First Edition: March 27, 2020

Kaiser Health News: Not So Fast Using CPAPs In Place Of Ventilators. They Could Spread The Coronavirus.
The limited supply of ventilators is one of the chief concerns facing hospitals as they prepare for more COVID-19 cases. In Italy, where hospitals have been overwhelmed with patients in respiratory failure, doctors have had to make difficult life-or-death decisions about who gets a ventilator and who does not. In the U.S., emergency plans developed by states for a shortage of ventilators include using positive airway pressure machines — like those used to treat sleep apnea — to help hospitalized people with less severe breathing issues. (Hawryluk, 3/27)

Kaiser Health News: Physicians Fear For Their Families As They Battle Coronavirus With Too Little Armor
Dr. Jessica Kiss’ twin girls cry most mornings when she goes to work. They’re 9, old enough to know she could catch the coronavirus from her patients and get so sick she could die. Kiss shares that fear, and worries at least as much about bringing the virus home to her family — especially since she depends on a mask more than a week old to protect her. (Ungar, 3/27)

Kaiser Health News: Help Wanted: Retired Doctors And Nurses Don Scrubs Again In Coronavirus Fight
Laura Benson retired from nursing in 2018, but this week she reported for work again in New Rochelle, New York, where the first cluster of COVID-19 cases occurred a few short weeks ago. “Nurses are used to giving of themselves,” she said. “If there’s not enough people, you just do it.” With more than 39,000 confirmed cases, New York is now the epicenter in the U.S. of the novel coronavirus outbreak, accounting for almost half of the more than 85,500 cases nationwide as of late Thursday evening. (Andrews, 3/27)

Kaiser Health News: In Coronavirus Relief Bill, Hospitals Poised To Get Massive Infusion Of Cash
Congress is on the verge of approving a massive funding bill that would steer an unprecedented amount of cash to the nation’s hospitals that are or soon will be struggling to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic. While the bottom-line number for that aid is close to $200 billion, it remains to be seen how fast the federal Treasury will move the money and whether it will get to where it is most needed. (Rovner, 3/27)

Kaiser Health News: Telemedicine Surges, Fueled By Coronavirus Fears And Shift In Payment Rules
Lukas Kopacki, home from college after the coronavirus pandemic closed his campus, was feeling lousy for days with headaches, sore throat and difficulty breathing through his nose. But he worried that a trip to a doctor’s office might make him sicker. “I had no desire to go into that cesspool of bacteria and viruses,” said Kopacki, 19, of Ringwood, New Jersey. (Galewitz, 3/27)

Kaiser Health News: Under Financial Strain, Community Health Centers Ramp Up Coronavirus Response
On Tuesday, the Trump administration announced $100 million in supplemental funding for community health centers to support the response to the coronavirus pandemic. “Health centers are playing a critical role,” said James Macrae, associate administrator at the federal Bureau of Primary Health Care. About 29 million people in the U.S. rely on community health centers, which provide care to low-income and uninsured patients. (Stone, 3/27)

The New York Times: The U.S. Now Leads The World In Confirmed Coronavirus Cases
Scientists warned that the United States someday would become the country hardest hit by the coronavirus pandemic. That moment arrived on Thursday. In the United States, at least 81,321 people are known to have been infected with the coronavirus, including more than 1,000 deaths — more cases than China, Italy or any other country has seen, according to data gathered by The New York Times. The Times is engaged in a comprehensive effort to track the details of every confirmed case in the United States, collecting information from federal, state and local officials. (McNeil, 3/26)

The Associated Press: US Cases Now Most In World, US Capital Sees More Infections
Increases in the number of cases have been expected as testing becomes more available. The U.S. passed China with more than 85,000 cases, and Italy also exceeded 80,000, the three countries together accounting for almost half of the world’s infections from the new virus. Most of China’s patients have recovered, while places where the virus arrived later are now dealing with overwhelmed hospitals and supply shortages and are rushing to convert public spaces for treating the sick. (Wang, 3/27)

Reuters: U.S. Has Most Coronavirus Cases In World, Next Wave Aimed At Louisiana
With medical facilities running low on ventilators and protective masks and hampered by limited diagnostic testing capacity, the U.S. death toll from COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the virus, rose beyond 1,200. “Any scenario that is realistic will overwhelm the capacity of the healthcare system,” New York Governor Andrew Cuomo told a news conference. He described the state’s projected shortfall in ventilators – machines that support the respiration of people have cannot breathe on their own – as “astronomical.” (Caspani and Trotta, 3/26)

The Wall Street Journal: U.S. Coronavirus Cases Surpass Those Of China, Italy
World-wide, there were more than 555,400 cases Friday, according to Johns Hopkins data. Testing for the new coronavirus hasn’t been uniform across the U.S. or globally, which affects total case counts. Hospitals in U.S. hot spots including New York and Seattle have passed a tipping point, as a relentless surge in cases forces some to move patients to outlying facilities, divert ambulances and store bodies in a refrigerated truck. Fatalities in the U.S. from the new coronavirus topped 1,296 Friday. (Ansari, Calfas and Wong, 3/27)

The Washington Post: U.S. Deaths From Coronavirus Top 1,000, Amid Incomplete Reporting From Authorities And Anguish From Those Left Behind
In the first 1,000 fatalities, some patterns have begun to emerge in the outbreak’s epidemiology and its painful human impact. About 65 percent of the dead whose ages are known were older than 70, and nearly 40 percent were over 80, demonstrating that risk rises along with age. About 5 percent whose ages are known were in their 40s or younger, but many more in that age group have been sick enough to be hospitalized. Of those victims whose gender is known, nearly 60 percent were men. (Hauslohner, Thebault and Dupree, 3/26)

The Washington Post: Men Are Getting Sicker, Dying More Often Of Covid-19, Spain Data Shows
Cristian Guaman Benítez, a 33-year-old electrician who moved to Spain from Ecuador, had been sick for a week with a cough, a terrible headache and a fever as high as 104 degrees. He saw three doctors who treated his illness like a cold, prescribing medicines and sending him back to work. Finally, he called the number for covid-19 information, and a doctor came to his home to examine him — and sent him by ambulance to Madrid’s 12 de Octubre Hospital. Which was where he discovered he was an outlier. (Mooney and Rolfe, 3/26)

Reuters: Coronavirus Could Kill 81,000 In U.S., Subside In June – Washington University Analysis
The coronavirus pandemic could kill more than 81,000 people in the United States in the next four months and may not subside until June, according to a data analysis done by University of Washington School of Medicine. The number of hospitalized patients is expected to peak nationally by the second week of April, though the peak may come later in some states. Some people could continue to die of the virus as late as July, although deaths should be below epidemic levels of 10 per day by June at the latest, according to the analysis. The analysis, using data from governments, hospitals and other sources, predicts that the number of U.S. deaths could vary widely, ranging from as low as around 38,000 to as high as around 162,000. (O’Donnell, 3/26)

Stat: The Next Frontier In Coronavirus Testing: Identifying The Outbreak’s Full Scope
Scientists are starting to roll out new blood tests for the coronavirus, a key development that, unlike the current diagnostic tests, will help pinpoint people who are immune and reveal the full scope of the pandemic. The “serological” tests — which rely on drawn blood, not a nasal or throat swab — can identify people who were infected and have already recovered from Covid-19, including those who were never diagnosed, either because they didn’t feel particularly sick or they couldn’t get an initial test. (Joseph, 3/27)

The Associated Press: Virus Test Results In Minutes? Scientists Question Accuracy
Some political leaders are hailing a potential breakthrough in the fight against COVID-19: simple pin-prick blood tests or nasal swabs that can determine within minutes if someone has, or previously had, the virus. The tests could reveal the true extent of the outbreak and help separate the healthy from the sick. But some scientists have challenged their accuracy. Hopes are hanging on two types of quick tests: antigen tests that use a nose or throat swab to look for the virus, and antibody tests that look in the blood for evidence someone had the virus and recovered. (Parra, 3/27)

The New York Times: U.S. Coronavirus Testing Hits Milestone But Still Falls Short
The pace of coronavirus testing in the United States has seen a meteoric rise in the past week. But the country still lags in tests relative to its population, despite having the world’s most reported coronavirus cases. (3/26)

The New York Times: Scrubbing In To Vote, The House Returns To Consider A $2 Trillion Stimulus Plan
The microphones have been removed from the well of the House to guard against transmission of the coronavirus. Lawmakers who enter the chamber must clean their hands with sanitizer and enter through one door, then scrub again and leave through another, as if coming and going from an operating room. Once inside, they must keep their distance and take turns voting in small groups. When members of the House return to Washington on Friday to approve a $2 trillion economic stimulus package and send it to President Trump, they will enter a Capitol where every facet of life has been altered by a pandemic. (Stolberg, 3/27)

The Associated Press: Washington Set To Deliver $2.2 Trillion Virus Rescue Bill
The House is set to pass the sprawling, $2.2 trillion measure Friday morning after an extraordinary 96-0 Senate vote late Wednesday. President Donald Trump marveled at the unanimity Thursday and is eager to sign the package into law. The relief can hardly come soon enough. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said Thursday the economy “may well be in recession” already and the government reported a shocking 3.3 million burst of weekly jobless claims, more than four times the previous record. The U.S. death toll has surpassed 1,000 from the virus. (Taylor, 3/27)

Reuters: U.S. House Leaders Determined To Pass $2.2 Trillion Coronavirus Bill
The $2.2 trillion measure includes $500 billion to help hard-hit industries and a comparable amount for payments of up to $3,000 to millions of families. The legislation will also provide $350 billion for small-business loans, $250 billion for expanded unemployment aid and at least $100 billion for hospitals and related health systems. The Republican-led Senate approved it 96-0 late on Wednesday. (Cornwell, Morgan and Cowan, 3/26)

The Washington Post: House Leaders Seek To Expedite Emergency Aid Package Amid Uncertainty About GOP Lawmaker Delaying Measure
At least one lawmaker is considering upending the plans for swift passage. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) said Thursday that he opposed the bill, approved unanimously by the Senate on Wednesday, as it would add to the national debt. The libertarian lawmaker also is concerned that voting without a quorum present — the majority of the House chamber — would violate the Constitution. He said he has yet to decide whether to press the issue, which could delay a House vote until late Saturday or Sunday. (Wagner, Kane and DeBonis, 3/26)

The Wall Street Journal: House Leaders Rush To Get Quorum For Vote On $2 Trillion Rescue Package
The risk of contagion has prompted Congress to examine its own voting and social practices, which often put members in physical proximity. The House will first attempt to pass the legislation by a voice vote, which doesn’t require all members to be present. But if the House doesn’t have 216 members, one lawmaker could object to a quorum not being present. A lawmaker could also request to have a roll-call vote, where names are recorded. President Trump credited the stimulus package for a surge in U.S. stocks this week, saying economic uncertainty remained in the U.S., “but we’ve come a long way.” (Andrews and Hughes, 3/26)

The New York Times: As Coronavirus Spread, Largest Stimulus In History United A Polarized Senate
As Senator Chuck Schumer walked the two miles from his apartment to the Capitol early Sunday morning, getting his steps in since the Senate gym had been shut down to stem the spread of the novel coronavirus, he knew he and his fellow Democrats had a momentous decision to make. After 48 hours of intense bipartisan negotiations over a huge economic stabilization plan to respond to the pandemic, Republicans were insisting on a vote later that day to advance the package. Mr. Schumer, the Democratic leader, suspected Republicans would present Democrats with an unacceptable, take-it-or-leave it proposition and then dare them to stand in the way of a nearly $2 trillion measure everyone knew was desperately needed. As soon as he arrived at the Capitol, the choice was clear: Democrats would have to leave it. (Hulse and Cochrane, 3/26)

