David Sims

David Sims is a staff writer at The Atlantic , where he covers culture .
• Will Ferrell ’ s New Comedy Is Goofy Escapism at Its Best Netflix ’ s Eurovision Song Contest succeeds because it ’ s both sincere and satirical .
Also , it has invisible elves .
• One of America ’ s Fiercest Media Critics Is Back With a Warning Jon Stewart on his new satirical film , Irresistible , and the simplistic narratives that fuel the U.S. political system • The screenwriters behind Spike Lee ’ s new film discuss the story ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ movie about black veterans .
• The King of Staten Island and the Pain of Moving On Judd Apatow ’ s latest movie goes light on laughs as it confronts the traumas that stop people from growing up .
• Spike Lee Has Made His Most Ambitious Film Yet Da 5 Bloods is a searing Vietnam War epic that speaks to this moment—and it ’ s on Netflix , so viewers can revisit it again and again .
• The King of Comedy Is Okay With Not Being Funny Judd Apatow on making @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the current moment : “ It ’ s about trauma , first responders , how families deal with loss.
” • Shirley Is an Unconventional Biopic About a Horror Master A new movie out on Hulu gives the writer Shirley Jackson the unsettling and incisive cinematic treatment she deserves .
• The 13 Best Movies About Why You Shouldn ’ t Trust the Government Hollywood has a rich tradition of paranoid thrillers and conspiratorial dramas that are outrageous but have a hint of truth to them .
• The Creepy , Clever Sci-Fi @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Night , now on Amazon Prime Video , is a sharp debut from a filmmaker you should pay attention to .
• 30 Movies That Are Unlike Anything You ’ ve Seen Before These films , each unforgettable in its own way , are essential viewing .
• The Sitcom Dad Who Made Grouchiness Into an Art Form The actor Jerry Stiller , who died yesterday at age 92 , was unforgettable as the irascible Frank Costanza on Seinfeld .
• There ’ s something soothing about watching a comedian who has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
• The dark side of big data is a fascinating subject for TV to tackle .
It just doesn ’ t make for a great antagonist .
• 8 Films to Watch Right Now , According to Barry Jenkins “ Right now , there are no movie theaters .
The screens are on our walls , in our pockets , on our monitors.
” • While Generation X mostly dismissed him as wooden and one-note , younger viewers better understand his nuances as a performer .
• The streaming service is thriving @ @ @ @ @ @ @ including theaters and movie studios , are frozen .
• 22 Movies About the End of the World to Watch Now These films aren ’ t all bleak—or obviously about an apocalypse .
But each has timeless insights into how humans respond in times of crisis .

David Sims is a staff writer at The Atlantic, where he covers culture.
He is also a co-host of the Blank Check podcast. Before joining The Atlantic in 2014, David worked at The A.V. Club as a critic and was a staff reporter on education and local politics at the New York City newspaper The Chief-Leader. At The Atlantic, he primarily covers film, as well as comedy, television, video games, and other pop culture.
Bluey Images / Disney In Praise of Bluey, the Most Grown-Up Television Show for Children The hit Australian cartoon doesn’t hesitate to explore complicated feelings in a way that kids can understand, and that their parents will appreciate.
Mario Tama / Getty Hollywood’s Huge Barbenheimer Fumble Not taking advantage of the success of Barbie and Oppenheimer would be a catastrophic mistake.
Universal Pictures Oppenheimer Is More Than a Creation Myth About the Atomic Bomb Christopher Nolan’s ambitious film explores the heated conversations and private anxieties that led to the unleashing of a terrible power.
Warner Bros What’s the Matter With Barbie? Greta Gerwig’s Barbie is a charming blockbuster adventure about the tribulations of simply existing as a woman in society.
Nicole Rivelli / Sony A PG-13 Horror Franchise With the Legs to Last The Insidious franchise keeps going, and going, and going
Paramount Pictures The Sincerity and Absurdity of Hollywood’s Best Action Franchise Mission: Impossible—Dead Reckoning Part One is a worthy entry in a series that has managed to stay fresh for nearly 30 years.
Video by Joanne Imperio / The Atlantic. Sources: … Can Movie Fans Ever Have a Nice Thing? Turner Classic Movies is facing deep staffing cuts—and with them, concern over what its future programming will look like.
Disney It’s Hard to Be Mad at Indiana Jones The action franchise’s fifth installment doesn’t break new ground, but it treats its star with respect and gives viewers what they want.
Disney / Pixar Pixar’s Talking Blobs Are Becoming More and More Unsatisfying The fantastical world of Elemental masks a lack of imagination from the once-inventive studio.
Focus Features Asteroid City Is Wes Anderson at His Best The film makes the case that art can convey feelings that even its creators don’t understand.
Al Levine / NBC Universal / Getty Long Live the Delightfully Dumb Comedy Conan O’Brien reminds us that a very stupid premise can make for the most hilarious movie.
DC The Flash Was on Life Support—Then the Muschietti Siblings Stepped In According to Barbara Muschietti, there’s one big reason she and her brother, Andy, have tackled some of Hollywood’s most troubled productions: “We’re incredibly stubborn.”
Sony Pictures A Spidey Sense We Haven’t Seen Before In Across the Spider-Verse, even more thrilling than the dazzling visuals is the hero’s bold psychological journey.
Disney The Naturalistic Horror of The Little Mermaid The film features a talking, orchestra-conducting crab—it doesn’t need to look like a wildlife documentary.
Jeong Park / A24 You Hurt My Feelings Is a Hilarious Anxiety Spiral The film traces a betrayal that’s trivial, comical, and also completely devastating.
Apple TV+ Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon Is a Triumph The highly anticipated adaptation of David Grann’s book is extraordinary filmmaking—and a big win for Apple TV+.
Magnolia Pictures The Provocative Optimism of Master Gardener The film, which takes on neo-Nazism and white supremacy, is Paul Schrader’s most challenging work yet. It’s also his most hopeful.
Universal Fast & Furious and Pretty Stale The franchise’s formula—merciless villain and world-threatening chaos, plus cars—just isn’t landing like it used to.
Courtesy of Elevation Pictures BlackBerry Is a New Kind of Business Biopic Even more enthralling than the story of a successful company is the story of one that crashed and burned.


Spencer Kornhaber

Spencer Kornhaber is a staff writer at The Atlantic , where he covers pop culture and music .
• This season of social distancing will also be one of social closeness between neighbors—illuminating divides of race , class , and place .
• What Bob Dylan Knows About This Moment Rough and Rowdy Ways , the singer ’ s first album of original music in years , reminds an anxious nation that all things are eventually doomed .
• As Twitter users expose specific instances of racism in their workplaces and in the media , they help ensure a lasting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
• Queer nightlife has always been about finding ways to be together .
So in the age of social distancing , it ’ s reinventing itself , and not for the first time .
• Defund the Police Gets Its Anthem Months ago , Johnniqua Charles sang an impromptu song to protest her detainment .
Now hip-hop DJs have turned “ Lose Yo Job ” into a gleeful rallying cry and warning .
• Lady Gaga Is Back and Smaller Than Ever The sometimes-dazzling dance pop of Chromatica is a return to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ overselling it .
• Larry Kramer Knew That an Honest Debate Was a Rude One With his debut novel , Faggots , the legendary AIDS activist , who died yesterday , demonstrated the profane morality that would define his career .
• The Atlantic Daily : A Playlist for Partying Alone At first we were afraid , we were petrified—but this Memorial Day weekend might be the time to shake up quarantine solitude with a playlist of empowering pop .
• The pop star ’ s daring album How I ’ m Feeling @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the real thing .
• Drake Responds to the Pandemic in a Predictably Drake Way The rapper is back with Dark Lane Demo Tapes—a batch of songs taking comfort in an antisocial status quo .
• The Mountain Goats ’ latest release is authentically a product of this pandemic , but it ’ s also nicely indifferent to it .
• They might not know how magnets work , but the group ’ s members do know that cultural figureheads should simply tend to their communities during this time .
• Fetch the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ first album in eight years , argues that confinement can intensify one ’ s connection to the greater human whole .
• Hollywood ’ s short-form entertainment app slices and dices the traditional mediocrity that the internet has allowed viewers to escape from .
• Bill Withers ’ s Life Was as Rich as His Songs The “ Lean on Me ” and “ Lovely Day ” singer , dead at 81 , was too great a talent and too independent an individual to be eclipsed by his own influence .

