vox--2020-04-20--Trump attacks a Republican governor for following his coronavirus testing advice

Gov .
Larry Hogan ( R-MD ) followed President Donald Trump ’ s advice and took coronavirus testing into his own hands .
Trump attacked him anyway .
Trump began Monday ’ s White House coronavirus briefing by criticizing Hogan — chair of the National Governors Association — for turning to foreign source to buy coronavirus tests .
“ The governor of Maryland didn ’ t really understand , ” Trump said , describing a call that Vice President Mike Pence had with governors earlier in the day to encourage them to do more to increase coronavirus testing on their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ really understand what was going on.
” Trump was upset because Hogan and his wife — Yumi Hogan , a Korean immigrant — not only announced earlier Monday that they purchased 500,000 test kits from suppliers in South Korea , but also because Hogan indirectly criticized him during an interview with the New York Times .
“ The No .
1 problem facing us is lack of testing , ” Hogan told the Times .
“ We can ’ t open up our states without ramping up testing.
” “ It should not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ added .
CNN reported that Hogan ’ s wife , Yumi Hogan , “ not only used her native language to help secure the tests but also helped negotiate the deal.
” “ The administration made it clear over and over again they want the states to take the lead , and we have to go out and do it ourselves , and that ’ s exactly what we did , ” Hogan said during a news conference on Monday .
Experts say the US needs to triple its testing capacity before it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , but the number of tests completed daily has remained largely flat for the past month .
Trump doesn ’ t seem to have an answer to this puzzle other than to turn the tables on governors .
For instance , on Monday Trump trolled governors by flipping through a packet of papers that he said contained information about how they can better utilize lab capacity in their states .
But during an interview on CNN that coincided with the briefing , Hogan dismissed the value of the information Trump is sharing with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the governors already knew where the lab facilities were in their states.
” Trump , however , refuses to acknowledge there ’ s more he could do .
Later during Monday ’ s briefing , the president suggested that governors like Hogan who have urged him to ramp up national testing efforts are part of a political conspiracy to bring him down .
Trump ’ s line in recent days has been to claim without evidence that other countries are reaching out to the US for help because testing here is going so @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that talk is a bunch of nonsense — and Trump wasn ’ t pleased .
At another point during Monday ’ s briefing , CNN ’ s Kaitlin Collins asked White House officials why Hogan would need to turn to South Korea for testing kits if it ’ s true , as Trump claims , that states already have enough testing capacity to begin the process of reopening business and schools .
Nobody had a good answer .
Later , Trump returned to the podium and said that Hogan should ’ ve just @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Maryland could ’ ve called Mike Pence and saved a lot of money , ” Trump said .
“ I think he needed to get a little knowledge.
” But if it ’ s true that states have much more testing capacity than they ’ re currently utilizing , that hasn ’ t yet showed up in the daily testing numbers .
And until it does , governors who don ’ t have connections in South Korea will likely find Trump ’ s bluster to be cold comfort .
The news moves @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Aaron Rupar on Twitter , and read more of Vox ’ s policy and politics coverage .

Gov. Larry Hogan (R-MD) followed President Donald Trump’s advice and took coronavirus testing into his own hands. Trump attacked him anyway.
Trump began Monday’s White House coronavirus briefing by criticizing Hogan — chair of the National Governors Association — for turning to a foreign source to buy coronavirus tests.
“The governor of Maryland didn’t really understand,” Trump said, describing a call that Vice President Mike Pence had with governors earlier in the day to encourage them to do more to increase coronavirus testing on their own. “He didn’t really understand what was going on.”
"The governor of Maryland didn't really understand. He didn't really understand what was going on" -- Trump begins the April 20 #TrumpPressBriefing by attacking Republican Gov. Larry Hogan of Maryland, who has been critical of the federal coronavirus response. pic.twitter.com/OTMwj6v5Sp — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 20, 2020
Trump was upset because Hogan and his wife — Yumi Hogan, a Korean immigrant — not only announced earlier Monday that they purchased 500,000 test kits from suppliers in South Korea, but also because Hogan indirectly criticized him during an interview with the New York Times.
On Saturday, First Lady Yumi Hogan and I stood on the tarmac at @BWI_Airport to welcome the first ever Korean Air passenger plane, carrying a very important payload of LabGun #COVID19 test kits which will give MD the capability of performing half a million coronavirus tests. pic.twitter.com/Elf0ADIRnJ — Governor Larry Hogan (@GovLarryHogan) April 20, 2020
“The No. 1 problem facing us is lack of testing,” Hogan told the Times. “We can’t open up our states without ramping up testing.”
“It should not have been this difficult,” he added.
CNN reported that Hogan’s wife, Yumi Hogan, “not only used her native language to help secure the tests but also helped negotiate the deal.”
“The administration made it clear over and over again they want the states to take the lead, and we have to go out and do it ourselves, and that’s exactly what we did,” Hogan said during a news conference on Monday.
Trump talks a big game about testing
Experts say the US needs to triple its testing capacity before it will be safe for businesses to reopen, but the number of tests completed daily has remained largely flat for the past month. Trump doesn’t seem to have an answer to this puzzle other than to turn the tables on governors.
For instance, Trump trolled governors on Monday by flipping through a packet of papers that he said contained information about how they can better utilize lab capacity in their states.
Trump flips through a packet of paper that's meant to illustrate all the labs state governments could use to do more coronavirus testing (in other words it's a form of passing the buck) pic.twitter.com/brkRgvwqPa — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 20, 2020
But during an interview on CNN that coincided with the briefing, Hogan dismissed the value of the information Trump is sharing with governors, saying, “most of the governors already knew where the lab facilities were in their states.”
Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan:
“Most of the governors already knew where the lab facilities were in their states. …most of the ones that they sent me in Maryland were all federal facilities…none of which were state-owned labs or facilities where we could actually do any testing." pic.twitter.com/UpO2IbeBDw — JM Rieger (@RiegerReport) April 20, 2020
Trump, however, refuses to acknowledge there’s more he could do. Later during Monday’s briefing, the president suggested that governors like Hogan who have urged him to ramp up national testing efforts are part of a political conspiracy to bring him down.
Trump suggests that demands for more testing, just like requests for ventilators, are part of a political conspiracy meant to take him down -- not necessary measures to respond to a virus that has killed more than 40,000 Americans pic.twitter.com/uFFBnqwgQP — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 20, 2020
Trump’s line in recent days has been to claim, without evidence, that other countries are reaching out to the US for help because testing here is going so great. Hogan’s announcement suggested that talk is a bunch of nonsense — and Trump wasn’t pleased.
At another point during Monday’s briefing, CNN’s Kaitlin Collins asked White House officials why Hogan would need to turn to South Korea for testing kits if it’s true, as Trump claims, that states already have enough testing capacity to begin the process of reopening business and schools. Nobody had a good answer.
.@kaitlancollins: If we have enough tests now for everyone to go into phase one, why is the governor of Maryland having to get tests from South Korea?
HHS OFFICIAL GIROIR: "I don't know what the governor of Maryland is doing in South Korea but there's excess capacity every day" pic.twitter.com/gnIWfewtTs — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 20, 2020
Later, Trump returned to the podium and said that Hogan should’ve just called Mike Pence.
“The governor of Maryland could’ve called Mike Pence and saved a lot of money,” Trump said. “I think he needed to get a little knowledge.”
But if it’s true that states have much more testing capacity than they’re currently utilizing, that hasn’t yet showed up in the daily testing numbers. And until it does, governors who don’t have connections in South Korea will likely find Trump’s bluster to be cold comfort.


vox--2020-04-20--Facebook is taking down some, but not all, quarantine protest event pages

Facebook is taking down some event pages promoting controversial anti-stay-at-home protests that are taking place across the US — but it ’ s only doing this in areas where the events violate local Covid-19 social distancing rules .
Facebook ’ s selective response mirrors a larger fracture across the country as the Trump administration has given conflicting guidance about how and when restrictions should be lifted and has largely left these decisions up to individual state politicians .
The move comes after Facebook faced criticism for allowing people to coordinate anti-quarantine protests on its platform .
Public health officials , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ say these protests are putting people ’ s lives at risk : By bringing people together in large crowds , they increase the chances of spreading the highly contagious disease .
Others , including President Trump , have defended the protests , saying in a press conference on Monday that the protesters “ love our country ” and “ want to get back to work.
” Facebook ’ s decision to take down these posts comes at a time when the company is trying to step up as a leader in using big @ @ @ @ @ @ @ spread while also battling efforts by some of its users to spread Covid-19 misinformation .
Facebook confirmed to Recode that it will take down some posts organizing protests in areas where the events go against local law — and for now , it ’ s only done so in California , New Jersey , and Nebraska .
In other states , such as Pennsylvania , users are continuing to promote anti-quarantine protests on Facebook , with as many as 60,000 members in one Pennsylvania group alone .
In response to questions from Recode @ @ @ @ @ @ @ but not others and concerns raised about them doing so , Facebook spokesperson Andy Stone sent the following statement : “ Unless government prohibits the event during this time , we allow it to be organized on Facebook .
For this same reason , events that defy government ’ s guidance on social distancing aren ’ t allowed on Facebook.
” The governors ’ offices of New Jersey and Nebraska told Fox News and CNN that they had been in touch with Facebook about social distancing , but that they did not ask @ @ @ @ @ @ @ In recent weeks , a small number of people across the US have taken to the streets to protest Covid-19 shelter-in-place orders , arguing that people should be allowed to return to work and resume normal life , despite the risks to public health in doing so .
