Did 75 Anti-Lockdown Protesters in Wisconsin Test Positive for Coronavirus? Not Quite. Here's what we know: So in other words, it is possible that some of those 75 new cases came from those who attended the rally in Madison on the 24th, but it’s far from confirmed that that is the case. by Stephen Silver

A viral tweet made the rounds over the weekend, from an account called “Coronavirus Update.” Posted Sunday, it stated “BREAKING NEWS: At least 75 protestors tested positive for COVID-19 after attending a large rally against the stay-at-home order in Wisconsin.”

The tweet has been retweeted and liked thousands of times, and also quoted by other Twitter users, many of them in replies to President Trump. It seems to confirm suspicions that those protesting in close quarters against lockdowns are putting themselves at risk for coronavirus infection.

There was, indeed, a large protest at Wisconsin’s state capitol in Madison, which took place on April 24 and consisted of around 1,500 attendees. And yes, more than 70 people in Wisconsin have tested positive for the virus after attending a “large gathering” in recent weeks. But it has not been established that all or even most of those positive tests came from attendees at that specific protest.

According to an Associated Press story last Friday, the state’s Department of Health makes a practice of asking those who have tested positive for COVID-19 if they have attended “any large gatherings.” The department does not, however ask which specific gathering the person attended, nor is it clear what the definition is of “large gatherings.” It did ask whether those who tested positive had voted in the state’s controversial April 7 primary election, but did not do so about the protest.

So in other words, it is possible that some of those 75 new cases came from those who attended the rally in Madison on the 24th, but it’s far from confirmed that that is the case.

It’s not clear what the source was for the “Coronavirus Update” tweet. Some sites, including WBAY and Channel One News, have run a picture of the Madison rally with that AP story, as did a website called Up North News, which is part of the Courier Newsroom network of surreptitiously liberal-leaning hyperlocal news sites. The latter site did make clear in the text of its story, however, that attendees weren’t asked which gathering they had attended.

Wisconsin’s current stay-at-home order runs through May 26. The state has reported nearly 2,000 new coronavirus cases since April 26, of which only 72 had attended a large gathering, the AP story said.

Like many states targeted by the anti-lockdown protests, Wisconsin has a Democratic governor, Tony Evers, who defeated two-term incumbent and former presidential candidate Scott Walker in 2018. The governor recently announced guidelines for reopening the state, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reported.

Did Missouri Just Out-Lawfare China? What makes the Missouri lawsuit so unique and noteworthy is that it seems to take on an air of the aforementioned Chinese approach to lawfare. In Missouri’s filing, the “law” is just as critical for desired effects as is diplomatic, informational, military, or economic ones that the American military traditionally employs. by Wilson VornDick

Sinister” is how the state of Missouri describes “an appalling campaign of deceit, concealment,  misfeasance, and inaction” woven by officials of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in its legal complaint on April 21 over the human and economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic. In the complaint, Missouri identifies 5,800 confirmed cases, 177 Missourians dead, and untold economic damage. Quickly countering, Geng Shuang, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, said the lawsuit was “frivolous” and “very absurd.” Meanwhile, weeks before the lawsuit was filed, President Trump tweeted in March that the world is at war with a “hidden enemy” and America is at a “wartime footing” as the coronavirus pandemic spread.   

Now with over eighty-thousand dead, more Americans lost than in the Vietnam War, and upwards of $2.2 trillion promised by the federal government to counter the pandemic and its calamitous effects on America, the administration may be preparing to seek reparations or other retaliatory measures against the PRC. The administration’s response would not be far off the mark from Missouri’s first of its kind lawsuit. But more importantly, if America is at a war-footing, then it is worth considering that Missouri may in fact be launching its own form of legal warfare or “lawfare” against the PRC. For national security practitioners and China watchers, this would be akin to China’s own form of legal warfare (法律战), a tactic and technique nested in its strategy known as the “Three Warfares” (三​战). 

