First Edition: April 15, 2020

Kaiser Health News/The Guardian: Lost On The Frontline
America’s health care workers are dying. In some states, medical staff account for as many as 20% of known coronavirus cases. They tend to patients in hospitals, treating them, serving them food and cleaning their rooms. Others at risk work in nursing homes or are employed as home health aides. Some of them do not survive the encounter. Many hospitals are overwhelmed and some workers lack protective equipment or suffer from underlying health conditions that make them vulnerable to the highly infectious virus. (Bailey, Gee, Jewett, Renwick and Varney, 4/15)

Kaiser Health News: True Toll Of COVID-19 On U.S. Health Care Workers Unknown
The number of health care workers who have tested positive for the coronavirus is likely far higher than the reported tally of 9,200, and U.S. officials say they have no comprehensive way to count those who lose their lives trying to save others. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released the infection tally Tuesday and said 27 health worker deaths have been recorded, based on a small number of test-result reports. Officials stressed that the count was drawn from just 16% of the nation’s COVID-19 cases, so the true numbers of health care infections and deaths are certainly far higher. (Jewett and Szabo, 4/15)

Kaiser Health News: A Desperate Scramble As COVID-19 Families Vie For Access To Plasma Therapy 
Stephen Garcia’s family is frantic. The auto body worker, just 32 years old, has been on a ventilator in a Los Angeles-area hospital for nearly two weeks, gravely ill with COVID-19, unresponsive — and unaware of the battle they’re waging on his behalf. For days, Garcia’s mother, his aunt and his girlfriend have pleaded with doctors at Kaiser Permanente Downey Medical Center to try an experimental treatment — blood plasma from people recovered from COVID-19 — in hopes of saving his life. (Aleccia, 4/15)

Kaiser Health News: COVID-19 Brings Overhaul Of Military Health Care To A Halt
The agencies that oversee the health of U.S. military personnel and veterans were pushing ahead this spring with the biggest overhaul of their health systems in three decades. The initiatives aimed to shift up to 15 million patients to private care providers, shutter clinics and hospitals, and reduce the number of military doctors and nurses. The Army, Navy and Air Force, along with the Defense Health Agency, had begun shedding patients and providers under reforms set into motion in 2017 under the National Defense Authorization Act. (Kime, 4/15)

Kaiser Health News: Massachusetts Recruits 1,000 ‘Contact Tracers’ To Battle COVID-19
Massachusetts is launching an effort to reach everyone in the state who may have the coronavirus and get them tested and into isolation or treatment if needed. The ambitious goal is to stop — not just slow — the destructive power of COVID-19 through the tedious, yet powerful public health tool called contact tracing. Contact tracing starts with a call to someone who has tested positive for the coronavirus, and then follow-up with everyone that person was in close contact with — family, friends, colleagues or others they got closer than 6 feet from for more than a brief encounter. (Bebinger, 4/14)

The New York Times: Criticized For Pandemic Response, Trump Tries Shifting Blame To The W.H.O.
For weeks, President Trump has faced relentless criticism for having overseen a slow and ineffective response to the coronavirus pandemic, failing to quickly embrace public health measures that could have prevented the disease from spreading. Recent polls show that more Americans disapprove of Mr. Trump’s handling of the virus than approve. So on Tuesday, the president tried to shift the blame elsewhere, ordering his administration to halt funding for the World Health Organization and claiming the organization made a series of devastating mistakes as it sought to battle the virus. He said his administration would conduct a review into whether the W.H.O. was responsible for “severely mismanaging and covering up” the spread. (Shear and McNeil, 4/14)

The Washington Post: Trump Announces Cutoff Of New Funding For The World Health Organization Over Pandemic Response
Trump’s announcement was expected, as he seeks to deflect blame for his early dismissal of the virus as a threat to Americans and the U.S. economy. It is not yet clear how the United States will cut off money to the main international organization focused on fighting the pandemic, or whether Trump is setting conditions for a resumption of U.S. payments. “We have not been treated properly,” Trump said, as he announced a suspension period of 60 to 90 days for U.S. funding. (Gearan, 4/14)

The Associated Press: Trump Ends US Aid To WHO, Says Not Enough Done To Stop Virus
The United States contributed nearly $900 million to the WHO’s budget for 2018-19, according to information on the agency’s website. That represents one-fifth of its total $4.4 billion budget for those years. The U.S. gave nearly three-fourths of the funds in “specified voluntary contributions” and the rest in “assessed” funding as part of Washington’s commitment to U.N. institutions. (Superville, 4/15)

The Wall Street Journal: U.S. To Cut Funding To World Health Organization Over Coronavirus Response
Democrats panned Mr. Trump’s decision, arguing it could complicate global efforts to respond to the outbreak. “Any attempt by the President to force United States health experts to work without the WHO would be counterproductive and lead to more suffering in the end,” House Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Nita Lowey (D., N.Y.) said. (Restuccia, 4/14)

Reuters: Global Reaction To Trump Withdrawing WHO Funding
China urged the United States to fulfil its obligations to the WHO. Foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said the coronavirus pandemic, which has infected nearly 2 million people globally, was at a critical stage and that the U.S. decision would affect all countries. (4/14)

Reuters: Trump Cuts WHO Funding Over Coronavirus, Global Toll Mounts
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said it was not the time to reduce resources for the WHO. “Now is the time for unity and for the international community to work together in solidarity to stop this virus and its shattering consequences,” he said in a statement. (Mason and Duran, 4/14)

The New York Times: Trump Announces His ‘Opening The Country’ Council
President Trump stood in the Rose Garden on Tuesday evening and recited a list of dozens of prominent business and labor leaders who he said would be advising him in deciding when and how to reopen the country’s economy, even as governors made it clear they will make those decisions themselves. The president’s announcement came after days of confusion about the makeup of what Mr. Trump has described as his “Opening the Country” council. Some business leaders were reluctant to have to defend Mr. Trump’s actions and risk damaging their brands, people with knowledge of the process said. (Karni and Haberman, 4/14)

The Associated Press: New Trump Advisory Groups To Consult On Reopening US Economy
The panel of advisers, whom Trump said he will consult by phone, will operate separately from the White House task force that’s leading the administration’s public health strategy to contain and mitigate the pandemic, though there is expected to be some overlap. The panel, which the White House has dubbed the Great American Economic Revival Industry Groups, includes more than 50 executives and leaders from agricultural, defense and financial service industries, as well as leaders from unions, professional sports, think tanks and more. (Lemire, Freking and Madhani, 4/15)

The Washington Post: Trump Wants To Declare Country Open By May 1 — But The Reality Will Be Much Slower
President Trump has all but decided to begin declaring the country ready to get back to business on May 1, two current and two former senior administration officials said, but a scramble is underway inside the White House to determine how to stagger a reopening of the economy amid the novel coronavirus pandemic while also protecting Trump from any political fallout. Impatient with the economic devastation wrought by social distancing and other mitigation measures — and fearful of the potential damage to his reelection chances — Trump has been adamant in private discussions with advisers about reopening the country next month. (Rucker, Costa and Parker, 4/14)

Reuters: Trump Says Close To Plan To Reopen Economy Possibly, In Part, Before May 1
Trump, facing re-election on Nov. 3 and under pressure to get the economy going again after millions have been made jobless by the shutdown, said some states should be able to reopen soon, based on a low rate of infections. “We think that some of the governors will be in really good shape to open up even sooner” than the end of April, Trump said. “Others are going to have to take a longer period of time.” (Mason and Alper, 4/14)

The Associated Press: In Nod To Governors, Trump Walks Back Total Authority Claim
Hours after suggesting that the bipartisan concerns of governors about his assertion of power would amount to an insurrection, Trump abruptly reversed course Tuesday, saying he would leave it to governors to determine the right time and manner to revive activity in their states. He said he would be speaking with governors, probably on Thursday, to discuss his plans. “The governors are responsible,” Trump said. “They have to take charge.” Still, he insisted, “The governors will be very, very respectful of the presidency.” (Colvin and Miller, 4/15)

The Associated Press: Trump’s ‘I Alone Can Fix It’ View And State Powers Collide
President Donald Trump insists there are “numerous provisions” in the Constitution to support his view that he has “total authority” to order states to open their economies as the coronavirus pandemic roils. He did not enumerate what they were. And the consensus among constitutional scholars is that’s because they don’t exist. (Tackett, 4/14)

The Washington Post: Trump’s Inaccurate Assertion Of ‘Total’ Authority Sparks Challenge From Governors
Cuomo said the president’s claim of total authority is “not an accurate statement,” because the basic principle of federalism is enshrined in the Constitution, in which powers not given to the federal government remain with the states. “The statement that he has total authority over the states and the nation cannot go uncorrected,” Cuomo said. “There are many things that you can debate in the Constitution because they’re ambiguous. This is not ambiguous.” (Kim, Dawsey and Dennis, 4/14)

The Washington Post: Four Pinocchios For Trump’s Claim That He Has ‘Total Authority’ Over The States
After declaring independence from Britain and shaking off the yoke of King George III, the Founders of the United States adopted a system of government in which power would be split between the states and a centralized federal government. The federal government has enumerated powers that it cannot expand, but the state legislatures are free to adopt powers not explicitly forbidden by their constitutions or the U.S. Constitution, according to Robert F. Williams, an expert on state constitutional law at Rutgers University Law School in Camden, N.J. (Rizzo, 4/14)

Politico: Why Trump Can’t Flip The Switch On The Economy
President Donald Trump is squabbling with governors and calling on a new council of corporate executives as he tries to reopen the American economy as quickly as possible. But his powers are limited not just by the Constitution but by the fact that he has limited sway over the real economy. Trump can fire off tweets, attempt to bully states into lifting social restrictions and otherwise declare America open for business. But he can’t force companies to reopen or ramp up production until owners and executives believe their workers are ready. (White, 4/15)

The Washington Post: CDC, FEMA Have Created A Plan To Reopen America. Here’s What It Says.
A team of government officials — led by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — has created a public health strategy to combat the novel coronavirus and reopen parts of the country. Their strategy, obtained by The Washington Post, is part of a larger White House effort to draft a national plan to get Americans out of their homes and back to work. It gives guidance to state and local governments on how they can ease mitigation efforts, moving from drastic restrictions such as stay-at-home orders in a phased way to support a safe reopening. (Sun, Dawsey and Wan, 4/14)

The Washington Post: Read: ‘Focus On The Future – Going To Work For America’
A team of government officials has created a public health response to a national plan to re-open the country amid the coronavirus pandemic. This document is an early draft executive summary by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It is part of CDC’s public health response to an overall national plan. (4/14)

Politico: Trump Announces Hospital-Led Ventilator Exchange Program
President Donald Trump announced today a national ventilator sharing program that aims to allow hospitals to lend the lifesaving devices to others facing acute coronavirus outbreaks. The goal of the program, developed in partnership with the American Hospital Association, is to utilize unused ventilators by sending them to hospitals in hot spots, according to Adam Boehler, a former HHS official who has been tapped to help with the coronavirus response. (Lim, 4/14)

The Wall Street Journal: U.S. Buying More Than $2.5 Billion In Ventilators For Coronavirus Patients
The federal government expects to receive tens of thousands more ventilators in coming weeks under more than $2.5 billion in new contracts recently signed with manufacturers, though Covid-19 cases may have peaked by the time the machines are delivered. General Electric Co., Medtronic PLC and other manufacturers are scheduled to deliver 6,190 new ventilators to the Strategic National Stockpile by May 8 and 29,510 by June 1 under the new contracts, the Department of Health and Human Services said. By the end of 2020, the new contracts are expected to yield 137,431 new ventilators, the agency said Monday. (Loftus, 4/14)

NPR: FEMA Administrator Gaynor Has Experience But Faces Issues
Leading the Federal Emergency Management Agency during the coronavirus pandemic may be one of the most thankless jobs in government right now. Governors are clamoring for more supplies, like ventilators and face masks. The president engages in public feuds with those governors. And other administration officials work back channels to acquire their own stockpiles of supplies. And in the middle of all this is Pete Gaynor, a former Marine and former head of the Rhode Island Emergency Management Agency, who now directs FEMA. (Naylor, 4/15)

The Associated Press: US Governors Grapple With Relaxing Virus Restrictions
After a month of draconian steps to minimize deaths and prevent hospital overload from the coronavirus pandemic, governors now face a new challenge: Deciding when and how to begin easing restrictions on businesses and social gatherings. Many of the states’ chief executives say they don’t want to move too quickly and risk a public health crisis, despite pressure from Republican lawmakers, business leaders, professional sports leagues and some parents. (Smyth, 4/15)

The Associated Press: California Governor Provides Complex Outline For Reopening
California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Tuesday outlined a complex set of circumstances for the state to lift coronavirus restrictions and then described a possible startling new normal: temperature checks for restaurant customers, staggered start times for public schools to keep students separated and no crowds at sporting events, fairs or concerts. It was a reality check for the state’s 40 million residents after days of encouraging reports about the slow growth in new cases that had many hopeful for a reset of public life following a depressing early spring spent mainly indoors. (Beam, 4/15)

The Wall Street Journal: Governors Assert Authority Over Reopening States’ Economies
California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Tuesday laid out six indicators that he said would help determine when he begins to modify his stay-at-home order.The indicators include expanding testing, meeting the needs of hospitals in case of additional surges and offering guidelines for businesses and schools to practice physical distancing. Restaurants may have fewer tables, and classrooms could be reconfigured to separate students, he said. “There is no light switch here,” said Mr. Newsom, a Democrat. “It’s more like a dimmer.” (Calfas, Parti and Restuccia, 4/14)

The New York Times: U.S. Governors, At Center Of Virus Response, Weigh What It Will Take To Reopen States
In Oregon, Gov. Kate Brown said the move toward reopening her state would be a cautious and incremental one, guided by data on transmission of the coronavirus, availability of personal protective equipment and testing capacity, among other factors. Gov. J. B. Pritzker of Illinois said he has begun reaching out to leaders of other Midwestern states to form a regional coalition to help make decisions on opening businesses and schools when the time comes. (Bosman, 4/14)

Los Angeles Times: Reopening The Economy Requires Coronavirus Testing; U.S. Still Isn’t Close
Effective testing is considered essential before state and local governments can lift restrictions on Americans’ movements, reopening schools and businesses and allowing the nation’s faltering economy to recover. But multiple, persistent problems continue to sharply limit the number of tests that can be done. Labs remain short of supplies, ranging from simple cotton swabs used to take samples from patients to complex chemicals, known as reagents, needed to carry out the tests. Some laboratories report shortages of trained workers. Little coordination exists to shift samples from busier labs, which have backlogs, to others that have surplus capacity. (Levey, 4/14)

The Associated Press: Would You Give Up Health Or Location Data To Return To Work?
Cameron Karosis usually strives to protect his personal information. But a scary bout of COVID-19 that began last month with headaches and fevers, progressed to breathing problems and led to a hospital visit has now left him eager to disclose as much as possible to help halt the virus’ spread. Karosis has already shared personal details with Massachusetts health investigators. And if he was asked to comply with a disease-tracking phone app that monitored his whereabouts but didn’t publicly reveal his name and Cambridge street address, he said he’d do that, too. (Larson and O’Brien, 4/15)

The Associated Press: Military Sees No Quick Exit From ‘New World’ Of Coronavirus
The U.S. military is bracing for a months-long struggle against the coronavirus, looking for novel ways to maintain a defensive crouch that sustains troops’ health without breaking their morale — while still protecting the nation. Unlike talk in the Trump administration of possibly reopening the country as early as May, military leaders are suggesting that this summer may be the best-case scenario of tiptoeing toward a return to normal activities. Even that is uncertain, and for now the focus is on adjusting as the pandemic’s threat evolves. (Burns, 4/15)

Politico: Trump’s New Health Care Legacy: Big Expansion Of Federal Role
President Donald Trump’s coronavirus fight has turned an administration that spent years trying to shrink the nation’s safety net into the driving force behind a sudden expansion of government involvement in American health care. The Trump administration is already pumping hundreds of billions of dollars into a key health sector that it previously vowed to rein in, expanding Medicare benefits and boosting payments to state Medicaid programs by an estimated $50 billion, while promising to directly pay for coronavirus treatment for thousands of uninsured in what some experts say mirrors a single-payer system. (Cancryn, 4/15)

Politico: What The President Said He Did On The Virus — And What He Actually Did
President Donald Trump, stung by accusations that he was slow to act on the coronavirus pandemic, has released a long list of key actions the administration took to save lives. But the list, released by his campaign, overstates some of his actions – and leaves out the inactions. (Doherty, 4/14)

The New York Times: N.Y.C. Death Toll Soars Past 10,000 In Revised Virus Count
New York City, already a world epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak, sharply increased its death toll by more than 3,700 victims on Tuesday, after officials said they were now including people who had never tested positive for the virus but were presumed to have died of it. The new figures, released by the city’s Health Department, drove up the number of people killed in New York City to more than 10,000, and appeared to increase the overall United States death count by 17 percent to more than 26,000. (Goodman and Rashbaum, 4/14)

