csmonitor--2020-05-21--In the staycation era, the art of deliberate escape

And feeling like he had no idea what was coming next .
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 .
In two days at Walden , here is some of what I found : an empty parking lot , and then one so full it was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 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 .
I took a day trip – two of them , actually .
Two visits to Walden Pond , in Concord , Massachusetts , 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 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ get away some hundreds or thousands of miles from home before he can be said to begin his travels , ” wrote Henry David Thoreau .
“ Why not begin his travels at home ?
” 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 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 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 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 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 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 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 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 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 .
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 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 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 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 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 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 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 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 .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ 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 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 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 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 .
“ 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 ?
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ 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 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , 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 ?
” 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 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , 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 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , 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 .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ 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 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 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 .
Still , RRM has to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 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 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 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 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 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 ” – @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 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 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 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 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 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 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 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 , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 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 .
“ If @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 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 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 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 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
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 of the pond , after wading in 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 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 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 .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ 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 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ 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 .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” 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 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , 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 .
As I write this , lockdowns are being lifted on various timetables in various places .
Of course @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 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 ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 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 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 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 “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ As a public service , all our coronavirus coverage is free .
No paywall .

And feeling like he had no idea what was coming next.
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.
In two days at Walden, here is some of what I found: 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.
Many are making the most of their own backyards as the virus cancels vacations. Our writer finds that day trips to nearby Walden Pond allow for a slower pace and reflection – in the spirit of America’s first social distancer.
I took a day trip – two of them, actually. Two visits to Walden Pond, in Concord, Massachusetts, 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).
“A man must generally get away some hundreds or thousands of miles from home before he can be said to begin his travels,” wrote Henry David Thoreau. “Why not begin his travels at home?”
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.
Why We Wrote This Many are making the most of their own backyards as the virus cancels vacations. Our writer finds that day trips to nearby Walden Pond allow for a slower pace and reflection – in the spirit of America’s first social distancer.
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.”
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“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.


Daily for May 21, 2020

Michael Flood feels for America ’ s government leaders .
They have difficult choices to make in deciding how quickly to reopen economies .
As president of the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank , he ’ s seeing both sides of human hurt in the coronavirus pandemic .
On one hand , a lockdown to prevent spread of the virus has caused great economic and mental stress , illustrated in the skyrocketing demand for food pantries in Los Angeles County , the most populous county in the nation .
The food bank ’ s distribution has surged 80 % since @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the increase during the Great Recession .
Several times a week , upward of a thousand cars line up at parking lots for drive-through groceries .
At the same time , two people who worked at the food bank ’ s partners have died from the virus .
Los Angeles County is the epicenter for the outbreak in California , with about 2,000 deaths so far .
The disease “ feels like a personal threat to all of us , ” explains Mr .
Flood .
Editor ’ s note : As a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is free .
No paywall .
“ We ’ re seeing on both ends , people who have died from COVID and this huge impact .
I really struggle with this .
It ’ s so hard to figure out.
” It is no wonder that Mr .
Flood is wrestling with trade-offs in the reopening .
Much of the country is entering a “ gray space , ” as Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti puts it .
That space lies between flinging open the doors and cautionary measures to prevent a virus @ @ @ @ @ @ @ governors and local officials make life-altering choices , while those unhappy with the decisions push back in the courts and on the street .
Americans need to have a national conversation about these choices and their consequences , say social scientists .
But it ’ s a tough subject .
As New York Gov .
Andrew Cuomo recently put it , “ How much is a human life worth ?
That is the real discussion that no one is admitting , openly or freely.
” The national narrative on choices surrounding the pandemic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ director of the Rand Corp. ’ s research on social and economic well-being .
It started with “ we ’ re all in this together ” and “ sheltering in place ” to save lives and not overwhelm hospitals .
Now , with the curve flattening in states like California , Washington , and New York , some people are saying that their personal liberty and other aspects of their well-being are more important .
But the conversation needs to advance further , and be more directly addressed , says Dr. Chandra .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ much do you weigh different parts of our total well-being against each other ?
” It ’ s an “ uncomfortable ” question , she says , but necessary , because it forces moral questions about American values and prepares the country to deal with a possible resurgence of the virus – and learn from it .
For instance , what choices will government leaders make if the nation muddles through a summer of retail and restaurants at half capacity and sees an uptick in the economy – and then faces a spike @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to keep the economic vitality going , while others will worry about contracting the virus .
“ There ’ s a lot of fear .
Even as we reopen , a lot of people say to me , ‘ Don ’ t reopen .
I don ’ t want to work .
It ’ s not safe , ’ ” says Dr. Barbara Ferrer , director of the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health .
This week , COVID-19 deaths topped 93,000 in the United States , far more than the 58,000 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Marginalized and vulnerable populations are bearing the brunt .
At the same time , isolation and joblessness have their own costs – among them , mental health , children ’ s welfare , and financial ruin .
Unemployment stands at 14.7 % , the highest rate since the Great Depression .
The pandemic could lead to 75,000 additional “ deaths of despair ” resulting from drug or alcohol abuse and suicide , according to the Well Being Trust , a national wellness foundation .
In trying to prevent COVID deaths , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ would expect them to – save lives , says Dr. Chandra .
But that needs to be “ balanced against all these other aspects of well-being.
” Governments do have a mathematical way to figure a cost-benefit analysis for policies as they relate to risk of a lost life .
It ’ s called the value of a statistical life , or VSL , and it ’ s based on how much individuals themselves are willing to pay to reduce the risk of death .
Right now , VSLs range between $ 9 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and are used to determine , for instance , the cost of environmental regulations or road improvements .
But some say that ’ s too blunt of an instrument to use – or at least use by itself – because it ’ s rooted in narrow trade-offs that don ’ t fit a broad condition like a pandemic .
Questions about American values also have to be considered , says Dr. Chandra : “ What are the ethics around liberty and freedom of movement ?
What are the ethics around whose life is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ethics around protecting the most vulnerable ?
” Wellness experts regret that public health and the economy are being pitted against each other .
The two are actually inextricably connected and support each other , they say .
“ The question should be : How do we prevent the most number of people from dying from anything , period , ” says Benjamin Miller , chief strategy officer of Well Being Trust .
