Hi, this is Becky from Southern California. I'm currently taking my lunch break after doing curbside pharmacy for my patients.

I'm supposed to be in Thailand for the next two weeks celebrating my husband's birthday.

But instead, I'm hoping that an NPR politics birthday shout out will be a nice consolation. So happy birthday, Mr. McWells.

This show was recorded at 209 PM on Wednesday, May 6th.

Things may have changed by the time you hear it. Oki Doke, here's the show.

Well, I just want to say, happy birthday to Mr. McWells. I am not sure that a shout out from us is equivalent to a trip to Thailand, but I sure hope it suffices.

Hey there, it's the NPR politics podcast. I must m'ahle it. I cover the presidential campaign.

President Trump has not been shy about wanting to reopen the U.S. economy. Today, he said Americans will not stand for continued stay at home orders. And he described the virus as an attack on the country.

We went through the worst attack we've ever had on our country. This is the worst attack we've ever had. This is worse than Pearl Harbor. This is worse than the World Trade Center. There's never been an attack like this.

Still, despite whatever the president wants, states are technically opening up on their own terms.

So today, we wanted to travel around the country a bit and look at how two states, Michigan and Texas are thinking about reopening.

For that, we've got Ashley Lopez of KUT in Austin, Texas. Hey there, Ashley. Hey, Osma.

And we've got Abigail Sonsky of WKAR in Lansing, Michigan. Hi, do you? Hi.

So before we dive into any politics conversation, I just want to ask you both, how are you holding up under lockdown?

This is Abigail. I've been doing a lot of cooking. My workout routine has definitely fallen off though. So I think it's a bit of a wash right now.

Yeah, you know, weeks ago, I was hoping to spend more time with my dog. And I don't like the way this was forced. But I'm really happy to be spending almost every waking minute with my dog now.

So I guess that's a plus. I will say I felt very guilty that in like January and February, I was hardly around my little baby.

And now I've reached the point where I'm like, I could really use a less comforting shadow. Like every time you move, there's somebody right behind you. So I hear you.

So Abigail, let's start with you. Can you just recap for us with the scale of the outbreak in Michigan has felt like?

Yeah, at this point, we have more than 44,000 lab confirmed cases of COVID-19 and over 4,000 deaths.

The hot spot of the outbreak has been Southeast Michigan, especially in Detroit and the three counties around Detroit.

They've had over 50% of our cases here in Michigan. And our curve has now started to flatten things are finally starting to look up after several scary weeks here in Michigan.

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