Category: Corona Virus

U.S. President Donald Trump (R) greets Russian President Vladimir Putin (L) during their bilateral meeting at the G20 Osaka Summit 2019, in Osaka, Japan on June 28, 2019.

Mikhail Svetlov | Getty Images

During World War II, American and Russian soldiers fought side by side against a common enemy. We achieved victory together. Who can forget the images of allied soldiers embracing each other on the banks of the Elbe on April 25, 1945, nearly 75 years ago?

Those images stand as a symbol of international unity in the face of a global threat. Now is surely the time to collaboratively tackle a challenge that threatens us all today.

Just as our grandfathers stood shoulder to shoulder to defend our values and secure peace for future generations, now our countries must show unity and leadership to win the war against the coronavirus. This war has already affected the lives of billions of people and may lead to hundreds of thousands of deaths.

To change the views on Russia in an election year may be an insurmountable challenge. But so it also seemed in 1941, when the U.S. and the Soviet Union put behind the differences of the past to fight the common enemy.

Kirill Dmitriev

CEO, Russian Direct Investment Fund

Despite many differences, Russia and the United States have a lot in common. We love our families and want them to be healthy. We know how to work as a team in the face of adversity and are ready to make sacrifices for our values and communities.

In recent years, there has been too much attention paid to our differences and too little to opportunities to work together on global issues. In fact, we have allowed the culture of fear to emerge with business leaders and even scientists, causing them to be afraid to talk about U.S.-Russia cooperation.

The time has come to improve relations by focusing our efforts on three areas: (1) jointly fighting the coronavirus, (2) reducing the impact of the inevitable global economic recession and (3) developing a platform for future cooperation in confronting terrorism, nuclear proliferation and climate change.

As the sovereign wealth fund of Russia, we realized in early January when we established our network of top investment funds in 18 countries, that the coronavirus pandemic could have a devastating global impact.

Jointly with our partners, we focused on the best available technologies to address it.We formed partnerships in China, Japan and the U.S. to invest in some of the most accurate, quick and mobile virus testing systems in the world. We identified a top venture capital firm in the U.S., who will be our co-investor in this technology.

The usual critics from both sides, who will attack this op-ed as "trying to solve the insolvable" or as another "propaganda stunt" are stuck in the past and are not offering a viable alternative forward.

Kirill Dmitriev

CEO, Russian Direct Investment Fund

This joint U.S.-Japan-Russia consortium will provide an important and scalable testing solution for the U.S. market. Through our partners, we are already providing testing solutions in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America, working jointly with many nations to slow down the spread of the virus through extensive testing.

We formed partnerships to test and manufacture drugs that showed significant clinical potential and supported collaboration between U.S. and Russian pharma companies. Our doctors and scientists must work together on creating and testing a vaccine.

We can exchange best practices regarding hospital and manufacturing processes, and exchange medical equipment and supplies where possible, while jointly coordinating our efforts to help other countries. Just as we supported financially part of the medical supply cargo that Russia delivered to New York, so we hope to facilitate medical supply shipments from the U.S. after the U.S. coronavirus peak.

In short, the coronavirus challenge can be best addressed through a coordinated global response, including a close partnership between the U.S. and Russia.

At last year's World Economic Forum in Davos, we discussed extensively with our global partners that the global debt burden is too high. We highlighted that it stood at over 300% of global GDP, compared with just over 200% preceding the 2008-2009 economic crisis.

We noted that any significant shock could lead to the downward spiral of a debt crisis and an inevitable world recession in an inter-connected world.

We could not have predicted, however, that the tsunami of the coronavirus would lead to such significant supply and demand-side shocks, dramatically reducing global demand and paralyzing economic activity.

In times like this, new approaches to explore close collaboration between the U.S., Russia and other countries are needed to stabilize energy and other markets, to coordinate policy responses and to revitalize economic activity.

For example, Russia proposed to jointly undertake significant oil output cuts with the U.S., Saudi Arabia and other countries to stabilize markets and secure employment in the oil industry.

We have always called for closer cooperation between our countries. Having studied and worked in the U.S., I am well aware of the entrepreneurial and creative spirit of the U.S. And having worked in Russia, I recognize that Russia's position is best understood by acknowledging the many U.S. businesses that successfully operate here.

Our fund is working to continue cooperation between Russian and U.S. companies supported by many in both countries. We believe that we need to resume top-level business dialogue proposed by our President soon.

The world needs strong platforms for cooperation between our governments, our businesses and our people. As citizen exchanges are difficult during stay-at-home orders, maybe citizen diplomacy groups can foster better online dialogue to help our people understand each other better.

Many minds are set in a self-reinforcing news cycle. The usual critics from both sides, who will attack this op-ed as "trying to solve the insolvable" or as another "propaganda stunt" are stuck in the past and are not offering a viable alternative forward. Their blame game, trite cliches and inability to offer viable solutions is a road to nowhere.

To change the views on Russia in an election year may be an insurmountable challenge. But so it also seemed in 1941, when the U.S. and the Soviet Union put behind the differences of the past to fight the common enemy.

By focusing on our similarities rather than on our differences, and by being more open to cooperation, we can improve the state of the world and help to defeat the threats that we all face at this difficult time.

Kirill Dmitriev is chief executive officer of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, a sovereign wealth fund with $10 billion under management and strategic partnerships totaling another $40 billion.

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Op-Ed: The US and Russia should work together to defeat the coronavirus - CNBC

It would be unethical to experimentally manipulate viral dose in humans for a pathogen as serious as the coronavirus, but there is evidence that dose also matters for the human coronavirus. During the 2003 SARS coronavirus outbreak in Hong Kong, for instance, one patient infected many others living in the same complex of apartment buildings, resulting in 19 dead. The spread of infection is thought to have been caused by airborne viral particles that were blown throughout the complex from the initial patients apartment unit. As a result of greater viral exposure, neighbors who lived in the same building were not only more frequently infected but also more likely to die. By contrast, more distant neighbors, even when infected, suffered less.

