Nicholas Stix, Uncensored: Coronavirus Updates: Countries that Re-Opened are Locking Down Again

Wednesday, May 13, 2020

Coronavirus Updates: Countries that Re-Opened are Locking Down Again

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Coronavirus Updates: Countries that Re-Ppened are Locking Down Again

Coronavirus Updates from The Washington Post

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Important developments in the coronavirus pandemic.

By Angela Fritz
with Avi Selk

The Post's coronavirus coverage linked in this newsletter is free to access from this email.

The latest

In the early days of the coronavirus outbreak, doctors felt like they were "flying blind" as patients presented with bizarre new complications that defied textbook treatments. But now physicians on the front lines say they feel hopeful because they have a toolbox of treatments, albeit an imperfect one, that makes a meaningful difference in recovery. Read about the therapies health experts say are giving today's covid-19 patients a better shot at survival.

As many countries work to lift restrictions, such as the United States, some nations that thought they had the virus under control have had to lock down again amid a new spike in infections. Lebanon and South Korea are two of the countries that have had to reimpose restrictions after experiencing flare-ups. The new spikes underscore the challenges ahead as officials debate the pros and cons of reopening society.

Most Americans are curbing their expectations of when it will be safe to gather in large groups, with two in three now saying it won't be until July, according to a new poll. But others are trying to take matters into their own hands: An armed militia helped a Michigan barbershop open in defiance of state orders. In California, a group of anti-lockdown protesters took their grievances (and cameras) to the home of the Fresno City Council president, a staged confrontation that led to a citizen's arrest and misdemeanor battery charges against the local official.

You're not imagining it: Prices at the grocery store are higher. Costs for products across the board — meats, eggs, fruits and veggies, cereals and bakery items — rose in April. Overall, consumers paid 2.6 percent more in April for groceries, the largest one-month increase since February 1974. What has jumped in price the most and why? We'll explain.

In an effort to save their local small businesses, some people are rebelling against delivery apps such as DoorDash and Grubhub, which frequently collect 10 to 30 percent of each order in fees. Instead, consumers are calling the business directly to pick up orders themselves. For the companies, the apps make it easier to reach a wide audience and conduct online sales, but the convenience comes at a steep cost. (Another important read: Economists project that more than 100,000 small businesses have shuttered permanently since the pandemic escalated in March.)

For weeks, people in rural communities in Nebraska saw cases climb at the state's meatpacking plants. First, there were handfuls, and then many more. Then health officials stopped reporting the numbers. Gov. Pete Ricketts (R) announced last week they would no longer share figures. Residents in those communities want to know why, saying the data is crucial to understand how the virus is spreading and what precautions, if any, are being taken at the plants.

Other important news

The Aspen Institute think tank received an $8 million federal small-business loan, despite a $115 million endowment and billionaire board members.

One child, two stimulus payments: The weird way divorced families are double-dipping without even trying.

Federal Reserve chair warns of a long, painful economic downturn if Congress does not provide more financial relief.

Jared Kushner clarifies after saying he's "not sure" he can commit to a date for the presidential election. (Neither President Trump nor Kushner has any legal authority to change the timing of the election.)

Fact Checker: Biden video uses misleading edits to hype Trump's remarks to nurse.

In a time of global crisis, should the world cancel poor countries' debts?

On the front lines

(Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post)

A small community hospital struggles to stay open during the pandemic

To care for people who would get infected, this hospital invested in expensive preparations, spending more than half its capital budget for the year. It made these investments as the usual patients were vanishing. Administrators know they cannot sustain the losses for long.

By Amy Goldstein ● Read more »

Live updates and more

Track deaths and confirmed cases in the U.S. and across the world.

Where states are reopening and what the rules are in each one.

Post reporters across the world are publishing live dispatches 24 hours a day.

Read the latest about the cases and impact in the D.C. area.

Submit a question and The Post may answer it in a future story, live chat or newsletter.

Your questions, answered

"In light of disruptions to the U.S. food supply chain caused by the pandemic, what are farmers doing during the current planting season?" — John in California

Many of them are struggling to stay afloat after last year's terrible weather gave way to a pandemic that "has thrown the nearly $2 trillion food industry into chaos," our business desk reported this week.

When the U.S. restaurant industry went dormant earlier this year, farmers suddenly had no customers for the bulk quantities of crops they grow and package. A farmer in Idaho told The Post that he would normally be sending thousands of 50-pound boxes of potatoes a day to a nearby french fry plant, which has gone idle. "Now we're trying to shove it all through a little side stream bagger machine in hopes grocery stores will take it," he said.

The same farmer was forced to let people from nearby towns strip his fields of 1 million pounds of seed potatoes — giving the crop away because he had nowhere to sell it and couldn't afford to store it for months. The University of Missouri's Food and Agricultural Research Institute estimates that American farmers will lose more than $20 billion this year.

The sad irony is that farmers had been looking forward to 2020 until the coronavirus hit. A wave of calamitous storms and blizzards that had disrupted 2019 plantings and harvests was over. President Trump's years-long trade war had finally abated, with China promising to order billions of dollars in U.S. produce. Farms that had for years relied on government subsidies to keep from sinking under debt finally saw a light at the end of the tunnel.

But with the marketplace now upended, farmers have been "forced to euthanize millions of hogs and chickens, give away tons of unwanted potatoes, and pour out enough milk to fill a small lake," The Post reported. And some analysts think only an extraordinary amount of federal aid will keep many of those farms solvent until the pandemic subsides.

Read more in this story from David J. Lynch, Annie Gowen and Laura Reiley: Farmers' hopes for respite from Trump-era struggles fade amid pandemic

Today's top reads

Find more stories, analysis and op-eds about the outbreak on our coronavirus page, including:

Analysis: The GOP is increasingly siding with Trump over Fauci
WWII veteran and his son die of covid-19, just days apart in separate nursing homes
Mexico plans to start reopening border region, other areas as coronavirus lockdown eases