More than 73,000 people in the United States have died from covid-19, with more than 1.2 million reported cases, according to tracking by The Washington Post.
Here are some significant developments:
- President Trump said the work of the White House coronavirus task force would continue “indefinitely,” a day after Vice President Pence, who heads the panel, said it would probably wind down its work by the end of the month.
- Secretary of State Mike Pompeo persisted in his criticism of China. “China could have spared the world a descent into global economic malaise,” he said. “They had a choice but instead — instead — China covered up the outbreak in Wuhan.”
- The White House press secretary on Wednesday dismissed the notion that all Americans should be able to receive coronavirus testing to feel safe going back to work, calling the idea “nonsensical.”
- Hours after the Republican governor of Arizona accelerated plans to reopen businesses, saying the state was “headed in the right direction,” Doug Ducey’s administration halted the work of a team of experts projecting it was on a much grimmer course.
- After a peak week of sheltering in place in early April, residents in the United States began to inch out of their homes, according to new cellphone data. But even as states begin to “open up,” more Americans appear to be staying put than sprinting out the door.
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MLB working on proposal unveiling conditions for summer start to 2020 season
Major League Baseball is expected to make an initial proposal to its players’ union addressing the conditions for starting the 2020 season this summer — an important step that could outline a best-case scenario but that gets MLB no closer to locking down a firm starting date or a defined path forward amid a global pandemic.
The proposal is expected to come within a week, a person familiar with MLB’s dialogue with the MLB Players Association confirmed. News of the expected proposal was first reported Wednesday by ESPN and the New York Post.
MLB would prefer to stage a three-week “spring training 2.0” in June and start playing games in July, a time frame it has been targeting for several weeks but one that would require ample lead time to allow teams and players to begin mobilizing — which is why the process is beginning now.
Read more here.
ICE detainee in California is first in U.S. immigration custody to die of coronavirus
A 57-year-old man who became ill while in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody in California died Wednesday as a result of a coronavirus infection, the first virus-related death of an ICE detainee in the United States.
San Diego County health officials confirmed that the man was hospitalized in late April after showing virus-related symptoms at ICE’s Otay Mesa Detention Center, which has the county’s largest outbreak cluster.
The detainee who died Wednesday was identified by his sister as Carlos Escobedo Mejia. Mejia came to the United States decades ago with his family after war broke out in his home country of El Salvador.
“They lock them up like animals,” Mejia’s sister said. “Everyone was getting infected.”
ICE officials did not respond to a request for comment about the fatality late Wednesday.
Read more here.
SUV driver with gun crashes Pennsylvania town’s parade honoring health workers, police say
At first, the “Salute to Nurses” parade in a Philadelphia suburb on Tuesday night was going just as planned.
First responders in Darby, Pa., marched down the street to honor the staff at Mercy Fitzgerald Medical Center, a nearby hospital.
But they were quickly redirected, police told local TV station WPVI, when a man driving an SUV crashed the event while waving a gun in the air. Authorities said the man was threatening to hurt people.
Police in the parade chased after him, and the man eventually lost control of the vehicle on a main Darby street and rolled it over, authorities said. He is in custody, though his identity was not immediately released by police.
Similar processions, in which first responders honor front-line health workers, have been taking place across the country in recent weeks as hospitals grapple with a surge of coronavirus patients.
Doctors criticize federal government for tactics in distributing coronavirus drug
Doctors across the country are criticizing the federal government for its tactics in distributing Gilead Sciences’ drug remdesivir, according to STAT News.
About two dozen hospitals are believed to have been chosen to receive the drug so far, but according to STAT, clinicians were unclear as to why some medical centers were chosen to receive coveted doses, while others were not.
“I legitimately do not have any insight into how hospitals were selected,” Paul Biddinger, director of Massachusetts General Hospital’s Center for Disaster Medicine and one of the leaders of the hospital’s pandemic response, told STAT.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency told STAT that the Department of Health and Human Services is handling remdesivir distribution, while an HHS spokesperson told STAT that they would look into the matter.
On Friday, the FDA issued an emergency use authorization that allowed doctors to use remdesivir to treat patients who are hospitalized with serious cases of covid-19. At the time of the announcement, Gilead said it would coordinate with the government to prioritize cities and hospitals most heavily hit by coronavirus infections for distribution. Hospitals with intensive care units, which treat the most severely ill patients, will get the drug first, the company said.
The antiviral drug, which is administered intravenously, is being allowed to be used to treat the disease in adults and children hospitalized with severe disease, which is defined as patients with low blood oxygen levels or needing oxygen therapy or a mechanical ventilator.
Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, has also stated that trial data showed that the drug had a “clear-cut, significant, positive effect in diminishing the time to recovery.”
People became infected after going to ‘coronavirus parties’ to deliberately expose themselves
At a time when public-health experts are recommending social distancing, people in a county in southern Washington state are throwing “coronavirus parties” as a way to deliberately expose themselves to the virus.
Walla Walla County, which has 94 confirmed cases, implored its residents in a news release Tuesday not to get together and potentially expose others. Meghan DeBolt, the county’s community health director, said these parties endanger people who didn’t attend because the virus can be spread via an asymptomatic carrier.
“We need to . . . use good common sense, and to be smart as we move through this pandemic so that we can begin to reopen our community,” she said in a Facebook video message. “Covid-19 parties: not part of the solution. Live music at dinner pickup at restaurants: not part of the solution.”
DeBolt told the Walla Walla Union-Bulletin: “We don’t know when it is happening. It’s after the fact that we hear from cases. We ask about contacts, and there are 25 people because: ‘We were at a COVID party.’ ”
At least two people had become infected after attending one of these parties that had 20 people in attendance, Washington Emergency Management Division wrote in a Facebook post.
“This is extremely dangerous and puts people at increased risk for hospitalization and even death,” the department wrote. “Please don’t do this.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has advised against intentionally exposing children to chickenpox at similar parties.
“There is no way to tell in advance how severe your child’s symptoms will be,” the CDC says. “So it is not worth taking the chance of exposing your child to someone with the disease.”
Senate Intel chair’s brother-in-law also dumped stock the day before market crash
Before the coronavirus outbreak upended the markets, a Trump appointee sold shares worth between $97,000 and $280,000, according to a financial disclosure document first published by ProPublica.
The mid-February sell-off by Gerald Fauth came on the same day that his brother-in-law, Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), who is chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, sold a significant percentage of his stocks — between $628,000 and $1.72 million, ProPublica previously reported. The Justice Department is investigating the trade, a person familiar with the matter told The Washington Post.
Fauth sold shares in six companies, including oil companies BP, Chevron and Royal Dutch Shell, which have been hit particularly hard by the pandemic. Fauth was appointed by Trump to be a member of the three-person National Mediation Board, a federal agency that facilitates labor-management relations within the nation’s railroad and airline industries, in 2017. He was previously a lobbyist and ran his own transportation economic consulting firm, G.W. Fauth & Associates.
Fauth did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Post. ProPublica reported that a person who picked up Fauth’s phone Wednesday hung up when a reporter asked if Fauth and Burr had discussed the sales in advance.
54 residents tested positive after voting in person for Wisconsin election, report finds
Officials say 54 people in Milwaukee County who voted in person during a statewide election on April 7 have tested positive for the coronavirus.
The election was held in person after a controversial decision by the Wisconsin Supreme Court, which ordered the state to proceed with voting over the objections of the governor and public health officials. Due to limited staffing, Milwaukee County opened five polling sites instead of 180. Lines of people snaked outside precincts.
The county’s report counted new infections between April 7 and 21, to account for a 14-day incubation period, of people who either voted in person or curbside or were poll workers. The report warns that it’s likely the number of cases isn’t comprehensive.
“Due to the limitations in testing and asymptomatic cases, it is likely that there are individuals with COVID-19 who participated in the election and are not reflected in the numbers presented here,” the report said.
Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett said in a video briefing with reporters that he doesn’t want to “go through that fiasco again,” nodding to concerns about a second covid-19 outbreak this fall.
“And that’s why we’re continuing to push for the mail-in option,” he said. “We think that’s very, very important.”
Frontier Airlines is selling a social distancing upgrade for $39
Democrats on Capitol Hill are blasting a plan by Frontier Airlines to sell a social distancing upgrade to passengers concerned about the novel coronavirus.
Frontier says that starting Friday, customers will be able pay $39 to guarantee a spot on the plane next to an open middle seat as a way to maintain social distancing during the coronavirus pandemic
Other airlines are taking similar steps to spread passengers out, but they are not charging fees.
Read more here.
Biden: ‘No one is expendable’
Joe Biden rejected comments made by President Trump and others this week that seemed to accept that reopening the economy may result in more American deaths.
“I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: No one is expendable. No life is worth losing to add one more point to the Dow,” Biden tweeted.
The president has said that while more deaths may occur as states loosen restrictions on professional and social activities, the country needed to get back to work.
Asked about the chance of increased deaths in the Oval Office on Wednesday, Trump said: “We have to be warriors. We can’t keep our country closed down for years. … Hopefully that won’t be the case, but it could very well be the case.”
Other Democrats have slammed the president over his stance that some Americans sacrifice their lives in service to the economy.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) accused Trump of exaggerating “the opportunity that is out there for the economy at the risk of people dying."
“That’s not a plan,” Pelosi said during an interview with MSNBC host Andrea Mitchell on Wednesday. “Death is not an economic motivator, stimulus. So why are we going down that path?”
Arizona halts partnership with experts predicting cases would continue to mount
Hours after Doug Ducey, the Republican governor of Arizona, accelerated plans to reopen businesses, saying the state was “headed in the right direction,” his administration halted the work of a team of experts projecting it was on a different — and much grimmer — course.
On Monday night, the eve of President Trump’s visit to the state, Ducey’s health department shut down the work of academic experts predicting the peak of the state’s coronavirus outbreak was still about two weeks away.
The move to sideline academic experts in the middle of the pandemic reflects growing friction between plans to resume economic activity and the analysis of epidemiologists that underscores the dangers of rolling back restrictions. Officials in Arizona said they would rely on “real-time” information, as well as modeling conducted by federal agencies, which is not released publicly.
Read more here.
Tyson reopens plants in Iowa, Washington since coronavirus outbreak
Tyson Foods on Wednesday reopened the country’s largest pork-processing facility after an outbreak of the novel coronavirus prompted a two-week closure.
The plant in Waterloo, Iowa, which can process 19,500 hogs a day and represents about 4 percent of the country’s pork-processing capacity, had been under heavy pressure to close its doors amid a rise in infections. Production lines began to slow in April after more than 180 plant workers tested positive for the virus and many others called in sick.
As The Washington Post reported, the company had failed to provide masks to workers at its Waterloo pork facility in March and early April, even as the coronavirus was rapidly spreading. Some workers told The Post that they were given confusing instructions about when to return to work or told to come in while sick.
On April 22, Tyson announced it would shutter the facility. Its chairman, John H. Tyson, warned that the “food supply chain is breaking” and that the nation’s supply of meat could be at risk.
But a week after President Trump signed an executive order compelling meat processors to remain open, the company slowly began to reopen its facilities. On Monday, it reopened its pork plant in Perry, Iowa, where more than 700 of the facility’s workers had tested positive for the virus. On Tuesday, Tyson announced it would resume operations at Washington’s biggest beef-processing plant in Pasco, where more than 100 people had tested positive for the virus before the plant shut down for mass testing on April 24.
Tyson said employees will be screened on a daily basis, and the Waterloo facility will maintain an on-site medical clinic.
All employees who test positive will remain home on sick leave until they have been cleared by health officials.
Trump vows complete end of Obamacare law despite pandemic
President Trump said Wednesday he will continue trying to toss out all of the Affordable Care Act, even as some in his administration, including Attorney General William P. Barr, have privately argued parts of the law should be preserved amid a pandemic.
While the president has said he will preserve some of the Affordable Care Act’s most popular provisions, including guaranteed coverage for preexisting medical conditions, he has not offered a plan to do so, and his administration’s legal position seeks to end all parts of the law, including those provisions.
Democrats, who view the fight over Obamacare as a winning election issue for them, denounced the president’s decision.
Read more here.
ICE detainee dies of covid-19 after contracting disease inside Southern California detention facility
A 57-year-old detainee in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody died of covid-19 on Wednesday after contracting the disease inside a Southern California detention facility that has been the site of the largest reported outbreak of its kind in the nation.
San Diego County health officials confirmed the detainee was hospitalized in late April after becoming ill at ICE’s Otay Mesa Detention Center, where as many as 132 detainees have tested positive for the coronavirus. ICE officials have not responded to a request for comment.
A federal judge in California ordered ICE to release dozens of “medically-vulnerable” detainees who are over 60 or have preexisting health conditions, as part of a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union in San Diego.
“This is what we warned them about,” said ACLU immigrant rights staff attorney Monika Y. Langarica. “Releasing people is the only safe option for the population of people in detention. It’s going to save their lives. And what happens inside the detention center is not confined to the walls of the building — it’s going to impact the surrounding community.”
Attorneys and advocates have been suing the facility for weeks to compel Otay Mesa, which is operated by the private prison contractor CoreCivic, to release individual detainees.
“It’s just been horrifying,” said attorney Kirsten Zittlau, who had one client released from the detention center. “When you create all the circumstances for a death trap, it was just a matter of time that something like this would happen, and unfortunately that happened today.”
Attorney Nanya Thompson’s client tested positive inside Otay Mesa after she developed a violent cough. The woman, who suffers from hypertension, was given Tylenol and water and told to rest in a room adjacent to the infirmary, her attorney said.
“She’s freaked out,” Thompson said. “In the detention setting, it’s impossible to prevent it from spreading.”
Three Russian doctors have fallen from hospital windows in two weeks, amid reports of dire conditions
MOSCOW — Alexander Shulepov learned he tested positive for covid-19, but said in a video that his employer forced him to continue working. He was admitted to the hospital, and it was there on May 1 that he fell from a second-floor window in what local authorities have called an accident.
Shulepov, who is in critical condition with a skull fracture, is the third Russian medical professional in two weeks to mysteriously fall from a hospital window. The other two died.
The incidents have highlighted escalating tensions in a Russian health-care system under pressure from a surge of coronavirus cases and a shortage of medical professionals. With doctors, nurses and medics reportedly accounting for roughly 7 percent of the country’s official coronavirus fatalities, the medical community has increasingly taken to social media to voice frustrations about poor working conditions and the continued absence of stipends promised by President Vladimir Putin.
Read more here.
Social distancing based on gender brings discrimination for trans people in Latin America
Gender-based restrictions imposed in some Latin American countries are causing problems for transgender and non-binary or gender-non-conforming people, some of whom have reported facing harassment and violence by people and police when they venture outside.
In countries such as Panama, Peru and Colombia, men are permitted out to conduct essential shopping and services on certain days of the week, and women on others.
Governments say this gender divide is an easy way to enforce social distancing. But it has also left those who don’t fit into either gender binary open to discrimination or worse.
The Bogota-based human rights group Red Comunitaria Trans told the Reuters news agency that it has received 18 discrimination complaints since the measures were imposed last month in Colombia. In one case, a man reportedly stabbed a transgender woman over what he said was her being out on the wrong day.
The Panamanian Association of Transgender People has had over 40 reports of discrimination since mid-April, when restrictions began. The problem is doubly troubling for trans people who are immunocompromised or those with HIV/AIDS who fear further dangers when exercising their right to be outside, the association’s director, Venus Tejada, told Reuters.
The city of Bogota permits transgender people to choose which day of the week they want to go out, and the mayor has told police not to demand identification cards to check gender, according to Reuters.
IRS says $1,200 stimulus payments sent to dead people have to be returned
Stimulus payments from the Internal Revenue Service issued in the names of dead people have to be returned, the agency says.
In a routine update to an FAQ page on irs.gov about coronavirus relief payments, the agency says: “A payment made to someone who died before receipt of the payment should be returned to the IRS.”
The Treasury Department would not comment on how many dead people were sent stimulus payments.
Read more here.
White House press secretary says it’s ‘nonsensical’ to claim that all Americans need to be tested for coronavirus
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany on Wednesday dismissed the notion that all Americans should be able to receive coronavirus testing to feel safe going back to work, calling the idea “nonsensical.”
At a news briefing, a reporter asked McEnany about Trump’s visit Tuesday to a Honeywell mask-production facility, where the president and several others toured the plant while not wearing face masks, apparently after testing negative for the coronavirus.
“Why shouldn’t all Americans who go back to work be able to get a test before they do?” the reporter asked McEnany.
“If we tested every single American in this country at this moment, we’d have to retest them an hour later, and then an hour later after that, because at any moment you could theoretically contract this virus,” McEnany replied. “So the notion that everyone needs to be tested is just simply nonsensical.”
She argued that “the people who need to be tested are our vulnerable populations.”
Reporters who attend White House news briefings must also receive a coronavirus test before they are allowed to enter the briefing room.
At an event in the Oval Office earlier Wednesday, Trump argued that the United States is “going to have more cases” of covid-19 than other countries because it has stepped up the scale of its testing. “In a way, by doing all this testing, we make ourselves look bad,” he said.
In the Wednesday news briefing, McEnany also echoed Trump’s praise of everyday Americans as “warriors” but emphasized that the description applies to both those who return to work and those who are staying home to slow the spread of the virus.
The blood of a llama named Winter could help fight the coronavirus
The global search for a treatment targeting the novel coronavirus has led to an unlikely potential savior: a cocoa-colored llama named Winter, whose blood could hold a weapon to blunt the virus.
She lives at a research farm in Belgium with about 130 other llamas and alpacas. And like all of them, she produces a special class of disease-fighting antibodies — tiny, even by antibody standards — that show early promise in laboratory tests in blocking the novel coronavirus from entering and infecting cells.
