The Washington Post National Weekly. March 22, 2020.

SUNDAY, MARCH 22, 2020

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IN COLLABORATION WITH

ABCDE National Weekly

Coronavirus

Special Report

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The coronavirus outbreak

‘I think it’s worse than a war’

BY C HICO H ARLAN AND S TEFANO P ITRELLI

in Rome

I

n the part of Italy hit hardest by the coronavirus, the crematorium has been operating 24 hours a day. Coffins have filled up two hospital morgues, and then a cemetery morgue, and are now being lined up inside a cemetery church. The local newspaper’s daily obituary section has grown from two or three pages to 10, sometimes listing more than 150 names, in what the top editor likens to “war bulletins.”

By death toll alone, the coronavirus has landed in the northern province of Bergamo with the force of a historic disaster.

But its alarming power goes even further, all but ensuring that death and mourning happen in isolation — a trauma in which everybody must keep to themselves.

All across Bergamo, people are being picked up in ambulances, rushed to the hospital and dying in sealed-off wards where even their closest relatives are not allowed. Many funerals are taking place with only a priest and a ­funeral home employee present, while family members face restrictions on gathering, remain in quarantine or are too sick themselves.

So many have died that there is a waiting list for burial and cremation.

“I think it’s worse than a war,” said Marta Testa, 43, who is in self-quarantine and whose father died Wednesday of the virus at age 85. “Dad is waiting to be buried. And we are here waiting to tell him goodbye.”

Other countries are only beginning to grapple with the pandemic’s implications and the distance it forces between even the closest people. But in Italy, death by lonely death, its full cost is becoming apparent.

More than 3,400 people in Italy have died of covid-19, the disease caused by the virus, and many of those cases have looked like that of Testa’s father, Renzo, a former newspaper advertising executive

Claudio Furlan/LaPresse/Associated Press

As obituaries fill a local newspaper, isolated Italians mourn alone who felt short of breath a few weeks ago, was taken to the hospital, and did not see or talk to his family again.

“Grief is a phase that requires closeness, but our grief has had to come via the telephone,” said Testa, whose parents had been married for 50 years and whose mother also appears to have the virus but is recovering.

Testa’s siblings bring food to their mother. Out of precaution, they leave it on her front doorstep.

“Right now,” Testa said, “our family is living in a suspended state.”

Even as the illness has spread around the world, it is in Italy where people are contracting the virus — and dying of it — more rapidly than anywhere else. On

Wednesday, the country reported 475 covid-19 deaths, the highest one-day death toll of any other country. And on Thursday, Italy surpassed China for the largest number of coronavirus-related deaths, at 3,405.

And within Italy, Bergamo, a wealthy province of 1.1 million to the east of Milan, has become the most worrying hot spot. Hospitals are at the breaking point there.

Military doctors have been called in to assist. Residents describe Bergamo as a ghostly place where only ambulances and hearses are on the road at night. In the small town of Nembro, according to the Corriere della Sera newspaper, 70 people died in 12 days. Some 120 died all of last year.

“It’s as if a chemical bomb has

A coffin is transferred from a hearse Monday at a cemetery in Bergamo, Italy. As covid-19 deaths mount in northern Italy, many funerals are held with only a priest and a funeral home employee present.

exploded,” said Daniela Taiocchi, 49, who helps handle obituaries for the local newspaper, L’Eco di Bergamo.

Bergamo also stands as a warning sign about how coronavirus cases can explode if restrictions are not quickly put in place. Italy dealt with an initial hot spot, in the province of Lodi, by placing 10 small towns under lockdown more than three weeks ago. But the government waited far longer to put similar measures in place elsewhere. Bergamo now has three times the number of coronavirus cases as Lodi.

“Morgues and health institutions are collapsing,” said Claudia Scotti, a funeral home co-owner.

“We were absolutely unprepared for an emergency of this kind.”

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Across the globe, the mood is grim BY

B EN G UARINO

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An employee closes the gates of the Bergamo cemetery on Monday as mourners wait outside. The cemetery is rarely allowing small funerals.

The people who are dying, memorialized in page after page of L’Eco di Bergamo, are ex-politicians, electricians, emergency phone operators, priests. Most are in their 70s or 80s. Their short obituaries don’t mention the cause of death but don’t need to — 90 percent, the newspaper’s editor estimated, died because of the coronavirus. Instead, the obituaries have other clues about how much grieving has changed during the emergency. They mention “direct transport to the crematorium.” A public ceremony at a “date to be determined.” A funeral held in a “strictly private form.”

Across the country, funerals inside churches have been put on hold, part of the government’s absolute restriction on gatherings. For families cleared to leave their homes, some in Bergamo have been allowed to meet for small burials at the cemetery, capped at 10 people. But aside from those moments, the city has closed the cemeteries entirely, fearing that residents would take public transportation, visit the graves of those who have died and spread the virus themselves.

The mayor’s office has encouraged the cremation of people who die of covid-19. And on Wednesday, the local crematorium began operating round-the-clock.

“It never closes, and still we don’t manage,” said Francesco Alleva, a spokesman for the mayor.

The top editor of the newspaper, Alberto Ceresoli, said that Italy is in the middle of a “collective tragedy” and that the virus is

“decimating” the place where he lives. For a while, he wondered whether the obituaries should be bunched toward the back of the paper, to reduce the emotional toll on people reading. But he decided people needed to see what was happening: The names of the dead have been appearing in the middle of the paper, spaced out every other page.

“These are our great elderly who are dying,” he said. “That they should go like this, it’s deeply unjust.”

It was in an edition two weeks ago where Renzo Testa’s name appeared, along with a head shot and a quote from Pope Francis.

Below, there were basic details about his family and several more columns with remembrances from his family, noting his dedication to the newspaper, his work with civic groups.

He had been healthy before he caught the virus, his daughter said.

“No underlying conditions,” Marta Testa said.

“We were always thinking: ‘Dad is strong. He will make it,’ ” she said. “Of course, hope is the last to go.”

The hospital called her nearly at midnight on Wednesday to say her father had not survived.

His coffin now sits in a church, waiting its turn in line to be buried. If it happens soon, he will be buried without the presence of his wife and children. Marta said the family still had plans to organize a ceremony in his honor.

“In better times,” she said. n

n the outpouring of social media messages about the coronavirus pandemic, the collective mood is grim, experts found.

Manlio De Domenico, a scientist at Italy’s Bruno Kessler Foundation’s Center for Information and Communication Technology, has tracked online rumors and bots that spread false news. He and his colleagues recently analyzed more than 121,407,000 tweets, half of which were tagged to a location, and more than 22 million Web pages to describe the messages people — and robots — have been sending during the outbreak.

De Domenico filtered messages for emotional content, examining tweets for neuroticism and other psychological characteristics. He also scanned them for misinformation. What’s happened during the worldwide outbreak of the disease covid-19 is different from the “standard circulation of fake news,” he said. “The amount of unreliable news is a huge potential threat to public health.”