Low-dose infections can even engender immunity, protecting against high-dose exposures in the future. Before the invention of vaccines, doctors often intentionally infected healthy individuals with fluid from smallpox pustules. The resulting low-dose infections were unpleasant but generally survivable, and they prevented worse incidents of disease when those individuals were later exposed to smallpox in uncontrolled amounts.

Despite the evidence for the importance of viral dose, many of the epidemiological models being used to inform policy during this pandemic ignore it. This is a mistake.

People should take particular care against high-dose exposures, which are most likely to occur in close in-person interactions such as coffee meetings, crowded bars and quiet time in a room with Grandma and from touching our faces after getting substantial amounts of virus on our hands. In-person interactions are more dangerous in enclosed spaces and at short distances, with dose escalating with exposure time. For transient interactions that violate the rule of maintaining six feet between you and others, such as paying a cashier at the grocery store, keep them brief aim for within six feet, only six seconds.

Because dose matters, medical personnel face an extreme risk, since they deal with the sickest, highest-viral-load patients. We must prioritize protective gear for them.

For everyone else, the importance of social distancing, mask-wearing and good hygiene is only greater, since these practices not only decrease infectious spread but also tend to decrease dose and thus the lethalness of infections that do occur. While preventing viral spread is a societal good, avoiding high-dose infections is a personal imperative, even for young healthy people.

At the same time, we need to avoid a panicked overreaction to low-dose exposures. Clothing and food packaging that have been exposed to someone with the virus seem to present a low risk. Healthy people who are together in the grocery store or workplace experience a tolerable risk so long as they take precautions like wearing surgical masks and spacing themselves out.

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These Coronavirus Exposures Might Be the Most Dangerous - The New York Times

Monday's biggest developments

[3:03 p.m.] A fourth Texas execution has been delayed because of the new coronavirus. At the request of prosecutors, the trial court moved Billy Joe Wardlow's execution from April 29 to July 8, according to the Titus County District Clerk's office.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has already halted the three other executions that were scheduled in March and April issuing 60-day stays in the cases of John Hummel, Tracy Beatty and Fabian Hernandez. In two orders, the court said the decisions were made "in light of the current health crisis and the enormous resources needed to address that emergency."

Prosecutors in Tarrant and Smith counties were against stopping the first two executions; El Paso's district attorney did not file a response in Hernandez's case. Those counties must wait 60 days before requesting a new execution date, which must be set more than 90 days in advance. Aside from Wardlow's new July date, five other executions are scheduled in Texas from May to September. Jolie McCullough

[2:30 p.m.] Speaker Dennis Bonnen, R-Angleton, is asking Texas House members staff to consider volunteering their time to help the Texas Workforce Commission, which has been overloaded with Texans trying to file unemployment insurance claims.

There are no public servants better trained to be in the trenches fighting this battle for Texans than those who already dedicate themselves each day to serving our constituents, and who are familiar with the processes and duties of being responsive to them, Bonnen wrote in an email to the House this afternoon.

Hundreds of thousands of out-of-work Texans have applied for relief over the past few weeks. The sudden spike has prompted jammed phone lines and website servers crashing at the agency.

According to Bonnen, the agency has a couple more call centers one with 150 operators and another with 200 set to come online to help respond to the spike. The agency has, among other things, also moved 200 employees to its call centers and hired 100 additional operators, according to the speaker. Cassi Pollock

[1:15 p.m.] Texas reported 464 more cases of the new coronavirus Monday, an increase of about 7% over the previous day, bringing the total number of known cases to 7,276. Six new counties reported their first cases Monday; more than half of the states 254 counties have reported at least one case.

Harris County has reported the most cases, 1,395, followed by Dallas County, which has reported 1,112 cases.

The state has reported 13 additional deaths, bringing the statewide total to 140 an increase of about 10% from Sunday. Harris County reported three additional deaths, bringing its total to 20 deaths, more than any other county.

As of Monday, 1,153 patients are currently hospitalized in Texas. At least 85,357 tests have been conducted. Chris Essig

[10:37 a.m.] Texas has set up road checkpoints along the Louisiana border as it increases enforcement of Gov. Greg Abbotts executive order requiring visitors from the neighboring state to self-quarantine for 14 days.

Abbott and Texas House Speaker Dennis Bonnen tweeted about the checkpoints Sunday, with the latter describing them as roadway screening stations to gather [required] forms for self-quarantining. Abbotts order, issued March 29, requires drivers coming in to Texas from Louisiana to fill out a form designating a quarantine location in Texas.

On Sunday, April 5, 2020, checkpoints and screening of vehicles by the Texas Department of Public Safety began on all roadways entering Texas from Louisiana, the Louisiana State Police wrote Sunday morning on Facebook, attaching photos of signs pointing drivers off of highways to checkpoints.

DPS said in a statement that the checkpoints will be in the Texas counties that border Louisiana and located on major roadways in these counties, including interstate highways and other high-volume routes. Drivers entering Texas from Louisiana should be prepared to stop, the department said.

DPS initially said it did not plan to establish checkpoints at the border but vowed to vigorously enforce Abbotts multiple self-quarantine requirements. He has also mandated 14-day self-quarantines for air travelers from Louisiana, as well as New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, California, Washington, Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit and Miami. Patrick Svitek

[ 10 a.m.] The Texas Supreme Court on Monday morning extended its pause on eviction proceedings another 10 days.

Evictions are now halted until April 30; the court's prior order put them on pause until April 20. At the end of the period, the Chief Justice Nathan Hecht can choose to renew the order again.

There is one exception: Landlords may proceed with eviction cases only if the actions of the occupants pose an imminent threat of physical harm to the landlord, the landlords employees or other tenants, or if the occupants are engaging in criminal activity.

With thousands of Texans losing their jobs as the COVID-19 pandemic has shut down businesses, renters and landlords are both worried about how theyll make ends meet.

Some cities and counties have opted to ban evictions for even longer than the Texas Supreme Court has ordered. Austin has instituted a 60-day grace period. Earlier this month, Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins halted evictions through May 18. Sami Sparber

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Coronavirus in Texas 4/6: 7,276 cases and 140 deaths - The Texas Tribune

Deaths were relatively flat across the region.

For days, officials in and around New York sought indications that the coronavirus was nearing a peak in the region the U.S. epicenter of the pandemic and might start leveling off.

And for days, the death toll climbed faster and faster. In New York State, for instance, it rose by more than 200, then more than 400, then 630 people in a single day.

But on Monday, for the second day in a row, officials found reasons for hope even as hundreds of people continued to die and thousands clung to life on ventilators.

On both Sunday and Monday, fewer than 600 deaths from the virus were reported in New York: 594 on Sunday, 599 on Monday, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said.

In New Jersey, Gov. Philip D. Murphy reported a similar trend: 71 reported deaths on Monday, and 86 on Sunday, after a three-day streak when deaths had broken triple digits.

And in Connecticut, Gov. Ned Lamont on Monday reported a one-day death toll of 17, the smallest number since last Wednesday.

Mr. Cuomo said the data suggested that the spread of the virus in New York was nearing its apex, but he emphasized that the state remained in a dire, unsustainable state of emergency.

If we are plateauing, we are plateauing at a very high level and there is tremendous stress on the health care system, he said.

Here were the latest numbers from the day:

Deaths in New York State: 4,758, up 599 from 4,159 on Sunday morning.

Confirmed cases: 130,689, up from 122,031 in New York. In New York City, 72,181, up from 67,551.

Hospitalized in New York State: 16,837, up 2 percent from 16,479 on Sunday. It was the third straight day of single-digit percentage growth, after a long period when hospitalizations were growing 20 to 30 percent a day.

In intensive care: 4,504, up 2 percent from 4,376 on Sunday. The day-over-day increase, 128, was the smallest in at least two weeks. Last week, the number of people in intensive care beds, which have ventilators, was growing by more than 300 people a day.

Even if the infection curve is flattening, the viruss daily toll remains horrific.

New York City reported a one-day total of 219 deaths on Monday morning, bringing the citys death toll to 2,475. Before the virus outbreak, the average death rate in New York City was 158 people a day, meaning the virus is now killing considerably more people in the city than all other causes combined.

Mr. Cuomo asserted that New York had done all it could to prevent the loss of lives that could have been saved.

Have we saved everyone? he said. No. But have we lost anyone because we didnt have a bed or we didnt have a ventilator, or we didnt have health care staff? No.

In a notable shift from previous weeks, when he pleaded for more ventilators from the federal government and other states, he said New York was now adequately stocked.

We dont need any additional ventilators right now, he said.

State officials said on Monday that its June Regents examinations for high school students would be canceled. Many high school students in New York State take the exams, which help determine graduation eligibility, in June.

It was not clear whether the August Regents, which give students a second chance to qualify for a state diploma, would also be canceled. The Board of Regents, led by chancellor Betty Rosa, is expected to announce more details about the August exams and how the changes will affect graduation requirements on Tuesday.

The state had already canceled standardized exams planned for the spring for students in grades three through eight.

New York City schools had been scheduled to closed starting Thursday through the end of next week for Passover, Good Friday, and spring break. Students are now expected to continue their remote learning during that time.

The state has said that remote instruction must continue, regardless of whether districts like New York City had spring break scheduled.

The teachers union sent out an email on Friday berating the city for making teachers work on major religious holidays. The citys education department and the union subsequently struck a deal that gives teachers four extra days off that can be used for religious holidays.

With the number of city residents dying of the virus outpacing the systems capacity to handle them, officials are considering temporarily burying people in mass graves in a park, the chairman of the City Councils health committee, said on Monday.

It will be done in a dignified, orderly and temporary manner, the chairman, City Councilman Mark Levine, wrote on Twitter. But it will be tough for NYers to take.

Mr. Levine said temporary interment could avoid scenes like those in Italy, where the military was forced to collect bodies from churches and even off the streets.

Mayor Bill de Blasio said no such plan had been put in place.

If we need to do temporary burials to be able to tide us over to pass the crisis and then work with each family on their appropriate arrangements, we have the ability to do that, he said when asked about Mr. Levines comment later on Monday.

But he said the city was not at the point that were going to go into that.

Governor Cuomo said at his noon briefing that he had heard nothing about such a possibility.

I have heard a lot of wild rumors but I have not heard anything about the city burying people in parks, Mr. Cuomo said.

After the mayor and governor weighed in and after Mr. Levines comments caused a panic among some New Yorkers the councilman wrote on Twitter that what he was describing was a contingency plan and that if the death rate drops enough it will not be necessary.

In an interview, Mr. Levine, who represents Upper Manhattan, declined to identify which park or parks might be used, but he said, I presume it would have to be a large park with some inaccessible areas that are out of the way of the public.

Temporary burials are part of a 2008 plan prepared by the city medical examiners office to deal with a pandemic. Tier One of the plan involves storing bodies in freezer trucks and easing restrictions on crematories. The cityhas already taken those steps.

Mr. Murphy said on Monday that there had been 3,663 new confirmed virus cases in New Jersey since the day before, bringing the states total to 41,090. He also noted the 86 new deaths, which brought New Jerseys total to 1,003.

Mr. Murphy arrived at the news conference where he delivered the numbers wearing a face mask, which he removed before speaking.

Our protocol has been that when were in any setting with more than a modest amount of folks, were going to wear our masks, including for press conferences, both coming in and leaving, he said.

The governor shared data showing that while the number of positive case results continued to rise, there had been a decline in the growth rate over the past week, from 24 percent day-over-day on March 30 to about 12 percent as of Monday.