“ I think the way the choice is being presented is between saving grandma and saving the economy , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ if we ’ re not careful , we ’ re going to kill grandma and kill the economy , ” says Alex Tabarrok , director of the Center for Study of Public Choice at George Mason University in Fairfax , Virginia .
“ These two things are not in opposition to one another.
” He co-authored an Op-Ed in The Washington Post arguing that quick , congressional funding of sufficient testing , contact tracing , and quarantining would provide the confidence and safety needed to open up businesses and bring people back to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ zones ” that open at different paces , recognizing that the virus has not hit all regions equally .
Others see more federal spending as the way to protect against harm from disease and a decimated economy , pointing to Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell ’ s remarks that Congress may need to do more in the way of fiscal support .
The House passed a $ 3 trillion stimulus bill that would aid state and local governments that faces an uncertain future in the Senate .
On the other hand , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ speedy reopening , as is his treasury secretary , Steve Mnuchin .
And then there are those who point to American creativity as a bridge to carry the country forward .
A case in point : Didi Hirsch Mental Health Services , which provides free mental health , substance abuse , and suicide prevention help .
The group completely reoriented its work from on-site only to allow people to work remotely .
In a herculean effort , it outfitted its 80 staff and 215 volunteers with laptops and headsets , trained them , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the crisis line .
The inflow of calls related to COVID-19 has been huge , and for the first time , caller and counselor have been experiencing many of the same things .
The nonprofit had to contend with virus exposure , quarantining staff .
Some staff have lost family members , says Carolyn Levitan , the crisis line director .
On the other hand , the forced reorientation has opened a whole new way of operating , says Ms. Levitan .
“ It ’ s a huge eye-opener .
I ’ m @ @ @ @ @ @ @ says .
It turns out not everyone wants to endure Los Angeles traffic to volunteer in person , and people have other reasons for wanting to work from home .
No matter what state and county officials decide about the pace of reopening , though , her group will take a “ thoughtful ” approach .
“ It ’ s going to be a very slow return for us , ” in part because of people ’ s fears about safety , though the center has put social distancing and extra hygiene measures @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hoping to open up more fully by July 4 , but they still want to keep a lid on hospitalizations .
“ We do acknowledge there are trade-offs , ” says Paul Simon , chief science officer for LA County ’ s Department of Public Health .
Early on , everyone was focused on locking down the disease , but now health officials are looking closely at other indicators such as suicides ( a lagging indicator that has actually decreased slightly ) .
“ We ’ re in a tough situation with this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have to be made , but I think they can be made in a thoughtful way.
” In California and across the country , pressure is on to reopen , expressed in lawsuits and protests .
Over it all looms an election in November .
No fewer than a dozen suits have been filed against California and Gov .
Gavin Newsom by gun shops , churches , businesses , and even a bride to be .
Last week , the Wisconsin Supreme Court overturned the state ’ s “ safer at home ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Legislature .
Eugene Volokh , who teaches at the University of California Los Angeles law school , says it is unlikely that it will be the courts that push reopening .
Governments have “ extremely broad authority ” in a pandemic , especially over everyday business , he explains , citing the 1905 Supreme Court smallpox case , Jacobson v. Massachusetts .
It may be a little different where some specific individual rights are involved – such as with churches or guns .
Stay-at-home orders also may violate some state constitutions .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ do the pushing , he says .
“ Long before the courts accept any of these business claims , many states are going to recognize that at some point , the shutdown causes more harm than good.
” Governors don ’ t want to be seen as causing more deaths than the pandemic , he says , and at the same time , they need revenues to implement their programs and balance their budgets .
“ The interests of business , and the interests of citizens , and the interests of government officials @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be largely aligned in favor of opening things up as long as it is seen as marginally safe.
” Indeed , with decreased hospitalizations , Governor Newsom this week relaxed criteria for counties to move further along the road to reopening .
LA County officials , too , feel a sense of urgency from businesses to open or risk permanent job loss .
“ Time is of the essence , ” said Kathryn Barger , chair of the county ’ s Board of Supervisors after meeting with business leaders this week .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ move from safer at home , to safer at work , and safer in our communities.
” Editor ’ s note : As a public service , all our coronavirus coverage is free .
No paywall .

As all 50 states reopen, leaders weigh tough questions Collapse
Michael Flood feels for America’s government leaders. They have difficult choices to make in deciding how quickly to reopen economies. As president of the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank, he’s seeing both sides of human hurt in the coronavirus pandemic.
On one hand, a lockdown to prevent spread of the virus has caused great economic and mental stress, illustrated in the skyrocketing demand for food pantries in Los Angeles County, the most populous county in the nation. The food bank’s distribution has surged 80% since the beginning of March – nearly twice the increase during the Great Recession. Several times a week, upward of a thousand cars line up at parking lots for drive-through groceries.
At the same time, two people who worked at the food bank’s partners have died from the virus. Los Angeles County is the epicenter for the outbreak in California, with about 2,000 deaths so far. The disease “feels like a personal threat to all of us,” explains Mr. Flood.
Editor’s note: As a public service, all our coronavirus coverage is free. No paywall.
“We’re seeing on both ends, people who have died from COVID and this huge impact. I really struggle with this. It’s so hard to figure out.”
It is no wonder that Mr. Flood is wrestling with trade-offs in the reopening. Much of the country is entering a “gray space,” as Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti puts it. That space lies between flinging open the doors and cautionary measures to prevent a virus resurgence. It includes ethical dimensions as governors and local officials make life-altering choices, while those unhappy with the decisions push back in the courts and on the street. Americans need to have a national conversation about these choices and their consequences, say social scientists. But it’s a tough subject.
Hans Gutknecht/The Orange County Register/AP View caption Hide caption Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, shown at a press conference in Reseda, Calif., May 19, 2020, says the country is entering a “gray space” when it comes to decisionmaking around the coronavirus outbreak.
As New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo recently put it, “How much is a human life worth? That is the real discussion that no one is admitting, openly or freely.”
The national narrative on choices surrounding the pandemic is evolving, says Anita Chandra, director of the Rand Corp.’s research on social and economic well-being. It started with “we’re all in this together” and “sheltering in place” to save lives and not overwhelm hospitals. Now, with the curve flattening in states like California, Washington, and New York, some people are saying that their personal liberty and other aspects of their well-being are more important.