The World Health Organization, even before it declared the coronavirus outbreak to be a pandemic, labeled the onslaught of messages as an infodemic. “The covid-19 outbreak and response has been accompanied by a massive ‘infodemic’ — an overabundance of information, some accurate and some not — that makes it hard for people to find trustworthy sources and reliable guidance when they need it,” said Tarik Jasarevic, a spokesman for the World Health Organization.

There was trouble from the beginning. “The lack of good information in the first weeks gives oxygen to misinformation,” said Cristina Tardáguila, associate director for the International FactChecking Network.

Tardáguila said the coronavirus outbreak has provoked the strongest action from fact-checkers she has ever seen. More than 90 fact-

checking organizations banded together in response, Tardáguila said, representing nearly 40 countries and 15 languages.

The WHO is working with Twitter, Facebook and other platforms to restrict coronavirus misinformation. The organization also enlisted Instagram and YouTube influencers to spread accurate news.

De Domenico answered questions about social media messages while he was isolated at his home in Italy. The following Q&A has been condensed and edited for clarity.

Q: In the United States, are there any unusual emerging trends?

A: After Feb. 15 to 20, we ob-

served an unusual rise in the infodemic risk [caused by suspected bot activity and unverified-byTwitter humans]. Infodemic risk is our indicator to quantify the rate at which a user in the online social system is exposed to unreliable information.

Overall, for the USA this risk is high when compared to other countries such as Singapore, [but recently] the infodemic risk is slightly decreasing for the USA. Q: Does the artificial activity from bots seem to have a particular goal?

A: From the analysis of previous

events, like the Catalan Referendum of Oct. 1, 2017, we have discovered that they tend to sustain online conflicts. [De Domenico observed a bot-driven spike in inflammatory messages in the weeks surrounding the vote for Catalonian independence.]

In practice, their only goal is to generate more chaos and confusion in the online social system.

However, it is well known that this might have harmful consequences in the physical world: from political elections to finance, and now to public health.

Q: You’ve found that much of the sentiment is negative, particularly in certain countries. Do you see any trends?

A: I would rather say that the whole world is sad. n

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Deniers persist despite dire warnings ANNIE GOWEN in Wellsville, Kan. BY

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ere in northeast Kansas, in a small town set amid tidy farms and ranches, a Walmart worker named Brandon Crist was growing frustrated with the panic terrorizing the American public. He didn’t understand the need for implementing lockdowns, closing schools, limiting public gatherings and shuttering bars and restaurants. Altering almost all facets of life.

As he often does, Crist found a meme online that amplified his feelings and posted it to his Facebook page.

“Does anyone know anyone who has the coronavirus? Not just heard about them but actually know them,” the meme said in bold white letters on a blue background. “Statistically none of us are sick . . . yet concerts are canceled, tournaments are canceled and entire school districts shut down. Out of total irrational fear. If you have not previously feared the power of the media you should be terrified of them now. They are exerting their power to shut down America.”

The post struck a chord with Crist’s friends here in Wellsville and beyond, many of whom are similarly frustrated with the pandemic-induced havoc in their daily lives. “Amen!” said one commenter. “I’m not changing anything I do. This is BS,” said another. A captain from a nearby fire department, Dustin Donovan, liked the message, then added a hoax meme of his own.

Even as President Trump has asked Americans to stay at home and has called on the nation to come together to fight the “invisible enemy” known as the illness covid-19, virus doubters like Donovan and Crist persist.

They call reports of more than 250,000 sickened and almost 10,500 dead worldwide as of Friday a sham. Republican legislators have continued to brag about their dinners out, some

Photos by Christopher Smith For The Washington Post

Some say the pandemic shutdown is a plot to get President Trump beaches remain packed with spring breakers, and Hollywood starlet Vanessa Hudgens was forced to apologize for complaining on Instagram that “people are going to die, which is terrible but, like, inevitable?”

Virus deniers vow to continue on with their daily activities with little adjustment, convinced that the unprecedented reaction to the virus is nothing more than a plot by the media or liberals out to get Trump. The Pew Research Center released a poll Wednesday that found that 62 percent of adults say the media is exaggerating the risk of the virus.

“I don’t feel the need to panic,” said Crist, 47. “If you don’t have a fever, you’re going

to be fine. If you’ve got a fever, just get it checked. If you’re not sick, we don’t need everybody to stay at home.”

He was not worried about his family or his older relatives — “we’re all in good health” — and has gone ahead with plans to take a vacation in Arizona, where he plans to visit family and go out to restaurants as usual. The only bummer, he said, is that some parts of the Grand Canyon are closed.

Wellsville, pop. 1,809 Sunday unfolded with relative normalcy in tiny Wellsville, pop.

1,809, even as Franklin County officials declared a “state of local disaster” and shut the schools until March 30. Restaurants

Ted and Nancy Buckley stand outside their home in Wellsville, Kan. “We just need to trust the Lord to solve this,” Ted Buckley said.

were open and the hardware parking lot was full. A nearby Dollar General had steady business, with one lone toilet paper roll left on the shelves.

Services went on as scheduled at Wellsville Baptist Church, though Pastor Bill Hendricks is trying to move the gatherings online. Hand sanitizer was placed on tables in the back, and residents jokingly tried to bump elbows rather than greet each other with hugs.

In his sermon, Hendricks said he had but one message for his flock this day — turn off the television.

“What’s being played over and over again,” he said, “is stoking fear.”

Some church members said

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“just a virus” and wondered why there is not more panic around seasonal flu, which killed 34,200 people in the United States during last year’s flu season, and more than 60,000 during the 2017-2018 flu season, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“We don’t go this crazy over the normal flu,” he said.

His daughter, Kaylin, 27, a cancer survivor who suffers from four autoimmune diseases, went on a planned excursion to shop for a wedding dress the previous weekend but since then has hunkered down, not going out for anything but work.

She said her father is just being “stubborn in his ways.”

“The anxiety of it has been the worst for me,” she said. “It’s hard not to be afraid. But I’m just having faith I’m going to get through this.”

their health is in God’s hands.

“We just need to trust the Lord to solve this,” said Ted Buckley, 73, a retired salesman.

“I don’t know anybody personally with coronavirus.

We shouldn’t be thrown into a state of panic because of what we hear, rather than what we see and witness.”

He was passing out little cards that read “C.O.V.I.D. 19” with the acronym “Christ over viruses & infectious disease” and a comforting Bible verse.

Another churchgoer, Robert Cramer, 84, a retired chemistry teacher, said he would like to know how the virus “got out of China,” because from what he saw from a “Chinese expert on YouTube” it originated from a biological warfare laboratory into the meat market. Experts have discounted this rumor as another hoax.

“I think we have overreacted

to this thing about the threat,” he said. “I’m an old person and I would be a prime candidate to get this and suffer from it. I just wonder how much of this is being done because they want to besmirch our president. We’ve had three years of constant criticism. If somebody shot a goose in Greenland out of season they’d blame Trump.”

Others with ties to the area felt the same way, including one Wellsville native, a product manager and married mother of one son who now lives in another state. She spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear her family would be targeted for retribution.

“It’s mass hysteria caused by the liberal media,” she said.

“They want to take Trump and our economy down.”

She went with her family to the movie “Onward” this past weekend and had plans for a

date night with her husband Thursday — presuming the tapas restaurant in her community was still open.

“I’m not going to be a shut-in,” she vowed.

A gregarious bank manager from the next town over, George McCrary, 53, said that the media was downplaying any positive news during the crisis because that’s not “what sells,” he said.

McCrary went about his usual business this past weekend, with shopping stops at Aldi and Target and Big Biscuit, where he got a big plate of bacon and eggs.

He said he has a degree in exercise science and would not be doing anything differently from health precautions such as hand washing — which he had embraced for years living with an immune-compromised daughter and a mother with multiple sclerosis.

He said that covid-19 was

Ted Buckley made these cards to distribute at church.

They read “C.O.V.I.D. 19” with the acronym “Christ over viruses & infectious disease” and a comforting Bible verse.

Presumptive positive case A few weeks ago, a man in his 60s who hails from surrounding Franklin County became ill with flu-like symptoms, and his case was reported to county health officials.

At that same time, Dustin Donovan, a captain in one of the local fire departments, was playing around on Facebook and saw Crist’s coronavirus media hoax post. He pushed the “like” button and added another hoax meme in the comments — a widely disseminated (and debunked) photo of a scribbled list on a whiteboard that attempts to link pandemic outbreaks with election-year politics.

Donovan, a resident of Wellsville whose Facebook page says he is studying for a master’s degree in “organizational leadership,” did not return text messages, calls or emails requesting comment. His boss, Ottawa Fire Department Chief Tim Matthias, said that he had reviewed Donovan’s posts and that the matter was being handled internally.

On March 13, Franklin County health officials said they made their determination: The man with flu-like symptoms was a presumptive positive for coronavirus, their first case in a state that now has at least 21, including one elderly resident of a nursing home in the Kansas City area who died a few weeks ago. n

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Five Myths

The coronavirus BY

S AAD B . O MER

The novel coronavirus epidemic is in fact two outbreaks: first, the spread of SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for the disease covid-19; second, an outbreak of misinformation. In a pandemic, misinformation can be as dangerous as the virus itself. For example, panic induced by rumors can result in the “worried well” overwhelming a health system, reducing its ability to care for those who genuinely need treatment.

Here are five salient myths about covid-19.

Myth No. 1 Masks protect against covid-19.

Commonly used masks, particularly typical surgical masks — essentially rectangular pieces of material connected to elastic bands — don’t prevent respiratory viruses among healthy people.

Although a specific type of mask, the N95 respirator, is useful in protecting health-care workers and others caring for sick patients, it is not recommended for healthy individuals. Masks are, however, recommended for those who are sick to prevent transmission to others.

Myth No. 2 We will have a vaccine in the next few months.

As a vaccine researcher, I wish this were true. There has been remarkable progress in creating a vaccine for covid-19. Several dozen development initiatives have been announced, and a candidate vaccine was recently delivered to the National Institutes of Health for human testing. Unfortunately, the vaccine is unlikely to be available for widespread use anytime soon.

First, candidates that seem promising in the laboratory are often found to not be effective (or in a few cases safe) in human trials. Second, before licensure and deployment, vaccines must be tested in progressively larger human trials. This process is likely to take several months to more than a year. Third, when a vaccine is found to be effective, it

must be manufactured in very large quantities; scaling up production will take some time.

The soonest we could expect a truly pandemic-controlling vaccine would be 12 to 18 months.

Guglielmo Mangiapane/Reuters

Myth No. 3 Travel restrictions are effective.

Travel bans are likely to be ineffective for covid-19 because in the time between the initial outbreak of the disease and the shutdown of travel from Wuhan, the virus is likely to have spread to a few other places undetected.

So a passenger arriving in early February from Italy, a country that now has a widespread covid19 outbreak that probably started several weeks ago, would not have been flagged.

In a study published in the Bulletin of the World Health Organization, examining the case of a virus even less transmittable than SARS-CoV-2, bans that shut down more than 90 percent of travel would be needed to have any impact. Even with these bans, there would only be a minimal impact on the total number of cases.

Myth No. 4 Covid-19 will be as dangerous in the U.S. as it was in China.

So far, 3.4 percent of those who had covid-19 in China have died.

But in the United States the mortality rate, formally known as the case fatality ratio, is very likely to be lower than in China, and in many populations outside

People wear masks in Rome on Thursday. Experts say masks won’t actually do much to protect healthy individuals from the coronavirus — though sick people and health-care workers should use them.

China it’s likely to be less than 1 percent. To get an idea of what we could face in the United States, it is reasonable to look at South Korea, which has fewer bottlenecks in covid-19 testing and, therefore, has good data. Right now, the estimate of mortality in South Korea is approximately 0.7 percent. Since fatal cases of covid-19 cause death three to eight weeks after the onset of symptoms, the South Korean case fatality rate might tick up a bit even as the outbreak wanes in that country.

But that doesn’t mean we should expect the same numbers in the United States. Fatality ratios depend on the specifics of a health system, such as the level of care provided and the ability to quickly expand the number of patients under treatment. Since conditions such as heart disease, cancer and other “comorbidities” are risk factors for severe outcomes with covid-19, fatality rates also depend on the prevalence of these illnesses in a population. Therefore, case fatality rates are variable and could be lower here depending on how we manage this outbreak.

Myth No. 5 We are helpless in the face of this outbreak.

But we are able to take effective action. For example, social distancing — public health strategies that reduce contact between people — can be effective in reducing the speed and impact of an outbreak. Social-distancing measures include canceling large events, closing schools, encouraging telecommuting and switching to online instruction in colleges.

Such measures need to be anticipatory rather than reactive. Since there is an incubation period before symptoms appear and patients seek care, today’s confirmed cases reflect virus transmission that occurred several days ago.

Once a case is identified in a community or an institution, it might be too late. n Omer, the director of the Yale Institute for Global Health, is a professor of internal medicine at the Yale School of Medicine and of the epidemiology of microbial diseases at the Yale School of Public Health.

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Opinions

Guaranteeing the safety of voters amid this crisis Amy Klobuchar and Ron Wyden Klobuchar represents Minnesota in the U.S. Senate and is the ranking Democrat on the Senate Rules Committee.

Wyden represents Oregon in the U.S. Senate and is the ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee.

The coronavirus has brought unprecedented disruptions to the daily lives of Americans. Something as commonplace as walking into the grocery store is a troubling reminder that the world is facing a challenge that most of us have never seen before. ¶ Our top priority right now is to make sure that people are safe in the face of this global pandemic. Federal, state and local health-care providers and first responders are working overtime to protect people, and we must give them the resources they need to do their jobs. The federal government must also fund testing, vaccine development and economic assistance for those whose lives have been turned upside down.

