�������ýҕ�l

Johnson & Johnson is discontinuing North American sales of its talc-based baby powder, a product that once defined the company’s wholesome image and that it has defended for decades even as it faced thousands of lawsuits filed by patients who say it caused cancer. The decision to wind down sales of the product is a huge concession for Johnson & Johnson, which has for more than a century promoted the powder as pure and gentle enough for babies. (Hsu and Rabin, 5/19)

The world’s biggest maker of health care products said Tuesday the talc-based powder will still be sold outside the U.S. and Canada. “Demand for talc-based Johnson’s Baby Powder in North America has been declining due in large part to changes in consumer habits and fueled by misinformation around the safety of the product and a constant barrage of litigation advertising,” the company said. (Johnson, 5/20)

“I wish my mother could be here to see this day,” said Crystal Deckard, whose mother Darlene Coker alleged Baby Powder caused her mesothelioma. She dropped the suit filed in 1999 after losing her fight to compel J&J to divulge internal records. Coker died of mesothelioma in 2009. In its statement, J&J said it “remains steadfastly confident in the safety of talc-based Johnson’s Baby Powder,” citing “decades of scientific studies.” (O'Donnell and Girion, 5/19)

J&J has been facing lawsuits alleging its talcum powder was responsible for cancer in some women who used it for feminine hygiene for years, and in people who inhaled it. As of March, about 19,400 plaintiffs had filed lawsuits against the company over its talc-based powder in U.S. courts, alleging it caused ovarian cancer and a rare cancer in tissue surrounding the lungs called mesothelioma. (Loftus, 5/19)

Stores around the country and in Canada will continue to sell whatever remaining inventory of baby powder remains on their shelves, the company said. Additionally, cornstarch-based Johnson's Baby Powder will remain available in North America. Both types of the powder will continue to be sold in other countries around the world "where there there is significantly higher consumer demand for the product." (Romo, 5/19)

Johnson & Johnson said it remains confident in the safety of the product, but there have been tens of thousands of lawsuits filed by women who have developed ovarian cancer after regular talcum powder use. The cases are in various stages in courtrooms around the country. A handful of talcum powder companies have put warning labels on their products, but Johnson & Johnson argued such a label would be confusing, because it stood by its product. (Christensen, 5/20)

In January, U.S. government-led research found no strong evidence linking baby powder with ovarian cancer. Smaller studies investigating a possible link between talcum powder and cancer have had conflicting results, although most found no connection. Johnson & Johnson pointed out in its statement that all verdicts in lawsuits that made such claims were overturned through appeal. (Mandani, 5/19)

President Donald Trump emphatically defended himself Tuesday against criticism from medical experts that his announced use of a malaria drug against the coronavirus could spark wide misuse by Americans of the unproven treatment with potentially fatal side effects. Trump’s revelation a day earlier that he was taking hydroxychloroquine caught many in his administration by surprise and set off an urgent effort by officials to justify his action. But their attempt to address the concerns of health professionals was undercut by the president himself. (Miller, Marchione and Lemire, 5/20)

“People are going to have to make up their own mind,” Trump said about hydroxychloroquine during a visit to the U.S. Capitol. “I think it gives you an additional level of safety.” The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has warned about potential serious side effects with the use of the drug in COVID-19 patients. Weeks ago, Trump had promoted the drug as a potential treatment based on a positive report about its use against the virus, but subsequent studies found that it was not helpful. (Holland and Mason, 5/19)

"This is an individual decision to make," he added. "But it’s had a great reputation and if it was somebody else other than me people would say, 'Gee isn’t that smart.'" (Samuels, 5/19)

Quickly, the administration assumed its typical posture for unexpected presidential proclamations — in this case, that the president had been using the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine. Officials defended the president’s decision while artfully addressing whether it is wise for the country's leader take an unproven coronavirus treatment that some research has shown could have serious side effects. Other aides scrambled to see if they could handle a potential surge in public requests for the drug. And there was discussion among health officials about whether the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention should issue additional guidance on using the approved drug, updating an existing government warning against taking the drug for coronavirus outside of a hospital setting or a clinical trial, according to a Republican close to the White House. (McGraw and Cook, 5/19)

The stress of the coronavirus pandemic is testing even the closest relationships. President Trump and Fox News are no exception. In a dust-up between the top-rated cable news channel and its most prominent loyal viewer, Mr. Trump unleashed a barrage against the Fox News anchor Neil Cavuto, who gave a withering on-air assessment of the president’s announcement that he was ingesting hydroxychloroquine, a malaria drug that can pose dangers for coronavirus patients. (Grynbaum, 5/19)

President Trump’s enthusiastic embrace of a malaria drug that he now says he takes daily — and the resulting uproar in the news media — appears to be interfering with legitimate scientific research into whether the medicine might work to prevent coronavirus infection or treat the disease in its early stages. The drug, hydroxychloroquine, which is also widely used to treat lupus and other autoimmune diseases, has shown no real benefit for hospitalized coronavirus patients, and may have contributed to some deaths, recent studies show. (Stolberg, 5/19)

Vice President Mike Pence said Tuesday he's not taking hydroxychloroquine, an unproven treatment for COVID-19 that President Donald Trump has vigorously promoted and claims to be taking himself. "My physician hasn’t recommended that but I wouldn’t hesitate to take the counsel of my doctor," Pence told Fox News in an interview from NASA headquarters in Washington, D.C. "I would never begrudge any American taking the advice of their physician." (Gregorian, 5/19)

Lupus patient Stacie Beland watched closely Monday night as President Trump announced that he was taking hydroxychloroquine as a preventive treatment for COVID-19. There are no studies showing that the drug is effective in treating or preventing the coronavirus, but 1.5 million lupus patients depend on hydroxychloroquine, which is also known by its brand name, Plaquenil. And since March, the drug has been difficult to come by. (Raphelson and Young, 5/19)

Republican political operatives are recruiting “extremely pro-Trump” doctors to go on television to prescribe reviving the U.S. economy as quickly as possible, without waiting to meet safety benchmarks proposed by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to slow the spread of the new coronavirus. The plan was discussed in a May 11 conference call with a senior staffer for the Trump reelection campaign organized by CNP Action, an affiliate of the GOP-aligned Council for National Policy. (Biesecker and Dearen, 5/20)

When the nation’s top infectious disease doctor warned it could be risky for schools to open this fall, President Donald Trump said that was unacceptable. When experts from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention produced a roadmap for how Americans could slowly get back to work and other activities, Trump’s top advisers rejected it. And when the Food and Drug Administration warned against taking a malaria drug to combat COVID-19 except in rare circumstances, Trump asked his doctor for it anyway. (Madhani and Pace, 5/20)

This idea that there was this study undercutting the utility of the drug Trump has been championing for two months clearly stuck with the president. Speaking to reporters Tuesday afternoon after a meeting with Republican senators, he again disparaged the study. “If you look at the one survey, the only bad survey, they were giving it to people that were in very bad shape. They were very old. Almost dead,” Trump said. He described the study as “a Trump-enemy statement.” A few hours later, again pressed on his use of the drug for an unproven purpose, Trump again suggested that opposition to it was simply political. (Bump, 5/19)

President Trump’s angry demands for punitive action against the World Health Organization were rebuffed on Tuesday by the organization’s other member nations, which decided instead to conduct an “impartial, independent” examination of the W.H.O.’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. In a four-page letter late Monday, Mr. Trump had threatened to permanently cut off United States funding of the W.H.O. unless it committed to “major, substantive improvements” within 30 days. It was a major escalation of his repeated attempts to blame the W.H.O. and China for the spread of the virus and deflect responsibility for his handling of a worldwide public health crisis that has killed more than 90,000 people in the United States. (Shear and Jacobs, 5/19)

The United States and China hijacked the annual meeting of the World Health Assembly, the World Health Organization’s governing body, part of an ongoing diplomatic battle over Covid-19 that has left a global leadership vacuum. Chinese President Xi Jinping opened the summit in Geneva with an announcement of $2 billion in extra funding for the pandemic response. Less than 24 hours later, President Donald Trump countered in a letter to the World Health Organization, giving it 30 days to “commit to major substantive improvements” and threatening to permanently cease U.S. funding to the U.N. public health agency if it fails to do so. (Heath, 5/19)

The World Health Organization’s head said on Tuesday he would keep leading the global fight against the coronavirus pandemic, after U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to cut off funding and quit the body. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus defended the agency’s role after the United States again withheld full support for a resolution on the pandemic. “We want accountability more than anyone,” Tedros told a virtual meeting of the WHO’S 194 member states. “We will continue providing strategic leadership to coordinate the global response.” (Nebehay and Farge, 5/19)

President Trump’s threat to cut off funding to the World Health Organization and revoke U.S. membership over the group’s handling of the coronavirus heightened tensions with China and sparked a new round of accusations between the two countries. In a four-page letter to WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Monday, Mr. Trump said the organization had shown an “alarming lack of independence” from Beijing and failed to adequately respond as Chinese government officials sought to cover up the emerging health threat. (Lubold and Hinshaw, 5/19)

In previous administrations, a letter to an international organization signed by the U.S. president generally would have been carefully vetted and fact-checked. But President Trump’s May 18 letter to World Health Organization Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus contains a number of false or misleading statements in it. Here’s a sampling, as well as a guide to some of his claims. (Kessler, 5/20)

Hours before those attacks, Chinese President Xi Jinping addressed WHO's World Health Assembly and announced $2 billion to address the coronavirus pandemic that started in his country. "This is giving an enormous political prize to China because China has long been looking for a chance to shine on the global stage," Lawrence Gostin, director of the WHO Collaborating Center on Health and Human Rights at Georgetown University, told The Associated Press. (Finnegan, 5/19)

Anti-China sentiment is rising in the United States, according to a new poll that reflects the foreign country’s role as the point of origin of the coronavirus and the millions of dollars in negative ads spent by President Donald Trump, former Vice President Joe Biden and their allies as each paints the other as weak on the U.S.-China relationship. Since January, the percentage of U.S. voters who say China is an “enemy” has risen 11 percentage points to 31 percent, while the percentage of voters who say China is either an ally or friend has fallen 9 points to a combined 23 percent, a new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll shows. (Caputo, 5/20)

