Reuters: Global Coronavirus Cases Surpass One Million
Global coronavirus cases surpassed 1 million on Thursday with more than 52,000 deaths as the pandemic further exploded in the United States and the death toll climbed in Spain and Italy, according to a Reuters tally of official data. Italy had the most deaths, more than 13,900, followed by Spain. The United States had the most confirmed cases of any country, more than 240,000, the data showed. Since the virus was first recorded in China late last year, the pandemic has spread around the world, prompting governments to close businesses, ground airlines and order hundreds of millions of people to stay at home to try to slow the contagion. (Shumaker and Wallis, 4/2)

The Wall Street Journal: Global Coronavirus Cases Top One Million, As Economic Toll Mounts
The U.S. has 236,339 reported cases of the virus, representing just under a quarter of the world-wide figures. That’s nearly twice the number of reported cases in Italy, the next-highest country, although the rates of illness and death might be underreported there and in other countries. Health experts in the U.S. have voiced concerns about the accuracy of coronavirus testing, believing nearly one in three infected with the illness is testing negative. Between 8 p.m. Wednesday and the same time Thursday, 850 people in the U.S. died from Covid-19, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of data from Johns Hopkins University, bringing the nation’s total to more than 5,900. (Calfas, Dvorak and El-Fekki, 4/2)

The Associated Press: Confirmed Coronavirus Cases Hit 1 Million Worldwide
The figures were another bleak milestone in the pandemic that has forced the lockdown of entire countries and brought economies to a shuddering halt. Still, the true numbers of deaths and infections are believed to be much higher, in part because of differences in counting practices, many mild cases that have gone unreported, testing shortages, and suspicions of a cover-up in some countries. (4/2)

Bloomberg: 1 Million People Infected: How Coronavirus Spread Around the World
Wuhan’s first known virus patient begins developing symptoms on Dec. 1, according to a paper published Jan. 24 in The Lancet medical journal. On Dec. 16, doctors at the Central Hospital of Wuhan send samples from another patient with a persistent fever for lab testing. Those results show a SARS-like virus and on Dec. 30 Ai Fen, the head of the hospital’s ER department, posts a picture of a lab report on Chinese social media, which is re-posted and circulated by several other doctors. They’re reprimanded by local police for “spreading rumors.” (Chang, 4/2)

Politico: Inside The National Security Council, A Rising Sense Of Dread
On the second day in January, as a mysterious pathogen was infecting its way across China, Dr. Robert Redfield contacted the National Security Council. The U.S. government had unconfirmed information about what they believed to be a novel coronavirus, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. Better pay attention. (Lippman and McGraw, 4/2)

Los Angeles Times: Trump Ended Coronavirus Detection Pandemic Program
Two months before the novel coronavirus is thought to have begun its deadly advance in Wuhan, China, the Trump administration ended a $200-million pandemic early-warning program aimed at training scientists in China and other countries to detect and respond to such a threat. The project, launched by the U.S. Agency for International Development in 2009, identified 1,200 different viruses that had the potential to erupt into pandemics, including more than 160 novel coronaviruses. The initiative, called PREDICT, also trained and supported staff in 60 foreign laboratories — including the Wuhan lab that identified SARS-CoV-2, the new coronavirus that causes COVID-19. (Baumgaertner and Rainey, 4/2)

The Washington Post: Commander Of Confusion: Trump Sows Uncertainty And Seeks To Cast Blame In Coronavirus Crisis
In the three weeks since declaring the novel coronavirus outbreak a national emergency, President Trump has delivered a dizzying array of rhetorical contortions, sowed confusion and repeatedly sought to cast blame on others. History has never known a crisis response as strong as his own, Trump says — yet the self-described wartime president claims he is merely backup. He has faulted governors for acting too slowly and, as he did Thursday, has accused overwhelmed state and hospital officials of complaining too much and of hoarding supplies. (Rucker and Costa, 4/2)

NBC News: Trump Administration's Lack Of A Unified Coronavirus Strategy Will Cost Lives, Say A Dozen Experts
The Trump administration's decision to let states chart their own responses to the coronavirus crisis rather than impose a national strategy will cost thousands of lives and is likely to result in an open-ended outbreak rolling across the country, a dozen public health experts told NBC News. The only way to win what President Donald Trump has called a war against an "invisible enemy" is to establish a unified federal command, the experts insist — something Trump has yet to do. So far, the federal government hasn't leveraged all its authority and influence to dramatically expand testing and tracing measures, ensure a sufficient supply of crucial medical equipment or require residents of all 50 states to stay at home. (Dilanian and De Luce, 4/3)

Politico: Trump Team Reaches Into Presidential History For A Historic Crisis
When the avian flu first spread to pockets of Southeast Asia in 2005, President George W. Bush reassured Americans he would be prepared if the viral infection reached the United States. “I have thought through the scenarios of what an avian flu outbreak could mean,” Bush informed the public at a news conference in the White House Rose Garden that October, noting his recent dive into a book on pandemics. (Orr, 4/3)

Politico: 'Lack Of Leadership': Esper's Pandemic Response Draws Fire As Crisis Deepens
Defense Secretary Mark Esper is under fire for the Pentagon's response to the coronavirus pandemic as lawmakers, national security experts and people throughout the Defense Department’s ranks fault him for a slow and uneven approach to the outbreak. Esper is coming under scrutiny for punting tough choices over how to slow the virus to local commanders, resulting in a hodgepodge of rules driven more by concerns over readiness than the need to contain the virus. (Seligman and Bender, 4/2)

The New York Times: Jared Kushner Puts Himself In Middle Of Trump's Chaotic Coronavirus Response 
Peter T. Gaynor, the federal government’s top emergency manager, was about to go on television last week to announce that he would use wartime production powers to ensure the manufacture of about 60,000 desperately needed coronavirus test kits. With minutes until the camera went live, though, he still had to let the White House know. The person he hurriedly called: Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser, who endorsed an announcement that surprised many officials. Among those unaware that Mr. Kushner had agreed to the use of the special powers? President Trump. (Baker, Haberman, Kanno-Youngs and Weiland, 4/2)

In other news from the Trump administration's response efforts —

The New York Times: C.I.A. Hunts For Authentic Virus Totals In China, Dismissing Government Tallies
The C.I.A. has been warning the White House since at least early February that China has vastly understated its coronavirus infections and that its count could not be relied upon as the United States compiles predictive models to fight the virus, according to current and former intelligence officials. The intelligence briefings in recent weeks, based at least in part on information from C.I.A. assets in China, played an important role in President Trump’s negotiation on Thursday of an apparent détente with President Xi Jinping of China. Since then, both countries have ratcheted back criticism of each other. (Barnes, 4/2)

The Washington Post: Experts And Trump’s Advisers Doubt White House’s 240,000 Coronavirus Deaths Estimate
Leading disease forecasters, whose research the White House used to conclude 100,000 to 240,000 people will die nationwide from the coronavirus, were mystified when they saw the administration’s projection this week. The experts said they don’t challenge the numbers’ validity but that they don’t know how the White House arrived at them. White House officials have refused to explain how they generated the figure — a death toll bigger than the United States suffered in the Vietnam War or the 9/11 terrorist attacks. (Wan, Dawsey, Parker and Achenbach, 4/2)

Los Angeles Times: U.S. Stops Issuing Passports Except In Emergencies
The U.S. State Department won’t be processing new passports and renewals except for emergency cases because of the coronavirus pandemic, the agency’s website said. “Due to public health measures to limit the spread of COVID-19, effective March 20, 2020, we are only able to offer service for customers with a qualified life-or-death emergency and who need a passport for immediate international travel within 72 hours,” said a March 27 online statement. (Forgione, 4/2)

The Hill: Trump Again Tests Negative For Coronavirus 
President Trump has tested negative for the coronavirus a second time and is “healthy and without symptoms,” the White House doctor says. White House physician Sean Conley wrote in a memo that Trump was tested again Thursday morning for COVID-19 using a new point-of-care test that yielded results in 15 minutes. (Chalfant, 4/2)

The Wall Street Journal: Trump Invokes Korean War-Era Law To Get Ventilators Built Amid Short Supply
President Trump invoked a Korean War-era law to help manufacturers secure supplies needed to make ventilators and protective face masks, as the federal stockpile of the medical devices was running dangerously low amid the coronavirus pandemic. Mr. Trump used the Defense Production Act in an effort to address the surging levels of patients in particularly hard-hit metro areas such as New York, New Orleans and Detroit. The federal government has distributed roughly half of its ventilators, according to an analysis by The Wall Street Journal, and has fewer than 10,000 still in hand—as the nation is projected to need tens of thousands more in the next weeks ahead. (Levy and Leary, 4/2)

Reuters: Trump Invokes Defense Production Act For Ventilator Manufacturing
Lawmakers have clamored for Trump to invoke the act to end or at least reduce the country’s yawning shortage of ventilators. Because the fast-spreading coronavirus is a respiratory disease, the need for ventilators is multiplying by the hundreds each day. On Thursday Johns Hopkins University said more than 1 million people around the world currently have the coronavirus. State officials and health experts said the United States will ultimately need tens of thousands of additional ventilators. (4/2)

Politico: Days After Ventilator DPA Order, White House Has Done Little To Push GM
President Donald Trump invoked sweeping war powers last week to demand that General Motors start producing ventilators, but so far his administration has done little to enforce the order. The president's top trade official, Peter Navarro, told POLITICO the administration has not been able to verify whether GM has made any progress since the Defense Production Act was invoked, raising questions about whether the full powers of the federal government are being used to urgently produce ventilators. (Bade and Cassella, 4/2)

The Associated Press: States Demand Ventilators As Feds Ration Limited Supply
Two weeks ago, the Pentagon promised to make as many as 2,000 military ventilators available as the federal government strains to contend with the coronavirus pandemic. As of Wednesday, less than half had been allocated, despite a desperate need across the country. At the Federal Emergency Management Agency, tasked with coordinating the federal response to the outbreak, about 9,000 additional ventilators are also on hold as officials seek to determine where they are needed most urgently. (Alonso-Zaldivar, Burns and Fox, 4/3)

Politico: FEMA Tells Lawmakers Most New Ventilators Won't Be Ready Until June
Most of the 100,000 ventilators that President Donald Trump promised the U.S. would obtain won't be available until June, Federal Emergency Management Agency officials told the House Oversight Committee this week. FEMA officials, according to a readout of a pair of briefings by the panel's Democrats, indicated that a shortage of ventilators would worsen by the middle of this month before the coronavirus outbreak peaks. (Cheney, 4/2)

The Washington Post: Federal Government Gave D.C. A Fraction Of What It Sought To Fight Coronavirus
Washington-area leaders slammed the Trump administration Thursday over significant shortfalls in the number of hospital ventilators, respirator masks, gloves and other supplies delivered from a national stockpile to help combat the fast-spreading novel coronavirus. Virginia, Maryland and the District received just a fraction of the equipment they requested from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, with the District getting zero hospital ventilators and Maryland getting none of the nasal swabs used for testing, according to documents released Thursday by the House oversight committee. (Olivo, Portnoy and Nirappil, 4/2)

CNN: New York Governor Andrew Cuomo Says Coronavirus Spreading Across US Like 'Slow-Moving Hurricane' 
With more than 6,000 deaths from coronavirus, US health officials and state leaders across the country are urging for a stronger response to the outbreak. In New York, where 2,468 people have died from the virus, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said the state has about six days left before it runs out of ventilators. "It's like watching a slow-moving hurricane across the country, where you know the path that it's taking. Why not deploy the national resources and just stay ahead of the hurricane?" he said Thursday. (Maxouris, 4/3)

Politico: New York Hospitals Rationing Ventilators, Retrofitting Equipment Amid Crush Of Coronavirus
Hospitals and physicians are making difficult choices to contend with an almost certain shortage of ventilators in the coming days, as the coronavirus rapidly spreads throughout the state. Emergency physicians are already being told to use their judgment in deciding who should be hooked up to a ventilator as stockpiles of the essential equipment dwindle. And hospitals are converting machines typically used to treat sleep apnea as bidding wars and supply constraints make it nearly impossible to acquire enough ventilators and protective equipment ahead of the projected apex of cases in New York. (Muoio and Eisenberg, 4/2)

The Wall Street Journal: New York Gets Creative In Search For Ventilators
New York state will finance companies willing to manufacture ventilators and other needed medical supplies, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said, as reported cases of the coronavirus continued to grow. The state has enough ventilators in its stockpile for the next six days at hospitals’ current rate of use, Mr. Cuomo said Thursday. At least 400 ventilators were sent Wednesday night to New York City public hospitals. “We’re not asking for a favor from these businesses,” the governor said at a press conference. Companies and manufacturers who need financial help to convert factories for such work can get help from the state’s economic development agency, he said. (Honan and DeAvila, 4/2)

NPR: Preparing Hospitals For Ventilator Shortages
The survival rate for COVID-19 patients on ventilators may be as low as 20%, though the machines' effectiveness for those patients is still being studied. "At the current burn rate, we have about six days of ventilators in our stockpile," Cuomo said on Thursday. If there are not enough ventilators to provide one for every patient who might benefit, hospitals in New York would need to begin making excruciating decisions about who will receive what care. (Kaste and Hersher, 4/3)

NPR: Majority Of Coronavirus Patients Put On Ventilators Don't Survive
Most coronavirus patients who end up on ventilators go on to die, according to several small studies from the U.S., China and Europe. And many of the patients who continue to live can't be taken off the mechanical breathing machines. "It's very concerning to see how many patients who require ventilation do not make it out of the hospital," says Dr. Tiffany Osborn, a critical care specialist at Washington University in St. Louis who has been caring for coronavirus patients at Barnes-Jewish Hospital. (Hamilton, 4/2)