In the midst of this crisis, we must also remember to protect the foundation of our democracy by ensuring that every eligible American can safely cast a ballot in the upcoming elections. The coronavirus should not stop our citizens from casting their ballots.

The stakes are high. In less than eight months, elections will be held across the country that determine not only who the president will be but also the outcome of 11 gubernatorial elections, 35 of 100 U.S. Senate seats and all 435 seats in the House of Representatives.

Primary elections underway across the country will decide who will be on the ballot in November, and we have already seen them affected by this pandemic.

Officials in Louisiana, Georgia, Ohio, Kentucky and Maryland announced that they will postpone their primary elections; Wyoming officials altered their caucus process; and New York state has made some modifications to its local primary elections. And while states can shift primary dates,

the Nov. 3 federal election is set by federal law, as the Constitution mandates that the new Congress convene on Jan. 3 and the president is inaugurated on Jan. 20.

Without federal action, Americans might have to choose between casting a ballot and protecting their health.

That’s wrong, and we must take swift action to address the problem.

The best way to ensure that this virus doesn’t keep people from the ballot box is to bring the ballot box to them. We must allow every American the ability to vote by mail. And we must expand early voting so that voters who are not able to vote by mail are not exposed to the elevated infection risks of long lines and crowded polling locations.

We have introduced the Natural Disaster and Emergency Ballot Act of 2020 to help election officials meet this pandemic head-on. Our legislation will guarantee every voter a secure mail-in paper ballot and help states cover the cost of printing, self-sealing envelopes, ballot tracking and

Gene J. Puskar/Associated Press

A voter fills out an early-voting ballot this past Sunday in Ohio, which postponed its primary election hours before polls opened.

postage. Vote-by-mail is a timetested, reliable way for Americans to exercise their constitutional rights, and it is the right response to this crisis.

Our legislation would also expand early voting to avoid lines where the virus could spread and help states recruit young poll workers so that older Americans who typically step up on Election Day can stay home. As we adapt to this new threat, we must also remember that not every American can mark a ballot by hand, so our bill provides resources to ensure that Americans with a disability have access to remote ballot marking so that they can vote by mail, too.

This election will determine the future of our democracy in one of the most trying times we have faced as a nation. Every American must be heard. To account for potential postal delays, our bill requires that each ballot postmarked on or

before Election Day be counted.

It also blocks federal funding from being spent on Internet voting, which experts say is dangerously insecure.

We are in a national emergency for which federal leadership is most important.

States and local elections offices can’t bear the burden alone. Our bill ensures they have the resources and guidance necessary to protect the constitutional rights of every American voter and keep democracy functioning as we weather this disaster.

The ability for people to choose their leaders is the foundation of our democracy.

Congress has acted to provide states with medical and economic relief; now we should act swiftly to pass the Natural Disaster and Emergency Ballot Act of 2020 to ensure that, during a national emergency, every American has a safe way to participate in our democracy. n

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In lockdown, I saw Beijing battle back G ERRY S HIH in Beijing BY

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he grocery stores were brimming with shoppers and produce. Around the corner, a line was forming outside a stall selling pillowy white steamed buns.

The gray, brick-lined alleys of this old imperial capital, deserted several weeks ago, were congested again by newly licensed drivers struggling to park their outsize Audis.

I knew then: Beijing was slowly, unmistakably, returning to normal.

Six weeks earlier, I had watched China shut itself down as the coronavirus epidemic first exploded in Wuhan and then spilled across the country and beyond. For my work, I traveled around China, down empty boulevards, through empty airports, in empty train cars. I saw China’s whole economic machinery, from the curbside noodle shops to sprawling tech campuses, clank to a halt as the government pulled out every stop to contain the virus’s spread.

To help the nationwide socialmapping effort — and, I suspect, feed the government’s ever-growing appetite for personal data — I begrudgingly gave my mobile number to government workers at every train station, checked in via smartphone app to enter office buildings and recited my passport number just to eat at a rare restaurant that remained open.

By mid-February, the clampdown tightened further.

Checkpoints were erected in a grid layout at every intersection in central Beijing. Residential neighborhoods were sealed after 10 p.m. Like all travelers arriving from out of town after a brief excursion, I was placed in quarantine at home for 14 days.

I emerged in recent days, precisely at a moment when life was returning to Chinese streets while much of the West seemed to be spiraling into panic and chaos. For countless others and me, the tilting scales raised the question: Are China’s strict mea-

Lintao Zhang/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

After initial missteps, drastic measures slowly returned life to normal sures a model for the rest of the world?

The truth is, I don’t know.

What I have seen is that success in containing the epidemic has not been exclusive to authoritarian systems; it has been used in democratic governments in Singapore, Taiwan and South Korea that also appear to be heading for quick recoveries.

What I also see is that China and the other successful Asian countries seem to have a public buy-in — a vast scale of grassroots mobilization and coordination at the highest levels, which, for all its faults, happen to be the Communist Party’s strengths.

As restrictions on mobility tightened last month, the lowest unit of the Chinese government

that I never paid attention to — the neighborhood committees — suddenly loomed large in my life.

The first day of my quarantine, workers brought me inside a district office swarming with 20and 30-something volunteers to collect information about my identity, my travel history, my workplace.

Other volunteers were assigned shifts around the clock outside, where they braved the cold in government-issue jackets to take temperatures and check travel permits for any person who entered the street block.

The neighborhood office promised that if I served my 14 days without incident, I, too, would get one of those prized permits that would let me enter

Bikers wear face masks as they ride in front of the Tiananmen Gate on Monday in Beijing.

Grassroots mobilization and coordination at the highest levels seem to have helped contain the coronavirus epidemic.

my own neighborhood, but no others.

After a brief negotiation with the volunteers, we agreed on quarantine terms: I could walk to my apartment compound entrance to meet delivery boys, but they couldn’t come in and I couldn’t go out. A beefy volunteer with a shaved head and camouflage pants was supposed to enforce the rules at my gate.

In China, the entire system tightens up and then relaxes in an unending cycle as high-level officials issue edicts that are gradually ignored before they are replaced by new edicts. Like ocean tides pulled by the party’s gravity, this pattern applies to everything: Internet censorship, anti-

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Andy Wong/Associated Press

corruption, bank lending.

One evening, when neighborhood controls appeared to be at a low ebb, I was surprised to find at my door a delivery boy who managed to stroll into my totally unguarded compound to drop off dinner. Later, a friend snuck up to our seventh floor walk-up — totally unannounced, of course.

Days later, as Beijing officials announced a new wave of containment measures, the system revved up again. Camo Pants was again patrolling the compound entrance; my phone was again bombarded with automated text messages reminding me to report my daily temperature to the city government app called “Beijing Hearts Helping Each Other” that I hadn’t bothered to open for days.

As the quarantine wore on, it became bizarre to see videos on Twitter of people in other countries brawling over toilet paper and clearing out supermarket shelves even as my daily patterns settled into familiar, almost frictionless grooves.

