First Edition: May 20, 2020

Kaiser Health News: How A Company Misappropriated Native American Culture To Sell Health Insurance
Jill Goodridge was shopping for affordable health insurance when a friend told her about O’NA HealthCare, a low-cost alternative to commercial insurance. The self-described “health care cooperative” promised a shield against catastrophic claims. Its name suggested an affiliation with a Native American tribe — a theme that carried through on its website, where a feather floats from section to section. (Schulte, 5/20)

Kaiser Health News: Tennessee’s Secret To Plentiful Coronavirus Testing? Picking Up The Tab
To reopen businesses and public spaces safely, experts say, states need to be testing and contact tracing on a massive scale. But only a handful of states are doing enough testing to stay on top of potential outbreaks, according to a state-by-state analysis published by NPR. Among those, Tennessee stands out for its aggressive approach to testing. In Tennessee, anyone who wants a test can get one, and the state will pick up the tab. The guidance has evolved to “when in doubt, get a test,” and the state started paying for it in April. (Farmer, 5/20)

Kaiser Health News/The Guardian: Lost On The Frontline
A memory care nurse who refused to let fear stop her from living. A pediatrician whose bond with his son informed his care for his patients. A volunteer firefighter with a quick sense of humor. These are some of the people just added to “Lost on the Frontline,” a special series from The Guardian and KHN that profiles health care workers who die of COVID-19. (5/20)

Kaiser Health News: To Stem COVID, This Small Indiana City Decided To Test All Public-Facing Employees
Behind a nondescript strip mall in Carmel, Indiana, a short line of cars gathers mid-afternoon next to a large tent. Medical professionals stand out front, dressed head to toe in blue medical coveralls. People in the cars — many of them first responders — drive up to be tested for COVID-19. The test involves a really long swab placed deep into the nose, toward the back of the throat. “No, it’s not fun, but it’s quick. I would say painless, but it is a little painful,” Carmel firefighter Tim Griffin said. “It’s 5-10 seconds and then it’s all done and the burning goes away and you move on.” (Barrett, 5/19)

The New York Times: Johnson & Johnson To End Talc-Based Baby Powder Sales In North America
Johnson & Johnson is discontinuing North American sales of its talc-based baby powder, a product that once defined the company’s wholesome image and that it has defended for decades even as it faced thousands of lawsuits filed by patients who say it caused cancer. The decision to wind down sales of the product is a huge concession for Johnson & Johnson, which has for more than a century promoted the powder as pure and gentle enough for babies. (Hsu and Rabin, 5/19)

The Associated Press: J&J To Stop Selling Talc-Based Baby Powder In US, Canada
The world’s biggest maker of health care products said Tuesday the talc-based powder will still be sold outside the U.S. and Canada. “Demand for talc-based Johnson’s Baby Powder in North America has been declining due in large part to changes in consumer habits and fueled by misinformation around the safety of the product and a constant barrage of litigation advertising,” the company said. (Johnson, 5/20)

Reuters: Johnson & Johnson To Stop Selling Talc Baby Powder In U.S. And Canada
“I wish my mother could be here to see this day,” said Crystal Deckard, whose mother Darlene Coker alleged Baby Powder caused her mesothelioma. She dropped the suit filed in 1999 after losing her fight to compel J&J to divulge internal records. Coker died of mesothelioma in 2009. In its statement, J&J said it “remains steadfastly confident in the safety of talc-based Johnson’s Baby Powder,” citing “decades of scientific studies.” (O'Donnell and Girion, 5/19)

The Wall Street Journal: Johnson & Johnson To Stop Selling Talcum Baby Powder In U.S., Canada
J&J has been facing lawsuits alleging its talcum powder was responsible for cancer in some women who used it for feminine hygiene for years, and in people who inhaled it. As of March, about 19,400 plaintiffs had filed lawsuits against the company over its talc-based powder in U.S. courts, alleging it caused ovarian cancer and a rare cancer in tissue surrounding the lungs called mesothelioma. (Loftus, 5/19)

The Associated Press: Trump Attacks Study, Defends Using Malaria Drug For COVID-19
President Donald Trump emphatically defended himself Tuesday against criticism from medical experts that his announced use of a malaria drug against the coronavirus could spark wide misuse by Americans of the unproven treatment with potentially fatal side effects. Trump’s revelation a day earlier that he was taking hydroxychloroquine caught many in his administration by surprise and set off an urgent effort by officials to justify his action. But their attempt to address the concerns of health professionals was undercut by the president himself. (Miller, Marchione and Lemire, 5/20)

Reuters: Trump Defends His Use Of Unproven Treatment As Prevention Against Coronavirus
“People are going to have to make up their own mind,” Trump said about hydroxychloroquine during a visit to the U.S. Capitol. “I think it gives you an additional level of safety.” The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has warned about potential serious side effects with the use of the drug in COVID-19 patients. Weeks ago, Trump had promoted the drug as a potential treatment based on a positive report about its use against the virus, but subsequent studies found that it was not helpful. (Holland and Mason, 5/19)

The New York Times: At Fox News, Mixed Message On Hydroxychloroquine : ‘Very Safe’ Vs. ‘It Will Kill You’
The stress of the coronavirus pandemic is testing even the closest relationships. President Trump and Fox News are no exception. In a dust-up between the top-rated cable news channel and its most prominent loyal viewer, Mr. Trump unleashed a barrage against the Fox News anchor Neil Cavuto, who gave a withering on-air assessment of the president’s announcement that he was ingesting hydroxychloroquine, a malaria drug that can pose dangers for coronavirus patients. (Grynbaum, 5/19)

The New York Times: Amid Hydroxychloroquine Uproar, Real Studies Of Drug Are Suffering
President Trump’s enthusiastic embrace of a malaria drug that he now says he takes daily — and the resulting uproar in the news media — appears to be interfering with legitimate scientific research into whether the medicine might work to prevent coronavirus infection or treat the disease in its early stages. The drug, hydroxychloroquine, which is also widely used to treat lupus and other autoimmune diseases, has shown no real benefit for hospitalized coronavirus patients, and may have contributed to some deaths, recent studies show. (Stolberg, 5/19)

Stat: CEO Tapped By Trump To Make Generics During Pandemic Has Dicey Record
As the chief executive of Phlow, the new company awarded $354 million by the federal government this week to make generics that are in short supply during the pandemic, Eric Edwards maintains his business is a public benefit corporation. Besides generating a profit, Phlow is supposed to serve a greater good. But in his last role in the pharmaceutical industry, Edwards fell short of benefiting the public, at least according to a U.S. Senate subcommittee report released in 2018. (Silverman, 5/19)

Politico: Dubious History For Leader Of New Made-In-America Drug Venture
The ambitious effort, designed to shore up the national stockpile, brings together some well-known players in the health care world. It was hailed by White House trade adviser Peter Navarro, a sharp critic of China and a champion of bringing manufacturing back to the U.S. More than 70 percent of the world’s drug ingredients are made overseas — many in India and China. “You've got patriotic scientists and engineers producing essential medicines at very low margins in defense of the American people,” Navarro said of Phlow. But the new company has no track record in drug manufacturing, and it’s not clear when its assembly lines will begin churning out products. (Lippman, Owermohle, Brennan and Cancryn, 5/19)

The Associated Press: Trump Allies Lining Up Doctors To Prescribe Rapid Reopening
Republican political operatives are recruiting “extremely pro-Trump” doctors to go on television to prescribe reviving the U.S. economy as quickly as possible, without waiting to meet safety benchmarks proposed by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to slow the spread of the new coronavirus. The plan was discussed in a May 11 conference call with a senior staffer for the Trump reelection campaign organized by CNP Action, an affiliate of the GOP-aligned Council for National Policy. (Biesecker and Dearen, 5/20)

The Associated Press: Analysis: Trump Flouts The Experts, Even In Own Government
When the nation’s top infectious disease doctor warned it could be risky for schools to open this fall, President Donald Trump said that was unacceptable. When experts from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention produced a roadmap for how Americans could slowly get back to work and other activities, Trump’s top advisers rejected it. And when the Food and Drug Administration warned against taking a malaria drug to combat COVID-19 except in rare circumstances, Trump asked his doctor for it anyway. (Madhani and Pace, 5/20)

The Washington Post: Trump Describes Medical Researchers As Enemies Because He Doesn’t Like Their Results
This idea that there was this study undercutting the utility of the drug Trump has been championing for two months clearly stuck with the president. Speaking to reporters Tuesday afternoon after a meeting with Republican senators, he again disparaged the study. “If you look at the one survey, the only bad survey, they were giving it to people that were in very bad shape. They were very old. Almost dead,” Trump said. He described the study as “a Trump-enemy statement.” A few hours later, again pressed on his use of the drug for an unproven purpose, Trump again suggested that opposition to it was simply political. (Bump, 5/19)

The Wall Street Journal: U.S.-China Tensions Rise As Trump Accuses WHO Of Pro-China Bias
President Trump’s threat to cut off funding to the World Health Organization and revoke U.S. membership over the group’s handling of the coronavirus heightened tensions with China and sparked a new round of accusations between the two countries. In a four-page letter to WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Monday, Mr. Trump said the organization had shown an “alarming lack of independence” from Beijing and failed to adequately respond as Chinese government officials sought to cover up the emerging health threat. (Lubold and Hinshaw, 5/19)

The New York Times: W.H.O. Members Reject Trump’s Demands But Agree To Study Its Virus Response
President Trump’s angry demands for punitive action against the World Health Organization were rebuffed on Tuesday by the organization’s other member nations, which decided instead to conduct an “impartial, independent” examination of the W.H.O.’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. In a four-page letter late Monday, Mr. Trump had threatened to permanently cut off United States funding of the W.H.O. unless it committed to “major, substantive improvements” within 30 days. It was a major escalation of his repeated attempts to blame the W.H.O. and China for the spread of the virus and deflect responsibility for his handling of a worldwide public health crisis that has killed more than 90,000 people in the United States. (Shear and Jacobs, 5/19)

Reuters: WHO Chief Says He Will Keep Leading Virus Response After Trump Threat
The World Health Organization’s head said on Tuesday he would keep leading the global fight against the coronavirus pandemic, after U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to cut off funding and quit the body. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus defended the agency’s role after the United States again withheld full support for a resolution on the pandemic. “We want accountability more than anyone,” Tedros told a virtual meeting of the WHO’S 194 member states. “We will continue providing strategic leadership to coordinate the global response.” (Nebehay and Farge, 5/19)

The Washington Post Fact Checker: Fact-Checking Trump’s Letter Blasting The World Health Organization
In previous administrations, a letter to an international organization signed by the U.S. president generally would have been carefully vetted and fact-checked. But President Trump’s May 18 letter to World Health Organization Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus contains a number of false or misleading statements in it. Here’s a sampling, as well as a guide to some of his claims. (Kessler, 5/20)

Politico: Anti-China Sentiment Is On The Rise
Anti-China sentiment is rising in the United States, according to a new poll that reflects the foreign country’s role as the point of origin of the coronavirus and the millions of dollars in negative ads spent by President Donald Trump, former Vice President Joe Biden and their allies as each paints the other as weak on the U.S.-China relationship. Since January, the percentage of U.S. voters who say China is an “enemy” has risen 11 percentage points to 31 percent, while the percentage of voters who say China is either an ally or friend has fallen 9 points to a combined 23 percent, a new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll shows. (Caputo, 5/20)

Miami Herald: Florida’s Coronavirus-19 Data Guru Says She Was Censored
The state official managing Florida’s public “dashboard” of COVID-19 data says that her office has been removed from the project — and questioned the Department of Health’s commitment to “accessibility and transparency.” Rebekah Jones, the geographic information system manager for DOH’s Division of Disease Control and Health Protection, wrote in an email, distributed Friday that authority over the dashboard was taken away from her office on May 5. The sharply worded email, which was shared with the Herald by a recipient of the message, was addressed to users of the state’s data portal, which includes researchers and journalists. It was not clear who replaced her and her staff. (Wieder, 5/18)

The Wall Street Journal: Florida Health Department Worker Ousted After Warnings Over Covid-19 Data
“As a word of caution, I would not expect the new team to continue the same level of accessibility and transparency that I made central to the process during the first two months,” she wrote. “After all, my commitment to both is largely (arguably entirely) the reason I am no longer managing it.” Ms. Jones didn’t respond to a request for comment. A statement provided on Tuesday by Helen Aguirre Ferré, the spokeswoman for Gov. Ron DeSantis, said the health department decided to terminate Ms. Jones was terminated because she was “disruptive.” (Campo-Flores, 5/19)

USA Today Network: Florida Scientist Fired For Refusing To 'Manipulate' COVID-19 Data
Rebekah Jones said in an email to the USA TODAY Network that she single-handedly created two applications in two languages, four dashboards, six unique maps with layers of data functionality for 32 variables covering a half a million lines of data. Her objective was to create a way for Floridians and researchers to see what the COVID-19 situation was in real time. Then, she was dismissed. "I worked on it alone, sixteen hours a day for two months, most of which I was never paid for, and now that this has happened I'll probably never get paid for," she wrote in an email, confirming that she had not just been reassigned on May 5, but fired from her job as Geographic Information Systems manager for the Florida Department of Health. (Marazzi Sassoon, 5/19)

Stat: Vaccine Experts Say Moderna's Covid-19 Data Leave Big Questions
Heavy hearts soared Monday with news that Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine candidate — the frontrunner in the American market — seemed to be generating an immune response in Phase 1 trial subjects. The company’s stock valuation also surged, hitting $29 billion, an astonishing feat for a company that currently sells zero products. But was there good reason for so much enthusiasm? Several vaccine experts asked by STAT concluded that, based on the information made available by the Cambridge, Mass.-based company, there’s really no way to know how impressive — or not — the vaccine may be. (Branswell, 5/19)

Stat: Critics Flag Conflict Of Interest In FDA Role In Covid-19 Vaccine Push
Two top Food and Drug Administration officials, suddenly at the center of the White House’s effort to speed approval for Covid-19 vaccines, will recuse themselves from the agency’s considerations about whether to approve those products, according to an email obtained by STAT. The move is designed to lessen conflict-of-interest concerns, since the FDA’s mission is to skeptically review safety and efficacy evidence for drugs, not push for their approval. (Florko, 5/19)

The Wall Street Journal: Europe Falls Behind U.S. In Funding Coronavirus Vaccine—And Securing Access
As pharmaceutical giants edge closer to a potential vaccine for the new coronavirus, governments demanding access to any supplies are running up against a hard reality: the bill. The tension was cast into relief last Thursday when Sanofi SA chairman Serge Weinberg took a call from French Prime Minister Édouard Philippe, according to a person familiar with the matter. Mr. Philippe wanted to know why the chief executive of the company—one of France’s corporate crown jewels—had told an interviewer the U.S. would be first in line for its potential coronavirus vaccine. (Roland, Bisserbe and Kostov, 5/19)

The Associated Press: States Accused Of Fudging Or Bungling COVID-19 Testing Data
Public health officials in some states are accused of bungling coronavirus infection statistics or even using a little sleight of hand to deliberately make things look better than they are. The risk is that politicians, business owners and ordinary Americans who are making decisions about lockdowns, reopenings and other day-to-day matters could be left with the impression that the virus is under more control than it actually is. (Smith, Long and Amy, 5/20)

The Associated Press: 'New Normal' Anything But As Countries Continue To Reopen
The risk is that politicians, business owners and ordinary Americans who are making decisions about lockdowns and other day-to-day matters could be left with the impression that the virus is under more control than it actually is. In Virginia, Texas and Vermont, for example, officials said they have been combining the results of viral tests, which show an active infection, with antibody tests, which show a past infection. Public health experts say that can make for impressive-looking testing totals but does not give a true picture of how the virus is spreading. (Blake and Smith, 5/20)

Stat: FDA Will Seek To Collect ‘Real-World’ Data On Covid-19
The Food and Drug Administration said Tuesday that it will launch a new research project focused on real-world evidence — data collected by insurance companies, in electronic health records, and in other places in medicine — to learn more about Covid-19, including how diagnostics and medications are being used in the pandemic and how best to design studies to test them. The project is a collaboration with Aetion, a New York health tech startup that specializes in real-world evidence. (Herper, 5/19)

ProPublica: You Don’t Need Invasive Tech For Successful Contact Tracing. Here’s How It Works.
I want you to mentally prepare yourself for a phone call that you could receive sometime over the course of this pandemic: in the next few months or year. Your phone might ring, and when you pick it up, you may hear someone say, “Hi, I’m calling from the health department.” After verifying your identity, the person may say something like, “I’m afraid we have information that you were in close contact with someone who tested positive for the coronavirus.” (Chen, 5/19)

The Washington Post: CDC Releases Reopening Guidelines For Schools, Child-Care Centers, Restaurants, Mass Transit
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention this week laid out its detailed, delayed road map for reopening schools, child-care facilities, restaurants and mass transit, weeks after covid-weary states began opening on their own terms. The CDC cautioned that some institutions should stay closed for now and said reopening should be guided by coronavirus transmission rates. (Meckler and Weiner, 5/19)

The Hill: CDC Director Says US Ready To Reopen, Predicts Thousands More Contact Tracers 
The head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said Tuesday that he believes the U.S. is ready to begin reopening, even as he acknowledged the need to invest further in the nation's public health infrastructure and expand contact tracing to avoid sustained outbreaks. "I want to clarify that the community-based transmission, the community-to-community transmission that overwhelmed the public health departments in late February, March, April, that's really coming down," Redfield said in an interview with Steve Clemons, author of The Hill's daily Coronavirus Report. (Samuels, 5/19)

Politico: CDC Releases Detailed Guidelines For Reopening
The document includes specific guidance for reopening child care centers, schools, businesses, restaurants and public transit. Among the additions is more detailed advice for mass transit that suggests encouraging social distancing by adding floor decals or colored tape to ensure people remain six feet apart. It also lays out an extensive blueprint for containing the disease at federal and state levels through contact tracing and monitoring for outbreaks — capabilities that large parts of the county still lack. (Cancryn, 5/20)

NPR: WH Coronavirus Coordinator Encouraged By Decline In New Cases In Most Of U.S.
White House coronavirus task force coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx said on Tuesday that she is encouraged by the latest data showing declines in new cases of the virus, hospitalizations and deaths across all but a few areas of the United States. Birx told a group of reporters at the White House that clinical, laboratory data and surveillance data from across the country shows that new hospitalizations have dropped by 50% in the last 30 days, and deaths continue to decrease week over week. (Ordonez, 5/19)

Politico: Reopening Tension Pits State, Local Officials Against Each Other In Sign Of What’s To Come
A growing number of local elected officials are writing their own reopening playbooks, defying state leaders in disputes that foretell months of new regional skirmishes as the nation moves to rekindle its smoldering economy. Mayors and county executives in rural regions where infection rates are lower than in denser, bigger cities say they’ve been unfairly held back from returning to a more normal way of life. Meanwhile, cautious officials who represent more vulnerable communities are fighting to prolong stay-at-home orders as governors, lawmakers or judges move to do the opposite. (Mays and Ward, 5/20)

The Wall Street Journal: States Step Up Reopenings, Hoping To Limit Economic Damage
U.S. states and governments around the world are trying to revive their economies after months of shutdowns, as they take tentative steps to ease restrictions imposed to combat the spread of the coronavirus. State governments in the U.S. estimate the collective expense of fighting the pandemic at some $45 billion, which most want the federal government to repay in full, rather than be reimbursed at the 75% rate allowed under the law, the Federal Emergency Management Agency said. (Yap, 5/20)

The Wall Street Journal: Trump Can Choose Which States Get Coronavirus Payback From FEMA
Such widespread requests for reimbursement are unprecedented. FEMA is being flooded by requests from states across the nation, many with strained budgets, which now want to be made whole for deals made to buy supplies in a chaotic marketplace with middlemen charging inflated prices. FEMA typically receives requests for reimbursement from an individual state or a small group affected by disasters. President Bush, for instance, directed full reimbursement to Louisiana for certain projects after Hurricane Katrina. Mr. Trump directed full reimbursement, for a time, to Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria. (Levy and Pulliam, 5/19)

NPR: Maryland Reports Largest Rise Yet In Coronavirus Cases 4 Days After Reopening
The Maryland Department of Health reported 1,784 newly confirmed COVID-19 cases on Tuesday, setting a new high mark four days after the state began reopening its economy. Maryland is now reporting 41,546 cases, including nearly 2,000 people who have died from the disease. Along with the new positive tests, 5,368 people tested negative for the coronavirus in the 24 hours leading up to 10 a.m. ET — meaning roughly 25% of the 7,152 tests in that period resulted in positive diagnoses. (Chappell, 5/19)

The Wall Street Journal: For Beach Towns, Coronavirus Means A Make Or Break Summer Starts Now
From Ocean City to the Jersey Shore to Cape Cod, the window between Memorial Day and Labor Day is make-or-break for hotels, restaurants, arcades and T-shirt shops. On top of potential concerns about the coronavirus pandemic, more than 36 million Americans have filed for unemployment benefits, pinching disposable incomes. Mayor Rick Meehan says a speedy but safe reopening is vital for this town of 7,000 residents, which can swell to 300,000 visitors on summer weekends. “Just like the rest of the country, we’re in an economic crisis right now,” he said. (Calvert, 5/20)

The Washington Post: This Wisconsin Tourist Town Has A New Draw This Year: Its Restaurants Are Open
This tranquil resort town on the shores of shimmering Geneva Lake has always beckoned as a kind of quiet Midwestern paradise, drawing people from all over the region, including those across the nearby Illinois state line. And over the weekend, as the skies cleared and the temperatures rose, the town came alive as it often does in spring, with cars and motorcycles snaking in off nearby Highway 12 in bumper-to-bumper traffic along Main Street. (Bailey, 5/19)

The Associated Press: Bronx 'City Within A City' Shaken By Sickness, Fear
Tarhia Morton and her family were planning to party this year. She is retired after 40 years with the U.S. Postal Service. Her sister is turning 70. A birthday bash in Las Vegas was booked for August. That was before the coronavirus changed hers and so many other lives in the massive residential development in the COVID-19 battered Bronx known as Co-op City in which she lives. Before her mother was infected with it. Before medical examiners determined her father didn’t die from it — but only after she says his body was held at the hospital for 10 days after his March 27 death. (Mahoney, 5/20)

Reuters: Administration Sees Washington, DC, Area As Ongoing Virus Problem Area
It is proving hard to reduce the number of coronavirus cases in the Washington, DC area, a senior administration official said on Tuesday, even though the nation’s capital is where the voices are loudest about the need for social distancing. The official, briefing White House reporters, said Washington and its metro area in Maryland and Virginia, as well as Chicago, Los Angeles and Minneapolis, remain on a virus “plateau” without a sharp decline in cases. (5/19)

The New York Times: College In The Coronavirus Pandemic: No Fall Break And Home By Thanksgiving
As colleges make plans to bring students back to campus, alongside discussions of mask requirements and half-empty classrooms, one common strategy is emerging: Forgoing fall break and getting students home before Thanksgiving. The University of South Carolina, Notre Dame, Rice and Creighton are among the schools that have said they will find ways to shorten the fall semester, in an attempt to avoid a “second wave” of coronavirus infections expected to emerge in late fall. (Hubler, 5/19)

The New York Times: Hospitals Move Into Next Phase As New York Passes Viral Peak
Across New York City, hospitals have moved into a new phase in their battle against the coronavirus. In the city that was hit hardest by the pandemic in the United States, the number of new patients and the daily death toll have dropped sharply. Many of the refrigerated trucks filled with bodies are gone. Doctors no longer routinely plead for help in makeshift protective gear. The emergency room at Elmhurst Hospital in Queens, once overwhelmed, treats barely a third of the people it did before the outbreak. (Fink, 5/20)

The New York Times: From Chaos To ‘Scary Silence’: Elmhurst Hospital After The Coronavirus Surge
Elmhurst Hospital in Queens had been inundated by patients. The Times went back to see how the staff was recovering, and planning for the the possibility of another wave. (Fink, Schaff and Laffin, 5/20)

The Wall Street Journal: New York To Allow Family Visits For Some Hospitalized Covid-19 Patients
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced a pilot program that allows 16 hospitals throughout the state to resume letting patients have visitors. The move comes after thousands of patients were left to struggle or die alone during the height of the novel coronavirus pandemic because of concerns about spreading the illness. “It is terrible to have someone in the hospital and then that person is isolated, not being able to see their family and friends,” Mr. Cuomo said Tuesday. (Passy, 5/19)

The Associated Press: New Jersey, Other States, Work To Fight Virus Misinformation
New Jersey’s top homeland security official received nearly nonstop calls in early March from grocery chains, trucking companies and other logistics firms wanting to know if rumors of an impending national lockdown were true. They weren’t, and Jared Maples soon learned the companies were reacting to misinformation stemming from text messages shared widely across the country. (Catalini and Klepper, 5/20)

The New York Times: How The ‘Plandemic’ Movie And Its Falsehoods Spread Widely Online
There have been plenty of jaw-dropping digital moments during the coronavirus pandemic. There was the time this month when Taylor Swift announced she would air her “City of Lover” concert on television. The time that the cast of “The Office” reunited for an 18-minute-long Zoom wedding. And the time last month that the Pentagon posted three videos that showed unexplained “aerial phenomena.” Yet none of those went as viral as a 26-minute video called “Plandemic,” a slickly produced narration that wrongly claimed a shadowy cabal of elites was using the virus and a potential vaccine to profit and gain power. (Frenkel, Decker and Alba, 5/20)

Reuters: Republican Senators Put Brakes On Additional Coronavirus Aid
Republican leaders in the U.S. Congress said on Tuesday they were in no hurry to work on another coronavirus relief package, despite the House of Representatives’ passage last week of a $3 trillion measure. “We need to assess what we’ve already done, take a look at what worked and what didn’t work, and we’ll discuss the way forward in the next couple of weeks,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told reporters after President Donald Trump spoke to a Senate Republican luncheon. (Cowan and Cornwell, 5/19)

The Associated Press: Trump Urges Senate Republicans To 'Be Tough' On Democrats
President Donald Trump arrived on Capitol Hill on Tuesday for perhaps one of the larger social gatherings still happening in Washington amid the coronavirus — the weekly Senate Republican lunch. Behind closed doors, Trump was unscripted and freewheeling with the 53 GOP senators. He touted his poll numbers, dismissed rival Joe Biden and implored Republicans to “be tough” against Democrats this fall. Despite House passage of a $3 trillion pandemic aid package, Republicans insisted they’ll wait until June to consider whether more help is necessary. (Mascaro, 5/19)

