The new season is a time for renewal – Flowers are blooming! Baby birds are tweeting! – while the comedian remains in quarantine in his apartment with his wife and five children Source

The new season is a time for renewal. Flowers are blooming! Baby birds are tweeting! And Jim Gaffigan remains in “double-secret-lockdown-quarantine” in his New York apartment with his wife and five children. Source

New York Times columnist Philip Galanes discusses social dilemmas for those wrestling with new kinds of conflicts created by the pandemic, and why he’s an optimist about the current crisis Source

Italian doctors who have fought the pandemic talk about the importance of wasting no time in preparing for the effects on hospitals of an overwhelming abundance of COVID-19 patients Source

Italian doctors who fought the pandemic of COVID-19 and have seen its devastating toll talk with Seth Doane about the imperative for Americans to prepare, and how time wasted has left their country, and ours, scrambling to respond. Source

The country is bracing for what is likely to be the deadliest week of the pandemic in the U.S. thus far. Source

A joke by late-night king Johnny Carson about a shortage of toilet tissue led to panic buying as Americans emptied store shelves of the prized commodity Source

In the early 1970s Americans had experienced gasoline shortages owing to the OPEC oil embargo. So, when Johnny Carson made a joke about a shortage of toilet paper on “The Tonight Show,” rolls of toilet tissue began disappearing off store shelves as nervous consumers hoarded the prized commodity, thereby creating a genuine shortage. Mo Rocca talks with documentary filmmaker Brian Gersten and Boston University economics professor Jay Zagorsky about the real-world implications of a joke. Source

For patients of a Bronx, N.Y. mental health center whose doors have been closed by the pandemic, counseling via phone is a lifeline during a catastrophically anxious time Source

The coronavirus pandemic has meant that Mosaic, a Bronx, N.Y. non-profit mental health center, had no choice but to close its doors to in-person visits. To address the needs of its patients, Mosaic’s staff of counselors and therapists took drastic measures, switching all mental health counseling to teletherapy – therapeutic sessions conducted over the phone. Susan Spencer reports on the altered dynamics of teletherapy, and how patients whose feelings of helplessness and anxiety are being compounded by a catastrophically anxious time are getting help. Source