Multiple times a day, I punched orders into e-commerce apps such as Meituan and Taobao and then walked out to meet delivery boys who brought me bok choy and lotus root, Norwe-

Left: A man carries a toddler on his shoulders as both wear masks while walking in Beijing on Wednesday.

Right: A woman wearing a mask browses an aisle in a Beijing supermarket on Monday.

gian salmon and lamb chops.

I ordered computer accessories to work from home and plumbing gear after my kitchen flooded. Cross-country deliveries often arrived at my gate within 72 hours. Most other orders showed up within one — yes, even toilet paper.

At home, I watched reports roll in from the United States that seemed like an eerie replay of what my colleagues and I filed from China weeks earlier: New York State locking down a whole region — a miniature Hubei. Gaping inadequacies in U.S. testing kits — just like in China. Trump administration officials delaying their response to the epidemic and misleading the public about its threat — ditto China’s national health authorities. The president hoping to suppress infections numbers and keep them “where they are” — very likely what happened in Wuhan.

Meanwhile in China, the country was recovering, and its state media was ramping up to let the world know it. But the propaganda narrative, which bore the hallmarks of President Xi Jinping and his ideology czar, Wang Huning, went beyond touting the effectiveness of China’s response

KLMNO Weekly

Ng Han Guan/Associated Press

after its central government snapped into gear in late January.

It argued that China’s recovery was proof that the party’s efficient, authoritarian leadership was not only suitable, but in fact a superior model of governance.

All of it glossed over the fact that the outbreak may have been averted or greatly curbed if it had been tackled earlier, or if whistleblowers had not been silenced.

The state media reports extolling the results of China’s quarantine policies and its enormous sacrifice, while true, never mentioned studies like the one led by the University of Southampton — and co-written by a researcher at the Wuhan Centers for Disease Control — that estimated that 95 percent of all cases could have been avoided if containment measures had begun three weeks earlier.

As Chinese officials became mired in a high-profile spat with the United States by sowing doubt and fringe theories about the origins of the virus on Twitter, it seemed to distract from a moment when the world should be learning from China’s undeniable achievement: how it brought the epidemic under control, at least after its costly early mis-

takes.

After my quarantine ended a few days ago, I met up with friends in Beijing restaurants that were slowly reopening. The tables had turned, we all agreed.

A British friend said he was terrified to fly home after health authorities proposed allowing a huge proportion of Britons to become infected to acquire “herd immunity.” A friend with family in New York worried that his mother couldn’t buy a plane ticket to flee back to China because prices were skyrocketing. A third friend said she was bringing masks from China for relatives in California, where they were sold out.

It all reminded me of one morning before my quarantine, when I encountered two neighborhood aunties stretching in the winter sun. Echoing standard state media lines, they marveled at how China was triumphing over the virus but less competent governments were slipping into chaos.

Chattering in the boisterous tones of northern Mandarin and Xi-era nationalism, the “dama” ladies sounded a bit insensitive, even off-putting.

In retrospect, they were also right. n

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KLMNO Weekly

The coronavirus Outbreak

How long will social distancing last?

BY

WILLIAM WAN

H

ow long are we going to have to keep this up?

The closed schools, working from home, six feet of personal space and zombie-apocalypse empty streets?

It is the question now preoccupying America as millions of parents silently scream it into the void amid the coronavirus pandemic. But it is an especially hard one for science to answer.

The best and most honest reply, according to epidemiologists and virologists, is simple: “It depends.” It’s not going to be over anytime soon — a matter of months rather than weeks. And these are the key factors that will determine just how many months: It depends on when U.S. cases finally reach their peak In recent days, the rapidly increasing number of confirmed U.S. cases has begun to resemble the beginning exponential curves of other countries such as Italy. While the novel coronavirus that causes the respiratory infection covid-19 continues to spread in Italy, new daily cases in other countries like China and South Korea are finally tapering off — a sign that they have passed the peak of their immediate crises.

“It depends if a week from now, we look like Italy or South Korea,” said Caitlin Rivers, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.

It took China roughly two months from the beginning of its outbreak — and a month from the time the gravity of the situation was understood — for the country to reach its peak. And it took South Korea roughly half a month.

It is impossible, however, to say when that peak will arrive in the United States for many reasons — chief among them the fact that we don’t yet know the true number of cases because of how limited testing remains in America.

The U.S. situation, one epide-

Andrew Kelly/Reuters

Scientists say it could be months, depending on when U.S. cases peak miologist said, is the equivalent of someone asking an exterminator what it will take to get rid of rats in a basement they have been too afraid to enter for weeks. You have to turn the lights on and examine the droppings first to figure out the scope of the problem. And the nation’s response in the absence of that knowledge has been sluggish compared with that of other countries.

In the latest signs of how bad and how long this crisis could last, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said this past Sunday that all gatherings of more than 50 people should be halted for the next eight weeks.

On Monday, officials in several states said millions of students

may have to stay out of school for the rest of the academic year. At a Monday news conference, President Trump recommended states with community transmissions close schools, bars, restaurants, gyms and other gathering spots, and he suggested that the outbreak could last until July or August.

Even after the peak, we may need drastic actions to keep the virus at bay Two and half months after the virus emerged, China has partially lifted its draconian lockdowns in many areas. Schools have started reopening, and authorities have taken down the makeshift hospitals built in Wuhan at the height of the outbreak.

A school safety officer enters P.S. 140 In Manhattan after New York Mayor Bill de Blasio ordered school closures because of the coronavirus outbreak on Monday.

Scientists say it’s likely the United States will see second and third waves of the outbreak that will keep protective measures such as this one in place.

But new cases continue popping up. And the government has continued its use of temperature checkpoints and pervasive digital surveillance programs that track people’s movements, and the streets — even in its megacities — are not as crowded as before.

The risk of new outbreaks still looms. That is why Chinese authorities introduced new restrictions on incoming travelers — just as some countries once banned Chinese travelers — to prevent the virus from coming back into China and starting new brush fires of transmission.

“We haven’t seen how this plays out all the way yet in China,” Rivers said.

We could see such second or

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THe coronavirus outbreak third waves of outbreaks in countries still recovering from the first. Some experts think the virus will eventually infect 40 to 70 percent of the world’s population.

So it is possible, even most likely, that after U.S. cases peak, Americans will still have to maintain some measures — such as isolating the infected, constant hand-washing, some degree of social distancing — until a viable vaccine is developed, which could take 12 to 18 months.

It depends on unknown characteristics of the virus So much is still unknown about this virus and how it behaves.

Some have expressed hopes that the coronavirus, like the flu, will be affected by the change of seasons, with the flu waning with warmer temperatures in the spring and summer. If so, that could give Americans a respite from these drastic measures and much-needed time to prepare our health-care system rather than see it overwhelmed during a second onslaught of infections in the fall and winter.

But no one knows whether seasons will have any effect.

Additionally, scientists still don’t know definitively whether surviving a covid-19 infection means you gain long-lasting immunity and, if so, for how long.

