Coronavirus Briefing: An Unusual Illness

May 5, 2020

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

(Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up here.)

The New York Times

By Patrick J. Lyons

The White House announced it would soon wind down its coronavirus task force.
As outbreaks shutter packing plants, meat is getting scarcer in grocery aisles and drive-throughs.
A Paris fishmonger who became ill in December had the coronavirus, weeks before it was known to be present in Europe.
Get the latest updates here, plus maps, a tracker for U.S. metro areas, and full coverage.

A rare condition cropping up in children may be linked to Covid-19

More than two dozen children have been admitted to a New York hospital in recent weeks with a mysterious illness that appears to be linked to the coronavirus.

The condition, which has also shown up in children in Europe, shares symptoms with Kawasaki disease, a rare and puzzling pediatric illness involving inflammation of the blood vessels. But many of the children have gone into shock — a complication not usually associated with Kawasaki disease.

Some doctors suspect that what they are seeing is a massive, harmful overreaction to Covid-19 by the body's immune system, an indication that the virus's risk to children may be greater than anticipated. While none of the children have died, some have needed ventilators.

New York City's health department put out a bulletin on Monday warning health care providers and parents to keep an eye out for the symptoms, which include fever, a rash, reddened tongues, vomiting and diarrhea. Doctors in Britain, Italy and Spain have also been warned to look out for the condition in children.

Can children spread the virus? Contrary to popular belief, the answer seems to be yes. Fewer children than adults catch the virus, and their cases tend to be mild. But two new studies suggest that they can transmit the infection just as readily, in part because they tend to have many more contacts in a day, especially at school.

A way to test school reopenings: Two Norwegian medical researchers have proposed a randomized clinical trial to see whether it's safe to open schools again.

They suggest opening one district's schools for a couple of weeks with half the usual number of students and six-foot social distancing, while a neighboring district stays closed. All students and teachers would be tested for the virus beforehand and afterward.

If transmission didn't increase in the reopened schools, the trial would be repeated with more students and less distance each time, until, with luck, the schools could reopen normally.

The Times is providing free access to much of our coronavirus coverage, and our Coronavirus Briefing newsletter — like all of our newsletters — is free. Please consider supporting our journalism with a subscription.

The virus task force's days may be numbered

The White House is planning to wind down its coronavirus task force in the next few weeks, even though the pandemic continues to rage in the U.S.

"We're having conversations about that, and about what the proper time is for the task force to complete its work," Vice President Mike Pence said on Monday. He added that the panel may shut down by early June.

It is not clear what, if anything, would replace it. A group led by Jared Kushner, President Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser, that has been acting as something of a shadow task force is likely to continue.

Mr. Trump has often brushed aside his task force's advice, and many states are defying its recommendations about when it would be safe to reopen. The panel's meetings were canceled on Saturday and Monday, and Mr. Trump has stopped arraying its members around him at public appearances.

Even so, the task force has been the closest thing the White House had to a coordinated national response to the pandemic. Disbanding would probably intensify the widespread questions about the administration's handling of the crisis.

How the pandemic looks from one neighborhood street

Illness, financial strain and rising tension: A journey down several blocks in Hazleton, Pa., tells the story of the virus in America, our reporter Michael Powell writes.

The virus spread quickly among the area's residents, many of whom work shoulder to shoulder in factories and warehouses for Amazon, Tootsie Roll, American Eagle or Auto Zone that have stayed open. Life in working-class Hazleton is often lived on a thin economic margin, and many people had to go on working even as co-workers fell ill and some took the virus home with them.

Rafael Benjamin, a good-natured man who rarely missed a day of work, had a job at a Cargill plant that packages meat in plastic wrap. He was six days away from retirement when he fell ill.

"Seventeen years he worked there, ready for retirement, and now he's dead," his son Larry said. "The virus took him away."

Reopenings

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo offered a plan for reopening New York State region by region as each shows progress on key metrics.
California will allow some stores to reopen on Friday, and individual counties will be allowed to relax restrictions further if they take precautions.
In India, chaos erupted at liquor stores as they reopened for the first time in weeks.
Taiwan has begun to hold its professional baseball season, but with no fans in the stadiums and with players' temperatures checked several times a day.

Here's a roundup of restrictions in all 50 states.

What you can do

Watch something new. With productions on hold, TV writers have become TV watchers. We asked 11 of them which shows they are bingeing.

Listen. When much of your life is effectively on pause, it's a good opportunity to listen to those who are close to you — and those you wish were closer.

Check on your stimulus check. If you are eligible but have yet to receive a payment, here's what to do.

What else we're following

A team of scientists has developed an experimental prototype for a fairly quick, cheap test to diagnose the coronavirus using a gene-editing technology known as Crispr. The test can give results as simply as a pregnancy test.
Pfizer and BioNTech began human trials in the United States of a possible coronavirus vaccine. If successful, the vaccine could be ready for emergency use as early as September.
A fund-raising conference organized by the European Union brought pledges from countries around the world to fund the production of a vaccine. The U.S. didn't contribute.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan is urging the world to fight the epidemic using a Japanese-made medication that may cause birth defects.
Irish people are donating money to Native American tribes hit hard by the virus, inspired by a 173-year-old act of kindness from the Choctaw people during the potato famine.
Many employees who are working from home are happier, are more efficient and want to continue the benefits when the pandemic ends.

What you're doing

I uncovered a box of family photographs and have been digitizing the oldest and most fragile, sending the images to my siblings who I haven't seen for months. Some of the photographs date back to the mid 19th century. We identify the people in the pictures and share stories. This has led me to start working on a family tree.

— Cathy Rosa Klimaszewski, Groton, N.Y.

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

Lara Takenaga and Jonathan Wolfe helped write today's newsletter.

Email your thoughts to briefing@nytimes.com. Did a friend forward you the briefing? Sign up here.

Need help? Review our newsletter help page or contact us for assistance.

You received this email because you signed up for Coronavirus Briefing from The New York Times.

To stop receiving these emails, unsubscribe or manage your email preferences.

Subscribe to The Times

|Get The New York Times app

Connect with us on: