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Important
developments in the coronavirus pandemic.
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Presented by Goldman Sachs
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The Post's coronavirus coverage linked in this newsletter is free to
access from this email. If you have any trouble, try the
“Read online” link at the top right of this email.
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The latest
The mysterious origin of the novel coronavirus is now a matter
of international dispute. The U.S. intelligence community
concluded the virus is not man-made in a new report, but would
not rule out the possibility that it was accidentally released from a
virology lab in Wuhan, China, where the outbreak began late last year.
President Trump has seized on that idea, which
aligns with a
Republican Party electoral strategy to blame the pandemic on China
and avoid discussing the U.S. government's belated efforts to confront
the outbreak, which has spread to more than 1 million Americans and
killed nearly 65,000. The Washington Post on Thursday reported that in
private,
the White House is considering extraordinary punishments against China,
including suing the country or refusing to pay outstanding U.S. debt. Trump
suggested to reporters on Thursday he had seen confidential evidence the
virus escaped from a Wuhan lab. But the president offered no details, and
he has a well-documented habit of making false or misleading claims.
Scientists who spoke to The Post are overwhelmingly skeptical of
the lab-escape theory. “The balance of the scientific
evidence strongly supports the conclusion that the new coronavirus
emerged from nature — be it the Wuhan [seafood] market or somewhere else.
Too many unexpected coincidences would have had to take place for it to
have escaped from a lab,” we
reported in our latest Fact Checker analysis.
We also have a fascinating story on the research complex at the
heart of this intrigue, where for nearly a decade
virologists “crisscrossed southern Asia in a high-stakes search for bats
and the strange diseases they harbor” in a risky effort to head off
exactly the sort of pandemic that now exists. Read
it here.
The outbreak could go on for another two years, and the U.S.
should prepare for a resurgence of infections this fall or winter
that might dwarf the current wave, according
to a new report by the Center for Infectious Disease Research at the
University of Minnesota. “The idea that this is going to be done soon
defies microbiology,” said the center's director, Mike Osterholm.
Meanwhile, many states continue to roll back quarantine measures after
the
federal government’s social distancing guidelines expired on Thursday and
were replaced by less stringent advice. People
are now dining out in states such as Georgia, Tennessee and Alaska
— albeit sometimes with gloved waiters, disposable menus and “a faint
whiff of bleach in the air,” we
reported. And there is a bizarre dynamic in Iowa,
where businesses are reopening in the suburbs and countryside, but Sioux
City remains shut down with the fastest-growing infection rate in the
United States. “How
do you convince people that if you live on one side of a line, you can’t
leave your home, but if you live on the other, you can?” a skeptical
epidemiologist asked.
Meanwhile in Michigan, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) extended
business closures for another month despite GOP lawsuit threats and an
armed anti-quarantine protest at the state capitol. “Republican
lawmakers are putting their heads in the sand and putting more lives and
livelihoods at risk,” Whitmer said, dismissing the furious opposition.
More
important reads:
The Federal Drug Administration granted
emergency authorization for health-care providers to administer
remdesivir, an antiviral drug that had shown promising effects in
diminishing recovery time.
People are setting fire to cell towers across Europe, apparently
because they believe a false conspiracy theory that 5G mobile networks
spread the virus.
The United States is pressuring Mexico to keep some factories that
supply American companies open, despite
deaths at some of them and a rapidly rising infection rate south of the
border.
Workers
at dozens of Amazon warehouses planned to join May Day walkouts in
protest of their treatment during the outbreak. Amazon's chief
executive, Jeff Bezos, owns The Washington Post.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has called the Senate
to return to work Monday, despite
complaints from Democrats that the risk of disease is too great.
Federal prosecutors investigating coronavirus scams are
looking into a New York family doctor who promoted the drug
hydroxychloroquine as an unproven treatment to the White House and on Fox
News.
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Laura Destribats of
Goldman Sachs Asset Management, discusses how the economic
shutdown is accelerating growth across millennial-friendly
industries like video conferencing, e-commerce and streaming.
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An artist wakes before 4 a.m. to report to her new job at a grocery
store. A restaurant manager tearfully lays off his staff and gives away
meals. A personal trainer begins making his own plastic face shields.
These
Americans are among 10 people, pictured above, whose journeys The Post
will follow over the coming months as they and millions of others
navigate the trail of economic devastation left by the pandemic.
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By Rachel Siegel, Kanyakrit Vongkiatkajorn, Renae
Merle, Julie Vitkovskaya and Jena McGregor ● Read
more »
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Live updates and more
Track
deaths and confirmed cases in the U.S. and across
the world.
Post
reporters across the world are publishing
live dispatches 24 hours a day.
Read
the latest about the cases and
impact in the D.C. area.
Are you recently unemployed due to the pandemic? The Post
has a new Facebook group to help you navigate.
How you can
help people in need |
The
Washington Post Helping Hand covid-19 relief campaign
Submit a
question and The Post may answer it in a future
story, live chat or newsletter.
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Your questions, answered
“Who are all these new diagnoses? I am grateful to see some
signs that we may actually be flattening the curve in a lot of places.
But when I look at a place like Washington that has been so fully brought
to a halt for more than four weeks now, twice the life span of the max
coronavirus incubation, I am wondering how so many new cases are still
added to the roster every day.” — Amy
Argetsinger (an editor for The Washington Post who happens to read this
newsletter)
This isn't just a D.C. question. More than 20,000 Americans are
testing positive for covid-19 each day despite widespread quarantines.
Who are these people, and how are they catching the virus? Post reporters
Kyle Swenson and Jenna Portnoy went
looking for answers in a new story. What they learned is
concerning.
“State and local health departments do not publish the occupations and
living conditions of everyone who tests positive, so there is no
comprehensive analysis of who is getting sick,” the story reads. “But
interviews with doctors and public health officials, and data that has
been made public, paint a portrait of a pandemic that increasingly is
infecting those who have limited ability to socially distance.”
That includes grocery store workers, housekeepers, nursing home
workers, jail inmates, construction workers, the person who delivered
your dinner. Experts and anecdotal reports all confirm
that the disease is largely still spreading among people who can't afford
not to work — or whose work the rest of the country can't afford to do
without.
“It is community spread, then taking it home” to their families, said
Sonja Bachus, chief executive of Greater Baden Medical Services in
Maryland. “It is disheartening.”
Read the story; see the people behind the caseload statistics.
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Today’s top reads
Find more stories, analysis and op-eds about the outbreak on our coronavirus
page, including:
- A guide to taking care of
yourself during the pandemic, from head to toe
- Tips for easing the pain
that stems from working from the couch or the dining
- How wastewater can serve
as an early warning system for the coronavirus
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Tens of millions of Americans are still waiting for
their $1,200 stimulus checks — but some payments have already gone out
to people who don’t even remotely qualify as Americans in need.
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Cityscape, countryside or in between, we’d like to take
a peek. Here’s how to submit your photo.
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Probably more fun than your last Zoom meeting
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