Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of fifty-eight.  Sunrise is 6:32 AM and sunset 7:23 PM, for 12h 50m 54s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing gibbous with 61.2% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1865, defeat at the Third Battle of Petersburg forces the Army of Northern Virginia and the Confederate government to abandon Richmond.

Recommended for reading in full —

Glenn Kessler and Salvador Rizzo write Fact-checking President Trump’s marathon news conference:

“We inherited obsolete tests.”

There were no tests for the novel coronavirus, which only emerged in China late in 2019, so tests had to be developed specifically by countries starting in January. Trump appears to be referring to a system in place that relied on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to take the lead in developing the tests. But a still-unspecified manufacturing problem caused the CDC to distribute flawed tests to state and local health departments. On top of that, having the CDC take the lead, rather than the private sector, was inappropriate for the task of testing potentially hundreds of thousands of people.

Two former Trump administration officials had warned on Jan. 28, in a Wall Street Journal article, that the CDC was not up to task and the private sector needed to be engaged. But the Trump administration waited another month before it fast-tracked the development of tests by private companies.

“I can only say that we are doing more than anybody in the world by far. We are testing highly accurate tests.”

Trump often makes this misleading claim about the level of testing in the United States. It is accurate when looking only at raw numbers. But the key indicator is tests per capita, which gives a read on the share of the population that has contracted the disease.

A crowdsourced tally provided by the Covid Tracking Project says the United States has tested 1.1 million people as of March 31. That represents about 1 in 297 people. Italy, for example, has a smaller population and a lower number of total tests, but it tested about three times as many people on a per capita basis: 1 in 133.

Bill Glauber reports Wisconsinites approve of government actions to stem coronavirus outbreak, new Marquette poll finds:

The big numbers: 86% said it was appropriate to close schools and businesses, and 51% strongly backed legislation directing cash payments to individuals, while 28% somewhat approved the measure.

Democratic Gov. Tony Evers was rated highly for his response to the crisis, with 76% approving of his handling of the issue, including a strong majority of Republicans.

 Opera Singer Serenades Residents at Senior Living Facility:

Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of fifty.  Sunrise is 6:34 AM and sunset 7:22 PM, for 12h 48m 01s of daytime.  The moon is in its first quarter with 50.7% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1945, the Battle of Okinawa begins.

Recommended for reading in full —

Toluse Olorunnipa, Josh Dawsey, Chelsea Janes, and Isaac Stanley-Becker report Governors plead for medical equipment from federal stockpile plagued by shortages and confusion:

As states across the country have pleaded for critical medical equipment from a key national stockpile, Florida has promptly received 100 percent of its first two requests — with President Trump and Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis both touting their close relationship.

States including Oklahoma and Kentucky have received more of some equipment than they requested, while others such as Illinois, Massachusetts and Maine have secured only a fraction of their requests.

It’s a disparity that has caused frustration and confusion in governors’ offices across the country, with some officials wondering whether politics is playing a role in the response.

Governors are making increasingly frantic requests to the Federal Emergency Management Agency for materials. State and congressional leaders are flooding FEMA with letters and calls seeking clarity about how it is allocating suddenly in-demand resources such as masks, ventilators and medical gowns.

David Beard writes that The Scourge of Coronavirus Brings Out Bright Spots of Humanity:

The woman in her 80s was holed up in her car for 45 minutes outside an Oregon supermarket, waiting for the right person.

She cracked the window when Rebecca Mehra approached on March 11. Almost in tears, the woman in the car told Mehra that she was terrified of catching the coronavirus, that she and her husband next to her had no family nearby—and asked if Mehra could spare them the risk of stepping outside by accepting cash to buy groceries for them.

Mehra took a $100 bill and a grocery list from the woman, got the groceries (canned goods, toilet paper), put them in the trunk, and returned the change.

“Frankly most people I know would have done the same thing I did. I was just in the right place at the right time,” said Mehra, who spoke to CBS News affiliate KBNZ after more than 11 million people shared her story. In the days since, severe restrictions on public gatherings have hit almost everyone and everywhere, and reports of selfless acts of support and community care have grown.

