First Edition: April 16, 2020

Kaiser Health News: N.Y. Leads The Nation In COVID-19 Tests, But The Effort Still Lags Behind Demand
This jampacked city, with its high-rises, brownstones and cheek-by-jowl single-family homes, is a ripe environment for the novel coronavirus that has killed more than 11,000 residents. That density also complicates a key strategy for alleviating the epidemic: testing. In their initial response to the pandemic, city and state officials called for federal health officials to move more quickly on increasing testing capacity, seeking to identify those who had contracted the virus and isolate them to help stem the outbreak. (Andrews, 4/16)

Kaiser Health News: Jails And Prisons Spring Thousands To Prevent Coronavirus Outbreaks
Terry Smith, a 65-year-old Vietnam veteran with PTSD, multiple health issues and a history of homelessness, spent nearly three years in San Francisco County Jail awaiting trial on a burglary charge. The final several weeks were served in the full flush of a burgeoning viral pandemic. He considers himself lucky. (Kreidler, 4/16)

Kaiser Health News: ‘I Wasn’t Eating’: Senior Twin Sisters Battle Pandemic Anxiety Together
Ethel Sylvester dialed 911, trembling with fear. The 92-year-old felt hot. She thought turning off her thermostat could fix the problem. That didn’t help. Alone in her apartment, in the middle of the night, Sylvester didn’t know what was happening to her body. She feared it was COVID-19. Her neighbor and twin sister, Edna Mayes, had no idea her best friend was in trouble.“I couldn’t get to the door,” said Sylvester, recounting last month’s incident. “I was shaking, just shaking.” (Anthony, 4/16)

Kaiser Health News: Coronavirus Nurses Ask An Ebola Veteran: Is It OK To Be Afraid?
Martha Phillips knows exactly how it feels to suddenly find oneself up close to — and unprotected from — a deadly virus. In 2014, Phillips, an emergency room nurse, was at the bedside of a suspected Ebola patient in Sierra Leone when the disposable plastic guard protecting her face came loose. (Stone, 4/16)

The New York Times: Trump Threatens To Adjourn Congress To Install Nominees. McConnell Demurs.
President Trump, furious over government vacancies he said were hindering his administration’s coronavirus response, threatened on Wednesday to invoke a never-before-used presidential power to adjourn Congress so he could fill the positions temporarily himself. The top Senate Republican, Senator Mitch McConnell, quickly let it be known that would not happen. Days after insisting he had “total” authority to supersede governors’ decisions about whether to reopen their states, Mr. Trump floated the unprecedented step during a White House news conference as he lashed out at Democrats for opposing his nominees. (Fandos, 4/15)

The Associated Press: Trump Threatens To Bypass Senate Rules On Nominees
In recent years, Congress has refused to fully adjourn during most breaks precisely to prevent the president from making recess appointments. Little or no business is conducted in such “pro-forma sessions,” but they give members of both chambers of Congress the chance to go back home without going into recess. It’s a process lawmakers also employed to thwart President Barack Obama’s nominees. (Freking and Mascaro, 4/16)

Reuters: Trump Threatens To Adjourn U.S. Congress Over ‘Scam’ Preventing Appointments 
“The current practice of leaving town, while conducting phony pro forma sessions, is a dereliction of duty that the American people cannot afford during this crisis,” an angry Trump told reporters at his daily White House briefing on the coronavirus crisis. “It is a scam that they do. It’s a scam and everyone knows it, and it’s been that way for a long time,” Trump said. (Holland and Zengerle, 4/15)

The Washington Post: Trump Threatens To Adjourn Congress To Get His Nominees But Likely Would Be Impeded By Senate Rules
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) spoke to Trump on Wednesday, but signaled that he wasn’t on board with the president’s plan. Any attempt to formally adjourn the Senate would require all 100 senators traveling back to Washington for such a vote — which McConnell and Senate leaders have deemed an unsafe move at this point. “The leader pledged to find ways to confirm nominees considered mission-critical to the covid-19 pandemic, but under Senate rules that will take consent from Leader Schumer,” said a McConnell spokesman, referring to Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.). (Itkowitz and DeBonis, 4/15)

The New York Times: Coronavirus Testing Falls Woefully Short As Trump Seeks To Reopen U.S. 
As President Trump pushes to reopen the economy, most of the country is not conducting nearly enough testing to track the path and penetration of the coronavirus in a way that would allow Americans to safely return to work, public health officials and political leaders say. Although capacity has improved in recent weeks, supply shortages remain crippling, and many regions are still restricting tests to people who meet specific criteria. Antibody tests, which reveal whether someone has ever been infected with the coronavirus, are just starting to be rolled out, and most have not been vetted by the Food and Drug Administration. (Goodnough, Thomas and Kaplan, 4/15)

The Associated Press: Trump Looks To Ease Distancing In Places; CEOs Urge Caution
President Donald Trump said Wednesday he’s prepared to announce new guidelines allowing some states to quickly ease up on social distancing even as business leaders told him they need more coronavirus testing and personal protective equipment before people can safely go back to work. The industry executives cautioned Trump that the return to normalcy will be anything but swift. (Miller, Madhani and Freking, 4/16)

The Washington Post: Worldwide Coronavirus Infections Surge Past 2 Million, U.S. Deaths Top 28,000
Even on a day that recorded more than 2,400 American deaths, the highest one-day total so far, leaders in Washington and around the country continued to grapple with how and when the country might begin to emerge from a lockdown that has crippled the economy and harmed millions of workers. “The data suggests that nationwide, we have passed the peak on new cases,” President Trump said late Wednesday at the White House, making his latest pitch for why portions of the country should soon begin the trek toward normalcy. (Dennis, 4/15)

NPR: To Safely Ease Social Distancing, U.S. Needs To Tackle These 5 Obstacles
First things first: it’s not yet time to end social distancing and go back to work and church and concerts and handshakes. Public health experts say social distancing appears to be working, and letting up these measures too soon could be disastrous. Until there is a sustained reduction in new cases — and the coronavirus’ spread is clearly slowing — we need to stay the course. (Simmons-Duffin and Aubrey, 4/16)

The Associated Press: Powerful GOP Allies Propel Trump Effort To Reopen Economy
Leading Republicans say the coronavirus shutdown cannot go on. Car-honking activists swarmed a statehouse Wednesday to protest stay-home restrictions. Capitol Hill staff are quietly drafting bills to undo the just-passed rescue aid and push Americans back to work. Behind President Donald Trump’s effort to accelerate re-opening the U.S. economy during the pandemic is a contingent of GOP allies eager to have his back. (Mascaro, 4/16)

The New York Times: Trump’s ‘Opening Our Country Council’ Runs Into Its Own Opening Problems
Some business leaders had no idea they were included until they heard that their names had been read in the Rose Garden on Tuesday night by President Trump. Some of those who had agreed to help said they received little information on what, exactly, they were signing up for. And others who were willing to connect with the White House could not participate in hastily organized conference calls on Wednesday because of scheduling conflicts and technical difficulties. (Karni, Kelly and Gelles, 4/15)

The Washington Post: Trump Attempt To Enlist Businesses In Reopening Push Gets Off To Rocky Start
Across the business world, there was private unhappiness with how the White House handled the announcement of the advisory council — which it has dubbed its “Great American Economic Revival Industry Groups” — and others warned that Trump’s goal of a May 1 reopening date for much of the country was unrealistic. Many of the chief executives urged the White House to focus more on mass testing, according to several participants on the calls. (Costa, Parker, Dawsey and Sonmez, 4/15)

The Wall Street Journal: Business Leaders Urge Trump To Dramatically Increase Coronavirus Testing
In some cases, CEOs had been approached about getting on a call with the president and agreed, but had not been warned he would be announcing that they were on the task force. Some of those CEOs have already “delegated it downward”—meaning any participation will be from government affairs people, not the executives themselves, according to the representative. The purpose of the task force is twofold, according to White House officials: to solicit recommendations for how to open up parts of the U.S. economy and to respond to the economic damage already being inflicted by the outbreak. (Bender and Restuccia, 4/15)

The Washington Post: How Trump’s Name Will Appear On Stimulus Checks In An Unprecedented Move
When President Trump publicly denied on April 3 that he wanted his signature on stimulus checks that would be sent to millions of Americans struggling amid a pandemic, officials in the Treasury Department were already secretly working on a plan to get the president’s name on the payments. Trump, who was reportedly musing about placing his signature on the checks as early as late March, defended the unprecedented move Wednesday. (Olorunnipa and Rein, 4/15)

The New York Times: Opponents Of Stay-At-Home Orders Organize Protests At State Capitols
In Michigan, thousands of demonstrators in cars jammed the streets around the State Capitol in Lansing in protest of restrictions to prevent spread of the coronavirus. In Frankfort, Ky., dozens of people shouted through a Capitol building window, nearly drowning out Gov. Andy Beshear as he provided a virus update at a news conference. And in Raleigh, N.C., at least one person was arrested during a protest that drew more than 100 people in opposition to a stay-at-home rule, The News & Observer reported. In several states, protesters have taken to the streets to urge governors to reopen businesses and relax strict rules that health officials have said are necessary to save lives. (Bogel-Burroughs, 4/16)

The Associated Press: Thousands Protest Michigan Governor’s Social Distance Order
“This arbitrary blanket spread of shutting down businesses, about putting all of these workers out of business, is just a disaster. It’s an economic disaster for Michigan,” coalition member Meshawn Maddock said. “And people are sick and tired of it.” Whitmer, a Democrat, extended a stay-home order through April 30 and has shut down schools and businesses deemed non-essential. The governor acknowledged the pain but said the restrictions were necessary to stop the spread of the coronavirus, which causes a respiratory illness that has killed more than 1,900 Michigan residents and overwhelmed hospitals in the Detroit area. (Householder and White, 4/16)

Reuters: Trump Backers Protest Michigan Stay-At-Home Orders At State Capitol
The latest version of her executive order bars residents from travel between homes or using motorboats, and it prohibits retail sales of home furnishings, garden supplies or paint while leaving marijuana dispensaries open. Michigan is one of 42 states where governors have ordered residents to remain indoors except for necessary outings like grocery shopping or doctor’s visits, while closing schools, universities and non-essential businesses. (Herald, 4/15)

The Washington Post: Governors Confront Political Furor As They Plot A Cautious Course For Reopening
The multistate reopening task forces being created by governors on both coasts will probably take weeks to develop as officials tackle issues ranging from how to identify and isolate those sick with the novel coronavirus to how best to keep people from crossing state lines in search of open bars and restaurants, according to officials involved in the planning. The two groups were created this week, one by governors of seven Northeast states and the other by West Coast leaders, to bring cohesion and unity to a process that could pose one of the biggest challenges any state government has faced in modern times. (Craig, Wilson and Jacobs, 4/15)

Raleigh News & Observer: Coronavirus In NC: Protesters Call For Reopening The State
More than 100 protesters rallied in downtown Raleigh to reopen North Carolina on Tuesday, describing Gov. Roy Cooper’s stay-home order as an unconstitutional overreach that will kill the state’s small businesses. At least one protester, Monica Faith Ussery, 51, of Holly Springs, was charged with violating the executive order. (Shaffer and Hajela, 4/14)

The New York Times: W.H.O., Now Trump’s Scapegoat, Warned About Coronavirus Early And Often
On Jan. 22, two days after Chinese officials first acknowledged the serious threat posed by the new virus ravaging the city of Wuhan, the chief of the World Health Organization held the first of what would be months of almost daily media briefings, sounding the alarm, telling the world to take the outbreak seriously. But with its officials divided, the W.H.O., still seeing no evidence of sustained spread of the virus outside of China, declined the next day to declare a global public health emergency. A week later, the organization reversed course and made the declaration. (Perez-Pena and McNeil, 4/16)

