ProPublica: On The Minds Of Black Lives Matter Protesters: A Racist Health System
On Tuesday, when he decided to protest, William Smith, 27, used a red marker to write a message on the back of a flattened cardboard box: “Kill Racism, Not Me.” As he stood alone, somber, he thought about George Floyd, a fellow black man whom he’d watched die on video as a Minneapolis cop kneeled on his neck eight days earlier. “Seeing the life leave his body was finally the last straw that broke the camel’s back for me,” he said. But he also thought about people he knew, a handful of them, who died after catching the new coronavirus. (Johnson, 6/5)

Modern Healthcare: To Battle Racism, Experts Say Make Health Equity A Central Principle
The civil unrest that has erupted across the country following the May 25 death of George Floyd while in police custody has sparked calls from healthcare leaders to address structural racism as a public health crisis. For Dr. Gary LeRoy, a dramatic shift is long overdue in how the nation not only discusses but addresses the issue. LeRoy, president of the American Academy of Family Physicians, said he hasn’t seen much change in how healthcare providers tackle racial health disparities since he entered medical school in 1984. (Johnson, 6/6)

The Washington Post: The Nexus Between Coronavirus And Protests: 'The Virus Was The Kindling. Police Brutality Lit The Fire.' 
In the middle of the night, as some of the first protests raged in Louisville, Shae Smith and her husband, Walt, decided to break out of their pandemic quarantine and take to the streets. “We were actually in bed and I finally woke Walt up and said, ‘Babe, I think you need to go down there,’ ” Shae recalled. “ ‘You need to see what’s going on, we need to be a part of this.’ ” At 2:15 a.m., Walt went downtown to see, to make a statement. The Smiths had talked and talked about the virus; they knew joining the protests against police brutality meant a higher risk of being infected. (Fisher, Jamison and Wallace, 6/7)

Boston Globe: Boston Medical Community Steps Up For Racial Justice 
Medical professionals around Boston on Friday rallied against police brutality and in solidarity with Black Americans, saying racism is a public health crisis and that the city’s world-renowned hospitals should do more to address it. At noon, several hundred people affiliated with Brigham and Women’s Hospital — many wearing scrubs or white coats — gathered in Stoneman Centennial Park for a vigil organized by first-year internal medicine residents. (Griffin and Adams, 6/5)

The Washington Post: Louisville’s Black Community Protests Police Brutality Amid Coronavirus Pandemic
What Christopher 2X saw in Jefferson Square Park, on the sixth day of protests here, were white and black hands locked in prayer, hundreds listening in the shadow of city hall, all while a man pleaded for justice through a microphone. But one person was missing. “Some people protest. Some people post. Some people donate. Some people pray. There’s no WRONG way to support but NOT supporting at all IS wrong.” (Stubbs, Dougherty and Wallace, 6/7)

USA Today: Coronavirus, Police Violence Boost Risks Of Rising Black Youth Suicide
A decade after she tried to take her life as a college freshman, Victoria Waltz, a gifted child who played the harp, is only beginning to understand how things got so bad. "It's been a journey and a process from then to now," said Waltz, now 28. "It was a slow build up over time, starting in middle school. I had a lot of challenges trying to fit in and not knowing to talk about how I was really feeling." Girls started to bully the too tall, too smart girl with acne and glasses, who grew up middle class in Prince George's County, Maryland, one of the wealthiest black counties in the U.S.  (O'Donnell, 6/7)

The Washington Post: In New York, Social-Distancing Enforcement Was Tense Even Before The Protests
A call came over from dispatch for a rowdy group on a block of two-story houses in Brownsville, a mostly poor section of Brooklyn with a painful history of violent crime and bitter distrust of the police. "It's a gathering," said one of the NYPD officers en route to the scene. "They don't have masks." Three complaints had been made to 311, the city’s non-emergency line, and another three to 911. When the officers arrived on Pine Street, they were greeted with jeers. People reached for their phones to record the interaction. (Jacobs, 6/7)

The Associated Press: Report: NYC Police Misconduct Often Involves Minority Youths
The vast majority of complaints about New York City police officers’ mistreatment of youths stemmed from encounters with black and Hispanic children, according to a new study by the city’s police watchdog agency. Nearly two-thirds of youth complaints to the Civilian Complaint Review Board involved children of color, the report says, including some “stopped for seemingly innocuous activities such as playing, high-fiving, running, carrying backpacks, and jaywalking.” (Mustian, 6/8)

The Hill: Obama: COVID-19, Police Protests A 'Wake-Up Call' For 2020 Graduates 
Former President Obama told the class of 2020 on Sunday that unprecedented pressures felt by their generation due to the ongoing coronavirus outbreak and mass demonstrations against police brutality and racism represented a "wake-up call" for graduates. In a virtual address delivered as part of YouTube's remote graduation ceremony for 2020 graduates, the former president said that the two competing crises meant that the status quo was not "working that well" for many Americans. (Bowden, 6/7)

NPR: Democrats To Unveil Police Reform Legislation
In the wake of national protests set off following the death of George Floyd, House and Senate Democrats will unveil legislation Monday that would bring about wide-ranging reforms to the country's police departments. The Democratic proposal, the Justice in Policing Act of 2020, marks one of the most comprehensive efforts in modern times to overhaul the way police do their jobs. (Grisales, Davis and Snell, 6/8)

Politico: De Blasio Tells Staffers More Cops Will Be Disciplined Over Handling Of Protests
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio promised his staff that more NYPD officers will be disciplined over violent clashes with protesters throughout last week. In seeking to quell an uprising among city employees, some of whom are planning to rally against de Blasio on Monday morning, the mayor explained that he thought officers’ lives were in danger during the protests, according to three people on a staff call Sunday afternoon. (Goldenberg, 6/7)

ABC News: 'Black Lives Matter' Face Mask Shipment Halted For Inspection By USPS 
A family-owned Oakland, California, clothing store shipped off four packages of "Black Lives Matter"-themed cloth face masks that were stopped by the U.S. Postal Service on Thursday for "further investigation," before going to their destination. The packages contained several black cloth face masks with the words "STOP KILLING BLACK PEOPLE M4BL" printed in yellow that were slated for delivery to Washington, D.C., New York City, Minneapolis, Minnesota and Missouri. M4BL is the acronym for the Movement for Black Lives that was created in 2014. (Carrega, 6/6)

The New York Times: A Delicate Balance: Weighing Protest Against The Risks Of The Coronavirus
None of the plans for how the nation might safely emerge from the coronavirus lockdown involved thousands of Americans standing shoulder to shoulder in the streets of major cities or coughing uncontrollably when the authorities used tear gas to disperse them. No one planned on protesters being herded into crowded prison buses or left in crowded cells. Before the eruption of outrage over the killing of George Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis, debates about reopening centered on whether states had adequate systems in place to detect and treat cases of the coronavirus, which has killed more than 110,000 people in the United States since the beginning of the year. (Harmon and Rojas, 6/7)

The Washington Post: Amid Reopenings And Street Protests, Coronavirus Transmission Remains High In Much Of The U.S.
The coronavirus appears to be in retreat in regions that moved decisively to contain it after being hit hard, including New York and New Jersey. But the virus is persisting — and, in some places, spreading aggressively — in parts of the South, Midwest and West, including in states that were among the last to impose shutdowns and the first to lift them. Data compiled by The Washington Post shows that 23 states, as well as the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, have seen an increase in the rolling seven-day average of coronavirus cases compared with the previous week. Most have registered an increase of 10 percent or more. (Achenbach and Janes, 6/5)

The Wall Street Journal: Experts Sound Alarm Over Coronavirus Spread As U.S. Ramps Up Reopening, Prepares For More Protests
Experts and officials warned about a possible increase of coronavirus infections as U.S. states continued this week to ease restrictions and thousands of people took to the streets nationwide to protest against the killing of George Floyd in police custody. Nationally, there have been more than 1.87 million confirmed cases and more than 108,000 deaths from Covid-19, according to the latest figures from Johns Hopkins University. Last Friday, the U.S. had 1.74 million cases and reported deaths exceeded 102,000. (Ansari, 6/6)

The Wall Street Journal: Protests Complicate Mayors’ Efforts To Combat Coronavirus
The sudden outbreak of large protests sparked by the killing of George Floyd on May 25 at the hands of Minneapolis police came at the same time mayors across the country were working to implement more aggressive testing and tracking programs to combat the coronavirus pandemic, complicating their efforts. Public-health doctors say the federal government hasn’t played a leading role in urging broader testing, so mayors and local officials are increasingly thrust into the breach. Scores of them are guided by leading university institutes and public-health experts. (Burton, 6/7)

The New York Times: George Floyd Protests Add New Front Line For Coronavirus Doctors
Outside medical centers across the country, doctors and other health care workers have been stopping work in recent days for 8 minutes and 46 seconds to join in protesting the death of George Floyd, who was pinned down by a police officer in Minneapolis for that amount of time before his death. For doctors in New York who have strained to meet the challenges of coronavirus care for months, participating in the demonstrations has been especially poignant. Workers at a number of the hospitals hit hard by Covid-19 including Bellevue, Downstate, Lincoln, Mount Sinai and Montefiore have held events displaying their support for the protests this week. (Goldberg, 6/7)

The Hill: Coronavirus Stalks Nation Focused On George Floyd Protests 
The protests over the murder of a black man at the hands of police officers have dominated news headlines for a week, even as the death toll from the deadly coronavirus pandemic continues to mount in the United States and across the world. Nearly 11,000 Americans have died from COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, in the 11 days since George Floyd died on a Minneapolis street corner, and more than 200,000 people have tested positive. (Wilson, 6/6)

The Hill: Gottlieb: 'We're Certainly Going To See Transmission' Of Coronavirus Coming Out Of Protests 
Former Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said Sunday that some transmission of the novel coronavirus likely occurred at the protests that have swept the nation over the killing of George Floyd. “We’re certainly going to see transmissions coming out of these gatherings, there’s no question about that,” Gottlieb said on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” noting that the prevalence of infection in the U.S. was currently about one in 200 people. (Budryk, 6/7)

CBS News: Ex-FDA Chief Scott Gottlieb Says There's 'No Question' Protests Will Increase Coronavirus Transmissions 
As tens of thousands of demonstrators have marched in cities across the country calling for an end to police brutality, Dr. Scott Gottlieb, the former head of the Food and Drug Administration, warned Sunday there's "no question" the protests will lead to a spike in coronavirus infections... The demonstrations in response to the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis last month come against the backdrop of the coronavirus pandemic, which has claimed the lives of nearly 110,000 people in the U.S., according to Johns Hopkins University. (Quinn, 6/7)

