The New York Times: Senate Approves $2 Trillion Stimulus After Bipartisan Deal
The $2 trillion economic stabilization package agreed to by Congress and the Trump administration early Wednesday morning is the largest of its kind in modern American history, intended to respond to the coronavirus pandemic and provide direct payments and jobless benefits for individuals, money for states and a huge bailout fund for businesses. The measure, which the Senate approved unanimously just before midnight on Wednesday, amounts to a government aid plan unprecedented in its sheer scope and size, touching on every facet of American life with the goal of salvaging and ultimately reviving a battered economy. (Cochrane and Fandos, 3/25)

The Washington Post: The Senate Coronavirus Stimulus Bill: What's In It And How Big Is It
The legislation takes a multipronged approach to confronting the mounting crisis. It contains a number of measures aimed directly at helping workers, including stimulus checks for millions of Americans, and others to shore up the government safety net, with provisions such as more food stamp spending and more robust unemployment insurance benefits. It also includes numerous provisions to help businesses weather the impending crunch, providing them with zero-interest loans, tax breaks and other subsidies. (Stein, 3/26)

The Associated Press: Senate Passes Coronavirus Rescue Package On Unanimous Vote
The 880-page measure is the largest economic relief bill in U.S. history. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell appeared somber and exhausted as he announced the vote — and he released senators from Washington until April 20, though he promised to recall them if needed. “Pray for one another, for all of our families, and for our country,” said McConnell, R-Ky. “The legislation now before us now is historic because it is meant to match a historic crisis,“said Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. “Our health care system is not prepared to care for the sick. Our workers are without work. Our businesses cannot do business. Our factories lie idle. The gears of the American economy have ground to a halt.” (Taylor, 3/26)

The Washington Post: Coronavirus Stimulus Checks: Calculate How Much You’ll Get, $1,200 Or More
Bipartisan legislation passed by the Senate on Wednesday evening — which still must be passed by the House — would provide $1,200 payments to adults with annual incomes up to $75,000, plus another $500 per child. Some Americans earning more over $75,000 would also receive money if they meet certain qualifications outlined below. For most Americans, the money is likely to arrive in April via direct deposit. Mailed checks may take longer. Use the calculator below to see how much you would receive. Under that, see answers to frequently asked questions. (Still, Long and Uhrmacher, 3/26)

Reuters: U.S. Senate Passes $2 Trillion Bill For 'Strange And Evil' Coronavirus Crisis
It was delayed by criticism from both the right and left on Wednesday, pushing the final vote on passage almost another full day. Several Republican senators had insisted the bill needed to be changed to ensure that laid-off workers would not be paid more in unemployment benefits than they earned on the job. (Cowan, Morgan and Zengerle, 3/25)

The Associated Press: Highlights Of Congress' Massive Virus Economic Relief Plan
Partial highlights of a roughly $2.2 trillion package to rush aid to businesses, workers and a health care system slammed by the coronavirus pandemic. The package, written by Trump administration officials and Democratic and Republican Senate leaders, was released late Wednesday night and unanimously approved by the Senate. ... Health care: $150 billion. Includes $100 billion for grants to hospitals, public and nonprofit health organizations and Medicare and Medicaid suppliers. (Fram, 3/26)

Politico: Here's What's In The $2T Stimulus Package — And What's Next
What [hospitals] got: Health care providers would secure $100 billion in grants to help fight the coronavirus and make up for dollars they have lost by delaying elective surgeries and other procedures to focus on the outbreak. They would also get a 20 percent bump in Medicare payments for treating patients with the virus. Why it matters: This figure is exactly what three powerful groups representing physicians, hospitals and nurses had demanded, though for-profit hospitals were lobbying for much more. But there are still questions about whether there will be significant guardrails on how the money will be split up. The coronavirus will hit rural hospitals especially hard, since they already operate on thin margins and have limited staffing capacity. So some lawmakers have been working to ensure enough money goes to those sites. (Emma and Scholtes, 3/25)

Modern Healthcare: COVID-19 Economic Stimulus Deal Includes Billions In Hospital Funding
The American Hospital Association on Wednesday supported the bill and called for its passage, but said more will need to be done in subsequent legislation. "This bill includes important provisions that will help us respond, including the creation of an emergency fund grant program, additional support for taking care of COVID-19 patients and relief from spending cuts, among other provisions," AHA President and CEO Rick Pollack said in a statement. The AHA, American Nurses Association and American Medical Association had asked for $100 billion to support operations, while the Federation of American Hospitals had asked for $225 billion. Their efforts were largely successful, as the first draft of Senate Republicans' legislation did not include any such emergency fund, and a later draft included $75 billion. (Cohrs, 3/25)

The Wall Street Journal: What’s In The $2 Trillion Senate Coronavirus Bill
$221 billion in a variety of tax benefits for businesses, including allowing businesses to defer payroll taxes, which finance Medicare and Social Security, for the rest of the year. It would also temporarily allow businesses to claim deductions using today’s losses against past profits to claim quick refunds for cash infusions. -- $340 billion in supplemental spending, which includes $117 billion for hospitals and veterans’ care. It also includes $25 billion mostly for public transit to make up for revenue lost because of dwindling ridership. (3/26)

ABC News: Senate Approves Bipartisan Stimulus Package Late Wednesday As Congressional Leaders Whip Support 
Senate Republicans downplayed concessions given to Democrats throughout the marathon negotiations, arguing Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer "delayed life-saving aid to medical professionals and significant relief for families and small businesses in order to claim credit for wins that are either bipartisan or Republican ideas." (Parkinson, 3/25)

The Wall Street Journal: Senate Approves Roughly $2 Trillion In Coronavirus Relief
The bill also greatly expands unemployment insurance to cover freelance and gig workers, refills drained state coffers and extends additional resources to health-care providers. “A fight has arrived on our shores,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) said on the Senate floor, where he likened the measure to “wartime investment.” He added: “We did not seek it. We did not want it. But now, we are going to win it.” (Jamerson, Duehren and Andrews, 3/26)

The Wall Street Journal: Relief Package Would Limit Coronavirus Damage, Not Restore Economy
At more than 9% of gross domestic product, the measure is larger than the three major packages enacted to counter the 2007-09 recession, said Ernie Tedeschi, an economist at Evercore ISI. Even so, more will be needed, he said. “The scale of the problem is accelerating, and it’s moving faster than fiscal policy makers are acting,” Mr. Tedeschi said. (Davidson and Mitchell, 3/26)

Los Angeles Times: Coronavirus: Senate Vote Expected On $2-Trillion Stimulus Bill
The package also blocks foreclosures and evictions during the crisis on properties where the federal government backs the mortgage; pauses federal student loan payments for six months and waives the interest; gives states millions of dollars to begin offering mail or early voting; and provides more than $25 billion in new money for food assistance programs like SNAP. The real test will be whether the House accepts the bill as it is. Friday’s vote will be held by a voice vote, House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) announced Wednesday evening. That means representatives scattered across the country don’t have to return to Washington for the vote. (Wire, 3/25)

The Hill: Hoyer Says House Expects To Pass Coronavirus Bill On Friday 
“In order to protect the safety of Members and staff and prevent further spread of COVID-19 through Members’ travel, the Republican Leader and I expect that the House vote on final passage will be done by voice vote," Hoyer wrote. "Members who want to come to the House Floor to debate this bill will be able to do so." Hoyer said that he and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) are figuring out a way for members unable to travel to still express their positions from afar. (Marcos, 3/26)

Politico: Inside The 10 Days To Rescue The Economy
It was going to cost $1 trillion. Late on March 16, five days after the World Health Organization declared the novel coronavirus a pandemic, Larry Kudlow — the one-time cable news talker turned top economic advisor to President Donald Trump — was in the Senate’s historic Mansfield room, telling a group of senior GOP senators something they didn’t want to hear. (Bresnahan, Levine and Desiderio, 3/26)

The New York Times: Stimulus Money To Protect Elections Falls Short, Critics Say
The $2 trillion stimulus package that was approved by the Senate on Wednesday contains $400 million to address one of the most uncertain impacts of the coronavirus outbreak — its potential to wreak havoc with voting, including the presidential election in November. The figure falls far short of what state officials and voting rights experts have said is needed to ensure a safe and accurate count if the virus keeps millions of people away from polling places in primary elections and on Election Day. (Wines, 3/25)

The New York Times: Colleges Get Billions In Coronavirus Relief, But Say Deal Falls Short Of Needs
The $2 trillion stimulus package barreling toward passage by the Senate on Wednesday will send about $14 billion to colleges and universities that are hemorrhaging money as they close their campuses and try to stay afloat with distance learning. But higher education leaders say that is far short of what they need in the face of an education crisis that is greater than any they have faced in a generation. (Green, 3/25)

The New York Times: Fine Print Of Stimulus Bill Contains Special Deals For Industries
Restaurants and retailers will get a tweak to federal tax law they have been seeking for more than a year that could save them $15 billion. Community banks are being granted their long-held wish of being freed to reduce the amount of capital they have to hold in reserve. And for-profit colleges will be able to keep federal loan money from students who drop out because of the coronavirus. (LIpton and Vogel, 3/25)

The Hill: Schumer Waves Off Cuomo Criticism That He Didn't Deliver For New York With Coronavirus Stimulus 
Senate Democratic Leader Charles Schumer (N.Y.) at a press conference late Wednesday waved off pointed criticism that his home-state governor, Andrew Cuomo, aimed at the Senate’s $2 trillion coronavirus relief bill earlier in the day. “He’s disappointed that it only got five billion dollars for the state government, but there are small businesses in New York who need money, there are unemployed people who need money, there are hospitals who need money, there are nurses who need money,” Schumer said. (Bolton, 3/26)

The Hill: Senate Rejects GOP Attempt To Change Unemployment Benefits In Coronavirus Stimulus Bill
The Senate rejected an attempt by four Republican senators to change boosted unemployment benefits included in a mammoth coronavirus stimulus package.  Senators voted 48-48 on an amendment that would cap unemployment benefits at 100 percent of an individual's salary before they were laid off. Sixty votes were required for the amendment to pass. (Carney, 3/25)

The Hill: 7 Things To Know About The Coronavirus Stimulus Package
The Senate is set to pass a $2 trillion stimulus package as soon as Wednesday after clinching a deal shortly after 1 a.m. The bill marks an unprecedented attempt by the federal government to revive the economy and prevent a deep recession, as the quick spread of the coronavirus has upended day-to-day life in the United States. The 2008 Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), by comparison, was $700 billion. (Carney, 3/25)

The Hill: How The Business Loan Program Would Work In The $2T Coronavirus Package 
The final version of the $2 trillion coronavirus stimulus bill devotes hundreds of billions of dollars in support of loans to companies that are intended to keep them from failing and laying off workers. The bill includes a variety of mechanisms for businesses of different sizes. Among the most important is a $367 billion program aimed at keeping the country’s unemployment rate from skyrocketing. “We have never done anything like this before,” said Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.), a conservative who would not normally be expected to back a $2 trillion spending bill. “The idea is to encourage these companies to keep workers on the payroll.” (Elis, 3/25)

The Washington Post: Federal Coronavirus Stimulus Package Could Severly Shortchange D.C
Draft legislation circulating Wednesday called for the District and five territories to divide $3 billion by population, meaning the District would receive only about $500 million, which is less than half the minimum $1.25 billion guaranteed to each state, officials said. (Portnoy, 3/26)

CNN: Fear Drives $2 Trillion Economic Rescue Bid -- And Sparks Calls For The Next One 
Even $2 trillion is not enough to dispel fears stalking Washington that the coronavirus crisis could pull down the economic foundation on which American life depends. There are several daunting takeaways from the bulging pandemic stimulus bill -- expected to clear Congress soon after the Senate passed it unanimously late Wednesday night, notwithstanding some last-minute quibbles by rank and file members on both sides. All of them underscore the extreme and historic nature of the crisis that may have already wiped out millions of jobs at a swipe. (Collinson, 3/26)

Politico: Insurers Scramble To Avoid 9/11-Style Coronavirus Backlash
Insurance companies are facing political pressure to pay what could be a crippling sum of coronavirus claims — even though many of them say their policies don't cover pandemics. Anger on Capitol Hill is growing over moves by insurers to deny claims being filed by restaurants, retailers and other businesses that believed they had coverage to financially protect themselves from a major disruption like the one they're now enduring. The insurance industry is so alarmed at the prospect of a massive payout that it's rushing to put together a plan to get Washington off its back. (Warmbrodt, 3/26)

Reuters: 'Apocalypse Now': Airlines Turn To Cargo For Revenue As U.S. Senate Approves Aid Package
The passenger travel industry has been ravaged by the coronavirus pandemic, with Australia’s Flight Centre Travel Group Ltd announcing plans to cut 6,000 travel agent roles globally, either temporarily or permanently. The International Air Transport Association (IATA), which represents airlines, said it has written to the heads of governments of 18 countries in the Asia-Pacific region, including India, Japan, Malaysia, South Korea, Thailand, Vietnam and the Philippines for emergency support for carriers. (Freed and Rucinski, 3/25)

Reuters: U.S. Set To Grant Automakers A Lifeline -- But No Bailout
The $2 trillion economic rescue package before the U.S. Senate on Wednesday would send the federal government to the auto industry’s rescue for the second time in a dozen years. (Shepardson and Klayman, 3/25)

The Hill: Senate Leaving D.C. Until April 20 After Coronavirus Stimulus Vote
The Senate will leave town after passing a coronavirus stimulus package and not return until April 20, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) announced late Wednesday night. The Senate unanimously passed a massive stimulus bill that costs approximately $2.2 trillion. McConnell announced shortly before it started that the Senate will not have its next roll call vote until April 20. (Carney, 3/25)

The Washington Post: Senate Passes $2 Trillion Bill To Blunt Coronavirus Pandemic’s Economic Impact, As Households And Businesses Gasp For Relief
In a fresh reminder of the dangers reaching into the Capitol itself, a spokesman for Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), the No. 2 Senate Republican, announced just minutes before the vote that Thune was returning to South Dakota to self-quarantine because he was feeling unwell. Thune was one of four senators absent for Wednesday night’s vote, and the other three absences were also due to the coronavirus — Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who has tested positive, and GOP Sens. Mike Lee and Mitt Romney of Utah, who self-quarantined because they had spent time with Paul. (Werner, DeBonis and Kane, 3/26)

