Based on the state’s claims data and other factors, the jobless rate in Massachusetts is probably about 11 to 11.5 percent, said Alan Clayton-Matthews, an economics professor at Northeastern University. It was 2.8 percent in February.

The Gannett-owned Medford Transcript, for example, no longer has a dedicated staffer, said Dan Kennedy, a Northeastern University journalism professor who lives in that city.

Tom Barnes of Northeastern University’s Master of Science in Respiratory Care Leadership Program tells NPR’s Steve Inskeep that operating a ventilator takes skill and a lot of training.

Wendy Parmet, a Northeastern University health policy expert, said the testing problems made tracking the virus challenging: “You need testing to make sure you quickly identify new outbreaks and trace contacts. Put out the small sparks before they become another conflagration.” 

Sam Scarpino, a professor of network science who heads up Northeastern University’s Emergent Epidemics Lab, models coronavirus outbreaks around the world to better inform the game plan for Massachusetts. 

“Part of the reason we found it in Seattle is also an element of bad luck, in the sense that it seemingly quickly jumped into a nursing home, and there were fatalities, so we caught it,” said Samuel Scarpino, an assistant professor at Northeastern University’s Network Science Institute. 

Since that spike, the number of new cases has leveled off, but so has the number of tests, noted Northeastern University assistant professor Samuel Scarpino.