The Wall Street Journal: Trump Holds Off On Specifying Coronavirus-Relief Priorities 
President Trump didn’t press Senate Republicans on Tuesday about specific ideas for the possible next round of coronavirus relief, instead focusing on the 2020 election and other concerns, adding to the uncertainty over the timing of any future deal with Democrats. “We have a lot of priorities,” Mr. Trump told reporters when asked about what he told senators regarding the coronavirus response. Mr. Trump and his economic aides have backed the idea of a payroll-tax holiday and other tax measures, but the president didn’t emphasize them Tuesday to senators or in public appearances. (Wise and Duehren, 5/19)

The Washington Post: Trump Expresses Opposition To Extending Coronavirus Unemployment Benefits Enacted In Response To Pandemic
President Trump on Tuesday privately expressed opposition to extending a weekly $600 boost in unemployment insurance for laid-off workers affected by the coronavirus pandemic, according to three officials familiar with his remarks during a closed-door lunch with Republican senators on Capitol Hill. The increased unemployment benefits — paid by the federal government but administered through individual states — were enacted this year as part of a broader $2 trillion relief package passed by Congress. (Kim, 5/19)

The Wall Street Journal: Powell, Mnuchin Outline Contrasting Perils Facing Economy
The nation’s top two economic policy leaders offered contrasting visions about the economic outlook, with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin favoring a wait-and-see approach to more federal aid and Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell suggesting more would be needed. Their positions expressed Tuesday reflected differing views on the prospects for a swift economic rebound from the coronavirus pandemic. (Timiraos and Davidson, 5/19)

The Hill: Powell, Mnuchin Split On Benefits Of Easing COVID-19 Restrictions 
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin warned Tuesday that the economy could suffer long-term damage without further congressional action on the coronavirus pandemic, but differed over how the country and its leaders should tackle that challenge. During a joint virtual appearance before the Senate Banking Committee, Powell and Mnuchin revealed one of the few differences in their approaches to guiding the world’s largest economy out of the worst downturn since the Great Depression. Their input comes amid an escalating partisan battle over easing restrictions imposed to slow the spread of COVID-19. (Lane, 5/19)

The New York Times: Too Big To Fail: The Entire Private Sector
During the 2008 financial crisis, Wall Street banks and other big financial institutions were deemed “too big to fail.” The crisis unleashed by the pandemic has broadened that elite status to a significant swath of the American private sector. In a bid to soften the coronavirus’s economic blow, the government has stretched its financial safety net wide — from strategically sensitive companies, to entire industries such as energy and airlines, to the market for corporate bonds. (Phillips, 5/19)

Politico: ‘A Moonshot Mission’: Trump Campaign Eyes A Return To Megarallies
The Trump campaign has an order from the president: Find a way to get him back on the road and into mega-rallies to re-energize his base. In recent meetings with top campaign officials and White House aides, Trump has questioned why he’s avoiding campaign events if it‘s safe for him to travel in his official capacity. The president visited two medical supply facilities in Arizona and Pennsylvania this month and will tour a Ford ventilator factory in Michigan on Thursday. The official White House travel replaced what would have otherwise been a much busier campaign season for the president, who held three rallies in three days at the end of February. (Orr, 5/20)

The Associated Press: US Births Fall, And Virus Could Drive Them Down More
U.S. births continued to fall last year, leading to the fewest number of newborns in 35 years. The decline is the latest sign of a prolonged national “baby bust” that’s been going on for more than a decade. And some experts believe the coronavirus pandemic and its impact on the economy will suppress the numbers further. (Stobbe, 5/20)

The Wall Street Journal: U.S. Birthrates Fall To Record Low
“There are a lot of people out there who would like to have two children, a larger family, and there’s something going on out there that makes people feel like they can’t do that,” said Melanie Brasher, assistant professor of sociology at the University of Rhode Island, who studies fertility. Birthrates fell or held steady for women of all ages except those in their early 40s. Teenagers saw the sharpest drop, with a 5% decline in their birthrate. Since peaking in 1991, the teen birthrate has fallen 73%. (Adamy, 5/20)