First Edition: March 31, 2020

Kaiser Health News: Her Genetic Test Revealed A Microscopic Problem — And A Jumbo Price Tag
Michelle Kuppersmith, 32, feels great, works full time and exercises three to four times a week. So she was surprised when a routine blood test found that her body was making too many platelets, which help control bleeding. Kuppersmith’s doctor suspected she had a rare blood disorder called essential thrombocythemia, which can lead to blood clots, strokes and, in rare cases, leukemia. Her doctor suggested a bone marrow biopsy, in which a large needle is used to suck out a sample of the spongy tissue at the center of the patient’s hip bone. Doctors examine the bone marrow under a microscope and analyze the DNA. (Szabo, 3/31)

Kaiser Health News: More Than 5,000 Surgery Centers Can Now Serve As Makeshift Hospitals During COVID-19 Crisis
The Trump administration cleared the way Monday to immediately use outpatient surgery centers, inpatient rehabilitation hospitals, hotels and even dormitories as makeshift hospitals, health care centers or quarantine sites during the coronavirus crisis. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services announced it is temporarily waiving a range of rules, thereby allowing doctors to care for more patients. (Szabo and Anthony, 3/30)

Kaiser Health News: Already Taxed Health Care Workers Not ‘Immune’ From Layoffs And Less Pay
Just three weeks ago, Dr. Kathryn Davis worried about the coronavirus, but not about how it might affect her group of five OB-GYNs who practice at a suburban hospital outside Boston. “In medicine we think we’re relatively immune from the economy,” Davis said. “People are always going to get sick; people are always going to need doctors.” Then, two weeks ago, she watched her practice revenue drop 50% almost overnight after Massachusetts officials told doctors and hospitals to stop performing elective tests and procedures. For Davis, that meant no more non-urgent gynecological visits and screenings. (Bebinger, 3/30)

Kaiser Health News: Should You Bring Mom Home From Assisted Living During The Pandemic?
Most retirement complexes and long-term care facilities are excluding visitors. Older adults are asked to stay in their rooms and are alone for most of the day. Family members might call, but that doesn’t fill the time. Their friends in the facility are also sequestered. In a matter of weeks, conditions have deteriorated in many of these centers. At assisted living sites, staff shortages are developing as aides become sick or stay home with children whose schools have closed. Nursing homes, where seniors go for rehabilitation after a hospital stay or live long term if they’re seriously ill and frail, are being hard hit by the coronavirus. They’re potential petri dishes for infection. (Graham, 3/31)

Kaiser Health News: COVID-19 Bonanza: Stimulus Hands Health Industry Billions Not Directly Related To Pandemic
The coronavirus stimulus package Congress rushed out last week to help the nation’s hospitals and health care networks hands the industry billions of dollars in windfall subsidies and other spending that has little to do with defeating the COVID-19 pandemic. The $2 trillion legislation, which President Donald Trump signed Friday, includes more than $100 billion in emergency funds to compensate hospitals and other health care providers for lost revenue and other costs associated with COVID-19. (Schulte, 3/30)

The Associated Press: US Nears China's Virus Death Toll As New York Calls For Help
The mounting death toll from the virus outbreak in the United States had it poised Tuesday to overtake China’s grim toll of 3,300 deaths, with New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo saying up to 1 million more healthcare workers were needed. “Please come help us,” he urged. Hard-hit Italy and Spain have already overtaken China and now account for more than half of the nearly 38,000 COVID-19 deaths worldwide, according to figures from Johns Hopkins University. (Perry and Noveck, 3/31)

The Wall Street Journal: New York Hospitals Plan Coordination As Coronavirus Deaths In State Top 1,200
A U.S. Navy hospital ship arrived in New York City on Monday to help alleviate the strain of the coronavirus crisis on local hospitals, as Gov. Andrew Cuomo outlined a new statewide plan to coordinate medical care for the infected. The USNS Comfort will provide 1,000 hospital beds to the city, which has become the epicenter of the virus’s outbreak in the country. After welcoming the ship on Manhattan’s West Side, Mr. Cuomo held a press conference at Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, which is being converted into a 2,500-bed hospital and began receiving patients Monday. (Chapman, 3/30)

Politico: FEMA Sends Refrigerated Trucks To New York City To Hold Bodies
FEMA is sending refrigerated trucks to New York City to serve as temporary morgues as the death toll from the coronavirus grows. There is a “desperate need” for morgue space in Queens in particular, FEMA regional administrator Thomas Von Essen said Monday. The borough has the most coronavirus cases in the city, and Elmhurst hospital has been swamped with gravely ill patients. (Durkin, 3/30)

Reuters: U.S. Coronavirus Death Toll Rises Past 3,000 On Deadliest Day
In a grim new milestones marking the spread of the virus, total deaths across the United States hit 3,017, including at least 540 on Monday, and the reported cases climbed to more than 163,000, according to a Reuters tally. People in New York and New Jersey lined both sides of the Hudson River to cheer the U.S Navy ship Comfort, a converted oil tanker painted white with giant red crosses, as it sailed past the Statue of Liberty accompanied by support ships and helicopters. (Kelly and Trotta, 3/30)

The Washington Post: Coronavirus Pandemic Could Kill As Many As 200,000 In U.S., White House Warns
Michigan, which Trump said Monday was “becoming a hotbed,” reported an 18 percent surge in cases from a day earlier, along with more than 50 additional deaths — bringing its total fatalities to 184. Michigan’s nearly 6,500 confirmed cases was the third-highest total in the nation, behind New Jersey (more than 16,600) and New York (more than 66,000). (Zapotosky, Wagner and Iati, 3/30)

Stat: As Coronavirus Spreads, ER Doctors Warn 'The Worst Of It Has Not Hit Us Yet'
Streets in cities and towns across the country are eerily quiet. Car traffic has dropped so substantially air pollution is abating. In many places, people are hunkered down indoors, trying to avoid contracting Covid-19. But the true battle against the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes the disease, is playing out in hospitals that are currently — or will soon be — engulfed in an onslaught of patients struggling to breathe. (Branswell, 3/31)

The New York Times: Behind Trump’s Reversal On Reopening The Country: 2 Sets Of Numbers
The numbers the health officials showed President Trump were overwhelming. With the peak of the coronavirus pandemic still weeks away, he was told, hundreds of thousands of Americans could face death if the country reopened too soon. But there was another set of numbers that also helped persuade Mr. Trump to shift gears on Sunday and abandon his goal of restoring normal life by Easter. Political advisers described for him polling that showed that voters overwhelmingly preferred to keep containment measures in place over sending people back to work prematurely. Those two realities — the dire threat to the country and the caution of the American public — proved decisive at a critical juncture in the response to the pandemic, his advisers said. (Baker and Haberman, 3/30)

The Associated Press: How Dire Projections, Grim Images Dashed Trump's Easter Plan
The projections were grim: Even if the U.S. were to continue to do what it was doing, keeping the economy closed and most Americans in their homes, the coronavirus could leave 100,000 to 200,000 people dead and millions infected. And the totals would be far worse if the nation reopened. Those stark predictions grew even more tangible and harrowing when paired with televised images of body bags lined up at a New York City hospital not far from where President Donald Trump grew up in Queens. (Lemire, Colvin and Miller, 3/30)

The Washington Post: Both Public Health And Politics Played A Role In Trump’s Coronavirus Decision
An undercurrent of political calculation has coursed through much of Trump’s decision-making on the coronavirus. Despite taking some early modest steps, the president initially spent weeks downplaying the threat of the virus, in large part because he was worried about the effect on the economy. He has also clashed with Democratic governors, especially when he has felt they are being insufficiently appreciative of the federal government’s relief efforts. And he first settled on an Easter timeline — which he has since extended to the end of April — in part because of an eagerness to reopen the economy sooner rather than later. (Parker, Dawsey and Abutaleb, 3/30)

Reuters: Trump Says Coronavirus Guidelines May Get Tougher; 1 Million Americans Tested
U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday that federal social distancing guidelines might be toughened and travel restrictions with China and Europe would stay in place as he urged Americans to help fight the coronavirus with tough measures through April. Trump, speaking to reporters at the White House, said more than 1 million Americans had been tested for the coronavirus, which he called a milestone. (Holland and Mason, 3/30)

The Associated Press: White House Turns To Statistical Models For Virus Forecast
Like forecasters tracking a megastorm, White House officials are relying on statistical models to help predict the impact of the coronavirus outbreak and try to protect as many people as possible. The public could get its first close look at the Trump administration’s own projections Tuesday at the daily briefing. (Alonso-Zaldivar and Neergaard, 3/30)

Politico: ‘A Darwinian Approach To Federalism’: Governors Prep For New Authority From Trump
The Trump White House is doubling down on a strategy to govern the coronavirus pandemic: pushing authority and responsibility for the response onto the states. As the virus spreads across the U.S. and new hot spots emerge in states such as Illinois, Louisiana, Michigan and Texas, senior administration aides have privately argued the coronavirus response is a test of local politicians’ leadership and resourcefulness — with the White House acting as a backstop for the front-line state-by-state efforts. (Cook and Diamond, 3/31)

The New York Times: Restrictions Are Slowing Coronavirus Infections, New Data Suggest
Harsh measures, including stay-at-home orders and restaurant closures, are contributing to rapid drops in the numbers of fevers — a signal symptom of most coronavirus infections — recorded in states across the country, according to intriguing new data produced by a medical technology firm. At least 248 million Americans in at least 29 states have been told to stay at home. It had seemed nearly impossible for public health officials to know how effective this measure and others have been in slowing the coronavirus. (McNeil, 3/30)

Los Angeles Times: Social Distancing Is Slowing The Coronavirus In Seattle. But It's Not Enough, Study Says
Social distancing is reducing transmission of the coronavirus in the Seattle area, but not enough to contain it, according to a new study. It estimated that by March 18, each newly infected person was transmitting the virus to an average of 1.4 other people — down from 2.7 in late February, before bans on gatherings and other measures were put in place. But to start reducing the growth in new cases, that figure would have to fall below one. (Read, 3/30)

The New York Times: Trump Suggests Lack Of Testing Is No Longer A Problem. Governors Disagree.
President Trump told governors on a conference call on Monday that he had not “heard about testing in weeks,” suggesting that a chronic lack of kits to screen people for the coronavirus was no longer a problem. But governors painted a different picture on the ground. Gov. Steve Bullock of Montana, a Democrat, said that officials in his state were trying to do “contact tracing” — tracking down people who have come into contact with those who have tested positive — but that they were struggling because “we don’t have adequate tests,” according to an audio recording of the conversation obtained by The New York Times. (Martin, Haberman and Baker, 3/30)

The New York Times: The Lost Month: How A Failure To Test Blinded The U.S. To Covid-19
Early on, the dozen federal officials charged with defending America against the coronavirus gathered day after day in the White House Situation Room, consumed by crises. They grappled with how to evacuate the United States consulate in Wuhan, China, ban Chinese travelers and extract Americans from the Diamond Princess and other cruise ships. The members of the coronavirus task force typically devoted only five or 10 minutes, often at the end of contentious meetings, to talk about testing, several participants recalled. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, its leaders assured the others, had developed a diagnostic model that would be rolled out quickly as a first step. (Shear, Goodnough, Kaplan, Fink, Thomas and Weiland, 3/28)

Stat: Test Makers Are Moving Fast, But The Coronavirus May Be Moving Faster
In Lake Success, a village on the border of suburban Long Island and the New York City borough of Queens, there is a building that was erected to house defense engineers during World War II. It was designed to withstand enemy bombing, with a pool of water on the roof to help camouflage it in the event of airstrikes. Today, it is on the front line of a very different war. (Herper, 3/31)

The New York Times: Pelosi Floats New Stimulus Plan: Rolling Back SALT Cap
As lawmakers prepare for another round of fiscal stimulus to address economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic, Speaker Nancy Pelosi suggested the next package include a retroactive rollback of a tax change that hurt high earners in states like New York and California. A full rollback of the limit on the state and local tax deduction, or SALT, would provide a quick cash infusion in the form of increased tax rebates to an estimated 13 million American households — nearly all of which earn at least $100,000 a year. (Tankersley and Cochrane, 3/30)

Reuters: U.S. Congress Eyes Next Steps In Coronavirus Response
Democrats who control the House of Representatives were discussing boosting payments to low- and middle-income workers, likely to be among the most vulnerable as companies lay off and furlough millions of workers, as well as eliminating out-of-pocket costs for coronavirus medical treatment. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she would work with Republicans to craft a bill that could also provide added protections for front-line workers and substantially more support for state and local governments to deal with one of the largest public health crises in U.S. history. (Morgan and Cornwell, 3/30)

The Associated Press: Conditions For Companies That Get Virus Aid: Room For Abuse?
A $500 billion federal aid package for companies and governments hurt by the coronavirus includes rules aimed at ensuring that the taxpayer money is used in ways that would help sustain the economy. But questions are being raised about whether those guardrails will prevent the kinds of abuses that have marked some corporate bailouts of the past. In return for the emergency loans, which could be spun by the Federal Reserve into up to $4.5 trillion, companies will face temporary limits on what they can pay executives. (Gordon, 3/30)

The New York Times: Hospital Safety Rules Are Relaxed To Fight Coronavirus
The federal government announced Monday that it was relaxing many of its usual safety standards for hospitals so they could expand services to fight the coronavirus pandemic. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is changing rules on what counts as a hospital bed; how closely certain medical professionals need to be supervised; and what kinds of health care can be delivered at home. These broad but temporary changes will last the length of the national emergency. “This is unprecedented flexibility,” said Seema Verma, the administrator for the centers, in an interview. (Sanger-Katz, 3/30)

The Wall Street Journal: To Fight Coronavirus, States Call On Retired Medical Staff And New Graduates
Dr. Lay is among thousands of retired and inactive doctors and nurses who are returning to the field to help as the number of coronavirus patients surges, inundating health-care facilities across the U.S. In heavily hit New York, 76,000 health-care workers, many of them retired, had volunteered to help as of Sunday, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said. In addition, some medical schools are starting to graduate students early so they can jump into the fray. Dr. Lay is working to get approved to also do telemedicine consultations, but said he is willing to do anything. “Heck, I can take out the garbage,” he said. Though he has spent time away from the field, he said: “An injured soldier is better than no soldier at all.” (De Avila and Chen, 3/31)

The Wall Street Journal: NYU Langone Tells ER Doctors To ‘Think More Critically’ About Who Gets Ventilators
NYU Langone Health, one of the nation’s top academic medical centers, told emergency-room doctors that they have “sole discretion” to place patients on ventilators and institutional backing to “withhold futile intubations.” A March 28 email from Robert Femia, who heads the New York health center’s department of emergency medicine, underscored the life-or-death decisions placed on the shoulders of bedside physicians as they treat increasing numbers of coronavirus patients with a limited supply of ventilators. New York state guidelines, established in 2015, recommend that hospitals appoint a triage officer or committee—someone other than the attending physician—to decide who gets a ventilator when rationing is necessary. (Ramachandran and Palazzolo, 3/30)

The New York Times: Inside G.M.’s Race To Build Ventilators, Before Trump’s Attack
While much of the U.S. economy has ground to a halt because of the coronavirus outbreak, several dozen workers in orange vests and hard hats were hauling heavy equipment on Sunday at a General Motors plant in Kokomo, Ind. The crew was part of a crash effort to make tens of thousands of ventilators, the lifesaving machines that keep critically ill patients breathing. The machines are in desperate demand as hospitals face the prospect of dire shortages. New York State alone may need 30,000 or more. (Boudette and Jacobs, 3/30)

The Wall Street Journal: GM Hustles To Pump Out Ventilators To Fight Coronavirus
When President Trump last week criticized General Motors Co.’s GM -0.28% effort to produce ventilators, GM executives were flabbergasted. They felt the company was being unfairly targeted by the president, say people familiar with their thinking. GM had begun collaborating with a ventilator company a couple of weeks earlier. It had mobilized more than 1,000 employees and nearly 100 auto suppliers to start making the machines, which can be used to help patients with the disease caused by the new coronavirus. “We won’t let it deter us,” GM global manufacturing chief Gerald Johnson said in an interview over the weekend. “Every ventilator is a life.” (Colias, 3/30)

Reuters: Ford, GE To Produce 50,000 Ventilators In 100 Days
Ford Motor Co said on Monday it will produce 50,000 ventilators over the next 100 days at a plant in Michigan in cooperation with General Electric’s healthcare unit, and can then build 30,000 per month as needed to treat patients afflicted with the coronavirus. Ford said the simplified ventilator design, which is licensed by GE Healthcare from Florida-based Airon Corp and has been cleared by the Food and Drug Administration, can meet the needs of most COVID-19 patients and relies on air pressure without the need for electricity. (Carey, 3/30)

ProPublica: Taxpayers Paid Millions To Design A Low-Cost Ventilator For A Pandemic. Instead, The Company Is Selling Versions Of It Overseas.
Five years ago, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services tried to plug a crucial hole in its preparations for a global pandemic, signing a $13.8 million contract with a Pennsylvania manufacturer to create a low-cost, portable, easy-to-use ventilator that could be stockpiled for emergencies. This past September, with the design of the new Trilogy Evo Universal finally cleared by the Food and Drug Administration, HHS ordered 10,000 of the ventilators for the Strategic National Stockpile at a cost of $3,280 each. But as the pandemic continues to spread across the globe, there is still not a single Trilogy Evo Universal in the stockpile. (Callahan, Rotella and Golden, 3/30)

The New York Times: Hive Mind Of Makers Rises To Meet Pandemic 
It started with a fanciful email from one self-described science geek to another. “Hey, we should make a ventilator,” Dr. Chris Zahner, a University of Texas pathologist and former NASA engineer, wrote to Aisen Caro Chacin, an artist and medical device designer, after he learned about Italian hospitals struggling to treat the crush of coronavirus patients gasping for air. Two and a half days later, Dr. Zahner and Dr. Chacin were testing out their prototype at the university’s medical fabrication lab in Galveston: a simple air pump that uses ordinary blood pressure cuffs, car valves sold by auto parts stores and items found in most hospital supply closets. (Jacobs and Abrams, 3/30)

The New York Times: D.I.Y. Coronavirus Solutions Are Gaining Steam
There are moments when Gui Cavalcanti feels like he woke up in a dystopian universe — a guy with no background in medical or disaster response, suddenly leading an international effort on Facebook to design medical equipment to fight the Covid-19 pandemic, the gravest public-health threat of our time. “I have never worked so hard for a job I didn’t want in the first place,” Mr. Cavalcanti wrote in a text, as part of a recent interview. Essential medical supplies, from exam gloves to ventilators, are in short supply. (Petri, 3/31)

The Wall Street Journal: Coronavirus Prompts Hospitals To Find Ways To Reuse Masks Amid Shortages
Hospitals and research groups are racing to roll out new ways to reuse face masks safely, an effort that could protect front-line workers grappling with shortages while also creating a potential path to reducing medical waste long term. As the coronavirus spreads, demand for N95 respirators is far outstripping supply, endangering the lives of health workers. The masks, which capture 95% of air particles when properly fitted, are a crucial defense against the virus but are typically used just once. (Chaudhuri, 3/31)

The Wall Street Journal: U.S. Agency Auctioned Off Small Lots Of N95 Masks In February
As the coronavirus was emerging as an international concern, a U.S. government agency sold 80 cases of protective masks that are now in high demand, though it canceled another sale weeks later as the nation was bracing for a domestic outbreak, reserving them for government use. The quantity of masks sold by the GSA was a tiny fraction of what is needed nationwide. Because of high demand, officials around the country are scrambling for additional masks, with some medical workers having to re-use them due to the shortage. (Kendall, 3/30)

The New York Times: N.Y. Hospitals Face $400 Million In Cuts Even As Virus Battle Rages
For the last few weeks, Dr. David Perlstein has been scrambling to find more beds and ventilators, knowing that the coronavirus outbreak, which has filled his Bronx hospital with more than 100 patients, will undoubtedly get much worse. Then a week ago, Dr. Perlstein, the chief executive officer of St. Barnabas Hospital, was given some disturbing news by a state senator: His hospital could soon lose millions of dollars in government funding. (Ferre-Sadurni and McKinley, 3/30)

The New York Times: Coronavirus Prompts Instacart And Amazon Strikes Over Health Concerns
Signaling both growing anxiety and growing solidarity brought on by the coronavirus pandemic, workers in a variety of occupations across the country are protesting what they see as inadequate safety measures and insufficient pay for the risks they are confronting. On Monday, a contingent of workers who fulfill orders for the grocery delivery service Instacart stayed off the job, demanding greater pay and better access to paid leave and disinfectant. A group of workers walked off the job at an Amazon warehouse in Staten Island on Monday, and a sickout called by Whole Foods Market workers is set for Tuesday. (Scheiber and Conger, 3/30)

Reuters: Instacart, Amazon Workers Strike As Labor Unrest Grows During Coronavirus Crisis
Fifteen workers at an Amazon.com Inc warehouse in Staten Island, New York, also walked off the job on Monday following reports of COVID-19 among the facility’s staff. Amazon said later it fired an employee who helped organize the action for alleged violations of his employment, including leaving a paid quarantine to participate in the demonstration. New York’s attorney general said her office was “considering all legal options” in response to the firing, citing the right to organize in the state. (Russ, 3/30)

The New York Times: Texas Abortion Clinics Can Keep Operating, Judge Rules
The decision was a win for abortion providers, which had been scrambling to block similar restrictions in other states. Lawyers for clinics filed suit on Monday in Alabama, Iowa, Ohio and Oklahoma, states that had tried to include abortion in medical procedures that had to be delayed to preserve protective gear for medical workers. (Tavernise, 3/30)

The Wall Street Journal: Judges Block States From Limiting Access To Abortions During Coronavirus Pandemic
Judge Yeakel wrote that delaying abortions causes irreparable harm because, as pregnancies progress, abortions become less safe and eventually illegal. The judge, who was appointed by former GOP President George W. Bush, added that the providers’ lawsuit is likely to be successful. “The Supreme Court has spoken clearly,” Judge Yeakel wrote of a woman’s right to an early-term abortion. “There can be no outright ban on such a procedure. This court will not speculate on whether the Supreme Court included a silent ‘except-in-a-national-emergency clause.’ ” (Findell and Kendall, 3/30)

Politico: Mask Mystery: Why Are U.S. Officials Dismissive Of Protective Covering?
In recent weeks, facing public uncertainty about coronavirus and a severe domestic shortage of medical-grade face masks, top Trump administration officials offered adamant warnings against widespread use of masks, going so far as to argue that members of the general public were more likely to catch the virus if they used them. ... But as the crisis has played out around the world and intensified in parts of the U.S., reasons have emerged to doubt the wisdom of this guidance, which ranks among the most forceful warnings against mask use by national health authorities anywhere and does not differentiate between medical-grade masks and simple cloth coverings. A number of societies where mask use is more widespread, and where mask shortages have been less severe, seem to have had more success containing the virus. (Schreckinger, 3/30)

The Washington Post: CDC Considering Recommending General Public Wear Face Coverings In Public 
Should we all be wearing masks? That simple question is under review by officials in the U.S. government and has sparked a grass-roots pro-mask movement. But there’s still no consensus on whether widespread use of facial coverings would make a significant difference, and some infectious disease experts worry that masks could lull people into a false sense of security and make them less disciplined about social distancing. (Achenbach, Sun and McGinley, 3/30)

The New York Times: Florida Pastor Arrested After Defying Virus Orders
Before the Rev. Rodney Howard-Browne, the pastor of a Pentecostal megachurch in Florida, held two church services on Sunday — each filled with hundreds of parishioners — lawyers from the sheriff’s office and local government pleaded with him to reconsider putting his congregation in danger of contracting the coronavirus. The pastor ignored them, proceeding with the services at the River at Tampa Bay Church and even providing bus transportation for members who needed a ride. (Mazzei, 3/30)

The New York Times: Days After A Funeral In A Georgia Town, Coronavirus ‘Hit Like A Bomb’
It was an old-fashioned Southern funeral. There was a repast table crammed with casseroles, Brunswick stew, fried chicken and key lime cake. Andrew Jerome Mitchell, a retired janitor, was one of 10 siblings. They told stories, debated for the umpteenth time how he got the nickname Doorface. People wiped tears away, and embraced, and blew their noses, and belted out hymns. They laughed, remembering. It was a big gathering, with upward of 200 mourners overflowing the memorial chapel, so people had to stand outside. (Barry, 3/30)

The Washington Post: Stay-Home Orders Issued In Maryland, Virginia, D.C. On Monday
Maryland, Virginia and the District on Monday barred residents from leaving home unless it’s absolutely necessary, joining a handful of other states that have issued such orders in hopes of controlling the fast-spreading novel coronavirus. While all three jurisdictions had already banned most gatherings, closed businesses and schools, and urged people to stay home as much as possible, the orders made clear that compliance is no longer optional — and added fines and potential jail time for some violations. (Olivo, Wiggins and Schneider, 3/30)

Stat: What Explains Covid-19's Lethality For The Elderly? 
Researchers on Monday announced the most comprehensive estimates to date of elderly people’s elevated risk of serious illness and death from the new coronavirus: Covid-19 kills an estimated 13.4% of patients 80 and older, compared to 1.25% of those in their 50s and 0.3% of those in their 40s. The sharpest divide came at age 70. Although 4% of patients in their 60s died, more than twice that, or 8.6%, of those in their 70s did, Neil Ferguson of Imperial College London and his colleagues estimated in their paper, published in Lancet Infectious Diseases. (Begley, 3/30)