The Pandemic Report: British Prime minister Boris Johnson is in the hospital with the coronavirus and CNN anchor Brooke Baldwin has it, as does the Navy captain relieved of command of his aircraft carrier for sounding the alarm about the virus spreading on his ship. Even a tiger at the Bronx Zoo has tested positive as the pandemic evidently spreads to animals.

  Surgeon Gen. Jerome Adams warned yesterday on “Fox News Sunday” that this could be a deadly week for the United States. He said, “This is going to be our Pearl Harbor moment, our 9/11 moment, only it’s not going to be localized, it’s going to be happening all over the country and I want America to understand that.” 

  “There will be a lot of death,” President Trump said at the White House on Saturday as the pandemic climbs to its peak in the US.

  Cheery to hear from him.

 Actually, three weeks of national social distancing could be taking hold about now. The number of deaths in New York city eased somewhat in the past 24 hours; 424 deaths compared to 757 the day before.

 This morning 337,646 Americans have been diagnosed with the viral disease and 9,648 have died of its effects. 

Dr. Strangetrump: In a demonstration of how the White House works in a crisis, the press office put a “lid” on news coverage for the press corps yesterday, meaning there would no coronavirus briefing or official news coming out of the White House. Then President Trump announced he would hold a briefing.

  Trump over the weekend has been pushing the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine as a potential cure or treatment for the coronavirus, despite little clinical evidence that it will work and advice to the contrary from his medical advisers.

   The President says 29 million doses of the drug have been made available from the national stockpile even while people who have been taking it for malaria, lupus, and arthritis are beginning to have trouble getting it. “What do you have to lose?” the President asks, as if that’s the way medicine is administered. He said, “Try it, if you’d like,” as if it were an amuse bouche.

  When a reporter at yesterday’s briefing asked Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, to weigh in on the subject, Trump stopped him from answering. “You know how many times he’s answered that question? Maybe 15 times,” the president said. 

  Evidence of the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine against the coronavirus is sketchy, at best. A French study dated March 28^th declares, “no evidence of a strong antiviral activity or clinical benefit of the combination of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin for the treatment of our hospitalized patients with severe COVID-19.” 

  Trump is also focused on re-opening the country for business, possibly ahead of what is medically advised. Businesses are closed and 10 million people lost their jobs in a two-week period.

  “You know, I had an expression, the cure can’t be worse than the problem itself,” Trump said in his Saturday briefing. “Right? I started by saying that and I continue to say it. The cure cannot be worse than the problem itself. We got to get our country open.”

  “The next two weeks are extraordinarily important,” said Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House’s coronavirus response coordinator. “This is the moment to not be going to the grocery store, not going to the pharmacy, but doing everything you can to keep your family and your friends safe and that means everybody doing the six-feet distancing, washing their hands.”

 Dr. Birx also said that the hotspots of Detroit, New York, and Louisiana will likely reach a peak in the next six to seven days. New Orleans’ coroner’s office and mortuaries have reached their limit, according to Mayor LaToya Cantrell, and she’s asked the federal government for more refrigeration trucks.

Admiration Required: When you deal with President Trump it’s obvious that you have to bow. Aides and advisers repeatedly reference his “leadership” and decision making. The state governors have not been so flattering. 

  Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker has spoken up about the lack of testing kits, medical supplies, and ventilators. Trump lashed out at him saying, “I mean there’s a governor, I hear him complaining all the time, Pritzker. I hear him. He’s always complaining.” Trump said, “He’s not able to do what you’re supposed to be able to do as a governor. He has not performed well.”

  Trump, who has been a font of fantasies and misinformation, blames the press for trying to keep the record straight. Over the weekend he said, “It’s therefore critical that certain media outlets stop spreading false rumors and creating fear and even panic with the public. It’s just incredible. I could name them, but it’s the same ones always the same ones. I guess they’re looking for ratings, I don’t know what they’re looking for, so bad for our country.” 

  Remember, he bragged about the ratings for his coronavirus briefings.

The Obit Page: Rafael Gómez Nieto, a veteran of the Spanish Civil War who served under the French army during World War II in the first unit to drive to the heart of occupied Paris, has died of the effects of the coronavirus at age 99. 

  Nieto fled Spain for France after the Republicans lost the civil war. Serving with the French, he named his armored vehicle “Guernica” after an infamous massacre in Spain. 

  Only about a dozen members of Nieto’s unit survived the war because the French often put the Spaniards in front.

  “I entered Paris with the Guernica, we were Spanish and voilà!” Gómez recalled in a documentary film. “People were surprised to see French troops speaking to them in Spanish.”

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