The Guessing Game - Updated/Bindi Irwin's Wedding

What will be on the cover of People this week? My guesses, a short list this week because the coronavirus is still the biggest news story:

NY Governor Andrew Cuomo: Demonstrating leadership in a time of crisis, his daily briefings are now a must see, not to mention a stark contrast to the raving lunacy of Donald's daily rantings. (In September, People ran a story titled "Five things to know about Gov. Andrew Cuomo," read it here. I also wrote about the governor, back in February, 2014; you can read that here. As you read, remember that when I wrote it, the idea that Donald, for whom the phrase "messy personal life" doesn't begin to cover it, would actually become president was both inconceivable and unthinkable.)
Prince Charles: Has the coronavirus, apparently a fairly mild case
Harry and Meghan: They've moved to Los Angeles (Update on Tuesday 3/31: Today is their official last day as "senior working royals")
Bindi Irwin: Married
Bachelor Ben Higgins: Engaged. In other Bachelor news, Peter Weber was seen in Chicago with Kelly, in defiance of the shelter-in-place order and Hannah B has been seen with Tyler Cameron
Tiger King: I don't even know what this is, but all of a sudden, it's everywhere

Stories that appear on the new cover will be highlighted in green.

Update on Monday morning: The Tokyo Summer Olympics: They've now officially been postponed until July, 2021.
Elton John: He and other musicians gave a televised "concert from home" last night
Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson: They're home from Australia

Update #2 on Wednesday morning. It's a Celebrity Wedding cover this week, featuring Bindi Irwin, her new husband and a very cute koala bear. Secondary headlines include Harry and Meghan's move to L.A. and a Covid-19 story, this one about nurses and doctors.

Issue dated April 13, 2020: Bindi Irwin's Wedding



Last year at this time: Issue dated April 15, 2019

"How Trump Failed The Biggest Test Of His Life" - Updated

The title of this post is taken from the title of an article at The Guardian, subtitled "The president was aware of the danger from the coronavirus – but a lack of leadership has created an emergency of epic proportions." The article was posted at 4.00 p.m. Eastern time yesterday, and note that at the time it was posted, there were 86,012 cases of Covid-19 in the U.S. Now, less than 24 hours later, there are 133,924, with 2,352 deaths. This is the article in its entirety:

When the definitive history of the coronavirus pandemic is written, the date 20 January 2020 is certain to feature prominently. It was on that day that a 35-year-old man in Washington state, recently returned from visiting family in Wuhan in China, became the first person in the US to be diagnosed with the virus.

On the very same day, 5,000 miles away in Asia, the first confirmed case of Covid-19 was reported in South Korea. The confluence was striking, but there the similarities ended.

In the two months since that fateful day, the responses to coronavirus displayed by the US and South Korea have been polar opposites.

One country acted swiftly and aggressively to detect and isolate the virus, and by doing so has largely contained the crisis. The other country dithered and procrastinated, became mired in chaos and confusion, was distracted by the individual whims of its leader, and is now confronted by a health emergency of daunting proportions.

Within a week of its first confirmed case, South Korea’s disease control agency had summoned 20 private companies to the medical equivalent of a war-planning summit and told them to develop a test for the virus at lightning speed. A week after that, the first diagnostic test was approved and went into battle, identifying infected individuals who could then be quarantined to halt the advance of the disease.

Some 357,896 tests later, the country has more or less won the coronavirus war. On Friday only 91 new cases were reported in a country of more than 50 million.

The US response tells a different story. Two days after the first diagnosis in Washington state, Donald Trump went on air on CNBC and bragged: “We have it totally under control. It’s one person coming from China. It’s going to be just fine.”

‘A fiasco of incredible proportions’

A week after that, the Wall Street Journal published an opinion article by two former top health policy officials within the Trump administration under the headline Act Now to Prevent an American Epidemic. Luciana Borio and Scott Gottlieb laid out a menu of what had to be done instantly to avert a massive health disaster.

Top of their to-do list: work with private industry to develop an “easy-to-use, rapid diagnostic test” – in other words, just what South Korea was doing.

It was not until 29 February, more than a month after the Journal article and almost six weeks after the first case of coronavirus was confirmed in the country that the Trump administration put that advice into practice. Laboratories and hospitals would finally be allowed to conduct their own Covid-19 tests to speed up the process.

Those missing four to six weeks are likely to go down in the definitive history as a cautionary tale of the potentially devastating consequences of failed political leadership. Today, 86,012 cases have been confirmed across the US, pushing the nation to the top of the world’s coronavirus league table – above even China.

More than a quarter of those cases are in New York City, now a global center of the coronavirus pandemic, with New Orleans also raising alarm. Nationally, 1,301 people have died.

Most worryingly, the curve of cases continues to rise precipitously, with no sign of the plateau that has spared South Korea.

“The US response will be studied for generations as a textbook example of a disastrous, failed effort,” Ron Klain, who spearheaded the fight against Ebola in 2014, told a Georgetown university panel recently. “What’s happened in Washington has been a fiasco of incredible proportions.”

Jeremy Konyndyk, who led the US government’s response to international disasters at USAid from 2013 to 2017, frames the past six weeks in strikingly similar terms. He told the Guardian: “We are witnessing in the United States one of the greatest failures of basic governance and basic leadership in modern times.”

In Konyndyk’s analysis, the White House had all the information it needed by the end of January to act decisively. Instead, Trump repeatedly played down the severity of the threat, blaming China for what he called the “Chinese virus” and insisting falsely that his partial travel bans on China and Europe were all it would take to contain the crisis.

‘The CDC was caught flat-footed’

If Trump’s travel ban did nothing else, it staved off to some degree the advent of the virus in the US, buying a little time. Which makes the lack of decisive action all the more curious.

“We didn’t use that time optimally, especially in the case of testing,” said William Schaffner, an infectious diseases specialist at Vanderbilt University medical center. “We have been playing reluctant catch-up throughout.”

As Schaffner sees it, the stuttering provision of mass testing “put us behind the eight-ball” right at the start. “It did not permit us, and still doesn’t permit us, to define the extent of the virus in this country.”

Though the decision to allow private and state labs to provide testing has increased the flow of test kits, the US remains starkly behind South Korea, which has conducted more than five times as many tests per capita. That makes predicting where the next hotspot will pop up after New York and New Orleans almost impossible.

In the absence of sufficient test kits, the US Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) initially kept a tight rein on testing, creating a bottleneck. “I believe the CDC was caught flat-footed,” was how the governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, put it on 7 March. “They’re slowing down the state.”

The CDC’s botched rollout of testing was the first indication that the Trump administration was faltering as the health emergency gathered pace. Behind the scenes, deep flaws in the way federal agencies had come to operate under Trump were being exposed.

In 2018 the pandemic unit in the national security council – which was tasked to prepare for health emergencies precisely like the current one – was disbanded. “Eliminating the office has contributed to the federal government’s sluggish domestic response,” Beth Cameron, senior director of the office at the time it was broken up, wrote in the Washington Post.

Disbanding the unit exacerbated a trend that was already prevalent after two years of Trump – an exodus of skilled and experienced officials who knew what they were doing. “There’s been an erosion of expertise, of competent leadership, at important levels of government,” a former senior government official told the Guardian.

“Over time there was a lot of paranoia and people left and they had a hard time attracting good replacements,” the official said. “Nobody wanted to work there.”

It was hardly a morale-boosting gesture when Trump proposed a 16% cut in CDC funding on 10 February – 11 days after the World Health Organization had declared a public health emergency over Covid-19.

Schaffner, who describes himself as the “president of the CDC fan club”, said he has been saddened by how sidelined the CDC has become over the past two months. “Here we have the public health issue of our era and one doesn’t hear from the CDC, the premier public health organization in the world,” Schaffner said.

Under Trump, anti-science sweeps through DC

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which regulates the diagnostic tests and will control any new treatments for coronavirus, has also shown vulnerabilities. The agency recently indicated that it was looking into the possibility of prescribing the malaria drug chloroquine for coronavirus sufferers, even though there is no evidence it would work and some indication it could have serious side-effects.

The decision dismayed experts, given that Trump has personally pushed the unproven remedy on a whim. It smacked of the wave of anti-science sentiment sweeping federal agencies under this presidency.

As the former senior official put it: “We have the FDA bowing to political pressure and making decisions completely counter to modern science.”

Highly respected career civil servants, with impeccable scientific credentials, have struggled to get out in front of the president. Dr Anthony Fauci, an infectious disease expert who has become a rare trusted face in the administration amid the coronavirus scourge, has expressed his frustration.

This week Fauci was asked by a Science magazine writer, Jon Cohen, how he could stand beside Trump at daily press briefings and listen to him misleading the American people with comments such as that the China travel ban had been a great success in blocking entry of the virus. Fauci replied: “I know, but what do you want me to do? I mean, seriously Jon, let’s get real, what do you want me to do?”

Trump has designated himself a “wartime president”. But if the title bears any validity, his military tactics have been highly unconventional. He has exacerbated the problems encountered by federal agencies by playing musical chairs at the top of the coronavirus force.

The president began by creating on 29 January a special coronavirus taskforce, then gave Vice-President Mike Pence the job, who promptly appointed Deborah Birx “coronavirus response coordinator”, before the federal emergency agency Fema began taking charge of key areas, with Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, creating a shadow team that increasingly appears to be calling the shots.

“There’s no point of responsibility,” the former senior official told the Guardian. “It keeps shifting. Nobody owns the problem.”

Trump: everything’s going to be great

Amid the confusion, day-to-day management of the crisis has frequently come directly from Trump himself via his Twitter feed. The president, with more than half an eye on the New York stock exchange, has consistently talked down the scale of the crisis.

On 30 January, as the World Health Organization was declaring a global emergency, Trump said: “We only have five people. Hopefully, everything’s going to be great.”

On 24 February, Trump claimed “the coronavirus is very much under control in the USA”. The next day, Nancy Messonnier, the CDC’s top official on respiratory diseases, took the radically different approach of telling the truth, warning the American people that “disruption to everyday life might be severe”.

Trump was reportedly so angered by the comment and its impact on share prices that he shouted down the phone at Messonnier’s boss, the secretary of health and human services, Alex Azar.

“Messonnier was 100% right. She gave a totally honest and accurate assessment,” Konyndyk told the Guardian. And for that, Trump angrily rebuked her department. “That sent a very clear message about what is and isn’t permissible to say.”

Konyndyk recalls attending a meeting in mid-February with top Trump administration officials present in which the only topic of conversation was the travel bans. That’s when he began to despair about the federal handling of the crisis.

“I thought, ‘Holy Jesus!’ Where’s the discussion on protecting our hospitals? Where’s the discussion on high-risk populations, on surveillance so we can detect where the virus is. I knew then that the president had set the priority, the bureaucracy was following it, but it was the wrong priority.”

So it has transpired. In the wake of the testing disaster has come the personal protective equipment (PPE) disaster, the hospital bed disaster, and now the ventilator disaster.

Ventilators, literal life preservers, are in dire short supply across the country. When governors begged Trump to unleash the full might of the US government on this critical problem, he gave his answer on 16 March.

In a phrase that will stand beside 20 January 2020 as one of the most revelatory moments of the history of coronavirus, he said: “Respirators, ventilators, all of the equipment – try getting it yourselves.”

To date, the Trump administration has supplied 400 ventilators to New York. By Cuomo’s estimation, 30,000 are needed.

“You want a pat on the back for sending 400 ventilators?” Cuomo scathingly asked on Tuesday. “You pick the 26,000 who are going to die because you only sent 400 ventilators.”
A total vacuum of federal leadership’

In the absence of a strong federal response, a patchwork of efforts has sprouted all across the country. State governors are doing their own thing. Cities, even individual hospitals, are coping as best they can.

