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WASHINGTON — Efforts toquickly restart economic activityrisk further dividing Americansinto two major groups along socio-economic lines: one that has thepower to control its exposure tothe coronavirus outbreak and an-other that is forced to choose be-tween potential sickness or finan-cial devastation.

It is a pick-your-poison fact ofthe crisis: The pandemic reces-sion has knocked millions of themost economically vulnerableAmericans out of work. Rushingto reopen their employers couldoffer them a financial lifeline, butat a potentially steep cost to theirhealth.

State and federal officials havenowhere near the testing capacitythat experts say is needed to trackand limit the spread of the virus,and there is no vaccine yet. Butstates are already reopening,urged on by President Trump,who is eager to restart the UnitedStates economy.

That push is likely to exacer-bate longstanding inequalities,with workers who are college edu-cated, relatively affluent and pri-marily white able to continueworking from home and minimiz-ing outdoor excursions to reducethe risk of contracting the virus.

Those who are lower paid, lesseducated and employed in jobswhere teleworking is not an op-tion will face a bleak choice ifstates lift restrictive orders andemployers order them back towork: expose themselves to thepandemic or lose their jobs.

That disempowered group isheavily black and Latino, thoughit includes lower-income whiteworkers as well.

“It’s sad and scary,” said TinaWatson of Holly Hill, S.C., who hasseen her hours cut in half at theWendy’s where she works.Though her income has droppedfrom that cutback, she is worriedabout having to interact withcustomers when the state relaxeslimits that in recent weeks haveforced the restaurant to operateas drive-through only. “I’m feelinglike my life is at risk if they openup our dining,” Ms. Watson said.

An Early Reset RisksDeeper Inequality

By JIM TANKERSLEY

Continued on Page A7

Daniel Levin’s son, Linus, 7, wassupposed to be doing math. In-stead, he pretended to take ashower in the living room, rubbinga dry eraser under his arms like abar of soap, which upset his 5-year-old sister, distracting herfrom her coloring.

As much as he tried, Mr. Levin,who lives in Brooklyn, could notget Linus to finish the math. Hishopes for the reading assignmentwere not high, either.

“He’s supposed to map out awhole character trait sheet today,”Mr. Levin said one day last week.“Honestly, if he writes the nameand the age of the character, I’llconsider that a victory.”

Ciarra Kohn’s third-grade sonuses five apps for school. Her 4-year-old’s teacher sends lessonplans, but Ms. Kohn has no time todo them.

Her oldest, a sixth grader, haseight subjects and eight teachersand each has their own method.Sometimes when Ms. Kohn does alesson with him, she’ll ask if he un-derstood it — because she didn’t.

“I’m assuming you don’t, butmaybe you do,” said Ms. Kohn, ofBloomington, Ill., referring to herson. “Then we’ll get into an argu-

ment, like, ‘No, Mom! She doesn’tmean that, she means this!’”

Parental engagement has longbeen seen as critical to studentachievement, as much as classsize, curriculum and teacher qual-ity. That has never been more truethan now, and all across the coun-

try, moms and dads pressed intoemergency service are finding itone of the most exasperatingparts of the pandemic.

With teachers relegated to com-puter screens, parents have toplay teacher’s aide, hall monitor,counselor and cafeteria worker —

all while trying to do their ownjobs under extraordinary circum-stances. Essential workers are inperhaps the toughest spot, espe-cially if they aren’t home duringschool hours, leaving just one par-ent, or no one at all, at home when

Frazzled Parents Are Learning a Difficult Lesson: Teaching Is HardBy ELIZABETH A. HARRIS

Casey Schaeffer and Daniel Levin are struggling with educating their children, Ramona and Linus.DANIEL LEVIN

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MEXICO CITY — The nursewent on national television tomake a plea on behalf of her fellowhealth care workers: Please stopassaulting us.

Nurses working under her aus-pices had been viciously attackedaround Mexico at least 21 times,accused of spreading the coro-navirus. Many were no longerwearing their uniforms as theytraveled to or from work for fear ofbeing hurt, said the official, Fabi-ana Zepeda Arias, chief of nursingprograms for Mexico’s Social Se-curity Institute.

“We can save your lives,” shesaid, addressing the assailants.“Please help us take care of you,and for that we need you to takecare of us.”

In many cities, doctors, nursesand other health care workershave been celebrated withchoruses of applause and cheersfrom windows and rooftops forproviding the front-line defenseagainst the pandemic.

But in some places health careworkers, stigmatized as vectors ofcontagion because of their work,have been assaulted, abused and

ostracized.In the Philippines, attackers

doused a nurse with bleach, blind-ing him. In India, a group of medi-cal workers was chased by astone-throwing mob. In Pakistan,a nurse and her children wereevicted from their apartmentbuilding.

Dozens of attacks on health careworkers have been reported inMexico, where intense outbreaksamong hospital staff of Covid-19,the disease caused by the coro-navirus, have unnerved residentsand members of the medical com-munity alike. Scores of doctorsand nurses have fallen ill in sev-eral hospitals around the country,and widespread demonstrationshave erupted among health careworkers complaining about inade-quate protective equipment.

Nurses in the state of Jalisco re-ported being blocked from publictransportation because of their

Stigma of Health Work IncitesBloodshed in Some Countries

By KIRK SEMPLE Assaults Rooted in Fearand Misinformation

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In the worldwide race for a vac-cine to stop the coronavirus, thelaboratory sprinting fastest is atOxford University.

Most other teams have had tostart with small clinical trials of afew hundred participants to dem-onstrate safety. But scientists atthe university’s Jenner Institutehad a head start on a vaccine, hav-ing proved in previous trials thatsimilar inoculations — includingone last year against an earlier co-ronavirus — were harmless to hu-mans.

That has enabled them to leapahead and schedule tests of theirnew coronavirus vaccine involv-ing over 6,000 people by the end ofnext month, hoping to show notonly that it is safe, but that itworks.

The Oxford scientists say thatwith an emergency approval fromregulators, the first few milliondoses of their vaccine could beavailable by September — at leastseveral months ahead of any ofthe other announced efforts — if itproves to be effective.

Now, they have received prom-ising news suggesting that itmight.

Scientists at the National Insti-tutes of Health’s Rocky MountainLaboratory in Montana lastmonth inoculated six rhesus ma-caque monkeys with single dosesof the Oxford vaccine. The ani-mals were then exposed to heavyquantities of the virus that is caus-ing the pandemic — exposure thathad consistently sickened othermonkeys in the lab. But more than28 days later all six were healthy,said Vincent Munster, the re-searcher who conducted the test.

Immunity in monkeys is noguarantee that a vaccine will pro-vide the same degree of protectionfor humans. A Chinese companythat recently started a clinicaltrial with 144 participants, Sino-Vac, has also said that its vaccine

Oxford Group’s Earlier EffortsProvide Edge in Vaccine Race

By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK Promising Results MayLead to Drug by Fall

Continued on Page A5

Minutes after a $310 billion aidprogram for small companiesopened for business on Monday,the online portal for submittingapplications crashed. And it keptcrashing all day, much to the frus-tration of bankers around thecountry who were trying — andfailing — to apply on behalf of des-perate clients.

Some bankers were so irritatedthat they vented on social mediaat the Small Business Administra-tion, which is running the pro-gram. Rob Nichols, the chief exec-utive of the American Bankers As-sociation, wrote on Twitter thatthe trade group’s members were“deeply frustrated” at their inabil-ity to access the system. Until theproblems were fixed, he said,“#AmericasBanks will not be ableto help more struggling smallbusinesses.”

Pent-up demand for the fundshas been intense, after the pro-gram’s initial $342 billion fundingran out in under two weeks,stranding hundreds of thousandsof applicants whose loans did not

get processed. Last week, Con-gress approved the additional$310 billion for small businesseshit by the coronavirus pandemic.Bankers were expecting themoney to once again run outquickly, and so on Monday at10:30 a.m., when round twoopened, they were ready to go.

But for the second time in amonth, the relief effort, called thePaycheck Protection Program,turned into chaos, sowing confu-sion among lenders and borrow-ers. A centerpiece of the govern-ment’s $2 trillion economic stimu-lus package, the program offerssmall companies — typicallythose with up to 500 workers —forgivable loans of up to $10 mil-lion. The S.B.A. is backing theloans, but customers must applythrough financial institutions.

When the aid program first

Banks With Clients DesperateFor Loans Find Chaos at S.B.A.

