At least 8,661 people in South Carolina have tested positive for the coronavirus and 380 have died, according to state health officials.

The S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control reported…[over 250] new cases of the virus and no additional deaths Friday.

Patients who died were residents of Sumter, Cherokee, Clarendon, Fairfield, Florence and Pickens counties, according to health officials.

Worldwide, more than 4.6 million cases of COVID-19 have been reported and more than 310,000 people have died, according to Johns Hopkins University. More than 1.4 million cases and 88,000 deaths have been reported in the United States.

Read it all.

NEW: No new coronavirus deaths reported in South Carolina today, the first time in weeks to have zero daily deaths, but the state logged 276 new cases, bringing the total to 8,661.https://t.co/uDnZvIZJHW

— The Post and Courier (@postandcourier) May 16, 2020

The coronavirus pandemic hit the world at a time of plentiful harvests and ample food reserves. Yet a cascade of protectionist restrictions, transport disruptions and processing breakdowns has dislocated the global food supply and put the planet’s most vulnerable regions in particular peril.

When Aldenor Basques Félix, an Indigenous leader and teacher, fell ill in Manaus [Brazil] with coronavirus symptoms in late April, he was treated at home — he had no money for the bus ride to the closest hospital. As his condition deteriorated, his friends spent five hours trying to reach an ambulance, but couldn’t get through.

When his impoverished community finally got together the money for a taxi, Mr. Basques Félix, 49, was dead. At the hospital, attendants refused to take the body, saying the morgue was full. His friends had to wait with the corpse in an evangelical church until they could find undertakers to take it away.

“They refused to take his body away, they refused to do the tests,” said Mr. Tikuna said of the hospital workers.

Read it all.

A devastating wave of deaths from the coronavirus has struck cities in Latin America, one that rivals the worst outbreaks in the world, an analysis of mortality data by The New York Times has found https://t.co/1SYKtguPeq

— The New York Times (@nytimes) May 12, 2020

Read it all.

Wow there is so much I am unaware of.

Utah Lowers Penalty for Polygamy, No Longer a Felony https://t.co/O4BhBegyZo

— Savi🌳 (@SavitriGrover) May 14, 2020

Read it all.

MARGARET BRENNAN: And you are looking at mobility through tracking cell phone data. Is this mobility because of loosened restrictions or is it just quarantine fatigue and people are going out and about more than they should?

CHRISTOPHER MURRAY, M.D.: You know, I think it is a bit of both. We’re seeing increases in mobility, even in anticipation of the relaxation of social distancing. But there’s definitely a correlation. The places that are taking off the social distancing mandate, the bump in mobility appears to be larger. So somewhere like Georgia, which was one of the first, we’re seeing, is in that category of– of a pretty big increase. So it’s definitely a mixture of both, we believe.

MARGARET BRENNAN: You know, we spoke just before you with one of the White House economic advisers who said one of the reasons they’re waiting on more emergency financial aid is because they want to see what happens in the states as they pull back restrictions and whether that leads to a new outbreak of the disease, as Kevin Hassett put it. Do you have any indication that that is happening?

CHRISTOPHER MURRAY, M.D.: Well, I think that the big challenge here is that when we model the relationship between mobility and transmission, most of the data that’s informing that is coming from when people reduce their mobility and we saw a reduction in transmission, you know, namely social distancing works. Now that we’re coming out, the big question mark is will people’s own behavior, acting responsibly, wearing a mask, avoiding physical– coming into physical close contact, will that be enough to counteract the effects of rising mobility? And so we really are going to have to wait and see. Our suspicion is that there will be about ten days from now in these places that have had these big increases in mobility, we are expecting to see a jump in cases.

MARGARET BRENNAN: And what– what places? What are the potential hotspots in the next ten days?

CHRISTOPHER MURRAY, M.D.: Well, as I mentioned a moment ago, the big increases in mobility, there’s five states at the top. Some of those have had modest epidemic so far. So they may not be huge numbers. But, you know, the top five in terms of increasing mobility are Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota and Georgia. But there’s another ten states or more where there’s been a ten to fifteen percentage point increase of mobility. So pretty– pretty diverse. So we may see quite a lot of states tipping towards increasing cases in the next two weeks.

Read it all.

NEWS: New #coronavirus models from @IHME_UW show 137,184 deaths projected by the beginning of August, IHME Director Dr. Christopher Murray tells @margbrennan on @facethenation pic.twitter.com/ujPowbdMvV

— Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) May 10, 2020

…our sense of risk in an epidemic is shaped by the question of who we think has the responsibility for handling it. [Anette] Mikes, for example, identifies four overlapping patterns in how different social groups handle risk. Sometimes it is considered the responsibility of individuals to manage risk (under the principle of caveat emptor). On other occasions there is a more egalitarian approach: everyone in a community voluntarily tries to protect everyone else. A third framework uses hierarchical controls: leaders manage risk by issuing orders.

Then there is a fourth option: fatalism, when nobody tries to manage risks at all.

In peaceful times, we do not often define which of these four approaches we rely on to keep us safe; or not unless we work in jobs explicitly focused on measuring or trading risk, such as finance (where the concept of caveat emptor often collides with hierarchical rules). But Covid-19 crystallises this. Some of us may want to handle the dangers of an epidemic in an individualistic way, like those Lansing protesters. Others, such as the governor of Michigan, Gretchen Whitmer, who imposed the lockdown, think that hierarchical controls are needed.

Nearly all of us probably have an egalitarian instinct too: we want to avoid infecting ourselves and each other. But few citizens — let alone politicians — want to stipulate explicitly how anyone should prioritise these approaches. Nor do many want to resort to the fourth option: fatalism.

So where does that leave governments and citizens? In a state of confusing flux, it seems, in most countries….

Read it all (subscription).

Is it safe to go to the shops, see a friend or get on a plane? The excellent ⁦@gilliantett⁩ writes about risk and how we’re wired to think about it. https://t.co/EgusFoHiWT

— ramiroprudencio (@ramiroprudencio) May 9, 2020

I speak to you today at the same hour as my father did, exactly 75 years ago. His message then was a salute to the men and women at home and abroad who had sacrificed so much in pursuit of what he rightly called a “great deliverance”.

The war had been a total war; it had affected everyone, and no one was immune from its impact. Whether it be the men and women called up to serve; families separated from each other; or people asked to take up new roles and skills to support the war effort, all had a part to play. At the start, the outlook seemed bleak, the end distant, the outcome uncertain. But we kept faith that the cause was right – and this belief, as my father noted in his broadcast, carried us through.

Never give up, never despair – that was the message of VE Day. I vividly remember the jubilant scenes my sister and I witnessed with our parents and Winston Churchill from the balcony of Buckingham Palace. The sense of joy in the crowds who gathered outside and across the country was profound, though while we celebrated the victory in Europe, we knew there would be further sacrifice. It was not until August that fighting in the Far East ceased and the war finally ended.

Read it all or better yet watch it:

Read it all.

Even as the monasteries of the Orthodox Church are besieged by the coronavirus, apocalyptic-minded priests balk at state restrictions on public worship https://t.co/RdGvtcP5qd

— The New York Times (@nytimes) May 6, 2020

South Carolina’s public health agency plans to test nearly a quarter million people for COVID-19 over the next two months, partnering with healthcare facilities and a private lab as part of a new, coordinated assault on the pandemic.

As part of that new strategy, the state Department of Health and Environmental Control will quickly test all 40,000 residents and employees of South Carolina’s nearly 200 nursing homes, where the respiratory disease can spread quickly and prey on vulnerable residents. At least 84 nursing home residents and employees have died so far from COVID-19.

The agency also is stepping up plans to hire contact tracers. It is identifying a pool of up to 1,000 people who can be hired and trained to track down where the virus has been and where it might spread next, a crucial piece of the state’s outbreak containment strategy.

Read it all.

South Carolina’s public health agency plans to test some 220,000 more people for COVID-19 over the next two months, including all 40,000 residents and employees of the state’s nearly 200 nursing homes.https://t.co/pdqd9rWONC

— The Post and Courier (@postandcourier) May 6, 2020

By Aug. 4, DHEC projects the state could have over 1,100 deaths from the coronavirus, up from about 360. DHEC’s website no longer notes, as it had, that the projections assume social distancing into June.

