First Edition: May 14, 2020

Kaiser Health News: Reversing History, Indian Health Service Seeks Traditional Healers
Cheryl Morales started the medicinal garden at the Aaniiih Nakoda College demonstration farm with only four plants: yarrow, echinacea, plantain and licorice root. After 10 years, the campus garden within the Fort Belknap reservation in northern Montana now holds more than 60 species that take up almost 30,000 square feet. Morales adds new plants annually. This year, she is testing Oregon grape root and breadroot. (Akridge, 5/14)

Kaiser Health News and Politifact HealthCheck: Trump’s Comparison Of COVID-19 Death Rates In Germany, US Is Wrong
Following weeks of criticism over his administration’s COVID-19 response, President Donald Trump pulled out new statistics to claim the nation is actually among the best in the world in fighting the lethal coronavirus. “Germany and the United States are the two best in deaths per 100,000 people, which, frankly, to me, that’s perhaps the most important number there is,” Trump said at a May 11 Rose Garden press briefing. (Luthra, 5/14)

Kaiser Health News: Under COVID Cloud, Prisons In Rural America Threaten To Choke Rural Hospitals
As the COVID-19 pandemic swept into Montana, it spread into the Marias Heritage Center assisted living facility, then flowed into the nearby 21-bed hospital. Toole County quickly became the state’s hot spot for COVID-19 deaths, with more than four times the infection rate of all other counties and the most recorded deaths in the state. Six of the state’s 16 COVID deaths through Tuesday have occurred here. (Dawson, 5/14)

Kaiser Health News: Despite Pandemic, Trauma Centers See No End To ‘The Visible Virus Of Violence’
On an early March day at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the emergency room at the University of Chicago Medical Center teemed with patients. But many weren’t there because of the coronavirus. They were there because they’d been shot. Gunshot victims account for most of the 2,600 adult trauma patients a year who come to this hospital on the city’s sprawling South Side. And the pandemic hasn’t dampened the flow. (Bruce, 5/14)

NPR: Fauci Says U.S. Death Toll Is Likely Higher. Other COVID-19 Stats Need Adjusting, Too
The U.S. has the most coronavirus deaths of any country in the world — on May 11, the death toll passed 80,000.And that's likely an undercount. "Almost certainly it's higher," said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, at a virtual Senate hearing on Tuesday. "There may have been people who died at home who were not counted as COVID because they never really got to the hospital." (Huang, 5/13)

The Wall Street Journal: Global Coronavirus Death Toll Nears 300,000, As U.S. States Further Ease Restrictions
The global death toll from the coronavirus pandemic neared 300,000 as more U.S. states prepared to further ease restrictions and some Asian countries rolled out massive testing initiatives to contain resurgent clusters of infections. Total cases world-wide topped 4.35 million, nearly a third in the U.S., according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. The U.S. death toll stands at more than 84,000. (Hua, 5/14)

Politico: Cuomo, De Blasio Can't Agree On How Many New Yorkers Have Died From Coronavirus
New York City hit a grim milestone this week, recording more than 20,000 coronavirus deaths throughout the five boroughs. Or did it? According to Gov. Andrew Cuomo's office, the city is still weeks away from that mark, with thousands fewer deaths in its tally — and public health experts say the state's lag is a problem. (Durkin, 5/14)

The New York Times: Trump Pointedly Criticizes Fauci For His Testimony To Congress
President Trump on Wednesday criticized congressional testimony delivered a day earlier by Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, who had warned against reopening the country too quickly and stressed the unknown effects the coronavirus could have on children returning to school. “I was surprised by his answer,” Mr. Trump told reporters who had gathered in the Cabinet Room for the president’s meeting with the governors of Colorado and North Dakota. “To me it’s not an acceptable answer, especially when it comes to schools.” (Rogers, 5/13)

The Associated Press: Trump's Push For Opening School Clashes With Fauci's Caution
The president accused Fauci of wanting “to play all sides of the equation,” a comment that suggested he is tiring of the nation’s top infectious disease expert. “I think they should open the schools, absolutely. I think they should,” Trump told reporters at the White House, echoing comments he had made in a television interview. “Our country’s got to get back and it’s got to get back as soon as possible. And I don’t consider our country coming back if the schools are closed.” (Freking and Colvin, 5/14)

Reuters: Trump Calls Fauci Remarks On Risks To Reopening Schools, Economy Unacceptable
The president, who previously made the strength of the economy central to his pitch for re-election in November, has encouraged states to reopen businesses and schools that were shuttered to halt the spread of the highly contagious respiratory disease. Fauci, 79, a proponent of the lockdowns, has become a target for criticism from the American far right and online conspiracy theorists since he made statements about the outbreak that were at odds with Trump’s. (Holland, 5/13)

NPR: Trump Publicly Disagrees With Doctor's Coronavirus Assessment
While young people who don't have other health or immune system issues are at a significantly lower risk of dying from COVID-19, youth fatalities from the disease have been recorded, as have additional complications. This is not the first time Trump and Fauci have publicly disagreed on the nation's coronavirus response. Last month in an interview with CNN, Fauci seemed to imply that had the administration acted sooner to implement federal social distancing rules, fewer people might have died from the disease. (Wise, 5/13)

The New York Times: Coronavirus Testing Used By The White House Could Miss Infections
A rapid coronavirus test used by the White House to screen its staff could miss infections up to 48 percent of the time, according to a study by researchers at N.Y.U. Langone Health. The study, which has not yet been peer reviewed, evaluated the accuracy of the test, Abbott ID Now, a machine about the size of a toaster oven that can yield results in five to 13 minutes. The product, which was given emergency authorization by the Food and Drug Administration in late March, has been enthusiastically promoted by President Trump — it was even used as a prop during at least one news conference. Mr. Trump has said the tests are “highly accurate.” (Thomas, 5/13)

The Washington Post: Abbott Test Hailed By President Trump Has Been Dogged By Accuracy Questions
The study, while preliminary and not yet peer-reviewed, raised questions about a test that has been praised by Trump, who displayed it at a Rose Garden news conference on April 2 and said it created “a whole new ballgame.” As the pandemic was creating a sense of urgency about testing, the Abbott test triggered a scramble among governors and other state officials because bottlenecks were causing waits of as long as a week or more for test results. (Johnson and Mufson, 5/13)

The Wall Street Journal: Abbott’s Coronavirus Test Falls Short Of Rival Device
The Abbott device can produce test results in less than 15 minutes. That fast turnaround attracted attention from President Trump and other officials as testing backlogs swelled in March. Abbott said “it is unclear if the samples were tested correctly in this study.” The company said it has distributed about 1.8 million ID Now tests, and the reported rate of false negatives to Abbott is 0.02%. The company said the NYU results weren’t consistent with other studies of the test, such as one conducted by city officials in Detroit that found the ID Now correctly detected 48 out of 49 positive samples. (Weaver and Ballhaus, 5/13)

USA Today: Coronavirus, Contact Tracing: States Scramble To Fill COVID-19 Jobs
Rachel Brummert left her home in Charlotte, North Carolina, just once after March 2: to pick up a prescription at CVS on March 18. That made the job of the contact tracer from the Mecklenburg County health department a lot easier after Brummert, 49, got her positive COVID-19 results on April 9. The tracer had only two other transmission possibilities to consider. She had to talk to people near Brummert’s husband at the financial services company office where he worked until March 18, and find a 26-year-old neighbor who two days later left groceries on the bottom step while Brummert stood on the top step. (Alltucker and O'Donnell, 5/13)

Politico: Trump’s Lockdown Workaround: Bring The Governors To Him
President Donald Trump hasn’t been able to go out, so he’s welcoming governors in. The visits are strikingly similar: Trump touts the governors as “special” and “great” and they in turn thank him for the “enormous help in our darkest hour of need.” The president cracks a joke or two about the governor getting a negative coronavirus test sitting down next to him. And then they all pose for the cameras. (Kumar, 5/14)

The Hill: Governors Warn COVID-19 Relief Is Becoming A 'Political Football' 
The bipartisan chairs of the National Governors Association on Wednesday urged Congress to pass more economic relief efforts to help assuage the damage caused by the coronavirus pandemic, warning against allowing debate over the vital aid to become yet another partisan flashpoint. In a joint statement, Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) said states need at least $500 billion in aid to make up for revenues lost during the crisis. "Each day that Congress fails to act, states are being forced to make cuts that will devastate the essential services the American people rely on and destroy the economic recovery before it even gets off the ground," Hogan and Cuomo wrote. (Wilson, 5/13)

Stat: Covid-19 Experts Examine Where The U.S. Response Went Wrong
From testing failures to downplayed virus risks to the disproportionate effect on communities of color, two Covid-19 experts emphasized at a Tuesday forum what is now a familiar refrain: The U.S. response has been fundamentally flawed. “We had information and we discounted it,” said panelist David Williams, a professor of public health, African and African American studies, and sociology at Harvard. “We didn’t take it as seriously as we could have. I do think that we could have been in a better position than we currently are if we had acted promptly.” (Chakradhar, 5/13)

The Washington Post Fact Checker: McConnell’s Claim That Obama Left Behind No ‘Game Plan’ For The Coronavirus Outbreak
There is little continuity in the top levels of the U.S. government when one political party replaces the presidential administration led by another. The natural inclination is to ignore much of the work left behind by the previous folks — and to reinvent the wheel all over again. But former Obama administration officials cried foul after McConnell’s comments. “We literally left them a 69-page Pandemic Playbook.... that they ignored,” tweeted Ron Klain, the former “Ebola czar” in the Obama administration. (Kessler, 5/14)

The Associated Press: Emails: Trump Nominee Involved In Shelving CDC Virus Guide
A former chemical industry executive nominated to be the nation’s top consumer safety watchdog was involved in sidelining detailed guidelines to help communities reopen during the coronavirus pandemic, internal government emails show. Now the ranking Democrat on the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee is questioning the role played by nominee Nancy Beck in the decision to shelve the guidelines. Beck is not a medical doctor and has no background in virology. (Dearen and Biesecker, 5/13)

The New York Times: Trump Administration Plans To Extend Virus Border Restrictions Indefinitely
The Trump administration is moving to extend its coronavirus border restrictions indefinitely, advancing the crackdown through broad public health authorities that have effectively sealed the United States to migrants seeking protection from persecution, according to officials and a draft of a public health order. On March 21, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention imposed a 30-day restriction on all nonessential travel into the United States from Mexico and Canada, closing legal points of entry to tourism and immediately returning immigrants who crossed the border illegally to Mexico or their home countries. Since then, only two migrants have been permitted to remain in the United States to pursue asylum, according to a United States Citizenship and Immigration official. (Shear and Kanno-Youngs, 5/13)

The Washington Post: Under Trump Border Rules, U.S. Has Granted Refuge To Just Two People Since Late March During Coronavirus Outbreak, Records Show
The Trump administration’s emergency coronavirus restrictions have shut the U.S. immigration system so tight that since March 21 just two people seeking humanitarian protection at the southern border have been allowed to stay, according to unpublished U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services data obtained by The Washington Post. (Miroff, 5/13)

Reuters: Wisconsin Supreme Court Invalidates State's COVID-19 Stay-At-Home Order
The Wisconsin Supreme Court struck down a statewide coronavirus stay-at-home order on Wednesday, siding with a legal challenge from Republican lawmakers who said the state’s top public health official exceeded her authority by imposing the restrictions. While lockdown orders meant to quell the pandemic have been challenged in court in several states, the decision in Wisconsin marked the first such lawsuit to succeed in a larger political debate over social distancing that has grown increasingly partisan. (Gorman and Bernstein, 5/13)

The Associated Press: Wisconsin High Court Tosses Out Governor's Stay-Home Order
The 4-3 ruling essentially reopens the state, lifting caps on the size of gatherings, allowing people to travel as they please and allowing shuttered businesses to reopen, including bars and restaurants. The Tavern League of Wisconsin swiftly posted the news on its website, telling members, “You can OPEN IMMEDIATELY!” The decision let stand language that had closed schools, however, and local governments can still impose their own health restrictions. In Dane County, home to the capital of Madison, officials quickly imposed a mandate incorporating most of the statewide order. City health officials in Milwaukee said a stay-at-home order they enacted in late March remains in effect. (Richmond, 5/14)

The Washington Post: Wisconsin Supreme Court Says Gov. Tony Evers Could Not Extend Stay-At-Home Order
The justices wrote that the court was not challenging the governor’s power to declare emergencies, “but in the case of a pandemic, which lasts month after month, the Governor cannot rely on emergency powers indefinitely.” Evers condemned the court’s decision, saying in a statement that Wisconsin “was in a pretty good place” but now “Republican legislators have convinced four justices to throw our state into chaos.” (Itkowitz, 5/13)

The New York Times: Wisconsin Supreme Court Says Coronavirus Shutdown Is Overreach
There have been legal challenges to stay-at-home orders in Michigan, California, Kentucky and Illinois, but none of those were successful in persuading a court to fully strike down the order, as the plaintiffs in the Wisconsin case were. Wisconsin’s stay-at-home order took effect on March 25 and was extended by the governor on April 16, leading to a protest at the State Capitol. During a 90-minute hearing about the order that was conducted over video chat last week, some justices asked tough questions of the lawyer defending the state’s top health official, Andrea Palm. “Isn’t it the very definition of tyranny for one person to order people to be imprisoned for going to work, among other ordinarily lawful activities?” Justice Rebecca Bradley asked. (Vigdor, 5/13)

The Associated Press: Virus Spikes Could Emerge Weeks After US Economic Reopenings
U.S. states are beginning to restart their economies after months of paralyzing coronavirus lockdowns, but it could take weeks until it becomes clear whether those reopenings will cause a spike in COVID-19 cases, experts said Wednesday. The outbreak’s trajectory varies wildly across the country, with steep increases in cases in some places, decreases in others and infection rates that can shift dramatically from neighborhood to neighborhood. (Johnson, Smith and Sullivan, 5/14)

The Washington Post: What’s Happening In States That Reopened Their Economies? It’s Complicated.
Several states, including Georgia, embarked on an unexpectedly political experiment late last month. Despite not hitting the benchmarks established by the federal government for scaling back social distancing measures, they were going to do so anyway, echoing President Trump’s desire for a return to economic normalcy even while rejecting the safety guidelines Trump ostensibly espoused. An intense debate over the decision erupted, with critics suggesting that those states would see a spike in new coronavirus cases, given the renewed ability of the virus to spread. Those supporting the decision figured that no spikes were likely or, perhaps, that they could be contained. (Bump, 5/13)

The Associated Press: 'A Pressure Cooker': Pa. Governor Aims To Contain GOP Revolt
By many accounts, Gov. Tom Wolf has helped mitigate Pennsylvania’s coronavirus outbreak and avoided the full-blown disasters seen elsewhere. His success in the next challenge — containing the growing resistance to his efforts — is to be determined. The Democrat at the helm in one of the premier battlegrounds in November’s presidential election is struggling to fight a Republican revolt over his stay-at-home orders and business shutdowns. Egged on by state GOP lawmakers, counties have threatened to defy his orders while at least a few business owners have reopened despite his warnings. (Levy, 5/14)

The New York Times: Coronavirus Lockdowns: Businesses Turn To Armed Defiance
When Jamie Williams decided to reopen her East Texas tattoo studio last week in defiance of the state’s coronavirus restrictions, she asked Philip Archibald for help. He showed up with his dog Zeus, his friends and his AR-15 semiautomatic rifle. Mr. Archibald established an armed perimeter in the parking lot outside Crash-N-Burn Tattoo, secured by five men with military-style rifles, tactical shotguns, camouflage vests and walkie-talkies. One of them already had a large tattoo of his own. “We the People,” it said. (Fernandez and Montgomery, 5/13)

The Wall Street Journal: New York And New Jersey Start To Reopen Their Economies 
Construction firms can resume nonessential operations in the coming days across New Jersey and in the northernmost counties of New York, officials said Wednesday, as both states moved forward with a limited economic restart amid the coronavirus crisis. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said that the state’s North Country, which includes the Adirondack Park as well as the cities of Plattsburgh and Watertown, had met the required metrics for a limited reopening on Friday. State officials said earlier in the week that regions in the Finger Lakes, the Southern Tier and the Mohawk Valley had met the requirements as well. The areas include the cities of Rochester, Binghamton and Utica. (Vielkind and De Avila, 5/13)

Reuters: Southern Californians Return To Beaches Ahead Of Long Pandemic Summer
Los Angeles beaches reopened on Wednesday after weeks of coronavirus closure, drawing Californians out for a glimpse of the sun one day after learning that sweeping stay-at-home orders could remain in place all summer. (Devall and Ross, 5/13)

The Associated Press: Among The Mainstays Of 2020 Claimed By The Pandemic: Spring
By the time spring arrived in the Northern Hemisphere, the pandemic had the world firmly in its grip. The vernal equinox arrived March 19, the day California handed down the first statewide stay-at-home order in the United States. Most of the country would soon follow suit. In the coming weeks, vast swaths of humanity would be largely confined to their homes. (Sen, 5/14)

Politico: Top Trump Critic Will Testify Before A Chairwoman Who Is A Close Ally
President Donald Trump’s ousted vaccine chief turned whistleblower will go public with his claims on Thursday in an unusually friendly setting — a hearing chaired by a close congressional ally whose district benefited from his decisions. Rick Bright, who was abruptly removed as director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority last month, will air his complaints about the Trump administration's pandemic response in front of a House subcommittee overseen by Rep. Anna Eshoo, a Democrat who represents a Northern California district home to a company that received more than $110 million in awards from BARDA while Bright led the office. (Diamond, 5/13)

The Associated Press: US Immunologist Warns Of 'Darkest Winter' If Virus Rebounds
America faces the “darkest winter in modern history” unless leaders act decisively to prevent a rebound of the coronavirus, says a government whistleblower who alleges he was ousted from his job after warning the Trump administration to prepare for the pandemic. Immunologist Dr. Rick Bright makes his sobering prediction in testimony prepared for his appearance Thursday before the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Aspects of his complaint about early administration handling of the crisis are expected to be backed up by testimony from an executive of a company that manufactures, respirator masks. (Alonso-Zaldivar, 5/14)

NPR: Ousted Scientist Says 'Window Of Opportunity' To Fight Coronavirus Is Closing
In his written opening statement, Bright paints a gloomy picture unless the Trump administration responds more quickly and more strongly to the coronavirus. "It is painfully clear that we were not as prepared as we should have been," Bright says. "We missed early warning signals and we forgot important pages from our pandemic playbook." (Naylor, 5/14)

The Washington Post: Ousted Vaccine Official To Warn Of ‘Darkest Winter’ If Virus Returns Without Better Response
Bright, former director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, was removed April 20 after having served in the position for nearly four years, and transferred to a narrower role at the National Institutes of Health. In his prepared testimony, Bright also touches on a whistleblower complaint in which he asserted he was pressured by Department of Health and Human Services leadership to make “potentially harmful drugs widely available,” including chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine, which President Trump has repeatedly heralded. (Wagner, 5/13)

ProPublica: A Trump Official Tried To Fast-Track Funding For His Friend’s Unproven COVID-19 'Treatment,' Whistleblower Says
Last November, Rick Bright, then the director of a federal office that approves funding for medical emergencies, sat in on a meeting between his boss and two men — a pharmaceutical and biotech consultant and an Emory University professor — seeking millions of dollars for an unproven drug. Bright wrote in a whistleblower complaint filed last week that he was wary as professor George Painter and consultant John Clerici described the drug “as a ‘cure all’ for influenza, Ebola, and nearly every other virus.” The team came back in February with an updated pitch after the coronavirus outbreak, suggesting its antiviral medication could be a treatment for COVID-19. (Song, 5/14)

Politico: Coronavirus Drives Health Insurers Back To Obamacare
Health insurers fled the Affordable Care Act in the early years of the law, fearing that losses from covering too many sick people would eat away at their profits. Now the insurers increasingly view Obamacare as a boon while job-based health coverage faces its biggest threat yet in a crashing economy. With tens of millions of people losing their jobs — and their health benefits — along with major cuts to Medicaid, the insurers see stability and the promise of enough healthy enrollees in a marketplace that offers government subsidized private insurance to millions of Americans during a pandemic. (Goldberg and Luthi, 5/14)

The New York Times: How The Chaos At Elmhurst Hospital Exposed Health Care’s Fiefdoms
In late March, as the most dire public health crisis in a century swept across New York, sick people and those caring for them faced a hospital system that was less than the sum of its mighty parts. At Elmhurst Hospital in Queens, hundreds of Covid-19 patients arrived in need of more help than besieged medical workers could give. Patients were found dead in rooms. One medical resident described conditions as “apocalyptic.” Yet at the same time, 3,500 beds were free in other New York hospitals, some no more than 20 minutes from Elmhurst, according to state records. The city, which runs Elmhurst, had a fleet of 26 new ambulances available to transfer patients. (Dwyer, 5/14)

The Wall Street Journal: How A Nursing Home And A Clock Merchant Got Masks Out Of China
Nursing homes, many at the center of outbreaks of the new coronavirus, are struggling to find masks and other supplies their workers need to confront the pandemic. David Reis, owner of a nursing home in Connecticut, found a solution through a friend of a friend who normally imports clocks. The importer, Jordan Steinberg, said he would deliver 400,000 masks to Mr. Reis from China—a month’s supply—if he were paid about $300,000 upfront. “I’m not trying to fool anyone, I did this to make money,” Mr. Steinberg said. “But I worked extra hard on it because I knew this would help someone stay alive. A clock doesn’t help anyone do anything but tell time.” (Wirz and Hufford, 5/14)

The New York Times: Buried In N.Y. Budget: Legal Shield For Nursing Homes Rife With Coronavirus
In the chaotic days of late March, as it became clear that New York was facing a catastrophic outbreak of the coronavirus, aides to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo quietly inserted a provision on Page 347 of New York’s final, voluminous budget bill. Many lawmakers were unaware of the language when they approved the budget a few days later. But it provided unusual legal protections for an influential industry that has been devastated by the crisis: nursing home operators. (Harris, Baker and McKinley, 5/13)

ProPublica: A Quarter Of The Residents At This Nursing Home Died From COVID-19. Families Want Answers.
Standing outside a window at the Bria of Geneva nursing home one morning last week, 2-year-old Rosa Morrow tried to get her grandmother’s attention. She held her palm to the screen. She blew kisses. She counted slowly, “1 … 2 … 3 …”On the other side, 71-year-old Claudette Stasik, who has tested positive for COVID-19, sat in her reclining wheelchair, her eyes closed and her arms crossed against her chest, her gray hair braided to one side. A nurse, wearing gloves, gently rubbed her hand. (Cohen and Coryne, 5/14)

The New York Times: Get Ready For A Covid-19 Vaccine Information War
The other night, midway through watching a clip from “Plandemic” — a documentary that went viral on social media last week, spreading baseless lies and debunked nonsense about the coronavirus to millions of Americans overnight — I had a terrifying thought: What if we get a Covid-19 vaccine and half the country refuses to take it? It occurred to me that all the misinformation we’ve seen so far — the false rumors that 5G cellphone towers fuel the coronavirus, that drinking bleach or injecting UV rays can cure it, that Dr. Anthony Fauci is part of an anti-Trump conspiracy — may be just the warm-up act for a much bigger information war when an effective vaccine becomes available to the public. (Roose, 5/13)

Reuters: Trump To Tap Ex-Glaxo Exec, U.S. General For Coronavirus Vaccine Effort
President Donald Trump is expected to tap a former GlaxoSmithKline executive and a U.S. general to spearhead the government’s effort at developing a coronavirus vaccine on an accelerated schedule, officially called “Operation Warp Speed,” an administration official said on Wednesday. The former head of Glaxo’s vaccines division, Moncef Slaoui, will serve as chief adviser on the operation and U.S. General Gustav Perna will act as its chief operating officer. Trump previously said he would be the top boss on the effort to develop, test and produce on a shortened timeline a vaccine against the deadly coronavirus that has caused a global pandemic. (5/13)

Politico: White House To Tap Former Pharmaceutical Exec As 'Therapeutics Czar'
Public health experts have repeatedly warned that vaccine development could stretch into next year or beyond. HHS Secretary Alex Azar, White House coronavirus coordinator Deborah Birx and White House senior adviser Jared Kushner were among the officials who interviewed Slaoui and other candidates for the role last week. Other finalists included former National Institutes of Health Director Elias Zerhouni. Bloomberg first reported that Slaoui had been tapped as the administration’s therapeutics czar in a volunteer role. Army Gen. Gustave Perna, a logistics expert, will support in Slaoui in an operational role. (Diamond, 5/13)

Reuters: Sanofi To Accelerate European COVID-19 Vaccine Access After CEO Prioritizes U.S. Preorders
French drugmaker Sanofi SA said on Wednesday that it is working with European regulators to speed up access to a potential coronavirus vaccine in Europe after its chief executive suggested Americans would likely get the vaccine first. The company said in a statement that it is currently in talks with the European Union and the French and German governments to expedite regional vaccine development. (Erman, 5/13)

Politico: French Drug Firm Boss: U.S. Will Get First Dibs On Its Coronavirus Vaccine
The U.S.'s Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority has put $30 million toward one of Sanofi's two vaccine candidates, which is also using technology from GlaxoSmithKline. Because of this help, the U.S. expects "that if we’ve helped you manufacture the doses at risk, we expect to get the doses first," Hudson said.Meanwhile, the Sanofi CEO warned that Europe risks falling behind the U.S. and China. (Deutsch, 5/13)

The Associated Press: AP Interview: Pelosi: Americans 'Worth It' On $3T Virus Aid
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday defended the stunning $3 trillion price tag on Democrats’ pandemic relief package as what is needed to confront the “villainous virus” and economic collapse. “The American people are worth it,” Pelosi told The Associated Press. In an interview with the AP, Pelosi acknowledged that the proposal is a starting point in negotiations with President Donald Trump and Republicans, who have flatly rejected the coronavirus relief bill headed for a House vote Friday. (Mascaro and Rama, 5/13)

The Associated Press: As Coronavirus Rolls On, Republicans Hit 'Pause' On New Aid
Businesses are going belly up, tens of millions have been laid off and, by some measures, the U.S. seems headed for another Great Depression. But Republicans surveying the wreckage aren’t ready for another round of coronavirus aid, instead urging a “pause.” It’s a position based on a confluence of factors. Polls show GOP voters think the government is already doing enough. Republicans on Capitol Hill are divided over the best approach. Billions approved by Congress have yet to be spent. And it’s also not clear what President Donald Trump wants to do next, if anything, to juice the economy — his payroll tax cut idea hasn’t gained any traction on Capitol Hill. (Taylor, 5/14)

The Washington Post: First Meeting Of Coronavirus Oversight Panel Reflects Congress’s Struggle To Stake Out Role In Addressing Pandemic
Democrats’ efforts to be watchdogs for the federal government’s coronavirus response limped into motion Wednesday with the first meeting of a special committee created to examine the pandemic. Yet the open briefing, held via videoconference, largely served to highlight the frustrations and limitations that lawmakers, especially Democrats, have encountered this spring as Congress has struggled to stake out its role in addressing the pandemic. (DeBonis and Kane, 5/13)

Politico: Bipartisan Vow Masks A Rancorous Reality For Coronavirus Oversight Panel
After Republicans and Democrats spent 90 minutes whipsawing between alternate realities, the top lawmakers on the House Select Committee on the Coronavirus Crisis paused for a fleeting display of humanity toward each other. "If the distance between me and you on any issue were five steps, I'd be happy to take three of them," House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn said to his GOP counterpart, Republican Whip Steve Scalise, as the panel's first meeting came to a close Wednesday. (Cheney, 5/13)

