Good morning. What a week it's been! I'm Elizabeth Cooney and I'll be bringing you this newsletter for a few more days.

Covid-19: The political and the personal

Italy’s death toll has now surpassed China's, deaths exceed 100 in the U.S., and the State Department is urging Americans abroad to return home or stay in place. At this juncture, there are some sharp differences in how countries have approached the outbreak, with strikingly different consequences, Helen Branswell reports.

More developments:

• In Washington, Trump’s remarks at a press conference ran afoul of nearly every established FDA norm, Nicholas Florko and Damian Garde observe. And Lev Facher tells us who’s on the administration’s team responding to the pandemic. 
• "It's a lose-lose situation." Eric Boodman airs the dilemma of keeping home health aides away from the elderly to protect them, but depriving them of companionship and services.
• Drug makers are racing to develop immune therapies for Covid-19. But they take time to engineer and purify, sometimes longer than an epidemic. Will they be ready?
• We’ve updated our guide to some of the coronavirus drugs and vaccines in development, with details on the science and timeline for each.
• Rising Pharmaceuticals recently doubled the price of chloroquine. But now that it’s seen as a promising coronavirus treatment, it’s halving the price.
• After the Trump administration singled out hydroxychloroquine, another old malaria drug also not approved to fight Covid-19, Teva and Mylan plan to jumpstart production. 
• Here are two opinions on the role of health technology: Telehealth overpromises during the Covid-19 pandemic and telemedicine can blunt the cost of unnecessary Covid-19 visits.