Category: Corona Virus

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has begun conducting blood tests it says will help determine if a person has been exposed to the coronavirus, even without showing symptoms, a CDC spokesperson told Politico.

These serological tests, or sero-surveys, are different from the nose swabs used to diagnose active cases of Covid-19. By analyzing blood, researchers will be able to tell if a person developed certain antibodies in the blood, indicating that they were infected by the virus and recovered.

If a person can be shown to have developed those protections against reinfection, they could potentially reenter society and the workforce during a time when millions of Americans live under orders to stay home to prevent the spread of Covid-19.

These tests can also help to retroactively collect data about how widespread the virus has been. In the absence of readily available diagnostic testing, many people who have demonstrated symptoms have simply been told to stay home, without receiving a formal diagnosis, while many more people never display symptoms at all.

Were just starting to do testing and well report out on these very quickly, Joe Bresee, deputy incident manager for the CDCs pandemic response, told reporters. We think the serum studies will be very important to understand what the true amount of infection is out in the community.

According to reporting by the health journalism outlet Stat, the surveys will target three groups in three phases: people living in hot spots of the disease, such as New York and Seattle, but who were not diagnosed; a representative sample of people living across the country, in areas with differing rates of infection; and health care workers.

The first phase, on people living in hot spots begun after the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted an emergency authorization for testing kits on April 1.

The tests, developed by the company Cellex, involve pricking a finger and can deliver a reading in 15 minutes. Other test manufacturers are working to deploy their own tests in the coming months.

The second phase, on the national population, will likely begin this summer, and there is no timeline yet for the third phase of health workers, according to Stat.

About 80 percent of confirmed Covid-19 cases correspond with mild to moderate symptoms, including coughing, fever, and exhaustion. Many cases will show no symptoms at all perhaps 25 percent of cases, according to the CDC and therefore likely go undiagnosed, but asymptomatic people can still pass the virus on to others who are more vulnerable to serious complications.

But because it has been difficult to procure diagnostic tests, people across the spectrum those who feel perfectly healthy, those with presumed symptoms, and even some with more serious symptoms have been encouraged to stay home, away from other people and away from hospitals, where infection can spread even more rapidly.

Thats why learning more about the full scope of the disease, including how many people have already experienced it and recovered, and the profile of people who did not become sick from the virus, could help researchers better understand the virus and how it spreads.

These tests could also help authorities better prepare for future pandemic response, according to Stat: If its known that a high percentage of people in a community were likely infected when the virus moved through during its first wave of infections, the response to a reappearance later might be tailored to protect only high-risk people, for instance.

At a time when millions of Americans are forced to stay home in order to enact social distancing measures, figuring out who is protected against the diseases spread could be the first step toward getting some people back out into the world.

As Voxs Umair Irfan has written, testing may hold the key to a return to normal.

A person who has had the virus, recovered, and developed antibodies proteins built in the blood that help an immune system identify and neutralize threats may have some level of protection against future spread. This makes them much less at risk of becoming infected, or spreading infection, when touching a cart at the grocery store, preparing food, or visiting a loved one, to name just some of the quotidian activities currently hampered by the coronavirus.

It is not yet known whether antibodies to this virus correlate with immunity, however, as they do with other viruses.

But in a recent interview on The Daily Show, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the USs top infectious disease expert, said experts studying the disease feel really confident that recovered patients will have immunity against Covid-19.

If this virus acts like every other virus that we know, once you get infected, get better, clear the virus, then youll have immunity that will protect you against reinfection, he said.

There are other open questions, such as how long that immunity could last and whether certain people can be reinfected. It is also not yet known how this virus mutates; if its mutation patterns mirror influenza, there could be a new strain each year, for example.

Some early research also indicates repeated or protracted exposure to the virus may cause more severe infections. That opens up the question of whether antibodies can prevent infection from larger doses of the virus say, for hospital workers who are repeatedly exposed to the virus or whether they are more effective among the general population.

Without a clear way of knowing who poses a risk, who is at risk, and who carries immunity, lifting social distancing measures early would prove a nightmare scenario, one infectious diseases researcher told Vox.

The CDC has given no indication that this round of serological testing is being conducted with an aim toward returning people to the workforce. Still, these antibodies may provide a key clue about who can safely return to work. This may be especially important in freeing up health care workers at a time when many hospitals and clinics are facing staffing shortages due to coronavirus.

The UK has ordered 3.5 million of these tests, and both Italy and Germany are considering using them to provide citizens with certifications indicating they can return to the world.

As Irfan has written, these tests arent perfect:

Serological tests use blood serum, the liquid part of blood, excluding cells and clotting proteins. Even though SARS-CoV-2 isnt typically present in blood, an infection causes white blood cells to make antibody proteins that help the immune system identify viruses and stop them, or mark infected cells for destruction.

