The Washington Post: U.S. Coronavirus Deaths Surge Past 4,600 As Officials Start To Compare Struggle With Italy's Outbreak
Coronavirus deaths in the United States passed 4,600 Wednesday as Vice President Pence issued an ominous warning that America’s situation is most comparable to Italy’s struggle with the virus, which has pushed that nation’s hospitals to capacity and has left more than 13,000 people dead despite a weeks-long lockdown. The prediction was among a fresh batch of reminders that as the United States makes its agonizing march toward the peak of the covid-19 pandemic, each day will bring more suffering than the last. (Zapotosky, Miroff and Duncan, 4/1)

The Associated Press: New York State's Virus Deaths Jump To More Than 1,900
Coronavirus deaths soared. New York City playgrounds were targeted for shutdown to help slow an outbreak projected to grow worse for another month. Overtaxed hospitals began transferring patients north of the city. And residents near one struggling hospital have become all too used to ambulance sirens. “It’s very eerie. I think everyone’s just doing what they can, but at the same time it bothers you. Especially if you’re around Elmhurst because you can hear all the ambulances,” said Emma Sorza, near Elmhurst Hospital in Queens. (Bumsted, Villeneuve and Hill, 4/2)

The Washington Post: New York’s Scramble To Brace For Peak Crisis A Siren For The Rest Of U.S.
The Empire State Building blinked red this week as New York became the central terrain in the international battle against the coronavirus — a siren not just for battered Manhattan but for state and local authorities across the country racing to avoid a similar fate. New cases this week drove the state’s total above 75,000, surpassing China’s Hubei province, where the virus emerged in December. (Buarino and Stanley-Becker, 4/1)

PBS NewsHour: As New York’s Death Toll Approaches 2,000, Cuomo Warns Other States Of What’s To Come 
New York’s death toll from COVID-19 is nearing 2,000, and experts warn it will continue to rise. But many other areas of the country are also seeing cases climb and taking steps to try to limit them. President Trump sounded a grave warning during a Tuesday Coronavirus Task Force briefing, saying the virus is projected to kill at least 100,000 Americans in the months to come. (Yang, 4/1)

The New York Times: City Deploys 45 Mobile Morgues As Virus Deaths Strain Funeral Homes
New York City has already set up 45 new mobile morgues. Local crematories are now allowed to work around the clock. At one Brooklyn hospital, the in-house morgue was filled to capacity on Tuesday. The next day, the nursing staff ran out of body bags. As the coronavirus epidemic enters its second month, the casualties in New York are starting to severely tax the city’s ability to accommodate its dead. With more than 1,000 deaths so far and thousands more projected, city officials are working hard to stave off an emergency. In the past few days, the city’s medical examiner’s office has taken over the collection of bodies, dispatching the fleet of new refrigerated trailers to hospitals in all five boroughs, some of whose morgues have already filled up. (Feuer and Salcedo, 4/2)

The New York Times: 12 Fraught Hours With E.M.T.S In A City Under Siege
“Back up, sir!” shouted Kenny Kiefer, a Fire Department battalion chief, his N95 mask muffling his words. “What?” replied the frail older man leaning out the doorway of a shelter and addiction treatment center, who had called 911 because he was having trouble breathing. Smiling timidly, he began to venture down the stairs. Alarmed, Chief Kiefer stepped back and thrust out his palm. “Stay right there!” (Hoffman, 4/1)

The Wall Street Journal: The New York Neighborhoods With The Most Coronavirus Cases
The new coronavirus has struck hardest in working-class neighborhoods in New York City’s outer boroughs, city data shows, underlining how the pandemic has ravaged densely packed lower-income areas where social-distancing guidelines have proved difficult to implement. Two areas of Queens—Corona and Elmhurst—have led the city in reported infections, with 947 and 831 as of March 31, respectively, the data show. Both neighborhoods are heavily populated by immigrants who live in close quarters, often with multiple families sharing a dwelling, said City Councilman Francisco Moya. (Honan, 4/1)

The New York Times: A Month Of Coronavirus In New York City: See The Hardest Hit Areas
The coronavirus has ravaged all of New York City, closing schools, emptying streets and turning stadiums into makeshift hospitals. But data made public by city health officials on Wednesday suggests it is hitting low-income neighborhoods the hardest. (Buchanan, Patel, Rosenthal and Singhvi, 4/1)

The New York Times: Almost Every New Yorker Knows Someone Who Is Sick Now
A New York City Housing Authority retiree ticked off his running tally: an ex-wife sick, a daughter sick, and three old friends dead. In Queens, a young poet learned a friend’s parents are in the hospital, one on a ventilator. And Qtina Parson of Parkchester, the Bronx, gave a grim reversal of the cheerful family updates one expects from the proud mother, sister and aunt that she used to sound like just a couple of weeks — a lifetime — ago. (Wilson, 4/2)

The New York Times: Cuomo Is A Media Hero In The Pandemic. De Blasio Is A Scapegoat.
Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York called me this morning a little out of breath, feet pounding in the background, on his daily walk in Prospect Park. It’s the kind of stubbornly pointless personal ritual his critics in the media find incredibly annoying — couldn’t he just stay home at Gracie Mansion and clap for health care workers like his neighbors? “I can’t put on a costume and pretend to be a different person than I am,” he told me. (Smith, 4/1)

The New York Times: What New York Looked Like During The 1918 Flu Pandemic
The wire arrived in New York City from an incoming ship at sea, announcing that 10 of its passengers and 11 crew members were ill. So a team of doctors and officials waited at a Brooklyn pier to greet the Norwegian vessel Bergensfjord and, with it, the first cases in the city of the deadliest pandemic in modern human history. It was Aug. 11, 1918. The ship docked, the sick were rushed to nearby hospitals, and the pier was placed under quarantine. Everything appeared to be under control. Then more sick arrived. (Wilson, 4/2)

Modern Healthcare: Trump Hints ACA Enrollment Should Be Reopened As A Matter Of Fairness
President Donald Trump Wednesday suggested that he might reconsider reopening enrollment under the Affordable Care Act, even though his administration reportedly decided against it. When a reporter asked the president why he chose not to reopen enrollment, Trump deferred to Vice President Mike Pence, who touted recent announcements from insurers Cigna and Humana that they'll waive cost-sharing for medical expenses resulting from COVID-19 treatment. (Brady, 4/1)

Politico: Trump Hints At Using Federal Programs To Provide Coverage After Obamacare Decision
President Donald Trump said he is considering using federal programs like Medicare and Medicaid to cover the rising ranks of the uninsured after his administration decided it would not reopen the Obamacare insurance markets to address the coronaivrus crisis. Both Trump and Vice President Mike Pence on Wednesday were very vague about any forthcoming proposals that would flesh out their promise that people wouldn't have to worry about the costs of treating the coronavirus. But at the daily White House task force briefing, they indicated they were looking at some version of Medicaid and Medicare to fill in at least some cost gaps. (Luthi, 4/1)

WBUR: Trump On Not Expanding Insurance, Democrats And Health Care
Vice President Mike Pence responded first with a non-answer that praised the president for forging relationships with health insurance companies and cited expanded coverage under Medicaid for coronavirus testing and treatment. ... Trump seemed to chuckle at Pence's quasi-filibuster. "I think it's one of the greatest answers I've ever heard. Because Mike was able to speak for five minutes and not even touch your question. That's what you call a great professional," Trump said. But he followed up by saying it's a "fair question" and is "something we're really going to look at because it doesn't seem fair." (Sprunt, 4/1)

CNN: Where To Get Health Insurance If You Just Lost Your Job
For millions of Americans, a job doesn't only mean a paycheck -- it also provides their health insurance. As unemployment surges amid the coronavirus pandemic, many laid-off workers will have to find new coverage -- a critical protection as more than 180,000 Americans test positive and many are hospitalized. A small piece of good news: There are more options for those who have to buy health insurance on their own these days, thanks to the Affordable Care Act. (Luhby, 4/1)

Modern Healthcare: Health Care Service Corp Launches Special Enrollment Period
Health Care Service Corp. is offering a special sign-up period to increase the number of people with health insurance during COVID-19.The enrollment period, which runs from today through April 30, applies to people who previously declined group health insurance coverage through their employer, the Chicago-based insurer, which owns Blue Cross plans in five states, announced today. It does not extend to self-insured employer plans, in which employers bear the cost of claims. (Goldberg, 4/1)

Detroit Free Press: Blue Cross Waives All Copays, Deductibles For Coronavirus Treatment
Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan announced Wednesday that it has begun waiving all copays, deductibles and coinsurance for coronavirus treatment.The waiver applies to Blue Cross and Blue Care Network commercial PPO plans and Medicare Advantage PPO and HMO plans and will run through June 30.Last month, the Blues began waiving all copays and deductibles for coronavirus tests. The insurer also started offering telehealth services at no cost through June 30 for policyholders with existing telehealth benefits. (Reindl, 4/1)

The Wall Street Journal: Affordable Care Act Sign-Ups Total 11.4 Million For This Year
About 11.4 million consumers signed up for health coverage on the Affordable Care Act’s exchanges in the 50 states and Washington, D.C., this year, according to data released Wednesday by the Trump administration, marking the third straight year sign-ups have remained steady. Among consumers in the 38 states that use the HealthCare.gov platform, the average monthly premium before subsidies was $595 in the 2020 open enrollment period, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. (Armour, 4/1)

CNN: 6.6 Million Americans Filed For Unemployment Benefits Last Week, A Record High As Coronavirus Takes Its Toll
Millions more Americans filed for unemployment benefits last week, as businesses continue to lay off and furlough workers amid the coronavirus outbreak. 6.6 million workers filed for their first week of unemployment benefits in the week ending March 28 — a new historic high. Economists polled by Refinitiv had expected 3.5 million claims. (Tappe, 4/2)

NPR: 6.6 Million File For Unemployment, Another Dismal Record
In the prior week, ending March 21, a revised 3.307 million initial claims were filed. But analysts said even that lofty number was low because many states' employment websites were overwhelmed, making it difficult for applicants to get through. (Schneider, 4/2)

The Associated Press: A Record 6.6 Million Seek US Jobless Aid As Layoffs Mount
The figure for last week is much higher than the previous record of 3.3 million reported for the previous week. The surging layoffs have led many economists to envision as many as 20 million lost jobs by the end of April. The unemployment rate could spike to as high as 15% this month, above the previous record of 10.8% set during a deep recession in 1982. (Rugaber, 4/2)

The Wall Street Journal: Record 6.6 Million Americans Sought Unemployment Benefits Last Week - WSJ
“The speed and magnitude of the labor market’s decline is unprecedented,” said Constance Hunter, chief economist at KPMG LLP. Ms. Hunter said she expected that millions more claims will be filed in the coming weeks and projects 20 million jobs will be lost. There are several reasons why unemployment claims are likely to remain high in the coming weeks. For one, many states haven’t fully processed all unemployment-benefit applications due to the deluge. Further, the federal rescue package signed into law last week increases the pool of workers who can tap benefits by making independent contractors and self-employed individuals eligible. (Chaney and Morath, 4/2)

MarketWatch: Jobless Claims Leap Record 6.6 Million At End Of March As Coronavirus Triggers Mass Layoffs
Countless businesses across the country have been forced to close or scale back hours, throwing hordes of people out of work and triggering an unprecedented back-to-back surge in initial jobless claims. New claims are likely keep climbing in the next few weeks as the damage unfolds. (Bartash, 4/2)

CNBC: US Weekly Jobless Claims Double To 6.6 Million
Before the coronavirus shut down major parts of the U.S. economy, the highest week for claims was 695,000 in 1982. The Great Recession high was 665,000 in March 2009. However, the sudden stop as the government has instituted social distancing policies caused a cascade of joblessness unlike anything the nation has ever seen. (Cox, 4/2)

Fox News: US Unemployment Shot To New Record High Last Week With 6.6 Million Americans Laid Off
The report, which provides the most up-to-date evidence on the labor market and the health of the economy, likely reinforces economists' views that the U.S. has already entered a recession, bringing to end a historically long, 11-year economic expansion. Lawmakers are looking to provide relief to laid-off workers with a $2 trillion stimulus package, the largest relief bill in recent memory, that President Trump signed last week. In addition to giving adults who earn less than $99,000 annually up to $1,200 cash checks, the bill expanded unemployment benefits. (Henney, 4/2)

Politico: States Overwhelmed By Previously Unimaginable Layoff Numbers
In Michigan, the state unemployment filing system crashed this week because it was overloaded. In California, it may take much longer than usual for hundreds of thousands of jobless people to get their benefits. In New York, one laid-off worker says she called the state labor department 800 times before getting through. As previously unimaginable layoff numbers pile up across the country, the state-by-state systems for getting benefits into the hands of people who lost their jobs are stressed, inefficient and not sending money quickly enough to the people who most need it. (Cassella and Murphy, 4/1)

Stateline: 'We Have No Money': Coronavirus Slams State Taxes
Governors nationwide have ordered businesses to close and people to stay home in order to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus. But the public health measures have created an economic crisis that will, in turn, hit state and city budgets. Now policymakers are scrambling to figure out how much spending power they’re losing at a moment when they need money to fight the pandemic and help laid-off workers and struggling businesses. (Quinton, 4/2)

Los Angeles Times: Coronavirus Recession Now Expected To Be Deeper And Longer
As projections of the coronavirus death toll soar, forecasts for the ensuing economic carnage have also quickly turned much darker — both for the depth and duration of the damage. Where only days ago, economists were following President Trump’s lead in saying the U.S. economy would be back on track relatively quickly, a growing number now say the downturn will probably exceed the Great Recession of 2008-09. (Lee, 4/1)