Spencer Kornhaber is a staff writer at The Atlantic.
Before joining The Atlantic as an editor in 2011, he was a staff writer at OC Weekly, an editor at Patch, and a freelancer for Spin and The A.V. Club. In 2019, he won the Excellence in Column Writing Award from NLGJA: The Association of LGBTQ Journalists. At The Atlantic, he covers pop culture and music.
On her fascinating 10th album, the artist takes stock of the world she helped create—and, once again, conjures a new one.
Photo-illustration by The Atlantic. Sources: Ed Rode / … When Small-Town Pride Sounds Like Anger Jason Aldean says “Try That in a Small Town” celebrates community—but its words and sound tell a different story.
Anohni / Rebis Music Anohni’s Message: To Save the World, We’ll Have to Forgive Ourselves The artist talks about her new album, My Back Was a Bridge for You to Cross, which explicitly aligns her with the American protest-music tradition.
Lexie Moreland / Getty Olivia Rodrigo’s Big, Bloody Return “Vampire,” the singer’s first new song in two years, pushes her confessional-pop appeal to a sizzling extreme.
llustration by The Atlantic* The Age of Pleasure Is Here New albums by Janelle Monáe, Jake Shears, and Jessie Ware offer uninhibited takes on life after stir-craziness.
Rita Harper / The Guardian / eyevine / … Killer Mike’s Critique of Wokeness The rapper discusses his new album, meeting with Georgia Governor Brian Kemp, and embracing conflict in politics and all walks of life.
John Provencher ‘Hell Welcomes All’ Can hard-core gamers learn to play well with others?
Kevin Mazur / TAS23 / Getty Fans’ Expectations of Taylor Swift Are Chafing Against Reality The singer’s collaboration with the rapper Ice Spice has launched a new debate about what she owes her ultra-devoted audience.
Vera Tammen / Trunk Archive Tina Turner’s Cosmic Life The late singer stretched human expression to its fraying limits—and then her story became a folktale.
Macall Polay / HBO It’s Just a Fascist President, Kendall; How Bad Could It Be? When the fate of the country depends on a rich boy’s childhood trauma, we’re all doomed.
Yuki Iwamura / Bloomberg / Getty Ed Sheeran Is Older, Wiser, and Still Quite Bland He may have beaten a plagiarism case, but his melancholy new album struggles to find original meaning.
Graeme Hunter / HBO Welcome to the Creepiest Corporate Retreat Ever This was one cold-blooded episode of Succession.
Magnolia Pictures Little Richard and the Truth About Rock and Roll’s Queer Origins A new documentary celebrates a cultural revolution led by a man who was, at times, a traditionalist.
Photo-illustration by Gabriela Pesqueira. Sources: Amy Sussman / … Taylor Swift and the Sad Dads On the unlikeliest, most fruitful collaboration in contemporary music
Chris Reel / Prime Video Is Stanning a Sin? Donald Glover’s twisted new show, Swarm, hints that our biggest stars fear their own fans.
Mikayla LoBasso ‘Rock and Roll Ain’t What It Used to Be’ And boygenius isn’t nostalgic about it.
Kevin Mazur / Getty for TAS What Made Taylor Swift’s Concert Unbelievable At her epic opening show, the pop star played 44 songs and conjured actual magic.
Kevin Winter / Getty The Most Surprising Performance of the Oscars Lady Gaga’s minimalist rendition of “Hold My Hand” stood out even in a night of unpredictable musical moments.
Peacock What Makes Poker Face a Triumph We don’t quite live in the country the show depicts. But, in an odd way, we should wish to.
Illustration by Gabriela Pesqueira / The Atlantic. Sources: … The Pulse of Pop Music Is Changing Welcome to the age of lo-fi beats to take stimulants to.


theatlantic--2020-03-03--The Official Coronavirus Numbers Are Wrong, and Everyone Knows It

In total , fewer than 500 people have been tested across the country ( although the CDC has stopped reporting that number in its summary of the outbreak ) .
As a result , the current “ official ” case count inside the United States stood at 43 as of this morning ( excluding cruise-ship cases ) .
This number is wrong , yet it ’ s still constantly printed and quoted .
In other contexts , we ’ d call this what it is : a subtle form of misinformation .
Read : What Trump could do right now @ @ @ @ @ @ @ This artificially low number means that for the past few weeks , we ’ ve seen massive state action abroad and only simmering unease domestically .
While Chinese officials were enacting a world-historic containment effort—putting more than 700 million people under some kind of movement restriction , quarantining tens of millions of people , and placing others under new kinds of surveillance—and American public-health officials were staring at the writing on the wall that the disease was extremely likely to spread in the U.S. , the public-health response was stuck in neutral .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ not increasing at all .
Preparing for a sizable outbreak seemed absurd when there were fewer than 20 cases on American soil .
Now we know that the disease was already spreading and that it was the U.S. response that was stalled .
Meanwhile , South Korean officials have been testing more than 10,000 people a day , driving up the country ’ s reported-case count .
Same goes for Italy : high test rate , high number of cases .
( Now some Italian politicians want to restrict testing . )
In @ @ @ @ @ @ @ country has more than 80,000 cases , but the real number might be far , far higher because of all the people who had mild ( er ) cases and were turned away from medical care , or never sought it in the first place .
That may be cause for reassurance ( though not everyone agrees ) , because the total number of cases is the denominator in the simple equation that yields a fatality rate : deaths divided by cases .
More cases with the same number of deaths means that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the data show .
Read : What you can do right now about the coronavirus The point is that every country ’ s numbers are the result of a specific set of testing and accounting regimes .
Everyone is cooking the data , one way or another .
And yet , even though these inconsistencies are public and plain , people continue to rely on charts showing different numbers , with no indication that they are not all produced with the same rigor or vigor .
This is bad .
It encourages dangerous @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bring a country ’ s numbers down or slow-walking testing to keep a country ’ s numbers low .
Read : A coronavirus quarantine in America could be a giant legal mess The other problem is , now that the U.S. appears to be ramping up testing , the number of cases will grow quickly .
Public-health officials are currently cautioning people not to worry as that happens , but it will be hard to disambiguate what proportion of the ballooning number of cases is the result of more testing and what proportion @ @ @ @ @ @ @ virus .
People trust data .
Numbers seem real .
Charts have charismatic power .
People believe what can be quantified .
But data do not always accurately reflect the state of the world .
Or as one scholar put it in a book title : “ Raw Data ” Is an Oxymoron .
The reality gap between American numbers and American cases is wide .
Regular citizens and decision makers can not rely on only the numbers to make decisions .
Sometimes quantification actually obscures as much as it reveals .

We know, irrefutably, one thing about the coronavirus in the United States: The number of cases reported in every chart and table is far too low.
The data are untrustworthy because the processes we used to get them were flawed. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s testing procedures missed the bulk of the cases. They focused exclusively on travelers, rather than testing more broadly, because that seemed like the best way to catch cases entering the country.
Read: You’re likely to get the coronavirus
Just days ago, it was not clear that the virus had spread solely from domestic contact at all. But then cases began popping up with no known international connection. What public-health experts call “community spread” had arrived in the United States. The virus would not be stopped by tight borders, because it was already propagating domestically. Trevor Bedford’s lab at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, which studies viral evolution, concluded there is “firm evidence” that, at least in Washington State, the coronavirus had been spreading undetected for weeks. Now different projections estimate that 20 to 1,500 people have already been infected in the greater Seattle area. In California, too, the disease appears to be spreading, although the limited testing means that no one is quite sure how far.
In total, fewer than 500 people have been tested across the country (although the CDC has stopped reporting that number in its summary of the outbreak). As a result, the current “official” case count inside the United States stood at 43 as of this morning (excluding cruise-ship cases). This number is wrong, yet it’s still constantly printed and quoted. In other contexts, we’d call this what it is: a subtle form of misinformation.
Read: What Trump could do right now to keep workers safe from the coronavirus
This artificially low number means that for the past few weeks, we’ve seen massive state action abroad and only simmering unease domestically. While Chinese officials were enacting a world-historic containment effort—putting more than 700 million people under some kind of movement restriction, quarantining tens of millions of people, and placing others under new kinds of surveillance—and American public-health officials were staring at the writing on the wall that the disease was extremely likely to spread in the U.S., the public-health response was stuck in neutral. The case count in the U.S. was not increasing at all. Preparing for a sizable outbreak seemed absurd when there were fewer than 20 cases on American soil. Now we know that the disease was already spreading and that it was the U.S. response that was stalled.
Meanwhile, South Korean officials have been testing more than 10,000 people a day, driving up the country’s reported-case count. Same goes for Italy: high test rate, high number of cases. (Now some Italian politicians want to restrict testing.) In China, the official data say the country has more than 80,000 cases, but the real number might be far, far higher because of all the people who had mild(er) cases and were turned away from medical care, or never sought it in the first place. That may be cause for reassurance (though not everyone agrees), because the total number of cases is the denominator in the simple equation that yields a fatality rate: deaths divided by cases. More cases with the same number of deaths means that the disease is likely less deadly than the data show.
Read: What you can do right now about the coronavirus
The point is that every country’s numbers are the result of a specific set of testing and accounting regimes. Everyone is cooking the data, one way or another. And yet, even though these inconsistencies are public and plain, people continue to rely on charts showing different numbers, with no indication that they are not all produced with the same rigor or vigor. This is bad. It encourages dangerous behavior such as cutting back testing to bring a country’s numbers down or slow-walking testing to keep a country’s numbers low.
Read: A coronavirus quarantine in America could be a giant legal mess
The other problem is, now that the U.S. appears to be ramping up testing, the number of cases will grow quickly. Public-health officials are currently cautioning people not to worry as that happens, but it will be hard to disambiguate what proportion of the ballooning number of cases is the result of more testing and what proportion is from the actual spread of the virus.
People trust data. Numbers seem real. Charts have charismatic power. People believe what can be quantified. But data do not always accurately reflect the state of the world. Or as one scholar put it in a book title: “Raw Data” Is an Oxymoron.
The reality gap between American numbers and American cases is wide. Regular citizens and decision makers cannot rely on only the numbers to make decisions. Sometimes quantification actually obscures as much as it reveals.


Yascha Mounk

Yascha Mounk is a contributing writer at The Atlantic , an associate professor at Johns Hopkins University , a senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund , and a senior adviser at Protect Democracy .
He is the author of The People vs. Democracy • America needs a reckoning over racism .
Punishing people who did not do anything wrong harms that important cause .
• Americans are pretending that the pandemic is over .
It certainly is not .
• Authoritarian Populists Have Six Classic Moves .
Trump ’ s Response to COVID-19 Uses Five of Them .
While @ @ @ @ @ @ @ coronavirus to consolidate power , Americans should still be worried about the threat he poses to democracy .
• For the First Time , I ’ m Doubting My Decision to Come to America The coronavirus is making me experience what Germans poetically call heimweh , the hurt of being far from your native land .
• This Is Just the Beginning People who now advocate that we “ choose the economy ” are not being honest about the consequences of that decision .
• There are now simply too many patients for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ care .
• Social distancing is the only way to stop the coronavirus .
We must start immediately .
• There is a large constituency for a racially inclusive form of social democracy that is not democratic socialism .
• Americans are desperate to believe the worst about one another .
• What Will the World Look Like in 2030 ?
One thing is certain : The next decade will look very different from what most people expect .
• This Is How Democracy Dies A new report shows that people around the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ systems .
• Voters may be less interested in whether a candidate is likable than in whether the candidate would like them .

Yascha Mounk is a contributing writer at The Atlantic and the author, most recently, of The Identity Trap: A Story of Ideas and Power in Our Time.
Illustration by The Atlantic. Source: Getty. Goodbye to the Prophets of Doom The conventional wisdom about the global economy is that the rich have been getting richer and the poor have been getting poorer. What if that isn’t true?
ISM Agency / Getty The Corrosive Legacy of Silvio Berlusconi His demagogic style revolved around self-interest, but he inspired other right-wing populists to bend the rule of law and divide their democracy.
Illustration by Ben Kothe / Atlantic. Source: Getty Poland’s Imperiled Democracy The remarkable staying power of populist governments—thanks in part to their willingness to bend the rule of law—is a warning to America.
Paul Hennessy / NurPhoto / AP How to Save Academic Freedom From Ron DeSantis There are grounds for being skeptical of “wokeness,” but the Florida bill to curb progressive ideas in universities is flat-out unconstitutional.
Ueslei Marcelino / Reuters Brazil’s ‘January 6 Moment’ Is a Warning The threat from authoritarian populists endures.
Getty; The Atlantic How Moderates Won the Midterms A lesson for any party that wants to succeed in 2024
Ueslei Marcelino / Reuters What Bolsonaro’s Loss Reveals About the Limits of Populism The sight of a would-be authoritarian losing at the ballot box is welcome, but it’s too soon to declare a total victory over the demagogues.
Getty; The Atlantic Attack of the Zombie Populists Antidemocratic demagogues have an amazing ability to stage comebacks after suffering political death. Here’s why—and how to defeat them.
Alberto Pizzoli / AFP / Getty Italians Didn’t Exactly Vote for Fascism The electoral victory of Giorgia Meloni is nothing to be complacent about, but Italians are cynical about how long any government will last. Let’s hope they’re right.
Nathan Howard / Getty Why Freedom of Speech Is the Next Abortion Fight A legal battle in Mississippi will test whether states can criminalize those who merely provide information.
The Atlantic Democrats Need a Real Primary Contest To beat the Trump GOP, the party must give voters a proper say in who will be the Democratic presidential nominee in 2024.
Ben Hickey The Real Chill on Campus Most students are open to real debate. But their colleges are failing them.
The Atlantic; Getty The Doom Spiral of Pernicious Polarization The U.S. is more dangerously divided than any other wealthy democracy. Is there a way back from the brink?
Lionel Preau / Riva Press / Redux Why Marine Le Pen Is So Close to Power The French mainstream has failed to counter the far right’s pessimism about the state of the country. Americans are making the same mistake.
Adam Maida / The Atlantic; CSA-Printstock / Getty How Diverse Democracies Can Protect Their Citizens Only liberal values can ensure true freedom.
Adam Maida / The Atlantic Dictators Aren’t Pretending Anymore The democratic recession is so severe that autocrats now openly stage coups, steal elections, and invade other countries.
The Atlantic Open Everything The time to end pandemic restrictions is now.
The Atlantic Omicron Is the Beginning of the End No matter the severity of the variant, the appetite for shutdowns or other large-scale social interventions simply isn’t there.
Al Drago / Bloomberg / Getty You Can’t Win Elections by Telling Voters Their Concerns Are Imaginary Virginia is sending Democrats a warning: They’ve lost control of the narrative about education.


Ed Yong

Ed Yong is a staff writer at The Atlantic , where he covers science .
• America ’ s Patchwork Pandemic Is Fraying Even Further The coronavirus is coursing through different parts of the U.S. in different ways , making the crisis harder to predict , control , or understand .
• The Problem With Stories About Dangerous Coronavirus Mutations There ’ s no clear evidence that the pandemic virus has evolved into significantly different forms—and there probably won ’ t be for months .
• Why the Coronavirus Is So Confusing A guide to making sense of a problem @ @ @ @ @ @ @ one person to fully comprehend • The fight against the coronavirus won ’ t be over when the U.S. reopens .
Here ’ s how the nation must prepare itself .
• Everyone Thinks They ’ re Right About Masks How the coronavirus travels through the air has become one of the most divisive debates in this pandemic .
• How the Pandemic Will End The U.S. may end up with the worst COVID-19 outbreak in the industrialized world .
This is how it ’ s going to play out .
• Why @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ ve known about SARS-CoV-2 for only three months , but scientists can make some educated guesses about where it came from and why it ’ s behaving in such an extreme way .
• The country is not aiming for 60 percent of the populace to get COVID-19 , but you ’ d be forgiven for thinking so based on how badly the actual plan has been explained .
• The Last Giraffes on Earth The planet ’ s tallest animal is in far greater danger than people might think .
• @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Ever Nature is clearly in crisis—but what do researchers do when they only have imperfect data on the extent of the losses ?
• Here ’ s what the oft-cited R0 number tells us about the new outbreak—and what it doesn ’ t .
• Lab-grown glands can now produce realistic cocktails of toxins , which could help address one of the world ’ s biggest and most neglected health crises .

Ed Yong is a former staff writer at The Atlantic. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting for his coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Ed is also the recipient of the George Polk Award for Science Reporting, as well as several other awards. He is the author of I Contain Multitudes , a New York Times best seller, and the forthcoming title An Immense World .
María Medem Fatigue Can Shatter a Person Everyday tiredness is nothing like the depleting symptom that people with long COVID and ME/CFS experience.
Wild Horizons / Universal Images Group / Getty Who’s the Cutest Little Dolphin? Is It You? Humans talk to their babies in a very particular way—and so do dolphins.
Justin Sullivan / Getty The Cancer-Drug Shortage Is Different Fourteen crucial chemotherapies are currently in shortage. Why does this keep happening?
Anne Sustar / The Atlantic. These Animals Shouldn’t Be Alive, Much Less Sprinting Snow flies have adapted to keep running in subzero temperatures, but their time is running out.
Photo-illustration by The Atlantic. Sources: Library of Congress; … The Fight Over Animal Names Has Reached a New Extreme Forget changing only the names that honor the horrors of the past. Some biologists now argue no species should ever be named after a single individual.
William Ratcliff One of Evolution’s Biggest Moments Was Re-created in a Year A unique experiment shows how multicellular organisms might have evolved from single-celled ancestors.
Photo illustration by The Atlantic. Source: Ian Hewson … The Sea-Urchin Murderer Has Finally Been Apprehended Most such mysteries go unsolved. But in this case, a crack team of scientists quickly found a culprit.
Illustration by Paul Spella / The Atlantic; Getty Long COVID Is Being Erased—Again What was once outright denial has morphed into a subtler dismissal.
The Atlantic The Pandemic’s Legacy Is Already Clear All of this will happen again.
Katie Martin / The Atlantic; Getty Long COVID Has Forced a Reckoning for One of Medicine’s Most Neglected Diseases Only a couple dozen doctors specialize in chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS). Now their knowledge could be crucial to treating millions more patients.
The Atlantic One of Long COVID’s Worst Symptoms Is Also Its Most Misunderstood Brain fog isn’t like a hangover or depression. It’s a disorder of executive function that makes basic cognitive tasks absurdly hard.
Tom Kelley / Getty A New Test for an Old Theory About Dreams When a sleeping animal’s eyes twitch beneath its eyelids, is it looking around a dream world?
Mary Beth Saffo, Ph.D / PNAS The Creature That Gave Up Parasitism for … Wait, What? It’s a mystery wrapped in a riddle wrapped in a kidney.
Paul Spella / The Atlantic; Getty America Was in an Early-Death Crisis Long Before COVID Even before the pandemic began, more people here were dying at younger ages than in comparably wealthy nations.
Getty / The Atlantic How to Successfully Smash Your Face Against a Tree A new study refutes the widespread idea that woodpeckers have shock-absorbing heads.
Spencer Platt / Getty Is BA.5 the ‘Reinfection Wave’? The latest surge is a test of our pandemic priorities.
The Atlantic America Is Sliding Into the Long Pandemic Defeat In the face of government inaction, the country’s best chance at keeping the crisis from spiraling relies on everyone to keep caring.
Kristin Laidre / University of Washington Will These Be the Last Polar Bears on Earth? A newly identified population in Greenland is less dependent on the vanishing sea ice. But even they can’t hold out forever.
Shayan Asgharnia for The Atlantic How Animals Perceive the World Every creature lives within its own sensory bubble, but only humans have the capacity to appreciate the experiences of other species. What we’ve learned is astounding.


theatlantic--2020-05-09--What Happens If a ‘Big One’ Strikes During the Pandemic?

The pandemic is already undeniably traumatic , enough to make people unwilling to consider that the situation could , in fact , worsen .
But geoscientists and emergency managers don ’ t have that choice .
They have to ruminate on the unthinkable , because that ’ s the only way they can prepare themselves , and the public , to navigate a confluence of calamities .
Short of a medical miracle , the coronavirus scourge will persist in America into the foreseeable future .
And the odds of a disaster not happening during that time are low .
How @ @ @ @ @ @ @ glued to the pandemic , handle a synchronous act of destruction ?
Hurricanes and wildfires , weather phenomena often associated with disasters , are seasonal and , therefore , inevitable .
Daniel Swain , a climate scientist at UCLA , explains that both become possible in May , before usually becoming most frequent and potent from late summer through early fall .
This year , meteorologists are forecasting a greater than average number of major Atlantic hurricanes—unwelcome in normal times , but especially so this year .
If states are wildly successful in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , their respective COVID-19 peaks may be pushed back to late summer .
In other words , right when hurricanes and wildfires may be running rampant .
Geological hazards , however , are more temporally random .
America has 161 active volcanoes , about one-tenth of the Earth ’ s total .
Although none near major population centers is exhibiting worrying signs of unrest , there is a nonzero chance that a destructive eruption could occur during the pandemic .
At least volcanoes tend to noticeably act up prior to a potential outburst @ @ @ @ @ @ @ researcher at the U.S. Geological Survey .
“ Earthquakes can be real bastards , ” McBride told me .
They happen with essentially no known warning , making them “ the most impolite of geohazards.
” Major temblors are also an inevitability on many of America ’ s faults .
The probability of a magnitude-6.7 quake in the Los Angeles area within the next 30 years is 60 percent .
In the San Francisco Bay Area , that rises to 72 percent .
“ We know that a big earthquake ” —a proverbial @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” says Ken Hudnut , an earthquake geophysicist with the USGS .
“ It could happen during COVID-19.
” Hundreds of preexisting plans deal with individual disaster scenarios .
The problem is that these plans don ’ t account for a pandemic happening at the same time .
It may be overused , but “ unprecedented is the word , ” says Becky DePodwin , a meteorologist and emergency-preparedness specialist at AccuWeather .
“ There ’ s no playbook for this.
” Right now , emergency managers are laser-focused on the pandemic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ now are pretty much running at their full capacity , ” Terbush says .
In pre-pandemic times , states could ask one another to lend a hand if one was overwhelmed by a disaster .
But today , the coronavirus has all 50 of them in individual viselike grips .
In some respects , it ’ s every state for itself .

(Maxwell Burnstein)
On April 12 and 13, dozens of tornadoes tore through several southern states. Homes were obliterated, hundreds of thousands of people lost power, and 36 lost their life. Many sped to shelters as twisters mangled the land behind them. But one family was turned away at the door of a tornado shelter in Crossville, Alabama, because the hopeful entrants didn’t have enough face masks for every family member.
This is just one possible consequence of a deeply uncomfortable scenario: if, during the coronavirus pandemic, America is rocked by a large-scale geological or extreme-weather disaster, one that causes mass casualties and widespread infrastructural devastation. Any such disaster would be horrific enough in isolation, but one striking the United States today, now home to a third of the world’s confirmed COVID-19 cases, would place a nightmarish gantlet of novel obstacles between first responders and saving the lives of the afflicted.
For many, the mere notion of coterminous catastrophes is unconscionable. Brian Terbush, the earthquake/volcano program coordinator at Washington State’s Emergency Management Division, says there is always a thread of fatalism among some members of the public when it comes to earthquakes, eruptions, tsunamis, and the like. People sometimes ask: “Why should we prepare for one if it’ll kill us anyway?” Now Terbush is hearing something different: “Aren’t we going through enough right now?”
The pandemic is already undeniably traumatic, enough to make people unwilling to consider that the situation could, in fact, worsen. But geoscientists and emergency managers don’t have that choice. They have to ruminate on the unthinkable, because that’s the only way they can prepare themselves, and the public, to navigate a confluence of calamities.
Short of a medical miracle, the coronavirus scourge will persist in America into the foreseeable future. And the odds of a disaster not happening during that time are low. How will the country, whose attention remains glued to the pandemic, handle a synchronous act of destruction?
Hurricanes and wildfires, weather phenomena often associated with disasters, are seasonal and, therefore, inevitable. Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at UCLA, explains that both become possible in May, before usually becoming most frequent and potent from late summer through early fall. This year, meteorologists are forecasting a greater than average number of major Atlantic hurricanes—unwelcome in normal times, but especially so this year. If states are wildly successful in implementing their infection-prevention measures, Swain says, their respective COVID-19 peaks may be pushed back to late summer. In other words, right when hurricanes and wildfires may be running rampant.
Geological hazards, however, are more temporally random. America has 161 active volcanoes, about one-tenth of the Earth’s total. Although none near major population centers is exhibiting worrying signs of unrest, there is a nonzero chance that a destructive eruption could occur during the pandemic.
At least volcanoes tend to noticeably act up prior to a potential outburst, says Sara McBride, a disaster researcher at the U.S. Geological Survey. “Earthquakes can be real bastards,” McBride told me. They happen with essentially no known warning, making them “the most impolite of geohazards.”
Major temblors are also an inevitability on many of America’s faults. The probability of a magnitude-6.7 quake in the Los Angeles area within the next 30 years is 60 percent. In the San Francisco Bay Area, that rises to 72 percent. “We know that a big earthquake”—a proverbial Big One—“could happen any day,” says Ken Hudnut, an earthquake geophysicist with the USGS. “It could happen during COVID-19.”
Read: Is Middle America due for a huge earthquake?
Hundreds of preexisting plans deal with individual disaster scenarios. The problem is that these plans don’t account for a pandemic happening at the same time. It may be overused, but “unprecedented is the word,” says Becky DePodwin, a meteorologist and emergency-preparedness specialist at AccuWeather. “There’s no playbook for this.”
Right now, emergency managers are laser-focused on the pandemic response. “Our normal systems right now are pretty much running at their full capacity,” Terbush says. In pre-pandemic times, states could ask one another to lend a hand if one was overwhelmed by a disaster. But today, the coronavirus has all 50 of them in individual viselike grips. In some respects, it’s every state for itself.
During major hurricanes and wildfires, millions of people may need to be evacuated in just a few days, Swain says. This is always a logistical quagmire, but the pandemic may create a situation in which people crowding into evacuation shelters could inadvertently cause spikes in COVID-19 cases. As those April tornadoes demonstrated, not everyone may be permitted inside in the event of a disaster. And even if all are welcome, it isn’t clear if shelters will always be able to accommodate everyone and keep them six feet apart.
Those caught up in disasters may also fail to heed lifesaving advice, says the volcanologist Jess Phoenix. She worries that the stream of pandemic misinformation coming from the White House will make some lose confidence in other organs of government, including genuinely qualified emergency managers. If another disaster occurs, people may simply tune out the advice and warnings of experts.
Read: Why it’s important not to drink bleach
Fleeing from ruination is not simply a matter of movement, either. It is largely enabled by privilege. In the past seven weeks, more than 33 million Americans have applied for unemployment. If they lack rainy-day funds, they may not be able to afford their own evacuations, says Samantha Montano, a disasterologist at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. Many will be reliant on a robust response from nonprofits and state actors, but that may not transpire as both are inextricably tied down combatting the pandemic.
Vulnerable and marginalized people are, after all, disproportionately suffering right now. A mass-casualty incident would only make matters worse for these communities, while putting America’s health-care system, already buckling under the weight of the coronavirus, under even more strain. Some of the experts I spoke with worry that the wider public, inundated by a fire hose of seemingly unending grim news, may be running low on empathy for those caught up in yet another disaster aside from the agonizingly prolonged pandemic.
First responders, for their part, are used to throwing themselves into dangerous situations, but will now be haunted by the additional specter of COVID-19. Wildfires are fought by migratory teams of firefighters and support staff, who are set up in tent cities in remote places—close-quarter environments that have historically been ravaged by contagions, Swain says. COVID-19, a vicious disease that renders many bed-bound for weeks, would undoubtedly impede their ability to snuff out infernos.
“Not that there is ever a good time for a disaster, but this is a particularly bad one,” Terbush says.
As gut-wrenching as an overlapping disaster would be, there are reasons to be hopeful.
America’s capability to remotely monitor the environment for catastrophic harbingers, and to alert the public if any are spotted, remains unchanged—for now. The USGS and its university partners made sure their staff could work from home long before the country’s situation precipitously deteriorated, says Michael Poland, the scientist in charge at the USGS’s Yellowstone Volcano Observatory. If a monitoring station goes down, someone goes out in the field to fix it, physically distancing and wearing an N95 mask when needed.
Emergency staff are also on a war footing, ready to respond at a moment’s notice should another disaster occur. “Our risk portfolio is dominated by no-notice catastrophic events,” from earthquakes to landslides, says Kevin McGowan, the director of the Los Angeles County Office of Emergency Management. Winding up emergency systems to deal with such sudden events normally takes time, but the pandemic means that more than 80 of L.A. County’s 88 cities have already activated their emergency-operations centers.
Scientists and emergency managers are also well practiced in the art of improvisation. They often conduct tabletop exercises that simulate disaster scenarios unfolding in individual cities or across multiple states, from violent eruptions to cataclysmic temblors. Those running the exercises often throw in wild cards—resources suddenly becoming unavailable or key staff going missing—to see how the participants handle them.
Such flexible thinking will prove invaluable during the current pandemic. “Things are not going to go according to the script you set for them,” Poland says. “That comes with the territory.”
The coronavirus itself is also beginning to feature in these trial runs. On April 1, a USGS-led tabletop exercise simulated a magnitude 7.5 temblor on the southern San Andreas Fault during the pandemic. Hudnut, who participated in the exercise, explains that it helped scientists and emergency managers work through previously unconsidered problems. Both ground-based staff and helicopters are used to check sites for damages, but in this case, helicopters featuring physically distanced occupants may take precedence in order to limit person-to-person contact.
This is not without risk: Helicopters can crash, and pilots wearing helmets and N95 masks must ensure that their visors don’t fog up. But it’s a start, and trial runs like these mean that the hundreds of preexisting disaster plans in place all over the country are being updated on the spot.
Read: Everyone thinks they’re right about masks
Tens of thousands of people are working around the clock on these problems, pushing through the psychological burnout. Many are joining forces. McBride is a co-lead of a newly formed international group of geoscientists, anthropologists, historians, social scientists, and others specifically designed to explore the impacts of disasters during the pandemic, with a particular focus on vulnerable groups and those who shield them from tragedy.
The White House’s misinformation and the federal government’s leadership vacuum are persistent problems, but several states are forming regional pacts to circumvent this and lend one another a helping hand.
The coronavirus will be difficult to avoid for the foreseeable future. But should another disaster take place, the more immediate threat to life—an incoming hurricane or tsunami, for example—will be dealt with first, Terbush says, pandemic be damned.
In the meantime, this entrenchment of disaster watchers will remain sapped of strength without the participation of the public itself. Distressing though it may be, everyone I spoke with said that millions of Americans have to accept that a second disaster may greet them—and prepare accordingly.
That means having several weeks of supplies ready: nonperishable food, plenty of water (and water filters), medicine, and sanitary and hygiene products. Be as self-sufficient as you can afford to be. Make sure you have a workable evacuation plan for your family (and your pets) written down; a digital copy may disappear along with your electricity supply. Read your state’s disaster survival guides, available online. Check in with your local shelters to make sure they are operational. Identify trustworthy sources of information and stay informed, especially through radio channels, as they may be the only way to find out what’s happening after a disaster knocks out TV stations and the internet.
America may very well make it through the pandemic without another nightmare falling from the skies or rising from below. But not considering the alternative would be negligent, and evading the worst outcomes will take everyone’s active participation. “If there were ever a time for people to take preparedness seriously,” McGowan says, “now is that time.”


Edward-Isaac Dovere

Edward-Isaac Dovere is a staff writer at The Atlantic .
• Many Americans don ’ t know much about the Democratic candidate for president .
• The senator from California seems like the obvious choice to be Joe Biden ’ s running mate .
So why is she keeping mum about her thinking ?
• She Wanted to Be a Republican President .
She ’ s Voting for Biden .
The former Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina tells The Ticket that she plans to vote for Joe Biden .
• As Americans continue to protest and Trump calls for “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ compelled to intervene .
• In a speech today , the vice president portrayed this week ’ s events as a turning point for America—and as a binary choice in visions for its future .
• The VP Choice Everyone Is Missing Former National Security Adviser Susan Rice has a powerful backer and an array of experiences that complement Biden ’ s .
• Why Americans Might Not Trust the Election Results Many are already worried about the integrity of November ’ s vote .
• It Really Could Be Warren After her @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Massachusetts senator is making a case for herself as Joe Biden ’ s vice president .
• Why This Democrat Won ’ t Go Home Where should a member of Congress be right now ?
• Ron Klain was a chief of staff to two vice presidents before leading the Obama administration ’ s response to Ebola .
Why isn ’ t he a bigger figure in Biden ’ s campaign ?
• How New Jersey ’ s Governor Figured Out Trump Phil Murphy discusses the state ’ s efforts to mitigate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rate , the second-highest in the country .
• The former tech executive made a mark on the presidential campaign with his less-than-rosy view of the country ’ s future , and he still thinks it ’ s exactly what Americans need to hear .
• Joe Biden has committed to choosing a woman as his running mate—and Stacey Abrams has a case to make for why she should be his pick .

Edward-Isaac Dovere is a former staff writer at The Atlantic and the author of Battle for the Soul: Inside the Democrats' Campaigns to Defeat Trump
Chip Somodevilla / Getty; Ron Antonelli / Bloomberg … The Trump Suburban Squirm Democratic candidates in this fall’s elections are doing their best to make sure that the former president is still on the ballot.
Ray Chavez / MediaNews Group / The Mercury … What California’s Recall Election Says About America Gavin Newsom’s struggles could spell trouble for Democrats everywhere.
Seth Wenig / Getty The Threat of a Cuomo Comeback Absent further action by the state legislature, the governor could run for his old job next year—and a recent poll suggests he would have a shot at victory.
Alex Wong / Getty The Next Face of the Democratic Party Hakeem Jeffries could end up being the first Black speaker of the House—but not all progressives are happy about his rise.
Sarah Silbiger / Bloomberg / Getty; Win McNamee … Biden’s Strategy: Treat Trump Like a ‘Crazy Person’ The 46th president’s slate of problems to deal with includes the erratic behavior of the 45th.
Jim Watson / AFP / Getty What Is Pete Buttigieg Doing? The secretary of transportation is on the road, talking infrastructure with anyone who will listen.
Damon Winter / The New York Times / … Andrew Yang, Political Kardashian Yang is the first celebrity candidate who’s famous for being a celebrity candidate—and he’s defined the New York City mayoral race around him.
Eric Baradat / AFP / Getty What Biden Didn’t Realize About His Presidency In his first interview after his inauguration, Biden explained what he got wrong about Trump—and what he still hoped to squeeze out of Republicans.
Samuel Corum / Jim Watson / Getty / … The Inside Story of Joe Biden’s Most Fateful Decision His mind was made up about a 2020 presidential run—until it wasn’t.
Brendan Smialowski / AFP / Getty What Kamala Harris Has Learned About Being Vice President Everyone expects Harris to run for president again one day, but her job requires her to avoid even the appearance of preparing for her political future.
Adam Maida / The Atlantic The First Congressman to Take Parental Leave Is Ready to Fight for It Democrat Colin Allred of Texas wants to make paid parental leave possible for everyone. The White House appears poised to join him.
Yuri Gripas / Reuters Democrats’ No. 1 Target for 2022 If Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin seeks reelection, the race could be a key test of Trumpism’s viability in a swing state.
Getty / The Atlantic Vaccine Refusal Will Come at a Cost—For All of Us People who refuse to get the COVID-19 vaccine will have higher health-care costs. The rest of us will foot the bill.
Anna Moneymaker / Getty The Strange Life of a Congressional Trump Basher, After Trump Representative Eric Swalwell built a public profile criticizing the ex-president. He’s still figuring out what’s next.
Rahel Patrasso / Getty Democrats Are Failing the Schools Test The fight between politicians, parents, and teachers over school reopenings could soon affect elections.
Michael S. Williamson / The Washington Post via … The Left’s Answer to Trump Is 6 Foot 8 and Wears Shorts in February There’s never been a statewide politician like John Fetterman. Now he’s a front-runner for the U.S. Senate.
Mike Segar / Reuters Of Course Andrew Cuomo Isn’t Going to Resign But his dream of a fourth term is slipping away.
Logan Mock-Bunting / Redux The Window for D.C. Statehood Won’t Be Open Forever But Democrats are taking their time weighing their next move.
Getty / The Atlantic What Does This Man Know That Other Democrats Don’t? Governor Roy Cooper’s winning streak in North Carolina may be hard for purple- or red-state leaders to replicate.


theatlantic--2020-03-23--Don’t Halt Social Distancing. Instead, Do It Right.

We are also woefully behind in building up our testing capacity .
We can ’ t tell exactly how badly different areas of the country are being hit ; we can only see for sure which hospital systems are being overrun .
After infections run rampant , it can take a few weeks before the hospitals get overwhelmed .
We saw that in Italy and we ’ re starting to see that in the U.S .
Worse , despite our inconsistent , at times half-hearted , efforts , some leaders are already losing their nerve .
People without medical or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is worth it .
They ’ re wondering whether it might be better to let this disease just run its course .
That ’ s a catastrophically bad idea .
The human cost would be devastating , and the economic toll from that devastation might be even steeper than what we ’ re seeing right now .
It ’ s hard for people to understand just how bad an unchecked pandemic could be .
More people could die from COVID-19 , the disease caused by the coronavirus , in just a few months @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this country has fought since its inception .
Such devastation would shut down our hospitals and the entire health-care system .
Tens of thousands of doctors and nurses and other health-care professionals would likely get sick .
The ripple effects on finances , and on human lives , would be massive and uncontrolled .
Wajahat Ali : Where are the masks ?
We understand the pain people are feeling now and appreciate that everyone wants to know when we can call off the distancing measures .
Unfortunately , that ’ s the wrong @ @ @ @ @ @ @ What do we need to do to stop living like this ?
Here ’ s the answer : First , we need a true national pause—a cessation of all nonessential activities .
It has to last at least two weeks , and everyone needs to participate .
If we all distanced ourselves from one another for that long , the outbreak would slow down significantly .
Isolating individual family members may not be socially tenable .
Because of that , infections are going to continue within families , but broader spread can be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ part : We need massive , coordinated testing of the population .
Even today , we don ’ t know how many people are infected in the community and how many people without symptoms are spreading the infection to others .
Such testing must be organized by epidemiologists experienced in this area , not by health-care providers .
We need to know the full extent of those who are sick with COVID-19 , but we also need to know where the virus is hiding .
By setting up testing centers across the nation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ through our health-care system .
Once we have these data , and after a national pause , we can make informed decisions .
In areas of the country where the community disease burden is low and the spread of the virus is slow , we could ease restrictions .
We would still need to be vigilant in screening , to pick up on new cases early and isolate individuals before they ’ ve had the chance to fuel an outbreak .
A vigorous testing infrastructure will allow us to do this ; other @ @ @ @ @ @ @

