Venice's canal water looks clearer as coronavirus keeps visitors away

By Jack Guy and Valentina Di Donato, CNN
As the world continues to grapple with coronavirus, the pandemic is having some unexpected side effects.  

 

© NurPhoto/NurPhoto/NurPhoto via Getty Images Venice' famous canals have become clearer due to the coronavirus lockdown.

Take Venice, one of Italy's biggest tourist attractions, which is usually heaving with visitors throughout the year.

Right now, though, the whole country is under lockdown as coronavirus continues to spread, and locals in Venice have noticed that the water in the city's canals has become much clearer, with small fish visible swimming around.

© Courtesy Marco Capovilla Locals have noticed a big difference in the clarity of the water.

Several people have uploaded photos to a Facebook group called Venezia Pulita (Clean Venice), attracting comments from other users.


"Nature resumes it's life....how beautiful," wrote Maria Lanaro.

Another user, Villa Lory, said they wished the water was always this clear.

"Marvelous there are even fish that we have the opportunity to see," they wrote.

Others saw it as a spot of light in the darkness of the pandemic.

"What a marvel this Venice was; this virus brought something....beautiful," said Katia Fameli.

But while it may look pretty, the Venice mayor's office told CNN that the change is not actually due to improved water quality.

"The water now looks clearer because there is less traffic on the canals, allowing the sediment to stay at the bottom," a spokesman said.

"It's because there is less boat traffic that usually brings sediment to the top of the water's surface."

While water pollution may not have decreased, air quality has improved, according to the spokesman.

"The air, however, is less polluted since there are less vaporetti and boat traffic than usual because of the restricted movement of residents," he said.

The coronavirus shutdown is the latest in a string of problems Venice has had to confront recently.

In November, it was hit by its worst flooding in 50 years, resulting in damage worth hundreds of millions of euros. It is also struggling with unsustainable overtourism, the sinking of its historical buildings into the water and a dwindling population.

With unprecedented force and speed, a global recession is likely taking hold 

A man wearing a protective mask walks on a Manhattan 

street on Saturday. (JEENNAH MOON/Washington Post )

By David J. Lynch and Heather Long March 14, 2020

The United States is suffering the most abrupt and widespread cessation of economic activity in its history, hurtling toward a recession that could mean lost jobs, income and wealth for millions of Americans.

Across the country, consumer spending — which supports 70 percent of the economy — is grinding to a halt as fears of the escalating coronavirus pandemic keep people from stores, restaurants, movie theaters and workplaces.

The rapid national shutdown already has caused layoffs and reverberated on Wall Street, driving stocks into their first bear market in 11 years. Amid panic selling, unusual strains have appeared in less visible market niches that are critical to the ability of businesses to operate normally.

For millions of workers, consumers and investors, the economy’s sudden stop comes as memories of the 2008 global financial crisis remain fresh. Less than 12 years ago, the economy sank into a painful recession after risky Wall Street investments tied to real estate went sour. The number of jobless workers more than doubled in the aftermath while the stock market lost more than half its value.

One store’s effort to keep shelves stocked during coronavirus rush

Sniders Super Foods in Silver Spring, Md., tries to keep up with the demand as the community makes coronavirus preparations. (Jon Gerberg, Zoeann Murphy/The Washington Post)

Some veterans of that tailspin — the worst since the Great Depression — say today’s epidemic is hammering the economy in complex ways that could prove even more difficult to combat.

“The problem is everyone in America is cutting back their consumption,” said Jason Furman, who led the Council of Economic Advisers during the Obama administration. “A lot of sectors are being hit, especially the services sector. A lot of income and spending is being reduced. That’s just an enormous shock to the economy.”

The economy has weathered numerous painful recessions and previous shocks, including natural disasters and terrorist attacks. But what’s different this time is the speed of decline and the comprehensive economic hit caused by an unpredictable health scare that interferes with Americans’ ability to produce and consume.

By the end of this month, the global economy probably will have shrunk by 1.2 percent — “not far short of the 1.6 percent drop in world output seen at the depth of the global final crisis” in the fourth quarter of 2008, according to Capital Economics in London. As the United States reels, Europe and Japan are also probably in recession.

“This is like a hurricane happening everywhere simultaneously for months and months on end,” Furman said.

The companies that feed America brace for labor shortages and worry about restocking stores as coronavirus pandemic intensifies

President Trump supports the cruise industry amid coronavirus outbreak


President Trump voices his support of the cruise industry and commends Vice president Pence for how he handled the Grand Princess in Northern California. (Video: Monica Rodman/Photo: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

The economic costs in the United States are mounting quickly. Apple chief executive Tim Cook said Saturday that the company is closing all stores outside China until March 27.

In Las Vegas, MGM Resorts — where several employees have tested positive for the virus — said late Friday that it would begin layoffs and furloughs in the coming week. “Business demand has decreased significantly,” CEO Bill Hornbuckle wrote in a letter to employees, which was first reported by the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

As Americans hunker down at home because of the health scare, restaurants are among the hardest hit. Within three weeks of the first reported coronavirus death in a Seattle suburb, restaurant reservations in the city fell nearly 60 percent, according to OpenTable, the online service.

In Boston, Ayr Muir, who runs Clover Food Lab, a 12-restaurant chain, said he expects “a very serious drop-off” in sales. Several of his restaurants are on, or near, college campuses that are closing. Others are in business districts that have become ghost towns as workers telecommute.

Muir said he knows of restaurants that have closed rather than risk incurring additional debt riding out an extended business interruption.

“I think it’s less about people choosing not to go out and more that they’re not there,” he said. “I think this is going to end up being a pretty dramatic period, certainly for smaller businesses, but some larger ones, too.”

On the corporate front, the Big Three automakers and their suppliers pleaded with the Trump administration for a delay in the planned June 1 scheduled implementation of a new North American trade deal.

“We are in the midst of a global pandemic that is significantly disrupting our supply chains, and the industry is throwing all available resources into managing production through this crisis,” an industry statement said.

The eventual economic damage could be massive. More than 18 million Americans work in industries that are being hurt by the initial efforts to contain the virus: travel and tourism; spectator sports; museums; hotels; railways; and the performing arts, according to economist Michael Feroli of JPMorgan Chase.

Activity in this roughly $2 trillion slice of the economy will be significantly depressed for three months, he wrote in a note to clients Thursday, longer if the virus does not dissipate in the summer.

A sign of what’s ahead came Friday, when Delta Air Lines said it is slashing flights by 40 percent, the largest reduction in its history, surpassing even that executed after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. “The speed of the demand falloff is unlike anything we’ve seen — and we’ve seen a lot in our business,” Ed Bastian, Delta’s chief executive, wrote in a note to employees.

