, the unemployment rate will be less, Trump will claim credit for that, and Bidens got to run a really strong campaign with a countermessage to stop him from getting that credit and taking it to victory in Ohio.

Mr. Trump has historically enjoyed positive ratings on his handling of the economy. Of the five issues that Fox asked about in its latest poll, the economy was the only one on which voters did not generally say they would prefer to have Mr. Biden overseeing it.

The president has made it clear that he prioritizes restarting the economy soon, even if that means disregarding the warnings of his own health experts. With most states now moving forward with a partial reopening of public accommodations and businesses, Mr. Trump is eager to point to signs of economic life.

While unemployment has climbed to 14.7 percent and it is probably much higher than that, in reality the stock market has largely bounced back, and public confidence in a recovery is rising. Only 50 percent of Americans now say the worst days of the pandemic are ahead, down from three-fourths in early April.

And the Consumer Confidence Index, a polling measure of the national economic mood, finally stabilized this week after taking a historically steep plunge in the weeks before.

Youre not going to get a massive amount of economic growth in this time, but a psychological effect is the biggest thing, said Chuck Coughlin, a Republican-aligned consultant in Arizona whose firm recently published a poll in that swing state. People just beginning to feel positive about going out, beginning to socialize, seeing some restaurants open again: I think thats incredibly important for the general electoral prospects of Republicans.

While Mr. Trump has received increasingly middling reviews for his handling of the virus, many governors approval ratings have leapt. In poll after poll, Americans have been far more likely to give their state governments high marks on confronting the virus, even as they dont rate the federal governments work so well.

Many states heavily affected by the virus also happen to be swing states run by Democratic governors whose ratings have surged: Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania and North Carolina all fit that description. In two key states, Georgia and Florida, the inverse has occurred: The approval ratings of the Republican governors, both reluctant to enforce social-distancing measures, fell.

Very few of these governors in pivotal states are up for re-election in 2020, but their popularity or unpopularity could play a role in helping to drive enthusiasm and turnout within their parties.

There are a number of governors who, if they could run for re-election in November, would be untouchable, Mr. Ayres said. They have job approvals in the 70s and 80s.

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When Voters Discuss Coronavirus, Theyre Really Talking About Trump - The New York Times

A medical professional administers a coronavirus test at a drive-thru testing site run by George Washington University Hospital, on May 26, 2020 in Washington, D.C. Drew Angerer/Getty Images hide caption

A medical professional administers a coronavirus test at a drive-thru testing site run by George Washington University Hospital, on May 26, 2020 in Washington, D.C.

In April, New Orleans health officials realized their drive-through testing strategy for the coronavirus wasn't working. The reason? Census tract data revealed hot spots for the virus were located in predominantly low-income African-American neighborhoods where many residents lacked cars.

In response, officials have changed their strategy, sending mobile testing vans to some of those areas, says Thomas LaVeist, dean of Tulane University's School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine and co-chair of Louisiana's COVID-19 Health Equity Task Force.

"Data is the only way that we can see the virus," LaVeist says. "We only have indicators. We can't actually look at a person and tell who's been infected. So what we have is data right now."

Until a few weeks ago, racial data for COVID-19 was sparse. It's still incomplete, but now 48 states plus Washington D.C., report at least some data; in total, race or ethnicity is known for around half of all cases and 90% of deaths. And though gaps remain, the pattern is clear: Communities of color are being hit disproportionately hard by COVID-19.

Public health experts say focusing on these disparities is crucial for helping communities respond to the virus effectively so everyone is safer.

"I think it's incumbent on all of us to realize that the health of all of us depends on the health of each of us," says Dr. Alicia Fernandez, a professor of medicine at the University of California San Francisco, whose research focuses on health care disparities.

NPR analyzed COVID-19 demographic data collected by the COVID Racial Tracker, a joint project of the Antiracist Research & Policy Center and the COVID Tracking Project. This analysis compares each racial or ethnic group's share of infections or deaths where race and ethnicity is known with their share of population. Here's what it shows:

Major holes in the data remain: 48% of cases and 9% of deaths still have no race tied to them. And that can hamper response to the crisis across the U.S., now and in the future, says Dr. Utibe Essien, a health equity researcher at the University of Pittsburgh who has studied COVID-19 racial and ethnic disparities.

"If we don't know who is sick, we're not going to know in six months, 12 months, 18, however long it takes, who should be getting the vaccination. We're not going to know where we should be directing our personal protective equipment to make sure that health care workers are protected," he says.

