NPR News

With coronavirus cases continuing to climb and hospitals facing the prospect of having to decide how to allocate limited staff and resources, the Department of Health and Human Services is reminding states and health care providers that civil rights laws still apply in a pandemic.

States are preparing for a situation when there's not enough care to go around by issuing "crisis of care" standards.

But disability groups are worried that those standards will allow rationing decisions that exclude the elderly or people with disabilities.

The World Health Organization says the virus that causes COVID-19 doesn't seem to linger in the air or be capable of spreading through the air over distances more than about three feet.

But at least one expert in virus transmission said it's way too soon to know that.

Hippos can get hungry. Very hungry. So when zoos shut their doors to the public because of the coronavirus, zookeepers keep showing up to work to make sure everyone is fed.

Jenna Wingate feeds Fiona, the Cincinnati Zoo's 3-year-old, 1,300-pound hippo. Fiona was born premature, and Wingate has been looking after her since two hours after she was born.

Last month, Habibi released Anywhere But Here, the band's first full-length album since its self-titled debut in 2014. Just like that first record and the EPs and singles over the past six years, the new album is full of Habibi's signature mix of psychedelic rock and Iranian music.

Apple's new COVID-19 website and app allow users to screen themselves for coronavirus symptoms and receive recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on what to do next.

The tool was developed in partnership with the CDC, the White House's coronavirus task force and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Both the website and the app were made publicly available on Friday.

The hospital ship USNS Comfort got underway from its pier in Norfolk, Va., on Saturday after a pomp-filled benediction by President Trump complete with a coterie of American flags and a military band.

The ship is scheduled to arrive in New York City on Monday to offer its roughly 1,000 hospital beds as surge capacity for the region hardest hit by the coronavirus disaster.

Patients without the disease can get treatment aboard the ship, the president said, freeing up treatment centers ashore for sufferers in the pandemic.

Updated at 9:01 p.m. ET

After broaching the possibility of quarantining New York, Connecticut and New Jersey, President Trump backtracked late Saturday, saying a "quarantine will not be necessary."

Earlier in the day, the president said he was "looking at" quarantining New York, New Jersey and parts of Connecticut because they had developed as "hot spots" of the coronavirus outbreak.

After a slow start, testing for COVID-19 has begun to ramp up in recent weeks. Giant commercial labs have jumped into the effort, drive-up testing sites have been established in some places, and new types of tests have been approved under emergency rules set by the Food and Drug Administration.

Former Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn, whose inflexible support of conservative policies placed him at the heart of many major congressional battles, has died at the age of 72. His former communications director, John Hart, confirmed that Coburn died Saturday morning "after a long battle with prostate cancer."

Coburn's former colleague, fellow Republican Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma, remembered the senator as a "friend and a leader."

Fresh Air Weekend highlights some of the best interviews and reviews from past weeks, and new program elements specially paced for weekends. Our weekend show emphasizes interviews with writers, filmmakers, actors and musicians, and often includes excerpts from live in-studio concerts. This week:

Comedian Marc Maron: We Need 'Groupthink Empathy' During COVID-19 Outbreak: "We [have] to do the right thing to protect those who are vulnerable," Maron says. His new Netflix stand-up special, End Times Fun, was named before the coronavirus pandemic.

Updated at 9:14 p.m. ET

The United States marked another grim milestone in its fight against the coronavirus on Saturday, when the number of deaths from the virus topped 2,000.

According to data from Johns Hopkins University, 2,010 Americans have now died from the coronavirus. The majority of deaths have been in New York City.

As COVID-19 cases in the remote Pacific climb, it turns out that even natural isolation is no match against this pandemic.

Let us all have a moment of sympathy – and perhaps even understanding — for Thomas Massie, Republican of Kentucky.

Massie was the guy who caught hell from all sides Friday when he tried to force a roll call vote on the coronavirus relief bill in the House of Representatives. He said he wanted every individual member to record his or her vote on the gargantuan $2 trillion package, which he called the biggest relief bill in the history of mankind.

In recent weeks doctors and nurses have reported dire shortages of protective gear; on the Cape Cod peninsula in Massachusetts, and in the San Francisco Bay Area, hospital workers say they're being forced to reuse N-95 masks. In New York, the current epicenter of the U.S.

The losses of the coronavirus pandemic became personal for many Americans this week. More people lost jobs. More people had to worry about their health. And more people died. These names are just a few among so many who gave something to our lives.