Índex per March 30, 2020 a TIME Magazine

CHOSEN A challenger to form Israel’s new government Step toward unity ISRAEL HAS SUFFERED CRIPPLING POLITICAL DEADLOCK FOR months. Now the COVID-19 outbreak might succeed in doing what three elections in a year could not: forming a government. On March 15, Israeli political parties backed the centrist opposition leader, Benny Gantz of the Blue and White Party, to form a governing coalition. It was a blow to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving leader, who won more seats in the March 2 elections but fell short of a majority. Now Gantz, a former Israel Defense Forces chief of staff, has received a narrow majority of nominations in Israel’s parliament, including from Arab-Israeli dominated parties. The wrangling comes at a tricky time. As of March 17, Israel had recorded 304…

FOR THREE YEARS, Russia and Saudi Arabia had a deal. Together, they used their collective market power to put a floor under oil prices by limiting their production. Then, about two weeks ago, it all broke down. The Saudis, in response to slowing demand for oil, wanted to cut production further to keep prices stable. The Russians adamantly disagreed. They wanted to produce more. That’s when the Saudis moved to teach Russia a lesson. They pledged to drown the market with an added 2.6 million barrels of crude oil per day and to cut the price for customers in Europe, a market crucial for Russia’s oil industry. Over the next few days, crude prices fell 30%. The Saudis’ likely message to the Russians: “The price is now lower for both…

MAURINE STUART CREDITS THE AFFORDABLE Care Act (ACA) for saving her family. In 2014, Stuart was diagnosed with HELLP syndrome, a rare disease that causes heart, liver and lymphatic problems. As a result, she was unable to continue working full time—which meant losing her employer-sponsored health insurance. But thankfully, she says, that same year, her home state of West Virginia opted in to the 2010 Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid-coverage expansion, and she qualified. Over the next few years, as bad news kept rolling in, ACA protections continued to keep Stuart’s family afloat. When Stuart was diagnosed with breast cancer, when her sister was diagnosed with a brain tumor, and when her daughter Peyton began having seizures, the ACA consistently offered avenues of affordable care. Stuart and her sister received…

NOBODY HAD EVER SEEN COVID-19 BEFORE IT surfaced in December 2019. So for context, it was often compared to a symptomatically similar disease we know well: the seasonal flu, which infects many people each year but kills only about 0.1% of them on average. It’s alarming, then, that as of March 17, COVID-19 has killed about 4% of the nearly 200,000 people who have been diagnosed with the illness around the world. But that estimate may say more about the inherent uncertainty in making these sorts of calculations during an evolving outbreak than it does about the true deadliness of COVID-19. One key reason: people with milder versions of the illness are underrepresented in official case counts, since they may not be sick enough to seek medical attention or…

BATTLING A PANDEMIC AS SERIOUS AS COVID-19 requires drastic responses, and political leaders and public-health officials have turned to some of the most radical strategies available. What began with a lockdown of one city in China quickly expanded to the quarantine of an entire province, and now entire countries including Italy. While social isolation and curfews are among the most effective ways to break the chain of viral transmission, some health experts say it’s possible these draconian measures didn’t have to become a global phenomenon. “If health officials could have taken action earlier and contained the outbreak in Wuhan, where the first cases were reported, the global clampdown could have been at a much more local level,” says Richard Kuhn, a virologist and professor of science at Purdue University. The…

WHILE THIS YEAR’S TAX DEADLINES HAVE BEEN DELAYED for 90 days, returns will still need filing out eventually. Fortunately, at a time when cash flow is so iffy, there are a number of programs that can help you calculate or file your taxes for free. Free tax help and filing programs fall into two groups: those that connect users to volunteers for in-person help, and those that offer do-it-yourself software for filing federal, and sometimes state, tax returns. Many of the in-person, volunteer-based tax-help programs are currently suspended because of coronavirus concerns, so we’re going to focus on free software-based tax-filing options. Keep in mind that “free” can come with catches—like software that upsells users into paid options—so be sure to do your homework before picking the best option…

AT THE BEGINNING OF THE YEAR, HONG KONG, Taiwan and Singapore looked next in line for catastrophe. The novel coronavirus was spreading beyond mainland China, and all three were hit early. Yet each still has fewer than 250 confirmed COVID-19 cases, even as global infection numbers swelled to upwards of 180,000. It’s too early to declare victory. But if these places tied closely with China can stanch the virus’ spread, perhaps other countries now bearing the brunt of the pandemic can follow suit. Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore have also managed to get a handle on the deadly pathogen without resorting to draconian lockdowns or paralyzing their economies, suggesting measured responses can work. Health experts say the world should take note. Acting quickly, they say, is the only way to…

THROUGHOUT DONALD TRUMP’S PRESIDENCY, an ominous question has hung in the air: How would he handle a truly serious crisis? Now we know. The novel coronavirus pandemic has infected more than 200,000 people around the world to date and is spreading rapidly in the U.S. Experts project that COVID-19, the respiratory disease that coronavirus causes, could afflict millions worldwide and kill hundreds of thousands of Americans. Faced with the most dangerous threat to American life since at least the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the 45th President made matters worse. A few weeks after the outbreak began in China’s Hubei province in December, U.S. health officials warned Trump of the seriousness of the threat. But in his first public comments about the virus, on Jan. 22, Trump told the public…

