Scientists express doubts about coronavirus treatment touted as breakthrough by Trump

T.J. Annerino, 21, of Mobile, Ala., has some advice for students headed back to college either virtually or in-person: “Drop into your school’s virtual or on-campus counseling center. It’s a way to center yourself in these odd times.”

Annerino, an incoming senior at Auburn University, was already engaged with the center for some anxiety she felt during her junior year. Although she and her therapist had ended the sessions “at a good place,” Annerino, who rode out the first few weeks of the outbreak at home with her family, sought out the center’s resources after returning to campus in April.

“From what was offered, I chose a free trial of a meditation app and online videos about coping with depression and anxiety,” Annerino said. “They helped a lot.”

As colleges begin on-campus and virtual returns by students, counseling center directors hope “even students not previously engaged with the centers will drop by, tune in, check out websites or at least open email messages of support and suggestions the centers will be sending out to everyone,” said Micky M. Sharma, director of the Office of Student Life Counseling and Consultation Service at Ohio State University in Columbus.

School began last week, but Diane Perry has yet to buy shoes, clothes or a lunch box for her fourth-grader, who’s taking classes online for at least nine weeks.

Instead, she dropped $500 on the cheapest laptop she could find, grabbed a few spiral notebooks at Target and put most everything else on hold. There is no telling when she’ll have a steady paycheck again, or when her daughter’s school in Orlando will reopen. She suspects neither will happen till next year.

“Normally I’d easily spend $700 on school supplies, clothes and a few pairs of shoes,” said Perry, 44, a character attendant at Disney World who’s been on furlough since March. “But this year, I don’t know what she’s going to need, or when. And I’m still trying to figure out how to pay rent and buy groceries."

As the pandemic reverberates across the economy, casting around 30 million Americans out of work, it continues to reshape consumer priorities and force retailers to adapt. With many schools opening virtually, parents are putting off purchases of shoes, clothing and backpacks but are loading up on electronics like laptops and headphones. Even in places where schools are reopening, supply lists look markedly different: Students are asked to bring water bottles (because water fountains are turned off), beach towels (so they can hold classes outside) and fanny packs (for essentials like face masks and hand sanitizer).

Retailers, meanwhile, are facing their biggest test yet: back-to-school is the second-biggest shopping season of the year and a harbinger of all-important holiday sales.

Read the fully story here.

The Washington Post has received more than 11,000 reader questions about the novel coronavirus and how the pandemic is affecting the world around us.

We’re turning those questions into a reported guide. Here’s the latest from this week, with a question from Kristin in Missouri:

“Do we have any updates about antibody testing and whether the presence of COVID antibodies confers immunity?”

The answer, as reported previously in “How to understand your coronavirus test results":

Antibody tests, also known as serology tests, can tell whether someone has been infected by using a blood sample to identify the proteins a body produces one to three weeks after an infection.

At the moment, experts can’t say whether antibodies from a past coronavirus infection provide someone immunity or even temporary protection. The virus is still so new.

Because of this, a positive antibody test shouldn’t be used as a green light to no longer practice social distancing.

Every day, readers send in questions about the pandemic — asking about everything from when to wear masks to what the continued spread will mean for elections this fall.

Tell The Post what you want to know about the virus. No question is too big or small. A reporter may email you to get more context regarding your submission.

The hospital system was coming apart. Coronavirus patients were being turned away. Basic necessities — beds, stretchers, oxygen — had run out. Ambulances had nowhere to take patients. People were dying at home. Gravediggers couldn’t keep up.

The human destruction in the Brazilian city of Manaus would be “catastrophic,” physician Geraldo Felipe Barbosa feared.

But then, unexpectedly, it started to let up — without the interventions seen elsewhere. Hospitalizations of coronavirus patients plummeted in the state from a peak of more than 1,300 in May to fewer than 300 in August. Excess deaths in Manaus fell from around 120 per day to practically zero. The city closed its field hospital.

In a country devastated by the coronavirus, where more than 3.6 million people have been infected and more than 114,000 killed, the reversal has stunned front-line doctors. Manaus never imposed a lockdown or other strict containment measures employed successfully in Asia and Europe. And what policies did exist, many people ignored.

In the spring, the Amazonian city became a global symbol of the devastation the disease can wreak in the developing world. But now it has returned to near normalcy — far sooner than many expected — and scientists and public health officials are asking why. The question is part of a broader debate among scientists and public health officials over the mechanics of herd immunity and the level of transmission that must be crossed before the disease starts to recede.

RIO DE JANEIRO — When Jair Bolsonaro was elected president of Brazil, Eldiene Matias Maia believed he would destroy her world. Everyone she knew said he hated the poor, disliked women and despised the northeast, the poorest and Blackest region in Brazil. But now Matias Maia — poor, female, northeastern — has another way of describing Bolsonaro:

“Savior,” she said.

