The New York Times: ‘Worst Is Over,’ Cuomo Says As States Snub Trump On Restarting Economy
With the number of new deaths and rate of hospitalizations falling in New York, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said on Monday that “the worst is over” in the coronavirus pandemic, and he announced an alliance with six other Northeastern governors to explore how to eventually lift restrictions — a move that appeared to be an implicit rebuke to President Trump. The governors from New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Massachusetts and Rhode Island said they would begin to draw up a plan for when to reopen businesses and schools, and how quickly to allow people to return to work safely, although the timeline for such a plan remained unclear. (Ferre-Sadurni and McKinley, 4/13)

Reuters: New York, California And Other States Plan For Reopening As Coronavirus Crisis Eases
“Nobody has been here before, nobody has all the answers,” said Cuomo, whose state has become the U.S. epicenter of the global coronavirus pandemic, during an open conference call with five other governors. “Addressing public health and the economy: Which one is first? They’re both first.” The three Pacific Coast states announced they, too, planned to follow a shared approach for lifting social-distancing measures, but said they “need to see a decline in the rate of spread of the virus before large-scale reopening” can take place. (Caspani and Resnick-Ault, 4/13)

The Associated Press: Governors Form Compacts To Coordinate Reopening Society
They did not announce specific plans on how to scale back stay-at-home orders or reopen businesses. Instead, both groups said they would coordinate those decisions while first considering the health of residents. New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy said it could take time. “The house is still on fire,” he said during a conference call with reporters. “We still have to put the fire out, but we do have to begin putting in the pieces of the puzzle that we know we’re going to need ... to make sure this doesn’t reignite.” (Mulvihill, 4/13)

NPR: States Unite On Reopening Economies: 'Science — Not Politics — Will Guide' Decisions
In separate announcements, the governors said they've agreed to let science, not politics, determine when to lift social and business restrictions. "Any plan to reopen society MUST be driven by data and experts, not opinion and politics," New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said shortly before announcing the move. He added, "We will work together as a region." (Chappell, 4/13)

Boston Globe: Massachusetts, Girding For Coronavirus Surge, Joins Coalition Of Eastern States To Plan Next Chapter 
Governor Charlie Baker on Monday joined a coalition of governors from eastern states who will work together in planning the region’s return to normalcy from the COVID-19 pandemic, at once warning residents to prepare for more death and illness ahead while offering a hint at how they will lift the stringent controls on daily life. Massachusetts’ participation in the seven-state council, which was initially announced Monday without Baker’s participation, came hours after the Republican governor cautioned against focusing too heavily on reopening parts of the economy while the state remains in the throes of the public health crisis. (Stout, 4/13)

The Hill: California To Release Plan For Lifting Coronavirus Restrictions
California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) said Monday that he would release his plan for loosening some restrictions put in place to stop the spread of coronavirus at a press conference on Tuesday. During his Monday afternoon press conference, Newsom said that a detailed plan for an “incremental release of the stay-at-home orders” that uses “science to guide our decision-making and not political pressure" would be released the next day, according to the Associated Press. (Bowden, 4/13)

Los Angeles Times: Coronavirus Plan: California Working With Oregon, Washington
“COVID-19 doesn’t follow state or national boundaries,” Newsom, Oregon Gov. Kate Brown and Washington Gov. Jay Inslee said in a statement. “It will take every level of government, working together, and a full picture of what’s happening on the ground.” Newsom said he intends to provide details Tuesday on California’s strategy to begin to walk back his stay-at-home order and allow businesses to resume functions. (Luna, 4/13)

The Associated Press: With No New Virus Hotspots, Debate Rages On When To Reopen
A lack of new hotspots in the coronavirus pandemic appeared to be holding Tuesday, fueling a debate about how soon authorities could start scaling back social restrictions and reopen economies. While concerns remained over the virus’ fresh spread in places like Japan and Indonesia, nowhere was currently undergoing the explosion in hospitalizations and deaths that were seen earlier in China, southern Europe and parts of the United States. (Blake, 4/14)

The Washington Post: Virginia, Maryland, D.C. Weigh How Long To Keep Coronavirus Restrictions In Place
A group of scientists advising Virginia’s government said Monday that social distancing in the state appears to be working, and their models show the state’s hospitals have enough beds to handle the novel coronavirus pandemic for the next few months if current trends continue. But Gov. Ralph Northam (D) warned that the models also show lifting a stay-at-home order or other social distancing measures too soon would cause a spike in covid-19 cases that would overwhelm medical resources. “We can’t afford that,” Northam said. (Chason, Schneider and Nirappil, 4/13)

The Associated Press: Far-Right US Politicians Label Lockdowns Anti-Constitutional
In deeply conservative eastern Washington state, a prominent state lawmaker kicked out of his Republican Party caucus labels the coronavirus as a foreign bio-weapon, accuses Marxists of using the pandemic to advance totalitarianism and rails against lockdown restrictions imposed by the Democratic governor. A California teleconference last week to consider sport fishing limits in rural areas unprepared to handle influxes of anglers descended into chaos — with callers branding state officials as “fascists” and declaring it was time to “make fishing great again.” (Geranios, 4/13)

The Washington Post: South Dakota’s Governor Resisted Ordering People To Stay Home. Now It Has One Of The Nation’s Largest Coronavirus Hot Spots.
As governors across the country fell into line in recent weeks, South Dakota’s top elected leader stood firm: There would be no statewide order to stay home. Such edicts to combat the spread of the novel coronavirus, Gov. Kristi L. Noem said disparagingly, reflected a “herd mentality.” It was up to individuals — not government — to decide whether “to exercise their right to work, to worship and to play. Or to even stay at home.” (Witte, 4/13)

NPR: What Each State Is Doing To Fight The Coronavirus
Most have enacted stay-at-home orders, but policies vary from state to state when it comes to issues like school closures, election proceedings, interstate travel, business restrictions, resources for front line and unemployed personnel, and more. Each day brings changes. NPR is tracking developments in all 50 states, Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia so you can see what's changed and how states compare. (4/12)

CNN: CDC Report Says People In Four Key Cities Are Listening To Stay At Home Orders 
People in four key cities are listening to orders to stay home, according to a report issued Monday by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "When you put in these social distancing measures, they do seem to work," said study coauthor Kathleen Ethier, leader of the CDC's community mitigation task force for the Covid-19 response. (Cohen and Bruer, 4/14)

The Associated Press: Trump Claims He Has 'Total' Authority Over Reopening Economy
President Donald Trump claimed the “total” authority to decide how and when to reopen the economy after weeks of tough social distancing guidelines aimed at fighting the new coronavirus. But governors from both parties were quick to push back, noting they have primary responsibility for ensuring public safety in their states and would decide when it’s safe to begin a return to normal operations. Trump would not offer specifics about the source of his asserted power, which he claimed, despite constitutional limitations, was absolute. (Colvin, Miller and Mulvihill, 4/14)

The Washington Post: Governors Form Groups To Explore Lifting Virus Restrictions, While Trump Says He Alone Can Do So
“The authority of the president of the United States, having to do with the subject we’re talking about, is total,” Trump said, adding, “The president of the United States calls the shots.” He also suggested that if a governor declined to go along, he or she would pay a price. “If some states refuse to open, I would like to see that person run for election,” Trump said. (Craig and Dennis, 4/13)

The Wall Street Journal: States Move To Coordinate On Reopening Plans
Governors have wide authority over state stay-at-home orders and mandates to close schools in their states. Unknown is how or whether the federal government could override those orders—or whether individuals would comply if they felt it was too unsafe to resume their normal lives. “The president can’t magically make them go away,” said Wendy Parmet, a public-health law professor at Northeastern University in Boston. “They’re not his orders.” She added, however, that the president’s statements or orders could influence some governors to defer to White House guidelines. “The federal government has enormous influence, persuasion and the power of the purse,” Ms. Parmet said. (Calfas, Restuccia and De Avila, 4/13)

The Associated Press: New Trump Panel To Explore Path To Reopening US Economy
Every day, a team of public health officials turns up in the White House briefing room to lay out measures being taken to contain the coronavirus pandemic. A different team, expected to be formally announced as early as Tuesday, has begun meeting behind closed doors in the West Wing to tackle another matter paramount to President Donald Trump: how to begin reopening the American economy. The council, which is not expected to include health officials, could bring to the forefront the push-pull tensions within the White House between economists and public health officials over how quickly to reopen the economy vs. proceeding cautiously to ensure the virus doesn’t spike again. (Lemire, Freking and Madhani, 4/14)

Politico: Trump’s Grand Reopening Council Triggers A Slew Of New Questions
By Monday afternoon, the White House still had not articulated who within the administration would lead the group and how it would differ from existing infrastructure such as the National Economic Council, which coordinates economic policy across the administration. Officials were assessing how the body could even include outside executives or doctors because that could run afoul of federal rules about engaging private-sector interests in critical government discussions. Business groups were also wary of publicly aligning themselves with the White House during a controversial crisis. Even the exact mission seemed unclear. (Cook, 4/13)

NPR: Trump To Name New Coronavirus Advisers On Reopening The Country
A list of prospective councilors reported Monday by Fox News was heavy on administration officials and economic specialists. The report did not include anyone from certain groups that Trump has previously said he wanted to involve. "Not only the greatest minds, but the greatest minds in numerous different businesses, including the business of politics and reason," as the president said on Friday. For example: "Very, very great doctors," Trump said. (Ewing, 4/14)

The Hill: Trump Says Jared And Ivanka Won't Be Part Of New Economic Coronavirus Council
President Trump told reporters Monday that senior advisers Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump would not be part of the White House council he is convening to guide the reopening of the U.S. economy. Fox News had reported earlier Monday that the council was expected to include the president’s daughter and son-in-law. (Chalfant, 4/13)

The Washington Post: Former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb Offers Plans For Beating Back Coronavirus
A year after Scott Gottlieb resigned unexpectedly as Food and Drug Administration commissioner to return home to his family in Westport, Conn., he has never been in such demand — advising lawmakers, governors, members of the Trump administration and even the president himself about combating the novel coronavirus. The reason is simple, say the officials seeking his advice: He’s got a plan. In fact, several of them. (McGinley, Dawsey and Abutaleb, 4/13)

The Washington Post: Conservative Groups Mobilize To Push Trump To Reopen Economy Amid Pandemic
Senior White House officials briefed President Trump on Monday about his looming decision regarding how to eventually jump-start the economy, presenting him with a list of 100 business executives that could serve in an advisory panel. In a sign of how fluid things remain, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said these executives have not yet been formally notified that they could serve in an advisory role. (Stein and Costa, 4/13)

