Journal of the Plague Years: The rate of increase in New York coronavirus appears to have slowed slightly, but Gov. Andrew Cuomo still says the state is still in dire straits. New York is the epicenter of the pandemic in the US.

  The state has at least 33,066 confirmed cases out of 69,000 in the entire country. This morning, there have been 366 deaths in New York as Cuomo says he believes the worst is still weeks away.

  New York City alone reported 81 deaths late yesterday. Speaking at his daily coronavirus briefing, Cuomo said, “Right now what we’re looking at is about 140,000 cases coming into the hospitals. The hospital capacity is 53,000 beds. That’s a problem. We’re looking at about 40,000 ICU cases coming into the hospitals. We have about 3,000 ICU beds. That’s a challenge.” He said the state will run through its medical protective equipment in three weeks.

  The national numbers are 69,197 infections and 1,046 deaths.

  As the numbers spike, President Trump says the government is moving large amounts of critical medical supplies. Yesterday at his daily briefing he said, “The federal government has delivered or is in the process of shipping 9.4 million N95 respirators, think of that 9.4 million, 20 million surgical masks and we have others that we think are going to be delivered pretty quickly.”

  Compare that to the account of an emergency room doctor in Queens, New York who sent a video journal to The NY Times. Dr. Colleen Smith said Elmhurst hospital had to get a refrigerated truck to store the bodies. “It all feels like it’s too late” and “Unless people die, we’ll be back to needing to beg for ventilators again.”

  Trump continues to push the idea of re-opening the economy before the pandemic has reached its peak in this country. Yesterday he said, “I’m not going to do something rash, or hastily. I don’t do that. But the country wants to get back to work.”

  He said there are people in the press who would like the economy to do poorly in order to hurt his chances of re-election. “There are people in your profession that would like that to happen,” he said at yesterday’s briefing.  

  A leading epidemiologist advising the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has estimated the peak of deaths in the US will hit in roughly three weeks. Ira Longini, professor at the Center for Statistics and Quantitative Infectious Diseases at the University of Florida, said, “Maybe a partial lifting of the shelter-in-place for those less vulnerable may make some sense, in about three weeks. By then, much of the damage will have been done.”

The World Report: Italy and Spain have now surpassed China with their numbers of coronavirus deaths.

  China, where the pandemic began, has had 81,782 confirmed cases and 3,292 deaths. Italy, with 74,386 diagnosed patients has had an astounding 7,503 deaths. Spain, with 56,188 cases, has lost 4,089 people. They reported 655 deaths in just 24 hours

Pandemic Politics: A grim jobs report is expected today with possibly millions of Americans added to the unemployment rolls.

 The Senate unanimously passed the $2 trillion coronavirus relief bill and the House is expected to take it up today.

  The bill provides a direct payment of $1,200 to Americans earning up to $75,000. That  would gradually phase out for higher earners and end for people with incomes more than $99,000. It would expand unemployment insurance by an additional 13 weeks and as well as extending them for the first time to freelancers and gig workers. 

The Bulletin Board: Turkish prosecutors have charged  20 Saudis  with the murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the kingdom’s Istanbul consulate in 2018. None of them are in Turkey and they are unlikely to face trial. — The theme song for “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood,” the Village People’s “Y.M.C.A.,” and the original cast album for “Fiddler on the Roof” are among the 25 recordings just added to the Library of Congress’s National Recording Registry. — Robert Levinson, a former FBI agent who disappeared in Iran 13 years ago while on a mission for the CIA, is believed to have died in custody, his family says they have been told by intelligence agencies. There were no details on how or when the 72-year-old Levinson died. His capture set off a scandal within the CIA. 

The Obit Page: Richard Reeves, a political journalist and observer of American life has died at age 83 in Los Angeles.

  In a dozen books and his newspaper columns, Reeves wrote about presidents, the World War II internment of Japanese Americans, and the full array of domestic issues as a newspaper columnist.

  He described Bill Clinton as “the most gifted politician of his generation” who undermined his own potential and Richard Nixon as a man unsuited for the presidency. “He assumed the worst in people, and he brought out the worst in them.”

  Reeves once said, “History is written backwards and it tends to clean up the mess.”

-30-