Category Archives: Corona Virus

The ship, which is currently in port in San Diego, was the second US warship to be struck by an outbreak of the pandemic after the USS Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier.

The officials said that there are more than 95 cases currently aboard the ship, meaning that almost 30% of the crew has been infected, surpassing the infection rate for the USS Theodore Roosevelt which has seen approximately 24% of its crew infected.

The handing of the outbreak aboard the aircraft carrier led to the firing of the ship's commanding officer, and the resignation of the acting Navy Secretary. It has been the subject of a Navy investigation which is due to be completed on May 27 following an initial preliminary inquiry that officials tell CNN recommended that the aircraft carrier's former captain, Capt. Brett Crozier, be reinstated.

The Navy on Friday stopped providing official daily figures about the number of cases on the Kidd and Theodore Roosevelt, saying that it "will only report significant changes on these vessels and new cases on any other deployed vessels."

On Thursday night, a Navy statement said that official number of active coronavirus cases on the Kidd was 78.

The 20% increase in positive coronavirus cases does not appear to have met the Navy's definition of "significant" information.

The statement Thursday said that the USS Theodore Roosevelt had 1,102 active cases in addition to 53 sailors who have recovered from coronavirus after completing at least 14 days in isolation and two successful negative tests. Three sailors from the ship are being treated in US Naval Hospital Guam for coronavirus symptoms. None of those sailors are in the ICU.

Asked about the new policy, chief Pentagon spokesperson Jonathan Hoffman told reporters at the Pentagon "we wanted to get out of the pattern of providing a daily tracker of minor changes."

"We've now reached a point with both of those ships, particularly with the (Theodore Roosevelt), where we've gone through, the entire crew's been off, the entire crew's been tested, we have the results, the ship has been cleaned, the crew is now returning to the ship. So we believe that we have moved past a point where the daily updates are providing useful information for a public conversation about it," Hoffman said.

"If there was unfortunately an additional outbreak, we would provide information. But we wanted to get out of the pattern of providing a daily tracker of minor changes in this. And I think that's a reasonable place to be," Hoffman added.

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Number of coronavirus cases from second warship outbreak nears 100 as Navy restricts information on pandemic - CNN

A group of nurses from Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago share the moments that have made the long, hard days worth it. USA TODAY

CHICAGO Dressed in jeans, a striped collared shirt and white sneakers emblazoned with the words MADAM and MAYOR on the heels, the 5-foot former prosecutor grooved to the syncopated beat as the first lyrics rang out: Cash on me, like I hit the lottery.

It's not the typical image for a big-city mayor. Especially during the COVID-19 era.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot on Thursday announced Chicago's first-ever citywide celebration of graduating seniors via a video of herself dancingposted to TikTok the most recent in a series of viral social media posts that Lightfoot's office has used to encourage residents to stay home amid the coronavirus outbreak. More than than 22,000 Chicagoans have been infected; 962 have died.

In an exclusive one-on-one interview with USA TODAY, the Chicago mayor talked about the challenges of battling COVID-19 on the political front lines and her personal experience of the outbreak.

Lightfoot, 57, the Windy City's first black woman and first openly gay mayor, has gained national attention for effectively shepherding the nation's third-largest city through the crisis of a generation.Her humor and iron-fisted resolve have provided both welcome levity and comfort for many Chicagoanswatching the citys case count creep upward.

But in a city long dominated by a history of machine politics and mayoral boses, critics warn that Lightfoot is capitalizing on the crisis to consolidate authority at City Hall.

For the new mayor navigating an impossible situation, the outbreak has meantthree months of seeing the inequities within her city laid bare. It'sbeen acrisis colored by loss, resilience and a letter written in orange marker.

"I have a range of emotions,"Lightfoot says. "People are stepping up in really amazing ways . . .But I also recognize that, just as our strength shines through, the vulnerabilities that we all knew about, that we've been working on for years in fact decades those are also flashing like a neon sign."

In Chicago and Detroit: Coronavirus spares one neighborhood but ravages the next. Race and class spell the difference.

Chicago has been held up as an example of how the outbreak is disproportionately affecting communities of color. The city gained national attention in early April when it reported that more than half of its coronavirus patients and about 70% of COVID-19 deaths were among African Americans, even though black Chicagoans make up just 30% of the citys population.

At the time, the city didn't have information about the race or ethnicity of a quarter of all cases. Looking back on the few past months, Lightfoot said that's among her biggest regrets.

"Understanding the disparate impact is really important," Lightfoot said. "I wish we had demanded the demographic information compliance sooner."

Mayor Lori Lightfoot answers a reporters question during a news conference to provide an update to the latest efforts by the Racial Equity Rapid Response Team in Chicago on Monday.(Photo: Tyler LaRiviere/Chicago Sun-Times via AP)

For thousands of Chicagoans, those case counts aren't just statistics they're family, friends, nurses, doctors. For Lightfoot, it was a man she had met last year whoworked with at-risk youth.

"He had underlying conditions, but nothing particularly serious, and was starting to recover, then literally overnight took a turn for the worst. It was shocking to me," Lightfoot said. "That he lost his life in that way, its very painful."

Lightfoot said a note that she received from a boy in her neighborhood has been giving her the strength to work through the pain.

"It was a very short, sweet letter, and he basically said he was writing to thank me for what we were doing in the city," she said. "Ive been carrying that around because that meant so much to me."

The humor's helped, too, Lightfoot said. When the mayor closed down the city's Lakefront Trail at the end of March, a local graphic artist photoshopped an image of Lightfoot, hands clasped and stony-faced,into a picture ofthe fenced off trail.

"It really just kind of took off from there," Lightfoot said. "We just decided to take the moment of humor to really burn in the necessity to stay home and save lives. The level of ingenuity of people in this city really knows no limits. Its been very fun."

