First Edition: May 27, 2020

Kaiser Health News: COVID-Like Cough Sent Him To ER — Where He Got A $3,278 Bill
From late March into April, Timothy Regan had severe coughing fits several times a day that often left him out of breath. He had a periodic low-grade fever, too. Wondering if he had COVID-19, Regan called a nurse hotline run by Denver Health, a large public health system in his city. A nurse listened to him describe his symptoms and told him to immediately go to the hospital system’s urgent care facility. When he arrived at Denver Health — where the emergency room and urgent care facility sit side by side at its main location downtown — a nurse directed him to the ER after he noted chest pain as one of his symptoms. (Galewitz, 5/25)

Kaiser Health News: Going The Distance By Bus Through A Pandemic
Mary Pierson boarded a nearly empty L.A. Metro bus at the corner of Atlantic Boulevard and Riggin Street in Monterey Park one recent afternoon. Pierson, 69, uses a wheelchair and relies on public transportation to get around. She takes the bus a few times a week from Long Beach to various parts of Los Angeles to run errands and shop for groceries. Today, she took the No. 68 to the bank. “I’m glad they’re still running,” said Pierson, who wears a mask, gloves and sunglasses on board and disinfects her wheelchair after every trip. “I live alone and need to get out of the house.” (De Marco, 5/27)

Kaiser Health News: Nearly Half Of Americans Delayed Medical Care Due To Pandemic
As the coronavirus threat ramped up in March, hospitals, health systems and private practices dramatically reduced inpatient, nonemergency services to prepare for an influx of COVID-19 patients. A poll released Wednesday reveals that the emptiness of medical care centers may also reflect the choices patients made to delay care. The Kaiser Family Foundation poll found that 48% of Americans said they or a family member has skipped or delayed medical care because of the pandemic, and 11% of them said the person’s condition worsened as a result of the delayed care. (Lawrence, 5/27)

Kaiser Health News: My Mother Died Of The Coronavirus. It’s Time She Was Counted.
We recently received the death certificate for my mother, who died May 4 in an assisted living facility near New York City. “Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome” was the primary cause. And the secondary — no surprise — was “suspected COVID-19.” The White House, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the states are debating the proper theoretical (and politically beneficial) way to tally COVID-19 deaths. One group, led by President Donald Trump, feels the current tally is too high. The other, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, thinks it may be an underestimate. (Rosenthal, 5/27)

The Associated Press: American Virus Deaths At 100,000: What Does A Number Mean?
The fraught, freighted number of this particular American moment is a round one brimming with zeroes: 100,000. A hundred thousands. A thousand hundreds. Five thousand score. More than 8,000 dozen. All dead. This is the week when America’s official coronavirus death toll reaches six digits. One hundred thousand lives wiped out by a disease unknown to science a half a year ago. (Anthony, 5/27)

The Wall Street Journal: U.S. Coronavirus Death Toll Nears 100,000 As South American Cases Surge
As the U.S. death toll from the coronavirus pandemic climbs closer to 100,000, other countries—especially in South America—are struggling with rising infection rates. The total number of confirmed coronavirus cases neared 5.6 million across 188 countries and regions, with the U.S. making up 1.68 million of those, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. The U.S. death toll exceeded 98,900, while more than 350,000 people world-wide have died from Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. (Ping, 5/27)

The Associated Press: Can Trump Feel Your Pain? US Nears Haunting Virus Milestone
In the rubble of buildings and lives, modern U.S. presidents have met national trauma with words such as these: “I can hear you.” “You have lost too much, but you have not lost everything.” “We have wept with you; we’ve pulled our children tight.” As diverse as they were in eloquence and empathy, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama each had his own way of piercing the noise of catastrophe and reaching people. (Woodward, 5/27)

NPR: Obituary Writer Aims To Show How Coronavirus Impacts 'All People In Our Society'
As the number of COVID-19 deaths continues its upward march, many of the rituals designed to help people navigate the loss of a loved one aren't possible. One rite of grief that is still happening is the obituary. But with the sheer number of deaths, obituary writers can't write one for every victim of the coronavirus, says Maureen O'Donnell, who's been an obituary writer for the Chicago Sun-Times for more than a decade. (Dorning and Kelly, 5/26)

Reuters: Where U.S. Coronavirus Cases Are On The Rise
Twenty U.S. states reported an increase in new cases of COVID-19 for the week ended May 24, up from 13 states in the prior week, as the death toll from the novel coronavirus approaches 100,000, according to a Reuters analysis. Alabama had the biggest weekly increase at 28%, Missouri’s new cases rose 27% and North Carolina’s rose 26%, according to the analysis of data from The COVID Tracking Project, a volunteer-run effort to track the outbreak. New cases in Georgia, one of the first states to reopen, rose 21% after two weeks of declines. The state attributed the increase to a backlog of test results and more testing. (Canipe and Shumaker, 5/26)

The Hill: US Braces For COVID-19 'Slow Burn' 
The U.S. is likely to enter a period of “slow burn” of coronavirus cases through the summer, with coronavirus cases and deaths down from their peak but still taking a heavy toll, experts say. As the country passes the grim milestone of 100,000 deaths, experts say the pace of harm might be slower in the coming months, but there is unlikely to be a steep drop-off in the virus. There even could be some significant upticks as restrictions on businesses and movement are eased around the country. Risk looms even higher in the fall and winter, as experts expect a new spike in cases of the virus as the weather gets colder, combined with the added damage from flu season. (Sullivan, 5/26)

Stat: New Research Rewrites History Of When Covid-19 Took Off In The U.S.
New research has poured cold water on the theory that the Covid-19 outbreak in Washington state — the country’s first — was triggered by the very first confirmed case of the infection in the country. Instead, it suggests the person who ignited the first chain of sustained transmission in the United States probably returned to the country in mid-February, a month later. The work adds to evidence that the United States missed opportunities to stop the SARS-CoV-2 virus from taking root in this country — and that those opportunities persisted for longer than has been recognized up until now. (Branswell, 5/26)

The New York Times: ‘It’s The Death Towers’: How The Bronx Became New York’s Virus Hot Spot
Working on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic can be hazardous, but staying home isn’t safe either for the emergency responders, pharmacists, home health aides, grocery clerks and delivery men who fill River Park Towers in the Bronx. Even a ride down the elevator is risky. Residents often must wait up to an hour to squeeze into small, poorly ventilated cars that break down frequently, with people crowding the hallways like commuters trying to push into the subway at rush hour. There is talk that as many as 100 residents have been sickened by the coronavirus at the two massive towers rising above the Morris Heights neighborhood along the Harlem River. (de Freytas-Tamura, Hu and Cook, 5/26)

The Washington Post: WHO Warns Of Second Peak, Cautions Against Scaling Back Restrictions Too Soon
The World Health Organization on Tuesday warned nations against scaling back coronavirus restrictions too quickly, saying a premature push to return to normalcy could fuel a rapid acceleration of new cases. “We cannot make assumptions that just because the disease is on the way down now that it’s going to keep going down,” Mike Ryan, head of the WHO’s health emergencies program, told reporters during a briefing. (Dennis, Flynn and Noack, 5/26)

The Associated Press: Nevada To Reopen Casinos June 4, Welcoming Tourists Again
Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak announced Tuesday night that he would allow casinos to reopen June 4, welcoming tourists to return to the glitzy gambling mecca of Las Vegas. “We welcome the visitors from across the country to come here, to have a good time, no different than they did previously, but we’re gonna be cautious,” Sisolak told reporters. The governor said he would also allow in-person religious services of up to 50 people starting Friday. (Price, 5/27)

The New York Times: A Socially Distanced Las Vegas? What Are The Odds?
For decades, the El Cortez Hotel & Casino in downtown Las Vegas has been known for single-deck blackjack. But when the casinos and resorts open up — tentatively early June — after weeks of being shut down, players will no longer be able to touch the cards. About 100 slot machines at the casino have been removed and the remaining 750 are now farther apart. Tape on the floor at the craps tables shows players where to stand to meet social-distancing requirements. (Creswell, 5/26)

The Wall Street Journal: New York City Could Reopen By Mid-June, Mayor Says
New York City could begin a phased reopening in the first or second week of June, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Tuesday, as it continued to ramp up testing capacity for the novel coronavirus and started developing plans for commuters to safely use public transportation. Mr. de Blasio said at a press conference that the city will have about 180 testing sites open by the end of June, with the expectation to run 50,000 coronavirus tests daily by Aug. 1. A June 1 goal to hire 1,000 contact tracers—health workers who will follow-up on every positive coronavirus test by reaching out to patients and their close contacts—has already been met and exceeded, Mr. de Blasio said. (West and De Avila, 5/26)

The Associated Press: In An Early US Coronavirus Hot Spot, Business Slowly Reopens
The suburbs north of New York City eased outbreak restrictions, and the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange opened for the first time in two months, as the state focused more intently Tuesday on restarting its economy. (Matthews, 5/27)

The Washington Post: Northam Says Northern Virginia Can Begin Reopening On Friday
Communities in Northern Virginia can begin easing their pandemic-related shutdowns on Friday, Gov. Ralph Northam said, arguing that the region is seeing a decline in hospitalizations and the percentage of positive tests for the novel coronavirus even as the rate and overall number of infections remain far higher than in the rest of the state. Northam (D) made the announcement as Virginia reported a second straight day of spikes in new cases, driven by big numbers in the populous D.C. suburbs. (Schneider and Olivo, 5/26)

The New York Times: In Audacious Move, Georgia And Florida Governors Offer To Host G.O.P. Convention
The governors of Georgia and Florida, seizing on a tweet from President Trump, made an audacious move on Tuesday, offering their states’ hosting services for the Republican National Convention, which the party is contractually obligated to hold in Charlotte, N.C. That contract was signed nearly two years ago, and moving a 50,000-person, multimillion-dollar event less than three months before it happens would be extraordinary. But Mr. Trump — in contrast to the host committee that is coordinating the event — threatened on Monday to move the convention unless Gov. Roy Cooper of North Carolina provided a “guarantee” that there would be no coronavirus-related restrictions on the size of the event. (Astor, 5/26)

The Wall Street Journal: ‘I Feel Like A Failure’: Dayton Reopens And Surveys Coronavirus Lockdown’s Toll
Each morning, Nan Whaley walks her dog, takes an online yoga class and then, in her role as mayor of this city of 140,000, girds herself for a steady stream of calls from constituents asking for help navigating life during the pandemic. There is the senior citizen who is afraid to leave her home because she is worried she will get sick and die. The restaurant owner, terrified he will go out of business. The pastor, racked with anxiety that the church he stewards won’t survive this crisis. (Belkin and Levitz, 5/27)

The Associated Press: GOP Govs Offer States As Alternative RNC Convention Host
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp sent an open plea to Trump on Tuesday to consider his state as an alternate site for the quadrennial convention, which is set to gather more than 2,500 delegates and thousands more guests, press and security officials. Plans have been underway for more than a year to hold the convention in Charlotte, but Trump and national Republican officials have expressed concerns that local officials may not allow gatherings of that size during the pandemic. (Miller and Nadler, 5/27)

Reuters: Trump Issues North Carolina An Ultimatum On Republican Convention
Trump set the deadline for Governor Roy Cooper after Republicans in Florida, Georgia and Texas offered to host their party’s four-day nominating convention, which is scheduled to open in Charlotte, North Carolina, on Aug. 24. “We’re not going to sacrifice the health and safety of North Carolinians,” Cooper said, citing the coronavirus pandemic. He said state officials would work with Republican organizers to ensure everyone’s safety. (Martina, 5/26)

The Associated Press: Trump Committed To July 4 Celebration Despite Lawmaker Alarm
The White House said Tuesday that President Donald Trump remains committed to holding a Fourth of July celebration in the nation’s capital even as Democratic lawmakers from the region -- one of the hardest hit by the coronavirus -- warn that the area will not be ready to hold a major event. White House spokesman Judd Deere reiterated that Trump wants to hold an Independence Day celebration after members of Congress wrote on Tuesday to Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Interior Secretary David Bernhardt to raise their concerns about the safety of such an event. (Madhani and Khalil, 5/27)

The New York Times: Biden, Urging Face Masks, Calls Trump A ‘Fool’ For Not Wearing One
Joseph R. Biden Jr. laced into President Trump on Tuesday, calling him an “absolute fool” for refusing to wear a mask in public on Memorial Day and for appearing to scoff at the former vice president for wearing one. “He’s a fool, an absolute fool to talk that way,” Mr. Biden said in an interview with Dana Bash of CNN, his first in-person interview since the coronavirus crisis took him off the campaign trail. Castigating Mr. Trump for “this macho stuff,” Mr. Biden accused him of “stoking deaths” and aggravating cultural divisions over mask-wearing. (Ember, 5/26)

The New York Times: Twitter Labels Trump's Tweets For First Time
Twitter added information to refute the inaccuracies in President Trump’s tweets for the first time on Tuesday, after years of pressure over its inaction on his false and threatening posts. The social media company added links late Tuesday to two of Mr. Trump’s tweets in which he had posted about mail-in ballots and falsely claimed that they would cause the November presidential election to be “rigged.” The links — which were in blue lettering at the bottom of the posts and punctuated by an exclamation mark — urged people to “get the facts” about voting by mail. (Conger and Alba, 5/26)

Reuters: Twitter Fact-Checks Trump Tweet For The First Time
The company has been tightening those policies in recent years amid criticism that its hands-off approach had allowed abuse, fake accounts and misinformation to thrive. Trump lashed out at the company in response, accusing it - in a tweet - of interfering in the 2020 presidential election. “Twitter is completely stifling FREE SPEECH, and I, as President, will not allow it to happen!” he said. (Paul and Culliford, 5/26)

NPR: Social Media And Disinformation: What To Expect For 2020
America's new socially distant reality has warped the landscape of the 2020 election. Candidates aren't out knocking on doors, and U.S. election officials are bracing for a record surge in mail ballots. And another subtler shift is also occurring — inside people's brains. (Parks, 5/27)

The Washington Post: Top HHS Watchdog Being Replaced By Trump Says Inspectors General Must Work Free From Political Intrusion
The chief watchdog for the Department of Health and Human Services, being replaced as part of President Trump’s purge of inspectors general, told lawmakers on Tuesday that freedom from political intrusion is “a key safeguard for the programs we oversee.” Christi Grimm, HHS’s principal deputy inspector general, spoke out for the first time since she was excoriated by the president for a report from her office that found “severe shortages” earlier this spring of supplies to help hospitals cope with the novel coronavirus pandemic. (Goldstein, 5/26)

The Associated Press: White House Letter Doesn't Explain Why Trump Fired Watchdogs
The White House said Tuesday that President Donald Trump followed the law when he fired multiple inspectors general in the last two months, but the administration offered no new details about why they were let go. A White House letter issued in response to concerns from a prominent Republican senator does little to explain the decision-making behind Trump’s recent upheaval of the inspector general community. (Tucker and Daly, 5/27)

The Washington Post: The Government’s Hunt For Drug Remdesivir For Coronavirus Treatment
The drug that buoyed expectations for a coronavirus treatment and drew international attention for Gilead Sciences, remdesivir, started as a reject, an also-ran in the search for antiviral drugs. Its path to relevance didn’t begin until Robert Jordan plucked it from mothballs. A Gilead scientist at the time, Jordan convinced the company seven years ago to let him assemble a library of 1,000 castoff molecules in a search for medicines to treat emerging viruses. Many viral illnesses threaten human health but don’t attract commercial interest because they lack potential for huge drug sales. (Rowland, 5/26)

Reuters: WHO Expects Hydroxychloroquine Safety Findings By Mid-June
The World Health Organization (WHO) on Tuesday promised a swift review of data on hydroxychloroquine, probably by mid-June, after safety concerns prompted the group to suspend the malaria drug’s use in a large trial on COVID-19 patients. (Miller, 5/26)

NPR: In The Battle Against COVID-19, A Risk Of 'Vaccine Nationalism'
The race to defeat the coronavirus can be viewed in two very distinct ways. One is based on international cooperation, with a vaccine treated as a "global public good." The other is competitive, a battle between nations that's being described as "vaccine nationalism." Many are hoping for the former, but are seeing signs of the latter. The main competition, on this and many other global issues, appears to be between the U.S. and China. (Myre, 5/27)

The Associated Press: AP-NORC Poll: Half Of Americans Would Get A COVID-19 Vaccine
Only about half of Americans say they would get a COVID-19 vaccine if the scientists working furiously to create one succeed, according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. That’s surprisingly low considering the effort going into the global race for a vaccine against the coronavirus that has sparked a pandemic since first emerging from China late last year. But more people might eventually roll up their sleeves: The poll, released Wednesday, found 31% simply weren’t sure if they’d get vaccinated. Another 1 in 5 said they’d refuse. (Neergaard and Fingerhut, 5/27)

Stat: Moderna Executives Have Cashed Out $89M In Shares This Year
The top five executives at the biotech company Moderna have sold more than $89 million of stock so far this year — initiating nearly three times as many stock transactions than in all of 2019 — as the company’s share price has soared on hopes for its Covid-19 vaccine. The trades, which led to about $80 million in profits, were prescheduled through a legal program that allows company insiders to buy and sell shares at a later date. But the volume and timing might prove alarming to Moderna’s shareholders, especially in light of the company’s May decision to raise more than $1 billion in a stock offering. If Moderna’s early-stage vaccine can one day prevent coronavirus infection and the company’s best days lay ahead, why are insiders selling? (Garde, 5/27)

NPR: Trump Team Killed Rule Designed To Protect Health Workers From Pandemic Like COVID-19
When President Trump took office in 2017, his team stopped work on new federal regulations that would have forced the health care industry to prepare for an airborne infectious disease pandemic such as COVID-19. That decision is documented in federal records reviewed by NPR. "If that rule had gone into effect, then every hospital, every nursing home would essentially have to have a plan where they made sure they had enough respirators and they were prepared for this sort of pandemic," said David Michaels, who was head of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration until January 2017. (Mann, 5/26)

The New York Times: They Evoke Darth Vader, But These Masks May Save Your Doctor’s Life
Even among the surreal sights of an intensive care unit crowded with Covid-19 patients, Dr. Elaine Fajardo’s mask stands out. Jet-black silicone with magenta-capped filters protruding from both sides, it is more commonly the protection of choice at construction sites and industrial plants. But for Dr. Fajardo, it has been a precious and potentially lifesaving medical resource. “I think these really saved us from a crisis,” said Dr. Fajardo, a pulmonary and critical care physician at the Yale New Haven Hospital in Connecticut. (Hamby, 5/27)

The Wall Street Journal: China Rules Out Animal Market And Lab As Coronavirus Origin
Chinese scientists in recent days said they had ruled out both a laboratory and an animal market in the city of Wuhan as possible origins of the coronavirus pandemic, in their most detailed pushback to date against allegations from U.S. officials and others over what might have sparked it. The director of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, at the center of allegations around a potential laboratory accident, Wang Yanyi, over the weekend told China Central Television that the coronavirus was significantly different from any live pathogen that has been studied at the institute and that there therefore was no chance it could have leaked from there. (Areddy, 5/26)