The Wall Street Journal: ‘Street Medics’ At Protests Tweak Their Toolkit To Deal With Pandemic
Teams of volunteer medics are helping demonstrators with injuries and health problems as they protest racism and police brutality. In addition to the normal challenges of flushing eyes burned by tear gas or bandaging wounds from batons these “street medics” are working amid a pandemic, complicating their task. Combating infection amid the chaos requires more cautious practices and more protective equipment, medics treating protesters across the country said. It also involves additional risk since public-health officials and doctors have warned that large, boisterous crowds, and the use of cough-inducing tear gas, create prime conditions for spreading the virus. (Krouse, 6/7)

CIDRAP: CDC Warns Of Protests And COVID-19 Spread
The death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police has resulted in 10 days and nights of protests against racial injustice in major cities from California to Washington, DC, and Robert Redfield, MD, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) told members of Congress yesterday that protesters need to get tested for COVID-19. Redfield noted that D.C. and Minneapolis—two cities with the largest mass gatherings—still have significant community spread. (Soucheray, 6/5)

Los Angeles Times: L.A. County Coronavirus Cases Near 64,000 Amid Protests And Reopenings
Los Angeles County reported 1,523 new cases of the coronavirus Sunday and 25 related deaths. The high number of new cases was in part due to a backlog of test results received from one lab, officials said. “Our community is feeling the sadness and loss of so many who have passed away from COVID-19,” said Barbara Ferrer, county public health director, in a statement. “Our hearts go out to the family and friends of those who have passed away.” (Wigglesworth, 6/7)

Dallas Morning News: ‘Silence Is Not An Option’: What CEOs Are Saying About Racial Violence In America
Companies and CEOs around the country are denouncing racism and violence in the wake of the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Here are portions of their public comments and letters to employees, edited for brevity and clarity. Each selection starts with a link to their full statements. (Schnurman, 6/7)

The Washington Post: Black Children Are Being Disproportionately Impacted By A Deadly Inflammatory Syndrome Linked To Covid-19.
Dar’Yana Dyson’s memorial service was set up as a block party. It stretched from the dilapidated yellow monkey bars where the 15-year-old high school sophomore played not too long ago, through the parking lot, all the way to the other end of the O’Donnell Heights public housing complex. Rap music played as relatives in face masks fired up barbecue grills for the crowd. (Cha, 6/6)

CIDRAP: Studies Yield Clearer Picture Of Rare COVID-Linked Syndrome In Kids
In a rapid communication published yesterday in Eurosurveillance, French researchers report 108 confirmed, probable, or possible cases of a rare multisystem inflammatory syndrome reported around the world in children with COVID-19. And a separate small prospective observational study published this week in BMJ suggests that the syndrome, called pediatric multisystem inflammatory syndrome temporally associated with COVID-19 (PIMS), is most common in those of African ancestry. (Van Beusekom, 6/5)

NPR: Doctors Race To Understand MIS-C, A Rare New Condition Affecting Kids
The first sign that something was wrong came with stomach pains. It was April 30, and 9-year-old Kyree McBride wasn't feeling well. His mother, Tammie Hairston, thought it might have been something that he ate. But soon, young McBride was battling a 102-degree fever. Worried he may have contracted the coronavirus, Hairston took her son to the hospital. "It was a quick in and out of the emergency room," she said. Doctors told her to take him home and monitor him. (Breslow and Garcia-Navarro, 6/7)

The Washington Post: Talking Past The Pandemic: Trump Attempts To Shift Focus From Deadly Virus To Jobs, Law And Order
Minutes before a news conference Friday in which President Trump declared victory over the coronavirus pandemic by touting historic job growth, White House aides moved chairs that had been six feet apart and placed them right next to one another in the Rose Garden. The move to defy the federal government’s own social distancing rules during the televised event reflected a broader shift within the White House, which is attempting to turn the page from a pandemic that has killed more than 107,000 Americans by focusing on other issues and playing down the continuing danger posed by the virus. (Olorunnipa, Abutaleb and Dawsey, 6/5)

Politico: Trump Plans A ‘Recovery Summer’ Message Against A Bleak Backdrop
President Donald Trump and his team are heralding a summer of economic recovery — a dramatic turnaround that will become the centerpiece of his pitch to voters, casting aside attention on nationwide protests and the coronavirus pandemic. Many fellow Republicans — and Democrats burned by hopeful economic messaging a decade ago — view the coming months with far greater caution, warning about a chest-thumping declaration of victory. (Cook, 6/6)

The Associated Press Fact Check: Trump Exaggerations On Blacks' Economic Gains
President Donald Trump is exaggerating economic gains for African Americans during his administration. He claims full credit for achieving the best economic figures for blacks across the board. That’s not accurate. Black unemployment did reach a low last year, but much of the progress came during the Obama administration. Household median income also was higher for blacks prior to Trump taking office. (Woodward, Yen and Lajka, 6/8)

The Associated Press: Virus, Racial Unrest Force Trump Campaign To Recalibrate
Less than five months before voters will decide his fate, President Donald Trump is confronting a vastly different political reality than he once envisioned. For starters, if the election were held today, he’d likely lose. The president, West Wing advisers and campaign aides have grown increasingly concerned about his reelection chances as they’ve watched Trump’s standing take a pummeling first on his handling of the coronavirus pandemic and now during a nationwide wave of protests against racial injustice. (Lemire and Miller, 6/8)

Stat: Scientists Funded By Zuckerberg Criticize Facebook’s Inaction On Trump Posts
Dozens of scientists who have received research funding from Mark Zuckerberg’s philanthropic vehicle have signed an open letter sharply criticizing Facebook for its policies on misinformation and inflammatory language, calling the social media giant’s practices “antithetical” to their benefactor’s philanthropic mission. The open letter — which had garnered more than 140 signatures as of midday Saturday — represents a remarkable act of revolt from scientists who are usually reluctant to publicly criticize a generous backer. (Robbins, 6/6)

In other news from the administration —

The Associated Press: White House Forces Reporters To Ditch Social Distancing
The White House abandoned social distancing for reporters attending President Donald Trump’s Rose Garden event Friday because “it looks better,” according to the aide who ordered it. Seats for reporters at recent White House events had been placed 6 feet apart to protect against the spread of the coronavirus. But shortly before Friday’s event, Trump aides moved the seats closer together so reporters were sitting shoulder-to-shoulder. (Bauder, 6/5)

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Critics Say CDC Leader Undermined Scientists Battling Coronavirus
Frustrated CDC employees and public health experts are sounding alarms about the Atlanta-based agency, worried that its own leadership has irreparably damaged its standing and influence by undermining the scientists battling the pandemic. Too often, some inside and outside the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say, Director Robert Redfield has been hesitant when decisive action was needed, largely absent from the national stage when the public was looking for leadership, and acquiescent when asked to bend to political considerations. (Edwards, 6/6)

The New York Times: Despite Big Promises, U.S. Has Delivered Limited Aid In Global Virus Response
The Trump administration has lauded itself as leading the world in confronting the coronavirus. But it has so far failed to spend more than 75 percent of the American humanitarian aid that Congress provided three months ago to help overseas victims of the virus. In two spending bills in March, lawmakers approved $1.59 billion in pandemic assistance to be sent abroad through the State Department and the United States Agency for International Development. As of last week, $386 million had been released to nations in need, according to a government official familiar with the spending totals that the State Department has reported to Congress for both agencies. (Jakes, 6/7)

Stat: Bill Gates Hopes Trump's WHO Decision Can Be Walked Back
Philanthropist Bill Gates expressed disappointment with President Trump’s announcement that the United States would withdraw from the World Health Organization, saying that the agency was critical to the global effort to eliminate polio — and to respond to future epidemics. “WHO is important for all the global health work that we do,” Gates told reporters in a teleconference this week. “Everyone should make sure that if we need to improve the WHO, that’s what we do, but that we stay together.” (Branswell, 6/4)

The New York Times: New York City Begins Reopening After 3 Months Of Outbreak And Hardship
Exactly 100 days since its first case of coronavirus was confirmed, New York City, which weathered extensive hardship as an epicenter of the worldwide outbreak, is set to take the first tentative steps toward reopening its doors on Monday. Getting here took the sacrifice of millions of New Yorkers who learned to live radically different lives. More than 205,000 have been infected, and nearly 22,000 have died. As many as 400,000 workers could begin returning to construction jobs, manufacturing sites and retail stores in the city’s first phase of reopening— a surge of normalcy that seemed almost inconceivable several weeks ago, when the city’s hospitals were at a breaking point and as many as 800 people were dying from Covid-19 on a single day. (Goodman, 6/7)

CNN: New York Coronavirus: NYC Exits Lockdown But Enters A New Crisis 
After 78 days of coronavirus stay-at-home orders and a death toll larger than all but six countries, New York City begins to reopen Monday. Now, New York and cities across the country must reckon with a combination of coronavirus, vast unemployment and systemic racism -- a toxic trifecta that most deeply hurts black communities. (Levenson, 6/8)

The Associated Press: 'All Eyes' On New York: Reopening Tests City Torn By Crises
The city that never sleeps had a curfew for much of last week. Famous stores were boarded up after days of unrest. The lights are out on Broadway theaters, and the subway no longer runs overnight. But after three bleak months, New York City will try to turn a page when it begins reopening Monday after getting hit first by the coronavirus, then an outpouring of rage over racism and police brutality. (Peltz, 6/8)

NPR: New York City Starts Easing Stay-At-Home Order For The Coronavirus Crisis
This first phase of reopening is a big move for the pandemic's national epicenter, which has seen more than 206,000 New Yorkers confirmed with the coronavirus and more than 21,800 people die from COVID-19 since March. "Getting people back their livelihood, that's what Phase 1 is about," New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said Friday during a news conference. A resurgence of activity in the country's largest and most densely populated major city — home to more than 8 million people — is expected to test the limits of social distancing for the coronavirus. (Wang, 6/8)

The Wall Street Journal: Covid-19 Stalks Large Families In Rural America
The Woods family did everything together at the house on Paden Road in Gadsden, Ala. They gathered there before going to high-school football games on Friday nights. They ate there after church on Sundays, when the family matriarch, Barbara Woods, would make chicken and dressing for her children and grandchildren. And this spring, they grew sick there together. For weeks in early April, seven family members staying in the three-bedroom home were stricken by the new coronavirus, several of them recounted. Five ended up in the hospital. Two died. (Lovett, Frosch and Overberg, 6/7)

