Lessons From Japan, Rebellious Haircuts, and the Reopening of the Vatican
A roundup of stories we’re reading about the coronavirus today
Published in
2 min readJun 10, 2020
- Japan’s surprisingly low coronavirus case count has perplexed experts the world over because the country did not enforce strict social distancing or widespread testing. Is it a result of Japan’s strict avoidance of the “three C’s” — closed spaces, crowds, and close-contact settings? Or the fact that wearing masks was already the norm there? Or perhaps, as Vice reports, the Japanese language itself. Some researchers have proposed that speaking the language produces fewer viral particles than others.
- The coronavirus pandemic quickly made itself felt on the tops of our heads. Braver people with overgrown, unkempt hair attempted to self-trim; most others held out hope that salons would soon resume service. Now, as states reopen amid rising case counts, barbershops and hair salons have become “the battlefield of a great American culture war,” as Alex Abad-Santos writes in Vox. For people who oppose the breach of civil liberty that stay-at-home orders suggest, making the journey to a salon and breaking the rules of quarantine is an act of rebellion.
- It’s been a big couple of weeks for Elon Musk, in good ways and bad. The successful journey of U.S. astronauts to the International Space Station on his SpaceX rocket was triumphant. The Covid-19 debacle at his California Tesla plants, not so much. In mid-May, Musk defied Alameda County orders so he could resume production at the company’s main production facility. Soon, as the Washington Post reports, workers started to test positive for the coronavirus, but it’s unclear whether those cases were ever reported to the county.
- Even the Vatican was not immune to the economic impact of the coronavirus, as dwindling church funds due to the lack of museum visitors illustrated. But now, after three long months, its museums have reopened — to a limited number of visitors. The museums are allowing only 100 visitors to enter every 15 minutes for now. The upshot, reports Conde Nast Traveler with a gallery of stunning photos, is that for a brief moment in the city’s centuries-old history, visitors can see the grandeur of its monuments without the crowds.