We are engaged in an effort of social distancing—physically separating ourselves from one another. This is hard, and nearly everyone wants to know when we can stop. Beyond being personally painful, these actions take a massive economic toll: millions of lost jobs, billions if not trillions of dollars of wealth wiped away. It is tempting, at this point, to say that the cure is worse than the disease.
It isn’t. While the cure has large side effects, the disease is worse. The real problem is that we’re taking our medicine haphazardly—and as a result, experiencing all of the side effects and few of the benefits. That needs to change.
Read: Why the coronavirus has been so successful
We can’t win the fight against COVID-19 just by wishing the virus away. Instead, we need to take two crucial steps. First, we need a true national pause, not the sporadic halts we’ve seen so far. And then, we need to follow it with massive, coordinated testing across the population.
Over the past week, more and more of the country has started committing to significant physical-distancing measures. Unfortunately, much of the country still has not done so . Spring-break revelers are still on the beaches, and all those partiers will be headed back home, potentially seeding tens of thousands of new infections across the whole country. Some states still haven’t closed schools, potentially allowing for asymptomatic spread through their communities. We still aren’t taking this virus seriously enough.
We are also woefully behind in building up our testing capacity. We can’t tell exactly how badly different areas of the country are being hit; we can only see for sure which hospital systems are being overrun. After infections run rampant, it can take a few weeks before the hospitals get overwhelmed. We saw that in Italy and we’re starting to see that in the U.S.
Worse, despite our inconsistent, at times half-hearted, efforts, some leaders are already losing their nerve. People without medical or public-health expertise are questioning whether physical distancing is worth it. They’re wondering whether it might be better to let this disease just run its course.
That’s a catastrophically bad idea. The human cost would be devastating, and the economic toll from that devastation might be even steeper than what we’re seeing right now. It’s hard for people to understand just how bad an unchecked pandemic could be. More people could die from COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, in just a few months than have died in every single war this country has fought since its inception. Such devastation would shut down our hospitals and the entire health-care system. Tens of thousands of doctors and nurses and other health-care professionals would likely get sick. The ripple effects on finances, and on human lives, would be massive and uncontrolled.
Wajahat Ali: Where are the masks?
We understand the pain people are feeling now and appreciate that everyone wants to know when we can call off the distancing measures. Unfortunately, that’s the wrong question.
The right question is: What do we need to do to stop living like this?
Here’s the answer: First, we need a true national pause—a cessation of all nonessential activities. It has to last at least two weeks, and everyone needs to participate. If we all distanced ourselves from one another for that long, the outbreak would slow down significantly. Isolating individual family members may not be socially tenable. Because of that, infections are going to continue within families, but broader spread can be curtailed.
But here is the second part: We need massive, coordinated testing of the population. Even today, we don’t know how many people are infected in the community and how many people without symptoms are spreading the infection to others.
Such testing must be organized by epidemiologists experienced in this area, not by health-care providers. We need to know the full extent of those who are sick with COVID-19, but we also need to know where the virus is hiding. By setting up testing centers across the nation, we can avoid spreading the infection through our health-care system.
Once we have these data, and after a national pause, we can make informed decisions. In areas of the country where the community disease burden is low and the spread of the virus is slow, we could ease restrictions. We would still need to be vigilant in screening, to pick up on new cases early and isolate individuals before they’ve had the chance to fuel an outbreak. A vigorous testing infrastructure will allow us to do this; other countries are showing us the way.
Read: Why a tiny Colorado county can offer COVID-19 tests to every resident
In areas where community infections are rampant, we will need to continue isolating everyone until suppression has worked. But we know that if people stay away from one another, they can’t spread the disease to one another.
Americans are asking: When can we leave our homes and go back to work? That question makes sense. But we need to ask: When will we have the testing infrastructure we need to defeat the pandemic without freezing the economy?
“Soon” isn’t good enough. Americans are tired of empty promises that don’t materialize. We need answers that are based on science, evidence, and data. We need answers that are verifiable.
The United States is enormously rich—not just financially, but also with scientific and intellectual capacity. We can use our infectious-disease and public-health experts to create a testing scheme and implement it. We also need to create fast testing that the private sector can quickly scale up.
No one believes that these actions lack trade-offs. The economic costs of a pause are immense. We’re already experiencing them; we’re just not reaping the full rewards, because we have yet to do what’s really required.
Until we have a vaccine, we can’t expect to eradicate this disease. If we soften our distancing measures too early, we risk making things worse. But if we are willing to do what is necessary, we can get the disease under control, get our economy moving again, and give Americans hope that we will hold the line until a solution finally becomes available.


Saahil Desai

Saahil Desai is an associate editor at The Atlantic , where he covers politics and policy .
• The Atlantic Politics Daily : Where Are the Billionaires ?
Remember when Michael Bloomberg spent about $ 500 million running for president ?
Plus : What if checkpoints come to the U.S. to help slow the spread of COVID-19 ?
• The Atlantic Politics Daily : This Is What Democracy ( in a Pandemic ) Looks Like Managing the voting booth in the time of a pandemic .
Plus : COVID-19 cases have been reported in all 50 states—here ’ s one @ @ @ @ @ @ @ worst .
• The Real Lesson of the College Closures Outside the Ivy League , students who go home for the semester are at risk of leaving school for good .
• The governor of Ohio recommended this evening that the state postpone Tuesday ’ s primary voting until June .
Plus : The winner of last night ’ s debate ?
The coronavirus .
• The Atlantic Politics Daily : Congress Is n't Ready for the Coronavirus Why the U.S. is so behind on COVID-19 testing .
Plus : Remote work was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ work .
The coronavirus outbreak has hastened that experiment .
• The Atlantic Politics Daily : The Dangerous Misnaming of the Coronavirus The president went out of his way to spin COVID-19 as a menace coming from abroad , referring to its source as a “ foreign virus.
” Plus : The staggering heartlessness toward the elderly .
• The Atlantic Politics Daily : Running for President During an Epidemic Out with the handshakes , in with the hand sanitizer—Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders have both canceled rallies planned for tonight .
Plus @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ Why not.
” • The Atlantic Politics Daily : When Everyone Stays Home What mass quarantines could look like in the U.S. ( hint : trying to implement them at scale would be a mess ) .
Plus : The empty public spaces of a world amidst outbreak .
• The Atlantic Politics Daily : The Strongest Evidence Yet That America Is Botching Coronavirus Testing Just how few Americans have actually been tested for the coronavirus , despite administration promises ?
Plus : The moment that marked the rise of an extensive @ @ @ @ @ @ @ • The Atlantic Politics Daily : Elizabeth Warren Was Punished for Her Competence Some theories from strategists and analysts about what went wrong in Elizabeth Warren ’ s presidential run .
Plus : Obama hasn ’ t endorsed , and probably won ’ t soon .
• Joe Biden ’ s not only back from the wilderness : He ’ s a Democratic front-runner again .
Plus : how to spend half a billion spent and win zero states .
• The Atlantic Politics Daily : The Factors Shaking Up Super Tuesday Who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 1,300 delegates are up for grabs .
Plus : This Texas representative being primaried by the AOC left seems unfazed .
• Slowly , and then all at once .
That ’ s how the 2020 Democratic presidential candidates have departed the race .
Plus : Sanders ’ s biggest threat isn ’ t a rival candidate .
• The Atlantic Politics Daily : The American Workplace Isn ’ t Ready for the Coronavirus The guessing game of the stock market in the time of coronavirus fears .
Plus : Is there anything @ @ @ @ @ @ @ buy ?
• Why it isn ’ t Medicare for All or bust for some Bernie Sanders supporters .
Plus : The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons isn ’ t what it might sound like .

Saahil Desai is a senior associate editor at The Atlantic.
The Atlantic A Voicebot Just Left Me Speechless Generative AI has solved a problem that has plagued my voice assistants for years.
Illustration by The Atlantic. Source: Getty. Compostable Plastic Is Garbage Sure, these products could be better than regular old plastic. Right now, they’re not.
Kena Betancur / Getty Car-Rental Companies Are Ruining EVs Good luck charging your surprise electric rental car.
The Atlantic / Getty Return of the People Machine No one responds to polls anymore. Researchers are now just asking AI instead.
Getty; The Atlantic You Don’t Know How Bad the Pizza Box Is The delivery icon hasn’t changed in 60 years, and it’s making your food worse.
Alamy; The Atlantic Is Food Getting Better? The Thanksgivings of yore featured overcooked turkeys and Jell-O salad. Surely we’ve evolved.
The Atlantic / Getty Put Your Face in Airplane Mode Masking only at the start and end of every flight will do a lot to keep you safe.
Scott Olson / Getty Uber Pool Is a Zombie Shared rides are back for the first time since March 2020. Did anyone notice?
Getty; The Atlantic It’s a Great Time to Hoard Nickels The Ukraine crisis has shaken up prices—and sent some Americans scrambling for coins.
iStock / Getty Restaurants Learned the Wrong Pandemic Lessons Are we stuck with QR codes forever?
Scott McIntyre / The New York Times / … There’s No Way Americans Will Cancel Their Travel Plans Many people are gathering for the holidays no matter what. Here’s how to do that as safely as possible.
John Lamparski / Getty The Grim Return of Outdoor Winter Dining Dinner by propane light is back—for now.
Kevin Dietsch / Getty ; The Atlantic Misinformation Is About to Get So Much Worse A conversation with the former Google CEO Eric Schmidt
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Daniel Reiner / Alamy; The Atlantic ‘We Were Going and I Am Not at All Sorry’ Many Americans booked travel well before COVID-19 cases started soaring. Now what?
The Atlantic Companies Want Remote Workers in All States but 1 Businesses such as Nike and Oracle are happy to let you work from home—just not in Colorado.
Adam Maida / The Atlantic The Pandemic Really Did Change How We Tip Some essential workers have been compensated for pandemic risks with bonuses or higher wages. In restaurants, all they really got was better tips.
Lily Lambie-Kiernan Restaurants Have a New Problem, and It Has Red Eyes and Is Super Loud Cicadas could turn outdoor dining into a total nightmare.
GARRY OWENS / GALLERYSTOCK For One Glorious Summer, Americans Will Vacation Like the French Workers are on the verge of going bonkers with their PTO.


theatlantic--2020-06-25--What You Need to Know About the Coronavirus

• The latest number of confirmed cases everywhere in the U.S. • A Devastating New Stage of the Pandemic The U.S. has seen more cases in the past week than in any week since the pandemic began .
• Paging Dr. Hamblin : My Brother Is Having 150 People at His Wedding Next Week No one should be expected to attend an in-person gathering right now .
• America Is Giving Up on the Pandemic Businesses are reopening .
Protests are erupting nationwide .
But the virus isn ’ t done with us .
• Evidence is slowly mounting .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ to recommend it .
• We Don ’ t Even Have a COVID-19 Vaccine , and Yet the Conspiracies Are Here Even as vaccines for the disease are being held up as the last hope for a return to normalcy , misinformation about them is spreading .
• Suddenly , many people meet the criteria for clinical depression .
Doctors are scrambling to determine who needs urgent intervention , and who is simply the new normal .
• Social Distancing Is Not Enough We will need a comprehensive strategy to reduce the sort @ @ @ @ @ @ @ infections .
• ‘ How Could the CDC Make That Mistake ?
’ The government ’ s disease-fighting agency is conflating viral and antibody tests , compromising a few crucial metrics that governors depend on to reopen their economies .
Pennsylvania , Georgia , Texas , and other states are doing the same .
• America ’ s Patchwork Pandemic Is Fraying Even Further The coronavirus is coursing through different parts of the U.S. in different ways , making the crisis harder to predict , control , or understand .
• State and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t Match Up The CDC has quietly started releasing nationwide numbers .
But they contradict what states themselves are reporting .
• Why the Coronavirus Hits Kids and Adults So Differently COVID-19 is much less severe in children , and it could have to do with a child ’ s still-developing immune system .
• The state is combining results from viral and antibody tests in the same statistic .
This threatens to confound America ’ s understanding of the pandemic .

