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With the Democratic presidential contest down to a two-person race, Senator Bernie Sanders has declared that he will wield his signature issue, Medicare for all, as a crucial distinction between his campaign and the surging candidacy of former Vice President Joseph R. Biden. “Joe essentially wants to maintain what I consider to be a dysfunctional and cruel health care system,” Mr. Sanders said this week, adding that he hoped they could devote an entire debate to the issue. But an even bigger hurdle than winning the presidency stands between Mr. Sanders and his goal of generous government health insurance for all Americans: Congress. (Goodnough and Abelson, 3/9)

At campaign events over the past year, Mr. Sanders has spoken to tens of thousands of people who come to hear his message of political revolution — who come to imagine a country with universal health care, no student debt and a $15 minimum wage. Almost every line he says onstage rises to a crescendo, inviting cheers of appreciation. With every promise and policy proposal, the crowd becomes a sea of waving blue and white signs with the “Bernie” logo. The Sanders campaign has exposed a class divide within the Democratic Party: His promises of a leg up are most alluring to those who need it, and most confounding to those who do not. (Medina and Ember, 3/9)

It is a common refrain from Bernie Sanders on the campaign trail: The United States is the only developed country that does not provide health coverage to all residents. “Canada can provide universal health care to all their people at half the cost,” he said at a recent Democratic debate. “The U.K. can do it. France can do it. Germany can do it. All of Europe can do it.” Mr. Sanders is right: All these countries provide universal coverage. But what he doesn’t talk about is the excruciating battle they went through to get there. (Bui and Kliff, 3/10)

Speaker Nancy Pelosi is preparing to unveil a sweeping plan to lower the cost of health care, moving to address the top concern of voters while giving moderate Democrats who face tough re-election races a way to distance themselves from the Medicare for All plan embraced by the progressive left and derided by Republicans as socialism. The legislation, timed to coincide with the 10th anniversary of the Affordable Care Act, is part of a major push by Democrats to position themselves as the party of health care before the 2020 elections. (Stolberg, 3/9)

Republican senators in competitive re-election races have quietly moved toward supporting a provider-friendly surprise billing proposal that appeared to have stalled. As a May 22 deadline to fund expiring healthcare programs gets closer, several vulnerable GOP senators have announced their support for a surprise billing proposal pushed by Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) that has been shelved by committee leadership. (Cohrs, 3/6)

President Donald Trump stood before about 500 of the Republican Party’s biggest patrons at his Mar-a-Lago resort on Friday and raised a topic few in the audience expected: Joe Biden’s mental capacity. Trump walked the donors through a list of Biden’s recent verbal stumbles, such as his recent declaration that he was running for Senate and his assertion that 150 million Americans had been killed by gun violence since 2007. Trump questioned whether the former vice president had the mental stamina to sustain the rigors of a general election campaign. (Isenstadt, 3/10)

President Donald Trump says his administration will ask Congress to pass payroll tax relief and other quick measures as a public health and economic maelstrom brought on by the coronavirus drew closer to him personally. Intending to calm the fears of financial markets over the impact of the epidemic, Trump told reporters Monday he is seeking “very substantial relief” to the payroll tax. Trump also said he was seeking help for hourly-wage workers to ensure they’re “not going to miss a paycheck” and “don’t get penalized for something that’s not their fault.” (3/10)

“It’s not their fault,” he said of affected workers. “It’s not our country’s fault. This was something that we were thrown into and we’re going to handle it and we have been handling it very well.” He added, “The main thing is that we’re taking care of the American public and we will be taking care of the American public.” (Baker, Haberman and Karni, 3/9)

Trump has long advocated for a cut in the payroll tax — a tax paid by companies and employees to fund Social Security — to stimulate the economy. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin suggested that it would be a temporary move. "The economy will be in very good shape a year from now. This is not like the financial crisis," Mnuchin said. "This is about providing proper tools of liquidity to go through the next few months." (Gregorian, 3/9)

Trade adviser Peter Navarro—backed by Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser, and legislative affairs director Eric Ueland—argued in favor of pushing for a payroll tax cut now, the people said. On the other side, National Economic Council Director Lawrence Kudlow and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin called instead for narrowly targeted measures aimed at helping workers without sick leave and businesses facing virus-related disruptions, the people said. They questioned how expensive and how effective a payroll tax cut would be. (Restuccia and Davidson, 3/9)

House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, the top two Democrats in Congress, told reporters that any payroll tax cut should be limited to those affected by the virus. They also said they are crafting new legislation, on the heels of $8.3 billion coronavirus funding enacted last week, that might be ready to be introduced this week. (3/10)

Democrats panned the idea of industry-specific relief. But there is bipartisan momentum behind some sort of expanded leave benefit for individuals forced to stay home from work without pay due to coronavirus-related quarantines, forced school closures or company policies. Finding a way to get school meals into the hands of low-income children forced to stay home due to school closures also has some support on both sides. (Sword and Lesniewski, 3/9)

Kudlow said last week that the Trump administration was considering “targeted” economic relief for certain sectors hurting from the coronavirus. Administration officials have rejected the idea of a larger stimulus package, and Kudlow, like Trump, has insisted that the economy remains strong. (Samuels, Chalfant and Lane, 3/9)

Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill said Monday that they could unveil their proposal for a second round of economic relief surrounding the coronavirus outbreak as early as this week. Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) are floating a series of legislative reforms designed to combat the spread of the coronavirus and provide economic relief to those most directly affected. (Lillis, 3/9)

President Trump confronted one of the most perilous days of his presidency Monday by first erupting in a barrage of commentary that failed to calm the cratering financial markets, struggling to inspire confidence that his administration could stop the spread of the novel coronavirus. But by the time the sun set in Washington, Trump sounded momentarily chastened by the turbulence and previewed a raft of emergency measures to shore up the economy. “We have a very strong economy,” the president told reporters, “but this blindsided the world.” (Rucker, Costa, Parker and Dawsey, 3/9)

Then there was the blame game. One senior administration official blamed the national security staff for bungling the early coronavirus response. Other aides blamed the vice president’s office, which has taken the lead on the response. “The Office of the Vice President seems way in over their heads,” one White House official said, referring to the coordination and messaging. “They don’t know what they’re doing.” Separately, some aides took issue with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield, who’d dutifully stood by Trump during his Friday visit to the Atlanta agency and commended the president for his “decisive leadership.” (Cook, 3/9)

The fast-spreading coronavirus and a plunge in oil prices set off a chain reaction in financial markets on Monday, a self-perpetuating downward cycle that could inflict serious harm on the global economy. What started last month as unease about a potential economic slowdown in China has evolved into a borderline panic, with the S&P 500 on Monday crashing nearly 8 percent. The mayhem is threatening to roil the underlying global financial system and the abilities of companies large and small to survive a potential economic monsoon — a downward spiral that is fed and intensified by these destructive forces. (Phillips, Eavis and Enrich, 3/9)

The Dow Jones industrial average shed 2,014 points, or 7.8 percent, on Monday, the largest decline since the financial crisis. Stocks fells so sharply, they tripped a so-called “circuit breaker” that halted trading for 15 minutes. Oil prices tumbled 25 percent, its worst day since the 1991 Gulf War, as the coronavirus weakens demand for fuel, with Saudi Arabia and Russia refusing to scale back production. (Long, Heath, Englund and Telford, 3/9)

Investors remained wary about the outlook for global markets, noting that stocks remain well below where they started the week. President Trump’s pledges to discuss measures such as cutting payroll taxes with Congress to ease the economic pain caused by the coronavirus outbreak were met with cautious optimism. “You could call it a dead-cat bounce,” Altaf Kassam, head of investment strategy for Europe, the Middle East and Africa at State Street Global Advisors, said of the rally in markets Tuesday. “If there’s more fiscal and local economic policy by governments, that could be a good Band-Aid to staunch the bleeding.” (Wallace and Yu, 3/10)

"President Trump is leading a whole of government response with the vice president helping him on the public health issues we're facing with the novel coronavirus. That is his number one concern in terms of the economy. He and his economic team have the tools to keep this economy going strong," Azar then told reporters at the White House Monday. "But the public heath and protecting the American people is the number one priority for all of us." (Cathey, 3/9)

As the severity of the coronavirus outbreak was becoming clear, Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri sent a letter to the Food and Drug Administration arguing that the crisis was revealing a dangerous dependence on China in one key area. “The novel coronavirus in China highlights severe, longstanding, and unresolved vulnerabilities in our capacity to produce lifesaving pharmaceutical drugs and medical devices for our own citizens,” Mr. Hawley wrote. “This is unacceptable.” (Seib, 3/9)

Reaction was trending on Twitter Monday to a meme President Donald Trump retweeted about himself -- one originally from the White House social media director -- that caused critics to compare his handling of the coronavirus crisis to the story of emperor Nero fiddling while Rome burned. The image also apparently included a QAnon slogan, the Washington Post reported. (Muwahed, 3/9)

Vice President Mike Pence invited top executives from the largest U.S. health insurers to discuss the response to the coronavirus outbreak on Tuesday, as the White House sought to signal a more muscular effort to stem the outbreak and stock markets again stumbled. (Wadhams, Jacobs and Mohsin, 3/9)

The United States is one of the only rich countries not requiring employers to give their workers paid time off when they’re sick. It has become an urgent issue for more Americans because of the coronavirus outbreak. Citing the crisis, Democrats in Congress are trying to pass a new version of a sick leave bill that has been stalled in Congress since 2004 — and expand it to add 14 days of immediately accessible paid sick leave in the case of a public health emergency. (Miller, 3/10)

Marty Flynn knows Orlando’s restaurants. The son of a bartender, he is 29 and has already worked at six. Chili’s. Bahama Breeze. Crave. Johnnie’s Hideaway. The Meatball Stoppe. Now he’s a sushi chef. “Every restaurant I’ve worked at, it’s been the same: No sick leave,” Flynn said, just like it was with his mom, the bartender. “I remember being home alone as a kid because I was sick and she couldn’t take time off. You just have to work through it unless you’re dying.” (Bhattarai and Whoriskey, 3/9)

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) became the first federal agency to direct some employees to work from home due to fears of a coronavirus case on Monday. In an email to staff first reported by The Washington Post, SEC officials asked employees working on the ninth floor of the agency's Washington, D.C., headquarters to stay home after an employee reported symptoms and was informed by a doctor that they may have coronavirus and should be tested. (Bowden, 3/9)

A barber in Beijing is supporting his wife and child by charging food and other expenses to a credit card while he waits for his employer's shop to reopen. A waiter at a barbecue restaurant in Kansas City, Missouri, washes his hands more often and hopes for the best. A parcel delivery driver in Britain worries about getting sick from the people who sign for their packages. While white collar workers trying to avoid contagion can work from home or call in sick if they experience symptoms of the virus, such precautions are not an options for the millions of waiters, delivery workers, cashiers, ride-hailing drivers, museum attendants and countless others who routinely come into contact with the public. (Chan and Anderson, 3/10)

For many companies, the first call to slow the spread of the coronavirus is telling employees to hunker down and work remotely. But that's simply not an option for workers like Hughes — home or health aides, who look after some of the most vulnerable, sometimes themselves without health insurance and earning very little. (Selyukh, 3/9)

Congressional leaders face an increasingly irreconcilable challenge: insulating the nation from the fallout of the coronavirus epidemic while protecting themselves from contracting the illness. Speaker Nancy Pelosi made clear Monday there are no plans to shut down the Capitol — or restrict public visitors — even as roughly a half-dozen lawmakers announced plans to self-quarantine and alarm spread across Capitol Hill and the country about the fallout from the virus. (Caygle and Cheney, 3/9)

They traverse the country every week by plane, appear at events with hundreds of people and shake countless hands. They work in a sprawling complex with a constant influx of tourists. And two-thirds of them are over the age of 60. In other words, U.S. senators are among those most at-risk of contracting — and potentially succumbing — to the coronavirus that is spreading rapidly around the globe. (Desiderio and Levine, 3/9)

Pressure is mounting on congressional leaders to cancel votes and restrict activity in the Capitol to avert a coronavirus outbreak. Several lawmakers appearing at the recent American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) conference and Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) gatherings in the Washington, D.C., area interacted with individuals who have since tested positive for the highly contagious virus. (Wong and Lillis, 3/9)

On Monday, as Congress returned to the Capitol with a rapidly growing roster of members exposed to the new coronavirus, leaders and high-ranking officials could not agree on who has the ultimate authority to change security and health protocols on the Hill, where thousands of lawmakers, staffers and visitors interact every day. At the end of a remarkably unsettling day, Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced Monday that despite several lawmakers being under self-quarantine after coming in contact with people infected with the coronavirus, there will not be changes to the House schedule and legislative work will continue as planned — at least for now. (Tully-McManus, 3/9)

Members of congressional leadership moved quickly Monday to shoot down speculation that Congress could change it schedule — or shut down the Capitol altogether — over concerns about the coronavirus. The comments by leadership in both chambers come amid growing anxiety on Capitol Hill about the potential influence the virus could have on day-to-day workings within the building, and as five lawmakers have said they are self-quarantining after being exposed to someone with the coronavirus. (Carney, 3/9)

The incoming White House chief of staff, Rep. Mark Meadows of North Carolina, was among three Republican congressmen who said Monday that they were quarantining themselves because of suspected contact with a confirmed carrier of the coronavirus. A spokesman, Ben Williamson, said that Meadows learned this weekend that he “may have come in contact” with the individual who attended the annual Conservative Political Action Conference in suburban Washington late last month. Meadows tested negative for the virus and is not displaying symptoms but is remaining home in self-quarantine until Wednesday, Williamson said in a statement. (DeBonis, 3/9)

The number of congressional lawmakers who are placing themselves into self-quarantine grew to six Monday, because of contacts with people who have tested positive for coronavirus infections, ramping up concerns on Capitol Hill about vulnerability to an outbreak. Five Republicans said they were taking the step after learning that they had contact with an individual at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference who has now been diagnosed with a coronavirus infection. Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) and Rep. Paul Gosar (R., Ariz.) made the announcement on Sunday, followed by Reps. Mark Meadows (R., N.C.), Doug Collins (R., Ga.) and Matt Gaetz (R., Fla.) on Monday. Mr. Meadows has been named by President Trump as the next White House chief of staff. (Hughes and Leary, 3/9)

The exposure of seven lawmakers brings the coronavirus into stark relief for lawmakers and raises new questions about whether the work of Congress will be affected. They are a group of generally older people who frequently fly on planes and attend large events where they shake hands with many people. Congressional leaders on Monday said there was no need to alter operations. “At the present time, there is no reason for us not to continue with our vital legislative work in the Capitol,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) wrote in a letter to Democrats. (Haberkorn, 3/9)

Georgia Rep. Doug Collins announced he'd been informed there's a photo of him with the Conservative Political Action Conference attendee who tested positive for the virus. He shook hands with Trump on the tarmac at Dobbins Air Reserve Base in Marietta, Georgia, Friday and then joined the president on a tour of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. (Cathey, 3/9)

Days after Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) wore an enormous gas mask during a House floor vote on an emergency funding package for the coronavirus response, the congressman announced that he would self-quarantine for 14 days after coming into contact with a Conservative Political Action Conference participant who tested positive for the novel coronavirus. (Bellware and Gassata, 3/9)

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) returned to Congress on Monday, despite potentially being exposed to the coronavirus, saying he was advised by a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) physician that going into self-quarantine isn't necessary. Gohmert said a House physician informed him that he could have been exposed to the virus at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), in a Twitter statement posted Monday.The Texas representative said he was then contacted by a CDC physician who said he could go back to Washington. (Coleman, 3/9)

Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), who President Trump last week selected as his next acting chief of staff, will self-quarantine at his home after learning that he may have come into contact with a person who later tested positive for the novel coronavirus, his office said. "Out of an abundance of caution, Meadows received testing which came back negative," Meadows spokesman Ben Williamson said. "While he’s experiencing zero symptoms, under doctors’ standard precautionary recommendations, he'll remain at home until the 14 day period expires this Wednesday." (Wise, 3/9)

Sen. Pat Roberts says his staff cited concerns about COVID-19 in trying to persuade him to cancel an appearance Monday at the School Nutrition Association’s gathering of several hundred people from across the country. Roberts, R-Kan., put those concerns aside and spoke to a friendly and enthusiastic audience, urging them to lay out the need for a child nutrition reauthorization that sets policies for the federal school lunch and breakfast programs, after-school feeding programs for children, summer feeding programs for low-income children and the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) supplemental nutrition program. (Ferguson, 3/9)

A CPAC attendee infected with coronavirus attended multiple days of the conference on a gold-level VIP ticket as well as a Friday night Shabbat dinner associated with the event, according to people familiar with the situation. The infected attendee was a CPAC regular who made a hobby of meeting high-profile conference speakers and taking photographs with them. His gold-level ticket gave him access to a private lounge directly outside the green room for speakers on the conference’s main stage. (Schreckinger, 3/9)

Air Force One touched down near Orlando on Monday, and President Trump disembarked, shaking hands with local politicians on the tarmac before heading directly to a rope line where he grasped the outstretched hands of supporters. It was a routine photo op — but one that has some former Secret Service agents flagging as unsafe and worth scaling back or ending entirely amid the threat of the highly contagious novel coronavirus. (Nakamura, 3/9)

President Trump has not been tested for the novel coronavirus, the White House said in a statement late Monday, despite being in contact with multiple lawmakers who have since gone into self-imposed quarantine. "The President has not received COVID-19 testing because he has neither had prolonged close contact with any known confirmed COVID-19 patients, nor does he have any symptoms," White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said in a statement. "President Trump remains in excellent health, and his physician will continue to closely monitor him." (Samuels, 3/9)

