FEMA can’t say how many medical supplies the US has left to fight the coronavirus

Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) administrator Peter Gaynor struggled Sunday to detail how many masks and other pieces of personal protection equipment (PPE) the federal government has stockpiled — and how much of this stockpile has been sent to health care providers dealing with the coronavirus.

The Trump administration has faced questions about its role in coordinating the distribution of protective equipment in recent weeks as health care workers and state officials have become increasingly vocal about a severe shortage of masks and other forms of PPE that allow them to conduct coronavirus tests, treat infected patients, and minimize exposure …

Rand Paul is the first senator to test positive for Covid-19

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) has tested positive for the Covid-19 coronavirus, his office announced Sunday afternoon, bringing the pandemic into Congress’s upper chamber for the first time.

Paul’s office said he had not been showing any symptoms, but was tested because of extensive travel and contact with people at events in the course of his work. The senator will be self-quarantining now that he has received a positive diagnosis.

Phone booths, parades, and 10-minute test kits: How countries worldwide are fighting Covid-19

The novel coronavirus is a global health crisis, and the ways countries worldwide are attempting to stymie the disease’s outbreak are wide-ranging. In the United States, for example, many heavily populated areas have enacted “shelter-in-place” initiatives to keep the number of infected people from growing quickly. Businesses deemed nonessential have closed. At least one city has even offered official guidelines on how to safely have intimate relations during this time, most of which imply “don’t have them at all.”

But some African, Asian, European, and South American countries are responding quite differently. Below is a sampling of the …

Ohio’s attorney general told providers to stop abortions during the coronavirus pandemic

Ohio’s attorney general has ordered providers in the state to stop all “nonessential and elective surgical abortions” citing federal guidance intended to help conserve needed medical supplies during the coronavirus pandemic.

There are concerns that, due to the coronavirus, the demand for hospital beds could exceed supply in the US — and medical providers are currently experiencing a severe shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE) that allow them to safely interact with infected patients. In order to preserve what supply exists, Trump administration officials have asked “every American and every American hospital and healthcare facility to postpone any elective medical …