As stay-at-home orders and widespread business closures continue to expand throughout the nation, Washington’s political gears continued to turn today, slowly, toward efforts to combat the economic turmoil that will result from what is likely to become nationwide shelter-in-place recommendations.
A brief roundup of today's coronavirus news:
• How you can help: Organizations providing food and other critical needs during the pandemic need immediate financial assistance.
• Donald Trump continued to lie outright about his own actions during the emerging crisis, reversing his prior dismissals of the virus to claim he "felt it was a pandemic long before it was called" one. Polls show that just 37% of the public believes Trump, who has a documented history of repeated public lies, is telling the truth about the pandemic.
• New videos chronicle just some of those past Trump dismissals—along with the rising numbers of Americans confirmed to be infected even as he was uttering them.
• Ohio canceled in-person voting in today's primaries despite a judicial order denying the governor's request. Instead, Department of Health chief Amy Acton order the polls closed as a "health emergency."
• Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who had recessed the Senate for the weekend rather than staying to hammer out plans for economic assistance and stimulus during what is all but sure to be a steep national recession, is now politicizing the crisis back in his home state.
• Ventilator manufacturers are indicating they could significantly increase production of the critical medical devices—but are still awaiting those government orders.
• Top chef and World Central Kitchen founder José Andrés announced he has closed all of his Washington, D.C.-area restaurants and is temporarily transitioning some of them to be "community kitchens" providing to-go meals for the public during the health emergency.
• Amazon announced it will be prioritizing the stocking and shipping of high-demand items like groceries, health, and household items as consumers attempt to stock up for potential (or current) stay-at-home orders. Lower-demand and discretionary items will be given lower priority.
• A new lawsuit by civil rights groups is demanding the immediate release of immigrants with health complications being held in federal detention facilities due to the extreme health dangers, crowded conditions, and lack of COVID-19 testing. Immigration officials continue to drag their feet on health advice being urged by pandemic experts.
• Also at high risk: elderly and health-impaired prisoners throughout the nation's jails and prisons.
• Volunteers received the first doses of one experimental COVID-19 vaccine in Seattle on Monday. It is not clear that the vaccine will work, however, and widespread public availability of any successful vaccine is still expected to be at least 12 months away.
• In 2017, Obama administration officials gave the Trump transition team exercises on disaster response focused specifically on a new theoretical pandemic originating in Asia. Once in office, Trump's team went on to disband the national security team created by the Obama administration to prepare for similar pandemics.
• After dismissing the threat of pandemic for weeks, Fox News hosts quickly reversed themselves after Trump declared the pandemic to be a national emergency. Fox had previously been insisting to their viewers that criticism over the Trump administration's inaction in the early days of the now-pandemic's spread were merely political attempts to make Trump look bad.
• Similarly, evangelical "leader" and fervent Trump supporter Jerry Falwell Jr. dismissed the pandemic as "hype" and the "next attempt to get Trump" last week, vowing that his own Liberty University would remain open despite experts’ warnings. He has now closed it after a Virginia ban on gatherings of 100 or more people made in-person classes impossible and left him "no practical choice."