Although these proteins can be detected in the bloodstream and blood serum, it can take several days for someone to make these antibodies after an infection. So a serological test isnt always useful for finding an active infection and can yield a false negative, showing that someone doesnt have the virus when they actually do. The results of these tests can also be trickier to interpret than results from the more common RT-PCR tests used to diagnose Covid-19, which detect the viruss genetic material.

Instead, these tests can be a screening tool. Researchers are also studying how antibodies could be collected in order to treat current cases of Covid-19; they are looking into how to use blood plasma from recovered patients as a possible emergency treatment of current cases.

But there are many caveats, as Irfan points out. There are shortages of necessary testing materials and of personal protective equipment for medical staff conducting these tests. There are also many unknowns about how immunity to this new virus functions:

To safely return to work, a patient would have to ensure that they have immunity and that they are no longer spreading the virus. Since a serological test can only confirm the former, a patient may still need an additional RT-PCR test to establish the latter. That is, they need to test positive for immunity and negative for the virus itself.

SARS-CoV-2 is also a new virus, so researchers arent certain how long immunity will last. The virus could mutate and render past immunity ineffective, although scientists have found that it is mutating slowly, indicating that the protection from a past infection is likely to be effective for a while.

Putting too much stock in immunity, too, could create some kind of incentive for becoming infected in order to develop antibodies, which would be highly irresponsible during an outbreak of an infectious disease about which so much is still unknown.

Instead, Irfan argues, the best strategy remains not getting infected in the first place and buying time until researchers can develop and deploy a vaccine.

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The CDC has begun testing blood for immunity against the coronavirus - Vox.com

Amid this unprecedented public health and economic crisis, the campaign can no longer ask voters whether they are better off now than they were four years ago. Instead, it is shifting to pegging the President's success to his handling of the pandemic.

The crisis has impacted every facet of the Trump's campaign's strategy as aides and advisers now work to navigate virtual organizing and fundraising -- all while working from home, like many Americans, as its glossy Virginia headquarters and field offices across the country are now shuttered.

The outbreak has also played a role in how the campaign operates for the time being. Instead of being focused on growing its ground game in states that will be critical to Trump's election win in November, as officials had planned on doing at this time, they are now mainly focused on the digital effort. The Trump campaign's digital team currently employs over 100 people.

Messaging

Behind that strategic shift in messaging is the understanding that Americans are closely following the administration's response and the campaign's key job now is to ensure voters perceive Trump's response is effective.

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie claimed the campaign is now fundamentally about how Americans believe Trump handled the crisis.

"Whatever their campaign promises were or weren't, when you hit a major crisis -- with me it was Hurricane Sandy, with the President it's this pandemic now -- in my view, politically, nothing else matters," Christie, a key Trump ally, said on ABC's "This Week" on Sunday. "And, in fact, I've never seen a time when the opponent is more irrelevant. And that's not an insult to Vice President Biden."

"But in the end, the American people are going to decide: Has the President of the United States stood up to this crisis and done right by them and protected their lives and their property, or hasn't he?" Christie said. "It's almost as if now the selection as his position is going to be a referendum of President Trump rather than a binary choice between the Vice President (Biden) and the President."

As the administration ramped up Trump's response to the outbreak, so did his campaign with the polling. Polling that showed the country favored keeping stricter social distancing measures in place played a key role in Trump's decision to extend it 30 days this week, three people said.

"The campaign remains the same in focus, which is the President is leading on what we're talking about and we're echoing what he talks about -- that's always been the strategy and stance of the campaign. He's leading the country through a national crisis right now," Trump campaign spokeswoman Erin Perrine told CNN.

The campaign will talk about the work Trump is doing, as well as continue to push back against what it describes as "false narratives" from Democratic rivals and the media alike, Perrine said.

For now, the campaign has sought to highlight Trump's action through its social media channels. And top surrogates have touted a historic stimulus deal passed by Congress as a sign of Trump's leadership.

The campaign recently sent a cease-and-desist letter to television stations running the ad in key swing states of Florida, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, because it "contains the false assertion that President Trump called the coronavirus a 'hoax,' when in fact he was referring to Democrat criticisms and politicization of the federal response to the public health crisis."

In response, Priorities USA continued to air the ad and expanded it to Arizona. It also launched the ad digitally in Spanish.

The campaign's rapid response team has also gone after Joe Biden, including last week, accusing the former vice president of using the crisis "as an opportunity to cram the Green New Deal down Americans' throats," per a statement from communications director Tim Murtaugh, after comments Biden made about the next round of stimulus funding. And on Thursday, Murtaugh issued a statement reacting to Biden's statement slamming the administration on record unemployment claims, saying Biden is "ineffectively sniping from the sidelines."