Millions of Americans are facing economic hardships after an unprecedented shutdown of public life and nonessential businesses .
While polls show that a majority of Americans across party lines are afraid of prematurely ending social distancing , these protests are spreading across states .
So @ @ @ @ @ @ @ thousands , but they are a vocal minority .
These protests have been organized and gained publicity via Facebook ’ s events feature .
While many of them appear to be organic posts started by concerned locals , reports by the Guardian and the Washington Post have revealed that many of them were actually started by established right-wing and pro-gun political groups .
In photographs and videos of these protests , many people are standing closer than 6 feet apart and without masks covering their faces , which poses a known public health @ @ @ @ @ @ @ one anti-lockdown protest in Colorado , local health care workers clashed with protesters , standing in front of them in their medical scrubs and protective gear .
Protest participants have argued they have a constitutional right to assemble .
That ’ s one of the reasons why nonpartisan policy experts have raised concerns about precedents Facebook could set in shutting down efforts to organize these protests on its platform .
Facebook has historically been a powerful platform for organizing protests in the US and elsewhere , from Black Lives Matter actions to the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a violent white supremacist gathering that resulted in one murder and several injuries .
( Facebook eventually took down the main event page a day before the rally took place . )
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has repeatedly defended the company ’ s role in protecting free speech on its platform , particularly around politics .
Many are arguing that the anti-quarantine protests should fall under that protection and that people ’ s civil liberties are at risk if Facebook shuts down such events .
But others say that while individual rights to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the health of the public .
“ The problem isn ’ t civil liberties because these groups can build their own webpages and carry out conversation there , ” Joan Donovan , the director of Harvard University ’ s Technology and Social Change Research Project , told Recode .
“ The overarching question is , ‘ does Facebook have a responsibility to protect their users from health misinformation ?
’ If you think they should , then these actions are the correct course of action.
” Every day at Vox , we aim @ @ @ @ @ @ @ provide you , and our audience around the world , with information that has the power to save lives .
Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment : to empower you through understanding .
Vox ’ s work is reaching more people than ever , but our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources — particularly during a pandemic and an economic downturn .
Your financial contribution will not constitute a donation , but it will enable our staff to continue to offer free articles , videos @ @ @ @ @ @ @ volume that this moment requires .
Please consider making a contribution to Vox today .

Facebook is taking down some event pages promoting controversial anti-stay-at-home protests that are taking place across the US — but it’s only doing this in areas where the events violate local Covid-19 social distancing rules. Facebook’s selective response mirrors a larger fracture across the country as the Trump administration has given conflicting guidance about how and when restrictions should be lifted and has largely left these decisions up to individual state politicians.
The move comes after Facebook faced criticism for allowing people to coordinate anti-quarantine protests on its platform. Public health officials, state officials, and health care workers say these protests are putting people’s lives at risk: By bringing people together in large crowds, they increase the chances of spreading the highly contagious disease. Others, including President Trump, have defended the protests, saying in a press conference on Monday that the protesters “love our country” and “want to get back to work.” Facebook’s decision to take down these posts comes at a time when the company is trying to step up as a leader in using big data to battle the virus’s spread while also battling efforts by some of its users to spread Covid-19 misinformation.
Facebook confirmed to Recode that it will take down some posts organizing protests in areas where the events go against local law — and for now, it’s only done so in California, New Jersey, and Nebraska. In other states, such as Pennsylvania, users are continuing to promote anti-quarantine protests on Facebook, with as many as 60,000 members in one Pennsylvania group alone. In response to questions from Recode about why Facebook took down some posts but not others and concerns raised about them doing so, Facebook spokesperson Andy Stone sent the following statement:
“Unless government prohibits the event during this time, we allow it to be organized on Facebook. For this same reason, events that defy government’s guidance on social distancing aren’t allowed on Facebook.”
The governors’ offices of New Jersey and Nebraska told Fox News and CNN that they had been in touch with Facebook about social distancing, but that they did not ask Facebook to take down the events.
In recent weeks, a small number of people across the US have taken to the streets to protest Covid-19 shelter-in-place orders, arguing that people should be allowed to return to work and resume normal life, despite the risks to public health in doing so. Millions of Americans are facing economic hardships after an unprecedented shutdown of public life and nonessential businesses. While polls show that a majority of Americans across party lines are afraid of prematurely ending social distancing, these protests are spreading across states. So far, anti-quarantine protesters number in the thousands, but they are a vocal minority.
These protests have been organized and gained publicity via Facebook’s events feature. While many of them appear to be organic posts started by concerned locals, reports by the Guardian and the Washington Post have revealed that many of them were actually started by established right-wing and pro-gun political groups.
In photographs and videos of these protests, many people are standing closer than 6 feet apart and without masks covering their faces, which poses a known public health risk to themselves and others. In one anti-lockdown protest in Colorado, local health care workers clashed with protesters, standing in front of them in their medical scrubs and protective gear.
Protest participants have argued they have a constitutional right to assemble. That’s one of the reasons why nonpartisan policy experts have raised concerns about precedents Facebook could set in shutting down efforts to organize these protests on its platform.
Facebook has historically been a powerful platform for organizing protests in the US and elsewhere, from Black Lives Matter actions to the 2017 Charlottesville Unite the Right Rally — a violent white supremacist gathering that resulted in one murder and several injuries. (Facebook eventually took down the main event page a day before the rally took place.)
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has repeatedly defended the company’s role in protecting free speech on its platform, particularly around politics. Many are arguing that the anti-quarantine protests should fall under that protection and that people’s civil liberties are at risk if Facebook shuts down such events.
But others say that while individual rights to protest are at stake, so is the health of the public.
“The problem isn’t civil liberties because these groups can build their own webpages and carry out conversation there,” Joan Donovan, the director of Harvard University’s Technology and Social Change Research Project, told Recode. “The overarching question is, ‘does Facebook have a responsibility to protect their users from health misinformation?’ If you think they should, then these actions are the correct course of action.”


vox--2020-04-20--America’s Coffee Shops Just Might Survive This Moment

“ Being able to say , ‘ Hey , come have a coffee in our space , let us host you ’ — I don ’ t think that hospitality moment is coming again anytime soon , ” says Mallory Pilcher , head of brand at Stumptown Coffee .
The scene across much of the American coffee industry right now is grim .
Cafes nationwide are closed or operating at limited capacity ; baristas are furloughed , laid off outright , or working with significant reductions in hours .
And yet if you compare the situation to the ongoing restaurant @ @ @ @ @ @ @ coming out of the coffee landscape , a few small signs of uptick that point to the wider scope of where coffee in America is headed .
Coffee is a baked-in need — it is largely recession proof , and may indeed be depression proof , too , should the economy come to that .
Coronavirus has changed everything in America , but for coffee drinkers — and those who make their lives around it — the brew goes on , and I ’ m hopeful , even bullish , that coffee is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ comes next .
The American specialty coffee industry is not a monolith .
The precise nature of COVID-19 shutdowns have impacted different brands in different ways , playing out in narratives drafted long before the pandemic .
Scale and growth have been intrinsic to specialty coffee over the last decade , to the tune of 5.5 percent annually , resulting in a uniquely precarious set of positions — and opportunities — in the face of nationwide cafe shutdowns .
“ It ’ s finally starting to feel like we ’ re through the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ whose role as head of brand at Stumptown puts her in daily contact with wholesale and retail partners across the country , including Stumptown ’ s own cafe staff in six states .
“ We feel like we have some sense of forecast and volume week over week.
” This comes after a wild six weeks of uncertainty for the company , which Pilcher describes as “ waking up to fresh hell each morning.
” Stumptown is technically categorized by the federal government as a small business for employing fewer than 500 people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it ’ s one of the big players in terms of scale and identity .
The brand , launched in 1999 by Gen X stoner prince Duane Sorenson , was sold first to an investment group in 2011 , then again in 2015 to German commodities conglomerate JAB , whose other coffee properties include Peet ’ s and Keurig .
The brand ’ s business is diversified , with more than a dozen cafes ( including airport and roastery tasting rooms ) plus direct-to-consumer sales online , grocery store stockists , ready-to-drink products @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 100 independent cafes around the world .
All of Stumptown ’ s cafes have been closed since March 17 , an agonizing decision that Pilcher chalks up to a lack of guidance from the federal government .
Clear direction for Stumptown was complicated by the multi-state reality of its cafe network .
“ Because there wasn ’ t a total federal mandate to lock down everything , we were constantly having to look and evaluate what the governors were saying : Cuomo in New York , Kate Brown in Oregon , leaders in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to let go of their whole staff and say ‘ Welp , see ya later , nobody knows what will happen next.
’ ” More than 130 baristas and cafe staffers were furloughed by Stumptown , roughly a quarter of the company ’ s total workforce .
Per Pilcher , Stumptown paid these hourly employees through April 4 .
Retail closures are significant for Stumptown , but Pilcher says online sales are way up — as much as 250 percent over the last month — and grocery sales are up 60 percent .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ corner , a busy time of year for Stumptown .
The brand helped popularize the craze over the last five years with its “ stubby ” bottled product , which has since been spun off in a series of collaborations with cult oat milk purveyor Oatly .
“ We have no idea what ’ s going to happen next with our cafes , ” says Pilcher .
“ But I can tell you now that we ’ re working to get into Costco.
” Los Angeles indie coffee brand Go Get Em Tiger @ @ @ @ @ @ @ space in today ’ s current coffee scale .
