First Edition: May 26, 2020

Kaiser Health News: ‘We Miss Them All So Much’: Grandparents Ache As The COVID Exile Grinds On
Across America, where more than 70 million people are grandparents, efforts to prevent infection in older people, who are most at risk of serious COVID-19 illness, have meant self-imposed exile for many. At the opposite extreme, some grandparents have taken over daily child care duties to help adult children with no choice but to work. “All the grandparents in the country are aching,” said Madonna Harrington Meyer, a sociology professor at Syracuse University in New York. “Some are aching because they can’t see their grandchildren — and some are aching because they can’t get away from them.” (Aleccia, 5/26)

Kaiser Health News/The Guardian: Lost On The Frontline 
A nurse who was crafting plans to open her own nursing home. An upbeat patient transporter who was also a sewing wiz. A surgical technician who was easy to befriend. 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. (5/26)

Kaiser Health News: Bringing ‘Poogie’ Home: Hospice In The Time Of COVID-19
After she landed in the hospital with a broken hip, Parkinson’s disease and the coronavirus, 84-year-old Dorothy “Poogie” Wyatt Shields made a request of her children: “Bring me home.” Her request came as hospital patients around the world were dying alone, separated from their loved ones whether or not they had COVID-19, because of visitation restrictions aimed at curbing the spread of the virus. Bringing home a terminally ill patient with COVID-19 bears extra challenges: In addition to the already daunting responsibility of managing their loved one’s care, families must take painstaking precautions to keep themselves safe. (Bailey, 5/26)

Kaiser Health News: ‘An Arm And A Leg’: Tips For Surviving COVID With Your Financial Health Intact
In early April, Katelyn was in a financial bind. At home and sick with COVID-19, she hadn’t been paid in weeks. And her bills were due. “My landlord is kinda beating down my door right now,” she said in a voicemail to the podcast hotline: (724) 276-6534; that’s 724 ARM N LEG. Weeks later, Katelyn got back in touch: She had made it through with her financial health intact, thanks to a combination of playing hardball with one company and knowing how to play nice with others. (Weissmann, 5/26)

The New York Times: Remembering The Nearly 100,000 Lives Lost To Coronavirus In America
As the U.S. approaches a grim milestone in the outbreak, The New York Times gathered names of the dead and memories of their lives from obituaries across the country. (5/24)

The Washington Post: Covid Death Trackers Replace National Mourning
Before dawn broke in Riverside, Calif., political scientist Kim Yi Dionne grabbed her iPhone from the bedside table to check the grim daily toll of covid-19. Deaths were a bit lower in the United States that morning. But like other hardened watchers of such tallies, Dionne was skeptical that the pandemic was easing. More likely it was just a quirk, she thought, a product of the natural rise and fall in the statistical flow, a bureaucratic rhythm in counting the dead. This macabre ritual — searching for meaning in numbers that pulse up and down, day after day — is one countless Americans have adopted. (Timberg, 5/24)

Reuters: U.S. CDC Reports 1,637,456 Coronavirus Cases, 97,669 Deaths
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Monday reported 1,637,456 cases of the new coronavirus, an increase of 15,342 cases from its previous count, and said that the number of deaths had risen by 620 to 97,669. The CDC reported its tally of cases of the respiratory illness known as COVID-19, caused by a new coronavirus, as of 4 pm ET on May 24 versus its previous report a day earlier. (5/25)

Reuters: WHO Warns Of 'Second Peak' In Areas Where COVID-19 Declining
Countries where coronavirus infections are declining could still face an “immediate second peak” if they let up too soon on measures to halt the outbreak, the World Health Organization said on Monday. The world is still in the middle of the first wave of the coronavirus outbreak, WHO emergencies head Dr Mike Ryan told an online briefing, noting that while cases are declining in many countries they are still increasing in Central and South America, South Asia and Africa. (5/25)

The Associated Press: Risks Complicate Reopenings As WHO Warns 1st Wave Not Over
The risks of reigniting coronavirus outbreaks are complicating efforts to fend off further misery for the many millions who have lost jobs, with a top health expert warning that the world is still in the midst of a “first wave” of the pandemic.“ Right now, we’re not in the second wave. We’re right in the middle of the first wave globally,” said Dr. Mike Ryan, a World Health Organization executive director. (Kurtenbach, 5/26)

The Associated Press: Memorial Day Weekend Draws Crowds And Triggers Warnings
The Memorial Day weekend marking the unofficial start of summer in the U.S. meant big crowds at beaches and warnings from authorities Sunday about people disregarding the coronavirus social-distancing rules and risking a resurgence of the scourge that has killed nearly 100,000 Americans. ... Sheriff’s deputies and beach patrols tried to make sure people kept their distance from others as they soaked up the rays on the sand and at parks and other recreation sites around the country. (Anderson and Mahoney, 5/25)

The New York Times: Even On Memorial Day, ‘You Can’t Escape’ Coronavirus
On a holiday that usually mixes somber remembrance and blissful renewal, the nation marked an unusually grim Memorial Day in which losses from the past merged with ones from the present. Gray skies and rain in much of the United States on Monday provided a muted backdrop as crowds flocked to beaches, amusement parks, lakes and boardwalks on the first long weekend since the coronavirus began to tear through the country, taking almost 100,000 lives with it. For many people, the day was an attempt to turn the page from the lockdowns of the past two months to something more resembling the traditional beginning of summer. (Oppel and Burch, 5/25)

The Associated Press: Pandemic Brings Smaller, Subdued Memorial Day Observances
Americans settled for small processions and online tributes instead of parades Monday as they observed Memorial Day in the shadow of the pandemic, which forced communities to honor the nation’s military dead with modest, more subdued ceremonies that also remembered those lost to the coronavirus. (Forliti and Brown, 5/26)

Reuters: Americans Make Low-Key Memorial Day Tributes, Coronavirus Overshadowing Events
In some places, scaled-down ceremonies were broadcast over the internet, as shutdowns to curb the spread of the virus put a damper on what is usually a day of flag-waving parades and crowds celebrating the unofficial start of the U.S. summer. Spots that would be bustling on a normal Memorial holiday had noticeably thinner crowds. Perhaps half of those gathered at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington wore face coverings, recommended as one way to fight infection. Only about one in 10 did so on the boardwalk by the beach in Ocean City, New Jersey. (Allen, 5/25)

The Washington Post: Memorial Day Offers Array Of Contrasts As Trump And Biden Honor War Dead, With And Without Masks
In Ocean City, Md., videos showed visitors thronging the boardwalk, only some wearing masks. From Newport Beach, Calif., to the Tampa area along Florida’s Gulf Coast, crowds were sometimes dense — in the latter case, forcing authorities to close jammed parking lots. In midtown Houston on Saturday, more than 100 partygoers packed into a swimming pool area at a club, flouting social distancing orders to maintain space or wear masks a day after Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) eased restrictions on bars and restaurants. (Nakashima, 5/25)

The Washington Post: Crowd Ignores Social Distancing In Missouri’s Lake Of The Ozarks
Vacationers flocked to the Lake of the Ozarks over the holiday weekend, flouting social distancing guidelines as they packed into yacht clubs, outdoor bars and resort pools in the Missouri tourist hot spot. Images of the revelry rippled across social media, showing people eating, drinking and swimming in close quarters. In one picture shared by the news station KSDK, dozens of people could be seen crammed on an outdoor patio underneath a sign reading, “Please practice social distancing.” (Hawkins, 5/24)

The Wall Street Journal: Trump, Biden Place Opposing Bets On Voters’ View Of Coronavirus
President Trump visited a golf course for the first time in two months on Saturday, as he pushes the nation to reopen for business. Joe Biden, remaining at his Delaware home since mid-March, has urged caution about public outings. As the nation looks to recover from the coronavirus pandemic, the 2020 presidential rivals are placing bets on how voters will view the outbreak by November. Their conflicting strategies show that the two campaigns believe the race will turn on very different outcomes. (Thomas and Bender, 5/23)

The New York Times: Joe Biden, Wearing Mask, Appears In Public At A Veterans Memorial
Joseph R. Biden Jr., who has been campaigning from his home for more than two months during the coronavirus crisis, on Monday made his first public appearance since mid-March, visiting a veterans memorial in Delaware. He and his wife, Jill Biden, wearing black masks, laid a wreath of white flowers in a Memorial Day commemoration that had not been publicly announced before the trip. Mr. Biden, a practicing Catholic, made the sign of the cross. (Glueck and Haberman, 5/25)

The New York Times: Trump Threatens To Pull Republican National Convention From North Carolina
President Trump on Monday threatened to yank the Republican National Convention from Charlotte, N.C., where it is scheduled to be held in August, accusing the state’s Democratic governor of being in a “shutdown mood” that could prevent a fully attended event. The president tweeted that he had “LOVE” for North Carolina, a swing state that he won in 2016, but he added that without a “guarantee” from the governor, Roy Cooper, that the event could be held at full capacity, “we would be spending millions of dollars building the Arena to a very high standard without even knowing if the Democrat Governor would allow the Republican Party to fully occupy the space.” (Haberman, 5/25)

The Washington Post: On Weekend Dedicated To War Dead, Trump Tweets Insults, Promotes Baseless Claims And Plays Golf
In a flurry of tweets and retweets Saturday and Sunday, Trump mocked former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams’s weight, ridiculed the looks of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and called former Democratic presidential rival Hillary Clinton a “skank.” He revived long-debunked speculation that a television host with whom Trump has feuded may have killed a woman and asserted without evidence that mail-in voting routinely produces ballot stuffing. (Gearan, 5/24)

The Washington Post: Trump Threatens To Pull Republican Convention Out Of North Carolina
The threat singling out a Democratic governor who has followed federal guidelines echoed Trump’s pressure on other Democratic-led states to reopen as the coronavirus pandemic pushes the economy to the worst crisis since the Great Depression, with approximately 38 million Americans filing for unemployment and scores of businesses shuttering. Trump, who sees a revived economy as critical to his reelection, also has encouraged protests against Democratic governors who have imposed stay-at-home orders consistent with federal health officials’ recommendations. (Kim and Sullivan, 5/25)

The Washington Post: In Crucial Florida, Some Senior Voters Cast A Skeptical Eye Toward Trump’s Reelection
Allen Lehner was a Republican until Donald Trump became his party’s nominee in 2016. The 74-year-old retiree says he couldn’t bring himself to vote for someone who lied, belittled others, walked out on his bills and mistreated women — but he also couldn’t bring himself to vote for Hillary Clinton. So he didn’t vote. Trump has done nothing since to entice Lehner back. (Johnson and Rozsa, 5/25)

The Hill: Poll: Majority Of Voters Support Mandatory Face Masks In Some Public Settings 
A majority of voters in a new Hill-HarrisX poll support mandatory face masks in at least some public settings during the coronavirus panemic. Forty percent of registered voters in the May 18-19 survey said wearing face masks should be required in both indoor and outdoor public spaces, while another 28 percent said facial coverings should be mandatory in public indoor spaces only. (5/22)

The Wall Street Journal: Voting By Mail In November? States Need To Prepare Now
Americans are expected to vote by mail in record numbers in November, but authorities are running out of time to secure the vast number of ballots and ballot-processing machines needed to ensure a smooth process, election and industry officials say. Many Americans will likely want or need to avoid polling stations in the fall because of the coronavirus pandemic. A Department of Homeland Security-led working group said weeks ago that local governments should have started preparing in April if they want to ready their vote-by-mail systems for the November election. (Corse and McMillan, 5/23)

The Associated Press Fact Check: Faulty Trump Claims On Virus Drug, Vote Fraud
When President Donald Trump doesn’t like the message, he shoots the messenger. So it was this past week when he took very personally a scientific study that should give pause to anyone thinking of following Trump’s lead and ingesting a potentially risky drug for the coronavirus. He branded the study’s researchers, financed in part by his own administration, his “enemy.” (Yen, Marchione and Woodward, 5/25)

The New York Times: Trump Administration Coronavirus Testing Strategy Draws Concerns: 'This Isn't The Hunger Games'
The Trump administration’s new testing strategy, released Sunday to Congress, holds individual states responsible for planning and carrying out all coronavirus testing, while planning to provide some supplies needed for the tests. The proposal also says existing testing capacity, if properly targeted, is sufficient to contain the outbreak. But epidemiologists say that amount of testing is orders of magnitude lower than many of them believe the country needs. (Mandavilli and Edmondson, 5/25)

The Associated Press: Federal Coronavirus Testing Plan Puts Burden On States
The 81-page document from the Department of Health and Human Services says, “State plans must establish a robust testing program that ensures adequacy of COVID-19 testing, including tests for contact tracing, and surveillance of asymptomatic persons to determine community spread.” It says the federal government will “ensure that States have the collection supplies that they need through December 2020.” To that end, the administration plans to acquire and distribute 100 million swabs and 100 million tubes of viral transport media. The HHS document, which The Washington Post first reported, recommends that all states “have an objective of testing a minimum of 2 percent of their population in May and June.” (5/25)

The Associated Press: White House Goal On Testing Nursing Homes Unmet
Nearly two weeks ago the White House urged governors to ensure that every nursing home resident and staff member be tested for the coronavirus within 14 days. It’s not going to happen. A review by The Associated Press found that at least half of the states are not going to meet White House’s deadline and some aren’t even bothering to try.Only a handful of states, including West Virginia and Rhode Island, have said they’ve already tested every nursing home resident. (Suderman, 5/25)

The Associated Press: CDC, States' Reporting Of Virus Test Data Causes Confusion
Elected officials, businesses and others are depending on coronavirus testing and infection-rate data as states reopen so that they will know if a second wave of contagion is coming — and whether another round of stay-at-home orders or closings might be needed. But states are reporting those figures in different ways, and that can lead to frustration and confusion about what the numbers mean. In some places, there have been data gaps that leave local leaders wondering whether they should loosen or tighten restrictions. (Smith, 5/24)

The Washington Post: Covid-19’s Deadly New Surge Is In Rural America As States Re-Open 
The novel coronavirus arrived in an Indiana farm town mid-planting season and took root faster than the fields of seed corn, infecting hundreds and killing dozens. It tore through a pork processing plant and spread outward in a desolate stretch of the Oklahoma Panhandle. And in Colorado’s sparsely populated eastern plains, the virus erupted in a nursing home and a pair of factories, burning through the crowded quarters of immigrant workers and a vulnerable elderly population. As the death toll nears 100,000, the disease caused by the virus has made a fundamental shift in who it touches and where it reaches in America, according to a Washington Post analysis of case data and interviews with public health professionals in several states. (Thebault and Hauslohner, 5/24)

The Washington Post: Lessons From The Deadly Second Wave Of The 1918 Flu Pandemic For The Coronavirus Era
As coronavirus lockdowns loosen and some Americans flock to restaurants, beaches, and other outdoor spaces for Memorial Day weekend, the question of reopening too quickly is striking an eerily familiar tone. The global flu epidemic of 1918 remains the deadliest on record. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the pandemic killed an estimated 50 million worldwide and over half a million in the United States. J. Alexander Navarro of the University of Michigan’s Center for History of Medicine is one of the organizers of the “Influenza Archive,” a collection of information cataloging and studying the effects of the 1918 pandemic in 43 major U.S. cities. (Usero, 5/24)

The Wall Street Journal: Superspreader Events Offer A Clue On Curbing Coronavirus
Some scientists looking for ways to prevent a return to exponential growth in coronavirus infections after lockdowns are lifted are zeroing in on a new approach: Focus on avoiding superspreading events. The theory is that banning mass public events where hundreds of attendees can infect themselves in the space of a few hours, along with other measures such as wearing face masks, might slow the pace of the new coronavirus’s progression to a manageable level even as shops and factories reopen. (Pancevski, 5/24)

The Associated Press: Spike In Coronavirus Cases In Oregon Traced To Gatherings
A spike in reported coronavirus cases in Redmond last week has been tied to family and social gatherings in the area. The Oregonian/OregonLive reports last week’s breakdown of coronavirus cases by ZIP code in Oregon reported eight new cases of COVID-19 in the central Oregon town. That brought Redmond up to only 18 reported cases to date, but amounted to an 80% change over the previous week – the highest in the state. (5/25)

The Washington Post: Some Churches Tentatively Open As Memorial Day Crowds Descend On Tourist Hot Spots
No holding hands during the Lord’s Prayer. No hymnals or holy water. And no congregating with friends outside after services. More than two months after much of the United States shut down because of the coronavirus pandemic, some houses of worship are beginning to reopen their doors, albeit with a long list of social distancing guidelines in place. (Sonmez, Kornfield and Hawkins, 5/24)

The Washington Post: Bowser Says D.C. Is ‘Back On Track’ For Gradual Reopening; Va. Reports Record Number Of New Cases
D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) said Monday that the city is “back on track” to move toward a gradual reopening after seeing a slight spike in new cases over the weekend. Meanwhile, Virginia reported a record number of new cases — mostly in the Washington suburbs — but the area’s leaders said they are planning for a transition to Phase 1 of reopening starting at the end of the week. Bowser said she would wait until Wednesday to decide whether to move to Phase 1 of the city’s reopening on Friday. She said she wants to see 14 days of declining community spread — calculated by the date of symptom onset and excluding cases at confined facilities such as nursing homes — before she makes a decision. (Chason and Zauzmer, 5/25)

The Associated Press: 1st Deadlines For Laid-Off Workers To Get Health Insurance
Many laid-off workers who lost health insurance in the coronavirus shutdown soon face the first deadlines to qualify for fallback coverage under the Affordable Care Act. Taxpayer-subsidized health insurance is available for a modest cost — sometimes even free — across the country, but industry officials and independent researchers say few people seem to know how to find it. For those who lost their health insurance as layoffs mounted in late March, a 60-day “special enrollment” period for individual coverage under the ACA closes at the end of May in most states. (Alonso-Zaldivar, 5/25)

The New York Times: U.S. Bans Flights From Brazil, Where Pandemic Is Raging
The United States, citing Brazil’s surging coronavirus crisis, has banned flights from the nation, delivering a blow to its embattled leader, who has tried to use his warm relations with President Trump to bolster his political standing. In recent weeks, coronavirus cases and deaths have exploded in Brazil, Latin America’s most populous country. Its president, Jair Bolsonaro, a pandemic skeptic, had ignored the warnings of health experts and mocked social distancing measures. (Casado and Kurmanaev, 5/24)

Reuters: U.S. Brings Forward Travel Ban As Brazil Surpasses Its Daily Death Toll 
The White House did not give a reason for bringing the travel restriction forward. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which oversees immigration issues, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The travel ban was a blow to right-wing Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who has followed the example of U.S. President Donald Trump in addressing the pandemic, fighting calls for social distancing and touting unproven drugs. (5/25)

The Associated Press: Death And Denial In Brazil’s Amazon Capital
As the white van approached Perfect Love Street, one by one chatting neighbors fell silent, covered their mouths and noses and scattered. Men in full body suits carried an empty coffin into the small, blue house where Edgar Silva had spent two feverish days gasping for air before drawing his last breath on May 12. “It wasn’t COVID,” Silva’s daughter, Eliete das Graças insisted to the funerary workers. She swore her 83-year-old father had died of Alzheimer’s disease, not that sickness ravaging the city’s hospitals. (Brito, 5/26)

The Associated Press: UN Virus Therapy Trial Pauses Hydroxychloroquine Testing
The World Health Organization said Monday that it will temporarily drop hydroxychloroquine — the anti-malarial drug U.S. President Trump says he is taking — from its global study into experimental COVID-19 treatments, saying that its experts need to review all available evidence to date. In a press briefing, WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that in light of a paper published last week in the Lancet that showed people taking hydroxychloroquine were at higher risk of death and heart problems, there would be “a temporary pause” on the hydroxychloroquine arm of its global clinical trial. (Cheng and Keaten, 5/25)

Reuters: WHO Pauses Trial Of Hydroxychloroquine In COVID-19 Patients Due To Safety Concerns
“The executive group has implemented a temporary pause of the hydroxychloroquine arm within the Solidarity trial while the safety data is reviewed by the data safety monitoring board,” Tedros told an online briefing. He said the other arms of the trial - a major international initiative to hold clinical tests of potential treatments for the virus - were continuing. (5/25)

Reuters: Fujifilm COVID-19 Drug Research Spills Into June, Dashing Hopes Of Quick Approval
Fujifilm Holdings Corp (4901.T) will continue research on Avigan into June, Japan’s government said on Tuesday, effectively dashing hopes by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe that the drug would be approved as a COVID-19 treatment this month. (5/25)

The New York Times: Uncertain Results In Study Of Convalescent Serum For Covid-19
A small study of patients who were severely ill from the coronavirus hints that treatment with antibodies from recovered patients may modestly help recovery and survival, scientists reported on Friday. The study, although far from conclusive, is said to be the largest of subjects recovering from Covid-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus. Thirty-nine hospitalized patients were given intravenous infusions of antibodies from patients who had recovered from the condition. (Kolata, 5/22)

The New York Times: Coronavirus Vaccine Shows Promising Early Results In China
A vaccine developed in China appears to be safe and may protect people from the new coronavirus, researchers reported on Friday. The early-stage trial, published in the Lancet, was conducted by researchers at several laboratories and included 108 participants aged 18 to 60. Those who received a single dose of the vaccine produced certain immune cells, called T cells, within two weeks. Antibodies needed for immunity peaked at 28 days after the inoculation. (Mandavilli, 5/22)

The New York Times: CDC Says Coronavirus Does Not Spread Easily On Surfaces 
Guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention making the rounds this week on the internet are clarifying what we know about the transmission of the coronavirus. The virus does not spread easily via contaminated surfaces, according to the C.D.C. For those who were worried about wiping down grocery bags or disinfecting mailed packages, the news headlines highlighting this guidance in recent days might have brought some relief. But this information is not new: The C.D.C. has been using similar language for months. (Fortin, 5/22)

USA Today: Obesity Makes COVID-19 Risk Larger, Hospitals' Challenges Much Harder
The parents and two brothers of Silvia Deyanira Melendez, 24, are all in therapy after losing their daughter and sister to COVID-19 on March 28. "I don’t have the words to say how beautiful and nice to the family she was," her father, Marcos Melendez, said Friday. She weighed more than 300 pounds with a body mass index of 60, double the BMI considered obese. This most likely contributed heavily to her Type 2 diabetes, hypertension and a heart condition that required open heart surgery two years ago.  (O'Donnell, 5/23)

The Associated Press: Congress Weighs Choice: 'Go Big' On Virus Aid Or Hit 'Pause'
Congress is at a crossroads in the coronavirus crisis, wrestling over whether to “go big,” as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wants for the next relief bill, or hit “pause,” as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell insists. It’s a defining moment for the political parties heading toward the election and one that will affect the livelihoods of countless Americans suddenly dependent on the federal government. Billions in state aid, jobless benefits and health resources are at stake. As questions mount over Washington’s proper role, it’s testing the ability of President Donald Trump and Congress to do the right thing. (Mascaro, 5/26)

The Wall Street Journal: In Coronavirus Fight, Uncertainty Emerges As The New Enemy
When it comes to economic recovery, the coronavirus remains Public Enemy No. 1. But not far behind is an equally insidious force: uncertainty. In conversations with business leaders in recent days, it’s clear that simple uncertainty, as much as any particular policy or public-health imperative, is holding back the economy. Here are the kinds of questions they are asking: Are consumers ready to venture out in force even if they are free to do so? How does a big business navigate a patchwork of different state and local reopening plans and policies? How do we make mass transit safe enough for workers and consumers alike to return to normal life with confidence? (Seib, 5/25)

The Washington Post: In A Veterans’ Home Hit By The Coronavirus, Chronic Problems Aided A Disaster
Donald Bushey rarely talked about his military service. The Air Force veteran served for 14 years, including one in the Vietnam War, but he preferred to focus on hunting, fishing and his other passions. His military service, however, provided a lifeline to his family in recent years. As a veteran, Bushey qualified for a spot in the Soldiers’ Home in Holyoke, a state-run facility in western Massachusetts. Bushey’s placement in the home in January 2019 eased some of the pressure on his wife of 63 years, Jean, and their six children after he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease and suffered a stroke, one of their daughters said. (Lamothe, 5/24)

The New York Times: As Meatpacking Plants Reopen, Data About Worker Illness Remains Elusive
The Smithfield Foods plant in Tar Heel, N.C., is one of the world’s largest pork processing facilities, employing about 4,500 people and slaughtering roughly 30,000 pigs a day at its peak. And like more than 100 other meat plants across the United States, the facility has seen a substantial number of coronavirus cases. But the exact number of workers in Tar Heel who have tested positive is anyone’s guess. Smithfield would not provide any data when asked about the number of illnesses at the plant. Neither would state or local health officials. (Corkery, Yaffe-Bellany and Kravitz, 5/25)

The Washington Post: Meat Industry Trying To Get Back To Normal, But Coronavirus Persists 
Tyson Foods, the largest meat processor in the United States, has transformed its facilities across the country since legions of its workers started getting sick from the novel coronavirus. It has set up on-site medical clinics, screened employees for fevers at the beginning of their shifts, required the use of face coverings, installed plastic dividers between stations and taken a host of other steps to slow the spread. Despite those efforts, the number of Tyson employees with the coronavirus has exploded from less than 1,600 a month ago to more than 7,000 today, according to a Washington Post analysis of news reports and public records. (Telford, 5/25)

The Associated Press: Worker Shortage Concerns Loom In Immigrant-Heavy Meatpacking
When Martha Kebede’s adult sons immigrated from Ethiopia and reunited with her in South Dakota this year, they had few work opportunities. Lacking English skills, the brothers took jobs at Smithfield Foods’ Sioux Falls pork plant, grueling and increasingly risky work as the coronavirus sickened thousands of meatpacking workers nationwide. One day half the workers on a slicing line vanished; later the brothers tested positive for the COVID-19 virus. (Groves and Tareen, 5/26)

The New York Times: What Role Should Employers Play In Testing Workers?
As the country reopens, employers are looking into how to safely bring back their workers. One recurring question: Should they be tested for the new coronavirus? Some businesses are moving ahead. In Indianapolis, the family-owned Shapiro’s Delicatessen tested about 25 employees in its parking lot this month. Amazon plans to spend as much as $1 billion this year to regularly test its work force, while laying the groundwork to build its own lab near the Cincinnati airport. (Eder, Gabler, Kliff and Murphy, 5/22)