The Washington Post: What U.S. Leaders Say Affects Whether Americans Stay At Home, CDC Data Suggests
The decision by Americans to hunker down during the coronavirus pandemic has been heavily influenced by pronouncements from national and local leaders, according to data released Monday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The report offers the most robust information to date showing the relationship between people’s behavior and official policies announced by the White House and local leaders. (Wan and Bump, 4/13)

The New York Times: Trump Turns Daily Coronavirus Briefing Into A Defense Of His Record
President Trump turned Monday’s daily coronavirus task force briefing into an aggressive defense of his own halting response to the pandemic and used a campaign-style video to denounce criticism that he moved too slowly to limit the deadly spread of the virus. For nearly an hour, Mr. Trump vented his frustration after weekend news reports that his own public health officials were prepared by late February to recommend aggressive social distancing measures, but that the president did not announce them until several weeks later — a crucial delay that allowed the virus to spread. (Shear and Karni, 4/13)

Los Angeles Times: Trump Stokes Up His Blame Game For The Coronavirus
After a weekend fuming and tweeting about what he saw as negative news coverage, Trump staged one of the strangest yet of his near-nightly White House briefings, angrily claiming he had been “brutalized” by the media and playing a White House-produced campaign-style reel of selectively edited video clips of officials effusively praising his efforts. The often-testy briefing underscored the dissonance between beleaguered state and local officials and medical authorities on the front lines of a public health catastrophe and a president in the throes of a legacy-defining crisis who continues to use a prism of unwavering self-regard, insisting that he “calls the shots” even as he scapegoated others — especially the media — for any problems or delays. (Stokols and Bierman, 4/13)

CNN: Trump Rages At Criticism While Governors Craft Their Own Plans To Reopen The Economy 
During the news conference, Trump moaned that the press was not giving him credit because "everything we did was right" in the coronavirus pandemic. Raging at reporters, the President used the campaign-style video to mislead the nation about his sluggish recognition of the threat from the virus, after once predicting a "miracle" that would make it go away. He called up his top medical adviser, Dr. Anthony Fauci, to publicly repudiate his own words Sunday on CNN, which had been interpreted as criticism of early administration actions. (Collinson and Reston, 4/14)

The Wall Street Journal: Trump Isn’t Firing Fauci Over Coronavirus Comments, White House Says
President Trump isn’t firing Anthony Fauci, the White House said Monday, seeking to extinguish speculation that flared over the weekend after Mr. Trump retweeted a critic who called for the member of his administration’s coronavirus task force to be dismissed after he said lives could have been saved if the government had acted more quickly. “Today I walk in and I hear I’m going to fire him. I’m not firing—I think he’s a wonderful guy,” Mr. Trump said of Dr. Fauci at a White House news conference later Monday. (Leary and Armour, 4/13)

The Hill: Fauci Offers Support For Trump 
Anthony Fauci on Monday sought to squash any notion of a fissure between himself and President Trump, saying at the opening of a coronavirus task force briefing that the president repeatedly and immediately backed social distancing recommendations from Fauci and other public health officials despite the economic pain. “The first and only time that I went in and said we should do mitigation strongly, the response was, ‘yes, we’ll do it,’” Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told reporters in the White House briefing room on Monday evening. (Chalfant, 4/13)

The Washington Post: President Trump Made 18,000 False Or Misleading Claims In 1,170 Days
When we last updated our database of President Trump’s false or misleading claims, it was on Jan. 19, the end of his third year as president. The president’s most frequently repeated false claim was that he presided over the best economy in the history of the United States. The next day, the first confirmed case of the novel coronavirus was reported in the United States. So, with this update through April 3, we’ve added a new category — coronavirus — that already has more than 350 items. (Kessler, Rizzo and Kelly, 4/14)

The Wall Street Journal: Trump Funding Threat Against World Health Organization Linked To Hiring Practices
President Trump’s threat to withhold money from the World Health Organization stems from an ongoing discussion inside the administration to link the $12 billion the U.S. spends on international organizations to the number of American citizens hired by the groups, officials said. The effort has been part of a broader push to curtail China’s growing global influence but was delayed by turnover inside the White House and the State Department, according to current and former administration officials. (Bender, 4/13)

Politico: Pelosi Looks To Seize Trump’s Bully Pulpit
As President Donald Trump beams into American homes with his daily coronavirus briefings, Speaker Nancy Pelosi has decided the best way to counter him is to be everywhere — even if that means doing so from her San Francisco kitchen. Almost daily, Pelosi pops up on one network or another — even cycling through the late-night talk show junket — dropping in for interviews from a computer propped up on a dining room table that sits just off her West Coast kitchen. (Caygle and Ferris, 4/14)

Politico: The Next Coronavirus Testing Debacle
Blood tests that measure a person’s antibodies to the coronavirus could be a powerful tool to determine when it’s safe to reopen the country. But concerns about the accuracy and availability of the tests — which detect whether a person has ever been exposed to the virus, and are different from the tests used to diagnose the disease — could hamper plans to allow Americans back to work and school. (Lim, 4/13)

NBC News: Antibody Tests Need To Be In Place For 2nd Coronavirus Wave, CDC Director Says
As Americans look toward a return to normalcy after the coronavirus pandemic, a major question will be: Who is immune to the virus? To answer that question, the promise of antibody tests looms large. These tests are different from the diagnostic tests used to determine whether a person is sick with the virus. Instead, the tests look for the antibodies in a person's blood that the immune system makes in response to an infection. (Edwards, 4/13)

CNN: Antibody Tests: All Your Questions, Answered 
As the world watches and wonders when coronavirus pandemic stay-at-home orders and social distancing measures might end, some hope antibody tests might help provide a solution. Antibody tests -- also known as serology tests -- aren't meant to diagnose active infection with the coronavirus. Rather, they check for proteins in the immune system, known as antibodies, through a blood sample. (Simon and Yu, 4/14)

The Washington Post: Michigan Health Care Workers To Be Tested For Antibodies To Covid-19
The biggest hospital system in Michigan is launching what’s believed to be the nation’s largest test for novel coronavirus antibodies. The study could determine who has already been infected with the virus and may now be immune to it — information that public health officials say is vital to decisions about reopening society. Beaumont Health will test blood samples from its 38,000 employees, as well as thousands of additional physicians and affiliates, officials said in interviews. (Harris, 4/13)

Boston Globe: The Key To Rebounding From Coronavirus May Lie With Antibody Tests. But Caveats Abound. 
As leaders strategize about reopening schools and businesses and plan for life on the other side of the so-called coronavirus curve, all eyes are on a type of testing that may help determine who has been infected with COVID-19 and whether they’re immune. The test that may define this new frontier detects specific proteins in a person’s blood, known as antibodies, which develop to fight off infections such as COVID-19. The antibodies could help determine just how pervasive the disease is across the world, but also could potentially pinpoint whether an infected person who recovered has developed an immunity. (Lazar and Ryan, 4/13)

NBC News: Escaping The Coronavirus Lockdown With Test And Trace
The coronavirus outbreak in the U.S. spurred calls to "flatten the curve" to limit the speed of the virus' spread. Now, as states begin to think about how to ease their lockdowns, a new rallying cry has emerged: "test and trace." (Chow, 4/13)

The Hill: FDA Approves First Saliva-Based Coronavirus Test 
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the first saliva-based coronavirus test Monday under its emergency powers, Rutgers University announced. The FDA deployed its emergency-use authorization to approve of the test from the Rutgers lab RUCDR Infinite Biologics, informing the university of its approval on Saturday. The new saliva-based test aims to allow for increased testing and safety for health professionals conducting screening. (Coleman, 4/13)

Politico: U.S. Still Falling Short On Accurate Testing, FDA Chief Says
FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn has acknowledged the need to ramp up testing, but on Sunday his tone was cautious: Having an inaccurate test is worse than not having a test at all. Going forward, Hahn said on ABC’s “This Week,” “further ramping up testing, both diagnostic as well as the antibody tests, will really be necessary as we move beyond May into the summer months and then into the fall.” The doctor added that the United States has done more than 2 million tests, but stated: “We need to do more. No question about that.” (Dugyala, 4/12)

Los Angeles Times: Amid Coronavirus Outbreak, Testing And Treatment Scams Spike
Three weeks ago, Lorina’s cellphone rang. Seeing it was a local call, the 61-year-old Riverside resident picked up. A woman’s voice said she was working with Medicare, the national health insurance program, to distribute tests for COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. All she needed, the woman said, was Lorina’s name, address and Social Security and Medicare information. (Ormseth and Rubin, 4/13)

The New York Times: Coronavirus Nasal Swab: 3 Vans, 6 Coolers, A Plane, A Storm And 2 Labs
The lines start forming the night before, as people with glassy eyes and violent coughs try to get tested for the virus. In the darkness, they park their cars, cut their engines and try to sleep. The backlog for coronavirus testing in New Jersey, the state with the second-highest caseload in the country, has been getting worse, not better, officials say. So far, New Jersey has conducted over 115,000 tests, about one for every 75 residents. Across the river in New York, the epicenter of the crisis, there is about one for every 40. (Callimachi, 4/13)

Houston Chronicle: Houston Expands Coronavirus Testing To People Without Symptoms
The city of Houston is offering free coronavirus tests for anyone — not just those exhibiting symptoms of COVID-19 — at its two drive-thru testing sites, Mayor Sylvester Turner announced Monday.The city, which previously had required residents to show symptoms of the disease, also plans to double its daily capacity at the two sites, from 250 tests each to 500 each. It may take a few days to fully reach the new capacity, and people still must register before taking the test, Houston Health Authority David Persse said. The test remains free for everyone, including those who do not have symptoms. (Scherer and Despart, 4/13)

Modern Healthcare: University Of Chicago Medicine Testing Possible COVID-19 Treatment
University of Chicago Medicine says it's launching a clinical trial to study plasma from recovered COVID-19 patients as a possible treatment for the illness. The trial, which will recruit local patients who have recovered from the virus, will explore whether blood plasma can be used to treat new COVID-19 patients with severe symptoms, UChicago Medicine said in a statement today. The Red Cross recently called for people who have recovered from COVID-19 to donate plasma that could help current patients battling the virus. (Goldberg, 4/13)

The New York Times: Knocked Off Track By Coronavirus, Census Announces Delay In 2020 Count
Conceding that its effort to count the nation’s population has been hamstrung by the coronavirus pandemic, the Census Bureau said on Monday it would ask Congress for a four-month delay in delivering the census data used to reapportion the House of Representatives and political districts nationwide. In a news release, the bureau said it would ask that delivery of the final census figures be postponed to April 31, 120 days beyond the existing Dec. 31 deadline. That would mean that state legislatures would get final population figures for drawing new maps as late as July 31, 2021. Delivery of that data normally is completed by the end of March. (Wines, 4/13)

The Associated Press: Officials Want Delay In Nation's Head Count Due To Virus
Census Bureau officials said they were postponing all field operations until June 1 and the deadline for wrapping up the nation’s head count was being pushed back to Oct. 31. Field operations for the 2020 census have been suspended since mid-March and were set to resume this week. The deadline for finishing the head count also had been pushed back from the end of July to mid-August because of the pandemic. (Schneider, 4/13)

Los Angeles Times: Trump Wants Months-Long Census Delay Because Of Coronavirus
President Trump on Monday said the bureau would need a “major delay” and questioned if 120 days was long enough. “Obviously they can’t be doing very much right now,” Trump said at a briefing on the coronavirus. “How can you possibly be knocking on doors for a long period of time now?” (Wire, 4/13)

The Wall Street Journal: Sailor From USS Theodore Roosevelt Dies From Covid-19
A U.S. sailor from the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt, which has been stricken with the largest novel coronavirus outbreak in the U.S. military, died Monday from complications of the virus, the Navy said. The name of the sailor, a chief petty officer in his 40s who was the first aboard the aircraft carrier to die from the virus, is being withheld until relatives are notified, the Navy said. No other information about the crew member was released. (Youssef and Kesling, 4/13)

Los Angeles Times: Navy Battles Growing Coronavirus Outbreak On Hospital Ship Mercy As 7 Test Positive
Naval health officials are fighting an outbreak of the novel coronavirus among the crew of the hospital ship Mercy, where four more sailors tested positive for COVID-19 over the weekend, bringing the total cases among the crew to seven, a Navy official said Monday. The affected sailors, as well as those with whom they had close contact, have left the ship and are either isolated or quarantined off the ship, according to Cmdr. John Fage, a 3rd Fleet spokesman. (Dyer, 4/13)

The Associated Press: Detained Immigrants Plead For Masks, Protection From Virus
Elsy was on the phone in an immigration detention center when guards showed up with face masks and forms to sign. The asylum-seeker from El Salvador and others had resorted to tearing their T-shirts into face coverings after a woman in their unit tested positive for COVID-19. But the guards would not give out the masks until the detainees signed the forms, which said they could not hold the private prison company running the detention center in San Diego liable if they got the coronavirus, according to Elsy and two other detainees, including one who read the form to The Associated Press over the phone. (Merchant, 4/14)

ProPublica: At Least 19 Children At A Chicago Shelter For Immigrant Detainees Have Tested Positive For COVID-19
At least 19 children and two employees at a Chicago shelter for immigrant youth have tested positive for COVID-19 in recent days, in what appears to be the largest outbreak of the virus in the country in shelters for unaccompanied minors. According to an email sent to staff Sunday, Heartland Human Care Services officials said the first positive test results were reported at its Bronzeville shelter on Friday and that additional cases there were confirmed over the weekend. (Sanchez, 4/13)

ABC News: 'Jammed Together Like Sardines': ACLU Seeks Restraining Order Against Feds To Avoid COVID-19 Prison Outbreak Horror 
One inmate at the Federal Correctional Institution in Oakdale, Louisiana, claims he and his fellow prisoners are being "jammed together like sardines." Another alleges he and other inmates are "coughing all night long" in their bunks, and a third says he wakes up "face-to-face" with two other men incarcerated in a 10-by-15-foot cell. (Hutchinson, 4/13)

The Wall Street Journal: States, New York City Seek Block On Public Benefit Rules For Immigrants
Three states and New York City asked the Supreme Court Monday to block Trump administration regulations that penalize immigrants for seeking public benefits, arguing that noncitizens shouldn’t be deterred from seeking health care during the coronavirus pandemic. Last August, the Department of Homeland Security tightened so-called public charge rules, which disqualify noncitizens who take advantage of welfare programs from obtaining legal residency. (Bravin, 4/13)

The Associated Press: Trump's Disdain For 'Obamacare' Could Hamper Virus Response
The Trump administration’s unrelenting opposition to “Obamacare” could become an obstacle for millions of uninsured people in the coronavirus outbreak, as well as many who are losing coverage in the economic shutdown. Experts say the Affordable Care Act’s insurance markets provide a ready-made infrastructure for extending subsidized private coverage in every state, allowing more people access to medical treatment before they get so sick they have to go to the emergency room. In about three-fourths of the states, expanded Medicaid is also available to low-income people. (Alonso-Zaldivar, 4/13)

Stateline: Obamacare And Medicaid Will Help Insure The Unemployed—But In Only In Some States 
Millions of Americans who lost employer-sponsored health plans along with their jobs will be able to turn to Medicaid and state-based Obamacare health insurance exchanges as a safety valve. Some states have eased those paths, and many are either already seeing an enrollment increase in both programs or expecting one soon. (Ollove, 4/14)

In other news —

Modern Healthcare: More Than Half Of Risk-Bearing ACOs May Leave Medicare Shared Savings Program
Most accountable care organizations taking on downside risk in the Medicare Shared Savings Program are considering dropping out due to concerns they will suffer financial losses in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a new survey. Fifty-six percent of risk-bearing ACOs said in a survey from the National Association of ACOs that they were very or somewhat likely to drop out of the Medicare program by May 31, which is the deadline the CMS offers to quit the program without being on the hook for losses. The survey had 81 participants, representing 42% of the program's risk-bearing ACOs. (Castellucci, 4/13)

Kaiser Health News: Watch: Coronavirus And Your Health Care
Julie Rovner, Kaiser Health News’ chief Washington correspondent, answers questions from viewers on C-SPAN’s “Washington Journal,” including many about the coronavirus pandemic and its effect on health care and insurance and the government’s response. You can find the program here. (4/13)

The Wall Street Journal: The Coronavirus Economic Reopening Will Be Fragile, Partial And Slow
Walt Disney Co. reached a coronavirus milestone of sorts last month when it reopened a portion of its Shanghai Disney Resort as China’s pandemic began to ebb. But a trip to Tomorrowland may never be the same. Guests at the Shanghai resort must wear masks at all times, removing them only for eating. Hours and capacity are limited. And just to gain entry, visitors must submit to a temperature check and present a government-controlled QR code on their phone that indicates they are virus-free. Executives around the world who rapidly overhauled operations when the coronavirus struck, and the politicians who made them do it, are now focused on restarting the economy and their own businesses. (Schwartzel, Sider and Haddon, 4/13)

The New York Times: ‘This Is Going To Kill Small-Town America’
The coronavirus itself was slow to arrive in Bristol, a lakeside town of 3,300 people. The economic destruction came swiftly. By the end of March, with just a few local cases confirmed, gift shops, yoga studios and restaurants had all shut their doors. Hundreds lost jobs, contributing to a record surge in national unemployment claims. But at least the Freudenberg factory was running at full strength. The factory, which employs 350 people and makes bonded piston seals and other components for carmakers around the world, has an outsize impact on Bristol’s economy. (Gelles, 4/14)

The New York Times: Economic Pain Will Persist Long After Coronavirus Lockdowns End
Walter Isenberg is the sort of business owner President Trump has in mind when he talks about the need to start lifting coronavirus lockdowns and reopen the American economy. Mr. Isenberg’s hotel and restaurant group in Denver has seen its revenues drop from $3 million a day last year to $40,000 a day now. But Mr. Isenberg has no expectation that his company, Sage Hospitality Group, will see the quick economic “boom” that Mr. Trump has predicted, even after state officials allow his properties to begin hosting customers again. (Tankersley, 4/13)

The New York Times: How Bad Will The Economy Get? Companies Will Provide Clues 
The coronavirus pandemic has pushed the economy into a slowdown of unknown severity. It could be a long, drawn-out recession, or a sharp dip followed by a swift recovery. The stock market, which has soared 23 percent from its low, is signaling that many investors expect a quick rebound. But that optimism will be tested over the coming weeks when large companies report their quarterly financial results for the first three months of the year and predict the pandemic’s effect on their business. (Eavis and Phillips, 4/14)

Politico: Economic Meltdown Gives Democrats New Hope In Texas
The twin economic shock of the coronavirus pandemic and a collapsing oil market has upended the political landscape in Texas — driving Republicans into an unfamiliar defensive crouch and giving restive Democrats an unexpected election-year lift. Republicans who'd been running on a familiar platform of gangbusters job growth and small government suddenly find themselves without a clear message as unemployment skyrockets and plummeting oil prices ravage the state budget. (Cadelago and Rayasam, 4/13)

The Wall Street Journal: Coronavirus Pandemic Fuels Rapid Increase In Missed Mortgage Payments
About two million homeowners are skipping their monthly mortgage payments, according to industry data released on Monday, a number that is forecast to rise further as more Americans lose their jobs as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. Approximately 3.74% of home loans are in forbearance as of April 5, according to Mortgage Bankers Association data, up from about 2.73% the prior week. (Ackerman, 4/13)

The New York Times: Stalemate Over Small-Business Aid Deepens As Officials Warn Of Funding Lapse
A stalemate over an emergency infusion of cash to help small businesses battered by the coronavirus pandemic intensified on Monday after Democratic leaders doubled down on demands for additional money for state and local governments, hospitals, food assistance and rapid testing. With Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California and Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the minority leader, insisting on adding to the Trump administration’s request to inject $250 billion into the loan program, it is unclear whether lawmakers can reach a consensus this week even as officials warn that the program could run out of funds as early as Friday. (Cochrane, 4/13)

The Wall Street Journal: Negotiations Over New Coronavirus Aid Stall
Both parties want to add $250 billion to a popular fund for small-business loans, which the administration estimates will run out of money on Friday. Democratic leaders and President Trump have sounded hopeful about reaching a deal this week, but had little progress to report on Monday. Meanwhile, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D., Md.) said Monday that the House wouldn’t reconvene until May 4, several weeks after the original planned date of return, due to the coronavirus. Lawmakers could return sooner, should they be needed to assemble a quorum to pass legislation related to the government’s response to the pandemic, Mr. Hoyer’s office said. (Peterson and Duehren, 4/13)

Los Angeles Times: California Small Business Is Stymied On Coronavirus Relief
Restaurants. Shoe stores. Dog groomers. Dry cleaners. An estimated 30 million small businesses serve customers throughout the U.S. — or did, before the coronavirus pandemic forced many to close their doors. Now they are desperate for cash and struggling with a balky rescue program. In an attempt to prevent economic implosion in the face of massive unemployment, Congress has authorized $350 billion in loans to small businesses. That includes the Paycheck Protection Program of forgivable loans to small businesses that agree not to lay off workers for eight weeks. (Mitchell, 4/13)

The Wall Street Journal: Small-Business Funding Dispute Challenges Community Lenders
Entrepreneurs in the mountain communities surrounding Asheville, N.C., can’t always get the money they need from a bank. That’s where Matthew Raker and his team come in. Mr. Raker is the executive director of Mountain BizWorks, a nonprofit loan fund focused on lending to small businesses that typically have trouble securing loans through traditional financial institutions. Many of the 350 small businesses he works with are led by women, minorities or people from rural areas. (Omeokwe, 4/14)

The Associated Press: Relief Money Is Coming - For Some. Here's What To Know.
Americans are beginning to see the first economic impact payments hit their bank accounts. The IRS tweeted Saturday that it had begun depositing the funds into taxpayers’ bank accounts and would be working to get them out as fast as possible. The one-time payments were approved by Congress as part of an emergency relief package intended to combat the economic damage from the coronavirus pandemic. (Skidmore Sell, 4/13)

The Hill: More Than 180 Groups Urge Congress To Pass $500 Billion In Unrestricted Aid To State, Local Governments 
More than 180 organizations across the country urged Congress to pass $500 billion in unrestricted aid to state, territory and local governments in a letter sent Monday. The Economic Policy Institute, among other organizations, sent the letter to leadership in the House and Senate. The letter says the first three coronavirus stimulus bills “included vital resources” but fell “far short of what is needed to hold state, local, territorial, and tribal budgets harmless against the enormity of the crisis.” (Coleman, 4/13)

Politico: Rural Hospitals Shut Out Of Stimulus Loans Face Financial Crisis
Government-owned hospitals were shut out of the coronavirus rescue package’s loan program, putting some of the most financially vulnerable rural health care systems in danger of running out of money just as the virus hits the heartland. Dozens of Republican and Democratic lawmakers are now pleading with the Trump administration to make an exception for rural health providers or for a legislative fix. Without one, they’re warning the industry could tumble into further financial turmoil. (Roubein, 4/14)

The Hill: Warren Wants Paid Sick Leave, 'Premium Pay' For Essential Workers In Next Coronavirus Bill
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is pushing for universal paid sick leave and "premium pay" for essential workers as part of Congress's fourth coronavirus aid bill. Warren and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) on Monday unveiled an "Essential Workers Bill of Rights," which outlined nearly a dozen of their policy priorities as lawmakers begin to consider next legislative steps as the number of coronavirus cases within the United States continues to grow. (Carney, 4/13)

The Wall Street Journal: Politicians Push Insurers To Resolve Mounting Disputes Over Covid-19 Losses
Insurers are starting to take heat in Washington, D.C., over denials of claims for business income losses tied to government-ordered shutdowns. In a letter Monday viewed by The Wall Street Journal, U.S. Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D., Wash.) asked insurance chief executives to justify refusals to pay out on “business interruption” and related coverages in policies held by small and midsize businesses. (Scism, 4/13)

The Hill: House Delays Expected Return Until May Amid Coronavirus Pandemic 
The House is not expected to convene until at least May 4, delaying a return originally planned for next week as stay-at-home orders remain in place across the nation. Lawmakers had grown increasingly skeptical that the House could convene by the originally planned date of April 20, given that federal health guidelines for social distancing are still in place until at least the end of the month. (Marcos, 4/13)

The Hill: Senate Committee To Investigate Origin Of, Response To Coronavirus Pandemic 
The chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee said Monday that his panel plans to investigate the coronavirus epidemic's origins as well as the responses from the U.S. government and World Health Organization (WHO). Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.) told Politico on Monday that the investigation would cover all aspects of the coronavirus pandemic, including criticism of the WHO and unfounded allegations of the virus's supposed origin in a Chinese lab. (Bowden, 4/13)

Modern Healthcare: Senate Dems Want COVID-19 Hotspots To Get Rest Of $100 Billion Fund
The Senate's Democratic healthcare leaders asked HHS Secretary Alex Azar on Tuesday to make sure the remaining funds from Congress' $100 billion provider relief fund are targeted to places hardest hit by COVID-19. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York, Senate health committee ranking member Patty Murray of Washington, and Senate Finance Committee ranking member Ron Wyden of Oregon asked Azar to account for the "significant geographic variation in the severity and duration of the COVID-19" in the second round of funds disbursed from the provider relief fund created in the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act. (Cohrs, 4/14)

Kaiser Health News Fact Check: Sanders: In Coronavirus Relief Effort, Congress Fell Short On Paid Sick Leave
The pressure is building for Congress to pass a fourth coronavirus relief bill, beyond the roughly $2.2 trillion already approved to keep people and businesses viable during an unprecedented viral attack. And Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is making his case for what a supplemental rescue package should include ― guaranteed paid sick leave. “It has been estimated that only 12% of workers in businesses that are likely to stay open during this crisis are receiving paid sick leave benefits as a result of the second coronavirus relief package,” Sanders argued in an op-ed published April 8 in The Guardian, just hours before he suspended his presidential campaign. (Luthra, 4/13)

ABC News: Postal Service Says It's Going Broke Due To Pandemic, Trump Flatly Opposes Emergency Aid 
The already-ailing United States Postal Service is being financially crippled by the coronavirus pandemic, its top official says, but the Trump administration has shown no signs it will ask for emergency financial aid as it has for big businesses. In a digital briefing before the House Oversight Committee last week, Postmaster General Megan Brennan told lawmakers that the agency would "run out of cash" by the end of the fiscal year in September without help from Congress and the administration, in part due to extreme losses being suffered as a result of COVID-19. (Pecorin, 4/13)

The Associated Press: Could Old Vaccines For Other Germs Protect Against COVID-19?
Scientists are dusting off some decades-old vaccines against other germs to see if they could provide a little stopgap protection against COVID-19 until a more precise shot arrives. It may sound odd: Vaccines are designed to target a specific disease. But vaccines made using live strains of bacteria or viruses seem to boost the immune system’s first line of defense, a more general way to guard against germs. And history books show that sometimes translates into at least some cross-protection against other, completely different bugs. (Neergaard, 4/13)

Stat: Why An Old TB Vaccine Is Getting Attention In The Fight Against Covid-19
In the desperate search for ammunition to fend off the Covid-19 pandemic, a decades-old tuberculosis vaccine, given in huge numbers around the world, is gaining newfound attention. Researchers in Australia and the Netherlands are testing the idea that the vaccine, known as BCG — short for bacille Calmette-Guérin — could have broad power to boost the immune system against the novel coronavirus. In the United States, a research group in Boston hopes to test the vaccine in front line health workers for the same purpose. (Branswell, 4/14)

Meanwhile —

The New York Times: Millions Of Children Are At Risk For Measles As Coronavirus Fears Halt Vaccines
More than 100 million children could be at risk for measles because countries around the world are suspending national immunization programs in order to reduce the risk of coronavirus infection, international public health leaders warned on Monday. So far, 24 low- and middle-income countries, including Mexico, Nigeria and Cambodia, have paused or postponed such programs, according to the Measles and Rubella Initiative, a consortium whose members include UNICEF, the American Red Cross, the World Health Organization, the United Nations Foundation and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Hoffman, 4/13)

The New York Times: Despite Qualms, Arthritis Drug To Be Tested In Coronavirus Study
An Eli Lilly drug for rheumatoid arthritis carries a warning on its label saying patients with infections should not take it because it can make infections worse. Yet the National Institutes of Health is about to test it in people hospitalized with coronavirus infections. The study, whose innovative design is meant to find out — fast — what works, began at the end of February with the antiviral drug remdesivir made by Gilead Sciences. Four hundred patients have been treated either with remdesivir or a placebo. The results are now being analyzed and will be known within a few weeks. (Kolata, 4/13)

Los Angeles Times: Emergency Room Doctor, Near Death With Coronavirus, Saved With Experimental Treatment
As critically ill, elderly patients streamed into his emergency room outside Seattle, Dr. Ryan Padgett quickly came to understand how deadly COVID-19 could be. Of the first two dozen or so he saw, not a single one survived. It took longer for Padgett and his colleagues at EvergreenHealth Medical Center — the first hospital in the country to treat multiple coronavirus patients — to learn how easily the disease could spread. (Read, 4/13)

The Washington Post: Anti-Malarial Drug Touted By Trump Was Subject Of CIA Warning To Employees
The CIA has privately advised its workforce that taking an anti-malarial drug touted by President Trump and some of his supporters as a promising treatment for the novel coronavirus has potentially dangerous side effects, including sudden death. The warning, featured on a website for CIA employees with questions related to the spread of covid-19, came in late March after public discussion — and promotion by the president — that hydroxychloroquine, administered in concert with the antibiotic azithromycin, might prove effective against the disease. (Barrett, 4/13)

The Associated Press: A Month After New York's 1st Virus Death, Toll Hits 10,000
New York’s coronavirus death toll has now topped 10,000 only about a month after the state recorded its first fatality, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Monday. The state tallied 671 new deaths on Sunday. It was the first time in a week the daily toll dipped below 700. Cuomo said the count has been “basically flat at a horrific level of pain and grief and sorrow.” More than half of New York’s 10,056 deaths have come in the past week. Hospitals are still getting about 2,000 new patients a day. (Villeneuve, Matthews and Hill, 4/13)

The Washington Post: Over 1 In 100 New York Residents Have Now Tested Positive For Coronavirus 
The coronavirus outbreak in New York state, now larger in scale than in any other country in the world, also appears to be the most highly concentrated, state statistics show. As of Monday, over 1 in 100 state residents, or 1 percent, have now tested positive for the disease — far higher than in even the hardest-hit nations like Spain, where that figure is only a third of a percent. (Mooney and Guarino, 4/13)

The Wall Street Journal: Global Coronavirus Infections Near Two Million; U.S. Governors Plan For Reopening
Early Tuesday, confirmed cases world-wide of Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, passed 1.92 million, more than a quarter of them in the U.S., according to data from Johns Hopkins University. In the 24 hours that ended at 8 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time on Monday, 1,584 people in the U.S. died from the coronavirus and 26,366 new cases were confirmed, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of Johns Hopkins data. That is down slightly from daily highs of more than 2,100 and 35,000, respectively, last week. (Craymer, 4/14)

The Wall Street Journal: New York City Seeks Rain Ponchos As Surgical Gowns Dwindle
New York City officials have asked local organizations for rain ponchos to be used as medical gowns as Mayor Bill de Blasio said some protective equipment would be in short supply this week. While the city had enough N95 masks, surgical masks and gloves for the coming week, it didn’t have sufficient surgical gowns and face shields, Mr. de Blasio, a Democrat, said during a press conference Sunday. The shortage has forced the city to be creative to protect its health-care workers during the coronavirus pandemic, officials said. (Honan, 4/13)

ABC News: New York Pharmacist Under Investigation For Alleged PPE Hoarding, Price-Gouging: Warrant 
A New York pharmacist is under federal investigation for allegedly price-gouging N95 masks during the coronavirus pandemic, according to a federal search warrant. Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) agents and New York Police Department detectives recently seized 6,500 N95 masks from Richard Schirripa's Madison Avenue and Long Island residences. Schirripa had been selling N95 respirator masks, an in-demand piece of personal protective equipment, at a markup, according to court records. (Katersky and Deliso, 4/13)

The New York Times: These N.Y.P.D. Officers Fight A Killer That Can’t Be Seen
A message popped up on Sgt. Joseph Rosso’s phone. It was not a robbery in progress, or a report of shooting, or a domestic dispute. The message said a small crowd had gathered outside a Trader Joe’s grocery store in Lower Manhattan. Ordinarily, a cluster of people in front of a city store would not merit the police’s attention. But these are not ordinary times. Shaking his head, Sergeant Rosso stepped on the gas, and the police cruiser lurched forward, its red and blue lights blaring. As the car neared 14th Street and Second Avenue, about 10 people in front of the grocery store slowly stepped apart. (Sandoval, 4/14)

The Associated Press: Cuomo Vs. De Blasio: Even Pandemic Doesn't Bridge Their Rift
A dangerous virus has transformed New York as it has claimed the lives of 10,000 people, but one thing hasn’t changed: the contentious relationship between the state’s two most prominent politicians, Gov. Andrew Cuomo and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio. A weekend dust-up over which of the two Democrats gets to say when New York City students can return to school was just the latest example of Cuomo tussling with de Blasio over who is in charge of the state’s and nation’s most populous city. (Mathews and Villeneuve, 4/13)

The Hill: Wyoming Confirms First Coronavirus Death, Making 50 States With Fatalities 
Wyoming on Monday became the last state to confirm at least one death from the coronavirus. Gov. Mark Gordon (R) announced the death on Twitter, saying the man in question was a Johnson County resident with an underlying health condition. The death, Gordon wrote, “sadly serves as a grim reminder of the importance of following public health orders and guidance so we can reduce the number of serious illnesses and deaths in our state.” (Budryk, 4/13)

Detroit Free Press: As Coronavirus Death Toll Climbs, Hospitals Use Refrigerated Trucks For The Dead
Reports emerged Monday that Detroit's Sinai-Grace Hospital is stacking the bodies of the dead in vacant rooms and propped on chairs as the coronavirus surge in southeastern Michigan continues to stress hospitals. Sinai-Grace, which is part of the Detroit Medical Center, made national headlines after photographs allegedly leaked from staff members to CNN showed stacks of white body bags piled up in empty rooms. (Shamus and Dixon, 4/13)

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Wisconsin Lawmakers Plan Bill For Unemployed, Those With Coronavirus
Sweeping legislation lawmakers plan to pass in a virtual session this week would give the unemployed more benefits, provide insurance protections for those infected with coronavirus, shield health care providers from liability and allow the state to claim an extra $150 million in federal aid every three months. Wisconsin is in a minority of states with lawmakers who haven't yet passed legislation or a resolution related to the coronavirus pandemic, which began to spread here on March 2.  (Marley and Beck, 4/13)

KQED: Newsom Announces Aid For Foster Care Youth Affected By COVID-19, New Agreement With Oregon And Washington 
California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Monday that the state plans to allocate $42 million — including $1.6 million from the federal government — to address the needs of young people in foster care and others living in low-income families. "Bottom line is we have less social worker visits, we have less child welfare referrals because kids are not at school and because people are practicing physical distancing. And that means we still have to find creative ways to safeguard the well-being of our children," Newsom told KQED. (Shafer and Lagos, 4/13)

San Francisco Chronicle: Some California Tenants Who Are Deferring Rent Payments Being Asked About Savings
California renters who have lost income because of the coronavirus shutdown are protected from eviction for 90 days after the health emergency is over, California’s courts have ruled — giving tenants tacit permission to defer paying rent for three months. But what about tenants who have lost income but can pay rent from their savings or investments? Are landlords permitted to ask that tenants dip into their savings or 401(k) accounts in order to meet their rent obligations? (Dineen, 4/13)

Modern Healthcare: Ga. Man Charged With Attempting To Defraud VA In COVID-19 Scam
An Atlanta resident has been charged with fraud after allegedly attempting to sell millions of non-existent respirator masks to the Veterans Affairs Department, the Justice Department said Friday. Christopher Parris, 39, was charged with wire fraud in a federal court in Washington, D.C. (Cohen, 4/13)

Burlington Free Press: Coronavirus In VT: One Month Into A State Of Emergency, What's Next?
It has been one month since Vermont Gov. Phil Scott issued an emergency declaration because of the new coronavirus, and officials believe the state may be nearing the peak of the pandemic. On Monday, Scott and Health Commissioner Dr. Mark Levine reiterated that the mitigation and containment methods that Vermonters are using are working. They are hopeful that the number of COVID-19 cases in Vermont might soon plateau and then decrease. (Murray, 4/13)

The New York Times: Bishop Who Defied Social Distancing Dies After Contracting Covid-19, Church Says
A Virginia bishop who defied warnings about the danger of religious gatherings during the pandemic and vowed to keep preaching “unless I’m in jail or the hospital” died over the weekend after contracting Covid-19, his church said. The bishop, Gerald O. Glenn, 66, the founder and pastor of New Deliverance Evangelistic Church in Chesterfield, Va., died on Saturday night, according to Bryan Nevers, a church elder. (Vigdor, 4/14)

The Washington Post: Virginia Pastor Gerald Glenn Dies Of Covid-19 After Saying 'God Is Larger' Than The Virus
Glenn preached in church about the virus in March, before he became sick, encouraging people not to be afraid. On March 22, five days after Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam (D) had urged people to “avoid non-essential gatherings of more than 10 people,” Glenn told his congregation that “I firmly believe that God is larger than this dreaded virus,” according to a video played April 6 by Richmond station WTVR. (Boorstein, 4/13)

The Associated Press: Three Southern California Churches Sue Gov. Newsom Over Coronavirus Orders
Three Southern California churches that want to keep their doors open during the coronavirus outbreak sued Gov. Gavin Newsom and other officials Monday, arguing that social distancing orders violate the 1st Amendment right to freedom of religion and assembly. The suit, filed in the federal court for the Central District of California, also names state Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra and officials of San Bernardino and Riverside counties. (4/13)

Modern Healthcare: Hospitals Take An 'All-Hands-On-Deck' Approach To Staffing During Pandemic
Though Ohio's measures have begun flattening the curve so that some of the latest projected surge numbers are looking less drastic, Northeast Ohio hospitals are taking every precaution to ensure they have the providers needed to care for patients. Some clinical staff who work in nonessential surgeries and procedures, which have been put on hold for the time being, are being trained and reassigned. Others are furloughed or working fewer hours, standing at the ready and staying healthy as workforce needs evolve, which is especially important given healthcare providers' heightened risk of contracting COVID-19. (Coutré, 4/13)

State House News Service: Hazard Pay Coming To Many Mass. Health Care Workers
Thousands of state health care workers will be getting a raise after the union representing licensed nurses and caregivers working in Massachusetts state hospitals and group homes struck a deal Sunday night with the state to increase pay by as much as $10 an hour for the duration of the COVID-19 health emergency. The hazard pay for health care workers will kick in immediately, according to the union, and will last at least through May 30, and possibly longer. (Murphy, 4/13)

Boston Globe: Decontaminated N95 Masks Boost Spirits Of Front-Line Hospital Workers 
As part of a bold initiative involving hospitals across the state, MGH on Monday began distributing thousands of freshly decontaminated N95 masks to health care workers after the equipment went through an elaborate cleaning process at a site now up and running in Somerville. The treatment takes place inside a giant decontamination machine owned and operated by the Ohio nonprofit Battelle. Hospitals plan to use the machine to alleviate critical shortages of respirator masks for workers battling the coronavirus pandemic. (Ostriker and Dayal McCluskey, 4/13)

San Francisco Chronicle: Kaiser, Health Care Unions Agree On Child Care, Housing Benefits For Workers In Coronavirus Fight 
Kaiser Permanente will provide additional benefits to workers battling the coronavirus outbreak through an agreement reached Monday with unions. More than 150,000 workers at Kaiser can receive child care assistance, alternate lodging if they contract the virus or work double shifts, and extra leave if they contract the virus, according to a release from the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions, which negotiated the agreement. (Kawahara, 4/13)

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Milwaukee YMCA Provides Child Care For Health Care Professionals During Coronavirus
Everybody's "pivoting" to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic. Fine dining restaurants are providing takeout. Tour guides are delivering food. And distilleries are producing disinfectants. The YMCA of Metropolitan Milwaukee has pivoted as well. After-school activities, early childhood programs and recreational facilities are closed.Now the Y is providing emergency child care for health care professionals and essential emergency personnel. (Schwabe, 4/13)

The New York Times: He Was A Doctor Who Never Got Sick. Then The Coronavirus Nearly Killed Him.
At the end of February, Dr. Ryan Padgett’s colleagues in the emergency room called him over to share some news: A patient who had died the previous day had tested positive for the coronavirus — the first known death in the United States. Everything, they knew, was about to change. Over the next several days, a parade of patients from a nearby nursing home was brought into the emergency room at EvergreenHealth in Kirkland, Wash., which emerged as the first center of the nation’s coronavirus outbreak. (Baker, 4/13)

The New York Times: U.S. Food Supply Chain Is Strained As Virus Spreads
The nation’s food supply chain is showing signs of strain, as increasing numbers of workers are falling ill with the coronavirus in meat processing plants, warehouses and grocery stores. The spread of the virus through the food and grocery industry is expected to cause disruptions in production and distribution of certain products like pork, industry executives, labor unions and analysts have warned in recent days. The issues follow nearly a month of stockpiling of food and other essentials by panicked shoppers that have tested supply networks as never before. (Corkery and Yaffe-Bellanay, 4/13)

The Associated Press: Virus Closes Some Meat Plants, Raising Fears Of Shortages
Some massive meat processing plants have closed at least temporarily because their workers were sickened by the new coronavirus, raising concerns that there could soon be shortages of beef, pork and poultry in supermarkets. The meat supply chain is especially vulnerable since processing is increasingly done at massive plants that butcher tens of thousands of animals daily, so the closure of even a few big ones can quickly be felt by customers. (Funk, 4/13)

The New York Times: Food Workers Say C.D.C. Guidelines Put Them At Greater Risk For Infection
Lisa Harris, a cashier at a Kroger grocery store in Virginia, was surprised last week when a customer offered her a $5 bill as a tip. Ms. Harris, a Kroger employee for 13 years, cited store policy in declining the generous offer. The woman was clearly disappointed that she could not do more.“She looked at me and said, ‘I just want to show you how grateful I am for what you do,’” Ms. Harris said. (Waldstein, 4/13)

ProPublica: How Panic Buying Has Put An Incredible Strain On Food Banks Even As The Need For Them Explodes
For Carlos Rodriguez, CEO of the Community FoodBank of New Jersey, the spike in demand has been as dramatic as the arrival of the coronavirus. In a normal year, Rodriguez’s organization provides food for some 50 million meals through a network of 1,000 pantries, food kitchens and other affiliates. But the pandemic meant that some of his bigger food pantries saw 50% more traffic almost overnight. And people who had previously donated food were now, for the first time in their lives, asking for help feeding their families. (Raghavendran and McCarthy, 4/13)

Reuters: Trump Administration To Unveil $15.5 Billion First Phase Of Coronavirus Farm Aid: Sources
The U.S. Department of Agriculture will spend up to $15.5 billion in the initial phase of its plan to bolster the nation’s food supply chain against the impacts of the coronavirus outbreak, according to three sources familiar with the matter. (Huffstutter, 4/13)

Reuters: Amazon Fires Two Employees Critical Of Warehouse Working Conditions
Amazon.com Inc said on Tuesday it terminated two employees, who criticized the working conditions at the e-commerce giant’s warehouses in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, for “repeatedly violating internal policies”. The termination of Emily Cunningham and Maren Costa, who worked as user-experience designers in Seattle, came in a couple of weeks after the company fired another employee Christian Smalls for raising health and safety concerns for people laboring through the outbreak. (4/14)

The Washington Post: Amazon Fired Two Outspoken Critics Of Its Climate Policies Amid Their Support For Warehouse Staff
The virus has spread widely, infecting workers in at least 74 warehouses and delivery facilities across the country, according to Amazon and media reports. Some warehouse workers have staged small demonstrations in response. One of the fired workers, Emily Cunningham, a user experience designer who is part of the group Amazon Employees for Climate Justice, had offered on Twitter to match donations up to $500 to Amazon warehouse workers. She said a "'lack of safe and sanitary working conditions’ puts them and the public at risk.” (Greene, 4/14)

The Wall Street Journal: Amazon To Expand Shipments Of Nonessential Items, Continue Adding Staff
Amazon.com Inc. will begin allowing third-party sellers on its platform to resume shipping so-called nonessential items this week, a signal that the company is ramping up to meet broader consumer needs, according to people familiar with the matter. Last month, Amazon made a decision to prioritize at its warehouses those items deemed essential during the coronavirus outbreak, such as cleaning products, health-care items and shelf-stable food. (Mattioli, 4/13)

NBC News: As Deaths Mount, Delivery Workers Say They're Kept In The Dark Over Who's Sick
Rumors about the manager with the virus started to spread around Worldport, UPS' sprawling air hub in Louisville, Kentucky, earlier this month. Employees texted one another to ask whether they'd heard about Roml Ellis, the well-liked 55-year-old who worked the night shift. They'd heard he was sick, that he'd been hospitalized and then that he'd died. UPS employees said that despite asking management repeatedly about their sick co-worker, they were kept in the dark as the company cited medical privacy concerns. (Seville and Kaplan, 4/14)

The New York Times: Dozens Are Killed As Tornadoes And Severe Weather Strike Southern States 
Like most Americans, Mamie Harper and her husband had tucked themselves away at home in an effort to keep the coronavirus at bay. On Easter Sunday, they listened to an audio feed of their church service while huddled indoors. But a different kind of trouble soon found them. A tornado — one of dozens that tore across the Southeast this weekend — roared over their street on Sunday afternoon, snapping trees, blowing away keepsakes and launching cars from their parking spots. (Fentress and Fausset, 4/13)

The Associated Press: Storms Tear Through South Amid Pandemic; More Than 30 Dead
Nine died in South Carolina, Gov. Gov. Henry McMaster said, and coroners said eight were killed in Georgia. Tennessee officials said three people were killed in and around Chattanooga, and others died under falling trees or inside collapsed buildings in Arkansas and North Carolina. With a handful of tornadoes already confirmed in the South and storms still raging up the Eastern Seaboard, forecasters fanned out to determine how much of the widespread damage was caused by twisters. Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves said the storms were “as bad or worse than anything we’ve seen in a decade.” (Anderson and Reeves, 4/13)

Reuters: 'Everything's Gone': Tornadoes Rip U.S. South, Kill At Least 26
At least 11 people were killed in Mississippi, eight in South Carolina, six in Georgia and one in Arkansas in the storms, local media and state officials reported. Five of the people who were killed in Georgia were in two Murray County mobile home parks that were leveled as tornadoes rolled through the area, Murray County Fire Chief Dewayne Bain told a Fox News affiliate in the region. (O'Brien, 4/13)

The Washington Post: After Tornadoes Batter The South, Residents Question How To Rebuild Amid Coronavirus Threat
In almost all of the hardest-hit communities, covid-19 — the disease caused by the novel coronavirus — has forced people to isolate indoors, packed hospitals and stressed the emergency workers who are the first to respond to a natural disaster. The overlapping crises have made responding to both a dangerous gambit, now and in the months to come. How do you get people to shelter-in-place when hundreds of homes are damaged or destroyed? (Montgomery, Webster, Wootson and Sellers, 4/13)

ProPublica: Climate Change Won’t Stop For The Coronavirus Pandemic
Two and a half years ago Hurricane Maria ripped open homes across the southern Puerto Rican city of Ponce, destroying the rickety electrical grid and sending thousands of people into shelters or onto the streets. People were still rebuilding when, in January, a devastating earthquake jolted the island’s southern coast. Afraid of collapsing walls and showering concrete, people moved back outdoors, where they still spend cool, wet nights under blue tarps strung to poles and tied to cars packed with coolers and lawn chairs. (Lustgarten, 4/13)

The New York Times: What Doctors On The Front Lines Wish They’d Known A Month Ago
Just about a month ago, people stricken with the new coronavirus started to arrive in unending ranks at hospitals in the New York metropolitan area, forming the white-hot center of the pandemic in the United States. Now, doctors in the region have started sharing on medical grapevines what it has been like to re-engineer, on the fly, their health care systems, their practice of medicine, their personal lives. Doctors, if you could go back in time, what would you tell yourselves in early March? (Dwyer, 4/14)

The New York Times: ‘What Disease Are We Treating?’: Why Coronavirus Is Stumping Many Doctors
Doctors say the coronavirus is challenging core tenets of medicine, leading some to abandon long-established ventilator protocols for certain patients. But other doctors warn this could be dangerous. (Stein and Tiefenthaler, 4/14)

Stat: Who Gets The Last Ventilator? Pondering The Unthinkable Amid Covid-19
The patient was around 80, an immigrant from the Dominican Republic, his medical record filled with the accumulations and erosions of old age. His blood pressure was high, his spinal cord narrowing to a pinch. He had a history of alcohol addiction, but was no longer drinking. A prostate cancer had been burned out with radiation, and he had yearly appointments to make sure it wasn’t coming back. He had type 2 diabetes. (Boodman, 4/14)

Stat: How Much Of The Coronavirus Does It Take To Make You Sick? 
Infectious respiratory diseases spread when a healthy person comes in contact with virus particles expelled by someone who is sick — usually through a cough or sneeze. The amount of particles a person is exposed to can affect how likely they are to become infected and, once infected, how severe the symptoms become. The amount of virus necessary to make a person sick is called the infectious dose. Viruses with low infectious doses are especially contagious in populations without significant immunity. (Hogan, 4/14)

CIDRAP: Study Finds Evidence Of COVID-19 In Air, On Hospital Surfaces
A study published late last week in Emerging Infectious Diseases found a wide distribution of COVID-19 virus genetic material on surfaces and in the air about 4 meters (13 feet) from patients in two hospital wards in Wuhan, China, posing a risk to healthcare workers. While the findings of the environmental sampling study do not indicate the amount of live virus, if any, or precisely determine the distance of aerosol transmission, the authors say that they confirm that the virus spreads in aerosols in addition to large respiratory droplets. (Soucheray, 13)

ABC News: Silent Killer: Inside The Coronavirus Outbreak At The Canterbury Nursing Home 
The dispatch calls to Henrico County’s Fire Station 13 at first came in a trickle. “Breathing problem. Priority one response,” the voice said through the station’s loudspeaker in early March, routing a rescue team to 1776 Cambridge Road. Then, Fire Capt. Michael Roth said the calls started to become more frequent -- two calls that first week, five in the second, seven in the third week, and 19 during the final week of March. (Freger, Romero, Pecorin and Mosk, 4/14)

Boston Globe: State Officials Backpedal On Plan To Move Nursing Home Residents Amid Pandemic 
Bowing to concerns about moving old and frail residents, Baker administration officials Monday backpedaled on a controversial plan to empty select nursing homes across the state to treat COVID-19 patients discharged from hospitals. Instead, they said, they’ll add nearly 1,000 beds by temporarily reopening former nursing homes for COVID-19 recovery. (Weisman, Andersen and Murphy, 4/13)

WBUR: Fla. Governor Says National Guard Ramping Up Coronavirus Testing In Nursing Homes 
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Monday that teams of National Guard personnel were being dispatched to dozens of nursing homes and assisted-living facilities where COVID-19 cases have been found, to test residents and staff for the virus. DeSantis said the four-person National Guard "strike teams" have already been sent to 93 such long-term care facilities, where a total of 962 positive cases have been discovered. But he said he wants to further expand testing. (Neuman, 4/14)

Kaiser Health News: In Shutting Out Threat, Seniors In Continuing Care Communities Feel Shut In
With tight restrictions in place at their continuing care retirement community, Tom and Janice Showler are getting on each other’s nerves.Most days, Tom, 76, likes to drive out of their community ― Asbury Springhill in Erie, Pennsylvania — to the store to pick up a few items. “If you follow the right protocols, the likelihood is quite low that we would come down with coronavirus,” Tom said. “If I didn’t go out at all, I’d feel like the walls were closing in on me.” (Graham, 4/14)

The New York Times: Youths Face Coronavirus In Juvenile Detention
A 17-year-old girl spends nearly 24 hours a day in an 11-foot-by-11-foot room in the Lower Eastern Shore Children’s Center, the benignly named detention facility in rural Maryland where the coronavirus first entered the state’s juvenile justice system. With her classes suspended and her counselor on leave, she steps out only to use a bathroom she shares with five other girls. Her human interactions are down to 10-minute phone calls with family members, who are barred from visiting. (Green, 4/14)

NBC News: 'I'm Scared For My Child': Coronavirus Hits Louisiana Juvenile Detention Centers
Nicole Hingle hasn’t seen her son Jace in over a month. Jace, 17, has spent the past year in the Bridge City Center for Youth, a long-term detention facility near New Orleans; he has nearly three years left on his sentence for battery and resisting arrest, stemming from a fight with neighbors. Like many juvenile detention facilities, the Bridge City Center cut off family visits in March as a measure to stop the spread of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. (Kingkade, 4/13)

The New York Times: ‘It’s A Time Bomb’: 23 Die As Virus Hits Packed Homeless Shelters
Roy Coleman, a 69-year-old living in a homeless shelter on Wards Island, was taken away by ambulance after showing symptoms of Covid-19. The other shelter residents were relieved — until Mr. Coleman was allowed to return last week after testing positive at Harlem Hospital. At another shelter, Alphonso Syville, 45, said that as much as he tried, he could not block out the incessant coughing that he heard from a man a few feet away. (Stewart, 4/13)

San Francisco Chronicle: SF Moves 500 More Homeless People Into Hotels In Effort To Protect Them From Coronavirus 
San Francisco moved more than 500 additional homeless people into private hotels this weekend, part of a constantly changing response to the challenge of protecting a uniquely vulnerable segment of the population from the coronavirus. This brings the number of homeless men and women who have been moved from streets and shelters to 751, city officials said at a Monday briefing on the virus’ local impacts. The transplants are either under quarantine or seen as particularly susceptible to infection and possibly death. An additional 150 or 200 are likely to make the move in coming days. (King, 4/13)

The Wall Street Journal: Social-Distancing Rules—And Those That Flout Them—Spur Online Shaming
Mark Bonthrone was walking with his wife and 3-month-old daughter as a trio of teenagers approached. When his wife asked the group to give them space for social distancing, one of the teens laughed and pretended to have a coughing fit. When Mr. Bonthrone got home, the 39-year-old pounded out what he described as an “angry, old man Facebook” post in the local parents group of Ridgewood, N.J., about what happened. He included a detailed description of what the offending teenager looked like and where he was last seen. (Koh, 4/13)

The Washington Post: Patients In Pain, Dentists In Distress: In Coronavirus Pandemic, The Problem With Teeth
The pain was going to be worth it. Easter Brown opened her mouth as wide as she could as a dentist yanked out the seven teeth she had left. At 77 years old, she was finally going to get a full set of dentures. She went home toothless that day in February and waited for the call saying her new smile had arrived. But when her phone rang in March, Brown was told that her dental clinic in the District was almost completely shutting down. (Contrera, 4/13)

NBC News: Endometriosis Patients Grapple With Canceled Operations Because Of Coronavirus
For years, Alexandra Clem struggled with severe pelvic pain, migraines and a heavy menstrual cycle without understanding why. It wasn't until last summer when she was diagnosed with endometriosis and learned that would need to have surgery to treat it. Clem, 24, was gearing up for a second operation March 17, but it was canceled just a day before because her surgeon was being tested for the coronavirus. (Ciechalski, 4/13)

Politico: Public Health Officials Prod Trump’s Team For Minority Data
The Trump administration has yet to release comprehensive data about racial and ethnic outcomes in Covid-19 cases, despite the growing concerns about racial disparities and some former health officials urging Medicare to resurrect a similar Obama-era analysis. Medicare chief Seema Verma said at the White House daily briefing last week that her office would be providing such data “very shortly” but two officials in her department told POLITICO that no such release is imminent or has been marked as a priority. (Diamond, 4/14)

Boston Globe: When Going To The Grocery Store Can Put You In Harm’s Way, More People Are Writing Wills 
Massachusetts estate attorneys say that since the pandemic hit they have seen a surge in new clients interested in drawing up their final wishes and families and existing clients who want to update health care proxies or finalize documents that they’ve procrastinated signing for months and sometimes years. Lawyers said they are getting calls from all corners, young and old, doctors, nurses, and other front-line workers, and people stuck at home contemplating their own mortality. (Fernandes, 4/12)

Stat: Chronic Disease Startups Brace For A Looming Crisis As Covid-19 Delays Care
Clinicians at health tech startups who treat patients with chronic conditions are raising a looming concern: Will their patients — many of whom have had their routine care disrupted during the Covid-19 pandemic — see a relapse in their illnesses or new complications once the crisis subsides? (Brodwin, 4/14)

The Washington Post: Those Addicted To Drugs Are Being Sent Home With More Methadone Than Ever
More addiction treatment medicine is being sent home with heroin addicts than ever before after state and federal regulators eased restrictions amid the deadly coronavirus outbreak. Authorities had limited take-home medicine to try to ensure that it wasn’t abused or sold on the streets. But providers say the change is necessary in this time of social distancing to thin the crowds that typically fill treatment centers. (Prudente, 4/13)

The Hill: Poll Finds Americans See Infectious Diseases, Terrorism, Cyberattacks As Top Threats 
Americans rank the spread of infectious disease, terrorist attacks and cyberattacks as the top national security threats, a study released by the Pew Research Center on Monday found. Pew researchers found that 79 percent of those surveyed ranking the spread of infectious diseases, such as COVID-19, as the top threat to the country. More than 70 percent of those polled identified cyberattacks from other countries and the spread of nuclear weapons as major threats. (Miller, 4/13)

The New York Times: Is Coronavirus Making You Have Weird Dreams? Actually, Yes.
The question of whether “anyone else” has “been having” strange dreams (“lately”) is perennially popular online. It is a spooky yet comforting query: Has anyone else stumbled onto possible evidence that the universe possesses a finite metaphysical infrastructure occasionally detected by the subconscious? In recent weeks, however, the question has been posed with increasing frequency. Local news personalities in particular appear uniquely susceptible to wondering if anybody else is having strange dreams, with meteorologists and anchors in, for instance, Texas, Connecticut, North Carolina, Washington, Wisconsin, and New York, having recently posed it on their public Facebook pages. (Weaver, 4/13)

The Wall Street Journal: Appeals Court Eases Texas Ban On Abortion During Coronavirus Emergency
A federal appeals court late Monday eased a Texas ban on abortion during the coronavirus, a move that may save the Supreme Court from having to weigh in right now. The Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued an order saying that Texas for now can’t prevent early-term abortions up to 10 weeks of pregnancy that are performed with oral medications. The appeals court had issued earlier orders in the state’s favor during the fast-moving litigation, but this time it said Texas hadn’t made the required legal showing to prohibit medication abortions after a trial judge allowed the procedures. (Kendall, 4/13)

The New York Times: Abortion During A Pandemic? Texas Says No In Many Cases.
The 31-year-old from Houston knew she did not want another baby. She already had three — her youngest, a boy, was just 6 months old. And she had just been laid off from her job in a medical billing office, another casualty of America’s growing unemployment crisis. So she scheduled an abortion at a local clinic. But when she arrived for her appointment four weeks ago, the doors were locked and a sign was taped inside the glass: The clinic was closed. (Tavernise, 4/14)

Politico: The One Republican Lawmaker In Texas Who Supports Abortion Rights
State Representative Sarah Davis has been rankling her fellow Republicans for years. When the state GOP banned the Log Cabin Republicans, a gay rights group, from its annual convention, Davis publicly admonished the party. She has steadfastly advocated for vaccination, when some in the GOP opposed it. And she is the only Republican lawmaker in the entire state of Texas who supports abortion rights, having consistently voted against the party’s perennial efforts to limit them. (Rayasam, 4/14)

The Hill: Appeals Court Backs Ruling Allowing Abortion In Oklahoma During Coronavirus Pandemic 
The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld a lower court’s ruling blocking an executive order signed by Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt (R) last month that sought to temporarily ban abortion services in the state during the coronavirus pandemic. The decision on Monday lets stand District Judge Charles Goodwin’s move earlier this month to grant a temporary restraining order against the state’s ban on abortion. (Folley, 4/13)

The New York Times: Damage From OxyContin Continues To Be Revealed
OxyContin, and the aggressive, misleading way that Purdue Pharma marketed it, might have been even more damaging than was previously understood. Recent research shows how the company focused its marketing in states with lighter prescription regulation — to devastating effect. Also, a new version of OxyContin introduced a decade ago — which was meant to reduce harm — had unintended consequences. Besides contributing to heroin overdoses, it led to hepatitis C and other infections. Careful studies are only now starting to reveal the extent of the damage. (Frakt, 4/13)

ProPublica: Walmart Hid That It Was Under Criminal Investigation For Its Opioid Sales, Lawyers Say
Walmart, a defendant in the massive lawsuit brought by states and municipalities around the country that accuses a broad range of companies of lax controls over opioid sales, failed to reveal that it had been under criminal investigation for similar conduct, according to plaintiffs in the case. Linda Singer, a partner at Motley Rice, which represents multiple states, counties and municipalities in the litigation, alleges that the giant retailer engaged in “pervasive obstruction,” according to a letter sent late last month to the special master in charge of wrangling the evidence in the case, which is being heard in federal court in Cleveland. (Eisinger, 4/13)

The Washington Post: China's Coronavirus Public-Relations War Is Backfiring In The West
As China in March became the first major country to recover from the coronavirus outbreak that spread from central city of Wuhan, its officials kicked off another campaign: to heal its tattered international image. President Xi Jinping held a flurry of phone calls with world leaders to promise aid. More than 170 Chinese medical experts were dispatched to Europe, Southeast Asia and Africa. State media outlets flooded the Internet with photos of Chinese masks arriving in 100 countries and stories questioning the epidemic’s origins. (Shih, 4/14)

Reuters: Getting A Coronavirus Test In Wuhan: Fast, Cheap And Easy
Coronavirus tests can be difficult to come by in many countries including in hard-hit parts of the United States and Britain, but in Wuhan, the Chinese epicentre of the pandemic, they are fast, cheap and easy to get. (Goh, 4/14)

Reuters: Deaths In England From Coronavirus 15% Higher Than Previously Reported, Stats Office Says
Deaths in England caused by the coronavirus by April 3 were 15% higher than previously reported, according to official data published on Tuesday. “The latest comparable data for deaths involving COVID-19 with a date of death up to April 3, show there were 6,235 deaths in England and Wales,” said Nick Stripe, head of health analysis at the Office for National Statistics. (4/14)

The Wall Street Journal: Reopening The Economy, At Last
At long last our political leaders are considering how they can reopen the American economy they put into a destructive coma. Let’s hope this overdue process doesn’t devolve into another fight between governors and President Trump that will confuse Americans and slow the return to normal economic life. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo took the lead Monday by announcing a committee of six Northeast states aimed at reopening the economy without sacrificing the gains made so far, and at such a great cost, against the coronavirus. New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Delaware will each name a public-health official, an economic policy maven and the chief of staff for each Governor to the committee. (4/13)

The Washington Post: President Trump Can’t Reopen The Country. Only We Can Do That. 
Controversy over when President Trump will “reopen the country” is nothing more than another ploy to spice up his tiresome reality-show drama. Trump won’t determine when it’s safe again for us to mingle again at work and play. We will. Trump said Friday that when to restart what he called “the greatest economy ever created” will be “by far the biggest decision of my life.” He claimed Monday in a tweet that when to “open up the states . . . is the decision of the president, for many good reasons.” He pretends there is a switch and that he alone can flick it, but of course no such thing exists. This crisis is not all about him. It’s all about us. (Eugene Robinson, 4/13)

Los Angeles Times: No, Mr. Trump, You Don’t Get To Decide When The Economy Restarts
Columnist Holman Jenkins offered an analogy in the Wall Street Journal over the weekend that captures the conundrum created by the U.S. response to COVID-19. “Imagine a problem that can be solved by holding your head underwater,” Jenkins wrote, “but stops being solved when you lift your head out.” In other words, the stay-at-home measures adopted to protect against the outbreak are damaging in their own right, and not a cure for the disease. In fact, there is no known cure, just a number of drug therapies being tested and vaccines in development. That’s why it’s so disturbing to hear President Trump assert, as he did again Monday, that he has the power to “open up the states,” presumably by lifting the restrictions on movement and commerce. (4/13)

The Washington Post: Can We Reopen Before There’s A Cure Or A Vaccine? It Won’t Be Easy.
Expectations are running high that reopening the United States will mean returning to offices, factories and schools, kick-starting the economy and rediscovering life before the novel coronavirus pandemic. At best these alluring goals are likely to be achieved haltingly, partially, more slowly than we would like — and how haltingly will depend heavily on how well the nation undertakes a mammoth set of public health tasks. The inescapable fact is that in the absence of a vaccine or drug therapy for the next year or more, a highly infectious virus will roam the country and the world, and only strenuous actions can prevent continuing flare-ups or new explosions such as Wuhan, Bergamo or New York City. (4/13)

The Hill: Coronavirus Is Accelerating The Advance Of Nationalism Over Globalization
Though a broad segment of political and media opinion continues to proclaim that the coronavirus pandemic demands a strengthening of international cooperation and multilateral institutions, the facts on the ground demonstrate that the tide of events is  moving in precisely the opposite direction. The emerging reality is that individual nation-states increasingly are in the driver’s seat and being strongly supported by their populations, while multilateral institutions from the United Nations to the European Union (EU) are falling victim to their internal contradictions and a consequent inability to act quickly or decisively in the face of the global crisis. (William Moloney, 4/13)

CNN: Try As He Might, Trump Can't Spin The Pandemic
When I sat down with [Chris] Christie (virtually, of course) for the latest episode of "The Axe Files" podcast, I asked him why the President was so insistent on downplaying the burgeoning threat of Covid-19 for six critical weeks and why the Trump Administration was so slow in responding. "He always believes that by sheer force of will he can change circumstances," Christie told me. "And I think that he was like, 'OK, if I just go out there, talk this thing down, it'll come down.' I think that's what he felt at the beginning. (David Axelrod, 4/13)

NBC News: ICE's Coronavirus Response Has Been 'Business As Usual.' That Puts All Of Us At Risk.
Though the federal government has repeatedly assured Americans that it is doing all it can to stop the spread of the coronavirus, one controversial agency may well be enabling its spread rather than actively participating in slowing it down, while claiming the mantle of protecting “national security.” But there is nothing more essential to the security of the American people than overcoming this immediate public health disaster — especially not institutionalized racism. (Julio Ricardo Varela, 4/13)

St. Louis Post Dispatch: Leaders Must Act Now To Protect Voters During This Pandemic
No one should have to choose between their right to vote and their health. There are steps we can take to ensure access to the ballot for Missouri voters in 2020, but the time for decisive action is now. Missouri lawmakers returned to session last week. They must appropriate funds to scale up increased mail-in voting and other measures. And Missouri’s chief elections official must offer clear direction on the path forward and ensure local election authorities have the resources they need to administer what will certainly be the most unusual and challenging elections in our lifetimes. (Denise Lieberman, 4/13)

The Hill: Federal Action Can Limit Impact Of COVID-19 Costs On American Businesses And Workers 
The COVID-19 global pandemic poses a severe threat to health, to the economy and to our system of funding health care in the United States. Employers can play an important role in addressing the threat of this coronavirus, but we also need effective government action to save lives and to preserve the viability of businesses across the country. (Dr. Jeff Levin-Scherz, 4/13)

San Francisco Chronicle: California Must Expand Medical Support In Coronavirus Crisis 
Gov. Gavin Newsom has made “meet the moment” a mantra during the coronavirus crisis. He has been impressive in pushing stay-at-home orders, acquiring protective equipment and ventilators, expanding the health care workforce, and keeping the state’s interest above egos and partisan rivalries in collaborating with the Trump White House. The next step for California would be to ensure that it is optimizing the services of the 13,000 physician assistants in the state. About 80% of the assistants work in hospitals or clinics, where the range of care they provide is often broad. (4/13)

The Wall Street Journal: Targeting Tony Fauci
The U.S. may be fighting through a public health and economic emergency, but for the media resistance the most important story is always Donald Trump. Monday was again dominated by breathless reports about Mr. Trump’s relationship with Anthony Fauci after the President retweeted something that included a #FireFauci hashtag. While Mr. Trump’s antagonists feign protectiveness of Dr. Fauci and horror that Mr. Trump might question expert judgment, the truth is they are eager for a public brawl that will hurt the President politically. Monday’s dust-up was prompted by an interview Dr. Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, gave Sunday on CNN. Host Jake Tapper, fishing for criticism of the Trump Administration, compared the U.S. to South Korea and pressed Dr. Fauci on whether “lives could have been saved” if the U.S. started shutting down in February. (4/13)

The Hill: Thankfully, The Doctor Is In 
Dr. Bob Kadlec literally wrote the script on how to fight a pandemic. While toiling away in the Pentagon, the White House and the United States Senate, few have given more thought to the type of havoc a biological attack or pandemic could wreak upon America. Fortunately for us, Kadlec is in the driver’s seat of the U.S. government’s COVID-19 response and there is nobody better qualified for the job. (Former Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA), 4/13)

St. Louis Post Dispatch: Delays In Educating City's Black Community About Coronavirus Risks Cost Lives
An entire month has passed since the coronavirus scare rattled St. Louis to its core and officials started escalating efforts to limit public gatherings and halt the virus’ spread. Yet it wasn’t until Saturday — long after the major damage was done — that canvassers began handing out flyers and hanging posters in black-majority areas of the city. A lack of concentrated neighborhood-education efforts almost certainly played a role in how this pandemic has exacted a particularly heavy toll on the black community. (4/13)

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Black Americans Disproportionately Represented In COVID-19 Deaths
African Americans are dying from COVID-19 at disproportionate rates. At the same time, we are less likely to even be tested. We are less likely to be treated for the virus. And we are more likely to be low-wage essential workers on the front lines, putting us at greater risk for contracting the virus.If that doesn’t make you want to weep, you might want to check your pulse. Me? I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. (Gracie Bonds Staples, 4/14)

The New York Times: American Health Care Is An Engine Of Inequality
In March, Congress passed a coronavirus bill including $3.1 billion to develop and produce drugs and vaccines. The bipartisan consensus was unusual. Less unusual was the successful lobbying by pharmaceutical companies to weaken or kill provisions that addressed affordability — measures that could be used to control prices or invalidate patents for any new drugs. The notion of price control is anathema to health care companies. It threatens their basic business model, in which the government grants them approvals and patents, pays whatever they ask, and works hand in hand with them as they deliver the worst health outcomes at the highest costs in the rich world. (Anne Case and Angus Deaton, 4/14)

Bloomberg: Ten Reasons To Doubt The Covid-19 Data
If you’re like me, you’ve been watching the daily data on the coronavirus pandemic, seeking glimmers of hope in the trajectories: the infected, the hospitalized, the intubated, the dead. If only there were more understanding to be had. The more I look at the numbers, the more I see their flaws. Here are my top 10. 1. The number of infected is close to meaningless. Only people who get tested can be counted, and there still aren’t enough tests — not even close, and not in any country save perhaps Iceland. (Cathy O'Neil, 4/13)

CNN: Flatten The Curve, But Please Don't Make It A U 
Thirty years ago, the tuberculosis (TB) expert Dr. Lee Reichman coined the term, "The U-shaped curve of concern" to describe the challenges of TB control. His notion was this: When a disease like TB is rampant, dollars, attention and expertise are brought to bear. Soon, cases decrease, creating the sinking left-hand side of the "U." But this success soon creates a new challenge. (Kent Sepkowitz, 4/13)

Stat: BSL-2 Labs Should Be Allowed To Handle The Novel Coronavirus 
Not long after SARS-CoV-2 was first identified in December 2019 as the cause of an alarming cluster of severe pneumonia cases in central China, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention correctly advised that the virus should be isolated and studied only in laboratories with advanced containment capabilities, meaning those with a biosafety level (BSL) of 3 or higher. Things have changed radically since then. (Glenn Rockman, 4/14)

The Philadelphia Inquirer: Protecting The Nation’s Most Vulnerable During The COVID-19 Pandemic
Human services providers for those with intellectual disabilities, autism, brain injury and behavioral challenges are valiantly grappling with a no-win situation: how to manage safely through the COVID-19 Pandemic. Their focus remains clear; to keep clients and staff safe, and to bring programs and services into homes to minimize client contact with others. The clients they support have a wide range of complex issues, including severe behavioral challenges, psychiatric disorders, and medical conditions that put them at greater risk for the worst outcomes if they contract COVID-19. (Tine Hansen-Turton, 4/13)

CNN: Hours Before He Died Of Covid-19, A Detroit Police Captain Wanted To Get Back To Work 
You've been daydreaming lately, if you're anything like me, imagining a glorious celebration with all the people you know and love. Now picture this one: a party in the summertime, a hall packed with brothers and sisters and aunts and uncles and cousins and enough barbecue ribs for everyone. Face-painting and balloon animals for the kids. Whiskey and beer for the grownups. (Thomas Lake, 4/13)

CNN: Why New York Has Been Hit So Hard By Coronavirus
New York state reached a tragic milestone this week: It now has more Covid-19 patients than any country in the world, aside from the United States. The state's total of 181,026 cases, as of April 11, is higher than Spain's (161,852 cases) and Italy's (152,271), countries with populations many times larger than New York. (Kent Sepkowitz, 4/13)