GGET started as a single , tiny pop-up in 2012 and has grown to include a network of nine cafes and counting and a massive production facility in the industrial city of Vernon .
“ It feels like everything we had carefully placed together was blown up and scattered , ” says co-founder and CEO Kyle Glanville .
“ But the good news is we still have all the pieces .
What ’ s hard is figuring out how they fit into the current @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ re also a grocery store.
” He ’ s not joking .
GGET ’ s coronavirus pivot has included a new grab-and-go selection of pantry staples , from bread to flour to cold brew concentrate and in-house baked goods .
Half of GGET ’ s cafes are closed outright ; the rest have instituted an order-by-app system allowing customers to still get drinks .
Glanville describes the initial onset of coronavirus shut-downs in harrowing terms .
“ For two weeks it felt like chaos ; I was running on pure adrenaline , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , team , and stakeholders around the clock .
It ’ s finally been this last week where I ’ ve crashed down to earth and realized that in order to keep going , we need to get deliberate about how we ’ re operating and what the next phases are.
” GGET ’ s team of 128 employees has been reduced by just four individuals , but many hourly workers have experienced a serious slashing of hours .
Newly instituted grocery items now account for 25 percent of cafe sales , but @ @ @ @ @ @ @ aggressively expanding its online footprint in the form of subscriptions and a la carte web sales , and much like winemakers , GGET has seen these “ direct-to-consumer ” investments pay off : Glanville tells Eater that web sales are up 300 percent , and subscriptions have doubled .
Glanville and his team are now juggling commitments with landlords — the majority of whom have been understanding , he tells Eater , with one significant outlier that may ultimately result in the company ’ s first permanent store closure .
Cafe business is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s open locations , and Glanville feels serving the community at this time could have major positive outcomes for GGET in the years to come .
“ The feedback has been incredible , which is really heartening — we ’ re learning a new thing .
Grocery is not going to disappear anytime soon , even post vaccine.
” Now Glanville is hoping to give hourly employees more work by amping up coffee availability for underserved essential workers .
“ We ’ re working more with different non-profit orgs that deliver food to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ It turns out a lot of hospital workers are getting fancy pizza but no coffee .
So we ’ re sending out morning coffee to hospitals every day this week.
” In New York , Everyman Espresso , an independent micro-chain with three locations in Manhattan and Brooklyn , is 100 percent focused on supporting hospital workers .
Co-owner Sam Penix is a fixture at the company ’ s East Village location , which he has owned and managed since 2009 and worked at since 2007 , eventually moving into an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the space .
Everyman , which had been practicing a kind of socially distanced takeout service model , fully closed on April 4 , and Penix immediately pivoted into a new model under the moniker Fuel Frontlines .
Penix and a team of out-of-work couriers are bringing coffee to workers at hospitals across the city , documenting it all in a daily diary on Instagram .
One recent delivery — to Beth Israel Hospital on the Lower East Side — included $ 2,000 worth of pre-brewed coffee and another $ 3,700 of breakfast @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of coffee is delivered adorned with a handwritten note from Penix and his team : “ THANK YOU WOODHULL ” for the Woodhull Medical Center in Bed-Stuy , or “ WE [ HEART ] U LENOX ” for the night shift workers at Lenox Hill Hospital .
This work has a dual purpose : It sends much-needed coffee to hospital workers around New York City , and it keeps Everyman in business when normal cafe operations have ceased .
By visiting Fuel Frontline ’ s website , supporters anywhere in the world can @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in denominations ranging from $ 25 to $ 1,000 .
This in turn keeps Penix working under the Everyman flag , allowing him to continue ordering and brewing coffee in partnership with the company ’ s longtime roasting collaborators Counter Culture Coffee .
As far as coronavirus-era corporate pivots go , this one could make or break Everyman Espresso ’ s ability to reopen once the world returns to the new normal .
Everyman Espresso and Go Get Em Tiger are just two of dozens of brands around the country — indeed , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bring coffee and support to hospital workers , along with chefs and chef-driven organizations doing the very same .
This speaks to the wider utility of coffee , the idea that it ’ s something we all need to power through when shit gets rough .
In this powering through , there ’ s hope for the long-term health of the coffee industry ; it ’ s capable of making a crucial place for itself in even the worst times .
Coffee entrepreneurs are also starting to launch Kickstarters for their new projects @ @ @ @ @ @ @ efforts during the month of March ( an astonishing rarity in a crowdfund-happy industry ) .
Where I live , in Portland , Oregon , there are at least two exciting rebrands : Reforma Roasters , the new roasting identity from Angel Medina ( formerly Kiosko Coffee ) and Cafe Reina ( formerly the Arrow Coffeehouse ) , whose founder Erica Escalante has renamed the company and installed walk-up buzzer service to better manage social distancing .
On April 16 , a package arrived at my home from a new coffee company called @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Freese was the creator of Sudden Coffee , a San Francisco brand ( and Y Combinator graduate ) largely responsible for kicking off the specialty instant coffee micro boom .
He exited Sudden a few years ago and is choosing this moment to launch Taika , a blend of cold brewed coffee with a range of adaptogens , “ functional mushrooms , ” and herbal additives like lion ’ s mane and cordyceps .
The coffee was delivered cold-chilled to my door and Freese promises two-hour delivery for users in San Francisco @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Their brand slogan — “ Want to accentuate reality ?
Ask us how ” — is a bit of an eye roll now , but the product is beautiful , and the coffee is clean and easy to drink .
( You can hardly taste the ashwagandha . )
Freese acknowledges this is a strange time to be launching a company , but Taika has been working on roll-out for half a year , so why not now ?
The world won ’ t wait .
“ We have to launch sometime @ @ @ @ @ @ @ People are still drinking coffee.
” is a freelance food and wine journalist in Portland , Oregon , and the co-founder of coffee publication

“Being able to say, ‘Hey, come have a coffee in our space, let us host you’ — I don’t think that hospitality moment is coming again anytime soon,” says Mallory Pilcher, head of brand at Stumptown Coffee. The scene across much of the American coffee industry right now is grim. Cafes nationwide are closed or operating at limited capacity; baristas are furloughed, laid off outright, or working with significant reductions in hours. And yet if you compare the situation to the ongoing restaurant apocalypse, there is some hopeful news coming out of the coffee landscape, a few small signs of uptick that point to the wider scope of where coffee in America is headed.
Coffee is a baked-in need — it is largely recession proof, and may indeed be depression proof, too, should the economy come to that. Coronavirus has changed everything in America, but for coffee drinkers — and those who make their lives around it — the brew goes on, and I’m hopeful, even bullish, that coffee is going to survive this moment and whatever comes next.
The American specialty coffee industry is not a monolith. The precise nature of COVID-19 shutdowns have impacted different brands in different ways, playing out in narratives drafted long before the pandemic. Scale and growth have been intrinsic to specialty coffee over the last decade, to the tune of 5.5 percent annually, resulting in a uniquely precarious set of positions — and opportunities — in the face of nationwide cafe shutdowns.
“It’s finally starting to feel like we’re through the looking glass,” says Pilcher, whose role as head of brand at Stumptown puts her in daily contact with wholesale and retail partners across the country, including Stumptown’s own cafe staff in six states. “We feel like we have some sense of forecast and volume week over week.” This comes after a wild six weeks of uncertainty for the company, which Pilcher describes as “waking up to fresh hell each morning.”
Stumptown is technically categorized by the federal government as a small business for employing fewer than 500 people, but in the fancy coffee world it’s one of the big players in terms of scale and identity. The brand, launched in 1999 by Gen X stoner prince Duane Sorenson, was sold first to an investment group in 2011, then again in 2015 to German commodities conglomerate JAB, whose other coffee properties include Peet’s and Keurig. The brand’s business is diversified, with more than a dozen cafes (including airport and roastery tasting rooms) plus direct-to-consumer sales online, grocery store stockists, ready-to-drink products, and wholesale partnerships with more than 100 independent cafes around the world.
All of Stumptown’s cafes have been closed since March 17, an agonizing decision that Pilcher chalks up to a lack of guidance from the federal government. Clear direction for Stumptown was complicated by the multi-state reality of its cafe network. “Because there wasn’t a total federal mandate to lock down everything, we were constantly having to look and evaluate what the governors were saying: Cuomo in New York, Kate Brown in Oregon, leaders in Chicago and Louisiana. No one wants to let go of their whole staff and say ‘Welp, see ya later, nobody knows what will happen next.’” More than 130 baristas and cafe staffers were furloughed by Stumptown, roughly a quarter of the company’s total workforce. Per Pilcher, Stumptown paid these hourly employees through April 4.
Retail closures are significant for Stumptown, but Pilcher says online sales are way up — as much as 250 percent over the last month — and grocery sales are up 60 percent. Cold brew season is just around the corner, a busy time of year for Stumptown. The brand helped popularize the craze over the last five years with its “stubby” bottled product, which has since been spun off in a series of collaborations with cult oat milk purveyor Oatly. “We have no idea what’s going to happen next with our cafes,” says Pilcher. “But I can tell you now that we’re working to get into Costco.”
Los Angeles indie coffee brand Go Get Em Tiger (GGET) occupies an interesting middle space in today’s current coffee scale. GGET started as a single, tiny pop-up in 2012 and has grown to include a network of nine cafes and counting and a massive production facility in the industrial city of Vernon. “It feels like everything we had carefully placed together was blown up and scattered,” says co-founder and CEO Kyle Glanville. “But the good news is we still have all the pieces. What’s hard is figuring out how they fit into the current landscape — like, apparently now we’re also a grocery store.”
