And here’s a roundup of the Guardian’s coronavirus coverage from across the country: 1) In California, food banks are struggling to keep up with growing demand, even as they run into volunteer shortages and rising food prices. 2) In Michigan, a public bus driver died less than two weeks after expressing concern about passenger coughing without covering her mouth. 3) In New York, workers at Bellevue hospital, which has fought against epidemics for centuries, say they can see a breaking point coming as coronavirus cases rise. 4) In Florida, passengers from an ill-fated cruise were carefully freed from their cabins and allowed to touch dry land. Here’s a round-up of Guardian opinion pieces, to help you digest this week in politics: 1) Lloyd Green on Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law as public health adviser... 2) David Heymann on face masks... 3) Heidi Shierholz on the economy... 4) And finally, The Guardian view on Trump’s coronavirus response... Here’s more from the reporter who Trump attacked during the briefing. The president told Weijia Jiang of CBS that she “oughtta be ashamed” for asking what the president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner meant when he said that the federal stockpile was “ours”. The president has habitually lashed out at reporters of color, and particularly women. The Guardian’s David Smith has also found that the pattern extends to lawmakers and public figures of color. In these extraordinary times, the Guardian’s editorial independence has never been more important. Because no one sets our agenda, or edits our editor, we can keep delivering quality, trustworthy, fact-checked journalism each and every day. Free from commercial or political bias, we can report fearlessly on world events and challenge those in power. Your support protects the Guardian’s independence. We believe every one of us deserves equal access to accurate news and calm explanation. No matter how unpredictable the future feels, we will remain with you, delivering high quality news so we can all make critical decisions about our lives, health and security – based on fact, not fiction. For as little as $1, you can support us, and it only takes a minute. Thank you. My colleague Sam Levine circles back to the moment during today’s coronavirus briefing when Trump bashed the idea of voting by mail... As Donald Trump was explaining that he won’t be wearing a mask, because he doesn’t want to greet “presidents, prime ministers, dictators, kings queens,” with his face covered, Melania Trump tweeted an appeal for “everyone” to take the CDC guidelines seriously: I missed this moment, from earlier, when Trump discusses models: Well, that’s all the briefing we’re getting today. My colleague Joanna Walters has one last fact check for us: Fact check: the federal stockpile A reporter at the White House briefing asked Trump why Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser, referred to “our stockpile” yesterday when asked about states struggling to get key medical supplies, especially ventilators, from the federal government. (Kushner had said: “The notion of the federal stockpile was it’s supposed to be our stockpile. It’s not supposed to be states’ stockpiles that they then use.”) Trump just gave a very confusing response, saying: “You know what ‘our’ means? The United States of America. Our, our, and then we take that ‘our’ and we distribute it to the states.” The reporter responded: “So why did he say it’s not supposed to be states’ stockpiles?” Trump: “Because we need it for the government, we need it for the federal government. To keep for our country because the federal government needs it, too, not just the states. But out of that we choose oftentimes, as an example, we have almost 10,000 ventilators and we are ready to rock...we are going to bring them to various areas of the country that need them. But when he says ‘our’ he is talking about “our country” he is talking about the federal government. You should be ashamed of yourself...don’t make it sound bad...you just asked your question in a very nasty way.” In fact, yesterday reporters quickly noted the stockpile is indeed meant as a resource for the states, as noted on the department of health and human services’ website. “When state, local, tribal, and territorial responders request federal assistance to support their response efforts, the stockpile ensures that the right medicines and supplies get to those who need them most during an emergency,” the website read. But this morning, that language had been removed from the HHS website. “The Strategic National Stockpile’s role is to supplement state and local supplies during public health emergencies,” the website now says. “Many states have products stockpiled, as well.” Fact check: Mail-in voting “A lot of people cheat” with mail-in voting, Trump said. People should go to the voting booth, “proudly display yourself” and have an ID, he added. “All sorts of bad things can happen”, when people vote by mail, the president said. But there is no evidence of widespread cheating when people vote by mail, and on the contrary, there is evidence that removing barriers to voting by mail can make it easier for many people – including those with disabilities, and work and childcare responsibilities – to vote. Still, Trump has long-opposed measures to expand vote by mail. My colleague Sam Levine reported earlier this week: Donald Trump admitted on Monday that making it easier to vote in America would hurt the Republican party. The president made the comments as he dismissed a Democratic-led push for reforms such as vote-by-mail, same-day registration and early voting as states seek to safely run elections amid the Covid-19 pandemic. Democrats had proposed the measures as part of the coronavirus stimulus. They ultimately were not included in the $2.2tn final package, which included only $400m to states to help them run elections. “The