Billings Gazette: Montana's Slice Of $2T Rescue Bill Can't Come Soon Enough, Says State Officials 
U.S. Senator Jon Tester described the stimulus package as fitted for the tourism and service industries, which account for $3.7 billion of the state’s economy. And, Sen. Steve Daines said new unemployment claims are rising by several thousand a day. The bill was written by Republicans and amended throughout the week through negotiations with Democrats who were concerned their priorities were missing from the bill. (Lutey, 3/25)

Bloomberg: Jobless Claims Surged To Record 3.28 Million Last Week
The number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits surged to a record 3.28 million last week as businesses shuttered and laid off workers as part of efforts to slow the spread of the coronavirus. Initial jobless claims in the week ended March 21 were up from 282,000 in the prior week and more than quadruple the previous record high of 695,000 in 1982, according to Labor Department figures released Thursday. The figures date back to 1967. (Pickert, 3/26)

CNBC: Jobless claims soar past 3 million to record as coronavirus sends Americans to the unemployment line
The number shatters the Great Recession peak of 665,000 in March 2009 and the all-time mark of 695,000 in October 1982. The previous week, which reflected the period before the worst of the coronavirus hit, was just 282,000. Consensus estimates from economists surveyed by Dow Jones showed an expectation for 1.5 million new claims, though individual forecasts on Wall Street had been anticipating a much higher number. The surge comes amid a crippling slowdown brought on by the coronavirus crisis. (Cox, 3/26)

The Washington Post: A Record 3.3 Million Americans Filed For Jobless Claims As Coronavirus Puts Economy Into Recession
This is “widespread carnage," said Jacob Robbins, an assistant economics professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, "And it’s going to get worse.” Thursday’s Labor Department report encompasses completed applications filed March 15-21. Layoffs skyrocketed on Monday, March 16 after President Trump declared that no more than 10 people should gather together at once time, effectively forcing restaurants and other public places to close. (Long and Fowers, 3/26)

Los Angeles Times: New Weekly Jobless Claims Soar To 3.3 Million Amid Coronavirus Outbreak
Almost every state logged large increases in claims, led by several East Coast states, Ohio, Texas and California, according to filings and estimates by states.In California alone, more than a million people have applied for unemployment benefits this month, Gov. Gavin Newsom said Wednesday. (Lee, 3/26)

USA Today: Coronavirus: Jobless Claims Surge To 3.3M As Coronavirus Spreads
The total was well above the 1.5 million claims economists had forecast, according to the median estimate of those surveyed by Bloomberg. The pandemic has set off the most abrupt near-shutdown of the economy in history. Many restaurants, shops, movie theaters, sports arenas and other gathering spots across the country suddenly closed their doors or scaled back service last week to contain the spread of the virus. (Davidson, 3/26)

CNN: Initial Claims For Unemployment Benefits Soared To 3.3 Million Last Week, Most In History
In the last couple weeks, the coronavirus outbreak has forced many businesses to suddenly shut down as the country tries to slow the spreading virus. For many businesses that also means laying off workers, at least temporarily. That is the key difference between the coronavirus shock compared with past periods of economic distress: it is sudden and impacts virtually every industry and business model around. Economists now expect the US economy to fall into a recession in the second quarter, before staging a comeback later in the year after the spread of the virus slows. (Tappe, 3/26)

NPR: 3.3 Million File For Unemployment Claims, Shattering The Record
The loss of that many jobs would push unemployment to 5.5% — a level it last reached in 2o15 — but it's likely to climb even further. Goldman Sachs has predicted that the jobless rate could approach 13% during the next few months. "If the number of new claims is as high as predicted and if it remains high in coming weeks, unemployment will skyrocket," the Joint Economic Committee of Congress said in a report ahead of Thursday's data. (Zarroli, 3/26)

The Wall Street Journal: Global Stocks Slide As U.S. Jobless Claims Hit Record
Stocks slipped Thursday as U.S. unemployment claims soared, offering fresh cues on the economic disruption caused by the coronavirus pandemic, which has forced a shutdown of wide swaths of the country. Futures tied to the S&P 500 fell 1.4%, signaling an end to two days of gains in U.S. stocks. The pan-continental Stoxx Europe 600 declined 1.8%. (Hirtenstein and Ping, 3/26)

The Associated Press: 'The Whole City Laid Off': US Jobless Claims Climb Sky High
Barely a week ago, David McGraw was cooking daily for hundreds of fine diners at one of New Orleans’ illustrious restaurants. Today, he’s cooking for himself, at home — laid off along with hundreds of thousands of people across the U.S. in a massive economic upheaval spurred by efforts to slow the spread of the coronavirus. (Santana and Lieb, 3/25)

The Wall Street Journal: The Long Run Of American Job Growth Has Ended
The great American job machine just ground to a halt. As a result of the coronavirus pandemic, more than 1 million Americans are forecast to have filed for unemployment benefits last week, marking a dramatic end to a historic national job expansion that started in 2010. Until March, U.S. employers added jobs for a record 113 straight months, causing payrolls to grow by 22 million. In the process, millions of people—including low-wage hourly laborers, disabled people, minorities, former inmates and others—found work. (Morath and Hilsenrath, 3/26)

Politico: ‘This Will Be A Wallop’: Rural Areas Brace For Hard Economic Hit
Rural communities are bracing for the looming recession caused by the coronavirus pandemic, expecting that it could devastate already shaky economies. As the virus shuts down schools, factories, restaurants and other businesses, rural towns contend with a smaller tax base, less access to high-speed internet and growing strain among lenders. (Crampton and McCrimmon, 3/26)

The New York Times: A Homeless Family Navigates A Life Warped By The Coronavirus
April Goode awoke shortly before 7 a.m. after a night of restless sleep atop two sleeping bags and a blanket on the floor of her hotel room. Her four children were asleep on the two full beds. Ms. Goode turned on the television and kept the volume low. More news about the coronavirus. On a normal weekday — if anything about being homeless and living in a Quality Inn in northern New Jersey could be considered normal — a van would have picked up her children and taken them to school 45 minutes away in Chatham, N.J. (Zaveri, 3/25)

ABC News: For America's Homeless, Staying Home During Coronavirus Outbreak Is Not An Option 
While government officials and health experts are advising the public to "stay home" and "stay inside" as the novel coronavirus has spread, that is not an option for the nation's vast homeless population. "Social distance is a luxury that the homeless can't afford," said Shirley Raines, founder of Beauty 2 The Streetz, a nonprofit that provides services to homeless people on Skid Row in Los Angeles. "There are 60,000 homeless people in L.A. that have nowhere to go." (Romero, 3/25)

KQED: Sex Workers Are Moving Online, Supporting Each Other During Coronavirus
Retail, restaurant, hospitality and arts workers—and all kinds of professionals whose livelihoods are tied to in-person meetings—are currently suffering from coronavirus-related job cuts. The U.S. Private Sector Job Quality Index estimates that 37 million jobs are vulnerable to layoffs due to social distancing measures to slow the spread of the pandemic.While many white collar workers continue to labor from home, one group facing particularly acute challenges are sex workers, whose work is often illegal, in legal gray areas or not covered by unemployment laws. (Voynovskaya, 3/25)

KQED: Farmworkers Can’t Pick Crops Remotely. How Can They Stay Safe?
California’s farm belt pumps out more than a third of the country’s vegetables and two-thirds of its fruits and nuts every year. But during the COVID-19 pandemic, employers who manage the state’s orchards, packing sheds and fields of row crops are faced with a dilemma: continue operating and hope that workers don’t get sick or shutter their doors, forcing workers to file for unemployment and putting the country’s food supply at risk. (Hall and Khokha, 3/25)

The Associated Press: Trump's Push To Open Economy Could Come At Cost Of Lives
The contrast could hardly be more stark. Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York has said that if all of his sweeping, expensive measures to stem the corornavirus saved one life, it would be worth it. President Donald Trump has another view: The costs of shutting down the economy outweigh the benefits, frequently telling Americans that 35,000 people a year die from the common flu. Though it may seem crass, the federal government actually has long made a calculation when imposing regulations, called “the value of a statistical life,” that places a price tag on a human life. It has been used to consider whether to require seat belts, airbags or environmental regulations, but has never been applied in a broad public health context. (Madhani, Kellman and Freking, 3/26)

Reuters: Trump Says Reopen By Easter, Corporate America Says Not So Fast
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, National Retail Federation and National Restaurant Association pointed to less optimistic recommendations by public health officials. Many of these have urged that Americans stay in their homes as much as possible for weeks to prevent the virus’ spread. “It’s a tough one. I think it would be easier to accept that as something that I would feel comfortable doing if I thought it weren’t going to cost lives,” said Melanie Krautstrunk, who owns a brew pub in Tennessee, about re-opening by Easter. (Bartz, 3/25)

The Associated Press: Many Businesses Cautious About Restarting Economy Amid Virus
Despite wild swings in financial markets and signs that unemployment is surging — both of which could hurt Trump in an election year — many businesses say it’s not clear that reopening will be even an option in a few weeks: They have to follow the orders set in each state, and many of those are open ended or could be extended at any time. They are worried that opening too soon could be seen as irresponsible. And even if they did reopen, would customers come if the virus isn’t under control? “He’s not being realistic. How can you open if the cases are climbing day after day?” asked Paul Boutros, who owns East Side Pockets, a small restaurant that has lost most of its business since nearby Brown University sent students home two weeks ago. (Smith and Durbin, 3/26)

The Associated Press: Trump's Easter Goal In War On Virus A Nod To Faith, Business
President Donald Trump’s “beautiful” idea to reopen the U.S. economy by Easter Sunday and pack church pews that day was dreamed up during a conference call among business leaders desperate to get the country back up and running. But his target date for easing coronavirus restrictions is another outstretched hand to a group he has long courted: evangelical Christians. (Colvin and Schor, 3/25)

Stat: When Can We Let Up? Exploring How To Relax Coronavirus Lockdowns 
With countries from Italy to the U.S. having waited too long to combat the coronavirus, many experts in public health and epidemiology are pleading with government officials not to compound the mistake by lifting stay-at-home and other social distancing measures too soon — and, in fact, to impose strict ones in U.S. states and cities that haven’t. But from the World Health Organization to New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo to epidemiology modelers across the globe, there is growing recognition that the time will and must come to tiptoe back toward normalcy. (Begley, 3/25)

CNN: Fauci: 'You Don't Make The Timeline, The Virus Makes The Timeline' On Relaxing Public Health Measures
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease expert, had a straightforward message Wednesday night about how long the novel coronavirus could affect daily life in the US: "You don't make the timeline, the virus makes the timeline." "You've got to be realistic," Fauci told CNN's Chris Cuomo on "Prime Time." (LeBlanc, 3/25)

The Hill: Fauci Says US Needs To Be Prepared For Coronavirus To Be Cyclical 
Americans need to be prepared for the possibility that COVID-19 could become a seasonal disease, Dr. Anthony Fauci warned Wednesday. Fauci told reporters during a White House briefing that more cases of the disease caused by the novel coronavirus have begun to appear in the Southern Hemisphere, which is transitioning into colder seasons.If there is an outbreak in the Southern Hemisphere, Fauci said "it will be inevitable" that the disease will make a comeback even if it is temporarily stopped. (Weixel, 3/25)

The Associated Press: Birx Tells Grandmother's Story In Social Distancing Plea
Dr. Deborah Birx, the coordinator of the White House coronavirus task force, took a personal tact on Wednesday as she made her latest plea to the American public to practice social distancing. Birx noted that her grandmother Leah lived with a lifetime of guilt, because she caught the flu at school and, in turn, infected her mother. Leah’s mother, who had just given birth, died of the flu — one of an estimated 50 million worldwide who died in the 1918 influenza epidemic, Birx said. (Madhani, 3/25)

Reuters: Biden Calls Trump's Easter Back-To-Business Goal 'Catastrophic'
Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden said on Wednesday that potential efforts by President Donald Trump to re-open American businesses in time for the Easter holiday could be “catastrophic.” The governors of at least 18 states, including New York and California, have issued stay-at-home directives affecting about half the U.S. population, and shuttering many businesses, in a costly effort to slow the deadly pathogen’s spread. (Hunnicutt, 3/25)

Politico: Infighting Erupts In Trumpworld As Coronavirus Attacks Mount
Donald Trump is getting hammered by millions of dollars in Democratic campaign ads depicting his response to the coronavirus as negligent and inept. But the main super PAC backing his reelection has been silent in response — and Trump’s political advisers are not happy about it. In interviews, more than a half-dozen White House aides, campaign officials and other Trump allies said they felt deserted by the group, America First Action, openly questioning why it’s leaving Trump exposed on the airwaves at the most vulnerable moment of his presidency. (Isenstadt, 3/26)

The Associated Press: Fears For Civil Rights Mount Amid Fight Against Coronavirus
The orders seem prudent in the bid to thwart the spread of the novel coronavirus: Don’t go out, don’t gather with others and keep your stores closed. But growing segments of the U.S. population say state and federal governments are trampling on freedoms central to American life in the name of protecting public health. The case is already being made. A church-goer in New Hampshire says prohibitions against large gatherings violate her religious rights. A Pennsylvania golf course owner argues that gubernatorial edicts shuttering his business amount to illegal seizure of his private property. (Tarm, 3/26)

ABC News: Fact Checking Trump's Claim About Suicides If The Economic Shutdown Continues 
As some in President Donald Trump's inner circle push for loosening social distancing guidelines amid economic fallout from the novel coronavirus outbreak, he has predicted "tremendous death" and "suicide by the thousands" if the country isn't "opened for business" in a matter of weeks. While public health officials warn that dropping social guidelines to boost the economy could quickly overload hospital systems, costing more money and more lives, the president has claimed several times this week that the number of suicides specifically would "definitely" be greater than the death toll from the virus itself as he pointed to people returning to work as a remedy. (Cathey, 3/25)

The Hill: Social-Distancing Visitors Flood National Parks, Creating New Coronavirus Concern 
Visitors are flooding national parks, forcing the closure of Yellowstone National Park and leading to worries that the areas could become breeding grounds for the coronavirus. National parks have seen a surge in visitors as they have dropped entry fees, and as people have stayed home from work and school as a result of social distancing policies meant to get the virus’s spread under control. But the rush to the parks, which some have compared to busy summer seasons, has prompted new concerns about the spread of the virus while creating serious problems for the parks themselves. (Frazin, 3/25)

Politico: Trump Team Failed To Follow NSC’s Pandemic Playbook
The Trump administration, state officials and even individual hospital workers are now racing against each other to get the necessary masks, gloves and other safety equipment to fight coronavirus — a scramble that hospitals and doctors say has come too late and left them at risk. But according to a previously unrevealed White House playbook, the government should’ve begun a federal-wide effort to procure that personal protective equipment at least two months ago. “Is there sufficient personal protective equipment for healthcare workers who are providing medical care?” the playbook instructs its readers, as one early decision that officials should address when facing a potential pandemic. “If YES: What are the triggers to signal exhaustion of supplies? Are additional supplies available? If NO: Should the Strategic National Stockpile release PPE to states?” (Diamond and Toosi, 3/25)

ProPublica: The Defense Production Act Gives The President Power — But Not Much Funding
President Donald Trump is under fire for his reluctance to use the Defense Production Act, a 70-year-old law that empowers the president to order private industry to produce crucial equipment and supplies in an emergency. But the law may not be the silver bullet its proponents are hoping for to combat the COVID-19 pandemic: It comes with a war chest of only $228 million, with another $1 billion to come assuming the latest rescue legislation passes. (Arnsdorf, 3/25)

In other news on the administration —

NPR: Where's The CDC Gone, As The Leader Of Coronavirus Policy And Communication?
At a time when the nation is desperate for authoritative information about the coronavirus pandemic, the country's foremost agency for fighting infectious disease outbreaks has gone conspicuously silent. "I want to assure Americans that we have a team of public health experts," President Trump said at Tuesday evening's coronavirus task force briefing — a bit of reassurance that probably would not have been necessary if that briefing had included anyone from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Greenfieldboyce, 3/25)

Reuters: Exclusive: U.S. Slashed CDC Staff Inside China Prior To Coronavirus Outbreak
The Trump administration cut staff by more than two-thirds at a key U.S. public health agency operating inside China, as part of a larger rollback of U.S.-funded health and science experts on the ground there leading up to the coronavirus outbreak, Reuters has learned. (Taylor, 3/25)

Reuters: New York Sees Glimmer Of Progress Against Coronavirus, New Orleans Worsens
New York state, leading the nation in coronavirus infections and deaths, is showing tentative signs of curbing the spread of the disease, the governor said on Wednesday, even as fatalities in New York City jumped while the health crisis deepened in hard-hit New Orleans and elsewhere. The rate of hospitalizations in New York has slowed in recent days, Governor Andrew Cuomo said, with numbers he called “almost too good to be true.” He also hailed the enlistment of 40,000 retired nurses, physicians and other medical professionals signing up for a “surge health care force,” but warned much remains to be done. (Caspani and Brooks, 3/25)

The Wall Street Journal: Infection Rate Slows In Onetime Epicenter Of New York’s Coronavirus Outbreak
Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, said the growth of infections in the Westchester County suburb of New Rochelle had slowed. He also said the statewide number of hospitalizations for Covid-19 is growing more slowly. The governor said he believes both were evidence that restrictions on business activity may be working. As of Sunday evening, all nonessential businesses in the state were ordered to close and gatherings of any size were banned. “The evidence suggests that the density-control measures may be working,” Mr. Cuomo said. On Sunday, the number of people hospitalized for Covid-19 was projected to double every two days. As of Tuesday, it was projected to double every 4.7 days. (Vielkind and Brody, 3/25)

Politico: NYC Morgues Near Capacity, DHS Briefing Warns
The Department of Homeland Security has been briefed that New York City’s morgues are nearing capacity, according to a department official and a second person familiar with the situation. Officials were told that morgues in the city are expected to reach capacity next week, per the briefing. A third person familiar with the situation in New York said some of the city’s hospital morgues hit capacity in the past seven days. And a FEMA spokesperson told POLITICO that New York has asked for emergency mortuary assistance. Hawaii and North Carolina have asked for mortuary help as well, and the disaster response agency is currently reviewing the requests, according to the spokesperson. (Swan, Lippman and Eisenberg, 3/25)

The New York Times: 13 Deaths In A Day: An ‘Apocalyptic’ Coronavirus Surge At An N.Y.C. Hospital
In several hours on Tuesday, Dr. Ashley Bray performed chest compressions at Elmhurst Hospital Center on a woman in her 80s, a man in his 60s and a 38-year-old who reminded the doctor of her fiancé. All had tested positive for the coronavirus and had gone into cardiac arrest. All eventually died. Elmhurst, a 545-bed public hospital in Queens, has begun transferring patients not suffering from coronavirus to other hospitals as it moves toward becoming dedicated entirely to the outbreak. Doctors and nurses have struggled to make do with a few dozen ventilators. Calls over a loudspeaker of “Team 700,” the code for when a patient is on the verge of death, come several times a shift. Some have died inside the emergency room while waiting for a bed. (Rothfeld, Sengupta, Goldstein and Rosenthal, 3/25)

CNN: New York Coronavirus: At Least 13 Patients Have Died Over 24 Hours At Elmhurst Hospital
At least 13 patients have died from Covid-19 at Elmhurst Hospital in New York, a statement from a spokesman said, as one of the hardest hit states sees a surge in cases. The deaths of the patients took place over the last 24 hours, but NYC Health and Hospitals/Elmhurst said in a statement that number is consistent with the number of Intensive Care Unit patients being treated there. "Staff are doing everything in our power to save every person who contracts Covid-19," the statement said. (Holcombe, 3/26)

CNN: 'That's When All Hell Broke Loose': Coronavirus Patients Overwhelm US Hospitals 
"We ended up getting our first positive patients -- and that's when all hell broke loose," said one New York City doctor. The doctor, who spoke to CNN on condition of anonymity out of concern for his job, described a hospital that was woefully unprepared for an influx of Covid-19 patients that started roughly two weeks ago -- which has already stretched the hospital's resources thin and led to severely ill patients outnumbering ventilators. (Nedelman, 3/25)

ABC News: Inside The Coronavirus 'Ground Zero': Elmhurst Hospital In New York City 
In a 24-hour period this week, over a dozen coronavirus patients died at Elmhurst Hospital in Queens, New York, as multiple medical workers inside the public hospital told ABC News they are overwhelmed, treating "hundreds of COVID-19 patients." Dr. Colleen Smith, an emergency care physician at the hospital, described the area where the COVID-19 patients are being treated as "a parking lot of stretchers." As one emergency care physician told ABC News plainly, "this is ground zero." The city health department sent out a release on Tuesday, calling the 545-bed hospital in Elmhurst "the center of this crisis." (Folmer and Katersky, 3/25)

Politico: New York Reaches A Coronavirus Breaking Point With Trump
For weeks, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has mostly played nice with the Trump administration, taking a calm and measured approach toward the federal government — even as New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has lashed out at Trump for neglecting his home town in a public health crisis. The differing temperaments between the two officials – Cuomo with a cool executive air bordering on aloofness, de Blasio with an us-against-them pugnaciousness – provided a stark contrast to people outside the tri-state area who were just tuning in to New York’s growing coronavirus crisis. (Durkin and Gronewold, 3/25)

Politico: Half Of New Yorkers Likely To Get Coronavirus, De Blasio Says
New Yorkers should expect that half the city’s population will get coronavirus by the time the pandemic runs its course, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Wednesday. The mayor made the grim prediction as the number of New Yorkers who have died from the disease rose to 199 on Wednesday morning, and confirmed cases in the city jumped to 17,856. Those numbers far understate the true scope of the spread, officials said, since people not sick enough to be hospitalized are largely unable to get tested. (Durkin, 3/25)

ABC News: NYC Officials Confirm 1st Homeless Death From Coronavirus 
New York officials have confirmed the first homeless death from the novel coronavirus, a grim statistic that homeless advocates fear could rise in coming weeks. “Tragically, one New Yorker experiencing homelessness succumbed to this virus after several days in the hospital – our hearts go out to this individual’s friends and family,” said Isaac McGinn, spokesperson for the city’s Department of Social Services. (Romero and Tatum, 3/25)

ProPublica: Your Neighborhood Might Be A Coronavirus Hot Spot, But New York City Refuses To Release The Data
Residents of Los Angeles can go to a county website to look up how many confirmed coronavirus cases there are in Beverlywood, or Koreatown, or Echo Park. Officials in Charlotte, North Carolina, have released figures at the ZIP code level. The South Korean government is sending geotargeted texts to alert citizens to positive cases near them. In New York, now at the center of the outbreak, Mayor Bill de Blasio has resisted releasing what the city knows about a basic question: Where, precisely, is the virus? (Elliott, Waldman, Kaplan and Campbell, 3/25)

Politico: Thousands Of NYPD Officers Out Sick Amid Coronavirus Crisis
Thousands of NYPD officers have called in sick as the police department is hit with a growing number of coronavirus infections. About 3,200 cops are out sick Wednesday, Police Commissioner Dermot Shea said — triple the normal rate. That adds up to almost 9 percent of the force. (Durkin, 3/25)

The Associated Press: US Deaths Top 1,000 As $2.2 Trillion In Virus Aid Approved
U.S. deaths from the coronavirus pandemic topped 1,000 in another grim milestone for a global outbreak that is taking lives and wreaking havoc on economies and the established routines of ordinary life. Worldwide, the death toll climbed past 21,000, according to a running count kept by Johns Hopkins University, and the U.S. had 1,050 deaths and nearly 70,000 infections. (Peltz and Long, 3/26)

NBC News: Coronavirus: Deaths In United States Linked To COVID-19 Surpass 1,000
State and local governments around the country have issued stay-at-home orders or requests, in some cases ordering non-essential businesses to close, as a way to slow the spread of the virus and prevent health systems from being overwhelmed. Major sports have been canceled or put on hiatus, gambling was ordered shut down in Las Vegas and the rest of Nevada, and in places with stay-at-home orders bars and restaurants were ordered closed or restricted to take out and delivery. In Los Angeles, which along with California has ordered non-essential businesses to close in order to slow the spread of the virus, the mayor warned "we have not seen the darkest days."(Helsel, 3/26)

CNN: Coronavirus Deaths In The US Could Reach Peak In Three Weeks, Epidemiologist Says 
A leading epidemiologist advising the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has estimated the peak of deaths in the US coronavirus pandemic will be three weeks from now, after which "most of the damage will be done," and says it may be possible to only isolate the vulnerable, allowing many back to work. The CDC confirmed that Ira Longini, professor at the Center for Statistics and Quantitative Infectious Diseases at the University of Florida, is a "funded partner." The agency said he works with them on Covid-19 modeling. (Krever, Yu and Paton Walsh, 3/26)

NPR: Map: How Many Cases Of Coronavirus Are There In Each U.S. State?
Since the first U.S. case of the coronavirus was identified in Washington state on Jan. 21, health officials have identified more than 65,000 cases across the United States and more than 900 deaths. By March 17, the virus had expanded its presence from several isolated clusters in Washington, New York and California to all 50 states and the District of Columbia. (Renken and Wood, 3/25)

The New York Times: Even Before Coronavirus, America’s Population Was Growing At Slowest Rate Since 1919
The American population is growing at its slowest pace since 1919, new government data shows, as a drop in births and an acceleration in deaths put the country closer than ever to an overall decline. The figures, released by the Census Bureau on Thursday and analyzed by demographers, were for the 12 months that ended in July 2019, long before the coronavirus began to spread in the United States. Experts said that if one of the more dire projections of coronavirus-related deaths holds true, the country could face its first yearly drop in population, particularly if immigration continues to fall. (Tavernise, 3/26)

The New York Times: Governors Tell Outsiders From ‘Hot Zone’ To Stay Away As Virus Divides States
Florida has a message for New Yorkers: Please don’t visit. And if you do, prepare to sit in quarantine or risk jail. Hawaii, which also thrives on tourism, is asking visitors to stay away for a month. And Alaska is requiring a 14-day quarantine for anyone entering from, as Alaskans put it, Outside. It is a rare circumstance in the United States, a country where travel between states is generally welcomed and often only noticed in counts of tourism visits, that states are suddenly looking for ways to discourage residents of other states from coming into theirs. (Mazzei, Bosman and Bogel-Burroughs, 3/25)

Politico: Florida’s Move To Pull In Its Welcome Mat May Draw Court Challenge
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' move to secure his state border against the coronavirus invader is an invitation to a legal challenge that could rise as high as the Supreme Court because it may violate the Constitution. On Tuesday, the Republican governor sent the National Guard to greet travelers at Florida’s biggest airports. Passengers arriving on direct flights from New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, where the number of infections is high, are required to quarantine for 14 days. Law enforcement will keep tabs on their whereabouts. The executive order also applies to people arriving by car, DeSantis said. (Sarkissian and Snyder, 3/25)

Politico: Republican Governors Buck Trump And Stick With Social Distancing
Republican governors are following the advice of public health experts and embracing coronavirus lockdowns and business closings despite President Donald Trump's push to reopen parts of the country by Easter. Trump's press to scrap social distancing in all but the most virus-ravaged areas — and statements implying the fight to contain the disease have turned a corner — have rankled some GOP governors consumed with efforts to contain transmission and ease the burden on stressed local health systems. (Ehley, 3/25)

Los Angeles Times: Will California's Coronavirus Crisis Look Like Italy's Soon?
It begins each day in the early afternoon: Patients stream into hospitals with fevers, shakes, chills and breathing problems. In Italy, the country hardest hit by the new coronavirus, it’s been happening seemingly like clockwork. “It’s really hard to see so many people sick at the same time,” Dr. Roberto Cosentini, a doctor in the northern city of Bergamo near Milan, said in a podcast for emergency room physicians. “It’s like a regular daily earthquake.” Is this what’s in store for California? (Lin, 3/25)

CNN: US Coronavirus: California Coronavirus Cases Doubling Every Three To Four Days As US Death Toll Nears 1,000 
Officials are racing to get a handle on the novel coronavirus as the number of deaths nears 1,000 in the United States and cases in two of the hardest hit states -- California and New York -- quickly multiply. "We originally thought that it would be doubling every six to seven days and we see cases doubling every three to four days," said Dr. Mark Ghaly, secretary of the California Health and Human Services Agency. (Holcombe, 3/26)

Kaiser Health News: Public Health Officials To Newsom: Lockdown Won’t Work Without Enforcement
When Gov. Gavin Newsom last week ordered nearly all 40 million Californians to stay in their homes to combat the spread of COVID-19, he set the tone for the nation, becoming the first to issue a statewide lockdown. Governors who had previously resisted quickly followed suit, including New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. But one week into the lockdown, epidemiologists tracking rates of transmission in California and the United States worry that Newsom’s shelter-in-place order will be less effective in controlling new infections without stronger enforcement. (Hart, 3/26)