The Associated Press: Coronavirus Deals One-Two Financial Punch To State Budgets
The coronavirus is pounding state governments with a financial one-two punch, costing them many millions to try to contain the disease just as businesses are shutting down and tax revenue is collapsing. The sharp drop in revenue could jeopardize some states’ ability to provide basic services. States ranging from tiny Rhode Island to California, with the world’s fifth-largest economy, have warned that many programs are likely to face cuts or even elimination. (Mulvihill, 3/27)

The New York Times: Trump Administration Pulls Back From $1 Billion Coronavirus Ventilator Deal
The White House had been preparing to reveal on Wednesday a joint venture between General Motors and Ventec Life Systems that would allow for the production of as many as 80,000 desperately needed ventilators to respond to an escalating pandemic when word suddenly came down that the announcement was off. The decision to cancel the announcement, government officials say, came after the Federal Emergency Management Agency said it needed more time to assess whether the estimated cost was prohibitive. That price tag was more than $1 billion, with several hundred million dollars to be paid upfront to General Motors to retool a car parts plant in Kokomo, Ind., where the ventilators would be made with Ventec’s technology. (Sanger, Haberman and Kanno-Youngs, 3/26)

Politico: Trump: I Don’t Believe You Really Need That Many Ventilators
Speaking with Sean Hannity on Fox News on Thursday night, Trump again minimized the impact of the global coronavirus pandemic, casting doubt on the need for tens of thousands of ventilators for hospitals responding to the crisis. “I have a feeling that a lot of the numbers that are being said in some areas are just bigger than they’re going to be,” he said. “I don’t believe you need 40,000 or 30,000 ventilators. You go into major hospitals sometimes, and they’ll have two ventilators. And now all of a sudden they’re saying, ‘Can we order 30,000 ventilators?’” (Choi, 3/26)

Politico: White House Officials Push Back On Calls To Activate DPA For Critical Medical Supplies
As state leaders across the country call on the federal government to activate the Defense Production Act, White House officials continue to push back — instead insisting that companies have stepped up to provide the dire medical equipment needed to tackle the coronavirus pandemic across the U.S. On Tuesday, the Federal Emergency Management Agency said it ultimately did not need to use the DPA to secure medical equipment, walking back on an announcement made by the head of the agency earlier that morning. (Ward, 3/26)

The New York Times: ‘The Other Option Is Death’: New York Starts Sharing Of Ventilators
A New York hospital system has begun treating two patients instead of one on some ventilators, a desperate measure that could help alleviate a shortage of the critical breathing machines and help hospitals around the country respond to the surge of coronavirus patients expected in the coming weeks. NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, began “ventilator sharing” this week, said Dr. Laureen Hill, chief operating officer at the Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center system. Doctors have developed protocols for the maneuver and now are rapidly scaling it up while also sharing their methods with the federal and state governments and other hospitals. (Rosenthal, Pinkowski and Goldstein, 3/26)

Politico: New Jersey Officials Planning For Possibility Of Rationing Ventilators
New Jersey officials are beginning to discuss the “haunting” possibility that hospitals may soon have to decide which patients critically ill with coronavirus get ventilators and which do not. Health Commissioner Judith Persichilli said during a press conference with Gov. Phil Murphy on Thursday that the Medical Society of New Jersey is putting together an advisory committee that will, among other things, address “the bioethical considerations of the availability of particularly life-saving modalities like ventilators.” (Friedman, 3/26)

The Washington Post: Coronavirus: U.S. Government Has 1.5 Million Expired N95 Masks Sitting In An Indiana Warehouse
Nearly 1.5 million N95 respirator masks are sitting in a U.S. government warehouse in Indiana and authorities have not shipped them because they are past their expiration date, despite Centers for Disease Control guidelines that have been issued for their safe use during the coronavirus outbreak, according to five people with knowledge of the stockpile. (Miroff, 3/26)

The New York Times: National Cathedral, Nasdaq, Businesses And Unions Locate Troves Of N95 Masks
Joe Alonso, the head stonemason at the Washington National Cathedral, had tended to the building for 35 years. He knew its nooks and crannies. So when news spread of a shortage of N95 masks needed to fight the coronavirus outbreak, Mr. Alonso remembered something nobody else did: More than 7,000 masks — purchased in 2005 or 2006 amid worries about an avian flu outbreak — were stashed away in an unfinished burial vault in the cathedral’s crypt. (Zaveri and Taylor, 3/26)

