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By March 14, London Breed, the mayor of San Francisco, had seen enough. For weeks, she and her health officials had looked at data showing the evolving threat of COVID-19. In response, she’d issued a series of orders limiting the size of public gatherings, each one feeling more arbitrary than the last. She’d been persuaded that her city’s considerable and highly regarded health care system might be insufficient for the looming onslaught of infection and death. “We need to shut this shit down,” Breed remembered thinking. Three days later in New York, Mayor Bill de Blasio was thinking much the same thing. (Sexton and Sapien, 5/16)

The United States is heading toward more than 100,000 coronavirus deaths by June 1, with leading mortality forecasts still trending upward, CDC Director Robert Redfield tweeted on Friday. His assessment cited 12 different models tracked by his agency and marked the first time Redfield has explicitly addressed the grim milestone of 100,000 deaths, even as the Trump administration turns its strategy toward reopening the economy. The CDC director has been mostly sidelined in the government’s public-facing response to the Covid-19 pandemic. (Luthi, 5/15)

Months after the virus began spreading, only about 3 percent of the population has been tested for it, leaving its true scale and path unknown even as it continues to sicken and kill people at alarming rates. More than 20,000 new cases are identified on most days. And almost every day this past week, more than 1,000 Americans died from the virus. (Bosman, Harmon and Smith, 5/16)

In a telephone appearance during a televised charity golf exhibition on Sunday, President Trump enthusiastically supported the return of live sports events during the coronavirus pandemic. “We want to get sports back, we miss sports,” Trump said. “We need sports in terms of the psyche of our country. And that’s what we’re doing.” On Sunday, at roughly the halfway point of a skins game match involving four of the PGA Tour’s top golfers — Rory McIlroy, Dustin Johnson, Rickie Fowler and Matthew Wolff — Trump praised NBC for carrying the event, then called for a more robust resumption of activities in all sports. (Pennington, 5/17)

“After that, hopefully, it will be back,” Trump said in his interview with NBC host Mike Tirico. “We really want to see it back to normal so when we have all these thousands, tens of thousands of people going to your majors and going to golf tournaments, we want them to be having that same experience. We don’t want them having to wear masks and be doing what we’ve been doing for the last number of months. Because that’s not getting back to normal. “We want to be back to normal where you have the big crowds, and they’re practically standing on top of each other and they’re enjoying themselves, not where they’re worried,” he said. “But in the meantime, they do the social distancing, and they practice that. And they’ve been doing really well. The country is ready to start moving forward.” (Ferguson, 5/17)

“I’m getting a little tired of watching 10-year-old golf tournaments [on television] where you know who won,” Trump said. Trump called the sports channel after returning to the White House from Camp David. “I do miss it. I haven’t played, really, since this problem that we have started, I haven’t been able to play golf for a while, I’ve been very busy,” Trump said. (Breuniger, 5/17)

Major sports leagues in the U.S. have suspended competition amid the pandemic. The Trump administration convened league commissioners for an advisory panel that held one conference call in April, but it's unclear whether it's been active since.(Samuels, 5/17)

Robbie Gould, the San Francisco 49ers’ kicker, couldn’t believe his luck when a local store told him it had a line on a product he desperately wanted. The NFL star finally had his very own golf pushcart. Mr. Gould never had a pushcart because he never needed one. It is essentially a piece of metal with a few wheels attached that makes lugging a bag of clubs around a golf course slightly easier. It’s a device historically associated with grandparents who sign up for 6 a.m. tee times at local municipal courses. (Beaton, 5/17)

The government’s halting response to the coronavirus pandemic represents the culmination of chronic structural weaknesses, years of underinvestment and political rhetoric that has undermined the public trust — conditions compounded by President Trump’s open hostility to a federal bureaucracy that has been called upon to manage the crisis. Federal government leaders, beginning with the president, appeared caught unaware by the swiftness with which the coronavirus was spreading through the country — though this was not the first time that an administration seemed ill-prepared for an unexpected shock. But even after the machinery of government clanked into motion, missteps, endemic obstacles and lack of clear communication have plagued the efforts to meet the needs of the nation. (Balz, 5/16)

Tensions between the White House and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention spilled out into public view on Sunday as a top adviser to President Trump criticized the public health agency’s response to the novel coronavirus pandemic. The comments by White House trade adviser Peter Navarro are the latest signal of how the Trump administration has sought to sideline the CDC. The agency typically plays the lead role in public health crises, but in recent weeks it’s had its draft guidance for reopening held up by the White House, leaving states and localities to largely fend for themselves. (Sonmez and Fears, 5/17)

White House trade adviser Peter Navarro on Sunday faulted the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on its handling of coronavirus testing, saying the CDC “really let the country down.” NBC’s Chuck Todd asked Navarro on “Meet the Press” about the lack of a CDC briefings over the past month and whether President Trump has “confidence” in the CDC during the pandemic. (Budryk, 5/17)

Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar championed the Trump administration’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic in a pair of Sunday news show appearances — his first major ones since March 1 amid reports the health official has been sidelined in the White House’s public-facing Covid-19 response. Azar on Sunday defended the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, despite the agency’s delays in rolling out a coronavirus test earlier this year. He also confirmed, but downplayed, the laboratory contamination problem that had reportedly delayed the testing rollout. (Beavers, 5/17)

Two of President Donald Trump's top officials are now pointing the finger at the administration's own scientists and Americans' pre-existing health conditions to explain the country's world-leading Covid-19 death toll. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar suggested Sunday that underlying health conditions, including among minorities, were one reason for the high American death toll -- nearly 90,000 as of Sunday evening. And Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro added the government's own Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to its list of scapegoats alongside China and the Obama administration. (Collinson, 5/18)

Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said Sunday that reports of people crowding in bars across the country as some states lift restrictions is “part of the freedom” Americans have. “I think in any individual instance you're going to see people doing things that are irresponsible. That’s part of the freedom that we have here in America,” Azar said on CNN’s “State of the Union” when asked about images of crowds at a bar in Columbus, Ohio, as well as similar situations across the country. (Klar, 5/17)

Former Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Scott Gottlieb called on the Trump administration to avoid sidelining the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal published Sunday evening. Gottlieb wrote in his column that the CDC has released less information than is customary during public health emergencies, and argued that information about the coronavirus is not being shared with the public in an adequate fashion. (Bowden, 5/17)

Four months into the U.S. coronavirus outbreak, tests for the virus finally are becoming widely available, a crucial step toward lifting stay-at-home orders and safely returning to normal life. But while many states no longer report crippling supply shortages, a new problem has emerged: too few people lining up to get tested. A Washington Post survey of governors’ offices and state health departments found at least a dozen states where testing capacity outstrips the supply of patients. Many have scrambled to make testing more convenient, especially for vulnerable communities, by setting up pop-up sites and developing apps that help assess symptoms, find free test sites and deliver quick results. (Thompson, Eilperin and Dennis, 5/17)

With ample coronavirus tests and not enough sick people seeking them, the mayor of Los Angeles recently did something on a scale no other major U.S. city had done — allow anyone with or without symptoms to be tested as often as they want. A website to book a test was quickly swamped by residents in the nation’s second-largest city and the surrounding county who couldn’t get tested under more stringent guidelines and were concerned they were infected or could be asymptomatic carriers unwittingly exposing others. (Melley, 5/16)

President Donald Trump expressed no concerns Friday about a rapid coronavirus test that the White House has been relying on to ensure his safety, despite new data suggesting the test may return an inordinate share of false negatives. Trump expressed his confidence in the test from Abbott Laboratories after a preliminary study by New York University researchers reported problems with it. Trump and his deputies have promoted the 15-minute test as a “game changer” and have been using it for weeks now to try to keep the White House complex safe. (Colvin, Perrone and Madhani, 5/15)

“It’s a very quick test, and it can always be very rapidly double-checked if you’re testing positive or negative,” he said. “It can always be double-checked, but it’s a very good test. Very portable. Very quick.” The president’s remarks came after researchers at New York University found earlier this week that Abbott’s test, run on a machine called ID NOW, did not identify many infections caught by Cepheid’s Xpert Xpress PCR test, which can return results in less than 45 minutes. (Forgey, 5/15)

The Food and Drug Administration on Saturday granted emergency clearance for a coronavirus testing kit that will enable individuals to take a nasal sample at home and send it to a laboratory for diagnostic testing, the second such approval it has made. Dr. Jeffrey Shuren, director of the agency’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health, said in a statement that the new test “not only provides increased patient access to tests, but also protects others from potential exposure.” Health care workers can risk infection when they administer diagnostic tests. (Kaplan, 5/16)

An at-home coronavirus testing project in Seattle backed in part by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation said on Saturday it was working with U.S. regulators to resume the program after being suspended by the Food and Drug Administration. The Seattle Coronavirus Assessment Network (SCAN), which aims to monitor the spread of the novel coronavirus in the region, had said it was suspending its testing of patient samples collected at home after the Food and Drug Administration tightened guidelines to require emergency approval first. (5/16)

Antibody tests and “immunity passports” were supposed to be the great hope for safely reopening the economy. The problem is many of the more than 120 tests on the market are inaccurate. And scientists don’t really yet understand how much immunity antibodies confer or how long it lasts. But these tests — and the apps to promote them — are gaining traction among businesses and consumers eager to know who has been exposed to the virus, raising the risk that people will be relying on faulty results to promote their immunity from the coronavirus. (Kenen, 5/18)

President Trump has proclaimed the latest phase of pandemic response the “transition to greatness.” But Trump appears poised to preside over the eventual transition more as a salesman and marketer than a decider. Many consequential actions are being done by others. The nation’s governors are overseeing their states’ plans to reopen their economies. Business leaders are making their own choices about how their employees can safely and responsibly return to work. Treasury officials are negotiating with Congress the details of financial stimulus packages. And scientists and public health officials are leading the race for a vaccine. (Parker and Rucker, 5/17)

As President Donald Trump urges businesses across the country to reopen and Americans to return to work, he and his administration are projecting a sense of normal after months of disruption because of the coronavirus. Trump is spending the week meeting with governors and restaurant executives at the White House, while Vice President Mike Pence will travel to Florida to meet with Gov. Ron DeSantis and deliver personal protective equipment to a nursing home. (Cook, 5/18)

It was a jarring sight in the Rose Garden this past Monday as one top administration official after another — senior adviser Jared Kushner, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, press secretary Kayleigh McEnany — all walked to their seats wearing crisp medical masks. Just that morning I had watched a string of senior aides arrive at the West Wing without any type of face covering, even after two staffers were diagnosed with the coronavirus days earlier. (Pettypiece, 5/17)

President Trump took aim at CBS News and its flagship news magazine program, "60 Minutes," on Sunday after the program interviewed whistleblower Rick Bright, former head of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA). In a tweet, the president excoriated CBS and its "third place anchor, @NorahODonnell," whom he accused of "doing everything in their power to demean our Country, much to the benefit of the Radical Left Democrats." (Bowden, 5/17)

President Trump will head to Michigan for the first time since the coronavirus pandemic began on Thursday where he will tour a Ford plant currently producing ventilators for hospitals. White House spokesman Judd Deere made the announcement on Twitter Sunday evening, linking to Crain's Detroit Business, which first reported the news. (Bowden, 5/17)

The White House is on the cusp of negotiating another giant economic rescue package with Congress, but it’s weighing a new top congressional liaison. It’s facing numerous coronavirus-related domestic policy crises, from health care to immigration to education, yet is getting a new head of its Domestic Policy Council. Unemployment is soaring and businesses are worried about the economic landscape even after the pandemic recedes, but the head of President Donald Trump’s Council of Economic Advisers has not been seen much in weeks — though a former CEA chair is back in the spotlight as an unpaid adviser. (Cook, 5/18)

Nursing homes have been directed to report the number of coronavirus infections and deaths to the federal government by midnight Sunday so that health officials can assess the damage the pandemic has inflicted on sick and elderly residents and their caregivers in more than 15,000 homes nationwide. Collecting the data marks the U.S. government’s first attempt to quantify the virus’s impact since an initial outbreak in a Seattle home three months ago killed more than 40 people and then spread to more than 1 in 4 nursing homes nationwide. (Sacchetti, 5/17)

Nursing homes operated by Life Care Centers of America, one of the largest chains in the industry, violated federal standards meant to stop the spread of infections and communicable diseases even after outbreaks and deaths from covid-19 began to sweep its facilities from the Pacific Northwest to New England, inspection reports show. Over the past six weeks, as the nationwide death toll among the elderly soared, government inspectors discovered breakdowns in infection control and prevention at at least 10 Life Care nursing homes that underwent covid-19 inspections overseen by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. (Cenziper, King, Mulcahy and Jacobs, 5/17)

Residents have fallen ill with the new coronavirus in both the Worcester, Massachusetts, nursing homes where Kwaku Tsibo Bondah works. Protective equipment is in short supply, he said, and many of his colleagues have tested positive or are calling in sick because they’re afraid to come to work. (Quinton, 5/18)

Postpartum hemorrhage often leads to a dangerous drop in blood pressure and can quickly turn deadly — a mother in childbirth can bleed to death in five minutes. It is the leading cause of death during childbirth in Louisiana, which has had one of the highest rates of dying mothers over the past few years. (Woodruff, 5/16)

The state will begin publicly naming homes with at least one case of coronavirus. The move marks an abrupt turn toward transparency from the position the state has held for the last six weeks, when it was reporting infections and deaths only in aggregate, without naming any homes or hinting at the extent of the outbreak in any particular facility. (Roberts III, 5/16)

Nearly 5,000 people have died from COVID-19 in long-term care facilities in New Jersey. Some of the worst outbreaks have occurred at two of the state's homes for veterans. (Solomon, 5/15)

More than 100 countries, led by the European Union and Australia, have backed a resolution to independently review the global response to the coronavirus pandemic and the question of whether the World Health Organization acted to the best of its limited powers to contain the disease. It isn’t clear if the resolution, to be considered at a WHO summit likely on Tuesday, will be blocked by the Trump administration, which has pushed for an inquiry much more squarely targeted at China. Nor is it clear if Beijing will accept the resolution since China has opposed any inquiry that could blame the country for its failure to stop the virus when it first emerged in the central Hubei province. (Norman and Hinshaw, 5/17)

The proposal is intended to initiate “a stepwise process of impartial, independent and comprehensive evaluation” of WHO’s efforts to coordinate the international response to COVID-19, including the functioning of international health law and its actions within the greater U.N. health system. The move comes amid Australia’s call for an independent inquiry into the origins of the pandemic and WHO’s response to it — and after U.S. President Donald Trump’s repeated accusations that WHO helped China cover up the extent of the initial COVID-19 outbreak. Trump has also called for an immediate halt to all U.S. funding to the U.N. health agency. (Keaten and Cheng, 5/18)

China’s foreign ministry said on Monday it was premature to immediately launch an investigation into the origins and spread of the coronavirus that has killed more than 300,000 people globally. Spokesman Zhao Lijian told reporters during a daily briefing that the vast majority of countries in the world believe the pandemic is not yet over. The ministry said in a separate statement that President Xi Jinping will give a video speech for the opening ceremony of the World Health Assembly later on Monday. (5/18)

The World Health Organization's annual oversight convention will be held by teleconference beginning Monday, as the worst pandemic in modern history continues around the globe. The 73rd annual World Health Assembly typically brings together representatives from the WHO's 194 member states in Geneva to discuss a wide range of health topics. However, this year's meeting will be held by teleconference for the first-time ever. (Beaubien, 5/17)

In response to the global race to combat the Covid-19 pandemic, the World Health Organization embraced a proposal Friday to create a voluntary pool to collect patent rights, regulatory test data, and other information that could be shared for developing drugs, vaccines, and diagnostics. The notion was raised several weeks ago by Costa Rican officials amid mounting concern that some Covid-19 medical products may not be accessible for poorer populations. By establishing a voluntary mechanism under the auspices of the WHO, the goal is to establish a pathway that will attract numerous governments, as well as industry, universities and nonprofit organizations. (Silverman, 5/15)

President Trump is again considering cutting off funding to the World Health Organization, administration officials said, in a possible shift from a prior plan to restore partial funding to the group. Officials said the president hasn’t yet made a final decision on how to proceed, but he appeared to now be skeptical of an internal proposal to provide reduced funding to the WHO on par with what China contributes. Instead, the president is weighing extending a temporary funding halt that he put in place in April amid frustration with the WHO’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, the officials said. (Restuccia, 5/17)

A senior Chinese official appeared to confirm Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s allegation that Beijing had told labs in the country to destroy coronavirus samples in early January but slammed his characterization as misleading. In a May 6 press briefing, Mr. Pompeo accused China of covering up the Covid-19 outbreak as it emerged in the central city of Wuhan, saying China’s National Health Commission had ordered destruction of samples of the virus on Jan. 3. (Chin, 5/16)

The Trump administration on Friday rolled out a hyper-ambitious plan to develop and manufacture hundreds of millions of Covid-19 vaccine doses by the end of 2020, outlining an aggressive process that, if successful, would shatter conventional wisdom about the typical process for developing vaccines for emerging infectious diseases. At a Rose Garden press conference, the president and his deputies acknowledged their goal, dubbed “Operation Warp Speed,” was lofty. Trump said the project was “risky and expensive.” Gustave Perna, a four-star general who oversees logistics for the U.S. Army, called the task “Herculean.” (Facher, 5/15)

President Donald Trump vowed to use “every plane, truck and soldier” to distribute COVID-19 vaccines he hopes will be ready by year’s end — even as the country’s top scientists gear up for a master experiment to rapidly tell if any really work. Trump on Friday declared the vaccine program he calls “Operation Warp Speed” will be “unlike anything our country has seen since the Manhattan Project.” The goal is to have 300 million doses in stock by January, a huge gamble since a vaccine never has been created from scratch so fast — and one that could waste millions if shots chosen for the production line don’t pan out. (Neergaard and Miller, 5/15)

Moncef Slaoui, who left GlaxoSmithKline in 2017, will be chief scientist of what the administration has deemed Operation Warp Speed. "That means big and it means fast," Trump said, comparing the operation to the Manhattan Project, a program to develop an atomic bomb that employed more than 100,000 people. Army Gen. Gustave Perna will be the chief operating officer for the project. Trump said Operation Warp Speed is evaluating 14 vaccine candidates. "We're looking to get it by the end of the year, maybe before," he added. But Trump said that a lack of a vaccine would not prevent the United States from reopening. (Lim and Brennan, 5/15)

The first coronavirus vaccine to be tested in people appears to be safe and able to stimulate an immune response against the virus, its manufacturer, Moderna announced on Monday. The findings are based on results from the first eight people who each received two doses of the vaccine, starting in March. Those people, healthy volunteers, made antibodies that were then tested in human cells in the lab, and were able to stop the virus from replicating — the key requirement for an effective vaccine. The levels of those so-called neutralizing antibodies matched the levels found in patients who had recovered after contracting the virus in the community. (Grady, 5/18)

A coronavirus vaccine likely won't be available for widespread distribution until 2021, former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said Sunday. The health expert said there are a "lot of uncertainties" when going from scaling up manufacturing of a vaccine from an experimental basis to get quantities available for the wider population. "When you try to scale up and get volume, a lot of things can go wrong, a lot of things can be delayed. It's very hard to get to the point where you're manufacturing at high, high quantities," Gottlieb said on CBS's "Face the Nation." (Klar, 5/17)

A vaccine for the novel coronavirus is possible by the end of the year, but he wouldn’t “bank on it,” the director of the Center for Health Security of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health said Sunday. “We should hold out some level of hope that if everything goes in the right direction, we could possibly be seeing a vaccine by the end of the year,” Dr. Tom Inglesby said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.“ (Cohen, 5/17)

A coronavirus vaccine by year’s end is possible, but not something to “bank on,” a leading public health expert warned Sunday as the Trump administration continued to push for swift business reopenings in a bid to revive the battered U.S. economy. Aides to President Trump have touted vaccine prospects, but they’ve also tried to de-couple significant progress toward an immunization protocol from the need to return to workplaces, schools and public life, as many states are now moving to do. (King, 5/17)

Governments and drugmakers are weighing how to roll out coronavirus vaccines, including reserving the first batches for health-care workers, as several shots race to early leads. Of more than 100 vaccines in development globally, at least eight have started testing in humans, including candidates from Moderna Inc. and Pfizer Inc. At the same time, pharmaceutical giants like Johnson & Johnson, AstraZeneca PLC and Sanofi are building capacity to make hundreds of millions of doses of their own or their partners’ vaccines. (Loftus, 5/17)

Kaiser Health News: Drugmakers Tout COVID-19 Vaccines To Refurbish Their Public Image

Johnson & Johnson researchers working on a vaccine against the coronavirus are “just like the heroes in the hospitals” fighting to save patients, J&J CEO Alex Gorsky said on the “Today” show a few weeks ago. It’s a message he likes to deliver. In recent weeks, Gorsky has talked about J&J’s efforts on NBC’s “Today” and twice on CNBC and Fox. Nobody asked him about high drug prices, J&J’s role in the opioid crisis or lawsuits alleging its baby powder caused cancer. (Hancock, 5/18)

Bay Area researchers’ proximity to leading health care centers and Silicon Valley has given them a leading role in developing drugs to treat COVID-19. It could also give local companies and institutions a leg up in the global race to create a vaccine. Several have set out to create a highly effective product that can be distributed widely. (Morris, 5/17)

Even before President Trump started plugging chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine as Covid-19 treatments, enthusiasm for the old malaria drugs was swelling in the state of Utah... Propelled by that hype, as well as mounting fears of the oncoming pandemic, the state pursued a sweeping — and eyebrow-raising — policy that would have let pharmacies dispense the unproven medications to patients with Covid-19 without a prescription. Utah, which took perhaps the most aggressive strategy with the drugs of any state, also put in an order for $800,000 worth of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine to build a stockpile, and considered buying millions of dollars more. (Joseph, 5/18)

He joined Walgreens around a decade ago, fresh out of pharmacy school and eager to learn. Like many new grads, he started as a floater — a substitute for employees who call out sick or take vacation — and he was floated as far as he was willing to go. Sometimes he would drive hours east of the Dallas area, where he lived, to pick up shifts in rural Texas, sleeping in hotels for days at a time. The pharmacist, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media, eventually worked his way up to become a full-time manager at a store in Dallas. But recently he’s returned to floating, this time at CVS, preferring its flexible hours. In the past three months, he’s traveled between 10 stores. (Kofman, 5/18)

A judge this weekend denied convicted pharmaceutical executive Martin Shkreli’s request to leave prison so he could research a treatment for the novel coronavirus, after officials dismissed his rationale as the type of “delusional self-aggrandizing behavior” that got him locked up. Shkreli, who gained notoriety as the “Pharma Bro” executive who raised the price of an AIDS drug by 5,000 percent, has been serving a seven-year sentence at a low-security prison in Allenwood, Pa., since his 2017 conviction for defrauding investors. (Mettler and Knowles, 5/17)

In her ruling Saturday, U.S. District Judge Kiyo Matsumoto sided with probation officials who described Shkreli's stated aim of developing a coronavirus cure as the type of "delusional self-aggrandizing behavior" that got him his sentence in the first place. "The court does not find that releasing Mr. Shkreli will protect the public, even though Mr. Shkreli seeks to leverage his experience with pharmaceuticals to help develop a cure for COVID-19 that he would purportedly provide at no cost," Matsumoto wrote in the nine-page ruling. (Slotkin, 5/17)

In mid-March, Dr. Jim Bristow’s wife came down with gastrointestinal issues. Then, she couldn’t stop coughing. Her symptoms pointed to coronavirus, but she couldn’t get tested — in part because of the nationwide test shortage, but also because the pair lived in Vashon, an idyllic town on an island in Washington State’s Puget Sound with scant medical resources. When Dr. Anthony S. Fauci of President Trump’s coronavirus task force said that the United States was failing with regards to testing, Dr. Bristow, said that it “really struck me.” Dr. Bristow felt inspired to collaborate with other members in the Vashon community to develop a model to test, trace and isolate — in essence, a coronavirus response plan that they call the Rural Test & Trace Toolkit. (Yan, 5/16)

A half-dozen states have announced they’re building their own apps to pinpoint the spread of coronavirus so they won’t have to rely on similar efforts from distrusted big tech firms. So far, it’s not going well. North Dakota is getting spotty data from cell phone towers after relying on an app originally designed to connect its state university football fans on road trips to away games. Utah delayed the rollout of a GPS tracking function after technical difficulties. Other states, like Georgia, are promoting tools that rely on people to self-report new Covid-19 infections, potentially creating gaps in the effort to track the spread of the virus. (Ollstein and Ravindranath, 5/17)

All Maddie Bender knew when she called the New Haven, Conn., family was that a child had tested positive for Covid-19. Anyone who lived with the child was at risk of catching the new virus, and Bender needed to find out if they had symptoms, if new cases were taking root. What she learned was that public health work during a pandemic is four parts shoe leather and intuition, one part empathy. (Sataline, 5/18)

The continent that helped lead a backlash against Silicon Valley’s appetite for personal data is increasingly aligning itself with technology built by Apple Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google to blaze a path out of the coronavirus pandemic. Countries across Europe, like others in the developed world, are building their own smartphone apps to help conduct contact tracing. The aim of the apps is to help public-health officials identify and test everyone who has spent time near an infected person, to better understand and contain the virus. (Schechner and Strasburg, 5/17)

UnitedHealth Group and Microsoft partnered to launch a tool that allows employers to screen workers for COVID-19 symptoms.The smartphone app, called ProtectWell, asks users a series of questions to screen for symptoms or exposure to the coronavirus. Employers can then direct employees who may have been infected to get tested; results will be reported directly to the employer, the companies said Friday. (Livingston, 5/15)

U.S. authorities are not yet seeing spikes in coronavirus cases in places that are reopening but it was still too early to determine such trends, health secretary Alex Azar said on Sunday. “We are seeing that in places that are opening, we’re not seeing this spike in cases,” Azar said on CNN’s “State of the Union” program. “We still see spikes in some areas that are, in fact, closed.” However, Azar said identifying and reporting new cases takes time. A critical part of reopening will be surveillance of flu-like symptoms in the population and other hospital admissions data, as well as testing of asymptomatic individuals, he said. (Chiacu, 5/17)

The pain of the coronavirus shutdown, in terms of wrecked economies and shattered lives, has been unmistakable. Now, governors across the country are contemplating the risks of reopening, particularly if it produces a surge of new cases and deaths. “This is really the most crucial time, and the most dangerous time,” Gov. Mike DeWine of Ohio, a Republican, said on the CNN program “State of the Union” on Sunday. “All of this is a work in progress. We thought it was a huge risk not to open. But we also know it’s a huge risk in opening.” State officials said that pressure was building to revive commerce and to chart a path for states to stagger back toward a semblance of normalcy, and some were already discussing plans for starting school in the fall. (Rojas and Delkic, 5/17)

Governors across the US are navigating a balancing act as they try to reopen their economies without triggering a second spike of coronavirus cases. By now, all but two states have loosened restrictions in place to help curb the spread of the virus. Some began allowing limited gatherings, while others have allowed restaurants and some businesses to reopen their doors with caution. And while many parts of the country have expressed hope about their number of cases seemingly slowing, other states have reported hikes. More than 1,486,700 Americans have so far tested positive for the virus and at least 89,562 have died, according to Johns Hopkins University. (Maxouris, 5/18)

The raging public debate over statewide coronavirus lockdowns is running parallel to a series of legal battles in state capitals — and the lockdown skeptics got a big boost this week. The decision by Wisconsin’s Supreme Court on Wednesday to toss Gov. Tony Evers’ statewide shelter-in-place order set off a scramble in cities across the state to impose their own local restrictions. Elsewhere, bars and restaurants shut down by the order declared themselves open for business. (Oprysko, 5/17)

After two months of social distancing, states across the country have begun relaxing stay-at-home measures. But the habits of U.S. residents, based on data from millions of cellphones, indicates Americans have been on the move even before official government orders eased restrictions. Data from Unacast, a location-data firm, showed a steep decline in movement even before states implemented restrictions. As authorities have begun to lift those curbs and others prepare to do so, more Americans are coming into closer contact again. (Wu, Rust and Yeip, 5/16)

On a weekend when many pandemic-weary people emerged from weeks of lockdown, leaders in the U.S. and Europe weighed the risks and rewards of lifting COVID-19 restrictions knowing that a vaccine could take years to develop. In separate stark warnings, two major European leaders bluntly told their citizens that the world needs to adapt to living with the coronavirus and cannot wait to be saved by a vaccine. (Schor, Stobbe and Kunzelman, 5/18)

People are streaming back to beaches, parks and streets just as a heat wave hits southern Europe and spring-like temperatures allow Americans to shed winter coats. As they venture out again, most are keeping their distance and some are wearing masks. However, protests are also heating up from Germany to England to the United States, arguing the government restrictions demolish personal liberties and are wrecking economies. (Shumaker, 5/17)

New research has bolstered the hypothesis that summer’s heat, humidity, abundant sunshine and opportunities for people to get outside should combine to inhibit — though certainly not halt — the spread of the coronavirus. But infectious-disease experts add a cautionary note: Any benefit from summer conditions would probably be lost if people mistakenly believe the virus can’t spread in warm weather and abandon efforts that limit infections, such as social distancing. (Freedman and Achenbach, 5/16)

From the moment the American republic was born right up until today, this has been its hallmark: Me and we — different flavors of freedom that compete but overlap — living together, but often at odds. The history of the United States and the colonies that formed it has been a 413-year balancing act across an assortment of topics, priorities, passions and ambitions. Now, in the coronavirus era, that tug of war — is it about individuals, or the communities to which they belong? — is showing itself in fresh, high-stakes ways. (Anthony, 5/18)

A trio of governors making the rounds on the Sunday news shows expressed measured optimism about the possibility for schools in their states to reopen by the fall. Colorado Gov. Jared Polis in an interview on “Fox News Sunday” outlined the most bullish vision of the three governors, though even he acknowledged: “It’s just not going to look like any other school year.” (Beavers, 5/17)

A Detroit man has been charged with threatening to kill Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan and the state attorney general, Dana Nessel, prosecutors said on Friday. The man, Robert S. Tesh, 32, was charged with false report of threat of terrorism, a felony. Mr. Tesh relayed what prosecutors called “credible threats” to an acquaintance, using more than one social media messenger on April 14, First Lt. Mike Shaw, a spokesman for the Michigan State Police, said on Friday. (Mele, 5/15)

Just as more Americans are allowed to visit beaches, attend church indoors or eat inside a restaurant, health officials say gathering in large groups could send states back to where they started. Texas had its highest single-day increase in new coronavirus cases Saturday, according to numbers from the Department of State Health Services. The Lone Star State, one of the first to start reopening, reported an increase of 1,801 coronavirus cases on Saturday. But it's not clear whether the surge is simply due to more testing, or if the virus is spreading more rampantly. (Maxouris and Yan, 5/17)

Recommendations on how to protect ourselves from contracting the virus that causes COVID-19 are everywhere, like washing your hands, wearing a mask, and staying at least 6 feet away from people outside your home. But not all risks are created equal; home, public transportation and the grocery store all have different challenges. A blog post by University of Massachusetts Dartmouth professor, Dr. Erin Bromage, who studies immunity of infectious diseases in animals, titled "The Risks - Know Them - Avoid Them" garnered major attention for showing that some of the highest risk areas may not be what you'd expect. (David, 5/16)

On Saturday morning Tracie Giarmo drove 30 minutes to Toledo, aiming to escape Michigan’s store closures and take advantage of just reopened Ohio malls. At the Franklin Park Mall in Toledo about half the stores inside were still closed, including Macy’s, Dillard’s and the Apple Store. The mall’s Pottery Barn closed last year, part of a wider pullback on physical stores as shopping has shifted online. Ms. Giarmo, a 56-year-old nurse wearing a face mask, had come to the mall to help her daughter and future daughter-in-law register at Macy’s and Pottery Barn for their coming weddings. “Now we aren’t sure what we will do,” she said. (Nassauer, McWhirter and Findell, 5/18)

Guests flocked to a theme park shopping district, a casino fired up its slot machines and businesses prepared for serving customers in Florida on Sunday, months after the coronavirus pandemic forced life to ground to a halt over health safety concerns. During this flurry of activity, signs were everywhere that life had changed — and that people were clamoring to return to some semblance of normal. (5/17)

New York City residents who flouted social distancing restrictions for a night on the town got the mayor’s wrath Sunday. The city’s embattled health commissioner is staying on the job. Gov. Andrew Cuomo played the part of a model patient, getting swabbed for coronavirus on live TV as he announced all people experiencing flu-like symptoms are now eligible for testing. (Sisak and Villeneuve, 5/18)

Yellowstone is an especially complicated case. The park touches three states, all with a mix travel restrictions and rates of coronavirus infections alongside a patchwork of local health districts with different enforcement rules. Most of the towns are small and lack health care infrastructure and could be overwhelmed by an influx of cases. Yellowstone and neighboring Grand Teton National Park draw visitors from around the country and world. (Siegler, 5/17)

The sky was blue, the sun was rising, and as the death toll from the coronavirus continued to soar across much of America, the fountains switched on in Avalon, a development of restaurants and shops in a wealthy corner of suburban Atlanta. It was time for life to resume, Georgia’s governor had decided, so a masked worker swept the threshold of Chanel. A clerk brushed off windows at Fab’rik that had been gathering dust. A gardener fluffed pink roses in planters along the sidewalks, where signs on doors said what so many had been waiting to hear. (McCrummen, 5/17)

On a typical Saturday night, snagging a coveted balcony table overlooking Bourbon Street in the French Quarter would be nearly impossible. But here were Mariah Castille and Tyler Labiche, sharing chips and dip, somewhat stunned by almost everything about this evening. It was Day One of Phase 1 — when the stay-at-home order was lifted and New Orleans was supposed to begin coming back to life. For the first time in two months, most businesses were allowed to open. Restaurants and food-serving bars could seat customers at 25 percent capacity. (Montgomery and Webster, 5/17)

Dozens of deaths and thousands of new infections from the novel coronavirus were reported in the Washington region Saturday, even as some areas began welcoming droves of summertime visitors following the relaxation of quarantine restrictions in Virginia and Maryland. The two trends — rising fatalities and newly permitted gatherings in previously restricted tourist towns — stood in jarring contrast, highlighting the uncertainties that members of the public and government officials navigate as the region and country reopen. (Jamison, Duncan and Tan, 5/16)

Americans on Saturday headed back to shops and restaurants trying to recapture routines the coronavirus pandemic had forced them to abandon two months ago, a sign that the U.S. economy may have hit bottom and is beginning the long climb back. The staggered commercial reopening is playing out amid hopes that warmer weather will contribute to a further easing in the spread of the sometimes-fatal respiratory illness. (Lynch, Tan and Duncan, 5/16)

New York City won’t permit swimming at its beaches over Memorial Day weekend and in the coming weeks to try to slow the spread of the new coronavirus, but the ban could be lifted later this summer, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Sunday. City lifeguards will soon begin training but when they would actually start patrolling beaches hasn’t been determined, the mayor said. The announcement came after a warm Saturday drew large crowds at city beaches and parks, raising concerns about social distancing. (Honan, 5/17)

California public health officials have notified more than 180 people that they may have been exposed to the coronavirus at a religious service held in violation of the state's stay-at-home order. The Butte County public health department said Friday that an attendee at the service tested positive for the virus a day after the event. (Deliso, 5/17)

A person who later learned they were positive for Covid-19 attended a California religious service on Mother's Day, exposing 180 other people to the novel coronavirus, according to local health officials. The individual got a positive diagnosis for Covid-19 the day after the service and is now in isolation at home, Butte County Public Health said in a statement Friday. People who attended the service have been notified about their exposure and received instructions from health officials to self-quarantine, the statement said. Officials are working to get testing for everyone who was in attendance. (Andone and Moshtaghian, 5/17)

For Michael Frank, a high-school social studies teacher in New York City, effective social distancing isn’t anything new. Before the coronavirus prompted the city’s schools to close and migrate to remote learning in March, Mr. Frank was giving mini-lessons to some students on the topic. When schools were still open in mid-March, he offered to allow a student with a respiratory condition to work from home. “I had no problem modifying the work for her,” said Mr. Frank, who teaches at the High School for Environmental Studies in Manhattan. “I’d rather you be healthy and safe than to come in because we have a test that day.” (Hawkins, 5/17)

Kaiser Health News: In The COVID Age, Bring A Mask And Gloves To A Protest

When Lamari Edwards joined Dreasjon “Sean” Reed’s Facebook Live video, she could sense something bad was going to happen, but she never thought she was witnessing the last moments of her friend’s life. “I had a bad feeling, but I did not think it would end this way,” said Edwards. Reed’s video showed him driving at a high speed and narrating as officers from the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department chased him May 6. The officers said they observed Reed’s car driving recklessly, almost striking other vehicles. (Lofton, 5/18)

For two months we’ve been good. We’ve Zoomed. We’ve FaceTimed. We’ve waved at neighbors from across the street and behind the fence. But enough is enough. We want to see friends and family in real life. Now many of us are allowing cracks to form in our protective coronavirus fortresses, crossing our fingers while doing our best to mitigate the risk. (Netburn, 5/16)

Mayor Joe Hogsett announced his plans to begin the reopening of Indianapolis on Wednesday, based on a number of criteria. Those factors differ from the guiding principles Gov. Eric Holcomb is using for Indiana's reopening. Even the federal plan, "Opening Up America Again," has more stringent criteria than Indiana lists as its major deciding factors. (VanTryon, 5/15)

Massachusetts Representative Mike Connolly is calling on Governor Charlie Baker to extend his stay-at-home advisory until at least the beginning of June, arguing in a letter signed by six other Democratic state lawmakers that it’s too soon to begin easing restrictions put in place to combat the coronavirus pandemic. The letter comes as Baker, a Republican, gets ready to release his plan for gradually lifting coronavirus restrictions. (Prignano, 5/15)

Governors facing huge budget shortfalls are eyeing cuts to Medicaid, even as millions of unemployed Americans flock to the health insurance program after losing their employer-based coverage. States that are buckling under declining revenues and increased Medicaid enrollment due to COVID-19 say they may have no choice but to cut the program for the poor unless they get more financial support from the federal government. (Hellmann, 5/17)

Kaiser Health News: Medicaid Providers At The End Of The Line For Federal COVID Funding

Casa de Salud, a nonprofit clinic in Albuquerque, New Mexico, provides primary medical care, opioid addiction services and non-Western therapies, including acupuncture and reiki, to a largely low-income population. And, like so many other health care providers that serve as a safety net, its revenue — and its future — are threatened by the COVID-19 epidemic. (Rovner, 5/18)

Across the country, statehouses were in the middle of their legislative sessions and in some cases, debating bills, budgets and other legislative measures that would reshape parts of the country as lawmakers settled into 2020. Marijuana legalization, tougher gun control regulations, expanded voting rights and jail reform were all on the table in states such as California, Georgia, Kentucky and New York. Then the coronavirus pandemic hit -- putting a pause on all discussions not related to the pandemic. (Pereira, 5/17)

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) on Sunday said approving coronavirus relief funding for state and local governments is “not charity” and that his state is facing budgetary concerns as a “direct result” of the crisis. “It’s a social responsibility at a time when states large and small [ are] facing unprecedented budgetary stress. It is incumbent upon the federal government to support the states through this difficult time,” he said on CNN's "State of the Union." Newsom said lawmakers have a “moral and ethical obligation” to help Americans across the country. (Klar, 5/17)

Doctors and women’s health advocates say they are “alarmed” and “disheartened” by Gov. Gavin Newsom’s decision to rollback his promise of health coverage for low-income women who are diagnosed with postpartum depression or anxiety. It was one of many cuts to mental health funding the governor proposed in his revised budget to close the $54 billion shortfall created by the coronavirus pandemic, which psychologists now say will likely be followed by a mental health pandemic. (Dembosky, 5/15)

A group of more than a dozen tribe members filled dozens of dust-covered cars with diapers, flour, rice and water, the bare staples that are sustaining the Navajo Nation as many fall ill and die. If the novel coronavirus has been cruel to America, it has been particularly cruel here, on a desert Native American reservation that maybe has never felt more alone than during this pandemic. There's a lack of running water, medical infrastructure, Internet access, information and adequate housing. (Klemko, 5/16)

In short order, the coronavirus pandemic has ushered in a sweeping and historic emptying of California’s overcrowded prisons and jails, as officials have dramatically lowered the number of people held in custody to avert deadly outbreaks. State data show California’s prisons have released about 3,500 inmates while the daily jail population across 58 counties is down by 20,000 from late February. (Hamilton, Queally and Tchekmedyian, 5/17)

Having already faced a shortage of hospital beds and ventilators, New York City officials say the novel coronavirus has spawned a new crisis: an alarmingly low blood supply. Mayor Bill de Blasio cautioned Sunday that the New York City Blood Center is down to just a two-day supply and pleaded with New Yorkers to help confront the latest health emergency posed by the virus. (Hutchinson, 5/17)

As New York weathers the coronavirus crisis, Gov. Andrew Cuomo has enlisted the help of a trio of billionaires to trace the spread of the disease and think through how the state will look in the future. But the partnerships with Bloomberg LP founder Michael Bloomberg, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and former Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt have prompted criticism that Mr. Cuomo is giving outsize power to moneyed executives and circumventing government institutions. (Vielkind, 5/17)

The volunteers gather every Saturday in a grocery store parking lot on the north side of town. They start with a pastor and a prayer, then set up their tables and bring out their bags of homemade masks and bottles of hand sanitizer. For the next few hours, they'll offer both for no charge to shoppers and passing cars. Theirs is a mission to save lives, but it’s also a self-help movement. The black community here, like African American communities in cities nationwide, is being hit especially hard by the coronavirus pandemic. And some people have decided that they can’t wait for others to come to the rescue. (Goyette, 5/16)

A caravan of workers from five Indiana casinos converged on Downtown Indianapolis late Friday demanding enhanced health and safety measures at gaming facilities before the venues reopen this summer. The Indiana Gaming Commission closed the state-regulated gaming in March 16, initially for 14 days, as a precautionary measure to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus among large groups. (Burris, 5/15)

From locks to weaves, to braids, wigs, naturals and blowouts, for some black women hair is a form of expression and cultural identity. It's also big business: The black hair industry is worth more than $2.51 billion, according to industry reports. But black haircare is not about business as usual these days. Uncertain of what the future will look like for hair salons after the state's stay-at-home order lifts on May 28, women of color are looking to alternative ways to style their hair, and stylists and salon owners are planning for new ways to accommodate their customers. (Smith, 5/17)

Employee protests and sick-outs. A top executive’s resignation in solidarity. Demands for details on coronavirus infections among workers. The retail giant Amazon has come under fire in recent weeks like few other businesses. And as the pandemic stretches on — and housebound consumers wait anxiously for their packages — the company finds itself facing intensifying scrutiny of workplace conditions at its busy warehouses. (Rocheleau, 5/17)

Is the Boston Resiliency Fund the success story almost no one is talking about?It’s the relief fund begun in the early days of the city’s lockdown that is funding everything from meals for the needy to laptops for Boston schoolchildren. It has managed to distribute over $17 million with virtually no drama or controversy, which might be an equally notable accomplishment. (Walker, 5/17)

There’s a clearer picture of how widely the coronavirus has spread through the city of Boston. Test results released Friday from 750 city employees and residents show 1 in 10 have developed antibodies, meaning they were infected with the virus. And 1 in 40 had the virus even though they had not experienced symptoms. (Bebinger, 5/15)

An aspiring doctor and her mentor are creating care packages for coronavirus patients experiencing homelessness. What’s inside? A handful of hygiene products, hand sanitizer, earbuds, handwritten notes, and activity books filled with crosswords or Sudoku. (Kohli, 5/17)

Watkins is one of 742 adults who are homeless in Boston who have tested positive for the coronavirus. That's nearly one-third of the 2,317 people tested since March 12. On Friday, city officials released comprehensive results from those tests. They include data from the universal testing performed at the city's adult emergency homeless shelters starting at the beginning of April. And the results reveal important trends. The vast majority of those who tested positive, like Watkins, had no symptoms or just mild ones, according to Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program (BHCHP), which conducted the testing. (Joliocoeur, 5/15)

As the number of coronavirus cases grew outside jail and prison walls in Massachusetts, advocates started sounding the alarm: People in custody were too close together. Neither the incarcerated nor correctional officers were properly protected. This, they said, was a public health emergency waiting to happen. (Tziperman Lotan and Coleman, 5/15)

As they risk their own well-being to care for infected patients or rush to keep store shelves stocked, workers across Massachusetts have filed hundreds of complaints with the federal government in recent weeks, alleging their employers failed to keep them protected from the coronavirus. Yet worker advocates, as well as former leaders of the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration, say the federal agency is falling short of its duty to hold employers accountable. (Rocheleau, 5/17)

Like so many neighborhoods in America, Chicago's West Town has been largely shut down due to the coronavirus. But photographer Candice Cusic hopes she can put a face in front of the closed doors and dark windows of her neighborhood. (Booker, 5/17)

As the new coronavirus continues to spread over the next months, and maybe even years, it could exact a heavy new toll in areas of the United States that have not yet seen major outbreaks but have high rates of diabetes, obesity, high blood pressure and other chronic health conditions. Large parts of the South and Appalachia are especially vulnerable, according to a health-risk index created for The New York Times by PolicyMap, a company that analyzes local health data. The index for the first time identifies counties with high rates of the underlying conditions that increase residents’ risk of becoming severely ill if they are infected with the coronavirus. (Popovich, Singhvi and Conlen, 5/18)

When a sprinkling of a reddish rash appeared on Jack McMorrow’s hands in mid-April, his father figured the 14-year-old was overusing hand sanitizer — not a bad thing during a global pandemic. When Jack’s parents noticed that his eyes looked glossy, they attributed it to late nights of video games and TV. When he developed a stomachache and didn’t want dinner, “they thought it was because I ate too many cookies or whatever,” said Jack, a ninth grader in Woodside, Queens, who loves Marvel Comics and has ambitions to teach himself “Stairway to Heaven” on the guitar. (Belluck, 5/17)

The day Juliet Daly’s heart gave out started much like every other Monday during the quarantine. The 12-year-old from Covington, La., padded out of her room in her PJs shortly after 7 a.m., ate a half-bowl of Rice Krispies, and got on a Zoom call with her sixth-grade social studies class. She had been feeling unwell all weekend with twisting abdominal pains, vomiting and a fever of 101.5, but she seemed to be on the mend. The weird thing, she recalled, was that her lips looked bluish in the mirror and she was super tired. In fact, she kept falling asleep unexpectedly. On the couch. In front of her computer. In the bath. (Cha and Janes, 5/17)

This isn’t the first time Vicki Dobbins’s town has been forced to shelter in place. Last year, the Marathon Petroleum refinery that looms over her neighborhood near Detroit emitted a pungent gas, causing nausea and dizziness among neighbors and prompting health officials to warn people to stay inside. When a stay-at-home advisory returned in March, this time for the coronavirus, “it was just devastating,” Ms. Dobbins said. (Tabuchi, 5/17)

Skin doctors suddenly are looking at a lot of toes — whether by emailed picture or video visit — as concern grows that for some people, a sign of COVID-19 may pop up in an unusual spot. Boston dermatologist Esther Freeman expected to see skin complaints as the pandemic unfolded — various kinds of rashes occur when people get very ill from other viruses. (Neergaard, 5/17)

Jerome H. Powell, the Federal Reserve chair, said that the United States would have a slow recovery from what he called the “biggest shock that the economy’s had in living memory,” suggesting that a full rebound from virus-induced lockdowns could take until the end of 2021. In an interview on “60 Minutes,” the CBS program, Mr. Powell reiterated that both Congress and the central bank may need to do more to help workers and businesses make it through the sudden and sharp slump caused by efforts to contain the coronavirus. (Smialek, 5/17)

“If we are thoughtful and careful about how we reopen the economy so that people take these social distancing measures forward and try to do what we can not to have another outbreak...then the recovery can begin fairly soon,” Powell said. States are now easing restrictions imposed to slow the spread of the coronavirus. That has raised the hope of a gradual return to normal, but also has increased the risk of new infections. As Congress debates possible further economic relief, Powell has stretched the limits of typical central bank commentary, directly calling for more fiscal spending. In Sunday’s interview, he even urged people to wash their hands and wear masks to aid the recovery. (5/17)

“In the long run, and even in the medium run,” the chairman said, “you wouldn’t want to bet against the American economy. This economy will recover. And that means people will go back to work. Unemployment will get back down. We’ll get through this.” Powell pointed out that the downturn wasn’t a result of deep-seated financial instabilities, like the housing meltdown and the excessive risk-taking among banks that ignited the Great Recession. Rather, it resulted from an external event — a pandemic — that required a shutdown of the economy. That may mean, he said, that “we can get back to a healthy economy fairly quickly.” (Rugaber, 5/17)

With the U.S. economy in free-fall, a lot of forecasters have been digging deep into the history books, looking for a guideposts of what to expect. Often, they've turned to the chapter on the 1930s. "Clearly people have made comparisons to the Great Depression," said former Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. "It's not a very good comparison," he cautioned. (Horsley, 5/17)

There are signs the economic contraction caused by the pandemic, the steepest since the Great Depression, has bottomed out and a tentative recovery may be under way. Though government data show record monthly drops in retail sales and manufacturing production in April, in a fast-changing environment new trends often appear first in private daily and weekly data. And although they are less reliable and comprehensive than government figures, these figures are showing some signs of a turning point. (Ip, 5/16)

I’ve never done anything like this. I don’t really know how it works. I’ve been standing in line for a few hours now, and it’s barely starting to move. I’m not complaining. It’s a blessing to be here. I’ll wait all day if I have to, because this virus has left me with no other choice, but what happens if they run out of food? (As told to Eli Saslow, 5/16)

The Federal Reserve is preparing to lend directly to middle-market businesses, filling a hole left by the government’s economic crisis relief efforts, and it is shaping up to be one of the trickiest things it has ever done. The risk for the Fed is that it goes where the central bank has rarely ventured and that not many businesses seek help, creating both financial and political headaches. (Timiraos, 5/18)

Social Security could be insolvent by the end of this decade because of the coronavirus pandemic, according to some new estimates, creating new pressure for Congress to fix the troubled program after decades of inaction. The last official government projection had the program running out of money by 2035. But some outside economists are looking at the trends and moving up the date when the program starts paying out more than it takes in: Tens of millions of workers are suddenly unemployed and not paying into the government account that funds benefits for retired workers. (Emma, 5/17)

Americans hoping for the next round of coronavirus relief will probably be waiting for weeks — if not much longer. Though House Democrats on Friday passed a sweeping, $3 trillion stimulus bill built around aid for local governments and a fresh batch of direct payments to the public, the Republican Senate majority has no immediate plans to produce an alternative. Instead, senators are expected to consider a handful of lifetime judicial appointments this week and then head home for the Memorial Day recess. (Everett, 5/17)

U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Sunday there will be negotiations on the new $3 trillion coronavirus relief legislation passed by the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives and that Democrats have “no red lines.” Asked if there has been a Republican response or counteroffer to begin negotiations on the bill passed late on Friday, Pelosi said, “No bill that is proffered will become law without negotiations, so, yeah.” (5/17)

Lawmakers and government officials are preparing to make significant changes to the Paycheck Protection Program, amid cooling demand for government-backed loans and criticism from business owners who say they can’t tap the funds. The changes are likely to include giving businesses more flexibility to spend the money, according to lawmakers and others following the deliberations. Under the original terms, 75% of the funds were required to be spent on employee salaries for the loans to be forgiven. (Hayashi, 5/17)

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., said that the Senate should improve a House coronavirus package spearheaded by Democratic leadership. "Now I think what (House Speaker Nancy) Pelosi did in the house, it is significant. It is important. I have some disagreements with it, and I want to see the Senate improve on it," Sanders told ABC News Chief Anchor George Stephanopoulos. (Arnholz, 5/17)

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Sunday stressed the urgency of passing the next coronavirus relief bill as Republicans suggest waiting to see how state reopenings and the distribution of funds already allocated in previous stimulus packages impact the country. “Time is very important. We have lost time, but, again, setting aside how we got here, we can not take a pause,” Pelosi said Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” (Klar, 5/17)

Unemployment checks are flowing, $490 billion has been shipped to small businesses, and the U.S. Federal Reserve has put about $2.5 trillion and counting behind domestic and global markets. Fears of overwhelmed hospitals and millions of U.S. deaths from the new coronavirus have diminished, if not disappeared. Yet two months into the United States’ fight against the most severe pandemic to arise in the age of globalization, neither the health nor the economic war has been won. Many analysts fear the country has at best fought back worst-case outcomes. (Schneider, 5/18)

U.S. lawmakers and officials are crafting proposals to push American companies to move operations or key suppliers out of China that include tax breaks, new rules, and carefully structured subsidies. Interviews with a dozen current and former government officials, industry executives and members of Congress show widespread discussions underway - including the idea of a “reshoring fund” originally stocked with $25 billion - to encourage U.S. companies to drastically revamp their relationship with China. (Shala, Alper and Zengerle, 5/18)

The United States needs to quickly revise its coronavirus aid program for small businesses to extend the eight-week period in which the law currently requires companies to spend the money, a key U.S. senator said on Sunday. (Cornwell, 5/17)

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said in an interview with The Atlantic published Sunday that her oldest brother's death from the coronavirus "feels like something that didn't have to happen." Warren told The Atlantic's Edward-Isaac Dovere that her brother Donald Reed Herring had recently recovered from a bout of pneumonia when he was sickened with COVID-19 earlier this year, and was still in the hospital when he tested positive. (Bowden, 5/17)

Donald Trump has made clear he will attack Joe Biden unmercifully in order to ensure the election is a choice between him and Joe Biden — rather than an up-or-down vote on the president’s handling of the coronavirus. Scott Walker has a different view, at least when it comes to Trump's chances in the all-important battleground of Wisconsin. (Isenstadt, 5/18)

Almost a month ago, as the coronavirus exacted an outsized toll on vulnerable groups across America, President Donald Trump turned to an under-the-radar White House council to quickly determine how the federal government “can best support minority and distressed communities.” Little has come of it. The White House Opportunity and Revitalization Council, repurposed by Trump on April 22 to confront the pandemic’s disproportionate damage to communities of color, is still assembling proposals to reduce racial health disparities that have been magnified by the coronavirus outbreak, according to four people familiar with the planning. (Orr, 5/15)

Three months before their national convention is to kick off in Milwaukee, Democratic Party officials are planning for three scenarios depending on the severity of the coronavirus pandemic at the time. But the planners face a substantial problem in putting on the quadrennial event that is recognizable to Americans as the traditional launch of the presidential general election campaign: Many of the delegates don’t want to go. Interviews with 59 members of the Democratic National Committee and superdelegates who will formally nominate former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. in August found that the vast majority of them don’t want to risk their own health or the health of others by traveling to Milwaukee and congregating inside the convention facilities. (Epstein, 5/18)

The presidential campaign is taking shape in the new realities imposed by the coronavirus pandemic, complete with ads, tweets and even campaign-style events -- real-life ones as well as the new "virtual" variety. But what that shape looks like depends on which campaign you focus on. President Donald Trump's campaign is focused on seemingly everything -- hoping that it will play separately from the very big thing consuming the country. Former Vice President Joe Biden's campaign is focusing on that big thing -- hoping that it remains the only thing that matters. (Klein and Parks, 5/18)

More than two months into the depths of the coronavirus crisis, it is obvious the issue will be the central one in November’s presidential election. But there are still numerous uncertainties. Here are five that will be pivotal to the election’s outcome. (Stanage, 5/17)

Former President Barack Obama returned to the national stage on Saturday, delivering a pair of virtual commencement addresses in which he criticized the response by some U.S. leaders to the coronavirus pandemic. Mr. Obama, who has largely stayed out of the public eye since leaving office, highlighted the impact of the pandemic on students in speeches to college and high school graduates, both of whom saw their school year cut short by the spread of the virus. (Siddiqui, 5/17)

Obama did not mention his successor, President Trump, by name. But the comments echoed criticism of the Trump administration that Obama leveled last month in a video endorsement of former vice president Joe Biden. Obama said then that the pandemic had shown that “having leaders who are informed and honest and seek to bring people together” matters. (Scherer and Mettler, 5/16)

Obama also addressed the killing of Ahmaud Arbery, a young black man killed while jogging in Georgia, while acknowledging the hardships that graduates and members of the African American community also now face during the pandemic. “Let’s be honest, a disease like this just spotlights the underlying inequalities and burdens that black communities have historically had to deal with in this country,” Obama said. “We see it in the disproportionate impact of Covid-19 on our communities, just as we see it when a black man goes for a jog and some folks feel like they can stop and question and shoot him if he doesn’t submit to their questioning.” (Semones, 5/16)

He called on the graduates to be bold in their vision of the world. "If the world’s going to get better, it’s going to be up to you," Obama said, later adding, "No generation has been better positioned to be warriors of justice and remake the world." His speech was part of a larger virtual event, titled "Show Me Your Walk, HBCU Edition." It was a two-hour virtual HBCU commencement program presented by Chase in partnership with the Thurgood Marshall College Fund, the United Negro College Fund, the National Association for Equal Opportunity, the NBA, Paul Quinn College, Howard University and JPMorgan Chase's Advancing Black Pathways Initiative, according to the former president's office. (Torres, 5/16)

Asked about Obama’s comments, Trump first told a pool of reporters at the White House that administration officials “had a great weekend” during a working trip to Camp David. “We did a lot of terrific meetings, tremendous progress is being made on many fronts, including coming up with a cure for this horrible plague that has beset our country,” he said. When pressed further, Trump added: “Look, he was an incompetent president. That’s all I can say. Grossly incompetent.” Since leaving office, Obama has largely avoided weighing in on politics or how his successor is doing. But recently, with the coronavirus outbreak taking a huge toll on the country, he has become more outspoken. (Dugyala, 5/17)

With Joe Biden on the ballot, so is the legacy of Barack Obama, and it appears we're about to see a throwdown between the last president and the current one — and their polar opposite worldviews. Amid criticism of his handling of the coronavirus pandemic, President Trump has been falsely laying blame on Obama for leaving the "cupboard bare" when it comes to the national stockpile of emergency medical supplies and equipment. (Montanaro, 5/18)

Once they stopped performing elective procedures in mid-March, providers of all types and sizes liken their revenue trajectory to a car going off a cliff. The damage came swiftly, and even their best cost-cutting efforts and billions in government aid weren’t enough to stop the bleeding. “It’s really stunning and remarkable how quickly the revenue flow dissipated over the course of just several days, frankly,” said Tim Weir, CEO of Olmsted Medical Center, a one-hospital system in Rochester, Minn., that anticipates a $25 million revenue decline over the months of April, May and June. The sharp revenue decline coupled with the higher costs of labor, supplies and treatment for COVID-19 patients will culminate in hospitals losing a collective $202.6 billion from March 1 to June 30, according to an estimate from the American Hospital Association. (Bannow, 5/16)

The state’s largest hospital network on Friday detailed the initial toll the coronavirus pandemic has taken on its finances. The prognosis: The pain may last for months. Partners HealthCare, the parent of Massachusetts General and Brigham and Women’s hospitals, reported an operating loss of $178 million in the fiscal second quarter that ended March 31, before the COVID-19 crisis reached its peak. The loss, its first since the fourth quarter of fiscal 2017, compared with an operating profit of $107 million in the year-earlier period. Revenue was little unchanged at $3.43 billion as expenses climbed 9.5 percent. (Edelman, 5/15)

More than a third of primary care doctors in California surveyed this month by an Oakland foundation worried they will be forced to close their practice or clinic because of financial impacts from the coronavirus pandemic. The survey of 350 physicians across the state, released Friday, found that 37%, about 130, said they were “very” or “somewhat” worried that they will have to permanently close their doors. Doctors at practices with fewer than five physicians were especially concerned. More than half of those doctors, 63, said they fear they will have to shut their clinic for good. (Moench, 5/16)

Some safety-net hospitals are concerned that delays of non-urgent procedures due to the COVID-19 pandemic could make some them ineligible for the 340B drug discount program. The hospitals are concerned drastic changes in the number of patients coming through their doors could alter their payer mixes and temporarily change their 340B eligibility, so they are asking the Trump administration and Congress to protect them. Depending on the long-term economic impacts of the pandemic, there's also a chance that more facilities might become eligible if their Medicaid patients increase. (Cohrs, 5/15)

Kaiser Health News: ‘An Arm And A Leg’: Angst And Advice From A Health Insurance Insider

After hearing the story of Anna Davis Abel’s fight with her insurance company over testing related to COVID-19, we heard from a listener who has worked for a health insurance company for decades.“I am shocked,” she wrote. In Davis Abel’s position, “I would be screaming from the rooftops.” She added: “I have listened to all the episodes in this podcast, and there are times I come away feeling bad for working for the insurance company.” (Weissmann, 5/18)

The coronavirus patient, a 75-year-old man, was dying. No family member was allowed in the room with him, only a young nurse. In full protective gear, she dimmed the lights and put on quiet music. She freshened his pillows, dabbed his lips with moistened swabs, held his hand, spoke softly to him. He wasn’t even her patient, but everyone else was slammed. Finally, she held an iPad close to him, so he could see the face and hear the voice of a grief-stricken relative Skyping from the hospital corridor. After the man died, the nurse found a secluded hallway, and wept. (Hoffman, 5/16)

Dr. Dina Abdel-Salam watched in terror last month as scores of strangers gathered under the balcony of her aunt’s empty apartment in the Egyptian city of Ismailia, where she’d temporarily sheltered after leaving her elderly parents at home to protect them from exposure to the coronavirus. The crowd called out her name, hurling threats until she dialed the police for help. (Magdy and Schmall, 5/16)

In the first weeks after the coronavirus pandemic hit New York, Dr. James A. Mahoney barely slept. When he was not working his day shifts at an intensive care unit at University Hospital of Brooklyn, he was working nights across the street at Kings County Hospital Center. When he was not at a hospital, he was conducting telemedicine sessions with his regular patients from home, making sure they were wearing masks and washing their hands. (Schwirtz, 5/18)

Since the beginning of America's battle with the novel coronavirus, N95s, the close-fitting respirators worn instead of face masks to protect frontline workers from infectious aerosols and respiratory droplets, have been in short supply. The respirators, most manufactured by 3M and Honeywell, are used globally and act as the crux of personal protective equipment (PPE) for hospital staff. (Soucheray, 5/15)

A breathing machine at a Ukrainian hospital breaks down, leaving a coronavirus patient gasping helplessly for air. Dr. Olha Kobevko rushes from room to room to see if there is an electrician among her other patients who can fix it. Eventually, she figures out a way to get the device working again on her own. (Chernov and Karmanau, 5/18)

Minority communities throughout the country have experienced disproportionately high COVID-19 mortality rates. In Chicago, black residents make up 30% of the total population yet account for 48% of all deaths, according to recent city figures. Similar death rates have been found in New York City, and throughout Michigan and Louisiana. Wingfield said treating a high number of cases also causes any clinicians to experience burnout, exhaustion and trauma. However, she said the racial disparities of those affected by the pandemic further adds to the pressures felt by minority healthcare workers. (Johnson, 5/15)

It took COVID-19 just a couple of months to drag Medline Industries into the global spotlight as a critical source of desperately needed personal protective equipment. But the attention hasn't always been flattering, and surging demand for basics like surgical gloves and face masks hasn't been the windfall it might appear to be. (Goldberg, 5/17)

For 81-year-old Dell Kaplan, the offer to get calls from a stranger just to chat while staying home during the coronavirus pandemic was immediately appealing. “It gets pretty lonely here by yourself,” said Kaplan, a suburban Dallas resident who has been missing meals out with friends, family get-togethers and going to classes at a nearby college. The program being offered by the city of Plano is among those that have popped up across the U.S. during the pandemic to help older adults with a simple offer to engage in small talk. (Stengle, 5/18)

Staying home and sheltering in place can be stressful for everyone. But for some college students who identify as LGBTQ, returning to family environments can be very difficult and even psychologically damaging, psychologists say. "A lot of young people when they make it to college are able, for the first time, really, to live their truth," says psychologist Megan Mooney who works with children, teens and young people and specializes in preventing and treating trauma in LGBTQ youth. Mooney is also President of the Texas Psychological Association. (Neighmond, 5/17)

Geoff Levenberg’s Cleveland-based flower-delivery business is booming, but the reason is tragic. Demand for funeral bouquets and wreaths has surged as people succumb to Covid-19. Mr. Levenberg’s business, Allyson’s Flowers, is serving an important role during the pandemic. Bereaved family members and friends can’t attend funerals because of restrictions on public gatherings in many states, so they increasingly send flowers as a way to show their love. Funerals usually make up 80% of Mr. Levenberg’s business. Lately, the proportion has been closer to 95%. (Monga, 5/18)

When the stay-at-home order went into effect in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, C. realized her plan to leave her abusive husband had just been sped up. Her two teenage children would suddenly be home to witness the violence. "My kids were home from school and they were going to see this," said C., who asked that her full name not be used to protect her privacy. "They knew how controlling he was, but knowing that they would be home — we didn't make it two weeks into our stay-at-home order." (Kaplan and Wong, 5/17)

Officer Charles "Rob" Roberts, a 20-year veteran of the Glen Ridge Police Department in New Jersey, died from COVID-19 on Monday. The department says Roberts contracted the virus in April while on the job. After nearly three weeks in the hospital, he became one of the latest officers of more than 100 to die from COVID-19, according to an analysis of reported coronavirus deaths compiled by the Fraternal Order of Police. Experts say police officers not only have to deal with death in their ranks but also the lasting trauma from the impact of the coronavirus pandemic (Barr, 5/15)

When Hagan Carlin learned her assistant principal Joe Lewinger had died of coronavirus, she couldn't fall asleep until four in the morning. The 17-year-old junior at The Mary Louis Academy in Queens, New York, told CNN she cried much of the night -- and when she wasn't crying, she was stunned. She didn't know what school would look like without the goofball who felt like a dad to everyone. She didn't know who would stop students in the halls to ask what was wrong and how he could fix it. She didn't know who would send those inspirational emails and endless surveys. (Holcombe, 5/18)

Someday the coronavirus pandemic will release its grip on our lives and we will return to the workplace. The question is: Will there be an office to go back to when this is all over? The changes the business world is considering offer a radical rethinking of a place that is central to corporate life. There will likely be fewer offices in the center of big cities, more hybrid schedules that allow workers to stay home part of the week and more elbow room as companies free up space for social distancing. Smaller satellite offices could also pop up in less-expensive locations as the workforce becomes less centralized. (Mattioli and Putzier, 5/16)

By the official numbers, Belgium has been the country hit hardest in the world by the coronavirus. The nation of 12 million has the highest mortality rate among confirmed cases, at 16.4 percent. And it has the most deaths in terms of its population: 78 deaths per 100,000 people, according to statistics compiled by Johns Hopkins University. The United States, by comparison, has reported 27 coronavirus deaths per 100,000 people. Spain has reported 58. Italy has reported 52. (Birnbaum, 5/17)

In the northern Nigerian city of Kano, some people say they now get four or five death notices on their phones each day: A colleague has died. A friend’s aunt. A former classmate. The gravediggers of the city, one of the biggest in West Africa, say they are working overtime. And so many doctors and nurses have been infected with the coronavirus that few hospitals are now accepting patients. Officially, Kano has reported 753 cases and 33 deaths attributed to the virus. But in reality, the metropolis is experiencing a major, unchecked outbreak, according to doctors and public health experts. It could be one of the continent’s worst. (Maclean, 5/17)

When President Emmanuel Macron repeatedly declared “war” on the coronavirus in March, he solemnly promised that France would support “front-line” health workers with “the means, the protection.” The reality was that France was nearly defenseless. The government’s flip-flopping policies on past pandemics had left a once formidable national stockpile of face masks nearly depleted. Officials had also outsourced the manufacturing capacity to replenish that stockpile to suppliers overseas, despite warnings since the early 2000s about the rising risks of global pandemics. (Onishi and Meheut, 5/17)

Japan’s economy slipped into recession for the first time in 4-1/2 years in the last quarter, putting the nation on course for its deepest postwar slump as the coronavirus crisis ravages businesses and consumers. Monday’s first-quarter GDP data underlined the broadening impact of the outbreak, with exports plunging the most since the devastating March 2011 earthquake as global lockdowns and supply chain disruptions hit shipments of Japanese goods. (Kihara and Kajimoto, 5/17)

El Salvador’s attorney general on Sunday challenged a decree by President Nayib Bukele, who declared a state of emergency the previous evening to extend coronavirus measures without approval by congress. (Renteria, 5/17)

Preston’s new face mask is emblazoned with the stars and stripes of the U.S. flag. While protecting him from the coronavirus, it would normally also put him in danger in Manenberg, one of a number of violent and poor neighborhoods on the outskirts of Cape Town known as the Cape Flats. The mask’s colors identify Preston as a member of the Americans, a criminal gang usually unwelcome on the turf of the rival Hard Livings gang. (Imray, 5/18)

On a recent day, Juri Ambrosioni sold 250 coffees at his takeout place in the center of this northern Italian city, with patrons wearing face masks and standing patiently in line for their espresso or cappuccino fix. It was half the number Mr. Ambrosioni typically sold before the coronavirus pandemic struck northern Italy in March and closed its cafes and restaurants, putting a temporary end to Italians’ cherished ritual of tossing back an espresso with friends in the local piazza. (Sylvers, 5/17)

The Lebanese love their food. Their elaborate spreads of grilled and sauteed meats, colorful salads and various vegetable dips, usually garnished with pine nuts, are a source of pride and the shared meals a symbol of generosity. Today, more than ever, food is on everyone’s mind — because there is so little to be had. From the butchers and taxi drivers of Beirut to the aficionados of Tripoli’s famed sweets to the anti-government protesters in the streets, hunger is on everyone’s tongue. (Dadouch, 5/17)

Kaiser Health News: Tourists, Beware: Foreign Visitors’ Travel Health Insurance Might Exclude Pandemics

It was evident that the fever, nausea and loss of appetite Vlastimil Gajdoš felt on his wedding day was not a mere case of cold feet. Gajdoš, 65, fell ill in Honolulu in March after arriving with his bride-to-be from the Czech Republic. He and Sylva Di Sandro, 58, intended to marry and honeymoon on the island. While they did tie the knot, they also engaged in serious battle with the novel coronavirus. He was in the hospital for two weeks, some of it in intensive care, on a ventilator. (Heredia Rodriguez, 5/18)

The fatality numbers are, to be sure, heartbreaking: more than 85,000 Americans dead and more than 1.4 million infected. But many public health experts, including some within the Trump administration, have been stressing that, if anything, Covid-19 deaths and cases are being undercounted. Appearing before a Senate committee on Tuesday, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert and a key member of the president’s coronavirus task force, told lawmakers that the real death toll was “almost certainly higher” than the official count. (The hearing was conducted virtually because Dr. Fauci, two other members of the task force who were testifying and the committee’s chairman, Senator Lamar Alexander, were all self-quarantining after possible exposure to the virus.) Despite this, President Trump and some top administration officials seem to suspect that the number of Covid-19 deaths is being overstated. (5/17)

President Donald Trump has called the pandemic a “war,” and as always, the first casualty of war is the truth. An ominous new strategy is emerging on America’s political right, one reportedly being entertained by Trump himself, of claiming coronavirus deaths are being overcounted. Of the many lies the president has spun, this would be among the most dangerous. Throughout the pandemic, what should be a purely scientific and economic debate has morphed into a strangely ideological one. Conservative media and activists amplified Trump’s early dismissal of the threat. Some alleged that the dire predictions and resulting societal shutdowns were part of a scheme to hurt Trump politically by hurting the economy. (5/16)

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro opposes the stringent lockdown some state governors have imposed on the Brazilian economy, and for weeks he’s been battling political opponents who favor it. On Friday his health minister resigned but what is more important is that the arguments to open with common-sense precautions are gaining ground internationally. A recently released National Bureau of Economic Research working paper finds that Covid-19 policies targeted at the most vulnerable populations “significantly outperform” broad lockdowns: “Most of the gains can be realized by having stricter lockdown policies on the oldest group.” Even Unicef, which usually takes fashionably leftist positions, warns that a strict lockdown policy in the developing world could kill more people than the virus. (Mary Anastasia O’Grady, 5/17)

In its handling of the coronavirus, Germany has been something of a model, alternately admired and envied across the world. For good reason: The curve has flattened. The number of people newly infected each day is stable. The absolute number of deaths and the fatality rate remain low compared to other countries. And the reproduction factor — a key metric to measure the virus’s spread — hovers around one, meaning that on average, one infected person infects only one other person. The first wave of the virus has passed. Germany, cautiously, is reopening. But as it gradually eases up, opening shops, schools and even museums, the country is learning a tough lesson: The way out is much harder than the way in. Loosening the lockdown, even in conditions of relative success, is fraught with difficulties. (Anna Sauerbrey, 5/18)

Some change inevitably will come to the World Health Organization (WHO) after its deadly failures during the Covid-19 pandemic. But real reform will require more than technocratic tweaks, and member states should focus on fundamental questions about the agency’s purpose. (5/15)

On Monday afternoon, the phone rang. Shortly after my father picked it up, I heard him express shock in our native Filipino tongue. He didn’t have to tell me what had happened. I could guess. A patient he had briefly interacted with at the nursing home where he works had died of COVID-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus. “Why don’t I take the couch at night?” he suggested. But we all knew that wouldn’t help. My parents, my older brother and I live in a tiny one-bedroom apartment and breathe the same air. (M. David, 5/17)

Last month, economists estimated state revenues for fiscal 2021 will fall short of projections by $5 billion to $6 billion — a drop of nearly 20 percent. But the shortfall may be larger, since recent reports indicate that GDP has slowed more than expected, and more than one-fifth of the labor force is currently unemployed, working reduced hours, or had given up looking for work. Worse, revenues have plummeted exactly when more public spending is desperately needed to cover escalating public health costs and the greater demands on safety-net programs due to the coronavirus pandemic. (Alan Clayton-Matthews, Michael Goodman, and Alicia Sasser-Modestino, 5/15)

The sign-waving, horn-blaring, gun-toting protesters may make for good TV, but they are not representative of most Texans who, to paraphrase our mothers, have the good sense God gave them to come in out of a pandemic. Polls have consistently shown that most people strongly support the social-distancing measures and crowd restrictions that have helped to slow the spread of the new coronavirus and saved thousands of lives. A recent University of Texas/Texas Tribune Poll found that 77 percent of Texans favor requiring residents to stay at home except for essential activities. A whopping 80 percent support restricting the size of gatherings to 10 people or fewer. (5/14)

Health care workers at hospitals and nursing homes in Massachusetts were already protesting the lack of personal protective equipment to deal with COVID-19. Nurses in New York and New Jersey were photographed wearing giant plastic garbage bags for protection. And in the Port of New York, a container of 3 million N95 respirator masks ordered by Massachusetts was confiscated — diverted by federal officials. (5/15)

President Obama was bothered. It was the summer of 2009 and he was in a meeting at the White House to talk about preparations for an expected autumn outbreak of swine flu. Elbows on the table, he thumbed through the pages of a report on preparations for it. “So,” he asked no one in particular, “if you guys are so smart, how come you’re still making this in eggs?” he asked, referring to the nearly century-old process for making vaccines in chicken eggs. (Jason Karlawish, 5/17)

In the hospital emergency department where I work, we were starting to get used to our new normal, the regular flow of COVID-19 patients along with the everyday emergencies — heart attacks, strokes and trauma.And then, one of our own came into the emergency room sick. With COVID-19. (Mark Morocco, 5/17)

As I make my way into my building’s elevator after a long hospital shift, a neighbor throws his arm out to stop me. “Sorry,” he says, “only one person per elevator.” Seeing my confusion, our doorman kindly but firmly corrects him. “Two per elevator is fine.” I take a step toward the open doors, but the passenger again holds up his palm. “Please,” he pleads, his eyes glancing frantically at my scrubs. “Please, just take a different one.” Speechless, I take the next elevator and arrive at my New York City apartment filled with my son’s toys, untouched since he and my wife moved out nearly 40 days ago. (Yamshon, 5/15)

With COVID-19 patients straining resources and so many health care workers falling ill, I assumed my seven years as a family physician would be met with enthusiasm by the medical community.I was wrong. For the past month, I’ve spent hours looking for opportunities to help. I’d finish my day job and start sending emails to connect with networks of physicians. I looked in hard-hit New York but concentrated mostly in the San Francisco area, where I live. I quickly discovered plenty of opportunities for doctors like me overseas — but not in the United States. (E. Hanh Le, 5/15)

There is a checkpoint as you enter the Kimmel Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, where I am being treated for cancer of the prostate and lymph nodes. With all but two sets of doors to the building locked shut, patients are corralled into an area roped off from the rest of the first-floor lobby. You are required to show your orange Hopkins patient identification card and proof that you have an appointment.Questions are asked. Questions that have become the norm in the new normal. “Have you had a cough?” “Have you visited New York or New Jersey in the last 14 days?” (Richard Goggin, 5/17)

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention made its first definitive statement last week describing a rare but disturbing condition in children related to Covid-19. Doctors in the U.K. first reported in April a spike in previously healthy children presenting with features similar to another rare condition, Kawasaki disease, whose symptoms include rash and fever and, later in its progression, inflammation of blood vessels. This is a reminder of how much we don’t know about Covid-19. We’ve learned a lot over the past two months as Covid-19 became an epidemic, with 1.5 million Americans diagnosed and more than 90,000 dead. New insights have translated into improved care. This knowledge is saving lives and will be especially useful if infections flare up again.Yet such data on patients isn’t being streamlined and shared with the public quickly. (Former FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb, 5/17)

The coronavirus has claimed yet another victim, one that isn’t counted in the daily casualty reports. The victim this time is good old-fashioned common sense. Convicts in some states are being set free because the virus can spread quickly inside a prison. Okay — but a Texas hairdresser with no criminal record whatsoever is sent to jail for opening her salon when she was supposed to keep it closed. Does this make sense? (Bernard Goldberg, 5/17)

The most promising solution we’ve seen yet for leveling the nation’s ballooning income and wealth gaps — first-generation students earning bachelor’s degrees — appears to be unraveling. Because of COVID-19, thousands of low-income students are deferring and dropping college plans, indicate multiple student surveys. Or, they are scaling back from a four-year college to a community college, where the odds of ever earning a four-year degree plummet. (Richard Whitmire, 5/17)

As of last week, Texas’ 374 registered nursing homes have seen 1,332 cases of COVID-19 with 478 resulting deaths among residents and staff. That accounts for 43% of all coronavirus deaths in the state, a sobering reminder of the vulnerabilities seniors face both from age and the communal life of a nursing home. Data we gathered from multiple sources, including The New York Times, AARP and the Kaiser Family Foundation, demonstrate just how serious the problem is, concluding the number of nursing home deaths make up anywhere from 25% to 50% of all U.S. COVID-19 deaths. The numbers, while imprecise, make it clear that we must focus greater attention on protecting people living in nursing care centers. (5/17)

Ohio coronavirus numbers released Thursday paint a shocking picture about rapidly rising coronavirus nursing home deaths. The 674 known coronavirus fatalities in Ohio long-term-care facilities now make up 44 percent of all coronavirus deaths in the state. And both the number and their percentage of all COVID-19 deaths in Ohio appear to be going up quickly.In the state’s prior weekly reporting May 6, there were 499 long-term-care deaths. That’s a 35% jump in fatalities in just one week. Further, it’s uncertain how accurate those numbers might be. Among other issues, the state has not mandated reporting on long-term-care coronavirus deaths prior to April 15. (5/17)

The country’s other major public health crisis — the prescription opioid epidemic — has killed far more Americans than have died so far from COVID-19. Yet a major injustice to the opioid victims and their families is playing out mostly in the shadows in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York. That is where Purdue Pharma, the privately owned drug company responsible for the blockbuster OxyContin narcotic painkiller, filed for bankruptcy protection last September. U.S. business history is littered with huge companies seeking the safety afforded only through bankruptcy courts: a halt to all pending civil litigation. That is no small matter for Purdue since over 2,600 lawsuits charge it was instrumental in creating America’s opioid crisis through deceptive promotion and marketing. (5/17)

Americans across the country have joined forces in fighting a common enemy: the Covid-19 pandemic. But one question starkly divides us during this crisis: Who is most at risk of dying from the virus? The answer does not reflect well on the US. (Amy Compton-Phillips, 5/17)

The pandemic has wrought pain and death on our neighbors, friends and coworkers and has hurt the economic well-being of Americans. In addition, it has demonstrated the frailty and inadequacy of our current patchwork health care system. As the number of persons laid off increases weekly, the number of uninsured Americans rises. We watch as others lose their health insurance or feel the pain of our own loss at a time when we see that the coronavirus does not select its victims by any fault of their own. (Pamella Gronemeyer, 5/14)

Medical imaging has experienced tremendous growth since the discovery of X-rays: the x-ray-based CT scanner, advances in positron emission tomographic (PET) imaging, the development of single photon tomographic imaging (SPECT), and the use of magnetic resonance for imaging (MRI). These procedures, some of which require the use of radioactive isotopes, have led to improved diagnoses and treatment for a wide range of disorders. One thing that hasn’t kept pace is a reporting requirement for errors that occur when using radioisotopes — radioactive substances used to diagnose and treat disease. (David Townsend, 5/18)

As nurses who worked in 5B, the first U.S. hospital ward dedicated HIV/AIDS, which opened in San Francisco General Hospital in 1983, we have been directly affected in profound ways by the disease and its opportunistic infections... Back then, there were very few people who survived AIDS or its opportunistic infections because effective drugs had not yet been discovered. One difference now is that there is a cure for TB — but only for those who can afford it. (Sasha Cuttler, Mary Magee and Guy Vandenberg, 5/18)