Detroit Free Press: Tracking Michigan's Available Hospital Beds, Ventilators Amid COVID-19
As the number of Michigan residents with COVID-19 infections continues to rise, hospitals are bracing for shortages in staffing and beds, as well as crucial medical supplies like personal protective equipment (PPE) and ventilators.  "Given the trajectory of COVID-19 in the state. We will likely need additional facilities," the state's chief medical executive Dr. Joneigh Khaldun said on Thursday. "We will also need additional medical professionals, doctors, nurses, respiratory therapists, physician assistants and others to staff them." (Tanner, 4/2)

The Wall Street Journal: Google Offers User Location Data To Health Officials Tackling Coronavirus
Google will help public health officials use its vast storage of data to track people’s movements amid the coronavirus pandemic, in what the company called an effort to assist in “unprecedented times.” The initiative, announced by the company late Thursday, uses a portion of the information that the search giant has collected on users, including through Google Maps, to create reports on the degree to which locales are abiding by social-distancing measures. The “mobility reports” will be posted publicly and show, for instance, whether particular localities, states or countries are seeing more or less people flow into shops, grocery stores, pharmacies and parks. (Copeland, 4/3)

Politico: Google Wielding Its Vast Troves Of Phone-Tracking Data In Virus Fight
The announcement marks the most public acknowledgment yet of the role that data on people's movements — derived from smartphones — is playing in the U.S. public health response to the virus outbreak. Countries in Europe and Asia have more openly wielded data from phones and mobile apps in their efforts to stem the spread of the illness, which has infected more than 1 million people worldwide. Google's report will show how foot traffic has increased or declined to six types of destinations: homes, workplaces, retail and recreation establishments, parks, grocery stores and pharmacies, and transit stations. (Overly, 4/3)

The Wall Street Journal: U.S. And Europe Turn To Phone-Tracking Strategies To Halt Spread Of Coronavirus
Western governments aiming to relax restrictions on movement are turning to unprecedented surveillance to track people infected with the new coronavirus and identify those with whom they have been in contact. Governments in China, Singapore, Israel and South Korea that are already using such data credit the practice with helping slow the spread of the virus. The U.S. and European nations, which have often been more protective of citizens’ data than those countries, are now looking at a similar approach, using apps and cellphone data. (Marson, Stupp and Hinshaw, 4/3)

The New York Times: Location Data Says It All: Staying At Home During Coronavirus Is A Luxury
It has been about two weeks since the Illinois governor ordered residents to stay at home, but nothing has changed about Adarra Benjamin’s responsibilities. She gets on a bus nearly every morning in Chicago, traveling 20 miles round trip some days to cook, clean and shop for her clients, who are older or have health problems that make such tasks difficult. Ms. Benjamin knows the dangers, but she needs her job, which pays about $13 an hour. She also cannot imagine leaving her clients to fend for themselves. “They’ve become my family,” she said. (Valentino-DeVries, Lu and Dance, 4/3)

Reuters: Do Social Distancing Better, White House Doctor Tells Americans. Trump Objects
Dr. Deborah Birx, the coordinator of the White House task force on the coronavirus, had a message for Americans on Thursday: do better at social distancing. President Donald Trump didn’t like the message. At what has become a daily briefing by the president and his advisers, Birx, a highly respected expert in global health, has served the role of explainer, walking journalists and the public through the data behind federal recommendations designed to slow the virus’s spread. (Mason, 4/2)

CNN: Dr. Anthony Fauci: Says 'I Don't Understand Why' Every State Hasn't Issued Stay-At-Home Orders 
The nation's top infectious disease expert said Thursday he doesn't understand why every state hasn't issued stay-at-home orders as novel coronavirus cases continue to surge across the US. "I don't understand why that's not happening," Dr. Anthony Fauci told CNN's Anderson Cooper during CNN's coronavirus town hall. (LeBlanc, 4/3)

Modern Healthcare: Public Compliance With COVID-19 Precautions Soars, Survey Shows
The percentage of Americans who are sheltering in place and engaging in social distancing soared in late March as the public began taking the coronavirus pandemic more seriously, though differences between Democrats and Republicans remain significant, according to a new Kaiser Family Foundation survey. The survey found the pandemic is hitting Americans hard, with 39% saying they've already lost a job or income due to the crisis, 45% saying the stress is affecting their mental health, and 34% saying they've been unable to get needed medical care unrelated to COVID-19. (Meyer, 4/2)

The New York Times: How Fast The Coronavirus Outbreak Is Growing In Hundreds Of U.S. Communities
The New York metropolitan area has become the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic. But growth in cases and deaths also continues in other parts of the United States, including large metros like New Orleans and Detroit, and some smaller ones like Albany, Ga., where a large funeral apparently seeded many cases. If current patterns hold, several communities are on track to have epidemics as serious as New York’s. (Katz, Quealy and Sanger-Katz, 4/3)

Bloomberg: Next Virus ‘Hot Spots’ Seen As Michigan, Connecticut, Indiana
The rate of positive coronavirus tests suggests that the next “hot spots” could include Michigan, Connecticut, Indiana, Georgia and Illinois, said White House virus task-force coordinator Deborah Birx. “We do have two states that have 35% positives. And that’s New York and New Jersey. So that confirms very clearly that that’s a very clear and an important hot zone.” Birx told reporters at a White House briefing on Thursday evening. Louisiana’s positive test rate is 26%. (Jacobs and Fabian, 4/2)

The Hill: Cities Across The Country In Danger Of Becoming Coronavirus Hotspots 
All eyes are on New York City, the epicenter of the coronavirus in the U.S., but experts warn other areas of the country are at risk of becoming hot spots. Cities in the South and Midwest, in particular, are in danger of becoming the next hot spots as data shows cases there are increasing rapidly and haven’t yet peaked. “Every city is in danger of looking like the challenges we've seen in Wuhan, in Italy and in New York City,” Tom Frieden, former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said in a call with reporters Wednesday. (Hellmann, 4/2)

CIDRAP: Southern States Face Growing COVID-19 Crises
Governor Brian Kemp of Georgia, who said this morning he just learned that the novel coronavirus could be spread by asymptomatic carriers, issued a statewide stay-at-home order today, following a similar announcement yesterday by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. Both Kemp and DeSantis have resisted shutting down state economies during the COVID-19 pandemic. (Soucheray, 4/2)

The Washington Post: As Virus Takes Hold, Resistance To Stay-At-Home Orders Remains Widespread — Exposing Political And Social Rifts
Kay Ivey, the Republican governor of Alabama, put down a marker last week in affirming that it was “not the time to order people to shelter in place.” “Y’all, we are not Louisiana, we are not New York state, we are not California,” she said, suggesting that the fate of hard-hit parts of the country would not be shared by Alabama. In Missouri, Republican Gov. Mike Parson said he was not inclined to “make a blanket policy,” adding, “It’s going to come down to individual responsibilities.” (Stanley-Becker and Janes, 4/2)

The New York Times: Where America Didn’t Stay Home Even As The Virus Spread
Stay-at-home orders have nearly halted travel for most Americans, but people in Florida, the Southeast and other places that waited to enact such orders have continued to travel widely, potentially exposing more people as the coronavirus outbreak accelerates, according to an analysis of cellphone location data by The New York Times. The divide in travel patterns, based on anonymous cellphone data from 15 million people, suggests that Americans in wide swaths of the West, Northeast and Midwest have complied with orders from state and local officials to stay home. (4/2)

The Washington Post: Coronavirus Surges In Florida; Stay-At-Home Order May Be Too Late
Slowly and reluctantly over the past month, as coronavirus infections grew from almost none to nearly 8,000 and more than 125 residents have died, Florida has sobered up. Under mounting pressure, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) this week ordered most Floridians to remain at home starting Friday, a move that more than 30 U.S. states had already taken in an effort to slow the spread of a deadly viral infection with no vaccine and no cure. But as case counts climb in the nation’s third most-populous state — one home to bustling international airports, swarms of tourists and many vulnerable residents — many are now left to wait and wonder if the latest restrictions came in time, and what lies ahead for the Sunshine State. (Wootson, Rozsa and Dennis, 4/2)

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Georgia Governor Puts Georgia On Lockdown
Gov. Brian Kemp ordered Georgians to stay at home, with few exceptions, until at least April 13 to help curb the ever-worsening spread of the novel coronavirus.Issuing a shelter-in-place mandate that temporarily alters the daily lives of the state’s 10.6 million residents, Kemp abandoned his earlier declarations that the coronavirus pandemic did not require the extreme measures in Georgia that more than three dozen other states had already dictated. (Judd, Wickert and Bluestein, 4/2)

ProPublica: Rural Counties Consider An Alternative Type Of Social Distancing — Kicking Chicago Out Of Illinois
As she sat Wednesday on the covered deck at the 4-Way Saloon in Sidell, overlooking the town grain elevator, Leslie Powell made her way down the list of tasks she had scribbled on her yellow notepad. Asking the utility company for a payment plan was first. Powell’s husband, Mark, became owner of this busy little bar and grill in east-central Illinois just nine days before Gov. J.B. Pritzker ordered residents across the state to shelter in place in an attempt to halt the spread of the novel coronavirus outbreak. (Jaffe and Eldeib, 4/3)

ProPublica: Meet The Pastors Holding In-Person Services During Coronavirus
At least 25 parishioners filed into a beige-brick church here Wednesday evening and were handed rubber gloves at the door. A handwritten sign directed them to designated areas with seats that had been spaced 6 feet apart. Another sign laid out five things people should do to keep from spreading the new strain of coronavirus, including staying away if they felt sick. The founding pastor of City on a Hill, Juan Bustamante, was in a particularly good mood. A day earlier, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott joined 30-plus other governors around the country in issuing a statewide stay-at-home order — though he declined to refer to it as such — that also designated religious services as essential. (Collier, Davila and Trevizo, 4/2)

The New York Times: Cities That Went All In On Social Distancing In 1918 Emerged Stronger For It
As the first local influenza deaths were counted in the fall of 1918, officials in Minneapolis moved quickly — more aggressively than even state health officials thought was wise — and shut down the city. They closed schools, churches, theaters and pool halls, effective midnight on Oct. 12. Across the Mississippi River, St. Paul remained largely open into November, with its leaders confident they had the epidemic under control. Fully three weeks after Minneapolis — with The St. Paul Pioneer Press pleading “In Heaven’s Name Do Something!” — St. Paul ordered sweeping closures, too. (Badger and Bui, 4/3)

Stat: Americans Are Underestimating Duration Of Coronavirus Crisis, Experts Say
Public health experts are increasingly worried that Americans are underestimating how long the coronavirus pandemic will disrupt everyday life in the country, warning that the Trump administration’s timelines are offering many a false sense of comfort. Coronavirus cases are expected to peak in mid-April in many parts of the country, but quickly reopening businesses or loosening shelter-in-place rules would inevitably lead to a new surge of infections, they said. (Branswell, 4/3)

NBC News: Coronavirus: American In Wuhan Warns U.S. Over Lockdowns
An American who spent more than two months locked down in the Chinese city of Wuhan, where the coronavirus epidemic first emerged, is urging people back home to prepare for a lengthy interruption to their lives. “Don't go into this thinking it's going to be over in a few weeks,” Benjamin Wilson told NBC News from his apartment in Wuhan where he and his family spent eight weeks in confinement. (Simmons and Talmazan, 4/3)

CIDRAP: Before-Symptom Spread May Complicate COVID-19 Containment 
When conducting contact tracing as a COVID-19 containment measure, public health officials should include people with whom the infected person had contact before that person had symptoms, according to a study published yesterday in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. The study adds to mounting evidence of this type of spread and underscores the difficulty of identifying and isolating infected people. (Van Beusekom, 4/2)

The New York Times: Trump Administration Officials Weigh How Far To Go On Recommending Masks
The Trump administration is close to recommending that all Americans wear cloth masks if they go out in public, a change in position that reflects new concerns that the coronavirus is being spread by infected people who have no symptoms and new data suggesting the United States is not yet slowing the rate of infections. At a White House briefing Thursday evening, both President Trump and Vice President Pence said that new guidance on masks would be issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the coming days. (Goodnough and Sanger-Katz, 4/2)

Stat: Amid Coronavirus, White House Set To Recommend Wearing Cloth Masks
In a draft document obtained by STAT, the CDC recommended that the public use homemade face coverings when in public, reserving higher-grade protective equipment like N95 masks for hospitals and health care workers, who have faced severe shortages in personal protective equipment as the coronavirus pandemic has accelerated through the United States. Such face coverings, according to the draft guidance, would not be intended to protect the wearer, but rather prevent the wearer from unknowingly spreading the disease when in public. (Facher, 4/2)

The Washington Post: White House Expected To Urge Americans To Wear Face Coverings In Public To Slow Spread Of Coronavirus
White House coronavirus task force officials have been considering whether to recommend that face coverings be routinely worn in public because of increasing evidence that infected people without symptoms can spread the virus, according to internal memos and new guidance provided to the White House by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Sun and Dawsey, 4/2)

The Wall Street Journal: U.S. Expected To Recommend Cloth Face Masks For Americans In Coronavirus Hot Spots
The White House has been urging people without symptoms not to buy masks, hoping to ease heavy purchases of the products that have created shortages. On Feb. 29, Vice President Mike Pence said, “Let me be very clear -- and I’m sure the physicians who are up here will reflect this as well: The average American does not need to go out and buy a mask.” (McKay and Armour, 4/2)

Politico: Trump Set To Urge Americans To Wear Face Coverings When Outside
Officials have spent days debating the planned recommendation, worried about the risk of sending mixed messages on public health, draining health workers' supplies and giving Americans a false sense of security. Experts have cautioned that homemade masks are insufficient to protect the wearer from contracting the coronavirus. (Diamond, 4/2)

The Hill: Birx Cautions Masks Shouldn't Give People 'False Sense Of Security'
The White House's coronavirus response coordinator on Thursday cautioned that a looming advisory encouraging Americans to use masks or face coverings to help prevent spread of the virus should not lull people into a "false sense of security." Deborah Birx said during a daily briefing that officials are still reviewing data about the benefits of having individuals wear masks when they go outside, but that any final guidance should only be treated as an "additive" piece to existing social distancing guidelines. (Samuels, 4/2)

The Associated Press: Trump Admin Moves Toward Promoting Broader Use Of Face Masks
The discussions on face masks came as the White House moved aggressively to defend its handling of the coronavirus pandemic, particularly its efforts to speed the distribution of ventilators and protective equipment needed by medical professionals. (Miller and Stobbe, 4/3)

The Wall Street Journal: What Are The Benefits Of Wearing A Face Mask?
To wear a face mask or not? The advice has been confusing. In China, Hong Kong, and Singapore, the general public has been encouraged to wear masks to prevent getting or spreading the novel coronavirus. But the World Health Organization only recommends wearing a mask if you’re taking care of a person suspected of having the virus. (Reddy, 4/2)

CNN: Fact-Checking Coronavirus Briefing: Trump Says Scarves 'Better' Than Masks, Exaggerates Europe Travel Restriction 
President Donald Trump made fewer false claims than usual at Thursday's coronavirus briefing, ceding the floor to administration officials for extended periods and trading his usual inaccuracy for some vague musings and boasts. Trump did, however, offer some more medical advice that is not endorsed by experts, this time claiming that thick scarves make for more effective protective masks than masks themselves. He also repeated his exaggeration that he had cut off travel from Europe. (Dale and Lybrand, 4/3)

Los Angeles Times: DIY Coronavirus Mask Instructions From Crafters And Doctors
We’ve rounded up a variety of mask tutorials, from medical professionals to crafters, from no-sew to advanced, so that you can make your own mask when you absolutely must leave the house. Many of them include free templates in a variety of sizes for children and adults. When it comes to tips for wearing them, the World Health Organization recommends cleaning your hands before putting on a mask and making sure that there are no gaps between your face and the mask. (Boone, 4/2)

CNN: DIY Masks: Chinese Americans On The Forefront Of Advocating Wearing Masks In Public 
Like many Americans across the country, Wenqiong Xue has been fanatically making face masks for two weeks, using ripped bedsheets and a sewing machine that she dusted off from a closet in her Boston area house. But the homemaker in Medfield, Massachusetts, is more than just a mask maker -- she has become a mask advocate, long before President Donald Trump's coronavirus task force is expected to recommend that Americans begin wearing face coverings in public. (Jiang, 4/3)

Politico: Indian Health Service, Rural Areas To Have Priority Access To Rapid Coronavirus Tests
Rapid point-of-care coronavirus tests will be used to support areas of the country with the least access to testing, as well as nursing homes, White House coronavirus coordinator Deborah Birx told reporters today. “These are new tests, and we have prioritized the groups that we think have the least access to testing now,” Birx said. Priority will be given to the Indian Health Service and rural areas that do not have access to labs that perform high-volume coronavirus tests, she said. (Lim, 4/2)

Detroit Free Press: Detroit Is First US City To Get 15-Minute Coronavirus Tests
The city of Detroit began testing its first responders, bus drivers and health care workers for COVID-19 on Thursday, using new rapid testing kits that produce results in about 15 minutes. Detroit is the first city in the country to begin using the kits from Abbott, a global health care company based in Lake County, Illinois, Mayor Mike Duggan has said. (Guillen, 4/2)

Boston Globe: How Accurate Are Coronavirus Tests? Doctors Raise Concern About ‘False-Negative’ Results 
As more people are gaining access to COVID-19 tests, doctors say they are encountering a troubling number of “false negatives" — test results that indicate patients aren’t sick, despite clear signs and symptoms of coronavirus infection. This phenomenon of “false negatives” is not new; no medical test is 100 percent accurate, but the stakes here are incredibly high. Some health experts have suggested the number of false-negative coronavirus tests could be up to 30 percent. (Lazar and Ryan, 4/2)

Kaiser Health News: Trump Touted Abbott’s Quick COVID-19 Test. HHS Document Shows Only 5,500 Are On Way For Entire U.S.
A coronavirus test made by Abbott Laboratories and introduced with considerable fanfare by President Donald Trump in a Rose Garden news conference this week is giving state and local health officials very little added capacity to perform speedy tests needed to control the COVID-19 pandemic. “That’s a whole new ballgame,” Trump said. “I want to thank Abbott Labs for the incredible work they’ve done. They’ve been working around-the-clock.” (Pradhan, 4/2)

Politico: Piecemeal Testing Flusters Officials Tracking Coronavirus Pandemic
The surge in coronavirus testing was supposed to give public health officials a better grip on who’s sick and where. Instead, it’s exposing gaps in reporting, raising concern about whether complete results and basic information about patients that test positive is getting through to officials and health workers trying to contain the pandemic. A hodgepodge of federal and state mandates on big commercial labs like Quest Diagnostics and others running tests have created reporting holes, even as about 100,000 are processed daily. (Tahir, 4/2)

Modern Healthcare: DaVita, Fresenius Partner To Create Network Of COVID-19 Dialysis Clinics
The country's largest dialysis providers are joining forces to protect some of the most vulnerable patients during the coronavirus pandemic. Dialysis clinic operators Fresenius Medical Care and DaVita, along with several other kidney care organizations, said they are working together to create and share a nationwide network of clinics that will focus on serving patients with COVID-19. (Livingston, 4/1)

The Associated Press: Testing Issues Cloud Scope Of California's Virus Outbreak
California is ramping up testing for coronavirus even as a backlog of 59,000 pending tests is growing, delaying some people from getting results for up to 12 days and leaving an incomplete picture of how widespread the outbreak is in the state. Testing rolled out slowly in California but is accelerating now. More than 90,000 tests have been administered statewide, but nearly two-thirds of those results were still pending, according to state figures. (Melley, 4/3)

The Wall Street Journal: Who Has Covid-19? What We Know About Tests For The New Coronavirus
The U.S. stumbled in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, with testing limited by problems with a government-developed test and narrow testing criteria. Now dozens of options are emerging after the Food and Drug Administration opened the door for authorized companies and labs. We are updating this guide regularly with what we learn about the state of testing across the U.S. (4/2)

NPR: Racial Bias Showing Up In Coronavirus Testing And Treatment
The new coronavirus doesn't discriminate. But physicians in public health and on the front lines say that in the response to the pandemic, they can already see the emergence of familiar patterns of racial and economic bias. In one analysis, it appears doctors may be less likely to refer African Americans for testing when they show up for care with signs of infection. (Farmer, 4/2)

Kaiser Health News and Politifact HealthCheck: Fox News’ Jesse Watters Said Travel Bans ‘More Critical In Saving Lives’ Than COVID Testing. He’s Wrong.
Defending President Donald Trump’s coronavirus response, Fox News commentator Jesse Watters highlighted federal efforts to restrict international travelers who may be infected — a ban he claimed mattered more than diagnostic testing. “We were slow with the testing, but very quick with the travel ban. And that’s been much more critical in saving lives,” Watters said during a March 31 episode of “The Five.” (Luthra, 4/3)

The Oklahoman: Stitt Urges More Oklahomans To Get Tested As More Mobile Sites Spring Up
Gov. Kevin Stitt on Thursday urged more Oklahomans to get tested for COVID-19, saying hospitals and county health departments need to “loosen their standards.”Stitt said the state has the capability of testing 15,000 people and that private labs could test more. (Casteel, 4/3)

Modern Healthcare: White House Data Request Highlights Coordinated Response Concerns
Not all states require hospitals to provide the same types of testing data. Recent reports indicate some states provide only positive COVID-19 test results from private labs. Other states post positive tests and deaths but not the number of tests that turn out to be negative results. All that leads to incomplete view of how the virus is spreading—something that epidemiologists say has put the U.S at a disadvantage. (Johnson, 4/2)

The New York Times: F.D.A. Approves First Coronavirus Antibody Test In U.S.
The Food and Drug Administration on Thursday approved a new test for coronavirus antibodies, the first for use in the United States. Currently available tests are designed to find fragments of viral genes indicating an ongoing infection. Doctors swab the nose and throat, and amplify any genetic material from the virus found there. The new test, by contrast, looks for protective antibodies in a finger prick of blood. It tells doctors whether a patient has ever been exposed to the virus and now may have some immunity. (Mandavilli, 4/2)

The Associated Press: Coronavirus Survivor: 'In My Blood, There May Be Answers'
Tiffany Pinckney remembers the fear when COVID-19 stole her breath. So when she recovered, the New York City mother became one of the country’s first survivors to donate her blood to help treat other seriously ill patients. “It is definitely overwhelming to know that in my blood, there may be answers,” Pinckney told The Associated Press. Doctors around the world are dusting off a century-old treatment for infections: Infusions of blood plasma teeming with immune molecules that helped survivors beat the new coronavirus. (Neergaard and Ritzel, 4/3)

The New York Times: Unproven Stem Cell Therapy Gets OK For Testing In Coronavirus Patients
An experimental stem cell therapy derived from human placentas will begin early testing in patients with the coronavirus, a New Jersey biotech company said Thursday. The treatment, being developed by the company Celularity, has not yet been used on any patients with symptoms of Covid-19, but it has caught the attention of Rudy Giuliani, President Trump’s personal lawyer. Mr. Giuliani recently featured an interview with the company founder on his website and said on Twitter that the product has “real potential,” while also criticizing the Food and Drug Administration for not moving more quickly to approve potential remedies. (Thomas, 4/2)

Cincinnati Enquirer: Coronavirus: Oral Antiviral Spray To Be Tested For Infection Prevention
An antiviral oral spray that has been available over the counter since 2012 will undergo a clinical trial by University Hospitals in northeastern Ohio to see if it prevents front-line health care workers from becoming infected with the new coronavirus.“We have every reason to believe it will be effective,” said Dr. Robert A. Salata, chairman of the department of medicine at University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center and principal investigator for the study. (Futty, 4/2)

Politico: No 'Magic Pill': The Fight Over Unproven Drugs For Coronavirus
The Food and Drug Administration’s rush to greenlight unproven malaria medicines to fight the coronavirus may derail clinical trials of other potential cures for the deadly virus. Right now, dozens of potential therapies — from antivirals to antibodies taken from the blood of coronavirus survivors — are being tested in people. The first results from these studies could come within months if drugmakers enroll the thousands of patients needed to complete the research. (Owermohle, 4/2)

The New York Times: Touting Virus Cure, ‘Simple Country Doctor’ Becomes A Right-Wing Star
Last month, residents of Kiryas Joel, a New York village of 35,000 Hasidic Jews roughly an hour’s drive from Manhattan, began hearing about a promising treatment for the coronavirus that had been rippling through their community. The source was Dr. Vladimir Zelenko, 46, a mild-mannered family doctor with offices near the village. Since early March, his clinics had treated people with coronavirus-like symptoms, and he had developed an experimental treatment consisting of an antimalarial medication called hydroxychloroquine, the antibiotic azithromycin and zinc sulfate. (Roose and Rosenberg, 4/2)

Reuters: U.S. Navy Relieves Aircraft Carrier Commander Who Wrote Letter Urging Coronavirus Action
The U.S. Navy relieved the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt’s captain of his command on Thursday, punishing him for the leak of a scathing letter he sent to superiors that sought stronger measures for curbing a coronavirus outbreak aboard the ship. The removal of Captain Brett Crozier, first reported by Reuters, was announced by acting U.S. Navy Secretary Thomas Modly, who said the senior officer of the nuclear-powered vessel of 5,000 crew members had exercised poor judgment in the way he “broadly” distributed his letter. (Ali and Stewart, 4/2)

CNN: Commander Of Aircraft Carrier Hit By Coronavirus Removed For 'Poor Judgment' After Sounding Alarm
The commander of a US aircraft carrier that has been hit by a major outbreak of coronavirus has been relieved of command for showing "poor judgment" days after writing a memo warning Navy leadership that decisive action was needed to save the lives of the ship's crew, acting Secretary of the Navy Thomas Modly announced on Thursday. "Today at my direction the commanding officer of the USS Theodore Roosevelt, Captain Brett Crozier, was relieved of command by carrier strike group commander Rear Admiral Stewart Baker," Modly said during a Pentagon press briefing. Modly told reporters that Crozier was removed for showing "extremely poor judgment" and creating a "firestorm" by too widely disseminating the memo detailing his concerns, copying some 20 to 30 people. (Browne, Cohen and Crawford, 4/3)

The Wall Street Journal: Sailors Start To Leave Coronavirus-Stricken U.S. Aircraft Carrier 
Some crew members of a coronavirus-stricken American aircraft carrier have been moved to hotels in the U.S. territory of Guam, where they will be quarantined for 14 days, a military official said Friday. At least 114 of the roughly 5,000 sailors on the USS Theodore Roosevelt have tested positive for Covid-19, the respiratory disease caused by the new coronavirus. The warship has been docked at a Guam port for more than a week, and about a third of its crew has been tested for the virus. (Craymer, 4/3)