Chinese Lawfare 101  

Essentially, the “Three Warfares” is a strategy meant to create and shape political power for the Chinese Communist Party, both domestically and abroad per China analyst Peter Mattis. Broken down into three distinct parts, the first of the “Three Warfares” is media or public opinion warfare (舆论战) which attempts to shape public opinion. Elsa Kania, writing in Jamestown Foundation, notes the second part, psychological warfare (心理战), as that which “seeks to undermine an adversary’s combat power, resolve, and decision-making, while exacerbating internal disputes to cause the enemy to divide into factions.” Finally, she describes lawfare, the third part and most pertinent to Missouri’s lawsuit, as envisioning the “use of all aspects of the law, including national law, international law, and the laws of war, in order to secure seizing “legal principle superiority” and delegitimize an adversary.” Ostensibly, the PRC has leveraged legal tactics and techniques such as those mentioned from territorial disputes over the South China Sea to economic arbitrations in the World Trade Organization. Moreover, growing anecdotal evidence suggests that it is becoming difficult to discern a clean break or firewall between actions of the PRC under the CCP’s party-state apparatus apart and separate from state-owned or private Chinese corporations, assets, or citizens. This is because the actions, dictates, and aspirations of the PRC prioritize dual-use, military-civilian fusion, and national strategies like Made in China 2025 make less and less of a distinction. At the moment, Beijing is using the pandemic to extend ever more control into various sectors and facets of its domestic and international influence and presence. These include placing CCP officials within the senior ranks of global information technology companies’ leadership hierarchies such as Alibaba or leveraging its commercial presence overseas tied to the Belt and Road Initiative to distribute masks and Chinese good-will, nicknamed “mask diplomacy,” to pandemic stricken countries on behalf of Beijing. Lawfare is no different in this regard. 

From a national security nexus, what makes the lawsuit by Missouri so unique and noteworthy is that it seems to take on an air of the aforementioned Chinese approach to lawfare. In Missouri’s filing, the “law” is just as critical for desired effects as is diplomatic, informational, military, or economic ones that the American military traditionally employs. The Joint Staff at the Pentagon advocated just such an approach of leveraging law among other instruments in a 2018 strategy document. In this way, the lawsuit by Missouri possesses an asymmetric, almost gray zone-ish feel. It is likely that a Chinese perspective with a heavily lawfare-biased strategic perspective would perceive it as such. To be clear, the American military did not contribute to the lawsuit, nor are there links to a broader strategy by the U.S. government. Rather, it appears to be an organic, bottom-up thrust by Missouri to make its citizens and state whole from the contagion. Missouri lodged the complaint on its own accord.

Missouri -Style Lawfare 

Jefferson City’s legal action is bold. Yet, significant legal hurdles remain. Jurists and legal scholars are quick to cite “sovereign immunity,” which grants the PRC and nations immunity from criminal prosecution and civil lawsuit, as a high bar for the lawsuit to pass. Yet, two recent terrorism-related lawsuits have cleared just such a legal bar. lawsuits against the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Sudan, brought by the victims and relatives of 9/11 and the bombing of the USS Cole in 2000, have proceeded in American courts after decades and substantial legal wrangling that turned on sovereign immunity. While the lawsuit against Saudi Arabia continues to snake its way through the courts, a potential settlement was reached in February with Sudan as part of a broader sanctions relief package by America. These two cases may augur Missouri’s legal future against the PRC. 

However, it is too soon to tell. Much remains to be seen in a very dynamic, geo-strategically charged time as the present amid the backdrop of great-power competition. If the lawsuits proceed and the PRC is implicated, then Missouri may be justified to go after all manners of Chinese assets and enterprises operating in the state. And American companies in Missouri with significant Chinese interests could be in jeopardy. The state’s lawsuit may even portend more legal action by other American municipalities and states, even perhaps private citizens and companies. Additionally, the Missouri lawsuit could snow-ball across as others from across the international community file lawsuits of their own. To counter, the PRC will likely challenge or ju-jitsu Missouri’s litigation with its own brand of lawfare. 

Either way, as this legal battle plays out in the courts, the PRC will undoubtedly be monitoring it closely. American national security practitioners should do likewise. The lawsuit by Missouri appears to be part-n-parcel one and the same, a meld of state security and national security, inextricably linked in holding the PRC and, by default, the CCP accountable for the pandemic. It is no small order to say that the geostrategic and national security implications of this lawsuit will reverberate beyond the courtrooms in Jefferson City.  

Biosecurity Is the Lesson We Need to Learn from the Coronavirus Pandemic Biological outbreaks have been a fear among experts for decades. The ever-increasing encroachment upon natural habitats has resulted in zoonotic disease spillover to humans. by Daniel M. Gerstein and James Giordano

There is no scientific evidence that the virus that causes the coronavirus was bioengineered. However, that does not mean that humans do not bear some responsibility for this pandemic. Human activities such as disrupting environmental habitats, promoting the mixing of species in venues such as the wet market in Wuhan, and experimenting with pathogens in laboratories all present windows of vulnerability. 

To address this, America needs to have a new approach to biosafety and biosecurity that addresses the full range of biological threats that humankind and the global environment will face in the future.

Biological outbreaks have been a fear among experts for decades. The ever-increasing encroachment upon natural habitats has resulted in zoonotic disease spillover to humans. Recent examples include Rift Valley Fever, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), pandemic influenza H1N1 2009, Yellow fever, Avian Influenza (H5N1), Avian Influenza (H7N9), Ebola, West Nile virus, the Zika virus and the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV). In fact, thirty new human pathogens have been detected in the last three decades, 75 percent of which have originated in animals. The latest, of course, is the SARS-CoV-2, which causes the coronavirus.

The viruses and related diseases are not necessarily new but the spillover to humans appears to be occurring with increasing frequency. These viruses are unfamiliar to human immune systems and therein lies the problem. In some instances, a new virus can be completely harmless, while in others it can be devastating. When further propagated by global supply chains, what previously might have been isolated pockets of disease turn into global concerns—and in the case of the coronavirus, a global pandemic.

The difference in severity is often because of small variances in the viral genomes. Consider, for example, the three coronavirus outbreaks—SARS, MERS and COVID-19.

SARS originated in China in 2002 and spread to about two dozen countries, infecting over eight thousand and killing 774. MERS originated in Saudi Arabia and spread to twenty-seven countries, infecting almost twenty-five hundred people and killing over 850. To date, official reports indicate that the virus that causes the coronavirus has infected more than three million people and caused over two hundred thousand deaths. As these data indicate, the coronavirus is far more infectious but also seems to be far less virulent than its more deadly coronavirus relations.

Changes to the viral genome can be caused by an antigenic shift where two viruses can combine to form a new viral subtype, or by antigenic drift caused by mutations resulting from errors that occur as the virus replicates. Thus, while all three coronaviruses seem to have originated in bats, their variances may be due to changes incurred as the virus passed through intermediate hosts such as civets for SARS and camels for MERS. At present, it remains unclear if the coronavirus involved pangolins as an intermediate species or passed directly to humans. 

Lab experiments are essential to understanding these pathogens. To be sure, throughout human history, countless lives have been saved as a result of laboratory research. And such science is absolutely necessary to protect not just human lives, but all living organisms, including animals and plants, and to better understand and shield the fragile biological ecosystems. But any such research should be conducted in settings that acknowledge and control the risks associated with agents capable of epidemic and pandemic spread. This is critical to upholding the ethical obligations of balancing benefits, burdens and harms of research.

Biosafety and biosecurity measures are routinely used to monitor and control work done in the biological laboratories in the United States and most other nations. Biosafety ensures that workers are protected from pathogens. Based on the risk posed by the pathogen being studied, defined biosafety levels specify the procedures and containment equipment necessary. Biosecurity measures ensure that pathogens are not inadvertently being released into the environment and are protected from those who might seek to use them for illegitimate purposes. As the U.S. Department of Agriculture states, biosecurity is about keeping “viruses, bacteria, funguses, parasites and other microorganisms—away from birds, property, and people.”

Over the years, key biodefense issues have gotten reduced attention—and that needs to change. As the coronavirus demonstrates, the potential exists for similar events in the future. By rethinking its approach to biosafety and biosecurity, America can reduce that risk.

So while the terms biosafety and biosecurity have been generally associated only with laboratory efforts, America should consider a broader approach—one that includes the global biological ecosystem. References such as the Biosafety in Microbiological and Biomedical Laboratories define protocols for working with pathogens in laboratories. A complementary volume should be developed that outlines how to prevent, prepare for, respond to and mitigate the effects of human activity that encroaches upon natural habitats and promotes the perilous mixing of species and their diseases.

Failure to implement and follow such biosafety and biosecurity approaches, both in laboratories and in the natural environment, could result in ever more coronavirus-like pandemics that threaten humanity with increasing regularity and dangerous consequences.

Trump’s Decision to Halt WHO Funding Could Cost American Lives While it is unclear for how long the president intends to suspend the payments, this is a dangerous strategy in the midst of a public health emergency of unprecedented scope. by Saad B. Omer

In the face of growing criticism of the Trump administration’s handling of the response to the coronavirus pandemic, President Donald Trump recently announced the suspension of the U.S. payments to the World Health Organization. It seems, even before this announcement, the United States was behind in its previously committed payments to the WHO.     

While it is unclear for how long the president intends to suspend the payments, this is a dangerous strategy in the midst of a public health emergency of unprecedented scope. Should WHO epidemiologists really be forced to spend their time preparing emergency grant requests to countries to fill the resource gap due to the pause in the U.S. payments?  

Attempting to cut global health funding is not new for this administration. The president’s budget proposals have contained major reductions in foreign aid, including global health. For example, Trump has previously proposed cutting USAID’s global health budget by half and has attempted to eliminate the Fogarty International Center—NIH’s flagship institute for global health. In fact, in 2019 the administration eliminated the majority of funding for the Emerging Pandemic Threats program at USAID.  

The U.S. government spends less than 1 percent of its gross national income on non-military foreign aid. The biggest portion of this aid goes to global health. Given the announcement regarding WHO funding and proposed drastic cuts in the U.S. global health budget, this is a good time to take stock of America’s global health investments.  

Some of America’s past investments in WHO continue to pay dividends for successive generations. Smallpox eradication, an audacious WHO-led initiative that resulted in the extinction of a whole species for saving human lives, is one such example. The smallpox eradication program required approximately $100 million of support from international donors—with the United States as the biggest donor. After eradication, there is no need for treatment and vaccination for smallpox—resulting in not only the protection of lives but also substantial savings. As a result, American taxpayers recoup their investment in smallpox eradication every twenty-six days!  

To state it in the language the president is likely to relate to: this was a terrific deal for the American people.  

Even beyond WHO, America’s global health investments have a high return on investment. For example, eighty-nine cents of every dollar spent by the U.S. government on global health research and development goes to U.S.-based scientists and researchers. This money pays for research that creates American jobs while resulting in life-saving discoveries for the most vulnerable in the world. Between 1990 and 2013 global health innovations and programs were associated with 4.2 million fewer childhood deaths. If there ever was a win-win situation, this is it.   

Halting WHO’s funding, or even threatening to do so, can distract the global health agency whose annual budget is less than one-tenth of Ohio State’s annual budget. And these cuts would put American (and other) lives at risk. If WHO’s disease surveillance is disrupted, then the risk of an undetected flu pandemic will go up. If there are insufficient resources for WHO’s immunization program the risk of a resurgence of measles and its importation into the United States will increase. 

More specifically, the global influenza surveillance and response system supported financially and technically by the CDC, serves as an early warning system for pandemics—enhancing America’s health and economic security. Nigerian health workers trained for polio eradication with American support were instrumental in keeping Ebola away from American shores. And when polio is finally eradicated through American and international support and valiant efforts of health workers in Nigeria, Afghanistan, and Pakistan; there will be a net benefit of approximately $25 billion over twenty years.  

So yes, there is substantial evidence that investments in WHO and global health are just that—investments. These investments benefit coal miners in West Virginia and mothers in Kansas by contributing to their health and economic security.   

However, despite demonstrable benefits to Americans, our reason for investing in WHO should not only be enlightened self-interest. A country with a history of moral leadership should not cease to be a shining city upon a hill—particularly when a pandemic has threatened the country’s wellbeing.  America’s claim to exceptionalism will ring hollow if it becomes an ordinary bystander in the face of global disease and its economic consequences.

'Deadly Dictatorship': How Rodrigo Duterte Has Attacked Freedom of the Media in Latest Closure of Main Broadcaster His populist electoral victory can in no way excuse the atrocities and yet Duterte’s chauvinistic style and cavalier actions still remain politically popular. by Tom Smith

After just four years in power, Rodrigo Duterte, the president of the Philippines, has turned his country into a deadly dictatorship one again. Now the closure of the country’s major mainstream news platform ABS-CBN on May 5 in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic has struck deep historical chords in a country that has heard this sorry song before.

The broadcaster was ordered off air by the country’s media regulator, which said its licence had expired and needed to be renewed by Congress. But Duterte has had an ongoing battle with the independent ABS-CBN and the move was seen as a clear attack on media freedom.

The regime of former Filipino dictator Ferdinand Marcos also closed the broadcaster down in 1972 when it imposed martial law. Marcos’s regime murdered, disappeared and tortured its own people with impunity. Assassinations plagued public life at every level – and there were 3,257 officially documented killings.

Now Duterte’s death squads put the Marcos years into a chilling context. Some estimate at least 29,000 people have been killed in Duterte’s so-called drug war.

The current extent of the alleged genocide is hard to know and will be even harder without ABS-CBN. Investigative journalism and accurate reporting are practically impossible. Journalists are regularly assassinated along with lawyers and human rights workers. Families and society are bereft of justice and accountability. The Philippines has become increasingly perilous for many citizens and an understandable fear of retribution silences many in 2020 despite all the communication tools available.

The timing of the ABS-CBN shutdown could not be worse. Filipinos desperately need their largest broadcaster – the oldest in south-east Asia – for reliable information about COVID-19. Anti-vaxxer conspiracies around dengue fever and measles vaccinations have caused recent tragic outbreaks of both diseases in the Philippines. And yet Duterte’s brand of “medical populism” has spread misinformation, claiming people can rely on fictional “Filipino antibodies” to fight COVID-19.

Few checks on power remain

The velocity of Duterte’s reign of death and abuse has caught weak institutions and opponents unprepared. His populist electoral victory can in no way excuse the atrocities and yet Duterte’s chauvinistic style and cavalier actions still remain politically popular.

His hashtag friendly campaign title Du30 has become a powerful brand – if not now a violent and well-connected clan. Du30-ism is undeniably a cultural and political juggernaut that shows very few signs of abating, or being met by an emerging counter-force. Duterte now controls every aspect of public administration and there are no checks and balances to his power. The fourth estate is now severely – if not mortally – disabled and Du30’s power absolute, for now.

Duterte’s power over the security forces is based on an old and unsubtle system of patronage normally employed by local clans, mayors and alike. Now that the provincial “big boss” is resident in the presidential palace in Manila, he has a vast network of people in every institution in the country in his debt. The military has been overtly politicised and, conversely, politics and culture have become increasingly militarised.

Duterte enables both masked assassins on the back of motorbikes, and killers in uniform. Just as with Marcos, it will take decades to repair public trust and legitimacy in the security services.

‘Big Bossism’ reigns

Politicisation of supposedly independent judicial and legislative branches of government is all but confirmed with the shutdown of ABS-CBN. Duterte’s appointees dominate 11 of the 15 judges on the High Court, which protects him and his cronies from justice. The regime has now begun to target the education sector, robbing the next generations of a more progressive future.

Mandatory military training is being pushed in high schools to further militarise society. University students are being falsely targeted in the drug war and in the fight against communist insurgents using crude divide-and-conquer tactics.

Without a free media, new forms of cultural and political dissent will be needed. So far, social media has been no salvation – it was the horse Du30 rode in on and still dominates. His DDS – Duterte Diehard Supporters or Davao Death Squads, referring to the city where Duterte was a former mayor – patrol online and offline.

At times, it feels little has changed across much of south-east Asia since 1971 when Bruce Lee busted out of Hong Kong to global appeal in his film The Big Boss. The cultural trope of Big Bossism is entrenched through computer games, film and TV across south-east Asia – only now the battle is fought with bots and keyboards, not Kung Fu.

Shutting down ABS-CBN is not merely an echo of the Marcos dictatorship – it is a continuation of the enduring weaknesses in the Filipino state. Duterte is the most recent incarnation of the Marcos-era Big Boss, wielding the same power in a more potent and deadly fashion. And just as with Duterte, it’s possible other strongmen or authoritarians could follow.

We Need Flexibility In Labor Markets To Recover After Coronavirus Generous unemployment insurance benefits, employee retention subsidies, occupational licensing laws, the minimum wage: All stand in the way of the economy adjusting quickly. by Ryan Bourne

Much of the pandemic economic policy response around the world seemed designed to freeze the economy of March 2020. Existing employment relationships were subsidized, businesses were granted loans to encourage them to protect payrolls, and bailouts sought to keep existing industries on the road.

Such policies had a clear and understandable rationale: to preserve existing economic relationships. When it came to jobs, the thinking was that widespread layoffs would lead to substantial skills mismatches, creating vast inefficiency. Many believed the pandemic would be like an extended vacation and we could just pick up where we all left off by providing bridging support to businesses and households today. In this frame of thinking, layoffs and rehiring would be needlessly economically wasteful and prolong the pain of the pandemic shock.

That was always extremely optimistic. Economies are both dynamic and organic, with a constant churn of jobs and companies even in normal times. There was also huge uncertainty about the duration of this pandemic. Preserving the March 2020 economic structure would therefore come with ever‐​escalating costs. 

The huge risk with this approach, however, was that the pandemic itself would induce much greater economic change than usual. If it brought substantial permanent or semi‐​permanent alterations in behavior or tastes, then subsidizing businesses to protect existing jobs or business practices would actually slow the jobs recovery. As the economy woke up to new realities in a changed world, we’d want workers and capital to be reallocated to where they are most productive as quickly as possible. Programs that delayed or disincentivized this reallocation would then become extremely costly.

That take is the conclusion of a new paper published at the Becker‐​Friedman Institute by economists Jose Maria Barrero, Nick Bloom, Steven J. Davis. Reviewing the Survey of Business Uncertainty, they find:

• That a measure of job reallocation across businesses was 2.4 times higher in April than the average value pre‐​pandemic, suggesting a major COVID-19 induced jobs reallocation.
• That between March 1 and mid‐​April, the COVID-19 shock had led to 3 new hires in the near term for every 10 layoffs, showing substantial reallocation of workers already as demand patterns change already (think grocery stores, Amazon, hand sanitizer producers etc).
• That using historical evidence of layoffs relating to recalls, 42 percent of pandemic‐​induced layoffs will likely result in permanent job loss.
• That, historically, job creation responses tend to lag the destruction by a year or more.

Two conclusions stem from this analysis. First, there is likely to be a painful hangover from this crisis. Not because “relief” was inadequate, but because the world has changed and it will take time for employment relationships to adapt.

Second, policies that gum up that reallocation of workers could be extremely costly in recovery. Barrero, Bloom, and Davis mention the current generous unemployment insurance benefits, employee retention subsidies, occupational licensing laws, and regulations that inhibit business formation. I would add to that minimum wage laws and some other aspects of labor market regulation. All stand in the way of the economy adjusting quickly.

As sectors in the economy begin reopening, we need as much regulatory flexibility as possible to let the market sector reallocate workers.

Are the Great Outdoors Safe in the Era of the Coronavirus? The preponderance of the evidence currently available suggests that being outdoors while wearing masks and keeping a distance from one another is significantly safer than being indoors with others. by Amitai Etzioni

Opening the country entails taking some risks. The key question is: Where are the risks lowest? For reasons I shall spell out shortly, the evidence seems to suggest that—all other things being equal—outdoor activities are significantly safer than indoor ones. Drawing on this finding, one would open beaches, parks, pools, tennis courts, volleyball courts, and most other outdoor sports facilities, as well as playgrounds for children, long before opening tattoo parlors and nail salons.  

Select streets should be turned into pedestrian malls (the more outdoor spaces there are that are open, the less crowding there will be at any single one). One could open construction and infrastructure projects, while all those who need offices—such as law firms, banks, and investment houses—would continue to work online. One would be much less concerned about the parts of restaurants that spill into the streets or outdoor patios than about the indoor sections. Flea markets, farmers makers, and the outdoor parts of car dealers could open. If classes can be taught—as Stanford is reportedly planning to do—in tents, then these are preferred to classes in enclosed buildings. Parking lots could be turned into drive-in movie theaters in the evenings, as well as theaters for the viewing of live plays. Most restrictions on places food trucks can park could be lifted. And so on. 

People need to wear masks and maintain social distance in all these spaces. A medical expert, who reviewed a draft of this article, argued that these safety measures must be strictly enforced and that one could not rely on individual responsibility. She added that we “need crowd control. I would say one can open so long as attendance can be controlled to reduce density and lines; either by regulating entry or allocating tickets permitting entry at pre-selected times.”  

The argument that open spaces are safer than indoor areas and the recommendations that follow fly in the face of an often-cited finding by a group of Belgian and Dutch engineers, who simulated the wake of droplets released by walkers, and especially by runners and cyclists. They concluded that people should maintain a distance of as much as sixteen to sixty-five feet from those who are exercising outside, depending on the strenuousness of the exercise. This is quite a distance. However, this was a mere simulation; the study did not find any people who actually became infected in such a way. As virologist Angela Rasmussen, of Columbia University, explained, the engineers ignored two important factors. First, “[o]utside, things like sunlight, wind, rain, ambient temperature, and humidity can affect virus infectivity and transmissibility, so while we can’t say there’s zero risk, it’s likely low.” Even if the virus survives the journey through the outdoor air, it still may well not lead to an infection. Particles must land in the parts of the human body that are susceptible to the virus (either directly in the respiratory tract or upper throat or on hands that then touch the mouth, eyes, or nose), and they must traverse the respiratory system’s defenses against infection and attach to specific cell receptors.  

The second factor Rasmussen notes is that the Belgian-Dutch researchers appear to have assumed that all contact with the virus is dangerous. However, a person must be exposed to a considerable number of particles to induce an infection. Although scientists have not yet determined the number of particles required for a person to become ill with the coronavirus, University of Birmingham microbiology professor Willem van Schaik estimates that it is in the number runs into hundreds or possibly even thousands.  

A major study of the spread of the coronavirus in China offers strong support for opening the outdoors. Researchers investigated 1,245 cases of the disease, stemming from 318 outbreaks with three or more cases each. They “identified only a single outbreak in an outdoor environment, which involved two cases.” Furthermore, the study found this outdoor transmission was the only one “among [the] 7,324 identified cases in China with sufficient descriptions.” Hence, the great outdoors was the venue of infection for 0.0273 percent of the coronavirus cases for which the location of transmission could be identified. Ultimately, the researchers note, “The first salient feature of the 318 identified outbreaks that involved three or more cases is that they all occurred in indoor environments.” The researches add that their study “does not rule out outdoor transmission of the virus.”  

Three Harvard professors concluded, “The science could not be clearer: The benefits of getting outside vastly outweigh the risk of getting infected in a park.” They added: “Study after study has shown that time spent in contact with nature has important and positive psychological, indeed neurological, effects on the mind—decreased rumination and negative thoughts in adults, reduced symptoms of ADD and ADHD in children, improved cognitive development.” Similarly, as Professor Zeynep Tufekci reported, “The outdoors, exercise, sunshine, and fresh air are all good for people’s immune systems and health. . . . The outdoors and sunshine are such strong factors in fighting viral infections that a 2009 study of the extraordinary success of outdoor hospitals during the 1918 influenza epidemic suggested that during the next pandemic . . . we should encourage ‘the public to spend as much time outdoors as possible,’ as a public-health measure.”  

I started with “the evidence seems to suggest” because, despite the millions who have been infected and the thousands of scientists who are studying the coronavirus, there is still much we do not know about it. However, the preponderance of the evidence currently available suggests that being outdoors (wearing masks and keeping distance) is significantly safer than being indoors when we must be with others. The outdoors are not risk-free. The medical reviewer noted, “We are in a pandemic. It is not a blip and it is not an annoyance. After 9/11 we traveled differently. In a pandemic we need to accept that we will have to recreate differently. This is no time for entitlement.” However, if economic and psychological factors preclude the continuation of sheltering at home for more and more people, they are better off conducting their business and engaging in exercise and social activities where air circulates freely and the sun shines.  

How Deadly Are The Two (Yes, Two) Coronavirus Strains? The difference between the L-Strain and S-Strain amounts to two specific amino acids—sort of like a change of two lines of code in a computer program. by Sebastien Roblin

“Rapidly growing local outbreaks get sampled intensively and result in overrepresentation of some variants. This happened early on around the Wuhan Seafood market and now with the Italian outbreak. Any statistical inference needs to account for such sampling biases and just taking values at face values will result in wrong, misleading, or downright dangerous inferences.” 

On March 3, 2020, Dr. Xiaolu Tang and his colleagues at Peking University and other institutions published a study in the National Science Review which caused a stir in a world preoccupied by the inexorable spread of the novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-2019). From cases identified in China and abroad, he and his colleagues had identified two distinct strains of the virus. 

According to the study, the so-called S-Strain is the original, “ancestral” strain of the disease mutated from a coronavirus transmissible between bats. The second, L-Strain, by comparison, evolved from the S-Strain but appears to spread more quickly because it predominated in early cases of the disease identified in Wuhan. 

But in a twist, when he analyzed a later, wider sample set he found that the older S-Type appeared to be spreading more frequently than in the initial outbreak. 

In this article we’ll delve into why that may be happening and also why experts warn it’s unclear that the differences between the two strains are significant. 

Mutating Viruses 

COVID-2019 is an RNA virus, which means it uses ribonucleic acid to encode its genetic material instead of DNA. RNA viruses, which include viruses like Ebola, influenza, rabies, and even the common cold, tend to mutate extremely frequently because their polymerase enzymes used for reproduction aren’t as good at “proofreading” for errors when transcribing genetic code. The constant mutations make RNA viruses more of a moving target which annually require new vaccines to cure. 

Still, that means it’s not intrinsically remarkable that there are already multiple strains of COVID-2019 circulating according to scientists. Furthermore, mutations cut both ways—they can make viruses less deadly as well as more deadly, or may even have no significant effect. And a “successful” mutation—one that improves the virus’s odds of propagation—isn’t necessarily one that makes it more deadly. 

The difference between the L-Strain and S-Strain amounts to two specific amino acids—sort of like a change of two lines of code in a computer program. However, the report’s authors concede they’re not sure what impact the changes have (“the concerned amino acid…plays a yet undefined role in the viral life cycle.”) 

Scientists claim that for now the difference is small enough that a treatment against one strain will likely remain effective against the other. 

Aggressive L-Strain and Ancestral S-Strain?

Nonetheless, Xiaolu’s study suggests there may be different traits in the two strains. 

The initial sample consisted of strains isolated Wuhan—the city where the COVID-2019 outbreak began—prior to January 7, 2020. He found 26 L-Type strains and just one S-Type. The paper characterizes the L-Strain as being “more aggressive and spread more quickly.” 

In fact, it states the S-Type is the original, “ancestral” form of COVID-2019, while the L-Type is a mutation. Reportedly, the L-Strain genome diverges only 4 percent from the bat coronavirus designated RaTG-13. 

By contrast, “our mutational load analysis indicated that the L-type had accumulated a significantly higher number of derived mutations than S-type.” 

Here’s where the narratives become more complicated. In a subsequent sample of cases identified after January 7 elsewhere in China (save for one) and in foreign countries, he counted 72 L-Types and 29 S-Type viruses. That means the older S-Strain actually appeared to become more common, not less, than the supposedly more aggressive L-Strain. 

In his words: “…the S type, which is evolutionarily older and less aggressive, might have increased in relative frequency due to relatively weaker selective pressure.” 

What explains that paradox? Xiaolu’s hypothesis is that it all comes down to human intervention—namely that measures taken to contain COVID-2019 by humans may have impacted L-Strain infections more than S-Strain, selecting in favor of the latter. 

Xiaolu doesn’t elaborate much on how intervention might have affected the two strains’ relative success in propagating. Perhaps the L-Strain’s symptoms manifested faster or more dramatically, allowing persons with the L-Strain to be identified and isolated faster while the less mutated S-Strain cases remained under the radar for longer. 

Xiaolu’s study also found another peculiarity: a 63-year-old Chicagoan who returned from a visit to Wuhan carrying both strains of the disease, resulting in heteroplasmy. 

Skeptics: When is a Strain a Strain? 

However, some medical experts question whether the difference between the two strains are large enough to be significant, and whether Xiaolu’s limited available sample is broad enough to be representative, and thus confirm that the two strains have meaningfully different characteristics. 

You can read a letter written by four virologists here expounding on these criticisms, claiming the study could lead to “dangerous misinformation,” as well as the response from Chinese researchers explaining their reasoning.

Dr. Scott Weaver, director of the Institute for Human Infections and Immunity, said in a Q&A session organized by the Texas Medical Center “I think, in reality, there’s very little evidence so far that there’s any meaningful difference between those strains. […] It’s too early to know if… these two differences have any effect on the way the virus replicates and causes disease.”

“The differences between the two identified strains are tiny. In fact, they can’t really be considered to be separate ‘strains,’” virology professor Dr. Ian Jones of the University of Reading told The New Scientist. “In all practical terms, the virus is as it was when it originally emerged. There’s no evidence it is getting any worse.” (Other scientists in the same article, however, support the use of the term “strain”.) 

Biologist Richard Nehrer argues in a tweet that apparent differences between L-strain and S-strain were “most likely a statistical artefact” that un-representative of the disease as a whole: 

“Rapidly growing local outbreaks get sampled intensively and result in overrepresentation of some variants. This happened early on around the Wuhan Seafood market and now with the Italian outbreak. Any statistical inference needs to account for such sampling biases and just taking values at face values will result in wrong, misleading, or downright dangerous inferences.” 

But some medical experts seemingly infer more from Xialou’s study. 

For example, Dr. James Todaro tweeted “The mild [S-strain] is becoming more prevalent compared to January. This makes sense. The strain that dominates/spreads is the one that allows people to remain social and travel—not the one that kills.” He concludes the milder S-Strain will propagate, resulting in more humans surviving the virus and developing immunity against both types. 

Dr. Nicole Saphier similarly told Fox News “The ‘L’ strain tends to be the more lethal or severe strain, while the ‘S’ strain seems to have more mild symptoms… So what we are seeing is actually more of the mild strain of the virus because it doesn't actually want to kill the host.” 

However, Dr. Jones told Newsweek that misinterprets “aggressive” to mean the L-Strain is more likely to kill, whereas Xiaolu was actually describing an increased rate of transmission. 

“What they mean is that the virus transmits more easily, not that it causes worse disease,” he said. 

From my own reading of Xialou’s paper, I see no mention of increased severity or mortality for the L-strain, but I do see explicit mention of increased transmissibility: “…our results suggest the L might be more aggressive than the S type due to the potentially higher transmission and/or replication rates.” 

Indeed, Xiaolu et al. have added an addendum to their piece: “We now recognize that within the context of our study the term “aggressive” is misleading and should be replaced by a more precise term ‘a higher frequency’. In short, while we have shown that the two lineages naturally co-exist, we provided no evidence supporting any epidemiological conclusion regarding the virulence or pathogenicity…” 

Another article by Science magazine discussing the tracking of COVID-2019 strains in Europe similarly concludes that over-interpreting the limited pool of available data poses the risk of leading to inaccurate conclusions. 

Thus, the safest interpretation is that S-strain predates the L-Strain, but that—based on a very limited initial data set—the older strain may have increased in frequency after the initial outbreak.

Scientists will certainly seek to track the frequency of COVID-2019 strains, and study them and future mutations for characteristics that could affect transmissibility and severity. But until more data is available, it’s important not to over-interpret the fragmentary evidence available.