Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny,  with a few scattered morning showers, and a high of fifty-two.  Sunrise is 6:29 AM and sunset 7:25 PM, for 12h 56m 39s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing gibbous with 81.4% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1865, shortly after Union forces capture Richmond, Virginia, President Lincoln visits the Confederate capital.

Recommended for reading in full —

Shawn Boburg, Robert O’Harrow Jr., Neena Satija and Amy Goldstein report Inside the coronavirus testing failure: Alarm and dismay among the scientists who sought to help:

On a Jan. 15 conference call, a leading scientist at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention assured local and state public health officials from across the nation that there would soon be a test to detect a mysterious virus spreading from China. Stephen Lindstrom told them the threat was remote and they may not need the test his team was developing “unless the scope gets much larger than we anticipate,” according to an email summarizing the call.

“We’re in good hands,” a public health official who participated in the call wrote in the email to colleagues.

Three weeks later, early on Feb. 8, one of the first CDC test kits arrived in a Federal Express package at a public health laboratory on the east side of Manhattan. By then, the virus had reached the United States, and the kits represented the government’s best hope for containing it while that was still possible.

For hours, lab technicians struggled to verify that the test worked. Each time, it fell short, producing untrustworthy results.

That night, they called their lab director, Jennifer Rakeman, an assistant commissioner in the New York City health department, to tell her it had failed. “Oh, s—,” she replied. “What are we going to do now?”

In the 21 days that followed, as Trump administration officials continued to rely on the flawed CDC test, many lab scientists eager to aid the faltering effort grew increasingly alarmed and exasperated by the federal government’s actions, according to previously unreported email messages and other documents reviewed by The Washington Post, as well as exclusive interviews with scientists and officials involved.

CREW – Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington – Requests Records on Strategic National Stockpile Coronavirus Response:

The Trump administrations’ unequal responses to states in supplying medical equipment to fight the coronavirus raises questions of whether President Trump is biasing the Strategic National Stockpile’s distribution of supplies.

As the pandemic has grown, the Strategic National Stockpile has received an overwhelming number of requests for supplies, and the disparity in response to different states has been suspect at best. For example, Michigan—whose governor has been outspoken in her criticism of the federal response—has received far less from the stockpile than the state needs to combat the coronavirus, while Florida—whose governor has been praised by the president—received everything it requested. Additionally, HHS Secretary Azar reportedly anticipated the need before the coronavirus had spread to the U.S. and sought $2 billion to buy emergency medical equipment—a request OMB cut to $500 million in a supplemental budget request it sent to Congress.

CREW requested records on the FEMA and HHS criteria used to make distributions to states from the Strategic National Stockpile to address the coronavirus pandemic.

 Connecticut National Guard Converts Sports Arena Into Covid-19 Field Hospital:

Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy, with scattered showers, and a high of sixty-one.  Sunrise is 6:30 AM and sunset 7:24 PM, for 12h 53m 46s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing gibbous with 72.4% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1865, the Union Army captures the Confederate capital: “The brigade containing the 19th Wisconsin Infantry was the first to enter Richmond on the morning of April 3rd. Their regimental flag became the first to fly over the captured capital of the Confederacy when Colonel Samuel Vaughn planted it on Richmond City Hall.”

Recommended for reading in full —

 Philip Rucker and Robert Costa report Commander of confusion: Trump sows uncertainty and seeks to cast blame in coronavirus crisis:

In the three weeks since declaring the novel coronavirus outbreak a national emergency, President Trump has delivered a dizzying array of rhetorical contortions, sowed confusion and repeatedly sought to cast blame on others.

History has never known a crisis response as strong as his own, Trump says — yet the self-described wartime president claims he is merely backup. He has faulted governors for acting too slowly and, as he did Thursday, has accused overwhelmed state and hospital officials of complaining too much and of hoarding supplies.

America is winning its war with the coronavirus, the president says — yet the death toll rises still, and in the best-case scenario more Americans will die than in the wars in Vietnam, Korea, Afghanistan and Iraq combined.

The economy is the strongest ever and will rebound in no time, he says — yet stock markets have cratered and in the past two weeks a record 10 million people filed for unemployment insurance.

As Trump has sought to remake his public image from that of a skeptic of the pandemic’s danger to a savior forestalling catastrophe and protecting hundreds of thousands of people from a vicious contagion, he also has distorted the truth, making edits and creating illusions at many turns.

Jeremy Peters reports Alarm, Denial, Blame: The Pro-Trump Media’s Coronavirus Distortion:

Talk show hosts and prominent right-wing writers criticized other conservatives who took the threat seriously. “Drudge has a screaming headline,” Rush Limbaugh announced on Feb. 26, referring to Matt Drudge and his website. “Flight attendant working L.A.X. tests positive. Oh, my God, 58 cases! Oh, my God. Oh, my God.” For years, Mr. Limbaugh has encouraged his audience to be suspicious of science as one of his so-called Four Corners of Deceit, which also include government, academia and media.

On Feb. 27, Mr. Hannity opened his show in a rage. “The apocalypse is imminent and you’re going to all die, all of you in the next 48 hours. And it’s all President Trump’s fault,” he said, adding, “Or at least that’s what the media mob and the Democratic extreme radical socialist party would like you to think.” His program would be one of many platforms with large audiences of conservatives — 5.6 million people watched Mr. Hannity interview the president on Fox last week — to misleadingly highlight statistics on deaths from the seasonal flu as a comparison.

On Feb. 28, Mr. Limbaugh read from an article from The Western Journal, a website that was blacklisted by Apple News last year for promoting articles Apple determined were “overwhelmingly rejected by the scientific community.”

An ancient Antarctic rainforest:

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: