First Edition: March 18, 2020

Kaiser Health News: As Coronavirus Testing Gears Up, Specialized Swabs Running Out
The two top makers of the highly specialized swabs used to test patients for the novel coronavirus are straining to keep up with the demand, even as both the Italian and U.S. governments are working with them to increase production, including at a key manufacturing site in the midst of Italy’s outbreak. The nasopharyngeal swabs required for the coronavirus tests are quite different from your standard Q-tips — and the exploding need for them has created a bottleneck in the soaring demand for diagnoses. (Weber and Jewett, 3/17)

Kaiser Health News: Near Trump’s Florida Home, Drive-Thru COVID-19 Testing Gets Off To Rocky Start
A much-needed drive-thru coronavirus testing site opened here Monday, just a few miles from the Mar-a-Lago Club, home to the country’s most high-profile COVID-19 exposure. A week ago, President Donald Trump and a few top aides hosted a festive dinner with Brazilian officials, some later found to be ill with the novel coronavirus. Despite repeated assertions from White House officials that tests will soon be available to anyone who wants them, residents here found the reality much different. (Galewitz, 3/17)

Kaiser Health News: As Coronavirus Surges, Programs Struggle To Reach Vulnerable Seniors Living At Home
Close down group meals for seniors. Cancel social gatherings. The directive, from the Illinois Department on Aging, sent shock waves through senior service organizations late last week.Overnight, Area Agencies on Aging had to figure out how to help people in their homes instead of at sites where they mingle and get various types of assistance. (Graham, 3/18)

Kaiser Health News: Is The Bay Area’s ‘Unprecedented’ Lockdown The First Of Many?
Life came to a grinding halt for millions of San Francisco Bay Area residents as the most stringent isolation orders in the country took effect Tuesday. To stem the spread of the new coronavirus, roughly 7 million people in seven counties were instructed to “shelter in place” and were prohibited from leaving their homes except for “essential” activities such as purchasing food, medicine and other necessities. Most businesses closed, with the exception of grocery stores, pharmacies, restaurants (for takeout and delivery only), hospitals, gas stations, banks and a handful of others. (Gold and Bluth, 3/17)

The New York Times: Trump Pitches $850 Billion Stimulus Package Over Coronavirus
The Trump administration called on Tuesday for urgent action to speed $1 trillion into the economy, including sending $250 billion worth of checks to millions of Americans, as the government prepared its most powerful tools to fight the coronavirus pandemic and an almost certain recession. The Federal Reserve took the rare step of unleashing its emergency lending powers and President Trump called on Congress to quickly approve the sweeping economic stimulus package. Mr. Trump dispatched his Treasury secretary to Capitol Hill to begin hammering it out as large sections of the economy shut down and companies began laying off workers. (Rappeport, Cochrane and Fandos, 3/17)

The Associated Press: Trump’s Economic Rescue Package Could Approach $1 Trillion
After a savage drop at the start of the week, the stock market rose as Trump and aides sketched out elements of the economic rescue package at a briefing. Economists doubted that would be enough to stop millions of jobs losses, even if in the short term. Bigger than the $700 billion 2008 bank bailout or the nearly $800 billion 2009 recovery act, the White House proposal aims to provide a massive tax cut for wage-earners, $50 billion for the airline industry and $250 billion for small businesses. Two people familiar with he package described it to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly. The amount that would be sent out in checks Americans is not yet disclosed. (Mascaro and Miller, 3/17)

Reuters: Trump Presses For $1 Trillion Stimulus As U.S. Coronavirus Deaths Cross 100
President Donald Trump said progress was being made against the fast-spreading pathogen and predicted the U.S. economy would “come roaring back” when it slows. “It’s going to pop,” said Trump, who is seeking re-election on Nov. 3. The Republican president’s tone on the pandemic has changed sharply over the past few days. After initially playing down the threat and focusing on the stock market, his administration has begun pushing for urgent action to stem the disease’s economic and human toll. The White House on Tuesday urged Americans to avoid groups larger than 10. (Chiacu and Allen, 3/17)

Reuters: Explainer: How The White House Can Get $1,000 Into The Hands Of Every American
President Donald Trump and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on Tuesday proposed mailing out checks of up to $1,000 to American adults to quickly pump hundreds of billions of dollars into the U.S. economy at a time when airlines are slashing flights and officials are shuttering restaurants, sports arenas and other public venues. Though details remained unclear, Washington could turn to the playbook it deployed in February 2008, when the Great Recession was just taking hold. The Economic Stimulus Act of 2008 provided payments averaging $600 per person, injecting more than $100 billion into the economy within a matter of months. (Sullivan, 3/17)

Politico: Mnuchin: ‘We Are Looking At Sending Checks To Americans Immediately’
Mnuchin indicated that the president’s preference for a payroll tax holiday — a six- to eight-month process — would take too long to put money into Americans’ pockets. “The president has instructed me we have to do this now. So this is now,” Mnuchin said. “This is stuff that needs to be done now. The president has instructed me that this is no fault to American workers. For medical reasons, we are shutting down parts of this economy, and we are going to use all the tools we have.” (McCaskill, 3/17)

Reuters: Fed Moves To Backstop Funding For U.S. Companies As Coronavirus Fallout Spreads
The Fed in the morning announced it would reopen the so-called Commercial Paper Funding Facility to underwrite the short-term loans that companies often use to pay for their operations, a key financial market backstop first set up 2007 to 2009. At day’s end it extended its reach as the economy’s lender of last resort to the two dozen Wall Street primary dealers who are critical to the functioning of bond and other financial markets. By letting those companies pledge municipal bonds, corporate debt and equity securities as collateral for 90-day Fed loans, the Fed aimed to keep credit flowing to parts the economy that may face an unfolding nationwide cash crunch. (Schenider and Dunsmuir, 3/17)

Los Angeles Times: Coronavirus Poses Dreadful Choice For Global Leaders: Wreck Your Economy Or Lose Millions Of Lives
The coronavirus pandemic has confronted governments around the globe with the ultimate bad choice: Wreck your economy or lose millions of lives. While some initially hesitated, leaders and legislators in the United States and worldwide increasingly have decided they have to accept the severe economic pain. “Everything else will come back,” President Trump said Tuesday even as the economic downturn and global turmoil deepened. “Lives won’t come back.” (Lauter, 3/18)

Politico: Senate GOP Crafting New Massive Coronavirus Package At ‘Warp Speed’
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said the Senate will work at “warp speed” to craft a massive new stimulus package to help Americans deal with the economic fallout from the coronavirus crisis, vowing that senators “will not leave” Washington until it’s done. And Senate Majority Whip John Thune (R-S.D.) said Tuesday there is a “high level of interest” among Republicans for a Trump administration proposal to send as many as two $1,000 checks directly to individual Americans to help respond to the economic slowdown, a move that could cost an estimated $500 billion, according to GOP sources. (Bresnahan, Levine, Caygle and Sherman, 3/17)

The New York Times: Congress Is Knitting A Coronavirus Safety Net. It Already Has Big Holes.
Compromises in the legislation set to pass the Senate this week have ripped holes in that net, exposing millions of workers to financial risks that could push them to continue reporting to work — even on the front lines of the pandemic — and accelerate the infection rate nationwide. Democrats in Congress now say they will attempt to patch those holes by expanding a government-funded paid-leave benefit and making unemployment payments more generous for workers laid off as the economy rapidly shutters under government orders seeking to curb the virus. But that push will almost certainly have to wait for the next phase of the congressional response, an increasingly expensive fight that could meet resistance from business groups worried that the program could drive small companies out of existence by allowing critical workers to stay at home. (Tankersley and Cochrane, 3/17)

The New York Times: Congress Races To Respond While Defying Ban On Mass Gatherings
When Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin rushed to the Capitol on Tuesday to pitch Senate Republicans on a $1 trillion coronavirus relief package, the chamber had already moved into crisis mode as lawmakers confronted a growing sense of urgency to act before much of the nation shuts down. Senate Democrats abandoned their weekly policy luncheon for a teleconference, while about four dozen Republicans, joined by Mr. Mnuchin, practiced social distancing by moving their lunch from their usual room in the Capitol that seats 80 to one across the street that seats 200. Instead of 10 senators at each table, there were five. The buffet line was dispensed with; gloved servers dished out tuna, egg salad and chicken. (Edmondson and Stolberg, 3/18)

The Associated Press: Amid Virus, Congress’ Leaders Resist Call For Remote Voting
Congressional leaders are resisting calls to let lawmakers vote remotely, a dispute pitting the scourge of the coronavirus against two centuries of tradition that underscores Washington’s struggle to adapt to recommendations that evolve daily about how to handle the pandemic. Advocates of the voting change cite the health perils of air travel at a time when health experts want people to avoid crowds. They argue that as infections spread, it may become all but impossible for many lawmakers to journey to the Capitol because of the growing risk of getting the virus. (Fram and Daly, 3/18)

The New York Times: Trump Finally Enlists Much Of Government In Coronavirus Attack
The mayor of Seattle wanted “mass tents” from the federal government to rapidly build shelters to house people in quarantine. The state of New York pleaded for help from the Army Corps of Engineers to quickly build hospitals. Oregon’s governor repeatedly pressed the Department of Health and Human Services for hundreds of thousands of respirators, gowns and gloves, face shields or goggles. After so many pleas, President Trump moved on Tuesday to begin enlisting much of his government in what the White House had called for weeks a “whole of government” approach to the rampaging coronavirus. (Lipton, Kanno-Youngs and Cooper, 3/17)

Reuters: From Field Hospitals To Respirator Masks, Pentagon Wades Into Coronavirus Support Role
The Pentagon on Tuesday laid out how the U.S. military would support the medical response to the coronavirus, from using its stockpile of respirator masks to potentially building field hospitals and perhaps even deploying Navy hospital ships to reduce the stress on U.S. emergency rooms. The moves illustrate the massive government effort that will be required to deal with the fast-spreading pandemic, with the number of cases topping 5,800 in the United States and the death toll approaching 100. (Ali and Stewart, 3/17)

The Associated Press: Military Faces Limitations In Responding To Virus Outbreak
The Pentagon is already helping combat the coronavirus outbreak in the United States and is considering ways to do more. But the military faces limits. Its health care system is geared more toward handling combat casualties than infectious diseases. And there are logistical and legal concerns about expanding the military’s role in civilian affairs, such as tasking it with enforcing quarantines. Defense officials also want to be careful not to do anything to weaken its ability to defend the nation. (Burns and Baldor, 3/17)

The Associated Press: Hospitals Fear Shortage Of Ventilators For Virus Patients
U.S. hospitals bracing for a possible onslaught of coronavirus patients with pneumonia and other breathing difficulties could face a critical shortage of mechanical ventilators and health care workers to operate them. The Society of Critical Care Medicine has projected that 960,000 coronavirus patients in the U.S. may need to be put on ventilators at one point or another during the outbreak. But the nation has only about 200,000 of the machines, by the organization’s estimate, and around half are older models that may not be ideal for the most critically ill patients. (Tanner and Johnson, 3/17)

The New York Times: These Places Could Run Out Of Hospital Beds As Coronavirus Spreads
A new Harvard analysis shows that many parts of the United States will have far too few hospital beds if the new coronavirus continues to spread widely and if nothing is done to expand capacity. In 40 percent of markets around the country, hospitals would not be able to make enough room for all the patients who became ill with Covid-19, even if they could empty their beds of other patients. That statistic assumes that 40 percent of adults become infected with the virus over 12 months, a scenario described as “moderate” by the team behind the calculations. (Sanger-Katz, Kliff and Parlapiano, 3/17)

The Associated Press: One Mask A Day For Doctors In Virus Epicenter Of Washington
Two doctors in Washington state, which leads the U.S. in coronavirus deaths, have tested positive for the disease as hospitals scramble to make due with a shortage of masks and other equipment needed to keep them from getting sick. In the area of Seattle that’s been hardest-hit, some nurses in emergency departments are washing and reusing surgical masks, gloves and gowns. They may work on a patient for hours or more before learning they tested positive for COVID-19. (3/17)

The Washington Post: Coronavirus Among Health Workers: Exposure, Lack Of Testing, Threatens Health System
Dozens of health-care workers have fallen ill with covid-19, and more are quarantined after exposure to the virus, an expected but worrisome development as the U.S. health system girds for an anticipated surge in infections. From hotspots such as the Kirkland, Wash., nursing home where nearly four dozen staffers tested positive for the coronavirus, to outbreaks in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, California and elsewhere, the virus is picking off doctors, nurses and others needed in the rapidly expanding crisis. (Bernstein, Boburg, Sacchetti and Brown, 3/17)

The Wall Street Journal: Hospitals Facing Coronavirus Are Running Out Of Masks, Other Key Equipment
Administrators at the Renton, Wash., headquarters of the Providence health system are in conference rooms assembling makeshift face shields from vinyl, elastic and two-sided tape because supplies are drying up. Nurses from Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, preparing for a potential shortage, have pleaded with friends on Facebook for any goggles and other gear they might have lying around. Providence plans next to make its own masks, with possible help from a uniform manufacturer. “I’m reusing my mask from yesterday,” said Calvin Sun, an emergency-room doctor in New York City. “We really have no choice.” (Evans and Safdar, 3/18)

The Hill: US Plan Warns Coronavirus Pandemic Could Last 18 Months: Report 
A plan developed by the federal government to combat the coronavirus reportedly projects the pandemic will last 18 months or more and could feature multiple “waves,” The New York Times reported. “Shortages of products may occur, impacting health care, emergency services, and other elements of critical infrastructure,” the plan warns, according to the Times. “This includes potentially critical shortages of diagnostics, medical supplies (including PPE [personal protective equipment] and pharmaceuticals), and staffing in some locations.” (Budryk, 3/17)

The New York Times: Trump Now Claims He Always Knew The Coronavirus Would Be A Pandemic
For weeks, President Trump has minimized the coronavirus, mocked concern about it and treated the risk from it cavalierly. On Tuesday he took to the White House podium and made a remarkable assertion: He knew it was a pandemic all along. “This is a pandemic,” Mr. Trump told reporters. “I felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic.” This is what Mr. Trump has actually said over the past two months: On Jan. 22, asked by a CNBC reporter whether there were “worries about a pandemic,” the president replied: “No, not at all. We have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China, and we have it under control. It’s going to be just fine.” (Rogers, 3/17)

The Wall Street Journal: To Track Virus, Governments Weigh Surveillance Tools That Push Privacy Limits
As the country scrambles to control the rapidly spreading coronavirus, government agencies are putting in place or considering a range of tracking and surveillance technologies that test the limits of personal privacy. The technologies include everything from geolocation tracking that can monitor the locations of people through their phones to facial-recognition systems that can analyze photos to determine who might have come into contact with individuals who later tested positive for the virus, according to people familiar with the matter. (Grind, McMillan and Wilde Mathews, 3/17)

Politico: Big Tech Faces A ‘Big Brother’ Trap On Coronavirus
As the federal government shifts into an all-hands-on-deck fight to battle coronavirus, President Trump and his White House have increasingly called on tech companies to lend a hand. The companies are in conversations with government about to leverage their might and reach; the Trump White House held a conference call last week to talk about what they can do to help, from helping analyze scholarly research to pulling down misinformation on the virus. For the tech giants, this plea represents a huge opportunity to get back in the public’s good graces, as an industry whose image has taken a beating is being asked, even urged, to step up in a moment of national emergency. (Scola, 3/18)

The New York Times: Coronavirus Is Closing Social Security Offices. Here’s How To Get Benefit Help.
The Social Security Administration operates a vast network of more than 1,200 offices around the country that help thousands of Americans every day with applications for retirement, disability and Medicare benefits. No more. Starting Tuesday, Social Security’s field office network will be closed to the public in most situations until further notice because of the coronavirus public health crisis, administration officials said. Offices that hear disability insurance appeals also are closed. (Miller, 3/17)

Politico: Schools Complain Of ‘Total Confusion’ Over White House, CDC Guidelines On Coronavirus
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Tuesday abruptly canceled an online briefing with school superintendents, and their association called on the agency and the White House to clarify federal guidance for schools struggling amid the coronavirus outbreak. Daniel A. Domenech, executive director of AASA, The School Superintendents Association, told POLITICO that superintendents are feeling “total confusion” with the conflicting statements issued earlier by the CDC and then on Monday from the White House. (Gaudiano, 3/17)

The Associated Press: US Slashes Testing Rules To Speedup Coronavirus Screening
The Trump administration is slashing regulations governing test development in a bid to ramp up screening for the coronavirus amid nationwide frustration with the slow pace of the effort. The unprecedented steps by the Food and Drug Administration could boost testing capacity at some U.S. labs, but also complicate efforts to assure the accuracy of tests and track who receives them.More than eight weeks after the first U.S. case of COVID-19 was detected, the U.S. still struggles to conduct mass screening and provide definitive figures on the number of people tested. (Perrone, 3/17)

The Washington Post: Coronavirus Testing Finally Gets Going In US, But There Aren’t Enough Lab Workers Or Protective Equipment
A small commercial laboratory in Georgia has been selling do-it-yourself coronavirus testing kits, despite the fact that the Food and Drug Administration has not approved at-home testing for people worried they may have been infected in the global pandemic. A physician at the health clinic working with the Georgia lab said there is no time to waste on federal bureaucracy. “We’re behind the eight ball. We need to start testing more people,” said David Williams, the chief executive of Southside Medical Center in Atlanta. (Johnson, McGinley, Eilperin and Brown, 3/17)

The New York Times: Did Federal Officials Really Question W.H.O. Tests For Coronavirus?
At a time when the Trump administration is facing intense criticism for its failure to make coronavirus tests available to millions of nervous Americans, remarks by a federal health official on Tuesday appeared to suggest that the World Health Organization’s diagnostic tests were wildly inaccurate. In a somewhat rambling answer to a question related to W.H.O. tests, Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus response coordinator, said: “It doesn’t help to put out a test where 50 percent or 47 percent were false positives. Imagine what that would mean to the American people. Imagine what that would mean to tell someone they were positive when they weren’t.” (McNeil, 3/17)

The New York Times: Inside The First Drive-Through Coronavirus Testing Center In New Rochelle
Any other place, any other time, the three white tents set against the Long Island Sound in the middle of a public park, with a line of vehicles waiting to get in, could have easily been the scene of a wedding or a garden party. But the appearance of the people underneath the tents — in silver hazmat suits, face shields and masks — told a different story. (Nir, 3/17)

The Washington Post Fact Checker: What Did Dr. Anthony Fauci Say About Coronavirus Testing ‘Failing’?
A major issue in the U.S. government’s response to the outbreak of a novel coronavirus has been the availability of tests for people who believe they may have covid-19. The administration has been under fire for its failure to quickly expand testing for coronavirus across the United States. A still-unspecified manufacturing problem caused the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to distribute flawed tests to state and local health departments. The lack of tests, compared with countries such as South Korea that have tested tens of thousands of people, has meant the spread of the virus in the United States may have been hidden in the early weeks of the outbreak. (Kessler, 3/18)

The Washington Post: U.S. Coronavirus Death Toll Surpasses 100
Coronavirus has killed from coast to coast. It devastated a nursing home in Washington state and crept into the heartland. Across the United States, more than 100 people infected with the highly contagious new virus have now died — a toll that experts expect to rise quickly. This country’s first fatal cases offer a preview of the challenges ahead, as Americans battle a disease that has killed thousands of people worldwide. The Washington Post has tracked every known U.S. death and has analyzed data provided by state and local health officials, families of the victims, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Thebault, Hauslohner and Dupree, 3/17)

CNN: Here’s What We Know About The 100 Coronavirus Deaths In The US
Dozens of people from their 50s to their 90s have died in the United States after contracting the novel coronavirus and the death toll continues rising. At least 112 people have died since the first US case of the coronavirus was reported in January and the virus has spread to all states, the District of Columbia and some territories. While the majority were treated at hospitals, a woman in Washington died at home. (Chavez, Watts and Mack, 3/18)