Gary Lin, a Chinese-American business owner in New York City, has been working through the coronavirus crisis to keep his ramen restaurant afloat. He is worried about getting sick and bringing the virus to his family, but has remained partially open for takeout services as rent and bills pile up. On top of the financial struggles, Lin said he and his employees have also been facing harassment due to their Asian background and that business was already down as early as February. (Thorbecke and Zaru, 5/20)

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention this week laid out its detailed, delayed road map for reopening schools, child-care facilities, restaurants and mass transit, weeks after covid-weary states began opening on their own terms. The CDC cautioned that some institutions should stay closed for now and said reopening should be guided by coronavirus transmission rates. (Meckler and Weiner, 5/19)

The head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said Tuesday that he believes the U.S. is ready to begin reopening, even as he acknowledged the need to invest further in the nation's public health infrastructure and expand contact tracing to avoid sustained outbreaks. "I want to clarify that the community-based transmission, the community-to-community transmission that overwhelmed the public health departments in late February, March, April, that's really coming down," Redfield said in an interview with Steve Clemons, author of The Hill's daily Coronavirus Report. (Samuels, 5/19)

The document includes specific guidance for reopening child care centers, schools, businesses, restaurants and public transit. Among the additions is more detailed advice for mass transit that suggests encouraging social distancing by adding floor decals or colored tape to ensure people remain six feet apart. It also lays out an extensive blueprint for containing the disease at federal and state levels through contact tracing and monitoring for outbreaks — capabilities that large parts of the county still lack. (Cancryn, 5/20)

A plurality of voters oppose President Donald Trump’s push for U.S. elementary and high schools to get back to business this fall, according to a POLITICO/Morning Consult poll that asked whether students should return to day care, schools and college campuses. Voters instead offer a bit of praise for online instruction, with a majority saying it's been at least somewhat effective at making up for months of class time lost to the coronavirus pandemic. (Perez, 5/19)

White House coronavirus task force coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx said on Tuesday that she is encouraged by the latest data showing declines in new cases of the virus, hospitalizations and deaths across all but a few areas of the United States. Birx told a group of reporters at the White House that clinical, laboratory data and surveillance data from across the country shows that new hospitalizations have dropped by 50% in the last 30 days, and deaths continue to decrease week over week. (Ordonez, 5/19)

The head of the federal Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division told Gov. Gavin Newsom Tuesday that his plan to reopen California discriminates against churches. In a letter to the governor, Eric S. Dreiband said that despite a coronavirus pandemic “that is unprecedented in our lifetimes,” Newsom should allow some in-person worship under the current second phase of his four-part reopening plan. (Jablon, 5/20)

In a three-page letter to Governor Gavin Newsom, the DOJ said the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution required churches and other houses of worship be given equal treatment under the law, even when a health emergency has been declared. “Simply put, there is no pandemic exception to the U.S. Constitution and its Bill of Rights,” Assistant Attorney General Eric Dreiband wrote in the letter. (Whitcomb, 5/19)

California’s March stay-home order and another this month outlining plans for a staggered reopening treat churches and religious services less favorably than secular activities, the head of the Justice Department’s civil rights division and the state’s four U.S. attorneys told Mr. Newsom in a letter urging him to adjust the restrictions. The reopening plan, for example, lets restaurants, factories, malls and other offices operate with social-distancing earlier than in-person religious services. (Gurman, 5/19)

Dreiband raised issues both with California’s stay-at-home order and Newsom’s plan to roll it back. While worshipers cannot gather in person, even while following social distancing protocols, California has deemed employees in the entertainment and e-commerce industries essential and allowed them to continue working in person, “regardless of whether the product they are selling and shipping are life-preserving products or not,” Dreiband said. “This facially discriminates against religious exercise,” he said. (Ormset and Wigglesworth, 5/19)

Newsom’s framework for incrementally reopening California’s economy would allow religious services to resume after forms of commerce like manufacturing, which the federal government called an example of “unequal treatment of faith communities.” Newsom said this week that the state could greenlight in-person worship in the coming weeks as infection, testing and hospitalization numbers improve. “I want to just express my deep admiration to the faith community and the need and desire to know when their congregants can once again start coming back to the pews, coming back together," Newsom said Monday. (White, 5/19)

A church in Houston has canceled mass indefinitely after one of its priests died and five others subsequently tested positive for the coronavirus. The Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston confirmed the death of Father Donnell Kirchner, a 79-year-old priest who worked at Holy Ghost Catholic Church, according to a statement issued Monday by the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston. It's unknown what specifically caused the priest's May 13 death, the Archdiocese said, and "it is not clear" if Kirchner had been tested for Covid-19. But within the following week, five others he lived with tested positive for the virus. (Ries, 5/19)

Church events held between Mar 6 and 11 at an Arkansas church—where the pastor and his wife were positive for COVID-19 and showing symptoms—led to 35 confirmed COVID-19 cases among 92 people (38%) who attended events. The super-spreading event is described today in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR). The high attack rate also led to three fatalities among church members. Case contact with the 35 confirmed cases led to 26 additional cases, and 1 additional death. The age-specific attack rates among persons age 18 years and under, 19–64 years, and over 65 years were 6.3%, 59.4%, and 50.0%, respectively, the authors said. (5/19)

A new study from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention examines a coronavirus outbreak at an Arkansas church, highlighting the risks as Massachusetts allows churches to begin reopening. The study found that among 92 attendees at a rural Arkansas church from March 6 to March 11, 35 people developed laboratory-confirmed COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. Three of the people died. An additional 25 cases spread into community, causing one death, the CDC found. (Finucane, 5/19)

The last time Sandra Rodríguez saw her son Gerson, she bent down to look him in the eye. “Be good,” she said, instructing him to behave when he encountered Border Patrol agents on the other side of the river in the United States, and when he was reunited with his uncle in Houston. The 10-year-old nodded, giving his mother one last squinty smile. Tears caught in his dimples, she recalled, as he climbed into a raft and pushed out across the Rio Grande toward Texas from Mexico, guided by a stranger who was also trying to reach the United States. (Dickerson, 5/20)

The Trump administration extended a public-health order allowing it to reject migrants crossing U.S. borders without giving them access to the asylum system until the government determines the new coronavirus no longer poses a danger to the public. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published the indefinite extension on Tuesday. The order was introduced in March for a duration of 30 days and extended in April for another 30 days. (Hackman and Restuccia, 5/19)

Heavy hearts soared Monday with news that Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine candidate — the frontrunner in the American market — seemed to be generating an immune response in Phase 1 trial subjects. The company’s stock valuation also surged, hitting $29 billion, an astonishing feat for a company that currently sells zero products. But was there good reason for so much enthusiasm? Several vaccine experts asked by STAT concluded that, based on the information made available by the Cambridge, Mass.-based company, there’s really no way to know how impressive — or not — the vaccine may be. (Branswell, 5/19)

Two top Food and Drug Administration officials, suddenly at the center of the White House’s effort to speed approval for Covid-19 vaccines, will recuse themselves from the agency’s considerations about whether to approve those products, according to an email obtained by STAT. The move is designed to lessen conflict-of-interest concerns, since the FDA’s mission is to skeptically review safety and efficacy evidence for drugs, not push for their approval. (Florko, 5/19)

As pharmaceutical giants edge closer to a potential vaccine for the new coronavirus, governments demanding access to any supplies are running up against a hard reality: the bill. The tension was cast into relief last Thursday when Sanofi SA chairman Serge Weinberg took a call from French Prime Minister Édouard Philippe, according to a person familiar with the matter. Mr. Philippe wanted to know why the chief executive of the company—one of France’s corporate crown jewels—had told an interviewer the U.S. would be first in line for its potential coronavirus vaccine. (Roland, Bisserbe and Kostov, 5/19)

As the chief executive of Phlow, the new company awarded $354 million by the federal government this week to make generics that are in short supply during the pandemic, Eric Edwards maintains his business is a public benefit corporation. Besides generating a profit, Phlow is supposed to serve a greater good. But in his last role in the pharmaceutical industry, Edwards fell short of benefiting the public, at least according to a U.S. Senate subcommittee report released in 2018. (Silverman, 5/19)

The ambitious effort, designed to shore up the national stockpile, brings together some well-known players in the health care world. It was hailed by White House trade adviser Peter Navarro, a sharp critic of China and a champion of bringing manufacturing back to the U.S. More than 70 percent of the world’s drug ingredients are made overseas — many in India and China. “You've got patriotic scientists and engineers producing essential medicines at very low margins in defense of the American people,” Navarro said of Phlow. But the new company has no track record in drug manufacturing, and it’s not clear when its assembly lines will begin churning out products. (Lippman, Owermohle, Brennan and Cancryn, 5/19)

The Trump administration plans to ease or eliminate shortages of critical medicines for COVID-19 patients by increasing U.S. production of their active ingredients and the chemical compounds needed to make them, HHS said on Tuesday. Phlow Corp. will lead the project, which includes building a new Virginia facility. The effort will use advanced manufacturing processes, including continuous manufacturing, to make drug ingredients. (Brady, 5/19)

The goal is twofold: to enable the U.S. to manufacture essential drugs at risk of shortage and to create a reserve of active pharmaceutical ingredients to reduce the dependence on foreign suppliers. Phlow's CEO, Dr. Eric Edwards, told NBC News that the company had been in discussions with the administration back in November but that the project was fast-tracked once COVID-19 hit. "We said: 'We have a short-term and long-term solution. We know that there are certain key essential generic medicines that are going to go into shortage if this thing starts spreading,'" Edwards said. "There were drugs that were already on the FDA drug shortage list long before COVID-19 and we already saw what was happening with PPE, and we knew this was going to be as bad or even worse." (Martinez and Breslauer, 5/19)

The state official managing Florida’s public “dashboard” of COVID-19 data says that her office has been removed from the project — and questioned the Department of Health’s commitment to “accessibility and transparency.” Rebekah Jones, the geographic information system manager for DOH’s Division of Disease Control and Health Protection, wrote in an email, distributed Friday that authority over the dashboard was taken away from her office on May 5. The sharply worded email, which was shared with the Herald by a recipient of the message, was addressed to users of the state’s data portal, which includes researchers and journalists. It was not clear who replaced her and her staff. (Wieder, 5/18)

Rebekah Jones said in an email to the USA TODAY Network that she single-handedly created two applications in two languages, four dashboards, six unique maps with layers of data functionality for 32 variables covering a half a million lines of data. Her objective was to create a way for Floridians and researchers to see what the COVID-19 situation was in real time. Then, she was dismissed. "I worked on it alone, sixteen hours a day for two months, most of which I was never paid for, and now that this has happened I'll probably never get paid for," she wrote in an email, confirming that she had not just been reassigned on May 5, but fired from her job as Geographic Information Systems manager for the Florida Department of Health. (Marazzi Sassoon, 5/19)

“As a word of caution, I would not expect the new team to continue the same level of accessibility and transparency that I made central to the process during the first two months,” she wrote. “After all, my commitment to both is largely (arguably entirely) the reason I am no longer managing it.” Ms. Jones didn’t respond to a request for comment. A statement provided on Tuesday by Helen Aguirre Ferré, the spokeswoman for Gov. Ron DeSantis, said the health department decided to terminate Ms. Jones was terminated because she was “disruptive.” (Campo-Flores, 5/19)

Jones' removal from the project and her subsequent dismissal have raised questions about the impartiality and transparency of Florida's COVID-19 dashboard. Ben Sawyer, director of LabX at the University of Central Florida, which is investigating how local health systems are coping with COVID-19 cases, said her ouster is "quite disturbing to me as a scientist and as a citizen." "Regardless of what you think about reopening Florida, you would like to know what's going on," Sawyer said. "This data is our ability to see what's happening. I think there are enormous questions that arise when you don't know if what you see [is] fair or accurate." (Allen, 5/19)

Florida and Georgia, two states that were among the first to announce the reopening of businesses and public spaces amid the health crisis, have come under scrutiny for their reporting on Covid-19 cases. In Florida, Rebekah Jones, the official behind the state's "dashboard," a web page showing the number of Covid-19 cases and deaths in Florida that's been praised by Dr. Deborah Birx, says she was removed from the project and questioned the state's commitment to accessibility and transparency, according to Florida Today. In Georgia, data tracking Covid-19 cases in the state has come under question after a misleading chart was posted on the state Department of Public Health's web page, according to an article by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. (Waldrop, Flores and Sutton, 5/20)

Public health officials in some states are accused of bungling coronavirus infection statistics or even using a little sleight of hand to deliberately make things look better than they are. The risk is that politicians, business owners and ordinary Americans who are making decisions about lockdowns, reopenings and other day-to-day matters could be left with the impression that the virus is under more control than it actually is. (Smith, Long and Amy, 5/20)

The risk is that politicians, business owners and ordinary Americans who are making decisions about lockdowns and other day-to-day matters could be left with the impression that the virus is under more control than it actually is. In Virginia, Texas and Vermont, for example, officials said they have been combining the results of viral tests, which show an active infection, with antibody tests, which show a past infection. Public health experts say that can make for impressive-looking testing totals but does not give a true picture of how the virus is spreading. (Blake and Smith, 5/20)

The data behind Georgia’s count of COVID-19 cases and deaths is being gathered in the most suboptimal of scientific circumstances: real life. But whether the data is perfect or not, and there are reasons to believe it is not perfect, metro Atlanta leaders are using those numbers to make decisions that affect everyone, like when city hall re-opens or which neighborhood gets extra testing today. The numbers aren’t clean-cut or unimpeachable, but officials are going to war with the numbers they have. (Brasch, Estep, Peebles, Coyne and Dixon, 5/20)

Kaiser Health News: Tennessee’s Secret To Plentiful Coronavirus Testing? Picking Up The Tab

To reopen businesses and public spaces safely, experts say, states need to be testing and contact tracing on a massive scale. But only a handful of states are doing enough testing to stay on top of potential outbreaks, according to a state-by-state analysis published by NPR. Among those, Tennessee stands out for its aggressive approach to testing. In Tennessee, anyone who wants a test can get one, and the state will pick up the tab. The guidance has evolved to “when in doubt, get a test,” and the state started paying for it in April. (Farmer, 5/20)

In Texas, where gyms and offices this week joined the list of businesses that can reopen at limited capacity, only half of the 4,000 contact tracers needed by the state have been hired so far. In Illinois' Cook County, there are about 30 contact tracers for the 2.5 million people who live outside of Chicago — far fewer than the 750 that officials are hoping for should funding become available in the next couple of weeks. Last week, the county racked up the most confirmed coronavirus infections in the nation. (Ortiz, 5/19)

Texas lawmakers are questioning the hastily-awarded, multi-million dollar contract that put a little-known company in charge of the state’s effort to track down people who may be infected with the coronavirus. (Root and Blackman, 5/19)

Before the Covid-19 pandemic, health data privacy wasn’t exactly a hot topic on Capitol Hill. By and large, lawmakers stuck to scolding tech giants like Google for getting their hands on patient data gathered by hospitals and smartphone apps. But the digital tools being deployed to combat Covid-19 have thrust the issue into the spotlight, drawing fresh interest from federal lawmakers who have swiftly introduced several new bills aimed at protecting Americans’ health data related to the coronavirus. (Robbins, 5/20)

Governor Gina M. Raimondo on Tuesday unveiled a “Crush COVID RI" mobile app that can track where people go so health officials can trace their contacts if they get the coronavirus. “The name of the game is containing the virus," Raimondo said. "We can’t stop it. We can only hope to contain it.” Soon after the announcement, the American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island raised a couple of concerns about what it called the “potential ‘Big Brother’ aspects” of the app. (Fitzpatrick, 5/19)

I want you to mentally prepare yourself for a phone call that you could receive sometime over the course of this pandemic: in the next few months or year. Your phone might ring, and when you pick it up, you may hear someone say, “Hi, I’m calling from the health department.” After verifying your identity, the person may say something like, “I’m afraid we have information that you were in close contact with someone who tested positive for the coronavirus.” (Chen, 5/19)

Kaiser Health News: To Stem COVID, This Small Indiana City Decided To Test All Public-Facing Employees

Behind a nondescript strip mall in Carmel, Indiana, a short line of cars gathers mid-afternoon next to a large tent. Medical professionals stand out front, dressed head to toe in blue medical coveralls. People in the cars — many of them first responders — drive up to be tested for COVID-19. The test involves a really long swab placed deep into the nose, toward the back of the throat. “No, it’s not fun, but it’s quick. I would say painless, but it is a little painful,” Carmel firefighter Tim Griffin said. “It’s 5-10 seconds and then it’s all done and the burning goes away and you move on.” (Barrett, 5/19)

The Food and Drug Administration said Tuesday that it will launch a new research project focused on real-world evidence — data collected by insurance companies, in electronic health records, and in other places in medicine — to learn more about Covid-19, including how diagnostics and medications are being used in the pandemic and how best to design studies to test them. The project is a collaboration with Aetion, a New York health tech startup that specializes in real-world evidence. (Herper, 5/19)

Across New York City, hospitals have moved into a new phase in their battle against the coronavirus. In the city that was hit hardest by the pandemic in the United States, the number of new patients and the daily death toll have dropped sharply. Many of the refrigerated trucks filled with bodies are gone. Doctors no longer routinely plead for help in makeshift protective gear. The emergency room at Elmhurst Hospital in Queens, once overwhelmed, treats barely a third of the people it did before the outbreak. (Fink, 5/20)

Elmhurst Hospital in Queens had been inundated by patients. The Times went back to see how the staff was recovering, and planning for the the possibility of another wave. (Fink, Schaff and Laffin, 5/20)

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced a pilot program that allows 16 hospitals throughout the state to resume letting patients have visitors. The move comes after thousands of patients were left to struggle or die alone during the height of the novel coronavirus pandemic because of concerns about spreading the illness. “It is terrible to have someone in the hospital and then that person is isolated, not being able to see their family and friends,” Mr. Cuomo said Tuesday. (Passy, 5/19)

The state-funded Los Angeles Surge Hospital, which has seen relatively few patients since it opened five weeks ago to treat an anticipated overflow of COVID-19 cases, will close at the end of June, a source in Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration said Tuesday. The hospital, located on the grounds of the shuttered St. Vincent Medical Center near downtown Los Angeles, was set up to handle as many as 270 patients a day. But the hospital has never had more than 25 patients at a time, officials said. (Curwen, 5/19)

After long weeks in intensive care units — breathing through ventilators and fed through tubes, caught in a constant battle between life and death — some COVID-19 patients are fortunate enough to turn a corner.But surviving the worst of it is only the beginning of recovery. Now, as state statistics show hospitalizations in Massachusetts beginning to descend and intensive care units prepare to transfer thousands of those hospitalized, some worry that the lesser-known facilities where patients can slowly recover will soon be overwhelmed. (Moore, 5/19)

Kaiser Health News: The Pandemic Is Hurting Pediatric Hospitals, Too

Children have largely escaped the ravages of COVID-19, but children’s hospitals have not eluded the financial pain the pandemic has wrought on health care providers. Pediatric hospitals offered themselves as backups to their adult counterparts in case of a surge of coronavirus patients. They suspended nonemergency surgeries and stockpiled protective gear and virus test kits, according to hospital executives and financial analysts. (Wolfson, 5/19)

A growing number of local elected officials are writing their own reopening playbooks, defying state leaders in disputes that foretell months of new regional skirmishes as the nation moves to rekindle its smoldering economy. Mayors and county executives in rural regions where infection rates are lower than in denser, bigger cities say they’ve been unfairly held back from returning to a more normal way of life. Meanwhile, cautious officials who represent more vulnerable communities are fighting to prolong stay-at-home orders as governors, lawmakers or judges move to do the opposite. (Mays and Ward, 5/20)

For the first time since officials began implementing widespread lockdowns to slow the spread of coronavirus, all 50 states are now partially reopened. On Wednesday, Connecticut became the final state to begin lifting restrictions, now allowing retail shops and restaurants to reopen their doors. Despite the reopening milestone, health officials say, Americans remain at risk of catching the highly transmissible and sometimes deadly virus. (Maxouris, 5/20)

As the end of May approaches, all 50 states will have begun the process of partially reopening their economies in the wake of 4-, 6-, 8-, or 10-week stay-at-home orders that mandated non-essential workers, schools, retail, and restaurants close in an effort to slow the spread of COVID-19. But at least 17 states in the past 7 days have showed an upward trend of new cases of at least 10%, according to a new CNN analysis that used data from the Johns Hopkins University COVID-19 tracker. (Soucheray, 5/19)

U.S. states and governments around the world are trying to revive their economies after months of shutdowns, as they take tentative steps to ease restrictions imposed to combat the spread of the coronavirus. State governments in the U.S. estimate the collective expense of fighting the pandemic at some $45 billion, which most want the federal government to repay in full, rather than be reimbursed at the 75% rate allowed under the law, the Federal Emergency Management Agency said. (Yap, 5/20)

Such widespread requests for reimbursement are unprecedented. FEMA is being flooded by requests from states across the nation, many with strained budgets, which now want to be made whole for deals made to buy supplies in a chaotic marketplace with middlemen charging inflated prices. FEMA typically receives requests for reimbursement from an individual state or a small group affected by disasters. President Bush, for instance, directed full reimbursement to Louisiana for certain projects after Hurricane Katrina. Mr. Trump directed full reimbursement, for a time, to Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria. (Levy and Pulliam, 5/19)

The Maryland Department of Health reported 1,784 newly confirmed COVID-19 cases on Tuesday, setting a new high mark four days after the state began reopening its economy. Maryland is now reporting 41,546 cases, including nearly 2,000 people who have died from the disease. Along with the new positive tests, 5,368 people tested negative for the coronavirus in the 24 hours leading up to 10 a.m. ET — meaning roughly 25% of the 7,152 tests in that period resulted in positive diagnoses. (Chappell, 5/19)

From Ocean City to the Jersey Shore to Cape Cod, the window between Memorial Day and Labor Day is make-or-break for hotels, restaurants, arcades and T-shirt shops. On top of potential concerns about the coronavirus pandemic, more than 36 million Americans have filed for unemployment benefits, pinching disposable incomes. Mayor Rick Meehan says a speedy but safe reopening is vital for this town of 7,000 residents, which can swell to 300,000 visitors on summer weekends. “Just like the rest of the country, we’re in an economic crisis right now,” he said. (Calvert, 5/20)

This tranquil resort town on the shores of shimmering Geneva Lake has always beckoned as a kind of quiet Midwestern paradise, drawing people from all over the region, including those across the nearby Illinois state line. And over the weekend, as the skies cleared and the temperatures rose, the town came alive as it often does in spring, with cars and motorcycles snaking in off nearby Highway 12 in bumper-to-bumper traffic along Main Street. (Bailey, 5/19)

Tarhia Morton and her family were planning to party this year. She is retired after 40 years with the U.S. Postal Service. Her sister is turning 70. A birthday bash in Las Vegas was booked for August. That was before the coronavirus changed hers and so many other lives in the massive residential development in the COVID-19 battered Bronx known as Co-op City in which she lives. Before her mother was infected with it. Before medical examiners determined her father didn’t die from it — but only after she says his body was held at the hospital for 10 days after his March 27 death. (Mahoney, 5/20)

It is proving hard to reduce the number of coronavirus cases in the Washington, DC area, a senior administration official said on Tuesday, even though the nation’s capital is where the voices are loudest about the need for social distancing. The official, briefing White House reporters, said Washington and its metro area in Maryland and Virginia, as well as Chicago, Los Angeles and Minneapolis, remain on a virus “plateau” without a sharp decline in cases. (5/19)

As colleges make plans to bring students back to campus, alongside discussions of mask requirements and half-empty classrooms, one common strategy is emerging: Forgoing fall break and getting students home before Thanksgiving. The University of South Carolina, Notre Dame, Rice and Creighton are among the schools that have said they will find ways to shorten the fall semester, in an attempt to avoid a “second wave” of coronavirus infections expected to emerge in late fall. (Hubler, 5/19)

Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam (D) fired back at President Trump Tuesday after the president referred to Northam as “crazy” and an opponent of Second Amendment rights. Trump, speaking at a White House event Tuesday, followed a speaker from Virginia by saying, "We're going after Virginia, with your crazy governor, we're going after Virginia. They want to take your Second Amendment. You know that, right? You'll have nobody guarding your potatoes." (Budryk, 5/19)

Do you still own clothes that aren’t sweat pants? Dust them off, because you can now leave home and go somewhere besides the grocery store for the first time in two months. With the expiration Monday of Governor Charlie Baker’s stay-at-home advisory and the unveiling of a reopening plan, Massachusetts residents can now make plans to visit hair salons, beaches, some offices, and houses of worship. You’re even allowed to have “limited” play dates, for yourself and your kids. (Moore and Martin, 5/19)

Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley called on Gov. Charlie Baker to reconsider the phased reopening plan his administration rolled out Monday, writing on Twitter that the state "isn't ready to 'reopen'" and criticizing the view that public health needs and economic recovery are competing interests. (Lisinki, 5/19)

With the state's economy beginning to wake up on Tuesday, Boston Mayor Marty Walsh said he has no plans right now to lift the city's curfew and worries that allowing offices to reopen at a quarter of normal capacity next month might be "too much" to start, drawing one of the brightest lines between the city and state approaches to reopening. (Murphy, 5/19)

All over the country, states have instituted the two-week quarantine for hotels, inns, golf courses and other amenities to stop people from states with high COVID-19 infection rates from bringing the virus with them, sickening local residents and overwhelming medical facilities. But the requirements are devastating for people who rely on rental income from out-of-state tourists, especially those in New England or other northern climes with very short summer seasons. Even if visitors stay with a friend or relative, the 14-day quarantine means they can’t shop or go out for curbside pickup dining. (Povich, 5/20)

For one Rikers Island correction officer, the low point came when he and his wife were both extremely sick with the coronavirus. She could hardly breathe and begged him to make sure she was not buried in a mass grave, he recalled. He was sure he had contracted the disease working in the jailhouse, where supervisors had discouraged him from wearing a mask. “I’m looking at the person I care most about possibly dying from this thing I brought home,” he said, choking back tears. “That to me is the scariest thing I ever faced.” Another officer at the Rikers jail said he worked for nearly two weeks while feeling ill but received no help from the jail’s administrators in getting a test. (Ransom, 5/20)

The Maseratis, the Rolls-Royces and the Mercedes-Benzes were back on Rodeo Drive on Tuesday — along with a few high-end buyers — as America’s most fashionable shopping street slowly got back to business. Just a few days after Beverly Hills officials announced the high-end boutiques lining its most exclusive street could reopen for curbside pickup, shoppers began tentatively making their way onto its wide sidewalks and narrow roadway. (Rogers and Landis, 5/20)

The Rev. Peter Purpura walked slowly down the middle of a street lined with brick rowhouses in Middle Village, Queens. He wore a black cassock, white vestments and a light blue surgical mask as he led a procession. Every few houses a family waited outside in their compact front yard, many standing next to makeshift altars adorned with flowers, candles and religious statues. Father Purpura stopped at each house, saying blessings and offering prayers. (Estrin, 5/20)

Rebecca and Bruce Austin in central Illinois have six kids ranging in age from 4 to 22. Five kids still live at home, and all of them came to the Austins through the foster care system. All told, they see 14 doctors. When parents agree to foster or adopt children from the foster care system, many states promise to provide health care for the children, usually through Medicaid. But recently, thousands of children in Illinois temporarily lost coverage when the state switched their health plans to managed care. (Herman, 5/20)

As the state Legislature takes up Gov. Gavin Newsom’s budget — the one with $19 billion less than before the coronavirus pandemic struck — some legislators say they're hoping to put to use lessons learned from the last state budget crisis in hopes of avoiding some of the same mistakes. Mark Leno was elected to the state Senate in 2008, just as the economy was in free fall. What he remembers are the lines of people who came to the state Capitol to plead for their favorite programs before the Health and Human Services budget subcommittee. (Shafer, 5/19)

Dine-in restaurants, schools and other businesses in Napa County can resume operations after state officials on Tuesday approved the county’s petition to push ahead the next phase of reopening. The California Department of Public Health gave Napa County the green light to move further into phase two of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s post-shutdown reopening plan, county officials said, marking the first Bay Area county to take this step during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. (Bauman, 5/19)

As coronavirus cases in Wisconsin neared 13,000 on Tuesday, Gov. Tony Evers laid out a plan that calls for the state to spend $1 billion in federal aid to ramp up testing and contact tracing and support local health departments. The money is part of a grant to the state through the federal CARES Act, which was approved by Congress to help states deal with the coronavirus crisis.  (Hauer and Heim, 5/19)

Metro Detroit government leaders have started to reveal how they plan to allocate nearly $700 million in federal stimulus money to help deal with the impacts of the coronavirus. County executives in Macomb and Oakland counties announced Tuesday they plan to allocate portions of their counties' allotments to local governments and small businesses. (Hall, 5/19)

Harris County Commissioners Court on Tuesday doubled, to $30 million, the size of a COVID-19 relief fund aimed at helping the most vulnerable residents pay for housing, utilities, food and health care. The fund will provide $1,200 for households with one to four residents, and $1,500 for larger families. Precinct 1 Commissioner Rodney Ellis, who proposed the program, estimated the program will help at least 20,000 households. (Despart, 5/19)

Vermont prides itself on being a tourist destination during the warmer months of the year. But, in light of the new coronavirus pandemic, and the need to reopen the state slowly, annual tourism and recreation activities may either be put on hold or canceled completely. (Murray, 5/19)

Maine Governor Janet Mills announced Tuesday afternoon that full reopenings of gyms, fitness centers, and nail salons across the state will be delayed “in light of emerging research and experiences in other states" regarding coronavirus transmission at the businesses. The businesses were slated to reopen on June 1 under Stage 2 of Mills’ four-stage plan to reopen the state’s economy, which has been in place for nearly three weeks. (Berg, 5/19)

Two prisoners with medical conditions that make them vulnerable to the coronavirus are suing Maine’s Department of Corrections for not granting them furlough or providing them with the means to protect themselves during the pandemic, actions they say violate their constitutional rights and federal disability laws. (Andrews, 5/19)

For nearly a decade, Katherine Robins has sounded the alarm about the lack of hand-washing among employees at the Baton Rouge nursing home where her husband lives. Through a live video feed of his room, she’s watched over the years as one health worker after another at Carrington Place walks past the hand sanitizer on the door, then the one on the sink in the corner, before caring for him, she said. So when Doug Robins, 49, was recently hospitalized with the coronavirus, she wasn’t surprised. (Roberts, Rddad, Russell and Simerman, 5/19)

The California Department of Public Health on May 11 gave each of the state’s 1,224 skilled nursing homes until June 1 to submit a plan for regularly testing residents and staff. But waiting until June — months into the pandemic that has already killed 1,143 residents and workers at the state’s nursing homes and assisted living facilities — is too late, those critics say. (Ho and Ravani, 5/19)

Of the 4,624 people who have already died of the coronavirus in Pennsylvania, at least two-thirds of them were associated with nursing homes or other long-term care facilities. Last week Pennsylvania's health department said it's "executing a robust universal testing strategy" for the more than 80,000 residents and 10,000 staffers at 1,900-plus facilities. But in the week since the announcement, some long-term care facilities have been left confused and saying they haven't been given enough guidance. (Doubek, 5/19)

Governors in New York, California, Colorado, Ohio, Alaska, and Georgia have already indicated they plan to cut Medicaid spending. Congress increased federal matching funds in its second COVID-19 relief package, but included restrictions that leave states few options to cut Medicaid other than slashing provider payments. If pay cuts aren't targeted, they could inflict further damage on safety-net providers that have already been disadvantaged by formulas to distribute federal assistance. (Cohrs, 5/19)

A group of 36 organizations representing U.S. employers on Tuesday urged Congressional leaders to bolster job-based health coverage and access to healthcare services by providing COBRA subsidies, shoring up primary care practices and implementing programs to mitigate potential premium hikes. The joint letter outlined recommendations for policies to be included in the fifth COVID-19 relief package, which has been passed by the House of Representatives but is stalled in the Senate. The American Business Council, The ERISA Industry Committee, the National Alliance of Healthcare Purchaser Coalitions, and the Pacific Business Group on Health drafted the letter. (Livingston, 5/19)

Kaiser Health News: How A Company Misappropriated Native American Culture To Sell Health Insurance

Jill Goodridge was shopping for affordable health insurance when a friend told her about O’NA HealthCare, a low-cost alternative to commercial insurance. The self-described “health care cooperative” promised a shield against catastrophic claims. Its name suggested an affiliation with a Native American tribe — a theme that carried through on its website, where a feather floats from section to section. (Schulte, 5/20)

Mayo Clinic's operating income took an 88% hit in the first quarter of 2020 as the health system weathered the effects of the pandemic in the latter half of March. Rochester, Minn.-based Mayo said it generated a strong margin in January and February, and even into the first half of March. That all changed when the health system was forced to cancel elective procedures amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Mayo ultimately reported $29 million in operating income in the quarter, which ended March 31, compared with $241 million in the 2019 period. Mayo's operating margin was just 0.9% in the first quarter of 2020, compared with a strong, 7.2% margin in the prior-year period. (Bannow, 5/18)

Within days of social media companies taking down a viral video touting conspiracy theories about the novel coronavirus, a clip popped up on YouTube telling viewers about another way they could still access the banned footage: through a link to the video on the file-sharing service Google Drive. Google Drive is not a social media platform, nor is it set up to tackle the problems that social media companies face: the weaponization of their services to amplify dangerous content. But the use of the Drive link, to the trailer for a documentary called “Plandemic,” reflects a wave of seemingly countless workarounds employed by people motivated to spread misinformation about the virus — efforts that continue to thwart social media companies’ attempts at preventing hoaxes and conspiracy theories from spreading in the midst of the greatest public health crisis in decades. (Dwoskin, 5/20)

There have been plenty of jaw-dropping digital moments during the coronavirus pandemic. There was the time this month when Taylor Swift announced she would air her “City of Lover” concert on television. The time that the cast of “The Office” reunited for an 18-minute-long Zoom wedding. And the time last month that the Pentagon posted three videos that showed unexplained “aerial phenomena.” Yet none of those went as viral as a 26-minute video called “Plandemic,” a slickly produced narration that wrongly claimed a shadowy cabal of elites was using the virus and a potential vaccine to profit and gain power. (Frenkel, Decker and Alba, 5/20)

New Jersey’s top homeland security official received nearly nonstop calls in early March from grocery chains, trucking companies and other logistics firms wanting to know if rumors of an impending national lockdown were true. They weren’t, and Jared Maples soon learned the companies were reacting to misinformation stemming from text messages shared widely across the country. (Catalini and Klepper, 5/20)

President Donald Trump arrived on Capitol Hill on Tuesday for perhaps one of the larger social gatherings still happening in Washington amid the coronavirus — the weekly Senate Republican lunch. Behind closed doors, Trump was unscripted and freewheeling with the 53 GOP senators. He touted his poll numbers, dismissed rival Joe Biden and implored Republicans to “be tough” against Democrats this fall. Despite House passage of a $3 trillion pandemic aid package, Republicans insisted they’ll wait until June to consider whether more help is necessary. (Mascaro, 5/19)

President Trump didn’t press Senate Republicans on Tuesday about specific ideas for the possible next round of coronavirus relief, instead focusing on the 2020 election and other concerns, adding to the uncertainty over the timing of any future deal with Democrats. “We have a lot of priorities,” Mr. Trump told reporters when asked about what he told senators regarding the coronavirus response. Mr. Trump and his economic aides have backed the idea of a payroll-tax holiday and other tax measures, but the president didn’t emphasize them Tuesday to senators or in public appearances. (Wise and Duehren, 5/19)

President Trump on Tuesday privately expressed opposition to extending a weekly $600 boost in unemployment insurance for laid-off workers affected by the coronavirus pandemic, according to three officials familiar with his remarks during a closed-door lunch with Republican senators on Capitol Hill. The increased unemployment benefits — paid by the federal government but administered through individual states — were enacted this year as part of a broader $2 trillion relief package passed by Congress. (Kim, 5/19)

Republican leaders in the U.S. Congress said on Tuesday they were in no hurry to work on another coronavirus relief package, despite the House of Representatives’ passage last week of a $3 trillion measure. “We need to assess what we’ve already done, take a look at what worked and what didn’t work, and we’ll discuss the way forward in the next couple of weeks,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told reporters after President Donald Trump spoke to a Senate Republican luncheon. (Cowan and Cornwell, 5/19)

Democrats said the $3 trillion coronavirus aid bill that was approved last week in the House of Representatives is meant to meet the needs of everyday Americans. Republicans dismissed that same bill as a partisan attempt to enact a longstanding wish list of Democratic policy priorities. Progressive Democrats don't exactly dispute that. (Snell, 5/20)

Members of the Senate Banking Committee squabbled Tuesday over how quickly the U.S. economy can rebound from the coronavirus shutdown and whether the federal government is doing enough to support struggling families and businesses in the meantime. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell defended the government's multi-trillion-dollar relief efforts to date. Powell stressed additional measures may be necessary to prevent lasting economic damage. (Horsely, 5/19)

President Trump joined a Republican Senate luncheon Tuesday, where he defended his reported use of controversial antimalarial medication hydroxychloroquine. He also said he would temporarily waive regulations that could complicate business openings or slow economic growth. Meanwhile, senators from the two parties diverged on when and how to provide more pandemic relief. (Alcindor, 5/19)

The nation’s top two economic policy leaders offered contrasting visions about the economic outlook, with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin favoring a wait-and-see approach to more federal aid and Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell suggesting more would be needed. Their positions expressed Tuesday reflected differing views on the prospects for a swift economic rebound from the coronavirus pandemic. (Timiraos and Davidson, 5/19)

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin warned Tuesday that the economy could suffer long-term damage without further congressional action on the coronavirus pandemic, but differed over how the country and its leaders should tackle that challenge. During a joint virtual appearance before the Senate Banking Committee, Powell and Mnuchin revealed one of the few differences in their approaches to guiding the world’s largest economy out of the worst downturn since the Great Depression. Their input comes amid an escalating partisan battle over easing restrictions imposed to slow the spread of COVID-19. (Lane, 5/19)

In a sometimes testy hearing before the Senate Banking Committee, Mnuchin and Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said the nearly $3 trillion in federal rescue programs rolled out over the past two months were working to support an economy devastated by the novel coronavirus. The Treasury and Fed chiefs faced tough questions over whether the administration’s plans to quickly reopen the economy in the wake of lockdowns imposed in March and April would leave low-wage workers without adequate protections from the virus. (Lawser, 5/19)

Mr. Powell sounded a more cautious tone, explaining that a full recovery will not come until the health crisis is resolved. “The No. 1 thing, of course, is people believing that it’s safe to go back to work, and that’s about having a sensible, thoughtful reopening of the economy, something that we all want — and something that we’re in the early stages of now,” Mr. Powell said. “It will be a combination of getting the virus under control, development of therapeutics, development of a vaccine.” (5/19)

Mnuchin did warn of the possibility of severe and extended economic downturn, saying "there is the risk of permanent damage.” But he also reiterated "We expect economic conditions to improve in the third and fourth quarter and into next year." Powell disagreed with that prediction in an interview with CBS News program "60 Minutes" on Sunday, saying "it may take a period of time, it could stretch through the end of next year, we really don't know.” (Kolinovsky, 5/19)

“How many workers will die if we send people back to work without the protections they need, Mr. Secretary?” Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) asked Mnuchin. “How many workers should give their lives to increase our [gross domestic product] by half a percent?” “No workers should give their lives to do that, Mr. Senator, and I think your characterization is unfair,” Mnuchin replied, insisting that the administration is working with governors and has provided “enormous amounts” of protective equipment. (Werner, Kim and Stein, 5/19)

During the 2008 financial crisis, Wall Street banks and other big financial institutions were deemed “too big to fail.” The crisis unleashed by the pandemic has broadened that elite status to a significant swath of the American private sector. In a bid to soften the coronavirus’s economic blow, the government has stretched its financial safety net wide — from strategically sensitive companies, to entire industries such as energy and airlines, to the market for corporate bonds. (Phillips, 5/19)

Rahama Wright has been in business for 15 years, but the experienced entrepreneur could never have foreseen the impacts of a pandemic coming her way. "It has been an up and down rollercoaster," Wright told ABC News' Alex Presha. The owner of Shea Yeleen, a social impact business that sells shea butter products made by women in rural west African villages, Wright says one of the lowest points was being unable to secure a Paycheck Protection Program loan from the government's coronavirus emergency response. (Kolinovsky, 5/20)

Florida’s problem-riddled unemployment system is emerging as the face of national frustration and angst felt by workers sidelined by the coronavirus pandemic. A number of states’ unemployment systems have suffered delays and other glitches due to a historic surge of applicants and faulty computer systems. Florida, though, has seen sustained issues, and outrage continues to build. On Monday, Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, said some applicants weren’t completing forms correctly. (Leary, 5/19)

A group of McDonald's employees in Chicago on Tuesday filed a class-action lawsuit alleging that the fast-food chain failed to adopt government safety guidelines to protect workers amid the coronavirus outbreak, Reuters reported. The lawsuit accuses McDonald's of failing to provide a sufficient amount of hand sanitizer, gloves and masks. It also claims that the company hadn't contacted staff when an employee had tested positive for COVID-19, according to a copy of the suit obtained by the news service. (Wise, 5/19)

Some companies in Massachusetts can begin calling up to a quarter of their workforce back to offices as soon as next Monday. Other industries, such as construction and manufacturing, can resume work immediately — as long as proper safety measures are in place. While some workers may be more than happy to get back out there, others are wondering about the health and their rights. (Oakes, 5/19)

The Trump campaign has an order from the president: Find a way to get him back on the road and into mega-rallies to re-energize his base. In recent meetings with top campaign officials and White House aides, Trump has questioned why he’s avoiding campaign events if it‘s safe for him to travel in his official capacity. The president visited two medical supply facilities in Arizona and Pennsylvania this month and will tour a Ford ventilator factory in Michigan on Thursday. The official White House travel replaced what would have otherwise been a much busier campaign season for the president, who held three rallies in three days at the end of February. (Orr, 5/20)

Mitch McConnell can’t afford any tension with President Donald Trump. So he’s doing everything he can to keep his fragile majority in sync with Trump and his explosive election-year playbook. Just three days after Trump berated McConnell on Twitter to “get tough” with Democrats and probe the 2016 Russia investigation that ensnared Trump’s campaign, the Senate majority leader took to the floor to echo the president’s misgivings in a way he declined to do last week. (Everett and Desiderio, 5/19)

A Texas federal judge on Tuesday ruled that all voters afraid of catching the novel coronavirus can request absentee mail-in ballots due to the pandemic. District Judge Fred Biery ruled that the "disability" provision in the state's vote-by-mail election code applies to all registered voters who "lack immunity from Covid-19 and fear infection at polling places." (Mena, 5/19)

Lucy Li tries not to let fear dictate her interactions with patients as she makes the rounds in the covid-19 intensive care unit. But the anesthesiology resident at Massachusetts General Hospital cannot erase the memory of what happened after work at the start of the pandemic. A man followed the Chinese American doctor from the Boston hospital, spewing a profanity-laced racist tirade as she walked to the subway. “Why are you Chinese people killing everyone?” Li recalled the man shouting. “What is wrong with you? Why the f--- are you killing us?” (Jan, 5/19)

Adil el-Tayar was a distinguished renal transplant surgeon, originally from Sudan, who volunteered to attend to coronavirus patients in an emergency room. Within weeks, the 64-year-old was dead — the first doctor in Britain to succumb to the virus. “He was aware there was a risk,” his son Osman said. “But he didn’t believe it would affect him the way it did.” (Adam, 5/20)

A former employee at the MedStar Washington Hospital Center claims she was fired for raising red flags on social media about what she contends were a lack of safety precautions by the hospital against the spread of the novel coronavirus. According to a lawsuit filed Friday in D.C. Superior Court, Sarah Cusick’s social media posts also prompted the hospital’s management to ask her to remove tweets, which she did. (Swenson, 5/19)

Kaiser Health News/The Guardian: Lost On The Frontline

A memory care nurse who refused to let fear stop her from living. A pediatrician whose bond with his son informed his care for his patients. A volunteer firefighter with a quick sense of humor. These are some of the people just added to “Lost on the Frontline,” a special series from The Guardian and KHN that profiles health care workers who die of COVID-19. (5/20)

San Francisco General Hospital has appealed seven violations cited against it by the state’s workplace safety watchdog agency, arguing this week that administrators need more information to respond to reputation-damaging findings that they failed to protect emergency department staff. The agency, Cal/OSHA, fined the hospital $26,660 on April 23 for workplace safety violations, including retaliating against workers who complained about dangerous conditions. The hospital administrators’ appeal demanded more details to defend themselves and criticized the state agency for neglecting to give enough time for them to meaningfully review their response to allegations. (Moench, 5/19)

U.S. births continued to fall last year, leading to the fewest number of newborns in 35 years. The decline is the latest sign of a prolonged national “baby bust” that’s been going on for more than a decade. And some experts believe the coronavirus pandemic and its impact on the economy will suppress the numbers further. (Stobbe, 5/20)

“There are a lot of people out there who would like to have two children, a larger family, and there’s something going on out there that makes people feel like they can’t do that,” said Melanie Brasher, assistant professor of sociology at the University of Rhode Island, who studies fertility. Birthrates fell or held steady for women of all ages except those in their early 40s. Teenagers saw the sharpest drop, with a 5% decline in their birthrate. Since peaking in 1991, the teen birthrate has fallen 73%. (Adamy, 5/20)

The email, written by an eighth grader and with the subject line “Wellness Check,” landed in her school counselor’s inbox nearly three weeks after schools had closed in Libby, Mont., a remote town of 2,700 cradled by snow-topped mountains. “I would like you to call me,” the student wrote. “This whole pandemic has really been frightening and I hate to say it, but I miss going to school. I hate being home all day.” (Levin, 5/20)

As the global death toll from the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic climbs, employers are scrambling to address the explosive rates of anxiety, depression, substance abuse, and potential suicides that have emerged along with it. Like the virus itself, this secondary epidemic is expected to affect far more people than the existing health care system can address, leaving employers to pick up the slack. (Cohen, 5/19)

Is it OK to resume athletic training, even if you have gotten through a bout of Covid-19 or tested positive for coronavirus or suspect you might have been infected? Two new expert-consensus statements from pulmonologists and cardiologists, published separately in The Lancet and JAMA Cardiology, urge caution. The new statements point out that the always-thorny issue of when injured or ill athletes can return to training is further complicated now, since the novel coronavirus is novel and much about its short- and long-term effects on the body remain unknown. (Reynolds, 5/20)

COVID-19 has taken the medical focus away from many other serious diseases, including cancer. According to the American Cancer Society, more than a quarter of patients with active cancer are reporting delays in treatment. Also, cancer screenings are down, meaning many conditions will worsen while the health system diverts to fight the virus. At the same time, the pandemic is creating bottlenecks in care. (Noguchi, 5/19)

On the day Elizabeth Martucci and her 11-year-old son were deemed to have recovered from the coronavirus, they emerged from their home on the Jersey Shore with some sidewalk chalk to sketch a message in the driveway. “We are Covid survivors,” they wrote.“I thought I’m going to tell everybody, ‘I had this, and I’m OK,’ just to show people it’s not a death sentence,” Ms. Martucci said. She also bought T-shirts that said “Covid Survivor,” anticipating that some of the neighbors on her cul-de-sac in Cape May Court House might have some lingering discomfort. (Nir, 5/20)

Most elderly covid-19 patients put on ventilators at two New York hospitals did not survive, according to a sweeping study published Tuesday that captured the brutal nature of this new disease and the many ways it attacks the body. The study, published in the Lancet, is broadly consistent with clinical findings from China and Europe, and confirmed that advanced age is the greatest risk factor for a severe outcome, particularly if accompanied by chronic underlying diseases, such as hypertension, diabetes, heart disease and obesity. (Achenbach and Cha, 5/19)

Dogs have a remarkable sense of smell and scientists are studying whether our canine friends could help identify people infected with the novel coronavirus. Medical Detection Dogs, a British charity, has already succeeded in training dogs to detect the odor of malaria, cancer and Parkinson's disease. Now it's training dogs to spot the odor of COVID-19. (Jovanovic, 5/19)

Chinese researchers have isolated live COVID-19 virus from the feces of patients who died from the disease, according to a report published yesterday in Emerging Infectious Diseases. In the same journal, a separate group of Chinese researchers reported detection of RNA from SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, on surfaces in hotel rooms used to quarantine people suspected of having the disease. (Van Beusekom, 5/19)

Across Massachusetts, the coronavirus pandemic has separated families from their loved ones in nursing homes, and created new challenges for staff who are trying to stop the virus from spreading. Navigating this pandemic is always difficult, but it’s particularly complicated when you're caring for someone who has dementia — a reality that Helene Oppenheimer has come to realize all too well. (Wasser, 5/20)

During the pandemic, medical challenges like this have played out in hospitals across the country, especially in obstetrics, where doctors consider the impact of their decisions not only on the mother, but also on their unborn babies. With no COVID-19 research or textbooks to rely on, obstetricians have turned to each other, trading advice and experiences. (Kowalczyk, 5/19)

In normal times, hotels promote their star chefs or their swanky design upgrades. But priorities have changed. In the age of the coronavirus, the news from Hilton is a partnership — with Lysol. As hotel guests begin to return, the standard expectation of hygiene has been elevated to "where it's cleanliness almost with a double exclamation point after it," says Phil Cordell, Hilton's global head of brand development. (Berline, 5/20)

Hailing it as a tested killer of the novel coronavirus, New York City transit officials announced on Tuesday that they are launching a pilot program using ultraviolet light to disinfect its subway cars and buses. "To our knowledge, this is the first reported test of its kind, period," Patrick Foye, chairman and CEO of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, said at a news conference where the technology was demonstrated. (Hutchinson, 5/19)

Norma McCorvey, the woman known as “Jane Roe” in the landmark 1973 U.S. Supreme Court Roe v. Wade ruling legalizing abortion, said she was lying when she switched to support the anti-abortion movement, saying she had been paid to do so. (Serjeant, 5/19)

McCorvey, who died in 2017, became Jane Roe when, as a young homeless woman, she was unable to get a legal or safe abortion in the state of Texas. Her willingness to lend her experience to the legal case for abortion led to the passing of Roe v. Wade in 1973, which legalized abortions in all 50 states (though red states do all they can to get around this; recently, several have even used the COVID-19 pandemic to make abortions functionally impossible to procure). But conservatives had a field day in the mid '90s when the assertive, media-savvy pro-choice advocate and activist McCorvey became an anti-abortion born-again ex-gay Christian with the help of leaders of the evangelical Christian right, Reverend Flip Benham (of the infamous Operation Rescue) and Reverend Rob Schenck. A conservative film, Roe v. Wade, starring Jon Voight and Stacey Dash, will dramatize McCorvey’s “conversion.” (Da Costa, 5/19)

In a documentary about her life, “AKA Jane Roe,” which premieres Friday on FX, she made the deathbed confession in 2017 that her later-life fight against abortion rights was all an act that she was paid handsomely for by antiabortion activists. And it all goes back to the self-esteem and self-preservation of an abused girl running from the adults who failed to protect her. That heist by 10-year-old Norma Leah Nelson — born in Pointe Coupee Parish, La., and uprooted to Texas when she was 9 — ended when a housekeeper at the Oklahoma City motel where she holed up with a friend opened the door and found the two girls kissing, according to her memoir. (Dvorak, 5/19)

McCorvey, the face of the abortion-rights movement at the time, came out against abortion in 1995 after purportedly finding religion at the hands of an evangelical minister. She went on to publicly participate in anti-abortion rights protests for the next two decades, and even published a memoir in 1998 explaining her decision to change sides. "I'm on what I call the right side of the movement now, because I'm fighting for life, instead of death," she once told an interviewer, according to "CBS Sunday Morning." When asked if she thought Roe v. Wade would be overturned, she replied, "Yes, I hope so." (McNamara, 5/20)

Norma McCorvey was unmarried and unemployed when she became pregnant for the third time at age 22. It was 1969, and it was illegal to have an abortion in Texas, where she lived. McCorvey resorted to seeing an underground abortion doctor but walked out because of the "filth and cockroaches." Soon after, McCorvey became a national symbol for the abortion rights movement. (Lozano, 5/19)

“I was the big fish. I think it was a mutual thing. I took their money and they’d put me out in front of the cameras and tell me what to say. That’s what I’d say,” she says in “AKA Jane Roe,” which premieres Friday on FX. “It was all an act. I did it well too. I am a good actress.”In what she describes as a “deathbed confession,” a visibly ailing McCorvey restates her support for reproductive rights in colorful terms: “If a young woman wants to have an abortion, that’s no skin off my ass. That’s why they call it choice.” (Blake, 5/19)

In her time as chancellor of Germany, Angela Merkel has seen the European Union put to the test by Brexit, a wave of migration, the Greek debt crisis and populism, and still she held to a largely steadfast course. Then came the coronavirus. Faced with a tarnishing of her own legacy and a deep recession gutting her own country and its main trading partners, Ms. Merkel this week agreed to break with two longstanding taboos in German policy.Along with the French president, Emmanuel Macron, Ms. Merkel proposed a 500 billion euro fund to help the European Union member states most ravaged by the virus. (Erlanger, 5/19)

Spain has made it compulsory for all citizens, including children over six, to wear masks in public spaces as one of Europe’s strictest lockdowns gradually unwinds. The Health Ministry order said the masks - whose efficiency in curbing the coronavirus is hotly debated globally - would be needed from Thursday for indoor public spaces and outdoors when impossible to keep a two-metre distance. (Landauro, 5/20)

Thailand expects to have a vaccine for the novel coronavirus ready next year, a senior official said on Wednesday, after finding positive trial results in mice. Thailand will begin testing the mRNA (messenger RNA) vaccine in monkeys next week after successful trials in mice, said Taweesin Wisanuyothin, spokesman for the government’s Centre for COVID-19 Situation Administration. (5/20)

South Korean students began returning to school on Wednesday, but not without some hitches. Hundreds of thousands of high school seniors entered their schools after having their temperatures checked and rubbing their hands with sanitizer — familiar measures amid the coronavirus pandemic. (Kim, 5/20)

In the coming days, the Justice Department will make an important decision: whether to file criminal charges against one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies for allegedly colluding with rivals to inflate the prices of widely used drugs. The company, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, is betting that in the middle of a deadly pandemic, the Trump administration won’t dare to come down hard on the largest supplier of generic drugs in the United States. It is a high-stakes gamble that could affect millions of Americans who rely on Teva’s dozens of inexpensive generic drugs, as well as its brand-name products like Copaxone, for multiple sclerosis, and Ajovy, for migraines. Teva officials say criminal charges could cripple the Israeli company and potentially leave it unable to sell drugs to federal programs like Medicare. (Benner, Enrich and Thomas, 5/15)

As speculation mounts over pricing for remdesivir, a Gilead Sciences (GILD) executive suggested the experimental medicine will likely sell for much less than the nearly $30,000 it was recently valued at in a cost-effectiveness model, according to a Wall Street analyst. At the same time, the drug maker believes remdesivir has the potential to become a “multi-year commercial opportunity,” rather than provide just a surge in sales for a year or two, Leerink analyst Geoffrey Porges wrote in an investor note sent on Monday that summarized a conversation he had with Gilead chief financial officer Andrew Dickinson. (Silverman, 5/18)

When Elliott Management knocks, it’s difficult not to answer the door. The New York investment firm led by legendary activist investor Paul Singer is known for its persistence as it pressures companies to improve their share prices — and its willingness to turn hostile when necessary... Now, Alexion could become the latest major Boston-area company to be reshaped under Elliott’s watchful eye. (Chesto, 5/18)

Drug companies will have to notify Minnesota consumers about big prescription medication price hikes, under a major compromise measure signed into law on Tuesday. The new price transparency law, which passed both chambers of the Legislature with bipartisan support, is the result of more than a year of negotiations between legislators and interest groups. Its enactment comes amid increased political pressure for lawmakers to do something to address the rising cost of prescription drugs. (Van Oot, 5/13)

An Oklahoma law regulating pharmacy benefit managers like Express Scripts and OptumRx should be put on hold in light of the ongoing Covid-19 health crisis, a trade group representing the industry told a federal judge. The Pharmaceutical Care Management Association on Wednesday sought a preliminary injunction blocking Oklahoma’s enforcement of the law, which the group says will drive up prescription drug prices and “divert resources away from responding to the COVID-19 crisis.” (Wille, 5/14)

The rush is on to come up with a viable vaccine against COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus. Scores of academic institutions and companies around the world are hard at work, and at least eight vaccine candidates have reached or are approaching the clinical trial stage. Oxford University’s Jenner Institute is currently leading the race and due to start large-scale human trials by the end of May. This week, a Massachusetts-based biotech firm, Moderna, announced that its coronavirus vaccine had safely produced protective antibodies in human volunteers in early-stage testing. (Hillman, 5/19)

House Democratic leaders omitted drug pricing changes from a new, $3 trillion stimulus measure, signaling that coronavirus-related legislation won’t address a main policy priority of their caucus. Some senior Democrats and consumer advocacy groups have sought to include in every one of the five coronavirus packages introduced in the House this year “anti-profiteering” language aimed at denying pharmaceutical companies exclusive rights to produce Covid-19 vaccines or treatments and measures to prohibit high prices for the medicines. (Ruoff, 5/13)

Pfizer’s experimental gene therapy to treat Duchenne muscular dystrophy appeared to improve muscle function in a study of nine boys, but also resulted in serious drug reactions in three of those children, the company said Friday. The data are being presented at a virtual session of the American Society of Gene & Cell Therapy. Duchenne, which affects 12,000 children in the U.S., almost all of them boys, is a genetic disease in which muscles degenerate due to lack of a key protein called dystrophin, eventually leading to death. Several companies have been developing gene therapies that work by using viruses to sneak a truncated, but still functional, protein into cells. (Herper, 5/15)

A new HIV drug injected every two months effectively reduces the rate of infection, and provides longer and stronger protection than taking pills, a global trial published Monday revealed. The four-year trial, conducted by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in the U.S. and six other countries, injected a drug called cabotegravir every two months into 4,570 men and transgender women who have sex with men and are at high risk of contracting HIV. (Moench, 5/18)

Michelle McMurry-Heath doesn’t talk about biotech the way her peers do. Where other executives and experts might bring up “access,” and “reimbursement,” McMurry-Heath talks about fairness and ethics. “Science is the social justice issue of our age,” McMurry-Heath said. “Making sure that knowledge gets out to the people who need it, that, to me, is a justice issue.” The question is whether biotech will embrace McMurry-Heath’s point of view — and whether it will have any impact on lawmakers. (Florko and Herper, 5/14)

The cost of cancer drugs continues to escalate with each new product that comes on the market, often presenting formidable challenges to both patients and healthcare systems. But a new analysis suggests these high costs cannot be justified with respect to clinical benefit. (Nelson, 5/13)

That so much hope is being pinned on remdesivir, the drug Gilead is testing for Covid-19, reflects the failure of our system for new drug development rather than the unqualified success some commentators are making it out to be. If anything, remdesivir is the poster child for why we need a new model of drug development for pandemics and neglected diseases that isn’t restricted by the current market-based model. The Covid-19 pandemic has provided the pharmaceutical industry with a chance at bolstering its heavily tarnished image. Abbott Laboratories is winning effusive praise for its introduction of a rapid Covid-19 test. (Tahir Amin and Rohit Malpani, 5/19)

It has become painfully obvious that the only path back to normalcy involves either an effective treatment or a vaccine for covid-19. So it’s no surprise that the public has closely tracked the development of Gilead’s antiviral drug remdesivir, which has shown some promise as a treatment for the disease. Advocates have warned against what they fear will be high prices for covid-19 treatments. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), for example, has said a potential vaccine should be free and that we shouldn’t allow companies to “profiteer” from a cure. (Craig Garthwaite, 5/18)

The fast pace at which various laboratories are working on vaccines against Covid-19 carries both promise and peril. On Monday, Moderna Therapeutics Inc. announced the first reported data from human trials, and they are positive. That’s good news, and it arrived sooner than expected. But the parts of the project that lie ahead will be harder to accomplish with speed. Eight patients who received low and medium doses of the Moderna’s candidate vaccine appear to have developed antibodies capable of neutralizing the new coronavirus. (Max Nisen, 5/18)

American scientists are working furiously to develop treatments for the novel coronavirus, COVID-19. Right here in Southeast Pennsylvania, Inovio Pharmaceuticals is in the midst of Phase I human testing for its coronavirus vaccine candidate and hopes to launch Phase II and III trials this summer. (Kenneth E. Thorpe, 5/19)

It’s not so bad. That was the rationale in Barbados in 1647, when British merchants and wealthy planters, seeking to preserve the island colony’s slave trade, shrugged off the threat of the yellow fever epidemic that claimed thousands of lives. Also not so bad a hundred years later in Boston and other colonial seaports, when authorities played down the prevalence of smallpox so their customers overseas would keep welcoming their ships. Not so bad in New York and other cities in the 1830s, when President Andrew Jackson, one of Donald Trump’s White House heroes, repeatedly understated a raging cholera pandemic for fear of spoiling the era’s economic boom. (David Shribman, 5/20)

