Jobs, Contact Tracing, Nursing Homes
Your Thursday Evening Briefing |
Good evening. Here’s the latest. |
 | | Charles Krupa/Associated Press |
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1. More than 5.2 million workers applied for unemployment benefits last week, bringing the four-week total to a staggering 22 million — a toll not seen since the Great Depression. |
That’s about the number of jobs created since the last recession, though it remains unclear whether the losses might be temporary. The downdraft has spread to every corner of our financial system, our economics reporter writes. Above, a locked unemployment office in New Hampshire. |
And Congress has yet to reach a deal to allocate more money to the small business emergency loan program, which ran out of funds today. |
 | | Ryan Christopher Jones for The New York Times |
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2. Contact tracing could be the U.S.’s next big focus in the fight against the coronavirus. |
The C.D.C. is in discussions to divert 25,000 Census Bureau workers to do contact tracing, or tracking down people who have been exposed to the coronavirus, in the coming weeks and months as the country starts to reopen. The tracing is meant to prevent a resurgence of cases as the country reopens. |
Mr. Trump presented his plan for reopening to the nation’s governors today, but told them to “call your own shots” on when to loosen restrictions. Here are the guidelines the administration gave the governors. Above, coronavirus testing in New Jersey last week. |
 | | Christinne Muschi/Reuters |
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3. The coronavirus is devastating nursing homes. |
In the New York region alone, thousands of nursing home residents have died. |
In New Jersey, an anonymous tip led the police to discover 17 bodies piled inside a small morgue at Andover Subacute and Rehabilitation Center, which has been linked to a total of 68 recent deaths. Of the dead, which included two nurses, 26 had tested positive for the coronavirus. Dozens of other residents and staff members are ill. |
In both cases, relatives said they could not get answers about their loved ones or tests for the virus. |
 | | Paul Mozur/The New York Times |
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4. What does it look like to come back after a devastating pandemic? |
The Chinese city of Hefei, above, offered our correspondent Paul Mozur a glimpse this week, as traffic snarled, parks were speckled with older adults out for exercise and restaurants filled up — but not before he was surveilled and blocked by the police at every turn. Paranoia was tangible, as many were still scared of being caught doing anything out of turn. |
It was Paul’s last reporting trip in China for the moment. He and other reporters for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post have had to leave the country. Beijing ordered their expulsion after some hard-hitting reporting on China’s coronavirus outbreak and rising tensions with the U.S. |
 | | Andrew Seng for The New York Times |
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5. Some surprising news about top coronavirus risk factors: Asthma may not be one, and obesity can be a significant one. |
Despite initial warnings to people who have asthma, early new data shows that only about 5 percent of coronavirus deaths in New York were of people known to also have had asthma. Experts caution that much more analysis and data are needed. |
Other new studies point to obesity itself, rather than associated medical conditions, as a top predictor of severe coronavirus illness, particularly in young people. No one knows exactly why obesity, but hypotheses abound: For example, abdominal obesity can cause compression of the diaphragm, lungs and chest capacity. |
 | | Desiree Rios for The New York Times |
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6. Latino voters could be especially crucial this election year. They are expected to be the largest ethnic minority voting bloc. |
But political organizers face a dual challenge of energizing them and keeping them safe. Few of the 60 million Latinos in the U.S. can work from home, research shows, and many of their jobs are in retail and service industries, meaning they are at increased risk of being laid off or of becoming infected. |
 | | John Raby/Associated Press |
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The rule, which does not completely eliminate restrictions, was another step in a procession of Trump administration rollbacks on health protections. The legal strategy could be used to justify loosening restrictions on other pollutants that the fossil fuel industry produces. Above, a power plant in West Virginia. |
In other climate news, the current drought in the American Southwest is as bad as or worse than long-lasting droughts in the region over the past 1,200 years, a new study found. Climate change helped create that situation, the study said, and increases the odds that it will continue. |
 | | Shreya Gupta |
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8. Dreaming of the day vacations will be possible again? |
 | | Eric Helgas for The New York Times |
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9. There’s no place like home theater. |
 | | Nicole Perlongo; Jennifer Jade Roberts |
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10. And finally, do you drink coffee or cawfee? |
Nicolas Heller, a self-appointed liaison to eccentric city street talent who was sidelined by coronavirus-like symptoms, created the #BestNYAccent challenge on Instagram. Hundreds of people, from Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx and beyond, sent in videos demonstrating the special ways New Yorkers tawk to one another. |
There was casual disregard for pointy syllables; there were expletives; there was bluster. And it all somehow serves as a measure of resilience, pride and unity at the center of the world’s pandemic. Times are tough, but give in? Give up? |
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