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WASHINGTON — About aweek after the first report of aCovid-19 case at a meatpackingplant in southwest Kansas in earlyApril, the state’s governor, LauraKelly, issued a pointed warning toPresident Trump: Without testkits to separate the well from thesick, a fast-moving outbreak couldidle facilities that produce roughlyone-quarter of the nation’s meatsupply.

Within three days, 80 blue-and-white boxes of test kits and testingmachines arrived, and two BlackHawk helicopters from the Kan-sas National Guard whisked themto the afflicted region. As the testresults came in last week, thecosts of the delay became clear:250 workers in six plants were al-ready infected.

In Albany, Ga., a hot spot for thedisease, a hospital finally figuredout a way to run its own coro-navirus tests, rather than relyingon limited state capacity or out-sourcing the work to slow-movingprivate labs. But it still strugglesto run as many tests as it wouldlike because of a shortage of com-ponents.

In Ohio, a research institution inColumbus is teaming up with aplastics company to churn out na-sal swabs on 3-D printers for usein the state. But when MysheikaW. Roberts, the city’s health com-missioner, offered test kits to localhealth centers, she learned theylacked the protective gear theyneeded to put them to use.

As governors decide aboutopening their economies, theycontinue to be hampered by ashortage of testing capacity, leav-ing them without the informationthat public health experts say isneeded to track outbreaks andcontain them. And while theUnited States has made stridesover the past month in expandingtesting, its capacity is nowherenear the level Mr. Trump suggestsit is.

TESTING REMAINSSCARCE AS STATESWEIGH REOPENING

Governors WrestlingWith Tough Calls

This article is by Sheryl Gay Stol-berg, Farah Stockman and SharonLaFraniere.

Continued on Page 12

The economy shut down almostovernight. It won’t start back upthat way.

Politicians and public health ex-perts have sparred for weeks overwhen, and under what circum-stances, to allow businesses to re-open and Americans to emergefrom their homes. But anotherquestion could prove just asthorny — how?

Because the restart will begradual, with certain places andindustries opening earlier thanothers, it will by definition be com-plicated. The U.S. economy is acomplex web of supply chainswhose dynamics don’t necessarilyalign neatly with epidemiologists’recommendations.

Georgia and other states are be-ginning the reopening process.But even under the most opti-mistic estimates, it will be months,and possibly years, before Ameri-cans again crowd into bars andsqueeze onto subway cars the waythey did before the pandemicstruck.

“It’s going to take much longerto thaw the economy than it tookto freeze it,” said Diane Swonk,chief economist for the accountingfirm Grant Thornton.

And it isn’t clear what, exactly, itmeans to gradually restart a sys-tem with as many interlockingpieces as the U.S. economy. Howcan one factory reopen when itssuppliers remain shuttered? Howcan parents return to work whenschools are still closed? How canolder people return when there isstill no effective treatment or vac-cine? What is the government’srole in helping private businessesthat may initially need to operateat a fraction of their normal capac-ity?

South Carolina, for example,looks likely to be among the firststates to allow widespread re-opening of businesses. But if amanufacturer there depends on apart made in Ohio, where the vi-rus is still spreading, it may not beable to resume production, re-

Rebound vs. Grind: Risky Thaw Ahead

By BEN CASSELMAN

Continued on Page 13

It has been hours since the 71-year-oldman in Room 3 of the intensive care unitsuccumbed to Covid-19, the diseasecaused by the coronavirus. His body hasbeen cleaned, packed in an orange bagand covered in a white sheet, but the over-extended transport team from the morguehas yet to arrive.

The nurses on duty have too many otherworries. University Hospital of Brooklyn,in the heart of the city hit hardest by aworld-altering pandemic, can seem like itis falling apart. The roof leaks. The cor-roded pipes burst with alarming fre-quency. On one of the intensive care units,plastic tarps and duct tape serve as flimsybarriers separating patients. Nursesrecord vital signs with pen and paper,rather than computer systems.

