as losses deepen drawn-out slump economists fear

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Nicholas Kristof PAGE A24

EDITORIAL, OP-ED A24-25

LONDON — The world is al-most certainly ensnared in a dev-astating recession delivered bythe coronavirus pandemic.

Now, fears are growing that thedownturn could be far more pun-ishing and long lasting than ini-tially feared — potentially endur-ing into next year, and even be-yond — as governments intensifyrestrictions on business to halt thespread of the pandemic, and asfear of the virus reconfigures thevery concept of public space, im-peding consumer-led economicgrowth.

The pandemic is above all apublic health emergency. So longas human interaction remainsdangerous, business cannot re-sponsibly return to normal. Andwhat was normal before may notbe anymore. People may be lessinclined to jam into crowdedrestaurants and concert hallseven after the virus is contained.

The abrupt halt of commercialactivity threatens to impose eco-nomic pain so profound and en-during in every region of theworld at once that recovery couldtake years. The losses to compa-nies, many already saturated withdebt, risk triggering a financialcrisis of cataclysmic proportions.

Stock markets have reflectedthe economic alarm. The S&P 500in the United States fell over 4 per-cent on Wednesday, as investorsbraced for worse conditionsahead. That followed a brutal

March, during which a whipsaw-ing S&P 500 fell 12.5 percent, in itsworst month since October 2008.

“I feel like the 2008 financial cri-sis was just a dry run for this,” saidKenneth S. Rogoff, a Harvardeconomist and co-author of a his-tory of financial crises, “This TimeIs Different: Eight Centuries of Fi-nancial Folly.”

“This is already shaping up asthe deepest dive on record for theglobal economy for over 100years,” he said. “Everything de-pends on how long it lasts, but ifthis goes on for a long time, it’scertainly going to be the mother ofall financial crises.”

The situation looks uniquelydire in developing countries,which have seen investment rushfor the exits this year, sending cur-rencies plummeting, forcing peo-ple to pay more for imported foodand fuel, and threatening govern-ments with insolvency — all ofthis while the pandemic itselfthreatens to overwhelm inade-quate medical systems.

Among investors, a hopeful sce-nario holds currency: The reces-sion will be painful but short-lived,giving way to a robust recoverythis year. The global economy is ina temporary deep freeze, the logicgoes. Once the virus is contained,enabling people to return to of-fices and shopping malls, life willsnap back to normal. Jets will fill

ECONOMISTS FEARDRAWN-OUT SLUMP

AS LOSSES DEEPENWorldwide Recovery Could Take Years as

the Public Remains Averse to Risk

By PETER S. GOODMAN

BEIJING China, the world’s second-largest economy, is expected to grow by only 2 percent this year.GILLES SABRIÉ FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

BERLIN Government restrictions have essentially shut down public life across Europe.EMILE DUCKE FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

LONDON Most economies might not return to pre-pandemic production levels for two to three years.ANDREW TESTA FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Continued on Page A8

One patient had lymphoma andheart failure. Another was 85years old with metastatic cancer.A third was 83 and had dementiaand lung disease. All were criti-cally ill with the coronavirus, and,a doctor said, all were hooked upto ventilators in recent weeks at amajor Manhattan hospital.

But soon, patients such as thosemight not receive similar ag-gressive treatment. As peoplewith the virus overwhelm NewYork City hospitals, doctors havestepped up pressure on statehealth officials to give them a rareand unsettling power: the right towithhold care from patients whoare not likely to recover.

Dwindling supplies mean theremight not be enough ventilatorsor other items for everyone, andmany doctors say they are grow-ing increasingly uneasy withtreating every patient equally.They believe medical workerssoon might need to make difficultchoices about treatment.

“Usually, the standard is to intu-bate and do CPR and do all those

Doctors FacingBrutal ChoicesAs Supplies LagThis article is by Joseph Gold-

stein, Michael Rothfeld and Ben-jamin Weiser.

A hospital triage tent in Wash-ington Heights, Manhattan.

ANDREW SENG FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Continued on Page A13

Using flag-draped memes andmilitary terminology, the Trumpadministration and its Chinesecounterparts have cast coro-navirus research as national im-peratives, inciting talk of a biotecharms race.

The world’s scientists, for themost part, have responded with acollective eye roll.

“Absolutely ridiculous,” saidJonathan Heeney, a CambridgeUniversity researcher working ona coronavirus vaccine.

“That isn’t how things happen,”said Adrian Hill, the head of theJenner Institute at Oxford, one ofthe largest vaccine research cen-ters at an academic institution.

While political leaders havelocked their borders, scientistshave been shattering theirs, creat-ing a global collaboration unlikeany in history. Never before, re-searchers say, have so many ex-perts in so many countries fo-cused simultaneously on a singletopic and with such urgency.Nearly all other research hasground to a halt.

Normal imperatives like aca-demic credit have been set aside.Online repositories make studiesavailable months ahead of jour-nals. Researchers have identifiedand shared hundreds of viral ge-nome sequences. More than 200clinical trials have been initiated,bringing together hospitals andlaboratories around the globe.

“I never hear scientists — truescientists, good quality scientists— speak in terms of nationality,”said Dr. Francesco Perrone, whois leading a coronavirus clinicaltrial in Italy. “My nation, your na-tion. My language, your language.My geographic location, your geo-graphic location. This is some-

Racing for Cure,Scientists UniteIn Global Effort

By MATT APUZZOand DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK

Continued on Page A10

Shamain Webster, who lives inthe suburbs outside of Dallas, hasseen the signs of a coming apoca-lypse for a while now, just as theBible foretold.

Kingdom would rise againstkingdom, Jesus taught his disci-ples in the Book of Luke. Ms. Web-ster sees widespread political di-vision in this country. There willbe fearful events, and great signsfrom heaven, he said. She seesbiblical values slipping away. Agovernment not acting in the peo-ple’s best interest. And now this —a pandemic.

But Ms. Webster, 42 and anevangelical Christian, is unafraid.She has been listening online toone of her favorite preachers, whohas called the coronavirus pan-

demic a “divine reset.”“These kinds of moments really

get you to re-evaluate every-thing,” she said. As everyone goesthrough a period of isolation, sheadded, God is using it for good, “toteach us and train us on how tolive life better.”

For people of many faiths, andeven none at all, it can feel latelyas if the end of the world is near.Not only is there a plague, buthundreds of billions of locusts areswarming East Africa. Wildfireshave ravaged Australia, killing an

For People of Many Religions,Crisis Has Signs of Apocalypse

By ELIZABETH DIAS Fault Lines in Society,and Lessons of Hope

Continued on Page A11

On Feb. 27, two days after thefirst reported case of the coro-navirus spreading inside a com-munity in the United States, Can-dace Owens was underwhelmed.“Now we’re all going to die fromCoronavirus,” she wrote sarcasti-cally to her two million Twitter fol-lowers, blaming a “doomsdaycult” of liberal paranoia for thegrowing anxiety over the out-break.

One month later, on the day theUnited States reached the grimmilestone of having more docu-mented coronavirus cases thananywhere in the world, Ms. Owens— a conservative commentatorwhom President Trump has called“a real star” — was back at it, of-fering what she said was “a little

perspective” on the 1,000 Ameri-can deaths so far. “The 2009 swineflu infected 1.4 Billion peoplearound the world, and killed575,000 people,” she wrote.“There was no media panic, andsocieties did not shut down.”

In the weeks leading up to theescalation of the coronavirus pan-demic in the United States, tens ofmillions of Americans who gettheir information from media per-sonalities like Ms. Owens heardthat this once-in-a-lifetime globalhealth crisis was actually down-

Pro-Trump Media’s Virus Pivot:From Alarm to Denial to Blame

By JEREMY W. PETERS Us-Versus-Them DustupBorn of an Outbreak

Continued on Page A9

MIAMI — Florida’s coro-navirus cases kept ballooning, es-pecially in the dense neighbor-hoods of Miami and Fort Lau-derdale. Hospitals in Fort Myersand Naples begged for donationsof masks and other protectivegear. Young people started to die.

And still, Gov. Ron DeSantis re-sisted. The man entrusted withkeeping many of the country’sgrandparents safe did not want todictate that all Floridians had tostay at home.

What it took for Mr. DeSantis tochange his mind on Wednesdayand finally issue a statewide orderwere a phone call with PresidentTrump and a grave reckoning. Aday earlier, the White House hadprojected how many Americanlives might be lost — up to 240,000— without a national commitmentto immediate, drastic action in ev-ery state.

The number of coronavirus in-fections in Florida had jumped bymore than 1,000 on Tuesday, itslargest 24-hour increase, to reachnearly 7,000, giving rise to worriesthat the infection was alreadydangerously out of hand.

For Mr. DeSantis, a 41-year-oldfirst-term Republican governorconsidered a contender for higherpolitical office, relenting was anacknowledgment that the Floridaeconomy, so reliant on tourism,would inevitably grind to a haltbecause of the virus. Withoutstatewide measures, recoveryfrom the pandemic might onlytake longer.

“People aren’t just going to goback to work” by April 15, Mr. De-Santis said at a news conferencein Tallahassee, the state capital,calling the stringent social-dis-tancing orders that take effect onFriday “a national pause button.”

Thirty-seven states haveadopted statewide orders for peo-ple to stay at home, includingmost recently Georgia and Missis-sippi. The full scale of the virusthreat delivered by the WhiteHouse was a powerful new mes-sage to conservative governorswho have been following the pres-ident’s lead.

After Resisting,Florida LeaderImposes Limits

Trump and Grim DataNudge DeSantis

By PATRICIA MAZZEIand MAGGIE HABERMAN

Continued on Page A7

IN THE FIGHT Retired nurses,doctors and other health careworkers answer the call. PAGE A12

A critic and a historian take a sociallydistant stroll along Fifth Avenue.Above, the Guggenheim. PAGE C1

ARTS C1-7

Touring Museum MileIn a sequestered world, video meetingsand home broadcasts take us into otherpeople’s rooms. Above, Sheila Bridges’sceiling caught some eyes. PAGE D1

THURSDAY STYLES D1-6

The Thrill of Décor Peeping

Residents of a crime-ridden Manilaslum fear eviction for a redevelopmentproject. Philippines Dispatch. PAGE A17

Home of the $100 Hit MenWith performances on hold during thepandemic, artists like Wynton Marsalisare still making music at home. PAGE C1

Composing on the Couch

Bernie Sanders’s campaign hit a road-block as Democrats threw their supportto Joseph R. Biden Jr. PAGE A18

NATIONAL A18-21

‘Never Bernie’ Voters Lift Biden

Governments, hospitals and en-trepreneurs are scouring the world forpersonal protective equipment. PAGE B1

BUSINESS B1-8

A Global Scramble for Masks

The trumpet virtuoso Wallace Roneyemerged from Davis’s shadow to be-come a jazz star. He was 59. PAGE A22

OBITUARIES A22-23, 26

Only Protégé of Miles Davis

A new state law bars transgenderfemales from women’s sports, raisingthe possibility that student athletesmay have to consent to sex testing tocompete. PAGE B9

SPORTSTHURSDAY B9-11

Idaho Ban Raises Questions

With the lockdown in Britain intensi-fying, organizers canceled the oldestGrand Slam tennis tournament, whichhad previously been shut only duringWorld Wars I and II. PAGE B9

No Wimbledon This Year

VENTILATORS Thousands are instorage, unmaintained, broken orotherwise unusable. PAGE A14

TRACKING AN OUTBREAK

THREATS Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, astaple at virus press briefings, isgetting extra security. PAGE A11

In Fos-sur-Mer, France, above, resi-dents teamed up to reject the trade-offof good jobs for foul air. PAGE A16

INTERNATIONAL A16-17

Tired of Profit Over Pollution

VOL. CLXIX . . . No. 58,651 © 2020 The New York Times Company NEW YORK, THURSDAY, APRIL 2, 2020

Late EditionToday, sunshine followed by clouds,windy, high 56. Tonight, mostlycloudy, windy, showers, low 44. To-morrow, breezy, showers, high 54.Weather map appears on Page B12.

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