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HINGHAM, Mass. — “Is he go-ing to make it?” Kim Bello asked,clutching her phone, alone in heryard.
She had slipped outside so herthree children, playing games inthe living room, could be shieldedfrom a wrenching conversationwith a doctor treating her hus-band, Jim. For two weeks, he hadbeen battling the coronavirus atMassachusetts General Hospital,on a ventilator and, for the pastnine days, connected to a last-re-sort artificial heart-lung machineas well.
The physician, Dr. Emmy Ru-bin, gently told Ms. Bello thatwhile her husband had a chance ofsurviving, “If you’re asking for anhonest opinion, it’s more likelythan not that he won’t.”
Mr. Bello, 49, an athletic andhealthy lawyer, had developed a103 degree fever in early Marchafter a hike in the White Moun-tains in New Hampshire andlanded in a suburban emergencyroom six days later, struggling tobreathe.
Now, despite all his doctors haddone, his lungs looked white asbone on his latest X-ray, with vir-tually no air-filled spaces — “oneof the worst chest X-rays I’ve everseen,” Dr. Paul Currier, another ofhis doctors, said.
As he lay in the intensive careunit, even a touch that causedslight movement to his heavily se-dated and chemically paralyzedbody could send his oxygen levelsinto a tailspin. Doctors worried hisheart would stop, and if it did, theyrealized they wouldn’t be able toresuscitate him.
They had tried everything tohelp him, including experimentaldrugs, a low-tech maneuver offlipping him on his belly to im-prove airflow and the most sophis-ticated life support machine.
They were considering onemore “Hail Mary” medical ma-neuver, but setting it up requiredcutting the machine-supplied oxy-gen for 30 seconds, a gap they didnot think he could survive.
“Even if those were things thatcould help him, trying to do thosewould kill him,” said Dr. Yuval Raz,a key specialist on Mr. Bello’steam.
Mr. Bello’s cataclysmic spiralfrom avid skier, cyclist and runnerto grievously ill patient — and theheartbreaking and triumphanttwists in doctors’ relentless ef-forts to save him — underscoresthe agonizing challenges con-fronting even highly trained phy-sicians and well-equipped hospi-tals battling a ferociously capri-cious virus.
Gasping for Breaths the Size of a TablespoonHealthy Hiker’s Grave Illness Highlights Virus’s Agonizing Mysteries
Jim Bello’s chest X-rays from his stay at Mass General, where he was on a ventilator for32 days. In his first, top, white space indicates areas of his lungs that were filled with fluidand inflamed cells; at middle, a total “whiteout”; above, the lungs starting to clear again.
PHOTOGRAPHS VIA MASSACHUSETTS GENERAL HOSPITAL
MARCH 14
MARCH 27
APRIL 8
Continued on Page A14
By PAM BELLUCK
Late Edition
VOL. CLXIX . . . No. 58,676 © 2020 The New York Times Company NEW YORK, MONDAY, APRIL 27, 2020
whose days can be mundane until— suddenly — they are not.
The peak of the coronavirus epi-demic in New York City — whenparamedics were declaring scoresof people dead a day — haspassed, at least for now. Yet the vi-rus still casts a shadow over ev-erything they do. And when it re-surfaces, it does so swiftly andwith a vengeance.
Like the rest of the city,paramedics are facing an unnerv-ing uncertainty: When can theysee their loved ones again? When,if ever, can they return to normal?And what if the virus comes backwhen they do?
“It’s a little bit overwhelming,”said Mr. Mahoney, 40. “But that’swhat we signed up to do, right?”
Nearly two months into the co-ronavirus crisis, the strain hastaken a heavy emotional andphysical toll on paramedics. Thecity employs around 4,500paramedics and emergency medi-cal technicians, who are but-
For seven and a half hours, thetwo New York City paramedicshad worked a surprisingly normalshift: a few people with difficultybreathing, one trip to the hospital— and, miraculously it seemed, noclear cases of coronavirus.
They were about to head backto their station when an urgentcall flashed over their dispatchscreen: cardiac arrest, with a pa-tient who had been feeling sick fora week.
