Here’s what you need to know:
- Universities sue over the Trump administration’s plan to require in-person classes for foreign students.
- ‘Testing alone is almost never the answer’: One state’s struggle to contain the pandemic.
- Brooks Brothers, founded in 1818, files for bankruptcy.
- The Trump administration presses officials to reopen schools this fall.
- Virus-tracking apps are rife with security and privacy risks. Now some governments are backtracking.
- After eagerly reopening, some churches have become a major source of coronavirus cases.
- Travel restrictions on Americans erode their passport privilege.
Universities sue over the Trump administration’s plan to require in-person classes for foreign students.
Harvard and M.I.T. said on Wednesday that they had filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration over a directive that would strip foreign students of their visas if their coursework was entirely online.
The White House measure, announced Monday, was seen as an effort to pressure universities into reopening their gates and abandoning the cautious approaches that many have announced they would adopt to reduce transmission of the coronavirus.
“The order came down without notice — its cruelty surpassed only by its recklessness,” Harvard’s president, Lawrence S. Bacow, said in a message to the university community.
“It appears that it was designed purposefully to place pressure on colleges and universities to open their on-campus classrooms for in-person instruction this fall, without regard to concerns for the health and safety of students, instructors, and others.”
The directive’s effect may be to dramatically reduce the number of international students enrolling in the fall. Together with delays in processing visas as a result of the pandemic, immigrant advocates say the new rules, which must still be finalized this month, might discourage many overseas students from attending American universities, where they often pay full tuition.
But the concern that their campuses could become coronavirus clusters has prompted many universities to adopt measures to reduce exposure, from requiring masks in classrooms to limiting social activities to reducing the number of students invited back to campus. Many have announced a hybrid approach that would provide some in-person classes but offer a significant amount of coursework virtually.
Such changes could put foreign students’ visas, known as F-1 visas, at risk under the new rules. International students whose universities are not planning in-person classes — which is currently the case at schools including Harvard and the University of Southern California — would be required to return to their home countries if they are already in the United States. Those overseas would not be granted permission to enter the country to take online coursework here.
Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II, the acting deputy secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, said in an interview on CNN that the administration was providing more flexibility for international students than in the past, when they could only take one online course to qualify for visas. Now they can take more, as long as at least some of their instruction is in person.
“If they’re not going to be a student or they’re going to be 100 percent online, then they don’t have a basis to be here,” Mr. Cuccinelli said, adding, “They should go home, and then they can return when the school opens.”
‘Testing alone is almost never the answer’: One state’s struggle to contain the pandemic.
As in much of the South and West, Tennessee is awash in confirmed cases, and testing has proved no match for the coronavirus once it overwhelms local governments’ abilities to trace an infected person’s contacts and forces those who were exposed to self-quarantine.
Tennessee is far from the only state to discover that despite President Trump’s hype — he boasted on Monday on Twitter: “our great testing program continues to lead the World, by FAR!” — coronavirus testing is not a miracle path to a safe reopening.
In a state where 132 of every 1,000 people have been tested, daily confirmed infections nearly quadrupled between early June and early July, though they have dropped somewhat in recent days. The positivity rate shot up to nearly 8 percent from 5 percent. Last week, the mayor of Nashville, Tennessee’s largest city, rolled back its reopening.
There are some obvious explanations for Tennessee’s travails, writes Washington correspondent Sheryl Gay Stolberg. The state was among the first to reopen its economy, and many people abandoned social distancing and masks. A country music star, Chase Rice, performed in late June in front of 1,000 people — most not wearing masks — at an outdoor venue in eastern Tennessee and was eventually shamed into delivering what critics called a non-apology.
Young people jammed into Nashville’s famed honky-tonks and bars, and Dr. Alex Jahangir, the chairman of Nashville’s Board of Health and the leader of the city’s coronavirus task force, said the biggest growth in cases in the city had been among people aged 25 to 34. In a city whose economy thrives on music and drinking, tensions have erupted between businesspeople and public health officials.
Experts acknowledge that testing is not a panacea. Adm. Brett P. Giroir, the assistant secretary of health, sounded a note of caution on Tuesday, warning that testing without other public health interventions would be of little use.
“We cannot test our way out of this,” he told reporters, adding, “Testing alone is almost never the answer.”
Brooks Brothers, founded in 1818, files for bankruptcy.
Brooks Brothers, the clothier that traces its roots to 1818, filed for bankruptcy on Wednesday, as the brand buckled under the pressure from the coronavirus pandemic following years of declining sales as customers embraced more casual apparel and sales shifted online.
The company, founded and based in New York, filed for Chapter 11 restructuring proceedings in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware. Claudio del Vecchio, the Italian industrialist who bought the brand in 2001, told The New York Times in a May interview that he would not rule out Chapter 11 as a possibility for the company.
Brooks Brothers, the oldest apparel brand in continuous operation in the United States, which has dressed all but four U.S. presidents, said earlier this year that it planned to close its three U.S. factories.
The company is the latest retailer to file for bankruptcy since the pandemic forced widespread store closures and pushed the economy into a deep recession, among them the department store chains Neiman Marcus and J.C. Penney, as well as clothier J. Crew.
The Trump administration presses officials to reopen schools this fall.
As the total number of coronavirus cases in the United States topped three million on Tuesday, threatening to overwhelm health care systems in some regions, President Trump and other senior administration officials kicked off a concerted campaign to assure the public that schools across the country would physically reopen in the fall.
The push to return to classrooms, rather than limiting instruction to online sessions, is vital to the administration’s efforts to reinstate a sense of normalcy even as the virus has surged during the country’s halting attempts to emerge from lockdowns. Mr. Trump has been pressing more businesses to reopen, but it will be difficult for many parents to work if schools do not reopen and the families have no other access to child care.
The campaign involved a daylong series of conference calls and public events at the White House.
The president and his allies argued that the costs of keeping children at home any longer would be worse than the virus itself.
“We hope that most schools are going to be open, and we don’t want people to make political statements or do it for political reasons,” Mr. Trump said. “They think it’s going to be good for them politically, so they keep the schools closed. No way. We are very much going to put pressure on governors and everybody else to open the schools to get them open.”
Beyond generalities, neither Mr. Trump nor his team offered concrete proposals for reopening schools.
The president brushed off the risks of spiking infection numbers even as cases have risen in 37 states over the past two weeks, according to a New York Times database. This week the nation has been averaging roughly 50,000 new cases a day — double what it did in mid-June. Half a million new cases have been reported since June 26, driving the total number over three million — the most of any country in the world.
Virus-tracking apps are rife with security and privacy risks. Now some governments are backtracking.
Many countries rushed out apps to trace and monitor the coronavirus this spring, only to have to scramble to address serious complaints about privacy and security threats. Now, some countries have been forced to turn off their apps.
Human rights groups and technologists warned that the design of many apps would put hundreds of millions of people at risk for stalking, fraud, identity theft or oppressive government tracking.
The apps might also undermine trust in public health efforts, they warned.
The problems have emerged as some countries are poised to deploy even more intrusive technologies, including asking hundreds of thousands of workers to wear virus-tracking wristbands.
A recent software analysis by Guardsquare, a mobile app security company, found that “the vast majority” of virus-tracing apps used by governments lack adequate security and “are easy for hackers” to attack.
“App makers unfortunately do not seem to be taking the risks seriously enough yet,” the Guardsquare report said.
In mid-June, after a barrage of criticism from privacy advocates, Britain abandoned the virus-tracing app it was developing. This week, Norway’s data watchdog formally imposed an interim ban on the country’s app.
In April, The New York Times found that a government virus-tracing app in India could leak users’ precise locations. The Indian government immediately fixed the problem and soon began offering financial rewards to security researchers who find vulnerabilities in the app.
Listen to ‘The Daily’: Counting the Infected
How The Times got access to a federal database of 1.5 million coronavirus cases — and what it revealed.After eagerly reopening, some churches have become a major source of coronavirus cases.
In May, President Trump declared places of worship part of an “essential service” and threatened, though it was uncertain he had the power to do so, to override any governor’s orders keeping them closed. Now new outbreaks of the coronavirus are raging through churches where services have resumed.
More than 650 coronavirus cases have been linked to nearly 40 churches and religious events across the United States since the beginning of the pandemic, with many of them erupting over the past month as Americans resumed their pre-pandemic activities.
The virus has struck churches that reopened cautiously with face masks and social distancing in the pews, as well as some that defied lockdowns and refused to heed new limits on numbers of worshipers.
In Texas, about 50 people contracted the virus after a pastor told congregants they could once again hug one another. In Florida, a teenage girl died last month after attending a party at her church.
Though thousands of churches, synagogues and mosques across the country have been meeting virtually or outside, the right to hold services within houses of worship has become a political battleground.
But as the virus rages through Texas, Arizona and other evangelical bastions of the South and the West, some churches that fought to reopen are closing again and grappling with whether it is even possible to worship together safely.
“Our churches have followed protocols — masks, go in one door and out the other, social distancing,” said Cynthia Fierro Harvey, a bishop with the United Methodist Church in Louisiana, where three churches closed again over the past week. “And still people have tested positive.”
Travel restrictions on Americans erode their passport privilege.
Five American travelers who set out for an island getaway in Sardinia were turned away last week after their private jet landed on the Mediterranean island. In Canada, two Americans were fined for flouting the border ban with their northern neighbor. And in Mexico, governors are pleading with the central government to introduce tighter restrictions on travelers from the United States to prevent an influx of potentially disease-carrying visitors.
While virus travel restrictions may vary from country to country, much of the world is united in one aspect of their current response: Travelers from America are not welcome.
An American passport was long seen as a golden ticket to travel visa-free in much of the world, save for a few notable exceptions. Now that former symbol of power and exceptionalism is becoming stigmatized as the United States continues to break records of new cases.
While restrictions have been centered on travelers coming from U.S., rather than on all American citizens, the cachet of the American passport has nevertheless been dented. Last week, the American passport suffered a stinging blow when the European Union formalized a plan to restart travel from certain countries, and visitors from America were conspicuously absent from the list.
The U.S. passport had long provided its holders with an outsize sense of freedom that was the envy of others. The restrictions that Americans now face are “something that much of the rest of the world knows very well,” said Dimitry Kochenov, a co-creator of The Quality of Nationality Index, which explores the benefits accorded to citizens of different countries.
Global roundup
Sweden took its own path. Now it is paying the price.
What would happen in a pandemic if a government allowed life to carry on largely unhindered?
As the world looked on, Sweden conducted what amounted to an unorthodox, open-air experiment testing just that proposition.
Now the results are in.
Not only have thousands more people died in Sweden than in neighboring countries that imposed lockdowns, but its economy has fared little better.
“They literally gained nothing,” said Jacob F. Kirkegaard, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington. “It’s a self-inflicted wound, and they have no economic gains.”
The results of Sweden’s experience are relevant well beyond Europe.
In the United States, where the virus is spreading with alarming speed, many states have — at President Trump’s urging — avoided lockdowns or lifted them early. In Britain, Prime Minister Boris Johnson reopened pubs and restaurants last weekend.
Implicit in these approaches is the assumption that governments must balance saving lives against protecting the economy.
But Sweden’s grim result — more death, and nearly equal economic damage — suggests that the supposed choice between lives and paychecks is a false one: A failure to impose social distancing can cost lives and jobs at the same time.
Sweden put stock in the sensibility of its people as it largely avoided imposing government prohibitions, allowing restaurants, gyms, shops, playgrounds and most schools to stay open.
More than three months later, the virus has been blamed for 5,420 deaths there. Per million people, Sweden has suffered 40 percent more deaths than the United States, 12 times more than Norway, seven times more than Finland and six times more than Denmark.
In other news around the world:
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China on Wednesday joined those criticizing the Trump administration’s decision to withdraw the United States from the World Health Organization. Zhao Lijian, a spokesman for China’s foreign ministry, said: “This practice of the United States undermines international anti-epidemic efforts, and in particular has grave implications for developing countries in urgent need of international support.”
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Hong Kong has entered what one health official described as “a third wave” of coronavirus infections, a setback for a city where the Covid-19 death toll remains in the single digits. The health authorities reported 38 new cases on Tuesday and Wednesday, after months in which few or no new daily infections were detected. Most traceable clusters are linked to a nursing home and two restaurants.
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Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz decided to quarantine after being exposed to a relative who later tested positive for Covid-19, his office said Wednesday. Mr. Gantz will continue to perform his duties from home.
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Protesters in Serbia denounced a curfew that President Aleksandar Vucic said would “probably” go into effect over the weekend. Serbia reported its highest daily death toll on Tuesday, with 13 people dying overnight, and 299 new cases. The total case count for the country is about 16,000
Disney World draws excitement and incredulity as its reopening nears.