When the coronavirus pandemic hit Brazil, and businesses closed and local officials urged people to stay home, the government began pumping $110 per month into the wallets of the poorest citizens. Matias Maia, who fed her two children with that money, knows whom to credit.

“I would now vote for Bolsonaro,” she said. “He is helping us so much.”

In the same statement that Central Michigan University President Bob Davies issued Monday admonishing partying college students for flouting social distancing restrictions, he atoned for playing cornhole with students.

“I am aware of the videos circulating on social media that show me engaging with students at off-campus parties, which may have given the impression that I condoned those gatherings,” he wrote in the statement. “That was certainly not my intent.”

Davies said he rode with campus police officers over the weekend to visit “a number of gatherings” and remind students to follow coronavirus protocols when he was invited to throw a few bags of cornhole for several minutes.

“In retrospect, I see that my participation in the game — regardless of my intent — sent mixed messages about the importance of avoiding large gatherings, and I apologize for the confusion and concerns my actions caused,” Davies said. “As a leader and lifelong learner, I will occasionally make mistakes; when I do, I endeavor to learn from them. As our students have asked of me, I will “do better.”

The apology came as the school has tallied 54 new cases in a week. As the school’s overall positivity rate has increased, Davies said clusters of cases off campus were of particular concern — two in Greek-affiliated houses and one in a large house.

Davies said the school would increase penalties for those who flout mass gathering restrictions, threatening fines or suspension for those who host or attend the parties. Greek organizations were also told to suspend all in-person activities.

MCALLEN, Tex. — The grotto of St. Jude Thaddeus is covered in handwritten petitions for protection against the coronavirus, pinned funeral cards, hospital bracelets and photos of the sick and dying.

Graveyard workers lower caskets into the earth three or four times a day instead of once or twice a week. Masked mourners surround fresh mounds of dirt by the hour. Curanderas perform cleansing rituals for the grief-stricken. A parish priest cannot remember how many times he has rung the funeral bell. Helicopters swoop in, as if in a war, to spirit away the critically ill.

A friend watched her neighbor plead silently for prayer on live video days before she stopped breathing. A son waited with clasped hands every evening in the hospital parking lot with half a dozen other faithful, sending supplications heavenward.

Teachers. Janitors. Bankers. Politicians. Neighbors. Colleagues. Children.

Few here in Texas’s lower Rio Grande Valley have been left untouched by the pandemic’s lethal reach, as the virus has ripped through the border region, infecting tens of thousands of people and killing more than 1,500 just in the months after Texas thought it had escaped the virus’s grip and started to reopen, according to Washington Post data.

As colleges struggle to bring students back to campus while preventing coronavirus outbreaks, they have suspended or barred from campus hundreds of students accused of violating rules on social distancing, mask-wearing and large gatherings.

In one of the largest crackdowns to date, Ohio State University has told 228 students they must leave campus while their disciplinary cases are pending, school spokesman Ben Johnson said Monday — and classes have not started yet. Johnson emphasized that Ohio State has an enrollment of nearly 70,000 students, many of whom are following the rules, but warned that student organizations “that host or participate in parties or gatherings that are not safe … could lose their university recognition and their university funding.”

“We are reminding students at every possible opportunity that each individual’s choices affect all of us here on campus, and so we all have to do the right thing if we are going to be able to remain here on campus,” Johnson said. “And if we don’t all do the right thing, we could have to go home.”

Other schools that have disciplined students include:

• Coronavirus clusters at Central Michigan University spurred concerns about parties, causing university president Bob Davies to announce Monday the suspension of Greek organizations “in-person activities." The school tallied 57 new cases in 7 days, Davies said. To deter mass gatherings, the administration would also issue fines and suspensions and work with off-campus housing managers.
• The University of Tennessee, where WBIR reports that four students face suspension or more for misconduct: Three allegedly hosted rule-breaking parties, while a fourth did not isolate while positive for the novel coronavirus.
• Purdue University in Indiana, which last week suspended a cooperative house and 36 students who went to a party, according to the Indianapolis Star. The university president has banned attendance at parties that do not meet its requirements on mask-wearing and social distancing.
• The University of Connecticut, where students have also been kicked out of campus housing for gathering without masks and proper distancing, WBUR reported.
• Drake University in Iowa, which told 14 students to leave campus for two weeks, citing broken rules on gatherings, according to local news station KCCI.
• More than 530 University of Alabama students, faculty and staff members tested positive for the coronavirus since classes started Aug. 19, according to data released by the school Monday. As on-campus cases have climbed, the city of Tuscaloosa announced Monday it would close bars and shut down bar service in restaurants.
• Syracuse University, which published a blistering letter Aug. 20 saying a “large group of first-year students” would face discipline for an evening quad event that “selfishly jeopardized” the residential experience. The letter warned that they “may have done damage enough to shut down campus, including residence halls and in-person learning, before the academic semester even begins.”

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