“Heads up,” a radio barked.“Possible Covid.”
The paramedics, Sean Ma-honey and Kenny Cheng, rushedto the apartment building, donnedgowns, goggles and face masksand restarted the patient’s heart.But then the person crashed. Theambulance doors closed as Mr.Cheng frantically began chestcompressions. Moments later, thepatient was dead.
Such is the disturbing new nor-mal for the city’s paramedics,
A Call Pierces the Lulls for Exhausted Paramedics: ‘Possible Covid’
The paramedics Kenny Cheng, left, and Sean Mahoney looked atinformation on a 911 call as it came in from their dispatcher.
ERIN SCHAFF/THE NEW YORK TIMES
By ALI WATKINS
Continued on Page A16
A company in Georgia paid$6.5 million to resolve a JusticeDepartment investigation — and,two weeks later, received a$10 million federally backed loanto help it survive the coronaviruscrisis.
Another company, AutoWeb,disclosed last week that it hadpaid its chief executive $1.7 millionin 2019 — a week after it received$1.4 million from the same loanprogram.
And Intellinetics, a softwarecompany in Ohio, got $838,700from the government program —and then agreed, the followingweek, to spend at least $300,000 topurchase a rival firm.
The vast economic rescue pack-age that President Trump signedinto law last month included $349billion in low-interest loans forsmall businesses. The so-calledPaycheck Protection Programwas supposed to help preventsmall companies — generallythose with fewer than 500 employ-ees in the United States — fromcapsizing as the economy sinksinto what looks like a severe re-cession.
The loan program was meantfor companies that could no long-er finance themselves throughtraditional means, like raisingmoney in the markets or borrow-ing from banks under existingcredit lines. The law required thatthe federal money — which comesat a low 1 percent interest rate andin some cases doesn’t need to bepaid back — be spent on thingslike payroll or rent.
But the program has been rid-dled with problems. Within daysof its start, its money ran out,prompting Congress to approvean additional $310 billion in fund-
LARGE COMPANIES TAKE BAILOUT AID IN DUBIOUS GAINS
LOANS AIMED AT OTHERS
Millions Go to ApplicantsFacing Financial and
Legal Problems
This article is by Jessica Silver-Greenberg, David Enrich, JesseDrucker and Stacy Cowley.
Continued on Page A9
When Valicia Anderson startsto count the people she knows inLas Vegas who have lost theirjobs, she runs out of fingers fast.
Her husband, the breadwinnerof her family and a restaurantworker in the Rio casino. All 25 ofhis co-workers. Her grown son, ina temp agency. The technicianwho does her nails. The barberwho cuts her husband’s hair. Herbest friend, a waitress. The threeservers and a manager at the TGIFriday’s that is her family’s favor-ite treat.
She has to think hard to come upwith a single person who is still be-ing paid. So when the events of thelast month start to overwhelm her,Mrs. Anderson walks into herbathroom, closes the door, sits ather vanity and takes deep breaths.
“You are pushing people upagainst a corner,” said Mrs. An-derson. Referring to officials incharge of the pandemic response,she added, “They want you to stayhome, and you’re doing that, butthey’re not helping you financiallyto keep you afloat while you’re athome.”
She added, “It doesn’t makesense.”
As the bottom fell out of theAmerican economy, few placeswere hit harder than Las Vegas,where a full one-third of the localeconomy is in the leisure and hos-pitality industry, more than in anyother major metropolitan area in
As Neon Dims,Despair GrowsOn Vegas Strip
Service Workers Takinga Devastating Blow
By SABRINA TAVERNISE
Continued on Page A8
President Trump’s self-assess-ment has been consistent.
“I’m, like, a very smart per-son,” he assured voters in 2016.
“A very stable genius,” heruled two years later.
“I’m not a doctor,”he allowed onThursday, pointingto his skull inside
the White House briefing room,“but I’m, like, a person that has agood you-know-what.”
Mr. Trump’s performance thatevening, when he suggested thatinjections of disinfectants intothe human body could help com-bat the coronavirus, did notsound like the work of a doctor, agenius, or a person with a goodyou-know-what.
Even by the turbulent stand-ards of this president, his mus-ings on virus remedies havelanded with uncommon force,drawing widespread condemna-tion as dangerous to the health ofAmericans and inspiring a near-universal alarm that many of hispast remarks — whether offen-sive or fear-mongering or simplyuntrue — did not.
Mr. Trump’s typical name-calling can be recast to receptiveaudiences as mere “counter-
A DisinfectantThat May MarTrump’s Teflon
By MATT FLEGENHEIMER
POLITICAL MEMO
Continued on Page A10
Kirsten Gillibrand PAGE A23
EDITORIAL, OP-ED A22-23
SYDNEY, Australia — Thou-sands of miles from PresidentTrump’s combative news brief-ings, a conservative leader in Aus-tralia and a progressive primeminister in New Zealand aresteadily guiding their countriestoward a rapid suppression of thecoronavirus outbreak.
Both nations are now reportingjust a handful of new infectionseach day, down from hundreds inMarch, and they are convergingtoward an extraordinary goal:completely eliminating the virusfrom their island nations.
Whether they get to zero or not,what Australia and New Zealandhave already accomplished is a re-markable cause for hope. ScottMorrison of Australia, a conserva-tive Christian, and JacindaArdern, New Zealand’s darling ofthe left, are both succeeding withthrowback democracy — in whichpartisanship recedes, expertslead, and quiet coordination mat-ters more than firing up the base.
“This is certainly distinct fromthe United States,” said Dr. PeterCollignon, a physician and profes-sor of microbiology at the Austral-ian National University who hasworked for the World Health Or-ganization. “Here it’s not a time
New ZealandAnd Australia
Squash CurveBy DAMIEN CAVE
Bondi Beach in Australia isclosed over virus restrictions.
MATTHEW ABBOTT FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
Continued on Page A7
To pressure Tehran, the secretary ofstate is set to argue that the U.S. re-mains a participant in the Obama-eranuclear accord, which President Trumpabandoned two years ago. PAGE A18
INTERNATIONAL A17-19
U.S. Now Points to Iran Deal
The discovery of a Stalin-era site byYuri Dmitriev “has clearly made somepeople very uncomfortable,” his daugh-ter says. PAGE A17
Jailed After Finding Graves
Speculation over its leader’s health, andhis possible death, has only increasedover the past two weeks. PAGE A19
Rumors Badger North Korea
The five-time Olympic champ is study-ing infectious diseases at Stanford andfinding creative ways to train. PAGE D2
Katie Ledecky Hits the Books
A 25-year-old black man runningthrough a neighborhood was shot. Aprosecutor argued that his white pursu-ers should not be charged. PAGE A20
NATIONAL A20-21
A Murky Killing in Georgia
Amid union objections in France, the tirecompany’s C.E.O. says it’s time to “learnhow to live with Covid-19.” PAGE B1
BUSINESS B1-6
Michelin Revives Production
Anna Wintour made the company theembodiment of boomer excess. Can itsurvive the challenges ahead? PAGE B1
Condé Nast’s Looming Crisis
Serge Alain Nitegeka can’t leave SouthAfrica, but his art, on the refugee condi-tion, is traveling. PAGE C1
ARTS C1-7
Exploring Forced Migration
Young stars have become enamoredwith artifacts of the Y2K era. Below,Normani’s “Motivation” video. PAGE C2
Bringing Back the ’90s
Sopan Deb writes about how he recon-nected with his father after 30 years, ona clay tennis court in India. PAGE D1
SPORTSMONDAY D1-6
Where the Score Didn’t MatterAn erratic pitcher with an amazingfastball, Steve Dalkowski never made itto the majors. He was 80. PAGE D7
OBITUARIES D7-8
Inspiration for ‘Bull Durham’
An amateur scientist, Eunice Footefound that greenhouse gases wouldraise Earth’s temperature. PAGE D8
Overlooked No More
Today, plenty of clouds, showers,chilly, high 49. Tonight, some clear-ing, evening showers, low 40. To-morrow, partly sunny, high 60.Weather map appears on Page C8.
$3.00
