Stranger Than Fiction

I’ll be sharing stories from doctors, nurses and other medical workers who are on the frontlines of COVID-19. You can read them here. The article will continue to be updated with new stories. You can support my newsletter using PayPal, Venmo, CashApp, or purchase a subscription on Substack.Don’t forget to join us in the Stranger Slack for access to source documents and a running feed of news throughout the day.

TOP NEWS

• Trump admin officials are saying reopening the economy by May 1st may not be realistic. The FDA commissioner said on ABC This Week that “I think it’s just too early for us to say whether May 1 is that date.”

• A coalition of oil producers agreed to production cuts to address a mounting oil glut. 23 countries committed to withhold collectively 9.7 million barrels a day of oil from global markets. 

• Boris Johnson left the hospital and continues to recover from COVID-19. Johnson will not immediately return to work and will return to his country residence for now.

• U.S. public health advisor Anthony Fauci said Trump rebuffed social distancing advice in February. He and other Trump administration officials recommended implementing physical distancing to combat the coronavirus in February, but his advice was not heeded for another month.

• COVID-19 by the numbers: Total global cases 1,846,963 — Total deaths: 114,101 — Total recoveries — 421,728 / Total U.S. confirmed cases: 555,398 — Total deaths: 22,023 — Total recoveries — 32,988 — Total tested: 2,805,892

• The $350 billion small business Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) will run out of money in days. Lawmakers are in disagreement as to how they should replenish the funding.

WHAT I’M READING + WATCHING + LISTENING TO

• The largest COVID-19 contract was directed by the White House in a highly unusual move that normally is handled by FEMA. The company never had to bid for the contract.

• Florida Gov. DeSantis’ general counsel called a representative of the Miami Herald’s law firm seeking to quash a public records lawsuit that would force the state to divulge the names of all elder-care facilities that have had a positive test for COVID-19

• A shortage of face masks has led the Department of Veterans Affairs to tell hospitals to decide which employees get masks and which don’t, according to internal memos

THE COMMENT

“The combination is dangerous, and just how potentially destructive — not only of democratic processes and institutions but now of the body politic itself — is becoming all too clear. Are those bishops who reduced Catholic participation in the political process to a single issue, who tacitly approved when their culture-warrior minions delivered that message from countless pulpits, willing to take responsibility now for the sheer incompetence they helped put in place? If it profits not a man to give his soul for the world, how much worse for the church to hand over its integrity for a few conservative justices.

The consequences are enormous and have to do with much more than policy differences or even single-issue politics.” - National Catholic Reporter Editorial Staff

THE STRANGEST

• Man arrested for slashing tires on 22 cars parked outside a New York hospital

THE AV ROOM

My roomba is the only moving thing I’ve touched in weeks so it is now my boyfriend.

Scary Easter Bunny

Girl raised from birth by Wolf Blitzer take into protective custody