Kaiser Health News: California Lawmakers Struggle To Conduct Business Amid COVID-19 Lockdown
The weekend before California shuttered its Capitol building, Senate leader Toni Atkins spent hours on the phone ― taking the roles of a student learning from epidemiologists and a legislator discussing with colleagues how the country’s most populous state should respond to the COVID-19 crisis. Like many lawmakers from New York to Washington state, Atkins and her fellow Sacramento legislators find themselves in uncharted territory. Legislative sessions are on hold. Sweeping initiatives are shelved. State budgets are already squeezed by massive spending on COVID-19. (Young, 3/25)

KQED: Gov. Newsom Reaches Deal With Major Banks To Suspend Mortgage Payments, Foreclosures For 90 Days
Four of the nation’s five largest banks have agreed to delay mortgage payments and suspend foreclosures for California homeowners for up to 90 days, as the state continues to respond to the coronavirus outbreak.On Wednesday, Gov. Gavin Newsom said he had reached agreements with Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase, Citibank and US Bank — along with 200 state chartered banks and credit unions. The deal, he said, only applies to California customers who have been directly impacted by the pandemic and its economic fallout. Bank of America agreed to only a 30-day suspension of mortgages and foreclosures, he added. (Baldassari and Solomon, 3/25)

The Wall Street Journal: Texas’ Coronavirus Response Is Keep It Local, As More States Move To Lockdowns
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is used to overruling the state’s major cities on a host of issues. With the new coronavirus, he is leaving it to the locals. As a result, some Texans face orders to stay inside for all but essential activities while others are still free to be out and about. Mr. Abbott is resisting calls for a statewide stay-at-home order, while cities and towns this week each make their own call over how to deal with the pandemic. (Findell, 3/25)

Politico: Murphy: New York Is The ‘Canary In The Coal Mine’ And We’re Right Behind
New Jersey officials have been slow to set an exact timeline for when they project the state’s already overburdened health system will experience a surge in coronavirus-related hospitalizations. But with New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo tallying his daily case count in the thousands, New Jersey may not be far behind, Gov. Phil Murphy said during his daily press briefing on Wednesday. (Sutton, 3/25)

NBC News: As Florida Coronavirus Cases Surge, Spring Breakers Express Regret
The clip went viral. "If I get corona, I get corona. At the end of the day, I'm not gonna let it stop me from partying," Brady Sluder, a spring breaker in Miami, said last week. Now, as the United States is at about 55,000 cases of the coronavirus, including more than 780 deaths, and is on track to become the new center of the pandemic, he has revised his message: "Don't be arrogant and think you're invincible like myself." (Kesslen, 3/25)

ABC News: Releases, Infections, Fear: U.S. Coronavirus Crisis In Jails And Prisons Looms 
As the COVID-19 virus continues its relentless march across the nation, the looming crisis inside America’s jails and prisons appears to be deepening, as corrections officials dig in to prevent outbreaks in the nation's more than 6,000 prisons and jails. So far this week, a total of 23 inmates have escaped correctional facilities in two states after at least one inmate had tested positive at each of two facilities -- and by late Wednesday a dozen remained at large, officials said. (Francescani, Pezenik, Barr and Weinraub, 3/26)

WBUR: Inside One Jail's Health Care Problems And ‘Culture Of Impunity’ 
Corrections officers play a leading role in how medical care is handled at county jails in Massachusetts. They can save lives in emergencies and pass vital information on to medical staff. They also can delay care. A WBUR investigation found that when guards ignored sick inmates or failed to react to serious medical complaints, it often led to further suffering, and even deaths. (Willmsen and Healy, 3/25)

New Orleans Times-Picayune: Citing Coronavirus Danger At New Orleans Jail, Public Defenders Call For Broad Inmate Release 
Citing the growing number of New Orleans jail staffers infected with the novel coronavirus, the city’s public defenders on Wednesday filed what their chief called an unprecedented motion asking judges for the blanket release of "vulnerable and low-risk” inmates. (Sledge, 3/25)

The Washington Post: 1,000 Coronavirus Cases In The DMV
The tally of novel coronavirus cases in the Washington region climbed past 1,000 Wednesday as Maryland, Virginia and the District reported their largest single-day increases — a grim markerthat illustrates both the continued spread of the virus and the fact that more testing is being done to detect it. Maryland announced 74 additional cases, bringing the state’s total to 424, and extended its closure of public schools another four weeks, through April 24. Virginia reported 101 additional cases, for a total of 392. The District reported 48 new cases Wednesday, including an eight-week-old infant, for a total caseload of 235. (Olivo, Wiggins, Schneider and Simon, 3/26)

CBS News: Southern States Face Spike In Coronavirus Cases
The coronavirus is spreading rapidly in the South, and hospitals are becoming overwhelmed. Louisiana, Florida and Georgia are facing alarming spikes, with more than 4,700 cases and 125 deaths in those states alone. There are more cases in the New Orleans area than there are in Los Angeles County — and Los Angeles County is 25 times larger. In just over two weeks, the number of cases in Louisiana has skyrocketed to almost 1,800. (Villafranca, 3/25)

New Orleans Times-Picayune: Coronavirus Cases Reported At Archdiocesan Complexes For Elderly, Disabled; More Await Test Results
An Archdiocese of New Orleans nonprofit which provides affordable housing to low-income elderly and disabled people has announced that residents or employees at nine of their 21 properties across the metro area have tested positive for the new coronavirus or await test results for the disease. In the announcement Tuesday, Christopher Homes described the number of residents and employees affected by the virus – which causes the potentially deadly respiratory illness COVID-19 – as “small.” (Vargas, 3/25)

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Immigrants, Refugees In Georgia Vulnerable Amid Coronavirus Pandemic
Georgia was home to an estimated 400,000 unauthorized immigrants in 2016. Already rattled by the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration, many work in some of Georgia’s largest industries, including hospitality, farming and poultry processing. (Redmon, 3/25)

Boston Globe: Baker Orders Schools Closed Until Early May 
Governor Charlie Baker on Wednesday extended the shutdown of Massachusetts schools until early May in the latest measure to contain the coronavirus, as the number of diagnosed infections across the state jumped by more than half in a single day. Baker said all schools, public and private, and all nonemergency day care facilities would be closed until May 4. On March 17, schools were closed across the state for three weeks, while Boston had closed its schools until late April. (Finucane, Ebbert and Vaznis, 3/25)

Boston Globe: As Coronavirus Spreads, Medical Examiner Tells Staff To Take ‘Bare Minimum’ Of Cases 
The state’s chief medical examiner, whose office is responsible for investigating unexplained deaths statewide, has told staff members to cut their “workload to a bare minimum” and to no longer accept certain “flu-like” cases as the deadly coronavirus expands across Massachusetts. The directives from Dr. Mindy J. Hull, detailed in internal e-mails obtained by the Globe, could scale back the type of cases the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner handles as she seeks to limit her staff’s exposure to COVID-19. (Stout, 3/25)

The New York Times: Ventilators And Coronavirus: Amid Desperation, Calls Grow For Federal Intervention
As hospitals prepare for a flood of desperately ill patients unable to breathe on their own, mechanical ventilators have become the single most important piece of equipment that can mean the difference between life and death. Now, with American hospitals facing a grave shortage of the vital devices, the Big Three automakers, small engineering firms, software designers and medical equipment manufacturers are rushing to figure out ways to produce more of them. But President Trump has so far declined to use powers that public health experts say could make a real difference in getting more ventilators to places that need them the most — right now. (Jacobs, Boudette, Richtel and Kulish, 3/25)

ProPublica: Desperate Hospitals May Put Two Patients On One Ventilator. That’s Risky.
Gunshot victims with massive blood loss and failing lungs packed the emergency room of Sunrise Hospital in Las Vegas late on the night of Oct. 1, 2017. A man had opened fire on a music festival from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Hotel, spraying more than a thousand rounds of ammunition into the crowd, wounding hundreds. The hospital soon ran out of ventilators, machines that breathe for patients who can’t. Dr. Kevin Menes, a critical care physician, had several patients in respiratory failure. Menes remembered that a colleague from his medical residency had studied how to connect multiple people to a single ventilator. (Gabrielson and Edwards, 3/26)

The Wall Street Journal: Lacking Ventilators, Hospitals Seek Out Alternative Device
Some U.S. hospitals preparing for a shortage of ventilators for Covid-19 patients are modifying oxygen devices usually used for decompression sickness or foot ulcers to assist patients who will need help breathing. Massachusetts General Hospital, the University of Chicago Medical Center, the Hospitals at the University of Pennsylvania and others are trying to stock up on the device, which the Food and Drug Administration has approved for use in hyperbaric medicine, in which patients are put in a high-pressure oxygen environment to treat various conditions. (Maremont, 3/25)

The Washington Post: Doctors Consider Universal Do-Not-Resuscitate Orders For Coronavirus Patients
Hospitals on the front lines of the pandemic are engaged in a heated private debate over a calculation few have encountered in their lifetimes — how to weigh the “save at all costs” approach to resuscitating a dying patient against the real danger of exposing doctors and nurses to the contagion of coronavirus. The conversations are driven by the realization that the risk to staff amid dwindling stores of protective equipment — such as masks, gowns and gloves — may be too great to justify the conventional response when a patient “codes,” and their heart or breathing stops. (Cha, 3/25)

The Wall Street Journal: Hospital Capacity Crosses Tipping Point In U.S. Coronavirus Hot Spots
Hospitals in U.S. pandemic epicenters have passed a tipping point in the fight against the new coronavirus as the relentless climb in infections forces some to move patients to outlying facilities, divert ambulances and store bodies in a refrigerated truck. New York, home to the nation’s largest outbreak of Covid-19, the illness caused by the new coronavirus, is rushing to build a temporary hospital in a Manhattan conference center in the hope of staying ahead of the fast-spreading disease. (Evans and Armour, 3/26)

The Associated Press: US Hospitals Rush To Find Beds For Surge Of Virus Patients
With her due date fast approaching, Kelly McCarty packed a bag with nursing tops, a robe, slippers and granola bars. Last week’s ultrasound, she said, showed “this baby is head down and ready to go. ”But the new coronavirus has thrown her a curveball, bouncing her and about 140 other expectant moms from their first-choice hospital to another 30 minutes away. The birth unit at the Edmonds, Washington, hospital is needed for COVID-19. (Johnson and Forster, 3/26)

San Francisco Chronicle: ‘Worst Is Yet To Come:’ SF May Need Additional 1,500 Ventilators, 5,000 Beds To Confront Coronavirus
Mayor London Breed listens recently as Public Health Director Dr. Grant Colfax announced shelter-in-place orders.Photo: Michael Short / Special to The ChronicleMayor London Breed, health Director Dr. Grant Colfax and representatives from public and private hospitals said Wednesday the city may need up to 1,500 more ventilators and 5,000 more hospital beds to confront the surge in COVID-19 cases that is predicted to descend on San Francisco in as little as two weeks.Since the crisis began, public health officials and San Francisco hospitals have been collaborating on a unified plan to address a predicted inundation of new patients brought on by community spread of the new coronavirus. (Fracassa, 3/25)

The Associated Press: Chicago Uses Hotels For Quarantine To Ease Hospital Demand
Hours before his first shift cooking for people with mild cases of COVID-19 who are being quarantined in a downtown Chicago hotel, Jose Gonzalez made a plan to protect his family from the coronavirus. Chicago’s plan to reserve at least 1,000 hotel rooms through partnerships with five hotels is the first such sweeping strategy unveiled in the U.S. aimed at relieving the pressure on hospitals that are the only option for the seriously sick. (Foody, 3/25)

Los Angeles Times: San Jose Kaiser Hospital Run Over With Coronavirus Patients
About half of Kaiser Permanente’s San Jose hospital has been filled with patients confirmed or suspected to have the new coronavirus, a hospital vice president said in an interview with a medical journal. There have been so many patients that Kaiser San Jose has had to boost its staffing, Dr. Stephen Parodi, a Kaiser executive vice president, infectious disease expert and incident commander for the health system’s COVID-19 response nationally, told the Journal of the American Medical Assn. (Lin, 3/25)

San Francisco Chronicle: Coronavirus Patients Filled Nearly Half The Beds At Kaiser Permanente’s San Jose Hospital, Executive Says 
Nearly half of the patients at Kaiser Permanente San Jose Medical Center have or are believed to have COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, a Kaiser executive told a medical association.Dr. Stephen Parodi, a Kaiser executive vice president, said in an interview with the Journal of the American Medical Association last Thursday that the San Jose facility “actually has almost half the hospital filled with either COVID-confirmed or persons under investigation.” (Kawahara, 3/25)

Los Angeles Times: Cash-Strapped Rural Hospitals Face 'Imminent Closure' As Coronavirus Bears Down
Rural hospitals across the Pacific Northwest that were already struggling financially have seen steep declines in business this month, shunned by patients who fear exposure to the coronavirus as it spreads from urban areas. Emergency rooms have been eerily quiet. Many operating rooms went dark last week after the governors of Washington and Oregon halted most elective surgeries to conserve precious masks, gowns and other protective equipment. But instead of enabling them to prepare for an expected surge in COVID-19 patients, the hospitals say, the lull threatens to bankrupt them. Read, 3/25)

NBC News: Inside A Top Hospital's Battle Against The Coronavirus
Earlier this month, the top officials at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston were modeling scenarios for a possible coronavirus pandemic. The emergency response team was meeting daily. The staff were receiving accelerated training on how to safely put on and remove protective equipment. The hospital even had a backup plan — an "Indiana Jones-style" secret warehouse stocked with medical supplies — meant to buffer supply chain gaps at the peak of an outbreak. (Martinez, Breslauer and Ramgopal, 3/25)

Kaiser Health News: Shortfall Of Comfort Care Signals Undue Suffering For Coronavirus Patients
For Jill Hofstede, whose 90-year-old mother has Alzheimer’s disease, news about the coronavirus becomes more terrifying every day.Although the potential shortages of mechanical ventilators and intensive care beds have made headlines, Hofstede fears a surge of COVID-19 patients could deprive her mother of something far more basic should she contract the disease: relief from pain and suffering. “I do not want her to die of the virus,” said Hofstede, 57, a mother of five who lives in Brush Prairie, Washington. Even more crucially, Hofstede said, “I would not want her to suffer.” (Szabo, 3/26)

Kaiser Health News: Hospital Suppliers Take To The Skies To Combat Dire Shortages Of COVID-19 Gear
Hospitals in the New York City area are turning to a private distributor to airlift millions of protective masks out of China. The U.S. military is flying specialized swabs out of Italy. And a Chicago-area medical supply firm is taking to the skies as well — because a weekslong boat trip across the ocean just won’t do. The race to import medical supplies reflects a nationwide panic over a dwindling supply of the masks, gowns and other protective gear that health care workers need amid the growing coronavirus pandemic. Demand is outstripping what’s available due to a damaged supply chain heavily reliant on China and a struggling Strategic National Stockpile. U.S. manufacturing giants like 3M have not yet made up the difference. (Jewett and Weber, 3/25)

ABC News: Domestic Terror Suspect Allegedly Plotted To Use Car Bomb On Hospital During Coronavirus Outbreak
The FBI announced on Wednesday night that a domestic terrorism suspect who was allegedly planning to use a car bomb at a local medical facility was killed during an attempt to apprehend him just outside of Kansas City, Missouri. Timothy Wilson, 36, was "actively planning to commit an act of domestic terrorism -- a bombing -- and over the course of several months had considered several targets," according to the FBI. He had recently decided to target a hospital as news surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic picked up, sources familiar worth the investigation told ABC News. (Thomas, Date, Levine and Barr, 3/25)

New Orleans Times-Picayune: As New Orleans Hospitals Reach Capacity Amid Coronavirus, Convention Center Seen As Solution
With Louisiana now among a handful of other states who will receive additional federal aid to fight the novel coronavirus outbreak, Mayor LaToya Cantrell gave an extensive account of New Orleans' needs and some early solutions at a Wednesday afternoon press conference.Because the city's hospitals are projected to run out of capacity by April 7, the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center has been tapped as a place where 3,000 patients can be housed when they no longer need intensive care, Cantrell said. (Williams, 3/25)

Philadelphia Inquirer: Can Philadelphia Use Eminent Domain To Take Over Closed Hahnemann Hospital For Coronavirus?
As Philadelphia officials negotiate to use the former Hahnemann University Hospital as quarantine or isolation space during the coronavirus pandemic, City Councilmember Helen Gym is calling for the city to consider seizing the property by eminent domain. “My belief is that the city has the right to exercise some authority here and should be exploring all possible options,” Gym said Wednesday. (McCrystal and Adelman, 3/25)

Houston Chronicle: Makeshift Care Centers, Hotel Rooms And Quarantines: Houston Gearing Up For Next Phase Of Pandemic 
The city has begun scouting sites that can be converted into medical centers easily and is looking to lease rooms from hotels for COVID-19 patients who cannot isolate at home or in a medical center, part of a geared-up response as city officials brace for what is expected to be the next, worse phase of the pandemic. Mayor Sylvester Turner said Wednesday the city is looking at now-vacant hospital buildings, for example, and other facilities that could be used to treat patients if — or when — hospitals here reach capacity and are overwhelmed. (McGuinness, 3/25)

HoustonChronicle: Texas Freestanding ERs Propose Regulatory Changes To Help With Coronavirus Crisis 
A Texas group representing freestanding emergency centers is advocating for changes to state regulations that that would make the facilities more available to the public, easing the burden on hospitals while they fight the novel coronavirus pandemic. As hospitals throughout the state prepare for more patients because of increasing numbers of people testing positive for COVID-19, the Texas Association of Freestanding Emergency Centers has brought three proposals to the state and federal government, including ones that would make beds available for 1,500 patients in more than 200 centers across the state, group leaders said Wednesday. (Ketterer, 3/25)

Crain's Chicago Business: Amita Hospitals In Chicago Area Launch Drive-Up Blood Thinner Testing
Two suburban Chicago hospitals are keeping patients out of the hospital by doing their routine blood thinner test in the parking lot. Amita Health this week began offering drive-up testing for patients on the blood thinner Coumadin, looking to minimize the number of patients entering hospitals. (Asplund, 3/25)

The Washington Post: Some Health-Care Workers Resist Orders To Work Without Adequate Protection
Some health-care workers have begun to resist pressure to work with inadequate protection during the coming tsunami of coronavirus cases. To do so, they must buck the pandemic’s all-hands-on-deck ethos, the medical tradition of accepting elevated risk in a crisis and the threat of discipline from employers. Confrontations and difficult personal decisions are occurring as hospital administrators enforce rationing of masks, face shields and other equipment for workers worried about protecting themselves. (Bernstein and Cha, 3/25)

Modern Healthcare: Safety Concerns Spark Hospital-Employee Clash
Healthcare workers are claiming that their employers are firing them, or threatening to, as they debate how to best protect themselves while caring for patients with COVID-19.The quarrel centers around masks, specifically N95 respirators, as federal safety guidelines shift and supply levels dwindle. Nurses are telling their coworkers that the N95 respirators are safer than the standard face masks that their hospitals are offering, resulting in reprimands from their employers. (Kacik, 3/25)

WBUR: Hundreds Of Mass. Doctors Sign Plea Warning Health System Could Be Close To Collapse
More than 1,000 Massachusetts doctors have sent Gov. Charlie Baker a letter and petition with a dire warning: If the state doesn’t impose stricter limits on public movement, find more protective equipment and increase testing for the coronavirus, the health care system is at risk of collapse. They point out that cases of the coronavirus are continuing to double every two to three days in the state, and yet some healthcare workers are being asked to treat coronavirus patients without protective gear. (Bebinger and Goldberg, 3/25)

CBS News: Medical Workers On Front Lines Of Coronavirus Express Fear And Frustration
For medical professionals across the U.S., going to work during the coronavirus pandemic can be a frightening task that few have signed up for. Just ask Michelle Gonzalez, an Intensive Care Unit nurse at New York's Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, who worries daily about catching COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus. (Gibson, 3/25)

NBC News: In California, Protective Equipment Shortage Pushes Nurses To Consider Drastic Action
A group of bandana-clad nurses protested outside Kaiser Permanente's Oakland Medical Center on Monday night with a message: "We need PPE." On Tuesday evening, a similar group of Kaiser nurses rallied in the rain — while maintaining recommended social distancing — in nearby Richmond. (Farivar, 3/25)

San Francisco Chronicle: Why Do California Companies Have So Many Masks To Donate? 
The donations from Apple, Facebook, Salesforce and others are welcome developments for nurses and doctors facing a nationwide strain on the personal protective equipment they need to safely help patients with COVID-19, the disease caused by the new virus. But why do these companies have so many masks to begin with? California wildfires could be the driving factor. (Morris, 3/25)

CNN: National Cathedral Finds 5,000 Masks That Had Been Stashed Away By Its Crypt For Over 10 Years 
As head stone mason at the National Cathedral in Washington, Joe Alonso knows the ins and outs of the church better than anyone. So as he read news of the coronavirus pandemic, Alonso remembered that there was something stowed away in the cathedral's crypt level that could help efforts to combat the virus: 5,000 N95 respirator masks. (Lee, 3/26)

The Washington Post: Third Resident Of Canterbury Rehab Dies; PPE In Short Supply
Three former patients from Canterbury Rehabilitation & Healthcare Center outside Richmond have died of coronavirus since Tuesday, and more than a dozen other patients and staff are infected. But a top local health official said staff at the long-term care facility still lack the protective gear needed to fully contain the spread of what is one of the largest outbreaks of the virus in the greater Washington area. (Vozzella, 3/26)

PBS NewsHour: What Are Surgical Masks And Respirators, And Why Are They Important In The Fight Against COVID-19? 
The global pandemic caused by COVID-19 has left many health care providers scrambling for basic personal protective equipment, or PPE. Surgical masks and respirators are two forms of PPE that health care providers need to work safely in a pandemic.  (Currie, 3/25)

WBUR: Some Hospitals Move To 'Universal Mask' Policy. Should Everyone Wear Masks In Public? 
As of this week, the largest hospital chain in Massachusetts is imposing what’s called a “universal mask” policy: All Partners Healthcare staffers in public areas are supposed to wear surgical masks to protect their patients — and themselves — from the coronavirus."We’ve never done anything like this, that I’m aware of, here at Mass. General or Partners," said Dr. Erica Shenoy, the associate chief of infection control at Massachusetts General Hospital, which is part of Partners. "I’ve heard of other institutions considering this." (Goldberg, 3/25)

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: How Medical Students In Georgia Are Helping In Coronavirus Crisis
Brands, 25, is among 400 third- and fourth-year students at the Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University who are scheduled to begin assisting the state’s 18 public health districts, advising patients about whether they need to be tested for the virus and performing other tasks, the college announced this week. They’re among the many medical students statewide getting an early start to their medical careers as crowded hospitals grapple with the flood of patients seeking care. (SStirgus, 3/26)

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Coronavirus In Wisconsin: Nursing Students Ask Board For Waiver
Wisconsin’s 3,000 nursing students slated to graduate this year  — and join a workforce where they are desperately needed — are in limbo as hospitals across the state canceled students’ clinical rotations, making graduation unlikely. Facing a nursing shortage even before the COVID-19 pandemic, health care systems will suffer greatly if those students aren’t available to work, said Linda Young, dean of the College of Nursing and Health Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. (Rutledge, 3/25)

The Wall Street Journal: U.S. Communities Struggle To Deal With Coronavirus Testing Backlogs
Despite efforts to ramp up mass testing for the new coronavirus this week, many cities and states are facing more shortages and backlogs as demand surges. Nearly a month into the outbreak, local officials are increasingly taking matters into their own hands so they can obtain critical equipment and grasp the extent of the virus’s spread in their communities. That includes working with private labs and forging direct relationships with test suppliers on the other side of the world. (Frosch, Paul and Mai-Duc, 3/25)

San Francisco Chronicle: Coronavirus Testing More Than Doubles In California. It’s Still Not Enough 
The number of coronavirus tests conducted in California more than doubled, to nearly 67,000, up from 27,000 on Monday, as dozens of new testing sites reported numbers to the state, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Wednesday. (Ho, 3/25)

NBC News: American Samoa's Coronavirus Conundrum: No Way To Test
As the coronavirus was rapidly spreading across the continental United States last week, a person living thousands of miles away in American Samoa developed what appeared to be symptoms of the virus. Health officials In the U.S. territory located deep in the South Pacific rushed to determine if its first potential COVID-19 case would turn out positive. But they had one problem: they couldn’t analyze the samples. (Georgiev and Kaplan, 3/25)

The Wall Street Journal: New Coronavirus Test Tries To Reduce Risk For Health Workers By Letting Patients Swab Selves
Health-services giant UnitedHealth Group Inc. UNH 6.68% is rolling out a coronavirus test that patients can self-administer, potentially reducing the risk to health-care workers as testing quickly expands around the nation. The Food and Drug Administration on Monday included the new methodology in its guidance to the nation’s medical workers. A UnitedHealth clinic in the hard-hit Seattle area began using it that day, and the company said it plans to implement the test nationwide. (Carlton, 3/26)

The New York Times: Lawmakers Question Start-Ups On At-Home Kits For Coronavirus Testing
Three companies that rushed to market unauthorized kits for at-home coronavirus testing face new questions from lawmakers in Washington. On Wednesday, two House Democrats, Representatives Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois and Katie Porter of California, sent letters to the chief executives of Carbon Health, Everlywell and Nurx, asking them to explain their business and testing practices. The companies had marketed kits designed to allow consumers to collect their own saliva, throat swabs or deep nasal swabs at home and send the samples to labs to be tested for the virus. (Singer, 3/25)

Kaiser Health News: Trump’s Boast About U.S., South Korea Coronavirus Testing Misses The Mark
Boasting about his administration’s response to the coronavirus crisis — and arguing the outbreak would soon be under control — President Donald Trump claimed that recent American efforts to test widely for COVID-19 surpass those of other countries. “We’ve done more tests in eight days than South Korea has done in eight weeks,” Trump said during a March 24 virtual town hall hosted by Fox News, reiterating a statement made just moments before by Dr. Deborah Birx, the head of the White House coronavirus response. The statement was repeated during the White House briefing that evening. (Luthra, 3/25)

Billings Gazette: Hospitals Urged To Split COVID-19 Testing Kits To Stretch Resources 
The state lab has been processing samples the same day they're received and and immediately report any positives to local public health officials and the provider that ordered the test, Jon Ebelt, spokesman for Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services, said by email on Wednesday. But as the virus spreads — Gallatin County has now seen the state's first cases from community spread — the need for testing increases. To meet that demand, DPHHS has advised health-care providers to split up their test kits. (Rogers, Hall and Michels, 3/25)

Billings Gazette: Yellowstone Health Officials Urging People Not To Use Rapid COVID-19 Tests
The Food and Drug Administration has not authorized any test available to purchase for testing at home for COVID-19, according to the release. The rapid tests look for the presence of antibodies that are produced as part of the immune response to a virus. However, antibodies may not be detectable for three to seven days after a person is infected. During this time, a person could be infectious even if the test produces a negative result. (Hall, 3/25)

The New York Times: Food Supply Anxiety Brings Back Victory Gardens
“Small things count,” read a headline in the tiny, insistent pamphlet published by the National War Garden Commission in 1919. The pitch made gardening a civic duty. And though the illustrations were cute, the text was urgent: “Prevention of widespread starvation is the peacetime obligation of the United States. … The War Garden of 1918 must become the Victory Garden of 1919.” (Rao, 3/25)

Reuters: World Food Security At Risk As Exporters Curb Sales, Importers Buy More
Panic buying of household staples like toilet paper and cleaning products have occurred in nearly every country hit by the virus, and empty shelves in supermarkets have been common. Compounding the anxiety stemming from erratic consumer buying has been concern that some governments may move to restrict the flow of food staples to ensure their own populations have enough while supply chains get disrupted by the pandemic. “People are starting to get worried,” said Phin Ziebell, agribusiness economist at National Australia Bank. (Thukral, 3/26)

CBS News: Amazon Workers Worry About Catching Coronavirus On The Job 
Amazon's vaunted "to-the-door" delivery model has become a lifeline for millions of U.S. consumers stuck at home because of the coronavirus. But many Amazon workers say those exacting delivery demands could make them sick. (Ivanova, 3/25)

CNN: Amazon Warehouses Are Getting Hit With Coronavirus Cases 
Amazon warehouses are facing a growing tide of coronavirus cases with at least 10 facilities hit so far, according to Amazon and local media reports. One person who works in Amazon's Staten Island, New York, fulfillment center tested positive for the novel coronavirus, the online retail giant told CNN Business late Tuesday. The person, who was last at work physically on March 11, is in quarantine and recovering, Amazon said. (Fung and O'Brien, 3/25)

