Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Legislative Sessions Bring State Lawmakers Back Into Play In Ongoing Power Struggle Over Reopening
The New York Times: Back In Session, State Legislatures Challenge Governors’ Authority
State lawmakers in Mississippi voted overwhelmingly last week to strip away the governor’s authority to spend more than $1.2 billion in federal funds. In Wisconsin, lawyers for the Legislature’s Republican leaders argued before the State Supreme Court their case for reining in the governor’s executive “safer-at-home” order. And in Louisiana, plexiglass barriers separated masked lawmakers as they returned to work this week for the first time since the state became a coronavirus hot spot. (Rojas, 5/8)
The Washington Post: Power Struggles Erupt As Governors And State Legislatures Fight Over Coronavirus Response
Reeves’s frustration is an example of the challenges that governors nationwide face as state legislators become more assertive in challenging executive authority as the coronavirus pandemic drags on. From Kansas to New Hampshire, state lawmakers are rushing to sponsor legislation, file court challenges and make public statements on what they see as gubernatorial overreach on matters ranging from the spending of federal dollars to whether their neighborhood hair salon or tavern should remain closed. (Craig and Gowen, 5/7)
Detroit Free Press: Why Gov. Whitmer Is Likely To Win GOP Lawsuit Over Emergency Powers
The lawsuit Republican lawmakers filed Wednesday over Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's use of emergency powers during the coronavirus pandemic appears to be a loser, according to three Michigan law professors. A fourth law professor said he finds the Legislature's legal arguments "plausible, if not persuasive," but said he thinks it would be extremely difficult for a judge or a panel of judges to second-guess the governor during a deadly pandemic. (Egan, 5/7)
The Washington Post: Coronavirus Solutions: Meet The People Working To Mitigate The Pandemic’s Effects
They are immigrants and the children of immigrants, public servants, people on their second careers. They are planners and problem-solvers. What they lack in swagger they make up for in empathy, skill and statistical rigor. Their greatest power is their ability to learn from the mistakes of the past. They are the right people in the right place at the right moment, like physician-researcher Andre Kalil, a veteran of past epidemics trying to find a cure for this pandemic, and Anar Yukhayev, a New York obstetrician-gynecologist who was severely ill with covid-19 when he enrolled in a clinical trial for an untested treatment. (Kaplan, Reiley, Rowland, Tan and Weintraub, 5/7)
CNN: Novel Coronavirus Fears And Frustrations As US States Reopen
With nearly all states partially reopened this week, backlash and frustrations are growing as Americans struggle with ways to combat the deadly coronavirus. More than 40 states are opening some businesses and restarting economies crushed by a pandemic that has killed nearly 76,000 people and infected over 1.2 million. (Karimi, 5/8)
ABC News: Reopening The Country Seen As Greater Risk Among Most Americans: POLL
Americans, by a large 30-point margin, are resistant to re-opening the country now, believing the risk to human life of opening the country outweighs the economic toll of remaining under restrictive lockdowns -- a concern that starkly divides along partisan lines, according to a new ABC News/Ipsos released Friday. In the new poll, conducted by Ipsos in partnership with ABC News using Ipsos’ Knowledge Panel, nearly two-thirds of Americans said they more closely align with the view that opening the county now is not advantageous since it will result in a higher death toll, while slightly more than one-third agree with the belief that an immediate reopening is beneficial to minimize the negative impact on the economy. (Karson, 5/8)
Reuters: Michigan, California Move To Reopen Factories As U.S. Jobless Ranks Grow
Michigan and California, two U.S. manufacturing powerhouses, acted on Thursday to allow factories to reopen from coronavirus lockdowns over the next few days, as millions more Americans joined the ranks of workers left jobless by the pandemic. (Klayman and Bernstein, 5/7)
Los Angeles Times: Coronavirus Second Wave Fears Shadow California Reopening
Los Angeles County health officials on Thursday announced 51 news coronavirus-linked fatalities, pushing California’s death toll past 2,500. The majority of those — 1,418 — have been in L.A. County, California’s largest and the hotbed of COVID-19 infections in the state. These numbers “represent people who live in our community, and they have families and friends who are suffering as they mourn their loved ones,” the director of the county Department of Public Health, Barbara Ferrer, said. “I ask you to join with us and keep them in our thoughts and prayers.” (Money and Chabria, 5/7)
Los Angeles Times: First Californian To Get Coronavirus In Community Spread Was Infected At A Nail Salon, Newsom Says
The first person in California to contract the coronavirus through community spread caught the virus in a nail salon, Gov. Gavin Newsom said Thursday. Newsom cited the case when asked why personal services, such as nail salons, must remain closed even as the state starts to slowly open businesses. (Willon, 5/7)
The Washington Post: How Gov. Ralph Northam Decided When Virginia Might Emerge From Shutdown
Gov. Ralph Northam looked like anyone else working from home on Sunday night, wearing an old flannel shirt and sweatpants. But he was dialing into a conference call that would determine when 8.5 million Virginians could go back out and earn a living or get a haircut or eat in a restaurant amid the coronavirus pandemic. There was increasing pressure to reopen as the state’s economy tanked. (Schneider and Vozzella, 5/7)
The Washington Post: After Outcry, Arizona Restores Partnership With Team Projecting Increased Coronavirus Cases
Arizona reversed course on Thursday and resumed a partnership with epidemiologists whose projections suggest the state may be moving too rapidly to reopen businesses as cases of the novel coronavirus mount. The turnaround, after a public outcry, marked the latest chapter in a skirmish over data and public policy that reflects the anguished national debate over how to incorporate scientific expertise to protect both lives and livelihoods during a pandemic that has killed more than 75,000 Americans and thrown 33 million out of work. (Stanley-Becker, 5/7)
ABC News: Why This ICU Nurse Stood Up To People Protesting Stay-At-Home Orders
On her day off from caring for patients in the Banner Health COVID-19 unit, intensive care unit nurse Lauren Leander went to the Arizona State Capitol to meet those protesting the state's stay-at-home order. She stood in a silent protest as, she said, people approached her enraged. (Yang, 5/7)