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Patrick Pleul / picture alliance / Getty The Ticks Are Winning Their saliva is a secret weapon.
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Alphotographic / Getty The Strongest Evidence Yet That an Animal Started the Pandemic A new analysis of genetic samples from China appears to link the pandemic’s origin to raccoon dogs.
Sean Gallup / Getty The Next Stage of COVID Is Starting Now What happens when everyone first gets immunity to the coronavirus as a very young kid?
Kyodo News / Getty The Lab Leak Will Haunt Us Forever Each new revelation is a reminder of how little is actually known.
Getty: The Atlantic The Good News About Vaccine Hesitancy America can’t shake the feeling that vaccination rates are about to plummet. The facts say otherwise.
Gabby Jones / Redux Outdoor Dining Is Doomed “Streeteries” are sitting empty this winter.


theatlantic--2020-05-20--The Cult of Elon Is Cracking

The Cult of Elon Is Cracking

Twitter is Musk ’ s main mode of communication with the public , including his fans .
During other moments of Muskian controversy—the tweet that led to fraud charges and cost him his Tesla chairmanship , or the time he got sued for calling a rescue diver a “ pedo guy ” —you could count on finding a chorus of support in the replies to Musk ’ s tweets , his admirers unwilling to consider any criticism of their hero .
But now , for the first time , Musk appears to have alienated even some of his most devout @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and even dissent , directly to Musk on Twitter , knowing that he might see it .
Last month , the top tweet beneath Musk ’ s demand to “ FREE AMERICA NOW ” and let workers return to their businesses was a bite-size study in cognitive dissonance : “ my first disagreement with my Idol .
: / ” Read : What you need to know about the coronavirus The acerbic persona that once made Musk a cool renegade seems to have sharpened into something more alarming in this global crisis @ @ @ @ @ @ @ only in the figurative sense , and some fans wish that Musk would let the experts handle it .
The cracks in the cult of Elon are starting to show .
I reached out to some of these fans .
They were mostly men , ranging from 20-somethings to 70-somethings .
They included those who drive Teslas and those who wish they did , those who describe Musk as their idol and those who just think he makes a great car .
They all prefaced their remarks with praise of Musk ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ do things that others had sworn were impossible .
And besides , they said , nobody ’ s perfect .
But .
What the hell is he doing ?
Read : The mission NASA doesn ’ t want to postpone “ Sometimes it just seems like the smarter people are , the more vulnerable they are to overestimating how much they know about something outside of their specialty , ” Ben Hallert , a longtime SpaceX fan and a Tesla stockholder , told me .
“ If I ’ m an expert in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I be an expert in Y ?
” Hallert loves talking about rockets .
He talked about them all the way from Oregon to Texas last spring , when he took his wife and teenage sons to visit the place where SpaceX is building its biggest rocket yet , just off the Gulf of Mexico .
Hallert ’ s grandparents worked on the Apollo program , and he has his pilot ’ s license .
He can ’ t wait to see the SpaceX spaceship get off the ground , but he wishes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tweeting .
Read : The thorniest subject at NASA right now Musk ’ s early takes on the coronavirus were mild , if ill-advised , fans told me .
In early March , for example , Musk declared that “ the coronavirus panic is dumb.
” Fans believed that Musk was only poking fun at the hoarding of toilet paper and Clorox wipes , not the dangers of a sickness that was cropping up everywhere .
But as Musk ’ s rhetoric escalated , some of his fans tried to reason gently with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ slow the spread of the virus .
They resurfaced a quote Musk tweeted in 2017 , from Mustafa Kemal Atatürk , the founder of modern Turkey— “ If one day , my words are against science , choose science ” —in an apparent attempt to remind him of his better impulses .
Such is the understanding nature of Musk fans , who still want to help their hero see the error of his ways .

Elon Musk has famously devoted fans. They can be found buying Tesla cars, watching SpaceX launches, and praising Musk on Twitter. To his fan base, Musk is a visionary, an idol, even a climate superhero. Some of that reputation stems from Musk’s transformation from nerdy internet millionaire to suave manufacturing billionaire. According to Musk mythology, he’s even the inspiration for an actual superhero, Robert Downey Jr.’s portrayal of the charmingly brilliant Tony Stark in the 2008 Iron Man film. In the past 15 years since, Musk’s profile has risen, growing ever Starkian, as if prophesied. Meanwhile, his admirers have become only more notorious.
A few months ago, it would have been nearly impossible to imagine Musk’s world-saving sheen wearing off in the eyes of his fans. But that was before the coronavirus pandemic. In the past few months, Musk has downplayed the dangers of the virus, offered unfounded predictions about how many Americans it will infect, and falsely claimed that children are “essentially immune” to COVID-19. He has called, over and over again, for rolling back the widespread measures put in place to slow the spread of the virus, a move that public-health officials believe could be lethal. Musk defied local stay-at-home orders and reopened his Tesla assembly plant in California, bringing thousands of employees into work. “I will be on the line with everyone else,” he tweeted last week, as operations restarted. “If anyone is arrested, I ask that it only be me.” (Tesla and SpaceX did not respond to requests for comment.)
Read: When Elon Musk switches on ‘insane mode’
Twitter is Musk’s main mode of communication with the public, including his fans. During other moments of Muskian controversy—the tweet that led to fraud charges and cost him his Tesla chairmanship, or the time he got sued for calling a rescue diver a “pedo guy”—you could count on finding a chorus of support in the replies to Musk’s tweets, his admirers unwilling to consider any criticism of their hero.
But now, for the first time, Musk appears to have alienated even some of his most devout supporters. Fans are voicing their discomfort, and even dissent, directly to Musk on Twitter, knowing that he might see it. Last month, the top tweet beneath Musk’s demand to “FREE AMERICA NOW” and let workers return to their businesses was a bite-size study in cognitive dissonance: “my first disagreement with my Idol. :/”
Read: What you need to know about the coronavirus
The acerbic persona that once made Musk a cool renegade seems to have sharpened into something more alarming in this global crisis. Surviving a pandemic is rocket science only in the figurative sense, and some fans wish that Musk would let the experts handle it. The cracks in the cult of Elon are starting to show.
I reached out to some of these fans. They were mostly men, ranging from 20-somethings to 70-somethings. They included those who drive Teslas and those who wish they did, those who describe Musk as their idol and those who just think he makes a great car. They all prefaced their remarks with praise of Musk’s brilliance, vision, and ability to do things that others had sworn were impossible. And besides, they said, nobody’s perfect. But. What the hell is he doing?
Read: The mission NASA doesn’t want to postpone
“Sometimes it just seems like the smarter people are, the more vulnerable they are to overestimating how much they know about something outside of their specialty,” Ben Hallert, a longtime SpaceX fan and a Tesla stockholder, told me. “If I’m an expert in X, then why wouldn’t I be an expert in Y?”
Hallert loves talking about rockets. He talked about them all the way from Oregon to Texas last spring, when he took his wife and teenage sons to visit the place where SpaceX is building its biggest rocket yet, just off the Gulf of Mexico. Hallert’s grandparents worked on the Apollo program, and he has his pilot’s license. He can’t wait to see the SpaceX spaceship get off the ground, but he wishes that the man behind it would stop tweeting.
Read: The thorniest subject at NASA right now
Musk’s early takes on the coronavirus were mild, if ill-advised, fans told me. In early March, for example, Musk declared that “the coronavirus panic is dumb.” Fans believed that Musk was only poking fun at the hoarding of toilet paper and Clorox wipes, not the dangers of a sickness that was cropping up everywhere. But as Musk’s rhetoric escalated, some of his fans tried to reason gently with him that research showed social-distancing measures could slow the spread of the virus. They resurfaced a quote Musk tweeted in 2017, from Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of modern Turkey—“If one day, my words are against science, choose science”—in an apparent attempt to remind him of his better impulses. Such is the understanding nature of Musk fans, who still want to help their hero see the error of his ways.
Things escalated from there. About two weeks later, Musk tweeted that, “based on current trends,” the United States would have “probably close to zero” new COVID-19 cases by the end of April. The prediction turned out to be wildly incorrect, but Musk didn’t acknowledge his error. That irked some of his fans, who trusted him to get it right. “If he says, ‘Don't worry, guys. By April we won’t have cases,’ people are going to say, ‘This is Elon Musk. He must know the best doctors. He must know the best people. He must have done the best research before saying that,’” Luis Mireles, a college student in Texas, told me. Mireles has written about Musk and Tesla for school papers, and, like Hallert, has visited the launch facility where SpaceX is working on its Mars rocket.
Read: ‘How could the CDC make that mistake?’
Several fans told me that they’re struggling to reconcile this version of Musk with his pre-pandemic persona. “Calling someone a bad name or insulting someone without evidence is obviously bad, but I think nothing compares to taking human life lightly,” Sun, a scientist in the Bay Area who asked to go by only his surname to protect his privacy, told me. Sun has watched countless Musk interviews over the years in which Musk says egregious but less dangerous things, but the pandemic tweets became so painful to see that Sun eventually unfollowed Musk. “It’s like one of those hero characters in movies where he works on a grand mission and then he loses sight [of it] and thinks that vulnerable people are expendable,” he said.
I also heard from many fans that Musk is behaving less like humankind’s savior and more like a ruthless industrialist. This uncomfortable truth seemed to crystallize when Donald Trump tweeted in support of Musk’s desire to restart Tesla operations and Musk thanked him. If Musk is supposed to be a climate hero, he’s suddenly fraternizing with a villain who doesn’t believe in human-caused climate change and has spent his time in office reversing dozens of environmental policies. Only three years ago, Musk removed himself from a presidential advisory council specifically because Trump withdrew the U.S. from international accords meant to address climate change.
Read: Of course Twitter loves Elon Musk
“I really thought [Musk] could be hero material,” said Lisa Jacobson, an insurance salesperson in Wisconsin. “Let’s face it, we’re ruining this planet and here’s a guy that’s trying to find another place for us to go.” Jacobson misses the benevolent CEO who extended the battery life of Teslas for drivers across Florida—for free—so that they could evacuate during Hurricane Irma in 2017. She expected to see the same Musk swoop in during the pandemic. “Where’s that guy?”
The answer: on Tesla’s factory floor in Fremont, California, as promised. He was there last week as the parking lot filled up with workers commuting for the first time in weeks. No one came to arrest him. Local officials eventually caved, telling Tesla it could stay open as long as the company added some safety measures.
Read: No, the internet is not good again
Plenty of fans have stood by Musk in this moment. As for others, they are trying to disentangle Musk’s personal philosophy from his contributions to the world, separating the art from the artist—a difficult task when so much of the allure of SpaceX and Tesla is the man himself. Some Musk admirers say they’ve canceled their Tesla orders. One fan in the Seattle area who owns two Teslas—and had a mild case of COVID-19 in March—told me that he believes Musk’s nonstop pronouncements have cheapened the electric-car company’s brand. But Hallert, the rocket lover from Oregon, said Musk’s recent behavior won’t dampen his enthusiasm for SpaceX missions, nor will it stop him from buying one of Tesla’s boxy Cybertrucks someday. (“It’s so ugly, I feel like I have to have it,” he said.)
Even though Hallert is still willing to support Musk’s companies, he’s feeling decidedly cooler about the man. “There probably was a time when I would have made any excuse [for Musk] just because my excitement over SpaceX was just that high,” Hallert said. “I’m less likely to make excuses about dumb shit he says to my friends than I was before.”


George Packer

• The blunders of the president and his ideological attorney general are destroying any illusion of control .
• Demonstrators are hammering on a hollowed-out structure , and it very well may collapse .
• We Are Living in a Failed State The coronavirus didn ’ t break America .
It revealed what was already broken .
• Robert Stone set out to capture the national condition in fiction , a goal that ’ s more relevant than ever .
• The President Is Winning His War on American Institutions How Trump is destroying the civil service and bending the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who ’ s afraid to tell people what they don ’ t want to hear has chosen the wrong trade .
• In 1974 , one congressman lay awake at night , agonizing over impeachment .
• Roy Cohn connects the McCarthy era to the age of Trump across more than half a century .
• What does it say about American politics that the Colorado senator hasn ’ t managed to stand out in the presidential race ?
• When the Culture War Comes for the Kids Caught between a brutal meritocracy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ parent tries to do right by his children while navigating New York City ’ s schools .
• Leslie Gelb never stopped asking himself what practical steps a foreign crisis or puzzle might require .
• The Left Needs a Language Potent Enough to Counter Trump The president ’ s rhetoric is dangerously populist in nature , and the left doesn ’ t know how to fight it .
• Buttigieg Looks to Truman , Not Obama , on Foreign Policy The Democratic candidate is trying to reorient his party ’ s approach @ @ @ @ @ @ @ concerns of ordinary voters .
• The End of the American Century What the life of Richard Holbrooke tells us about the decay of Pax Americana • A new Democratic coalition could be coming to power—but don ’ t count on it .
• Sherrod Brown could help his party win back white working-class voters—but he ’ s out of sync with the mercilessness of American politics .

George Packer is a staff writer at The Atlantic.
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Shan Wang

Shan Wang is a senior editor at The Atlantic , where she oversees newsletters .
• The Atlantic Politics Daily : The Stories That Stuck With Us The politics newsletter you ’ re reading will cease today .
For this final issue , our team shares stories from the past year that most stood out to them .
• New analysis on how the COVID-19 outbreak is spreading in the largest metropolitan centers versus less densely populated areas .
Plus : The internet is still bad .
• The Atlantic Politics Daily : How Democrats Won an Improbable Victory in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ improbable victory in Wisconsin ’ s judicial election .
Plus : The pandemic isn ’ t Pearl Harbor or 9/11 .
It isn ’ t a hurricane or a wildfire .
• The Atlantic Politics Daily : Which Version of the Pandemic Will You Experience ?
Any given Americans ’ experience will be determined by a mix of a sort of demographic predestination—and purely random chance .
Plus : Why the U.S. is short on masks .
• What is actually known about hydroxychloroquine , the drug the president is fixated on recommending @ @ @ @ @ @ @ seems to be hitting people of color the hardest .
• For subscribers : Ideas for Feeling Better This is The Atlantic ’ s weekly email to subscribers—a close look at the issues our writers are watching , just for you .
• The Atlantic Politics Daily : Where Are the Billionaires ?
Remember when Michael Bloomberg spent about $ 500 million running for president ?
Plus : What if checkpoints come to the U.S. to help slow the spread of COVID-19 ?
• Joe Biden keeps on winning .
Plus : Is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ out ?
• For subscribers : How do I practice ‘ social-distancing ’ ?
This is The Atlantic ’ s weekly email to subscribers—a close look at the issues our writers are watching , just for you .
• The Atlantic Politics Daily : How Much Does a Revolution Cost ?
The rough answer is $ 60 trillion—the price tag on Bernie Sanders ’ s agenda .
Plus : What nonvoters want ( hint : it ’ s not always the more progressive option ) .
• The Atlantic Politics Daily : Will @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Why the two early states could be on the cusp of losing their privileged positions .
Plus : About that Joe Rogan endorsement .
• They ’ re ubiquitous but largely unseen ; they ’ re indispensable but under-acknowledged .
And presidents usually ignore the thousands who have died .
Plus : Andrew Yang is not a joke .
• The Atlantic Politics Daily : Elizabeth Warren Doesn ’ t Talk About Her Republican Past Should she ?
Plus : What the other , other Rhodes-Scholar Mayor thinks now of his decision not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
• The Atlantic Politics Daily : The 2016 Campaign Cycle Is Still Going What we learned in the decade that was .
Plus : Why are American campaign cycles so interminable ?
• The Atlantic Politics Daily : What Separates the Left From the Left The food fight within the Democratic Party plays out on all sorts of issues—including impeachment .
Plus , Anne Applebaum on the false romance of Russia • The Atlantic Politics Daily : When Pete Buttigieg Was a Consultant “ Spreadsheets , ” he told our campaign reporter @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Plus : Does Kamala Harris still have VP potential ?
• The Atlantic Politics Daily : Democrats Have an Image Problem With Kamala Harris out of the race , zero nonwhite candidates have qualified thus far for the last Democratic debate of 2019 .
Plus , the bread crumbs of the “ Ukraine did it ” conspiracy .

Shan Wang is the programming director at The Atlantic.
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The Atlantic Politics Daily: The Stories That Stuck With Us The politics newsletter you’re reading will cease today. For this final issue, our team shares stories from the past year that most stood out to them.
The Atlantic Politics Daily: How COVID-19 Exacerbates Trump's Biggest 2020 Vulnerability New analysis on how the COVID-19 outbreak is spreading in the largest metropolitan centers versus less densely populated areas. Plus: The internet is still bad.
The Atlantic Politics Daily: How Democrats Won an Improbable Victory in Wisconsin Today, the Democrats notched an improbable victory in Wisconsin’s judicial election. Plus: The pandemic isn’t Pearl Harbor or 9/11. It isn’t a hurricane or a wildfire.
The Atlantic Politics Daily: Which Version of the Pandemic Will You Experience? Any given Americans’ experience will be determined by a mix of a sort of demographic predestination—and purely random chance. Plus: Why the U.S. is short on masks.
The Atlantic Politics Daily: Trump’s Miracle Drug What is actually known about hydroxychloroquine, the drug the president is fixated on recommending for COVID-19. Plus: The pandemic seems to be hitting people of color the hardest.
The Atlantic Politics Daily: Where Are the Billionaires? Remember when Michael Bloomberg spent about $500 million running for president? Plus: What if checkpoints come to the U.S. to help slow the spread of COVID-19?
The Atlantic Politics Daily: A Mid-Apocalyptic Democratic Primary Night Joe Biden keeps on winning. Plus: Is it time for Bernie Sanders to drop out?
The Atlantic Politics Daily: How Much Does a Revolution Cost? The rough answer is $60 trillion—the price tag on Bernie Sanders’s agenda. Plus: What nonvoters want (hint: it’s not always the more progressive option).
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