The Wall Street Journal - 16.03.2020

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. ** Monday, March 16, 2020 |A

U.S. NEWS

NASA is considering extending

the timeline to start establishing

a base for humans on the moon.

Trump administration officials

have long said plans to return

U.S. astronauts to the lunar sur-

face also had to simultaneously

lay the groundwork for setting up

living and working facilities there.

National Aeronautics and

Space Administration budgets

and policies were built around the

concept of using an orbital stag-

ing platform, called a lunar gate-

way, to assemble crews, vehicles

and materials for missions to be-

gin construction of bases on the

moon. Such missions, possibly

shipping stockpiles of water, food

and building materials, were sup-

posed to start no later than 2025.

But Saturday,Doug Loverro,

NASA’s top human-exploration of-

ficial, signaled that schedule could

slip at least a year. Mr. Loverro

also said significant changes to

the gateway are intended to re-

duce overall cost and risk.

In public remarks last week,

Mr. Lovero told an agency advi-

sory committee that major

spending and technical hurdles re-

quire revamping and, at least for

now, simplifying moon priorities.

—Andy Pasztor

NASA’s Plan for Lunar Base Is in Limbo as Timetable Slips

MEGAN JELINGER/SOPA IMAGES/ZUMA PRESS

are smaller than rotaries and

often require cars to slow down

to around 15 miles an hour.

Converting an intersection

with a traffic signal to a round-

about results in a 78% decrease

in fatalities and injuries, ac-

cording to the Federal Highway

Administration. The downside

has been more crashes, mostly

fender-benders, at many two-

lane roundabouts.

The crash problem has been

a “dirty little secret” in the

traffic field, said Letty Schamp,

deputy engineer for the city of

Hilliard, Ohio. “Now people are

talking about it.”

Ms. Schamp considers one

roundabout her baby because

she has worked on the project

since it began more than a de-

cade ago, when the area had

few roundabouts. The two-lane

circular intersection has had

more than 660 crashes since it

opened in 2012, averaging 82 a

year. That is compared with

eight a year at the intersection

that existed previously, city fig-

ures show.

The roundabout was in-

tended to add capacity and im-

prove traffic flow while reduc-

ing speeds, without creating a

sea of asphalt, and it achieved

those goals, she said. About

35,000 vehicles pass through

each day.

Hilliard resident Pam Sara-

niero didn’t realize she had to

yield to cars in both lanes of

the roundabout, and learned

the hard way. In January, she

said she saw a Ford Escape

moving in the inner lane as she

approached the roundabout.

Then she drove into the circle,

hitting the Escape and knock-

ing the front bumper off her

Honda Accord.

In hindsight, she said she

wrongly assumed the other

driver would loop around the

roundabout rather than exit

across her path. “It was my

fault, absolutely,” the 67-year-

old retiree said.

Jane Wahl, who also crashed

there in January, said ap-

proaching drivers often race

into the roundabout. “Not ev-

erybody has the same attitude

about what the rules are in

these roundabouts,” she said.

Last year, Hilliard launched

a public-outreach campaign,

and officials modified signs

and lane markings. The 63

crashes in 2019 were the few-

est since the roundabout

opened, though Ms. Schamp

said she isn’t ready to declare

victory. While she remains bull-

ish on roundabouts, she said

she isn’t keen to build any

more two-lane versions.

Of the more than 6,

modern roundabouts that have

been built since around 1990,

roughly a quarter have multiple

lanes in some configuration,

according to a database main-

tained by Oregon transporta-

tion engineering firm Kittelson

& Associates Inc.

“We’re trading a severe

crash—say, a T-bone crash at a

conventional signalized inter-

section—for a fender-bender.

Nine out of 10 engineers are

willing to make that trade,”

said Lee Rodegerdts, a princi-

pal engineer at Kittelson, which

is working on the federal study.

“It’s a fender-bender problem,

but it’s one we’re very actively

trying to solve.”

City planners and engineers

are stumped over why so many

drivers can’t handle something

as simple as a roundabout.

Roundabouts have prolifer-

ated around the U.S. in recent

years, arriving in some areas of

the Midwest and West for the

first time. Yet even years after

some are installed, driver con-

fusion persists. And with con-

fusion comes fender-benders.

Traffic engineers say the

majority of crashes in two-lane

roundabouts occur either be-

cause drivers don’t yield to cir-

culating traffic, or they make

improper lane changes once in

the roundabout.

Authorities have boosted

public education, tweaked signs

and modified roadway designs

in search of solutions. The fed-

eral government is leading a

study on drivers’ failure to

yield to traffic when entering

two-lane roundabouts, a major

cause of collisions. State trans-

portation departments from

Washington to New York are

helping fund the research.

“We just need to find out a

reason why,” said Wei Zhang,

who manages intersection-

safety research at the U.S. De-

partment of Transportation.

Roundabouts differ from

higher-speed rotaries common

in the Northeast. While they

can have multiple lanes, they

BYSCOTTCALVERT

Roundabout Wrecks Have Engineers Going in Circles

Whiletwo-laneroundaboutstypicallyhavefewerseriouscrashesthantraditionalfour-wayintersections,

theyoftenexperiencemorefenderbenders.Trafficengineerssaysomedriversfailtoyieldtocirculating

carsormakeimproperlanechanges.

Yield violations Lane change violations

Driverswishingtoturnleftmustbeinthe

leftlanebeforeenteringtheroundabout.

Manydriversdon’tundertandthatthe

insidelanecanexitatsomeroundabouts.

Beforeentering,driversshouldstopand

yieldtobothlanesintheroundabout.

Correct roundabout usage

Source: Deputy City Engineer, Hilliard, Ohio Vivien Ngo/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

YIELD

Hospitals preparing for an

influx of coronavirus patients

are canceling some surgeries

and moving routine care to vir-

tual visits, an effort to make

room for those critically ill and

prevent infections as the global

pandemic spreads nationwide.

A growing number of hospi-

tals, including Boston’s

Brigham & Women’s Hospital,

NewYork-Presbyterian, the

main facility of the University

of California, San Francisco and

some major systems in the

hard-hit Seattle area, are start-

ing to put off surgeries that

aren’t urgent or emergencies.

In addition to freeing up capac-

ity, doctors say they don’t want

to expose patients and workers

to potential infection risk.

Some hospitals are also ask-

ing primary-care and psychia-

try patients and those who

need other routine care to use

the phone or telemedicine to

visit doctors.

“The less people we have to

bring or move around our com-

munity, the better,” said Ann

Prestipino, an executive and in-

cident commander for Massa-

chusetts General Hospital,

which Monday will begin

switching all outpatient visits

to virtual care, where possible,

and will postpone surgery that

can be delayed, at the discre-

tion of each service area. The

hospital and its clinics typically

handle one million outpatient

visits annually, she said.

Hospitals say procedures

that often can wait include

knee replacements, some gall-

bladder operations and certain

spine procedures.

Arooj Simmonds, co-execu-

tive medical director of surgical

services at Swedish hospital

system, said executives moved

Friday to broadly postpone

elective procedures as numbers

of Covid-19 patients continued

to fill beds across its five Seat-

tle-area hospitals.

“We have rooms, but if we

don’t have staff, we can’t admit

a patient to the room,” Dr. Sim-

monds said. Nurses and doctors

who worked in operating rooms

may be moved to where they

are most needed, she said.

Kaiser Permanente, the big

California-based insurer and

hospital operator, said its doc-

tors are evaluating all elective

procedures scheduled for the

next few weeks.

The Centers for Disease Con-

trol and Prevention has urged

hospitals in Santa Clara County,

Calif., three Washington coun-

ties and New Rochelle, N.Y., to

cancel nonurgent procedures.

The CDC didn’t respond to

questions on its recommenda-

tions in those communities, but

it has posted coronavirus guid-

ance for hospitals, a spokes-

woman said. The guidance calls

for hospitals to reschedule elec-

tive procedures as needed.

The U.S. surgeon general, Je-

rome Adams, tweeted Saturday

that hospitals should “consider

stopping elective procedures,”

saying surgeries could bring

the coronavirus to their facili-

ties, draw from their protective

equipment stores and tax their

workforces.

Hospitals rejected wide-

spread elective cancelations in

a letter Sunday to the surgeon

general from four large hospital

associations. The letter called

for hospitals to decide locally

when and which surgeries

should be postponed, based on

the local spread of coronavirus

and urgency of various opera-

tions. “We are asking that he

clarify this,” said Rick Pollack,

president and chief executive

officer of the American Hospi-

tal Association, of the Surgeon

General.

Dr. Adams’s tweet encour-

aged health-care facilities to

consider rescheduling nonur-

gent outpatient visits and elec-

tive surgeries, as necessary,” in

response to the pandemic, a

spokeswoman said.

Dr. Adams will work with

hospitals to relay guidance to

the sector on how to protect

communities from the virus

and minimize disruption to

routine care, the spokeswoman

said.