He’s not joking. GGET’s coronavirus pivot has included a new grab-and-go selection of pantry staples, from bread to flour to cold brew concentrate and in-house baked goods. Half of GGET’s cafes are closed outright; the rest have instituted an order-by-app system allowing customers to still get drinks.
Glanville describes the initial onset of coronavirus shut-downs in harrowing terms. “For two weeks it felt like chaos; I was running on pure adrenaline, never sleeping, communicating with our investors, team, and stakeholders around the clock. It’s finally been this last week where I’ve crashed down to earth and realized that in order to keep going, we need to get deliberate about how we’re operating and what the next phases are.”
GGET’s team of 128 employees has been reduced by just four individuals, but many hourly workers have experienced a serious slashing of hours. Newly instituted grocery items now account for 25 percent of cafe sales, but GGET has spent the last few years aggressively expanding its online footprint in the form of subscriptions and a la carte web sales, and much like winemakers, GGET has seen these “direct-to-consumer” investments pay off: Glanville tells Eater that web sales are up 300 percent, and subscriptions have doubled.
Glanville and his team are now juggling commitments with landlords — the majority of whom have been understanding, he tells Eater, with one significant outlier that may ultimately result in the company’s first permanent store closure. Cafe business is modified but busy at the brand’s open locations, and Glanville feels serving the community at this time could have major positive outcomes for GGET in the years to come. “The feedback has been incredible, which is really heartening — we’re learning a new thing. Grocery is not going to disappear anytime soon, even post vaccine.”
Now Glanville is hoping to give hourly employees more work by amping up coffee availability for underserved essential workers. “We’re working more with different non-profit orgs that deliver food to health care workers,” he says. “It turns out a lot of hospital workers are getting fancy pizza but no coffee. So we’re sending out morning coffee to hospitals every day this week.”
In New York, Everyman Espresso, an independent micro-chain with three locations in Manhattan and Brooklyn, is 100 percent focused on supporting hospital workers. Co-owner Sam Penix is a fixture at the company’s East Village location, which he has owned and managed since 2009 and worked at since 2007, eventually moving into an apartment just a few doors down from the space. Everyman, which had been practicing a kind of socially distanced takeout service model, fully closed on April 4, and Penix immediately pivoted into a new model under the moniker Fuel Frontlines.
Penix and a team of out-of-work couriers are bringing coffee to workers at hospitals across the city, documenting it all in a daily diary on Instagram. One recent delivery — to Beth Israel Hospital on the Lower East Side — included $2,000 worth of pre-brewed coffee and another $3,700 of breakfast foods and pastries. Each cardboard carafe of coffee is delivered adorned with a handwritten note from Penix and his team: “THANK YOU WOODHULL” for the Woodhull Medical Center in Bed-Stuy, or “WE [HEART] U LENOX” for the night shift workers at Lenox Hill Hospital.
This work has a dual purpose: It sends much-needed coffee to hospital workers around New York City, and it keeps Everyman in business when normal cafe operations have ceased. By visiting Fuel Frontline’s website, supporters anywhere in the world can donate to provide coffee to essential workers in denominations ranging from $25 to $1,000. This in turn keeps Penix working under the Everyman flag, allowing him to continue ordering and brewing coffee in partnership with the company’s longtime roasting collaborators Counter Culture Coffee. As far as coronavirus-era corporate pivots go, this one could make or break Everyman Espresso’s ability to reopen once the world returns to the new normal.
Everyman Espresso and Go Get Em Tiger are just two of dozens of brands around the country — indeed, around the world — working overtime to bring coffee and support to hospital workers, along with chefs and chef-driven organizations doing the very same. This speaks to the wider utility of coffee, the idea that it’s something we all need to power through when shit gets rough. In this powering through, there’s hope for the long-term health of the coffee industry; it’s capable of making a crucial place for itself in even the worst times.
Coffee entrepreneurs are also starting to launch Kickstarters for their new projects, after a near-total shutdown of such efforts during the month of March (an astonishing rarity in a crowdfund-happy industry). Where I live, in Portland, Oregon, there are at least two exciting rebrands: Reforma Roasters, the new roasting identity from Angel Medina (formerly Kiosko Coffee) and Cafe Reina (formerly the Arrow Coffeehouse), whose founder Erica Escalante has renamed the company and installed walk-up buzzer service to better manage social distancing.
On April 16, a package arrived at my home from a new coffee company called Taika, the brainchild of Kalle Freese. Freese was the creator of Sudden Coffee, a San Francisco brand (and Y Combinator graduate) largely responsible for kicking off the specialty instant coffee micro boom. He exited Sudden a few years ago and is choosing this moment to launch Taika, a blend of cold brewed coffee with a range of adaptogens, “functional mushrooms,” and herbal additives like lion’s mane and cordyceps. The coffee was delivered cold-chilled to my door and Freese promises two-hour delivery for users in San Francisco, LA, and New York City. Their brand slogan — “Want to accentuate reality? Ask us how” — is a bit of an eye roll now, but the product is beautiful, and the coffee is clean and easy to drink. (You can hardly taste the ashwagandha.)
Freese acknowledges this is a strange time to be launching a company, but Taika has been working on roll-out for half a year, so why not now? The world won’t wait. “We have to launch sometime,” he tells me. “People are still drinking coffee.”
Jordan Michelman is a freelance food and wine journalist in Portland, Oregon, and the co-founder of coffee publication Sprudge and Sprudge Wine .


vox--2020-04-20--Coronavirus stimulus money will be wasted on fossil fuels

As countries across the world go into lockdown in response to Covid-19 , economies are in free fall .
Almost every sector is taking a hit , hemorrhaging jobs and value .
And almost every sector will be shaped , for years to come , by the speed , amount , and nature of public assistance it receives .
There is a finite amount of time , resources , and political will available to get economies going again ; not every sector will get what it wants or needs .
In short , the decisions legislators make in response to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ influence on what kind of economies emerge on the other side .
A few weeks ago , I wrote about what an ideal recovery and stimulus package would look like .
And last week I wrote about how shortsighted it is for Republicans ( enabled by learned Democratic passivity ) to reject aid for the struggling clean energy industry .
In this post , I want to take a look at why it is equally shortsighted for President Trump and congressional Republicans to remain so devoted to the fossil fuel industry .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are a pillar of the US economy , with giant companies like Exxon Mobil producing revenue and jobs that the US can ’ t afford to do without .
Even among those eager to address climate change by moving past fossil fuels to clean energy — a class that includes a majority of Americans — there is a lingering mythology that US fossil fuels are , to use the familiar phrase , too big to fail .
But the position of fossil fuels in the US economy is less secure than it might @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fuel industry is facing substantial structural challenges that will be exacerbated by , but will not end with , the Covid-19 crisis .
For years , the industry has been shedding value , taking on debt , losing favor among financial institutions and investors , and turning more and more to lobbying governments to survive .
It is , in short , a turkey .
CNBC financial analyst Jim Cramer put it best , back in late January , before Covid-19 had even become a crisis in the US : “ I ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ re done .
They ’ re just done.
” “ We ’ re in the death knell phase , ” he said “ The world has turned on [ fossil fuels ] .
” Cramer ’ s take is not yet conventional wisdom , but he ’ s right .
Evidence in support appears in a new report from the Center for International Environmental Law ( CIEL ) called “ Pandemic Crisis , Systemic Decline.
” Let ’ s walk through it .
Fossil fuels are furiously lobbying for , and receiving @ @ @ @ @ @ @ UK-based think tank InfluenceMap recently did an analysis that tracks corporate lobbying in the face of the Covid-19 crisis .
It found that , across the globe , the oil and gas sector has been the most active in lobbying for interventions , seeking , as CIEL summarizes , “ direct and indirect support , including bailouts , buyouts , regulatory rollbacks , exemption from measures designed to protect the health of workers and the public , non-enforcement of environmental laws , and criminalization of protest , among others.
” In Canada , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ industry is arguing that it must be subsidized and deregulated in order to survive .
In the US alone , the industry is seeking access to a range of stimulus funds , relief from a variety of pollution regulations , and use of the strategic petroleum reserve to bolster prices .
Journalist Amy Westervelt is tracking at least a dozen other lobbying efforts .
The petrochemical and plastics industry , which is in large part an extension of the oil and gas industry , is exploiting the crisis as well .
It has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ official preference for single-use plastic bags and suggested that more fresh produce should be wrapped in plastic .
The virus has not slowed down the Trump administration ’ s attempts to assist the industry .
It is gutting fuel economy standards , which , by its own estimation , will increase pollution and eliminate 13,500 jobs a year .
The EPA has dramatically eased the enforcement of pollution regulations and moved forward with its “ secret science ” rule , which will make it more difficult to understand and address the health impacts @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to study the coronavirus .
During a supply glut driven by historically low prices , the Interior Department is rushing to lease federal land for oil and gas development , despite an anemic response , rock-bottom prices , and calls from conservative and taxpayer groups to suspend leasing in the face of the coronavirus .
The administration seems determined to bail out struggling shale gas companies , despite that overleveraged , debt-ridden sector being long overdue for a shakeout .
( For more on that , check out Amy Westervelt ’ s reporting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with Saudi Arabia and Russia on oil supply cuts , and has the Department of Energy buying up billions of tons of oil for the strategic petroleum reserve , all to try to boost the price of oil to help struggling oil majors .
A group of GOP senators is lobbying for fossil fuel companies , including coal companies , to be eligible for the small-business recovery fund .
Last week , EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler announced that the administration , in defiance of an enormous body of evidence and recommendations from EPA @ @ @ @ @ @ @ restrictions on soot pollution .
And on Friday , Wheeler announced that the EPA will weaken standards on mercury and other toxic metals from fossil-fueled power plants , again in opposition to the scientific consensus , based on rigged cost-benefit analysis that deliberately excluded most benefits .
Across the board , the administration is doing everything it can to help fossil fuels .
But it ’ s a mug ’ s game .
The industry is faltering for reasons that well predate Covid-19 .
Fossil fuels were already facing structural problems before the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , for reasons I ’ ve written about many times before .
No amount of stimulus money or weaker pollution regulations can save it .
But on the surface , things look different for oil and gas .
Thanks to fracking , production has been booming for the past decade , vaulting the US ahead of Saudi Arabia and Russia to become the the world ’ s leading oil and gas producer .
And the same goes for petrochemicals and especially plastics , which have been forecast to be the main drivers of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The industry has issued rosy projections of plastics ’ growth and invested $ 200 billion in new petrochemical and plastics infrastructure .
But dig below the surface and things don ’ t look so good .
First , fracking was a financial wreck long before Covid-19 hit .
US fracking operations have been losing money for a decade , to the tune of around $ 280 billion .
Overproduction has produced a supply glut , low prices , and an accumulating surplus in storage .
Even as its prospects grow dimmer , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ over the years is coming back to bite it .
Some $ 40 billion will come due this year alone , and around $ 200 billion in the next four years .
In the hours after this article was first published on April 20 , oil futures for May fell to negative prices .
Mind-boggling .
Second , both oil and gas prices were persistently low leading into 2019 .
Due to oversupply and mild winters in the US and Europe , there is a glut of both natural gas and oil , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ spare oil storage is in danger of being filled .
Many big oil deals in “ frontier countries ” with as-yet-unexploited reserves , like Guyana , Argentina , and Mozambique , are falling through as low prices drag on .
Third , renewable energy and electric vehicles are threatening oil and gas ’ s dominance in both transportation , which represents 70 percent of global demand , and electricity .
Natural gas ’ s status as a “ bridge fuel ” in the power sector is in increasing doubt ; since 2014 , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ generate power ) have fallen by half .
As for transportation , a recent report from the international banking group BNP Paribas concluded that “ the economics of oil for gasoline and diesel vehicles versus wind- and solar-powered EVs are now in relentless and irreversible decline.
” Fourth , oil and gas majors are revealing their own weakness by writing down assets — effectively conceding that certain reserves can not be profitably exploited .
In 2019 , Chevron wrote down $ 11 billion worth ; Spanish oil company Repsol recently wrote down $ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ after adding Canadian tar sands assets to its books in 2017 , reversed course and wrote down 3.2 billion barrels last year .
Fifth , financial institutions — “ institutional and retail investors , banks , insurers , and credit rating agencies ” — are catching wind of fossil fuels ’ weakness and beginning to back away .
Many , like Wells Fargo , BlackRock , the European Investment Bank , and the World Bank Group , are restricting investments in carbon-intensive projects .
As of March 2020 , asset investors worth $ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ divest from fossil fuels .
As financial institutions divest , the ones still invested in carbon-intensive projects face increasing vulnerability to lawsuits charging them with ignoring material risks .
“ As the risks of investing in the oil and gas sector become ever more apparent , ” CIEL writes , “ more and more investors subject to fiduciary duties will likely choose to steer clear of these companies.
” Like these other dismal trends , the financial turn from fossil fuels was underway well before Covid-19 .
Over the past decade , companies @ @ @ @ @ @ @ stock buybacks and dividends than they have brought in through revenue , leading to a greater and greater debt burden .
Declining confidence in the sector has made it the worst-performing sector on the S & P Index .
Finally , plastics , the great hope of the oil and gas sector , do not appear to be growing fast enough to justify the industry ’ s optimistic projections .
Much of the US plastics industry is geared for export , but countries across the world ( 127 and counting ) are adopting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ recent such restrictions were adopted by China , the world ’ s largest plastic producer and consumer .
Plastics , like oil and gas , are suffering from the dual malady of overexpansion and underconsumption .
As an example that encompasses all these structural problems , CIEL cites Exxon Mobil .
The company ’ s plan for growth involves growth in its petrochemical operations , which is now in doubt ; fracking in the Permian Basin , which is now in doubt ; and expanding oil production in Guyana , which is now @ @ @ @ @ @ @ doubt .
All these doubts are converging as Moody ’ s recently revised the company ’ s outlook to negative .
It fell out of the S & P ’ s top 10 for the first time , its stock hit its lowest price in a decade , the rapid rise of renewables and electric vehicles rendered billions ( and perhaps soon trillions ) of dollars of its assets worthless , and it is keeping shareholders happy with debt-financed dividends .
The Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis found that over the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ $ 64.5 billion more on payouts to stockholders than it earned in free cash flow .
That can ’ t go on much longer .
Again : All of these structural trends predate Covid-19 .
But the global lockdown in response to the virus has accelerated all of them .
Oil and gas are caught in a historic downturn Into this already dismal situation for fossil fuels came the virus and the subsequent lockdown .
The vertiginous plunge in consumer demand has hit every sector of the economy , but oil and gas @ @ @ @ @ @ @ prices , were particularly vulnerable .
“ Oil , gas , and petrochemical stocks have been affected more rapidly and much more deeply than almost any other sector , ” CIEL writes .
“ The oil and gas sector lost more than 45 % of its total value from the beginning of January to early April 2020.
” The already declining stocks of Exxon Mobil , Royal Dutch Shell , and Occidental Petroleum were sent tumbling even faster .
In July 2014 , Exxon stock hit a high of $ 107 ; as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at $ 42 , its lowest level in decades .
Transportation represents 70 percent of petroleum consumption , but no one is moving .
Rystad Energy estimates that as of March 2020 , global traffic is down 40 percent .
As lockdowns remain , that number will likely drop further .
Air travel has been the fastest-growing source of demand for transport fuels , but no one is flying .
“ In the final week of March 2020 , ” CIEL writes , “ commercial air traffic was almost 63 % lower than @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that there could be periodic outbreaks for months or even years .
Meanwhile , there are rapid advances being made everywhere in the infrastructure , technology , and practices of working remotely , from home .
It ’ s entirely possible that auto and air travel won ’ t reach their pre-virus levels in the US for years , if ever .
Travel by ship is also taking a hit .
Cruise ships , beset by a series of viral horror stories , have suspended operations and many analysts doubt they will ever @ @ @ @ @ @ @ exacerbated by the drop in demand , is taxing the nation ’ s storage capacity — the International Energy Agency says global capacity is about 85 percent full .
“ Nearly all observers have concluded that at projected levels of demand destruction , ” CIEL writes , “ the total global capacity for storing unneeded oil and gas will soon be exceeded.
” At that point , many producers will be forced to simply shut down operations and write-downs will accelerate .
On top of all this has come a price war between @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the shrinking supply left over by the US supply glut .
Global oil prices were at $ 69 per barrel in January 2020 .
The price of a barrel of Canadian tar sands oil appears headed into negative prices , as are Texas oil and natural gas in some parts of the US , for May futures ( June prices are higher ) .
The so-called OPEC+ group of oil-producing nations ( OPEC + Russia ) recently agreed to a 10 million barrel a day cut in production , but analysts agree that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ stabilize prices .
When storage capacity runs out , producers are forced to pay people to take oil off their hands .
( Raise your hand if you had “ negative oil prices ” on your 21st-century bingo card . )
Even if storage doesn ’ t completely run out , it will be close to full , serving to suppress prices , for years .
Petrochemicals and plastics don ’ t have it much better , with major investors delaying or dropping out of projects left and right .
“ In the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ the prospect of a full recovery for many of these revenue streams is , at best , uncertain , and , in many cases , unlikely.
” Fossil fuels and petrochemicals could struggle for years .
And even if they eventually manage to achieve something like their pre-virus trajectory , that trajectory was sloping downward .
As CIEL summarizes : “ the pandemic exposes and exacerbates fundamental weaknesses throughout the sector that both predate the current crisis and will outlast it.
” Wasting stimulus money on fossil fuels makes no sense , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ but surely , the world is beginning to take global warming seriously , shifting attention and investment to materials and sources of energy that do not produce greenhouse gas emissions .
As more and more jurisdictions , institutions , and investors turn away from fossil fuels , explicitly citing climate change , those left holding carbon-intensive assets will become targets of increasingly intense legal and civic activism holding them responsible for the damages .
CIEL concludes with recommendations to investors , frontier countries , and local communities : Take heed of fossil fuels @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the future .
CIEL also argues that public officials “ should not waste limited response and recovery resources on bailouts , debt relief , or similar supports for oil , gas , and petrochemical companies.
” Given the well-established inclinations of Trump and congressional Republicans , that recommendation is likely to fall on deaf ears , at least in the US .
If Democrats do not muster the courage to stop them — and it does not seem they will — the GOP is likely to continue showering the fossil fuel industry with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ energy industry as frivolous .
At best , they can slow down the transition to clean energy a bit .
They can not stop it .
Adding stimulus money to fossil fuels ’ already subsidy-rich diet will allow a little more pollution and a little more damage to public health for a little longer , but it ’ s only a delay .