Memes of Lightfoot standing watch outside houses, perched atop traffic lights, glaring through rear-view mirrors, ordering Jesus back into the cave on Easterand more have circulated online.

An Instagram account called "whereslightfoot" has nearly 60,000 followers. The trend is so popular, it's become self-referential.

If she had to pick, two memes stand out as favorites, Lightfoot said.

"It was pretty early on, somebody did a Wheel of Fortune that said 'Stay the F*** Home' that I still think about and laugh every time.It just caught me and made me laugh," she said. "I think the one thats probably truly my favorite, there's one where you know the bat signal that beams up with my face? I kind of feel like that. I need to be and hope I am the guardian of this city."

Criticssay they're getting that message loud and clear. Last week, during a raucous City Council meetingover Zoom complete with shouting and expletives aldermen criticized a proposal to grant Lightfoot'sadministration emergency powers to make decisions about COVID-related spending. Critics called the move a "power grab" by the mayor, who campaigned on rooting out corruption in City Hall.

The ordinance passed, with 21of 50 aldermen votingagainst the measure, including several aldermen representing communities disproportionately affected by the virus.

Democratic Socialist Ald. Carlos Ramirez-Rosa voted against the ordinance, saying that it did not include oversight measures or guarantees that the emergency dollars would be prioritized for hardest hit communities.

"We have been told to trust this mayor,"Ramirez-Rosa said in the meeting. "Here in Chicago, weve seen the disastrous effect of when we trust the mayor to be Chicagos sole decision-maker and authority."

Echoing a critique of Lightfoot commonly heard amid last fall's 11-day teacher's strike, Ramirez-Rosa said that "when it comes to this mayor, you have got to put it in writing."

"We cannot go back to the times of one mayor overseeing everything and a rubber-stamp council," said Ald.Byron Sigcho Lopez.

As Lightfoot turns her focus toward a gradual reopening of the city, June 1 looms large in her mind. Last week, the mayor put together a team of local officials, business leaders and activists to advise her on plans for recovery.

"First of all, were going to be doing a change study. Were looking at uncovering the effect of COVID across a lot of sectors economic, but what I call the social fabric, how this has impacted individuals, neighborhoods, communities," Lightfoot said. "The goal is to have a final report by June 1. So its a sprint."

Lightfoot said that in addition to a focus on policy and economic recovery, the task force plans to have working groups focused on regional cooperation and mental and emotional health. The groups were developing a process to get public feedback, she said.

"We want to think very thoughtfully about what a staged reopening looks like," she said. "Because its not going to look the same as it did in February, pre-COVID. Its just not. Not until we get a vaccine thats viable. So its turning on the dimmer light and not flipping the switch."

When will US reach 100,000 deaths?After a horrific April, grim milestone could hit in May

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Coronavirus in Chicago: How the mayor of the nation's 3rd-largest city is waging her biggest fight - USA TODAY

On April 10, a pastor appeared on Carlsons show to accuse the city government of Greenville, Mississippi, of anti-Christian harassment because it did not allow drive-in church services.

Senator Rand Paul on April 10 tweeted an attack on Kentuckys warning that people who attended large services on Easter could face tickets and quarantine orders: Taking license plates at church? Quarantining someone for being Christian on Easter Sunday? Someone needs to take a step back here.

The Fox News host Jeanine Pirro on April 15 praised Michigan protesters who resisted an unnamed them who want to keep us away from churches and synagogues.

On April 18, Donald Trump retweeted this complaint about Easter restrictions:

Lets see if authorities enforce the social-distancing orders for mosques during Ramadan (April 23May 23) like they did churches during Easter.

At a press conference that day, Trump was invited to explain himself, and he did:

I am somebody that believes in faith. And it matters not what your faith is, but our politicians seem to treat different faiths very differently, and they seem to think, and I dont know what happened with our country, but the Christian faith is treated much differently than it was, and I think its treated very unfairly.

He added: They go after Christian churches, but they dont tend to go after mosques.

All of this might seem performative victimhood as usual, but on April 27, Attorney General William Barr issued a directive to the 93 U.S. attorneys and the civil-rights division of the Department of Justice to be on the lookout for state regulations that discriminate against religious institutions and religious believers.

The sense of persecution that pervades conservative talk has jumped to sway federal law enforcement.

It needs to be stressed at the outset that almost all faith groups in the United States have voluntarily and responsibly complied with public-health restrictions. Two dozen Muslim groups signed a statement on the eve of Ramadan urging Muslims to celebrate the holy month in rituals at home, not in mosques or Islamic centers. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints suspended all services worldwide on March 12. Catholic churches likewise suspended public Mass. Cellphone records confirm that the large majority of Christian worshippers marked Easter at home.

But human nature being what it is, people will predictably resist even sensible rules for their health. Hundreds of New Yorkers crowded together to watch a hospital ship dock, which would seem about the ultimate in self-defeating behavior. Police in many states have issued warnings and fines to enforce social distancing. People have been arrested for hanging out on Brooklyn street corners in too large numbers. People have been fined for gathering in large groups on Los Angeles beaches. (California Governor Gavin Newsom is warning of even stricter enforcement if rules are broken over this warm weekend.) And people have faced sanctions, including fines and arrest, for defying rules against religious assemblies.

The rest is here:

Trump Brings Religion Into the Coronavirus Culture War - The Atlantic

Reopening California has been complicated because the coronavirus outbreak is behaving differently in various parts of the state.

The San Francisco Bay Area has seen consecutive weekly declines in the number of new cases, while Southern California has seen the pace of new cases increase.

