First Edition: June 12, 2020

Kaiser Health News/The Guardian: Lost On The Frontline
A traveling nurse who pitched in after retirement. A phlebotomist who loved her job and was loved by her patients. A driver transporting senior care residents to medical appointments. These are 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. (6/12)

Kaiser Health News: If You’ve Lost Your Health Plan In The COVID Crisis, You’ve Got Options
The coronavirus pandemic — and the economic fallout that has come with it — boosted health insurance enrollment counselor Mark Van Arnam’s workload. But he wants to be even busier. The loss of employment for 21 million Americans is a double blow for many because it also means the loss of insurance, said Van Arnam, director of the North Carolina Navigator Consortium, a group of organizations that offer free help to state residents enrolling in insurance. (Appleby, 6/12)

Kaiser Health News: COVID-19 Batters A Beloved Bay Area Community Health Care Center
A small band of volunteers started the Marin City Health and Wellness Center nearly two decades ago with a doctor and a retired social worker making house calls in public housing high-rises. It grew into a beloved community resource and a grassroots experiment in African American health care. “It was truly a one-stop shop,” said Ebony McKinley, a lifelong resident of this tightknit, historically black enclave several miles north of the Golden Gate Bridge. “And it was ours.” (Scheier, 6/12)

Kaiser Health News: Health Workers Resort To Etsy, Learning Chinese, Shady Deals To Find Safety Gear
A nursing home worker in New Jersey rendezvoused with “the parking lot guy” to cut a deal for gowns. A director of safety-net clinics in Florida learned basic Chinese and waited outside past midnight for a truck to arrive with tens of thousands of masks. A cardiologist in South Carolina tried his luck with “shady characters” to buy ingredients to blend his own hand sanitizer. The global pandemic has ordinary health care workers going to extremes in a desperate hunt for medical supplies. (Cahan and Varney, 6/12)

Kaiser Health News: KHN’s ‘What The Health?’: Say What? The Spread Of Coronavirus Confusion 
As we gain more and more information about the coronavirus and COVID-19, we seem to have less and less understanding of how the disease works and how prevalent it is in areas around the country and world. Not only does the information keep changing as scientists sift through the data, but the inability of some experts to make that information understandable to the public further confuses matters. Most recently, the World Health Organization had to walk back comments from one of its top leaders about the asymptomatic transmission of the virus. (6/11)

The Associated Press: Alarming Rise In Virus Cases As States Roll Back Lockdowns
States are rolling back lockdowns, but the coronavirus isn’t done with the U.S. Cases are rising in nearly half the states, according to an Associated Press analysis, a worrying trend that could intensify as people return to work and venture out during the summer. In Arizona, hospitals have been told to prepare for the worst. Texas has more hospitalized COVID-19 patients than at any time before. (Stobbe, 6/11)

The Wall Street Journal: Covid-19 Hospitalizations Surge In Some States
The post-Memorial Day outbreaks in states come roughly a month after stay-at-home orders were lifted. Experts urged people to continue to take the virus seriously and not take increased freedom as permission to stop wearing masks or resume gathering in large groups. Dr. Marc Boom, chief executive officer of the Houston Methodist hospital network, said he is concerned by the “array of indicators, all of which are starting to flash at us,” including increased cases, a rise in hospitalizations and a boost in the percentage of positive test results. (Collin and Findell, 6/11)

Reuters: Fears Of Second U.S. Coronavirus Wave Rise On Worrisome Spike In Cases, Hospitalizations 
Texas has seen record hospitalizations for three days in a row, and in North Carolina only 13% of the state’s ICU beds are available due to severe COVID-19 cases. Houston’s mayor said the city was ready to turn its NFL stadium into a make-shift hospital if necessary. Arizona has seen a record number of hospitalizations at 1,291. The state health director told hospitals this week to activate emergency plans and increase ICU capacity. About three-quarters of the state's ICU beds are filled, according to the state website. (Shumaker, O'Donnell and Erman, 6/11)

NPR: N.C. Health Secretary Warns Of Surge In Cases, Possible Return Of Stay-At-Home Orders
North Carolina is experiencing a surge of COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations during its second phase of reopening, forcing the state's health director to contend with the idea of a second shutdown. "If we need to go back to stay-at-home [orders], we will," Mandy Cohen, the secretary of the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, told NPR's Morning Edition on Thursday. "I hope we don't have to. I think there are things we can do before we have to get there, but yes, we are concerned." (Silva, 6/11)

