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Senate Democrats on Sunday blocked action on an emerging deal to prop up an economy devastated by the coronavirus pandemic, paralyzing the progress of a nearly $2 trillion government rescue package they said failed to adequately protect workers or impose strict enough restrictions on bailed-out businesses. The party-line vote was a stunning setback after three days of fast-paced negotiations between senators and administration officials to reach a bipartisan compromise on legislation that is expected to be the largest economic stimulus package in American history — now expected to cost $1.8 trillion or more. In a 47-to-47 vote, the Senate fell short of the 60 votes that would have been needed to advance the measure, even as talks continued behind the scenes between Democrats and the White House to salvage a compromise. (Cochrane, Tankersley and Smialek, 3/22)

Top-level negotiations between Congress and the White House churned late into the night over a now nearly $2 trillion economic rescue package, as the coronavirus crisis deepened, the nation shut down and the first U.S. senator tested positive for the disease. As President Donald Trump took to the podium in the White House briefing room and promised to help Americans who feel afraid and isolated as the pandemic spreads, the Senate voted Sunday against advancing the rescue package. But talks continued on Capitol Hill. “I think you’ll get there. To me it’s not very complicated: We have to help the worker. We have to save the companies,” Trump said. (Taylor, Lemire and Mascaro, 3/23)

Democrats held their ground with Schumer calling the Republican plan “a giant, giant corporate bailout fund with no accountability.” Amid the partisan attacks, Schumer said that private negotiations were making progress. White House legislative liaison Eric Ueland told reporters a “handful” of disagreements still had to be resolved. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin shuttled between the offices of the Republican leader and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer in search of a deal. At one point, Mnuchin also indicated to reporters that progress was being made. (Cowan and Alper, 3/22)

Although senators of both parties and Trump administration officials vowed to continue negotiating -- around the clock if necessary -- the failed vote was the latest negative signal about Congress’ ability to come together around the legislation, which aims to inject close to $1.8 trillion into businesses and households. Policymakers are scrambling to address a spike in layoffs and businesses gasping for assistance as millions of Americans stay home to avoid contagion. (Werner, Kim, Bade and Stein, 3/22)

Following the vote, Senate Republican and Democratic leaders blamed one another for the impasse, but vowed to continue working on the plan. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said later Sunday that a second procedural vote would be held at 9:45 a.m. Monday, but Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) objected, effectively blocking it until noon. Mr. McConnell accused Mr. Schumer of rattling the markets further. Mr. Schumer said he wanted to give both sides time to reach a deal. (Andrews and Wise, 3/22)

The bill, which currently totals about $1.8 trillion, would include direct payments to individuals and families (on average about $3,000 for a family of four, Mnuchin said), expanded unemployment benefits and a massive loan program to tide over small businesses. It would be by far the largest such measure in U.S. history, equivalent to roughly half the current federal budget. The bill is intended as a bridge to get the country through the worst of the crisis over the next eight to 10 weeks, with the possibility of further spending later if the emergency continues. (King and Haberkorn, 3/22)

Congressional lawmakers are feuding over a central component of the massive economic relief package being debated by the Senate, a battle that may threaten the enormous emergency aid package while reprising one of the most bitter political fights of the last decade. The Trump administration and Senate Republicans have called for giving the Treasury Department the authority to disburse hundreds of billions of dollars in emergency federal loans to firms hurt by the economic impact of the coronavirus. (Stein, 3/22)

As Senate Democrats went to the floor Sunday night to vote — the first time they’d been there in days — they had one thing on their minds: a secret “slush fund” for Corporate America. That’s what Democrats are calling a $500 billion “Exchange Stabilization Fund” included in the massive Senate GOP proposal to rescue the U.S. economy from the coronavirus crisis. The fund, which would come under the control of Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, is designed to aid distressed industries. (Bresnahan and Levine, 3/23)

Taking to the Senate floor late Sunday night, he announced another procedural vote on the package timed for 9:45 a.m. Monday — minutes after the stock market opens — but it was blocked by Democrats who don't want to be forced to take the vote. "I think there's a good chance we'll have an agreement. But we don't need artificial deadlines. We will get this done. We will come in at noon and hopefully we will have an agreement by then," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who made the objection, said on the Senate floor. (Mattingly, Foran and Barrett, 3/23)

Hospitals, physicians, nurses and community health centers are warning that funding proposed by Senate Republicans for a third coronavirus response package will not be enough to prepare for an onslaught of COVID-19 patients and critical shortage of medical supplies. Senate Republicans included a Medicare payment bump and a hospital add-on payment in their first draft of an economic stimulus package. But comments by Senate leaders indicate direct funding for hospitals, money to purchase more medical supplies and increase testing capacity could be left for later. (Cohrs, 3/21)

In the fall of 2008, an unlikely alliance of lawmakers, regulators and Bush administration officials banded together to rescue an economy they feared was hours away from collapse. They also unwittingly reshaped American politics, unleashing a populist furor that lingers in both parties to this day. More than a decade later, those same political forces are shadowing a new debate over emergency government spending — only with far more taxpayer money at stake and even greater uncertainty over Americans’ futures. (Pace and Sloan, 3/23)

America's banks are entering the most severe global crisis since 2008 as a pillar of strength in the economy, and that's giving them a powerful lever to press Congress to relax regulations to keep credit flowing. It's a stunning turn of events after a decade in which banks found their political standing in Washington severely tarnished over their role in unleashing the last financial meltdown and the multibillion-dollar government bailout that followed. (Warmbrodt, 3/23)

The 2008 financial crisis reshaped American politics, birthing a politics of outrage in the Tea Party on the right and an enduring strain of progressive populism on the left. The coronavirus is already on a similar trajectory, triggering massive prospective bailouts and other policy proposals that stand to rewire the Republican and Democratic parties for a generation — or longer. (Siders, 3/23)

Speaker Nancy Pelosi is hitting pause on bipartisan negotiations on a $1.6 trillion-plus emergency package in the Senate, saying the House will forge ahead with its own bill to address coronavirus after congressional leaders failed to reach a deal earlier Sunday. Pelosi’s comments come just hours before the Senate is scheduled to take a critical procedural vote on the package aimed at trying to stymie an economic collapse as the coronavirus continues to disrupt massive sectors of the U.S. economy. (Caygle, Ferris and Levine, 3/22)

Two ugly truths about any epic economic crisis are that not all businesses will survive, and government interventions help determine which businesses will survive. As coronavirus crushes the economy, Washington policymakers are scrambling to figure out who to bail out, a responsibility that one veteran of the 2008 financial rescue morbidly but accurately compared to the frantic triage work that doctors are currently doing in overcrowded Italian hospitals. (Grunwald, 3/22)

Senate Republicans were struggling to salvage a more than $1 trillion economic rescue package to respond to the coronavirus crisis when they got the message on Sunday afternoon: One of their own had been walking around the Capitol with Covid-19 for days as they debated how best to confront the rapidly spreading pandemic. Senator Rand Paul had tested positive for the coronavirus, Senator Mitch McConnell, the majority leader, told fellow Republicans over lunch. It was the news that lawmakers had been dreading for weeks as they went about their travel- and handshake-heavy routines while the disease circulated around the country. (Fandos and Edmondson, 3/22)

His announcement led Utah’s two GOP senators — Mike Lee and Mitt Romney — to place themselves into quarantine, stepping away from negotiations as the Senate worked on a $1.4 trillion economic rescue package for the coronavirus crisis. At least five senators, including Paul, were in self-quarantine Sunday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said. “The coronavirus has hit the Senate today,″ said McConnell, R-Ky. “It’s not just back in our states but right here in the Senate.″ (Daly, 3/23)

Other Republican senators appeared unnerved by the revelation that one of their own had tested positive — and several voiced uncertainty about how to proceed. “There’s no doubt, I’m sure, that there are members, our members, who have had contact with him,” Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) said of Paul. “That’s why I think we have to get this [relief package] done quickly.” (Sonmez, Kim and Kane, 3/22)

Republicans gathered for a closed-door caucus lunch when Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) broke the news: One of their own, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), had tested positive for the coronavirus. “Colleagues, as everyone now knows, the coronavirus has arrived in the Senate. There are at least five senators who are in self-quarantine at the moment,” McConnell said, making a public announcement from the Senate floor. The first known case of a senator contracting the disease set off a domino effect throughout the chamber as colleagues tried to recall the last time they were in close contact with Paul, who was in the Capitol complex as recently as Sunday. (Carney, 3/22)

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) blasted reports that Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) attended the Senate gym and swam in the pool while awaiting his COVID-19 test results, which later came back positive. “I’ve never commented about a fellow Senator’s choices/actions. Never once. This, America, is absolutely irresponsible,” Sinema tweeted. “You cannot be near other people while waiting for coronavirus test results. It endangers others & likely increases the spread of the virus.” (Budryk, 3/22)

Rep. Ben McAdams (D-Utah), a freshman lawmaker who last week announced that he had been diagnosed with coronavirus, said Sunday that he was hospitalized after experiencing a shortness of breath. In a statement from his office Sunday evening, the Utah Democrat said that the incident occurred Friday and stated that he had to receive oxygen through a mask after struggling to maintain proper oxygen levels in his blood. (Bowden, 3/22)

President Trump said Sunday it's "too bad" that Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) is in isolation due to exposure to a fellow Senate Republican who tested positive for the coronavirus. "Romney's in isolation?" Trump said during the daily White House briefing after being asked about the senators in isolation. "Gee, that's too bad," the president added. (Klar, 3/22)

President Trump on Saturday sought to assure an anxious American public that help was on the way to overwhelmed hospitals, and that private companies had agreed to provide desperately needed medical supplies to fight the fast-spreading coronavirus. But Mr. Trump resisted appeals from state and local officials and hospital administrators for more aggressive action, saying he would not compel companies to make face masks and other gear to protect front-line health workers from the virus. (Abrams, Silver-Greenberg, Jacobs, Friedman and Rothfeld, 3/21)

President Trump’s refusal to invoke the Defense Production Act to commandeer resources for the federal government is based on a bet that he can cajole the nation’s biggest manufacturers and tech firms to come together in a market-driven, if chaotic, consortium that will deliver critical equipment — from masks to ventilators — in time to abate a national crisis. Over the past five days, after weeks of minimizing the virus and dismissing calls to organize a national response, administration officials have been pulling executives into the White House Situation Room, and connecting them by phone, in a desperate effort to unlock existing supplies and ramp up new production. (Sanger, Swanson and Haberman, 3/22)

[Trump] said sufficient numbers of companies were volunteering to manufacture masks and other protective gear, so invoking the Defense Production Act wasn’t yet necessary, though he said “we may have to use it someplace along the chain.” “If you go the nationalization route, we’re going to tell the company to make a ventilator—they don’t even know what a ventilator is,” Mr. Trump said. The Korean War-era law gives the president powers to require and provide incentives to businesses to produce goods tied to national defense, as well as control the distribution of those products. (Restuccia and Ballhaus, 3/22)

Trump administration officials pointed to voluntary actions from companies, such as 3M announcing more masks are being shipped to New York and Seattle. "We're getting what we need without putting the heavy hand of government down," White House adviser Peter Navarro said at Sunday's briefing with the president. (Sullivan, 3/22)

There’s a drastic wartime tool at President Trump’s disposal to try to get hospitals what they need, but Trump has been reluctant to use it despite bipartisan pressure. After saying he had invoked it, he said Saturday he wouldn’t. It’s not clear why. The Defense Production Act would allow Trump to push U.S. manufacturers such as automakers and clothing companies to pivot to making medical equipment for hospitals and medical workers who say they are out of equipment or will be soon to treat the expected onslaught of coronavirus patients. (Phillips, 3/22)

President Donald Trump might have formally invoked a 1950 law giving him the ability to force factories to produce key equipment needed in the fight against coronavirus and to allocate critical resources where they are needed most. But, the President has also said he doesn't plan to use that power. Now, as bipartisan lawmakers on Capitol Hill have urged Trump to act before it is too late, two Democratic senators are introducing legislation to try to force his hand. (Mattingly and Fox, 3/22)