The New York Times: Trump Says He Will Label Regions By Risk Of Coronavirus Threat
President Trump said Thursday that he planned to label different areas of the country as at a “high risk, medium risk or low risk” to the spread of the coronavirus, as part of new federal guidelines to help states decide whether to relax or enhance their quarantine and social distancing measures. “Our expanded testing capabilities will quickly enable us to publish criteria, developed in close coordination with the nation’s public health officials and scientists, to help classify counties with respect to continued risks posed by the virus,” Mr. Trump said in a letter to the nation’s governors. (Karni, 3/26)

The Associated Press: Trump Says Feds Developing New Guidelines For Virus Risk
“I think we can start by opening up certain parts of the country: you know, the farm belt, certain parts of the Midwest, other places,” Trump said Thursday in an interview with Fox News Channel’s Sean Hannity. “I think we can open up sections, quadrants, and then just keep them going until the whole country is opened up.” The president has been trying for days to determine how to contain the economic fallout of the guidelines issued by his administration as well as local leaders to slow the tide of infections. (Miller and Suderman, 3/27)

The Washington Post: Trump Pushes To Open Up The Country During Coronavirus Pandemic As Governors In Hard-Hit States Warn More Needs To Be Done To Combat Pandemic
But the president’s upbeat assessment conflicts with warnings from public health experts that abandoning current restrictions too soon could be potentially catastrophic. And his posture has distressed the leaders in states where the virus is spreading exponentially — overwhelming hospitals, exhausting medical supply stockpiles and ravaging communities. (Costa, Vozzella, Dawsey and Nakamura, 3/26)

NPR: Anthony Fauci Warns States To Prepare For Case Surges
Over a thousand people in the U.S. have died from COVID-19, and over a third of those deaths have taken place in New York. Nearly half the confirmed cases in the United States are in New York. The state has become a coronavirus hot spot — anyone leaving New York City is being asked to self-quarantine for two weeks. A key adviser to President Trump, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and member of the White House coronavirus task force, says other states need to prepare to take on outbreaks of this scale. (Renken, 3/26)

The Associated Press: Not All Or Nothing: Anti-Virus Lockdowns Could Lift Slowly
For the millions of Americans living under some form of lockdown to curb the spread of the coronavirus, not knowing when the restrictions will end is a major source of anxiety. Will life events — weddings, funerals, even just simple nights out with friends — be delayed for a few weeks, a few months or much longer? President Donald Trump gave one answer this week, saying he hoped businesses would reopen by Easter, on April 12, citing the severe damage restrictions have done to the economy. Most public health experts, however, caution that it would be reckless to lift restrictions before COVID-19 infections have peaked and begun to ebb — unleashing a second wave of cases that could be just as damaging to the economy. (Larson and Alonso-Zaldivar, 3/27)

The New York Times Fact Check: Trump’s Baseless Claim That A Recession Would Be Deadlier Than The Coronavirus
WHAT WAS SAID: “You have suicides over things like this when you have terrible economies. You have death. Probably — and I mean definitely — would be in far greater numbers than the numbers that we’re talking about with regard to the virus.” — at a news conference on Monday. “You’re going to lose more people by putting a country into a massive recession or depression.” — during a virtual town hall on Fox News on Tuesday. This lacks evidence. Though the question of the overall impact of recessions on mortality remains unsettled, experts disputed Mr. Trump’s claim that an economic downturn would be more deadly than a pandemic. (Qiu, 3/26)

Los Angeles Times: U.S. Coronavirus Deaths Top 1,000, Trump Claims He Saved Lives
Confronted with criticism about the lagging federal response to the coronavirus crisis, President Trump often boasts about his Jan. 31 decision to restrict travel from China, where the outbreak began, claiming he saved thousands of American lives. But Trump has repeatedly overstated the effect of his decision, and the supposed opposition to it, even as he has misrepresented federal efforts to develop a vaccine and supply protective masks, ventilators and other critically needed gear. (Stokols, Megerian and Bierman, 3/26)

