Cats, puppies, and stuffed animals prance across Tracy Westberg’s screen.

A sixth grade social studies teacher north of Seattle, Ms. Westberg is conducting a virtual session on Tuesday, the day after her Washington state school district’s switch to all-online education due to the coronavirus. Ms. Westberg had planned a session about world religions, only to watch her students erupt into silliness and gleeful chaos, as they seized the chance to share their most cherished home items with classmates during a show and tell break.

It’s been one of the unexpected joys of a massive online education experiment. 

“OK, time out!” Ms. Westberg says, clicking “mute” to regain control of the group of about 60. After a pause, her students continue to astonish her. As she launches an overview of Buddhism, her students post queries in a shared virtual chat. Other students jump in to answer.

“I’m super excited,” Ms. Westberg says after closing the session Tuesday. The sidebar chatting among students would not have happened in a brick-and-mortar classroom.

As authorities worldwide attempt to slow the spread of the coronavirus by shuttering schools and universities, more than 420 million K-12 and college students on five continents have found themselves suddenly at home full-time, their learning punted onto virtual forums. So far in the United States, nine states – Oregon, Ohio, Louisiana, Michigan, Maryland, New Mexico, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wisconsin – and the District of Columbia have shuttered public schools starting next week.

For educators from Shanghai to New York, this means figuring out not only how to deliver content, but also how to maintain a sense of community that is typically generated in person. Priorities include creating online materials, ensuring low-income K-12 students don’t lose access to meals, and making sure that college students are not abandoned on campus. While obstacles remain, the innovation and resilience of faculty, parents, and students suggests communities are connecting – and forging a path through this crisis.

“The digitalization element is just a game changer,” says Tracey Burns, a futurist and OECD education analyst. “We’re seeing that we have opportunities to share knowledge across countries and get kids online that we didn’t have just five years ago.”

For those who’ve closed first, some success

The move online has the potential to fragment communities for which schools are the glue, especially where computers and Wi-Fi access are not readily available. But educators who have a head start on virtual education – and some parents and students – are seeing indications that the opposite can be true.  

“We are learning new tools that will empower so much of the work we do,” says Audee Gregor, principal of Leota Middle School, whose 930 students transitioned in just a few days from classroom to cloud-based learning, along with the rest of the Northshore School District. Online platforms such as Zoom and Google Classroom are helping to prevent social isolation, Ms. Gregor says, and are also creating new potential for collaboration. 

In China, where Zoom, WeChat, and DingTalk are the tools of choice, school leaders discovered teachers needed to collaborate on how to use technology to keep students engaged. Showing papers in front of a laptop camera didn’t work so well; being more creative with screencasts did.  

Nathan Frandino/Reuters

Lisa Wymore, a professor in the theater, dance, and performance studies department at the University of California, Berkeley, leads warm-ups for an online course in Berkeley, March 12, 2020.

Six weeks into its new virtual reality, the 600 students at high-performing Shanghai Qibao Dwight High School in China have been participating in daily live Zoom lessons. They’re on track to take International Baccalaureate and IGCSE exams at the end of the semester.

“These kids haven’t left the house in 50 days, yet they’re joining in, staying in the game,” says Qibao Dwight American principal Brantley Turner. “It breaks my heart, the power of the community coming together. They’re respectful, never blaming, rising to meet the challenge.”

In Italy, which is under complete lockdown, Rania Hammad is enjoying having her fourth- and sixth-grade daughters at home in Rome, though she admits the overall situation sometimes feels “absurd and weird.” Online classes have gotten more engaging as teachers fine-tuned their approach and made them more interactive. “It’s actually fun and they are learning,” Ms. Hammad says. “They are enjoying it.”  

Thousands of miles away, Rabbi Jonathan Kroll, co-principal of private SAR High School in New York City, has noticed something similar. His school has been online-only since March 3, and beyond academics, the staff is trying to branch out with new ideas: chemistry demonstrations in a teacher’s kitchen, Broadway show-tune singalongs.

Rabbi Kroll also teaches an online Talmud class to ninth-graders via Zoom. “I said to my class the other day ... I’m going to say something that’s very ironic: I feel so much closer with my students, even though I am more isolated from them than I’ve ever been. And they went: Yes!”

“When you’re experiencing something challenging together,” he says, “that bond just feels like it’s been strengthened, not weakened, by the distance.”

Gian Luigi D'Alberto/LaPresse/AP

Examiners sit in an empty classroom as they listen to students defending their theses online, at the Politecnico University in Milan, Italy, March 5, 2020.

Getting low-income families online

Back in Bothell, Washington, Ms. Westberg’s Northshore School District, with more than 23,500 students, has been online since Monday. More than 500 teachers and staff there were at high risk, with some in self-quarantine, leaving inadequate manpower to safely run the schools, officials explained.

First, administrators had to ensure all families had access to digital tools. Fortunately, the area is home to many families who work in high-tech, and last week companies and parents offered up computers and hotspot devices for those without. As of Wednesday, more than 4,000 families made requests, and when demand outstripped supply, T-Mobile stepped in with equipment donations.

Online education provider Outschool has also offered teachers and staff free training on remote instruction tools. Up next, the company is looking into free online classes for select communities who can’t afford to pay.

Certainly, communities such as Northshore are in a better position to switch to online learning, according to UNICEF spokesperson Christopher Tidey. “If you’re in a country that doesn’t have that level of technological infrastructure, then remote learning through the internet is not possible [but] maybe the radio makes sense,” he says, noting that conflict zones have additional challenges.

Home learning strategies 

Meanwhile, in a parent webinar earlier this week, Northshore Superintendent Michelle Reid greeted families virtually. “It’s fabulous to have you online this morning,” Ms. Reid says cheerfully. “In every possible way, community is maintained as long as we maintain our connections.” 

District officials counseled parents on how to set up effective home learning environments. Pointers included refraining from parking kids in front of a screen all day. This is especially important, some educators say, for elementary kids used to more cooperative learning. Families should also set clear expectations and arrange family study sessions where siblings help each other. 

Officials are also helping manage day care for families whose parents work outside the home. Five locations have been allocated for community partners to provide child care, including online learning access, meals, and play time, with the Northshore School District’s foundation providing scholarships to families who can’t afford it.

Of course, that still leaves parents with the task of juggling multiple offspring with different assignments, in crowded quarters. “I can’t have [high school sophomore] Hank submitting clarinet assignments while [sixth grader] Lily is trying to Zoom with her class live,” says Anne Davidson, a sixth and seventh grade math teacher and mother of three Northshore students in high, middle, and elementary schools. 

Parents of young students face the biggest new demands from the switch to home learning. “These first two days have been critical for me to assist them,” says Stacey Van de Mark, of helping her first- and third-grade children navigate online platforms and pull up new assignments. All three work at the kitchen counter and table, while her 3-year-old son plays nearby. “They had no hands-on time with teachers to learn this, and I have never used it either,” she adds. “There is a learning curve for parents for sure.”

China Daily/Reuters

Trainers wearing face masks teach maternal and child nursing skills through a live-streaming session at a vocational school in Ganzhou, China, March 5, 2020.

Teachers are also adjusting, as they feel their way through families’ needs. At Southlands International School in Rome, first grade teacher Gemma Jordan has discovered that some working families must rely on babysitters, who can’t oversee kids’ online learning. Not overwhelming families is key, she says. “I’m trying to provide a mixture of hands-on learning and written work.”

College students also have a learning curve, with dozens of universities from Budapest to Ohio asking students to continue offsite and online. “It’s a little chaotic, but for the most part it’s been OK,” says Bridgette Robertson, a University of Washington biology student who will graduate at the end of this quarter. Most professors are using Zoom to broadcast lectures at normal class hours, online exams will be “open book and open notes,” and final presentations will be delivered by video conference or slide decks, Ms. Robertson explains.

Offline needs

Where schools provide important services to families in need, some U.S. districts are trying to put off closing as long as they can.

Across New York City, where nearly three-quarters of students are considered at or below poverty indicators, the department of education serves up about 900,000 meals a day. Officials are prepared to close the gap if schools shutter, serving “grab-and-go breakfast and lunch for any student who wants it,” writes press secretary Miranda Barbot.

Well aware of the potential hardship, Mayor Bill de Blasio said closures would be a “last resort,” even though a change.org petition to close schools has collected more than 220,000 signatures as of Friday morning.

Meanwhile, as more than 200 colleges and universities in the U.S. close or transition to online learning, many are grappling with the impact on students whose circumstances pose challenges.

“How does one go home if there’s no home to go to … or no money to buy plane tickets?” college academic adviser David Perry posed on a Twitter feed earlier in the week. It went viral. 

Amherst College, for one, announced students at its Massachusetts campus must be out by Monday, only to modify its approach to “expected to have left campus” by Wednesday. Some communities have started online petitions criticizing decision-makers for closing down so quickly without contingency plans. Meanwhile, some officials are trying to soften the blow, whether it’s offering up to $200 to Harvard students to ship or store items, or continuing to pay work-study wages, per U.S. Department of Education guidance.

Students and alumni are also stepping up to help each other. A “Mutual Aid” Facebook page connects students at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts, with volunteers who can help with financial aid, housing, or transportation. As of Friday midday, a student hardship fund page had raised nearly $42,000, and other colleges, including Wellesley, also in Massachusetts, had started student relief giving campaigns.

Keenly aware of the importance of keeping teacher morale high, Ms. Turner in Shanghai and fellow principals launched a real-world gift caravan for teachers on International Women’s Day on March 8, delivering to their homes items such as speakers, headphones, electric gadgets, and school-issued iPads. “The teachers are the community glue,” says Ms. Turner. “This is where you see robots don’t replace teachers.”

Rabbi Kroll in New York says similar shows of support rippled through his community. “We have a group of parents who went into the school, collected books, computers, iPads, religious items, prayer books, and have spent a couple of days driving around to hundreds of homes, dropping things off.”

Sarah Matusek/The Christian Science Monitor

Science, Language & Arts International School teacher Huan Ren records herself reading “The Three Little Pigs” in Mandarin in New York City, March 11, 2020. The private school is preparing virtual resources in case it closes over coronavirus concerns.

For others, a time to plan

Meanwhile, some U.S. schools are plotting contingency plans, while ultimately hoping that closures aren’t necessary.

That’s the case at the private Science, Language & Arts International School, a French and Mandarin immersion school in New York. “We have many families on financial aid who have very little means, who would not … be able to afford child care, or to not go to work. We also have an international community, many of whom are far away from their family support systems,” says Jennifer Wilkin, the school’s founding director.

Even so, the school’s faculty is preparing this week for the possibility of online learning.

In a sun-soaked Brooklyn classroom, Huan Ren reads aloud “The Three Little Pigs” in Mandarin. The pre-K teacher balloons her cheeks to mime the big bad wolf blowing down the straw house. She is reading before a smart phone, recording in an empty room.

It’s part of an effort to build a virtual library for families. The recordings by native-speaking staff would help students keep up with lessons and stay connected to teachers. “Even facing the camera, it still feels like … they are there listening to me,” says Ms. Ren.

“All we can do is plan,” says Ms. Wilkin. “If we don’t have to close, then we have a whole bunch of great video resources for our parents.”

Asia London Palomba and Stacy Teicher Khadaroo contributed to this report. 

Alexei Nikolsky/Sputnik/Kremlin/AP

Russian President Vladimir Putin, speaking during a session of the lower house of the Russian parliament in Moscow on March 10, 2020, says he supports a proposed constitutional amendment that would allow him to seek another term and remain in power.

When Vladimir Putin first announced sweeping constitutional reforms two months ago to rebalance relations between Russia’s presidency and its parliament, it looked like he was paving the way to leave the presidency in 2024. That almost certainly would include taking up another authoritative role, but one within a more collective leadership.

But that goal appears to have been overtaken by a more ambitious ideological project – and, perhaps, a touch of coronavirus panic.

As the huge package of amendments that will completely overhaul Russia’s constitution worked its way through parliament this week, authorities unveiled a last-minute change that will allow Mr. Putin to run again for president after what was supposed to have been his final term. Russian experts say that the sudden change in plan may not have been a power grab – since the presidency will still be weakened under the reforms – but rather Russian elites’ desire for a steady hand in increasingly uncertain times.

“Putin is seen as a rock of stability,” says Mikhail Chernysh, an expert with the official Institute of Sociology in Moscow. “If you look at sociological data, it is clear that few institutions enjoy much public trust. But Putin has become an institution in his own right. He has legitimacy and trust in the eyes of the public, who see him as the guarantor of social peace and stability. It seems likely that he has succumbed to demands from the elite that he create this option that he might stay beyond 2024.”

“Putting his imprint on the constitution”

It’s hard to overstate the significance of this constitutional remake, which has now been passed through both houses of parliament and been approved by all 85 regions of the country, and will now be voted on in a public referendum on April 22.

The 68-page constitutional reform package, including almost 400 amendments, will now aim to alter the ideological nature of the state by overlaying the liberal character of the 1993 constitution authored by Boris Yeltsin with the social conservatism that has marked the Putin era. That includes traditional family values, heterosexual marriage, faith in God, and a ban on questioning the defense of the “Fatherland,” such as the country’s role in World War II. It will also enshrine economic rights, such as indexation of pensions and a guaranteed minimum income pegged to the official subsistence level.

Aside from some minor tweaks, Mr. Putin has avoided major constitutional changes for almost two decades. But for Russia, which has had five different constitutions in a little more than a century, this massive new project represents a reversion to the unfortunate tradition in which each new leader redefines the nature of the state through the prism of his own beliefs and goals – which is pretty much the reverse of how a constitution functions in most Western countries.

“This is Putin putting his personal imprint on the constitution” much as Nicholas II, Lenin, Stalin, Brezhnev, and Yeltsin did in the past, says Yevgeny Gontmakher, an economic sociologist and member of the liberal Committee of Civil Initiatives. “Of course this devalues the whole idea of a constitution. It becomes just a piece of paper, subject to change whenever power shifts.”

Dmitri Lovetsky/AP

Street art sculptor Alexander Pravdin stands near his work, a 3-ton stone with a crown named "The Monument to Russian President Vladimir Putin," in Siversky settlement, 37 miles south of St. Petersburg, Russia, on March 11, 2020.

Analysts say the last-moment amendment that would reset the constitutional clock and allow Mr. Putin to run again in 2024, potentially remaining president until 2036, was probably not part of the original plan and might have been brought on by the coronavirus panic – which is just starting to hit Russia – crashing oil prices and adding to the general sense of impending chaos.

“This new amendment is actually in contradiction to the main thrust of the reform package,” says Sergei Markov, a former Kremlin adviser. “Putin wanted to create a transitional system, to reduce the country’s traditional dependence on a single strong leader while himself remaining in an influential post. Why would he want to return to the presidency with diminished powers?”

But for Russia’s ruling political class, which cannot claim to have been elected in free and fair democratic polls, legitimacy is a perpetual sore point. Analysts say that the first months of 2020 have been scary, and threaten greater turmoil in the near future.

“In fact, Putin would probably like to leave, if he could find a way to go and enjoy his old age,” Mr. Chernysh says. “But he is a hostage to the elites. He is the only institution that can provide cohesion, and ensure that open conflict won’t break out if he goes. It is by no means certain that he will run again, but he apparently needs to provide this symbolic reassurance at this very tumultuous time.”

Winning over the public?

Many Russian experts think the ideological additions to the constitution are little more than an effort to bring out the vote on April 22, since many ordinary Russians are indifferent to changes in the power structure but might be attracted by slogans that espouse traditional values and promises of economic security.

“I don’t take seriously the amendments about traditional marriage, faith, or history,” says Viktor Sheinis, one of the authors of Russia’s 1993 constitution. “They are just included because there are groups of the population who are attracted by these ideas.”

But Mr. Markov, the former Putin adviser, says these amendments were added during the process of public consultations over the past two months, and that the authorities felt they had to be included.

“Traditional values like God, nation, and family run very deep in the Russian popular consciousness,” he says. “These are dangerous times for Russia, especially the conflict with the West. People want to define who we are, what we stand for, and so we have to have these ideological amendments.”

Opinion polls suggest that younger Russians are more modern-minded and tolerant than their elders, so cementing a ban on same-sex marriage in the constitution, and other traditional values, could conceivably present an impediment to social evolution in the future, some experts say.

“Perhaps we are not at the same stage as Western societies, but young Russians are different, more worldly than older ones,” says Mr. Chernysh. “However, since constitutions don’t play the same role in shaping people’s lives in Russia as they do in, say, the U.S., it’s probably not the obstacle to progress that it might appear to be. I am sure that if social mores change, we’ll find a way to change the laws too.”

Victor sits in a dimly lit hallway beside the small patio of the Casa del Migrante shelter, fidgeting with a plastic bag full of personal documents. It’s about 7:30 p.m. and he’s still trying to process the past 12 hours of his life.

Just this morning, he, his wife, and their two small boys were in the United States, hoping against hope to receive asylum from violence in their native Honduras. By the afternoon, they’d been loaded onto a plane filled with Guatemalan deportees and taken to Guatemala City, where U.S. officials said his family could request protection.

More than six months ago, he and his family fled Honduras where they faced extortion and violence. Now thousands of miles south of where he’d envisioned ending his journey in the U.S., Victor’s family has been given 72 hours to decide whether to apply for asylum here in Guatemala, or return home.

“It felt like a trick,” he says of his interview with U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents after crossing illegally from Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, into El Paso, Texas. Victor’s last name has been omitted for safety, as it has for all migrants quoted in this article. “They asked if I was afraid to return to Honduras, but they wouldn’t let me tell them why. They asked if I would feel safe in Guatemala and I said no.” He had left Honduras after weekly payments demanded by local gangs started to exceed his income as a construction worker. A shakedown at gunpoint was his family’s final straw.

He says he needs to recover from the shock before he decides his next steps. A few things are certain: He won’t go home and he won’t stay here.

“That’s the thing,” Victor says, his voice falling to a whisper. “If Guatemala was safe, why was my plane full of Guatemalans wanting out in the first place?”

More of the migrants and refugees apprehended at the U.S. southern border come from Guatemala than from almost any other country: Some 18,000 Guatemalans have applied for asylum in the U.S. over the past two years alone.

Fabricio Alonso/Reuters

Honduran migrants, who were sent to Guatemala from the United States under an Asylum Cooperative Agreement, sit at a table after arriving at Casa del Migrante shelter in Guatemala City, March 5, 2020. The ACA has sent about 800 Hondurans and Salvadorans to Guatemala.

Under a “safe third country” agreement signed by the U.S. and Guatemala last year, some Central Americans who travel to the U.S. to ask for asylum are now put on planes and required to apply in Guatemala first. It raises the question of whether Guatemala can meet the need, particularly as the number of potential asylum-seekers ramps up quickly in a country facing its own challenges with poverty and violence.

The Asylum Cooperative Agreement (ACA) has sent nearly 800 Hondurans and Salvadorans to Guatemala to date. It’s one of the many ways the Trump administration has transformed migration across the Americas, as the U.S. looks to shrink the tally of people entering at its southern border. The U.S. has put pressure on its southern neighbors to halt migration through threats of tariffs in Mexico; cutting development aid in Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras; and pressing leaders to sign safe third country agreements. El Salvador and Honduras are reportedly close to enacting similar plans with the U.S.

Guatemala’s asylum system is relatively young, and the process is cumbersome: The vice president and a handful of government ministers together make the final decision on each claim. Out of the hundreds of refugees sent to Guatemala from the U.S. via ACA, only 14 applied for asylum as of mid-February, according to Guatemala’s migration agency. It’s a reflection of how they view the proposition of seeking protection here, advocates say. 

Sudden surge

When Guatemala launched its asylum system nearly two decades ago, it was without much fanfare. For the first decade, the annual number of people seeking refuge in Guatemala barely reached double digits – and the number of cases accepted hovered around two to three, sometimes zero. By 2014, when a surge in unaccompanied minors leaving the region for the U.S. made its way across the region, those numbers shot up: One hundred people applied for protection in Guatemala, with 17 cases approved. In 2016, nearly 150 people applied and a record 74 cases were approved. In total, just shy of 315 people received asylum here between 2002 and November 2019, according to government statistics. Nearly 600 are still awaiting responses to their cases.

But those numbers are nominal compared with neighboring Mexico, where upward of 60,000 people sought refugee status in 2019. The U.S., meanwhile, had nearly 93,000 people on the southwest border express fear of returning home in fiscal year 2018. And while a handful of refugees – from Belize, China, and Venezuela ­– have found protection in Guatemala since 2002, more than 264,000 Guatemalans were apprehended at the U.S. southern border last year alone.

Guatemala isn’t an appropriate place to send asylum-seekers, says Rick Jones, a senior adviser in Latin America for Catholic Relief Services. “They have trouble protecting their own people at risk, let alone people from third countries,” he says. Under Guatemala’s last administration, state funding was cut for the few shelters, like Casa del Migrante, that serve asylum-seekers, migrants, and deportees. 

“Few are seeking asylum here,” says the Rev. Mauro Verzeletti, director of Casa del Migrante, which houses about 50 people daily and receives ACA arrivals. “It’s a game of cat and mouse. Hondurans and Salvadorans know the situation in Guatemala. Many are returning to Mexico or trying again in the U.S. There’s nothing for them here. There’s nothing for them in their own countries. If your life was at risk, what would you do?”

“The state doesn’t have the capacity to address these situations.”

The United Nations has provided support to the Guatemalan government since its asylum program’s inception, and that involvement has increased since the number of people seeking international protection shot up around 2017. It’s now focused on helping Guatemalan authorities modernize, expand, and streamline the system.

“It’s not as strange as one might think,” to offer asylum in a country where there are large numbers of people leaving to seek protection elsewhere, says Rebecca Cenalmor-Rejas, the head of The U.N. Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in Guatemala. Ms. Cenalmor-Rejas cites examples like Colombia, which has one of the world’s highest numbers of people displaced within their own country, but has also taken in hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans since 2014.

“Guatemala has a nascent asylum system with some limitations, and many opportunities for improvement,” she says.

The Trump administration says ACA helps drive down the number of migrants asking for asylum in the U.S. and that Guatemala is a safe place for migrants to seek protection.

Guatemala’s central migration office is a tall, Brutalist-style building, with a steady stream of visitors walking through a metal detector at the front door. In a shared office beyond the posters warning about child trafficking, as well as the residual Christmas decor still hanging from the ceiling, a spokeswoman for Guatemala’s migration agency, Alejandra Mena, prints off pages of asylum statistics.

“There’s no limit on how many requests for asylum we’ll take,” Ms. Mena says. “But the U.S. has respected the number of people we can manage right now.” Some 789 people have arrived in Guatemala via ACA as of March 3, and she says they are given the option to apply for asylum or return to their home country.

“A recognized refugee has all the rights – and obligations – of a Guatemalan citizen,” Ms. Mena says, including access to hospitals, education, public services, and employment.

Search for stability

That guarantee has proved complicated for people like 19-year-old Jonathan, a refugee who arrived from Honduras almost two years ago. He sits on the sunny second floor of the Raíces de Amor shelter for migrant and refugee minors on a recent morning, recounting how Guatemala was never part of his plan.

He came from a life of crime and drug use in coastal Honduras, he says. After fleeing violence at home – some of which he participated in – he fell in with some “bad characters” on the Mexico-Guatemala border, he says, who convinced him to help rob migrants heading toward the U.S. They promised to help feed his drug addiction.

“When you’re young, you don’t think things through,” he says of his 17-year-old self. “I got into trouble; I suffered. I wasn’t a great person.”

Since arriving at the shelter, he’s studied and had access to a social worker and medical attention. He says he’s a new person and now dreams of going to college to study psychology.

Refugee status granted, he moved out of the shelter last July, with high hopes of finding work and saving up for school. But he’s hit a dead end. Although being a refugee entitles him to all the rights of a Guatemalan national, he can’t get formal work, buy a phone, or open a bank account because he doesn’t have a national identification card. That would require a mountain of paperwork and fees that he estimates would cost him roughly $200.

“If it weren’t for this shelter, I’d be dead in the street by now,” he says, before going downstairs for lunch.

He’s tried picking up odd jobs at bodegas and other shops in his neighborhood, presenting his résumé and paperwork recognizing he’s in Guatemala legally. But “they ask where I’m from and the conversation stops. ‘Oh, I can’t hire a Honduran.’ It’s so upsetting,” he says. “There’s something inside me I want to give the world, and I kept being told no.”

Overall, the teens here are grateful for the protection that Guatemala – and this shelter – has provided them. But their stories underscore the shortcomings of Guatemala’s social welfare system and the asylum system in its current state.

Another young woman here, Blanca, fled gang threats in Honduras two years ago with no destination in mind. After arriving in Guatemala, the pregnant teen was nearly taken by human traffickers. When she went to the police she was placed in a “safe home” for troubled children – institutions known for widespread abuse and worse – for more than a year. She was almost deported back to Honduras without hearing about the possibility of asylum. A sympathetic judge, who said he wouldn’t deport her because of her Guatemalan-born son, sent her case to El Refugio de la Niñez, which launched a program for minors seeking refuge in 2016. It helped her prepare paperwork for asylum, provided therapy, and encouraged her to start thinking about a future again. Through the organization, which receives funding from the UNHCR, she’s been able to study and take job-training courses.

“I have more opportunity here in Guatemala,” she says, acknowledging that few people in Honduras dream of seeking opportunity in the country next door.

There are about 10 youth with similar stories at the Raíces de Amor shelter right now. Staff members say many Guatemalans question how they – or the government – can be giving resources to youth from other troubled nations when so many children here are already at risk. There are an estimated 5,600 minors institutionalized in state and privately run homes here, in a country of 17 million.

“We can work with this number of asylum-seekers and maybe a little more,” says Karen Revolorio, spokeswoman for El Refugio de la Niñez, which runs a network of shelters, including this one. But that’s because of outside support like the UNHCR, she says. If a higher proportion of people arriving via ACA start seeking asylum in Guatemala, she’s “not sure [they’ll] see the same results as these teens.”

Back at Casa del Migrante, it’s almost time for lights out. Toddlers and small children are herded upstairs one by one to brush their teeth and snuggle into their dorms with their shellshocked mothers and fathers.

People arriving through ACA are “paranoid, distressed; they don’t know if it’s day or night. They’ve all been in detention and they arrive here without information,” says Mr. Verzeletti, the priest. “It’s a form of torture.”

And despite efforts by the U.S. to deter migrants via “the wall, ‘Remain in Mexico,’ and ACA, this flow of migration won’t stop,” he says.

It’s something that, despite the suffering, actually gives him hope.

“Migration is hope. People, just by moving, that’s a sign that they have hope” for their futures, somewhere, Mr. Verzeletti says.

As Tim Pitcher looks out across Port Royal Sound to where it meets the Atlantic, he has a pioneering vision for one of the last redoubts of wilderness along the U.S. Atlantic coast. 

One of the last undeveloped private spits on a harsh but beautiful coast, Bay Point Island, has long been on the radar of mansion builders. 

Instead, Mr. Pitcher, a developer and self-described environmentalist, is partnering with a Thailand-based resort management company to create a first for the United States: an ecotourism resort that showcases both the region’s natural treasures and the African American culture of the Gullah people. 

To Mr. Pitcher, at least, the proposed Six Senses resort seems a slam-dunk, offering travelers a comfortable adventure, all with an eye toward proper stewardship. But his plans have run into resistance from environmentalists and the Gullah community. 

The concern is that developers “are going to destroy what they came here to see,” says Ed Atkins, a Gullah oysterman. 

The rift over Bay Point Island, highlights a fundamental clash of perspectives, one that divides American wilderness lovers from Appalachia to the Rockies, the Great Lakes to the Rio Grande. It underscores tensions between a desire to embrace wilderness in its natural state and an equally strong drive to manage, market, and develop nature.

“There are two philosophies of environmentalism,” says Mr. Pitcher. “One is that no human shall touch it and therefore we preserve it. The other is that humans are part of the equation.” 

He favors the second view: To truly preserve the wilderness, people have to learn “how to interact with nature in a positive and mindful way.” In that sense, Bay Point could prove to be something of a laboratory – and a profitable one for him as a co-owner of a remote island. 

“Sacrificial in nature” 

Bay Point Island is a geologic infant, its shell-specked sands willed into place between 4,000 and 5,000 years ago by storms and currents. 

Today, bottlenose dolphins drive mullets up on its creek banks. Over 100 sea turtle nests dot its dunes from late spring to early fall. Endangered birds like the piping plover and wood stork peck the soft mud for worms and crabs.

As a barrier island, it is also “sacrificial in nature,” says Rikki Parker of the South Carolina Coastal Conservation League – a fortress against nature’s growing wrath in the form of higher tides and punishing storms. 

Patrik Jonsson/The Christian Science Monitor

American white pelicans, one of the world's heaviest flying birds, overlook brown pelicans atop an oyster rake on Jan. 5, 2020, near Bay Point Island, South Carolina, where a Thai hotel operator plans to add an ecotourism resort.

So when Mr. Pitcher and his partners pitched their project to county planners, they stressed its ecotourism design. In December, zoning officials in Beaufort County rejected that designation, noting the construction that the resort would require. The developers are appealing the ruling.

Since the Coastal Zone Management Act of 1972, the United States has attempted to control development along the coasts that serve as the continent’s first line of defense. But attempts to limit private use took a blow from the U.S. Supreme Court in 1992, when the high court ruled that a law prohibiting landowners from building on their property amounts to taking their land.

Even before the 1972 federal Act, neighboring Georgia has led the way in coastal protections, limiting development and retaining nearly 100 miles of barrier islands in their natural state. In South Carolina, however, developers continue to build along the coastline to meet demand that so far seems impervious to rising tides and flooding. As a result, attempts to safeguard its privately held islands from development have largely failed. 

Still, there is also a nascent conservation movement afoot in Beaufort County. The state recently purchased TV magnate Ted Turner’s retreat on St. Phillips Island, where local firms “leave only footprints” excursions via kayak. Mr. Pitcher says he aims to incorporate similar ideals into his resort on Bay Point Island – at a higher price point.

A luxury experience

For $1,000 a night, well-heeled tourists from all over the globe would arrive by boat at a dock deep in a spartina salt marsh.

Amid a large stand of pines, they would walk into a village and find 50 luxury huts on pilings. A special septic system would protect the marshes from waste. Guests would dine on local cuisine, and a percentage of profits would go to local community groups.

The plan carves out bird and turtle protection zones. Already, Mr. Pitcher hires people to care for the 347-acre island, which includes picking up natural scraps gathered from the tides as well as trash left by local day-trippers. 

In his view, the greatest threat to the island is lack of management.

Patrik Jonsson/The Christian Science Monitor

Oyster broker Ed Atkins says his people, the Gullah/Geechee, an African American community living along the southeastern coastline, are wary of plans to build a high-end ecotourism resort on Bay Point Island, South Carolina, that could encroach on fishing, crabbing, and oystering grounds.

That idea doesn’t sit well with Queen Quet, the titular head of the Gullah/Geechee Nation who strongly opposes the plan. In her view, the idea that a global resort firm – Six Senses, the Thai company, is a subsidiary of U.K.-based Intercontinental Hotels Group – could manage coastal nature better than locals is “deeply offensive,” she has said. 

