NPR

Animal shelters across the country have had to close their doors as part of the effort to slow the spread of the coronavirus. Fearing the arrival of new litters and abandoned animals with no one to adopt them, they are racing to empty kennels before they are forced to resort to euthanasia.

"Every industry in the world right now is going through a massive disruption, and animal sheltering and animal rescues are no exception to that," says Julie Castle, the chief executive officer of Best Friends Animal Society, an advocacy group that works with more than 3,000 shelters.

The number of coronavirus deaths in the United States has sharply accelerated in recent days, now exceeding 2,000, marking a doubling of the fatality rate in the span of two days.

Two weeks ago, President Trump entered the White House briefing room and announced an aggressive plan to slow the spread of the coronavirus.

For 15 days, stay home, he told Americans. Avoid groups of more than 10 people. "If everyone makes this change, or these critical changes, and sacrifices now, we will rally together as one nation and we will defeat the virus," he said.

President Trump has signed a historic $2 trillion economic recovery package into law Friday afternoon, shortly after the House of Representatives approved the bill.

In an Oval Office ceremony Friday, the president thanked Republicans and Democrats "for coming together, setting aside their differences and putting America first" to pass the legislation. Trump was joined by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy. No Democrats were present at the signing.

Read the rest: How To Turn Your Home Into A School Without Losing Your Sanity

The coronavirus appears to be much more lethal in some countries than in others.

In Italy, about 10% of people known to be infected have died. In Iran and Spain, the case fatality rate is higher than 7%. But in South Korea and the U.S. it's less than 1.5%. And in Germany, the figure is close to 0.5%.

A spate of mysterious second-time infections is calling into question the accuracy of COVID-19 diagnostic tools even as China prepares to lift quarantine measures to allow residents to leave the epicenter of its outbreak next month. It's also raising concerns of a possible second wave of cases.

From March 18-22, the Chinese city of Wuhan reported no new cases of the virus through domestic transmission — that is, infection passed on from one person to another. The achievement was seen as a turning point in efforts to contain the virus, which has infected more than 80,000 people in China. Wuhan was particularly hard-hit, with more than half of all confirmed cases in the country.

Fausto Russo is a 38-year-old fitness trainer. He has been hospitalized with COVID-19 in Latina, south of Rome, for over two weeks. On Wednesday, he spoke to NPR and other international news media by video.

"I run a fitness center, I train soccer teams, I'm a physical therapist," Russo says."I never smoked, my last fever was 10 years ago. Suddenly I'm catapulted onto a hospital bed, unable to breathe."

In his first week at the Santa Maria Goretti Hospital, medical staff gave him and an IV drip and a type of helmet to help him breathe. He was bed-ridden, unable to move, eat or drink.

The U.S. now has more coronavirus cases than any other country in the world, surpassing China's total and highlighting how rapidly the virus can move through a population.

The U.S. logged more than 83,000 cases as of 8 p.m. ET Thursday, while China reported more than 81,00 infections, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

Over a thousand people in the U.S. have died from COVID-19, and over a third of those deaths have taken place in New York. Nearly half the confirmed cases in the United States are in New York. The state has become a coronavirus hotspot — anyone leaving New York City is being asked to self-quarantine for two weeks.

A key adviser to President Trump, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, says other states need to prepare to take on outbreaks of this scale.

The coronavirus has infected more than 450,000 people worldwide, and now cybersecurity experts are warning the pandemic could take a toll on computer systems, as well.

Many companies that usually handle sensitive information in their offices are now telling employees to work from home. And that can make them more vulnerable to hackers — especially if workers browse certain websites they wouldn't visit when the boss is watching.

Not enough toilets – and the ones there are often dirty. Beds crammed together. The only way to shower is with water from a bucket that everyone has to share. No soap or hand sanitizer.

People who've been quarantined in India for suspected exposure to coronavirus say conditions inside government facilities are unsanitary and unsafe — ripe to foment an outbreak rather than prevent one. Indians are posting photos and videos on social media of dirty sheets, broken toilets and trash littering crowded quarantine centers.

For the past 16 months, Angelo Mike has been living in his beige Toyota Camry in L.A.'s San Fernando Valley. It's difficult for obvious reasons: no bed, no kitchen, no bathroom. But, Mike says, structure and organization make it manageable.

Until recently, his daily routine involved waking up by 6:00 a.m. most mornings and heading to a nearby gym. There he'd exercise and shower. If he didn't need to be on set — Mike works as a crew member on movie sets — he'd head to the library after the gym to work on his laptop and search for new gigs.

Weekly jobless claims hit nearly 3.3 million last week, the Labor Department reported Thursday. That's staggering when you consider that at the height of the Great Recession, initial claims topped out at just shy of 700,000.

The CARES Act (short for Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act) that the Senate passed Wednesday night is set to provide $2 trillion in economic aid as the nation braces for this massive economic blow.

A record 3.28 million Americans filed for unemployment benefits last week as the coronavirus pandemic shut down much of the country. The Labor Department's report Thursday was one of the first official indicators of how many people have suddenly been forced out of work nationally.

As the COVID-19 pandemic intensifies, some communities will be better equipped to treat the sickest patients — specifically those requiring admission to intensive care units — than others. Not only do ICU capabilities vary from hospital to hospital, but also some parts of the country have far more critical care beds by population than others.