In a paper published Tuesday in the journal Cell, an international team of scientists reports that these petit antibodies, harvested from Winter’s blood, were used to engineer a new antibody that binds to the spiky proteins that stud the surface of the novel coronavirus, “neutralizing” its insidious effect. The study, though preliminary, points to a possible treatment for covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, if the results hold up in animal and human studies.
Read more here.
European nations cautiously continue toward gradual reopenings
More European countries announced rollbacks of strict coronavirus-related lockdowns on Wednesday, as the continent continues to cautiously emerge on the other side of the first wave of outbreaks.
Europe has had a lower rise in unemployment than the United States, but the European Union’s economic forecast remains grim, and many are eager to return to life after weeks of restrictive living.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced new rules, including lifting restrictions on shops and permitting people from two households to meet and dine together. Merkel cautioned, however, that if a district sees more than 50 infections per 100,000 people during a week-long period, the local government will need to reimpose measures.
Belgium also lowered the bar on Wednesday for social distancing. Starting Sunday, households can invite the same four people over for repeated visits, if they remain about three feet apart, Prime Minister Sophie Wilmès announced. As of Sunday, people will also be allowed to walk or run with up to two others outside their household.
Starting next week, the Netherlands will permit elementary schools to reopen with new social distancing measures in place and will let restaurants, hairdressers, cafes and cinemas reopen for a limited number of customers kept at a distance, the government announced Wednesday. Public transportation is slated to resume June 1, though all riders must wear masks and only a fraction of seats will be made available to maintain distance among passengers.
The announcements came as covid-19-related deaths continue to persistently grow daily, including 649 new fatalities in the United Kingdom and 369 in Italy.
The World Health Organizations also warned Wednesday that transitions must be carefully carried out in phases, as the risk of the virus resurging remains high.
U.S. Supreme Court rejects request to suspend Pennsylvania governor’s shutdown order
The Supreme Court rejected a request Wednesday to lift the Pennsylvania governor’s shutdown order in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf (D) ordered all “non-life-sustaining” businesses to close in March to help slow the spread of covid-19. The petition, which was filed by several businesses and a political campaign, argued that the petitioners’ constitutional rights were being violated by the order.
“The Executive Order has and is continuing to cause irreparable harm to the Petitioners and all those businesses and entities in the same non-life sustaining classification as Petitioners,” the request argues.
The challengers moved their request to the nation’s top court April 27, two weeks after the Pennsylvania Supreme Court rejected their arguments. The challengers had warned that, unless the U.S. Supreme Court puts the governor’s order on hold, they “and tens of thousands of other businesses may not be able to recover from the severe financial distress caused by” the order.
On Monday, Wolf asked the Supreme Court to reject the petition and submitted a brief to the justices, explaining and defending his orders that shuttered nearly all businesses in the state.
As of Wednesday, there were 51,845 reported cases of covid-19 in the state and all 67 counties in Pennsylvania are under a stay-at-home order through May 8.
California will extend workers’ compensation to those who test positive
California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signed an executive order Wednesday extending workers’ compensation to those who test positive for the novel coronavirus.
During a media briefing, Newsom said the order will streamline the process for any worker who contracts the coronavirus to get compensation eligibility. The request for compensation can only be rebutted by the employer under “strict criteria,” Newsom said. The order begins retroactively from March 19.
Newsom also announced he would release contracts for personal protective equipment that his administration was negotiating, after it had previously denied public records requests from the media, including the Los Angeles Times, which had sought details on a nearly $1 billion deal for protective masks from a Chinese car manufacturer. He said he understands why the public is “frustrated,” attributing the delay to lawyers and bureaucracy.
“I asked my team to accelerate these contracts,” he said, “get them out there. ... I just want to own that.”
Newsom also said the state would announce new guidelines for the Phase 2 reopening on Thursday. While he announced that there were another 95 deaths in the past 24 hours, a slight increase in a recent declining trend, he said hospitalizations are down.
Newsom also announced a new online map of coronavirus testing sites in California. The website allows Californians to search by Zip code to find testing sites and book an appointment. While Newsom said “there are still testing deserts in the state,” the government hopes to continue to add new sites to the map.
Texas attorney general urges judge to free Dallas salon owner, calls jail sentence ‘outrageous’
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) on Wednesday urged a judge in Dallas County to free a salon owner who operated her business despite a closure order, denouncing the judge as “outrageous” for sentencing her to jail.
Shelley Luther, the hair salon owner, had reopened her salon despite a county stay-at-home directive ordering nonessential businesses to close. The county issued a cease and desist letter to Luther.
State District Civil Court Judge Eric V. Moyé, who had issued a restraining order supporting the county’s letter, told Luther she could avoid jail time if she apologized and agreed to keep her business closed until cleared to reopen it.
Luther refused and was sentenced to seven days in jail. She was booked into the Dallas County jail on Tuesday afternoon, jail records show.
In his letter, Paxton described her confinement as an “injustice,” told Moye he had “abused your discretion” and denounced the decision to jail “a mother whose only crime was operating a small business in an effort to feed her children.” Paxton also issued a statement accompanying the letter, calling the sentence “outrageous and out of touch.”
Paxton’s letter also invoked other public disputes he has had with law enforcement officials.
When Dallas County District Attorney John Creuzot — part of a wave of “progressive prosecutors” elected across the country — pledged last year not to prosecute certain crimes, including certain thefts of personal items, Paxton accused him at the time of promoting “lawlessness.”
Paxton revived the issue in Wednesday’s letter, criticizing Creuzot’s pledge again and writing that if Dallas “is prepared to completely forgo prosecution of actual thefts, it cannot confine a woman to jail because she operated her business.”
A coordinator for Moye’s court did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Paxton’s letter.
Ohio House passes amendment to limit power of state’s top health official
The Ohio House of Representatives passed an amendment Wednesday to restrict the power of the state’s Department of Health director, Amy Acton.
The amendment to Senate Bill 1 proposed by Republican lawmakers — over the objections of Democratic colleagues — would limit any order issued by Acton to last no more than 14 days. The bill passed by a vote of 58-37 and will now go back to the Senate.
Under the amendment, an order could only be extended if it received approval from the Joint Committee on Agency Rule Review, which consists of five representatives and five senators.
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R) issued a statement Wednesday on the proposed legislative amendment: “Ohioans need their legislators focused on these important issues. Creating more uncertainty regarding public health and employee safety is the last thing we need as we work to restore consumer confidence in Ohio’s economy.”
Both Acton and DeWine have received criticism from those who disapproved of the state’s stay-at-home order that the governor enacted March 23. Last week, Acton extended the stay-at-home order until May 29, with some exceptions for several businesses and industries set to reopen.
On Saturday, roughly two dozen demonstrators showed up at Acton’s home, holding signs that said, “Dr. Amy Over-Re-Acton, Hairstylists Are Essential” or “Let Freedom Work,” Cleveland.com reported.
On Monday, DeWine called out protesters who targeted Acton, and told them to target him instead.
“I’m the elected official. I’m the one who ran for office. I’m the one who makes the policy decisions. … So when you don’t like the policy, you can demonstrate against me,” DeWine said.
As of Wednesday, Ohio had reported 21,576 covid-19 cases and 1,225 fatalities.
After nurse says supply of protective gear has been ‘sporadic,’ Trump claims it’s been ‘tremendous’
During an event in the Oval Office for National Nurses Day, President Trump on Wednesday pushed back on a nurse’s statement that the supply of personal protective equipment across the country has been “sporadic,” arguing that it has instead been “tremendous.”
In response to a question from a reporter to Trump and the assembled medical professionals about the current conditions in hospitals, Sophia Thomas, president of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners, said that “certainly, there are pockets of areas where PPE is not ideal, but this is an unprecedented time.” Thomas said she has been reusing her N95 mask “for a few weeks now” and noted that nurses “learn to adapt and do whatever [is] the best thing we can do for our patients.”
“So, PPE has been sporadic, but it’s been manageable. And we do what we have to do,” said Thomas, who works in New Orleans, according to the AANP’s website.
As soon as Thomas finished speaking, Trump took issue with her remarks.
“Sporadic for you, but not sporadic for a lot of other people,” he said.
Thomas said she agreed, and Trump continued, claiming that he has “heard the opposite — I’ve heard that they are loaded up with gowns now.”
“I’ve heard we have tremendous supply to almost all places,” Trump said.
As he has done in the past, Trump sought to blame others for the widespread equipment shortages U.S. hospitals have faced during the coronavirus pandemic. In March, Trump suggested, without evidence, that health-care workers may have been stealing masks and ventilators from hospitals. On Wednesday, he claimed that it was the Obama administration’s fault.
“You know, initially, we had nothing,” Trump said, repeating an accusation that his predecessor left him with “empty cupboards.”
