First Edition: April 20, 2020

Kaiser Health News: Before ‘Tidal Wave’ Of Illness, Nursing Home Thought It Had COVID-19 Contained
More than 20 patients have died. Dozens more are still hospitalized. And residents who had already been sent back to a nursing home in Gallatin, Tennessee, have turned up with new cases of COVID-19. An investigation finds that the facility downplayed the outbreak to first responders on 911 calls in late March. But the nursing home administrator told WPLN News that the coronavirus was unstoppable in Tennessee’s largest outbreak yet. (Farmer, 4/20)

Kaiser Health News: Amid Pandemic, FDA Seizes Cheaper Drugs From Canada
The Food and Drug Administration in the past month has stepped up seizures of prescription drugs being sent to American customers from pharmacies in Canada and other countries, according to operators of stores in Florida that facilitate the transactions. While seizures at the nation’s international mail facilities have periodically spiked during the past two decades, the latest crackdown is distressing many older customers whose goal is to stay home during the coronavirus pandemic. (Galewitz, 4/20)

Kaiser Health News: In Fine Print, HHS Appears To Ban All Surprise Billing During The Pandemic
Federal officials offering emergency funding to hospitals, clinics and doctors’ practices have included this stipulation: They cannot foist surprise medical bills on COVID-19 patients. But buried in the Department of Health and Human Services’ terms and conditions for eligibility is language that could carry much broader implications. It says “HHS broadly views every patient as a possible case of COVID-19,” the guidance states. (Huetteman, 4/17)

Kaiser Health News: ‘An Arm And A Leg’: Am I Protected If I Need COVID-19 Care?
A lot of insurance companies have said they’ll waive copayments and deductibles for COVID-19 care — as long as patients receive “in-network” care. But a lot of people have insurance policies with very limited networks. A podcast listener in Minnesota with a bronze-tier health plan and a $6,000 deductible wrote in wondering: What if I get sent to a place that my insurance doesn’t cover? What then? We put her question to one of the country’s top health insurance nerds: Sabrina Corlette, founder and co-director of Georgetown University’s Center on Health Insurance Reforms. (Weissmann, 4/20)

Kaiser Health News: How Climate Change Is Putting Doctors In The Hot Seat
A 4-year-old girl was rushed to the emergency room three times in one week for asthma attacks.An elderly man, who’d been holed up in a top-floor apartment with no air conditioning during a heat wave, showed up at a hospital with a temperature of 106 degrees. A 27-year-old man arrived in the ER with trouble breathing ― and learned he had end-stage kidney disease, linked to his time as a sugar cane farmer in the sweltering fields of El Salvador. (Bailey, 4/20)

NPR: Coronavirus Cases Continue To Climb In The U.S. And Around The World
As of Sunday, nearly three months since the first confirmed case of the coronavirus was reported in the United States, there are over 746,300 confirmed cases of the virus in the country, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. Cases of COVID-19 have been reported in at least 212 countries and territories, according to the World Health Organization. And according to the Johns Hopkins data, over 2,382,000 people have been infected globally. (Hagemann, 4/19)

Politico: White House Still Scrambling To Cover Virus Treatment For The Uninsured
The White House pledged over two weeks ago to cover coronavirus treatment for uninsured Americans — but the administration still doesn’t have a plan for how to do it. Trump officials are still grappling with key questions about how exactly to implement the treatment fund, including how to determine if a patient qualifies for the new federal dollars, an administration source said. Adding to the challenge, they’re still figuring out how to divvy up funding that hospitals and physicians say is desperately needed. (Luthi and Roubein, 4/20)

The New York Times: White House And Democrats Near Deal On Aid For Small Businesses
The White House and congressional Democrats on Sunday closed in on an agreement for a $450 billion economic relief package to replenish a depleted emergency fund for small businesses and to expand coronavirus testing around the country, with votes on the measure possible early this week. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin described the broad outlines of the package in an appearance on CNN on Sunday. The agreement would include $300 billion to replenish the emergency fund, called the Paycheck Protection Program; $50 billion for the Small Business Administration’s disaster relief fund; $75 billion for hospitals and $25 billion for testing. (Stolberg and Rappeport, 4/19)

The Associated Press: Trump, Congress Near Deal On Small Business, Hospital Aid
The Senate is scheduled for a pro forma session Monday, but no vote has been set. The House announced it could meet as soon as Wednesday for a vote on the pending package, according to a schedule update from Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md. With small-business owners reeling during a coronavirus outbreak that has shuttered much economic activity, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said he was hopeful of a deal that could pass Congress quickly and get the Small Business Administration program back up by midweek. (Yen and Mascaro, 4/20)

The Washington Post: Trump Administration, Congressional Leaders Close To Deal On Billions In New Virus Aid
The deal would add about $310 billion to the Paycheck Protection Program for small businesses, which was swamped by demand in the three weeks since Congress created it as part of a $2 trillion coronavirus rescue bill. It also would add $60 billion to a separate emergency loan program for small businesses that is out of money, too, Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said on CNN. (Werner and Stein, 4/19)

The Wall Street Journal: Mnuchin, Democrats Say They Are Close On Small-Business Funding Agreement
Mr. Mnuchin said the agreement was expected to include $75 billion for hospitals and $25 billion to expand testing for the virus nationwide, which Democrats have pressed for. The small-business relief, known as the Paycheck Protection Program, was part of the roughly $2 trillion stimulus bill and is aimed at helping firms cover payroll and other essential expenses for roughly two months. Loans can be forgiven if businesses maintain the size of their workforce. (Peterson, 4/19)

The New York Times: No Fight Over Red Ink Now, But Virus Spending Will Force Tough Choices
The deficit hawks have had their wings clipped. No one wants to hear alarms raised about the dangers of staggering government spending during a monstrous threat to public health and the economy. Any such concerns have been silenced and set aside as the federal government throws open the spigots in an unstinting effort to protect both American lives and the nation’s financial underpinnings. “It hasn’t been a prominent topic of conversation, I think it is fair to say,” conceded Senator Patrick J. Toomey, Republican of Pennsylvania and a longtime fiscal conservative, about the potential hazards of compounding an already spiraling federal deficit in response to a crippling pandemic. (Hulse, 4/18)

The New York Times: Coronavirus And Reopening: Governors Say They Lack Tests As Trump Administration Says Supply Adequate
Governors facing growing pressure to revive economies decimated by the coronavirus said on Sunday that a shortage of tests was among the most significant hurdles in the way of lifting restrictions in their states. “We are fighting a biological war,” Gov. Ralph Northam of Virginia said on “State of the Union” on CNN. “We have been asked as governors to fight that war without the supplies we need.” In interviews on Sunday morning talk shows, Mr. Northam was among the governors who said they needed the swabs and reagents required for the test, and urged federal officials to help them get those supplies. (Rojas, 4/19)

The Wall Street Journal: Governments Face Pressure To Ease Coronavirus Lockdowns
Gov. Larry Hogan of Maryland, a Republican, said it is unfair to suggest that states have enough testing to move forward with reopening, as some Trump administration officials have. “To try to push this off to say that the governors have plenty of testing, and they should just get to work on testing, somehow we aren’t doing our job, is just absolutely false,” he said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “Every governor in America has been pushing and fighting and clawing to get more tests, not only from the federal government, but from every private lab in America and from all across the world. And we continue to do so.” (Ansari, Meichtry and Yap, 4/19)

The Washington Post: Trump Says Government Will Step Up Coronavirus Testing Efforts, After Governors Blast Federal Inaction
President Trump said on Sunday that the federal government is stepping up efforts to obtain vital supplies for coronavirus testing, hours after several governors from both parties faulted his administration for not doing enough to help states. Public health experts say testing on a larger scale is a crucial step before resuming normal social and economic activity in the country. But Trump defended the administration’s approach of leaving testing largely to states. (Harris, Sonmez and DeBonis, 4/19)