The Hill: US Coronavirus Death Toll Surpasses 110,000 
The U.S. death toll from the coronavirus passed 110,000 on Sunday, according to data collected by Johns Hopkins University.Nationwide, the death toll sat at just over 110,100 on Sunday afternoon, while the total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases across the U.S. neared 2 million. The increase in deaths and infections comes as states across the country have begun relaxing restrictions put in place to prevent the virus's spread, including the closure of nonessential businesses. (Bowden, 6/7)

Reuters: CDC Reports 1,920,904 Coronavirus Cases In United States
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Sunday reported 1,920,904 cases of new coronavirus, an increase of 29,214 cases from its previous count, and said COVID-19 deaths in the United States had risen by 709 to 109,901. (6/7)

WBUR: New Coronavirus Hot Spots Emerge Across South And In California, As Northeast Slows 
Mass protests against police violence across the U.S. have public health officials concerned about an accelerated spread of the coronavirus. But even before the protests began May 26, sparked by the May 25 death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, several states had been recording big jumps in the number of cases.The head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Robert Redfield, registered his concern at a congressional hearing Thursday. He shook his head as a congresswoman showed him photos of throngs of people at the Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri over Memorial Day weekend and crowds in Florida that had assembled to watch the May 30 launch of the SpaceX Dragon crew capsule. (Bebinger, Farmer and Fortier, 6/5)

The Wall Street Journal: California And Some Other States See Coronavirus Cases Rise
Nearly three months since the U.S. declared a national emergency over the new coronavirus, some states are reporting a rise in new cases as they lift restrictions meant to slow the virus’s spread. California, Utah, Arizona, North Carolina, Florida, Arkansas and Texas, among others, have all logged rises in confirmed cases, according to a Johns Hopkins tabulation of a five-day moving average. Meantime, New York City, the U.S. area hit hardest by the pandemic, has seen a drop in cases and deaths and plans to begin reopening its economy Monday. (Ansari and Abbott, 6/7)

CNN: Second Wave Of Covid-19 Infections Are Still The Biggest Risk To The US Economy 
The US economy is reopening and the labor market is bouncing back after dramatic losses during the height of the Covid-19 lockdown. But a major risk lies ahead. The lion's share of economists participating in the June National Associate of Business Economics Outlook Survey — 87% — believe a second wave of infections could imperil a rebound and become the biggest danger to America's economy this year. (Tappe, 6/8)

The New York Times: How To Navigate Your Community Reopening? Remember The Four C’s
When the country was largely under lockdown, at least the rules were mostly clear. Essential workers ventured out; everyone else sheltered in. Bars and restaurants were closed except for dining out; hair salons and spas were shuttered. Outings were limited to the supermarket or the drugstore. Now states are lifting restrictions, but detailed guidance about navigating the minutiae of everyday life is still hard to come by — and anyway, there’s never going to be a ready solution to every problematic circumstance you may encounter. (Rabin, 6/6)

The New York Times: Returning To Work On The Subway? Here’s What You Need To Know.
When the coronavirus pandemic swept across New York City, over 90 percent of the subway’s 5.5 million daily riders abandoned the system — an icon of urban crowding turned into a symbol of the threat that a deadly virus posed. But now as some businesses begin to reopen Monday after nearly three months, and city life slowly rebounds, New Yorkers will trickle back to public transportation during their daily commutes. (Goldbaum, 6/8)

The New York Times: ‘Cruise Ships On Land’: As Las Vegas Reopens, A Huge Test For Casinos 
It was among the last of the big conferences before the coronavirus pandemic shuttered the massive casinos lining the Las Vegas Strip in March. More than 1,000 people gathered at MGM Resorts International’s Mirage Hotel & Casino for the Women of Power Summit, after organizers of the networking event for executive women of color assured attendees that the risk of attendance was “extremely low.” That seemed a reasonable bet, given that Las Vegas had yet to record a single coronavirus case. What no one realized was that one of the conference speakers, a New Yorker, had already contracted the virus by the time she landed at McCarren International Airport on March 6. Two days later, she was in the hospital. (Becker, 6/8)

The Washington Post: As Summer Camps Begin To Reopen, Parents Wonder If There's Room For Their Kids
As stay-at-home orders in the Washington region are slowly lifted, the area’s summer camps are plan to reopen — but social distancing and other pandemic restrictions mean many won’t have enough slots for all the families that normally rely on them. That could hit low-income families especially hard. (Rosenzweig-Ziff, 6/7)

San Francisco Chronicle: California Sets Rules For Counties To Progress To Third Reopening Phase, Including Bars And Gyms, As Bay Area Remains On Its Own Timeline 
California campgrounds, hotels, gyms, bars and museums may reopen as soon as June 12 if their home counties can prove to the state that public health safety criteria have been met, according to new guidance issued by state health officials Friday. California health officials also released new guidance on how schools will be allowed to reopen. (Ho, 6/6)

State House News Service: Baker: 'Right Kind Of Progress' On Health Trends Ahead Of Phase 2 Reopening Announcement 
The day before Gov. Charlie Baker is set to announce when Massachusetts will advance to the next level of a gradual economic reopening plan, state health officials newly reported a "positive trend" in a third of the six metrics they're monitoring to gauge progress against COVID-19. The Department of Public Health's Friday afternoon report for the first time moved the number of COVID-19 hospitalizations into "positive trend" status, a categorization the DPH had already bestowed on testing capacity and the rate of tests that come back positive. Health care system readiness, contract tracing capabilities and the number of COVID-19 deaths all remain classified as "in progress." (Lannan, 6/5)

Politico: The $7,000 Covid Test: Why States Are Stepping In To Shield Consumers
Insurance regulators from Tennessee to Washington state have stepped up efforts to protect patients from unexpected bills for coronavirus tests, concerned the federal government has failed to shield people from thousands of dollars in out-of-pocket expenses. Washington's insurance commissioner, Mike Kreidler, this week issued an emergency order banning labs for billing insured patients for doctor-ordered Covid-19 diagnostic tests. That followed moves in Tennessee, North Dakota, Oklahoma and Georgia to cap costs or more narrowly define what insurers should pay for as the number of tests processed daily surges to 465,000 as of June 4. (Luthi, 6/8)

The New York Times: The Idea: Build It, And They Can Find Coronavirus Tests
For the past two months, the nine-to-five jobs at their recruiting software company were just the start of a busy work day for Joe Essenfeld, Boris Kozak and Matt Geffken. After a short break for dinner and a little family time, the three friends would jump on an 8:30 p.m. Zoom call with a dozen other volunteers to work on AllClear, a website to help people find information about testing locations for Covid-19, and stay at it until 2 or 3 a.m. AllClear now has a directory of more than 10,000 locations in the United States where people can be tested for Covid-19 or for antibodies to the coronavirus. (Wakabayashi, 6/8)

Stateline: As Businesses Reopen, Workplace Testing Is The 'Wild West'
In April, the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission told businesses they could test employees for COVID-19, an exemption from the Americans with Disabilities Act. Many companies, such as Amazon and Ford Motor Co., already are providing some testing for some workers. But given the lack of a coordinated system, that may only exacerbate the problem. (Brown, 6/8)

Modern Healthcare: Contact Tracing: A Springboard To Population Health
Contact tracing bears a strong resemblance to programs aimed at improving community health. With states hiring temporary contact tracers, lawmakers should consider expanding the program to carry out both tasks. Contact tracing involves interviewing every new COVID-19 patient and reaching out to everyone they’ve recently contacted so those people can be tested and possibly quarantined. To be successful, tracing programs also need to provide food and social service support for the people asked to stay isolated indoors. All this must be done in a supportive—not coercive—manner. (Goozner, 6/5)

The Hill: Urgency Mounts For A Contact Tracing Army 
Health experts are signaling increased urgency over the need to build an army of people to trace the spread of coronavirus, as states try to put together a patchwork network in an effort to contain the disease. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Robert Redfield warned Thursday that the country needs between 30,000 and 100,000 people to do contact tracing by September to try to stop a major resurgence of the virus in the fall and winter. Other estimates have put the need even higher, with former CDC Director Tom Frieden calling for up to 300,000 contact tracers. (Sullivan, 6/7)

The New York Times: A Nursing Home’s 64-Day Covid Siege: ‘They’re All Going To Die’
Betty LaBombard, a longtime waitress at Woolworth’s, celebrated her 95th birthday on March 1 at the Vermont nursing home where she had been a fixture for eight years, often perched in her wheelchair near the fourth-floor nurses’ station. Her niece brought her a chocolate cupcake. Down the hall, Frances McKenna, a social force on their floor, looked forward to getting her hair done in the home’s salon. One flight up, Joseph Metallo, who had moderate dementia, chatted with his son, Mike, while making a construction-paper lamb for Easter. He wore his new glasses and kept his large-print Bible nearby. (Barker, 6/8)

The Hill: Nursing Homes Fail To Get COVID-19 Under Control 
More than three months since the coronavirus first appeared in a Seattle-area nursing home, facilities are still struggling to contain its spread. According to federal data collected and released publicly for the first time this week, thousands of nursing homes across the country lack basic personal protective equipment (PPE). Facilities are also facing staffing shortages, and many are even running out of hand sanitizer. (Weixel, 6/7)

The New York Times: Navigating Home Care During The Pandemic
In March, Amy Carrier asked one of the two women who provided home care for her mother to stop coming to work. Her mother, 74, has Alzheimer’s disease and lives with her in Corvallis, Ore. To protect her from the coronavirus, “it was clear that I needed to lock down my house,” said Ms. Carrier, 45, a foundation executive. She allowed one helper, who lived with only an adult daughter, to continue helping her mother bathe, take walks and play puzzles and games. But the other aide has a household of six, including four teenagers, and was visiting other clients’ homes. (Span, 6/6)

Modern Healthcare: COVID-19 Pandemic Proves To Be Pivotal Moment For Senior Care
A systemic underinvestment in senior care has left workers and those they care for exposed to unnecessary risk, calling into question nursing homes’ viability, operators and policy experts said. While some providers were able to adapt more quickly than others, the response to the pandemic has largely been a reactive one. They are hopeful that the crisis will shape a new approach to post-acute and long-term care, both from an operational and philosophical perspective, but to this point the outlook has been bleak. (Kacik, 6/6)