Los Angeles County has become the heart of the coronavirus crisis in California, recording more than 1,000 deaths. Even adjusted for its larger population, its rate of 9.9 deaths per 100,000 people is 68% higher than the next-hardest-hit urban county, Riverside, and 80% higher than the hotbed of the crisis in the Bay Area, Santa Clara County, according to a Times analysis of coronavirus data.

Hospitalizations also remain stubbornly high, helping to explain the reluctance to ease the stay-at-home order in California. Half of all hospitalized coronavirus patients in California are being treated in Los Angeles County, which is home to a quarter of the states population, the analysis found.

California has so far managed to avoid the death toll New York state has faced, with more than 22,000 dead. The Golden State has reported about 1,800 fatalities.

Yet the numbers of new coronavirus cases and deaths reported every week statewide although not increasing as fast as before are still rising on a weekly basis. The numbers have yet to begin a sustained downward trend.

Despite the recent increase, officials are expecting that L.A. County will start to see a decline in new cases around mid-May.

Heres a look at cases, hospitalizations and deaths:

Statewide

The number of confirmed cases of coronavirus infection can be a tricky indicator. The figure may be affected by backlogs in reported cases suddenly showing up in the public record.

And despite the stay-at-home order, more people continue to become infected, such as people in congregate care settings like nursing homes and people who continue to work as essential workers, as well as those who venture out for essential trips, such as picking up groceries.

Still, experts expect coronavirus case numbers to eventually decrease in areas including L.A. County, believing the stay-at-home order has been, and continues to be, effective.

Testing capacity continues to increase, and in L.A. County, once the testing sort of equilibrates out, I think youll start seeing declines, said Dr. George Rutherford, UC San Francisco epidemiologist and infectious diseases expert.

Los Angeles County has a higher vulnerability to health emergencies than the San Francisco area, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said, due to differences in poverty, crowded housing and lack of access to transportation.

Deaths are a helpful indicator to track the progress of an outbreak, but will still be rising even as hospitalizations and new cases decrease.

Statewide

Health officials are particularly focused on the trend in the number of people hospitalized for COVID-19.

Dr. Grant Colfax, director of public health for San Francisco, said of hospitalization numbers, We need numbers to start dropping significantly and just stay down for several weeks.

Statewide

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Coronavirus is advancing in L.A., retreating in Bay Area - Los Angeles Times

A new test for the coronavirus is so simple and straightforward, almost anyone could do it: Spit a glob of saliva into a cup, close the lid and hand it over.

While not as fast to process as the speediest swab tests, saliva tests could transform the diagnosis of Covid-19. If manufactured in enough numbers and processed by enough labs across the country, they could alleviate the diagnostic shortages that have hampered containment of the pandemic and offer a less onerous way for companies to see if workers are infected.

The first saliva-based test, already being offered in parts of New Jersey, detects genetic material from the virus, just as the existing tests do, but it avoids a long swab that reaches disturbingly far up a persons nose. For the saliva-based, health care workers do not need to wear and discard precious gowns and masks. And early evidence suggests it is just as sensitive, if not more so, than the swabs.

Because the saliva test relies on equipment that is widely available, it also offers the hope of a nationwide rollout without encountering the supply problems that have plagued the swabs.

Starting about two weeks ago, New Jersey has offered the saliva test at a walk-up site in New Brunswick; drive-through sites in Somerset and Edison; the states Department of Corrections; 30 long-term care facilities; and even the American Dream mall.

Experts not involved with the test praised it as a welcome solution to diagnostic shortages across the country.

If people are going back to work, and theyre going to be tested presumably on a regular basis, we really do need to have less invasive sampling methods than the swabs, said Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at Columbia University. To have to do nasopharyngeal swabs twice a week? No, thanks.

The next step would be an at-home saliva test kit that skirts even the need to go to a walk-in center, said Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security.

Dr. Adalja noted that LabCorp, one of the nations largest commercial laboratories, now offers an at-home test that people can use to swab their own nose. If we can do nasal swabs unsupervised, theres no reason why we cant do these tests unsupervised as well, he said.

On April 13, the Food and Drug Administration granted an emergency-use authorization, waiving some usual requirements, to a saliva test made by a Rutgers University lab, RUCDR Infinite Biologics.

The Rutgers lab has already processed close to 90,000 tests, according to its chief executive, Andrew Brooks, and expects to ramp up eventually to 30,000 tests per day. Results are available within 72 hours, although they could be sped up to just a few hours with enough infrastructure in place. By contrast, some rapid tests that rely on swabs deliver results in minutes.

Other states are expressing interest. Working with Rutgers, Oklahoma has begun validating a version of the test, and the Rutgers researchers have fielded questions from the White Houses coronavirus task force, from Indiana, Illinois, California and from several large companies. In New Jersey, the test is available for between $65 and $100.

After a disastrously slow start, the United States is starting to see an increase in testing types and capacity. The National Institutes of Health on Wednesday announced a new $1.5 billion shark tank style program aimed at encouraging swift innovation in coronavirus testing, with a goal of new tests by the end of summer. Also Wednesday, the testing manufacturer Hologic said that it had a new test that could allow labs to begin running up to 1 million additional tests per week.

The nasopharyngeal swabs that have mostly been used to test for the coronavirus are invasive and uncomfortable, and may be difficult for severely ill people to tolerate. They also put health care workers at high risk of infection and require them to wear gloves, gowns and masks.

The saliva test, by contrast, doesnt require any interaction with a health care worker. And its easy enough that New Jersey has also started using it at developmental centers with residents who have intellectual and developmental disabilities.

The saliva is immersed in a liquid that preserves it until it can be analyzed. This will be particularly important for developing tests that people can use at home and mail or drop off at a lab, or when dealing with large numbers of samples.

When youre testing 10,000 at a drive-through a day, when youre at a correctional facility collecting it from 1,500 people per day, the use of a preservation agent is really critical, Dr. Brooks said.

He said that the preservative in the Rutgers test is a secret sauce made by a Utah-based partner, Spectrum Solutions, but that the ingredients are easily available and unlikely to pose supply problems.

However, some of the PCR machines, which amplify viral genetic material, require labs to use the manufacturers own reagents. That could potentially be a supply issue, Dr. Rasmussen said.

The Rutgers test was validated in people who were severely ill, but the saliva test often yielded a stronger signal than the swab, suggesting that it is more sensitive yielding fewer false negatives than the swab. It also generated no false positives in all of the samples tested.

False negatives in particular have been a problem with the nasopharyngeal swabs. (A different type of test for antibodies, which can say whether a person was exposed to the virus and has recovered, is riddled with false positives.)

In separate research, a Yale University team reported that saliva may be able to detect the virus in people who are only mildly ill, while a nasopharyngeal swab cannot.

In their study, the team compared swabs and saliva samples from patients. They needed only a few drops of saliva for their test, an advantage for people who may have trouble producing more. Thinking about a favorite meal can often do the trick, said Anne Wyllie, the Yale teams leader.

The swabs are known to produce false negatives perhaps in part because of errors by health care workers under stress. The saliva test appeared to be more consistent and accurate over a longer period of time, detecting infections even after the amounts of the virus have waned, than the swab.

The nasopharyngeal swab is subject to so much more variability in how well its obtained, Dr. Wyllie said. A saliva test is definitely more reliable.

In one case, the team found a health care worker who twice tested negative using a nasopharyngeal swab before finally testing positive on a third day. But the workers saliva tested positive all three days, Dr. Wyllie said. She underlined the risks of asymptomatic health care workers getting a false negative and continuing to care for patients. You can imagine the implications, she said.

While the Yale team did not compare saliva tests with the shorter swabs used in some tests, Dr. Wyllie said she expected that saliva tests would prove superior there as well. Most people with Covid-19 do not have runny noses, which might influence how much virus a short swab can collect, she said.

Saliva tests would also be a preferred choice for at-home tests, Dr. Adalja added. A saliva test for H.I.V. is the only at-home test approved for an infectious disease, he said, but before the pandemic, the federal Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority had funded two companies to develop at-home nasal swab tests for influenza.

Its not a high bar to repurpose home testing for the coronavirus, he said. Its not something thats out of reach.

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New Coronavirus Test Offers Advantages: Just Spit and Wait - The New York Times

In an interview with POLITICO, Melinda Gates said the foundation views Europe as key to bringing international players to the table and preventing the wealthiest countries from putting their own needs first.

"That's why you see us focusing with Europe," Gates said. "It's the European leaders, quite honestly, who understand that we need global cooperation." She added: "I think they're doing the very best they can do in this situation."

The pledging event may turn out to be mostly a PR exercise with Commission officials already saying they will count donors' expenditures since January 30 toward their goal. But Gates said that she hopes it also leads to a more cohesive, worldwide approach by governments, pharma and global health groups, especially concerning fair distribution of a vaccine.

"The worst situation would be, if [and] when these tools are available, they go to the highest bidder that would be terrible for the world," she said.

Health care workers around the globe need to be first in line to get a vaccine when it's developed, Gates said.

She also urged individual countries to recognize that just because they "solve" the outbreak within their own borders, they could quickly face a resurgence coming from a less fortunate nation still fighting the disease.

"Covid-19 anywhere is Covid-19 everywhere," she said, "and that's why it's got to take global cooperation."

In the interview, Gates did not call out U.S. President Donald Trump directly, but she defended the World Health Organization against recent criticism, which has come most loudly from the White House.

The couple's foundation is a major funder of the WHO, and Gates said that a time would come to review its handling of the coronavirus outbreak. But she praised the WHO's historic record in helping eradicate infectious diseases and said political leaders right now should focus on overcoming the crisis. "You don't take something down in the middle of a crisis," she said.

"There's no institution that's perfect," Gates added. "Everyone will need to do a post mortem when we're out of this crisis ... but you don't do that during a crisis."

Bill and Melinda Gates have faced plenty of criticism themselves, though. Vaccine skeptics redirecting their conspiratorial views at the coronavirus outbreak have targeted Bill Gates for his global health work, claiming he is using the virus or even created it to generate money for Big Pharma or to put tracking devices in everyone.

"It's confounding when you see that out there," Melinda Gates said, though she added widespread anxiety was fueling some of the negativity.

"When there's more anxiety, and people have more time on their hands, they want to, you know, attack someone," she said. "So OK, we happen to be the ones that [they] are attacking right now. But ... we know who we are. We haven't changed in 20 years.

"The foundation, from the get-go when we started, was about the most vulnerable," she said. "And that's what we're still about, so we just keep doing it."

Gates said the foundation, working with the Commission, aimed to play a coordinating role, helping to funnel money through other partner organizations that would oversee the efforts to develop a vaccine and therapeutics, including the Norway-based Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations; Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, in Geneva; and the Wellcome Trust in London.

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The Gates aren't pinning their coronavirus hopes on the U.S. - Politico

In 2018, I wrote an Op-Ed for this paper under the headline Were All in the Ghetto Now. I criticized Donald Trumps flagrant disregard of constituents and constituencies he didnt like or consider allies.

Back then, I used the ghetto to describe the impact of Mr. Trumps tendency to demonize his perceived enemies and then cast them into a permanent irrelevance that justified his ignoring of their concerns, to put them over there. I was exploring the connections between a white authoritarian politicians dangerous worldview and the most demonized of American spaces, the black ghetto.

When I wrote in 2018, the ghetto was a metaphor. It feels more real all the time.

Thanks to the coronavirus pandemic, a majority of us are living in a ghetto of Mr. Trumps creation, physically and politically. The ghetto is a large majority of America, confined at home and in neighborhoods that went from being sanctuaries to stagnant, stressful places whose prospects have vanished overnight.

Like generations of black people whove lived in segregation everywhere in country, people of all colors from California to Maine are frustrated, anxious and significantly jobless. They are being ignored and dismissed by top leadership that is indifferent about whether they live or die.

This is life in the ghetto that Mr. Trumps inept and heartless handling of the coronavirus pandemic has created.

The president has said the enemy is the virus, but thats too abstract for him; the real enemy is anyone who acknowledges the seriousness of the coronavirus crisis, which continues to upstage and overshadow him.

This means that people obeying lockdown orders, sheltering at home, demanding tests, getting sick or dying all disturb Mr. Trumps embattled sense of superiority and control. They have all been relegated to the enemy list the ghetto and in his mind deserve not just irrelevance but also contempt.

Of course this was preceded by his ghettoizing of the governors of states who have ordered lockdowns and other measures, like Jay Inslee of Washington, Andrew Cuomo of New York and Gavin Newsom of California. (The fact that these are blue states made Mr. Trumps dismissal of the well-being of their residents that much easier. You might say that blue is the new black.)

This would all be absurd it were not so tragically real. The more the death toll rises and the clearer it becomes that Mr. Trump is totally unsuited for the moment, the more he rails and divides, taking the conservative phenomenon of blaming the victim to shameless new heights. This time the victims are not just protesters or poor, black urban dwellers; they are all of us living everywhere, because the virus lives everywhere.

At least now we have confirmation of what many of us have known for a long time Trumpism is not a new political philosophy or coherent agenda, but simply him versus us. And in his mind he always wins, even if hes actually losing, as he certainly is now. Yet this bears repeating Mr. Trumps outrageous stance tracks with the American view of ghettos, projecting them as failures deserving indifference at best, even though the failure is all ours. As a country, we have a long and sordid history of not taking responsibility for the most vulnerable among us.

Mr. Trumps relentless ghettoizing confirms something else that has been obvious for a long time, long before he became president: The United States is not united, especially when the chips are down. The most resources-rich country in the world could not find the wherewithal to warn its people about what was coming, and it continues to bumble basic things like administering tests and acquiring enough ventilators. This is because Republicans have been vilifying the federal government, embedded with the ideal of a common good for a common American people, for the past 40 years. The fact that the most conscientious response to this historic crisis is coming from individual governors, not the White House, may be appalling, but its not surprising.

It was inevitable that the group suffering the highest fatality rate from the virus would be black. Instead of putting that statistic over there, per usual, other Americans have to see themselves within it, because they are at risk, too.

Can we save ourselves? I would like to think so, but the fact that traditional ghettos have not been able to do so it has been structurally impossible does not bode well for our future. I have occasionally been heartened to see all the messages and images of people heroically coming together in very tough times. Americans are good, almost instinctual, at campaigns like this.

But the campaigns are not enough. They are a reaction to the forces of separation, alienation and devaluation that Mr. Trump did not create but that he expands at will, with little pushback. He puts us in ghettos whenever and however he feels like it. The question is when, and how, we will break out of them.

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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Life in Trumps Coronavirus Ghetto - The New York Times

Virus slams black Americans, exposes inequities

Data on coronavirus deaths in the US shows a disturbing trend: The virus is killing black Americans at a higher rate. Activists working to level out racial disparities in healthcare, food access and safety are urging systemic change. (April 10)

AP

CHICAGO Train tracks run above the intersection of Kinzie Streetand Ashland Avenue, two major streets that meeton Chicago's West Side. On one corner of the intersection, there's a trampoline park and new brewery. On the opposite corner,empty buildings for lease.

In one direction, a ZIP code relatively unscathed by thecoronavirus outbreak. In the other, a community decimated by the disease. One mostly white, with six-figure incomes the norm. One mostly minority and earningmuch slimmer paychecks.

Darnell Shields, executive director of the Chicago community group Austin Coming Together, said COVID-19's disparate impacts arise from food and housing instability, shaky neighborhood economies andlimited access to quality education andhealth care.

"It creates a fertile ground for something like a virus to come in," Shields said.

As the U.S. surpassed a milestone of one million known cases of COVID-19 this week, ZIP code data show the virus has run rampant through some neighborhoods while leaving residents in adjoining areas much less impaired.

Coronavirus impact: Black people dying at much higher rates in cities across US

USA TODAY took an exclusive look at how the pandemic hasbeen felt in neighborhoods across the nation by collecting the ZIP code-level data from health departments in 12 states:Arizona, California, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Texas.

COVID-19 case report summaries were assembled for more than 3,200 ZIP codes about 10% of the nearly 33,000 U.S. ZIPs. Case data were matched with U.S. census demographic data to show how infection rates differed in ZIPs byrace, income and housing characteristics.

The results paint a grim picture of COVID's devastation in places just miles orblocks from communities experiencing far less harm.

In the poorest neighborhoods, where median household income is less than $35,000, the COVID-19 infection rate was twice as high as in the nations wealthiest ZIPs, with income more than $75,000.

Infection rates were five times higher in majority-minority ZIP codes than in ZIPs with less than 10% nonwhite population.

Of the top 10 ZIPs with 10 or more cases one in Florida, one in Michigan, the other eight in New York City nine are areas where at least two-thirds of the residents are nonwhite. Five are areas where household income is below the national median of $60,293.

Local health officials say not allneighborhooddifferences ininfection ratesare driven by race and income. Somearise from limited access to testing sitesor a lack of interest among some residentsin being tested. Areas with more nursing homes may also show higher rates of infection.

