First Edition: May 11, 2020

Kaiser Health News and Politifact HealthCheck: COVID Survivors’ Blood Plasma Is A Sought-After New Commodity
Diana Berrent learned she had tested positive for COVID-19 on a Wednesday in mid-March. Within a day, she had received 30 emails from people urging her to donate blood. Friends and acquaintances, aware of her diagnosis, passed along a pressing request from New York’s Mount Sinai Health System, one of the first centers to seek plasma, a blood component, to be used in a therapy that might fight the deadly disease. Berrent, 45, said she immediately recognized the need for the precious plasma — and the demand that would follow. (Aleccia, 5/11)

Kaiser Health News: Keeping The COVID Plague At Bay: How California Is Protecting Older Veterans
Dr. Vito Imbasciani has been at war with viruses since he was 5. Growing up near the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in New York, he contracted polio in 1952 and couldn’t walk for two months. In medical school in Vermont 30 years later, he witnessed AIDS steal the lives of otherwise healthy gay men. Now, Imbasciani, secretary of California’s Department of Veterans Affairs, and his staff are responsible for keeping the novel coronavirus away from the state’s eight veterans homes. California’s defenses are holding. (Morain, 5/11)

Kaiser Health News: COVID Bailout Cash Goes To Big Players That Have Paid Millions To Settle Allegations Of Wrongdoing
The Trump administration has sent hundreds of millions of dollars in pandemic-related bailouts to health care providers with checkered histories, including a Florida-based cancer center that agreed to pay a $100 million criminal penalty as part of a federal antitrust investigation. At least half of the top 10 recipients, part of a group that received $20 billion in emergency funding from the Department of Health and Human Services, have paid millions in recent years either in criminal penalties or to settle allegations related to improper billing and other practices, a Kaiser Health News review of government records shows. (Pradhan and Schulte, 5/9)

Kaiser Health News: Southwest CEO’s Boast About Airplanes’ Low COVID Risk Flies By Key Concerns
During a May 3 appearance on “Face the Nation,” Southwest CEO Gary Kelly said that he believed it was safe for Americans to fly during the coronavirus epidemic and that a plane is as safe as any other space. “I don’t think the risk on an airplane is any greater risk than anywhere else, and in fact, you just look at the layered approach that we use. It’s as safe as an environment as you’re going to find,” said Kelly. (Knight, 5/11)

Kaiser Health News: Analysis: We Knew The Coronavirus Was Coming, Yet We Failed 5 Critical Tests
The arrival of COVID-19 has provided a nuclear-level stress test to the American health care system, and our grade isn’t pretty: at least 73,000 dead, 1.2 million infected and 30 million unemployed; nursing homes, prisons and meatpacking plants that have become hotbeds of infection. The actual numbers are certainly far higher, since there still hasn’t been enough testing to identify all those who have died or have been infected. By all accounts, a number of other countries have responded — and fared — far better. (Rosenthal, 5/11)

Kaiser Health News: ‘An Arm And A Leg’: Health Care Takes A Financial Hit In The Midst Of Pandemic
You’ve probably noticed that the U.S. economy is crashing. What you might not expect is that almost half of the economic devastation comes from just one sector — health care. That’s according to a first-quarter 2020 estimate of U.S. gross domestic product from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, which pundits later shared on social media. (Weissmann, 5/11)

The Wall Street Journal: U.S. Coronavirus Deaths Near 80,000 As Mysterious New Symptoms Appear
With the U.S. death toll from the coronavirus pandemic approaching 80,000 and states trying to reopen, scientists and physicians continued to grapple with mysteries of how the pathogen attacks the human body, and how to fight back. In the U.S., total deaths reached 79,528, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. World-wide, nearly 283,000 people have perished in the pandemic. These numbers may undercount the true death toll, researchers say. (Lyons, 5/11)

