newyorker--2020-03-13--National-Park Safety Rules for Millennials

Millennials love visiting our nation ’ s public land , because we literally can not afford to go on vacation anywhere else .
However , we hate to follow safety rules , because we have no regard for our own lives .
This is partly due to the fact that we will never die ( science tells us that if you are younger than thirty you will actually never die , ever ) and partly due to the fact that we have no desire to see the future , because it will be hell ( climate change ; imminent recession @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ) .
But , even though as a millennial I am extremely at peace with my ( scientifically impossible ) death , I do still think there is value in young people following our national parks ’ safety rules .
Here ’ s why .
Rule No .
1 : Never Hike Alone If you hike alone , there will be no one to take the full-body Instagrams that your perv followers demand .
Sure , hiking with a buddy makes it more likely that you ’ ll get help in the event @ @ @ @ @ @ @ importantly , it means that you ’ ll have someone to take a photo of you perched sexily on a fragile rock formation .
And , as we all know , if you only post selfies , everyone will infer that you are doomed to be forever alone , inherently unlovable , and NOT HOT .
Some people run marathons .
Some people are paleo .
Personally , I feel superior to others by being the only person who has an umbrella when it ’ s raining because I am the only one @ @ @ @ @ @ @ No .
3 : Never Turn Your Back on the Ocean To quote the late , great Rip Torn , “ Never turn your back on the ocean.
” The ocean is very unpredictable .
It only takes one second of facing away from the ocean to take a selfie for a wave to hit your entire ass .
It is not lame—and in fact it is cool—to tuck your pants into your socks .
I know this because I have seen approximately four hundred thousand photos of Shia LaBeouf doing it .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ app .
Everyone even has that moon app that just tells you how full the moon is and does literally nothing else .
The new cutting-edge witchy app to get to prove that you are in touch with the movements of celestial bodies is a tide-schedule app .
Think about it : tides are like astrology , but for water .
Rule No .
6 : Know Your Limits Huffing and puffing up a trail that ’ s too hard for you is no fun .
What is fun is running up a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ while yelling , “ This is normal for me because I live in a New York City walk-up !
” Rule No .
7 : Talk to a Ranger Before You Set Off Rangers are outside all day , meaning they are tan and fit .
Many are even six feet seven .
Before heading out on a hike , talk to a ranger and let him know your planned route , what time you expect to be back , that you have no evening plans , and that you are camping in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ presumably , home .
Give him your phone number .
Rule No .
8 : Put Away Your Phone More and more people are dying because they are looking at their phones while hiking or doing dangerous things to get the perfect selfie .
But how about , instead of dying , you just put your phone away for a couple hours ?
Because you know what ’ s better than the perfect selfie ?
Writing the perfect sanctimonious article about how you don ’ t need to take selfies to enjoy nature @

Millennials love visiting our nation’s public land, because we literally cannot afford to go on vacation anywhere else. However, we hate to follow safety rules, because we have no regard for our own lives. This is partly due to the fact that we will never die (science tells us that if you are younger than thirty you will actually never die, ever) and partly due to the fact that we have no desire to see the future, because it will be hell (climate change; imminent recession; many, many more Marvel movies).
But, even though as a millennial I am extremely at peace with my (scientifically impossible) death, I do still think there is value in young people following our national parks’ safety rules. Here’s why.
Rule No. 1: Never Hike Alone
If you hike alone, there will be no one to take the full-body Instagrams that your perv followers demand. Sure, hiking with a buddy makes it more likely that you’ll get help in the event of an accident. But, more importantly, it means that you’ll have someone to take a photo of you perched sexily on a fragile rock formation. And, as we all know, if you only post selfies, everyone will infer that you are doomed to be forever alone, inherently unlovable, and NOT HOT.
Rule No. 2: Pay Attention to Weather Reports
Some people run marathons. Some people are paleo. Personally, I feel superior to others by being the only person who has an umbrella when it’s raining because I am the only one who checked the weather report.
Rule No. 3: Never Turn Your Back on the Ocean
To quote the late, great Rip Torn, “Never turn your back on the ocean.” The ocean is very unpredictable. It only takes one second of facing away from the ocean to take a selfie for a wave to hit your entire ass.
Rule No. 4: Practice Tick Prevention
It is not lame—and in fact it is cool—to tuck your pants into your socks. I know this because I have seen approximately four hundred thousand photos of Shia LaBeouf doing it.
Rule No. 5: Check the Tide Schedule
Listen, everyone already has the CoStar app. Everyone even has that moon app that just tells you how full the moon is and does literally nothing else. The new cutting-edge witchy app to get to prove that you are in touch with the movements of celestial bodies is a tide-schedule app. Think about it: tides are like astrology, but for water.
Rule No. 6: Know Your Limits
Huffing and puffing up a trail that’s too hard for you is no fun. What is fun is running up a trail perfectly suited to your fitness level while yelling, “This is normal for me because I live in a New York City walk-up!”
Rule No. 7: Talk to a Ranger Before You Set Off
Rangers are outside all day, meaning they are tan and fit. Many are even six feet seven. Before heading out on a hike, talk to a ranger and let him know your planned route, what time you expect to be back, that you have no evening plans, and that you are camping in close proximity to his work and, presumably, home. Give him your phone number.
Rule No. 8: Put Away Your Phone
More and more people are dying because they are looking at their phones while hiking or doing dangerous things to get the perfect selfie. But how about, instead of dying, you just put your phone away for a couple hours? Because you know what’s better than the perfect selfie? Writing the perfect sanctimonious article about how you don’t need to take selfies to enjoy nature.


newyorker--2020-03-13--The Podcasts to Listen to While You’re Social-Distancing

As we steel ourselves for the next novel-coronavirus developments—many of us from inside our homes—getting clear , reliable information becomes ever more essential .
Not surprisingly , one source is podcasts : as of this week , COVID-19 episodes and stand-alone podcasts abound .
“ Today , Explained ” has a fascinating interview with Carl Goldman , who contracted the virus aboard the Diamond Princess and talked to the show ’ s host , Sean Rameswaram , from his quarantine bed ; “ The Daily ” delves into the complexities of the testing situation in the U.S. , with predictably @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are hit or miss .
Among them , there ’ s the exceptionally so-so “ Coronavirus : Fact vs. Fiction , ” a daily offering from CNN , featuring its chief medical correspondent , Sanjay Gupta , who calmly walks listeners through topics like the difference between a pandemic and an epidemic , whether the elderly should be scared ( somewhat ) , whether a “ virus hunter ” interviewee has seen the film “ Contagion , ” in which Gupta has a cameo , and whether an unnamed airplane pilot thinks listeners @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ Not unless you have better plans , ” he chuckles .
Shouldn ’ t Gupta , a doctor , be doing the advising here ? )
My favorite coronavirus podcast is the efficient , antiseptic , unpodcastlike , and somewhat mysterious “ Coronavirus 411.
” It ’ s a quick , facts-only daily update , with no obvious affiliation , delivered by an unidentified female voice : pure news , culled from the C.D.C.
, the W.H.O.
, and other sources , piped into your ears .
It offers a roundup of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Italy has put the entire country on lockdown through April 3rd ” ; “ St .
Patrick ’ s Day celebrations have been cancelled in Dublin and Boston ” ) and a reading of case numbers in each country and , now , state .
It ’ s extremely sobering to listen to a few days ’ episodes in succession—the numbers rise quickly .
The show ’ s narrator is human , but she could pass for a bot , and that ’ s just fine with me : as we practice our @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as good a place as any to seek refuge .
The famous qualities that tend to distinguish podcasts—intimacy , folksiness , a hangout vibe—happen to be what I don ’ t want during a pandemic , and “ Coronavirus 411 ” lacks them all .
“ Coronavirus 411 ” was created by William Corbin , who works at a branded-podcast company called Sound That Brands , which produces the show .
He got the idea in January , after becoming frustrated at his Amazon Echo .
“ I asked Alexa for information about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Wikipedia entry , ” he told me , incredulous .
He tried building an Alexa coronavirus skill , then realized that making a short podcast would be easier .
He wanted its content to be authoritative : C.D.C.
, W.H.O.
, verified news .
“ One doctor ’ s opinion is not of interest to me ; a thousand doctors ’ opinions are of interest to me , ” Corbin said .
He joined forces with a newscaster to read the results—just the facts .
“ If you ever want to get news @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” he said .
“ What people want in news is news.
” A similarly homespun , and promising , new show , “ Coronavirus Daily Briefing , ” from Ride Home Media , seems to share that ethos .
In it , a serious , somewhat stressed-out-sounding man named Brian McCullough reads news , shares horrifying field reports from Italy , and explains why regular old soap is effective and should be used on our hands , posthaste .
It stays on the right side of informed , nonhysterical , and focussed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cower on my couch .
On a lighter note : politics .
For perspective , especially welcome after the recent bloodbath known as Super Tuesday , I ’ ve been appreciating two pods in particular .
The first is “ Fiasco , ” Leon Neyfakh ’ s forensic political-scandal series , now in its second season—or the fourth , if you count his work on “ Slow Burn.
” Those seasons explored Watergate , the Clinton impeachment , and Bush v. Gore ; this one is about Iran-Contra .
I ’ ve long @ @ @ @ @ @ @ focus on the scheme , in which Reagan Administration officials secretly sold arms to Iran , behind Congress ’ s back , during an arms embargo , in an effort to procure the release of American hostages—and to use the proceeds to support the Contras , in Nicaragua .
It ’ s a complex story , ripe for juicy reëxamination—and its antihero , Oliver North , recently served as president of the N.R.A .
( His term was brief , after infighting , which reminds me : I ’ d definitely listen to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ) “ Fiasco : Iran-Contra ” is , basically , what I ’ d hoped for : confounding , Cold War-atmospheric , and quietly enraging .
Neyfakh is as wonkishly companionable as ever , and , as usual , he begins the series by sitting us down and telling us a story of a regular person embroiled in a historical moment .
In this case , it ’ s Kevin Kattke , a Macy ’ s maintenance engineer from Long Island who moonlights as a volunteer for various covert government operations .
( @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ) Listening to a podcast about the Iran-Contra scandal in 2020 doesn ’ t provide the frisson of excitement that listening to a podcast about Watergate did in 2017 , when the Trump Administration was new , our stress was primal , and the show ’ s dominating conceit—Watergate took longer to reach a breaking point than we might have realized—seemed to portend a comforting , if distant , de-Trumpification .
But the new season is a refreshing corrective to some cultural nostalgia that ’ s emerged for flawed leaders who , compared @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Listening to Reagan address the public on “ Fiasco ” is an essential reminder of life under a subtler kind of malign President : one who sounds rational and warm and reassuring .
Reagan , intriguingly , makes some equally maddening cameos in the excellent “ LBJ and the Great Society , ” from PRX , hosted by Melody Barnes , President Obama ’ s chief domestic-policy adviser .
It ’ s a successor to “ LBJ ’ s War , ” from 2017 , hosted by David Brown .
Both series feature @ @ @ @ @ @ @ calls , Lady Bird Johnson ’ s audio diaries , and other archival tape that lets us eavesdrop on how Johnson managed to create the most ambitious social safety net of our time .
It ’ s spellbinding to listen to him in action : buttonholing friends and foes , cajoling for the greater good .
Weeks after the assassination of John F. Kennedy , Johnson bullies Kennedy ’ s brother-in-law Sargent Shriver into , on top of directing the Peace Corps , spearheading Johnson ’ s proposed War on Poverty .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ you ’ ve got the authority , you ’ ve got the power , you ’ ve got the money , ” Johnson says .
“ Now , you may not have the glands.
” You can practically hear Shriver ’ s double take .
“ The glands ?
” he says .
Then : “ I ’ ve got plenty of glands.
” The rest is history .
In another episode , “ Medicine Man , ” Reagan , in 1961 , says , about the idea of Medicare , “ One @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on a people has been by way of medicine.
” Reagan ’ s approach to medicine , as history would show , was n't adequate for a pandemic .
And , finally : fun .
I highly recommend “ The Case of the Missing Hit , ” the latest episode of “ Reply All , ” which you may have read about on social media , for good reason : it combines the old-fashioned pleasures of solving a mystery with themes of the Internet ’ s relationship to memory—something I think about a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ entwined .
It ’ s about a listener who discovers that a hit he remembers from nineties FM radio is un-Google-able ; after hours of searching , he finds no evidence of it , despite its highly specific lyrics ( rhyming “ Holyfield ringside ” with “ sultan for a bride , ” for example ) .
Did it even exist ?
“ I was getting increasingly frustrated , but also kind of scared , ” he tells our heroes , P. J. Vogt and Alex Goldman .
“ It felt almost like @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a hole in the world—like , a glitch , ” Vogt says .
Ultimately , they get to the bottom of things , doggedly and entertainingly .
I haven ’ t enjoyed a podcast episode this much in a long time—by the end , I even felt some affection for Barenaked Ladies ’ “ One Week , ” a song I ’ ve long despised .
May you enjoy it , too .
Meanwhile : stay healthy , my friends , and flatten the curve .

As we steel ourselves for the next novel-coronavirus developments—many of us from inside our homes—getting clear, reliable information becomes ever more essential. Not surprisingly, one source is podcasts: as of this week, COVID-19 episodes and stand-alone podcasts abound. “Today, Explained” has a fascinating interview with Carl Goldman, who contracted the virus aboard the Diamond Princess and talked to the show’s host, Sean Rameswaram, from his quarantine bed; “The Daily” delves into the complexities of the testing situation in the U.S., with predictably worrisome results. The stand-alone coronavirus pods are hit or miss. Among them, there’s the exceptionally so-so “Coronavirus: Fact vs. Fiction,” a daily offering from CNN, featuring its chief medical correspondent, Sanjay Gupta, who calmly walks listeners through topics like the difference between a pandemic and an epidemic, whether the elderly should be scared (somewhat), whether a “virus hunter” interviewee has seen the film “Contagion,” in which Gupta has a cameo, and whether an unnamed airplane pilot thinks listeners should cancel domestic vacation plans. (“Not unless you have better plans,” he chuckles. Shouldn’t Gupta, a doctor, be doing the advising here?)
My favorite coronavirus podcast is the efficient, antiseptic, unpodcastlike, and somewhat mysterious “Coronavirus 411.” It’s a quick, facts-only daily update, with no obvious affiliation, delivered by an unidentified female voice: pure news, culled from the C.D.C., the W.H.O., and other sources, piped into your ears. It offers a roundup of worldwide and national news updates (“Italy has put the entire country on lockdown through April 3rd”; “St. Patrick’s Day celebrations have been cancelled in Dublin and Boston”) and a reading of case numbers in each country and, now, state. It’s extremely sobering to listen to a few days’ episodes in succession—the numbers rise quickly. The show’s narrator is human, but she could pass for a bot, and that’s just fine with me: as we practice our social distancing, the uncanny valley seems as good a place as any to seek refuge. The famous qualities that tend to distinguish podcasts—intimacy, folksiness, a hangout vibe—happen to be what I don’t want during a pandemic, and “Coronavirus 411” lacks them all.
“Coronavirus 411” was created by William Corbin, who works at a branded-podcast company called Sound That Brands, which produces the show. He got the idea in January, after becoming frustrated at his Amazon Echo. “I asked Alexa for information about the coronavirus, and she read the Wikipedia entry,” he told me, incredulous. He tried building an Alexa coronavirus skill, then realized that making a short podcast would be easier. He wanted its content to be authoritative: C.D.C., W.H.O., verified news. “One doctor’s opinion is not of interest to me; a thousand doctors’ opinions are of interest to me,” Corbin said. He joined forces with a newscaster to read the results—just the facts. “If you ever want to get news out, go to a marketer,” he said. “What people want in news is news.” A similarly homespun, and promising, new show, “Coronavirus Daily Briefing,” from Ride Home Media, seems to share that ethos. In it, a serious, somewhat stressed-out-sounding man named Brian McCullough reads news, shares horrifying field reports from Italy, and explains why regular old soap is effective and should be used on our hands, posthaste. It stays on the right side of informed, nonhysterical, and focussed, and I appreciate that as I cower on my couch.
On a lighter note: politics. For perspective, especially welcome after the recent bloodbath known as Super Tuesday, I’ve been appreciating two pods in particular. The first is “Fiasco,” Leon Neyfakh’s forensic political-scandal series, now in its second season—or the fourth, if you count his work on “Slow Burn.” Those seasons explored Watergate, the Clinton impeachment, and Bush v. Gore; this one is about Iran-Contra. I’ve long been hoping that Neyfakh would turn his focus on the scheme, in which Reagan Administration officials secretly sold arms to Iran, behind Congress’s back, during an arms embargo, in an effort to procure the release of American hostages—and to use the proceeds to support the Contras, in Nicaragua. It’s a complex story, ripe for juicy reëxamination—and its antihero, Oliver North, recently served as president of the N.R.A. (His term was brief, after infighting, which reminds me: I’d definitely listen to an investigative podcast about the N.R.A.)
“Fiasco: Iran-Contra” is, basically, what I’d hoped for: confounding, Cold War-atmospheric, and quietly enraging. Neyfakh is as wonkishly companionable as ever, and, as usual, he begins the series by sitting us down and telling us a story of a regular person embroiled in a historical moment. In this case, it’s Kevin Kattke, a Macy’s maintenance engineer from Long Island who moonlights as a volunteer for various covert government operations. (Yes, you read that right.) Listening to a podcast about the Iran-Contra scandal in 2020 doesn’t provide the frisson of excitement that listening to a podcast about Watergate did in 2017, when the Trump Administration was new, our stress was primal, and the show’s dominating conceit—Watergate took longer to reach a breaking point than we might have realized—seemed to portend a comforting, if distant, de-Trumpification. But the new season is a refreshing corrective to some cultural nostalgia that’s emerged for flawed leaders who, compared with Trump, seem pretty good. Listening to Reagan address the public on “Fiasco” is an essential reminder of life under a subtler kind of malign President: one who sounds rational and warm and reassuring.
Reagan, intriguingly, makes some equally maddening cameos in the excellent “LBJ and the Great Society,” from PRX, hosted by Melody Barnes, President Obama’s chief domestic-policy adviser. It’s a successor to “LBJ’s War,” from 2017, hosted by David Brown. Both series feature recordings of Lyndon Johnson’s phone calls, Lady Bird Johnson’s audio diaries, and other archival tape that lets us eavesdrop on how Johnson managed to create the most ambitious social safety net of our time. It’s spellbinding to listen to him in action: buttonholing friends and foes, cajoling for the greater good. Weeks after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, Johnson bullies Kennedy’s brother-in-law Sargent Shriver into, on top of directing the Peace Corps, spearheading Johnson’s proposed War on Poverty. “You’ve got the responsibility, you’ve got the authority, you’ve got the power, you’ve got the money,” Johnson says. “Now, you may not have the glands.” You can practically hear Shriver’s double take. “The glands?” he says. Then: “I’ve got plenty of glands.” The rest is history. In another episode, “Medicine Man,” Reagan, in 1961, says, about the idea of Medicare, “One of the traditional methods of imposing socialism on a people has been by way of medicine.” Reagan’s approach to medicine, as history would show, wasn't adequate for a pandemic.
And, finally: fun. I highly recommend “The Case of the Missing Hit,” the latest episode of “Reply All,” which you may have read about on social media, for good reason: it combines the old-fashioned pleasures of solving a mystery with themes of the Internet’s relationship to memory—something I think about a lot as the two become ever more entwined. It’s about a listener who discovers that a hit he remembers from nineties FM radio is un-Google-able; after hours of searching, he finds no evidence of it, despite its highly specific lyrics (rhyming “Holyfield ringside” with “sultan for a bride,” for example). Did it even exist? “I was getting increasingly frustrated, but also kind of scared,” he tells our heroes, P. J. Vogt and Alex Goldman. “It felt almost like he’d found, like, a hole in the world—like, a glitch,” Vogt says. Ultimately, they get to the bottom of things, doggedly and entertainingly. I haven’t enjoyed a podcast episode this much in a long time—by the end, I even felt some affection for Barenaked Ladies’ “One Week,” a song I’ve long despised. May you enjoy it, too. Meanwhile: stay healthy, my friends, and flatten the curve.


newyorker--2020-03-12--Finding Connection and Resilience During the Coronavirus Pandemic

Across the globe , a coronavirus culture is emerging , spontaneously and creatively , to deal with public fear , restrictions on daily life , and the tedious isolation of quarantine .
“ This is a bad science-fiction movie that is real , ” Agustín Fuentes , an evolutionary anthropologist at the University of Notre Dame , told me , in a late-night discussion this week , about how COVID-19 may alter the human journey .
He envisions a profound evolutionary process to insure the survival of the species as pandemics become more common .
It ’ s already visible @ @ @ @ @ @ @ humanity is connection .
The kind of quarantines—in New York and Seattle , and what will happen in thousands of other places in the United States—will require people to connect in other ways , ” he said .
“ One of the amazing things about the human species—once harmless critters not much more than monkeys running around—is that , over time , we have become very creative .
We ’ ve adapted to survive .
That ’ s what people will rely on now—coming up with incredibly imaginative ways to find connections even @ @ @ @ @ @ @ same physical space together.
” In these early days of the global pandemic , human creativity has centered largely on simple forms of relief and release .
In China , the epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak and a nation where almost eight hundred million people have experienced some form of lockdown , night clubs that were forced to shut their doors have turned to virtual “ cloud clubbing.
” Viewers can watch d.j .
sets on streaming platforms and send in messages to be read live , to create the illusion that they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ Home Karaoke Station ” features famous singers taking requests , engaging with viewers , and performing—from self-quarantine in their own homes .
Shuttered gyms have offered workout classes online or via the popular WeChat social-messaging app .
Other Chinese people on WeChat created a group looking for love under lockdown .
In one of the twenty-plus mass-quarantine centers in Wuhan , the megacity where this coronavirus first emerged , women have turned to karaoke to lift the spirits of sequestered groups .
At night , echoes of “ Wuhan Jiayou ” —or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ heard as Chinese shout encouragement at each other from their windows .
In Iran , another of the COVID-19 “ red zones , ” doctors and nurses—individually and in groups—have participated in a coronavirus dance challenge , posting videos of themselves dancing to lively music in hazmat suits .
Other medical staff in quarantine serenaded each other or brought instruments to perform for sequestered patients .
A third-grade teacher in Khuzestan Province improvised to keep her classes going online after schools were closed nationwide .
Stuck at home , she used the side @ @ @ @ @ @ @ With a blue marker , she wrote out the rules , with diagrams , to explain how to calculate the area of squares , rectangles , and triangles .
A photo of her lesson went viral on Twitter .
Over time , the impact of the novel coronavirus may be so sweeping that it alters human rituals and behaviors that have evolved over millennia .
“ This could change everything from the way we conduct our economy to our greeting and grieving rituals , ” Fuentes said .
“ We ’ ve had @ @ @ @ @ @ @ before , although this is on an unprecedented scale.
” One of the keys to stemming the Ebola epidemic in West Africa , between 2013 and 2016 , was changing long-standing traditions about dealing with the dead , including touching a corpse before burial .
In just one case , in 2014 , twenty-eight people became ill with Ebola from the three-day funeral of a prominent pharmacist in Sierra Leone ; eight later died .
“ The Ebola virus causes a horrific death .
You bleed all your fluids out , ” Terrence @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at the University of California , Berkeley , told me .
“ The worst thing you can do with Ebola is to touch the dead , because their bodies are filled with virus-filled fluids .
People had to go in with guns to prevent families from interacting with their dead.
” Behavior changed ; the epidemic eased .
Traditions develop because they fit the ecology and biology of the times—and get passed on because the people who do them are better off .
The evolution of rituals has already begun in small ways—not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ meetings virtually .
Around the world , many people have stopped shaking hands , a tradition that originated as a sign of trust but is now the most common way of transmitting the disease .
“ We ’ re such a social species that it ’ s hard not to touch each other , ” Deacon said .
“ So much of our communication is about touch .
We don ’ t have conventions about how to behave under circumstances like these .
We ’ ll develop new cultural habits , new tricks @ @ @ @ @ @ @ We ’ re already experimenting.
” After the coronavirus outbreak , he attended a workshop of his peers at Stanford .
“ People were bowing or touching elbows .
We didn ’ t know what to do , ” he said .
“ But we knew we had to avoid shaking hands.
” I asked Deacon if he thought COVID-19 would mark the end of the handshake .
“ It could be , ” he replied .
“ Behaviors are driven by the context .
Shaking hands is about trust .
If that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ then it affects our trust markers.
” Last week , Sylvie Briand , the director of the Department of Pandemic and Epidemic diseases at the World Health Organization , tweeted a cartoon of “ handshake alternatives , ” captioned “ the elbow , ” the “ Thai wai ” bow with hands together in front , and a sort of queenly wave .
“ We need to adapt to this new disease , ” Briand wrote .
In China , the so-called Wuhan shake—a kind of foot-shake , tapping shoes together—emerged initially in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the ceremonial opening of a bridge in Tehran last month , the mayor and the provincial governor traded fist-bump gestures , coming close but not touching their hands .
In Europe , adaptations to COVID-19 even crept into Fashion Week last month .
Giorgio Armani cancelled his show at Milan Fashion Week , and instead débuted his winter collection from an empty theatre to an online audience .
Even with no viewers , he opted to wear a face mask .
At Paris Fashion Week , models for Marine Serre strode the catwalk @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the front row of Dries Van Noten ’ s show were photographed wearing their own masks .
In Croatia , the designer Zoran Aragović , of the BiteMyStyle brand , created mask accessories in bright colors inspired by comic books , Pop art , and Disney characters .
They ’ re more fashion accessories than medical protection .
The need to adapt almost certainly will not end with a vaccine for COVID-19 .
“ The Darwinian story here is that we are in environments where these viruses mutate .
The common cold @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Viruses are evolution in action—on steroids , ” Deacon said .
In the twenty-first century , changes in the pattern of human existence—from global commerce and travel to climate change—could produce viruses that breed faster and move farther .
But Darwinian evolution is not necessarily all bad , Samuel Paul Veissière , an evolutionary anthropologist and the co-director of the Culture , Mind and Brain Program at McGill University , told me .
Quarantines date to Neolithic times—and the transition from hunter-gathering to sedentary agricultural life—when zoonotic pathogens transferred from animals to humans @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Communities eventually developed immunities to local diseases , but not to others nearby .
“ It ’ s quite possible that we evolved into being fearful of diseases and of strangers , ” he said .
For millennia , people have been overly attentive to potential threats , because “ our psychological bias makes us assume that there are pathogens in other humans .
”

Across the globe, a coronavirus culture is emerging, spontaneously and creatively, to deal with public fear, restrictions on daily life, and the tedious isolation of quarantine. “This is a bad science-fiction movie that is real,” Agustín Fuentes, an evolutionary anthropologist at the University of Notre Dame, told me, in a late-night discussion this week, about how COVID-19 may alter the human journey. He envisions a profound evolutionary process to insure the survival of the species as pandemics become more common. It’s already visible.
“What is so important to humanity is connection. The kind of quarantines—in New York and Seattle, and what will happen in thousands of other places in the United States—will require people to connect in other ways,” he said. “One of the amazing things about the human species—once harmless critters not much more than monkeys running around—is that, over time, we have become very creative. We’ve adapted to survive. That’s what people will rely on now—coming up with incredibly imaginative ways to find connections even when they’re not in the same physical space together.”
In these early days of the global pandemic, human creativity has centered largely on simple forms of relief and release. In China, the epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak and a nation where almost eight hundred million people have experienced some form of lockdown, night clubs that were forced to shut their doors have turned to virtual “cloud clubbing.” Viewers can watch d.j. sets on streaming platforms and send in messages to be read live, to create the illusion that they are connected. The new reality show “Home Karaoke Station” features famous singers taking requests, engaging with viewers, and performing—from self-quarantine in their own homes. Shuttered gyms have offered workout classes online or via the popular WeChat social-messaging app. Other Chinese people on WeChat created a group looking for love under lockdown. In one of the twenty-plus mass-quarantine centers in Wuhan, the megacity where this coronavirus first emerged, women have turned to karaoke to lift the spirits of sequestered groups. At night, echoes of “Wuhan Jiayou”—or “Stay Strong Wuhan”—have been heard as Chinese shout encouragement at each other from their windows.
The new reality show “Home Karaoke Station,” in China, features famous singers taking requests and performing from self-quarantine in their homes. Source: iQiyi
In Iran, another of the COVID-19 “red zones,” doctors and nurses—individually and in groups—have participated in a coronavirus dance challenge, posting videos of themselves dancing to lively music in hazmat suits. Other medical staff in quarantine serenaded each other or brought instruments to perform for sequestered patients. A third-grade teacher in Khuzestan Province improvised to keep her classes going online after schools were closed nationwide. Stuck at home, she used the side of her refrigerator as a whiteboard. With a blue marker, she wrote out the rules, with diagrams, to explain how to calculate the area of squares, rectangles, and triangles. A photo of her lesson went viral on Twitter.
Over time, the impact of the novel coronavirus may be so sweeping that it alters human rituals and behaviors that have evolved over millennia. “This could change everything from the way we conduct our economy to our greeting and grieving rituals,” Fuentes said. “We’ve had plenty of things thrown up at us before, although this is on an unprecedented scale.”
One of the keys to stemming the Ebola epidemic in West Africa, between 2013 and 2016, was changing long-standing traditions about dealing with the dead, including touching a corpse before burial. In just one case, in 2014, twenty-eight people became ill with Ebola from the three-day funeral of a prominent pharmacist in Sierra Leone; eight later died. “The Ebola virus causes a horrific death. You bleed all your fluids out,” Terrence Deacon, a professor of biological anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley, told me. “The worst thing you can do with Ebola is to touch the dead, because their bodies are filled with virus-filled fluids. People had to go in with guns to prevent families from interacting with their dead.” Behavior changed; the epidemic eased.
Traditions develop because they fit the ecology and biology of the times—and get passed on because the people who do them are better off. The evolution of rituals has already begun in small ways—not congregating, not travelling, or attending meetings virtually. Around the world, many people have stopped shaking hands, a tradition that originated as a sign of trust but is now the most common way of transmitting the disease.
“We’re such a social species that it’s hard not to touch each other,” Deacon said. “So much of our communication is about touch. We don’t have conventions about how to behave under circumstances like these. We’ll develop new cultural habits, new tricks, new mnemonics to get by. We’re already experimenting.” After the coronavirus outbreak, he attended a workshop of his peers at Stanford. “People were bowing or touching elbows. We didn’t know what to do,” he said. “But we knew we had to avoid shaking hands.”
I asked Deacon if he thought COVID-19 would mark the end of the handshake. “It could be,” he replied. “Behaviors are driven by the context. Shaking hands is about trust. If that behavior passes on a deadly virus, then it affects our trust markers.”
Last week, Sylvie Briand, the director of the Department of Pandemic and Epidemic diseases at the World Health Organization, tweeted a cartoon of “handshake alternatives,” captioned “the elbow,” the “Thai wai” bow with hands together in front, and a sort of queenly wave. “We need to adapt to this new disease,” Briand wrote. In China, the so-called Wuhan shake—a kind of foot-shake, tapping shoes together—emerged initially in jest but soon in seriousness. At the ceremonial opening of a bridge in Tehran last month, the mayor and the provincial governor traded fist-bump gestures, coming close but not touching their hands.
In Europe, adaptations to COVID-19 even crept into Fashion Week last month. Giorgio Armani cancelled his show at Milan Fashion Week, and instead débuted his winter collection from an empty theatre to an online audience. Even with no viewers, he opted to wear a face mask. At Paris Fashion Week, models for Marine Serre strode the catwalk in outfits with matching masks. Women in the front row of Dries Van Noten’s show were photographed wearing their own masks. In Croatia, the designer Zoran Aragović, of the BiteMyStyle brand, created mask accessories in bright colors inspired by comic books, Pop art, and Disney characters. They’re more fashion accessories than medical protection.
The need to adapt almost certainly will not end with a vaccine for COVID-19. “The Darwinian story here is that we are in environments where these viruses mutate. The common cold is a coronavirus that keeps mutating. Viruses are evolution in action—on steroids,” Deacon said. In the twenty-first century, changes in the pattern of human existence—from global commerce and travel to climate change—could produce viruses that breed faster and move farther.


newyorker--2020-03-14--The Anxious Hands of New York’s Subway Riders in the Face of Coronavirus

A few days ago , while I was waiting on the platform at Times Square , to catch an express train to Brooklyn , flickers of lavender caught my eye , a brightness breaking the dark monotone of the crowd : nitrile gloves , obscuring the hands of perhaps one in every dozen commuters .
The color is its own safety precaution : a vivid purple unlikely to be mistaken by a nurse or a doctor for any of the hues of the human body , or by a food-service worker for anything edible—a vivid distinction between object and barrier @ @ @ @ @ @ @ out from cuffs and shopping bags , like warning signs .
I watched an older woman peel off her pairs and apply a dose of sanitizer to her palms .
She scrubbed her hands together and then waved them in the air , to speed the drying of the alcohol , which glistened under the fluorescent lights .
In “ Subway Hands , ” through the eye of a camera , the sheen of rubbing alcohol is imperceptible—hands scrub and flutter in dry choreography .
The movements seem both neurotic and prayerful , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a mystical ritual .
They ’ re a warding off of the evil eye , another superstition of the mass-transit age : hold your breath when you pass a cemetery , lift your feet when you drive over train tracks , clasp and twist and rub your hands when someone coughs nearby in the subway car .
What we do with our hands in the coming weeks and months is , in fact , a matter of urgent public health : according to many experts , the virus ’ s spread throughout the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the more we can do to slow it down the better equipped our already strained systems will be to provide treatment and care to those who need it .
Looking through La Follette Ryan ’ s catalogue can prompt an unsettling feeling of solitude : even in the throng of public transit , each of our bodies is only our own .
But her new images , captured on the edge of a pandemic , also subtly upend that solipsism .
Each frame focusses on just one individual , or maybe two—but their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a collective caution , and a collective care .

A few days ago, while I was waiting on the platform at Times Square, to catch an express train to Brooklyn, flickers of lavender caught my eye, a brightness breaking the dark monotone of the crowd: nitrile gloves, obscuring the hands of perhaps one in every dozen commuters. The color is its own safety precaution: a vivid purple unlikely to be mistaken by a nurse or a doctor for any of the hues of the human body, or by a food-service worker for anything edible—a vivid distinction between object and barrier. In the subway, they flashed out from cuffs and shopping bags, like warning signs. I watched an older woman peel off her pairs and apply a dose of sanitizer to her palms. She scrubbed her hands together and then waved them in the air, to speed the drying of the alcohol, which glistened under the fluorescent lights. In “Subway Hands,” through the eye of a camera, the sheen of rubbing alcohol is imperceptible—hands scrub and flutter in dry choreography. The movements seem both neurotic and prayerful, less a mass act of containment than a mystical ritual. They’re a warding off of the evil eye, another superstition of the mass-transit age: hold your breath when you pass a cemetery, lift your feet when you drive over train tracks, clasp and twist and rub your hands when someone coughs nearby in the subway car.
What we do with our hands in the coming weeks and months is, in fact, a matter of urgent public health: according to many experts, the virus’s spread throughout the United States is now inevitable, but the more we can do to slow it down the better equipped our already strained systems will be to provide treatment and care to those who need it. Looking through La Follette Ryan’s catalogue can prompt an unsettling feeling of solitude: even in the throng of public transit, each of our bodies is only our own. But her new images, captured on the edge of a pandemic, also subtly upend that solipsism. Each frame focusses on just one individual, or maybe two—but their hands’ focussed, conscientious actions express a collective caution, and a collective care.


newyorker--2020-03-14--Reading About the Black Death with My Daughter During the Coronavirus Outbreak

A few months ago , my five-year-old daughter developed a fascination with the Black Death .
Neither of us can remember why .
A couple of nights ago , I asked her again and she said , “ Because it ’ s interesting.
” And she ’ s right .
In October , 1347 , the Black Death , a variant of bubonic plague , arrived in Europe and began to kill about half the population , changing the social order and transforming the continent forever .
My daughter ’ s interest in the plague does not come and go @ @ @ @ @ @ @ times when she has got too close to the subject .
In December , we went to the Museum of London , which has an ominous video about the outbreak—think tapestry and roaring flames—and she didn ’ t like that at all .
But her general position is one of cool morbidness .
Last month , when she and her friends at school heard about the coronavirus , some of them pretended they had caught it .
A teacher told them off .
My daughter came home , full of advice about washing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ just like the Black Death , ” she said .
Our usual way of engaging with the plague is to settle down with an Usborne Young Reading history book , by Rob Lloyd Jones , published in 2018 .
“ A fat black rat scurried down a gangplank , ” is how Chapter 1 , “ Dark News , ” begins .
The great pestilence , as it was also known , originated around the Black Sea , infected populations in the Middle East and Asia , and then came ashore in Italy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ daughter ’ s history book show medieval people going about their medieval lives , with very little social distancing .
We always enjoy a woman on page 5 , who is tipping a bucket of refuse out of a second-floor window and onto a busy marketplace .
“ I like spotting the rats , ” my daughter said earlier this week , when we read the book for what was perhaps the thirtieth time .
By January , 1348 , the plague was in the cities of northern Italy .
“ In Siena @ @ @ @ @ @ @ nightmare scenes and wrote , ‘ This is the end of the world , ’ ” it says on page 15 .
“ To most people that is exactly how it seemed.
” We read the book a little more soberly than usual this week , with not so many silly grimaces .
“ Look , they are setting fire to them , ” my daughter said quietly , on page 23 , which deals with the pogroms against Jews , who were blamed for spreading the plague .
She raised her eyebrows @ @ @ @ @ @ @ herbs .
We acknowledged the accidental good sense of Pope Clement VI , who sat surrounded by flaming torches , to drive away the disease—they may have killed the fleas that spread it .
My favorite page shows a village , overgrown , after the worst has passed .
“ Many people began to have more control over their lives than they had before the plague , ” the book says .
My daughter is normally pretty tired by this point .
She likes a drawing of contemporary archaeologists , in high-visibility overalls @ @ @ @ @ @ @ gets covered by a new railway or bridge .
“ That ’ s what I am going to do , ” she says .
“ Dig up people who died during the Black Death.
” And then I carry her up to bed .
In the United Kingdom , almost all the schools remain open .
The authorities have hesitated to close them because of the consequences for everything else : health-care workers staying at home , potentially vulnerable grandparents being roped in for emergency child care , poorer children going hungry .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Matt Hancock , the British Health Secretary , told Parliament earlier this week .
“ That is why we have no plans for a mass closure of schools.
” A saving grace of the virus has been the seeming invulnerability of children .
So now they bomb around—in London , anyway—enjoying the first days of spring , with permanent little droplets of snot on the ends of their noses .
It seems unlikely to continue .
Keeping the schools open has been part of Britain ’ s generally tentative approach to the virus @ @ @ @ @ @ @ country had five hundred and ninety cases of COVID-19—up thirty per cent in a single day—and ten deaths .
But the authorities have resisted putting in place the travel restrictions , bans on public gatherings , stringent testing , and quarantine procedures that appear to be successful in slowing the spread of the virus elsewhere .
( After seventy cases and one death , Ireland closed all its schools until March 29th . )
Instead , the British government has announced that it will move from the “ containment ” phase of its @ @ @ @ @ @ @ phase .
There is no indication that this is much of a choice .
On Thursday , officials announced that between five thousand and ten thousand people are probably infected and that testing would now be restricted to those admitted to hospital for treatment .
Perhaps we can look forward to other stages , such as “ failure , ” “ total contagion , ” or “ futility.
” As ever , the British attitude to an emergency like the coronavirus is somewhat revealing .
The media invokes the “ Blitz spirit ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ War—and the government sets off down a slightly different path from those of other nations .
It is difficult to know how much of this derives from a superiority complex and how much from a particular sense of fatalism .
In 2011 , planning for a possible flu pandemic , British officials calculated that restricting air travel by ninety per cent would delay the peak of an outbreak by only a week or two—hence the borders remained open and the planes continued to fly .
The coronavirus response is being guided by the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the “ nudge unit , ” at the U.K. ’ s Cabinet Office .
It was set up in 2010 to improve the way the government persuades people to do things .
Inherent in the nation ’ s light-touch approach so far seems to be the calculation that British people might not be very good at following the rules , or maintaining civility , for very long when the shutdown finally comes .
“ It is going to spread further , ” Boris Johnson , the Prime Minister , said on Thursday .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ public : many more families are going to lose loved ones before their time.
” As it happens , I have been reading about the “ Blitz spirit ” in the library recently—about how it was most likely a heady amalgam of propaganda , social conformity , and private fear .
The recollections of the cartoonist Osbert Lancaster struck me as apt during this current crisis .
“ During ‘ the blitz ’ so long as I remained indoors I was ceaselessly assaulted by what psychiatrists so unfeelingly describe as ‘ irrational fears @ @ @ @ @ @ @ autobiography , “ All Done from Memory.
” “ But on escape into the wide open spaces they were promptly transformed by the patter of shrapnel into anxieties to which my reason afforded every justification.
” Yesterday morning , I dropped my daughter off at the school gates .
There was the usual knot of families waiting .
Babies in pushchairs .
Grandparents .
Runny noses .
We were a minute or two early .
“ Shall we run through the crowd ?
” my daughter asked .
I shook my head .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ we all walked very quickly away .
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 .

A few months ago, my five-year-old daughter developed a fascination with the Black Death. Neither of us can remember why. A couple of nights ago, I asked her again and she said, “Because it’s interesting.” And she’s right. In October, 1347, the Black Death, a variant of bubonic plague, arrived in Europe and began to kill about half the population, changing the social order and transforming the continent forever. My daughter’s interest in the plague does not come and go, exactly, but there have been times when she has got too close to the subject. In December, we went to the Museum of London, which has an ominous video about the outbreak—think tapestry and roaring flames—and she didn’t like that at all. But her general position is one of cool morbidness. Last month, when she and her friends at school heard about the coronavirus, some of them pretended they had caught it. A teacher told them off. My daughter came home, full of advice about washing our hands. “It’s just like the Black Death,” she said.
Our usual way of engaging with the plague is to settle down with an Usborne Young Reading history book, by Rob Lloyd Jones, published in 2018. “A fat black rat scurried down a gangplank,” is how Chapter 1, “Dark News,” begins. The great pestilence, as it was also known, originated around the Black Sea, infected populations in the Middle East and Asia, and then came ashore in Italy. The first few pages of my daughter’s history book show medieval people going about their medieval lives, with very little social distancing. We always enjoy a woman on page 5, who is tipping a bucket of refuse out of a second-floor window and onto a busy marketplace. “I like spotting the rats,” my daughter said earlier this week, when we read the book for what was perhaps the thirtieth time. By January, 1348, the plague was in the cities of northern Italy. “In Siena, shoemaker Agnolo di Tura watched the nightmare scenes and wrote, ‘This is the end of the world,’ ” it says on page 15. “To most people that is exactly how it seemed.”
We read the book a little more soberly than usual this week, with not so many silly grimaces. “Look, they are setting fire to them,” my daughter said quietly, on page 23, which deals with the pogroms against Jews, who were blamed for spreading the plague. She raised her eyebrows at the people breathing through handfuls of herbs. We acknowledged the accidental good sense of Pope Clement VI, who sat surrounded by flaming torches, to drive away the disease—they may have killed the fleas that spread it. My favorite page shows a village, overgrown, after the worst has passed. “Many people began to have more control over their lives than they had before the plague,” the book says. My daughter is normally pretty tired by this point. She likes a drawing of contemporary archeologists, in high-visibility overalls, excavating a plague pit before it gets covered by a new railway or bridge. “That’s what I am going to do,” she says. “Dig up people who died during the Black Death.” And then I carry her up to bed.
In the United Kingdom, almost all the schools remain open. The authorities have hesitated to close them because of the consequences for everything else: health-care workers staying at home, potentially vulnerable grandparents being roped in for emergency child care, poorer children going hungry. “There are significant downsides,” Matt Hancock, the British Health Secretary, told Parliament earlier this week. “That is why we have no plans for a mass closure of schools.” A saving grace of the virus has been the seeming invulnerability of children. So now they bomb around—in London, anyway—enjoying the first days of spring, with permanent little droplets of snot on the ends of their noses.
It seems unlikely to continue. Keeping the schools open has been part of Britain’s generally tentative approach to the virus. As of March 12th, the country had five hundred and ninety cases of COVID-19—up thirty per cent in a single day—and ten deaths. But the authorities have resisted putting in place the travel restrictions, bans on public gatherings, stringent testing, and quarantine procedures that appear to be successful in slowing the spread of the virus elsewhere. (After seventy cases and one death, Ireland closed all its schools until March 29th.) Instead, the British government has announced that it will move from the “containment” phase of its coronavirus strategy to the “delay” phase. There is no indication that this is much of a choice. On Thursday, officials announced that between five thousand and ten thousand people are probably infected and that testing would now be restricted to those admitted to hospital for treatment. Perhaps we can look forward to other stages, such as “failure,” “total contagion,” or “futility.”
As ever, the British attitude to an emergency like the coronavirus is somewhat revealing. The media invokes the “Blitz spirit”—of unflappable civilians during the Second World War—and the government sets off down a slightly different path from those of other nations. It is difficult to know how much of this derives from a superiority complex and how much from a particular sense of fatalism. In 2011, planning for a possible flu pandemic, British officials calculated that restricting air travel by ninety per cent would delay the peak of an outbreak by only a week or two—hence the borders remained open and the planes continued to fly. The coronavirus response is being guided by the Behavioural Insights Team, also known as the “nudge unit,” at the U.K.’s Cabinet Office. It was set up in 2010 to improve the way the government persuades people to do things. Inherent in the nation’s light-touch approach so far seems to be the calculation that British people might not be very good at following the rules, or maintaining civility, for very long when the shutdown finally comes. “It is going to spread further,” Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, said on Thursday. “I must level with the British public: many more families are going to lose loved ones before their time.”
As it happens, I have been reading about the “Blitz spirit” in the library recently—about how it was most likely a heady amalgam of propaganda, social conformity, and private fear. The recollections of the cartoonist Osbert Lancaster struck me as apt during this current crisis. “During ‘the blitz’ so long as I remained indoors I was ceaselessly assaulted by what psychiatrists so unfeelingly describe as ‘irrational fears,’ ” Lancaster wrote in his autobiography, “All Done from Memory.” “But on escape into the wide open spaces they were promptly transformed by the patter of shrapnel into anxieties to which my reason afforded every justification.” Yesterday morning, I dropped my daughter off at the school gates. There was the usual knot of families waiting. Babies in pushchairs. Grandparents. Runny noses. We were a minute or two early. “Shall we run through the crowd?” my daughter asked. I shook my head. Everyone kissed and hugged goodbye and then we all walked very quickly away.
A Guide to the Coronavirus
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.
How pandemics change history.


newyorker--2020-03-14--What Would a Proper Coronavirus Stimulus Plan Look Like?

After a record fall on Thursday , the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose nearly two thousand points on Friday , as Donald Trump declared a national emergency in response to the coronavirus and negotiators from his Administration tried to reach an agreement with House Democrats on an emergency spending bill that could possibly include guaranteeing paid sick leave and extending unemployment benefits .
Given the rapidly expanding impact of the virus , economists of all political persuasions agree that a more substantial stimulus is needed .
But what should it look like ?
Lots of different proposals are flying around @ @ @ @ @ @ @ make a cut in payroll tax the centerpiece of any plan .
But temporarily eliminating payroll tax won ’ t help people who aren ’ t working , and , if the tax holiday is extended to the contributions that employers make , as the White House reportedly wants , it would be a huge and indiscriminate giveaway to corporate America .
The other problem with the Trump Administration ’ s thinking about the stimulus is that it doesn ’ t directly address the immense task of dealing with the virus itself , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
As the number of cases rises , medical systems could easily become overwhelmed .
With schools closed , many parents will have to stay at home to look after their children .
The travel and leisure industries are already facing a shocking slump in demand .
( On Tuesday , the president of United Airlines said that total domestic flight bookings had fallen by seventy per cent . )
Other industries could soon face similar problems , especially if big population centers are locked down .
In China , in mid-February , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ per cent .
A significant downturn to the economy is inevitable—and , in some ways , desirable .
If lower spending reflects the fact that the government , at the federal and state levels , is finally taking serious measures to slow the spread of the virus , that is a positive development for the economy over the medium and long term .
The challenge is to get the country through the short-term hit—the next few months—without a wholesale economic and financial crisis .
In this spirit , here is a three-part stimulus @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ideas that various economists , public-health experts , and foreign countries have already put forward .
At the beginnings of April , May , and June , the U.S. Treasury should mail checks , or issue electronic transfers , of a thousand dollars to everybody in the country .
This might sound like a crazy idea , but it isn ’ t .
Harvard ’ s Jason Furman , who was a chair of the Council of Economic Advisers during the Obama Administration , has proposed making a one-time payment of a thousand @ @ @ @ @ @ @ five hundred dollars to each child .
Last month , the government of Hong Kong , which was dealing with a sharp rise in the number of Covid-19 cases , announced that it would issue ten-thousand Hong Kong dollars , which is about thirteen hundred U.S. dollars , to all of its permanent residents aged eighteen and older .
Pointing to “ unprecedented times , ” Carrie Lam , the city ’ s chief executive , said that the payments “ will provide effective and targeted support to help the Hong Kong community @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for a brighter tomorrow.
” The same thing should be done in the United States on an even bigger scale .
The size of the payments , and their staggered nature , would reflect the fact that the U.S. ’ s coronavirus crisis seems likely to extend for longer than it did in some Asian countries , which took early and Draconian actions in order to tackle it .
Obviously , this proposal would be expensive , but not as expensive as Trump ’ s idea to suspend the payroll tax for the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cost , according to the nonpartisan Tax Foundation , about nine hundred and fifty billion dollars .
Giving three thousand dollars to two hundred and ten million adult Americans would cost six hundred and thirty billion dollars .
If people under eighteen were included , which perhaps they should be , to reflect the higher outgoings of families with children , the cost would be about nine hundred and ninety billion dollars .
A second essential element of a proper stimulus is large-scale federal aid for states and municipalities that are dealing with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ will probably be some of this in the initial spending bill , but far more needs to be done to insure that all Americans can access proper medical treatment if they need it .
The quickest and most effective option is to use Medicaid , which already provides health-care coverage to about seventy-one million low-income adults and children , to cover more people .
On Thursday , a group of public-health experts , including some who worked in the Obama Administration , laid out several ways in which this could be done .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the Affordable Care Act to expand Medicaid access , the federal government could increase the share of the costs—the “ Medicaid match ” —that it bears , the experts said , in a paper that they posted on their Web site .
Another suggestion is to “ add a state option to extend Medicaid eligibility for the duration of the COVID-19 outbreak , to any state resident who is uninsured for all medically necessary services in connection with COVID-related testing , treatment , and recovery , including treatment for complications and other @ @ @ @ @ @ @ could be worsened by COVID-19.
” Unfortunately , fourteen states , including two huge ones—Florida and Texas—have refused to expand Medicaid , despite the financial incentives contained in the A.C.A .
The expert working group suggests further incentivizing these states to do so now .
It also provides a list of other useful ideas , including immediately ordering an increase in the production of “ personal protective equipment ( e.g .
masks ) , ventilator equipment , IV saline , and other medically critical supplies ” ; making sure that Medicaid covers all @ @ @ @ @ @ @ related to Covid-19 ; and setting up a 9/11-style fund for health-care workers who suffer medical and financial harm as a result of being exposed to the virus .
“ What we are facing is a once-in-a-century public health challenge , and the response from our government absolutely has to reflect that , ” Howard Forman , a professor of public health at Yale , who coördinated the working group ’ s effort , said in a statement .
A third economic essential is to prevent a domino-style collapse of the banking system @ @ @ @ @ @ @ their loans wholesale .
During the early nineteen-thirties , it was this sort of financial cataclysm that brought on the Great Depression .
Preventing anything like this from happening again is primarily the job of the Federal Reserve , which has already taken some significant steps to stabilize the Treasury-bond market and the market for short-term interbank loans .
But there will almost certainly need to be a fiscal component as well .
In part , this may involve providing government guarantees for loans that airlines and other stricken businesses have already taken @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ones .
Many smaller firms may need help , too .
Senator Elizabeth Warren has called for low- or no-interest loans to be provided for “ companies of all sizes that have been negatively affected by coronavirus-related supply chain disruptions , and that will use the money to avoid layoffs and hours reductions.
” That sounds sensible , and other options could also be considered .
On Thursday , the Australian government said that it would give small- and medium-sized enterprises up to twenty-five thousand Australian dollars , which is about fifteen thousand @ @ @ @ @ @ @ their payrolls .

After a record fall on Thursday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose nearly two thousand points on Friday, as Donald Trump declared a national emergency in response to the coronavirus and negotiators from his Administration tried to reach an agreement with House Democrats on an emergency spending bill that could possibly include guaranteeing paid sick leave and extending unemployment benefits. Given the rapidly expanding impact of the virus, economists of all political persuasions agree that a more substantial stimulus is needed. But what should it look like?
Lots of different proposals are flying around, but the Trump Administration wants to make a cut in payroll tax the centerpiece of any plan. But temporarily eliminating payroll tax won’t help people who aren’t working, and, if the tax holiday is extended to the contributions that employers make, as the White House reportedly wants, it would be a huge and indiscriminate giveaway to corporate America.
The other problem with the Trump Administration’s thinking about the stimulus is that it doesn’t directly address the immense task of dealing with the virus itself, which continues to spread through the population. As the number of cases rises, medical systems could easily become overwhelmed. With schools closed, many parents will have to stay at home to look after their children. The travel and leisure industries are already facing a shocking slump in demand. (On Tuesday, the president of United Airlines said that total domestic flight bookings had fallen by seventy per cent.) Other industries could soon face similar problems, especially if big population centers are locked down. In China, in mid-February, the purchase of cars fell by ninety per cent.
A significant downturn to the economy is inevitable—and, in some ways, desirable. If lower spending reflects the fact that the government, at the federal and state levels, is finally taking serious measures to slow the spread of the virus, that is a positive development for the economy over the medium and long term. The challenge is to get the country through the short-term hit—the next few months—without a wholesale economic and financial crisis. In this spirit, here is a three-part stimulus proposal, which is largely based on ideas that various economists, public-health experts, and foreign countries have already put forward.
At the beginnings of April, May, and June, the U.S. Treasury should mail checks, or issue electronic transfers, of a thousand dollars to everybody in the country. This might sound like a crazy idea, but it isn’t. Harvard’s Jason Furman, who was a chair of the Council of Economic Advisers during the Obama Administration, has proposed making a one-time payment of a thousand dollars to every taxpaying U.S. resident and five hundred dollars to each child. Last month, the government of Hong Kong, which was dealing with a sharp rise in the number of Covid-19 cases, announced that it would issue ten-thousand Hong Kong dollars, which is about thirteen hundred U.S. dollars, to all of its permanent residents aged eighteen and older. Pointing to “unprecedented times,” Carrie Lam, the city’s chief executive, said that the payments “will provide effective and targeted support to help the Hong Kong community withstand the current difficulties and gear up for a brighter tomorrow.”
The same thing should be done in the United States on an even bigger scale. The size of the payments, and their staggered nature, would reflect the fact that the U.S.’s coronavirus crisis seems likely to extend for longer than it did in some Asian countries, which took early and Draconian actions in order to tackle it. Obviously, this proposal would be expensive, but not as expensive as Trump’s idea to suspend the payroll tax for the rest of the year, which would cost, according to the nonpartisan Tax Foundation, about nine hundred and fifty billion dollars. Giving three thousand dollars to two hundred and ten million adult Americans would cost six hundred and thirty billion dollars. If people under eighteen were included, which perhaps they should be, to reflect the higher outgoings of families with children, the cost would be about nine hundred and ninety billion dollars.
A second essential element of a proper stimulus is large-scale federal aid for states and municipalities that are dealing with the impact of the virus. There will probably be some of this in the initial spending bill, but far more needs to be done to insure that all Americans can access proper medical treatment if they need it. The quickest and most effective option is to use Medicaid, which already provides health-care coverage to about seventy-one million low-income adults and children, to cover more people.
On Thursday, a group of public-health experts, including some who worked in the Obama Administration, laid out several ways in which this could be done. For the thirty-seven states that took advantage of the Affordable Care Act to expand Medicaid access, the federal government could increase the share of the costs—the “Medicaid match”—that it bears, the experts said, in a paper that they posted on their Web site. Another suggestion is to “add a state option to extend Medicaid eligibility for the duration of the COVID-19 outbreak, to any state resident who is uninsured for all medically necessary services in connection with COVID-related testing, treatment, and recovery, including treatment for complications and other health conditions arising from COVID-19 or that could be worsened by COVID-19.”
Unfortunately, fourteen states, including two huge ones—Florida and Texas—have refused to expand Medicaid, despite the financial incentives contained in the A.C.A. The expert working group suggests further incentivizing these states to do so now. It also provides a list of other useful ideas, including immediately ordering an increase in the production of “personal protective equipment (e.g. masks), ventilator equipment, IV saline, and other medically critical supplies”; making sure that Medicaid covers all of the costs of testing and treatment related to Covid-19; and setting up a 9/11-style fund for health-care workers who suffer medical and financial harm as a result of being exposed to the virus. “What we are facing is a once-in-a-century public health challenge, and the response from our government absolutely has to reflect that,” Howard Forman, a professor of public health at Yale, who coördinated the working group’s effort, said in a statement.
A third economic essential is to prevent a domino-style collapse of the banking system, as businesses and individuals default on their loans wholesale. During the early nineteen-thirties, it was this sort of financial cataclysm that brought on the Great Depression. Preventing anything like this from happening again is primarily the job of the Federal Reserve, which has already taken some significant steps to stabilize the Treasury-bond market and the market for short-term interbank loans. But there will almost certainly need to be a fiscal component as well.
In part, this may involve providing government guarantees for loans that airlines and other stricken businesses have already taken out, or else issuing them new ones. Many smaller firms may need help, too. Senator Elizabeth Warren has called for low- or no-interest loans to be provided for “companies of all sizes that have been negatively affected by coronavirus-related supply chain disruptions, and that will use the money to avoid layoffs and hours reductions.” That sounds sensible, and other options could also be considered. On Thursday, the Australian government said that it would give small- and medium-sized enterprises up to twenty-five thousand Australian dollars, which is about fifteen thousand U.S. dollars, to help them cover their payrolls.


newyorker--2020-03-14--Coronavirus Concerts: The Music World Contends with the Pandemic

On March 12th , the Berlin Philharmonic gave one of the eeriest concerts in its history—a history that has not lacked for eerie moments .
In response to the coronavirus pandemic , Berlin , along with other major cities , had called a halt to all large gatherings .
The Philharmonic went ahead with its scheduled program all the same , performing in a vacant hall and streaming the event over the Internet .
The facilities were already in place : Berlin ’ s Digital Concert Hall , with its crisp sound and elegant camera work , has long held @ @ @ @ @ @ @ classical music online .
Ordinarily , you have to pay a hefty fee for the service , but the Philharmonic offered this concert without charge , and for the next month its entire archive will be free to all .
The program consisted of two turbulent masterpieces from the fraught heart of the twentieth century .
First was Luciano Berio ’ s “ Sinfonia , ” composed in 1968 , in the wake of the assassination of Martin Luther King , Jr. ; one of its movements , “ O King , ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Then came Béla Bartók ’ s Concerto for Orchestra , which had its première in Boston , in December , 1944 , amid the final inferno of the Second World War .
The works are profoundly different in style—Berio belonged to the postwar avant-garde generation , whereas Bartók was a classic modernist with a flair for folkish melody—yet they share an aesthetic of multiplicity , of distinct masses colliding .
Tense music is not always a good match for a tense time , as some listeners in New York discovered after the 9/11 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ third movement of “ Sinfonia , ” in which the scherzo of Mahler ’ s Second Symphony is overlaid with fragments of other familiar scores and scraps of verbal chatter , was anything but calming , particularly when its spoken-word component dips into the icy existentialism of Samuel Beckett ’ s “ The Unnamable ” : “ It ’ s getting late .
Where now ?
When now ?
.
.
.
Keep going , going on , call that going , call that on.
” Yet the cool poise of the Berlin @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart expertly delivering the text , gave a sense of anarchy controlled , or at least comprehended .
The Bartók benefitted from the customary refinement of the orchestra ’ s soloists and from unerring structural cohesion .
If a feeling of collective elation was missing in the finale , the omission was understandable under the circumstances .
The conductor was Simon Rattle , who completed his tenure as the Philharmonic ’ s music director last season .
He is an eager , eloquent communicator , and it was fortunate that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this singular occasion .
In pre-taped introductions for each piece , Rattle refused to peddle bromides about music ’ s power to comfort and uplift , instead reminding viewers of the historical darkness from which these works arose .
The Bartók , he said , is the statement of a “ dying refugee , ” of a “ person who was displaced.
” It asks , “ How do you remain yourself in another place ?
How do you take what is deeply important to yourself in a place where you have basically @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” Rattle seemed to be alluding not only to the self-quarantine culture of the coronavirus crisis but also to the desperate precariousness of refugee lives around the world .
And he seemed to be gesturing , even more broadly , toward the isolation into which rampant digital technologies have beguiled us .
The orchestra was , of course , in isolation itself , and the absence of an audience made the experience exceedingly strange .
Rattle walked onstage not to a round of applause but to a shuffling of feet and a tapping @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an orchestra .
As I sat and watched at my home laptop , I became sufficiently immersed in the music that I forgot about the peculiar context , and it was a shock when stony silence intruded at the end .
After the Berio , the players awkwardly applauded for a moment and rose in acknowledgment of the ghost public in the ether .
After the Bartók , conductor and orchestra simply stood and looked out at the empty hall .
Rattle then turned to the musicians and said , “ Eine Riesenfreude @ @ @ @ @ @ @ you , thank you so much.
” Other ensembles have been giving audience-free concerts in recent days—I ’ ve assembled a list of events on my blog—and a sense of weirdness is pervasive .
Later on Thursday , the Philadelphia Orchestra , under Yannick Nézet-Séguin , presented the Fifth and Sixth symphonies of Beethoven alongside “ Jeder Baum spricht , ” a new piece by Iman Habibi .
The finale of the Fifth delays its closing cadence to a famously absurd degree , revving up the audience ’ s desire to answer with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ silence that followed the performance was unnerving .
Nézet-Séguin and his players looked a little ashen as they stared out to the cameras .
Music is at heart a social medium , and it desperately needs contact .
The ad-hoc concerts are a welcome stopgap , helping musicians to keep working and listeners to stay engaged .
Yet they shouldn ’ t be seen as any sort of wave of the future .
We are already too sedentary and technology-addicted in our relationship with the arts .
The monopolies that rule the digital @ @ @ @ @ @ @ artists increasingly struggle in a marketplace where audiences no longer expect to pay for recorded music .
Furthermore , streaming ravages the environment , requiring vast quantities of electricity as music files are stored and transmitted .
A 2019 study by researchers in Glasgow and Oslo found that the shift to digital music has led to a significant increase in carbon emissions .
Perilous times for working musicians lie ahead .
“ Force majeure ” clauses in artist contracts—releasing companies from liability in the event of disruptions—mean that many opera singers and freelance @ @ @ @ @ @ @ dancers , and backstage technicians , will go unpaid for the duration of the pandemic .
The tenor Zach Finkelstein has written about the force-majeure issue on his blog , predicting that “ many household classical music names will likely be insolvent or in dire financial straits by this coming summer.
” It ’ s heartening to see an announcement such as the one I received from Opera Omaha , saying that , in spite of the cancellation of a forthcoming festival , “ it will fulfill its contractual commitments to its artists @ @ @ @ @ @ @ list of several dozen organizations that are acting similarly .
So far , the bigger companies are missing from it .
Smaller-budget ensembles are also endangered by the coronavirus stoppage , and some may not survive .
The Mahler Chamber Orchestra , a top-rank freelance group in Europe , has issued a statement communicating its members ’ fear for the future .
Pointedly , it congratulates fellow-groups on using technology to carry on with their work but observes that “ we have no empty house to stream from.
” Many organizations—those that have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ donors to fall back on—have begun pleading for donations .
The new-music group Equal Sound has started a Corona Relief Fund .
After 9/11 , the performing arts in New York never quite returned to normal .
Many people who had routinely travelled to the Met or to the Philharmonic from the suburbs failed to resume their old habits ; the seduction of staying home proved stronger , especially as digital offerings proliferated .
In coming months , the same challenge will arise .
Perhaps the exercise of watching events remotely will heighten @ @ @ @ @ @ @ most to us .
The most instructive thing about the Berlin concert was how it dramatized what technology can not supply : the temporary bond of purposeful community that forms under the spell of live music .
The final silence was a vacuum crying to be filled .
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 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ before a vaccine could be widely available .
We are all irrational panic shoppers .
The strange terror of watching the coronavirus take Rome .

On March 12th, the Berlin Philharmonic gave one of the eeriest concerts in its history—a history that has not lacked for eerie moments. In response to the coronavirus pandemic, Berlin, along with other major cities, had called a halt to all large gatherings. The Philharmonic went ahead with its scheduled program all the same, performing in a vacant hall and streaming the event over the Internet. The facilities were already in place: Berlin’s Digital Concert Hall, with its crisp sound and elegant camera work, has long held pride of place in the world of classical music online. Ordinarily, you have to pay a hefty fee for the service, but the Philharmonic offered this concert without charge, and for the next month its entire archive will be free to all.
The program consisted of two turbulent masterpieces from the fraught heart of the twentieth century. First was Luciano Berio’s “Sinfonia,” composed in 1968, in the wake of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.; one of its movements, “O King,” pays tribute to the fallen leader. Then came Béla Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra, which had its première in Boston, in December, 1944, amid the final inferno of the Second World War. The works are profoundly different in style—Berio belonged to the postwar avant-garde generation, whereas Bartók was a classic modernist with a flair for folkish melody—yet they share an aesthetic of multiplicity, of distinct masses colliding.
Tense music is not always a good match for a tense time, as some listeners in New York discovered after the 9/11 attacks. The polystylistic kaleidoscope of the third movement of “Sinfonia,” in which the scherzo of Mahler’s Second Symphony is overlaid with fragments of other familiar scores and scraps of verbal chatter, was anything but calming, particularly when its spoken-word component dips into the icy existentialism of Samuel Beckett’s “The Unnamable”: “It’s getting late. Where now? When now? . . . Keep going, going on, call that going, call that on.” Yet the cool poise of the Berlin performance, with the virtuosic singers of the Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart expertly delivering the text, gave a sense of anarchy controlled, or at least comprehended. The Bartók benefitted from the customary refinement of the orchestra’s soloists and from unerring structural cohesion. If a feeling of collective elation was missing in the finale, the omission was understandable under the circumstances.
The conductor was Simon Rattle, who completed his tenure as the Philharmonic’s music director last season. He is an eager, eloquent communicator, and it was fortunate that he happened to be on hand for this singular occasion. In pre-taped introductions for each piece, Rattle refused to peddle bromides about music’s power to comfort and uplift, instead reminding viewers of the historical darkness from which these works arose. The Bartók, he said, is the statement of a “dying refugee,” of a “person who was displaced.” It asks, “How do you remain yourself in another place? How do you take what is deeply important to yourself in a place where you have basically no contact with the outside world?” Rattle seemed to be alluding not only to the self-quarantine culture of the coronavirus crisis but also to the desperate precariousness of refugee lives around the world. And he seemed to be gesturing, even more broadly, toward the isolation into which rampant digital technologies have beguiled us.
The orchestra was, of course, in isolation itself, and the absence of an audience made the experience exceedingly strange. Rattle walked onstage not to a round of applause but to a shuffling of feet and a tapping of bows—the usual signals of appreciation from an orchestra. As I sat and watched at my home laptop, I became sufficiently immersed in the music that I forgot about the peculiar context, and it was a shock when stony silence intruded at the end. After the Berio, the players awkwardly applauded for a moment and rose in acknowledgment of the ghost public in the ether. After the Bartók, conductor and orchestra simply stood and looked out at the empty hall. Rattle then turned to the musicians and said, “Eine Riesenfreude [a great joy]. Bless you, thank you so much.”
Other ensembles have been giving audience-free concerts in recent days—I’ve assembled a list of events on my blog—and a sense of weirdness is pervasive. Later on Thursday, the Philadelphia Orchestra, under Yannick Nézet-Séguin, presented the Fifth and Sixth symphonies of Beethoven alongside “Jeder Baum spricht,” a new piece by Iman Habibi. The finale of the Fifth delays its closing cadence to a famously absurd degree, revving up the audience’s desire to answer with loud applause. Again, the leaden silence that followed the performance was unnerving. Nézet-Séguin and his players looked a little ashen as they stared out to the cameras. Music is at heart a social medium, and it desperately needs contact.
The ad-hoc concerts are a welcome stopgap, helping musicians to keep working and listeners to stay engaged. Yet they shouldn’t be seen as any sort of wave of the future. We are already too sedentary and technology-addicted in our relationship with the arts. The monopolies that rule the digital realm possess unheard-of power, and non-celebrity artists increasingly struggle in a marketplace where audiences no longer expect to pay for recorded music. Furthermore, streaming ravages the environment, requiring vast quantities of electricity as music files are stored and transmitted. A 2019 study by researchers in Glasgow and Oslo found that the shift to digital music has led to a significant increase in carbon emissions.
Perilous times for working musicians lie ahead. “Force majeure” clauses in artist contracts—releasing companies from liability in the event of disruptions—mean that many opera singers and freelance instrumentalists, not to mention actors, dancers, and backstage technicians, will go unpaid for the duration of the pandemic. The tenor Zach Finkelstein has written about the force-majeure issue on his blog, predicting that “many household classical music names will likely be insolvent or in dire financial straits by this coming summer.” It’s heartening to see an announcement such as the one I received from Opera Omaha, saying that, in spite of the cancellation of a forthcoming festival, “it will fulfill its contractual commitments to its artists and crew.” Finkelstein has made a list of several dozen organizations that are acting similarly. So far, the bigger companies are missing from it.
Smaller-budget ensembles are also endangered by the coronavirus stoppage, and some may not survive. The Mahler Chamber Orchestra, a top-rank freelance group in Europe, has issued a statement communicating its members’ fear for the future. Pointedly, it congratulates fellow-groups on using technology to carry on with their work but observes that “we have no empty house to stream from.” Many organizations—those that have no multimillion-dollar endowments or lists of élite donors to fall back on—have begun pleading for donations. The new-music group Equal Sound has started a Corona Relief Fund.
After 9/11, the performing arts in New York never quite returned to normal. Many people who had routinely travelled to the Met or to the Philharmonic from the suburbs failed to resume their old habits; the seduction of staying home proved stronger, especially as digital offerings proliferated. In coming months, the same challenge will arise. Perhaps the exercise of watching events remotely will heighten our commitment to the artists who matter most to us. The most instructive thing about the Berlin concert was how it dramatized what technology cannot supply: the temporary bond of purposeful community that forms under the spell of live music. The final silence was a vacuum crying to be filled.
A Guide to the Coronavirus
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.
How pandemics change history.