KQED: Coronavirus Rent Strike In The Bay Area: Tenants ‘Giving The Governor Notice’ 
April 1 is the day rent is due for many around the Bay Area, but in the midst of a statewide shelter-in-place order, many are unable to pay. Instead of suffering silently, however, some Bay Area tenants are launching a campaign to withhold rent. A group of at least 20 calling themselves rent strikers are issuing Gov. Gavin Newsom their own 30-day notice to cancel all rent and mortgage payments during the current public health crisis. If he fails to act, renters across the state are planning to withhold rent payments beginning on the first of May. (Sarah, 4/1)

The New York Times: Farmworkers, Mostly Undocumented, Become ‘Essential’ During Pandemic
Like legions of immigrant farmworkers, Nancy Silva for years has done the grueling work of picking fresh fruit that Americans savor, all while afraid that one day she could lose her livelihood because she is in the country illegally. But the widening coronavirus pandemic has brought an unusual kind of recognition: Her job as a field worker has been deemed by the federal government as “essential” to the country. (Jordan, 4/2)

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Coronavirus Forces Dairy Farmers To Dump Milk
About 7 o’clock Tuesday night, Golden E Dairy got the call that any dairy farmer would dread. They were being asked to dump 25,000 gallons of fresh milk a day because there was no place for it to go as the marketplace for dairy products has been gutted by the closure of restaurants, schools, hotels and food-service businesses. An hour later, the family-run farm near West Bend opened the spigot and started flushing its milk into a wastewater lagoon — 220,000 pounds a day through next Monday. (Barrett, 4/1)

Politico: Behind The Scenes, Kushner Takes Charge Of Coronavirus Response
Dozens of Trump administration officials have trooped to the White House podium over the last two months to brief the public on their effort to combat coronavirus, but one person who hasn't -- Jared Kushner -- has emerged as perhaps the most pivotal figure in the national fight against the fast-growing pandemic. What started two-and-a-half weeks ago as an effort to utilize the private sector to fix early testing failures has become an all-encompassing portfolio for Kushner, who, alongside a kitchen cabinet of outside experts including his former roommate and a suite of McKinsey consultants, has taken charge of the most important challenges facing the federal government: Expanding test access, ramping up industry production of needed medical supplies, and figuring out how to get those supplies to key locations. (Cancryn and Diamond, 4/1)

The New York Times: Alarm, Denial, Blame: The Pro-Trump Media’s Coronavirus Distortion
On Feb. 27, two days after the first reported case of the coronavirus spreading inside a community in the United States, Candace Owens was underwhelmed. “Now we’re all going to die from Coronavirus,” she wrote sarcastically to her two million Twitter followers, blaming a “doomsday cult” of liberal paranoia for the growing anxiety over the outbreak. One month later, on the day the United States reached the grim milestone of having more documented coronavirus cases than anywhere in the world, Ms. Owens — a conservative commentator whom President Trump has called “a real star” — was back at it, offering what she said was “a little perspective” on the 1,000 American deaths so far. (Peters, 4/1)

Politico: Trump’s New Coronavirus Argument: 2 Million People Are Being Saved
Don’t focus on the 200,000 people the coronavirus might kill in the U.S., think about the 2 million people President Donald Trump is saving. Even as Trump adopts a somber, get-ready-for-the-worst tone, he still has sought to portray himself as a hero for his actions thus far, batting away questions about whether he has adequately responded to the coronavirus outbreak. “What would have happened if we did nothing?” the president asked Tuesday night. Like many of Trump’s rhetorical questions, he had already answered it himself — millions would die. Starting on Sunday, Trump began touting a scary figure that his staff had shared with him as it created models to judge the outcome of the coronavirus pandemic — 2.2 million deaths. (McGraw, 4/1)

CNN: As Tragic Toll From Virus Rises, So Do Questions About Trump's Leadership 
President Donald Trump's White House appears powerless to halt an increasingly tragic trajectory in the coronavirus pandemic as the death toll climbed by nearly 1,000 on a single, dark day. Vice President Mike Pence warned in a CNN interview that the most comparable example for what is to come is Italy, which has endured weeks of misery as the previous epicenter of the global crisis. (Collinson, 4/2)

The Washington Post: Fact-Checking President Trump’s Marathon News Conference
At a marathon news conference on March 31, President Trump acknowledged the death toll in the United States from the coronavirus outbreak could be staggering, with best-case scenario estimates ranging from 100,000 to 200,000. The message marked a sharp break from his many weeks of dismissing the seriousness of the outbreak in the United States. Still, even if his tone was more sober, the president continued to play fast and loose with the facts. Here’s a sampling from the nearly 13,000 words spoken by the president. (Kessler and Rizzo, 4/2)

CNN: Trump Repeats Falsehood That 'Nobody' Warned Of Ventilator Shortages: Fact Check 
President Donald Trump made another series of false, misleading or dubious claims at a Wednesday coronavirus briefing that began with an off-topic discussion of his administration's efforts to fight drug trafficking. Trump again said that "nobody" could have foreseen a pandemic crisis leading to a shortage of ventilators, for which there were numerous warnings. He predicted that the virus would no longer be a concern after about a month, a timeline at odds with assessments of experts. And he implied some states are basically fine when it comes to the coronavirus. (Dale, Cohen and Subramaniam, 4/2)

CNN: Source Close To Coronavirus Task Force: Despite What White House Is Saying, Tougher Measures Implemented Earlier 'Might Have Made A Difference' 
Despite White House claims that President Donald Trump and the administration did everything right in response to the coronavirus, a source close to the task force said tougher social distancing measures implemented earlier in the pandemic could have blunted the severity of the current crisis. It all depends, the source said, whether there were coronavirus infections in the US that were going undetected during the initial weeks of the outbreak, when the Trump administration was falling behind on testing for the virus nationwide. (Acosta, 4/1)

In other news on Trump's response to the crisis —

The Wall Street Journal: Trump Raises Possibility Of Cutting Domestic Flights
President Trump said he was looking at whether to ground some domestic air travel between cities that are coronavirus hot spots to slow the pandemic’s spread. Asked about calls to stop some flights, Mr. Trump said he was “certainly looking at” putting temporary restrictions on air travel but said once that starts “you really are clamping down an industry that is desperately needed.” (Lucey and Pasztor, 4/2)

Politico: Trump Considering Some Domestic Air Travel Restrictions
The idea of potentially shutting down domestic air travel in an effort to curb the virus' spread has repeatedly popped up over the past few weeks but never come to fruition, even as the U.S. has restricted international air travel. “It's a very, very rough decision,” Trump said Wednesday evening at a press briefing. “We are thinking about hot spots where you go from spot to spot — both hot. We will let you know fairly soon.” (Adrangna and Mintz, 4/1)

The Wall Street Journal: Coronavirus Closes Dwindling Open Borders As Cases Approach One Million
Some of the last openings for travel across borders are closing, as the number of reported cases of the new coronavirus world-wide approaches one million. President Trump said Wednesday that he was considering grounding flights to and from U.S. cities that are virus hot spots. The U.S. has 216,722 reported cases of the coronavirus, which spread with ferocious speed across the world, driven initially by global travel. (Dvorak, 4/2)

The New York Times: After Threats, Anthony Fauci To Receive Enhanced Personal Security
Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s leading expert on infectious diseases, who has become a regular at President Trump’s coronavirus briefings, will receive enhanced personal security after receiving threats following his repeated pleas for Americans to help slow the spread of the deadly pandemic, officials said on Wednesday. Dr. Fauci has been the Trump administration’s most outspoken advocate of social distancing rules that have shuttered the nation’s schools, forced businesses to close, kept people in their homes and battered the United States economy. (Benner and Shear, 4/1)

The Washington Post: Anthony Fauci’s Security Is Stepped Up As Doctor And Face Of U.S. Coronavirus Response Receives Threats
Fauci, 79, is the most outspoken member of the administration in favor of sweeping public health guidelines and is among the few officials willing to correct President Trump’s misstatements. Along with Deborah Birx, the coordinator for the White House’s task force, Fauci has encouraged the president to extend the timeline for social-distancing guidelines, presenting him with grim models about the possible toll of the pandemic. (Stanley-Becker, Abutaleb and Barrett, 4/1)

The Wall Street Journal: Coronavirus Task Force’s Fauci Receives A Security Detail
Dr. Fauci has become polarizing in a politically divided country with right-wing conspiracy theorists attacking him online, calling him part of a “deep state” plot to undermine the president’s re-election. Some dismiss the virus as a hoax and say Dr. Fauci is hyping possible outcomes. (Armour and Gurman, 4/2)

Politico: Fauci Gets Security Detail After Receiving Threats 
HHS Secretary Alex Azar had grown concerned about the growing online attacks against Fauci — whose profile has soared since he started regularly flanking Trump at White House coronavirus briefings, where he occasionally corrects the president — and asked the department to conduct a threat assessment. The decision was then conveyed to the Justice Department, which approved the request to deputize security for Fauci. (Diamond, 4/1)

Politico: FEMA Braces For A Multi-Front War As Hurricane Season Looms
Federal emergency managers are bracing themselves for the herculean task of handling multiple natural disasters while the coronavirus pandemic taxes their resources. According to current and former Department of Homeland Security officials, the Federal Emergency Management Agency is considering setting up a second National Response Coordination Center to handle disasters unrelated to the global outbreak. A second center would basically gear up for Atlantic hurricane season, which officially starts on June 1, a former DHS official said. (Swan and Lippman, 4/1)

WBUR: A President Is Not Able To Order A National Quarantine, Experts Say 
President Trump last weekend raised — and then dropped — the idea of placing residents of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut under a quarantine to try to limit the spread of the coronavirus outside of the nation's hardest-hit region. That hasn't stopped rumors from spreading that the country is under a lockdown, something the Federal Emergency Management Agency has debunked on its website. (Naylor, 4/2)

The Hill: Trump Resists Pressure To Declare Nationwide Stay-At-Home Order 
President Trump is holding back on declaring a nationwide stay-at-home order, even as some governors resist imposing restrictions that Trump's top public health officials say are needed to slow the spread of the coronavirus. The president has been reluctant to wade into matters he argues are better left to governors. But the pressure is growing for Trump to be decisive as Republican-led states like Texas, Iowa and Missouri are among the final holdouts to issue stay-at-home directives. (Samuels, 4/1)

In other news —

WBUR: Coast Guard Tells Cruise Ships With COVID-19 Cases To Stay Away From U.S. Ports
The U.S. Coast Guard is telling foreign-flagged cruise ships to be prepared to care for people with COVID-19 for an "indefinite period of time" at sea or to seek help from countries other than the U.S., citing a health care system that is being overwhelmed. The instructions are in a new safety bulletin that took effect this week along the southern Atlantic coast, including Florida – which is reporting more than 6,700 coronavirus cases, as of Tuesday evening. (Chappell, 4/1)

The Associated Press: Nearly 3,000 Sailors To Leave Carrier Amid Virus Outbreak
Nearly 3,000 sailors aboard a U.S. aircraft carrier where the coronavirus has spread will be taken off the ship by Friday, Navy officials said as they struggle to quarantine crew members in the face of an outbreak. So far, fewer than 100 of the nearly 5,000 sailors assigned to the USS Theodore Roosevelt, now docked in Guam, have tested positive for the virus, but the Navy is moving sailors into various facilities and probably will begin using hotel rooms in the coming days. Navy leaders are talking with government officials in the U.S. territory to identify rooms for the crew members. (Baldor, 4/2)

The Wall Street Journal: Virus Grounds A U.S. Aircraft Carrier As Crew Quarantined In Guam
The USS Theodore Roosevelt, which has been docked at a Guam port since last week, has at least 93 sailors who have tested positive for the novel coronavirus. The ship’s captain recently sent Navy leaders a memorandum asking for permission to quarantine the bulk of the crew off the ship, to prevent the contagious respiratory disease from infecting more sailors. (Craymer, 4/1)

The Hill: Navy Leaders: 2,700 Sailors Will Be Taken Off Aircraft Carrier With Coronavirus Outbreak 
Nearly 3,000 sailors will be taken off a U.S. aircraft carrier in the coming days, Navy leaders said Wednesday, after the ship's captain penned a letter pleading for help to end a coronavirus outbreak on board. “We think that there was a communications breakdown potentially with the crew of the Theodore Roosevelt, but when we became aware yesterday morning of these concerns we made sure that we were meeting expectations,” Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Michael Gilday said at a Pentagon briefing. (Kheel, 4/1)

ABC News: Federal Prisons Facing Shortages Of Resources Amid Coronavirus Outbreak 
Federal prison officials are growing increasingly alarmed about a shortage of resources to test and treat prisoners and workers exposed to COVID-19. Across the Bureau of Prisons' vast network of 122 facilities, at least 29 inmates and 30 staff members have been infected. Officials are scrambling to secure enough staffing and personal protective equipment, or PPE, to meet the need, battling a bureaucracy that has been slow to adapt to the crisis. (Barr, 4/1)

The Washington Post: As Inmates In D.C., Maryland And Virginia Test Positive For The Coronavirus, Jail Officials Scramble To Reduce The Risk
From his cell at the D.C. jail, Kamal Dorchy has spent the past few days writing what he described as “goodbye” letters to his mother, father, ex-wife and 5-year-old daughter. He is afraid he could be the next to get sick. Eight of his fellow inmates in the Southeast Washington jail have tested positive for the novel coronavirus within the past eight days, quarantined and weakened with fever or chronic coughing. (Alexander, Morse and Hsu, 4/1)

NBC News: Inmates In Washington, D.C., Sue Over Coronavirus Fears, Claim Staff Not Taking Precautions
Four inmates at a jail in Washington, D.C., filed a class-action lawsuit this week alleging that staff members are not taking proper safety precautions, putting the inmates at risk of being infected with the coronavirus. The lawsuit claims that inmates at the Central Detention Facility and a treatment center next door were showing symptoms of COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus, but were denied tests and had to wait days before they could get medical treatment. (Burke, 4/1)

WBUR: Mass. High Court Considers Releasing Some Prisoners To Prevent COVID-19 Outbreak 
Should Massachusetts release some prisoners to stem the spread of COVID-19 in jails and prisons?That question is now before the state's highest court. And it's a question that's highlighting some deep divisions — even among state law enforcement agencies. (Becker, 4/1)

New Orleans Times-Picayune: Coronavirus Could Spark Outbreak In 'Petri Dish' Immigration Facilities In Louisiana, Advocates Warn 
Two weeks ago, immigration detainees at a private prison in LaSalle Parish protested their incarceration as the novel coronavirus spread across Louisiana. One claimed they were crammed 90 men to a dorm with five toilets and limited soap. What happened next is in dispute between asylum seekers and officials, but the episode ended with officers unleashing pepper spray on detainees. (Sledge and Stole, 4/1)

The New York Times: A Ventilator Stockpile, With One Hitch: Thousands Do Not Work
President Trump has repeatedly assured Americans that the federal government is holding 10,000 ventilators in reserve to ship to the hardest-hit hospitals around the nation as they struggle to keep the most critically ill patients alive. But what federal officials have neglected to mention is that an additional 2,109 lifesaving devices are unavailable after the contract to maintain the government’s stockpile lapsed late last summer, and a contracting dispute meant that a new firm did not begin its work until late January. By then, the coronavirus crisis was already underway. (Sanger, Kanno-Youngs and Kulish, 4/1)

The Associated Press: Can You Fix Ventilators? A Fuel Cell Engineer Figures It Out
It was late when engineer Joe Tavi’s boss called with an odd question: Could their company, which makes fuel cells, learn how to fix a ventilator?California had a bunch of broken ones, and the governor had asked if San Jose-based Bloom Energy could repair them so coronavirus patients could breathe. Tavi, an engineer who grew up taking apart the family vacuum cleaner to see if he could put it back together, said he would sleep on it. (Beam, 4/2)

Stat: System To Allocate Ventilators Gains Traction For Not Counting Any Group Out
Bracing for a surge of Covid-19 patients and facing shortages of the resources necessary to keep the sickest patients alive, hospitals and governments are grappling with the reality of having to answer an unimaginable question: If ventilators and intensive care unit beds must be rationed, who should get them? Several states have already issued guidance recommending that hospitals exclude certain patient groups from such care, such as those with late-stage cancer or Alzheimer’s disease — and in doing so, sparked a storm of criticism, as well as federal civil rights investigations. Professional societies and academic bioethicists are also putting forward alternative ethical guidelines. One, in particular, is gaining traction. (Thielking, 4/2)

The New York Times: Should Doctors Have The Right To Withhold Care From The Sickest Coronavirus Patients?
One patient had lymphoma and heart failure. Another was 85 years old with metastatic cancer. A third was 83 and had dementia and lung disease. All were critically ill with the coronavirus, and, a doctor said, all were hooked up to ventilators in recent weeks at a major Manhattan hospital. But soon, patients such as those might not receive similar aggressive treatment. As people with the virus overwhelm New York City hospitals, doctors have stepped up pressure on state health officials to give them a rare and unsettling power: the right to withhold care from patients who are not likely to recover. (Goldstein, Rothfeld and Weiser, 4/1)

The Hill: Schumer Calls For Military Official To Act As Medical Equipment Czar 
Senate Democratic Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) on Wednesday evening called on President Trump to appoint a senior military official to serve as a czar in charge of producing and distributing medical equipment, arguing that Trump’s coronavirus task force is not up to the job. “There's a dramatic shortage of all the needed supplies or most of them, whether it's masks, whether it's [Personal Protective Equipment] PPE ... whether it's ventilators. And we have no one really in charge," Schumer said in an interview with CNN’s Erin Burnett. "We have this awful spectacle of governors bidding against one another." (Bolton, 4/1)

The New York Times: Coronavirus In L.A. County: Can Hospitals Handle A Surge Of Cases?
One is a top-ranked research hospital in West Los Angeles, with buildings named after Steven Spielberg and Barbra Streisand. Its hallways are hung with works by Picasso, Miro and Warhol, part of a 4,000-piece collection of donated art. Hollywood celebrities and royalty vie to recover in its first-come, first-served luxury suites. The other is a community hospital in South Los Angeles, surrounded by fast-food chains, liquor stores and discount shops. It, too, is a state-of-the-art institution, albeit one with far more limited resources, serving one of Los Angeles’s most vulnerable communities, home to the working poor and the uninsured as well as homeless tent encampments, where a significant portion of the population has underlying chronic health conditions. (Becker and Arango, 4/1)

Kaiser Health News: California Hospitals Face Surge With Proven Fixes And Some Hail Marys
California’s hospitals thought they were ready for the next big disaster. They’ve retrofitted their buildings to withstand a major earthquake and  whisked patients out of danger during deadly wildfires. They’ve kept patients alive with backup generators amid sweeping power shutoffs and trained their staff to thwart would-be shooters. (Hart and Barry-Jester, 4/1)

Modern Healthcare: Tracking COVID-19 Hospital Expenses Important For Federal Funding
COVID-19 relief funding for hospitals will be coming through several government sources, so experts recommend that hospitals immediately begin tracking all their expenses and lost revenue. Hospitals could be eligible for funds through the Federal Emergency Management Agency, several funding streams set up by Congress in the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, state grants and HHS programs. Each of the funding sources can be used for different purposes, have different requirements and are likely to be audited later. (Cohrs, 4/1)

Boston Globe: A Critical Number That Is So Hard To Pin Down: Are Massachusetts Hospitals On Track To Being Overwhelmed By Coronavirus Patients? 
It is one of the key indicators of the spread of coronavirus and whether it will overwhelm our health care system: How many people are currently hospitalized with COVID-19? But right now it is impossible for the Massachusetts public to know this number, just weeks ahead of the projected peak of in-state coronavirus patients, in mid-April. (Arsenault, 4/1)

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

The New York Times: How U.S. Coronavirus Diagnoses Are Lagging Behind The Outbreak
When there were just over a dozen official recorded cases of the new coronavirus in America, at least 50 people who later tested positive were already feeling ill. By the time 50 cases were officially confirmed, at least 1,200 people had already started showing symptoms of Covid-19, the disease caused by the virus. This new picture of the U.S. coronavirus outbreak is based on data published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that estimates the date on which people who were later tested and confirmed positive for Covid-19 said they first started to experience symptoms. (Popovich, 4/1)

The Washington Post: The Scramble For The Rapid Coronavirus Tests Everybody Wants
As Abbott Laboratories began shipping its new rapid-response tests across the country Wednesday, a new flash point emerged in the nation’s handling of the pandemic: where to deploy the covid-19 diagnostics that could be one of the most effective tools in combating the outbreak. Some White House officials want to ship many of the tests, which were approved Friday and can deliver results in five to 13 minutes, to areas where there are fewer cases, such as rural states and parts of the South. (Mufson, Eilperin and Dawsey, 4/1)

CNN: The 'Game Changer' That Wasn't: Company Falsely Claimed FDA Authorization For Coronavirus Blood Test
The company claimed it would distribute the first coronavirus antibody test authorized by the US Food and Drug Administration. It promised to detect current and past infections in as little as two minutes -- with just a tiny amount of blood."This is a game changer," said the company, Bodysphere, in a statement on Tuesday. It promised to deliver millions of test kits within weeks... But on Wednesday, D'Anne Mica, a Bodysphere spokesperson, said "there was a misunderstanding" and acknowledged that the FDA never issued the emergency authorization.

The Hill: Fauci: Improved Testing And Tracing Can Help Reopen Country 
Dr. Anthony Fauci said Wednesday that improved coronavirus testing and tracing of infected people's contacts will help the country eventually be able to ease up on measures such as stay-at-home orders. Fauci, a top official at the National Institutes of Health, said during a White House briefing that he would like to see enough capacity to test a wide range of people and the ability to determine who those that test positive have been in contact with. (Sullivan, 4/1)

The Wall Street Journal: Coronavirus Tests Aren’t Hard To Find Everywhere
While many Americans with coronavirus symptoms struggle to get tested due to restrictive criteria and limited availability, June Bivins found it surprisingly simple. “Easier than getting a regular doctor’s appointment,” Ms. Bivins said of her experience getting tested last week in Roseville, Calif. The 60-year-old software sales rep visited a drive-through testing site that was part of a program run by the nearby University of California, Davis, School of Medicine. (Paul and Lazo, 4/1)

CIDRAP: Experts Question Practicality Of Testing In COVID-19 Response
As the country now looks to Apr 30 as a tentative expiration date on nationwide physical distancing measures, public health experts have started publishing roadmaps and guidelines meant to direct reopening society in the face of the novel coronavirus pandemic. These projections, though, hinge on widespread testing, which can help determine who has had the virus, who should remain quarantined, and who is at risk for infection. In theory, these roadmaps, which are often presented in stages, would help open up society safely. (Soucheray, 4/1)

The Wall Street Journal: Some Nations Look To Mass Testing For Faster Way Out Of Coronavirus Crisis
Some Western governments are turning to mass testing for the new coronavirus, hoping that quickly isolating more new carriers could halt its spread and allow the gradual reopening of stores, offices and factories. With the economic cost of lockdowns rising and only faint signs of a slowdown in infections, officials and scientists in Europe, following the example of South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan, are advocating the new approach. (Pancevski, 4/1)

The Wall Street Journal: Japan, Bucking Consensus, Says Limited Coronavirus Testing Is Enough
At a time when the World Health Organization and many countries are pushing to “test, test, test” to help stop the coronavirus pandemic, Japan is swimming against the tide. The country is limiting tests for the new coronavirus to the most vulnerable and at-risk people, reasoning that this provides a good-enough picture of how the disease is progressing. Japan’s testing frequency stands at less than 6% of widely praised aggressive screeners such as Singapore and South Korea—yet it has yet to experience the explosive rise in cases that is supposed to result from limited testing. (Dvorak and Inada, 4/2)

And more news on how the virus is spread —

Stat: New Digital Tools Could Speed Up Covid-19 Contact Tracing 
Every strategy for releasing Covid-19’s vise-grip on daily life starts with identifying cases and tracing their contacts — the laborious task of public health workers tracking down people who have crossed paths with a newly diagnosed patient, so they can be quarantined well before they show symptoms. That typically takes three days per new case, an insurmountable hurdle in the U.S., with its low numbers of public health workers and tens of thousands of new cases every day. Existing digital tools, however, using cellphone location data and an app for self-reporting positive test results, could make the impossible possible, the authors of a new analysis argue. (Begley, 4/2)

ABC News: Researchers Investigate Whether Wearable Apps Could Unveil Hidden Coronavirus Cases 
As health officials were confronted this week with the possibility that as many as one in four people who have the novel coronavirus may not show symptoms, researchers are investigating whether subtle hints from wearable wellness devices could help identify asymptomatic cases -- a critical advantage in the race to trace the virus's spread. The gadgets -- most commonly bracelets and rings -- track users’ physiological metrics, from sleep cycles to heart rate, and report the data back to a corresponding smart phone app. While at present those metrics remain untested by independent researchers, Dr. John Brownstein told ABC News the data gathered by the devices could someday help unveil otherwise hidden cases. (Bruggeman, 4/2)

ProPublica: What We Need To Understand About Asymptomatic Carriers If We’re Going To Beat Coronavirus
In the early days of the coronavirus outbreak in the U.S., around the last week of February, I joked to a colleague that maybe now, finally, people would learn how to wash their hands properly. My remark revealed a naive assumption I had at the time, which was that all we needed to do to keep the novel coronavirus contained was follow a few simple guidelines: stay home when symptomatic and maintain good personal hygiene. The problem, I thought, was that nobody was following the rules. (Chen, 4/2)

ABC News: What We Know And Don't About Asymptomatic Transmission And Coronavirus 
With new stories emerging about the rapid spread of COVID-19, public health experts are now warning the public to stay inside even if they feel healthy. The reason? You may be an asymptomatic carrier. "Asymptomatic transmission means you can be infected with the virus, have no symptoms and still be contagious," Dr. William Schaffner, professor of preventive medicine and infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, told ABC News. (Baldwin and Salzman, 4/1)

ABC News: If Concerned About 'False Negative' Coronavirus Test, Self-Quarantine Anyway: Experts 
When New Orleans freelance writer Sarah Netter first started coughing and showing a fever, her thoughts gravitated to the coronavirus outbreak that was starting to gain a foothold in the United States. When her breathing labored and her chest hurt, she became more convinced that these were the symptoms virus patients were consistently describing. But then she was tested. The result: negative. Her doctor, she said, was “stunned.” Netter, a former ABC News producer, and her doctor remain unconvinced. (Dukakis, Tatum and Mosk, 4/1)

ProPublica: New York Wants Health Workers To Join The Fight Against COVID-19. Will It Pick Up Their Medical Bills If They Get Sick?
As patients infected with the novel coronavirus begin to overwhelm hospitals in parts of the country, and more medical staff become ill, states are asking retirees, recent medical school graduates and other health professionals to step into the breach. New York City, the current epicenter of the pandemic with more than 44,915 cases, is recruiting medical volunteers with exhortations that recall World War I and World War II-era posters, “We want you for medical work now.” (Campbell and Buford, 4/1)

The Associated Press: Call For Virus Volunteers Yields Army Of Health Care Workers
The work is exhausting and dangerous, the situation bleak. But an army of health care workers heeded New York’s call for help reinforcing hospitals overwhelmed by the coronavirus pandemic. So far, at least 82,000 people have volunteered for the state’s reserve force of medical workers — a group that includes recent retirees returning to work, health care professionals who can take a break from their regular jobs and people between gigs, according to health officials. (Neumeister and Villeneuve, 4/2)

NBC News: NYC Medical Workers Treating Coronavirus Describe Fear, Confusion With Protective Equipment Rationed
Medical workers at New York City hospitals describe fear, desperation and confusion as the coronavirus creates chaos in the health care system, with facilities rationing protective equipment and changing the playbook in unprecedented ways. "You have all these things that keep changing every single day," said a medical resident who works at multiple public hospitals in Brooklyn. "It's very terrifying to be flying the plane at the same time you're building it." (Silva, 4/1)

ProPublica: 'I’m Terrified': Pregnant Health Care Workers At Risk For Coronavirus Are Being Forced To Keep Working
Pregnant nurses and doctors say they are being forced to go to work with no formal accommodations or extra protections to keep them safe from the coronavirus, even though they are immunocompromised and data is still emerging about the risks of fetal transmission. Dozens of pregnant medical workers reached out to ProPublica, saying they were weighing whether to stay in jobs they view as dangerous or quit, which could add to the burdens of their beleaguered colleagues. (Martin and Yeung, 4/1)

WBUR: Doctors Say Hospitals Are Stopping Them From Wearing Masks 
Buckalew's account lays bare tensions between some hospital systems and health care workers on the front lines of this disease. Many doctors, nurses and other hospital workers say they don't feel protected and are afraid in the midst of a shortage of masks and other protective gear. Some are bringing their own supplies donated by friends and family or purchased at hardware stores. (Fadel, 4/2)

The Hill: Esper: Military Personnel Could Help Treat Coronavirus Patients 'If Push Comes To Shove' 
Military personnel deployed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) are not planning to assist with treatment of coronavirus patients barring a change in circumstances, Defense Secretary Mark Esper said Wednesday. Thousands of members of the armed forces, including the National Guard and Army Corps of Engineers, have scattered across the country to provide assistance in the country's response to the virus. But Esper said the military will not be treating coronavirus patients unless "push comes to shove," asserting the Pentagon's resources are better used building hospitals and treating trauma patients to lighten the load on hospitals. (Samuels, 4/1)

WBUR: Schumer Calls For Hazard Pay For Frontline Workers In Coronavirus Fight 
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer says he told President Trump on Wednesday that the United States should grant hazard pay — additional pay for hazardous duty — to frontline federal employees responding to the coronavirus pandemic. Speaking to NPR's Mary Louise Kelly, the New York Democrat also said there will be another coronavirus relief package, and that legislation should require hazard pay for all frontline workers like nurses, doctors and first responders. (Gringlas, 4/1)

Philadelphia Inquirer: Here Are The Items Hospitals Need Most Right Now, And How You Can Donate
With medical workers facing a shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE), some health organizations are accepting donations of the materials they need to keep staff safe and treat patients during the coronavirus pandemic. That list of equipment includes items like eye protection, gowns, and face masks and N95 respirators, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Vadala, 4/1)

Fox News: New England Patriots Send Plane To China, Get 1.2 Million N95 Masks For Massachusetts
The New England Patriots appeared to answer the calls for help as Massachusetts became the latest state to struggle with supply shortages amid the coronavirus pandemic. Patriots team owner Robert Kraft sent the organization’s private plane to China to pick up much-needed protective equipment for medical workers in the state, according to multiple reports. The plane is set to land at Logan Airport on Thursday and will be greeted by Gov. Charlie Baker, Politico reported. (4/2)

Houston Chronicle: Houston ER Nurse Lacking Proper Protection Is Now Fighting For His Life
Hospital administrations have previously said they were merely following CDC guidelines that allowed restricted use of personal protective equipment to better conserve supplies against the gathering storm. In recent days, though, hospital systems across Houston began revising policies so in most cases anyone involved in patient care or who works in patient areas now are to wear masks. Some institutions, though, continue to restrict the use of certain protective gear. (Deam, 4/1)

New Orleans Times-Picayune: New Orleans Nurse Who Died From Coronavirus Was The 'Backbone' For Nurses, Friends Say 
A New Orleans-area nurse on the front lines of treating patients with coronavirus — and who contracted the virus herself — has died amid the pandemic, the first coronavirus-related death of a local health care worker that a hospital has publicly announced thus far. Larrice Anderson, a nurse at New Orleans East Hospital, tested positive for coronavirus and died this week, LCMC Health announced Wednesday afternoon. (Gallo and Woodruff, 4/1)

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Coronavirus In Milwaukee: Ascension Hospital Cleaners Quit Over PPE
At least four housekeepers who clean hospital rooms at Ascension St. Francis Hospital on Milwaukee’s south side have quit in the last two weeks, and others are threatening to leave, over allegations they are not being provided proper protective gear. Employed by TouchPoint, a contractor for Ascension, the housekeepers say they were told to clean rooms where COVID-19 patients were being treated, or had been prior to discharge, while each was supplied with only a single mask to wear throughout their shifts. (Rutledge, 4/1)

The Wall Street Journal: Democrats Push To Address Infrastructure In Fourth Coronavirus Stimulus Package
House Democratic leaders said they would push for a five-year $760 billion infrastructure plan that they unveiled earlier this year to be part of the next coronavirus stimulus package, saying that a broad plan would provide jobs and spur economic activity. That figure is in line with President Trump’s $2 trillion plan for a 10-year infrastructure bill, Democrats said, because they also want to give more funding to public housing and schools. President Trump hasn’t released a written infrastructure plan, though he has consistently called for widespread funding to rebuild the nation’s highways and airports. He reiterated that call on Wednesday at his daily press conference. (Andrews, 4/1)

The Washington Post: Pelosi Should ‘Stand Down’ On Passing Another Rescue Bill In House, McConnell Says
One week after the Senate unanimously passed a $2 trillion emergency relief bill aimed at limiting the financial trauma from the coronavirus pandemic, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said he would move slowly on considering any follow-up legislation and would ignore the latest efforts by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to jump-start talks. (Costa, 4/1)

Politico: Republicans Reject Pelosi's Rapid Push For Next Rescue Package
At a minimum, senior GOP lawmakers argued, Congress should see how the $2 trillion bill passed last week affects the economy and health care system. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell put it this way Wednesday: “We may need a Phase Four, but we're not even fully into Phase Three yet.” “It’s fine to start talking about it, but it’s not going to be effective until we have the health care crisis under control,” Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) said in an interview. “The immediate need is dealing with the corona crisis because if that’s not dealt with, the economic free fall will continue.” (Everett, Levine and Ferris, 4/1)

Politico: Wall Street Titans Lobby For A Cut Of Small Business Bailout
Some of the richest firms in the business world — private equity companies and venture capitalists — are lobbying for their piece of the coronavirus bailout. Groups representing the firms are urging the Trump administration to let businesses that they own apply for $350 billion in small business loans that Congress unleashed last week. (Warmbrodt, 4/1)

Reuters: Exclusive: Top U.S. Banks May Shun Small-Business Rescue Plan On Liability Worries - Sources
Top U.S. banks have threatened to give the federal government’s small-business rescue program a miss on concerns about taking on too much financial and legal risk, five people with direct knowledge of industry discussions told Reuters. (Schroeder and Henry, 4/1)

The Washington Post: Social Security Recipients Who Don’t Usually File Tax Returns Will Automatically Get $1,200 Payments, Treasury Says
The Treasury announced late Wednesday that Social Security beneficiaries who typically do not file a tax return will automatically get the $1,200 payment. The announcement is a reversal from earlier in the week when the Internal Revenue Service said everyone would need to file some sort of tax return in order to qualify for the payments. Democrats and some Republicans criticized the IRS for requiring so many extra hurdles for this vulnerable population to get aid when the government already has their information on file. (Long, 4/1)

The Wall Street Journal: Social Security Recipients Won’t Need To File Tax Returns For Coronavirus Stimulus Payment
Congress wrote the law in a way that encouraged agencies to share information so that low-income seniors could get payments quickly and seamlessly. But the Internal Revenue Service had said this week retirees would need to file a simple tax return. “Social Security recipients who are not typically required to file a tax return need to take no action, and will receive their payment directly to their bank account,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement. (Rubin, 4/1)

In other news on lawmakers —

The New York Times: Loeffler’s Wealth Becomes A Risk As Rivals Charge She Profited On The Coronavirus
When Georgia’s governor picked Kelly Loeffler, a little-known Atlanta businesswoman, to fill the state’s vacant Senate seat late last year, her vast personal wealth and ability to fund her own campaign were top selling points for Republicans. ... Now, amid an economic crisis brought on by the coronavirus pandemic, Ms. Loeffler’s wealth is threatening to become a major political liability. She is facing questions about whether, in actively trading millions of dollars in stocks over the past couple of months, she and her husband have profited off the crisis based on information she received through her position as a senator. (Fandos, 4/1)

The New York Times: Devin Nunes Says Decision To Cancel School In California Was ‘Overkill’
The top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee this week criticized closing schools in his home state, California, as “way overkill” — even as President Trump came to a reckoning over the number of people who could die during the coronavirus pandemic. The lawmaker, Representative Devin G. Nunes, played down the gravity of the outbreak during a Tuesday night appearance on Fox News. “Look, the schools were just canceled out here in California, which is way overkill,” Mr. Nunes said. “It’s possible kids could have went back to school in two weeks to four weeks, but they just canceled the rest of the schools.” (Vigdor, 4/1)

The New York Times: Coronavirus In Florida: Governor Finally Orders Residents To Stay Home
Florida’s coronavirus cases kept ballooning, especially in the dense neighborhoods of Miami and Fort Lauderdale. Hospitals in Fort Myers and Naples begged for donations of masks and other protective equipment. Young people started to die. And still, Gov. Ron DeSantis resisted. The man entrusted with keeping many of the country’s grandparents safe did not want to dictate that all Floridians had to stay at home. What it took for Mr. DeSantis to change his mind on Wednesday and finally issue a statewide order were a phone call with President Trump and a grave reckoning. A day earlier, the White House had projected how many American lives might be lost — up to 240,000 — without a national commitment to immediate, drastic action in every state. (Mazzei and Haberman, 4/1)

Kaiser Health News: Under Pressure, Florida Governor Finally Orders Residents To Stay Home
For more than a week, DeSantis said a statewide order was unnecessary because many parts of the state ― particularly large swaths of central and northern Florida — had few if any cases. When asked about the issue Tuesday, the governor said he wasn’t issuing an order because he had not been told by the White House coronavirus task force that an order was necessary. (Galewitz, 4/1)

The Wall Street Journal: Florida Issues Statewide Limits As U.S. Coronavirus Cases Mount
Florida, with over 6,700 confirmed cases of the new coronavirus, was alone among states with large numbers of infections in not doing so. Mr. DeSantis said he reached the decision after consulting with President Trump’s coronavirus task force. “At this point, I think even though there’s a lot of places in Florida that have very low infection rates, it makes sense to make this move now,” Mr. DeSantis said. Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves, a Republican, Nevada Gov. Stephen Sisolak, a Democrat, and Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican, made public similar orders. (Ansari, Dvorak and Hannon, 4/1)

Politico: Aiming While Blind: DeSantis 'Targets' Coronavirus With Insufficient Data
Florida’s coronavirus test rates lag behind the national average. Its caseloads are exploding by the day. And a chorus of experts predict the state is on the cusp of a crippling contagion. It all became too much for Gov. Ron DeSantis to ignore Wednesday, when he finally announced a statewide shelter-in-place order to stop the spread of the disease — a reversal from his “targeted” approach that local governments should make their own decisions. (Caputo and Dixon, 4/1)

Reuters: Most Americans Huddle Indoors As Coronavirus Deaths Keep Spiking
Four new states imposed sweeping stay-at-home directives on Wednesday in response to the coronavirus pandemic, putting over 80% of Americans under lockdown as the number of deaths in the United States nearly doubled in three days. The governors of Florida, Georgia, Mississippi and Nevada each instituted the strict policies on a day when the death toll from COVID-19 shot up by 925 to more than 4,800 nationwide, with 214,000 confirmed cases, according to a Reuters tally. (Whitcomb, 4/1)

The Hill: Several States Have Yet To Issue Stay-At-Home Orders 
Twelve states have yet to issue stay-at-home orders to their residents despite a rising number of coronavirus cases and deaths across the country. The number of states that have yet to impose strict recommendations on people to stay at home is steadily decreasing, and those not doing so are likely to come under heavy pressure in the wake of new estimates from the Trump administration that as many as 240,000 people could die from the coronavirus even with heavy social distancing. (Marcos, 4/1)

Las Vegas Review-Journal: Nevada Governor Issues Stay At Home Order, Activates State National Guard 
Gov. Steve Sisolak issued a statewide stay-at-home order for Nevada’s 3 million residents Wednesday, joining 37 other states and several of America’s biggest cities in enacting a coronavirus quarantine that now extends to more than three-quarters of the U.S. population. The governor late in the day also activated the state National Guard, a move that enables the state to seek federal assistance to support the guard’s activities. Those activities include logistics around supply delivery and distribution. (Dentzer and Lochhead, 4/1)