The Washington Post: As Deaths Mount, Trump Tries To Convince Americans It’s Safe To Inch Back To Normal
In a week when the novel coronavirus ravaged new communities across the country and the number of dead soared past 78,000, President Trump and his advisers shifted from hour-by-hour crisis management to what they characterize as a long-term strategy aimed at reviving the decimated economy and preparing for additional outbreaks this fall. But in doing so, the administration is effectively bowing to — and asking Americans to accept — a devastating proposition: that a steady, daily accumulation of lonely deaths is the grim cost of reopening the nation. (Dawsey, Parker, Rucker and Abutaleb, 5/9)

The New York Times: ‘Scary To Go To Work’: White House Races To Contain Virus In Its Ranks 
The Trump administration is racing to contain an outbreak of the coronavirus inside the White House, as some senior officials believe that the disease is already spreading rapidly through the warren of cramped offices that make up the three floors of the West Wing. Three top officials leading the government’s coronavirus response have begun two weeks of self-quarantine after two members of the White House staff — one of President Trump’s personal valets and Katie Miller, the spokeswoman for Vice President Mike Pence — tested positive. But others who came into contact with Ms. Miller and the valet are continuing to report to work at the White House. (Shear and Haberman, 5/10)

The Washington Post: Trump's White House Rattled After Positive Coronavirus Tests And Officials Send Mixed Message On How To Respond
The White House on Saturday scrambled to deal with the fallout from two aides testing positive for the coronavirus, as officials who were potentially exposed responded differently, with some senior members of the pandemic task force self-quarantining while others planned to continue to go to work. Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Stephen Hahn and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield, both task force members, said they are self-quarantining or teleworking for two weeks after exposure to a coronavirus case at the White House. (Kim, Dawsey and Goldstein, 5/9)

The Associated Press: Pence Spends Weekend At Home After Exposure To Infected Aide
Vice President Mike Pence was self-isolating Sunday after an aide tested positive for the coronavirus last week, but he planned to return to the White House on Monday. An administration official said Pence was voluntarily keeping his distance from other people in line with guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He has repeatedly tested negative for COVID-19 since his exposure but was following the advice of medical officials. (Freking and Miller, 5/11)

Reuters: Pence Not In Quarantine, To Be At White House Monday, After Aide Tests Positive For Coronavirus
“Vice President Pence will continue to follow the advice of the White House Medical Unit and is not in quarantine,” spokesman Devin O’Malley said in a statement. “Additionally, Vice President Pence has tested negative every single day and plans to be at the White House tomorrow,” the statement added. The Trump administration has no plans to keep President Donald Trump and Pence apart, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters on Sunday, as concerns rise about the spread of the coronavirus within the White House. (Hesson, 5/10)

The Associated Press: New Week Brings New Challenges For White House
The Trump administration’s leading health experts on safely dealing with the novel coronavirus will be testifying in a Senate hearing by a videoconference this week after three of them and the committee’s chairman were exposed to people who tested positive for COVID-19. Adding to a string of potentially awkward moments for President Donald Trump, Vice President Mike Pence himself self-isolated for the weekend after a staff member tested positive for COVID-19. Pence leads Trump’s coronavirus task force. (Freking, 5/11)

Stat: 14 Questions For Fauci, Redfield, And The Other Trump Officials On Covid-19 
The Trump administration figures who’ve led the federal government’s coronavirus response have escaped the wrath — and even the questions — of Congress. Until now. On Tuesday, Anthony Fauci, Robert Redfield, Stephen Hahn, and Brett Giroir are set to testify before the Senate’s main health committee. They’ll come face to face (or Zoom-to-face) with lawmakers who’ve been outspoken in their criticisms of the Trump administration’s coronavirus response, including Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), and Patty Murray (D-Wash.) (5/11)

The Washington Post: Sen. Lamar Alexander Will Self-Quarantine, Chair Hearing With Anthony Fauci, CDC And FDA Heads Remotely
Sen. Lamar Alexander will self-quarantine “out of an abundance of caution” after one of his staff members tested positive for the coronavirus. The Tennessee Republican will chair a Senate health committee hearing Tuesday by video, a spokesman said Sunday. Alexander tested negative Thursday and does not have symptoms, his chief of staff said in a statement. All four top health officials scheduled as witnesses plan to make remote appearances as well after potential virus exposure in the White House. (5/10)

The New York Times: U.S. To Accuse China Of Trying To Hack Vaccine Data, As Virus Redirects Cyberattacks
The F.B.I. and the Department of Homeland Security are preparing to issue a warning that China’s most skilled hackers and spies are working to steal American research in the crash effort to develop vaccines and treatments for the coronavirus. The efforts are part of a surge in cybertheft and attacks by nations seeking advantage in the pandemic. The warning comes as Israeli officials accuse Iran of mounting an effort in late April to cripple water supplies as Israelis were confined to their houses, though the government has offered no evidence to back its claim. (Sanger and Perlroth, 5/10)

The Wall Street Journal: U.S. To Accuse China Of Attempts To Hack Coronavirus Research 
The alert, from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Department of Homeland Security, is expected to accuse Beijing of working to steal from American institutions intellectual property and health information related to coronavirus vaccines and treatment through hacking and other illicit means and may come within days, the person said. The warning was not finalized and plans around its release could change, the person said. Such a warning would increase tensions between the U.S. and China that have already deteriorated at a rapid clip in recent months as the coronavirus has unfurled across the globe. (Volz, 5/11)

The Associated Press: AP FACT CHECK: Trump's Perfect China 'Ban,' Death Toll Myths
Truth often takes a beating when President Donald Trump talks about his administration’s response to the coronavirus and the subsequent death toll in the U.S. This past week was no exception. Over the weekend, the president claimed strong marks for himself for the handling of the pandemic after imposing a “very early ban of people from China.” It actually wasn’t a total ban and had plenty of gaps in containment. One of the government’s top health officials has described the China restrictions as too little, too late. (Yen and Woodward, 5/11)

The Associated Press: Strangeness Of The Day: For Americans, An In-Between Moment
In coming years, when they write the narrative histories of the 2020 pandemic — those paperweight-level volumes that reconstruct these strange days in painstaking and vivid detail — the past week in American life will be a particularly curious moment to unpack. It was unlike what came before, and almost certainly unlike what is still ahead. On social media and in real life, Americans fought fervent pitched battles about getting back to their lives — when, where and under what conditions. Mostly, these battles were verbal. Sometimes, they got physical. (Anthony, 5/11)

The New York Times: How Pandemics End
When will the Covid-19 pandemic end? And how?According to historians, pandemics typically have two types of endings: the medical, which occurs when the incidence and death rates plummet, and the social, when the epidemic of fear about the disease wanes. “When people ask, ‘When will this end?,’ they are asking about the social ending,” said Dr. Jeremy Greene, a historian of medicine at Johns Hopkins. (Kolata, 5/10)

The New York Times: When Will New York City Reopen? The Path Will Be Difficult
Nearly 190,000 people were tested for the coronavirus in New York City over the past two weeks, a record number. The increase in testing, crucial for curbing the outbreak, came as Mayor Bill de Blasio announced plans to hire a small army of 1,000 disease detectives to track down the contacts of every infected New Yorker. The city is also paying for hotels to house people who cannot quarantine in their cramped apartments, and it may use the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Queens for the same purpose. (Goodman and Rothfeld, 5/10)

The New York Times: For Those Who Must Enforce Coronavirus Lockdowns In California, The Decisions Are Wrenching
How do you enforce a law that tramples the Land of the Free? This is the vexing question confronting Angela Alvarado again and again at her kitchen table, the improvised command post where she fields complaints about businesses and residents violating Santa Clara County’s strict lockdown order. Ms. Alvarado, a veteran prosecutor in the district attorney’s office, monitors two computers and a cellphone, and each time an email alert chimes, in sails another complaint. (Rusch and Smith, 5/11)

The New York Times: Colorado Hair Salons Are Reopening, With New Rules
Last Tuesday, during the first few days that this state loosened restrictions on businesses that were temporarily closed because of the novel coronavirus, Blush Beauty Bar reopened for appointments. It was the first time that customers had been allowed inside the hair salon in 48 days, and the stylists were booked solid. (Hawryluk, 5/11)

CNN: Once The Coronavirus 'Epicenter,' This American City Reversed Course
"Chaos" was how Dr. Kevin Hanson described his emergency department at EvergreenHealth hospital in suburban Seattle. Nearly 20 coronavirus patients were coming in every day. Staff members were running out of personal protective equipment. Even one of the doctors became severely ill with the virus. "It's very sobering," Hanson said. "It gave us all a lot of pause, saying 'are we doing the right thing?'"  But that was a month ago. Now, Hanson strolls past room after room with empty beds. The lights are off. The waiting room is nearly empty. (Kravarik and Sidner, 5/8)

The New York Times: In Chicago And Los Angeles, Virus Spread Is Slower, But Persistent
As cases of the coronavirus spiraled upward in New York City, leaders of other big cities watched with worry, searching for ways to avoid an escalation of the magnitude that might overwhelm hospitals. In Chicago, the nation’s third-largest city, fear of explosive growth — the kind that overtook New York City, Detroit and New Orleans — has faded in recent days, but the Chicago area has faced its own stubbornly high numbers. Cook County, Ill., which includes Chicago and its closest suburbs, has added more cases of the coronavirus than any other county in the United States on some recent days. On Friday, Cook County added more new cases than the five boroughs of New York City combined. (Bogel-Burroughs and Smith, 5/9)

The New York Times: Putting A Dollar Value On Life? Governments Already Do
How much money is a life worth? To many, the answer is so obvious that the question is offensive: Life is immeasurably valuable. No price is too high. During the pandemic, some economists and health experts have said there’s not necessarily a need to weigh the balance between saving lives and saving the economy — that prioritizing fighting the coronavirus will benefit the economy. (Frakt, 5/11)

The Wall Street Journal: Democrats Push Ahead With Coronavirus Plan Amid Break In Talks
House Democrats are pushing to complete their next coronavirus-aid proposal this week in the face of deepening economic gloom, but talks with the White House and the Republican-controlled Senate are on ice over disagreements over the pace and content of the next package. Democrats argue for urgent new spending, on top of the roughly $3 trillion allocated so far for businesses, households, states and cities, among others. But some Republicans and President Trump counter that lawmakers should take a wait-and-see stance on more payments and have prioritized other policies, such as shielding businesses from liability. (Andrews, 5/10)

Reuters: White House Considers More Coronavirus Aid As Jobs Picture Worsens
The White House has begun informal talks with Republicans and Democrats in Congress about what to include in another round of coronavirus relief legislation, officials said on Sunday, while predicting further U.S. jobs losses in the coming months. (Morgan and Heavey, 5/10)

The New York Times: As Banks Stumble In Delivering Aid, Congress Weighs Other Options
When the federal government agreed to funnel $2.2 trillion in emergency aid to Americans devastated by the economic shutdown, the nation’s banks were given a central role. There were three main prongs of relief for taxpayers and American businesses, all routed through the banks in various ways: stimulus checks, a $660 billion package for small businesses, and unemployment benefits. Confronted with an unprecedented crush of need as millions of Americans lost their livelihoods, the banks stumbled in ways big and small. (Flitter and Cochrane, 5/11)

The Washington Post: Stimulus Impact On Deficit Drives Fears Among White House Conservatives
Senior Trump administration officials are growing increasingly wary of the massive federal spending to combat the economic downturn and are considering ways to limit the impact of future stimulus efforts on the national debt, according to six administration officials and four external advisers familiar with the matter. (Stein, Dawsey and Hudson, 5/10)

The Associated Press: Trump Advisers Cite Need To Stop 'Permanent' Economic Toll
Some of President Donald Trump’s top economic advisers emphasized on Sunday the importance of states getting more businesses and offices open even as the pandemic makes its way to the White House complex, forcing three members of the administration’s coronavirus task force into self-quarantine. The president and governors who will decide when to reopen their states are facing competing pressures. More economic activity and travel will likely lead to more people contracting COVID-19. (Freking, 5/11)

The Washington Post: Top Trump Economic Advisers Say Unemployment Rate Could Surpass 20 Percent, Job Market Could Worsen
Two of President Trump’s top economic advisers projected Sunday that unemployment will climb as the coronavirus pandemic continues its sweep across the United States, with one official predicting that the unemployment rate will jump to 20 percent by next month. (Gregg, Sonmez, Bernstein and Johnson, 5/10)

The New York Times: Why Economic Pain Could Persist Even After The Pandemic Is Contained
The one great reason for economic optimism during this pandemic is that once public health concerns are addressed, the economy could quickly return to something like pre-crisis levels. After all, if there were a safe way to return to normal behavior, restaurants could fill up, planes could begin flying, and millions of workers could return to their posts. But even if that happens in the coming months, the United States will still be facing waves of second- and third-order economic effects that could last years. (Irwin, 5/11)

The New York Times: Repeat After Me: The Markets Are Not The Economy
The stock market looks increasingly divorced from economic reality. The United States is on the brink of the worst economic collapse since the Hoover administration. Corporate profits have crumpled. More than a million Americans have contracted the coronavirus, and hundreds are dying each day. There is no turnaround in sight. Yet stocks keep climbing. (Phillips, 5/10)

The Wall Street Journal: Nearly A Third Of Kentucky Workers Seek Jobless Aid
Nearly a third of Kentucky’s labor force has filed for unemployment insurance, the largest share of any U.S. state, partly reflecting officials’ encouragement to do so and an early move to expand workers’ eligibility. Those factors, combined with a high concentration of factories and the postponement of the Kentucky Derby, caused about 671,000 state residents to seek jobless benefits in the seven weeks ended May 2, according to the U.S. Labor Department. That is equivalent to about 32% of the February workforce and well above the 20% for the U.S. overall. (Mackrael, 5/10)

The Wall Street Journal: Reopening The Restaurant Wasn’t The Quick Fix Its Owners Needed
For Allie Lyons, co-owner of Table 20 in Cartersville, Ga., reopening her farm-to-table restaurant has turned out to be more challenging than shutting her dining room because of the coronavirus pandemic. “This is more terrifying than it was before,” said Ms. Lyons, who switched to takeout in mid-March after Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp ordered the state’s restaurants to close temporarily. “You are walking on eggshells.” (Simon, 5/9)

The New York Times: ‘The Whole Place Is Sick Now’: 72 Deaths At A Home For U.S. Veterans
The coronavirus has preyed on residents of nursing homes in New Jersey with lethal force, claiming more than 4,850 lives. Deaths at long-term care facilities now account for half of the state’s Covid-19 fatalities, well over the national rate. As of Sunday, 15 nursing homes had reported 30 or more deaths apiece, including four with more than 50 deaths, state records show. But nowhere has the devastation been starker than at the New Jersey Veterans Home at Paramus, a state-run home for former members of the U.S. military. (Tully, 5/10)

The Associated Press: Schumer Calls On VA To Explain Use Of Unproven Drug On Vets
The Senate’s top Democrat on Sunday called on the Department of Veterans Affairs to explain why it allowed the use of an unproven drug on veterans for the coronavirus, saying patients may have been put at unnecessary risk. Sen. Charles Schumer of New York said the VA needs to provide Congress more information about a recent bulk order for $208,000 worth of hydroxychloroquine. President Donald Trump has heavily promoted the malaria drug, without evidence, as a treatment for COVID-19. (Yen and Balsamo, 5/11)

Stat: Plan To Distribute Covid-19 Drug Unveiled Amid Concerns Over Allocation
The federal government on Saturday announced a plan to distribute remdesivir, the antiviral drug used as a Covid-19 treatment, following nearly a week of chaos and confusion surrounding which hospitals and which states would receive the medication, and how they were chosen. While some hospitals in recent days had reported receiving allocations of remdesivir directly, others received none, leaving many doctors and hospitals across the country frustrated and in the dark as to when and they might receive supplies. (Facher, 5/9)

Stat: Inside The NIH’s Controversial Decision To Stop Its Big Remdesivir Study
The drug maker Gilead Sciences released a bombshell two weeks ago: A study conducted by a U.S. government agency had found that the company’s experimental drug, remdesivir, was the first treatment shown to have even a small effect against Covid-19. Behind that ray of hope, though, was one of the toughest quandaries in medicine: how to balance the need to rigorously test a new medicine for safety and effectiveness with the moral imperative to get patients a treatment that works as quickly as possible. At the heart of the decision was a process that was — as is often in the case in clinical trials — by turns secretive and bureaucratic. (Herper, 5/11)

The New York Times: F.D.A. Approves First Antigen Test For Detecting The Coronavirus
The Food and Drug Administration has approved the first antigen test that can rapidly detect whether a person has been infected by the coronavirus, a significant advancement that promises to greatly expand the nation’s testing capacity. The test, by the Quidel Corporation of San Diego, was given emergency use authorization late Friday by the F.D.A., according to a notice on the agency’s website. (Jacobs, 5/9)

The New York Times: F.D.A. Clears First Home Saliva Test For Coronavirus
The Food and Drug Administration said on Friday that it had granted emergency authorization for the first at-home saliva collection kit to test for the coronavirus. The test kit was developed by a Rutgers University laboratory, called RUCDR Infinite Biologics, in partnership with Spectrum Solutions and Accurate Diagnostic Labs. ​Rutgers received F.D.A. permission last month to collect saliva samples from patients at test sites but can now sell the collection kits for individuals to use at home. They must be ordered by a physician. (Kaplan and Singer, 5/8)

The Wall Street Journal: U.S. States Move To Expand Coronavirus Testing Capabilities
State leaders across the U.S. moved to expand testing for the new coronavirus, while lifting some restrictions on travel and business that have crippled the nation’s economy. The moves come as confirmed infections topped 4 million across the world, and the U.S. death toll climbed above 78,000. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Saturday announced the opening of 22 new sites meant to provide coronavirus testing for thousands of residents and enable epidemiologists to trace the disease’s spread. (Chapman, Yoon and Kostov, 5/9)

The Wall Street Journal: New York City Medical Examiner Doing Limited Coronavirus Testing On Dead
New York City’s Office of Chief Medical Examiner isn’t performing widespread postmortem Covid-19 tests on people who have died at home during the new coronavirus outbreak because of a national shortage of testing supplies, city officials say. Instead investigators from the office have mainly been determining whether home deaths are related to the virus through interviews with decedents’ families and, if available, medical records that could help inform an opinion, the officials say. If the investigators believe the virus played a role, then the deaths are labeled “Covid-probable,” the officials say. (Hawkins, 5/10)

The New York Times: Keeping Online Testing Honest? Or An Orwellian Overreach?
As Daniel Farzannekou prepared to take an online exam late last month in his naval science elective at the University of California, Los Angeles, the software directed him to pick up his laptop and scan his room, his desk, his ID and his face. “Ridiculous,” Mr. Farzannekou, a 20-year-old history major, fumed. He grabbed a notepad from his girlfriend, scribbled a two-word profanity in black ink and pointedly held it up to the webcam. Then he uninstalled the digital proctor software and fired off an email to his professor. The monitoring system was like something out of “communist Russia,” he wrote, demanding a less Orwellian test. (Hubler, 5/10)