A heavy toll of African-American deaths

NPR's analysis finds that in 32 states plus Washington D.C., blacks are dying at rates higher than their proportion of the population. In 21 states, it's substantially higher, more than 50% above what would be expected. For example, in Wisconsin, at least 141 African Americans have died, representing 27% of all deaths in a state where just 6% of the state's population is black.

"I've been at health equity research for a couple of decades now. Those of us in the field, sadly, expected this," says Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith, director of the Equity Research and Innovation Center at Yale School of Medicine.

"We know that these racial ethnic disparities in COVID-19 are the result of pre-pandemic realities. It's a legacy of structural discrimination that has limited access to health and wealth for people of color," she says.

African-Americans have higher rates of underlying conditions, including diabetes, heart disease, and lung disease, that are linked to more severe cases of COVID-19, Nunez-Smith notes. They also often have less access to quality health care, and are disproportionately represented in essential frontline jobs that can't be done from home, increasing their exposure to the virus.

Data from a recently published paper in the Annals of Epidemiology reinforces the finding that African-Americans are harder hit in this pandemic. The study from researchers at amfAR, the Foundation for AIDS Research, looks at county-level health outcomes, comparing counties with disproportionately black populations to all other counties.

Their analysis shows that while disproportionately black counties account for only 30% of the U.S. population, they were the location of 56% of COVID-19 deaths. And even disproportionately black counties with above-average wealth and health care coverage bore an unequal share of deaths.

"There's a structural issue that's taking place here, it's not a genetic issue for all non-white individuals in the U.S.," says Greg Millett, director of public policy at amfAR and lead researcher on the paper.

Hispanics bear a disproportionate share of infections

Latinos and Hispanics test positive for the coronavirus at rates higher than would be expected for their share of the population in all but one of the 44 jurisdictions that report Hispanic ethnicity data (42 states plus Washington D.C.). The rates are two times higher in 30 states, and over four times higher in eight states. For example, in Virginia more than 12,000 cases 49% of all cases with known ethnicity come from the Hispanic and Latino community, which makes up only 10% of the population.

Fernandez has seen these disparities first-hand as an internist at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital. While Latinos made up about 35% of patients there before the pandemic, she says they now make up over 80% of COVID-19 cases at the hospital.

"In the early stages, when we were noticing increased Latino hospitalization at our own hospital and we felt that no one was paying attention and that people were just happy that San Francisco was crushing the curve," she says. "It felt horrendous. It felt as if people were dismissing those lives. ... It took people longer to realize what was going on."

People get free COVID-19 tests without needing to show ID, doctor's note or symptoms at a drive-through and walk up Coronavirus testing center located in Arlington, Va., on May 26th. Olivier Douliery/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

People get free COVID-19 tests without needing to show ID, doctor's note or symptoms at a drive-through and walk up Coronavirus testing center located in Arlington, Va., on May 26th.

Like African-Americans, Latinos are over-represented in essential jobs that increase their exposure to the virus, says Fernandez. Regardless of their occupation, high rates of poverty and low wages mean that many Latinos feel compelled to leave home to seek work. Dense, multi-generational housing conditions make it easier for the virus to spread, she says.

The disproportionate share of deaths isn't as stark for Latinos as it is for African-Americans. Fernandez says that's likely because the U.S. Latino population overall is younger nearly three-quarters are millennials or younger, according to data from the Pew Research Center. But in California, "when you look at it by age groups, [older] Latinos are just as likely to die as African-Americans," she says.

Other racial groups

While data for smaller minority populations is harder to come by, where it exists, it also shows glaring disparities. In New Mexico, Native American communities have accounted for 60% of cases but only 9% of the population. Similarly, in Arizona, at least 136 Native American have died from COVID-19, a striking 21% of deaths in a state where just 4% of the population are Native American.

In several states Asian Americans have seen a disproportionate share of cases. In South Dakota, for example, they account for only 2% of the population but 12% of cases. But beyond these places, data can be spotty. In Iowa, Maine, Michigan, Oklahoma and Wisconsin, Asian Americans and Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders are counted together, making comparison to census data difficult.

Fernandez points out that if COVID-19 demographic reporting included language, public health officials might see differences among different Asian groups, such as Vietnamese or Filipino Americans. "That's what's going to allow public health officials to really target different communities," she says. "We need that kind of information."

Understanding the unknowns

Months into the pandemic, painting a national picture of how minorities are being affected remains a fraught proposition, because in many states, large gaps remain in the data.

For instance, in New York state until recently the epicenter of the the U.S outbreak race and ethnicity data are available for deaths but not for cases. In Texas, which has a large minority population and a sizable outbreak, less than 25% of cases and deaths have race or ethnicity data associated with them.

There are also still concerns about how some states are collecting data, says Christopher Petrella, director of engagement for the Antiracist Research and Policy Center at American University. For example, he says West Virginia, which claims to have race data for 100% of positive cases and 82% of deaths only reports three categories: white, black and "other."

Also some states appear to be listing Hispanics under the white category, says Samantha Artiga, director of the Disparities Policy Project at Kaiser Family Foundation,

"There's a lot of variation across states in terms of how they report the data that makes comparing the data across states hard, as well as getting a full national picture," Artiga says.

But experts fear that the available data actually undercounts the disparity observed in communities of color.

"I think we have the undercount anyway, because we know that minority communities are less likely to be tested for COVID-19," says Millett. NPR's own analysis found that in four out of six cities in Texas, testing sites were disproportionately located in whiter communities. Millet points to a recent study, released pre-peer review, that found that when testing levels went up in disadvantaged neighborhoods in Philadelphia, Chicago and New York City, so too did the evidence of the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on these communities.

A registered nurse draws blood to test for COVID-19 antibodies at Abyssinian Baptist Church in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City on May 14. Churches in low income communities across New York are offering COVID-19 testing to residents. Angela Weiss/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

A registered nurse draws blood to test for COVID-19 antibodies at Abyssinian Baptist Church in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City on May 14. Churches in low income communities across New York are offering COVID-19 testing to residents.

Lawmakers have raised concern about the way the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports racial and ethnic data; the agency didn't report on demographics early on in the crisis, and even now it updates it weekly but with a one- to two-week lag. Democratic senators Patty Murray of Washington and Democratic Rep. Frank Pallone, Jr., of New Jersey called a recent report on demographics the CDC submitted to Congress "woefully inadequate."

"The U.S. response to COVID-19 has been plagued by insufficient data on the impact of the virus, as well as the federal government's response to it," Murray and Pallone wrote in a letter sent May 22 to Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar. They called on the Trump administration to provide more comprehensive demographic data.

A tailored public health response

Essien says he's heard concerns from colleagues that by focusing on race and ethnicity in the disease, "some of the empathy for managing and treating is going to go away."

"If people feel like, 'Well, this is a them problem and not a me problem... then that may potentially affect the way that people think about the opening up of the country," he says.

But unless testing and other resources are directed now to communities that need them most, the pandemic will go on for everyone, says Nunez-Smith.

"This is important for everyone's health and safety," she says.

Nunez-Smith says race and ethnicity data is necessary for officials to craft tailored public health responses.

For many people, physical distancing is a privilege," she says. "If you live in a crowded neighborhood or you share a household with many other people, we need to give messaging specific to those conditions. If you need to leave work every day or leave home for work every day, if you need to take public transportation to get to an essential front line job, how can you keep safe?"

A tailored public health response is already happening in Louisiana, where LaVeist says his task force has recently recruited celebrities like Big Freedia, a pioneer of the New Orleans hip-hop subgenre called bounce, to counter misinformation and spread public health messages about COVID-19 to the African-American community.

Given the pandemic's disparate toll on communities of color, in particular low-income ones, Fernandez and Nunez-Smith say the public health response should include helping to meet basic needs like providing food, wage supports and even temporary housing for people who get sick or exposed to the virus.

"We have to guarantee that if we recommend to someone that they should be in quarantine or they should be in isolation, that they can do so safely and effectively," Nunez-Smith says.

Nunez-Smith says if you don't direct resources now to minority communities that need them most, there's a danger they might be less likely to trust and buy into public health messaging needed to stem the pandemic. Already, polls show widespread distrust of President Trump among African-Americans, and that a majority of them believe the Trump administration's push to reopen states came only after it became clear that people of color were bearing the brunt of the pandemic.

Fernandez notes that among Latinos, distrust could also hamper efforts to conduct effective contact tracing, because people who are undocumented or in mixed-status families may be reluctant to disclose who they've been in contact with.

"This is a terrible time for all of us who do health equity work," says Fernandez, "partly because this is so predictable and partly because we're standing here waving our arms saying, 'Wait, wait. We need help.' "

Connie Hanzhang Jin, Alice Goldfarb and Selena Simmons-Duffin contributed to this report.

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Growing Data Show Blacks And Latinos Bear The Brunt Of COVID-19 : Shots - Health News - NPR

President Trump said Friday the U.S. would halt its funding of the World Health Organization and pull out of the agency, accusing it of protecting China as the coronavirus pandemic took off. The move has alarmed health experts, who say the decision will undermine efforts to improve the health of people around the world.

In an address in the Rose Garden, Trump said the WHO had not made reforms that he said would have helped the global health agency stop the coronavirus from spreading around the world.

We will be today terminating our relationship with the World Health Organization and redirecting those funds to other worldwide and deserving urgent global public health needs, Trump said. The world needs answers from China on the virus.

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Its not immediately clear whether the president can fully withdraw U.S. funding for the WHO without an act of Congress, which typically controls all federal government spending. Democratic lawmakers have argued that doing so would be illegal, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi threatened last month that such a move would be swiftly challenged.

The United States has provided roughly 15% of the WHOs total funding over its current two-year budget period. A WHO spokesperson declined to comment Friday.

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Trumps announcement came the same day that the U.S. mission in Geneva met with Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO director-general, about the countrys demands for WHO improvements. A source familiar with the meeting described it as constructive.

Some congressional Republicans have echoed Trumps attacks on the agency, but in a statement Friday, Sen. Lamar Alexander, the chair of the Senates health committee, said he disagreed with Trump.

Certainly there needs to be a good, hard look at mistakes the World Health Organization might have made in connection with coronavirus, but the time to do that is after the crisis has been dealt with, not in the middle of it, said Alexander (R-Tenn.). Withdrawing U.S. membership could, among other things, interfere with clinical trials that are essential to the development of vaccines, which citizens of the United States as well as others in the world need. And withdrawing could make it harder to work with other countries to stop viruses before they get to the United States.

Lawrence Gostin, the faculty director at Georgetowns ONeill Institute for National and Global Health Law, called Trumps decision a dangerous move.

Its making an earth-shattering decision in the middle of the greatest health crisis weve experienced literally out of pique and whim, without any deliberative process, Gostin said.

The WHO has repeatedly said it was committed to a review of its response, but after the pandemic had ebbed. Last month, Robert Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, also said the postmortem on the pandemic should wait until the emergency was over.

But as the Trump administrations response to pandemic has come under greater scrutiny, with testing problems and a lack of coordination in deploying necessary supplies, Trump has sought to cast further blame on China and the WHO for failing to snuff out the spread when the virus was centered in China. During his remarks, Trump alleged, without evidence, that China pressured WHO to mislead the world about the virus.

The world is now suffering as a result of the malfeasance of the Chinese government, Trump said. Chinas coverup of the Wuhan virus allowed the disease to spread all over the world, instigating a global pandemic that has cost more than 100,000 American lives, and over a million lives worldwide. (That last claim is not true; globally, there have been about 360,000 confirmed deaths from Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.)

Trumps phrasing highlights the buildup of China-U.S. tensions amid the pandemic. After a Chinese government spokesman suggested, without evidence, that the U.S. Army first brought the novel coronavirus to Hubei province, Trump retaliated by using the terms Wuhan virus and Chinese virus words widely condemned as racist, and which coincided with a rash of racist incidents targeting Asian Americans.

Experts say that if the U.S. leaves the WHO, the influence of China will only grow.

Global health was our bipartisan moral leadership that had been preserved through this administration, said Amanda Glassman, executive vice president of the Center for Global Development. And right now that falls apart. Its really to me tragic that this one space that was really about our moral leadership and our convictions and soft power that were now going to let that go in the midst of a pandemic.

Glassman said there are thousands of U.S. employees at the WHO and its regional body for the Americas, and that the U.S. is home to 82 WHO collaborating centers.

When Trump earlier this month threatened to yank U.S. funding in a letter, Tedros would only say during a media briefing that the agency was reviewing it. But he and other officials stressed that the agency had a small budget about $2.3 billion every year relative to the impact the agency had and what it was expected to do.

Mike Ryan, head of the WHOs emergencies program, said the U.S. funding provided the largest proportion of that programs budget. In addition to the pandemic, the program also works to combat HIV, tuberculosis, polio, and other diseases.

So my concerns today are both for our program and working on how we improve our funding base for WHOs core budget, Ryan said. Replacing those life-saving funds for front-line health services to some of the most difficult places in the world well obviously have to work with other partners to ensure those funds can still flow. So this is going to have major implications for delivering essential health services to some of the most vulnerable people in the world and we trust that other donors will if necessary step in to fill that gap.

This story has been updated with reaction to the presidents announcement.

Lev Facher contributed reporting.

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Trump: US will terminate relationship with WHO amid Covid-19 pandemic - STAT

America has been fertile ground for conspiracy theories since long before radio, television and Twitter came along to spread them fast and furiously.

Political parties alleging subversion by Roman Catholics and the Masons flourished briefly in the 1800s. A century later, people fell for Sen. Joseph McCarthys false but fervid claims of Communist infiltration throughout the government. And during the last presidential election, a North Carolina man fired an assault weapon inside a Washington pizzeria where a widespread conspiracy theory claimed Hillary Clinton was running a child sex ring.

The historian Richard Hofstadter gave a name to the pathology in his groundbreaking 1964 book, The Paranoid Style in American Politics.

(N)o other word adequately evokes the sense of heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy that I have in mind, he wrote. It is the use of paranoid means of expression by more or less normal people that makes the phenomenon significant.

The problem is different now and more dangerous because, for the first time, a president of the United States, his family and many of his supporters are weaponizing it.

This month, President Donald Trump tweeted a vicious insinuation that Psycho Joe Scarborough, as he referred to his frequent MSNBC critic, had murdered an aide in 2001, while he was a Congressman from Florida. Independent fact-checkers soundly disproved it when Trump first spread it in 2017. The medical examiner found that the young woman lost consciousness and fell, suffering a fatal injury, because of an abnormal heart rhythm. She had told others she was not feeling well.

A few days after the president slandered Scarborough, Eric Trump like father, like son claimed on Fox News that the coronavirus is a Democratic hoax that will disappear magically after the November election. Democrats are exploiting it, he said, to deprive the president of his greatest tool, the mass rallies.

The nations COVID-19 death toll has passed 100,000. Many more would be dead without the shutdowns and social distancing measures that inspired Eric Trumps brazen lie.

Its doubtful that even he believes it. But he knows that many of his fathers supporters will. The hoax theory has become the party line with some Republican candidates.

Rarely, though, has political fakery been so dangerous. Calling the coronavirus a hoax encourages people to take risks with their own lives and the lives of others.

The coronavirus pandemic has spread paranoia almost as fast as the disease itself. Those who believe its a conspiracy defy distancing rules, refuse to wear masks, abuse those who do, and try to intimidate elected officials with armed protests.

Even people in the highest ranks of government have parroted unsupported suspicions that the novel coronavirus was either invented in a virus laboratory in Wuhan, China, or allowed to escape from there.

Scientists have conclusively debunked the man-made theory, showing that it is a naturally occurring contagion that spread to humans from animals exactly like many others, among them bubonic plague, HIV/AIDS, Ebola, swine flu, avian flu and the Zika virus.

Its true that U.S. Embassy officials who visited the relatively new Wuhan laboratory sent warnings about inadequate safety and management shortcomings. But no evidence has turned up that it actually let the virus escape from the bats it was studying. The long history of such animal-to-people contagions favors natural transmission instead.

Yet two of Americas notable conspiracy fanciers, Florida congressman Matt Gaetz and Fox News host Tucker Carlson, spread misinformation that the U.S. had given $3.7 million to the Wuhan laboratory. That led the Trump administration to cut off funding for an American research project on how coronaviruses spread from bats to people. The researchers had spent only about $100,000 a year working with the Wuhan lab.

Trump carried paranoia to an even more reckless extreme when, citing China, he cut off all U.S. aid to the World Health Organization, the only international body equipped to deal with the virus across borders and oceans. He followed with a threat to withdraw the U.S. from the WHO entirely.

The WHO is fairly open to criticism for having responded too slowly to the outbreak in China, but defunding it would be an overreaction like shutting down a fire department because it was slow to answer a call.

Americans have a penchant for lawsuits as well as conspiracy theories, and so at least nine have been filed against the Peoples Republic of China on account of the coronavirus.

One of these cases, a potential class action lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court at Miami, makes plausible allegations that China was too slow to deal with the virus, to warn the world, and share its DNA sequencing with other scientists.

But the suit then strays into an alternative theory in other words, conspiracy fantasy that the virus escaped a Chinese laboratory because its researchers sold infected animals to a food market, as researchers have been known to do in China, instead of cremating them as (Chinese) laws requires. Only in some far-out media have Chinese researchers been known to do that.

The sole source for that allegation appears to be an unsupported New York Post op-ed by the head of the right-wing Population Research Institute, whose creed is overpopulation is a myth. The article cited a single incident, not in Wuhan, where someone allegedly sold surplus pigs and cattle, and went to prison for it.

It could be true that the Wuhan laboratory was careless. However, none of the lawsuits is likely to come close to establishing that. The lawyers would have to overcome U.S. law the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act that generally prohibits such claims against foreign governments. The Miami suit aims to get around that by suing the Chinese Communist Party, as well.

Two Republican senators are sponsoring legislation to expose China to U.S. courts. That is a bad idea, considering the many ways China could retaliate, and it provides an excuse to shirk our own governments responsibility.

Editorial by the Sun Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale, Fla.)

Visit the Sun Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale, Fla.) at http://www.sun-sentinel.comDistributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

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View from Away: Beware conspiracy theories on coronavirus - Kennebec Journal & Morning Sentinel

Hoping to draw tourists to Cyprus this summer, officials cite the "open-air lifestyle, abundance of personal space" and clean air. Here, rows of beach umbrellas await visitors on a nearly empty stretch of Nissi beach at the seaside resort of Ayia Napa earlier this month. Petros Karadjias/AP hide caption

Hoping to draw tourists to Cyprus this summer, officials cite the "open-air lifestyle, abundance of personal space" and clean air. Here, rows of beach umbrellas await visitors on a nearly empty stretch of Nissi beach at the seaside resort of Ayia Napa earlier this month.

If a visitor to Cyprus tests positive for the coronavirus this summer, the government will cover many of their expenses including food, drink and lodging according to a new plan that maps out how the island nation can revive its crucial tourism industry.

"The Cyprus government is committed to taking care of all travelers who test positive during their stay, as well as their families and close contacts," the plan states. "The government will cover the cost of lodging, food, drink, and medication, in all cases mentioned above; the traveler will only need to bear the cost of their airport transfer and repatriation flight."

Nearly 4 million tourists visited Cyprus last year, according to government statistics, generating nearly $3 billion in revenue for the country. Cyprus has a population of about 1.28 million.

Cyprus say it will ease restrictions on international air travel on June 9. But the island has been returning to normal business activities for the past month. It's poised to restart its hospitality economy on June 1 one day after health experts expect the country to achieve full containment of the coronavirus.

The first visitors to the Mediterranean country next month will be required to pass coronavirus tests in their home nations within 72 hours of their trip. But that and other restrictions will be dropped for those from certain countries, depending on their "epidemiological status," according to a letter outlining the plan. It was signed by the ministers of tourism, foreign affairs and transportation.

Cyprus will conduct an "epidemic risk assessment" of countries on a weekly basis, using criteria that ranges from testing capacity to the rates of new cases and deaths. The first iteration of that list categorizes 13 countries as "low risk," from Malta, Israel and Greece to Germany, Norway and Slovakia.

The pitch for touring Cyprus in the pandemic age ranges from the general the ministers cite its "open-air lifestyle, abundance of personal space" and clean air to the clinical, as they also note the country's ratio of intensive care units per capita is one of the highest in the Mediterranean.

If tourists are diagnosed during their visit, they can use special facilities that are being reserved for them.

"A COVID-19 hospital with 100 beds will be made available exclusively for travelers who test positive," the plan states, adding that capacity can be expanded at very short notice.

The plan also includes a range of details about how the country's restaurants and beaches will work to reduce the chance of infection, from requiring more than 12 feet between beach umbrellas to disinfecting salt and pepper mills.

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To Lure Back Tourists, Cyprus Says It Will Cover Costs If They Contract Coronavirus - NPR

It is hard to ask someone to socially distance if they have been forced out of their home. But in the middle of the worst pandemic in a century, we risk a new outbreak of evictions as 40 million Americans have lost their jobs and millions more struggle with reduced incomes.

Colorado residents are about to face rent due on June 1. Meanwhile, Colorados eviction moratorium, originally set to end today, lifts in just two weeks. If Congress does not act, data released yesterday by the COVID-19 Eviction Defense Project predicts that 416,000 Coloradans could face eviction by the end of September.

Every person removed from their home is another person forced to double-up with friends or family or crowd into a shelter. And each person who cant pay rent is another hit to the incomes of mom-and-pop landlords and small businesses. As our housing challenges grow, so do the challenges to our public health and economy.

To limit these risks, we must directly address the housing crisis in the next relief package. We can start by drawing from proposals in the bipartisan Evictions Crisis Act I introduced with Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio in December, which would help families stay in their homes during the pandemic and until they can get back on their feet.

Current policies will not be enough. Although federal, state and local moratoria on evictions and late fees have helped in the short-term, they cant stop an eventual wave of people losing their homes.

After all, these limits do not cover all renters, and many who are covered still wont be able to pay the accumulated rent when a moratorium ends. On top of that, many mom-and-pop landlords cant go without monthly rent while these limits remain in effect.

READ:Colorado Sun opinion columnists.

For all of these reasons, Congress needs to address the housing crisis in the next emergency package. That should start with at least $100 billion of immediate rental assistance to help low-income Americans and those who have been hit hardest with lost jobs and incomes.

We should design this assistance based on our bipartisan Eviction Crisis Act by providing the funding to local governments and nonprofits, which can then use the money to pay the landlords or utility companies directly to cover expenses like unpaid rent and utility bills.

For people who have suffered the most severe economic pain from the crisis, we should also provide short-term assistance for at least three months, and for families facing ongoing difficulties, longer-term support for up to two years.

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At the same time, we should provide at least $20 billion to fight homelessness and expand housing vouchers for those in greatest need, so people can have a stable roof over their heads and can socially distance as the pandemic continues.

Finally, we have to do more for state and local governments confronting massive budget shortfalls so they can maintain and expand critical, frontline human services.

Making sure the most vulnerable have a stable roof over their heads is not only the right thing to do, it is also critical to protecting our safety and our economy.

The last thing our hospitals and communities need is a new wave of families who become needlessly sick because they are forced from their homes and exposed. The last thing our economy needs is a wave of defaults from small landlords and businesses buckling from unpaid rent.

As Congress debates the next emergency relief package, we must have the wisdom to see that tackling the housing crisis and the pandemic are not distinct efforts they go hand-in-hand.

Michael Bennet, D-Colorado, is the states senior U.S. Senator.

The Colorado Sun is a nonpartisan news organization, and the opinions of columnists and editorial writers do not reflect the opinions of the newsroom.Read our ethics policy for more on The Suns opinion policyand submit columns, suggested writers and more to opinion@coloradosun.com.

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Michael Bennet: Coronavirus and a housing crisis go hand in hand. Congress must act. - The Colorado Sun

In Wuhan, medical workers armed with coronavirus test swabs scoured construction sites and markets to look for itinerant workers while others made house calls to reach older residents and people with disabilities. Officials aired announcements over loudspeakers urging people to sign up for their own good.

These are the front lines of an unprecedented campaign to screen virtually all 11 million people in Wuhan, the central Chinese city where the coronavirus pandemic began. Nearly two weeks in, the government is getting close to reaching its goal, with 6.5 million tested so far.

Our community was checked in a day, said Wang Yuan, a 32-year-old resident who lined up under red tents near her home and had her throat swabbed by medical workers wearing protective suits and face shields. She expected to get her results within two to four days.

While other governments have struggled to provide testing for their populations on a broad scale, China has embarked on a citywide campaign to prevent a resurgence of infections at all costs. It has succeeded, according to residents and Chinese news reports, by mobilizing thousands of medical and other workers and spending hundreds of millions of dollars.

The government, which is covering the cost of testing, sees the drive as key to restoring the public confidence that is needed to help restart the economy and return to some level of normalcy. But public health experts disagree on whether such a resource-intensive push is necessary when infections are low.

The drive which has reached more than 90 percent of the city after taking into account people who had been recently tested and children has largely confirmed that Wuhan has tamed the outbreak. By Tuesday, only around 200 cases were found, mostly people who showed no symptoms, though samples were still being processed.

The city has ramped up its testing capacity over the past two weeks, in sharp contrast with the early weeks of the outbreak when the government struggled to find enough testing kits. Lab technicians were able to speed up the process by pooling samples together to be tested in batches.

Laboratories went from processing around 46,000 tests a day, on average, before the drive, to as many as 1.47 million tests on Friday. By comparison, the state of New York has tested 1.7 million people since March 4, according to The Atlantics COVID Tracking Project.

The Wuhan government is determined to leave no person behind. Officials, ordered to check the leaks and fill the gaps, also went from door to door to register residents and usher them to nearby testing stations. In at least one neighborhood, officials warned in public announcements that residents who refused to get tested would see their government-issued health codes downgraded, potentially limiting a persons right to work and travel.

If you do not participate, you will not be allowed to enter supermarkets or banks, the announcement said. Your green code will turn yellow, which will cause inconvenience to your life.

The Wuhan government had urged the small number of residents who had still not submitted to testing to sign up for it before 5 p.m. on Tuesday. People were warned that if they did not do so before the deadline, they would have to pay to get tested in the future.

Many residents appeared to be supportive of the tests. But in a city where nearly everyone knew someone who was infected or died, there was also resistance and fear.

Herry Tu, a Wuhan resident, refused for days to sign up for a testing slot, despite the urging of officials from his neighborhood. How would so many people safely gather, he asked, while maintaining two meters of separation? Would the medical workers really change gear between each person they tested?

Were totally opposed to it, Mr. Tu said of his family. Because, even if you werent infected to begin with, this testing just means contact.

He ultimately agreed to be tested this past weekend, after his childrens school said they could not return to class without doing so. But he remained angry. In reality, the government isnt doing this for the benefit of the people, he said. Its for the outside world to see.

In the Hongshan district, more than 100 people waited in nearly 90-degree heat on May 18, said Zhou Chengcheng, a resident. But he declined to go.

I felt it was a mere formality, he said. The scene looked quite chaotic, and it increases the risk of silent infections.

The government sought to reassure that the testing drive would not be a source of infections. Each resident was given a time slot to avoid crowding. Testing was conducted in open spaces. Residents had to have their temperatures screened, wear masks and keep a distance from one another. Medical workers were required to change or disinfect their gloves after each test.

But with confirmed, symptomatic infections remaining in the single digits in Wuhan, some experts said the scale of Wuhans campaign was excessive. Jin Dongyan, a virologist at the University of Hong Kong, said it would be impossible to accurately test that many people in such a short period.

Under ordinary circumstances, nucleic acid tests for the coronavirus are difficult to administer in hospitals, even with well-trained nurses, Dr. Jin said. Trying to conduct so many of them, in quick succession, in makeshift testing tents, could produce many erroneous results.

There have also been questions about the reliability of Chinas testing kits and reagents, with some countries complaining that the rush by Chinese manufacturers to meet surging global demand has led to faulty exports.

For a city of around 10 million, Dr. Jin said, a sample of about 100,000 people would have been more than sufficient. He called Wuhans campaign to expand testing to every Wuhan resident kind of scary because it would overwhelm medical staff.

Even the chief epidemiologist of Chinas Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Wu Zunyou, has suggested that there is no need to test everyone in the city.

Wuhans approach is not necessarily replicable everywhere.

Batch testing involves combining a number of swabs from different people into a plastic tube to be analyzed using one test. A negative result means all the samples can be cleared, but if the batch comes back positive, medical workers can return to each person in the group to test them individually.

But it works only in places where there is a low prevalence of infections, researchers say. If the rate of infection is too high in a community, most of the groups would have to be retested, defeating the purpose of group testing.

The approach has been adopted elsewhere in places like Nebraska and the San Francisco Bay Area, though not at the same scale attempted in Wuhan. A district in Beijing announced this month that it would test teachers and students in batches of three in preparation for schools to reopen.

Proponents of the testing push say it would give health officials a more comprehensive view of the situation in Wuhan, including of people who are asymptomatic. The campaign was initiated after the authorities discovered six infections following a month of no new confirmed cases.

Some supporters of the testing drive acknowledged that the true value of the campaign was not so much medical as psychological. While comprehensive testing would be expensive, the price of a paralyzed economy would be much higher, Guo Guangchang, the head of Fosun, a major Chinese conglomerate, told the Chinese media.

If there is no testing, everyone will still be scared, Mr. Guo said. Many companies will have no way to resume production, and the service industry will have no customers.

The loss in one day from the shutdowns in production and the service industry could be 6 billion yuan, or about $844 million, in Wuhan, he said.

Yang Zhanqiu, a virologist at Wuhan University, said he hoped that with citywide testing, more people would feel comfortable going out.

This push to test everyone would improve the vitality of the city and provide a scientific basis for the resumption of work, Dr. Yang said. It can also make people feel at ease and give everyone some peace of mind.

Amber Wang and Liu Yi contributed research.

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Heres How Wuhan Tested 6.5 Million for Coronavirus in Days - The New York Times