The Wall Street Journal: Coronavirus Testing Hampered By Disarray, Shortages, Backlogs
As President Trump and many of his advisers focus more attention on the nation’s economic reopening, lower ranking officials are trying to sort out the testing puzzle and individual labs are vying for supplies in a fractured and exhausted marketplace. “It is a little bit insane. Everyone is running around trying to get as much as they can from every vendor,” said David Grenache, the lab director at TriCore Reference Laboratories in Albuquerque, N.M. “Laboratories are competing with each other to get needed resources,” he said, and often coming up short. The private sector hasn’t so far been able to deliver nearly enough tests to meet the huge demand in the U.S., more than six weeks after the Food and Drug Administration allowed private companies to manufacture test kits and put them to use without having to be approved. (Weaver and Ballhaus, 4/19)

The New York Times: Covid-19 Antibody Test, Seen As Key To Reopening Country, Does Not Yet Deliver
A law firm in Scottsdale, Ariz., tested employees who hoped, with the prick of a finger, to learn if they might be immune. In Laredo, Texas, community leaders secured 20,000 of the new tests to gauge how many residents had been infected. In Chicago, a hospital screened firefighters to help determine whether they could safely stay on the job. In recent weeks, the United States has seen the first rollout of blood tests for coronavirus antibodies, widely heralded as crucial tools to assess the reach of the pandemic in the United States, restart the economy and reintegrate society. (Eder, Twohey and Mandavilli, 4/19)

The Washington Post: FDA Did Not Review Many Coronavirus Antibody Tests Flooding The Market
The Food and Drug Administration, criticized for slowness in authorizing tests to detect coronavirus infections, has taken a strikingly different approach to antibody tests, allowing more than 90 on the market without prior review, including some marketed fraudulently and of dubious quality, according to testing experts and the agency itself. Antibody, or serological, tests are designed to identify people who may have overcome covid-19, including those who had no symptoms, and developed an immune response. They are not designed to detect active infections. (McGinley, 4/19)

Politico: Cuomo Says State To Test Thousands For Covid-19 Antibodies
New York will begin testing thousands of residents this week for Covid-19 antibodies as the state moves to reopen the economy in the coming weeks and months, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Sunday. With data suggesting the coronavirus has passed its apex in New York, Cuomo said health officials will begin conducting an initial 2,000 antibody tests per day — or 14,000 a week — on a random sample of New Yorkers in addition to its diagnostic testing for the virus. (Young, 4/19)

The New York Times: C.D.C. Labs Were Contaminated, Delaying Coronavirus Testing, Officials Say
Sloppy laboratory practices at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention caused contamination that rendered the nation’s first coronavirus tests ineffective, federal officials confirmed on Saturday. Two of the three C.D.C. laboratories in Atlanta that created the coronavirus test kits violated their own manufacturing standards, resulting in the agency sending tests that did not work to nearly all of the 100 state and local public health labs, according to the Food and Drug Administration. Early on, the F.D.A., which oversees laboratory tests, sent Dr. Timothy Stenzel, chief of in vitro diagnostics and radiological health, to the C.D.C. labs to assess the problem, several officials said. (Kaplan, 4/18)

The Wall Street Journal: To Get Back To Work, Companies Seek Coronavirus Tests For Workers
Companies from Amazon.com Inc. to General Motors Co. are exploring ways to test their employees for Covid-19 before they come in to work. Regular tests for workers could keep exposure to sick employees to a minimum and boost employees’ confidence about coming back to work, corporate medical advisers and human-resources executives say. Yet companies face hurdles in rapidly building testing capacity. For one, tests remain tough to obtain in large quantities, those people say, and the practice raises potential issues of privacy and liability. (Krouse, 4/20)

The Associated Press Fact Check: Trump’s Misdirection On Virus Testing, Deaths
President Donald Trump is falsely assigning blame to governors and the Obama administration for shortages in coronavirus testing. For much of the week, he was pretender to a throne that didn’t exist as he claimed king-like powers over the pandemic response and Congress. But by the weekend, he was again saying governors called the shots and they are the ones to blame — not the federal government, not him — for any testing problems. (Yen and Woodward, 4/20)

The New York Times: Trump, The Head Of Government, Leans Into An Anti-Government Message
First he was the self-described “wartime president.” Then he trumpeted the “total” authority of the federal government. But in the past few days, President Trump has nurtured protests against state-issued stay-at-home orders aimed at curtailing the spread of the coronavirus. Hurtling from one position to another is consistent with Mr. Trump’s approach to the presidency over the past three years. Even when external pressures and stresses appear to change the dynamics that the country is facing, Mr. Trump remains unbowed, altering his approach for a day or two, only to return to nursing grievances. (Haberman, 4/20)

NPR: Trump Often Picks Fights With Governors, But Americans Like Them More
Trump has seen a rally-around-the-flag bump that’s smaller than other presidents have in times of national crisis. His average approval rating, according to RealClearPolitics, is just 46%, with 51% disapproving. Compare that to Cuomo. The latest Siena College Research poll shows 87% of New Yorkers approve of the job he’s doing in handling the coronavirus, despite the large number of cases New York has had. Just 41% of New Yorkers approve of Trump’s handling of the pandemic. (Montanaro, 4/20)

The Associated Press: Lockdown Tensions Grow As People Seek To Resume Work Or Play
The coronavirus is touching all levels of society and increasing tensions as governments start to ease restrictions that health experts warn should be done gradually to avoid a resurgence of the illness that has killed more than 165,000 people. The mounting pressure was evident in the United States. The Trump administration says parts of the nation are ready to begin a gradual return to normalcy. Yet some state leaders say woefully inadequate federal action, like a lack of testing supplies, is hindering their response to the illness. (Perry and Weissert, 4/20)

Reuters: More U.S. Protests Call For Lifting Coronavirus Restrictions As Governors Push Back
An estimated 2,500 people rallied at the Washington state capitol in Olympia to protest Democratic Governor Jay Inslee’s stay-at-home order, defying a ban on gatherings of 50 or more people. Despite pleas from rally organizers to wear face coverings or masks as public health authorities recommend, many did not. “Shutting down businesses by picking winners and losers in which there are essential and non-essential are violations of the state and federal constitution,” rally organizer Tyler Miller, 39, an engineer from Bremerton, Washington, told Reuters. (Chiacu and Goldberg, 4/19)

The Associated Press: Lockdown Politics Increasingly Pit Economic, Health Concerns
The global health crisis is taking a nasty political turn with tensions worsening between governments locked down to keep the coronavirus at bay and people yearning to restart stalled economies and forestall fears of a depression. Protesters worrying about their livelihoods and bucking infringements on their freedom have taken to the streets in some places. A few countries are acting to ease restrictions, but most of the world remains unified in insisting it’s much too early to take more aggressive steps. (Weissert, Colvin and Jordans, 4/20)

The Washington Post: Pro-Gun Activists Using Facebook Groups To Push Anti-Quarantine Protests
A trio of far-right, pro-gun provocateurs is behind some of the largest Facebook groups calling for anti-quarantine protests around the country, offering the latest illustration that some seemingly organic demonstrations are being engineered by a network of conservative activists. The Facebook groups target Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York, and they appear to be the work of Ben Dorr, the political director of a group called “Minnesota Gun Rights,” and his siblings, Christopher and Aaron. (Stanley-Becker and Romm, 4/19)

The Wall Street Journal: More Americans Fear Lifting Coronavirus Restrictions Too Soon, WSJ/NBC Poll Says
Americans are worried about lifting stay-at-home orders too quickly amid the coronavirus pandemic, which has dramatically upended life in a month marked by business shutdowns, job losses and illness, according to a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll. Nearly six in 10 in the survey said they were concerned that the country would move too fast to loosen restrictions aimed at slowing the outbreak, compared with about three in 10 who said the greater worry was the economic impact of waiting too long. (Lucey, 4/19)

The Wall Street Journal: As Politicians Lean On Disease Modelers In Health Crisis, Some Scientists Fear A Backlash
Politicians and government officials trying to chart a course through the global coronavirus pandemic have relied heavily on a specialized set of epidemiological experts: disease modelers. As they make decisions affecting the health and livelihoods of hundreds of millions of citizens, world leaders have turned to projections of infections and deaths by these scientists, who by their own admission are working with a bewildering array of unknowns as they build their forecasts. (Colchester, 4/19)

