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U(D54G1D)y+=!;!@!$!" JUAN ARREDONDO FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES At City Fresh Market in Brooklyn, workers have fought to keep shelves stocked while trying to keep themselves healthy. Page A14. Groceries and Grit In New York City, the daily on- slaught of death from the coro- navirus has dropped to half of what it was. In Chicago, a make- shift hospital in a lakefront con- vention center is closing, deemed no longer needed. And in New Or- leans, new cases have dwindled to a handful each day. Yet across America, the signs of progress obscure a darker reality. The country is still in the firm grip of a pandemic with little hope of release. For every indication of improvement in controlling the vi- rus, new outbreaks have emerged elsewhere, leaving the nation stuck in a steady, unrelenting march of deaths and infections. As states continue to lift restric- tions meant to stop the virus, im- patient Americans are freely re- turning to shopping, lingering in restaurants and gathering in parks. Regular new flare-ups and super-spreader events are ex- pected to be close behind. Any notion that the coronavirus threat is fading away appears to be magical thinking, at odds with what the latest numbers show. Coronavirus in America now looks like this: More than a month has passed since there was a day with fewer than 1,000 deaths from the virus. Almost every day, at least 25,000 new cases are identi- fied, meaning that the total in the United States — which has the highest number of known cases in the world with more than a million — is expanding by between 2 and 4 percent daily. Rural towns that one month ago were unscathed are suddenly hot spots for the virus. It is rampaging through nursing homes, meat- packing plants and prisons, killing the medically vulnerable and the poor, and new outbreaks keep emerging in grocery stores, Wal- marts or factories, an ominous harbinger of what a full reopening of the economy will bring. While dozens of rural counties have no known coronavirus cases, a panoramic view of the country reveals a distressing picture. “If you include New York, it looks like a plateau moving down,” said Andrew Noymer, an associ- ate professor of public health at the University of California, Irvine. “If you exclude New York, it’s a plateau slowly moving up.” In early April, more than 5,000 cases were being added in New York City each day. Those num- bers have dropped significantly over the last few weeks, but that progress has been largely offset by increases in other major cities. Consider Chicago and Los An- geles, which have flattened their curves and avoided the explosive growth of New York City. Even so, coronavirus cases in their coun- HOT ZONES SHIFT, SHOWING THREAT IS FAR FROM OVER With Declines Here and Increases There, a Virus Tightens Its Deadly Grip This article is by Julie Bosman, Mitch Smith and Amy Harmon. Continued on Page A12 TAOYUAN, Taiwan — On a balmy Saturday night at one of Taiwan’s largest baseball stadi- ums, the floodlights flickered to life and the players took their positions. Cheerleaders began their rah-rah routines. Organ music blared through the speakers. But as the first batter stepped up to the plate and the pitcher took a deep breath, the only fans at the 20,000-seat stadium in the northern city of Taoyuan were cardboard cutouts and plastic mannequins. Some wore hot-pink wigs and surgical masks. Others held signs with this cheery message: “We will always be with you!” A five-member band of robots played drums from the stands — a substitute for the usual cacoph- ony of live music. “Welcome to the one and only live sports game on the surface of the planet,” an announcer said. With sports events canceled across much of the world be- cause of the coronavirus pan- demic, Taiwan, which has so far kept the outbreak under control, No Fans. No Food. No High-Fives. Play Ball! By JAVIER C. HERNÁNDEZ TAIWAN DISPATCH Paper cutouts and mannequins dotted the stands Saturday at a baseball game in Taoyuan, Taiwan. ASHLEY PON FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES Continued on Page A20 This spring, as the United States faced a critical shortage of masks, gloves and other protec- tive equipment to battle the coro- navirus pandemic, a South Car- olina physician reached out to the Federal Emergency