Reuters: New York City Posts Sharp Spike In Coronavirus Deaths After Untested Victims Added
With only a tiny fraction of the U.S. population tested for coronavirus, the number of known infections climbed to more than 600,000 as of Tuesday, according to a running Reuters tally. U.S. public health authorities have generally only attributed deaths to COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the novel coronavirus, when patients tested positive for the virus. New York City’s Health Department said it will now also count any fatality deemed a “probable” coronavirus death, defined as a victim whose “death certificate lists as a cause of death ‘COVID-19’ or an equivalent.” (Chiacu and Caspani, 4/14)

The Associated Press: Death Toll Soars After NYC Counts ‘Probable’ Fatalities
“Behind every death is a friend, a family member, a loved one. We are focused on ensuring that every New Yorker who died because of COVID-19 gets counted,” said Health Commissioner Dr. Oxiris Barbot. “While these data reflect the tragic impact that the virus has had on our city, they will also help us to determine the scale and scope of the epidemic and guide us in our decisions.” New Yorkers continue to die at an unnerving pace even as the number of patients in hospitals has leveled off. (Matthews, Sisak and Villeneuve, 4/15)

ProPublica: There’s Been a Spike in People Dying at Home in Several Cities. That Suggests Coronavirus Deaths Are Higher Than Reported.
In recent weeks, residents outside Boston have died at home much more often than usual. In Detroit, authorities are responding to nearly four times the number of reports of dead bodies. And in New York, city officials are recording more than 200 home deaths per day — a nearly sixfold increase from recent years. As of Tuesday afternoon, the United States had logged more than 592,000 cases of COVID-19 and more than 24,000 deaths, the most in the world, according to the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. (Gillum, Song and Kao, 4/14)

The New York Times: Treating Coronavirus In A Central Park ‘Hot Zone’
Rubber boots hung from a tree of wooden pegs in soggy Central Park after being sterilized with chlorine. Workers observed a one-way flow into and out of what they referred to as “the hot zone” of patient treatment tents. Step by step, they removed their isolation suits in a designated area, as a monitor barked instructions. “I like to liken it to a checklist that a pilot goes through before he starts the engine,” Dr. Elliott Tenpenny, the unit’s medical director, said on Monday. “You do it exactly the same way every single time.” (Fink, 4/15)

The New York Times: C.D.C. Says More Than 9,000 Health Care Workers Have Contracted Coronavirus
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported on Tuesday that 9,282 health care professionals had contracted the coronavirus in the United States as of April 9 and that 27 had died from it. The agency cautioned that the numbers were most likely higher than reported because of inconsistencies in data-gathering and the lack of information during the outbreak. “This is likely an underestimation,” the report said, because the occupational status of patients was available for only 16 percent of the cases in the United States reported to the C.D.C. (Waldstein, 4/14)

The Wall Street Journal: New Coronavirus Has Infected More Than 9,000 U.S. Health-Care Workers
The figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention offer the first nationwide snapshot of how the Covid-19 pandemic is hitting front-line caretakers. Twenty-seven health-care providers have died from the disease caused by the virus, and the median age of those caretakers infected was 42 years old, the CDC found. The agency said the survey, conducted from Feb. 12 to April 9, likely understates the presence of the virus among clinicians. (Adamy, 4/14)

The New York Times: The Last Words Of A N.Y. Health Care Worker Who Died Of Coronavirus 
Lying in a hospital bed last month, Madhvi Aya understood what was happening to her. She had been a doctor in India, then trained to become a physician assistant after she immigrated to the United States. She had worked for a dozen years at Woodhull Medical Center, a public hospital in Brooklyn, where she could see the coronavirus tearing a merciless path through the city. (Rothfeld, Drucker and Rashbaum, 4/15)

The Wall Street Journal: Four Dispatches From The Pandemic’s Front Lines
A nurse holds a patient’s hand, seeing fear in his eyes. A two-doctor couple struggles to care for twin girls. As an emergency-room physician walks home alone after a long night, the only sound is the piercing wail of ambulance sirens, one after another. These are some of the medical workers on the front lines of the Covid-19 pandemic, exposed to the virus that has ravaged the world while balancing their personal lives with a public mission. (Reddy, 4/14)

The Washington Post: The $1,200 Relief Checks Have Begun Arriving In Americans’ Bank Accounts
The U.S. government has started sending $1,200 checks to Americans to help ease the financial pain caused by shutting down the economy to fight the deadly coronavirus. By Wednesday, 80 million people are expected to receive a direct deposit in their bank account, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said. The checks are the centerpiece of the U.S. government’s economic relief package, and many Americans have taken to social media to celebrate the arrival of the money by posting photos of the money hitting their bank account. (Long, 4/14)

ProPublica: Millions of Americans Might Not Get Stimulus Checks. Some Might Be Tricked Into Paying TurboTax to Get Theirs.
Congress has approved billions of dollars of checks for Americans hard hit by the biggest round of layoffs in U.S. history. But millions of Americans will have to wait months for that money — and millions more may never get the money at all. That’s because the rescue legislation left it to the IRS, an agency gutted by Congress, to organize the complex logistics of delivering the money to those entitled to it. As the IRS has struggled, for-profit tax preparation companies, notably Intuit, the maker of TurboTax, have stepped in with websites to help people get their checks. (Elliott and Kiel, 4/15)

The Washington Post: Donald J. Trump’s Name Will Be On Stimulus Checks In Unprecedented Move
The Treasury Department has ordered President Trump’s name be printed on stimulus checks the Internal Revenue Service is rushing to send to tens of millions of Americans, a process that could slow their delivery by a few days, senior IRS officials said. The unprecedented decision, finalized late Monday, means that when recipients open the $1,200 paper checks the IRS is scheduled to begin sending to 70 million Americans in coming days, “President Donald J. Trump” will appear on the left side of the payment. (Rein, 4/14)

The New York Times: How The Government Pulls Coronavirus Relief Money Out Of Thin Air
The United States has responded to the economic havoc wrought by the coronavirus with the biggest relief package in its history: $2 trillion. It essentially replaces a few months of American economic activity with a flood of government money — every penny of it borrowed. And where is all that cash coming from? Mostly out of thin air. (Phillips, 4/15)

The Washington Post: Airlines, Besieged In Covid-19 Era, Fail To Refund Passengers As Required, Lawsuits Say
A lawsuit filed against Southwest Airlines alleges the carrier violated its contract with customers by failing to provide refunds for flights canceled amid the coronavirus pandemic. In the suit, traveler Adrian Bombin says that when Southwest canceled his trip from Baltimore-Washington International Marshall Airport, via Florida, to Havana last month, he asked for a refund. (Laris, 4/14)

The New York Times: Sidelined By Coronavirus, Congressional Leaders Face Pressure To Vote Remotely
With Congress sidelined by the coronavirus pandemic and unable to return to the Capitol, House and Senate leaders are under increasing pressure from a bipartisan array of current and former lawmakers to shift to remote legislating, including using a secure online system to conduct votes. Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senator Mitch McConnell, the majority leader, have both expressed opposition to remote voting, insisting that lawmakers can fulfill their duties without making such tradition-shattering changes in the way Congress operates. (Stolberg, 4/14)

The Wall Street Journal: Congress Puts Off Return To Washington Until Early May
Congress now heads into an unprecedented period, with legislation limited to consensus-driven aid packages that can pass by unanimous votes. Oversight hearings, judicial confirmations and non-virus bills will remain on hold until both chambers can safely meet again, spurring calls for remote voting and virtual hearings as some lawmakers fret that the legislative branch is ceding too much power to the executive branch in a national emergency. (Wise, 4/14)

The New York Times: The Virus Is Vaporizing Tax Revenues, Putting States In A Bind
The ballooning costs of the coronavirus pandemic have put an unexpected strain on the finances of states, which are hurriedly diverting funds from elsewhere to fight the outbreak even as the economic shutdown squeezes their main source of revenue — taxes. States provide most of America’s public health, education and policing services, and a lot of its highways, mass transit systems and waterworks. Now, sales taxes — the biggest source of revenue for most states — have fallen off a cliff as business activity grinds to a halt and consumers stay home. (Walsh, 4/15)

The Wall Street Journal: Lack Of Savings Worsens The Pain Of Coronavirus Downturn
Alicia Cook was down to $22 on Monday, a month after her hours as head banquet chef at a hotel in Nacogdoches, Texas, had dwindled to almost nothing. Her $10.25-an-hour wage had been enough to live on but not enough to save. A few hours of work over Easter will get her another $100. “It’s five $20 bills to rub together and I got to give away four of them to the light bill,” she said. (Harrison, 4/15)

