The New York Times - USA (2020-10-10)

A6 Y THE NEW YORK TIMES, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2020

Tracking an OutbreakU.S. Response

On Thursday, several mayors
from across New York State
rushed to quarantine after ap-
pearing at a news conference with
another mayor who only later dis-
covered that he was infected with
the coronavirus.
Michael Osterholm, an infec-
tious-diseases expert at the Uni-
versity of Minnesota, said that
early in the nation’s outbreak,
New York and much of the North-
east had successfully tamped
down transmission of the virus
with physical distancing and
masking, as much of Europe had
done.
“The point is, once you let up on
the brake, then eventually, slowly,
it comes back,” Dr. Osterholm
said.
By many measures, the North-
east continues to do quite well,
particularly compared to current
hot spots for the virus, including
the Midwest and Great Plains.
Since the spring, case numbers
in the Northeast have plummeted
over all. The region, which runs
from Maine to Pennsylvania, is
averaging about 60 deaths per
day, the lowest in the nation, ac-
cording to the Covid Tracking
Project. Some 2,800 people are in
a hospital in the region, account-
ing for 8 percent of the hospitaliza-
tions nationwide. Those figures
are tiny compared with the
spring, when tens of thousands of
people in the Northeast were hos-
pitalized on any given day, and
morgues were running out of body
bags.
Still, the number of people in
hospitals — a clear measure of
those most seriously affected by
an outbreak — is starting to trend
slightly upward again in the
Northeast. About 1,000 more peo-
ple are in hospitals than last
month, and daily reports of new
cases have started climbing once
again, leading to fears about what
the winter might bring.
“Places like New York and
other states in the Northeast
could have more of the classic sec-
ond wave phenomenon,” said Dr.
Larry Chang, an infectious-dis-
ease expert at Johns Hopkins Uni-
versity School of Medicine, who
said he was bracing for more out-
breaks this fall. “Pretty much ev-
erybody expects things to get
somewhat worse.”
There may be a number of rea-
sons for the upward trend in
cases. The air turned suddenly
chilly in the past few weeks, forc-
ing people who had been lounging
in sunny parks indoors. Students
returned to schools and college
campuses. And Northeasterners,
who were among the first to take
the virus seriously, may simply be
growing weary after months of so-
cial distancing and wearing

masks, even to walk outside.

“We’re all kind of exhausted

with it,” said Danielle Ompad, an

infectious-disease epidemiologist

at New York University. “We have

to acknowledge that this is not

easy.”

The first glimpse of a re-

surgence has troubled public

health experts and the region’s

many coronavirus survivors

alike.

“I’m still coming around from

this,” said Laura Gross, 72, of Fort

Lee, N.J., who contracted the vi-

rus in March and is still seeing

doctors and struggling with sig-

nificant fatigue. With cases on the

rise, she fears what might happen

to her next. Most people who get

the virus develop antibodies, al-

though it is unclear how long im-

munity lasts.

“I have a fair amount of antibod-

ies, but what does it mean?” she

said. “I’m really concerned. I don’t

go out of the house except to go to

the doctor. I wear a mask. I don’t

go to food stores.”

In New York City, the rate of

positive tests among all the tests

taken remains low, about 1.5 per-

cent, but recent outbreaks in Or-

thodox Jewish neighborhoods of-

fer a new warning about how

quickly the virus can spread.

City epidemiologists have tied

many new cases to an outbreak in

a corner of Brooklyn called Bor-

ough Park, home to tightly knit

Hasidic groups where distrust of

secular authorities runs deep and

few people wore masks or prac-

ticed social distancing. A few

cases traced back to a large wed-

ding, the authorities said, but by

late August, what had begun as a

localized outbreak was spread-

ing: Other neighborhoods in

Brooklyn and Queens began to

see rising case counts.

By early October, the number of

new cases across the city was av-

eraging twice what it had been at

the low point two months earlier.

Brooklyn alone now had more

than 200 new cases some days.

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo an-

nounced an array of new rules

that would shut down schools,

restaurants, bars and gyms in ar-

eas where the virus was surging.

While New York may offer the

clearest example of a potential

second wave, the coronavirus is

also reaching other parts of the

Northeast that had not previously

seen a major surge.

In Pennsylvania, Daryl Miller

watched this spring as the corona-

virus tore through Philadelphia

and other parts of the state, while

his mostly rural community was

largely spared. “It was single-dig-

it — one, two, three cases a day,”

said Mr. Miller, a commissioner in

Bradford County, an area with a

population of 60,000, northwest of

Scranton. “Now, we’re in the doz-

ens.”

Part of the rise comes from the

Bradford County Manor, a nursing

home where dozens of residents

and employees have contracted

the virus in the past few weeks.

But more worrisome, he said, is

that the virus seems to have inex-

plicably spread all around the

county.

“It’s something we don’t have

the answers to ourselves,” Mr.

Miller said. “Yes, the numbers are

going up, but as far as pinpointing

any particular reason, nobody

seems to have any answers.”

There is one clear pattern in

Pennsylvania and elsewhere: col-

lege campuses, which have been

the sites of more than 178,

cases around the country. Centre

County, home to Penn State Uni-

versity, is leading the state in

cases per capita. In Rhode Island,

the governor recently blamed up-

ticks on outbreaks connected to

Providence College and the Uni-

versity of Rhode Island.

As cases have risen across the

Northeast, several school sys-

tems have had to pause their re-

opening plans or even consider

closing schools again.

The mayor of Boston, Marty

Walsh, announced this week that

Boston Public Schools would de-

lay bringing preschoolers and kin-

dergartners into school buildings

because the city’s positive test

rate had risen above 4 percent.

In Hartford, Conn., where the

seven-day positivity rate recently

increased to 2.6 percent, officials

said the city might also have to roll

back its reopening of schools.

It remains to be seen whether

the new restrictions in the North-

east will slow the spread of the vi-

rus, but some people were already

preparing for the worst.

“I’m not surprised,” said Jen

Singer, 53, of Monmouth County,

N.J., a recent hot spot. After catch-

ing the virus this spring and being

hospitalized for heart failure, she

said she recently rode her bike

past crowds of people socializing

“like any other Shore Saturday

night.”

In response to the new cases,

she has begun to further limit the

number of people she sees, and

she said she has had flashbacks to

her time spent on the hospital’s co-

ronavirus floor, where nurses

wore head-to-toe jumpsuits and

she lay in her room, scared and

alone.

“I don’t want to do that again,”

she said.

CORONAVIRUS CLUSTERS

Northeast May Face Second Wave After Being Seen as Model of Control

A testing site in Winthrop, Mass. An increase in new cases in the Northeast is raising fears about what the winter might bring.

ERIN CLARK/THE BOSTON GLOBE, VIA GETTY IMAGES

Public schools in Boston are delaying plans to bring preschoolers and kindergartners back into the

classroom. The city’s positive rate had risen above 4 percent, troubling public health experts.

THE BOSTON GLOBE, VIA ASSOCIATED PRESS

From Page A

Joseph Goldstein, Kate Taylor and
Mitch Smith contributed report-
ing.

WASHINGTON — The White
House moved aggressively on Fri-
day to revive stimulus talks that
President Trump had called off
just days earlier, putting forward
its largest offer for economic relief
yet as administration officials and
embattled Republican lawmakers
scrambled to avoid being blamed
by voters for failing to deliver
needed aid ahead of the election.
The new proposal’s price tag of
$1.8 trillion, which Treasury Sec-
retary Steven Mnuchin presented
to Speaker Nancy Pelosi in a
roughly 30-minute phone call, was
nearly double the original offer
the administration put forward
when talks began in late summer.
It was the latest indication that
the White House was eager to
backtrack from Mr. Trump’s deci-
sion on Tuesday to abruptly halt
negotiations, and it reflected a
growing sense of dread both at the
White House and among vulnera-
ble Senate Republicans facing re-
election about the political conse-
quences of his actions. The offer
also highlighted the deep and per-
sistent divisions among Republi-
cans — most of whom have balked
at a large new federal infusion of
pandemic aid — that have compli-
cated the negotiations for months.
Now, with Mr. Trump pressing
to “Go Big,” as he put it in a tweet
on Friday, he has raised the
prospect of pushing through a
plan that his own party refuses to
accept, giving Ms. Pelosi and
Democrats fresh leverage to dic-
tate the terms of any deal.
On Friday, she was continuing
to hold out for more concessions.
While Mr. Mnuchin’s latest offer
“attempted to address some of the

concerns Democrats have,” Drew

Hammill, a spokesman for Ms.

Pelosi, said it did not include an

agreement on a national strategy

for testing, tracing and other ef-

forts to contain the spread of the

virus, which the speaker has

pushed for in recent weeks. “For

this and other provisions, we are

still awaiting language from the

administration as negotiations on

the overall funding amount con-

tinue.”

“I do hope we will have an

agreement soon but, as you say,

they keep changing,” Ms. Pelosi

said on MSNBC. Referring to Mr.

Trump’s tweets that temporarily

ended the negotiations, she added

that the president “got a terrible

backlash from it, including in the

stock market, which is what he

cares about. And so then he

started to come back little by little,

and now a bigger package.”

Speaking on the right-wing ra-

dio host Rush Limbaugh’s show,

Mr. Trump conceded that he had

changed his position on approving

additional coronavirus aid before

Election Day, declaring “I would

like to see a bigger stimulus pack-

age, frankly, than either the Dem-

ocrats or Republicans are offer-

ing.” (Alyssa Farah, the White

House communications director,

later contradicted Mr. Trump’s as-

sertion, telling reporters at the

White House that the administra-

tion wanted a final package to re-

main below $2 trillion, which is

less than the $2.2 trillion measure

Ms. Pelosi pushed through the

House this month.)

Such sums are deeply alarming

to most Republicans, who are in-

creasingly contemplating their

party’s future after Mr. Trump de-

parts the political scene and are

determined to reclaim the mantle

of the party of fiscal restraint. Sen-

ator Mitch McConnell, the major-

ity leader, warned Mr. Trump in a

phone call this week that most Re-

publican senators would not em-

brace a stimulus measure as large

as Ms. Pelosi wanted, an assess-

ment that appeared to play a role

in the president’s decision to tweet

an end to the talks.

Speaking to reporters in Ken-

tucky on Friday, Mr. McConnell

continued to cast doubt on the

chances of a deal in the coming

weeks, saying political divisions

remained too deep.

“The situation is kind of murky

and I think the murkiness is a re-

sult of the proximity to the elec-

tion and everybody kind of trying

to elbow for political advantage,”

Mr. McConnell said. “I’d like to see

us rise above that like we did back

in March and April, but I think

that’s unlikely in the next three

weeks.”

Privately though, Mr. McCon-

nell has come under renewed

pressure to allow a deal to go for-

ward.

Multiple rank-and-file Republi-

cans, including some in tough re-

election contests, like Senators

Susan Collins of Maine, Cory

Gardner of Colorado and David

Perdue of Georgia, pressed Mr.

McConnell during a phone call on

Thursday for him to act on a stim-

ulus measure, according to two

people familiar with the discus-

sion who asked for anonymity to

disclose details of a private con-

versation.

Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa said

on Twitter that she had spoken

with Mr. Trump and “relayed to

him what I’ve heard from folks

across the state: Iowans need ad-

ditional COVID-19 relief.”

“I’m hopeful Congress can

come together once again — Rs

and Ds — and provide more sup-

port to hardworking Americans,”

Ms. Ernst added.

Senator Bill Cassidy, Republi-

can of Louisiana and one of the

senators who was on the call with

Mr. McConnell, said in an inter-

view that he had pushed for a

compromise with Democrats, not-

ing that “if you really want to pass

something, it has to be bipartisan,

right?”

“We’re constitutionally re-

quired to work on the nation’s

problems, and this is something

we should work on,” he added.

But other Republicans are wary

of the liberal provisions that Mr.

Mnuchin may agree to in order to

win Ms. Pelosi’s support. Many of

them opposed the original $1 tril-

lion offer Mr. McConnell

presented in July, after days of

haggling with the White House, in

part because they were concerned

about adding to the national debt.

Top Republicans scaled back the

offer considerably, proposing a

$350 billion plan that drew objec-

tions from Democrats, who called

it inadequate.

With less than a month before

Election Day, it also remains un-

clear if there is enough time for

Congress to push through a stimu-

lus agreement as Senate Republi-

cans also move to confirm Judge

Amy Coney Barrett to the Su-

preme Court.

In his series of tweets on Tues-

day, Mr. Trump instructed Senate

Republicans “to instead focus full

time on approving my outstand-

ing nominee to the United States

Supreme Court.”

CAPITOL HILL

President Raises Offer for Relief Package to $1.8 Trillion

By EMILY COCHRANE

and ALAN RAPPEPORT

Ending negotiations

on Tuesday, reviving

them on Friday.

Carl Hulse and Jim Tankersley
contributed reporting.

The Centers for Disease Control

and Prevention drafted a sweep-

ing order last month requiring all

passengers and employees to

wear masks on all forms of public

and commercial transportation in

the United States, but it was

blocked by the White House, ac-

cording to two federal health offi-

cials.

The order would have been the

toughest federal mandate to date

aimed at curbing the spread of the

coronavirus, which continues to

infect more than 40,000 Ameri-

cans a day. The officials said that it

was drafted under the agency’s

“quarantine powers” and that it

had the support of the secretary of

health and human services, Alex

M. Azar II, but the White House

Coronavirus Task Force, led by

Vice President Mike Pence, de-

clined to even discuss it.

The two officials, who spoke on

condition of anonymity because

they were not authorized to com-

ment, said the order would have

required face coverings on air-

planes, trains, buses and sub-

ways, and in transit hubs such as

airports, train stations and bus de-

pots.

A task force official said the de-

cision to require masks should be

left up to states and localities. The

administration requires the task

force to sign off on coronavirus-re-

lated policies.

“The approach the task force

has taken with any mask mandate

is, the response in New York City

is different than Montana, or

Tuscaloosa, Alabama,” said the of-

ficial who asked not to be identi-

fied because he did not have per-

mission to discuss the matter. “Lo-

cal and state authorities need to

determine the best approach for

their responsive effort depending

on how the coronavirus is impact-

ing their area.”

Most public health officials be-

lieve that wearing masks is one of

the most effective ways to protect

against the spread of the virus,

particularly in crowded, poorly

ventilated public places. Many

feel that the Trump administra-

tion has turned the wearing — or

not wearing — of masks into a po-

litical expression, as seen most

dramatically on Monday evening

when President Trump whipped

off his surgical mask at the White

House door after returning from

the hospital where he was treated

for Covid-19.

“I think masks are the most

powerful weapon we have to con-

front Covid and we all need to em-

brace masks and set the example

for each other,” Dr. Robert R. Red-

field, the C.D.C. director, who

oversaw the drafting of the order,

said in a recent interview.

Dr. Redfield has been publicly at

odds with President Trump for

promoting mask wearing along

with social distancing, and for

warning that a vaccine for the vi-

rus won’t be widely available until

next year.

The thwarting of the mask rule

is the latest in a number of C.D.C.

actions stalled or changed by the

White House. Late last month, the

coronavirus task force overruled

the C.D.C. director’s order to keep

cruise ships docked until mid-Feb-

ruary. That plan was opposed by

the tourism industry in Florida, an

important swing state in the presi-

dential election. Political appoint-

ees at the White House and the

Department of Health and Human

Services have also been involved

in rewriting the agency’s guide-

lines on reopening schools and

testing for the virus, bypassing

the agency’s scientists.

PUBLIC HEALTH

C.D.C.’s Order for Masks

On Transit Was Blocked

By SHEILA KAPLAN