Management Agency with an offer of help. Dr. Jeffrey Hendricks had long- time manufacturing contacts in China and a line on millions of masks from established suppliers. Instead of encountering seasoned FEMA procurement officials, his information was diverted to a team of roughly a dozen young volunteers, recruited by the presi- dent’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and overseen by a former assist- ant to Mr. Kushner’s wife, Ivanka Trump. The volunteers, foot soldiers in the Trump administration’s new supply-chain task force, had little to no experience with government procurement procedures or medi- cal equipment. But as part of Mr. Kushner’s governmentwide push to secure protective gear for the nation’s doctors and nurses, the volunteers were put in charge of sifting through more than a thou- sand incoming leads, and told to pass only the best ones on for fur- ther review by FEMA officials. As the federal government’s warehouses were running bare and medical workers improvised their own safety gear, Dr. Hen- dricks found his offer stalled. Many of the volunteers were told to prioritize tips from political al- lies and associates of President Trump, tracked on a spreadsheet called “V.I.P. Update,” according to documents and emails obtained by The New York Times. Among them were leads from Republican members of Congress, the Trump youth activist Charlie Kirk and a former “Apprentice” contestant who serves as the campaign chair of Women for Trump. Trump allies also pressed FEMA officials directly: A Penn- sylvania dentist, once featured at a Trump rally, dropped the presi- FEMA Supply Effort Tangled by Kushner Team This article is by Nicholas Confes- sore, Andrew Jacobs, Jodi Kantor, Zolan Kanno-Youngs and Luis Ferré-Sadurní. Response to Outbreak ‘Grossly Inadequate,’ Complaint Says Continued on Page A18 One child, 8 years old, arrived at a Long Island hospital near death last week. His brother, a boy scout, had begun performing chest com- pressions before the ambulance crew reached their home. In the past two days alone, the hospital, Cohen Children’s Medi- cal Center, has admitted five criti- cally ill patients — ages 4 to 12 — with an unusual sickness that ap- pears to be somehow linked to Covid-19, the disease caused by coronavirus. In total, about 25 similarly ill children have been ad- mitted there in recent weeks with symptoms ranging from red- dened tongues to enlarged coro- nary arteries. Since the coronavirus pan- demic began, most infected chil- dren have not developed serious respiratory failure of the kind that has afflicted adults. But in recent weeks, a mysterious new syn- drome has cropped up among chil- dren in Long Island, New York City and other hot spots around the country, in an indication that the risk to children may be greater than anticipated. The number of children in the United States showing signs of this new syndrome — which first was detected in Europe last month — is still small. None is known to have died, and many have responded well to treatment. No solid data yet exists about how many children in the United States have fallen ill with what doctors are calling pediatric mul- tisystem inflammatory syn- drome. “This is really only a disease that has been clear for two weeks now, so there is so much we’re try- ing to learn about this,” the chief of pediatric critical care at Cohen Children’s, Dr. James Schneider, said in an interview on Tuesday. Doctors say this condition does not seem to be driven by the virus attacking the lungs, a hallmark of coronavirus infection in adults. While some of the children with this condition do end up with res- piratory problems and a few have needed to be on ventilators, “it seems to be less a lung-specific disease,” said Dr. Steven Kernie, chief of pediatric critical care medicine at Columbia University and NewYork-Presbyterian Mor- gan Stanley Children’s Hospital, which has treated between 10 and Mystery Illness Linked to Virus Sickens Young By JOSEPH GOLDSTEIN and PAM BELLUCK Continued on Page A17 Long before giant hornets hit U.S. shores, some Japanese prized them for their venomous kick in liquor. PAGE A19 INTERNATIONAL A19-20 Bee Terminator, Human Treat Elected as a transformative leader for El Salvador, Nayib Bukele is turning to all-too-familiar despotic ways. PAGE A19 A Millennial Autocrat? Doctors believe that a