First Edition: April 8, 2020

Kaiser Health News: ‘When It Starts Getting Into Your Local Hospital, It Becomes Real’
The folding chairs outside the windows appeared late last month, after the maintenance staff at St. James Parish Hospital labeled each window with a patient room number so families and friends could at least see their loved ones battling COVID-19. Yet even this small solace the Louisiana rural hospital can offer is tainted for clinical nurse educator Leslie Fisher. She has to remind the family members to take shifts to properly social distance from one another — even when their loved ones could be in their final moments. (Weber, 4/8)

Kaiser Health News: Postcard From The Edge: L.A. Street Vendors Who Can’t Stop Working
One day last week, on a sunny, beautiful Los Angeles afternoon, 23-year-old Alex Salvador Morales set up shop on a sidewalk near downtown, selling freshly cut pineapple, mango and watermelon in quart-sized plastic cups for $5. Before the pandemic, fruit stands like his dotted streets on days like this, one every few blocks on the busy stretches. With millions of people staying home amid the COVID-19 pandemic, however, business was so bad that many of Salvador Morales’ fellow fruit vendors hadn’t bothered to show up. (Almendrala, 4/8)

Kaiser Health News: Pandemic Delays Federal Probe Into Medicare Advantage Health Plans
Federal health officials, citing a need to focus on the COVID-19 pandemic, have temporarily halted some efforts to recover hundreds of millions of dollars in overpayments made to Medicare Advantage health plans. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services says the decision will allow insurers and the agency to “focus on patient care,” and will last “until after the public health emergency has ended.” Critics aren’t convinced that’s a wise idea. (Schulte, 4/8)

Kaiser Health News: To Curb Coronavirus, What’s Behind The Wearing Of A Mask?
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday recommended wearing cloth face masks when going out, especially to places like grocery stores and pharmacies. That’s because a “significant portion” of people with the virus lack symptoms or can transmit the disease through close contact before they show signs of illness, the CDC said. It is not recommending people try to purchase N95 or surgical masks, and the federal agency included online instructions on making masks out of materials at home. (Appleby, 4/7)

Kaiser Health News: ‘An Arm And A Leg’: Superheroes Of ‘Stuff’ Help Health Workers In NYC
“An Arm and a Leg” is back — sooner than we expected  — with stories about how COVID-19 intersects with the cost of health care and how we can all respond. We’re calling it SEASON-19. We start in New York City — which many health experts say is a couple of weeks ahead of the rest of the country in fighting the pandemic — with a story about people coming together and making do in a crisis. (Weissmann, 4/8)

The New York Times: Trump Attacks W.H.O. Over Criticisms Of U.S. Approach To Coronavirus
President Trump lashed out on Tuesday at the World Health Organization, choosing a new political enemy to attack and threatening to withhold funding from a premier health institution even as a deadly virus ravages nations around the globe. “We’re going to put a hold on money spent to the W.H.O. We’re going to put a very powerful hold on it and we’re going to see,” Mr. Trump said during the daily coronavirus briefing at the White House, accusing the organization of having not been aggressive enough in confronting the virus. “They called it wrong. They call it wrong. They really, they missed the call.” (Shear, 4/7)

Politico: Trump Announces, Then Reverses, Freeze On Funding For World Health Organization
Minutes later, though, the president walked back the declaration, telling reporters that he was “looking into it” and conceding that a global pandemic was “maybe not” the best time to freeze funding for the international organization. “I mean, I‘m not saying I‘m going to do it, but we are going to look at it,” Trump said, denying his comments from minutes earlier when pressed by reporters. “I said we’re going to look at it. We’re going to investigate it, we're going to look at it. But we will look at ending funding.” (Forgey and Oprysko, 4/7)

Stat: Trump Pledges To Put A Hold On U.S. Funding For World Health Organization
The U.S. has provided the agency with $893 million during the agency’s current two-year funding period, which includes about $236 million in dues. That funding accounts for about 14.67% of the WHO’s total funding, according to the organization’s website. The WHO is also notoriously cash-strapped; the annual dues members companies pay to support its annual budget have been frozen for more than a decade. The WHO has been sounding the alarm over the coronavirus since early January. By late February the group’s director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, urged countries to prepare — before the U.S. had widespread community transmission of the virus. The WHO declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic on March 11. (Florko, 4/7)

The New York Times: Trump Ousts Coronavirus Spending Watchdog Glenn Fine
President Trump moved on Tuesday to oust the leader of a new watchdog panel charged with overseeing how his administration spends trillions of taxpayer dollars in coronavirus pandemic relief, the latest step in an abruptly unfolding White House power play against semi-independent inspectors general across the government. The official, Glenn A. Fine, has been the acting inspector general for the Defense Department since before Mr. Trump took office and was set to become the chairman of a new Pandemic Response Accountability Committee to police how the government carries out the $2.2 trillion coronavirus relief bill. But Mr. Trump replaced Mr. Fine in his Pentagon job, disqualifying him from serving on the new oversight panel. (Savage and Baker, 4/7)

The Associated Press: Trump Challenges Authority, Independence Of Agency Watchdogs
In four days, Trump has fired one inspector general tied to his impeachment, castigated another he felt was overly critical of the coronavirus response and sidelined a third meant to safeguard against wasteful spending of the coronavirus funds. The actions have sent shock waves across the close-knit network of watchdog officials in government, creating open conflict between a president reflexively resistant to outside criticism and an oversight community tasked with rooting out fraud, misconduct and abuse. (Tucker, Daly and Jalonick, 4/8)

Reuters: Trump Removes Top Coronavirus Watchdog, Widens Attack On Inspectors General
It was the Republican president’s most recent broadside against the federal watchdogs who seek to root out government waste, fraud and abuse following his removal on Friday of the intelligence community’s IG and his sharp criticism of the one who oversees the Department of Health and Human Services. Glenn Fine, acting Defense Department inspector general, was named last week to chair a committee acting as a sort of uber-watchdog over the federal government’s response to the new coronavirus, including health policy and the largest economic relief package in U.S. history. (Lambert and Brice, 4/7)

The New York Times: Trump’s Inspector General Has Expressed Dim Views Of Congressional Oversight
Amid the blur of President Trump’s impeachment proceedings in December, the Government Accountability Office received a terse message from the White House regarding its investigation into why security aid to Ukraine was withheld. The inquiries of Congress’s nonpartisan watchdog arm had already been rebuffed by the Defense Department and it received spotty responses from the White House Office of Management and Budget. On Dec. 20, a White House lawyer made clear that there would be no further cooperation. (Rappeport, 4/7)

The Washington Post: Trump Removes Inspector General Glenn Fine, Who Was Tasked To Oversee Coronavirus Stimulus Spending
“We wanted inspectors general because of an out-of-control president named Richard Nixon, and this president is trying to destroy them,” said Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project on Government Oversight. “What’s happened this week has been a total full-on assault on the IG system.” (Nakashima, 4/7)

Politico: Trump Removes Independent Watchdog For Coronavirus Funds, Upending Oversight Panel
Democrats blasted Trump's decision. "The sudden removal and replacement of Acting Inspector General Fine is part of a disturbing pattern of retaliation by the president against independent overseers fulfilling their statutory and patriotic duties to conduct oversight on behalf of the American people," said Speaker Nancy Pelosi in a statement. Senate Minority Leader ripped Trump's "corrupt action" and said he is trying to sideline "honest and independent public servants because they are willing to speak truth to power and because he is so clearly afraid of strong oversight." (Cheney and O'Brien, 4/7)

Bloomberg: Trump Team Preps Plans To Reopen Economy That Depend On Testing
The White House is developing plans to get the U.S. economy back in action that depend on testing far more Americans for coronavirus than has been possible to date, according to people familiar with the matter. The effort would likely begin in smaller cities and towns in states that haven’t yet been heavily hit by the virus. Cities such as New York, Detroit, New Orleans and other places the president has described as “hot spots” would remain shuttered. (Parker, 4/7)

