First Edition: May 13, 2020

Kaiser Health News: Hospital Workers Complain Of Minimal Disclosure After COVID Exposures
Dinah Jimenez assumed a world-class hospital would be better prepared than a chowder house to inform workers when they had been exposed to a deadly virus. So, when her boyfriend, an employee of a popular seafood restaurant in Seattle, received a call from his boss on a Sunday in late March telling him a co-worker had tested positive for COVID-19 and that he needed to quarantine for 14 days, she said she assumed she’d get a similar call from the University of Washington Medical Center. After all, the infected restaurant employee worked a second job alongside her at the hospital’s Plaza Cafe. (Gold and Hawryluk, 5/13)

Kaiser Health News: Racial Status And The Pandemic: A Combustible Mixture
In early March, Madalynn Rucker, then 69, agonized over whether to close her Sacramento consultancy office. On the 16th, she finally succumbed to a barrage of texts and calls from her daughter about the heightened risk of the coronavirus, and told her employees to begin working from home. That was three days before California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s statewide stay-at-home order. Her daughter was right in more ways than one. While Rucker’s age alone raised her potential danger of being hospitalized or dying of COVID-19, she and many of her employees share another risk factor: They are black. (Almendrala, 5/13)

Kaiser Health News: Beyond The Glam: Feeding The Coachella Valley’s Most Vulnerable Residents
The Coachella Valley is perhaps best known for big-ticket attractions: its annual namesake music festival and tennis tournament in Indian Wells, and the swanky resort town of Palm Springs. But there’s a flip side to all that glam. Poverty is also endemic to the desert valley, which stretches for 45 miles in Riverside County. The median household income there is roughly $45,500, less than two-thirds the statewide median. (De Marco, 5/13)

The New York Times: Coronavirus Models Are Nearing Consensus, But Reopening Could Throw Them Off Again
There is growing consensus among modelers estimating the number of cases and deaths from the novel coronavirus in the next few weeks. But this convergence of estimates — 31,000 to 42,000 additional deaths through mid-June for roughly 120,000 total deaths in the United States — comes just as shifts in public policy are likely to create new uncertainty about the path of the pandemic after that. (Bui, Katz, Parlapiano and Sanger-Katz, 5/12)

NPR: Different Coronavirus Models Are Starting To Agree. The Picture's Not Good
More than 82,000 people in the U.S. have died of COVID-19 as of Tuesday. How many more lives will be lost? Scientists have built dozens of computational models to answer that question. But the profusion of forecasts poses a challenge: The models use such a wide range of methodologies, formats, and time frames, it's hard to get even a ballpark sense of what the future has in store. Enter Nicholas Reich, a biostatistician at University of Massachusetts Amherst. Reich and his colleagues have developed a method to compare and ultimately to merge the diverse models of the disease's progression into one "ensemble" projection. The resulting forecast is sobering: By June 6, the cumulative death toll in the U.S. will reach 110,000. (Aizenman and McMinn, 5/13)

Reuters: Researchers Revise U.S. COVID-19 Death Forecast Upward Again
A newly revised coronavirus mortality model predicts more than 147,000 Americans will die from COVID-19 by early August, up nearly 10,000 from the last projection, as restrictions for curbing the pandemic are relaxed, researchers said on Tuesday. The latest forecast here from the University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) reflects "key drivers of viral transmission like changes in testing and mobility, as well as easing of distancing policies," the report said. (Gorman, 5/12)

The New York Times: Top Science And Health Officials Offer Sobering View Of Reopening Readiness
The scientists and public health officials who are leading the federal government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic on Tuesday painted a sobering picture of a country ill-prepared to reopen and contain the spread of the virus in the coming months. At a Senate hearing, the officials cautioned that a vaccine would almost certainly not come in time to protect students for the return to school in the fall, that a recently authorized treatment was not a game-changing advance and that states had to rebuild their depleted public health systems by hiring enough people before they could effectively track the spread of the virus and contain it. (Thomas, Grady, Mason and Kaplan, 5/12)

The Associated Press: Fauci Warns: More Death, Econ Damage If US Reopens Too Fast
“There is a real risk that you will trigger an outbreak that you may not be able to control,” Dr. Anthony Fauci warned a Senate committee and the nation as more than two dozen states have begun to lift their lockdowns as a first step toward economic recovery. The advice from Fauci and other key government officials — delivered by dramatic, sometimes awkward teleconference — was at odds with a president who urges on protests of state-ordered restraints and insists that “day after day, we’re making tremendous strides.” (Neergaard and Alonso-Zaldivar, 5/13)

The Washington Post: Top U.S. Health Officials Warn The Coronavirus Could Come Roaring Back If States Lift Restrictions Too Soon
Fauci and two federal government colleagues cautioned that neither a vaccine nor surefire treatments would be available when schools are slated to reopen in the fall — a grim reminder that it is unlikely life will soon return to normal even if Americans try to resume their routines. Fauci also contradicted Trump’s claims of last week that the virus would die out of its own accord — without a vaccine — and said the true U.S. death toll is probably higher than the 80,000 tallied by Tuesday morning. The total rose above 81,000 later in the day, with the daily death count again rising above 1,500 nationwide. (Abutaleb, Gearan and Wagner, 5/12)

The Wall Street Journal: Fauci, Other Top Health Officials Emphasize Testing Before Easing Lockdowns
When asked Tuesday about the prospects of schools opening in the fall, Dr. Fauci urged caution. Expecting medicines and vaccines to make returning safer by the start of the school year “would be a bit of a bridge too far,” he said. Sen. Rand Paul (R., Ky.) said such warnings from Dr. Fauci and others may be too strong, saying they should “be humble about things we don’t know.” Dr. Fauci said he was in fact “humble about making broad predictions,” but added that some children diagnosed with Covid-19, the respiratory disease caused by the coronavirus, also are afflicted with a “strange inflammatory syndrome.” (Burton and Armour, 5/13)

The Hill: Fauci To Paul: 'I've Never Made Myself Out' As The Only Voice On The Pandemic 
Anthony Fauci bluntly told Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) on Tuesday that he has never put himself up as the definitive authority on the coronavirus pandemic. "I have never made myself out to be the end all and only voice in this. I'm a scientist, a physician and a public health official. I give advice according to the best scientific evidence," Fauci, the director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said during a Senate hearing about the coronavirus pandemic. (Weixel, 5/12)

Stat: 6 Takeaways From The Surreal Senate Hearing On Coronavirus 
The hearing itself made clear that even the Senate isn’t ready to resume business as usual. The four Trump administration witnesses all testified by video after recent exposure to a White House aide with coronavirus. Alexander, the chair of the Senate’s health committee, did the same after one of his own staffers tested positive. And though the hearing represented lawmakers’ first real chance to grill Trump administration officials on the federal government’s widely criticized coronavirus response, it only rarely devolved into the partisan anger that has characterized Congress in recent years. (Facher, 5/12)

Politico: Fauci Fatigue Sets In Among Some Republicans
Anthony Fauci came to the Senate, virtually, to issue a dire warning against reopening the country too soon amid the deadly coronavirus pandemic. But his message fell flat with some of his intended audience. Republicans, led by President Donald Trump, are eager to revive the flailing economy. And resuming commerce at some level this spring and summer is central to the GOP’s message that it can turn around the economy before November. They’re also aiming to do so without adopting House Democrats’ plans for more multi-trillion-dollar stimulus bills. (Everett, Desiderio and Levine, 5/12)

The Associated Press: AP Exclusive: CDC Docs Stress Plans For More Virus Flareups
Advice from the nation’s top disease control experts on how to safely reopen businesses and institutions in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic included detailed instructive guidance and some more restrictive measures than the plan released by the White House last month. The guidance, which was shelved by Trump administration officials, also offered recommendations to help communities decide when to shut facilities down again during future flareups of COVID-19. (Dearen and Stobbe, 5/13)

The New York Times: As Coronavirus Restrictions Lift, Millions In U.S. Are Leaving Home Again
After weeks cooped up at home following governors’ orders to contain the coronavirus outbreak, U.S. residents appear eager to get moving again. As more states began to relax restrictions, about 25 million more people ventured outside their homes on an average day last week than during the preceding six weeks, a New York Times analysis of cellphone data found. In nearly every part of the country, the share of people staying home dropped, in some places by nearly 11 percentage points. (Dance and Gamio, 5/12)

The Wall Street Journal: New Coronavirus Clusters Emerge As Some Countries Ease Lockdowns
Some governors sought more help from Washington as they moved to restart their economies, while new clusters of coronavirus infections cropped up in parts of the Middle East and Asia after authorities loosened lockdowns. Confirmed cases surpassed 4.25 million globally Tuesday, with more than 1.36 million in the U.S., according to data from Johns Hopkins University. More than 291,000 people have died world-wide, including more than 82,000 in the U.S., according to Johns Hopkins. In the 24 hours ended at 8 p.m. (Calfas and Dalton, 5/12)

The Washington Post: As Coronavirus Cases Resurge, Lockdowns Reimposed On At Least Three Continents
As many parts of the world, including the United States, explore ways to ease restrictions aimed at containing the spread of the coronavirus, countries that had already opened up are closing down again after renewed spikes in infections. Such a resurgence of cases had been widely predicted by experts, but these increasing numbers come as a sobering reminder of the challenges ahead as countries chafing under the social and economic burdens of keeping their citizens indoors weigh the pros and cons of allowing people to move around again. (Sly and Morris, 5/13)

The Washington Post: Map: Which States Are Reopening After Coronavirus Shutdown
Most states and U.S. territories have begun to ease restrictions on businesses and social activity, moving to reopen economies battered by the coronavirus pandemic and weeks of stay-at-home orders that affected some 315 million Americans. Public health experts warn that this increased activity is likely to cause a surge of new infections. “There is a real risk that you will trigger an outbreak that you may not be able to control” by reopening too quickly, said infectious disease expert Anthony S. Fauci in Senate testimony May 12, “leading to some suffering and death that could be avoided.” (5/12)

The Washington Post: Armed Militia Helped A Michigan Barbershop Open, A Coronavirus Defiance That Puts Republican Lawmakers In A Bind
Armed members of the Michigan Home Guard stood outside Karl Manke's barber shop, ready to blockade the door if police arrived. They were determined to help Manke, 77, reopen his shop Monday, in defiance of state orders, and dozens joined them, wearing Trump sweatshirts and Trump cowboy hats and waving Trump flags. They gathered not because they desperately needed haircuts but to rail against Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s approach to fighting the coronavirus outbreak in Michigan, one of the nation’s worst hot spots. (Balingit, 5/12)

The Washington Post: In A Small Pennsylvania Town, Home To A Huge Hospital, Everyone On The Coronavirus’ Front Lines
The pathologist stood in the kitchen on his 40-acre farm and cut the crust from a ham and cheese sandwich for his 7-year-old son’s packed lunch. He took a swig of his morning coffee. He’d been up late answering calls, hustling to launch a clinical trial to test blood plasma as a possible treatment for covid-19, hashing out the details between rides on his Peloton stationary bike and taking rifle shots at nuisance groundhogs. Now, he needed to get to the hospital, along with his son. (Frankel, 5/12)

The New York Times: Coronavirus Will Keep Cal State Classes Online In The Fall
In the most sweeping sign yet of the long-term impact of the coronavirus on American higher education, California State University, the nation’s largest four-year public university system, said on Tuesday that classes at its 23 campuses would be canceled for the fall semester, with instruction taking place almost exclusively online. The system is the first large American university to tell students they will not be returning to campus in the fall. Most of the nation’s colleges and universities have gone out of their way to say they intend to reopen, but they are also making backup plans for online classes. (Hubler, 5/12)

Reuters: California Cancels Fall University Classes As Fauci Warns Of Reopening Too Soon
“Our university, when open without restrictions and fully in person, as is the traditional norm of the past, is a place where over 500,000 people come together in close and vibrant proximity with each other on a daily basis,” the chancellor, Timothy White, said in a statement. “That approach, sadly, just isn’t in the cards now.” Los Angeles County Health Director Barbara Ferrer added her own grim forecast, saying stay-at-home curbs for 10 million residents, including the city of Los Angeles, would probably remain in place, in some form, through the summer. (Whitcomb and Bernstein, 5/12)

The New York Times: Coronavirus Ravaged A Choir. But Isolation Helped Contain It.
It was a chilly evening in Mount Vernon, Wash., on March 10, when a group of singers met for choir practice at their church, just as they did most Tuesday nights. The full choir consists of 122 singers, but only 61 made it that night, including one who had been fighting cold-like symptoms for a few days. That person later tested positive for the coronavirus, and within two days of the practice, six more members of the choir had developed a fever. Ultimately, 53 members of the choir became ill with Covid-19, the disease caused by the virus, and two of them died. (Waldstein, 5/12)

The New York Times: Trump Is Courting Black Voters. His Failures On The Virus Are A Problem.
Since he took office, President Trump and his advisers have made a show of trying to chip away at the overwhelming support that Democrats enjoyed from black voters in the 2016 presidential campaign. Even as Mr. Trump himself has offended people with language widely seen as racist, like telling four congresswomen of color to “go back” to countries where they came from (three of them were born in the United States), his campaign poured $10 million into a Super Bowl ad featuring a black woman and highlighting the administration’s efforts on criminal justice reform. (Haberman and Karni, 5/12)

Reuters: Trump Approval Dips Amid Mounting Coronavirus Death Toll, Trails Biden By 8 Points: Reuters/Ipsos Poll
More Americans have grown critical of President Donald Trump over the past month as the death toll mounts from the coronavirus pandemic and he now trails Democratic challenger Joe Biden by 8 percentage points among registered voters, according to a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll released on Tuesday. The poll conducted on Monday and Tuesday showed that 41% of U.S. adults approved of Trump’s performance in office, which is down 4 points from a similar poll that ran in mid-April. Fifty-six percent disapprove of Trump, up by 5 points in the same span. (Kahn, 5/12)

Politico: Republican Voters Give Trump And GOP Governors Cover To Reopen
Republican voters have undergone a significant shift on the coronavirus in a few short weeks. A month ago, half of GOP voters said they were more worried about public health than the economy. Now, fewer than 2 in 5 say their concerns about the physical dangers of the virus outweigh their fears of a free-falling economy — a 13 percent drop. And the percentage of Republicans who said it was more important for the government to address the spread of the virus than the economy fell 22 points, from 65 percent to 43 percent, versus a 15-point drop overall. (Shepard, 5/13)

Politico: Republicans To Trump: Wear A Mask
President Donald Trump has faced plenty of criticism from Democrats throughout the coronavirus pandemic — including for his refusal to wear a mask. But according to a new survey, even most Republicans think Trump and Vice President Mike Pence should sport face coverings when traveling in public. It’s a rare point of bipartisan consensus during a public health crisis that’s become deeply politicized. (Forgey, 5/12)

Politico: With Obamagate, Trump Returns To A Favorite Distraction Tactic
Donald Trump launched his political career turbocharging the conspiratorial birther movement. Now Trump is trying to keep his presidency afloat with another theory about his predecessor: Obamagate. Over the past three days, Trump has tweeted and railed about unproven claims that President Barack Obama, in his final days in office, orchestrated a plot to damage the incoming president. “He got caught, OBAMAGATE!” Trump tweeted on Sunday, one of 126 tweets and retweets — the second-highest single-day total of his presidency — that kept returning to Obama. (Nguyen, 5/12)

The Washington Post: As Coronavirus Roils The Nation Trump Suggests Joe Scarborough Murdered Aide
On a day when coronavirus deaths passed 80,000 and top government scientists warned of the perils of loosening public health restrictions too soon, President Trump used his massive public platform to suggest a talk-show host he has clashed with committed murder. His baseless charge capped a 48-hour stretch in which he accused scores of perceived opponents of criminal acts ranging from illegal espionage to election rigging. (Olorunnipa, 5/12)

Politico: Colleagues Paint A Mixed Picture Of Ousted Vaccine Chief
Some parts of an explosive whistleblower complaint against the Health and Human Services department are beyond dispute. Rick Bright, the department’s ousted vaccine expert, has assembled a 63-page complaint filled with damning allegations: that Trump appointees pressured health officials to rush unproven malaria drugs; that his warnings about mask shortages were ignored; and that senior leaders repeatedly missed opportunities to grapple with threats posed by Covid-19. Those claims are backed up by emails released by Bright, interviews conducted by POLITICO and, in some cases, President Donald Trump’s own public statements. (Diamond, 5/13)

The Washington Post: Trump Adviser Navarro Declines Invitation To Testify Before House Panel On Vaccine Official’s Whistleblower Complaint
White House trade adviser Peter Navarro — who repeatedly warned colleagues about the coronavirus in memos earlier this year — is declining to testify before a House panel Thursday about a whistleblower’s complaint that mentions him at length. Navarro, the latest figure to draw the interest of lawmakers probing the Trump administration’s handling of the crisis, had been invited to appear before the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on health. (Costa, 5/12)

The Associated Press: GOP Senators Give Democrats' $3T Relief Bill A Cold Shoulder
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi unveiled a more than $3 trillion coronavirus aid package, a sweeping effort with $1 trillion for states and cities, “hazard pay” for essential workers and a new round of cash payments to individuals. The House is expected to vote on the package as soon as Friday. But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has said there is no “urgency.” The Senate will wait until after Memorial Day to consider options. (Mascaro and Taylor, 5/13)

The Wall Street Journal: House Democrats Release $3 Trillion Bill To Respond To Coronavirus
“We must approach this tragedy with the deepest humanity as we go into the future,” Mrs. Pelosi said, adding the bill had three main components: “opening our economy safely and soon, honoring our heroes and then putting much-needed money into the pockets of the American people” Top Senate Republicans were quick to dismiss the legislation’s prospects in the chamber they control, denouncing the bill as an empty and unrealistic publicity stunt. “This is nothing more than a messaging exercise by House Democrats, they didn’t have any input from Republicans,” said Sen. John Thune (R., S.D.), the No. 2 Senate Republican. “It’s not going anywhere.” (Andrews and Duehren, 5/12)

The New York Times: House Democrats Unveil $3 Trillion Pandemic Relief Proposal
The proposal, which spanned 1,815 pages, would add a fifth installment to an already sweeping assistance effort from the federal government, although its cost totaled more than the four previous measures combined. And unlike those packages, which were the product of intense bipartisan negotiations among lawmakers and administration officials who agreed generally on the need for rapid and robust action, the House bill represents an opening gambit in what is likely to be a bracing fight over what is needed to counter the public health and economic tolls of the pandemic. It included nearly $1 trillion for state, local and tribal governments and territories, an extension of unemployment benefits and another round of $1,200 direct payments to American families. The measure would also provide a $25 billion bailout for the Postal Service — which the beleaguered agency has called a critical lifeline, but President Trump has opposed — and $3.6 billion to bolster election security. (Cochrane and Fandos, 5/12)

Reuters: U.S. House Democrats Float $3 Trillion Coronavirus Bill, Republicans Reject It
It also includes $75 billion for testing people for the novel coronavirus, direct payments of up to $6,000 per U.S. household, $10 billion in emergency grants for small business and $25 billion for the U.S. Postal Service. The bill would also extend enhanced federal unemployment payments through next January. (Morgan, 5/13)

The Associated Press: Highlights Of Democrats' $3 Trillion-Plus Virus Relief Bill
[The legislation] creates a $200 billion “heroes fund” that would provide a “hazard pay” supplement for essential workers such as first responders, health care workers, sanitation workers, and those at businesses required to stay open. (5/13)

The Washington Post: House Democrats Unveil Coronavirus Rescue Bill That Would Direct More Than $3 Trillion To States, Individuals, Health Systems
The Democrats’ legislation also includes provisions to ensure that all voters can vote by mail in the November election and all subsequent federal elections, an idea that Trump and many Republicans have rejected because they say it invites fraud. It would be Congress’ fifth coronavirus relief bill, building on the $2 trillion Cares Act passed in late March. But while the first four bills were the result of urgent bipartisan compromise in the early days of the pandemic, now the two sides aren’t even talking and are moving in radically different directions. (Werner, 5/12)

Reuters: New York Governor Warns Against Paying 'Greedy Corporations' In Stimulus Bill
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo on Tuesday called on Congress to pass a stimulus package in response to the coronavirus pandemic that funds police officers, teachers and other local and state employees and warned against repeating the corporate-focused bailouts following the 2008 financial crisis. (Layne and Singh, 5/12)

Reuters: The U.S. Needs More Fiscal Help To Fight Coronavirus, Fed Officials Say
U.S. businesses and households are going to need more fiscal support to get through what will likely be a longer period of recovery from the coronavirus shutdown than initially expected, Federal Reserve policymakers said on Tuesday. (Saphir, 5/12)

Politico: A Short Recession Or A Deep Depression? America’s Reopening Presents Extreme Scenarios
President Donald Trump along with his most fervent backers, Wall Street investors and some conservative economists are making a big bet: Swiftly reopening the U.S. economy will go relatively smoothly with little resurgence of the coronavirus, delivering a quick snap back from the current horrifying plunge and rescuing Trump’s reelection prospects along the way. Many health experts and other economists, meanwhile, worry the U.S. is rushing to reopen while Covid-19 case counts climb, testing remains limited and Americans maintain their fear of re-engaging in normal life. To them, a swift reopening risks fresh, widespread outbreaks and even more severe blows to the economy with bankruptcy filings spiking and deeper rounds of layoffs ahead. (White, 5/13)

The New York Times: Employers Can Let Workers Change Health Plans Without Waiting 
The Internal Revenue Service on Tuesday made it easier for employers to allow workers to make adjustments to their health insurance plans and flexible spending accounts in response to the coronavirus pandemic. Normally, strict rules prevent employees from changing health insurance plans in the middle of a year. But the I.R.S. is giving employers a way to let workers make changes without waiting for the usual enrollment period. (Sanger-Katz and Lieber, 5/12)

The Hill: What You Need To Know About Four Potential COVID-19 Vaccines 
The coronavirus pandemic has set off an unprecedented global scramble for a vaccine. There are more than 100 potential vaccine candidates, according to the World Health Organization, but only eight have entered the crucial clinical trials stage. Four are in the United States and Europe, with the rest in China. “I can never remember anything like this,” Walter Orenstein, associate director of the vaccine center at Emory University in Atlanta, said of the number of vaccines being developed to tackle one disease. “Hopefully, at least one and hopefully more than one will prove to be safe and effective.” (Sullivan, 5/12)

The Wall Street Journal: Chinese, Iranian Hacking May Be Hampering Search For Coronavirus Vaccine, Officials Say
Chinese and Iranian hackers are aggressively targeting American universities, pharmaceutical and other health-care firms in a way that could be hampering their efforts to find a vaccine to counter the coronavirus pandemic, U.S. officials said. Since at least Jan. 3, the two countries have waged cyberattacks against a range of American firms and institutions that are working to find a vaccine for Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, officials said. (Lubold and Volz, 5/13)

The Wall Street Journal: Old Vaccine Gets New Look In Tests For Coronavirus Protection
Trials have begun on what researchers say could be a stopgap vaccination against the new coronavirus, testing a century-old tuberculosis vaccine on thousands of people including police in India, health-care workers in Texas and elderly people in the Netherlands. The trials intend to determine whether the vaccine known as BCG, which is used in most of the world outside the U.S. and Western Europe, offers protection against Covid-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus. (Bhattacharya and Forero, 5/13)

Reuters: A Tale Of Two Japanese Drugs In Tests To Fight COVID-19
In the global hunt for coronavirus treatments, a Japanese antiviral medicine known as Avigan has won plaudits from Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and $128 million in government funding. But it’s not the only game in town. Camostat, a 35-year old pancreatitis drug made by Osaka-based Ono Pharmaceutical Co, has captured the interest of scientists in Japan and overseas with little fanfare or state assistance. (Swift and Soares, 5/12)

The Wall Street Journal: Gilead’s Remdesivir Tested With Other Drugs To Fight Covid-19
The promise and limitations of remdesivir, the first drug to prove capable of helping fight Covid-19, have kicked off efforts to see if it can work better in combination with other treatments and to create new, easier methods of administering it. Researchers are exploring whether the drug, made by Gilead Sciences Inc., can be combined with other antiviral treatments to make a more potent coronavirus-fighting cocktail. Six Covid-19 drug trials currently under way specify testing remdesivir with another medicine, according to Informa Pharma Intelligence. (Walker, 5/13)

Stat: Gilead Signs Deals For Generic Companies To Make And Sell Remdesivir
Seeking to blunt concerns about access to its remdesivir treatment for Covid-19, Gilead Sciences (GILD) signed deals with five generic companies in India and Pakistan to manufacture and distribute the experimental medicine to 127 countries. Under the agreements, the companies can set their own prices, but will not have to pay royalties to Gilead until the World Health Organization declares an end to the public health emergency for the novel coronavirus, or until another medicine or vaccine is approve to treat or prevent Covid-19. The companies include Cipla, Hetero Labs, Jubilant Lifesciences, Mylan, and Ferozsons. (Silverman, 5/12)

Reuters: UK Researchers Try To Crack Genetic Riddle Of COVID-19
British researchers will study the genes of thousands of ill COVID-19 patients to try to crack one of the most puzzling riddles of the novel coronavirus: why does it kill some people but give others not even a mild headache? Researchers from across the United Kingdom will sequence the genetic code of people who fell critically ill with COVID-19 and compare their genomes with those who were mildly ill or not ill at all. (Faulconbridge, 5/12)

The Wall Street Journal: U.S. Vs. South Korea: Behind The Coronavirus Testing Numbers 
After initially lagging behind South Korea, whose population is less than a fifth of the U.S.’s, the U.S. has indeed surpassed the country in per capita testing. But experts say the reason South Korea has been hailed for its testing model isn’t just for its implementation of widespread testing—but for how quickly it got such a system into place. “The timing is very different” between the two countries, said Xi Chen, an assistant professor of health policy and economics at the Yale School of Public Health. “In South Korea, they did [widespread testing] much earlier after they had the first patient. The U.S. was delayed for more than a month.” (Ballhaus, 5/12)

Politico: 'Nothing To Celebrate Whatsoever': Romney Rejects White House Testing Boasts
Sen. Mitt Romney on Tuesday admonished the Trump administration for touting its coronavirus testing operation in recent days after weeks of missteps, accusing the White House’s testing czar of playing politics. “I understand that politicians are going to frame data in a way that is most positive politically,” the Utah Republican told Adm. Brett Giroir, a commissioned officer in the U.S. Public Health Service, during a Senate hearing on the pandemic. “Of course, I don’t expect that from admirals.” (Oprysko, 5/12)

Politico: Testing Czar Predicts U.S. Can Conduct Up To 50M Coronavirus Tests Per Month By Fall
HHS testing czar Brett Giroir predicted Tuesday that the U.S. will be able to test up to 50 million people per month for the coronavirus by September. That would be roughly four times the 12.9-million test goal the administration set for May and announced Monday at a Rose Garden briefing. "We project that our nation will be capable of performing at least 40 to 50 million tests per month if needed at that time," Giroir said Tuesday during a hearing of the Senate HELP Committee. (Lim, 5/12)

NPR: Why Is There A Coronavirus Test Shortage? One Reason: We Don't Have Enough Swabs
The Trump administration says it will now spend billions of dollars to help states make COVID-19 testing more widely available, a move meant to address months-long complaints about test shortages. But here's the puzzle: Many labs say they have plenty of tests. So what's the disconnect? Turns out a "test" is not a single device. COVID-19 testing involves several steps, each one requiring different supplies, and there are shortages of different supplies at different times in different places. (Pfeiffer, Anderson and Van Woerkom, 5/12)

The Washington Post: This Veterinary Lab Is The Linchpin In One State’s Coronavirus Testing Approach
Akhilesh Ramachandran emailed Oklahoma’s public health laboratory just days after the novel coronavirus hit the state in March. As a manager of a veterinary school diagnostic lab, he knew lots about rapid, high-volume testing for viruses — in animals. He offered his facility as a “backup” for human testing, he said, figuring officials “might say, ‘You guys do 100 samples, and we’ll do the rest.’” But within weeks, the Oklahoma State University lab — which typically tests for diseases such as rabies in dogs and respiratory ailments in Oklahoma’s large cattle industry — was running more human coronavirus tests than any other lab in the state. (Brulliard, 5/12)

Los Angeles Times: Coronavirus: Are Antibody Tests The Real Thing?
At a flotation therapy studio in Marina Del Rey, the sensory deprivation tank is empty, but antibody tests for the coronavirus are selling at $149. Customers of a botox clinic in Venice don’t even have to get out of their cars to get tested; a worker collects blood samples with the prick of a finger. A banner for a clinic in Las Vegas advertises antibody tests and throws in a doctor visit for $169. And $125 antibody tests have recently been added to the menu at a chiropractic clinic in Florida that also offers libido-boosting vitamins and nonsurgical face-lifts. (Lau, 5/12)

The Wall Street Journal: FEMA Cancels $55.5 Million Mask Contract With Panthera
The federal government said it canceled a $55.5 million contract for respiratory masks, signed last month with a small Virginia firm with no history in the mask business and a parent company in bankruptcy. The no-bid contract, with Panthera Worldwide LLC, was one of the largest mask orders signed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, as it has raced in recent weeks to find masks and other protective equipment during the coronavirus pandemic. (Maremont, 5/12)

The Washington Post: Coronavirus: A Contractor Promised FEMA 10 Million Masks For $55 Million. It Did Not Deliver.
Lea Crager, a FEMA spokeswoman, said Tuesday the company had requested another four-day extension, to May 15, but the agency denied the request. FEMA moved to cancel the contract Tuesday, a day after the deadline. “FEMA will continue to coordinate with our federal and state partners, along with private vendors and supply companies, to identify and deliver medical supplies to prioritized areas,” she said in a statement. (Stanley-Becker, 5/12)

The Associated Press: Counterfeit Masks Reaching Frontline Health Workers In US
On a day when COVID-19 cases soared, healthcare supplies were scarce and an anguished doctor warned he was being sent to war without bullets, a cargo plane landed at the Los Angeles International Airport, supposedly loaded with the ammo doctors and nurses were begging for: some of the first N95 medical masks to reach the U.S. in almost six weeks. Already healthcare workers who lacked the crucial protection had caught COVID-19 after treating patients infected with the highly contagious new coronavirus. (Linderman and Mendoza, 5/13)

The Washington Post: Mask Or No Mask? Face Coverings Become Tool In Partisan Combat.
At the end of April, the three commissioners in West Virginia’s Monongalia County sent a letter to Gov. Jim Justice with a request. Would he issue an executive order mandating the use of face masks in the county, which includes West Virginia University, for the 17-day period in May when 12,000 students and their family members were expected to stream back into town to recover their belongings from off-campus housing amid the novel coronavirus pandemic? (Stanley-Becker, 5/12)

The Associated Press: Wear A Mask? Even With 20,000 Dead, Some New Yorkers Don't
Eric Leventhal felt a sneeze coming and panicked.The Brooklynite left his cloth face mask at home for a morning run in a park last week. Walking home, he turned toward an empty street and let the sneeze out, hoping no one would notice. Too bad for him, there’s no hiding without a mask in virus-stricken New York City. “I picked my head up and I caught eyes with a woman who was wearing a mask, an older woman,” Leventhal recalled recently. “She was just kind of shaking her head.” (Seiner and Hays, 5/13)

The New York Times: China’s Coronavirus Back-To-Work Lessons: Masks And Vigilance 
BMW workers take their own temperature three times a day and submit the results via an internal chat app. Foxconn, the electronics giant, tells employees to wash their hands before and after handling documents. A ride-share driver wipes down his car daily and sends video proof to headquarters. The world needs rules and guidelines for the post-coronavirus workplace, and China is the first laboratory. (Stevenson and Li, 5/12)