newyorker--2020-03-27--Trump’s Dangerous Messaging About a Possible Coronavirus Treatment

The malaria drug chloroquine was developed from quinine , an alkaloid found in the bark of the cinchona tree , which grows in the tropical highlands of South America .
The Incas passed the bark cure to Jesuit priests , who transported it to Europe in the mid-sixteen-hundreds .
The National Institutes of Health calls quinine “ the most serendipitous medical discovery of the 17th century , ” but its side effects—diarrhea , vomiting , partial deafness and blindness—could be devastating .
A less toxic derivative of chloroquine , hydroxychloroquine , was developed in the nineteen-forties .
Doctors and pharmacists @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the drugs , which are taken as pills , essentially defend red blood cells against a parasite that is transmitted by mosquito bite .
Lately , some doctors have been trying it against the novel coronavirus , which causes COVID-19 .
Attention to chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine—and to a third drug , the antibiotic azithromycin , a common brand name of which is Zithromax Z-Pak—intensified in mid-March , after researchers at Aix-Marseille University , in France , released a preliminary study saying that , in a clinical trial , the combination of hydroxychloroquine and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the virus in COVID-19 patients .
On March 18th , on Fox News , Tucker Carlson opened a three-minute segment about the study by saying , of the United States , “ This is a country of science.
” He then introduced a lawyer , Gregory Rigano , whom he identified as an adviser to Stanford University ’ s medical school .
Rigano had self-published a white paper about chloroquine , on Google Docs ; his connection to the French research was otherwise unclear .
He was appearing remotely , wearing a suit @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fireplace .
When Carlson asked him why he thought the study was important , Rigano responded , “ The President has the authority to authorize the use of hydroxychloroquine against coronavirus immediately .
He has cut more red tape at the F.D.A .
than any other President in history.
” According to his Web site , covidtrial.io , Rigano has experience “ advancing various pharmaceutical assets through laboratory , animal , formulation , manufacturing , clinical trials , ” and was hosting an “ open data clinical trial for Covid-19.
” ( The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ been changed . )
He told Carlson that the French study “ was released this morning on my Twitter account , ” and showed a “ one hundred per cent cure rate ” against the coronavirus .
Carlson called the revelation “ remarkable.
” Rigano , after a bizarre reference to hepatitis , said , “ What we ’ re here to announce is the second cure to a virus of all time.
” Charlie Kirk , the founder of the conservative nonprofit Turning Point USA , tweeted the segment , exhorting his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ If President @ realDonaldTrump should immediately move to make this available.
” Most media outlets , though , quickly challenged the credibility of Rigano and that of his white paper ’ s co-author , James Todaro , a cryptocurrency investor who has tweeted about having a medical degree from Columbia .
HuffPost called them “ hucksters.
” Joan Donovan , who studies “ media manipulation and disinformation campaigns ” at the Shorenstein Center , at the Harvard Kennedy School , called them “ bitcoin entrepreneurs ” and pointed out that “ neither do @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ This is dangerous because people are now tweeting about trying to get their doctors to prescribe anti-malaria drugs .
Worse , thousands of people think they can cure coronavirus by drinking tonic water.
” ( Tonic water contains quinine . )
Stanford Health Care posted an “ IMPORTANT NOTICE ” on its Web site : “ A widely circulating Google document claiming to have identified a potential treatment for COVID-19 in consultation with Stanford ’ s School of Medicine is not legitimate.
” Donald Trump , however , ran with it .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ , he declared that chloroquine had “ been approved ” by the Food and Drug Administration as a treatment for COVID-19 .
( It hadn ’ t . )
On Friday , he said that he is “ a big fan ” of the drug .
( The F.D.A .
commissioner , Stephen Hahn , issued a cautionary statement about spreading “ false hope.
” ) On Saturday , Trump tweeted , “ HYDROXYCHLOROQUINE & AZITHROMYCIN , taken together , have a real chance to be one of the biggest game changers in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that the drugs should be used “ IMMEDIATELY ” to treat the coronavirus .
HCQ is also used to treat rheumatoid arthritis and lupus , which are autoimmune diseases ; at one of his pressers , Trump had said , “ If you wanted , you can have a prescription , ” adding , “ What the hell do you have to lose ?
” Physicians responded instantly and publicly .
Sam Ghali , an emergency physician in Lexington , Kentucky , tweeted that the President ’ s recommendation involved “ a DANGEROUS @ @ @ @ @ @ @ effects , ” and that “ together they can make your heart go into abnormal rhythms and even KILL you.
” Rob Davidson , an emergency physician in western Michigan , who chairs the Committee to Protect Medicare , tweeted , at Trump , “ Leave the medical advice to doctors .
You can ’ t even do your own job correctly , stop trying to do ours.
” The American Society of Health-System Pharmacists soon reported a shortage of HCQ .
By Sunday , at least four state pharmacy boards—in Idaho , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ prescriptions .
( The list has now grown to include Kentucky , North Carolina , and Oklahoma . )
At least one board also restricted azithromycin .
Katherine Rowland , a pharmacist in Eugene , Oregon , tweeted , “ Well it finally happened to me .
A dentist just tried to call in scripts for hydroxychloroquine + azithromycin for himself , his wife , & another couple ( friends ) .
NOPE .
I have patients with lupus that have been on HCQ for YEARS and now can ’ t get it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ A lupus patient in Maryland told a reporter for Undark Magazine that she never worried about a drug shortage but was now terrified that , without the medication that protects her organs from inflammation , her immune system would turn on her .
“ I ’ ll suffocate , ” she said .
In recent weeks—as the number of coronavirus cases escalated to what is now half a million worldwide—the F.D.A .
and the Federal Trade Commission have sent cease-and-desist letters to at least seven sellers of products that are being marketed as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 6th , one such warning went to “ The Jim Bakker Show , ” in Blue Eye , Missouri .
The television program , which is fronted by a televangelist who spent nearly five years in prison , in the early nineteen-nineties , for fraud , had been touting survivalist products , including Silver Sol Liquid , a silver solution that was purported to “ mitigate , prevent , treat , diagnose , or cure COVID-19 in people.
” Viewers were told that they could put the liquid “ in a nebulizer which @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it in , and it will go directly into your lungs where that virus is.
” Another letter went to Herbal Amy , an L.L.C .
in Nampa , Idaho , the Web site of which was selling “ Coronavirus Protocol ” products : Coronavirus Boneset Tea , Coronavirus Cell Protection .
The suggested regimen was “ rather extensive , ” because “ the particular corona virus that is now spreading world wide is exceptionally potent , ” the Web site noted .
The herbs in the protocol were “ specific in one @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and worked “ for acute infections.
” Anthony Fauci has directed the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since Ronald Reagan was President .
As a medical professional , he has faced H.I.V.
, SARS , MERS , Ebola , and now Trump .
At press conferences , Trump speaks of hunches ( “ I feel good about it ” ) ; Fauci delivers information that has been vetted by experts .
On Sunday , Science magazine asked Fauci how he can tolerate statements that “ aren ’ t true and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ replied , “ I can ’ t jump in front of the microphone and push him down.
” Fauci carefully explained that any clinical successes related to the cocktail that Trump was praising were anecdotal .
He said , “ My job is to ultimately prove without a doubt that a drug is not only safe but that it works.
” As the coronavirus continued to spread , Trump made one troubling declaration after another .
A vaccine was coming “ relatively soon , ” he said .
( It takes at least @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ) “ We were very prepared ” for a pandemic , he said .
( The country ’ s hospitals were caught with such a shortage of basic protective gear that front-line health-care workers are reusing , by necessity , potentially contaminated masks ) .
The virus “ miraculously goes away ” as the weather warms , he said .
( Robert Redfield , the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention , has said , “ This virus is probably with us beyond this season , beyond this year.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be “ close to zero , ” Trump said .
( At least a thousand people have died of the coronavirus in the United States , thirteen of them in one twenty-four-hour period , this week , at a single hospital in Elmhurst , Queens . )
By Wednesday night , on Twitter , # DoctorsOnlyPressConferences was trending nationally .