The bottom-line question
But the conversation needs to advance further, and be more directly addressed, says Dr. Chandra. She puts it plainly, “How much do you weigh different parts of our total well-being against each other?” It’s an “uncomfortable” question, she says, but necessary, because it forces moral questions about American values and prepares the country to deal with a possible resurgence of the virus – and learn from it.
For instance, what choices will government leaders make if the nation muddles through a summer of retail and restaurants at half capacity and sees an uptick in the economy – and then faces a spike of infections? Many people will want to keep the economic vitality going, while others will worry about contracting the virus.
“There’s a lot of fear. Even as we reopen, a lot of people say to me, ‘Don’t reopen. I don’t want to work. It’s not safe,’” says Dr. Barbara Ferrer, director of the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health.
Weighing the costs
This week, COVID-19 deaths topped 93,000 in the United States, far more than the 58,000 Americans who died in the Vietnam War. Marginalized and vulnerable populations are bearing the brunt.
At the same time, isolation and joblessness have their own costs – among them, mental health, children’s welfare, and financial ruin. Unemployment stands at 14.7%, the highest rate since the Great Depression. The pandemic could lead to 75,000 additional “deaths of despair” resulting from drug or alcohol abuse and suicide, according to the Well Being Trust, a national wellness foundation.
In trying to prevent COVID deaths, the medical profession is doing exactly what you would expect them to – save lives, says Dr. Chandra. But that needs to be “balanced against all these other aspects of well-being.”
Governments do have a mathematical way to figure a cost-benefit analysis for policies as they relate to risk of a lost life. It’s called the value of a statistical life, or VSL, and it’s based on how much individuals themselves are willing to pay to reduce the risk of death. Right now, VSLs range between $9 million and $11 million per life and are used to determine, for instance, the cost of environmental regulations or road improvements.
But some say that’s too blunt of an instrument to use – or at least use by itself – because it’s rooted in narrow trade-offs that don’t fit a broad condition like a pandemic. Questions about American values also have to be considered, says Dr. Chandra: “What are the ethics around liberty and freedom of movement? What are the ethics around whose life is worth more? And what are the ethics around protecting the most vulnerable?”
Not a dichotomy
Wellness experts regret that public health and the economy are being pitted against each other. The two are actually inextricably connected and support each other, they say. “The question should be: How do we prevent the most number of people from dying from anything, period,” says Benjamin Miller, chief strategy officer of Well Being Trust.
Gregory Bull/AP View caption Hide caption Workers at Pigment prepare floral arrangements for curbside service May 19, 2020, in San Diego. With encouraging results in their fight against the coronavirus, San Diego County supervisors voted Tuesday to ask the state to be a test case for whether more rapid reopening can safely occur.
“I think the way the choice is being presented is between saving grandma and saving the economy, and the way we look at it is if we’re not careful, we’re going to kill grandma and kill the economy,” says Alex Tabarrok, director of the Center for Study of Public Choice at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. “These two things are not in opposition to one another.”
He co-authored an Op-Ed in The Washington Post arguing that quick, congressional funding of sufficient testing, contact tracing, and quarantining would provide the confidence and safety needed to open up businesses and bring people back to work. This should be combined with “zones” that open at different paces, recognizing that the virus has not hit all regions equally.
Others see more federal spending as the way to protect against harm from disease and a decimated economy, pointing to Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell’s remarks that Congress may need to do more in the way of fiscal support. The House passed a $3 trillion stimulus bill that would aid state and local governments that faces an uncertain future in the Senate. On the other hand, President Donald Trump is pushing for a speedy reopening, as is his treasury secretary, Steve Mnuchin.
Can ingenuity provide a bridge?
And then there are those who point to American creativity as a bridge to carry the country forward. A case in point: Didi Hirsch Mental Health Services, which provides free mental health, substance abuse, and suicide prevention help.
The group completely reoriented its work from on-site only to allow people to work remotely. In a herculean effort, it outfitted its 80 staff and 215 volunteers with laptops and headsets, trained them, and changed the setup for callers to the crisis line.
The inflow of calls related to COVID-19 has been huge, and for the first time, caller and counselor have been experiencing many of the same things. The nonprofit had to contend with virus exposure, quarantining staff. Some staff have lost family members, says Carolyn Levitan, the crisis line director.
On the other hand, the forced reorientation has opened a whole new way of operating, says Ms. Levitan. “It’s a huge eye-opener. I’m really excited about it,” she says. It turns out not everyone wants to endure Los Angeles traffic to volunteer in person, and people have other reasons for wanting to work from home.
No matter what state and county officials decide about the pace of reopening, though, her group will take a “thoughtful” approach. “It’s going to be a very slow return for us,” in part because of people’s fears about safety, though the center has put social distancing and extra hygiene measures in place.
County leaders are now hoping to open up more fully by July 4, but they still want to keep a lid on hospitalizations.
“We do acknowledge there are trade-offs,” says Paul Simon, chief science officer for LA County’s Department of Public Health. Early on, everyone was focused on locking down the disease, but now health officials are looking closely at other indicators such as suicides (a lagging indicator that has actually decreased slightly).
“We’re in a tough situation with this pandemic and hard choices are going to have to be made, but I think they can be made in a thoughtful way.”
Forcing their hand
In California and across the country, pressure is on to reopen, expressed in lawsuits and protests. Over it all looms an election in November. No fewer than a dozen suits have been filed against California and Gov. Gavin Newsom by gun shops, churches, businesses, and even a bride to be. Last week, the Wisconsin Supreme Court overturned the state’s “safer at home” order, saying it needed approval in the Legislature.
Eugene Volokh, who teaches at the University of California Los Angeles law school, says it is unlikely that it will be the courts that push reopening. Governments have “extremely broad authority” in a pandemic, especially over everyday business, he explains, citing the 1905 Supreme Court smallpox case, Jacobson v. Massachusetts. It may be a little different where some specific individual rights are involved – such as with churches or guns. Stay-at-home orders also may violate some state constitutions.
But it is economic pressure that will do the pushing, he says. “Long before the courts accept any of these business claims, many states are going to recognize that at some point, the shutdown causes more harm than good.” Governors don’t want to be seen as causing more deaths than the pandemic, he says, and at the same time, they need revenues to implement their programs and balance their budgets.