Airports empty out as coronavirus fears slam airline industry

Across the globe, flights were canceled and travelers stayed home as the novel coronavirus outbreak became a pandemic. (The Washington Post)

The U.S. economy that President Trump hailed in January as “the best it has ever been” will be smaller at the end of June than it was on New Year’s Day, according to Feroli. And it will shrink in the second quarter at an annual rate that exceeds the decline at the time the failure of the investment bank Lehman Brothers turned the 2008 downturn into a cataclysm.

“If we don’t change the trajectory, we are certainly headed for a worse outcome than officials are indicating,” said Simon Johnson, who was the International Monetary Fund’s chief economist in 2008. “We’ve never experienced a shock like this.”

Still, many economists, including Feroli, anticipate an economic rebound in the second half. That assumes that the coronavirus outbreak ebbs, perhaps because of warmer weather. But amid tremendous uncertainty about the disease, all such forecasts are tentative.

On Friday, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said the president was moving quickly to counter the epidemic and ensure that the economy rebounds before year’s end. The House early Saturday passed legislation, backed by Trump, that would spend billions of dollars on medical tests, paid sick leave for affected workers and unemployment insurance.

Trump urged Mnuchin to pressure Fed’s Powell on economic stimulus in explosive tirade about coronavirus

“This isn’t like the financial crisis. We have a medical situation that has shut down and will shut down parts of the economy like we’ve never seen,” Mnuchin told CNBC. “But then they’re going to open back up and I think there’s going to be a lot of demand.”

Factory closings in Reading, Pa., contributed to the highest 

percentage of residents living in poverty for cities over 65,000 in 2009. 

(Michael S. Williamson/WASHINGTON POST)

In 2008, the economy felt the effects of problems that originated in the financial markets. This time, the virus-induced paralysis of real activity is putting key financial channels at risk of seizing up.

A key worry is the ability of businesses to access sufficient cash to fund their routine operations. As companies from Main Street to the oil patch fret about paying their bills, many are drawing down their bank credit lines.

Leaders of the largest U.S. banks told Trump on Wednesday that — thanks to deeper reserves and years of Federal Reserve stress tests — they are financially sound. But banks will face enormous pressure to keep funds flowing to businesses that are struggling to keep their doors open.

The toilet paper shortage is real. But it should be brief.

Minutes after the president’s prime-time coronavirus speech Wednesday, Linda Schreiber, owner of travel agency Starship Travel outside Chicago, started hunting for a financial lifeline.

Virus fears have resulted in numerous cancellations of spring break trips, graduations and destination weddings that account for most spring bookings. “It’s horrible timing for this to happen,” she said. “People are canceling left and right.”

The next day she secured a small-business loan to cover two months of overhead and salaries for 29 employees. If the downturn continues past the two-month window her loan covers, she plans to close one location and reduce her staff to part time.

“I’ve been through 9/11, Zika, MERS, SARS; I’ve been through it all over 34 years,” she said. “With this, the timing couldn’t have been worse.”

Surge in coronavirus patients threatens to swamp U.S. hospitals

The resulting pressure has been most evident in bond markets. Typically, as stocks plummet, investors buy U.S. government bonds, which are widely viewed as a haven. But last week, both stocks and bonds sold off.

As stock prices plunged, some hedge funds sold Treasury bonds to raise cash to repay borrowings they had used to make risky investments. Cash-strapped energy companies likewise sought to turn their government securities into cash. And banks that needed cash to fund their business customers did the same.

“Bank treasurers are faced with a choice: Support their corporate customers who want a line of credit or deploy capital to markets. It’s clear which one they’re choosing: their customers,” said Guy LeBas, chief fixed income strategist at Janney Capital Management.

In the trading frenzy, bond sellers demanded much higher prices than the handful of ready buyers would accept — an extraordinary sign of dysfunction in a market that is usually the epitome of order.

“What happened is the Treasury market became one-sided: everyone is selling and not many people are buying,” said Roberto Perli, a former Fed official in 2008 and now a partner at Cornerstone Macro.

The Fed stepped in twice in recent days to inject extra cash to grease bond market operations. That came on top of the Fed’s March 3 interest rate cut of half a percentage point, which did little to calm the market. More aid might be needed and could come on or before the central bank’s next rate-setting meeting scheduled for Wednesday.

Further complicating the economic outlook is an intensifying oil price war involving Saudi Arabia and Russia.

Oil prices face a one-two punch. The coronavirus is idling people, trucks and ships, causing a collapse in demand. And after price-setting talks between the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and Russia broke down this month, the Saudis opted to increase production. That flooded the market with oil and sent prices spiraling toward levels not seen since the late 1990s.

“We’ll see a huge surge in oil supply over the next few weeks and no demand for it. We think the price will dip into the $20 range and could even touch the teens,” said Francisco Blanch, head of commodities and derivatives research at Bank of America.

At those prices, the United States’ shale oil and gas boom is in trouble. Most U.S. and European companies can’t survive for long with oil below $40 a barrel, many analysts say. On Friday, the president announced that the government will buy oil on the open market to fill the nation’s strategic reserves.

The news nudged oil up a few dollars per barrel, but prices remain well below the break-even point for most producers. Goldman Sachs predicts that nearly one-third of the oil and oil services companies in the country will vanish, acquired by rivals or driven out of business.

Traders are watching for signs that energy companies may default on their debts, a development that would batter regional banks in Texas and Oklahoma and could cascade through the $10 trillion corporate bond market.

For now, analysts say the financial pain is unlikely to be as widespread as in 2008 because fewer financial products are linked to these securities in the way that mortgages were used to create complex derivatives during the housing bubble.

Even so, investors are nervous. Overall financial conditions — a measure of access to credit that takes into account interest rates, currency values and bond yields — are tighter than they have been in nearly a decade, since a 2011 scare over a potential sudden slowdown in China.

And when Wall Street opens Monday, analysts will be watching potential trouble spots such as risky corporate borrowings called leveraged loans and exchange-traded funds, a popular consumer investment, for any hint of bottlenecks.

Mark Guarino in Chicago and Karen Weintraub in Boston contributed to this report.

The coronavirus outbreak is a ‘different kind of crisis,’ says Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz

PUBLISHED TUE, MAR 17 2020 Huileng Tan@HUILENG_TAN


KEY POINTS

On Sunday, the Fed slashed interest rates to near-zero and announced a $750 billion asset-purchasing program to shelter the economy from the impact of the virus.

“This is a different kind of crisis than normal crises. It’s just not a problem of aggregate demand,” said Joseph Stiglitz, former chief economist at the World Bank.

The spread of the coronavirus disease, formally known as COVID-19, has disrupted the global economy and supply chains as countries implement strict border controls, massive city-wide lockdowns and quarantines in order to contain the virus.



Aggressive policy action by the Federal Reserve is “obviously not” enough to help the U.S. avert a downturn caused by the coronavirus outbreak, said Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel laureate in economics.

“Given the nature of the uncertainties, given the nature of the collapsing incomes of so many people, it can help stabilize financial markets at best and it’s clear that it didn’t do that,” Stiglitz told CNBC on Tuesday.

On Sunday, the Fed slashed interest rates to near-zero and announced a $750 billion asset-purchasing program to shelter the economy from the impact of the virus. Despite that, the markets crashed Monday — with the Dow suffering its worst day since the “Black Monday” market crash in 1987 and its third-worst day ever.


While the situation might have been worse without the Fed’s moves, “clearly it didn’t stabilize the stock markets,” said Stiglitz, who is a former chief economist at the World Bank.

The problem is that “this is a different kind of crisis than normal crises. It’s just not a problem of aggregate demand,” he said.

“Because of the disease, people are shutting down their businesses. In the United States, restaurants in New York City have been closed,” said Stiglitz. “More demand is not going to save that particular problem.”

The spread of the coronavirus disease, formally known as COVID-19, has disrupted the global economy and supply chains as countries implement strict border controls, massive city-wide lockdowns and quarantines in order to contain the virus.


There are now at least 168,019 cases of the coronavirus worldwide, according to data from the World Health Organization. At least 6,610 have died from the disease.

Even though financial institutions have assured that their positions are strong amid the market rout, Stiglitz said no bank would be spared from the impact of a major economic downturn even if it is adequately capitalized.

“People wouldn’t be able to repay their loans, people wouldn’t be taking out new loans, businesses wouldn’t be taking out new loans. The business model of banks is very sensitive to the business cycle,” he said.
Give help to targeted segments


Stiglitz advocated for targeted assistance to help people and sectors weather the public health emergency.

“It is clearly a case where targeted fiscal policy is what is needed. It’s been true for a long while that monetary policies has had only have limited efficacy,” said the Columbia University professor, who is also chief economist at the Roosevelt Institute.

The support should focus on those who will be “facing enormous stress,” strengthening the capacity of the healthcare system and encouraging people to not interact, as well as get tested and not show up at work if they are sick, said Stiglitz.

“We are going to need to get large amounts of money — you might call it ‘helicopter money’ — to those people who are going to be under enormous stress,” he said, citing the example of Hong Kong, which announced a 10,000 Hong Kong dollar ($1,287) cash payout to all permanent residents above 18 years old.

In fact, large government spending in today’s pressing circumstances while paying no attention to deficit “is correct,” he said.

“The deficit is something that we will have to deal with in the future. When we went to World War II, we didn’t ask ‘could we afford it,’” said Stiglitz. “We spent the money as we needed it.”

“We had to make sure that we weren’t overspending in the sense that we had inflation. We had to manage the economy.”

WATCH NOW VIDEO 02:55
Trump had ‘no idea’ about the seriousness of coronavirus crisis: Stiglitz

‘I don’t see how we’re going to avoid having a recession,’ says former Fed advisor as coronavirus outbreak persists
PUBLISHED TUE, MAR 17 2020
Abigail Ng@ABIGAILNGWY

KEY POINTS

Even if every American is given $1,000 to ride out the coronavirus crisis, it’s still going to be difficult for the U.S. economy to stay afloat, said Andrew Levin, a former special advisor to the Federal Reserve Board.

“The problem for the U.S. economy is a lot of cities are shutting down, and people staying home, not going out to restaurants, not going out shopping, not buying cars,” he said.

The economy could recover “fairly quickly” if things improve from a public health standpoint, but more decisive fiscal policy measures may be required if the recession drags on.


A man walks while wearing a protective face mask is seen as coronavirus continues to spread across the United States on March 16, 2020 in New York City.
Cindy Ord | Getty Images


Even if every American is given $1,000 to ride out the coronavirus crisis, it’s still going to be difficult for the U.S. economy to stay afloat in the coronavirus crisis, says a former special advisor to the Federal Reserve Board.

Such a move can help individuals to pay the bills, but consumer spending, which makes up around two thirds of economic activity in America, will still take a hit, said Andrew Levin, who is also a professor of economics at Dartmouth College.

“The problem for the U.S. economy is a lot of cities are shutting down, and people staying home, not going out to restaurants, not going out shopping, not buying cars,” he told CNBC’s “Capital Connection” on Tuesday.

“I don’t see how we’re going to avoid having a recession.”

The novel coronavirus was first detected in the Chinese city of Wuhan, in late 2019, but the pandemic has escalated in recent weeks, with confirmed cases soaring in Europe and the United States. It has infected more than 168,000 people worldwide and killed at least 6,600.

In the U.S., state and city leaders have taken action in a bid to contain the virus. That includes closing schools, restaurants and banning large public gatherings.



WATCH NOW VIDEO
The coronavirus crisis is leading the US economy into a recession: Standard Chartered

Levin said consumer spending will probably slow down for the next few months, but it’s important to “keep money in people’s pockets” and make sure there aren’t too many layoffs so that the fundamentals are “as strong as possible.”

He said it’s “critical” for the Fed and the Treasury to find a way to provide liquidity to small and medium enterprises. That will help to ensure small businesses that are “fundamentally sound don’t all go bankrupt.”

“We don’t want to have a great depression where there’s a slump in business … and all those workers are out of jobs permanently,” he added. “We need to get through this and I think there’s ways to do it with the right combination of monetary and fiscal policy.”
Possible scenarios

Levin said the “best case scenario” at this point is one where things go “reasonably well from a public health standpoint.”

If, by July or August, people can get back to work, go out and spend money they’ve saved in the meantime, the economy could have a “fairly quick” recovery, he said.

A “less ideal” scenario is one where the health crisis drags on, cases continue to be reported and it’s unclear when people can return to work, he added.

Some airlines, for example, have asked employees to take unpaid leave as the demand for travel evaporates due to the virus outbreak.

“In that scenario, the recession could drag on a lot further and maybe more decisive fiscal policy measures would be required sometime mid-to-later this year.”

CNBC’s Tucker Higgins, Dan Mangan, Dawn Kopecki, William Feuer, Noah Higgins-Dunn, Berkeley Lovelace Jr., Greg Iacurci and Leslie Josephs contributed to this report.

Millions of Americans could lose their jobs

 in a coronavirus recession.

 Many won’t get severance pay

© Mike Segar Reuters 

KEY POINTS

• The typical post-World War II recession has seen the U.S. unemployment rate increase about 2 to 2.5 percentage points. 
• That would translate to about 3.5 million jobs being lost in today’s environment, according to David Wilcox, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.
• Companies aren’t required by federal law to pay severance to employees they lay off. Those that do have widely diverging pay practice

The odds of slipping into a recession are increasingly likely as the global coronavirus outbreak puts acute stress on the U.S. economy. That could be bad news for American workers, who may lose jobs by the millions in a downturn.

For those workers who don't receive severance pay, the financial impact could be especially devastating.