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Sunday that U.S. automakers Ford Motor Co, General Motors Co and Tesla Inc had been given the green light to produce ventilators and other items needed during the coronavirus outbreak. “Ford, General Motors and Tesla are being given the go ahead to make ventilators and other metal products, FAST! @fema Go for it auto execs, lets see how good you are?” he said on Twitter. It was not immediately clear what Trump meant by the companies “being given the go ahead.” (3/22)

A large manufacturer of protective N95 masks for medical workers said it is shipping half a million masks to New York and Seattle, with arrivals starting Monday. 3M said it is ready to rush additional shipments across the country and will almost double production of the masks over the next year, to an annual rate of 2 billion masks worldwide. That is a bigger increase than the 30 percent boost the company announced Friday. 3M factories in South Dakota and Nebraska are now producing 35 million N95 masks a month, 90 percent of which are designated for health-care workers after a change in law last week eliminated the threat of lawsuits from such sales. (Whalen, 3/22)

The 3M Company will send 500,000 respirators to New York and Seattle as the cities combat the COVID-19 outbreak, its CEO announced in a statement Sunday. 3M CEO and Chairman Mike Roman said in a statement that the American company has doubled its global output to 1.1 billion N95 respirators per year, amounting to 100 million per month. Factories in the U.S. alone are developing 35 million respirators per month. (Coleman, 3/22)

Critical medical gear is still in short supply as the nation grapples with new coronavirus, and while Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Peter Gaynor said masks are in the midst of shipping from the national stockpile, he could not provide details on a concrete timeline. "They're shipping today, they shipped yesterday, they'll ship tomorrow," Gaynor said on ABC's "This Week" Sunday. (Pezenik, 3/22)

The Trump administration has done little to take advantage of an emergency system built after 9/11 to recruit volunteer doctors, nurses and other health care workers, even as hospitals scramble to find enough personnel to face a surge of coronavirus-infected patients. The emergency system, maintained by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, is aimed at recruiting medical professionals who are willing to volunteer in times of disasters and verifying their medical credentials ahead of time. (Whyte, 3/21)

President Trump on Sunday said the National Guard had been activated in New York, California and Washington and that the federal government would provide additional resources to help those states combat the coronavirus. “We’re dealing also with other states. These states have been hit the hardest,” Trump said at a news briefing at the White House. (Samuels, 3/22)

Meanwhile, an increasing number of infections and exposures have been reported in lawmakers on both sides of the Atlantic. And surges continue in western Europe, with disease activity picking up pace in some African countries, lifting the global total today to 335,957 in 171 countries, 14,632 of them fatal, according to the Johns Hopkins online dashboard. (Schnirring, 3/22)

President Donald Trump said on Sunday the United States will make a decision at the end of a 15-day period on “which way we want to go”, to curb the spread of the coronavirus. “We cannot let the cure be worse than the problem itself,” he said on Twitter. He did not elaborate. Trump issued new guidelines on March 16 aimed at slowing the spread of the disease over 15 days. (3/23)

President Trump on Sunday approved a disaster declaration for California over cases of the coronavirus spreading in the state. A news release Sunday evening from the White House stated that federal funding would be available for state, local and tribal organizations in California as officials attempt to prevent the further spread of coronavirus. More than 1,600 case have been confirmed in the state. (Bowden, 3/22)

During his campaign for the White House in 2016, President Trump’s advisers briefly tried to run through with him how he would address a large-scale disaster if he won. What, for instance, would he have done during Hurricane Katrina? “I would have fixed that,” Mr. Trump replied with certitude, referring to the government’s bungled rescue and recovery efforts, according to a campaign official who was present for the exchange. “I would have come up with a much better response.” How? He did not say. He just asserted it would have been better and advisers did not press him to elaborate. (Baker and Haberman, 3/21)

President Trump’s response to the coronavirus pandemic sparked uproar and alarm among governors and mayors on Sunday as Trump and his administration’s top advisers continued to make confusing statements about the federal government’s scramble to confront the crisis, including whether he will force private industry to mass produce needed medical items. As deaths climbed and ahead of a potentially dire week, Trump — who has sought to cast himself as a wartime leader — reacted to criticism that his administration has blundered with a torrent of soaring boasts and searing grievances. (Costa and Gregg, 3/22)

Woodrow Wilson was more focused on the end of World War I than a flu virus that was making its way around the globe, ultimately sickening hundreds of thousands of Americans, including the president himself. George W. Bush stood with a bullhorn on a pile of rubble after the 9/11 attacks on lower Manhattan and promised that the people who were responsible “will hear all of us soon.” Barack Obama was in office for just a few months when the first reports came in about the H1N1 virus, which would eventually be declared a pandemic like today’s new coronavirus. (Superville, 3/2)

With the economy faltering and the political landscape unsettled as the coronavirus death toll climbs, a stark and unavoidable question now confronts President Trump and his advisers: Can he save his campaign for re-election when so much is suddenly going so wrong? After three years of Republicans’ championing signs of financial prosperity that were to be Mr. Trump’s chief re-election argument, the president has never needed a new message to voters as he does now, not to mention luck. (Karni, Haberman and Epstein, 3/22)

President Donald Trump spent the weekend vacillating between casting himself as an empathetic leader and wartime president as the coronavirus spreads through the United States. But above all, he still wants credit. Credit for cutting off travel from China. Credit for giving up money to run for office. Credit for uniting the nation. (Cook, 3/22)

As the novel coronavirus spreads through communities across the country, it poses a critical question: Can America’s people, institutions and government collectively rise to the occasion to defeat a once-in-a-generation crisis? With a global pandemic testing the country’s political, financial, social and moral fabric, there are growing signs that answering in the affirmative has become increasingly difficult. (Olorunnipa, Witte and Kim, 3/22)

As restaurants across the country stacked chairs on tables and shut their doors to try to contain the deadly coronavirus, what would be the final visitors streamed into the Conservative Grounds coffee shop in Largo, Florida. Fox News played on the televisions. Patrons posed for photos in a replica of the Oval Office. An 80-year-old man, defying officials’ advice to stay home, beamed near a life-sized cutout of a grinning President Donald Trump. (Galofaro and Lush, 3/22)

In an escalating war of words Sunday, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker compared President Donald Trump to “the carnival barkers that are tweeting from the cheap seats. “Pritzker was responding to a critical tweet from Trump, who said the governor “and a very small group of certain other governors … shouldn’t be blaming the federal government for their own shortcomings. We are there to back you up should you fail, and always will be!” (Kapos and Kullgren, 3/22)

A new diagnostic test for the novel coronavirus will return results in just 45 minutes, four times faster than existing machines. But the test, emergency use of which was cleared by the Food and Drug Administration Wednesday, will likely be used in only the most urgent situations: triaging patients who are already in the hospital or the emergency room, and testing health care workers who might be infected to see if they can return to work. (Herper and Facher, 3/21)

With delays in testing hampering the country’s ability to accurately track the new coronavirus and shelter-in-place orders keeping many Americans at home, startups are swooping in with a seemingly ideal solution: at-home tests. Over the next week, at least four startups are launching the first at-home tests for Covid-19. The companies, whose tests have been mostly greenlit — but not approved in the conventional sense — by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration under new guidelines instituted for the coronavirus crisis, aim for their diagnostics to offer some certainty to people who have up until now been unable to get tested as a result of the shortage of test kits. (Brodwin, 3/20)

As a wave of at-home tests for coronavirus are coming on the market, federal regulators issued stern guidance saying that none of them has yet been approved for use and warning consumers to be wary of “unauthorized fraudulent test kits.” Hours after STAT reported on Friday that at least four startups would roll out at-home tests over the next week, the Food and Drug Administration released a statement saying: “We want to alert the American public that, at this time, the FDA has not authorized any test that is available to purchase for testing yourself at home for Covid-19.” (Brodwin, 3/21)

Several Georgia law enforcement agencies are cautioning residents to be mindful of scammers who are going door-to-door offering to sell coronavirus-related tests and cures. There is no cure for COVID-19, the disease caused by coronavirus, and tests in Georgia are so scarce they are being reserved for health care workers, first responders and those who are seriously ill. (Abusaid, 3/20)

Drive-thru sites have been opening around the United States to make it quicker and safer to test people for the new coronavirus. But much like the rest of the U.S. response to the pandemic, the system has been marked by inconsistencies, delays, and shortages. Many people who have symptoms and a doctor’s order have waited hours or days for a test. More than a week after President Donald Trump promised that states and retail stores such as Walmart and CVS would open drive-thru test centers, few sites are up and running, and they’re not yet open to the general public. (Smith, 3/22)

As the coronavirus epidemic spread around the globe, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provided restrictive guidance on who should be tested, archived pages on its website show. While agencies in other countries were advising and conducting widespread testing, the CDC, charged with setting the U.S. standard for who should be tested for the virus, kept its criteria limited. A botched initial test batch also meant that tests were slow to be distributed and in short supply. Now, the Food and Drug Administration has allowed private laboratories to develop tests, and the CDC relaxed its criteria. And positive results across the U.S. have poured in. (Wang, Huth and Umlauf, 3/22)

If you want to get a test for the novel coronavirus, you're in good company. "One of my sisters called me yesterday [and said], 'I have to have my daughter tested for coronavirus,'" New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said at a press briefing Wednesday. The governor's niece had a fever and flu-like symptoms. Yet he told his sister "there's no reason for a test" since her daughter hadn't traveled to a coronavirus hot spot or been in contact with anyone who had tested positive for the virus.  Across the United States, physicians are sending the same message: Not everyone who wants a test will get a test. (Cohen, 3/22)

In New York, where positive tests discovered 2,300 new cases after testing 8,000 people in a day, Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo said the state’s testing is now at the level of South Korea or China.California has upped its capacity as well, increasing its test numbers by 20% in one day. Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, said a shortage of specimen swabs is stalling further expansion.Some states still lag in testing. Idaho patients are having to wait days for results, as samples are sent to labs in Washington or Colorado. One Idaho lab will now run only tests for patients who are hospitalized or deemed "high priority." (Brown, 3/20)

President Trump on Sunday said undocumented immigrants should be able to get tested for coronavirus without fear of arrest or deportation. "The answer is yes, we will do those tests," Trump said during a White House briefing. "You could say illegal alien, you could say illegal immigrant, you could say whatever you want to use your definition of what you’re talking about… Yes we will test that person," he continued. "Because I think it’s important we test that person, and we don’t want to send that person back into wherever we’re going to be sending that person." (Samuels, 3/22)

At the end of an hour-long phone call with White House and Homeland Security officials, a police chief from outside San Francisco made a stark plea: “Stop testing NBA players, and start testing our first responders.” The appeal came during a call on Friday organized by the International Association of Chiefs of Police in order to provide police departments with information “to get through this crisis OK,” Dr. Alex Eastman of the Dallas Police Department said on the call. (Levine, 3/23)

Massachusetts has had its first death as a result of the coronavirus — a man in his 80s from Suffolk County. He had pre-existing health concerns that made him more vulnerable to the virus, according to the state Department of Public Health. (Joliocoeur and Mullins, 3/20)

Vice President Mike Pence on Sunday described his novel coronavirus test as a "kind of invasive" and a "not comfortable" experience. Pence and second lady Karen Pence both tested negative for the virus Saturday afternoon after a staff member of his office had tested positive."The test was quick, but it goes a fair amount to the sinuses and it is not comfortable," Pence said at a White House press briefing. "That is probably a good opportunity to say again to any American looking on, if you do not have symptoms you do not need a test." (Robertson and LeBlanc, 3/22)

An Atlanta resident who recently tested positive for coronavirus shared his story with ABC News, describing how difficult it was to receive treatment and get his results back. Billy Roberts, 46, tested positive for COVID-19 on Thursday, but his journey began after he attended a concert in Los Angeles and flew home March 1. (Jacobo, 3/21)

The Trump administration has held up $40 million in emergency aid Congress approved earlier this month to help American Indians combat the coronavirus — a delay that’s left tribal leaders across the nation frustrated and ill-equipped to respond to the fast-growing outbreak. The funding has languished in bureaucratic limbo for weeks, despite increasingly urgent pleas from tribal organizations desperate to stockpile essential supplies and keep health clinics operational. Federally run American Indian health facilities are well short on hospital beds and ventilators, some frontline clinics received fewer than a dozen coronavirus tests, and federal officials have already signaled there will be little in the way of reinforcements — telling tribal leaders that all they can send right now are expired respirators. (Cancryn, 3/20)

Four Arizona House Democrats pressed the Trump administration Friday to urgently provide $120 million in emergency aid to the Indian Health Service after delays in sending money to combat the new coronavirus that is sweeping across tribal communities. Reps. Ruben Gallego, Raúl Grijalva, Tom O'Halleran and Greg Stanton wrote a letter to Alex Azar, the Health and Human Services secretary, arguing that Native Americans have higher incidence of the kind of conditions that make the outbreak more severe. (Hansen, 3/20)

The new coronavirus has found its way to Chilchinbeto, Ariz., a remote Navajo hamlet of about 500 in the high desert, a sign of the startling reach of infections in the U.S., and a worrisome harbinger for all Native American communities. As tribal leaders around the country gear up for the pandemic’s arrival, they worry the federal agencies that are supposed to help protect them aren’t ready. The federal Indian Health Service is already facing major shortages, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is expected to leave out some of the most vulnerable tribes when it announces new grants on Monday, according to tribal leaders and government documents. (Frosch and Weaver, 3/22)

Several months before the coronavirus pandemic began, the Trump administration eliminated a key American public health position in Beijing intended to help detect disease outbreaks in China, Reuters has learned. The American disease expert, a medical epidemiologist embedded in China’s disease control agency, left her post in July, according to four sources with knowledge of the issue. The first cases of the new coronavirus may have emerged as early as November, and as cases exploded, the Trump administration in February chastised China for censoring information about the outbreak and keeping U.S. experts from entering the country to help. (Taylor, 3/22)

Experts including one former official who held that position told the news service that Quick, were she still in her position, would have had the opportunity to receive warning and information about the coronavirus outbreak possibly sooner than U.S. and other global health experts did. “It was heartbreaking to watch,” Bao-Ping Zhu, the former CDC official who held the role between 2007-2011, told the news agency. “If someone had been there, public health officials and governments across the world could have moved much faster.” (Bowden, 3/22)

A government watchdog is assessing the Department of Health and Human Services' response to the coronavirus outbreak and reviewing nursing home preparedness after a number of elderly residents became ill and died, a spokeswoman for the HHS inspector general told CNN. The reviews are being launched by the Health and Human Services inspector general, said Tesia Williams, spokeswoman for the HHS IG. It's not uncommon for the inspector general to launch new reviews in the throes of an incident. The IG's work will jump into some of the key issues raised amid the outbreak. (Alvarez, 3/23)

Kaiser Health News: CDC Coronavirus Testing Decision Likely To Haunt Nation For Months To Come

As the novel coronavirus snaked its way across the globe, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in early February distributed 200 test kits it had produced to more than 100 public health labs run by states and counties nationwide. Each kit contained material to test a mere 300 to 400 patients. And labs, whether serving the population of New York City or tiny towns in rural America, apparently received the same kits. (Pradhan, 3/23)

In a series of austere, tightly controlled lab rooms in a military building here, doctors are dissecting strains of the novel coronavirus and are readying to conduct detailed and complex animal testing on potential vaccines. This is the U.S. Army’s front line in what President Trump has declared a “medical war” to stop the spread of the virus and prevent new cycles of outbreak. Here, soldiers wear full-body white suits that cover their camouflage uniforms and combat boots to protect them from the coronavirus strains that they are purposely interacting with. (Youssef, 3/22)

Some of the U.S. Army's top scientists are on the front lines in the battle against the novel coronavirus pandemic. While the rest of the world is following health official guidelines and practicing social distancing to prevent them from catching the virus, research scientists at the U.S. Army Medical Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) at Fort Detrick, Maryland, are literally hands-on with coronavirus -- on a daily basis. (Martinez and Scott, 3/20)

A Defense Department contractor has died after contracting coronavirus, marking the first military-related death from the illness. The Arlington, Va.-based contractor, who worked at the Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA), died on Saturday, the Pentagon said in a statement on Sunday. The individual had tested positive for COVID-19 and had been under medical treatment at a local hospital. (Mitchell, 3/22)

Gilead Sciences Inc said on Sunday it was temporarily putting new emergency access to its experimental coronavirus drug remdesivir on hold due to overwhelming demand and that it wanted most people receiving the drug to participate in a clinical trial to prove if it is safe and effective. The drugmaker said in a statement there had been an exponential increase in so-called compassionate-use requests for the drug. The spread of the virus in Europe and the United States has “flooded an emergency treatment access system that was set up for very limited access to investigational medicines and never intended for use in response to a pandemic,” it said. (3/22)

Remdesivir is being studied in five large clinical trials, two of which could read out results in early April. Up until now, Gilead has made it possible for patients who want the drug to get it through a process called “compassionate use.” To date, the company said, it has provided emergency access to several hundred patients in the United States, Europe, and Japan. The company said in its statement that “enrollment in clinical trials is the primary way to access remdesivir to generate critical data that inform the appropriate use of this investigational medicine.” (Herper, 3/22)

With a coronavirus vaccine at least a year away, some scientists are investigating existing medicines and compounds that might work as effective treatments. A drug called remdesivir is now in the spotlight, but health professionals, and scientists say it's too soon to know if it really works against COVID-19. Remdesivir is an antiviral, intravenous medicine made by Gilead Sciences that's been around for years as an experimental compound, but was never approved by the Food and Drug Administration — or any other country's drug approval agency. (Lupkin, 3/21)

Nearly 70 drugs and experimental compounds may be effective in treating the coronavirus, a team of researchers reported on Sunday night. Some of the medications are already used to treat other diseases, and repurposing them to treat Covid-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus, may be faster than trying to invent a new antiviral from scratch, the scientists said. The list of drug candidates appeared in a study published on the web site bioRxiv. The researchers have submitted the paper to a journal for publication. (Zimmer, 3/22)

One of the most wrenching questions in medicine has been playing out to garish effect in White House press conferences. The question is this: In an emergency, like the exploding pandemic of the coronavirus that causes Covid-19, how much data should doctors require before they use a medicine? President Donald Trump has made clear that he thinks two old malaria drugs, hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine, should be deployed quickly against the coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2. But his own lieutenants, the heads of the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, have been hesitant. (Herper, 3/22)

The nation's top infectious disease expert said Sunday that "there isn't, fundamentally, a difference" between his view and President Donald Trump's when it comes to combatting coronavirus, saying Trump just approaches fighting the pandemic from a "hope, layperson standpoint" while he approaches it from a scientific one. Dr. Anthony Fauci, in an interview on CBS' Margaret Brennan on "Face the Nation," was asked about his difference in medical opinion with Trump -- that a combination of two drugs, hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin, could possibly help with treating coronavirus -- and whether he was concerned such drugs could become over-prescribed, potentially leading to a shortage for those who need them. (Robertson, 3/22)

The drug Plaquenil keeps Anna Valdez’s lupus in check. Late last week, as she sheltered in place at her home outside Santa Rosa, California, Valdez called her local pharmacy and ordered a refill to treat her autoimmune disorder, thinking a 90-day supply would help her ride out the coronavirus outbreak. But the pharmacy told her it had only 10 pills left. Valdez called other pharmacies. They, too, had run out. (Ornstein, 3/22)

Doctors say the hoarding of hydroxychloroquine, a drug that may or may not be effective in preventing or treating the coronavirus, is unethical. (Bebinger, 3/22)

Health officials in Nigeria have issued a warning over chloroquine after they said three people in the country overdosed on the drug, in the wake of President Trump's comments about using it to treat coronavirus. A Lagos state official told CNN that three people were hospitalized in the city after taking the drug. Officials later issued a statement cautioning against using chloroquine for Covid-19 treatment. (Busari and Adebayo, 3/23)

After the Israeli government approved licensing for a generic copy of the Kaletra HIV pill to combat the coronavirus, AbbVie (ABBV) agreed to allow the country to purchase copycat versions of its medicine from suppliers in other countries, an unusual instance in which the threat of a compulsory license prompted a drug maker to widen access. The move came after the Israeli Justice Ministry reportedly explained AbbVie was unable to supply enough of the pill and planned to import generic substitutes from countries where the patent had already expired, even though a study published this week showed no benefit in fighting Covid-19. The AbbVie patent in Israel reportedly expires in 2024. This is the first time the government allowed the use of a generic version of a patent-protected drug. (Silverman, 3/20)

Medicines designed to treat COVID-19 won’t be on pharmacy shelves for months or even years, but thousands of patients are in hospitals and health clinics now. So doctors are looking to drugs that are already approved for treating other diseases. Malaria, HIV and arthritis wouldn’t seem to have much in common with SARS-CoV-2, the novel coronavirus that has upended the world in just a few short months. But medicines developed for those ailments are showing some promise against the respiratory illness at the center of the pandemic. (Khan, 3/21)

The novel coronavirus presents an unprecedented challenge for scientists: The speed at which the virus spreads means they must accelerate their research. But this is what the world's fastest supercomputer was built for. Summit, IBM's supercomputer equipped with the "brain of AI," ran thousands of simulations to analyze which drug compounds might effectively stop the virus from infecting host cells. The supercomputer identified 77 of them. (Andrew, 3/20)

The U.S. government, International Business Machines Corp. and others are giving researchers world-wide access to at least 16 supercomputers to help speed the discovery of vaccines and drugs to combat the novel coronavirus. The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy on Sunday announced the Covid-19 High Performance Computing Consortium, a partnership that includes IBM, the Energy Department national laboratories, Alphabet Inc.’s Google Cloud, Amazon.com Inc.’s Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Corp. and others. (Castellanos, 3/22)

In an urgent effort to develop a potential vaccine and medicine for COVID-19, a San Francisco drug company on Friday asked residents of Boston and five other US hot spots in the coronavirus epidemic to donate blood if they have recovered from the disease. Vir Biotechnology wants blood samples from a total of 100 donors in the hopes of isolating antibodies that could be used to make a vaccine and treatment. Such antibodies are produced by the body’s immune system. (Saltzman, 3/20)

As U.S. scientists race to stave off a tidal wave of COVID-19 patients, they are showing renewed interest in a little-known medicine with ancient roots and many modern applications: convalescent plasma. It’s medicine now coursing through the veins of at least 86,690 people in China and elsewhere, all of whom have joined a fraternity of potentially powerful healers. These are people who have been infected with the novel coronavirus and survived. (Healy, 3/20)

The landlord was knocking, but Jill Ferguson had made a promise to her children. She was 66 years old with chronic bronchitis and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), someone far more likely to die if she contracted the coronavirus. Ferguson had been self-isolating for days inside her Wisconsin duplex, so on Monday, she waited until the knocking stopped before she opened the door. Taped onto it was an eviction notice. “Remove from the following described premises on or before April 15,” it read. (Contrera and Jan, 3/22)

Cities such as New York and Los Angeles enacted eviction prohibitions over the past week, and dozens of other municipalities and court systems have followed. The sheriff of San Francisco said he would not enforce eviction orders until further notice. And on Wednesday, the state of Washington, one of the hardest hit by the virus, declared an eviction moratorium for 30 days. The patchwork of local rules and exceptions for evictions has housing advocates pushing for a unified federal action and some federal housing measures are under way. (Parker, 3/22)

How do you send money en masse to people in the midst of a pandemic? In a world roughly remade by virus every few days, the federal government’s desperate attempt to shore up a plummeting economy changes shape by the hour. But one partial solution has surged to the fore: sending money directly to Americans. (Okun, 3/22)

When New York City closed its public schools, Cindy Urena, a home health aide for Sunnyside Community Services in Queens, faced a choice: stop seeing a client with severe epilepsy or leave her 7-year-old daughter alone at home. Ms. Urena, 39, earns $15 an hour, and like half of New York City’s direct care workers, relies on food stamps even when she is working. She made her choice. Now she has no income at all. (Leland, 3/22)

The American economy has stopped working. We’re going to try turning it off and back on again. With confirmed cases of the coronavirus escalating rapidly, government officials have almost overnight switched off activity in large sectors of the United States. They want as few people as possible in close contact with one another in order to slow the pandemic, which may be even more widespread than official statistics suggest. (Tankersley, 3/22)

As recently as a month ago, the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority was talking about increasing service, having finally turned a corner after years of precipitous ridership declines. The gains were wiped out in a couple of weeks as the coronavirus pandemic swept the country, shutting down normal life and crippling Metro and transit systems nationwide as people teleworked and stayed home out of fear, by government order or because they had been laid off. (Lazo and George, 3/22)

As state health officials warn of exponential increases in the number of confirmed cases across Pennsylvania, there is growing anxiety among workers such as first responders, nurses, doctors, cleaning staff, cashiers, and truck drivers who are part of the essential economy. The state Department of Labor and Industry told workers March 16 that those who contract the coronavirus on the job might be eligible for workers’ compensation benefits. But legal and public health experts say that help may be very hard to obtain. (Moss, 3/22)

The most brutal stretch for global markets since the financial crisis likely isn’t over yet, say investors and analysts who believe it is too early to assess the possible scale of economic damage from the coronavirus. In just a few weeks, U.S. stocks have lost roughly a third of their value. In recent weeks, investors have even fled assets like U.S. government bonds and gold that typically do well during times of turmoil, underscoring the extent of the panic and the shock to once-robust investor sentiment delivered by the global health emergency. (Hirtenstein and Otani, 3/22)

U.S. stock-index futures, global stocks and oil prices fell early Monday, rattled by the coronavirus pandemic and delay in Washington over an economic rescue package. The number of confirmed novel coronavirus cases world-wide more than doubled in a week to nearly 330,000 Sunday, with deaths surpassing 14,000. U.S. infections topped 32,000, jumping 10-fold from a week earlier. (Chiu, 3/23)

When Danni Askini started feeling chest pain, shortness of breath and a migraine all at once on a Saturday in late February, she called the oncologist who had been treating her lymphoma. Her doctor thought she might be reacting poorly to a new medication, so she sent Askini to a Boston-area emergency room. There, doctors told her it was likely pneumonia and sent her home. Over the next several days, Askini saw her temperature spike and drop dangerously, and she developed a cough that gurgled because of all the liquid in her lungs. (Abrams, 3/19)

If I need treatment for Covid-19, will that be free? Nope. The new legislation doesn’t guarantee that your health insurer will cover your treatment free of cost. For that, your typical plan rules will likely apply—meaning, you’ll have to pay until you hit your deductible, or you’ll owe a copay or coinsurance, which is a percentage of the cost of treatment. The Internal Revenue Service recently announced that, in high-deductible plans paired with tax-advantaged accounts, insurers and employers could cover Covid-19 testing and treatment without cost-sharing, even before a patient has gotten through the deductible. (Wilde Mathews, 3/22)

Kaiser Health News: Hoping That Insurance Expansion Will Help Tamp Outbreak, 9 States Reopen Marketplaces

At least nine states are offering their uninsured residents another opportunity to sign up for a health plan this year as they seek new ways to fight the novel coronavirus pandemic. The states have reopened their health insurance exchanges this month to help ease consumers’ concerns about the cost of health care so that the sick will not be deterred from seeking medical attention and inadvertently spread the virus. (Heredia Rodriguez, 3/20)

The Trump administration is considering whether to create a special enrollment period for Obamacare coverage because of the coronavirus emergency, a CMS spokesperson confirmed. A number of Democratic-leaning states that run their own health insurance marketplaces have recently reopened enrollment, encouraging uninsured residents to get covered amid the pandemic. Most states, however, use the federal marketplace overseen by the Trump administration, HealthCare.gov. (Ravindranath, 3/21)

Federal appellate judges on Friday questioned Congress' intent for the role of short-term, limited-duration plans in the health insurance marketplace while weighing whether the Trump administration's 2018 expansion of the plans was legal. The oral arguments before a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit came amid renewed focus on requirements for short-term, limited duration health plans during the COVID-19 pandemic. (Cohrs, 3/20)

Georgia’s insurance commissioner on Friday banned insurers from canceling health and business policies while the state navigates the coronavirus pandemic. In a directive issued Friday, Insurance Commissioner John King instructed insurers not to cancel health insurance policies of those who miss payments “until further notice.” King also instructed insurers not to cancel business policies for missed payments for the next 60 days. (Prabhu, 3/20)

As the coronavirus upends life for many Californians, health officials announced that Covered California has extended its enrollment period to allow more people to sign up for health coverage during the global health crisis. Covered California, the state’s health insurance marketplace, announced Friday that it has expanded its special enrollment period, which was going to end April 30, through June 30 so that anyone who is uninsured and eligible can sign up. (Bauman, 3/22)

Three weeks after its first coronavirus infection was discovered, the New York City region reached an alarming milestone on Sunday: It now accounts for roughly 5 percent of the world’s confirmed cases, making it an epicenter of the pandemic and increasing pressure on officials to take more drastic measures. Moving to stem the crisis on multiple fronts, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York pleaded with federal officials to nationalize the manufacturing of medical supplies and ordered New York City to crack down on people congregating in public. He suggested some streets could be closed, allowing pedestrians more space. (McKinley, 3/22)

Gov. Andrew Cuomo is ordering New York City to come up with a plan to reduce the number of people gathering in public spaces within 24 hours as he reemphasizes the importance of social distancing to limit the spread of coronavirus. Cuomo, at his daily coronavirus briefing on Sunday, said he saw people gathered in large groups and playing recreational sports during a tour of public places in the city on Saturday. He and other officials have been instructing people to stay home or, if they do venture outside, to keep at least six feet away from others. (Gronewold and Muoio, 3/22)

Some New York City residents, in particular younger ones, still were gathering in parks and public places, Mr. Cuomo said, even as he as directed all nonessential businesses in the state to close and urged residents to stay in their homes and avoid groups. Such gatherings could lead to the spread of the virus, he said. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and City Council Speaker Corey Johnson have been directed to submit a plan to the state within 24 hours to “correct this situation,” Mr. Cuomo said. (Passy and Honan, 3/22)

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) said Sunday that the coronavirus outbreak will get worse in the next two months, adding that he does not think President Trump is doing enough to mitigate the pandemic. “The truth is, and New Yorkers and all Americans deserve the blunt truth, it is only getting worse. And in fact, April and May are going to be a lot worse,” the mayor said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” The outbreak will get even worse, he said, due to Trump’s refusal to invoke the Defense Production Act (DPA) for the medical equipment hospitals need. (Klar, 3/22)

Last week’s statewide shelter-in-place order was an attempt to not only slow the spread of the coronavirus but also to give hospitals a better chance of keeping up. Gov. Gavin Newsom threw California’s medical field another life raft Saturday in the form of $42 million in emergency funding. The money will allow California to lease two hospitals, as well as secure more equipment to serve patients with COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. (Bitker, 3/21)

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who ordered the state’s nearly 40 million residents to stay at home as much as possible last Thursday, said Apple Inc. CEO Tim Cook would provide 1 million medical masks to the state specifically. The state was also working on other efforts to acquire more supplies, he said. Meanwhile, Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards issued a stay-at-home order to all residents, as the number of confirmed cases in the state topped 800. The order, which takes effect Monday afternoon, allows people to leave their homes for essential tasks like getting groceries and for exercise. (Calfas, Andrews and Wise, 3/22)

Mayor Eric Garcetti on Sunday admonished Angelenos who haven’t taken orders to practice social distancing seriously, announcing the closure of the city’s golf courses, parking lots at Venice Beach and organized group sports at city parks as they have continued to attract throngs of people. “This weekend we saw too many images of too many people crowding beaches or canyons beyond their capacity. Too many people, too close together, too often,” Garcetti said during his daily briefing on the impact of the novel coronavirus. (Reyes-Velarde, Vives and Newberry, 3/23)

The death toll rose in California this weekend as coronavirus cases spread and residents tried to adjust to extraordinary restrictions on their movement. Los Angeles County health officials on Sunday confirmed one more coronavirus death, bringing the total number of deaths to five. They also reported 71 new cases in the county, with the total number now at 409. There were 132 new cases reported in last 48 hours. (Wigglesworth, La Ganga, Winton and Queally, 3/22)

California’s number of confirmed coronavirus cases keeps gowing, and officials say it is understated due to the lack of tests for the virus. Testing has picked up, but health officials say they still don’t have anything close to a firm estimate of how many people are infected. (3/21)

On a recent morning, Katrina Johnson, Ralph Gomez and Kenya Smith are eager to hit the streets. Outreach workers for a homeless agency serving South Los Angeles, they want to catch up with their clients before the weekend, to make sure everyone is safe for the days ahead. Standing in their office off Slauson Boulevard, they put together their game plan but pause when they come to the supply closet. Its shelves are close to empty. (Curwen and Oreskes, 3/22)

Crowds descended on California beaches, hiking trails and parks over the weekend in open defiance of a state order to shelter in place and avoid close contact with others. California Gov. Gavin Newsom issued a shelter in place order directing the state's nearly 40 million residents to stay home beginning March 20 to help stop the spread of coronavirus. Instead, many public spaces were packed, prompting officials in some cities to order parks, recreation areas and beaches to close. (Silverman and Moon, 3/23)

Gov. Phil Murphy on Sunday vowed stricter enforcement of his edict against public gatherings during the coronavirus pandemic as the number of confirmed cases in New Jersey is fast approaching 2,000. Confronted with anecdotes about students still attending and living in a religious school in Lakewood and some nonessential stores remaining open, Murphy said that when he hears such stories, “we are really damned unhappy and we’re going to take action.” (Friedman and Sitrin, 3/22)

New Jersey’s hospitals are racing to add beds and increase staff as the state girds for an expected surge in coronavirus patients in the coming weeks that threatens to overwhelm its health-care system. State health officials are examining reopening closed hospitals and using college dorms, medical wards and nursing homes to expand capacity. Hospitals are clearing space in their existing facilities to add more beds and are canceling nonurgent medical procedures to free up rooms and to reduce workloads for staff. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is also studying building new wings on existing hospitals. (De Avila, 3/22)

The Ohio Attorney General's office ordered abortion clinics in the state to stop performing "nonessential" abortions and surgeries amid the coronavirus pandemic, according to letters the AG's office sent. "The order was issued, in part, to preserve PPE (personal protective equipment) for health care providers who are battling the Covid-19 pandemic that is spreading in our state and also to preserve critical hospital capacity and resources," the letters, which were reviewed by CNN, say. Surgical abortions, the letters say, "involve the use of PPE." (Sgueglia, Spells and Jones, 3/22)

Abortion rights groups are accusing the attorney general of Ohio of using the coronavirus crisis to restrict abortion access after clinics in the state were sent letters this week faulting them for not complying with an order aimed at preserving a limited supply of surgical equipment and protective gear. (McCammon, 3/21)

Gov. Greg Abbott issued two executive orders mandating that the state's health care facilities postpone elective medical procedures and suspending regulations to allow hospitals to treat two patients in one room in an effort to combat the spread of Covid-19. He also announced the creation of a “strike force” to help Texas procure medical supplies and said that he was deploying the National Guard to help providers organize testing areas and assist hospitals in creating more bed space. (Rayasam, 3/22)

The University of Tampa said Saturday that five of its students who travelled together during their spring break recently tested positive for the novel coronavirus. “UT has been notified that five UT students, traveling together and with other UT students during Spring Break, have tested positive for COVID-19,” the university said in a tweet on Saturday. The university did not disclose the names of the students, nor where they travelled during the break, which was scheduled for the school earlier this month. (Folley, 3/22)

Shannon Koyano is a 39-year-old single mother living, nervously, in the place where the coronavirus got its first and deadliest foothold in America. Like so many Americans now, she has worries. A lot of them. One of her three children last week came down with a fever and a cough. She has an autoimmune disease, making her especially vulnerable. Six months ago, she invested almost her entire savings to open a gift boutique, called Hella Happy, that was thriving until recreational shopping became a thing of Seattle’s past. (Rosman, 3/22)

State lockdown measures imposed across the U.S. vary in the scope and severity of the limits on where people may travel, work and shop away from their homes. No state is completely preventing people from going outside or to work, but some measures were more drastic than others. California Gov. Gavin Newsom effectively banned residents from socializing outside their homes, while New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo went further in cordoning off the elderly and sick populations. (Gershman, 3/22)

The governors of Ohio and Louisiana issued “stay-at-home” orders on Sunday, instructing residents to restrict their daily movements to all but the most essential activities as governments around the world began or extended nationwide lockdowns to stem the coronavirus pandemic. But a senior official with the World Health Organization warned that even those extraordinary measures might be not be enough to contain the virus, which has now infected more than 335,000 people and killed more than 14,000. (Harris, 3/22)

The number of recorded coronavirus cases in the Washington region continued to spike Sunday, with Maryland and Virginia announcing the largest single-day increases, additional deaths reported and fresh warnings to stop mass gatherings, including visits to see the Tidal Basin’s cherry blossoms. Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam (D) emphasized the likely long duration of the pandemic and suggested schools may need to be closed for an extended period. “It is clear from talking daily to our public health officials that covid-19 is going to be with us for a long time — months, not weeks,” Northam said in a briefing. (Marimow, Schneider and Nirappil, 3/22)

As signature cherry blossom trees go through peak bloom in the nation’s capital, officials in the District of Columbia are resorting to mass street closures to keep large crowds away in the face of the coronavirus pandemic. Public officials are publicly pleading for low turnout and one prominent local chef has launched the #StayHomeCherryBlossomsChallenge to make low visitation numbers into some sort of community goal. (Khalil and Martin, 3/23)

In cities across the United States, traffic on roads and highways has fallen dramatically over the past week as the coronavirus outbreak forces people to stay at home and everyday life grinds to a halt. Pollution has dropped too. (Plumer and Popovich, 3/22)

Kaiser Health News: Now On The Menu At Closed Schools: Drive-Thru Lunches

There were no hugs, handshakes or high-fives Tuesday morning at Juniper Elementary School, where the student drop-off line had transformed into a school lunch drive-thru. “Hi! How many?” asked school cafeteria manager Irene Huerta, 54, as she smiled and leaned toward an open car window. Then she handed over three hot, bagged lunches (taquitos and vegetables) and a breakfast bundle for the next morning (muffins), each meal supplemented with fruit and milk. (Almendrala, 3/20)

If you have a fender bender in Nashville these days, chances are you’ll be filing your report by phone. In Philadelphia, the police are trying not to take drug dealers to jail. In Hilton Head, S.C., the authorities have seemed particularly focused on one offense: gathering and drinking on the beach. But even that transgression was unlikely to lead to an arrest. Across the country, violators of new rules that require staying at home and keeping your distance from others are most likely to get off with a warning. (Dewan, Swales and Vigdor, 3/22)

The coronavirus pandemic has led to a rush to purchase firearms and ammunition in the Philadelphia region and across Pennsylvania, leading to long lines at some gun shops. But the Philadelphia Police Department has shut down its gun-permits unit. Firearm owners without a license-to-carry permit will, in almost all circumstances, not be able to carry the weapons without risking arrest. (Bender, Calefati and Newall, 3/20)

Gov. Brian Kemp has vastly expanded the state’s coronavirus task force as Georgia grapples with a growing pandemic that has sickened hundreds and killed at least 14 residents.Initially created in February before Georgia had a single confirmed case of the illness, the task force’s panels are now focused on addressing the disease’s impact on the economy, healthcare network, emergency preparedness and the needy. (Bluestein, 3/21)

As the pace and availability of coronavirus testing in Louisiana accelerates, the numbers of cases and deaths have begun to grow rapidly, according to Louisiana Department of Health data that showed 763 known cases and 20 deaths as of Saturday evening.The number of known cases was up by 42% from Friday. (Russell, 3/21)

Following the statewide stay-at-home mandate issued by Gov. John Bel Edwards, Mayor LaToya Cantrell and other metro area leaders on Sunday urged President Donald Trump to declare the coronavirus outbreak a major disaster for the New Orleans area. Cantrell joined seven area parish presidents at a Sunday news conference to stress that they are pushing for disaster status, which would unlock resources from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to ramp up deployment for testing and treatment. (Hasselle and Umholtz, 3/22)

Gov. J.B. Pritzker on Friday afternoon ordered all Illinois residents to stay at home, as the deadly coronavirus has spread to a quarter of the state's counties and infected more than 500 people. The stricter limits will go into effect on Saturday. (Romo, 3/20)

It was Gov. Charlie Baker's turn to speak to President Trump during a governor's conference call Thursday. Baker wanted to know why Massachusetts was outbid for COVID-19 supplies by the federal government."We took seriously the push you made not to rely on the stockpile," Baker said. "I got to tell you we lost to the feds ... If states are doing what the feds want and trying to create their own supply chain, then people should be responsive. I've got a feeling that if somebody has a chance to sell to you or to me, I'm going to lose every one of those." (Becker, 3/20)

A woman in her 50s from Middlesex County became the second person to die in Massachusetts from COVID-19, the state Department of Public Health announced Saturday night. The woman, who was not identified, “had a pre-existing condition predisposing her to more severe disease,” the state said in a statement. The announcement came one day after the state announced an 87-year-old Winthrop man was the first in Massachusetts to die after testing positive for the illness. (Crimaldi and Hilliard, 3/21)

As the conornavirus spreads in Michigan and taxes the capacity of health care providers, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed an executive order Friday restricting nonessential medical and dental procedures. Whitmer ordered that by 5 p.m. Saturday, hospitals, freestanding surgical outpatient facilities, dental facilities and all state-operated outpatient facilities must implement a plan to temporarily postpone all nonessential procedures until the termination of the COVID-19 state of emergency. (Gray, 3/20)

Local governments across the U.S. are releasing thousands of inmates in an unprecedented effort to prevent a coronavirus outbreak in crowded jails and prisons. Jails in California, New York, Ohio, Texas and at least a dozen other states are sending low-level offenders and elderly or sickly inmates home early due to coronavirus fears. At other jails and prisons around the country, officials are banning visitors, restricting inmates’ movement and screening staff. (Elinson and Paul, 3/22)

Massachusetts is putting the lives of terminally ill or medically infirm prisoners at risk for COVID-19 by failing to quickly identify those who qualify for medical parole and release them before the virus could spread though the lockup facilities, according to inmate advocates. Ruth Greenberg, a lawyer who represents 10 inmates seeking medical parole, seven of whom are terminally ill, said the public health of her clients and others is at risk if Gov. Charlie Baker and other officials do not immediately act to protect the most vulnerable inmates. (Hilliard, 3/22)

The first inmate within California’s prison system has tested positive for COVID-19. The prisoner is at California State Prison, Los Angeles County, state corrections officials announced on Sunday night. The officials also said that five prison workers have COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. Two are at California State Prison, Sacramento, outside of Folsom; one is at Folsom State Prison; and two are at the California Institution for Men in Chino. (John, 3/22)

Disgraced former movie mogul Harvey Weinstein has tested positive for COVID-19 and been put in isolation in prison, the Niagara Gazette reported Sunday. Weinstein, a formerly powerful movie producer who was sentenced earlier this year to 23 years in prison for rape and sexual assault, reportedly is being isolated at Wende Correctional Facility in Western New York, officials connected to the state prison system told CNHI publishers. He is one of two inmates at the facility who has tested positive. (Coleman, 3/22)

The medical director of the intensive care unit had to choose which patients’ lives would be supported by ventilators and other equipment. Hurricane Sandy was bearing down on Bellevue Hospital in New York City in 2012, and the main generators were about to fail. Dr. Laura Evans would be left with only six power outlets for the unit’s 50 patients. Hospital officials asked her to decide which ones would get the lifesaving resources. “Laura,” one official said. “We need a list.” After gathering other professionals, Dr. Evans checked off the names of the lucky few. (Fink, 3/21)

As COVID-19 spreads rapidly through the United States, many American doctors could soon be making the decisions that overwhelmed health care workers in Italy are already facing: Which patients get lifesaving treatment, and which ones do not? Every accredited hospital in the U.S. is required to have some mechanism for addressing ethical issues like this — typically, an ethics committee made up of not just medical professionals but often also social workers, pastors and patient advocates. Sometimes in partnership with hospital triage committees, they create guidelines for prioritizing patient care if there's a resource shortage. (Pfeiffer, 3/21)

Government public health experts have planned for a scenario in which there are too many patients and too few ventilators.  In a July 2011 report completed by a U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ethics subcommittee, planners said the “principle of sickest first” for critical care might no longer apply during a severe pandemic because it “may lead to resources being used by patients who ultimately are too sick to survive. ”When there's a severe shortage of life-saving medical resources “priority is given to those who are most likely to recover,” the report said. (Alltucker, 3/22)

Internal memos by the chief surgeon at New York-Presbyterian Hospital were intended to rally the giant medical center’s doctors and nurses as they prepared to confront a surge in patients with novel coronavirus, but they also revealed new estimates about the coming threat that had not previously been public. Medical experts in New York do not expect the number of cases to peak for another 22 to 32 days, the memo written by Dr. Craig Smith says, and the supplies of masks, equipment and available beds is well short of the impending need. He estimated the crush of patients will require from 700 to 934 intensive-care beds. (Santucci and Mosk, 3/22)

As the heath care system strains to accommodate the unprecedented challenge of the coronavirus outbreak, many medical professionals on the front lines do not have adequate protection. Some are reusing masks and gloves. Others have taken to social media with public pleas for help using the hashtag #GetMePPE, an acronym for personal protective equipment. Without proper covering, every new bedside visit might prove fatal, especially for older physicians and their families. (Nierenberg, 3/22)

A dozen physicians at the epicenter of Italy’s Covid-19 outbreak issued a plea to the rest of the world on Saturday, going beyond the heartbreaking reports of overwhelmed health care workers there and a seemingly uncontrollable death toll to warn that medical practice during a pandemic may need to be turned on its head — with care delivered to many patients at home. “Western health care systems have been built around the concept of patient-centered care,” physicians Mirco Nacoti, Luca Longhi, and their colleagues at Papa Giovanni XXIII Hospital in Bergamo urge in a paper published on Saturday in NEJM Catalyst, a new peer-reviewed journal from the New England Journal of Medicine. But a pandemic requires “community-centered care.” (Begley, 3/21)

Officials in the U.S. and elsewhere fear they’ll face a coronavirus scenario similar to Italy’s soon. Three doctors and a nurse in Lombardy, the region hit hardest by the virus, described what they faced and offered advice to those awaiting the storm. (Marcolini and Stein, 3/22)

Kaiser Health News: Some Hospitals Continue With Elective Surgeries Despite COVID-19 Crisis

In the same week that physicians at the University of California-San Francisco medical center were wiping down and reusing protective equipment like masks and gowns to conserve resources amid a surge of COVID-19 patients, 90 miles away teams of doctors at UC Davis Medical Center were fully suited up performing breast augmentations, hip replacements and other elective procedures that likely could have been postponed. (Gold, 3/20)

Hospitals including University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, Virginia Hospital Center in Arlington and Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami as of Friday afternoon were still performing elective surgeries, such as for orthopedic problems, cataracts and other non-essential medical issues. Nearly 300 doctors, nurses and other UPMC employees signed a letter that went to members of management last night urging the health system to "postpone procedures that can be performed in the future, and prepare for the influx of patients that will urgently need our care in the coming weeks." (O'Donnell, 3/21)

As coronavirus cases mount in Illinois, healthcare providers face a shortage of personal protective equipment. To keep workers healthy—and on the job—the hospital industry is asking dentists, veterinarians and others to donate their face masks and respirators. Healthcare providers that get exposed to COVID-19 are required to self-quarantine for 14 days to prevent further spreading the virus, even if they're not showing symptoms. Rush Oak Park Hospital said today that two emergency room doctors have tested positive for coronavirus, the Sun-Times reports. (Goldberg and Quiq, 3/20)

Kaiser Health News: Coronavirus Threatens The Lives Of Rural Hospitals Already Stretched To Breaking Point

Rural hospitals may not be able to keep their doors open as the coronavirus pandemic saps their cash, their CEOs warn, just as communities most need them. As the coronavirus sweeps across the United States, all hospitals are facing cancellations of doctor visits and procedures by a terrified populace — profitable services that usually help fund hospitals. (Weber, 3/21)

Kaiser Health News: Seattle Nurses Scrounge For Masks To Stay Safe On Pandemic’s Front Lines

As the caseload of patients with the new coronavirus grows, masks and other personal protective equipment are in short supply — and nurses in Washington state are resorting to workarounds to try to stay safe. Wendy Shaw, a charge nurse for an emergency room in Seattle, said her hospital and others have locked up critical equipment like masks and respirators to ensure they don’t run out. (Stone, 3/23)

Massachusetts General Hospital, which treated the state’s first COVID-19 patient to die of the virus, and all other hospitals in the Partners HealthCare network will require staff to wear face masks continuously while on site to help control the spread of the novel coronavirus, administrators said Sunday. The policy requires medical workers, administrators, and support staff to wear masks in any building that provides patient care. It will affect Partners facilities such as Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Faulkner Hospital, Massachusetts Eye and Ear, McLean Hospital, Newton-Wellesley Hospital, and the Spaulding Rehabilitation Network. (Fox, 3/22)

As patients suffering from COVID-19 begin crowding hospitals, health care workers, those working directly with patients and many who simply work in the same facilities, are taking extreme measures to protect themselves and, especially, their families. The deaths of health care workers in China and Italy and the frightening ease with which the virus appears to be transmitted, shedding abundantly from patients and living on surfaces for days, has stoked fear among those on the front lines. (Arnett, 3/20)

As child care centers across Massachusetts close their doors Monday, an array of emergency sites are opening to allow frontline workers in the battle against the coronavirus to get to their jobs. The options include reopened childcare centers, as well as home-based care, offered by hundreds of individuals approved by state education officials to provide care on a temporary, emergency basis. The state is calling on families to "keep children out of group care settings to the greatest extent possible," according to a statement at Mass.gov, instructing families to use the emergency child care only as "back-up, drop-in care." (Rios, 3/22)

Health care workers in San Francisco got a large shipment of protective equipment Friday — a critical arsenal as they battle the coronavirus pandemic.The donation from Flexport, a San Francisco company that uses software to make international trade more efficient, includes 60,000 surgical masks, 34,000 gloves, 2,000 surgical gowns and 50 thermometers. Mayor London Breed announced the delivery Saturday in conjunction with Supervisor Catherine Stefani, who served as an intermediary. (Swan, 3/21)

As doctors, nurses and other front-line medical workers say they’re desperately short of crucial protective gear to protect them against the highly contagious coronavirus, the crafting community is stepping into the breach. Coast to coast, a grassroots army equipped with sewing machines and online tutorials is mobilizing to churn out cloth face masks to donate to hospitals and other health care organizations amid crisis-level scarcity of protective gears including paper surgical masks and the tight-fitting respirator masks known as N95 masks. (McGrane, 3/22)

Last week the American fashion industry went dark as stores and factories closed, both voluntarily and by government decree, to help prevent the spread of the new coronavirus. Yet by this weekend, lights had flicked on again on both coasts as designers and manufacturers began to pivot from making dresses, jeans and bathing suits to making surgical face masks and other protective gear — even as President Trump addressed the United States, saying unspecified help would be on the way for hospitals that expect to be overwhelmed and under-resourced. (Friedman and Testa, 3/21)

All medical schools across the country have canceled their in-person celebrations, which were set to take place Friday, as the nation practices social distancing. Recent guidelines issued on Monday by the White House recommend people to avoid all social gatherings larger than 10 people over the next 15 days. "All of our schools are not having a group activity," said Dr. Alison Whelan, chief medical education officer of the Association of American Medical Colleges, which represents the nation's accredited medical schools. (Castellucci and Johnson, 3/20)

Terrifying though the coronavirus may be, it can be turned back. China, South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan have demonstrated that, with furious efforts, the contagion can be brought to heel. Whether they can keep it suppressed remains to be seen. But for the United States to repeat their successes will take extraordinary levels of coordination and money from the country’s leaders, and extraordinary levels of trust and cooperation from citizens. It will also require international partnerships in an interconnected world. (McNeil, 3/22)

One night last week, a 27-year-old man on a business trip in Oklahoma City felt sick, stayed home from work and was later tested for Covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. His positive result jump-started a series of events that led to the complete shutdown of American sports. Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert was the first National Basketball Association player widely known to be infected, and his diagnosis has since led to the testing of eight teams and 13 more positives among players, coaches and staff members. (Hernandez and Cohen, 3/22)

Young German adults hold “corona parties” and cough toward older people. A Spanish man leashes a goat to go for a walk to skirt confinement orders. From France to Florida to Australia, kitesurfers, college students and others crowd the beaches. Their defiance of lockdown mandates and scientific advice to fight the coronavirus pandemic has prompted crackdowns by authorities on people trying to escape cabin fever brought on by virus restrictions. (Ganley, 3/22)

or Jalen Grimes, the virus pandemic is stirring up a slew of emotions. “Annoyed” is the first one the 13-year-old Chicagoan mentions. “Scared, confused, worried.” She was supposed to be enjoying the end of her eighth-grade year, a rite of passage in states like Illinois, with a graduation and a school trip that are not likely to happen. That’s hard enough. But her father is also about to be deployed as a paramedic, a more dangerous than usual job in these times. Her mom, a therapist, also has been on call a lot and is prone to pneumonia. And then there are her grandparents. (Irvine, 3/23)

A climbing destination on the remote eastern side of the snow-capped Sierra Nevada, Bishop, Calif., was packed last weekend, as crowded as any holiday, despite growing calls for isolation in advance of a predicted wave of coronavirus cases. “People were like, ‘Social distancing? I’m going to Bishop. Can’t get any more distant than that,’” said Jeff Deikis, a resident and climber. Although the risks of climbing are primarily associated with the heights and terrain, adventurers jammed the coffee shops and the brewery in Bishop. (Branch, 3/22)

From crowded bars in South Boston to spring break beaches in Florida, throngs of young people have treated the coronavirus as a curiosity, an inconvenience, or a petty nuisance that cannot puncture their shield of invulnerability. Even after Governor Charlie Baker and counterparts in other states shut down restaurants, closed pubs, and limited public gatherings to 10 people or fewer, many Americans in their 20s and 30s stuck to early thinking that older people are much more at risk. (MacQuarrie and Annear, 3/20)

Nearly one in three Americans was under orders on Sunday to stay home to slow the spread of the coronavirus pandemic as Ohio, Louisiana and Delaware became the latest states to enact broad restrictions, along with the city of Philadelphia. (Marte and Goldberg, 3/22)

The most extensive travel restrictions to stop an outbreak in human history haven’t been enough. We analyzed the movements of hundreds of millions of people to show why. (Wu, Cai, Watkins and Glanz, 3/22)

Long before coronavirus spread around the world, former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy was sounding the alarm about a different, quiet epidemic: loneliness. We’ll talk to him about why so many Americans are suffering from loneliness and what we can do to take better care of each other even as we’re asked to be physically apart. (Chakrabarti and Scheimer, 3/23)

Many Americans seem to be following the recommendations of public health officials to clean and sterilize countertops, doorknobs, faucets and other frequently touched surfaces in their homes. The problem? Many are then tossing the disinfectant wipes, paper towels and other paper products they used into the toilet. The result has been a coast-to-coast surge in backed-up sewer lines and overflowing toilets, according to plumbers and public officials, who have pleaded with Americans to spare the nation’s pipes from further strain. (Levenson, 3/21)

Communities living in warmer places appear to have a comparative advantage to slow the transmission of coronavirus infections, according to an early analysis by scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The researchers found that most coronavirus transmissions had occurred in regions with low temperatures, between 37.4 and 62.6 degrees Fahrenheit (or 3 and 17 degrees Celsius). While countries with equatorial climates and those in the Southern Hemisphere, currently in the middle of summer, have reported coronavirus cases, regions with average temperatures above 64.4 degrees Fahrenheit (or 18 degrees Celsius) account for fewer than 6 percent of global cases so far. (Sheikh and Londono, 3/22)

As Covid-19 circles the globe, the most severe outbreaks so far clustered in areas of cool, dry seasonal weather, according to four independent research groups in the U.S., Australia and China that analyzed how temperature and humidity affect the coronavirus that causes the disease. If their conclusions are borne out, sweltering summer months ahead might offer a lull in new cases across the heavily populated temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere, they said. Even so, several of the scientists predicted that the disease would resurge in autumn, when cooler temperatures and low humidity again favor survival and transmission of the SARS-CoV2 coronavirus responsible for the illness. (Hotz, 3/23)

Scans of the lungs of the sickest COVID-19 patients show distinctive patterns of infection, but so far those clues offer little help in predicting which patients will pull through. For now, doctors are relying on what’s called supportive care that’s standard for severe pneumonia. Doctors in areas still bracing for an onslaught of sick patients are scouring medical reports and hosting webinars with Chinese doctors to get the best advice on what works and what hasn’t. (Neergaard, 3/22)

A mother who was infected with the coronavirus couldn’t smell her baby’s full diaper. Cooks who can usually name every spice in a restaurant dish can’t smell curry or garlic, and food tastes bland. Others say they can’t pick up the sweet scent of shampoo or the foul odor of kitty litter. Anosmia, the loss of sense of smell, and ageusia, an accompanying diminished sense of taste, have emerged as peculiar telltale signs of Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, and possible markers of infection. (Rabin, 3/22)

As of Friday, Louisiana was reporting 479 confirmed cases of COVID-19, one of the highest numbers in the country. Ten people had died. The majority of cases are in New Orleans, which now has one confirmed case for every 1,000 residents. New Orleans had held Mardi Gras celebrations just two weeks before its first patient, with more than a million revelers on its streets. I spoke to a respiratory therapist there, whose job is to ensure that patients are breathing well. (Presser, 3/21)

Emma, a 12-year-old girl, is "fighting for her life" in an Atlanta hospital after testing positive for the coronavirus, according to her cousin. Justin Anthony told CNN that Emma was diagnosed with pneumonia on March 15 and tested positive for coronavirus on Friday night. As of Saturday, she was on a ventilator and is currently in stable condition, Anthony said. Emma had no pre-existing conditions. She has not traveled recently and it's unknown how she contracted the virus, according to Anthony. (Walker, Spells and Alonso, 3/22)

The new coronavirus has traveled unseen paths from Wuhan, China, to virtually all corners of the globe. Evidence of its movements abounds, from the proliferation of people wearing face masks to the sudden absence of toilet paper on store shelves. How did a virus that didn’t even exist just a few months ago manage to infect more than 300,000 people and cause more than 13,000 deaths? How exactly does this pathogen spread? (Lin, 3/22)

The same coronavirus post kept popping up on my Facebook FB -2.22% feed last week. People in my network—a friend’s mom, a college classmate and another “friend,” who I’m not sure I’ve even met in person—had somehow obtained identical symptom and treatment guidance from Stanford University. There were details about an at-home testing technique involving breath holding, as well as something truly dubious about sipping water every 15 minutes. On March 12, the university said the text was “not from Stanford.” (Nguyen, 3/22)

Racist extremist groups, including neo-Nazis and other white supremacists, are encouraging members who contract novel coronavirus disease to spread the contagion to cops and Jews, according to intelligence gathered by the FBI. In an alert obtained by ABC News, the FBI’s New York office reports that "members of extremist groups are encouraging one another to spread the virus, if contracted, through bodily fluids and personal interactions." (Margolin, 3/22)

An infection from the coronavirus can be a formidable threat to anyone. But it is especially pernicious for people whose health is vulnerable, even in the best of conditions. For Andrea Pietrowsky, that means her husband is not coming home. (Joseph, 3/23)

Non-English-speaking communities are increasingly concerned that coronavirus information is being communicated to them after the rest of the country and in less detail, creating a divide that could put minority groups at greater risk of contracting the virus. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has Spanish and Simplified Chinese translations for its main COVID-19 website, but without all the resources that are available on the English-language site. And public service announcements produced by the federal government that come out in English sometimes aren’t followed by a Spanish translation until the following day. (Moreno and Bernal, 3/22)

Michael Levitt, a Nobel laureate and Stanford biophysicist, began analyzing the number of COVID-19 cases worldwide in January and correctly calculated that China would get through the worst of its coronavirus outbreak long before many health experts had predicted. Now he foresees a similar outcome in the United States and the rest of the world. (Mozingo, 3/22)

U.S. hospitals, public health authorities, and digital health companies have quickly deployed online symptom checkers to screen patients for signs of Covid-19. The idea is simple: By using a chatbot powered by artificial intelligence, they can keep anxious patients from inundating emergency rooms and deliver sound health advice from afar. Or at least that was the pitch. (Ross, 3/23)

Tucked deep in the obituary for Charles Recka was an announcement that a Mass celebrating his 87 years of life “will be held at a later date.” Such notices are increasing amid the coronavirus pandemic, as an untold number of burials around the globe go forward with nothing more than a priest, a funeral home employee and a single loved one. (Babwin and Taxin, 3/23)

Former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., the likely Democratic nominee against President Trump in this year’s general election, was asked a question during a virtual fund-raiser on Sunday that reflected a challenge looming over his campaign as the coronavirus outbreak intensifies. “What I’m concerned about is that we see Donald Trump every day with this crisis giving his press report,” said one donor, according to a pool report from the fund-raiser, which was conducted by telephone. “And I would just love to see you more. Like, how do we get more of you and less of him on our airwaves?” (Kaplan, 3/22)

Former Vice President Joe Biden said Sunday he will begin broadcasting regular briefings about the coronavirus pandemic from his home in Delaware, following criticism from some on the left that he’s been absent as the public health crisis has escalated. During a telefundraiser on Sunday, a donor told Biden that he wanted to see the former vice president cut a more public profile when it comes to the government's coronavirus response. (Easley, 3/22)

In a flash of virus anxiety and social distancing, American electioneering has moved almost entirely online: Voter townhalls are being replaced by digital meetups, campaign rallies are now streamed speeches and donor one-on-ones are moving to FaceTime. In campaign advertising, that shift was long underway, with money moving from old-school broadcast and print ads to a flurry of custom messages on social media and search engines. (Scola, 3/23)

The impeachment furor that consumed Washington for nearly a year has dissipated amid a far more urgent political storm: the coronavirus outbreak. Any trace of President Donald Trump’s impeachment has vanished from Capitol Hill, cable news and the campaign trail. And long gone is the pervasive sense of anxiety that once gripped vulnerable Democrats after their votes to impeach Trump, which they feared could cost them their seats and possibly control of the House. (Ferris and Mutnick, 3/23)

Election officials in states with restrictive absentee requirements are looking for ways to allow as many voters as possible to use absentee ballots, a safer alternative to in-person voting in a global pandemic. If this crisis continues into November, however, some experts warn that a pivot to voting by mail could strain state resources and disenfranchise certain voters if not handled properly. (Vasilogambros, 3/23)

Richard Curren and his wife, Sheila, were living out their retirement at Atria Willow Wood, a Fort Lauderdale, Florida, assisted living facility near their daughter and two grandchildren, when he started feeling weak and had trouble breathing. The former travel agent had suffered from respiratory problems in the past, and, at first, family members weren’t overly concerned. “He was just sick, and you don’t immediately run to the ER,” said their daughter, Tracy Curren Wieder. (Miller and Lefever, 3/22)

As senior care centers across the country scrambled this week to bolster their defenses against the coronavirus, dozens discovered it already was inside. Across the United States, the numbers of reported cases of coronavirus at nursing homes, assisted living facilities and other elder care centers have spiked, with at least 73 facilities in 22 states reporting infections, according to a review by The Washington Post of reports from states, local media and nursing homes. (Whoriskey, Sacchetti and Webster, 3/21)

Before Washington state banned eating at restaurants as part of an effort to slow the spread of the coronavirus, Kathleen Fearn-Banks got an email from a restaurant in her Seattle neighborhood explaining how it was keeping things clean. Ms. Fearn-Banks, an associate professor at the University of Washington and the author of “Crisis Communications,” was so impressed that she wrote back to applaud its efforts and visited the restaurant soon after. (Kornelis, 3/23)

The deadly coronavirus outbreak has shuttered schools and businesses, wreaked havoc on the stock market and left some grocery store shelves bare. And if that isn’t enough, it’s also spawned a swarm of scam robocalls seeking to prey on Americans’ fears. Every day for the past week, fraudsters have placed an estimated 1 million or more suspected suspicious calls about the coronavirus to Americans’ smartphones, according to YouMail, which offers an app that blocks such unwanted telecom intrusions. (Romm, 3/19)

A new COVID-19 project from one of Google’s sister companies is the latest big-tech foray into healthcare to spark privacy concerns. Verily Life Sciences, a research subsidiary of Alphabet, last week released a website designed to screen users for COVID-19 risk—and, for those who qualify, point them to mobile testing sites set up by the company. It’s part of Project Baseline, a data initiative Verily launched in 2017 to support clinical research and collect enough data to one day “map” human health. (Cohen, 3/21)

The coronavirus pandemic has forced businesses in Philadelphia to make changes to their operations to help stop the spread of the new coronavirus. For many companies, this is the first time they’ve let employees work from home en masse. For others, the outbreak has accelerated existing trends in technology, from eateries offering online delivery to studios releasing new movies for streaming. (Hetrick, 3/22)

While most Americans huddle inside their homes watching and worrying as the coronavirus pandemic stalks the country, desperate emails have poured into ProPublica, some almost shouting their fears for the unseen victims of the vast and unprecedented national shutdown. A Florida social worker wrote of her panic for her developmentally disabled clients, who are shut in their homes, unable to even use the bathroom without help. What will happen to them if she and her colleagues fall ill? (Sapien, Thompson, Raghavendran and Rose, 3/21)

Her daughter, who is a toddler, is in foster care and Jessica is part of a mother-and-child program that provides a home and mental health and drug treatment services for moms who either live with their kids, or who have children in foster care. Jessica asked that NPR only use her first name because of pending legal cases related to the custody of her daughter, which she is working to regain.But now she doesn't know when she'll see her child again. (Fadel, 3/21)

As infections soared in Europe and the United States and the world economy spiraled downward, Japan on Monday hinted at the next possible victim of the globe-spanning coronavirus: The 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe acknowledged that a postponement of the crown jewel of the sporting world could be unavoidable. Canada and Australia then added to the immense pressure that has been steadily mounting on organizers by suggesting that they wouldn’t send athletes to Tokyo this summer. (Klug, 3/23)

Japanese authorities finally bowed to the inevitable on Monday and said they would start planning for a possible postponement of the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics due to the coronavirus pandemic, with a decision expected within four weeks. Yoshiro Mori, president of the Tokyo 2020 Organizing Committee, said on Monday the decision to consider a postponement but not a cancellation of the Games had been agreed with International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach on Sunday. Bach himself wrote to athletes on Sunday to break the news to them. (Denyer and Kashiwagi, 3/23)

The IOC has been criticized for taking a full-steam-ahead approach to the Games’ July 24 start date, failing to acknowledge the possibility of a delay despite a rising global death toll and the shutdown of many nations’ athletic-training facilities. It changed course on Sunday by saying it would assess the world-wide health situation and consult with the Tokyo 2020 Organizing Committee, Japanese authorities and the Tokyo Metropolitan Government. The IOC didn’t detail possible postponement scenarios but said cancellation isn’t being considered. (Bachman, Radnofsky and Robinson, 3/22)

As Italy’s coronavirus infections ticked above 400 cases and deaths hit the double digits, the leader of the governing Democratic Party posted a picture of himself clinking glasses for “an aperitivo in Milan,” urging people “not to change our habits.” That was on Feb. 27. Not 10 days later, as the toll hit 5,883 infections and 233 dead, the party boss, Nicola Zingaretti, posted a new video, this time informing Italy that he, too, had the virus. Italy now has more than 53,000 recorded infections and more than 4,800 dead, and the rate of increase keeps growing, with more than half the cases and fatalities coming in the past week. (Horowitz, Bubola and Povoledo, 3/21)

Italy banned travel within the country on Sunday in yet another attempt to slow the spread of the coronavirus, as data showed a further 651 people had died from the disease, lifting the number of fatalities to 5,476. (Balmer and Amante, 3/22)

President Donald Trump sent a personal letter to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, seeking to maintain good relations and offering cooperation in fighting the coronavirus pandemic, Kim’s sister said Sunday. The latest correspondence came as Kim observed the firing of tactical guided weapons over the weekend, drawing criticism from South Korea, as nuclear talks remain deadlocked. (Kim, 3/22)

South Korea reported on Monday its lowest number of new coronavirus cases and the extended downward trend in daily infections since the peak on Feb. 29 has boosted hopes that Asia’s largest outbreak outside China may be abating. (Shin, 3/22)

Down on earth, the coronavirus outbreak was felling lives, livelihoods and normalcy. A nation-spanning blessing seemed called for. So up went a priest in a small airplane, rumbling overhead at an epidemiologically safe distance from the troubles below, wielding a sacred golden vessel from a cockpit-turned-pulpit. Before his flight over Lebanon, a soldier at an airport checkpoint asked the Rev. Majdi Allawi if he had a mask and hand sanitizer. (Yee, 3/22)

The Spanish government sought to extend until April 11 a state of emergency that it has imposed to try to control Europe’s second-worst outbreak of coronavirus while some regions on Sunday asked for harsher confinement measures to combat the pandemic. (Faus, 3/22)

A team of firefighters and volunteers turned a 15,000-square-foot convention center hall in Vienna into an 880-bed coronavirus hospital over the course of a weekend. Soldiers in Germany, France and Spain have been deployed to help build similar temporary facilities for thousands of patients. Across Europe, tens of thousands of nurses and doctors are being graduated early or called back from retirement. (Morris, Booth and Beck, 3/22)

Governments world-wide are increasingly imposing mandatory restrictions on residents to force people to keep their distance from each other, stepping up efforts to slow the global spread of the coronavirus as cases surged past 330,000. New Zealand said it would impose a lockdown and move to the highest stage of alert, closing schools from Tuesday. India started a lockdown on a number of states and Australia enforced a shutdown of restaurants and bars after saying relying on voluntary measures wasn’t doing enough to flatten the upward curve of new infections. Globally, the death toll from Covid-19, the pneumonia-like disease caused by the virus, hit 14,706. (Khan, 3/23)

Arie Even had a knack for survival. As a youth, with the help of his grandfather, he managed to hide out in a countryside basement from the Nazis who slaughtered more than 500,000 Jews in his native Hungary. At 39, while serving as an Israeli envoy to Brussels, he crammed his family of six into a Renault 8, fleeing a summer holiday in Spain when a cholera outbreak threatened to engulf them. (Tarnopolsky, 3/22)

It’s not easy being a national treasure. “I’m exhausted,” confessed Tony Fauci when I reached him Thursday evening in the middle of another 18-hour workday. “I have changed my tune a bit, probably thanks to my wife,” said the 79-year-old director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. “About a week ago, I was going about four or five days in a row on about three hours of sleep, which is completely crazy, ’cause then I’ll be going on fumes. The last couple of nights, I’ve gotten five hours’ sleep, so I feel much better.” (Maureen Dowd, 3/21)

Even this far into his term, it is still a bit of a shock to be reminded that the single most potent force for misinforming the American public is the current president of the United States. For three years this has been a massive — and unsolved — problem for the country and its political leadership. But now it is life and death. On everything that involves the coronavirus Donald Trump’s public statements have been unreliable. And that is why today we announce that we are shifting our coverage of the President to an emergency setting. (Jay Rosen, 3/19)

More and more each day, President Trump is using his daily briefings as a substitute for the campaign rallies that have been forced into extinction by the spread of the novel coronavirus. These White House sessions — ostensibly meant to give the public critical and truthful information about this frightening crisis — are in fact working against that end. Rather, they have become a daily stage for Trump to play his greatest hits to captive audience members. They come in search of life-or-death information, but here’s what they get from him instead: Self-aggrandizement. (Margaret Sullivan, 3/21)

One of the first acts of the federal precursor to the Food and Drug Administration in 1916 was to crack down on the sale of a cowboy's cure-all called Stanley's Snake Oil, which government chemists discovered promised much more than it delivered. The product helped give rise to the expression snake-oil salesman. If Donald Trump wasn't quite the quintessential snake-oil salesman at a news briefing this week and on Twitter Saturday — touting preliminary and even unproven medical remedies to the new coronavirus pandemic — he came disturbingly close. (Mark Zuckerman and Andrew Stettner, 3/22)

President Trump has promised to unite the full force of the federal government with the full power of American enterprise to respond to the China Wuhan virus – and the response from the private sector has been overwhelming. To understand just how this is working – and to let you, the American people, know that businesses are stepping up to help as you deal with the China coronavirus crisis by staying safe at home – let me quickly describe a week in the life here at the White House. This will help illustrate just how hard everyone is working across the federal government to break down barriers in Trump Time, which is to say as quickly as possible. (Peter Navarro, 3/22)

It should be clear now that our leaders in Washington have gotten the memo that the coronavirus poses a crisis. That much should be clear, because the talk in Washington is about passing the largest stimulus package in history.We understand the impulse, and we’re on board with a federal response to this unprecedented crisis. After all, it’s beyond obvious that a large number of Americans are likely now (or in the near future) to apply for unemployment benefits because they’ve been suddenly tossed out of work. What’s more, tens of millions of other workers have grown understandably anxious about their economic future. And it is also clear that entire sectors of our economy are getting hammered as the economic activity they live off vanishes. (3/23)

First, the bad news: America’s coronavirus epidemic is only beginning, and the suffering will become more searing over the next two weeks. Hospitals in New York City may soon be overwhelmed. New Orleans, Chicago, San Francisco and Seattle may not be far behind. It will soon be clear why Covid-19 can’t be allowed to rage through the country untamed. The intense restrictions—telling Americans to stay inside in New York, California and other states—are necessary. But so is a path back to a more normal life. Here’s what the priorities should be in the coming weeks, with a focus on preventing new sparks of the virus from turning into the fires of New York and Seattle. (Scott Gottlieb, 3/22)

Covid-19 is a pandemic of remarkable ferocity. The global population lacks immunity because this is the first time in known history that we are confronting this coronavirus. The virus is also highly transmissible. To add to the problem, many people who have been infected experience mild, if any symptoms, and transmit the disease without awareness either of the infected individual or those who they are infecting. (Jeffrey Sachs, 3/22)

The conversation about healthcare policy today is rightly focused on mitigating the COVID-19 pandemic, and ensuring that American hospitals avoid the fate of Italy’s. But while we do that, we cannot completely forget about the other, more familiar crisis in U.S. healthcare: affordability. (Avik Roy, 3/21)

While coronavirus developments unfold by the minute and consume the attention of elected officials, legislation is piling up in Springfield with no easy answer on how to address it. Gov. J.B. Pritzker ordered Illinois residents to shelter in place starting Saturday, and the legislature’s spring session has been indefinitely sidetracked. House and Senate leaders canceled a session for the last full week of March and are working to postpone deadlines for bills that normally would be moving through committees. It’s possible lawmakers will work into the summer — eventually — if the pandemic is under control by then. But what about now? (3/23)

On Friday, an inmate at Massachusetts Treatment Center, a prison in Bridgewater, tested positive for COVID-19. This case may be the tip of the iceberg, as other inmates and prison staff could have been exposed. As infectious diseases physicians and a sheriff working in Massachusetts jails and prisons, we urge the community and the Legislature to recognize the importance of prevention and mitigation in these enclosed environments. Action is urgently needed. (Alysse G. Wurcel, David R. Stone, and Peter J. Koutoujian, 3/23)

President Donald Trump shot off a furious tweet to Gov. J.B. Pritzker after the Illinois leader told CNN Sunday he needs more federal help to procure masks and other protective equipment sorely needed as the coronavirus pandemic swells.“@JBPritzker Governor of Illinois, and a very small group of certain other Governors, together with Fake News @CNN & Concast (MSDNC), shouldn’t be blaming the Federal Government for their own shortcomings. We are there to back you up should you fail, and always will be!” Trump fumed in the tweet. Trump, grappling with the enormity of this coronavirus catastrophe we are all living through, fell back on his familiar foils: the so-called “fake news,” CNN, Comcast and MSNBC instead of confronting the reality that Illinois and other state governments are hunting for what in federal jargon is called PPE – personal protective equipment gear. (Lynn Sweet, 3/22)

Attorneys across the state are requesting, in appropriate cases, to have their clients’ bail lowered or simply to have them released. Many people awaiting trial pose no threat to public safety, but they themselves are placed at increased risk by reason of pretrial detention. This community-wide change in circumstances requires us to take a fresh look at bail orders for many pretrial detainees. (Anthony Benedetti, 3/22)

With Florida’s economy crashing under the weight of the coronavirus pandemic, Gov. Ron DeSantis is working overtime to preserve our status as the world’s leading exporter of political comedy. Friday, DeSantis mounted the bully pulpit to present House Speaker Jose Oliva, with a baseball bat inscribed with the words “Slayer of the healthcare industrial complex. ”It was a sophomoric bit of messaging on any day. It was inexcusably tone-deaf when the number of confirmed cases of coronavirus in Florida topped 500. At least 10 people had died since the crisis began. There is no operator’s manual for handling the most singular health threat in this country in more than a century. But if there were, we would urge Gov. Gavin Newsom, of California, Gov. Andrew Cuomo, of New York, or Gov. Ned Lamont of Connecticut to share it with Florida’s governor — quickly. (3/22)

My husband has been an emergency physician for 30 years. During that time, I have seen him frustrated because of social problems he can’t solve or depressed from the bureaucracy that medicine has become. I have watched him wander through sleep-deprived days, burnt and crispy from shift work. But I have never seen him truly worried about going to work until the first Covid-19 case was diagnosed in Rhode Island, where we live and work. Jay has been on the front lines of the Covid-19 pandemic. He has worked multiple shifts since it began. Curiously, neither he nor any of his front-line colleagues who show no symptoms have been tested for Covid-19, even though a team of Japanese researchers recently reported that approximately 30% of people infected with the novel coronavirus show no symptoms of Covid-19. Let that number sink in. It means that many of the patients my husband and other health care workers are in contact with who seem “fine” could be vectors for the coronavirus. (Jennifer Hushion, 3/21)

On March 14, the American College of Emergency Physicians announced that two emergency room doctors were in critical condition with COVID-19. One of the physicians, based in Washington state, is only in his 40s. The other doctor, in his 70s, was in charge of emergency preparedness for his hospital in New Jersey. On Thursday, it was reported that two emergency medicine doctors at a hospital in Oak Park, Ill., had tested positive for the coronavirus and were quarantined at home. One of the doctors may have had contact with patients and colleagues before the infection was detected. As an emergency medicine physician myself, I was dismayed and saddened by this news. Emergency room doctors are on the front lines of this pandemic, and we all know that our job comes with inherent risks. We accept those risks, and we carry on providing necessary, life-saving care in the face of this public health emergency. (Gregory Jasani, 3/23)

In the summer of 2014, as I was preparing to fly to West Africa as an emergency responder to the largest Ebola outbreak in history, I sat in my room consumed with fear. I felt like a kid again, standing on the high dive for the very first time, about to plunge into the pool far below. And while that fear dissipated somewhat over the coming weeks as I worked with Liberian and international colleagues to launch a new Ebola treatment center in Bong County, Liberia, it never went away entirely. My experiences in Liberia taught me that courage is not the absence of fear — it is doing what you know you must even when you are terrified. (Adam Levine, 3/21)

In 1918, a white scarf tied to the door of my grandmother’s family’s apartment on the North Side of Chicago alerted the community to a virus residing within. My grandmother, then age 3, was one of 500 million people worldwide — one-third of the planet’s population— who was infected with what came to be known as the Spanish influenza. It killed an estimated 50 million people. She was quarantined in her room, unable to communicate with the outside world. Her parents and older sister stayed in their apartment, heeding city-wide warnings to avoid exposing others in their community to the disease. (Kara N. Goldman, 3/23)

Without swift action, parts of the United States will run out of ventilators in the coming weeks. Early signals from New York and Seattle are alarming: both cities are already reporting intensive care unit bed shortages and looming ventilator shortages, weeks before the estimated peak of the projected coronavirus caseload. On March 15, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told CNN that there are only 12,700 ventilators in the national strategic stockpile. (Daniel M. Horn, 3/22)

A flash of potential good news from the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic: A treatment is showing promise. Doctors in France, South Korea and the U.S. are using an antimalarial drug known as hydroxychloroquine with success. We are physicians treating patients with Covid-19, and the therapy appears to be making a difference. It isn’t a silver bullet, but if deployed quickly and strategically the drug could potentially help bend the pandemic’s “hockey stick” curve. (Jeff Colyer and Daniel Hinthorn, 3/22)

What scientists know about Covid-19 is changing fast. And people — from the public to politicians to the press — are confusing the possible with the probable. It’s causing a lot of undue guilt and fear. In times like these, we turn to experts — but what are we supposed to think when the experts themselves are so uncertain? We’re faced with a torrent of new data, much of which is noise, but the pace of genuine scientific understanding can only go so fast. Journals have loosened their standard for papers on Covid-19 to help scientists share information. But not every new finding is going to hold up. (Faye Flam, 3/21)

The President, the Governors, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and medical experts have given us little good news these last few weeks. But thanks to the magic of free enterprise, there is one fear we can alleviate: the idea that America is running out of toilet paper. The scare is leading to some unusual behavior. And more than typical hoarding. In Florida—where else?—police arrested a man after a security guard for an Orlando Marriott found him with 66 rolls of the hotel’s toilet paper in his car. Nebraska’s Department of Transportation said it would close down unattended rest stops along I-80 because drivers were pilfering rolls. In North Carolina deputies trailed a stolen 18-wheeler to a warehouse where they learned it was being used to transport 18,000 pounds of toilet paper and other bathroom paper products. Meanwhile in London, members of the Eltham Terrace Club played a game of power using rolls instead of cash because of the increasing value. (3/22)

I started the week determined to become the perfect home-schooling parent. What could possibly go wrong? My great-niece, who lives with me, would work on her laptop. I would work on mine. We would break for lunch, then resume our work until 3 or so.In preparation, because I am on top of this thing, I rearranged the living room to make it look more like a classroom. Down came a favorite painting. Up went a big, white dry-erase board. Here, on this blank slate, I would create the perfect home-school schedule. (Robin Abcarian, 3/22)

Few things will be as critical to our well-being in the weeks ahead as the food supply chain that sustains us all — from the corner grocery to the mega-supermarket to food delivery services. Hospital workers will care for the sickest among us, but it is those grocery store workers who will care for and feed the rest of us. (3/20)

When the coronavirus finally landed in Massachusetts, it landed hard, and changed everything. Our lives were upended in the blink of an eye. From the first case confirmed in the state on Feb. 1, it was only five weeks before we were being asked to practice social distancing to help “flatten the curve.” But six months pregnant, I needed to know: Would my baby be safe? Would I be safe? When will this be over? And what then? (Anica Butler, 3/20)