Attention to the Unseen

Gideon Lichfield writes: To stop coronavirus we will need to radically change almost everything we do: how we work, exercise, socialize, shop, manage our health, educate our kids, take care of family members. We all want things to go back to normal quickly. But what most of us have probably not yet realized—yet will soon—is that things won’t go back to normal after a few weeks, or even a few months. Some things never will. It’s now widely agreed (even…

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Morgan Simon writes: At a time when across the country, states are limiting gatherings of over 250 people and those who can are choosing to self-quarantine, there’s one place where millions of people are involuntarily gathered in close proximity — our nation’s prisons and immigrant detention centers. An epidemiologist at Brown University has recommended that the United States could release close to 44,000 detained immigrants who are being held for civil, not criminal, infractions. This would not only prevent the…

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The Washington Post reports: How long are we going to have to keep this up? The closed schools, working from home, six feet of personal space and zombie-apocalypse empty streets? It’s the question now preoccupying America as millions of parents silently scream it into the void amid the coronavirus pandemic. But it is an especially hard one for science to answer. The best and most honest reply, according to epidemiologists and virologists, is simple: “It depends.” It’s not going to…

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Bloomberg reports: In Rome, the first signs of change came from overhead. Shortly before cocktail hour on Monday, the thrum-thrum-thrum of a helicopter could be heard above the winding lanes of the 2,000-year-old historic center. The police were keeping an eye on the Trastevere neighborhood, where smoke billowed from the windows of a jail as inmates rioted, protesting cramped conditions that put them at risk of coronavirus infection. About the same time, the stock market was opening in New York,…

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Tom Bossert, Donald Trump’s former homeland security adviser, writes: School closures, isolation of the sick, home quarantines of those who have come into contact with the sick, social distancing, telework and large-gathering cancellations must be implemented before the spread of the disease in any community reaches 1 percent. After that, science tells us, these interventions become far less effective. Simply put, as evidence of human-to-human transmission becomes clear in a community, officials must pull the trigger on aggressive interventions. Time…

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Yascha Mounk writes: We don’t yet know the full ramifications of the novel coronavirus. But three crucial facts have become clear in the first months of this extraordinary global event. And what they add up to is not an invocation to stay calm, as so many politicians around the globe are incessantly suggesting; it is, on the contrary, the case for changing our behavior in radical ways—right now. The first fact is that, at least in the initial stages, documented…

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The Guardian reports: Over the last two months, Chinese citizens have had to adjust to a new level of government intrusion. Getting into one’s apartment compound or workplace requires scanning a QR code, writing down one’s name and ID number, temperature and recent travel history. Telecom operators track people’s movements while social media platforms like WeChat and Weibo have hotlines for people to report others who may be sick. Some cities are offering people rewards for informing on sick neighbours….

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