“I believe we’re moving in the right direction at exactly the right time,” Gov. Henry McMaster said Tuesday. Statistics from businesses as well as health professionals informed his decision to allow businesses around the state to resume some services, he said.

“We probably had fewer restrictions than any state in the country,” McMaster said. “We have information, facts, statistics from businesses to see what’s happening, we’ve had experience to see what’s happened with other states… we certainly know how to contain it.”

Residents in a trio of Richland County ZIP codes where the coronavirus is most prevalent will have access to nasal swab testing next week, in a partnership between local officials and the Medical University of South Carolina.

“I do think we have the tools and resources necessary to defeat this pandemic, but it takes exactly what we’re doing right now,” state Rep. Ivory Thigpen, D-Columbia, said during a Tuesday press conference at the South Carolina Statehouse.

Read it all.

As of Tuesday evening, South Carolina has documented a total of 6,841 positive tests for the virus, and 296 patients who have died.https://t.co/dZPuCucTcS

— The Post and Courier (@postandcourier) May 5, 2020

Around 60,000 families forced onto Universal Credit by Covid-19 could have essential support restricted by the government’s hated ‘two-child limit’.

Families who have to claim the benefit because of job losses and illness will find they are denied support for more than two children.

Ministers have refused to scrap the policy, even temporarily during the coronavirus crisis….

A new report by the Church of England and Child Poverty Action Group said the virus crisis had exposed the injustice of the policy, which mostly hits working families.

Read it all.

60,000 families forced onto Universal Credit by coronavirus ‘to be hit’ by two child limithttps://t.co/RYQayoOmGK pic.twitter.com/yIytrcTJMd

— Mirror Politics (@MirrorPolitics) May 4, 2020

South Carolina has officially begun loosening restrictions on travel, commerce and recreation implemented during the initial spread of the coronavirus, as the state tries to regain its economic footing ahead of the summertime tourist season.

Monday marked the end of Gov. Henry McMaster’s stay-at-home order, which placed a $100 fine on anyone outside their home for a reason other than work, visiting family, exercising alone or going to an essential business such as a grocery store.

Dine-in restaurants and close-contact businesses such as barbershops and gyms remain closed, along with playgrounds and nightclubs. But restaurants were being allowed to begin serving people in outdoor dining areas Monday, as long as tables were at least 8 feet (2.4 meters) apart, parties were limited to eight people and strict sanitation guidelines were followed.

Read it all.

“We have a lot of people saying we are going too fast. Others say we are going too slow,” Gov. @HenryMcMaster said on Friday. “I think we are doing it just right.”

My story on the gradual reopening of South Carolina. https://t.co/wETIhaXuhQ

— Meg Kinnard (@MegKinnardAP) May 4, 2020

Pulling up short of 75,000 deaths means, in other words, an incredibly abrupt conclusion to the pandemic, with deaths going all the way to zero very soon and staying there permanently. That is not going to happen. For about the last two weeks, the country has been on a roughly flat trajectory of about 2,000 deaths per day. If it stays on that plateau through August 4, it would mean not 12,000 more deaths, but 180,000. And the pandemic wouldn’t simply end on August 4 just because the modeling does.

Of course, we may well not stay on that pace, but decline. How quickly? According to a New York Times survey of five major models, published last week, all of the models project a quite rapid decline — as rapid as the ascent was. As for how quickly that decline would begin, a model based at the University of Texas, which has won praise as an alternative to the IMHE, now says with 100 percent certainty that the country has passed its peak — this despite the fact that just on Wednesday we reached a new peak, and despite the likelihood that no more than 5 percent of the country, at most, has been exposed to the disease.

So, what is happening? Why is it that nearly all efforts to project the future shape of the pandemic seem unable to see more than a week or two into the future? And why, even in that time frame, are they almost unanimous in projecting a precipitous decline that is almost every day contradicted by the number of new deaths?

There are two big explanations. The first is that even under present conditions, in which the spread of infection is being dramatically constrained by shutdowns, the disease is not behaving as we expected.

Read it all.

It’s grimmer than we want to believe. 👇🏻👇🏻👇🏻 https://t.co/ZAtWUkUcrv

— Andrew Sullivan (@sullydish) May 2, 2020

In recent months I’ve come under a surprising amount of fire from the right for my commitment to civil liberties. I can write all day long about the value of the Bill of Rights as the indispensable component of the American social compact, but I’ve got a more selfish reason to preserve free speech and the marketplace of ideas: I might be wrong, and I need access to the truth.

