First Edition: April 1, 2020

Kaiser Health News: Temperature Check: Tips For Tracking A Key Symptom Of Coronavirus Contagion
After I was told I’d been exposed to the novel coronavirus, I tried to follow the best medical advice. I started working from home. I socially isolated. And I “self-monitored” for signs I’d been infected. Or, at least, I tried to. COVID-19 symptoms seem pretty clear. The dry cough and difficulty breathing. Fatigue. And the fever. (Luthra, 4/1)

Kaiser Health News: ‘Essential’ Or Not, These Workers Report For Duty
Pauline Lawrence is 63, an age that puts her at increased risk if she contracts COVID-19. Yet, three days a week, she spends 16 hours with someone at even greater risk: a 97-year-old man who depends on her and two other home health aides to survive. “Somebody has to take care of him,” said Lawrence, an immigrant from Jamaica who lives with her 30-year-old son in a South Los Angeles apartment. “I will stand up to do what I have to do to help.” (De Marco, 4/1)

Kaiser Health News: With Coronavirus Rare In Rural Florida, Experts Dispute Way Forward
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has refused to issue a statewide “stay-at-home” order to stem the spread of the novel coronavirus because the disease has not hit many areas of the state, he said. At least 30 states have issued statewide stay-at-home orders so far. Florida, among eight states with the most COVID-19 cases, is the only one without such an order. DeSantis’ approach in trying to manage the disease without doing undue harm to the economy mirrors comments from President Donald Trump, who Monday reiterated his belief that a nationwide stay-at-home order is not needed. (Galewitz, 4/1)

Kaiser Health News: Blood Centers Will Collect Plasma From COVID-19 Survivors In Bid For Treatment
Blood donation centers across the U.S. are ramping up efforts to collect plasma from people who have recovered from COVID-19 in hopes it could be used to save the lives of others infected with the pandemic disease. Under guidelines released Tuesday by the AABB, an international nonprofit agency focused on transfusion medicine and cellular therapies, dozens of community blood centers nationwide could become a key source for the century-old treatment known as convalescent plasma therapy. (Aleccia, 4/1)

Kaiser Health News: Sheltered At Home, Families Broach End-Of-Life Planning
Long before she contracted COVID-19 at a Kirkland, Washington, nursing home, Barbara Dreyfuss made sure to document the wishes that would govern how she died. The medical directive she signed last year at the Life Care Center outside Seattle called for no resuscitation if her heart stopped, no machine to help her breathe. The 75-year-old, who suffered from lung disease and heart problems, had been on a ventilator for two weeks in 2016, a grueling experience she didn’t want to repeat. (Aleccia, 3/31)

Kaiser Health News: He Got Tested For Coronavirus. Then Came The Flood Of Medical Bills.
By March 5, Andrew Cencini, a computer science professor at Vermont’s Bennington College, had been having bouts of fever, malaise and a bit of difficulty breathing for a couple of weeks. Just before falling ill, he had traveled to New York City, helped with computers at a local prison and gone out on multiple calls as a volunteer firefighter. So with COVID-19 cases rising across the country, he called his doctor for direction. He was advised to come to the doctor’s group practice, where staff took swabs for flu and other viruses as he sat in his truck. The results came back negative. (Elisabeth Rosenthal and Emmarie Huetteman, 4/1)

Kaiser Health News: California’s New Attack On Opioid Addiction Hits Old Roadblocks
Jennifer Stilwell, a 30-year-old mother of two young children, kicked heroin cold turkey five years ago, but she got hooked again last fall. Stilwell, an accountant in Placerville, California, tried to quit a second time, but she couldn’t tolerate the sickening withdrawal symptoms. She resisted going to the emergency room because “I thought they’d treat me like a drug addict and not a patient in pain,” she said. (Glionna, 4/1)

The New York Times: Trump Confronts A New Reality Before An Expected Wave Of Disease And Death
Five weeks ago, when there were 60 confirmed cases of the coronavirus in the United States, President Trump expressed little alarm. “This is a flu,” he said. “This is like a flu.” He was still likening it to an ordinary flu as late as Friday. By Tuesday, however, with more than 187,000 recorded cases in the United States and more Americans having been killed by the virus than by the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the president’s assessment had rather drastically changed. “It’s not the flu,” he said. “It’s vicious.” The grim-faced president who appeared in the White House briefing room for more than two hours on Tuesday evening beside charts showing death projections of hellacious proportions was coming to grips with a reality he had long refused to accept. (Baker, 4/1)

The Associated Press: Trump Says 'Life And Death' At Stake In Following Guidelines
President Donald Trump warned Americans to brace for a “hell of a bad two weeks” ahead as the White House projected there could be 100,000 to 240,000 deaths in the U.S. from the coronavirus pandemic even if current social distancing guidelines are maintained. Public health officials stressed Tuesday that the number could be less if people across the country bear down on keeping their distance from one another. (Madhani, Freking and Alonso-Zaldivar, 4/1)

The Wall Street Journal: White House Projects 100,000 To 240,000 U.S. Coronavirus Deaths
“We’ve got to brace ourselves,” said Dr. Anthony Fauci, a member of the White House coronavirus task force. But Dr. Fauci said that continued protective social-distancing measures could help prevent the worst-case scenario. “In the next several days to a week or so, we’re going to continue to see things go up,” Dr. Fauci said. “We cannot be discouraged by that. Because the mitigation is actually working, and will work.” (Leary, Calfas and Ping, 4/1)

Reuters: Trump Warns Americans Of A Tough Two Weeks Ahead In Coronavirus Fight
“It’s absolutely critical for the American people to follow the guidelines for the next 30 days. It’s a matter of life and death,” Trump said.White House coronavirus coordinator Deborah Birx displayed charts demonstrating data and modeling that showed an enormous jump in deaths to a range of 100,000 to 240,000 people from the virus in the coming months. That figure was predicated on Americans following mitigation efforts. One of Birx’s charts showed as many as 2.2 million people were projected to die without such measures, a statistic that prompted Trump to ditch a plan he articulated last week to get the U.S. economy moving again by Easter on April 12. (Holland and Mason, 3/31)

The New York Times: Coronavirus Death Toll May Reach 100,000 To 240,000 In U.S., Officials Say
“I want every American to be prepared for the hard days that lie ahead,” said Mr. Trump, who answered questions for more than two hours and predicted that there would be “light at the end of the tunnel,” but warned that “we’re going to go through a very tough two weeks.” Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx showed charts indicating that coronavirus cases in New York and New Jersey had risen far higher than in other parts of the country, a fact that they said gave them hope that the overall number of deaths might be lower if people in the rest of the states followed the guidelines for at least the next month. (Shear, Crowley and Glanz, 3/31)

The Washington Post: Trump Projects Up To 240,000 Coronavirus Deaths In U.S., Even With Mitigation Efforts
Birx noted the Detroit, Chicago and New Orleans areas, as well as the state of Massachusetts, as places with a troubling rise in cases. She said spikes there and in other cities can be prevented only with mitigation in every community coast to coast. “There’s no magic bullet,” Birx said. “There’s no magic vaccine or therapy. It’s just behaviors — each of our behaviors translating into something that changes the course of this viral pandemic over the next 30 days.” (Rucker and Wan, 3/31)

The Associated Press: Experts Say Virus Could Kill Up To 240,000 Americans
The U.S. recorded a big daily jump of 26,000 new cases, bringing the total to more than 189,000. The death toll leaped to over 4,000, including more than 1,000 in New York City. ... Some people have chosen to ignore social distancing guidelines. In Louisiana, buses and cars filled a church parking lot on Tuesday evening as worshippers flocked to hear a pastor who is facing misdemeanor charges for holding services despite a ban on gatherings. (Perry and Matthews, 4/1)

The Associated Press Fact Check: Trump's Misfires On Virus Death Rates, Tests
Facing a grim reality of surging coronavirus cases, President Donald Trump is making premature assertions about relatively low death rates in the U.S. and revising history about how seriously he viewed the threat, including the need for ventilators. A look at his claims. (Yen, Neergaard and Woodward, 4/1)

Politico: Why America Is Scared And Confused: Even The Experts Are Getting It Wrong
The CDC said Americans don’t need masks — but now they might. The agency said the virus spread through “droplets” from coughs and sneezes — but then warned about catching it from people with no symptoms, or even from surfaces, like subway turnstiles or metal shopping carts. It said young people are at low risk — but the hospital beds and morgues of New York called that into question. America’s best scientists and its vaunted public health agency are still learning on the job about the coronavirus. For a terrified American public, the kaleidoscope of changing messages has created more fear, confusion and distrust. Scientists are used to gaining knowledge one step at a time — and they’ve learned a lot in a hurry about a virus none of them had ever seen before, allowing the search for treatments and vaccines to begin. But the virus always seems one step ahead of them. (Kenen and Roubein, 3/31)

The Wall Street Journal: Americans Favor Aggressive Coronavirus Measures, Poll Finds
A new survey finds widespread public support for aggressive measures like government cellphone tracking and mandatory health screenings in public places to curb the spread of coronavirus, which has infected more than 180,000 Americans. The new results from Harris Poll show that support for such policies—even when they might affect privacy and civil liberties—crosses a spectrum of demographic and ideological lines, suggesting that policy makers have significant latitude from the public in crafting emergency responses to combat the virus. (Tau, 3/31)

Politico: Pence Task Force Freezes Coronavirus Aid Amid Backlash
Last week, a Trump administration official working to secure much-needed protective gear for doctors and nurses in the United States had a startling encounter with counterparts in Thailand. The official asked the Thais for help—only to be informed by the puzzled voices on the other side of the line that a U.S. shipment of the same supplies, the second of two so far, was already on its way to Bangkok. (Bertrand, Orr, Lippman and Toosi, 3/31)

Politico: Trump Rejects Obamacare Special Enrollment Period Amid Pandemic
The Trump administration has decided against reopening Obamacare enrollment to uninsured Americans during the coronavirus pandemic, defying calls from health insurers and Democrats to create a special sign-up window amid the health crisis. President Donald Trump and administration officials recently said they were considering relaunching HealthCare.gov, the federal enrollment site, and insurers said they privately received assurances from health officials overseeing the law's marketplace. However, a White House official on Tuesday evening told POLITICO the administration will not reopen the site for a special enrollment period, and that the administration is "exploring other options." (Luthi, 3/31)

The New York Times: Governors Fight Back Against Coronavirus Chaos: ‘It’s Like Being On EBay With 50 Other States’
A chorus of governors from across the political spectrum is publicly challenging the Trump administration’s assertion that the United States is well-stocked and well-prepared to test people for the coronavirus and care for the sickest patients. In New York State — the center of the nation’s outbreak, with at least 1,550 deaths — Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said on Tuesday that the country’s patchwork approach to the pandemic had made it harder to get desperately needed ventilators. (Mervosh and Rogers, 3/31)

The Washington Post: Governors Plead For Medical Equipment From Federal Stockpile Plagued By Shortages And Confusion
As states across the country have pleaded for critical medical equipment from a key national stockpile, Florida has promptly received 100 percent of its first two requests — with President Trump and Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis both touting their close relationship. States including Oklahoma and Kentucky have received more of some equipment than they requested, while others such as Illinois, Massachusetts and Maine have secured only a fraction of their requests. It’s a disparity that has caused frustration and confusion in governors’ offices across the country, with some officials wondering whether politics is playing a role in the response. (Olorunnipa, Dawsey, Janes and Stanley-Becker, 3/31)

The Associated Press: Trump Allies Warn Against Feud With Swing-State Governor
President Donald Trump’s allies are trying to contain a politically risky election-year fight with Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer as he struggles to balance presidential politics with a global pandemic in one of the nation’s most important swing states. Both sides have tried to de-escalate the feud this week, although Trump’s supporters in particular sought to downplay tensions that ratcheted up over the weekend when the Republican president unleashed a social media broadside against Whitmer, a Democrat who had been critical of the federal government’s response to the coronavirus outbreak. (Peoples and Eggert, 4/1)

The New York Times: Defense Production Act Has Been Used Routinely, But Not With Coronavirus
Chemicals used to construct military missiles. Materials needed to build drones. Body armor for agents patrolling the southwest border. Equipment for natural disaster response. A Korean War-era law called the Defense Production Act has been invoked hundreds of thousands of times by President Trump and his administration to ensure the procurement of vital equipment, according to reports submitted to Congress and interviews with former government officials. (Kanno-Youngs and Swanson, 3/31)

CNN: Pentagon Says It Still Hasn't Sent Ventilators Because It Hasn't Been Told Where To Send Them 
Despite having committed to transferring 2,000 ventilators in military stocks to the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Department of Health and Human Services to fight the coronavirus outbreak, the Pentagon has not shipped any of them because the agencies have not asked for them or provided a shipping location, the Pentagon's top logistics official said Tuesday. In order to ship the badly needed equipment, the Defense Department has to be given a location to send them by civilian authorities who have to decide where the items are most needed. (Starr and Cohen, 3/31)

Politico: Trump Officials Tell Desperate Hospitals That Patients Can Share Ventilators
The Trump administration is telling hospitals they can split ventilators between two patients and is escalating calls to scrap elective surgeries, as federal officials try to limit care rationing in facilities lacking the critical breathing machines. New federal guidelines on so-called ventilator splitting — an idea that's been used extremely rarely in emergency situations — emphasizes it should "only be considered as an absolute last resort" for hospitals swamped by coronavirus patients. But it underscores concerns that hospitals could soon be faced with challenging ethical decisions about how to prioritize which patients receive life-saving equipment. (Roubein, 3/31)

The Washington Post: New York City Hospitals Struggle With Life-Or-Death Decisions With Coronavirus Patients
In the chaos of New York City, where coronavirus deaths are mounting so quickly that freezer trucks have been set up as makeshift morgues, several hospitals have taken the unprecedented step of allowing doctors not to resuscitate people with covid-19 to avoid exposing health-care workers to the highly contagious virus. The shift is part of a flurry of changes besieged hospitals are making almost daily, including canceling all but the most urgent surgeries, forgoing the use of isolation rooms, and requiring infected health workers who no longer have a fever to show up to work before the end of the previously recommended 14-day self-isolation period. (Cha, Bernstein, Sellers and Harris, 3/31)

Reuters: U.S. Death Toll Spirals Amid Rush To Build Field Hospitals, Find Supplies
The U.S. government raced on Tuesday to build hundreds of makeshift hospitals near major cities as healthcare systems were pushed to capacity, and sometimes beyond, by the coronavirus pandemic. Even as millions of Americans hunkered down in their homes under strict “stay-at-home” orders, the death toll, as tallied by Reuters, shot up by more than 850 on Tuesday, by far the most for a single day. (Brown and Whitcomb, 3/31)

Politico: White House Pressures FDA On Unproven Japanese Drug
The Trump administration is encouraging regulators to allow a decades-old flu drug to be administered as a possible coronavirus treatment, despite career officials’ concerns about the risks and limited evidence that the drug would work as a coronavirus treatment, according to three officials with knowledge of the deliberations and internal documents reviewed by POLITICO. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has championed the drug, Avigan, as a possible treatment, and clinical trials are now getting underway in Japan. Chinese scientists also have touted the drug, produced by Japan-based Fujifilm, as a potential coronavirus treatment, but global regulators and U.S. researchers have long expressed concern about the drug’s risks, such as birth defects, and have warned that the Chinese data is insufficient. (Diamond and Toosi, 3/31)

Politico: McConnell And Pelosi Draw Coronavirus Battle Lines
Mitch McConnell and Nancy Pelosi are on another coronavirus collision course. As Speaker Pelosi prepares the House to pass sweeping “Phase 4” economic legislation this spring, Senate Majority Leader McConnell is throwing cold water on Democrats’ hopes to address the crisis by boosting infrastructure spending and social programs. (Everett, 3/31)

The Associated Press: Early Divisions As Congress Weighs Next Help For Economy
The bipartisan partnership that propelled a $2.2 trillion economic rescue package through Congress just days ago is already showing signs of strain, raising questions about how quickly calls for massive followup legislation may bear fruit. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and fellow Democrats are collecting ideas for the next stab at stabilizing an economy knocked into free fall by the coronavirus outbreak. Their proposals include money for extended unemployment benefits, state and local governments, hospitals and a job-creating infrastructure program, plus expanded job protections and benefits for workers. (Fram, 4/1)

The Wall Street Journal: Trump Calls For New $2 Trillion Infrastructure Bill
President Trump on Tuesday said a significant investment in infrastructure should be part of a fourth congressional coronavirus relief package, citing an opportunity in low interest rates. “With interest rates for the United States being at ZERO, this is the time to do our decades long awaited Infrastructure Bill,” Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter. “It should be VERY BIG & BOLD, Two Trillion Dollars, and be focused solely on jobs and rebuilding the once great infrastructure of our Country!” (Lucey and Duehren, 3/31)

The New York Times: The Safety Net Got A Quick Patch. What Happens After The Coronavirus?
President Trump and congressional Republicans spent the last three years fighting to cut anti-poverty programs and expand work rules, so their support for emergency relief — especially in the form of directly sending people checks, usually a nonstarter in American politics — is a significant reversal of their effort to shrink the safety net. It has also intensified a long-running debate about whether that safety net adequately protects the needy in ordinary times as well. (DeParle, 3/31)

The New York Times: ‘Never Thought I Would Need It’: Americans Put Pride Aside To Seek Aid
The cars arrived at the food bank in southern Dallas in a stream — a minivan, a Chevrolet Tahoe, a sedan with a busted window, a Jaguar of unclear vintage. Inside the vehicles sat people who scarcely could believe they needed to be there. There was a landscaper, a high school administrator, a college student, and Dalen Lacy, a warehouse worker and 7-Eleven clerk. Like 70 percent of the people who showed up at Crossroads Community Services one day last week, Mr. Lacy had never been there before. (Buckley, 3/31)

Politico: The Next Coronavirus Hot Spots Are In States That Aren’t Testing Enough
As the coronavirus marches from America’s coastal cities to its heartland, testing gaps in the South and Midwest are crippling efforts to contain emerging hot spots in smaller cities and rural areas. Georgia, Michigan and Oklahoma are among the states where coronavirus outbreaks are intensifying — and where per capita testing rates are some of the lowest in the nation. While hard-hit New York was testing more than 950 for every 100,000 people as of Monday, Georgia was testing only 127 and Oklahoma 43. That raises the likelihood that these states are severely underestimating the size of their outbreaks. (Lim, 3/31)

Stat: The Coronavirus Is Spreading. Here's How Experts Forecast The Next Hotspot
On March 15, the governor of Washington called the Seattle area the “hotbed of this outbreak.” “Code Red,” blared the tabloid cover of the New York Post eight days later. And this weekend, the Tampa Bay Times forecast that Florida, where the governor has not imposed statewide stay-at-home measures, would “see tens of thousands of infections in the coming weeks” from the coronavirus pandemic. (Joseph, 1/1)

The New York Times: Infected But Feeling Fine: The Unwitting Coronavirus Spreaders
As many as 25 percent of people infected with the new coronavirus may not show symptoms, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warns — a startlingly high number that complicates efforts to predict the pandemic’s course and strategies to mitigate its spread. In particular, the high level of symptom-free cases is leading the C.D.C. to consider broadening its guidelines on who should wear masks. “This helps explain how rapidly this virus continues to spread across the country,” the director, Dr. Robert Redfield, told National Public Radio in an interview broadcast on Tuesday. (Mandavilli, 3/31)

The Washington Post: Testing Coronavirus Survivors’ Blood Could Help Reopen U.S.
At the root of almost every plan to restart society is a new kind of coronavirus test that searches not for the virus itself, but the remnants floating in people’s blood of the battle between their immune systems and the infection. These “serology tests” aren’t aimed primarily at people who currently have the disease caused by the coronavirus, but anyone who has ever had it — those who were very sick and got better, those who had mild symptoms they mistook for something else and those who never felt sick at all. (Johnson, 3/31)

The Wall Street Journal: Coronavirus Survivors Keep Up The Fight, Donate Blood Plasma To Others
Andrew Sherman, a Covid-19 survivor, is finally starting to feel better. One of the first things he did during his recovery: volunteer to donate blood plasma to help seriously ill patients fight the disease. Mr. Sherman, age 52, spent three days on oxygen in a New York City hospital in mid-March before being released to complete his recovery at home in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, where he lives with his wife, Jodi Sheeler, and their two children: Maisy, 8, and Milo, 11. “I feel obligated to help now that I am on the other side of it,” Mr. Sherman said. (Marcus, 4/1)

The New York Times: Frightened Doctors In Coronavirus Pandemic Face Off With Hospitals Over Gear
Just after 6:30 on a recent morning, Dr. Henry Nikicicz, an anesthesiologist in Texas, finished an emergency intubation of a man in his 70s who was suffering severe respiratory distress. Then the doctor’s own trouble began. Stepping out of an elevator after finishing the procedure, Dr. Nikicicz put his respirator face mask back on when he saw a group of people walking down the hallway toward him — reflexively trying to protect himself, and them, should anyone have been infected by the coronavirus. In the days that followed, Dr. Nikicicz said, he was told that his job was at risk because policy at the hospital where he works, University Medical Center in El Paso, prohibited the use of protective masks in the hallways. (Richtel, 3/31)

The New York Times: Traders Seek China's Masks To Help U.S. Hospitals Battle The Coronavirus
Million-dollar wire transfers to strangers. Rumors of hidden supplies in forgotten warehouses. Wheeler-dealers trying to talk regulators and customs officials into letting that one precious shipment through. Global desperation to protect front-line medical workers battling the coronavirus epidemic has spurred a mad international scramble for masks and other protective gear. Governments, hospital chains, clinics and entrepreneurs are scouring the world for personal protection equipment they can buy or sell — and a new type of trader has sprung up to make that happen. (Bradsher, 4/1)

The New York Times: C.D.C. Weighs Advising Everyone To Wear A Mask
Should healthy people be wearing masks when they’re outside to protect themselves and others? Both the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have repeatedly said that ordinary citizens do not need to wear masks unless they are sick and coughing. And as health care workers around the world face shortages of N95 masks and protective gear, public health officials have warned people not to hoard masks. (Goodnough and Sheikh, 3/31)

Reuters: Special Report: The Mask Middlemen - How Pop-Up Brokers Seek Big Paydays In A Frenzied Market
Brian Kolfage, a Florida military veteran, recently convinced Americans to donate millions of dollars for a privately built wall on the U.S. southern border. Now he has jumped into a new venture: hawking millions of protective face masks that are in critically short supply during the coronavirus pandemic. About a month ago, Kolfage formed a business called America First Medical, which offers on its website and in social media pitches to broker large-volume sales of high-grade masks known as N95s. He said he charges about $4 each - several times the pre-pandemic prices but a few dollars less than some hospitals, nursing homes and first responders are now paying. (Tanfani and Horwitz, 3/31)

The New York Times: Covid-19 Changed How The World Does Science, Together
Using flag-draped memes and military terminology, the Trump administration and its Chinese counterparts have cast coronavirus research as national imperatives, sparking talk of a biotech arms race. The world’s scientists, for the most part, have responded with a collective eye roll. “Absolutely ridiculous,” said Jonathan Heeney, a Cambridge University researcher working on a coronavirus vaccine. “That isn’t how things happen,” said Adrian Hill, the head of the Jenner Institute at Oxford, one of the largest vaccine research centers at an academic institution. (Apuzzo and Kirkpatrick, 4/1)

The New York Times: The Spiky Blob Seen Around The World
How many times have you seen the image? It looms behind newscasters during evening updates, gets handed out on printed fliers and scrolls by in tweet after tweet. It might even show up in your dreams. But for Alissa Eckert — a medical illustrator at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who helped to create what has become the iconic representation of the novel coronavirus — it started out as just another assignment. (Giaimo, 4/1)

The Washington Post: Chronic Health Conditions In Coronavirus Patients New CDC Data
People who have chronic medical conditions, such as diabetes, lung disease and heart disease, face an increased chance of being hospitalized with covid-19 and put into intensive care, according to data released Tuesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that is consistent with reports from China and Italy. The new data gives the most sweeping look at the way covid-19 is causing serious illnesses among people in the United States who already face medical challenges. (Achenbach and Wan, 3/31)

Los Angeles Times: Coronavirus Death Rate Study Shows Risk Rises With Age
The fatality rate for people infected with the novel coronavirus is estimated to be less than 1%, according to a new study. Among the those whose infections cause them to become sickened by the disease known as COVID-19, the fatality rate is 1.38%, the study authors estimate. Both fatality rates vary greatly with age, according to the report in the medical journal Lancet. (Kaplan, 3/31)

The Wall Street Journal: Border Agents Change Practice On Immigrant Child Separation Over Coronavirus
The Trump administration is turning back immigrant children caught crossing the border illegally with their relatives, in a break from past practice, under emergency powers being invoked during the new coronavirus pandemic, three administration officials familiar with the matter said. Previously, border agents would have separated many of these children from family members if they weren’t parents or guardians. The children then would have been placed in the custody of the Department of Health and Human Services and treated as unaccompanied minors. (Hackman and Caldwell, 3/31)

The New York Times: Coronavirus Spreads In Veterans’ Home, Leaving ‘Shuddering Loss For Us All’
The mayor of Holyoke, Mass., got an unsigned letter over the weekend that deeply disturbed him. “Are you aware of the horrific circumstances at the Soldiers’ Home?” the letter read, and went on to describe serious breaches, like a resident suspected of having the coronavirus, awaiting the results of a test, being sent back to a dementia ward with 20 other veterans. “Where is the state in addressing what is truly happening in this building?” the letter concluded. (Barry, 3/31)

The Washington Post: The World’s Indigenous Peoples, With Tragic History Of Disease, Implore Outsiders To Keep Coronavirus Away
From the Canadian Arctic to the Brazilian Amazon to the Australian coast, indigenous groups are racing to protect themselves from a familiar foe that has historically threatened their very existence: the rapid spread of foreign infectious disease. Fifteenth-century Europeans introduced smallpox and other diseases to the New World, decimating upward of 80 percent of the indigenous population. The 1918 flu pandemic wiped out entire villages. Now, as the novel coronavirus advances, indigenous groups are locking down and imploring outsiders to stay away. (Coletta and Traiano, 3/31)

Politico: Pandemic Threatens Monster Turnout In November
Time is running out to allow millions of Americans to vote this fall without fear of contracting the novel coronavirus. Mail voting — the voting method that best preserves social distancing — is infrequently used in many states, and those that don’t have extensive mail voting might be unable to implement systems before November. And while 33 states, including most 2020 presidential battlegrounds, already allow any voter to cast a ballot by mail who wants to, a number of those states aren’t prepared to handle the crush of mailed-in ballots that could be coming their way in November. (Montellaro, 3/31)

Politico: Pelosi: Mail-In Voting Will Protect ‘Integrity Of The Election System’ Amid Coronavirus
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Tuesday suggested vote-by-mail capabilities should be scaled up ahead of 2020’s remaining elections, shielding Americans from the threats in-person voting could pose amid the coronavirus pandemic. “In terms of the elections, I think that we’ll probably be moving to vote by mail,” Pelosi told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” adding that congressional Democrats had pushed to allocate increased funding in the recent $2 trillion relief package “to get those resources to the states to facilitate the reality of life: that we are going to have to have more vote by mail.” (Forgey, 3/31)

The New York Times: Who Are The Voters Behind Trump’s Higher Approval Rating?
Justin Penn, a Pittsburgh voter who calls himself politically independent, favored Joseph R. Biden Jr. in a matchup with President Trump until recently. But the president’s performance during the coronavirus outbreak has Mr. Penn reconsidering. “I think he’s handled it pretty well,” he said of the president, whose daily White House appearances Mr. Penn catches on Facebook after returning from his job as a bank security guard. “I think he’s tried to keep people calm,” he said. “I know some people don’t think he’s taking it seriously, but I think he’s doing the best with the information he had.” (Gabriel and Lerer, 3/31)

Reuters: With 2020 Race All But Halted Over Coronavirus, Biden Quietly Widens Lead Over Trump: Reuters/Ipsos Poll
Democratic presidential front-runner Joe Biden has quietly expanded his lead over President Donald Trump among registered voters, even as the rapidly spreading coronavirus has all but sidelined the former vice president’s campaign, according to a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll released on Tuesday. The poll conducted on Monday and Tuesday of more than 1,100 American adults found that 46% of registered voters said they would support Biden if he were running against Trump in the Nov. 3 election, while 40% said they would vote for Trump. That advantage of 6 percentage points was up from a 1-point lead for Biden recorded in a similar poll that ran from March 6 to 9. (Kahn, 3/31)

The Washington Post: Joe Biden Raises Doubts About Whether Democrats Will Hold Convention In July, Saying ‘It’s Hard To Envision That’
Joe Biden raised significant doubts about whether the Democratic National Convention will be held as planned in July, with the likely nominee suggesting that the party’s major gathering slated for Milwaukee may need to be altered or postponed. When asked whether he could envision holding the convention in July, given the coronovirus outbreak and concerns about large gatherings, Biden said, “It’s hard to envision that.” (Viser, 4/1)

The Associated Press: U.S. Consumer Confidence Sinks As Virus Begins Having Impact
U.S. consumer confidence tumbled this month to its lowest level in nearly three years as the impact of the coronavirus on the economy began to be felt. The Conference Board reported Tuesday that its confidence index dropped to a reading of 120 in March from February’s 132.6. It was the lowest reading since the index was at 117.3 in June 2017. (3/31)

The New York Times: 40% Of N.Y. Tenants May Not Pay Rent This Month. What Happens Then?
The true economic toll of all but shutting down New York City to stem the spread of the coronavirus is likely to become clearer on Wednesday when April rent is due. In just a month’s time, the lives of millions of New Yorkers have been turned upside down, many of them losing their jobs and now worrying about paying their bills. (Haag, 3/31)

ProPublica: A Major Medical Staffing Company Just Slashed Benefits For Doctors And Nurses Fighting Coronavirus
Emergency room doctors and nurses many of whom are dealing with an onslaught of coronavirus patients and shortages of protective equipment — are now finding out that their compensation is getting cut. Most ER providers in the U.S. work for staffing companies that have contracts with hospitals. Those staffing companies are losing revenue as hospitals postpone elective procedures and non-coronavirus patients avoid emergency rooms. Health insurers are processing claims more slowly as they adapt to a remote workforce. (Arnsdorg, 3/31)

The New York Times: Why Asia’s New Coronavirus Controls Should Worry The World
In China, international flights have been cut back so severely that Chinese students abroad wonder when they will be able to get home. In Singapore, recently returned citizens must share their phones’ location data with the authorities each day to prove they are sticking to government-ordered quarantines. In Taiwan, a man who had traveled to Southeast Asia was fined $33,000 for sneaking out to a club when he was supposed to be on lockdown in his home. In Hong Kong, a 13-year-old girl, who was spotted out at a restaurant wearing a tracking bracelet to monitor those in quarantine, was followed, filmed and subsequently shamed online. (Rich, 3/31)