The New York Times: From Afar, Congress Moves To Oversee Trump Coronavirus Response
Speaker Nancy Pelosi, moving aggressively to scrutinize the Trump administration’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic, said Thursday that she would seek to create a special bipartisan committee to oversee all aspects of the government’s response, including how it distributes more than $2 trillion in emergency aid. The announcement, which drew immediate objections from President Trump and the top House Republican, came as leaders were struggling to determine how Congress could perform its most basic functions — both legislating and acting as a check on a president who has consistently stonewalled attempts at oversight — when lawmakers were scattered around the country with the Capitol shuttered. (Stolberg and Fandos, 4/2)

The Wall Street Journal: Pelosi To Form Committee To Track Coronavirus Response, $2 Trillion Stimulus
Mrs. Pelosi on Thursday said Democratic Whip Jim Clyburn of South Carolina would lead the panel, which will have subpoena power. The committee, which Mrs. Pelosi hopes will include Republicans, will also press the government to use the latest science in its continued response. The speaker didn’t name all of the lawmakers who will be on the committee. “This is not an investigation of the administration,” the California Democrat told reporters in a conference call. “We want to be sure that there are not exploiters out there…where there’s money, there is also frequently mischief.” (Andrews, 4/2)

Politico: Pelosi Forms New Select Committee To Oversee $2 Trillion Coronavirus Relief Package
“Congress has taken an important step in meeting this crisis by passing three bills with over $2 trillion in emergency relief. We need to ensure those dollars are spent carefully and effectively,” Pelosi told reporters in a press call Thursday. Pelosi said the committee would not only oversee the three bills Congress has passed so far to address the pandemic but also any future legislation related to the virus. Pelosi has been pushing to move ahead quickly with a fourth coronavirus response package, an idea she again pitched Thursday, noting the record high 6.6 million-plus unemployment claims reported earlier in the day. (Caygle, Cheney and Zanona, 4/2)

The Associated Press: In Time Of Crisis, Trump-Pelosi Relationship Remains Broken
Two of the most powerful people in Washington have not spoken in five months at a time when the nation is battling its worst health crisis in a century, one that has already killed more than 5,000 Americans and put 10 million others out of work. President Donald Trump and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi last talked on Oct. 16, when Pelosi pointed her finger at the seated president during a heated exchange in a White House meeting that was captured in a widely shared photograph. (Lemire and Kellman, 4/3)

The Hill: Trump Warns Against 'Partisan Investigations' After Pelosi Establishes Select Committee On Virus Response 
President Trump on Thursday railed against "partisan investigations" and "witch hunts" amid the coronavirus pandemic after Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) established a special House committee to examine the federal response to the pandemic. "I want to remind everyone here in our nation’s capital, especially in Congress, that this is not the time for politics," Trump said, reading from prepared remarks. "Endless partisan investigations have already done extraordinary damage to our country in recent years." (Samuels, 4/2)

The Hill: Coronavirus Bill Allows DeVos To Waive Parts Of Federal Special Education Law: NYT 
The coronavirus stimulus bill signed by President Trump last week permits Education Secretary Betsy DeVos to waive parts of the federal special education law, The New York Times reported Thursday. The $2.2 trillion bill allows the secretary to waive some special education rules as schools across the country struggle to continue education remotely for more than 55 million children during the coronavirus pandemic. The secretary has 30 days to ask Congress for the authority to waive the law. (Coleman, 4/2)

The Associated Press: Some In U.S. May Not Get Stimulus Checks Until August, Memo Says
The federal government expects to begin making payments to millions of Americans under the new stimulus law in mid-April, but some people without direct deposit information may not get checks until mid-August or later, according to a memo obtained by the Associated Press. The document from the House Ways and Means Committee says the IRS will make about 60 million payments to Americans through direct deposit in mid-April, likely the week of April 13. The IRS has direct deposit information for these individuals from their 2018 or 2019 tax returns. (4/2)

Politico: White House Sets Up Coronavirus Hotline For Lawmakers
The White House is setting up a hotline for members of Congress to expedite action on emergency coronavirus issues as they sprout up across the country, according to several sources familiar with the plan. The hotline was set up by new White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and will be run by John Fleming, the deputy chief of staff. (Caygle and Sherman, 4/2)

Kaiser Health News: KHN’s ‘What The Health?’: All Coronavirus All The Time
The medical and economic needs laid bare by the coronavirus pandemic are forcing some immediate changes to the U.S. health system. Congress, in its latest relief bill, provided $100 billion in funding for the hospital industry alone. Meanwhile, the federal government has quickly removed previous barriers to telehealth and other sometimes controversial practices. But big fights are still brewing, including whether the federal government will reopen the Affordable Care Act marketplaces it runs and whether states can use emergency powers to ban abortions as “elective medical procedures.” (4/2)

The New York Times: A Widening Toll On Jobs: ‘This Thing Is Going To Come For Us All’
A staggering 6.6 million people applied for unemployment benefits last week as the coronavirus outbreak ravaged nearly every corner of the American economy, the Labor Department reported Thursday. The speed and scale of the job losses are without precedent. In just two weeks, the pandemic has left nearly 10 million Americans out of work, more than in the worst months of the last recession. Until last month, the worst week for unemployment filings was 695,000 in 1982. “What usually takes months or quarters to happen in a recession is happening in a matter of weeks,” said Michelle Meyer, chief U.S. economist for Bank of America Merrill Lynch. (Casselman and Cohen, 4/2)

The New York Times: The Unemployment Rate Is Probably Around 13 Percent
The jobless rate today is almost certainly higher than at any point since the Great Depression. We think it’s around 13 percent and rising at a speed unmatched in American history. The labor market is changing so fast that our official statistics — intended to measure changes over months and years rather than days or weeks — can’t really keep up. But a few simple calculations can help piece together a reasonable approximation. (Wolfers, 4/3)

NBC News: U.S. Economy Lost A Total Of 701,000 Jobs In March
The U.S. economy lost a total of 701,000 jobs in March, bringing a record 10-year streak of employment gains to a halt as the coronavirus pandemic continues to hammer the workforce and shatter economic growth. The closely watched monthly jobs data, released Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, also shows the unemployment rate soared to 4.4 percentfrom 3.5 percent, after months at a half-century low. March's data represents the tip of the iceberg, however, since the survey was conducted in the first half of the month, prior to the pandemic's grip on the economy. (Bayly, 4/3)

The Wall Street Journal: U.S. Employers Cut 701,000 Jobs In March
The near shutdown of swaths of the U.S. economy due to the new coronavirus pandemic—from corner restaurants to manufacturing plants to international tourism—is inflicting damage on the labor market that economists say dwarfs the most significant economic downturns of the post-World War II era. And it is playing out in a matter of weeks, rather than years. (Morath, 4/3)

Stateline: Coronavirus And The States: Joblessness Slams The States That Responded Early; Testing Backlog Deprives States Of Data
The unemployment crisis that’s left 10 million people newly jobless in the past two weeks is hitting the industrial Midwest and tourist meccas hardest, with more than 1 in 10 workers in Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Nevada filing claims in the most recent late March results. That was more than twice the rate of claims in New York and California, the original epicenters of the novel coronavirus, where there are more white-collar and tech jobs that can be done from home during the shutdown. (Henderson, 4/2)

Politico: ’No Words For This’: 10 Million Workers File Jobless Claims In Just Two Weeks
Unemployment claims soared to a record-smashing 6.6 million last week, the Labor Department reported, more than double the previous week, signaling more economic pain from the coronavirus pandemic. The rush to claim unemployment benefits occurred as the number of people testing positive for the coronavirus rose above 200,000 and government measures to contain the epidemic shut down increasing swaths of the U.S. economy, with residents in 37 states now ordered to stay at home. (Rainey and McCaskill, 4/2)

The Washington Post: Past Two Weeks Wiped Out Economy’s Job Gains Since 2016 Election
The coronavirus recession is shaping up to be the biggest blow to the U.S. economy since the Great Recession, and fears are rising that it could take years to reverse the damage, especially for millions of Americans who are losing their jobs and businesses. The past two weeks have wiped out all the economy’s job gains since President Trump’s November 2016 election, a sign of how rapid, deep and painful the economic shutdown has been on American families struggling to pay rent, prescriptions, food and health insurance in the middle of a pandemic. (Long and Bhattarai, 4/2)

The Wall Street Journal: Companies Try To Preserve Jobs By Cutting Pay Amid Coronavirus Crisis
As the coronavirus outbreak spreads, many workers’ paychecks are shrinking. A growing number of companies are trying to spread the financial pain as they contend with government-ordered lockdowns, dwindling production orders and closed stores, restaurants and plants. They reason that keeping on some workers at reduced pay can ease fixed costs and stave off greater job losses—while keeping talent at the ready if the economy and hiring market recover sooner than later. For some, it is a last resort to keep a skeleton crew employed while others are furloughed or laid off. (Feintzeig and Thomas, 4/3)

USA Today: Coronavirus Pandemic Jobs: US Health Care Workers Furloughed, Laid Off
Dotty Orr took time off from her job as a receptionist for a primary care physician in Akron, Ohio, to get her knee replaced March 4. Thursday, she found out she's not going back. Orr, 64, worked for Dr. Pennie Marchetti for eight years. Marchetti laid off Orr and a part-time nurse as patient visits dropped nearly 80% during the novel coronavirus pandemic. (Norvell and O'Donnell, 4/2)

The Hill: Trump Administration Issues Guidance Scaling Back Paid Leave Requirement For Small Business Employees 
President Trump’s administration has pulled back requirements for small businesses to administer paid leave to their employees in a guidance published Wednesday. The Labor Department’s guidance for the coronavirus stimulus bill said companies with fewer than 50 workers have the option to decline 12 weeks of paid leave that the bill mandated for those whose children are home from school or child care. (Coleman, 4/2)

The Associated Press: You've Just Lost Your Job? Here's What You Need To Know
Nearly 10 million Americans have lost their jobs and applied for unemployment benefits in the past two weeks — a stunning record high that reflects the near-complete shutdown of the U.S. economy. Job losses related to the coronavirus are sure to rise further in coming weeks, with economists saying the U.S. unemployment rate could reach as high as 15%, well above the 10% peak during the Great Recession. As recently as February, the unemployment rate was just 3.5%, a 50-year low. (Rugaber and Sell, 4/2)

The Wall Street Journal: Mortgage Relief From Coronavirus Crisis Is Off To Rocky Start
Struggling homeowners are flooding their mortgage companies with requests for help as the coronavirus pandemic wrecks the economy. Many are having a hard time getting it. Homeowners say they are waiting hours on the phone just to reach a real person. When they do, some are told that getting an answer could take weeks. That is a troublesome timeline for the many borrowers whose mortgage payments are due in the first half of April. (McCaffrey and Ackerman, 4/3)

Politico: Kushner Company Stands To Benefit From Freeze On Federal Mortgage Payments
Jared Kushner’s family business could be a prime beneficiary of a provision in the federal recovery bill that allows owners of apartment buildings to freeze federal mortgage payments on low- and moderate-income properties. Kushner Companies, the real estate firm started in 1985 by Kushner’s father, Charles, controls thousands of low- and moderate-housing units across the country, some of which are funded through an $800 million federally backed loan the firm received in 2019. (Severns, 4/3)

Los Angeles Times: She Clawed From Poverty, But Coronavirus Took Her Way Of Life
Raquel Lezama had reason to be proud. At 17, after crossing the Mexican border, she toiled in a Los Angeles garment factory, earning 5 cents for each blouse she ironed — $50 a day if she could manage 1,000 pieces. A few years later, after surviving a brutal beating by her day-laborer husband, she gained legal residency through a green card reserved for victims of domestic violence. (Roosevelt, 4/2)

And a look at President Donald Trump's stake in the economic turmoil —

ProPublica: Trump Congratulates Businesses For Helping Fight Coronavirus. But His Own Company Has Been Absent.
As America’s coronavirus crisis has mushroomed, President Donald Trump has repeatedly touted the efforts of businesses to meet a desperate nation’s needs. “It’s been really amazing to see these big, strong, powerful — in some cases, very small companies, family-owned companies — step up and make a lot of great product for what we’re going through and what we will continue to be going through for a while,” Trump declared on March 24. His press conferences have sometimes seemed like a parade of CEOs, from the leaders of retail and pharmaceutical giants like Walmart and Roche to chiefs of relative mites like MyPillow. (Elkind, 4/2)

The Wall Street Journal: Coronavirus Costing Trump Properties Over $1 Million Daily In Lost Revenue
The coronavirus outbreak is costing Trump Organization properties more than a million dollars in lost revenue daily and may have hurt the firm’s chances of earning a record price on the sale of its Washington hotel, according to an analysis of industry data and people familiar with the deal talks. The majority of revenues for President Trump’s family business comes from travel and leisure, which have been hit hard by the forced closures and economic downturn caused by the pandemic. (Spegele, Karmin and Strasburg, 4/2)

NBC News: Record Number Of Unemployed Americans Will Stress State Medicaid Programs
Andrew Parys, 36, said he didn't pay off his prosthetic leg at the end of March as planned because he didn't know whether he'd be able to afford groceries. He worked as a bartender in Hershey, Pennsylvania, until the coronavirus pandemic shuttered the business last month, leading him to be one of the millions of Americans who signed up for unemployment over the past two weeks. While Parys' employer maintains his health insurance for now, he expects to lose it soon. (McCausland, 4/3)