In an improvised attempt to address such inconsistencies, charitable startups have proliferated on social media. Konyndyk has clubbed together with fellow disaster relief experts to set up Covid Local, an online “quick and dirty” guide to how to fight a pandemic.

“We are seeing the emergence of 50-state anarchy, because of a total vacuum of federal leadership. It’s absurd that thinktanks and Twitter are providing more actionable guidance in the US than the federal government, but that’s where we are.”

Valerie Griffeth is a founding member of another of the new online startups that are trying to fill the Trump void. Set up by emergency department doctors across the country, GetUsPPE.org seeks to counter the top-down chaos that is putting frontline health workers like herself in danger through a dearth of protective gear.

Griffeth is an emergency and critical care physician in Portland, Oregon. She spends most days now in intensive care treating perilously ill patients with coronavirus.

Her hospital is relatively well supplied, she said, but even so protective masks will run out within two weeks. “We are all worried about it, we’re scared for our own health, the health of our families, of our patients.”

Early on in the crisis, Griffeth said, it dawned on her and many of her peers that the federal government to which they would normally look to keep them safe was nowhere to be seen. They resigned themselves to a terrible new reality.

“We said to ourselves we are going to get exposed to the virus. When the federal government isn’t there to provide adequate supplies, it’s just a matter of time.”

But just in the last few days, Griffeth has started to see the emergence of something else. She has witnessed an explosion of Americans doing it for themselves, filling in the holes left by Trump’s failed leadership.

“People are stepping up all around us,” she said. “I’m amazed by what has happened in such short time. It gives me hope.”


And if you've ever wondered what Donald really cares about, consider this: 

Because the “Ratings” of my News Conferences etc. are so high, “Bachelor finale, Monday Night Football type numbers” according to the @nytimes, the Lamestream Media is going CRAZY. “Trump is reaching too many people, we must stop him.” said one lunatic. See you at 5:00 P.M.!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 29, 2020

“President Trump is a ratings hit. Since reviving the daily White House briefing Mr. Trump and his coronavirus updates have attracted an average audience of 8.5 million on cable news, roughly the viewership of the season finale of ‘The Bachelor.’ Numbers are continuing to rise...

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 29, 2020

If you have the stomach for it, you can see the entire Twitter thread here.

Update: A picture from yesterday. Donald doesn't look like he's having much fun, does he?

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• ON ASSIGNMENT⁠ ⁠ President Donald Trump walks between the colonnade from the Oval Office update the press on the response to the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, in the Rose Garden at the White House on Sunday, March 29, 2020.⁠ ⁠ President Trump said he is extending the White House social distancing guidelines until April 30, 2020.⁠ ⁠ According to recent news reports, there are 140,440 cases of coronavirus in the United States. The US has the most confirmed coronavirus cases of any country.⁠ ⁠ In total, 2,438 people have died in the US from the virus. ⁠ ⁠ Pete Marovich on assignment for The New York Times⁠ -----⁠ #coronavirus #COVID19 #health #pandemic⁠ #politics #republican #democrat #congress #capitolhill #whitehouse #trump #donaldtrump #democracy #photojournalism #documentary #reportage⁠ #documentary #photojournalism #america #documentaryphotography #reportage #photography⁠ @petemarovich

A post shared by Pete Marovich (@petemarovich) on Mar 30, 2020 at 7:05am PDT

A True Giant

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RIP Rev. Joseph Lowery, a civil rights pioneer.⁣ ⁣ President Obama awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009, and said in introducing him.⁣ ⁣ "Born and raised in Jim Crow Alabama, preaching in his blood, the Reverend Joseph Lowery is a giant of the Moses generation of civil rights leaders. ⁣ ⁣ It was just King, Lowery, and a few others, huddled in Montgomery, who laid the groundwork for the bus boycott and the movement that was to follow. ⁣ ⁣ A founder of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Lowery was later asked to serve as President. He agreed to serve for one year, but wound up serving, as he puts it, for 20 one-year terms.⁣ ⁣ Throughout his life, some have called him crazy. But one of my favorite sermons that I heard Dr. Lowery once deliver, he said: 'There's good crazy and there's bad crazy -- and sometimes you need a little bit of that good crazy to make the world a better place.’”⁣ ⁣ Amen.⁣ ⁣ ⁣ ⁣

A post shared by Pete Souza (@petesouza) on Mar 28, 2020 at 8:21am PDT

Thinking About Donald's Response

In an article titled "Maybe Trump Doesn't Care About Getting Re-Elected," and sub-titled "Why else would he be downplaying hospitals' need for supplies at a time like this?," political scientist Jonathan Bernstein thinks about Donald:

I’m just not able to process this one.

Item: “The White House suddenly called off a venture to produce as many as 80,000 ventilators, out of concern that the estimated $1 billion price tag would be prohibitive.”

Item: Donald Trump on Thursday night said: “I don’t believe you need 40,000 or 30,000 ventilators. You know, you go into major hospitals sometimes and they’ll have two ventilators. Now all of a sudden they’re saying, ‘Can we order 30,000 ventilators?’”

I just can’t get my head around it.

Here’s the thing: The political system doesn’t ask politicians to care deeply about humanity. It just asks them to follow their political self-interest. And at a point in the coronavirus crisis where supplies are so low that they may be costing lives of U.S. medical personnel, I can’t put my mind around the idea that the president would allow his administration to let the shortages persist — or that he would publicly claim they aren’t real.

Sure, it makes sense that a president would try to deflect blame. Trump has argued that no one could have foreseen the current pandemic, even though his administration was led through a simulation of this kind of scenario during the transition, was given a playbook on exactly what to do, and had specific staff slots in place to deal with a pandemic until they were were let go.

Still, not everybody knows these things, and “No one could have predicted this” is the kind of claim that might sway some people. Similarly, Trump has invented a fantasy about previous presidencies to explain his administration’s very slow start in ramping up coronavirus testing. Again, I’m not exactly endorsing that, but at least I can understand the impulse.

But at this point — when the U.S. now has more Covid-19 cases than any other nation, and deaths are over 1,000 and trending higher each day — how could he fail to do whatever is needed, and then publicly set himself up for obvious blame?

Look: I’ve tried to be slow to criticize the substance of the administration’s reaction to the unfolding disaster. I’ve pointed out more than once that these situations are difficult, that experts themselves often disagree on the correct steps to take, and that perfection is an unfair standard by which to judge any president. I could add that while the U.S. has been hard hit, it’s far from the only nation where the coronavirus has spread. I’ve been tough on Trump mainly for his crisis communications, which are easier to judge on face value than something like getting tests into the field, and on the bureaucratic structure of his response.

But every time he does something like this, it lends support to the idea that he and his closest aides are butchering the response out of sheer incompetence, even as the few qualified experts involved are desperately trying to drag them back on course. (This is the column in its entirety.)

Brady Is Sorry

Do you remember Brady Sluder?

“If I get corona, I get corona. At the end of the day, I'm not gonna let it stop me from partying”: Spring breakers are still flocking to Miami, despite coronavirus warnings. https://t.co/KoYKI8zNDH pic.twitter.com/rfPfea1LrC

— CBS News (@CBSNews) March 18, 2020

I was wondering if we'd ever hear from him again and here he is. He's sorry now:

View this post on Instagram

I’ve done a lot of things in my life that I’m not proud of. I’ve failed, I’ve let down, and I’ve made plenty of mistakes. I can’t apologize enough to the people i’ve offended and the lives I’ve insulted. I’m not asking for your forgiveness, or pity. I want to use this as motivation to become a better person, a better son, a better friend, and a better citizen. Listen to your communities and do as health officials say. Life is precious. Don’t be arrogant and think you’re invincible like myself. I’ve learned from these trying times and I’ve felt the repercussions to the fullest. Unfortunately, simply apologizing doesn’t justify my behavior. I’m simply owning up to my mistakes and taking full responsibility for my actions. Thank you for your time, and stay safe everyone. ❤️

A post shared by @ bradysluder on Mar 22, 2020 at 10:34am PDT

Brady's no superhero but maybe there's hope for him. In the meantime, ponder this:

 

The Guessing Game - Updated: "We're In This Together"

What will be on the cover of People this week? The coronavirus and everything connected to it continue to be the big news, almost the only news. I only have a few other possible stories on the list:

Kenny Rogers: Died at age 81. TV stars Lyle Waggoner and Stuart Whitman also passed away
Celebrities who have the coronavirus: Placido Domingo, Sen. Rand Paul, Bachelor Colton Underwood, Sen. Amy Klobuchar's husband, Andy Cohen, Harvey Weinstein, etc.
Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood: They performed a live online concert that got so many viewers it crashed the Facebook site
Princess Beatrice: Her wedding has been cancelled due to coronavirus concerns; it will be rescheduled
Ordinary Americans: Stories about how people are coping, how we're helping each other
Taylor Swift and Kim Kardashian: They're feuding again
The Tokyo Olympics and/or the athletes: Postponed until 2021

Stories that appear on the new cover will be highlighted in green.

Update:

Issue dated April 6, 2020: More about the coronavirus


Last year at this time: Issue dated April 8, 2019

This Day In History, 2010: The ACA Was Signed Into Law

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Ten years ago today, I signed the Affordable Care Act into law. It protected preexisting conditions, cut the uninsured rate in half, and lots more. But it's still under political attack right when we need care the most. We have to protect it, build on it, until we cover everyone.

A post shared by Barack Obama (@barackobama) on Mar 23, 2020 at 7:09am PDT

Randomly - Updated

Prince Albert of Monaco is the first Head of State to test positive for the disease:

Following reports that Prince Albert of Monaco has tested positive for #coronavirus, it’s probably worth pointing out that he was in the same room as Prince Charles at a @wateraid event in London on 10 March (nine days ago).
h/t @RoyalReporter for spotting it pic.twitter.com/OoLY1fQT4c

— Chris Ship (@chrisshipitv) March 19, 2020

Read more here. 


I'll update this post with anything that catches my eye. 

Getting the feeling from some of what he says here that Trump misunderstood what they've told him and is now expecting a miracle cure in the next week or so.

— Jonathan Bernstein (@jbview) March 19, 2020

The President of the United States:

By Monday he's going to be sucking his thumb in the corner. #coronavirus #TrumpIsIncompetent pic.twitter.com/DCWINuOige

— Neil 🇺🇸 Ⓥ (@basementvegan) March 19, 2020

Update on Friday morning, from The Mooch: 

I hope this is played everyday everywhere until Nov 8. Unless ⁦@realDonaldTrump⁩ resigns as he should immediately. pic.twitter.com/NMlihRJR3o

— Anthony Scaramucci (@Scaramucci) March 20, 2020

Update #2: Shelter-in-Place goes into effect in Illinois tomorrow; after the 
governor spoke, Emily Landon, the chief infectious disease epidemiologist 
at the University of Chicago Medicine said this:

As daily life undergoes rapid changes in response to the coronavirus outbreak and the death and infection total climb, a Chicago epidemiologist is drawing praise for her comments at a Friday news conference that outlined with clarity and urgency how seemingly small sacrifices today will prevent deaths of loved ones and strangers next week.

Emily Landon, the chief infectious disease epidemiologist at the University of Chicago Medicine, took the lectern following Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) who on Friday afternoon announced the state would undergo a shelter-in-place order for two and a half weeks starting Saturday evening.

“The healthy and optimistic among us will doom the vulnerable,” Landon said. She acknowledged that the restrictions like a shelter in place may end up feeling “extreme” and “anticlimactic” — and that’s the point. 

“It’s really hard to feel like you’re saving the world when you’re watching Netflix from your couch. But if we do this right, nothing happens,” Landon said. “A successful shelter in place means you’re going to feel like it was all for nothing, and you’d be right: Because nothing means that nothing happened to your family. And that’s what we’re going for here.” (From the Washington Post, read more here.)

Wouldn't it be great if we had a president who could communicate like this?

Update #3 on March 25: Prince Charles, age 71, has now been diagnosed with the coronavirus. Read more here.


And another sharp ad:

what an ad. pic.twitter.com/yZV9KJCOEn

— Florida Chris (@chrislongview) March 25, 2020

Update #4 on Thursday March 26. Donald's campaign really doesn't like 
this one. In response to the Cease and Desist letter, Priorities USA has 
purchased additional airtime for the ad:

The trump campaign sent a cease and desist letter to Priorities USA for this ad. So I’m retweeting it. pic.twitter.com/0Q1QO9TeQT

— Adam Parkhomenko (@AdamParkhomenko) March 26, 2020

Note that as of today, March 26, there are over 81,000 cases of Covid 19 in
the U.S., more than any other country in the world.

The Guessing Game/The Coronavirus Crisis - Updated

People has posted the new cover a day early, and no surprise, the entire cover is dedicated to the coronavirus crisis, although this might not be the final version. There may be a couple of secondary headlines across the top when the actual magazine comes out:

Issue dated March 30, 2020: The coronavirus, Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson



I hadn't published the Guessing Game post yet; this is what I had on the list:

Property Brothers: A new show with celebrities
Peter, Hannah Ann, Madison: This season of The Bachelor was a complete disaster. Two whole days after the finale aired, Peter and Madison broke up. Another possibility is Chris Harrison and/or new Bachelorette Clare Crawley, because filming on her season, which was supposed to start this past Friday, has been delayed at least two weeks
Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson and/or Idris Elba: Celebrities who have the coronavirus
Hope Hicks: The former White House Communications Director, who's returning to the White House as a counselor the president, is dating a 51-year old
Sarah Palin: A very weird appearance on The Masked Singer, just seconds before Donald's weird Oval Office speech
Dr. Anthony Fauci: A true hero of the current health crisis
Brittney Snow: Married
Hannah Brown and/or Tyler Cameron: They've been seen together recently. (Read more here.) Also, Tyler's best friend, Matt James, has been chosen to be on Clare's season of The Bachelorette
Laura Benanti: The Broadway star has invited high-schoolers to send her video of them singing in their Spring Musicals, most of which have now been canceled
Matt and Trevor Colvin: Two brothers in Tennessee who tried to cash in by selling hand sanitizer and antiseptic wipes at outrageous prices. Unfortunately for them, Amazon and eBay have now cracked down on price gouging. I believe the brothers have donated their excess inventory
Tom Brady: Announces he'll be leaving the New England Patriots, as a free agent he's available to be signed by another team

Stories that appear on the new cover have been highlighted in green.

Last year at this time: Issue dated April 1, 2019


Update: My hunch was right, the final version of the cover looks like this:

Dogs Of St. Patrick's Day

Woof!

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🍀HAPPY ST PAWTRICKS DAY!🍀 We have to be honest: right now it’s hard to celebrate with so much going on in the world, but we’re choosing to see the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow today. 🌈 We’re focusing on what we’re lucky to have & sharing some doggo cuteness, like this photo of @sienna_rose_all_american_lab_! 🍀 Want to be featured today? Share your photos with us using #wethedogsnyc! - Remember, it’s important that no matter how you celebrate today, you shouldn’t put yourself or anyone else in danger. We know it’s hard for some, but when possible, please stay away from public gatherings, even if it is St. Patrick’s Day. We encourage you to celebrate by taking photos at home or by sharing photos taken in previous years. Remember, we’re all celebrating together in spirit! Two paws up for safety! 💚🐶 🍀

A post shared by We The Dogs NYC (@wethedogsnyc) on Mar 17, 2020 at 5:57am PDT

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the cutest pug of gold at the end of the rainbow 🌈🍀 📷: @sirchipwichthepug

A post shared by We The Dogs NYC (@wethedogsnyc) on Mar 17, 2020 at 8:04am PDT

Not a dog, but still, celebrating the occasion!

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"I has my gween on. Do I wook cute? Popeye do too. Swide weft to see." ☘ . . . . . "Check out @raisinghappyrabbits foah mowe fun wabbit adventuwes." . . . . . . . #sugar #sugarthebunny #bunny #rabbit #dailyfluff #weeklyfluff #dwarflionhead #lionheadrabbit #farmanimals #pets #cutepets #petsofig #petsofinstagram #countryliving #countrylife #fluffy #cutepets #picoftheday #petpics #bhgpets #petsofafs #rspets #goodmorning #toocute #poultry #turkeys #backyardpoultry

A post shared by Penny/Happy Days Farm® (@happydaysfarm) on Mar 17, 2020 at 6:15am PDT

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happy st patrick’s day, furriends!!! don’t forget to kiss everyone because everyone is irish on st party’s day!! #goldendoodle #goldendoodlesofinstagram #goldendoodles #golden #doodle #doodlesofinstagram #goldendoodlesofig #goldendoodlesofinsta #puppy #goldendoodledaily #goldendoodlepuppy #goldendoodlepup #goldendoodlestyle #doodlesofnewjersey #thepuppytown #donj #winter #happy #happydoodle #beyondblissdoodles #stpatricksday #stpattysday #irishgirl #njdogmom

A post shared by finley the golden doodle (@a_doodle_named_finley) on Mar 17, 2020 at 5:43am PDT

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All dressed in green, no where to go... but still shaking my floofy shamrock. ☘️ 📸: @peachesandnellie . #shamrock #green #stpatricksday #dogsofdc #dcstpatricksday #workfromhome #homelife

A post shared by We the Dogs DC (@wethedogsdc) on Mar 17, 2020 at 7:40am PDT

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🍀HAPPY ST PAWTRICKS DAY!🍀 We have to be honest: right now it’s hard to celebrate with so much going on in the world. But we’re choosing to see the rainbow at the end of the pot of gold today, and we’re going to focus on sharing some good old fashioned doggo cuteness, like this photo of @back2jmayer! 🍀 Want to be featured today? Share your photos with us using #wethedogsdc! . Remember, it’s important that no matter how you celebrate today, you should not put yourself or anyone else in danger. We know it’s hard for some, but when possible, please stay away from public gatherings, even if it is St. Patrick’s Day. Feel free to celebrate by taking photos at home or by sharing photos taken in previous years. Remember, we’re all celebrating together in spirit! Two paws up for safety! 💚🐶 🍀

A post shared by We the Dogs DC (@wethedogsdc) on Mar 17, 2020 at 5:20am PDT

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Happy Saint Patrick’s Day! 🍀

A post shared by Bertie (@sheepadoodlebertie) on Mar 17, 2020 at 9:35am PDT

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Happy St. Pawtrick's Day! Wishing everypawdy the luck of the Irish Setter! 📸: @buffsandfluffs . #IHopeTheLeprechaunBringsMeAPotOSnacks #ThatsWayBetterThanGold #stpatricksday #angelbuffy

A post shared by We the Dogs DC (@wethedogsdc) on Mar 17, 2020 at 11:10am PDT

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Will accept smiles in place of kisses today ☘️ #KissMeImIrish 📷: @kiki.thederpydiva

A post shared by We The Dogs NYC (@wethedogsnyc) on Mar 17, 2020 at 10:54am PDT

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Quarantine Day 2: Everything might be closing, but I am still here to wish you a very happy St. Pawtrick’s Day. #stpatricksday #stpawtricksday #goldenretriever #goldensofinstagram #goodboysofinstagram #stpatricksdaydog #quarantine

A post shared by BruceJustWantsAttention (@brucejustwantsattention) on Mar 17, 2020 at 3:46pm PDT