Daily Beast: “The worsening coronavirus outbreak may be stretching the limits of the U.S. health care system and overwhelming state governments, but that isn’t deterring a group of 18 state attorneys general from plowing ahead with a lawsuit that could overturn the Affordable Care Act within a year—a move that could disrupt the health care system at a time of deep crisis.”

“This fall, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is slated to argue in the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of 17 Republican attorneys general—and against 21 Democratic attorneys general—that Obamacare is unconstitutional and must be struck down immediately.”

McKay Coppins: “Some of the more brazen departures from public-health consensus have carried a whiff of right-wing performance art. Jerry Falwell Jr., an outspoken Trump ally and president of the evangelical Liberty University, made headlines this week for inviting students back to campus over objections from local officials. The conservative website The Federalist published a trollish piece proposing ‘chicken-pox parties’ as a model for strategically spreading the coronavirus. Throughout the conservative media, calls to reopen the economy—even if it means sacrificing the sick and elderly—are gaining traction.”

Said conservative radio host Glenn Beck: “I would rather die than kill the country.”

“This dynamic is playing out in small ways across the country. Bret, a sales representative from Plano, Texas, who asked that I not use his last name, proudly told me how unfazed he and his conservative neighbors were by the threat of an outbreak. In his view, the recent wave of government-mandated lockdowns was a product of panic-mongering in the mainstream media, and he welcomed Trump’s call for businesses to reopen by Easter.”

Dr. Deborah Birx told NBC News there would likely be at least 100,000 to 200,000 deaths linked to the coronavirus in the United States.

She noted that’s the best case scenario: “If we do things together well, almost perfectly, we could get in the range of 100,000 to 200,000 fatalities… The best case scenario would be 100% of Americans doing precisely what is required, but we’re not sure… that all of America is responding in a uniform way to protect one another.”

Many states have requested ventilators, face masks and other essential equipment from the federal emergency stockpile as their hospitals ramp up for the coronavirus pandemic, but only Florida has gotten 100 percent of what it asked for, the Washington Post reports.

Associated Press: “There are exceptions, but Republican leaders have been far more likely to resist the most aggressive social distancing measures, emboldened by President Trump’s initial rosy outlook and a smaller early caseload in their more rural communities across middle America. But in the more crowded population centers on the East and West coasts where the disease first appeared, the Democrats in charge have been more willing to embrace strict steps such as curfews, sweeping business closures and law enforcement assistance.”

“It is an election year divide that could have deadly consequences.”

The Atlantic: The social distancing culture war has begun.

“A drug President Trump backed as a possible ‘game changer’ in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic received an emergency-use designation from U.S. regulators, even as signs of risk continued to mount,” Bloomberg reports.

Axios: “We wait and watch Wuhan and China to see if life really does return to normal once the virus is contained. The global economy hinges on this light at the end of the tunnel.”

“We wait and watch Italy to see when its daily death rate peaks, plateaus and then plunges. This will give us a sense of how long highly concentrated outbreaks elsewhere might last.”

“We wait to see when New York hits its apex (two to three weeks, experts say) and watch how bad it gets. We also watch New Orleans and Detroit to see if New York is an early indicator or an anomaly.”

Tim Alberta: “I spent nearly three hours inside the Sam’s Club. From a respectful distance, I spoke with customers young and old, black and white, wealthy and working class. We talked about the coronavirus. We talked about their families. We talked about their jobs and their finances and their 401(k)s. No matter whom I encountered, no matter their politics or worldviews, the conversations were animated by a common sentiment: fear.”

“This wasn’t the fear you read about in front-page headlines or hear about on the evening news. None of us was on death’s door. None of us was being admitted to an over-capacity hospital. None of us was retracing routes of infection through dozens of family members and friends. Our fear was one step removed. We were waiting. We were—like the vast majority of Americans—reading those headlines, watching those newscasts, wondering when it might be our turn.”