The Washington Post: Trump’s Move Against The World Health Organization Is Latest Twist In A Shifting Policy On China 
Having already heaped blame on China for its role in the covid-19 outbreak, President Trump and his allies opened a new front in the campaign this week by targeting the World Health Organization, calling the institution complicit in Beijing’s coverup of the breadth and severity of the pandemic. Critics contend that the White House is employing a cynical strategy, in the middle of a global health and economic crisis, to deflect culpability over Trump’s own mishandling of the U.S. response to the novel coronavirus and create another foil to rally his conservative base ahead of the 2020 presidential election. (Nakamura, Gearan and Dawsey, 4/15)

The New York Times: Urged On By Conservatives And His Own Advisers, Trump Targeted The W.H.O.
Fox News pundits and Republican lawmakers have raged for weeks at the World Health Organization for praising China’s handling of the coronavirus crisis. On his podcast, President Trump’s former chief strategist, Stephen K. Bannon, urged his former boss to stop funding the W.H.O., citing its ties to the “Chinese Communist Party.” And inside the West Wing, the president found little resistance among the China skeptics in his administration for lashing out at the W.H.O. and essentially trying to shift the blame for his own failure to aggressively confront the spread of the virus by accusing the world’s premier global health group of covering up for the country where it started. (Shear, 4/15)

ProPublica: Trump Administration Officials Warned Against Halting Funding To WHO, Leaked Memo Shows
An internal memorandum written by U.S. officials and addressed to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warns that cutting funding to the World Health Organization, as President Donald Trump said he would do Tuesday, would erode America’s global standing, threaten U.S. lives and hobble global efforts to combat the coronavirus pandemic. The memo, which was prepared before Trump’s Rose Garden announcement, was written by officials within the State Department’s Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs and includes a detailed list of how U.S. funding to the WHO helps countries in the Middle East control the pandemic. (Torbati, 4/15)

The New York Times: What Does The World Health Organization Do?
President Trump’s decision to halt funding for the World Health Organization, depriving it of its biggest funding source, could have far-reaching effects in efforts to fight diseases and make health care more widely available across the globe. Mr. Trump’s order centered on the organization’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, and he is far from alone in criticizing its actions and statements. Some countries have disregarded the W.H.O.’s efforts as the epidemic has spread, failing to report outbreaks or flouting international regulations. (Victor and Hauser, 4/15)

Stat: Tedros Says WHO Regrets U.S. Funding Cut But Is Focused On ‘Saving Lives’
The head of the World Health Organization on Wednesday expressed “regret” that President Trump intends to cut off U.S. funding to the agency over its handling of the coronavirus, but pointedly avoided criticizing the U.S. move. Instead, Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus stressed the importance of global unity in the face of the pandemic. (Branswell, 4/15)

Politico: 15 Times Trump Praised China As Coronavirus Was Spreading Across The Globe
Trump, however, echoed many of those same assurances regarding China and its response to the virus throughout January and February, as the unique coronavirus began to infiltrate countries around the world. Just days before the U.S. recorded its first death from Covid-19, Trump touted China’s government for its transparency and hard work to defeat the coronavirus that causes the illness. (Ward, 4/15)

Politico: The Virus-Fighting Agency Trump Gutted (It’s Not The WHO)
Donald Trump may be threatening to defund the World Health Organization, the United Nations agency he accuses of “severely mismanaging” the coronavirus epidemic. But diplomats and public health experts at the WHO and elsewhere say the U.S. president has already gutted the agency that has traditionally taken the lead in battling global pandemics: the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Wheaton, Furlong and Kenen, 4/15)

The Associated Press: Medical Intelligence Sleuths Tracked, Warned Of New Virus
In late February when President Donald Trump was urging Americans not to panic over the novel coronavirus, alarms were sounding at a little-known intelligence unit situated on a U.S. Army base an hour’s drive north of Washington. Intelligence, science and medical professionals at the National Center for Medical Intelligence were quietly doing what they have done for decades — monitoring and tracking global health threats that could endanger U.S. troops abroad and Americans at home. (Riechmann, 4/16)

Politico: Trump’s Crisis Troubleshooter Preps For His Toughest Test Yet
On an afternoon in late February, hours after stepping off an overnight flight from India, President Donald Trump huddled with senior aides in the Oval Office to discuss a coronavirus outbreak that was spreading within the U.S. and wrecking a stock-market boom. Trump wanted someone else to steer the administration’s public health response if the virus hit the U.S. hard, but he was unimpressed with the names his aides were tossing out. As they ticked through potential candidates, Trump settled on an easier solution: Mike Pence. (Orr, 4/16)

Politico: White House Snubs Azar, Installs Trump Loyalist Michael Caputo As HHS Spokesperson
The White House is installing Trump campaign veteran Michael Caputo in the health department’s top communications position, Caputo confirmed to POLITICO. The move is designed to assert more White House control over Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, whom officials believe has been behind recent critical reports about President Donald Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic, according to two officials with knowledge of the move. (Diamond and Lippman, 4/15)

Politico: Stephen Miller’s Hardline Policies On Refugee Families Make A Comeback At HHS
After the Trump administration abruptly installed a new hardline leader last month, the health department’s refugee office is pushing to implement immigration policies favored by White House senior adviser Stephen Miller, according to four health department officials and internal documents reviewed by POLITICO. The office — which takes custody of thousands of migrant children — is now seeking to delay placing migrant children in shelters operated by the health department, which would instead leave those children in the custody of the border patrol for an extended length of time, according to an internal email sent last week and reviewed by POLITICO. (Diamond, 4/16)

The New York Times: FEMA’s ‘Air Bridge’ To Coronavirus Hot Spots Leaves Other Regions On Their Own
The federal government’s program to expedite the shipping of valuable protective equipment to coronavirus hot spots has left hospitals that are out of the spotlight struggling to secure their own protective gear as they watch the outbreak creep closer. The Trump administration has repeatedly endorsed the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s system of flying masks, respirators, gloves, goggles and surgical gowns from overseas suppliers to the United States. The new “air bridge” is rushing supplies to the most hard-hit areas within days instead of weeks. (Kanno-Youngs, 4/16)

NPR: A ‘War’ For Medical Supplies: States Say FEMA Wins By Poaching Orders
As the number of coronavirus cases surged in Massachusetts, nurses at a hospital in Milford were desperate. They held up cardboard signs outside the hospital asking for donations of protective gear to wear while treating infected patients. William Touhey Jr. thought he could help. Touhey is the fire chief and emergency management director in this small town outside of Boston. He did some legwork, and placed an order for 30,000 protective gowns from overseas. “We were hearing good things that it was coming,” Touhey said. (Rose, 4/15)

Politico: U.S. Races To Stock Up On Dialysis Supplies As Kidney Failure Ravages Virus Patients
Hospitals in New York City are running out of dialysis fluids as thousands of coronavirus patients develop kidney failure, an unexpected development that could presage the next critical supply shortage nationwide. Approximately 20 percent of coronavirus patients in intensive care around the city need the kidney treatment, often for weeks, a development that many providers did not see coming. FEMA held a call Monday with FDA and CMS to discuss the possibility of issuing emergency use authorizations to import more dialysis fluids, according to a document obtained by POLITICO. (Owermohle and Eisenberg, 4/15)

The Washington Post: Coronavirus Scramble For N95 Masks Leads Trump Administration To Pay Premium To Third-Party Vendors
The Trump administration has awarded bulk contracts to third-party vendors in recent weeks in a scramble to obtain N95 respirator masks, and the government has paid the companies more than $5 per unit, nearly eight times what it would have spent in January and February when U.S. intelligence agencies warned of a looming global pandemic, procurement records show. (Stanley-Becker, Butler and Miroff, 4/15)

The New York Times: New York Governor Orders Residents To Wear Face Masks In Public
Imposing a stricter measure to control the spread of the coronavirus, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said on Wednesday that he would start requiring people in New York to wear masks or face coverings in public whenever social distancing was not possible. The order will take effect on Friday and will apply to people who are unable to keep six feet away from others in public settings, such as on a bus or subway, on a crowded sidewalk or inside a grocery store. (Ferre-Sadurni and Cramer, 4/15)

The Associated Press: New York To Require Face Coverings In Busy Public Places
New York residents will be required to wear face coverings anytime they come into close contact with other people outside their homes, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Wednesday. The mandate will require a mask or face covering, like a bandanna, on busy streets, public transit, or any situation where people cannot maintain 6 feet of social distancing, even if it is passing a person briefly on a wooded trail. The order takes effect Friday. (Peltz, Villeneuve and Hill, 4/16)

Reuters: Face Masks May Be ‘New Normal’ In Post-Virus Life As U.S. Prepares Gradual Reopening
The death toll from the coronavirus pandemic in the United States approached 31,000 on Wednesday as governors began cautiously preparing Americans for a post-virus life that would likely include public face coverings as the “new normal.” (Caspani and Resnick-Ault, 4/15)

The Wall Street Journal: Why New York’s Coronavirus Death Count Jumped: The Stories Of Patients Who Died At Home
Jarrod Sockwell spent the final days of his life in his Brooklyn home with a fever, cough and no appetite, fearing he had the novel coronavirus. A New York City middle-school paraprofessional and high-school football coach, Mr. Sockwell had earlier gone to an emergency room to seek treatment after not feeling well. Doctors tested him for the virus, diagnosed him with pneumonia and sent him home because his oxygen levels were too high for admission. (Hawkins, Berger and Honan, 4/16)

The Wall Street Journal: As Coronavirus Deaths Surge, New York City Allows Cremations 24 Hours A Day
New York City crematories are so overwhelmed with the death toll from coronavirus cases that regulators are letting them operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Some operators of crematories said they are already working 16-hour days. They are processing double, sometimes triple, the number of bodies they would on a typical day. Several operators said they are booked up a week or more in advance. (Berger, 4/16)

The Associated Press: Justice Dept. Watchdog To Inspect Prisons Amid Virus Spread
The Justice Department’s inspector general will conduct remote inspections of Bureau of Prisons facilities to ensure they are following best practices to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus after hundreds of federal inmates tested positive for the virus. The review, announced Wednesday, comes as the federal prison system struggles with a growing number of coronavirus cases and complaints from inmates, advocacy groups and correction officers about how officials are handling the pandemic among their 122 facilities. (Balsamo, 4/15)

The Wall Street Journal: Justice Department Investigators Inspect Federal Prisons For Coronavirus Containment Procedures
The move announced Wednesday comes amid growing criticism of the federal Bureau of Prisons’ response to the pandemic and as the number of infected inmates and employees continued to rise. At least 451 inmates and 280 staff had tested positive for the virus, and 17 inmates have died, the bureau reported. The department’s inspector general said its investigators would be trying to determine whether federal prisons facilities are “complying with the available guidance and best practices regarding preventing, managing and containing potential Covid-19 outbreaks.” (Gurman, 4/15)

The Washington Post: D.C. Jail Inmates With Coronavirus Barred From Access To Lawyers, Family, Showers And Changes Of Clothing, Inspectors Say
Staff shortages prevent the D.C. jail from keeping inmates six feet apart to limit the spread of the novel coronavirus, with one guard monitoring up to 45 prisoners, court-appointed inspectors told a U.S. judge Wednesday. Painting a squalid if not shocking portrait of sickness behind bars, the inspectors — two veteran D.C. criminal justice experts — said inmates with the virus are isolated and prohibited from showering or cleaning their cells. (Hsu, 4/15)

The New York Times: After Anonymous Tip, 17 Bodies Are Found At Nursing Home Hit By Virus
The call for body bags came late Saturday. By Monday, the police in a small New Jersey town had gotten an anonymous tip about a body being stored in a shed outside one of the state’s largest nursing homes. When the police arrived, the corpse had been removed from the shed, but they discovered 17 bodies piled inside the nursing home in a small morgue intended to hold no more than four people. (Tully, 4/15)

The New York Times: Virginia Nursing Home Had Plenty Of Coronavirus Patients But Few Tests
After the first positive coronavirus test at a Virginia nursing home in mid-March, its administrator said, the staff restricted visitors, conducted temperature checks at the end of every worker’s shift and isolated residents who had tested positive into separate areas. Even so, there suddenly was another case. Within two weeks, dozens of others inside were falling ill. (Romero, Ivory and Bogel-Burroughs, 4/15)

The Wall Street Journal: U.S. Unemployment Claims Likely Continued At Record Levels
The number of Americans seeking unemployment benefits since the novel coronavirus pandemic shut down large segments of the U.S. economy a month ago likely continued to climb in record territory last week, showing the broad and escalating shock to the labor market. Nearly 17 million workers applied for jobless aid in the three weeks ended April 4. If claims continued at that pace in the week ended April 11, the level would well exceed 20 million. Before the pandemic, the largest number of Americans to ask for unemployment benefits in a four-week stretch was 2.7 million in the fall of 1982. (Morath and Chaney, 4/16)

The Wall Street Journal: New York City Could See Nearly 500,000 Job Losses From Coronavirus
New York City faces its worst fiscal crisis since the 1970s because of the coronavirus pandemic, with massive job losses and an estimated $9.7 billion decrease in the city’s tax revenue over the next two fiscal years, according to a report released Wednesday. The city’s Independent Budget Office estimated in the report that 475,000 jobs could vanish by March of next year, including 100,000 retail jobs, 86,000 jobs in hotels and restaurants, as well as a combined 26,000 jobs in the arts, entertainment and recreation industries. (Vielkind, 4/15)

The New York Times: Coronavirus Small-Business Loans Run Dry As Program Fails To Reach Hardest Hit
A new federal program to help small businesses weather the coronavirus pandemic is running out of money and falling short in the industries and states most battered by the crisis, risking waves of bankruptcies and millions of additional unemployed workers. Funding for the Paycheck Protection Program, an initiative created by the $2.2 trillion stimulus law enacted last month, could be exhausted as early as Wednesday night, meaning that the Small Business Administration would have to stop approving applications. As of Wednesday evening, more than 1.4 million loans had been approved at a value of more than $315 billion, according to the Small Business Administration. (Tankersley, Cochrane Flitter, 4/15)

The Wall Street Journal: Small-Business Aid Program Set To Run Out Of Money
The Paycheck Protection Program was on track to exhaust most of its initial allocation of $350 billion in the early morning hours Thursday, with the Small Business Administration saying it had approved more than 1.5 million loans valued at more than $324 billion as of late Wednesday and loans were continuing to be processed. The fund needs about $10 billion to cover processing and fees, Senate Small Business Committee Chairman Marco Rubio (R., Fla.) said on Twitter. (Peterson, 4/15)

The Wall Street Journal: Small-Business Aid Package Excludes Many Franchises In Coronavirus Crisis
Franchise companies that collectively provide jobs for hundreds of thousands of workers across the country are locked out of stimulus funding linked to the coronavirus pandemic because of how the Small Business Administration is interpreting the congressional relief package’s rules. The affected businesses include commercial cleaners, home-repair companies, salons and other franchise operations that the SBA says aren’t eligible for Payroll Protection Program loans in Congress’s Cares Act because of the way the franchises are structured or operate. (Bykowicz, 4/16)