Kaiser Health News: Medicaid Nearing ‘Eye Of The Storm’ As Newly Unemployed Look For Coverage
As the coronavirus roils the economy and throws millions of Americans out of work, Medicaid is emerging as a default insurance plan for many of the newly unemployed. That could produce unprecedented strains on the vital health insurance program, according to state officials and policy researchers. Americans are being urged to stay home and practice “social distancing” to prevent the spread of the virus, causing businesses to shutter their doors and lay off workers. (Luthra, Galewitz and Bluth, 4/3)

USA Today: Coronavirus Put Millions Out Of Work: How To Get Health Coverage
President Donald Trump said "it doesn't seem fair" people at a certain income level can't get Medicaid, but he doesn't plan to open a "special enrollment period" that would help people who lost jobs because of the coronavirus sign up for their health insurance under the Affordable Care Act. What should a person suddenly jobless and without health care benefits do? And how can the administration prevent another health crisis within the pandemic? (O'Donnell and Alltucker, 4/2)

Modern Healthcare: Utah Suspends Medicaid Work Requirement Due To COVID-19
Utah on Thursday suspended its Medicaid work requirement due to the coronavirus pandemic. It was the only remaining state with an active Section 1115 waiver imposing work requirements on Medicaid expansion enrollees as a condition of keeping their coverage. The suspension was decided on Thursday morning, said Kolbi Young, a spokeswoman for the Utah Division of Medicaid and Health Financing. (Meyer, 4/2)

Meanwhile, in other costs and insurance news —

ABC News: White House Considers Plan To Cover Medical Bills For Millions Of Uninsured Americans 
The White House is considering a plan to cover America's unpaid medical bills, possibly reimbursing hospitals with cash payouts with some 28 million people uninsured in the United States. President Donald Trump on Thursday described it as “cash payment” that would go to a “certain group of people.” Vice President Mike Pence said the proposal would likely tap some of the $100 billion that is already earmarked for hospitals to compensate them directly for treating uninsured Americans. (Flaherty and Phelps, 4/3)

Boston Globe: Health Insurers Press Congress For Premium Relief
The race begins Friday for a piece of the $349 billion small-business rescue fund dubbed the Paycheck Protection Program. Meanwhile, the people who run the state’s three largest health insurers are already looking ahead, to the next round of federal stimulus funding. (Chesto, 4/2)

Boston Globe: Mass. Health Insurers Offer Help During Coronavirus Crisis 
The state’s biggest nonprofit health insurers are waiving copays and deductibles for COVID-19 treatments. But they’re also giving back to their communities in numerous ways, to help individuals and organizations deal with the financial repercussions of the coronavirus pandemic. In the past two weeks, the state’s four largest insurers have collectively unveiled millions of dollars in community relief efforts. (Chesto, 4/2)

ABC News: 'Obamacare' Enrollment Might Be Closed, But You Could Qualify Anyway: What To Know About Lost Health Insurance 
As the nation confronts a fast-moving novel coronavirus pandemic, millions of Americans are fighting another crisis at home: joblessness and a loss of health insurance. It's a toxic mix that threatens to widen the scope of the crisis, particularly as many Americans don't even know what their options are. (Flaherty, 4/3)

The New York Times: They’re Running For Office Without Health Insurance During A Pandemic
In the past week and a half, Cori Bush has been hospitalized twice with shortness of breath, sore throat, fatigue, loss of taste and a headache. Told at first that she had pneumonia, she was sent home, only to return to the emergency room when her symptoms didn’t improve. A coronavirus test came back negative, but she was admitted anyway. She was discharged on Wednesday. (Grullon Paz, 4/3)

The Washington Post: Inside America’s Mask Crunch: A Slow Government Reaction And An Industry Wary Of Liability
On March 5, as the deadly novel coronavirus was racing through the United States, Vice President Pence paid a visit to the Minnesota headquarters of 3M, the manufacturing giant that produces protective respiratory masks. Pence, who leads the White House’s coronavirus task force, praised the company during a public roundtable for deciding at the outset of the crisis “to go to full capacity” and ramp up production of high-grade N95 masks. With its factories in South Dakota and Nebraska cranked up and running around the clock, 3M was on pace to double its global output to nearly 100 million a month, according to the company. (Whalen, Helderman and Hamburger, 4/2)

The Wall Street Journal: 3M CEO On N95 Masks: ‘Demand Exceeds Our Production Capacity’
American manufacturers say it will be months before they meet demand for high-quality masks, part of a broader breakdown in the effort to supply enough protective gear and lifesaving equipment to fight the coronavirus pandemic. 3M Co. and a half dozen smaller competitors are making about 50 million of N95 masks—which block 95% of very small particles—in the U.S. each month. That is far short of the 300 million N95 masks the Department of Health and Human Services estimated in March that U.S. health-care workers would need monthly to fight a pandemic. (Hufford, 4/2)

The New York Times: The Masks Were Seized In A Price-Gouging Investigation. Now They’ll Go To Medical Workers.
Hundreds of thousands of masks that were seized this week from a Brooklyn man who was charged with lying to federal agents about price-gouging will go to medical workers in New York and New Jersey, the authorities said Thursday. The need for masks and personal protective equipment, known as PPE, is acute in the New York metropolitan region, an epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic in the United States. The stockpile of supplies that were seized included 192,000 N95 respirators, 130,000 surgical masks and nearly 600,000 medical grade gloves, the authorities said. (Vigdor, 4/2)

ABC News: Medical Supplies Seized From Alleged Price Gouger To Be Distributed To Hospitals 
According to the DOJ, the equipment includes roughly 192,000 N95 respirator masks, nearly 600,000 medical gloves, 130,000 surgical masks, procedure masks, N100 masks, surgical gowns, disinfectant towels, particulate filters, bottles of hand sanitizer and disinfectant spray. (Mallin, 4/2)

The Hill: FDA To Allow Imports Of KN95 Masks From China Amid PPE Shortage 
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will no longer block the import of KN95 masks, due to a shortage in personal protective equipment, or PPE, in the United States, an agency official first told Buzzfeed News. The masks have been described as the Chinese equivalent of an N95 mask which U.S. health care workers use to protect themselves from airborne bacteria and viruses. Though they are allowing imports of the KN95 mask, the product is not FDA-approved, meaning those who use it do so without legal protections. (Moreno, 4/2)

The Wall Street Journal: A Million N95 Masks Are Coming From China—On Board The New England Patriots’ Plane
At 3:38 a.m. Wednesday morning, the New England Patriots’ team plane departed from an unusual locale: Shenzhen, China. On board the Boeing 767, in the cargo hold that used to be home to Tom Brady’s duffel bags, were 1.2 million N95 masks bound for the U.S. Video and pictures of the event show workers in masks and full-body suits at Shenzhen Bao’an International Airport loading box after box of the scarce and valuable personal protective equipment onto a red, white and blue plane emblazoned with the Patriots logo and “6X CHAMPIONS.” (Beaton, 4/2)

CNN: Counterfeit N95 Masks Are Leaking Into The Supply Chain 
The urgent and overwhelming demand for N95 masks has created fertile ground for scammers to start leaking counterfeits into the supply chain and to make fake deals for product that doesn't exist. Two leading N95 mask manufacturers have issued fraud warnings amid the coronavirus pandemic, saying they've received complaints about fraudsters trying to sell nonexistent product. And in one case, counterfeit masks have already made it to the front lines in the US. (Kavilanz, 4/1)

Boston Globe: Boston Hospitals Getting ‘Game Changer’ Machine That Sterilizes 80,000 Protective Masks A Day
A mammoth machine that can sterilize up to 80,000 N95 respirator masks a day is coming to the Boston area — a major breakthrough that could potentially provide protective masks to all Massachusetts hospitals battling the coronavirus pandemic. Steve Walsh, president of the Massachusetts Health & Hospital Association, sent a note to members this morning saying that the machine will arrive Saturday from Battelle, a research nonprofit based in Columbus, Ohio. ... Battelle’s machine uses concentrated hydrogen peroxide vapor to decontaminate N95 masks, which are in short supply around the country, desperately needed by doctors and nurses treating patients infected with COVID-19. Under normal circumstances, N95 masks are discarded after each use to maintain safety. With this system, they can be reused safely up to 20 times, according to Battelle. (Ostriker, 4/2)

KQED: Nurses At Daly City Coronavirus Hospital Sound Alarm Over Shortage Of N95 Masks, Medical Supplies 
Two weeks after Daly City’s Seton Medical Center was designated a COVID-19 hospital and saved from closure, nurses are sounding the alarm that they are ill prepared to take in a projected wave of coronavirus patients. The hospital is setting aside 177 beds to receive patients as part of a state-funded move to keep all hospitals open during the current public health crisis. But nurses say the state also needs to provide them with the necessary equipment to do their jobs. (LaBerge and Lam, 4/2)

San Francisco Chronicle: Coronavirus: UCSF, Seton Nurses Call On Newsom To Send Protective Equipment
Nurses on the front lines of the Bay Area’s coronavirus response on Thursday called on the state to provide more personal protective equipment, warning that a shortage of masks and gowns could have devastating consequences for medical personnel and their patients. The registered nurses from UCSF and Seton Medical Center in Daly City — members of the California Nurses Association/National Nurses United — protested outside their hospitals to highlight a shortage of N95 respirators and other protective gear critical for health care workers treating patients infected with the virus. (Sanchez, 4/2)

WBUR: Boston Students Help Repair Medical Masks After Tufts Receives Damaged Donation 
A dire shortage of face masks, gowns, respirators and other personal protective equipment has governments and hospitals around the country turning to unconventional sources to keep their health care workers safe from the threat of the coronavirus. When the Tufts Medical Center accepted a private donation of some 6,000 face masks in March, their gratitude was mixed with frustration: Although the masks were still wrapped in their original packaging and in serviceable condition, the elastic chords used to secure them to the wearer's face had become so brittle that they snapped easily. (Fleming, 4/2)

The New York Times: Essential Drug Supplies For Virus Patients Are Running Low
Across the country, as hospitals confront a harrowing surge in coronavirus cases, they are also beginning to report shortages of critical medications — especially those desperately needed to ease the disease’s assault on patients’ respiratory systems. The most commonly reported shortages include drugs that are used to keep patients’ airways open, antibiotics, antivirals and sedatives. They are all part of a standard cocktail of medications that help patients on mechanical ventilators, control secondary lung infections, reduce fevers, manage pain and resuscitate those who go into cardiac arrest. (Sheikh, 4/2)

ABC News: US Faces Shortage Of Drugs That Could Be Possible Treatments For Coronavirus: FDA 
Barbi Manchester has lived with Lupus for 13 years and has taken hydroxychloroquine to treat it for just as long. But last month, for the first time since being prescribed the medication, she had trouble getting her prescription filled. (Tatum, 4/3)

In other shortages —

Kaiser Health News: As The Country Disinfects, Diabetes Patients Can’t Find Rubbing Alcohol
While the masses hunt for toilet paper, Caroline Gregory and other people with diabetes are on a different mission: scouring stores for the rubbing alcohol or alcohol swabs needed to manage their disease. Gregory stopped in Carlie C’s, Dollar General and then Harris Teeter in Fayetteville, North Carolina, in pursuit of this vital component of her medical routine. “We’re all supposed to be staying at home, and I’m out going to 10 different stores,” said Gregory, 33, whose diabetes could heighten her risk for COVID-19 complications. “That’s also not safe.” (Weber, 4/3)

Bloomberg: The Biggest Chokepoint In The Global Food Supply Chain Is Trucks
Truckers hauling food are facing delays across the globe in the latest disruption to supply chains snarled by the coronavirus pandemic. They’re enduring lengthy wait times in Europe because of restrictions that have been imposed to control the virus’s spread. In South America, local laws have at times conflicted with country-wide ordinances that deem hauling food an essential service, leaving supplies sometimes stuck in storage. In parts of Africa, the shuttering of public transportation means drivers aren’t even able to make it into work. And huge spikes in demand have caused lags for loading at some U.S. warehouses. (Black, Gilbert and Almeida, 4/3)

Reuters: Explainer: How The Coronavirus Crisis Is Affecting Food Supply
Panic buying by shoppers cleared supermarket shelves of staples such as pasta and flour as populations worldwide prepared for lockdowns. Meat and dairy producers as well as fruit and vegetable farmers struggled to shift supplies from restaurants to grocery stores, creating the perception of shortages for consumers. Retailers and authorities say there are no underlying shortages and supplies of most products have been or will be replenished. Bakery and pasta firms in Europe and North America have increased production. (4/2)

Politico: Trump Gambles On Immigrant Workers During Coronavirus
The Trump administration is still soliciting immigrants for specific jobs despite droves of Americans filing for unemployment. It is urging medical professionals to contact a U.S. embassy to move their application process along, cognizant of the coronavirus pandemic sweeping America. It is easing requirements for immigrants to get jobs as farm workers, landscapers and crab pickers, aware that industries, including those that fill grocery store shelves, could be hurt if they couldn’t hire foreign employees. (Kumar, 4/2)

Los Angeles Times: Amazon Employees At 6 California Sites Positive For Coronavirus
Workers at six Amazon facilities in Southern California have tested positive in the last week for the virus that causes COVID-19. Four of those cases were confirmed and disclosed in the last 24 hours to workers at the facilities involved. The newly affected facilities are fulfillment centers ONT2 in San Bernardino and LGB8 in Rialto, delivery center DLA8 in Hawthorne, and a smaller Amazon Prime Now warehouse in the Glassell Park neighborhood of Los Angeles. (Dean and Bhuiyan, 4/2)

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Coronavirus In Wisconsin: Farm Groups Ask USDA To Buy Dairy Products
Wisconsin Cheese Makers Association, Edge Dairy Farmer Cooperative, Dairy Business Association, Cooperative Network, Wisconsin Farm Bureau Federation, Professional Dairy Producers of Wisconsin and Wisconsin Farmers Union say the current circumstances, far beyond their control, are beginning to result in farms having no place to accept their milk. In fact, this week some large Wisconsin dairy operations have begun dumping milk because there is no buyer for it. (Barrett, 4/2)

The Wall Street Journal: Democratic National Convention To Be Postponed Until Mid-August
This summer’s Democratic National Convention in Milwaukee is being pushed back to mid-August because of the coronavirus pandemic, the biggest disruption yet to the presidential campaign as a result of the crisis. The gathering will now take place during the week of Aug. 17, the Democratic National Committee said. That delays by about a month the date when the party’s eventual nominee can start using general election dollars to directly confront President Trump. (McCormick and Thomas, 4/2)

The Wall Street Journal: Wisconsin Plans Election Despite Coronavirus Pandemic As Poll Workers Drop Out
There is a bigger question surrounding Tuesday’s Wisconsin primary balloting than the Democratic presidential nomination race between Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders: can an election be successfully held in the midst of a full-scale pandemic? Wisconsin’s decision to proceed, after more than a dozen other states have delayed their primaries due to the coronavirus outbreak, has caused requests for absentee ballots to soar and a scramble to find enough polling place workers. (Corse and McCormick, 4/2)

Politico: Wisconsin Democrats Apoplectic Over Governor's Handling Of Tuesday Primary
Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers’ refusal to push for a delay of his state’s Tuesday primary has infuriated fellow Democrats in the state, who are now openly accusing him of failing to prevent an impending train wreck. As the nation hurtles toward 5,000 coronavirus deaths and governors across the country take extreme steps to keep people at home, Wisconsin is forging ahead with the election despite having its own stay-at-home order. The likely outcome is that Wisconsinites will wake up on election day being told to stay put at the same time they're greenlighted to head to crowded polling sites. (Korecki, 4/2)

The Washington Post: Federal Judge Declines To Postpone April 7 Presidential Primaries In Wisconsin
A federal judge on Thursday declined to postpone Wisconsin’s scheduled April 7 presidential primaries amid widespread worries that holding elections during the coronavirus pandemic could risk public health and curtail access to the polls. The ruling from U.S. District Judge William M. Conley means Wisconsin will remain the only one of 11 states originally scheduled to hold contests in April that has not postponed or dramatically altered voting amid the pandemic. (Gardner, 4/2)

Politico: The Bruising Legal Battle Underway That Could Decide The Election
President Donald Trump’s political operation is launching a multimillion-dollar legal campaign aimed at blocking Democrats from drastically changing voting rules in response to the coronavirus outbreak. In the past several weeks, the reelection campaign and the Republican National Committee have helped to oversee maneuvering in a handful of battleground states with an eye toward stopping some Democratic efforts to alter voting laws, and to bolster Trump. The mobilization is being closely coordinated with Republicans at the state and local levels. (Isenstadt, 4/3)

ProPublica: In Desperation, New York State Pays Up To 15 Times The Normal Prices For Medical Equipment
With the coronavirus outbreak creating an unprecedented demand for medical supplies and equipment, New York state has paid 20 cents for gloves that normally cost less than a nickel and as much as $7.50 each for masks, about 15 times the usual price. It’s paid up to $2,795 for infusion pumps, more than twice the regular rate. And $248,841 for a portable X-ray machine that typically sells for $30,000 to $80,000. This payment data, provided by state officials, shows just how much the shortage of key medical equipment is driving up prices. (DePillis and Song, 4/2)

The Wall Street Journal: New York Moves To Shield Doctors From Lawsuits While Fighting Coronavirus
New York lawmakers are expected to approve a bill that would grant sweeping civil- and criminal-liability protections to hospitals and health care workers treating the surge of patients infected with the coronavirus. The statute largely lifts the threat of malpractice lawsuits at a time when New York hospitals are reeling from ventilator and protective-gear shortages and overcrowding that could force them to make wrenching choices about allocating lifesaving care. (Gershman and West, 4/2)

The New York Times: USNS Comfort Hospital Ship Was Supposed To Aid New York. It Has 3 Patients.
Such were the expectations for the Navy hospital ship U.S.N.S. Comfort that when it chugged into New York Harbor this week, throngs of people, momentarily forgetting the strictures of social distancing, crammed together along Manhattan’s west side to catch a glimpse. On Thursday, though, the huge white vessel, which officials had promised would bring succor to a city on the brink, sat mostly empty, infuriating executives at local hospitals. The ship’s 1,000 beds are largely unused, its 1,200-member crew mostly idle. Only 20 patients had been transferred to the ship, officials said, even as New York hospitals struggled to find space for the thousands infected with the coronavirus. Another Navy hospital ship, the U.S.N.S. Mercy, docked in Los Angeles, has had a total of 15 patients, officials said. (Schwirtz, 4/2)

The New York Times: Cuomo Emerges As ‘Trump Whisperer’ During Coronavirus Crisis
For Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, it should have been a softball question lobbed from a friendly source. The governor’s brother, Chris Cuomo, the CNN anchor, asked what he thought of President Trump’s repeated insinuation that health care workers in New York City were stealing medical supplies from hospitals by taking them “out the back door.” But Governor Cuomo did not take the bait.“It’s a very vague thing,” the governor said. “It went out the back door? I don’t know what that means.” (McKinley, 4/3)

ABC News: NYC Surgeon Who Survived Ebola Responds To Trump Suggesting Masks, Coronavirus Supplies Are Being Stolen From City Hospitals 
A surgeon who was the first person in New York City to be diagnosed with the Ebola virus in 2014 rejected President Donald Trump's claim that masks and other protective equipment intended for use in New York hospitals to fight the novel coronavirus, COVID-19, might have been stolen. Dr. Craig Spencer, the director of global health and emergency medicine at Columbia University Medical Center is on the frontline of the COVID-19 fight in New York City, which has been considered the epicenter of the pandemic in the United States. (Rosa, 4/2)

NBC News: NYC First Responders Reeling From 'Unprecedented' Call Volume Amid Coronavirus
New York City first responders are handling "tremendously high" call volumes, working multiple double shifts with back-to-back cases and suspected coronavirus patients going into cardiac arrest as the disease continues to sweep the city. "Everybody's overworked. There're people who are working five doubles, five 16-hour tours," in one week, said a New York City Fire Department emergency medical technician who works in the Bronx. (Silva and Winter, 4/2)

ABC News: The Last Coronavirus Holdout In New York: A Rural Upstate County Braces Itself 
In the rural upstate New York, it takes up to two weeks to find out test results for the novel coronavirus. Personal protective equipment is sparse. And there's no medical facility with an intensive care unit. This is what officials in Seneca County are trying to remedy as their first COVID-19 case was diagnosed on Monday. (Carrega, 4/3)

Politico: Trump Tangles With Schumer All Day Over Coronavirus Response
President Donald Trump and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer clashed all day Thursday in media appearances, tweets and dueling letters over the federal government’s response to the coronavirus crisis. The tension reached a climax when Trump sent a letter to the New York Democrat, defending his administration's handling of the coronavirus pandemic. But letter also got personal, as the president accused the Democratic leader of getting caught up in the "impeachment hoax" and being "missing in action, except when it comes to the 'press." (Levine, 4/2)

The Hill: Military Personnel To Handle Coronavirus Patients At Facilities In NYC, New Orleans And Dallas 
Military personnel will begin treating coronavirus patients at new medical facilities that have popped up in the cities of New York, New Orleans and Dallas, the White House said Thursday, marking a shift in policy for how the Pentagon is aiding in the medical response to the pandemic. Vice President Pence said at a White House briefing on the virus that President Trump had directed the Department of Defense to use military personnel to operate facilities fully focused on coronavirus patients. (Samuels, 4/2)

The Hill: De Blasio Calls For 'National Enlistment' Of Medical Personnel Amid Coronavirus Outbreak 
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) on Thursday called for a “national enlistment of medical personnel” in the city, which has become the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic in the U.S. “We need a national enlistment of medical personnel,” de Blasio said in a tweet to his followers. “Anyone with medical training that can be spared needs to come to the front. Today the front is NYC, but it will be all 50 states.” (Moreno, 4/2)

The New York Times: Virus’s Toll On N.Y. Police: 1 In 6 Officers Is Out Sick
One out of every six New York City police officers is out sick or in quarantine. A veteran detective and seven civilian workers have died from the disease caused by the coronavirus. And two chiefs and the deputy commissioner in charge of counterterrorism are among more than 1,500 others in the department who have been infected. With weeks to go before the epidemic is expected to peak, the virus has already strained the Police Department at a time when its 36,000 officers have been asked to step up and help fight it by enforcing emergency rules intended to slow its spread. (Southall, 4/3)

The Associated Press: 'Surreal': NY Funeral Homes Struggle As Virus Deaths Surge
Pat Marmo walked among 20 or so deceased in the basement of his Brooklyn funeral home, his protective mask pulled down so his pleas could be heard. “Every person there, they’re not a body,” he said. “They’re a father, they’re a mother, they’re a grandmother. They’re not bodies. They’re people.” Like many funeral homes in New York and around the globe, Marmo’s business is in crisis as he tries to meet surging demand amid the coronavirus pandemic that has killed around 1,400 people in New York City alone, according to a tally from Johns Hopkins University. (Seiner and Minchillo, 4/2)

CNN: Chris Cuomo Shares Covid-19 Experience: 'The Beast Comes At Night'
CNN's Chris Cuomo has become the most visible face of the coronavirus in the United States by giving daily updates about his condition on TV, social media and, on Thursday, at his brother's New York state press briefing. Other television stars (Andy Cohen) and household names (Tom Hanks) have contracted the virus... there are more than I can list at this point... but Cuomo stands out because he is giving frequent updates to an audience of millions of people. (Stelter, 4/2)

The New York Times: The Doctor Came To Save Lives. The Co-Op Board Told Him To Get Lost.
At the end of seven hours in mask, gown and gloves at Bellevue Hospital Center on Monday, Dr. Richard Levitan finally had a chance to look at his phone. Dr. Levitan, an emergency physician who lives in northern New Hampshire, had volunteered to work for 10 days at Bellevue, in Manhattan, as coronavirus patients besieged New York City hospitals. Monday was his first shift there. (Dwyer, 4/3)

New Orleans Times-Picayune: Help On The Way: Out-Of-State Nurses, Docs Join Coronavirus Fight In Louisiana Hospitals
As hospitals in Louisiana bear the brunt of one of the nation’s swiftest and most deadly coronavirus outbreaks, health care workers from around the country are coming to the Pelican State to treat patients and to take some pressure off hospital staffers. (Gallo, 4/2)

San Francisco Chronicle: Coronavirus: Bay Area Medical Practices Face Uncertain Future As Patients Disappear
As the coronavirus crisis surges, many private medical practices in the Bay Area have seen a steep drop in patients and revenue that could force them to go out of business, leaving their workers — physicians, nurses, assistants and staffers — unemployed and patients in the lurch. The term private practice may conjure images of the lone family doctor who runs his or her own office with a nurse and an assistant, but it covers everything from practices with a handful of physicians and staff to those with hundreds of doctors and staff members. They include specialists and surgeons as well as primary care doctors. The slowdown is also affecting dentists and optometrists and ophthalmologists. (Cabanatuan, 4/2)

WBUR: Baker Upping Health Care Resources As COVID-19 Models Predict Up To 172,000 Total Mass. Cases 
Gov. Charlie Baker announced additional efforts on Thursday to expand the state's health care resources, as he presented new projections of how the coronavirus outbreak in Massachusetts might pan out in the state.Baker said his administration consulted medical experts to come up with new models. His advisory panel estimates that between 47,000 and 172,000 residents will be infected, or 0.7% to 2.5% of the state's population. The new models also predict that the virus is likely to peak in Massachusetts between April 10 and 20. (Ruckstuhl, 4/2)

Boston Globe: Near Tripling Of Employee Coronavirus Infections In Largest Massachusetts Hospitals In Past Week 
Coronavirus infections among employees at major hospitals in Massachusetts nearly tripled over the past week, intensifying alarm about workers’ health, potential spread to others, and the withdrawal of staff at such a critical time in the pandemic. As of Wednesday, there were 509 infected workers at the hospitals, up from 177 the prior week, according to hospital data tracked by the Globe. (Dayal McCluskey and Andersen, 4/2)

WBUR: 'When He’s At Home, He Has Me': Students With Disabilities And Their Families Cope With Prolonged School Closures 
Across Massachusetts, thousands of parents and guardians are working long hours — often with little help — to protect, advocate and care for children with disabilities during the coronavirus crisis. With the state’s public schools now closed for at least another month, the disruption is creating a new strain on busy caregivers, too. (Larkin, 4/2)

WBUR: As Nurse Tests Positive, Judge Looks For Ways To Release Some ICE Detainees At Bristol County Jail 
A U.S. District Court Judge for Massachusetts is weighing whether to release dozens of people detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at the Bristol County House of Correction as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Judge William Young heard arguments in releasing a sub-class of 11 individuals who are detained by ICE with no criminal charges or convictions. (Dooling, 4/2)

Boston Globe: Her Husband Is Hospitalized In A Coma With Coronavirus. She’s 7 1/2 Months’ Pregnant And Infected, Too
For new and expecting parents in the coronavirus age, there is almost no worse scenario than what Urszula Osborne now faces.Her 40-year-old husband, Ray Osborne, is intubated on a ventilator and in a medically induced coma at Massachusetts General Hospital after contracting the coronavirus a few weeks ago. His kidneys have failed, so he’s on intermittent dialysis, too. (Pan, 4/2)