Politico: The Reasons Why The U.S. Isn’t On Track To Open Up
President Donald Trump and other officials are boasting that the United States is now testing nearly 700,000 people each week for the coronavirus. But that’s not enough to catch every case of the disease or to provide the kind of data needed to lift social distancing measures and allow people to go back to work. And because testing capacity remains inadequate, it’s unclear when we’ll get there. Labs nationwide are overwhelmed by patient samples flooding in as they continue to face a shortage of critical supplies. A rapid test described by Trump in mid-March as a “game changer” that would soon be available in doctors offices is still hard to come by for many Americans. (Lim, 4/7)

The Hill: Fauci: Country Should Be In 'Good Shape' To Reopen Schools In The Fall 
Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said Tuesday that he thinks the country will be in “good shape” for reopening schools by the start of next school year in the fall. “Bottom line is, no absolute prediction, but I think we're going to be in good shape,” Fauci said at a White House news briefing when asked whether he thinks schools will be able to start on time next school year. (Sullivan, 4/7)

The Wall Street Journal: Government And Businesses Turn Attention To Eventual Reopening Of $22 Trillion U.S. Economy
Dr. Fauci said a first condition is a steep drop in the number of cases. “You’ve got to make sure you are absolutely going in the right direction.” Then, he said, “you gradually come back. You don’t jump into it with both feet.” The federal government has yet to put in place the kind of nationwide testing, tracing and surveillance system that public health experts say is needed to prevent another surge in coronavirus cases when social distancing eases. That includes identifying people who are asymptomatic and can also spread the coronavirus, health experts said. (Armour and Hilsenrath, 4/7)

The Associated Press: CDC Weighs Loosening Guidelines For Some Exposed To Virus
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is considering changing its guidelines for self-isolation to make it easier for those who have been exposed to someone with the coronavirus to return to work if they are asymptomatic. The public health agency, in conjunction with the White House coronavirus task force, is considering an announcement as soon as Wednesday, Vice President Mike Pence said on Tuesday. Under the proposed guidance, people who are exposed to someone infected would be allowed back on the job if they are asymptomatic, test their temperature twice a day and wear a face mask, said a person familiar with the proposal under consideration. (Miller, 4/8)

The New York Times: With Demand Soaring, Congress Weighs Adding $250 Billion In Small-Business Aid
Rushing to shore up a $2 trillion economic stimulus effort that is already under strain, Congress could move as early as this week to approve another $250 billion in aid for small businesses, after the Trump administration asked for additional funds to support an overwhelming demand for help. The request for a quick infusion of more money, which Republican and Democratic leaders acknowledged was necessary, signaled a recognition among lawmakers and the administration that the historic economic stabilization package enacted only two weeks ago to help businesses survive the economic damage of the coronavirus pandemic did not go nearly far enough. (Cochrane and Tankersley, 4/7)

The Wall Street Journal: Lawmakers, White House Vow To Quickly Provide More Small-Business Loans
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) said he was aiming to pass a bill by the end of this week. With lawmakers out of town, Mr. McConnell will need agreement with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) to pass the measure through unanimous consent or a voice vote. Lenders have been inundated with applications for the funds since the program launched on Friday. (Duehren, Rudegeair and Davis, 4/7)

The New York Times: Small Business Aid Program Stretches Agency To Its Limits
Five days after the start of a $349 billion emergency effort to get money into the hands of small businesses, the agency at the heart of the program is emerging as its biggest bottleneck. The Small Business Administration, lightly staffed and working with aging technology, has been caught unprepared for the onrush of demand from desperate small-business owners who urgently need these loans as the coronavirus stalls the economy. In a boom year, the agency backs $30 billion of small-business loans — about the same amount that banks are now seeking on behalf of their customers in a day. (Flitter, McCabe and Cowley, 4/7)

Politico: Dems Eye Medicaid Incentives For Next Coronavirus Rescue Package
Democrats are considering a new strategy to win over Obamacare holdouts in the states: generous enticements to expand Medicaid in the next coronavirus rescue package. In an interview, Sen. Doug Jones (D-Ala.) is hoping that any future relief measure from Congress includes his bill with Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) that would fully pay for states to cover working-age adults for three years, just as the government did for early expansion states in the first days of the Affordable Care Act. (Levine, 4/7)

Reuters: Wobbly U.S. Fiscal Response Could Deepen Coronavirus Recession
The U.S. government’s massive effort to nurse the economy through the coronavirus crisis was billed as a send-money-and-don’t-sweat-the-details flood of cash to people and businesses in a $22 trillion system that has ground to a halt. So far, the checks are not in the mail. From technological glitches to confusion over the fine points of policy, the delays are mounting. The federal government’s muddled response risks deepening and lengthening a recession already historic for the speed of its onset. (Schneider and Lawder, 4/8)

The New York Times: Voting In Wisconsin During A Pandemic: Lines, Masks And Plenty Of Fear
Even before voting began, there were lines outside polling locations that stretched for several blocks. Some poll workers wore hazmat suits. Nearly every voter wore a face mask, removing it only to make small talk that reflected a combination of determination and grim humor about the extraordinary experience of voting amid a deadly pandemic. For thousands of people across Wisconsin on Tuesday, fears of the coronavirus outbreak did not stop them from participating in the state’s elections, where critical races such as the Democratic presidential primary and a key state Supreme Court seat were being decided. (Herndon and Burns, 4/7)

The Associated Press: Wisconsin Voters Forced To Choose Between Health, Democracy
If Wisconsin was a test case for voting in the age of coronavirus, it did not go well for many voters. Thousands were forced to congregate for hours in long lines on Tuesday with no protective gear. Thousands more stayed home, unwilling to risk their health and unable to be counted because requested absentee ballots never arrived. Voters reported being afraid, angry and embarrassed by the state’s unwillingness to postpone their presidential primary elections as more than a dozen other states have already done. (Peoples and Bauer, 4/8)

The New York Times: Rulings On Wisconsin Election Raise Questions About Judicial Partisanship
In a pair of extraordinary rulings on Monday, the highest courts in Wisconsin and the nation split along ideological lines to reject Democratic efforts to defer voting in Tuesday’s elections in the state given the coronavirus pandemic. Election law experts said the stark divisions in the rulings did not bode well for faith in the rule of law and American democracy. “Election cases, more than any other kind, need courts to be seen by the public as nonpartisan referees of the competing candidates and political parties,” said Edward B. Foley, a law professor at Ohio State University. “It is therefore extremely regrettable that on the very same day, on separate issues involving the same Wisconsin election, both the state and federal supreme courts were unable to escape split votes that seem just as politically divided as the litigants appearing before them.” (Liptak, 4/7)

The Associated Press: Voting-Rights Disputes In Virus Era Spark Court Battles
Wisconsin’s chaotic primary may just be the beginning. Both major parties are preparing for a monthslong, state-by-state legal fight over how citizens can safely cast their ballots should the coronavirus outbreak persist through November’s election. The outcome of the court battles — expected to litigate mail-in voting rules, voter identification requirements and safe access to polls — may have a significant impact on how many people turn out to vote in hundreds of elections across the country, including the White House race. It will likely play out in presidential battlegrounds amid an already roiling debate over voting rights and protecting access to the ballot. (Riccardi, 4/8)

The New York Times: How Delays And Unheeded Warnings Hindered New York’s Virus Fight
A 39-year-old woman took Flight 701 from Doha, Qatar, to John F. Kennedy International Airport in late February, the final leg of her trip home to New York City from Iran. A week later, on March 1, she tested positive for the coronavirus, the first confirmed case in New York City of an outbreak that had already devastated China and parts of Europe. The next day, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, appearing with Mayor Bill de Blasio at a news conference, promised that health investigators would track down every person on the woman’s flight. But no one did. A day later, a lawyer from New Rochelle, a New York City suburb, tested positive for the virus — an alarming sign because he had not traveled to any affected country, suggesting community spread was already taking place. (Goodman, 4/8)

The Associated Press: 'A Lot Of Pain.' NY Has Biggest 1-Day Jump In Virus Deaths
New York state reported 731 new COVID-19 deaths Tuesday, its biggest jump since the start of the outbreak, dampening some of the cautious optimism officials have expressed about efforts to stop the spread of the virus. The state’s death toll grew to 5,489. The alarming surge in deaths comes as new hospital admissions have dropped on average over several days, a possible harbinger of the outbreak finally leveling off. (Villeneuve, Matthews and Hill, 4/8)

The Wall Street Journal: Global Coronavirus Death Toll Passes 81,000 As Some Lockdowns Tighten
Contributing to the national record, New York, New Jersey, Louisiana and Illinois reported their highest daily death tolls from the new coronavirus Tuesday, reflecting a precipitous climb in U.S. fatalities even as officials in some of the hard-hit states cautiously advised their outbreaks were starting to slow. Confirmed infections in the U.S. were more than double that of any other nation, at more than 396,000, according to the Johns Hopkins data. American deaths from the virus rose to 12,722, and 20,191 have recovered. (Calfas, Ping and Hinshaw, 4/7)

The Washington Post: Amid Death, Experts See Glimmers Of Hope On Pandemic
U.S. authorities on Tuesday reported 30,700 more people infected with the novel coronavirus and over 1,800 more deaths — the highest daily death toll so far. But amid the grim data, some officials said they saw grounds for hope that the pandemic’s devastation would at least not be as bad as the direst projections. (Dennis, Wan and Fahrenthold, 4/7)

The New York Times: In N.Y.C., The Coronavirus Is Killing Men Twice As Often As Women
In its inexorable spread across New York City, the coronavirus is exacting a greater toll on men than women. Not only are men infected in greater numbers, new data show, but they are also dying at nearly twice the rate of women. To date, there have been nearly 43 Covid-19 deaths for every 100,000 men in the city, compared with 23 such deaths for every 100,000 women, according to figures reported by the city’s health department. And men are being hospitalized with severe disease at higher rates. The data, while disturbing, do not come entirely as a surprise. (Rabin, 4/7)

The Wall Street Journal: What Does A Coronavirus Peak In New York Mean?
The number of new Covid-19 cases in New York appears to be stabilizing, sparking hope among officials that the disease may finally be near its peak in the U.S. epicenter of the pandemic. But health experts caution that the public needs to be clear on what that prospect means. Officials track numerous data points related to the new coronavirus, which causes Covid-19, from daily intubations to deaths. A key figure is the number of new hospitalizations, which can overwhelm health-care systems if they exceed capacity. (Campo-Flores, 4/8)

The New York Times: How The Four Seasons In N.Y.C. Became A Dorm For Hospital Workers
Just a few weeks ago, it was typical for personal assistants to make reservations for thousand-dollar rooms at the Four Seasons Hotel New York for their high-profile bosses. But in late March, a worried mother calling on behalf of her physician assistant son to get a free room became the norm. The iconic Billionaires’ Row hotel had just announced that it would house medical professionals battling the Coronavirus. “My mom, I think she must have been one of the first to reach out,” said the 31-year-old, whose hospital asked him to remain anonymous. He had been living on Long Island and commuting for two hours each way to his job in Manhattan. Now he’s a 20-minute walk to the hospital. (Krueger, 4/7)