For as long as I can remember, I have identified as an optimist. Like a seedling reaching toward the golden sun, I’m innately tuned to seek out the bright side. Of course, in recent years this confidence has grown tougher to maintain. The industry I’ve long covered, technology, has lost its rebel edge, and grown monopolistic and power hungry. The economy at large echoed these trends, leaving all but the wealthiest out in the cold. All the while the entire planet veered toward uninhabitability. (Manjoo, 5/20)

In the initial weeks and months of the coronavirus outbreak, virtually all reports indicated it was sparing children. Pediatric cases accounted for fewer than 2 percent of total cases in the United States, and the majority of children who tested positive were asymptomatic or had mild symptoms. Parents breathed a collective sigh of relief. Then, on April 27 the British National Health Service issued an alert about a multi-system inflammatory disease in children with COVID-19, based on a small number of cases in London and elsewhere. (Sandra L. Fenwick, 5/19)

It's the latest Disney experience: waivers of Covid-19 liability for one and all! The novel coronavirus "is an extremely contagious disease that can lead to severe illness and death," Disney, while also reassuring that they have adopted "enhanced health and safety measures" now warns its potential customers: "By visiting Walt Disney World Resort, you voluntarily assume all risks related to exposure." A phased reopening of the shopping and dining area at Disney World is scheduled to begin May 20 and continue May 27. (Elie Honig, 5/18)

As COVID-19 spreads around the globe, people are understandably alarmed and governments have responded by imposing draconian restrictions, mandating business closures and requiring people to remain at home. Despite the economic costs, mandates are widely supported by citizens who are justifiably afraid of the spreading virus. Some governments have imposed less-draconian measures. In Sweden, the government recommends social distancing, but schools, stores, and restaurants remain open, and nobody is required to quarantine. As the pandemic continues, Sweden’s policies come closer to “business as usual” than in other nations. (Randall G. Holcombe, 5/19)

“If not me, then who?” That was the answer Marine Corps First Lieutenant Travis Manion gave when asked why he decided to serve in the military. He was killed by a sniper in 2007 while serving in Iraq as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Thirteen years later, Manion’s words resonate with a new group of fighters: health care workers. (Zachary Johannesson, Gregory Galeazzi and Samuel Lyon, 5/20)

In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, our doctors, nurses and other caregivers are rightfully getting plenty of exposure for their heroism and tireless courage in the fight against the disease. But one group that hasn't been in the discussion is hospital chaplains, who often spend nearly as much time with patients and families in crisis as clinicians. (Melinda Plumley, 5/19)

When my hospital discharged its 1,000th Covid-19 patient, it was cause for celebration—a testament to the great work done by selfless health-care workers during this difficult time. Yet that same day, I walked around our emergency room and noticed that it had only about half the volume of patients we normally see on a Thursday. Where did all our patients go? It is a question shared by many emergency departments in New York City. At Lenox Hill we’ve seen the number of patients complaining of chest pain drop by nearly a quarter, as well as a 39% decrease in patients diagnosed with an acute stroke. Sadly this doesn’t mean New Yorkers are getting healthier. (Yves Duroseau, 5/19)

If you had asked me what I thought of online therapy sessions before the coronavirus pandemic, I would have said, trying my best not to sound dismissive, “Well, I’m sure they can be helpful in certain ways — but I wouldn’t call them therapy.” ...But then came covid-19, and with shelter-at-home orders in place, I had no choice but to do remote sessions. I was glad I’d still be able to help to my patients, but I was skeptical that these sessions could go beyond crisis management. (Lori Gottlieb, 5/18)

Suffering from anxiety attacks, sleepless nights and surges of irritability, people around the world are experiencing the same emotional trauma that military veterans have felt for decades. This is especially the case for our frontline healthcare workers, and those who support them. Those who serve in our healthcare system are the tip of the spear in the battle against the novel coronavirus. (Shauna Springer, 5/19)

From screen time to food scarcity and health care access, parents and families are dealing with all sorts of hardships in the pandemic. For many incarcerated mothers, these challenges, including social isolation and severed community connections, were already a daily reality. The stress and anxiety of parenting from behind bars is now compounded by the threat of COVID’s spread in prison. (Erica King, 5/19)

America’s tap water is an essential part of the nation’s health infrastructure. Although delivery of that water is now under stress because of the coronavirus crisis, it also presents a once-in-a-generation opportunity to significantly improve our drinking water. Especially now, every home must have access to water. The uninterrupted delivery of water facilitates the frequent handwashing required to protect against even wider COVID-19 contamination and allows a homebound nation to prepare meals and keep dwellings clean. (Seth M. Siegel, 5/18)

Here’s an unhappy scenario for you: After months of work around the world on more than 100 vaccine candidates for the new coronavirus, China wins the race to make the first proven one. But in response to belligerence from President Donald Trump, China pushes the U.S. to the back of the line for it. It probably won’t turn out like this. For one thing, China has suggested it will make a vaccine available to all, and surely it would never go back on its word, he typed after just waking up from a long coma. Anyway, the U.S. could avoid such an outcome by leading a coordinated global effort against what is, after all, a global pandemic, writes Bloomberg’s editorial board. This would involve everybody sharing funding and data and promising that health workers would get first dibs on a viable vaccine no matter where they were in the world. (Mark Gongloff, 5/19)

Faith in medicine and science is based on trust. But today, in the rush to share scientific progress in combating covid-19, that trust is being undermined. Private companies, governments and research institutes are holding news conferences to report potential breakthroughs that cannot be verified. The results are always favorable, but the full data on which the announcements are based are not immediately available for critical review. This is "publication by press release,” and it’s damaging trust in the fundamental methods of science and medicine at a time when we need it most. (William Haseltine, 5/19)

Some additional thoughts and comments on Moderna, its coronavirus vaccine, the stock’s valuation and Monday night’s $1.3 billion stock sale: Of course, Moderna raised money. It was only one week ago that I described Moderna’s $23 billion enterprise value as “astonishingly high” for a company with no approved products and no appreciable revenue. Monday, it was $29 billion, with the stock reaching another all-time high of $80 per share, or four times the price from the beginning of the year. I’ll say it again. Moderna has become biotech’s Tesla. (Adam Feuerstein, 5/19)

Two shockers in a row on Monday afternoon: President Trump declared to reporters at the White House that he has been taking hydroxychloroquine for a week and a half, as a purported preventive against covid-19. Moments later, he received a stern warning on the dangers of that much-discussed possible treatment for the novel coronavirus. And that warning came from none other than Fox News. “That was stunning," said host Neil Cavuto, reacting to the president’s remarks. “The president of the United States, just to acknowledge that he is taking a hydroxychloroquine, a drug that [was] meant really to treat malaria and lupus. The president is insistent that it has enormous benefits for patients either trying to prevent or already have covid-19. The fact of the matter is, though, when the president said, ‘What have you got to lose?’ a number of studies, those are certainly vulnerable in the population have one thing to lose. Their lives.” (Erik Wemple, 5/19)

Just when I think I can let my guard down, President Trump decides to announce to the world that he’s taking hydroxychloroquine, despite there being no evidence of its effectiveness in preventing covid-19. Maybe you’ve heard of this drug? I’ve been intimately familiar with it since long before covid-19. For 14 years, since I was diagnosed at 26, I have taken hydroxychloroquine to treat Sjogren’s syndrome, a systemic disease that causes crushing fatigue and joint pain, among other symptoms, and can damage the kidneys, liver, lungs, nerves and skin. (Stacy Torres, 5/19)

[President Trump's] admission about his use of hydroxychloroquine makes [his] previous musings about using disinfectant to treat the coronavirus look sage. The President can call on the best scientists and doctors in the world for medical advice, and he comes up with this? Trump's own FDA in late April warned of the dangers of taking hydroxychloroquine outside of a hospital or a clinical study setting "due to risk of heart rhythm problems." (Peter Bergen, 5/19)

Nursing-home residents make up less than 1% of the U.S. population, but in many states they account for half of all Covid-19 deaths. In some states it’s higher, such as Minnesota (81%), New Hampshire (77%) and Pennsylvania (71%), according to data from the Kaiser Family Foundation. Shutting down the economy and ordering the public to stay at home didn’t prevent these deaths. These people were already staying home. Public-health officials are warning that Covid-19 could surge again in the winter. The single most effective way to save lives would be to improve infection control in nursing homes and prepare to rush supplies of masks, gloves and other personal protective equipment to these facilities. Overlooking nursing homes was the biggest lost opportunity in the battle against Covid-19. (Betsy McCaughey, 5/19)

CONSHOHOCKEN, Pa. — Just three weeks ago, family and friends did their best to comfort my six siblings and me via videoconference as we mourned my mother, Sylvia. Our grief was compounded by the circumstances of her death: She died at 82 after contracting the coronavirus at her assisted living facility, one of the victims of an outbreak that killed at least 5 patients and sickened 30 other residents and staff members.It has also been compounded by the divisive rhetoric from elected officials seeking to prevent families from seeking redress for their loved ones’ unnecessary suffering. (Tobias L. Millrood, 5/20)

The World Health Assembly on Tuesday unanimously agreed to establish an inquiry into the World Health Organization’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic. Press reports describe the investigation as “independent,” but it’s too soon to know if the probe will be free from political pressure. The European Union and Australia led the push for an inquiry, which is set to begin “at the earliest appropriate moment.” Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison deserves particular praise for standing firm amid Chinese bullying. Beijing has imposed tariffs on Australian barley and suspended imports of beef over Mr. Morrison’s push for a probe. (5/19)

In 2007, conflict was driving hundreds of thousands of Somalis from their homes, Burmese police were beating monks in the streets and a U.S. mortgage crisis was about to topple the global economy. Also in 2007, Nelson Mandela turned 89, and on his birthday, he announced the formation of a group of veterans of global politics with a mandate to “foster agreement where there is conflict and inspire hope where there is despair.” He called it The Elders... [W]ith the highest confirmed rate of coronavirus infection in the world, a sclerotic government and a bitterly divided electorate, it is time for the United States to convene its own council of American Elders. (Brian Babcock-Lumish, 5/19)

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought the global economy to its knees, eliminated many personal freedoms and constrained social choices. Over 1.5 million people are infected and at least 91,000 have died in the U.S., and Americans are frightened and confused, and looking to our government to provide comfort and instill confidence that there's a working plan to keep everyone safe. Without a centralized "Mission Control," the implementation of a plan to realize this vision cannot happen. (Bhatt and Goldhammer, 5/20)