New York gets ventilators in China; Trump wants more thanks

NEW YORK (AP) — The New York governor said Saturday the Chinese government was facilitating a shipment of 1,000 donated ventilators to his state, highlighting the extreme measures leaders are taking in what has become a cutthroat scramble to independently secure enough lifesaving devices during the coronavirus pandemic.

In a sign of the disorganized response to the global crisis, Gov. Andrew Cuomo praised the Chinese government for its help in securing the shipment of the breathing machines that was scheduled to arrive at Kennedy Airport on Saturday, while acknowledging that the U.S. government’s stockpile of medical supplies would fall drastically short.

“We’re all in the same battle here,” Cuomo said, noting that the state of Oregon also volunteered to send 140 ventilators to New York. “And the battle is stopping the spread of the virus.”

Leaders like Cuomo have been forced to go outside normal channels and work with authoritarian governments and private companies.

The rush to secure supplies has prompted intense squabbling between the states and federal government at a moment the nation is facing one of its gravest emergencies.

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Trump, Dems clash on boosting mail-in voting during pandemic

WASHINGTON (AP) — While Wisconsin struggles to hold its primary on Tuesday, President Donald Trump and Democrats are bickering over how to provide voters with safe and secure access to a ballot as the coronavirus pandemic rages in the U.S. and threatens to extend into the fall, affecting the general election.

With another economic rescue package in the works, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says she wants money to give more voters the chance to cast their ballot by mail, an option that would allow people to vote without the concern over the safety of polling places.

But Trump opposes voting by mail and is leading Republicans in a battle to limit its use, arguing that it would encourage fraud and lead to so many people voting that his party could not win.

But the 2020 presidential election is creeping ever closer, and there are no signs yet of the pandemic abating, nor any word on when Americans on orders to stay home can resume normal life, so lawmakers are trying to figure out how to allow for voting in a world where face-to-face contact causes anxiety at the least and possibly sickness and death.

The debate is playing out now in Wisconsin. It stands apart from other states that have delayed primaries because of the virus, though Democratic Gov. Tony Evers has issued a statewide stay-at-home order.

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Where will the bodies go? Morgues plan as virus grows

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — There are the new dead. And then there are the bodies waiting in overcrowded mortuaries to be buried as cities struggle to meet demand and families wrestle with rules on social distancing that make the usual funeral rituals impossible.

Med Alliance Group, a medical distributor in Illinois, is besieged by calls and emails from cities around the country. Each asks the same thing: Send more refrigerated trailers so that we can handle a situation we never could have imagined.

“They’re coming from all over: From hospitals, health systems, coroner’s offices, VA facilities, county and state health departments, state emergency departments and funeral homes,” said Christie Penzol, a spokeswoman for Med Alliance. “It’s heart-wrenching.”

The company has rented all its trailers and there's an 18-week wait for new materials to build more, she said.

With U.S. medical experts and even President Donald Trump now estimating the death toll from the coronavirus pandemic could reach 240,000 nationwide, the sheer practicalities of death — where to put the bodies — are worrying just about everyone as cities, hospitals and private medical groups clamor to secure additional storage.

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State unemployment systems tested by surge of applicants

Americans are seeking unemployment benefits at unprecedented levels due to the coronavirus, but many are finding more frustration than relief.

State websites and phone lines across the country have been overwhelmed with applicants — causing sites to crash, phone lines to ring busy and much-needed payments to be delayed. While many states are doing their best to respond — adding staff, updating technology and streamlining the process — it’s tough to keep up with the pace of demand.

About 10 million people applied for unemployment benefits in the two weeks ended March 27.

“There's no hospital system in the world that's designed to handle what we're dealing with,” Ohio Lt. Gov. Jon Husted told reporters. “Our unemployment compensation system's the same way.”

Ohio handled twice as many claims in the past two weeks than it had over the past two years. The state has increased its online capacity for processing claims 20 times, added hundreds of workers, yet users might still encounter delays.

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What you need to know today about the virus outbreak

As the number of infections from the new coronavirus has grown to more than 1.1 million worldwide, health care systems are straining under the surge of patients and lack of medical equipment like ventilators, protective masks and gloves. All of which has heightened concerns about the exposure of hospital personnel.

In the U.S., governors are describing in stark terms the dog-eat-dog global marketplace they must navigate for the protective gear doctors, nurses and other front-line medical workers need as they brace for an expected wave of patients afflicted with severe cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus.

U.S. medical experts estimate the death toll from the coronavirus pandemic could reach 240,000 nationwide. The question of where to put the bodies is worrying just about everyone as cities, hospitals and private medical groups clamor to secure additional storage.

Here are some of AP’s top stories Saturday on the pandemic. Follow APNews.com/VirusOutbreak for updates through the day and APNews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak for stories explaining some of its complexities.