Walt Disney World in Orlando, Fla., will welcome back visitors on Saturday even as coronavirus cases in Florida remain high. In doing so Disney is stepping into a politicized debate surrounding the virus and efforts to keep people safe, where even the wearing of masks has become a point of contention.
The Florida Department of Health reported 7,347 new Covid-19 infections on Tuesday, with 1,179 in the central part of the state, which includes Orlando. Those numbers are among the highest in the United States.
Visiting Disney World will be different: Parades, fireworks and most indoor shows have been suspended. There will be no opportunities to hug any costumed characters. Fingerprint scanners will not be used at park entrances.
“Covid is here,” Josh D’Amaro, Disney’s theme park chairman, said. “We have a responsibility to figure out the best approach to safely operate in this new normal.”
The company has been posting marketing videos to highlight the safety procedures it has designed to protect visitors and employees.
“I feel safe because Disney has gone above and beyond what they needed to do,” an employee named Sam says in one of them while standing near Fantasyland.
Some of the 1,000-plus responses to that particular video were supportive. Others were incredulous: “You gotta be kidding,” wrote Alexander Jones, a Seattle motion graphics artist.
A man faces charges in New Zealand after a ‘Covid-19 escape’ from quarantine.
Even New Zealand’s response to the coronavirus — lauded as one of world’s most effective — has holes. And sometimes those holes are literal.
A man who tested positive for the coronavirus on Wednesday will face criminal charges in New Zealand’s largest city after he sneaked out of a hotel quarantine site through a gap in fencing during a smoke break, the public broadcaster RNZ reported.
He ventured out into central Auckland on Tuesday night for a little over an hour and visited a supermarket. RNZ called the escapade a “Covid-19 escape.”
After reviewing security footage, the authorities said that the risk to the public from the man’s temporary escape was low. But they said they were looking at measures like identification bands to strengthen quarantine protocols and prevent further breaches.
The man, who had returned to New Zealand from India, could face up to six months in prison or a $2,600 fine. The supermarket that he visited was closed for cleaning.
New Zealand, which had recorded 1,537 coronavirus cases and 22 deaths, has essentially returned to normal life after emerging from a strict lockdown last month.
Megan Woods, the minister in charge of the country’s isolation and quarantine measures, told RNZ on Wednesday that no one in quarantine had tried to “climb fences or slip through gaps” during early days of the lockdown — and that the recent escape underscored how attitudes toward the rules had shifted.
“Things have changed, even in the last week and a half, in terms of the range of incidents we are seeing, in terms of noncompliance,” Dr. Woods said. She added that the smoking policy for state-managed isolation and quarantine sites was being reviewed.
Britain still lags behind in mask use, expert says.
England and Scotland made mask wearing mandatory on public transportation last month, but the British government has so far resisted calls to make masks mandatory in public settings like shops, pubs or restaurants.
A leading scientist, Venki Ramakrishnan, president of the Royal Society, said Tuesday that the country was behind “in terms of wearing masks and clear policies and guidelines about mask wearing for the public” and that the public remains skeptical about masks.
“There are no silver bullets but alongside hand washing and physical distancing, we also need everyone to start wearing face coverings, particularly indoors in enclosed public spaces where physical distancing is often not possible,” he added in a statement.
The World Health Organization has said that the use of masks is one of the measures that can limit the spread of respiratory diseases, including the coronavirus, while the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has also recommended the use of face coverings in public.
When the pandemic started, Britain urged the public to save masks for the front-line workers who needed them most, while government officials argued that there was little evidence that masks could prevent transmission while worn by the general public.
But earlier this month, Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, said on Twitter that “face coverings should be compulsory in all public and enclosed spaces” to reduce the spread of the virus, a point he reiterated on Wednesday.
Reporting was contributed by Sheryl Gay Stolberg, Peter Baker, Brooks Barnes, Kate Conger, Michael Cooper, Peter S. Goodman, Erica L. Green, Anemona Hartocollis, Jack Healy, Mike Ives, Sapna Maheshwari, Iliana Magra, Tiffany May, Claire Moses, Andy Parsons, Adam Rasgon, Natasha Singer, Mitch Smith, Megan Specia and Lucy Tompkins.
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