Boston Globe: Baker Says He’s Looking Forward To ‘Complete, Thorough, And Objective’ Review Of What Went Wrong At Holyoke Soldiers’ Home 
Governor Charlie Baker said Friday that he expects former federal prosecutor Mark W. Pearlstein to complete his report on the devastating COVID-19 outbreak at the Holyoke Soldiers’ Home “reasonably soon” but stressed he’s not rushing the prominent lawyer’s review of what went wrong at the veterans’ facility. Speaking during his daily briefing following a tour of a Cambridge shared biotech lab facility, Baker said he and Lieutenant Governor Karyn Polito are as “anxious” as everyone else to see the report on the outbreak, which has killed at least 76 veterans. (Andersen, Finucane and Reiss, 6/5)

Houston Chronicle: Texas Stays Mum As Feds Reveal Which Nursing Homes Have Coronavirus Outbreaks
As Texas health officials refuse to say which nursing homes are suffering coronavirus outbreaks, a federal agency released its own data this week that identifies 150 facilities in Texas with COVID-19 cases and 72 nursing homes where residents died. The preliminary data released by the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, a federal agency that regulates nursing homes, offers the first nationwide snapshot of how each facility is coping with a disease that is particularly dangerous for elderly residents. (Tedesco, Foxhall, Dempsey and Rubio, 6/5)

New Orleans Times-Picayune: Federal Coronavirus Numbers On Nursing Homes Show Devastating Impact; Full Scope Remains Unclear 
For the first time, federal authorities on Thursday released nationwide data showing the coronavirus's impact on U.S. nursing homes, though they cautioned that the data is incomplete and inconsistent. The data dump gives the public the first detailed look at the devastating toll the virus has exacted on nursing homes across the country, some of which have seen scores of vulnerable residents die and hundreds infected. (Roberts III, 6/6)

Las Vegas Review-Journal: Feds: One-Third Of Nevada Nursing Home Virus Deaths Not Reported 
Almost one-third of Nevada nursing home residents who died after contracting COVID-19 have not been publicly reported by state officials, according to a recently published federal report. At least 126 nursing home residents infected with the respiratory disease have died in Nevada, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services reported June 1. State officials had reported only 89 deaths as of June 5. (Davidson, 6/5)

San Francisco Chronicle: Thousands Of Coronavirus-Infected Californians File For Workers’ Compensation
The coronavirus pandemic ushered in a new era of workers’ compensation claims in California, with the state creating a unique injury category for COVID-19, and politicians, including Gov. Gavin Newsom, pushing to change standards of proof for compensation. It can be murky legal territory to prove on-the-job injury — especially from a viral disease — but recent political action has made it easier. (Moench, 6/5)

Boston Globe: Raimondo Extends The Rhode Island State Of Emergency Until At Least July 5
Despite saying that Rhode Island is no longer facing the daily crisis that the coronavirus has created over the past three months, Governor Gina Raimondo announced Friday that she is extending her state of emergency declaration until at least July 5. Raimondo said the declaration won’t remain in place “a minute more than necessary,” but she acknowledged the state needs to take advantage of federal resources as it continues to address the highly contagious disease. She also said she supports President Trump’s decision to extend states’ use of the National Guard until Aug. 21. (McGowan, 6/5)

Bangor Daily News: 46 More Coronavirus Cases Are Detected As Another Mainer Dies 
Another Mainer has died as health officials reported Sunday that 46 more cases of the coronavirus have been detected. There have now been 2,570 cases across all of Maine’s counties since the outbreak began here in March, according to the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention. That’s up from 2,524 on Saturday. (Burns, 6/7)

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Wisconsin Coronavirus Cases: Milwaukee County Positive Tests At 16%
The percentage of positive COVID-19 tests continues to fall in Wisconsin, as the state health department reported Saturday that 2.7% of test results came back positive for the coronavirus. Of the 11,792 new test results reported by the state Department of Health Services on Saturday, 322 were positive for the virus. This is the lowest number of new cases reported since Monday, and the lowest percentage of positive cases since Sunday. (Brophy, Torres and Rumage, 6/6)

Dallas Morning News: Prison Inmate Was 8 Days From Release After 20 Years Behind Bars. Then He Got The Virus
Federal inmate #50083-054 was ready to go home. He called his family back in New York to tell them he would be released from Federal Medical Center in Fort Worth in May. He was beyond excited. After 20 years behind bars, he would finally stop being a number and get back his name: Vernon Adderley. Adderley’s relatives asked him about his health and if he had the coronavirus. His brother Jermaine remembers his answer. (Lieber, 6/5)

Detroit Free Press: Report Offers Recommendations For Reducing Jail Population
A new report offers a look at who was incarcerated in Wayne County Jail and why before the coronavirus hit, and makes recommendations for reducing the jail population after the pandemic. The report comes as jails, prisons and other congregant settings have emerged as incubators for the spread of COVID-19. The Wayne County Jail population has fallen by about 40% during the pandemic and Wayne County faces a lawsuit filed by inmates and advocacy groups alleging lack of adequate protections to keep inmates safe during the pandemic. (Rahman, 6/5)

Detroit Free Press: ICE Proposes New Immigration Prison In Ionia, Michigan
About two hours west of Detroit, just north of the 96 highway near a Menards store, sits 106 acres of farmland in Ionia Township.On this spot, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and a private company, Immigration Centers of America (ICA), want to build a 152,000-square-foot prison that would house up to 600 male foreign-born detainees. The prisoners would only be those charged with civil violations of immigration law, awaiting their hearings, not those charged or convicted of criminal violations. (Warikoo, 6/7)

Kaiser Health News: Baltimore’s ‘Squeegee Boys’: ‘If We Don’t Go Out, We Don’t Eat’
On the corner of South President and East Pratt streets in Baltimore a little over a month ago, a young man in a black hoodie stood out on an otherwise empty intersection. A single gold chain with a cross hung around his neck. With a squeegee in his left blue-latex-gloved hand and a plastic spray bottle in his right — filled with a solution of vinegar, water and glass cleaner — he watched for the traffic lights to turn red and a chance to make some money. Evay H., 21, tries to clean windshields for a small donation from the drivers. He’s lucky if he gets $2 a vehicle. It’s not much, but it’s something. (Giles, 6/8)

Dallas Morning News: Low-Income Dallas Neighborhoods Feeling Squeeze Of Pandemic’s Economic Impact, Study Says
Spending at local businesses suffered a sharper decline among residents of low-income Dallas neighborhoods than residents of high-income neighborhoods, according to a new analysis of credit card use in 16 cities by the JPMorgan Chase Institute. To gauge the pandemic’s effect on economic ecosystems, the financial giant’s think tank examined local commerce in March — measured by Chase customers’ spending on goods and services such as clothing, groceries, home maintenance, restaurants, pharmacies, personal care and transportation. (DiFurio, 6/5)

Boston Globe: Vermont Senate Votes To Double Amount Of Marijuana That Can Be Possessed And Grown 
The Vermont Senate approved a bill Thursday that would double the amount of marijuana that can be possessed and grown without the threat of jail time. The legislation also contains provisions for automatic expungements that stand to clear the records for thousands of misdemeanor cannabis convictions. (Jaeger, 6/5)

Boston Globe: Child Care Owners Say New Regulations Will Hike Parents’ Fees, Put Them Out Of Business
As Massachusetts employees tiptoe out of a nearly three-month lockdown, the already expensive child care market will likely become even more competitive for families, due to new regulations aimed at keeping children safe in a COVID era. Early educators say the socially distant classrooms they’re being told to reopen will be far more costly to operate, less welcoming to youngsters, and perhaps completely unworkable. (Ebbert, 6/5)

The New York Times: Amid Pandemic And Upheaval, New Cyber Risks To The Presidential Election
With the general election less than 150 days away, there are rising concerns that the push for remote voting prompted by the pandemic could open new opportunities to hack the vote — for President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, but also others hoping to disrupt, influence or profit from the election. President Trump has repeatedly said that mail-in ballots invite voter fraud and would benefit Democrats. It is a baseless claim: Mail-in voting has resulted in little fraud in the five states that have used it for years, and a recent study at Stanford University found that voting by mail did not advantage either party and might increase voter turnout for both parties. (Sanger, Perlroth and Rosenberg, 6/7)

The Associated Press: Democrats Look To Counter GOP Vote-By-Mail Fraud Claims
Democrats are mounting a new effort to push back against a well-funded Republican campaign that seeks to undermine public confidence in mail-in-voting, which President Donald Trump has said, without offering proof, will lead to election fraud. Fair Fight, an organization led by former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, has joined forces with Priorities USA, the largest Democratic outside group, and American Bridge, the party’s opposition research clearinghouse, to form a new effort called Voter Suppression Watch. (Slodysko and Riccardi, 6/8)

The Wall Street Journal: Vaccine Giant Promises A Billion Covid Shots For Poor Countries
An Indian drug giant, little-known outside the vaccine world, has agreed to make and distribute a billion doses of a yet-to-be approved coronavirus vaccine—a move aimed at providing pandemic protection to the world’s poorest. AstraZeneca this week tapped Serum Institute of India, or SII, to be part of a global manufacturing and distribution network for a potential coronavirus vaccine being developed by University of Oxford researchers. Under the agreement, SII would be the main contract manufacturer for low- and middle-income countries and produce one billion doses—400 million of those this year—if the vaccine proves safe and effective. (Bellman, 6/6)

Reuters: Oxford Biomedica Eyes UK Supply Boost Of AstraZeneca's COVID-19 Vaccine
Oxford Biomedica has signed a new manufacturing agreement with a group backed by the UK government to help it scale up production of AstraZeneca’s potential COVID-19 vaccine to cater to demand in the United Kingdom and Europe. The gene and cell therapy firm said on Monday it agreed to a five-year partnership with the Vaccines Manufacturing and Innovation Centre (VMIC) for equipment at its facility in Oxford, UK which would also help it make other vaccines. (6/8)

Reuters: AstraZeneca Shares Down 2% After Report It Approached Gilead Over Tie-Up
Shares in Britain’s AstraZeneca fell 2.1% in early trades on Monday after a report it had approached U.S. rival Gilead Sciences about a possible merger to form one the world’s largest drug companies.If combined, the two companies would have a market capitalisation of about $232 billion, based on Friday’s closing share prices. A merger would also unite two drugmakers at the forefront of efforts to fight the new coronavirus but could be politically sensitive as governments seek control over potential vaccines or treatments. (6/8)

The New York Times: U.K. Lab To Sidestep Drug Industry To Sell Potential Virus Vaccine
A prominent British laboratory is forming a special partnership that would sidestep the drug industry to sell a potential vaccine against the coronavirus without profits or licensing fees in Britain and in low- and middle-income countries. Scientists, nonprofit groups and public health experts have urged that any successful vaccine to combat the pandemic be distributed at the lowest possible cost and on the basis of need rather than profit. But for-profit drug giants or biotechnology start-ups have dominated the development race, especially in the United States, a vital market because of its high drug prices. (Kirkpatrick, 6/7)

NBC News: COVID-19 Vaccine Trials Bring Hope For Many But Come Too Late For This Family
For Jeff Nearby, talk of a possible vaccine for COVID-19 feels bittersweet. More than a thousand miles from his home in Staten Island, where he lives with his two daughters, experiments are underway that could bear fruit. He hopes a vaccine will be developed. But for Nearby and his twin daughters — Samantha and Rebecca, 14 years old — the research can no longer succeed soon enough. (Engel and Shakib, 6/7)

Reuters: WHO Continues Hydroxychloroquine Trial After UK Test Halts
The World Health Organization is continuing its clinical trial of hydroxychloroquine, after British scientists halted a large trial that had been exploring use of the drug to treat patients with COVID-19 when initial results showed no evidence of benefit. “There are two distinct trials with their own protocols, their own oversight committees. Therefore we will continue for now,” Soumya Swaminathan, the WHO’s chief scientist, told an online news briefing when asked about the British trial halt. (6/5)

Stat: New Study Likely Closes Door On Use Of Hydroxychloroquine For Covid-19
A major clinical trial showed the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine had no benefit for patients hospitalized with Covid-19, likely closing the door to the use of the highly publicized medicine in the sickest patients — a use for which it was widely prescribed as the pandemic hit the U.S. The results come from a study called RECOVERY, funded by the U.K. government, that sought to randomly assign large numbers of patients to multiple potential treatments in the country’s National Health Service. The goal was to rapidly get answers as to what worked and what didn’t. (Herper, 6/5)

NBC News: Hydroxychloroquine Is Not Dead Yet
Hydroxychloroquine, the anti-malarial drug touted and previously taken by President Donald Trump to fight coronavirus, has fallen out of favor and public view as studies — like one halted Friday — have suggested it does little to treat infection while exposing users to dangerous side effects. Not all researchers have given up on the drug, however, and recent developments show it is not yet dead as a potential weapon against COVID-19, especially as a preventative in people not yet exposed to the virus. (Cavazuti, 6/7)

Meanwhile —

Stat: After Retractions Of Two Covid-19 Papers, Scientists Ask What Went Wrong
With last week’s retractions of two Covid-19 papers from a pair of the world’s top medical journals, the scientific community is once again wrestling with the question that arises any time a high-profile publication blows up: Could this have been prevented? Entire forests have been felled so scholars can write papers on “the flawed process” of peer review, in which journal editors ask (usually three) outside experts to read a manuscript for rigor, methodological soundness, consistency, and overall quality. (Begley, 6/8)

Stat: Researcher Has Faculty Appointment Terminated After Lancet Retraction
The University of Utah has “mutually agreed” to terminate the faculty appointment of Amit Patel, who was among the authors of two retracted papers on Covid-19 and who appears to have played a key role in involving a little-known company that has ignited a firestorm of controversy. “The terminated position was an unpaid adjunct appointment with the Department of Biomedical Engineering,” a university spokesperson told STAT. Patel had listed the affiliation on both papers, published in the Lancet and the New England Journal of Medicine. The spokesperson  declined to comment on whether the decision was related to the retractions. (Herper and Sheridan, 6/7)

The New York Times: W.H.O. Finally Endorses Masks To Prevent Coronavirus Transmission
Long after most nations urged their citizens to wear masks, and after months of hand-wringing about the quality of the evidence available, the World Health Organization on Friday endorsed the use of face masks by the public to reduce transmission of the coronavirus. Since the beginning of the pandemic, surprisingly, the W.H.O. had refused to endorse masks. The announcement was long overdue, critics said, as masks are an easy and inexpensive preventive measure. (Mandavilli, 6/5)

Reuters: Wear Masks In Public Says WHO, In Update Of COVID-19 Advice
“Masks on their own will not protect you from COVID-19,” the WHO’s director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters at a briefing. The WHO’s technical lead expert on COVID-19, Maria Van Kerkhove, said in a Reuters interview: “We are advising governments to encourage that the general public wear a mask. And we specify a fabric mask - that is, a non-medical mask. (Kelland, 6/5)

WBUR: FDA Reverses, Says Some N95 Medical Masks From China Should Not Be Reused
Federal regulators on Sunday reversed course on how safe it is to clean and reuse the medical masks hospital and other frontline workers rely on to stay safe while treating COVID-19 patients. In a press release today, the Food and Drug Administration said that "in response to public health and safety concerns," it no longer approves of decontaminating and reusing some N95 respirators made in China. It did not say precisely which ones, but said Chinese masks "may vary in their design and performance." (Healy, 6/7)

The Washington Post: Masks Don't Just Filter The Air, They Keep People Away
Massimo Marchiori, an Italian computer scientist, once used sensors to determine how the widths of shopping mall walkways shaped buying decisions. Another time he used GPS technology to track the movements of cows to see what behaviors led to the best milk. So when the novel coronavirus consumed Italy in February, Marchiori decided it was time for a new experiment — this time, on social distancing. (Timberg, 6/5)

The New York Times: Japan's Coronavirus Numbers Are Low. Are Masks The Reason?
When the coronavirus arrived in Japan, people did what they normally do: They put on masks. Face coverings are nothing new here. During flu and hay fever seasons, trains are crowded with commuters half-hidden behind white surgical masks. Employees with colds, worried about the stigma of missing work, throw one on and soldier into the office. Masks are even used, my hairdresser once told me, by women who don’t want to bother putting on makeup. (Rich, 6/6)

The Washington Post: Some Covid-19 Patients Experience Prolonged Comas After Being Taken Off Ventilators
After five days on a ventilator because of covid-19, Susham “Rita” Singh seemed to have turned a corner. Around midnight on April 8, doctors at Houston Methodist Hospital turned off the sedative drip that had kept the previously healthy 65-year-old in a medically induced coma. “The expectation is that you should start waking up after six hours, 12 hours or a day,” said her daughter, Silky Singh Pahlajani, a neurologist in New York City. “But it was six-and-a-half days before she started … opening her eyes. I thought she had suffered a massive stroke. “Her brain MRI was normal, which was great, but then the question became: What’s going on?” (Hurley, 6/7)

CIDRAP: Autopsies Show Brain Damage In COVID-19 Patients
A study yesterday in The Lancet presents the clinical findings of autopsies conducted on six German patients (four men and two women, aged 58 to 82 years) who died from COVID-19 in April. All six had evidence of extensive brain pathologies at the time of death. Each patient had severe viral pneumonia caused by COVID-19 and required mechanical intubation or extracorporeal membrane oxygenation. (6/5)

ABC News: Satellite Data Suggests Coronavirus May Have Hit China Earlier: Researchers 
Dramatic spikes in auto traffic around major hospitals in Wuhan last fall suggest the novel coronavirus may have been present and spreading through central China long before the outbreak was first reported to the world, according to a new Harvard Medical School study. Using techniques similar to those employed by intelligence agencies, the research team behind the study analyzed commercial satellite imagery and "observed a dramatic increase in hospital traffic outside five major Wuhan hospitals beginning late summer and early fall 2019," according to Dr. John Brownstein, the Harvard Medical professor who led the research. (Folmer and Margolin, 6/8)

Stat: Experts Question Use Of Repeated Covid-19 Tests After A Patient Recovers
The very premature infant was born via cesarean section and quickly whisked away to the neonatal intensive care unit before his mother could even lay eyes on him. Over the next eight weeks, the only time she saw her baby was when the NICU staff sent photos, or when a nurse FaceTimed her while the baby was being bathed. The young mother, who gave birth at Montreal’s Sainte-Justine Hospital, tested positive for Covid-19 when her baby was born. For 55 days afterward, she repeatedly tested positive for the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Because she did, the hospital would not allow her to return after she was discharged meaning she could not hold or nurse her baby for the first two months of his life. (Branswell, 6/8)

The New York Times: Hospitals Got Bailouts And Furloughed Thousands While Paying C.E.O.s Millions
HCA Healthcare is one of the world’s wealthiest hospital chains. It earned more than $7 billion in profits over the past two years. It is worth $36 billion. It paid its chief executive $26 million in 2019. But as the coronavirus swept the country, employees at HCA repeatedly complained that the company was not providing adequate protective gear to nurses, medical technicians and cleaning staff. Last month, HCA executives warned that they would lay off thousands of nurses if they didn’t agree to wage freezes and other concessions. (Silver-Greenberg, Drucker and Enrich, 6/8)

The Wall Street Journal: Coronavirus Outbreak Pushes Rural Mississippi Hospital To Brink
The coronavirus pandemic is challenging Mississippi’s rural health-care system as outbreaks worsen in far-flung areas at the same time state officials allow all businesses to reopen. Deep in the state’s southeastern Pine Belt, the latest pressure point is Wayne County, population 20,000, which is served by a single hospital that is more than an hour by ambulance from a larger one in Hattiesburg and two hours from the university medical center in Jackson. (Mauldin, 6/6)

In other news on hospitals —

The New York Times: Coronavirus Jumps The Border, Overwhelming Hospitals In California
For 32 years, Judy Cruz has cared for patients who showed up in the emergency room in the arid, agrarian valley that straddles Mexico along the California border. There have been bad flu seasons that caused hospitalizations to spike; weekends when off-road vehicle collisions in the desert resulted in traumatic injuries and scorching summer days when overheated farm workers required intensive resuscitation. Among the patients was always a smattering of Americans who lived across the border. (Jordan, 6/7)

Modern Healthcare: Biometrics, Algorithms Help Boost Hospitals’ Patient-Matching Rates
A few seemingly small, but consequential, problems could emerge if a name or date of birth is entered with a typo, if a patient has recently moved to a new address, if there are inconsistencies in the way addresses are written, or if patients with similar information are confused with one another. Similar demographics resulted in confusion at a Camden, N.J., hospital in November, after medical staff gave a kidney designated for one patient to another transplant recipient with the same first name, last name and name suffix. (Cohen, 6/5)

Kaiser Health News: Rapid Changes To Health System Spurred By COVID Might Be Here To Stay
The U.S. health care system is famously resistant to government-imposed change. It took decades to create Medicare and Medicaid, mostly due to opposition from the medical-industrial complex. Then it was nearly another half-century before the passage of the Affordable Care Act. But the COVID-19 pandemic has done what no president or social movement or venture capitalist could have dreamed of: It forced sudden major changes to the nation’s health care system that are unlikely to be reversed. (Rovner, 6/8)

Politico: ‘There’s Only So Much We Can Do’: Food Banks Plead For Help
The food bank that serves the Washington area bought as much food in April as it would normally buy over three years as it scrambled to respond to an unprecedented level of need. The economic fallout from the Covid-19 pandemic, which has now left at least 20 million Americans unemployed, has pushed the nation’s network of food banks to the brink. Food pantries and other nonprofits are still seeing lines of cars with families waiting for hours to pick up food. “There’s only so much we can do,” said Radha Muthiah, president and CEO of the Capital Area Food Bank. “The federal government has an incredibly important role to play here.” (Evich, 6/8)

Meanwhile —

The New York Times: Farmers Get Billions In Virus Aid, And Democrats Are Wary
Cotton farmers were paid 33 times as much in federal subsidies in 2019 as the income they actually lost to trade disruptions, one study showed. Farmers in Georgia, the home state of Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue, were paid more in federal aid per acre than anywhere else in the nation, another found. Some farms collected millions of dollars in payments despite a limit of $250,000 per farmer. The Trump administration’s $28 billion effort in 2018 and 2019 to compensate farmers for losses from its trade wars has been criticized as excessive, devised on the fly and tilted toward states politically important to Republicans. (LaFraniere, 6/7)

The Washington Post: The Jobs Report Had A ‘Misclassification Error.’ Here’s What Happened
When the U.S. government’s official jobs report for May came out on Friday, it included a note at the bottom saying there had been a major “error” indicating that the unemployment rate likely should be higher than the widely reported 13.3 percent rate. The special note said that if this “misclassification error” had not occurred, the “overall unemployment rate would have been about 3 percentage points higher than reported,” meaning the unemployment rate would be about 16.3 percent for May. But that would still be an improvement from an unemployment rate of about 19.7 percent for April, applying the same standards. (Long, 6/6)

The Washington Post: Coronavirus Job Loss Sends Florida Family Into Homelessness
The pandemic had forced them from their home. Then they had run out of money for a motel. That left the car, which is where Sergine Lucien, Dave Marecheau and their two children were one recent night, parked in a lot that was tucked behind a row of empty storefronts. Sergine eyed some men gathering by a fence in the opposite corner of the blacktop. “I just heard some f-bombs,” she said. “I’m not worried,” Dave replied. (Jaffe, 6/6)

Reuters: Fed Says Beating Pandemic Is Key, But How Will It Know Things Are Better?
With a full three months of responding to a global pandemic under their belt, U.S. Federal Reserve officials have united around one point: lasting progress on the economic front will be dictated by success in containing the spread of the coronavirus. But agreement beyond that may be elusive as Fed policymakers meet this week to balance fresh signs the United States may be over the worst of the economic fallout from the pandemic against evidence the virus is not yet under control. (Schneider, 6/8)

ProPublica: The CARES Act Sent You A $1,200 Check But Gave Millionaires And Billionaires Far More
Do you want to see how legislation that was supposed to be a bailout for our economy ended up committing almost as much taxpayer money to help a relative handful of the non-needy as it spent to help tens of millions of people in need? Then let’s step back and revisit parts of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act and look at some of the numbers involved. The best-known feature of the CARES Act, as it’s known, is the cash grant of up to $1,200 per adult and $500 per child for households whose income was less than $99,000 for single taxpayers and $198,000 for couples. These grants are nontaxable, which makes them even more valuable. Some 159 million stimulus payments have gone out, according to the IRS. (Sloan, 6/8)

ProPublica: Capital One And Other Debt Collectors Are Still Coming For Millions Of Americans
Since 2018, Capital One has been a looming presence in Julio Lugo’s life, ever since the company sued him, as it did 29,000 other New Yorkers that year, over an unpaid credit card. But when the coronavirus hit the city this March, it wasn’t on his mind. At Mount Sinai in Manhattan, where he works, he’d been drafted into the hospital’s frenzied effort against the virus. He normally gathered patient information at the front desk of a radiology clinic in orderly shifts, 9 to 5. Now he was working 16-hour days, often overnight. At one moment he might be enlisted to help a team of doctors or nurses put on their full-body protective equipment and then he would rush to disinfect another team. (Kiel and Ernsthausen, 6/8)

The Associated Press: Government Job Losses Are Piling Up, And It Could Get Worse
Jobs with state and city governments are usually a source of stability in the U.S. economy, but the financial devastation wrought by the coronavirus pandemic has forced cuts that will reduce public services — from schools to trash pickup. Even as the U.S. added some jobs in May, the number of people employed by federal, state and local governments dropped by 585,000. The overall job losses among public workers have reached more than 1.5 million since March, according to seasonally adjusted federal jobs data released Friday. The number of government employees is now the lowest it’s been since 2001, and most of the cuts are at the local level. (Mulvihill, 6/8)

Politico: How The U.S. Economic Response Could Change As People Go Back To Work
As Congress debates whether to allocate further relief to shore up the U.S. economy and get workers back on their feet, the unemployment rate has suddenly and unexpectedly fallen. Here’s a look at how the new numbers are shaping the debate over how the government can keep the turnaround going. (Cassella and Rainey, 6/5)

The Washington Post: Health-Care Workers Treating Coronavirus Patients Struggle With Burnout, Depression
Marc Ayoub remembers the woman in her 50s who came alone to the emergency room. She went into cardiac arrest and was hooked up to a ventilator. Ayoub, a resident at hard-hit Elmhurst Hospital in Queens, tried to reach her family all night, and when he finally connected with her daughter, he had only bad news. As he stood in his spacesuit of protective gear, holding his phone in front of the woman’s face so her daughter might see her one last time, Ayoub was indignant that this is what death had become during the coronavirus pandemic. (Cha, Buarino and Wan, 6/7)

Modern Healthcare: Joint Commission Releases Strategies To Address Employee Well-Being
Healthcare workers have been under heightened levels of stress as they cope with challenges associated with COVID-19 such as lack of personal protective equipment, fear of getting infected and reduction of staff due to furloughs or layoffs. In its guidance, the Joint Commission said its "critical" healthcare employers "have systems in place that support institutional and individual resilience" as a result of the pandemic. (Castellucci, 6/5)

Kaiser Health News: Exclusive: Nearly 600 — And Counting — US Health Workers Have Died Of COVID-19
Nearly 600 front-line health care workers appear to have died of COVID-19, according to Lost on the Frontline, a project launched by The Guardian and KHN that aims to count, verify and memorialize every health care worker who dies during the pandemic. (Jewett, Bailey and Renwick, 6/6)

The Associated Press: Infections Spike Among New Mexico Health Care Workers
Data from the New Mexico Health Department shows COVID-19 infections among health care workers in the state have spiked as intensive care units remain full and nurses call for more protective equipment. The data shows 492 workers were diagnosed in May, marking a 219% increase from the 154 workers who tested positive as of April 21. (6/8)

Modern Healthcare: Hospital Job Losses Shrink In May, A Positive Sign For Recovery
Federal employment data show the healthcare industry is entering a promising recovery. While hospitals still lost jobs in May, they did so at about one-fifth the level of the prior month. Hospitals shed 26,700 jobs last month, preliminary data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show. While far from normal, it's not nearly as steep as the BLS' estimate that they lost 135,000 jobs at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in April. (Bannow, 6/5)

KQED: SF Pledges $1 Million In Grants For Small Child Care Providers 
Esperanza Estrada has been operating Estrada's Family Preschool in San Francisco's Excelsior District for nearly 18 years, serving small groups of children from primarily low-income backgrounds. But since the COVID-19 pandemic began, and businesses like hers were forced to shut down, Estrada said things have been tough. (Wiley, 6/5)

Stat: CDC: Some Americans Are Misusing Bleach To Try To Kill Coronavirus
To try to kill the novel coronavirus, some Americans are unsafely using disinfectants and cleaners, including washing food with bleach, using the products on bare skin, and inhaling and ingesting them, federal health officials reported Friday. Health experts caution explicitly against using cleaning products in those ways. The findings come from an online survey of 502 adults conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in May. Thirty-nine percent had misused the cleaning products, and one quarter reported “an adverse health effect that they believed was a result” of the products. (Joseph, 6/5)

Reuters: Gargling With Bleach? Americans Misusing Disinfectants To Prevent Coronavirus, Survey Finds
Washing food with bleach, using household cleaning or disinfectant products on bare skin, and intentionally inhaling or ingesting these products were some of the most commonly reported “high-risk” practices in a May 4 online survey of 502 U.S. adults, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported. The survey’s lead author said it was undertaken following a “sharp increase” in calls to poison control centers for exposure to cleaners and disinfectants during the pandemic. (6/5)

USA Today: CDC: Americans Desperate To Kill Coronavirus Are Dangerously Mixing Cleaners, Bleaching Food
In a survey published Friday, 39% of 502 respondents reported engaging in “non-recommend, high-risk practices,” including using bleach on food, applying household cleaning or disinfectant products to their skin and inhaling or ingesting such products. The agency also found many people had limited knowledge of how to safely prepare and use cleaning products and disinfectants. Only 23% responded that room temperature water should be used to dilute bleach and 35% said that bleach should not be mixed with vinegar. More surprisingly, only 58% of respondents knew bleach shouldn’t be mixed with ammonia. (Rodriguez, 6/5)

CNN: Gargling With Bleach: A Third Of Americans Surveyed Engaged In Risky Cleaning Behaviors During The Covid-19 Pandemic
People said they were cleaning more frequently because of the pandemic, but only about half said that they really knew how to clean and disinfect their home safely. And of those people who were surveyed that acknowledged that they used high-risk cleaning practices to prevent the spread of Covid-19, more were likely to report health problems related to cleaning. The biggest problem area was people's limited understanding about how to prepare cleaning solutions. Only 23% knew, for instance, to use only room temperature water to dilute bleach solutions. (Christensen, 6/5)

The Guardian: Bleach Baths And Drinking Hand Sanitiser: Poison Centre Cases Rise Under Covid-19
Some cases have involved substances that are harder to obtain, such as the diabetes drug metformin, after the possibility was raised that it might have a therapeutic effect against Covid-19. In one case, a woman swallowed hair dye containing a molecule called paraphenylenediamine that can cause a severe allergic reaction and burn the body’s soft tissues. Her goal appeared to be internal disinfection. Cases of poisoning by ingestion of essential oils, with the same goal, have increased in places too. (Spinney, 6/8)

The Washington Post: Hurricanes Present A Dangerous Scenario Amid The Pandemic: Stay At Home Or Risk Infection?
As Tropical Storm Cristobal churns through the Gulf of Mexico en route to likely landfall Sunday in Louisiana or Texas, it carries on its winds a message for residents of the United States’ hurricane-prone coastlines that runs counter to everything they have been taught during the pandemic: If a dangerous storm is coming, leave home and seek refuge, with strangers if necessary. But the hurricane season has just begun, and already there have been three named storms, including the one swirling above the warm gulf waters right now that dumped a deluge of rain and caused deadly flooding in the Mexican state of Chiapas. (Sellers and Freedman, 6/6)

NPR: California Was Set To Spend Over $1 Billion to Prevent Wildfires. Then Came COVID-19
With the coronavirus pandemic eroding state budgets across the country, many communities risk having this disaster make them less prepared for looming climate-driven disasters. Still recovering from devastating wildfires, California was poised to spend billions of dollars to prepare for future fires and other extreme weather disasters. The infrastructure projects, designed to make communities and homes more resistant to wildfire, have long been overlooked, fire experts say. (Sommer, 6/7)

The New York Times: When 511 Epidemiologists Expect To Fly, Hug And Do 18 Other Everyday Activities Again
Many epidemiologists are already comfortable going to the doctor, socializing with small groups outside or bringing in mail, despite the coronavirus. But unless there’s an effective vaccine or treatment first, it will be more than a year before many say they will be willing to go to concerts, sporting events or religious services. And some may never greet people with hugs or handshakes again. (Bui, Miller and Sanger-Katz, 6/8)

The Associated Press: Bloodied Store Manager Describes Life In The Age Of COVID-19
For weeks Samantha Clarke calmly listened to the insults and threats directed daily at her and her employees by people who learned they couldn’t enter the Modesto, California, store without wearing a mask and following other coronavirus-related rules. But never, says the 17-year veteran of retail sales, did she expect she’d be sucker-punched and left with blood gushing from her battered face. Not until it happened recently after a customer was told the last above-ground swimming pool in stock had just been sold to someone else. (Rogers, 6/8)

The New York Times: When The Office Is Like A Biohazard Lab
Here’s what it will be like when Cisco employees return to the office: Before heading in each day, workers will be required to log on to a new app the giant networking company designed, and answer several questions about their health. Have they had close contact in the last 14 days with anyone who received a Covid-19 diagnosis or was suspected of having a coronavirus infection? Within the last 24 hours have they experienced chills, shortness of breath, or a loss of taste or smell? (Gelles, 6/7)

CNN: 4 Ways Families Can Ease Anxiety Together 
During these turbulent times, the stress on families is palpable. Parents and children alike are feeling understandably anxious about their futures. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, anxiety is one of the most prevalent mental health concerns in the United States. And because long-term exposure to stressful events contributes to the risk of developing an anxiety disorder, it's important to avoid letting anxiety persist unchecked, especially in children. (Santas, 6/8)

The Washington Post: Social Media Influencers Put The Coronavirus In The Spotlight
Just as the coronavirus was establishing its deadly grip on the United States and President Trump once again revised his often-contradictory assessment of its risks, comedian Chris Rock posted a video for his 5.2 million Twitter followers. His message was brief and direct. “During biblical times, Noah was the only one who took the rain serious. Everybody else died. The coronavirus is the rain,” the former “Saturday Night Live” cast member intoned in the late-March clip. (Sellers, 6/6)

CNN: Universities Report Coronavirus Cases In Athletics Program 
Several universities this week joined a growing list of schools reporting coronavirus cases within their athletic programs. Arkansas State reported that seven athletes from three sports programs tested positive last Wednesday. They were all asymptomatic and will remain in quarantine for 14 days, the university said. Three football players from Auburn University in Alabama tested positive, an Auburn athletics spokesperson confirmed to CNN. The three athletes are asymptomatic and have been placed in self-isolation in a dorm away from the rest of the team. (DeLaFuente, 6/7)

NBC News: 'Clinics Will Be Forced To Close': Abortion Rights Backers Fearful Of Upcoming Supreme Court Ruling
The Supreme Court is expected to rule soon on its first major abortion case since President Donald Trump put in place a conservative majority on the bench. At the heart of the case is a Louisiana law, Act 620, that requires doctors performing abortions to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of the clinic. If the law is upheld, a district court found that Louisiana would be left with one abortion clinic to serve the nearly 10,000 women who seek abortions in the state annually. (Atkins, 6/7)

The Associated Press: Pandemic Means A Silent June At The Supreme Court
It’s the time of the year when Supreme Court justices can get testy. They might have to find a new way to show it. The court’s most fought-over decisions in its most consequential cases often come in June, with dueling majority and dissenting opinions. But when a justice is truly steamed to be on a decision’s losing side, the strongest form of protest is reading a summary of the dissent aloud in court. Dissenting justices exercise what a pair of scholars call the “nuclear option” just a handful of times a year, but when they do, they signal that behind the scenes, there’s frustration and even anger. (Gresko, 6/4)

CBS News: This Little-Known Program Has Played A Central Role In The U.S. Government's Coronavirus Response 
A little-known federal program started under President Obama has played a central role in the Trump administration's response to the coronavirus pandemic. The U.S. Digital Service has embedded technology experts throughout federal agencies, and they have been responsible for some of the country's most valuable data. Throughout the pandemic, the USDS has been aiding the White House coronavirus task force in providing crucial statistics to top officials setting policy. (6/6)

Modern Healthcare: VA Needs Ongoing Medical Staff Input To Design EHR, GAO Says
The Veterans Affairs Department's process for developing its new electronic health record system is "generally effective," but sometimes overlooked involving key clinical stakeholders, according to a report the Government Accountability Office released Friday. GAO conducted the review—which included interviewing officials from the VA and Defense Department, observing national and local workshops, and visiting the VA's scheduled initial implementation sites—after a request from Congress. (Cohen, 6/5)

The Associated Press: World Reaches 400,000 Virus Deaths As Pope Urges Caution
The confirmed global death toll from the COVID-19 virus reached at least 400,000 fatalities on Sunday, a day after the government of Brazil broke with standard public health protocols by ceasing to publish updates of the number of deaths and infections in the hard-hit South American country. Worldwide, at least 6.9 million people have been infected by the virus, according to Johns Hopkins University, whose aggregated tally has become the main worldwide reference for monitoring the disease. (Wilson, 6/7)

Reuters: 'It's Not Over': COVID-19 Cases Rise In Some Nations Easing Lockdowns: WHO
Some countries have seen “upticks” in COVID-19 cases as lockdowns ease, and populations must protect themselves from the coronavirus while authorities continue testing, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday. The epicentre of the pandemic is currently in countries of Central, South and North America, particularly the United States, WHO spokeswoman Margaret Harris said. (6/5)

The New York Times: China Hails Its Virus Triumphs, And Glosses Over Its Mistakes
Under continued fire for its early mishandling of the coronavirus, the Chinese government vigorously defended its actions in a new, detailed account on Sunday that portrays the country’s approach to combating the outbreak as a model for the world. Calling the epidemic a “test of fire,” Beijing builds a comprehensive picture of its “painstaking efforts” to identify the virus, stop its spread and warn other countries — a narrative that discounts and ignores missteps by the government at the outset of the outbreak. (Bradsher, 6/7)

The Associated Press: China Defends Its Coronavirus Response In New Report
China “wasted no time” in sharing information such as the genome sequence for the new virus with the World Health Organization as well as relevant countries and regional organizations, according to the report. An Associated Press investigation found that government labs sat on releasing the genetic map of the virus for more than a week in January, delaying its identification in a third country and the sharing of information needed to develop tests, drugs and a vaccine. (Moritsugu, 6/8)

The New York Times: China Vowed To Keep Wildlife Off The Menu, A Tough Promise To Keep 
Bamboo rats lifted Mao Zuqin out of poverty. Now, because of the coronavirus pandemic, poverty threatens again. Mr. Mao has over the past five years built a viable farm in southern China with 1,100 bamboo rats, a chubby, edible rodent that is a delicacy in the region. Then, in February, China’s government suspended the sale and consumption of wildlife, farmed or captured, abruptly freezing a trade identified as the likely source of the outbreak. He still has to feed them, though, and has no way to cover his costs or his investments. (Myers, 6/7)

The Associated Press: Brazil Expunges Virus Death Toll As Data Befuddles Experts
Brazil’s government has stopped publishing a running total of coronavirus deaths and infections in an extraordinary move that critics call an attempt to hide the true toll of the disease in Latin America’s largest nation. Saturday’s move came after months of criticism from experts that Brazil’s statistics are woefully deficient, and in some cases manipulated, so it may never be possible to understand the depth of the pandemic in the country. (Jeantet, 6/7)

The Washington Post: As Coronavirus Deaths In Brazil Surge, Bolsonaro Limits The Release Of Data
As Brazil posts some of the highest daily coronavirus death totals in the world, President Jair Bolsonaro is reducing the amount of data his government is releasing to the public. Since the beginning of the pandemic, the country’s Health Ministry has maintained detailed and robust data on the spread and reach of the disease that has now officially infected more than 672,000 people here and killed nearly 36,000. But that information disappeared from a government website on Saturday, to be replaced by a daily tally that shows only the numbers from the previous 24 hours. (McCoy, 6/7)

The Associated Press: Personal Mobility Machine Needs No Help At Tokyo Airport
An autonomous mobility system that works like a wheelchair without anyone pushing it is scuttling around a Tokyo airport to help with social distancing amid the coronavirus pandemic. The personal mobility machine seats one person and runs on its own without crashing, even when people jump out unexpectedly, for about 600 meters (660 yards) on a pre-programmed route at Haneda International Airport, WHILL, the company behind the technology, said Monday. (Kageyama, 6/8)

The Associated Press: With Recovery Of Last Case, New Zealand Has Eradicated Virus
New Zealand appears to have completely eradicated the coronavirus — at least for now — after health officials said Monday the last known infected person had recovered. The announcement was greeted with joy around the country and means the nation of 5 million people will be among the first to welcome throngs of fans back into sports stadiums, embrace crowded concerts and remove seating restrictions from flights. (Perry, 6/8)

The Washington Post: Coronavirus In Winter: Southern Hemisphere Braces To See How Virus Behaves In Colder Months
As countries in the Northern Hemisphere tilt into summer and emerge from months-long coronavirus shutdowns, winter arrives this month in subtropical parts of the Southern Hemisphere — and with it increased concern for the virus's spread. Studies of how the novel coronavirus behaves from season to season are still in their early stages. Preliminary results show that temperature and other climatic factors have less impact on its spread than social behavior and the accompanying restrictions that governments put in place. (Patrick and Bearak, 6/6)