The Wall Street Journal: Congress Debates Push To End Surprise Medical Billing
Negotiations on Capitol Hill over the next package of coronavirus economic relief have revived discussions about ending surprise medical billing, an effort to bolster patient protections that has sparked heavy spending by opponents who warn of damage to the health-care system. Surprise billing typically occurs when a patient is treated at a hospital that is in their insurance network by a medical professional who isn’t, potentially leading to crippling medical charges. The push to end surprise billing pits patient advocates and health-insurance providers, who back the effort, against hospital and medical groups who say it amounts to government rate-setting that would jeopardize the finances of some hospitals and mean out-of-network doctors earn less money. (Peterson and Bykowicz, 5/14)

Los Angeles Times: FBI Serves Warrant On Senator In Investigation Of Stock Sales Linked To Coronavirus
Federal agents seized a cellphone belonging to a prominent Republican senator on Wednesday night as part of the Justice Department’s investigation into controversial stock trades he made as the novel coronavirus first struck the U.S., a law enforcement official said. Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, turned over his phone to agents after they served a search warrant on the lawmaker at his residence in the Washington area, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss a law enforcement action. (Wilber and Haberkorn, 5/13)

The New York Times: Fed Chair Warns The Economy May Need More As Congress Hesitates 
The Federal Reserve chair, Jerome H. Powell, delivered a stark warning on Wednesday that the United States was experiencing an economic hit “without modern precedent,” one that could permanently damage the economy if Congress and the White House did not provide sufficient financial support to prevent a wave of bankruptcies and prolonged joblessness. Mr. Powell’s blunt diagnosis was the latest indication that the trillions of dollars that policymakers have already funneled into the economy may not be enough to forestall lasting damage from a virus that has already shuttered businesses and thrown more than 20 million people out of work. (Smialek, Tankersley and Cochrane, 5/13)

Reuters: Storm Clouds Gather Over U.S. Stocks As Hopes Of Quick Recovery Fade
For weeks, hopes that massive stimulus from the Federal Reserve and U.S. government would set the stage for a recovery later in the year fueled a blistering rebound in stocks even as the worst drop-off in jobs since the Great Depression slammed the economy. But recent comments from top officials have undercut the case for a speedy economic recovery even as states ease lockdown restrictions, forcing investors to factor in a protracted downturn that would likely weigh on stocks while fueling flows to bonds and other safe-haven assets. (Krauskopf, 5/14)

The New York Times: Small-Business Loan Deadline Poses Test For Mnuchin
When big businesses like Shake Shack and the Los Angeles Lakers basketball franchise took millions of dollars’ worth of emergency loans intended for small businesses, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin called such borrowing “outrageous,” narrowed eligibility and threatened to hold companies criminally liable if they did not give the money back. But in the last month, large companies have continued to take out big loans through the Paycheck Protection Program, including publicly traded firms with ready access to other forms of capital. (Reppeport and McCabe, 5/13)

Reuters: U.S. Weekly Jobless Benefits To Stay Elevated As Coronavirus Layoffs Widen
The global novel coronavirus crisis continues to batter the U.S. labor market, with millions more Americans, including white collar workers, expected to have filed for unemployment benefits last week as the hit from the pandemic spills over into a broader swath of the economy. (Mutikani, 5/14)

The New York Times: As Unemployment Soars, Lawmakers Push To Cover Workers’ Wages 
One of the most progressive lawmakers in the House and one of the most conservative in the Senate, staring down a pandemic-driven unemployment rate at its highest level since the Great Depression, have come to the same conclusion: It’s time for the federal government to cover workers’ salaries. As Congress prepares to wage a new battle over how to best aid workers and businesses devastated by the coronavirus crisis, Representative Pramila Jayapal, Democrat of Washington and a leader of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, and Senator Josh Hawley, Republican of Missouri and a rising conservative star, are both making the case to their party’s leaders that guaranteed income programs should be part of the federal relief effort. (Edmondson, 5/14)

The Wall Street Journal: Two Months Into Pandemic, Millions Of Workers Continue Filing Unemployment Claims
Two months into disruptions from the coronavirus pandemic, millions of U.S. workers continue to apply for unemployment benefits each week. More than 33 million Americans have filed unemployment claims in the seven weeks since the coronavirus led to widespread business closures in mid-March, and economists expect another 3 million filed last week. (Chaney and Guilford, 5/14)