The New York Times: Coronavirus Models Are Nearing Consensus, But Reopening Could Throw Them Off Again
There is growing consensus among modelers estimating the number of cases and deaths from the novel coronavirus in the next few weeks. But this convergence of estimates — 31,000 to 42,000 additional deaths through mid-June for roughly 120,000 total deaths in the United States — comes just as shifts in public policy are likely to create new uncertainty about the path of the pandemic after that. (Bui, Katz, Parlapiano and Sanger-Katz, 5/12)

NPR: Different Coronavirus Models Are Starting To Agree. The Picture's Not Good
More than 82,000 people in the U.S. have died of COVID-19 as of Tuesday. How many more lives will be lost? Scientists have built dozens of computational models to answer that question. But the profusion of forecasts poses a challenge: The models use such a wide range of methodologies, formats, and time frames, it's hard to get even a ballpark sense of what the future has in store. Enter Nicholas Reich, a biostatistician at University of Massachusetts Amherst. Reich and his colleagues have developed a method to compare and ultimately to merge the diverse models of the disease's progression into one "ensemble" projection. The resulting forecast is sobering: By June 6, the cumulative death toll in the U.S. will reach 110,000. (Aizenman and McMinn, 5/13)

Reuters: Researchers Revise U.S. COVID-19 Death Forecast Upward Again
A newly revised coronavirus mortality model predicts more than 147,000 Americans will die from COVID-19 by early August, up nearly 10,000 from the last projection, as restrictions for curbing the pandemic are relaxed, researchers said on Tuesday. The latest forecast here from the University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) reflects "key drivers of viral transmission like changes in testing and mobility, as well as easing of distancing policies," the report said. (Gorman, 5/12)

The New York Times: Top Science And Health Officials Offer Sobering View Of Reopening Readiness
The scientists and public health officials who are leading the federal government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic on Tuesday painted a sobering picture of a country ill-prepared to reopen and contain the spread of the virus in the coming months. At a Senate hearing, the officials cautioned that a vaccine would almost certainly not come in time to protect students for the return to school in the fall, that a recently authorized treatment was not a game-changing advance and that states had to rebuild their depleted public health systems by hiring enough people before they could effectively track the spread of the virus and contain it. (Thomas, Grady, Mason and Kaplan, 5/12)

CNN: Key Moments From Dr. Anthony Fauci's Senate Hearing 
Fauci used much of his time before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions to urge states not to reopen until they know they have the capabilities to handle an inevitable uptick in cases once they relax stay-at-home orders. "My concern that if some areas -- cities, states or what have you -- jump over those various checkpoints and prematurely open up, without having the capability of being able to respond effectively and efficiently, my concern is we will start to see little spikes that might turn into outbreaks," Fauci said. (Watts, Howard, Rogers and Herb, 5/13)

The Associated Press: Fauci Warns: More Death, Econ Damage If US Reopens Too Fast
“There is a real risk that you will trigger an outbreak that you may not be able to control,” Dr. Anthony Fauci warned a Senate committee and the nation as more than two dozen states have begun to lift their lockdowns as a first step toward economic recovery. The advice from Fauci and other key government officials — delivered by dramatic, sometimes awkward teleconference — was at odds with a president who urges on protests of state-ordered restraints and insists that “day after day, we’re making tremendous strides.” (Neergaard and Alonso-Zaldivar, 5/13)

The Washington Post: Top U.S. Health Officials Warn The Coronavirus Could Come Roaring Back If States Lift Restrictions Too Soon
Fauci and two federal government colleagues cautioned that neither a vaccine nor surefire treatments would be available when schools are slated to reopen in the fall — a grim reminder that it is unlikely life will soon return to normal even if Americans try to resume their routines. Fauci also contradicted Trump’s claims of last week that the virus would die out of its own accord — without a vaccine — and said the true U.S. death toll is probably higher than the 80,000 tallied by Tuesday morning. The total rose above 81,000 later in the day, with the daily death count again rising above 1,500 nationwide. (Abutaleb, Gearan and Wagner, 5/12)

ABC News: When Might Schools Reopen? 5 Things To Know About A Senate Hearing On The Coronavirus 
Nearly every lawmaker wanted to know about schools. Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., the panel’s chairman, asked when his state college students might feel comfortable returning to classrooms, while the committee’s top Democrat, Patty Murray of Washington, wondered how kids could pile on to school buses and eat in cafeterias. Wouldn’t widespread testing help reopen the nation’s college campuses and schools? Sen. Alexander said scaling up to 50 million tests per month should give every principal and college chancellor "some reassurance." (Flaherty, Khan and Ebbs, 5/12)

CNN: Somber Warnings Temper Hopes About A Fall Return To School -- And Normalcy 
But lagging testing has made it more difficult for schools to open. Fractured state budgets that could lead to job cuts are also complicating the picture. And school superintendents have warned that without billions of dollars in extra funding, states and districts could struggle to put in place protocol like staggering classes, social distancing measures and extra bus runs to keep infections down. (Collinson, 5/13)

The Wall Street Journal: Fauci, Other Top Health Officials Emphasize Testing Before Easing Lockdowns
When asked Tuesday about the prospects of schools opening in the fall, Dr. Fauci urged caution. Expecting medicines and vaccines to make returning safer by the start of the school year “would be a bit of a bridge too far,” he said. Sen. Rand Paul (R., Ky.) said such warnings from Dr. Fauci and others may be too strong, saying they should “be humble about things we don’t know.” Dr. Fauci said he was in fact “humble about making broad predictions,” but added that some children diagnosed with Covid-19, the respiratory disease caused by the coronavirus, also are afflicted with a “strange inflammatory syndrome.” (Burton and Armour, 5/13)

The Hill: Fauci To Paul: 'I've Never Made Myself Out' As The Only Voice On The Pandemic 
Anthony Fauci bluntly told Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) on Tuesday that he has never put himself up as the definitive authority on the coronavirus pandemic. "I have never made myself out to be the end all and only voice in this. I'm a scientist, a physician and a public health official. I give advice according to the best scientific evidence," Fauci, the director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said during a Senate hearing about the coronavirus pandemic. (Weixel, 5/12)

NPR: Watch: Rand Paul Says Anthony Fauci's Not The 'End-All' In Senate Hearing
Fauci said Paul was "right in the numbers that children in general do much, much better than adults and the elderly and particularly those with underlying conditions. But I am very careful and hopefully humble in knowing that I don't know everything about this disease." He noted some children were suffering from "a very strange inflammatory syndrome" that is believed to be related to COVID-19. "I think we've got to be careful we are not cavalier in thinking that children are completely immune to the deleterious effects" of the coronavirus, Fauci said. (Naylor, 5/12)

Politico: Fauci Warns Reopening Country Too Fast Could Be 'Really Serious' For States
The White House has shifted its focus over the last few weeks to reopening the nation’s economy, contending that the worst of the pandemic is over and that states have the supplies and testing capacity to manage the disease over the next several months. Yet Fauci’s testimony came on the heels of a series of events that appeared to undermine the administration’s argument and underscore Fauci’s own concerns, including the infection of two aides who work in close proximity to Trump and other top administration officials. (Cancryn, 5/12)

Stat: 6 Takeaways From The Surreal Senate Hearing On Coronavirus 
The hearing itself made clear that even the Senate isn’t ready to resume business as usual. The four Trump administration witnesses all testified by video after recent exposure to a White House aide with coronavirus. Alexander, the chair of the Senate’s health committee, did the same after one of his own staffers tested positive. And though the hearing represented lawmakers’ first real chance to grill Trump administration officials on the federal government’s widely criticized coronavirus response, it only rarely devolved into the partisan anger that has characterized Congress in recent years. (Facher, 5/12)

Boston Globe: 7 Of The Biggest Moments From Tuesday’s Senate Coronavirus Hearing 
Like millions of other Americans who are working from home for the first time, those joining the hearing by videoconference experienced some bumps. At one point, a dog could be heard barking loudly as Senator Richard Burr tried to question the hearing witnesses. (Prignano, 5/12)

Politico: Fauci Fatigue Sets In Among Some Republicans
Anthony Fauci came to the Senate, virtually, to issue a dire warning against reopening the country too soon amid the deadly coronavirus pandemic. But his message fell flat with some of his intended audience. Republicans, led by President Donald Trump, are eager to revive the flailing economy. And resuming commerce at some level this spring and summer is central to the GOP’s message that it can turn around the economy before November. They’re also aiming to do so without adopting House Democrats’ plans for more multi-trillion-dollar stimulus bills. (Everett, Desiderio and Levine, 5/12)

The Hill: Cheney Defends Fauci: 'We Need His Expertise' To Defeat Coronavirus 
Rep. Liz Cheney (Wyo.), the No. 3 Republican in the House, defended White House coronavirus task force member Anthony Fauci on Tuesday and praised him for the job that he's done during the pandemic. "Dr. Fauci is one of the finest public servants we have ever had. He is not a partisan," the House Republican Conference chair tweeted. "His only interest is saving lives. We need his expertise and his judgment to defeat this virus. All Americans should be thanking him. Every day." (Johnson, 5/12)

The Hill: Top Health Officials Cleared For Meetings At White House After Self-Isolating 
Three top Trump administration health officials who had been self-quarantining after possible exposure to the novel coronavirus have been cleared to participate in meetings at the White House complex, officials announced Tuesday. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Robert Redfield, Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Stephen Hahn and top infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci said in a statement the administration concluded that the guidelines for critical infrastructure workers apply to them due to their work on the federal response to COVID-19. Those guidelines, issued by the CDC in April, say that workers in critical infrastructure sectors can continue to work following potential exposure so long as they remain asymptomatic and take other precautions, such as satisfying temperature screenings and wearing a mask. (Chalfant, 5/12)

PBS NewsHour: Health Officials Warn Lawmakers That Lifting Restrictions Could Trigger New Outbreaks 
New warnings from U.S. public health officials Tuesday emphasized that the national fight against COVID-19 is far from over -- and that lifting restrictions too quickly could cause unnecessary deaths. The sobering message was delivered as senior health figures, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, testified virtually before a Senate committee, and the U.S. death toll passed 82,000. (Nawaz, 5/12)

The Associated Press: GOP Senators Give Democrats' $3T Relief Bill A Cold Shoulder
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi unveiled a more than $3 trillion coronavirus aid package, a sweeping effort with $1 trillion for states and cities, “hazard pay” for essential workers and a new round of cash payments to individuals. The House is expected to vote on the package as soon as Friday. But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has said there is no “urgency.” The Senate will wait until after Memorial Day to consider options. (Mascaro and Taylor, 5/13)

The Wall Street Journal: House Democrats Release $3 Trillion Bill To Respond To Coronavirus
“We must approach this tragedy with the deepest humanity as we go into the future,” Mrs. Pelosi said, adding the bill had three main components: “opening our economy safely and soon, honoring our heroes and then putting much-needed money into the pockets of the American people” Top Senate Republicans were quick to dismiss the legislation’s prospects in the chamber they control, denouncing the bill as an empty and unrealistic publicity stunt. “This is nothing more than a messaging exercise by House Democrats, they didn’t have any input from Republicans,” said Sen. John Thune (R., S.D.), the No. 2 Senate Republican. “It’s not going anywhere.” (Andrews and Duehren, 5/12)

The Hill: McConnell, Senate GOP Declare House Democrats' $3T Coronavirus Bill 'Dead On Arrival' 
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and members of the Senate GOP caucus panned the roughly $3 trillion House coronavirus bill unveiled on Tuesday, declaring it "dead on arrival" in the Senate. McConnell, speaking to reporters after a closed-door caucus meeting, said Republicans would "insist on narrowly targeted legislation." "What you've seen in the House [from] Nancy is not something designed to deal with reality, but designed to deal with aspirations. This is not a time for aspirational legislation, this is a time for practical response to the coronavirus pandemic," McConnell said, referring to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). (Carney, 5/12)

The New York Times: House Democrats Unveil $3 Trillion Pandemic Relief Proposal
The proposal, which spanned 1,815 pages, would add a fifth installment to an already sweeping assistance effort from the federal government, although its cost totaled more than the four previous measures combined. And unlike those packages, which were the product of intense bipartisan negotiations among lawmakers and administration officials who agreed generally on the need for rapid and robust action, the House bill represents an opening gambit in what is likely to be a bracing fight over what is needed to counter the public health and economic tolls of the pandemic. It included nearly $1 trillion for state, local and tribal governments and territories, an extension of unemployment benefits and another round of $1,200 direct payments to American families. The measure would also provide a $25 billion bailout for the Postal Service — which the beleaguered agency has called a critical lifeline, but President Trump has opposed — and $3.6 billion to bolster election security. (Cochrane and Fandos, 5/12)

Reuters: U.S. House Democrats Float $3 Trillion Coronavirus Bill, Republicans Reject It
It also includes $75 billion for testing people for the novel coronavirus, direct payments of up to $6,000 per U.S. household, $10 billion in emergency grants for small business and $25 billion for the U.S. Postal Service. The bill would also extend enhanced federal unemployment payments through next January. (Morgan, 5/13)

The Associated Press: Highlights Of Democrats' $3 Trillion-Plus Virus Relief Bill
[The legislation] creates a $200 billion “heroes fund” that would provide a “hazard pay” supplement for essential workers such as first responders, health care workers, sanitation workers, and those at businesses required to stay open. (5/13)

Modern Healthcare: House Democrats Propose $100 Billion For Providers With New Strings Attached
House Democrats on Tuesday unveiled their opening bid for Congress' fifth round of COVID-19 relief legislation, including $100 billion for healthcare providers with new strings attached. Unlike prior COVID-19 relief bills, House Democrats did not pre-negotiate terms with the GOP-Senate or the White House, so it is unlikely that the Health and Economic Recovery Omnibus Emergency Solutions (HEROES) Act will be signed in its current form. However, it's a window into Democrats' priorities for future COVID-19 relief. (Cohrs, 5/12)

The Washington Post: House Democrats Unveil Coronavirus Rescue Bill That Would Direct More Than $3 Trillion To States, Individuals, Health Systems
The Democrats’ legislation also includes provisions to ensure that all voters can vote by mail in the November election and all subsequent federal elections, an idea that Trump and many Republicans have rejected because they say it invites fraud. It would be Congress’ fifth coronavirus relief bill, building on the $2 trillion Cares Act passed in late March. But while the first four bills were the result of urgent bipartisan compromise in the early days of the pandemic, now the two sides aren’t even talking and are moving in radically different directions. (Werner, 5/12)

The Hill: Eight Surprises In House Democrats' $3T Coronavirus Relief Bill
In a shot at the White House, the Democrats’ legislation would neuter President Trump’s power to fire inspectors general without a specific cause. The proposal comes just weeks after Trump dismissed Glenn Fine, the acting Pentagon inspector general who was slated to lead oversight of Congress' coronavirus response, as well as Michael Atkinson, the top watchdog for the intelligence community. Atkinson’s decision to inform Congress of a whistleblower complaint related to Trump’s dealings with Ukraine led to the president’s impeachment in December — and prompted accusations that Trump had fired him as retribution for the humiliating episode. (Lillis and Wong, 5/12)

NPR: House Democrats' Bill Would Delay Census Data Due To COVID-19
As the U.S. Census Bureau resumes some 2020 census field operations put on hold by the pandemic, House Democrats are moving forward with proposals for major changes to the national head count as requested by the bureau. The coronavirus relief bill released Tuesday includes provisions that would push back by four months the legal deadlines for the bureau to deliver 2020 census results — including the latest state population counts used to redistribute congressional seats and Electoral College votes among the states, and the data used to redraw voting districts. (Wang, 5/12)

ABC News: House Democrats Unveil New $3T Relief Bill With Aid To States, Direct Payments To Americans 
Pelosi defended the cost on Capitol Hill Tuesday. "The chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank has told us to 'think big' because interest rates are so low," Pelosi said. "We intend to use those low interest rates to bolster the American people. We must think big for the people now, because if we don't, it will cost more in lives and livelihood later. Not acting is the most expensive course." (Khan, 5/12)

Politico: Pelosi Unveils $3 Trillion Coronavirus Relief Plan Amid Squeeze From Left And Right
Reps. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) and Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), leaders of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, are seeking to postpone any vote until next week so that members can fully digest the bill and potentially push for changes. CPC members have been advised to say they're "undecided" when party leaders conduct a whip check, according to a notice sent out to progressives. Jayapal and Pocan sent a letter to Pelosi and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) on Tuesday seeking the delay, asking to have a full caucus discussion on "the bill and any amendments that might be needed." (Caygle, Ferris and Bresnahan, 5/12)

CNN: Democrats Unveil $3 Trillion Covid Relief Package And Plan To Vote This Week 
Senate Republicans are grappling with divisions of their own, however, including on whether to support additional aid for state and local governments. Republican Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana privately met Tuesday afternoon with Trump and a small group of GOP senators and pitched Trump on his bill to give states and cities more flexibility on how they spend $150 billion in aid already approved through the March stimulus law. The GOP is divided over the issue, with some not eager to give states and local governments more leeway to spend money unrelated to the virus, while others are calling for up to $500 billion in additional aid, which Republican leaders are so far resisting. (Foran, Raju and Byrd, 5/12)

Reuters: New York Governor Warns Against Paying 'Greedy Corporations' In Stimulus Bill
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo on Tuesday called on Congress to pass a stimulus package in response to the coronavirus pandemic that funds police officers, teachers and other local and state employees and warned against repeating the corporate-focused bailouts following the 2008 financial crisis. (Layne and Singh, 5/12)

NPR: Dozens Of Members Of Congress Sleep In Their Capitol Offices
For some members of Congress, an office on Capitol Hill is just, well, an office. But for others, it doubles as their apartment while they live and work in Washington, D.C. It's a practice Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif., would like to see permanently banned. "You know, they sleep on their couches, they then get up in the morning, sneak downstairs [to] the members' gym, shower, change their clothes, and come back up for work," she describes. (Sprunt, 5/13)

Politico: With Obamagate, Trump Returns To A Favorite Distraction Tactic
Donald Trump launched his political career turbocharging the conspiratorial birther movement. Now Trump is trying to keep his presidency afloat with another theory about his predecessor: Obamagate. Over the past three days, Trump has tweeted and railed about unproven claims that President Barack Obama, in his final days in office, orchestrated a plot to damage the incoming president. “He got caught, OBAMAGATE!” Trump tweeted on Sunday, one of 126 tweets and retweets — the second-highest single-day total of his presidency — that kept returning to Obama. (Nguyen, 5/12)

The Washington Post: As Coronavirus Roils The Nation Trump Suggests Joe Scarborough Murdered Aide
On a day when coronavirus deaths passed 80,000 and top government scientists warned of the perils of loosening public health restrictions too soon, President Trump used his massive public platform to suggest a talk-show host he has clashed with committed murder. His baseless charge capped a 48-hour stretch in which he accused scores of perceived opponents of criminal acts ranging from illegal espionage to election rigging. (Olorunnipa, 5/12)

The Washington Post Fact Check: Trump’s Vicious Claim That Joe Scarborough Might Have Murdered An Aide 
The Facts: “Morning Joe” airs on MSNBC from 6 to 9 a.m. on weekdays. The hosts have been hammering the administration’s dysfunction in the face of the covid-19 pandemic, with Scarborough often taking Trump to task for “a blizzard of lies.” This morning, the hosts also zeroed in on Trump’s contentious exchange with a CBS News reporter at a news conference Monday. Brzezinski and Scarborough both called Trump’s remarks “racist.” They ran a segment criticizing the Justice Department’s unusual move to drop the criminal case against Michael Flynn, a former Trump national security adviser who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI. They interviewed Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), who said of Trump: “He can’t handle women, particularly strong women, and we know that Trump is xenophobic, and it comes out time and again.” (Rizzo, 5/12)

Politico: Republican Voters Give Trump And GOP Governors Cover To Reopen
Republican voters have undergone a significant shift on the coronavirus in a few short weeks. A month ago, half of GOP voters said they were more worried about public health than the economy. Now, fewer than 2 in 5 say their concerns about the physical dangers of the virus outweigh their fears of a free-falling economy — a 13 percent drop. And the percentage of Republicans who said it was more important for the government to address the spread of the virus than the economy fell 22 points, from 65 percent to 43 percent, versus a 15-point drop overall. (Shepard, 5/13)

Politico: Republicans To Trump: Wear A Mask
President Donald Trump has faced plenty of criticism from Democrats throughout the coronavirus pandemic — including for his refusal to wear a mask. But according to a new survey, even most Republicans think Trump and Vice President Mike Pence should sport face coverings when traveling in public. It’s a rare point of bipartisan consensus during a public health crisis that’s become deeply politicized. (Forgey, 5/12)

The New York Times: Trump Is Courting Black Voters. His Failures On The Virus Are A Problem.
Since he took office, President Trump and his advisers have made a show of trying to chip away at the overwhelming support that Democrats enjoyed from black voters in the 2016 presidential campaign. Even as Mr. Trump himself has offended people with language widely seen as racist, like telling four congresswomen of color to “go back” to countries where they came from (three of them were born in the United States), his campaign poured $10 million into a Super Bowl ad featuring a black woman and highlighting the administration’s efforts on criminal justice reform. (Haberman and Karni, 5/12)

Reuters: Trump Approval Dips Amid Mounting Coronavirus Death Toll, Trails Biden By 8 Points: Reuters/Ipsos Poll
More Americans have grown critical of President Donald Trump over the past month as the death toll mounts from the coronavirus pandemic and he now trails Democratic challenger Joe Biden by 8 percentage points among registered voters, according to a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll released on Tuesday. The poll conducted on Monday and Tuesday showed that 41% of U.S. adults approved of Trump’s performance in office, which is down 4 points from a similar poll that ran in mid-April. Fifty-six percent disapprove of Trump, up by 5 points in the same span. (Kahn, 5/12)

The Hill: Kushner Acknowledges 'Risk' In Reopening Too Quickly 
White House senior adviser Jared Kushner acknowledged there could be “risk” to reopening the country too quickly following the coronavirus outbreak while pointing to the economic consequences of the pandemic. “There’s risk in anything, but the president carries the burden of the 30 million Americans who have lost their jobs due to this historic effort to save lives,” Kushner, who is also President Trump’s son-in-law, said in an interview for the TIME100 Talks series on Tuesday. (Axelrod, 5/12)

Meanwhile, the presumptive Democratic nominee, Joe Biden, attacks Trump's virus response, but he doesn't always get it right —

ABC News: Biden Pushes Back On Trump's Testing Claims, Labels Coronavirus Response 'Incompetent' 
In an interview Tuesday morning on “Good Morning America,” presumptive Democratic presidential nominee and former Vice President Joe Biden pushed back on President Donald Trump’s claim that anyone in America who wants to get tested for COVID-19 has the ability to do so. “The truth is the truth, George. Anyone can't get a test around the country... He knew about this crisis all the way back in January and February. He's been incompetent the way he responded,” Biden told ABC News Chief Anchor George Stephanopoulos. (Verhovek and Nagle, 5/12)

The Washington Post Fact Checker: Biden Video Uses Misleading Edits To Hype Trump’s Remarks To Nurse
On May 6, President Trump met with nurses in the Oval Office to sign a proclamation for National Nurses Day. The Biden campaign turned the event into a 30-second attack video, tweeted out by Biden. With strumming guitar music, the video shows Trump appearing to interrupt a nurse who mentions that supplies of personal protective equipment (PPE) have been “sporadic.” The video ends with display text: “Happy National Nurses Week from the president (only to nurses who agree with him).” (Kessler, 5/13)

Politico: Colleagues Paint A Mixed Picture Of Ousted Vaccine Chief
Some parts of an explosive whistleblower complaint against the Health and Human Services department are beyond dispute. Rick Bright, the department’s ousted vaccine expert, has assembled a 63-page complaint filled with damning allegations: that Trump appointees pressured health officials to rush unproven malaria drugs; that his warnings about mask shortages were ignored; and that senior leaders repeatedly missed opportunities to grapple with threats posed by Covid-19. Those claims are backed up by emails released by Bright, interviews conducted by POLITICO and, in some cases, President Donald Trump’s own public statements. (Diamond, 5/13)

The Washington Post: Trump Adviser Navarro Declines Invitation To Testify Before House Panel On Vaccine Official’s Whistleblower Complaint
White House trade adviser Peter Navarro — who repeatedly warned colleagues about the coronavirus in memos earlier this year — is declining to testify before a House panel Thursday about a whistleblower’s complaint that mentions him at length. Navarro, the latest figure to draw the interest of lawmakers probing the Trump administration’s handling of the crisis, had been invited to appear before the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on health. (Costa, 5/12)

The Wall Street Journal: U.S. Vs. South Korea: Behind The Coronavirus Testing Numbers 
After initially lagging behind South Korea, whose population is less than a fifth of the U.S.’s, the U.S. has indeed surpassed the country in per capita testing. But experts say the reason South Korea has been hailed for its testing model isn’t just for its implementation of widespread testing—but for how quickly it got such a system into place. “The timing is very different” between the two countries, said Xi Chen, an assistant professor of health policy and economics at the Yale School of Public Health. “In South Korea, they did [widespread testing] much earlier after they had the first patient. The U.S. was delayed for more than a month.” (Ballhaus, 5/12)

Politico: 'Nothing To Celebrate Whatsoever': Romney Rejects White House Testing Boasts
Sen. Mitt Romney on Tuesday admonished the Trump administration for touting its coronavirus testing operation in recent days after weeks of missteps, accusing the White House’s testing czar of playing politics. “I understand that politicians are going to frame data in a way that is most positive politically,” the Utah Republican told Adm. Brett Giroir, a commissioned officer in the U.S. Public Health Service, during a Senate hearing on the pandemic. “Of course, I don’t expect that from admirals.” (Oprysko, 5/12)

Politico: Poll: Majority Of Americans Say Coronavirus Testing Responsibility Falls On Federal Government
As governors across the U.S. loosen restrictions and look to reopen their economies, a majority of Americans think it’s mainly the federal government’s responsibility to ensure there’s adequate coronavirus testing, according to a Pew Research Center survey released on Tuesday. The majority, 61 percent of U.S. adults, say it’s primarily the federal government’s responsibility, compared with 37 percent who say the responsibility mainly falls on state governments to make sure there are enough tests to safely lift restrictions. (Ward, 5/12)

Politico: Testing Czar Predicts U.S. Can Conduct Up To 50M Coronavirus Tests Per Month By Fall
HHS testing czar Brett Giroir predicted Tuesday that the U.S. will be able to test up to 50 million people per month for the coronavirus by September. That would be roughly four times the 12.9-million test goal the administration set for May and announced Monday at a Rose Garden briefing. "We project that our nation will be capable of performing at least 40 to 50 million tests per month if needed at that time," Giroir said Tuesday during a hearing of the Senate HELP Committee. (Lim, 5/12)

NPR: Why Is There A Coronavirus Test Shortage? One Reason: We Don't Have Enough Swabs
The Trump administration says it will now spend billions of dollars to help states make COVID-19 testing more widely available, a move meant to address months-long complaints about test shortages. But here's the puzzle: Many labs say they have plenty of tests. So what's the disconnect? Turns out a "test" is not a single device. COVID-19 testing involves several steps, each one requiring different supplies, and there are shortages of different supplies at different times in different places. (Pfeiffer, Anderson and Van Woerkom, 5/12)

In other testing news —

The Washington Post: This Veterinary Lab Is The Linchpin In One State’s Coronavirus Testing Approach
Akhilesh Ramachandran emailed Oklahoma’s public health laboratory just days after the novel coronavirus hit the state in March. As a manager of a veterinary school diagnostic lab, he knew lots about rapid, high-volume testing for viruses — in animals. He offered his facility as a “backup” for human testing, he said, figuring officials “might say, ‘You guys do 100 samples, and we’ll do the rest.’” But within weeks, the Oklahoma State University lab — which typically tests for diseases such as rabies in dogs and respiratory ailments in Oklahoma’s large cattle industry — was running more human coronavirus tests than any other lab in the state. (Brulliard, 5/12)

Los Angeles Times: Coronavirus: Are Antibody Tests The Real Thing?
At a flotation therapy studio in Marina Del Rey, the sensory deprivation tank is empty, but antibody tests for the coronavirus are selling at $149. Customers of a botox clinic in Venice don’t even have to get out of their cars to get tested; a worker collects blood samples with the prick of a finger. A banner for a clinic in Las Vegas advertises antibody tests and throws in a doctor visit for $169. And $125 antibody tests have recently been added to the menu at a chiropractic clinic in Florida that also offers libido-boosting vitamins and nonsurgical face-lifts. (Lau, 5/12)

ABC News: Companies Ramping Up At-Home Saliva Tests For Coronavirus Are Banking On 'Endless' Demand 
A handful of U.S. health care companies are banking on massive demand for coronavirus tests and an easing of federal rules as they prepare for a major production blitz that could bring at-home saliva test kits to millions of Americans in the coming months. “The plan is to keep scaling,” said Jason Feldman, the CEO at Vault Health, one of the companies that recently started selling at-home saliva test kits, which rely on a sample of spit in a test tube, which is mailed into a New Jersey lab to screen for COVID-19. (Mosk and Bruggeman, 5/13)

San Francisco Chronicle: Stanford Crafting Coronavirus Saliva Test That Could Make Testing Cheaper, More Accessible 
Stanford researchers are developing a test that can diagnose the coronavirus by analyzing saliva collected in a small cup, which — if proven reliable and accurate — could make testing more accessible, cheaper and less invasive. The work comes as the Food and Drug Administration recently authorized the use of the first at-home coronavirus saliva test, made by a lab at Rutgers University in New Jersey, which is working with companies to manufacture and distribute thousands of the tests to health care providers, nursing facilities and homes across the United States. (Ho, 5/12)

The Wall Street Journal: Chinese, Iranian Hacking May Be Hampering Search For Coronavirus Vaccine, Officials Say
Chinese and Iranian hackers are aggressively targeting American universities, pharmaceutical and other health-care firms in a way that could be hampering their efforts to find a vaccine to counter the coronavirus pandemic, U.S. officials said. Since at least Jan. 3, the two countries have waged cyberattacks against a range of American firms and institutions that are working to find a vaccine for Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, officials said. (Lubold and Volz, 5/13)

The Hill: What You Need To Know About Four Potential COVID-19 Vaccines 
The coronavirus pandemic has set off an unprecedented global scramble for a vaccine. There are more than 100 potential vaccine candidates, according to the World Health Organization, but only eight have entered the crucial clinical trials stage. Four are in the United States and Europe, with the rest in China. “I can never remember anything like this,” Walter Orenstein, associate director of the vaccine center at Emory University in Atlanta, said of the number of vaccines being developed to tackle one disease. “Hopefully, at least one and hopefully more than one will prove to be safe and effective.” (Sullivan, 5/12)

The Wall Street Journal: Old Vaccine Gets New Look In Tests For Coronavirus Protection
Trials have begun on what researchers say could be a stopgap vaccination against the new coronavirus, testing a century-old tuberculosis vaccine on thousands of people including police in India, health-care workers in Texas and elderly people in the Netherlands. The trials intend to determine whether the vaccine known as BCG, which is used in most of the world outside the U.S. and Western Europe, offers protection against Covid-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus. (Bhattacharya and Forero, 5/13)

CIDRAP: Experts: We Must Cooperate To Develop, Deploy COVID-19 Vaccines
Development of vaccines against COVID-19 hinges on "unprecedented" and transparent cooperation among industry, government, and academia, according to a commentary by Anthony Fauci, MD, and Francis Collins, MD, PhD, of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and two other US vaccine experts published yesterday in Science. Noting that all vaccine platforms have advantages and disadvantages and underscoring the need for speed and flexibility of manufacture, safety, long-term efficacy, scale, affordability, vaccine stability, and a temperature-controlled supply chain, they said that "no single vaccine or vaccine platform alone is likely to meet the global need, and so a strategic approach to the multi-pronged endeavor is absolutely critical." (Van Beusekom, 5/12)

Meanwhile, pandemic survivors offer advice —

NPR: Survivors On The Parallels Between Polio And Coronavirus Epidemics
A fear of the unknown. The need to maintain an appropriate distance. An urgent desire to find a cure or vaccine. They're the hallmarks of the coronavirus pandemic, but they also characterized an earlier epidemic: when paralysis-causing polio ravaged the U.S. in the 1940s and '50s. Now, the toddlers and preteens of that era are once again part of a high-risk group during a deadly epidemic of a highly infectious disease. (Mittal, 5/12)

The Wall Street Journal: FEMA Cancels $55.5 Million Mask Contract With Panthera
The federal government said it canceled a $55.5 million contract for respiratory masks, signed last month with a small Virginia firm with no history in the mask business and a parent company in bankruptcy. The no-bid contract, with Panthera Worldwide LLC, was one of the largest mask orders signed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, as it has raced in recent weeks to find masks and other protective equipment during the coronavirus pandemic. (Maremont, 5/12)

The Washington Post: Coronavirus: A Contractor Promised FEMA 10 Million Masks For $55 Million. It Did Not Deliver.
Lea Crager, a FEMA spokeswoman, said Tuesday the company had requested another four-day extension, to May 15, but the agency denied the request. FEMA moved to cancel the contract Tuesday, a day after the deadline. “FEMA will continue to coordinate with our federal and state partners, along with private vendors and supply companies, to identify and deliver medical supplies to prioritized areas,” she said in a statement. (Stanley-Becker, 5/12)

The Hill: FEMA Cancels $55 Million Mask Contract 
In total, the federal government has spent more than $110 million in contracts for the much needed masks, the Journal reported last month. At least 80 percent of the companies that the government contracted out to make the masks were either first-time government contractors or had only completed small-scale federal contracts previously, the newspaper reported. (Johnson, 5/12)

In other news on masks —

The Associated Press: Counterfeit Masks Reaching Frontline Health Workers In US
On a day when COVID-19 cases soared, healthcare supplies were scarce and an anguished doctor warned he was being sent to war without bullets, a cargo plane landed at the Los Angeles International Airport, supposedly loaded with the ammo doctors and nurses were begging for: some of the first N95 medical masks to reach the U.S. in almost six weeks. Already healthcare workers who lacked the crucial protection had caught COVID-19 after treating patients infected with the highly contagious new coronavirus. (Linderman and Mendoza, 5/13)

The Washington Post: Mask Or No Mask? Face Coverings Become Tool In Partisan Combat.
At the end of April, the three commissioners in West Virginia’s Monongalia County sent a letter to Gov. Jim Justice with a request. Would he issue an executive order mandating the use of face masks in the county, which includes West Virginia University, for the 17-day period in May when 12,000 students and their family members were expected to stream back into town to recover their belongings from off-campus housing amid the novel coronavirus pandemic? (Stanley-Becker, 5/12)

The Associated Press: Wear A Mask? Even With 20,000 Dead, Some New Yorkers Don't
Eric Leventhal felt a sneeze coming and panicked.The Brooklynite left his cloth face mask at home for a morning run in a park last week. Walking home, he turned toward an empty street and let the sneeze out, hoping no one would notice. Too bad for him, there’s no hiding without a mask in virus-stricken New York City. “I picked my head up and I caught eyes with a woman who was wearing a mask, an older woman,” Leventhal recalled recently. “She was just kind of shaking her head.” (Seiner and Hays, 5/13)

The New York Times: As Coronavirus Restrictions Lift, Millions In U.S. Are Leaving Home Again
After weeks cooped up at home following governors’ orders to contain the coronavirus outbreak, U.S. residents appear eager to get moving again. As more states began to relax restrictions, about 25 million more people ventured outside their homes on an average day last week than during the preceding six weeks, a New York Times analysis of cellphone data found. In nearly every part of the country, the share of people staying home dropped, in some places by nearly 11 percentage points. (Dance and Gamio, 5/12)

The Washington Post: Map: Which States Are Reopening After Coronavirus Shutdown
Most states and U.S. territories have begun to ease restrictions on businesses and social activity, moving to reopen economies battered by the coronavirus pandemic and weeks of stay-at-home orders that affected some 315 million Americans. Public health experts warn that this increased activity is likely to cause a surge of new infections. “There is a real risk that you will trigger an outbreak that you may not be able to control” by reopening too quickly, said infectious disease expert Anthony S. Fauci in Senate testimony May 12, “leading to some suffering and death that could be avoided.” (5/12)

The Associated Press: AP Exclusive: CDC Docs Stress Plans For More Virus Flareups
Advice from the nation’s top disease control experts on how to safely reopen businesses and institutions in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic included detailed instructive guidance and some more restrictive measures than the plan released by the White House last month. The guidance, which was shelved by Trump administration officials, also offered recommendations to help communities decide when to shut facilities down again during future flareups of COVID-19. (Dearen and Stobbe, 5/13)

The Washington Post: As Coronavirus Cases Resurge, Lockdowns Reimposed On At Least Three Continents
As many parts of the world, including the United States, explore ways to ease restrictions aimed at containing the spread of the coronavirus, countries that had already opened up are closing down again after renewed spikes in infections. Such a resurgence of cases had been widely predicted by experts, but these increasing numbers come as a sobering reminder of the challenges ahead as countries chafing under the social and economic burdens of keeping their citizens indoors weigh the pros and cons of allowing people to move around again. (Sly and Morris, 5/13)

The Wall Street Journal: New Coronavirus Clusters Emerge As Some Countries Ease Lockdowns
Some governors sought more help from Washington as they moved to restart their economies, while new clusters of coronavirus infections cropped up in parts of the Middle East and Asia after authorities loosened lockdowns. Confirmed cases surpassed 4.25 million globally Tuesday, with more than 1.36 million in the U.S., according to data from Johns Hopkins University. More than 291,000 people have died world-wide, including more than 82,000 in the U.S., according to Johns Hopkins. In the 24 hours ended at 8 p.m. (Calfas and Dalton, 5/12)

The Washington Post: Armed Militia Helped A Michigan Barbershop Open, A Coronavirus Defiance That Puts Republican Lawmakers In A Bind
Armed members of the Michigan Home Guard stood outside Karl Manke's barber shop, ready to blockade the door if police arrived. They were determined to help Manke, 77, reopen his shop Monday, in defiance of state orders, and dozens joined them, wearing Trump sweatshirts and Trump cowboy hats and waving Trump flags. They gathered not because they desperately needed haircuts but to rail against Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s approach to fighting the coronavirus outbreak in Michigan, one of the nation’s worst hot spots. (Balingit, 5/12)

The Washington Post: In A Small Pennsylvania Town, Home To A Huge Hospital, Everyone On The Coronavirus’ Front Lines
The pathologist stood in the kitchen on his 40-acre farm and cut the crust from a ham and cheese sandwich for his 7-year-old son’s packed lunch. He took a swig of his morning coffee. He’d been up late answering calls, hustling to launch a clinical trial to test blood plasma as a possible treatment for covid-19, hashing out the details between rides on his Peloton stationary bike and taking rifle shots at nuisance groundhogs. Now, he needed to get to the hospital, along with his son. (Frankel, 5/12)

The Washington Post: Hogan Joins Northam In Allowing Hard-Hit Localities To Opt Out Of Reopening
Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) has told leaders of the Washington suburbs and other places hit hard by the novel coronavirus that they will be able to opt out of a gradual reopening he plans to announce Wednesday, according to officials involved in the conversations. The decision could keep the entire D.C. region under extended restrictions even as more-remote areas begin to restart their economies. (Chason, Cox, Tan and Vozzella, 5/12)

The Washington Post: Northern Va. Deaths Are Nearly Double Elsewhere In State As Region Sees Disproportionate Toll
Northern Virginia has averaged nearly double the number of daily coronavirus-related deaths in recent days than the rest of the state in a region that contains about one-third of its population. Data analyzed by The Washington Post shows the state recorded an average of 25 fatalities daily over the most recent seven days, with 16 of those deaths coming from Virginia’s Washington suburbs while nine were reported elsewhere in the state. (Harden, 5/12)

The New York Times: Coronavirus Ravaged A Choir. But Isolation Helped Contain It.
It was a chilly evening in Mount Vernon, Wash., on March 10, when a group of singers met for choir practice at their church, just as they did most Tuesday nights. The full choir consists of 122 singers, but only 61 made it that night, including one who had been fighting cold-like symptoms for a few days. That person later tested positive for the coronavirus, and within two days of the practice, six more members of the choir had developed a fever. Ultimately, 53 members of the choir became ill with Covid-19, the disease caused by the virus, and two of them died. (Waldstein, 5/12)

Politico: Murphy Rolls Out Plans For Expanded Testing, Contact Tracing As Reopening Pressures Mount
New Jersey is about to spend hundreds of millions of dollars developing the health care infrastructure it needs to begin reopening its economy, Gov. Phil Murphy said Tuesday. With revenue forecasts collapsing under the weight of a Covid-19 recession, Murphy described the broad contours of his administration’s plan to expand coronavirus testing and assemble a contact tracing corps in advance of the state’s economic revival. (Sutton, 5/12)

NPR: Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms On Reopening Georgia: 'I Remain Concerned'
Republican Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp's reopening of many businesses on April 24 came earlier than many public health experts had recommended and against White House guidelines. Another critic was Atlanta's Democratic mayor, Keisha Lance Bottoms. Fulton County, where most of Atlanta lies, has more than 3,500 confirmed COVID-19 cases, the most of any county in Georgia. (Doubek, 5/12)

The Oklahoman: Coronavirus In Oklahoma: Coalition Launches First-Of-Its-Kind Initiative
Oklahoma City is being eyed as a potential model for a nationwide roll-out of testing and guidance by some of the country’s most respected disease experts on how best to reopen the country and reduce risks of a second wave of COVID-19 infection. The coalition, consisting of local corporate executives and researchers as well as experts from top institutions including Harvard and Duke, is focused on creating a surplus of tests and samples to delve into how many asymptomatic cases have spread and the search for an antidote to the virus. (Lackmeyer, 5/12)

New Orleans Times-Picayune: New Orleans Mayor Unveils Eased Coronavirus Restrictions That Are Stricter Than Louisiana Plans 
New Orleans will have stricter coronavirus rules in place than the rest of the state when it begins to allow businesses to reopen on Saturday, including mandates that restaurants and salons take down their customers’ contact information and caps on the number of people that can attend church services. The city’s rules, which officials say exceed the state’s because of the speed and severity with which the virus spread in New Orleans at the beginning of the outbreak, also would prevent the reopening of Harrah’s Casino or any video poker rooms, even as other gaming establishments in other parishes are allowed to see a limited number of customers. (Adelson and Williams, 5/12)

The New York Times: Coronavirus Will Keep Cal State Classes Online In The Fall
In the most sweeping sign yet of the long-term impact of the coronavirus on American higher education, California State University, the nation’s largest four-year public university system, said on Tuesday that classes at its 23 campuses would be canceled for the fall semester, with instruction taking place almost exclusively online. The system is the first large American university to tell students they will not be returning to campus in the fall. Most of the nation’s colleges and universities have gone out of their way to say they intend to reopen, but they are also making backup plans for online classes. (Hubler, 5/12)

Reuters: California Cancels Fall University Classes As Fauci Warns Of Reopening Too Soon
“Our university, when open without restrictions and fully in person, as is the traditional norm of the past, is a place where over 500,000 people come together in close and vibrant proximity with each other on a daily basis,” the chancellor, Timothy White, said in a statement. “That approach, sadly, just isn’t in the cards now.” Los Angeles County Health Director Barbara Ferrer added her own grim forecast, saying stay-at-home curbs for 10 million residents, including the city of Los Angeles, would probably remain in place, in some form, through the summer. (Whitcomb and Bernstein, 5/12)

CNN: California Universities Not Likely To Return To Campus This Fall 
Potential exceptions at CSU may include nursing students who need clinical training to be on track to get licensed to work in health care, White said, or students who need access to equipment for their training. Students who need to continue research in labs will also continue forward under rigorous safety standards. White said students may need to work in shifts, wearing personal protective gear. Rigorous health and safety requirements will be in place, such as sanitizing and spreading students out. Instead of 15 students per class, it may be five students, he suggested. (Waldrop, Passantino and Moon, 5/12)

The Wall Street Journal: Coronavirus To Force California Public Universities Largely Online For Fall
Most schools that have made announcements say they intend to bring students back in the fall, according to a tally kept by the Chronicle of Higher Education. Colleges and universities are under financial pressure to resume in-person classes. The decision made by Cal State University Chancellor Timothy White is noteworthy because of the system’s scale: 5% of Americans holding a college degree graduated from a Cal State school. (Belkin, 5/12)

Los Angeles Times: Coronavirus: CSU To Have Mainly Online Classes In Fall 2020 
University of California officials are examining the parameters of what it would take to open their campuses and are expected to announce plans in June or July. UC spokeswoman Claire Doan reiterated Tuesday that campuses were exploring a “mixed approach with some instruction delivered in classroom and lab settings, while other classes will be primarily online.” (Agrawal, 5/12)

In other news from California —

The Associated Press: Dispute Over Reopening California Tesla Factory May Be Over
It appears the dispute between Tesla and San Francisco Bay Area authorities over the reopening of a factory in the face of shutdown orders is coming to an end. The Alameda County Public Health Department announced on Twitter early Wednesday that the Fremont, California, plant will be able to go beyond basic operations this week and start making vehicles this coming Monday — as long as it delivers on the worker safety precautions that it agreed to. (Krisher, 5/13)

San Francisco Chronicle: Alameda County Agrees To Let Tesla Reopen If Certain Conditions Are Met 
The Chronicle previously reported that some Tesla production lines had begun running over the weekend. Workers began returning to the plant as early as last week. Alameda County’s shelter-in-place orders, in place since mid-March, do not allow for manufacturing, though Tesla initially defied them before shutting down its lines and furloughing employees in late March. In a letter early Tuesday, Alameda County Health Care Services Agency Director Colleen Chawla reiterated that the company can perform only basic functions at the plant until the county and Tesla agreed on a plan to reopen the factory in line with state and local rules. The county and Tesla officials met Tuesday, and the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office said in a tweet that county officials agreed that if certain criteria are met, the company can possibly open next week. (DiFeliciantonio, 5/12)

The New York Times: As Summer Nears, The Hamptons Face A ‘Feeding Frenzy’
The Hamptons summer rental season, which traditionally runs from Memorial Day to Labor Day, got off to an unusually early and frantic start this spring. As New York City and the surrounding region closed down in response to the coronavirus, many residents fled to their weekend houses in the Hamptons or signed leases for properties there so they could shelter in place outside the metropolitan area. (Fischler, 5/13)

The New York Times: Manhattan Faces A Reckoning If Working From Home Becomes The Norm
Before the coronavirus crisis, three of New York City’s largest commercial tenants — Barclays, JP Morgan Chase and Morgan Stanley — had tens of thousands of workers in towers across Manhattan. Now, as the city wrestles with when and how to reopen, executives at all three firms have decided that it is highly unlikely that all their workers will ever return to those buildings. The research firm Nielsen has arrived at a similar conclusion. Even after the crisis has passed, its 3,000 workers in the city will no longer need to be in the office full-time and can instead work from home most of the week. (Haag, 5/12)

Los Angeles Times: How Coronavirus Disrupted California Meat Plants
There’s no shortage of demand for beef.Prices are up. Grocery stores are limiting how much each customer can buy. Last week more than 1,000 Wendy’s restaurants ran out of hamburgers. There’s also no shortage of cattle earmarked to be turned into beef. But prices for those animals have dropped. Sales are down. At a recent livestock auction in the San Joaquin Valley, just a handful of buyers bothered to make an appearance. (Masunaga, Parvini and Rust, 5/12)

Los Angeles Times: Coronavirus: San Pedro Lawmaker Says Inmates Lack Protection
Days after a seventh inmate at the Terminal Island federal prison died from a coronavirus-related illness, a U.S. congresswoman emerged from the San Pedro lockup Tuesday saying she was disturbed by what see saw inside and that detainees are desperate for protective equipment. After touring the facility, Rep. Nanette Diaz Barragán peeled off a suction cup mask, gown and protective visor that allowed her to step into isolation areas of one of the nation’s largest spread of the coronavirus and described inmates screaming for help. Many in the highly infectious units were supplied with just cloth masks. (Winton, 5/12)

The Wall Street Journal: New York City Police Arrest Over 100 People For Crimes Related To Coronavirus
Police made 125 arrests related to the coronavirus pandemic in New York City since the lockdown began, not including violations of social distancing rules, according to figures released by the New York Police Department. NYPD officials said Tuesday the crimes were categorized as Covid-19-related due to the circumstances of occurrence, remarks made by the person who was arrested at the time of the alleged crime or afterward, or statements made by a victim. (Chapman, 5/12)

The Wall Street Journal: Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont Ousts Public Health Commissioner
Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont fired the state’s public health commissioner in the midst of the Covid-19 crisis after a series of disagreements in the past year, a state government official said. Renée Coleman-Mitchell will be replaced immediately by Deidre Gifford, who will continue in her role as commissioner of the state Department of Social Services while serving as the public health commissioner on an interim basis, Mr. Lamont said in a news release Tuesday. (De Avila, 5/12)

Kaiser Health News: Beyond The Glam: Feeding The Coachella Valley’s Most Vulnerable Residents
The Coachella Valley is perhaps best known for big-ticket attractions: its annual namesake music festival and tennis tournament in Indian Wells, and the swanky resort town of Palm Springs. But there’s a flip side to all that glam. Poverty is also endemic to the desert valley, which stretches for 45 miles in Riverside County. The median household income there is roughly $45,500, less than two-thirds the statewide median. (De Marco, 5/13)

Boston Globe: Pandemic Spawns New Spirit Of Collaboration For Boston’s Longtime Rival Hospitals 
During normal times, Boston’s big hospitals compete for doctors, patients, revenues, and prestige. But the pandemic has spawned a new spirit of cooperation among these longtime rivals. Hospitals have been sharing supplies, equipment, data, and even staff as they scramble to treat patients sick with COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. (McCluskey, 5/12)

State House News Service: Lawmakers Want More Data From State Health Dept. On COVID-19 Cases 
The Senate on Monday approved a bill to step up daily COVID-19 reporting from the Department of Public Health after adding reporting requirements for state-licensed care facilities, gateway cities, and impacts inside state prisons and county jails. Under the bill, a redraft of legislation that passed the House three weeks ago, DPH would report daily data on resident and staff COVID-19 cases at facilities licensed by state agencies like DPH and the Executive Office of Elder Affairs, including long-term care facilities, skilled nursing facilities, and assisted living residences. The bill, if passed, would also require daily reports on the number of cases and fatalities among inmates and staff at all correctional facilities. (Doran, 5/12)

The Oklahoman: Hospitalizations Related To COVID-19 Down Dramatically In Oklahoma Since March
The number of Oklahomans hospitalized with COVID-19 related illnesses plummeted in the last six weeks even as hundreds more state residents tested positive for the disease. The steep decline in hospitalizations was accompanied by a significant drop in the number of people requiring intensive care. On Monday, there were 83 patients in ICU beds in Oklahoma with confirmed or suspected cases of COVID-19, down from 243 on April 1. (Casteel, 5/13)

San Francisco Chronicle: Alameda County Supes Approve $318 Million To Hire Additional Staffers At Santa Rita Jail 
The Alameda County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday approved a $318 million windfall to boost staffing at the embattled Santa Rita Jail over the next three years, in a plan that will fund more than 450 new positions at the sheriff’s office and the jail’s behavioral health team. The 3-2 vote came after a panel of independent experts deemed the jail and its mental-health services severely understaffed — a determination that was made as part of a class-action lawsuit against the jail. (Cassidy, 5/12)

New Orleans Times-Picayune: Reserve Veterans Home Faces Grim Mortality Rate, But Not All Were Diagnosed Coronavirus Deaths
The state’s deadliest known cluster of coronavirus deaths to date has decimated the Southeast Louisiana Veterans Home in St. John the Baptist Parish, where COVID-19 has killed 28 residents – almost one of every five people who was living at the home when the first case was reported March 23. But that grim statistic doesn’t fully capture the toll at the state-run nursing home in Reserve. Since the pandemic started, 22 others have died there in cases that were not attributed to the virus, more than double what would be expected in normal times.  (Russell, 5/12)

Houston Chronicle: Houston A Bright Spot Amid Spiking Texas COVID-19 Numbers
As Texas confronts a huge spike this month in new coronavirus cases, the best glimmer of hope may be in Houston. One month after Texas Medical Center leaders proclaimed the area had begun flattening the COVID-19 curve, the rate at which disease spreads through the community, Harris and surrounding counties have firmly settled into a plateau, the number of new cases typically coming in at between 100 and 200 a day. That is a far cry from the 786 new cases the area reported April 9. (Ackerman and Dempsey, 5/12)

Boston Globe: Raimondo: Furloughs Likely For State Employees As R.I. Faces $800 Million Budget Crunch
Governor Gina M. Raimondo on Tuesday said she does not see a way to avoid furloughs and layoffs for state employees now that the pandemic has punched an $800 million hole in the state budget. ...The governor said she has held off on making such moves as the state takes stock of how much the coronavirus outbreak is choking off revenue and how much more federal funding it can expect. (Fitzpatrick and McGowan, 5/12)

WBUR: As Georgia Lifts Restrictions, Its Hospitals May Be Unready For A COVID-19 Surge
Georgia — one of the first states to reopen its economy — may not have enough hospital beds to treat a new wave of critically ill patients infected with the coronavirus, according to internal federal government documents obtained by the Center for Public Integrity. A slide prepared by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for an interagency briefing last week said Georgia's intensive care unit beds were 79% full on May 6, based on data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Whyte, 5/12)

WBUR: Healey Report Highlights COVID-19 Impact On Environmental Justice Communities
Communities of color have the highest rates of COVID-19 infection in Massachusetts. And according to a report released Tuesday by Attorney General Maura Healey, overcrowded housing, income inequality, underlying health conditions and institutional racism all play a role. Healey also singled out another culprit: air pollution. (Moran, 5/12)

The New York Times: Employers Can Let Workers Change Health Plans Without Waiting 
The Internal Revenue Service on Tuesday made it easier for employers to allow workers to make adjustments to their health insurance plans and flexible spending accounts in response to the coronavirus pandemic. Normally, strict rules prevent employees from changing health insurance plans in the middle of a year. But the I.R.S. is giving employers a way to let workers make changes without waiting for the usual enrollment period. (Sanger-Katz and Lieber, 5/12)

San Francisco Chronicle: IRS Says Employers Can Allow Mid-Year Changes To Employee Health Plans, Flex Accounts 
The Internal Revenue Service on Tuesday gave employers permission to let employees make mid-year changes to their group health insurance coverage and to their flexible spending accounts for health care and dependent care for 2020. Employer groups have been lobbying the IRS and Congress to allow more flexibility in these plans because the coronavirus has vastly changed people’s need for, and access to, health care and child care. The new guidance includes only some of the changes the groups recommended. (Pender, 5/12)

Modern Healthcare: UnitedHealthcare Plans Bigger Presence On Obamacare Exchanges
UnitedHealthcare plans to expand its footprint on the Affordable Care Act exchanges next year after exiting the marketplace in all but a handful of states in 2017. The insurer filed an application to sell individual plans in Maryland in 2021, Governor Larry Hogan said Tuesday. Its entrance would inject more competition into the state's ACA marketplace, where two insurers are selling plans. (Livingston, 5/12)

Modern Healthcare: Most Newly Uninsured Are Eligible For Subsidized ACA Coverage, Analysis Finds
As job losses mount amid the COVID-19 crisis, so will health insurance losses. A new analysis estimates that based on job losses between March and May, nearly 27 million people may have lost employer-based health coverage and become uninsured. Most of those people would be eligible for Medicaid or an Affordable Care Act marketplace subsidy, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation analysis published Wednesday. However, about 5.7 million people likely wouldn't qualify for subsidized insurance and would have to pay the full cost of an individual insurance plan, which may be unaffordable. (Livingston, 5/13)

Modern Healthcare: COBRA Subsidies Sought For Furloughed Workers
Hospital lobbyists are banding with insurers and employer groups to ask Congress to hike subsidies for coverage under the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act—commonly known as COBRA—for employees who have recently lost their healthcare coverage. Having more people retain private health insurance coverage is good for hospitals' payer mix. But the COVID-19 pandemic could make the subsidies even more impactful for hospitals as they are in the unusual position of having to furlough or lay off their employees. (Cohrs, 5/12)

State House News Service: Baker Filing $1 Billion Bill To Cover State's COVID-19 Spending
Gov. Charlie Baker said Tuesday he plans to file a supplemental budget to cover $1 billion in state spending related to the COVID-19 pandemic. The expenses include payments for personal protective equipment, rate adjustments for human service providers, incentive pay for state employees on the front lines at certain facilities, costs of temporary field hospitals and shelters, National Guard pay, costs associated with the state's contract tracing program, emergency child care for essential workers, and increased costs of local housing authorities and of the family and individual shelter system. (Young, 5/12)

Bangor Daily News: Coronavirus Testing Costs Will Be Covered For Uninsured Mainers
Democratic Gov. Janet Mills has already required all private insurers to cover testing costs, which includes doctor visits and copays, as well as requiring coverage through MaineCare, the state’s version of Medicaid. Many private insurers had moved to do so beforehand and Community Health Options in Lewiston — the state’s only health co-op that provides plans under the Affordable Care Act — is also covering testing. (Andrews, 5/12)

Politico: A Short Recession Or A Deep Depression? America’s Reopening Presents Extreme Scenarios
President Donald Trump along with his most fervent backers, Wall Street investors and some conservative economists are making a big bet: Swiftly reopening the U.S. economy will go relatively smoothly with little resurgence of the coronavirus, delivering a quick snap back from the current horrifying plunge and rescuing Trump’s reelection prospects along the way. Many health experts and other economists, meanwhile, worry the U.S. is rushing to reopen while Covid-19 case counts climb, testing remains limited and Americans maintain their fear of re-engaging in normal life. To them, a swift reopening risks fresh, widespread outbreaks and even more severe blows to the economy with bankruptcy filings spiking and deeper rounds of layoffs ahead. (White, 5/13)

Reuters: The U.S. Needs More Fiscal Help To Fight Coronavirus, Fed Officials Say
U.S. businesses and households are going to need more fiscal support to get through what will likely be a longer period of recovery from the coronavirus shutdown than initially expected, Federal Reserve policymakers said on Tuesday. (Saphir, 5/12)

The Washington Post: Over 100,000 Small Businesses Have Closed Forever As America’s Pandemic Toll Escalates
The coronavirus pandemic is emerging as an existential threat to the nation’s small businesses — despite Congress approving a historic $700 billion to support them — with the potential to further diminish the place of small companies in the American economy. The White House and Congress have made saving small businesses a linchpin of the financial rescue, even passing a second stimulus for them late last month. (Long, 5/12)

Politico: Trump Nominee For Pandemic Relief Watchdog Advanced By Banking Panel
The Senate Banking Committee on Tuesday approved the nomination of Brian Miller, the White House lawyer whom President Donald Trump named to police his administration’s handling of the massive relief effort for the economic crisis. The nomination was advanced on a 14-11 vote, with almost all Democrats opposed. (O'Donnell, 5/12)

GMA: Shopping Post-Pandemic: Macy's, Ulta Beauty, Gap And More Prep To Reopen With New Safety Measures 
As retailers plan to reopen after being closed due to the coronavirus pandemic, many are reemerging with updated shopping experiences that include staff wellness checks, plexiglass shields and suspended beauty services. On Monday, Ulta Beauty opened 180 stores with new safety measures in place. Stores from the massive cosmetics company reopened in Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma and several other states along with in-store hair salon services. (Yates, 5/12)

Stateline: Scratch-Off Lottery Sales Soar 
At a time when cooped-up Americans are looking for entertainment and hoping for a windfall more than ever, scratch-off lottery ticket sales have skyrocketed. It’s a rare bright spot for state budgets, since most states’ tax revenue has dropped and spending is up because of the coronavirus. (Povich, 5/13)

The Wall Street Journal: Gilead’s Remdesivir Tested With Other Drugs To Fight Covid-19
The promise and limitations of remdesivir, the first drug to prove capable of helping fight Covid-19, have kicked off efforts to see if it can work better in combination with other treatments and to create new, easier methods of administering it. Researchers are exploring whether the drug, made by Gilead Sciences Inc., can be combined with other antiviral treatments to make a more potent coronavirus-fighting cocktail. Six Covid-19 drug trials currently under way specify testing remdesivir with another medicine, according to Informa Pharma Intelligence. (Walker, 5/13)

Stat: Gilead Signs Deals For Generic Companies To Make And Sell Remdesivir
Seeking to blunt concerns about access to its remdesivir treatment for Covid-19, Gilead Sciences (GILD) signed deals with five generic companies in India and Pakistan to manufacture and distribute the experimental medicine to 127 countries. Under the agreements, the companies can set their own prices, but will not have to pay royalties to Gilead until the World Health Organization declares an end to the public health emergency for the novel coronavirus, or until another medicine or vaccine is approve to treat or prevent Covid-19. The companies include Cipla, Hetero Labs, Jubilant Lifesciences, Mylan, and Ferozsons. (Silverman, 5/12)

And in other treatment news —

Reuters: A Tale Of Two Japanese Drugs In Tests To Fight COVID-19
In the global hunt for coronavirus treatments, a Japanese antiviral medicine known as Avigan has won plaudits from Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and $128 million in government funding. But it’s not the only game in town. Camostat, a 35-year old pancreatitis drug made by Osaka-based Ono Pharmaceutical Co, has captured the interest of scientists in Japan and overseas with little fanfare or state assistance. (Swift and Soares, 5/12)

Detroit Free Press: NanoBio Protect Nasal Antiseptic Kills Coronavirus, Company Says
With the blessing of British scientists, a Michigan bio-pharmaceutical company is hitting the market with an over-the-counter nasal antiseptic that it says has killed COVID-19 in lab tests. Neither the Center for Disease Control nor the FDA have conducted trials to know whether the antiseptic can actually kill COVID-19. And the makers stress: "It's not a cure." (Baldas, 5/12)

Reuters: UK Researchers Try To Crack Genetic Riddle Of COVID-19
British researchers will study the genes of thousands of ill COVID-19 patients to try to crack one of the most puzzling riddles of the novel coronavirus: why does it kill some people but give others not even a mild headache? Researchers from across the United Kingdom will sequence the genetic code of people who fell critically ill with COVID-19 and compare their genomes with those who were mildly ill or not ill at all. (Faulconbridge, 5/12)

Politico: ‘Conspiracy Bingo’: Trans-Atlantic Extremists Seize On The Pandemic
The coronavirus is providing a global rallying cry for conspiracy theorists and far-right extremists on both sides of the Atlantic. People seizing on the pandemic range from white supremacists and anti-vaxxers in the U.S. to fascist and anti-refugee groups across Europe, according to a POLITICO review of thousands social media posts and interviews with misinformation experts tracking their online activities. They also include far-right populists on both continents who had previously tried to coordinate their efforts after the 2016 American presidential election. (Scott and Overly, 5/12)

The Associated Press: Virus Consipracy-Theory Video Shows Challenges For Big Tech
One by one, tech companies across Silicon Valley scrambled to take down a slickly produced video of a discredited researcher peddling a variety of conspiracy theories about the coronavirus. It was all too late. The 26-minute documentary-style video dubbed “Plandemic,” in which anti-vaccine activist Judy Mikovits promotes a string of questionable, false and potentially dangerous coronavirus theories, had already racked up millions of views over several days and gained a massive audience in Facebook groups that oppose vaccines or are protesting governors’ stay-at-home orders. (Seitz and Ortutay, 5/12)

Reuters: Exclusive: U.S. Airlines Tell Crews Not To Force Passengers To Wear Masks
The top three U.S. airlines have told their flight attendants not to force passengers to comply with their new policy requiring face coverings, just encourage them to do so, according to employee policies reviewed by Reuters. (Rucinski, 5/12)

The Hill: Top Airlines Tell Flight Attendants Not To Force Passengers To Wear Masks: Report
Three of the United States' top airlines have reportedly instructed employees to not force passengers to wear face coverings during flights, though airlines say they are enforcing the policy when travelers are at gates to board airplanes. American Airlines, United Airlines and Delta Air Lines have told flight attendants that they should encourage passengers to comply with new policies that require travelers to wear face coverings during the coronavirus pandemic, but the airlines said employees should not force them to do so on flights, Reuters reports, citing employee policies it reviewed. (Johnson, 5/12)

Reuters: Contact Tracing, Temperature Checks And Masks: Airline Industry Outlines New Norms
Airlines and airports are recommending a layered approach to temporary safety measures as air travel restarts, warning that no single measure can mitigate all of the risks during the pandemic, according to a briefing document seen by Reuters. (Lampert and Freed, 5/12)

ABC News: Would Airport Coronavirus Testing Get People Flying? Not Alone, Experts Say 
In addition to the usual check-ins and security checks, travelers flying on Emirates to Tunisia from the Dubai International Airport last month underwent a novel new screening before they were allowed on board: a rapid coronavirus blood test. While in the U.S. airlines institute a patchwork of measures like mandatory masks and temperature screenings in attempts to safeguard their passengers and crew, virus testing is already being conducted for a small number of travelers by airlines or in airports in a few foreign countries in some of the first steps in hopes of buoying an industry that has been decimated by the pandemic. (Dukakis and Siegel, 5/12)

NPR: Suicide Prevention Aims To Get Ahead Of Pandemic's Added Pressures 
Mental health specialists are working now to bolster the resilience of Americans who are suffering from feelings of despair — in hopes of preventing increases in suicides among people who are under increased pressure during the coronavirus pandemic. Time is of the essence, public health researchers say. Experience with past natural disasters, such as earthquakes and hurricanes, shows that a rise in suicide often happens in the months after the immediate physical dangers of the disaster have passed. (Noguchi, 5/13)

The Associated Press: Cold Cases Get Colder As Coronavirus Pandemic Wears On
Cold cases are getting colder. Detectives are struggling to connect with victims through thick masks, and investigators accustomed to wearing plainclothes are digging out their dusty uniforms for patrol duty as the coronavirus pandemic rages. Police departments nationwide are grappling with changes the virus has wrought on their investigations, even as law enforcement agencies report major decreases in crime due to stay-at-home orders. Authorities say enough wrongdoing abounds to keep police busy, and detective work must still be in-person and hands-on, despite COVID-19. Evidence has to be collected, statements must be taken in person and death notifications need to be made face-to-face. (Dazio, 5/13)

The Associated Press: 'A Pretty Scary Thing:' Kid Illness Tied To Virus Worries NY
Amber Dean had recovered from a mild bout of the coronavirus and her family of five had just ended their home quarantine when her oldest son, 9-year-old Bobby, fell ill. “At first it was nothing major, it seemed like a tummy bug, like he ate something that didn’t agree with him,” said Dean, who lives with her husband and three young children in the western New York town of Hornell. “But by the next day, he couldn’t keep anything down and his belly hurt so bad he couldn’t sit up.” (Esch, 5/13)

CNN: CDC Will Alert Doctors To Look Out For Syndrome In Children That Could Be Related To Coronavirus 
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is preparing to release an alert warning doctors to be on the lookout for a dangerous inflammatory syndrome in children that could be linked to coronavirus infection, a CDC spokesman told CNN Tuesday. The syndrome, marked by persistent fever, inflammation, poor function in one or more organs, and other symptoms similar to shock, was first reported by New York officials. More states began reporting diagnoses of the syndrome this week. (Maxouris and Fox, 5/13)

Politico: Trump Justice Department Asks For More Resources To Enforce Gun Laws
As gun sales surge during the coronavirus pandemic, the Justice Department is asking Congress for more enforcement resources — including to confiscate guns from people who shouldn’t legally be able to own them. In recent outreach to Capitol Hill, DOJ made two requests related to the spike in gun purchases, according to two sources with knowledge of those asks. First, the department asked for funding to help the FBI hire more staff to keep up with the growing number of background checks and appeal requests going through the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. The bureau runs that system, which handles background checks on millions of gun buyers every year. (Swan, 5/12)

The Associated Press: Exhaustion, Uncertainty Mark Coronavirus Survivors' Journeys
An angelic voice singing “Hallelujah” echoes off the stately stone and brick canyons of a narrow Montmartre street. Still struggling with COVID-19 complications two months after falling ill, Parisian soprano Veronica Antonelli wanted the impromptu performance from her third-floor balcony to project hope. Hours earlier, her doctor had delivered troubling news: The lung scarring that sometimes makes her too tired to sing may last for months. Or maybe years. (Tanner, 5/13)

Kaiser Health News: Racial Status And The Pandemic: A Combustible Mixture
In early March, Madalynn Rucker, then 69, agonized over whether to close her Sacramento consultancy office. On the 16th, she finally succumbed to a barrage of texts and calls from her daughter about the heightened risk of the coronavirus, and told her employees to begin working from home. That was three days before California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s statewide stay-at-home order. Her daughter was right in more ways than one. While Rucker’s age alone raised her potential danger of being hospitalized or dying of COVID-19, she and many of her employees share another risk factor: They are black. (Almendrala, 5/13)

PBS NewsHour: ‘We’re Angry And We’re Hurting.’ Why Communities Of Color Suffer More From COVID-19 
In U.S. cases of COVID-19 where race was identified, nearly 30 percent of patients were black -- even though African Americans make up only about 13 percent of the general population. The share of cases among Latinos is also disproportionately large. What is behind these significant racial disparities, and how are they affecting communities suffering the pandemic’s toll? (Alcindor, 5/12)

CNN: Covid-19 Symptoms Include Blood Clots, Organ Failure 
The patient had been relatively fine for the first 10 days he was down with Covid-19. Just 38, he didn't fit the description of people at high risk of complications from the new coronavirus. "He had mild pulmonary symptoms that he was just sitting at home with," said Dr. Sean Wengerter, a vascular surgeon in Pomona, New York. "He had been diagnosed at an urgent care clinic and it was going fine at home. He just had a little cough." Until one of Covid-19's surprising effects kicked in. (Fox, 5/12)

Boston Globe: Is Infertility Treatment Essential During A Pandemic? Depends On Who You Ask
For women hoping to become pregnant, the prospect of putting off infertility treatments during the pandemic is excruciating, and — some doctors say — could potentially make it more difficult for them to ultimately have a child. But continuing services could be unsafe for clinic staff, according to some employees who question whether infertility treatments should truly be considered essential. (Johnston, 5/12)

Stat: Genome Editing Therapies End Research Drought For Sickle Cell 
The newest publicly traded genome editing company, Beam Therapeutics, has gotten one of its experimental sickle cell therapies to produce high levels of healthy hemoglobin in lab mice, it plans to announce at the (virtual) annual meeting of the American Society of Gene and Cell Therapy on Wednesday, paving the way for human trials. Beam’s is one of more than two dozen sickle cell studies being presented at ASGCT. The intense activity is a dramatic turnaround: Although sickle cell disease is the most common inherited blood disorder, with an estimated 100,000 patients (mostly of African descent) in the U.S., for decades it received less scientific attention and funding support than other genetic diseases. (Begley, 5/12)

Stat: Remote Heart Monitoring Could Become Tech’s Next Big Target
It was a shift that began long before the pandemic: Tech companies, health providers, and patients alike were increasingly looking to remote devices like miniature electrocardiograms and blood pressure cuffs connected to the internet that let clinicians keep tabs on care from afar. Now, with virtual care emerging as a safer alternative to in-person care, remote heart monitoring tools may be having a breakout moment. (Brodwin, 5/13)

CNN: Drinking Or Smoking While Pregnant Affects Newborn Brain Development 
If you're stressed or wanting to enjoy virtual happy hour with friends while pregnant, having a glass of wine every so often may seem like a relaxing plan. But that behavior runs counter to a study published Tuesday in the journal JAMA Network Open. Researchers found drinking or smoking of any level while pregnant — from low to high, and even if you quit early — influenced the brain development of the mothers' newborns. (Rogers, 5/12)

CNN: Sugary Drinks Linked To Cardiovascular Disease 
Even one serving daily of a sugary soft drink is associated with higher risk of cardiovascular disease. That's according to a new study published Wednesday in the Journal of the American Heart Association. In the study, researchers cataloged answers from about 106,000 women who filled out a food questionnaire. The survey included questions about how often they drank sweetened beverages, including sodas, sports drinks and sweetened bottled waters. (Prior, 5/13)

The Wall Street Journal: On The Ground In Wuhan, Signs Of China Stalling Probe Of Coronavirus Origins
Around 1 a.m. on Dec. 31, Lu Junqing woke to a phone call from his boss at a local disinfection company. Get a team together and head to the Huanan market, he was told: “Bring your best kit.” Mr. Lu knew the market, a sprawling maze of stalls near a railway station, but had no clue it was the suspected source of a mysterious illness spreading across this city, later identified as Covid-19. When he got there, local officials directed him to a cluster of stalls selling wild animals for meat or traditional medicine. There were carcasses and caged live specimens, including snakes, dogs, rabbits and badgers, he said. (Page and Khan, 5/12)

CIDRAP: Scientists: 'Exactly Zero' Evidence COVID-19 Came From A Lab
Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, the Internet has been teeming with provocative conspiracy theories that the novel coronavirus was (1) created in a Wuhan, China, lab and deployed as a bioweapon or (2) derived from bats, grown on tissue culture, intentionally or accidentally transmitted to a researcher, and released into the community. (Van Beusekom, 5/12)

Reuters: Slowly But Steadily, China Strives To Make Widespread Virus Testing The New Normal
Beijing resident Wang Yukun was happy to comply in April when the construction firm he works for told him he’d need to take a test for the novel coronavirus before he could come back to work, even though he was at low risk of having the disease. (Goh and Zhang, 5/13)

The New York Times: China’s Coronavirus Back-To-Work Lessons: Masks And Vigilance 
BMW workers take their own temperature three times a day and submit the results via an internal chat app. Foxconn, the electronics giant, tells employees to wash their hands before and after handling documents. A ride-share driver wipes down his car daily and sends video proof to headquarters. The world needs rules and guidelines for the post-coronavirus workplace, and China is the first laboratory. (Stevenson and Li, 5/12)

The New York Times: Coronavirus Outbreak In Latin America Now Rivals Europe’s. But Its Options Are Worse.
Deaths doubled in Lima, rivaling the worst month of the pandemic in Paris. They tripled in Manaus, a metropolis tucked deep in Brazil’s Amazon — a surge similar to what London and Madrid endured. In Guayaquil, a port city in Ecuador, the sudden spike in fatalities in April was comparable to what New York City experienced during its worst month: more than five times the number of people died than in previous years. (Kurmanaev, Andreoni, Casado and Taj, 5/12)

The Associated Press: As Europe Reopens, Key Virus Protections Are Still Elusive
Italy’s virus reopening was supposed to be accompanied by a series of measures to limit infections in the one-time epicenter of Europe’s pandemic: the distribution of millions of inexpensive surgical masks to pharmacies nationwide, a pilot project of 150,000 antibody tests and, eventually, the roll-out of a contact-tracing app. None of these is in place as Italy experiments with its second week of loosening restrictions and looks ahead to Monday’s reopening of shops and in some regions, bars and restaurants. (Winfield and Corbet, 5/13)

The New York Times: In Israel, Modern Medicine Grapples With Ghosts Of The Third Reich
The explosion flung him skyward, legs first, before he crashed to the ground. It was June 2002, at the height of the second Palestinian intifada. Dvir Musai, then a 13-year-old Israeli schoolboy from a religious Jewish settlement, was on a class cherry-picking trip in the southern West Bank. On his way back to the bus, he stepped on a mine laid by Palestinian militants and was gravely wounded, along with two other boys. “There was a lot of smoke, clumps of earth falling, a smell of burning and gunpowder,” Mr. Musai, now 31, recalled. (Kershner, 5/12)

Reuters: Thailand Reports No New Coronavirus Cases For First Time Since March 9
Thailand, the first country outside China to discover a case of the new coronavirus, reported no new daily cases for the first time in two months on Wednesday as the government considered easing more restrictions on businesses. (5/13)

The Wall Street Journal: ‘What If My Family Found Out?’: Korea’s Coronavirus Tracking Unnerves Gay Community
As he entered a nightclub here recently, John Choi subjected himself to the coronavirus protocol: He wore a face mask, got his temperature checked and grabbed a pen to jot down his information at the door. But when he glanced at the sign-in sheet, he saw celebrity names that he assumed to be fake. His fellow clubgoers had reason to be coy: They were largely from South Korea’s LGBT community, where many still conceal that side of their identities from family and colleagues because they fear they will be stigmatized in a society that often clings to traditional ideas of gender and sexuality. (Yoon and Martin, 5/12)

The Associated Press: Asia Today: New Zealand Has No New Cases For 2nd Day
New Zealand reported zero new cases of the coronavirus on Wednesday, the second day in a row without any new cases and the fourth day since early last week. Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield said it was encouraging news as the country prepares to ease many of its lockdown restrictions from midnight. Most businesses, including malls, retail stores and sit-down restaurants, will be able to reopen. Social distancing rules will remain in place and gatherings will be limited to 10 people. (5/13)

Reuters: Exclusive: As COVID-19 Cases In Yemen Surge, Some Sources See Undercounting
Yemen has more suspected coronavirus cases and deaths than the authorities have so far reported, four sources familiar with the matter told Reuters, as the United Nations warned the virus is spreading in the war-ravaged country. (Yaakoubi, 5/13)

The Washington Post: Japan Has Version Of Trump Vs. Cuomo. It's Abe Against Tokyo's Governor Koike.
It's a struggle that Americans will recognize — a national leader desperately focused on the economy against a governor whose popularity has soared with attempts to bring the coronavirus under control. Japan has its own version. Playing the role of President Trump is Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, whom critics accuse of dithering in the face of the virus threat in a mistaken attempt to evade economic pain. (Denyer and Kashiwagi, 5/13)

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%. Changes to uncompensated care payments, add-on payments for new technologies and capital payments would lower IPPS payments by about 0.4%. (Brady, 5/11)

Modern Healthcare: 5 Things You Don't Want To Overlook In The IPPS Rule
While hospitals have focused on the proposed price transparency requirements of CMS' much-anticipated payment rule for Medicare inpatient hospital services, several other provisions in the rule could affect hospital operations. (Brady, 5/12)

The Wall Street Journal: Drugmakers Overhaul The Sales Pitch Amid Coronavirus Lockdowns
Drug-company sales representatives, grounded by the coronavirus pandemic, are blasting out emails and hosting video calls to pitch new treatments for a variety of ailments to doctors, a different way of doing things for a field force that had relied on visiting with physicians in person. On Friday, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved a new cancer drug from Eli Lilly. The company plans to make the drug available within days—and to spread the word by having sales reps, working from home, email doctors and set up remote meetings with slide presentations, and to run ads promoting the new medicine on websites aimed at health-care professionals. (Loftus and Hopkins, 5/11)

The Guardian: Soaring Drug Prices Could Bar Access To Future Coronavirus Treatments
Existing drugs may help us get through the coronavirus pandemic while we wait for a vaccine, but high pricing by pharmaceutical companies will probably mean that, even if these drugs are proven to be effective, many sick people will still be prevented from getting treatment. A study published this month in the Journal of Virus Eradication looked at nine of the drugs that have been identified as possible Covid-19 treatments and are in various stages of clinical trials globally. The team of researchers looked at how much each of the drugs is sold for in countries where data was available. Then they calculated what a generic version of these drugs might cost. (Chalabi, 5/11)

The Denver Channel: How Much Will COVID-19 Treatment Remdesivir Actually Cost?
The drug Remdesivir has been hailed as a potentially life-saving treatment to fight the novel coronvirus. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases recently said, “Hospitalized patients with advanced COVID-19 and lung involvement who received Remdesivir recovered faster than similar patients who received placebo." But how much will it cost as more hospitals and doctors use it? (St. George, 5/11)

Stat: Maryland Governor Vetoes Funding For A Prescription Drug Affordability Board
In a surprise move, Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan vetoed state funding for a “Prescription Drug Affordability Board,” which was created last year to establish maximum prices that the state and local governments will pay for “high-cost” medicines. The entity is designed to function like rate-setting boards that regulate what public utilities can charge residents. The board emerged last year after the U.S. Supreme Court scuttled a state law that aimed to bar drug makers from “price gouging” consumers. The pharmaceutical industry opposed its creation by arguing it was a form of price controls and, ultimately, would have limited choices for state residents. (Silverman, 5/8)

Stat: A New Trump Administration Rule Could Increase Out-Of-Pocket Drug Costs
Even as prescription drug costs remain an important pocketbook issue for many Americans, the Trump administration has taken a new step that will likely raise expenses for many patients, a move that consumer advocates find upsetting and puzzling. As part of a final rule setting standards for health benefits, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid will allow insurers and employers to exclude certain copay assistance programs, such as cards and coupons provided by drug makers, from counting toward deductibles and out-of-pocket maximums. The decision applies even when there is no generic alternative to a pricey, brand-name drug. (Silverman, 5/8)

Modern Healthcare: 340B Hospitals Say It's A Bad Time To Collect Drug Cost Info
Safety-net hospitals want CMS to stop trying to collect information about how much they pay for drugs eligible for discounts under the 340B drug pricing program, according to the hosipitals' lobbying group. CMS shouldn't launch its survey of drug acquisition costs during the COVID-19 pandemic because it will "create a heavy burden on hospitals" already struggling with limited resources, America's Essential Hospitals said in a letter to CMS on Wednesday. (Brady, 5/7)

Stat: Trump Administration Proposes A Medicare Pay Bump For CAR-T Therapies
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services proposed a major payment bump for hospitals administering the cutting-edge gene therapies known as CAR-T treatments late Monday. It’s a direct response to longstanding criticisms from the pharmaceutical industry, patient advocates, and hospitals that said Medicare’s subpar reimbursement rates for the new therapies — which can have list prices upward of $450,000 per patient — forced hospitals to choose between losing money or declining to offer the therapies at all. (Florko, 5/12)

Stat: MyoKardia Drug Is A ‘Potential Game Changer’ For Heart Condition
An experimental drug to treat an inherited, progressive heart disease clearly improved the symptoms of patients, its maker, MyoKardia, said Monday. The full data have not yet been published or reviewed by outside experts. But cardiologists called the top-line results alone a big step forward for patients with the disorder, called hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, or HCM. In the disorder, the wall of the left ventricle, the chamber of the heart that pumps blood throughout the body, thickens and the heart’s pumping action becomes less effective. (Herper, 5/11)

The Wall Street Journal: Biotech CEOs Share Ideas For Coping With Coronavirus
When the pandemic struck, biotechnology chief executives suddenly faced questions about how to keep their workers safe, their research moving and their budgets intact.“ We had to as CEOs start to develop what we hoped to be best practices in totally uncharted territory, and we had to do it quickly,” said Kazumi Shiosaki, CEO of Twentyeight-Seven Inc., a Watertown, Mass., startup seeking to modulate RNA to treat cancer and other diseases. (Gormley, 5/6)

Stat: Prominent Broad Institute Scientist Leaves To Lead R&D At Genentech
A star scientist in the world of single-cell genomics and computational biology is leaving academia to become one of the few women leading R&D at a biotech company. Aviv Regev, a core institute member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, will become head of Genentech research and early development effective Aug. 1, its parent company, Roche (RHBBY), announced Monday. She will join the Swiss biopharma company’s corporate executive committee and report to Roche CEO Severin Schwan. (Cooney, 5/11)

Bloomberg Law: Gilead’s Covid Treatment Rekindles Push To Rein In Prices
Gilead Sciences Inc., maker of the novel coronavirus treatment remdesivir, faces a challenge from advocates of drug-pricing controls who want to set an example for the pharmaceutical industry. Some lawmakers in Congress and advocacy groups aligned with Democrats are making the case to include in the next Covid-19 response package provisions to deny drugmakers such as Gilead exclusive rights to treatments and vaccines for the virus, as well as require price transparency for companies bringing new medicines to market. (Ruoff, 5/5)

ABC News: FDA Approves Drug For Heart Failure That May Keep Patients Out Of The Hospital During COVID-19 Pandemic
AstraZeneca's diabetes drug, Farxiga, has become the first in its class to receive FDA approval as a treatment for heart failure. "It's great news for patients with this condition," said Dr. Mikhail N. Kosiborod, a cardiologist at Saint Luke's Mid America Heart Institute and vice president of research at Saint Luke's Health System, who investigated the efficacy and safety of the drug prior to its approval. Kosiborod said the newly approved drug -- which was initially developed as a diabetes drug -- will give patients "a new treatment option that's unlike any other heart failure medication. It works through a completely different mechanism of action and addresses all of the key objectives in treating patients with heart failure." (David, 5/8)

Modern Healthcare: Cardinal Health Accused Of Fraudulent Radiopharmaceutical Contracting Scheme
Cardinal Health allegedly paid kickbacks to veteran-owned small businesses to sell more radiopharmaceutical products, according to a recently unsealed False Claims Act lawsuit. The wholesale distribution giant would allegedly single out service-disabled and veteran-owned small businesses that were unqualified to handle drugs with small amounts of radioactive agents used for diagnosing and treating cancer via Positron Emission Tomography scans, among other applications. The whistleblower alleged that would give Cardinal unfair and illegal access to government contracts it would not have otherwise been entitled to, edging out other qualified small-business owners, according to the complaint filed in a Washington federal court in late 2017. (Kacik, 5/12)

MinnPost: Bipartisan Bill Addressing Prescription Drug Price Transparency Goes To Gov. Walz
A bill to address prescription drug price transparency — two years in the making — was sent to Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz Saturday, marking another example of how the high price of pharmaceuticals has become a bipartisan issue. The bill, Senate File 1098, requires pharmaceutical companies to report pricing information to the state when those prices exceed increases set out in the bill. The bill also requires the Minnesota Department of Health to post the information on a public website. (Callaghan, 5/10)

Stat: Apotex To Pay $24 Million To Settle Price Fixing Charges
In the latest fallout from a federal probe into generic drug price fixing, Apotex agreed to pay $24 million to resolve criminal charges of conspiring with other manufacturers, the fourth company to be charged as part of the long-running investigation. The company, which is based in Canada and is one of the world’s largest generic purveyors, admitted to working with several rivals to set prices for pravastatin, a commonly prescribed cholesterol medication, between 2013 and 2015, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. (Silverman, 5/8)

Newsweek: Yes, The Government Can Control The Cost Of A Coronavirus Vaccine
When I was diagnosed at age 32 with ALS, a debilitating disease that would give me a life expectancy of three to four years, my ability to access medicine became a matter of life and death. That's true for millions of Americans who rely on one or more drugs to stay alive. But something unusual is happening in our medical system today. Right now, there is one prescription drug that every single American needs urgently: a vaccine for the coronavirus. It's rare that the need for one drug can be so universal—so crucial to the health of everyone in the country, the health of the economy and the very stability of our society. (Ady Barkan, 5/7)

Stat: The Public Role In Drug Development: Lessons From Remdesivir 
The quest for vaccines and therapeutic treatments against Covid-19 shouldn’t be complicated or delayed by charged debates over patent rights, the respective public and private roles in biopharmaceutical innovation, and whether the U.S. government should use its legal powers to “break” patents in order to promote access to medicines. But it may be. Gilead’s antiviral drug remdesivir, for which the FDA recently granted emergency use authorization for Covid-19, is currently caught in the crosshairs of the debate. We suggest a path forward that could be useful in the remdesivir case and in others. (Justin Hughes and Ati K. Rai, 5/8)

Capital Gazette: Hogan Adds Insult To Injury With Veto Of Maryland Drug Affordability Act
You may not agree with Gov. Larry Hogan on business shut-downs and phased opening plans, but he has been calm and effective. He has demonstrated real concern for the health of Marylanders. Social distancing and other policies have helped Maryland avert a disaster similar to New York’s. Regardless, daily counts of new cases and deaths fluctuate, numbers were higher again last week after three days of decreasing numbers. It is alarming to see that Maryland just misses being in the top 10 states for total number of cases and is 10th in the number of deaths. (Janet Holbrook, 5/12)

Forbes: Safeguarding And Streamlining Pharma Supply Chain: Time For Mandating Certified Drugs
US pharmaceutical spending during the year 2020, is expected to top $400 billion. Americans spend about $1,200 on prescription drugs per year, the highest in the developed world. Generics are a critical cost reduction component of pharma spending; saving a whopping $2 trillion in the past ten years. 90% of the prescriptions are dispensed with generics, yet they account for only 26% of the drug spending. Without generic drugs, most private and public health programs would be cost-prohibitive. (Roomy Khan, 5/7)

The New York Times: The Coronavirus Is Just One Challenge The Navajo Nation Is Facing
Today the Navajo Nation is one of the worst hot spots in the country for Covid-19.Hundreds of miles of roads are unpaved, so it can take up to three hours to get a sick person to help. It’s difficult to self-isolate because families live in one-room homes called hogans. Up to 40 percent of Navajo households don’t have running water, making it hard to wash hands. Cellphone service and Wi-Fi are limited, so it’s difficult to keep in touch and to get information about the epidemic. It took six weeks after Congress allocated $8 billion for coronavirus relief for the Navajo Nation, along with 573 other recognized Native American tribes, to see any of the money. And so far, 102 people on my reservation have died. (Wahleah Johns, 5/13)

The Washington Post: Today’s Children Are The Pandemic Generation. For Millions, The Future Is Now Grim. 
While we are understandably consumed with the daily, seemingly unstoppable firehose of news about the most dangerous pandemic in a century, little attention has been paid to the long-term impact of this crisis on the world's most vulnerable children. It’s impossible to overstate what this crisis will mean for the pandemic generation. This prolonged, unpredictable and highly contagious disease is upending their education, family lives, social relationships, resiliency and opportunities to pull themselves out of multigenerational cycles of poverty. The result might be a chasmic gap between relatively affluent children and those in poverty deeper than at any other time in modern history. (Irwin Redlener and Karen B. Redlener, 4/12)

Boston Globe: Mid-Coronavirus Pandemic, A Return To Normal Is A Failure
We have failed to address abuse in this country. We have failed to address the gun culture. We have failed to address systemic inequalities. And we failed even before the coronavirus pandemic swept our planet. (Rania Batrice, 5/12)

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Virus’ Effect On Ga. Economy Hurting Latino Workers
In various professional fields and across many industries — construction, poultry processing, agriculture and manufacturing — the Latino workforce has been critical in making Georgia an economic powerhouse. Hispanics’ strong work ethic and high workforce participation rates have contributed to Georgia’s standing as the number-one state for business. Now, as businesses large and small hurt in the midst of the COVID-19 epidemic, Latino families are also on the front lines of the collapsing economy. And while millions of Americans are getting relief, many immigrants who have called Georgia home for a generation are missing out. The COVID-19-infused economic crisis threatens to upend years of economic progress and cripple the very workforce that has helped Georgia thrive. (Anibal Torres, 5/12)

Stat: As A Black Man, I Think Twice About Wearing A Face Mask In Public 
The Covid-19 pandemic is putting me in a difficult position as a physician and as a Black man. The order to wear a face mask in public has made it worse... With the emergence of Covid-19, I’ve spent time weighing the pros and cons of wearing a face mask on evening walks to pick up takeout food or to go to the grocery store. I often opted not to wear one so I wouldn’t be perceived as appearing “suspicious.” My decision-making went as far as limiting how often I went out after dark, knowing that some people will see a masked Black man as a threat. (Gabriel Felix, 5/13)

WBUR: Why America Can’t Stop COVID
This conception of liberty, of course, doesn’t extend to African-American men who are gunned down while jogging. Nor to the hundreds of laborers — most of them people of color — that Trump has ordered back to work in virus-ridden meat-packing plants. As COVID continues to ravage minority populations, the GOP’s inaction has come to look like something closer to eugenics by default. If the disease were killing whites disproportionately, you can be sure the federal response would be far more vigorous. (Steve Almond, 5/13)

The New York Times: Nobody Is Protected From President Trump 
I’ve heard of Muslim women in America being taunted for wearing hijabs, I’ve heard of Jewish men being mocked for wearing yarmulkes and now I’ve heard it all: A friend of mine was cursed by a passing stranger the other day for wearing a protective mask. There is, of course, a rather nasty virus going around, and one way to lessen the chance of its spread, especially from you to someone else, is to cover your nose and mouth. Call it civic responsibility. Call it science. ...On Monday the White House belatedly introduced a policy of mask-wearing in the West Wing — but it exempted President Trump. See what I mean about mask as metaphor? Trump demands protection from everybody around him, but nobody is protected from Trump. Story of America. (Frank Bruni, 5/12)

CNN: Trump's Refusal To Wear A Mask Is The Most Revealing Thing
"One of the curses of American society is the simple act of shaking hands," wrote the longtime germaphobe, now President Donald Trump, in his 1997 book, "The Art of the Comeback." Entering politics, he had to get used to this form of contact, but still avoided it whenever possible. This makes his refusal to wear protective gear in public, and his enthusiastic shaking of hands for the cameras once the coronavirus hit America, in defiance of experts' counsels to avoid the practice, all the more curious. (Ruth Ben-Ghiat, 5/12)

The New York Times: San Francisco Beat Coronavirus, But It's Breaking My Heart
One sun-drenched afternoon last month, I took a long solo bike ride through the San Francisco Bay Area. I rode from my home to Mountain View, near the once-desolate stretch of marsh that Google has leased from NASA to build a monumental new campus. It looks like a collection of lunar bases made out of origami. Construction has been paused under lockdown, and on the fetid plains surrounding the million-square-foot project, birds sang and wildflowers painted the horizon, and the trails that run beside the site were packed to socially distant capacity with masked families on foot and wheel. (Farhad Manjoo, 5/13)

CNN: Don't Let Governors Fool You About Reopening
Many governors are opening up their states as part of the White House effort to reopen the country. But as a pandemic expert who has been warning about diseases like Covid-19 for nearly 15 years, my message to Americans is simple: save yourselves, your families and your communities by staying at home and ignoring your governor's "ludicrous" policies. (Yaneer Bar-Yam, 5/12)

Modern Healthcare: Healthcare Providers Risking Their Lives Deserve Hazard Pay
While the CARES Act signed into law in late March provided valuable support to small businesses and providers who faced furloughs and layoffs because of the crisis, the American Association of Nurse Anesthetists calls on Congress to go further by incentivizing and properly compensating the front-line healthcare workers who continue to put their lives on the line. To that end, the AANA strongly supports fair and equitable hazard pay that is available to all healthcare providers retroactive to the beginning of the crisis. (Randall D. Moore, 5/12)

The New York Times: We’re All Casualties Of Trump’s War On Coronavirus Science 
In 2004, “60 Minutes” aired a segment on what it called “virus hunters,” scientists searching for bugs that can leap from animals to humans and cause pandemics. “What worries me the most is that we are going to miss the next emerging disease,” said a scientist named Peter Daszak, describing his fear of a coronavirus “that moves from one part of the planet to another, wiping out people as it moves along.”In the intervening years, Daszak became president of the EcoHealth Alliance, a nonprofit research organization focused on emerging pandemics. EcoHealth worked with China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology to study coronaviruses in bats that could infect humans, and, as Science magazine put it, “to develop tools that could help researchers create diagnostics, treatments and vaccines for human outbreaks.” Since 2014, the EcoHealth Alliance has received a grant from the National Institutes of Health, until its funding was abruptly cut two weeks ago. (Michelle Goldberg, 5/11)

Detroit Free Press: Plandemic's 'Hidden Agenda' Behind COVID-19 Is Just Misinformation
The links to the viral video “Plandemic” started showing up in my Facebook feed last week. “Very interesting,” one of my friends wrote about it. I saw several subsequent posts about it, and then my brother texted me, “Got a sec?” My brother is a pastor in Colorado and had someone he respects urge him to watch “Plandemic,” a 26-minute video that promises to reveal the “hidden agenda” behind the COVID-19 pandemic. I called him and he shared his concern: People seem to be taking the conspiracy theories presented in “Plandemic” seriously. He wondered if I could write something up that he could pass along to them, to help people distinguish between sound reporting and conspiracy thinking or propaganda. (Marshall Allen, 5/12)

Los Angeles Times: Vaccines Are Poison, Says Shop Owner With Coronavirus Mask Ban 
By the time I got to the Simi Valley flooring shop late Monday morning, the controversial signs had been hauled inside, and the store was locked up tight. Peering through the window of Ramsay One Construction, I could see why they had caused such a fuss. There were four of them; white paint on plywood slabs about four feet high and two feet wide:“We’re OPEN – to the truth.”“No Masks Allowed.” “Hand shakes OK.” “Hugs Very OK.” (Robin Abacarian, 5/12)

CNN: Fauci Warns Of Colossal, Deadly Mistake. Will Trump Listen?
Dr. Anthony Fauci and the other experts at the top tiers of the American public health system have been clear: Reopening the nation without adhering to the clear guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) would be a colossal, deadly mistake. But will states, and even the Trump administration, listen? (Jill Filipovic, 5/12)

The New York Times: How Accurate Are Antibody Tests?
Whether you think the country is reopening too fast or too slowly (or whether you think “it depends”), almost everyone agrees that testing should be critical to the next phase of our coronavirus existence. In particular, antibody tests that detect whether a person has developed immunity to the virus seem to offer a promising path forward. But what does a positive antibody test mean? It means you should feel confident that you can work, shop and socialize without getting sick or infecting others, right?Not so fast. (Todd Haugh and Suneal Bedi, 5/13)

The Wall Street Journal: In Lockdown, Pot And Booze Are Bad News 
When my patients ask how to manage depression and avoid anxiety in isolation, I tell them to abstain from alcohol and marijuana. Responsible use of these substances is possible during normal times, and it’s tempting to reach for a drink or a joint to take the edge off. But lockdown is a recipe for overindulgence and dependence. Booze and pot can offer temporary relief and comfort, but this benefit is short-lived and ultimately can be self-destructive. Both can contribute to psychological distress, fatigue and even paranoia when used regularly. And drinking is associated with domestic violence, which has been on the rise during this crisis. (Erica Komisar, 5/12)

Stat: Psychiatry Residents Provide Good Medical Care For Covid-19 
As the number of Americans with Covid-19 rapidly rises, doctors are among them, having no special immunity to the virus. They are being quarantined in large numbers, leaving hospitals short of staff to care for the influx of Covid-19 patients. In response, these facilities have started redeploying specialists like ophthalmologists, dermatologists, and even psychiatry residents like us to treat patients on coronavirus floors... We believe that if you are afflicted with Covid-19 and have a psychiatry resident as your doctor, there is no need to panic. In fact, there may even be some important benefits. (Jack Turban and Chase T.M. Anderson, 5/13)

CNN: My Son's Fight With Kawasaki Disease Taught Me To Trust My Instincts
The latest pandemic news has many parents on edge. If we didn't have enough to worry about already during this pandemic, parents now have another dire warning from medical experts. A rare inflammatory disease, similar to toxic shock syndrome and Kawasaki disease, is affecting children... Parents are afraid, with good reason -- especially if they are the parent of a black or brown child. (Roxanne Jones, 5/12)

The New York Times: Amid Covid-19, A Call For M.D.’s To Mail The Abortion Pill
Last fall, months before America’s first outbreak of the coronavirus, Francine Coeytaux and Elisa Wells, co-founders of the abortion rights advocacy group Plan C, were reaching out to doctors with a question they said was urgent: “Would you be willing to mail the ‘abortion pills’ to women in their homes?” For millions of women across America, abortion access was already severely limited — the result of restrictive new laws that have forced dozens of clinics to close their doors. Now, with the spread of Covid-19, some states have classified abortions as “nonessential,” putting access to the procedure even further out of reach. (Patrick Adams, 5/12)

Stat: Palliative Care Needs Tweaking In The Coronavirus Era 
“This is my fault. I’m the one who got her sick,” my patient’s son tells me via video call. “And I saw the pictures on the news. I saw what they’re doing to the bodies in New York, piling them onto trucks...” I am a palliative care physician. I manage symptoms like pain, shortness of breath, and nausea for patients with serious illnesses, including those near the ends of their lives. I also counsel my patients and their families on how they might approach important medical decisions they need, or might need, to make... After more than a month embedded in my hospital’s intensive care unit for patients with Covid-19, though, I’ve become increasingly unsure about how to effectively do my job. (Richard E. Leiter, 5/13)