"It's really hard to predict how it's going to play out," said Wayne Outten, founder and chair of Outten & Golden, an employment law firm in New York, of the coronavirus fallout. "The ripple effect can be dramatic in so many different industries."

© Provided by CNBC

The coronavirus, which causes a disease officially known as COVID-19, has spread rapidly around the globe since it originated in China late last year. More than 169,000 people have been infected worldwide, and more than 6,500 have died.

Financial markets have cratered. American life has come to a screeching halt, as schools and cultural institutions have closed, sports leagues have suspended their seasons, major events have been canceled and state officials have moved to ban large gatherings. Officials from major cities like New York have ordered bars and restaurants to close to limit community spread. 

 

© Provided by CNBC

Economic cracks are beginning to emerge. Small-business owners are starting to report supply-chain problems and lost sales. The travel industry is reeling. Big oil and gas companies are slashing spending and cutting dividends amid a plunge in oil prices. Consumer spending has fallen as Americans pull back from their daily routines.

The coronavirus fallout has been so dramatic that many economists think the U.S. is headed for a recession. Some economists believe the recession has already begun.

"I wouldn't be one bit surprised if when we look back at the data, it is decided ... that the recession started in March," Blinder, a former Federal Reserve vice chairman and now a professor at Princeton, told CNBC's "Squawk Alley."

Fed survey: Respondents see a 67% chance of a recession

Financial backstop lacking

Some reports have emerged that layoffs have already begun in businesses across the country.

Many workers don't have an adequate financial backstop in layoff situations, experts said.

Half of U.S. adults expected to be living paycheck to paycheck this year and 53% did not have an emergency fund that covers at least three months of expenses, according to a financial planning survey conducted prior to the coronavirus outbreak by First National Bank of Omaha in Nebraska.

Federal law doesn't require American companies to pay severance in the event of layoffs, leaving it up to the discretion of business owners.

A new law signed earlier this year made New Jersey the first state to require large employers to pay severance during mass layoffs.

The state mandates businesses pay a week of severance for each year of service, and that employers give 90 days' notice — more than the federally mandated 60 days for some types of businesses. It applies to businesses with 100 or more full- or part-time workers laying off at least 50 people.

A large share — 90% — of businesses pay some type of severance to their employees, according to a 2019 survey conducted by Willis Towers Watson. However, that figure masks wide variations in how employers treat different types of workers.

For one, while some companies may pay several weeks of severance, others have more lax policies.

More than half of businesses — 56% — also don't extend severance pay to all employees, according to a survey from RiseSmart, a human resources consulting firm.

Most of the benefits tend to go to higher-ranking employees instead of rank-and-file workers. Around 40% of officers, senior executives and managers are eligible for severance, whereas that's only true for 19% of administrative and clerical workers, according to RiseSmart.

Nearly 40% of companies also require at least a five-year tenure for workers to qualify for any type of severance benefit, RiseSmart found.
Mnuchin may suspend student loan payments amid coronavirus

And while the vast majority of companies pay some sort of severance to their full-time salaried employees, that's only true for half of hourly part-time employees and three-quarters of hourly full-time workers, according to Willis Towers Watson.

"I think the odds are now heavily weighted toward there being a recession," according to David Wilcox, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. "That's a not a sure thing at this point, but I think it's better than an even-odds bet."

To be sure, government officials are trying to head off economic disaster. President Donald Trump on Friday declared a state of emergency, which frees up financial resources to assist Americans affected by the outbreak.

The Federal Reserve slashed interested rates to zero over the weekend in an attempt to limit the economic damage — a measure not taken since the 2008 financial crisis. The House of Representatives passed a bill early Saturday morning aimed at offering aid to individuals struggling financially due to the coronavirus crisis. The Senate hasn't yet scheduled a vote on the bill, which includes provisions around expanded unemployment insurance and paid sick leave.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Friday that the state would waive the seven-day waiting period for unemployment insurance. He also told utilities not to cut off electricity, gas or water service to those unable to pay their bills.
3.5 million jobs

The typical post-World War II recession has led the unemployment rate to increase about 2 to 2.5 percentage points, Wilcox said.

An economic downturn due to the coronavirus would put an abrupt end to the longest-running expansion in U.S. history. If it were like an average recession, it would translate to a roughly 6% unemployment rate (given today's 3.5% rate, which is near 50-year lows).

That would mean about 3.5 million lost jobs, Wilcox said.

Recessions are often defined as two consecutive quarters of negative growth in gross domestic product, a measure of the country's output.

During the country's last recession — the Great Recession, the worst downturn since the Great Depression — about 8 million Americans lost their jobs.

Job loss during recessions doesn't all come via layoffs, Wilcox said.

And rather than reducing the size of their workforce, businesses could instead cut employees' hours and overtime pay. That approach could still strain workers' finances but wouldn't leave them jobless.
Uneven impact

Recessions don't impact Americans uniformly — workers in certain industries, such as hospitality, restaurants and food services, which tend to employ many younger workers under 40, are more likely than others to be laid off in the event of recession, according to Carter Price, a senior mathematician at the RAND Corporation.

Minorities and Americans with less education also tend to lose their jobs with greater frequency during recessions, Wilcox said.

"The economic cost, the burden of a recession, is very unequally distributed," he said.

Coronavirus Fight Lays Bare Education’s Digital Divide

In China, many rural students lack the connections or hardware to learn remotely. More nations will confront the same reality as the outbreak spreads.


A student in Beijing watches a class online. Many students in rural areas lack the equipment or connections to do the same. Credit...Roman Pilipey/EPA, via Shutterstock

By Raymond Zhong
March 17, 2020

BEIJING — Like hundreds of millions of other children worldwide, Liu Chenxinhao and Liu Chenxinyuan were getting used to doing class work online. After their elementary school closed because of the coronavirus outbreak, the brothers received their homework through a smartphone app.

Then their schooling screeched to a halt. Their father, a builder, had to go back to work in a neighboring province of China. He took his phone with him.

Now the only device on which the boys can watch their school’s video lessons is 300 miles away. Their grandmother’s $30 handset only makes calls.

“Of course it will have an effect” on their education, said their father, Liu Ji, 34. “But I can’t do anything about it.”


For all of China’s economic advancements in recent decades, the rudiments of connected life — capable smartphones, reliable internet — remain out of reach for large segments of the population. As the virus has turned online conveniences into daily necessities, these people, most of whom live in China’s rural hinterland, have been cut off from their regular lives, especially when it comes to education.

The epidemic’s disparate impact on rich and poor, city and country, is a reality that more of the rest of the world is fast beginning to confront. More than 770 million learners worldwide are now being affected by school and university closures, according to the United Nations.

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In China, many parents cannot afford to buy multiple devices for themselves and their children, even though many of the world’s cheapest smartphones — and most of the fanciest ones, too — are made in China. The nation is blanketed in 4G service, yet the signal is spotty in parts of the countryside. Home broadband can be expensive outside big cities.

Between 56 million and 80 million people in China reported lacking either an internet connection or a web-enabled device in 2018, according to government statistics. Another 480 million people said they did not go online for other reasons — for instance, because they didn’t know how.

It is one thing for this digital divide to prevent people from streaming movies or ordering barbecue during the coronavirus. It is another for it to disrupt young learners’ educations.

A worker disinfects a classroom in Jiangsu Province.Credit...China Daily/Reuters

Students in some places have hiked for hours and braved the cold to listen to online classes on mountaintops, the only places they can get a decent cell signal, according to Chinese news reports. One high schooler in Sichuan Province was found doing homework under a rocky outcropping. Two little girls in Hubei Province set up a makeshift classroom on a wooded hillside.

For children of the millions of migrant laborers who work far from home to keep China’s cities cleaned and fed, another problem is a lack of supervision. These “left-behind children,” as they are called in China, are raised mostly by their grandparents, who are often illiterate and cannot help with homework even when it is not delivered via smartphone app.

Wang Dexue, an elementary school principal in hilly Yunnan Province, said that in some classes, half the students cannot participate in online lessons because their families lack the necessary hardware.

For households that can connect, parents are not always invested in helping their children with remote learning, Mr. Wang said. His teachers are still figuring out how to teach with video apps. “Teaching progresses much more slowly sometimes,” Mr. Wang said.

The virus has come at a delicate moment for China’s efforts to help its least fortunate. This is the year the Communist Party has vowed to eradicate extreme poverty. The country’s top leader, Xi Jinping, has held fast to that goal despite the public health emergency. But raising people’s incomes above the level of deprivation was never going to be as tough as providing them with better educational opportunities.

China ordered all schools shut in late January, as coronavirus infections began spreading quickly. The authorities have not required schools to hold online classes in the interim. But they have encouraged it, starting all-day TV broadcasts of state-approved lessons in math, language, English, art and even physical education. The official mantra: “Stop classes but don’t stop learning.”



A closed school in Wuhan, the Chinese city where the virus was first reported.Credit...Reuters


With no common standards for that learning, however, the results have varied wildly. Teachers have experimented with apps and formats — live streams, prerecorded lessons or a mix. Many teachers are holding web classes now but plan to go over the same material a second time when normal classes restart. For some students, distance learning means switching to different class materials than they had been using before.

“It’s a big mess, that’s all I can say,” said Huang Ting of PEER, an educational nonprofit.

This month, schools are beginning to reopen in parts of China, mostly in the country’s more sparsely populated west, where the outbreak is deemed to be under control.

For students like the Liu brothers, the disruption has been profound. They are among the best students in their class, their father says proudly.

Like many other adults in rural Anhui Province, Mr. Liu and his wife work far from home most of the year. Mr. Liu can afford another smartphone, he said, but he doesn’t want to get his sons hooked on video games. Installing home broadband so the boys can watch classes on their television, as their teacher suggested, seems like a wasteful luxury.

Still, Mr. Liu regrets that he cannot do more to help his sons learn. When he called them at home recently, he urged them to read more and practice their penmanship.

Li Xingpeng teaches at a village elementary school in the remote northwestern province of Gansu. With his phone mounted on a wobbly plastic holder and its camera pointed at a notebook, Mr. Li has been holding classes via group video chats on DingTalk, a messaging app owned by the e-commerce giant Alibaba. The experience, it is fair to say, has been mixed.

On a recent morning, Mr. Li’s 9 a.m. fourth-grade English class began with a quiz. He read out vocabulary words in Chinese, and his eight or so students wrote them down in English.

He had just read out the third word — chufang, or kitchen — when a loud conversation drifted into the call.

“Hey, whose family is watching TV?” Mr. Li said. “Turn the volume down.”



Junior high school students on their first day back at school in Guiyang.Credit...Reuters

When the quiz was over, he asked the students to check their answers then read them aloud, causing the group chat to erupt in a cacophony of vocabulary:

At one point, one student disappeared from the call. She later messaged the group to say her phone had crashed. But by then, class was over.

Fifth-grade math was next. As Mr. Li went through the multiples of two and five, the video chat was filled with loud scraping sounds and electronic buzzing. He explained odd and even numbers to a screen full of bored stares. One student experimented with turning his webcam on and off, on and off, on and off.

Mr. Li knows that some of his students use such lousy phones that the video chats are a fog of pixels. But the deeper problem, he said, might be that many parents do not care about their young ones’ schooling. That goes for poorer families and better-off ones alike.

Some parents, he said, are even annoyed that their children use their phones to join online classes. Why? Because they — the parents — cannot spend as much time on Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok.

In the mountains of Gansu, the parenting tends to be “free range,” Mr. Li said. He sighs.

Recently, Mr. Li became concerned when one of his fifth-graders, a boy named Xie Dong, didn’t join his online classes two days in a row.

Mr. Li first called Dong’s grandmother to ask after his whereabouts, but she didn’t pick up her phone. The boy’s mother works in Xi’an, a city 180 miles to the east. Eventually, Mr. Li found out through a neighbor that Dong had grown frustrated trying to download DingTalk on his family’s $100 smartphone and gave up.

Of all Mr. Li’s students, Dong worries him the most.

“If he doesn’t do better in school and doesn’t have anybody watching over him, just think of how bad things could get in the future,” Mr. Li said.

Wang Yiwei contributed research.

Raymond Zhong is a technology reporter. Before joining The Times in 2017, he covered India's fast-moving economy from New Delhi for The Wall Street Journal. @zhonggg

Men who hoarded over 17,000 hand sanitizer bottles donate stockpile amid price-gouging probe

Jason Gonzales, Nashville Tennessean

NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Two Tennessee men who hoarded over 17,000 bottles of hand sanitizer have donated their stockpile amid backlash and a price gouging investigation.

On Sunday morning, Matt Colvin, an Amazon seller outside Chattanooga, helped volunteers from a local church load two-thirds of his stockpile of hand sanitizer and antibacterial wipes into a box truck for the church to distribute to people in need across Tennessee, according to The New York Times.

Officials from the Tennessee attorney general’s office took the other third. The office is investigating him for price gouging.

Colvin and his brother Noah became the subject of national scorn after The New York Times published a story about how they cleaned out stores of sanitizer and wipes in an attempt to profit off the public’s panic over the coronavirus pandemic.

The article says while people across the country have stockpiled items such as hand sanitizer or antibacterial wipes, internet companies like Amazon and eBay have enacted strict measures to stop those looking to price gouge.

Noah Colvin, of Hixson, took a 1,300-mile road trip in early March across Tennessee and Kentucky, racking up thousands of bottles of hand sanitizer to resell online.

Meanwhile, Matt stayed at home, waiting for pallets of antibacterial wipes and even more sanitizer to be shipped, according to a New York Times article.