“The interests of business, and the interests of citizens, and the interests of government officials, while not completely aligned, will be largely aligned in favor of opening things up as long as it is seen as marginally safe.”
Indeed, with decreased hospitalizations, Governor Newsom this week relaxed criteria for counties to move further along the road to reopening. LA County officials, too, feel a sense of urgency from businesses to open or risk permanent job loss.
“Time is of the essence,” said Kathryn Barger, chair of the county’s Board of Supervisors after meeting with business leaders this week. “Now it is time to begin to move from safer at home, to safer at work, and safer in our communities.”
Editor’s note: As a public service, all our coronavirus coverage is free. No paywall.


csmonitor--2020-05-21--Can you trust COVID-19 test data? In these states, maybe not.

Public health officials in some states are accused of bungling coronavirus infection statistics or even using a little sleight of hand to deliberately make things look better than they are .
The risk is that politicians , business owners , and ordinary Americans who are making decisions about lockdowns , reopenings , and other day-to-day matters could be left with the impression that the virus is under more control than it actually is .
In Florida , Gov .
Ron DeSantis has said his decision to begin reopening his state has been driven by science , and federal epidemiologists have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of COVID-19 related data as especially granular and user-friendly .
But questions about the integrity of the state 's public health data were raised anew when the chief architect of Florida ’ s coronavirus website was fired this week after a dispute over what information should be made public .
Rebekah Jones , an information systems manager with the Florida Department of Health , announced in an email to researchers Friday that she was reassigned from her duties overseeing an online dashboard that provides daily snapshots of Florida 's COVID-19 infections , testing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ reopening the state , Mr. DeSantis has lashed out against early prognostications of gloom and doom , saying in recent weeks that many of the state ’ s hospital beds are lying empty and some testing sites were closed because there was not much demand .
He 's used data from the dashboard – including the relatively low rate of people testing positive for the coronavirus – to build support for reopening the state .
Still , he said , reopening will happen in phases .
This week , restaurants and retail businesses @ @ @ @ @ @ @ capacity .
But the firing has provided new fodder against the Republican governor as he defends his handling of the coronavirus outbreak .
Mr. DeSantis has also come under fire for his handling of the state ’ s unemployment system , which broke down after being inundated by hundreds of thousands of Floridians who suddenly lost their jobs because of the economic downturn caused by the outbreak .
“ We were told the reopening Florida was built on studying the data .
If that data was wrong or manipulated , that puts countless @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , '' said state Rep. Tracie Davis , a Democrat from Jacksonville and a member of the House Health Committee .
“ We do know our state is being reopened and we now have a question mark about the data , '' she said .
The timing of her reassignment came a day after the state 's May 4 rollout of the first phase of the governor ’ s reopening plan .
It was unclear if Ms. Jones was being asked to make Florida appear more solidly in compliance with the White House @ @ @ @ @ @ @ time , Florida was showing a downward trajectory in new infections and rates of positive tests – as well as meeting the rest of the federal criteria .
During a Tuesday press conference , Mr. DeSantis dismissed the matter as “ a nonissue ” and praised the dashboard as a national model .
Afterward , the governor 's spokeswoman , Helen Ferre , said in an email that Ms. Jones had “ exhibited a repeated course of insubordination , '' asserting that Ms. Jones had made “ unilateral decisions to modify the Department @ @ @ @ @ @ @ approval from the epidemiological team or her supervisors.
” Ms. Jones , whose dismissal Monday was first reported by Florida Today , could not be reached for comment .
But it 's not just Florida facing criticism for its handling of coronavirus data .
In Virginia , Texas , and Vermont , for example , officials said they have been combining the results of viral tests , which show an active infection , with antibody tests , which show a past infection .
Public health experts say that can make for impressive-looking testing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ picture of how the virus is spreading .
In Georgia , one of the earliest states to ease up on lockdowns and assure the public it was safe to go out again , the Department of Public Health published a graph around May 11 that showed new COVID-19 cases declining over time in the most severely affected counties .
The daily entries , however , were not arranged in chronological order but in descending order .
For example , the May 7 totals came right before April 26 , which was followed by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the graph made it appear as if the decline was smoother than it really was .
The graph was taken down within about a day .
Georgia state Rep. Jasmine Clark , a Democrat with a doctorate in microbiology , said the graph was a “ prime example of malfeasance.
” '' Sadly it feels like there ’ s been an attempt to make the data fit the narrative , and that ’ s not how data works , ” she said .
Republican Gov .
Brian Kemp 's office denied there was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ According to CNN , `` Georgia Department of Public Health spokeswoman Nancy Nydam said the issue was due to 'incorrect sorting logic ' that did not consider the date of the confirmed cases . ''
Guidelines from the Trump administration say that before states begin reopening , they should see a 14-day downward trend in infections .
However , some states have reopened when infections were still climbing or had plateaued .
States have also been instructed to expand testing and contact tracing .
The U.S. has recorded 1.5 million confirmed infections and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ said they stopped combining the two types of tests in the past few days .
Still , health officials in Virginia , where Democratic Gov .
Ralph Northam has eased up on restrictions , said that combining the numbers caused “ no difference in overall trends . ''
In Texas , where health officials said last week that they were including some antibody results in their testing totals and case counts , Republican Gov .
Greg Abbott said Monday that the numbers were not being commingled .
Health officials did not respond to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Public Health also regularly publishes a graph that shows cases over time , except new infections are not listed on the day they came back positive , which is the practice in many other states .
Instead , Georgia lists new cases on the day the patient first reported symptoms .
That practice can shift the timeline of the outbreak and make it appear as if the state is moving past the peak .
Georgia Gov .
Kemp spokesperson Candice Broce insisted that the governor ’ s office is not telling the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are not trying to dress up the data to make Mr. Kemp look better , saying that “ could not be further from the truth.
” As for the May 11 graph , Ms. Broce said public health officials were trying to highlight which days had seen the highest peaks of infections .
“ It was not intended to mislead , ” Ms. Broce said Tuesday .
“ It was always intended to be helpful.
” Thomas Tsai , a professor at the Harvard Global Health Institute , said the way Georgia reports @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the current conditions are , and he worries that other states may also be presenting data in a way that does n't capture the most up-to-date information .
Jennifer Nuzzo , a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security , said a lot of these cases are not necessarily the result of any attempt to fool the public .
For example , she said , states may not have updated information systems that allow them to tell the difference between an antibody test and a viral test .
Still , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ testing numbers together , “ you ’ re not going to be able to make good decisions about reopening and about what level of disease you have in the community , ” Ms. Nuzzo said .
This story was reported by The Associated Press .
Ms. Smith reported from Providence , Ms. Long from Washington , and Mr. Amy from Atlanta .
AP writers around the world contributed to this report .
Editor ’ s note : As a public service , the Monitor has removed the paywall for all our coronavirus coverage @ @ @ @ @ @

Public health officials in some states are accused of bungling coronavirus infection statistics or even using a little sleight of hand to deliberately make things look better than they are.
The risk is that politicians, business owners, and ordinary Americans who are making decisions about lockdowns, reopenings, and other day-to-day matters could be left with the impression that the virus is under more control than it actually is.
In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis has said his decision to begin reopening his state has been driven by science, and federal epidemiologists have praised his administration’s daily release of COVID-19 related data as especially granular and user-friendly.
But questions about the integrity of the state's public health data were raised anew when the chief architect of Florida’s coronavirus website was fired this week after a dispute over what information should be made public. Rebekah Jones, an information systems manager with the Florida Department of Health, announced in an email to researchers Friday that she was reassigned from her duties overseeing an online dashboard that provides daily snapshots of Florida's COVID-19 infections, testing, and deaths.
In preparation for reopening the state, Mr. DeSantis has lashed out against early prognostications of gloom and doom, saying in recent weeks that many of the state’s hospital beds are lying empty and some testing sites were closed because there was not much demand.
He's used data from the dashboard – including the relatively low rate of people testing positive for the coronavirus – to build support for reopening the state. Still, he said, reopening will happen in phases. This week, restaurants and retail businesses were allowed to open at 50% capacity.
But the firing has provided new fodder against the Republican governor as he defends his handling of the coronavirus outbreak. Mr. DeSantis has also come under fire for his handling of the state’s unemployment system, which broke down after being inundated by hundreds of thousands of Floridians who suddenly lost their jobs because of the economic downturn caused by the outbreak.
“We were told the reopening Florida was built on studying the data. If that data was wrong or manipulated, that puts countless Floridians at risk for exposure to COVID-19," said state Rep. Tracie Davis, a Democrat from Jacksonville and a member of the House Health Committee.
“We do know our state is being reopened and we now have a question mark about the data," she said.
The timing of her reassignment came a day after the state's May 4 rollout of the first phase of the governor’s reopening plan. It was unclear if Ms. Jones was being asked to make Florida appear more solidly in compliance with the White House's criteria for reopening. At the time, Florida was showing a downward trajectory in new infections and rates of positive tests – as well as meeting the rest of the federal criteria.
During a Tuesday press conference, Mr. DeSantis dismissed the matter as “a nonissue” and praised the dashboard as a national model.
Afterward, the governor's spokeswoman, Helen Ferre, said in an email that Ms. Jones had “exhibited a repeated course of insubordination," asserting that Ms. Jones had made “unilateral decisions to modify the Department’s COVID-19 dashboard without input or approval from the epidemiological team or her supervisors.” Ms. Jones, whose dismissal Monday was first reported by Florida Today, could not be reached for comment.
But it's not just Florida facing criticism for its handling of coronavirus data.
In Virginia, Texas, and Vermont, for example, officials said they have been combining the results of viral tests, which show an active infection, with antibody tests, which show a past infection. Public health experts say that can make for impressive-looking testing totals but does not give a true picture of how the virus is spreading.
In Georgia, one of the earliest states to ease up on lockdowns and assure the public it was safe to go out again, the Department of Public Health published a graph around May 11 that showed new COVID-19 cases declining over time in the most severely affected counties. The daily entries, however, were not arranged in chronological order but in descending order.
For example, the May 7 totals came right before April 26, which was followed by May 3. A quick look at the graph made it appear as if the decline was smoother than it really was. The graph was taken down within about a day.
Georgia state Rep. Jasmine Clark, a Democrat with a doctorate in microbiology, said the graph was a “prime example of malfeasance.”
"Sadly it feels like there’s been an attempt to make the data fit the narrative, and that’s not how data works,” she said.
Republican Gov. Brian Kemp's office denied there was any attempt to deceive the public. According to CNN, "Georgia Department of Public Health spokeswoman Nancy Nydam said the issue was due to 'incorrect sorting logic' that did not consider the date of the confirmed cases."
Guidelines from the Trump administration say that before states begin reopening, they should see a 14-day downward trend in infections. However, some states have reopened when infections were still climbing or had plateaued. States have also been instructed to expand testing and contact tracing.
The U.S. has recorded 1.5 million confirmed infections and over 90,000 deaths.
Vermont and Virginia said they stopped combining the two types of tests in the past few days. Still, health officials in Virginia, where Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam has eased up on restrictions, said that combining the numbers caused “no difference in overall trends."
In Texas, where health officials said last week that they were including some antibody results in their testing totals and case counts, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott said Monday that the numbers were not being commingled. Health officials did not respond to requests for clarification.
Georgia's Department of Public Health also regularly publishes a graph that shows cases over time, except new infections are not listed on the day they came back positive, which is the practice in many other states. Instead, Georgia lists new cases on the day the patient first reported symptoms.
That practice can shift the timeline of the outbreak and make it appear as if the state is moving past the peak.
Georgia Gov. Kemp spokesperson Candice Broce insisted that the governor’s office is not telling the department what to do and that officials are not trying to dress up the data to make Mr. Kemp look better, saying that “could not be further from the truth.”
As for the May 11 graph, Ms. Broce said public health officials were trying to highlight which days had seen the highest peaks of infections. “It was not intended to mislead,” Ms. Broce said Tuesday. “It was always intended to be helpful.”
Thomas Tsai, a professor at the Harvard Global Health Institute, said the way Georgia reports data makes it harder to understand what the current conditions are, and he worries that other states may also be presenting data in a way that doesn't capture the most up-to-date information.
Jennifer Nuzzo, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, said a lot of these cases are not necessarily the result of any attempt to fool the public. For example, she said, states may not have updated information systems that allow them to tell the difference between an antibody test and a viral test.
