VOL. CLXIX . . No. 58,633 © 2020 The New York Times Company NEW YORK, SUNDAY, MARCH 15, 2020

Late Edition

C M Y K Nxxx,2020-03-15,A,001,Bs-4C,E3

They were both mothers, just 29. They were healthy medical professionals, whoworked long hours on the front lines in Wuhan. Within weeks, they came down

with fevers and were hospitalized in critical condition. Page 8.

TWO WOMEN FELL SICK. ONLY ONE RECOVERED.

CENSORSHIP DEFIED As Chinacracks down on virus coverage,journalists are resisting. PAGE 4

TRACKING AN OUTBREAK

On March 1, the day after thefirst coronavirus death in theUnited States was announced,brothers Matt and Noah Colvin setout in a silver S.U.V. to pick upsome hand sanitizer. Drivingaround Chattanooga, Tenn., theyhit a Dollar Tree, then a Walmart,a Staples and a Home Depot. Ateach store, they cleaned out theshelves.

Over the next three days, NoahColvin took a 1,300-mile road tripacross Tennessee and into Ken-tucky, filling a U-Haul truck withthousands of bottles of hand sani-tizer and thousands of packs ofantibacterial wipes, mostly from“little hole-in-the-wall dollarstores in the backwoods,” hisbrother said. “The major metroareas were cleaned out.”

Matt Colvin stayed home nearChattanooga, preparing for pal-

lets of even more wipes and sani-tizer he had ordered, and startingto list them on Amazon. Mr. Colvinsaid he had posted 300 bottles ofhand sanitizer and immediatelysold them all for between $8 and$70 each, multiples higher thanwhat he had bought them for. Tohim, “it was crazy money.” Tomany others, it was profiteeringfrom a pandemic.

The next day, Amazon pulledhis items and thousands of otherlistings for sanitizer, wipes andface masks. The company sus-pended some of the sellers behindthe listings and warned many oth-ers that if they kept running upprices, they’d lose their accounts.EBay soon followed with evenstricter measures, prohibiting anyU.S. sales of masks or sanitizer.

Now, while millions of peopleacross the country search in vain

for hand sanitizer to protect them-selves from the spread of the coro-navirus, Mr. Colvin is sitting on17,700 bottles of the stuff with littleidea where to sell them.

“It’s been a huge amount ofwhiplash,” he said. “From being in

a situation where what I’ve gotcoming and going could poten-tially put my family in a reallygood place financially to ‘Whatthe heck am I going to do with allof this?’”

‘Crazy Money’ in a Pandemic,Selling $70 Bottles of Sanitizer

By JACK NICAS

As a seller on Amazon, Matt Colvin follows trends that he canturn into profit. When the coronavirus hit, he stockpiled supplies.

DOUG STRICKLAND FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Continued on Page 12

WASHINGTON — The lightswere low and the disco balls spin-ning as a cake with a fierysparkler shooting flames into theair was brought out to a robustrendition of “Happy Birthday,”joined by President Trump. Thebirthday girl, Kimberly Guilfoyle,the girlfriend of Donald Trump Jr.,then pumped her fist in the air andcalled out, “Four more years!”

It was a lavish, festive, carefreeSaturday night at Mar-a-Lago aweek ago in what in hindsight nowseems like a last hurrah for theend of one era and the beginningof another. In the days since then,the presidential estate in Floridahas become something of a coro-navirus hot zone. A growing num-ber of Mar-a-Lago guests fromlast weekend have said they areinfected or put themselves intoquarantine.

A week later, the White House

physician announced on Saturdaynight that the president had testednegative for the virus, ending adrama that played out for days asMr. Trump refused repeatedlyeven to find out whether he hadcontracted it after exposure tomultiple infected people. The re-sult came less than 24 hours afterthe White House put out a mis-leading midnight statement say-ing there was no need for such atest at roughly the same time thepresident by his own account was

actually having one in deferenceto public pressure.

But either way, the Mar-a-Lagopetri dish has become a kind ofmetaphor for the perils of groupgatherings in the age of coro-navirus, demonstrating howquickly and silently the virus canspread. No one is necessarily safefrom encountering it, not senatorsor diplomats or even the mostpowerful person on the planetseemingly secure in a veritable

Uninvited Guest at Mar-a-Lago Birthday Party: The CoronavirusBy PETER BAKER

and KATIE ROGERS

Continued on Page 10

As a Republican candidate forthe Texas Supreme Court, Don R.Willett flaunted his uncompromis-ing conservatism, boasting of en-dorsements from groups with“pro-life, pro-faith, pro-family”credentials.

“I intend to build such a fiercelyconservative record on the courtthat I will be unconfirmable forany future federal judicial post —and proudly so,” a Republican ri-val quoted him telling party lead-ers.

Judge Willett served a dozenyears on the Texas bench. Butrather than disqualifying him, hisrecord there propelled him to thevery job he had deemed beyondreach. President Trump nomi-nated him to a federal appealscourt, and Republicans in the Sen-ate narrowly confirmed him on aparty-line vote.

As Mr. Trump seeks re-election,his rightward overhaul of the fed-eral judiciary — in particular, thehighly influential appeals courts— has been invoked as one of hismost enduring accomplishments.While individual nominees havedrawn scrutiny, The New YorkTimes conducted a deep examina-tion of all 51 new appellate judgesto obtain a collective portrait ofthe Trump-populated bench.

The review shows that theTrump class of appellate judges,much like the president himself,breaks significantly with thenorms set by his Democratic andRepublican predecessors, BarackObama and George W. Bush.

The lifetime appointees — whomake up more than a quarter ofthe entire appellate bench — weremore openly engaged in causesimportant to Republicans, such asopposition to gay marriage and to

Trump StampsG.O.P. Imprint

On the Courts

A Wave of Judges Tiedto the Party’s Causes

This article is by Rebecca R. Ruiz,Robert Gebeloff, Steve Eder andBen Protess.

Continued on Page 22

A staple of sports is now actively dis-couraged. But getting athletes to stopdoing it is harder than you think. PAGE 1

SPORTSSUNDAY

The High-Five, Brought Low

Women are finding they have to negoti-ate with their male guardians to exer-cise their newly granted legal rightsto work, drive and travel. PAGE 14

INTERNATIONAL 14-17

Saudi Women’s Other HurdleIs it time to buy securities? Should Isell my house now? You asked, expertsanswered. Here’s some advice onstocks, bonds and cash; timing themarket — and more. PAGE 6

SUNDAY BUSINESS

Your Money and the Pandemic

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Sports were supposed to calm us, dis-tract us. John Branch asks, will thislead to a reboot, a cleanse? PAGE 1

A Challenge to Our Obsession

Jon Mooallem PAGE 4

SUNDAY REVIEW

As the celebrated composer StephenSondheim turns 90, we toast Broad-way’s master of emotions, mixed andotherwise. PAGES 11-18

ARTS & LEISURE

The Genius of Being Alive

It’s true that the worth of your savingshas declined as the value of stocks hasfallen. But that also means that thevalue you’re getting on any future earn-ings has increased. PAGE 8

The Upside of a Down MarketThe attack a year ago that killed 51 attwo New Zealand mosques made Zulfir-man Syah a hero and a victim. PAGE 16

Trying to Heal in Christchurch

Americans have been souring on cow’smilk for decades. In an age of plant-based substitutes, dairy farmers aretrying to win us back. PAGE 1

SUNDAY STYLES

Got Milk? Not Anymore

CHICAGO — A widespread fail-ure in the United States to investin public health has left local andstate health departments strug-gling to respond to the coro-navirus outbreak and ill preparedto face the swelling crisis ahead.

Many health departments aresuffering from budget and staffingcuts that date to the Great Reces-sion and have never been fully re-stored. Public health departmentsacross the country manage a vastbut often invisible portfolio of du-ties, including educating the pub-lic about smoking cessation, fight-ing opioid addictions, persuadingthe reluctant to vaccinate their ba-bies, and inspecting restaurantsand tattoo parlors.

Now, these bare-bones staffs ofmedical and administrative work-ers are trying to answer a suddenrush of demands — taking phonecalls from frightened residents,quarantining people who may beinfected, and tracing the knowncontacts and whereabouts of theill — that accompany a publichealth crisis few have seen before.

Nationwide, local and statehealth departments have lostnearly a quarter of their workforce since 2008, according to theNational Association of Countyand City Health Officials. As thenation’s local and state publichealth officials confront a pan-demic that has paralyzed much ofthe world, many of them havemade their situation plain: They

Health SystemsCut to the BoneFace Onslaught

By JULIE BOSMAN and RICHARD FAUSSET

Continued on Page 11

NEW YORK The state reported itsfirst two deaths and said twolawmakers were ill. PAGE 13

RESILIENCE In locked-down Italy,song breaks out from rooftops,balconies and windows. PAGE 6

PARIS — The shutdown of Eu-rope expanded drastically on Sat-urday, as more countries shut-tered businesses, locked up bor-ders and chased people off streetsand into their homes in a race tocontain the growing threat of thecoronavirus.

Spain became the second coun-try in Europe, after Italy, to im-pose strict limits on public life,telling everyone to stay indoors,with few exceptions. As casessoared nationwide, the authoritiesconfirmed that the prime min-ister’s wife had been infected aswell.

In France, cafes and restau-rants — central to the country’ssoul and social life — were or-dered closed along with mostother nonessential businesses.

In the United States, Vice Presi-dent Mike Pence widened theAmerican travel ban to includeBritain and Ireland, effectivelyshutting off travel from nearly 30European countries, while theWhite House announced thatPresident Trump had tested nega-tive for the virus.

Across Europe, there was awidespread feeling that the healthcrisis flaying Italy for weeks hadarrived at the doorsteps of itsneighbors, and that the time forhoping the threat would somehow

dissipate without sweeping inter-vention was over.

Until Saturday, the cafes inParis had been full of revelers andrestaurants had been doing goodbusiness, even without tourists.But then French officials declaredthat the crisis could be disre-garded no longer.

The time of classic Parisiannonchalance had come to an end.

“In France, when you tell peo-ple to stay home, they go to bars tocelebrate the closure,” saidHélène Noaillon, a bartender atLes Pères Populaires, reacting tonews of the closings on Saturdaynight while the bar was still open.

“Our society is more libertar-ian,” she said. “As long as youdon’t put people under any realconstraints, they’re going to con-tinue to live the way they want.”

While some European leaders,like President Emmanuel Macronof France, have called for intensi-fying cooperation across nations,others are trying to close theircountries off.

From Denmark to Slovakia,governments went into ag-gressive virus-fighting mode withborder closings.

In Denmark, Prime MinisterMette Frederiksen said all for-eigners who did not have an es-sential purpose for visiting thecountry would be turned away.

EUROPE LOCKS UPAND FACES CRISISAS VIRUS SPREADS

France and Spain Restrict Public Life asCountries Rush to Shut Borders

This article is by Adam Nossiter,Raphael Minder and Elian Peltier.

Continued on Page 9

WASHINGTON — It started asa series of conversations this pastweek between officials workingwith Jared Kushner, the presi-dent’s son-in-law, and the chief ex-ecutive of Verily, a life sciencessubsidiary of Google’s parentcompany, about how it might helpthe Trump administration in thefight against the coronavirus.

Verily was developing a websitethat could let people evaluatetheir symptoms and direct themto nearby “drive through” loca-tions for testing. Desperate to tapthe private sector to satisfy thepublic’s demands for a more ro-bust response to the rapidlyspreading virus, Mr. Kushner wasquickly sold on the idea.

But on Friday, President Trumpinflated the concept far beyond re-ality. At a news conference in theRose Garden, he said that thecompany was helping to develop awebsite that would sharply ex-pand testing for the virus, falselyclaiming that “Google has 1,700engineers working on this rightnow” and adding that “they’vemade tremendous progress.”

In truth, the project at Verily —which has a total of about 1,000employees — is in its infancy. A pi-lot program is planned for the SanFrancisco area, but a website hasyet to be unveiled. Testing loca-tions have not been identified, andthe coronavirus tests themselvesare not yet widely available.

The president’s effort to sell the

Trump UnveilsGoogle ProjectStill Incomplete

By MICHAEL D. SHEARand DAISUKE WAKABAYASHI

Continued on Page 9

A look at three artists who exemplifywhat popular music means today, and25 songs that matter. The Music Issue.

THE MAGAZINE

The Music That Defines Us

NEGATIVE The president wastested, and the White Housedoctor says he is healthy. PAGE 10

The amicable relationship betweenSenator Bernie Sanders and Joseph R.Biden Jr. may lift party unity. PAGE 20

NATIONAL 19-26

Primary Row Among Friends

It’s called Camp 7, and nobody gets in.But by some accounts, conditions haveeased up from its rough past. PAGE 21

Guantánamo’s Secret Prison

Today, clouds giving way to sun-shine, seasonable, high 51. Tonight,clear, cold, low 32. Tomorrow, sun-shine giving way to clouds, high 46.Details, SportsSunday, Page 8.

$6.00