An update on the Wisconsin elections Here’s some more context on the Wisconsin elections, from my colleagues Tom McCarthy and Sam Levine: As former vice-president Joe Biden scored a widely expected win in the Wisconsin Democratic presidential primary, a liberal challenger for a state supreme court seat declared victory in an upset hailed by Democrats as boding well for the presidential election in November. The state supreme court is expected to rule in numerous voting rights cases in the lead-up to the presidential election, including a case in which 200,000 voters could be purged from voter rolls. Wisconsin is a swing state that narrowly voted for Donald Trump in 2016. With most precincts in the state reporting, Judge Jill Karofsky held what looked like an insurmountable lead over conservative state Supreme Court justice Daniel Kelly. In a victory statement, Karofsky thanked supporters and blasted the Republican-led legislature for forcing voters to the polls a week earlier amid the coronavirus outbreak. The state’s Democratic governor, Tony Evers, had attempted to postpone the election, but he was rebuffed by the Republican-led legislature and the conservative-controlled state supreme court. “Although we were successful in this race, the circumstances under which this election was conducted were simply unacceptable, and raise serious concerns for the future of our democracy,” Karofsky said in a statement. “Nobody in this state or in this country should have been forced to choose between their safety and participating in an election.” The coronavirus crisis is “exposing how the cracks in the US’s creaking digital infrastructure are potentially putting lives at risk”, my colleague Amanda Holpuch reports: With most of the country on lockdown and millions relying on the internet for work, healthcare, education and shopping, research by M-Lab, an open source project which monitors global internet performance, showed that internet service slowed across the country after the lockdowns. “This is going to kill people,” said Sascha Meinrath, co-founder of M-Lab. In late March, most people in 62% of counties across the US did not have the government’s minimum download speed for broadband internet, according to M-Lab. Between February and mid March, when the pandemic was only just beginning to hit the US, there was a 10% increase in how many counties saw download speeds fall below the government standard, representing about one in 10 US counties, M-Lab found. “Now that people’s livelihoods, schools and lives, are literally on the line, we can’t survive,” Meinrath said. “These communities that are underserved are not going to be able to transition to an online workplace or school environment.” Jill Karofsky, a liberal judge in Wisconsin, won a stunning victory Monday over Daniel Kelly, a conservative justice who had been endorsed by Donald Trump, the Guardian’s Sam Levine reports. Karofsky, a circuit court judge in liberal Dane County, won even after Wisconsin Republicans refused a last-minute request to delay the election forced Wisconsin voters to go to the polls in the middle of a pandemic. Many saw the decision as a blatant effort to try and keep turnout low, which would have benefitted Kelly. Karofsky’s victory narrows the conservative majority on the Wisconsin supreme court to 4-3. The body is expected to take up a number of high profile cases in the near future, such as a dispute over whether more than 200,000 voters should be removed from the rolls and partisan gerrymandering. 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. Support the Guardian from as little as $1 – and it only takes a minute. Thank you. The briefing has ended — here are a few closing thoughts Dr Fauci admitted that the coronavirus “was much worse what I had thought it was going to be”, he said. “Maybe I should have been able to realize that earlier and said ‘Whoah,’ this is really worse than we could have imagined.” Mike Pence said he and the team are going to now “lean into the effort” to ramp up testing and get hospitals the supplies to treat the sick and keep health workers safe. “When you have conversations with the president, sometimes they really have to be confidential,” Dr Fauci said when asked if he’s willing to publicly contradict Trump if he advocates for unsafe policies. “I’ll have to think about that,” Fauci said, adding that he’s confident the president will defer to public health experts’ guidance. Dr Deborah Birx noted that the US has significantly ramped up testing in recent days. “In three weeks, we went from 300,000 tests to 3m tests,” she said. “We know that we have to further increase that.” A team is mapping the testing capacity is across the country, she added. Trump has left the briefing room, leaving the public health experts to answer questions. We’ll have more on updates from Drs Birx and Fauci. But first, let’s revisit that campaign-ad style video that Trump played earlier today. As ABC’s Will Steakin demonstrates – it’s almost identical to a campaign ad from a few weeks ago. Fact Check: Even more, yet, on presidential authority As we’ve noted several times today, Trump’s claims that he has “total” authority as president are false. And as we’ve already noted, these claims contradict not only constitutional scholars but also Trump himself. The president has repeatedly deferred responsibility to state leaders – directing governors to declare sheltering orders, acquire medical equipment and oversee the safety of their constituents. “At the president’s direction, the White House Coronavirus task force will continue to take the posture that we will defer to state and local health authorities on any measures that they deem appropriate,” Mike Pence said during the briefing on 1 April. During today’s coronavirus briefing, Trump said that making sure sick Americans have hospital beds and ventilators is “not even really our responsibility”, and noted that state can and should purchase their own medical equipment. His claim to “total” authority is at odds with his claim that it’s not totally his job to oversee the coronavirus response. Fact check: Antibody tests “It’s a test that’s been going along for many many years, except now we have very modern, very incredible versions of it,” Trump said about antibody test to check if a patient has contracted coronavirus and developed an immunity to it. The president’s comment doesn’t make much sense in this case. The US, like many other countries, is developing and rolling out antibody tests. “It’s really important to test for immunity,” Robert Siegel, a professor of microbiology and immunology at Stanford University, told the Guardian. People who are immune could return to work without endangering themselves or others. “They could more safely work as frontline healthcare providers,” Siegel said. Although antibody tests for other diseases like malaria already exist, Covid-19 is a new disease that emerged just a few months ago — so the tests that are being developed to detect immunity to the new illness are, well, new. And the many versions of these new tests being developed around the world are still being vetted for their accuracy. Fact check: Even more on presidential authorities Trump said he was confident that states would follow his administration’s guidance on when to re-open businesses and ease back distancing measures. “They will cooperate perfectly. Watch,” he said. But states have already made other ideas. Today, the governors of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Delaware and Connecticut announced they had formed a regional advisory council. New York governor Andrew Cuomo said each state would name a public health official and an economic development official to serve on a working group alongside each governor’s chief of staff to design a “reopening plan” for their states. Shortly afterward, the states of California, Washington and Oregon announced a similar plan. Fact check: Hydroxychloroquine Earlier in the briefing, Trump talked about a “friend” who treated himself with hydroxychloroquine and got better. We’ve noted this before, but at this point, hydroxychloroquine is not a proven treatment for Covid-19. In the week beginning 30 March, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) provided hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malarial drug that is also used to treat autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis and lupus, with an “emergency use authorization” to use on coronavirus patients in some circumstances. Clinical trials to test the drug’s effectiveness in treating coronavirus have begun across the world, and in the US. However, experts, including US public health officials, have warned that it is too early to know if hydroxychloroquine works. So far, the evidence that it’s a cure for coronavirus is anecdotal and mixed. An initial French study that appeared to have launched the Trump administration’s obsession with the drug has since been discredited. The drug is considered relatively safe for people without an underlying illness, but it’s unclear if it is safe for severely sick Covid-19 patients, who may have incurred organ damage due to the virus. The surge in demand for the unproven hydroxychloroquine also risks shortages of the drug for those who need it most. It is used to help patients manage the chronic autoimmune disease lupus, but some are already complaining the drug is harder to come by. Does Mike Pence agree with Trump’s understanding of federalism and agree that the president has “total” authority? He evaded the question. “I support the president’s leadership under the National Emergency Declaration that he signed,” Pence said. “We’re standing before you today for the first time in American history when all 50 states have issued emergency declarations.”