But the USA TODAY analysis shows socio-economic factors have played important roles.

ackling poverty in a coronavirus-induced economic downturn:Is it too risky or the right thing to do?

The intersection of Kinzie and Ashland in Chicago marks the boundary between ZIP code 60642, which centers on theNoble Square neighborhood, and ZIP code 60612, which covers much of the East Garfield Park neighborhood.

In Noble Square, the virus infection rate last week was about 20 per 10,000 residents. In neighboring East Garfield, the confirmed case rate was more than four times as high about 86 per 10,000 residents.The testing rate was also higher in East Garfield Park, but that difference doesn't come close to explaining its much higher caseload.

Touched less severely by the coronavirus, Noble Squareis a hub of young professionals bustling with a restaurant and nightlife scene.Around 60% of the population is white, and the median household income is about $101,900.

Attorney Jane Kwak, 32, was out for a walk with her boyfriend andgolden doodle Thursdaydespite the cold, overcast weather. Joggers cruised by without masks. Some walked dogs. Many restaurants were open for takeout.

"I dont know anyone personally whos had it," Kwak said of the coronavirus."I feel like around here it's still a bit normal. People are acting normal. Our neighbors will still chat and arent super fearful."

Noble Square resident Jane Kwak, 32, walks her golden doodle, Mozzarella, in Chicago, Ill. on April 30, 2020.Grace Hauck

Hard-hit East Garfield, meanwhile, is a family neighborhoodlocated between a conservatory and an industrial corridor. More than 78% of the population is non-white, and the median household income is $41,300.

Kwak, the Noble Square attorney,took a 15% pay cut and is working from home. She considers herself lucky. But in East Garfield, janitorJimmy Walkerlost his job. So did his wifeRachel, a child care worker.

The Walkers find themselvesbehind on rent. Theydont have face masks or gloves, even though the Illinois stay-at-home order going into effect Friday requires masks for those going out in public.

"Man, we need a lot of help down here,"Rachel Walker said. "It's been rough."

"There used to be people outside all day," Jimmy Walker said. "Now its like a ghost town."

East Garfield Park residents Jimmy and Rachel Walker head home from the market in Chicago, Ill. on April 30, 2020.Grace Hauck

Pastor Walter McCray, who lives in his childhood home in East Garfield,said his neighbor down the street contracted the virus and that several of his associate pastors had lost family members and longtime members of their churches.

Bill Curry, who runsprograms focused on youth and families in the neighborhood, said the community was hurting. "The demand for food has significantly increased," Curry said. "Not only people who have been regulars, but a bunch of people, this is their first time going to a food pantry."

Coronavirus in Chicago: How the mayor of the nation's 3rd-largest city is waging her biggest fight

Across the city of Chicago, a similar pattern emerges: Coronavirus case rates are higher in majority-minority, low income areas. Many of these neighborhoods are food desserts where residents lack access to broadband. Last week, the mayor launched aRacial Equity Rapid Response Team to address the disproportionate impact of the outbreak.

"This virus is really exposing a lot of the disparities that have historically been part of these communities,even before COVID," said Shields, whose group is part of the task force.

Consider ZIP code 60621, which includes the South Side Englewood neighborhood, where the case rate is 70 per 10,000. Nearly 99% of the population is nonwhite, and median household income is $20,000.

Resident Tammy Smith, 51, a home care aide, said a friend shed known since she was a teenager recentlydied after contracting the coronavirus."Shes gone on," Smith said while riding the bus to work."It has affected me, and not just me only, but family and other ones."

Per protocol, Smith boarded the bus through the rear doors, wrenching them open by pulling on the rubber lining. A handful of other people mostly African American and wearing protective masks were sat spread out throughout the bus.

Poor, essential and on the bus:Coronavirus is putting public transportation riders at risk

Adjacent ZIP code 60620, which includes Auburn Gresham, hasthe same rate of infections.

"Our community is besieged. We are losing lives," said Carlos Nelson, CEOof the Greater Auburn Gresham Development Corporation, who called USA TODAY from his cell phone because phone and internet was down in the neighborhood.

The trend is not unique to Chicago.

Detroit, the epicenter of the outbreak in Michigan, reported1,000 deaths and almost 9,000 casesas of Wednesday. The surge promptedatransformation of convention centers into field hospitals.

Ira Carroll was standing on a milk crate to reach the top shelf of the freezerto restock the ice cream section at Saturn Super Foods on Joy Road in Detroits 48228 zip code, where the coronavirus case rate is among the city's highestat 92per 10,000 residents.

Saturn Super Foods is situated on an avenue lined with shopping plazas of independent businesses, including a barbershop, a diner and an auto repair place. Beyond the avenue is a quiet residential area that makes up a large part of 48228.

"Its a quiet, peaceful neighborhood,"Carroll said, describing the place hes called home for over a decade.

Ira Carroll restocks the ice cream in the frozen section of Saturn Super Foods, in Detroit's 48228 zip code, where he has worked for 22 years.Miriam Marini

Detroits 48228 is where people come to stay. Families establish roots in the neighborhood, often staying in the area for generations. Its the type of place where your childhood friend sticks around well past childhood.Median household income is $26,000, and 84% of the population is nonwhite.

Damien Lake, 23, has lived in the 48228 area for almost his entire life. He suspects this unrelenting sense of community may be a contributing factor to the areas COVID-19 rates. "A lot of people in this area know each other, and have for years,"Lake said. "So, they want to be around each other, they want to socialize."

Just next door to this community is Redford Township, zip code 48239, with about twice the median income andonly one-eighth theinfection rate from COVID-19.