The malaria drug chloroquine was developed from quinine, an alkaloid found in the bark of the cinchona tree, which grows in the tropical highlands of South America. The Incas passed the bark cure to Jesuit priests, who transported it to Europe in the mid-sixteen-hundreds. The National Institutes of Health calls quinine “the most serendipitous medical discovery of the 17th century,” but its side effects—diarrhea, vomiting, partial deafness and blindness—could be devastating. A less toxic derivative of chloroquine, hydroxychloroquine, was developed in the nineteen-forties. Doctors and pharmacists call it HCQ.
Against malaria, the drugs, which are taken as pills, essentially defend red blood cells against a parasite that is transmitted by mosquito bite. Lately, some doctors have been trying it against the novel coronavirus, which causes COVID-19. Attention to chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine—and to a third drug, the antibiotic azithromycin, a common brand name of which is Zithromax Z-Pak—intensified in mid-March, after researchers at Aix-Marseille University, in France, released a preliminary study saying that, in a clinical trial, the combination of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin had quickly reduced the amount of the virus in COVID-19 patients.
On March 18th, on Fox News, Tucker Carlson opened a three-minute segment about the study by saying, of the United States, “This is a country of science.” He then introduced a lawyer, Gregory Rigano, whom he identified as an adviser to Stanford University’s medical school. Rigano had self-published a white paper about chloroquine, on Google Docs; his connection to the French research was otherwise unclear. He was appearing remotely, wearing a suit and sitting in front of a cold fireplace. When Carlson asked him why he thought the study was important, Rigano responded, “The President has the authority to authorize the use of hydroxychloroquine against coronavirus immediately. He has cut more red tape at the F.D.A. than any other President in history.”
According to his Web site, covidtrial.io, Rigano has experience “advancing various pharmaceutical assets through laboratory, animal, formulation, manufacturing, clinical trials,” and was hosting an “open data clinical trial for Covid-19.” (The wording on the Web site has since been changed.) He told Carlson that the French study “was released this morning on my Twitter account,” and showed a “one hundred per cent cure rate” against the coronavirus. Carlson called the revelation “remarkable.” Rigano, after a bizarre reference to hepatitis, said, “What we’re here to announce is the second cure to a virus of all time.”
Charlie Kirk, the founder of the conservative nonprofit Turning Point USA, tweeted the segment, exhorting his nearly two million followers to “RT If President @realDonaldTrump should immediately move to make this available.” Most media outlets, though, quickly challenged the credibility of Rigano and that of his white paper’s co-author, James Todaro, a cryptocurrency investor who has tweeted about having a medical degree from Columbia. HuffPost called them “hucksters.” Joan Donovan, who studies “media manipulation and disinformation campaigns” at the Shorenstein Center, at the Harvard Kennedy School, called them “bitcoin entrepreneurs” and pointed out that “neither do research on viruses.” She wrote, “This is dangerous because people are now tweeting about trying to get their doctors to prescribe anti-malaria drugs. Worse, thousands of people think they can cure coronavirus by drinking tonic water.” (Tonic water contains quinine.) Stanford Health Care posted an “IMPORTANT NOTICE” on its Web site: “A widely circulating Google document claiming to have identified a potential treatment for COVID-19 in consultation with Stanford’s School of Medicine is not legitimate.”
Donald Trump, however, ran with it. Last Thursday, at a press conference, he declared that chloroquine had “been approved” by the Food and Drug Administration as a treatment for COVID-19. (It hadn’t.) On Friday, he said that he is “a big fan” of the drug. (The F.D.A. commissioner, Stephen Hahn, issued a cautionary statement about spreading “false hope.”) On Saturday, Trump tweeted, “HYDROXYCHLOROQUINE & AZITHROMYCIN, taken together, have a real chance to be one of the biggest game changers in the history of medicine.” He added that the drugs should be used “IMMEDIATELY” to treat the coronavirus. HCQ is also used to treat rheumatoid arthritis and lupus, which are autoimmune diseases; at one of his pressers, Trump had said, “If you wanted, you can have a prescription,” adding, “What the hell do you have to lose?”
Physicians responded instantly and publicly. Sam Ghali, an emergency physician in Lexington, Kentucky, tweeted that the President’s recommendation involved “a DANGEROUS combination of drugs with tons of side effects,” and that “together they can make your heart go into abnormal rhythms and even KILL you.” Rob Davidson, an emergency physician in western Michigan, who chairs the Committee to Protect Medicare, tweeted, at Trump, “Leave the medical advice to doctors. You can’t even do your own job correctly, stop trying to do ours.”
The American Society of Health-System Pharmacists soon reported a shortage of HCQ. By Sunday, at least four state pharmacy boards—in Idaho, Ohio, Nevada, and Texas—had restricted prescriptions. (The list has now grown to include Kentucky, North Carolina, and Oklahoma.) At least one board also restricted azithromycin. Katherine Rowland, a pharmacist in Eugene, Oregon, tweeted, “Well it finally happened to me. A dentist just tried to call in scripts for hydroxychloroquine + azithromycin for himself, his wife, & another couple (friends). NOPE. I have patients with lupus that have been on HCQ for YEARS and now can’t get it because it’s on backorder.” A lupus patient in Maryland told a reporter for Undark Magazine that she never worried about a drug shortage but was now terrified that, without the medication that protects her organs from inflammation, her immune system would turn on her. “I’ll suffocate,” she said.
In recent weeks—as the number of coronavirus cases escalated to what is now half a million worldwide—the F.D.A. and the Federal Trade Commission have sent cease-and-desist letters to at least seven sellers of products that are being marketed as cures for the coronavirus. On March 6th, one such warning went to “The Jim Bakker Show,” in Blue Eye, Missouri. The television program, which is fronted by a televangelist who spent nearly five years in prison, in the early nineteen-nineties, for fraud, had been touting survivalist products, including Silver Sol Liquid, a silver solution that was purported to “mitigate, prevent, treat, diagnose, or cure COVID-19 in people.” Viewers were told that they could put the liquid “in a nebulizer which then creates a steam and you breathe it in, and it will go directly into your lungs where that virus is.” Another letter went to Herbal Amy, an L.L.C. in Nampa, Idaho, the Web site of which was selling “Coronavirus Protocol” products: Coronavirus Boneset Tea, Coronavirus Cell Protection. The suggested regimen was “rather extensive,” because “the particular corona virus that is now spreading world wide is exceptionally potent,” the Web site noted. The herbs in the protocol were “specific in one way or another” for the virus, and worked “for acute infections.”
Anthony Fauci has directed the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since Ronald Reagan was President. As a medical professional, he has faced H.I.V., SARS, MERS, Ebola, and now Trump. At press conferences, Trump speaks of hunches (“I feel good about it”); Fauci delivers information that has been vetted by experts. On Sunday, Science magazine asked Fauci how he can tolerate statements that “aren’t true and aren’t factual”; Fauci replied, “I can’t jump in front of the microphone and push him down.” Fauci carefully explained that any clinical successes related to the cocktail that Trump was praising were anecdotal. He said, “My job is to ultimately prove without a doubt that a drug is not only safe but that it works.”
As the coronavirus continued to spread, Trump made one troubling declaration after another. A vaccine was coming “relatively soon,” he said. (It takes at least a year to develop a vaccine.) “We were very prepared” for a pandemic, he said. (The country’s hospitals were caught with such a shortage of basic protective gear that front-line health-care workers are reusing, by necessity, potentially contaminated masks). The virus “miraculously goes away” as the weather warms, he said. (Robert Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has said, “This virus is probably with us beyond this season, beyond this year.”) The number of coronavirus patients would be “close to zero,” Trump said. (At least a thousand people have died of the coronavirus in the United States, thirteen of them in one twenty-four-hour period, this week, at a single hospital in Elmhurst, Queens.) By Wednesday night, on Twitter, #DoctorsOnlyPressConferences was trending nationally.
Ryan Marino, one of the doctors tweeting about the dangers of Trump’s messaging, is a thirty-one-year-old medical toxicologist at University Hospitals in Cleveland. His specialty involves “the poisoned patient”—a drug overdose, lead exposure, “things that bite and sting.” Call a poison-control center and it is usually a clinician like Marino, as opposed to a laboratory toxicologist, at the other end of the line. A podcast host recently told him, “You are right out at the tip of the spear,” treating “patients at the point of care.”
A few years ago, Marino noticed rumors about fentanyl, the potent painkiller which in an illicit form, usually a powder, is often found in street drugs such as heroin. On Facebook, a Texas man warned everybody to sanitize the handles of Walmart’s shopping carts because “one drop” of fentanyl could “cause death”—“all you have to do is rub your nose or touch your child’s mouth.” (The post has been shared more than thirty thousand times.) In Grove City, Ohio, after law-enforcement officers seized three kilograms of fentanyl, one network news affiliate described that amount of drugs as “enough to kill 1.5 million people.” Law-enforcement officers and other first responders had heard that they could fatally overdose by simply inhaling or touching fentanyl during drug busts. In one town, a police officer brushed an unidentified white powder off his shirt after searching a drug suspect’s car; he fell unconscious and received naloxone, a drug that can reverse an overdose. The officer was recovering shortly thereafter, but his chief spoke to “Inside Edition” and described the potential danger, as he imagined it: “He leaves and goes home, takes off that shirt, throws it in the wash. His mom, his wife, his girlfriend goes in the laundry, touches the shirt: boom, they drop. He goes home to his kid: ‘Daddy! Daddy!’ They hug him: boom, they drop. His dog sniffs his shirt: it kills his dog.” A fentanyl-industrial complex appeared—gloves, sprays, masks, hazmat suits.
In late 2017, Marino started a hashtag, #WTFentanyl, to dispel the myths that fentanyl can be easily absorbed into the skin or inhaled after becoming airborne. The rumors had, at first, struck Marino as humorous, then absurd. Then he decided that there was “serious potential for harm.” He worried that first responders would ration naloxone for themselves, and that people would die. His tweets, though, could be darkly funny. In a news interview, the C.E.O. of an alcohol- and drug-treatment center said that anyone who “enters a room with someone who might be having an issue with fentanyl” could “instantly” become addicted. Health-care workers tweeted about it, one telling Marino, “I became addicted to fentanyl by reading this tweet.” Marino replied, “Now you’re dead,” and attached a GIF of Stewie, the baby on “Family Guy,” tossing a red rose into an open grave. After someone else tweeted about fentanyl patches that had been in her bathroom cabinet for “nearly a year,” Marino responded, “Everyone who has been to your bathroom became instantly addicted and then died.”


newyorker--2020-03-27--From Steph Curry to Madonna: Celebrity in the Age of the Coronavirus

Dr. Anthony Fauci , the seventy-nine-year-old head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases , is also an athlete .
He went on daily seven-mile runs well into his fifties ; these days , he ’ s shortened them to three and a half miles .
In the fifties , as a student at Regis , the all-boys , Jesuit prep school on Manhattan ’ s Upper East Side , he captained the basketball team .
A mini basketball hoop stands in his office , which was visible to the approximately fifty thousand people who , on Thursday @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Golden State Warriors point guard Stephen Curry conducted a Q .
& A. on the subject of the coronavirus over Instagram Live .
The thirty-minute conversation now lives on Curry ’ s Instagram , and , for anyone confused by the new social order , it is one of the most concise and accessible public-education efforts available .
Curry conducted the interview from his estate in Atherton , where his three children , who were downstairs eating breakfast , Curry said , were also watching their father on Instagram .
At the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ known in the comment log with the hand-waving emoji .
After a few technical difficulties—thousands of requests to enter the video chat had flooded Curry ’ s account , preventing him from finding the notification from the N.I.A.I.D.—Fauci appeared , looking much more relaxed than he has at recent White House briefings .
Curry and Fauci easily harmonized ; without the President in the room , Fauci could play something other than stealth defense , assuming , instead , a professorial posture .
Curry , for his part , acted as a surrogate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ people had sent in questions using the # SCASKSFAUCI hashtag . )
Curry is widely believed to have been the first player in the N.B.A .
to have been tested for the coronavirus , after experiencing flu-like symptoms at the beginning of March .
( He tested negative . )
Was it true , he asked , that young people in America were suffering more from the disease than young people in China had ?
“ Mostly the same , but with some interesting , maybe disturbing differences , ” Fauci said , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cases among the young , strong , and healthy .
Did warmer weather slow the spread of the virus ?
Fauci explained that , although this was the case for seasonal influenza , “ We don ’ t know whether this is going to happen with this virus.
” ( In the comments , Obama had written , “ Listen to the science.
” ) Their conversation did not consist only of answers to apolitical queries .
It also had , as they say , an agenda .
Several times , Curry asked @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , of course , a prolific vector .
Perhaps the only civic duty of a wealthy person in this moment , besides leveraging her platform to communicate accurate information , is to leverage capital .
Yesterday , Governor Cuomo thanked Rihanna ’ s charity foundation for donating personal protective equipment to the city .
Some famous people have been less clear-sighted .
On Sunday , Madonna , sitting in a milky bath in a mansion in Lisbon , Portugal , warned that the coronavirus would be “ the great equalizer.
” The singer-songwriter @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have been caused by 5G radiation .
“ If I have to choose the vaccine or chip I ’ m gon na choose death —YALA , ” the musician M.I.A .
wrote on her social accounts , referring to her 2013 song “ Y.A.L.A.
, ” short for “ You Always Live Again.
” The non-skeptics are not immune from wild displays of ego , either .
The actress and model Gal Gadot led a saccharine choir of fellow-celebrities in singing John Lennon ’ s “ Imagine ” ; Lionel Richie floated the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Are the World.
” ( Some stars remember they are just entertainers .
I ’ ve got no beef with January Jones , who uploads videos of herself dancing in futuristic face masks , sipping Coors Light through a straw . )
Our culture tends not to heed Sontag ’ s warning against giving an illness meaning .
According to the celebrity-in-chief , the coronavirus is Chinese ; according to Joe Biden , we are at war with it .
Since the current catastrophe began to transform our public and private lives , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ resist shaping the pandemic into a rousing , dramatic narrative , and , this month , certain events became touchstones in its short but mighty cultural life .
Tom Hanks and his wife Rita Wilson appeared in a post , announcing that they had contracted the coronavirus while filming in Australia .
Their candor was to the public good ; some people , at the time , still believed the coronavirus to be a hoax .
The suspension of the N.B.A .
season , on March 12th , coincided with the announcement that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tested positive for the virus .
Members of the press then circulated a video of Gobert touching every microphone at a press conference .
Apologizing for his carelessness , Gobert cast himself as a Brothers Grimm-like figure of foolish hubris .
And then there has been the curious genre of the celebrity public-service announcement , in which a person noses up to his iPhone , confessing that he has tested positive .
We have seen such videos from Idris Elba , whose wife , Sabrina , comforted him in the background as he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ; from the rapper Slim Thug ; and from the actor Daniel Dae Kim .
( “ Yes , I ’ m Asian and , yes , I have coronavirus , but I did not get it from China , ” he said .
“ I got it in America , in New York City.
” ) Oprah has launched an impromptu talk show , “ Oprah Talks COVID-19 , ” conducted via video chat , on Apple TV+ .
The emergence of this new kind of content has had the unintended consequence @ @ @ @ @ @ @ millions of people have been unable to access testing , others have been able to pay to get it .
As the truth-teller Cardi B succinctly summarized in a video , her mouth covered with a mask , “ If a celebrity is saying , ‘ Hey , listen .
I don ’ t have no symptoms .
.
.
but I went and got tested and I ’ m positive for the coronavirus , that causes confusion.
” She went on , “ The general public .
.
.
they ’ re @ @ @ @ @ @ @ celebrities.
” Writing about the origins of COVID-19 , my colleague Carolyn Kormann explains that infected people shed the virus before they develop symptoms ; “ the virus wears an invisibility cloak.
” The disease is often called “ invisible , ” too , for the way it isolates its sufferers .
Television crews and journalists generally do not enter hospital rooms ; people who die of coronavirus-related complications die alone .
As Esther Choo , an emergency-room physician , recently explained to the commentator Brian Stelter , “ This whole thing has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ went on , “ The truth is , the sickest patients are terrifying .
They are air-hungry , dropping their oxygen , confused , distressed .
We can never show that .
But it is terrifying.
” Instead , the face of the coronavirus has been the face of the infected celebrity .
This week , the Royal Palace confirmed that Prince Charles had tested positive for the coronavirus and was under quarantine in Balmoral .
His diagnosis arguably had geopolitical significance ; his last contact with the Queen , a Royal doctor @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he may have become infectious .
This morning , it was announced that Boris Johnson , who had boasted that he had shaken hands with patients at a British hospital , had also tested positive .
But the novelty of the celebrity case is wearing off .
With every hour , more of us know someone who is sick .
As of this writing , three hundred and sixty-six people have died in New York City of the coronavirus .
• How to practice social distancing , from responding to a sick housemate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ food .
• How people cope and create new customs amid a pandemic .
• What it means to contain and mitigate the coronavirus outbreak .
• How much of the world is likely to be quarantined ?
• Donald Trump in the time of coronavirus .
• The coronavirus is likely to spread for more than a year before a vaccine could be widely available .
• We are all irrational panic shoppers .
• The strange terror of watching the coronavirus take Rome .

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the seventy-nine-year-old head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, is also an athlete. He went on daily seven-mile runs well into his fifties; these days, he’s shortened them to three and a half miles. In the fifties, as a student at Regis, the all-boys, Jesuit prep school on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, he captained the basketball team. A mini basketball hoop stands in his office, which was visible to the approximately fifty thousand people who, on Thursday afternoon, tuned in as he and the Golden State Warriors point guard Stephen Curry conducted a Q. & A. on the subject of the coronavirus over Instagram Live.
The thirty-minute conversation now lives on Curry’s Instagram, and, for anyone confused by the new social order, it is one of the most concise and accessible public-education efforts available. Curry conducted the interview from his estate in Atherton, where his three children, who were downstairs eating breakfast, Curry said, were also watching their father on Instagram. At the start, Barack Obama made his presence known in the comment log with the hand-waving emoji. After a few technical difficulties—thousands of requests to enter the video chat had flooded Curry’s account, preventing him from finding the notification from the N.I.A.I.D.—Fauci appeared, looking much more relaxed than he has at recent White House briefings.
Curry and Fauci easily harmonized; without the President in the room, Fauci could play something other than stealth defense, assuming, instead, a professorial posture. Curry, for his part, acted as a surrogate for the overwhelmed citizen. (Many people had sent in questions using the #SCASKSFAUCI hashtag.) Curry is widely believed to have been the first player in the N.B.A. to have been tested for the coronavirus, after experiencing flu-like symptoms at the beginning of March. (He tested negative.) Was it true, he asked, that young people in America were suffering more from the disease than young people in China had? “Mostly the same, but with some interesting, maybe disturbing differences,” Fauci said, explaining that medical professionals were seeing critical cases among the young, strong, and healthy. Did warmer weather slow the spread of the virus? Fauci explained that, although this was the case for seasonal influenza, “We don’t know whether this is going to happen with this virus.” (In the comments, Obama had written, “Listen to the science.”) Their conversation did not consist only of answers to apolitical queries. It also had, as they say, an agenda. Several times, Curry asked Fauci about misinformation—of which the President is, of course, a prolific vector.
Perhaps the only civic duty of a wealthy person in this moment, besides leveraging her platform to communicate accurate information, is to leverage capital. Yesterday, Governor Cuomo thanked Rihanna’s charity foundation for donating personal protective equipment to the city. Some famous people have been less clear-sighted. On Sunday, Madonna, sitting in a milky bath in a mansion in Lisbon, Portugal, warned that the coronavirus would be “the great equalizer.” The singer-songwriter Keri Hilson tweeted that the pandemic may have been caused by 5G radiation. “If I have to choose the vaccine or chip I’m gonna choose death —YALA,” the musician M.I.A. wrote on her social accounts, referring to her 2013 song “Y.A.L.A.,” short for “You Always Live Again.” The non-skeptics are not immune from wild displays of ego, either. The actress and model Gal Gadot led a saccharine choir of fellow-celebrities in singing John Lennon’s “Imagine”; Lionel Richie floated the idea that musicians could re-record “We Are the World.” (Some stars remember they are just entertainers. I’ve got no beef with January Jones, who uploads videos of herself dancing in futuristic face masks, sipping Coors Light through a straw.)
Our culture tends not to heed Sontag’s warning against giving an illness meaning. According to the celebrity-in-chief, the coronavirus is Chinese; according to Joe Biden, we are at war with it. Since the current catastrophe began to transform our public and private lives, we have all found it hard to resist shaping the pandemic into a rousing, dramatic narrative, and, this month, certain events became touchstones in its short but mighty cultural life. Tom Hanks and his wife Rita Wilson appeared in a post, announcing that they had contracted the coronavirus while filming in Australia. Their candor was to the public good; some people, at the time, still believed the coronavirus to be a hoax. The suspension of the N.B.A. season, on March 12th, coincided with the announcement that the Utah Jazz player Rudy Gobert had tested positive for the virus. Members of the press then circulated a video of Gobert touching every microphone at a press conference. Apologizing for his carelessness, Gobert cast himself as a Brothers Grimm-like figure of foolish hubris.
And then there has been the curious genre of the celebrity public-service announcement, in which a person noses up to his iPhone, confessing that he has tested positive. We have seen such videos from Idris Elba, whose wife, Sabrina, comforted him in the background as he implored fans to take social distancing seriously; from the rapper Slim Thug; and from the actor Daniel Dae Kim. (“Yes, I’m Asian and, yes, I have coronavirus, but I did not get it from China,” he said. “I got it in America, in New York City.”) Oprah has launched an impromptu talk show, “Oprah Talks COVID-19,” conducted via video chat, on Apple TV+. The emergence of this new kind of content has had the unintended consequence of illuminating the fact that, although millions of people have been unable to access testing, others have been able to pay to get it. As the truth-teller Cardi B succinctly summarized in a video, her mouth covered with a mask, “If a celebrity is saying, ‘Hey, listen. I don’t have no symptoms . . . but I went and got tested and I’m positive for the coronavirus, that causes confusion.” She went on, “The general public . . . they’re not getting treated like . . . celebrities.”
Writing about the origins of COVID-19, my colleague Carolyn Kormann explains that infected people shed the virus before they develop symptoms; “the virus wears an invisibility cloak.” The disease is often called “invisible,” too, for the way it isolates its sufferers. Television crews and journalists generally do not enter hospital rooms; people who die of coronavirus-related complications die alone. As Esther Choo, an emergency-room physician, recently explained to the commentator Brian Stelter, “This whole thing has been hampered by its abstractness.” She went on, “The truth is, the sickest patients are terrifying. They are air-hungry, dropping their oxygen, confused, distressed. We can never show that. But it is terrifying.” Instead, the face of the coronavirus has been the face of the infected celebrity. This week, the Royal Palace confirmed that Prince Charles had tested positive for the coronavirus and was under quarantine in Balmoral. His diagnosis arguably had geopolitical significance; his last contact with the Queen, a Royal doctor explained, had occurred one day before he may have become infectious. This morning, it was announced that Boris Johnson, who had boasted that he had shaken hands with patients at a British hospital, had also tested positive. But the novelty of the celebrity case is wearing off. With every hour, more of us know someone who is sick. As of this writing, three hundred and sixty-six people have died in New York City of the coronavirus.
A Guide to the Coronavirus


newyorker--2020-03-27--Quarantine Culture Recommendations: “Troop Beverly Hills,” Japanese Industrial Music, and Jah9

Last night , I was giving my faux-wood window blinds a sponge bath when I decided instead to open a bottle of white wine and enlist in “ Troop Beverly Hills.
” Shelley Long ’ s star turn in this 1989 movie unfairly stalled her post- “ Cheers ” career , but she ’ s a fizzy joy as Phyllis Nefler , a Beverly Hills shopaholic who becomes den mother for a troop of Wilderness Girls .
The cadre includes her daughter , played with wise weariness by Jenny Lewis , and also the ginger rascal Emily Schulman , of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s from 1989 , Pia Zadora and Cheech Marin and Dr. Joyce Brothers appear .
But the real stars are Long ’ s costumes , designed by Theadora Van Runkle ( ” Bonnie and Clyde ” ) —each a fabulous confection from that moment when nineteen-eighties power suits met Memphis whimsy .
The eye-popping opening credits are by a pre- “ Ren & Stimpy ” John Kricfalusi , and they jiggle and splat along to an execrable Beach Boys song .
There ’ s a feminist-ish tone , and the film probably employed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the year ’ s films combined ; there ’ s also quite a bit of casual racism .
In the end , the troop learns that navigating late capitalism is as tricky as any trip to the woods .
At the moment , that feels sort of right .
—Jesse Dorris New Age music—that much maligned genre , used and abused by yoga classes , candle shops , and restaurants with no aroma of cooking—has come into its own for me lately .
It ’ s no secret that this music is intended @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s usually so bad that it provokes its own unease for me .
Fortunately , Douglas Mcgowan invested god knows how many hours wading through the drek and found a trove of anxiety-conquering instrumentals that are actually good music as well .
His two volumes of selections—one American , “ I Am the Center ” ; and one European , “ The Microcosm ” —have redefined the genre .
And the excellent reissue label that released them , Light in the Attic , has added a third in the series , with eighties @ @ @ @ @ @ @ uses : building lobbies , advertisements , and even an LP designed to be given away with new air-conditioner units .
This third volume , “ Kankyo Ongaku , ” compiled by Spencer Doran , is proving the be the best suited to our shut-in situation .
Japan has a long tradition of bringing calm to interior spaces , after all.—Damon Krukowski Since its beginnings , in the early nineteen-sixties , reggae has spoken to the ills of society , and specifically to the oppressions imposed upon black people .
In 1976 , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Bob Marley , one of the genre ’ s pioneers , was shot at his home .
Deciding that he was no longer safe singing protest music in Jamaica , he moved abroad and embarked on a world tour , in which he sang about the attempt on his life , redemption , and Black Liberation .
A convert to Rastafarianism , he also infused his music with religious themes .
Roots reggae became Marley ’ s escape , his refuge in the face of danger .
The genre has morphed several times @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an aura of triumph , which makes it a balm during the pandemic now forcing most of us indoors .
Recently , I ’ ve been enjoying “ Note to Self , ” the new record from the Rastafari artist Jah9 .
Jah9 is thirty-six , was born in Montego Bay , and in the past few years has established herself at the pinnacle of the Jamaican reggae music scene .
In “ Note to Self , ” she ’ s full of sage advice on resilience and self-love , and she effortlessly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ Field Trip , ” a 2018 single , has the album ’ s strongest musical arrangement ; its funky horns and drumline cadence sustain the tempo while Jah9 sings about the fruits of practiced stillness and meditation .
Listening with my eyes closed , the song seemed to lift me out of my studio apartment and into a sunset jam session somewhere in the tropics .
Throughout “ Note to Self , ” Jah9 opens up about being a black youth stymied by systemic oppression .
Yet there are also notes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” is a ballad about Jah9 ’ s discovery of music , which became her saving grace .
“ Music is release from suffering ; music soothes the beast that lies within , ” she sings with the reggae vocalist Tarrus Riley .
The album feels otherworldly : the sound engineers have sprinkled several songs with dub , distinct space-age effects that echo , reverb , and swirl .
And the title track , which features Chronixx , is an ode to resoluteness , whose chorus— “ I ’ m going to be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mantra .
In the midst of a pandemic , the present seems dismal and the future seems uncertain .
Nevertheless , the positive vibrations on “ Note to Self ” are exactly what we need playing on repeat.—Natalie Meade • How to practice social distancing , from responding to a sick housemate to the pros and cons of ordering food .
• How people cope and create new customs amid a pandemic .
• What it means to contain and mitigate the coronavirus outbreak .
• How much of the world is likely @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the time of coronavirus .
• The coronavirus is likely to spread for more than a year before a vaccine could be widely available .
• We are all irrational panic shoppers .
• The strange terror of watching the coronavirus take Rome .

Last night, I was giving my faux-wood window blinds a sponge bath when I decided instead to open a bottle of white wine and enlist in “Troop Beverly Hills.” Shelley Long’s star turn in this 1989 movie unfairly stalled her post-“Cheers” career, but she’s a fizzy joy as Phyllis Nefler, a Beverly Hills shopaholic who becomes den mother for a troop of Wilderness Girls. The cadre includes her daughter, played with wise weariness by Jenny Lewis, and also the ginger rascal Emily Schulman, of “Small Wonder.” Because it’s from 1989, Pia Zadora and Cheech Marin and Dr. Joyce Brothers appear. But the real stars are Long’s costumes, designed by Theadora Van Runkle (”Bonnie and Clyde”)—each a fabulous confection from that moment when nineteen-eighties power suits met Memphis whimsy. The eye-popping opening credits are by a pre-“Ren & Stimpy” John Kricfalusi, and they jiggle and splat along to an execrable Beach Boys song. There’s a feminist-ish tone, and the film probably employed as many actresses as the rest of the year’s films combined; there’s also quite a bit of casual racism. In the end, the troop learns that navigating late capitalism is as tricky as any trip to the woods. At the moment, that feels sort of right.—Jesse Dorris
New Age music—that much maligned genre, used and abused by yoga classes, candle shops, and restaurants with no aroma of cooking—has come into its own for me lately. It’s no secret that this music is intended to combat anxiety. But it’s usually so bad that it provokes its own unease for me. Fortunately, Douglas Mcgowan invested god knows how many hours wading through the drek and found a trove of anxiety-conquering instrumentals that are actually good music as well. His two volumes of selections—one American, “I Am the Center”; and one European, “The Microcosm”—have redefined the genre. And the excellent reissue label that released them, Light in the Attic, has added a third in the series, with eighties music from Japan, composed for industrial uses: building lobbies, advertisements, and even an LP designed to be given away with new air-conditioner units. This third volume, “Kankyo Ongaku,” compiled by Spencer Doran, is proving the be the best suited to our shut-in situation. Japan has a long tradition of bringing calm to interior spaces, after all.—Damon Krukowski
Since its beginnings, in the early nineteen-sixties, reggae has spoken to the ills of society, and specifically to the oppressions imposed upon black people. In 1976, in an act of political violence, Bob Marley, one of the genre’s pioneers, was shot at his home. Deciding that he was no longer safe singing protest music in Jamaica, he moved abroad and embarked on a world tour, in which he sang about the attempt on his life, redemption, and Black Liberation. A convert to Rastafarianism, he also infused his music with religious themes. Roots reggae became Marley’s escape, his refuge in the face of danger.
The genre has morphed several times since then, but lyrically it retains an aura of triumph, which makes it a balm during the pandemic now forcing most of us indoors. Recently, I’ve been enjoying “Note to Self,” the new record from the Rastafari artist Jah9. Jah9 is thirty-six, was born in Montego Bay, and in the past few years has established herself at the pinnacle of the Jamaican reggae music scene. In “Note to Self,” she’s full of sage advice on resilience and self-love, and she effortlessly toggles between velvety melodies and hip-hop bars. “Field Trip,” a 2018 single, has the album’s strongest musical arrangement; its funky horns and drumline cadence sustain the tempo while Jah9 sings about the fruits of practiced stillness and meditation. Listening with my eyes closed, the song seemed to lift me out of my studio apartment and into a sunset jam session somewhere in the tropics.
Throughout “Note to Self,” Jah9 opens up about being a black youth stymied by systemic oppression. Yet there are also notes of perseverance. “Ready to Play” is a ballad about Jah9’s discovery of music, which became her saving grace. “Music is release from suffering; music soothes the beast that lies within,” she sings with the reggae vocalist Tarrus Riley. The album feels otherworldly: the sound engineers have sprinkled several songs with dub, distinct space-age effects that echo, reverb, and swirl. And the title track, which features Chronixx, is an ode to resoluteness, whose chorus—“I’m going to be okay”—might also serve as a mantra. In the midst of a pandemic, the present seems dismal and the future seems uncertain. Nevertheless, the positive vibrations on “Note to Self” are exactly what we need playing on repeat.—Natalie Meade
A Guide to the Coronavirus


newyorker--2020-03-27--Washington Grapples with COVID-19

Washington Grapples with COVID-19

COVID-19 has brought chaos to every aspect of our national life—not least to our politics .
David Remnick speaks with @ @ @ @ @ bipartisan stimulus bill , the pandemic ’ s effect on the 2020 Presidential race , @ @ @ @ @ public health .
Also , two emergency-room doctors describe the crisis from the vantage point @ @ @ @ @ Plus : How will Alcoholics Anonymous maintain its recovery program without in-person meetings ?
And @ @ @ @ @ things to lift our spirits and temper our loneliness .
Two emergency-room doctors describe the @ @ @ @ @ as seen from hospitals in New York and Washington State .
David Remnick speaks with @ @ @ @ @ New Yorker ’ s Washington correspondent , about the politics of the pandemic .
How @ @ @ @ @ program without holding in-person meetings .
The staff writer picks a few things that lift @ @ @ @ @ feed of pandemic-chic outfits , a novel about the German occupation of France , and @ @ @ @ @

Illustration by Golden Cosmos
COVID-19 has brought chaos to every aspect of our national life—not least to our politics. David Remnick speaks with Susan B. Glasser about the bipartisan stimulus bill, the pandemic’s effect on the 2020 Presidential race, and how Trump thinks about public health. Also, two emergency-room doctors describe the crisis from the vantage point of their overburdened hospitals. Plus: How will Alcoholics Anonymous maintain its recovery program without in-person meetings? And Jia Tolentino recommends a few things to lift our spirits and temper our loneliness.
A Wave of COVID-19 Cases Hits America’s Hospitals
Two emergency-room doctors describe the scope of the crisis, as seen from hospitals in New York and Washington State.
The Coronavirus Election
David Remnick speaks with Susan B. Glasser, The New Yorker’s Washington correspondent, about the politics of the pandemic.
In Recovery, Remotely
How Alcoholics Anonymous is maintaining its program without holding in-person meetings.
What’s Keeping Jia Tolentino Sane in Quarantine
The staff writer picks a few things that lift her spirits: an Instagram feed of pandemic-chic outfits, a novel about the German occupation of France, and an aquarium live stream.


newyorker--2020-03-30--Can Survivors of the Coronavirus Help Cure the Disease and Rescue the Economy?

There is an ever-expanding group of people who have been infected by the coronavirus but are no longer symptomatic , if they ever were—the convalescents .
Governor Andrew Cuomo , of New York , has advocated for widespread blood tests as a way for restarting the economy in a way that is consistent with a responsible public-health strategy .
“ I believe , once we get that test , you ’ re going to find hundreds of thousands of people who have had the coronavirus and resolved .
Let the younger people go back to work .
Let the recovered @ @ @ @ @ @ @ there have been a number of reports , from China and Japan , about patients who have recovered from COVID-19 but subsequently fell ill again .
With the U.S. economy in a state of near-collapse , is it worth the risk to invite convalescents back to work ?
With other diseases , convalescents have proved invaluable .
“ We ’ ve seen this in previous epidemics where survivors have a special role , ” Dr. Seema Yasmin , a former officer in the Epidemic Intelligence Service who now teaches science journalism and clinical-communication @ @ @ @ @ @ @ She observed the phenomenon firsthand in Liberia , in December , 2015 , when she was reporting on an Ebola outbreak and talked to survivors who were caring for stricken family members .
“ People who have been infected but recovered have antibodies in their system that allow them to be out and about and be exposed to the virus , knowing that it ’ s unlikely that they ’ ll become reinfected , ” she said , citing a 2017 study in the Journal of Infectious Diseases , which documented Ebola survivors @ @ @ @ @ @ @ infection .
“ Of course , with this virus , we also have to learn how long protective antibodies will stay in your body , ” Yasmin said .
“ It ’ s such a new pathogen , we haven ’ t had a lot of time to say , ‘ Six months after infection , you still have protection.
’ It ’ s just too soon.
” If the virus does have the capacity to sicken people who have already become ill from it , devising a vaccine might have little impact @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , who is the deputy director of the Vaccine Research Center at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases , points out that “ even common viruses like influenza or respiratory syncytial virus can also reinfect ” ; these viruses , fortunately , “ tend to cause progressively less disease on subsequent infections.
” With COVID-19 , Graham said , “ survivors may develop enough immunity to keep the virus from getting deeply into the lung , confining it to the upper airways.
” In that case , a repeat infection of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ than pneumonia .
Recently , researchers in China exposed four rhesus macaques to the virus that causes COVID-19 .
All became ill. One of the four monkeys was euthanized a week later , to determine its level of infection ; it had mild to moderate pneumonia .
The remaining monkeys recovered , producing high levels of antibodies .
By the twenty-eighth day , a viral load was undetectable in the three surviving monkeys .
The monkeys were then reinfected with the virus .
They each showed a brief , moderate rise in temperature @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was sacrificed , and no virus was found in its tissues .
No further evidence of disease was found in the two surviving monkeys .
It ’ s a hopeful report , but very limited .
Dr. Tom Frieden , a former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who now runs Resolve to Save Lives , an initiative to prevent epidemics and cardiovascular disease , cautions COVID-19 convalescents not to think that they are totally immune from future infections .
“ People can go back to work , but what @ @ @ @ @ @ @ them to assume that they are protected by that prior infection , ” he told me .
“ Don ’ t assume that we have these new supermen and superwomen whom we can send out onto the battlefield , because the bullets aren ’ t going to penetrate their armor .
We don ’ t know if that ’ s going to be the case.
” A close friend of Freiden ’ s , Dr. Barron Lerner , a practicing internist at Bellevue Hospital and a professor of population and health at N.Y.U @ @ @ @ @ @ @ COVID-19 after being exposed to a symptomatic patient , on March 11th .
Five days later , Lerner was running a fever and experiencing body aches .
By March 23rd , he was feeling better , and he returned to work , although he is still suffering a lingering fatigue .
“ Health-care workers need to be brought back as quickly as possible , ” he told me .
He ’ s not been seeing patients directly , given that there ’ s an unresolved question of reinfection .
He told Frieden , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ immunity.
” Frieden responded , “ You can root for it , but don ’ t count on it.
” Immunity varies with different diseases .
Frieden gave the example of an epidemic of measles that took place on one of the Faroe Islands , an archipelago two hundred miles north of Scotland , in 1846 , before a vaccine was available .
“ Everyone got it , a hundred per cent , because it is one of the most infectious diseases , ” Frieden said .
After the outbreak , there were @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for sixty-five years .
“ Then measles came back , and again everyone on the island was infected—except those over sixty-five .
They were all still immune.
” There are also examples of viruses that don ’ t provide immunity after infection , or only protect against one strain of a disease and not another .
A 1908 study documented multiple reinfections of smallpox during an epidemic in Trinidad at the beginning of the twentieth century .
DNA viruses , like the one that causes smallpox , are relatively stable , but the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as influenza and coronaviruses , is that they mutate .
That ’ s why we can get frequent colds , and why it ’ s so difficult for scientists to decide which strains of influenza should be targeted by the annual vaccine .
Having one strain of dengue fever , for instance , doesn ’ t guarantee that the next one will be less virulent .
“ You get dengue once , and it ’ s not so bad , ” Frieden told me .
“ You get it a second time , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ can die.
” So far , SARS-CoV-2 , as the COVID-19 virus is officially called , has not mutated .
“ But it could , ” Frieden said .
According to Marc Lipsitch , the director of Harvard University ’ s Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics , previous studies of coronaviruses show that complete immunity “ doesn ’ t last long , ” but that subsequent infections are less severe and , probably , less contagious .
“ That should be our guiding hypothesis , ” he told me .
There are hundreds @ @ @ @ @ @ @ might pass into the human population .
The outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Virus , or SARS , in 2002 , derived from horseshoe bats dwelling in a Chinese cave .
It killed about ten per cent of the people it infected .
In 2012 , another coronavirus , Middle East Respiratory Syndrome , or MERS , arose in Saudi Arabia , apparently originating with Egyptian tomb bats before spreading into camels and then into humans .
Among those who tested positive for the disease , it had a frightening mortality rate of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it was slow to spread .
Both of these predecessors are closely related to the virus that causes COVID-19 .
So far , no successful vaccine or treatment has been developed for either of these predecessor diseases .
It is likely that future coronaviruses , perhaps more mortal or contagious , will emerge .

There is an ever-expanding group of people who have been infected by the coronavirus but are no longer symptomatic, if they ever were—the convalescents. Governor Andrew Cuomo, of New York, has advocated for widespread blood tests as a way for restarting the economy in a way that is consistent with a responsible public-health strategy. “I believe, once we get that test, you’re going to find hundreds of thousands of people who have had the coronavirus and resolved. Let the younger people go back to work. Let the recovered people go back to work.” Yet there have been a number of reports, from China and Japan, about patients who have recovered from COVID-19 but subsequently fell ill again. With the U.S. economy in a state of near-collapse, is it worth the risk to invite convalescents back to work?
With other diseases, convalescents have proved invaluable. “We’ve seen this in previous epidemics where survivors have a special role,” Dr. Seema Yasmin, a former officer in the Epidemic Intelligence Service who now teaches science journalism and clinical-communication skills at Stanford University, said. She observed the phenomenon firsthand in Liberia, in December, 2015, when she was reporting on an Ebola outbreak and talked to survivors who were caring for stricken family members. “People who have been infected but recovered have antibodies in their system that allow them to be out and about and be exposed to the virus, knowing that it’s unlikely that they’ll become reinfected,” she said, citing a 2017 study in the Journal of Infectious Diseases, which documented Ebola survivors who still had antibodies forty years after infection. “Of course, with this virus, we also have to learn how long protective antibodies will stay in your body,” Yasmin said. “It’s such a new pathogen, we haven’t had a lot of time to say, ‘Six months after infection, you still have protection.’ It’s just too soon.”
If the virus does have the capacity to sicken people who have already become ill from it, devising a vaccine might have little impact on future infections. Dr. Barney Graham, who is the deputy director of the Vaccine Research Center at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, points out that “even common viruses like influenza or respiratory syncytial virus can also reinfect”; these viruses, fortunately, “tend to cause progressively less disease on subsequent infections.” With COVID-19, Graham said, “survivors may develop enough immunity to keep the virus from getting deeply into the lung, confining it to the upper airways.” In that case, a repeat infection of COVID-19 would be more like a cold than pneumonia.
Recently, researchers in China exposed four rhesus macaques to the virus that causes COVID-19. All became ill. One of the four monkeys was euthanized a week later, to determine its level of infection; it had mild to moderate pneumonia. The remaining monkeys recovered, producing high levels of antibodies. By the twenty-eighth day, a viral load was undetectable in the three surviving monkeys. The monkeys were then reinfected with the virus. They each showed a brief, moderate rise in temperature and no other symptoms. Another monkey was sacrificed, and no virus was found in its tissues. No further evidence of disease was found in the two surviving monkeys. It’s a hopeful report, but very limited.
Dr. Tom Frieden, a former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who now runs Resolve to Save Lives, an initiative to prevent epidemics and cardiovascular disease, cautions COVID-19 convalescents not to think that they are totally immune from future infections. “People can go back to work, but what I don’t want is for them to assume that they are protected by that prior infection,” he told me. “Don’t assume that we have these new supermen and superwomen whom we can send out onto the battlefield, because the bullets aren’t going to penetrate their armor. We don’t know if that’s going to be the case.”
A close friend of Frieden’s, Dr. Barron Lerner, a practicing internist at Bellevue Hospital and a professor of population and health at N.Y.U. Langone Hospital, was infected with COVID-19 after being exposed to a symptomatic patient, on March 11th. Five days later, Lerner was running a fever and experiencing body aches. By March 23rd, he was feeling better, and he returned to work, although he is still suffering a lingering fatigue. “Health-care workers need to be brought back as quickly as possible,” he told me. He’s not been seeing patients directly, given that there’s an unresolved question of reinfection. He told Frieden, “I’m rooting for the immunity.” Frieden responded, “You can root for it, but don’t count on it.”
Immunity varies with different diseases. Frieden gave the example of an epidemic of measles that took place on one of the Faroe Islands, an archipelago two hundred miles north of Scotland, in 1846, before a vaccine was available. “Everyone got it, a hundred per cent, because it is one of the most infectious diseases,” Frieden said. After the outbreak, there were no cases of measles on the island for sixty-five years. “Then measles came back, and again everyone on the island was infected—except those over sixty-five. They were all still immune.”
There are also examples of viruses that don’t provide immunity after infection, or only protect against one strain of a disease and not another. A 1908 study documented multiple reinfections of smallpox during an epidemic in Trinidad at the beginning of the twentieth century. DNA viruses, like the one that causes smallpox, are relatively stable, but the singular characteristic of RNA viruses, such as influenza and coronaviruses, is that they mutate. That’s why we can get frequent colds, and why it’s so difficult for scientists to decide which strains of influenza should be targeted by the annual vaccine. Having one strain of dengue fever, for instance, doesn’t guarantee that the next one will be less virulent. “You get dengue once, and it’s not so bad,” Frieden told me. “You get it a second time, with a different strain, and you can die.” So far, SARS-CoV-2, as the COVID-19 virus is officially called, has not mutated. “But it could,” Frieden said.
According to Marc Lipsitch, the director of Harvard University’s Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics, previous studies of coronaviruses show that complete immunity “doesn’t last long,” but that subsequent infections are less severe and, probably, less contagious. “That should be our guiding hypothesis,” he told me.
There are hundreds of coronaviruses that infect bats and which might pass into the human population. The outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Virus, or SARS, in 2002, derived from horseshoe bats dwelling in a Chinese cave. It killed about ten per cent of the people it infected. In 2012, another coronavirus, Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, or MERS, arose in Saudi Arabia, apparently originating with Egyptian tomb bats before spreading into camels and then into humans. Among those who tested positive for the disease, it had a frightening mortality rate of more than thirty per cent, but it was slow to spread. Both of these predecessors are closely related to the virus that causes COVID-19. So far, no successful vaccine or treatment has been developed for either of these predecessor diseases. It is likely that future coronaviruses, perhaps more mortal or contagious, will emerge.
Dr. Philip Dormitzer, the chief scientific officer for viral vaccines at Pfizer, told me in an e-mail, “A vaccine or drug against one coronavirus won’t necessarily work against another.” He went on, “The problem is not as severe as it is for influenza,” which mutates constantly, “but it is much worse than it is for a virus that has remained relatively stable for a long time, like the rabies virus.” Dormitzer pointed to another challenge to the creation of a vaccine for COVID-19, “disease enhancement”—in other words, making the illness worse. The current dengue-virus vaccine protects most people who are immunized, but some people who receive it get a more severe case of the disease. It’s not clear why this is so. Something similar happened in tests of candidate vaccines for SARS, which were developed after the 2002 outbreak. Those vaccines never got beyond animal trials. “Given the variable experimental results seen with vaccine candidates against SARS, we’ll need to observe vigilantly to be sure that SARS-CoV-2 vaccines work as intended to prevent disease,” Dormitzer said. “There are now intensive discussions among academics, regulators, and vaccine developers about how we can minimize this risk without excessively slowing the development of a potentially protective vaccine.” A candidate vaccine, built on the knowledge gained from working on the MERS virus, is now in human trials. If it succeeds, a limited amount of the vaccine could be available this fall.


newyorker--2020-03-30--What’s the Best, or the Least, That We Can Expect from Trump?

“ Modified aspirational ” is the phrase that Donald Trump used on Sunday , in another of his train-wreck press briefings , to describe how his goal of reopening the country by Easter might be substituted by the prospect of a return to normalcy by a June 1st deadline or sooner : “ Maybe we ’ ll even beat it.
” In Trumpian terms , it was a way of saying that his original goal had little or no connection to reality , certainly not to the reality of new models indicating that between 1.6 and 2.2 million Americans could @ @ @ @ @ @ @ no measures are taken .
( These numbers , accepted by the C.D.C.
, are in line with earlier ones . )
The same models suggest that , as Dr. Deborah Birx said on Sunday , “ between eighty thousand and a hundred and sixty thousand , maybe even potentially two hundred thousand people ” could die even if the country not only sticks with the current distancing measures but performs them , in Birx ’ s words , “ even better , in every metro area , with a level of intensity.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Dr. Anthony Fauci , in the same briefing , said that he always hopes to beat the models , which involves changing the “ assumptions.
” ( The course of a new disease can be hard to predict ; scientists are working on treatments and , on a longer timeline , vaccines . )
Trump , meanwhile , said that , although two hundred thousand dead was “ a horrible number , ” compared with a potential death toll of more than two million , it would mean that his team had “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the fierceness of the novel coronavirus , it was not inevitable that we would arrive at this juncture .
The Administration wasted a month ; early testing was a failure ; Trump , in his words and his actions , undermined mitigation efforts .
( My colleague Isaac Chotiner took a look at where some of the catastrophically bad assumptions came from . )
None of these scenarios were inevitable .
But so far , some of the lowest expectations about the kind of President that Trump could be in this crisis have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tune him out and focus instead on what Americans can do on a state , local , and individual level—in the last category , practice rigorous social distancing to flatten the curve .
And yet Trump ’ s behavior this weekend inspired a new set of desperate , modified aspirations for the least that he might do going forward .
Could he please avoid provoking panic by casually proposing a three-state “ quarantine ” —covering New York , New Jersey , and some or all of Connecticut—as he did on Saturday , only @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and the specific legal authority for the phantom quarantine were never quite clear—only the alarm and the forlorn feeling , for those who live in those states , that they might be used as the scapegoat for this disaster .
( In some ways , it ’ s a red-state-blue-state variation on Trump ’ s “ Chinese virus ” xenophobia ; my colleague Masha Gessen has an essay on the subject . )
At the moment , parishes in Louisiana are suffering , too , and many places in between .
As Fauci @ @ @ @ @ @ @ happen anywhere.
” Florida ’ s Republican governor , Ron DeSantis , has simultaneously refused to close his state ’ s beaches and blamed New Yorkers for outbreaks .
What will the rhetoric be like , with what encouragement from the President , when things get much worse ?
And could he stop pretending that the need for supplies has been met , or never existed , and stop insinuating that anyone who says otherwise is lying ?
“ Many of the states are stocked up .
Some of them don ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Sunday briefing .
Yamiche Alcindor , of PBS NewsHour , asked him about his earlier suggestion that governors are asking for things that they don ’ t need .
Trump interrupted : “ I didn ’ t say that.
” “ You said it on Sean Hannity ’ s Fox News , ” Alcindor replied .
“ Why don ’ t you act in—a little more positive ?
” Trump said .
He had some advice for her : “ Look , let me tell you something : be nice .
Don @ @ @ @ @ @ @ her off repeatedly and never answered her question .
When Jeremy Diamond , of CNN , got the microphone a little later , he handed it back to Alcindor —behavior one might actually aspire to .
Could Trump not make governors , and also reporters , engage in rituals of flattery as a condition of his helping them ?
He tossed out that condition on Friday , saying that he didn ’ t see why governors deserve his attention if they aren ’ t “ appreciative ” ( “ If they don ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t call ” ) , adding that he had told Mike Pence not to call Jay Inslee , of Washington , or Gretchen Whitmer , whom he referred to as “ the woman in Michigan.
” On Sunday , when Diamond asked him about those statements , it was his turn to be attacked , with Trump deriding CNN as “ fake news.
” He complained that all he was doing was demanding gratitude for his entire team , not just for himself—as if that made it better—and then repeated , “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ job we ’ re doing.
” If the governors don ’ t , he added , “ That ’ s O.K .
But I don ’ t have to deal with them .
But our Vice-President does deal with them.
” It was , at best , a modified obsequiousness aspiration .
Trump might also refrain from finding other material ways to set states against one another .
Governor Andrew Cuomo , of New York , and others have repeatedly urged the President for a nationalized medical-supply chain .
Instead , Trump ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ states essentially compete for supplies .
It is a fitful and disastrous way to work ; it is both bad public-health policy and politically divisive .
It would help , of course , if Trump could ever get his head around the numbers .
He insisted more than once during the weekend that the projections that New York will need thirty-thousand ventilators when cases peak didn ’ t seem right to him ; on Sunday , he hinted that New York is hoarding ventilators it doesn ’ t need .
On Monday , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he said that so many ventilators are in the pipeline that “ after this is over , they ’ ll be selling ventilators for a dollar a piece.
” No part of that is true .
It has always been futile to expect Trump to be truthful .
But could he , when facts are stated in front of him , hold back from spinning them into toxic conspiracy theories ?
On Sunday , another speaker at the briefing , a medical-equipment distributor , said that the number of masks used at one @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , from fewer than twenty thousand a week to three hundred thousand .
That is not surprising , given the stream of people who may be infectious , particularly in the absence of testing , and the heroic work that medical professionals are doing to save their patients and themselves .
Trump didn ’ t think so .
“ Something is going on , ” he said .
“ You ought to look into it , as reporters .
Where are the masks going ?
Are they going out the back door ?
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ questioning pose , as if contemplating the perfidy of nurses .
“ So somebody should probably look into that , because I just don ’ t see from a practical standpoint how that ’ s possible.
” And , lest anyone think that the answer had to do with , say , strategic stockpiling , he said , “ I don ’ t think it ’ s hoarding .
I think it ’ s maybe worse than hoarding .
”

“Modified aspirational” is the phrase that Donald Trump used on Sunday, in another of his train-wreck press briefings, to describe how his goal of reopening the country by Easter might be substituted by the prospect of a return to normalcy by a June 1st deadline or sooner: “Maybe we’ll even beat it.” In Trumpian terms, it was a way of saying that his original goal had little or no connection to reality, certainly not to the reality of new models indicating that between 1.6 and 2.2 million Americans could die as a result of COVID-19 if no measures are taken. (These numbers, accepted by the C.D.C., are in line with earlier ones.) The same models suggest that, as Dr. Deborah Birx said on Sunday, “between eighty thousand and a hundred and sixty thousand, maybe even potentially two hundred thousand people” could die even if the country not only sticks with the current distancing measures but performs them, in Birx’s words, “even better, in every metro area, with a level of intensity.” Is that our modified aspiration? Dr. Anthony Fauci, in the same briefing, said that he always hopes to beat the models, which involves changing the “assumptions.” (The course of a new disease can be hard to predict; scientists are working on treatments and, on a longer timeline, vaccines.) Trump, meanwhile, said that, although two hundred thousand dead was “a horrible number,” compared with a potential death toll of more than two million, it would mean that his team had “done a good job.”
Even given the fierceness of the novel coronavirus, it was not inevitable that we would arrive at this juncture. The Administration wasted a month; early testing was a failure; Trump, in his words and his actions, undermined mitigation efforts. (My colleague Isaac Chotiner took a look at where some of the catastrophically bad assumptions came from.) None of these scenarios were inevitable. But so far, some of the lowest expectations about the kind of President that Trump could be in this crisis have proved optimistic. It is tempting to tune him out and focus instead on what Americans can do on a state, local, and individual level—in the last category, practice rigorous social distancing to flatten the curve. And yet Trump’s behavior this weekend inspired a new set of desperate, modified aspirations for the least that he might do going forward.
Could he please avoid provoking panic by casually proposing a three-state “quarantine”—covering New York, New Jersey, and some or all of Connecticut—as he did on Saturday, only to discard the idea? The terms and the specific legal authority for the phantom quarantine were never quite clear—only the alarm and the forlorn feeling, for those who live in those states, that they might be used as the scapegoat for this disaster. (In some ways, it’s a red-state-blue-state variation on Trump’s “Chinese virus” xenophobia; my colleague Masha Gessen has an essay on the subject.) At the moment, parishes in Louisiana are suffering, too, and many places in between. As Fauci said on Sunday, “This can happen anywhere.” Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, has simultaneously refused to close his state’s beaches and blamed New Yorkers for outbreaks. What will the rhetoric be like, with what encouragement from the President, when things get much worse?
And could he stop pretending that the need for supplies has been met, or never existed, and stop insinuating that anyone who says otherwise is lying? “Many of the states are stocked up. Some of them don’t admit it,” he said at the Sunday briefing. Yamiche Alcindor, of PBS NewsHour, asked him about his earlier suggestion that governors are asking for things that they don’t need. Trump interrupted: “I didn’t say that.”
“You said it on Sean Hannity’s Fox News,” Alcindor replied.
“Why don’t you act in—a little more positive?” Trump said. He had some advice for her: “Look, let me tell you something: be nice. Don’t be threatening.” He cut her off repeatedly and never answered her question. When Jeremy Diamond, of CNN, got the microphone a little later, he handed it back to Alcindor —behavior one might actually aspire to.
Could Trump not make governors, and also reporters, engage in rituals of flattery as a condition of his helping them? He tossed out that condition on Friday, saying that he didn’t see why governors deserve his attention if they aren’t “appreciative” (“If they don’t treat you right, I don’t call”), adding that he had told Mike Pence not to call Jay Inslee, of Washington, or Gretchen Whitmer, whom he referred to as “the woman in Michigan.” On Sunday, when Diamond asked him about those statements, it was his turn to be attacked, with Trump deriding CNN as “fake news.” He complained that all he was doing was demanding gratitude for his entire team, not just for himself—as if that made it better—and then repeated, “I want them to appreciate the incredible job we’re doing.” If the governors don’t, he added, “That’s O.K. But I don’t have to deal with them. But our Vice-President does deal with them.” It was, at best, a modified obsequiousness aspiration.
Trump might also refrain from finding other material ways to set states against one another. Governor Andrew Cuomo, of New York, and others have repeatedly urged the President for a nationalized medical-supply chain. Instead, Trump’s plan has been to have the states essentially compete for supplies. It is a fitful and disastrous way to work; it is both bad public-health policy and politically divisive. It would help, of course, if Trump could ever get his head around the numbers. He insisted more than once during the weekend that the projections that New York will need thirty-thousand ventilators when cases peak didn’t seem right to him; on Sunday, he hinted that New York is hoarding ventilators it doesn’t need. On Monday, on “Fox & Friends,” he said that so many ventilators are in the pipeline that “after this is over, they’ll be selling ventilators for a dollar a piece.” No part of that is true.
It has always been futile to expect Trump to be truthful. But could he, when facts are stated in front of him, hold back from spinning them into toxic conspiracy theories? On Sunday, another speaker at the briefing, a medical-equipment distributor, said that the number of masks used at one hospital in New York had spiked dramatically, from fewer than twenty thousand a week to three hundred thousand. That is not surprising, given the stream of people who may be infectious, particularly in the absence of testing, and the heroic work that medical professionals are doing to save their patients and themselves. Trump didn’t think so. “Something is going on,” he said. “You ought to look into it, as reporters. Where are the masks going? Are they going out the back door?”—he raised his hands in a questioning pose, as if contemplating the perfidy of nurses. “So somebody should probably look into that, because I just don’t see from a practical standpoint how that’s possible.” And, lest anyone think that the answer had to do with, say, strategic stockpiling, he said, “I don’t think it’s hoarding. I think it’s maybe worse than hoarding.”
Trump does not appear to have been shielded from the facts. On Sunday, he mentioned Elmhurst Hospital, in Queens, which, he noted, is near where he grew up; he knew the color of the building, and what the windows looked like. And he said that he knew that there are “body bags all over” the hospital now, and refrigerated trucks outside “because they can’t handle the bodies.” He also said that he’d heard that his press briefings have better ratings than the season finale of “The Bachelor.” It was hard to tell which figure he regarded as more significant. In the midst of his “Fox & Friends” interview, he was asked what Americans should expect in the month to come, which may, for many, be a crucible. “I think it’s going to be a month of achievement,” Trump said. That was his aspiration.
A Guide to the Coronavirus


newyorker--2020-03-30--The Coronavirus and a Neighborhood Restaurant’s Last Night, for Now

Sara Jenkins , who has lived in Italy sporadically for much of her life , opened her pasta-focussed restaurant Porsena , on East Seventh Street , near Cooper Union and McSorley ’ s , in 2010 .
A couple years later , she expanded it into the cozy and narrow storefront next door , creating Porsena Extra Bar .
Jenkins has described herself as a home cook who became a chef , and her restaurant , for many in the neighborhood , has felt like home , if home had a world-class chef .
( Mine does not . )
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ menu—wilted-escarole salad with hot anchovy dressing , and anneloni with spicy lamb sausage and mustard greens—are startling in their savory , exacting deliciousness .
The bread comes with a ramekin of olive oil from Jenkins ’ s family ’ s farm , in Tuscany .
I live near Porsena , and am as much of a regular as I can afford to be .
It ’ s irresistibly haimish , with exposed-brick walls and , behind the oak-and-tile bar , an eighteenth-century map of Rome .
Everybody knows everybody , by sight or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Several regulars attend the Monday-night movie screenings at the Extra Bar : “ La Dolce Vita ” with your risotto .
Last year , a Porsena regular—a tiny , feisty longtime East Villager with a squeaky voice and an ebullient spirit—died , and Porsena held her memorial , abundant with tributes and pasta .
Last week , Porsena ’ s chairs and barstools were up .
One rainy night , in the back of the restaurant , two employees were working : Ian MacRae , the manager , and Dave Pizarro , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bespectacled Scot with a soft accent , moved to New York fifteen years ago and has been an actor and restaurant worker ever since .
He wore a black sweater , black pants , and vintage-style black-and-white Adidas sneakers .
MacRae has a gracious presence , as does the assistant manager , Christina Van Der Merwe , as do the other staffers—just the right level of warm attentiveness—and , in normal times , the whole mood is made for dining in .
Takeout and delivery are not Porsena ’ s focus .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that we can prepare anytime , ” MacRae said : cacio e pepe , spaghetti al limone , the beloved anneloni .
It happens to suit the pandemic era .
As orders came in , MacRae gave them to Pizarro , in the open kitchen .
Pizarro had a broken wrist—scooter , bike lane , drunk pedestrian—and was chopping garlic and boiling pasta in gloves and a cast .
He ’ s a backup ; the head chef , Alfredo Medel , had a cough and was exercising caution .
MacRae donned gloves @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and left completed orders on a table up front for delivery workers to pick up .
( “ Hello , sir !
Are you here for Jennifer ?
” ) Between orders , he sat at a big , rough-hewn family-style table by the kitchen , which , last time I ’ d dined in , during early social distancing , had been occupied by a boisterous younger group celebrating a birthday .
( They weren ’ t being Porsena-courteous , and had failed to notice my stern looks from the bar .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ before each night ’ s opening , the staff would have dinner together .
I ’ d sometimes look in while walking by , see them there , and feel a little tug of fondness .
Now it was just MacRae , a laptop , Clorox wipes , rubbing alcohol , a mask , a bottle of Italian sparkling water , and , just arrived in the day ’ s mail , a box of ballpoint pens that said “ Porsena.
” In early and mid-March , Porsena had tried cautious , socially @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hand sanitizer that Van Der Merwe made .
A day before the city limited restaurants to takeout and delivery , owing to the coronavirus , Porsena had closed for eat-in service .
“ Sara said , ‘ It ’ s not worth risking people ’ s health , ’ ” MacRae told me .
( In an e-mail to the restaurant ’ s mailing list , Jenkins , who now lives in Maine , wrote , “ As we say in Italy , ‘ in bocca al lupo , ’ which literally means @ @ @ @ @ @ @ figuratively means good luck !
We will all need it.
” ) But the takeout and delivery , marginally profitable even in normal times ( the Seamless-GrubHub model is “ pretty usurious , ” Jenkins said ) , wouldn ’ t be enough to sustain the business .
“ We ’ ve tried not to spend money this week , ” MacRae said .
He paused .
“ I don ’ t know what we ’ re going to do.
” His expression had the stunned look of many people I ’ ve @ @ @ @ @ @ @ TV and in the park .
Porsena had recently laid off its entire staff , except for MacRae and the cooks .
MacRae set up a GoFundMe campaign for the workers , which has raised more than fifteen thousand dollars .
“ That ’ s just from people on our mailing list , ” he said .
( Jenkins “ was quite touched ” by the response , she said . )
Other restaurants were doing the same—Il Buco , for example , on Bond Street .
MacRae talked about other local restaurants @ @ @ @ @ @ @ owned the building in which they ’ re housed and therefore might be O.K.
, some of which had already closed for good .
“ I think , ultimately , if we close now ” —for real— “ I think we will be able to reopen , ” MacRae said .
“ I think.
” Two more orders came in .
“ Roasted Brussels sprouts , polenta , bruschetta , pasta pomodoro , chocolate cake—the torta , ” MacRae said .
He got polenta out of a low fridge and wine out of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ down .
“ I go home at night and watch all the coronavirus stuff—Cuomo , Boris Johnson—and then I need something funny , ” MacRae said .
“ I just showed Dave a video I watched last night.
” He slid his laptop toward me and I watched a clip from “ Only Fools and Horses , ” an eighties British sitcom about two East Enders in loud suits .
They were at a pub , eying ladies .
“ Play it nice and cool , son , nice and cool , ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pratfall .
“ This is nostalgic for me , because it ’ s something my dad laughed at , ” MacRae said .
Porsena ’ s door opened , and a tall man in glasses came in , smiling , to pick up takeout .
“ For Andrew , ” he said .
“ I ’ ve been here thirty years , ” Andrew said .
“ Most people don ’ t notice my accent .
I ’ m from Stirling.
” “ I ’ m from Aberdeen , ” MacRae said .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” Andrew , a recently laid-off veterinarian , laughed .
He seemed unlikely to call people sheep shaggers .
MacRae wiped down a pen with bleach and handed him the pen and receipt .
“ I think you ’ ve undercharged me , ” Andrew said .
“ At this point , we all have to look after each other.
” Later , another takeout customer : Frank , a three-times-a-week regular and former banker .
He wore an overcoat and a plaid scarf .
“ The National Guard is coming , ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ them in the streets—they ’ re going to put in beds at the Javits Center.
” Signing his receipt , he said , “ The tips are all going to Miguel and those guys , right ?
” They were .
When the dinner rush , such as it was , died down , Pizarro came out to chat .
MacRae said , “ Yesterday we took food up to a doctor—Dave ’ s friend who works in the E.R .
at Bellevue.
” She ’ s another Porsena regular .
“ This @ @ @ @ @ @ @ doctors in hygiene protocols , ” Pizarro said .
“ Biohazard stuff , masks , gloves , scrubs , shoe covers .
The wash in , the wash out .
She texted my girlfriend last night : ‘ It was a really rough day for my team.
’ ” MacRae went into the kitchen , stood in front of the sink , and rolled up his sleeves .
“ I thought my pot-washing days were over , ” he said , smiling .
I poked my head into the little passageway that connects @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ; Van Der Merwe had set up a little gallery in there , the conceit being to show one work by one artist at a time .
It was empty .
“ She had a fabulous screen print on display—it took up the whole wall !
” MacRae said .
“ But it didn ’ t stick , and then a global pandemic happened.
” The next day , Porsena closed .
The future there , as everywhere , is yet to be understood .
Meanwhile , MacRae had hopes of flying to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ once it was safe .
( He has decided , for the time being , to stay put . )
He wrote his phone number for me on a card that Jenkins had had printed , from a tidy stack at the host station .
The card was decorated with a border of vine-ripened tomatoes and advertised a yearlong tenth-anniversary celebration .
At the top , it says , in neat italics , “ We have many fun events planned .
”

Last week, Porsena, a beloved East Village restaurant, closed, owing to the coronavirus. Its future is uncertain. Photograph by Mylène Fernandes
Sara Jenkins, who has lived in Italy sporadically for much of her life, opened her pasta-focussed restaurant Porsena, on East Seventh Street, near Cooper Union and McSorley’s, in 2010. A couple years later, she expanded it into the cozy and narrow storefront next door, creating Porsena Extra Bar. Jenkins has described herself as a home cook who became a chef, and her restaurant, for many in the neighborhood, has felt like home, if home had a world-class chef. (Mine does not.) Even the two beloved standbys on the menu—wilted-escarole salad with hot anchovy dressing, and anneloni with spicy lamb sausage and mustard greens—are startling in their savory, exacting deliciousness. The bread comes with a ramekin of olive oil from Jenkins’s family’s farm, in Tuscany. I live near Porsena, and am as much of a regular as I can afford to be. It’s irresistibly haimish, with exposed-brick walls and, behind the oak-and-tile bar, an eighteenth-century map of Rome. Everybody knows everybody, by sight or by name—diners, waiters, staff. Several regulars attend the Monday-night movie screenings at the Extra Bar: “La Dolce Vita” with your risotto. Last year, a Porsena regular—a tiny, feisty longtime East Villager with a squeaky voice and an ebullient spirit—died, and Porsena held her memorial, abundant with tributes and pasta.
Last week, Porsena’s chairs and barstools were up. One rainy night, in the back of the restaurant, two employees were working: Ian MacRae, the manager, and Dave Pizarro, the cook. MacRae, a strapping, bespectacled Scot with a soft accent, moved to New York fifteen years ago and has been an actor and restaurant worker ever since. He wore a black sweater, black pants, and vintage-style black-and-white Adidas sneakers. MacRae has a gracious presence, as does the assistant manager, Christina Van Der Merwe, as do the other staffers—just the right level of warm attentiveness—and, in normal times, the whole mood is made for dining in. Takeout and delivery are not Porsena’s focus. “Our delivery menu has always been dishes that we can prepare anytime,” MacRae said: cacio e pepe, spaghetti al limone, the beloved anneloni. It happens to suit the pandemic era.
As orders came in, MacRae gave them to Pizarro, in the open kitchen. Pizarro had a broken wrist—scooter, bike lane, drunk pedestrian—and was chopping garlic and boiling pasta in gloves and a cast. He’s a backup; the head chef, Alfredo Medel, had a cough and was exercising caution. MacRae donned gloves, boxed and bagged each meal, and left completed orders on a table up front for delivery workers to pick up. (“Hello, sir! Are you here for Jennifer?”) Between orders, he sat at a big, rough-hewn family-style table by the kitchen, which, last time I’d dined in, during early social distancing, had been occupied by a boisterous younger group celebrating a birthday. (They weren’t being Porsena-courteous, and had failed to notice my stern looks from the bar.) This table was also where, before each night’s opening, the staff would have dinner together. I’d sometimes look in while walking by, see them there, and feel a little tug of fondness. Now it was just MacRae, a laptop, Clorox wipes, rubbing alcohol, a mask, a bottle of Italian sparkling water, and, just arrived in the day’s mail, a box of ballpoint pens that said “Porsena.”
In early and mid-March, Porsena had tried cautious, socially distant in-room dining, served with small-batch hand sanitizer that Van Der Merwe made. A day before the city limited restaurants to takeout and delivery, owing to the coronavirus, Porsena had closed for eat-in service. “Sara said, ‘It’s not worth risking people’s health,’ ” MacRae told me. (In an e-mail to the restaurant’s mailing list, Jenkins, who now lives in Maine, wrote, “As we say in Italy, ‘in bocca al lupo,’ which literally means in the mouth of the wolf but figuratively means good luck! We will all need it.”) But the takeout and delivery, marginally profitable even in normal times (the Seamless-GrubHub model is “pretty usurious,” Jenkins said), wouldn’t be enough to sustain the business. “We’ve tried not to spend money this week,” MacRae said. He paused. “I don’t know what we’re going to do.” His expression had the stunned look of many people I’ve seen these past few weeks, on TV and in the park.
Porsena had recently laid off its entire staff, except for MacRae and the cooks. MacRae set up a GoFundMe campaign for the workers, which has raised more than fifteen thousand dollars. “That’s just from people on our mailing list,” he said. (Jenkins “was quite touched” by the response, she said.) Other restaurants were doing the same—Il Buco, for example, on Bond Street. MacRae talked about other local restaurants and restaurant groups, some of which owned the building in which they’re housed and therefore might be O.K., some of which had already closed for good. “I think, ultimately, if we close now”—for real—“I think we will be able to reopen,” MacRae said. “I think.”
Two more orders came in. “Roasted Brussels sprouts, polenta, bruschetta, pasta pomodoro, chocolate cake—the torta,” MacRae said. He got polenta out of a low fridge and wine out of a hidden pantry and then sat back down. “I go home at night and watch all the coronavirus stuff—Cuomo, Boris Johnson—and then I need something funny,” MacRae said. “I just showed Dave a video I watched last night.” He slid his laptop toward me and I watched a clip from “Only Fools and Horses,” an eighties British sitcom about two East Enders in loud suits. They were at a pub, eying ladies. “Play it nice and cool, son, nice and cool,” one said, and then had a pratfall. “This is nostalgic for me, because it’s something my dad laughed at,” MacRae said.
Porsena’s door opened, and a tall man in glasses came in, smiling, to pick up takeout. “For Andrew,” he said.
“Are you Scottish?“ McRae asked.
“I’ve been here thirty years,” Andrew said. “Most people don’t notice my accent. I’m from Stirling.”
“I’m from Aberdeen,” MacRae said. “You call us sheep shaggers!”
Andrew, a recently laid-off veterinarian, laughed. He seemed unlikely to call people sheep shaggers. MacRae wiped down a pen with bleach and handed him the pen and receipt. “I think you’ve undercharged me,” Andrew said. “At this point, we all have to look after each other.” Later, another takeout customer: Frank, a three-times-a-week regular and former banker. He wore an overcoat and a plaid scarf. “The National Guard is coming,” he said. “I just saw them in the streets—they’re going to put in beds at the Javits Center.” Signing his receipt, he said, “The tips are all going to Miguel and those guys, right?” They were.
When the dinner rush, such as it was, died down, Pizarro came out to chat. MacRae said, “Yesterday we took food up to a doctor—Dave’s friend who works in the E.R. at Bellevue.” She’s another Porsena regular. “This past week, she was training younger doctors in hygiene protocols,” Pizarro said. “Biohazard stuff, masks, gloves, scrubs, shoe covers. The wash in, the wash out. She texted my girlfriend last night: ‘It was a really rough day for my team.’ ”
MacRae went into the kitchen, stood in front of the sink, and rolled up his sleeves. “I thought my pot-washing days were over,” he said, smiling. I poked my head into the little passageway that connects the dining room to the Extra Bar; Van Der Merwe had set up a little gallery in there, the conceit being to show one work by one artist at a time. It was empty. “She had a fabulous screen print on display—it took up the whole wall!” MacRae said. “But it didn’t stick, and then a global pandemic happened.”
The next day, Porsena closed. The future there, as everywhere, is yet to be understood. Meanwhile, MacRae had hopes of flying to Scotland, to help his mother, once it was safe. (He has decided, for the time being, to stay put.) He wrote his phone number for me on a card that Jenkins had had printed, from a tidy stack at the host station. The card was decorated with a border of vine-ripened tomatoes and advertised a yearlong tenth-anniversary celebration. At the top, it says, in neat italics, “We have many fun events planned.”