By STACY COWLEY Online Portal Crashes asApplications Surge

Continued on Page A6

Scavengers working on a landfill faceadditional misery as their recycling-focused customers close. PAGE A14

INTERNATIONAL A14-15

Indonesia’s Tower of TrashThe movie palaces of Los Angeles havewithstood upheaval. Now they await thefallout from this latest crisis. PAGE B6

BUSINESS B1-7

ShowstopperSome newspaper cartoonists are tack-ling the coronavirus. Above, anxiety nolonger makes a character in Tony Car-rillo’s “F Minus” feel special. PAGE C1

ARTS C1-8

Covid in the Comics

Renata Flores leads a generation ofmusicians combining trap and reggaewith an Indigenous language. PAGE A15

Old Language in a New Form

Accommodating the need for urgency, aFlorida court will remotely determinewhether fines should curtail the votingrights of released felons. PAGE A19

NATIONAL A16-19

Trial Proceeds by Video Chat

A federal court has ruled that Americanpublic school students have a right toan adequate education. PAGE A17

Literacy and the Constitution

Bernard Gersten, who helped turnnonprofits into powerhouse producersof plays and musicals, was 97. PAGE A20

OBITUARIES A20-21, 24

Force in Reviving TheaterStalling tactics by tech companies havehelped blunt the impact of rules in effecton the continent since 2018. PAGE B1

A Peek at Europe’s Privacy Law

Paul Krugman PAGE A22

EDITORIAL, OP-ED A22-23

How did matter gain the edge overantimatter in the early universe? May-be, just maybe, due to neutrinos, theflimsiest and most elusive elements ofnature, Dennis Overbye writes. PAGE D1

SCIENCE TIMES D1-8

The Big Bang’s Escape Artists

DENVER — Governors acrossthe country forged ahead Mondaywith plans to reopen their econo-mies, even as the nation hit a grimmilestone of 50,000 deaths fromthe coronavirus and public healthexperts warned against liftingstay-at-home orders too quickly.

Numerous states, includingsome of the largest, began theprocess of lifting shelter orders inwhat could be a pivotal stage inthe U.S. response to the pandemic.

Texas, with its population ofnearly 30 million, made one of themost expansive moves toward re-opening when Gov. Greg Abbottannounced that retail stores,restaurants, movie theaters andmalls would be allowed to reopenwith limited capacity on Friday. InOhio, Gov. Mike DeWine unveileda more incremental reopeningplan that would allow manufac-turing work to resume and officesto reopen next week. And in Col-orado, businesses tried to navi-gate new rules allowing some ofthem to open their doors on Mon-day.

The moves came as PresidentTrump promised to help the statesramp up testing and called onthem to consider reconveningschools before the end of the aca-demic year rather than waitinguntil the fall, as many districtshave decided or are expected todo.

In a conference call with thegovernors devoted mainly to ven-tilators and testing, Mr. Trumpraised the idea of bringing stu-dents back to classrooms in thenext few weeks. “Some of youmight start to think about schoolopenings,” he said, according to anaudio recording. Addressing VicePresident Mike Pence, who wasalso on the call, he added, “I thinkit’s something, Mike, they can se-riously consider and maybe getgoing on it.”

A White House documentmakes clear that the states are

STATES SET COURSETO UNLOCK DOORS

OF U.S. COMMERCETexas Thinks Big —

Ohio Is Cautious

This article is by Jack Healy,Manny Fernandez and Peter Baker.

Tidying up Monday at Fedora Tattoo and Piercing, in Greeley, Colo. States are beginning to reopen a patchwork of businesses.RACHEL WOOLF FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

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Andrew Thomas, a left tackle who hadto choose between football and band, isexpected to help Saquon Barkley andDaniel Jones greatly. PAGE B9

SPORTSTUESDAY B8-9

Joining Giants on a Good Note

TESTING The president unveiled aplan to help identify more cases,but it may not be enough. PAGE A13

Late Edition

VOL. CLXIX . . . No. 58,677 + © 2020 The New York Times Company NEW YORK, TUESDAY, APRIL 28, 2020

Today, partly sunny skies, becomingwarmer, seasonable, high 65. To-night, partly cloudy, low 48. Tomor-row, mostly cloudy, cooler, high 56.Weather map appears on Page B10.

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