patient from Dec. 27 had the coronavirus. If con- firmed, the case would be Europe’s first known instance of infection. PAGE A8 Signs of Early Case in France The old Wendy’s catchphrase is hitting close to home, as many franchise loca- tions deal with meat shortages. PAGE B1 BUSINESS B1-7 Where’s the Beef? No, Really California accused Uber and Lyft of defying a new law that says they should treat drivers as employees. PAGE B1 Suit Over Gig Workers Steve Simon, the chief executive of the WTA, echoed the leader of the ATP, Andrea Gaudenzi, in welcoming an effort to bring the top men’s and wom- en’s pro tennis tours together. PAGE B9 SPORTSWEDNESDAY B8-9 The Feeling Is Mutual Arts groups facing a cash crunch be- cause of the shutdown are fighting with insurers who say their policies don’t cover virus-related damages. PAGE C1 ARTS C1-7 Covering Cultural Losses Josh Hawley PAGE A27 EDITORIAL, OP-ED A26-27 People who usually go to restaurants for seafood are learning to cook it at home during the shutdown, Pete Wells reports. Above, a red snapper. PAGE D1 FOOD D1-8 Moving Beyond Fish Sticks WASHINGTON — In March, af- ter Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh took time off from his Supreme Court duties to swear in Justin Walker to the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Ken- tucky in Louisville, the newly minted judge recognized how he had gotten there at the age of 37, with zero trial experience but a pedigree in conservatism. His mother had supported a ris- ing Republican star named Mitch McConnell when her son was just 8, Judge Walker recalled: “I’ve got to hand it to you, Mom. It has been extremely important to me that Kentucky’s senior senator is Mitch McConnell.” Then he turned to Justice Kava- naugh as he addressed the jus- tice’s liberal opponents: “What can I say that I haven’t already said on Fox News?” said Judge Walker, who gave 119 interviews to the news media and several speeches paid for by the Federal- ist Society rebutting Kavanaugh critics. “In Brett Kavanaugh’s America,” he said, “we will not surrender while you wage war on our work, or our cause, or our hope, or our dream.” He closed with a broadside against the American Bar Associ- ation, which had given him a rare “Not Qualified” rating for his ab- sence of courtroom work, catego- Fast Rise for McConnell Protégé To Cusp of a Powerful Judgeship By ELIZABETH WILLIAMSON and REBECCA R. RUIZ Continued on Page A24 HAZLETON, Pa. — Just off Wy- oming Street in Pennsylvania’s hilly, working-class city of Hazle- ton, Laury Sorensen and her hus- band, Emil, lugged groceries from a pickup truck upstairs to her par- ents’ wood-frame home. They sought to spare Ms. Sorensen’s father, Rafael Ben- jamin, a trip to the supermarket in a time of infectious plague. He ran enough risk working for Cargill Meat Solutions in an industrial park outside the city. The Pennsylvania governor had issued a shutdown order but exempted Cargill, which pack- ages meat in plastic wrap. Mr. Benjamin, a good-natured man who rarely missed a day of work, said colleagues labored shoulder to shoulder in March without masks and gloves, and he worried it had become a petri dish for sick- ness. A few days later, Mr. Benjamin could not come to the phone. “He got sick on Tuesday,” his son-in- law texted. “He’s on a respirator.” Then another text: “He was six days from retirement.” This is the tale of the virus as it swept down Wyoming Street in a Trials of a Pennsylvania Street As Contagion and Fear Sped In By MICHAEL POWELL Continued on Page A16 Waiting outside a tax prepara- tion office in Hazleton, Pa. HANNAH YOON FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES The state’s June presidential primary, which had been canceled over concerns about the coronavirus, must still be held, a federal judge ruled. PAGE A12 Judge Orders New York Vote The White House plans to wind down its coronavirus task force, saying it has made much progress in bringing the pandemic under control. PAGE A11 TRACKING AN OUTBREAK A4-18 Sunset for Virus Task Force Late Edition VOL. CLXIX . . . No. 58,685 © 2020 The New York Times Company NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, MAY 6, 2020 Today, mostly cloudy, occasional af- ternoon rain, high 54. Tonight, occa- sional rain, overcast, low 45. Tomor- row, sunshine, showers, warmer, high 65. Weather map, Page C8. $3.00