Still, if states are mixing a lot of testing numbers together, “you’re not going to be able to make good decisions about reopening and about what level of disease you have in the community,” Ms. Nuzzo said.
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This story was reported by The Associated Press. Ms. Smith reported from Providence, Ms. Long from Washington, and Mr. Amy from Atlanta. AP writers around the world contributed to this report.
Editor’s note: As a public service, the Monitor has removed the paywall for all our coronavirus coverage. It’s free.


csmonitor--2020-05-07--Call-in court brings out an unusually chatty Clarence Thomas

A Supreme Court justice gets it in his mind to ask a question , and pretty soon , he 's got questions for everyone .
And so the next question : Will Clarence Thomas ever stop talking ?
Before this week , the intervals between Mr. Thomas ' questions during high court arguments were measured in years .
He once went 10 years , from 2006 to 2016 , without asking even one .
Now he 's been an active questioner for three straight days .
He 'll have the chance to continue his streak next week in six arguments @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the setting , the court 's first arguments by telephone , because of the coronavirus pandemic .
“ I must say , as a former clerk , I ’ m delighted that a silver lining of the new format in this difficult time is that the public can see the extraordinary combination of preparation , thoughtfulness , and grace the Justice brings to every case , ” Elizabeth Papez , partner in a big Washington , D.C. , law firm said in an email .
The new arrangement has made for more structured @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of jumping in whenever they wanted .
Only Chief Justice John Roberts goes before Mr. Thomas , the longest-serving justice .
He joined the court in 1991 .
One reason Mr. Thomas has given over the years for his reticence is that he thinks his colleagues talk too much and do n't give the lawyers before them the courtesy of presenting arguments they have sweated over for weeks and months .
He 's also told the New York Times he developed a habit of listening over speaking after being mocked for the Gullah @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Pin Point , Georgia .
“ It confirms in one sense what Justice Thomas has said about the excessive interruptions , '' said Nicole Stelle Garnett , a University of Notre Dame law professor who once worked for Mr. Thomas .
The contrast between Mr. Thomas on the phone and in person is stark .
In the courtroom , the justice often reclines in his chair , his gaze toward the decorative ceiling , not on the lawyer who is arguing .
Occasionally , he will lean forward , approaching his microphone and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ break his silence .
Almost always , it 's just a feint .
But on the phone , he 's had questions for every lawyer , although he went out of order Wednesday because of temporary technical difficulties .
Justice Sonia Sotomayor and Stephen Breyer have also had trouble un-muting .
And the new , orderly format has changed courtroom dynamics beyond technical challenges , reports CNN : The format ensures that lawyers , and the public listening in , know who is speaking ( as announced by Roberts ) but offers limited @ @ @ @ @ @ @ out .
When the nine are in the courtroom , justices often swiftly counter assertions by a fellow justice and turn the argument around , to the advantage of one side over another and their own interest .
Justice Elena Kagan on Wednesday tried to pin down a lawyer challenging an Affordable Care Act policy that requires employers to provide contraceptive insurance coverage .
But her line of inquiry related to the breadth of his objections , tracing to religious grounds , was halted mid-response because of the clock .
Roberts turned to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on the other side of liberal Kagan 's position , who was next in line .
It also presents challenges for non-justices : Lawyers have fretted about the inability to see the justices ' faces and read their demeanor .
That 's the same for journalists and others listening in .
No longer may clues be gleaned from an expression of doubt as a justice leans forward from the bench .
It is hard to know whether the justices have been satisfied by a lawyer 's response or whether they might be budging @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the five conservatives and four liberals .
But phoning in has some upsides .
In another time , Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg arranged her medical care around the court 's schedule so she would n't miss arguments .
On Wednesday , Ms. Ginsburg was able to participate from a Baltimore hospital , where she was being treated for an infection .
It 's an unforeseen option after the court 's virus-driven decision to hold remote arguments .
Ms. Ginsburg was back home Wednesday night .
When Ginsburg was receiving treatment following cancer surgery @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the first woman on the court , Justice Sandra Day O'Connor , who was back in court nine days after surgery .
“ Ruth , you schedule your chemotherapy for a Friday .
Then you can get over it on Saturday and Sunday and be back in court on Monday , ” Ms. Ginsburg said last year , quoting Ms. O'Connor , at a Clinton Foundation event in Little Rock , Arkansas .
This story was reported by The Associated Press .
Editor ’ s note : As a public service , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ our coronavirus coverage .
It ’ s free .

A Supreme Court justice gets it in his mind to ask a question, and pretty soon, he's got questions for everyone. And so the next question: Will Clarence Thomas ever stop talking?
Before this week, the intervals between Mr. Thomas' questions during high court arguments were measured in years. He once went 10 years, from 2006 to 2016, without asking even one.
Now he's been an active questioner for three straight days. He'll have the chance to continue his streak next week in six arguments over three days.
It might be the setting, the court's first arguments by telephone, because of the coronavirus pandemic.
“I must say, as a former clerk, I’m delighted that a silver lining of the new format in this difficult time is that the public can see the extraordinary combination of preparation, thoughtfulness, and grace the Justice brings to every case,” Elizabeth Papez, partner in a big Washington, D.C., law firm said in an email.
The new arrangement has made for more structured proceedings, with justices taking turns instead of jumping in whenever they wanted. Only Chief Justice John Roberts goes before Mr. Thomas, the longest-serving justice. He joined the court in 1991.
One reason Mr. Thomas has given over the years for his reticence is that he thinks his colleagues talk too much and don't give the lawyers before them the courtesy of presenting arguments they have sweated over for weeks and months. He's also told the New York Times he developed a habit of listening over speaking after being mocked for the Gullah dialect he spoke as a boy in Pin Point, Georgia.
“It confirms in one sense what Justice Thomas has said about the excessive interruptions," said Nicole Stelle Garnett, a University of Notre Dame law professor who once worked for Mr. Thomas.
The contrast between Mr. Thomas on the phone and in person is stark.
In the courtroom, the justice often reclines in his chair, his gaze toward the decorative ceiling, not on the lawyer who is arguing. Occasionally, he will lean forward, approaching his microphone and putting reporters on alert that he might break his silence.
Almost always, it's just a feint.
But on the phone, he's had questions for every lawyer, although he went out of order Wednesday because of temporary technical difficulties. Justice Sonia Sotomayor and Stephen Breyer have also had trouble un-muting. And the new, orderly format has changed courtroom dynamics beyond technical challenges, reports CNN:
The format ensures that lawyers, and the public listening in, know who is speaking (as announced by Roberts) but offers limited opportunity for particular points to be hashed out. When the nine are in the courtroom, justices often swiftly counter assertions by a fellow justice and turn the argument around, to the advantage of one side over another and their own interest. Justice Elena Kagan on Wednesday tried to pin down a lawyer challenging an Affordable Care Act policy that requires employers to provide contraceptive insurance coverage. But her line of inquiry related to the breadth of his objections, tracing to religious grounds, was halted mid-response because of the clock. Roberts turned to Justice Neil Gorsuch, a conservative often on the other side of liberal Kagan's position, who was next in line.
It also presents challenges for non-justices:
Lawyers have fretted about the inability to see the justices' faces and read their demeanor. That's the same for journalists and others listening in. No longer may clues be gleaned from an expression of doubt as a justice leans forward from the bench. It is hard to know whether the justices have been satisfied by a lawyer's response or whether they might be budging in ideologically charged cases that typically split the five conservatives and four liberals.
But phoning in has some upsides. In another time, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg arranged her medical care around the court's schedule so she wouldn't miss arguments.
On Wednesday, Ms. Ginsburg was able to participate from a Baltimore hospital, where she was being treated for an infection. It's an unforeseen option after the court's virus-driven decision to hold remote arguments. Ms. Ginsburg was back home Wednesday night.
When Ginsburg was receiving treatment following cancer surgery in 1999, she followed advice from the first woman on the court, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who was back in court nine days after surgery.
“Ruth, you schedule your chemotherapy for a Friday. Then you can get over it on Saturday and Sunday and be back in court on Monday,” Ms. Ginsburg said last year, quoting Ms. O'Connor, at a Clinton Foundation event in Little Rock, Arkansas.
This story was reported by The Associated Press.
Editor’s note: As a public service, the Monitor has removed the paywall for all our coronavirus coverage. It’s free.


csmonitor--2020-04-13--Putin's political agenda on hold as he faces virus backlash

Spring is not turning out the way Russian President Vladimir Putin might have planned it .
A nationwide vote on April 22 was supposed to finalize sweeping constitutional reforms that would allow him to stay in power until 2036 , if he wished .
But after the coronavirus spread in Russia , that plebiscite had to be postponed – an action so abrupt that billboards promoting it already had been erected in Moscow and other big cities .
Now under threat is a pomp-filled celebration of Victory Day on May 9 , marking the 1945 defeat of Nazi Germany in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ become the most important on Russia 's calendar , and this year is the 75th anniversary , with world leaders invited to a celebration highlighting the country 's exceptional role in history .
Every year , thousands gather in Moscow , including many elderly veterans proudly wearing their medals .
Military units have already rehearsed the traditional Red Square parade , drilling outside Moscow , and leaders such as France 's Emmanuel Macron and India 's Narendra Modi had promised to attend .
It would seem impossible to have such a gala now @ @ @ @ @ @ @ world locked down to stop the spread of the virus .
Last week , Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said no decision has been made on whether to postpone it but authorities are considering `` options , '' one of which is to hold it without the veterans , a group especially vulnerable to the virus .
Mr. Peskov added the Kremlin would understand if foreign leaders decided not to come due to the pandemic and added the celebration would take place even if it does n't happen on May 9 .
Initially underestimated @ @ @ @ @ @ @ posed an unexpected challenge for Mr. Putin , whose political standing now depends on whether he can contain the damage from it .
On March 24 , Mr. Putin was shown donning a yellow hazmat suit to visit a hospital for infected patients .
Officials then indefinitely postponed the vote on the constitutional reforms that would have allowed Mr. Putin to serve two more six-year terms after 2024 .
The amendments already have been approved by lawmakers but the government wanted nationwide balloting to give the changes a democratic veneer .
Campaigns promoting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ dozens of Russian regions .
In preparation for the vote and Victory Day , Russia 's state news agency Tass had begun releasing parts of a three-hour interview with Mr. Putin , with the 67-year-old leader talking about what he has done for the country in the past 20 years and what else needs to be accomplished .
But Tass suspended daily extracts of the interview , saying it was no longer relevant to an audience more concerned about the coronavirus .
The outbreak has completely reset the Kremlin 's political agenda , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fellow in Chatham House 's Russia and Eurasia Program .
`` Everything that was happening before [ the outbreak ] has basically been wiped out , '' Mr. Petrov told The Associated Press .
`` That whole political agenda [ of constitutional reform ] , that had been unfolding since mid-January is over . ''
He added that for the moment , `` I think we can forget about the constitutional amendments . ''
The coronavirus crisis presents many difficulties for Mr. Putin , whose approval ratings – steadily dropping in the past @ @ @ @ @ @ @ March - the lowest since 2013 .
It comes as the prices of oil , Russia 's main source of income , plummeted amid a price war with Saudi Arabia , causing a sharp drop in the ruble .
The pandemic brought with it the prospects of more economic devastation .
As much of Russia went into lockdown , which Mr. Putin sugarcoated it by describing it as `` nonworking days , '' many business operations came to a halt , prompting fears of a mass shutdown by companies and leaving millions unemployed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , a government-backed business association , predicted 3 million companies could go out of business and 8 million people – almost 11 % of Russia 's working population – could end up jobless .
A weakening economy and worsening living conditions , widely seen by analysts as the driving force behind Mr. Putin 's souring ratings , have already become the dominating fear among Russians .
With the crisis still unfolding , it is likely to hurt his standing even more , said Denis Volkov , a sociologist with the independent Levada polling @ @ @ @ @ @ @ getting worse `` then the ratings start plummeting , '' Mr. Volkov told the AP .
The Kremlin 's response to the crisis has raised questions at home and abroad .
Domestically , Mr. Putin has been widely criticized for paying little attention to the epidemic at first , and then for distancing himself from it by delegating difficult decisions on lockdowns to regional governments and the Cabinet .
Some in the West have questioned the low number of official virus cases in Russia and dismissed its widely publicized effort to send planeloads @ @ @ @ @ @ @ U.S. , Serbia , and other countries as a PR stunt .
