The New York Times International - 08 08 2020 - 09 08 2020

2020·14.99 MB·English

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AFTER FORMULA 1 ADJUSTS A TREK TO
TRAUMA TO THE PANDEMIC AN ISLAND
MADE HER Weekend WITH NEW RACES THICK
KNOWN, AND NEW TRACKS WITH
DRAWING MOOSE
PAGE 10 | SPECIAL REPORT
RESTORED AND
HER JOY WOLVES
DESIGNERS SEE SURGE
OF ENTHUSIASM FOR PAGE 15 | ‘TIME FOR A CHANGE’: BACK PAGE |
WEEKEND OUT-OF-WORK BRITONS TRAVEL
AFRICAN PRINTS
RETHINKING CAREERS
PAGE 16 | STYLE
PAGE 5 | BUSINESS
..
INTERNATIONAL EDITION | SATURDAY-SUNDAY, AUGUST8-9, 2020
Could a girl U.S. is alone
‘like me’ be among peers
president? in failing to
contain virus
Jorge Ramos
Contributing Writer
Administration missteps
and individualistic culture
OPINION
have hampered efforts
MIAMI Last February, before social
distancing became a reality for us all, I
BY DAVID LEONHARDT
was able to interview Justice Sonia
Sotomayor for my “Contrapoder” Nearly every country has struggled to
podcast. Among our small audience contain the coronavirus and made mis-
was Sophie McLoud, 10. The girl had a takes along the way.
question for Justice Sotomayor, the China committed the first major fail-
first Latina Supreme Court justice in ure, silencing doctors who tried to raise
American history. “Do you think a girl alarms about the virus and allowing it to
like me could become president of the escape from the city of Wuhan. Much of
United States?” Sophie asked. I’ll Europe was next, failing to avoid enor-
share the amazing answer that Justice mous outbreaks. Today, many countries
Sotomayor gave Sophie later. For now, — including Japan, Canada, France,
let’s focus on the Australia — are coping with new in-
latest news. creases in cases after reopening parts of
Women’s
In the next few society.
representation
days, Joe Biden, the Yet even with all of these problems,
in U.S.
former vice presi- one country stands alone as the only af-
government dent and now pre- fluent nation to have suffered a severe,
is lagging. sumptive Democrat- sustained outbreak for more than four
Change won’t ic presidential nomi- months: the United States.
happen by nee, is expected to When it comes to the virus, the United
itself. announce his run- States has come to resemble not the
ning mate. The wealthy and powerful countries to
possibility that a which it is often compared but instead to
Black woman may far poorer countries or those with large
fill the vice-presidential slot on the migrant populations.
Democratic ticket for the first time How did this happen? The New York
ASHLEY GILBERTSON FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
ever adds to the excitement, especially Behrouz Boochani, a Kurd who escaped persecution in Iran, spent six and a half years imprisoned in an Australian detention camp where he wrote his award-winning book. Times set out to reconstruct the unique
since that woman could plausibly failure of the United States through nu-
become president of the United States. merous interviews with scientists and
He just wants to be free
Hopes for a woman to hold one of public health experts around the world.
the two highest offices of the executive The reporting points to two central
branch have been long held. I still themes.
remember when, in 1984 in Los Ange- First, the United States faced long-
les, I interviewed Geraldine Ferraro, standing challenges in confronting a
the first female vice-presidential nomi- talismans gathered during six and a half mosphere of stultified trauma. Days, name spelled wrong — there was no major pandemic. It is a large country at
FROM THE MAGAZINE
nee of a major political party. On that years of imprisonment, were crammed weeks, months slipped away while they guarantee that he would even make it to the nexus of the global economy, with a
occasion we took a picture together; in into this small room. Boochani had been waited for news of resettlement. Mean- New Zealand. He needed to be careful, tradition of prioritizing individualism
it, she held her fist high. an Iranian dissident and a boat person; while, they were stuck. Or, to be precise, and also lucky. That’s why it was so star- over government restrictions.
Stateless and locked up,
Ms. Ferraro and then-Democratic a detainee and a refugee. In the morning everyone but Boochani was stuck. tling when morning came and Boochani “As an American, I think there is a lot
presidential candidate Walter Mondale a writer pecked out a book he would strike out again, hoping to All the men had started out together was late to the airport. Everybody ar- of good to be said about our libertarian
lost that election to Ronald Reagan. reach yet another new life. It didn’t mat- in the shared misery of detention, but rived before him: the TV crew filming tradition,” Dr. Jared Baeten, an epidemi-
on a contraband telephone
But I remember her as a warrior. ter, really, what stuff he carried along. “I then Boochani did something extraordi- his departure for a documentary, friends ologist and vice dean at the University
Against the background of Hillary don’t care about these books,” he said nary: Letter by letter, pecked out on who came to see him off, the other pas- of Washington School of Public Health,
Clinton’s defeat in the 2016 presidential suddenly, though many of them con- contraband telephones while locked up sengers booked on the flight. By the said. “But this is the consequence: We
BY MEGAN K. STACK
race, it is hard to understand how one tained Boochani’s own work. on Manus, he wrote his first book. “No time Boochani ambled into the depar- don’t succeed as well as a collective.”
of the richest and most powerful coun- It was hard, in the end, to figure out what The motel loomed around him, a Friend but the Mountains” was pub- ture hall, bleary-eyed and still wearing The second major theme is one that
tries in the world has never elected a to take and what to leave. Spread over sealed, somber spot in the bustle of the lished in 2018, electrifying readers with yesterday’s clothes, only an hour re- public health experts often find uncom-
woman to the White House. Other the linoleum floor of Behrouz Boochani’s port town. Everyone staying in Lodge 10 its harrowing and deeply humanistic mained before takeoff. fortable to discuss because many try to
countries in the Western Hemisphere motel room were drifts of clothing, — every guest, although that’s the rendering of life in the secretive and lit- But this is the alchemy of Boochani’s steer clear of partisan politics. But many
— Nicaragua, Panama, Chile, Ar- books in Persian and ashtrays overflow- wrong word — was a refugee awaiting tle-understood camp. The book was an persona: an impervious, unbroken spir- agree that the poor results in the United
gentina, Brazil and Costa Rica — have ing with cigarette stubs. It was a No- resettlement. These men were brought award-winning best seller; its belea- it that defies his oppressors and also, at States stem in substantial measure from
had women as presidents. Not the vember morning last year in Port into the country against their will for the guered author became a cause célèbre. times, his would-be supporters. He the performance of the Trump adminis-
United States. Moresby, the capital of Papua New noncrime of seeking political asylum in Now Boochani was armed with price- projects the image of an undaunted bo- tration.
RAMOS,PAGE9 Guinea; outside, roosters screamed un- Australia. They were among hundreds less paperwork: an invitation from a lit- hemian and lets you forget — maybe he In no other high-income country —
der a stinging equatorial sun. Boocha- of migrants locked up in an old naval erary organization in New Zealand, a hopes you won’t notice — that he has and in only a few countries, period —
The New York Times publishes opinion ni’s room was cramped; the door base on Manus Island, which lies off the one-month visa to cross the border and a also been a displaced and vulnerable have political leaders departed from ex-
from a wide range of perspectives in propped open by a wastebasket stuffed northeast coast of mainland Papua New ticket on a morning flight. man. pert advice as frequently and signifi-
hopes of promoting constructive debate with the remains of chicken dinners. Ev- Guinea. Now they had been moved to Boochani didn’t have a passport, just The cellphone was everything on Ma- cantly as the Trump administration.
about consequential questions. erything he owned, all the objects and this motel with its shared toilets and at- a refugee travel document with his BOOCHANI,PAGE2 VIRUS,PAGE6
Greek tragedies are upstaged by a crisis
abide by restrictions set by the health
EPIDAURUS, GREECE
authorities, visitors wore masks to enter
and leave the amphitheater, and ushers
in plastic visors and surgical gloves en-
For struggling theaters,
forced social distancing. The theater’s
pandemic fuels financial usual 10,000-seat capacity was capped
at 4,500.
woes befitting dramas
Even before the pandemic, Greece’s
theaters were in trouble. Years of aus-
terity saw government spending on the
BY NIKI KITSANTONIS
arts slashed, with subsidies for the larg-
As dusk fell here on a Saturday in late est theaters cut in half, or withdrawn al-
July, a white-robed chorus filed onto the together for some smaller venues. As a
sparse stage of a limestone amphithe- deep recession hammered the economy,
ater for the National Theater of Greece’s tens of thousands of businesses closed
production of “The Persians,” the down, leaving little prospect of support
world’s oldest surviving dramatic work. from the private sector. Dozens of the-
In 472 B.C., when Aeschylus’s play aters closed; others survived only by
was first performed, the actors would cast members covering the costs of per-
have been wearing masks. This time, it formances themselves.
Wordplay, every day.
was the audience. As Greece started to emerge from its
The show, which was taking place as financial crisis, in 2018, state funding
part of the Athens and Epidaurus Festi- started trickling back; the major state-
The New York Times Crossword is the upside to downtime.
val, was livestreamed to an audience funded theaters edged up to three-quar-
It’s the smart way to fill the breaks in your day. Start playing.
around the world and was hailed as the- ters of their pre-crisis budgets, and the
ater’s return to the place where it all be- MARILENA ANASTASIADOU smaller theaters that survived recouped nytimes.com/solvenow
gan after the coronavirus lockdown Aeschylus’s “The Persians” in Epidaurus, Greece. Theaters were starting to show signs some of their losses.
darkened stages across Greece. To of recovery after years of austerity, but the coronavirus threatens to reverse their gains. GREECE,PAGE2
NEWSSTAND PRICES Issue Number
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2 | SATURDAY-SUNDAY, AUGUST8-9, 2020 THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL EDITION
page two
He just wants to be free
BOOCHANI,FROM PAGE1 the asylum seekers were moved to mo-
nus. Boochani and the other detainees tels in Port Moresby because, it seemed,
hoarded their cigarettes for weeks to nobody knew what else to do with them.
barter for phones with the detention Australian politicians sometimes cast
center’s local employees. Once ac- the problem of the boats in humanitar-
quired, the phones had to be hidden ian terms: Ruthless people smugglers,
from the guards, who conducted sur- they say, must be starved out of busi-
prise dawn inspections to hunt for con- ness. At other times, the boats are dis-
traband. Boochani’s phone was confis- cussed as a security threat, carrying an
cated twice; each time, there was no re- unchecked flow of strange and poten-
course but to start over again, one sacri- tially dangerous foreigners. Often these
ficed smoke at a time. two strands of thought — we don’t want
The phones quickly became the only those people here, nor do we want them
tool successful at breaking through the to drown — are woven together so
shroud of secrecy that Australia tried to tightly they are impossible to separate.
throw over the migrants’ detention. All told, Australia has locked up thou-
Locked up in the disused rooms of the sands of desperate people, including
old naval base, the asylum seekers were children, in de facto prisons on Manus
called by serial numbers instead of and Nauru. The detentions have been
names. Communications were tightly harsh but effective, officials say: The
restricted. Under Australian law, work- flow of boats slowed and eventually
ers who spoke publicly about what they stopped. Asylum seekers are still stuck
saw or heard at the detention sites faced on Nauru; until last year, they included
up to two years in prison. children. The Australian government
In his quest for refuge, Boochani had recently spent about $130 million to re-
landed in a dystopian enclosure admin- open the detention center on Christmas
istered by a crazy collection of bureau- Island — despite the lack of new arrivals
crats, guards and contractors. A solitary to lock up. In other words, the policy is
soul, he was tormented in the camp by still unapologetically intact.
the constant presence of so many other
people. He yearned for a paper and pen. IT WAS Abrilliant January day in Christ-
Boochani had been a journalist in Iran; church, New Zealand. Screeching gulls
now he started texting information wheeled in off the Pacific; swollen roses
about Manus to journalists. bobbed in the breeze. In the hydrangea-
As he grew more bold, he moved on to fringed garden of a spare, tidy house,
writing his own dispatches in publica- Boochani sat smoking. He couldn’t
tions including The Guardian and giving smoke inside because the house wasn’t
speeches and interviews via livestream. exactly his; it was on loan from the Uni-
He co-directed a documentary, using his versity of Canterbury.
phone to shoot intimate footage and in- Boochani had landed in New Zealand
terviews within the detention center’s without a credit card or bank account;
walls. Editors at Picador in Australia ap- he had no idea what his book earnings
proached Boochani about writing a were worth in real terms. The Christ-
memoir; Boochani replied that he was church mayor and local Maori repre-
already working on a more genre-bend- sentatives welcomed him as he stepped
ing book. off the plane. He appeared before a rapt
ASHLEY GILBERTSON FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
Boochani wrote “No Friend but the The author Behrouz Boochani, left, with Aziz Adam, an activist from Sudan, when they were refugees detained by Australia on Manus Island, off Papua New Guinea, in 2016. and sold-out crowd at an event orga-
Mountains” in Persian, sending texts of nized by Word Christchurch, the group
ideas and descriptive fragments to non- that had invited him to the country. The
existent WhatsApp numbers that he perous country that protected human fertilizer for the tropical plants.” The memories of detention were still fresh,
used to organize his thoughts. Once sat- rights and so, he decided, the journey generator whose failures paralyzed the and Boochani struggled to adapt him-
isfied with a passage, he sent it to was worth the risk. cooling fans was a never-seen, godlike self to an unfamiliar place and lifestyle.
Moones Mansoubi, a translator in Syd- But as Boochani was enduring his presence, “a mind made of machinery He kept signing up for grocery-store dis-
ney, who organized the material into desperate escape, a harsh new migra- and wires ... that takes pleasure in count cards, then losing them.
chapters before sending it along to Omid tion policy was announced in Australia. throwing the prison into disarray.” The During these early and disorienting
Tofighian, an Iranian-Australian philos- Prime Minister Kevin Rudd declared, harsh sun was “in cahoots with the pris- weeks, Boochani got word that it was fi-
ophy professor. Slowly, haltingly, the same week that Boochani landed on on to intensify the misery,” but when the nally time to begin the final steps to re-
Boochani and Tofighian texted back and Christmas Island, that anybody trying sun set, the darkness was worse: “We settle in the United States. He’d been
forth about how best to translate and ar- to reach Australia by boat without a visa are all transformed into dark shadows awaiting this news for months, but when
range the passages into a draft. Togeth- “will never be settled in Australia” and scavenging for scraps of light,” he wrote. his chance came, he backed out. Instead,
er they blended poetry and prose into a would instead be shipped off to Papua The camp was suffused with a dark, Boochani took a bold gamble: He ap-
genre Tofighian has called “horrific sur- New Guinea. existential uncertainty. Nobody knew plied for asylum in New Zealand. He ac-
realism.” Manus Regional Processing Center how long they would be held or what fate cepted a fellowship with the university’s
The book chronicles the early months doesn’t exist anymore. Four years after awaited them afterward. The men were Ngai Tahu Research Center, which spe-
of the detention center, starting with Boochani arrived on the island, he saw pressed to go home or stay in Papua cializes in Maori and Indigenous studies
Boochani’s desperate 2013 boat voyage bulldozers razing the decrepit buildings. New Guinea for good. Asylum cases — a nod to his Kurdish identity — al-
from Indonesia to Australia and ending Foundering in debt, rife with corruption were seldom and sporadically heard. though the post would remain a secret
with the first riot on Manus the following and stunted by a legacy of Australian co- The detainees didn’t understand while his application to stay in New Zea-
year. Boochani describes the story as lonialism, Papua New Guinea had whether Australia would eventually re- land was pending. Conservative poli-
autobiographical and true, but most of agreed to host the camp in exchange for ticians in both New Zealand and Aus-
the characters in the book are compos- about $300 million. But backlash from tralia were calling for Boochani to be
AUSTRALIAN DEPT. OF IMMIGRATION AND BORDER PROTECTION HANDOUT/EUROPEAN PRESSPHOTO AGENCY A solitary soul, he was tormented
ites with nicknames: the Prime Min- The Manus Island detention camp held thousands of refugees looking to settle in Aus- the international community was imme- turned out. What would he do then,
ister, the Cow, the Man With the Thick tralia. The camp has now been closed, but Australia’s refugee policy is unchanged. diate and scathing. Pilloried by criticism in the camp by the constant where would he go? He shrugged; he
Moustache, the Cunning Young Man. from home and abroad, Papua New presence of so many other didn’t answer; instead, he began to roll
The only exceptions are Boochani him- Guinea soured on the deal, and in 2016, people. another cigarette.