Briefing is the new rally

The most visible change to the campaign's strategy is the indefinite pause on rallies -- a critical tool for capturing voter data -- as the administration encourages social distancing practices.

Last Thursday marked one month since Trump was in his comfort zone, surrounded by thousands of chanting supporters in the enclave of the Bojangles Coliseum in Charlotte, North Carolina.

For now, the campaign will continue to follow White House and US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines on crowd sizes. The campaign had previously been scheduling rallies to closely mirror and counter-program the Democratic primary: Des Moines the day before the Iowa caucuses, Manchester before the first in the nation New Hampshire primary, Las Vegas, Charleston, and Charlotte before their respective contests.

In lieu of rallies, the President has taken his wide-ranging, often lengthy speeches to the briefing room. Since the vice president was tapped to lead the task force February 26, Trump has led 21 press briefings. Much like his "Keep America Great" campaign rallies, the average length is 76 minutes, with the longest clocking in at 110 minutes.

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How the Trump campaign is adjusting in the time of coronavirus - CNN

The Newark case is one of a handful that federal prosecutors have brought over the past few weeks. In Austin, Texas, the F.B.I. shut down a website that promised consumers access to World Health Organization vaccine kits in exchange for a shipping charge of $4.95, payable by credit card. No vaccine for the virus exists.

In Georgia, F.B.I. agents arrested a 49-year-old man on charges of collecting kickbacks for Covid-19 tests and screenings for other respiratory illnesses in a scheme that aimed to submit $1.1 million in fraudulent Medicare claims. According to court documents, the man was upfront about his motives.

Everybody has been chasing the Covid dollar bird, he said in a telephone conversation, according to court papers. While there are people going through what they are going through, you can either go bankrupt or you can prosper.

That was apparently the view of another operator who promised a California union of nearly 100,000 health care workers that he could provide them 39 million N95 masks. But when health care providers like Kaiser Permanente sought to verify and inspect the mans supply chain, he proved more and more elusive.

Last week, a federal prosecutor contacted the union, the Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West, for details about the seller. As far as we know, no money changed hands, said Steve Trossman, a spokesman for the union, which was trying to serve as an intermediary to hospitals. The really bad thing was, the masks were desperately needed.

In Southern California, agents arrested a 53-year-old, small-time actor for seeking investments in a nonexistent company that he claimed was just days away from marketing pills that would ward off the virus and injections that would cure Covid-19. The authorities said his YouTube and Instagram videos, in which he displayed a syringe of clear liquid or nondescript white pills, had been viewed more than two million times.

A self-described genius entrepreneur, the man claimed in a text to a cooperating witness that a Los Angeles patient stricken by Covid-19 rose from a sickbed and walked out 51 hours after my injection, the authorities said. He claimed he knew a doctor with White House ties who was on his way to President Trumps Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida for an emergency order authorizing his drugs and promised a $300,000 investment in his company would yield a $30 million return.

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Coronavirus Scammers: Another Thing to Fear - The New York Times

LAS VEGAS From the Stratosphere to the Mandalay Bay, Las Vegas is closed for business. With the exception of the security guards who remain perched outside casino entrances and occasional joggers, the Strip is deserted.

The haunting emptiness is a version of what many Americans are witnessing in the places they call home: vacant subways, wide open freeways and unoccupied city centers. But as measures to control the spread of the coronavirus shut down businesses across the country, those of us who live and work here in Vegas worry that well suffer more and longer than most.

On New Years Eve 2020, I worked one of my last shifts as a casino cocktail server. I sneaked out of the service well with my co-workers to watch the Strips fireworks alongside a crowd of thousands of tourists from all around the world. Thinking about leaving an industry in which Id spent almost a decade in was bittersweet. It will always be here if I want to come back, I told myself.

Just a few months later, the casinos are empty and my friends are out of work.

Like many other states, Nevada closed all nonessential businesses to stem the spread of the coronavirus. But here in Vegas, the majority of our economy is nonessential. Our economic well-being lives and dies by the booming and busting of a single, extremely fragile industry. This month last year, 3.5 million tourists visited here. A complete halt to the beating heart of our economy is devastating.

About 206,000 of Nevadas casino workers have been affected by the mandatory closings. The week after the shutdown, Nevadans set a record for the most unemployment claims in the states history: over 92,000. The Economic Policy Institute predicts that our unemployment rate will be 19.7 percent by summer.

Here, shutting down the hospitality industry means wiping out the economic security of entire families. In the past week, I havent just seen my friends lose jobs. Their spouses, parents, and their college-age and teenage kids that do full- or part-time service work are now unemployed, too.