The Washington Post: Coronavirus Fatality Rate Remains Unknown As Officials Plan To Reopen The Economy
With government officials debating how and when to reopen the economy, a fundamental question about the coronavirus pandemic remains unanswered: Just how deadly is this disease? The “case fatality rate” of covid-19 varies wildly from country to country and even within nations from week to week. In Germany, fewer than 3 in 100 people with confirmed infections have died. In Italy, the rate is almost five times higher, according to official figures. (Mooney, Eilperin and Achenbach, 4/17)

The Associated Press: Battleground Power Plays Rage As Everyday Politics Go Quiet
Door-knocking? Over. Local party activity? Some Facebook traffic, if that. Across an arc of vital swing states, the coronavirus has put politics on an uneasy pause. Instead, political fights among state leaders from Iowa to Pennsylvania over the handling of the pandemic’s impact are raging as it spreads over this electoral heartland. (Beaumont, 4/20)

The Wall Street Journal: Coronavirus Intensifies Legal Tussle Over Voting Rights 
Intense court battles over voting rights and election security always promised to be part of the 2020 election cycle, but the coronavirus has added new urgency to the cases, which are multiplying nationwide. This month’s fight over when and how Wisconsin voters would cast their ballots marked the unofficial start of the litigation campaign. In the two weeks since, courts in several other states have issued notable decisions about conducting elections during a pandemic, and a host of new lawsuits has been filed. (Kendall and Corse, 4/19)

Stat: Novartis Steps Up To Study Of Hydroxychloroquine In Covid-19 
The drug giant Novartis said Monday it would conduct a 450-person study to determine if hydroxychloroquine, the malaria drug touted by many pundits and President Trump, can effectively treat Covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. The study will be a randomized, double-blind placebo-controlled study, the medical gold standard in which patients will be assigned one of three options: hydroxychloroquine, the combination of hydroxychloroquine and the antibiotic azithromycin, or placebo. (Herper, 4/20)

Reuters: Novartis, U.S. Drug Regulator Agree To Malaria Drug Trial Against COVID-19
The decades-old generic medicine got FDA emergency use authorization this month for its unapproved use for coronavirus disease, but so far there is no scientific proof it works. There are currently no approved COVID-19 medicines. Novartis plans to start recruiting 440 patients for its Phase III, or late-stage, trial within weeks at more than a dozen U.S. sites. Results will be reported as soon as possible, the company added. (Miller, 4/20)

The Wall Street Journal: Hydroxychloroquine And Other Autoimmune Drugs Don’t Fully Protect Against Coronavirus, Early Data Suggest
Dozens of people taking hydroxychloroquine and other treatments for chronic rheumatologic diseases have become infected with Covid-19, according to an analysis of emerging data that is a sign the drugs may not protect people from the new coronavirus. More than five dozen people with chronic ailments like lupus and rheumatoid arthritis were taking medications such as hydroxychloroquine before being diagnosed with the coronavirus, according to data compiled by the Global Rheumatology Alliance, a coalition of rheumatologists, researchers and patients, and published in a medical journal Thursday. (Hopkins, 4/18)

Politico: Trump’s Wild West Approach To Virus Cure-Alls Is A Game-Changer For Drugmakers
President Donald Trump’s habit of touting potential coronavirus cures during daily White House briefings has changed the game for drugmakers, who are dropping their usually secretive ways to aggressively court public opinion. From Gilead releasing anecdotal results on the drug remdesivir to Johnson & Johnson’s new reality series on the making of its experimental vaccine, pharmaceutical companies are seeking to shape the narrative like never before. The PR push could raise false hope about therapies that don’t end up working, or even put pressure on the Food and Drug Administration to approve drugs and vaccines whose effectiveness isn’t clear. (Owermohle, 4/17)

Reuters: Status Of Upcoming Vaccines, Drugs And Other Treatments In The Battle Against COVID-19
With much of the world living in lockdown,  the spread of the new coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, that was first detected in China late last year is beginning to slow in some places. As of April 18, 2.4 million had been infected and 165,000 killed  by COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus. While a safe, effective vaccine is still more than a year away, researchers are rushing to repurpose existing drugs and non-drug therapies as well as testing promising experimental drugs that were already in clinical trials. Even moderately effective therapies or combinations could dramatically reduce the crushing demand on hospitals and intensive care units, changing the nature of the risk the new pathogen represents to populations and healthcare systems. (Soares, 4/13)

USA Today: Coronavirus: Some Fear Black People Won’t Get Vaccine. Here’s Why.
David Graham is a nurse practitioner who spends his days and nights treating coronavirus patients. He’s a 41-year-old black man who learned in high school how doctors failed to treat hundreds of black men in a federal study for their syphilis, so he isn’t inclined to trust the government to get a vaccine for the pandemic right.  African Americans, who are being infected and killed by COVID-19 at a much higher rate than whites, are 40% less likely to get flu shots,a study out last year showed, and some fear they will be reluctant to get the coronavirus vaccine when one is released. A historical distrust of the health care system, which has far fewer physicians of color and a record of discrimination and mistreatment, gets much of the blame, experts said. (O’Donnell, 4/19)

The Associated Press: Reports Suggest Many Have Had Coronavirus With No Symptoms
A flood of new research suggests that far more people have had the coronavirus without any symptoms, fueling hope that it will turn out to be much less lethal than originally feared. While that’s clearly good news, it also means it’s impossible to know who around you may be contagious. That complicates decisions about returning to work, school and normal life. In the last week, reports of silent infections have come from a homeless shelter in Boston, a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier, pregnant women at a New York hospital, several European countries and California. (Marchione, 4/20)

The Wall Street Journal: Does Covid-19 Infection Equal Immunity?
As the ranks of Covid-19 survivors swell, scientists are racing to understand how well they resist reinfection—and just how long that hard-won immunity might last. So far, most medical researchers who have studied coronaviruses related to the pathogen that causes Covid-19—including SARS, MERS and the common cold—are confident that people who do recover gain some immunity to SARS-CoV-2, based on preliminary studies and case reports of the new virus. They don’t know yet whether that protection will last a few months, a few years or a lifetime. (Hotz, 4/19)

Stat: Everything We Know About Coronavirus Immunity, And Plenty We Still Don’t
People who think they’ve been exposed to the novel coronavirus are clamoring for antibody tests — blood screens that can detect who has previously been infected and, the hope is, signal who is protected from another case of Covid-19. But as the tests roll out, some experts are trying to inject a bit of restraint into the excitement that the results of these tests could, for example, clear people to get back to work. Some antibody tests have not been validated, they warn. Even those that have been can still provide false results. (Joseph, 4/20)

The New York Times: The Coronavirus In America: The Year Ahead
The coronavirus is spreading from America’s biggest cities to its suburbs, and has begun encroaching on the nation’s rural regions. The virus is believed to have infected millions of citizens and has killed more than 34,000. Yet President Trump this week proposed guidelines for reopening the economy and suggested that a swath of the United States would soon resume something resembling normalcy. For weeks now, the administration’s view of the crisis and our future has been rosier than that of its own medical advisers, and of scientists generally. (McNeil, 4/18)

Stat: As The Coronavirus Swept Over China, Some Experts Were In Denial
The response to the coronavirus pandemic in the United States and other countries has been hobbled by a host of factors, many involving political and regulatory officials. Resistance to social distancing measures, testing debacles, and longtime failures to prepare for the possibility of a pandemic all played a role. But a subtler, less-recognized factor contributed to the wasting of precious weeks in January and February, when preparations to try to stop the virus should have kicked immediately into high gear. (Branswell, 4/20)

The New York Times: Fears Of Ventilator Shortage During Coronavirus Pandemic Unleash A Wave Of Innovations
Fears of a ventilator shortage have unleashed a wave of experimentation at hospitals around the country that is leading to some promising alternatives to help sustain patients. Doctors at North Shore University Hospital on Long Island have been using machines designed for people with sleep apnea to keep scores of coronavirus patients breathing, and engineers at New York University have transformed hooded hair salon dryers into personal negative pressure chambers that deliver oxygen and limit the spread of aerosolized virus, lowering the infection risks for health care workers and other patients. (Jacobs, 4/17)

The New York Times: An Overlooked, Possibly Fatal Coronavirus Crisis: A Dire Need For Kidney Dialysis
For weeks, U.S. government officials and hospital executives have warned of a looming shortage of ventilators as the coronavirus pandemic descended. But now, doctors are sounding an alarm about an unexpected and perhaps overlooked crisis: a surge in Covid-19 patients with kidney failure that is leading to shortages of machines, supplies and staff required for emergency dialysis. In recent weeks, doctors on the front lines in intensive care units in New York and other hard-hit cities have learned that the coronavirus isn’t only a respiratory disease that has led to a crushing demand for ventilators. (Abelson, Fink, Kulish and Thomas, 4/18)

The New York Times: Is The Virus On My Clothes? My Shoes? My Hair? My Newspaper?
When we asked readers to send their questions about coronavirus, a common theme emerged: Many people are fearful about tracking the virus into their homes on their clothes, their shoes, the mail and even the newspaper. We reached out to infectious disease experts, aerosol scientists and microbiologists to answer reader questions about the risks of coming into contact with the virus during essential trips outside and from deliveries. While we still need to take precautions, their answers were reassuring. (Parker-Pope, 4/17)

Politico: Trump Administration Will Require Nursing Homes To Report Covid-19 Cases
American nursing homes will now be required to report coronavirus cases directly to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as well as to patients and their families, CMS Administrator Seema Verma said Sunday. The directive from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services mark a significant change in practice. The CDC has not formally tracked the number of Covid-19 cases that spread inside homes for vulnerable elderly patients. Thousands have died. (Perez, 4/19)

The Washington Post: California, Florida Release Names Of Nursing Homes With Coronavirus As Pressure Mounts
Health officials in California and Florida this weekend published lists of nursing homes in their states that have had coronavirus cases, joining other states that have released at least partial lists. Although most states rely solely on the long-term-care facilities to notify residents and their families of such cases, officials in California and Florida made the nursing homes’ names public after facing pressure to be more transparent with families and to better understand the virus’s spread. (Kornfield, 4/19)

The New York Times: 70 Died At A Nursing Home As Body Bags Piled Up. This Is What Went Wrong.
When the coronavirus outbreak hit one of the largest and most troubled nursing homes in the Northeast, coughing and feverish residents were segregated into a wing known as South 2. The sick quickly filled the beds there, so another wing, West 3, was also turned into a quarantine ward. But the virus kept finding frail and older residents, and one culprit became clear: The workers themselves were likely spreading it as they moved between rooms and floors, outfitted with little or no protective equipment. (Tully, Rosenthal, Goldstein and Gebeloff, 4/19)

The Associated Press: ’Under Siege’: Overwhelmed Brooklyn Care Home Tolls 55 Dead
As residents at a nursing home in Kirkland, Washington, began dying in late February from a coronavirus outbreak that would eventually take 43 lives, there was little sign of trouble at the Cobble Hill Health Center, a 360-bed facility in an upscale section of Brooklyn. Its Facebook page posted a cheerful story encouraging relatives to quiz their aging loved ones about their lives, and photos of smiling third graders at a nearby school making flower arrangements for residents. (Condon, Sedensky and Peltz, 4/20)

The Associated Press: Nations Seek To Ease Nursing Home Loneliness Yet Keep Safe
Belgian Prime Minister Sophie Wilmes just wanted to do the humane thing. After so many frail and elderly nursing home residents had been held in seclusion from their loved ones in the first weeks of the lockdown to contain the coronavirus pandemic, Wilmes said her government decided to allow one visitor — in good health — per person. “People can die of loneliness,” Wilmes told parliament on Thursday. “Sustained isolation has consequences.” (Casert and Charlton, 4/20)