The New York Times: Employers Rush To Adopt Virus Screening. The Tools May Not Help Much.
Bob Grewal recently began testing a new health-screening setup for workers at a Subway restaurant he owns in Los Angeles near the University of Southern California. When he stepped inside the employee food prep area, a fever-detection and facial recognition camera service, PopID, quickly identified him by name and gauged his temperature. Then a small tablet screen underneath the camera posted a message that cleared him to enter. (Singer, 5/11)

The Wall Street Journal: U.S. Falling Short On Needed Contact Tracers, Experts Say
When the coronavirus pandemic hit the U.S. in March, George Roberts, chief executive of the Northeast Texas Public Health District, set his three contact tracers to work tracking everyone who had been close to infected people. “They were absolutely overwhelmed within moments,” Mr. Roberts said. Desperate for help, he recruited employees of nearby Tyler, Texas, including police officers, firefighters and the district attorney’s office, beefing up his staff to 26. (Jamerson, 5/10)

The Wall Street Journal: Curbing Coronavirus With A Contact-Tracing App? It’s Not So Simple.
Who would be interested in my exact whereabouts that morning? If I were to have subsequently tested positive for Covid-19, a contact tracer would. (Yes, shadier types might also be interested.) Think of a contact tracer like a public-health detective. They ask infected patients where they’ve been, who they’ve interacted with and when it happened. Then they track down those people and businesses to tell them about their exposure to the virus and to recommend quarantining or cleaning to slow the spread. (Stern, 5/9)

The Washington Post: Project Airbridge: White House Pandemic Supply Effort Swathed In Secrecy, Exaggerations
Since the debut of Project Airbridge in March, the Trump administration has promoted the initiative as part of a historic mobilization “moving heaven and earth” to source and deliver vast amounts of medical supplies from overseas to pandemic hot spots in the United States. Widely credited to President Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner, the plan harked back to storied U.S. wartime efforts such as the Berlin Airlift. It called for the federal government to partner with a handful of medical supply companies, which could purchase emergency masks, gowns and gloves in Asia. The government would pay to fly the supplies to the United States — bypassing weeks of shipping delays — as long as the companies sold half of the goods in parts of the country hit hardest by the pandemic. (Brittain, Stanley-Becker and Miroff, 5/8)

The Associated Press: Becoming 'King Of Ventilators' May Result In Unexpected Glut
As requests for ventilators from the national stockpile reached a crescendo in late March, President Donald Trump made what seemed like a bold claim: His administration would have 100,000 within 100 days. At the time, the Department of Health and Human Services had not ordered any new ventilators since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in January. But records show that over the following three weeks, the agency scrambled to turn Trump’s pledge into a reality, spending nearly $3 billion to spur U.S. manufacturers to crank out the breathing machines at an unprecedented pace. (Biesecker and Krisher, 5/10)

USA Today: U.S. Companies Kept Shipping Masks Overseas Even As Hospitals Ran Out And Despite Warnings
U.S. companies continued their massive sell-off of medical masks overseas throughout March, well after the coronavirus began infecting Americans and draining hospitals of critical supplies and even as White House officials raised red flags, a USA TODAY investigation found. America exported more protective masks — including disposable surgical masks and N95 respirator masks — this March than in any other month in the past decade. In all, $83.1 million worth were sent from the United States to the rest of the world, according to an analysis of the latest U.S. Census Bureau trade data. (Zhang, Wedell and Mansfield, 5/8)

USA Today: Coronavirus: Should Rich Hospitals Bankroll Better Pandemic Plans?
Struggling hospitals and those hardest hit by COVID-19 should get more federal funding than nonprofit hospital systems with large endowments, patient safety advocates and other critics say. An analysis for USA TODAY by OpenTheBooks.com shows the 20 nonprofit hospitals ranked by investments reported more than $116 billion in investments, including endowments. And although flush with money, critics say the tax-exempt systems also failed to adequately invest in basic emergency planning before the pandemic. (O'Donnell, 5/10)