The Associated Press: Florida Migrant Towns Become Coronavirus Hot Spots In US
When much of the world was staying at home to slow the spread of the new coronavirus, Elbin Sales Perez continued to rise at 4:30 a.m. to report to his landscaping job in a rural Florida town. Now, a couple of months later, as state-imposed restrictions are lifted and Floridians begin to venture out, the Guatemalan immigrant is ill and isolated at home with his wife and children in Immokalee, a poverty-stricken town in the throes of one of the sharpest COVID-19 upticks in the state. (Licon, 6/12)

NPR: Florida And S.C. Report New Spikes In Coronavirus Cases
A record high in South Carolina. A two-month high in Florida. Record hospitalizations in Texas. Several states that were among the first to reopen their economies are now reporting spikes in new coronavirus cases, driving an alarming trend that has propelled the U.S. to 2 million cases. Florida reported nearly 1,700 new cases Thursday morning — "the biggest jump since March," as NPR member station WLRN reported. Hours after the state published that data, Gov. Ron DeSantis unveiled his plan to reopen schools in August, urging local governments to aim for "full capacity" when they resume classes. (Chappell, 6/11)

Politico: Florida Covid-19 Cases Soar In Agricultural Communities
The Florida Department of Health reported a record daily number of Covid-19 diagnoses, which Gov. Ron DeSantis on Thursday said was the result of outbreaks among farming communities and increased statewide testing. The state Department of Health reported that 1,677 people were diagnosed with Covid-19 on Wednesday, the highest number of positive tests since the state reported its first case March 1. The previous record was the 1,527 cases reported on April 3, according to Johns Hopkins University & Medicine. (Sarkissian, 6/11)

The Associated Press: Oregon Reopening Paused As Daily Coronavirus Cases Hit High
Oregon Gov. Kate Brown said Thursday evening that a noticeable increase in coronavirus infections was cause for concern and that she was putting all county applications for further reopening on hold for seven days. The Oregon Health Authority reported 178 new confirmed COVID-19 cases Thursday, marking the highest daily count in the state since the start of the pandemic. (6/12)

Los Angeles Times: L.A. County Coronavirus Cases Rise, Hospitals Face New Danger
Coronavirus transmission continues to worsen in Los Angeles County, officials said this week, and that brings risks as the region further reopens. With higher transmissions, there is a chance that the nation’s most populous county could run out of intensive care unit beds in two to four weeks, officials said Wednesday. The numbers have not reached danger levels yet, but health officials said they are monitoring conditions carefully for any signs of new pressures on hospitals. (Lin and Shalby, 6/11)

The New York Times: On The Future, Americans Can Agree: ‘It’s All Screwed’
Brendan Hermanson, 51, a construction worker for three decades, has come through the pandemic healthy and employed. At home in Milwaukee, where he lives with his grown son, he tries to tune out the hostile politics in the country and wonders if he should bother to vote again for President Trump in November or “sit back and watch it crumble.” In the Philadelphia suburbs, Basil Miles, 27, isn’t as comfortable. He worries about his ability to provide for his pregnant partner and their 3-year-old daughter after he was laid off from his food service job because of the coronavirus. He recently skipped a doctor’s appointment in the city because he feared armed white vigilantes who were threatening black protesters in the area. (Lerer and Umhoefer, 6/12)

Reuters: 'This Is About Livelihoods': U.S. Virus Hotspots Reopen Despite Second Wave Specter
Facing budget shortfalls and double-digit unemployment, governors of U.S. states that are COVID-19 hotspots on Thursday pressed ahead with economic reopenings that have raised fears of a second wave of infections. The moves by governors of states such as Florida and Arizona came as Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said the United States could not afford to let the novel coronavirus shut its economy again and global stocks tanked on worries of a pandemic resurgence. (Hay, 6/11)

The Associated Press: Downplaying Virus Risk, Trump Gets Back To Business As Usual
Three months after President Donald Trump bowed to the realities of a pandemic that put big chunks of life on pause and killed more Americans than several major wars, Trump is back to business as usual — even as coronavirus cases are on the upswing in many parts of the country. While the nation has now had months to prepare stockpiles of protective gear and ventilators, a vaccine still is many months away at best and a model cited by the White House projects tens of thousands of more deaths by the end of September. (Colvin and Miller, 6/12)

Politico: Trump Rally Attendees Must Agree Not To Sue Campaign Over Potential Coronavirus Exposure
Supporters of President Donald Trump will soon be able to attend one of his signature, raucous campaign rallies again after a monthslong hiatus because of the coronavirus pandemic — but first, they must agree not to sue the campaign if they contract the virus after the event. The Trump campaign on Thursday sent out registration information for the president’s first rally since March, with the campaign’s chief operating officer, Michael Glassner, proclaiming that there is “no better place” to restart rallies than Tulsa, Okla. (Oprysko, 6/11)

The Washington Post: Trump’s Tulsa Campaign Rally Sign-Up Page Includes Coronavirus Liability Disclaimer
At the bottom of the registration page for tickets to the upcoming Trump campaign rally is a disclaimer notifying attendees that “by clicking register below, you are acknowledging that an inherent risk of exposure to COVID-19 exists in any public place where people are present.” “By attending the Rally, you and any guests voluntarily assume all risks related to exposure to COVID-19 and agree not to hold Donald J. Trump for President, Inc.; BOK Center; ASM Global; or any of their affiliates, directors, officers, employees, agents, contractors, or volunteers liable for any illness or injury,” the notice states. (Sonmez, 6/11)

NPR: Trump Campaign Faces Backlash Over Next Campaign Rally
Asked what precautions would be taken at Trump's rallies as they restart, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said Wednesday "we will ensure that everyone who goes is safe," but she did not elaborate. The decision by the Trump campaign to hold a rally in Tulsa, where white mobs massacred black citizens in 1921 has been widely condemned by Democrats, including Rep. Val Demings of Florida and Sen. Kamala Harris of California. (Sprunt, 6/11)

Politico: ‘They Had A Huge Opportunity’: People Of Color On Trump’s Team Reckon With A Backlash
It’s another Charlottesville moment for some aides inside the Trump administration. President Donald Trump’s handling of the nationwide anti-racism protests and the response to George Floyd’s killing is prompting a private reckoning, spurring sadness or soul-searching among some people of color who continue to serve in the administration after three and a half years, say several current and former aides. (Cook and Lippman, 6/12)

The New York Times: Trump Defends Police, But Says He’ll Sign Order Encouraging Better Practices
President Trump offered only a vague policy response on Thursday to the killing of George Floyd, saying he would sign an executive order encouraging better practices by police departments while rejecting more far-reaching proposals to tackle racial injustice and police brutality in the United States. Dismissing police misconduct as the work of only a few “bad apples,” Mr. Trump strongly defended law enforcement agencies and made clear he had little interest in broader legislation being debated in Congress. (Baker and Kaplan, 6/11)

Politico: Trump Says He’s Finalizing Executive Order On Police Reform
Decrying calls from progressive activists to defund the police and funnel that money to other community programs, Trump said he wanted to increase investment in law enforcement. “We’re not defunding police. If anything we’re going the other route,” Trump said. “We’re going to make sure our police are well trained, perfectly trained, they have the best equipment.” The president also announced plans to build “safety and opportunity and dignity” by increasing access to capital for minority-owned small businesses and confronting health care disparities in communities of color. (Cohen, 6/11)

The Wall Street Journal: Biden Warns Of Coronavirus ‘Bounce-Back’, Says U.S. Ill-Prepared
Joe Biden warned Thursday of a second wave of coronavirus cases, saying the nation would require a surge in testing and protective equipment to allow businesses to reopen safely during the pandemic. The former vice president and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee said during a town hall meeting in Philadelphia that he was seeing “nothing that is being done to prepare for what the experts and scientists are telling us is likely to be a bounceback.” (Thomas, 6/11)

NPR: Biden Outlines Plan To Restart Economy, Including Testing Every Worker
"Trump may have forgotten about the coronavirus, but it hasn't forgotten about us," Biden said at the front of a horseshoe-shaped table at a community center in West Philadelphia. "The failure to respond to the pandemic, I think the federal government has abdicated any effective leadership role." The former vice president, meeting with black community leaders and business owners, said that he would also task the Occupational Safety and Health Administration with enforcing standard workplace safety requirements and that he wants to build out a public health job corps with state, tribal and local officials to conduct robust contact tracing. (Gringlas, 6/11)