DAYS AFTER RETURNING HOME FROM AN INTERNATIONAL trade show in Arizona, Jacob developed a fever and a sore throat so raw it felt like hamburger meat. He could barely sleep or eat. At the doctor’s office, “they almost tackled him to get a mask on him when he walked in the door,” his wife Caitlin says. “The doctor told us it might be COVID-19.” That possibility put Caitlin in an impossible situation. “I’m not supposed to be near him because he’s sick, but he couldn’t take care of himself,” she says. So she swallowed her anxiety, armed herself with disinfecting wipes and became living proof of love in the time of coronavirus. (To protect the small businesses they work for, the couple, who are both 33, didn’t want their last…

SONIA BAUTISTA WAS LIVING PAYCHECK TO PAYCHECK in one of the most expensive regions of the country when the coronavirus hit, and her finances went from bad to disastrous. Her employer, the Palace Hotel in San Francisco, a four-star luxury property owned by Marriott, told her that business had slowed and it didn’t need her anymore, just when her husband had his job in a hotel cafeteria cut from five days a week to two. “I don’t know how I’m going to pay the rent,” says Bautista. Workers and businesses across the country are in similarly dire straits as consumers practice social distancing to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and follow recommendations—and, in some cases, orders—to stay home. Bars and restaurants are seeing business slow to a halt, hotels and…

MANY PEOPLE BLAME THE CORONAvirus epidemic on globalization and say the only way to prevent more such outbreaks is to deglobalize the world: build walls, restrict travel, reduce trade. However, while short-term quarantine is essential to stop epidemics, long-term isolationism will lead to economic collapse without offering any real protection against infectious diseases. Just the opposite. The real antidote to epidemics is cooperation. Epidemics killed millions of people long before the current age of globalization. In the 14th century, there were no airplanes or cruise ships, and yet the Black Death spread from East Asia to Western Europe in little more than a decade, killing at least a quarter of the population. In 1520, Mexico had no trains or even donkeys, yet it took only a year for a smallpox…

Across the U.S., people are filling out their Census forms, providing detailed information about who they are and how they live in 2020. The answers matter for short-term political decisions, but they will also be invaluable for genealogists, who rely on the Census to piece together the narratives of American families. “The Census is the master key,” explains genealogist Rich Venezia. “Its importance to American genealogy can’t be overstated. It can be somewhat basic in the information it provides while also distilling American history on a single page.” Like a series of flip-book drawings, the Census is at once static and dynamic. Begun in 1790, with responses available to the public through 1940, its records are a repository of granular information about American households. Each dry data point it tracks—birthplaces…

WHEN THE CLAPPING STARTED, IT WAS IMPOSSIBLE not to feel moved. At 8 p.m. on March 17, people across the Netherlands leaned out of windows and congregated on doorstops to make a show of support for medical workers battling the coronavirus. First it was just a few claps, before the sound spread down my street in the Hague, working up to a crescendo of whistles and whoops. Fireworks sounded in the distance. A neighbor I had never spoken to waved from across the street. The warmth and goodwill was the epitome of what it means to be part of a community—a scene also playing out in Italy, Spain and France as stricken neighborhoods come together. But these spontaneous acts of solidarity stand in stark contrast to what is happening among…

AS ITALIAN HOSPITALS BUCKLED under an influx of patients sick from the novel coronavirus, American medical professionals and public officials looked on with growing alarm. At the current infection rate, the U.S. health care infrastructure could soon be overrun too. “We are not ready,” says Dr. Irwin Redlener, director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University. “We are not ready virtually anywhere in the country for that kind of onslaught on our health care system.” Infections are already widespread in the U.S. Unless the number of new cases is dramatically reduced, U.S. hospitals could easily begin looking a lot like Italy’s. If that happens, it would mean that doctors would have to ration lifesaving care. Dr. James Lawler, an infectious-diseases expert at the University of Nebraska…

TONGUES CLUCKED WHEN WORD GOT OUT THAT a Missouri man whose daughter had tested positive for COVID-19 broke quarantine in early March to attend a father-daughter school dance with her sister. The school was closed the following Monday for a hospital-grade cleaning. A coronavirus quarantine is not easy. It amounts to two weeks of house arrest for a disease you may not have. Your fortnight of confinement is done entirely in the service of others, protecting them from possible infection. A situation like that causes two of our more primal impulses—selfishness and altruism—to bump up hard against each other. “I think these quarantine issues are going to put many people in a moral conundrum,” says Jonathan Haidt, professor of ethical leadership at New York University’s Stern School of Business. Haidt…

IF YOU WANT A SHOW DEVOID OF CYNICISM: PARKS AND RECREATION (NETFLIX) A group of bighearted municipal employees in Indiana manage to remain unflaggingly optimistic and funny as they sort through the bureaucracy of local politics. Comfort food at its finest. IF YOU WANT TO HANG OUT WITH FAMILY: SCHITT’S CREEK (NETFLIX) After losing their fortune, a family must move to a tiny motel in the middle of nowhere, bond and reassess their priorities for the better in this delightfully deranged comedy created by father-son duo Eugene and Dan Levy. IF YOU NEED A ROM-COM TO SIMULCAST WITH YOUR CRUSH: LOVESICK (NETFLIX) The dramedy centers on three roommates, one of whom must inform all his old flames he has chlamydia. Each episode revisits one of his old relationships, and as…