First Edition: April 21, 2020

Kaiser Health News: The Inside Story Of How The Bay Area Got Ahead Of The COVID-19 Crisis
Sunday was supposed to be a rare day off for Dr. Tomás Aragón after weeks of working around-the-clock. Instead, the San Francisco public health officer was jolted awake by an urgent 7:39 a.m. text message from his boss. “Can you set up a call with San Mateo and Santa Clara health officers this a.m., so we can discuss us all getting on the same page this week with aggressive actions, thanks,” said the message from Dr. Grant Colfax, director of San Francisco’s Department of Public Health. (Hart and Barry-Jester, 4/21)

Kaiser Health News: ‘It Hurts Our Soul’: Nursing Home Workers Struggle With Thankless Position
In the months before county health officials ordered the evacuation of COVID-19-plagued Magnolia Rehabilitation & Nursing Center, the facility’s employees complained of bounced checks. It sat on a list of the nation’s worst nursing homes for health and safety violations. But when announcing the unprecedented evacuation of Magnolia’s 83 remaining patients last week, Dr. Cameron Kaiser, Riverside County’s health officer, singled out the nursing home’s staff― after only one of its 13 certified nursing assistants showed up for a scheduled shift the previous day. (Almendrala, 4/21)

Kaiser Health News: A Switch To Medicaid Managed Care Worries Some Illinois Foster Families 
Rebecca and Bruce Austin in central Illinois have six kids — ranging in age from 4 to 22.Five kids still live at home, and all of them came to the Austins through the foster care system. All told, they see 14 doctors. Many states promise to provide health care to help foster and adoptive families keep kids healthy, but recently in Illinois, thousands of children temporarily lost coverage when the state switched their health plans. (Herman, 4/21)

The Washington Post: Coronavirus Crisis: Trump Says He Will Issue Order To Suspend Immigration During, Closing Off The United States To A New Extreme
President Trump announced in a tweet late Monday night that he plans to suspend immigration to the United States, a move he said is needed to safeguard American jobs and defend the country from coronavirus pandemic, which he called “the Invisible Enemy.” “In light of the attack from the Invisible Enemy, as well as the need to protect the jobs of our GREAT American Citizens, I will be signing an Executive Order to temporarily suspend immigration into the United States!,” the president wrote, announcing the plan at 10:06 p.m. (Miroff, Dawsey and Armus, 4/21)

The New York Times: Trump Plans To Suspend Immigration To U.S.
In recent weeks, the Trump administration has used health concerns to justify aggressively restricting immigration. Even before the tweet, it had expanded travel restrictions, slowed visa processing and moved to swiftly bar asylum seekers and undocumented immigrants from entering the country, alarming immigration advocates who have said that Mr. Trump and his advisers are using a global pandemic to further hard-line immigration policies. But the president’s late-night announcement on Monday signals his most wide-ranging attempt yet to seal off the country from the rest of the world. (Rogers, Shear and Kanno-Youngs, 4/20)

The Associated Press: Trump Says He’ll ‘Suspend Immigration,’ Offers No Details
He offered no details as to what immigration programs might be affected by the order. The White House did not immediately elaborate on Trump’s tweeted announcement. Trump has taken credit for his restrictions on travel to the U.S. from China and hard-hit European countries, arguing it contributed to slowing the spread of the virus in the U.S. But he has yet to extend those restrictions to other nations now experiencing virus outbreaks. (4/21)

The Wall Street Journal: Trump To Temporarily Halt Immigration Into The U.S. Amid Coronavirus Crisis
Administration officials said the order wouldn’t make substantial changes to current U.S. policy. Even without an executive order, the administration has already all but ceased nearly every form of immigration. Most visa processing has been halted, meaning almost no one can apply for a visa to visit or move to the U.S. Visa interviews and citizenship ceremonies have been postponed and the refugee program paused, The Wall Street Journal has previously reported. Migrants caught crossing the border are now immediately expelled once they are found. (Ballhaus and Hackman, 4/21)

Reuters: Trump Says He Will Suspend All Immigration Into U.S. Over Coronavirus
“As our country battles the pandemic, as workers put their lives on the line, the President attacks immigrants & blames others for his own failures”, former Democratic presidential candidate Amy Klobuchar said in a tweet. Immigration is largely halted into the United States anyway thanks to border restrictions and flight bans put in place as the virus spread across the globe. But the issue remains an effective rallying cry for Trump’s supporters. (Mason, 4/20)

The Washington Post: Gov. Brian Kemp Sets Georgia On Aggressive Course To Reopen, Putting His State At Center Of Deepening National Debate 
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp’s move Monday to lift restrictions on a wide range of businesses, one of the most aggressive moves yet to reignite commercial activity in the midst the coronavirus pandemic, put his state at the center of a deepening national battle over whether Americans are ready to risk exacerbating the public health crisis to revive the shattered economy. (Stanley-Becker, 4/21)

The Associated Press: Georgia To Reopen Some Businesses As Early As Friday
Georgia’s timetable, one of the most aggressive in the nation, would allow gyms, hair salons, bowling alleys and tattoo parlors to reopen as long as owners follow strict social-distancing and hygiene requirements. Elective medical procedures would also resume. By Monday, movie theaters may resume selling tickets, and restaurants limited to takeout orders could return to limited dine-in service. (Amy, 4/21)

The New York Times: Georgia, Tennessee And South Carolina Move To Reopen As Hot Spots Emerge
With that announcement, Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia on Monday joined officials in other states who are moving ahead with plans to relax restrictions intended to curb the spread of the coronavirus, despite signs that the outbreak is just beginning to strike some parts of the country. In Tennessee, Gov. Bill Lee said on Monday that he was not extending his “safer-at-home” order that is set to expire on April 30. According to his office, “the vast majority of businesses in 89 counties” will be allowed to reopen on May 1. Businesses in Ohio are expected to reopen on that date as well. (Rojas and Cooper, 4/20)

The Wall Street Journal: Some Governors Move To Reopen As U.S. Coronavirus Cases Top 784,000
South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster, meanwhile, issued an order lifting restrictions on some retailers and other businesses. He also eased limits on access to public beaches, leaving the issue up to mayors and local leaders. Public-health experts say any return to something resembling normal life will require fast and widespread testing, but state health officials and laboratory operators are navigating supply shortages, test backlogs and unreliable results. Adm. Brett Giroir, the Trump administration’s testing coordinator, has said the federal government is fully engaged in fixing testing. (Calfas, Calvert and Dvorak, 4/20)

Reuters: U.S. Coronavirus Deaths Top 42,000 As Protesters Demand Restrictions End: Reuters Tally
U.S. coronavirus deaths topped 42,000 on Monday, according to a Reuters tally, as more protesters gathered in state capitals to demand an early end to the lockdowns, while officials pleaded for patience until more testing becomes available. Stay-at-home measures, which experts say are essential to slow the spread of the respiratory virus, have ground the economy to a standstill and forced more than 22 million people to apply for unemployment benefits in the last month. (Shumaker, 4/20)

Reuters: As Protesters Decry U.S. Coronavirus Lockdown, Officials Urge Caution
The U.S. debate over restrictions for fighting the coronavirus intensified on Monday, as protesters labeled mandatory lockdowns as “tyranny,” while medical workers and health experts cautioned that lifting them too soon risked unleashing a greater disaster. With health authorities and many governors warning that far more testing is needed before the U.S. economy can be safely reopened, New York state launched the nation’s most ambitious effort yet to screen the general population for exposure to the virus. (Renshaw, 4/20)

The Associated Press: WHO Warns Rush To Ease Virus Rules Could Cause Resurgence
The World Health Organization said Tuesday that rushing to ease coronavirus restrictions will likely lead to a resurgence of the illness, a warning that comes as governments start rolling out plans to get their economies up and running again. “This is not the time to be lax. Instead, we need to ready ourselves for a new way of living for the foreseeable future,” said Dr. Takeshi Kasai, the WHO regional director for the Western Pacific. (Blake and Long, 4/21)

The Wall Street Journal: Facebook Puts Limits On Protest Organizers
Dozens of protests have taken place in recent days, with participants complaining of shelter-in-place restrictions and pushing for state governments to allow more freedom to return to normal activities as the coronavirus pandemic plays out. Most of the events have been relatively small, but have drawn outsize attention on social media as the debate about when and how to reopen the economy becomes increasingly political. Facebook groups, some with tens of thousands of members and some using near-identical language in their descriptions, have popped up in states like Michigan, Minnesota and Pennsylvania. The groups raise concerns about what they see as overly restrictive orders imposed by state governors. (Wells and Restuccia, 4/20)

The Wall Street Journal: Coronavirus Misinformation Spreads On Facebook, Watchdog Says
Posts on Facebook are promoting bogus Covid-19 cures and conspiracy theories about the origins of the coronavirus, despite efforts by the social-media giant to crack down on misinformation, a watchdog group says. Sites with millions of Facebook followers have touted high doses of vitamin C and silver particles as able to cure the virus, according to NewsGuard, which tracks and rates news sites it says traffic in dubious information. Neither treatment has been scientifically proven to work. Other Facebook pages have spread the unproven theory that 5G wireless technology spreads the virus, NewsGuard said. (Alpert, 4/20)

Politico: ‘Another Nail In An Almost Closed Coffin’: Trump Faces His Next Coronavirus Test
President Donald Trump’s political fate now hinges on a simple premise: Everybody who needs a coronavirus test must be able to get a test. More than five weeks into a devastating shutdown of the U.S. economy, Trump’s aides and advisers inside and outside his administration now view disapproval of his preparedness for the coronavirus pandemic as his biggest political liability heading into the 2020 election. (Cook, 4/21)

The Associated Press: ‘Political Game’? Governors Push Back On Trump Virus Charge
A chorus of governors from both parties pushed back hard Monday after President Donald Trump accused Democrats of playing “a very dangerous political game” by insisting there is a shortage of tests for coronavirus. The governors countered that the White House must do more to help states do the testing that’s needed before they can ease up on stay-at-home orders. Kansas’ Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly said the current federal effort “really is not good enough if we’re going to be able to start to open our economy. We cannot do that safely without the tests in place.” (Suderman, Hanna and Colvin, 4/21)

The Washington Post: Maryland Buys 500,000 Coronavirus Tests Kits From South Korea, Hogan Announces
Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan announced Monday that Maryland has purchased 500,000 tests from South Korea, saying the Trump administration “made it clear over and over again” that states “have to go out and do it ourselves.” Testing shortages have stymied the pandemic response across the country, sparking friction between the White House and governors. Over the weekend, Hogan disputed President Trump’s assertion that states already had enough tests, calling the White House messaging “just absolutely false.” (Nirappil, Cox and Schneider, 4/20)

Washington Post: Contamination At CDC Lab Delayed Rollout Of Coronavirus Tests
The failure by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to quickly produce a test kit for detecting the novel coronavirus was triggered by a glaring scientific breakdown at the CDC’s central laboratory complex in Atlanta, according to scientists with knowledge of the matter and a determination by federal regulators. The CDC facilities that assembled the kits violated sound manufacturing practices, resulting in contamination of one of the three test components used in the highly sensitive detection process, the scientists said. (Willman, 4/18)

The Associated Press: 2 Types Of Testing Look For COVID-19 Infections New And Old
Testing is critical to controlling the coronavirus and eventually easing restrictions that have halted daily life for most Americans. But there’s been confusion about what kinds of tests are available and what they actually measure. There are still just two main types in the U.S. One tells you if you have an active infection with the coronavirus, whether you have symptoms or not. The other checks to see if you were previously infected at some point and fought it off. (Perrone, 4/20)

Politico: Tracking The Virus May Require 300,000 Workers. We’re Nowhere Close.
The country only has a fraction of workers needed to trace the coronavirus, as health departments are scraping together a rag tag army of graduate students, workers from a city attorney’s office and even librarians. Before the pandemic, state and local health departments had fewer than 2,000 workers carrying out contact tracing — the detailed investigatory work to track and stop outbreaks of everything from syphilis to measles. The real number needed could be somewhere between 100,000 and 300,000 — an astronomical figure that seems near impossible to reach without a massive national program to build a highly trained public health workforce. (Goldberg and Ollstein, 4/21)

The New York Times: Doctors And Governors Vie For Coronavirus Masks In Cloak-And-Dagger Deals
It was a stealth transaction, arranged through “someone who knew someone who knew someone,” taking place at an undisclosed location in an unnamed mid-Atlantic state. The getaway vehicles were disguised as food service delivery trucks, and they mapped out separate routes back to Massachusetts to avoid detection. Those were the lengths that a hospital system in Springfield, Mass., went to this month to procure urgently needed masks for workers treating a growing number of patients with the coronavirus. (Seelye, Jacobs, Becker and Arango, 4/20)

Los Angeles Times: Newsom’s Coronavirus-Mask Deal With Chinese Firm Draws Concern
Gov. Gavin Newsom‘s decision to spend almost $1 billion in taxpayer funds to buy protective masks drew national attention as an aggressive move by California to solve one of the most nagging problems of the coronavirus crisis. But almost two weeks after he announced the deal during a cable TV interview, very few details have been disclosed. The governor’s advisors have so far declined requests for information about the agreement with BYD, the Chinese electric car manufacturer hired to produce the masks, though the state has already wired the company the first installment of $495 million. (Myers, 4/20)

ProPublica: To Understand the Medical Supply Shortage, It Helps To Know How The U.S. Lost the Lithium Ion Battery To China
With so many critical health care products now made offshore that supplies could not meet surging demand as the coronavirus overwhelmed hospitals, America’s attention has again turned to the atrophied state of domestic manufacturing. As imports from Chinese manufacturers vaporized and other countries clamped down on exports, health care workers improvised with homemade face masks while American factories retooled in a desperate race to make ventilators and protective equipment. It’s a pattern, it seemed, in which devices invented in the U.S. end up being produced overseas. (DePillis, 4/21)

The Wall Street Journal: New York Nurses Allege Inadequate Safety Protocols In Lawsuits Against State, Hospital Systems
The New York State Nurses Association filed three lawsuits against the state and two hospital systems on Monday, alleging that dangerous work guidelines and protective gear shortages exacerbated the spread of the novel coronavirus. The state’s largest nurses’ union filed suit against the New York Department of Health in New York County Supreme Court, charging that it failed to ensure that health-care employees had enough safety equipment, including N95 respirators and fluid-resistant gowns. (Ramachandran, 4/20)

The Washington Post: White House, Democratic Leaders Reach Coronavirus Deal To Restart Small-Business Loan Program
The White House and Congress on Monday tried to design another giant bailout package aimed at combating the coronavirus pandemic’s economic and health fallout, scrambling to resolve last-minute snags over loan access and testing. “We have I believe come to terms on the principles of the legislation, which is a good thing, but it’s always in the fine print,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said on CNN Monday evening. “And so now we’re down to fine print, but I feel very optimistic and hopeful that we’ll come to a conclusion.” Votes on the agreement are expected as early as Tuesday afternoon in the Senate and Thursday in the House. (Werner, 4/21)

The New York Times: Dispute Over Virus Testing Delays Deal On Aid To Small Businesses And Hospitals
A dispute between Democrats and the White House over how to handle coronavirus testing emerged on Monday as one of the most significant sticking points as negotiators struggled to finalize a nearly $500 billion bipartisan agreement to replenish a loan program for small businesses and provide more funding for hospitals and testing. Democrats are pushing to include a requirement in the measure, which is likely to include $25 billion for testing, that the Trump administration establish a national testing strategy, a move the president and Republicans have resisted, insisting on leaving those decisions to each state. (Cochrane, 4/20)

The Wall Street Journal: Congress, Trump Administration Near Deal On Coronavirus Aid To Small Businesses
The deal is also set to include $75 billion in assistance for hospitals and $25 billion to expand testing for the virus across the country. All sides agreed to the $25 billion in funding, according to lawmakers and aides, but the negotiations bogged down in a dispute over how much the agreement should detail its uses. Democrats have pushed to attach the testing funds to a strategic plan that would put the federal government at the center. (Duehren, 4/20)

The Associated Press: Virus Aid Exceeding $450B Remains Stuck In Negotiations
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., set up another Senate session for Tuesday in the hope that an agreement will be finished by then. “It’s now been four days since the Paycheck Protection Program ran out of money. Republicans have been trying to secure more funding for this critical program for a week and a half now,” McConnell said. “Our Democratic colleagues are still prolonging their discussions with the administration, so the Senate regretfully will not be able to pass more funding for Americans’ paychecks today.” (Taylor and Mascaro, 4/21)

Politico: Banks Warn That New Small-Business Funding Could Evaporate In 2 Days 
Lawmakers are nearing a deal to restart an emergency small-business loan program that exhausted its funding last week — but it may buy only a few days before the program screeches to a halt once again. Lenders are warning their customers they might not be able to secure loans even if Congress provides an additional $300 billion as soon as this week. Banking industry representatives say the program has a burn rate of $50 billion per day and needs closer to $1 trillion to meet demand, with hundreds of thousands of applications pending. (Warmbrodt, 4/20)

The Wall Street Journal: Uncertainty About Rules Stalls Health-Care Companies’ Use Of Coronavirus Aid
Health-care companies say they are unable to use hundreds of millions of dollars of federal pandemic-relief funds already disbursed, citing uncertainty about rules governing the use of the $30 billion package. Health care is one of several industries that received immediate infusions of cash from the federal treasury. (Gold, 4/20)

The Associated Press: Publicly Traded Firms Get $300M In Small-Business Loans
Companies with thousands of employees, past penalties from government investigations and risks of financial failure even before the coronavirus walloped the economy were among those receiving millions of dollars from a relief fund that Congress created to help small businesses through the crisis, an Associated Press investigation found. (Dunklin, Pritchard, Myers and FAuria, 4/21)

The Washington Post: Ruth’s Chris, Shake Shack, Big Hotel Owners Get Millions In Small Business Funds
The federal government gave national hotel and restaurant chains millions of dollars in grants before the $349 billion program ran out of money Thursday, leading to a backlash that prompted one company to give the money back and a Republican senator to say that “millions of dollars are being wasted.” Thousands of traditional small businesses were unable to get funding from the program before it ran dry. (O’Connell, 4/20)

The New York Times: Shake Shack Will Return Its $10 Million Loan Amid Furor Over Stimulus Program
Buried deep in the 900-page stimulus package that Congress passed in March, a single paragraph has sparked an outcry from small restaurants as major chains and mom-and-pop places alike scramble to survive a devastating financial crisis. The provision, in a section outlining which small businesses qualify for loans from the federal government, allowed big chains like Shake Shack, Potbelly and Ruth’s Chris Steak House to get tens of millions of dollars while many smaller restaurants walked away with nothing when the $349 billion fund was exhausted last week. (Yaffe-Bellany, 4/20)

The Wall Street Journal: States Burn Through Cash For Unemployment Payments
New York state has asked the federal government for a $4 billion no-interest loan to cover unemployment payments for people put out of work by the coronavirus pandemic as it and other states burn through funds set aside for jobless claims. States are quickly depleting funds set aside as millions of laid-off workers apply for unemployment-insurance benefits offered by state governments, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of Treasury Department data. (Chaney, 4/20)

The Wall Street Journal: Coronavirus Sends One-Fifth Of Workers To Unemployment Line In Some States
The coronavirus pandemic is hitting state labor markets to very different degrees, with some seeing as many as one in five workers file for unemployment benefits and others far fewer. The variation appears to partly reflect when officials mandated business closures to stem the spread of the virus during the four weeks through April 11, as well as the state economies’ dependence on the industries most affected. Another factor that boosted new claims for unemployment insurance is that some states—such as Pennsylvania—encouraged laid-off workers to file. Other states, such as hard-hit New York, have struggled with technical glitches and overwhelmed filing systems, which held down the number of claims during the period. (Mackrael and Cameron, 4/21)