Billings Gazette: Arrests Possible In Billings For 'Blatant' Violations Of Social Distancing 
"Blatant and egregious" violations of social distancing and isolation requirements ordered by Montana and Yellowstone County health officials could lead to arrests or citations. “I don’t want to prosecute any of my fellow residents for any of these violations,” said Yellowstone County Attorney Scott Twito during a Wednesday press conference. “But I took an oath to follow the law, and I will.”County health officer John Felton said officials have gotten reports of some people violating provisions of the stay-at-home order issued by Gov. Steve Bullock and other requirements put in place in Yellowstone County by Felton, who described stakes beyond fines or jail time. (Hoffman, 4/1)

Politico: Social Distancing Guidelines Will Likely Be In Place Beyond April, Surgeon General Says
Surgeon General Jerome Adams on Wednesday said that he thinks the federal government’s social distancing guidance will extend past the end of April, likely lengthening the period during which many Americans will be asked to stay at home to slow the spread of the coronavirus. “In my opinion, I think that in 30 days, we will still be telling the country in general that you need to practice these measures,” Adams told NBC’s “Today” show. (Forgey, 4/1)

The Hill: Surgeon General Says White House Guidelines Represent National Stay-At-Home Order 
Surgeon General Jerome Adams said Wednesday that the White House coronavirus guidelines should be interpreted as a national stay-at-home order. “My advice to America would be that these guidelines are a national stay-at-home order,” he said on NBC's "Today." (Moreno, 4/1)

The New York Times: Hobby Lobby Defies Stay-At-Home Orders By Reopening Stores, Colorado Officials Say
The arts-and-crafts chain Hobby Lobby drew a rebuke on Wednesday from Colorado officials, who said the retailer was not complying with stay-at-home orders in the state and must immediately close its stores during the coronavirus outbreak. In a cease-and-desist letter to the company, W. Eric Kuhn, the senior assistant state attorney general, wrote that it had come to the attention of the Colorado Department of Health that Hobby Lobby had reopened its stores in the state this week. (Vigdor, 4/2)

The Hill: Grand Canyon Closes Amid Coronavirus Concerns 
The Grand Canyon will close due to concerns about the safety of employees and visitors during the coronavirus outbreak. The move follows pressure on National Park Service (NPS) officials from local officials and members of Congress. A Wednesday statement from the NPS said the Grand Canyon will be closed "until further notice." (Frazin, 4/1)

The Washington Post: Social Distancing For Coronavirus Is Flattening The Curve, California And Washington Data Show
Mandatory social distancing works. The earlier the better, preliminary data from two weeks of stay-at-home orders in California and Washington show. Those states were the first to report community cases of covid-19 and also the first in the nation to mandate residents stay at home to keep physically apart. Analyses from academics and federal and local officials indicate those moves bought those communities precious time — and also may have “flattened the curve” of infections for the long haul. (Fowler, Kelly and Albergotti, 4/1)

CNN: Two Funerals And Lack Of Social Distancing: How Coronavirus Took Over One Small Georgia City 
When a retired janitor suddenly died in southern Georgia, crowds of relatives and friends flocked to a local funeral home and mourned together. Within weeks, their city was overrun by coronavirus cases. That cluster of coronavirus cases was linked to the funerals of 64-year-old Andrew J. Mitchell and another man, held in late February and early March, Dougherty County Council Chairman Chris Cohilas said. Albany, a city of roughly 75,000 people -- as well as Cohilas' county, where Albany is based -- is the latest example of how the virus has started disrupting smaller, more rural areas as much as the country's larger, urban cities. (Chavez, Barajas and Gallagher, 4/2)

The New York Times: U.S. And Europe: How Do The Outbreak Patterns Compare?
The United States now leads the world by many measures of the coronavirus outbreak, whether it’s a dubious distinction like the largest number of confirmed cases or a more positive one, like total coronavirus tests. But the United States is one of the most populous nations in the world. It might lead these measures simply because of its size, not because there’s anything unique about its coronavirus outbreak or response. (Cohn, 4/2)

Politico: D.C. Leaders Fear An Outbreak That Cripples The Country
Imagine New York City now, except with hundreds of thousands of federal workers tasked with running the nation’s response to coronavirus living there. That's where government officials and health experts across the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area fear the region is heading. The pandemic has gone easier on the capital than some other major metro areas, but it is about to hit hard, they say. And the scenario could have dangerous repercussions for the country, stifling the national response by federal employees on the front lines of fighting the virus. (Cadelago and McCaskill, 4/1)

The New York Times: 44 Texas Students Have Coronavirus After Spring Break Trip
Two weeks ago, amid the coronavirus pandemic, about 70 students from the University of Texas at Austin partied in Mexico on spring break. The students, all in their 20s, flew on a chartered plane to Cabo San Lucas, and some returned on separate commercial flights to Texas. Now, 44 of them have tested positive for the virus and are self-isolating. More students were monitored and tested on Wednesday, university officials said, after 28 initial positive tests. (Montgomery and Fernandez, 4/1)

CNN: Spring Breakers From UT Austin Who Ignored Public Health Advice Test Positive For Coronavirus 
Dozens of spring breakers from Texas boarded a plane for fun and came home with coronavirus. About 70 people in their 20s chartered a plane from Austin, Texas, to Mexico for spring break two weeks ago. They went against the advice of White House officials who asked that people avoid gathering in groups of more than 10 and nonessential air travel. Now 44 of those people have tested positive for coronavirus -- all of them University of Texas at Austin students, a university spokesman told CNN on Wednesday. (Zdanowicz, 4/1)

CNN: US Coronavirus: California Governor Gavin Newsom Appeals To 11 States That Haven't Ordered Residents To Stay Home 
Coronavirus deaths across the US have topped 5,000 and all but 11 states have issued sweeping orders for residents to stay home -- affecting nearly 90% of the country's population. "What are you waiting for? What more evidence do you need? If you think it's not going to happen to you, there are proof points all over the United States, all over the world," California Gov. Gavin Newsom said Wednesday. (Maxouris, 4/2)

Los Angeles Times: Coronavirus: California May Face 5,000 Deaths A Week
California faces 5,000 coronavirus deaths a week if the state’s stay-at-home policies are relaxed too early, a health officer in the Bay Area said Tuesday. “Some of the modeling is predicting — at the peak — up to 5,000 deaths a week throughout California,” Dr. Chris Farnitano, health officer for Contra Costa County, told his Board of Supervisors. (Lin, 4/1)

Los Angeles Times: California Coronavirus Cases Closing In On 10,000
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti on Wednesday advised the Department of Water and Power to shut off utilities to nonessential businesses violating the city’s order to close, he said at an evening news conference. The mayor’s order follows a crackdown from city prosecutors targeting businesses that have been deemed nonessential and yet have remained open for business and given more opportunities for the coronavirus to spread in Southern California. (Fry, Vives, Luna and Lin, 4/1)

Los Angeles Times: Coronavirus Pandemic Photos: Southern California Scenes
These are some of the unusual new scenes across the Southland in the age of the coronavirus outbreak. (3/31)

Stateline: Coronavirus And The States: Unaccompanied Minors Can Now Be Sent Home; Feds Relax Health Care Rules 
As the COVID-19 crisis unfolds, the Trump administration has reversed long-established protections for children from Central America found alone at the border. Unaccompanied children caught at the border may now be sent back to their home countries, despite a long-established policy that they be turned over to host families in the United States during court proceedings, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection policy sent to Stateline. (Henderson, 4/1)

Propublica/Arizona Daily Star: Intellectual Disability Service Providers Want To Protect Clients. The State Isn’t Telling Them How.
Christi Estrada has no idea when she’ll be able to visit her son again.John Estrada, 33, has autism. He lives in a government-funded group home in Tucson, Arizona. In mid-March, Christi received a call informing her that John’s house was quarantined because of fears of COVID-19. He was not allowed to go to a day program where he worked one-on-one with a care provider, participated in games, drew on his iPad and went hiking and bowling. Christi was barred from visiting. (Silverman, 4/2)

New Orleans Times-Picayune: How Many People Could Die From Coronavirus In Louisiana By May? Models Say Hundreds To Thousands
The statistical models guiding the federal government response to the coronavirus crisis offer a grim outlook for Louisiana that’s in line with warnings from Gov. John Bel Edwards who has said the worst of the crisis is still to come.But in a disaster with no modern precedent in the U.S., the models — and the charts and graphs they generate about when coronavirus cases could peak — have been among the most critical tools for leaders as they try to understand what needs to be done. (Adelson, 4/1)

Houston Chronicle: ‘There’s More People Being Infected’: Houston Area’s Coronavirus Cases Rise Steeply Past 1,000 
On March 4, authorities announced the first positive case of the new coronavirus in the Houston region. Case counts increased slowly; it took two more weeks for the area’s numbers to surpass 50. Then the daily increase started to pick up: The total number of cases passed 100 after two more days, neared 500 after another week, and, at month’s end, surpassed 1,000. Nine deaths were linked to the virus. (Foxhall and Hensley, 4/1)

Houston Chronicle: Texas Shop Selling CBD Oil Challenges County Shutdown Order And Wins 
A Central Texas city has reversed its position that a local store selling CBD oil and vaping products did not qualify as an essential business under restrictions intended to keep the COVID-19 virus from spreading. In an email sent Tuesday afternoon, the City of Beverly Hills, a small municipality surrounded by Waco, told Fatty’s Smoke Shop it could reopen so long as its clerks followed social distancing best practices. (Dexheimer, 4/2)

Las Vegas Review-Journal: COVID-19 Could Kill More Than 900 People In Nevada, A New Model Touted By White House Shows
COVID-19 could kill more than 900 people in Nevada by August, with the daily death toll peaking at 19 on April 20, according to a new model forecasting the spread of the new coronavirus.Nevada’s peak use of hospital resources could occur a day later, the model predicted as of Wednesday. By then, Nevada’s hospitals would need about 1,000 more beds than they currently have, and 305 more beds in intensive care units. (Hynes and Davidson, 4/1)

Billings Gazette: Billings Hospital's Emergency Director: Families Should Have A Plan For COVID-19 
Families should consider how they could safely quarantine a person in the residence, or whether they need to go somewhere else. How would families provide food, medication and other essentials for their quarantined loved one? What happens if the infected person has to be hospitalized or needs medical care (Kordenbrock, 4/1)

The Associated Press: Nursing Home Infections, Deaths Surge Amid Lockdown Measures
Nursing homes across the country have been in lockdown for weeks under federal orders to protect their frail, elderly residents from coronavirus, but a wave of deadly outbreaks nearly every day since suggests that the measures including a ban on visits and daily health screenings of staffers either came too late or were not rigorous enough. Recent outbreaks in Tennessee, New Jersey, Ohio, West Virginia and Maryland have pushed the death toll at the nation’s nursing homes to at least 450 and highlight the biggest gap: Screenings of doctors, nurses, aides and other workers do not involve actual testing but the taking of temperatures or asking health questions that still allow infected, asymptomatic people to slip through. (Mustian, Condon and Choi, 4/2)

Boston Globe: State Mum On Outbreaks As Coronavirus Death Toll In Nursing Homes Mounts 
Two dead at a nursing home in Norwood. Five more at a home in Revere. Six at a veterans facility in Holyoke. The death toll from coronavirus outbreaks in Massachusetts nursing homes and assisted living centers is mounting. But precisely how many outbreaks are underway at places that house the state’s most vulnerable residents — or where — is unknown, because the state so far has declined to release that information, leaving families and the public in the dark, even as the facilities block access to visitors. (Krantz, 4/1)

The Hill: Coronavirus Creates Emergency In Nursing Homes 
Nursing homes and long-term care facilities across the U.S. are facing a crisis as hundreds of elderly residents test positive for COVID-19, a disease found to be particularly lethal to older adults. The disease caused by the new coronavirus is spreading like wildfire at hundreds of elder care facilities, which are already at high risk for disease outbreaks because of close quarters, understaffing, lack of supplies and lax government oversight. (Hellmann, 4/1)

Boston Globe: Coronavirus Cases At Senior Centers And Nursing Homes In Massachusetts Are Rising: ‘It’s A Hot Zone’
One person died after contracting coronavirus at a Littleton nursing home, and at least four others connected to the facility have also tested positive, according to local officials — adding to the number of cases surging through assisted living and senior homes statewide. Thomas Clancy, Littleton’s deputy fire chief, said Wednesday his department was aware of one COVID-19-related death at the Life Care Center of Nashoba Valley, a skilled nursing facility that also offers inpatient and outpatient rehabilitation. (Stout, 4/1)

New Orleans Times-Picayune: St. John Parish, With New Nursing Home Cluster, Has Highest U.S. Coronavirus Death Rate
St. John the Baptist Parish now has the highest per-capita death rate of any county in the U.S. from the coronavirus, a grim statistic that partly owes to a significant and growing cluster of the virus in a Reserve nursing home for veterans. Officials confirmed Wednesday that at least 14 residents of the Southeast Louisiana Veterans Home have tested positive for the coronavirus, and at least four of them have died. (Russell and Warren, 4/1)

Los Angeles Times: Coronavirus: Skilled Nursing Facilities Ordered To Accept Coronavirus Patients
As fears escalate about the toll the coronavirus will take on the sick and elderly in nursing homes — who are among the most vulnerable to the deadly virus — California regulators have told skilled nursing facility operators that they must accept patients even if they have the disease. The order comes amid a fierce debate between healthcare providers. Hospitals are desperate to clear space for an expected wave of COVID-19 patients, so they are discharging as many patients as possible, including nursing home residents. (Dolan, 4/1)

ABC News: Union Demands Protection For Nursing Home Staff Amid Coronavirus Pandemic 
The union for 400,000 long–term care workers issued a plea for federal help on Wednesday to better protect the health care aides who they say are facing extreme risks as novel coronavirus has spread in dozens of nursing homes and assisted living facilities across the nation. "Our members are truly on the front lines of this crisis. They are providing vital care to the nation’s most at-risk population on a daily basis," said April Verrett, president of SEIU Local 2015. "These workers are putting themselves in harm’s way every day that they go without proper protective equipment, and that ends now." (Romero, Mosk, Pecorin and Freger, 4/2)

Boston Globe: Accusations Swirl At Holyoke Veterans Hospital, Mayor Says Coronavirus Outbreak Was Kept Secret Even As Death Toll Rose
The anonymous tip landed Saturday in Holyoke Mayor Alex Morse’s office, a phone complaint about unhealthy conditions at the Soldiers’ Home, a hilltop complex where veterans go for walk-in medicine, long-term care, and occasionally to die in hospice among their comrades. A nurse with the city’s health board called the Soldiers’ Home that day but got no response. The next day, Morse reached out directly to Bennett Walsh, the facility’s superintendent, and received the devastating news. The coronavirus outbreak had descended upon the 68-year-old complex, and veterans were dying rapidly. They had been dying since the first of the month, and on Tuesday the toll reached 13 fatalities, with at least six due to the virus. Pending tests could show a link to others of the dead, as well. (MacQuarrie, Martin, Stout and Krueger, 3/31)

The Wall Street Journal: Massachusetts Investigates Coronavirus Outbreak At Veterans’ Home
Former federal prosecutor Mark Pearlstein will lead an independent probe into the deaths at the state-funded facility, Gov. Charlie Baker said Wednesday. State officials say they didn’t know about the outbreak until Sunday night and that the facility’s administrator has been put on paid leave. “We are going to make sure Mark and his team have access to all the services and all the people that they need access to to get to the bottom of what took place,” Mr. Baker said during a news conference Wednesday. (Kamp, 4/1)

Boston Globe: His Grief Mixed With Anger, Son Watches Father Die At Holyoke Soldiers’ Home
Patrick Plourde sat beside his father’s bed Wednesday at the Soldiers’ Home in Holyoke, his face and body covered in protective gear as he kept vigil for the inevitable. His 88-year-old father, a former Air Force master sergeant from Westfield, lay dying in a hospice ward — unconscious, on morphine, and showing symptoms of coronavirius, Patrick said in a phone interview as he watched over his father. (MacQuarrie, 4/1)

WBUR: 'It Didn't Have To Get That Bad': Veteran Service Officer Says Problems At Holyoke Soldiers' Home Go Way Back
Veterans' advocates are raising concern about the care vets are receiving at the Soldiers' Home in Holyoke. The nursing facility is run by the state Department of Veterans' Services. Thirteen veterans have died at the facility in recent days. Six are confirmed to have had COVID-19. One tested negative for the coronavirus, and the other results are pending. So far, 10 additional residents and seven staffers have tested positive. (Joliocoeur and Mullins, 3/31)

Boston Globe: Soldiers Homes Sprung From National Effort To Care For Wounded, Aged Veterans 
Perched atop Cherry Hill in Holyoke, it’s a landmark for drivers along Interstate 91 — a symbol of “care and honor and dignity,” as the mission statement goes. The Holyoke Soldiers’ Home, established in 1952, rests on 23 acres on property that was valued at the time at around $3 million, according to news reports from that same year. At an opening ceremony, Governor Paul A. Dever called the home “a monument to the faith of Massachusetts for her veterans.” The state-funded home for veterans finds itself in the spotlight after officials said 13 residents had died recently, six of whom tested positive for COVID-19. (Berg, 4/1)

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Coronavirus In Wisconsin: Cases Spike As 2020 DNC In Doubt
As Wisconsin recorded its largest single-day jump in confirmed coronavirus cases, national and local leaders expressed deep doubts about staging a political convention expected to bring 50,000 people to Milwaukee this summer. Nearly 200 more positive test results for COVID-19 were reported Wednesday, pushing the total to about 1,550. At least 32 people have died from the virus as of 7 p.m. and about 26% of the total cases have led to hospitalization, health officials said. (Luthern, 4/1)

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

The Hill: Judge Slams Wisconsin Governor, Lawmakers For Not Delaying Election Amid Coronavirus Outbreak
A federal judge on Wednesday slammed Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers (D) and lawmakers for not delaying next Tuesday’s primary election amid the coronavirus pandemic. "The state of Wisconsin’s Legislature and governor are not willing to step up and say there’s a public health crisis and make it absolutely clear that we should not be allowing poll workers and voters to congregate on April 7," U.S. District Judge William Conley said near the end of a four-hour hearing, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported. (Klar, 4/1)

The New York Times: Biden Calls For Democratic Convention To Be Delayed Because Of Virus
Former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. on Wednesday night called for moving the Democratic National Convention from mid-July to August, making him the most prominent member of his party to say the convention must be rescheduled because of the coronavirus outbreak. “I doubt whether the Democratic convention is going to be able to be held in mid-July, early July,” Mr. Biden told Jimmy Fallon on “The Tonight Show.” “I think it’s going to have to move into August.” (Epstein, 4/2)

The Hill: Biden Campaign: Trump And Former Vice President Will Have Phone Call About Coronavirus 
President Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden, the leading Democratic presidential candidate, are arranging a call regarding the coronavirus pandemic, the Biden campaign said Wednesday. "Our teams will be in touch and we will arrange a call," Kate Bedingfield, Biden's deputy campaign manager, said in a statement to CNN Wednesday evening. (Klar, 4/1)

NBC News: Can Donald Trump Win Reelection Despite The Coronavirus Outbreak?
President Donald Trump's approval rating is up — a little bit. In the Real Clear Politics average of all polls, it sits now at 47.3 percent, the highest mark since he took office. There are a few ways to look at this. Certainly, it's a dramatically smaller boost than past presidents have received at the onset of crises. For that matter, it's far lower than the boost that Gov. Andrew Cuomo has gotten in New York during this crisis. (Kornacki, 4/2)

Politico: Coronavirus Puts Governors Back In Presidential Pipeline
Andrew Cuomo’s poll ratings are soaring. Jay Inslee is drawing more attention than his failed presidential campaign ever did. Gretchen Whitmer is burnishing her credentials as a possible running mate for Joe Biden. The daily split screen between President Donald Trump and the nation’s governors over the coronavirus pandemic is advancing the political fortunes of a handful of Democratic state leaders, by contrasting their management of a crisis with the president’s disjointed response to it. (Siders, 4/2)

The New York Times: Malaria Drug Helps Coronavirus Patients Improve, In Small Study
The malaria drug hydroxychloroquine helped to speed the recovery of a small number of patients who were mildly ill from the coronavirus, doctors in China reported this week. Cough, fever and pneumonia went away faster, and the disease seemed less likely to turn severe in people who received hydroxychloroquine than in a comparison group not given the drug. The authors of the report said that the medication was promising, but that more research was needed to clarify how it might work in treating coronavirus disease and to determine the best way to use it. (Grady, 4/1)

Modern Healthcare: Chicago-Area Hospitals Begin COVID-19 Drug Trial
Northwestern Medicine and the University of Illinois' health system are testing Ebola drug remdesivir in a clinical trial of hospitalized COVID-19 patients. Cook County Health is also treating hospitalized patients with remdesivir in two clinical trials sponsored by the drug manufacturer, Gilead Sciences. Cook County is treating patients with moderate COVID-19 in one study and patients with severe COVID-19 in another. (Asplund, 4/1)

In other news about treatments —

NBC News: Doctors Can't Use COVID-19 Antibodies From Gay Men Or Anyone Taking PrEP
New York City resident Sabri Ben-Achour, 39, began to feel ill on March 12 and experienced roughly 36 hours of intense symptoms: fever, aches, fatigue, cough and headache. But by March 14, Ben-Achour felt back to normal, except for one thing: Both his sense of smell and taste were gone. "I couldn't smell anything," he said. "I could literally not smell s---." He ordered from an Indian restaurant: "I asked them to make it extra salty and extra spicy, and it tasted like water." (Fitzsimons, 4/1)

The New York Times: The Coronavirus Patients Betrayed By Their Own Immune Systems
The 42-year-old man arrived at a hospital in Paris on March 17 with a fever, cough and the “ground glass opacities” in both lungs that are a trademark of infection with the new coronavirus. Two days later, his condition suddenly worsened and his oxygen levels dropped. His body, doctors suspected, was in the grip of a cytokine storm, a dangerous overreaction of the immune system. The phenomenon has become all too common in the coronavirus pandemic, but it is also pointing to potentially helpful drug treatments. (Mandavilli, 4/1)

NPR: The Logic Behind A 14-Day Quarantine After Travel Or COVID-19 Exposure
If you're one of the many people who are being asked to quarantine for a fortnight, you might be asking: Why 14 days, exactly? The answer has to do with how viruses invade cells and replicate. Once a virus infects someone — a host — it takes some time for the virus to make enough copies of itself that the host begins to shed the virus, through coughs or sneezes, for instance. (Wamsley and Simmons-Duffin, 4/1)

The Wall Street Journal: Coronavirus Seems To Be Infecting And Killing More Men Than Women
More infected men than women seem to be dying from the new coronavirus, according to data from countries hit by the pandemic, but an incomplete data set is clouding scientists’ ability to understand why. The pattern underscores the role that sex—and the associated social norms and behaviors—plays as an indicator of risk and response to infection and disease. (Camero, 4/2)

NPR: 5 Key Facts Not Explained In White House COVID-19 Projections
President Trump and his top scientific advisers on the coronavirus task force gave a much-anticipated presentation Tuesday night, laying out the data behind the president's recent shift in tone regarding the outbreak, including his decision to extend national social distancing guidelines through April 30. (Aizenman, 4/1)

The New York Times: Some Coronavirus Patients Show Signs Of Stroke, Seizures And Confusion
Neurologists around the world say that a small subset of patients with Covid-19 are developing serious impairments of the brain. Although fever, cough and difficulty breathing are the typical hallmarks of infection with the new coronavirus, some patients exhibit altered mental status, or encephalopathy, a catchall term for brain disease or dysfunction that can have many underlying causes, as well as other serious conditions. These neurological syndromes join other unusual symptoms, such as diminished sense of smell and taste as well as heart ailments. (Rabin, 4/1)

ABC News: Distillers, Lawmakers Pressure FDA To Revise Hand Sanitizer Guidelines To Permit Excise Tax Relief 
As the novel coronavirus spread across the globe and health officials implored the public to use more hand sanitizer to mitigate the potentially deadly pathogen, grocery stores and online retailers saw the product evaporate from their shelves. Desperate first responders and others on the frontlines of the battle against the pandemic grew alarmed, but in walked an unlikely savior: the booze industry, which shifted gears to churn out sanitizer using alcohol it had on hand and following a recipe approved by the World Health Organization. (Turner, 4/2)

The Washington Post: Sent Home From The Hospital With A Pneumonia Diagnosis, He Died Days Later Of Covid-19
Sterling Matthews, 60, who lived south of Richmond in Chester, Va., died Tuesday at Bon Secours St. Francis Medical Center. He first went to the hospital on March 23 seeking to be tested for the novel coronavirus, but he was told he had pneumonia and was sent home, Alice Matthews said. His health continued to deteriorate, and on Friday, he went back to St. Francis by ambulance. He was admitted and tested positive for the virus. (Vozzella, 4/1)

CNN: Dolly Parton Donates $1 Million Toward Coronavirus Research
Dolly Parton, no one can hold a candle to you. The legendary performer on Wednesday announced she was making a $1 million donation to Vanderbilt University's coronavirus research. "My longtime friend Dr. Naji Abumrad, who's been involved in research at Vanderbilt for many years, informed me that they were making some exciting advancements towards research of the coronavirus for a cure," she wrote in a statement posted to Instagram. (Gonzalez, 4/1)

CNN: We Must Prepare For What's Next: When We And Our Loved Ones Become Ill
The next phase of the Covid-19 pandemic will be extremely challenging as people we know and love come down with the disease. Some may become gravely ill and even die. But we are not powerless against the virus. We must prepare ourselves for what's ahead and have a plan, starting with ourselves and our own loved ones. (Wen, 4/1)

ABC News: Coronavirus Leads To Surge In Wills: 'Everyone Is Thinking About Their Mortality' 
Earlier this week, Tara Waters made her will. She's just 42 years old and the mother of two young children. But amid the climate of uncertainty surrounding the coronavirus pandemic that is sweeping the nation, she, like people of many ages and walks of life, is grappling with the difficult subject and not taking any chances. (Thorbecke, 4/2)

The Associated Press: Los Angeles Mayor Tells 4 Million To Wear Masks
The mayor of Los Angeles urged 4 million residents to wear masks to combat the coronavirus when they walk out in public, even as state health officials shied away from requiring a coverup. Homemade cloth masks, or even a “tucked-in bandanna,” will help reduce the spread of the COVID-19 virus in the nation’s second-largest city and remind people to practice safe social distancing, Mayor Eric Garcetti said Wednesday as he donned a black cloth mask to make his point. (Jablon, 4/2)

Los Angeles Times: Garcetti Urges L.A. To Wear Face Coverings When Doing Essential Tasks In Public
Riverside County released the new mask guidance Tuesday, covering such essential tasks as grocery shopping and medical visits. “The face coverings do not have to be hospital grade but need to cover the nose and mouth. For example, bandannas, fabric masks and neck gaiters are acceptable. Fabric covers and bandannas can be washed and used again,” the county said. (Money and Brown, 4/1)

Politico: Trump Suggests Wearing A Scarf Against Coronavirus. The CDC Isn’t So Sure.
President Donald Trump on Wednesday recommended wearing a scarf over the face to prevent the spread of coronavirus, even though the efficacy of such a measure remains unknown. Trump was asked during his daily news briefing whether he felt the public should be wearing masks when protective gear was in short supply for health care workers. The president responded that it wouldn’t hurt for the public to wear masks, but that scarves could be a perfectly suitable substitute if the wearing of masks en masse took them away from health care workers. (Choi, 4/1)

Politico: Police, Firefighters Look To Trump For Help As Masks And Gloves Go To Health Care Workers
Police, firefighters and corrections officers are urging President Donald Trump to use his emergency authority to get them gloves and masks because scarce rations of protective gear are mostly going to health care workers. The first responders are the latest group to push Trump to invoke the Defense Production Act, the Korean War-era law that gives the president the power to control distribution and force companies to prioritize the federal government’s orders. Governors and public health officials have been pleading with Trump to use the act to stop bidding wars between states amid the dire shortages of safety gear, but the president has so far only sparingly invoked it. (Ehley and Goldberg, 4/1)

The New York Times: Home Depot Halts Sales Of N95 Masks Amid Shortage, Company Says
Home Depot has ordered all 2,300 of its stores in North America to stop sales of N95 masks to try to free them up for those on the front lines of the coronavirus emergency response, the company said on Wednesday. The announcement came on the same day that President Trump said that the federal government’s stockpile of personal protective equipment had nearly been depleted by the states. (Vigdor, 4/1)

The New York Times: About 2 Million Guns Were Sold In The U.S. As Virus Fears Spread
Americans bought about two million guns in March, according to a New York Times analysis of federal data. It was the second-busiest month ever for gun sales, trailing only January 2013, just after President Barack Obama’s re-election and the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School. With some people fearful that the pandemic could lead to civil unrest, gun sales have been skyrocketing. In the past, fear of gun-buying restrictions has been the main driver of spikes in gun sales, far surpassing the effects of mass shootings and terrorist attacks alone. (Collins and Yaffe-Bellany, 4/1)

The Washington Post: As More States Look To Ban Abortion During Pandemic, Legal Battles Erupt Nationwide
A growing number of states are seeking to ban abortion during the current coronavirus-related public health emergency by classifying it as an unnecessary medical procedure, sparking legal battles nationwide. A federal appeals court ruled this week that Texas, one of the first states to enact such a ban, can temporarily prohibit abortions from taking place. The ruling came fewer than 24 hours after a federal judge in Austin lifted the statewide restriction on abortions that went into effect after Gov. Greg Abbott (R) signed an executive order March 22 halting all procedures that were not "immediately medical necessary" to save a life. (Hernandez and Barnes, 4/1)

CNN: Women Are Using Code Words At Pharmacies To Escape Domestic Violence 
On Sunday, a woman walked into a pharmacy in the French city of Nancy, one of the few public places still open after the government imposed a nationwide lockdown to prevent the spread of a dangerous virus. But the woman wasn't there for medicine; she was there to tell the pharmacist that her partner had abused her. Soon after, the woman's spouse was arrested by police. (Kottasova and Di Donato, 4/2)

NBC News: Foster Kids Who Can't Visit Parents Are Struggling Under Coronavirus Isolation, Advocates Say
A typical morning for Arnie Eby begins at 6 a.m. He and his wife, Donna, fix breakfast for their four adopted kids and three foster children, then check their backpacks and pack lunch boxes. Once his wife heads to work as the health manager of a local Head Start program, he sees the children onto five different school buses and then sits down for a cup of coffee. (Radnofsky, 4/2)

Los Angeles Times: Coronavirus Outbreak Creates Addiction Recovery Challenges
Charlie Campbell has been sober nearly 13 years. These days, it’s harder than ever for him to stay that way. His dad is recovering from COVID-19 in a suburban Seattle hospital. His mom, who has dementia, lives in a facility that now bars visitors because of the coronavirus. A good friend recently killed himself. (4/1)

Los Angeles Times: As The Coronavirus Spreads In Ecuador, Bodies Are Being Left On Streets
The corpses have been overwhelming Guayaquil, a port city of 2.8 million at the epicenter of the coronavirus crisis in Ecuador. Over the last few days, several were wrapped in plastic and left on the streets. Others have lain unclaimed in hospitals and clinics that have been overwhelmed by infections. The city morgue is full. (Viteri and Kraul, 4/1)

The Wall Street Journal: In Developing World, Coronavirus Slams Workers In Informal Economy
Life has never been easy, said Zuleidy Carrasco, but she and her husband on a good day could earn enough money to cover the room they share with two small children and pay for the family’s meals.Until now. With Colombia and a growing part of the developing world in lockdown, Ms. Carrasco, a gangly 31, and her husband, Hector Brisuela, 24, cannot work or even venture outside. They are quickly running out of food and their landlord wants them to leave over unpaid rent. Twelve days remain before Colombia’s quarantine ends. (Forero, 4/2)

NBC News: WHO Concerned By 'Rapid Escalation' Of Coronavirus, As U.S. Death Toll Nears 5,000
The head of the World Health Organization has voiced deep concern over the “rapid escalation” and global spread of the new coronavirus pandemic, as the United States nears a grim milestone of 5,000 deaths. “Over the past five weeks, we have witnessed a near exponential growth in the number of new cases, reaching almost every country, territory and area,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesuss told a virtual news conference at the organisation's Geneva headquarters on Wednesday. (Smith, 4/2)

The Associated Press: Chinese Smartphone Health Code Rules Post-Virus Life
Since the coronavirus outbreak, life in China is ruled by a green symbol on a smartphone screen.Green is the “health code” that says a user is symptom-free and it’s required to board a subway, check into a hotel or just enter Wuhan, the central city of 11 million people where the pandemic began in December. The system is made possible by the Chinese public’s almost universal adoption of smartphones and the ruling Communist Party’s embrace of “Big Data” to extend its surveillance and control over society. (4/2)

Politico: G-20 Prepares Coronavirus Rescue Package For Africa
A group of G-20 leaders are preparing an international response to the impact of the coronavirus crisis in Africa that would include debt relief and financial aid, African officials and European diplomats said. A comprehensive package supported by countries including France and Italy would incorporate recent demands from President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa and Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed of Ethiopia, who have called on the world’s most industrialized countries to support the continent through the economic downturn caused by the pandemic. (Marks, 4/1)

The New York Times: France Tries Limiting Joblessness To Confront Coronavirus Recession
When France started shutting down a few weeks ago as the coronavirus marched relentlessly into the country, Dominique Paul feared disaster. His family’s white-glove catering company, Groupe Butard, halted operations, putting 190 jobs at risk. Edward Arkwright, the director general of Aéroports de Paris, the Paris airport operator, weighed how to preserve over 140,000 jobs when a freeze on most global airline traffic caused activity to nose-dive 90 percent in a few head-spinning days. (Alderman, 4/1)

The Associated Press: Reporting For Duty: Airline Crew Sign Up To Help Hospitals
Filip Palmgren had wanted to work on planes since he was a child. Now, after just two years as a flight attendant, the 21-year old has lost his job because of the coronavirus crisis and will be soon heading to work in a hospital instead to help save patients. He is part of a first group of 30 laid-off employees of Scandinavian Airlines who have started training this week to learn basic skills to assist in nursing homes and hospitals currently overwhelmed by a surging number of patients and ill medical staff. (Keyton, 4/1)

Stat: Neurological Drugs Are Hard. Two Companies Bet ‘Chemogenetics’ Can Help
For years, pharmaceutical companies have cut back on drug development that targeted neurological conditions. After trials and failures in dementia, depression, and epilepsy, companies learned that finding medicines that might work well in the brain is a very hard, very risky, and very expensive proposition. But two startups on opposite sides of the country believe they’ve found a shortcut — and have convinced venture capital firms to give them tens of millions of dollars so they can test it. (Sheridan, 4/2)

Stat: FDA Asks Manufacturers To Recall Heartburn Drugs Over Traces Of Possible Carcinogen
After months of deliberation, the Food and Drug Administration has asked all manufacturers of a particular heartburn medicine known as ranitidine, sold under several brands including Zantac, to withdraw their drugs because “unacceptable levels” of a possible carcinogen may develop in the pills over time. Specifically, the agency determined that levels of NDMA, an organic chemical that was once used to make rocket fuel and is an unintended byproduct of certain chemical reactions, may gradually increase and can increase significantly when stored in higher heat than room temperature. (Ed Silverman, 4/1)

The Associated Press: FDA Wants Heartburn Meds Off The Market Due To Contamination
The move from the Food and Drug Administration Wednesday applies to all prescription and over-the-counter versions of ranitidine, best known by the brand name Zantac. The drugs are widely used to treat stomach acid and ulcers. Patients should stop taking any of the medications they currently have and throw them away, the FDA said. (Perrone, 4/1)

Stat: FDA Warns Pfizer Over Another Former Hospira Plant 
Amid ongoing concerns over the pharmaceutical supply chain, the Food and Drug Administration has issued numerous warning letters to domestic drug makers in India about manufacturing issues. But even global companies running plants there are not immune from problems. On March 25, the agency warned Pfizer (PFE) of signification violations at its Hospira facility in Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh, which makes sterile injectable medicines. The issues involved a failure to adequately investigate various manufacturing deficiencies and an inability to ensure the accuracy and integrity of data to support the safety, effectiveness, and quality of the drugs made there. (Ed Silverman, 4/1)

Stat: Biotech Scorecard For The Second Quarter: 18 Stock-Moving Events To Watch
Here is STAT’s Biotech Scorecard, our regular ledger of stock-moving biotech events, for the second quarter — with an asterisk shaped like the novel coronavirus. You may have heard something about a global, all-hands push to develop new medicines to treat Covid-19. This work will extend way beyond the second quarter, but the first (and therefore most highly anticipated) effort is expected to read out Phase 3 results in the next few weeks. All eyes will be on Gilead Sciences, which hopes to show that intravenously infused doses of the antiviral drug remdesivir are safe for patients and effective against Covid-19. (Feuerstein, 4/1)

American Academy Of Pediatrics: Antibiotic Use And Outcomes In Children In The Emergency Department With Suspected Pneumonia
Antibiotic therapy is often prescribed for suspected community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) in children despite a lack of knowledge of causative pathogen. Our objective in this study was to investigate the association between antibiotic prescription and treatment failure in children with suspected CAP who are discharged from the hospital emergency department (ED). (Lipshaw et al, 4/1)

CIDRAP: Review Supports Oral Step-Down Antibiotics For Heart Infections
A review of published research going back nearly 70 years suggests oral antibiotic step-down therapy is at least as effective as intravenous (IV)-only antibiotics for treating infective endocarditis (IE), US researchers reported today in JAMA Internal Medicine. The review identified 21 observational or quasi-experimental studies and three randomized controlled trials (RCTs) that focused on the effectiveness of antibiotics administered orally for part of the therapeutic course in patients with IE. (3/30)

JAMA Internal Medicine: Comparison Of Priority Vs Standard US Food And Drug Administration Premarket Approval Review For High-Risk Medical Devices 
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) requires that high-risk (class III) medical devices undergo premarket approval (PMA) review, the most stringent path through which devices enter the market. Since 1994, in an effort to enable breakthrough technology to reach market faster, the FDA has also offered priority review. There is a paucity of data on the speed and effectiveness of regulatory review in these expedited pathways. We compared priority vs standard PMA review with regard to review times, device recalls, and adverse events. (Ong et al, 3/30)

CIDRAP: Study Ties Kids' MRSA Skin Infections To Household Colonization
A study of 150 households has found that recurrent methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus skin and other soft-tissue infections (MRSA SSTIs) may be associated with persistent MRSA colonization of household members and contamination of environmental surfaces, US researchers reported yesterday in JAMA Pediatrics. (3/31)

CNN: Men With Erectile Dysfunction May Face A Higher Risk Of Heart Disease And Early Death, Study Says 
Erectile dysfunction isn't just an issue in the bedroom. It could also be an indication of a man's risk for heart disease and early death. And this holds true, a new study says, regardless of a man's testosterone levels. Erectile dysfunction is defined as the inability to get or maintain an erection long enough to have sex, and it's a common condition affecting nearly 30 million American men, according to Harvard Medical School. (Rogers, 3/31)

Politico: Coronavirus Vs. Governors: Ranking The Best And Worst State Leaders
Sometimes, it takes a national crisis to change what’s fashionable in politics. A pandemic erupts, and suddenly, experts-be-damned populism loses some of its allure. A record of sober technocratic experience becomes an asset instead of an albatross. And after many years of being relegated to the cheap seats, America’s governors have been thrust into the spotlight. With President Donald Trump largely unable or unwilling to play the part of a national unifier or to take decisive action to curb the spread of the coronavirus, the leadership we normally expect from the Oval Office has instead come from state executives throughout the nation — or not. (Bill Scher, 4/1)

Los Angeles Times: U.S. Government Has Focused On The Wrong Threats
For the last two decades, Washington has focused on preventing 9/11-style attacks, considering that to be our most urgent national security concern. But the latest threat to American life has come not from a terrorist with a dirty bomb, or from “rogue states” like North Korea or Iran but, rather, from a microbe too small to see. Expanding the focus of national security to encompass the broad array of internal and external dangers actually facing us won’t be easy. But the lesson of the COVID-19 pandemic is that the United States has been myopic in understanding what counts as a priority threat.It now seems abundantly apparent that rather than building hospitals in Afghanistan, we should have focused on producing masks and ventilators here at home. Rather than building schools in Iraq, we should have invested in scientific breakthroughs to treat disease. (Rajan Menon and William Ruger, 4/2)

The Washington Post: Clemency Of Certain Prisoners Could Slow The Spread Of Coronavirus.
Under normal circumstances, jails and prisons are horrible places. The incarcerated housed in them are sitting ducks for contagion. So when a public health emergency such as covid-19 sweeps the globe, penal institutions can become incubators for pandemics. Just last weekend, the Federal Bureau of Prisons announced the first death of a federal inmate due to the disease. Meanwhile, local jails such as the overcrowded facilities on Rikers Island in New York are dealing with a coronavirus outbreak among the incarcerated and the staff. What advocates have long feared is only going to get worse unless President Trump and governors step in. (Jonathan Capehart, 4/1)

Los Angeles Times: The DOJ Just Made It Too Easy To Link Coronavirus To Terrorism
The Department of Justice sent out a memo last week with this arresting detail: Prosecutors around the country should consider coronavirus as a “biological agent,” and therefore charge certain acts related to COVID-19 as federal crimes of terrorism. As a former U.S. prosecutor, I have no quarrel with the department’s being able to “make a federal crime” of the worst conduct that we may see with the virus. Among other things, it gives the country a hook to bring federal resources to bear on cases that for whatever reason may be difficult for states to bring. But the general idea of viewing the coronavirus as a “biological agent” akin to anthrax or botulism, and its “possession” or transmission as a crime of terrorism, is as novel as the virus and it carries its own exponential dangers. (Harry Litman, 4/2)

CNN: Trump's Covid-19 Lapse Gives China An Opening
Americans know all too well the adverse impact of the Covid-19 pandemic right here at home: the lost lives, the gravely ill, the overwhelmed hospitals, the severe economic downturn and spiking numbers of unemployed, the social isolation. But they should also recognize that the pandemic is doing significant harm to the nation's influence and image abroad. Countries around the world still look to the United States to provide global leadership. When it comes to Covid-19, however, Washington has been missing in action, dealing the United States a self-inflicted wound. (Charles Kupchan, 4/2)

Miami Herald: Governor Finally Tells Floridians To Stay At Home Due To COVID-19 
We’ve wanted so much to say, “Good job, Gov. DeSantis! You’ve been on top of Florida’s coronavirus pandemic since the very start!” But now that DeSantis has issued a 30-day statewide stay-at-home order for all but those seeking essential services, we’ll just say: “Finally.” (4/1)

Austin Statesman: Whatever Abbott Calls It, Stay Home If You Can
We are facing a public health emergency. Texans need to hear a clear message: Stay home unless you absolutely need to go out. Gov. Greg Abbott provided a muddled version of that mandate Tuesday. His latest executive order tells Texans to minimize contact with other people unless they are providing or receiving “essential services,” such as going to the grocery store or pharmacy, seeing a doctor, taking a jog or going to work at a critical job that can’t be done from home. (3/31)

Dallas Morning News: Gov. Abbott Must Clarify His Coronavirus Order To End Confusion
The first thing we’ll say about Gov. Greg Abbott is that he’s moving in the right direction to expand social distancing requirements and limit activities to essential service work statewide. But the governor’s latest order also risks creating confusion because of his reluctance to adopt the clear and important language that represents the best defense we have now to prevent exponential spread of the virus — stay home. (4/1)

The Detroit News: Detroit's Recovery Set Back By Pandemic
The coronavirus that has upended our daily lives isn’t going to last forever, even as Detroit becomes one of the most prominent places nationally where the pandemic is taking its toll. News of the TCF Center in downtown Detroit, formerly Cobo Center, being retrofitted into an overflow hospital to attend would-be victims of this public health disaster underscores how dreadful things are right now. But when we look at the havoc the pandemic is wreaking on the city, the question remains: How much impact will COVID-19 have on Detroit, a city that has touted an economic recovery yet has been challenged by extreme poverty? (Bankole Thompson, 4/1)

CNN: States Need Billions To Ensure Safe Elections
Over the weekend, New York joined Delaware and Pennsylvania as the latest states to move their primaries to June in light of the coronavirus pandemic. Meanwhile, the territory of Puerto Rico, which had already moved its primary to late April, now finds itself less than a month away from holding an election, pending another postponement. While a few weeks may seem like an eternity in the midst of a pandemic whose impact is growing by the hour, it leaves little time for state officials to implement emergency plans to administer fair, free and accurate elections in this crisis. (Katie Hobbs and Kim Wyman, 3/31)

Boston Globe: In The Midst Of The Coronavirus Pandemic, We Must Have Those Serious Illness Conversations 
The COVID-19 crisis is forcing a lot of uncomfortable conversations, often ones that should have happened long ago but that we’ve put off for one reason or another. Among those is a difficult conversation you may need to have with your doctor — and soon. The medical term is “serious illness conversation”: A patient with a chronic or life-shortening condition talks with their clinician about their understanding of their illness and prognosis as well as their hopes, fears, and values. The goal is for both parties to arrive at a shared understanding of patients’ priorities for living and how those priorities might change when they become more sick. (Daniel M. Horn and Juliet Jacobsen, 4/1)

Stat: If Rationing Occurs, Doctors Shouldn't Have To Decide For Their Patients
Medical school didn’t teach me how to decide which of my patients should live and which should die if it becomes rationing of medical equipment or treatment becomes necessary. But I’ve spent most of my time recently planning for the possibility that my colleagues and I may need to make precisely that decision. (Kelly Michelson, 4/2)

CNN: The Ethical Minefield Of Prioritizing Health Care For Some With Covid-19  
"We are at war with a virus that threatens to tear us apart," the World Health Organization Director-General, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, told world leaders in a virtual summit on the coronavirus pandemic Thursday. Such dramatic phrasing as "the war against Covid-19" and "physicians are on the front lines of battle" is heard everywhere today -- in the media, and from politicians and health care workers around the globe. (Ira Bedzow and Lila Kagedan, 4/1)

The Washington Post: If You Could See My Hospital, You Would Know The Horror Of Covid-19
My patient dialed his wife on the cracked iPhone he barely knew how to use. I grabbed the phone from the 74-year-old’s shaking hands as it rang, keeping one eye on his mouth, chest and face and the other on the monitor as his oxygen saturation dropped.“Hi, I’m Dr. Stansky,” I said. “I am with your husband.” My stomach turned as I tried to find the right words. How do you tell someone over the phone that this might be the last time they ever speak to their spouse? (Danielle Stansky, 4/1)

The New York Times: In A Pandemic, Do Doctors Still Have A Duty To Treat?
It is a question being asked in hospitals across the country: What is the duty to treat in a viral pandemic, particularly one in which health workers are getting infected and there is a dearth of personal protective equipment? The question could be glibly dismissed. Medicine is a humanitarian profession, the argument would go. Health care workers have a duty to care for the sick. By freely entering into the profession, we have implicitly agreed to accept the risks. (Sandeep Jauhar, 4/2)

The Wall Street Journal: Got Coronavirus Antibodies? 
One of the great uncertainties in the coronavirus pandemic is how many people have been infected without knowing it or showing symptoms. Fortunately, there are now tests for that, and broadly deploying them will be critical to saving lives and getting Americans back to work. Dozens of commercial and public health labs around the world are rolling out antibody tests that can show if an individual was recently infected with the virus and has developed immunity. When fighting a pathogen, the immune system produces proteins known as antibodies that bind to specific molecules known as antigens on the invader’s surface like a lock and key. (4/1)

The New York Times: Why Are So Many More Men Dying From Coronavirus? 
As coronavirus continues its spread across borders, oceans and continents, there is a perplexing piece of data that has so far evaded a proper explanation: It’s still early, but in almost every country that we have numbers for, more men than women are dying from the virus. Most attempts to explain this discrepancy have focused primarily on behavior, some of which are almost certainly valid. Higher rates of tobacco consumption, a reluctance to seek proper and timely medical care and even lower rates of hand-washing absolutely do play a role in who will be hit hardest. (Sharon Moalem, 4/2)

CIDRAP: Masks-For-All For COVID-19 Not Based On Sound Data
In response to the stream of misinformation and misunderstanding about the nature and role of masks and respirators as source control or personal protective equipment (PPE), we critically review the topic to inform ongoing COVID-19 decision-making that relies on science-based data and professional expertise. (Lisa M. Brosseau, 4/1)

Modern Healthcare: Address Needs Of Homeless As COVID Spreads To Protect Us All
The health of our nation and our unsheltered population are inseparably linked. The ripple effects of a COVID-19 outbreak among the homeless in our communities will impact each of us and the health systems already stretched so thin. Across the country, 500,000 people are without a home, with thousands of workers on the front lines serving this population in shelters, encampments and social service agencies. (Bechara Choucair, 4/1)

The New York Times: These Coronavirus Exposures Might Be The Most Dangerous 
Li Wenliang, the doctor in China who raised early awareness of the new coronavirus, died of the virus in February at 34. His death was shocking not only because of his role in publicizing the developing epidemic but also — given that young people do not have a high risk of dying from Covid-19 — because of his age. Is it possible that Dr. Li died because as a doctor who spent a lot of time around severely ill Covid-19 patients, he was infected with such a high dose? After all, though he was one of the first young health care workers to die after being exposed up close and frequently to the virus, he was unfortunately not the last. (Joshua D. Rabinowitz and Caroline R. Bartman, 4/1)

WBUR: The Way The U.S. Beat TB Could Be A Boon In Battling Coronavirus 
Current efforts to battle COVID-19 focus largely on reducing transmission by quarantine and physical distancing and by providing hospital care for the severely ill. But as scientists discovered with TB, the secret is not to put the everyday life of the community on indefinite hold, but rather to make it progressively safer. (Salmaan Keshavjee, Aaron Shakow and Tom Nicholson, 4/1)

CNN: The Problem With Shutting Down Outpatient Care  
My mother still needs her mammogram. My colleague with a family history of melanoma needs that suspicious mole examined. My elderly friend who struggles with glaucoma and cataracts still needs to see her ophthalmologist. All of these conditions require outpatient care -- a suddenly scarce resource in the setting of Covid-19. (Vance Vanier, 4/1)

Stat: Will Bayh-Dole Be Needed To Get Affordable Covid-19 Treatments? 
As the Covid-19 pandemic strains the capacity of the U.S. health care system, attention is being focused on developing new drugs and therapies to fight it. Pharmaceutical company Moderna, for example, began clinical trials in Seattle for a new vaccine, providing welcome news to many. But what few Americans realize is just how much of their taxpayer dollars went into the development of these drugs long before Covid-19 emerged. (Mathur, 4/2)

The Hill: Health Care Professionals Must Also Be Experts In Public Health
As the U.S. now leads the world in COVID-19 cases, health care in this country has transformed swiftly — in some cases overnight — with thousands of American hospitals responding to the pandemic’s urgent and dire demands. It is a new normal. It would be a perilous mistake not to radically change the health care academy — the medical, nursing, health professional and health science colleges — as well. (Dr. Sherine Gabriel, 4/1)

The Washington Post: How To Think About Time Management In The Age Of The Coronavirus
Time looks different than it did a month ago. Long commutes are gone, freeing up hours on weekdays. Saturdays are no longer consumed by Little League and Chuck E. Cheese birthday parties. In this era of social distancing, any type of calendar entry — from a retirement dinner to a March Madness marathon — has been canceled. (Laura Vanderkam, 4/1)

Stat: With Covid-19, We've Made It To The Life Raft. Dry Land Is Far Away 
Imagine you are in a small boat far, far from shore. A surprise storm capsizes the boat and tosses you into the sea. You try to tame your panic, somehow find the boat’s flimsy but still floating life raft, and struggle into it. You catch your breath, look around, and try to think what to do next. Thinking clearly is hard to do after a near-drowning experience. (Marc Lipsitch and Yonatan Grad, 4/1)

Louisville Courier-Journal: Coronavirus Testing: Louisville Could Lead Fight Against Pandemic
As data from South Korea shows, the key to curtailing the pandemic is testing. While the initial missteps and delays in rolling out widespread testing are unpardonable, it is likely that we may soon have adequate kits to test at least those who most need testing — the vulnerable, the sick and health care workers. But even in optimistic scenarios, it is unlikely that there will be enough kits to test everyone. This is all the more reason that we must organize public testing rigorously, scientifically and systematically. (Aruni Bhatnagar, 4/2)

Lexington Herald Leader: A 1918 KY Funeral Home Ledger Shows How Pandemic History Repeats Itself
It’s hard for Virginia Kerr Zoller to tell grieving families that only 10 mourners can come to a funeral at Kerr Brothers on Main Street these days. But if she needs a reminder of why these quarantine restrictions and distancing rules for COVID-19 are in place, all she has to do is look at the black leather ledger that holds records of everyone Kerr Brothers buried in 1918. Nearly every yellowed page between the fall of 1918 and spring of 1919 records the pandemic of Spanish flu and resulting pneumonia that gripped the world. ...The 1918 ledger is bigger than the others; it records a time when Lexington, and the rest of Kentucky, was in a similar lockdown as we are today. Nearly 15,000 people died statewide, according to historian Nancy Baird. (Linda Blackford, 4/1)