The Gullah people are descendants of enslaved Africans who retain a unique brogue that echoes from the 17th century. Today they live along the coastal islands and low country in four southeastern states. In North and South Carolina they go by Gullah; the preferred name in Georgia and Florida is Geechee. 

“Gullah/Geechee people use the land and the sea in order to subsist, often on the margins of state service,” says Paige West, an anthropologist at Columbia University who studies the relationships between societies and their environments. “This place has been made and remade over time by marginalized people.”

South Carolina’s coast is littered with failed property developments. Down the coast, on Daufuskie Island, Gullah residents watched as two massive golf resorts financed by global investors went bankrupt a decade ago.  

The edge of a continent

As Michael Mogil guides his boat through a crabby chop, he points out roosts of white pelicans on an oyster rake. Over there, he indicates, is Parris Island, a Marine training ground where rapid gunfire can be heard above the swaying palms. 

At Bay Point, a “no trespassing” sign is fixed above the tide line. There is a single cabin on the island, leaning precariously on eroded soil. One side faces the salt marshes, the other the ocean. Remote and windblown, it feels like standing on the edge of a continent.

“The federal definition of wilderness is ‘unreachable by road,’” says Mr. Mogil, a real estate lawyer and conservationist, as he steps onto Bay Point. “How can we teach environmental values without wilderness?”

That question is being hashed out by county officials. The battle partly turns on definitions: Is the Bay Point project an ecotourism camp with resort amenities? Or is it a luxury resort with an ecotourism component? 

“We are contending that this isn’t actually ecotourism, because the true purpose is a resort with some ecotourism-type services – a spa,” says Jessie White, a staff attorney at the South Carolina Environmental Law Project, in Beaufort. Her organization opposes the project, arguing that it would be a better fit for Daufuskie Island. 

In December, Beaufort County rejected the resort proposal. Mr. Pitcher calls that ruling a “misunderstanding,” since local ordinances are both keen to promote ecotourism and allow resorts. Elected county officials are scheduled to take a first pass at the plan this spring. 

“As far as ecotourism goes, there are lots of good people out there doing good work in the world in ways that do bring economic stability to rural places,” says Professor West. “But there are an awful lot of people using the term ecotourism as a cover for mass scale tourism that is marketed to the wealthiest people in the world.”

Reuters

Pupils sit in desks with yellow dividers, set up as a measure against the coronavirus disease, at Dajia Elementary school in Taipei, Taiwan March 13.

As more people cope with the coronavirus outbreak, they also have had to master some new terms. Social distancing. Self-isolate. Elbow bumps. Quarantines are now called lockdowns or containment zones.

And this is the point. The pandemic is not going to leave us where it found us. Humanity is on a learning curve, not only on how best to survive but, with higher levels of understanding, to prevent another pandemic.

For all the fear and suffering over COVID-19, says Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization, “We will all learn lessons from this outbreak.”

Just last September, a special panel of the World Bank set up to track preparedness for pandemics bemoaned a general reluctance to retain lessons after each outbreak. “We ramp up efforts when there is a serious threat, then quickly forget about them when the threat subsides,” the panel found.

Yet in this latest pandemic, such a charge may not be the case. The tactics of several Asian countries in containing the virus are providing object lessons for the rest of the world. Reports of their “best practices” appear to be traveling quicker than the virus.

China, for example, made mistakes in the early weeks of the outbreak in December and January. Its leaders relied on secrecy and lies. Then in a lesson about flexibility and humility, they admitted mistakes and discovered that truth about the virus can be an asset to win public support.

In Singapore, the government used clear messaging and aggressive tracking of infected people. In Hong Kong, officials relied heavily on school closings and other reductions of large gatherings. South Korea is now famous for opening drive-through centers where people could be tested quickly for the virus.

For its efforts, Taiwan has earned the most praise. An article in the Journal of the American Medical Association cites the island nation as “an example of how a society can respond quickly to a crisis and protect the interests of its citizens.”

“Through early recognition of the crisis, daily briefings to the public, and simple health messaging, the government was able to reassure the public by delivering timely, accurate, and transparent information regarding the evolving epidemic,” the article concluded.

Not all attempts to contain the virus are suitable for every country. Nations have different ideas, for example, on striking a balance between civil liberties and draconian crackdowns. Yet a common thread is that leaders must get public buy-in. They must be alert to emerging threats, honest about information, calm in their messaging, and adequate in providing resources. These qualities of leadership not only defeat pandemics but also quiet the fear that often drives them. The world, says Dr. Tedros of WHO, must “heed the lessons these outbreaks are teaching us.”