The coronavirus pandemic awakens memories of the 2008 financial crisis. In fact, we have only recently recovered from that recession. It wasnt until 2016 that Nevada finally regained the nearly 175,000 jobs it lost during 2008, and at no point during that period did resort properties have to close operations completely.

But casino leaders seem to have learned from that time. Matthew Maddox, the chief executive of Wynn Resorts, cited the lessons of 2008 as the reason his 25,000 employees will still be paid during the mandatory closing. Some other casino leaders are also keeping workers on payrolls.

But the largest casino employer, MGM Resorts, which employees over 75,000 in Nevada, could only guarantee their furloughed workers two weeks of pay. And for those workers at small businesses or franchises that operate inside casino walls, layoffs are the new norm.

The federal governments passage of the $2 trillion stimulus bill, although historic, does not meet what the E.P.I. deems necessary to sustain wageworkers through this time. For most workers, a one-time check will not cover the cost of a single rent payment. And the reality is, when nonessential businesses are allowed to reopen, many of those former employees will not be immediately invited back to work.

Even when tourists are free to return here, we wonder if they will. Concerns about their physical health and safety could keep them off planes and out of hotel rooms for months. And a $1,200 check wont stretch far enough to cover the cost of a post-pandemic vacation.

Without additional help from the federal government, it will take a stroke of good fortune for the average Nevadan to survive this crisis. I feel this quite acutely, having secured a new job outside the service industry just two months before the casinos closed.

I got lucky. But economic security should not be left up to chance, or to the generosity of casino owners.

Many working-class Nevadans are in a precarious position: Their economic health depends on the reopening of nonessential businesses. But to reopen too soon is to risk their health, as front-line workers of all kinds experience the greatest risks of exposure.

With their typical marketing savvy, casino billboards and marquees are offering messages of optimism: We cant wait to have you back. Stay Vegas Strong. We will get through this. But as is always the case, the house has the advantage. They will survive this. For workers, the odds are not generous.

Brittany Bronson is a Las Vegas-based writer.

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. Wed like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And heres our email: letters@nytimes.com.

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In Las Vegas, the Coronavirus Odds Are Not in Our Favor - The New York Times

By Christopher Burns, BDN Staff April 6, 2020 6:46 am Updated: April 6, 2020 12:20 pm

As of 11 a.m. Monday, there are now 499 confirmed cases of the new coronavirus spread across 15 Maine counties, according to the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

No new deaths were reported Sunday, leaving the total loss of life at 10. Additionally, 86 Maine residents who have been hospitalized with COVID-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus, while another 156 people have fully recovered from it, according to the Maine CDC.

Only one county Piscataquis has no confirmed cases of the virus.

Heres the latest on the coronavirus and its impact in Maine.

The Maine CDC will provide an update on the coronavirus in Maine later today. The BDN will livestream the briefing.

A record number of Mainers have been left without work because of the coronavirus outbreak, and by some estimates, it will only get worse. Even with that unprecedented number of people left jobless, Maines labor commissioner is confident that the states unemployment fund will be able to weather the coronavirus crisis. Maines unemployment system was in a historically good financial situation until the crisis forced it to pay out $6 million alone to people who filed between March 15 and March 21. For comparison, the state paid out a $10.4 million total in February before coronavirus started ravaging the job market. Experts say the speed at which job loss is occurring and the uncertainty of how long the virus pandemic will last say states should be prepared for the worst.

Self-employed Mainers hit hard by the economic shutdown due to the coronavirus pandemic are still waiting for relief as a federal program aimed at helping them will take at least another week to set up.

With more Mainers working from home, the states broadband infrastructure has been placed under strain, leading to slow speeds and, in some places, loss of connection. Jeff Letourneau, who monitors Maines internet as executive director of Networkmaine at the University of Maine System, told Maine Public there are parts of the state that simply dont have the capacity to handle the increased demand on home internet connections.

Democratic Gov. Janet Mills has ordered the suspension of most lodging operations through the end of the month in an effort to deter visitors from traveling to Maine. Thats caused immense uncertainty among those in the hospitality industry over details, such as who will be exempted and still allowed to stay in hotels, motels, campgrounds, RV parks and short-term rental facilities.

The Maine seafood industry has taken a big hit from the coronavirus as restaurants shutter, taking away a significant market for its products and leaving fishermen and dealers scrambling for new markets. For some dealers, the solution has been to make sales directly to consumers, opening pick-up stations in parking lots and elsewhere.

The U.S. surgeon general, Jerome Adams, on Sunday warned that the nation could face its hardest and saddest week yet in the coronavirus outbreak in the coming days. That warning comes as infections and deaths continue to climb in the U.S. as states scramble to find needed equipment to treat the virus victims. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said the virus is unlikely to be completely eradicated this year, meaning the U.S. could see a resurgence during the next flu season.

As of Monday morning, the coronavirus has sickened at least 337,646 people in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands and the U.S. Virgin Islands, as well as caused 9,648 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University.

Elsewhere in New England, the virus has killed 231 people in Massachusetts, 189 in Connecticut, 25 in Rhode Island, 22 in Vermont and nine in New Hampshire.

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April 6 morning update: The latest on the coronavirus and Maine - Bangor Daily News

Since the early days of the Trump administration, an impassioned group of mental health professionals have warned the public about the presidents cramped and disordered mind, a darkened attic of fluttering bats. Their assessments have been controversial. The American Psychiatric Associations code of ethics expressly forbids its members from diagnosing a public figure from afar.

Enough is enough. As Ive argued before, an in-person analysis of Donald J. Trump would not reveal any hidden depths his internal sonar could barely fathom the bottom of a sink and these are exceptional, urgent times. Back in October, George T. Conway III, the conservative lawyer and husband of Kellyanne, wrote a long, devastating essay for The Atlantic, noting that Trump has all the hallmarks of narcissistic personality disorder. That disorder was dangerous enough during times of prosperity, jeopardizing the moral and institutional foundations of our country.

But now were in the midst of a global pandemic. The presidents pathology is endangering not just institutions, but lives.

Lets start with the basics. First: Narcissistic personalities like Trump harbor skyscraping delusions about their own capabilities. They exaggerate their accomplishments, focus obsessively on projecting power, and wish desperately to win.

What that means, during this pandemic: Trump says weve got plenty of tests available, when we dont. He declares that Google is building a comprehensive drive-thru testing website, when it isnt. He sends a Navy hospital ship to New York and it proves little more than an excuse for a campaign commercial, arriving and sitting almost empty in the Hudson. A New York hospital executive calls it a joke.

Second: The grandiosity of narcissistic personalities belies an extreme fragility, their egos as delicate as foam. They live in terror of being upstaged. Theyre too thin skinned to be told theyre wrong.

What that means, during this pandemic: Narcissistic leaders never have, as Trump likes to say, the best people. They have galleries of sycophants. With the exceptions of Drs. Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx, Trump has surrounded himself with a Z-team of dangerously inexperienced toadies and flunkies the bargain-bin rejects from Filenes Basement at a time when we require the brightest and most imaginative minds in the country.

Debatable: Agree to disagree, or disagree better? Broaden your perspective with sharp arguments on the most pressing issues of the week.

Faced with a historic public health crisis, Trump could have assembled a first-rate company of disaster preparedness experts. Instead he gave the job to his son-in-law, a man-child of breathtaking vapidity. Faced with a historic economic crisis, Trump could have assembled a team of Nobel-prize winning economists or previous treasury secretaries. Instead he talks to Larry Kudlow, a former CNBC host.

Meanwhile, Fauci and Birx measure every word they say like old-time apothecaries, hoping not to humiliate the narcissist never humiliate a narcissist while discreetly correcting his false hopes and falsehoods. They are desperately attempting to create a safe space for our president, when the president should be creating a safer nation for all of us.

Third: Narcissistic personalities love nothing more than engineering conflict and sowing division. It destabilizes everyone, keeps them in control.

What that means, during this pandemic: Trump is pitting state against state for precious resources, rather than coordinating a national response. (Its like being on eBay, complained Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York last week.) His White House is a petty palace of competing power centers. He picks fights with Democratic officials and members of the press, when all the public craves is comfort.

Narcissistic personalities dont do comfort. They cannot fathom the needs of other hearts.

Fourth: Narcissistic personalities are vindictive. On a clear day, you can see their grudges forever.

What that means, during this pandemic: Trump is playing favorites with governors who praise him and punishing those who fail to give him the respect he believes he deserves. If they dont treat you right, dont call, he told Vice President Mike Pence.

His grudge match with New York is now especially lethal. When asked on Friday whether New York will have enough ventilators, Trump bluntly answered No, and then blamed the state.

And most relevant, as far as history is concerned: Narcissistic personalities are weak.

What that means, during this pandemic: Trump is genuinely afraid to lead. He cant bring himself to make robust use of the Defense Production Act, because the buck would stop with him. (To this day, he insists states should be acquiring their own ventilators.) When asked about delays in testing, he said, I dont take responsibility at all. During Fridays news conference, he added the tests we inherited were broken, were obsolete, when this form of coronavirus didnt even exist under his predecessor.

This sounds an awful lot like one of the three sentences that Homer Simpson swears will get you through life: It was like that when I got here.

Most people, even the most hotheaded and difficult ones, have enough space in their souls to set aside their anger in times of crisis. Think of Rudolph Giuliani during Sept. 11. Think of Andrew Cuomo now.

But every aspect of Trumps crisis management has been annexed by his psychopathology. As Americans die, he boasts about his television ratings. As Americans die, he crows that hes No. 1 on Facebook, which isnt close to true.

But it is true that all eyes are on him. Hes got a captive audience, an attention-addicts dream come to life. Its just that he, like all narcissistic personalities, has no clue how disgracefully how shamefully, how deplorably hell be enshrined in memory.

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Donald Trump the Narcissist Is Running the Coronavirus Crisis - The New York Times

It's not just toilet paper and ground beef people are stockpiling. Since coronavirus measures have made everything harder to get, some people are hoarding their illegal drugs of choice. Here's what you need to know to Get Up to Speed and Out the Door. (You can also get "5 Things You Need to Know Today" delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up here.)

1. Coronavirus

2. Health

3. World economy

4. Election 2020

5. White House

People are talking about these. Read up. Join in.

A Florida county is reminding people to keep onealligator's length away from each other

"I hope in the years to come everyone will be able to take pride in how they responded to this challenge."

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5 things to know for April 6: Coronavirus, health, economy, elections, White House - CNN

Illustration by Joo Fazenda

The streets of New York City are so desolate now that you half expect tumbleweed to blow along the pavement where cars and cabs once clustered. There is barely a plane in the sky. You hear the wheeze of an empty bus rounding a corner, the flutter of pigeons on a fire escape, the wail of an ambulance. The sirens are unnervingly frequent. But even on these sunny, early-spring days there are few people in sight. For weeks, as the distancing rules of the pandemic took hold, a gifted saxophone player who stakes his corner outside a dress shop on Broadway every morning was still there, playing My Favorite Things and All the Things You Are. Now he is gone, too.

The spectacle of New York without New Yorkers is the result of a communal pact. We have absented ourselves from the schools and the playgrounds, the ballparks and the bars, the places where we work, because we know that life now depends on our withdrawal from life. The vacancy of our public spaces, though antithetical to the purpose of a great city, which is defined by the constancy and the poetry of its encounters, is needed for its preservation.

And so you stick your head out the window of an apartment that you havent left in days and look down and around. You wait awhile before you see a single scurrying soul, her arms full of groceries. Shes wearing a mask and walking with the urgency of a thief. She crosses Broadway, past blooming magnolias on the traffic divider. She quickens her step and heads toward Amsterdam Avenue. Like all of us, she is trying to outrun the thing she cannot see. You close the window and wash your hands for the fourteenth time that day. Happy birthday to you... Twenty seconds of it. Never less.

On any person who desires such queer prizes, New York will bestow the gift of loneliness and the gift of privacy, E.B. White wrote, in the summer of 1948. But these queer prizes are now a public-health requirement. Because New Yorkers are not medieval monks, we mostly chafe at the imposed solitude. We do our best to overcome it through technologies that White would have had a hard time imagining: We text. We Zoom. We send one another links about virology. (We are all immunologists now.)

We watch televised briefings that are as long as art-house movies. The politicians review the bullet points of the day, nearly all of them ominous. The reporters sit at least six feet apart, when they do not phone in their plaintive questions, asking, in sum: Do we have the medicine, the equipment, the food we need to keep going? When can we go out again? And then you ask yourself if you need more liquid soap. The hours are as long as evening shadows.

But then something happens. Joy comes at seven. (Or is it sheer catharsis?) Every evening, in many neighborhoods across the city, cheering breaks out, the way it would when the Yankees clinched another World Series title. It spills from the stoops and the sidewalks, from apartment windows and rooftops, for all the nurses, orderlies, doctors, E.M.T.severyone who cannot shelter in place and continues to go about healing the people of the city.

We take out our smartphones and record the roar outside: the clapping and the whooping, the tambourines and wind chimes, the vuvuzelas. The guy across the street is a master of the cowbell. Before it all dies down, weve sent off the recording to a loved one who works as an E.R. docand to others who are sick in bed or out of range of our anxious, canyoned citythe city described every minute on cable news as the epicenter.

