Prognosis

In Reopened States, Numbers Are Everywhere. Clarity Is Absent

  • Muddled procedures and embarrassing errors skew Covid-19 count
  • ‘Deaths take three or four weeks to show up,’ expert says

A customer gets a haircut at John's Barber Shop in Knoxville, Tennessee, on May 1. 

Photographer: Luke Sharrett/Bloomberg
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It’s been at least two weeks since many states started lifting stay-at-home orders. Movie theaters in Texas, gyms in Tennessee and restaurants in South Carolina all have been open for business.

Many feared that states would pay a steep price for dismissing the coronavirus pandemic, but governors, encouraged by President Donald Trump, said they couldn’t wait any longer.