The New York Times: New Battle For Those On Coronavirus Front Lines: Child Custody
Last month, Dr. Bertha Mayorquin, a New Jersey physician, told her soon-to-be ex-husband that there was a change in plans. After two weeks of providing treatment by video as a precaution against the coronavirus, she would resume seeing patients in person. But when she left work on a Friday to pick up her two daughters for the weekend, her husband, Wendell Surdukowski, presented her with a court order granting him sole temporary custody of the young girls. His lawyer had convinced a judge that Dr. Mayorquin could expose the children, 11 and 8, to Covid-19. (Twohey, 4/7)

The New York Times: Coronavirus Was Slow To Spread To Rural America. Not Anymore.
Grace Rhodes was getting worried last month as she watched the coronavirus tear through New York and Chicago. But her 8,000-person hometown in Southern Illinois still had no reported cases, and her boss at her pharmacy job assured her: “It’ll never get here.” Now it has. A new wave of coronavirus cases is spreading deep into rural corners of the country where people once hoped their communities might be shielded because of their isolation from hard-hit urban centers and the natural social distancing of life in the countryside. (Healy, Tavernise, Gebeloff and Cai, 4/8)

The Associated Press: DC Fights To Enforce Distancing And Braces For Looming Surge
Pick-up basketball games. Crowds gathering at an outdoor fish market. Family hikes along trails in Rock Creek Park. The warmer weather is bringing violations of social distance guidelines in the nation’s capital, even as health officials predict the city could become one of the next U.S. hot spots in the COVID-19 pandemic. More than 1,200 people have tested positive, with 22 deaths, in Washington. But national and local health officials predict that the worst is yet to come. (Khalil, 4/8)

The Hill: Coronavirus Watch: Where The Virus Is Spiking Across The Country 
New York and New Jersey both reported the largest number of deaths from the novel coronavirus in one day in their states on Tuesday, even as some data suggested they were at least approaching the apex of their crises. New York, which has seen far more cases than any other state so far, reported a total of 731 deaths on Tuesday, the highest one-day surge the state has seen. Yet the statistics suggest it may be on a downward curve. (Moreno, 4/7)

Los Angeles Times: Amid Coronavirus, California To Get 200 Million Masks A Month
Gov. Gavin Newsom said Tuesday that California has secured a monthly supply of 200 million N95 respiratory and surgical masks to help protect healthcare workers and other essential personnel at the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic in the state. “We decided enough’s enough. Let’s use the power, the purchasing power of the state of California, as a nation-state,” Newsom told MSNBC host Rachel Maddow. “We did just that. And in the next few weeks, we’re going to see supplies, at that level, into the state of California and potentially the opportunity to export some of those supplies to states in need.” (Willon, 4/7)

Politico: Shopping In LA? Cover Your Face Or Get Tossed, Garcetti Orders
In the city of 4 million residents, essential business employees will also be required to wear face coverings, and employers must cover the costs of purchasing such items. Included in the order was a call for businesses to ensure that every worker has access to a clean restroom and offer them the opportunity to wash their hands every 30 minutes. “We need to protect every worker on the front lines of this crisis,” Garcetti said. “Each one of us is a first responder in this emergency. Every employer should keep employees safe, and so should Angelenos patronizing these businesses." (Nieves, 4/7)

ProPublica: A Nurse Bought Protective Supplies For Her Colleagues Using GoFundMe. The Hospital Suspended Her.
Olga Matievskaya and her fellow intensive care nurses at Newark Beth Israel Medical Center in New Jersey were so desperate for gowns and masks to protect themselves from the coronavirus that they turned to the online fundraising site GoFundMe to raise money. The donations flowed in — more than $12,000 — and Matievskaya used some of them to buy about 500 masks, 4,000 shoe covers and 150 jumpsuits. She and her colleagues at the hospital celebrated protecting themselves and their patients from the spread of the virus. (Allen, 4/7)

Politico: Kushner’s Team Seeks National Coronavirus Surveillance System
White House senior adviser Jared Kushner’s task force has reached out to a range of health technology companies about creating a national coronavirus surveillance system to give the government a near real-time view of where patients are seeking treatment and for what, and whether hospitals can accommodate them, according to four people with knowledge of the discussions. The proposed national network could help determine which areas of the country can safely relax social-distancing rules and which should remain vigilant. But it would also represent a significant expansion of government use of individual patient data, forcing a new reckoning over privacy limits amid a national crisis. (Cancryn, 4/7)

Stat: Will We Give Up Privacy For Security After Covid-19? 
In a span of weeks, the novel coronavirus has turned the nation’s roiling health privacy debate on its head. Concerns about what Google and Facebook might be doing with patients’ sensitive health information have receded, and instead, Americans are being asked to allow surveillance of their daily movements and contacts, and even their temperature and other physiological changes. By tapping into people’s phones and medical records, researchers and public health authorities are hoping to more swiftly identify and isolate potentially infected patients and corral a pandemic that is outrunning them despite unprecedented restrictions on daily life. (Ross, 4/8)

The Washington Post: White House Lacks National Strategy For Key Coronavirus Tests
Three months into the coronavirus epidemic, the Trump administration has yet to devise a national strategy to test Americans for the deadly disease — something experts say is key to blunting the outbreak and resuming daily life. In the absence of a national plan, several states are developing their own testing systems, but the emerging picture varies widely. States with more money and robust medical sectors have devised comprehensive plans, while others lag far behind. (Eilperin, McGinley, Mufson and Dawsey, 4/7)

The Washington Post: White House, Trump Among First To Use Abbott Rapid Coronavirus Tests Sought By Communities
As communities across the country desperately seek access to emerging rapid-turnaround covid-19 tests, one place already using them is the White House, where guests visiting President Trump and Vice President Pence have been required to undergo the exams since last week. The procedure is the latest of new safeguards aimed at protecting the health of the nation’s top elected officials from the novel coronavirus, which has sickened some prominent global leaders. (Nakamura and Dawsey, 4/7)

The Washington Post: African Americans Are At Higher Risk Of Death From Coronavirus
As the novel coronavirus sweeps across the United States, it appears to be infecting and killing black Americans at a disproportionately high rate, according to a Washington Post analysis of early data from jurisdictions across the country. The emerging stark racial disparity led the surgeon general Tuesday to acknowledge in personal terms the increased risk for African Americans amid growing demands that public-health officials release more data on the race of those who are sick, hospitalized and dying of a contagion that has killed more than 12,000 people in the United States. (Thebault, Tran and Williams, 4/7)

The New York Times: Black Americans Face Alarming Rates Of Coronavirus Infection In Some States
“This is a call-to-action moment for all of us,” said Lori Lightfoot, the mayor of Chicago, who announced statistics of the outbreak in her city this week. African-Americans account for more than half of those who have tested positive and 72 percent of virus-related fatalities in Chicago, even though they make up a little less than a third of the population. “Those numbers take your breath away, they really do,” said Ms. Lightfoot, who is the city’s first black woman elected as mayor. She added in an interview that the statistics were “among the most shocking things I think I’ve seen as mayor.” (Eligon, Burch, Searcey and Oppel, 4/7)

The Washington Post: For Some Black Americans, Anxiety About Wearing Face Coverings In Public May Keep Them From Doing So
The recommendation from the White House that Americans wear cloth face coverings is causing concerns among those who fear that doing so could expose some people of color to other kinds of threats. On the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website, the government provides information on how to wear face coverings. (Scott, 4/7)

Reuters: CDC Removes Unusual Guidance To Doctors About Drug Favored By Trump
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has removed from its website highly unusual guidance informing doctors on how to prescribe hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine, drugs recommended by President Donald Trump to treat the coronavirus. The move comes three days after Reuters reported that the CDC published key dosing information involving the two antimalarial drugs based on unattributed anecdotes rather than peer-reviewed science. (Roston and Taylor, 4/7)

The Wall Street Journal: At FEMA, Companies Offer Critical Coronavirus Supplies The Government Can’t Buy
More than 1,000 companies responded to the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s call about two weeks ago to provide needed supplies to fight the coronavirus pandemic, according to a person familiar with the matter. As of early Monday, only three companies had supplies the agency could actually buy. Many of the offers, for items ranging from protective medical gear to tests and body bags, didn’t work out, according to people familiar with the matter, because some companies have asked for payment up front, something FEMA can’t agree to. Another issue: Some companies have oversold what they can actually get to FEMA. (Levy, 4/7)

The Hill: States Battle Each Other For Equipment In Supply Chain Crunch 
States across the country are racing to stockpile ventilators, personal protective equipment (PPE) and necessary medical supplies as they prepare for brutal surges of coronavirus cases in the coming weeks and months. But a bottleneck in the global supply chain has forced those states to compete with each other, and often with the federal government, for limited supplies. In many states, governors have reached deals with suppliers only to have those suppliers tell them later that they received a better price from another state. (Wilson, 4/7)

The Washington Post: Many Triage Plans Prioritize Pregnant Women, Health Care Workers, Even Politicians Over The Elderly And Disabled
No group in America today is more beloved than health-care workers. People sing to them from balconies, tweet about their heroism and memorialize them in portraits with faces bruised by masks. Recognizing their sacrifices — as well as their essential role — Pennsylvania officials recently adopted new guidelines giving doctors, nurses and others fighting covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, preferential access to scarce ventilators in a shortage. But the idea makes some uncomfortable. (Cha and McGinley, 4/7)

Stat: Ventilators Are Overused For Covid-19 Patients, Doctors Say 
Even as hospitals and governors raise the alarm about a shortage of ventilators, some critical care physicians are questioning the widespread use of the breathing machines for Covid-19 patients, saying that large numbers of patients could instead be treated with less intensive respiratory support. If the iconoclasts are right, putting coronavirus patients on ventilators could be of little benefit to many and even harmful to some. (Begley, 4/8)

The Hill: Drugmaker Caps Insulin Costs At $35 To Help Diabetes Patients During Pandemic 
Pharmaceutical manufacturer Eli Lilly said Tuesday that it will limit the out-of-pocket cost of insulin to $35 per month to offset financial hardships due to the coronavirus pandemic. The co-pay cap will cover the majority of the company’s insulin, including the Humalog injection, and is open to the uninsured as well as commercially insured people, but not to Medicaid, Medicare or Medicare Part D patients, Reuters reported. (Budryk, 4/7)

The Associated Press: Masked Crowds Fill Streets, Trains After Wuhan Lockdown Ends
After more than two months indoors, Wuhan resident Tong Zhengkun was one of millions of people enjoying a renewed sense of freedom when the Chinese city’s 76-day coronavirus lockdown was lifted Wednesday. “I haven’t been outside for more than 70 days,” an emotional Tong said as he watched a celebratory light display from a bridge across the broad Yangtze River flowing through the city. “Being indoors for so long drove me crazy.” (McNeil, 4/8)

Reuters: China's Wuhan Ends Its Coronavirus Lockdown But Elsewhere One Begins
While China has managed to curb its coronavirus epidemic the measures to contain it have exacted a heavy economic and social toll, with many residents in recent days expressing relief as well as uncertainty and worry over lingering danger of infection. “I’m going to see my parents,” Wang Wenshu told Reuters as she waited to check in at Wuhan’s Tianhe airport, which reopened on Wednesday. (Goh and Suen, 48)

Reuters: 'I Own It:' U.S. Navy Secretary Resigns Over Handling Of Coronavirus-Hit Carrier
Acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly resigned on Tuesday after he faced mounting backlash for firing and ridiculing the commander of a U.S. aircraft carrier who pleaded for help stemming a coronavirus outbreak onboard. Modly’s resignation highlighted the U.S. military’s struggle to meet increasingly competing priorities: maintaining readiness for conflict and safeguarding servicemembers as the virus spreads globally. (Ali and Stewart, 4/7)