There have been a few reports of possible reinfections, but many experts think those may be due to testing errors or a resurgence of the virus in patients who had not completely recovered.

Much also depends on how much we’re willing to do, for how long How well America is able to flatten and bend its epidemiological curve of infections depends largely on how willing people will be to sacrifice individual conveniences and on their desire to save the lives of others.

In Britain, for example, leaders a few weeks ago said they were holding off on social distancing, bans on large gatherings and school closures, in part out of fear that citizens would quickly get tired of it.

“If you move too early, people get fatigued,” Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer for Eng-

land, said Thursday. That decision, however, drew widespread opposition from experts — including more than 200 science and medical experts who published an open letter criticizing the plan. This is because a lot of epidemiological studies show that the earlier you enact such interventions, the bigger their effect.

Even with the action being taken now in the United States, experts say hospitals will most likely run out of beds and ventilators and be forced to ration care, choosing which patients to save and which to let die.

“I don’t know if people are ready now for how long they’re probably going to have to keep up this social distancing. But as they see the hospital situation get more extreme, I think that attitude will change,” said Natalie Dean, a biostatistician at the University of Florida who is working on coronavirus vaccine evaluation with the World Health Organization and other

Weekly

Helena Price Hambrecht

Unable to go to bars or social gatherings, people joined a Zoom meeting for a happy hour with the makers of Haus aperitifs on Friday.

Distancing leads to video happy hours B Y H EATHER K ELLY

U

Salwan Georges/The Washington Post

outbreak response projects.

As she spoke to a reporter, Dean multitasked, taking her two kids on a walk around the block, with her eldest competing — loudly — at times for her attention.

“It’s stressful. It’s going to take adjustment for a lot of families.

But to be honest, it’s too early given what’s still ahead to be asking ‘How long?’ ” she said.

“It’s like asking a fireman when you can move back in, but your house is still on fire.” n

KLMNO

A shopper leaves a Costco on Monday in Arlington, Va.

nable to go to bars or restaurants, people throughout the country are instead finding ways to drink together, alone, online.

Raising a glass virtually is taking off as people are discouraged from leaving their homes or gathering in large groups because of the novel coronavirus pandemic.

Amid physical “social distancing,” friends and co-workers are instead turning to video chats to socialize at a time when friendly faces and breaks from nonstop news can be hard to find. They are getting together with their regular happy hour crew, or with family members and people they have not seen in ages. Some are finding new friends to bond with over their shared unshakable sense of dread and a fondness for mezcal.

There is even a new cocktail emerging online: the “quarantini.”

Although its recipe varies, it is best served chilled in front of a laptop or smartphone camera and enjoyed with a twist of levity.

Jennifer Kumiyama in Long Beach, Calif., is filling up her calendar with chats and her kitchen with wine from the nearby bodega. After posting the idea on her Facebook page, Kumiyama was quickly booked from 2 to 6 p.m. with a rotating cast of chat part-

ners, some of whom she hadn’t met before.

“It was really great, because I feel like there was a mutual need to talk about stuff that wasn’t so dark and depressing,” said Kumiyama over a FaceTime chat with drinks.

The outbreak of the novel coronavirus has also occurred as people are more connected than ever, adding a new feeling of community in a time of crisis and potential isolation. Technology, including social media sites and smartphones, is enabling communication in a way that would not have been possible a decade ago.

As more people are choosing or are required to stay home, video technology in particular is providing a way for people to connect — even when there are glitches. It is allowing employees to stay connected with work and the people they know, socializing across distances.

Over just the past two weeks, virtual happy hours have become more commonplace, showing how quickly people can adapt to their new reality.

Video chat happy hours in particular are important to create “a breather and just talk about other things,” said Helena Price Hambrecht, co-CEO of Sonoma County, Calif., aperitif company Haus, which offers delivery. “It’s important for our sanity.” n

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KLMNO Weekly

The coronavirus outbreak

Experts o≠er advice on staying calm BY

J OEL A CHENBACH

T

he coronavirus pandemic is becoming a brutal psychological test. This is a dreadful moment with a potentially deadly pathogen on the loose. This public health crisis can take a mental toll on people, especially those struggling with anxiety, depression and other conditions.

One common emotion that might not be immediately obvious: grief.

“Right now people are feeling grief over the loss of routines, certainty, and a perception of themselves as being generally healthy and protected,” said psychiatrist Joshua Morganstein, the chair of the American Psychiatric Association’s Committee on Psychiatric Dimensions of Disasters.

He and other mental health experts say there are steps people can take — practical ones — to ease some of that anxiety and give a person a better sense of being in control of this chaotic situation.

Some advice comes from research on natural disasters, mass shootings, terrorist attacks and other traumas.

Much of the professional advice is obvious but bears repeating, Morganstein said: “Things like getting good sleep, eating regularly, staying hydrated, exercising. When we take care of our body, with good sleep in particular, but certainly food and water, our ability to think clearly, our ability to solve problems, our ability to manage our emotions, are all optimized.”

Kathy HoganBruen, a Washington-based clinical psychologist specializing in anxiety disorders, echoes that advice: “Now is the time to start establishing some healthy habits.” For example, start the day by getting exercise and fresh air in nature if possible. And a person feeling overwhelmed by the grim news might do better by limiting time following coronavirus bulletins. “Really try to limit the news consumption or just staring at your phone and your computer, because for most of us that makes mental health worse

Jeenah Moon/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

Start with a plan, stick to routine, get enough sleep, and help the needy rather than better,” she said.

The news coverage has focused foremost on the confirmed cases of covid-19 — the case fatality rates, the contagiousness of the virus, the missteps in rolling out testing in the United States, and so on. What is harder to measure is the psychological contagion — the sheer stress and worry and outright fear, and how these can pass from person to person as quickly as a virus.

Joshua Gordon, a neuroscientist and psychiatrist who is the director of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), suggests that everyone develop a plan for how to deal with this moment.

Having a strategy for day-to-day living isn’t just a matter of protecting oneself from the coronavi-

rus and limiting its spread in the community. It’s a form of mental therapy, as Gordon sees it.

“Having conversations with your family about what they can do to protect themselves and also what they can do to stay active, physically and socially, can be therapeutic in and of itself,” Gordon told The Washington Post.

A pandemic plan could involve ensuring that social distancing doesn’t result in extreme loneliness and a feeling of isolation.

People who are staying home can set up group chats via Zoom or FaceTime or some other platform.

Make a plan for helping people who are most vulnerable, or at least making sure that someone is checking with an isolated elderly family member each day — some-

A woman shields her mouth while riding the subway in New York City. Joshua Gordon, the director of the National Institute of Mental Health, urges people to develop a plan for how to deal with this moment.

thing Gordon’s family has been doing.

“Remember that what is most disturbing about what we’re going through is the uncertainty.

When we know what’s happening, when we know what to expect, we feel safe — even if what we expect might be threatening,” Gordon said. “Develop a plan — find your place in the world. It can take time, it can take preparation, but it can help a lot.”