self and his friend Reza Barati, the first he, a descendant of perpetually put- the books to cram the night before ex- the country’s Supreme Court declared The months slid past. Wait a few more
detainee to be killed at Manus. upon warriors, could withstand even ex- ams. Once again, his raw intellect car- the detention of asylum seekers unlaw- weeks, Boochani was told. And then a
Boochani made international head- treme hardship with his dignity intact. ried him. He completed his undergradu- ful and ordered the camp closed. lent and accept them and, if so, how long few more weeks, and still more.
lines in 2019 when the book won the Boochani was better at sports than ate degree as well as a master’s in geo- Manus remains, however, as a cultur- they needed to hold out. Meanwhile, Boochani wrote some short stories.
prestigious Victorian Prize for Litera- school, and so he sat for university en- politics. al identity shared by hundreds of asy- they’d been transported against their Bought some new clothes. Took up bik-
ture — the most cash-rich award in Aus- trance examinations with little hope. He In Tehran, Boochani wrote dispatches lum seekers who survived its barracks. will over an international border and ing. Then, on July 23, Boochani’s birth-
tralian letters — while he was still de- was competing against more privileged for a Kurdish magazine and quietly They have their own history and iconog- held without trial or even the suggestion day, he finally got word from his lawyer:
tained on Manus. students from all over the country — taught Kurdish language lessons. Advo- raphy; they carry a collective grief for of a crime. Imprisoned, Boochani His application had been accepted. On
Boochani’s book challenges readers teenagers who grew up with books and cacy of Kurdish culture is considered the seven men, at least, who were killed thought. Taken hostage. the phone, he let out a wild and incredu-
to acknowledge that we are living in the highbrow conversation and tutors. subversive by Shiite rulers who view in flares of violence, died by suicide or Self-harm provided a much-craved lous laugh.
age of camps. The camps lie scattered Boochani took the exam and tried to for- Kurdish nationalism as a threat, but succumbed to medical negligence. airing of dark emotion. People swal- Boochani rode his bike from his house
throughout the Middle East, cluster on get about it. Boochani was unfazed. In 2013, the Rev- The miseries of offshore detention lowed razor blades; sliced their wrists; to the sea. He looked at the expanse of
Greek islands and stretch like an ugly High school completed, he joined a olutionary Guard raided the magazine were meant to pressure migrants to hanged themselves; sewed their lips to- ocean, these waters that had almost
tattoo along the U.S.-Mexican border. At work crew to dig out a building founda- and jailed some of his colleagues. abandon their asylum claims so they gether. Detainees hurt themselves in re- killed him, the sea he suspected of ab-
no time since humans first drew borders tion. The dirt was hard; the progress Boochani went into hiding. “They were could legally be sent back whence they action to even minor shifts or sugges- sconding with years of his life, the waves
have there been more migrants and ref- slow; the work exhausting. On the third listening to my phone,” he said. “They came and — more crucial — to create a tions: a dawn inspection, a change in that crashed now on the mineral grains
ugees than today. Countless individual day he rode home in a funk. “This is how knew everything about me. They were spectacle so chilling that “boat people” Australian politics, a rumor. of this new land he called home. He
lives weave into a collective panorama the rest of my life will be,” he recalled following me. It was too much pressure.” would stop coming to Australia alto- As the years passed, the terms of the looked at the ocean, at all of that past
of displacement and statelessness and thinking. As the bus pulled into the vil- He scraped together $5,000 to be gether. That was the first and last point men’s confinement changed, but free- and all of that future, the churn of time
detention. These truncated journeys are lage, he caught sight of a pack of friends smuggled through a notoriously dan- of this byzantine enterprise. dom never came. When they heard of and destiny, and he smoked a cigarette.
a defining experience of our times. and cousins waiting on the roadside. Ju- gerous refugee route to Australia. He Arriving in Manus, Boochani found the court order to close the camp, they Just one cigarette. One cigarette and the
bilant, waving a letter they’d torn open, would fly to Indonesia and then sail hun- himself among tents and rough build- were jubilant with the assumption that sea in his eyes. And then he rode home
BECAUSE HE ISa Kurd, Boochani inherited they shouted the news: Boochani had dreds of miles to the Australian territory ings of lime and dirt that shed white Australia would finally have to let them again.
a legacy of bigotry and official repres- earned a seat at Tarbiat Moallem Uni- of Christmas Island, where he would ask powder onto the ground, sticking to ev- in — but this, too, was a false hope. They
sion in Iran, but his upbringing also gave versity in Tehran. for political asylum. Plenty of migrants eryone’s feet. Drain pipes poked from could come and go from the camp, but Adapted from an article that originally
him a mind-set that would eventually At university, rather than spend had drowned on this voyage. But bathrooms and the kitchen, dripping “a without travel documents, the men were appeared in The New York Times Maga-
prove invaluable: The conviction that money on texts, Boochani would borrow Boochani imagined Australia as a pros- potion of rotting excrement, the perfect still stuck on the island. In 2019, most of zine.
Pandemic plays a role in Greek tragedies
GREECE,FROM PAGE1 staged “The Persians” at the festival, But distributing aid to theaters has tive, like a vase of flowers,” she said. “If
Then the pandemic came, and it said in an interview that he was bracing been complicated by poor record keep- you don’t have money, you won’t buy a
threatens to wash those gains away. for losses. “I’m doing it to keep up ap- ing. One problem the authorities faced vase of flowers. But culture is our soci-
On March 12, the government closed pearances, to keep the theater alive,” he in dealing with thousands of requests ety’s compass, our North Star. If we lose
all theaters in the first wave of its re- said of this summer’s reduced program. was that there was no official record of our compass, we lose our way.”
sponse to the coronavirus. Since July 1, The Greek government has an- theaters or actors in the country, and it Many theaters are now looking to
open-air venues have been allowed to nounced some measures to cushion the was difficult to ascertain which claims charitable and philanthropic institu-
resume, but only at half capacity. The blow for arts organizations. In May, the were genuine. A register is only now be- tions to fill the gaps. The Onassis Foun-
conditions under which indoor venues government set aside 100 million euros, ing compiled, Mr. Yatromanolakis said. dation, a nonprofit founded by the Greek
would be allowed to reopen have yet to about $120 million, to support busi- The chaotic state of the Greek arts shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis,
be decided by the health authorities, ac- nesses in the arts sector that were sector has long been holding it back, has handed out hundreds of grants since
cording to Nicholas Yatromanolakis, the forced to close and to compensate work- said Lydia Koniordou, an actress who the beginning of the lockdown. It also
general secretary of the Greek Culture ers left out of a job. But only €4 million played the lead role in “The Persians” commissioned dozens of new video
Ministry. “No one knows what will hap- was pledged for theaters, a pittance in and who was Greece’s culture minister works from artists during the lockdown
pen yet,” he said. “We have to roll with comparison with the funds made avail- from 2016 to 2018 in the left-wing gov- that are available to view on the founda-
the punches.” able by other European nations. ernment of Prime Minister Alexis tion’s website.
Even if closed theaters reopen in the Dimitris Antoniadis, a former presi- Tsipras. “The idea was to support artists while
fall, the social-distancing rules that they dent of the Union of Greek Actors, said Institutions frequently employed art- also creating an impression of an era,”
will most likely have to introduce will that state compensation for performers ists with contracts that offered little pro- said Afroditi Panagiotakou, the founda-
mean greatly reduced ticket sales, and only helped those who were working tection or without contracts at all, she tion’s director of culture.
state subsidies on their own are not when the lockdown began. When the vi- said. This, along with widespread finan- At the performance last month, many
enough to keep most organizations go- rus struck, about 80 percent of Greek ac- cial mismanagement, had turned in the audience were hopeful that the-
COSTAS BALTAS/REUTERS
ing. tors in the austerity-hit industry were Ushering at “The Persians” in Epidaurus, Greece, where the amphitheater’s 10,000- Greece’s cultural sector into a “bombed- ater in Greece, a tradition stretching
Greece has so far weathered the pan- unemployed, he said, noting that roles seat capacity was capped at 4,500 to abide by virus restrictions set by health officials. out landscape,” she added. back thousands of years, would find a
demic much better than many of its were now so scarce that many had Ms. Koniordou said that during her way through the crisis.
neighbors, recording about 5,000 cases sought work in cafes and hotels to make years as culture minister, she had man- “It’s amazing to be back here, espe-
and just over 200 deaths from the virus, ends meet during the pandemic. ways to bring in revenue themselves, pandemic. A program of more than 250 aged to curb wasteful spending by state- cially after that nightmare with the lock-
but many in the industry worry that a “It’s not like the virus came along and such as recording plays for paid digital performances in archaeological sites funded theaters and secure an extra €3 down,” Vania Saroglou, a 36-year-old
second wave of the illness would mean ruined some sort of paradise,” he said. distribution. The ministry is also plan- around the country, organized by the million in annual subsidies for smaller teacher, said as she set her bag and pro-
that venues have to remain closed even “Things were already hard, now it’s ning to help theaters present produc- ministry, will run through the summer. venues. But, she added, the arts were gram down in the empty seat next to her.
longer. hell.” tions with English subtitles, in the hope “We tried to expand the safety net, to generally viewed as a luxury, and were “Whatever happens, Greeks will al-
Dimitris Lignadis, the artistic direc- During the lockdown, the Culture of drawing foreign visitors — though protect jobs and to promote Greek the- not a priority. ways have this,” she said. “It’s in our
tor of the National Theater, which Ministry encouraged theaters to find tourism, too, has been battered by the ater,” Mr. Yatromanolakis said. “Culture is seen as something decora- DNA.”
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THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL EDITION SATURDAY-SUNDAY, AUGUST8-9, 2020 | 3
World
Paramedic, bride-to-be,
victim of Beirut blast
stormed into al-Qaa, killed five of its res-
A young woman’s death
idents and wounded dozens more.
has become a symbol A cousin of Ms. Fares, awakened by
the attack, rushed out to help his neigh-
of Lebanon’s grief
bors and was one of those killed in the
fighting.
For many people from her village, her
BY MARIA ABI-HABIB
death was too much to bear, apparently
On Thursday, Sahar Fares’s fiancé and stemming not from the external threats
family gave her the wedding party she that have long plagued Lebanon, but
will never have. from the internal ills of government cor-
A zaffe wedding band played for her, ruption and indifference.
the flute striking a joyful tune while Officials say that what detonated was
drums kept the beat, as family and a huge cache of ammonium nitrate that
friends threw rice and flower petals. The had been stored near the waterfront for
musicians, in festive, gold-embroidered years, despite repeated warnings about
white gowns, played while uniformed the danger it posed and discussions
firefighters carried her white coffin to a about what to do with it. That has set off
waiting hearse. a wave of anger at the government and
Her fiancé, Gilbert Karaan, sat atop demands that those responsible be pun-
the shoulders of a relative, crying as he ished.
waved goodbye for the last time, blow- In the moments after Ms. Fares was
ing her a final kiss. laid to rest, al-Qaa’s residents seethed
“Everything you wanted will be with anger and despair. They had lost
present except you in a white wedding too much, they said, dedicating too
dress,” Mr. Karaan had vowed in a trib- many of their own for a country that was
ute posted on social media. “You broke barely functioning.
my back, my love, you broke my heart. “Our history is one of martyrs and
Life has no taste now that you’re gone.” martyrdom,” said al-Qaa’s mayor,
Ms. Fares, a 24-year-old paramedic, Bachir Mattar. “Sahar is a message to
was one of at least 145 people killed on our youth that there are people who
Tuesday by the massive explosion that commit to the nation and lose every-
leveled most of the Port of Beirut, devas- thing. I wish there was a nation that was
tated entire neighborhoods, injured worth such sacrifice and commitment,
more than 5,000 people and left hun- though. I wish we had a proper state.”
dreds of thousands homeless. In a split The village named its sports field for
second, it left Lebanon’s capital looking her, “in recognition of the martyr of all
like a war zone without a war. martyrs.”
PHOTOGRAPHS BY AARON VINCENT ELKAIM FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
Thiané Diop, a former guide at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, wrote on social media that she’d faced racism from colleagues, the public and donors “constantly.” Each death is a unique, unfathomable “People are fed up,” Mr. Mattar con-
tragedy, but the story of Ms. Fares, the tinued. “We are proud of her sacrifice,
young bride-to-be, has rippled across but we are just as bothered. Why? What
Bias at human rights museum
social media, capturing the attention was it all for? For a dysfunctional sys-
and heartache of many Lebanese. The tem that doesn’t know how to solve a sin-
determined daughter of a family of mod- gle problem.”
est means, she had managed to break
into the nearly all-male world of the
Two of the institution’s previous ex- Beirut Fire Brigade, devoting herself to
TORONTO
ternal reviews addressed sexual har- public service and making plans to build
assment, said Ms. Fitzhenry, the mu- a family of her own.
seum spokeswoman. The third involved Instead, her relatives and Mr. Karaan,
External review concludes
broader concerns by museum staff, she 29, buried her.
‘pervasive and systemic’ said, declining to offer more specifics. Ms. Fares called Mr. Karaan on Tues-
“It was a culture of violence,” said Ga- day evening to show him the fire that
racism at Canadian site
briela Agüero, a former guide and pro- was consuming a warehouse at the Port
gram developer who took a mental of Beirut. No one needed medical atten-
health leave last year because, she said, tion, so she sat in a fire engine, watching
BY CATHERINE PORTER
of the stress of the museum’s workplace her colleagues as they struggled to
AND IAN AUSTEN
culture, as well as its content. douse the flames.
Black and Indigenous employees say In an interview with the Canadian As the roar of the blaze intensified,
they were disparaged. Female employ- Broadcasting Corporation in June, Ms. she climbed down from the truck, hold- Sahar Fares, 24, was one of at least 145
ees say they were sexually harassed. Agüero exposed the museum’s former ing her phone up to give Mr. Karaan a people killed in the Beirut explosion.
Guides say their managers instructed practice of asking guides to skip the ex- better look at what appeared to be fire-
them to block off an exhibit on same-sex hibit on the legalization of same-sex works igniting, shimmers of red and sil-
marriage during tours for religious marriage in Canada during tours for re- ver within the thick smoke. The sounds In the months before she died, Ms.
schools. ligious schools and for guests who ob- were weird, Ms. Fares said, like nothing Fares was saving up to prepare her
All this has happened, critics say, at jected to the content. she and her team had ever encountered. home for the wedding and to buy her
an unlikely place: The Canadian Mu- “This practice is contrary to the Mu- He pleaded with her to run for cover, wedding dress. But like other Lebanese
seum for Human Rights in Winnipeg, seum’s mandate, and contrary to every- relatives said later, and she did, but too citizens, she saw her savings evaporate
Manitoba. A Holocaust exhibit. Indigenous Canadians were upset that the museum used the term thing we stand for,” the museum’s exec- late. The last image Mr. Karaan saw of overnight as the currency crashed, los-
In recent weeks, the museum has “genocide” for five overseas episodes but not for Canada’s treatment of their people. utive team said in a June letter confirm- his fiancée was her shoes pounding on ing 80 percent of its value this year.
been engulfed by accusations of dis- ing that the practice had happened for pavement as she sought safety. And The Lebanese government put a curb
crimination and harassment. And on two years. then, a blast. on bank withdrawals, allowing citizens
Wednesday the museum released a re- The outside report concluded that “My beautiful bride. Our wedding was to pull out only a few hundred dollars a
port from an external review, which con- L.G.B.T. and queer content was omitted to be held on June 6, 2021,” he wrote month. Hyperinflation quickly ate into
cluded that “racism is pervasive and or hidden on six occasions in 2017, and Wednesday in his online message, ac- what little money she had, making ev-
systemic within the institution.” on one occasion in 2015. companied by a photo of her posing eryday products unaffordable.
For a museum devoted to document- The report also noted critically the ab- proudly in her paramedic’s uniform. In- Ms. Fares and her fiancé, Mr. Karaan,
ing the history of human rights, the re- sence of any representation in the muse- stead, it will be “tomorrow, my love.” took pride in their service to the country.
port was a stinging rebuke. um’s exhibits of two-spirit people, a term “I loved you, love you and will always He works as an officer in the Lebanese
“This is a tainted place as far as I’m used by some Indigenous people to de- love you,” it went on, “until I am reunited State Security, which provides internal
concerned,” said Barbara Nepinak, an scribe those who have both a masculine with you where we’ll continue our jour- policing and protection to the country’s
elder of the Pine Creek First Nation who and a feminine spirit, despite years of ney together.” politicians.
is a member of the Special Indigenous requests for inclusion from that commu- Trained as a nurse, Ms. Fares decided They posted photos of themselves in
Advisory Council to the museum. “But it nity. in 2018 to enter the civil service. She uniform to their social media accounts,
can be fixed, and I strongly believe it will “The censorship was not just around craved the job stability and social bene- Ms. Fares sitting inside a fire truck
be fixed.” same-sex marriage” said Albert Mc- fits of a government career, she told rela- peeking out an open window, smiling in
In June, museum officials admitted Leod, a director of the Two-Spirited Peo- tives, after she and her two sisters her camo uniform.
that they had accommodated requests ple of Manitoba, a community group watched her father, an aluminum weld- “She was the most loving person I
from school groups to exclude, or even that tried to get the museum to include er, and her mother, a schoolteacher, know,” said her cousin, Theresa Khoury,
hide, content they might find objection- stories of the struggles of two-spirit peo- struggle to make ends meet. 23. “Kind and caring and always looking
able and issued a public apology. The in- ple. She grew up in the village of al-Qaa, in out for her parents and sisters. She was
stitution’s president stepped down, too. “Even a human rights institution can northern Lebanon, on the border with full of life and loved life. Her dream was
After Wednesday’s report, Pauline be rife with discrimination unless it Syria, and dreamed of opportunities and to marry the love of her life and spend
Rafferty, the museum’s chairwoman practices its own teachings,” said Karen security it could not provide. In 2016, the rest of her life with him.”
and acting chief executive, vowed to Shania Pruden, a former museum employee, reported experiencing racism there. Busby, a recently retired law professor residents said, at the height of the Is-
take several immediate steps, including “When there was a problem, management most likely wouldn’t do anything,” she said. and founding director of the Centre for lamic State extremist group’s rampage Kareem Chehayeb and Georgi Azar con-
the establishment of a diversity and in- Human Rights Research at the Univer- across the Middle East, the militants tributed reporting from Beirut, Lebanon.
clusion committee. sity of Manitoba. “It won’t go away with
“We’ve accepted the report’s findings man rights,” said Elise Chenier, a history schools as weapons of “cultural geno- good intentions.”
in full and the recommendations in prin- professor at Simon Fraser University in cide.” But the museum took until 2018 to After the museum’s announcement
ciple,” she said. “The opportunity here is Vancouver, British Columbia, who did use the term. that it would conduct an independent re-
to make systemic changes, but it will not want to be identified by the museum In June, public debate about the insti- view by a feminist lawyer who is Black,
take time and it will be very hard work.” as a creator of an exhibit on same-sex tution was reignited by a local antirac- Jewish and identifies as queer, former
Still, the review is the fourth in the in- marriage in Canada, saying the institu- ism protest. employees reacted with a mix of relief
stitution’s short lifetime, making many tion had oversimplified the “debate in A former museum guide and program that it was happening, sadness that it
people skeptical that systemic discrimi- the queer community about marriage.” interpreter, Thiané Diop, 29, wrote on was necessary and cynicism that any-
nation will be corrected, even at a place The museum’s former curator of In- social media that during four years of thing would change.
built to inspire visitors to combat it. digenous content, Tricia Logan, wrote in working at the museum, she had faced “A lot of us have felt isolated doing this
Armando Perla, a curator who a book that she had been “consistently racism from colleagues, the public and work for a long time,” said Mr. Perla, the
worked at the museum for years, said he reminded” to match any mention of donors “constantly,” and instead of ad- former curator, in an interview before
was disappointed that the review did not state-perpetrated atrocities against In- dressing it, her bosses said she wasn’t a Wednesday’s report. “Now we’re realiz-
recommend removing a broad swath of digenous people with a “balanced state- “good fit.” ing we are not alone.”
the museum’s management but instead ment that indicates reconciliation, apol- Others also accused managers of When Mr. Perla worked at the Win-
focused on training. ogy or compensation provided by the making racial slurs and culturally insen- nipeg museum, he said, there were only
“No amount of training is going to fix government.” sitive remarks. three managers from visible minorities
the managers,” said Mr. Perla, who is Maureen Fitzhenry, the museum Shania Pruden, a 23-year-old from in the building — a pervasive situation
now head of human rights at the Mont- spokeswoman, disputed the assertion Pinaymootang First Nation who also in Canadian museums, he said.
real Holocaust Museum. that the museum had revised content worked at the museum, recalled that a “When you have managers who are
The museum opened in 2014 in Win- for political or nationalistic reasons. manager told her to get “thicker skin,” only white,” said Mr. Perla, who is gay
nipeg — a prairie city with a large Indig- Many in Winnipeg’s Indigenous com- after visitors pointed to her while talk- and came to Canada from El Salvador as
enous population. It is a stunning land- munity were outraged over the muse- ing about the history of “Indians,” mak- an asylum seeker, “with no visible mi-
mark in the city, with its illuminated um’s decision to use the term “genocide” ing her feel ashamed. norities to challenge the status quo, you
“spire of hope” visible from afar, and for five overseas genocides officially “When there was a problem, manage- will keep doing things as you have done
thousands of glass panels swooping recognized by the Canadian govern- ment most likely wouldn’t do anything,” them.”
around its limestone walls to resemble ment — including the Holocaust and the Ms. Pruden said. Some Indigenous staff and advisers
the folded wings of a dove. massacres in Rwanda — but not for the Four former female staff members said the museum had made strides in
Even before the doors opened, treatment of their people in Canada. told The New York Times that they had addressing their concerns.
though, the museum inspired protest At the time, the country’s first Truth reported episodes of sexual harassment In a 2018 speech, the museum's presi-
and heated debate. Several curators and and Reconciliation Commission had and, in one case, sexual assault to man- dent, John Young, said the “policies and
outside experts complained that exhib- concluded years of hearings on the gov- agers and that in all cases the first re- practices of colonization” in Canada,
its had been politically neutered and so ernment’s longstanding use of resi- sponse was to question their accounts. were genocide. Signage in the museum
watered down as to become meaning- dential schools as a pernicious tool of as- Wednesday’s report found that there was changed.
less. similation that had forcibly removed “are indications that sexual harassment
“It became an ethical cheerleading more than 150,000 Indigenous children and stalking complaints made by Black Catherine Porter reported from Toronto,
triumphalist narrative about Canada, from their families and cultures. women may not have been investigated and Ian Austen from Lake of Bays, On-
forwarding the notion of Canada, the A year after the museum opened, the or addressed adequately prior to the fall tario. Karyn Pugliese contributed report- Ms. Fares’s fiancé, Gilbert Karaan, with Ms. Fares’s coffin at her funeral on Thursday.
peacekeeping nation, as a leader in hu- commission’s final report described the of 2016.” ing. “What was it all for?” asked the mayor of her hometown after her death.
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4 | SATURDAY-SUNDAY, AUGUST8-9, 2020 THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL EDITION
world
After a lockdown lull, a surge at the U.S. border
ing the public health need to keep deten-
NOGALES, MEXICO
tion centers as empty as possible and
prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
The new policy also extended to refu-
Arrests of migrants trying
gees seeking asylum.
to cross illegally, mostly For about 91 percent of those arrests
in July, the administration used the spe-
Mexicans, have doubled
cial rule to rapidly return a migrant to
Mexico.
Numerous migrants interviewed in
BY KIRK SEMPLE
this border city in recent days said the
Illegal migration along the border of the policy had been an incentive for them: If
United States and Mexico has surged af- they failed in their bid to enter the
ter a period of stagnation, as economic United States, they said, they would be
hardship, made worse by the pandemic, spared the hardship of detention and
has driven thousands northward seek- would be quickly sent back to Mexico,
ing work. putting them in position to try again.
After plunging in the spring, when na- “What’s encouraging us now is that
tions went into lockdown and shut down because of the pandemic, they are let-
borders in an effort to curb the spread of ting us go quickly,” said Jacobo, 27, a car-
the coronavirus and the illness it causes, penter from the Mexican port city of Ve-
Covid-19, the number of migrants ar- racruz who tried, unsuccessfully, to
rested at the border more than doubled cross the border at Nogales, Mexico —
between April and July, according to the which is just across from Nogales, Ari-
U.S. government. zona — late last month.
As the numbers rise, immigration is He requested partial anonymity to
becoming once again a primary rallying avoid drawing attention from the Ameri-
cry for President Trump, who is trailing can and Mexican authorities.
in the polls in his bid for re-election and Jacobo, who decided to migrate after
looking for purchase with an electorate the pandemic cost him his job at a con-
that is increasingly unhappy with his struction firm, tried to cross one night
handling of the pandemic and the econ- late last month in the company of four
omy. other migrants, guided by a smuggler
“Despite the dangers posed by who communicated with them by cell-
Covid-19, illegal immigration — it con- phone.
tinues,” Mark Morgan, the acting com- He had paid about $450 to the criminal
missioner of Customs and Border Pro- group that controlled the smuggling
tection, said on Thursday. routes along that stretch of the border,
Undocumented migrants were and promised to pay another $6,700 to
“putting American lives at risk,” he add- the smuggler if he successfully made it
ed, although the United States leads the into the interior of the United States.
world in the number of deaths from the Somewhere outside the small Mexi-
coronavirus. can border town of Sásabe, Jacobo and
Mr. Morgan touted the necessity of the four others crawled under a low wire
continuing to build the border wall, a fence that demarcated the border. For
project central to Mr. Trump’s political two days, they trudged north across the
PHOTOGRAPHS BY ADRIANA ZEHBRAUSKAS FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
identity, to forestall illegal migration Dinora, from Campeche, Mexico, in the chapel of a migrant shelter in Nogales, Mexico. She and a friend have repeatedly tried to cross the border into the United States. Arizona desert, moving mostly at night
and the further spread of the coro- and during the cooler morning hours,
navirus by infected immigrants. and resting when daytime tempera-
The numbers are still far below the a mounting recession that economists tures became severe.
peak of the migration crisis in 2019, and expect to be the deepest in nearly a cen- Late on the second night, they were
also far lower than the record highs set tury, but the government has eschewed intercepted by American border agents.
in the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s, when an- the stimulus measures that other na- The migrants fled. But over the next five
nual tallies of migrants apprehended at tions used to prop up economies as they hours they were all rounded up, then
the border often topped 1,000,000. buckled under the weight of the pan- marched back to Nogales and handed
And while undocumented migration demic. over to Mexican immigration officials,
is rebounding from a brief lull, who is In July, 78 percent of those appre- who processed and released them.
coming — and why — has changed sig- hended at the southern U.S. border were That evening, Jacobo rested at the
nificantly since the pandemic. Many say from Mexico, mainly single adult men, San Juan Bosco migrant shelter in No-
they have been inspired to try to mi- Mr. Morgan said. gales, and waited for his brother, an un-
grate now because of a new Trump ad- The number of migrants detained documented immigrant living in the
ministration policy that returns them to along the border with Mexico jumped to United States, to send him money for an-
Mexico quickly, often within hours of be- 38,347 in July from 16,162 in April, a 137 other attempt. He was going to keep try-
ing captured, but has the unintended ef- percent increase, according to U.S. ing until he was successful, he said.
fect of giving them more chances to Customs and Border Protection. Two Mexican women traveling to-
cross the border illegally. That is still a far cry from last year, gether were among about a dozen peo-
During the past several years, Central when there were more than 99,000 ap- ple staying at the shelter one night last
Americans dominated the flow of mi- prehensions in April of 2019 and nearly week. They had met during a failed
grants trying to cross the U.S. border 133,000 that May. But the steep rise in crossing several weeks before and had
with Mexico, with many seeking asy- recent months reflects a resurgence of since tried three other times, to no avail.
lum. They often traveled as families, fre- the migratory stream. “Various friends have been success-
quently with children, and peacefully While migrants and their advocates ful,” lamented Dinora, 24, who allowed
THE NEW YORK TIMES
surrendered to American border agents Men in Nogales who had been returned to Mexico after trying to cross the border. A U.S. say that job losses and deepening pov- publication of only her first name. She
in the hope of getting a chance to apply ministration’s restrictive immigration official said migrants who may carry the coronavirus endanger “American lives.” erty have been principal drivers of the had been compelled to migrate, she said,
for sanctuary. policies, there is little chance now of se- recent increase from Mexico, a recent after she lost her job as a seamstress in a
Now, many Central Americans who curing asylum in the United States. Trump administration border policy has factory in her home state of Campeche
might otherwise have sought to migrate Instead, the vast majority of those “They’re running, they’re fighting,” demic, with nearly 49,000 reported dead also been inspiring migrants to try their on the Gulf of Mexico.
have been discouraged from leaving caught trying to cross into the United Mr. Morgan said. “They absolutely have — behind only the much larger Brazil luck now. After four failed crossings, she had
home by closed borders and other pan- States in recent months are Mexican, of- no appreciation for the deadly conse- and United States. The real number of In March, the administration issued decided to head back home. Her friend,
demic-related travel restrictions, mi- ficials and migrants’ advocates said. quences of their actions while we’re nav- lives lost is believed to be much higher an order that allowed American immi- however, was determined to try again.
grants’ advocates said. And word has And their encounters with the authori- igating a global, deadly pandemic.” because of a dearth of testing and a sig- gration agents to suspend normal pro-
gotten back to potential refugees fleeing ties were often chaotic, with migrants Mexico has been among the countries nificant undercount of cases. cedures and swiftly expel illegal border Zolan Kanno-Youngs contributed report-
persecution that under the Trump ad- scattering to evade capture. worst affected by the coronavirus pan- Millions in Mexico lost their jobs amid crossers, often in a matter of hours, cit- ing from Washington.
‘Hell on earth,’ then decades working for peace
insistently told her story in unflinching There are fewer than 137,000 sur- serves on the executive committee of
PROFILE
detail to thousands of people at protests, vivors — known in Japanese as hi- Peace Boat, a Japanese nonprofit group
conferences, schools and even on cruise bakusha — of the atomic bombings still that operates socially conscious cruises
ships. Three years ago, she delivered an alive in Japan. An additional 2,887 sur- that have hosted Ms. Thurlow as a
BY MOTOKO RICH
acceptance lecture in Oslo when the In- vivors, like Ms. Thurlow, live outside the speaker.
On the morning of Aug. 6, 1945, Setsuko ternational Campaign to Abolish Nucle- country. Ms. Thurlow is not afraid to confront
Nakamura, then just 13, reported for her ar Weapons, or ICAN, won the Nobel In more than four decades as an anti- political leaders. At a 2014 conference in
first full day of duty in Japan’s increas- Peace Prize. nuclear activist in Canada, the home Vienna, Toshio Sano, then Japan’s disar-
ingly desperate war effort. Together Speaking on a video call from her country of her late husband, James mament ambassador, said experts were
with 30 other girls, she had been re- home in Toronto last month, Ms. Thur- Thurlow, a teacher she met in Japan in being “pessimistic” when they testified
cruited to assist with code breaking at a low said: “I am one of those who can tell the 1950s, Ms. Thurlow has offered an that relief organizations would be un-
military office in Hiroshima. a firsthand story of human suffering emotional counterpoint to otherwise able to provide meaningful aid after a
The major in charge of the unit was that the bomb caused. To me that was a dry policy negotiations over the weap- nuclear bombing.
exhorting the teenagers to demonstrate very important moral imperative.” ons. Ms. Thurlow sharply challenged him
their patriotism when, at 8:15 a.m., a She shares memories not only to bear “It is so easy for nuclear weapons to — in front of Japanese news cameras.
blast detonated over the city. Out the witness to what it is like to survive a nu- become an abstract theory,” said Be- “What exactly do you mean?” she
window, Ms. Nakamura saw a burst of clear bomb, but also to put political pres- atrice Fihn, the executive director of asked, noting that nuclear weapons
bluish-white light. sure on governments to get rid of atomic ICAN. “But even though I have heard were now so powerful that few would
She was thrown into the air, losing weaponry for good. Setsuko speak so many times, always survive a bombing and benefit from aid.
consciousness. When she came to, it was Before this year’s anniversary of the some part of her story just hits me hard.” Japan’s foreign ministry, in response
dark and silent, and she was pinned un- dropping of the two bombs, Ms. Thurlow On that summer morning 75 years to Ms. Thurlow’s criticism of the coun-
der parts of the wooden building. wrote to 197 heads of state asking them ago, when Ms. Thurlow slowly regained try’s decision not to sign the nuclear
BRETT GUNDLOCK FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
“I’m going to die here,” she thought to to ratify the Treaty on the Prohibition of consciousness after the blast, she “I am one of those who can tell a firsthand story of human suffering that the bomb weapons treaty, said: “Large-scale mili-
herself. started to hear the whispers of some of caused,” said Setsuko Thurlow, 13 when an atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan. tary power including nuclear force still
More than 150,000 people are thought her classmates. “Mother, help me,” they exists in the actual international com-
“Even though I have heard
to have perished in the atomic bombing moaned. munity. In order to ensure national secu-
of Hiroshima 75 years ago. Ms. Naka- Setsuko speak so many times, Then, a stronger voice and someone many Americans. But at the school and according to archival research by Char- rity in such a severe security envi-
mura survived, but the attack would always some part of her story shaking her shoulder: “Don’t give up,” with Mr. Tanimoto, she was surrounded lotte Jacobs, a Stanford medical profes- ronment, it is necessary to rely on deter-
shape the rest of a life spent fighting for just hits me hard.” she heard, and a soldier urged her to by Christian adults who supported her sor who is writing a biography of Ms. rence, including that of nuclear weap-
the abolition of nuclear weapons — crawl toward sunlight, where he freed emotionally. “Because of them, I was Thurlow. ons of the United States.”
work for which she jointly accepted a her. She was less than two miles from able to deal with that crisis and came out She also experienced other forms of Having witnessed nuclear horrors in
Nobel Peace Prize in 2017. Nuclear Weapons, which was formally ground zero. of that trauma,” she said. Three years af- racism after coming to the United her childhood, Ms. Thurlow embraces
Nine years after the leveling of Hiro- adopted at the United Nations three She walked into a hellscape, where a ter the blast, she converted. States. pleasures where she finds them. As re-
shima — which had been followed by years ago. procession of people trudged on the On a volunteer expedition to build a When Mr. Thurlow, who had re- cently as February, she was still trav-
Nagasaki’s destruction three days later The world’s nine nuclear-armed coun- roads, body parts missing, some carry- community center for coal miners in mained in Japan teaching, arrived a eling internationally.
— she arrived in Virginia from Japan to tries have refused to sign the treaty on ing their own eyeballs. “They didn’t look Hokkaido, Japan’s northernmost island, year later, interracial marriages were Some critics say hibakusha like Ms.
study sociology. Local reporters asked the grounds the weapons are necessary like human beings,” she said. she met her future husband. Having prohibited in Virginia. So the couple Thurlow can succeed in their disarma-
what she thought of an American hydro- for deterrence. Ms. Thurlow’s favorite sister and 4- learned English in school, she decided married in Washington and moved to ment message only if they talk about the
gen bomb test in the Pacific that year During a two-hour interview, Ms. year-old nephew died in the bombing, she wanted to study social work in the Toronto, where they raised two sons. atrocities committed by Japan during
that had killed a Japanese fisherman. Thurlow said she was particularly dis- and she saw their bodies tossed into a pit United States, and earned a scholarship For the 30th anniversary of the bomb- the war as well. “Somehow you have to
Ms. Nakamura did not hesitate. “I feel appointed that Japan and her adopted and cremated en masse. Her father, who to what is now known as the University ings, Ms. Thurlow staged a photo exhibi- universalize your message,” said Yuki
angry,” she said. country, Canada, also had not signed the was fishing in Hiroshima Bay that of Lynchburg in Virginia. tion at the University of Toronto and Tanaka, a retired research professor at
Many survivors of the atomic attacks treaty, although neither possesses nu- morning, survived. So did her mother, After she arrived and told reporters of worked with Toronto’s Roman Catholic the Hiroshima Peace Institute, “not just
were reluctant to share their accounts, clear weapons. rescued from the family’s collapsed her anger about the American hydrogen archdiocese and the mayor’s office to talk about your own sadness and pain.”
much less say anything that could be “Japan is overly subservient to U.S. house. bomb tests, she received unsigned hate develop a memorial peace garden in co- Ms. Thurlow said the power of a true,
construed as criticism of the United policy, which just breaks our heart,” she Just two months after the bombing, mail, some of it demanding she go back operation with the City of Hiroshima. human story could inspire commitment
States, which occupied Japan after the said. “We survivors have been aban- Ms. Thurlow returned to her Christian to Japan. Such opportunities might not have to a cause. She puts faith in the young
war. doned by our own country.” girls’ school. She also met Kiyoshi Tani- “How am I going to live in this new been open to her had she remained in Ja- students and activists she has met.
But Ms. Nakamura described how she In return for her criticism, Prime Min- moto, a Methodist pastor profiled by the land?” she wondered. “I can’t put a zip- pan, particularly in a culture where “I enjoy talking to young people,” she
had jumped over dead bodies to cross ister Shinzo Abe has given her the cold journalist John Hersey in “Hiroshima,” per over my mouth.” women were not expected to lead civic said. “They really listen to me like dried
the city on that horrific day. “It was hell shoulder, rebuffing requests to meet her his book about the bombing and its af- When she appeared at a Lions Club movements. sponges getting water.”
on earth,” she told the reporters. when she has traveled to Japan. Even af- termath. meeting later that autumn to speak, the In Canada, “she got confident and was
Since then, Ms. Nakamura — now 88 ter the Nobel Peace Prize, Mr. Abe did After the bombing, Ms. Thurlow said, headline in the local newspaper read: very connected at very high levels to po- Makiko Inoue and Hisako Ueno contrib-
and known as Setsuko Thurlow — has not acknowledge her. she questioned the God worshiped by so “Jap Girl in Plea Against A-Bomb’s Use,” litical people,” said Akira Kawasaki, who uted research.
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THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL EDITION SATURDAY-SUNDAY, AUGUST8-9, 2020 | 5
Business
Stocks in Denmark
prove recession-hardy
a research consulting firm in London.
A mix of safe companies
“They were one of the first to shut down,
and a robust virus plan and one of the first to reopen.”
Denmark has a generous unemploy-
is attracting investors
ment system in normal times, but took
additional measures in response to the
pandemic. Under a short-term relief
BY MATT PHILLIPS
program, the government picked up the
Denmark is a place of hygge, happiness tab if an employer cut a worker’s hours.
and — in the face of a global downturn — Only at the end of June did the govern-
a high-performing stock market. ment start the clock on its normal unem-
The tiny and trade-dependent north- ployment benefits, which pay about 90
ern European nation’s stock indexes are percent of a worker’s salary for up to a
easily beating out the S&P 500, the U.S. year — meaning jobless workers can
benchmark, which is up slightly for the count on significant support through the
year, and Japan’s Nikkei 225 and the middle of 2021, Mr. Oxley said.
Stoxx Europe 600 index, which are both The pandemic did have an effect, of
in negative territory. course. Unemployment spiked to 5.6
The Danish indexes, such as the OMX percent in May after hovering at 3.7 per-
Copenhagen 25, are up more than 14 per- cent in February, and gross domestic
cent in 2020, or more than 20 percent if product fell 2 percent in the first quarter,
you calculate its return in dollar terms. the worst decline in more than a decade.
That’s within spitting distance of other But in both metrics, the changes were
market bright spots, like the Nasdaq mere blips compared with other devel-
Composite the tech-heavy U.S. ex- oped nations.
change, which has climbed 23 percent And then there is something harder to
on the strength of lockdown-friendly quantify — the ability of Danish man-
companies like Amazon and Apple. agement teams to find a middle path
What accounts for Denmark’s stellar through challenging times.
performance? Experts say it’s a combi- Ivy International Core Equity Fund,
nation of factors: an effective response seeing the structural advantages of
to the coronavirus crisis (assisted by the Novo Nordisk, established a more than
country’s robust social safety net), a col- $30 million position in the stock in June,
lection of companies well positioned to when it bought over 500,000 shares. And
weather the crisis and a knack for well- it held on to shares it owned of A.P.
balanced management.
The main contributor to the Danish
stocks’ performance is a matter of what
ALEX ATACK FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
Hanna Scaife delivering food in Teesside, England. With her work hours cut to zero, she has enrolled in an art school and plans to eventually transfer to a university. the companies do rather than where
they do it: Roughly 50 percent of the
market capitalization of Danish stocks
A time to reconsider careers is in almost recession-proof health care
and pharmaceutical companies — a
solid portfolio in the midst of a global
pandemic.
“The mix of the Danish market is
completely different than you see in the
begin buying and selling vintage cloth- global market, and there you have, sort
MANCHESTER, ENGLAND
ing. It’s a venture that they used to run of, the explanation for why has the Dan-
years ago, at vintage fairs and local mar- ish market performed so much better,” PAIGE VICKERS
kets around the country. Ms. Saunders said Carsten Jantzen Leth, head of Dan-
Pandemic is pressuring
has already set up a Facebook page. ish equities at Nordea Asset Manage- Moller Maersk, the Danish shipping gi-
some Britons to look “Although recruitment can earn us a ment. ant hit hard by the sharp downturn in
lot of money,” she said, “taking a step Share prices have soared for large global trade.
anew at their livelihoods
back has made me realize, really, I’d Danish health companies such as Colo- “It’s rare for us to have two names
rather just have enough money and plast — a major player in the market for there,” said John C. Maxwell, a portfolio
more happiness.” colostomy pouches, continence and skin manager on the fund, of Denmark. He
BY GENEVA ABDUL
and wound care treatments — and Gen- added: “It’s a heavy weight for us rela-
As a national lockdown was imposed in ANTICIPATING NEW DEMANDS mab, a biotech company specializing in tive to normal.”
March, a food deliverer, Hanna Scaife, “Coronavirus acted as a catalyst for cancer treatments. Investors looking for Mr. Maxwell and his co-managers be-
watched her weekly hours plummet me,” said Susie Middleton, 39, who was safety have helped drive Coloplast up lieve both companies are solid long-
from 30, to five, then zero as restaurants working as a sales manager for a tour more than 25 percent and Genmab more term bets — even if Maersk is off
across Teesside, in northeast England, operator in Oxfordshire when she was than 50 percent for the year. roughly 10 percent this year (it was
shut their doors. put on furlough at the beginning of April. But towering above them all is Novo down more than 47 percent in March).
Business hasn’t gotten much better Within two months, after 15 years in Nordisk. Worth roughly $150 billion, the That’s partly because Maersk, like
since then. the travel industry, she realized the em- Bagsvaerd-based company by itself ac- Novo Nordisk, holds a commanding po-
“It’s been really tough,” said Ms. ployment landscape was shifting. counts for roughly 15 percent of the mar- sition in its core market. Even though
Scaife, who has worked for over a year “I feel that everything’s going to be ket capitalization of the OMX Copenhag- freight volumes are expected to fall as
ALEX ATACK FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
delivering food by car to customers’ The pandemic devastated the hospitality recruitment business Angela Saunders had different when we come out of this, ev- en 25 index, which is owned by Nasdaq much as 18 percent in the second quar-
doorsteps. She described the past few built with her husband, so the couple is pivoting to selling vintage clothing. erybody’s going to be transforming Global Indexes. It’s one of the dominant ter, Maersk’s profits are expected to be
months as a balancing act: “How much work,” Ms. Middleton said. She decided suppliers in the world market for insulin up nearly 20 percent compared with last
can I rely on my credit card? How much to leave her job and become a project and diabetes treatments, a business that year, when the tariff war between China
can I rely on my overdraft? What can I manager in the travel, public or nonprof- is well insulated from the ups-and- and the United States weighed heavily
do without this week? Do I really need it sectors. downs of the global economy. on results, according to analysts.
that much fuel in my car?” She figures that many people who be- While profit expectations for the That is a credit to the talent of Nordic
Rather than wait for business to pick gan working from home during the lock- wider Stoxx Europe 600 index have col- executive teams to operate cyclical
up, Ms. Scaife, 24, is giving up the deliv- down will continue doing just that after lapsed by more than 35 percent, ana- businesses at a steady, profitable pace,
ery job and moving in an entirely differ- the pandemic, putting new demands on lysts covering Novo Nordisk expect said Mr. Maxwell, who has managed the
ent direction: She has enrolled in an art organizations to manage remote em- profits to be up more than 7 percent in international stock fund for 14 years.
school beginning in September, with ployees and flexible work schedules. 2020, even during the worst global In his experience, he said, different
plans to transfer to the University of She took a two-day course recently to downturn since the Great Depression. countries can have different approaches
Sunderland to study ceramics and glass. further her qualifications in project Its shares are up about 3.5 percent this to management. German executives
The economic collapse caused by the management, and already has a few in- year. can be a bit too slow to produce results,
coronavirus has put millions of eco- terviews lined up, she said. Much of Danish companies’ business while American and British companies
nomic futures in doubt. More than nine — about 20 percent — comes from the can be a bit too focused on short-term
million people have been furloughed in SEARCHING FOR AN EXIT pandemic-plagued United States, but a gains at the expense of long-term strat-
Britain, or 29 percent of the country’s For many workers, the transition to significant portion also comes from egy.
work force, and 2.8 million have filed un- more secure positions will be difficult, within the country’s borders. And the But Danish and other Nordic compa-
employment claims. Some fields, such because they will require retraining and country’s efforts to flatten the curve and nies seem to have figured out a way to
as hospitality or live entertainment, further education, and be competing resume economic activity have also blend the two approaches.
seem especially uncertain, leaving against a flood of other unemployed peo- helped stock prices. “They just generally have a nice
some people in a quandary: Wait for ple, said Michael Koch, an assistant pro- “It was evidently clear that Denmark tempo about how they run the busi-
business and employment to pick up, or fessor for human resource management had got on top of the virus quickly,” said ness,” he said, “trying to hit the quar-
ALEXANDER INGRAM FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
leave behind a job and career and try Vedi Roy had logged 10 years as an actor, writer and director when Britain entered and organizational behavior at the Uni- David Oxley, an economist focusing on ters, but not sacrificing the long term to
something new? lockdown. Unsure of live theater’s future, he’s now considering a career in social work. versity of Kent. nordic economies at Capital Economics, do so.”
For Ms. Scaife, the choice became “The gig economy is going to grow as
simple as the lockdown wore on. With- a result of Covid,” he said, as businesses
out her weekly income of about 400 a huge cloud. Even when it is allowed to with L.G.B.T.Q. and low-income youth, will aim to employ workers on short-
pounds, about $500, from the food deliv- resume, it is uncertain how many people and would like to do similar social work term contracts or use more casual labor
ery job, she has relied on a new part- will be willing to risk attending a per- and counseling. to maintain flexibility should a lockdown
Est.
time job at a gas station near home and formance in a crowded West End venue. That career shift was never some- happen again. Britain already has 4.7
her mother’s savings to cover her Ms. Block decided to switch careers. thing he took seriously, he said, until the million gig economy workers. 1926
monthly expenses. In September, she will begin a 12-month pandemic. Qasim Mirza, 45, has worked as a pri-
Going to art school is something she’s contract as a teaching assistant at a pri- “I’ve always wanted to help people,” vate driver for 15 years, successfully
wanted to do for years, along with even- mary school in southeast London. Mr. Roy said. “If I can do that on a one- competing with ride hailing apps like [phone] [email protected]
tually, perhaps, opening her own sea- The decision wasn’t easy. to-one basis as a therapist, then that’s Uber and weathering London’s increas-
side ceramics shop. When her work “I’m really torn,” Ms. Block said. “It’s gold dust.” ing road restrictions and traffic-con-
dried up, she realized how little support something that I’m interested in and gestion charges. Last year, he took out a renewable Tax Free & Paid registration on Swiss plates
she had in her food-delivery job, and it’s something that I want to do, so that’s LESS MONEY, MORE HAPPINESS loan to buy a Mercedes that cost We also register cars with expired or foreign plates
unclear how steady that work will be. great, but on the other hand I kind of feel Angela Saunders, 39, is excited for the £65,000, hoping to cater to his mostly in-
“I think the pandemic has brought like I’m abandoning something.” future. Over the past decade she has ternational clientele, who hire him for TAX FREE & TAX PAID - NEW & USED
those issues right to the forefront of my Teaching offers far more job security built a hospitality and catering recruit- trips across Britain, airport transfers
mind,” she said. “I think it’s time for a than theater, she figures. “There’s not ment business with her husband in and sightseeing tours. Expats services
change.” going to be as many jobs out there, so it Scarborough, northeast England, find- The pandemic has hurt him on many Homologation services
She will still need to work park-time makes sense to capitalize on the skills ing workers for jobs at restaurants and levels. Business travel and tourism have International sales
while she attends school, but she said that I’ve got.” hotels including the luxurious Savoy in plummeted, and workers don’t need Diplomatic sales
she would look for a better job than de- For others, like Vedi Roy, the path for- London. rides around downtowns when they are
livering food. Britain has a program to ward is even less clear cut. That all ended with the pandemic. The working at home.
support self-employed workers with up Mr. Roy, 26, was preparing a drag the- business that once brought in £9,000 a He’s essentially been home since
to 80 percent of their average monthly ater piece for an arts festival in Watford, month plummeted to nothing. March, trying to support his parents,
profits, but as a food-delivery contractor outside London, when the country en- “It was a nightmare,” she said. partner and two children. The world's most
who initially earned little, she was able tered lockdown. Since then, he said, he’s But the sudden disruption to her work “It’s been a real disaster for me,” he
trusted perspective.
to access only £240 to last three months. received only a small sum from the gov- life had an unexpected benefit. “I’ve said. “I am frantically trying to find an
“It feels like a slap in the face,” she said. ernment’s program to support self-em- spent more time at home,” she said, with exit strategy.”
ployed people. He’s living with his her two boys, ages 7 and 10. “We’ve There are some consolations. He was
CAREER DECISION LEFT HER “TORN” grandmother and great-uncle, and try- changed the way we live and I feel a lot able to delay his £1,000-per-month car
Get unlimited digital access
Nicola Block, 35, studied theater and ing to find “anything” to help keep them happier.” payments until this month, and he has
has held jobs in the industry for 10 years, afloat. Now relying on nearly £1,500 in gov- received grants for the self-employed
to The New York Times.
working contract to contract designing He’s already logged 10 years in the ernment furlough payments each totaling £6,000 since April.
sets and costumes from Sydney to Lon- arts industry as an actor, writer and di- month for herself and her husband, time He said he would decide this month
Save 50%.
don. When the coronavirus hit she was rector. “I had a really good career pre- at home has given her the opportunity to whether to leave his chauffeur business
working as a theater designer at an in- lockdown,” Mr. Roy said. Although he is reconsider how to emerge from the pan- behind. “I don’t have any sort of skills on
dependent school. She was placed on holding out hope that live theater will re- demic. paper,” he said, despite “lots of experi-
furlough and the school guaranteed her sume soon, he’s exploring other options. With all the uncertainty surrounding ence” behind the wheel. nytimes.com/globaloffer
full wages until her contract came to an “I want that same job satisfaction in a hotels and restaurants, and with their “A guy like me who’s basically fi-
end in June. different way,” he said. business unlikely to reopen, Ms. Saun- nanced to the eyeballs in this car,” Mr.
But the future of live theater is under He has experience leading workshops ders and her husband plan to pivot and Mirza said. “What do I do now?”
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6 | SATURDAY-SUNDAY, AUGUST8-9, 2020 + THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL EDITION
business
U.S. stands out in failing to contain virus
VIRUS,FROM PAGE1 In the past month, new cases have been much higher
President Trump has said the virus was in the U.S. than in other wealthy countries
not serious, predicted it would disap-
pear, spent weeks questioning the need Number of new cases Florida
for masks, encouraged states to reopen in the past month 297,200
even with large and growing caseloads,
and promoted medical disinformation.
Spain
“In many of the countries that have
52,300
been very successful, they had a much
crisper strategic direction and really
had a vision,” said Caitlin Rivers, an epi-
demiologist at the Johns Hopkins Cen-
ter for Health Security, in Baltimore.
“I’m not sure we ever really had a plan
or a strategy — or at least it wasn’t pub-
Texas
lic.”
271,300
Together, the national skepticism to-
France
ward collective action and the Trump 24,300
administration’s scattered response to
the virus have contributed to several
specific failures and missed opportuni-
ties, Times reporting shows:
•A lack of effective travel restrictions.
•Repeated breakdowns in testing.
Georgia Australia
•Confusing advice about masks. 93,000 10,300
•A misunderstanding of the relation-
ship between the virus and the economy.
•Inconsistent messages from public of-
ficials.
Already, the U.S. death toll is of a dif- California Japan
255,700 21,400
ferent order of magnitude than in most
other countries. With only 4 percent of
the world’s population, the United
States has accounted for 22 percent of
EVE EDELHEIT FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
coronavirus deaths. A testing site in Orlando, Fla. The United States has accounted for 22 percent of coronavirus deaths globally.
A TRAVEL POLICY THAT FELL SHORT
In retrospect, one of Trump’s first policy New Zealand, many epidemiologists be- virus has grown even more rapidly than ence, asking the reporter to take it off
responses to the virus appears to have lieve. In Australia, the number of new testing capacity. In recent weeks, Amer- and saying that wearing one was “politi-
been one of his most promising. cases per day fell more than 90 percent icans have often had to wait in long lines, cally correct.” Source: New York Times database LAUREN LEATHERBY AND GUILBERT GATES/THE NEW YORK TIMES
On Jan. 31, his administration an- in April. It remained near zero through sometimes in scorching heat, to be Many other Republicans and conser-
nounced that it was restricting entry to May and early June, even as the virus tested. vative news outlets, like Fox News, ech- trade-off between public health and eco- sparked a huge new virus outbreak —
the United States from China. Many for- surged across much of the United The huge demand for tests has over- oed his position. Wearing masks, as a re- nomic health. And if crushing the virus and the economy did not seem to bene-
eign nationals — be they citizens of States. whelmed medical laboratories, and sult, became yet another partisan divide meant ruining the economy, maybe the fit.
China or other countries — would not be many need days — or even up to two in a highly polarized country. side effects of the treatment were worse
allowed into the United States if they THE DOUBLE TESTING FAILURE weeks — to produce results. While peo- Throughout much of the Northeast than the disease. THE MESSAGE IS THE RESPONSE
had been to China in the previous two On Jan. 16, nearly a week before the first ple are waiting for their results, many and the West Coast, more than 80 per- Early in the pandemic, Austan Gools- The United States has not performed
weeks. announced case of the coronavirus in are also spreading the virus. cent of people wore masks when within bee, a University of Chicago economist uniquely poorly on every measure of the
But it quickly became clear that the the United States, a German hospital, six feet of someone else. In more conser- and former Obama administration offi- virus response. But in no other high-in-
U.S. policy was full of holes. It did not ap- Charité, in Berlin, made an announce- THE DOUBLE MASK FAILURE vative areas, like the Southeast, the cial, proposed what he called the first come country have the messages from
ply to immediate family members of ment. Its researchers had developed a For the first few months of the pan- share was closer to 50 percent. rule of virus economics: “The best way political leaders been nearly so mixed
U.S. citizens and permanent residents test for the virus, which they described demic, public health experts could not A March survey found that partisan- to fix the economy is to get control of the and confusing.
returning from China, for example. In as the world’s first. The researchers agree on a consistent message about ship was the biggest predictor of virus,” he said. Until the virus was under These messages, in turn, have been
the two months after the policy went posted the formula for the test online masks. Some said masks reduced the whether Americans regularly wore control, many people would be afraid to amplified by television stations and
into place, almost 40,000 people arrived and said they expected that countries spread of the virus. Many experts, how- masks. In many places where people resume normal life, and the economy websites friendly to the Republican
in the United States on direct flights with strong public health systems would ever, discouraged the use of masks, say- adopted a hostile view of masks, the would not function normally. Party, especially Fox News and the Sin-
from China. soon be able to produce their own tests. ing — somewhat contradictorily — that number of virus cases began to soar this The events of the last few months clair Broadcast Group. To anybody lis-
Even more important, the policy In the United States, the Centers for their benefits were modest and that they spring. have borne out Mr. Goolsbee’s predic- tening to the country’s politicians or
failed to take into account that the virus Disease Control and Prevention devel- should be reserved for medical workers. tion. watching these television stations, it
had spread well beyond China by early oped its own test four days after the Ger- The conflicting advice, echoed by the FIRST RULE OF VIRUS ECONOMICS Even before states announced shut- would have been difficult to know how to
February. Later data would show that man lab did. C.D.C. officials claimed that C.D.C. and others, led to relatively little Throughout March and April, Gov. Bri- down orders in the spring, many fam- respond to the virus.
many infected people arriving in the the U.S. test would be more accurate mask-wearing in many countries early an Kemp of Georgia and staff members ilies began sharply reducing their Mr. Trump’s comments in particular
United States came from Europe. (The than the German one, by using three ge- in the pandemic. But several Asian held two daily conference calls with the spending. They were responding to have regularly contradicted the views of
Trump administration did not restrict netic sequences to detect the virus countries were exceptions, partly be- public health department, the National their own worries about the virus, not scientists and medical experts. The day
travel from Europe until March and ex- rather than two. The federal govern- cause they had a tradition of wearing Guard and other officials. One of the any official government policy. after the first U.S. case was diagnosed,
empted Britain from that ban despite a ment quickly began distributing the U.S. masks to avoid sickness or getting oth- main subjects of the meetings was when And the end of lockdowns, like Geor- he said, “We have it totally under con-
high infection rate there.) test to state officials. ers sick, or minimize the effects of pollu- to end Georgia’s lockdown and reopen gia’s, did not fix the economy’s prob- trol.” In late February, he said, “It’s go-
The administration’s policy also did But the test had a flaw. The third ge- tion. the state’s economy. By late April, Kemp lems. It instead led to a brief increase in ing to disappear. One day — it’s like a
little to create quarantines for people netic sequence produced inconclusive In the following months, scientists decided that it was time. spending and hiring that soon faded. miracle — it will disappear.” Later, he in-
who entered the United States and may results, so the C.D.C. told state labs to around the world began to report two Georgia had not met the reopening In the weeks after states reopened, correctly stated that any American who
have had the virus. pause their work. strands of evidence that pointed to the criteria laid out by the Trump adminis- the virus began surging. Those that wanted a test could get one. On July 28,
The authorities in some other places The flaw took weeks to fix. During importance of masks: Research showed tration (and many outside health ex- opened earliest tended to have worse he falsely said that “large portions of our
took a far more rigorous approach to that time, the United States had to re- that the virus could be transmitted perts considered those criteria too lax). outbreaks, according to a Times analy- country” were “corona-free.”
travel restrictions. strict testing to people who had clear through droplets that hang in the air, The state was reporting about 700 new sis. He has also promoted medical misin-
South Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan reason to think they had the virus. All and several studies found that the virus cases a day, more than when it shut In June and July, Georgia reported formation about the virus. He has en-
largely restricted entry to residents re- the while, the virus was quietly spread- spread less frequently in places where down April 3. more than 125,000 new virus cases, couraged Americans to treat it with the
turning home. Those residents then had ing. people were wearing masks. Nonetheless, Mr. Kemp went ahead. turning it into one of the globe’s new hot anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine,
to quarantine for two weeks upon arriv- By early March, with the testing de- In many countries, officials reacted to He said that Georgia’s economy could spots. That was more new cases than despite a lack of evidence about its effec-
al, with the government keeping close lays still unresolved, the area around the emerging evidence with a clear mes- not wait any longer, and it became one of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan tiveness and concerns about its safety.
tabs to ensure they did not leave their New York City became a global hot spot sage: Wear a mask. the first states to reopen. The stay-at- and Australia combined during that At one White House briefing, he mused
home or hotel. South Korea and Hong for the virus — without people realizing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of home order expired at 11:59 p.m. April time frame. aloud about injecting people with disin-
Kong also tested for the virus at the air- it until weeks later. More widespread Canada began wearing one in May. Dur- 30. Americans, frightened by the virus’s fectant to treat the virus.
port and transferred anyone who was testing could have made a major differ- ing a visit to an elementary school, Pres- Mr. Kemp’s decision was part of a pat- resurgence, responded by visiting These comments have helped create
positive to a government facility. ence, experts said, leading to earlier ident Emmanuel Macron of France wore tern: Across the United States, restaurants and stores less often. The a large partisan divide in the country,
The United States imposed few travel lockdowns and social distancing and ul- a French-made blue mask that comple- caseloads were typically much higher economy’s brief recovery in April and with Republican-leaning voters less
restrictions, either for foreigners or U.S. timately less sickness and death. mented his suit and tie. when the economy reopened than in May seems to have petered out in June willing to wear masks or remain socially
citizens. Individual states did little to en- The United States eventually made In the United States, however, masks other countries. and July. distant.
force the rules they did impose. up ground on tests. In recent weeks, it did not become a fashion symbol. They As the United States endured weeks In large parts of the United States, of- “This isn’t actually rocket science,”
Travel restrictions and quarantines has been conducting more per capita became a political symbol. of closed stores and rising unemploy- ficials chose to reopen before medical said Dr. Thomas Frieden, who ran the
were central to the success in control- than any other country, according to Mr. Trump avoided wearing one in ment this spring, many politicians — experts thought it wise, in an attempt to New York City health department and
ling the virus in South Korea, Hong Johns Hopkins researchers. public for months. He poked fun at a re- particularly Republicans, like Mr. Kemp put people back to work and spark the the C.D.C. for a combined 15 years. “We
Kong, Taiwan and Australia as well as in But now there is a new problem: The porter who wore one to a news confer- — argued that there was an unavoidable economy. Instead, the United States know what to do, and we’re not doing it.”
Fighting child trafficking while racing across the globe
was the East African Safari Classic last her remarkable story, we began a
Wheels
Her ambitions were larger still. year across Kenya and Tanzania. working relationship,” he said.
“We found we had a ‘voice,’ though “It was the rainiest season in 40 “Renée is one of the most genuine
small,” said Ms. Brinkerhoff, who is years and the roads, already chosen people I’ve ever met, and the world is
now 64 and lives in Colorado. “People for their difficulty, were more treacher- full of people who want to see traffick-
were listening to our unique story. We ous than planned,” Ms. Brinkerhoff ing end,” Mr. Parker said. “But I wish it
BY MERCEDES LILIENTHAL
thought if we did something on a big- said. was full of people like Renée who will
It wasn’t until Renée Brinkerhoff’s last ger scale, a global scale, we could Deep sand, thick mud and treacher- actually do something about it.”
of four children departed for college potentially have a bigger voice. That ous water crossings made it difficult Before the East Africa rally last year,
that her life changed forever. was the impetus for Project 356 World for all competitors. Ms. Brinkerhoff and her team had
“At the age of 55, I had a realization,” Rally Tour.” Adding to her adversity, the front arrived early to meet with a group
Ms. Brinkerhoff said. Her tour would encompass six ral- right steering arm of her car was they had supported in Kenya. “When
It was reassuringly simple and lies and one ultimate challenge: a unable to withstand the severe terrain we go to a country to race,” she said,
dauntingly complex: “One day, I’m drive on every continent, all while and repeatedly failed. The issue was “we try to visit the child trafficking
going to race a car.” piloting one vehicle, her classic corrected, and Ms. Brinkerhoff and her charity we have chosen for support.”
She chose road rallying; competing Porsche 356, for which she named the navigator crossed the finish line. The charity this time was Awareness
on a racetrack held little interest. Road project. Valkyrie Gives has raised about Against Human Trafficking, and So-
rallies, however, would bring her For her project, she chose the most $200,000 to help fight child trafficking. phie Otiende, the program consultant,
through countless landscapes with challenging races on each continent: All donations have gone directly to shared a story about two young girls
captivating scenery. She was sold. Beijing to Paris (otherwise known as charitable organizations around the who had tried to commit suicide just a
Still, Ms. Brinkerhoff was a novice, Peking to Paris), which crosses many JOHN BENNIE world, including in Australia, China, night before. “They were waiting to be
and she would have to overcome huge countries and time zones; and the East Renée Brinkerhoff in her Porsche 356 at the 2019 East African Safari Classic Rally. Mexico, Mongolia, the Netherlands, repatriated to their country,” Ms.
obstacles, “of which fear was primary,” African Safari Classic, the most diffi- Peru and the United States. Otiende told the group. “They were
she said. cult off-tarmac classic car rally in the “I do not believe in coincidence, and six continents. She will soon face her Ms. Brinkerhoff said that she had losing hope of ever returning home.”
So in 2013, she founded Valkyrie world. . knew I was being told to do something most difficult endeavor, Antarctica, also “participated in undercover opera- The girls wouldn’t be treated without
Racing with one chief goal: to break When she started Project 356, Ms. about this,” she said. “I began re- where she and her team will race, tions to gather evidence for law en- cash prepayment to the hospital. The
barriers for women. The name “Val- Brinkerhoff also saw the event as a searching this crime and learned child alone, against extreme elements. forcement to arrest and prosecute Valkyrie Gives foundation donated the
kyrie” comes from Norse mythology, way to give back. “At this same time, pornography fuels child trafficking and The plan is to cover 356 miles on ice, traffickers.” funds to get them admitted.
where women warriors saved the we started our philanthropic arm, that this was a massive global prob- and if successful, notch a land speed She once spent two weeks in South- The rallies are thrilling, Ms. Brinker-
worthy from the field of battle and Valkyrie Gives,” she said. “The idea lem.” record on a blue ice runway at Union east Asia working with the Exodus hoff said, but making a difference is
restored their lives in Valhalla. Ms. was to use our racing as a platform to Her adventurous spirit may owe Glacier. Once finished, Ms. Brinkerhoff Road, a nonprofit organization with the most rewarding.
Brinkerhoff thinks of them as warriors do something about child trafficking something to her childhood. Her early will have raced nearly 20,000 miles. seven offices worldwide and a staff of “The memories of the children
who are strong yet compassionate. worldwide.” years were split between a small beach Ms. Brinkerhoff and her team have 72 that finds and frees victims of traf- around the world that we have been
She hardly started small, beginning “The mission to fight child traffick- town in Southern California and also had many challenges along the way. ficking. According to the group, it has blessed to touch and their innocent
her racing career in La Carrera Pan- ing found me,” she added. “I didn’t Southeast Asia during the height of the Corrupt customs agents held the rescued more than 1,500 victims and faces will forever be in our minds and
americana, a treacherous 2,000-mile choose it.” Cold War. She and her family lived in Porsche and its parts until a bribe was aided in the arrest of 600 traffickers hearts,” she said.
road rally across Mexico considered By chance, Ms. Brinkerhoff met an Hong Kong during Mao Zedong’s paid. Accidents and broken parts, and pedophiles. “Since I started racing, I have al-
one of the most dangerous in the F.B.I. agent whose job was to track Cultural Revolution, and they lived in including a crash at the 2015 Carrera Matt Parker, an Exodus Road co- ways believed it was what I was being
world. She proved she was a natural, down peddlers of child pornography. In Laos at the end of the Vietnam War. Panamericana race, kept them on their founder and the acting chief executive, called to do,” she added. “Faith has
too, reaching the podium on her first another chance encounter, she saw a Ms. Brinkerhoff has rallied her way toes. Delays crossing oceans and new met Ms. Brinkerhoff several years ago allowed me to push through the many
attempt, and on subsequent entries, man on an airport bus viewing an illicit through all but one major challenge. rally regulations tested their patience. at his Colorado Springs office. “She fears I’ve faced.”
too. image of a young child on his phone. She has competed in 17 countries on Toughest among their challenges came to my office, and once I heard
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Opinion
The real reason for the postwar boom
Progress NEWS ANALYSIS
of women,
Jim Tankersley
immigrants
and
nonwhite
The United States long reserved its
workers
most lucrative occupations for an elite
benefits all class of white men. Those men held
Americans. power by selling everyone else a myth:
The biggest threat to workers like you
are workers who do not look like you.
Again and again, they told working-
class white men that they were losing
out on good jobs to women, nonwhite
men and immigrants.
It was, and remains, a politically
potent lie. It is undercut by the real
story of how America engineered its
Golden Era of shared prosperity — the
great middle-class expansion in the
decades after World War II.
Americans deserve to know the truth
about that Golden Era, which was not
the whitewashed, “Leave It to Beaver”
tale that so many people have been led
to believe. They deserve to know who
built the middle class and can actually
rebuild it, for all workers, no matter
their race or gender or hometown.
We need to hear it now, as our nation
is immersed in a pandemic recession
and a summer of protests demanding
equality, and as American workers
struggle to shake off decades of slug-
gish wage growth. We need to hear it
because it is a beacon of hope in a bleak
time for our economy, but more impor-
tant, because the lies that elite white
men peddle about workers in conflict
have made the economy worse for
everyone, for far too long.
The hopeful truth is that when Ameri-
cans band together to force open the
gates of opportunity for women, for
Black men, for the groups that have
long been oppressed in our economy,
everyone gets ahead.
I have spent my career as an econom-
ics reporter consumed by the questions
of how America might revive the Gold-
en Era of the middle class that boomed
after World War II. I have searched for
the secret to restor-
The economy ing prosperity for
the sons of lumber-
thrived after
mill workers in my
World War II
home county, where
largely because
the timber industry
barriers to crashed in the
entering the 1980s, or the
work force burned-out fac-
came down. tories along the
Ohio River, where I
chased politicians
in the early 2000s
who were promising — and failing — to
bring the good jobs back.
The old jobs are not coming back.
What I have learned over time is that
our best hope to create a new wave of
good ones is to invest in the groups of
Americans who were responsible for
the success of our economy at the time it AJ DUNGO
worked best for working people.
The economy thrived after World protected white male elites. Everyone one. The Chicago and Stanford econo- widening inequality, lost jobs and dec- maker, who served a year in the White
War II in large part because America else was barred entry to top professions mists calculated that the simple, radical ades of disappointing income growth House on President Trump’s Council of
made it easier for people who had been by overt discrimination, inequality of act of reducing discrimination against for workers of all races. Economic Advisers. She and a co-
previously shut out of economic oppor- schooling, social convention and, often, those groups was responsible for more In important ways, much of the work worker went back to Reconstruction
tunity — women, minority groups, the law itself. They were devalued as than 40 percent of the country’s per- of breaking down discrimination stalled and measured how much easier it was
immigrants — to enter the work force humans and as workers. (Slavery was worker economic growth after 1960. It’s soon after the passage of the Civil for the sons of poor white men to climb
and climb the economic ladder, to make the greatest devaluation, but the gates the reason the country could sustain Rights Act in 1964. “It was fundamen- the economic ladder than the sons of
better use of their talents and potential. of opportunity remained closed to most rapid growth with low unemployment, tally over by the time of the Reagan poor Black men.
In 1960, cutting-edge research from enslaved Americans and their descend- yielding rising wages for everyone, presidency,” William A. Darity Jr., a In terms of economic mobility, they
economists at the University of Chicago ants through Emancipation and its including white men without college Duke University economist who is one found, the penalty for being born Black
and Stanford University has docu- aftermath.) degrees. of his profession’s most accomplished is the same today as it was in the 1870s.
mented, more than half of Black men in Women and nonwhite men gradually America’s ruling elites did not learn researchers on racial discrimination, Women have made more progress in
America worked as janitors, freight chipped away at those barriers, in fits from that success. The aggressive told me. Over the past several decades, recent decades than Black men, but
handlers or something similar. Only 2 and starts. They seized opportunities, expansion of opportunity that had some barriers to advancement for they are nowhere close to equality. They
percent of women and Black men like a war effort creating a need for driven economic gains was choked off women and nonwhite men have grown still earn less for the same work, and
worked in what economists call “high- workers to replace the men being sent by a backlash to social progress in the back. New ones have grown up beside they are still blocked by harassment,
skill” jobs that pay high wages, like abroad to fight. They protested and bled 1970s and ’80s. The white men who ran them. discrimination and policies from reach-
engineering or law. Ninety-four percent and died for civil rights. And when they the country declared victory over dis- A host of studies illustrate this. A ing the same heights as white men in
of doctors in the United States were won victories, it wasn’t just for them, or crimination far too early, consigning the recent and devastating one is co-au- many of America’s most important
white men. even for people like them. They gener- economy to slower growth. Sustained thored by a University of Tennessee industries.
That disparity was by design. It ated economic gains that helped every- shared prosperity was replaced by economic historian, Marianne Wana- TANKERSLEY,PAGE8
We’ve hit a pandemic wall
my own meager solar system of col- around my middle have moved in and
New data
leagues and pals and dearly beloveds. unpacked, though I’d initially hoped
show that Call it pandemic fatigue; call it the they were on a month-to-month lease.
summer poop-out; call it whatever you So. How to account for this national
Americans
wish. Any label, at this point, would slide into a sulfurous pit of distress?
are suffering
probably be too trivializing, belying The most obvious answer is that the
from record what is in fact a far deeper problem. coronavirus is still claiming hundreds
Jennifer Senior
Americans are not, as a nation, all of lives a day in the United States,
levels of
right. whipping its way through the South
mental Let’s start with the numbers. Ac- and heaving to the surface once again
distress. cording to the National Center for in the West. This is true, and on its
Health Statistics, roughly one in 12 face is awful enough. But I suspect it’s
I am trying to think of when I first American adults reported symptoms more than that.
realized we’d all run smack into a wall. of an anxiety disorder at this time last America’s prodigious infection rates
Was it two weeks ago, when a friend, year; now it’s more than one in three. are also a testament to our own na-
ordinarily a paragon of wifely discre- Last week, the Kaiser Family Founda- tional failure — and therefore a source
tion, started a phone conversation with tion released a tracking poll showing of existential ghastliness, of sheer
a boffo rant about her husband? that for the first time, a majority of perversity: Why on earth were so
Was it when I looked at my own American adults — 53 percent — be- LEAH NASH many of us sacrificing so much in
spouse — one week later, this probably lieves that the pandemic is taking a toll Lyfe Tavarres, in Portland, Ore., gets his support from family members and friends. these past four and a half months —
was — and calmly told him that each on their mental health. our livelihoods, our social connections,
and every one of my problems was his This number climbs to 68 percent if our safety, our children’s schooling, our
fault? (They were not.) you look solely at African-Americans. persistent symptoms of emotional haven’t been spared. According to the attendance at birthdays and anniver-
Or maybe it was when I was The disproportionate toll the pandemic distress,” Hope Hill, a clinical psychol- Kaiser Family Foundation, 36 percent saries and funerals — if it all came to
scrolling through Twitter and saw a has taken on Black lives and liveli- ogist and associate professor in the of Americans report that coronavirus- naught? At this point, weren’t we
tweet from the author Amanda Stern, hoods — made possible by centuries of psychology department at Howard related worry is interfering with their expecting some form of relief, a re-
single and living in Brooklyn, who structural disparities, compounded by University, told me. “So when I hear sleep. Eighteen percent say they’re sumption of something like life?
noted it had been 137 days since she’d the corrosive psychological effect of about that fifteen-point difference, it’s more easily losing their tempers. “People often think of trauma as a
given or received a hug? “Hello, I am everyday racism — is appearing, upsetting, but it’s not surprising, given Thirty-two percent say it has made discrete event — a fire, getting
depressed” were its last four words. starkly, in our mental health data. the impact of long-term, race-based them over- or under-eat. mugged,” said Daphne de Marneffe,
Whatever this is, it is real — and “Even during so-called better times, trauma and inequality.” I’m solidly in the former category. author of an excellent book about
quantifiable, and extends far beyond Black adults are more likely to report But even the luckiest among us Turns out the extra ten extra pounds SENIOR,PAGE9
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8 | SATURDAY-SUNDAY, AUGUST8-9, 2020 THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL EDITION
opinion
Why Edmund Burke still matters
proceed as if they thought that men may antiquity, all precedents, charters, and revolted by the Trump family’s self-
deceive without fraud, rob without acts of parliament. They have ‘the dealing: Among the great causes of
injustice, and overturn every thing rights of men.’ Against these there can Burke’s life was his role in the impeach-
A.G. SULZBERGER,Publisher
without violence”); the rise of a military be no prescriptions.” ment of Warren Hastings, the de facto
DEAN BAQUET,Executive Editor MARK THOMPSON,Chief Executive Officer dictator in the mold of Napoleon; and a Not that Burke was against rights per governor general of India, for corrupt
JOSEPH KAHN,Managing Editor STEPHEN DUNBAR-JOHNSON,President, International long European war in which the “Re- se. The usual caricature of Burke is that and cruel administration.
