Coronavirus, COVID-19

Factories in the U.S. are hunkering down like the rest of us.

Manufacturing activity slowed in March, according to a survey conducted by the Institute for Supply Management.

Production and factory employment fell sharply, as the coronavirus pandemic and other problems weighed on the factory sector. New orders hit their lowest level in 11 years.

Wednesday marked the first day of a furlough of roughly half the 9,000-strong Korean workforce staffing U.S. military bases in South Korea. The layoffs without pay — the first in the history of the seven-decade U.S.-South Korea alliance — were forced by an impasse between the two countries on paying for the cost of stationing some 28,500 American troops in South Korea.

Amid all the rules to stay put during the coronavirus outbreak, there's a consistent companion message: it's important to keep moving. Exercise, outdoors and indoors, helps maintain good physical and mental health during this stressful time.

But for those movers, there are rules too.

Let's start outside, where health experts say the risk of infection is lower than inside.

By the middle of March, the problem was undeniable: America didn't have enough ventilators for the coronavirus pandemic.

Over the next two weeks, U.S. manufacturers worked frantically to boost output in an effort that has been compared to the mobilization of industry during World War II. Medical companies paired up with automakers to increase their production to previously unthinkable levels.

The Indiana State Department of Health announced 14 new deaths from the novel coronavirus on Tuesday morning, bringing the state’s total to 49. As of Tuesday, 2,159 Hoosiers have been confirmed positive for the virus with more than 13,373 tests reported to the health department.

With tests scarce, epidemiologists are looking at hospitalizations as an indicator of how the novel coronavirus is spreading. But in some of the areas of the country worst-hit by COVID-19, states and counties aren't releasing that data.

The result is an incomplete picture of where the pandemic is surging, even in hotspots such as Washington and California.

Wallace Roney, a trumpeter and composer who embodied the pugnacious, harmonically restive side of post-bop throughout an illustrious four-decade career, died this morning at St. Joseph's University Medical Center in Paterson, N.J. He was 59.

The cause was complications from COVID-19, according to his fiancée, Dawn Felice Jones. She said Roney had been admitted to the hospital last Wednesday.

Updated at 8:37 p.m. ET

During his briefing with the coronavirus task force on Monday, President Trump said Russia has sent medical equipment to the United States to combat the growing pandemic.

"And I have to say, we've had great relationships with a lot of countries," Trump said. "Russia sent us a very, very large planeload of things, medical equipment, which was very nice."

Is that so?

Under lockdown, well-off Indians isolate indoors, work from home and get groceries delivered.

But outside their windows, it's a different story: Poor laborers amass in the streets, hungry and homeless.

In a video posted on Twitter, a woman calls down to a crowd of people gathering below her window. They yell back up to her, desperate: "There are 400 of us here without food. We need help. There are lots of children."

A new analysis from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention finds that people with chronic conditions including diabetes, lung disease and heart disease appear to be at higher risk of severe illness from COVID-19.

New York is the U.S. city hardest-hit by the novel coronavirus pandemic, but public health officials worry that other major metropolises could soon be facing dire numbers of COVID-19 infections as well.

In Chicago, confirmed cases topped 2,600 Tuesday. Mayor Lori Lightfoot predicted a peak in the coming weeks with more than 40,000 hospitalizations.

Dr. Allison Arwady, commissioner of the Chicago Department of Public Health, talked with All Things Considered about the city's preparation and how racial disparities play into the crisis. Here is an excerpt:

In an effort to tamp down the COVID-19 infection rate across the nation's corrections system, the Federal Bureau of Prisons announced on Tuesday that starting Wednesday, inmates in all of its institutions across the country will be kept in their assigned cells or quarters, effectively putting them in lockdown.

The order will hold for at least 14 days, but it may be extended to a later date.

At a White House briefing on Tuesday, Dr. Deborah Birx, the coronavirus response coordinator, laid out a grim vision of the future.

The best computer models, she said, predict that between 100,000 and 200,000 Americans will die from COVID-19 during the coming months, even if the country continues the strict social distancing measures that most states have adopted. Relaxing those restrictions would send the toll much higher.

On this broadcast of The National Conversation, we answer your questions about the government's response to the pandemic, the death toll in the U.S. and potential testing scams.