Mr. Putin sought to reassure the nation in a TV address on April 8 , but part of his message comparing the coronavirus to invaders from the 10th and 11th centuries brought mockery on social media instead .
`` Our country went through many serious challenges .
It was tormented by the Pechenegs and the Cumans , and Russia got through all of it .
We will defeat this coronavirus bug , too , '' Mr. Putin said .
Social media @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Mr. Putin use this line in 2010 , he might have borrowed it from an anecdote from the 19th century .
`` The risks of him looking out of touch are very real , '' Samuel Greene , director of the Russia Institute at the King 's College London , told the AP .
Mr. Putin used to be able to regain control of the political agenda by shifting the focus from domestic hardships to Russia 's geopolitical grandeur , rallying people around the 2014 annexation of Crimea or fighting what he called @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , as Russia is forced to confront a truly global crisis , that tactic seems much harder .
`` There can be nothing that would interest people more than the hardship they are going through and will continue to go through for a long time , '' said Mr. Petrov .
This story was reported by The Associated Press .
Editor ’ s note : As a public service , the Monitor has removed the paywall for all our coronavirus coverage .
It ’ s free .

Spring is not turning out the way Russian President Vladimir Putin might have planned it.
A nationwide vote on April 22 was supposed to finalize sweeping constitutional reforms that would allow him to stay in power until 2036, if he wished. But after the coronavirus spread in Russia, that plebiscite had to be postponed – an action so abrupt that billboards promoting it already had been erected in Moscow and other big cities.
Now under threat is a pomp-filled celebration of Victory Day on May 9, marking the 1945 defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II.
The holiday has become the most important on Russia's calendar, and this year is the 75th anniversary, with world leaders invited to a celebration highlighting the country's exceptional role in history. Every year, thousands gather in Moscow, including many elderly veterans proudly wearing their medals.
Military units have already rehearsed the traditional Red Square parade, drilling outside Moscow, and leaders such as France's Emmanuel Macron and India's Narendra Modi had promised to attend.
It would seem impossible to have such a gala now, with much of Russia and the world locked down to stop the spread of the virus.
Last week, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said no decision has been made on whether to postpone it but authorities are considering "options," one of which is to hold it without the veterans, a group especially vulnerable to the virus. Mr. Peskov added the Kremlin would understand if foreign leaders decided not to come due to the pandemic and added the celebration would take place even if it doesn't happen on May 9.
Initially underestimated by Russian authorities, the pandemic has posed an unexpected challenge for Mr. Putin, whose political standing now depends on whether he can contain the damage from it.
On March 24, Mr. Putin was shown donning a yellow hazmat suit to visit a hospital for infected patients.
Officials then indefinitely postponed the vote on the constitutional reforms that would have allowed Mr. Putin to serve two more six-year terms after 2024. The amendments already have been approved by lawmakers but the government wanted nationwide balloting to give the changes a democratic veneer. Campaigns promoting the vote had already kicked off in dozens of Russian regions.
In preparation for the vote and Victory Day, Russia's state news agency Tass had begun releasing parts of a three-hour interview with Mr. Putin, with the 67-year-old leader talking about what he has done for the country in the past 20 years and what else needs to be accomplished. But Tass suspended daily extracts of the interview, saying it was no longer relevant to an audience more concerned about the coronavirus.
The outbreak has completely reset the Kremlin's political agenda, said Nikolai Petrov, a senior research fellow in Chatham House's Russia and Eurasia Program.
"Everything that was happening before [the outbreak] has basically been wiped out," Mr. Petrov told The Associated Press. "That whole political agenda [of constitutional reform], that had been unfolding since mid-January is over."
He added that for the moment, "I think we can forget about the constitutional amendments."
The coronavirus crisis presents many difficulties for Mr. Putin, whose approval ratings – steadily dropping in the past two years – reached 63% in March - the lowest since 2013.
It comes as the prices of oil, Russia's main source of income, plummeted amid a price war with Saudi Arabia, causing a sharp drop in the ruble. The pandemic brought with it the prospects of more economic devastation.
As much of Russia went into lockdown, which Mr. Putin sugarcoated it by describing it as "nonworking days," many business operations came to a halt, prompting fears of a mass shutdown by companies and leaving millions unemployed.
The Chamber for Trade and Industries, a government-backed business association, predicted 3 million companies could go out of business and 8 million people – almost 11% of Russia's working population – could end up jobless.
A weakening economy and worsening living conditions, widely seen by analysts as the driving force behind Mr. Putin's souring ratings, have already become the dominating fear among Russians. With the crisis still unfolding, it is likely to hurt his standing even more, said Denis Volkov, a sociologist with the independent Levada polling center.
When people start fearing things getting worse "then the ratings start plummeting," Mr. Volkov told the AP.
The Kremlin's response to the crisis has raised questions at home and abroad.
Domestically, Mr. Putin has been widely criticized for paying little attention to the epidemic at first, and then for distancing himself from it by delegating difficult decisions on lockdowns to regional governments and the Cabinet.
Some in the West have questioned the low number of official virus cases in Russia and dismissed its widely publicized effort to send planeloads of medical aid to Italy, the U.S., Serbia, and other countries as a PR stunt.
Mr. Putin sought to reassure the nation in a TV address on April 8, but part of his message comparing the coronavirus to invaders from the 10th and 11th centuries brought mockery on social media instead.
"Our country went through many serious challenges. It was tormented by the Pechenegs and the Cumans, and Russia got through all of it. We will defeat this coronavirus bug, too," Mr. Putin said.
Social media users pointed out that not only did Mr. Putin use this line in 2010, he might have borrowed it from an anecdote from the 19th century.
"The risks of him looking out of touch are very real," Samuel Greene, director of the Russia Institute at the King's College London, told the AP.
Mr. Putin used to be able to regain control of the political agenda by shifting the focus from domestic hardships to Russia's geopolitical grandeur, rallying people around the 2014 annexation of Crimea or fighting what he called terrorists in Syria. But this time, as Russia is forced to confront a truly global crisis, that tactic seems much harder.
"There can be nothing that would interest people more than the hardship they are going through and will continue to go through for a long time," said Mr. Petrov.
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 The Associated Press.
Editor’s note: As a public service, the Monitor has removed the paywall for all our coronavirus coverage. It’s free.