The New York Times: Are Face Masks The New Condoms?
Are face masks going to become like condoms — ubiquitous, sometimes fashionable, promoted with public service announcements? They should be, one virus researcher says, if early indications are correct in suggesting that Covid-19 is often spread by people who feel healthy and show no symptoms. David O’Connor, who studies viral disease at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said: “If a substantial amount of transmission occurs before people feel sick, how do you stop that? By the time people feel sick and seek care, all the testing and isolation in the world would be too little, too late.” (Gorman, 4/18)

The Associated Press: Losing Face: The Rise Of The Mask, And What’s Lost Behind It
On Saturday afternoons, the Strip District neighborhood of Pittsburgh becomes a jam-packed hub of old-fashioned shopping. People stride along Penn Avenue, hopping from greengrocer to butcher to fishmonger to Italian market, smiling and gesturing and jabbering as they go. Not this weekend. As strange, spaced-out lines formed outside favorite establishments, the chatting was muted, the sidewalk sidesteps were awkward and tentative, and the facial expressions were, well, not really facial expressions at all. Just like much of the planet during these jumbled coronavirus days. (Anthony, 4/20)

The New York Times: At Least New Yorkers Can Still Roll Their Eyes
In a city already locked up and hidden away behind lowered gates and darkened doors, its people now walk behind their own personal barriers. A population known for big mouths now must speak up so as to be heard by a neighbor, a cashier, the deli counterman, gesturing to the brink of pantomime to be understood. From surgeon-quality personal protection to the home-stitched square and the bandit’s bandanna, New Yorkers pulled on a newly essential accessory and ventured into a landscape that changed yet again on Friday, as of 8 p.m., with the mandated wearing of masks in public. (Wilson, 4/17)

The Washington Post: Coronavirus: Will Americans Wear Masks? Politics, History, Race And Crime Factor Into Tough Decision
Kevin Krannawitter won’t wear a mask because he just doesn’t think it’s necessary, whatever the scientists say. Marilyn Singleton won’t wear one either — and she’s a physician — because she says it’s un-American for the government to force people to cover their faces. You won’t see Ricardo Thornton in a mask because it reminds him of a time when he wasn’t free to make his own decisions about his life. (Fisher, Williams and Rozsa, 4/18)

CNN: US Coronavirus: Governors Say Testing Still Isn’t Adequate Enough To Lift Restrictions 
Harvard researchers warned that if the country wants the economy to open back up — and stay that way — testing must go up to at least 500,000 people per day. Testing nationwide is currently at 150,000 per day, they said, adding that “If we can’t be doing at least 500,000 tests a day by May 1, it is hard to see any way we can remain open.” (Silverman, 4/20)

The Wall Street Journal: Coronavirus Strains Safety Net For People With Disabilities
Damian Gregory worries about the things that have quickly become normal to worry about in the coronavirus era: Is there Clorox at the grocery store this week? When will social distancing end? Will he and his family stay healthy until a vaccine is found? But the 46-year-old consultant and advocate, who has cerebral palsy, says he carries an extra layer of fear. He has to worry if he will be able to navigate in his wheelchair at the store or arrange for services to transport him. (Koh, 4/19)

The Wall Street Journal: Why Hypertension Is More Deadly Than It Has To Be
Here’s a new reason to have your blood pressure checked: Data from the coronavirus outbreak suggests that high blood pressure can make patients more susceptible to Covid-19, more likely to develop severe symptoms no matter what their age, and more likely to die if they are older. Researchers are also studying whether some blood-pressure medications might help or hurt with regard to the coronavirus. (Landro, 4/19)

CNN: Experts Say It May Be Time For Grocery Stores To Ban Customers From Coming Inside Because Of Covid-19
Dozens of grocery store workers have died from the coronavirus, despite masks, temperature checks and capacity restrictions to keep them safe. So far, supermarkets have resisted the most draconian policy: banning customers from coming inside. However, some worker experts, union leaders and small grocery owners believe it has become too dangerous to let customers browse aisles, coming into close range with workers. (Meyersohn, 4/19)