This means that our efforts to flatten the curve are starting and I say starting to pay off, even with the lag time in getting testing result back from the labs, Mr. Murphy said.

P-P-E.

Every day.

And every day.

P-P-E.

That was the call-and-response outside Harlem Hospital Center on Monday, as dozens of nurses protested for more personal protective equipment.

On the sidewalk out the hospital, the names of health care workers who died after treating coronavirus patients were written in brightly colored chalk.

The Manhattan hospital has been inundated with virus patients, including some who were transferred from hospitals in Queens and the Bronx.

But the hospital staff has been stretched thin and critical workers have been provided with little protective equipment, nurses said. The hospital has only a small number of respiratory therapists, and staff members get one N95 mask to wear for five 12-hours shifts, said Sarah Dowd, a staff nurse who helped organize the protest.

We deserve better, she said, reciting a list of demands that includes at least one mask a day for hospital workers, and more nurses, doctors, respiratory therapists.

The Harlem nurses were joined by counterparts from other public and private hospitals in the city. The protesters held signs that read, Patients before Profits and Who Will Care for You When We Are Dead?

Foluke Fashakin, a nurse who was at Harlem Hospital, said that nurses were wearing the same equipment to treat those who were infected and those who were not.

We are not comfortable with this kind of system, she said.

New York City will end a pilot program that had closed some streets in each borough to vehicles, officials said on Monday.

A spokeswoman for Mr. de Blasio said that the initiative, which was started to create more space for pedestrians, required 80 city police officers to shut each six- to seven-block stretch.

Officials decided after a two-week trial that not enough people were taking advantage of the program to justify it, according to the spokeswoman, Jane Meyer.

Mr. de Blasio had said on Sunday that he wanted to continue testing the program because bad weather might have discouraged people from going outside during the two weeks it was in effect.

Scott Stringer, New York Citys comptroller, lashed out at President Trump on Monday over his response to the coronavirus outbreak, blaming the president for the death of his mother, Arlene Stringer-Cuevas.

Donald Trump has blood on his hands, and he has my moms blood on his hands he wrote on Twitter.

Mr. Stringer faulted Mr. Trump for the fact that the 1,000 beds on a Navy hospital ship sent to New York amid the crisis were reserved for patients were not infected with the virus.

Ms. Stringer-Cuevas, 86, died on Friday. She was the first woman to represent Manhattans Washington Heights neighborhood on the City Council.

Mr. Stringer, who called his mother a a genuine trailblazer in announcing her death, described the difficulty of mourning with restrictions in place.

Perhaps the thing I struggle with the most is, how do you mourn at a time where you cant connect with people? he said.

Crime has plummeted in New York City and across the state since the governor announced a stay-at-home order more than three weeks ago, data released on Monday shows.

In New York City, the number of felony and misdemeanor cases dropped a collective 43.3 percent from March 18 to March 24, compared with the same period in 2019, according to the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services.

All other regions in the state experienced an even greater decline over the same period: a drop of nearly 69 percent in misdemeanors and felonies.

The number of felonies specifically dipped 33 percent in New York City and 60 percent in the rest of the state.

Reporting was contributed by Jonah Engel Bromwich, Joseph Goldstein, Matthew Haag, Elizabeth A. Harris, Andy Newman, Eliza Shapiro, Liam Stack and Katie Van Syckle.

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Virus Toll in N.Y. Region Shows Signs of Leveling Off: Live Updates - The New York Times

Things moved quickly after that. On Sunday, my doctors scheduling nurse called and said we needed to do the procedure while there were still operating rooms available. My wife worried about how significantly the procedure would affect my life. But we have also come to grips with the reality that my cancer is not going away. I know there will be a lot of limitations, even if the surgery is successful, but at least I will have some kind of life.

On Monday morning, my doctor called to say the surgery was set for the next day. A pre-op nurse called to go over the procedure: no eating or drinking after midnight, use a special antibacterial soap before arriving at the hospital, plan to stay for at least four days to recover. My wife and I scrambled around the house, preparing to close it up for a week. We were just about to leave for the two-hour drive to the hospital when the nurse called back. She said Duke University Hospital was now requiring the results of virus testing prior to admitting anyone for surgery. They didnt have a test to give me; just a policy that required me to get one. I contacted my physician in Winston-Salem, but he said the hospital there was only testing patients who had been admitted with serious virus symptoms. Almost as quickly as it had been scheduled, the surgery was canceled.

I dont know how long it will be before there are enough tests available that someone like me can get one. But unlike other people who might just be curious about whether they are infected or not, I have a clock ticking in my body. While I wait for the test, this cancer could metastasize. By the time they can perform the surgery, it might be a moot point.

Im not a political person. I dont belong to either party. For the most part, I dont care who is running the country, but I expect that in times of crisis that government uses its resources to take care of its citizens. And right now I dont see that happening.

There are not enough masks. There are not enough tests. There is not enough personal protective equipment for health care providers. When President Donald Trump says there is, its clear that hes not listening to experts and scientists. He may be talking about a few virus response centers, but hes not talking about most of the country. Hes definitely not giving enough consideration to the rest of Americans who also have serious medical needs.

This virus has already killed tens of thousands of people and infected millions others. We all wake up to stories of overrun hospitals and bodies stacked in refrigerated trucks. The news is horrible. But officials need to know that thats not even the whole story of Covid-19. There are tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of trickle down cases like mine. When I hear about people who arent getting pacemakers installed or getting care they need, I feel betrayed. My whole family is struggling mightily. I worry about dying before I should. I worry about what day-to-day life will look like for my wife. I want to play ball in the front yard with my grandsons and go to their sporting events. I want to resume as much of my life as I can after the surgery. But without masks and gloves and virus testsbasic things that our health care system should always have in good supplythose simple joys might disappear for people like me.