Meanwhile , other countries will be establishing a commanding position in some of the biggest growth industries of the 21st century .
It would be a shame to emerge from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rather than facing , and preparing for , the future .
Update , April 20 , 4 pm ET : After this article was first published , oil futures fell to negative prices .
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Update, June 29: Chesapeake Energy Corp., a massive US oil and gas company that led the fracking boom, has filed for Chapter 11 protection in a bankruptcy court in Texas following the collapse of energy demand in the Covid-19 crisis. The following post, first published April 20, explains why companies like it faced challenges predating the pandemic. (It’s not clear whether Chesapeake received stimulus funds before filing for bankruptcy.)
As countries across the world have gone into lockdown in response to Covid-19, economies are in free fall. Almost every sector is taking a hit, hemorrhaging jobs and value. And almost every sector will be shaped, for years to come, by the speed, amount, and nature of public assistance it receives. There is a finite amount of time, resources, and political will available to get economies going again; not every sector will get what it wants or needs.
In short, the decisions legislators make in response to the coronavirus crisis will have an enormous influence on what kind of economies emerge on the other side.
In March, I wrote about what an ideal recovery and stimulus package would look like. Then I wrote about how shortsighted it is for Republicans (enabled by learned Democratic passivity) to reject aid for the struggling clean energy industry.
BREAKING: WTI crude oil futures trade at negative price for first time https://t.co/pOSyH6AVtP pic.twitter.com/XsoH1jG8WH — Bloomberg (@business) April 20, 2020
In this post, I take a look at why it is equally shortsighted for President Trump and congressional Republicans to remain so devoted to the fossil fuel industry.
The dominant narrative is still that fossil fuels are a pillar of the US economy, with giant companies like Exxon Mobil producing revenue and jobs that the US can’t afford to do without. Even among those eager to address climate change by moving past fossil fuels to clean energy — a class that includes a majority of Americans — there is a lingering mythology that US fossil fuels are, to use the familiar phrase, too big to fail.
But the position of fossil fuels in the US economy is less secure than it might appear. In fact, the fossil fuel industry is facing substantial structural challenges that will be exacerbated by, but will not end with, the Covid-19 crisis. For years, the industry has been shedding value, taking on debt, losing favor among financial institutions and investors, and turning more and more to lobbying governments to survive.
It is, in short, a turkey. CNBC financial analyst Jim Cramer put it best, back in late January, before Covid-19 had even become a crisis in the US: “I’m done with fossil fuels. They’re done. They’re just done.”
“We’re in the death knell phase,” he said. “The world has turned on [fossil fuels].”
Cramer’s take is not yet conventional wisdom, but he’s right. Evidence in support appears in an April report from the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) called “Pandemic Crisis, Systemic Decline.” Let’s walk through it.
Fossil fuels are furiously lobbying for, and receiving, largesse from the US government
The UK-based think tank InfluenceMap recently did an analysis that tracks corporate lobbying in the face of the Covid-19 crisis. It found that, across the globe, the oil and gas sector has been the most active in lobbying for interventions, seeking, as CIEL summarizes, “direct and indirect support, including bailouts, buyouts, regulatory rollbacks, exemption from measures designed to protect the health of workers and the public, non-enforcement of environmental laws, and criminalization of protest, among others.” In Canada, Australia, and the UK, the industry is arguing that it must be subsidized and deregulated in order to survive.
In the US alone, the industry is seeking access to a range of stimulus funds, relief from a variety of pollution regulations, and use of the strategic petroleum reserve to bolster prices. Journalist Amy Westervelt is tracking at least a dozen other lobbying efforts. Recently the Federal Reserve changed its rules to allow bigger businesses access to “Main Street loans” (widely seen as a sop to oil and gas companies) and, as Emily Holden reports for the Guardian, records show that fossil fuel companies have already gotten $50 million in loans meant for small businesses.
The petrochemical and plastics industry, which is in large part an extension of the oil and gas industry, is exploiting the crisis as well. It has lobbied the federal government to declare an official preference for single-use plastic bags and suggested that more fresh produce should be wrapped in plastic.
The virus has not slowed down the Trump administration’s attempts to assist the industry. It is gutting fuel economy standards, which, by its own estimation, will increase pollution and eliminate 13,500 jobs a year. The EPA has dramatically eased the enforcement of pollution regulations and moved forward with its “secret science” rule, which will make it more difficult to understand and address the health impacts of air pollution — and more difficult to study the coronavirus.
During a supply glut driven by historically low prices, the Interior Department is rushing to lease federal land for oil and gas development, despite an anemic response, rock-bottom prices, and calls from conservative and taxpayer groups to suspend leasing in the face of the coronavirus.
The administration seems determined to bail out struggling shale gas companies, despite that overleveraged, debt-ridden sector being long overdue for a shakeout. (For more on that, check out Amy Westervelt’s reporting at Drilled.)
Trump is negotiating with Saudi Arabia and Russia on oil supply cuts, and has the Department of Energy buying up millions of barrels of oil for the strategic petroleum reserve, all to try to boost the price of oil to help struggling oil majors. A group of GOP senators is lobbying for fossil fuel companies, including coal companies, to be eligible for the small business recovery fund.
In April, EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler announced that the administration, in defiance of an enormous body of evidence and recommendations from EPA scientists and staff, will not tighten restrictions on soot pollution. And on Friday, Wheeler announced that the EPA will weaken standards on mercury and other toxic metals from fossil-fueled power plants, again in opposition to the scientific consensus, based on rigged cost-benefit analysis that deliberately excluded most benefits.
Across the board, the administration is doing everything it can to help fossil fuels. But it’s a mug’s game. The industry is faltering for reasons that well predate Covid-19.
Fossil fuels were already facing structural problems before the coronavirus
US coal is in terminal decline, for reasons I’ve written about many times before. No amount of stimulus money or weaker pollution regulations can save it.
But on the surface, things look different for oil and gas. Thanks to fracking, production has been booming for the past decade, vaulting the US ahead of Saudi Arabia and Russia to become the the world’s leading oil and gas producer.
And the same goes for petrochemicals and especially plastics, which have been forecast to be the main drivers of rising petroleum demand in coming years. The industry has issued rosy projections of plastics’ growth and invested $200 billion in new petrochemical and plastics infrastructure.
But dig below the surface and things don’t look so good.
First, fracking was a financial wreck long before Covid-19 hit. US fracking operations have been losing money for a decade, to the tune of around $280 billion. Overproduction has produced a supply glut, low prices, and an accumulating surplus in storage.
CIEL reports:
Since 2015, over 200 drillers have gone bankrupt, with 32 declaring bankruptcy in 2019. At the beginning of 2020, the industry continued to struggle as natural gas prices remained low due to sluggish demand growth. By the end of the first quarter, another seven drillers had declared bankruptcy, six additional drillers had their credit outlook downgraded, and several major banks had written down the expected value of many drillers’ reserves. A recent analysis from Rystad Energy indicated that, at prevailing oil and gas prices, almost all new fracking wells drilled would lose money.
Even as its prospects grow dimmer, the enormous debt the industry has taken on over the years is coming back to bite it. Some $40 billion will come due this year alone, and around $200 billion in the next four years.
Second, both oil and gas prices were persistently low leading into 2019. Due to oversupply and mild winters in the US and Europe, there is a glut of both natural gas and oil, such that the entire world’s spare oil storage is in danger of being filled. Many big oil deals in “frontier countries” with as-yet-unexploited reserves, like Guyana, Argentina, and Mozambique, are falling through as low prices drag on.
Third, renewable energy and electric vehicles are threatening oil and gas’s dominance in both transportation, which represents 70 percent of global demand, and electricity. Natural gas’s status as a “bridge fuel” in the power sector is in increasing doubt; since 2014, orders for new gas turbines (to generate power) have fallen by half. As for transportation, a recent report from the international banking group BNP Paribas concluded that “the economics of oil for gasoline and diesel vehicles versus wind- and solar-powered EVs are now in relentless and irreversible decline.”
Fourth, oil and gas majors are revealing their own weakness by writing down assets — effectively conceding that certain reserves cannot be profitably exploited. In 2019, Chevron wrote down $11 billion worth; Spanish oil company Repsol recently wrote down $5 billion worth. Exxon Mobil, after adding Canadian tar sands assets to its books in 2017, reversed course and wrote down 3.2 billion barrels last year.
Fifth, financial institutions — “institutional and retail investors, banks, insurers, and credit rating agencies” — are catching wind of fossil fuels’ weakness and beginning to back away. Many, like Wells Fargo, BlackRock, the European Investment Bank, and the World Bank Group, are restricting investments in carbon-intensive projects. As of March 2020, asset investors worth $12 trillion had declared that they would divest from fossil fuels.
As financial institutions divest, the ones still invested in carbon-intensive projects face increasing vulnerability to lawsuits charging them with ignoring material risks. “As the risks of investing in the oil and gas sector become ever more apparent,” CIEL writes, “more and more investors subject to fiduciary duties will likely choose to steer clear of these companies.”
Like these other dismal trends, the financial turn from fossil fuels was underway well before Covid-19. Over the past decade, companies in the sector have spent more on stock buybacks and dividends than they have brought in through revenue, leading to a greater and greater debt burden. Declining confidence in the sector has made it the worst-performing sector on the S&P Index.
