Betsy

As the shutdown drags on, New York officials fear that half the city’s smallest businesses are going to fail. Restaurants, bars, shops and salons will become boarded-up storefronts. Neighborhoods will feel like ghost towns. It’s a grim prospect, yet officials seem ready to let it happen. Gem Spa in the East Village, known since the

Across the nation, protesters are taking to the streets and business owners are filing lawsuits objecting to the shutdown rules. As the shutdown drags on, it’s causing job losses, bankruptcies and a sense that people are being robbed of their rights. The liberal media label the protesters virus deniers. But the protesters have science and

Gov. Andrew Cuomo is allowing upstate construction and assembly-line businesses to re-open May 15, but other businesses have to stay shut longer. How long? That depends on how “essential” they are, he said. But any business is essential if it’s how you earn your paycheck. People need to work, and new research indicates that for otherwise

Many governors are claiming they can’t relax limits on business and recreation until their states have an extensive system of “contact tracing.” It’s a worthy aspiration. But they should listen to the scientists who warn that contact tracing won’t work against the novel coronavirus. Gov. Cuomo says he envisions hiring an “army” of thousands of “tracers” to

New York, New Jersey and Maryland are requiring everyone to wear a mask or a substitute face covering to leave home. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has suddenly flipped from urging the public not to wear masks to recommending that they wear something that covers their nose and mouth. New York’s Mayor Bill de Blasio’s new signature look is a western-style bandana pulled up over

Since the coronavirus shutdown began, nearly 17 million Americans have lost their jobs. That’s one-tenth of the nation’s workforce. It’s a public-health disaster. If the shutdown drags on, as many public-health experts recommend it should, it is almost certain to kill more Americans than the virus. The academics and public-health officials who have concocted models of

President Trump is hinting at a second task force responsible for getting Americans back to work. Appoint it now, Mr. President. Don’t wait until the coronavirus peaks. This task force should prepare the country to re-open, with new tools to fight the virus. The president’s top epidemiologist, the esteemed Dr. Anthony Fauci, insists “the best tool

President Trump is extending the nation’s shutdown until at least the end of April. He’s largely basing his decision on predictions from the University of Washington that even if the nation sticks to the shutdown, 83,967 Americans will likely die of coronavirus by early August. Possibly 240,000. In New York state, an estimated 15,788 could die.

New facts about coronavirus are pouring in from scientists around the globe. We need this information to guide us. People infected are most contagious before they have symptoms, and some spread the infection widely but never get sick themselves, reports the International Journal of Infectious Diseases. That’s why screening for fever and telling people who don’t feel

The novel coronavirus is causing working-age people to worry about missing paychecks, caring for kids home from school, stockpiling groceries and canceling plans. But people in their 50s, 60s or older have bigger worries. Many are lying awake wondering if this is how they are going to die. At its most severe, the coronavirus attacks