The New York Times: Vote-By-Mail In Wisconsin Helped A Liberal Candidate, Upending Old Theories 
The liberal candidate in Wisconsin’s hard-fought State Supreme Court race this month prevailed in voting by mail by a significant margin, upending years of study showing little advantage to either party when a state transitions from in-person to mail voting. The gap suggests that Democrats were more organized and proactive in their vote-by-mail efforts in an election conducted under extraordinary circumstances, with voters forced to weigh the health risks of voting in person against the sometimes unreliable option of requesting and mailing in their ballots. (Epstein, 4/21)

The Associated Press: As Mail Voting Pushed, Some Fear Loss Of In-Person Option
Scrambling to address voting concerns during a pandemic, election officials across the country are eliminating polling places or scaling back opportunities for people to cast ballots in person — a move raising concerns among voting rights groups and some Democrats who say some voters could be disenfranchised. In Nevada, election officials will open only one polling place per county for its June primary. (Cassidy and Riccardi, 4/20)

Reuters: Los Angeles Coronavirus Infections 40 Times Greater Than Known Cases, Antibody Tests Suggest
Some 4.1% of adults tested positive for coronavirus antibodies in a study of Los Angeles County residents, health officials said on Monday, suggesting the rate of infection may be 40 times higher than the number of confirmed cases. The serology tests, conducted by University of Southern California researchers on 863 people indicate the death rate from the pandemic could be lower than previously thought but also that the respiratory illness may be being spread more widely by people who show no symptoms. (Whitcomb, 4/20)

Los Angeles Times: Coronavirus May Have Infected Hundreds Of Thousands In L.A. County
That translates to roughly 221,000 to 442,000 adults who have recovered from an infection, once margin of error is taken into account, according to the researchers conducting the study. The county had reported fewer than 8,000 cases at that time. The findings suggest the fatality rate may be much lower than previously thought. But although the virus may be more widespread, the infection rate still falls far short of herd immunity that, absent a vaccine, would be key to return to normal life. (Mason, 4/20)

The Wall Street Journal: More L.A. County Residents Likely Infected With Coronavirus Than Thought, Study Finds
Researchers at the University of Southern California, who joined with the health department, then estimated that 2.8% to 5.6% of L.A. County’s adult population has been infected at some point. “It does, for me, reinforce the need for everyone to continue to stay at home,” Dr. Ferrer said. “Because there are many, many people who are positive throughout the county who may not be showing symptoms.” (Abbott and Caldwell, 4/20)

Politico: Trump Tones Down The Hydroxychloroquine Hype
President Donald Trump and his allies in conservative media have subtly scaled down their hyping of hydroxychloroquine as a potential cure for the coronavirus, according to a POLITICO review of White House briefings and cable news coverage. Although Trump had repeatedly promoted the decades-old malaria drug since the early days of the disease’s outbreak in the United States, his public statements regarding hydroxychloroquine have diminished significantly over the past week for reasons that remain unclear. (Forgey, 4/20)

Stat: He Ran Marathons And Was Fit. So Why Did Covid-19 Almost Kill Him? 
A week after testing positive for Covid-19, Joshua Fiske drove himself to a New Jersey hospital with a fever nearing 104 and a blood oxygen level extraordinarily low for an athletic 47-year-old. An X-ray revealed pneumonia in both lungs. He was admitted but his condition worsened: He felt cold enough to shiver under five blankets in one moment, then sweated through his hospital gown the next. He worried he wouldn’t pull through. (Glaser, 4/21)

The New York Times: How Coronavirus Infected Some, But Not All, In A Restaurant
In January, at a restaurant in Guangzhou, China, one diner infected with the novel coronavirus but not yet feeling sick appeared to have spread the disease to nine other people. One of the restaurant’s air-conditioners apparently blew the virus particles around the dining room. There were 73 other diners who ate that day on the same floor of the five-story restaurant, and the good news is they did not become sick. Neither did the eight employees who were working on the floor at the time. (Chang, 4/20)

The New York Times: Coronavirus Is Forcing Medical Research To Speed Up
As scientists race to understand the coronavirus, the process of designing experiments, collecting data and submitting studies to journals for expert review is being compressed drastically. What typically takes many months is happening in weeks, even as some journals are receiving double their normal number of submissions. Science, one of the world’s most selective research outlets, published the structure of the spiky protein that the virus uses to enter host cells — crucial knowledge for designing a vaccine and antiviral drugs — nine days after receiving it, according to Holden Thorp, the journal’s editor in chief. “It’s the same process going extremely fast,” he says. Is there precedent in Science’s 140-year history? “Not that anybody can remember.” (Tingley, 4/21)

Stat: Symptom Checker Steers Covid-19 Patients To Care 
When Covid-19 began spreading in the United States, Emory Healthcare was prepared in one way other health systems were not: A decade earlier — in response to the 2009 H1N1 flu outbreak — it had built an online symptom checker that could be quickly adjusted to screen patients for the new respiratory illness. The tool was launched on March 20, and in less than three weeks, more than 300,000 screenings had been completed, including many thousands in early hotspots such as California (18,500) and New York (17,000), according to data Emory provided to STAT. In nearly 22 percent of cases, patients reported signs of severe illness and were directed to seek emergency care. (Ross, 4/21)

The Wall Street Journal: Peter Thiel’s Palantir Saw Coronavirus Coming. Now It Braces For The Impact.
Peter Thiel’s data firm Palantir Technologies Inc. got an early jump on the coronavirus, recalling staff from abroad ahead of most companies. In recent weeks, it parlayed that knowledge into a growing role helping governments around the world track the pandemic. That may not be enough to spare the company from pain. Palantir’s business is being squeezed as corporate customers pare back spending, leading the Silicon Valley firm to draw up deep cost cuts and consider pushing back further its long-awaited initial public offering, according to people familiar with the matter. (Copeland and Schechner, 4/21)

Politico: ‘I’m Not Going To Go There And Die’
Generations of distrust in the health care system have accumulated particularly among African Americans but also Latinos, she said — a long-standing issue based on a history of medical abuses dating back to slavery that’s now burst to the fore, with dangerous consequences. One important way to allay such fears is through communication about the coronavirus that is tailored to minority and non-English speaking populations and delivered by credible messengers. With the pandemic disproportionately ravaging black and Hispanic populations, the need has become acute, lawmakers and public health experts are warning. (Barron-Lopez, 4/21)

Politico: Black Doctors Blast ‘Woefully Anemic’ Data On Minority Coronavirus Cases
Preliminary data shows that minority patients are disproportionately at risk of being hospitalized or dying from Covid-19. But health professionals say the numbers that have been released aren’t telling the whole story. Gross underreporting of tests, hospitalizations and deaths related to Covid-19 has plagued racial and ethnic data at the state and federal levels. Nearly half of all states have not included any data on the race or ethnicity of those affected by the coronavirus. Figures released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday list the race and ethnicity of 75 percent of all cases as unspecified. None of the race and ethnicity statistics for deaths have been reported nationally. (King, 4/20)

CNN: America’s Black And Hispanic Communities Are Bearing The Brunt Of The Coronavirus Crisis 
America has an inequality problem and the coronavirus crisis is making it worse. The pandemic is leaving few people untouched, but America’s weakest demographic groups are shouldering the worst burden through job losses and front-line work, against a backdrop of a higher risk of infections and lower savings. (Tappe, 4/21)

The New York Times: How Abortion, Guns And Church Closings Made Coronavirus A Culture War
This is what it looks like when a pandemic collides with the culture wars in America. The mayor of Louisville, Ky., warned churches that holding services on Easter Sunday would defy the city’s social distancing guidelines. Mitch McConnell, the Kentucky Republican and Senate majority leader, answered with a stern letter, arguing, “Religious people should not be singled out for disfavored treatment.” The Democratic governor in Michigan extended bans on certain outdoor activities to include using motorboats. Conservatives called her an authoritarian and caricatured her move as a slap at people who enjoy the outdoors. (Peters, 4/20)