Colbert, Kimmel mock Trump for attacking late-night hosts amid crisis
In the ongoing battle against the novel coronavirus, President Trump, who dubbed himself a “wartime president,” says he has largely been focused on fighting the deadly outbreak sweeping across the United States. But the urgent need to stop the “invisible enemy,” as Trump calls it, doesn’t mean the president has forgotten about his more visible foes.
That much was evident this week when Trump appeared to find time between handling the health crisis and attacking his political adversaries to go after another group of people who have often been the target of his ire: late-night hosts.
During an Oval Office sit-down with the New York Post on Monday, Trump slammed Seth Meyers and Stephen Colbert for being “nasty” and having “no talent.” He then continued his onslaught on Tuesday, firing off a tweet attacking Colbert, Jimmy Fallon and Jimmy Kimmel over their ratings.
Read more here.
Too few employees, tests and masks: How the coronavirus spread through Maryland nursing homes
Caitlin Evans can pinpoint the first day she and other nurses believe they exposed residents of Sagepoint Senior Living Services center to the novel coronavirus. The 26-year-old nurse spent half an hour on March 27 preparing a man with a bad cough to go to a hospital for a medical procedure.
Neither she nor other nurses who helped him to the ambulance wore masks or any other protective gear. Despite their pleas, they said, managers told them such protections were unnecessary.
Former and current employees at Sagepoint and six other nursing homes in Maryland say the virus spread rapidly as their facilities struggled with shortages of staff, testing and personal protective equipment. At several nursing homes, employees said, managers played down the severity of outbreaks and did not provide masks and gowns until patients had tested positive.
Read more here.
Trump claims he wore a mask ‘backstage’ at Arizona mask factory
Trump claimed Wednesday that he did, in fact, wear a mask during a visit to a mask production facility in Arizona on Tuesday — but that he did so “backstage.”
On his first trip outside the Washington area since late March, Trump on Tuesday participated in three events at the Honeywell mask production facility in Phoenix. He took part in a roundtable discussion, toured the factory and delivered remarks to employees.
Trump was not seen wearing a mask at any of the events, even though a sign was posted in the part of the facility he toured reading, “Face Mask required in this Area.” A separate sign at the entrance of the Honeywell facility read, “Please wear your mask at all times.” According to a White House official, the Honeywell facility said officials were not required to wear masks.
In an exchange with reporters Wednesday in the Oval Office, Trump claimed he “had a mask on for a period of time,” that Honeywell leaders told him he did not need to wear one and that he was “far away from people” during most of the Honeywell visit. At some points on the tour, he was standing close to others as he was shown the mask-making equipment.
“I had it on back, backstage,” Trump said. When a reporter noted that members of the media did not observe Trump wearing the mask, the president replied, “I can’t help it if you didn’t see me.”
Brazil has worst daily increase in deaths
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro declared that“the worst is over” on Tuesday. Hours later, the health ministry reported Brazil’s worst daily rise in coronavirus deaths: 633 fatalities within 24 hours.
By Wednesday, three states had declared lockdowns for the first time as Latin America’s worst-hit country struggles to get a grip on its outbreak. Experts expect Brazil’s coronavirus cases to be far higher than the official count of 8,000 deaths due to limits on testing and the far-right Bolsonaro’s dismissal of the true extent of infections. One study, for example, found that five major Brazilian cities registered 6,061 more deaths in recent weeks than the average before the pandemic.
São Luís, the capital of the northeastern state of Maranhão, went into a 10-day lockdown on Tuesday along with three nearby villages. A judge ordered the shutdown after state-run hospitals ran out of room in intensive care beds, the Guardian reported.
The measures put in place included putting up roadblocks, banning private cars, and letting only essential services such as hospitals, supermarkets and pharmacies stay open.
Fortaleza, neighboring Ceará state’s capital, will mandate similar orders, along with requiring the use of face masks, starting Friday.
Ten cities in the Amazon state of Pará are following suit. There is particularly acute spreading of the virus in Brazil’s remote indigenous communities in the Amazon, as they live in communal groups and have previously been decimated by diseases brought by outsiders.
People need to be scared of the virus,” Helena Brígido, vice president of Pará’s infectious diseases society, told the Guardian. “People need to wake up.”
Pompeo accuses China of withholding vital information on coronavirus
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo persisted in his criticism of China on Wednesday for obscuring details and early signs of the coronavirus outbreak, as Beijing accused him of pushing an unverified theory that it began in a lab in Wuhan.
In a news conference at the State Department, Pompeo blamed China’s lack of transparency for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people around the world.
Read more here.
Trump says popularity of coronavirus task force persuaded him to keep it
President Trump said Wednesday that the White House coronavirus task force will continue “indefinitely,” reversing course from a day earlier when he and Vice President Pence signaled that the panel would wrap up its work this month.
“I thought we could wind it down sooner, but I had no idea how popular the task force is until actually yesterday when I started talking about winding down,” Trump told reporters at the White House after signing a proclamation in the Oval Office honoring nurses. “It is appreciated by the public.”
Trump’s comments came a few hours after he announced in a series of tweets that the panel, headed by Pence, would continue to guide the administration’s response to the pandemic but with some changes in focus.
“The Task Force will continue on indefinitely with its focus on SAFETY & OPENING UP OUR COUNTRY AGAIN,” Trump tweeted. “We may add or subtract people to it, as appropriate. The Task Force will also be very focused on Vaccines & Therapeutics.”
Trump told reporters that he anticipated adding two or three members to the task force but that at some point its services would no longer be needed.
On Tuesday, Pence said the group would probably wind down its work by the end of the month and shift responsibilities for managing the pandemic back to federal agencies with jurisdiction over such tasks.
As Trump toured a Honeywell mask manufacturing plant in Arizona later Tuesday, he said that “we will have something in a different form” when asked about the task force.
The group, which includes medical experts Anthony S. Fauci and Deborah Birx, has met less frequently in recent days and has suspended long White House briefings that Trump had led.
Trump, however, said earlier this week that he expected that those briefings would resume, although they would be held less frequently.
Europe is loosening coronavirus restrictions. But don’t expect to vacation there anytime soon.
ROME — It was the sort of development that might catch the eye of anyone weary of lockdowns: The Italian island of Sicily wants to lure back tourists by discounting plane tickets and covering every third night in hotels.
But even as European nations begin to emerge from stay-at-home restrictions, they are nowhere close to reopening as international vacation destinations.
The most optimistic countries — Greece and Portugal among them — hope there is a chance they might be able to pitch themselves as safe options by the second half of summer. Others, including Italy, are looking to regional travel to partially salvage their tourism industries and economies while they sort out when to reopen borders and whom to let in.
Read more here.
Nearly 5,000 inmates have been infected with covid-19, CDC says
About 4,890 inmates in correctional or detention facilities have been infected with the novel coronavirus and 88 have died, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The report states that nearly 2,800 facility staff members have been infected with 15 dying of the virus. The CDC received aggregate data on covid-19 cases from 37 of 54 state and territorial health department jurisdictions between April 22 and April 28. Eighty-six percent, or 32 of those jurisdictions, reported at least one lab-confirmed case from a total of 420 correctional and detention facilities, according to the report.
The data included lab-confirmed cases identified and reported to jurisdictions from Jan. 21 to April 21. From the collected information, the CDC found that more than half of facilities had reported cases only among staff members. About 3 percent of the infected staff had to be hospitalized because of their covid-19 complications compared with 10 percent of detainees.
“Because staff members move between correctional facilities and their communities daily, they might be an important source of virus introduction into facilities,” the report said. Researchers said symptom screening is important for transmission reduction, but other strategies such as physical distancing, face coverings and intensified cleanings of frequently touched areas are also needed.
‘The Masked Singer’ has become the reality TV hit coronavirus can’t touch
On a momentous Wednesday in March, the world changed. Within the span of a few hours, the NBA suspended its season, Tom Hanks revealed he had tested positive for the coronavirus and President Trump gave a rare Oval Office address on the growing threat.
But that night, the Fox reality-show hit “The Masked Singer” had a different matter to attend to. The singing character of Bear was revealed to be one-time vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, who commemorated her “unmasking” with a spirited performance of Sir Mix-a-Lot’s “Baby Got Back.”
Coronavirus-induced quarantines have led to vast sections of American entertainment being shut down or reined in. But “The Masked Singer” has continued to power along like it’s any other spring. The show, which airs Wednesday nights, has garnered and even grown its audience while others have struggled.
Read more here.
Gap says it will reopen 800 stores this month
Gap is the latest national retailer to announce reopening plans, saying it will resume operations this month at up to 800 of its stores, which include Old Navy, Banana Republic and Athleta.
But the company’s stores will look and feel a bit different to accommodate social distancing: Bathrooms and fitting rooms will be closed, and returned items will be quarantined for 24 hours before they are placed back on shelves. Employees will be wearing face masks, and hand sanitizer dispensers will be added near front doors and cash registers.
The retailer will begin by reopening “a small selection” of locations in Texas this weekend. Shopping hours will be limited, and the company said it will be “actively monitoring the flow of customers in stores.”
