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Tonight's newsletter is 2,051 words, an 8-minute read.
Welcome to Sneak Peek, our weekly lookahead from both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, plus our best scoops.
Tonight's newsletter is 2,051 words, an 8-minute read.
Trump speaks at the daily coronavirus briefing at the White House, March 29. Photo: Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images
President Trump is extending his administration's "15 days to slow the spread" shutdown guidelines for an additional month in the face of mounting coronavirus infections and deaths and pressure from public health officials and governors.
The president set April 30 as the new deadline for the social distancing guidelines in a Sunday evening briefing from the White House.
Driving the news: With the original 15-day period that was announced March 16 about to end, officials around the country had been bracing for a premature call to return to normalcy from a president who's been venting lately that the prescription for containing the virus could be worse than the impacts of the virus itself.
Behind the scenes: Trump has been under mounting pressure to extend the guidelines after numerous public officials pushed back against his statement last week that the economy could be back and running by Easter.
Maryland's Republican Gov. Larry Hogan told me in a blunt interview on Thursday that he was prepared to ignore President Trump if he reverted back to his "very harmful" message of reopening large sections of the economy by Easter.
Why it matters: Hogan, whose second and final term ends in 2022, is a Republican governor of a blue state. He also chairs the National Governors Association, leading the bipartisan coordination of governors' responses.
Hogan said he understood where Trump was coming from even if he finds the messaging unhelpful.
The other side: "President Trump has no higher priority than the health and safety of the American people, which is why as the nation continues to follow our guidelines to slow the spread, we are evaluating critical data to determine next steps," said deputy press secretary Judd Deere, responding to Hogan's comments.
Between the lines: On Sunday's "Meet the Press," White House coronavirus response coordinator Deborah Birx said, "No state, no metro area will be spared, and the sooner we react and the sooner the states and the metro areas react and ensure that they put in full mitigation ... then we'll be able to move forward together and protect the most Americans.
Go deeper: Read the full story in the Axios stream.
Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios
A plane from Shanghai arrived at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York Sunday morning carrying an extraordinary load: 12 million gloves, 130,000 N95 masks, 1.7 million surgical masks, 50,000 gowns, 130,000 hand sanitizer units, and 36,000 thermometers.
Why it matters: The flight is the start of what might end up being the largest government-led airlift of emergency medical supplies into the United States.
What's next: Polowczyk told Axios that he's already booked 22 similar flights over the next two weeks.
Driving the news: This weekend's first load of medical supplies will go into the New York tri-state area, Polowczyk said, and subsequent flights will distribute supplies to other parts of the country.
Local officials are crying out for ventilators and personal protective equipment. A survey of mayors in more than 200 U.S. cities found that more than 90% of the cities "do not have an adequate supply of face masks for their first responders (including police, fire, and EMTs) and medical personnel."
The distributor is paying for the product, which it will sell to buyers in the U.S. And the State Department is coordinating with countries like Vietnam, Malaysia and Cambodia to speed up diplomatic clearances.
Go deeper: Read our full inside story on the airlift and the heated debate over whether the federal government should take over the buying and distribution of medical supplies.
Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios
Barely a week into his role at the FEMA, Polowczyk is still trying to establish what's in the pipeline and where it is.
Why it matters: Polowczyk hears the calls from Congress, governors and medical equipment suppliers who want the federal government to nationalize the supply chain using the Defense Production Act — but he argues that's not the right move this far into the crisis.
What's happening: Instead, Polowczyk says, FEMA is collecting inventory data from all those companies and weaving disparate information systems together "to illuminate their supply chains down to their distribution networks and potentially down to the hospital level."
The big picture: With more than 150 countries affected by the global pandemic, worldwide demand for medical equipment is exploding, but supplies are limited and often hindered by virus-related shipping problems.
What he's saying: Polowczyk told Axios the crisis has to be managed on four fronts.
1. Preservation: Hospitals need to stretch existing supplies as much as possible.
2. Acceleration: FEMA needs to assist by clearing bottlenecks and speeding deliveries.
3. Expansion: New manufacturers need to step up to produce medical supplies.
4. Reallocation: FEMA needs a better understanding of what's available, where it is and where it needs to go.
Go deeper: Read our full story on the scramble to fix the coronavirus supply chain.
Anthony Fauci, who runs the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told Jake Tapper on Sunday that based on the data he's seeing now, it's possible 100,000 to 200,000 Americans could die of the coronavirus.
Also on "State of the Union," Nancy Pelosi went on the attack, directly blaming President Trump for the coronavirus' rising death toll.
Photo: TriggerPhoto/Getty Images
The House is on recess for the foreseeable future.
The Senate is on recess through April 20.
The White House did not share President Trump’s schedule, but administration officials say the daily briefings with the White House coronavirus task force will continue this week.