A patient in Room 2 is losing blood pres-sure and needs an ultrasound. A therapistis working to calm a woman in Room 4who is intubated and semiconscious andwho tried to rip out her breathing tube

gled to cope with the pandemic, but theoutbreak has laid bare the deep dispari-ties in the city’s health care system. Thevirus is killing black and Latino New York-ers at about twice the rate of white resi-dents, and hospitals serving the sickestpatients often work with the fewest re-sources.

Wealthy private hospitals, primarily inManhattan, have been able to marshal re-serves of cash and political clout to in-crease patient capacity quickly, ramp uptesting and acquire protective gear. At theheight of the surge, the Mount Sinai healthsystem was able to enlist private planesfrom Warren E. Buffett’s company to fly incoveted N95 masks from China.

University Hospital, which is publiclyfunded and part of SUNY DownstateHealth Sciences University, has tried toraise money for protective gear through aGoFundMe page started by a residentphysician.

Most of the hospital’s patients are poor

when her arm restraints were unfastened.Genevieve Watson-Grey, the head

nurse on duty, says she relies on faith andprayer to fill the gap between need and re-ality. “Knowing there is a higher forceabove,” she says, gives her hope.

Every hospital in New York has strug-

Sealed rooms for coronavirus patients at University Hospital of Brooklyn are jury-rigged out of plastic tarps and tape.PHOTOGRAPHS BY KIRSTEN LUCE FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Held Together by Prayers and Duct Tape

University Hospital of Brooklyn Lays Bare Disparity in Health SystemBy MICHAEL SCHWIRTZ

The New York hospital has such lim-ited resources that some of its doctorsuse plastic bags as bootees.

Continued on Page 14

Joseph R. Biden Jr. usually risesbefore 8 a.m. at his home in Wil-mington, Del., and starts his daywith a workout in an upstairs gymthat contains a Peloton bike,weights and a treadmill. He oftenenjoys a protein shake for break-fast and puts on a suit or blazermuch of the time. In the evenings,he and his wife, Jill, sit down to-gether for dinner, a ritual that wasabsent for much of the last fren-zied year on the campaign trail.

In the intervening hours, Mr. Bi-den attempts to win the presiden-cy without leaving his house.

With the coronavirus outbreakfreezing the country’s public life,Mr. Biden has been forced toadapt to a cloistered mode of cam-paigning never before seen inmodern American politics. Hewas unable to embark on a victorytour after the Democratic prima-ries or hold unity rallies with one-time rivals like Senators BernieSanders of Vermont and ElizabethWarren of Massachusetts. In-stead, the former vice president isin a distinctive kind of lockdown,walled off from voters, separatedfrom his top strategists and yetleading in the polls.

For a famous backslapper likeMr. Biden, this open-ended period

of captivity has tested both his pa-tience and his political imagina-tion. He has lamented being de-prived of human contact, and hehas expressed exasperation withmedia coverage critiquing his lim-ited visibility compared withPresident Trump’s daily perform-ances in the White House briefingroom. He does not make a habit ofwatching the president’s briefings

No Backslapping and No Rallies: Life of the Cloistered Candidate

This article is by AlexanderBurns, Shane Goldmacher andKatie Glueck.

Joseph R. Biden Jr. via an up-link from his Delaware home.

CALLA KESSLER/THE NEW YORK TIMES

Continued on Page 26ELEANOR DAVIS

Looking for inspiration? Activities? Advice? Our newsection is filled with articles to help you thrive in a worldwhere work, school, family and play are all in one space.

Introducing At Home

It was at a midday briefing lastmonth that President Trump firstused the White House telecast topromote two antimalarial drugs inthe fight against the coronavirus.

“I think it could be somethingreally incredible,” Mr. Trump saidon March 19, noting that whilemore study was needed, the twodrugs had shown “very, very en-couraging results” in treating thevirus.

By that evening, first-time pre-scriptions of the drugs — chloro-quine and hydroxychloroquine —poured into retail pharmacies atmore than 46 times the rate of theaverage weekday, according to ananalysis of prescription data byThe New York Times. And thenearly 32,000 prescriptions camefrom across the spectrum —rheumatologists, cardiologists,dermatologists, psychiatrists andeven podiatrists, the data shows.

While medical experts havesince stepped up warnings aboutthe drugs’ possibly dangerousside effects, they were still beingprescribed at more than six timesthe normal rate during the second

PrescriptionsRose as TrumpPraised Drugs

By ELLEN GABLERand MICHAEL H. KELLER

Continued on Page 6

CHELSEA, Mass. — Paul Now-icki, the director of operations forthe housing authority in thissmall, crowded immigrant city,walked the halls of the BuckleyApartments last week in a plasticface shield and white gown, tryingto stop an invisible predator.

Chelsea is the epicenter of thecoronavirus crisis in Massachu-setts, with rates of infection thatsurged last week to 3,841 per100,000 people, around six timesthe statewide average. And offi-cials fear the virus is still spread-ing.

Take Mr. Nowicki: There werenine confirmed cases of the virusin the Buckley Apartments,tucked among eight floors of pub-lic housing. Mr. Nowicki had or-dered waves of deep-cleaning,wiping of railings and elevatorbuttons. He watched the residentsshuffle in and out of the lobby,mostly grandparents, fragile anddisabled. It was his job to safe-guard them.

But how could he do that when,because of medical privacy laws,he did not know where the nine in-fected people lived? “It’s thespecificity of the floor you’d like to

A City StrugglesTo Isolate the IllAs Cases Surge

By ELLEN BARRY

Continued on Page 11

G.O.P. CONCERNS Polls have somein the party worried about morethan the White House. PAGE 24

U(D547FD)v+#!/!_!?!"

A protest at the capitol in Madison wasone of the nation’s largest gatherings tocondemn lockdown orders. PAGE 25

NATIONAL 24-28

‘Liberate Wisconsin’ Movement

“The Plot Against America” on HBOtells an alternative history of what couldhave been — and what might be. PAGE 7

ARTS & LEISURE

A Timely Look at ‘What If?’

A remote version of the N.F.L.’s annualshowcase filled a void, but gloom hangsover the fate of the season. PAGE 33

SPORTS 33-34

The Post-Draft Blues

They were mocked for years. Even asthey lived in flush times, the SiliconValley preppers geared up for the apoc-alypse. Now they feel vindicated. PAGE 1

SUNDAY BUSINESS

They Saw It Coming

Half of all golf courses are shut. Butacross America, and especially in Flor-ida, rebel duffers can’t wait. PAGE 1

Sneaking Onto Greens

Summer camp is a treasured rite, butcan it proceed just when its fresh air andsocial bonding are needed most? PAGE 1

SUNDAY STYLES

Keep the Campfires Burning?

You don’t have to be a child to be con-fused by the current state of affairs, butif you are, then this is the issue for you.Just remember: You are not alone.

SPECIAL SECTION

The New York Times for Kids

A resort. A road trip. Discovering thenew, and rediscovering the old. Fourwriters recall sojourns that shaped whothey are today and inspire them inthese housebound days. PAGES 6-7

TRAVEL

Past Into Present: 4 JourneysA Facebook group in Russia gains aglobal following with stay-at-homeremakes of famous paintings. PAGE 20

INTERNATIONAL 20-23

Art Favorites, Reanimated

THE MAGAZINE

Diana Spechler PAGE 7

SUNDAY REVIEWAn online discussion of Huawei’s sales toIran, a forbidden topic, led to the arrestof five ex-workers in China. PAGE 22

A Chat, a Tidbit, Then Jail

Late Edition

VOL. CLXIX . . . No. 58,675 © 2020 The New York Times Company NEW YORK, SUNDAY, APRIL 26, 2020

Today, periodic rain, chilly, high 51.Tonight, periodic rain, chilly, low 43.Tomorrow, considerable amounts ofclouds, spotty morning showers,high 50. Weather map, Page 28.

$6.00