The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) has a great article about how the current pandemic has caused well over 100 Ph.D. programs to pause admissions. The silver lining here is that universities are redirecting the money that would have funded the newest batch of doctoral students towards the current batch which has seen their timelines extended as travel to museums, archaeological sites, etc has been severely curtailed.
As horrible as this pandemic has been, it does appear to have department chairs looking for ways to restructure their Ph.D. programs to shorten the timelines and help ensure the students are equipped for positions outside academia as well as the traditional faculty positions.
