The New York Times: The U.S. Now Leads The World In Confirmed Coronavirus Cases
Scientists warned that the United States someday would become the country hardest hit by the coronavirus pandemic. That moment arrived on Thursday. In the United States, at least 81,321 people are known to have been infected with the coronavirus, including more than 1,000 deaths — more cases than China, Italy or any other country has seen, according to data gathered by The New York Times. The Times is engaged in a comprehensive effort to track the details of every confirmed case in the United States, collecting information from federal, state and local officials. (McNeil, 3/26)

Reuters: U.S. Has Most Coronavirus Cases In World, Next Wave Aimed At Louisiana
With medical facilities running low on ventilators and protective masks and hampered by limited diagnostic testing capacity, the U.S. death toll from COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the virus, rose beyond 1,200. “Any scenario that is realistic will overwhelm the capacity of the healthcare system,” New York Governor Andrew Cuomo told a news conference. He described the state’s projected shortfall in ventilators - machines that support the respiration of people have cannot breathe on their own - as “astronomical.” (Caspani and Trotta, 3/26)

The Wall Street Journal: U.S. Coronavirus Cases Surpass Those Of China, Italy
World-wide, there were more than 555,400 cases Friday, according to Johns Hopkins data. Testing for the new coronavirus hasn’t been uniform across the U.S. or globally, which affects total case counts. Hospitals in U.S. hot spots including New York and Seattle have passed a tipping point, as a relentless surge in cases forces some to move patients to outlying facilities, divert ambulances and store bodies in a refrigerated truck. Fatalities in the U.S. from the new coronavirus topped 1,296 Friday. (Ansari, Calfas and Wong, 3/27)

CNN: US Coronavirus: America Has Most Known Cases Worldwide, But Experts Say It's Just The Beginning Of The Battle 
"This is going to be the disaster that defines our generation," said Collin Arnold, director of the city's Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness. Jefferson and Orleans parishes, which make up most of metro New Orleans, ranked among the top seven counties nationwide in deaths per 100,00 residents for areas reporting 100 cases or more. And at least 3,000 were expected to be tested Thursday. (Maxouris, 3/27)

The Washington Post: U.S. Deaths From Coronavirus Top 1,000, Amid Incomplete Reporting From Authorities And Anguish From Those Left Behind
In the first 1,000 fatalities, some patterns have begun to emerge in the outbreak’s epidemiology and its painful human impact. About 65 percent of the dead whose ages are known were older than 70, and nearly 40 percent were over 80, demonstrating that risk rises along with age. About 5 percent whose ages are known were in their 40s or younger, but many more in that age group have been sick enough to be hospitalized. Of those victims whose gender is known, nearly 60 percent were men. (Hauslohner, Thebault and Dupree, 3/26)

The Washington Post: Men Are Getting Sicker, Dying More Often Of Covid-19, Spain Data Shows
Cristian Guaman Benítez, a 33-year-old electrician who moved to Spain from Ecuador, had been sick for a week with a cough, a terrible headache and a fever as high as 104 degrees. He saw three doctors who treated his illness like a cold, prescribing medicines and sending him back to work. Finally, he called the number for covid-19 information, and a doctor came to his home to examine him — and sent him by ambulance to Madrid’s 12 de Octubre Hospital. Which was where he discovered he was an outlier. (Mooney and Rolfe, 3/26)

Reuters: Coronavirus Could Kill 81,000 In U.S., Subside In June - Washington University Analysis
The coronavirus pandemic could kill more than 81,000 people in the United States in the next four months and may not subside until June, according to a data analysis done by University of Washington School of Medicine. The number of hospitalized patients is expected to peak nationally by the second week of April, though the peak may come later in some states. Some people could continue to die of the virus as late as July, although deaths should be below epidemic levels of 10 per day by June at the latest, according to the analysis. The analysis, using data from governments, hospitals and other sources, predicts that the number of U.S. deaths could vary widely, ranging from as low as around 38,000 to as high as around 162,000. (O'Donnell, 3/26)

The Hill: Birx Cautions Against Inaccurate Models Predicting Significant Coronavirus Spread 
White House coronavirus task force coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx cautioned Thursday against models that predict alarming increases in coronavirus infections and deaths in the U.S. Birx, speaking at a White House press briefing, singled out a recent study on the United Kingdom that originally predicted 500,000 people would die from the virus and has since been revised down to predict 20,000 deaths in the U.K. She said the data the government has collected does not show that 20 percent of the U.S. population would be infected with COVID-19, cautioning against predictions that say so. (Chalfant, 3/26)

The Associated Press: Trump Signs $2.2T Stimulus After Swift Congressional Votes
President Donald Trump signed an unprecedented $2.2 trillion economic rescue package into law Friday, after swift and near-unanimous action by Congress to support businesses, rush resources to overburdened health care providers and help struggling families during the deepening coronavirus epidemic. Acting with unity and resolve unseen since the 9/11 attacks, Washington moved urgently to stem an economic free fall caused by widespread restrictions meant to slow the spread of the virus that have shuttered schools, closed businesses and brought American life in many places to a virtual standstill. (Taylor, Fram, Kellman and Superville, 3/27)

Reuters: Historic $2.2 Trillion Coronavirus Bill Passes U.S. House, Becomes Law
The $2.2 trillion measure includes $500 billion to help hard-hit industries and a comparable amount for payments of up to $3,000 to millions of families. The legislation will also provide $350 billion for small-business loans, $250 billion for expanded unemployment aid and at least $100 billion for hospitals and related health systems. The Republican-led Senate approved it 96-0 late on Wednesday. (Morgan and Cornwell, 3/26)

Politico: House Passes $2 Trillion Coronavirus Package — But Not Without Last-Minute Drama
But the House vote wasn’t without some last minute drama, as members from across the country scrambled to return to Washington to block Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) from delaying passage of the bill. The legislation — the largest rescue package in U.S. history — will now go to President Donald Trump for his signature. The president is expected to quickly sign the bill into law after giving it a full-throated endorsement earlier this week. (Caygle and Ferris, 3/26)

The Washington Post: Trump Signs $2 Trillion Coronavirus Bill Into Law As Companies And Households Brace For More Economic Pain
The legislation passed in dramatic fashion, approved on an overwhelming voice vote by lawmakers who’d been forced to return to Washington by a GOP colleague who had insisted on a quorum being present. Some lawmakers came from New York and other places where residents are supposed to be sheltering at home. The procedural move by Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) drew bipartisan fury, including from Trump who derided him over Twitter as a “grandstander” who should be tossed out of the Republican Party. (Kane, DeBonis and Werner, 3/27)

The New York Times: $2 Trillion Coronavirus Stimulus Bill Passes House
The legislation would send direct payments of $1,200 to millions of Americans, including those earning up to $75,000, and an additional $500 per child. It would substantially expand jobless aid, providing an additional 13 weeks and a four-month enhancement of benefits, and would extend the payments for the first time to freelancers and gig workers. The measure would also offer $377 billion in federally guaranteed loans to small businesses and establish a $500 billion government lending program for distressed companies reeling from the impact of the crisis, including allowing the administration the ability to take equity stakes in airlines that received aid to help compensate taxpayers. It would also send $100 billion to hospitals on the front lines of the pandemic. (Cochrane and Stolberg, 3/27)

The Wall Street Journal: Trump Signs $2 Trillion Coronavirus Stimulus Bill After Swift Passage By House
The session took place under unusual circumstances. Lawmakers were told to use hand sanitizer when entering and departing the chamber, to avoid elevators and to keep proper social distancing. “People who can see the chamber now will see that we are keeping a distance from one another, not out of hostility but out of love for one another and that we may keep one another healthy and safe,” said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D., Md.) on Friday. “It will be an unusual session, but a critical session.” (Andrews and Hughes, 3/27)

Politico: Who Got Special Deals In The Stimulus And Why They Got Them
In the race to save the economy and pass the largest economic rescue package in American history, Congress still found a way to do some old-fashioned home state favors and reward key special interests. Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) managed to successfully push a minimum assistance figure for every state — $1.5 billion — to make sure small states like his weren’t left out in the legislation. (Emma, Scholstes and Meyer, 3/26)

Kaiser Health News: In Coronavirus Relief Bill, Hospitals Poised To Get Massive Infusion Of Cash
Congress is on the verge of approving a massive funding bill that would steer an unprecedented amount of cash to the nation’s hospitals that are or soon will be struggling to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic. While the bottom-line number for that aid is close to $200 billion, it remains to be seen how fast the federal Treasury will move the money and whether it will get to where it is most needed. (Rovner, 3/27)

The Wall Street Journal: Unemployment Benefits: What To Know About The Coronavirus Bill
Congress is working to pass a roughly $2 trillion stimulus bill that would expand the amount and duration of unemployment benefits available to laid-off workers. It would also broaden the pool of people who are eligible to receive benefits during the new coronavirus pandemic. We answer questions below on how to apply for unemployment benefits and how the legislation, once it becomes law, would change who is eligible. (Chaney, 3/26)

The Wall Street Journal: Coronavirus Stimulus Payments: When Will They Be Sent And Who Is Eligible?
In response to the economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic, Congress is poised to approve an economic relief plan that includes one-time direct payments to most households. Here are the key details. (Rubin, 3/26)

The Associated Press: Staying Afloat: $2.2 Trillion Bill Offers Economic Lifeline
The record $2.2 trillion emergency relief package that Congress gave final approval to Friday is aimed at businesses like [Dr.] Ticho’s and people like his patients: Caught in a public health lockdown that has closed companies and brought economic life to a standstill, they are at risk of running out of money and being unable to pay bills or meet daily expenses. The idea behind the measure is to give companies and families a cash cushion to better weather the health crisis and looming recession. When it’s safe to go back to work, dine out and book airline tickets again, the thinking goes, they’ll be more financially ready to return to something closer to normal life. (Wiseman and Rosenberg, 3/27)

The Hill: More Questions And Answers About The Coronavirus Checks 
Americans are keenly interested in the cash payments included in the coronavirus relief bill that is soon expected to become law. Under the bill, millions of households will receive rebates in the amount of $1,200 per adult and $500 per child. The amounts phase out for individuals making more than $75,000 and married couples making more than $150,000. The Senate passed the bill late Wednesday, and the House is expected to pass it Friday. Trump is expected to sign the legislation. (Jagoda, 3/26)

The Associated Press: Coronavirus Deals One-Two Financial Punch To State Budgets
The coronavirus is pounding state governments with a financial one-two punch, costing them many millions to try to contain the disease just as businesses are shutting down and tax revenue is collapsing. The sharp drop in revenue could jeopardize some states’ ability to provide basic services. States ranging from tiny Rhode Island to California, with the world’s fifth-largest economy, have warned that many programs are likely to face cuts or even elimination. (Mulvihill, 3/27)

The Washington Post: Van Hollen: D.C. Classified As Territory In Relief Bill Intentionally
Sen. Chris Van Hollen said Thursday that the coronavirus relief package expected to pass the House of Representatives on Friday deliberately classified the District as a territory instead of a state, which means the city will get less than half of the funding it was expecting. Van Hollen (D-Md.) said he doesn’t know how the District got lumped in with five U.S. territories — the city is almost always treated like a full-fledged state by the federal government when it comes to grants, highway funding, education dollars and food assistance. (Portnoy and Nirappil, 3/26)

The New York Times: As Coronavirus Spread, Largest Stimulus In History United A Polarized Senate
As Senator Chuck Schumer walked the two miles from his apartment to the Capitol early Sunday morning, getting his steps in since the Senate gym had been shut down to stem the spread of the novel coronavirus, he knew he and his fellow Democrats had a momentous decision to make. After 48 hours of intense bipartisan negotiations over a huge economic stabilization plan to respond to the pandemic, Republicans were insisting on a vote later that day to advance the package. Mr. Schumer, the Democratic leader, suspected Republicans would present Democrats with an unacceptable, take-it-or-leave it proposition and then dare them to stand in the way of a nearly $2 trillion measure everyone knew was desperately needed. As soon as he arrived at the Capitol, the choice was clear: Democrats would have to leave it. (Hulse and Cochrane, 3/26)

CNN: Millions Of Workers In The US Won't Be Getting Stimulus Checks
Millions of workers aren't getting any help from the largest emergency aid deal in US history. When stimulus checks start going out across the country, undocumented immigrants won't be receiving them. That's not a surprise. They aren't eligible for most federal benefits. But immigrant rights advocates say leaving this group out of the $2 trillion plan isn't merely a matter of dollars and cents, and it isn't something that only affects undocumented workers and their families. It's a dangerous decision, they argue, that puts the whole country's health at risk as the novel coronavirus spreads. (Shoichet, 3/27)

Los Angeles Times: The Coronavirus Stimulus Package Versus The Recovery Act
The last time the country passed a stimulus package was a decade ago, when President Obama faced one of the worst financial crises since the Great Depression. “I think it’s important to note that while it is trying to help the economy, it is really intended to address the public health crisis,” said Erica D. York, an economist at the Tax Foundation. “The country needed to shut the economy down, and people are intentionally not working, unlike the previous recession.” (Kambhampati, 3/26)

Politico: Why Isn’t Congress Already Virtual?
Brian Baird says that when he was running through the halls of the Longworth House Office Building on the terrifying morning of September 11, 2001, urging people to flee, he thought first about the safety of his family and then about the survival of the United States Congress. Baird, then 45, was a clinical psychologist and Democrat from Washington State serving his second term in the House of Representatives, sitting in his seventh-floor offices. When the second tower of the World Trade Center was struck by a plane at 9:03, he began to think that people who stayed in those buildings were facing death. He told his staff to keep an eye out the window and came up with a plan. (Scola, 3/26)

The New York Times: Trump Administration Pulls Back From $1 Billion Coronavirus Ventilator Deal
The White House had been preparing to reveal on Wednesday a joint venture between General Motors and Ventec Life Systems that would allow for the production of as many as 80,000 desperately needed ventilators to respond to an escalating pandemic when word suddenly came down that the announcement was off. The decision to cancel the announcement, government officials say, came after the Federal Emergency Management Agency said it needed more time to assess whether the estimated cost was prohibitive. That price tag was more than $1 billion, with several hundred million dollars to be paid upfront to General Motors to retool a car parts plant in Kokomo, Ind., where the ventilators would be made with Ventec’s technology. (Sanger, Haberman and Kanno-Youngs, 3/26)

The Hill: White House Balks At $1 Billion Price Tag For General Motors, Ventec To Produce Ventilators: Reports
The deal, which had been slated to be announced Wednesday, was projected to produce up to 80,000 ventilators for distribution to health facilities in dire need of critical resources amid the coronavirus pandemic. However, the Trump administration reportedly hesitated after the manufacturers said that the production would cost $1 billion, and asked for Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to assess whether or not the price tag was too expensive. (Moreno, 3/26)

Politico: Trump: I Don't Believe You Really Need That Many Ventilators
Speaking with Sean Hannity on Fox News on Thursday night, Trump again minimized the impact of the global coronavirus pandemic, casting doubt on the need for tens of thousands of ventilators for hospitals responding to the crisis. “I have a feeling that a lot of the numbers that are being said in some areas are just bigger than they’re going to be,” he said. “I don't believe you need 40,000 or 30,000 ventilators. You go into major hospitals sometimes, and they’ll have two ventilators. And now all of a sudden they’re saying, ‘Can we order 30,000 ventilators?’” (Choi, 3/26)

Politico: White House Officials Push Back On Calls To Activate DPA For Critical Medical Supplies
As state leaders across the country call on the federal government to activate the Defense Production Act, White House officials continue to push back — instead insisting that companies have stepped up to provide the dire medical equipment needed to tackle the coronavirus pandemic across the U.S. On Tuesday, the Federal Emergency Management Agency said it ultimately did not need to use the DPA to secure medical equipment, walking back on an announcement made by the head of the agency earlier that morning. (Ward, 3/26)

The New York Times: ‘The Other Option Is Death’: New York Starts Sharing Of Ventilators
A New York hospital system has begun treating two patients instead of one on some ventilators, a desperate measure that could help alleviate a shortage of the critical breathing machines and help hospitals around the country respond to the surge of coronavirus patients expected in the coming weeks. NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, began “ventilator sharing” this week, said Dr. Laureen Hill, chief operating officer at the Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center system. Doctors have developed protocols for the maneuver and now are rapidly scaling it up while also sharing their methods with the federal and state governments and other hospitals. (Rosenthal, Pinkowski and Goldstein, 3/26)

ABC News: New York Approves Ventilator Splitting, Allowing Hospitals To Treat Two Patients With One Machine
New York hospitals can now attempt to treat two coronavirus patients with a single ventilator, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced on Thursday, a move that could help the state make better use of its scarce supply of lifesaving breathing machines as the outbreak continues to surge. New York-Presbyterian Hospital has developed a split-ventilation protocol that has been shared with the New York State Department of Health, which quickly approved the practice. (Siegel, 3/26)

The Hill: Severe Ventilator Shortage Sparks Desperate Scramble
U.S. hot spots in the coronavirus pandemic are facing a shortage of ventilators, and it's not clear how or even if the need can be met. Manufacturers are scrambling to ramp up their production as states, the federal government and countries all over the world clamor for the machines, which are needed to allow seriously ill coronavirus patients to breathe. Without enough ventilators, health care workers are forced into agonizing decisions when rationing life-saving machines. (Sullivan, 3/26)

Politico: New Jersey Officials Planning For Possibility Of Rationing Ventilators
New Jersey officials are beginning to discuss the “haunting” possibility that hospitals may soon have to decide which patients critically ill with coronavirus get ventilators and which do not. Health Commissioner Judith Persichilli said during a press conference with Gov. Phil Murphy on Thursday that the Medical Society of New Jersey is putting together an advisory committee that will, among other things, address “the bioethical considerations of the availability of particularly life-saving modalities like ventilators.” (Friedman, 3/26)

Los Angeles Times: Amid Coronavirus, Doctors Face Hard Choices Over Ventilators
The coronavirus will attack so many people’s lungs that thousands could show up at hospitals gasping for air and will need to be hooked up to machines that breathe for them. But there won’t be enough ventilators for everyone, forcing doctors to make impossible calls about which lives to save. “You have an 80-year-old and a 20-year-old and both need a vent and you only have one. What do you do?” said Dr. Christopher Colwell, the chief of emergency medicine at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center. (Karlamangla, Ryan, Stiles and Baumgaertner, 3/26)

CNN: Coronavirus Pandemic: Hospitals Mull Changes To Do-Not-Resuscitate Situations 
As the coronavirus pandemic continues to sweep the United States, some hospitals are considering whether to make changes to policies and practices when it comes to do-not-resuscitate situations. Such conversations come as hospitals brace for a surge of patients, despite dwindling supplies of personal protective equipment for doctors and ventilators for seriously ill patients. (Howard, Bruer and Christensen, 3/26)

Meanwhile, as for alternative solutions —

Kaiser Health News: Not So Fast Using CPAPs In Place Of Ventilators. They Could Spread The Coronavirus.
The limited supply of ventilators is one of the chief concerns facing hospitals as they prepare for more COVID-19 cases. In Italy, where hospitals have been overwhelmed with patients in respiratory failure, doctors have had to make difficult life-or-death decisions about who gets a ventilator and who does not. In the U.S., emergency plans developed by states for a shortage of ventilators include using positive airway pressure machines — like those used to treat sleep apnea — to help hospitalized people with less severe breathing issues. (Hawryluk, 3/27)

ABC News: How Anesthesia Machines Can Help Hospitals With Ventilator Shortages Fight Coronavirus 
Anticipating ongoing shortages of ventilator machines as the coronavirus continues to spread across the country, states and hospitals are preparing to convert anesthesia machines for use on COVID-19 patients in need of breathing assistance. The effort to utilize anesthesia gas machines, approved by the Food and Drug Administration earlier this week, could make tens of thousands of additional machines available for the fight against the coronavirus. (Siegel, 3/27)

Stat: The Next Frontier In Coronavirus Testing: Identifying The Outbreak's Full Scope
Scientists are starting to roll out new blood tests for the coronavirus, a key development that, unlike the current diagnostic tests, will help pinpoint people who are immune and reveal the full scope of the pandemic. The “serological” tests — which rely on drawn blood, not a nasal or throat swab — can identify people who were infected and have already recovered from Covid-19, including those who were never diagnosed, either because they didn’t feel particularly sick or they couldn’t get an initial test. (Joseph, 3/27)

The Associated Press: Virus Test Results In Minutes? Scientists Question Accuracy
Some political leaders are hailing a potential breakthrough in the fight against COVID-19: simple pin-prick blood tests or nasal swabs that can determine within minutes if someone has, or previously had, the virus. The tests could reveal the true extent of the outbreak and help separate the healthy from the sick. But some scientists have challenged their accuracy. Hopes are hanging on two types of quick tests: antigen tests that use a nose or throat swab to look for the virus, and antibody tests that look in the blood for evidence someone had the virus and recovered. (Parra, 3/27)

ABC News: Promising New 15-Minute Test For Coronavirus Comes With Caveats 
Testing availability has been a significant challenge in the U.S., but the situation is slowly getting better. The CDC continues to distribute its test kits to public health laboratories across the nation, while large diagnostics companies like Quest Diagnostics are ramping up to be able to run tens of thousands of tests per day. (Baldwin, 3/26)

ABC News: Blood Tests Could Help Battle COVID-19 In US 
"It tells you that a person was infected with the virus" in the past, said Robert F. Garry, Ph.D., director of the Tulane Center of Excellence, Global Viral Network. "At some point when this is over, we want to go back and see how many people are infected in the community." (David and Salzman, 3/26)

The New York Times: U.S. Coronavirus Testing Hits Milestone But Still Falls Short
The pace of coronavirus testing in the United States has seen a meteoric rise in the past week. But the country still lags in tests relative to its population, despite having the world’s most reported coronavirus cases. (3/26)

The Washington Post: Testing In The DMV: Where And How To Get A Coronavirus Test
Getting tested for the coronavirus is not like getting a flu shot. People who are seeking a coronavirus test have to have a doctor’s referral and then have to pass the screening put in place by the hospital or clinic that’s doing the testing. Showing up without a note from a physician or the local or state health department will not only result in disappointment, it may also delay or prevent testing for first responders, health workers and people at a high risk for death from the virus, medical authorities warn. (Sullivan, 3/26)

ProPublica: Internal Emails Show How Chaos At The CDC Slowed The Early Response To Coronavirus
On Feb. 13, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention sent out an email with what the author described as an “URGENT” call for help. The agency was struggling with one of its most important duties: keeping track of Americans suspected of having the novel coronavirus. It had “an ongoing issue” with organizing — and sometimes flat-out losing — forms sent by local agencies about people thought to be infected. The email listed job postings for people who could track or retrieve this paperwork. (Chen, Allen and Churchill, 3/26)

NPR: In Defense Of Coronavirus Testing Strategy, Administration Cited Retracted Study
When asked why the United States didn't import coronavirus tests when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ran into difficulty developing its own, government officials have frequently questioned the quality of the foreign-made alternatives. But NPR has learned that the key study they point to was retracted just days after it was published online in early March. (Harris, 3/26)

The Washington Post: Coronavirus: U.S. Government Has 1.5 Million Expired N95 Masks Sitting In An Indiana Warehouse
Nearly 1.5 million N95 respirator masks are sitting in a U.S. government warehouse in Indiana and authorities have not shipped them because they are past their expiration date, despite Centers for Disease Control guidelines that have been issued for their safe use during the coronavirus outbreak, according to five people with knowledge of the stockpile. (Miroff, 3/26)

The Hill: Feds Have 1.5 Million Expired N95 Masks In Storage Despite CDC Clearing Them For Use On COVID-19: Report 
The masks are reportedly part of Customs and Border Protection’s emergency stock. In a meeting Wednesday about what to do with the masks, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials decided to turn the masks over to the Transportation Security Administration, which has demanded masks of its own, according to the Post's sources. The sources told the paper that CBP has no plans of giving the masks to hospitals or the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).(Johnson, 3/26)

The New York Times: National Cathedral, Nasdaq, Businesses And Unions Locate Troves Of N95 Masks
Joe Alonso, the head stonemason at the Washington National Cathedral, had tended to the building for 35 years. He knew its nooks and crannies. So when news spread of a shortage of N95 masks needed to fight the coronavirus outbreak, Mr. Alonso remembered something nobody else did: More than 7,000 masks — purchased in 2005 or 2006 amid worries about an avian flu outbreak — were stashed away in an unfinished burial vault in the cathedral’s crypt. (Zaveri and Taylor, 3/26)

Stat: With Masks Dwindling, A Covid-19 Crisis Team Looks For A Way Out 
“I just want to say … yesterday was a really hard day,” said Chuck Morris, one of the two people now in charge of Brigham and Women’s Hospital. “Personally speaking, I sort of went home in a tough place. We’re finding some rhythm, and then some bombs went off.” (Boodman, 3/27)

The Washington Post: Maryland Firm Retools To Make Protective Gowns And Masks For Coronavirus Pandemic
It was a Friday when Chris McCormick halted production at his Maryland company and furloughed its 23 employees as the novel coronavirus spread across the country, sickening thousands of people and shuttering businesses of all kinds. McCormick had hoped Hatch Exhibits — which makes colorful displays and pop-up exhibition booths for clients such as YouTube, Under Armour and Google — could ride out the crisis with the income expected to come in with one or two big jobs on the books. But the outbreak killed those projects, contributing to losses that had run into the millions of dollars. (Kunkle, 3/26)

ProPublica: Medical Workers Treating Coronavirus Are Resorting To Homemade Masks
Bryan White leaned in to greet his wife with a kiss on the forehead when she arrived home from a 12-hour shift at Salem Health, an Oregon hospital that’s had 19 confirmed cases of the coronavirus. “Nope, you don’t want that,” his wife told him as she rebuffed his kiss. White’s wife, a registered nurse who is 22 weeks pregnant with their first child, has been reusing one disposable surgical mask for each shift, stashing it in a paper bag after every patient visit. She takes her scrubs with her each night to wash at home, where she also lives with her 95-year-old grandmother. (Schick and Wilson, 3/26)

NBC News: Protective Gear For Medical Workers Remains Inadequate, Emergency Doctors' Group Says
The quality of personal protective gear for U.S. medical workers battling the coronavirus crisis remains inadequate, the head of the nation's largest organization of emergency room doctors said Thursday, suggesting it is roughly comparable to that of nations like Italy and others that have seen surging infection rates. The warning from Dr. William Jaquis, president of the American College of Emergency Physicians, or ACEP, comes after some leaders, including New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, have indicated that the supply of masks, gloves and goggles is adequate in the near term. (Przbyla, 3/27)

The Associated Press: What's In Store: Groceries Installing Barriers Amid Outbreak
Grocery stores across the U.S. are installing protective plastic shields at checkouts to help keep cashiers and shoppers from infecting one another with the coronavirus. At a Stop & Shop supermarket Thursday in Quincy, just south of Boston, shoppers paid for and bagged their groceries, separated from employees by newly installed see-through barriers.“I think it’s a great protection for customers ... and the cashiers,” said Jasmine Vazquez, a home health aide shopping for a client. “We’re supposed to be 6 feet away, but we’re closer to them. So that protection helps, and I feel safer.” (Ngowi, 3/27)

The New York Times: Who Knew Grocery Shopping Could Be So Stressful?
As much of the world practices social distancing to stop the spread of coronavirus, trips to the grocery store are one of the few reasons many of us still are allowed to leave the house. But the logistics of shopping for groceries can be daunting. What happens if some key items on my shopping list are sold out? How do I keep my distance in a crowded produce aisle? And just how many people have touched that jar of peanut butter or can of beans we brought home? (Parker-Pope, 3/26)

CNN: A Grocery Store Threw Out $35,000 In Food That A Woman Intentionally Coughed On, Sparking Coronavirus Fears, Police Said
A woman purposely coughed on $35,000 worth of food at a Pennsylvania grocery store, police said. She likely faces criminal charges for coughing, one of the primary ways the novel coronavirus spreads. The unnamed woman entered small grocery chain Gerrity's Supermarket in Hanover Township and started coughing on produce, bakery items, meat and other merchandise, chain co-owner Joe Fasula wrote on Facebook. (Andrew and Sturla, 3/26)

NBC News: Amazon's Largest Warehouse Hub Has A Coronavirus Case. Workers Say Changes Need To Be Made.
As they were walking into work Tuesday, employees at Amazon's fulfillment center in Moreno Valley, California, learned that someone in their facility had just tested positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. "I first heard about it on Facebook," an employee at the fulfillment center, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation, said via text message Wednesday. "Then I confirmed it when I went up to the Amazon parking lot across the street when lots of people were leaving for home frightened because they didn't get notified through email." (Glaser and Ingram, 3/26)

The New York Times: Trump Says He Will Label Regions By Risk Of Coronavirus Threat
President Trump said Thursday that he planned to label different areas of the country as at a “high risk, medium risk or low risk” to the spread of the coronavirus, as part of new federal guidelines to help states decide whether to relax or enhance their quarantine and social distancing measures. “Our expanded testing capabilities will quickly enable us to publish criteria, developed in close coordination with the nation’s public health officials and scientists, to help classify counties with respect to continued risks posed by the virus,” Mr. Trump said in a letter to the nation’s governors. (Karni, 3/26)

The Associated Press: Trump Says Feds Developing New Guidelines For Virus Risk
“I think we can start by opening up certain parts of the country: you know, the farm belt, certain parts of the Midwest, other places,” Trump said Thursday in an interview with Fox News Channel’s Sean Hannity. “I think we can open up sections, quadrants, and then just keep them going until the whole country is opened up.” The president has been trying for days to determine how to contain the economic fallout of the guidelines issued by his administration as well as local leaders to slow the tide of infections. (Miller and Suderman, 3/27)

The Washington Post: Trump Pushes To Open Up The Country During Coronavirus Pandemic As Governors In Hard-Hit States Warn More Needs To Be Done To Combat Pandemic
But the president’s upbeat assessment conflicts with warnings from public health experts that abandoning current restrictions too soon could be potentially catastrophic. And his posture has distressed the leaders in states where the virus is spreading exponentially — overwhelming hospitals, exhausting medical supply stockpiles and ravaging communities. (Costa, Vozzella, Dawsey and Nakamura, 3/26)

NBC News: Trump Tells Governors He Is Setting New Coronavirus Social Distancing Guidelines
Although the president said in the letter that "there is still a long battle ahead," Trump said Tuesday he wants the country back to business by April 12, Easter Sunday, even though his own public health officials have warned that the outbreak will get worse. (Clark, 3/26)

NPR: Prepare For Outbreaks Like New York's In Other States, Warns Anthony Fauci
Over a thousand people in the U.S. have died from COVID-19, and over a third of those deaths have taken place in New York. Nearly half the confirmed cases in the United States are in New York. The state has become a coronavirus hot spot — anyone leaving New York City is being asked to self-quarantine for two weeks. A key adviser to President Trump, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and member of the White House coronavirus task force, says other states need to prepare to take on outbreaks of this scale. (Renken, 3/26)

The Hill: EXCLUSIVE: Top CDC Official Warns New York's Coronavirus Outbreak Is Just A Preview 
American health officials are deeply concerned that the coronavirus outbreak that has overwhelmed New York City hospitals in recent days is just the first in a wave of local outbreaks likely to strike cities across the country in the coming weeks. In an exclusive interview, Dr. Anne Schuchat, the principal deputy director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said her agency is seeing early signs that the number of cases in other cities are already beginning to spike. While New York City is home to almost half the cases in the country at the moment, other cities are seeing their case counts rising at alarming rates. (Wilson, 3/26)

The Wall Street Journal: Trump Administration To Issue Guidelines For Classifying U.S. Counties By Coronavirus Risk
Ambassador Deborah Birx, special representative for global health, said the administration wants to use a “laser-focused approach” to its social-distancing guidelines but said it needs “very clear data” at the state and county level to be able to do so. She declined to give a timeline for when she expected to have that level of data. Vice President Mike Pence, moments later, said advisers planned to present data to the president this weekend, but didn’t offer specifics. Earlier this week, the president said he hoped to have the economy “just raring to go” by Easter, which falls on April 12, just under a month after the administration first issued its social-distancing guidelines. (Ballhaus, 3/26)

Politico: Trump Teases New Coronavirus Distancing Guidelines Based On County Risk
The new initiative, however, would require a significant ramp up of the nation's capacity to test Americans for the virus. And it's unclear when states and counties will be able to conduct testing on that scale, after earlier stumbles hampered the nation's response to the pandemic. (Oprysko, 3/26)

CNN: Trump Touts Success As US Becomes World's Coronavirus Epicenter 
All the evidence of the virus's advance, seen in rising death tolls and infection figures, suggests the situation is getting worse and that normal life could be weeks or months away. Once, Trump minimized the looming impact of the crisis. Now his assessments conflict with the reality of its deadly march. (Collinson, 3/27)

The Associated Press: Not All Or Nothing: Anti-Virus Lockdowns Could Lift Slowly
For the millions of Americans living under some form of lockdown to curb the spread of the coronavirus, not knowing when the restrictions will end is a major source of anxiety. Will life events — weddings, funerals, even just simple nights out with friends — be delayed for a few weeks, a few months or much longer? President Donald Trump gave one answer this week, saying he hoped businesses would reopen by Easter, on April 12, citing the severe damage restrictions have done to the economy. Most public health experts, however, caution that it would be reckless to lift restrictions before COVID-19 infections have peaked and begun to ebb — unleashing a second wave of cases that could be just as damaging to the economy. (Larson and Alonso-Zaldivar, 3/27)

In other news on the president and his response to the crisis —

The New York Times Fact Check: Trump’s Baseless Claim That A Recession Would Be Deadlier Than The Coronavirus
WHAT WAS SAID: “You have suicides over things like this when you have terrible economies. You have death. Probably — and I mean definitely — would be in far greater numbers than the numbers that we’re talking about with regard to the virus.” — at a news conference on Monday. “You’re going to lose more people by putting a country into a massive recession or depression.” — during a virtual town hall on Fox News on Tuesday. This lacks evidence. Though the question of the overall impact of recessions on mortality remains unsettled, experts disputed Mr. Trump’s claim that an economic downturn would be more deadly than a pandemic. (Qiu, 3/26)

Los Angeles Times: U.S. Coronavirus Deaths Top 1,000, Trump Claims He Saved Lives
Confronted with criticism about the lagging federal response to the coronavirus crisis, President Trump often boasts about his Jan. 31 decision to restrict travel from China, where the outbreak began, claiming he saved thousands of American lives. But Trump has repeatedly overstated the effect of his decision, and the supposed opposition to it, even as he has misrepresented federal efforts to develop a vaccine and supply protective masks, ventilators and other critically needed gear. (Stokols, Megerian and Bierman, 3/26)

Politico: ‘We Don’t Want To Be Tone-Deaf’: Trump Allies Test Coronavirus Messaging
President Donald Trump wants to reopen parts of the U.S. economy hit by the coronavirus outbreak. Allies close to his 2020 campaign operation are raising red flags — warning it could be imprudent to inject more uncertainty into an already unpredictable crisis. Those concerns intensified this week when Trump identified Easter Sunday as his target date for relaxing some of the social distancing guidelines his administration has put in place to slow the spread of the virus. The prospect of watching Americans shuffle into “packed churches” on April 12, an image Trump said he hopes to see, has alarmed some of his closest supporters who fear that rushing to end the economic clampdown — without full support from public health experts — could have catastrophic consequences on his bid for reelection. (Orr, 3/27)

The Washington Post: As Trump Signals Readiness To Break With Experts, His Online Base Assails Fauci
A cadre of right-wing news sites pulled from the fringes in recent years through repeated mention by President Trump is now taking aim at Anthony S. Fauci, the ­nation’s top infectious diseases ­expert, who has given interviews in which he has tempered praise for the president with doubts about his pronouncements. Although both men are seeking to tamp down the appearance of tension — “Great job,” Trump commended the doctor during the White House’s briefing on Tuesday — the president is increasingly chafing against medical consensus. (Stanley-Becker, 3/26)

ProPublica/The Texas Tribune: As Coronavirus Infections Spread, So Have Clashes Between ICE Detainees And Guards
As the coronavirus pandemic spreads, so have confrontations between detainees and guards at Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facilities across the country, the latest in Louisiana and Texas. The battles come as four people — two correctional officers and two detainees — tested positive for COVID-19 at New Jersey detention facilities. (Aguilar and Trevizo, 3/26)

San Francisco Chronicle: Coronavirus: SF D.A., Activists, Doctors Call For Undocumented Immigrants’ Release 
Undocumented immigrants being held in proximity to one another in detention facilities across the country are at risk of contracting and spreading the coronavirus at alarming rates, said San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin, who on Thursday joined thousands of attorneys, doctors and immigration advocates across the country Thursday in calling for the detainees’ release. (Sanchez, 3/25)

Politico: Judge Orders Release Of 10 Immigration Detainees From N.J. Jails
A federal judge in New York City has ordered the immediate release from detention of 10 immigrants whose attorneys said they were at increased risk of illness from coronavirus due to underlying health conditions. The group, all held in New Jersey county jails and facing deportation proceedings in Manhattan, appears to be the largest in the nation subject to a court-ordered release since the pandemic broke out. (Gerstein, 3/26)

ABC News: ICE Detainees In Facilities With Coronavirus Cases Ordered Released By Judge 
Immigrations and Customs Enforcement detainees must be immediately released from county jails where cases of novel coronavirus have been confirmed, a federal judge in New York ordered Thursday night. The 10 detainees asked for their release "because of the public health crisis posed by COVID-19," their petition said. (Katersky, 3/26)

CBS News: Citing Coronavirus Pandemic, Judges And ICE Attorneys Demand Closure Of Immigration Courts 
Despite increasing demands for the Department of Justice to temporarily close all the nation's immigration courts due to the coronavirus pandemic, most courts remain open. Some courts have even reopened after the department confirmed people who were there tested positive for the virus. (Towey, 3/25)

Many are worried about the jail system as a whole as well —

The Wall Street Journal: Barr Tells Federal Prisons To Increase Use Of Home Confinement, Fearing Spread Of Coronavirus
Attorney General William Barr on Thursday directed the federal Bureau of Prisons to expand the use of home confinement for some sick and elderly inmates amid growing concern about the spread of the new coronavirus in the nation’s lockups. Mr. Barr told the agency in a memo to prioritize granting home confinement to inmates who were convicted of lower level crimes, have shown good conduct behind bars and have plans for release that won’t put them and others at greater risk for contracting the virus. (Gurman, 3/26)

The Washington Post: D.C. Jail, City Leaders Scramble After First Inmate Tests Positive For Covid-19, 36 Other Inmates Quarantined
The D.C. jail has quarantined 36 inmates officials think may have come into contact with a 20-year-old male inmate who tested positive for the novel coronavirus late Wednesday, jail officials said. Quincy L. Booth, director of the Department of Corrections, said in an interview Thursday that officials were continuing tracking to determine whether additional inmates, jail staff or other individuals might also have come in contact with the inmate. (Alexander, 3/26)

The Wall Street Journal: Coronavirus Pandemic Changes Policing, Including Fewer Arrests
Law and order is changing across America during the novel coronavirus pandemic, as police pull back on arrests for small-time crimes and instead focus on breaking up gatherings that pose health risks, all the while coping with the perils of a job that can’t be done with social distancing. In Houston, three officers have tested positive for the coronavirus after apprehending a mentally ill man on the streets last week who had flulike symptoms. (Elinson and Chapman, 3/27)

Houston Chronicle: Exclusive: Lina Hidalgo Seeking Compassionate Releases At Harris County Jail Due To Coronavirus 
By the time the jail reported its first staffer with COVID-19, Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo had spent days working on an executive order that would allow broad-scale compassionate releases of medically vulnerable, nonviolent inmates. But the effort has been complicated by an opinion from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, indicating to local officials the state may try to intervene. (Banks, 3/26)

WBUR: Powerful Sheriffs Rarely Held To Account As Families Fight For The Truth
The Davisons are among many families in Massachusetts that found themselves in the dark when a loved one died in a sheriff’s custody. Getting to the truth, and holding jail employees accountable, WBUR found, can be a frustrating battle that pits families against the legal resources of sheriffs and the state attorney general. For many, justice feels out of reach. (Willmsen and Healy, 3/26)

The New York Times: ‘We’re In Disaster Mode’: Courage Inside A Brooklyn Hospital Confronting Coronavirus
It was not even 9 in the morning and Dr. Sylvie de Souza’s green N95 mask, which was supposed to form a seal against her face, was already askew. In freezing rain on Monday, she trudged in clogs between the emergency department she chairs at the Brooklyn Hospital Center and a tent outside, keeping a sharp eye on the trainee doctors, nurses and other staff members who would screen nearly 100 walk-in patients for the coronavirus that day. (Fink, 3/26)

The Associated Press: A New York Doctor's Story: 'Too Many People Are Dying Alone'
As an emergency medicine physician in New York City, Dr. Kamini Doobay has always known that death is part of the territory when trying to care for the city’s sickest. But it hasn’t always been like this — patients hit the hardest by the coronavirus, struggling to breathe and on ventilators, with no visitors allowed because of strict protocols to prevent spreading the virus. “So often a patient will be on their deathbed, dying alone, and it’s been incredibly painful to see the suffering of family members who I call from the ICU, hearing the tears, crying with them on the phone,” said Doobay, 31. (Bumsted and Hajela, 3/27)

ABC News: 'Lot Of Fear': Coronavirus Pandemic Compounds Dire Situation For Poor Americans
By 8 a.m. on Wednesday, the line outside St. Paul and St. Andrew United Methodist Church in New York City stretched around the block. But this wasn't any ordinary morning. Fixed-income residents like 66-year-old Patricia Sylvester faced an agonizing choice -- weighing the risk of catching the coronavirus or going hungry in the pandemic that has seized America's largest city. (Hutchinson, 3/27)

The New York Times: Coronavirus On Long Island: 6 Die In Outbreak At Retirement Community
The first sign appeared two weeks ago, when an employee tested positive for coronavirus. By Wednesday, Peconic Landing, an upscale elder community on the North Fork of Long Island, announced its sixth death from the virus, sparking fears of an even bigger outbreak among a vulnerable, confined population. What was a peaceful waterfront resort by the shores of Long Island Sound has become a scene of emergency crews and spreading anxiety. Employees worked double shifts or filled in for missing workers; when one threw out her mask to go on break, her supervisor reprimanded her for not reusing it. (Leland, 3/26)

The Wall Street Journal: Coronavirus Deaths Climb In New York
The number of novel coronavirus-related deaths in New York increased by 35% to 385 on Thursday, as Gov. Andrew Cuomo warned that the toll would worsen and that hospitals were being overrun. The number of fatalities rose by 100. Some patients are spending weeks on a ventilator, he said. The average time for most Covid-19 patients is between 11 and 21 days, which is more than triple that of patients with other illnesses, he said. (Honan, 3/26)

The Washington Post: ‘Channel Anxiety Into Vigilance’: Tips From A Top Health Official At The Center Of New York’s Coronavirus Fight
Wash your hands. Keep six feet from each other, but don’t be afraid to say, “Hi.” Be vigilant but not anxious. Demetre Daskalakis, deputy commissioner for the Division of Disease Control at the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene is pushing these messages aggressively as he seeks to reassure those living here through the worst public health crisis in a century. (Guarino, 3/26)

CNN: Why New York Is The Epicenter Of The American Coronavirus Outbreak 
There were over 74,000 cases of coronavirus in the United States as of Thursday midday. About half were in New York -- almost 10 times more than any other state. Why has the outbreak hit New York so much harder than other places?Health experts said the answers are largely specific to the New York metropolitan area -- its density and population, primarily -- but they are also a warning to other states that think they may be spared. New York is the epicenter for now, but Covid-19 will not stop there. (Levenson, 3/26)

The New York Times: What Made New York So Hospitable For Coronavirus?
Perhaps it was inevitable that New York City and its suburbs would become an epicenter of the coronavirus epidemic in the United States. The population density, reliance on public transportation and constant influx of tourists — all would seem to make the metropolitan area a target. But to stop the virus, scientists have to figure out which factors played a greater role than others. As it turns out, that is not so simple. “We have more speculation than facts,” said Dr. Arnold Monto, professor of epidemiology and global health at the University of Michigan. (Kolata, 3/26)

The Wall Street Journal: As Coronavirus Patients Flood Hospitals, The Rest Of New York Feels ‘Like The Twilight Zone’
Before dawn on Wednesday, Brian Levy, a union electrician, drove into work in Manhattan’s Financial District from his home on Long Island. The commute, normally clogged by traffic, took half as long—the roads were nearly empty. From his perch working on the upper floors of 222 Broadway, Mr. Levy looks out on a silent city: darkened windows, deserted streets, shuttered businesses. Blocks south, as markets opened on Wednesday morning, an empty cobblestone plaza gave the New York Stock Exchange the air of a mausoleum. There is no morning rush hour at the Oculus transportation hub in the shadow of the World Trade Center. (O'Brien, Parker and Passy, 3/27)

Modern Healthcare: NYC, NJ Hospital Leaders Brace For 'Enormous' Hits To Revenue
Running out of ventilators has been a major topic of discussion among New York City hospital leaders, but one finance chief said that's not his biggest fear in the COVID-19 pandemic. "Our number one concern is staff," said Kevin Ward, the chief financial officer of New York-Presbyterian Queens, a 535-bed acute-care hospital. "We can have all the ventilators in the world, but we don't have enough respiratory therapists. They're in short supply." (Bannow, 3/26)

The Associated Press: Coronavirus Cases Hit 2 Largest US Cities Differently
Los Angeles recorded its first case of coronavirus five weeks before New York City, yet it’s New York that is now the U.S. epicenter of the disease. Public health officials are keeping a wary eye and warning that LA could end up being as hard hit as New York in coming weeks, in part because a planned increase in testing may uncover a dramatic surge in cases. Testing in Los Angeles County is expected to increase from 500 per day to 5,000 by the end of the week. (Melley, 3/27)

San Francisco Chronicle: New York’s Coronavirus Surge Holds Lessons For California, Which Is Listening
In the escalating battle against the coronavirus, California and the Bay Area have looked across the oceans to China, South Korea and Italy to anticipate how bad things may get — and now they’re looking much closer to home in New York, the epicenter of the U.S. epidemic. New York state has nearly 40,000 cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus. That’s roughly half of the country’s total, and 10 times as many as in California. About 385 people in New York have died, or more than a third of the U.S. total and five times California’s death toll. (Allday, 3/26)

Los Angeles Times: Silicon Valley Faces Tough Coronavirus Projections
Silicon Valley could see a coronavirus-related death toll of 2,000 to 16,000 by the end of May, depending on how seriously people take the order to stay at home as much as possible, according to projections presented at a San Jose City Council meeting this week. The thinking behind the rough estimates illustrates why health and elected officials across California have sounded the alarm about the exponential rise in coronavirus cases reported since the beginning of March. (Lin, 3/26)

CNN: California Cities Could See Coronavirus Outbreaks As Bad As New York City, Officials Say 
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti had a grim warning about the coronavirus pandemic for cities in California and across the country. "No matter where you are, this is coming to you," Garcetti said in an online address Thursday. "Everybody is the new 'whatever the worst city is' right now. Take all the measures you can now to make sure people are home." (Moon and Maxouris, 3/27)

Los Angeles Times: L.A. County Reports 9 New Coronavirus-Related Deaths
As both the number of confirmed coronavirus cases and deaths in Los Angeles County rose by more than half Thursday, public health officials warned that the trajectory of new infections would likely grow dire in the coming weeks. Health officials reported nine new deaths, bringing the death toll to 21. Officials also reported 421 more confirmed cases of the virus, for a total of 1,229, an increase of 52% over Wednesday. (Wigglesworth, Vega, Megerian, Chabria and Nelson, 3/26)

Los Angeles Times: Coronavirus In L.A.: Analyzing The Rise Of Cases, Deaths
Los Angeles County on Thursday saw a spike in both confirmed coronavirus cases and deaths. Officials have expected the number of cases to increase as more testing became available, and that is occurring. The question is: How much longer will the case numbers explode so dramatically? Many of those now listed as being infected got sick before social distancing rules were imposed across California, so it’s still not fully clear how much the restrictions might slow the spread. (Wigglesworth, Karlamangla and Chabria, 3/26)

San Francisco Chronicle: Bay Area Coronavirus Cases Climb As Testing Grows: 26% Test Positive At Hayward Site
More than a quarter of the people tested for coronavirus at a Hayward site that opened this week turned up positive, city officials said Thursday, as confirmed cases climbed in the Bay Area, topping 1,400, with at least 32 deaths.At the city-run site, 26% — 54 out of 207 tested Monday, its first day — were positive, as new sites open daily in the Bay Area and confirmed cases of the illness caused by the coronavirus rise. (Moench, 3/26)

San Francisco Chronicle: ‘Refugees’ Flee Bay Area For Taiwan, Hoping To Leave Coronavirus Behind 
Leaving the Bay Area is on a lot of minds, as local infection numbers escalate. Reports of local public health supply shortages have emerged, as news from Italy and New York reminds citizens how horrifying it can be for the sick, especially the elderly, when hospitals exceed their capacities. Several Bay Area residents have confirmed they left the country, started a planned trip early or are making plans to leave the U.S. following concerns about care here. (Hartlaub, 3/27)

Stateline: One Governor‘s Actions Highlight The Strengths — And Shortcomings — Of State-Led Interventions 
Republican Gov. Brian Kemp’s reluctance to use the powers granted to him, and the resulting confusion and rebellion among the state’s local officials, illustrates the shortcomings of the country’s federalist approach to the outbreak. In the absence of clear direction from the federal government, each state, county, city and town has been left to go its own way. The disparities are likely to grow if President Donald Trump follows through on his pronouncement that he wants the country “opened up and just raring to go by Easter,” despite expert health warnings that it would be dangerous and premature to do so. (Blau, 3/27)

Stateline: Coronavirus And The States: Congress To Send States Money; Layoffs Hit Midwest 
The $2 trillion stimulus package moving through Congress would provide $150 billion to states, territories, local and tribal governments. It appears to allow some flexibility in how states could spend the money but does not address state revenue shortfalls brought on by stunted economic activity. For example, it would allocate $5 billion for the Community Development Block Grant program, including expansion of community health facilities, child care centers, food banks and senior services. That leaves room for local governments to decide which programs get how much money, within existing guidelines. (Povich, 3/26)

Modern Healthcare: CMS Grants New York, 5 Other States Medicaid Waivers To Respond To Coronavirus
The CMS Thursday granted six states more flexibility for their Medicaid programs to respond to the coronavirus outbreak. Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Maryland, Massachusetts and New York landed Section 1135 Medicaid waivers. The CMS has now granted waivers to 29 states, approving them in less than a week on average. (Brady, 3/26)

New Orleans Times-Picayune: State Moving Beds Into Convention Center This Weekend To Prep For Looming Overflow Of Coronavirus Patients
Louisiana is taking drastic steps to surge its medical capacity to prepare for what officials fear could be an overwhelming tide of coronavirus patients in the coming days, with the state planning to put more than 1,100 beds in the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center to ease the strain on New Orleans area hospitals. (Karlin and Adelson, 3/26)

WBUR: Coronavirus Cases Spike In Navajo Nation, Where Water Service Is Often Scarce
The Navajo Nation reported its first two coronavirus cases on March 17. Just over a week later, there are now 69 cases. The reservation is under stay-at-home orders — but thousands of people must regularly leave their houses for necessities such as water. (Chappell, 3/26)

Houston Chronicle: First Covid-19 Death Reported In Houston As City, County Struggle For Supplies
As the U.S. took a grim world lead in the number of known novel coronavirus cases, Houston leaders announced the city’s first death linked to the devastating pathogen in a woman who was posthumously tested when no other explanation for her passing could be found. The woman, in her 60s, also had underlying health problems, said Dr. David Persse of the Houston Health Department. She likely contracted the virus while traveling recently outside Texas. (Hensley, 3/26)

Houston Chronicle: Stafford-Based Company Producing Hand Sanitizer To Aid Supplies Shortage At Houston Hospitals 
A Stafford-based MedTech company is joining a slew of area manufacturing companies and distilleries that are altering their production lines to create hand sanitizer for local hospitals that are facing supply shortages due to the novel coronavirus pandemic. Forward Science, a privately held oral healthcare products company, is currently creating batches of hand sanitizer to help supply Houston's healthcare workers who are currently putting themselves at risk while working on the frontlines of the pandemic. (Hennes, 3/26)

Boston Globe: Distilleries Are Turning Their Alcohol Into Hand Sanitizer For A Cause
On Monday, Industrious Spirit Company tasting room manager Liam Maloney spent hours tossing small bottles of house-made hand sanitizer out of a window at the Providence, R.I., distillery.Simultaneously in Plymouth, Dirty Water Distilling was fielding an “overwhelming” number of sanitizer requests from first responders. And in Everett, the owners of Short Path Distillery were waiting for more supplies to arrive so they could whip up another batch. (Pelletier, 3/26)

Boston Globe: $250 For Purell? State Probes Complaints Of Price Gouging 
So far, Massachusetts residents have filed 100 complaints of price-gouging, which the Massachusetts attorney general’s office is investigating. The reports largely involve stores that customers say increased the prices of essentials — hand sanitizer, paper towels, bottled water, cleaning products, and toilet paper. (Martin, 3/26)

WBUR: As Outbreak Spreads, State Says Mass. Public Schools Must Educate Students With Disabilities 
School districts in Massachusetts have new marching orders from the state: they will have to start educating students with disabilities remotely as soon as possible.In a remote meeting Thursday morning, Russell Johnston — director of special education at the state’s Department of Elementary and Secondary Education — told nearly 1,000 administrators, educators and advocates that “we’ve got to get our wheels turning” in offering those students the “free appropriate public education” to which they’re entitled under state and federal law. (Larkin, 3/26)

WBUR: Baker Promises More Coronavirus Testing Is On The Way. He Can't Guarantee The Same About Equipment
So far more than 23,000 people in Massachusetts have been tested for coronavirus. That's up nearly tenfold from from about 2,600 state residents tested a week ago.Gov. Charlie Baker said the state continues to make progress to aggressively test people. (Becker, 3/27)

WBUR: Boston Homeless Shelters Hope Re-Opening Of Newton Pavilion Will Improve Care For Coronavirus
Gov. Charlie Baker said Thursday that the state will provide additional services to the Boston homeless population by re-opening the former Newton Pavilion health care center at Boston Medical Center. People who are experiencing homelessness are especially vulnerable to the coronavirus, in part because those who are at shelters stay in close quarters. (Dearing and Bologna, 3/26)

Cincinnati Enquirer: Ohio Could See As Many As 8,000 New Coronavirus Infections A Day At Peak, OSU Study Shows
At the peak of Ohio's novel coronavirus surge, between 6,000 and 8,000 new people could be infected each day, according to a new projection from Ohio State University's Infectious Diseases Unit. That might seem like a dramatic increase from the number of patients with COVID-19 today. But limited testing means the number of confirmed cases represents a small portion of total infections statewide, Ohio Department of Health Director Dr. Amy Acton has said repeatedly. (Borchardt and Balmert, 3/26)

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Wisconsin Coronavirus Cases Hit 707, With 12 Deaths
Wisconsin’s pandemic death toll has doubled in a little more than a day, now standing at 12.Three of Thursday's four reported deaths were Milwaukee County residents. One was a 79-year-old Milwaukee woman with underlying health conditions who had been hospitalized since March 16 and died Thursday morning, the Milwaukee County Medical Examiner’s Office said. (Spicuzza and Carson, 3/26)

Philadelphia Inquirer: Pa. Officials Look For Supplies And Space Amid Coronavirus ‘War,’ New Jersey Pronounced Major Disaster Area
As preparations — and a race against time — continued for the anticipated strain of the coronavirus on hospitals, New Jersey was declared a major disaster area by President Donald Trump, and officials across Pennsylvania scrambled Thursday to find hospital space and much-needed supplies to care for the growing number of ill people. (McDaniel, Verma and McCrystal, 3/26)

The Wall Street Journal: Nearly Two Dozen U.S. Sailors On Aircraft Carrier Test Positive For Coronavirus
The Navy confronted a mounting crisis at sea after at least 23 sailors aboard an aircraft carrier tested positive for the novel coronavirus by directing the massive ship to a port and deciding to administer tests to all of the more than 5,000 sailors aboard. The decision, announced Thursday, came after a precipitous rise in the number of cases on board the USS Theodore Roosevelt during operations in the Pacific Ocean. On Tuesday, the Navy reported three positive tests for coronavirus aboard the carrier and said it had begun medical evacuations of the stricken sailors. The number of cases is expected to rise. (Youssef and Kesling, 3/26)

NBC News: Coronavirus Outbreak Diverts Navy Aircraft Carrier To Guam, All 5,000 Aboard To Be Tested
"Sailors flown off the ship are doing fine, none required hospitalization — mild aches and pains, sore throats," Modly said Thursday at a Pentagon press briefing, adding they were "in quarantine now on Guam." Other officials said the number of infected sailors has risen sharply — from initial reports of three to "dozens" as of Thursday. "Our medical team aboard USS Theodore Roosevelt is performing testing for the crew consistent with CDC guidelines, and we are working to increase the rate of testing as much as possible," said the Chief of Naval Operations, Adm. Mike Gilday. (Gains and Griffith, 3/26)

CNN: Rapid Increase In Cornavirus Cases Aboard US Aircraft Carrier 
The Navy says they expect there to be additional positive tests among the crew, with one official telling CNN there could possibly be "dozens" of new cases that emerge. A second official said that were there to be a large number of additional cases, the Defense Department would be unlikely to publicly specify how many of the Navy's overall cases are amongst members of the crew of the Roosevelt, due to concerns that adversaries such as China or North Korea could see the ship as vulnerable. (Conte, Browne and Starr, 3/26)

Politico: New York's Health Care Workforce Braces For Influx Of Retirees, Inexperienced Staffers
As the coronavirus bears down on New York and the biggest U.S. city becomes the epicenter of the national crisis, state officials are scrambling to augment a health care workforce already stretched to capacity and falling prey to the virus itself. New York is reaching into every corner of its medical industry for reinforcements, but a new push for retired workers is raising alarms as older populations are among the most susceptible to the disease. (Young and Eisenberg, 3/26)

The New York Times: Early Graduation Could Send Medical Students To Virus Front Lines
The battle to treat an ever-growing number of patients infected with the new coronavirus just gained its newest recruits: soon-to-be medical graduates. Several medical schools in Massachusetts and New York announced this week that they intended to offer early graduation to their fourth-year students, fast-tracking them into front-line hospital care as the need for medical workers surges. On Tuesday, the Grossman School of Medicine at New York University became the first in the United States to announce an offer of early graduation, in an email to students. That followed similar moves earlier this year in Italy and Britain, which advanced many final-year medical students into intermediate clinical service. (Goldberg, 3/26)

Kaiser Health News: Help Wanted: Retired Doctors And Nurses Don Scrubs Again In Coronavirus Fight
Laura Benson retired from nursing in 2018, but this week she reported for work again in New Rochelle, New York, where the first cluster of COVID-19 cases occurred a few short weeks ago. “Nurses are used to giving of themselves,” she said. “If there’s not enough people, you just do it.” With more than 39,000 confirmed cases, New York is now the epicenter in the U.S. of the novel coronavirus outbreak, accounting for almost half of the more than 85,500 cases nationwide as of late Thursday evening. (Andrews, 3/27)

WBUR: Baker Requests Federal Disaster Assistance, Asks Med Schools To Graduate Students Early 
Gov. Charlie Baker gave an update on the state's coronavirus response Thursday afternoon, making a number of new announcements alongside Health and Human Services Secretary Marylou Sudders. Here's a breakdown of what they said. (Mitchell, 3/26)

Kaiser Health News: Physicians Fear For Their Families As They Battle Coronavirus With Too Little Armor
Dr. Jessica Kiss’ twin girls cry most mornings when she goes to work. They’re 9, old enough to know she could catch the coronavirus from her patients and get so sick she could die. Kiss shares that fear, and worries at least as much about bringing the virus home to her family — especially since she depends on a mask more than a week old to protect her. (Ungar, 3/27)

The Associated Press: On NYC's Front Lines, Health Workers Worry They Will Be Next
A nurse died from coronavirus after working nonstop for weeks at a hospital where staffers frustrated with dwindling supplies posed in gowns made of trash bags. An emergency room doctor fears he had the virus long before getting too sick to work. Another nurse worries the lone mask she’s issued each day won’t be enough to protect her from an unending tide of hacking, feverish patients. (Condon, Mustian and Peltz, 3/27)

New Orleans Times-Picayune: Louisiana Speeds Licensing For New Doctors, Nurses In 'surge' Against Coronavirus
Louisiana officials say they are fast-tracking licenses for new doctors and nurses, and in one case moving up the date a medical school's students will receive their diplomas, to inject more health care providers into the fight against the coronavirus. In addition to critical care beds and ventilators, Louisiana is in desperate need of doctors, nurses and respiratory therapists to care for COVID-19 patients, Gov. John Bel Edwards said Thursday. (Sledge, 3/26)

The New York Times: A N.Y. Nurse Dies. Angry Co-Workers Blame A Lack Of Protective Gear.
Kious Kelly, a nurse manager at a Manhattan hospital, texted his sister on March 18 with some devastating news: He had tested positive for the coronavirus and was on a ventilator in the intensive care unit. He told her he could text but not talk. “I’m okay. Don’t tell Mom and Dad. They’ll worry,” he wrote to his sister, Marya Patrice Sherron. That was his last message. Ms. Sherron’s subsequent texts to him went unanswered. In less than a week, he was dead. (Sengupta, 3/26)

Sacramento Bee: UC Davis Med Center Staff Fear Patient Exposure To Coronavirus
When he announced that employees of the UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento had tested positive for coronavirus, health system CEO David Lubarsky cast blame on the outside world as “very likely” responsible.He noted the hospital’s own infection-control regime for nurses, doctors and other medical staff, and said, “We simply can’t be protected outside of work.” Lubarsky said he expected many more infections among his employees in the days to come as the COVID-19 pandemic spreads.Now, some employees of the healthcare network that employs 11,310 full- and part-time workers are pushing back. They contend it’s preposterous to suggest that UC Davis Medical Center employees haven’t been infected by contact with patients at the facility. (Sabalow, 3/26)

San Francisco Chronicle: Health Care Worker In SF General Hospital’s Emergency Room Infected With Coronavirus 
An emergency room staff member at San Francisco General Hospital that had direct contact with patients has tested positive for COVID-19, according to an internal staff memo obtained by The Chronicle on Thursday.Officials are conducting a “thorough contact investigation to determine further steps to ensure safety” in the emergency department, according to the memo, sent to employees by hospital CEO Susan Ehrlich on Thursday afternoon. (Thadani, 3/25)

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Starbucks Offers A Free Tall Coffee For Health Care Workers
Starbucks chains across the United States are giving away a free coffee to first responders and medical workers to thank them for fighting the coronavirus  — to-go only, of course. The coffee chain announced Tuesday that any firefighter, police officer, paramedic, doctor, nurse, hospital staff or researcher can claim a free tall hot or iced coffee. (Elder, 3/26)

Sacramento Bee: Companies Offer Freebies To Healthcare Workers Amid COVID-19 
Healthcare workers are on the front lines of the global coronavirus pandemic and several companies are showing their appreciation by offering freebies to medical personnel. From free coffee to free shoes, here’s how companies are stepping in to help. (White, 3/26)

Boston Globe: More Than 160 Boston Hospital Workers Test Positive For Coronavirus 
Major hospitals in Boston are seeing a steep rise in the number of infected workers, a doubling to more than 160 in the past two days, which officials believe may be more attributable to community spread than contact with infected patients. At Massachusetts General Hospital, 41 members of the staff have tested positive for COVID-19, a quadrupling from earlier in the week, and at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, 51 employees have been infected, up from 33 two days ago. (McCluskey, 3/26)

Modern Healthcare: UChicago Medicine Brings Back Employees Exposed To COVID-19
As COVID-19 spreads—Illinois reported 673 new cases today—hospitals across the state are working to ensure they have enough staff to safely care for patients. Some are bringing back retired clinicians. At least one is bringing back workers who may have the virus. University of Chicago Medicine today announced that, starting tomorrow, it's bringing back workers who were furloughed after a potential exposure to COVID-19. Only asymptomatic faculty and staff will return to work, while those who have tested positive for the virus or are exhibiting symptoms will stay home. (Goldberg, 3/26)

Politico: Could Obamacare Save Jobless Americans From Coronavirus?
A historic surge in jobless claims threatens to leave millions of Americans joining the ranks of the uninsured, an increasingly grim outlook in the country that’s emerging as the new global epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic. The moment is shaping up to be a clear test of Obamacare, on the same week the health care law turned 10 years old. The key question is whether the pandemic will drive the newly uninsured to the law’s health insurance marketplaces, proving the law’s value as a backstop, or if they'll take their chances and forego coverage as the country braces for a possible recession. (Luthi, 3/26)

The Washington Post: The Coronavirus Recession Is Just Getting Started
The record 3.3 million jobless claims reported Thursday mark the beginning of an economic crisis facing American workers and businesses — a slump, experts say, that will only end when the coronavirus pandemic is contained. The economy has entered a deep recession that has echoes of the Great Depression in the way it has devastated so many businesses and consumers, triggering mass layoffs and threatening to set off a chain reaction of bankruptcies and financial losses for companies large and small. (Long, 3/26)

Politico: ‘Just Damage Containment’: Cost Of The Coronavirus Shutdown Keeps Rising
The mammoth $2 trillion rescue package on the brink of heading to President Donald Trump’s desk would plug some of the massive holes coronavirus is ripping through the American economy. But the massive effort — the largest single injection of federal cash into the economy in U.S. history — will do nothing to flip the switch back on for an economy enduring the swiftest paralyzation any major developed nation has ever seen. (White, 3/26)

Politico: A Far-Right Rallying Cry: Older Americans Should Volunteer To Work
Forget “15 days to slow the spread.” A growing chorus of conservatives have started arguing that older adults should voluntarily return to work to save the country from financial ruin. Call it “economic patriotism.” The proposal has taken root in some conservative circles, filtering up from far-right websites to radio pundits to a few prominent politicians to, finally, Fox News. (Nguyen, 3/27)

PBS NewsHour: Fighting COVID-19, Can The U.S. Save Both Lives And The Economy?
If we prioritize health over the economy, or vice versa, what are the costs? The number of jobless claims on Thursday hit a record high, and Congress is poised to pass a massive emergency stimulus deal just to keep money flowing. (Santhanam, 3/26)

The New York Times: A Virus’s Effects: Coughs, Chills And Sometimes A Forgiving Spirit
Rent collections are being delayed. Water restored. Jailhouse doors are swinging open. The coronavirus, for all its devastation, is spreading a spirit of forgiveness across America and softening the country’s often uncompromising lock-’em-up ways. Dozens of states and localities have suspended evictions and utility shut-offs. The $2 trillion stimulus bill that passed the Senate this week included provisions to halt evictions in some federally funded housing, defer federal student loan payments interest-free and stop collections on those who are in default. (Eligon, 3/27)

The Washington Post: Washington-Area Jobless Claims Spike Dramatically As Virus Cases Surge
At least 102,000 D.C.-area residents have lost their jobs amid the coronavirus-related shutdowns, a worrisome glimpse of the economic damage being wrought as the area’s caseload continues to surge. Nearly 42,000 people in Maryland filed unemployment claims last week, an 11-fold increase from the previous week, Labor Department figures released Thursday showed. (Olivo, Nirappil and Vozzella, 3/26)

Stat: What If Hydroxychloroquine Doesn’t Work? What If It Does? We Don't Know
An old malaria medicine, hydroxychloroquine, has gone viral on the internet. But is it really an antiviral drug? The medicine has been seen as a potential treatment for Covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, almost since outbreaks started. This week it made headlines, due in part to tweets from President Trump and in part because of a small French study of 42 patients that seemed to show that hydroxychloroquine, particularly when combined with the antibiotic azithromycin, helped decrease patients’ levels of coronavirus. (Herper, 3/27)

The Washington Post: Unproven Anti-Malaria Drugs Are Tested On Thousands Of Coronavirus Patients In New York
New York is moving at unprecedented speed and scale in a human experiment to distribute tens of thousands of doses of anti-malarial drugs to seriously ill patients, spurred by political leaders including President Trump to try a treatment that is not proved to be effective against the coronavirus. With no proven treatment for the coronavirus, and infections in New York topping 30,000, health experts say the Food and Drug Administration has moved with uncommon speed to authorize New York’s sweeping plan to distribute the drugs through hospital networks. (Rowland, Swaine and Dawsey, 3/26)

ProPublica: Republican Billionaire’s Group Pushes Unproven COVID-19 Treatment Trump Promoted
A conservative business group founded by a prolific Republican political donor is pressuring the White House to greenlight an unproven COVID-19 treatment, saying in an online petition that the country has plants in the U.S. ready to produce a drug but can’t because of “red tape, regulation, and a dysfunctional healthcare supply chain.” In recent days, Home Depot co-founder Bernard Marcus’ Job Creators Network has placed Facebook ads and texted supporters to sign a petition urging President Donald Trump to “CUT RED TAPE” and make an anti-malarial drug called hydroxychloroquine available for treating those sickened with the virus, one such message obtained by ProPublica reads. (Pearson, 3/26)

Stat: Drug Development Is A 'Long Process’: Pharma CEO In Italy On Covid-19
The CEO of a global pharmaceutical company’s operations in Italy has advice for anyone expecting a Covid-19 solution anytime soon: Drugs and vaccines take time to create — and to be sure they work safely. “Drug development is a long, long, long process,” Massimo Scaccabarozzi, CEO of Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen unit based in Milan, said Thursday on a call organized by the U.S. public relations firm Spectrum Science. He also heads the pharma industry’s trade association in Italy. “When we speak about a novel drug, if we discover a drug today, it will be in the house of a patient or in the hospital in 10 years.” (Cooney, 3/26)

ABC News: Clinical Trials May Begin Next Week In New York For Coronavirus Treatments: Health Official 
Officials are working out final details in plans to begin clinical trials next week for a malaria drug combination that appears to hold some promise for confronting the coronavirus pandemic. New York state Health Department officials are making arrangements to determine what patients at which hospitals will be allowed to participate in trials with hydroxychloroquine, Zithromax and chloroquine, a senior official at the department with knowledge of the plan told ABC News. The bulk of the patients are expected to be in the New York City metro area because the region has the biggest cluster of cases. (Margolin, 3/26)

The Wall Street Journal: Coronavirus Upends Testing Of New Drugs
The world-wide spread of the new coronavirus is throwing into disarray studies critical to the development of promising new medicines. The pandemic is causing delays in starting clinical drug trials and temporarily halting others, according to companies, consultants and industry officials. Patients enrolled in some studies have stopped showing up at trial sites, while hospitals supposed to see trial subjects are shifting attention to tackling coronavirus patients. Industry scientists, meanwhile, can’t travel for research. (Hopkins, 3/27)

ABC News: As Nursing Homes Take A Heavy Toll Early, Companies Try To Erect Barriers To Coronavirus 
As officials at the nation's nursing homes began to realize their facilities and elderly populations were deeply vulnerable targets for the spread of novel coronavirus, the medical director at one of the largest chains realized he needed a new playbook to take on an outbreak this dangerous. "We were determined to do our best to contain it," said Dr. Mark Gloth, chief medical officer for HCR ManorCare. "I said, 'Why can't we MacGyver it and put something together that will actually provide an additional level of support for our patients and employees?'" (Romero, Mosk and Freger, 3/27)

Philadelphia Inquirer: Nursing Homes Fear Accepting Patients Who May Have Coronavirus Exposure In Hospitals
Sidney Greenberger runs a New Jersey-based company that operates eight nursing homes in Pennsylvania and six in New Jersey. His buildings are filled with those most likely to die if infected with the coronavirus — the elderly and those with lots of chronic health problems. He finds the prospect “terrifying” and says the virus could make nursing homes a “death trap” for his residents. (Bulring, 3/27)

Boston Globe: Coronavirus Creeping Into Massachusetts Senior Sites
The coronavirus is creeping into senior housing in Massachusetts, despite urgent efforts to isolate residents and bar visitors. More than 20 cases have been confirmed in at least six senior living sites in the state, and two residents have died. The Jack Satter House in Revere has the largest known outbreak at senior facilities statewide, with seven residents testing positive for the virus, city officials reported Thursday. Five have been hospitalized, one is recovering, and one has died, though the cause of death has not been officially determined. (Weisman and Finucane, 3/26)

The New York Times: When Dementia Meets The Coronavirus Crisis
As the coronavirus advances, it is taking a particularly harsh toll on the many who are caring for a loved one with dementia or Alzheimer’s, the most common form of dementia. According to a report by the Alzheimer’s Association, more than 16 million Americans are providing unpaid care for those with Alzheimer’s or other types of dementia. For them the virus is “really a double whammy,” said Lynn Friss Feinberg, a senior strategic policy adviser at AARP’s Public Policy Institute. “You’re worrying about your own health and that of your family member.” (Halpert, 3/26)

Reuters: U.S. Home Healthcare Industry Warns Of Possible 'Collapse'
Home healthcare providers, the lifelines to 12 million vulnerable Americans, are scrambling to decide how to serve patients who show symptoms of coronavirus — and how to ensure that the providers themselves neither catch nor spread it. (Berens, 3/26)

The New York Times: Blood Plasma From Survivors Will Be Given To Coronavirus Patients
Can blood from coronavirus survivors help other people fight the illness? Doctors in New York will soon be testing the idea in hospitalized patients who are seriously ill. Blood from people who have recovered can be a rich source of antibodies, proteins made by the immune system to attack the virus. The part of the blood that contains antibodies, so-called convalescent plasma, has been used for decades to treat infectious diseases, including Ebola and influenza. (Grady, 3/26)

Time: Blood Plasma Treatment For COVID-19 To Be Tested In New York
Before antibiotics rendered the practice moot, it was common to treat infectious bacterial diseases by infusing the blood of recovered patients into those struggling with infection. That approach has also been tried against viral infections like H1N1 influenza, SARS and MERS, with inconsistent success. Some patients benefited, but other did not and doctors don’t have a clear understanding of why. But during an evolving pandemic like COVID-19, plasma-based treatments can provide a critical stop-gap while therapies and vaccines are developed. The idea is relatively simple, and based on the concept of passive immunity. People who have recovered from an COVID-19 infection have likely done so because their immune systems developed strong immune responses to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes the illness. (Park, 3/26)

NPR: Research On Monoclonal Antibody Treatments Takes Aim At COVID-19
When our bodies are invaded by a virus, our immune systems make particular proteins called antibodies to help fight off infection. Scientists working to quell the COVID-19 pandemic think it will be possible to figure out which antibodies are most potent in quashing a coronavirus infection, and then make vast quantities of identical copies of these proteins synthetically. (Palca, 3/26)

Stat: New Reports Raise Possibility Pregnant Women Can Pass Coronavirus To Fetus, But Risk Is Unclear
A trio of scientific reports about Covid-19 infections in pregnant women raises concerns that the new coronavirus may be able to infect a fetus in the womb. It remains unclear if that actually happens, how often it does if that’s the case, and what if any risk it poses to fetuses. And an editorial in the journal in which two of the reports were published cautioned against putting too much weight on the findings yet. (Branswell, 3/26)

CIDRAP: COVID-19 May Spread From Moms To Infants And By Seemingly Healthy Kids
In a research letter today in JAMA Pediatrics, Chinese researchers say that they can't rule out mother-to-baby COVID-19 transmission in three infected newborns, indicating the need for increased vigilance before and after delivery. Meanwhile, an observational cohort study yesterday in The Lancet Infectious Diseases presents evidence that children may be more likely than adults to spread coronavirus because their often-asymptomatic illness makes infections harder to identify. (Van Beusekom, 3/26)

Los Angeles Times: Pregnant Women With Coronavirus Can Pass It To Their Babies
One of those infants was delivered by caesarean section nearly nine weeks before its due date because the mother was suffering from pneumonia caused by COVID-19. That baby’s health problems may have been primarily due to being born prematurely, not because it was infected with the coronavirus known as SARS-CoV-2, the authors wrote. “The clinical symptoms from 33 neonates with or at risk of COVID-19 were mild and outcomes were favorable,” wrote the authors, who were from two children’s hospitals in Wuhan and one in Shanghai. (Khan and Kaplan, 3/26)