The Wall Street Journal: Coronavirus Infections Approach 200,000 Globally
The number of confirmed coronavirus infections shot toward 200,000, more than doubling in a span of two weeks, despite an escalation in global travel restrictions and the imposition of home quarantines in many parts of the world. There were 198,152 confirmed cases of the disease known as Covid-19 early on Wednesday, with infections outside of mainland China—where the epidemic began—now above 117,000, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. Deaths globally also more than doubled over the past two weeks to 7,954. (Craymer, 3/18)

The New York Times: Once Political B-Listers, Governors Lead Nation’s Coronavirus Response
One day after President Trump told the nation’s governors on a conference call that he had been “watching a lot of you on television” dealing with the coronavirus, he proved it Tuesday morning by angrily tweeting at Michigan’s governor for saying on MSNBC that “the federal government did not take this seriously early enough.” But Mr. Trump’s name-calling — he referred to Gretchen Whitmer only as “Failing Michigan Governor,” and said she needed to “work harder” — soon backfired. (Martin and Burns, 3/17)

The Associated Press: US Life With COVID-19: A State-By-State Patchwork Of Rules
As the nation struggles to reconcile itself to a new and spreading peril, it also struggles with a patchwork of rules that vary dizzyingly from place to place: For now, your life and lockdown in the shadow of COVID-19 depends on where you live. In some places, many ordinary Americans are making public health choices, searching their own conscience and deciding for themselves what risk they’re willing to endure. In others, government has made at least some of those decisions. (Galofaro, 3/17)

The Washington Post: Coronavirus Closures Accelerate Nationwide, But Wide Gaps Remain
Mark Estee spent his Tuesday laying off 100 cooks, waiters and dishwashers, having been forced by city decree in Reno, Nev., to close two restaurants that had been thriving just days ago. Less than an hour down the road, in Nevada’s Carson Valley, the threat of coronavirus had inspired no such restrictions. Estee’s three other restaurants were preparing to serve dinner, a hearty mix of pasta, burgers and beer. (Witte, Zezima, Cha and Craig, 3/17)

The Associated Press: All 50 States Now Have Virus Cases: West Virginia The Last
All 50 U.S. states now have confirmed cases of the new coronavirus as West Virginia’s governor announced the first positive test in his state on Tuesday evening. Gov. Jim Justice said the person with the virus is in the state’s Eastern Panhandle, a region close to Washington, D.C., though he didn’t disclose the county where it was reported.Justice used a televised address to announce new restrictions, ordering bars, restaurants and casinos to close with the except of carry-out food services. He did not address delivery services. (Raby, 3/17)

The Wall Street Journal: New York City Residents May Have To Shelter In Place, De Blasio Says
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and New York City’s mayor delivered conflicting messages Tuesday on whether city residents could be forced to shelter in place because of the rapid spread of the new coronavirus. Mayor Bill de Blasio said at an afternoon news conference that New York City residents should be prepared for such a possibility and that a decision could be made in conjunction with the state in the following 48 hours. (Berger, 3/17)

The New York Times: Coronavirus Treatment: Hundreds Of Scientists Scramble To Find One
Working at a breakneck pace, a team of hundreds of scientists has identified 50 drugs that may be effective treatments for people infected with the coronavirus. Many scientists are seeking drugs that attack the virus itself. But the Quantitative Biosciences Institute Coronavirus Research Group, based at the University of California, San Francisco, is testing an unusual new approach. The researchers are looking for drugs that shield proteins in our own cells that the coronavirus depends on to thrive and reproduce. (Zimmer, 3/17)

The Wall Street Journal: Blood-Sample Shortages Slow Search For Coronavirus Drug
To cure the sick, drug researchers first need the blood of the healthy. Scientists trying to develop treatments for the new coronavirus have struggled to get a hold of recovered patients’ blood samples, which contain the building blocks needed to create new medicines. More than 180,000 people globally have been infected by the new coronavirus, but blood samples from recovered patients have been in short supply, say pharmaceutical executives, academic researchers and U.S. public health officials. (Walker, 3/17)