WHAT’S HAPPENING TODAY:

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Hidden suffering of coronavirus: Stigma, blaming, shaming

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — No one should have known Bella Lamilla’s name.

But within hours of her diagnosis as Ecuador’s first coronavirus case, it was circulating on social media along with photos showing the retired schoolteacher unconscious and intubated in a hospital bed. Her large, close-knit family watched in horror as a dual tragedy began to unfold: While Lamilla fought for her life in intensive care, strangers began tearing apart her reputation online.

“Knowing she had it, the old lady didn’t care and went all around,” one person commented on Facebook.

“It was ugly,” said Pedro Valenzuela, 22, Lamilla’s great-nephew. “It hurt a lot.”

The spreading global pandemic has tested the competing interests of public health and privacy, with thousands of individuals experiencing both physical illness and the less-visible stigma that can come with it. While there are many stories about good deeds and people coming together, the coronavirus is also bringing out another, darker side of some people: Fear, anger, resentment and shaming.

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A mounting casualty of coronavirus crisis: Health care jobs

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Tens of thousands of medical workers across the United States are suddenly out of work as operating rooms and doctor's offices go dark, casualties of urgent calls to prioritize coronavirus patients at overwhelmed hospitals and of the economic waves the crisis is churning.

Even as hospitals scrounge for professionals from the industry to treat the burgeoning numbers of people with COVID-19, others are on the sidelines as elective procedures, diagnostics and appointments are canceled or postponed.

For instance, many nurse anesthetists in Pennsylvania have been laid off, even though they are particularly critical to the coronavirus response because they can help intubate patients and manage them on ventilators.

“I certainly never thought there would be a day as a nurse that I would be filing for unemployment, so it’s quite surreal for all of us,” said Jess Poole, a nurse anesthetist who, until a couple weeks ago, worked for an anesthesia practice in the Pittsburgh area.

Big-city physician and specialist groups, tiny independent hospitals from Oregon to Connecticut, and big multistate hospital systems such as Steward Health Care are seeing big dropoffs in revenue and laying off or furloughing hundreds of workers.

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Asian Americans use social media to mobilize against attacks

Kyle Navarro was kneeling down to unlock his bicycle when he noticed an older white man staring at him. Navarro, who is Filipino, tried to ignore him, but that soon became impossible.

The man walked by, looked back and called Navarro a racial slur. He “spat in my direction, and kept walking," Navarro said.

Navarro, a school nurse in San Francisco, already had anxiety about racism related to the coronavirus, which emerged in China and has Asian people facing unfounded blame and attacks as it's spread worldwide. Now, he was outraged.

“My first instinct was to yell back at him in anger. But, after taking a breath, I realized that would have put me in danger,” Navarro said.

Instead, he took to Twitter last week to turn the ugly moment into an opportunity for a conversation about racism, generating thousands of sympathetic comments.

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New coronavirus limits bring new religious freedom tension

NEW YORK (AP) — Despite state and local limits on public gatherings, some faith leaders have persisted in holding in-person services -- a matter of religious freedom, they say, as the nation approached its fourth Sunday battling the coronavirus pandemic.

The most high-profile clash over in-person worship – and crowd limits designed to stop the virus’ spread -- came in Florida, where Pastor Rodney Howard-Browne was arrested Monday for violating a county order by hosting a large number of congregants at his Tampa church.

Howard-Browne said after his release he would move future worship online, but the county later ended its effort to apply limits on large gatherings to religious services after a statewide order described religious gatherings as essential.

Law enforcement officials in Louisiana and Maryland took separate action this week against pastors who continue to hold in-person services in the face of stay-home orders in most states.

But more than a half-dozen of those state orders provide a degree of exemption for religious activity, underscoring the political sensitivity of the decisions being made by states and localities.

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Contagious singing as Corona Community Chorus unites voices

NEW YORK (AP) — Casper ter Kuile lights a candle in front of his computer screen. And then the music begins.

All around the world, linked by video, more than 100 people sing “Come, Come Whoever You Are,” lyrics adapted from a poem by Rumi, the 13th century Sufi mystic. Then, laughing together, “Kookaburra,” the Australian nursery rhyme. And then, in Hebrew, “Hinei Matov.”

“How good and how pleasant it is that brothers dwell together” -- the words of King David from Psalm 133, a statement of optimism for a chorus that can only sing together virtually.

This is the Corona Community Chorus. Each Sunday, it meets on Zoom to unite voices in isolation during the coronavirus outbreak.

The chorus is hosted from the home of ter Kuile, a graduate of the Harvard Divinity School and the author of the upcoming book, “The Power of Ritual.” Using instruments like the traditional Indian accordion known as the shruti box, he leads the group through a multilingual repertoire.