Daily for May 22, 2020

Thoreau , I think , might have understood our collective predicament .
Or so it seems on this dank April day in a spring that meteorologists are calling New England ’ s coldest ever .
I am in Concord , Massachusetts , standing in front of a replica of the hut where Henry David Thoreau undertook his version of self-isolation at Walden Pond .
I peer at it like I expect it to speak .
Have you seen it ?
It really is small .
Ten feet by 15 feet – the size of a lawnmower shed you could buy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , one door , two windows , a fireplace .
( In building a dwelling , Thoreau would later write in “ Walden , ” “ Consider first how slight a shelter is absolutely necessary.
” ) Inside , behind the locked entry but visible through the window : a cot , a three-legged desk , two wooden chairs , and on this day the anachronism of a day-glo sandwich board urging people not to forget the visitor center 100 yards away .
Editor ’ s note : As a public service , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ No paywall .
The hut , like the visitor center , is beside the parking lot at what is now Walden Pond State Reservation .
The park is officially “ closed to aid in the prevention of the spread of COVID-19.
” Yet here and there a few people wander in the chill – having come for the trails ( still accessible , though now routed in one-way loops ) , or maybe just to escape the house .
Occasionally they glance at the tiny hut , which , even though a replica @ @ @ @ @ @ @ careworn and moss-eaten .
You can imagine Thoreau huddled inside it , sheltering in place with no plumbing but the pond , no heat but burning wood , no light but candles .
Not to mention zero Wi-Fi and definitely too few bars for FaceTime .
Thoreau moved into his hut on July 4 , 1845 .
He lived there alone for two years , two months , and two days .
Nine years later he published “ Walden , ” describing what he ’ d done .
And nearly two centuries on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he ’ d done it .
As it happens , I wasn ’ t supposed to be here .
Back in January , in times B.C .
( before coronavirus ) this was planned as a different kind of travel story : the Monitor ’ s Memorial Day kickoff of summer vacation season .
The plan was to fly to Washington , D.C. , buy bike-share passes , and crisscross the National Mall to document the scenes at the monuments – the great gatherings of every kind of human that belittle our differences @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ?
Sure .
But not in these places .
Not while reading Abraham Lincoln ’ s carved words opposite his enormous hand on his enormous knee .
Not while watching Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. emerge indomitable from a stone .
But of course things changed , and there would be no flights or hotels or runabout bicycles handed from one unsanitized tourist to another .
So what would there be – for this story , for this summer , for all of us ?
Day trips , it turns out .
Or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ forecasters .
We ’ re all going to take short trips – in our cars , near our homes , with our lunches packed and our face coverings in our pockets .
And I figured : I should go on one , too .
So I took a day trip – two of them , actually .
Two visits to Walden Pond , in Concord , an hour from our quarantined home .
Where better , I thought , to explore the idea of isolation .
It ’ s what Thoreau did ( @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 80 ) .
Thoreau was the original social distancer , though his isolation , unlike ours , was not forced .
In two days at Walden , here is some of what I found : winter , and then summer , though just 12 days apart .
An empty parking lot , and then one so full it was blocked .
Kayakers , picnickers , swimmers in both wet suits and bikinis .
Walkers in masks .
Fishermen in waders .
And a woman who emerged from the water to tell me of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Between those Walden visits I read “ Walden ” itself .
( Reread it , if you count high school , which I shouldn ’ t . )
And tangentially I tumbled down the rabbit hole of never-ending debate over Thoreau ’ s cultural reputation and literary standing .
( Was Thoreau a hypocrite ?
Was Thoreau a fraud ?
Was Thoreau , in the characterization offered by a 2015 New Yorker headline , “ Pond Scum ” ? )
So my day trips bloomed into something more , which is maybe @ @ @ @ @ @ @ trips if they ’ re all we have .
It ’ s what Thoreau would have wanted .
On that first visit in April you could feel Thoreau there .
You could not help thinking of his circumstances 175 years ago when he decamped to this place , and how strangely those circumstances echo our own .
You could picture Thoreau in his Home Depot shed , grappling with isolation , being sheltered on a circumscribed parcel of earth .
And feeling like he had no idea what was coming next .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hundreds or thousands of miles from home before he can be said to begin his travels , ” wrote Thoreau .
“ Why not begin his travels at home ?
Would he have to go far or look very closely to discover novelties ?
” Why not , indeed ?
But before we return to Walden ( the pond ) or even “ Walden ” ( the book ) , what about the pandemic-prompted travel question that led to this adventure in the first place – will Americans even go on vacation this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ won ’ t .
Already , 66 % of Americans have canceled their summer vacation plans , leaving unclear the matter of whether they ’ ll substitute different ones , according to MMGY Global , a travel industry marketing firm .
MMGY identifies three factors affecting consumer willingness to travel : perception of safety , economic factors , and isolation orders .
“ As many of us continue to lead lives sheltered in place , the simplest of travel activities seem fantastical , ” says Katie Briscoe , MMGY ’ s president .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ step on a plane ?
When will hotels welcome guests again ?
” Not for a while , according to a Harris poll .
A majority of Americans say they ’ ll wait at least seven months before they ’ ll fly on a plane , and four months before they ’ ll stay in a hotel , which for most of the country essentially wipes out overnight travel for the entire summer .
Some 58 % of travelers say that restaurants will be off their itineraries until July or later .
As @ @ @ @ @ @ @ won ’ t get on a ship for “ a year or longer , ” and 23 % say they ’ ll “ never ” take another cruise again .
“ People just feel safer controlling their own experience , ” says Ms. Briscoe .
“ Whether that be in their car , around friends and family , or just back in trusted and familiar places , this represents the beginning of travel recovery.
” There are some exceptions to the general travel collapse that illustrate what the analysts describe .
At the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ scuttled their vacation plans and canceled the flights and hotel rooms that go with them , campground operators are being swamped with reservations .
Warren Meyer , owner of Recreation Resource Management , runs 150 campgrounds and day-use recreation sites on public parks and land across the United States .
“ Those of us two or three hours away [ from travelers ’ homes ] are going to be mobbed this summer , ” he predicts .
Reservations at RRM-run sites are running 20 % ahead of their 2019 rates .
“ We @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , all the time.
” “ People are not scared of camping , ” he says .
You travel in your own car ; you sleep in your own shelter ; you keep your distance while cooking your own dinner in the ventilated outdoors .
Plus , in times of uncertainty , it becomes increasingly attractive , he says , to pay $ 25 to camp under the red rocks in Sedona , Arizona , instead of $ 400 to stay in a lodge at Yellowstone .
Mr. Meyer has seen this kind @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Recession , campsite occupancy never fell .
The cheap travel option thrived .
Similarly , after 9/11 , in the summer of 2002 when people still didn ’ t want to fly , “ we had a record camping year , ” he notes .
Still , RRM has to weather the lockdown if it ’ s going to flourish in the summer .
Before some states began to ease restrictions in May , 143 of the company ’ s 150 facilities were shuttered .
And RRM , like every business , has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the company will be in big trouble if it doesn ’ t open by Memorial Day .
Of course , only 14 % of Americans camp .
Whereas almost everyone , say the analysts , will day trip .
But where to ?
To do what ?
No one knows how long many attractions , such as museums and theme parks , will remain closed or limited .
A currently invaluable benefit of day trips is “ flexibility , ” William Schaffner , a health policy expert at Vanderbilt University in Nashville , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Social distancing in a variety of forms is going to be with us for a long time.
” It ’ s easy enough to maintain distance , though , if you drive Chicago ’ s suburbs with a map of Frank Lloyd Wright houses in your lap , or exit Miami for a day of snorkeling in nearby Bahia Honda State Park in the Florida Keys .
In sum : Think “ hyperlocal.
” That ’ s the buzzword of the moment among travel industry insiders .
We ’ ll be staying near @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ ll be discovering about our own backyards what Dorothy went to Oz and back to figure out .
Except no balloons – we ’ ll be driving .
According to MMGY Chief Executive Officer Clayton Reid , “ 2020 could well become the year of the car ” – a likelihood abetted by gas prices that are now lower in 20 states than at any time in U.S. history ( inflation adjusted ) .
The great American day trip is on .
“ I went to the woods because I wished to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ most iconic line among Thoreau ’ s many .
But the reality of it wasn ’ t that simple – nor anywhere near that iconic .
The Thoreau who went to Walden was far from the prophet he ’ s often made out to be .
He was mostly just a young man at loose ends – 27 years old , no attachments , few prospects , little idea of his path .
He had gone to New York chasing a writer ’ s life and returned to Concord homesick and unsuccessful .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ brother , John , only to lose both the school and , far worse , his brother , when John died of complications from cutting his finger .
In the spring of 1845 Thoreau could have been the sad second cousin in a Jane Austen novel .
He was hungry for something .
His prospects of finding it were slim .
If he decided to go live in the woods , there was no one to stop him .
None of which makes his “ experiment ” in deliberate living less brave or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , that ’ s part of what you sense .
You walk the rolling , rocky ground around the pond and climb the small slope to where the tiny cabin was , and you can ’ t help but think of the New England winter , and the cold , and the snow .
You think of the fire he burned incessantly , and the wood he chopped to feed it .
You think of the food he laid up and the vermin that ate it .
You think of how hard it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ claims about his leisure .
It ’ s easy to get “ Walden ” wrong .
I know I did , before reading it again .
Somewhere along the line we stopped letting the experience breathe and turned it into a few quotes handed down on tablets .
“ If a man does not keep pace with his companions , perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.
” You can see them on posters on Google , just two clicks away .
They sound like a man who brooks no dissent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ doubt .
But Thoreau was full of doubt , and he let his mind waver – a lot .
He both hated work and exalted it , was both an introvert and an extrovert .
On the one hand , he said , “ I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.
” On the other , he decreed , “ I think that I love society as much as most , and am ready enough to fasten myself like a bloodsucker for the time to any full-blooded man that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ naturally no hermit.
” Every idea he encountered , he tried on , desperate to feel each one as tangibly as a stone in a hand .
We too often mistake “ Walden ” as a book about finding : finding the path , finding the truth , finding the way .
But it ’ s not .
It ’ s a book about searching .
It is on my second trip to Walden , on a May day suddenly gleaming and warm , that I meet Christina Davis .
She comes out @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Thoreau ’ s cove .
“ Aren ’ t you cold ?
” someone asks her .
She isn ’ t .
You get used to it , she says .
She swims here every year on May 1 .
She ’ s been coming since 1996 and now has been here more than 500 times .
We sit down to talk .
What kind of person visits a site 500 times ?
Ms. Davis doesn ’ t mind trying to explain – emphasis on “ try , ” she says , since @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
She is a poet , author , and curator of the Woodberry Poetry Room at Harvard University ’ s Lamont Library .
But in 1996 , she ’ d just finished three years of graduate study at Oxford University and discovered she needed to come home to America .
“ Turned out I was more American than I ’ d thought , ” she says .
“ I needed to reacquaint myself.
” She was living in New York then , and at loose ends .
One day she ventured north by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and then by foot two miles from the station to the pond .
A pilgrimage .
She ’ s never stopped making them .
“ You have your pilgrimages , don ’ t you ?
” she says .
Over the years she ’ s done most of the things you can do at Walden .
She ’ s sat on rocks and written poems with her ankles in the water .
She ’ s ice skated .
She ’ s made friends .
“ All while you feel a personal relationship with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ quotes something she has written : “ It is with this I have formed a family.
” As shadows grow , we walk on pine needles up the path to the original site of Thoreau ’ s hut .
Ms. Davis stops , points at the brown wooden sign .
“ Now that ’ s a sentence , ” she says .
“ It ’ s a poem , that sentence .
It ’ s perfect.
” Her awe causes me to look again – better yet , causes me to forget the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ dulled the line to me .
Here it is , Thoreau in full : “ I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately , to front only the essential facts of life , and see if I could not learn what it had to teach , and not , when I came to die , discover that I had not lived.
” After Ms. Davis leaves , I linger for a moment on the ground where the hut had been , marked now by granite posts and chains around the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and no one is here .
There are only the sounds of shouts far across the water and now and then the echoed thunk of an oar on a boat hull .
As I write this , lockdowns are being lifted on various timetables in various places .
Of course unlike Thoreau ’ s isolation , ours has involved lamps , not candles ; bathrooms , not pits .
We have had the internet and Zoom and Netflix .
But right now it can feel like we know as little about what comes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his experiment .
Soon , as summer unspools , we ’ ll all travel again – just not as far as we ’ d planned .
We ’ ll think hyperlocal .
We ’ ll forget our overstuffed vacation itineraries of old and dial down the pressure .
We ’ ll day trip .
Maybe , as I did on my outing , you ’ ll reacquaint yourself with your local Thoreau , or that nearby wonder that turns out no less wonderful for its modesty , or someplace you ’ ve seen @ @ @ @ @ @ @ If you ’ re fortunate , you ’ ll meet your Christina Davis .
You ’ ll go slower , you ’ ll expect less , you ’ ll discover unimagined things precisely because you didn ’ t think you had to .
“ Would [ we ] have to go far or look very closely to discover novelties ?
” Thoreau asked .
At Walden , beside a common New England pond in an ordinary New England woods , one doesn ’ t think so .
One thinks we can make discoveries @ @ @ @ @ @ @ long time .
And as we do , maybe we ’ ll find our way back to the place all our quarantines and social distancing have made us hungriest for .
Maybe we ’ ll be able to say about ourselves what Thoreau was finally able to say in “ Walden.
” Editor ’ s note : As a public service , all our coronavirus coverage is free .
No paywall .

In the staycation era, the art of deliberate escape Collapse
Thoreau, I think, might have understood our collective predicament. Or so it seems on this dank April day in a spring that meteorologists are calling New England’s coldest ever. I am in Concord, Massachusetts, standing in front of a replica of the hut where Henry David Thoreau undertook his version of self-isolation at Walden Pond. I peer at it like I expect it to speak.
Have you seen it? It really is small. Ten feet by 15 feet – the size of a lawnmower shed you could buy at a hardware store. One room, one door, two windows, a fireplace. (In building a dwelling, Thoreau would later write in “Walden,” “Consider first how slight a shelter is absolutely necessary.”) Inside, behind the locked entry but visible through the window: a cot, a three-legged desk, two wooden chairs, and on this day the anachronism of a day-glo sandwich board urging people not to forget the visitor center 100 yards away.
Editor’s note: As a public service, all our coronavirus coverage is free. No paywall.
The hut, like the visitor center, is beside the parking lot at what is now Walden Pond State Reservation. The park is officially “closed to aid in the prevention of the spread of COVID-19.” Yet here and there a few people wander in the chill – having come for the trails (still accessible, though now routed in one-way loops), or maybe just to escape the house. Occasionally they glance at the tiny hut, which, even though a replica, somehow looks genuine – antique and careworn and moss-eaten. You can imagine Thoreau huddled inside it, sheltering in place with no plumbing but the pond, no heat but burning wood, no light but candles. Not to mention zero Wi-Fi and definitely too few bars for FaceTime.
Thoreau moved into his hut on July 4, 1845. He lived there alone for two years, two months, and two days. Nine years later he published “Walden,” describing what he’d done. And nearly two centuries on, people come here to see where he’d done it.
Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff View caption Hide caption Monitor writer Michael Hopkins peers through the window of a replica of Thoreau’s cabin, which isn’t much bigger than a garden shed.
As it happens, I wasn’t supposed to be here. Back in January, in times B.C. (before coronavirus) this was planned as a different kind of travel story: the Monitor’s Memorial Day kickoff of summer vacation season. The plan was to fly to Washington, D.C., buy bike-share passes, and crisscross the National Mall to document the scenes at the monuments – the great gatherings of every kind of human that belittle our differences and exalt our community. Fractious times? Sure. But not in these places. Not while reading Abraham Lincoln’s carved words opposite his enormous hand on his enormous knee. Not while watching Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. emerge indomitable from a stone.
But of course things changed, and there would be no flights or hotels or runabout bicycles handed from one unsanitized tourist to another. So what would there be – for this story, for this summer, for all of us?
Day trips, it turns out. Or so say the zeitgeist pollsters and travel forecasters. We’re all going to take short trips – in our cars, near our homes, with our lunches packed and our face coverings in our pockets. And I figured: I should go on one, too.
So I took a day trip – two of them, actually. Two visits to Walden Pond, in Concord, an hour from our quarantined home. Where better, I thought, to explore the idea of isolation. It’s what Thoreau did (albeit for nearly 800 days, not 80). Thoreau was the original social distancer, though his isolation, unlike ours, was not forced.
In two days at Walden, here is some of what I found: winter, and then summer, though just 12 days apart. An empty parking lot, and then one so full it was blocked. Kayakers, picnickers, swimmers in both wet suits and bikinis. Walkers in masks. Fishermen in waders. And a woman who emerged from the water to tell me of having visited Walden more than 500 times.
Between those Walden visits I read “Walden” itself. (Reread it, if you count high school, which I shouldn’t.) And tangentially I tumbled down the rabbit hole of never-ending debate over Thoreau’s cultural reputation and literary standing. (Was Thoreau a hypocrite? Was Thoreau a fraud? Was Thoreau, in the characterization offered by a 2015 New Yorker headline, “Pond Scum”?)
Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff View caption Hide caption Two men in a canoe head out to fish on the 65-acre lake. You can swim, boat, fish, and hike at Walden. In winter, people cross-country ski and ice skate.
So my day trips bloomed into something more, which is maybe what we should wish from our day trips if they’re all we have. It’s what Thoreau would have wanted.
On that first visit in April you could feel Thoreau there. You could not help thinking of his circumstances 175 years ago when he decamped to this place, and how strangely those circumstances echo our own. You could picture Thoreau in his Home Depot shed, grappling with isolation, being sheltered on a circumscribed parcel of earth.
And feeling like he had no idea what was coming next.
Like us.
“Travel recovery”
“A man must generally get away some hundreds or thousands of miles from home before he can be said to begin his travels,” wrote Thoreau. “Why not begin his travels at home? Would he have to go far or look very closely to discover novelties?”
Why not, indeed? But before we return to Walden (the pond) or even “Walden” (the book), what about the pandemic-prompted travel question that led to this adventure in the first place – will Americans even go on vacation this summer?
Not as intended, they won’t. Already, 66% of Americans have canceled their summer vacation plans, leaving unclear the matter of whether they’ll substitute different ones, according to MMGY Global, a travel industry marketing firm. MMGY identifies three factors affecting consumer willingness to travel: perception of safety, economic factors, and isolation orders.
“As many of us continue to lead lives sheltered in place, the simplest of travel activities seem fantastical,” says Katie Briscoe, MMGY’s president. “When will travelers feel safe to step on a plane? When will hotels welcome guests again?”
Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff View caption Hide caption Three boys build a sandcastle on the beach at Walden Pond.
Not for a while, according to a Harris poll. A majority of Americans say they’ll wait at least seven months before they’ll fly on a plane, and four months before they’ll stay in a hotel, which for most of the country essentially wipes out overnight travel for the entire summer. Some 58% of travelers say that restaurants will be off their itineraries until July or later. As for cruises, 57% say they won’t get on a ship for “a year or longer,” and 23% say they’ll “never” take another cruise again.
“People just feel safer controlling their own experience,” says Ms. Briscoe. “Whether that be in their car, around friends and family, or just back in trusted and familiar places, this represents the beginning of travel recovery.”
There are some exceptions to the general travel collapse that illustrate what the analysts describe. At the same time that two-thirds of people have scuttled their vacation plans and canceled the flights and hotel rooms that go with them, campground operators are being swamped with reservations. Warren Meyer, owner of Recreation Resource Management, runs 150 campgrounds and day-use recreation sites on public parks and land across the United States. “Those of us two or three hours away [from travelers’ homes] are going to be mobbed this summer,” he predicts. Reservations at RRM-run sites are running 20% ahead of their 2019 rates. “We’re going to be full everywhere, all the time.”
“People are not scared of camping,” he says. You travel in your own car; you sleep in your own shelter; you keep your distance while cooking your own dinner in the ventilated outdoors. Plus, in times of uncertainty, it becomes increasingly attractive, he says, to pay $25 to camp under the red rocks in Sedona, Arizona, instead of $400 to stay in a lodge at Yellowstone.
Mr. Meyer has seen this kind of dynamic before. During the Great Recession, campsite occupancy never fell. The cheap travel option thrived. Similarly, after 9/11, in the summer of 2002 when people still didn’t want to fly, “we had a record camping year,” he notes.
Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff View caption Hide caption A family wearing face masks enjoys the pond on a sunny spring day.
Still, RRM has to weather the lockdown if it’s going to flourish in the summer. Before some states began to ease restrictions in May, 143 of the company’s 150 facilities were shuttered. And RRM, like every business, has a breaking point – Mr. Meyer says the company will be in big trouble if it doesn’t open by Memorial Day.
Of course, only 14% of Americans camp. Whereas almost everyone, say the analysts, will day trip.
But where to? To do what? No one knows how long many attractions, such as museums and theme parks, will remain closed or limited. A currently invaluable benefit of day trips is “flexibility,” William Schaffner, a health policy expert at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, told AFAR Magazine. “Social distancing in a variety of forms is going to be with us for a long time.”
It’s easy enough to maintain distance, though, if you drive Chicago’s suburbs with a map of Frank Lloyd Wright houses in your lap, or exit Miami for a day of snorkeling in nearby Bahia Honda State Park in the Florida Keys.
In sum: Think “hyperlocal.” That’s the buzzword of the moment among travel industry insiders. We’ll be staying near, not going far. Maybe we’ll be discovering about our own backyards what Dorothy went to Oz and back to figure out. Except no balloons – we’ll be driving. According to MMGY Chief Executive Officer Clayton Reid, “2020 could well become the year of the car” – a likelihood abetted by gas prices that are now lower in 20 states than at any time in U.S. history (inflation adjusted).
The great American day trip is on.
Solitude as companion
“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately.”
So begins perhaps the most iconic line among Thoreau’s many. But the reality of it wasn’t that simple – nor anywhere near that iconic.
The Thoreau who went to Walden was far from the prophet he’s often made out to be. He was mostly just a young man at loose ends – 27 years old, no attachments, few prospects, little idea of his path. He had gone to New York chasing a writer’s life and returned to Concord homesick and unsuccessful. He had started a school with his brother, John, only to lose both the school and, far worse, his brother, when John died of complications from cutting his finger. In the spring of 1845 Thoreau could have been the sad second cousin in a Jane Austen novel. He was hungry for something. His prospects of finding it were slim. If he decided to go live in the woods, there was no one to stop him.
Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff View caption Hide caption Visitors have left cairns by Thoreau’s original cabin site in the Walden woods.
None of which makes his “experiment” in deliberate living less brave or ambitious. When you go to Walden, that’s part of what you sense. You walk the rolling, rocky ground around the pond and climb the small slope to where the tiny cabin was, and you can’t help but think of the New England winter, and the cold, and the snow. You think of the fire he burned incessantly, and the wood he chopped to feed it. You think of the food he laid up and the vermin that ate it. You think of how hard it must have been, for all his claims about his leisure.
It’s easy to get “Walden” wrong. I know I did, before reading it again. Somewhere along the line we stopped letting the experience breathe and turned it into a few quotes handed down on tablets.
“Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity!”
“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.”
“If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.”
You can see them on posters on Google, just two clicks away. They sound like a man who brooks no dissent, is unwavering, who never entertains doubt. But Thoreau was full of doubt, and he let his mind waver – a lot.
He both hated work and exalted it, was both an introvert and an extrovert. On the one hand, he said, “I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.” On the other, he decreed, “I think that I love society as much as most, and am ready enough to fasten myself like a bloodsucker for the time to any full-blooded man that comes in my way. I am naturally no hermit.” Every idea he encountered, he tried on, desperate to feel each one as tangibly as a stone in a hand.
We too often mistake “Walden” as a book about finding: finding the path, finding the truth, finding the way. But it’s not. It’s a book about searching.
To live deliberately
It is on my second trip to Walden, on a May day suddenly gleaming and warm, that I meet Christina Davis. She comes out of the pond, after wading in Thoreau’s cove.
Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff View caption Hide caption “Now that’s a sentence. It’s a poem, that sentence. It’s perfect,” says Christina Davis, a museum curator who has visited Walden Pond some 500 times, on the line posted at the site of Henry David Thoreau’s cabin explaining why he moved to the woods.
“Aren’t you cold?” someone asks her. She isn’t. You get used to it, she says. She swims here every year on May 1. She’s been coming since 1996 and now has been here more than 500 times.
We sit down to talk. What kind of person visits a site 500 times? Ms. Davis doesn’t mind trying to explain – emphasis on “try,” she says, since she’s not fully sure herself. She is a poet, author, and curator of the Woodberry Poetry Room at Harvard University’s Lamont Library. But in 1996, she’d just finished three years of graduate study at Oxford University and discovered she needed to come home to America. “Turned out I was more American than I’d thought,” she says. “I needed to reacquaint myself.” She was living in New York then, and at loose ends. One day she ventured north by train to Boston and then Concord, and then by foot two miles from the station to the pond. A pilgrimage. She’s never stopped making them. “You have your pilgrimages, don’t you?” she says.
Over the years she’s done most of the things you can do at Walden. She’s sat on rocks and written poems with her ankles in the water. She’s ice skated. She’s made friends. “All while you feel a personal relationship with this person called Henry.”
She shyly quotes something she has written: “It is with this I have formed a family.”
As shadows grow, we walk on pine needles up the path to the original site of Thoreau’s hut. Ms. Davis stops, points at the brown wooden sign. “Now that’s a sentence,” she says. “It’s a poem, that sentence. It’s perfect.”
Her awe causes me to look again – better yet, causes me to forget the quote books and commencement speeches that have dulled the line to me. Here it is, Thoreau in full: “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”
After Ms. Davis leaves, I linger for a moment on the ground where the hut had been, marked now by granite posts and chains around the periphery. The afternoon is ending, and no one is here. There are only the sounds of shouts far across the water and now and then the echoed thunk of an oar on a boat hull.
Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff View caption Hide caption Writer Michael Hopkins surveys the surroundings at the original site of Henry David Thoreau’s one-room cabin, which was 10 feet by 15 feet, in Walden woods.
As I write this, lockdowns are being lifted on various timetables in various places. Of course unlike Thoreau’s isolation, ours has involved lamps, not candles; bathrooms, not pits. We have had the internet and Zoom and Netflix. But right now it can feel like we know as little about what comes next as Thoreau did when he made his experiment.
Soon, as summer unspools, we’ll all travel again – just not as far as we’d planned. We’ll think hyperlocal. We’ll forget our overstuffed vacation itineraries of old and dial down the pressure. We’ll day trip.
Maybe, as I did on my outing, you’ll reacquaint yourself with your local Thoreau, or that nearby wonder that turns out no less wonderful for its modesty, or someplace you’ve seen plenty but never really looked at. If you’re fortunate, you’ll meet your Christina Davis. You’ll go slower, you’ll expect less, you’ll discover unimagined things precisely because you didn’t think you had to.
“Would [we] have to go far or look very closely to discover novelties?” Thoreau asked. At Walden, beside a common New England pond in an ordinary New England woods, one doesn’t think so. One thinks we can make discoveries in our own backyards for a very long time.
And as we do, maybe we’ll find our way back to the place all our quarantines and social distancing have made us hungriest for. Maybe we’ll be able to say about ourselves what Thoreau was finally able to say in “Walden.”
“At present I am a sojourner in civilized life again.”
Editor’s note: As a public service, all our coronavirus coverage is free. No paywall.


csmonitor--2020-05-15--Points of Progress: Portugal plans for a green future, and more

Louisiana ’ s state bird , the brown pelican , is again nesting in one of its largest colonies , 10 years after a BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico destroyed its habitat .
The state bird was removed from the endangered species list in 2009 .
Gov .
John Bel Edwards declared Queen Bess Island restored in February of this year .
The island was already at risk of disappearing because of erosion and subsidence before the 2010 spill .
BP paid a total of $ 20.8 billion in a settlement , which is also being used @ @ @ @ @ @ @ erosion and rising sea levels .
The return of brown pelicans across coastal Louisiana illustrates the benefit of conservation policies that work to restore and protect ecosystems , according to the Environmental Defense Fund , an advocacy group .
( National Geographic , Environmental Defense Fund ) Portugal is steering toward a post-coronavirus green economy .
The country is preparing a handful of multibillion-dollar projects , including a new hydrogen plant .
The government is also holding a licensing auction for new solar energy plants in June , which had been delayed .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ produce cleaner energy than fossil fuels , and it is estimated that it will attract more than $ 5 billion in private investment .
“ The economy can not grow along the lines of the past and our post-coronavirus vision is to create wealth from projects that reduce carbon emissions and promote energy transition and sustainable mobility , ” said Environment Minister João Matos Fernandes .
Work on building the hydrogen plant will start within a year , according to Mr. Fernandes .
( Reuters ) Sudan ’ s government has declared female @ @ @ @ @ @ @ dangerous procedure , also known as female circumcision , is widely practiced across some regions in Africa , the Middle East , and Asia .
In Sudan , 88 % of the female population ages 15 to 49 have been cut , according to United Nations data .
Under the new law , anyone in Sudan who performs female genital mutilation faces a three-year prison term and a fine .
The amendment to the country ’ s criminal code outlawing female genital mutilation has been lauded by women ’ s rights campaigns , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the ban relies on all parties involved – including midwives , health service providers , fathers , mothers , and young people – being informed about the legislation , according to UNICEF .
( CNN , The New York Times ) The 10 Billion Tree Tsunami program , halted at the onset of the new coronavirus , has not only resumed but is also employing more than 63,000 left jobless during the lockdown .
Pakistan ’ s prime minister , Imran Khan , launched the five-year program in September 2018 with the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Pakistan by 2023 .
The project is intended to amend the damage done by deforestation and to counter flooding , rising temperatures , and drought – effects linked to climate change .
The program is associated with the 2014 Green Growth Initiative led by Mr. Khan .
This year , the program is employing triple the number of laborers it did in its first year .
( Al Jazeera , Reuters ) Uzbekistan is working to grant citizenship to an estimated 50,000 stateless people .
President Shavkat Mirziyoyev signed a new provision in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ registered stateless people – those who were granted permanent residence in Uzbekistan before Jan. 1 , 1995 – eligible to acquire citizenship .
The new law went into effect April 1 .
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres commended Uzbekistan ’ s decision as an important contribution to global efforts to end statelessness by 2024 .
In Central Asia , hundreds of thousands of people became stateless after the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s when they could not acquire citizenship in any successor states .
Other countries in the region , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ also paving the way to citizenship for their stateless residents .
( Thomson Reuters Foundation , International Observatory of Human Rights ) Off the Ningaloo Coast of Western Australia , researchers have discovered the longest known sea creature : a giant siphonophore .
Siphonophores are transparent , gelatinous animals made of clusters of cells that are highly specialized for functions such as feeding and locomotion .
A relative of jellyfish , siphonophores resemble long strings , and this one was spotted in a strange spiral formation – the outer ring of which was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The whole creature might be more than twice that length end-to-end .
The discovery came during a yearlong initiative by the Schmidt Ocean Institute to explore deep-sea canyons and coral reefs off the coast of Australia and in the Pacific Ocean using an underwater robot , ROV SuBastian .
On April 9 , the Schmidt Ocean Institute announced 30 additional suspected new species found by the team .
“ There is so much we don ’ t know about the deep sea , and there are countless species never before seen , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the institute .
( Smithsonian Magazine , Schmidt Ocean Institute )

1. United States
Louisiana’s state bird, the brown pelican, is again nesting in one of its largest colonies, 10 years after a BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico destroyed its habitat. The state bird was removed from the endangered species list in 2009. Gov. John Bel Edwards declared Queen Bess Island restored in February of this year. The island was already at risk of disappearing because of erosion and subsidence before the 2010 spill. BP paid a total of $20.8 billion in a settlement, which is also being used to preserve and protect Gulf ecosystems from erosion and rising sea levels. The return of brown pelicans across coastal Louisiana illustrates the benefit of conservation policies that work to restore and protect ecosystems, according to the Environmental Defense Fund, an advocacy group. (National Geographic, Environmental Defense Fund)
Gabe Giffin/Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries/File View caption Hide caption A brown pelican flies over Queen Bess Island in Louisiana. One of the largest nesting grounds of brown pelicans, the island was declared restored in February.
2. Portugal
Why We Wrote This This is more than feel-good news – it's where the world is making concrete progress. A roundup of positive stories to inspire you.
Portugal is steering toward a post-coronavirus green economy. The country is preparing a handful of multibillion-dollar projects, including a new hydrogen plant. The government is also holding a licensing auction for new solar energy plants in June, which had been delayed. The solar-powered hydrogen plant is expected to produce cleaner energy than fossil fuels, and it is estimated that it will attract more than $5 billion in private investment. “The economy cannot grow along the lines of the past and our post-coronavirus vision is to create wealth from projects that reduce carbon emissions and promote energy transition and sustainable mobility,” said Environment Minister João Matos Fernandes. Work on building the hydrogen plant will start within a year, according to Mr. Fernandes. (Reuters)
Paulo Amorim/VWPICS/AP/File View caption Hide caption Solar panels lined up at the Serpa solar power plant in Serpa, near Lisbon, Portugal. The government is preparing multi- billion-dollar “green” projects.
3. Sudan
Sudan’s government has declared female genital mutilation a criminal act. The dangerous procedure, also known as female circumcision, is widely practiced across some regions in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. In Sudan, 88% of the female population ages 15 to 49 have been cut, according to United Nations data. Under the new law, anyone in Sudan who performs female genital mutilation faces a three-year prison term and a fine. The amendment to the country’s criminal code outlawing female genital mutilation has been lauded by women’s rights campaigns, agencies, and governments. The success of the ban relies on all parties involved – including midwives, health service providers, fathers, mothers, and young people – being informed about the legislation, according to UNICEF. (CNN, The New York Times)
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empower and uplift daily. By signing up, you agree to our Privacy Policy Already a subscriber? Log in to hide ads.
4. Pakistan
The 10 Billion Tree Tsunami program, halted at the onset of the new coronavirus, has not only resumed but is also employing more than 63,000 left jobless during the lockdown. Pakistan’s prime minister, Imran Khan, launched the five-year program in September 2018 with the goal of planting 10 billion trees across Pakistan by 2023. The project is intended to amend the damage done by deforestation and to counter flooding, rising temperatures, and drought – effects linked to climate change. The program is associated with the 2014 Green Growth Initiative led by Mr. Khan. This year, the program is employing triple the number of laborers it did in its first year. (Al Jazeera, Reuters)
Akhtar Soomro/Reuters/File View caption Hide caption A boy arranges bagged trees and plants to be transported for planting on the outskirts of Karachi, Pakistan, in 2019.
5. Uzbekistan
Uzbekistan is working to grant citizenship to an estimated 50,000 stateless people. President Shavkat Mirziyoyev signed a new provision in the Citizenship Law on March 20 making registered stateless people – those who were granted permanent residence in Uzbekistan before Jan. 1, 1995 – eligible to acquire citizenship. The new law went into effect April 1. United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres commended Uzbekistan’s decision as an important contribution to global efforts to end statelessness by 2024. In Central Asia, hundreds of thousands of people became stateless after the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s when they could not acquire citizenship in any successor states. Other countries in the region, such as Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, are also paving the way to citizenship for their stateless residents. (Thomson Reuters Foundation, International Observatory of Human Rights)
6. Australia
Off the Ningaloo Coast of Western Australia, researchers have discovered the longest known sea creature: a giant siphonophore. Siphonophores are transparent, gelatinous animals made of clusters of cells that are highly specialized for functions such as feeding and locomotion. A relative of jellyfish, siphonophores resemble long strings, and this one was spotted in a strange spiral formation – the outer ring of which was estimated to be 154 feet in circumference. The whole creature might be more than twice that length end-to-end. The discovery came during a yearlong initiative by the Schmidt Ocean Institute to explore deep-sea canyons and coral reefs off the coast of Australia and in the Pacific Ocean using an underwater robot, ROV SuBastian. On April 9, the Schmidt Ocean Institute announced 30 additional suspected new species found by the team. “There is so much we don’t know about the deep sea, and there are countless species never before seen,” said Wendy Schmidt, co-founder of the institute. (Smithsonian Magazine, Schmidt Ocean Institute)


csmonitor--2020-03-19--Daily for March 19, 2020

Daily for March 19, 2020

It ’ s a seemingly intractable dilemma , suddenly as salient in Berlin or Tokyo as it is in Washington : How do you save people ’ s economic livelihoods while telling those same people to stay home ?
A global recession , many forecasters say , is already here and is growing more severe by the day , as millions of consumers and workers in Europe , Asia , and North America have been sidelined as governments take extreme measures to stem the COVID-19 pandemic .
Finally , though , actions by governments and central banks appear to be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an effort to prevent a recession as simply to weather a storm that could easily become more severe than the global financial crisis a decade ago .
Help can ’ t come soon enough for Dominik Wilkinson and his co-workers at a restaurant in the northern German town of Bielefeld .
The restaurant ’ s 40 staff members are already working sharply reduced hours , and there ’ s talk in town of curfews starting Friday .
A prolonged closure would be , “ death , in terms of revenue .
It ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and medium-sized company , ” says Mr. Wilkinson , a shift manager .
[ Editor ’ s note : As a public service , all our coronavirus coverage is free .
No paywall . ]
In the United States , the past few days have seen automakers mothball factories , hotel chains furlough tens of thousands of workers , and major retailers trim store hours or go online only .
A Labor Department report today showed claims for unemployment benefits spiking to 281,000 last week .
Every day brings more turmoil in global @ @ @ @ @ @ @ safe havens , even as central banks cough up amounts not seen since the financial meltdown of 2008 .
Yet the situation ’ s very severity is spurring governments into action .
Relief measures range from mortgage or tax holidays to cash infusions for households , while also lending or simply giving money to businesses to prevent mass layoffs or permanent closures .
Analysts say these are precisely the kinds of measures that can help , but their effectiveness will hinge greatly on their magnitude and speed of delivery .
And what makes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is that a pandemic must also be tamed because the economic and health crises are intertwined .
The Group of Seven international economic organization has already issued a “ whatever it takes ” statement of determination .
The International Monetary Fund and World Bank are mobilizing help for developing nations .
But so far it ’ s an open question whether global leadership today can match the kind of concerted effort that emerged from the depths of the 2008 crisis .
“ A lot of people didn ’ t quite measure the gravity @ @ @ @ @ @ @ including myself to be honest , ” says Ioana Marinescu , an economist at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia .
“ We have to think about supporting business .
That ’ s very important because if we allow businesses to fail , we are losing jobs .
... We ’ re also losing capital.
” The top priority remains a pandemic that has killed more than 9,000 people and spread to every continent except Antarctica .
Yet , if the economic side effects are left unaddressed , the result would be significant @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is costly to rehire workers , let alone to start new businesses from scratch .
And the more workers lose jobs and paychecks now , the sharper the downward spiral .
So in the U.S. , members of Congress are considering emergency relief for the economy that could surpass $ 1 trillion in value , of which about half may be cash handouts to families that can be spent as quickly as possible .
But in parallel , the Trump administration wants to bail out airlines and other hard-hit industries , and offer @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Other steps around the world include emergency loans in China and Japan , unemployment benefits for French workers forced into part-time status , and emergency legislation in Britain to halt evictions by landlords during the pandemic .
In Washington , a sense of urgency has blunted partisan edges , at least in part .
On Wednesday , Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell successfully urged his colleagues to approve a measure , crafted by Democrats in the House , to expand unemployment benefits and paid sick leave , and to make tests for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ usually , this touches many , many , many actors and not just the most vulnerable .
So I think that ’ s a reason to go broad ” with emergency support , says Dr. Marinescu .
“ It ’ s like we ’ re firefighting – first dropping water on the whole building , ” then thinking about more targeted relief going forward .
Last week , Germany green-lit a host of fiscal measures to offset the pandemic crunch .
Companies large and small can access increased credit , apply for funds @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tax deferrals .
But Katja Sator , owner of a precision engineering company in the southwest state of Baden-Württemberg , worries the emergency aid only amounts to a “ mound of debt , ” whereas grants wouldn ’ t weigh down her balance sheet .
“ It ’ s great that we ’ re receiving help with liquidity and that we can get new credit , ” says Ms. Sator , whose company , Frankenstein Präzision GmBH , makes precision parts for automakers and other industries .
“ But we have to pay @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s not clear whether we ’ ll be in the red for the year if we have to close down production.
” She hasn ’ t laid anyone off , but she ’ s not extending temporary contracts .
Her production lines are still running , with technicians spaced 2 meters ( 6 1/2 feet ) apart .
As markets react to the pandemic , central banks have in many cases acted faster since they are inherently nimbler than legislatures .
But unlike in 2008 , when the crisis began in an over-leveraged @ @ @ @ @ @ @ into the real economy , which monetary policy alone is hard-pressed to rescue .
On Tuesday , the U.S. Federal Reserve reopened two programs last used during the global financial crisis a decade ago , to keep the flow of short-term credit from clogging .
And on Wednesday , European Central Bank President Christine LaGarde cited “ no limits ” to support efforts as the bank launched an $ 820 billion program to buy government and corporate debt .
For all the actions underway , the question economists raise is what will be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the depth of the slowdown is challenging ; recent estimates suggest up to a 14 % drop in U.S. economic output ( annualized ) in the second quarter .
Although the term “ fiscal stimulus ” often is used for recession-fighting programs , the goal today is really about helping individuals and businesses survive this economic stallout .
A rebound will come later .
The challenge is to contain the current damage by slowing the spread of COVID-19 while minimizing job losses and firm closures .
“ Right now what needs to happen @ @ @ @ @ @ @ outbreak ] while still doing whatever it takes ... to keep the fabric of the economy and of society alive , ” says Fabio Ghironi , an economist at the University of Washington in Seattle .
That means economic rescue should include support for stretched health care systems , he says – something far different from recessions with purely economic causes .
The U.S. and other governments are making some big efforts , but Dr. Ghironi and others argue much more will be needed .
Many less-developed economies face an especially hard time @ @ @ @ @ @ @ crisis and an economic one .
In Mexico City , Julio Bisrreal Alcantaria stands beneath a lush green tree on the sidewalk beside his fruit truck slicing mangoes and papayas .
He hasn ’ t seen much of a slowdown in business due to the coronavirus , he says , but expects nationwide school closures starting this week to hit his business hard .
“ I can make it about two weeks with slow sales , and then I ’ m in trouble , ” he says .
“ If kids aren ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t going to their offices , I have no one to sell to.
” Mr. Bisrreal is one of the estimated 30 million Mexicans working in the informal economy – without social security or job protections .
As with gig economy workers in the U.S. , flexibility becomes moot if a pandemic forces people indoors and consumer spending evaporates .
Mexico ’ s finance ministry has proposed lines of credit , debt refinancing , and helping small businesses stay afloat .
But “ there ’ s no real discussion ” in the legislature @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , an economist at Mexico ¿Como Vamos ?
, a think tank .
School closings aside , President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has resisted an economywide lockdown , arguing that it would hurt poor people .
There are “ pressures of all types .
Close the airport , shut down everything , paralyze the economy .
No , ” he told a press conference .
Worldwide , the stakes are high .
In Odemira , Portugal , Domingos Vicente owns a fruit distribution business with 40 employees , mostly migrants .
“ If @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t be able to pay them to stay at home not working , and they will not stay around , which means it will be hard to start over again once it ’ s possible and hire new workers .
That means trouble for the agricultural supply in Portugal.
” In Italy , the nation hardest hit in Europe by the virus , the government is helping employers meet their payrolls and freezing loan and mortgage payments for many who are affected by the crisis .
But as in other nations , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ people and may not be enough .
That ’ s especially true for workers in the gig economy like Claudia Bellante , a freelance journalist in Milan .
Her husband , a photographer , has seen his work dry up .
He ’ ll be eligible for some emergency grants , but she won ’ t .
“ I understand these are emergency measures for this time , but I worry when the pandemic ends we ’ re going to be in a very difficult place , ” Ms. Bellante says .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for everyone.
” Dr. Ghironi , the Italian-born economist at the University of Washington , says South Korea has shown how to fight the pandemic without economy-debilitating lockdowns by using prompt testing and infection tracing .
Whatever steps work , he says the public-health approach and economic rescue go hand in hand .
“ We need the resources and the stimulus to be injected , while the [ public health ] pieces of the mechanism are put in place , so the lockdown can be lifted as soon as possible.
” Lenora Chu @ @ @ @ @ @ @ City , and Catarina Fernandes Martins in Castelo Branco , Portugal , contributed to this article .
[ Editor ’ s note : As a public service , all our coronavirus coverage is free .
There is no paywall . ]

From Milan to Miami, locked-in nations try to soften an economic blow Collapse
It’s a seemingly intractable dilemma, suddenly as salient in Berlin or Tokyo as it is in Washington: How do you save people’s economic livelihoods while telling those same people to stay home?
A global recession, many forecasters say, is already here and is growing more severe by the day, as millions of consumers and workers in Europe, Asia, and North America have been sidelined as governments take extreme measures to stem the COVID-19 pandemic.
Finally, though, actions by governments and central banks appear to be ramping up, not so much in an effort to prevent a recession as simply to weather a storm that could easily become more severe than the global financial crisis a decade ago.
Help can’t come soon enough for Dominik Wilkinson and his co-workers at a restaurant in the northern German town of Bielefeld. The restaurant’s 40 staff members are already working sharply reduced hours, and there’s talk in town of curfews starting Friday. A prolonged closure would be, “death, in terms of revenue. It’s basically the same for every small and medium-sized company,” says Mr. Wilkinson, a shift manager.
[Editor’s note: As a public service, all our coronavirus coverage is free. No paywall.]
In the United States, the past few days have seen automakers mothball factories, hotel chains furlough tens of thousands of workers, and major retailers trim store hours or go online only. A Labor Department report today showed claims for unemployment benefits spiking to 281,000 last week. Every day brings more turmoil in global stock and bond markets as investors seek safe havens, even as central banks cough up amounts not seen since the financial meltdown of 2008.
Yet the situation’s very severity is spurring governments into action. Relief measures range from mortgage or tax holidays to cash infusions for households, while also lending or simply giving money to businesses to prevent mass layoffs or permanent closures.
Analysts say these are precisely the kinds of measures that can help, but their effectiveness will hinge greatly on their magnitude and speed of delivery. And what makes this crisis different, they add, is that a pandemic must also be tamed because the economic and health crises are intertwined.
The Group of Seven international economic organization has already issued a “whatever it takes” statement of determination. The International Monetary Fund and World Bank are mobilizing help for developing nations. But so far it’s an open question whether global leadership today can match the kind of concerted effort that emerged from the depths of the 2008 crisis.
John Minchillo/AP View caption Hide caption Visitors to the state Department of Labor in New York are turned away at the door by personnel due to closures over coronavirus concerns, on March 18, 2020. Applications for jobless benefits are surging as governments have ordered millions of workers and shoppers to stay home.
“A lot of people didn’t quite measure the gravity of the situation for a while, including myself to be honest,” says Ioana Marinescu, an economist at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. “We have to think about supporting business. That’s very important because if we allow businesses to fail, we are losing jobs. ... We’re also losing capital.”
Economic side effects
The top priority remains a pandemic that has killed more than 9,000 people and spread to every continent except Antarctica. Yet, if the economic side effects are left unaddressed, the result would be significant human hardship of another kind. It is costly to rehire workers, let alone to start new businesses from scratch. And the more workers lose jobs and paychecks now, the sharper the downward spiral.
So in the U.S., members of Congress are considering emergency relief for the economy that could surpass $1 trillion in value, of which about half may be cash handouts to families that can be spent as quickly as possible. But in parallel, the Trump administration wants to bail out airlines and other hard-hit industries, and offer loans to help small businesses cope.
Other steps around the world include emergency loans in China and Japan, unemployment benefits for French workers forced into part-time status, and emergency legislation in Britain to halt evictions by landlords during the pandemic.
In Washington, a sense of urgency has blunted partisan edges, at least in part. On Wednesday, Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell successfully urged his colleagues to approve a measure, crafted by Democrats in the House, to expand unemployment benefits and paid sick leave, and to make tests for the coronavirus free.
“More than usually, this touches many, many, many actors and not just the most vulnerable. So I think that’s a reason to go broad” with emergency support, says Dr. Marinescu. “It’s like we’re firefighting – first dropping water on the whole building,” then thinking about more targeted relief going forward.
Markus Schreiber/AP View caption Hide caption A seasonal worker from Romania walks over an asparagus harvest field near Genthin, Germany, on March 18, 2020. This year some farms face shortages of seasonal labor as European Union countries tighten border crossings because of the coronavirus outbreak.
Last week, Germany green-lit a host of fiscal measures to offset the pandemic crunch. Companies large and small can access increased credit, apply for funds to pay idled workers, and seek tax deferrals.
But Katja Sator, owner of a precision engineering company in the southwest state of Baden-Württemberg, worries the emergency aid only amounts to a “mound of debt,” whereas grants wouldn’t weigh down her balance sheet.
“It’s great that we’re receiving help with liquidity and that we can get new credit,” says Ms. Sator, whose company, Frankenstein Präzision GmBH, makes precision parts for automakers and other industries. “But we have to pay everything back. That means it’s not clear whether we’ll be in the red for the year if we have to close down production.”
She hasn’t laid anyone off, but she’s not extending temporary contracts. Her production lines are still running, with technicians spaced 2 meters (6 1/2 feet) apart.
Limits to monetary policy
As markets react to the pandemic, central banks have in many cases acted faster since they are inherently nimbler than legislatures. But unlike in 2008, when the crisis began in an over-leveraged financial sector, the coronavirus has slammed into the real economy, which monetary policy alone is hard-pressed to rescue.
On Tuesday, the U.S. Federal Reserve reopened two programs last used during the global financial crisis a decade ago, to keep the flow of short-term credit from clogging.
And on Wednesday, European Central Bank President Christine LaGarde cited “no limits” to support efforts as the bank launched an $820 billion program to buy government and corporate debt.
For all the actions underway, the question economists raise is what will be enough in these extraordinary times. Forecasting the depth of the slowdown is challenging; recent estimates suggest up to a 14% drop in U.S. economic output (annualized) in the second quarter.
Although the term “fiscal stimulus” often is used for recession-fighting programs, the goal today is really about helping individuals and businesses survive this economic stallout. A rebound will come later. The challenge is to contain the current damage by slowing the spread of COVID-19 while minimizing job losses and firm closures.
“Right now what needs to happen is flattening the curve [of the outbreak] while still doing whatever it takes ... to keep the fabric of the economy and of society alive,” says Fabio Ghironi, an economist at the University of Washington in Seattle.
That means economic rescue should include support for stretched health care systems, he says – something far different from recessions with purely economic causes.
The U.S. and other governments are making some big efforts, but Dr. Ghironi and others argue much more will be needed.
Mangoes for sale
Many less-developed economies face an especially hard time finding the resources for both a public-health crisis and an economic one.
In Mexico City, Julio Bisrreal Alcantaria stands beneath a lush green tree on the sidewalk beside his fruit truck slicing mangoes and papayas. He hasn’t seen much of a slowdown in business due to the coronavirus, he says, but expects nationwide school closures starting this week to hit his business hard.
“I can make it about two weeks with slow sales, and then I’m in trouble,” he says. “If kids aren’t in school and people aren’t going to their offices, I have no one to sell to.”
Mr. Bisrreal is one of the estimated 30 million Mexicans working in the informal economy – without social security or job protections. As with gig economy workers in the U.S., flexibility becomes moot if a pandemic forces people indoors and consumer spending evaporates.
Mexico’s finance ministry has proposed lines of credit, debt refinancing, and helping small businesses stay afloat. But “there’s no real discussion” in the legislature about economic stimulus, says Valeria Moy, an economist at Mexico ¿Como Vamos?, a think tank.
School closings aside, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has resisted an economywide lockdown, arguing that it would hurt poor people. There are “pressures of all types. Close the airport, shut down everything, paralyze the economy. No,” he told a press conference.
Workers scramble for a foothold
Worldwide, the stakes are high. In Odemira, Portugal, Domingos Vicente owns a fruit distribution business with 40 employees, mostly migrants.
“If my business shuts down, I won’t be able to pay them to stay at home not working, and they will not stay around, which means it will be hard to start over again once it’s possible and hire new workers. That means trouble for the agricultural supply in Portugal.”
In Italy, the nation hardest hit in Europe by the virus, the government is helping employers meet their payrolls and freezing loan and mortgage payments for many who are affected by the crisis.
But as in other nations, the emergency programs take time to reach people and may not be enough. That’s especially true for workers in the gig economy like Claudia Bellante, a freelance journalist in Milan. Her husband, a photographer, has seen his work dry up. He’ll be eligible for some emergency grants, but she won’t.
“I understand these are emergency measures for this time, but I worry when the pandemic ends we’re going to be in a very difficult place,” Ms. Bellante says. “I doubt there will be enough money for everyone.”
Dr. Ghironi, the Italian-born economist at the University of Washington, says South Korea has shown how to fight the pandemic without economy-debilitating lockdowns by using prompt testing and infection tracing. Whatever steps work, he says the public-health approach and economic rescue go hand in hand.
“We need the resources and the stimulus to be injected, while the [public health] pieces of the mechanism are put in place, so the lockdown can be lifted as soon as possible.”
Lenora Chu in Berlin, Whitney Eulich in Mexico City, and Catarina Fernandes Martins in Castelo Branco, Portugal, contributed to this article.
[Editor’s note: As a public service, all our coronavirus coverage is free. There is no paywall.]


csmonitor--2020-03-19--A health officer with a fan club? Meet Canada’s Dr. Bonnie.

“ From the very beginning , she ’ s given these daily briefings with very competent science , ” says Sally Thorne , a professor of nursing at the University of British Columbia .
“ One of the real challenges is to help a population of anxious people , when the messages are changing and when there may be naysayers .
And she has been just absolutely the epitome of calm and compassion.
” At a time when it seems politicians have to scream louder and assert their stance to be heard , Dr. Henry – or Dr. Bonnie as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ people ’ s anxieties with honest information is what the public wants .
In the midst of the coronavirus pandemic , British Columbia ’ s soft-spoken health expert has become beloved in households across Canada .
Each day as she addresses the province at 3 p.m. local with the latest data and policy plan – later beamed across the nation in evening broadcasts – she ’ s become a holder of hands for the Canadian public .
With her constant presence and soothing voice , she has mastered a balance between informing a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are not many provincial health officers who have fan clubs .
But Dr. Bonnie Henry does .
Before this month , her name was not widely recognized , let alone her face .
But in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic , Dr. Bonnie Henry , British Columbia ’ s soft-spoken provincial health officer , has become beloved in households across the country .
Each day as she addresses the province at 3 p.m. local with the latest data and policy plan – later beamed across the nation in evening broadcasts – she @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for the Canadian public .
With her constant presence and soothing voice , she has mastered a balance between informing a public and keeping it calm , even as she delivers mounting figures and asks for unprecedented community sacrifice .
When she had to announce this month the first death in the province , she nearly teared up , not the first time she ’ s shown emotion .
“ What can I say , it ’ s a very difficult time and I ’ m feeling for the families and the people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ she said at one presser , later adding she hoped the media wouldn ’ t overplay it , so as not to worry her elderly parents .
She has made jokes .
“ Wash your hands like you ’ ve been chopping jalapenos and you need to change your contacts.
” She has acknowledged people ’ s fears about the disruption to community life .
She told them there ’ s never been a better time to enjoy the natural beauty around them .
“ This is our time to be kind , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ safe , ” she said .
In response , a “ Dr .
Bonnie Henry Fan Club ” has sprung up on Twitter .
There , politicians , business leaders , and plenty of locals heap praise on her style and substance .
“ Thank you Dr. Bonnie Henry for being a voice of reason , community heart , and communicator of facts , ” is one of hundreds of thank you notes .
Two women in Vancouver even recorded a tribute to her , adapting the song “ Dear Theodosia ” from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ time when it seems politicians have to scream louder and assert their stance to be heard , Dr. Henry – or Dr. Bonnie as people call her – shows that confronting people ’ s anxieties with honest information , as it changes and even reverses , is what the public wants .
“ Of all the people shouting , I don ’ t want to listen to them because they actually inflame the situation .
And they make a whole chunk of the population more anxious and less convinced they know what they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ McCormick , a Vancouver physiotherapist who co-hosts a podcast called “ Small Conversations for a Better World.
” “ Meanwhile maybe it ’ s that quiet woman in the back of the room that ’ s observed , had a good think , calculated , and went OK. ” Ms. McCormick knew nothing about her provincial health officer before the coronavirus threatened the globe .
She certainly wouldn ’ t have recognized Dr. Henry , with her blond bob and no-nonsense business suits , in a crowd .
But with a practice less @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Valley Care Centre , the epicenter of the outbreak in British Columbia where six have died , Ms. McCormick has come to depend on Dr. Henry ’ s steady presence .
“ As soon as she starts talking , you ’ re like , ‘ Oooh.
’ You just feel a sense of calm.
” That , combined with her battle-tested credentials , helps health professionals get their jobs done , says Sally Thorne , a professor of nursing at the University of British Columbia .
Dr. Henry has been the provincial health @ @ @ @ @ @ @ She was a leader of the response to the SARS outbreak in Toronto in 2003 , and has worked to eradicate polio in Pakistan and control Ebola in Uganda .
Perhaps most fittingly , she authored the book “ Soap and Water and Common Sense.
” “ From the very beginning , she ’ s given these daily briefings with very competent science , ” Dr. Thorne says .
“ One of the real challenges is to help a population of anxious people , when the messages are changing and when there may @ @ @ @ @ @ @ just absolutely the epitome of calm and compassion.
” For the nursing community in British Columbia on the front lines , says Dr. Thorne , she ’ s helped them to reassure their own patients .
“ It ’ s very helpful to have that grounded place , to keep referring people back to substantiate our message to ‘ keep calm , we ’ ve got this , we ’ re nurses ’ message .
Yes it ’ s difficult , but we will get through it.
” She ’ s been compared @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Rudy Giuliani after 9/11 , or New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern after the mosque attack last year .
But it may be more suitable to compare her to someone like Ian McDonald , who delivered Ministry of Defense press briefings and became the “ unlikely television star of the Falklands War of 1982 , ” as The Telegraph wrote in his 2019 obituary , with his “ matter-of-fact bulletins on the latest developments ” that contrasted with “ overheated rhetoric ” of the time .
Indeed , Jody Vance , a broadcaster @ @ @ @ @ @ @ humanized the conflict instead of politicizing it – which inspired Ms. Vance to pen an open letter to her in the independent online publication The Orca .
“ Dear Dr. Henry , Can I call you Dr. Bonnie ?
In our house that ’ s what we call you .
My boy says it ’ s because he knows you , ” she begins .
Whether for her 12-year-old son or the policymakers at the highest levels , it ’ s the precision and simplicity of her language that has made her so @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mindful to not use words that in a soundbite could scare people , ” says Ms. Vance .
“ She ’ s one of those people who makes themselves available to the average Joe and Jane Public to answer the question they ’ ve been asked a thousand times as if they ’ ve heard it for the very first time , ” she says .
“ I ’ ve never met her , but I feel like she ’ s a family member.
” Editor ’ s note : As a public @ @ @ @ @ @ @ paywall for all our coronavirus coverage .
It ’ s free .

“From the very beginning, she’s given these daily briefings with very competent science,” says Sally Thorne, a professor of nursing at the University of British Columbia. “One of the real challenges is to help a population of anxious people, when the messages are changing and when there may be naysayers. And she has been just absolutely the epitome of calm and compassion.”
At a time when it seems politicians have to scream louder and assert their stance to be heard, Dr. Henry – or Dr. Bonnie as people call her – shows that confronting people’s anxieties with honest information is what the public wants.
Not all those in the struggle against COVID-19’s spread are treating the sick. Some, like Dr. Bonnie Henry, are simply telling people what they need to know in a clear and compassionate way.
In the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, British Columbia’s soft-spoken health expert has become beloved in households across Canada. Each day as she addresses the province at 3 p.m. local with the latest data and policy plan – later beamed across the nation in evening broadcasts – she’s become a holder of hands for the Canadian public. With her constant presence and soothing voice, she has mastered a balance between informing a public and keeping it calm.
There are not many provincial health officers who have fan clubs. But Dr. Bonnie Henry does.
Before this month, her name was not widely recognized, let alone her face. But in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, Dr. Bonnie Henry, British Columbia’s soft-spoken provincial health officer, has become beloved in households across the country.
Each day as she addresses the province at 3 p.m. local with the latest data and policy plan – later beamed across the nation in evening broadcasts – she’s become a holder of hands for the Canadian public. With her constant presence and soothing voice, she has mastered a balance between informing a public and keeping it calm, even as she delivers mounting figures and asks for unprecedented community sacrifice.
When she had to announce this month the first death in the province, she nearly teared up, not the first time she’s shown emotion. “What can I say, it’s a very difficult time and I’m feeling for the families and the people dealing with this right now,” she said at one presser, later adding she hoped the media wouldn’t overplay it, so as not to worry her elderly parents. She has made jokes. “Wash your hands like you’ve been chopping jalapenos and you need to change your contacts.”
Why We Wrote This Not all those in the struggle against COVID-19’s spread are treating the sick. Some, like Dr. Bonnie Henry, are simply telling people what they need to know in a clear and compassionate way.
She has acknowledged people’s fears about the disruption to community life. She told them there’s never been a better time to enjoy the natural beauty around them. “This is our time to be kind, to be calm, and to be safe,” she said.
In response, a “Dr. Bonnie Henry Fan Club” has sprung up on Twitter. There, politicians, business leaders, and plenty of locals heap praise on her style and substance. “Thank you Dr. Bonnie Henry for being a voice of reason, community heart, and communicator of facts,” is one of hundreds of thank you notes. Two women in Vancouver even recorded a tribute to her, adapting the song “Dear Theodosia” from the musical “Hamilton.”
At a time when it seems politicians have to scream louder and assert their stance to be heard, Dr. Henry – or Dr. Bonnie as people call her – shows that confronting people’s anxieties with honest information, as it changes and even reverses, is what the public wants.
“Of all the people shouting, I don’t want to listen to them because they actually inflame the situation. And they make a whole chunk of the population more anxious and less convinced they know what they’re doing,” says Gillian McCormick, a Vancouver physiotherapist who co-hosts a podcast called “Small Conversations for a Better World.” “Meanwhile maybe it’s that quiet woman in the back of the room that’s observed, had a good think, calculated, and went OK.”
Ms. McCormick knew nothing about her provincial health officer before the coronavirus threatened the globe. She certainly wouldn’t have recognized Dr. Henry, with her blond bob and no-nonsense business suits, in a crowd. But with a practice less than a half kilometer from the Lynn Valley Care Centre, the epicenter of the outbreak in British Columbia where six have died, Ms. McCormick has come to depend on Dr. Henry’s steady presence. “As soon as she starts talking, you’re like, ‘Oooh.’ You just feel a sense of calm.”
That, combined with her battle-tested credentials, helps health professionals get their jobs done, says Sally Thorne, a professor of nursing at the University of British Columbia. Dr. Henry has been the provincial health officer for just over two years. She was a leader of the response to the SARS outbreak in Toronto in 2003, and has worked to eradicate polio in Pakistan and control Ebola in Uganda. Perhaps most fittingly, she authored the book “Soap and Water and Common Sense.”
“From the very beginning, she’s given these daily briefings with very competent science,” Dr. Thorne says. “One of the real challenges is to help a population of anxious people, when the messages are changing and when there may be naysayers. And she has been just absolutely the epitome of calm and compassion.”
For the nursing community in British Columbia on the front lines, says Dr. Thorne, she’s helped them to reassure their own patients. “It’s very helpful to have that grounded place, to keep referring people back to substantiate our message to ‘keep calm, we’ve got this, we’re nurses’ message. Yes it’s difficult, but we will get through it.”
She’s been compared to the former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani after 9/11, or New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern after the mosque attack last year. But it may be more suitable to compare her to someone like Ian McDonald, who delivered Ministry of Defense press briefings and became the “unlikely television star of the Falklands War of 1982,” as The Telegraph wrote in his 2019 obituary, with his “matter-of-fact bulletins on the latest developments” that contrasted with “overheated rhetoric” of the time.
Indeed, Jody Vance, a broadcaster in Vancouver, says Dr. Henry has humanized the conflict instead of politicizing it – which inspired Ms. Vance to pen an open letter to her in the independent online publication The Orca.
“Dear Dr. Henry, Can I call you Dr. Bonnie? In our house that’s what we call you. My boy says it’s because he knows you,” she begins.
Whether for her 12-year-old son or the policymakers at the highest levels, it’s the precision and simplicity of her language that has made her so trustworthy.
Get stories that
empower and uplift daily. By signing up, you agree to our Privacy Policy Already a subscriber? Log in to hide ads.
“She’s very mindful to not use words that in a soundbite could scare people,” says Ms. Vance. “She’s one of those people who makes themselves available to the average Joe and Jane Public to answer the question they’ve been asked a thousand times as if they’ve heard it for the very first time,” she says. “I’ve never met her, but I feel like she’s a family member.”
Editor’s note: As a public service, we’ve removed the paywall for all our coronavirus coverage. It’s free.


csmonitor--2020-05-26--How Latin American slums are leading the fight against COVID-19