The New York Times: The Price Of A Virus Lockdown: Economic ‘Free Fall’ In California
Locked down in their homes, the four former California governors clicked into a Zoom call and one after another described how they dealt with the crises that had defined their time in office. For Pete Wilson, it was the 1994 Northridge earthquake. Gray Davis evoked the electricity disaster that drove him out in a recall election, and Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jerry Brown lamented the Great Recession. But the former governors agreed that nothing they confronted was as dire or will be more consequential than what the current occupant of the office, Gov. Gavin Newsom, now faces. (Arango and Fuller, 5/26)

The New York Times: For Families Already Stretched To The Limit, The Pandemic Is A Disaster 
The two-­bedroom apartment near an old cemetery in Glassboro, N.J., may not look like much, but it means everything to Chekesha Sydnor-­Jones and her family. After an eviction, they spent 2018 crammed into a motel room. After scrimping and saving, Sydnor-­Jones’s family was able to put a month’s deposit down on a rental in this middle-­class town and move into an actual home. The space is tight — Sydnor-­Jones’s three adult daughters shared the finished attic with her 10-year-old daughter; her 18-year-old son has one bedroom on the main floor, and she and her partner have the other. (Hannah-Jones, 5/23)

Reuters: Red Cross Urges Halt To Cyberattacks On Healthcare Sector Amid COVID-19
The Red Cross called for an end to cyberattacks on healthcare and medical research facilities during the coronavirus pandemic, in a letter published Tuesday and signed by a group of political and business figures. Such attacks endanger human lives and governments must take “immediate and decisive action” to stop them, the letter stated. (Bing, 5/26)

The New York Times: Fear Of Covid Leads Other Patients To Decline Critical Treatment
It was the call Lance Hansen, gravely ill with liver disease, had been waiting weeks for, and it came just before midnight in late April. A liver was available for him. He got up to get dressed for the three-hour drive to San Francisco for the transplant surgery. And then he panicked. “Within five minutes after hanging up, he started hyperventilating,” his wife, Carmen, said. “He kept saying: ‘I’m going to get Covid, and then I’m going to die. And if I die, I want my family there.’ I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.” (Hafner, 5/25)

The New York Times: You’re Getting Used To Masks. Will You Wear A Face Shield?
The debate over whether Americans should wear face masks to control coronavirus transmission has been settled. Governments and businesses now require or at least recommend them in many public settings. But as parts of the country reopen, some doctors want you to consider another layer of personal protective equipment in your daily life: clear plastic face shields. “I wear a face shield every time I enter a store or other building,” said Dr. Eli Perencevich. “Sometimes I also wear a cloth mask if required by the store’s policy.” (Sheikh, 5/24)

Reuters: A Pregnant Doctor Navigates COVID-19 Fight In Low Income LA
After putting a coronavirus patient onto a ventilator to help him to breathe, Dr. Zafia Anklesaria noted to herself that her baby never kicked during emergency procedures. It was not until she was back in her office and had removed most of her protective equipment that he made his presence known. (Nicholson and Cooke, 5/26)

The Associated Press: N.Y. Will Provide Benefits To Families Of Workers Who Died From Virus, Cuomo Says
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York said the state would pay death benefits to the families of frontline workers who died fighting the Covid-19 pandemic. (5/25)

Stat: As Covid-19 Hits Navajo Nation, Young People Step Up To Protect Elders
Michelle Tom stared into the screen. The Navajo doctor had just finished a grueling shift at the Winslow Indian Health Care Center urgent care facility in Winslow, Ariz., caring for Covid-19 patients. Now, she was spending her Friday night speaking via livestream to Native American youth about the pandemic. “I’ve seen it hit everyone,” she said of the coronavirus. “But I have the strength of my ancestors, the strength of my prayers, and the strength of all of you. We have to keep talking about it, especially to our young people.” (Gable, 5/26)