The New York Times: Republicans Sue Pelosi To Block House Proxy Voting During Pandemic
Republican leaders sued Speaker Nancy Pelosi and top congressional officials on Tuesday to block the House of Representatives from using a proxy voting system set up by Democrats to allow for remote legislating during the coronavirus pandemic, calling it unconstitutional. In a lawsuit that also names the House clerk and sergeant-at-arms as defendants, Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the minority leader, and roughly 20 other Republicans argued that new rules allowing lawmakers to vote from afar during the coronavirus outbreak would be the end of Congress as it was envisioned by the nation’s founders. (Fandos and Schmidt, 5/26)

Reuters: House Republicans To Sue Pelosi Over Remote Proxy Voting In Pandemic
The lawsuit, to be filed in federal court in Washington, will seek to block the new system passed by the Democratic-majority House and intended to allow the chamber to function while observing social distancing guidelines. It will argue that the rule changes are unconstitutional, the Republican aides said. (5/26)

The Associated Press: Congress Shifts Attention To Overhauling Small-Business Aid
Deadlocked over the next big coronavirus relief bill, Congress is shifting its attention to a more modest overhaul of small-business aid in hopes of helping employers reopen shops and survive the pandemic. Bipartisan legislation that would give small employers more time to take advantage of federal subsidies for payroll and other costs is expected to pass the House this week, as lawmakers return to Washington for an abbreviated two-day session. (Taylor and Mascaro, 5/27)

The Associated Press: Rubio Warns Of Foreign Actors Amplifying Virus Conspiracies
Sen. Marco Rubio, the new Republican chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, is warning that foreign actors will seek to amplify conspiracy theories about the coronavirus and find new ways to interfere in the 2020 presidential election. The Florida Republican said in an interview with The Associated Press on Tuesday that one possibility could be an effort to convince people that a new vaccine against the virus, once created, would be more harmful than helpful. (Jalonick and Mascaro, 5/27)

The Associated Press: US Closes Probes Into 3 Senators Over Their Stock Trades
The Justice Department has closed investigations into stock trading by Sens. Dianne Feinstein of California, Kelly Loeffler of Georgia and Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, according to people familiar with notifications sent to the senators. The senators came under scrutiny for transactions made in the weeks before the coronavirus sent markets downhill. The developments indicate that federal law enforcement officials are narrowing their focus in the stock investigation to Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C, the former Senate Intelligence Committee chairman. Agents showed up at his Washington-area home about two weeks ago with a warrant to search his cellphone. (Jalonick and Tucker, 5/27)

The New York Times: An ‘Avalanche Of Evictions’ Could Be Bearing Down On America’s Renters
The United States, already wrestling with an economic collapse not seen in a generation, is facing a wave of evictions as government relief payments and legal protections run out for millions of out-of-work Americans who have little financial cushion and few choices when looking for new housing. The hardest hit are tenants who had low incomes and little savings even before the pandemic, and whose housing costs ate up more of their paychecks. They were also more likely to work in industries where job losses have been particularly severe. (Mervosh, 5/27)

The Wall Street Journal: Borrower, Beware: Credit-Card Fraud Attempts Rise During The Coronavirus Crisis
Fraudsters are increasingly using pilfered credit-card numbers and phishing attacks to prey on overwhelmed consumers and banks during the coronavirus pandemic. There has been a big jump in attempted credit- and debit-card fraud since coronavirus shut down the U.S. economy earlier this year, according to Fidelity National Information Services Inc., known as FIS, which assists about 3,200 U.S. banks with fraud monitoring. The dollar volume of attempted fraudulent transactions rose 35% in April from a year earlier, FIS said, a trend that appears to be continuing in May. (Andriotis and McCaffrey, 5/27)

The Washington Post: Supreme Court Won’t Stop Ohio Order For Prisoners To Be Moved Or Released Because Of Coronavirus
The Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to shelve a judge’s order that hundreds of at-risk inmates at a federal prison in Ohio be expeditiously moved because of an outbreak of coronavirus. The court left open the door for the Trump administration to try again “if circumstances warrant.” It said a new filing could be appropriate later, after the case proceeded through lower courts. Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Neil M. Gorsuch would have granted the administration’s request now. (Barnes, 5/26)

Stat: Hospital Records Hold Valuable Covid-19 Data. Making It Usable Takes Time
As tens of thousands of people worldwide test positive for Covid-19 every day, researchers are beginning to accumulate a trove of data from patients’ medical records that will be critical to getting a better handle on the biology of the disease. But even in the most advanced electronic health record systems, it’s a painstaking process to turn the information in a Covid-19 patient’s chart into a format that researchers can actually use. (Robbins, 5/27)

The Washington Post: A Third Of Americans Now Show Signs Of Clinical Anxiety Or Depression
A third of Americans are showing signs of clinical anxiety or depression, Census Bureau data shows, the most definitive and alarming sign yet of the psychological toll exacted by the coronavirus pandemic. When asked questions normally used to screen patients for mental health problems, 24 percent showed clinically significant symptoms of major depressive disorder and 30 percent showed symptoms of generalized anxiety disorder. (Fowers and Wan, 5/26)

Reuters: Exclusive: Research Finds Concerning Drop In U.S. Colorectal Cancer Screenings And Surgeries
New diagnoses of one of the deadliest cancers fell by one-third in March and April as U.S. physicians and patients halted appointments and screenings during the COVID-19 outbreak. Research by the health data firm Komodo Health and exclusively shared with Reuters found new colorectal cancer diagnoses declined more than 32%, while the number of performed colonoscopies and biopsies fell by nearly 90% from mid-March to mid-April, compared with the same period last year. Colorectal cancer surgeries were down by 53%. (Respaut and Nelson, 5/27)

Stat: Covid-19 Isolates Patients From Loved Ones At Time Of Greatest Need 
Amy and Landen [Sapien], two generations fighting cancer... are going through the most frightening and painful moments of their lives without the family warmth and support that was standard practice at the nation’s medical centers — until Covid-19. The pandemic’s broad impact on cancer care in the U.S. is well-known: non-essential surgeries, biopsies, and scans delayed, and clinical trials disrupted. But it’s in stories like the Sapien family’s that one sees the depth of the harm it’s causing. (Glaser, 5/27)

The Washington Post: Two Black Men Died Of Covid-19 Five Days Apart. This Is What Was Lost.
George Valentine sat hunched on the bottom step of his Capitol Hill rowhouse, a bald man in black sweatpants staring through the open front door, too breathless to speak. It was about 1:30 p.m. on the last Wednesday in March, and he was waiting for the ambulance he had called to arrive. George’s son, Darrell, was upstairs in his bedroom, trying to get some space from his father’s demands — to walk the dog, to bring him medicine, to find the thermometer. (Trent, 5/26)

The New York Times: Could All Those ‘Quarantinis’ Lead To Drinking Problems? 
Quarantinis. Zoom happy hours. Easy front-door liquor delivery. The boredom of staying home and the intense anxiety produced by the pandemic have given rise to Twitter jokes about drinking before noon as alcohol sales have spiked. But addiction experts say they are worried it could also trigger more serious drinking problems and even create new ones for people who have never struggled with alcohol dependency before. (Cramer, 5/26)

The New York Times: Thinking About Flying? Here’s What You Need To Know Now
On Friday, the Transportation Security Administration screened 348,673 people at American airports, the most since travel went into a free-fall in mid-March, likely driven by people traveling ahead of Memorial Day weekend. Still, a year ago, more than 2.7 million people were screened, showing just how far the industry has to come back. For people who are thinking of flying this summer, or in the months after, air travel will be a far different experience than it was before the coronavirus. (Mzezewa, 5/27)

