Metro videographers Joe Lemon and Adrian Hernandez spent some time last week on the streets trying to chronicle the extraordinary events of the past month and the impact that the COVID-19 crisis is having on our region. We also wanted to show our region — and the world — the heroic effort of Metro’s Operations Department, which has kept our buses and trains rolling for the many people who need to make essential trips. If you would like to share the video, here’s the link.

The latest numbers from L.A. County posted Monday:

@lapublichealth Announces Seven New Deaths Related to COVID-19 and 342 New Cases of Confirmed #COVID19 in LA County. 2474 total cases & 44 total deaths. View: https://t.co/Er7TpfZl6c fore more. Practice #SocialDistancing at all times. pic.twitter.com/i4WA8PCYUt

— LA Public Health (@lapublichealth) March 30, 2020

Our messaging continues to be:

By staying home, you’re protecting those who are protecting us! Let’s continue to slow the spread of COVID-19 by only traveling when necessary. #StayHomeSaveLives https://t.co/4lV0ZPvKqY pic.twitter.com/EuOdNevKEf

— LA Metro (@metrolosangeles) March 31, 2020

Help keep others safe by staying home. But if you must go outside:
⇄ Maintain physical distance from others
🔙 Board & exit buses through rear doors
🤧 Cover your nose & mouth
🧼 Wash your hands (at least 20 seconds)
ℹ️ More info at https://t.co/4lV0ZPvKqY

— LA Metro (@metrolosangeles) March 30, 2020

In the news…

•Taiwan officials announced that anyone who wants to take transit will have to have their temperature taken before entering the station and must be wearing a mask, reports the News Lens. Unbold prediction: that probably won’t be the last of these type of requirements in public places around the world.

As this Business Insider article explains, the Taiwanese government quickly put health protocols in place after the coronavirus appeared in December late last year. Thus, Taiwan has had just 322 confirmed cases thus far out of a population of about 23.6 million.

•The evolving public policy on masks, which the CDC may recommend, reports the NYT.

The issue is that masks do a better job preventing those infected with the coronavirus from spreading it than protecting those who don’t have it. There is also the fear of hoarding by the public that will make it even more difficult for frontline hospital and health-care professional to get masks they need.

•The LAT has an article headlined “Social distancing may have helped California slow the virus and avoid New York’s fate,” noting that California imposed stay-at-home restrictions a few days prior to New York.

Near the end of the article are these paragraphs which, to say it gently, do not exactly support the above headline:

Dr. Grant Colfax, the director of public health in San Francisco, said it’s still too early to tell whether the rise in COVID-19 cases is slowing down.

“I simply do not know if our aggressive actions early on … have had the intended effect,” he said. “I certainly am hoping and praying that that is the case. We still need the data to confirm that.”

Obviously, I hope the LAT is right that what we’re doing is working — and I hope it underscores the importance of staying at home if possible and social distancing.

As for the difference in COVID-19 cases across the nation, many experts are saying the difference between places such as L.A. and New York is likely attributable to the amount of testing. And we’re still behind.

•In 2012, the nature and science writer David Quammen published a book titled “Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic.” Here’s a 2012 podcast with Quammen from Scientific American.

The book was fortuitous. From the CDC:

COVID-19 is caused by a coronavirus. Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses that are common in people and many different species of animals, including camels, cattle, cats, and bats. Rarely, animal coronaviruses can infect people and then spread between people such as with MERS-CoV, SARS-CoV, and now with this new virus (named SARS-CoV-2).

The New Yorker also has an article explaining how the coronavirus went from bats to humans. Excerpt:

For thousands of years, a parasite with no name lived happily among horseshoe bats in southern China. The bats had evolved to the point that they did not notice; they went about their nightly flights unbothered. One day, the parasite—an ancestor of the coronavirus, sars-CoV-2—had an opportunity to expand its realm.

Perhaps it was a pangolin, the scaly anteater, an endangered species that is a victim of incessant wildlife trafficking and sold, often secretly, in live-animal markets throughout Southeast Asia and China. Or not. The genetic pathway remains unclear. But to survive in a new species, whatever it was, the virus had to mutate dramatically.

It might even have taken a segment of a different coronavirus strain that already inhabited its new host, and morphed into a hybrid—a better, stronger version of itself, a pathogenic Everyman capable of thriving in diverse species. More recently, the coronavirus found a new species: ours. Perhaps a weary traveller rubbed his eyes, or scratched his nose, or was anxiously, unconsciously, biting his fingernails. One tiny, invisible blob of virus. One human face. And here we are, battling a global pandemic.

I read “Spillover” shortly after it came out as I’m a big Quammen fan. I also remember putting it back on the shelf and thinking “hope I never have to think about this again.” One thing to add: viruses can travel from animals to humans on any continent.

•Tensions in Portland, Oregon, between bus operators and the local transit agency, reports the Oregonian.

•From the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency:

Today, @USDOT and EPA released the final Safer Affordable Fuel-Efficient (SAFE) Vehicles Rule setting corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) & CO2 emissions standards for model years 2021-2026 passenger cars and light trucks. https://t.co/0kT9V1Jihu pic.twitter.com/bBt0SwPVfs

— U.S. EPA (@EPA) March 31, 2020

As the NYT explains, this is an easing of emission standards for future vehicles from those approved by President Obama. President Trump is expected to argue the new rules are helpful to an economy wobbled by the COVID-19 crisis while many others argue this undoes one of the United States’ most effective ways of reducing greenhouse gases that lead to climate change.

In the meantime, consumers do have a choice and there are many vehicles on the market that have good fuel economy. The EPA has a helpful online tool. And this: driving a little less and walking and biking a little bit more are things you can immediately do to help battle climate change.

•Some of you may have been planning on hopping on Metro to see Wilco’s shows in L.A. over the next week. That’s not gonna happen for now, but this morsel is a bit of consolation. Jeff Tweedy via his bathroom via Jimmy Kimmel’s living room: