Coronavirus Briefing: US Tops the List

March 26, 2020

An informed guide to the global outbreak, with the latest developments and expert advice about prevention and treatment.

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The New York Times

By Patrick J. Lyons

The U.S. now has more coronavirus cases than any other country.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she expected the $2 trillion stimulus bill to pass in the House "with strong bipartisan support."
Stocks rebounding from last week's slump had their best three-day run since 1933, but unemployment claims set a bleak record.
Get the latest updates here, plus maps and full coverage.

New York's hospitals are pushed to the brink

At least 81,578 people in the U.S. are known to have been infected with the coronavirus, including more than 1,000 deaths. That's more cases than any other country has recorded, according to data gathered by The New York Times.

In New York, which has become the epicenter of the American outbreak, hospitals are beginning to face surges in Covid-19 cases like the ones that overwhelmed health care systems in China, Italy and other countries. More than 5,300 coronavirus patients were hospitalized in the state on Thursday, with hundreds more pouring in every day.

New York City hospitals in particular are under siege — and none more so than Elmhurst Hospital in Queens, which has begun transferring other patients out to clear all its 545 beds for Covid-19 cases.

In a gripping video she made in Elmhurst's emergency department, where she works, Dr. Colleen Smith says the hospital is straining desperately. Staff members are getting sick. Ventilators and supplies are scarce. So many patients are dying that the hospital had to rent a refrigerated truck to store the bodies.

"The anxiety of this situation is overwhelming," Dr. Smith says.

Our correspondent Sheri Fink spent a day at Brooklyn Hospital, where 40 percent of the inpatients have the virus and suspected new cases are screened in a tent outside. An emergency-room patient who was coughing so hard he could barely speak turned out to be Dr. Yijiao Fan, 31, a surgical resident with no known risk factors other than being a doctor.

The hospital staff "just take their courage in their hands," Dr. Sylvie de Souza, the chair of emergency medicine, told Sheri. "They put on their garb and they show up. That's what they do. Of course they have anxiety, of course they have fear, they're human. None of us knows where this is taking us."

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The shutdown in India has already turned chaotic

Though India has reported only around 700 coronavirus cases, it has imposed a nationwide stay-home order, shuttering schools, offices, factories, parks, temples and railways for more than a billion people.

The restrictions, which took effect Wednesday, were meant to keep the country — which is very densely populated and has a weak health system — from spiraling into a disaster dwarfing what China, Italy and the U.S. have faced.

But Jeffrey Gettleman, The Times's New Delhi bureau chief, says that inadequate planning and confusion about the rules have led to chaos after just one day. Police officers attacked pharmacists who tried to go to work, one industry official said. Grocery stores stayed open, but panic buying emptied their shelves. Some states completely sealed their borders.

Jeffrey spoke with our colleague Melina Delkic about what's happening on the ground in India. (This is a condensed version of their conversation; read more here.)

India's caseload is still relatively low. What's the biggest worry when it rises?

The country spends very little on health care per capita. Public hospitals, the number of doctors, the number of beds, equipment they use, it's all below the standards of most other parts of the world. Some of the best hospitals in the world are really struggling, so just imagine how a hospital that has much fewer resources would respond.

How are people supposed to access essential services?

The gist of it is that you can go to your closest pharmacy or food source, and because India is so densely populated, those places are everywhere. There's been some confusion, and some pharmacies and food shops were made to shut. Some journalists have gotten beaten up because police officers said they weren't allowed to travel.

What warning signs are we watching for?

If the disease begins to spread, person to person, from people who had no connection to the outside, then that's really scary. These [New Delhi] neighborhoods are some of the most densely populated parts of the world — endless blocks of tenement apartments squeezed really close to each other, with narrow lanes between them.

A record-shattering flood of job losses

With social distancing and stay-home orders forcing businesses to shut down across the country, a staggering 3.28 million Americans filed for unemployment last week, more than quadruple the previous record set in 1982. And that is probably just the beginning: Economists think this week's figure could surge to 4.7 million.

We've never been here before — not even during the Great Depression, when millions of jobs disappeared more gradually over many months, not all at once.

To ease the sting, the $2 trillion stimulus bill being sped through Congress includes several provisions for expanded unemployment benefits:

Each state sets its own benefit maximums, but wherever you live, the federal package would add an extra $600 a week.

Many people who don't ordinarily qualify for benefits would now be eligible: the self-employed, including "gig" workers, freelancers and independent contractors; part-time workers; and partially unemployed workers.

You could receive payments for up to 39 weeks — 13 weeks longer than the usual 26-week cutoff in many states.
You may qualify even if you quit your job, if you did it because of the virus — for example, if you were sick or showing symptoms, or if you had to care for a child whose day care center closed.

Hot spots

Louisiana, with about 1,800 cases, may have the fastest-growing outbreak in the world, particularly in New Orleans following Mardi Gras.
The case count in Britain is now over 9,500. At some hospitals, as much as half the staff is out sick.
China said it would close its borders on Saturday night to almost all foreigners, even those with permits to reside in China, after a surge in cases linked to people who returned to China from abroad.
Spain, with more than 56,000 cases and 4,000 deaths, said it was returning thousands of substandard test kits to China, where they were made.

What you can do

Our colleague Tara Parker-Pope has put together a guide to keeping yourself safe as the virus spreads. The advice covers everything from first preparations to caring for a sick family member. Tara boils it down to four big themes:

Prevent infection. One person can have an exponential impact in spreading the virus — or in tamping it down. Learning to wash your hands and cover your cough properly is essential.

Prepare. You can stock up on food and supplies without contributing to shortages. Just pick up a few extra frozen or long-lasting refrigerated foods and some boxed or canned pantry staples.

Stay home. Many of us will be home for weeks, or even months. It helps to keep your day structured. Don't neglect fitness — use your former commuting time to exercise.

Recover. Most people who catch the virus will have only mild to moderate symptoms. If you think you might have symptoms, don't just show up at your doctor's office — call first.

What else we're following

Experts worry that the virus could ravage the tens of millions of people living around the world in refugee camps, where conditions are cramped and doctors are scarce.
Medicare, which already covers much of what enrollees might need if they contract the virus and become seriously ill, has expanded some services and loosened some rules. If you're on Medicare, here's what you can expect.
If you're stuck at home with little mouths to feed, dietitians want you to know: Yes, it's OK if they refuse to eat anything other than mac and cheese.
Did this newsletter take a while to reach you? With so many people now doing everything from working to educating to entertaining themselves online, all that traffic is slowing down the internet.
This was supposed to be opening day for Major League Baseball. In its absence, the Times writer Dan Barry dreamed up his perfect game.
Fanatics, a company that makes big-league baseball uniforms, has temporarily converted its factory to produce protective masks and gowns for medical professionals. The first prototypes bear the distinctive pinstripes of the Yankees and the Phillies.
A mother of four in Israel, Shiri Kenigsberg Levi, has risen to internet fame for her rant about online learning, which hit home for many parents doubling as teachers. We caught up with her.

What you're doing

I'm tackling a job I've put off for decades: sorting through boxes of photos. Yet, because I have "all the time in the world," it is a blast and not a "chore." Another bonus — because my husband and teenager are cooped up, too, they don't even mind when I walk down the hall, photo in hand, to share (another) story.

— Dayna Kennedy, St. Paul, Minn.

Let us know how you're dealing with the outbreak. Send us a response here, and we may feature it in an upcoming newsletter.

Melina Delkic, Lara Takenaga and Tom Wright-Piersanti contributed to today's newsletter.

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