TOM BODKIN, Creative Director CHARLOTTE GORDON, V.P., International Consumer Marketing Bret Stephens public of Regicide” would seek to subju- he is the conservative’s conservative, a Above all, Burke would have been
SUZANNE DALEY, Associate Editor HELEN KONSTANTOPOULOS, V.P.,International Circulation gate the world in the name of liberating man for whom any type of change was disgusted by Trump’s manners. “Man-
it. dangerous in practice and anathema on ners are of more importance than laws,”
HELENA PHUA, Executive V.P., Asia-Pacific
KATHLEEN KINGSBURY, Editorial Page Editor SUZANNE YVERNÈS, International Chief Financial Officer How did Burke get it right about the principle. That view of him would have he wrote.
ultimate course of events in France — astonished his contemporaries, who “The law touches us but here and
and, by extension, so many subsequent knew him as a champion of Catholic there, and now and then. Manners are
Had it not been for the revolution in revolutions that aimed to establish emancipation — the civil rights move- what vex or soothe, corrupt or purify,
France, Edmund Burke would likely morally enlightened societies and ment of his day — and other reformist exalt or debase, barbarize or refine us
have been remembered, a bit vaguely, wound up producing despotism and (and usually unpopular) causes. ... . They give their whole form and
as an 18th-century philosopher-states- terror? The question is worth pondering A fairer reading of Burke would de- color to our lives. According to their
AN INCOMPLETE CENSUS HURTS EVERYONE man of extravagant rhetorical gifts but in light of two main ideological currents scribe him as either a near-liberal or a quality, they aid morals, they supply
frustratingly ambivalent views. The of today: the tear-it-all-down populism near-conservative — a man who defied them, or they totally destroy them.”
The Census Bureau hasn’t offered a clear explanation Irish-born member of the British Parlia- that has swept so much of the right in easy categorization in his time and Burke’s understanding of the central-
By President ment was sympathetic to the griev- the past five years and the tear-it-all- defies it again in ity of manners to norms, of norms to
for its decision this week to bring an early end to the
Trump’s ances of the American colonies but not down progressivism that threatens to He reminds us ours. He believed in morals, of morals to culture and of cul-
decennial enumeration of the United States’s popula- (like his onetime friend Thomas Paine) sweep the left. limited govern- ture to the health of the political order
calculations, it’s hard to
tion, but the reason is clear enough: The Trump ad- an enthusiastic champion of their inde- At the core of Burke’s view of the ment, gradual means that he would have been unim-
respect dem-
the fewer pendence; an acerbic critic of George revolution is a profound understanding reform, parliamen- pressed by claims that Trump had
ministration doesn’t want a complete count, as the law ocratic political
III but a firm defender of monarchy; a of how easily things can be shattered in tary sovereignty scored policy “wins,” like appointing
people of requires. staunch opponent of English rapacity in the name of moral betterment, national institutions and, with caveats conservative judges or cutting the
color and This is not a secret plot. Mr. Trump has been trying India but a supporter of British Empire; purification and radical political trans- while disdain- and qualifications, corporate tax rate. Those would have
noncitizens to whitewash the census since the moment he took an advocate for the gradual emancipa- formation. States, societies and person- ing those individual rights. been baubles floating in befouled wa-
who are office. First his administration tried to add a question tion of at least some slaves, but no be- al consciences are not Lego-block con- institutions’ But he also believed ters.
liever in equality. structions to be disassembled and founders. that to secure Trump’s real legacy, in Burke’s eyes,
counted, about citizenship in an effort to depress the response He was also an unabashed snob. “The reassembled with ease. They are more rights, it wasn’t would be his relentless debasement of
the better. rate of noncitizens. As one longtime Republican strat- occupation of a hairdresser,” he wrote, like tapestries, passed from one genera- enough simply to political culture: of personal propriety;
“cannot be a matter of honor to any tion to the next, to be carefully mended declare them on of respect for institutions; of care for
egist concluded in a 2015 analysis, excluding nonciti-
person.” at one edge, gracefully enlarged on the paper, codify them in law and claim tradition; of trust between citizens and
zens from the census would “be advantageous to Re-
Burke’s name endures because of his other and otherwise handled with cau- them as entitlements from a divine civil authority; of a society that believes
publicans and non-Hispanic whites.” After the Su- uncompromising opposition to the tion lest a single pulled thread unravel being or the general will. The conditions — and has reason to believe — in its own
preme Court poured cold water on that plan last year, French Revolution — a view he laid out the entire pattern. “The nature of man is of liberty had to be nurtured through essential decency. “To make us love our
as some of Britain’s more liberal intricate; the objects of society are of prudent statesmanship, moral educa- country,” he wrote, “ our country ought
Mr. Trump directed the government last month not to
thinkers thought it represented humani- the greatest possible complexity,” tion, national and local loyalties, atten- to be lovely.”
count undocumented immigrants for the purposes of ty’s best hopes. “Reflections on the Burke wrote. “And therefore no simple tion to circumstance and a healthy Then again, Burke would have been
reapportioning seats in the House of Representatives. Revolution in France” was published in disposition or direction of power can be respect for the “latent wisdom” of long- no less withering in his views of the far
November 1790, more than a year after suitable either to man’s nature, or to the established customs and beliefs. If left. “You began ill,” he said of the
The latest gambit is broader: Ending the crucial
the fall of the Bastille but before the quality of his affairs.” Burke lacked Thomas Jefferson’s clar- French revolutionaries, “because you
in-person canvass one month early will ensure a sig-
Reign of Terror, when it still seemed Burke’s objection to the French revo- ity and idealism, he never suffered from began by despising everything that
nificant undercount of minorities, as well as rural pop- possible that Louis XVI would survive lutionaries is that they paid so little his hypocrisy. belonged to you.”
ulations and other groups. as a constitutional monarch and the attention to this complexity: They were All of this may sound suspicious to For Burke, the materials of successful
country wouldn’t descend into a blood men of theory, not experience. Men of modern readers, especially progressive social change had to be found in what
Even in the best of times, counting roughly 330
bath. experience tend to be cautious about ones. But consider what Burke might the country already provided — histori-
million people is a monumental task. In the midst of a Burke foresaw, more accurately than gambling what they have painstakingly have made of Trump and Trumpism. He cally, culturally, institutionally — not in
pandemic, it becomes incalculably harder. The bureau most of his great contemporaries, what gained. Men of theory tend to be reck- would have been bemused by the what it lacked. Britain became the most
the revolution would bring: the execu- less with what they’ve inherited but phrase “drain the swamp”: To take the liberal society of its day, Burke argued,
anticipated this back in April, during the first wave of
tions of Louis and Marie Antoinette; the never earned. “They have wrought metaphor seriously, one would end up because it held fast to what he called
the coronavirus, when it requested from Congress a ineffectuality of moderate revolutionary underground a mine that will blow up, at destroying all the life within the swamp, “our ancient, indisputable laws and
four-month extension to deliver its data. Current fed- leaders (“a sort of people who affect to one grand explosion, all examples of leaving only mud. He would have been liberties,” handed down “as an inher-
eral law requires the data to be turned in by Dec. 31; itance from our forefathers.” Inher-
itance, he added, “furnishes a sure
the extension would have run through April 2021. As
principle of transmission; without at all
part of its request, the bureau said it would continue excluding a principle of improvement.”
knocking on doors, trying to reach every person in the The people now pulling down statues
of Thomas Jefferson and George Wash-
country, through the end of October.
ington and spray-painting “1619” on
The House of Representatives approved that re- them may believe they are striking a
quest in May; the Senate has not acted on it. Instead blow against the racial hypocrisy of the
of pressing harder, the census director, Steven Dilling- founding fathers. But if Burke were
alive now, he would likely note that
ham, said Monday that door-to-door data collection
people who trade ancient liberties —
would end Sept. 30, a month earlier than previously freedom of speech, for instance — for
planned, to meet the Dec. 31 deadline. newfangled rights (freedom from
speech) could soon wind up with nei-
Why does an accurate and complete census matter?
ther. He’d observe that it may not be
Because it is the anchor of representative democracy. easy to teach respect for democratic
The Constitution’s framers made a national head count political institutions while inculcating
contempt for the founders of those
the first job of the federal government for a reason.
institutions. He’d suggest that if pro-
Based on this count, we make some of our most conse-
testers want to make the case for fuller
quential decisions as a society, from the states’ repre- equality for all Americans, better to
sentation in Congress to the distribution of more than enlist the memory of the founders in
their cause than hand them over to their
$1.5 trillion in annual funding for a wide range of pub-
political opponents to champion. He’d
lic programs. caution that destructiveness toward
To date, just under 63 percent of American house- property tends to lead to violence to-
ward people.
holds have responded to the census. In normal years,
And he’d warn that the damage being
census workers would knock on as many doors as
done — to civil order, public property
possible from the other 37 percent of homes, many in and, most of all perhaps, to the values
poorer and rural areas of the country. The arrival of demonstrators claim to champion —
may not be easy to undo. “Rage and
the pandemic, only weeks before the start of the count
phrensy will pull down more in half an
on April 1, disrupted those plans. Census officials were hour, than prudence, deliberation and
hoping that the virus would fade by now, allowing for foresight can build up in a hundred
years.”
more in-person data collection. But the outbreak
Because Burke champions a different
hasn’t abated, and could get even worse this fall when
concept of liberty than the one most
the traditional flu season begins. Add to that the many Americans cherish, it may be easy to
Americans who have been displaced by the virus, dismiss his teachings as interesting but
ultimately irrelevant. George Will, in his
either temporarily or permanently, and you have the
magnum opus “The Conservative Sen-
ingredients for a major distortion in the count. sibility,” speaks of Burke as a “throne-
The president ought to do everything in his power to and-altar” conservative of little rele-
vance to American experience. What-
ameliorate that distortion. Instead, Mr. Trump and his
ever else might be said of events in
Republican allies have repeatedly tried to exacerbate places like Portland or Seattle, it is not
it. By their calculations, the fewer people of color and the storming of the Bastille, and woke-
noncitizens who are counted, the better. ness isn’t Jacobinism — at least not yet.
The time to write “Reflections on the
It’s true that people of color, who are more likely to
Revolutions in America” is still a ways
be poor or marginalized than white people, are less off.
likely to be counted in the census, perhaps more so A ways off — but ever more visible on
the horizon. To read and admire Burke
this year than in decades. But the irony is that a rush
does not require us to embrace his
to finish the counting process could hurt Mr. Trump’s views, much less treat him as a prophet.
own voters, too. That’s because the poorest states, But it’s an opportunity to learn some-
which depend the most on federal funding, also tend to thing from a man who saw, more clearly
than most, how “very plausible
have lower census response rates. In West Virginia,
schemes, with very pleasing com-
federal funding from programs tied to the census ac- PHOTO12/UNIVERSAL IMAGES GROUP, VIA GETTY IMAGES mencements, have often shameful and
counted for 17 percent of economic activity in 2017, Edmund Burke in Britain’s House of Commons in 1788 (engraving by Edwin Hodder, London, c. 1880.) lamentable conclusions.”
according to Mr. Reamer’s calculations. The state has
one of the lowest census response rates.
And because so much federal funding is allocated to
The real reason for the postwar boom
states based at least in part on census population esti-
mates, an inaccurate census doesn’t just harm people
in undercounted communities. It harms everyone who
lives in the same state. TANKERSLEY,FROM PAGE7 ment, it can tap a geyser of en- study show to be catalysts of innovation The real story of America today is
Take Silicon Valley. In 2018, venture trepreneurship, productivity and talent, and job creation. this: If you want to restore the great-
Congress can intervene. The deadline for delivery of
capitalists in the United States distrib- which could by itself produce the strong That is not the appeal that populist ness of an economy that doesn’t work
the final count needs to be extended to April 30, 2021, uted $131 billion to start-up businesses, growth and low unemployment that politicians make to working-class white for you or your children the way that it
as the Census Bureau initially requested. That would hoping to seed the next Google or Tesla. historically drive up wages for the men, who have been rocked by global- used to, those women and men are your
force states to delay the process of drawing new legis- That money went to nearly 9,000 com- working class, including working-class ization and automation and the greed of best shot at salvation. Their progress
panies. Just over 2 percent of them were white men. If you want to know where the governing class. But it should be. will lift you up.
lative maps, and in some cases could make it impossi-
founded entirely by women. Another 12 the new good jobs will come from — All Americans have a stake in the
ble to meet deadlines written into state law. But the percent had at least one female founder. those that will help millions of Ameri- protests for equality they see every JIM TANKERSLEYcovers economic policy
necessary adjustments are a small price to pay for 10 The rest, 86 percent, were founded cans climb back into the middle class — night on the news. Working-class white in the Washington bureau of The Times.
entirely by men. this is where you should look, to the men, like the guys I went to high school He is the author of “The Riches of This
years of a fairer and more accurate democracy.
The statistics show tragedy. They also great untapped talent of America’s with, have a bond with the Black men, Land: The Untold, True Story of Ameri-
If you haven’t filled out your own census form yet, show opportunity. If America can once women, of its Black men, of the highly the immigrants and the women of all ca’s Middle Class,” from which this
what are you waiting for? again tear down barriers to advance- skilled immigrants that study after races who have taken to the streets. essay is adapted.
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THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL EDITION SATURDAY-SUNDAY, AUGUST8-9, 2020 | 9
opinion
Horror from the world of pandemic motherhood We’ve hit
a wall
We hear from low-income women who
Joan C. Williams have to return to work, leaving small
children home alone. Now they worry SENIOR,FROM PAGE7
someone will call Child Protective marriage called “The Rough Patch”
Services and they will lose their chil- and one of the most astute psycholo-
Employers in the United States are dren. gists I know. “But what it’s really about
using the pandemic to get rid of moth- Recently, we’re hearing a lot from is helplessness, about being on the
ers, and attempts to protect them are mothers whose 12-week Families First receiving end of forces you can’t con-
failing. leaves are running out, and who still trol. Which is what we have now. It’s
The Families First Coronavirus have no option for child care. If schools like we’re in an endless car ride with a
Response Act was enacted this spring aren’t given the resources to open drunk at the wheel. No one knows
for the express purpose of providing safely this fall, there’s going to be a when the pain will stop.”
workers with expanded family and sick blood bath. As it is, we may well be Nor, I would add, do any of us know
leaves for reasons related to Covid-19 facing a generational wipeout of moth- what life will look like once this pan-
and its accompanying school and child ers’ careers: research shows that when demic has truly subsided. Will the
care closings. But between April and mothers leave the labor force it hurts economy remain in tatters? (One word
June, caregiver-related calls to our their economic prospects for decades, for you: inflation.) Will our city centers
hotline at the Center for WorkLife Law, often permanently. A society that be whistling, broken conch shells,
which provides legal resources to help pushes mothers out of their jobs is a gritty and empty at their cores? (Lord,
workers claim workplace accommoda- society that impoverishes both moth- I hope not.) Will President Trump be
tions and family leaves, increased 250 ers and children. re-elected, transforming democracy as
percent compared to the same time We’re in this mess because, even we’ve known it into an eerie photoneg-
last year. We’ve heard from lots and before coronavirus, the legal protec- ative of itself?
lots of workers, many of them mothers. tions for working mothers consisted of In her own therapeutic practice, de
And the stories they’re sharing make it a convoluted matrix of federal, state Marneffe has noticed that families with
clear that Families First is falling and local laws. Mothers who want time pre-existing tensions and frailties are
short. and space for pumping breast milk doing much worse: The pandemic has
One single mom is ineligible for turn to not-very-enforceable provisions only provided more opportunities for
Families First, which excludes health of the Affordable Care Act. Mothers struggling couples to communicate
care workers, emergency responders who need pregnancy accommodations poorly, roll their eyes and project rot-
and those who work for companies often turn to the Americans With Dis- ten motives onto one another. (“And
with over 500 employees. She has no abilities Act. Mothers fired when a marriage is already a hotbed of scape-
child care options for her 6-year-old disabled child’s health care costs cause goating,” she noted.) Parents who were
and 8-month-old. She exhausted all of their employer’s insurance costs to barely limping along, praying for
her paid leave options while on ma- skyrocket turn to a tax law. The lack of school to start, are now brimming with
ternity leave. “I have been given two straightforward legal protections is despair and ruing their lack of imagi-
options: either resign or get fired,” she just one of many ways that public nation: How are they supposed to
told us. She resigned. She’s one of an DELPHINE LEE policy fails mothers; the haphazard make it through another semester of
estimated 106 million people not guar- nature of Families First is merely one remote schooling? “Those of us who
anteed coverage under the act. out of luck unless she can prove her We know that Covid-related job loss indication, many employers don’t know symptom of a broader problem. are average parents rely on structure,”
Even those who appear to be cov- termination was discriminatory, which has disproportionately affected wom- that, and some states have set up This crisis should help us finally she told me. “We needschool.”