Huddled over sewing machines in their cramped homes in Mare , a sprawling complex of favelas in Rio de Janeiro , about 50 women are on a mission to make 280,000 free face masks within the next two months .
Two for each of the area 's 140,000 slum residents .
The women – the majority of whom lost their jobs to the coronavirus pandemic – watched videos on how to make face masks , and are being paid above the market rate , said Andreza Lopes , who coordinates the project for the nonprofit Redes da Mare .
`` @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are financially responsible for their homes , '' Ms. Lopes said over the phone , adding that the project is backed by three Brazilian banks .
`` Now they are very happy , and grateful to be working on something that has a higher purpose . ''
The project is one of dozens of initiatives taking place in shanty towns across the region – from Brazil to Venezuela , Colombia to Mexico – as poor communities come together to help the most vulnerable during the pandemic .
Latin America is emerging as the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The respiratory disease is spreading quickly through the region , claiming the lives of more than 31,000 people and infecting more than 570,000 , according to a tally by the World Health Organization ( WHO ) .
Across Latin America and the Caribbean , about 113 million people – nearly 1 in 5 – live in slums , where health experts say COVID-19 infection rates tend to be higher due to poor nutrition , cramped housing , and ill health .
But many slum dwellers say they have received little or no @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the economic and health fallout , leaving them to fend for themselves and community leaders to fill the gaps .
`` It 's a very tragic situation right now ... nothing significant is being done by the state , '' said Alessandra Orofino , head of the Brazilian nonprofit Nossas , which works in favelas and creates technology tools for social movements .
A spokesman for Brazil 's health ministry did not reply to a request for comment .
With limited access to sanitation and millions of people crammed together in close quarters @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to the pandemic , health experts say .
`` In those places where you have high human density , and you have overcrowding ... you have a perfect environment for transmission , '' said Federico Costa , an infectious disease expert and professor at Brazil 's Federal University of Bahia .
In the poor neighborhoods of Argentina 's capital Buenos Aires , for example , COVID-19 infection rates are nearly 30 % higher than in other parts of the city , government figures show .
In Brazil , where Johns Hopkins University has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ leading the WHO to label the country the latest coronavirus hotspot – about 15 million people live in favelas .
`` It 's 140,000 people in just over four kilometers [ about 2 1/2 miles ] ... how do you social distance in this context ? ''
asked Ms. Lopes about the situation in Mare .
Nossas is helping community groups in Rio 's favelas to set up crowdfunding campaigns to raise money to combat COVID-19 .
In late April , the nonprofit and other local groups hosted a live streamed concert featuring @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bred in the favelas .
The concert , with over 8 million online views , raised about $ 50,000 to buy and deliver food parcels and hygiene kits to Rio 's favela residents , said Ms. Orofino , the head of Nossas .
`` Favelas have built resilience over time and are now deploying that , '' she said .
`` We do n't think by any means that this crowdfunding and self-organizing is going to halt COVID-19 .
It 's just that we do n't have the time to wait for the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the start of the outbreak , some governments in the region have been delivering food parcels and cash payments to vulnerable communities .
Colombia has allocated $ 120 million to help three million informal economy workers , while in Argentina the government has announced low-income workers would receive a one-time payment of $ 147 .
Chile has announced emergency cash transfers that will reach about 4.5 million people , and the Dominican Republic has allocated cash payments to 1.5 million families .
Meanwhile , Argentina , Ecuador , and Colombia have banned utility @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the pandemic , and in Peru low-income homes were told they could postpone payment of utility bills .
But many slum dwellers say that 's not enough .
Street vendors and other informal workers who have lost their jobs due to lockdown measures have taken to the streets in several cities , including in Bogota in Colombia and the Chilean capital Santiago , to demand government help .
After a deadly police raid in a Rio favela earlier this month , residents complained that the government was offering little aid to contain the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ police operations .
As residents and activists call for more state aid , they are also tapping into neighborhood networks to reach out to the people most in need .
As Mexican officials began urging people to stay home in March to contain the outbreak , HIV-positive transgender activist Kenya Cuevas saw that many homeless people and drug users in downtown Mexico City were going hungry .
`` It annoyed me .
So , I decided I 'd better do something , '' she said in a phone interview .
Ms. Cuevas set @ @ @ @ @ @ @ private donor to feed the homeless and other vulnerable groups , serving about 240 meals a week since the start of April .
The shelter for trans sex workers that she runs in the city 's north is also feeding neighbors affected by the pandemic , giving out nearly 80 meals a day , according to the United Nations .
`` As trans women , we know how to love and to love our neighbor , '' said Ms. Cuevas .
`` We have always had that quality . ''
City officials said @ @ @ @ @ @ @ % of Mexico City 's more than 480 soup kitchens remain open and the government is doing mobile medical checkups in areas with high numbers of homeless people .
In Bogota 's southern hillside slums , among the hardest hit are Venezuelan migrants who rely on daily cash-in-hand earnings as street sellers .
Unable to make an income during Colombia 's strict coronavirus lockdown , many have been relying on their support networks of fellow migrants , who keep in touch on Facebook and WhatsApp .
When Venezuelan Milsen Solano heard that one @ @ @ @ @ @ @ migrant , got kicked out of his flat in April , she took him in to live with her and her family in their small apartment in downtown Bogota .
`` He does n't have the money to pay his rent , '' said Ms. Solano .
`` If six people already live here , another person can , too .
You have to help when you can . ''
This story was reported by Thomson Reuters Foundation .
Editor ’ s note : As a public service , the Monitor has removed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
It ’ s free .

Huddled over sewing machines in their cramped homes in Mare, a sprawling complex of favelas in Rio de Janeiro, about 50 women are on a mission to make 280,000 free face masks within the next two months. Two for each of the area's 140,000 slum residents.
The women – the majority of whom lost their jobs to the coronavirus pandemic – watched videos on how to make face masks, and are being paid above the market rate, said Andreza Lopes, who coordinates the project for the nonprofit Redes da Mare.
"Almost half of the women in Mare are financially responsible for their homes," Ms. Lopes said over the phone, adding that the project is backed by three Brazilian banks. "Now they are very happy, and grateful to be working on something that has a higher purpose."
The project is one of dozens of initiatives taking place in shanty towns across the region – from Brazil to Venezuela, Colombia to Mexico – as poor communities come together to help the most vulnerable during the pandemic.
Latin America is emerging as the new epicenter of the novel coronavirus outbreak.
The respiratory disease is spreading quickly through the region, claiming the lives of more than 31,000 people and infecting more than 570,000, according to a tally by the World Health Organization (WHO).
Across Latin America and the Caribbean, about 113 million people – nearly 1 in 5 – live in slums, where health experts say COVID-19 infection rates tend to be higher due to poor nutrition, cramped housing, and ill health.
But many slum dwellers say they have received little or no government aid to help them cope with the economic and health fallout, leaving them to fend for themselves and community leaders to fill the gaps.
"It's a very tragic situation right now ... nothing significant is being done by the state," said Alessandra Orofino, head of the Brazilian nonprofit Nossas, which works in favelas and creates technology tools for social movements.
A spokesman for Brazil's health ministry did not reply to a request for comment.
With limited access to sanitation and millions of people crammed together in close quarters, Latin American slums are especially vulnerable to the pandemic, health experts say.
"In those places where you have high human density, and you have overcrowding ... you have a perfect environment for transmission," said Federico Costa, an infectious disease expert and professor at Brazil's Federal University of Bahia.
In the poor neighborhoods of Argentina's capital Buenos Aires, for example, COVID-19 infection rates are nearly 30% higher than in other parts of the city, government figures show.
In Brazil, where Johns Hopkins University has reported more than 22,000 COVID-19 deaths – leading the WHO to label the country the latest coronavirus hotspot – about 15 million people live in favelas.
"It's 140,000 people in just over four kilometers [about 2 1/2 miles] ... how do you social distance in this context?" asked Ms. Lopes about the situation in Mare.
Nossas is helping community groups in Rio's favelas to set up crowdfunding campaigns to raise money to combat COVID-19.
In late April, the nonprofit and other local groups hosted a live streamed concert featuring popular Brazilian musicians – many born and bred in the favelas.
The concert, with over 8 million online views, raised about $50,000 to buy and deliver food parcels and hygiene kits to Rio's favela residents, said Ms. Orofino, the head of Nossas.
"Favelas have built resilience over time and are now deploying that," she said.
"We don't think by any means that this crowdfunding and self-organizing is going to halt COVID-19. It's just that we don't have the time to wait for the state to do something."
Since the start of the outbreak, some governments in the region have been delivering food parcels and cash payments to vulnerable communities.
Colombia has allocated $120 million to help three million informal economy workers, while in Argentina the government has announced low-income workers would receive a one-time payment of $147.
Chile has announced emergency cash transfers that will reach about 4.5 million people, and the Dominican Republic has allocated cash payments to 1.5 million families.
Meanwhile, Argentina, Ecuador, and Colombia have banned utility shut-offs for tenants defaulting on payment during the pandemic, and in Peru low-income homes were told they could postpone payment of utility bills.
But many slum dwellers say that's not enough.
Street vendors and other informal workers who have lost their jobs due to lockdown measures have taken to the streets in several cities, including in Bogota in Colombia and the Chilean capital Santiago, to demand government help.
After a deadly police raid in a Rio favela earlier this month, residents complained that the government was offering little aid to contain the pandemic but was still engaging in violent police operations.
As residents and activists call for more state aid, they are also tapping into neighborhood networks to reach out to the people most in need.
As Mexican officials began urging people to stay home in March to contain the outbreak, HIV-positive transgender activist Kenya Cuevas saw that many homeless people and drug users in downtown Mexico City were going hungry.
"It annoyed me. So, I decided I'd better do something," she said in a phone interview.
Ms. Cuevas set up a program with support from a private donor to feed the homeless and other vulnerable groups, serving about 240 meals a week since the start of April.
The shelter for trans sex workers that she runs in the city's north is also feeding neighbors affected by the pandemic, giving out nearly 80 meals a day, according to the United Nations.
"As trans women, we know how to love and to love our neighbor," said Ms. Cuevas. "We have always had that quality."
City officials said in a March press conference that 90% of Mexico City's more than 480 soup kitchens remain open and the government is doing mobile medical checkups in areas with high numbers of homeless people.
In Bogota's southern hillside slums, among the hardest hit are Venezuelan migrants who rely on daily cash-in-hand earnings as street sellers.
Unable to make an income during Colombia's strict coronavirus lockdown, many have been relying on their support networks of fellow migrants, who keep in touch on Facebook and WhatsApp.
When Venezuelan Milsen Solano heard that one of her neighbors, an unemployed young migrant, got kicked out of his flat in April, she took him in to live with her and her family in their small apartment in downtown Bogota.
"He doesn't have the money to pay his rent," said Ms. Solano.
"If six people already live here, another person can, too. You have to help when you can."
Get stories that
empower and uplift daily. By signing up, you agree to our Privacy Policy Already a subscriber? Log in to hide ads.
This story was reported by Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Editor’s note: As a public service, the Monitor has removed the paywall for all our coronavirus coverage. It’s free.