First Edition: May 29, 2020

Kaiser Health News: Lost On The Frontline
A nurse who planned to donate blood and plasma once he recovered. A hospital security guard who could be counted on for anything. A travelling nurse who asked his mom to send tamales. These are some of the people just added to “Lost on the Frontline,” a special series from The Guardian and KHN that profiles health care workers who die of COVID-19. (5/29)

Kaiser Health News: A Senator From Arizona Emerges As A Pharma Favorite
Sen. Kyrsten Sinema formed a congressional caucus to raise “awareness of the benefits of personalized medicine” in February. Soon after that, employees of pharmaceutical companies donated $35,000 to her campaign committee. Amgen gave $5,000. So did Genentech and Merck. Sanofi, Pfizer and Eli Lilly all gave $2,500. Each of those companies has invested heavily in personalized medicine, which promises individually tailored drugs that can cost a patient hundreds of thousands of dollars. (Hancock and Lucas, 5/29)

Kaiser Health News: Hate Unmasked In America
“You are the most selfish f—ing people on the planet.” I jerked my head to the left, where I saw a neighbor glaring at us from his driveway while unloading groceries from his trunk. “Where’s your f—ing mask?” he said. “Unbelievable.” My jaw dropped. I had just walked three blocks home with my toddler and my dad in our leafy, mostly empty Los Angeles neighborhood because my kid had thrown a tantrum in the car. (Almendrala, 5/29)

Kaiser Health News: As COVID Cuts Deadly Path Through Indiana Prisons, Inmates Say Symptoms Ignored 
Scottie Edwards died of COVID-19 just weeks before he would have gotten out of the Westville Correctional Facility in Indiana. Edwards, 73, began showing symptoms of the disease in early April, according to the accounts of three inmates who lived with him in a dormitory. He was short of breath, had chest pain and could barely talk. He was also dizzy, sweaty and throwing up. (Harper, 5/29)

Kaiser Health News: KHN’s ‘What The Health?’: Still Seeking A Federal Coronavirus Strategy
The Trump administration sent its COVID-19 testing strategy plan to Congress, formalizing its policy that most testing responsibilities should remain with individual states. Democrats in Congress complained that the U.S. needs a national strategy, but so far none has emerged. Meanwhile, President Donald Trump, noticing that his popularity among seniors has been falling since the pandemic began, unveiled a plan to lower the cost of insulin for Medicare beneficiaries. However, while diabetes is a major problem for seniors in general and for Medicare’s budget, only a small minority takes insulin. (5/28)

The New York Times: Explaining President Trump's Executive Order Targeting Social Media
President Trump signed an executive order on Thursday targeting legal protections that keep people from suing social media websites. The move follows his anger at Twitter over its decision this week to append fact-check labels to several of his tweets about mail-in voting, along with links to accurate information on the topic. Much of the president’s order consists of complaints about social media companies and their efforts to flag or remove content deemed inappropriate. Here is an explanation of the legal issues surrounding the components of the order that would — or might — do something. (Savage, 5/28)

The Associated Press: Trump Escalates War On Twitter, Social Media Protections
Announced with fanfare, the president’s action yet appeared to be more about politics than substance. He aims to rally supporters after he lashed out at Twitter for applying fact checks to two of his tweets. Trump said the fact checks were “editorial decisions” by Twitter amounting to political activism and that such actions should cost social media companies their liability protection for what is posted on their platforms. Trump, who personally relies heavily on Twitter to verbally flog his foes, has long accused the tech giants in liberal-leaning Silicon Valley of targeting conservatives by fact-checking them or removing their posts. (Miller, 5/29)

Reuters: Trump Move Could Scrap Or Weaken Law That Protects Social Media Companies
Trump wants to “remove or change” a provision of a law known as Section 230 that shields social media companies from liability for content posted by their users. Trump said U.S. Attorney General William Barr will begin drafting legislation “immediately” to regulate social media companies. (Bose and Mason, 5/28)

The New York Times: Why President Trump's Order On Social Media Could Harm Him
The executive order that Mr. Trump signed on Thursday seeks to strip liability protection in certain cases for companies like Twitter, Google and Facebook for the content on their sites, meaning they could face legal jeopardy if they allowed false and defamatory posts. Without a liability shield, they presumably would have to be more aggressive about policing messages that press the boundaries — like the president’s. That, of course, is not the outcome Mr. Trump wants. What he wants is the freedom to post anything he likes without the companies applying any judgment to his messages, as Twitter did this week when it began appending “get the facts” warnings to some of his false posts on voter fraud. Furious at what he called “censorship” — even though his messages were not in fact deleted — Mr. Trump is wielding the proposed executive order like a club to compel the company to back down. (Baker and Wakabayashi, 5/28)

The Washington Post: Trump Executive Order Challenges Section 230 Protections For Facebook, Twitter And Google
Already, tech companies are discussing whether to fight back with a lawsuit challenging the executive order, according to two people familiar with the deliberations who spoke on the condition of anonymity because no decision has been made. Legal experts said the directive will almost certainly be challenged in court, arguing it threatens to undermine the First Amendment. A wide array of critics in Congress, the tech industry and across the political spectrum also accused the White House of deputizing government agencies to carry out Trump’s personal vendettas. (Romm and Dwoskin, 5/28)

Los Angeles Times: Explainer: Section 230, The Internet Law Trump Wants To Curb
Its first part states ,“No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider. ”In effect, that means websites are not legally responsible for what other people post there. That applies to every site on the internet, whether they’re social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, sites that depend on customer reviews such as Yelp and Amazon, or any website with a comment section, from the Los Angeles Times to your personal blog. Section 230 is a small piece of the 1996 Telecommunications Act that has, in many ways, created the internet we all use today. (Dean, 5/28)

The New York Times: Twitter Warns That Trump Tweet Could Spur Violence
Twitter said early Friday that a tweet from President Trump implying that protesters in Minneapolis could be shot violated the company’s rules against glorifying violence, in a move that threatens to escalate tensions between Mr. Trump and his favorite social media megaphone over its content policies. The company prevented users from viewing Mr. Trump’s message without first reading a brief notice describing the rule violation. Twitter also blocked users from liking or replying to Mr. Trump’s post. (Zhong and Goldman, 5/29)

The Associated Press: White House Punts Economic Update As Election Draws Near
The White House has taken the unusual step of deciding not to release an updated economic forecast as planned this year, a fresh sign of the administration’s anxiety about how the coronavirus has ravaged the nation just months before the election. The decision, which was confirmed Thursday by a senior administration official who was not authorized to publicly comment on the plan, came amid intensifying signals of the pandemic’s grim economic toll. (Taylor, Boak and Madhani, 5/29)

The Washington Post: Breaking Precedent, White House Won’t Release Formal Economic Projections This Summer That Would Forecast Extent Of Downturn
Budget experts said they were not aware of any previous White House opting against providing forecasts in this “mid-session review” document in any other year since at least the 1970s. Two White House officials confirmed the decision had been made not to include the economic projections as part of the mid-session release. The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, said that the novel coronavirus is causing extreme volatility in the U.S. economy, making it difficult to model economic trends. (Stein and Dawsey, 5/28)

Politico: Trump Acknowledges ‘Very Sad Milestone’ Of 100,000 Coronavirus Deaths
President Donald Trump on Thursday offered his first expression of sympathy in observance of the milestone of 100,000 American coronavirus deaths, tweeting his condolences after drawing criticism for failing to reflect on the human cost of the outbreak in recent days. “We have just reached a very sad milestone with the coronavirus pandemic deaths reaching 100,000,” Trump wrote online. “To all of the families & friends of those who have passed, I want to extend my heartfelt sympathy & love for everything that these great people stood for & represent. God be with you!” (Forgey, 5/28)

Politico: Trump Courts Africa To Counter Coronavirus — And China
The Trump administration has set its sights on Africa as an important front in the fight against the coronavirus — and against China. In April, President Donald Trump launched a flurry of phone calls to African leaders, promising to send ventilators to help as the coronavirus continued its march across the globe. The outreach came on the heels of a fresh pledge from the State Department to send millions of dollars to several African countries to help combat the pandemic. And earlier this month, the Trump administration said it would donated up to 1,000 ventilators to South Africa, which has the highest number of coronavirus cases on the continent. (McGraw, 5/29)

Politico: Trump Extends National Guard's Coronavirus Deployment Following Outcry
The Trump administration is extending the federal deployment of more than 40,000 National Guard troops aiding coronavirus relief efforts in nearly every state and federal territory, reversing plans for an earlier cutoff following bipartisan backlash and pressure from top defense officials. The federal government will now keep funding National Guard troops across the country through mid-August, President Donald Trump tweeted Thursday. (Ollstein, 5/28)

Politico: Pandemic Upends State Plans To Expand Health Insurance
The coronavirus pandemic has derailed Democrats’ efforts in statehouses across the country to give more Americans government-backed health coverage. A once-unlikely deal in deep-red Kansas to expand Medicaid to about 150,000 poor people has been tabled for this year. In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom has abandoned plans to extend coverage to 27,000 undocumented immigrant seniors after the pandemic blew a $54 billion hole in the state budget. And in Colorado, the pandemic has stalled a heated legislative debate over a public option to compete with private insurers — a centerpiece of presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s health care platform. (Goldberg, 5/28)

The Washington Post: White House And CDC Remove Coronavirus Warnings About Choirs In Faith Guidance
The Trump administration with no advance notice removed warnings contained in guidance for the reopening of houses of worship that singing in choirs can spread the coronavirus. Last Friday, the administration released pandemic guidance for faith communities after weeks of debate flared between the White House and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Those guidelines posted on the CDC website included recommendations that religious communities “consider suspending or at least decreasing use of choir/musical ensembles and congregant singing, chanting, or reciting during services or other programming, if appropriate within the faith tradition.” (Sun and Dawsey, 5/28)

Politico: States Battle Churches’ Lockdown Challenges At SCOTUS
The governors of Illinois and California took somewhat different tacks Thursday night as they urged the Supreme Court not to get involved in disputes over the impact of virus-related lockdown orders on churches in their states. Hours before a deadline to respond to two churches’ request for an emergency stay to allow them to have more than 10 people in attendance at Pentecost services this Sunday, Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D-Ill.) announced that he was dropping all legal restrictions on religious gatherings and replacing them with voluntary “guidance.” (Gerstein and Kapos, 5/28)

Politico: Rising ICU Bed Use 'a Big Red Flag'
Intensive care units in Montgomery, Ala., are overflowing with Covid-19 patients, pushing them into emergency departments that are not primed to care for them. And Alabama’s capital city could be a harbinger for other parts of the country. ICU beds are also starting to fill up in places like Minnesota’s Twin Cities; Omaha, Neb.; and the entire state of Rhode Island, according to local health officials and epidemiologists tracking such data, a warning sign of possible health care problems down the road. (McCaskill, 5/28)

The Associated Press: Virus Taking Hold In Rural, Old Plantation Region Of Alabama
Sparsely populated Lowndes County, deep in Alabama’s old plantation country, has the sad distinction of having both the state’s highest rate of COVID-19 cases and its worst unemployment rate. Initially spared as the disease ravaged cities, the county and other rural areas in the state are now facing a “perfect storm:” a lack of access to medical care combined with poverty and the attendant health problems, including hypertension, heart disease, lung disease, kidney disease and diabetes, that can worsen the outcomes for those who become sick with the coronavirus, said Dr. Ellen Eaton. (Reeves and Chandler, 5/29)

Los Angeles Times: Counties Scale Back Reopening After Coronavirus Cases Spike
Sonoma County was one of the first regions in California to begin reopening after months of restrictions aimed at controlling the spread of the coronavirus. Public health officials loosened constraints on construction, car sales and landscaping services in early May. A week later, they began allowing retail stores to reopen for curbside pickup and delivery. Last week, outdoor dining, summer camps, drive-in religious services and other ceremonies were allowed to resume. (Fry, 5/28)

The Wall Street Journal: Vacation Towns Reopen From Lockdowns, And The Locals Are Torn
Weeks before Arizona officials eased stay-at-home rules, people looking for an escape from lockdown orders had discovered a poorly kept secret in the desert: Lake Havasu and the Colorado River were open for recreation. By the last week in April, empty hotel rooms in this resort town along a Colorado River reservoir with 45 miles of coastline started filling back up, with crowds growing week by week. People poured in even as most businesses were closed and restaurants offered only carryout. (Caldwell, 5/29)

The Associated Press: Both Businesses And Customers Conflicted As DC Reopens
Starting Friday, a tiny slice of pre-pandemic normality starts returning to the nation’s capital as a three-month old coronavirus stay-home order is replaced by the first phase of a reopening plan. Barbers and hair salons will begin welcoming back clients grown haggard from months of self-maintenance. Non-essential businesses, shuttered since late March, will be able to start offering curbside pickup. And restaurants that have operating solely on takeout will start limited outdoor seating. (Khalil, 5/29)

The Associated Press: GOP Lawyer Fights California Governor On Stay-At-Home Orders
Long before Harmeet Dhillon became the leader of the legal fight against California’s stay-at-home order, she was a new elementary school student in North Carolina uncomfortable because she didn’t know the Christian prayer her classmates recited every morning. She told her mother, who had studied the Constitution for her citizenship test after the Sikh family emigrated to the United States from India. Her mother spoke to the principal about the legality of having public school students reciting a prayer. (Ronayne, 5/29)

The Associated Press: Hawaii Governor To Extend Traveler Quarantine Past June
Hawaii Gov. David Ige on Thursday said he would extend the state’s 14-day quarantine requirement for travelers arriving in the state beyond June 30. The state mandated the quarantine beginning on March 26 to control the spread of the coronavirus. The governor told a joint online press conference held with the state’s four county mayors that an official announcement on the extension would be made later. (McAvoy, 5/29)

Stat: Contact Tracing May Help Avoid Another Lockdown. Can It Work In The U.S.?
To contain the spread of Covid-19, Alaska is planning to triple its number of contact tracers. Utah has retrained 150 state employees. And New York and other states are hiring thousands of people. And that, health experts say, might not be enough. (Joseph, 5/29)

The New York Times: Does A Crisis Spur Political Unity? Not This Pandemic
It was not so long ago that the conventional wisdom in Washington was that a genuine crisis like the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks had the power to cool partisan hostilities, pulling elected officials together to present a united front to a stricken nation. In a pandemic that has now claimed more than 100,000 lives, that is not proving to be the case. House Republicans marked the grim milestone this week by filing a lawsuit against Speaker Nancy Pelosi, accusing Democrats of a pandemic-enabled, unconstitutional power grab when they instituted proxy voting so that some lawmakers could avoid travel to Washington during the coronavirus outbreak. (Hulse, 5/28)

NPR: The Battle Between The Masked And The Masked-Nots Unveils Political Rifts
It has become a political and cultural flashpoint, drawing a clear divide between the "masked" and the "masked-nots." The disdain runs between the consciously unmasked president of the United States and his deliberately mask-donning Democratic rival, all the way on down to those crossing paths — and often crossing each other — in the cereal aisle of the grocery store. "It's selfishness. Complete selfishness," says 57-year-old Tia Nagaki, of the barefaced shoppers she has encountered. (Smith, 5/29)

The Hill: Watchdog Groups Want Trump's Coronavirus Vaccine Czar To Disclose All Pharma Ties 
Watchdog groups want President Trump's new coronavirus vaccine czar to disclose all of his ties to drug companies. Moncef Slaoui, who leads "Operation Warp Speed," the administration's initiative to find a COVID-19 vaccine, has extensive ties to the pharmaceutical industry and has come under fire from advocates and Democrats including Sen. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.) for potential conflicts of interest. However, his position in the administration is on a contract and he is not considered a government employee. As such, he is not subject to the same federal disclosure rules that would require him to list his stock holdings and other potential conflicts. (Weixel, 5/28)

The Wall Street Journal: Novartis Inks Deal To Make Experimental Coronavirus Vaccine
Novartis AG has agreed to manufacture a gene-based coronavirus vaccine being developed by scientists at Massachusetts Eye and Ear hospital, Massachusetts General and the University of Pennsylvania, paving the way for human testing to begin later this year. The Swiss drugmaker’s gene therapy unit AveXis is already making test batches of the vaccine and plans to start producing doses later in the summer that can be used for a clinical trial, said Dave Lennon, the unit’s president. (Roland, 5/28)

Stat: Big Gene Therapy Names Line Up Behind Experimental Covid-19 Vaccine
An early stage vaccine against Covid-19 based on the same basic technology used in gene therapy is gaining some support from some of that field’s biggest names. Earlier this year, James Wilson, a gene therapy pioneer, got a call from Luk Vandenberghe, who had been a graduate student in Wilson’s lab two decades ago. Vandenberghe wondered if a virus they had worked on as a potential component of gene therapies might work as part of a vaccine against SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes Covid-19. “It’s a great idea,” said Wilson, who heads the Gene Therapy Program at the University of Pennsylvania. “What can I do to help?” (Herper, 5/28)

The Washington Post: Trump Administration Mishandled Initial Distribution Of Remdesivir For Coronavirus Treatment
The Trump administration mishandled the initial distribution of the only approved coronavirus medication, delaying treatment to some critically ill patients with covid-19, the disease caused by the virus, according to nine current and former senior administration officials. The first tranche of 607,000 vials of the antiviral medication remdesivir, donated to the government by drugmaker Gilead Sciences, was distributed in early May — in some cases to the wrong hospitals, to hospitals with no intensive care units and therefore no eligible patients, and to facilities without the needed refrigeration to store it, meaning some had to be returned to the government, said the officials familiar with the distribution effort. (Abutaleb, Dawsey, Sun and McGinley, 5/28)

CIDRAP: 5 Days Of Remdesivir For COVID-19 May Be Enough
Results from an ongoing phase 3 study published yesterday in the New England Journal of Medicine showed no significant difference in the clinical status of hospitalized COVID-19 patients not requiring mechanical ventilation after a 5-day course of the antiviral drug remdesivir compared with patients who had a 10-day course. But the randomized, open-label trial lacked a placebo control, so the degree of benefit could not be determined. (Van Beusekom, 5/28)

The Washington Post: VA Says It Has ‘Ratcheted Down’ Use Of Hydroxychloroquine To Treat Veterans
The Department of Veterans Affairs has drastically scaled back the use of hydroxychloroquine to treat veterans with coronavirus infections after a major study raised questions about its efficacy and linked it to serious side effects, including higher risks of death. Testifying before the House Appropriations subcommittee on military construction, Veterans Affairs and related agencies, VA Secretary Robert Wilkie defended the continued use of the unproven drug but said it was used just three times last week. (Horton, 5/28)

The Wall Street Journal: Blood Of Recovered Covid-19 Patients Is Becoming A Hot Commodity
The blood business is booming. This normally obscure trade has been set alight by the race to develop Covid-19 antibody tests, which use blood to tell whether someone has already been infected with the coronavirus. The tests are seen as key to easing lockdowns that have shut down economies around the world. However, while surging demand has proven a boon for the traders known as blood brokers who source this commodity, diagnostic companies say high prices for the blood of recovered Covid-19 patients are posing a hurdle to developing tests. (Roland, 5/29)

CIDRAP: Indoor Spread Of COVID-19 Can Be Lessened, Experts Say
The spread of aerosolized SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, inside public buildings could be suppressed using engineering controls such as effective ventilation, possibly with air filtration and disinfection and avoidance of air recirculation and overcrowding, according to a research letter published yesterday in Environment International. The international group of researchers said the evidence is sufficiently strong for aerosols as an important mode of coronavirus transmission, most of which occurs indoors, and that indoor measures to slow the spread are often easily implemented at relatively low cost. (Van Beusekom, 5/28)

The Washington Post: What Public Health Experts Say Is Safe To Do This Summer
Summer during a pandemic brings new questions about what is safe and how to best protect ourselves. Is it okay to go to a public pool? Travel by plane? Stay in a hotel? Send a kid to camp? On the upside, public health experts say, we can do more outdoors, where ventilation is better and sunlight and humidity might help destroy the virus. Working against us: Many of us cooped up for much of the spring are craving connection. (Shaver, 5/27)

The Washington Post: Doctors Theorize About Cause Of Kawasaki-Like Syndrome In Children Linked To Covid-19
The four children showed up at the Mount Sinai Kravis Children’s Hospital in late April and early May, almost exactly one month after the peak of New York City’s coronavirus surge. All had fevers, rashes and strange blood readings that did not look like any illness doctors had seen before. And yet, the cases looked remarkably similar to one another. A study about the children, ages 13, 12, 10, and 5, published in the American Journal of Emergency Medicine, provides the first detailed look at the rapid progression of a mysterious syndrome linked to covid-19 that has alarmed public health officials. (Cha, 5/28)

The Wall Street Journal: House Passes Bill Loosening Rules On PPP Small-Business Loans
The House approved a bipartisan bill that would loosen requirements on hundreds of billions of dollars in small-business loans, responding to concerns from employers struggling to stay open during the coronavirus pandemic. The House bill reduces the level of Paycheck Protection Program funds that must be used for payroll to 60% from 75%. The bill also gives borrowers up to 24 weeks to use the funds, up from the eight set in the initial bill passed in March, and extends the deadline to rehire workers to Dec. 31. The bill passed 417-1 on Thursday, with many of the Democratic votes read into the record by their assigned proxy, taking advantage of a rule change this week that allows remote voting for the first time. (Andrews and Omeokwe, 5/28)

The Washington Post: House Passes Bill To Ease Access To Small-Business Loans In Pandemic, But Impasse With Senate Remains
The vote came as the Labor Department reported that an additional 2.1 million Americans filed jobless claims last week, bringing the 10-week total to more than 40 million applications. The Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) has emerged as one of the most visible elements of the $2 trillion Cares Act, which passed Congress in March and was meant to blunt the economic fallout from the pandemic. As of Saturday, more than 4.4 million loans had been issued under the program, with a total valuation of more than $500 billion. (Werner, 5/28)

The Hill: Schumer: GOP Should 'Stop Sitting On Their Hands' On Coronavirus Bill 
Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said on Thursday that Republicans should "stop sitting on their hands," after new figures put the number of unemployment claims since late March at 40 million. "The cost of Republican inaction grows every day. ... Senate Republicans ought to stop sitting on their hands and work in a bipartisan way to provide the immediate help workers and families need," Schumer said. (Carney, 5/28)

The New York Times: Coronavirus Aid: Millions Can See Its End, And They’re Scared
For millions of Americans left out of work by the coronavirus pandemic, government assistance has been a lifeline preventing a plunge into poverty, hunger and financial ruin. This summer, that lifeline could snap. The $1,200 checks sent to most households are long gone, at least for those who needed them most, with little imminent prospect for a second round. The lending program that helped millions of small businesses keep workers on the payroll will wind down if Congress does not extend it. (Casselman, 5/28)

The Associated Press: Debate Over $600 In Jobless Aid To Intensify As Claims Rise
A debate in Congress over whether to extend $600 a week in federally provided benefits to the unemployed looks sure to intensify with the number of people receiving the aid now topping 30 million — one in five workers. The money, included in a government relief package enacted in March, is set to expire July 31. Yet with the unemployment rate widely expected to still be in the mid-teens by then, members of both parties will face pressure to compromise on some form of renewed benefits for the jobless. (Rugaber, 5/29)

The New York Times: Virus Forces N.Y.C. To Consider Tactic That Nearly Led To Ruin In ’75
The coronavirus pandemic has plunged New York City into the most dire fiscal crisis it has faced in generations. More than 900,000 people have lost their jobs since February, and thousands of businesses have closed. The streets remain empty of workers and visitors: Nearly 117,000 people filed new unemployment claims in the second week of May, a staggering 2,206 percent increase from the previous year. Tourism, which generates roughly $70 billion a year in economic activity, has disappeared. (Ferre-Sadurni, Mays and McKinley, 5/29)

The New York Times: Fight Over G.O.P. Convention Escalates In North Carolina
Republicans planning their party’s convention on Thursday gave North Carolina’s governor a deadline of June 3 to approve safety measures to prevent the spread of the coronavirus during the event, planned for Charlotte in August. The move came as President Trump pressures Democratic leaders in the state to allow him to hold the kind of convention he wants, and as they cite public health concerns and say it is too soon to make a determination. The Republican National Committee chairwoman, Ronna McDaniel, and the president of the convention committee, Marcia Lee Kelly, laid out the deadline in a joint letter to Gov. Roy Cooper. (Haberman, 5/28)

The Wall Street Journal: Republicans Propose Coronavirus Safety Protocols For Party Convention In North Carolina
Republican National Convention attendees would be given health surveys before traveling to North Carolina for President Trump’s nomination, and some would be subjected to thermal scans before boarding sanitized buses, the RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said Thursday. Those are some of the Covid-19 safety protocols that Ms. McDaniel suggested to North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, as the two sides tussle over how to proceed with the party’s convention scheduled for late August. In a letter sent to Mr. Cooper and Republican National Committee members, Ms. McDaniel and Marcia Lee Kelly, the convention’s chief executive, sought the governor’s approval for a list of eight measures that Republicans would take to reduce the risk of spreading the coronavirus. (Bender, 5/28)

Stat: Despite Economic Crisis, Prominent Health Tech Startups Draw Big Funding
It was expected to be a last-minute salvo: As much of the world braced for a probable pandemic-era recession, some health tech startups nailed significant funding in the first quarter of 2020. Analysts eyed the data cautiously, warning that the trend was likely short-lived. But as March rolled into April, and then seeped like molasses into May, the money kept flowing. Just this month, three health tech companies raised more than $100 million each. (Brodwin, 5/29)

The New York Times: Pride And Panic: Children Of Health Care Workers Grapple With Pandemic
When Marcela Vasquez, a phlebotomist at Long Island Community Hospital, gasped for air in a quiet room at home, she wondered: If I die, who will take care of my children? As the fevers and body aches wracked her body, Ms. Vasquez’s 13-year-old daughter, Alyssa Barnes, feared the same. “I really need her,” Alyssa said of her mother, 38, who tested positive for the coronavirus in late March. “Just losing her, it would change my entire life.” (Ortiz, 5/27)

The Associated Press: Punching Through Turmoil: Pro Boxer Helps Medical Staff Cope
Hassan N’Dam, former middleweight boxing champion of the world, wanted to repay the French hospital that cared for his father-in-law through his bout with COVID-19. Perhaps with Champagne? Or chocolate? No, N’Dam thought: “These are things that won’t last. I wanted to leave something quite memorable.” (Pugmire, 5/29)

The Washington Post: Coronavirus: Gatherings As States Reopen Could Spell Return Of Another Dark American Phenomenon: Mass Shootings
Martín Quezada was on a Zoom call with constituents when he heard loud bangs echoing across the open-air mall below, and the Arizona state senator rushed to his third-floor apartment window. He saw people fleeing and a man carrying a long object about 50 yards away, walking toward his building. “My first thought was, ‘Those are gunshots,’ ” said Quezada, who represents the 29th Legislative District, which includes the Glendale mall. “But I was hoping that it wasn’t gunshots. I was hoping that it was something else, like firecrackers.” (Klemko, 5/28)

The New York Times: C.D.C. Suggests Big Changes To Offices: Temperature Checks And Desk Shields
Upon arriving at work, employees should get a temperature and symptom check. Inside the office, desks should be six feet apart. If that isn’t possible, employers should consider erecting plastic shields around desks. Seating should be barred in common areas. And face coverings should be worn at all times. (Richtel, 5/28)