ered by Families First often end up is often hard and sometimes impossi- en. We also know that the women Byzantine systems that ask workers to recognize that mothers are raising the I recently thumbed through “The
losing their jobs. A single mom wanted ble. We heard from another single we’re hearing from aren’t quitting apply for standard unemployment and next generation of citizens; mother- Plague,” to see if Albert Camus had
to begin to work part time, taking mother whose daughter has a disabili- because they don’t want to work; get rejected before they apply for hood is not a private frolic like hang intuited anything about the rhythms of
Families First leave for a few days ty that makes her especially vulnera- they’re being driven out by a combina- Pandemic Unemployment Assistance. gliding. In June, Senator Cory Booker human suffering in conditions of fear,
each week. She felt this worked well, ble to Covid, and who had successfully tion of family care requirements and (To add to the chaos, Virginia an- introduced legislation that would, in a disease and constraint. Naturally, he
but at the time, taking leave in chunks worked from home employer rigidity. And when workers nounced a policy of denying unemploy- simple and straightforward way, pro- had. It was on April 16 that Dr. Rieux
was allowed only if the employer since near the begin- try to push back, they face a labyrinth ment insurance to workers whose kids’ tect all mothers — and fathers, and first felt the squish of a dead rat be-
“I have been
agreed to it. Hers ultimately didn’t — ning of the pan- of laws that are often ineffectual. camps are closed — a clear violation of other family caregivers — from em- neath his feet on his landing; it was in
given two
and she was fired. (On Monday, a demic. She was fired Figuring out whether you’re eligible the act, as the Department of Labor ployment discrimination. That’s long mid-August that the plague “had swal-
options:
federal judge in New York ruled it because her employ- for Families First is so complicated recently reiterated.) The end result is overdue but we need much more. If, lowed up everything and everyone,”
illegal for employers to refuse intermit- either resign er insisted she re- that a chart explaining the program that many mothers find that once they God and Wisconsin willing, Democrats with the prevailing emotion being “the
tent leaves; the Trump administration or get fired.” turn to the office, looks like a game of Chutes and Lad- have been pushed out, employers win in November, we also need nation- sense of exile and of deprivation, with
will likely appeal that decision.) which she couldn’t ders. It seems clear that many states derail their unemployment claims on wide paid family leave and what many all the crosscurrents of revolt and fear
One grocery worker was able to do without putting understand neither Families First nor the grounds that they left their jobs for other advanced industrial countries set up by these.” Those returning from
return to work — provided it was on her daughter at risk. If a worker has a companion program known as Pan- personal reasons. also have: neighborhood-based, na- quarantine started setting fire to their
the same part-time schedule she had an underlying medical condition, some- demic Unemployment Assistance. One single mother of two found tionally financed child care to replace homes, convinced the plague had
always worked. But when she asked times we can get them telecommuting Traditionally, workers have been herself without day care and had no the patched-together Rube Goldberg settled into their walls.
for that, her employer cut her to zero as an accommodation under the Amer- denied unemployment when they leave income for two months while the state machine that just broke. Camus sensed, in other words, that
hours and ghosted her, refusing to icans With Disabilities Act. But if they a job because of a lack of child care; twice deemed her ineligible for unem- the four-month mark got pretty freaky
respond to queries about why those need to telecommute to protect the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance ployment benefits. Another couldn’t JOAN C. WILLIAMSruns the Center for in Oran. That’s more or less what
hours had been reduced, whether she health of a relative, typically they’re explicitly reversed this until the end of even appeal her state’s decision be- WorkLife Law at the University of happened here. If only we knew how it
was laid off, what was happening. She’s out of luck. the year. If calls to our hotline are any cause of a faulty internet connection. California, Hastings College of the Law. ended.
Could a girl ‘like me’ be president?
RAMOS,FROM PAGE1 and women serving in certain govern- heard that I was having second
Although women serve in top gov- mental, municipal and intermunicipal thoughts, and one of them told me:
ernment positions, as is the case with bodies be equal to at least 40 percent ‘Hey, Sonia, stop thinking about you.
the speaker of the House of Represent- for both groups. This is not about you. This is about all
atives, Nancy Pelosi, they occupy only In the United those little girls who will see you in
101, or 23 percent, of voting seats in the It is hard to States we don’t have that role.’”
House. On a global scale, the United such a law, but fi- Girls like 10-year-old Sophie, who Unprecedented times.
understand
States ranks 83rd in terms of female nally adopting the was listening intently. At the end of the
how one of
representation in national legislatures, Equal Rights interview, as the adults looked on, she
the richest Unparalleled coverage.
according to the Inter-Parliamentary Amendment, intro- approached Justice Sotomayor to ask if
Union, the Geneva-based international and most duced in Congress in she, a Latina, could one day be presi-
organization of parliaments. powerful 1923, could go a long dent of the United States. Justice So-
So what can it do to achieve political countries in way toward solving tomayor hugged her and replied, “Yes,
equality? the world has our problems. yes.” She then went on to give the child Subscribe toThe NewYorkTimes
“You need laws and you need struc- never elected “Equality of rights a true life lesson.
tures that lead the way to gender under the law shall “First of all, a girl like you should International Edition.
awoman to
equality,” said Prime Minister Sanna not be denied or always dream big,” Justice Sotomayor
the White
Marin of Finland, the second-youngest abridged by the told Sophie.
House. nytimes.com/subscribeinternational
head of government in the world, in a United States or by “Second, never let anyone say that
CNN interview. “It just doesn’t happen any state on account you can’t do it. And the minute they
by itself.” of sex,” the proposed say that, you should do as I have done
In Finland, for example, the law amendment states, in a simple and myself and say: ‘You are telling me I
requires that the proportion of men clear fashion. Could a new Congress in can’t do it? Well, I’ll show you I can.’
2021 help remove the legal hurdles that “Third, you have to study, study and
have stood on the way of the E.R.A.’s study. That’s the only way you can
ratification for nearly a century? achieve what you want in life. Educa-
On that note, let’s go back to my tion is the key to the future.
interview with Justice Sotomayor, “And fourth, you have to work very
which took place earlier this year in hard. In life no one will give you any-
Miami. She had just published “Just thing for free. You must earn every
Ask! Be Different, Be Brave, Be You,” single thing in this life. It is by study-
a children’s book on how differences ing and working hard that you will
make people stronger. become president of the United
We talked about the experiences States.”
that inspired her writing, her struggles Before saying goodbye, Justice
with diabetes and how to confront our Sotomayor hugged Sophie once again.
fears. “I hope to be alive when you become
“When I was nominated to the Su- president,” the justice said, before
preme Court I was really scared,” expressing her wish to be the one to
Justice Sotomayor told me in Spanish. administer the oath of office to her.
“This is a huge job. But who lives life I hope to be there for that occasion.
free of fear? I have often told myself, ‘I But for that to happen, good intentions
don’t want to do this job.’ I wasn’t sure and hard work won’t be enough. I get
I could get it right. And I was very, why the idea of quotas isn’t very popu-
very close to saying no to the president lar in the United States, a country that
of the United States. But some friends takes pride in presenting itself as a
meritocracy. But the reality is that if
we don’t set gender quotas the way
Finland did, putting an end to preju-
dice and current inequalities will be
hard. We need a sense of urgency and
new rules that reflect our outrage.
Latina women face a double burden.
That’s why when a Latina like Justice
Sotomayor reaches one of the most
important institutional positions in the
country, when young dreamers achieve
changes in the laws and when there is
another new Hispanic senator or gov-
ernor, they open the way for those who
come after them.
Sophie may someday be the first
Latina president of the United States; I
don’t doubt it. But before that happens,
many other girls like her will need to
pave the way.
And like Ms. Marin said, “It just
doesn’t happen by itself.”
PHOTOS BY NICK WAGNER/AUSTIN AMERICAN-STATESMAN, VIA ASSOCIATED PRESS
JORGE RAMOSis an anchor for the Uni-
Top, Justice Sonia Sotomayor reads from her children’s book, “Just Ask! Be Different, vision network and the author of, most
Be Brave, Be You,” at a book festival in Austin, Texas, in 2019. Below, a girl listens as recently, “Stranger: The Challenge of a
Justice Sotomayor reads. Latino Immigrant in the Trump Era.”
..
10 | SATURDAY-SUNDAY, AUGUST8-9, 2020 THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL EDITION
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70th ANNIVERSARY GRAND PRIX
A season like no other for Formula 1
The pandemic has forced
the sport to adjust with
new races and new tracks
BY IAN PARKES
Five months ago, Formula 1 came within
two hours of starting its season.
The coronavirus was spreading glob-
ally, and when a member of McLaren
tested positive and the team withdrew
from the Australian Grand Prix in mid-
March, the event was canceled before
the first practice session on a Friday
morning.
It sparked a tumultuous period for the
motorsport series.
“When we left Australia, we were ob-
viously entering into a massive un-
known, and none of us knew where we
would go or what was needed to be
done,” Ross Brawn, managing director,
motorsports, at Formula 1, said in an in-
terview.
“Fortunately, Formula 1 is the sort of
industry that thrives on logistics,
thrives on organizational challenges
and thrives on complex problems, and
so once we started to put our heads to-
gether, we began to see a way we would
be able to operate.”
On July 5, racing resumed with the
Austrian Grand Prix, with no fans at the
Red Bull Ring. It had been more than
seven months since the final race of 2019
in Abu Dhabi and the longest off-season
in Formula 1 history.
Formula 1 worked with the
Fédération Internationale de l’Automo-
bile, the sport’s governing body; the 10
teams; and other stakeholders, such as
the tire supplier Pirelli and the circuit POOL PHOTO BY BRYN LENNON
promoters, to discuss a way forward.
Along with Australia, a further nine not getting complacent,” Brawn said. said Claire Williams, the deputy team trying to equal the record of seven titles plans that had been put in place and Track changes
races, in China, Bahrain, Vietnam, the “We realize what we are dealing with principal, who would not say who the in- won by Michael Schumacher, has a 30- what had been achieved in a short peri- Formula 1 now has
Netherlands, Spain, Monaco, Azerbai- is a very dynamic problem. After each vestors were. point lead over Bottas, his teammate. od. a 13-race schedule
jan, Canada and France, were either race, we’ve had an intense debrief with “They are of a high quality, which The first four races have all been held “While one would not wish this to that includes last
canceled or postponed. all the people involved, worked out how we’re delighted about, and we continue without fans. That will continue for the have happened, in some ways it’s been a week’s British Grand
There is now a 13-race calendar that to tie up any loose ends or fix any issues, to go through that process. We said we next four grands prix. For the events great challenge to meet, and that’s the Prix and Sunday’s
started with two in Austria and includes and so as we go on we’re only going to anticipated that the process would last that follow, starting with the Gran Pre- nature of people in Formula 1; they love Formula 1 70th
two at Silverstone in England, with the get stronger and stronger in our way of for anywhere between three to four mio Della Toscana Ferrari 1000 in Italy, meeting challenges,” he said. Anniversary Grand
second on Sunday, and three in Italy at meeting this new challenge.” months, and we’re still on that timeline.” Formula 1 will decide depending on a “It’s not one we wanted, but we’ve Prix, both at Silver-
different tracks. More races are ex- The issues included the drivers Valt- On the track, Mercedes continues to country’s situation. met it and found solutions, which in it- stone.
pected to be added, and Formula 1 hopes teri Bottas of Mercedes and Charles lead the way. Lewis Hamilton, who is Brawn said he was satisfied with the self has been rewarding.”
to hold 18 over all. Leclerc of Ferrari returning to their
“We knew the protocols to be put in homes in Monaco in between the races
place had to ensure the people in the in Austria in July. Formula 1 personnel
countries we were planning to visit, and had been requested by the sport and the
the people from within Formula 1 who F.I.A. to remain in the country in their
were participating, were all kept safe bubble.
and had the best conditions,” Brawn Leclerc was given a warning by the
said. F.I.A. because he had strayed outside of
“My ambition, and the ambition of ev- his bubble; Bottas did not and was not
eryone in Formula 1, was to make the warned.
paddock one of the safest places in the Leclerc said he went home, but was
world to be.” tested for the virus before returning.
Dr. Gérard Saillant, president of the “Yes, I went back home for two days
medical commission of the F.I.A., and then did two tests to be sure of the
worked with the World Health Organi- result,” he said, noting that the tests
zation to carry out the protocols. were negative.
“The key principle was to create this Brawn said that “one or two drivers
biosphere within which we all operate,” haven’t quite understood the impor-
Brawn added, “and within that we cre- tance of the protocols which have been
ate individual bubbles. The reason for put in place and which have to continue,
the bubble is if there is a case then I hope even when they are away from the cir-
we can contain it within that bubble.” cuit, so we have had to remind them of
A bubble consists of one to 12 people, their responsibilities.”
who are not allowed to mix with others The pandemic has financially affected
in another bubble. “We don’t want them most Formula 1 teams, but McLaren and
too big because if we do get an outbreak, Williams are the only ones that have
then the bigger the bubble the bigger made figures public.
the problem,” Brawn added. McLaren lost $227 million for the first
Mercedes, for example, has 24 bub- quarter of this year. On May 26, it an-
bles of one to five people, broken out ac- nounced it was laying off 1,200 of its
cording to the vehicles they travel in. So 4,000 employees across its three divi-
a crew of 12 mechanics has been split sions. About 75 of the job losses will be
into three bubbles. from the Formula 1 team.
Each team is also restricted to 80 em- On June 29, McLaren received a $195
ployees per race. That figure had been million loan from the National Bank of
cut from about 200. Each person enter- Bahrain, which Zak Brown, chief execu-
ing the paddock is tested every five days tive of McLaren, said put the company
and must always wear a mask or face in a good financial position.
shield. “The bad news is behind us,” he said.
Formula 1 is working with a Luxem- “We’re financially healthy and benefit-
bourg company, Eurofins Scientific, ing from playing offense when Covid hit.
which analyzes the tests. There have “We ran toward the problems so we
been 17,504 tests conducted from June could address them quickly and turn the
26 to July 30, the latest figures available. page. We’re now exactly where we want
There have been only three positive re- to be, and looking forward we’re sitting
sults so far. on a better business model, so we’re in
Safety first For the first two, neither person was quite good spirits.”
Each Formula 1 with a team. But the third person was Three days after McLaren announced
team is restricted to Sérgio Perez, a driver for Racing Point. job losses, Williams disclosed a $45.5
80 employees per He was quarantined along with his per- million loss in Formula 1 revenue in
race this season, sonal assistant and physiotherapist, 2019.
and each person who both tested negative. Perez missed Williams said it would consider a sale
entering the racing the British Grand Prix and was replaced of the whole company or of a minority
paddock is tested on the team with Nico Hülkenberg, who stake to help it through its crisis.
every five days and drove for Renault last year. “We have received a number of very
must always wear a “We’re pleased and proud of what interesting potential investors, and
mask or face shield. we’ve been able to do so far, but we’re we’re talking to those at the moment,”
MARK THOMPSON/GETTY IMAGES