Reuters: China Gives Go-Ahead For Human Trials Of Potential COVID-19 Vaccine: State Media
China has given the go-ahead for researchers to begin human safety tests of an experimental coronavirus vaccine in the race to develop a shot against the COVID-19 epidemic that has killed more than 7,000 people worldwide. Researchers at China’s Academy of Military Medical Sciences, – affiliated to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) -received approval to launch early-stage clinical trials of the potential vaccine starting this week, the ruling Communist Party’s People’s Daily reported on Tuesday. (3/17)

Reuters: Australian Researchers Map Immune Response To Coronavirus
Australian researchers said on Tuesday they have mapped the immune responses from one of country’s first coronavirus patients, findings the health minister said were an important step in developing a vaccine and treatment. The coronavirus has infected more than 168,000 people worldwide and killed at least 6,610, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). While the bulk of those infected experience only mild symptoms, it is severe or critical in 20% of patients. The virus mortality rate is about 3.4%, the WHO has estimated. (Packham, 3/17)

The New York Times: Is Ibuprofen Really Risky For Coronavirus Patients?
The health minister of France, Olivier Véran, has issued a blunt warning about painkillers taken by people ill with the coronavirus: Stay away from drugs like ibuprofen and aspirin. Take acetaminophen instead, he advised in a tweet on Saturday. So-called nonsteroidal anti-inflammatories like ibuprofen worsened symptoms of the illness caused by the coronavirus, he said. … The advice left many medical experts scratching their heads. The coronavirus is a new pathogen, and little is known about the disease it causes, called Covid-19, or how patients respond to common medications. (Kolata, 3/17)

The New York Times: The Coronavirus Myths You Should Not Fall For
As the coronavirus continues to spread across the globe, confusion and misconceptions about what can protect you are becoming as contagious as the virus. We spoke to doctors and experts in infectious diseases about whether there’s any truth to these common claims. (Blum, 3/17)

The Associated Press: Politics In Time Of Coronavirus: Arizona Quietly Picks Biden
The candidates canceled their rallies and stopped door-to-door outreach to voters. Then the debate that was supposed to highlight Arizona’s emergence as a national battleground was moved from a concert venue in Phoenix to an empty television studio in the nation’s capital. Arizona’s moment in the presidential political spotlight disappeared as the nation mobilized to confront the coronavirus outbreak, leaving an anticlimactic election that didn’t feel much like an election. (Cooper, 3/18)

The Wall Street Journal: Biden Sweeps Tuesday’s Primaries As Voters Confront Coronavirus Fears
Joe Biden won all three primaries held Tuesday on a day filled with anxious voting, building a lead in the Democratic presidential nomination race that appears increasingly difficult for Bernie Sanders to overcome. The two-man race lurched forward against major disruptions triggered by the coronavirus pandemic as the first balloting was held—in Florida, Illinois and Arizona—since the crisis engulfed the nation. (McCormick and Thomas, 3/17)

The Washington Post: Joe Biden Romps Over Bernie Sanders In Florida, Illinois And Arizona In Tuesday Balloting
Biden’s speech to the nation provided a striking coda to a complicated primary day. As he moved ever closer to becoming the Democratic nominee, he stood alone in front of a camera without a cheering crowd — symbolizing the example Americans have been asked to follow by isolating themselves from others in the midst of the novel-coronavirus outbreak. “Tackling this pandemic is a national emergency that is akin to fighting a war,” Biden said. “This is the moment for each of us to see and believe the best in every one of us.” (Scherer, Linskey and Sullivan, 3/17)

The Associated Press: 3 States Vote, But Coronavirus Disruptions Could Last Weeks
Ohio called off its state’s primary just hours before polls were set to open as the federal government urged Americans not to gather in groups of 10 or more and asked older people to stay home entirely. Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez blasted Ohio’s unprecedented move for breeding “more chaos and confusion.” He sought to head off more states from taking similar actions, urging those with upcoming primaries to expand vote-by-mail and absentee balloting, as well as polling station hours, so that efforts to stop the spread of the coronavirus don’t further derail his party’s contest for the right to face President Donald Trump in November. (Jaffe and Weissert, 3/17)