Denise Martin, whos lived in 48239 for 12 years, said Redford also has a strong sense of community. On sunny afternoons, like in many metro Detroit suburbs, its typical to find young moms walking with strollers or families taking their dog out for a bit of fresh air.

Martin lives on a quiet block where she knows each of her neighbors, which she said is expected of her as block captain for the Far West Detroit Civic Association.

Although her community hasn't been hit as hard, the impact is still felt here. Martin suspected she had coronavirus in February. With her severe asthma, doctors put her on a CPAP machine to aid her breathing and she was able to recover in time for a drive-by birthday celebration for her granddaughter on April 1.

"Nobody has come to my house since the order,"Martin said from behind a mask and homemade face shield. "I have a 1-year-old granddaughter Im looking forward to seeing. This has been the best year of my life so far with her. I want to live to see my grandbaby."

'Something has to change': Latinos disproportionately dying, losing jobs because of the virus

Some ZIP codes defied the demographic trends, potentially reflectingarbitrary decisions abouthow coronavirus cases get recorded.

In Jacksonville, Florida,the San Marco neighborhood, which makes up the heart of 32207, is one of the city's most walkable. Storefronts that line wide sidewalks are usually packed. But ever since the coronavirus outbreak has shut down much of the city, the neighborhood has followed suit.

As the Florida Department of Health has updated its COVID-19 case data, 32207 has stuck out. Itaccounted for less than 4%of the countys population but 18% of cases.

Jacksonville Mayor Lenny Currys spokeswoman, Nikki Kimbleton, said the aberration is because of the number of hospitals in the area. While state officials saythey try to attribute cases to where someone lives, if they don't know the patient'saddress,they mark downthe address for a health care provider or testing lab.

San Marco is home to Baptist Medical Center Jacksonville, the citys primary testing partner, so its likely patients from elsewhere are assigned there. Baptist didnt return requests for comment.

The other COVID-19 risk factors: How race, income, ZIP code can influence life and death

Just next door, in 32216, which is home to the St. Vincents Southside hospital and Memorial Hospital, the rate of confirmed coronavirus cases is a quarter of San Marcos.

Both neighborhoods have roughly the same population, racial makeup, median household income and housing stock. However, there are differences between the two communities.

Restaurants inSan Marco, with the higher case rate, are home to walk-up retailand seem to have adapted to walk-up takeout. Restaurants in 32216, home to industrial parks and much of the citys Arabic, Latin American and Southeast Asian shopping, say they have seen a steeper drop in foot traffic.

City Councilman Matt Carlucci, a lifelong native of San Marco, has taken to social medialike Nextdoorto reassure residents thatthe big numbers theyre seeing in ZIP code maps of COVID-19 infections dont reflect reality.

If there really were an outbreak in the neighborhood, he said, hed know about it. "I know San Marco as well as anybody in San Marco," Carlucci said. "Ive lived here all 64 years of my life."

Contributing:Miriam Marini, Detroit Free Press;Andrew Pantazi, Jacksonville.com

Grace Hauck is based in Chicago. Follow her at@grace_hauck.

Here is the original post:

Coronavirus spares one neighborhood but ravages the next. Race and class spell the difference. - USA TODAY

Sweden has persisted with the strategy of coronavirus mitigation that the UK government eventually abandoned in March. The policy is widely supported by the public, even though the Swedish Covid-19 mortality rate is among the 10 highest in the world, at 240 per million population and steadily rising, and many of the nursing homes in Stockholm are now affected.

The typical explanation for this continued public support is that Swedes are trusting and unflappable. The countrys chief epidemiologist, Anders Tegnell, the public face of the Swedish response to the pandemic, is after all a dry scientist-turned-bureaucrat, not some populist politician trying to whip up nationalist go-it-alone emotion.

But beneath the surface, Sweden is anything but calm. The public debate is inflamed with a sense of wounded national pride. As a believer in the kind of liberal nationalism that encourages self-critical national attachment, this pains me. But as a scholar of nationalism, I recognise the pattern. This is what Isaiah Berlin called the nationalism of the bent twig, which lashes out against anyone who steps on it.

It began with a self-conceit that seemed more comical than harmful. Why, one columnist asked, could we not just let Sweden be Sweden? Others suggested we brand ourselves smart Sweden or kind Sweden, the country immune to the hysteria of southern Europe.

The next step was the ridicule and delegitimisation of opponents. A group of 22 scientists wrote a joint opinion column arguing for a drastic change of strategy. But within a few hours no one was paying attention to the substance of their arguments. Instead the debate came to revolve entirely around the fact that they used Covid-19 death numbers that made Sweden look worse than the more cautious estimates of the public health agency. This was certainly clumsy, but did not undermine their main conclusion. Nor does the fact that Sweden does indeed now have close to six times more deaths per capita than neighbouring Norway or Finland.

Then came contempt for emotions, mixed with misogyny. Lena Einhorn, one of the 22 critics, was interviewed via videolink from her home. She broached research reports and numbers, but influential columnists focused on making fun of her hair or curtains. Her hysterical voice when describing the suffering of Covid-19 patients was also widely mocked. The detached response to her by chief epidemiologist Tegnell was hailed as evidence of his credibility. It is true that he speaks clinically about death in terms of statistical curves. But it is equally true that he did not offer much rebuttal of the research reports she quoted.

From this trope of Sweden being alone in doing it right, we seem now to have shifted to denying that Sweden is doing anything exceptional at all. An opinion piece by a political scientist suggested that the Guardian had blacklisted Sweden, and that its reporting had described Sweden as free from restrictions. Who would have thought Trumps fake news would one day turn out to be somewhat real? he concluded.

