The Washington Post - 02.03.2020

A12 eZ re THE WASHINGTON POST.MONDAy, MARCH 2 , 2020

tients in Anniston. But even

though the plan was abandoned,

Kline said he still wasn’t certain

patients weren’t being housed at

the o ld A rmy base.

rumors of black helicopters

ferrying infected patients to the

training center at night were ram-

pant. The local Home Depot sold

out of painting and sanding face

masks. Hodges, the commission-

er, said he heard often from wor-

ried residents. But helicopters

were common in the area because

of a nearby Army depot and Na-

tional Guard training c enter. only

now they were nefarious. other

people talked about mysterious

vans driving along county roads.

Hodges and Draper held emer-

gency news conferences and

meetings to try to lessen the p anic.

But those meetings also allowed

for additional rumors to flourish

during public c omment p eriods. A

commission meeting included

one r esident tying the c oronavirus

to a 1992 U.N. document about

climate change.

“That’s how long this has been

going on,” h e said.

Glen ray, president of the local

NAACP chapter, talked about the

virus at a Sunday service at rising

Star United methodist Church on

feb. 23 to try to calm people’s

worries. But he was also d ismayed

that one of the county commis-

sioners w ore a red “make America

Great Again” hat to an emergency

meeting a bout the v irus.

“It’s not about Donald Trump,”

ray said later. “A virus is not g oing

to just jump on a Democrat. So at

times l ike this, we need to be com-

ing together. No t ime for p olitics.”

Anniston’s flirtation with the

dreaded virus did have one posi-

tive effect, officials said. It made

them realize they needed to pre-

pare — that the virus could come

without warning and that they

shouldn’t rely on outsiders alone

for e xpertise.

Barton, the emergency man-

agement director, helped create a

county infectious disease task

force. It has already had its first

meeting. The focus is n ot solely o n

the coronavirus. It will handle the

flu a nd whatever other viruses pop

up in the f uture.

The public’s i nterest in t he v irus

hasn’t f aded, either.

Barton gave a t alk T hursday to a

lunchtime meeting of a civic orga-

nization, the Exchange Club. It

had b een planned months ago, but

he decided to talk a bout the abort-

ed plan to bring infected patients

to town.

People peppered Barton with

questions about why federal

health officials had ever consid-

ered the disaster training facility

and how much emergency food

they should keep at home. They

wanted to know how to avoid get-

ting sick.

Barton suggested hand-wash-

ing and keeping a safe distance

from sick people.

As he talked, a woman reached

into her purse, squeezed some al-

cohol sanitizer on her hands and

passed the bottle around the table.

[email protected]

emma brown and beth reinhard

contributed to this report.

the coronavirus outbreak

in north-central Alabama, after
all. They would remain in the
same Te xas and California sites
where they were taken after leav-
ing the c ruise ship.
What happened here over the
past week illustrates how poor
planning by federal health offi-
cials and a rumor mill fueled by
social media, polarized politics
and a l ack o f clear communication
can undermine public confidence
in the response to the novel coro-
navirus, which causes the disease
named covid-19. The rapidly
spreading virus has rattled econo-
mies worldwide in recent weeks
and killed more than 2,900 peo-
ple, mostly in China.
The panic and problems that
burned through Anniston also
provided a preview of what could
unfold in other communities, as
the spread of the virus is consid-
ered by health experts to be inevi-
table.
“Their little plan sketched out
in D.C. was not thought out,” said
michael Barton, director of the
emergency management agency
in Calhoun County, where Annis-
ton i s the county seat.
As local officials learned more,
Barton a dded, “ We k new then —”
“We were in trouble,” said Tim
Hodges, chairman of the Calhoun
County Commission.
In Anniston, local leaders were
stunned to discover serious prob-
lems with the federal govern-
ment’s plan for dealing with pa-
tients infected with the virus —
starting with how the patients
would get to Alabama, according
to interviews with county and city
officials, along with business lead-
ers who dealt with the federal
response.
“I was shocked,” Anniston may-
or Jack Draper said. “I was
shocked by the lack of planning. I
was shocked by the manner in
which i t was presented to us.”
Two HHS officials — Darcie
Johnston, director of intergovern-
mental affairs, and Kevin Yeskey,
principal deputy assistant secre-
tary for preparedness and re-
sponse — s aid in a feb. 2 3 meeting
with local officials that the pa-
tients would be flown from Cali-
fornia to the fort mcClellan Army
Airfield in Anniston, according to
multiple local officials.
The airfield was closed when
the Army base was shuttered in

1999. Local officials said they told
      the HHS officials at the meeting
      that the runway was in b ad shape.
      “The more we talked,” Hodges
      said, “the m ore h oles we found.”
      The HHS plan also called for
      housing coronavirus patients at
      the C enter f or Domestic Prepared-
      ness, a federal Emergency man-

AlAbAmA from A

In an Ala.

community,

a contagion

of mistrust

ton s aid.

Anniston has plenty of experi-

ence dealing with unwelcome

threats — a nd learning to live w ith

them.

It was for years home to the

nation’s chemical weapons stock-

pile, including sarin and mustard

gas. Later, it was the location of a

chemical weapons incinerator,

where those munitions were care-

fully destroyed.

The city also d eals with the t oxic

legacy of a former monsanto plant

that for decades polluted the soil

and water with PCBs, which were

banned in the 1970s amid health

concerns. The pollution resulted

in a $700 million settlement for

20,000 residents i n 2003.

But the novel coronavirus

posed a different kind of chal-

lenge.

fear that the HHS plan was

flawed g ave new energy to already

circulating rumors and wild theo-

ries about t he v irus.

residents d idn’t k now w hom t o

believe. Trump had said without

evidence that CNN and mSNBC

were exaggerating the threat.

rush Limbaugh was on the radio

saying it was no worse than the

regular flu. facebook posts

claimed the outbreak had been

foreshadowed by a 1981 Dean

Koontz book. And the idea the

virus could have been created in a

Chinese biochemical lab w as float-

ed widely, including by Sen. To m

Cotton (r-Ark.).

The whirlwind caught the at-

tention of michael Kline, a urolo-

gist in Anniston.

“I don’t think anyone knows

what’s going on,” h e said.

So on the weekend of feb. 2 2-23,

Kline dressed up in a blue biohaz-

ard suit with his “the virus has

arrived” sign. He stood along the

highway and waved to passing ve-

hicles. He wanted to drum up op-

position to allowing infected pa-

which did not immediately re-

spond t o a request for comment.

HHS, through its office of the

Assistant Secretary for Prepared-

ness and response, responded to

The Post’s questions about its An-

niston operations with a state-

ment noting t he office’s s taff mem-

bers “have a long-standing rela-

tionship” with the disaster pre-

paredness center and were

familiar with its capabilities. The

statement also said the federal

agency “was considering t he facili-

ty as a contingency location” and

decided during discussions with

local officials that “the site would

not a ctually be needed.”

It was Trump who finally can-

celed the planned quarantine in

Anniston on feb. 23, according to

tweets from r ogers a nd Sen. rich-

ard C. Shelby (r-Ala.) that referred

to their conversations with the

president.

Rumors abound

The news arrived as people at-

tended an emergency meeting of

the Calhoun County Commission.

Cheers broke out.

“I guess in our culture today a

tweet is considered official,” Bar-

not respond to a question about

whether it was told about t he HHS

plan.

A federal contract for a local

ambulance service was secured at

the last moment, after HHS had

already issued a statement about

its plan for Anniston. Details on

how to handle other tasks — in-

cluding patients’ laundry and food

— s eemed unfinished.

The preparations for bringing

patients to Anniston were han-

dled partly by Caliburn Interna-

tional, a government contractor

that previously provided emer-

gency medical services to federal

agencies, according to interviews

and documents reviewed by The

Washington Post.

Trump’s former chief of staff

John f. Kelly joined the f irm based

in reston, Va., as a board member

last year. Caliburn is the parent

company of Comprehensive

Health Services, which has come

under scrutiny for its operation of

medical services at a detention

site for m igrant children.

A Caliburn spokeswoman re-

ferred questions about the Annis-

ton operations to the Centers for

Disease Control and Prevention,

agement A gency facility o n the old

Army base and one of several rede-

velopment projects at the sprawl-

ing outpost.

A shortage of details

The center has several brick

dormitory buildings — b ehind tall

black f encing — w here federal o ffi-

cials planned for the patients to

live. federal officials even picked

out the building they wanted to

use for the first arrivals: Dorm

No. 28, local officials said. A team

of federal health workers would

care for t he p atients a nd U.S. mar-

shals would keep them from leav-

ing the quarantine, local officials

said they were told.

The dorms normally house

emergency responders from

around the country.

But the center doesn’t have any

special capabilities for handling

infectious diseases, local officials

said. The center is used for train-

ing. It h as isolation hospital r ooms

— i n a former A rmy hospital b uild-

ing — but they are mostly just

props, with fake equipment and

light switches that exist only as

paint on w alls.

meanwhile, federal officials

never contacted the city’s hospital,

regional medical Center, about

handling covid-19 patients, said

Louis Bass, the hospital’s chief ex-

ecutive.

