First Edition: June 5, 2020

Kaiser Health News: COVID-19 Overwhelms Border ICUs
Even as most California hospitals have avoided an incapacitating surge in coronavirus patients, some facilities near the Mexican border have been overwhelmed. They include El Centro Regional Medical Center in Imperial County and Scripps Mercy Hospital Chula Vista in San Diego County, which link the spike in COVID-19 patients to their communities’ cross-border lifestyle. Some U.S. citizens and legal residents who live in Mexico are crossing the border from Tijuana and Mexicali into the U.S. for treatment. (De Marco, 6/5)

Kaiser Health News/The Guardian: Lost On The Frontline
A housing supervisor who “was always trying to help somebody.” A former nurse who coached trainees from behind an ICU’s administrative desk. A nursing home food service director who died the day after his mother. 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 died of COVID-19. (6/5)

Kaiser Health News: Montana’s Tribal Nations Preserve COVID Restrictions To Preserve Their Cultures
As Montana plows forward with its reopening, including throwing open the doors to tourism on June 1, the outlook is starkly different for members of the state’s Native American nations, which have approached the coronavirus with greater caution and stricter controls. For members of the state’s far-flung tribes, who make up nearly 7% of Montana’s population of roughly 1 million, protective attitudes toward elders and cultural heritage have shaped a pandemic response around defending the most vulnerable rather than prioritizing economics. (McLaughlin, 6/5)

Kaiser Health News: Social Media Fears About Lack Of Coverage For Protest Injuries May Be Overblown
Thousands of protesters thronged the streets in recent days to express their anger over the killing of an African American man, George Floyd, in police custody in Minneapolis. The mostly peaceful rallies have turned violent at times, with police using batons, tear gas and rubber bullets that caused serious injuries. That led to online social media postings that health plans might deny coverage for medical treatment of injured protesters, some suggesting it might be better for protesters not to tell providers how they got hurt. (Andrews, 6/5)

Kaiser Health News: Efforts To Curb Congenital Syphilis Falter In COVID’s Shadow
U.S. public health officials are closer to identifying a road map for curbing the rising rates of syphilis infections in newborn babies, but with so many resources diverted to stopping the spread of COVID-19, many fear the rate of deadly infections will only get worse. Congenital syphilis — the term used when a mother passes the infection to her baby during pregnancy — is often a devastating legacy, potentially leaving babies blind or in excruciating pain or with bone deformities, blood abnormalities or organ damage. (Barry-Jester, 6/4)

Kaiser Health News: KHN’s ‘What The Health?’: Protests And The Pandemic
Following the death of George Floyd while in custody in Minneapolis, protests have mushroomed around the U.S. to decry police violence, raising concerns among public health officials about the potential for further spread of the coronavirus. Meanwhile, the economic toll of the continuing pandemic is prompting some states to cancel or scale back plans to expand health coverage to more of their residents. (6/4)

Politico: Mass Arrests Jeopardizing The Health Of Protesters, Police
Mass arrests of protesters across the country — many held for hours in vans, cells and other enclosed spaces — are heightening the risk of coronavirus spread, according to public health experts and lawsuits filed by civil rights groups. ... The use of tear gas and pepper spray, which provoke coughing, adds to the health risk, as do police crowd control techniques like “kettling” — pushing demonstrators into smaller, contained and tightly packed spaces. “The police tactics — the kettling, the mass arrests, the use of chemical irritants — those are completely opposed to public health recommendations,” said Malika Fair, director of Public Health Initiatives at the Association of American Medical Colleges. “They're causing protesters to violate the six-feet recommendation. The chemicals may make them have to remove their masks. This is all very dangerous.” (Ollstein and Goldberg, 6/4)

Los Angeles Times: Tear Gas At Protests May Spread Coronavirus, Experts Say 
Using tear gas or pepper spray to subdue protesters will only help spread the coronavirus in the middle of a pandemic, infectious disease experts warn, urging law enforcement to abandon the practice for public health reasons. Spraying people with tear gas causes them to cough, shout and scream — and that will send infectious droplets from an infected person to others, said Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, a professor of medicine and an infectious diseases specialist at UC San Francisco. (Lin, 6/4)

ProPublica: Tear Gas Is Way More Dangerous Than Police Let On — Especially During The Coronavirus Pandemic
When Amira Chowdhury joined a protest in Philadelphia against police violence on Monday, she wore a mask to protect herself and others against the coronavirus. But when officers launched tear gas into the crowd, Chowdhury pulled off her mask as she gasped for air. “I couldn’t breathe,” she said. “I felt like I was choking to death.” Chowdhury was on a part of the Vine Street Expressway that ran underground. Everyone panicked as gas drifted into the dark, semi-enclosed space, she said. People stomped over her as they scrambled away. Bruised, she scaled a fence to escape. But the tear gas found her later that evening, inside her own house; as police unleashed it on protesters in her predominantly black neighborhood in West Philadelphia, it seeped in. (Song, 6/4)

Politico: Black Communities At Heart Of Floyd Protests Face 'Pandemic Within A Pandemic'
The black community in Minneapolis was already reeling before a white police officer killed George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, on May 25. The number of coronavirus cases in the state of Minnesota spiked dramatically in May. And although they make up less than a fifth of the city's population, black residents have accounted for a third of all Covid-19 infections there — neighborhoods where most of the households make $35,000 or less have been particularly hard hit. Meanwhile, roughly one in three black Minnesotans had filed for unemployment insurance as of May 18. (McCaskill and Doherty, 6/3)

Los Angeles Times: Amid Protests, California Coronavirus Cases Near 120,000
With protests across California decrying the death of George Floyd in their seventh day, health officials continue to sound the alarm that such close gatherings are likely to contribute to the spread of the coronavirus. The number of confirmed cases in California surpassed 120,000 on Thursday, with the death toll reaching more than 4,400. The long-standing anger over killings like that of Floyd — who was pinned to the ground as a white Minneapolis police officer pressed his knee into Floyd’s neck — and the newer threat of the COVID-19 outbreak have become a joint crisis. (Carcamo, Karlamangla and Willon, 6/4)

Reuters: Protesters Should 'Highly Consider' Coronavirus Tests, U.S. Health Official Says
A top U.S. health official cautioned on Thursday that protests sweeping across the country could increase the spread of the novel coronavirus, particularly in cities that have struggled to control the outbreak, and that participants should “highly consider” getting tested. Huge crowds have taken to the streets of dozens of cities since the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody set off unrest that has roiled America in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. (Erman, 6/4)

The Washington Post: CDC Director Says Protesters Should Consider Getting Tested For Coronavirus
“I do think there is a potential, unfortunately, for this to be a seeding event,” Redfield said. “And the way to minimize it is to have each individual to recognize it’s to the advantage of them to protect their loved ones, to [say]: ‘Hey, I was out. I need to go get tested.’ You know, in three, five, seven days, go get tested. Make sure you’re not infected.” Redfield was testifying at a House Appropriations subcommittee hearing on his agency’s response to covid-19, the disease caused by the novel virus. Health experts are concerned about any large gatherings in a close space that can make it easier to spread the coronavirus. (Sun, 6/4)

Los Angeles Times: California Lawmakers Promise To Set Rules For Rubber Bullets
Alarmed at numerous reports that protesters in recent days have been seriously injured by rubber bullets fired by police officers, a group of California lawmakers said Thursday they will introduce legislation to set clear standards for when the projectiles can be used. Four lawmakers proposed revising current policy on use of the projectiles in response to incidents reported throughout the country by those who have been protesting the death of George Floyd, who was killed when a Minneapolis police officer used his knee to pin Floyd’s neck to the ground. (McGreevy, 6/4)

The New York Times: How A City Besieged By The Virus Turned Out To Be Heard
A teenager outside the Port Authority Bus Terminal, taking a knee on a block crowded with protesters, relished the feeling lost these last months — of being part of something. A 23-year-old art teacher, Evan Woodard, was thrilled to see his city at the fore of a nationwide event. “I’m proud to call myself a New Yorker,” he said. “This is everyone’s city.” People who just last month were dutifully keeping behind doors and masks have turned out by the tens of thousands in the past week to gather in the streets and shout to be heard. (Wilson and Garcia, 6/4)

Los Angeles Times: Trump Ignores Calls For Police Reforms
When George Floyd died last week after a Minneapolis police officer pinned him down with a knee on his neck, President Trump reacted much as he had in the past when a black person’s fatal encounter with law enforcement was caught on video. He declared himself disturbed by the “terrible thing” that he saw — then offered nothing in terms of policy to address enduring concerns about policing and racism. “Right now I think the nation needs law and order,” Trump told the conservative media outlet Newsmax. “You have a bad group of people out there.” (Megerian and Bierman, 6/4)

The Washington Post: Police Are Consistently Whiter Than The Communities They Work In, Particularly In Urban Areas
As police engage with protesters in cities across the United States, many major police forces are still much whiter than the communities where they work. Decades of reform have made police less white, but it has not been enough to keep pace with the changing demographics of the country. This widening racial gap has left very few police forces that resemble the people they serve, which experts say can hinder community relations and affect crime rates. (Keating and Uhrmacher, 6/4)

The Associated Press: Floyd Death Pushes Military To Face 'Own Demons' On Race
The death of George Floyd in police hands has pushed the U.S. military to search its soul and to admit that, like the rest of America, it has fallen short on racial fairness. Although the military historically has prided itself on diversity, leaders acknowledge that black troops often are disproportionately subject to military legal punishment and are impeded in promotions. “I struggle with the Air Force’s own demons that include the racial disparities in military justice and discipline among our youngest black male airmen,” Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force Kaleth O. Wright, an African American and the service’s top enlisted airman, wrote in a social media post this week. (Burns and Baldor, 6/5)

The Associated Press: Districts Jettison School Police Officers Amid Protests
An increasing number of cities are rethinking the presence of school resource officers as they respond to the concerns of thousands of demonstrators — many of them young — who have filled the streets night after night to protest the death of George Floyd. Portland Public Schools, Oregon’s largest school district, on Thursday cut its ties with the Portland Police Bureau, joining other urban districts from Minneapolis to Denver that are mulling the fate of such programs. Protesters in some cities, including Portland, have demanded the removal of the officers from schools. (Flaccus, 6/5)

The Washington Post: The Black-White Economic Gap Remains As Wide As In 1968
As Black Lives Matter protests grow across the nation over policing, the deep economic inequalities that African Americans face are coming to the forefront. In many ways, the gap between the finances of blacks and whites is still as wide in 2020 as it was in 1968, when a run of landmark civil rights legislation culminated in the Fair Housing Act in response to centuries of unequal treatment of African Americans in nearly every part of society and business. (Long and Van Dam, 6/4)

NPR: For Black Emergency Doctors In Washington, The Pandemic Is Personal
Dr. Janice Blanchard worries about her commute this week, which takes her past the White House. Police and federal law enforcement are heavy on the roads she drives to the George Washington University Hospital, where she works as an emergency medicine physician. "I am nervous I might be stopped," said Blanchard, who is black. "I realize I am low risk, but it is stressful." Blanchard is among some 1,500 African American doctors in Washington on the front lines of treating the coronavirus. (Cheslow, 6/4)

The Associated Press: Experts: Floyd’s Health Issues Don’t Affect Homicide Ruling
George Floyd had drugs in his system and severe heart disease when a Minneapolis police officer put a knee to his neck, but independent experts said the medical problems revealed in the full autopsy report don’t change the conclusion that the handcuffed man’s death was a homicide. “He has some underlying conditions” that made it more likely he would not fare well under stress, said Dr. Gregory Davis, medical examiner for Jefferson County, Alabama, and a pathology professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. But the circumstances of Floyd’s May 25 death are not ignored in Wednesday’s report, which said “restraint and neck compression are part of why he died,” Davis said. (Marchione, 6/5)

The New York Times: Trump Administration Sets Demographic Requirements For Coronavirus Reports
The Trump administration on Thursday released new requirements for states to report coronavirus data based on race, ethnicity, age and sex of individuals tested for the virus, responding to demands from lawmakers for a clearer picture of the pandemic and its racial discrepancies. All laboratories — as well as nonlaboratory facilities offering on-site testing and in-home testing — will be required to send demographic data to state or local public health departments based on the individual’s residence, according to details released by the Department of Health and Human Services. (Weiland and Mandavilli, 6/4)

Reuters: U.S. Health Department Asks Labs To Add Demographic Data To COVID-19 Results
U.S. laboratories testing patients for COVID-19 are required to report data such as a patient’s age and ethnicity along with test results, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said on Thursday. The move aims to better understand why the respiratory illness affects certain demographics such as racial minorities and older Americans more severely than others, the HHS said in a statement. (6/4)

The Washington Post: Race, Ethnicity Data To Be Required With Coronavirus Tests Starting Aug. 1
The new guidance compels all labs running tests to diagnose the coronavirus or determine whether someone might have antibodies to the virus to collect and submit information on people’s age, sex, location, and test result, as well as on race and ethnicity. There are 18 required pieces of information in all. The rules take effect Aug. 1. Labs must submit that data within 24 hours to a state or local health department, which must, in turn, forward it to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, stripping off the person’s identity when sending to the government. (Goldstein, 6/4)

The New York Times: Two Huge Covid-19 Studies Are Retracted After Scientists Sound Alarms
The studies, published in renowned scientific journals, produced astounding results and altered the course of research into the coronavirus pandemic. One undercut President Trump’s claim that certain antimalarial drugs cure Covid-19, the illness caused by the virus, concluding that the medications in fact were dangerous to patients. The other found that some blood pressure drugs did not increase the risk of Covid-19 and might even be protective. Both studies were led by a professor at Harvard, and both depended on a huge international database of patient medical records that few experts had ever heard of. But on Thursday, the studies were retracted by the scientific journals in which they had appeared, The New England Journal of Medicine and The Lancet, because the authors could not verify the data on which the results depended. (Rabin and Gabler, 6/4)

The Associated Press: Study On Safety Of Malaria Drugs For Coronavirus Retracted
Even though the Lancet report was not a rigorous test, the observational study had huge impact because of its size, reportedly involving more than 96,000 patients and 671 hospitals on six continents. Its conclusion that the drugs were tied to a higher risk of death and heart problems in people hospitalized with COVID-19 led the World Health Organization to temporarily stop use of hydroxychloroquine in a study it is leading, and for French officials to stop allowing its use in hospitals there. Earlier this week, WHO said experts who reviewed safety information decided that its study could resume. (Marchione, 6/5)

The Wall Street Journal: Authors Retract Studies That Found Risks Of Using Antimalaria Drugs Against Covid-19
Three of the Lancet paper’s authors said they decided to retract the paper after Surgisphere refused to share the full data set as part of a review triggered by concerns raised by outside researchers. The Lancet published a correction to the study on May 29. “We always aspire to perform our research in accordance with the highest ethical and professional guidelines,” the authors, Drs. Mehra, Patel and Frank Ruschitzka said in a statement. “We can never forget the responsibility we have as researchers to scrupulously ensure that we rely on data sources that adhere to our high standards. Based on this development, we can no longer vouch for the veracity of the primary data sources.” (Hopkins and Gold, 6/4)

The Washington Post: Researchers Retract Lancet Hydroxychloroquine Study That Found Big Risks In Using It To Treat Covid-19
The retractions raised concerns in the medical and scientific community that researchers and even prestigious medical journals are lowering their standards in a rush to publish during the pandemic. “I’m concerned that the usual standards, both at the level of the journals and at the level of authors and faculty rushing to get high-impact work published, has meant that our usual standards have fallen,” said Steven Joffe, a medical ethicist at the University of Pennsylvania. (McGinley, 6/4)

Reuters: Authors Retract Lancet Article That Found Risks In Hydroxychloroquine Against COVID-19
The anti-malarial drug has been controversial in part due to support from Trump, as well as implications of the study published in British journal The Lancet last month, which led several COVID-19 studies to be halted. The three authors said Surgisphere, the company that provided the data, would not transfer the dataset for an independent review and they “can no longer vouch for the veracity of the primary data sources.” (Erman, 6/4)

The New York Times: This Time, Hardly Anyone Followed Trump’s Lead On Virus Drugs
Newly compiled prescription data shows that President Trump’s decision to take an antimalarial drug to ward off the coronavirus did not inspire many Americans to do the same, reflecting the fast-changing landscape surrounding the virus and efforts to treat it. First-time prescriptions ticked up by only several hundred the day after Mr. Trump mentioned at a White House event on May 18 that, as a preventive measure, he was taking one of two antimalarial drugs he had touted, according to nationwide data analyzed by The New York Times. (Gabler and Keller, 6/4)

Reuters: Does Drug Touted By Trump Work On COVID-19? After Data Debacle, We Still Don't Know
Scientists are resuming COVID-19 trials of the now world-famous drug hydroxychloroquine, as confusion continues to reign about the anti-malarial hailed by U.S. President Donald Trump as a potential “game-changer” in fighting the pandemic. (Kelland and Smout, 6/4)

Reuters: U.S. Doctors Group Sues FDA For Limiting Access To Drug Touted By Trump For COVID-19
A group of conservative U.S. doctors has sued the Food and Drug Administration for limiting use of the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine for COVID-19, arguing that the therapy should be made widely available to fight the pandemic. (Martell and Erman, 6/4)

Reuters: Blood Pressure Drugs Linked To Lower COVID-19 Mortality: Study
Widely used drugs to control high blood pressure may help protect against severe COVID-19, a new study found, allaying concerns that they could make the illness caused by the coronavirus worse. Overall, patients with high blood pressure did have twice the risk of death and were more likely to need mechanical ventilation to help them breathe than those without hypertension - a known risk factor - researchers reported on Thursday in the European Heart Journal. (Joseph, 6/4)

The Wall Street Journal: U.S. Distribution Of Covid-19 Drug Remdesivir Improved But Still Wasn’t Enough
After a rocky start, the federal government sent nearly a half-million doses of Covid-19 drug remdesivir to states over three weeks last month, but the supplies weren’t enough to treat the tens of thousands of hospitalized patients, a Wall Street Journal analysis of shipment and hospitalization data found. Supplies of the Gilead Sciences Inc. drug rose across states over those weeks—to enough to treat between 40,000 and 74,000 patients—according to Health and Human Services Department data reviewed by the Journal. (Walker, 6/5)

The Washington Post: The Biggest Challenge For A Coronavirus Vaccine Could Be Getting Countries To Share
Global leaders came together Thursday to raise at least $2 billion toward providing a future vaccine for the novel coronavirus to people throughout the world — a precarious diplomatic endeavor and one of the biggest unresolved problems in using a vaccine to combat the pandemic. The virtual summit was convened by a public-private partnership called Gavi, which aims to increase vaccination rates in lower-income countries. (Wan and Johnson, 6/4)

The Associated Press: UK Vaccine Summit Calls For Freely Available Virus Vaccine
A vaccine summit has raised billions of dollars to immunize children in developing countries as experts wrestled with how any potential vaccine against the coronavirus might be distributed globally — and fairly. The United Nations and the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement have urged that “a people’s vaccine” be developed for COVID-19 that would be freely available to everyone, calling it a “moral imperative.” (Cheng and Neergaard, 6/5)

Stat: Inovio Sues Vaccine Manufacturer Amid Race To Develop Covid-19 Vaccine
As the race to develop a Covid-19 vaccine accelerates, Inovio Pharmaceuticals (INO) filed a lawsuit claiming it is being held “hostage” by its long-standing contract manufacturer, which is refusing to provide crucial data needed to scale up vaccine production. In arguing its case, Inovio maintained that a supply agreement requires VGXI to transfer technology know-how to other contract manufacturers if it declines to make a vaccine for Inovio. And recently, VGXI told Inovio that it cannot manufacture further batches of its experimental Covid-19 vaccine this year because it lacks manufacturing capacity, according to the lawsuit, filed in a Pennsylvania state court. (Silverman, 6/4)

Reuters: Vaccines Group Raises $8.8 Billion For Immunisation Plans For Poor Countries
The GAVI vaccines alliance said on Thursday it had raised $8.8 billion from international donor governments, companies and philanthropic foundations to fund its immunisation programmes through to 2025. (Kelland, 6/4)

Reuters: AstraZeneca Targets Two Billion Doses, Poor Countries With COVID Vaccine Deals
British drugmaker AstraZeneca has doubled manufacturing capacity for its potential coronavirus vaccine to 2 billion doses in two deals involving Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates that guarantee early supply to lower income countries. The deals with epidemic response group CEPI and vaccine alliance GAVI are backed by the World Health Organisation and aim to quell concerns that the company was committing all initial supplies of the vaccine to the developed world. (6/4)

Reuters: Novavax Gets U.S. Defense Funding For Its COVID-19 Vaccine
Novavax Inc said on Thursday the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) will give the late-stage biotech company up to $60 million to fund the manufacturing of its experimental COVID-19 vaccine. The U.S.-based company said the deal includes the delivery of 10 million doses of its COVID-19 vaccine - NVX‑CoV2373 - to the DoD this year. (6/4)

Reuters: Tyson The Alpaca Takes Heavyweight Role In Search For Coronavirus Vaccine
Scientists in Sweden are hoping an alpaca named Tyson can help deliver a knockout blow in the fight to develop a treatment or vaccine against the novel coronavirus that has killed nearly 400,000 people worldwide. After immunizing Tyson, a 12 year-old alpaca in Germany, with virus proteins, the team at the Karolinska Institute have isolated tiny antibodies - known as nanobodies - from his blood that bind to the same part of the virus as human antibodies and could block the infection. (6/4)

Stat: How We Can Avoid Screwing Up The Response To Covid-19 Again 
Even as Americans fight (and even kill) over the country’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic, there is no disagreement on one point: With 1.9 million cases and the death toll closing in on 110,000 as of June 5, for both economic and humanitarian reasons we absolutely cannot have a repeat of the tragedy that has unfolded since March. But with the current drop-off in cases, hospital admissions, and deaths likely to be followed sooner or later by local, regional, and possibly national resurgences, the implication is clear: If — or, more likely, when — those occur, we have to do better. (Begley and Branswell, 6/5)

The Wall Street Journal: U.S. Coronavirus Deaths Pass 108,000; India Reports Its Highest Daily Toll
The U.S. coronavirus death toll passed 108,000 while reported cases topped 1.8 million, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. Cases world-wide passed 6.6 million, and deaths stood at more than 391,000. Experts say official totals likely understate the extent of the pandemic, in part because of differing testing and reporting standards. (6/5)

The New York Times: Doctors Heavily Overprescribed Antibiotics Early In The Pandemic
The desperately ill patients who deluged the emergency room at Detroit Medical Center in March and April exhibited the telltale symptoms of the coronavirus: high fevers and infection-riddled lungs that left them gasping for air. With few treatment options, doctors turned to a familiar intervention: broad-spectrum antibiotics, the shot-in-the-dark medications often used against bacterial infections that cannot be immediately identified. They knew antibiotics are not effective against viruses, but they were desperate, and they feared the patients could be vulnerable to life-threatening secondary bacterial infections as well. (Jacobs, 6/4)

The Wall Street Journal: Coronavirus Antibody Tests: Facts, Myths And Everything You Need To Know
The clamor for antibody tests is mounting. The blood tests are designed to detect whether people have been previously infected with the coronavirus and have developed antibodies to it. People who were sick but never got a Covid-19 test want to see if they did have the virus—in hopes that they may have some protection from future infection. Public health authorities are deploying the tests to help determine how widely the virus has spread. And businesses and governments hope the tests can help open up the economy and get employees back to the workplace. (Reddy, 6/4)

Politico: States Prod Nursing Homes To Take More Covid-19 Patients
Programs designed to help elderly people with coronavirus are creating a perverse financial incentive for nursing homes with bad track records to bring in sick patients, raising the risks of spreading infections and substandard care for seriously ill patients, according to advocates for the elderly and industry experts. Coronavirus-positive patients can bring in double or more the funding of other residents. States including California, Massachusetts, Michigan and New Mexico, wanting to relieve pressure on crowded hospitals, are providing extra incentives for nursing homes to accept such patients. (Severns and Roubein, 6/4)

The Washington Post: Hundreds Of Nursing Homes Ran Short On Staff, PPE As More Than 30,000 Residents Died
New federal data released Thursday reflect the rising death toll from covid-19 at the nation’s nursing homes and the desperate need at thousands of facilities for critical personnel and basic supplies. More than three months after the coronavirus began sweeping through U.S. nursing homes, thousands of homes are still underequipped for the continuing onslaught, the data show. So far, the number of nursing home deaths attributed to covid-19 has reached nearly 32,000 residents and more than 600 employees, and both counts are sure to rise: About 12 percent of the nation’s 15,000 homes have not yet reported figures. (Whoriskey, Cenziper, Englund and Jacobs, 6/4)

The Wall Street Journal: U.S. Nursing Home Population Shrunk Roughly 10% This Year
The coronavirus pandemic dealt a crushing blow to nursing homes across the U.S., driving down their occupancy by nearly 100,000 residents between the end of 2019 and late May, according to new federal data. The data gives the public its first broad look into individual nursing homes and sheds new light on the scale of the pandemic’s impact on the industry and those it serves. Nursing homes reported nearly 32,000 resident deaths linked to the coronavirus, the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said Thursday. (Weaver, Wilde Mathews and Kamp, 6/4)

The Washington Post: Coronavirus: For Many Who Lost Jobs In The Epidemic, Hunger Comes With Shame
The Robert Garcia that Robert Garcia always saw in the mirror was the Marine who jumped out of helicopters, the guy who built houses, rode a Harley and had plenty of buddies. Now, thanks to the coronavirus, his reflection shows a man alone in a single room in Santa Fe, N.M., out of work, looking outside and wondering what the neighbors are thinking when the food bank delivers his meals. “People see them coming and I feel this anxiety that they look at me in a different way,” Garcia said. “Like, ‘What’s wrong with this dude that he’s getting food like that?’ ” (Fisher, Hernandez and Sellers, 6/4)

The Associated Press: Another Huge Blow To US Workers Expected In May Jobs Report
America’s workers likely suffered another devastating blow in May, with millions more jobs lost to the viral pandemic and an unemployment rate near or even above 20% for the first time since the Great Depression. Economists have forecast that the government will report Friday that employers shed 8.5 million more jobs last month on top of 21.4 million lost in March and April. A figure that large would raise the total losses since the coronavirus intensified nearly three months ago to almost 30 million — more than triple the number of jobs lost during the 2008-2009 Great Recession. (Rugaber, 6/5)

The Washington Post: The U.S. Economy Is Likely Bottoming Out, But A Full Recovery Could Take Years
The U.S. economy’s steep slide appears to be leveling off amid signs that layoffs are easing, travel is modestly picking up, and Americans are beginning to eat out again, but a recovery from the coronavirus pandemic is still a long way off, with economic activity at deeply depressed levels. On Thursday, the latest sign that the economic decline may be bottoming out came as the government reported that 1.9 million Americans had applied for unemployment insurance during the last week of May — a painfully high number but the lowest since the novel coronavirus started spreading widely in the country in March. (Long and Rosenberg, 6/4)

The Associated Press: Despite Reopening, Some Jobs Lost To Virus Are Gone For Good
Factories and stores are reopening, economies are reawakening – but many jobs just aren’t coming back. That’s the harsh truth facing workers laid off around the U.S. and the world, from restaurants in Thailand to car factories in France, whose livelihoods fell victim to a virus-driven recession that’s accelerating decline in struggling industries and upheaval across the global workforce. (Chalton and Vejpongsa, 6/5)

The Wall Street Journal: Appeals Court Blocks Texans’ Access To Mail-In Voting
Texans cannot request mail-in ballots based on a fear of catching the new coronavirus at the polls, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday, the latest development in a high-stakes fight over voting in the nation’s second-largest state. The Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals blocked an injunction from a federal judge last month that gave Texans the right to request mail-in ballots during the pandemic. “The spread of the virus has not given ‘unelected federal judges’ a roving commission to rewrite state election codes,” Judge Jerry Smith wrote for a unanimous three-judge panel. (Findell, 6/4)

The Hill: Tennessee Court Rules All Registered Voters Can Obtain Mail-In Ballots Due To COVID-19 
A Tennessee state court ruled Thursday that any registered voter in the state can qualify for mail-in voting. Unlike some other states, voters in Tennessee must cite an excuse for why they are not voting in-person. Outside of the ruling, which only applies to elections taking place this year, only people who are sick, disabled, traveling or elderly are eligible for mail-in voting in the state. (Moreno, 6/4)

Politico: New York Primary Battles Struggle To Draw Attention In A Shaken City
One of New York City's congressional primaries is among the progressive movement's best hopes for a repeat of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's upset win in 2018. Another could deal a blow to that movement. In one district that touches the north end of the Bronx, a three-decade incumbent, white congressman will have to fend off a challenge from a progressive, black candidate just weeks after getting caught on a hot mic saying he “wouldn’t care” about speaking on the city's civil unrest if he didn’t have a primary to win. (Durkin, 6/5)

Los Angeles Times: She’s Patrolled Navajo Nation For Nearly 20 Years. Nothing Prepared Her For Coronavirus
The Navajo Nation patrol car pulled up to the jail near the center of town and Officer Carolyn Tallsalt stepped out. She adjusted her surgical mask, pressing the edges so they sealed against her cheeks, then flung open the door to the back seat where there was a woman in handcuffs. A jail guard proceeded to pepper the woman, arrested for disturbing the peace, with questions. Have you been in contact with anyone known to have coronavirus? Have you contracted the virus yourself? Do you have a fever or body aches? “No, no, no,” the mask-less woman mumbled, before coughing twice into the open air. Tallsalt stepped back. (Lee, 6/3)

The New York Times: On Tribal Lands, A Time To Make Art For Solace And Survival
For over 30 years, Marvin and Frances Martinez have risen with the sun to drive from their home at the San Ildefonso Pueblo in New Mexico to the centuries-old Palace of the Governors in Santa Fe. They arrive early to snag a prime spot beneath the rough-hewed wooden beams of the portal, a colonnade where they sell pottery blackened by blue smoke that recalls the legacy of Maria Martinez, the grande dame of Native American pottery and Mr. Martinez’s great-grandmother. They are among the 70 or so Native American artisans gathering here to earn a living, artfully arranging their silver and turquoise jewelry, polychrome pots, ubiquitous feathered dreamcatchers and other items on Pendleton blankets. (Brown, 6/5)

The Wall Street Journal: Las Vegas Casinos Reopen With Social Distancing, Sinks By Slot Machines
During the pandemic-induced closure of casinos here, the Bellagio resort installed a new feature in between the twinkling slot machines: plumbing. Hard-wired hand-washing sinks branded “Vegas Safely”—complete with dispensers for gloves and masks—are among many reminders of the delicate balance being attempted by Strip operators like MGM Resorts International as properties began to reopen Thursday morning after restrictions were eased. (Sayre, 6/4)

The Washington Post: ‘Do Not Sit’: Virginia Commuter Trains Designate Social Distancing Seating Onboard
Your next ride on a Virginia commuter train will feel and look different. Virginia Railway Express is restricting where passengers can sit and stand to maintain social distancing. Decals on trains will direct riders to take a window seat in every other row to ensure proper distancing, VRE said. Most seats will have a “Do not sit in marked seats” graphic on them, which will also include an illustration urging passengers to stay six feet from each other. (Lazo, 6/4)