An informed guide to the global outbreak, with the latest developments and expert advice about prevention and treatment. |
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 | | The New York Times |
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What will college look like in the fall? |
Many colleges and universities in the U.S. are now grappling with how and when to reopen their campuses and what college life will be like under a pandemic. They are coming up with a variety of answers. |
On Monday, Notre Dame became the first major university to say it would resume in-person classes for the fall semester. In fact, it will start early, on Aug. 10, and finish by Thanksgiving with no break, so that most students won't be leaving and coming back during the term. |
What surprised you most during these calls? |
I was surprised by the level of complexity. I went into this thinking the question was, Do we open with online classes, or do we open in person? But it turned out to be pretty intricate, with all the different permutations and scenarios they came up with, circumscribed by the very limited intelligence we have right now about the virus. |
Some of the scenarios sounded pretty dystopian. |
Well, yes. Imagine being in classes where you're sitting six feet apart from the next person, and everybody has to wear a mask. Your professor might be behind Plexiglas, or at home, beaming the lecture in to the class online. Or you are confined to your dorm, living with the microcosm of people there, and the lectures are beamed into your room. |
What crossed your mind as you were listening? |
I thought that it would be a shame to lose the freedom and youthful spirit of college. So I was rooting for them to find a way to open campus safely. I don't know whether they did, but it will be interesting to see. |
Squabbles over the best economic medicine |
There's no doubt the U.S. economy is in tough shape now, enervated by two months of shutdowns and stay-at-home orders meant to slow the spread of the coronavirus. But disagreements are widening over what to do about it. |
Start with the vital signs. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office now projects that unemployment will crest at 15.8 percent in the third quarter and that economic output will contract by 5.6 percent in 2020 — by far the worst year since just after World War II. |
Mr. Mnuchin, who serves at the pleasure of President Trump, said the thing to do was to reopen the economy as quickly as possible and let it heal itself in the fall. He didn't see an urgent need for more stimulus spending or aid to financially strapped states and cities. |
But Mr. Powell, whose nonpolitical post affords him a bit more independence, warned that no matter how quickly restrictions were lifted, the economy could not fully recover until the health crisis was resolved and people felt safe resuming normal activity. He suggested that more government help would be needed to carry states, households and businesses through the crisis. |
An Amazon warehouse becomes a virus hot spot |
When stay-at-home orders started rolling out in the U.S., Amazon was among the first companies to see the fallout: an immense surge of orders, like nothing it had seen before. That put a huge strain on the company's warehouse employees — more than 900 of whom are estimated to have fallen ill with the virus. |
The biggest Amazon hot spot is at a 600,000-square-foot facility in northeastern Pennsylvania called AVP1, where more than 100 workers are believed to have become infected. The facility started putting some precautions in place in mid-March, but they were not rigorously enforced. One team that oversaw safety protocols posed for a St. Patrick's Day photo standing right next to one another, for example. |
Amazon said it had improved working conditions over the course of the crisis, and it pointed out that the rate of infection was high in the area surrounding AVP1. But workers and local leaders said they were worried early on that the company was not doing enough. |
Since then, the company has changed some practices to let workers stay farther apart, hand-sanitizer dispensers are being refilled regularly, and masks are now required. That's all fine, one employee said; "it's just way too late." |
- America's first live concert in months was held in a former Masonic temple in Arkansas. To maintain social distancing, only one-fifth of the hall's 1,100 seats were available for sale.
- Just a week after many schools reopened in France, 70 coronavirus cases were detected in classrooms across the country, and the authorities shut some schools down again.
- Along with restaurants, bars, churches, and stores, Italy allowed hair salons to reopen on Monday, and Italians celebrated a Great Beautification.
- Four residents of Wuhan, China, which was locked down tight for months, told our correspondent how they are navigating life post-virus.
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Learn to play the guitar. Laura Marling, a folk singer-songwriter, walks you through her technique and leads you step-by-step through her songs. |
Plan for the worst, just in case. The time to discuss end-of-life plans with your loved ones is before you get sick. Here are some thing to consider covering in "the talk." |
Manage your family's diet. Emotional eating can be brought on by either boredom or stress, and there may be plenty of both in your home right now. Here are signs to watch for. |
What else we're following |
- Bakeries, crawfish farms, date-packing houses: Other kinds of food factories besides meat-packing plants are emerging as coronavirus hot spots in the U.S.
- Do fever-scanning cameras and infrared temperature sensors at schools, offices and public facilities intrude on civil liberties to no benefit? The American Civil Liberties Union says so.
- Global greenhouse gas emissions have plunged 17 percent during the pandemic because of economic shutdowns, The Washington Post reports.
- Most coronavirus cases in Israel are linked to the United States, genetic researchers say.
- One out of nine Americans say human sinfulness is to blame for the coronavirus crisis in the U.S., according to an Associated Press/NORC poll. (Many more blamed foreign countries or the federal government.)
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| Every Thursday, we take turns making extra dinner and sharing it with our next door neighbors, and they share with us on alternate weeks. We have each made some delicious food for the other. We look forward to their food all week long. It's inspired us to step up our dinner game. |
| — Beth Houle, Oak Park, Ill. |
Let us know how you're dealing with the outbreak. Send us a response here, and we may feature it in an upcoming newsletter. |
| Lara Takenaga and Jonathan Wolfe helped write today's newsletter. |
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