The Plague Years: Even as the death toll rises, President Trump is quietly pushing to re-open the crippled US economy by May 1, The Washington Post reports.

  The paper says Trump’s plan is “raising concerns among health experts and economists of a possible covid-19 resurgence if Americans return to their normal lives before the virus is truly stamped out.”

  With nearly 17 million people losing their jobs in the last three weeks, Trump said at yesterday’s daily briefing that the US was at the “top of the hill” and added, “Hopefully, we’re going to be opening up — you could call it opening — very, very, very, very soon, I hope.”

  Trump can’t do it on his own. The Centers for Disease Control guidance on social distancing and business closures expires April 30^th, and the states set their own rules.

  In the meantime, deaths are overwhelming authorities in some hospitals and cities. New York City has begun mass burial of unclaimed dead bodies in a trench on Hart Island in the Bronx. The plain wooden coffins are stacked three deep.

  This morning, deaths of the coronavirus in the US are reaching toward 17,000, second only to Italy. The US reports 466,299 cases and 16,686 deaths. New York State is still the hardest hit with 7,067 deaths, 5,150 of them in New York City.

Bluster and Invective: President Trump again yesterday extolled how successful his administration’s efforts have been even while the US has the most coronavirus cases in the world, sick people are still having trouble getting tested, and medical workers are short of basic equipment to stay safe.

  Emergency loan programs for businesses are crushed with applications and some are already running out of money. Senate Democrats yesterday blocked an effort to unanimously pass $250 billion more for a small business loan program approved as part of the $2 trillion relief plan last month. 

  Despite the analysis by economists that it may take years for the economy to recover, Trump said, “Well, I think the economy is going to do very well. Now that’s just my feeling. It’s a strong feeling. I’ve had good, proper feelings about a lot of things over the years and I think we’re going to do well.”

  He operates by “feelings.” 

  The NY Times reports that members of Trump’s staff and Republican leaders worry that the President’s off-balance daily briefings are hurting his chances of re-election. Jonathan Martin and Maggie Haberman write that, “Many view the sessions as a kind of original sin from which all of his missteps flow, once he gets through his prepared script and turns to his preferred style of extemporaneous bluster and invective.”

  They quote several big name Republicans saying, Trump “sometimes drowns out his own message,” the briefings were “going off the rails a little bit,” and that Trump should “let the health professionals guide where we’re going to go.”

  The one thing they won’t say; “This guy shouldn’t be President.”

Get Out: As the pandemic rages on, the Trump administration has quickly expelled 10,000 migrants, including asylum seekers and unaccompanied children, back to Mexico and other countries in less than three weeks. 

 Following a “nonessential travel” ban, US officials began removing almost all migrants at the border with minimal processing, even though children and asylum seekers are protected under law.

The Obit Page: Charlotte Figi, a child with Down Syndrome who helped make popular the use of cannabidiol, or CBD, by using it to treat her severe epilepsy, died Tuesday at age 13. Her family said the cause was likely the effects of coronavirus. Charlotte had her first seizure when she was only 3 months old. She became the face of the medicinal CBD movement when she was 5, after it appeared that the non-intoxicating extract of marijuana eased her epilepsy.  — Mort Drucker, who drew caricatures of actors, politicians, and other celebrities for Mad Magazine starting back in 1956, has died at age 91.Drucker specialized in illustrating parodies of television shows and movies, starting with a sendup of the old “Perry Mason” series about a lawyer who never lost a case. Drucker ended up drawing 238 of those parodies, the last in 2008.

Domestic Disturbance: Responding to domestic fights is the basic stuff of police work. Husband beats wife, wife beats husband, teenager beats parents. The  coronavirus crisis and its resulting shortages has brought a new twist to what’s known in police work as “the domestic.”

  In Saugus, California, sheriff’s deputies were called at 3 am because a 26-year-old man assaulted his mother after she had hidden the extra toilet paper.  The mother admitted it was true because her son used too much.

  The son was arrested, but not for using too much toilet paper.

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