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In days, New York City has gone from sounding determined to ride out the novel coronavirus and keep schools open to confronting daunting challenges as the epicenter of the nation’s crisis. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, who only days ago had encouraged people to visit restaurants and kept his own gym appointments, was by the weekend instructing residents to stay home and sounding the alarm. (Chapman and Vielkind, 3/23)

New York has tried to slow the spread of the coronavirus by closing its schools, shutting down its nonessential businesses and urging its residents to stay home almost around the clock. But it faces a distinct obstacle in trying to stem new cases: its cheek-by-jowl density. New York is far more crowded than any other major city in the United States. It has 28,000 residents per square mile, while San Francisco, the next most jammed city, has 17,000, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau. (Rosenthal, 3/23)

The “attack rate” of the coronavirus in the New York metro area is five times higher than in other areas of the country, Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House’s coronavirus response coordinator, said Monday evening. About one in 1,000 people have the coronavirus in the region, she added. Of those who have been tested for the virus in the New York area, 28 percent were positive, compared to 8 percent in the rest of the country. (Hellmann, 3/23)

About 50 guests gathered on March 5 at a home in the stately suburb of Westport, Conn., to toast the hostess on her 40th birthday and greet old friends, including one visiting from South Africa. They shared reminiscences, a lavish buffet and, unknown to anyone, the coronavirus. Then they scattered. The Westport soirée — Party Zero in southwestern Connecticut and beyond — is a story of how, in the Gilded Age of money, social connectedness and air travel, a pandemic has spread at lightning speed. The partygoers — more than half of whom are now infected — left that evening for Johannesburg, New York City and other parts of Connecticut and the United States, all seeding infections on the way. (Williamson and Hussey, 3/23)

A month ago, in quieter times, Gov. Andrew Cuomo posted a story on Facebook about how scientists at a state college had found a tortoise on the Galapagos Islands previously believed to be extinct. The comments were in line with what can be found on most of the New York governor’s social media posts. “When will you be extinct?” responded one person. (Mahoney, 3/23)

A major New York City hospital system is banning partners from the delivery room in response to the new coronavirus outbreak, sparking a backlash from health-care advocates concerned about the policy’s toll on pregnant women and their families. A spokeswoman for NewYork-Presbyterian, a network of 10 hospitals that delivers some 15,000 infants a year, said the hospital has decided not to permit visitors, including partners. “We understand that this will be difficult for our patients and their loved ones, but we believe this is a necessary step to promote patient safety,” she said. (Kusisto and West, 3/23)

Crime in New York City is falling as the city’s response to the new coronavirus ramps up, data released by the New York Police Department on Monday show. The number of serious felonies reported by the NYPD dropped by 16.6 % between March 16 and March 22, compared with the same period last year, according to police data. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio ordered city schools closed on March 15, in the first in a series of wide-reaching official actions to stem the spread of the disease. (Chapman, 3/23)

San Francisco officials warned that a surge in coronavirus is expected to come within a week or two, and voiced dismay over images of the public crowding beaches and parks across California. “The worst is yet to come,” San Francisco Director of Health Dr. Grant Colfax said at a news conference Monday. “Every community where the virus has taken hold has seen a surge in the number of coronavirus patients who need to be hospitalized. We expect that to happen in San Francisco soon, in a week or two, or perhaps even less.” (Ryan, Lin and Greene, 3/23)

As the surge in new coronavirus patients threatens to overwhelm Bay Area hospitals, some are preparing by aggressively ramping up the hiring of nurses, reshuffling staff and even asking recent retirees to return .Even before COVID-19 posed a risk to the U.S., many hospitals around the country — including San Francisco General Hospital — were woefully short of nurses and other frontline health care workers. Now, as the coronavirus tears through the country, hospitals everywhere are competing for a limited pool of experienced talent. (Thadani, 3/23)

In a January budget proposal of record size, Gov. Gavin Newsom touted a projected multibillion-dollar surplus and new programs to reshape homeless services, boost wildfire prevention and provide health care for immigrant seniors living in the country illegally. That plan has been dashed by the economic turmoil caused by the coronavirus outbreak, which experts say is pushing the U.S. into a recession. (Koseff, 3/23)

Within an hour after Hayward Fire Station 7 began offering free coronavirus testing at 9 a.m. Monday morning — one of the first free testing sites in California with no doctor’s order required — firefighters had screened nearly 300 people for symptoms, collected nasal cavity samples from about 20 of them and prepared to drive the samples across the bay to a lab.By 11 a.m., technicians and clinical laboratory specialists at Avellino Lab, the Menlo Park biotech company that is providing and processing the tests, was running samples through its diagnostic machines. (Ho and Ravani, 3/23)

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has issued an executive order mandating a 14-day self-quarantine or isolation period for travelers coming to Florida from airports in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut amid the novel coronavirus pandemic. The order marks the first large-scale attempt by a state to impose a self-quarantine period for domestic travelers and underscores the expansive measures elected officials are attempting -- and willing -- to enact as the outbreak spreads. (LeBlanc, 3/23)

Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said Monday night that he's "not living in fear" of the novel coronavirus pandemic and is "all in" on lifting social distancing guidelines recommended by public health experts in order to help the economy. Patrick, who said he turns 70 next week, would be among the high-risk population that is most affected by the coronavirus. But he said people like him have to weigh the hazards to their personal health that the virus poses with the challenges to health of the American economy brought on by social distancing guidelines. (LeBlanc, 3/23)

Texas Lt. Gov Dan Patrick (R) on Monday said that he is willing to take a chance on his survival as a senior citizen for the good of the country’s economy amid the coronavirus outbreak and added that thinks “there are lots of grandparents out there in this country” who feel the same way. "No one reached out to me and said, as a senior citizen, are you willing to take a chance on your survival in exchange for keeping the America that all America loves for your children and grandchildren? And if that's the exchange, I'm all in," Patrick, who turns 70 next week, said during an appearance on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News program on Monday night. (Folley, 3/23)

Gov. Jay Inslee (D) ordered Monday that the residents of Washington state stay at home as much as possible as the coronavirus outbreak continues to hit the state hard. Inslee announced the stay-at-home order in a live televised address to the state, saying residents have to remain home unless they are “pursuing an essential activity,” including grocery shopping, doctor appointments or essential work duties. All gatherings of people in public and private groups will be banned, including weddings and funerals. (Coleman, 3/23)

Virginia closed all schools for the rest of the academic year and Maryland ordered all nonessential businesses to shut their doors as the coronavirus continued to spread Monday, with health care workers sounding the alarm about dwindling supplies of protective gear. The number of cases announced in the region had reached 684 as of Monday evening. Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam (D) said the state was “moving into a period of sacrifice” and canceled the remainder of the school year — becoming the second state to do so, after Kansas. (Schneider, Wiggins, Vozzella and Swenson, 3/23)

Older adults, especially those with underlying health issues, have been disproportionately affected by the coronavirus pandemic, so nursing homes and other senior living residences in Massachusetts have been on high alert for weeks. Hoping to avoid what happened at the Life Care Center of Kirkland in Washington — where at least 129 people have tested positive and 35 people have died — the state and federal governments have issued guidelines about cleaning, hygiene, and limiting outside visitors. Still, late last week, senior living residences in the state began reporting residents testing positive for the coronavirus. (Wasser, 3/23)

Many of Georgia’s employees tasked with monitoring juvenile offenders continue to show up to work every day while taking extra steps to ensure their safety during the growing coronavirus pandemic. Even though Gov. Brian Kemp earlier this month encouraged state employees who could to telework, 60% to 65% of the Department of Juvenile Justice’s some 3,500 staff members — such as security officers and health care staff across 26 facilities — are not able to stay at home. (Prabhu, 3/23)

These are some of the sick who were tested for coronavirus: a woman who lost consciousness because she could not breathe; a state senator exposed to a congressman under voluntary quarantine; and a mom with a fever who works next to a doctor’s office. These are some of the sick who were not: a pregnant woman with lupus; a roofer who experienced such severe shortness of breath he dialed 911; and an uninsured woman whom doctors wanted to test, but could not afford it. (Mariano and Trubey, 3/23)

Philadelphia city officials shut down a homeless encampment near the Convention Center on Monday in a move that appeared to defy federal guidance aimed at slowing the spread of the coronavirus. The city’s Office of Homeless Services had planned for months to clear the encampment that formed in the shadow of the Convention Center. City officials considered the site the epicenter of Center City homelessness. Though some of the dozens of people who slept there regularly found safe haven in the community, officials said the conditions were unsafe and unsanitary. (Orso, 3/23)

On March 13, when Gov. Tom Wolf ordered all schools in the commonwealth to be closed, families and educators in Forest County and other rural areas were presented with unique problems. Internet service is often terrible or nonexistent, so the students are just off. (Nark, 3/24)

These are the painful choices that health-care workers and their families are making as the coronavirus outbreak bears down on the region. Those decisions have only become more urgent in recent days, as it’s become clear health-care workers in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and around the world are facing a severe shortage of equipment to protect themselves.The crisis has set off a sense of wartime in America — the virus is described as an invisible enemy, and health-care workers are spoken of in terms often reserved for soldiers. The families who are avoiding their loved ones or setting up quarantine rooms in their homes are seen as part of the sacrifice. (Orso and Ao, 3/23)

The number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Oklahoma will rise dramatically as testing increases, adding to pressures on a health care system that is lacking necessary equipment, medical experts said Sunday night. “It’s likely we’ll see the numbers rise fairly significantly” as Oklahoma’s capability to test people increases, Gary Raskob, dean of the College of Public Health at the University of Oklahoma, said Sunday night. (Casteel, 3/24)

President Trump said Monday that he is pushing back the deadline for when Americans will be required to have the new Real ID credential to board domestic flights. At a White House briefing, Trump said he is postponing the Oct. 1 deadline, citing the coronavirus crisis and concerns of crowding at state departments of motor vehicles from people trying to meet the looming deadline. (Lazo, 3/23)