First Edition: May 8, 2020
Today's early morning highlights from the major news organizations.
Kaiser Health News:
Reopening In The COVID Era: How To Adapt To A New Normal
As many states begin to reopen — most without meeting the thresholds recommended by the White House — a new level of COVID-19 risk analysis begins for Americans. Should I go to the beach? What about the hair salon? A sit-down restaurant meal? Visit Mom on Mother’s Day?States are responding to the tremendous economic cost of the pandemic and people’s pent-up desire to be “normal” again. (Appleby, 5/8)
Kaiser Health News:
Trying Out LA’s New Coronavirus Testing Regime
Last week, after Mayor Eric Garcetti announced that Los Angeles was offering COVID-19 tests to all city and county residents, I decided to get one myself — and test Garcetti’s bold new promise in the bargain. I was surprised how easily I was able to log on to L.A.’s testing website. I answered a few questions about myself, including whether I had any symptoms of the disease — the answer was no — and within three minutes, I had a same-day appointment at one of eight city-run testing sites. (Wolfson, 5/8)
Kaiser Health News:
Lost On The Frontline
An occupational therapist who loved family vacations. A licensed practical nurse whose death blindsided her husband and autistic son. A transportation supervisor who got sick just as his wife started a new cancer treatment. These are some of the people just added to “Lost on the Frontline,” a special series from The Guardian and KHN that profiles health care workers who die of COVID-19. (5/8)
Kaiser Health News:
Eerie Emptiness Of ERs Worries Doctors As Heart Attack And Stroke Patients Delay Care
The patient described it as the worst headache of her life. She didn’t go to the hospital, though. Instead, the Washington state resident waited almost a week. When Dr. Abhineet Chowdhary finally saw her, he discovered she had a brain bleed that had gone untreated. The neurosurgeon did his best, but it was too late. (Stone and Yu, 5/7)
Kaiser Health News:
KHN’s ‘What The Health?’: Blowing The Whistle On Trump Team’s COVID Policies
Those working inside the Trump administration are getting so frustrated with the response to the COVID-19 pandemic that they are going public. Named and unnamed whistleblowers — including one of the government’s top vaccine experts who was ousted from his job ―are out with stories of political favoritism, workers with no government experience overruling those who have done their jobs for decades, and an underlying disdain for science. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court is hearing cases by telephone, including one this week that would give employers the broad ability to decline to offer no-cost birth control to women, a benefit guaranteed under the Affordable Care Act. (5/7)
The New York Times:
This Is The Future Of The Pandemic
By now we know — contrary to false predictions — that the novel coronavirus will be with us for a rather long time. “Exactly how long remains to be seen,” said Marc Lipsitch, an infectious disease epidemiologist at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health. “It’s going to be a matter of managing it over months to a couple of years. It’s not a matter of getting past the peak, as some people seem to believe.” (Roberts, 5/8)
Stat:
Coronavirus In The U.S.: A High Plateau Of Cases Portends More Spread
For all the talk of a second wave of coronavirus cases hitting the United States this fall, one consideration is often lost: The country is still in the throes of the first wave of this pandemic. Even as roughly half of states start to peek out from under their lockdowns, the United States confirmed more than 25,000 new Covid-19 infections nearly every day in April, a clip that does not seem to be dropping in May, according to STAT’s Covid-19 Tracker. More than 1,000 people have died each day since April 2. On some days, including both Tuesday and Wednesday this week, the toll topped 2,000. (Joseph, 5/7)
Reuters:
U.S. Coronavirus Deaths Exceed 75,000: Reuters Tally
U.S. deaths from the novel coronavirus topped 75,000 deaths on Thursday, according to a Reuters tally, after the White House shelved a step-by-step guide prepared by health officials to help states safely reopen. Deaths in the United States, the epicenter of the global pandemic, have averaged 2,000 a day since mid-April despite efforts to slow the outbreak. The death toll is higher than any fatalities from the seasonal flu going back to 1967 and represents more U.S. deaths than during the first 10 years of the AIDS epidemic, from 1981 to 1991. (Shumaker, 5/7)
The Wall Street Journal:
Global Coronavirus Deaths Near 270,000 As Some Restrictions Loosen
Coronavirus-related restrictions are set to loosen further in parts of the U.S., while some countries are ramping up reopening plans, as the global death toll from the pandemic nears 270,000. The total number of cases world-wide rose to nearly 3.85 million Friday, with about a third of those in the U.S., according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. The U.S. death toll, the highest in the world, stood at more than 75,000, according to Johns Hopkins. (Craymer, 5/8)
The Associated Press:
Experts Worry CDC Is Sidelined In Coronavirus Response
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has repeatedly found its suggestions for fighting the coronavirus outbreak taking a backseat to other concerns within the Trump administration. That leaves public health experts outside government fearing the agency’s decades of experience in beating back disease threats are going to waste. “You have the greatest fighting force against infectious diseases in world history. Why would you not use them?” said Dr. Howard Markel, a public health historian at the University of Michigan. (Stobbe, Dearen and Miller, 5/8)
The Washington Post:
Trump Tightens Grip On Coronavirus Information As He Pushes To Restart The Economy
President Trump in recent weeks has sought to block or downplay information about the severity of the coronavirus pandemic as he urges a return to normalcy and the rekindling of an economy that has been devastated by public health restrictions aimed at mitigating the outbreak. His administration has sidelined or replaced officials not seen as loyal, rebuffed congressional requests for testimony, dismissed jarring statistics and models, praised states for reopening without meeting White House guidelines and, briefly, pushed to disband a task force created to combat the virus and communicate about the public health crisis. (Olorunnipa, 5/7)
The New York Times:
Trump Blocks C.D.C.'s Coronavirus Reopening Guidelines
As President Trump rushes to reopen the economy, a battle has erupted between the White House and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention over the agency’s detailed guidelines to help schools, restaurants, churches and other establishments safely reopen. A copy of the C.D.C. guidance obtained by The New York Times includes sections for child care programs, schools and day camps, churches and other “communities of faith,” employers with vulnerable workers, restaurants and bars, and mass transit administrators. (Goodnough and Haberman, 5/7)
Politico:
White House Says It Ordered CDC To Revise Reopening Guidelines
The White House has ordered the CDC to revise a guide to reopening public places amid the coronavirus pandemic because it didn't align with President Donald Trump’s strategy of giving states the final say, according to a spokesperson. The agency's draft guidance was “too prescriptive,” the White House spokesperson said, adding it amounted to “counter messaging” as the administration pushes governors to come up with their own plans for restarting businesses, schools, churches and other institutions. (Ehley, 5/7)
NPR:
Trump Task Force Said CDC Rules For Reopening Were Too Rigid
President Trump has said he wants to see the country begin to reopen. The pandemic crashed the economy by keeping people at home, leading to millions of job losses. The White House task force issued guidelines on how to gradually and safely reopen but left decisions up to governors based on conditions in their states. (Ordonez and Wise, 5/7)
NPR:
CDC Guidance Lays Out Plans For Reopening Schools, Day Care And Summer Camps
The CDC does not have authority to enforce its guidance, which is intended for public information only; the actual policy decisions are up to state and local governments. Schools are closed through the end of the school year throughout much of the country, with the exception of Montana, which welcomed a handful of students back this week. Child care protocols are different in different states. (Kamenetz, 5/7)
Reuters:
Whistleblower Offers Window Into HHS’s Flawed COVID-19 Response
A new whistleblower complaint has drawn attention for its allegations that the Trump administration retaliated against a scientist who sent early coronavirus warnings. The case also provides an insider account of the dysfunction critics say paralyzed the Department of Health and Human Services at the dawn of the COVID-19 response. (Roston and Taylor, 5/7)
The New York Times:
White House Rattled By A Military Aide’s Positive Coronavirus Test
President Trump said on Thursday that the White House staff would be tested every day for the coronavirus after a military aide who has had contact with him was found to have the virus. Asked by reporters about the aide, whom a senior administration official described as a personal valet to the president, Mr. Trump downplayed the matter. “I’ve had very little contact, personal contact, with this gentleman,” he said. But he added that he and other officials and staff members at the White House would be tested more frequently. (Crowley and Shear, 5/7)
Reuters:
Trump, Pence Test Negative After White House Valet Contracts Coronavirus
During a meeting with the governor of Texas in the Oval Office on Thursday, Trump told reporters he had little contact with the man and would be tested daily going forward. Neither Trump nor Pence wore masks during the meeting. (Holland and Mason, 5/7)
The Associated Press:
Trump Valet Has Coronavirus; President Again Tests Negative
Trump, 73, said the incident was a bit concerning. “It’s a little bit strange but it’s one of those things,” he told reporters as he hosted Texas Gov. Greg Abbott in the Oval Office. “As I said, you know, I said yesterday, governor, all people are warriors in this country. Right now we’re all warriors.” White House spokesman Hogan Gidley said in a statement, “We were recently notified by the White House Medical Unit that a member of the United States Military, who works on the White House campus, has tested positive for Coronavirus.” (Miller, 5/7)
The Associated Press:
AP FACT CHECK: Trump Falsely Declares Kids Safe From Virus
President Donald Trump is falsely suggesting that children are safe from the coronavirus as he pushes to reopen the country now and schools in the summer or fall. Although Trump is broadly correct that the disease is most deadly to the elderly and to people with existing health problems, his statement that “the children aren’t affected” is heedless. Some have died from it. His recent comments also skirt the threat to healthy adults in their 50s and younger. (Woodward, 5/7)
The New York Times:
‘Full Steam Ahead’ For Trump’s Convention? North Carolina Has Doubts
President Trump has made clear that he wants a traditional political convention in Charlotte, N.C., in late August, with thousands of sign-waving delegates from out of state filling an arena to acclaim his renomination. But in North Carolina, they are not so sure. Even the Republicans.As the relaxing of shutdown orders across the country leads to alarming projections of a surge in coronavirus cases, some leaders of the president’s party in the state that is hosting the convention are striking a less rosy view. (Gabriel, 5/8)
Politico:
Trump’s Coronavirus Sidekick Attempts A New Balancing Act
Months after Mike Pence parachuted into the most important role of his career as head of the government’s coronavirus task force, the vice president is entering a new phase as the administration’s unofficial coronavirus czar: overseeing a precarious reboot of the U.S. economy, delicately navigating coronavirus surges in individual states and attempting to meet the president’s lofty goal of developing a Covid-19 vaccine by the end of the year. His success or failure will likely determine the outcome of Trump’s last presidential election — and shape Pence’s first presidential election, should he run in 2024. (Orr, 5/8)
The New York Times:
The Jobs Report Friday Will Be A Portrait Of Devastation
Just how bad are the April employment figures going to be? We know they will be awful. After all, the number of people filing new claims for unemployment insurance was in the millions for the seventh straight week last week, the Labor Department announced Thursday. But it is the monthly jobs report — showing job creation or losses, and the unemployment rate — that investors and the news media generally scrutinize for evidence of how the economy is evolving. (Irwin, 5/7)
Reuters:
Explainer: Why Friday's U.S. Jobless Figures Won't Capture The True State Of The Coronavirus Economy
The U.S. economy has never lost more than 2 million jobs in a single month. And although the unemployment rate reached 25% in 1933, it got there much more slowly. But even these grim estimates, from economists polled by Reuters in recent weeks, don’t capture the staggering impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the workforce in the world’s largest economy. The unemployment rate is part of a monthly report from the federal government’s Labor Department, showing how many people don’t have jobs as a percentage of the overall American workforce. (Saphir, 5/8)
Politico:
When Will All The Jobs Return?
The U.S. economy is sitting in its deepest hole since the Great Depression, with more than 33 million Americans losing their jobs in just seven weeks and an unemployment rate likely to top 20 percent this year under the weight of the coronavirus pandemic. And it’s likely to take years — perhaps much of the next decade — to dig out. (White, 5/8)
The New York Times:
An 8-Week Odyssey Through The State Bureaucracy To Collect Unemployment
Seven weeks after she filed for unemployment benefits, Nadine Josephs was running out of money. The birthdays of her two teenage children loomed, and she was spending her days pleading for forbearance on overdue bills. Holed up in her apartment in the East New York, Brooklyn, Ms. Josephs, 46, had grown increasingly frustrated since she filed her claim on March 16. And she was tired of hearing assurances from Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo to the thousands of desperate New Yorkers like her that the checks would be in the mail. (McGeehan, 5/8)
The Associated Press:
Malaria Drug Shows No Benefit In Another Coronavirus Study
A new study finds no evidence of benefit from a malaria drug widely promoted as a treatment for coronavirus infection. Hydroxychloroquine did not lower the risk of dying or needing a breathing tube in a comparison that involved nearly 1,400 patients treated at Columbia University in New York, researchers reported Thursday in the New England Journal of Medicine. (Marchione, 5/7)
Reuters:
Malaria Drug Touted By Trump For Coronavirus Fails Another Test
Among patients given hydroxychloroquine, 32.3% ended up needing a ventilator or dying, compared with 14.9% of patients who were not given the drug. But doctors were more likely to give hydroxychloroquine to sicker patients, so researchers at New York-Presbyterian Hospital and Columbia University Irving Medical Center adjusted the rates to account for that. They concluded that the drug may not have hurt patients, but it clearly did not help. (Emery, 5/7)
Roll Call:
States Weigh What To Do With Millions Of Malaria Pills
The Strategic National Stockpile has shipped 28 million tablets of a malaria drug that President Donald Trump touted as a potential treatment for COVID-19 to states since April 1. States received millions more from donations or taxpayer-funded purchases. But after doubts arose about whether the drug, hydroxychloroquine sulfate, is safe and effective for the coronavirus-based disease, states are donating supplies to patients who need them for other reasons, seeking refunds or weighing what to do with them. (Kopp, 5/7)
The Wall Street Journal:
Health-Care Leaders Question How Remdesivir Is Being Distributed
Health-care leaders are expressing concern over how the Trump administration plans to distribute the promising coronavirus drug remdesivir, saying they are in the dark about the allocation criteria being used and are worried it isn’t based on need. Some hospital officials say they have been informed they can’t get the drug since the federal government took over its allocation following the Food and Drug Administration’s emergency use authorization on May 1. (Armour and Walker, 5/8)
The Washington Post:
Remdesivir’s Rollout By The Trump Administration Is Angering Doctors On The Front Lines
Doctors in several hospitals, including some that have seen surges in people with covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, say they cannot get access to remdesivir for their patients — and that they don’t understand the process for obtaining the drug. In Boston, Massachusetts General Hospital said it is in line to receive the drug, but two other large teaching hospitals have been denied supplies without explanation, doctors said. (Rowland and McGinley, 5/7)
Politico:
Frustrated Doctors Push Administration To Reveal Which Hospitals Are Getting Remdesivir — And Why
So far the rollout has been chaotic. About 25 hospitals have been approved to receive the drug, but doctors say it’s not clear how the government — through its contractor, AmerisourceBergen — is making those decisions. A spokesperson for the company said the administration is choosing which facilities receive the drug and how much they get. Adding to the confusion, a senior HHS official told POLITICO that the government has not finalized its plan for distributing remdesivir. That has frustrated doctors on the front lines of the pandemic. Brennan, 5/7)
Stat:
CytoDyn: HIV Drug Was Not Filed For FDA Approval, As Previously Claimed
CytoDyn CEO Nader Pourhassan is already under fire for the timing of lucrative sales of company stock. On Thursday night, Pourhassan found himself with a new problem: An admission that CytoDyn misled investors about a completed drug marketing application to the Food and Drug Administration.The biotech’s lead drug, leronlimab, an investigational treatment for patients with HIV, has not been submitted for approval to the FDA, as the company previously claimed. (Feuerstein, 5/7)
The New York Times:
Back In Session, State Legislatures Challenge Governors’ Authority
State lawmakers in Mississippi voted overwhelmingly last week to strip away the governor’s authority to spend more than $1.2 billion in federal funds. In Wisconsin, lawyers for the Legislature’s Republican leaders argued before the State Supreme Court their case for reining in the governor’s executive “safer-at-home” order. And in Louisiana, plexiglass barriers separated masked lawmakers as they returned to work this week for the first time since the state became a coronavirus hot spot. (Rojas, 5/8)
The Washington Post:
Power Struggles Erupt As Governors And State Legislatures Fight Over Coronavirus Response
Reeves’s frustration is an example of the challenges that governors nationwide face as state legislators become more assertive in challenging executive authority as the coronavirus pandemic drags on. From Kansas to New Hampshire, state lawmakers are rushing to sponsor legislation, file court challenges and make public statements on what they see as gubernatorial overreach on matters ranging from the spending of federal dollars to whether their neighborhood hair salon or tavern should remain closed. (Craig and Gowen, 5/7)
The Washington Post:
Coronavirus Solutions: Meet The People Working To Mitigate The Pandemic’s Effects
They are immigrants and the children of immigrants, public servants, people on their second careers. They are planners and problem-solvers. What they lack in swagger they make up for in empathy, skill and statistical rigor. Their greatest power is their ability to learn from the mistakes of the past. They are the right people in the right place at the right moment, like physician-researcher Andre Kalil, a veteran of past epidemics trying to find a cure for this pandemic, and Anar Yukhayev, a New York obstetrician-gynecologist who was severely ill with covid-19 when he enrolled in a clinical trial for an untested treatment. (Kaplan, Reiley, Rowland, Tan and Weintraub, 5/7)
The Washington Post:
As Iowa Reopens, Workers Are Being Forced To Choose Between A Paycheck And Their Health
Terrie Neider loves to be around people. “I’m chatty,” she said. “Customer service is my thing. It’s what I’m good at.” So when she was looking to supplement her monthly Social Security check, the 64-year-old took a part-time job at the Casey’s General Store off the main strip in this rural southeastern Iowa town. She worked three shifts, about 24 hours a week, running the cash register and occasionally making pizza, earning just enough to make ends meet. (Bailey, 5/7)
Reuters:
Michigan, California Move To Reopen Factories As U.S. Jobless Ranks Grow
Michigan and California, two U.S. manufacturing powerhouses, acted on Thursday to allow factories to reopen from coronavirus lockdowns over the next few days, as millions more Americans joined the ranks of workers left jobless by the pandemic. (Klayman and Bernstein, 5/7)
CNN:
Novel Coronavirus Fears And Frustrations As US States Reopen
With nearly all states partially reopened this week, backlash and frustrations are growing as Americans struggle with ways to combat the deadly coronavirus. More than 40 states are opening some businesses and restarting economies crushed by a pandemic that has killed nearly 76,000 people and infected over 1.2 million. (Karimi, 5/8)
The Washington Post:
How Gov. Ralph Northam Decided When Virginia Might Emerge From Shutdown
Gov. Ralph Northam looked like anyone else working from home on Sunday night, wearing an old flannel shirt and sweatpants. But he was dialing into a conference call that would determine when 8.5 million Virginians could go back out and earn a living or get a haircut or eat in a restaurant amid the coronavirus pandemic. There was increasing pressure to reopen as the state’s economy tanked. (Schneider and Vozzella, 5/7)
The Washington Post:
After Outcry, Arizona Restores Partnership With Team Projecting Increased Coronavirus Cases
Arizona reversed course on Thursday and resumed a partnership with epidemiologists whose projections suggest the state may be moving too rapidly to reopen businesses as cases of the novel coronavirus mount. The turnaround, after a public outcry, marked the latest chapter in a skirmish over data and public policy that reflects the anguished national debate over how to incorporate scientific expertise to protect both lives and livelihoods during a pandemic that has killed more than 75,000 Americans and thrown 33 million out of work. (Stanley-Becker, 5/7)
The New York Times:
F.D.A. Paves Way For Home Testing Of Coronavirus
In a move that could significantly expand the nation’s testing capacity, the Food and Drug Administration has posted new guidelines that could pave the way for millions of people to test themselves for the coronavirus at home. The guidelines allow companies to develop and market testing kits with the tools to swab their noses and mail the specimens to any lab in the country. (Jacobs, 5/7)
The Washington Post:
FDA Gives Emergency Authorization For CRISPR-Based Diagnostic Tool For Coronavirus
The Food and Drug Administration on Thursday approved a new diagnostic tool that employs the revolutionary CRISPR gene-editing technology to determine in just one hour if someone is infected with the novel coronavirus. The FDA’s emergency use authorization allows only “high-complexity” laboratories to use the test kit, developed by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University, the Ragon Institute and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and marketed by Sherlock Biosciences of Cambridge, Mass. (Achenbach and McGinley, 5/7)
The New York Times:
Travel From New York City Seeded Wave Of U.S. Outbreaks
New York City’s coronavirus outbreak grew so large by early March that the city became the primary source of new infections in the United States, new research reveals, as thousands of infected people traveled from the city and seeded outbreaks around the country. The research indicates that a wave of infections swept from New York City through much of the country before the city began setting social distancing limits to stop the growth. That helped to fuel outbreaks in Louisiana, Texas, Arizona and as far away as the West Coast. (Carey and Glanz, 5/7)
The New York Times:
De Blasio Strips Control Of Virus Tracing From Health Department
New York City will soon assemble an army of more than 1,000 disease detectives to trace the contacts of every person who tests positive for the coronavirus, an approach seen as crucial to quelling the outbreak and paving the way to reopen the hobbled city. But that effort will not be led by the city’s renowned Health Department, which for decades has conducted contact tracing for diseases such as tuberculosis, H.I.V. and Ebola, city officials said on Thursday. (Goodman, Rashbaum and Mays, 5/7)
The Associated Press:
Dems Eye Money For Smaller Cities, Towns In Next Virus Bill
Eyeing a major expansion of federal assistance, top Democrats are promising that small- to medium-sized cities and counties and small towns that were left out of four prior coronavirus bills will receive hundreds of billions of dollars in the next one. Those cities and counties, where the coronavirus has crippled Main Street and caused local tax revenues to plummet, are pushing hard for relief in the next rescue measure to avert cuts in services and layoffs of workers. (Taylor, 5/8)
The Wall Street Journal:
House Democrats Close In On New Stimulus Proposal
House Democrats are putting the finishing touches on their next legislative response to the coronavirus pandemic, a package that will propose another massive round of aid just as President Trump and Senate Republicans are urging caution on quickly passing new spending. The bill being drafted by Democratic leadership is expected to include more than $750 billion in aid to state and local governments, as well as another round of direct support to Americans, according to interviews with lawmakers and aides. Leaders also say they are interested in extending enhanced unemployment benefits, but haven’t provided specifics. (Andrews, 5/7)
Politico:
Pelosi To Lay Down Multitrillion-Dollar Marker With New Coronavirus Package
Pelosi had hoped to release the draft bill — which some Democrats worry could cost upward of $2 trillion — on Friday. But that timeline is slipping as members from all corners of the caucus pressure leadership to stuff the ballooning bill with their priorities, many of which were left out of the previous four aid packages negotiated with Republicans. Senior Democratic aides said Pelosi and the committees will be working through the weekend on the package. (Caygle, Ferris and Bresnahan, 5/7)
Politico:
Democratic Senators Propose $2,000 Monthly Payments To Most Americans
A trio of Democratic senators are pitching a big idea: pay most American families thousands of dollars each month until the coronavirus’s economic crisis subsides. On Friday, Sens. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Ed Markey (D-Mass.) will release their Monthly Economic Crisis Support Act. It would dramatically expand upon the $1,200 sent to Americans as part of March’s gargantuan coronavirus response bill. (Everett, 5/8)
The New York Times:
G.O.P. Coronavirus Message: Economic Crisis Is A Green New Deal Preview
The coronavirus and the struggle to contain it has tanked the economy, shuttered thousands of businesses and thrown more than 30 million people out of work. As President Trump struggles for a political response, Republicans and their allies have seized on an answer: attacking climate change policies. “If You Like the Pandemic Lockdown, You’re Going to Love the Green New Deal,” the conservative Washington Examiner said in the headline of a recent editorial. Elizabeth Harrington, spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee, wrote in an opinion article in The Hill that Democrats “think a pandemic is the perfect opportunity to kill millions more jobs” with carbon-cutting plans. (Friedman, 5/7)
The New York Times:
The NYPD Arrested 40 People On Social Distancing Violations. 35 Were Black.
A police officer enforcing social distancing rules broke up a group of people on a stoop during a nighttime cookout in East New York, Brooklyn, punching one man in the face. Another dispute between officers and residents of the same predominantly black neighborhood over the guidelines led to a man being knocked unconscious. Days later, three men were arrested after taking part in a sprawling vigil at the Queensbridge Houses for a rapper who was said to have died of the coronavirus. Tensions are increasingly flaring in black and Hispanic neighborhoods over officers’ enforcement of social distancing rules, leading some prominent elected officials to charge that the New York Police Department is engaging in a racist double standard as it struggles to shift to a public health role in the coronavirus crisis. (Southall, 5/7)
The Associated Press:
NYPD Distancing Arrests: Many Non-Whites, At Times Violently
Despite mounting pressure to stop using police to enforce social distancing and data showing that such arrests disproportionately affect people of color, Mayor Bill de Blasio stood by the practice on Thursday, saying: “We’re not going to sideline the NYPD.” “I am not making my decisions based on a very few interactions that were handled poorly or went bad,” de Blasio said. “I’m making my decisions based on the millions of interactions that are going right.” (Sisak, 5/8)
The Associated Press:
Store Workers Become Enforcers Of Social Distancing Rules
Sandy Jensen’s customer-service job at a Sam’s Club in Fullerton, California, normally involves checking member ID cards at the door and answering questions. But the coronavirus has turned her into a kind of store sheriff. Now she must confront shoppers who aren’t wearing masks and enforce social distancing measures such as limits on the number of people allowed inside. The efforts sometimes provoke testy customers. (D'Innocenzio, 5/7)
The Associated Press:
Masks To Become Part Of Life In California, But Rules Vary
For Californians venturing outside, donning a mask will be as common as putting on a cap or sunglasses when the state begins gradually easing stay-at-home orders on Friday. But rules about face coverings vary from county to county, and it’s unclear what enforcement might look like. Masks have been ubiquitous at essential businesses like grocery stores and medical clinics since the early days of the coronavirus pandemic. On the sidewalks of dense cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco, people have been wearing masks for weeks, giving wide berth to the small number of others whose faces aren’t covered. (Weber, 5/8)
The Wall Street Journal:
Coronavirus Hijacks The Body From Head To Toe, Perplexing Doctors
Garvon Russell was having trouble breathing when he arrived sick with Covid-19 at a New York City emergency room. By the time he left the hospital two weeks later, he had battled the new coronavirus all over his body. His lungs were inflamed, their tiny air sacs filled with fluid that made it hard for oxygen to get into his bloodstream. His kidneys failed with Mr. Russell in septic shock from his infection. Then, when it looked like he had turned the corner, his bedside nurse noticed his left leg was swollen. Doctors found a blood clot in a deep vein. (McKay and Hernandez, 5/7)
The New York Times:
In The Fight To Treat Coronavirus, Your Lungs Are A Battlefield
Ventilators have become the single most important piece of medical equipment for critically ill coronavirus patients whose damaged lungs prevent them from getting enough oxygen to vital organs. The machines work by forcing air deep into the lungs, dislodging the fluid and accumulated pus that interfere with the exchange of oxygen, a process orchestrated by tiny air sacs known as alveoli. (Grondahl, Jacobs and Buchanan, 5/8)
The New York Times:
Coronavirus May Lurk In Semen, Researchers Report
Scientists across the world are trying to piece together a perplexing puzzle: how exactly coronavirus affects the body, and how it spreads from person to person. In recent months, they have learned that the virus can live on some surfaces for three days and that it can stay suspended in tiny aerosolized droplets for about 30 minutes. The virus has been detected in saliva, urine and feces. Now researchers in China have found that the coronavirus, or bits of it, may linger in semen. (Murphy, 5/7)
The New York Times:
After Recovery From The Coronavirus, Most People Carry Antibodies
A new study offers a glimmer of hope in the grim fight against the coronavirus: Nearly everyone who has had the disease — regardless of age, sex or severity of illness — makes antibodies to the virus. The study, posted online on Tuesday but not yet reviewed by experts, also hints that anyone who has recovered from infection may safely return to work — although it is unclear how long their protection might last. “This is very good news,” said Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at Columbia University in New York who was not involved with the work. (Mandavilli, 5/7)
The Washington Post:
Blood Thinners Show Promise For Increasing Sickest Coronavirus Patients’ Chances Of Survival
Treating coronavirus patients with blood thinners could help boost their prospects for survival, according to preliminary findings from physicians at New York City’s largest hospital system that offer another clue about treating the deadly condition. The results of an analysis of 2,733 patients, published Wednesday in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, are part of a growing body of information about what has worked and what has not during a desperate few months in which doctors have tried dozens of treatments to save those dying of covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. (Cha, 5/7)
The Washington Post:
Blacks In Britain Are Four Times As Likely To Die Of Coronavirus As Whites, Data Show
Coronavirus is no great equalizer, and new data out of Britain underscore how certain ethnic groups are more at risk: Blacks are four times as likely to die of covid-19 as whites, according to the Office for National Statistics. This, however, is not a surprise to many in these communities, whose members are more vulnerable to the virus because of their health and economic disadvantages, and perhaps other reasons yet to be isolated. (Adam and Berger, 5/7)