“Our top priority remains the health and safety of our employees, customers and communities,” Gap said in a statement Wednesday. “As customers’ lives have shifted, so have the ways we’re meeting their needs.”
The company said it plans to expand curbside pickup, which is available at 75 stores.
Tech companies lay off a growing number of workers
Uber said it will lay off 3,700 employees, or about 14 percent of its workforce, as the company faces an uncertain future in the face of the novel coronavirus pandemic.
The San Francisco-based company confirmed in an SEC filing that fewer people are taking rides in the time of covid-19, and it has implemented a hiring freeze in addition to cutting thousands of jobs from its customer service and recruiting teams.
Uber’s announcement follows similar cuts by tech companies Lyft and Airbnb, fellows of the on-demand economy that has taken a plunge as people stay at home and try to avoid contact with others.
Read more here.
GM says it aims to restart ‘majority of manufacturing’ in North America on May 18
General Motors said Wednesday that it plans to resume most North American manufacturing on May 18, two months after it and other automakers halted production due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The plans “to restart the majority of manufacturing operations” in the United States and Canada on that targeted date would be accompanied by “extensive safety measures,” the automaker said.
This announcement — which followed local media reports about the automaker’s plans that cited its guidance to union members — was contained in a GM report about its first-quarter earnings, which revealed that the outbreak has cost it $1.4 billion. The stark drop in car sales amid the pandemic has prompted some lawmakers on Capitol Hill to push for new aid to the auto industry.
GM said its plans to resume operations would draw on information from government officials, unions and other GM facilities, including some in other countries, and incorporate procedures “designed to keep people safe” as they work as well as come and go from facilities. Rory L. Gamble, president of the United Auto Workers, said Wednesday in a statement about GM’s start date that “the companies contractually make that decision and we all knew this day would come at some point.”
“Our UAW focus and role is and will continue to be, on health and safety protocols to protect our members,” he said. “My own family will be among those that will be reporting, and my responsibility to our UAW members and my family will be consistent.”
Children are falling ill with perplexing inflammatory syndrome thought to be linked to covid-19
At first it was a handful of puzzling cases, Jane Newburger recalled. Other doctors had contacted her describing children with covid-19 coming into emergency rooms in bad shape with a kind of inflammatory shock syndrome affecting multiple organs.
Some were screaming from stomach pain. Others had bubbles, or swelling, in the arteries of their hearts.
By Saturday night — when Newburger and 1,800 other worried pediatric specialists, including representatives from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health, convened on a Zoom call to discuss the phenomenon — hospitals worldwide had identified about 100 similar cases. About half are in the United States.
Read more here.
Top officials around the world keep getting caught breaking lockdown rules
The guidelines are simple: Stay home. Avoid seeing anyone outside of your household. If you have to go out, wear a mask and stay six feet apart from others.
But over the past few weeks, as much of the world has adjusted to an unprecedented, stringent new set of norms, several prominent leaders centrally involved in their country’s coronavirus responses have been caught breaking the rules.
On Tuesday, British epidemiologist Neil Ferguson, a key adviser to the British government on its coronavirus response, resigned after the Telegraph reported that he broke lockdown protocol when a woman the newspaper described as his lover visited him at home. Ferguson and his colleagues at Imperial College London were behind a key study earlier this year that forecast that the coronavirus could kill huge numbers of people in the United States and Britain — research that helped influence government decisions to adopt strict measures to suppress the spread of the virus.
Read more here.
A retired Kansas farmer gave his N95 mask to Cuomo and gained a degree in return
A Kansas man gave Andrew M. Cuomo (D) one of five N95 masks he had from his farming days in hopes that the New York governor would pass it on to a nurse or a doctor in the nation’s coronavirus epicenter. For his generosity, the man’s former alma mater rewarded him with a degree he hadn’t been able to finish nearly 50 years earlier.
Cuomo tweeted Dennis Ruhnke’s letter on April 24 to show “humanity at its best.”
Ruhnke told the governor that he was hunkered down in his Kansas home with his wife, Sharon, who had one lung, which was giving her trouble, and diabetes. He told Cuomo that he was afraid for her because of her age but still wanted to help.
“Enclosed find a solitary N95 mask left over from my farming days. It has never been used,” Ruhnke wrote. “If you could, would you please give this mask to a nurse or doctor in your city?”
Ruhnke had four other masks he was saving for his immediate family, he said. He encouraged Cuomo to keep leading and signed off. Ruhnke’s act of generosity caught the attention of Kansas State University President Richard B. Myers, who granted a degree to Ruhnke on Tuesday in a special ceremony held in an open area on the state House’s third floor, the Leavenworth Times reported.
Gov. Laura Kelly (D) delivered the commencement speech for the degree, which Ruhnke was just two credits away from finishing in 1971 when he left to help with his family’s farm, the paper reported.
Ruhnke told the Leavenworth Times that he had written off the possibility of ever receiving the degree — but the letter to Cuomo swung good karma his way.
“Many of those who wrote to me to thank me asked me how they could help,” he said. “Just pay it forward as much as you can afford to do so to honor all of those who lost their lives to the C-19 virus.”
Pitchfork Music Festival canceled, adding to growing list of halted tours and shows
The Pitchfork Music Festival, which was scheduled to take place in Chicago in July, has been canceled amid the coronavirus pandemic, organizers announced Wednesday morning.
The three-day festival was set to be headlined by Run the Jewels, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and the National in Chicago’s Union Park. Instead, it became the latest event called off due to the pandemic, which has halted shows, concerts, tours, festivals and other gatherings across the world.
“It can be pretty daunting to think about the future of live music right now, but know that we are fully committed to bringing Pitchfork Music Festival back in 2021, if the public health situation allows for it,” Pitchfork wrote in a letter announcing the cancellation.
Other major cancellations include the Life is Beautiful festival in Las Vegas, the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland and the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, among many others.
After Pitchfork’s announcement, attention shifts to another major event scheduled to follow it just days later in Chicago: Lollapalooza, which is still scheduled for July 30 in that city. According to NBC Chicago, Lollapalooza’s organizers wrote in an email that they were “taking careful consideration to work through our options” before making a decision by the end of this month.
Michigan’s Republican legislature sues governor over stay-at-home orders
Michigan’s Republican-led legislature filed a lawsuit on Wednesday against Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) that questions the extent to which she can use her emergency powers, WGTU reported.
The lawsuit comes just days after Whitmer extended a state of emergency amid Republican threats of legal action.
The lawsuit claims Whitmer overstepped her authority with the extension because she didn’t seek approval from the state legislature, WGTU reported.
Michigan Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey (R) and House Speaker Lee Chatfield (R) held a news conference on Wednesday at which they claimed that Whitmer had excluded the legislature from decision-making and in sharing data, the outlet reported.
Their main concerns are Whitmer’s interpretation of a 1945 law concerning emergency powers and a 1976 law about emergency declaration, WGTU reported. This is the second lawsuit against her this week, with another lawsuit filed by Rep. Paul Mitchell (R-Mich.), who claims the governor’s actions violate his constitutional rights.
Mitchell told WDIV that he filed the lawsuit because he believes that there is a balance between maintaining public health and reopening Michigan’s economy.
Whitmer has issued 69 executive orders in 59 days, the outlet reported.
Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers (D) is also facing scrutiny from the Republican-controlled state Supreme Court after he extended his “Safer at Home” order to May 26.
Top Republican says Fauci’s testimony would have been ‘useful to this country’ as House panel convenes without him
Rep. Tom Cole (Okla.), the top Republican on a House panel that was blocked by the White House from hearing testimony from infectious disease expert Anthony S. Fauci, said Wednesday that it would have been “useful to this country” to hear from the high-profile member of the president’s coronavirus task force.
“I think it would have been good testimony, useful to this committee, I think useful to this country,” Cole noted at the outset of an appropriations subcommittee hearing on the coronavirus response. “Frankly, I think going forward, this subcommittee more than any other is going to need administration input, expert input, as we make the important decisions in front of us.”
Cole’s comments came a day after Trump told reporters he blocked Fauci from appearing because “the House is a bunch of Trump haters.”
“They put every Trump hater on the committee, the same old stuff,” Trump said outside the White House before a trip to Arizona. “They frankly want our situation to be unsuccessful which means death, which means death. And our situation’s going to be very successful.”
Cole did not mention Trump by name but said the House Appropriations Committee has a long history of working in a bipartisan fashion and that “its record shows that it knows how to work together.”
Rep. Rosa L. DeLauro (D-Conn.), the subcommittee’s chairwoman, also made note of Fauci’s absence at the outset of Wednesday’s hearing.
“He has testified hundreds of times on Capitol Hill working with Democratic and Republican presidents,” she said. “Yet now the White House said no, leaving no doubt it is just frightened of oversight.”
Fauci is scheduled to testify next week in the Republican-led Senate.
Taiwan cheers return of fans to baseball games as outbreak there is increasingly contained
Taiwan is hopeful that it is in the home stretch of containing the coronavirus, and the island’s baseball fans are cheering. Starting Friday, they can once again attend professional baseball games in person, a month after matches resumed with empty stadiums.