The Wall Street Journal: How New York’s Coronavirus Response Made The Pandemic Worse
New York leaders faced an unanticipated crisis as the new coronavirus overwhelmed the nation’s largest city. Their response was marred by missed warning signs and policies that many health-care workers say put residents at greater risk and led to unnecessary deaths. In the first few days of March, Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio assured New Yorkers things were under control. On March 2, Mr. de Blasio tweeted that people should go see a movie. Only after the disease had gripped the city’s low-income neighborhoods in early March did Gov. Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio mobilize public and private hospitals to create more beds and intensive-care units. (Ramachandran, Kusisto and Honan, 6/11)

The Wall Street Journal: The Early Coronavirus Warning That Woke Up Wall Street
The warning was stark. It was late January, and there were just six known cases of Covid-19 in the U.S. A leading infectious disease specialist who previously had battled Ebola and SARS had an alarming message for a group of money managers: It was about to get a lot worse. “In the 20 or 30 years I’ve been involved in emerging infections,” Jeremy Farrar told the managers on the January 31 call, “I’ve never seen anything that has been as fast or as rapidly moving and dynamic as this has been.” (Chung, 6/12)

The Wall Street Journal: Coronavirus Takes Financial Toll On New York City’s ‘Safety-Net’ Hospitals
The hospitals serving New York City’s neediest and most vulnerable patients face a financial reckoning as a result of the new coronavirus outbreak and uncertain stimulus funding from Washington, officials at the institutions say. New York City’s Health + Hospitals system is running with about 18 days of cash on hand, officials say. The 11-hospital system will go lean on cash in June and July if more federal funding doesn’t begin to flow, including from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. (Grayce West and Palazzolo, 6/11)

The Washington Post: Political And Health Leaders’ Embrace Of Floyd Protests Fuels Debate Over Coronavirus Restrictions
The governor of Michigan attended a street protest even though it appeared to violate her own order demanding social distancing. So did Pennsylvania’s governor. Washington’s mayor for weeks had a Twitter handle that told people to “stay home” — while sharing video of protesters massing near the White House on a street emblazoned with a mural she commissioned. Months after the coronavirus forced Americans into their homes, protests over the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody drove hundreds of thousands of people back to the streets. (Weiner, 6/11)

The Associated Press: Experts: Police 'Woefully Undertrained' In Use Of Force
Seattle officers hold down a protester, and one repeatedly punches him in the face. In another run-in, officers handcuff a looting suspect on the ground, one pressing a knee into his neck — the same tactic used on George Floyd. The officers were captured on videos appearing to violate policies on how to use force just days after Floyd died at the hands of Minneapolis police, setting off nationwide protests. (Bellisle, 6/12)

Politico: U.S. Surgeon General: George Floyd 'Could Have Been Me'
U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams told POLITICO that he sees parallels between himself and George Floyd in his most extensive comments about the death of the unarmed black man that launched a wave of national protests. Floyd was "the same age that I am,” Adams told POLITICO’s “Pulse Check” podcast, reflecting on the 46-year-old’s death at the hands of Minneapolis police last month, which was captured on video and immediately shared around the globe. “And I look at him, and I really do think that could have been me.” (Diamond, 6/11)

The New York Times: Schools Move To Eliminate Campus Police Officers
The national reckoning over police violence has spread to schools, with several districts choosing in recent days to sever their relationships with local police departments out of concern that the officers patrolling their hallways represent more of a threat than a form of protection. School districts in Minneapolis, Seattle and Portland, Ore., have all promised to remove officers, with the Seattle superintendent saying the presence of armed police “prohibits many students and staff from feeling fully safe.” (Goldstein, 6/12)

Reuters: Exclusive: Most Americans, Including Republicans, Support Sweeping Democratic Police Reform Proposals - Reuters/Ipsos Poll
Most Americans, including a majority of President Donald Trump’s Republican Party, support sweeping law enforcement reforms such as a ban on chokeholds and racial profiling after the latest death of an African American while in police custody, according to a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll released on Thursday. (Kahn, 6/11)

Reuters: U.S. Insurers Use Lofty Estimates To Beat Back Coronavirus Claims
U.S. property and casualty insurers have cast the coronavirus pandemic as an unprecedented event whose massive cost to small businesses they are neither able nor required to cover. The industry has warned it could cost them $255 billion to $431 billion a month if they are required, as some states are proposing, to compensate firms for income lost and expenses owed due to virus-led shutdowns, an amount it says would make insurers insolvent. (Scott and Barlyn, 6/12)

Reuters: Exclusive: Bottlenecks? Glass Vial Makers Prepare For COVID-19 Vaccine
Drugmakers are warning of a potential shortage of vials to bottle future COVID-19 vaccines, but their rush to secure supplies risks making matters worse, some major medical equipment manufacturers warn. Schott AG, the world’s largest maker of speciality glass for vaccine vials, says it has turned down requests to reserve output from major pharmaceutical firms because it does not want to commit resources before it is clear which vaccines will work. (Burger and Blamont, 6/12)

The Washington Post: Can Old Vaccines From Science’s Medicine Cabinet Ward Off Coronavirus? 
Two tried-and-true vaccines — a century-old inoculation against tuberculosis and a decades-old polio vaccine once given as a sugar cube — are being evaluated to see if they can offer limited protection against the coronavirus. Tests are already underway to see if the TB vaccine can slow the novel coronavirus, while other researchers writing in a scientific journal Thursday propose using the polio vaccine, which once was melted on children’s tongues. (Johnson and Mufson, 6/11)

The Associated Press: Final Tests Of Some COVID-19 Vaccines To Start Next Month
The first experimental COVID-19 vaccine in the U.S. is on track to begin a huge study next month to prove if it really can fend off the coronavirus, while hard-hit Brazil is testing a different shot from China. Where to do crucial, late-stage testing and how many volunteers are needed to roll up their sleeves are big worries for health officials as the virus spread starts tapering off in parts of the world. (Neergaard, 6/11)

Reuters: How A Vaccine Made Of Mosquito Spit Could Help Stop The Next Epidemic
Five years ago, in an office complex with a giant sculpture of a mosquito just northwest of Phnom Penh, Jessica Manning struck on a novel idea. Rather than spend more years in what felt like a futile search for a malaria vaccine, she would take on all mosquito-borne pathogens at once. (Baldwin, 6/11)

The New York Times: EU Wants To Buy COVID-19 Vaccines Up Front-Unless They're Made In America
The European Commission is seeking a mandate from EU countries to buy promising COVID-19 vaccine candidates in advance from pharmaceutical firms, as long as they are not produced solely in the United States, officials said. The EU executive wants to pay for up to six potential vaccines in deals where the makers would commit to providing doses when and if they become available. (6/11)

The Washington Post: Financial Speculation Surrounding Coronavirus Drug Developed With Taxpayer Money
Ridgeback Biotherapeutics had no laboratories, no manufacturing facility of its own and a minimal track record when it struck a deal in March with Emory University to license an experimental coronavirus pill invented by university researchers with $16 million in grants from U.S. taxpayers. But what the tiny Miami company did have was a willingness from its wealthy owners — hedge fund manager Wayne Holman and his wife, Wendy — to place a bet on the treatment in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. That wager paid off with extraordinary speed in May when, just two months after acquiring the antiviral therapy called EIDD-2801 from Emory, Ridgeback sold exclusive worldwide rights to drug giant Merck. (Rowland, 6/11)

Reuters: Japan's PeptiDream To Work With Merck In Developing COVID-19 Therapies
Japanese drug-discovery company PeptiDream Inc said on Friday it would collaborate with Merck & Co in developing COVID-19 therapies. The companies will work to develop peptide therapeutics that may be effective against multiple coronavirus strains, they said in a release. The agreement builds on a research and licensing partnership announced in 2015. PeptiDream specialises in constrained peptides, types of amino acids that can carry various cargoes to specific types of cells. (6/11)

The New York Times: Covid-19 Patient Gets Double Lung Transplant, Offering Hope For Others
A young woman whose lungs were destroyed by the coronavirus received a double lung transplant last week at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago, the hospital reported on Thursday, the first known lung transplant in the United States for Covid-19. The 10-hour surgery was more difficult and took several hours longer than most lung transplants because inflammation from the disease had left the woman’s lungs “completely plastered to tissue around them, the heart, the chest wall and diaphragm,” said Dr. Ankit Bharat, the chief of thoracic surgery and surgical director of the lung transplant program at Northwestern Medicine, which includes Northwestern Memorial Hospital, in an interview. (Grady, 6/11)

The Washington Post: Surgeons Perform First Known U.S. Lung Transplant For Covid-19 Patient
Ankit Bharat, chief of thoracic surgery and surgical director of Northwestern’s lung transplant program, said organ transplantation may become more frequent for victims of the most severe forms of covid-19. The disease caused by the novel coronavirus most commonly attacks the respiratory system but also can inflict damage on kidneys, hearts, blood vessels and the neurological system. (Bernstein and Powers, 6/11)

The Associated Press: Coronavirus Survivor In US Receives Double Lung Transplant
The Chicago patient is in her 20s and was on a ventilator and heart-lung machine for almost two months before her operation at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. The 10-hour procedure was challenging because the virus had left her lungs full of holes and almost fused to the chest wall, said Dr. Ankit Bharat, who performed the operation. (Tanner, 6/11)

The Associated Press: Researchers Ask If Survivor Plasma Could Prevent Coronavirus
Survivors of COVID-19 are donating their blood plasma in droves in hopes it helps other patients recover from the coronavirus. And while the jury’s still out, now scientists are testing if the donations might also prevent infection in the first place. Thousands of coronavirus patients in hospitals around the world have been treated with so-called convalescent plasma — including more than 20,000 in the U.S. — with little solid evidence so far that it makes a difference. One recent study from China was unclear while another from New York offered a hint of benefit. (Neergaard, 6/12)

The Washington Post: Chronic Coronavirus: These Patients Have Been Sick For Weeks, But Doctors Don't Know Why
It started for Melanie Montano with a tightness in her chest, almost like someone was sitting on top of her. It was March 15, and she was sweating but freezing cold. And she had a strange “pins-and-needles” sensation on the back of her legs. “It was as if I woke up in a totally different body,” she recalled. Over the following weeks, Montano, 32, developed a fever, cough, stomach problems, and lost her sense of taste and smell like other sufferers of the novel coronavirus. Unlike most of them, though, her symptoms never went away. (Cha and Bernstein, 6/11)

San Francisco Chronicle: SARS Antibodies Block Coronavirus Infections, Study Shows
Antibodies from people who recovered from SARS — a deadly respiratory disease caused by a coronavirus that emerged nearly 20 years ago — may be critical to fighting COVID-19, according to a study in the journal Nature. The peer-reviewed paper reveals how an antibody discovered in a person infected by the severe acute respiratory syndrome virus in 2003 acted as a potent blocker against SARS-CoV-2, the closely related coronavirus that causes COVID-19. (Dizikes, 6/11)

The Wall Street Journal: Congress Confronts Summer Deadlines For Stimulus Spending Decisions
With the Federal Reserve pledging to do whatever it can to pull the U.S. out of a recession, it is now up to Congress to decide how much more of a spending boost the economy needs, and what form it should take. Important deadlines are looming. Millions of jobless Americans will see their extra unemployment benefits disappear at the end of July unless Congress extends them. Deferred tax payments are due July 15. And many state and local governments must complete annual budgets by June 30. They are counting on more federal aid to close gaping deficits that have forced them to cut spending and lay off workers. (Davidson and Timiraos, 6/11)

The Wall Street Journal: Steven Mnuchin Says White House Considering Second Round Of Stimulus Payments
The Trump administration is weighing getting behind a second round of stimulus payments for Americans as part of an economic-relief package Congress is likely to consider next month, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Thursday. Mr. Mnuchin said he had discussed with President Trump the idea of additional stimulus payments, though no decision had been made yet on whether to advocate for them in the next bill. “It’s something that we’re very seriously considering,” he told reporters during an online question-and-answer session Thursday. (Davidson and Rubin, 6/11)

Politico: Black Community Braces For Next Threat: Mass Evictions
A new tremor is threatening to shake minority communities as protests over racial injustice sweep the country: A wave of evictions as a federal moratorium on kicking people out of their rental units expires. The ban on evictions — which applies to rentals that are backed by the government — expires in a matter of weeks. On top of that, the federal boost to unemployment benefits that many laid-off workers have used to pay their rent is set to end July 31. (O'Donnell, 6/12)

The New York Times: Trump Will Give Republican Convention Speech In Jacksonville
It’s official: President Trump will deliver his Aug. 27 convention speech in Jacksonville, Fla., inside an arena that holds 15,000 people, after his demands for an event without social distancing rules led to a rift with Democratic leaders in North Carolina, where the Republican convention was originally planned. Ronna McDaniel, the chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, confirmed on Thursday that the speech would take place at the VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena in Jacksonville, a diverse city where the mayor and the governor are both Republican allies of Mr. Trump’s. (Karni, 6/11)

Reuters: Trump To Accept Republican Nomination In Jacksonville, Florida
Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said in a statement on Thursday the official business of the party’s convention would still be held in Charlotte but the celebration of Trump’s nomination would be moved to Jacksonville. The announcement, which was expected, caps an ugly dispute that had been brewing between Trump, his Republican Party and Democratic Governor Roy Cooper of North Carolina, who refused to alter public health protocols to suit Trump in a state where the number of COVID-19 cases is still growing. (Oliphant, 6/11)

The Washington Post: Republicans Announce Trump Convention Events Will Move To Jacksonville
The change means that the GOP will have roughly 70 days to plan a series of events that typically take two years to work through. Political conventions, once a secretive process for elites to select their party’s nominee, are now largely for show. But they do serve purposes: kicking off the final leg of the presidential races, offering a high-profile opportunity for the candidates to sell a vision for the country and delivering a platform for the next generation of political stars in each party. (Linskey, 6/11)

The Associated Press: 'It's Broken': Fears Grow About Patchwork US Election System
The increasingly urgent concerns are both complex and simple: long lines disproportionately affecting voters of color in places like Atlanta with a history of voter suppression; a severe shortage of poll workers scared away by coronavirus concerns; and an emerging consensus that it could take several days after polls close on Election Day to determine a winner as battleground states struggle with an explosion of mail voting. (Peoples and Cassidy, 6/12)

The New York Times: Georgia Havoc Raises New Doubts On Pricey Voting Machines
As Georgia elections officials prepared to roll out an over $100 million high-tech voting system last year, good-government groups, a federal judge and election-security experts warned of its perils. The new system, they argued, was too convoluted, too expensive, too big — and was still insecure. They said the state would regret purchasing the machines. On Tuesday, that admonition appeared prescient. (Corasaniti and Saul, 6/11)

Stat: How A Piecemeal Covid-19 Response In One Prison Fueled A Fatal Outbreak
Roderick Keith Dirden has been trying for months to get out of an overcrowded dormitory at the California Institution for Men, where he has been in intermittent lockdown since Covid-19 started sweeping through the prison. “I’m not looking for somebody to jump out of a parachute to save me,” he said in a phone interview with STAT. He’s simply looking, he said, for the system to keep inmates safe. (Guo, 6/12)

Politico: American Indian Tribes Thwarted In Efforts To Get Coronavirus Data
Federal and state health agencies are refusing to give Native American tribes and organizations representing them access to data showing how the coronavirus is spreading around their lands, potentially widening health disparities and frustrating tribal leaders already ill-equipped to contain the pandemic. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has turned down tribal epidemiologists’ requests for data that it’s making freely available to states. Authorities in Michigan and Massachusetts since early spring have also resisted handing over information on testing and confirmed cases, citing privacy concerns, and refused to strike agreements with tribes on contact tracing or other surveillance, eight tribal leaders and health experts told POLITICO. (Tahir and Cancryn, 6/11)

NPR: EPA Orders Amazon And EBay To Stop Selling Bogus Coronavirus-Fighting Products
On Thursday, the Environmental Protection Agency ordered Amazon and eBay to stop selling certain pesticide-containing products, many of which claimed to fight off and disinfect from the coronavirus. The orders also bar the e-commerce giants from selling products that contain toxic chemicals like chlorine dioxide and methylene chloride, which is federally regulated as a toxic substance. (Hagemann, 6/11)

The New York Times: How 133 Epidemiologists Are Deciding When To Send Their Children To School
For many parents, the most pressing question as the nation emerges from pandemic lockdown is when they can send their children to school, camp or child care. We asked more than 500 epidemiologists and infectious disease specialists when they expect to restart 20 activities of daily life, assuming that the coronavirus pandemic and the public health response to it unfold as they expect. On sending children to school, camp or child care, 70 percent said they would do so either right now, later this summer or in the fall — much sooner than most said they would resume other activities that involved big groups of people gathering indoors. (Cain Miller and Sanger-Katz, 6/12)

The Wall Street Journal: U.S. Blood Reserves Are Critically Low
The U.S. blood supply is at critically low levels after Covid-19 shutdowns have emptied community centers, universities, places of worship and other venues where blood drives typically occur. The American Red Cross, which supplies about 40% of the nation’s blood, said more than 30,000 planned blood drives have been canceled since mid-March. Even as some businesses, schools and community groups make plans to reopen in coming months, they have told the Red Cross they don’t anticipate sponsoring blood drives in the near future. (Dockser Marcus, 6/12)