 How Social Distancing During The COVID-19 Pandemic Looks From A Satellite:

Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of forty-three.  Sunrise is 6:36 AM and sunset 7:21 PM, for 12h 45m 07s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 40.2% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1998, the Milwaukee Brewers play their first game as a National League team (away against Atlanta).

Recommended for reading in full —

Rick Barrett and Jeff Bollier report Coronavirus has hit Wisconsin dairy farms especially hard — some farmers may even have to dump milk:

Dairy has been hit the hardest from the loss of business from restaurants, schools and the hospitality industry. About one-third of Wisconsin dairy products, mostly cheese, are sold in the food-service trade.

“The coronavirus outbreak has caused milk prices to drop down to unprofitable levels this spring, right when we need money to buy supplies for the spring planting season,” said dairy farmer John Rettler of Neosho, president of FarmFirst Dairy Cooperative in Madison.

….

In February, farmers’ milk prices were slowly returning to profitable levels after having  been stuck in the basement for more than five years.

“Since the coronavirus pandemic began, all of that optimism has disappeared,” Rettler said. “Now, farmers are simply looking for ways to ensure their milk continues to get picked up in the coming weeks as the situation continues to play out.”

From dairy barns to grain fields, farmers have endured a long stretch of low commodity prices, partly brought on by a glut in world production. About 820 Wisconsin dairy producers called it quits in 2019 alone, a rate of more than two per day, and the trend hasn’t slowed in recent months.

 Conservative evangelical Michael Gerson writes Jerry Falwell Jr.’s coronavirus response shows his staggering level of ignorance:

After learning of Jerry Falwell Jr.’s decision to partially reopen Liberty University, my thoughts turned to the biblical account of Balaam’s ass.

According to the Hebrew scriptures, the children of Israel were on the verge of engulfing another Bronze Age tribe. Lacking recourse to the United Nations, the Moabites turned to a diviner named Balaam to curse the Israelis. But on the way to the cursing, Balaam’s conveyance, an ass, saw an angel blocking the path ahead, turned hard into a wall and crushed Balaam’s foot. Unable to see the celestial creature himself, a frustrated Balaam beat his ass. But God permitted the wounded animal to speak, mock her rider and explain the divine roadblock. The eyes of a chastened Balaam were finally opened and he took the Israeli side. And the rest is Middle East history.

Students at Liberty University are more likely than most to understand the specialness of this biblical lesson. It is one of the few stories in which Falwell should not be assigned the part of an ass. For that matter, he does not even deserve the role of Balaam, who at least was open to instruction. Instead, Falwell has charged the angel straight on and — in defiance of nearly all public health experts — reopened the Liberty dorms in the middle of a pandemic. Now, according to the New York Times, at least one student has tested positive and several more have shown coronavirus-like symptoms.

 Open Source Textbooks Save Students $1 Billion:

Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of fifty-one.  Sunrise is 6:37 AM and sunset 7:19 PM, for 12h 42m 14s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 30.3% of its visible disk illuminated.

The Whitewater Unified School District’s board meets tonight at 6:30 PM briefly in open session, then entering closed session until returning in open session at 7:30 PM. The 7:30 open session portion of the meeting will be available via Zoom Online @ URL: https://zoom.us/j/887312491 and Meeting ID: 887-312-491.

On this day in 1867, the U.S. Sec. of State William Seward makes final the terms of the Alaska Purchase from Czarist Russia for $7.2 million, or about two cents per acre.

Recommended for reading in full —

Mike Baker reports Coronavirus Slowdown in Seattle Suggests Restrictions Are Working:

…seeing evidence that strict containment strategies, imposed in the earliest days of the outbreak, are beginning to pay off — at least for now.

Deaths are not rising as fast as they are in other states. Dramatic declines in street traffic show that people are staying home. Hospitals have so far not been overwhelmed. And preliminary statistical models provided to public officials in Washington State suggest that the spread of the virus has slowed in the Seattle area in recent days.

While each infected person was spreading the virus to an average of 2.7 other people earlier in March, that number appears to have dropped, with one projection suggesting that it was now down to 1.4.

The researchers who are preparing the latest projections, led by the Institute for Disease Modeling, a private research group in Bellevue, Wash., have been watching a variety of data points since the onset of the outbreak. They include tens of thousands of coronavirus test results, deaths, and mobility information — including traffic patterns and the movements of anonymous Facebook users — to estimate the rate at which coronavirus patients are spreading the disease to others.

The progress is precarious, and the data, which was still being analyzed and has yet to be published, is uncertain. Officials said that expansive social distancing policies will remain a key part of daily life for weeks to come.

(Emphasis added.)

Marc Fisher, Paul Schwartzman, and Ben Weissenbach report The Great American Migration of 2020: On the move to escape the coronavirus:

Back home in Oakland, Calif., Lisa Pezzino and Kit Center built a life that revolved around music and the people who make it — the musicians who recorded on Pezzino’s small label and performed in places where Center rigged the lights and sound equipment.

Where they are now, deep in the redwood forest near Big Sur, 140 miles south along the California coast, there is mostly the towering silence of isolation. A tiny cabin, an outdoor kitchen, just one neighbor. This is life in the flight from the virus.

They left town with four days of clothing and every intention of coming right home. And then the new rules kicked in, and state officials urged people to stay inside. There would be no concerts, no musicians wandering by to plan a recording session. Pezzino, a civil engineer who can work remotely, and Center, whose rigging work definitely cannot be done from home, decided to stay put in the woods, indefinitely. They joined the impromptu Great American Migration of 2020.

International Space Station has small pharmacy, well equipped to handle illness:

Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will see rain with a high of forty-four.  Sunrise is 6:39 AM and sunset 7:18 PM, for 12h 39m 20s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 22.4% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1865, the Appomattox Campaign begins.

Recommended for reading in full —

Ben Berwick, John Langford, Erica Newland,  and Kristy Parker write Trump Can’t Reopen the Country Over State Objections: 

In 2007, researchers published findings in the scientific journal PNAS showing how local governments mitigated outbreaks of the 1918 flu pandemic by aggressively limiting public gatherings. Cities such as San Francisco and St. Louis, which introduced restrictions early in one of the “waves” of the disease, fared much better than Philadelphia, which held a World War I victory parade that attracted tens of thousands of people to its famous Broad Street. Philadelphia was soon hit hard by the flu, while San Francisco and St. Louis were relatively spared.

“When multiple interventions were introduced early, they were very effective in 1918,” one of the researchers, Richard Hatchett, told the New York Times. “And that certainly offers hope that they would be similarly useful in an epidemic today if we didn’t have an effective vaccine.”

….

What happens if Trump tries to order or coerce states to relax their restrictions and put their residents at risk? Earlier this week in Lawfare, Robert Chesney described some limitations on the president’s power to “force changes if state and local officials won’t follow his lead.” He’s right. And if the president tries to force states to ease restrictions, they should resist. They have the Constitution on their side, and they will almost certainly win in court.

A triad of bedrock constitutional principles gives the states the upper hand. First, the Constitution and cases dating back to the founding era make clear that the power to make decisions about public health and welfare—for example, whether to close businesses and schools—lies primarily with the states, not the federal government. Second, to the extent that the federal government does have power in these areas, that power lies with Congress, not the president. Third, federal powers, even when wielded by Congress, are limited. And, as a practical matter, Congress is extremely unlikely to use its power to force states to roll back public health measures, even if it could do so as a formal legal matter. Under these principles, Trump lacks the legal authority to override orders from governors and other state and local officials that are designed to protect the public health and welfare of their citizens.

Julie Bosman reports Coronavirus Cases, Concentrated on the Coasts, Now Threaten America’s Middle

This week, cities and states that had no known cases of coronavirus not long ago have seen the infection’s sudden, intense arrival. In Detroit, more than 850 cases have been identified and at least 15 people have died. In New Orleans, public health workers have identified more than 1,100 cases, including 57 people who have died. Eight deaths and nearly 400 cases have been reported in Milwaukee County, Wis. And in Chicago and its inner-ring suburbs, there have been nearly 2,000 cases, as of Friday morning.

This Rare ‘Caviar’ Comes From Lemons: