TASK DEFINITION: Given a paragraph, generate a claim that is supported by the given paragraph. 1) The claim must contain information from within the paragraph. 2) A sentence within the paragraph can be used as a claim. 3) The claim should not have contradictions within the paragraph. 4) The claim should be at most one sentence long.
PROBLEM: The extraordinary safety measures that will govern the May 20-22 session were delineated in a letter Wednesday from Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan to the House minority leader. Legislators will have to pledge to follow Illinois Department of Public Health guidelines to prevent the spread of the highly contagious and potentially lethal coronavirus. They include pre-session testing of all legislators for COVID-19. Eschewing the traditional Capitol setting, the House will be called to order six blocks away at the Bank of Springfield Center in downtown Springfield, to take advantage of the spacious convention center floor for social distancing. The Senate, whose membership is half the House’s 118 seats, will meet in its regular chamber, Senate President Don Harmon said in a statement. The Oak Park Democrat rallied senators to return to action with the “cooperative spirit of bipartisan achievement” they’ve shown before. “This global pandemic has decimated our state and local economies regardless of political affiliation,” Harmon said. “From far-flung living rooms, kitchen tables and home offices, senators have been working together — while apart — to figure out what we can and need to do now.” Legislators, whom Gov. J.B. Pritzker declared essential workers and not subject to his seven-week-old stay-at-home order scheduled to expire May 30, have nonetheless been absent from the Statehouse since early March to prevent spreading sickness. That period represents the heart of the Illinois General Assembly’s spring-session calendar, ending with a scheduled May 31 adjournment and typically a budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1. Pritzker implored lawmakers to help those left out of initial federal relief deals. “Lots of people fell through the cracks,” Pritzker said at his daily COVID-19 briefing in Chicago. Relief won’t come from the state treasury. Tax revenue lost because of the pandemic has opened a $7 billion deficit in the current budget and next year’s. Illinois will be dependent on the federal government, Pritzker said. “We need to rely upon federal government and its support for all the states in order for us to provide the services that people need or for us to pay for the education that our kids need, and for us to support our businesses and our families,” Pritzker said. Madigan’s letter to House GOP Leader Jim Durkin of Western Springs said all state representatives must pledge to abide by public health guidelines for safely congregating. In addition to pre-trip testing, they include agreeing to undergo body temperature checks upon entering the building for sessions, wearing provided face coverings whenever meeting with staff members or colleagues, avoiding outside meetings or social engagements, and undergoing another test upon returning home. It won’t be the first time lawmakers convened outside of the current Statehouse, which welcomed its first session in 1877. In recent history, the legislative chambers were undergoing renovation when then-Gov. George Ryan called a special session in the summer of 2000 to temporarily remove the state sales tax on gasoline during a price spike. Sessions were conducted in the auditorium of the Howlett Building next door to the Capitol. ___ Check out more of the AP’s coronavirus coverage at https://apnews.com/VirusOutbreak and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak ___ Follow Political Writer John O’Connor at https://twitter.com/apoconnor

SOLUTION: Safety measures to govern Legislature’s return to capital.

PROBLEM: The state had 1,742 confirmed COVID-19 cases as of Saturday. Most of the cases and deaths have been in Clark County, which is Nevada’s most populous and includes metro Las Vegas. Gov. Steve Sisolak announced Saturday that the federal government has approved Nevada’s request to declare a major disaster declaration for the state. He said that move will unlock additional federal assistance for residents affected by the coronavirus pandemic. On March 12, Sisolak signed a state declaration of emergency, which is a required step to request a federal major disaster declaration. Sisolak’s request asked for help under a variety of programs, including assistance for unemployment, legal services, crisis counseling and mass care and emergency assistance. Federal help is needed because the public health crisis “is beyond the capabilities of the state, local and tribal governments,” Sisolak said. Most people with the virus experience mild or moderate fever and coughing for two to three weeks. Some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, can face severe illness including pneumonia and death.

SOLUTION: Nevada has 94 new coronavirus cases, pushing total to 1,836.

PROBLEM: The story clearly points out that brain scans and biomarker tests are not ready for clinical use. Since there are no recommended changes that directly affect readers today, and since it is not known which diagnostic tests may eventually prove useful, it is reasonable to put off discussions of cost. As noted above, the story points out that brain scans and biomarker tests for early signs of Alzheimer’s disease are currently useful to researchers, not doctors in routine clinical practice. The story also reports that, “Current treatments do not alter the course of Alzheimer’s, they just ease symptoms,” thus limiting the benefit of early diagnosis. However, as we mentioned in the section on harms, the story would have been better if it offered more context with the comments of one expert who said that early diagnosis can help patients and families cope with the disease. Since the story reports that the diagnostic tests for Alzheimer’s are not ready for clinical use and it points out that diagnosis is of limited value now because the available treatments are only able to ease some symptoms in some patients, not treat the underlying disease, we understand why discussion of potential harms is deferred. However, the story does include comments about perceived benefits of early diagnosis for patients and families. It would have been nice to see comments about why people might reasonably choose to defer diagnosis because of the psychological and social effects of being defined as an Alzheimer’s patient when there may be no medical benefit to early diagnosis. This story is careful to point out the limitations of the brain scans, spinal fluid tests and other diagnostic tools being explored by researchers. It summarizes some of the key challenges that researchers need to address before trying to use scans or lab tests to diagnose patients in routine clinical practice. The story specifies the estimated size of the patient population: “About 5.4 million Americans and more than 26 million people worldwide have Alzheimer’s, the most common form of dementia.” It does not exaggerate the relevant population. This story summarizes the point of view of the panel of experts that developed these new guidelines for diagnosing Alzheimer’s disease. However, it does not tell readers whether there are dissenting opinions. More importantly, the story fails to report relationships between some of the quoted experts and pharmaceutical or testing companies. For example, the disclosure statements with the journal articles announcing the guidelines state that “Marilyn Albert serves as a consultant to Genentech and Eli Lilly and receives grants to her institution from GE Healthcare” and “Guy McKhann serves on a Data Safety Monitoring Board for Merck.” Readers should have been alerted to these industry ties. The story implicitly recognizes the option of foregoing testing by listing the limitations and uncertainties of not only experimental scans and lab tests, but also the limited utility of clinical diagnosis given the lack of effective treatments for Alzheimer’s disease. The story alerts readers to not expect immediate changes in how doctors diagnose patients with signs of dementia: “Yet the guidelines do not advise doctors to change how they evaluate and treat patients now. Despite the hoopla about new brain scans and blood and spinal fluid tests that claim to show early signs of Alzheimer’s, they are not ready for prime time and should remain just tools for research, the guidelines say.” The story distinguishes between experimental diagnostic tools and the clinical features of dementia that doctors can use today when trying to determine whether a patient’s symptoms indicate Alzheimer’s or some other neurologic disease or injury. The story explains to readers key differences between the new guidelines and those released in 1984. It notes that the scans and lab tests that have been developed in recent years are useful to researchers trying to understand Alzheimer’s disease, especially early in the disease process, and the effects of experimental treatments. The story does not appear to rely on a news release.

SOLUTION:
New guidelines define pre-Alzheimer’s disease