Reuters: U.S. Coronavirus Death Toll Tops 80,000 - Reuters Tally
U.S. coronavirus deaths topped 80,000 on Monday, according to a Reuters tally, as nearly all states have taken steps to relax lockdown measures. Deaths in the United States, the epicenter of the global pandemic, have averaged 2,000 a day since mid-April despite efforts to slow the outbreak. The death toll is higher than any fatalities from the seasonal flu going back to 1967 and represents more U.S. deaths than during the first eight years of the AIDS epidemic, from 1981 to 1988. (Shumaker, 5/11)

CIDRAP: US COVID-19 Death Toll Hits 80,000 As Top Leaders Quarantine
The death toll has already surpassed the most optimistic epidemiologic model, the one produced by the University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation and touted by the White House, which projected 64,000 deaths by Aug 1. That model has since been adjusted to take into account the easing of social distancing measures, and now projects 137,000 US deaths by Aug 1. (Soucheray, 5/11)

The Associated Press: Study: Virus Death Toll In NYC Worse Than Official Tally
New York City’s death toll from the coronavirus may be thousands of fatalities worse than the tally kept by the city and state, according to an analysis released Monday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Between March 11 and May 2, about 24,000 more people died in the city than researchers would ordinarily expect during that time period, the report said. That’s about 5,300 more deaths than were blamed on the coronavirus in official tallies during those weeks. (Mustian, 5/12)

The Wall Street Journal: Coronavirus Death Toll In New York City Likely Much Higher, CDC Says
The CDC’s total is 5,293 deaths higher than official New York City reports over the same period, which showed 13,831 laboratory-confirmed deaths from Covid-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus, and 5,048 probable Covid-19-related deaths. CDC officials said the agency’s larger death toll included fatalities likely attributable to health problems caused by Covid-19 as well as other factors attributable to the pandemic, such as shortages of medical care. (Chapman, 5/11)

Politico: On Top Of Official Death Toll, Number Of Coronavirus-Related Deaths Also Up In NYC
Those may include people who suffered from the coronavirus but did not have it noted on their death certificate. In other cases, the primary cause may be something else, but exacerbated by a coronavirus infection. In particular, there has been a surge in cardiac arrests — and officials are probing whether many of the heart attacks were caused by the coronavirus. (Eisenberg, 5/11)

CNN: NYC Coronavirus Death Toll May Be Much Higher Says CDC Report, While Nationwide Count Tops 80,000
Those findings add to a growing body of evidence highlighting how the pandemic may be killing Americans without ever infecting them. For example, experts have also said that a decline in reported heart attacks and strokes across the country is likely the result of people avoiding emergency rooms. (Maxouris and Azad, 5/12)

Los Angeles Times: U.S. Death Toll In The Coronavirus Outbreak Passes 80,000
“We’re now on the other side of the mountain,” Gov. Andrew Cuomo said at his daily news briefing. “Next step, how do we reopen? How do we reopen intelligently? And how do we reopen without taking a step back?” As the number of coronavirus-related deaths in the nation surpassed 80,000, the number of deaths in New York dipped to 161 and the number of new coronavirus infections to 488 in the last 24 hours, levels last seen in March, he said. Cuomo’s statewide stay-at-home order ends Friday. (Mehta, 5/11)

Los Angeles Times: Plateau In California Coronavirus Deaths Concerns Experts
Although some hope the worst of California’s coronavirus crisis has passed, there are signs the pandemic in the Golden State has merely stabilized, and the worst may be yet to come. The number of weekly COVID-19 deaths in California has hit a stubborn plateau, and the number of cases has not begun a sustained week-over-week decline, a Los Angeles Times analysis has found. For the seven-day period that ended Sunday, 503 people in California died from the virus — the second-highest weekly death toll in the course of the pandemic and a 1.6% increase from the previous week. (Lin and Lee, 5/11)

The New York Times: Fauci Plans To Use Hearing To Warn Of ‘Needless Suffering And Death’
Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert and a central figure in the government’s response to the coronavirus, plans to deliver a stark warning to the Senate on Tuesday: Americans would experience “needless suffering and death” if the country opens up prematurely. Dr. Fauci, who has emerged as the perhaps nation’s most respected voice during the worst public health crisis in a century, is one of four top government doctors scheduled to testify remotely at a high-profile — and highly unusual — hearing on Tuesday before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. He made his comments in an email to a New York Times reporter late Monday night. (Stolberg, 5/12)

NPR: Trump, Testing, Asymptomatic Spread Could Be Flashpoints In Key Senate Hearing
The Senate hearing is called, "COVID-19: Safely Getting Back to Work and Back to School." The irony, though, is it will take place via video conference. The Senate health committee's chairman, Republican Lamar Alexander, will chair the hearing remotely from his home in Tennessee because one of his staffers tested positive for COVID-19. Four top doctors integral to the government's coronavirus response, who are expected to testify, will also do so remotely. Three are self-quarantining because of exposure to a White House staffer who also tested positive for the coronavirus. (Montanaro, 5/12)

CNN: Dr. Anthony Fauci To Warn Senate Of 'Needless Suffering And Death' If Country Reopens Too Quickly 
The hearing will be Democrats' first opportunity since March to question leading medical experts -- including Fauci and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield -- about the Trump administration's response. "The fact of the matter is, President (Donald) Trump has been more focused on fighting against the truth, than fighting this virus — and Americans have sadly paid the price," Washington Sen. Patty Murray, the top Democrat on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, plans to say Tuesday, according to excerpts of her opening statement. (Herb and Fox, 5/12)

ABC News: Senate To Grill Fauci, Other Admin Officials On Reopening Via Videoconference
Alexander said this weekend that he believes that the economy must reopen but that a robust testing strategy would be required to do it. "The only solution is test, trace, isolate, treatments and vaccines," the committee chairman said in an NBC interview on Sunday. "We have to reopen the economy. We have to do it carefully. We have to let people go back to work and earn a living." Alexander and Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., who chairs a key appropriations subcommittee, secured funding in the $2 trillion COVID-19 relief package for a "shark tank" competition to speed the quality and availability of tests around the country. (Pecorin and Turner, 5/12)

USA Today: Fauci's Testimony, Trump's Finances: 5 Things To Know Tuesday
The White House previously barred Fauci from appearing at a similar hearing in the House, saying "it is counterproductive to have the very individuals involved in those efforts appearing at congressional hearings." (5/12)

The Associated Press: Object Lesson On A Fickle Virus Frames Hearing On Reopening
Even before the gavel drops, the hearing offers two takeaways for the rest of the country, said John Auerbach, president of the nonprofit public health group Trust for America’s Health. “One thing it tells you is that the virus can have an impact in any workplace setting or any community setting,” said Auerbach. “All businesses will find it very challenging to ensure safety when there are cases.” Another lesson is that the public officials involved are taking the virus seriously by not appearing in person. “They are following the guidelines that they are recommending to others,” said Auerbach. “There is not a double standard.” (Alonso-Zaldivar and Neergaard, 5/12)

The Associated Press: Pelosi Wants To Go Big On Aid, But McConnell Sees No Urgency
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is poised to unveil the next coronavirus aid package, encouraging Congress to “go big” on aid to help cash-strapped states and struggling Americans. Voting is possible as soon as Friday. But the bill is heading straight into a Senate roadblock. Senate Republicans said Monday they are not planning to vote on any new relief until June. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says there is no “urgency” to act. (Mascaro, 5/12)

Politico: McConnell Brushes Off Pelosi As She Finalizes Relief Package
Hopes are fading on Capitol Hill for a deal on the next round of coronavirus relief before an approaching Memorial Day recess, raising the prospect that Congress won’t clinch a new spending agreement until June or beyond. While the Democratic-controlled House is aiming to pass a multitrillion-dollar package as soon as this week without GOP or White House input, the Senate Republican majority has no timeline for delivering its own bill. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said the party is still “assessing what we’ve done already,” referring to the nearly $3 trillion in aid delivered by Congress thus far. (Everett and Caygle, 5/11)

The Hill: The 8 Key Provisions Expected In Democrats' Next COVID-19 Bill 
Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and House Democrats are charging ahead this week with the next round of emergency coronavirus relief — another massive, multitrillion-dollar package designed to buttress the economy against the devastating pandemic. The enormous bill — the fifth legislative response to COVID-19 — could arrive as early as Monday or Tuesday, according to Democratic aides. That sets the stage for a House vote as soon as Friday, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) has said. Dubbed CARES 2, the legislation is expected to adhere largely to the contours of the first CARES Act, enacted March 27, by providing help to medical providers, small businesses, workers and families most affected by the crisis. (Lillis and Wong, 5/11)

The Hill: GOP Senator Calls House Coronavirus Bill A 'Fairy Tale' 
Republicans are pouring cold water on a forthcoming House coronavirus relief bill, signaling it is a non-starter in the Senate. House Democrats are expected to introduce their legislation as soon as Monday evening and vote on it as soon as Friday. But members of Senate GOP leadership shot down the bill on Monday and indicated it won’t have an affect on their actions. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has advocated for a “pause” on any relief legislation. (Carney, 5/11)

The New York Times: G.O.P. Split Over State Aid That Could Mostly Go To Democratic Strongholds
When Senator Mitt Romney of Utah strode into a luncheon with fellow Republicans last week, he was carrying an oversize poster in his black-gloved hand that bore a blunt message: “Blue states aren’t the only ones who are screwed.” Two days later, Senator Rick Scott of Florida made the opposite point, arriving at another party gathering with his own placard that showed how rosy his state’s financial picture was compared with those of three Democratic states: New York, Illinois and California. Why should Congress help struggling states and cities, he argued, when the bulk of the aid would go to Democratic strongholds that he said had a history of fiscal mismanagement? (Cochrane, 5/11)

Elsewhere on Capitol Hill —

CNN: House To Introduce Bill To Create A National Public Health Corps 
The House plans to introduce a bipartisan bill on Tuesday to create a National Public Health Corps that would employ hundreds of thousands to help conduct testing, contact tracing and eventually vaccinations of those infected or potentially infected with coronavirus. The legislation aims to address the health and economic crisis by helping to create a national testing strategy and hire Americans who are searching for jobs in a weak market. (Rogers, 5/11)

The Hill: McConnell: Obama 'Should Have Kept His Mouth Shut' On Trump's Coronavirus Response 
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said on Monday that former President Obama should have held back from criticizing President Trump's handling of the coronavirus pandemic, calling Obama's critique "a little bit classless." President Trump’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump, during an online Trump campaign event, told McConnell that Obama "slammed" President Trump over his response to the coronavirus outbreak. (Carney, 5/11)

The Associated Press: Trump Faces Virus At White House Amid Push To 'Reopen' US
President Donald Trump insisted Monday his administration has “met the moment” and “prevailed” on coronavirus testing, even as the White House itself became a potent symbol of the risk facing Americans everywhere by belatedly ordering everyone who enters the West Wing to wear a mask. Trump addressed a Rose Garden audience filled with mask-wearing administration officials, some appearing publicly with face coverings for the first time during the outbreak, after two aides tested positive for COVID-19 late last week. The startling sight served only to further highlight the challenge the president faces in instilling confidence in a nation still reeling from the pandemic. (Miller and Freking, 5/12)

Politico: Trump’s ‘Mission Accomplished’ Moment Masks Deep White House Unease
“In every generation, through every challenge and hardship and danger, America has risen to the task,” Trump said. “We have met the moment and we have prevailed.” It was a pronouncement incongruous with the widespread anxiety among employers across America about whether enough testing exists to reopen their workplaces. It was also incongruous with the internal turmoil spreading on Monday inside the West Wing, where officials were scrambling to prevent the virus from crippling the most famous and supposedly safest office in America — one that already featured ample testing capacity for anyone who meets with Trump or Vice President Mike Pence. (Cook, 5/11)

The Washington Post: Trump Claims U.S. Outpaces The World In Coronavirus Testing, But The Country Still Falls Far Short
The White House event Monday afternoon amounted to an acknowledgment that there is not yet enough testing capacity across the United States, even as more than 40 states are in some stage of lifting restrictions on travel, work and school. The president’s claims about U.S. testing benchmarks do not account for what health experts have criticized as the slow pace of testing capability in the United States this spring, a delay that some attribute to the rapid spread of the virus, the mounting death toll and uncertainty about the way forward. (Gearan, Dennis, Rucker and Wagner, 5/11)

The Hill: Trump Says US Has 'Prevailed' On Testing 
Trump was asked repeatedly Monday why Americans should feel comfortable returning to their workplaces if they don’t have the same testing resources as the White House. He generally avoided the questions, at one point suggesting a reporter was “complaining” that the White House was getting too many tests. But public health officials have repeatedly said there must be a significant increase in testing capacity before states can safely reopen. Researchers at Harvard University have recommended the U.S. test 900,000 individuals per day in order for the country to safely relax coronavirus restrictions. (Samuels and Chalfant, 5/11)

The Associated Press: Trump Abruptly Ends Briefing After Contentious Exchanges
President Donald Trump abruptly ended his White House news conference Monday following combative exchanges with reporters Weijia Jiang of CBS News and Kaitlan Collins of CNN. Jiang asked Trump why he was putting so much emphasis on the amount of coronavirus tests that have been conducted in the United States. “Why does that matter?” Jiang asked. “Why is this a global competition to you if everyday Americans are still losing their lives and we’re still seeing more cases every day?” (Bauder, 5/12)

The Hill: Trump Abruptly Ends Press Conference After Heated Exchange With Reporters
"Well, they’re losing their lives everywhere in the world, and maybe that’s a question you should ask China," Trump responded. "Don’t ask me. Ask China that question, OK? When you ask them that question, you may get a very unusual answer." ... "I’m not saying it specifically to anybody. I’m saying it to anybody that would ask a nasty question like that," Trump replied before moving on to another reporter. The president has frequently blamed China for the outbreak, suggesting the country could have stopped the spread of the coronavirus had it acted sooner. (Samuels, 5/11)

The Washington Post: Biden Calls Out Trump For Testing His Staff While Telling Americans Testing Isn’t Necessary
Former vice president Joe Biden launched a fresh line of attack against President Trump on Monday, criticizing the president for providing coronavirus tests to his staff while telling Americans that testing isn’t important. “If Trump and his team understand how critical testing is to their safety — and they seem to, given their own behavior — why are they insisting that it’s unnecessary for the American people?” Biden wrote in an op-ed published in The Washington Post. (Linksey, 5/11)

Reuters: Factbox: U.S. COVID-19 Tests - What's Out There And How Well Do They Work?
Health policy experts say the United States must dramatically increase the availability of tests for the coronavirus if it is to safely reopen its economy. U.S. regulators have moved speedily to authorize many new tests, but concerns still remain about tests’ accuracy, and some policymakers say new testing technologies need to proliferate to fully contain the virus. (O'Donnell, 5/11)

ABC News: Trump Downplays Calls For Greater Testing, Suggesting They're Motivated By Politics 
According to the COVID Tracking Project, testing for the coronavirus in the U.S. has steadily improved to around 264,000 tests a day -- nearly nine million tests total as of Monday -- but the U.S. is still below proposed benchmarks from several experts. Researchers at the Harvard University, for example, calculated that the U.S. would need to do approximately 500,000 tests per day, as a bare minimum, by May 1 -- a figure they have since revised to 900,000 for May 15 as more states ease restrictions. (Cathey, 5/11)

CNN: Why A Positive Covid-19 Antibody Test Doesn't Mean Much Of Anything Yet 
You're about to get a blood test to see if you have been exposed to Covid-19, the deadly disease caused by the novel coronavirus. You're hoping it will tell you that you have, right? That your blood is full of beautiful antibodies, the body's soldiers called to fight when a known enemy invades our systems again... In today's reality, testing positive for antibodies to Covid-19 means nothing of the sort. In fact, it may not mean much at all — at least right now. (LaMotte, 5/12)

In other administration news —

The Washington Post: Trump Visit To Pennsylvania Factory That Produces PPE Materials Was Scuttled After Plant Officials Expressed Concerns About Health Risks
President Trump was pushing to get out in the public eye in recent weeks and tout his leadership during the pandemic, and White House staff thought they had hit on the ideal event: a presidential visit to thank the Pennsylvania factory workers who had recently taken herculean steps to ramp up U.S. supplies of protective equipment. ... White House officials pressed to hold an event at the Braskem factory, initially scheduled for last Friday. But after extensive back and forth, factory officials ultimately asked to postpone, worried that a visit from Trump could jeopardize both the safety of the workers and the plant’s ability to produce special material for masks and other medical gear, according to two people familiar with the decision and documents reviewed by The Post. (Leonnig, 5/11)

CNN: CNN Poll: Negative Ratings For Government Handling Of Coronavirus Persist 
Most Americans (54%) continue to say the US government is doing a poor job preventing the spread of Covid-19, according to a new CNN Poll conducted by SSRS. And, while a growing share of the public feels the worst of the outbreak is behind us (44%, up from 17% in April), a majority (52%) still sees the worst on the horizon. Four-in-10 Americans say that they personally know someone who has been diagnosed with coronavirus, a figure that has nearly doubled in the last month. And most say the government is not doing enough to address the growing death toll (56%), the limited availability of testing (57%) or the potential for a second wave of cases later this year (58%). (Agiesta, 5/12)

The Hill: Trump Camp Outraged Over Jezebel Article Calling For Stephen Miller To Get Coronavirus 
Allies of the president are steaming Monday night after an article in the left-leaning Jezebel magazine called for White House adviser Stephen Miller to contract and die from the coronavirus. Jezebel writer Molly Osberg wrote in a column Friday evening titled "I Will Personally Be Thrilled If Stephen Miller Dies of Covid-19" that she would he happy if Miller died from the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. "While I am generally loathe to wish physical harm on those I disagree with, and while I do wish Katie a speedy recovery, I’m comfortable shedding whatever objectivity I have here to say I desperately hope Stephen Miller contracts covid-19," Osberg wrote. (Bowden, 5/11)

The New York Times: White House Orders Staff To Wear Masks As Trump Misrepresents Testing Record
The White House on Monday ordered all West Wing employees to wear masks at work unless they are sitting at their desks, an abrupt shift in policy after two aides working near the president — a military valet and Katie Miller, the vice president’s spokeswoman — tested positive for the coronavirus last week. In an internal email obtained by The New York Times, people who work in the cramped quarters around the Oval Office were told that “as an additional layer of protection, we are requiring everyone who enters the West Wing to wear a mask or face covering.” (Shear, Haberman and Qiu, 5/11)

Reuters: White House Directs Staff To Wear Masks After Officials Contract Coronavirus
The new guidelines, released in a memo to the president’s staff on Monday afternoon, reflect a tightening of procedures at the highest levels of the U.S. government over fears that Trump and Vice President Mike Pence could be exposed to the virus. Trump’s military valet and Pence’s press secretary both tested positive for the coronavirus last week. (Holland and Mason, 5/11)

The Washington Post: White House Implements Stringent Mask Policy — But Not For Trump
The request does not apply to staff members seated at their desks if they are “appropriately socially distanced,” and Trump is not expected to wear a mask in the White House, aides said. In a sign of the haphazard effort to impose more stringent safety standards inside the White House, one senior administration official and several other aides were still arguing that masks were unnecessary for people getting regular testing just moments before the memo was sent. (Parker, Dawsey and Rucker, 5/11)

The Wall Street Journal: White House Directs Officials To Wear Masks At All Times Inside The West Wing
Mr. Trump has said he is reluctant to wear one, telling reporters in April: “I think wearing a face mask as I greet presidents, prime ministers, dictators, kings, queens, I don’t know—somehow, I don’t see it for myself. I just don’t.” Mr. Pence recently drew criticism for not wearing a mask during a visit to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., which asked visitors to wear face coverings. The memo also directs officials to restrict in-person visits to the White House unless they’re necessary, one of the officials said. (Ballhaus and Leary, 5/12)

The Hill: White House Officials Asked To Wear Masks In West Wing 
White House officials working in the West Wing are being asked to wear masks to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus, according to a memo distributed to staffers on Monday. Officials in the building are being asked to wear face coverings when they're not at their desks or able to maintain social distancing from others, a White House official confirmed to The Hill. The memo, which was obtained by The Hill, also urges staffers to "avoid unnecessary visits" to the White House. (Samuels, 5/11)

NPR: After COVID-19 Infections, White House Staff To Wear Masks
Following last week's new coronavirus infections, Trump announced that he and those closest to him in the White House would now be tested on a daily basis, versus previous weekly testing protocol. (Wise, 5/11)

The Associated Press: White House Recommends Tests For All Nursing Home Residents
With deaths mounting at the nation’s nursing homes, the White House strongly recommended to governors Monday that all residents and staff at such facilities be tested for the coronavirus in the next two weeks. Why the government is not ordering testing at the nation’s more than 15,000 nursing homes was unclear. Nor was it clear why it is being recommended now, more than two months after the nation’s first major outbreak at a nursing home outside of Seattle that eventually killed 45 people. (Freking and Condon, 5/11)

ABC News: Mike Pence: Test All Nursing Home Residents, Staff 
Vice President Mike Pence made a nationwide call for coronavirus testing in America's 15,000 nursing homes, telling governors that he wants to see every state prioritize COVID-19 screening inside the facilities that have been hit the hardest by the new coronavirus. "I want to say what we're urging with regard to nursing home testing is ... let's just get everybody in the homes everybody on the staff, let's get them tested," Pence said Monday. (Faulders, Mosk, Freger and Pecorin, 5/12)

NPR: New Jersey Investigates State's Nursing Homes, Hotbed Of COVID-19 Fatalities
Coronavirus fatalities in nursing homes and other long-term care facilities account for at least one-third of the deaths in 26 states.In New Jersey's nursing homes, the coronavirus has proved especially deadly: 53% of the more than 9,000 people who have died from COVID-19 in the state were long-term care patients or staff. Now, New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal has opened an investigation into possible misconduct at those facilities. (Pao and Chang, 5/11)

KQED: California Assisted Living, Nursing Homes Want Immunity From Legal Claims 
Groups representing hospitals and long term care homes have asked Gov. Gavin Newsom for broad immunity against legal claims from residents in their care who suffer any injury or death during the COVID-19 pandemic. The reason? Those groups say the pandemic has stretched staffing thin and made medical resources scarce, unprecedented circumstances that demand immunity from legal action. (Peterson, 5/10)

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Wisconsin Ready To Name Long-Term Care Centers With Coronavirus Cases
Nursing homes in Wisconsin are bracing for the state to release the names of long-term care facilities with positive cases of the novel coronavirus. The public disclosure will come this week, perhaps as early as Monday. (Glauber, Radcliffe and Johnson, 5/9)

WBUR: 'Devastating': Nearly Half Of Boston's Coronavirus Deaths Have Been In Nursing Facilities 
At least 252 people have died from COVID-19 in Boston's nursing homes and assisted living facilities. The fatalities account for 48% of the city’s coronavirus-related deaths, Mayor Marty Walsh said Monday — a figure he called "devastating." Nursing homes and other senior long-term care facilities are overseen by the state, but Walsh said that the city of Boston is doing what it can to help. The city has created a disease containment strike team, provided staffing and administrative assistance and delivered medical supplies. (Levine, 5/11)

New England Public Radio: Race, Income, Nursing Homes: Factors Behind Why Hampden County Has The State's Highest Rate Of COVID-19 Deaths 
Hampden County has the sixth highest rate in Massachusetts for confirmed COVID-19 cases. But it has the highest rate of deaths. That indicates people who contract the virus in Hampden County are, on average, more likely to die from it than elsewhere in the state. (Brown, 5/11)

WBUR: The State Wanted Someone With Health Care Experience To Oversee Soldiers' Homes. It Never Happened
In 2016, the Massachusetts Legislature decided the Holyoke and Chelsea Soldiers’ Homes should be overseen by someone with at least five years of health care management experience, so lawmakers created a new position: an executive director of veterans’ homes and housing. Four years later, that position remains unfilled. And now, as the coronavirus rages on, and the state-run veterans home in Holyoke experiences one of the deadliest outbreaks in the U.S., some Mass. lawmakers want to know why. (Wasser, 5/11)

KQED: Laguna Honda’s COVID-19 Outbreak Offers Lessons For Other Long-Term Care Homes
This week San Francisco health officials have begun testing everyone at skilled nursing facilities for COVID-19, beginning with the county-run Laguna Honda Hospital and Rehabilitation Center, where an early outbreak has amassed 21 cases of the virus among patients and staff. It could have been much worse. In early March, positive cases climbed rapidly at the facility, which serves hundreds of patients who are poor, old and vulnerable. But in the last month they’ve leveled off. To date, most cases of the coronavirus associated with the facility are among staff, and the health department reports the currently sick as being in good condition. (Peterson, 5/11)

KQED: Mass COVID-19 Testing In Nursing Homes Still A Ways Off In Bay Area Counties
Bay Area counties don’t regulate assisted living, nursing homes, and other group housing situations — but they have developed “task forces” and “strike teams” who advise these risky places about ways to mitigate and control the spread of the coronavirus. Public health and infectious disease experts generally agree on what tactics help. They include training in hand-washing and using personal protective equipment (PPE), monitoring staffing levels and supplementing them where workers fall ill or must isolate, and testing, which may include residents and staff, whether they have symptoms or not. (Peterson, 5/11)

The New York Times: As States Rush To Reopen, Scientists Fear A Coronavirus Comeback
Millions of working people and small-business owners who cannot earn money while sheltering at home are facing economic ruin. So dozens of states, seeking to ease the pain, are coming out of lockdown. Most have not met even minimal criteria for doing so safely, and some are reopening even as coronavirus cases rise, inviting disaster. The much-feared “second wave” of infection may not wait until fall, many scientists say, and instead may become a storm of wavelets breaking unpredictably across the country. The reopenings will proceed nonetheless. The question now, scientists say, is whether the nation can minimize the damage by intelligently adopting new tactics. (McNeil, 5/11)

The Associated Press: Workplace Worries Mount As US Tracks New COVID-19 Cases
Even as President Donald Trump urges getting people back to work and reopening the economy, thousands of new coronavirus infections are being reported daily, many of them job-related. Recent figures show a surge of cases in meat-packing and poultry-processing plants. There’s been a spike of new infections among construction workers in Austin, Texas, where that sector recently returned to work. Even the White House has proven vulnerable, with positive coronavirus tests for one of Trump’s valets and for Vice President Mike Pence’s press secretary. (Crary, 5/12)

CNN: 5 Common Arguments For Reopening The Economy -- And Why Experts Say They Are Flawed 
The economy is plummeting, and tens of millions of Americans need to get back to work. But at what cost? We know there are health consequences to keeping the economy closed, and some say thousands of Americans are at risk of "deaths of despair." But as states try to balance saving lives and saving livelihoods, experts say some arguments for reopening the economy now are short-sighted or flawed. (Yan, 5/11)

The Hill: Coronavirus Cases Expanding In States Preparing To Reopen 
New coronavirus hot spots are emerging in rural and non-metropolitan counties across the country, including many states that are taking steps to slowly reopen their economies after weeks of stay-at-home orders. A new analysis by Brookings Institution demographer William Frey shows two-thirds of Americans live in counties with a high prevalence of coronavirus spread, where more than 100 cases have been diagnosed per every 100,000 residents. The analysis illustrates the spread of the virus from early epicenters in New York, Seattle, New Orleans and Albany, Ga., into neighboring and more sparsely populated areas, both inside state boundaries and across state lines. (Wilson, 5/11)

Reuters: Trump Wades Into Pennsylvania Coronavirus Plan, Governor Pushes Back
President Donald Trump accused Democrats of moving to reopen U.S. states from coronavirus lockdown measures too slowly for political advantage on Monday, as Pennsylvania’s governor hit back against Republicans pushing a faster timetable. (Chiacu, 5/11)

The Hill: Trump Targets Pennsylvania Over Coronavirus Restrictions 
President Trump on Monday backed Pennsylvania residents who oppose restrictions intended to slow the spread of the coronavirus in the state and accused Democratic governors of leaving such measures in place "for political purposes." "The great people of Pennsylvania want their freedom now, and they are fully aware of what that entails," Trump tweeted. "The Democrats are moving slowly, all over the USA, for political purposes. They would wait until November 3rd if it were up to them," he added, referring to Election Day. "Don’t play politics. Be safe, move quickly!" (Samuels, 5/11)

The New York Times: Coronavirus In Washington, D.C.: Capital Moves To Reopen, While City Hesitates
As the Trump administration pushes for the federal government to lead the nation in reopening the doors to daily business, the leaders of the capital region that would live with the consequences are fragmented on how to move forward. This city, home to 700,000 people, anchors one of the most interconnected metropolitan regions in the nation, with a total population nearly 10 times larger than the District of Columbia. Washington and the close-in counties within Virginia and Maryland have a shared Metro system and populations that move daily across their borders, a large number of them workers for the government. (Steinhauer, 5/11)

The New York Times: New York To Begin Limited Reopening In Upstate Region
In the most concrete step toward restarting his battered and shuttered state, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said on Monday that large chunks of New York State’s central interior will be allowed to partially reopen construction, manufacturing and curbside retail this weekend. The move toward a limited, regional reopening came 10 weeks after the state’s first confirmed case of the coronavirus, which has killed more than 26,000 people in New York and sickened hundreds of thousands more. That toll has been largely borne by New York City and its populous suburbs, with far fewer cases and fatalities thus far in the state’s more rural communities and smaller cities. (McKinley, 5/11)

Politico: New York City Could Begin To Ease Coronavirus Restrictions In June
New York City will remain largely shut down at least into June, but could begin to ease some restrictions next month if progress in combating the coronavirus pandemic continues, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Monday. “We’re clearly not ready yet,” de Blasio told reporters at a press briefing Monday. (Durkin, 5/11)

The New York Times: A Red Corner Of A Blue State Fights To Reopen
To understand why Mayor Nate Duckett wants Farmington, N.M., to reopen while the governor wants it shut, it helps to know something about what he calls his city’s “death spiral.” Perched in a rural corner of northwest New Mexico, Farmington watched its wealth vanish as its oil and gas industries went elsewhere. Its population is one of the fastest-shrinking in America. What keeps the lights on in Farmington is a coal-fired power plant whose fate remains uncertain. And all of that was before the virus leveled what remained of Farmington’s economy. (Casey, 5/12)

The New York Times: ‘These Are Not Numbers. These Are Souls.’ Georgia Pastors Say No To Reopening.
Churches in Albany, Ga., have been devastated by the coronavirus. As the state reopens, pastors are uniting to keep people home. (Englebrcht and Reneau, 5/12)

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Kemp Set To Extend Restrictions On Bars, Nightclubs Amid Pandemic
Georgia is among the first states to reopen broad parts of its economy that were closed during the pandemic, but Gov. Brian Kemp is likely to announce Tuesday that he will keep bars and nightclubs shuttered until the outbreak subsides. The governor is expected to extend restrictions announced in early April that closed bars, nightclubs and live performance venues. He’s also set to renew safety requirements for other businesses that are scheduled to expire Wednesday. (Bluestein, 5/12)

CBS News: Elon Musk Restarts Tesla Plant In California, Disregarding Stay-At-Home Order
Telsa CEO Elon Musk continued to defy California and Alameda County authorities by restarting production at the company's Fremont assembly plant Monday, saying he was ready to be arrested himself if necessary, CBS San Francisco reported. The announcement came days after Musk filed a lawsuit against the county to reopen the factory, which is Tesla's only vehicle assembly plant in the U.S. Shift workers were seen streaming in and out of the sprawling plant in the pre-dawn hours, filling up the employee parking lot. The company reportedly has deployed additional PPE masks and taken other measures similar to those used to reopen the automaker's plant in Shanghai, China. (5/12)

The Wall Street Journal: Texas Businesses Defy Coronavirus Shutdown
A Dallas beauty-salon owner was arrested last week for opening before the state lifted its shutdown, sparking national outrage. A bar and gym in Odessa opened, aided by men who drove hundreds of miles to stand outside the businesses with guns. State lawmakers near Houston defied the governor of their own party as they got illegal haircuts on camera and tweeted about it. Across Texas—a state that has long embraced defiance as a motto, with its unofficial state slogan “Come and Take It”—business owners are pushing against the state’s coronavirus shutdown orders and its phased reopening plan. (Findell, 5/11)

The Washington Post: Northam Confirms Northern Virginia Likely To Be Excluded From Initial Reopening
Gov. Ralph Northam confirmed Monday that he expects to hold Northern Virginia out of the gradual, “phase one” reopening of the rest of the state later this week, describing a state starkly cleaved in two by the novel coronavirus. Of nearly 1,000 new coronavirus infections reported in the state Monday, almost three-quarters of them were clustered in the D.C. suburbs, which account for about 40 percent of the state’s population. (Miller, Schneider and Nirappil, 5/11)

The Washington Post: C&C Coffee And Kitchen Defies Colorado Governor After Illegally Reopening With Zero Social Distancing Precautions
A day after C&C Coffee and Kitchen defied Democratic Gov. Jared Polis’s executive Safer at Home order — packing the restaurant with hundreds of customers on Mother’s Day — the regional health department ordered the business to shut down immediately until authorities could determine if the business was in compliance with coronavirus-related restrictions, according to a statement from the agency. (Klemko, Flynn and Craig, 5/11)

Reuters: U.S. Auto Industry Workers Return To Jobs Amid Concerns Of Second Virus Wave
Factory workers began returning to assembly lines in Michigan on Monday, paving the way to reopen the U.S. auto sector but stoking fears of a second wave of coronavirus infections as strict lockdowns are eased across the country. (Klayman, 5/11)

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Evers Plans Wisconsin Reopening, And Coronavirus Deaths Show Patterns
As of Friday, 384 Wisconsinites had died of coronavirus. Almost all of them suffered from at least one underlying health condition such as diabetes, high blood pressure, congestive heart failure, pulmonary disease or obesity, according to an analysis of state data and a spreadsheet created by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel to track COVID-19 deaths statewide. (Barton, 5/8)

Bangor Daily News: Maine Joins Small Group Of States In Reopening Some Regions Before Others 
Maine has become one of at least a dozen states that are beginning to ease restrictions on businesses in rural areas with fewer cases of the coronavirus while many rules will be in place in more heavily populated areas until June. ...The regional reopening has come at least partly at the urging of people in Maine’s hospitality and tourism industries and Republicans who have hammered the Mills administration for the economic harm that they said could result from continuing the restrictions. (Eichacker, 5/8)

New Hampshire Public Radio: It's Business As Not-Quite-Usual Today, As N.H. Loosens Some Limits On Economy 
New Hampshire retail stores, hair salons, and barbershops will be permitted to allow customers back inside on Monday for the first time since Gov. Chris Sununu instituted limits to curtail the spread of coronavirus nearly two months ago. But it won’t be business as usual. Starting Monday morning, employees will be required to wear masks, and customers are encouraged to as well. Capacity at businesses is limited to 50%. Facilities are asked to make one-way aisles for customers, wherever possible. And hand sanitizer should be available at the entrance. (Bookman and Ropeik, 5/11)

ABC News: Want To Be A Contact Tracer? Johns Hopkins Is Offering A Free Course
A five-hour online course created by Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health could become the backbone of the country's contact tracer training program. The class, which rolled out Monday, offers online instruction to anyone who wants to learn the basics of contact tracing: the process of identifying and isolating people who have been infected with COVID-19 and their close contacts. Its goal is to help limit the spread of the new coronavirus. (Schumaker, 5/11)

The Hill: Johns Hopkins Offering Free Class In How To Become A Contact Tracer 
"In this introductory course, students will learn about the science of SARS-CoV-2 , including the infectious period, the clinical presentation of COVID-19, and the evidence for how SARS-CoV-2 is transmitted from person-to-person and why contact tracing can be such an effective public health intervention," reads the course description. "Students will learn about how contact tracing is done, including how to build rapport with cases, identify their contacts, and support both cases and their contacts to stop transmission in their communities." (Bowden, 5/11)

The Wall Street Journal: New Johns Hopkins Course To Train Coronavirus Contact Tracers
Emily Gurley, an associate scientist at Johns Hopkins Center for Global Health, said it is still beneficial to do contact tracing even when there are hundreds of positive diagnoses daily and there may not be sufficient numbers of tracers to reach every newly diagnosed person. “It’s not an all-or-nothing gain,” she said of contact tracing. Contact tracing, as well as wider coronavirus testing in the general population, are key elements to limiting the spread of Covid-19 and reopening New York, state and local officials have said. (West, 5/11)

In other tracking news —

The New York Times: App Shows Promise In Tracking New Coronavirus Cases, Study Finds
In the absence of widespread on-demand testing, public health officials across the world have been struggling to track the spread of the coronavirus pandemic in real time. A team of scientists in the United States and the United Kingdom says a crowdsourcing smartphone app may be the answer to that quandary. In a study published Monday in the journal Nature Medicine, researchers found that an app that allows people to check off symptoms they are experiencing was remarkably effective in predicting coronavirus infections among the 2.5 million people who were using it between March 24 and April 21. (Jacobs, 5/11)

The New York Times: California’s Plan To Trace Travelers For Virus Faltered When Overwhelmed, Study Finds
In the early days of the coronavirus outbreak, the United States, like many countries, had a very brief chance to limit the spread of the disease at its borders. Identifying travelers from high-risk countries and tracing their contacts with others would have been critical measures, if put in place early enough. In California, the largest state and a point of entry for thousands of travelers from Asia, a program was established to do just that. But its tracing system was quickly overwhelmed by a flood of passengers, many with inaccurate contact information, and was understaffed in some cases, rendering the program ineffective, according to a study released on Monday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which looked exclusively at California. (Waldstein, 5/11)

WBUR: In Oregon Town, Volunteers Are Going Door-To-Door To Pin Down Coronavirus Infections 
While authorities across the U.S. struggle to make policy without any hard numbers for how many people are actually infected with the coronavirus, Oregon State University has launched a project to change that — at least for one small city. The project is known as TRACE, Team-based Rapid Assessment of Community-Level Coronavirus Epidemics, and its leader, Ben Dalziel, says it has a straightforward goal: "To understand the prevalence of the virus in a community. In this case, Corvallis, Oregon." (Palca, 5/11)

The New York Times: Tribal Nations Face Most Severe Crisis In Decades As The Coronavirus Closes Casinos
Tribal nations around the United States are facing their most severe crisis in decades as they grapple simultaneously with some of the deadliest coronavirus outbreaks in rural America and the economic devastation caused by the protracted shutdown of nearly 500 tribally owned casinos. The Navajo Nation, the country’s largest Indian reservation, now has a higher death rate than any U.S. state except New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Massachusetts. (Romero and Healy, 5/11)

The Associated Press: 'The Grief Is So Unbearable': Virus Takes Toll On Navajo
The virus arrived on the reservation in early March, when late winter winds were still blowing off the mesas and temperatures at dawn were often barely above freezing. It was carried in from Tucson, doctors say, by a man who had been to a basketball tournament and then made the long drive back to a small town in the Navajo highlands. There, believers were preparing to gather in a small, metal-walled church with a battered white bell and crucifixes on the window. On a dirt road at the edge of the town, a hand-painted sign with red letters points the way: “Chilchinbeto Church of the Nazarene.” (Fonseca and Sullivan, 5/12)

The Washington Post: Coronavirus Has Been Devastating To The Navajo Nation, And Help For Complex Fight Has Been Slow
A group of more than a dozen tribe members filled dozens of dust-covered cars with diapers, flour, rice and water, the bare staples that are sustaining the Navajo Nation as many fall ill and die. If the novel coronavirus has been cruel to America, it has been particularly cruel here, on a desert Native American reservation that maybe has never felt more alone than during this pandemic. There's a lack of running water, medical infrastructure, Internet access, information and adequate housing. (Klemko, 5/11)

NPR: Coronavirus Infections Rise On Navajo Nation
If the Navajo Nation were a state it would have the highest rate of coronavirus cases per capita after New York. At least 100 people have died from the virus and 3,122 people have tested positive. On March 4 the Navajo Nation president cautioned its citizens to limit their travel. But a few days later doctors say a man who had been at a basketball tournament in Tucson brought the virus to a tiny church in Chilchinbito. In response to COVID-19, dozens of people drove hours from all over the region to gather and pray. Afterward, they returned to all parts of the reservation unwittingly bringing the virus home with them. (Morales, 5/11)

NPR: Checkpoint Clash Escalates Between South Dakota Governor, Tribal Leaders
South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem says she will follow through on her threat to take legal action against two Native American tribes that have defied orders to remove highway checkpoints onto tribal land in an effort to prevent the spread of the coronavirus on their reservations. In a Monday press conference, Noem affirmed that her office will take the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe and Oglala Sioux Tribe to federal court, saying the checkpoints that were put in place last month on state and federal highways have prevented essential services from making their way to areas in need. (Romo, 5/12)

The Hill: Interior Watchdog To Probe Why Tribal Stimulus Was Steered To Corporations 
The Department of the Interior’s internal watchdog has kicked off a probe into whether a top official inappropriately tried to steer coronavirus stimulus funds. The letter from Interior’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) comes as several Democratic lawmakers requested an investigation into Tara Sweeney, Interior’s assistant secretary for Indian Affairs. Sweeney had assisted the Treasury Department in determining how to distribute $8 billion on CARES funding that Congress set aside for tribal governments. But her handling of the issue led to calls for her resignation after for-profit companies, including one Sweeney used to work for, would have been eligible for the payments. (Beitsch, 5/11)

The Washington Post: Prince George’s Jail Must Plan To Test More Inmates For Covid-19, Federal Judge Orders
A federal judge on Monday ordered the Prince George’s County jail to identify all inmates who are medically vulnerable to covid-19 after a court-ordered inspection of the facility found that a limited number of tests have been conducted for the novel coronavirus. U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis asked whether inmates with preexisting medical conditions could be housed in a separate unit. (Morse and Hsu, 5/11)

The Washington Post: Children's National Hospital Sees Two Cases Of Rare Illness In Children With Covid-19
The latest medical mystery surrounding the novel coronavirus’s impact on children has arrived in the District. Over the past month, health-care providers across the country have noticed a possible link between the virus and Kawasaki disease, a relatively rare inflammatory condition that affects blood vessels — forcing medical professionals to reconsider how the pandemic is affecting kids. (Swenson and Ribas, 5/11)

The Washington Post: New York’s Patient Zero Lawrence Garbuz Talks About His Coronavirus Experience
A New York man identified by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo (D) as “patient zero” is still recovering from his frightening time battling covid-19, and he is speaking publicly for the first time about his experience. Lawrence Garbuz, 50, and his wife, Adina Garbuz, of New Rochelle, N.Y., thought he had pneumonia in February when he developed a cough and slight fever, the couple told NBC’s “Today” show. (Beachum, 5/11)

Boston Globe: State Elder Affairs Office Shelved Citizens Advisory Council Before Coronavirus Crisis 
Now, as the coronavirus ravages Massachusetts long-term care facilities, some former members of the advisory council say state officials responding to what’s arguably the worst crisis for the elderly in state history may be missing out on the grass-roots perspective it provided on crucial issues, including staffing, funding, and isolation in senior care sites. More than 2,700 long-term care residents have died from COVID-19, about 60 percent of all Massachusetts deaths. (Weisman, 5/8)

The New York Times: Evangelical Leader Franklin Graham Responds To Critics Of Samaritan's Purse Central Park Field Hospital
The last patients have been discharged from the Central Park field hospital run by Samaritan’s Purse, the evangelical organization led by the Rev. Franklin Graham. Its white tents will soon be dismantled and sent to new makeshift coronavirus wards as far away as Ecuador and Alaska. Doctors and nurses from Samaritan’s Purse treated more than 300 New Yorkers after Mount Sinai Health System invited the group to the city at the height of the pandemic, but its work has been dogged by controversy since it began. (Stack and Fink, 5/10)

Bangor Daily News: Another Mainer Dies As 26 New Coronavirus Cases Are Detected 
So far, 200 Mainers have been hospitalized at some point with COVID-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus. Of those, 37 people are currently hospitalized, with 17 in critical care and nine on ventilators, according to Shah. Meanwhile, another 872 people have fully recovered from the coronavirus, meaning there are 525 active and likely cases in the state. That’s up from 511 on Sunday. (Burns, 5/11)

CNN: Staten Island Hospital Nurse Accused Of Stealing, Using Credit Card From Her Dying Covid-19 Patient 
Police say a nurse at a New York City hospital faces charges for stealing a credit card of a former Covid-19 patient while hospitalized, which the patient's daughter says was used for gasoline and groceries. Danielle Conti, 43, has been charged with grand larceny, petty larceny and criminal possession of stolen property after ringing up charges on two of Anthony Catapano's credit cards while hospitalized at Staten Island University Hospital with coronavirus, according to the New York Police Department. (Snyder, 5/8)

Cincinnati Enquirer: Coronavirus In Ohio: When Will Child Care Centers Reopen?
As parents return to work, Ohio's leaders have yet to announce plans to reopen child care centers. Gov. Mike DeWine said Monday that he didn't want to rush a decision on child care because he wants any plan to be based on science and safety. (Borchardt and Balmert, 5/11)

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Free Coronavirus Testing In Milwaukee Attracts Hundreds As Stores Open
All Wisconsin retail stores are now allowed to let shoppers back inside, as long as customers are limited to five at a time and social-distancing guidelines are followed, Gov. Tony Evers announced Monday. The move came as Wisconsin ramps up testing efforts, with hundreds of people getting tested at two new Milwaukee sites staffed by the Wisconsin National Guard. (Spicuzza, 5/11)

New Orleans Times-Picayune: If You Live Or Work In Orleans, Jefferson Or St. Tammany, Expect More Info Today On Reopening 
New Orleans-area parishes are gearing up to re-open Friday following Gov. John Bel Edwards' announcement that he would end the statewide stay-at-home order this week, though details on how individual parishes relax coronavirus restrictions are still being finalized. Leaders of the region's three most-populous parishes, Orleans, Jefferson and St. Tammany, all offered at least some guidance Monday on their plans, which aren't supposed to be less restrictive than the statewide policy but could include additional prohibitions over and above what state officials allow. (Williams, Pagones and Calder, 5/11)

New Orleans Times-Picayune: New Orleans Sanitation Worker Protest Enters Second Week; Dispute Centers On Pay, Conditions
Striking sanitation workers on Monday renewed demands for hazard pay during the coronavirus pandemic as a major city vendor acknowledged that it signed a deal to pay their prison labor replacements less than the minimum wage outlined in its contract with the city. For the past week, a group of about a dozen workers has gathered outside the New Orleans East headquarters of Metro Service Group, a waste disposal company that has a $10.7 million annual contract to collect trash in a wide swath of the city's east bank. (Sledge, 5/11)

KQED: California Launches New Child Care Website — But Where's The Crucial Info?
Gov. Gavin Newsom promised that the state’s new child care website would give essential workers all the information they need to choose a provider for their kids. It isn’t quite working out that way. The portal Newsom announced a week ago, based on state licensing data, lacks key information. In many instances, hours of operation and available spots are missing. The site doesn’t indicate whether providers accept subsidies or what they charge. (Aguilera, 5/11)

The Wall Street Journal: Coronavirus Pandemic Renews Push For Medicaid Expansion In GOP-Led States
The coronavirus pandemic’s impact on the U.S. health-care system and economy is fueling renewed efforts in some states to expand Medicaid as millions of people lose their jobs and health coverage. Medicaid expansion initiatives will be on ballots this year in Oklahoma and likely in Missouri, two of the 14 states that haven’t widened the federal-state program for low-income and disabled people since the enactment of the Affordable Care Act under Democratic President Obama in 2010. (Armour, 5/11)

St. Louis Post Dispatch: As Clocks Ticks Down, Missouri Republicans Push For Medicaid Work Requirements
Republicans who control Missouri’s Legislature are rushing to get a question on the November ballot asking voters if they want to require Medicaid recipients to work. Under resolutions pending in both the House and Senate, people covered by the government-funded health insurance program who are “able-bodied” and between the ages of 19 and 64 would have to work, attend school, search for a job or volunteer for at least 80 hours a month. In a House committee Monday, Democrats said the proposed referendum is designed to undermine efforts to expand Medicaid in Missouri, which also is expected to be on the November ballot. (Erickson, 5/11)

In other news on states' budgets —

Los Angeles Times: Newsom Joins States Seeking $1 Trillion In Coronavirus Relief
California Gov. Gavin Newsom and his counterparts in four Western states on Monday asked Congress for $1 trillion in COVID-19 pandemic relief for all states and local governments. Newsom joined with the governors of Oregon, Washington, Nevada and Colorado, as well as legislative leaders from the five states, in asking the House and Senate for the aid. The governors said the funds would be critical for public health programs, law enforcement and schools. (Willon, 5/11)

The Wall Street Journal: One Idea For Speeding A Coronavirus Vaccine: Deliberately Infecting People
It’s a controversial idea: Intentionally infect people with the virus that causes Covid-19 to test the effectiveness of a potential vaccine. The approach is called a human challenge trial, and it’s not the usual way a vaccine is tested. More commonly, researchers track thousands of people, some of whom receive a vaccine, and others a placebo, and then see who becomes infected in the natural course of their lives. It’s a slower process, but poses fewer risks than deliberately infecting people after they’ve received a vaccine. (Reddy, 5/11)

The Associated Press: UN Says 7 Or 8 `Top' Candidates For A COVID-19 Vaccine Exist
The World Health Organization chief said Monday there are around seven or eight “top” candidates for a vaccine to combat the novel coronavirus and work on them is being accelerated. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a U.N. Economic and Social Council video briefing the original thinking two months ago was that it may take 12 to 18 months for a vaccine. But he said an accelerated effort is under way, helped by 7.4 billion euros ($8 billion) pledged a week ago by leaders from 40 countries, organizations and banks for research, treatment and testing. (Lederer, 5/11)

The Washington Post: The Race To Mass Produce A Coronavirus Vaccine
Johnson & Johnson’s race to manufacture a billion doses of coronavirus vaccine is ramping up in a small biotechnology plant near Interstate 95 in Baltimore. But even as technicians prepare to lower 1,000-liter plastic bags of ingredients into steel tanks for brewing the first batches of experimental vaccine, international concern is bubbling about what countries will get the first inoculations. The Baltimore plant is the second of four planned locations around the world where Johnson & Johnson plans to pump out vaccine on a massive scale, months before testing the first dose in a human being. (Rowland, Johnson and Wan, 5/11)

Stat: Why Moderna's Stock Value Requires An Almost Mythical Leap Of Faith
Moderna is moving at unprecedented speed to develop a vaccine to prevent infection from the novel coronavirus. But the biotech’s soaring stock price is moving faster, which raises an important question: Are investors taking on too much risk?Since late February, Moderna shares have more than tripled in value — making it one of the top-performing biotech stocks this year. On Monday, shares hit an all-time high of $66. (Feuerstein, 5/12)

And Bill Gates, who has pledged billions to help vaccine efforts, expresses regrets about what could've been done five years ago  —

The Wall Street Journal: Bill Gates Has Regrets
Five years ago, Bill Gates warned that the biggest potential killer the world faced wasn’t war, but a pandemic. The billionaire spent hundreds of millions of dollars to find faster ways to develop vaccines and create disease-tracking systems. He urged world leaders to build national defenses against new infectious diseases. Looking back, Mr. Gates said, “I wish I had done more to call attention to the danger.” The Microsoft Corp. co-founder is now squaring off against the scenario he sought to forestall. “I feel terrible,” he said in an interview. “The whole point of talking about it was that we could take action and minimize the damage.” (McKay, 5/11)

Stat: With Little Data, Doctors Struggle To Decide Which Covid-19 Patients Should Get Remdesivir
Now that the federal government has begun distributing the experimental Covid-19 drug remdesivir, hospitals are in a bind. So far, it’s the only medication that has shown benefit for coronavirus patients in rigorous studies. But there isn’t enough for everyone who’s eligible. That leaves doctors with a wrenching ethical decision: Who gets the drug, and who doesn’t? As if the question wasn’t hard enough on moral grounds alone, it’s made even trickier by a dearth of data: Clinicians still don’t have the fine-grained study results showing which patients are most likely to benefit from the medication. Other antiviral medications work best when given earlier on in the course of illness — and anecdotally, that seems true for remdesivir, too — but it’s hard to make such calls with any certainty if you don’t have robust data. (Boodman and Ross, 5/12)

The Wall Street Journal: Distribution Of Key Drug Was Flawed, Says White House Official
The White House coronavirus response coordinator, in an email to senior colleagues, said the way the administration initially distributed supplies of the promising new drug remdesivir shouldn’t happen again, according to an email reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. Dr. Deborah Birx, in the May 7 email sent to fellow Trump administration task force members and other senior officials, said her colleagues would review how the decision-making led to a “misalignment” of the drug’s allocation in the days after the government began distribution. (Armour and Walker, 5/11)

In other pharmaceutical news —

Politico: Hydroxychloroquine Shows No Benefit Against Coronavirus In N.Y. Study
A decades-old malaria medicine touted by the president as a coronavirus treatment showed no benefit for patients hospitalized in New York. There was also no noticeable advantage for patients that took the drug paired with the antibiotic azithromycin, according to hotly anticipated research published Monday in the Journal of the American Medical Association. (Owermohle, 5/11)

ProPublica: Ignoring Trump And Right-Wing Think Tanks, Red States Expand Vote By Mail
On April 23, during the same week that Kentucky’s Republican secretary of state said he was contemplating a “significant expansion” of vote by mail, the Public Interest Legal Foundation emailed one of his employees under the subject line “28 MILLION ballots lost.” “Putting the election in the hands of the United States Postal Service would be a catastrophe,” wrote J. Christian Adams, president of PILF, a conservative organization that has long complained about voter fraud. His missive contended, with scant evidence, that “twice as many” mailed ballots “disappeared” in the 2016 presidential election than made up the margin of votes between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. (Huseman and Spies, 5/12)

The Associated Press: Trump Casts Doubt On Mail Voting. His Campaign Promotes It.
While President Donald Trump claims mail-in voting is ripe for fraud and “cheaters,” his reelection campaign and state allies are scrambling to launch operations meant to help their voters cast ballots in the mail. Through its partnership with the Republican National Committee, Trump’s campaign is training volunteers on the ins and outs of mail-in and absentee voting and sending supporters texts and emails reminding them to send in their ballots. (Riccardi, 5/12)

The Associated Press: Democrats Set To Take Next Steps Toward Virtual Convention
Democrats are making new moves toward a virtual presidential nominating convention this August, with party officials preparing to grant convention organizers in Milwaukee the authority to design an event that won’t require delegates to attend in person amid the coronavirus pandemic. A top party official discussed the plans ahead of Tuesday’s virtual meeting of the Democratic National Committee’s Rules and Bylaws Committee. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss moves that still require approval by the committee and the DNC’s 447 members. (Barrow and Ohlemacher, 5/11)

The Hill: Democrats To Adopt Rules For Limited Or Virtual Convention 
The Democratic National Committee (DNC) is set to pass rules Tuesday allowing delegates to cast their vote for the party's nominee by mail, allowing for the possibility of a remote or limited in-person convention this summer. A DNC official confirmed to The Hill that the changes are set to be passed at a remote meeting of the DNC's Rules and Bylaws committee on Tuesday, the first sign that the DNC is moving towards alternate plans for this summer's convention. (Bowden, 5/11)

NPR: Democrats Developing Contingency Plans For Remote Convention
When the DNC's rules and bylaws committee meets by conference call on Tuesday, it will take up a resolution that would change official proceedings "so as to safeguard the ability of all validly-elected Convention delegates to participate in the Convention in person or by means that allow for appropriate social distancing." (Khalid, 5/11)

The Hill: Warren Warns Coronavirus 'Poses A Threat To Free And Fair Elections' 
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) on Monday warned that the COVID-19 pandemic poses a threat to “free and fair elections,” as experts cautioned that states are running out of time to prepare to hold elections during the crisis. “Coronavirus poses a threat to free and fair elections. But we can fix that,” Warren tweeted. “We need vote by mail. We need online and same-day registration. We need early voting and extended voting hours. We need real money for governments to administer elections safely.” (Miller, 5/11)

NPR: California Special Election Provides Early Snapshot Of Socially Distanced Campaigning
The first competitive congressional race of the coronavirus era takes place Tuesday in Southern California, where Republican Mike Garcia and Democrat Christy Smith are vying to fill the vacancy left by former Rep. Katie Hill, who resigned last year because of a personal scandal. The winner will serve out Hill's current term through November, when the same two candidates will be on the ballot again for a full two-year term. (Davis, 5/12)

Politico: Hospitals At Center Of Fight Over Liability Protections In Coronavirus Relief Bill
Hospitals are warning they will be slow to restart elective procedures like knee surgeries and colonoscopies without assurances from Congress they won’t get sued by patients and their own workers if they are infected by the coronavirus during those visits. Powerful industry lobbies like the American Hospital Association pressing for relief in the next rescue package have gained a sympathetic ear from Republican leaders in Congress. They'll be joining with a raft of other industries seeking legal protections, ranging from manufacturers to casinos, while facing opposition from Democrats concerned about stripping patients' legal rights. (Luthi and Roubein, 5/11)

Modern Healthcare: Deferred Procedures Drain Hospital Revenue By $60B A Month
More than 3,000 surgeries have been put off at Yale New Haven Health since mid-March, which accounts for about 80% of its total surgeries. That scenario mirrors health systems across the country that have had to delay procedures deemed less urgent as they focus on the COVID-19 pandemic. At Yale, overall outpatient services have declined by about 50%, said Dr. Keith Churchwell, the system's chief operating officer. (Kacik, 5/11)

Modern Healthcare: Memorial Sloan Kettering Reports Operating Loss Of $62 Million In First Quarter
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center provided more chemotherapy and radiation in the first three months of 2020, despite the COVID-19 pandemic forcing the New York City hospital to postpone many surgeries in the latter part of March. Sloan Kettering reported chemotherapy infusions were up 7.3% in the quarter ended March 31 compared with the prior-year period, and radiation oncology increased 9% in that time. Radiology services grew 20% in that period. (Bannow, 5/11)

Boston Globe: For Hospitals, The Coronavirus Crisis Extends Deep Into Their Finances 
As the coronavirus pandemic begins to slowly abate in Massachusetts, hospitals are confronting the full breadth of the devastation it has wreaked on not only their patients, but their finances. The state’s hospitals are currently losing $1.4 billion in revenue each month, according to the Massachusetts Health & Hospital Association, and are projected to lose $5 billion in revenue through July. (McCluskey, 5/11)

Modern Healthcare: CMS Wants To Boost Inpatient Hospital Payments By 1.6%
CMS wants to increase Medicare payments for inpatient hospital services by 1.6%—or about $2 billion—in 2021. The agency's proposed inpatient prospective payment system, or IPPS, rule would increase operating payments by about 2.5%. General acute hospitals that are meaningful use EHR users and fulfill the requirements of the inpatient quality reporting program will see their operating payments rise 3.1%. (Brady, 5/11)

Modern Healthcare: Henry Ford, University Of Michigan Resume Organ Transplant Schedule
Transplant surgeries are being resumed by many teaching hospitals in Southeast Michigan, with Donna Arm being the first patient at Henry Ford Health System in Detroit to receive a replacement heart during the COVID-19 crisis. Arm, 68, received her heart transplant on April 25. Like many patients, she was reluctant to call her doctor for nearly a month — even though she felt progressively worse and has had congestive heart failure since 2014 — because COVID-19 patients were filling hospitals with very sick patients. (Greene, 5/8)

CNN: Coronavirus' Double Bind On Older Workers Could Squeeze Trump
Friday's job report was especially devastating for the growing number of older people remaining in the workforce. The unemployment rate for workers 65 and older, which had been running almost exactly even this year with the level for those aged 25-54, spiked to 15.6% in April, significantly greater than the already breathtaking 12.8% rate for those in their prime working years, according to federal statistics. And while those numbers are crushing, they constitute only half of the brutal equation now facing older workers: While millions have been thrown out of their jobs, millions more may fear returning to their workplaces as the economy reopens because the coronavirus has proved much more fatal for older than younger adults. (Brownstein, 5/12)

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Unemployment Delays Leave Jobless Without Cash For Food, Bills
 Across the state, people are taking to social media to share their experiences about delays that have left them wondering how they're going to pay bills. A Facebook group, the "Wisconsin Unemployment support group," brings people together to share their stories of struggles and to give advice. (Schulte, 5/8)

NPR: Minority-Owned Small Businesses Were Supposed To Get Priority. They May Not Have
The first time Rosemary Ugboajah applied for a small-business relief loan, it didn't go well. She needed the money for her small Minneapolis-based company, which has created ad campaigns for brands like the NCAA Final Four.So she went to her credit union. "They were hard to reach, but eventually I got through to someone and they emailed me back saying they can't process the loan because they don't process SBA loans," she said. "I wasn't aware of that." (Kurtzleben, 5/12)

The Hill: IRS Outlines Scenarios That Might Explain Why Some Got Smaller COVID-19 Relief Checks 
The IRS on Monday outlined several "common scenarios" explaining why some people received a smaller coronavirus relief payment than they expected. Under legislation President Trump signed last month, the IRS is issuing one-time direct payments to most Americans of up to $1,200 per adult and $500 per child. The agency has said that it has already issued about 130 million payments. But the rollout of the payments has caused confusion for some taxpayers, including some who have reported not receiving the full amount that they expected to get. (Jagoda, 5/11)

Los Angeles Times: Coronavirus Pandemic Could Bring On Extreme Poverty Worldwide
It seemed like Silvanah Lima was finally getting ahead. Born and raised in Brazil’s drought-ridden northeast, she moved with her partner to Rio de Janeiro in 2018, in search of work. He was hired as a janitor; she began selling meals on the street, and soon they were bringing in $280 a month — enough to start saving to one day build a house back home. The novel coronavirus pushed that dream out of reach. Lima, who has diabetes and heart problems, putting her at higher risk of dying if she contracts the virus, stopped working once the pandemic took hold in her sprawling slum, known as the City of God. (Linthicum, Bulos and Ionova, 5/11)

The Hill: DC Officials Offer To Help With Coronavirus Tests For Congress 
Washington, D.C.'s mayor is offering to provide coronavirus testing for lawmakers as the House is expected to return to the Capitol in the coming days. The Washington Post reported Monday that Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) said the city has offered resources including testing at its public health lab to House and Senate leaders. Trump administration officials had previously offered Congress access to rapid testing used by the White House to screen visiting officials, an offer lawmakers declined. (Bowden, 5/11)

Politico: The Fed’s Next Challenge: Rebuilding The Economy For The Long Term
The Federal Reserve has poured trillions of dollars into the financial system over a matter of weeks. But soon it must do even more to confront the long-lasting economic wounds that will be left in the wake of the pandemic. Returning the U.S. to robust growth after the lockdown is lifted will mean dealing with mass unemployment, permanently shuttered companies and a buildup of mountains of debt for both households and businesses. (Guida, 5/12)

The Frontier: Facing Delays, Many Unemployed Oklahomans Opt To Pay Debit Card Company For ‘Expedited’ Delivery
As thousands of Oklahomans who were laid off or furloughed because of the COVID-19 crisis continue to wait weeks to receive a mailed debit card loaded with their unemployment benefits, the company responsible for distributing those cards is expediting delivery of some — for a fee. (Adcock, 5/12)

The New York Times: Three Weeks In April: An E.M.T. Crew Faces Exhaustion, Isolation And Death
After three years living in Nairobi, Kenya, working as a photojournalist throughout Africa and the Middle East, I decided I wanted to move home and pursue a career in public safety. I had always been interested in emergency medicine and was an emergency medical technician in college, so I got recertified and was hired by Empress Emergency Medical Service in a suburb of New York City last September. I remember reading briefly about the coronavirus earlier this year but not thinking much of it — until the second documented case in New York State was announced in early March, in Empress’s coverage area, New Rochelle. (Renneisen, 5/11)

Roll Call: Dental Offices Hit Hardest In Health Care Industry Layoffs
After social distancing restrictions to slow the spread of COVID-19 took effect in March, Noelle Dunn had to lay off all nine employees at her downtown Washington, D.C., dental office, including herself. While the practice has been essentially closed for weeks, seeing patients only in emergencies, Dunn said her overhead costs climbed as she spent more on protective equipment and updating her office to make it safer for patients and her employees. When the practice reopens, she expects to be able to treat fewer patients — which means less revenue — because of social distancing. (McIntire and Macagnone, 5/11)

The Hill: How New Hampshire Built A Mammoth PPE Supply Chain From China 
State governments are scrambling to track down and acquire personal protective equipment (PPE) and essential medical gear to fight the coronavirus pandemic, as President Trump encourages governors to hit the open market to procure supplies. But while larger states like New York and California can compete with ever-rising prices and a limited global supply chain, smaller states have faced major complications, even losing orders to federal agencies that outbid them at the last minute... Some of those state leaders are turning to wealthy businessmen, philanthropists and sometimes their own family members to help secure the equipment they need to fully stock their hospitals and medical facilities. For New Hampshire, that philanthropist was Dean Kamen, an entrepreneur who invented the Segway and who runs a global robotics competition. (Wilson, 5/11)

KQED: From Ebola To Coronavirus — A Simple Practice Of Sticker-Photo Portraits For Health Care Workers 
The scene has become a familiar one at COVID-19 testing centers: health care workers clad in head-to-toe personal protective equipment with eyes peeking out behind an N95 mask and goggles. Expressions and smiles are hidden behind a protective layer. The image becomes even more stark when thinking of those alone, in isolation. “The stories of people dying alone with no one in their room except an occasional masked health care worker struck the psyche of the country,” said L.A.-based artist Mary Beth Heffernan. “That has been the turning point in the U.S. for realizing that there's a need to make a human connection.” (Sarah, 5/8)

Kaiser Health News/The Guardian: Lost On The Frontline
A pharmacist who refused to let the patients down. A police officer turned nurse. A school nurse who “was a mother to many.” These are some of the people just added to “Lost on the Frontline,” a special series from The Guardian and KHN that profiles health care workers who die of COVID-19. (5/12)

The Washington Post: Farmers’ Hopes For Respite From Trump-Era Struggles Fade Amid Pandemic
President Trump promised this year to deliver a financial bonanza for American farmers, boosted by two historic trade deals that would free them from their dependence on government bailouts. Instead, as the local Wendy’s runs out of hamburgers and some shelves at Costco lie bare, farmers are forced to euthanize millions of hogs and chickens, give away tons of unwanted potatoes, and pour out enough milk to fill a small lake. The closure of most U.S. restaurants amid the covid-19 pandemic has thrown the nearly $2 trillion food industry into chaos, convulsing specialized supply chains that are struggling to adjust. (Lynch, Gowen and Reiley, 5/11)

The Wall Street Journal: When Coronavirus Hits Food Deserts
Kimyatta Terrell was home watching a movie when a bag of veggies, from mustard greens to Chinese cabbage, was placed at her front door. An employee from Growing Home, an urban farm in the Englewood neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago, had delivered fresh greens and a recipe card to the home 5 miles away, where Ms. Terrell, 44 years old, lives with her sister and brother-in-law. (Jamerson, 5/11)

The New York Times: Gone From Grocery Shelves, Now There’s A Mad Dash To Find Them
The fallout from the coronavirus hit Allison Arevalo when she could no longer find pasta at the supermarket. She tried ordering online from Whole Foods. Out of stock. She ran over to Key Food. Too late: The pasta aisle was cleaned out except for two bags of whole wheat no one wanted. So Ms. Arevalo, 41, a chef and cookbook author, dusted off her fancy pasta maker and ordered a 50 pound bag of semolina flour from a restaurant supplier. Soon, her neighbors in Park Slope, Brooklyn, were turning to her for their pasta fix. (Hu, 5/11)

The Associated Press: Organ Transplants Dive Amid Virus Crisis, Start To Inch Back
Organ transplants plummeted as COVID-19 swept through communities, with surgeons wary of endangering living donors and unable to retrieve possibly usable organs from the dead -- and hospitals sometimes too full even when they could. Deceased donor transplants -- the most common kind -- dropped by about half in the U.S. and 90% in France from late February into early April, researchers reported Monday in the journal Lancet. (Neergaard, 5/11)

The Wall Street Journal: Twitter To Add Labels To Disputed Coronavirus Posts, As Misinformation Proliferates
Twitter Inc. said it would start adding labels to tweets that have disputed information about the coronavirus, a step that comes as a new survey shows that 78% of Americans believe that misinformation about the virus is a major problem. The move is the latest of many efforts from Silicon Valley to try to slow the spread of false claims related to the pandemic, with mixed results, including last week when a conspiracy-laden video racked up millions of views before the tech platforms pulled it down. (Wells, 5/11)

CIDRAP: Study: 38% Of Kids In ICU With COVID-19 Needed Ventilation
Eighteen (38%) of 48 COVID-19 patients younger than 17 years hospitalized in 14 pediatric intensive care units (PICUs) in the United States from Mar 14 to Apr 3 required mechanical ventilation, but all but 2 survived, according to a multicenter, cross-sectional study published today in JAMA Pediatrics. Thirty-three patients (69%) were seriously or critically ill, and 12 (25%) needed drugs to regulate their blood pressure. Thirty-nine patients (81%) required respiratory support, and 21 (44%) received noninvasive ventilation. Six patients (13%) needed additional modes of ventilation or life support. (Van Beusekom, 5/11)

The Washington Post: Viral Photo Of Crowded United Flight Shows The Potential Risk Of Flying Right Now
Ethan Weiss, a San Francisco-based cardiologist, was worried. For the past two weeks, Weiss had been in New York, the epicenter of the U.S. novel coronavirus outbreak, volunteering at hospitals to help care for patients infected with the virus. But as Weiss tells it, he was about to face an even more daunting task this weekend: the plane trip back to San Francisco. (Chiu, 5/11)

Stateline: Fear, Isolation, Depression: The Mental Health Fallout Of A Worldwide Pandemic 
Nationwide, mental health call and text centers, the first lines of defense for many people feeling jittery during a crisis, offer an early picture of how Americans are coping with the coronavirus pandemic. Many crisis centers are reporting 30% to 40% increases in the number of people seeking help. The helpline at Provident is experiencing a tenfold increase compared with this time last year, when no national disaster was occurring. So far, the nation’s most heavily used helpline, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, has not seen a spike in call volume. (Vestal, 5/12)

Stat: Covid-19 Has Streamlined Addiction Medicine. Will The Changes Stick?
Nicole Godinez’s monthly visit to an addiction clinic typically takes several hours: To start, there’s the 35-minute drive to a Nashville suburb, the waiting room, and the paperwork. Then the repetitive questioning from a drug counselor, then the drug test. Finally, there’s the in-person visit with a doctor who refills her 28-day prescription for Subutex, a common but highly controlled medication used to treat opioid dependence. (Facher, 5/12)

Kaiser Health News: ‘No Intubation’: Seniors Fearful Of COVID-19 Are Changing Their Living Wills
Last month, Minna Buck revised a document specifying her wishes should she become critically ill. “No intubation,” she wrote in large letters on the form, making sure to include the date and her initials. Buck, 91, had been following the news about COVID-19. She knew her chances of surviving a serious bout of the illness were slim. And she wanted to make sure she wouldn’t be put on a ventilator under any circumstances. (Graham, 5/12)

Kaiser Health News: Millions Stuck At Home With No Plumbing, Kitchen Or Space To Stay Safe
In nearly half a million American homes, washing hands to prevent COVID-19 isn’t as simple as soaping up and singing “Happy Birthday” twice while scrubbing. In many of those homes, people can’t even turn on a faucet. There’s no running water. In 470,000 dwellings in the United States — spread across every state and in most counties — inadequate plumbing is a problem, the starkest of several challenges that make it tougher for people to avoid infection. (Ungar and Lucas, 5/12)

The Associated Press: Virus Unleashes Wave Of Fraud In US Amid Fear And Scarcity
A 39-year-old former investment manager in Georgia was already facing federal federal charges that he robbed hundreds of retirees of their savings through a Ponzi scheme when the rapid spread of COVID-19 presented an opportunity. Christopher A. Parris started pitching himself as a broker of surgical masks amid the nationwide scramble for protective equipment in those first desperate weeks of the outbreak, federal authorities said. Within weeks, Parris was making millions of dollars on sales orders. Except there were no masks. (Fox and Suderman, 5/12)

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: How To Protect Yourself From Counterfeit COVID-19 Merchandise
Due to the prevalence and sophistication of some of these operations, federal agencies have stepped in to try to lessen their impact. That includes shutting down illicit websites, arresting scammers and informing the public about best practices. While many of these operations span the globe, some are taking place in metro Atlanta. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security recently arrested a Fayetteville woman for allegedly smuggling an illegal pesticide into North Georgia and selling it on eBay as a protective measure against COVID-19 — which it isn’t. (Hansen, 5/11)

Modern Healthcare: Fake COVID-19 Cures Are One Of The Most Common Scams, FTC Chair Says
Businesses claiming their products can prevent or treat COVID-19 are one of the most common scams spotted by the Federal Trade Commission in the wake of the pandemic, agency chair Joseph Simons said Monday. The FTC has sent more than 135 warning letters to marketers making unsubstantiated claims that their products can treat or prevent COVID-19, Simons said during a forum convened by the House Committee on Energy & Commerce's subcommittee on consumer protection and commerce. (Cohen, 5/11)

Stat: New Effort To Map Brain Tumors Puts An AI Approach To The Test
It’s a contradiction that’s long slowed the forward march of artificial intelligence in medicine: Machine learning models need to be trained on lots of diverse data from hospitals around the world — but those hospitals are often reluctant to ship out their data due to privacy concerns, legal issues, and a cautious culture. One promising way to get around that problem is a technique known as federated learning, which allows models to be trained without having to share data to a central server or in the cloud. Now, the approach is being put to the test in an ambitious project to build an AI system from thousands of brain tumor scans from several dozen hospitals and research institutions around the globe. (Robbins, 5/11)

Stat: Research Sheds Light On Sex Imbalances In Schizophrenia, Lupus
There’s a clear sex bias in many diseases. Lupus, for instance, affects women nine times more often than it does men. Schizophrenia tends to be far more severe in males. But what’s behind the imbalance? A new paper in Nature helps unravel why some conditions might manifest themselves more commonly, or intensely, in one sex over another. And it suggests that new therapies might be developed with these sex-based molecular disparities in mind. (Keshavan, 5/11)

Stat: Doctors Treat Parkinson’s With A Novel Brain Cell Transplant 
A month before the scheduled surgery, the four researchers were ready to chaperone the brain cells on their 190-mile journey. They never anticipated they were in for “The Amazing Race”-meets-“ER.” It was after midnight on a late summer night in 2017, and they had less than eight hours to get the cells by ambulance, private plane, and another ambulance from Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston to Weill Cornell Medical Center in Manhattan. If it took longer, the cells would almost certainly be DOA, and so might the researchers’ plan to carry out an experimental transplant surgery unprecedented in the annals of medicine: replacing the dysfunctional brain cells of a Parkinson’s disease patient with the progeny of an extraordinary type of stem cell. (Begley, 5/12)

Stat: French Drug Maker Genfit Says NASH Drug Fails Late-Stage Clinical Trial
French drug maker Genfit said Monday that its lead drug, elafibranor, failed to improve outcomes for patients with the fatty liver disease NASH, according to an interim analysis of a late-stage clinical trial. “These results are highly disappointing,” Genfit CEO Pascal Prigent said in a statement. The company plans to review additional data and consult with regulators before determining if development of elafibranor should continue. (Feuerstein, 5/11)

Reuters: China's Wuhan Plans City-Wide Testing For Coronavirus Over Period Of 10 Days: Sources
The Chinese city of Wuhan, the epicentre of China’s coronavirus outbreak, plans to conduct city-wide nucleic acid testing over a period of 10 days, according to an internal document seen by Reuters and two sources familiar with the situation. Every district in the city has been told to submit a detailed testing plan by Tuesday for their respective area, the document showed. (5/11)

The Washington Post: After Six New Cases, Wuhan Plans To Test All 11 Million Residents For Coronavirus
The all-encompassing mission — announced Monday and paid for by district governments — contrasts with shortages of testing kits in some other countries, including the United States, where people have complained about not being able to get a test despite having coronavirus symptoms. But the scope of the endeavor underscores official sensitivities about any new flare-up in Wuhan, where the virus emerged in a market late last year. It comes after officials reported six new coronavirus cases in two days, confounding health experts after a 35-day streak without infections. (Fifield, 5/12)

The Associated Press: Doctors And Nurses Suffered As Iran Ignored Virus Concerns
They are regarded as heroes, their fallen colleagues as martyrs. But for doctors and nurses still dealing with Iran’s growing number of coronavirus infections, such praise rings hollow. While crippling sanctions imposed by the U.S. government left the country ill-equipped to deal with the fast-moving virus, some medical professionals say government and religious leaders bear the brunt of the blame for allowing the virus to spread -- and for hiding how much it had spread. (Michael, 5/12)

The Associated Press: 'Express Burials' Cast Doubt On Nicaragua's Virus Figures
Roger Ordoñez was hospitalized with breathing problems last week. When his son Enrique came to visit the next morning, the 69-year-old retiree was already being buried by government workers in protective white full-body suits in a cemetery on the outskirts of Chinandega, a city of 133,000 people in northwest Nicaragua. (Selser, 5/12)

Politico: Europe Fears Coronavirus Second Wave
Europeans fed up with lockdowns and dreaming of a beach vacation hold the key to how big the next wave of coronavirus infections will be. For experts, the question isn't whether this wave will come, but how citizens and governments can be better prepared than the first time around. (Paun, 5/12)

Reuters: South Korea Investigators Comb Digital Data To Trace Club Coronavirus Cluster
South Korean authorities were combing through mobile phone data, credit card statements and CCTV footage on Tuesday to identify people who visited nightclubs at the centre of one of the capital’s biggest novel coronavirus clusters. (Cha and Smith, 5/12)

The Washington Post: Tracing South Korea’s Latest Virus Outbreak Shoves LGBTQ Community Into Unwelcome Spotlight
The infection tally from the Itaewon clubs and bars is expected to grow as officials track down thousands of visitors there during the holiday week. What complicates this search is that many among those clubgoers may not want to be identified because of the stigma attached to the Itaewon establishments catering to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer clientele. (Kim, 5/11)

The Associated Press: As Nations Reopen, Warning Emerges About Virus Tracing Voids
A top world health official Monday warned that countries are essentially driving blind in reopening their economies without setting up strong contact tracing to beat back flare-ups of the coronavirus. The warning came as France and Belgium emerged from lockdowns, the Netherlands sent children back to school, and many U.S. states pressed ahead by lifting business restrictions. Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced the company’s 10,000-worker electric car factory near San Francisco was operating Monday in defiance of coronavirus health orders that closed nonessential businesses. (Mustian, Cassidy and Hinnant, 5/12)

The Washington Post: In India's Dharavi Slum, Coronavirus Fight Has Turned Into Struggle To Survive
They did the best they could — a family of seven crammed into a single room in one of Asia’s largest slums — but a month after India imposed a nationwide lockdown, the money ran out. Ejaz Ahmed Chowdhary turned to his 11-year-old nephew and opened the red plastic box that contained the boy’s childhood savings: $10. It would buy food for another week. After that, there would be nothing. (Slater, Masih and Parth M.N., 5/110

The New York Times: The Coronavirus Quagmire 
“Americans play to win all the time,” George Patton told the Third Army in the spring of 1944. “That’s why Americans have never lost and will never lose a war. The very thought of losing is hateful to Americans.” That was in another time, another country. When Patton spoke the United States was still ascending, a superpower in the making. But once our ascent was complete, our war making became managerial, lumbering, oriented toward stalemate. From Vietnam to Iraq to Afghanistan to all our lesser conflicts, the current American way of warfare rarely has a plan to win. Those foreign entanglements are mostly wars of choice; the struggle with the coronavirus is a war of necessity. But though this invader is killing our civilians and hammering our economy on a scale unseen in any of our 20th-century wars, we’re currently headed toward the same sort of un-Pattonian strategy that we’ve pursued in other conflicts. (Ross Douthat, 5/12)

The Washington Post: 80,000 Americans Have Died. Trump Is Still Engaged In Magical Thinking.
This is the part of the horror movie when we realize that the phone call from the psychotic killer is coming from inside the house — and yet those being stalked convince themselves that somehow, things will work out just fine. We now know that covid-19 has invaded the White House itself. Vice President Pence’s press secretary, Katie Miller, and one of President Trump’s personal valets have both tested positive for the novel coronavirus. Two of the physicians leading the federal response to the virus — Robert Redfield, head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Stephen Hahn, head of the Food and Drug Administration — have gone into self-quarantine as a precaution. A third, Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has placed himself in partial isolation. (Eugene Robinson, 5/11)

CNN: What Matters: There's A Rebellion Brewing And Trump Is Egging It On 
There's a Covid-19 rebellion brewing in Pennsylvania, where counties led by Republicans and some businesses have said they'll defy Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf's restrictive orders. Wolf has said he'll withhold stimulus funding from those counties if they ignore his orders. He's taken a tiered strategy to reopening the state and moved scores of counties to a new, more open "yellow" phase. Some of those still on "red" don't want to wait for the state anymore. (Zachary B. Wolf, 5/12)

The Washington Post: This Is Trump’s Greatest Failure Of The Pandemic
Hopefully the novel coronavirus, which has infected at least two people who work in the cramped warrens of the White House, will not spread there. Hopefully the measures being taken, including daily diagnostic testing, will contain it. But the genuine anxiety of President Trump’s team about their workplace underscores an important point. They know what needs to be done for themselves — diagnostic testing, contact tracing and isolating — but Mr. Trump has failed in his duty to provide it for the country. (5/11)

The Washington Post: Larry Hogan: Recovery Doesn’t Mean Going Back To Normal 
It’s time to acknowledge some basic truths about the crisis we are in.Reopening does not mean a return to normal.America must get back to work, but as we do, our work — and much of our lives — will not look or feel the same.It is time to level with the country about these new realities. What does this mean? First, work will necessarily change for the time being. Anybody who can telework should continue teleworking well into the future. For those of us who travel to our jobs, employers are going to have to innovate within the workplace to keep their workers and customers safe. Masks will still be a part of daily life. Work that can be shifted outside should be. (Governor Larry Hogan, 5/8)

Charlotte Observer: Did NC Reopening Coronavirus Benchmarks Just Change?
If you’re an avid follower of North Carolina’s coronavirus data — we know you’re out there — you may have noticed a critical change in language involving one of the benchmarks the Department of Health and Human Services uses to measure how well our state is slowing the spread of COVID-19. If you’re a conspiracy lover who thinks that change might be nefarious, you’re probably going to be disappointed. The language change involves hospitalizations — specifically the number of people currently hospitalized in North Carolina with COVID-19. It’s a metric that raised at least a few eyebrows last week when N.C. Gov. Roy Cooper announced that the state would move to Phase 1 of his three-part reopening plan. At that announcement, DHHS Secretary Mandy Cohen laid out the data behind the decision, including that the number of current hospitalizations had “leveled.” (5/11)

The Detroit News: Whitmer Cannot Go It Alone
Michigan’s state emergency declaration expired on April 30. The Republican legislative majority reached out to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer ahead of the expiration date in the hopes that she would engage her partners in the Legislature and develop a reasonable plan to move Michigan forward. Whitmer did not respond. When it came time for the Legislature to consider an extension of the declaration, the Senate Republicans considered input from constituents who want to see an end to the stringent stay-at-home order and those who are more cautious about reopening Michigan. Regardless of their opinion on the stay-at-home order, all can agree that the citizens’ elected representatives should be involved in these kinds of decisions that have major impacts on the lives of all Michigan residents. (Mike Shirkey, 5/11)

Boston Globe: Did The Baker Administration Pay Lip Service To Holyoke Soldiers’ Home?
No one was paying attention to Holyoke until alarming news reports of multiple COVID-19 deaths and bodies being stored in a refrigerated truck on the premises. Baker said he first learned of the deaths on March 29. Walsh, who is now on paid administrative leave, insists that he fully informed state officials of the developing crisis and the impact of COVID-19-related staffing shortages. Still, as recently as March 10, Walsh was giving a glowing review of the facility’s operation to the board of trustees, according to ProPublica. (Joan Vennochi, 5/11)

Stat: When A Covid-19 Vaccine Is Available, All Americans Should Get It 
My work as an emergency medicine physician has taken me to urban and rural areas on both coasts and in the middle of the country. No matter where I see patients, I hear excuses like these for not getting immunized against influenza: “Flu shots don’t work.” “I got the vaccination once and it made me sick.” “We don’t believe in vaccination.” “Vaccination is dangerous.” It puzzles me, then, that they’ve come to the emergency department because they are feeling awful with fever, chills, cough, body aches, and fatigue — in other words, with the flu — expecting a fix for something that could have been easily prevented. (Lauren S. Grossman, 5/12)

Modern Healthcare: COVID-19 Testing Problems Started Early, U.S. Still Playing From Behind
Four months since the first COVID-19 case was reported in the U.S., the demand for testing for the SARS-CoV-2 virus still far outpaces the supply, even as test developers scramble to increase their testing capacity and new types of tests make their way into the market. Despite assurances early on from President Trump that everyone who needed a test would get one, and his more recent claim that the U.S. has tested more people than all other countries combined — an assertion that has been disproven — the reality is that very few Americans have gotten tested, including many who may have been infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus. (Kelsy Ketchum and Leo O'Connor, 5/11)

The Washington Post: Patients Are Patients, Even Anti-Lockdown Protesters 
As the covid-19 death toll in the United States rises, protests against pandemic mitigation measures have also increased. In recent weeks, some demonstrators have even directed their ire at nurses, calling them liars, fake nurses and worse. These are medical personnel who risk their lives daily, helping the ill recover and holding those who die. More than 9,000 health-care workers have contracted the virus, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and at least 27 have died. In California, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and elsewhere, protesters have demanded a return to life as it was before the lockdown, insisting on going back to work and expressing contempt for social distancing practices, mask-wearing and other measures intended to stem the spread of the novel coronavirus. (Nina Shapiro, 5/11)

The Hill: Suggestion That Smoking Protects From COVID-19 May Be Dangerous To Public Health 
A new pandemic generates anxiety and confusion and drives people to seek remedies that may have little scientific evidence of efficacy. Based upon a flawed interpretation of preliminary COVID-19 data, the hypothesis that cigarette smoking protects one from coronavirus has emerged... What is being overlooked is that the same data also show smokers are more likely to be admitted to the ICU, require intubation, or die from COVID-19 infection... The current misguided belief that smoking protects from COVID-19 infection may prove dangerous with significant negative effects on public health. (Dr. John Maa and Bonnie Halpern-Felsher, 5/11)

Los Angeles Times: Risks With Coronavirus Tracing Apps Go Beyond Privacy
Last week, the world got a preview of how Google and Apple’s contact tracing project might look and function. Some privacy and security experts have expressed cautious optimism that the effort could be a potentially useful tool to aid public health contact tracers while protecting privacy. The project modifies the iOS and Android systems to allow government health agencies to build apps that use a mobile phone’s Bluetooth communication capabilities. These apps would make it possible for a person who tests positive for the coronavirus to send out an “exposure” notification to the phones of other app users to alert them that their phones had been in the vicinity of the infected person’s phone during a given period. People getting this information could decide to self-isolate or get tested. The app would not reveal anyone’s identity. (Woodrow Hartzog, 5/12)

The Hill: Lessons From 9/11 Can Help Build Better Contact Tracing App 
Our public health authorities have made clear that to keep COVID-19 infection levels down, we must strengthen our ability to identify, test, and isolate individuals who have been exposed to the virus. Contact tracing apps — which use mobile technology to track a person’s proximity to someone who has tested positive for the coronavirus — could help us achieve these goals. The challenge is to develop tools that deliver real results without sacrificing civil liberties and personal privacy... Hard choices need to be made, but we have been here before. A similar tension between public safety and democratic principles arose after 9/11 when the U.S. harnessed new technologies to strengthen counterterrorism intelligence collection. (David Schanzer, David Hoffman and Shane Stansbury, 5/11)

The Hill: How Coronavirus Could Burst The Social Media Influencer Industry 
Imagine becoming rich without showing up at an office or answering to a boss. You have no commute, except for paid flights to some of the most exotic locations on the planet for photos in the sun. Picture staying home and receiving shipments of designer clothing and jewelry to promote online. It sounds like a dream, but for a huge number of young adults who make money as influencers, this has been their reality. (Kristin Tate, 5/10)

Stat: Waiting For My Daughter Blueberry In The Year Zero Of Covid-19 
Medicine is typically an intimate interaction with its one-on-one conversations and physical exams behind closed doors. Covid-19 is changing that as doctors and other clinicians are learning to care for patients while social distancing via telehealth. I was surprised to learn that this distanced care extends to intensive care units. (Christopher Magoon, 5/12)

The Star Tribune: Making Sense Of COVID-19 Fatality Rates 
The case fatality rate for the seasonal flu is about 0.1 to 0.2%. It means that for every 10,000 people with a documented case of the flu, 10 to 20 will die. This method of calculation is often what people use if they casually cite a death rate. But it’s not the most accurate way to estimate your personal risk of dying if you become host to the agents of a disease. That would be the infection fatality rate. For the flu, by one account, it’s 0.04%. That means for every 10,000 people who are infected, whether they report it or not, four ultimately will perish. (5/11)

Boston Globe: The Race Is On For PPE In The Mass. Business Community 
Governor Charlie Baker unveiled new rules on Monday that will require masks and more sanitation in offices and on factory floors, to guard against the spread of COVID-19.But finding all that personal protective equipment to meet the demand is easier said than done The state’s PPE shortage doesn’t seem to be anywhere near as bad as it was in March, when Baker ordered all nonessential workplaces to close, and hospitals scrambled to get gear for health care workers. (Jon Chesto, 5/11)