Reuters: U.S. May Need To Extend Social Distancing For Virus Until 2022, Study Says
The United States may need to endure social distancing measures adopted during the coronavirus outbreak until 2022, according to researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health. The study comes as more than 2,200 people died in the United States from the outbreak on Tuesday, a record, according to a Reuters tally, even as the country debated how to reopen its economy. The overall death toll in the U.S. from the virus stands at more than 28,300 as of Tuesday. (4/15)

Stat: Study Sees Need For Some Social Distancing Into 2022 To Curb Coronavirus
The authors suggest a number of factors will play a major role in the path the disease will take over the coming years — if transmission subsides in summer and resurges in winter, if there is some immunity induced by infection and how long it lasts, and whether people get any cross-protective immunity from having been infected with related human coronaviruses that cause common colds. In terms of the latter, they suggest if infection with the human coronaviruses, HKU1 and OC43, gives some protection again SARS-CoV-2, it could appear that transmission of the new virus was tapering off. (Branswell, 4/14)

The New York Times: Coronavirus Tests Science’s Need For Speed Limits
Early on Feb. 1, John Inglis picked up his phone and checked Twitter, as he does most mornings. He was shocked at what fresh hell awaited. Since 2013, Dr. Inglis, executive director of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press in New York, has been helping manage a website called bioRxiv, pronounced “bio archive.” The site’s goal: improve communication between scientists by allowing them to share promising findings months before their research has gone through protracted peer review and official publication. (Yan, 4/14)

The New York Times: Stay 6 Feet Apart, We’re Told. But How Far Can Air Carry Coronavirus?
The rule of thumb, or rather feet, has been to stand six feet apart in public. That’s supposed to be a safe distance if a person nearby is coughing or sneezing and is infected with the novel coronavirus, spreading droplets that may carry virus particles. And scientists agree that six feet is a sensible and useful minimum distance, but, some say, farther away would be better. Six feet has never been a magic number that guarantees complete protection. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, one of the organizations using that measure, bases its recommendation on the idea that most large droplets that people expel when they cough or sneeze will fall to the ground within six feet. (Sheikh, Gorman and Chang, 4/14)

The New York Times: This 3-D Simulation Shows Why Social Distancing Is So Important
Public health experts and elected officials have emphasized again and again that social distancing is the best tool we have to slow the coronavirus outbreak. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention encourages people to stay home. If you must venture out, you should stay at least six feet away from others. The World Health Organization recommends a minimum of three feet of separation. (Parshina-Kottas, Saget, Patanjali, Fleisher and Gianordoli, 4/14)

The New York Times: For Runners, Is 15 Feet The New 6 Feet For Social Distancing?
It may be a good idea to give one another more than six feet of space while exercising outside during the current coronavirus pandemic, according to a compelling new study that looked at how air flows around bodies in motion. The study has not yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal and the results need further confirmation. But they indicate that runners and brisk walkers may create a wake of air behind them that could carry exhaled respiratory droplets for 15 feet or more, meaning that the droplets could reach people walking or jogging well behind them. (Reynolds, 4/15)

The New York Times: Does Widespread Disinfecting Kill The Coronavirus? It’s Under Debate
The images are compelling: Fire trucks in Tehran or Manila spray the streets. Amazon tests a disinfectant fog inside a warehouse, hoping to calm workers’ fears and get them back on the job. TV commercials show health care workers cleaning chairs where blood donors sat. Families nervously wipe their mail and newly delivered groceries. These efforts may help people feel like they and their government are combating the coronavirus. (Weintraub, 4/14)

The Wall Street Journal: Coronavirus Ravages The Lungs. It Also Affects The Brain.
A patient in Japan had seizures. An airline worker ended up in a Detroit hospital, where doctors diagnosed her with a rare form of brain damage. Others reported auditory and visual hallucinations or losing their sense of smell and taste. What they share: presumed or confirmed coronavirus infections. As the number of confirmed Covid-19 cases worldwide reaches 2 million, clinicians are realizing the disease doesn’t just ravage the lungs and hurt the heart. It also can, in a significant proportion of cases, affect the nervous system in myriad little-understood ways. (Hernandez, 4/14)