But these claims are themselves untrue. The Guardian among others rightly reported the comparatively mild restrictions in Sweden. Nor was it fake news when Italian newspaper La Repubblica reported that Swedish doctors could soon be denying respirators to patients over the age of 80, and even those as young as 60 with underlying health conditions. In fact, this is now taking place.

The public veneration for Tegnell has gone far beyond trust. He has become an icon, his face appearing on tattoos and baby garments. Writers otherwise known to cringe at any sign of nationalism describe him as the incarnation of Swedens soul. He should be named Swede of the year, says the former minister of public health. Serious newspapers run hagiographic stories on Tegnell and the general director of the public health agency, Johan Carlson. Pictures of their head offices flooded with flowers sent by private citizens are included.

Some failures of the Swedish model have been acknowledged. But they are often linked to the lack of compliance of immigrants. Former chief epidemiologist Johan Giesecke explains the failure to protect the elderly in nursing homes with reference to asylum seekers and refugees on the staff, who may not always be understanding the information. This has met with silence, if not approval. It may already have been picked up by the Sweden Democrats, Swedens anti-immigration party, who now claim the health of elderly people has been put at risk for the sake of integrating uneducated immigrants.

Defenders of the governments strategy keep repeating that it is too early to evaluate it. But carrying that argument through to its logical conclusion suggests that veneration should also be postponed until the pandemic has passed. Any successful strategy should be transparent and welcome public scrutiny. My fear is that in our vehement defence of the Swedish approach, we have released forces we cannot control. As is clear for anyone who has followed Brexit, a nationalism unable to handle criticism can easily tear a society apart.

Gina Gustavsson is an associate professor at the Department of Government, Uppsala University, and an associate member of Nuffield College, University of Oxford. With David Miller she is the co-editor of Liberal Nationalism and Its Critics: Normative and Empirical Questions

Read the rest here:

Has Sweden's coronavirus strategy played into the hands of nationalists? - The Guardian

Its official: The coronavirus quarantine may have well and truly made the concept of a meme obsolete. For proof, look no further than This Meme Does Not Exist, a meme-creation tool created by meme-template website Imgflip.

At a glance, it looks like your average random assortment of meme templates. But these memes arent actually real. Theyre being created on the spot by a neural network, an artificial intelligence (AI) that predicts what it thinks a meme might look like. You can let the network generate a random meme for you, or you can preselect your meme from one of many popular templates, from Mocking SpongeBob to the Gatsby toast.

The tool is not to be confused with other meme generators, which merely curate existing popular memes. No, this generator uses its data about memes that do exist to conjure up memes that dont exist. If youre not familiar with a neural network, its basically a computer that uses an algorithmic technique known as deep learning. The computer gorges itself on a lot of data and then teaches itself, through lots of repetition, how to predict what that data should look like. Neural networks have made great strides in recent years, giving us everything from fake movies to fake articles and, of course, fake porn.

Basically, Imgflips neural network processed a lot of memes and then tried to predict what memes should look like. The results are often hilarious, and they certainly feel like real memes. For instance, heres the first thing the AI generated when I asked it to show me an example of the Is This a Pigeon? meme:

Not bad, right? They get better. Some of the other memes being generated seem eerily appropriate for the current moment were in:

And take this iteration of the Distracted Boyfriend meme. Its honestly hard for me to believe that a computer artificially generated this, not a frustrated kid stuck at home with their well-meaning but stifling mother for much longer than nature would normally allow:

In fact, some of the memes which identify themselves as AI-generated with a tiny watermark at the bottom, in case you get confused are jaw-droppingly on point:

Other memes, however, wildly miss the mark and make little to no sense. But hilariously, that also makes them feel memetic because after all, many memes draw upon their nigh-nonsensical Dadaist leanings to gain new meaning from their new contexts. So a meme like this one, generated by the neural network, still seems like a real meme:

Its hardly surprising, then, that between the novelty of a fake-meme generator, its eerie ability to capture our moods, and our current collective boredom, the meme generator itself has gone viral. Over the last week, posts collecting some of the funniest AI-generated memes have made the rounds on social media:

The AI generators new fans have frequently emphasized the way in which the tool aligns with our persistent feelings of isolation during quarantine, while simultaneously helping us alleviate our anxiety with a lot of humor.

But a big part of the appeal is the aforementioned hilarious randomness whenever the AI skews slightly off-kilter from a normal meme.

As with all other attempts to virtually approximate reality, the result of this AI is often an uncanny valley between a real meme and a fake one. But the truth is probably somewhere in between or somewhere on a toilet and thats also meaningful in terms of telling us what a meme even is.

When most of us have abruptly transferred most of our activities online, our shared thoughts, frustrations, and internet tools we use to connect to one another can also become memetic. So memes in the time of quarantine, to me at least, feel much more nebulous, fluid, and tougher to single out than memes of yore.

Maybe this is because social media spreads ideas, themes, and moods nearly instantaneously. When were all using social media to stay connected for instance, Twitter usage is currently at an all-time high things can feel memetic before theyve had time to take shape in a traditional meme format. Even if, for instance, a quarantine joke or a Covid-19 catchphrase doesnt get passed around in a single repeat iteration with variants as does a traditional meme it can still become a memetic part of the zeitgeist. After weeks and weeks of coronavirus memes and quarantine memes, everything has sort of started to feel like a meme.

In an environment where everything is kind of already a meme, we could be primed for a fake meme that uses the framework of memes themselves to bend reality a little.

Of course, there are still some glitches in this new virtual matrix. When you visit the site, it currently informs you that the prefix text feature, which allows users to generate memes using keywords of their choice, is temporarily disabled due to high volume. Neural networks are extremely expensive to run. I guess not even an AI can bend reality that far.

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Coronavirus memes: These AI-generated memes are better than ones created by humans - Vox.com