Whats being applauded at seven is the courage of professionals, many of them working without the protective gear they need. Some have seen their salaries cut; some have fallen ill, others soon will. Were applauding the likes of Anthony Fauci, who must spend nearly as much mental energy trying to finesse the ignorance and the ego of his Commander-in-Chief as he does in assessing the course of the novel coronavirus. Were cheering researchers in labs all over the world who are at work on antivirals and potential vaccines. Were cheering everyone who makes it possible for the city to avoid the myriad conceivable shortfalls and collapses: grocery clerks and ambulance drivers; sanitation workers; pharmacists and mail carriers; truckers, cops, and firemen; the deliveryman who shrugs off the straps of his knapsack and jabs the intercom buzzer with a gloved finger; the community of artists, dancers, d.j.s, musicians, and actors who have lost paychecks and jobs but are posting paintings on Instagram, FaceTiming soliloquies, singing into iPhones. And were thanking those who are providing straight information, lobbying Washington for medical supplies, looking out for the most vulnerable among us, and making critical decisions based on the scientific evidence, no matter how unforgiving. We know the limits of this releasethere is a feeling of helplessness reflected in it, toobut its what we have in a dark time.

And there is no question of the darkness. Last Tuesday, President Trump presided over a two-hour news conference at which he fleetingly appeared to bow before realities that he had airily dismissed for so long and at our collective perilthe most chilling fact being that, even with effective strategies of social distancing, perhaps one or two hundred thousand Americans could die in this pandemic. As sobering a number as that is, we should be prepared for it, Fauci said, as the President stood nearby, seeming, for once in his life, humbled.

These next weeks and months will be demanding in ways that are hard to fathom. If New Yorkers are in hiding, the virus has shown a knack for seeking. But, with time, life will return to the city. Our city and your city. The doors will open and we will leave our homes. We will meet again. We will greet our friends, face to face, at long-delayed Easter services and Passover Seders. Children will attend class with their teachers. Sidewalks and stores and theatres will fill. Remnants of the crisisa box of nitrile gloves, a bag of makeshift masks; containers of drying Clorox wipeswill be tucked away, out of sight and out of mind. Well forget a lot about our citys suspended life. But we will remember what, and who, we lost. Well remember the cost of time squandered. And we will remember the sound of seven oclock.

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New York City in the Coronavirus Pandemic - The New Yorker

The list of symptoms that have been associated with the virus is not a small one. According to the CDC, symptoms such as a dry cough, fatigue, low-grade fever, body aches, nasal congestion and sore throat are the most common with COVID-19. In addition, symptoms such as the loss of the senses of taste and smell, diarrhea and the appearance of conjunctivitis commonly known as pink eye have also been seen.

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Coronavirus: Could you have already had the virus? 5 questions answered - KIRO Seattle

BRUSSELS If it werent the age of social distancing, people would stop them on the street to take selfies. Instead, they get adoring messages on social media. Others appear on television daily.

The new celebrities emerging across Europe as the coronavirus burns a deadly path through the continent are not actors or singers or politicians. Instead, they are epidemiologists and virologists who have become household names after spending most of their lives in virtual anonymity.

While nurses and doctors treat patients on the front lines, epidemiologists and virologists who have spent careers in lecture halls and laboratories have become the most trusted sources of information in an era of deep uncertainty, diverging policy and raging disinformation.

After a long period of popular backlash against experts and expertise, which underpinned a sweep of political change and set off culture wars in much of the developed world, societies besieged by coronavirus isolation and desperate for facts are turning to these experts for answers, making them national heroes.

During a crisis, heroes come to the forefront because many of our basic human needs are threatened, including our need for certainty, meaning and purpose, self-esteem, and sense of belonging with others, said Elaine Kinsella, a psychology professor at the University of Limerick in Ireland who has researched the role of heroes in society.

Heroes help to fulfill, at least in part, some of these basic human needs, she added.

The scientist-heroes emerging from the coronavirus crisis rarely have the obvious charisma of political leaders, but they show deep expertise and, sometimes, compassion.

In Italy, a nation ravaged by the virus more than any other in the world so far, Dr. Massimo Galli, the director the infectious diseases department at Luigi Sacco University Hospital in Milan, swapped his lab coat for a suit and accepted he would be overexposed in the media in order to set things straight, he told one talk show.

So the avuncular, bespectacled professor quickly became a familiar face on Italian current-affairs TV shows, delivering no-nonsense updates about the unfamiliar foe.

He called social distancing the mother of all battles.

He fretted about the risks that lurk in Italys multigenerational families, a tough message even as he believes home contagions became the No. 1 cause for the spread of the virus in the country.

Between broadcasts, he crept back into his laboratory to help his colleagues with research.

In Greece, which has so far been spared a major outbreak, everyone tunes in when Prof. Sotirios Tsiodras, a slender-framed, gray-haired man, addresses the nation every day at 6 p.m.

His delivery is flat, and he relies heavily on his notes as he updates the country on the latest figures of those confirmed sick, hospitalized or deceased. Occasionally, he offers practical advice, like a solution of four teaspoons of bleach per liter of water can be sprayed on surfaces for disinfection. And he rushes to dispel misinformation: Officials dont know the impact of ibuprofen on those sick from the virus.

The head of the Greek governments medical response to the coronavirus and a churchgoing father of seven with a long career studying infectious diseases at Harvard, M.I.T. and elsewhere, Professor Tsiodras is not one for embellishment.

By being frank, he has rallied the country behind some of the most proactively restrictive measures in Europe, which seem to be working as Greece counts just 68 deaths since the start of the outbreak. By contrast, Belgium, which has a similar population, just over 10 million, has recorded 1,283 deaths.

Professor Tsiodras combines key features that make him appealing to the anxious public, says Theo Anagnostopoulos, the founder of SciCo, a science communications consultancy: He comes across as an ordinary person but with proven expertise, and is empathetic.

Hes one of us, Mr. Anagnostopoulos said. Hes humble, modest and caring, but hes also undeniably a top expert.

Dr. Christian Drosten has emerged as the voice of scientific reason in Germany, where the impact of the virus has been deeply felt despite a relatively low death rate. Long respected for the depth of his knowledge and willingness to share it with peers, he never sought the limelight. Colleagues have described him as an unlikely hero.

For weeks, however, Dr. Drosten, chief virologist at the Charit university research hospital in Berlin, has become one of the most sought-after guests on television talk shows and the star of a daily podcast that started in February. In it, he delivers fact-based assessments of the risks Germany faces based on the science behind SARS viruses, which he has studied for years.

Chancellor Angela Merkel and her health minister, Jens Spahn, have also asked Dr. Drosten to consult on the political response to the crisis, although, as he was quick to point out to the German weekly Die Zeit, Im not a politician, Im a scientist.

Im happy to explain what I know, he said. Scientific findings must be communicated to everyone transparently, so that we all can get an idea of the situation. But Im also honest about what I dont know.

In some countries, certain scientists have been both lionized and vilified. In the United States, Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, a respected immunologist who is the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has been catapulted to celebrity status.

But Dr. Fauci, the Trump administrations fiercest advocate of social distancing rules, has also drawn the vitriol of members of the far right, who falsely accuse him of trying to undermine President Trump. The Department of Health and Human Services granted a request by the Justice Department for extra agents to guard him after he received threats.

As with all heroes drawn from the ranks of society during a crisis, some scientists are also painfully vulnerable, becoming sick themselves while carrying out their duties.

In Spain, the worst-hit country in Europe after Italy, Dr. Fernando Simn has cut an endearing scientific hero figure. The director of Spains health emergency center, he has delivered updates and insights into the crisis in a rasping voice, acting as a counselor for anxious citizens, who have peppered him with questions online, including whether people should take off their shoes before entering their homes (they need not, he advised).

Dr. Simn tested positive for the virus in late March, prompting a nationwide outpouring of sympathy and well wishes.

In Britain, Neil Ferguson, a top mathematician and epidemiologist who became known to the broader public seemingly overnight for modeling the spread of the outbreak, contracted the virus in March.

His work spurred the British government to ramp up restrictive measures to contain the illness, having initially taken a more relaxed approach that promoted the idea of helping people develop immunity by exposing a large proportion of the population to the virus.

Unaccustomed to the outsize attention to their every word and action, some of the new national darlings have found themselves on the receiving end of brutal criticism.

Professor Tsiodras was criticized by some in Greece after footage emerged showing him standing at the pulpit of a seemingly empty church, even though the Greek government had demanded that services be suspended because the Greek Orthodox Church would not voluntarily comply with its isolation and social distancing measures.

Dr. Drosten, in Germany, was criticized when he originally challenged the wisdom of closing schools and day care centers views he changed after a deluge of messages, including from colleagues who shared new data with him.

Slip-ups notwithstanding, Professor Kinsella says, these heroes provide clarity during confusing times and that includes the moral kind.

Last month, just as Mr. Trump and other leaders openly debated the wisdom of lockdowns because of their devastating economic costs, Professor Tsiodras tackled the question directly.

After giving the days update, he veered off script, looking nervously down at his clasped hands.

An acquaintance wrote to me that were making too much of a fuss over a bunch of citizens who are elderly and incapacitated by chronic illness, he said. The miracle of medical science in 2020 is the extension of a high-quality life for these people who are our mothers and our fathers, and grandmothers and grandfathers.

His voice then broke as he choked up.

We cannot exist, or have an identity, without them, he said.

Reporting was contributed by Raphael Minder from Madrid, Elisabetta Povoledo from Rome, Melissa Eddy from Berlin and Niki Kitsantonis from Athens.

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The Rising Heroes of the Coronavirus Era? Nations Top Scientists - The New York Times