I don’t want to trust the wisdom of my crowd or the assumptions of my own virtue. I’ve long pondered these remarkably honest words from Ta-Nehisi Coates, written almost nine years ago:

This basic extension of empathy is one of the great barriers in understanding race in this country. I do not mean a soft, flattering, hand-holding empathy. I mean a muscular empathy rooted in curiosity. If you really want to understand slaves, slave masters, poor black kids, poor white kids, rich people of colors, whoever, it is essential that you first come to grips with the disturbing facts of your own mediocrity. The first rule is this–You are not extraordinary. It’s all fine and good to declare that you would have freed your slaves. But it’s much more interesting to assume that you wouldn’t have and then ask, “Why?”

This is not an impossible task. But often we find that we have something invested in not asking “Why?” The fact that we — and I mean all of us, black and white — are, in our bones, no better than slave masters is chilling. The upshot of all my black nationalist study was terrifying — give us the guns and boats and we would do the same thing. There is nothing particularly noble about black skin. And to our present business it is equally chilling to understand that the obstacles facing poor black kids can’t be surmounted by an advice column.

Coates’s words apply not only to race, of course. Though Coates is openly atheist, he’s discussing a truth that a Christian should embrace—that we are not noble. We are shot-through with sin. When everyone around us is right, we deserve little credit for conforming. When everyone around us is wrong, we’re also likely to fail.

On this day, 155 years ago, the army of my ancestors folded its flags and stacked its arms. The tidal pull of tribalism carried away the men who gave me their name. Their legacy—and the legacy of every generation that has been caught up in the sweep of history in ways that harm us still today—should cause us all to pause.

When the crowd says yes, consider the option of no. When the crowd says go, discern whether we should stop.

Read it all.

On the incredibly powerful pull of tribe over truth: There’s a Question My Confederate Ancestors Taught Me To Ask by @thedispatch https://t.co/1wdq6IaB3J

— Paul Howard (@pauldhoward) April 27, 2020

I will take comments on this submitted by email only to KSHarmon[at]mindspring[dot]com.

Myrtle Beach, the financial heart of South Carolina’s tourism economy, will allow hotels and short-term rentals to start once again.

An emergency order by the city to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus expires Friday. In a City Council meeting held by teleconference Thursday, elected leaders of the beach town approved a new emergency order that will not stop hotels from renting.

Officials said they felt it would not be legal, given recent orders by Gov. Henry McMaster, to continue to bar rentals.

Read it all.

SC largest tourist destination – Myrtle Beach – is reopening hotels after #coronavirus crackdown https://t.co/UODqgHfA0G

— Andy Shain (@AndyShain) April 30, 2020

Gov. Henry McMaster plans to issue a new state of emergency order on Monday, saying the widespread threat of the coronavirus remains too high for such a restriction to be lifted.

“We’re not out of this yet. We went into this in a smart way with targeted hotspots, so we do not have the burden that some other states have, but we’re still facing a very serious disease and contagion,” McMaster told reporters Sunday in Greenville.

State law only allows the mandate to be in effect for 15 days. The work-or-stay home order will remain in place, but also could be lifted prior to that deadline.

“All of the policies that have been adopted have been to enforce and encourage social distancing,” McMaster said. “If we’re smart, we can come out of it quickly, but we must do so safely.”

Read it all.

SC leaps up to 237 new cases today. We can’t have nice things (like pedicures!) anytime soon if you won’t #stayhomeSC. Please #WearAMask too. Let’s all pull together so we can get back to a #new normal sooner. My toes will thank you. https://t.co/Ckza7um36j

— Marie-Louise Ramsdal (@mlramsdale_law) April 26, 2020

As best the agency’s models can tell, the peak number of daily deaths was likely observed nearly two weeks ago on April 9, when 16 people in South Carolina died from COVID-19.

Peak “hospital resource use” was reported on April 10 when 270 hospital beds were being utilized across the state by coronavirus patients.

The agency anticipates a total of 261 people will die from the disease in the state by early August. To date, DHEC has reported 150 deaths.

The projections can change quickly. Only one week ago, DHEC’s models showed more than 600 South Carolinians would likely die from coronavirus this spring and summer, and that the disease would peak in late April and early May.

The new projections offer hope that social distancing measures observed by millions of people across the state have worked to keep the disease contained.

Read it all.

South Carolina’s health department predicts weekly coronavirus cases will continue to drop in late April and early May.

This suggests the virus’ spread may have turned a corner in S.C. or that the disease curve may be flattening. https://t.co/DqXEEBSclX

— The Post and Courier (@postandcourier) April 24, 2020

After nearly two months of combating the spread of coronavirus, South Carolina has plateaued and should see the number of cases begin to drop off — but only if South Carolinians continue to keep their distance from one another.

That was the message Dr. Linda Bell, South Carolina’s state epidemiologist, gave to a meeting of the Midlands Coronavirus Task Force on Thursday.

“We are at the plateau, but we are not on a downward trend, and we want to see a downward trend,” Bell said. As the state’s economy now begins to reopen, “I cannot emphasize enough that we have to maintain social distancing.”

That’s particularly important in the Midlands, where Richland County has been hit with the largest number of cases in the state, especially in the African-American community. Bell said Richland ranks fifth statewide in the per capita rate of cases, at 174 per 100,000 residents. As of Tuesday, 15 people have died of COVID-19 in Richland County, also the highest in the state.

Read it all.

Keep your distance as SC begins to reopen, or COVID-19 cases could grow. https://t.co/lZbTs1v7OE

— The State Newspaper (@thestate) April 23, 2020

Charleston’s peninsula could become a walled city again for the first time in centuries if the results of a flooding protection study released Monday come to full fruition.

The preliminary plan — the results of 18 months of work by the Army Corps of Engineers — is the preferred path forward of seven different options the Corps considered. It would encircle much of the peninsula with a wall running almost 8 miles to keep out hurricane surge.

Gates would let water run into the marshes and two rivers that bound Charleston.

Five new pump stations would aim to avoid a “bathtub effect” and move rainfall out of the perimeter. A breakwater slightly offshore of the peninsula’s southern tip would be designed to slow down damaging waves.

That, and efforts to flood-proof a few structures outside the barrier, come to an unprecedented total for a flooding project in Charleston: $1.75 billion.

Read it all.

Charleston’s peninsula could be walled in under new $1.75B flood prevention plan https://t.co/IBFOLxVqaq pic.twitter.com/QMhrQk8XZF

— CoastalNews365 (@CoastalNews365) April 22, 2020

State health officials have identified 160 new coronavirus cases in South Carolina, bringing the statewide total to 4,761.

S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control officials also announced Tuesday that five additional people have died after contacting COVID-19. In all, 140 South Carolinians have died from the virus.

Three of the patients who died were elderly, and were from Berkeley, Clarendon and Richland counties. The two others — who were from Greenville and Spartanburg counties — were middle-aged.

Richland County saw the largest increase in coronavirus cases with 34. Lexington County posted five new cases.

Read it all.

Coronavirus spreads to 160 more in South Carolina. Five more dead https://t.co/DE9kypqSpW

— George Harper (@GeorgeH36498765) April 22, 2020

Though its locations have been closed, Goodwill has still been receiving donated goods. Limited staff have been sanitizing donations. Fink said when doors open, the retail stores should be fully stocked. Customers will notice some changes, like limits on how many people can be inside at once and directional signage.

“We want to make sure we’re protecting our community,” Fink said.

And given Goodwill’s purpose helping people get back to work, its services are more important than ever during coronavirus. Revenue from the retail stores funds the career centers.

Half-Moon Outfitters, which operates stores in Charleston, Greenville, Columbia, Mount Pleasant and North Charleston, said its stores were open Tuesday only for curbside service.

Katherine Smith, the company’s marketing director, said the sporting goods retailer was not ready to open its doors to customers just yet. The staff, she said, was busy restocking the stores and ensuring they had the right safety measures in place for when business does resume.

Half-Moon locations will have hand sanitizer available at the entrances to the stores and the employees will police how many customers are in the stores at one time.

Read it all.

Many SC retailers start to reopen after Gov. McMaster relaxes #coronavirus closures, but they wonder if customers will return https://t.co/D2qsDfikW5

— Andy Shain (@AndyShain) April 21, 2020

South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster on Monday reversed restrictions on some businesses he ordered roughly two weeks ago allowing some retail shopping to reopen as state public health officials continue to fight the novel virus that has so far claimed more than 100 lives in the state.

Under the governor’s new order, department stores can reopen, along with other retail businesses deemed “nonessential” such as sporting goods stores, book, music, shoe and craft stores, jewelry stores, floral shops and other luggage and leather goods stores.

Stores, however, still must abide by previous mandates that limit occupancy to five customers per 1,000 square feet, or 20% of posted occupancy limits.

Read it all.

SC Gov. McMaster allows some stores to reopen 2 weeks after closing due to COVID-19 https://t.co/BbhNQRslWJ #readlocal #sctweets #coronavirus

— Joseph Bustos (@JoeBReporter) April 20, 2020

In 2006 and 2007, DHEC told lawmakers that lower federal funding was “causing instability in the department’s preparedness efforts.”

In 2008, it cautioned that “sustenance of state emergency preparedness, for pandemics and other disasters, is becoming a critical issue.”

That year and again in 2009, it reported that it had cut staff because the state hadn’t stepped in to fill federal cuts. Funding shortages had “jeopardized preparedness efforts,” it said.

Seven years in a row, it asked the Legislature for money to keep preparing. That money did not come. Year after year, the agency reminded lawmakers that its emergency planning depended on federal money alone.

Without new funding, “the ability to respond to a large-scale infectious disease event would be severely limited,” DHEC wrote in 2012.

But by then, it was facing an even bigger challenge: The money it got from the state for public health work was dwindling, too.

Read it all.

South Carolina’s public health system has become one of the most depleted in the nation, hampering the state’s capacity to manage the coronavirus outbreak and recovery.https://t.co/cdR9Fz9nXK

— The Post and Courier (@postandcourier) April 19, 2020

Europe’s atomized efforts are a test of how the U.S. will fare as states such as New York and California attempt to follow. President Trump’s administration has encouraged states to reopen in phases after cases begin to fall. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the governors of six nearby states have convened a task force to look at how they will reopen their economies.

Experiences in Europe suggest the reopenings will come in fits and starts, in a strange, postlockdown reality where commercial districts are at best half-open, closed to tour groups and crowds, and bracketed with temperature control checks.

“It’s a hard mental shift,” said Weston Stacey, the executive director of the American Chamber of Commerce in the Czech Republic. “With U.S. government officials we’ve talked to, it’s very hard to get them around this thinking of, ‘OK, if we do this, in three weeks, everything will go back to normal.’ Things are not going back to normal.”

Lockdown restrictions helped reduce coronavirus cases and many Italian intensive-care units now have free beds. But the toll on shops, restaurants, bars and entertainment businesses has been extraordinary.

At least a sixth of all Italian restaurant and bars—some 50,000 mostly small businesses—will perish, the country’s bar and diner lobby Fipe projects. Movie theaters have seen almost no revenue in weeks, and anticipate prohibitive crowd restrictions when they reopen: Germany’s top 10 grossing films combined reported just $1,485 in total ticket sales over Easter weekend.

Read it all.

The open­ings are piece­meal and pro­vi­sional, bring­ing no swift or sub­stan­tial re­lief to a crush­ing re­ces­sion pro­jected to be Eu­rope’s worst since the Great De­pres­sion. https://t.co/xTn78KiZuu

— Jennifer Smith (@jensmithWSJ) April 19, 2020

This is important. There’s no U.S. data yet on what the right side of the curve will look like, but the best available evidence from other countries suggests that the descent will be slow. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has said “the worst is over” and “we’ve reached the peak.” He should have followed with “now comes the long wait.”

This shouldn’t be surprising. All our efforts to stay inside and separated –- except for essential activities such as shopping, and except for those who must work –- serve only to slow the spread, not stop it. If you’re hoping for the somewhat symmetrical China curve, forget it. We’re not quarantining people at gunpoint. It’s like someone took the worst-case-scenario curve and pushed it forward in time, without making the area under the curve smaller.

Here’s an analogy. Imagine a plow spreading out a big pile of snow in the street. If it keeps the blade higher, the pile will be taller and won’t spread out very far. If it lowers the blade to a few inches off the ground, the snow will be more manageable but also spread out much farther. The better it does the job – the thinner it spreads the snow — the longer it will take.

If people stick with measures to contain the virus, death rates will eventually trickle down to zero, but only after a lot more people have been infected, assuming they are then immune. If we’re lucky, we’ll slow things down enough to never truly overwhelm the hospitals, and if we’re really lucky we’ll slow things down long enough to benefit from a vaccine or a treatment.

Read it all.

This Isn’t the Flattened Curve We Were Promised

“It’s like someone took the worst-case-scenario curve and pushed it forward in time, without making the area under the curve smaller.”https://t.co/8ls11iV2i5

— Jack Posobiec, IWO (@JackPosobiec) April 17, 2020

The Covid-19 pandemic has presented unprecedented challenges to faith communities across the U.S. Americans searching for meaning in the sanctuaries of churches, temples and mosques find their doors closed amid government lockdowns. Such closures threaten the financial viability of some houses of worship. The public now must consider what society owes religious organizations during this time of crisis.

1. How do issues with testing impact governors’ ability to meet the benchmarks laid out in the guidelines?

Testing remains one of the biggest problems with containing the coronavirus and allowing places to move toward recovery. Despite Trump’s boasts, testing is still not widespread in the U.S. Not everyone who wants a test can get one. Only people with symptoms are getting them — and not all of them are — and asymptomatic people are able to spread the disease. That means no one really knows just how widespread the virus is. And without a vaccine or known treatment, there’s the risk of more outbreaks….

Read it all.

Coronavirus Latest: Despite Trump’s Optimism, There’s Still A Long Road To Reopening https://t.co/nXzLU7fbqj

— NPR Health News (@NPRHealth) April 17, 2020

Sadly, Christians seem to be disproportionately fooled by conspiracy theories. I’ve also said before that when Christians spread lies, they need to repent of those lies. Sharing fake news makes us look foolish and harms our witness.

We saw this in the last election when some of the troll factories focused on conservative, evangelical Christians. Here we go again.

What now?

First, we need to speak up— particularly to those fooled yet again— and lovingly say, “You need to go to trusted sources.” Social media news feeds are not a trusted source. That’s why we created coronavirusandthechurch.com, to provide credible information for pastors. But, there are plenty of credible news sources— generally from outlets that do not have a track record of conspiracy peddling.

Second, God has not called us to be easily fooled. Gullibility is not a Christian virtue. Believing and sharing conspiracies does not honor the Lord. It may make you feel better, like you are in the know, but it can end up harming others and it can hurt your witness.

Read it all.

I’ve said before that when Christians spread lies, they need to repent of those lies. Sharing fake news makes us look stupid and harms our witness. Now we are seeing it again with Christians spreading coronavirus conspiracies. https://t.co/R7UyKNCfAf

— Ed Stetzer (@edstetzer) April 15, 2020

The upshot is that no government on earth has figured out just the right way to balance the reopening of their economy with reducing the spread.

The debate about how long to continue the current measures, and when to “reopen” the economy operate on the assumption that there is some sort of happy medium that allows more Americans to get back to work, while minimizing the risk of a faster spread that overwhelms ICU beds and hospitals. U.S. policymakers may soon have to confront the really dire scenario, that there is no happy medium — that changes designed to increase economic activity (and human interaction) will inevitably increase the number of cases in a bad way, and that there is no way to keep the pace of the spread slow really economically destructive quarantine measures.

There is this probably particularly American mentality that if we just study a problem long enough, and are somehow smart enough, we will inevitably discover some option that creates a win-win scenario that avoids both the terrible health consequences (more infections and more deaths) or the terrible economic consequences (a depression that forces all kinds of businesses large and small into bankruptcy). The coronavirus may be presenting the countries of the world with a no-win situation.

Read it all.

U.S. policymakers may soon have to confront the really dire scenario, that there is no happy medium – moves to help the economy will inevitably increase infections, and effective mitigation inevitably hurts the economy badly.
https://t.co/IE0N5Kk0ZF

— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) April 14, 2020