Ye t HHS officials said in a state-

ment released to the p ublic on feb.

22 that patients who become seri-

ously ill would be sent to “pre-

identified hospitals for medical

care.”

“We were s urprised,” B ass said.

The hospital does have eight

negative-pressure isolation

rooms, but patients with serious

complications would need to be

sent to a larger institution, such a s

Emory University Hospital in At-

lanta, 90 miles away, Bass s aid.

Emory University Hospital did

PHOTOs by elIjAH nOUVelAge fOr THe WAsHIngTOn POsT

AbOVE: A dormitory in Anniston, Ala., where the federal government had planned to house quarantined passengers evacuated from a

cruise ship. bElOW: michael barton, Calhoun County emergency management director, criticized the plan as “not thought out.”

BY HEATHER LONG

AND JENA MCGREGOR

Paul Shank lost about $20,
last week after coronavirus fears
caused the biggest weekly decline
for U.S. stocks since the financial
crisis. His wife Susan asked him
multiple times a day whether it
was w ise to keep a ny o f their mon-
ey i n equities.
“To watch 10 percent of your
stock portfolio disappear in a
week i s pretty s cary,” s aid S hank, a
retiree in Albuquerque. “ To us, it’s
a lot of money.”
The last time Americans saw
such sweeping a nd s hockingly fast
market losses was during the fi-
nancial crisis, and those memo-
ries are still f resh in many people’s
minds. Last week, the Dow Jones
industrial average plunged
12.4 percent, or 3,583 points, as
investors’ fears and uncertainty
about the potential economic fall-
out f rom the coronavirus built to a
crescendo.
There’s growing concern that
the steep market losses and
mounting death toll will trigger
broader alarm, prompting Ameri-
can consumers to rein in their
spending beyond just canceling
vacations and cruises. for a de-
cade, consumer spending
propped up not just the U.S. econ-
omy but t he global economy, keep-
ing factories around the world
humming and g iving U.S. business
owners o ptimism.
But the momentum of fear is a
powerful force — in the markets
and the broader economy. About
half of Americans have money in-
vested in the stock market, often
in a retirement plan that baby
boomers are t apping, and even

those without market exposure

are often influenced by b ig drops.

Coronavirus has caused signifi-

cant supply chain disruptions of

toys, medical equipment, auto

pa rts and smartphones from Chi-

na, none of which will be easy to

smooth out, even if the virus ebbs

within a month or two. The twin

blows to consumer confidence

and supply chains have signifi-

cantly raised the c hance of a reces-

sion, according to economists.

“The odds of a recession are

roughly a coin toss, and that’s ex-

ceptionally high,” said Edward Al-

Hussainy, an analyst at Columbia

Threadneedle Investments. “Con-

ferences are getting canceled. C or-

porations are asking people to

work from home. Schools are get-

ting closed. That i s a massive hit to

demand.”

In discussions with a dozen

families and financial advisers

across the country, nearly all said

that nerves were high, but most of

the fear is concentrated in the

markets.

Calls to the Schwab Intelligent

Portfolios service t eam were up a ll

week, spiking more than 115 per-

cent on Thursday and friday c om-

pared to a typical day. Schwab

declined to say how many inves-

tors were selling stocks.

Some financial advisers said

their clients were inquiring about

whether they should think about

buying stocks, which were widely

viewed a s overpriced a t the start of

2020. more often, callers were
      looking for reassurance.
      After many dinner t able discus-
      sions, the Shanks are staying in
      the market for now. The couple
      has a modest amount of their port-
      folio in stocks, with the rest in

bonds and o ther l ower-risk invest-

ments. But, like many Americans,

they are watching the situation

closely.

“It’s just a scary time. At some

point it will scare me enough that

I’ll p ull out,” S hank said.

financial adviser Jamie Cox of

richmond was flooded with calls

and said nearly everyone had the

same question: Is this a repeat of

the f inancial c risis?

It’s a delicate question to an-

swer. one likely scenario is that

the coronavirus will be a short-

lived crisis that has a health im-

pact similar to the flu, and an

economic impact that slows

growth f or the f irst half of t he year

and then causes a big rebound in

the l atter half.

“History has to provide some

guidance,” s aid Bernard Baumohl,

chief global economist at the Eco-

nomic outlook Group. “We’ve

gone through influenzal and o ther

diseases that involved thousands

of people in the United States.

They have never reached a level of

magnitude where i t precipitated a

recession.”

J.P. morgan has been telling cli-

ents growth will slow to 1.25 per-

cent in the first half of 2020, but

most of the depressed sales will be

made up later o n. C ox h as a similar

view.

“I’m telling people that this is

not a nywhere c lose to being i ndic-

ative of a 2008 scenario. This is a

demand-and-supply shock that is

very temporary in a very strong

economy,” said Cox, a financial

adviser at the Harris financial

Group.

But there is a chance that the

coronavirus spirals into some-

thing more sinister and long-last-

ing. The coronavirus, which first

emerged in China, has s pread to

60 countries at a rapid clip. With

many parts o f China, S outh Korea,

Japan and Italy at a virtual stand-

still, the public-health crisis is in-

creasingly hurting the global

economy, which could make it

harder t o recover.

That’s why experts such as

economist Sung Won Sohn of SS

Economics say the chance of a

recession is g rowing.

Like many in the financial in-

dustry, Al-Hussainy is watching

consumer confidence, which is

key to figuring out whether fear

and uncertainty will lead to an

economic downturn. The widely

watched University of michigan

Survey of Consumers r eleased fri-

day showed that many Americans

still feel positively about the econ-

omy, but nearly 20 percent of

those surveyed last monday and

Tuesday mentioned concerns

about the coronavirus and the

steep drop in t he stock market.

“The virus is in the U.S. now.

What happens to the number of

cases and fatalities from here is

likely to drive sentiment as main

Street grapples with what it all

means,” said Peter Atwater, presi-

dent of financial Insyghts.

Consumer confidence has wa-

vered in past stock market de-

clines, such as the end of 2018

when the market fell nearly

20 percent. But confidence re-

bounded quickly as the market

climbed again. Beyond stocks, an-

other key driver of sentiment —

and spending — is how secure

people feel in their jobs. So far, job

growth remains strong, but many

are watching the travel and res-

taurant industries for signs of fur-

loughs and layoffs.

The fear of infection is already

spurring some families to make

tough choices. Geraldine Caul has

been trying to cancel a royal Ca-

ribbean cruise for her and three

family members this spring to

Spain, france and Italy. A royal

Caribbean staff member told her

she would lose half her money if

she canceled and insisted there

“could be a cure by the end of the

month.”

The family is concerned about

the spread of coronavirus in Italy.

But they’re also worried about

possibly being quarantined on

their return and losing a month’s

pay. Caul’s brother-in-law works

for a major hotel chain.

“They’ve been told a minimum

of four weeks quarantine when

they come back and no pay,” said

Caul, a retiree in Davenport, out-

side orlando.

Professional money managers

said they have felt like psycholo-

gists in recent days. They con-

stantly stress to clients to get a

good financial plan — often a mix

of stock and bond investments

and some emergency savings —

and to stick with it, whether the

market goes up or down. But in-

vestors still have innate human

instincts to flee trouble, especially

with markets swooning so sharply

over the past week.

“mike Tyson had a good quote,

‘Everyone has a plan until they get

punched in the m outh,’ ” s aid rob-

ert DeHollander, a financial plan-

ner in Greenville, S.C., who lost

count of how many calls he has

been getting from clients. “You c an

talk about risk tolerance all day

long, but you don’t really know

how you feel about it until mo-

ments l ike this.”

Sixty-nine percent of Ameri-

cans surveyed by morning Con-

sult last week said they were con-

cerned about the impact of the

coronavirus on the economy — up

from 55 percent who said the s ame

in a survey conducted feb. 7-9.

“These things start getting you

nervous, and I’m not usually a

nervous guy,” said Gary firestone,

74, of fort myers, fla.

firestone, who ran his own ad

agency for four decades and still

retains a few clients, said he was

nervous enough, after seeing the

markets tumble, that he called his

financial advisers to ask whether

it was t ime t o get out o f any invest-

ments. He can still recall the sting

of the financial c risis, especially i ts

approximately 30 percent hit to

his investments that took a long

time to recover. He’s got more at

stake, as he’s c loser to retirement.

“You see less of a distance you

have for potential returns. Can I

afford to lose that now when I

don’t have that many years to

catch up? That’s what brings on

the f ear,” h e said.

[email protected]

jena [email protected]

Recession fears grow as investors gauge virus’s long-term effect on market

Source: Yahoo Finance

28K

27K

26K

25K

Fr iday

25,409.

Thursday

25, 76 6.

Wednesday

26,957.

27 ,081.

Monday’s close

27 ,960.

Tuesday

Dow Jones industrial

average last week