Epidemiologists and infec-

tious-disease specialists warn

U.S. hospitals may not have

enough beds, equipment and

staff to care for a surge of pa-

tients in a widespread, fast-es-

calating outbreak. Hospitals’ ef-

forts to prepare have grown

more urgent in recent weeks

Hospitals could see an esti-

mated 4.8 million admissions

as the virus sweeps across the

nation.

BYMELANIEEVANS

ANDANNAWILDEMATHEWS

Hospitals Put Off Some Surgeries

Facilities in hard-hit

areas look to clear

capacity for potential

surge in patients

Things to Know

Before Getting Care

Doctors and hospitals are

evaluating cancellations to dis-

tinguish between scheduled

surgery that can wait, such as

a routine screening colonoscopy

or knee replacement, and pro-

cedures that can’t, such as a

bone scan or MRI to reveal

how far cancer has progressed.

Here is what patients need

to know about how to get

health care:

1) Call and check your

health-care provider’s website

before you go to even a nor-

mal, scheduled visit. More clin-

ics are doing these virtually,

hoping to protect both patients

and employees against infec-

tion.

2) If you have a coming

procedure scheduled, and you

don’t hear from your doctor,

check to make sure it is still

happening and discuss with

your doctor whether it might

be better to delay. “The main

message is: sit tight,” said Da-

vid Battinelli, chief medical offi-

cer of Northwell Health, which

said Sunday it would begin

postponing some elective sur-

geries.

3) If your surgeon or hospi-

tal calls to inform you that

your procedure is being can-

celed, let them know if there

has been a change in your con-

dition, and ask if you need to

adjust your routine because of

the delay. “This will be a two-

way conversation,” said Dr. Bat-

tinelli.

4) After a procedure is de-

layed, reach out to the sur-

geon’s office if you need to. “If

the patient thinks their medical

condition is worsening, they

should call their surgeon’s of-

fice,” said Dr. John Roberts, a

transplant surgeon who helps

oversee the operating rooms at

University of California, San

Francisco’s main hospital. While

hospitals are starting to push

off procedures considered elec-

tive, urgently needed ones may

still be proceeding.

5) It probably isn’t helpful

to seek another hospital to per-

form your surgery, since in re-

gions hit by the coronavirus it

is likely they will all enforce

similar cancellation policies.

Hospitals that are deferring

procedures say they expect to

reschedule them and will clear

the backlog as quickly as possi-

ble when the coronavirus surge

eases.

WASHINGTON—President

Trump said he is considering a

full pardon for former national

security adviser Michael Flynn,

who pleaded guilty to lying to

the FBI about his contacts with

a top Russian official.

Mr. Trump in a tweet Sunday

criticized the Federal Bureau of

Investigation and the Justice

Department, saying they had

“destroyed” Mr. Flynn’s life, and

pointed to what he said was a

report that the agencies had

“lost” records in the case. It

wasn’t clear what report Mr.

Trump was referring to.

“I am strongly considering

a Full Pardon!” he wrote.

The White House didn’t

comment beyond the tweet,

which came as the administra-

tion continues to grapple with

the fast-moving coronavirus

emergency. The FBI and Jus-

tice Department declined to

comment.

Mr. Flynn in late 2017 ad-

mitted he misled FBI agents

about a series of calls he had

with Moscow’s ambassador to

the U.S., Sergey Kislyak, about

sanctions and a United Nations

resolution critical of Israel.

Prosecutors said Mr. Flynn

consulted with Trump transi-

tion officials on the contacts.

“I recognize that the ac-

tions I acknowledged in court

today were wrong, and,

through my faith in God, I am

working to set things right,”

Mr. Flynn said at the time.

Federal prosecutors in Jan-

uary asked a court to sentence

Mr. Flynn to up to six months

in prison, a reversal from

when the government said he

shouldn’t face incarceration

due to cooperation in the

probe into Russian interfer-

ence in the 2016 election. Mr.

Flynn sat for 19 interviews

with investigators and pro-

vided documents in several

criminal probes before the re-

lationship soured.

Mr. Flynn’s lawyers subse-

quently asked a federal judge

to allow him to withdraw his

guilty plea on a single charge

of lying to the FBI, arguing the

government had breached its

2017 plea agreement. If that

request, which is pending, is

granted, Mr. Flynn could face

trial.

—Aruna Viswanatha

contributed to this article.

BYALEXLEARY

Trump

Weighs

Pardon

For Flynn

Michael Flynn

PATRICK SEMANSKY/ASSOCIATED PRESS