ProPublica: 'Our Goal Should Be To Crush The Curve'
In January 1976, flu broke out among Army recruits training at Fort Dix, New Jersey. Most of the flu, tests revealed, was of a common strain, A-Victoria, but four cases (one of them fatal) proved to be swine flu, similar to the strain that caused the 1918 pandemic that killed half a million people in this country and 50 million worldwide. Swine flu had, in 1976, not been seen in humans for more than a half century, so immunity was almost nonexistent. Further testing at Fort Dix turned up some alarming results — an additional nine cases with as many as 500 recruits who had been exposed to the virus but were asymptomatic. While a vaccine had been developed for A-Victoria and many other flu strains, none existed for swine flu. Public health authorities, led by the Centers for Disease Control, quickly became alarmed. (Tofel, 3/26)

The Wall Street Journal: What Does It Mean To Flatten The Curve To Fight Coronavirus?
By now you’ve heard the phrase “flatten the curve.” It refers to the quest to slow transmissions of Covid-19 so the accumulating number of infections looks like a gentle slope instead of a vertiginous spike. The matter is urgent, according to infectious-disease experts who’ve modeled strategies to curb the spread. (McGinty, 3/27)

Arizona Daily Star: People With Intellectual Disabilities May Be Denied Lifesaving Care Under These Plans As Coronavirus Spreads
Advocates for people with intellectual disabilities are concerned that those with Down syndrome, cerebral palsy, autism and other such conditions will be denied access to lifesaving medical treatment as the COVID-19 outbreak spreads across the country. Several disability advocacy organizations filed complaints this week with the civil rights division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, asking the federal government to clarify provisions of the disaster preparedness plans for the states of Washington and Alabama. (Silverman, 3/27)

The New York Times: With Meetings Banned, Millions Struggle To Stay Sober On Their Own
On March 13, a dozen people gathered at a Cleveland outpatient clinic for their daily therapy group. They represented a patchwork of addictions: to alcohol, crack cocaine, methamphetamine, marijuana, heroin. They were freshly out of jail, out of marriages, out of work. The newest member had enrolled just a week earlier. The three-hour morning session that Friday, reinforced with continually brewing coffee and snacks everyone brought to share (mini doughnuts, chips, cookies, pretzels) began with lights dimmed and a meditation. Shortly after noon, they locked arms, recited the Serenity Prayer, and said: “Be well, be safe, see you Monday.” (Hoffman, 3/26)

ABC News: Sorry, Conspiracy Theorists. Study Concludes COVID-19 'Is Not A Laboratory Construct' 
Conspiracy theories claiming COVID-19 was engineered in a lab as part of a biological attack on the United States have been gaining traction online in recent weeks, but a new study on the origins of the virus has concluded that the pandemic-causing strain developed naturally. An analysis of the evidence, according to the findings first published in the scientific journal Nature Medicine, shows that the novel coronavirus "is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus," with the researchers concluding "we do not believe that any type of laboratory-based scenario is plausible." (Holland, 3/27)

ABC News: COVID-19 Has Been Compared To The Flu. Experts Say That's Wrong. 
Even with businesses closed, travel restricted and shelter-in-place orders issued around the world, many still wonder if such extremes are needed to battle the novel coronavirus. Some people, including the president of the United States, have said COVID-19 isn't too different from the common flu. But, according to experts, is COVID-19 actually worse? The short answer? Yes. (Kumar, 3/27)

The Hill: Democratic Senators Call On FDA To Drop Restrictions On Blood Donations From Men Who Have Sex With Men 
More than a a dozen Democratic senators signed a letter Thursday urging Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Stephen Hahn to ease restrictions on blood donations by men who have recently had sex with men, as the coronavirus outbreak has led to a dire shortage of blood. The current rule, which the senators describe as "discriminatory" in their letter, prohibits men who who have had sex with other men in the past 12 months from donating. (Johnson, 3/26)

NPR: As Coronavirus Alters Our World You May Be Grieving. Take Care Of Yourself
On weekday evenings, sisters Lesley Laine and Lisa Ingle stage online happy hours from the Southern California home they share. It's something they've been enjoying with local and faraway friends during this period of social distancing and self-isolation. And on a recent evening, I shared a toast with them. We laughed and had fun during our half-hour Facetime meetup. But unlike our pre-pandemic visits, we now worried out loud about a lot of things – like our millennial-aged kids: their health and jobs. (O'Neill, 3/26)

The New York Times: Significance Of Pangolin Viruses In Human Pandemic Remains Murky
Pangolins, once suspected as the missing link from bats to humans in the origin of the coronavirus pandemic, may not have played that role, some scientists say, although the animals do host viruses that are similar to the new human coronavirus. Peter Daszak, the president of EcoHealth Alliance, an organization that works on animal-to-human spillover diseases, said that accumulating evidence on pangolins made it “doubtful that this species played a role in the outbreak.” “We need to keep looking for the original reservoir” — likely a bat,” he said, adding that the potential intermediate host would likely be another mammal species that’s more widely traded in the Yunnan-to-Wuhan corridor of China. (Gorman, 3/26)

The New York Times: A.I. Versus The Coronavirus
Advanced computers have defeated chess masters and learned how to pick through mountains of data to recognize faces and voices. Now, a billionaire developer of software and artificial intelligence is teaming up with top universities and companies to see if A.I. can help curb the current and future pandemics. Thomas M. Siebel, founder and chief executive of C3.ai, an artificial intelligence company in Redwood City, Calif., said the public-private consortium would spend $367 million in its initial five years, aiming its first awards at finding ways to slow the new coronavirus that is sweeping the globe. (Broad, 3/26)

CNN: Boris Johnson: UK Prime Minister Tests Positive For Coronavirus
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has tested positive for coronavirus, the leader said on Friday. On his Twitter account, Johnson said he had developed mild symptoms and was self-isolating. "Over the last 24 hours I have developed mild symptoms and tested positive for coronavirus. I am now self-isolating, but I will continue to lead the government's response via video-conference as we fight this virus. Together we will beat this," Johnson wrote. (Dewan, 3/27)

Reuters: British PM Boris Johnson Tests Positive For Coronavirus
“I’ve taken a test. That has come out positive,” Johnson said on Friday in a video statement broadcast on Twitter. “I’ve developed mild symptoms of the coronavirus. That’s to say - a temperature and a persistent cough. “So I am working from home. I’m self-isolating,” Johnson said. “Be in no doubt that I can continue, thanks to the wizardry of modern technology, to communicate with all my top team to lead the national fightback against coronavirus.” (Faulconbridge, Holton and James, 3/27)

BBC News: Coronavirus: Prime Minister Boris Johnson Tests Positive
Mr Johnson has been seen at several of the government's televised daily briefings in the past week, where he has appeared alongside senior medical officials to update the country on the virus. The prime minister's Brexit negotiator, David Frost, is already off work with suspected symptoms of the virus. Neither the PM's senior adviser Dominic Cummings nor Chancellor Rishi Sunak - with whom Mr Johnson has recently appeared alongside, while following social distancing advice - have symptoms. They have not been tested. (3/27)

Fox News: Boris Johnson Tests Positive For Coronavirus
His diagnosis comes just a couple of days after Prince Charles also revealed a positive test. The United Kingdom, like many other countries around the world fighting the coronavirus, has rolled out a series of orders for non-essential businesses to close and residents to remain indoors unless otherwise necessary. (Norman and Irvine, 3/27)

CBS News: U.K.'s Boris Johnson Becomes 1st World Leader To Confirm Coronavirus Diagnosis
Queen Elizabeth, who holds regular weekly meetings with every Prime Minister, did so with Johnson over the phone this past Wednesday, according to the Royal Family twitter account. The palace said the last time the Queen saw Jonson in person was on March 11 and that she remains in good health. (Ott, 3/27)

The New York Times: Fresh From Iran’s Coronavirus Zone, Now Moving Across Afghanistan
Afghanistan has already imported its epidemic. And each day it adds to it, as thousands more displaced Afghans continue to flow across the border from Iran, which has reported among the world’s highest numbers of Covid-19 cases and deaths. The returnees, some surely infected with the coronavirus when in Iran, cluster shoulder to shoulder in massive crowds on both sides of the crossing, where toilet facilities are primitive and soap and potable water are scarce. (Faizi and Zucchino, 3/26)

The Associated Press: In Iran, False Belief A Poison Fights Virus Kills Hundreds
Standing over the still body of an intubated 5-year-old boy wearing nothing but a plastic diaper, an Iranian health care worker in a hazmat suit and mask begged the public for just one thing: Stop drinking industrial alcohol over fears about the new coronavirus. The boy, now blind after his parents gave him toxic methanol in the mistaken belief it protects against the virus, is just one of hundreds of victims of an epidemic inside the pandemic now gripping Iran. (Karimi and Gambrell, 3/27)

The New York Times: For France, Coronavirus Tests A Vaunted Health Care System
One of the world’s best health care systems is facing its severest test ever, and whether it succeeds will say much about the ultimate adequacy of a well-funded, well-equipped and broadly accessible national treatment plan. If France’s experiment in confining its citizens — less rigorous than the Chinese, more precocious than the Italian, far more organized than the American — yields the hoped-for flattening of the curve, it would be vindication not just for the underlying system, but for a Western democracy’s organized effort to combat the coronavirus. The verdict is still weeks away. (Nossiter, 3/27)

The Washington Post: Italy’s New Coronavirus Cases Are Slowing. How Soon Will Normal Life Return?
Italy's nationwide lockdown is showing the first small signs of payoff. The number of coronavirus cases is still rising, but at the lowest day-on-day pace since the outbreak began. The World Health Organization calls the slowdown encouraging. The health chief in the hardest-hit region says there's "light at the end of the tunnel." The temptation, for a cooped-up and stressed-out country, is to embrace the first sign that the crisis may at last be easing. (Harlan and Pitrelli, 3/26)

The New York Times: ‘We Take The Dead From Morning Till Night’
No country has been hit harder by the coronavirus than Italy, and no province has suffered as many losses as Bergamo. Photos and voices from there evoke a portrait of despair. (Bucciarelli, 3/26)

The New York Times: Japan’s Virus Success Has Puzzled The World. Is Its Luck Running Out?
Japan had only a few dozen confirmed coronavirus infections when the 30-something nurse with a slight sore throat boarded a bus to Osaka, the country’s third-largest city, to attend a Valentine’s weekend performance by pop bands at a music club. Less than two weeks later, she tested positive for the virus, and the authorities swiftly alerted others who had been at the club. As more infections soon emerged from three other music venues in the city, officials tested concertgoers and their close contacts, and urged others to stay home. All told, 106 cases were linked to the clubs, and nine people are still hospitalized. (Rich and Ueno, 3/26)

Reuters: Weeks Of Anguish And A 'Black Box': Inside Tokyo's Decision To Delay The Olympics
Officials in charge of staging Tokyo’s Olympic Games crowded around a low table inside Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s residence late Tuesday, wincing as they spoke by phone with the head of the International Olympic Committee (IOC). Minutes later, Abe emerged to inform a gaggle of reporters that he had just spoken with Thomas Bach, the IOC’s president, and that they had agreed to officially delay the Tokyo Olympics. The evening call between Abe and Bach concluded days and weeks of negotiations between Tokyo and Lausanne, where the IOC is based, and came after repeated public denials by Japanese officials that a pandemic might derail the Games. (Takemoto and Grohmann, 3/26)

Stat: Covid-19 Hasn't Hit India Widely. But I Saw More Warnings There Than In U.S.
I grab my grandfather’s cellphone to call the corner shop and make sure it’s open, but before I hear the grocer’s voice, I hear a loud, off-putting cough. That was the abrupt start of a pre-recorded government PSA. The phone message listed off symptoms of Covid-19 — including that cough — and offered guidance for anyone suspecting they or someone they knew was infected. Only then would the call go through. (Chakradhar, 3/27)

Reuters: China's Xi Offers Trump Help In Fighting Coronavirus As U.S. Faces Wave Of New Patients
Chinese President Xi Jinping told U.S. President Donald Trump during a phone call on Friday that he would have China’s support in fighting the coronavirus, as the United States faces the prospect of becoming the next global epicentre of the pandemic. (Lee and Zhang, 3/26)

The Wall Street Journal: U.S., China Trade Blame For Coronavirus, Hampering Global Economy Rescue
Chinese President Xi Jinping has been on a telephone spree this month, dialing the leaders of coronavirus-battered France, Italy, Spain and Germany with offers of support including masks and other medical equipment. For weeks, the one phone number he hadn’t tried was Donald Trump’s. The leaders of the world’s two biggest economies finally spoke by phone in a call Mr. Trump initiated, according to China’s official Xinhua News Agency on Friday. (Davis and Wei, 3/27)

Undark: In Public Housing, A Battle Against Mold And Rising Seas
When splotches of mold surfaced on Brandy Cabrera’s shower wall in September 2019, the 37-year-old bus attendant began to worry about her teenage son, who is autistic. “He has got to breathe in all that mold while he is taking a bath,” Cabrera says, referring to his longstanding morning routine. To fix the leak causing the mold, Cabrera followed protocol, contacting the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA), which owns the Red Hook Houses, the public housing complex in Brooklyn where she has lived for the past 13 years. But Cabrera says that workers just plastered over her wall. The next month, she contacted them again to stop the spreading mold, but no one came.Finally, she decided to sue the agency in one of the city’s housing courts. (Pike, 3/25)

Wired: The Doctor Who Helped Defeat Smallpox Explains What's Coming
Larry Brilliant says he doesn’t have a crystal ball. But 14 years ago, Brilliant, the epidemiologist who helped eradicate smallpox, spoke to a TED audience and described what the next pandemic would look like. At the time, it sounded almost too horrible to take seriously. “A billion people would get sick," he said. “As many as 165 million people would die. There would be a global recession and depression, and the cost to our economy of $1 to $3 trillion would be far worse for everyone than merely 100 million people dying, because so many more people would lose their jobs and their health care benefits, that the consequences are almost unthinkable.” (Levy, 3/19)

Politico Magazine: What The Coronavirus Curve Teaches Us About Climate Change
The coronavirus pandemic—sadly—has introduced or reintroduced many people to the concept of an exponential curve, in which a quantity grows at an increasing rate over time, as the number of people contracting the virus currently is doing. It is this curve that so many of us are trying to “flatten” through social distancing and other mitigating measures, small and large. It’s easy to project a pattern of smooth, linear growth: one person gets the coronavirus today, another person contracts it tomorrow, a third person gets it on the third day, and the process continues in this manner, the cases simply adding. But most people, including leaders and policymakers, have a harder time imagining exponential growth, which means you can have two cases of coronavirus tomorrow, four on the third day, hundreds after the seventh day and thousands soon after—a situation that’s challenging to anticipate and manage. That’s the nature of pandemics. (Kunreuther and Slovic, 3/26)

The New York Times: His Immune System Went Out Of Whack. The Usual Treatment Didn’t Work. Why?
“Have you read this?” the 61-year-old man asked his newest doctor, Madan Jagasia, as they sat in an exam room in the cancer center at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville. The book, titled “Dying Well,” prompted a concerned look from the oncologist. You know we’re not there yet, he said he told the patient. Jagasia had only recently taken over the patient’s care, but he knew the man had been through an awful 14 months. Just a few weeks before Christmas in 2016, the athletic and active lawyer discovered he had an aggressive leukemia. (Sanders, 3/18)

The New York Times: Haunted By A Gene
Year after year for two decades, Nancy Wexler led medical teams into remote villages in Venezuela, where huge extended families lived in stilt houses on Lake Maracaibo and for generations, had suffered from a terrible hereditary disease that causes brain degeneration, disability and death. Neighbors shunned the sick, fearing they were contagious. “Doctors wouldn’t treat them,” Dr. Wexler said. “Priests wouldn’t touch them.” She began to think of the villagers as her family, and started a clinic to care for them. (Grady, 3/10)

The Washington Post: Wuhan Showed Us How A Pandemic Begins. Could It Also Show Us How One Ends?
Xinyan Yu is a journalist from Wuhan based in Washington.Patients waiting to be tested, health-care workers making masks and face shields made from scratch, people getting laid off as the economy stumbles and government leaders struggling to assuage the panic. This is what New York, the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak in the United States, looks like today. And this was what my hometown Wuhan, a city of 11 million people in central China, looked like two months ago. (Xinyan Yu, 3/26)

Los Angeles Times: Coronavirus: 'Postponed' Abortions? That's Called Having Babies
As attempts to exploit the COVID-19 pandemic go, here’s a reprehensible one: the effort by some conservative states to halt abortions by arguing that they are “nonessential” medical procedures. Sounds ridiculous, but that’s the way officials in Ohio and Texas have interpreted emergency health orders intended to conserve medical equipment and gear needed for hospitals during the crisis. It should be obvious that an abortion can’t be “postponed” until the pandemic clears up like a facelift or cataract surgery or routine dental work. If a woman doesn’t get an abortion in a timely fashion, she can’t get it at all. (3/27)

The Washington Post: Now We Know: The Conservative Devotion To Life Ends At Birth
After watching so many on the right deny the science of climate change for so many years, I am not remotely surprised to now see so many “conservatives” denying the reality of the novel coronavirus. I am, however, shocked to see that the “pro-life” movement is so willing to sacrifice the lives of the elderly and ailing in a sick attempt to restart the U.S. economy while we are struggling with more coronavirus cases than any other country. Apparently, the right-wing devotion to life ends at birth. (Max Boot, 3/37)

USA Today: With Coronavirus, Republicans Would Be Insane To Kill Obamacare, At 10
In the time of coronavirus, it may be difficult to find things to be thankful for. But we know of one: the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare. Highly controversial, though it should not be, and the subject of much emotion, though it should not be, the law is pretty much solely responsible for approximately 26 million people, or about 8% of the population, having health insurance today. And, oh yes, it turned 10 this week. (3/26)

USA Today: Obamacare’s Main Thrust Was A Radical Centralization Of Health Care
Ten years have passed since the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare, and the law has been more or less fully deployed for six. In practice, although it may have made health care more accessible to some, it did so at the cost of making it less affordable and worse quality for many others. (Adam Brandon, 3/26)

Bloomberg: Coronavirus Isn’t Trump’s Katrina. It’s His Vietnam.
Mistakes were made. Lies were told. The body count kept rising. President Lyndon Johnson knew the war in Vietnam was a fiasco. But he believed American  prestige was on the line. And he didn’t want to be the first president to lose a war. “I know we oughtn’t to be there,” he told Senator Eugene McCarthy in a February 1966 phone call. “But I can’t get out.” ...Johnson may have misjudged Vietnam, but at least he was acting, in part, on behalf of what he perceived to be the national interest. Trump’s response to Covid-19 runs strictly on personal pathology. The failure to obtain basic equipment, including masks and ventilators, is akin to sending soldiers off to war without rifles. His initial falsehoods about the imminent spread of the virus, like his consistent inconsistency, reflects Trump’s perception of his self-interest as well as his lifelong recourse to make-believe. (Francis Wilkinson, 3/26)

The Lexington Herald Leader: Ignore Donald Trump. Don’t Be Like Rand Paul. Listen To The CDC And Gov. Beshear 
Sure, it’s fun to be an 18-year-old, high on $2 margaritas and your own sense of immortality, swearing that COVID-19 won’t kick you off the beach during spring break. I guess it’s also fun to be Sen. Rand Paul and have easy access to a COVID-19 test, unlike millions of Americans, but then decide you don’t need to quarantine while you wait for the results to come back, so you can possibly spread the virus around the aged Senate. Paul, as he’s fond of telling people, is a doctor. A self-licensed eye doctor, but someone more or less medicine-adjacent, who voted against the first coronavirus aid package because he was piqued that it didn’t include plans to get out of Afghanistan. What a statesman, right? The campaign commercials against him in 2022 will write themselves. (Linda Blackford, 3/25)

NBC News: As Coronavirus Deaths Mount, Trump's Handling Of Intelligence Warnings Looks Worse And Worse
Those of us who served in the intelligence community knew this day was coming. The day when President Donald Trump's near total disregard for intelligence professionals would eventually affect every American. Personally, I thought Trump's willful blindness might manifest itself in a failure to heed signs of an imminent terrorist strike, military assault or state-sponsored cyberattack. Instead, the missed warnings pointed to a pandemic that has so far resulted in over 82,000 infected Americans and over 1,100 dead here at home. (Frank Figliuzzi, 3/27)

South Florida Sun Sentinel: Let The Zaandam Dock? That Depends On Holland America
Acting Port Everglades Director Glenn Wiltshire faces a terrible choice. Should he allow a cruise ship with sick passengers to dock Monday in Broward County, which already is a coronavirus hotspot? Or should he refuse and leave the 1,243 passengers — 305 of them Americans — to an uncertain fate? (3/26)

Miami Herald: Florida Hides Where Coronavirus Killed Seniors In ALFs
For people reckoning with the possibility of adored elders dying alone, it might seem irrelevant what, exactly, causes them to draw their last breath. But it isn’t irrelevant. We know from life experience that people care very much about the minute details of every element of a serious illness, from the day of diagnosis to the moment of death. Today, families and friends of 200,000 seniors living in Florida’s eldercare facilities are barred from visiting, because Gov. DeSantis closed these places to visitors to protect residents and their caregivers from exposure to the coronavirus. It was a wise and proper public safety measure for which the governor is to be commended. (3/26)

Modern Healthcare: What Healthcare Leaders Fear About The Impact Of COVID-19 Once The Storm Has Passed
Healthcare leaders across the country are in pure survival mode right now. It's hard to think beyond the next few weeks as we scramble to adapt to the new world of COVID-19 and brace for the impact on our hospitals and providers. At the same time, though, it's becoming clear that the effects of the pandemic are going to be felt long after this storm has passed. (Halee Fischer-Wright, 3/26)

Los Angeles Times: If Hospitals Overflow With Coronavirus, Who Gets Treated?
The COVID-19 catastrophe is about to require Americans to make tough decisions for how to allocate scarce resources that can determine life and death. This is especially true with ventilators and beds in intensive care units. Many hospitalized patients in ICUs are dying of cancer or advanced irreversible dementia, or are on ventilators because of irreversible heart, lung or liver failure. In a large proportion of these kinds of cases, the physicians caring for the patient recognize that death is imminent, but treatment continues, often because families are unwilling to recognize the inevitable. (Neil S. Wenger and Martin F. Shapiro, 3/26)

Stat: Trust Is The Only Covid-19 Protection I Can Count On In My Emergency Room
I step through the sliding glass doors of my hospital’s emergency department and immediately look for the paper bag with my name scribbled on the outside. It contains my previously used surgical mask. I put it on, breathe deeply, and wrinkle my nose at the smell. It’s a stale, tired scent, unrecognizable and unpleasant. (Jay Baruch, 3/27)

Boston Globe: Protect Health Care Workers From The Coronavirus So They Can Protect The World 
Our emergency rooms and intensive care units are like war zones and we are the foot soldiers. Health care workers are reusing N95 masks and many are being asked to use surgical masks due to shortages. As hospitals run out of respirators and other necessary PPEs, some have resorted to hoarding. We need the support of our hospital administrations, state health agencies, governments, and the general public in order to continue to care for patients and reduce our risk. (Adaora Okoli, 3/27)

CIDRAP: What US Leaders Must Do To Protect Health Workers Amid COVID-19 Supply Shortages | 
Doctors, nurses, first responders, and housekeeping staff are caring for COVID- 19 patients without assurance they can safely do their jobs. Many are jury-rigging homemade masks and respirators or using unproven, possibly unsafe methods to wash and reuse them (prompting a recent European Safety Federation warning), while at the same time we learn about infected healthcare workers becoming patients on ventilators. These drastic shortages are in large part due to a long-term under-investment in preparedness at all levels, from federal to states to health systems. Many healthcare institutions themselves had not maintained or rebuilt adequate stockpiles after the 2009 H1N1 flu and 2014-16 Ebola crises and maintained dependence on personal protective equipment (PPE) from overseas. (Jesse L. Goodman, 3/26)

Boston Globe: Hospitals Need To Prepare For Life And Death Decisions During The Coronavirus Pandemic 
These stories highlight the urgent need for the United States to come together as communities and within health care institutions to craft clear, equitable, and transparent policies for rationing health care services. We must prioritize making these decisions before the crisis begins to overwhelm our health care system. (Susan Sered, 3/25)

The Wall Street Journal: Rationing Care Is A Surrender To Death
The coronavirus has introduced terrifying terms into our everyday vocabulary—“social distancing,” “ventilator,” “pandemic.” Be prepared to add a new word to the vernacular: rationing. The U.S. has reported more than 80,000 cases of Covid-19. About half are in New York and more than 10,000 cases were reported in a single day. If projections by Cory Chivers, a data scientist at the University of Pennsylvania Health System, are correct, those numbers represent 15% of all cases. (Allen C. Guelzo, 3/26)

CNN: If You've Got Coronavirus, Shout It From The Roof Tops 
Pandemics aren't secret. But too many of us are treating the novel coronavirus as if it's a private affair, and that will get people killed. For much of the confusion, thank a suite of federal laws regulating health information, all poorly designed for our current predicament. (Ford Vox, 3/25)

The Detroit News: Chinese Americans Combat Coronavirus
There is nothing more American than fellow citizens volunteering to help out their neighbors in a time of need.  Chinese Americans in Michigan are stepping up in big and small ways to try to help their neighbors, friends and fellow citizens during this coronavirus pandemic. The Michigan Chinese American Coalition was formed in late January 2020 to assist in combating the deadly coronavirus. (Tom Watkins, 3/26)

The New Orleans Advocate: The Grocery Store Is The New Center Of Community Life
Gov. John Bel Edwards has put our state on a stay-safe, stay-home, shelter-in-place order and many of us are cooperating. A lot of our workplaces are closed for normal operations, and most workers who can are working remotely. We’ve been told not to go out unless we have to — unless we’re going to the grocery store.That means grocery store employees are working. (3/27)