March 27 News: Researches predict 80,000 U.S. COVID-19 deaths by July, what's inside the $2 trillion coronavirus aid package, New York starts sharing ventilators

GeekWire – Univ. of Washington researchers predict 80,000 COVID-19 deaths in U.S. by July

If gaps in health care resources aren’t filled, more than 80,000 Americans will die over the next four months due to the coronavirus pandemic, epidemiologists at the University of Washington predict.

The New York Times – The US now leads the world in confirmed coronavirus case

Scientists warned that the United States someday would become the country hardest hit by the coronavirus pandemic. That moment arrived on Thursday.

NPR – What’s inside the senate’s $2 trillion coronavirus aid package

The Senate has passed a roughly $2 trillion coronavirus response bill intended to speed relief across the American economy. This is the third aid package from Congress and is meant to keep businesses and individuals afloat during an unprecedented freeze on the majority of American life.

Associated Press – Not all or nothing: Anti-virus lockdowns could lift slowly

For the millions of Americans living under some form of lockdown to curb the spread of the coronavirus, not knowing when the restrictions will end is a major source of anxiety.

New York Times – ‘The other option is death’: New York starts sharing of ventilators

A New York hospital system has begun treating two patients instead of one on some ventilators, a desperate measure that could help alleviate a shortage of the critical breathing machines and help hospitals around the country respond to the surge of coronavirus patients expected in the coming weeks.

NPR – Opioid addiction is ‘a disease of isolation,’ so pandemic puts recovery at risk

Suboxone, a combination of buprenorphine and naloxone, helps many people addicted to opioids wean themselves from an escalating drug habit. But counseling and social support are key to successful treatment, too, experts say.

Kaiser Health News – Physicians fear for their families as they battle coronavirus with too little armor

The danger is clear. A March 21 editorial in The Lancet said 3,300 health care workers were infected with the COVID-19 virus in China as of early March. At least 22 died by the end of February. Dozens of physician parents from around the nation in an impassioned letter to Congress begging that the remainder of the relevant personal protective equipment be released from the Strategic National Stockpile, a federal cache of medical supplies, for those on the front lines.