West Virginia Gazette-Mail: Reproductive Rights Advocates On Alert After AG Morrisey Comments On Abortion Facilities Amid COVID-19 
Earlier this week, West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice placed a moratorium on all “elective” procedures and surgeries in the state through an executive order, and at a Wednesday news conference, Attorney General Patrick Morrisey said the order will apply to “abortion facilities, as well.” Morrisey’s office did not respond to multiple requests to clarify or elaborate on his statement, which — if it does apply to abortions — may contradict language in the governor’s executive order. (Coyne, 4/1)

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Wisconsin State Fair Park Could Be Used As Coronavirus Care Facility
Milwaukee-area officials are asking that the Army Corps of Engineers build an "alternative care facility" on the Wisconsin State Fair Park grounds in case it's needed for coronavirus patients. "This is an attempt to prepare in the event that we need this," Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett said during a call with media Thursday afternoon. (Dirr, 4/2)

The Hill: NJ Governor Calls For Assessment Of Coronavirus Response After Crisis Abates 
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy (D) on Thursday called for a review of the federal government's response to the coronavirus pandemic. "On the one hand, I'll leave history to the historians in terms of how we got here," Murphy told CNN's Wolf Blitzer when asked about the Trump administration's response to the spreading pandemic. "But on the other hand, we've got — all of us have to do one of the biggest postmortems, when the dust settles on this, in the history of our country. We've got to figure out how the heck we got into this spot and make sure we never get in this spot ever again.” (Moreno, 4/2)

Houston Chronicle: Handful Of Harris County Jail Inmates Set To Be Released 
A handful of inmates appeared set to be released from jail Thursday night or Friday morning, following Judge Lina Hidalgo’s order to the Harris County Sheriff’s Office to free hundreds of low-risk inmates in an effort to reduce the jail population and prevent a widespread outbreak of coronavirus. On Wednesday, Hidalgo ordered Sheriff Ed Gonzalez to prepare a list of inmates accused of certain nonviolent offenses and who did not have previous convictions for violent crimes. That list was expected to include the names of some 1,000 inmates, which would be reviewed — and likely significantly pared down — by other county departments. (Barned-Smith, 4/2)

Houston Chronicle: Houston Leaders Urgently Planning For Surge Of COVID-19 Patients To Avoid New York's Nightmare
Houston health care leaders are urgently putting together contingency plans — from repurposing hospital beds not currently in use to creating a makeshift facility at NRG Stadium — to prevent an expected surge of COVID-19 patients from overwhelming area hospitals. The plans, assembled by leaders from the Texas Medical Center, the city of Houston, Harris County and the region, stress fluidity and flexibility because the extent of the surge, projected to peak in the next two to four weeks, is so maddeningly unknowable. (Ackerman, 4/2)

Kaiser Health News: Pandemic-Stricken Cities Have Empty Hospitals, But Reopening Them Is Difficult
As city leaders across the country scramble to find space for the expected surge of COVID-19 patients, some are looking at a seemingly obvious choice: former hospital buildings, sitting empty, right downtown. In Philadelphia, New Orleans, and Los Angeles, where hospitalizations from COVID-19 increase each day, shuttered hospitals that once served the city’s poor and uninsured sit at the center of a public health crisis that begs for exactly what they can offer: more space. But reopening closed hospitals, even in a public health emergency, is difficult. (Feldman, 4/2)

Stat: A Nurse Records Videos She Hopes Her Family Won't Need To Watch 
The words are familiar at first, a bedtime trope so dependable that it’s hard to imagine this ritual will ever change. Every evening, Elise Barrett helps her 2-year-old get ready for the night. Their apartment’s small, so he sleeps in the walk-in closet, and she climbs in with him, for a cuddle and a story before lights-out. (Boodman, 4/3)

The Washington Post: Zaandam Cruise Ship Passengers Tell Their Story Of Being Quarantined At Sea
The cruise ship Zaandam is nine decks of escapism, stretching 781 feet bow to stern, with a casino and spa, a steakhouse and two swimming pools. Its walls are adorned with signed guitars from Iggy Pop and Eric Clapton. It was christened 20 years ago by Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen, who wore matching nautical suits. (Hesse and Zak, 4/2)

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Crime Rates Drop Across Metro Atlanta As More People Stay Home
As more people stay at home amid the coronavirus pandemic, law enforcement agencies across metro Atlanta are reporting a sharp decrease in crime rates. Additionally, the majority of departments have instructed officers to issue nonviolent offenders written citations whenever possible in an effort to reduce inmate populations at local jails. (Abusaid, 4/2)

The Washington Post: D.C.’s Coronavirus Lockdown Upends Life In Nation’s Capital
In a city defined by power, a virus has seized control. (4/2)

ABC News: Washington Nursing Home Could Face Fines For Allegedly Mishandling Virus Spread 
A Seattle-area nursing home that became the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak in Washington could face $611,000 in fines and possible loss of government funding for violating federal guidelines put in place to stop the spread of infection, according to a letter sent to the facility by federal investigators. Life Care Center of Kirkland was the scene of one of the first and most-deadly coronavirus outbreaks last month, with 81 residents infected and 34 deaths. (Pecorin, 4/2)

ProPublica: Now That Coronavirus Is Inside This Adult Home For The Elderly Or Mentally Ill, It May Be Impossible To Stop
Over the years, Elmhurst residents have learned to mostly ignore the bedraggled and destitute residents who quarrel over cigarettes and beg for change outside the Queens Adult Care Center. But now, inside the worn brick building, are all the elements of an epidemiologist’s nightmare. On March 22 came proof that the deadly coronavirus had made its way into the home when one of its residents, an 82-year-old former nurse, succumbed to COVID-19. (Sapien, 4/2)

The New York Times: Bad News Wrapped In Protein: Inside The Coronavirus Genome
A virus is “simply a piece of bad news wrapped up in protein,” the biologists Jean and Peter Medawar wrote in 1977.In January, scientists deciphered a piece of very bad news: the genome of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19. The sample came from a 41-year-old man who worked at the seafood market in Wuhan where the first cluster of cases appeared. Researchers are now racing to make sense of this viral recipe, which could inspire drugs, vaccines and other tools to fight the ongoing pandemic. (Corum and Zimmer, 4/3)

The New York Times: Peaks, Testing, Lockdowns: How Coronavirus Vocabulary Causes Confusion
Making sense of the coronavirus pandemic requires getting up to speed on semantics as much as epidemiology. Government officials and health-care professionals toss off mentions of mortality rates, flattening the curve and lockdowns, assuming that we know what they mean. But the terms mean different things from country to country, state to state, even city to city and person to person. Officials use the same phrases about mass testing, caseloads and deaths to describe very different situations. (Perez-Pena, 4/3)

The Wall Street Journal: When A Virus Spreads Exponentially
Fighting a pandemic like Covid-19 requires experts in many fields: epidemiologists who study the spread of disease, doctors who treat the sick, scientists who work on finding a vaccine. There is math involved in all of these specialties, but math can also help us to make sense of the barrage of information that we’re receiving daily. The starting point is the math of exponential growth. The word “exponential” is sometimes used informally to mean “really fast,” but mathematically it means something very specific: that a quantity is repeatedly multiplied by the same number. (Cheng, 4/2)

CNN: Quitting Smoking Could Help You Fight Covid-19 
If you've been thinking about quitting smoking, there's no time like the present pandemic. With the novel coronavirus sweeping the globe, the science on quitting smoking offers welcome news for smokers who want to build up their defenses in case they contract Covid-19. Though it may still take many months for a smoker's lungs to heal from damage caused by long-term smoking, your health can noticeably improve in the days and weeks after quitting in ways that could make a difference against the virus. (Prior, 4/3)

The New York Times: What Pregnant Women Should Know About Coronavirus
Pregnant women are often particularly susceptible to respiratory infections and, once infected, can become seriously ill, with long-lasting consequences for both mother and baby. Is that true for the new coronavirus? The information available so far is thin, but it appears that pregnant women are no more likely than anyone else to have severe symptoms from the coronavirus. In an analysis of 147 women, only 8 percent had severe disease and 1 percent were in critical condition, according to a report published on Feb. 28 by the World Health Organization. (Mandavilli, 4/2)

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Reports Blame Obesity, Heart Disease For New Orleans' COVID-19 Deaths
New Orleans suffers a COVID-19 per-capita death rate seven times higher than New York and 10 times that of hard-hit Seattle, according to a report by Reuters.Researchers struggle where to place blame: the crowds of Mardi Gras? churches? Nursing homes? Emerging data trends show that 97% of those who were killed by the coronavirus in Louisiana suffered from a pre-existing health condition, most prominently, obesity.  (Elder, 4/2)

Modern Healthcare: HHS Eases HIPAA Enforcement On Data Releases During COVID-19
HHS won't enforce penalties for violations of certain provisions of the HIPAA privacy rule against healthcare providers or their business associates for good-faith disclosures of protected health information for public health purposes during the COVID-19 emergency. The HHS Office for Civil Rights said Thursday that it was exercising its enforcement discrimination in making the policy change during the declared emergency period. (Meyer, 4/2)

The New York Times: How Tech’s Lobbyists Are Using The Pandemic To Make Gains
Last month, lobbying groups representing advertising giants like Google and Facebook asked California’s attorney general to wait to enforce the state’s new online privacy rules given the coronavirus ripping around the world. In Washington, lobbyists representing cloud computing giants like Amazon pushed for more money to help federal employees work remotely. And Uber began reframing a longtime campaign to avoid classifying its drivers as full-time employees through the urgency of a mounting public health crisis. (McCabe, 4/3)

The Wall Street Journal: U.S. Tries To House Its Homeless In A Hurry To Prevent Coronavirus Outbreaks
After years spent struggling to find the funds and political will to address the homelessness crisis, state and local leaders are being forced to shelter homeless people as fast as possible in the face of the coronavirus pandemic. Doing so is necessary to avoid an outbreak among one of the nation’s most vulnerable groups of people, according to experts. “We’ve never moved this many people ever or had the ambition to move this many people off the streets at any given time,” said Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti at a press conference last week. (Mai-Duc, Caldwell and Armour, 4/3)

KQED: 'Palpable Fear' Within Homeless Communities As Coronavirus Crisis Forces Shelters To Limit Capacity
Shelters in Alameda County have stopped accepting new clients — as they have in San Francisco and elsewhere around the Bay Area — so they can begin to implement the social distancing guidelines that have been mandated by the state and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But that makes it hard for those who have nowhere else to go, Moore said. She knows. She’s homeless, too. (Baldassari, 4/2)

ABC News: FDA Loosens Restrictions On Gay And Bisexual Men, Encourages Blood Donations Amid Coronavirus Crisis 
The Food and Drug Administration on Thursday said it would loosen some of the restrictions that have blocked gay and bisexual men from donating blood. The agency is changing the recommended deferral period for men who have had sex with another man from 12 months to three months. Restrictions on blood donations from gay and bisexual men, and other groups considered to be high risk for HIV or AIDS transmission, date back to the 1980's. (Ebbs, 4/2)

NPR: Cancer Patients Face Treatment Disruptions During Coronavirus Pandemic
As hospitals across the country are forced to delay or cancel certain medical procedures in response to the surge in patients with COVID-19, those hard choices are disrupting care for some people with serious illnesses. The federal government has encouraged health centers to delay non-essential surgeries while weighing the severity of the patient's condition and the availability of personal protective equipment, beds, and staffing at hospitals. (Stone, 4/2)

The New York Times: Coronavirus Vs Flu Vs Allergies: Which One Is It?
With the spread of the coronavirus comes another ailment: anxiety about every single symptom. Is your nose feeling itchy because you’re trying not to touch your face, because you picked up the flu — or is it, just maybe, the coronavirus?With the start of spring, allergies may be triggering symptoms that can make it difficult to determine what your body is trying to fight off. Dr. Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease specialist at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, helps explain the subtle differences between signs of allergies or infection with the flu or the coronavirus. (Sheikh, 4/2)

The New York Times: How O.C.D. And Hand-Washing And Coronavirus Collide
The coronavirus outbreak has turned many of us into nervous germophobes, seeking to protect ourselves from infection by washing our hands methodically and frequently, avoiding unnecessary contact with so called high-touch surfaces and methodically sanitizing packages, our homes and our bodies. For people diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder, or O.C.D., the worry created by the threat of coronavirus has the potential for more intense and longer-lasting implications. (Rosman, 4/3)

ABC News: Disaster In Motion: 3.4 Million Travelers Poured Into US As Coronavirus Pandemic Erupted
An ABC News investigation offers sobering insight into how COVID-19 has spread and penetrated so broadly, so deeply and so quickly in the United States. It also helps explain why Americans, no matter where they live, must continue to heed the warnings of health officials to self distance and why the virus likely was here far earlier than first realized. (Thomas, Date, Salzman and Strauss, 4/2)