The Wall Street Journal: Groceries After The Age Of Coronavirus
Crises have a way of accelerating the inevitable. Packaged food and other household goods are registering a sales lift from the coronavirus crisis, which will naturally fade once the emergency has abated. But some behavioral changes, such as the shift to online shopping, will be more permanent. The implications for the consumer-staples industry will be big. In the week through March 14, total U.S. sales of consumer packaged goods were up 44% from a year earlier, Nielsen data shows. Sales of dried beans more than tripled, while sales of soup and tuna more than doubled. Vitamin sales rose 93%. Even kombucha sales were up by 26%. (Back, 3/25)

The New York Times: Terror Charge For Man Authorities Say Coughed Near Woman And Said He Had Virus
A New Jersey man was charged with making a terroristic threat after he intentionally coughed near a supermarket employee and told her he had the coronavirus, the authorities said on the same day that the Justice Department warned of similar threats to spread the virus. The man, George Falcone, 50, of Freehold, N.J., was shopping for groceries at a Wegmans store in Manalapan, N.J., on Sunday evening when a worker asked him to move away from her and a food display because he was too close, the state attorney general, Gurbir S. Grewal, said on Tuesday. (Vigdor, 3/25)

The New York Times: Are Gun Stores 'Essential' In The Virus Era? Americans Stock Up As States Differ
Groceries. Gasoline. Medical care. Marijuana, in some places. All have been designated essential to society in more than a dozen states that have ordered many other businesses to close. But what about guns? Firearm and ammunition sales have soared in recent weeks, so clearly, some Americans want them. A gun industry association is lobbying federal and state governments to categorize firearm manufacturers and dealers as critical infrastructure, complaining that F.B.I. background checks are slowing things down as more people try to purchase weapons. (Levin, 3/25)

The New York Times: Gilead Withdraws Request For Special Orphan Status On Experimental Coronavirus Treatment
Bowing to criticism that it was exploiting the coronavirus pandemic, the drugmaker Gilead said on Wednesday that it would no longer seek orphan-drug status for remdesivir, an experimental drug that is being tested as a possible treatment. The Food and Drug Administration had only granted the special designation on Monday — which gives drug companies a seven-year monopoly on sales, tax credits and expedited approval. Gilead said it asked the agency to rescind the status. (Thomas, 3/25)

NPR: Gilead Asks FDA To Rescind 'Rare Disease' Status For Coronavirus Drug Remdesivir
For its part, Gilead said it could proceed to develop the drug quickly without the special regulatory status. "Gilead is confident that it can maintain an expedited timeline in seeking regulatory review of remdesivir, without the orphan drug designation," the company wrote in a statement. "Recent engagement with regulatory agencies has demonstrated that submissions and review relating to remdesivir for the treatment of COVID-19 are being expedited." To get orphan status, a drug company must show its drug serves a population of fewer than 200,000 people in the United States, "at the time of the submission of the request for orphan-drug designation." Gilead's latest statement indicates that this was early March. (Lupkin, 3/25)

In other news —

ABC News: Minnesota Doctor Engaged In FDA-Approved Hydroxychloroquine Trials Lacks Volunteers 
A Minnesota doctor is calling on healthcare workers and people who have tested positive for COVID-19 and are showing early symptoms of infection to participate in two of the first trials of the malaria drug Hydroxychloroquine to treat coronavirus patients. Dr. David Boulware, an infectious disease specialist from the University of Minnesota, is one of the first doctors to receive approval from the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) to conduct a pair of clinical trials of the drug, which has been heavily promoted by President Trump as a potential antidote to the outbreak. (Rezvi, 3/25)

The New York Times: Can You Become Immune To The Coronavirus?
As the number of people infected with the coronavirus surpasses 450,000 worldwide, and more than one billion are locked in their homes, scientists are wrestling with one of the most pressing questions of the pandemic: Do people who survive the infection become immune to the virus? The answer is a qualified yes, with some significant unknowns. That’s important for several reasons. People who are confirmed to be immune could venture from their homes and help shore up the work force until a vaccine becomes available, for example. (Mandavilli, 3/25)

Reuters: U.S. Companies, Labs Rush To Produce Blood Test For Coronavirus Immunity
Several academic laboratories and medical companies are rushing to produce these blood tests, which can quickly identify disease-fighting antibodies in people who already have been infected but may have had mild symptoms or none at all. This is different from the current, sometimes hard-to-come-by diagnostic tests that draw on a nasal swab to confirm active infection. “Ultimately, this (antibody test) might help us figure out who can get the country back to normal,” Florian Krammer, a professor in vaccinology at Mount Sinai’s Icahn School of Medicine, told Reuters. “People who are immune could be the first people to go back to normal life and start everything up again.” (Terhune, Martell and Steenhuysen, 3/25)

Los Angeles Times: Coronavirus Testing Needed To ID Infected Who Recovered
Around the world, more than 100,000 former patients have been tagged as “recovered.” But that is likely a tiny fraction of the true total. Now immune to reinfection — at least for a while — many of these recovered people could safely go back to work. They could care for those who are ill or who are at high risk of dying if they become ill. They could donate their antibody-rich blood to be used as medicine for the critically ill. They could be among the first to return to life as we used to know it. (Healy, 3/25)

The Wall Street Journal: U.K. Trials Coronavirus-Immunity Tests For Home Use
With a vaccine against the new coronavirus many months away and no known effective drug treatments yet, governments around the world are searching for the next best thing: a test to see if people are immune to the virus. In Britain, the government said Wednesday it is trialing personal blood-testing kits that it hopes to distribute as soon as next week. The test—if it functions—could clear the way for people who have caught and recovered from Covid-19 to return to work or volunteer to help others, potentially easing the disruption caused by the pandemic. (Colchester and Roland, 3/25)

Modern Healthcare: COVID-19 Hospital Charges May Exceed $1.4 Trillion
The total charges to treat COVID-19 within hospital settings are projected to range from at least $362 billion to as high as $1.45 trillion, according to a new analysis. The findings, published Wednesday by not-for-profit Fair Health, are based on historical charges from influenza and pneumonia ICD-10 codes as well as estimates from public health experts regarding how much of the U.S. population is expected to be hospitalized from the virus. (Castellucci, 3/25)

NBC News: Uninsured On The Front Lines: America's Working Poor Face A Pandemic Without Any Aid
Every six months Penny Wingard’s doctor in Charlotte, North Carolina, checks her white blood cell count even though she can’t afford the tests. After a brutal round of chemotherapy for stage 2 breast cancer in 2014 left her with chemical burns, Wingard has a compromised immune system and no health insurance. When she lost that coverage, more medical issues followed: She had a brain aneurysm and then the chemo caused Wingard, 56, to go temporarily blind before she underwent cornea surgery. Her medical debt through all this has ballooned to more than $25,000 — an amount she has no hope of ever paying off as a part-time Lyft driver. (McCausland, 3/26)

The New York Times: How To Get Health Insurance If Worried About Coronavirus Or Unemployment
Most working-age Americans get their health insurance through their employer. Which means a job loss during the coronavirus pandemic could mean losing your health insurance. In past economic crises, options for buying affordable health insurance were limited. But provisions in the Affordable Care Act, along with actions taken recently by Congress and some states, mean more opportunities for getting coverage. Here’s a guide to the options, which differ depending on your circumstances. (Sanger-Katz and Abelson, 3/25)

Modern Healthcare: Aetna Waiving Cost Sharing For Coronavirus Hospital Admissions
CVS Health said Wednesday it is waiving cost-sharing for certain Aetna plan members who are admitted to the hospital for COVID-19 treatment or health complications associated with the disease.The pledge will likely make it easier for patients to access and afford care during the worsening pandemic should they need it. It applies to Aetna's commercially insured members when they seek treatment at in-network hospitals. Aetna covers 3.6 million fully insured commercial members and serves 14.2 million people in self-insured employer plans. Self-insured plan sponsors will be able to opt out of the policy, a CVS spokesman said. (Livingston, 3/25)

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Ascension Wisconsin Will Cover Uninsured Coronavirus Tests, Treatments
At least one health care provider in the state — Ascension Wisconsin — will not bill people without health insurance for testing or treatment of COVID-19. The nonprofit also announced Wednesday that patients who are insured will not be billed for out-of-pocket expenses or co-pays related to coronavirus testing or treatment. (Spicuzza and Boulton, 3/25)

ProPublica: Medicaid Abruptly Canceled Her Health Insurance. Then Came The Coronavirus.
Every day during what seems like an endless quarantine, Judith Persutti assigns herself a chore. So far she’s washed the curtains and dusted the miniblinds in the little country house where she is sheltering in place with her oldest granddaughter. Stop to rest when the fatigue sets in. Lie down when the pain becomes too much. And, of course, check the mail. (Johnson, 3/25)

Modern Healthcare: CMS Withdraws Rule To Crack Down On Medicaid Eligibility
The CMS on Tuesday withdrew its proposed rule to crackdown on state Medicaid eligibility determinations from the Office of Management and Budget's regulatory review process."This proposed rule would strengthen the integrity of the Medicaid eligibility determination process including verification, changes in circumstance, and redetermination," the agency said in its description of the rule. The proposed rule was supposed to be published in April. (Brady, 3/25)

The Washington Post: More Than 140 Nursing Homes Have Had Coronavirus Cases. Federal Officials Won’t Release A List.
More than 140 nursing homes in the United States have at least one resident who tested positive for the coronavirus, according to federal government figures released earlier this week, but exactly which homes are affected and where they are, federal officials won’t say. Their refusal to release the information has angered families, industry watchdogs and emergency personnel who say it deprives them of critical information as they try to ensure the safety of nursing home residents, who are among the most vulnerable to the disease. (Whoriskey and Sacchetti, 3/25)

NBC News: Entire Senior Home In New Jersey, 94 People, Presumed To Have Coronavirus
An entire New Jersey nursing home is presumed to be infected with coronavirus, forcing everyone from the facility to be evacuated on Wednesday, officials said. At least 24 of 94 residents and patients of St. Joseph’s Senior Home in Woodbridge, about 20 miles south of Newark, have tested positive for coronavirus and the other 70 clients are also believed to have the virus, authorities said. The first positive came back on March 17 and at least one positive test has come back "everyday thereafter," said John Hagerty, a spokesman for the city of Woodbridge. (Li, 3/25)

The Daily Beast: Three Nuns Left To Handle Nearly 100 Seniors Presumed To Have Coronavirus In New Jersey Care Home
“The hardest part is knowing that they probably don’t understand the weight of the problem, so they feel abandoned,” Henryka Roman, the daughter of a 94-year-old St. Joseph’s resident, told The Daily Beast. Her mother, Maria Zygmaniak, tested positive for the coronavirus after exhibiting symptoms such as a fever and cough. Zygmaniak, who has been a resident at the home for seven years, only speaks Polish. “She is in stable condition now, but who knows if she is going to survive this. We are not able to see her, and she probably doesn’t understand why we can’t see her,” Roman said. (Tucker and Olding, 3/25)

NBC News: Anti-Abortion Groups Seek Halt To Abortions During Coronavirus Pandemic
More than 50 anti-abortion groups have sent a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar calling on public health officials to urge abortion providers to cease operations during the coronavirus outbreak. In the letter Tuesday, the anti-abortion groups said a halt in abortions would free up needed medical equipment for the coronavirus response. The coalition also asked public health officials to ensure that emergency response funds are not given to abortion providers and that telemedicine abortion is not expanded during the outbreak. (Atkins, 3/25)

The Hill: Abortion Providers Sue Texas Governor Over Ban On Procedure During Coronavirus Crisis 
Abortion providers in Texas filed a lawsuit against Gov. Greg Abbott (R) on Wednesday challenging his statewide ban on abortions during the coronavirus outbreak. Abbott’s administration last week directed health providers in the state to pause all surgeries that aren't immediately necessary in order to conserve medical supplies for health workers on the frontlines of the coronavirus epidemic. (Hellmann, 3/25)

Stat: What We've Learned About The Coronavirus — And What We Need To Know
As we approach the three-month mark since we all learned about a new virus triggering serious respiratory infections in China, the amount of information that’s been gained about the new coronavirus is staggering. In 2003, when SARS first emerged in China, it took weeks for laboratories to figure out what was causing new and sometimes deadly cases of pneumonia there and elsewhere. This time, rumors of a possible new coronavirus were reported in China at the end of December, roughly the same time the country alerted the World Health Organization that it had a dangerous outbreak on its hands. By Jan. 10, the full genetic sequence of the virus had been shared with scientists around the globe. (Branswell, 3/26)

Reuters: Smokers Likely To Be More At Risk From Coronavirus: EU Agency
Smoking can make people more susceptible to serious complications from a coronavirus infection, the European Union agency for disease control said on Wednesday, citing scientific studies, although available data is still limited. In its updated assessment of the risks caused by the coronavirus, or SARS-CoV-2, the European Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (ECDC) included smokers among those potentially most vulnerable to COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus. (3/25)

ABC News: Vaping And E-Cigarettes: Adding Fuel To The Coronavirus Fire? 
New data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last week warns that young people may be more impacted by COVID-19 than was initially thought, with patients under the age of 45 comprising more than a third of all cases, and one in five of those patients requiring hospitalization. Although scientists still don’t have good data to explain exactly why some young people are getting very sick from the novel coronavirus, some experts are now saying that the popularity of e-cigarettes and vaping could be making a bad situation even worse. (Nunneley, 3/26)

ProPublica: Why This Coronavirus Is Not Like The Flu, Or Even The Swine Flu
COVID-19 is unlike anything in our lifetime. But the president has repeatedly compared it to the H1N1 swine flu outbreak of 2009. Here's why it's different, and much more dangerous. (Waldron, 3/25)

Stat: What It’s Like To Go Into The Lab Amid The Coronavirus Pandemic
Like grocery store clerks and Amazon delivery drivers, they’re among the essential workers of the coronavirus pandemic: the biopharma employees who must still go in to the lab or the manufacturing plant. But for these employees, going to work means facing elevated risk that they might be infected while taking public transportation, passing a colleague in the hallway, or peering over a Petri dish. (Robbins and Sheridan, 3/26)

The Wall Street Journal: Coronavirus Leaves Older Americans Cut Off: ‘We Have Been Trying To Fill That Void’
Every afternoon, Larry Levine, 94, took the bus 2½ miles from his senior-care apartment to visit his wife of 70 years, Claire Levine, who has Alzheimer’s. He usually brought flowers and stayed for dinner at the memory-care community where she lives. His visits have stopped. Twelve days ago, Mrs. Levine’s residence banned all visitors to protect them from the new coronavirus sweeping the country. That same day, Mr. Levine’s apartment building asked seniors to stay put for their own safety. “She’s there and I’m here,” he said. “She doesn’t understand this virus, why I don’t come to see her, why her children don’t come to see her.” (Ansberry, 3/25)

CBS News: Coronavirus Lockdown Meant Watching My Uncle's Funeral From Hundreds Of Miles Away 
The new coronavirus pandemic isn't just changing people's lives, it's also changing their deaths. My elderly uncle in Ireland died earlier this week. He didn't have the virus — but the pandemic changed everything after he died. (Cobbe, 3/25)

Los Angeles Times: How To Care For Someone With Coronavirus
Has someone in your home tested positive for the coronavirus or started showing symptoms? Here’s how to care for your loved one and keep yourself safe. First, remember that most people who get sick with COVID-19 will have mild symptoms. Experts say those people should stay home and leave only for medical care. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends five steps for caring for a person with COVID-19: monitor the person for worsening symptoms, prevent the spread of germs, treat their symptoms and, finally, decide when to end home isolation. (Cruz, 3/25)

The New York Times: Coronavirus Symptoms Full List: What Are They? Is There A Cure?
As the coronavirus continues to spread across the globe, the news is coming at a fast and furious pace. But don’t let the volume send you into a panic about your health and that of your loved ones. “The mantra is, ‘Keep calm and carry on,’” said Dr. Marguerite Neill, an infectious disease expert at Brown University. Here’s a list of frequently asked questions about the coronavirus outbreak and its symptoms. (3/25)

CBS News: Pregnant Women Are Being Forced To Give Birth Alone As Hospitals Restrict Visitors During Coronavirus 
The birth of a child is a pivotal moment. One that is often shared between spouses, even grandparents and siblings. Now, however, due to the rapidly spreading coronavirus pandemic, women across the United States are finding themselves forced to go through labor and delivery alone – a reality that, for many, would have once been unthinkable. (Capatides and O'Kane, 3/25)

The New York Times: How To Prevent A Coronavirus Depression
There is little doubt that economic data in the weeks to come will obliterate all modern records in their awfulness. One Federal Reserve official has said the unemployment rate could hit 30 percent, three times its level at the worst point of the 2008-2009 Great Recession. And he has suggested that G.D.P. could fall at a 50 percent annual rate next quarter, which would be five times worse than the worst single quarter on record. Economic forecasters at major banks differ in degree, not direction, of the disaster facing the American economy. (Irwin, 3/25)

Philadelphia Inquirer: Many Of Philly’s Coronavirus Cases Are In Young People. Experts Explain Why Those Numbers May Be Skewed.
Public health experts and officials agree the surprising number of cases among millennials is likely due to the fact that young people socialize often with others, increasing their chances of contracting the virus. But, experts caution that the existing numbers do not fully capture the situation. Kathleen Bachynski, an assistant professor in public health at Muhlenberg College, said that she was a “little surprised” at the high numbers of young people being hospitalized in the U.S. (Aio, 3/26)

The Wall Street Journal: Tech’s Next Disruption Target: The Coronavirus
Silicon Valley’s technology whizzes are mobilized to fight the coronavirus, trying to hack everything from disease modeling to elder care and medical-device manufacturing. Yet it isn’t clear how best to apply the industry’s talents for on-the-fly innovation to a fast-moving pandemic, or whether the U.S.’s wellspring of disruption can make major contributions to solving society’s biggest crisis in decades. Thousands of volunteers from the tech world have begun pitching in on hundreds of hastily assembled projects over the past two weeks, as the virus ravaged Europe and spread in the U.S. (Fitch, Winkler and Seetharaman, 3/25)

Politico: EU Industry Chief: Coronavirus Crisis Could Be Turning Point For Big Tech
The coronavirus crisis could have an unexpected consequence: A truce between Big Tech and politicians in Brussels, Paris and Berlin. Last week, Netflix, Google, Facebook and others agreed to reduce the quality of their videos to avoid internet congestion in Europe. According to Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton, this could be a turning point in how big platforms behave in the future. (Kayali, 3/25)

Stateline: Cities, Legislatures Learn To Govern By Conference Call 
Elected officials are figuring out Zoom just like the rest of us. Some of the most important legislation states and cities enact to fight the coronavirus pandemic will be passed on grainy video chats or glitchy conference calls, using processes that have never been tested. (Brown, 3/26)

Reuters: Do More To Stop Coronavirus Price Gouging, U.S. States Tell Amazon, Walmart, Facebook
A group of 32 U.S. states have a message for the nation’s leading online platforms: You are not doing enough to stop price gouging amid the coronavirus crisis. In a letter sent on Wednesday to Amazon.com Inc, Walmart Inc, Facebook Inc and eBay Inc a bipartisan group of U.S. attorneys general outlined specific steps it wants the online platforms to take to end this practice. Pennsylvania’s Josh Shapiro is leading the effort along with attorneys general from the states of Connecticut, Vermont and New Mexico. (Bose, 3/25)

The New York Times: Twitter Blocks Article Promoting ‘Chickenpox Parties’ To Stop The Coronavirus
Twitter on Wednesday temporarily locked the account of a conservative website after it promoted an article suggesting that the medical community should consider intentionally infecting people with the coronavirus at “chickenpox parties” to help slow the spread of the virus. The article, titled “How Medical ‘Chickenpox Parties’ Could Turn The Tide Of The Wuhan Virus,” argued that a “controlled voluntary infection” program could allow young people to return to work after contracting and recovering from the virus. (Levenson, 3/25)

The New York Times: A Deluged System Leaves Some Elderly To Die, Rocking Spain’s Self-Image
Spain prides itself on being a tight-knit society that respects parents and grandparents, where powerful bonds across generations mean that the elderly play an integral part in family life, beyond just helping to look after grandchildren. So even in a country besieged by the coronavirus epidemic, where the death toll overtook China’s on Wednesday, the news this week about Spain’s nursing homes has come as a particular shock. Soldiers who were sent to disinfect nursing homes had found people “completely abandoned, or even dead, in their beds,” the defense secretary, Margarita Robles, revealed on Monday. (Minder and Peltier, 3/25)

ProPublica: How China Built A Twitter Propaganda Machine Then Let It Loose On Coronavirus
Kalen Keegan, a college student at the University of Nebraska Omaha, immediately noticed when her Twitter account unleashed a torrent of posts in Chinese. “My other account got hacked👍🏽,” the soccer player posted on a replacement account. The new author tweeting as @Kalenkayyy had strong views on geopolitics — all aligned with the Chinese Communist Party. It was obsessed with the protests in Hong Kong, offered uncritical praise of the Hong Kong police and accused demonstrators of fomenting a “color revolution” backed by an “anti-Chinese American conspiracy.” (Kao and Li, 3/26)

The Wall Street Journal: Europe Opts For Economic Freeze To Fight Coronavirus, As U.S. Debate Continues
European governments weighing the economic damage of a mass shutdown against the risk of spreading the new coronavirus were initially hesitant to impose stringent lockdowns and border closures. But as the pace of infections and deaths accelerated, Europe has broadly coalesced around a strategy: Freeze now and worry later about the bill. Their initial hesitation to do so crumbled as the new coronavirus swept the continent and policy makers determined that not acting forcefully could lead to equally bad economic outcomes, but with a higher body count. (Douglas and Pancevski, 3/26)

The Washington Post: Coronavirus Soldiers: Military Enforces Lockdowns, Quarantines, Curfews
Around the world, as a consensus has formed around the need for quarantine and social distancing to fight the coronavirus, a more delicate question has emerged: How do you enforce those new rules? In every region, under all kinds of political systems, governments are turning to increasingly stringent measures — and deploying their armed forces to back them up. (Sieff, 3/25)

Reuters: Vietnam Quarantines Tens Of Thousands In Camps Amid Vigorous Attack On Coronavirus
Vietnam has sent tens of thousands of people to quarantine camps as waves of overseas citizens return home to escape a coronavirus pandemic spreading in Europe and the United States. Even though Vietnam is one of Southeast Asia’s poorer nations, its efforts against the virus, praised at home, have ensured its tally of infections is lower than many neighbours. (Pearson and Nguyen, 3/26)

ProPublica: Walmart Was Almost Charged Criminally Over Opioids. Trump Appointees Killed The Indictment.
On a Tuesday just before Halloween in 2018, a group of federal prosecutors and agents from Texas arrived in Washington. For almost two years, they’d been investigating the opioid dispensing practices of Walmart, the largest company in the world. They had amassed what they viewed as highly damning evidence only to face a major obstacle: top Trump appointees at the Department of Justice. The prosecution team had come to Washington to try to save its case. Joe Brown, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Texas, led the group, which included Heather Rattan, an over-20-year veteran of the office who had spent much of her career prosecuting members of drug cartels. (Eisinger and Bandler, 3/25)

PBS NewsHour: Amid COVID-19, A New Push For Telehealth To Treat Opioid Use Disorder
The medical community has been working to provide accessible treatment for opioid use disorder to those who are in hard to reach areas, particularly in rural America. Telehealth, or the use of videoconferencing, texting and mobile apps are all being used to aid in recovery. But as COVID-19 sweeps across the U.S., closing businesses and schools and forcing many to stay home, telehealth treatment for substance abuse may now be more critical than ever. (Rohrich, 3/23)

Urban Institute: Quickly Expanding Medicaid Eligibility As An Urgent Response To The Coronavirus Pandemic
Economists believe that a global recession is unavoidable amidst the Coronavirus crisis, and there are already reports of large spikes in unemployment. Since the health insurance of many Americans is tied to their employment, the US is likely to also see large increases in uninsured people with newly lower incomes. The 15 states that have not yet expanded Medicaid eligibility under the Affordable Care Act are least prepared to assist the many workers expected to simultaneously lose their jobs and their health insurance coverage. Medicaid enrollment is not limited to a narrow open enrollment period (as is the case with most private insurance), so eligible people can enroll at any time during the year. (Blumberg and Mann, 3/24)

JAMA Internal Medicine: Association Between Medicaid Expansion And Rates Of Opioid-Related Hospital Use
In this difference-in-differences study evaluating institutions in 46 states and the District of Columbia, the post-2014 Medicaid expansions were associated with a statistically significant 9.7% reduction in the rate of opioid-related inpatient hospitalizations. There did not appear to be any associations between the pre-2014 or post-2014 Medicaid expansions on the rate of opioid-related emergency department visits. (Wen et al, 3/23)

CIDRAP: Multinational ICU Study Finds High Rate Of Infection, Antibiotic Use
A high prevalence of suspected or proven infections, with a substantial risk of in-hospital mortality for infected patients. The results of the multinational point-prevalence study, published yesterday in JAMA, found that, over a 24-hour period, 54% of ICU patients in 88 countries had a suspected or proven infection, with gram-negative bacterial infections accounting for more than two thirds of those infections. The in-hospital mortality rate was 30% among patients with infections, with the risk of death higher for patients with certain antibiotic-resistant pathogens. (Dall, 3/25)

The New York Times: Heartburn Drugs Tied To Bone Fractures In Children
Proton pump inhibitors — the widely used heartburn drugs — may slightly increase the risk for bone fractures in children, a new study suggests. P.P.I.’s are approved for use in children over a year old for treating gastroesophageal reflux disease, the persistent regurgitation of food and stomach acid. Using Swedish government health records, researchers studied 231,866 children, half of whom had been prescribed P.P.I.’s. (Bakalar, 3/23)

CIDRAP: Hopeful Results From Trials Of Dengue Vaccine Candidate
Phase 2 and 3 randomized, controlled clinical trials of Takeda's tetravalent (four-strain) dengue vaccine candidate show that it is safe, produces immunity in children, and protects against the disease—regardless of previous exposure to different strains of the virus, according to studies published in yesterday's The Lancet.In the phase 3 double-blind trial, 20,099 children 4 to 16 years old at 26 centers in endemic areas of Asia and Latin America were randomly assigned to receive two doses of the live TAK-003 vaccine or two doses of placebo 3 months apart from September 2016 to August 2017. (Van Beusekom, 3/18)

Urban Institute: Estimates Of The Implications Of Public Option And Capped Provider Payment Rate Reforms
In this report, Urban Institute researchers estimate the coverage and spending implications of various forms of a public health insurance option introduced as an alternative to private plans currently available to consumers. The public option would be a plan structured the same as private insurance plans currently available in the applicable markets, but it would also share some characteristics with the traditional Medicare fee-for-service plan. Its actuarial value, covered benefits, and cost-sharing structure would reflect the private options in the market in which it was introduced (e.g., a Marketplace qualified health plan in the nongroup market or a typical plan in the employer market). However, a public option would have a broad network, like the traditional Medicare plan, and would pay providers at Medicare rates or some multiple thereof that would set prices between Medicare’s payment rates and those of commercial insurers today. (Blumberg, Holahan, McMorrow and Simpson, 3/18)

Fox News: Easter Resurrection From Coronavirus? A Hope For Rebirth Of The Economy
Last Sunday morning, a friend wise in the ways of things both political and economic offered a thought. The next big decision for the White House, he said, would be how and when to get the country back to work. Otherwise, the economic damage from the coronavirus outbreak would be too deep and painful to bear.Fortunately, President Trump already was thinking along those lines. Late that night, he tweeted in all caps that “WE CANNOT LET THE CURE BE WORSE THAN THE PROBLEM ITSELF” and promised to reassess the federal guidelines at the end of the established 15-day period. (Michael Goodwin, 3/25)

The Houston Chronicle: ‘We Can Rebuild Our Economy But We Cannot Bring Back The Millions Who Could Die.’
I choose to stay home. I choose to stay home not to protect myself nor to protect my parents or grandparents because, unfortunately they are no longer with us. I choose to stay home to protect your parents and your grandparents because I respect them and value their knowledge, wisdom and perspective and because I value their lives and their humanity. I choose to stay home to protect you and your children because COVID-19 is killing people of all ages. I choose to stay home because I value and respect our courageous frontline nurses, hospital workers and doctors who are selflessly risking their lives and putting their own loved ones at risk every day for each one of us. (Daniel W. Snare , 3/25)

The Washington Post: We Must Plan Now For How To Get Back To Business Later 
“Lock it down vs. let it open” is a flawed debate. It fails to recognize how much economic activity continues now, even in our current condition; it also fails to appreciate the nuanced alternatives to “going back to the way it was” when it is time to move toward normalization. Public health advocates need to do a better job of messaging their side of the coronavirus argument if they want to keep the American people as safe as possible. And all of us need a new way of thinking about risk management when it comes time to restore currently constrained parts of economic life. (Ronald A. Klain, 3/25)

Los Angeles Times: The Most Important Thing Is To Contain COVID-19. Then We Can Think About Going Back To Work 
The drastic steps taken to slow the spread of COVID-19 are pushing the United States and much of the rest of the world off an economic cliff. Analysts estimated that more than 3 million Americans registered for unemployment benefits last week alone — a staggering 50% increase in the total number of jobless workers.So it’s no wonder there’s a growing chorus of business and political leaders complaining, as President Trump puts it, that the cure is worse than the disease. “Our country wasn’t built to be shut down,” the president said Monday. Instead, he keeps hinting that the restrictions on movement and commerce could be ended around April 12, which is Easter Sunday.Well, sure, we’d all like to see the restrictions lifted as soon as possible. But it would be reckless, irresponsible and deadly to do so anytime soon. (3/26)

The Washington Post: Trump Barrels Toward Calamity
President Trump has issued his order: Damn the mortality — full speed ahead.With all the foresight of Napoleon invading Russia and all the caution of George Pickett charging the Union lines, Trump barreled ahead Tuesday with his plan to send Americans back to their workplaces — and, consequently, their airplanes, subways and restaurants — within 19 days, even as the rapidly spreading pandemic builds toward a peak. (Dana Millbank, 3/24)

NBC News: Coronavirus Has Donald Trump And Dan Patrick Ready To Sacrifice Older People
On Monday, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick essentially said that the economic well-being of the country was more important than the lives of older people. The Republican politician was riffing on a theme that President Donald Trump has been hammering at this week, framing the dilemma posed by the coronavirus as either save the entire U.S. economy or tolerate a few more deaths. "We cannot let the cure be worse than the problem itself," Trump tweeted Sunday. (Celia Viggo Wexler, 3/26)

Los Angeles Times: Trump's Deadly Optimism On The Coronavirus Pandemic
Even as the number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the United States has zoomed past 64,000, President Trump continues to express confidence. He has gone from optimism in the face of the imminent threat of the coronavirus to suggesting that the pandemic will abate soon and the U.S. economy will be “raring to go” by Easter. Trump’s optimism stands in sharp contrast to the recommendations of healthcare professionals, who tell us that the worst is yet to come, and that our only chance of containing the virus is by maintaining tight restrictions on business activity, social contact and travel. (Don A. Moore, 3/26)

The New York Times: Trump Wants To ‘Reopen America.’ Here’s What Happens If We Do.
President Trump says he wants the United States “raring to go” in two and a half weeks, on Easter, with “packed churches all over our country.” He and many other political conservatives suggest that we are responding to something like the flu with remedies that may be more devastating than the disease. We created this interactive model with epidemiologists to show why quickly returning to normal could be a historic mistake that would lead to an explosion of infections, hospitalizations and deaths. (Nicholas Kristof and Stuart A. Thompson, 3/25)

Bloomberg: Coronavirus Testing Shortage Leaves America Flying Blind 
Americans are used to swimming in a sea of data, from football stats for fantasy leagues to the personal info Big Tech mines to shove ads in our faces. And yet in the biggest crisis in many of our lifetimes, hard numbers are suddenly scarce. That’s because we’re still not testing nearly enough people for coronavirus to have any real sense of just how much this invisible enemy has infiltrated our towns, homes and businesses, writes Michael Lewis, in the first entry of an ongoing Covid-19 diary. (Mark Gongloff, 3/25)

The Wall Street Journal: The High Price Of Coronavirus Relief 
Congress rarely does anything that isn’t messy, so let’s stipulate that a $2 trillion bill written on the fly in a week will be loaded with waste and a lifetime supply of unintended consequences. Americans will pay for this for decades. The consolation is that the Senate bill that was moving to a vote by our deadline Wednesday includes money to keep workers and businesses afloat during this national economic shutdown and perhaps avoid a depression. The virus rescue shouldn’t cost this much. The bill includes $250 billion for $1,200 payments to Americans whether or not they’re affected by the virus. The cash will do little or nothing to help an economy closed by government fiat. The bill also pluses up unemployment insurance beyond 100% of wages—an incentive not to return to work if you’re laid off. Republicans were scrambling to fix that provision on Wednesday, and we hope they do. (3/25)

The Hill: Failure To Fix Immigration Undermines Our Ability To Mitigate COVID-19 
As the COVID-19 pandemic sweeps the country and the globe, the Trump administration has enacted a series of travel restrictions with other countries and new measures targeting asylum seekers along the U.S.-Mexico border to combat the crisis. Although President Trump has claimed that these measures would mitigate the crisis by stopping “mass global migration” that purportedly spreads COVID-19, they overlook the systemic problems in our health care infrastructure that failed to contain the virus in the country. (Cristobal Ramon, 3/25)

The Wall Street Journal: FDA Shouldn’t Keep Safe Drugs Off The Market
The federal government requires pharmaceutical companies to prove that their drugs are both safe and effective before putting them on the market. Before 1962, companies needed to prove only safety. While there is some appeal to this two-hurdle approach, evidence suggests that there is only a slight benefit and a tremendous cost. With the Covid-19 pandemic sweeping the world, there has never been a better time to revoke the Food and Drug Administration’s efficacy requirement. (Charles L. Hooper and David R. Henderson, 3/25)

Bloomberg: Coronavirus: Biases Are Playing Role In Poor Pandemic Leadership
It’s the worst epidemic of our times, a health emergency that has now left more than 420,000 infected, 18,800 dead and paralyzed the global economy. The scale has been clear for weeks. All the more baffling, therefore, to watch poor decisions being repeated, over and over again. From Italy to the U.S. and Britain, each government first believes its country to be less exposed than it is, overestimates its ability to control the situation, ignores the real-time experience of others and ultimately scrambles to take measures. (Clara Ferreira Marques, 3/25)

The Advocate: Don't Sentence Unconvicted Inmates To Coronavirus In Jails
New Orleans has the second-highest per capita rate of confirmed cases of COVID-19 of any city in the country — but too many of its leaders are displaying a callous disregard for the evidence-based steps that would stem the spread of this deadly disease.Instead of following the recommendations of public health experts to reduce arrests and incarceration in response to this unprecedented pandemic, Orleans Parish District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro is engaging in misinformation and fearmongering that puts all of us at risk. (Alanah Odoms Hebert, 3/25)

Boston Globe: Code Blue: We’re Doctors And We Need Personal Protective Equipment To Shield Us From The Coronavirus — Now
A critical lack of personal protective equipment — masks, N95 respirator masks, and powered air purifying respirators — makes our jobs not just difficult, but dangerous. The consequences of this failure to protect health care workers will be substantial. While it may take years to train a physician or nurse, it may take only a single exposure to kill one. (Regan Bergmark and Thomas Tsai, 3/25)

Bloomberg: Coronavirus: Why Surgeons Don't Want To Operate Right Now
Last week, the Italian government began publishing a new dataset related to the coronavirus pandemic. It features a list of names, starting with 68-year-old Roberto Stella, president of the Medical Association of Varese, in Lombardy. Stella’s name tops a roll call of doctors who’ve died from Covid-19 since March 11 alone. It had grown to 24 when I checked while writing this column — more than double the reported rate of medical deaths in China. The numbers confirmed what many doctors in the U.K. have suspected for some weeks: Those on the front lines are most at risk, not simply of catching the virus, but of getting its most severe form. So far, however, the very countries that have been slow to enact measures to suppress transmission in the community also lag behind in understanding and responding to the threat Covid-19 poses to doctors. (Therese Raphael, 3/24)

New England Journal of Medicine: Critical Supply Shortages — The Need For Ventilators And Personal Protective Equipment During The Covid-19 Pandemic
On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization designated “coronavirus disease 2019” (Covid-19) a global pandemic. As the number of cases in the United States continues to grow, political leaders are encouraging physical (or “social”) distancing to slow the rate of transmission. The goal of this practice is to flatten the curve of new infection, thereby avoiding a surge of demand on the health care system, but the effects of physical distancing may take weeks to appear. U.S. hospitals are already reporting shortages of key equipment needed to care for critically ill patients, including ventilators and personal protective equipment (PPE) for medical staff. Adequate production and distribution of both types of equipment are crucial to caring for patients during the pandemic. (Megan L. Ranney, Valerie Griffeth, and Ashish K. Jha, 3/25)

Fox News: Coronavirus And Cardiovascular Disease – Stopping A Deadly Duo
As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to spread, one thing we have learned is that people with pre-existing chronic diseases are at substantially higher risk of severe complications and death. As we race to respond to this pandemic, we need to protect and provide care for the most vulnerable among us, including people living with cardiovascular disease and other chronic diseases. People with coronavirus infection and cardiovascular disease, hypertension and diabetes are at least twice as likely to die. Smoking is especially deadly – one study found that smokers have 14 times greater odds of developing COVID-associated pneumonia than non-smokers. (Former CDC chief Tom Frieden, 3/25)

New England Journal of Medicine: Practical Measures To Help Prevent Covid-19 
The rapid spread of SARS-CoV-2, a novel coronavirus that emerged in late 2019, and the resulting Covid-19 disease has been labeled a Public Health Emergency of International Concern by the World Health Organization. What physicians need to know about transmission, diagnosis, and treatment is the subject of ongoing updates from infectious disease experts at the Journal. In this audio interview conducted on March 25, 2020, the editors discuss transmission of SARS-CoV-2 and how to prevent it, particularly in at-risk health care workers. (Eric J. Rubin, Lindsey R. Baden, and Stephen Morrissey, 3/26)

Stat: Covid-19 Is Scary. A CRISPR-Made Pandemic Could Be Scarier 
Uncertainty breeds panic. As Covid-19 spreads across the planet, stock markets have crashed in response to the economic impact this virus will wreak on the global economy and cities around the world are shutting down. We shouldn’t really be surprised by SARS-CoV-2, the new coronavirus. We’ve seen this scenario play out before with Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) and severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). (Neal Baer, 3/26)

The Washington Post: It’s A Scary Time To Be Pregnant, But I’m Still So Grateful
This is my worst fear. I’m in labor, with a high fever, straining to breathe through contractions while wearing a mask. The moment my baby is born, she is taken away from me. I can’t hold her. I can’t touch her. The only way I can get breast milk to her is to express it and give it to someone else to feed her. If I survive the infection, it will be weeks before I can be sure that I’m no longer contagious and can be with my newborn. In the meantime, she will be tested to see whether she has acquired the infection. If she has, she could become critically ill and die. (Leana S. Wen, 3/25)

Stat: Covid-19 Might Delay The July 1 Start Date For New Medical Residents 
Some projections place the peak of Covid-19 infections in the U.S. between May and June. If it is still going strong at the end of June, it will collide with the start of a new year in teaching hospitals across the country: July 1 is traditionally the day that new doctors who had been medical students just a month or two earlier start work as doctors. (Martin Kaminski and Frances Ue, 3/26)

The New York Times: No Single Player Can Win This Board Game. It’s Called Pandemic.
Our new reality became very immediate for my wife Donna and me in late February, when she came down with nasty, flulike symptoms and couldn’t get tested for the coronavirus for four long weeks. When she finally did, we were relieved the test came back negative. But this felt personal in more ways than one: Donna was the inspiration for Pandemic, a board game that was originally released in 2008. I designed it to play with her. (Matt Leacock, 3/25)

Modern Healthcare: There'll Be No 'Back To Normal' For Healthcare After COVID-19 Crisis
As a result of this coronavirus crisis and our collective response to it, we just might be seeing what healthcare can look like once this crisis has passed. And it will pass, leaving all of us, and those we exist to serve, with a very different idea of what is possible from a transformed and consumer-centric healthcare industry. Simply, and at great risk of sensationalizing the milestone, the end of the COVID-19 coronavirus crisis will mark the beginning of a new day in healthcare. (Jonathan Manis, 3/25)

The Hill: We're In 'Emergency Mode' For Coronavirus — We Can Do The Same Thing For Climate 
A meme has been going around social media reading, “climate change needs coronavirus’s publicist.” The truth is, everyone who is treating coronavirus as an emergency is its publicist. Humans are social creatures. We look to one another to assess the seriousness of situations and decide whether or not to enter “emergency mode.” (Margaret Klein Salamon, 3/25)

The Wall Street Journal: New York’s Ailing Hospitals
Desperate for more hospital beds to treat a surge of coronavirus patients, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has understandably asked President Trump to task the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to convert convention centers and empty college dorm rooms into makeshift wards. The virus wasn’t predictable. But it’s worth pointing out that the state’s hospital bed shortage is in part due to years of Medicaid mismanagement. (3/25)

Miami Herald: Haslem Angry At Spring Breakers Cavalier Attitude
The Miami Heat’s Udonis Haslem saw videos of insensitive Spring Breakers in his back yard saying things like, “If I get corona, I get corona,” and saw red. The party must go on? No, Haslem determined, the party must go, period. And it can’t be said often enough that everyone has a role to play in stopping the deadly coronavirus pandemic.Haslem, a 17-year NBA veteran, who is usually an enforcer for his teammates on the court, did the same for Miami. (3/25)

Boston Globe: Mass. Needs A Comprehensive Care Response To The Coronavirus
Heroic physicians, nurses, and other health care professionals and workers, led by brilliant managers, are working night and day to provide the best possible care while planning for a potentially overwhelming surge of demand. However, given the speed of contagion and the severity of symptoms, especially in older, frail, and unprotected populations, we now face the possibility that the COVID-19 pandemic could overwhelm our hospital and ambulatory care infrastructure sometime in April. (Robert Master, Gary L. Gottlieb, David Margulies, Chris Kryder, John Loughnane and David Martin, 3/25)

The Times-Picayune and The Advocate: Among The Pandemic's Centers, Metropolitan New Orleans Deserves Support
Doing the numbers, the crisis of coronavirus is serious in metropolitan New Orleans — higher than many other places.Among the top ten counties for cases, Orleans Parish is the only one not in the New York metropolitan area, according to an analysis by The Times-Picayune and The Advocate. Are we being neglected by national policymakers? A feeling of abandonment is not new to the metropolitan area in New Orleans, given the disastrous federal response — or lack thereof — after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. (3/25)

Boston Globe: How A Remote Island Hospital Prepares For The Coronavirus Pandemic
Nantucket Cottage Hospital has 14 licensed beds. We have no intensive care unit and only five ventilators, and these resources are most needed to handle acute cases of COVID-19. Other areas of the hospital have been identified as places to care for patients and increase our capacity if necessary, including outpatient departments. But if we face a significant surge of COVID-19 patients, our providers and facility could quickly be overwhelmed. (Gary Shaw and Diane Pearl, 3/26)