2020-05-04 Open or closed?

Washington, D.C., has become one of the new hot spots for the coronavirus.

It has the highest recent growth in cases among the nation’s 10 largest metro areas. The city’s mayor has ordered nonessential businesses closed. And the House of Representatives has delayed its return to Washington, citing the advice of the top physician for Congress.

But the Senate will nonetheless reconvene today.

Its return — directed by Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican leader — highlights a larger partisan divide that’s re-emerging across the country.

As the weather warms and people returned to public parks over the weekend, many Democratic leaders (and a few Republican governors) are counseling patience. Public health experts largely agree, because the number of new cases nationwide remains near its peak.

Many Republican leaders, however, are starting to take a different approach. You can see the pattern in this color-coded map by The Times, showing that more conservative regions, like the Southeast, are moving toward reopening faster than the more liberal ones, like the Northeast.