The New York Times: When Couples Fight About Virus Risks
Lian Chikako Chang and her husband, Drew Harry, agree on the big picture when it comes to minimizing their 3-year-old’s risk of exposure to the coronavirus. They both work in the tech industry and neither is an essential worker, so they have been following California’s shelter-in-place rules and going outside only for curb-side pick up for groceries once a week or brief bouts of exercise. They take their son to local parks on weekdays, because it is less crowded than on weekends. “We mostly are aligned,” said Chikako Chang, 39, who has been quarantined in San Francisco. But she and her husband still fight about the little things. The couple had a disagreement recently about whether their preschooler should use a public restroom at the park. (Grose, 5/26)

The New York Times: 'Aggressive' Rats May Increase During Pandemic, C.D.C. Says
Humans are not the only ones who miss dining out. As restaurants and other businesses have closed during the coronavirus pandemic, rats may become more aggressive as they hunt for new sources of food, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned. Environmental health and rodent control programs may see an increase in service requests related to “unusual or aggressive” rodent behavior, the agency said on its website on Thursday. (Padilla, 5/24)

Reuters: South Korea Examines First Suspected Cases Of Syndrome In Kids Linked To COVID-19
Two children who are the first suspected cases in South Korea of a rare, life-threatening syndrome linked with the new coronavirus, are recovering following treatment, health authorities said on Wednesday. The symptoms of “Multi-System Inflammatory Syndrome in Children” (MIS-C) are similar to toxic shock and Kawasaki disease, and include fever, rashes, swollen glands and, in severe cases, heart inflammation. (Shin, 5/27)

The Associated Press: Global Pandemic: Through The Eyes Of The World's Children
These are children of the global pandemic. In the far-north Canadian town of Iqaluit, one boy has been glued to the news to learn everything he can about the coronavirus. A girl in Australia sees a vibrant future, tinged with sadness for the lives lost. A Rwandan boy is afraid the military will violently crack down on its citizens when his country lifts the lockdown. There is melancholy and boredom, and a lot of worrying, especially about parents working amid the disease, grandparents suddenly cut off from weekend visits, friends seen only on a video screen. (Irvine, 5/27)

The Associated Press: With Test Results Lost, An Afghan Family Fell To Virus
As in many Afghan households, dinner at Dr. Yousuf Aryubi’s home meant the whole family — his mother, his siblings, their children — sitting on the floor together around a mat laid with food on the carpet. During one recent dinner, Aryubi confided to his youngest brother that he was worried. A patient he’d seen that morning had a cough and high fever. (Akhgar, Faiez and Keath, 5/27)

The Associated Press: Doctors Use GPS, Dinghies To Screen Greek Islands For Virus
Using dinghies, GPS and a portable refrigerator, doctors deployed by Greece’s national public health agency have launched a coronavirus testing drive on the country’s Aegean Sea islands ahead of the summer vacation season. Ferry service for visitors to the islands resumed Monday, and Greece plans to start welcoming international travelers again on June 15. The government hopes the comparatively low number of confirmed coronavirus cases and deaths in Greece — just under 2,900 cases with 173 deaths — will attract foreign tourists and and ease the effects of an expected recession. (Stavrakis, 5/27)

The New York Times: Hunger Program’s Slow Start Leaves Millions Of Children Waiting
As child hunger soars to levels without modern precedent, an emergency program Congress created two months ago has reached only a small fraction of the 30 million children it was intended to help. The program, Pandemic-EBT, aims to compensate for the declining reach of school meals by placing their value on electronic cards that families can use in grocery stores. But collecting lunch lists from thousands of school districts, transferring them to often-outdated state computers and issuing specialized cards has proved much harder than envisioned, leaving millions of needy families waiting to buy food. (DeParle, 5/26)

The Associated Press: Hypocrisy Gone Viral? Officials Set Bad COVID-19 Examples
“Do as I say, but not as I do” was the message many British saw in the behavior of Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s key aide, who traveled hundreds of miles with coronavirus symptoms during the country’s lockdown. While Dominic Cummings has faced calls for his firing but support from his boss over his journey from London to the northern city of Durham in March, few countries seem immune to the perception that politicians and top officials are bending the rules that their own governments wrote during the pandemic. (Adamson and Corbet, 5/27)