Undark: With Taliban Cooperation, Afghanistan Girds For A Virus
On March13, 50-year-old Sayeed Karim attended Friday prayers at his mosque in Mangalha, a remote village in Baghlan Province in northern Afghanistan. While there, he and his neighbors were presented with a unique public information session issued by local Taliban groups. “They talked about the coronavirus,” said Karim in a phone interview with Undark.According to Karim, who is a village elder, the Taliban rebels informed worshipers that the thousands of Afghan refugees recently returned from Iran must remain in their homes until they can be tested for SARS-CoV-2. Since the 1980s, an estimated 2 million undocumented Afghan refugees have sought asylum in Iran, in an effort to escape violence and economic insecurity in their own country. And for years, Iran has been sending these migrants back to Afghanistan at a rate of roughly a thousand people per day. But as Covid-19 cases have surged in Iran, the number of returnees spiked dramatically. Iran continues its deportations, while many Afghans are now returning to their homeland voluntarily. Afghanistan’s earliest confirmed Covid-19 cases predominantly occurred among returnees, raising fears that the virus will now spread throughout Afghanistan, a country with more than 35 million people. (Kumar, 4/2)

The New York Times: Creatures In This Underwater Forest Could Save Your Life One Day
It was 6 a.m. at the dock on a Tuesday in December, and the weather did not look promising. Fog hovered over the water, and the engine of the Research Vessel E.O. Wilson rumbled. Our ship disappeared into the mist, and by 7:30 the crew, a team of biologists, chemists and microbiologists, reached its destination. The sun lounged on obsidian water, masking a secret world where land and sea swap places, and past, present and future collide. (Klein, 3/31)

The Wall Street Journal: Dr. Fauci Was A Basketball Captain. Now He’s America’s Point Guard.
The basketball team at Regis High School had a 1-16 record as the players entered a rival’s gym in the winter of 1958 fully expecting to leave with yet another loss. The other team’s star was a future NBA coach who would one day run the New York Knicks. Regis was led by a diminutive future doctor who would one day run the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. “Nobody gave us a chance,” said John Zeman, a Regis alumnus. “Everyone figured it was going to be a blowout.” But there was one teenager who looked at this demoralizing collection of data and came to a wildly optimistic conclusion. (Cohen, 3/29)

The New York Times: Cannabis Scientists Are Chasing The Perfect High
The retail showroom of INSA, a farm-to-bong cannabis company in western Massachusetts, is a clean industrial space on the first floor of a four-story brick building in the old mill town Easthampton. When I visited recently, before the coronavirus shut down recreational sales and forbade crowds, the crew of eight behind the glass display cases looked a lot like the staff you’d see dispensing lattes at Starbucks or troubleshooting iPads at the Genius Bar: young, racially diverse, smiling. They were all wearing black T-shirts with the INSA motto, “Uncommon Cannabis.” (Greenberg, 4/1)

The Atlantic: Coronavirus: It's Okay To Be Nostalgic For Normalcy
Since the start of social-distancing measures in New York City, I’ve made a habit of scrolling through my Instagram profile every night, thinking about how bizarre it is that I was standing near my friends whenever I wanted to only a month ago. It already feels impossible that I used to enter bar bathrooms with abandon, look in the mirror, wipe errant makeup out of the corners of my eyes, and touch my mouth to get the wine stains off. Last week, I spent two full minutes stroking a free postcard from the pizza place I went to on Valentine’s Day. The sight of a crumpled movie-theater receipt in the bottom of my purse made me grab my knees. I’m nostalgic for February, which feels ridiculous. (Tiffany, 4/1)

FiveThirtyEight: Best-Case And Worst-Case Coronavirus Forecasts Are Very Far Apart
Building a model to forecast the COVID-19 outbreak is really freaking hard. That’s one reason we’ve been following a weekly survey of infectious disease researchers from institutions around the United States. This week’s survey, taken on March 30 and 31, shows that experts expect an average of 263,000 COVID-19-related deaths in 2020, but anywhere between 71,000 and 1.7 million deaths is a reasonable estimate. (Boice, 4/2)

The Washington Post: We Face A Worldwide Ventilator Deficit. The Federal Government Is Flat-Footed.
The United States needs tens of thousands more ventilators in the coming weeks to handle the expected wave of covid-19 patients, and the question of which states and hospitals receive them — and can therefore save lives — comes down to this: Who will play God? Will it be U.S. and foreign medical device-makers, whose overwhelmed order books position them to determine which hospitals, states or nations will get the ventilators they need? In the United States, will it be the states, which have been thrust into what New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo (D) called an eBay-style bidding war against one another? (4/2)

The New York Times: Jared Kushner Is Going To Get Us All Killed 
Reporting on the White House’s herky-jerky coronavirus response, Vanity Fair’s Gabriel Sherman has a quotation from Jared Kushner that should make all Americans, and particularly all New Yorkers, dizzy with terror. According to Sherman, when New York’s governor, Andrew Cuomo, said that the state would need 30,000 ventilators at the apex of the coronavirus outbreak, Kushner decided that Cuomo was being alarmist. “I have all this data about I.C.U. capacity,” Kushner reportedly said. “I’m doing my own projections, and I’ve gotten a lot smarter about this. New York doesn’t need all the ventilators.” (Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country’s top expert on infectious diseases, has said he trusts Cuomo’s estimate.) (Michelle Goldberg, 4/2)

Los Angeles Times: Coronavirus: What's The Matter With Arkansas, Iowa, South Carolina?
I’ve got some words for the governors of Alabama, Arkansas, Missouri and the eight other states that have yet to adopt statewide stay-at-home orders to stop the spread of the coronavirus pandemic. And they’re not nice words.What the #@*& are you waiting for? As I was writing this, the confirmed cases of COVID-19 across the globe topped 1 million. Nearly a quarter of them in the United States. Every state has cases. Every. State. So far, 39 U.S. states have followed the recommendations of public health experts and told all their residents to stay at home and shut down nonessential businesses to make it harder for the virus to spread. (Mariel Garza, 4/2)

The Birmingham News: Alabama Is Stuck On Autopilot 
We’re not New York and we’re not California, Gov. Kay Ivey said last week. As it turns out, we’re not Florida or Georgia. Nor was Alabama any of the 37 states with some version of shelter-in-place orders by this Wednesday night.We’re not even Mississippi, whose governor, after a week of defiance, finally caved. That’s right — we’re behind Mississippi. Again. “We dare defend our rights,” is what it says on Alabama’s business cards, and if the South had won the war, we’d print it on our currency. But everyone who has grown up here knows our state’s real motto: “We shall not be told.” By sheer stubbornness is how we live, and if Ivey doesn’t bend soon, stubbornness is how many of us might die. (Kyle Whitmire, 4/2)

The Washington Post: Social Distancing Is Working. The Worst Thing To Do Now Is Stop.
When a group of public health experts sat down last year to imagine a pandemic caused by a highly transmissable respiratory virus, they foresaw much of what has occurred in the past few months. The experts, writing for the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, predicted health-care systems could be overwhelmed, medical supply chains stressed and the need for vaccines and drugs urgent. But in one area, they were uncertain — would social distancing work? (4/2)

The Wall Street Journal: The States Of Covid-19 
This week President Trump and his coronavirus task force laid out their background data for deciding to keep the U.S. on de facto lockdown for another month. Dr. Deborah Birx, for example, explained how the models have gone from estimating as many as 2.2 million deaths—which assumed no mitigation—to between 100,000 and 240,000 now. Two days later New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, whose state is the epicenter for Covid-19, said during one of his own regular public updates that he expects the apex of the virus to hit his state at the end of April. By apex he means the moment New York’s health-care system is most vulnerable to be overwhelmed by the demand for hospital beds, ventilators and treatment. One challenge, Mr. Cuomo explained, is that different models give different estimates for when that will hit, ranging from a few days to six weeks. Their respective comments highlight how difficult it is for leaders to make decisions when they still lack answers to basic questions. (4/2)

The Hill: Congress Needs To Step Up Fast To Protect Abused Children 
Congress deserves credit for expeditiously passing massive coronavirus relief assistance; there have been three measures, more are coming. The pandemic isn't going away soon. Also, in passing the latest $2.2 trillion bill, there were inevitable errors of commission and omission. One illustration, comparatively small but critical and heart-wrenching: child abuse. (Albert Hunt, 4/2)

The Hill: Celebrating 10 Years Of ACA — Helping Protect Women's Reproductive Health 
Recently it was announced that 12 states have established a special enrollment period to help address the immediate challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. Hopefully, other states will follow suit. This effort demonstrates the critical role that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) plays in meeting our community’s immediate health care needs. With regard to its long-term benefit, we need only look at the ACA’s critical role in helping to ensure access to key preventive services for women at no additional out-of-pocket cost, including the full contraceptive services and supplies. (Ginny Ehrlich, 4/2)

The New York Times: The Coronavirus Test Is Too Hard For Trump
The list of presidential failures is long and varied. But when it comes to failure in the face of an external force — a natural disaster or an economic meltdown — it is difficult to find anything as catastrophic as President Trump’s handling of the coronavirus outbreak, even at this early stage of the crisis.There are moments that come close. There was President James Buchanan’s indifference to the secession crisis of 1860. (Jamelle Bouie, 4/3)

Idaho Statesman: Increase Coronavirus Testing In Idaho To Flatten The Curve
Testing for coronavirus should be the highest priority for our public health officials right now. In Idaho, we have a local lab in Garden City that could be processing as many as 400 tests per day But, according to Idaho Statesman reporter Audrey Dutton, the machine at Cole Diagnostics’ lab is sitting idle. That’s because the company that provides Cole Diagnostics with the software and reagents necessary to test for coronavirus had to prioritize larger, regional labs in the face of heightened demand. ...That means tests being done in Idaho are being sent out of state to those regional labs, leading to delays of 10 or more days. We have heard anecdotally of people waiting more than 14 days for test results. The delay in testing is happening even to health care workers, which could lead to the spread of the disease even faster. (3/2)

Stat: The Hidden Covid-19 Crisis: Health Care Workers' Mental Health 
In the midst of this global pandemic, people are talking about the urgent and critical need for personal protective equipment. They are sharing concerns about the impending lack of respirators and the need for testing. And they are encouraging people to #flattenthecurve through social distancing. But no one is talking about a potential mental health crisis facing health care workers on the frontlines of this pandemic. (Jessica Gold, 4/3)

Modern Healthcare: COVID-19 Pushing Primary Care To Brink Of Collapse
By all accounts, we are merely in the opening salvo of the COVID-19 outbreak in the U.S., and already our defenses are falling apart. Many thousands of Americans rely on independent family physicians, and if we do not act boldly and quickly to save them, we risk eviscerating the heart and soul of healthcare in communities nationwide. (Farzad Mostashari, 4/2)

CNN: Covid-19 May Inspire A New Generation Of Doctors And Scientists
The devastating coronavirus has already claimed the lives of over 50,000 people across the world -- and shows little sign of letting up anytime soon. But if there is one glimmer of hope in this global nightmare, it's that it may inspire a generation of Americans to consider pursuing careers in the medical and scientific fields, just as other crises have inspired past generations in particular ways. (Zelizer, 4/2)

Stat: I Got Covid-19 And Got Lucky. The Emotional Impact Hurt More 
I tested positive for Covid-19 not long ago. It wasn’t a worried-well test, or even a test I got because I had recently traveled to Italy or China, or had been in contact with someone diagnosed with Covid-19. I got tested because I felt awful. (Anne Kornblut, 4/3)

CNN: How US Can Keep Coronavirus Death Toll Far Below The 100,000 Projection  
On Tuesday, the White House projected an alarming possibility: Between 100,000 and 240,000 Americans could die from the Covid-19 pandemic, despite the efforts in place to minimize the spread of the disease. Yet these 100,000 to 240,000 deaths are not inevitable. Far from it. (Jeffrey Sachs, 4/3)

CNN: In A Pandemic, To Baby Or Not To Baby?
"There's never a good time to start a family," as the saying goes. It's meant to reassure anxious would-be parents that there's rarely a feeling of confident preparedness that precedes having children -- and there isn't. But the aphorism takes on a new meaning in the age of a pandemic, in which life has radically changed and the future is uncertain. (SE Cupp, 4/2)

Cincinnati Enquirer: Ban On Visitations Have Shut Out Hospice Providers
Our country and the world are facing one of the most dramatic events in our combined history. As the COVID-19 outbreak continues across the U.S., many long-term care facilities have restricted visitors’ access. While well-intentioned and meant to protect residents, these bans on all visitation have left hospice providers unable to reach patients with life-limiting illnesses due to confusion about the definition of "essential service." (Perry Farmer, 4/1)

The Wall Street Journal: New York Is The Epicenter Of The World 
New York -- I asked for the dateline in pride for my beloved city. For the third time in 20 years it’s been the epicenter of a world-class crisis—9/11, the 2008 financial crisis and now the 2020 pandemic. No one asks—not one person has asked—Why us? We think: Why not us? Of course us. The city of the skyscrapers draws the lightning. There are 8.6 million of us, we are compact, draw all the people of the world, and travel packed close in underground tubes. Of course we got sick here first. The crises are the price we pay for the privilege of living in the most exciting little landmass on the face of the Earth. What do we know? That we’ll get through it. We’ll learn a lot and it will be hard but we’ll get through, just like all the last times. (Peggy Noonan, (4/2)

St. Louis Post Dispatch: St. Louis Churches Endanger Their Flocks By Flouting Crowd Restrictions.
No one likes the specter of police driving by churches to assess if services are in progress, with government officials following up by issuing citations. But that’s what happened with two churches in St. Louis last weekend — and it’s fair to ask what other choice those churches think the city had. Just as the constitutional right to free speech doesn’t allow someone to falsely yell “fire” in a crowded theater, so the right to religious observance doesn’t allow churches to risk the health of their own worshipers and the wider public by violating crowd limits during a pandemic. City officials cited Hopewell Missionary Baptist Church in the Lewis Place neighborhood and St. John Church of God in Christ in College Hill for violating the city’s 10-person limit on public gatherings last Sunday. (4/2)