Finally, plastics, the great hope of the oil and gas sector, do not appear to be growing fast enough to justify the industry’s optimistic projections. Much of the US plastics industry is geared for export, but countries across the world (127 and counting) are adopting restrictions on single-use plastics. The most recent such restrictions were adopted by China, the world’s largest plastic producer and consumer. Plastics, like oil and gas, are suffering from the dual malady of overexpansion and underconsumption.
As an example that encompasses all these structural problems, CIEL cites Exxon Mobil. The company’s plan for growth involves growth in its petrochemical operations, which is now in doubt; fracking in the Permian Basin, which is now in doubt; and expanding oil production in Guyana, which is now (owing to political instability) in doubt.
All these doubts are converging as Moody’s recently revised the company’s outlook to negative. It fell out of the S&P’s top 10 for the first time, its stock hit its lowest price in a decade, the rapid rise of renewables and electric vehicles rendered billions (and perhaps soon trillions) of dollars of its assets worthless, and it is keeping shareholders happy with debt-financed dividends. The Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis found that over the past decade, Exxon Mobil has spent $64.5 billion more on payouts to stockholders than it earned in free cash flow. That can’t go on much longer.
Again: All of these structural trends predate Covid-19. But the global lockdown in response to the virus has accelerated all of them.
Oil and gas are caught in a historic downturn
Into this already dismal situation for fossil fuels came the virus and the subsequent lockdown. The vertiginous plunge in consumer demand has hit every sector of the economy, but oil and gas, already facing oversupply and persistent low prices, were particularly vulnerable.
“Oil, gas, and petrochemical stocks have been affected more rapidly and much more deeply than almost any other sector,” CIEL writes. “The oil and gas sector lost more than 45% of its total value from the beginning of January to early April 2020.”
The already declining stocks of Exxon Mobil, Royal Dutch Shell, and Occidental Petroleum were sent tumbling even faster. In July 2014, Exxon stock hit a high of $107; as of early April 2020, it was at $42, its lowest level in decades. (On June 29, it was at $44.)
Transportation represents 70 percent of petroleum consumption, but no one is moving. Rystad Energy estimates that as of March 2020, global traffic is down 40 percent. As lockdowns remain, that number will likely drop further.
Air travel has been the fastest-growing source of demand for transport fuels, but no one is flying. “In the final week of March 2020,” CIEL writes, “commercial air traffic was almost 63% lower than in 2019.”
Public health officials warn that there could be periodic outbreaks for months or even years. Meanwhile, there are rapid advances being made everywhere in the infrastructure, technology, and practices of working remotely from home. It’s entirely possible that auto and air travel won’t reach their pre-virus levels in the US for years, if ever.
Travel by ship is also taking a hit. Cruise ships, beset by a series of viral horror stories, have suspended operations and many analysts doubt they will ever fully recover.
Meanwhile, oversupply, exacerbated by the drop in demand, is taxing the nation’s storage capacity — the International Energy Agency says global capacity is about 85 percent full. “Nearly all observers have concluded that at projected levels of demand destruction,” CIEL writes, “the total global capacity for storing unneeded oil and gas will soon be exceeded.” At that point, many producers will be forced to simply shut down operations and write-downs will accelerate.
On top of all this has come a price war between Saudi Arabia and Russia, competing for the shrinking supply left over by the US supply glut. Global oil prices were at $69 per barrel in January 2020. The price of a barrel of Canadian tar sands oil appears headed into negative prices, as are Texas oil and natural gas in some parts of the US, for May futures (June prices are higher). The so-called OPEC+ group of oil-producing nations (OPEC + Russia) recently agreed to a 10 million barrel a day cut in production, but analysts agree that it is unlikely to be sufficient to stabilize prices.
(In the hours after this article was first published on April 20, oil futures for May fell to negative prices. Mind-boggling.)
When storage capacity runs out, producers are forced to pay people to take oil off their hands. (Raise your hand if you had “negative oil prices” on your 21st-century bingo card.) Even if storage doesn’t completely run out, it will be close to full, serving to suppress prices, for years. Petrochemicals and plastics don’t have it much better, with major investors delaying or dropping out of projects left and right.
“In the medium term,” CIEL writes, “the prospect of a full recovery for many of these revenue streams is, at best, uncertain, and, in many cases, unlikely.” Fossil fuels and petrochemicals could struggle for years.
And even if they eventually manage to achieve something like their pre-virus trajectory, that trajectory was sloping downward. As CIEL summarizes: “the pandemic exposes and exacerbates fundamental weaknesses throughout the sector that both predate the current crisis and will outlast it.”
Wasting stimulus money on fossil fuels makes no sense, so Trump will probably do it
Slowly but surely, the world is beginning to take global warming seriously, shifting attention and investment to materials and sources of energy that do not produce greenhouse gas emissions. As more and more jurisdictions, institutions, and investors turn away from fossil fuels, explicitly citing climate change, those left holding carbon-intensive assets will become targets of increasingly intense legal and civic activism holding them responsible for the damages.
CIEL concludes with recommendations to investors, frontier countries, and local communities: Take heed of fossil fuels’ long-term weakness when making decisions about the future. CIEL also argues that public officials “should not waste limited response and recovery resources on bailouts, debt relief, or similar supports for oil, gas, and petrochemical companies.”
Given the well-established inclinations of Trump and congressional Republicans, that recommendation is likely to fall on deaf ears, at least in the US. If Democrats do not muster the courage to stop them — and it does not seem they will — the GOP is likely to continue showering the fossil fuel industry with favors while dismissing aid to the clean energy industry as frivolous.
At best, they can slow down the transition to clean energy a bit. They cannot stop it. Adding stimulus money to fossil fuels’ already subsidy-rich diet will allow a little more pollution and a little more damage to public health for a little longer, but it’s only a delay. Meanwhile, other countries will be establishing a commanding position in some of the biggest growth industries of the 21st century.
It would be a shame to emerge from this crisis still clinging to the past rather than facing, and preparing for, the future.
Editor’s note, May 1: This piece has been updated to note new Federal Reserve rules to allow bigger businesses access to “Main Street loans.”


vox--2020-04-20--What 2 new studies teach us about our socially distant future

There is something challenging to communicate in coronavirus reporting : Nearly 41,000 people have died from Covid-19 in the United States ( and many more will die ) , and those deaths have come despite the unprecedented social distancing measures being taken across the country .
Without them , the loss of life would surely be higher .
Unless or until scientists have data to back it up , though , the impact of social distancing is as much hypothesis and intuition as scientific fact .
Luckily , a new study out of Hong Kong indicates that the precautious taken @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the US , like closed schools , travel restrictions , mask-wearing , and general distancing — have had a measurable effect on the spread of Covid-19 and the flu .
That should give people confidence that social distancing is working , even with its painful economic toll .
But as Americans consider when and how to begin relaxing those measures , they will have to balance health concerns with economic ones .
That ’ s where another new study , this one from economists at the University of Chicago and Penn State , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ useful conclusion : The best way to ease these lockdowns and alleviate the economic losses without inviting an untenable spike in cases and fatalities is to do it gradually — over a matter of months .
Taken together , these new studies offer a picture of America ’ s socially distant future : Even as people try to resume something resembling normal life , it will take time — and precautionary measures will have to be maintained .
Hong Kong has taken many of the same steps the United States has to stave @ @ @ @ @ @ @ closing schools and restricting travel from the Chinese hot spots in January .
It has added new migration rules as well as mandatory quarantines for overseas travelers in the last few months and set up protocols for civil servants to work from home .
In addition , the public has responded by changing their behavior .
According to this new study , led by researchers from the WHO Collaborating Centre for Infectious Disease Epidemiology and Control in Hong Kong , most people say they are avoiding crowded places ( 85 percent in March @ @ @ @ @ @ @ possible ( 75 percent ) .
People are practicing better hygiene , too : The percentage who said they wear masks jumped from 75 percent in January to 99 percent in March , and the percentage who say they wash their hands more than usual leaped from 71 percent to 95 percent .
And as a result , local transmission in Hong Kong appears to be quite low .
The metric used to measure transmission — which estimates how many people someone carrying the virus will infect — has hovered around 1 .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ below 1 , which if sustained will lead to the outbreak being contained .
But even holding at around 1 is a success , compared to what we ’ d expect in nature ( the virus has an estimated R0 of 2 to 2.25 , though it ’ s still not clear exactly how contagious it is . )
The main reason Hong Kong saw a spike in Covid-19 cases in mid-March was because there was a sudden surge in cases imported from other countries ( and Hong Kong started testing asymptomatic inbound @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
This chart shows that locally sourced cases remain quite low and steady , allowing for the increase you would expect after people brought the virus onto the island from elsewhere .
But what ’ s great about this study is the authors don ’ t just rely on Covid-19 cases .
They also tracked influenza infections over the same period and they found a notable downturn compared to prior years when schools were closed but no other social distancing measures were taken .
Flu transmission dropped by 44 percent in February 2020 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and 2017-2018 during previous flu pandemics .
So social distancing — as defined by general crowd avoidance and some closures , paired with sanitary precautions — certainly appears to work , if this Hong Kong data is to be believed .
The next question then is : How do countries start reopening ?
A gradual reopening is the best way to balance economic and health concerns Luckily , as the public conversation about easing social distancing picks up , economists from the University of Chicago and Penn State have come out with a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ideal balance between relaxing lockdowns to reduce the economic toll of the pandemic while also attempting to minimize the loss of life .
It ’ s both a simple model ( as the authors acknowledge ) and also a highly technical paper , so read at your own interest .
They assume there is no cure available but widespread testing is .
Their conclusion is pretty straightforward : “ [ T ] he optimal policy prescribes a lockdown starting two weeks after the outbreak , covering 60 % of the population after 1 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for about a full month , and is subsequently gradually withdrawn , covering 20 % of the population 3 months after the initial outbreak.
” That ’ s easy enough to comprehend : To balance output and health risks , you start with a general lockdown and then gradually lighten up over a matter of months , with the most vulnerable people likely remaining in near-isolation for the longest period .
But it was another passage in the paper that left the biggest impression on me .
The length of the lockdown , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it , depends highly on the statistical value you assign to a human life .
The authors are clear that they ascribed a lower value because the people most vulnerable to dying from Covid-19 are older and have underlying health conditions .
To be rigorous about these estimates , that makes some sense .
But if you start assigning more value to those lives , then the length of the lockdown that would be desirable grows substantially : This is the calculation society will be asked to make over the next year or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ need to relax social distancing in order to begin climbing out of an unprecedented economic crisis that has affected millions , with the inevitable surge in Covid-19 cases , and deaths , that we would expect to result ?
The takeaway of these two papers is clear : We must maintain certain safeguards ( especially hygiene and limiting crowds ) , and when we start to relax some of these restrictions , we must do it gradually .
We must also be nimble : Hong Kong initially sent civil servants back to work @ @ @ @ @ @ @ its March spike .
Restaurants didn ’ t face restrictions on their capacity in late March , when other social establishments were ordered closed for the first time .
As some people have put it , the end of social distancing will not be a switch ( on , then off ) but a dial ( more , then less , then maybe more ) .
As Donald McNeil Jr. wrote for the New York Times , after talking to more than 20 public health experts : Right now , the public is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ distancing , despite the economic costs .
But we must remind ourselves , and continue to remind ourselves , that we are in this for the long haul .
This story appears in VoxCare , a newsletter from Vox on the latest twists and turns in America ’ s health care debate .
Sign up to get VoxCare in your inbox along with more health care stats and news .
Every day at Vox , we aim to answer your most important questions and provide you , and our audience around the world @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to save lives .
Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment : to empower you through understanding .
Vox ’ s work is reaching more people than ever , but our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources — particularly during a pandemic and an economic downturn .
Your financial contribution will not constitute a donation , but it will enable our staff to continue to offer free articles , videos , and podcasts at the quality and volume that this moment requires .
Please consider making @ @ @ @ @ @

There is something challenging to communicate in coronavirus reporting: Nearly 41,000 people have died from Covid-19 in the United States (and many more will die), and those deaths have come despite the unprecedented social distancing measures being taken across the country. Without them, the loss of life would surely be higher.
Unless or until scientists have data to back it up, though, the impact of social distancing is as much hypothesis and intuition as scientific fact. Luckily, a new study out of Hong Kong indicates that the precautious taken there — similar to those taken in the US, like closed schools, travel restrictions, mask-wearing, and general distancing — have had a measurable effect on the spread of Covid-19 and the flu. That should give people confidence that social distancing is working, even with its painful economic toll.
But as Americans consider when and how to begin relaxing those measures, they will have to balance health concerns with economic ones. That’s where another new study, this one from economists at the University of Chicago and Penn State, comes in handy. It reaches a useful conclusion: The best way to ease these lockdowns and alleviate the economic losses without inviting an untenable spike in cases and fatalities is to do it gradually — over a matter of months.
Taken together, these new studies offer a picture of America’s socially distant future: Even as people try to resume something resembling normal life, it will take time — and precautionary measures will have to be maintained.
Social distancing has demonstrably impeded Covid-19’s spread in Hong Kong
Hong Kong has taken many of the same steps the United States has to stave off the Covid-19 threat. It started closing schools and restricting travel from the Chinese hot spots in January. It has added new migration rules as well as mandatory quarantines for overseas travelers in the last few months and set up protocols for civil servants to work from home.
In addition, the public has responded by changing their behavior. According to this new study, led by researchers from the WHO Collaborating Centre for Infectious Disease Epidemiology and Control in Hong Kong, most people say they are avoiding crowded places (85 percent in March) and staying home as much as possible (75 percent). People are practicing better hygiene, too: The percentage who said they wear masks jumped from 75 percent in January to 99 percent in March, and the percentage who say they wash their hands more than usual leaped from 71 percent to 95 percent.
And as a result, local transmission in Hong Kong appears to be quite low. The metric used to measure transmission — which estimates how many people someone carrying the virus will infect — has hovered around 1. The goal is to push the threshold below 1, which if sustained will lead to the outbreak being contained. But even holding at around 1 is a success, compared to what we’d expect in nature (the virus has an estimated R0 of 2 to 2.25, though it’s still not clear exactly how contagious it is.)
The main reason Hong Kong saw a spike in Covid-19 cases in mid-March was because there was a sudden surge in cases imported from other countries (and Hong Kong started testing asymptomatic inbound travelers and requiring quarantines in response). This chart shows that locally sourced cases remain quite low and steady, allowing for the increase you would expect after people brought the virus onto the island from elsewhere.
But what’s great about this study is the authors don’t just rely on Covid-19 cases. They also tracked influenza infections over the same period and they found a notable downturn compared to prior years when schools were closed but no other social distancing measures were taken. Flu transmission dropped by 44 percent in February 2020 versus the 10-15-percent drops seen in 2009 and 2017-2018 during previous flu pandemics.
Our study suggests that measures taken to control the spread of COVID-19 have been effective and have also had a substantial impact on influenza transmission in Hong Kong. Although the transmission dynamics and modes of transmission of COVID-19 have not been precisely elucidated, they are likely to share at least some characteristics with influenza virus transmission, because both viruses are directly transmissible respiratory pathogens with similar viral shedding dynamics.23 The measures implemented in Hong Kong are less drastic than those used to contain transmission in mainland China, and are probably more feasible in many other locations worldwide. If these measures and population responses can be sustained, avoiding fatigue among the general population, they could meaningfully mitigate the impact of a local epidemic of COVID-19.
So social distancing — as defined by general crowd avoidance and some closures, paired with sanitary precautions — certainly appears to work, if this Hong Kong data is to be believed. The next question then is: How do countries start reopening?
A gradual reopening is the best way to balance economic and health concerns
Luckily, as the public conversation about easing social distancing picks up, economists from the University of Chicago and Penn State have come out with a statistical model that tries to find an ideal balance between relaxing lockdowns to reduce the economic toll of the pandemic while also attempting to minimize the loss of life.
It’s both a simple model (as the authors acknowledge) and also a highly technical paper, so read at your own interest. They assume there is no cure available but widespread testing is. Their conclusion is pretty straightforward: “[T]he optimal policy prescribes a lockdown starting two weeks after the outbreak, covering 60% of the population after 1 month. The lockdown is kept tight for about a full month, and is subsequently gradually withdrawn, covering 20% of the population 3 months after the initial outbreak.”
That’s easy enough to comprehend: To balance output and health risks, you start with a general lockdown and then gradually lighten up over a matter of months, with the most vulnerable people likely remaining in near-isolation for the longest period.
But it was another passage in the paper that left the biggest impression on me. The length of the lockdown, and the rate at which you relax it, depends highly on the statistical value you assign to a human life. The authors are clear that they ascribed a lower value because the people most vulnerable to dying from Covid-19 are older and have underlying health conditions. To be rigorous about these estimates, that makes some sense.
But if you start assigning more value to those lives, then the length of the lockdown that would be desirable grows substantially:
The value of the statistical life we use in our benchmark case (20 times annual GDP per capita) is on the low range of the estimates in the literature. Following Hall, Jones, and Klenow (2020), our benchmark value takes into account that the majority of the victims of the virus have a below average life expectancy. A higher value of statistical life (say 30 times annual GDP per capita), makes the abandonment of the lockdown more gradual, taking a bit more than six months to be totally abandoned. Considering a much larger value, in the order of 80 to 140 times the annual GDP per capita, implies a very strict lockdown that lasts for about 9 months, and a year after still has about 15% of the population in lockdown.
This is the calculation society will be asked to make over the next year or more. How do we balance the need to relax social distancing in order to begin climbing out of an unprecedented economic crisis that has affected millions, with the inevitable surge in Covid-19 cases, and deaths, that we would expect to result?
The takeaway of these two papers is clear: We must maintain certain safeguards (especially hygiene and limiting crowds), and when we start to relax some of these restrictions, we must do it gradually. We must also be nimble: Hong Kong initially sent civil servants back to work but then reverted to work-from-home protocols after its March spike. Restaurants didn’t face restrictions on their capacity in late March, when other social establishments were ordered closed for the first time.
As some people have put it, the end of social distancing will not be a switch (on, then off) but a dial (more, then less, then maybe more). As Donald McNeil Jr. wrote for the New York Times, after talking to more than 20 public health experts:
It was impossible to avoid gloomy forecasts for the next year. The scenario that Mr. Trump has been unrolling at his daily press briefings — that the lockdowns will end soon, that a protective pill is almost at hand, that football stadiums and restaurants will soon be full — is a fantasy, most experts said. “We face a doleful future,” said Dr. Harvey V. Fineberg, a former president of the National Academy of Medicine.
Right now, the public is still on the side of preserving social distancing, despite the economic costs. But we must remind ourselves, and continue to remind ourselves, that we are in this for the long haul.
This story appears in VoxCare, a newsletter from Vox on the latest twists and turns in America’s health care debate. Sign up to get VoxCare in your inbox along with more health care stats and news.