The games, though, won’t look exactly like before: Only 1,000 mask-wearing spectators will be allowed into stadiums at a time after having their temperatures taken. When buying a ticket, each person will be assigned a seat to make contact tracing easier if anyone at a game turns out to be infected.
“Wear your mask properly and show our unity and discipline,” Taiwan’s professional baseball league wrote on Facebook, Reuters reported. “Let the world see the pride of Taiwan.”
In its battle with the coronavirus, Taiwan has found relative success. The island, which China views as a breakaway province, never went into total lockdown. Among its 23 million people, Taiwan has recorded 439 confirmed cases to date and six deaths, with only 100 active infections, according to Reuters.
Baseball games also returned to South Korea this week, though matches there will remain audience-less despite the country’s progress in curbing its coronavirus outbreak.
Dubai intensifies focus on labor camps amid reports of high levels of infection among repatriated workers
DUBAI — Authorities in Dubai announced intensive measures to test for the coronavirus and prevent its spread in the United Arab Emirates’ dense labor camps, following reports of high instances of coronavirus infections among recently repatriated workers from South Asia.
Pakistan said Monday that on an April 28 flight of 209 passengers, 105 tested positive for the virus. A few days earlier, authorities said that out of three flights carrying 483 passengers from Dubai, Sharjah and Colombo, 190 tested positive. Pakistani officials say they have brought the matter up with Emirati authorities.
UAE’s undersecretary of foreign affairs, Khalid Abdullah Humai Belhoul, said Wednesday that all of those on repatriation flights were tested and not allowed to travel if positive. “It is UAE airline policy not to allow anyone infected with the virus to travel on an aircraft, and this policy has been strictly enforced at the border with an intensive pre-departure testing program.”
Some 60,000 Pakistani laborers, many of whom have lost their jobs, have registered to leave the UAE.
The concerns about the rate of infection among laborers emerged amid an effort by the UAE to get India and Pakistan to open their airways to repatriation flights. Some 200,000 Indian nationals have registered to return; the first flights to India are set for Thursday. Indian naval vessels are also headed to Dubai to help.
The Indian Embassy in the UAE said all those allowed on the flights will be tested for the virus and will undergo two weeks of quarantine once back in India.
The plight of the vast numbers of migrant laborers, mostly from South Asia, has been a concern since many have lost their jobs even as they live in crowded accommodations conducive to the spread of the virus.
In Saudi Arabia and Qatar, many infection clusters are centered on these workers.
In Dubai, crowded neighborhoods associated with migrant laborers were sealed off early in the outbreak, and the inhabitants were tested heavily.
According to the Dubai government, new measures announced Tuesday were being taken in the labor camps “to safeguard the health and well-being of blue collar workers” in those areas. These included extensive coronavirus testing and cleaning of facilities.
The UAE has reported 15,192 cases of the virus, with about 500 new cases reported every day for the past few weeks. There have been 146 fatalities.
Private payrolls lose 20.2 million jobs in April, worst drop in ADP report history
U.S. companies shed 20.2 million jobs from their payrolls in April as the coronavirus pandemic brought the economy to a standstill and shuttered most of the country’s businesses, according to new data Wednesday from the ADP Research Institute.
April’s staggering job losses are the worst in the report’s history, which began in 2002. The month’s job losses were double the number of jobs lost in February 2009, during the Great Recession, Ahu Yildirmaz, co-head of the ADP Research Institute, said in a statement.
Despite the jaw-dropping number, these losses do not fully represent the economic carnage of the pandemic, ADP said. The report uses data only through the 12th of the month, in keeping with the Bureau of Labor Statistics. More than 8 million Americans filed for unemployment in the weeks that followed.
Read more here.
Kansas man banned from performing autopsies tried to sell coronavirus tests to victims’ families
Shawn Parcells admits that he did not go to medical school, but that allegedly hasn’t stopped him from advertising autopsies and forensic services for years.
Nor did his lack of formal medical training prevent him from allegedly trying to sell coronavirus tests to people desperate to know whether their loved ones died of the virus, according to accusations in a restraining order filed by the Kansas attorney general Tuesday.
The 37-year-old, who posed as an expert in the investigation of the Ferguson, Mo., police shooting of Michael Brown in August 2014, has drawn renewed attention after allegedly setting up businesses and websites selling his services to victims of the novel coronavirus, offering to check tissue samples from loved ones who may have died of the virus but were not tested.
Read more here.
Dallas hair salon owner chooses to go to jail rather than close her doors
The judge told Shelley Luther that she didn’t have to go to jail.
Luther, the owner of Salon À la Mode in Dallas, had been operating her business despite a temporary restraining order last week from Dallas County State District Judge Eric Moyé. She kept operating despite a county official’s cease-and-desist letter ordering her to close — a letter that she had ripped up before a crowd of protesters in a theatrical display of defiance during an Open Texas rally in Frisco, Tex., on April 25.
“Come and get it, Judge Clay Jenkins,” she said, referencing the top county official as she threw shreds of his letter to the crowd, the Dallas Morning News reported.
Read more here.
German soccer gets government okay to become world’s first major team-sports league to resume play
The Bundesliga on Wednesday received permission from Germany’s government to resume play in the second half of this month, according to multiple reports, becoming the world’s first major team-sports league to have a concrete plan to return amid the novel coronavirus pandemic.
Germany’s highly regarded soccer league halted play on March 13, with each team having nine matches remaining in the season. Those games, which will be played without fans present and with only 300 or so people allowed into the stadiums, will be wrapped up by the end of June. The exact starting date will be determined by the DFL, which operates the Bundesliga and its second-tier counterpart; league officials reportedly will meet Thursday to discuss the starting date.
Germany has been able to limit its coronavirus death rate thanks in part to aggressive testing, allowing the country to begin reopening on a limited basis. Bundesliga players have been allowed to practice in small groups at team facilities for the past few weeks.
Read more here.
A massive drop in car sales sparks new push in Congress to aid the auto industry
A precipitous decline in car sales amid the deadly coronavirus outbreak has caught the attention of Capitol Hill, where some lawmakers are urging Congress to authorize aid for the auto industry.
With consumers spending less, and factories nationwide shuttered or severely hamstrung, Democrats and Republicans largely representing the hard-hit, auto-heavy Midwest are leading an early push to persuade their colleagues to help manufacturers and suppliers as part of a future pandemic relief package. Absent that assistance, they warn massive losses could leave workers unemployed and stall any economic recovery.
To make their case, lawmakers including Reps. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio), Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.) and Fred Upton (R-Mich.) circulated a draft letter Tuesday emphasizing that the “projected economic fallout for the industry is grave,” according to a copy obtained by The Washington Post.
Read more here.
Nordstrom to close 16 stores under reopening plan
Nordstrom is closing 16 stores and restructuring as it tries to shore up its business to counter the effects of the coronavirus pandemic.
The apparel giant’s brick and mortar locations have been closed since March 17. On Tuesday, it said it would begin staggered reopenings as states and localities lift restrictions.
The closures will winnow the retailer’s fleet to 100 full-line Nordstrom stores across the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico, 247 Nordstrom Rack discount stores and a handful of boutiques and clearance stores. It did not identify which stores would close.
The retailer also announced new protocols. The number of customers and employees will be limited to allow for social distancing, and the company will provide facial coverings for anyone who comes into a store. It also said it would step up sanitization efforts and continue offering contactless curbside service at certain locations.
“We’ve been investing in our digital and physical capabilities to keep pace with rapidly changing customer expectations. The impact of covid-19 is only accelerating the importance of these capabilities in serving customers,” chief executive Erik Nordstrom said Tuesday in a statement. “More than ever, we need to work with flexibility and speed.”
The company said the restructuring will save $150 million.
Ousted vaccine official agrees to testify in House next week, lawyer says
Rick Bright, a former top vaccine official who was removed from his post last month, will testify before Congress next week despite being under “massive stress,” his lawyer said Wednesday.
Bright, the former director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, alleged in a whistleblower complaint on Tuesday that he was reassigned to a less prestigious role because he tried to “prioritize science and safety over political expediency” and raised health concerns over a drug repeatedly pushed by President Trump as a possible cure for the coronavirus.
Debra Katz, an attorney for Bright, confirmed Wednesday that he will appear on Capitol Hill next Thursday at the invitation of Rep. Anna G. Eshoo (D-Calif.), who chairs the health subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. “He is going to testify next week,” Katz said during an appearance on CNN.
“He is well enough to testify, and what the stress is for him is that lives are being lost every minute, and he is not in a position to help that effort, and that is causing massive stress for him,” she said. “He wants to be back in his role.”
Bright’s appearance adds to highly anticipated testimony next week. Anthony S. Fauci, the country’s leading infectious disease expert and a prominent member of the White House coronavirus task force, is scheduled to appear before a Senate committee on Tuesday.