St. Louis Post Dispatch: Trump Has Derailed The Conversation About Testing And Tracing. It Should Resume.
President Donald Trump has vacillated between claiming the U.S. is doing enough coronavirus testing and claiming testing isn’t the key to safely reopening the economy. Both claims are false. But it’s not too late. Two scholars writing in The Washington Post last month have laid out how, even now, a national testing campaign could work to safely reopen the economy by early July at a cost of about $74 billion. A concerted push by leaders in both parties could force the administration to get on board and finally do what it should have done months ago. (6/7)

The Wall Street Journal: Coronavirus Good News
Good news: A new study finds that the novel coronavirus has become less lethal over the past few months. While there’s no evidence that mutations are making the virus less deadly, treatments have improved enormously as scientists have learned more. Doctors have observed that the coronavirus case-fatality rate seems to have decreased considerably since the early days of the pandemic. But a pre-publication study from Italian universities and local public-health authorities comparing the case-fatality rates in two provinces (Ferrara and Pescara) during March and April is the first to show this might be true. (6/7)

Stat: Contact Tracing Technology Must Protect Against Discrimination 
South Korea confirmed dozens of new Covid-19 cases last month, most of them linked to an individual who had visited several nightclubs in Seoul’s Itaewon district before testing positive for the novel coronavirus. In the next few days, public health officials had to trace more than 7,000 people who had recently visited nightclubs in the same district... There was one complication, though: Itaewon is home to many LGBTQ-friendly nightclubs. News reports focused on that detail and included the age, gender, location, and movements of the Covid-19 patient who had been there — all too predictably resulting in an increase in anti-gay rhetoric on social media. (Pardis Sabeti and Andres Colubri, 6/5)

The New York Times: Could Trump Turn A Vaccine Into A Campaign Stunt?
Oct. 23, 2020, 9 a.m., with 10 days before the election, Fox New releases a poll showing President Trump trailing Joe Biden by eight percentage points. Oct. 23, 2020, 3 p.m., at a hastily convened news conference, President Trump announces that the Food and Drug Administration has just issued an Emergency Use Authorization for a coronavirus vaccine. Mr. Trump declares victory over Covid-19, demands that all businesses reopen immediately and predicts a rapid economic recovery. (Ezekiel J. Emanuel and Paul A. Offit, 6/8)

The New York Times: How To Reopen America’s Schools 
Parents who have watched their children struggle with online learning since schools across the country were closed in March are painfully aware that virtual classes are no substitute for face-to-face instruction. Even so, many of these parents worry that schools might hastily reopen without taking the necessary precautions to shield children — and everyone in the school community — from infection. If this crisis of confidence continues to fester, millions of families could well decide to keep their children home when schools begin opening around the nation this fall. (6/6)

Bangor Daily News: As Health Care Workers, Wearing A Mask Is All We Ask 
Masks have been on our minds, as health care workers, since the pandemic started. First, we were short on surgical masks, so friends and family made us cloth masks, which we knew were less effective but it was better than nothing. As the COVID threat neared, the N95 mask shortage became a more pressing issue. Three months into the battle and despite all the positive news to the contrary, we are still short and even checking on Amazon for N95 masks. (Jabbar Fazeli, 6/6)

Stat: The Bio Revolution Is Changing Business And Society 
Imagine a world in which we can produce meat without animals, cure previously incurable diseases by editing an individual’s genetic fabric, and manufacture industrial chemicals in yeast factories. The foundational technologies that could make all this possible largely exist. Rapid and ever-cheaper DNA sequencing has deepened our understanding of how biology works and tools such as CRISPR are now being used to recode biology to treat diseases or make crops less vulnerable to climate change. This is what we call the Bio Revolution. (Matthias Evers and Michael Chui, 6/8)

The Washington Post: Public Health Pits Covid Against Protest But There Are Ways To Lessen Risk
As a professor of public health, I am conflicted. The dangerous and contagious coronavirus means we need to stay at home to protect ourselves and the vulnerable. At the same time, an enormous public health problem is propelling people shoulder-to-shoulder onto the streets — deep rooted racism that requires an outcry. The anger and violence being played out on the streets is intensely personal for me as a doctor. One of my patients died in Oakland on May 29, shot by an unknown assailant while on duty guarding a federal courthouse. He was a kind and soft-spoken man whom I had cared for since 2018. (Scott Lee, 6/5)

The Wall Street Journal: Doctors For Lockdown Discrimination
Democratic politicians can’t explain why they let peaceful protesters and even rioters march in tight crowds in their streets but continue to ban other gatherings and maintain strict lockdowns on the rest of the public. Now some public-health progressives are offering a rationalization: “COVID-19 among Black patients is yet another lethal manifestation of white supremacy.” Public-health researchers from the University of Washington last week circulated a letter—which received 1,300 signatures from health-care providers, epidemiologists and medical students around the country—that seeks to justify the disparate treatment by politicians of demonstrations in response to George Floyd’s killing and those by conservatives who have protested stay-at-home orders. (6/7)

Stat: Beyond Words: Medical Institutions Must Act To Support Black Lives
Oleoresin capsicum spray, better known as pepper spray, is a chemical weapon made from concentrated chili pepper extracts... UpToDate, the clinical practice bible for doctors, nurses, and other health care workers, delivers just three hits for the search terms “pepper spray” and “oleoresin capsicum.” None of them provides information on treating patients exposed to pepper spray; one even recommends its use in controlling agitated patients. The omission of this treatment information, as well as a recommendation to use chemical warfare agents on patients, reflects the apathy of the medical community toward police violence in the United States, if not its tacit approval. (Carrie Flynn and Chinye Ijeli, 6/6)

Modern Healthcare: BJC HealthCare CEO On Healthcare And Racial Disparities During COVID-19 Pandemic
The tragic events the last week of May, the 100,000-plus COVID-19 deaths, and the continued healthcare and racial disparities in our nation highlight the stark realities of our public health crisis. This crisis is not the result of COVID-19, poverty, gun violence or underfunding of our public health system. I firmly believe it is the result of structural, institutionalized racism in America that privileged white men have perpetuated for far too long. (Rich Liekweg, 6/5)

Los Angeles Times: My Mother Has Alzheimer's. The Coronavirus Only Makes It Harder To Care For Her. 
My 83-year-old mother was scheduled to move into a skilled nursing facility near our home in Birmingham, Ala., on March 23. The global pandemic put a wrench in those plans.As things open up in our state, my family wonders how to continue to protect Mom amid so much uncertainty. While many questions remain about COVID-19’s trajectory and the preparedness of nursing homes to shield residents from infection, our confidence in caring for her — Mom suffers from numerous physical limitations and late Alzheimer’s disease — is wavering. (Cynthia Ryan, 6/8)

The New York Times: Anger Benefits Some Americans Much More Than Others 
The protests against police brutality gripping the nation are a study in contrast — notably, the contrast between the government response to the current unrest and its response to last month’s demonstrations. When an armed makeshift militia showed up at the Michigan State Capitol to demand the state be reopened — even as coronavirus cases were growing — President Trump hailed them as “very good people.” As thousands of people descended upon city streets in mostly peaceful yet forceful calls for an end to extrajudicial police killings of black people, the president denigrated them as “thugs,” demanded that state governors “dominate” them and called for the U.S. military to be activated against its own citizenry. This contrast is nothing new. (Davin Phoenix, 6/6)

NBC News: College Students Raising Kids Were In Crisis Before Coronavirus. Lockdown Made It Worse.
Emily R. is a first-generation college student at Northern Virginia Community College. Outside of school, she works in the hospitality industry while raising her 4-year-old son and rents a two-bedroom apartment with five other people. Emily's carefully balanced world began to topple as COVID-19 changed the world: In March, her son's day care closed, her work hours were cut and her classes were moved online. Struggling to pay rent, Emily applied for emergency funds from her school but was denied. (Nicole Lynn Lewis and Dr. Sara Goldrick-Rab, 6/8)

Atlanta Journal Constitution: Georgia Can’t Afford To Delay Medicaid Expansion
In the face of a dual crisis — the COVID-19 public health emergency and the resulting economic downturn — it is more important than ever that the 14 states that haven’t implemented the Medicaid expansion, including Georgia, act to extend eligibility to the almost 5 million uninsured people who could gain coverage. Medicaid expansion will help ensure those who need care have access to it. Uninsured adults may face higher risk of exposure to COVID-19 because of the types of jobs they are more likely to hold. (Laura Harker, 6/6)

Seattle Times: Protesters Deserve COVID-19 Test Access
Many of the hundreds of thousands who joined recent protests in Seattle, Olympia, Tacoma and across America disregarded precautions against catching coronavirus. The determination to speak out took precedence over social-distancing principles in packed streets. Many skipped wearing masks. These protests are righteous, to be sure, but they could have sweeping consequences for public health. State officials need to ensure that the state’s testing supplies are adequate. Many public-health officials here and elsewhere support the protests; an open letter signed by 1,288 health professionals and leaders correctly defines white supremacy as “a lethal public health issue.” (6/7)

Arizona Republic: Is Gov. Doug Ducey Ignoring The COVID-19 ‘Check Engine’ Light?
Gov. Doug Ducey needs to draw a line in the sand and show us where it is. He needs to announce the tipping point.He needs to tell the citizens of Arizona what must happen, exactly, for him to reinstitute the restrictions lifted in May. In other words, when will the governor put people over profits and politics? The spike in COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, ICU cases and deaths is pretty clear. Arizona now has more than 26,000 cases and more than 1,000 deaths. The numbers are going up and up. Banner Health told the state that it can't take any more patients needing an external lung machine. It's designed for patients that even ventilators can't help.  (EJ Montini, 6/7)

Boston Globe: Massachusetts, Let’s Get More Ambitious With Coronavirus Testing 
Judging by the current status of the outbreak, notably the declining numbers of deaths and hospital admissions related to COVID-19, the state’s overall strategy of testing, social distancing, and using masks is working — for now. But if Massachusetts is to sustain this trend even as more people travel and return to work or school, public-health officials would benefit from substantially more test data, because that would increase the chances of stopping infected people from spreading the virus. Without the insights that could come from many more tests, strategically deployed, the reopening that’s underway could be more restrained than necessary. It also could be a prelude to a second shutdown in the fall. (6/7)