The two then sold sanitizer online at a steep markup – $8 to $70 a pop. Amazon quickly removed their listings amid a larger effort to stop coronavirus-related price gouging.

The Tennessee Attorney General's Office ordered the brothers to stop buying and selling medical goods and products following the reports of possible price gouging while an investigation into their actions is underway. 

© USA TODAY If you can't find hand sanitizer for coronavirus prep, you can make it at home. To make homemade hand sanitizer, use two-thirds cup of 99% rubbing alcohol and one-third cup of aloe vera gel. You can add 8 to 10 drops of essential oil like grapefruit, lavender or peppermint.

"We will not tolerate price gouging in this time of exceptional need, and we will take aggressive action to stop it," said Attorney General Herbert H. Slatery III. "During this pandemic, we ask that you report suspicious activity to the Division of Consumer Affairs and refrain from threatening or hostile communication with individuals or businesses you may suspect are price gouging. Our team will review complaints closely and we are prepared to act to protect Tennesseans."

The Colvins told The New York Times that Noah Colvin hit “little hole-in-the-wall dollar stores in the backwoods. The major metro areas were cleaned out.”

Matt Colvin said he was simply fixing “inefficiencies in the marketplace.” Some areas of the country need the products more than others, he said to the Times, and he’s helping send the supply toward the demand. On Sunday he expressed remorse for his actions and said he didn’t realize the gravity of the coronavirus outbreak, or the severe shortage of sanitizer and wipes when he began buying the supplies.

“I’ve been buying and selling things for 10 years now. There’s been hot product after hot product. But the thing is, there’s always another one on the shelf,” he told the Times. “When we did this trip, I had no idea that these stores wouldn’t be able to get replenished.

Contributing: Olivia Krauth, Louisville Courier Journal. Follow Jason Gonzales on Twitter @ByJasonGonzales.







Slide of 20: A man walks next to the empty shelves of a supermarket, as a result of purchases for quarantine due to the Coronavirus, in Buenos Aires, on March 15, 2020. Argentina announced its second coronavirus-related death on Friday and will increase land border controls to prevent the entry of foreigners who have been in areas of high coronavirus circulation. © RONALDO SCHEMIDT, AFP via Getty Images

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Men who hoarded over 17,000 hand sanitizer bottles donate stockpile amid price-gouging probe

He Has 17,700 Bottles of Hand Sanitizer and Nowhere to Sell Them

An Amazon merchant, Matt Colvin, with an overflow stock of cleaning and sanitizing supplies in his garage in Hixson, Tenn.Credit...Doug Strickland for The New York Times

By Jack Nicas
Published March 14, 2020 Updated March 15, 2020

He Has 17,700 Bottles of Hand Sanitizer and Nowhere to Sell Them

Amazon cracked down on coronavirus price gouging. Now, while the rest of the world searches, some sellers are holding stockpiles of sanitizer and masks.

On March 1, the day after the first coronavirus death in the United States was announced, brothers Matt and Noah Colvin set out in a silver S.U.V. to pick up some hand sanitizer. Driving around Chattanooga, Tenn., they hit a Dollar Tree, then a Walmart, a Staples and a Home Depot. At each store, they cleaned out the shelves.

Over the next three days, Noah Colvin took a 1,300-mile road trip across Tennessee and into Kentucky, filling a U-Haul truck with thousands of bottles of hand sanitizer and thousands of packs of antibacterial wipes, mostly from “little hole-in-the-wall dollar stores in the backwoods,” his brother said. “The major metro areas were cleaned out.”

Matt Colvin stayed home near Chattanooga, preparing for pallets of even more wipes and sanitizer he had ordered, and starting to list them on Amazon. Mr. Colvin said he had posted 300 bottles of hand sanitizer and immediately sold them all for between $8 and $70 each, multiples higher than what he had bought them for. To him, “it was crazy money.” To many others, it was profiteering from a pandemic.

The next day, Amazon pulled his items and thousands of other listings for sanitizer, wipes and face masks. The company suspended some of the sellers behind the listings and warned many others that if they kept running up prices, they’d lose their accounts. EBay soon followed with even stricter measures, prohibiting any U.S. sales of masks or sanitizer.

Now, while millions of people across the country search in vain for hand sanitizer to protect themselves from the spread of the coronavirus, Mr. Colvin is sitting on 17,700 bottles of the stuff with little idea where to sell them.

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“It’s been a huge amount of whiplash,” he said. “From being in a situation where what I’ve got coming and going could potentially put my family in a really good place financially to ‘What the heck am I going to do with all of this?’”

[Update: Matt Colvin has decided to donate his bottles of hand sanitizer.]

Mr. Colvin is one of probably thousands of sellers who have amassed stockpiles of hand sanitizer and crucial respirator masks that many hospitals are now rationing, according to interviews with eight Amazon sellers and posts in private Facebook and Telegram groups from dozens more. Amazon said it had recently removed hundreds of thousands of listings and suspended thousands of sellers’ accounts for price gouging related to the coronavirus.

Amazon, eBay, Walmart and other online-commerce platforms are trying to stop their sellers from making excessive profits from a public health crisis. While the companies aimed to discourage people from hoarding such products and jacking up their prices, many sellers had already cleared out their local stores and started selling the goods online.

Now both the physical and digital shelves are nearly empty.

Mikeala Kozlowski, a nurse in Dudley, Mass., has been searching for hand sanitizer since before she gave birth to her first child, Nora, on March 5. When she searched stores, which were sold out, she skipped getting gas to avoid handling the pump. And when she checked Amazon, she couldn’t find it for less than $50.

“You’re being selfish, hoarding resources for your own personal gain,” she said of the sellers.

Sites like Amazon and eBay have given rise to a growing industry of independent sellers who snatch up discounted or hard-to-find items in stores to post online and sell around the world.

These sellers call it retail arbitrage, a 21st-century career that has adults buying up everything from limited-run cereals to Fingerling Monkeys, a once hot toy. The bargain hunters look for anything they can sell at a sharp markup. In recent weeks, they found perhaps their biggest opportunity: a pandemic.

As they watched the list of Amazon’s most popular searches crowd with terms like “Purell,” “N95 mask” and “Clorox wipes,” sellers said, they did what they had learned to do: Suck up supply and sell it for what the market would bear.

Initially, the strategy worked. For several weeks, prices soared for some of the top results to searches for sanitizer, masks and wipes on Amazon, according to a New York Times analysis of historical prices from Jungle Scout, which tracks data for Amazon sellers. The data shows that both Amazon and third-party sellers like Mr. Colvin increased their prices, which then mostly dropped when Amazon took action against price gouging this month.

At the high prices, people still bought the products en masse, and Amazon took a cut of roughly 15 percent and eBay roughly 10 percent, depending on the price and the seller.

Then the companies, pressured by growing criticism from regulators and customers, cracked down. After the measures last week, Amazon went further on Wednesday, restricting sales of any coronavirus-related products from certain sellers.

“Price gouging is a clear violation of our policies, unethical, and in some areas, illegal,” Amazon said in a statement. “In addition to terminating these third party accounts, we welcome the opportunity to work directly with states attorneys general to prosecute bad actors.”

Mr. Colvin, 36, a former Air Force technical sergeant, said he started selling on Amazon in 2015, developing it into a six-figure career by selling Nike shoes and pet toys, and by following trends.

In early February, as headlines announced the coronavirus’s spread in China, Mr. Colvin spotted a chance to capitalize. A nearby liquidation firm was selling 2,000 “pandemic packs,” leftovers from a defunct company. Each came with 50 face masks, four small bottles of hand sanitizer and a thermometer. The price was $5 a pack. Mr. Colvin haggled it to $3.50 and bought them all.




Hand sanitizer that Mr. Colvin is keeping in a storage locker.Credit...Doug Strickland for The New York Times


He quickly sold all 2,000 of the 50-packs of masks on eBay, pricing them from $40 to $50 each, and sometimes higher. He declined to disclose his profit on the record but said it was substantial.

--------The success stoked his appetite. When he saw the panicked public starting to pounce on sanitizer and wipes, he and his brother set out to stock up.---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Elsewhere in the country, other Amazon sellers were doing the same.

Chris Anderson, an Amazon seller in central Pennsylvania, said he and a friend had driven around Ohio, buying about 10,000 masks from stores. He used coupons to buy packs of 10 for around $15 each and resold them for $40 to $50. After Amazon’s cut and other costs, he estimates, he made a $25,000 profit.

Mr. Anderson is now holding 500 packs of antibacterial wipes after Amazon blocked him from selling them for $19 each, up from $16 weeks earlier. He bought the packs for $3 each.

Eric, a truck driver from Ohio who spoke on the condition that his surname not be published because he feared Amazon would retaliate, said he had also collected about 10,000 masks at stores. He bought each 10-pack for about $20 and sold most for roughly $80 each, though some he priced at $125.

“Even at $125 a box, they were selling almost instantly,” he said. “It was mind-blowing as far as what you could charge.” He estimates he made $35,000 to $40,000 in profit.

Now he has 1,000 more masks on order, but he’s not sure what to do with them. He said Amazon had been vague about what constituted price gouging, scaring away sellers who don’t want to risk losing their ability to sell on its site.

To regulators and many others, the sellers are sitting on a stockpile of medical supplies during a pandemic. The attorney general’s offices in California, Washington and New York are all investigating price gouging related to the coronavirus. California’s price-gouging law bars sellers from increasing prices by more than 10 percent after officials declare an emergency. New York’s law prohibits sellers from charging an “unconscionably excessive price” during emergencies.

An official at the Washington attorney general’s office said the agency believed it could apply the state’s consumer-protection law to sue platforms or sellers, even if

Tennessee, where Mr. Colvin lives, has a price-gouging law that bars people from charging “unreasonable prices for essential goods and services, including gasoline, in direct response to a disaster,” according to a state website. On Saturday, after the The Times published this article, the Tennessee attorney general’s office said it had sent investigators to Mr. Colvin’s home, given him a cease-and-desist letter and was now investigating his case.




Image
Noah Colvin, Mr. Colvin’s brother, moving boxes of hand sanitizer from his brother’s storage locker on Thursday.Credit...Doug Strickland for The New York Times


Mr. Colvin does not believe he was price gouging. While he charged $20 on Amazon for two bottles of Purell that retail for $1 each, he said people forget that his price includes his labor, Amazon’s fees and about $10 in shipping. (Alcohol-based sanitizer is pricey to ship because officials consider it a hazardous material.)

Current price-gouging laws “are not built for today’s day and age,” Mr. Colvin said. “They’re built for Billy Bob’s gas station doubling the amount he charges for gas during a hurricane.”

He added, “Just because it cost me $2 in the store doesn’t mean it’s not going to cost me $16 to get it to your door.”

But what about the morality of hoarding products that can prevent the spread of the virus, just to turn a profit?

Mr. Colvin said he was simply fixing “inefficiencies in the marketplace.” Some areas of the country need these products more than others, and he’s helping send the supply toward the demand.

“There’s a crushing overwhelming demand in certain cities right now,” he said. “The Dollar General in the middle of nowhere outside of Lexington, Ky., doesn’t have that.”

He thought about it more. “I honestly feel like it’s a public service,” he added. “I’m being paid for my public service.”

As for his stockpile, Mr. Colvin said he would now probably try to sell it locally. “If I can make a slight profit, that’s fine,” he said. “But I’m not looking to be in a situation where I make the front page of the news for being that guy who hoarded 20,000 bottles of sanitizer that I’m selling for 20 times what they cost me.”

After The Times published this article on Saturday morning, Mr. Colvin said he was exploring ways to donate all the supplies.
More on Coronavirus Shortages
The World Needs Masks. China Makes Them — But Has Been Hoarding Them.March 13, 2020

Coronavirus Has Caused a Hand Sanitizer Shortage. What Should You Do?March 11, 2020

Some Hospitals Are Close to Running Out of Crucial Masks for CoronavirusMarch 9, 2020

Panicked Shoppers Empty Shelves as Coronavirus Anxiety RisesMarch 13, 2020


Jack Nicas covers technology from San Francisco. Before joining The Times, he spent seven years at The Wall Street Journal covering technology, aviation and national news. @jacknicas • Facebook

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https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2020/03/dior-and-givenchy-to-use-perfume.html
https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2020/03/he-has-17700-bottles-of-hand-sanitizer.html
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Social distancing: It’s not about you, it’s about us

Jim Sergent, Janet Loehrke and George Petras, USA TODAY

Wash your hands and keep your distance

SOCIAL DISTANCING

© Veronica Bravo


OK IT'S ABOUT YOU
                   NOT SOCIAL DISTANCING

       DO WHAT WE SAY NOT WHAT WE DO

Those are two of the best tools we have right now to slow the spread of coronavirus around the U.S., according to federal health officials.

Washing your hands has long been recommended to combat illnesses like the seasonal flu, but keeping your distance or social distancing is a new tactic that schools, sports teams and government officials fully embraced this week with unprecedented cancellations.

It’s not so much about keeping you healthy as it is about minimizing the number of Americans infected at the same.

The strategy has arisen largely from the coronavirus's long incubation period: the time between exposure to infection and when infection symptoms appear. People start to feel sick five to 12 days after they’ve been infected, according to a study issued by Johns Hopkins University on March 9. However, it's still not clear when infected people can infect others.

Preliminary research suggests those with the virus can unknowingly infect others before symptoms appear, some as soon as two days after infection. Patients are able to spread the infection until they recover.