The New York Times: Evangelical Leader Franklin Graham Responds To Critics Of Samaritan's Purse Central Park Field Hospital
The last patients have been discharged from the Central Park field hospital run by Samaritan’s Purse, the evangelical organization led by the Rev. Franklin Graham. Its white tents will soon be dismantled and sent to new makeshift coronavirus wards as far away as Ecuador and Alaska. Doctors and nurses from Samaritan’s Purse treated more than 300 New Yorkers after Mount Sinai Health System invited the group to the city at the height of the pandemic, but its work has been dogged by controversy since it began. (Stack and Fink, 5/10)

The New York Times: Pork Chops Vs. People: Battling Coronavirus In An Iowa Meat Plant
On April 10, Tony Thompson, the sheriff for Black Hawk County in Iowa, visited the giant Tyson Foods pork plant in Waterloo. What he saw, he said, “shook me to the core.” Workers, many of them immigrants, were crowded elbow to elbow as they broke down hog carcasses zipping by on a conveyor belt. The few who had face coverings wore a motley assortment of bandannas, painters’ masks or even sleep masks stretched around their mouths. Some had masks hanging around their necks. (Swanson, Yaffe-Bellany and Corkery, 5/10)

Reuters: As U.S. Meat Workers Fall Sick And Supplies Dwindle, Exports To China Soar
U.S. President Donald Trump ordered meat processing plants to stay open to protect the nation’s food supply even as workers got sick and died. Yet the plants have increasingly been exporting to China while U.S. consumers face shortages, a Reuters analysis of government data showed. (Polansek, 5/11)

The Wall Street Journal: U.S. Government Drafts Guidelines For Reopening Hard-Hit Nursing Homes
Federal health regulators are developing guidelines for reopening nursing homes, according to people with knowledge of the matter, proposing steps that would allow visitors to return to facilities that have been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic despite lockdowns. A draft version of the recommendations, which propose a multiphase reopening of nursing homes, is raising concerns among industry officials and infection-control experts worried that moving too fast in reopening these facilities could increase the risks for frail and elderly residents, who have been dying in the thousands due to the virus. (Wilde Mathews and Kamp, 5/10)

Reuters: New York Steps Up Coronavirus Protections For Nursing Home Residents
New York state on Sunday announced new coronavirus-safety measures to better protect nursing home residents, who are highly vulnerable to the respiratory illness and account for a large share of the nearly 80,000 Americans who have died from it. (Caspani and McKay, 5/10)

The New York Times: Surviving Covid-19 May Not Feel Like Recovery For Some
When Morena Colombi tested negative for the coronavirus on March 16, the official tallies counted her among the Covid-19 recoveries, a success amid the tragedies overwhelming Italy. But she was nowhere near recovered, her cough and crippling fatigue nowhere near gone. Five weeks later, on April 21, she returned to her job developing colors for a cosmetics company, but with shortness of breath and aching muscles, she found herself unable to take even short walks. (Horowitz, 5/10)

The Washington Post: How Coronavirus Attacks The Human Body
Deborah Coughlin was neither short of breath nor coughing. In those first days after she became infected by the novel coronavirus, her fever never spiked above 100 degrees. It was vomiting and diarrhea that brought her to a Hartford, Conn., emergency room on May 1. “You would have thought it was a stomach virus,” said her daughter, Catherina Coleman. “She was talking and walking and completely coherent.” But even as Coughlin, 67, chatted with her daughters on her cellphone, the oxygen level in her blood dropped so low that most patients would be near death. (Bernstein and Cha, 5/10)

The New York Times: Mysterious Coronavirus Illness Claims 3 Children In New York
A mysterious syndrome has killed three young children in New York and sickened 73 others, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said on Saturday, an alarming rise in a phenomenon that was first publicly identified earlier this week. The syndrome, a toxic-shock-like inflammation that affects the skin, the eyes, blood vessels and the heart, can leave children seriously ill, with some patients requiring mechanical ventilation. Many of the symptoms bear some resemblance to a rare childhood illness called Kawasaki disease, which can lead to inflammation of the blood vessels, especially the coronary arteries. (Jacobs and Sandoval, 5/9)