The New York Times: It’s The End Of The World Economy As We Know It 
When big convulsive economic events happen, the implications tend to take years to play out, and spiral in unpredictable directions. Who would have thought that a crisis that began with mortgage defaults in American suburbs in 2007 would lead to a fiscal crisis in Greece in 2010? Or that a stock market crash in New York in 1929 would contribute to the rise of fascists in Europe in the 1930s? (Irwin, 4/16)

The Associated Press: Nurses Suspended For Refusing COVID-19 Care Without N95 Mask
Nurse Mike Gulick was meticulous about not bringing the novel coronavirus home to his wife and their 2-year-old daughter. He’d stop at a hotel after work just to take a shower. He’d wash his clothes in Lysol disinfectant. They did a tremendous amount of handwashing. But at Providence Saint John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, California, Gulick and his colleagues worried that caring for infected patients without first being able to don an N95 respirator mask was risky. (Mendoza and Kruesi, 4/16)

The Associated Press: `Am I Going Now To My Execution?’ One Doctor’s Very Long Day
It was March 7, in the afternoon. Dr. Giovanni Passeri had just returned home from Maggiore Hospital, where he is an internist, when he was urgently called back to work. His ward at the hospital was about to admit its first COVID-19 case. Driving back to the hospital, down the tree-lined streets of Parma, Passeri, 56, recalled thinking: “Am I going now to my execution?” Italy’s more than 21,000 coronavirus dead have included scores of doctors, including a colleague of Passeri’s at Maggiore, a hospital in one of Italy’s hardest-hit northern provinces. (Stinellis and D’Emilio, 4/16)

The Washington Post: Coronavirus Treatment: Chaotic Search For Drugs Lacks Centralized Strategy
In a desperate bid to find treatments for people sickened by the coronavirus, doctors and drug companies have launched more than 100 human experiments in the United States, investigating experimental drugs, a decades-old malaria medicine and cutting-edge therapies that have worked for other conditions such as HIV and rheumatoid arthritis. Development of effective treatments for covid-19, the disease the virus causes, would be one of the most significant milestones in returning the United States to normalcy. (Johnson, 4/15)

The Wall Street Journal: Japan, China Vie To Be Global Supplier Of Unproven Coronavirus Drug
A drug called favipiravir has set off a diplomatic tug of war between geopolitical rivals Japan and China, both of which are offering it to other nations as a gesture to fight the coronavirus pandemic. What makes the rival diplomacy unusual is the lack of solid evidence that either country’s pills can help virus victims. No peer-reviewed research suggests the drug’s efficacy in fighting Covid-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus, and previous studies show favipiravir could cause birth defects if taken by pregnant women. (Landers and Inada, 4/16)

Stat: Blood Clots Leave Clinicians With Clues About Covid-19 — But No Proven Treatments
Doctors treating the sickest Covid-19 patients have zeroed in on a new phenomenon: Some people have developed widespread blood clots, their lungs peppered with tiny blockages that prevent oxygen from pumping into the bloodstream and body. A number of doctors are now trying to blast those clots with tPA, or tissue plasminogen activator, an antithrombotic drug typically reserved for treating strokes and heart attacks. Other doctors are eyeing the blood thinner heparin as a potential way to prevent clotting before it starts. (Cooney, 4/16)

Stat: Simply Speaking Could Transmit Coronavirus, New Study Suggests 
Speaking calmly and at a normal volume produces liquid droplets so small they can remain suspended in the air long enough to enter the airways of other people, potentially exposing them to viruses including the one that causes Covid-19, according to a new study led by scientists at the National Institutes of Health. “Aerosols from infected persons may therefore pose an inhalation threat even at considerable distances and in enclosed spaces, particularly if there is poor ventilation,” Harvard University biologist Matthew Meselson wrote in a commentary accompanying the paper, which used a laser to visualize airborne droplets created when volunteers uttered the words “stay healthy.” (Begley, 4/15)