Reuters: Democrats Give Biden The Edge Over Sanders In A Crisis: Edison Research Polls
Despite escalating concerns about the coronavirus outbreak that has shut down large public gatherings across the country, Edison Research estimated Democratic turnout in Florida at 1.85 million – more than the 1.7 million who voted in 2016 and 1.75 million in 2008. (Whitesides and Gibson, 3/17)

The New York Times: ‘We Are Not A Hospital’: Inside A Prison Bracing For The Coronavirus
Packed into a crowded federal prison complex with not enough masks, soap or hand sanitizer, and the sole doctor out sick, corrections workers in Tallahassee, Fla., were worried. Then on Monday, a new inmate arrived and was immediately put into quarantine. And on Tuesday, a bus with almost a dozen inmates from a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center showed up. They were scheduled for quarantine, too. And all had elevated temperatures. (Ivory, 3/17)

Politico: Anger Builds Over Virus Dangers In Immigration Courts
President Donald Trump’s increasingly urgent campaign to attack the coronavirus outbreak is having a notably meager impact in the immigration courts, where dramatic moves could undercut his signature policy of getting tough on undocumented immigrants and asylum seekers. As state and federal courts around the country scale back sharply due to the pandemic, most immigration courts have pressed on with only minor adjustments, prompting growing outrage from immigration judges, lawyers for immigrants facing deportation and even the attorneys who serve as prosecutors. (Gerstein, 3/17)

The Associated Press: A Cruel Paradox: Beating Virus Means Causing US Recession
No one knows how long it will last or how much it will hurt. But the U.S. economy is either sliding into a recession for the first time since 2009 or is already in one — a sudden victim of the coronavirus outbreak. The vast changes deemed necessary to defeat the virus — people and companies no longer engaging with each other — are bringing everyday business to a halt and likely delivering a death blow to the longest economic expansion on record. (Wiseman, 3/18)

Politico: Coronavirus Layoffs Surge Across America, Overwhelming Unemployment Offices
Employers are slashing jobs at a furious pace across the nation due to mass shutdowns over the coronavirus, slamming state unemployment offices with a crush of filers facing sudden crises. Long before official government data is expected to reveal the depths of the economic shock inflicted by the coronavirus, reports from state officials and businesses around the country indicate the gathering of a massive wave of unemployment on a scale unseen since the Great Recession. (Rainey, 3/17)

The New York Times: Layoffs Are Just Starting, And The Forecasts Are Bleak
However events unfold, one thing is becoming clear: As the effects of the coronavirus pandemic hit the job market, the damage looks likely to be much deeper and longer lasting than seemed possible even a week ago. Marriott International, the hotel operator, said Tuesday that it would begin furloughing tens of thousands of employees worldwide. Restaurants, coffee shops, gyms and other small businesses have begun laying off workers outright. On Monday, a flood of inquiries from newly jobless New Yorkers crashed the website for the state’s unemployment insurance system. (Casselman, Maheshwari and Yaffe-Bellany, 3/17)

The New York Times: My Coronavirus Test: 5 Days, A Dozen Calls, Hours Of Confusion
Almost a dozen calls with five health care providers over five hours. Two hours of hold music. Two hours in a hospital. Four days of anxiously checking an online portal for results. And lots of confusion. That’s the winding path through bureaucracy that took me from placing my first phone call last Wednesday to getting my positive coronavirus test results on Monday night. Five days in limbo. (Herrera, 3/18)

The New York Times: Food, A Basic Pleasure, Is Suddenly Fraught
The white-tablecloth restaurants and the dive bars are closed. The ample buffets that feed America’s tech work force and Las Vegas gamblers have been shut down, along with millions of school cafeterias. On Monday, McDonald’s joined other fast-food companies and closed its restaurants except for delivery and drive-through. Almost overnight, Americans have had to rethink one of the most elemental parts of their daily lives: food. (Severson and Moskin, 3/17)