The New York Times: The Pandemic’s Hidden Victims: Sick Or Dying, But Not From The Coronavirus
Maria Kefalas considers her husband, Patrick Carr, a forgotten victim of the coronavirus. In January, Mr. Carr, a sociology professor at Rutgers University, suffered a relapse of the blood cancer that he has had for eight years. Once again, he required chemotherapy to try to bring the disease, multiple myeloma, under control. But this time, as the coronavirus began raging through Philadelphia, blood supplies were rationed and he couldn’t get enough of the transfusions needed to alleviate his anemia and allow chemo to begin. (Grady, 4/20)

The Washington Post: Hospitals Tiptoe Toward Restarting Non-Emergency Surgery And Procedures
Some hospitals in communities less affected by the novel coronavirus moved cautiously Monday toward resuming non-emergency surgeries and procedures — a hopeful sign for patients awaiting that care and a medical system badly in need of the revenue those services provide. Acting on guidance released Sunday night by federal officials, medical centers with relatively few covid-19 patients readied some cancer, heart and other care that has been postponed by a nationwide call to halt such procedures. (Sellers, Goldstein and Bernstein, 4/20)

The Associated Press: States Work To Keep Meat Plants Open Despite Virus Outbreaks
Governors in the Midwest are working to keep large meatpacking plants operating despite coronavirus outbreaks that have sickened hundreds of workers and threaten to disrupt the nation’s supply of pork and beef. In Kansas, Gov. Laura Kelly sent personal protective equipment and testing supplies to counties with meat processing plants. Gov. Kristi Noem said she didn’t think it would be difficult to fulfill federal requirements to reopen a shuttered facility in South Dakota. (Foley, 4/21)

The Wall Street Journal: Coronavirus Spreads To Farms, Packaged-Food Plants
The coronavirus pandemic is deepening challenges for the U.S. food system, forcing plant closures and infecting farmworkers at a time when packaged-food companies say demand for groceries has never been higher. Production has been curtailed at a range of facilities across the country, including a Kraft Heinz Co. macaroni-and-cheese plant and a Conagra Brands Inc. frozen-meal factory. (Newman and Gasparro, 4/20)

The Associated Press: US Pork Farmers Panic As Virus Ruins Hopes For Great Year
After enduring extended trade disputes and worker shortages, U.S. hog farmers were poised to finally hit it big this year with expectations of climbing prices amid soaring domestic and foreign demand. Instead, restaurant closures due to the coronavirus have contributed to an estimated $5 billion in losses for the industry, and almost overnight millions of hogs stacking up on farms now have little value. (Pitt, 4/21)

The Washington Post: Coronavirus Has Largely Spared Wyoming, So Far. Amid Protests To Open Up, Some Worry The Worst Is Yet To Come.
A steer skull decorated in turquoise gemstones greets visitors inside Teton Jewelers on West 17th Street, the lone jewelry store in the small shopping district here. Standing behind it is Ken Bingham, 67, slim and bald and packing a loaded .410 revolver capable of shooting shotgun shells. He says he’s taking nearly every precaution against the novel coronavirus. Bingham’s wife, who recently finished chemotherapy, hasn’t been within six feet of him in a month. (Klemko, 4/20)

The Associated Press: Cemetery Races To Keep Up As New York Virus Deaths Mount
The streets are eerily quiet. Barely a soul walks by. But when Rabbi Shmuel Plafker arrives at the cemetery, it’s buzzing: Vans pulling in with bodies aboard, mounds of dirt piling up as graves are dug open, a line of white signs pressed into the ground marking plots that are newly occupied. Some of the few signs of life in this anguished city are coming from those tending to the dead. As the world retreats and the pandemic’s confirmed death toll in New York City alone charges past 10,000, funeral directors, cemetery workers and others who oversee a body’s final chapter are sprinting to keep up. (Goldman and Sedensky, 4/21)