While coronavirus transmission methods are still being analyzed, the CDC says it's likely spread from person to person by water droplets discharged by sneezes or coughs of an infected person.

Those droplets can be inhaled or even land in the mouths or noses of those nearby. Personal contact is usually between two people six feet apart or less. The virus can also live for hours or days on hard surfaces like desks or doorknobs.

That's why using social distancing to avoid crowds is recommended.

           SIX FEET OF SEPARATION 

Social distancing is different from being quarantined or isolated. While the latter two contain the spread, social distancing is a tool of intervention and mitigation, a way of reducing the viral impact on society by limited personal contact.

NOT SOCIAL DISTANCING

DO WHAT WE SAY NOT WHAT WE DO

It doesn't eliminate the virus but makes it easier to deal with. Social distancing reduces the number of infections and spreads them out over a longer period of time. The results are fewer infections and fewer deaths.

Isolating the sick from the healthy is part of human history, starting in the 14th century when the practice of quarantine began in Europe. With the present-day coronavirus, isolation is used to hospitalize and treat infected people. Isolation lasts until the patient recovers.

Quarantine is separation for those without symptoms, but are suspected of being infected, especially if returning from an infected region. They are placed in a restricted space, their movements are limited, and they are monitored to determine whether they are sick.

People are quarantined until it's certain they're not infected. The standard quarantine period is 14 days.

Both quarantine and isolation are strict measures of bottling up the virus, keeping it in a confined space.

Social distancing is a routine of avoiding crowds, public gatherings, or any place you closely or frequently encounter large groups of people. Public places include schools, shopping malls, sports stadiums, movie theaters and outdoor events.

A number of schools have already canceled classes in favor of online instruction. Cities have blocked events and limited public gatherings and businesses are encouraging employees to work from home. Sports events have been canceled. Some churches have halted worship services.

Social distancing is designed to contain the highly contagious coronavirus. Spreading infection is known as "virus shedding," but time frames differ among diseases.

That means social distancing includes keeping adequate space between you and others, at work and elsewhere. It's meant to protect not only you, but the greater public as well, by eliminating transmission routes of the virus.

SOURCE Annuals of Internal Medicine, March 10, 2020; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; statnews.com; MIT Technology Review; U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration; Harvard Medical School

Biden allies see Warren as potential running mate

Amie Parnes and Max Greenwood

Several of Joe Biden's allies say they could see the former vice president picking Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) as his running mate to help unify the centrist and progressive wings of the party. 

© The Hill Biden allies see Warren as potential running mate

The speculation comes after Biden pledged to pick a woman as his running mate during the Democratic primary debate on Sunday.

Picking Warren would have its drawbacks, however, putting two septuagenarians at the top of the ticket from safe blue states.

"I think she represents a sort of bridge between the moderate land and progressive lane," said one longtime Biden ally who is in touch with the campaign.

"I'm hoping he goes with Kamala," the ally added, referring to Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calf.), who is one of several women mentioned as potential running mates. "I just don't think he'll do it."

Another Biden ally, who has also spoken to the campaign regularly, said Warren "makes the most sense."

"There are a lot of qualified women but she would be the best choice without a doubt," the ally said.

Warren herself before ending her presidential campaign sought to present herself as a unity candidate who could help the Democratic Party's fractious branches come together against President Trump.

"The way I'm going to win is I'm going to unite our party, because we have to have a united party," Warren said at a town hall in New Hampshire last month. "We can't have a repeat of 2016."

"She would definitely help shore up some of his support on the left flank and with women, and especially in the coronavirus crisis [it] definitely helps show a ticket that is qualified, has plans to deal with it," said Democratic strategist Eddie Vale.

Vale and other Democrats said it would be foolish for Warren to not be on a short list for Biden, particularly as Biden has largely embraced her position on bankruptcy as he did in recent days.

Warren hasn't yet endorsed a candidate in the race, though both Biden and his chief rival for the nomination, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), are angling for her support.

Over the weekend, Biden endorsed Warren's bankruptcy plan, saying "few people in the country understand how bankruptcy hurts working families more" than the Massachusetts senator. And in the Democratic debate Sunday, he also acknowledged having a conversation with Warren about the plan over the weekend.

At the same time, Biden has indicated that he wants to pick a running mate with a similar vision for the country as his. That may make Warren a difficult pick.

"For me, I think the most important thing in choosing the vice president is whether or not the person is simpatico with me in terms of where I want to take the country," Biden told MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell in an interview last week.

"We can disagree on tactic but not on strategy," he added. "And so that's the first test. And there are a number of women and African Americans as well who would meet that criteria for me."

Biden himself has pointed to a few possible contenders for the vice president's slot. At a town hall in Iowa in November, when asked whom he would choose as his running mate if he wins the Democratic nomination, he rattled through a list of potential picks, including former acting Attorney General Sally Yates and Stacey Abrams, the 2018 Democratic nominee for Georgia governor.

Other names that have been floated as potential running mates, including Rep. Val Demings (D-Fla.) and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

Some Democrats said that Biden shouldn't just aim to choose a woman as his running mate, but rather a woman of color. Doing so, they argue, would be a nod at the role that African American voters have played in resurrecting the former vice president's campaign in recent weeks.

"I think Joe Biden has to pick a person of color for his VP slot," Michael Starr Hopkins, a Democratic strategist, said. "If you look at what happened in South Carolina and the fact that the African American community saved his candidacy, I don't think it would just be a bad political move to not pick an African American candidate, but it would be a slap in the face."

Starr Hopkins said that the former vice president would be wise to take a serious look at Demings as his eventual running mate.

Demings, a second-term congresswoman and one of the House managers in President Trump's impeachment trial, has been floated as a potential running mate for the eventual Democratic nominee for months. Her clout in Central Florida, a crucial battleground in the state, could help Democrats in their bid to recapture the state in November.

"There needs to be more focus on the map itself when we talk about these VP candidates. It's going to be a close race," Starr Hopkins said. "Democrats need to be thinking about not just these national numbers but how the running mate is going to contribute to the electoral vote."

While Biden's pledge to choose a woman as his running mate may be an acknowledgement of the current mood of the Democratic Party, it's unclear how or whether his eventual choice will play in the general election.

Christopher Devine, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Dayton in Ohio, said that there's little if any evidence that picking a woman running mate has an effect on overall electoral outcomes, noting that in 1984 and 2008, when women were on the ballot as vice presidential candidates, women voters were no more likely to cast their ballots for the Democratic or Republican tickets.

Devine, who's co-authoring a forthcoming book entitled "Do Running Mates Matter?," said that Biden's decision to choose a woman as his running mate is more significant because of what it communicates to voters.

"What this does for Joe Biden is it helps shape how voters are thinking about him," Devine said. "And by pledging to pick a woman running mate, he's saying that he gets it; that he values the contributions of women in his White House and in the policies he carries out."