People with mental illnesses can be especially vulnerable in a time like this. About one in five adults in the U.S. experiences a mental illness or disorder in any given year, Gordon said.

“For those with anxiety disorders, that concern [about the coronavirus] can become all-con-

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SUNDAY, March, 22, 2020 sunday, march 22, 2020

The coronavirus outbreak suming,” Gordon said. “We’re all a little suspicious of others on the subway, on the street, if they’re coughing or they look sick. Imagine if you had schizophrenia — that concern or suspicion could turn into frank paranoia.”

This is also challenging for anyone suffering from depression.

The lack of social engagement and the disruption of routines can worsen symptoms. People with mental illness need to make a plan for how they can continue with treatment and therapy, including contact with support groups and ensuring that they have a supply of medication.

HoganBruen said this pandemic creates a kind of “forced depression” because it disrupts plans for the future that normally give people hope.

“It’s like this kind of forced depression. No one knows, ‘Can I go on a summer vacation, can I go to my daughter’s graduation?” We don’t get to do that planning and daydreaming in our heads right now. Depression is feeling hopeless about the future, and right now I think that’s how a lot of people feel, rightfully so. If you have underlying depression, that might be exaggerated at this point.”

Everyone should be aware that a crisis like this can result in what are known as distress reactions.

“Distress reactions include trouble sleeping, difficulty in concentration, a feeling of being unsafe. Anger. Blaming others. A desire to socially isolate. It can lead to risky behaviors such as excessive use of alcohol or tobacco. Interpersonal violence can flare. One common response to disasters is worklife imbalance — working long hours and letting other important duties and needs in one’s life slide,” Morganstein said.

A crisis can also bring out the best in people. People in the United States have a history of collective action and resilience in hard times. The covid-19 pandemic, however, is unfamiliar to most people, and social distancing runs counter to human nature. Today’s pandemic has to be taken as seriously as the Spanish flu of 1918 — which is deep in the history books.

It’s too early to know how long this crisis will last or what its ultimate toll will be. Experts have suggested it might be comparable to the 1957 influenza pandemic, though it’s not out of the question

Weekly

The ‘essentials,’ from wine to weed

that it could be as severe as the Spanish flu. The virus remains enigmatic, its favored modes of transmission still under investigation.

Covid-19 can be a mild illness, or a severe one, or even a fatal one.

The virus usually spreads from direct person-to-person contact, but it can also remain viable for many hours on surfaces. Thus people must struggle with basic decisions about how to go about their lives. Is it safe to go every so often to the grocery store? Visit neighbors? Attend a 12-step meeting?

“I think a lot of people are pretty freaked out already, anxious and fearful,” said Francis Collins, the director of the National Institutes of Health, in an interview with The Post. “As in all things, it comes down to the balance between having a reasonable concern, especially if it’s motivat-

BY Q UENTIN A RIÈS AND M ICHAEL B IRNBAUM

in Brussels

T

Joe Penney/Reuters

ing to take actions that can reduce risk, versus having this take over your entire world to the point where you become paralyzed.”

Figuring out what is a reasonable concern is not easy for anyone in a public health crisis like this, which is so full of unknowns.

Morganstein said he avoids using the word “anxiety” or “panic” when discussing how people react to a crisis like this, because it implies the reaction is excessive or inappropriate. And he cautions that a person in distress does not need to be told to be rational and logical: “Logic is often an ineffective antidote to emotion.”

But one thought is comforting: Everyone is affected by this. This is a time for communities to find common purpose, even if people are forced to stay apart.

“Understanding and reminding ourselves that we’re all going through something together, sometimes that can help us feel less alone,” he said. n

KLMNO

A father sanitizes his son’s hands.

Social connections and making plans can help people cope with fear about the coronavirus pandemic.

here’s nothing like a pandemic to help a society sort out what it really values in life. In the case of Belgium, that turns out to be french fries.

Silence has fallen on the grand boulevards of Europe, as one government after another has shut down daily life in a desperate attempt to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus. In Italy, France, Spain, Belgium and elsewhere, citizens are allowed outside only for the most essential of needs.

People are generally allowed to go out to buy groceries. They can visit the doctor and the pharmacy. But, beyond that, what’s considered essential varies from country to country, and many have allowed culturally flavored exceptions.

In Belgium, people can still buy tasty, oil-fried potato slivers from the iconic sidewalk stands, the friteries. Belgians, at least, think these fries are the best in the world.

Shut down Belgium’s fries stands, apparently, and shut down the soul of the nation.

Leaders have avoided dealing such a grievous blow, even as they have closed down most other commerce in the country.

France shut down most commerce Monday. But the government published about 40 categories of exceptions. The country will not have to do without its wine stores. And small-foodshop life can keep going, as bakeries, butchers, tobacco shops and fine grocers may remain open.

The declaration led to some mixed feelings among wine sellers. They were delighted to be considered a cultural priority, but at least some of them thought it might be better to take a little vin break.

Several wine shops, instead of opening to be public, are offering

delivery of “survival wine packs” of six or 12 bottles of wine.

In the Netherlands, leaders have declared cannabis a coronavirus-era priority. The decision may help ease anxieties in a pandemic-stricken nation.

Authorities initially indicated an intention to close most shops, including the country’s famous marijuana-selling coffee shops. Dutch residents and tourists rushed to get cannabis-related products.

Officials ultimately backtracked, allowing the coffee shops to reopen their takeaway counters. Customers can’t light up in the shops anymore, though, in a nod to social distancing.

Amsterdam’s famed red light district, apparently, is nonessential, or at least has been deemed a place where the virus is likely to spread.

In Germany, life is less locked down than elsewhere in Europe, and each German state can decide for itself what will remain open and what will close.

But bike shops have been singled out by national and some state authorities as essential assets.

German Health Minister Jens Spahn encouraged Germans to get around by bike as a healthy, social-distancing-appropriate mode of transportation.

The guidance contrasts with Spain, where authorities have counseled the populace to avoid bicycling for fear that accidents could burden the health-care system.

Italy remains the European country hardest-hit by the novel coronavirus, and there are few exceptions to its near-total shutdown. But newsstands remain open, a quaint and sweet measure that allows older residents a chance to read the papers.

A small number of bread shops and bakeries have decided to stay open for takeaway service or delivery. And at least one Roman gelateria is doing deliveries. n

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KLMNO Weekly

The Coronavirus outbreak

For Trump, a defining challenge

Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post

President pushes $1 trillion stimulus as White House focuses on economic response

BY R OBERT C OSTA AND P HILIP R UCKER

T

he novel coronavirus is redefining Donald Trump’s presidency eight months before he stands for reelection as he wagers that the potentially largest rescue package in U.S. history could protect the American people from the economic carnage brought by the pandemic.

Trump will be tested at the ballot box not only by his management of the public health crisis but also his ability to navigate what the president says will probably be

a recession — a challenge that is reviving the decade-long debate over the use of public money to prop up private businesses.

The administration this past week outlined a $1 trillion plan, which includes $500 billion in cash payments to individual Americans and $300 billion toward helping small businesses, as well as $50 billion for airlines and $150 billion for other affected sectors.

Trump’s hastily crafted stimulus, which won early support from most Republican lawmakers, marked a sea change on the political right. The president and many

of his conservative allies rose to power on the strength of a grassroots movement forged in opposition to the bank bailouts during the 2008 financial crisis and President Barack Obama’s subsequent economic stimulus package.

Scrutiny of Trump’s plan continued to grow and some Republicans expressed unease about its scope and leading Democrats warned against federal giveaways to corporations without accountability measures that would ensure taxpayer money does not fund stock buybacks or executive pay.

“Everybody seems to want to go big and they want to get to the recovery, the big day,” President Trump said at a news briefing Wednesday.

He added, “There’s going to be a comeback very, very quickly, as soon as this is solved.”

And there was some trepidation within the administration about the political risks associated with the perception that industries spend money as they wish — as well as uncertainty about how, exactly, all of the money would be spread around, according to officials involved in the discussions who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private talks.

Trump’s ability to enact his plan and weather the turbulence could have an enormous impact on his political fate and determine whether he is remembered as this

15 5

SUNDAY, March, 22, 2020 sunday, march 22, 2020

the coronavirus outbreak era’s Herbert Hoover, who was president at the onset of the Great Depression, or its Franklin Roosevelt, his successor who guided the nation out of economic and geopolitical turmoil.

Trump, keenly aware that the state of the economy could determine whether he gets reelected, has been fixated in recent weeks on stock market declines and sees the plan shepherded by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin as crucial to providing confidence to investors and ensuring an eventual recovery.

“Everybody seems to want to go big and they want to get to the recovery, the big day,” Trump said at a news conference Wednesday.

He added, “There’s going to be a comeback very, very quickly, as soon as this is solved.”

For now, Trump is benefiting from quick support from even some of the staunchest spending hawks inside the Republican Party, many of whom are hearing desperation from anxious business leaders and constituents as vast sectors of the economy are shutting down.

Sen. Patrick J. Toomey (R-Pa.) — who built a national profile years ago as the head of a hard-line small-government advocacy group — said this crisis “is not like an ordinary recession or even a severe recession. This more like an act of God or war footing.”

Toomey said comparing current proposed legislation with the financial industry bailout of 2008, which he opposed, is misguided because “those were caused by a bubble in real estate and financial institutions being overleveraged, all kinds of human error.”

“It’s a different thing when a lethal pathogen affects large numbers of Americans,” Toomey said.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has vowed that the Senate will not recess before reaching bipartisan agreement on the stimulus legislation. And his advice to his conservative colleagues: Rally together even if bills are fiscally problematic.

“My counsel to them is to gag and vote for it anyway, even if they think it has some shortcomings, and to address those shortcomings in the bill that we’re in the process of crafting,” McConnell said Tuesday.

When Mnuchin visited with Republican senators at their Tuesday lunch, the secretary pleaded with

Katherine Frey/The Washington Post

them not to use the politically charged word “bailout” in describing the proposed relief for Boeing, one of many large corporations that stands to benefit from the administration’s plan. One senator raised a hand and asked if they should instead call them “freedom payments,” which prompted laughter, according to a person briefed on the closed-door meeting who spoke on the condition of anonymity to be candid about the discussion.

Trump, who has been fielding calls from business executives for days, has been focused on stopping the stock market from cratering and preventing the unemployment rate from spiking into the double digits. He has advocated for a sweeping stimulus plan — so much so that when aides presented him with a $850 billion proposal, he encouraged a $1 trillion price tag, according to several people familiar with his thinking.

Trump “doesn’t give a [expletive]” about how his rescue plan affects the federal debt, according to a White House official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to be frank. “It’s all about the markets and the economy for him.

It’s all about the jobs numbers.”

Trump’s mind-set aligns with a broader GOP move away from the alarmism about federal deficits toward a more blasé view about government red ink, a shift that predates the coronavirus.

Trump contended during the

2016 campaign that he could eliminate the debt in eight years, but during his first three years in office the debt has surged from $20 trillion to $23 trillion.

Outgoing acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney last month told an audience at Oxford University: “My party is very interested in deficits when there is a Democrat in the White House. The worst thing in the whole world is deficits when Barack Obama was the president. Then Donald Trump became president, and we’re a lot less interested as a party.”

In late 2008, Congress passed the Troubled Asset Relief Program, which allowed the Treasury Department to buy toxic assets from financial institutions as a means to keeping big banks from going under during the subprime mortgage crisis. A few months later, after Obama took office, Congress passed a bailout of the automotive industry.

Both measures became controversial, leading to a populist backlash against government initiatives that appeared to pick winners and losers during a crisis.

On the right, the tea party movement formed, preaching austerity and prioritizing the ballooning federal debt. The tea party powered the Republican wave election in 2010 that installed Toomey, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and other stars in the Senate and House.

One of the victims that year was

Sen. Patrick J. Toomey (R-Pa.) in late January during the impeachment proceedings. Toomey said comparing current proposed legislation with the financial industry bailout of 2008, which he opposed, is misguided because “those were caused by a bubble in real estate and financial institutions being overleveraged, all kinds of human error.”

KLMNO Weekly

Sen. Robert Bennett (R-Utah), whose vote for TARP became the top issue in his reelection campaign. Tea party activists besmirched him as “Bailout Bob,” and at the 2010 state Republican convention he lost the party’s nomination to Mike Lee, who went on to win the seat that fall.

A similar movement formed on the left, as Occupy Wall Street took shape among liberals and powered a decade-long leftward shift in Democratic politics, which found expression in the presidential candidacies of Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).

Former labor secretary Robert Reich, a leading voice among liberals on domestic policy, said: “Politically it’s fine and good to bail out individuals, to provide direct subsidies, extended unemployment insurance, paid sick leave, expanded Medicaid — all of that makes a great deal of sense. It is less acceptable to bail out particular industries.”

Even some of Trump’s top supporters are concerned that the rush for stimulus is mistaken and does not guarantee an economic turnaround.

Supply-side economist Arthur Laffer, whom Trump awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom last year, warned that pumping federal dollars into the economy “sounds compassionate” but would not necessarily spark the market back into action.

Some Trump allies in the Senate are calling for adjustments to the stimulus proposal. Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) wrote in a Fox Business op-ed article Wednesday that “large corporations that have enjoyed years of growth and prosperity” should not receive taxpayer dollars and that small businesses and gig-economy workers should be the main beneficiaries.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) similarly has said relief should be focused on working families so Americans see that taxpayer money is being handled well.

As for bailing out airlines or other industries, Hawley said “very strict conditions” must be set, such as a loan secured by collateral that would be paid back in full.

“If you’re coming to me and just saying, ‘We just want a bunch of taxpayer money, just give it to us,’ I’m not going to do that,” Hawley said. n

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