President Trump on Monday left a White House press briefing without taking questions about his own health after being in contact with lawmakers who have gone into self-quarantine over coronavirus concerns. Vice President Pence shortly thereafter told reporters he did not know if Trump has been tested for the coronavirus, but assured them he would try to find out. Pence added that he has not personally been tested. (Samuels, 3/9)

The White House insists President Donald Trump doesn't need a coronavirus test, despite several members of his political circle self-quarantining after they came into contact with a man later diagnosed with the disease. They include Florida GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz, who rode in "The Beast" limousine with Trump in the Sunshine State on Monday, before climbing up the steps of Air Force One behind the President. Incoming White House chief of staff Mark Meadows is also staying home until Wednesday despite his test coming back negative. Another Trump friend, Rep. Doug Collins, a Georgia Republican, was pictured shaking hands with the President on Friday. (Collinson, 3/10)

The name Covid-19 was clinical and nondescript, and that was exactly the point when the World Health Organization revealed it to guard against stigmatization of the place from which it originated. But a month later, the recommended terminology for the coronavirus has not extended to every corner of politics. Some conservative politicians and officials, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, are using “Wuhan virus,” a term that proliferated on news sites and in political commentary, mostly before the virus received an official name. (Rogers, 3/10)

Can any American who's sick get tested for the worrisome new coronavirus? That's been a complicated question, one that's left doctors, patients and some health experts frustrated and concerned. U.S. health officials say more and more public and private laboratories are now able to test for the virus. But some experts have wondered why it's taken so long, and what that means to efforts to spot and stop the outbreak's spread. (3/9)

Germany has confirmed more than 1,100 cases of the new coronavirus but — so far — just two deaths, far fewer than other European countries with a similar number of reported infections. Experts said Monday that rapid testing as the outbreak unfolded meant Germany has probably diagnosed a much larger proportion of those who have been infected, including younger patients who are less likely to develop serious complications. (3/9)

Quest Diagnostics Inc. made coronavirus tests available on Monday in California as part of a broader roll-out meant to dramatically expand the U.S.’s capacity to identify new cases. The company’s effort began when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration gave companies greater leeway to develop their own tests Feb. 29, Chief Executive Officer Steve Rusckowski said in an interview. Quest sprang into action, obtaining specimens of the virus from South Korea, he said. (Court, 3/9)

Over the weekend, health officials in California nearly doubled the number of people tested for COVID-19. Yet with thousands of people being monitored for the new coronavirus, as of Monday the total still only amounts to 942 people, according to the California Department of Public Health. Medical professionals say that’s not nearly enough given the spread of the coronavirus in the state. (Stark, 3/9)

Health insurers should waive their policyholders’ cost-sharing charges for testing for COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, Georgia’s state insurance and fire safety commissioner said in a directive issued Monday. Insurers should also boost their preparedness, keep customers informed about their benefits and share how they are responding to the state directive, said Insurance and Fire Safety Commissioner John King. He called the spread of the disease an “urgent public health challenge.” (Redmon, 3/9)

When asked what kept him up at night, Ben Wikler, who is responsible for delivering a must-win state in November as chairman of the Wisconsin Democratic Party, used to answer, “unknown unknowns.” He no longer has to wonder what such a risk might look like. Presidential campaigns, parties and state election officials are scrambling to heed health warnings while safeguarding the democratic process against a growing coronavirus epidemic whose scope is difficult to predict. (Stanley-Becker and Viebeck, 3/9)

The high-contact tradition of presidential campaigning, including crowded rallies and rope-line handshakes, is being tested as fears of the coronavirus have triggered event cancellations and the outbreak threatens to fundamentally alter the nature of this year’s race. The search for a balance between campaigning and the protection of voters and candidates comes as the one Republican and two Democrats in contention for the job are all in their 70s, part of the demographic considered at greatest risk to suffer complications. (McCormick and Lucey, 3/9)

It was far from politics as usual at the candidates’ events in Michigan. Supporters of Biden received squirts of germ-killing hand sanitizer as they entered a school gymnasium in Detroit for a rally Monday night. Earlier in the day at the city’s airport, Sanders joined medical experts for a town hall that served as a coronavirus discussion. (Beason, 3/9)

On the eve of Michigan's primary election, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders halted his campaign to host a public health roundtable at the Westin Hotel at Detroit Metro Airport, focusing primarily on the global coronavirus outbreak, which ballooned Monday afternoon to 605 cases and 22 deaths in the U.S. Calling President Donald Trump's response to the COVID-19 outbreak "vulgar" and "obscene," Sanders pitched his Medicare for All proposal, saying whether you're poor or rich shouldn't matter when it comes to treatment and access to an eventual vaccine. (Shamus, 3/9)

One week after Super Tuesday, voters in six additional states will head to the polls amid the coronavirus crisis that has now reached 36 states and the District of Columbia. As COVID-19 continues to spread across the United States, election officials are closely monitoring the virus as the federal government shifts from a containment strategy into a mitigation phase. (Barr and Cannon, 3/10)

Facing low unemployment rates and a rising stock market, Democrats have struggled to make the case that President Trump’s economy is leaving too many Americans behind. The coronavirus may have changed that. Former Vice President Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders, the Vermont senator, questioned the president’s response to the outbreak Monday as financial markets plunged, arguing that Americans lack confidence that Mr. Trump could steer the U.S. through a crisis and that their anxiety about medical costs could make the outbreak worse. (Thomas and Corse, 3/9)

President Donald Trump seems to be experiencing a different coronavirus crisis than the rest of the country. And his personal vision of it could spell a significant danger to his re-election campaign. For many people, including most of the rest of the government, there's growing fear about the epidemic as it continues to spread into more states. (Allen, 3/9)

As hospitals around the country prepare for an influx of highly infectious coronavirus cases, their supplies of a crucial type of respirator mask are dwindling fast. “We’re not willing to run out of N95 masks,” Dr. Susan Ray, an infectious disease specialist at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta, said in a phone interview, referring to the masks by their technical name. “That’s not O.K. at my hospital.” (Goodnough, 3/9)

Hospitals for years have faced economic pressures to cut costs and reduce in-patient treatments as the nation tried to slow down health spending. Now the hospital industry is facing a reckoning. With a potential surge of coronavirus patients, there may not be enough beds, equipment and staff to handle an epidemic. Executives face tough decisions about who could have to be isolated and, in some cases, need oxygen, ventilators and protective gear that’s already in short supply. (Goldberg and Roubein, 3/10)

Hospitals that are already financially strapped are bracing for even more strain if the coronavirus outbreak gains further momentum in the U.S.It sounds counterintuitive, but a full intensive-care unit can negatively affect a hospital's finances because the units are expensive to operate and patients have varying levels of insurance coverage, experts say. Many hospital ICUs are already crowded with influenza patients. Adding COVID-19 patients into the mix could challenge some providers. (Bannow, 3/9)

Six weeks in, the dozens of doctors, nurses and other staffers leading the emergency response to the novel coronavirus are crammed into a small conference room. They line the walls and sit on the floor. “This is not a secret to anyone in the room: The anxiety is incredibly high in every part of the community and in the hospital,” said Paul Biddinger, a doctor who specializes in emergency medicine and is a key leader of the hospital’s response. (Brown, 3/9)

The U.S. government has a secretive, $7 billion stash of emergency medical equipment — one that it drew on to respond to the terror attacks of 9/11, to prepare for a subsequent threat of anthrax attacks in 2001, and to help thousands of homes guard against Zika with insecticide. The outbreak of the novel coronavirus, however, marks the first potential pandemic to reach U.S. soil since the H1N1 flu of 2009, teeing up one of the biggest challenges yet for the 21-year-old store, known as the Strategic National Stockpile. (Facher, 3/10)

Older Americans, especially those with underlying health conditions, should stockpile supplies and avoid unnecessary travel, a top official at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said Monday. Most Americans are likely at risk of catching the novel strain of the coronavirus, said Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases. Older Americans are especially susceptible to serious outcomes. (Weixel, 3/9)

CVS Health Corp said on Monday it would immediately waive charges for home delivery of prescription medications, in response to the U.S. health agencies urging patients to stay at home amid a fast-spreading coronavirus outbreak. This follows the company's announcement on Friday that its health insurance unit, Aetna, will offer all diagnostic testing and telemedicine visits without any patient cost sharing for the next 90 days. (3/9)

The Food and Drug Administration said on Monday that it had warned seven companies to stop selling products that claim to cure or prevent the coronavirus, saying such products were a threat to public health because they might prompt consumers to stop or delay appropriate medical treatment. It was the first time that the agency, along with the Federal Trade Commission, had issued warning letters for unapproved products related to the coronavirus, which causes the illness Covid-19. (Hauser and Diaz, 3/9)

The targeted products include teas, essential oils and colloidal silver. There is no cure or treatment for covid-19, the federal authorities said. Treatments and vaccines are in the early stages of development and haven’t been fully tested for safety and effectiveness. The only treatment available is supportive care — such as providing oxygen for people who are having trouble breathing. (McGinley, 3/9)

Such scams typically flourish during epidemics of new diseases, including after the 2015-16 Zika virus outbreak. The scams often prominently include glowing testimonials from supposedly cured people, but in fine print state the products aren’t intended to treat or cure any medical condition. The seven companies’ products ranged from inexpensive items to pricey ones, such as Herbal Amy’s $155 Corona Protocol — four bottles of tinctures and tea. (Johnson, 3/9)

New York City acupuncturist and herbalist Clayton Shiu says demand for traditional Chinese remedies has surged at his practice since March 1, the day New York announced its first case of the novel coronavirus. "It was like a light switch was flipped," said Shiu, who had stocked up and had an ample supply of herbs on hand for his patients. (Caspani, 3/9)

As coronavirus sparks a global run on medical supplies, criminals are moving in. Hospitals from Italy to Japan have reported disappearing inventories of newly precious masks and hand sanitizer. Authorities in Ukraine, Taiwan and elsewhere have broken up efforts to smuggle such goods across borders. Authorities in the U.S. and elsewhere also report frauds in which people are tricked into buying nonexistent medical supplies or providing financial information to criminals posing as health workers. (MacDonald, Petroni and Davis, 3/9)

Coronavirus-related products are still for sale across most major social media platforms, including through person-to-person messaging systems, despite some efforts to crack down on black- and gray-market activity around the outbreak. Facebook temporarily banned ads and listings in Marketplace, its Craigslist-style classifieds section for coronavirus masks, on Friday, but searches like "N95 mask surgical mask supplier" on Facebook turned up a variety of marketers selling on Pages and Groups. (Popken, 3/9)

With the deadly virus now present in 100 countries, companies are unable to match demand for the masks needed by health workers. That’s led governments to jockey for supplies, including the U.S., which is stockpiling, and Germany and South Korea, which banned exports of masks altogether. (Ha, 3/10)

The Grand Princess, the cruise ship stranded for days on the high seas off California, sailed into the Port of Oakland on Monday, met by workers in protective gear who marshaled a large-scale quarantine operation for 21 people on board infected with the coronavirus, along with the thousands of other passengers and crew members. For a harbor with a storied history of shipbuilding during the Second World War, this was a moment of humility in the San Francisco Bay. The ship came over the past week to symbolize both the nation’s fear of the disease and the conflicting political signals that have governed the response. (Fuller, Eligon and Gross, 3/9)

When the first planeload of evacuees arrived direct from China in early February, city officials learned that one woman was sick with the novel coronavirus. They said they were told to scramble an ambulance and find her a hospital bed. When the second plane arrived 10 days later from the virus-ridden Diamond Princess cruise ship, the city was told to have seven ambulances waiting on the tarmac. (Hernandez and Satija, 3/9)

Late in the afternoon after hours of waiting, a handful of passengers wearing masks headed toward tan medical tents constructed earlier. State officials said Sunday the 3,000 travelers stuck in limbo since Wednesday would be screened for symptoms before being sent by ambulance for medical treatment if necessary, or board waiting tour buses headed for military bases for a 14-day quarantine. The operation represented a controversial and high-risk move for federal, state and local officials. They had spent days debating the tradeoffs of keeping passengers on board or allowing them to disembark — though more than 1,000 crew members, mostly foreign nationals, will remain quarantined on board. (Chabria, Shalby, Dolan and Myers, 3/10)

“Everyone was hollering and clapping” as the giant vessel sailed under the Golden Gate Bridge and entered the harbor, passenger Karen Schwartz Dever said. About two dozen people who need acute medical care were taken off the ship, although it wasn’t clear how many had tested positive for the new virus, COVID-19, said Brian Ferguson, a spokesman for the California Office of Emergency Services. (Rodriguez and Nguyen, 3/10)

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the State Department are urging Americans to avoid cruise ships as the coronavirus continues to spread, but most sailings are continuing as scheduled, leaving travelers unsure of whether to follow the government’s guidance or continue with their plans. “Recent reports of Covid-19 on cruise ships highlight the risk of infection to cruise ship passengers and crew,” the C.D.C. said in its latest travel advisory. “Like many other viruses, Covid-19 appears to spread more easily between people in close quarters aboard ships.” (Mzezewa and Weed, 3/9)

The U.S. government's coronavirus recommendations tell older adults to avoid crowds, cruises and long plane rides -- advice that one public health official acknowledged won't be welcomed by many. “Our goal is to protect you,” Dr. Nancy Messonnier of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Monday. “This will require you and your family to take action.” (3/9)

A fourth Princess Cruises ship is delaying its docking after notifying the U.S. government that two crew members had transferred from another Princess ship in California where a passenger tested positive for coronavirus. The Caribbean Princess will keep passengers and crew from disembarking after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) gave it a “no sail order.” The CDC gave the order because two crew members had transferred from the California Princess ship where a passenger tested positive, the company said. (Coleman, 3/9)

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, along with the charitable group Wellcome and Mastercard, announced Tuesday that they were launching a $125 million effort to speed up the development of drugs to treat the novel coronavirus. The initiative, known as the Covid-19 Therapeutics Accelerator, will not be enough to develop even a single new medicine. But Trevor Mundel, the president of the Gates Foundation, said the funding could provide important funds to companies and academic researchers immediately, before government funding will be available. Mundel estimates that two dozen companies, evenly divided between large pharmaceutical firms and small biotechs, could be involved in the effort. (Herper, 3/10)

The Gates Foundation’s funding is part of its $100 million commitment to the COVID-19 response announced last month. "Viruses like COVID-19 spread rapidly, but the development of vaccines and treatments to stop them moves slowly," Mark Suzman, chief executive officer of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, said in a statement. "If we want to make the world safe from outbreaks like COVID-19, particularly for those most vulnerable, then we need to find a way to make research and development move faster. That requires governments, private enterprise, and philanthropic organizations to act quickly to fund research and development." (Steenhuysen, 3/10)

Two new cases of the new coronavirus have been confirmed in Virginia, bringing the cases to five, state health officials said Monday. One case is a household contact of a case previously identified in Fairfax in the northern region of the state. The other case is a resident of Spotsylvania County in the northwest region of the state, the Virginia Department of Health said in a news release late Monday. The two cases are not related. (3/9)

A person in Prince George’s County tested positive for the coronavirus, bringing the state’s total to six people who have contracted the novel virus, Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan said Monday night. The Prince George’s County resident contracted the virus during an out-of-state trip, the governor’s office said. Officials said that, according to an initial investigation by the Maryland Department of Health, there are no major concerns for exposure risk to the community and that there is no connection to the five other positive cases. (Oxenden, 3/9)

Authorities in the Washington area took different approaches Monday as they scrambled to stop the spread of coronavirus: D.C. officials asked hundreds of churchgoers to self-quarantine, while officials in Maryland and Virginia said cases of the virus within their borders did not require such measures. (Nirappil and Tan, 3/9)

Christ Church, Georgetown is usually known for things like sponsoring the posh neighborhood’s garden tour and being co-founded 203 years ago by Francis Scott Key, who wrote “the Star Spangled Banner.” In an area flush with prominent residents and history, the 800-family Episcopal Church has both. (Boorstein, 3/9)

Eighteen more Marylanders are being monitored for the novel coronavirus after being exposed to it on cruise ships, including one that toured the Nile River and another that docked Monday in California after being held off the coast. And as health officials accepted that the virus may have spread beyond containment, Gov. Larry Hogan urged residents over age 60 to avoid large crowds. (Dance and Cohn, 3/9)

Towson University is asking nine students and one staff member who attended a conference in Washington, D.C., to self-quarantine at home because of coronavirus concerns. The university also asked these people to stay away from campus for two weeks from their last date of attendance to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee conference, held March 1-3. There have been at least two reports of COVID-19 cases from that conference. (Boteler, 3/9)

Los Angeles County announced its first coronavirus case of community spread, with the total number of cases rising by five to 19. L.A. County Public Health Department Director Dr. Barbara Ferrer said one of the two new cases in her agency’s jurisdiction is that of a person who had a known travel history to Japan. The source of exposure of the second person is unknown. Separately, Long Beach, which has its own health department, reported its first cases of coronavirus-infected patients — two men and one woman. (Shalby, 3/9)

Amid the continuing coronavirus outbreak, one restaurant is giving a whole new meaning to the phrase, “Check, please.” Since late January, Sichuan Impression has used infrared thermometers — which can take a person’s temperature without touching them — to screen patrons at its three locations in Alhambra, Tustin and West Los Angeles. (Money, 3/9)

State, county and city officials throughout the Bay Area say they are scrambling to put together a reaction plan if the dreaded COVID-19 virus snakes its way into the homeless population, but those sleeping in tents, RVs and shelters say they’re worried about the toll an outbreak could take. There hasn’t been a homeless case of COVID-19 reported yet — but most officials agree it is probably just a matter of time. (Fagan and Fracassa, 3/9)

Health officials this evening announced the first presumptive positive case of coronavirus in San Diego County. Officials said a woman in her 50s who had traveled overseas was hospitalized and remains in isolation with serious symptoms. The county is working to trace who the woman came into contact with before being hospitalized. (3/9)

When a St. Louis-area woman called her county’s coronavirus hotline Thursday to report she was experiencing symptoms, health officials said she and her whole family should self-quarantine at home. Her father took his other daughter to a school gala two days later. (Iati, 3/9)

The voluntary quarantine system that states are using to combat the spread of the new coronavirus in communities can work only if people follow it. So how can health officials be sure that people who agree to self-quarantine are at home? The weaknesses in the system became apparent over the weekend in Missouri when a man broke quarantine and took one of his daughters to a dance. (Siemaszko, 3/9)

A family in Missouri broke health officials' self-quarantine instructions after two family members left their home despite a positive test for the novel coronavirus. St. Louis County executive Dr. Sam Page revealed in a press conference that the family of an unidentified patient who recently tested presumptive positive for COVID-19 violated the county Health Department's instructions to isolate themselves at home. (3/9)

The Louisiana Department of Health has reported the state's first presumptive positive case of coronavirus, according to a statement from Gov. John Bel Edwards' office. The Jefferson Parish resident has been hospitalized in Orleans Parish. "While today is the first time that we can confirm that we have a presumptive positive coronavirus case, Louisiana has been preparing for this moment for many weeks," Edwards said. (Moshtaghian, 3/9)

New Orleans officials urged residents to remain calm as a Jefferson Parish resident being treated at a hospital in Orleans Parish became the first "presumptive" case of the new coronavirus in Louisiana. Mayor LaToya Cantrell and other city officials said at a press conference Monday afternoon that the person had not traveled recently overseas. (Williams, 3/9)

Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker cut short his family’s Utah ski vacation and flew home Monday night as the fallout from coronavirus deepened, raising questions about Baker’s handling of what has become a global crisis. Since Baker left Massachusetts Friday, the total confirmed coronavirus cases in Massachusetts quintupled to 41, and a growing number of states have declared public health emergencies, including Rhode Island, New Jersey, and New York. (Ryan and Stout, 3/9)

Governor Gina M. Raimondo on Monday declared a state of emergency in Rhode Island as the state tries to contain an outbreak of the coronavirus. Declaring a state of emergency gives the governor and state officials more leeway in dealing with the outbreak. For example, they can cut red tape to quickly buy necessary supplies or hire workers to help local health officials. And the governor could deploy the National Guard to help with the state’s response, if needed. (Fitzpatrick, 3/9)

As the state contends with its second coronavirus case, this one in Chatham County, North Carolina’s community health centers are stepping up their outreach to some of the most vulnerable members of every community: the uninsured and medically fragile. By recent count, more than a million North Carolinians lacked health insurance. About a quarter of them — or just over 245,000 uninsured people — were seen at a community health center in 2018, according to the North Carolina Community Health Center Association. (Engel-Smith, 3/9)

As U.S. cases of COVID-19 rise, officials are stepping up efforts to control the outbreak's spread. Communities across the country are bracing for disruption, with many schools closing or holding remote classes. Also, two GOP congressmen who were with President Trump recently are self-quarantining after a conference attendee with whom they met tested positive for the virus. (Nawaz, 3/9)

The number of Georgians infected by the disease caused by coronavirus is quickly rising, with six confirmed diagnoses now and at least another 11 that are “presumptive positive,” according to the Department of Public Health. The cases of COVID-19 are mostly centered in metro Atlanta, with patients in Cherokee, Cobb, DeKalb, Fayette, Fulton and Gwinnett counties. Two other cases were reported in Floyd and Polk counties. (Redmon, Bluestein and Oliviero, 3/9)

Early data from the Centers for Disease Control suggests older people are twice as likely to attract coronavirus, putting senior care centers around Wisconsin on guard about the possible spread of the disease. "It is far more than business as usual," said John Sauer, the president and chief executive officer of LeadingAge Wisconsin, an advocacy group for senior care centers in the state. The Centers for Disease Control said infections kill 380,000 people in long-term care facilities every year. Now, they're facing a disease that spreads "easily and sustainably." (Steppe, 3/9)

A person who has tested positive for the coronavirus disease is hospitalized in intensive care in a northeastern Indiana hospital.The adult, who had a recent history of out-of-state travel, is at Parkview Noble Hospital in Kendallville, about 45 minutes north of Fort Wayne, health officials said. Test samples, which came back positive from the Indiana State Department of Health laboratory, will be confirmed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Rudavsky, 3/9)

New York State is using prison labor to manufacture its own hand sanitizer amid an outbreak of the novel coronavirus, Governor Andrew Cuomo announced Monday. Cuomo unveiled the “NYS Clean” hand sanitizer during a press conference, calling it superior to existing products thanks to its scent and alcohol content of 75%. That exceeds the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)’s recommendation of 60%. Cuomo said that New York has the capacity to make 100,000 gallons of NYS Clean a week, at the cost of $6 a gallon. (Bates, 3/9)

The number of novel coronavirus cases in New York state rose to 142 on Monday, and included a high-ranking government official who oversees airports in the New York City area and an emergency medical technician who works in Brooklyn, officials said. Rick Cotton, the executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, tested positive for the novel coronavirus on Sunday evening, according to New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. (West and Vielkind, 3/9)

For two women who had learned just the day before that they had tested positive for the coronavirus, the call on Saturday from the New York City Health Department offered some implausibly good news. One of the women had to stay under quarantine. The other, who had been without symptoms for a few days, was free to go about her life. (Newman, 3/9)

President Donald Trump on Monday accused New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo of attempting "political weaponization" of the coronavirus crisis, attacking another Democratic governor who has declared a state of emergency as a result of the outbreak. Responding to a Saturday interview on MSNBC in which Cuomo criticized the "mixed messages" put forth by the federal government in response to the coronavirus, Trump wrote on Twitter: "There are no mixed messages, only political weaponization by people like you and your brother, Fredo!" (Forgey, 3/9)

Public-health officials are turning to disease detectives to try to halt the growing spread of the novel coronavirus. Teams of public-health nurses, infectious-disease doctors and epidemiologists track down and interview patients and anyone they came into contact with, all to assemble a trove of data. They are part of the largest mobilization of public health in New York state’s history. (West, 3/10)

The executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey has tested positive for the novel coronavirus, as the state of New York surpassed Washington state with the most cases in the country, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said. Rick Cotton, the Port Authority head, is presently working from home, and members of his senior team are being tested, Mr. Cuomo said at a news conference Monday morning. The governor didn’t say how Mr. Cotton contracted the virus. The Port Authority oversees the airports in the New York City area, as well as a commuter railroad, a bus terminal and port facilities. (West and Vielkind, 3/9)

An 82-year-old woman with hypertension. A 39-year-old man with diabetes. A 68-year-old man with lung cancer. These are three of the more than 3,000 people around the world who have died from COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus that has been sickening people since late last year. (Chiwaya and Wu, 3/9)

Do you have asthma? Diabetes? High blood pressure? Heart disease or cancer? Are you a smoker? If you answered yes to any of these questions, COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, could hit you harder than others as the outbreak spreads to Michigan. Older people and those with underlying health issues or chronic diseases are more likely to get severely ill or die from COVID-19, according to a China Center for Disease Control analysis of more than 72,000 people who had the virus through Feb. 11.  (Shamus, 3/9)

Older adults appear to be more severely at risk from the new coronavirus, while young children seem to be largely spared — and understanding why could be crucial to treating people with the illness it causes, according to scientists. Much remains unknown about COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus that is rapidly spreading around the world, but researchers have seized on a factor that seems to influence the severity of infections: the patient's age. (Chow, 3/10)

How contagious are people? When are they spreading the virus? These are the questions scientists and public health officials are asking as the novel coronavirus outbreak spreads further every day. Definitive answers remain unknown, but the virus appears to be easily passed and the two-week quarantine period that has become standard is reasonable, according to researchers from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Johns Hopkins University looking at available data. (Cohn, 3/9)

People who contract the novel coronavirus emit high amounts of virus very early on in their infection, according to a new study from Germany that helps to explain the rapid and efficient way in which the virus has spread around the world. At the same time, the study suggests that while people with mild infections can still test positive by throat swabs for days and even weeks after their illness, those who are only mildly sick are likely not still infectious by about 10 days after they start to experience symptoms. (Branswell, 3/9)

Most people who catch Covid-19—the disease caused by the novel coronavirus—start showing symptoms roughly five days after infection, disease analysts at Johns Hopkins University said on Monday, in the largest such study of known cases world-wide. Their findings firm up estimates of the virus’s incubation period before signs of fever, coughing and respiratory distress appear, offering support for current public-health control measures that recommend a 14-day monitoring and quarantine period for people who have been exposed to infection. Some state health agencies are recommending people isolate themselves for that period after returning from any international travel. (Hotz, 3/9)

COVID-19 can be spread before it causes symptoms, when it produces symptoms like those of the common cold, and as many as 12 days after recovery, according to a virologic analysis of nine infected patients published today on the preprint server medRxiv. Also, in a study published in today's Annals of Internal Medicine, researchers at Johns Hopkins found a median incubation period for COVID-19 of 5.1 days—similar to that of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). (Van Beusekom, 3/9)

This reconstruction of how the virus spread around Seattle, based on interviews with health-care providers, first responders, relatives of patients and academic researchers, offers lessons to places like Florida and California that are now reporting their first deaths. There were excruciating missed opportunities, especially at the nursing home. One shortcoming was a lack of testing in a critical six-week window when the virus was spreading undetected. Even recently, some patients said, hospitals weren’t taking enough precautions to protect staff and others from infection. (Robison, Bass and Langreth, 3/9)

A top federal health official said Monday that the evolving coronavirus outbreak could persist in the United States into next year, while stressing that public health interventions could still reduce the spread of the virus and cases of illness and death. (Joseph, 3/9)

Students in the Lake Washington School District in the Seattle suburbs were so nervous about the novel coronavirus they started a petition urging officials to close the schools. No one in a classroom had been diagnosed with the disease, but more than 15 people in the region had died of it, and students thought: Why take a chance? (Strauss, 3/9)

As the head of a homeless shelter in San Diego, Bob McElroy knows firsthand how epidemics can turn deadly for people living on the streets. Three years ago an outbreak of hepatitis A, an otherwise preventable and treatable disease, killed 20 people in San Diego County alone, most of them homeless. Now as the coronavirus spreads across the country, Mr. McElroy is faced with a new threat, one that he can only hope to ward off with a stockpile of hand sanitizer. Under a single tent in downtown San Diego, his shelter sleeps more than 300 people, a majority of them over 50 years old, a warehouse of human beings arrayed like cadets in military barracks. Numbered bunk beds are spaced just two feet apart. (Fuller, 3/10)

Across the U.S., government officials fighting the disease are wrangling with a population made dubious by years of Internet misinformation and a politics based on the debasing of facts. The World Health Organization has said that a global “infodemic” makes it hard for people to find trustworthy sources and reliable guidance. (Newkirk and Deprez, 3/9)

The fresh guidance from the Silicon Valley's top public health official — cancel mass gatherings to slow the spread of coronavirus — still hung in the air last week as the NHL's San Jose Sharks and thousands of hockey fans ignored the advice and packed the chilly stands of the "Shark Tank." California is well acquainted with public health skepticism after anti-vaccine forces shut down the state Capitol last year. But the situation on Thursday night could foretell challenges around the globe as officials scramble to manage the outbreak. (Murphy and Mays, 3/9)

As COVID-19 begins to spread and sicken more people in the United States, federal health officials are recommending people acquire a several-week supply of the prescription drugs they routinely take for chronic conditions. You don't want to be stuck without them if you get sick. "I think it's excellent advice, although I would suggest that people have a greater supply than a few weeks" says Dr. Peter Jacobson with the University of Michigan School of Public Health. "People should not be caught short of having enough heart medications, diabetic medications or any potentially lifesaving medication that they need on a routine — daily or weekly or monthly — basis." He suggests aiming to have a three-month supply on hand. (Neighmond, 3/9)

The Federal Reserve is delaying processing dollars that have been repatriated from Asia. The Louvre Museum in Paris isn't accepting cash from visitors. And Iran has urged its citizens to stop using bank notes over fears the coronavirus can be transmitted to humans through contaminated objects like cash. Public health experts believe the novel coronavirus, which causes the potentially deadly COVID-19 disease, is transmittable through "fomites" — surfaces, including paper money, that have been handled by an infected person. (Cerullo, 3/9)

Drones spray disinfectant over South Korea. Police wear thermal imaging goggles to detect fevers in China. And a chatbot fields coronavirus questions in Australia. The tech industry has long touted how ubiquitous connectivity, flashy gadgets and big data can improve people’s lives. The novel coronavirus epidemic is putting that bold promise to the test. Health officials across Asia-Pacific, home to the first waves of virus contagion, have sought to repurpose existing technology to combat the fast-spreading virus. (Martin and Lin, 3/10)

As countries around the world grapple with the coronavirus, Taiwan may offer valuable lessons on how to curb its spread... Taiwan has had only 47 cases of COVID-19 and one death as of Tuesday — far fewer than China’s 80,754 cases and 3,136 deaths, a stark contrast even when taking into account the enormous population difference: Taiwan’s 23 million to China’s 1.4 billion. Taiwan’s numbers are also much lower than neighboring countries such as South Korea, which has had more than 7,500 cases, and Japan, with 530. It’s also faring better than countries much farther away from China, such as Italy, with more than 9,000 cases, and the United States, which has over 700. (Sui, 3/10)

The ability of schools across the country to hold classes remotely is being tested as more close in an effort to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus. Also being tested: the ability of families to get their homes tech-ready so children can log in to virtual classrooms. More than 23,500 students across 33 campuses of the Northshore School District in suburban Seattle began joining Zoom or Microsoft Teams meetings with their teachers on Monday morning and completing assignments via Google Classroom. (Jargon, 3/10)

The new coronavirus is now close to becoming a pandemic, the World Health Organization said Monday, a day in which global financial markets plummeted and Italian officials extended a lockdown for the entire country. “We’re reaching that point,” Michael Ryan, executive director of the WHO’s health emergencies program, said in a Monday news conference. “We’re very close.” The WHO generally defines a pandemic as a disease that has become widespread around the world. The viral epidemic reached a new stage globally Monday, with confirmed cases outside China tripling over the past week. (Calfas, McKay and Ping, 3/9)

The World Health Organization has so far resisted describing the crisis as such, saying the word “pandemic” might spook the world further and lead some countries to lose hope of containing the virus. “Unless we’re convinced it’s uncontrollable, why [would] we call it a pandemic?” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said last week. The U.N. health agency has previously described a pandemic as a situation in which a new virus is causing “sustained community-level outbreaks” in at least two world regions. (3/9)

Canada on Monday reported its first death from the new coronavirus as the number of people in the nation who have contracted the disease rose to above 70, officials said. The dead man had been living in a nursing home, the Lynn Valley Care Centre in North Vancouver, British Columbia's chief health officer Bonnie Henry told a news conference. (3/9)

Italy on Monday became the first European country to announce severe nationwide limits on travel as the government struggled to stem the spread of a coronavirus outbreak that has hobbled the economy, threatened to overwhelm public health care and killed more people than anywhere outside China. The measures, announced in a prime time news conference by the country’s prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, sought to adopt the kind of drastic limits that may be working to control the virus in China, an authoritarian regime. (Horowitz, 3/9)

Italy placed its entire national territory under quarantine, only two days after it locked down much of the country’s north, marking the most dramatic step by any country so far to contain the coronavirus epidemic. Facing the biggest outbreak of the virus outside China, Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said all of the quarantine measures imposed in the north of Italy in recent days will apply to the whole country, with effect from Tuesday morning. (Sylvers and Legorano, 3/9)

The coronavirus has killed more people in Italy than in China over the past week. Doctors are warning that a shortage of beds to treat the severely ill could push the Italian death toll higher still. In less than three weeks, Italy has gone from having just three coronavirus cases to the biggest outbreak after China. And the data point to a troubling trend: Those infected in Italy appear more likely to die. (Stancati, 3/9)

Chinese President Xi Jinping visited the quarantined city of Wuhan on Tuesday for the first time since the coronavirus was identified there, underscoring Beijing’s belief that the epidemic’s domestic spread has been largely contained. In a previously unannounced trip, Mr. Xi arrived by airplane in the stricken metropolis of 11 million people to visit front-line medical workers, military personnel and community workers, state media said. (Wong and Cheng, 3/10)

Falling prices for industrial wholesale goods combined with consumer food inflation at a decade high present Chinese policy makers with a worsening dilemma as the coronavirus continues to freeze economic activity in China and around the world. Chinese producer prices fell back into deflation territory in February, the product of sluggish demand and prolonged shutdowns that have left factories idle for weeks. (3/10)

UNICEF is warning the public about the spread of coronavirus misinformation after a scam message purporting to be from the humanitarian aid organization started circulating around social media. The fake message had been translated into several languages and appears to indicate "that avoiding ice cream and other old foods can prevent the onset of the disease," among other things, UNICEF Deputy Executive Director for Partnerships Charlotte Petri Gornitzka said in a statement. (Jacobo, 3/10)

President Trump’s top health care aides on Monday said they will finalize federal rules requiring health providers and insurers to make health records available to patients in an easily accessible electronic format, a policy shift aimed at fueling broader efforts to use patient data to develop new software tools and services. In a briefing with reporters, Trump’s aides essentially doubled-down on policies they first announced last March, saying they will press forward with the rules despite warnings from electronic health record companies and some hospitals that they could compromise the privacy of patient information. (Ross, 3/9)

After a year of intense lobbying, the Trump administration on Monday finalized federal rules to give patients easier electronic access to their medical records and fuel a freer exchange of health data to improve their care. The president’s top aides characterized the implementation of the rules as a watershed moment in American health care, unlocking health information that is now inaccessible to patients and technology companies seeking to use it to develop digital products and services. (Ross, 3/9)

By standardizing the way data must be shared and mandating that individuals have digital access to their own health records, the regulations are widely expected to benefit a mushrooming industry surrounding health data. The records hold a wealth of intimate information—the history of patients’ illnesses, prescriptions, laboratory results and sometimes genetics—and are seen as increasingly valuable to companies that can crunch vast databases to develop health-care services. Apple Inc., Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Microsoft Corp., which are making inroads in health care, have generally backed the main rule, as have some consumer groups. Consumers often face barriers to getting personal medical information to share between doctors or feed to smartphone apps and web portals that provide health services. (Wilde Mathews and Evans, 3/9)

With coronavirus topping Americans’ concerns, senior Trump administration officials tried to switch subjects Monday by announcing final rules aimed at delivering on the unfulfilled promise of electronic health records. It did not go smoothly as reporters veered back to the global outbreak increasingly affecting U.S. communities. “The notion that we can’t do our day jobs and work on this very serious issue (coronavirus) is absurd,” said a frustrated Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar after one reporter noted that financial markets had opened sharply lower over fears of global economic damage from the outbreak. (Alonso-Zaldivar, 3/9)

Kaiser Health News: New Federal Rules Will Let Patients Put Medical Records On Smartphones

Federal officials on Monday released groundbreaking rules that will let patients download their electronic health records and other health care data onto their smartphones. “Patients should have control of their records, period. Now that’s becoming a reality,” said Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar. “These rules are the start of a new chapter in how patients experience American health care.” Officials said the rules likely will give patients a greater say in health care decisions and put an end to a long-standing practice in which some doctors and hospitals resist handing complete medical files over to patients upon demand. (Schulte and Fry, 3/9)

Two HHS agencies on Monday unveiled final versions of companion interoperability and information-blocking proposals they proposed last year. The long-awaited rules from the CMS and HHS' Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology are designed to revamp how providers, insurers and patients exchange health data. (Cohen and Brady, 3/9)

For startup CEO Jeff Fallon, the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society's annual health information and technology conference isn't just another trade show. It's "our Super Bowl," he said. The event, which was canceled last week in response to the COVID-19 outbreak, typically brings together more than 40,000 attendees from the healthcare and technology industries. That's made it a popular arena for companies to launch new products, providing a central space to pitch their capabilities to thousands of possible customers and compete for their attention side-by-side their biggest competitors. (Cohen, 3/9)

A federal judge has ordered the United States military to have a panel of American and foreign doctors examine a Saudi man who was tortured at Guantánamo Bay to determine whether he should be released from the prison there and sent home for psychiatric care. (Rosenberg, 3/8)

A federal judge has ordered that an independent medical panel conduct a review of the mental health of a Saudi prisoner at the Guantanamo Bay detention center who has been accused of trying to enter the U.S. to be the 20th hijacker in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Mohammed al-Qahtani has been held at Guantanamo for 18 years but never charged because a Pentagon legal official determined he had been tortured at the U.S. base in Cuba. (3/9)

While health officials in the United States wait to see just how bad a public health challenge COVID-19 will pose, they still have to deal with an all-too-familiar challenge: flu. It's been a bad flu season. Not the worst ever, but bad. "It started very early this year," says Emily Martin, associate professor of epidemiology at the University of Michigan School of Public Health. She works with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention collecting statistics about flu. (Palca, 3/9)

As the coronavirus outbreak continues to spread in the U.S., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provided a grim reminder of the toll that the flu has taken on Americans. The CDC said that so far this season, about 20,000 people have died of the flu, including 136 children. The CDC's most recent flu report says that as of February 29, hospitalization rates among children aged 4 and under were the highest on record at this point in the season, surpassing rates reported during the 2009 H1N1 pandemic. The 136 children's deaths also mark the highest on record since the 2009 pandemic. (Smith, 3/9)

Lisa Mosconi, a neuroscientist and director of the Women’s Brain Initiative at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City, focuses her research on what she says is one of the most under-researched, underdiagnosed and underrated fields in medicine: the female brain and women’s brain health. In her new book, “The XX Brain,” which comes out March 10, she explains the differences between the female and male brains and explores the different ways the brain affects women’s health. She offers practical tips on how to optimize brain health and discusses the unique risks women have for developing Alzheimer’s disease and actions they can take to help prevent it. (Reddy, 3/9)

Some 42.4 percent of U.S. adults now qualify as obese, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, with no real difference in prevalence between men and women. People who are obese have a body mass index (BMI) — which is an indicator of body fatness calculated from a person’s height and weight — of 30 or higher. Those with a BMI of 40 or higher, described as having extreme obesity, represent 9.2 percent of the adult population, with women outnumbering men. (Searing, 3/9)

Kaiser Health News: As Youth Suicides Climb, Anguished Parents Begin To Speak Out

Alec Murray was 13. He enjoyed camping, fishing and skiing. At home, it was video games, movies and books. Having just completed middle school with “almost straight A’s,” those grades were going to earn him an iPhone for his upcoming birthday. Instead, he killed himself on June 8 — the first day of summer break. (Jayson, 3/10)

Kaiser Health News: Heart Association Puts Halt To Bayer’s Giant Displays Of Baby Aspirin

The large red-and-white bins at Walmart pharmacies across the country read, in bold all-caps type: “Approximately every 40 seconds an American will have a heart attack. ”Inside the 3-foot-tall cartons, adorned with the American Heart Association and Bayer logos, were dozens of boxes of low-dose Bayer aspirin.The implication was that everyone could reduce their heart attack risk by taking a “baby aspirin.” But recent studies have found that’s not the case. (Galewitz, 3/10)

In the curious case of New York State’s $6 billion budget gap, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has a list of leading suspects: local officials and county staffers, whom he blames for negligently allowing Medicaid costs to skyrocket. But Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, may have left out the biggest perpetrator. The governor and state budget officials have said that a statewide minimum-wage increase, along with a push to increase enrollment in Medicaid, a state and federal program that provides health care to low-income residents, are among the biggest reasons the budget deficit is so large. (McKinley, 3/10)

Courtney Cates is one of 34 patients who cannot find treatment for their pain because their doctor can no longer prescribe pain killers. More broadly, the Raleigh woman is among many pain patients affected by a nationwide crackdown on opioids aimed at stopping drug overdoses. Her doctor, Thomas Kline, 76, who specializes in chronic, painful diseases, said he was asked to sign over his DEA license to prescribe controlled substances during an impromptu visit from the N.C. Medical Board last month. The board launched an investigation into the Raleigh doctor last spring after receiving a complaint from Julie Roy, whose 26-year-old son died from a heroin overdose. (Knopf, 3/10)

After more than a month of being criticized by patients and elected officials at a series of public meetings, HCA Healthcare is responding to allegations of inadequate staffing and poor service at the Mission Health facilities it acquired last year. But even as the company speaks out, nurses from its Asheville hospitals rallied Sunday, with calls for a union to improve working conditions at the medical facilities the company acquired last year. Buncombe County Commission Chair Brownie Newman and Asheville Mayor Esther Manheimer issued a joint letter supporting the nurses’ efforts. (3/10)

Buried in Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's proposed 2020-21 executive budget proposal is a $5 million funding request to create a five-employee office with a big mission: transforming how the state pays for healthcare through Medicaid. The ultimate goal of the Medicaid transformation office in the Department of Heath and Human Services is to come up with a variety of new or enhanced "value-based" reimbursement systems for health plans, hospitals, physicians, nursing homes and home and community based providers, said Robert Gordon, MDHHS director, in a recent interview with Crain's. (Greene, 3/9)

Across Alabama, yoga is freely taught at dozens of studios, in Christian churches and inside prisons. But for nearly three decades, it has been illegal to teach yoga — a combination of breathing exercises and stretches with connections to Hinduism and Buddhism — inside the state’s public school classrooms, with detractors warning it would amount to a tacit endorsement of a “non-Christian” belief. (Rojas, 3/9)

Governors and lawmakers have been diverting millions of dollars in fee money meant for environmental cleanups for more than a decade, but now Georgia voters may help put a stop to that this fall. The Senate on Monday unanimously gave final approval to a proposed “anti-bait-and-switch” constitutional amendment allowing lawmakers to dedicate fees collected when, for instance, you buy new tires, to the causes they promised the money would go to when they approved the levies. (Salzer, 3/9)

The 2½-year-old partnership between Cleveland Clinic and insurer Oscar Health illustrates an emerging, value-based business model for the healthcare industry aimed at lowering costs and raising care quality. Cleveland Clinic + Oscar began offering individual health plans to people who live in Cuyahoga, Summit, Lorain, Medina and Lake counties at the beginning of 2018, then expanded its operations to Ashtabula, Geauga and Portage counties at the beginning of this year. The plans cover only care provided by Cleveland Clinic's network. (Vanac, 3/9)

The coronavirus pandemic is the greatest challenge Donald Trump has ever faced. As stock markets fall and patient numbers rise, the epidemic threatens the lives of some Americans and the prosperity of all—and it has already begun to disrupt the political methods that brought Mr. Trump to the White House. As he has done in other crises, the president is stalling for time as he processes the nature of the threat and tests rhetorical and policy responses to it. But unlike human political adversaries, the coronavirus isn’t something he can bluff, threaten or placate. (Walter Russell Mead, 3/9)

China's failure to respond promptly to the covid-19 outbreak in Wuhan in December revealed a weakness of authoritarian rule. News was stifled, honest doctors were punished, and the Communist Party allowed illness to spread in a vain attempt to protect its image. Now we are seeing that democracy can produce its own version of leadership failure, when the person in charge is more concerned with his own image than the well-being of the nation. President Trump has spent three years demeaning and weakening the U.S. government. Now that the United States desperately needs that government to function well, we are paying a steep price. (3/9)

No matter how much President Donald Trump and his acolytes persist in trying to minimize the dangers of the coronavirus, the rest of the world -- and the virus -- are not following his lead. As the number of cases kept climbing, the virus continued to drive uncertainty in the stock market, which fell steeply following the start of an oil price war. Trump flailed desperately on Twitter, and his Health and Human Services Secretary, of all people, raved in support of his boss that the economic fundamentals are "unbelievable." (Frida Ghitis, 3/9)

Three times this month, President Trump has used polling from Gallup to try to present views of his handling of the coronavirus outbreak as exceptional. At first, he tweeted the figure suggesting that 77 percent of the country had confidence in the government’s ability to handle the crisis as though it came from the New York Post (which covered the poll). Later that day, he acknowledged that the numbers came from Gallup, characterizing them as “outstanding, the best.” Four days later, he tweeted about them again, suggesting that they indicated he was doing a better job than his predecessor, Barack Obama, who still lives in the White House by virtue of his extended residency inside Trump’s head. (Philip Bump, 3/9)

The coronavirus is no longer just a slow-moving public health crisis that may soon turn into a rapid-moving one. It’s a crisis of transparency. It’s a crisis of government legitimacy. So it is in this spirit that we all have to say: enough. Whose side is the Trump administration on? Based on every public appearance we’ve seen so far — whether it’s from a cabinet member or the director of the Centers for Disease Control or the president himself — the answer is clear: not the public’s. President Trump, hellbent on re-election, is focused on massaging numbers and silencing bearers of bad news. That’s what autocrats do. And it’s endangering lives. (Jennifer Senior, 3/9)

The spread around the globe of COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus, has exposed a vulnerability in President Donald Trump's White House that he is fundamentally ill-equipped to manage. Unlike previous obstacles, this isn't something Trump can bully his way out of. He can't neutralize it with a nickname or intimidate it with a slogan at a rally. (Kurt Bardella, 3/10)

Donald Trump has been insisting for years that our country has been too economically dependent on China, so it is sad that it took a global public health crisis to prove he was right all this time. When he began imposing strategic tariffs on China in response to its long history of abusive trade practices, the liberals all of a sudden became free trade fundamentalists, predicting that this new “trade war” would harm the American economy because we have relied so heavily on cheap Chinese imports for so many years. Instead, it was the Chinese economy that took a hard hit, while our economy at home surged to its strongest performance in half a century. (Madison Gesiotto, 3/9)

There’s a lot we don’t know about Covid-19, but one dynamic appears clear: The health danger is highest for older people and those with preexisting health conditions, such as asthma, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes. In South Korea, where there is a lot of testing and a strong public health system, not a single person under 30 has died from the disease. Only two people under 50 have died out of 3,263 South Korean cases reported on March 8. On the Diamond Princess cruise ship, out of 705 coronavirus cases, there have been 8 fatalities — and none of these were under 70. But there are 72 million Americans over 60 years old in the United States. If only a fraction of them get the virus and the mortality rate still turns out to be lower than the 1-5 percent that South Korea is seeing among this age group, we’re still looking at hundreds of thousands of mortalities, not to mention a large multiple of that number who will need extended intensive care. That’s why hospitals are preparing for the possibility that coronavirus could kill the number of Americans who die each year of diabetes, flu, Alzheimer’s, and strokes . . . combined. This is why the Centers for Disease Control is now recommending that people over 60 stay in their homes. (Eli Pariser, 3/9)

The emergence of a new infectious disease that rapidly spreads around the world, like Covid-19, makes disaster planning experts move into overdrive. Lessons learned over the last decade can help cope with the spread of the novel coronavirus. In the spring of 2009, a new type of flu virus, called H1N1, was detected in the United States. It spread across the U.S and to other countries. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has estimated that, in the U.S. alone, between April 2009 and April 2010 H1N1 sickened more than 60 million people, caused 275,000 hospitalizations, and killed more than 12,000 people. (Matthew K. Wynia and John L. Hick, 3/10)

The first phase of the coronavirus outbreak was a domestic challenge for China and a border containment one for the United States and others. Now we are in the second phase: community mitigation. Math and history must guide our next steps. The near-term objective should be to reduce the acute, exponential growth of the outbreak, in order to reduce suffering and the strain on our health-care system. (Tom Bossert, 3/9)

Two weeks ago, I flew from La Guardia Airport to Toronto for a 24-hour trip. In the immigration intake area, at least 100 passengers streamed off a flight from Shanghai, where the coronavirus had been found a month earlier. We all pressed our fingers on touch screens to answer immigration questions and waited for about 15 minutes for masked, gloved agents to examine each passport. The next day, I flew back. (Robin Shulman, 3/9)

If you look only at a list of confirmed novel coronavirus cases, you wouldn’t think the U.S. was doing badly. Eight other countries currently have more infections, and some have many more. Don’t cheer just yet. The lower case count doesn’t mean Americans are doing a better job of containing the virus; rather, it reflects the fact that the U.S. is badly behind in its ability to test people. (Max Nisen, 3/7)

Coronavirus has exposed more than our ill-preparedness for public health crises; it has reinforced the deep and dangerous inequities that define American health care today. As we prepare to confront a potential pandemic, it is that inequity that could hamper our response most of all. (Joe Kennedy III, 3/10)

Now the global spread of the coronavirus offers a far larger and wider natural experiment in the technical, logistical and human challenges of having large numbers of people work remotely. Companies from Twitter Inc. and HSBC Holdings Plc to Dentsu Group Inc. have advised, encouraged or required at least some staff to work from home. How well businesses function under these conditions could have a lasting impact on our approach to work. For me, the technical hurdles have been insignificant — trivial, to use a word beloved of techies — and nothing that Bloomberg’s technical support team couldn’t sort out relatively quickly. I have found the principal challenges to be physical and psychological. (Matthew Brooker, 3/7)

All too often, the elected officials responsible for safeguarding the public interest seem removed from the realities facing that public. The higher the office, the greater the remove. For Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, that distance shrank dramatically this weekend, when he was notified that he had been in contact with someone later found to have the coronavirus. The interaction — a handshake and brief exchange — occurred late last month at the Conservative Political Action Conference, an annual gathering of activists held in the suburbs of Washington. (Michelle Cottle, 3/9)

On the same day that federal health officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a warning that the new coronavirus was certain to spread within the United States, I was on my usual morning train in New York City when the person next to me pulled out a bottle of nail polish and started painting their left hand. The fumes from the polish hit me hard and I sneezed twice in quick succession. Instantly, all eyes turned toward me. I watched the fear spread as public perception of me shifted from being a “model minority” to a “yellow peril.” (Matthew Lee, 3/9)

Where does God self-quarantine during an epidemic? Not in a church, probably. At least not in a church in northern Italy, the center of the largest coronavirus outbreak in a Western country so far. Masses and other religious services, including funerals, have been suspended for weeks there, in keeping with government rulings to curb the contagion. On Sunday, the same day the government announced that the north was going under lockdown, all religious services throughout Italy, including those at mosques and synagogues, were canceled until at least April 3. (On Monday, travel restrictions were extended to whole country.) (Mattia Ferraresi, 3/10)

The Massachusetts Department of Public Health has just announced 13 more presumptive cases of the new coronavirus. These cases, combined with earlier detected cases, raise the total number in Massachusetts to 41.The response from many residents will be fear and panic. But these cases are reflections of local public health and health care system success, not failure. (Adam L. Beckman, Suhas Gondi, Gregg Gonsalves, Howard Forman, 3/9)

Texas, Florida, and 12 other states are putting lives at risk across America by refusing to extend Medicaid coverage to millions who are poor and uninsured. This ensures that many Americans who become infected will go undiagnosed and untreated: people for whom going to the doctor portends financial calamity tend not to do so before their health circumstances become dire. (Dr. M. Gregg Bloche, 3/9)

What could possibly be new about the Sackler family, the billionaire owners of Purdue Pharma? That was a question I asked myself in the late fall of 2015 as I began doing research for the book that would become “Pharma.” The project I had pitched to my publisher was a comprehensive history of the American pharmaceutical industry, starting with patent drugs and finishing with biotechnology breakthroughs. Covering the full breadth of the domestic drug industry in a single, readable volume meant I would have to compress into single chapters many consequential matters that had been the focus of full-length books. (Gerald Posner, 3/10)