The New York Times: As Day Care Centers Reopen, Will Parents Send Their Children?
Venice Ray was eager to return to work when Texas announced last week that child care centers, like the one she was laid off from in March, could immediately reopen. But re-enrolling her 4-year-old son? That gave her pause. As many restaurants, hair salons and shopping malls across the country welcome back customers, some states are allowing day care centers and preschools to reopen, acknowledging that child care plays a foundational role in the American economy. But for millions of working parents like Ms. Ray, the choice to send their children back to a place known for spreading germs, even in more normal times, is not an easy one. (Goldstein and Bosman, 5/29)

The Wall Street Journal: Higher Death Rates Found Among Cancer Patients With Covid-19
Cancer patients infected with the new coronavirus are dying at significantly higher rates than Covid-19 patients in the general population, a new study suggests. In the study, conducted by an international group of researchers and published online by the Lancet, researchers looked at data on 928 Covid-19 patients in the U.S., Canada and Spain who had cancer that was either active or in remission. Thirteen percent of those patients died within 30 days of their Covid-19 diagnosis, according to the study. In contrast, the case fatality of Covid-19 patients in the U.S. is 5.9%, according to global coronavirus data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. (Toy, 5/28)

The New York Times: The Birds Are Not On Lockdown, And More People Are Watching Them
The adult male scarlet tanager is a medium-size songbird with glaring crimson feathers and jet-black wings. It can be hard to spot, because the species tends to forage among the upper branches of tall trees. But it does come down to earth, and sometimes can be caught hanging out with pigeons outside of the Freeport Wild Bird Supply store in Maine. It is the kind of sighting that can spark a lifelong interest in bird-watching, said Derek Lovitch, 42, a birder and biologist who runs the store with his wife, Jeannette. (Fortin, 5/29)

The New York Times: Border Wall Land Grabs Accelerate As Owners Shelter From Pandemic
The Trump administration is accelerating efforts to seize private property for President Trump’s border wall, taking advantage of the coronavirus pandemic to survey land while its owners are confined indoors, residents along the Rio Grande say. “Is that essential business?” asked Nayda Alvarez, 49, who recently found construction markers on the land in Starr County, Texas, that has been in her family for five generations. “That didn’t stop a single minute during the shelter in place or stay at home.” (Kanno-Youngs, 5/29)

The Associated Press: Travel Disruptions Challenge Global Transplant Deliveries
Over the past two months, as air travel ground to a halt, Mishel Zrian has crisscrossed the Atlantic and the United States dozens of times, sleeping in empty airports and unable to return home to see his family in Israel, all in a race against time to deliver life-saving transplants. Zrian is a courier hired by Israel’s Ezer Mizion bone marrow donor registry, which has had to perform logistical acrobatics to get its transplants to their destinations amid the travel disruptions caused by the pandemic. (Goldenberg, 5/29)

The Associated Press: Europe’s Social Welfare Net Shows Signs Of Wear From Virus
Europe’s extensive social welfare net is showing signs of fraying under economic strain from the coronavirus, as protests erupted for a second day in Spain Friday against layoffs by French carmaker Renault, while Italy’s chief central banker warned that “uncertainty is rife.” Further afield, while New Zealand had all but eradicated the coronavirus with just one person in the nation of 5 million known to be still infected, developments elsewhere were generally grim. India reported another record increase in cases and Pakistan a record number of deaths. (Charlton, Barry and Perry, 5/29)

The New York Times: Playing By The Rules: Dutch Leader Offers A Sober Contrast In A Brash Era
In an era of brash populists thumbing their noses at laws and customs, Mark Rutte, 53, the prime minister of the Netherlands and one of the longest-serving European leaders, believes in playing strictly by the rules. The Dutch electorate is so accustomed to his humble ways that few people blinked an eye when Mr. Rutte said this week that, in accordance with Dutch policies on the coronavirus, he had not visited his 96-year-old mother in a nursing home in the weeks before her death. (Erdbrink, 5/28)