things they had in there were crazy. They had things, levels of voting that if you’d ever agreed to it, you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again,” Trump said during an appearance on Fox & Friends. “They had things in there about election days and what you do and all sorts of clawbacks. They had things that were just totally crazy and had nothing to do with workers that lost their jobs and companies that we have to save.” Fact check: Is the previous administration to blame? Donald Trump has repeatedly blamed the “previous administration” for his government’s lack of preparation for the coronavirus crisis. “Speak to the people from the previous administration. The shelves were empty,” he said when asked why the US failed to stockpile enough medical supplies to meet current needs. But Trump, who has been president since 2017, ignored early warnings that a pandemic was coming, including from his own HHS secretary. Three months before the first cases of coronavirus began spreading through China, the Trump administration ended a $200m early warning program designed to alert it to potential pandemics. Will the government guarantee that New York will have enough ventilators? “No,” the Trump said. “We are doing the best we can... We happen to think [governor Andrew Cuomo] is well served with ventilators. We are going to find out.” Trump added that other states like Michigan and Louisiana made need ventilators, too. We found Dr Fauci... He’s on PBS NewsHour, providing context and guidance on the new mask guidelines. Context: Antibody tests Dr Deborah Birx said that tests that can detect whether people have had the infection and developed immunity will be important going forward. “We want those tests to be like what we use for HIV and Malaria,” she said, which uses a finger prick of blood to detect whether a person’s immune system has developed antibodies to fight the infection. Yesterday, the FDA approved an antibody test that is more complicated, and requires a lot more than just a finger-prick of blood. The test, developed by Cellex, takes 15 to 20 minutes to get a result. “It’s really important to test for immunity,” Robert Siegel, a professor of microbiology and immunology at Stanford University, told me yesterday because people who are immune could return to work without endangering themselves or others. “They could more safely work as frontline healthcare providers,” Siegel said. Trump is growing increasingly hostile toward reporters in the briefing room. Asked to clarify what the president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner meant when he said the national stockpile was “our stockpile” and not for states, Trump snapped that she “oughtta be ashamed” of herself. “We need it for the federal government,” he said, of the national emergency stockpile. He’s repeatedly said that states should depend on the federal government for aid unless it’s a “last resort” and has blamed states for a shortage of medical supplies. Context: Oracle and Covid-19 treatments Trump said, “many providers are trying different experimental treatments.” The health secretary Alex Azar added: “Today, Oracle has developed and donated to the government and the American people a web portal and platform to gather crowdsourced and real-time information from providers about how patients respond to potential therapeutics.” As the New York Times reported on 24 March: The White House is preparing to use software provided by the technology giant Oracle to promote unproven coronavirus treatments, including a pair of malaria drugs publicized by Trump, potentially before the government approves their use for the outbreak, according to five senior administration officials and others familiar with the plans. An online platform designed by Oracle, in collaboration with the White House, is still taking shape, but it is likely to be used to collect information about off-label use of the drugs, chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine, which are not yet approved by the Food and Drug Administration to treat Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. Trump has tried to reassure Americans that what he has called a “game changer” treatment is imminent, but his language has alarmed senior health officials and public health experts, who say that the Oracle program would amount to a sprawling, crowdsourced clinical trial without the usual controls of the FDA. The president boasted about his administration’s shipments of medical masks to New York. Compared to the homemade masks that the CDC is reccomending that the public wear, the N-95 masks are “more expensive, more complicated, better, whatever”, Trump said. Why is it we don’t have enough masks? “The previous administration,” Trump said. “Speak to the people from the previous administration. The shelves were empty.” “I don’t know,” said Trump in response to a question asking where Dr Anthony Fauci is today. Fauci, Trump’s leading public health adviser, has jot joined in the briefing today. “Whenever he’s not here,” Trump complained, “the fake news” will ask about him. The masks are more for the protection of other people than oneself, the surgeon general clarified Jerome Adams. Wearing a cloth face covering will help contain your coughs and sneezes, reducing chances that you’ll spray infectious droplets into the air, and risk transmitting the disease the others, noted Dr Adams. Still “maintaining 6ft of social distancing remains key”, he said. Masks are “not a replacement for social distancing”. Also important: don’t put a mask on with dirty hands. “If you choose to wear a face covering, wash your hands first,” Adams said. “I won’t be doing it, personally,” Trump said about masks - it wouldn’t suit his position. He doesn’t want to greet world leaders, “presidents, prime ministers, dictators, kings, queens”, he continued, while wearing a face covering. “I don’t know, somehow, I don’t see it for myself.”