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I Dont Have Coronavirus. It Might Kill Me Anyway. - POLITICO

Federal inquiries have begun to determine how the nations testing capacity turned into such a debacle. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had manufacturing errors with the first test it devised for public health labs around the country, and so testing in the states stalled as the virus began to spread in Washington State, New York and California. The Food and Drug Administration, charged with approving the test, was so frustrated that the agency pushed for the C.D.C. to stop making it on site and instead send it to Integrated DNA Technologies, an outside lab.

The F.D.A., for its part, was slow to recognize the danger of the pandemic, and how critical testing by commercial labs and hospitals would be as the virus spread.

In early March, the nations two largest commercial labs, Quest Diagnostics and LabCorp, started testing, and they have acknowledged that their labs around the country were overwhelmed. Quests backlog is 80,000, according to the company, down from 160,000 on March 25. LabCorp says it has caught up, and now has a turnaround of four to five days from pickup.

Supplies of test swabs have gotten so low that most hospitals test only their most vulnerable patients, typically those being admitted.

Wendy Bost, a spokeswoman for Quest, which introduced its coronavirus tests on March 9, said the company had ramped up its testing and could now process more than 35,000 tests per day over 200,000 each week at its 12 labs around the country. Last week, Quest asked hospitals to identify health care workers and symptomatic patients for priority processing and she said the company was providing results now on an average of a day for that population.

To date, Quest has processed nearly 550,000 coronavirus tests, Ms. Bost said. The current turnaround time for other patients, she said, is now two to three days although she acknowledged there was a longer wait in the areas most affected, like Chicago, New York, New Jersey and Miami.

LabCorp has four labs running, also averaging about 35,000 to 40,000 coronavirus tests each day, the company said. Mike Geller, a LabCorp spokesman, said it had tested about 500,000 samples, and that the time for processing varied, based on demand.

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Delays and Shortages Exacerbate Coronavirus Testing Gaps in the U.S. - The New York Times

BRUSSELS The coronavirus has created its own form of terror. It has upended daily life, paralyzed the economy and divided people one from another. It has engendered fear of the stranger, of the unknown and unseen. It has emptied streets, restaurants and cafes. It has instilled a nearly universal agoraphobia. It has stopped air travel and closed borders.

It has sown death in the thousands and filled hospitals with wartime surges, turning them into triage wards. People gird for the grocery store in mask and gloves, as if they were going into battle.

Particularly for Europe, which has experienced waves of terrorism that achieved some of the same results, the current plague has eerie echoes. But this virus has created a different terror, because it is invisible, pervasive and has no clear conclusion. It is inflicted by nature, not by human agency or in the name of ideology. And it has demanded a markedly different response.

People run screaming from a terrorists bomb and then join marches of solidarity and defiance. But when the all-clear finally sounds from the new coronavirus lockdown, people will emerge into the light like moles from their burrows.

People are more afraid of terrorism than of driving their car, said Peter R. Neumann, professor of security studies at Kings College London and founder of the International Center for the Study of Radicalization. Many more people die from car accidents or falling in the bathtub than from terrorism, but people fear terrorism more, because they cannot control it.

While terrorism is about killing people, Mr. Neumann said, its mostly about manipulating our ideas and calculations of interest.

As Trotsky famously said, the purpose of terror is to terrorize.

But the terrorism of the coronavirus is all the more frightening not only because it is so widespread, but also because it is impervious to any of the usual responses surveillance, swat teams, double agents or persuasion.

[Analysis: Peaks, testing and lockdowns: How coronavirus vocabulary causes confusion.]

Its not a human or ideological enemy, so its not likely to be impressed by rhetoric or bluster, Mr. Neumann said. The virus is something we dont know, we cant control, and so were afraid of it. And for good reason it has already killed more Americans than the nearly 3,000 who died on Sept. 11, 2001, and it will kill many times more.

There is a difference between man-made and natural disasters, said Thomas Hegghammer, an expert on terrorism and senior research fellow at the Norwegian Defense Research Establishment in Oslo. People are typically more afraid of man-made threats, even if they are less damaging.

But this virus is likely to be different, he said. It goes much deeper into society than terrorism, and it affects individuals on a much larger scale.

There is a similar sense of helplessness, however, said Julianne Smith, a former security adviser to Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and now at the German Marshall Fund. You dont know when terrorism or the pandemic will strike, so it invades your personal life. With terror, you worry about being in crowds and rallies and sporting events. Its the same with the virus crowds spell danger.

Part of what makes terrorism terrifying is its randomness, said Joshua A. Geltzer, former senior director for counterterrorism on the National Security Council and now a professor of law at Georgetown. Terrorists count on that randomness, and in a sense this virus behaves the same way, he said. It has the capacity to make people think, It could be me.

But to defeat the virus requires a different mentality, Mr. Geltzer argued. You see the bomb at the Boston Marathon, so you wonder about going next year, its a pretty direct impact, he said. But the virus requires one greater step to think collectively, so as not to burden others by spreading the virus and overwhelm the health system.

And it requires a different sort of solidarity. After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, President George W. Bush urged Americans to go about their lives, to fly on airplanes, to travel, to work. After both the Charlie Hebdo and Bataclan attacks of 2015, President Franois Hollande did the same in France, leading marches and public demonstrations of public resilience and defiance.

But in the face of the virus, with so many societies so clearly unprepared, resilience now is not to get on a plane, wrote Mr. Geltzer and Carrie F. Cordero, a former security official at the Justice Department and a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security. To be resilient now is to stay at home.

So it is difficult for governments that learned to urge citizens to be calm in times of terrorism to now learn how to frighten them into acting for the common good. Rather than mobilization, this enemy demands stasis.

[Analysis: The autocrats dilemma: You cant arrest a virus.]

People respond patriotically, and even viscerally, to the nature of the security response to terrorism, from the helicopters to the shootouts. But theres nothing sexy or cool about staying at home, or ordering a company to produce face masks and gowns, said Mr. Geltzer. We dont usually chant, U.S.A.! U.S.A.! about home schooling.

It will also be difficult for governments to adjust their security structures to deal with threats that do not respond to increased military spending and enhanced spying.

For a long time, Mr. Neumann said, analysts who worked on softer threats, like health and climate, were considered secondary. Hardcore security people laughed at that, but no one will doubt that now, he said. There will be departments of health security and virologists hired by the C.I.A., and our idea of security will change.

And there will be new threats afterward worries about economic collapse, widespread debt, social upheavals. Many fear the impact of such low oil prices on Arab and Persian Gulf countries that need to pay salaries for civil servants and the military, let alone deal with subsidies on bread.

But even the Islamic State has warned its adherents that the healthy should not enter the land of the epidemic and the afflicted should not exit from it, which may provide some respite.

Mr. Hegghammer lived in Norway during the terrorist attacks there in July of 2011 by Anders Behring Breivik, who killed 77 people to publicize his fear of Muslims and feminism. The response in Norway was collective solidarity and resolve and a widespread sense of dugnad, the Norwegian word for communal work, as individuals donate their labor for a common project.

Dugnad is being invoked again in the face of the virus, Mr. Hegghammer said, with the young aiding the elderly, and government and opposition working almost too closely together.

The virus and the attacks carried out by Mr. Breivik are being linked explicitly in the debate here, Mr. Hegghammer said. But it is being done in a critical way, to criticize how unprepared the government has been, both then and now, to deal with a major threat.

People say, Weve already been through this, so how can we be so unprepared?

In the aftermath, as with Mr. Breivik, there is likely to be a commission of inquiry in Norway, just as there will inevitably be one in the United States, too, as there was after Sept. 11, to see how the government failed and what can be done in the future.

But unlike largely homogeneous Norway, the sprawling United States is deeply divided.

Unlike Sept. 11, when a single set of events united the country in an instant in its grief, this is a slowly rolling crisis that affects different parts of the country and the society at different speeds, said Ms. Smith of the German Marshall Fund. So were not united as a country.

Given the already deep political polarization in the United States, with partisan battles over science and facts, the virus is likely to have the same impact as the plague did in Athens during the Peloponnesian War, creating indifference to religion and law and bringing forward a more reckless set of politicians, said Kori Schake, director of the foreign and defense policy program at the conservative American Enterprise Institute.

But ultimately, she added, the delayed response from the White House delegitimizes the existing political leadership. If the political consequences are severe enough, she said, they could lead to the end of the imperial presidency and a return to the kind of federal and congressional activism that the Founding Fathers designed our system for.

The virus may be politically divisive, but it is also a reminder, Ms. Schake said, that free societies thrive on norms of civic responsibility.

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The Coronavirus Inflicts Its Own Kind of Terror - The New York Times

In the midst of a pandemic, state governments have very strong power to make restrictions in the name of public health, Professor Metzger said, adding: As we know more about the virus, as we do more testing, the kinds of restrictions that will be allowed will change.

One exception: Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York threatened to sue the state of Rhode Island when the governor there considered stopping cars with New York license plates at the border March 28. Soon after, Gov. Gina Raimondo changed tactics, signing an executive order instructing anyone not just New Yorkers but even other Rhode Islanders coming from out of state to quarantine at home for 14 days.

Data suggests that a restriction of movement helps to slow the rate of infection. But the government whether local, state or federal likely cannot keep all of the 273.6 million vehicles registered in the United States off the road.

Much of the control of the outbreak in the U.S. will depend on individuals in the U.S. making good choices, said Dr. Henry Wu, director of Emory TravelWell Center in Atlanta, which provides health services for international travelers.

Noting the asymmetric nature of the disease different parts of the country experiencing different stages of the pandemic he said, increased travel between different regions of the country would increase the likelihood that it would spread.

Even AAA suggests that you talk to your health care provider before you go.

Some of the countrys most famous drives, like Californias Route 1, remain open. But authorities along some roadways like the Blue Ridge Parkway are trying to discourage its use. Drivers there can still take in the scenic views of the Shenandoah Valley, but will find that restrooms, visitor centers and campgrounds along the route are closed.

Allen Pietrobon, an assistant professor of Global Affairs at Trinity Washington University in Washington, D.C., who teaches a course titled The Great American Road Trip, said that the two most comparable driving restrictions go back to the oil crisis of 1973 and World War II, when car manufacturing was halted, all pleasure driving in some eastern states was temporarily prohibited and rations limited drivers in some places to as little as 3 gallons of gas per week. (When you ride ALONE you ride with Hitler! propaganda posters warned.)

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On the Road Again? Certainly Not Thanks to Coronavirus - The New York Times

Atlanta under lockdown. Photo: Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images

For a month, American journalists and public-health experts have praised the coronavirus response of South Korea and Singapore above all others. On Tuesday, Singapore will close its schools and most businesses to guard against an out-of-control outbreak; South Korea just extended its social-distancing policy. In the early months of this pandemic, the most developed parts of Asia have visibly outperformed the rest of the world a differential that has produced a string of viral charts showing the benefits of mask-wearing and universal testing. But in recent days, Hong Kong and Taiwan, noting a rise of new cases arriving via international visitors, have shut their borders. Cases are spiking in Japan, and a second wave of infections is feared in China, as well. Which means that, all told, many of the nations desperate Americans have spent the last few months praising as exemplary models of public health management do not actually have the virus under control or at least not to the degree it appeared a few weeks ago, or to the degree you might be hoping for if you expected a (relatively) quick end to quarantine measures and economic shutdown followed by a (relatively) rapid snapback to normal life and economic recovery.

If the countries held up as models for how we should proceed cant figure it out, what does it mean for the U.S., which is saddled with broken institutions and has already bungled and delayed its response at nearly every stage? Here in New York, we are about to enter our third week of sheltering in place; in San Francisco and Seattle, the social-distancing orders have been in effect even longer. Yet there is no clarity to be found from the federal or state or local level for how long these measures will last. And there is no public or concrete plan for, and little visible discussion about, what it would mean to sunset them: how and at what point and in what ways we will try to exit this temporary-but-indefinite wartimelike national bunkering almost all 330 million of us now find ourselves in. What, exactly, is the endgame here?

Some of this ambiguity is inevitable it may be hard to remember, given the way the coronavirus has distended our sense of time, but this crisis is just a few months old and the scientific and public health wisdom just as preliminary. But while it may not be possible to pinpoint a date, or a month, at which point we can expect to transition out of bunker living, no one seems to have any sense of how well arrive at that determination, how much we will have wanted to contain the outbreak, at what levels, before moving forward, and what steps moving forward would then entail. That there is no coherent federal plan to deal with the outbreak as it currently stands is horrifying enough an absolute evacuation of presidential leadership that has already cost thousands of lives and will likely cost tens of thousands more.But the fact that there is also no planning to speak of for how we might leave behind the present crisis means all we can see looking forward from the darkness is more darkness.

Last week, Helen Branswell of Stat news reported that public-health experts in the U.S. are increasingly worried that the public is underestimating how long the coronavirus disruptions are going to last with many Americans assuming a sort of national reopening will begin in early May and most public-health experts expecting at least a month beyond that. Possibly more, even considerably more.

But the bigger question isnt how long our shutdown will last; its what will follow it. In theory, lockdowns of the kind that are now in place in much of the country are designed to contain an outbreak before it gets out of control this is why China instituted its shutdown in January. But even relatively modest spread of a disease requires more than simple lockdown; it requires an aggressive program to identify those infected, isolate them, and monitor those they may have come into contact with, to be sure those people arent themselves spreading the disease. This is the test and trace method of pandemic containment; among public-health experts, it is the ideal. But in the U.S., and indeed throughout Europe, as well, the pandemic has progressed much too far for this approach to work. And so again, in theory the current lockdowns could provide another opportunity, as well: buying the country time to ramp up a comprehensive testing regimen. We would shelter in place until such a program was ready to go, then reenter normal life through that portal of medical surveillance. This program would be a dramatic change to American life obligatory temperature checks, intrusive testing, and mandatory isolation in quarantine camps for anyone whod even come into contact with a positive case but it is the fastest path out of our current predicament. Beyond Twitter, the periodic suggestion from Trumps executive pals that we should reopen the economy, and a few op-ed pages sketching out vague pathways, there is no sign of any real plan to do it at any level of government.

The Nobel Prizewinning economist Paul Romer has suggested that, while imperfect, an aggressive testing regime without tracing would also be effective, at the population level, allowing a country like the U.S. to emerge from shutdown without imposing quite as aggressive a medical surveillance state. That is potentially promising, since the latter would be enormously challenging at the logistical, legal, and cultural levels here. But the U.S. is very far from instituting that kind of testing regimen. The only COVID-19 testing being done anywhere in the country is of symptomatic patients coming to doctors and hospitals. Nowhere are we doing the kind of community testing Romer envisions, nor are we testing for coronavirus antibodies to confirm how many people have already had otherwise undetected cases of COVID-19. And since we are still so hopelessly short on testing equipment needed to even test all the patients complaining of symptoms, we are very, very far from being able to even imagine a massive nationwide rollout of testing that would allow us to not just swab everyone but continue to swab everyone pretty regularly over the next few months. On top of which, the tests we are using may have a failure rate of about 30%. That means about one in every three people being tested could be getting the wrong result. You cant build any kind of public-health response on top of information that faulty.

In this context, the complete absence of federal leadership Ive written about before is especially conspicuous. The White House has offered no meaningful guidance, best-practices advice, or coordinated support to those states and communities around the country living either in fear of the arrival pandemic or in its grip already. Absent a federal policy or public plan, all we have are vague and poorly informed hopes: for a vaccine, which may take a year or more, though tests are already underway (no vaccine for any coronavirus has ever been created, and 18 months would mark the fastest production of any vaccine of any kind in medical history); for treatment (at the moment, we have no drugs proved to help cure the disease, despite the presidents premature endorsement of chloroquinine); for herd immunity (which may take as long to develop as a vaccine); and for seasonality (which could dampen the spread come summer but which most epidemiologists suspect wont radically alter the trajectory of disease).

So we have no idea how long this will last and how it will end. In the meantime, all we have is a daily White House press conference starring a shortsighted, uninformed, and self-contradicting showman of a president, with multiple competing response teams occasionally emerging from the shadows to reveal a basic ignorance about the meaning of federalism. Neither Jared Kushner nor Donald Trump seem to understand what it means for the federal government to act as a backstop, or what the purposes of a federal medical-supply stockpile could be (given the comparatively tiny size of that government), and how few medical supplies could ever be required by its workforce.

The notion of the federal stockpile was, its supposed to be our stockpile, Kushner said Thursday. Its not supposed to be states stockpile, which they can then use.

The more troubling interpretation of that statement is that it isnt ignorant but strategic and sadistic. The continued messaging from the White House is that at every stage of this pandemic, states and governors will be left to do their own work rather than rely on federal support and critically guidance. About a particular untested treatment, the president said on Friday, literally, What do you have to lose? Take it. I really think they should take it. But its their choice Try it, if youd like. Those rolling their eyes this weekend about the fact that both the Republican governor of Georgia and the Democratic mayor of New York seem only to have learned, in the last few days, that asymptomatic people can still spread the disease a fact familiar to anyone following the story since January is less an indictment of those two men than the vacuum of guidance from Washington, which requires every state and local leader to piece together their own understanding of the disease.

To the extent Washington is providing help, it is providing it, already, in disproportionate ways: more aid to those states considered friendly to the president, and less to those considered hostile. As the crisis grows, that leverage will become even more brutal, which is to say, for a president like Trump, even more tempting medical resources used to punish and torture rather than heal. One hopes the White House wont be that naked, or extreme, in treating desperate states and municipalities as political hostages in the middle of deadly and economically devastating pandemic. But this is, at present, the closest the White House seems to be to an exit strategy or end-game.

The one story you shouldn't miss today, selected byNew York's editors.

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There Is No Plan for the End of the Coronavirus Crisis - New York Magazine

Europes governments have begun to look ahead to the post-lockdown phase of their battle against Covid-19 as curves on the continent flatten, while the US braces for peak death week and Japan prepares to declare a state of national emergency.

Austria on Monday became the first EU country to publicly announce plans to lift its restrictions. The aim is that from April 14 ... smaller shops up to 400 square metres, as well as hardware and garden stores, can open again, under strict security conditions, the chancellor, Sebastian Kurz, said.

If the governments timetable goes to plan, larger shops could reopen on 1 May and hotels, restaurants and other services from mid-May, Kurz said, adding that everything will depend on whether citizens continue to obey draconian distancing rules this week and over the Easter break.

Denmark also announced plans to start reopening nurseries and primary schools from 15 April if the number of Covid-19 deaths and new cases remain stable.

It will probably be a bit like walking the rope. If we stand still along the way we could fall and if we go too fast it can go wrong. Therefore, we must take one cautious step at a time, said the Danish prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, adding that a ban on large social gatherings would remain in place until at least August.

In Germany, the chancellor, Angela Merkel, said on Monday that the coronavirus pandemic was the EUs biggest test since its foundation and thanked Germans for following the governments instructions. But she added that it was still too early to set a date for lifting the countrys lockdown.

However, as Germany reported its its fourth consecutive daily drop in cases, a leaked interior ministry document revealed a list of measures that officials seemingly believe might allow public life to gradually resume after the end of the countrys lockdown, currently scheduled for 19 April.

The measures include an obligation to wear masks in public, limits on public gatherings, and mechanisms to allow more than 80% of people an infected person has been in contact with to be traced within 24 hours of diagnosis, permitting schools to reopen on a regional basis and strict border controls to be relaxed.

Like several EU countries, Austria and Germany look set to rely on mobile phone apps to trace citizens movements and warn them of potential risks of infection, prompting the blocs data protection supervisor on Monday to urge the development of a single, more secure pan-European app.

Spain, which has recorded the second highest Covid-19 death toll in the world so far after Italy, also reported a fourth consecutive fall in its daily death tally as well as falls in hospital admissions and critical care cases.

While strict confinement rules introduced on 14 March will remain in force until 26 April, the government announced on Monday that it is planning to widen coronavirus testing to include people without symptoms, as a first step towards slowly easing the lockdown.

We are preparing ourselves for de-escalation, for which it will be very important to know who is contaminated, said the foreign minister, Arancha Gonzlez Laya.

Italy on Monday reported 636 deaths, roughly 100 more than the previous day, but its infection rate slowed again, with the number of new positive cases rising by under 2,000, or 2.1%. The health minister, Roberto Speranza, told the daily La Repubblica that the coming period was going to be hard.

There are difficult months ahead, he said. Our task is to create the conditions to live with the virus, at least until a vaccine arrives.

The daily death toll in France, which went into lockdown later than Spain and Italy, also fell on Sunday, to 357 from 441 in the previous 24 hours. The health ministry said hospital and intensive care admissions were also declining, but warned people it was still essential to continue respecting strict confinement measures.

According to the Johns Hopkins University tracker, the coronavirus has reached more than 210 countries and territories around the world, infecting 1.28 million people and killing more than 70,000. Nearly half of the worlds population is living in some form of lockdown.

Among other developments:

Norway said it considered its outbreak under control but cautioned it was too early to say if restrictions could be lifted.

As 51 African countries reported 9,198 cases of Covid-19 and 414 deaths, South Africas president, Cyril Ramaphosa, called for unity and a massive aid effort.

The trajectory of infections in Iran appears to have started a gradual decline, the government said.

Indonesia recorded its biggest daily jump in cases, with 218 confirmed on Monday, while the Philippines recorded 414 new infections.

Russia also recorded its biggest daily jump with 954 new cases of the disease.

France is facing its deepest recession since the end of the second world war, the finance minister, Bruno Le Maire, said.

But if curves are flattening in Europe, elsewhere there was little sign of a let-up. The Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe, said on Monday the government planned to declare a state of emergency and proposed a $1tn stimulus package.

Pressure has increased on the government to take action as Tokyo announced a record 148 new cases on Sunday, followed by 83 more on Monday. Japan is unlikely to introduce a hard lockdown, but the government will aim to exert strong psychological pressure through requests and instructions.

The total number of positive cases in Japan has nearly doubled in the last seven days, with Tokyo the main hub. A rapid spread of the virus is a huge risk in the Japanese capital, a city of nearly 14 million, and Japan has one of worlds oldest populations, with nearly a third of the population 36 million people over the age of 65.

In the US, authorities have warned the worst is yet to come. Officials on Monday told the country to prepare for a deadly week as the accelerating US death toll, currently approaching 10,000, closed the gap with Italys and Spains.

Its going to be the peak hospitalisation, peak ICU week and, unfortunately, peak death week, said Adm Brett Giroir, a member of the White House coronavirus task force, raising the alarm in particular alarm for New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Detroit.

The US total of 336,000 confirmed cases is by far the worlds largest and roughly twice as many people a day are dying in the US as in Spain and Italy.

Donald Trump suggested the country was starting to see light at the end of the tunnel. But Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said on Sunday that doesnt take away from the fact that tomorrow, the next day, are going to look really bad.

The UN secretary general, Antnio Guterres, on Monday urged governments to protect women from what he described as a horrifying rise in domestic violence as a consequence of coronavirus measures. For many women and girls, the threat looms largest where they should be safest: in their own homes, he said.

Guterres urged all governments to make the prevention and redress of violence against women a key part of their national response plans for Covid-19.

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Europe looks past lockdowns as US and Japan brace for coronavirus trauma - The Guardian