Politico: ‘We Don’t Want To Be Tone-Deaf’: Trump Allies Test Coronavirus Messaging
President Donald Trump wants to reopen parts of the U.S. economy hit by the coronavirus outbreak. Allies close to his 2020 campaign operation are raising red flags — warning it could be imprudent to inject more uncertainty into an already unpredictable crisis. Those concerns intensified this week when Trump identified Easter Sunday as his target date for relaxing some of the social distancing guidelines his administration has put in place to slow the spread of the virus. The prospect of watching Americans shuffle into “packed churches” on April 12, an image Trump said he hopes to see, has alarmed some of his closest supporters who fear that rushing to end the economic clampdown — without full support from public health experts — could have catastrophic consequences on his bid for reelection. (Orr, 3/27)

ProPublica: Internal Emails Show How Chaos At The CDC Slowed The Early Response To Coronavirus
On Feb. 13, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention sent out an email with what the author described as an “URGENT” call for help. The agency was struggling with one of its most important duties: keeping track of Americans suspected of having the novel coronavirus. It had “an ongoing issue” with organizing — and sometimes flat-out losing — forms sent by local agencies about people thought to be infected. The email listed job postings for people who could track or retrieve this paperwork. (Chen, Allen and Churchill, 3/26)

NPR: Coronavirus Testing And A Retracted Study
When asked why the United States didn’t import coronavirus tests when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ran into difficulty developing its own, government officials have frequently questioned the quality of the foreign-made alternatives. But NPR has learned that the key study they point to was retracted just days after it was published online in early March. (Harris, 3/26)

Politico: Could Obamacare Save Jobless Americans From Coronavirus?
A historic surge in jobless claims threatens to leave millions of Americans joining the ranks of the uninsured, an increasingly grim outlook in the country that’s emerging as the new global epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic. The moment is shaping up to be a clear test of Obamacare, on the same week the health care law turned 10 years old. The key question is whether the pandemic will drive the newly uninsured to the law’s health insurance marketplaces, proving the law’s value as a backstop, or if they’ll take their chances and forego coverage as the country braces for a possible recession. (Luthi, 3/26)

The Washington Post: The Coronavirus Recession Is Just Getting Started
The record 3.3 million jobless claims reported Thursday mark the beginning of an economic crisis facing American workers and businesses — a slump, experts say, that will only end when the coronavirus pandemic is contained. The economy has entered a deep recession that has echoes of the Great Depression in the way it has devastated so many businesses and consumers, triggering mass layoffs and threatening to set off a chain reaction of bankruptcies and financial losses for companies large and small. (Long, 3/26)

Politico: ‘Just Damage Containment’: Cost Of The Coronavirus Shutdown Keeps Rising
The mammoth $2 trillion rescue package on the brink of heading to President Donald Trump’s desk would plug some of the massive holes coronavirus is ripping through the American economy. But the massive effort — the largest single injection of federal cash into the economy in U.S. history — will do nothing to flip the switch back on for an economy enduring the swiftest paralyzation any major developed nation has ever seen. (White, 3/26)

Stat: What If Hydroxychloroquine Doesn’t Work? What If It Does? We Don’t Know
An old malaria medicine, hydroxychloroquine, has gone viral on the internet. But is it really an antiviral drug? The medicine has been seen as a potential treatment for Covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, almost since outbreaks started. This week it made headlines, due in part to tweets from President Trump and in part because of a small French study of 42 patients that seemed to show that hydroxychloroquine, particularly when combined with the antibiotic azithromycin, helped decrease patients’ levels of coronavirus. (Herper, 3/27)

The Washington Post: Unproven Anti-Malaria Drugs Are Tested On Thousands Of Coronavirus Patients In New York
New York is moving at unprecedented speed and scale in a human experiment to distribute tens of thousands of doses of anti-malarial drugs to seriously ill patients, spurred by political leaders including President Trump to try a treatment that is not proved to be effective against the coronavirus. With no proven treatment for the coronavirus, and infections in New York topping 30,000, health experts say the Food and Drug Administration has moved with uncommon speed to authorize New York’s sweeping plan to distribute the drugs through hospital networks. (Rowland, Swaine and Dawsey, 3/26)

ProPublica: Republican Billionaire’s Group Pushes Unproven COVID-19 Treatment Trump Promoted
A conservative business group founded by a prolific Republican political donor is pressuring the White House to greenlight an unproven COVID-19 treatment, saying in an online petition that the country has plants in the U.S. ready to produce a drug but can’t because of “red tape, regulation, and a dysfunctional healthcare supply chain.” In recent days, Home Depot co-founder Bernard Marcus’ Job Creators Network has placed Facebook ads and texted supporters to sign a petition urging President Donald Trump to “CUT RED TAPE” and make an anti-malarial drug called hydroxychloroquine available for treating those sickened with the virus, one such message obtained by ProPublica reads. (Pearson, 3/26)

The Wall Street Journal: Coronavirus Upends Testing Of New Drugs
The world-wide spread of the new coronavirus is throwing into disarray studies critical to the development of promising new medicines. The pandemic is causing delays in starting clinical drug trials and temporarily halting others, according to companies, consultants and industry officials. Patients enrolled in some studies have stopped showing up at trial sites, while hospitals supposed to see trial subjects are shifting attention to tackling coronavirus patients. Industry scientists, meanwhile, can’t travel for research. (Hopkins, 3/27)

The New York Times: Blood Plasma From Survivors Will Be Given To Coronavirus Patients
Can blood from coronavirus survivors help other people fight the illness? Doctors in New York will soon be testing the idea in hospitalized patients who are seriously ill. Blood from people who have recovered can be a rich source of antibodies, proteins made by the immune system to attack the virus. The part of the blood that contains antibodies, so-called convalescent plasma, has been used for decades to treat infectious diseases, including Ebola and influenza. (Grady, 3/26)

NPR: Research On Monoclonal Antibody Treatments Takes Aim At COVID-19
When our bodies are invaded by a virus, our immune systems make particular proteins called antibodies to help fight off infection. Scientists working to quell the COVID-19 pandemic think it will be possible to figure out which antibodies are most potent in quashing a coronavirus infection, and then make vast quantities of identical copies of these proteins synthetically. (Palca, 3/26)

The Associated Press: Coronavirus Cases Hit 2 Largest US Cities Differently
Los Angeles recorded its first case of coronavirus five weeks before New York City, yet it’s New York that is now the U.S. epicenter of the disease. Public health officials are keeping a wary eye and warning that LA could end up being as hard hit as New York in coming weeks, in part because a planned increase in testing may uncover a dramatic surge in cases. Testing in Los Angeles County is expected to increase from 500 per day to 5,000 by the end of the week. (Melley, 3/27)

The New York Times: ‘We’re In Disaster Mode’: Courage Inside A Brooklyn Hospital Confronting Coronavirus
It was not even 9 in the morning and Dr. Sylvie de Souza’s green N95 mask, which was supposed to form a seal against her face, was already askew. In freezing rain on Monday, she trudged in clogs between the emergency department she chairs at the Brooklyn Hospital Center and a tent outside, keeping a sharp eye on the trainee doctors, nurses and other staff members who would screen nearly 100 walk-in patients for the coronavirus that day. (Fink, 3/26)

The Associated Press: A New York Doctor’s Story: ‘Too Many People Are Dying Alone’
As an emergency medicine physician in New York City, Dr. Kamini Doobay has always known that death is part of the territory when trying to care for the city’s sickest. But it hasn’t always been like this — patients hit the hardest by the coronavirus, struggling to breathe and on ventilators, with no visitors allowed because of strict protocols to prevent spreading the virus. “So often a patient will be on their deathbed, dying alone, and it’s been incredibly painful to see the suffering of family members who I call from the ICU, hearing the tears, crying with them on the phone,” said Doobay, 31. (Bumsted and Hajela, 3/27)

The New York Times: A N.Y. Nurse Dies. Angry Co-Workers Blame A Lack Of Protective Gear.
Kious Kelly, a nurse manager at a Manhattan hospital, texted his sister on March 18 with some devastating news: He had tested positive for the coronavirus and was on a ventilator in the intensive care unit. He told her he could text but not talk. “I’m okay. Don’t tell Mom and Dad. They’ll worry,” he wrote to his sister, Marya Patrice Sherron. That was his last message. Ms. Sherron’s subsequent texts to him went unanswered. In less than a week, he was dead. (Sengupta, 3/26)

The New York Times: Coronavirus On Long Island: 6 Die In Outbreak At Retirement Community
The first sign appeared two weeks ago, when an employee tested positive for coronavirus. By Wednesday, Peconic Landing, an upscale elder community on the North Fork of Long Island, announced its sixth death from the virus, sparking fears of an even bigger outbreak among a vulnerable, confined population. What was a peaceful waterfront resort by the shores of Long Island Sound has become a scene of emergency crews and spreading anxiety. Employees worked double shifts or filled in for missing workers; when one threw out her mask to go on break, her supervisor reprimanded her for not reusing it. (Leland, 3/26)

Politico: New York’s Health Care Workforce Braces For Influx Of Retirees, Inexperienced Staffers
As the coronavirus bears down on New York and the biggest U.S. city becomes the epicenter of the national crisis, state officials are scrambling to augment a health care workforce already stretched to capacity and falling prey to the virus itself. New York is reaching into every corner of its medical industry for reinforcements, but a new push for retired workers is raising alarms as older populations are among the most susceptible to the disease. (Young and Eisenberg, 3/26)

The Wall Street Journal: Barr Tells Federal Prisons To Increase Use Of Home Confinement, Fearing Spread Of Coronavirus
Attorney General William Barr on Thursday directed the federal Bureau of Prisons to expand the use of home confinement for some sick and elderly inmates amid growing concern about the spread of the new coronavirus in the nation’s lockups. Mr. Barr told the agency in a memo to prioritize granting home confinement to inmates who were convicted of lower level crimes, have shown good conduct behind bars and have plans for release that won’t put them and others at greater risk for contracting the virus. (Gurman, 3/26)

Politico: Judge Orders Release Of 10 Immigration Detainees From N.J. Jails
A federal judge in New York City has ordered the immediate release from detention of 10 immigrants whose attorneys said they were at increased risk of illness from coronavirus due to underlying health conditions. The group, all held in New Jersey county jails and facing deportation proceedings in Manhattan, appears to be the largest in the nation subject to a court-ordered release since the pandemic broke out. (Gerstein, 3/26)

ProPublica: ‘Our Goal Should Be To Crush The Curve’
In January 1976, flu broke out among Army recruits training at Fort Dix, New Jersey. Most of the flu, tests revealed, was of a common strain, A-Victoria, but four cases (one of them fatal) proved to be swine flu, similar to the strain that caused the 1918 pandemic that killed half a million people in this country and 50 million worldwide. Swine flu had, in 1976, not been seen in humans for more than a half century, so immunity was almost nonexistent. Further testing at Fort Dix turned up some alarming results — an additional nine cases with as many as 500 recruits who had been exposed to the virus but were asymptomatic. While a vaccine had been developed for A-Victoria and many other flu strains, none existed for swine flu. Public health authorities, led by the Centers for Disease Control, quickly became alarmed. (Tofel, 3/26)

Arizona Daily Star: People With Intellectual Disabilities May Be Denied Lifesaving Care Under These Plans As Coronavirus Spreads
Advocates for people with intellectual disabilities are concerned that those with Down syndrome, cerebral palsy, autism and other such conditions will be denied access to lifesaving medical treatment as the COVID-19 outbreak spreads across the country. Several disability advocacy organizations filed complaints this week with the civil rights division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, asking the federal government to clarify provisions of the disaster preparedness plans for the states of Washington and Alabama. (Silverman, 3/27)