Research on coronavirus ‘mutation’ not conclusive, ex-FDA chief says
A research paper that suggests a strain of the coronavirus has mutated to become more contagious does not prove that, but its conclusions spurred some “misleading” media coverage, Scott Gottlieb, the former Food and Drug Administration commissioner, said Wednesday morning in a television interview.
The paper from scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory reported that a strain of the virus had mutated, spread in Europe and was “associated with increased transmission.” Its contents led to alarming headlines about a mutated coronavirus that could be more contagious.
But infectious-disease experts have questioned this argument, arguing for caution in reviewing the paper’s conclusions. In an interview Wednesday on CNBC, Gottlieb added his voice to that chorus, warning against reading too much into the research’s findings.
“It really doesn’t prove anything,” Gottlieb said. “It doesn’t prove that this new strain is in fact more infectious, which is what they concluded.”
Read more about the research paper — and the response to it from other experts — here.
New York City subway system closes for overnight cleaning
The subway system in the city that never sleeps was put to bed overnight as part of a new cleaning regimen.
New York City’s around-the-clock system, which was already operating on a reduced schedule, shut down for four hours early Wednesday while cleaning crews disinfected stations and trains. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority will close the system every day at 1 a.m.
According to the Associated Press, more than 1,000 police officers have been assigned to secure stations throughout the world’s largest subway system, since fewer than half of the 472 stations can be locked.
“Police officers escorted people out of Brooklyn’s Coney Island station, the end of the line for several trains, and told them they would have to board buses to get to their destinations,” the AP reported. “Cleaners carrying bottles of bleach then boarded the trains.”
British scientist who broke lockdown rules to meet his married lover will not be prosecuted, police say
LONDON — A British scientist who urged the government to implement strict lockdown measures to save lives during the coronavirus pandemic, only to flout the rules himself to meet his married lover, will not be prosecuted, Scotland Yard said Wednesday.
Neil Ferguson, an epidemiologist and professor at Imperial College London, resigned from his government advisory post on Tuesday after the Telegraph newspaper reported that he had broken lockdown rules by allowing the married woman, who lives with her family in another house, to visit him at his home. Ferguson tested positive for the coronavirus in March and self-isolated after developing symptoms.
Scotland Yard, as London’s Metropolitan Police Service is known, said Ferguson’s behavior was “plainly disappointing,” but it confirmed that officers “do not intend to take any further action.”
Ferguson told the Telegraph he “deeply” regrets his behavior, adding that he “made an error of judgment.” In an attempt to explain his decision, he said: “I acted in the belief that I was immune.”
Health Secretary Matt Hancock told Sky News on Wednesday that it was up to the police to decide whether Ferguson should be fined for flouting the lockdown measures, but he said it was the “right decision” for Ferguson to resign.
The scandal dominated the British tabloids and social media on Wednesday morning. “Prof Lockdown broke lockdown to get his trousers down,” read the front page of the Sun, while the Daily Mail led with “Professor Lockdown quits over trysts with married lover.”
On social media, some condemned the front-page splashes, arguing that the most important story was that Britain has become Europe’s main coronavirus hotbed after overtaking Italy’s death toll from covid-19.
Britain now has recorded more than 29,500 deaths.
Pence says officials discussed curtailing elderly alumni attendance at college sports events
Vice President Pence said Wednesday that White House officials had asked college athletic representatives to consider curtailing the attendance of elderly alumni at sporting events as a strategy to reduce the spread of the novel coronavirus among the higher-risk group.
Pence, who leads the White House coronavirus task force, shared that the conversation had taken place in a syndicated radio interview during which host Hugh Hewitt pressed him on whether age-based restrictions might be part of a strategy for reopening the country. (Hewitt is also an opinion columnist for The Washington Post.)
Hewitt asked Pence if he could anticipate guidance from the government, for example, that airline flights be restricted to those age 45 and younger “so that people might feel better about traveling with groups that are naturally more resilient in the face of this virus.”
“I think that’s a very interesting question,” Pence said. “And you know, when we had conversations with the commissioners of the major university and college athletic associations not long ago, we talked about that they might consider asking some of the elderly alumni to consider taking a pass on some sporting events should they restart in the summer or in the fall.”
Pence added that such decisions should ultimately be left to state governors and businesses.
Hewitt also suggested that age-based restrictions could be imposed on summer pool openings, an idea that Pence did not address directly. He instead pivoted to talking about the importance of “being able to enjoy the outdoors in the sunlight” and expressed hope that “we could be in a very different place by shortly after Memorial Day or early June.”
Thieves in New Zealand stole about 100 rental cars amid a lockdown, but they didn’t think it through
After New Zealand entered a strict lockdown at the end of March, a group of thieves sensed an opportunity in what Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern framed as a moment of national solidarity.
New Zealand is a major backpacker and tourist destination, with numerous rental car companies competing for customers in normal times. But with tourism and travel banned under its strictest lockdown rules, the Jucy rental car company abandoned its Auckland storage site near the main airport.
Employees closed the gates but left the cars unlocked, according to the BBC.
Over the course of several days last month, about 100 of the cars and vans parked on the site were stolen, adding to the company’s concerns over its economic survival amid the pandemic.
“We couldn’t believe that when everyone was pitching in and looking after each other as a nation, there would be this brazen theft,” Tom Ruddenklau, the company’s chief rental officer, told the BBC.
The thieves’ fortunes quickly turned, however. With New Zealand’s streets virtually empty during the coronavirus lockdown, some of the alleged thieves behind the wheels were quickly spotted by officers on patrol. Surveillance camera footage provided further details, and New Zealanders joined the effort amid an outcry over the mass theft, alerting authorities to potential sightings.
So far, 29 people have been arrested, and 85 vehicles have been found, the New Zealand Herald reported earlier this week. An investigation into how the theft was coordinated continues.
Coronavirus throws Polish presidential election into chaos
BERLIN — Poland is mired in political chaos just days before a scheduled presidential election, with the ruling party determined to forge ahead with the vote despite the coronavirus pandemic.
The Law and Justice party is pushing to hold the election — slated for Sunday — using a vote-by-mail system.
However, opposition parties and rights groups have raised concerns about using the untested system and are lobbying for a delay of several months.
Any delay could hurt the chances of President Andrzej Duda, the incumbent Law and Justice candidate who is leading in the polls, given the expected economic impact of the coronavirus in the coming months.
The government hopes to limit delays to a few weeks, arguing that anything more would be unconstitutional. But parliament is expected to vote on the issue this week, and it remains unclear whether the ruling coalition can win amid indications that members of one of its coalition partners will vote for a delay.
Opposition parties argue that their candidates have not had a fair opportunity to campaign because of the pandemic, while Duda enjoys extensive television coverage.
European Union officials have urged Poland to ensure free and fair elections, with long-standing concerns over the rule of law in the country.
A report published Wednesday by Washington-based Freedom House said that “among the region’s waning democracies, Poland continues to stand out for the systematic, targeted, and aggressive nature of the government’s attacks on judicial independence."
If Poland continues on its current course, “it will join hybrid regimes and autocracies that routinely mete out politicized justice,” it said.
Pence heading to Iowa to highlight reopening of religious services, maintaining food supply
Vice President Pence plans to visit Iowa on Friday to discuss reopening religious services to the public and maintaining the nation’s food supply, the latest in a series of trips that he and President Trump are making to highlight the administration’s response to the coronavirus.
Pence’s planned travel comes in the wake of Trump’s visit Tuesday to a face-mask manufacturing facility in Arizona, a trip he used to tout his desire to see an easing of stay-at-home restrictions that have undercut the economy.
According to his office, Pence is scheduled to meet with faith leaders in Des Moines to discuss safely lifting restrictions on services at “houses of worship.”
During an appearance on the syndicated Hugh Hewitt radio show on Wednesday, Pence said churches and synagogues could spread out seating and add services to provide additional social distancing.
While in Iowa, Pence also plans to visit the headquarters of Hy-Vee, a company that announced this week that it would impose limits on meat sales at its stores because of worker shortages at meatpacking plants.
Last week, Trump signed an executive order compelling meat processors to remain open to address anticipated shortages in the nation’s food supply chains, despite mounting reports of plant worker deaths due to covid-19. Separately, Trump is planning to meet at the White House on Wednesday afternoon with Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds (R). She will be the latest in a string of governors from both parties who have traveled to Washington to offer an in-person briefing to Trump on state response efforts.
Kim Jong Un didn’t have heart surgery, South Korea says, tying absence to coronavirus fears
TOKYO — South Korea’s spy agency told lawmakers Wednesday it does not believe North Korean leader Kim Jong Un had heart surgery last month and determined that his three-week absence from public view was probably linked to fears over the coronavirus pandemic.
Officials of the National Intelligence Service told a parliamentary committee that the reports of heart surgery, first carried by South Korean website Daily NK and then amplified by Western media into talk that Kim was gravely ill or dead, were “groundless,” according to Kim Byung-kee, a ruling-party lawmaker on the intelligence committee. “He was normally performing his duties when he was out of the public eye,” he said.
Instead, it appeared that concerns about the pandemic had limited the nuclear-armed dictator's public activity, the lawmaker said.
Read more here.
Analysis: Trump wants to defund the WHO. That could hurt health partnerships in Africa.
On Sunday, President Trump said the United States had “foolishly” been funding the World Health Organization, which “missed every single call.” Two weeks ago, Trump announced his administration would temporarily halt U.S. funding for the WHO, pending a review of its actions related to the novel coronavirus outbreak.
Analysts have scrutinized the WHO’s delayed response to past public health emergencies. But our research indicates that the WHO contributes substantially to global health more broadly and serves as a significant partner in U.S. health efforts, particularly in Africa. Defunding this organization would probably erode sizable, long-standing U.S. investments on health in the region.
Read more here.
Brazilian city enters country’s first municipal lockdown
The northeastern Brazilian city of São Luís became the country’s first to go under lockdown on Tuesday, as officials instructed 1.5 million residents to stay home to salvage its overwhelmed health system.
As Brazil grapples with the worst coronavirus outbreak in Latin America, the city’s court-ordered restrictions go far beyond any measures in the rest of the country — and may influence others to follow suit.
Even as the pandemic’s daily death toll keeps rising, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has been flippant, if not entirely defiant, in his response. He has insisted that only the elderly and vulnerable should stay home and criticized governors who impose strict measures.
But for 10 days, São Luís, the capital of poor, tropical Maranhão state, will turn into a ghost town anyway.
Schools, public transit, parks and most businesses have been shuttered, while most residents are allowed to go outside only to shop at supermarkets or pharmacies, according to the Associated Press.
Although Maranhão has more than tripled its number of intensive care beds, mounting cases have left the city’s health system nearing capacity. Worried private hospitals sought a stronger response in court, and last week, a judge ordered the city to implement its mandate, including possible fines of up to $360.
The judge, Douglas Martins, said Brazil’s governors had not established sufficient penalties for preexisting orders, likely because of worries about getting reelected.
“With this ruling,” he told the AP, “perhaps we will have given the freedom that governors need nationally.”
It may already be working. On Tuesday, the neighboring state of Pará said it would lock down its most-infected municipalities this week, while Rio de Janeiro’s governor is reportedly considering similarly restrictive measures.
“We have a national challenge, but the federal government keeps sabotaging efforts to confront it,” Flávio Dino, the governor of Maranhão, told the AP. Bolsonaro “makes our work harder,” he added.
E.U. forecasts historic economic collapse
BRUSSELS — The European Union warned Tuesday of a massive hit to Europe’s economy from the coronavirus lockdowns, saying that the contraction this year could be the worst in Europe’s post-World War II history.
E.U. policymakers offered a grim forecast, predicting that even if the handling of the crisis goes smoothly and societies do not need to shutter again now that many have started easing restrictions, the economy of the European Union is expected to shrink by 7.4 percent in 2020. By comparison, in 2009, which was the worst year of the global financial crisis, Europe’s economy declined by 4.4 percent.
“The E.U. has now entered the deepest economic recession in its history,” said Paolo Gentiloni, the top E.U. economic official, outlining a grim picture of rising unemployment and dashed opportunities.
The forecast also projected that the shock would be relatively brief, with a recovery in 2021 of 6.1 percent. But it said that if infections rise again, another three percentage points could be shaved off the economy this year, worsening the crisis even more. If E.U. countries fail to coordinate their economic response, Gentiloni said, the crisis could also be worsened.
Spain, Greece, Italy and Croatia are expected to be the worst-hit by the crisis, with their tourism-dependent economies shrinking by more than 9 percent. Poland would be the least affected, with a drop of 4.3 percent.
But despite taking a worse hit than the one expected in the United States, the unemployment figures are expected to look far more protected, Gentiloni said. E.U. unemployment is expected to rise from 6.7 percent in 2019 to 9.0 percent this year. Although that is a major blow, it is far better than in the United States, where analysts estimate that the unemployment rate has already more than doubled to more than 10 percent. The difference in Europe is that most governments have chosen to subsidize private salaries to avoid layoffs.
Former British prime minister Theresa May says world leaders lack unity in coronavirus response
LONDON — Former British prime minister Theresa May criticized the global response to the deadly coronavirus pandemic on Wednesday, saying that world leaders failed to join forces and work together effectively in tackling the disease.
Writing for the Times newspaper in a piece titled “Nationalism is no ally in the battle without borders,” May said that as the disease took hold and spread among countries, leaders treated the crisis as a “national issue” and took an isolated approach to handling it, one she noted could have damaging consequences.
“While researchers and scientists may work together,” there was “little evidence of politicians doing so,” said May, who spent her tenure as prime minister attempting to negotiate a deal to pull Britain out of the European Union. She warned that “a polarised politics has taken hold.”
Her piece was published the day after Britain overtook Italy to become the worst-hit country in Europe, with 29,501 deaths.
“Strong international relations are vital to our security and success,” May wrote. She called on countries to work collaboratively to “engage with China” on how it can improve its human rights, carbon emissions and regional security.
In recent weeks, British officials and President Trump have made clear that China has questions to answer regarding its handling of the outbreak that originated in the city of Wuhan.
In her article, May said China owes the world an explanation and noted that both U.S. presidential candidates are “right to ask questions,” although she warned that “it would be a mistake to allow this to become a fault line in international relations.”
“A world in which a few ‘strong men’ square up to each other and expect everyone else to choose between them would be a dangerous one,” she said.
Coronavirus researcher killed in Pennsylvania murder-suicide, police say
A University of Pittsburgh researcher on the cusp of making “very significant findings” about the novel coronavirus was killed over the weekend in what authorities say was a murder-suicide.
Bing Liu, 37, was shot multiple times around noon Saturday in Ross Township, Pa., a northern suburb of Pittsburgh, local police told WTAE.
As a research assistant professor, Liu focused on using computational models to study biological processes. He had been working from home during the pandemic and studying the virus, his boss said, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
Officials told the paper that Liu was shot by another man and suffered gunshot wounds to the head, neck, torso and extremities. The man, later identified as 46-year-old Hao Gu, then got into his car about 100 yards away and killed himself.
It is unclear whether or how the two men knew each other, and police are investigating whether there was any confrontation before the incident.
In a statement, Liu’s department at Pitt’s School of Medicine called him a prolific researcher and generous mentor. Shortly before his death, he had begun researching the cellular mechanisms that underlie coronavirus infections and the cellular basis of ensuing complications.
Ivet Bahar, his supervisor and the head of his department, told the Post-Gazette that Liu had just started to receive interesting results.
“We will make an effort to complete what he started in an effort to pay homage to his scientific excellence,” the statement said.
Kansas farmer hailed for mask donation receives honorary degree decades after leaving college
As a coronavirus outbreak ravaged New York in March, a retired Kansas farmer dug out an N95 mask that he had once used while cleaning his grain bin and mailed it to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo.
“I am a retired farmer hunkered down here in N.E. Kansas with my wife who has but one lung and occasional problems with her remaining lung,” Dennis Ruhnke wrote. “She also has diabetes. We are in our 70s now and frankly I am afraid for her.”
Still, Ruhnke went on to say, he hoped his extra mask could be used by a nurse or doctor in New York City. He didn’t expect that Cuomo would actually read his handwritten note, he wrote, since the governor was “busy beyond belief.”
To his surprise, though, Cuomo read the letter out loud during a news conference in April, tearing up as he called Ruhnke an example of “humanity at its best.” The retired farmer, who told the Lawrence World-Journal that he couldn’t wait for his 15 minutes of fame to be over, briefly became famous for his act of solidarity.
I received this letter from a farmer in northeast Kansas. His wife is ill and he is aging.
— Andrew Cuomo (@NYGovCuomo) April 24, 2020
He sent me 1 of 5 N95 masks he has from farming to pass on to a doctor or nurse in New York.
This is humanity at its best. I share his letter as inspiration. pic.twitter.com/Fa4h5LH9rL
Although Ruhnke, 73, never expected to get anything in return for his donation, he ended up fulfilling a long-deferred dream on Tuesday when he was awarded an honorary bachelor’s degree by Kansas State University.
In 1971, Ruhnke was just two credits shy of graduating from KSU with a degree in agriculture when his father died, the Manhattan Mercury reported. He ended up leaving school to take care of his mother and assume responsibility for the family farm. After his two sons graduated from Kansas State, he thought about going back to earn his last two credits, but learned that he would have to start over from scratch.
On Tuesday, Ruhnke finally received his diploma from Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly in a special ceremony at the Kansas statehouse. “Dennis’ kindness and lifelong career in agriculture make him more than qualified to receive a degree,” Kelly wrote.
This afternoon I had the pleasure of joining Kansas State University President Richard Myers to confer a bachelor's...
Posted by Governor Laura Kelly on Tuesday, May 5, 2020
Tourism picks up in China over holiday weekend
Residents in China made 115 million trips over the May Day holiday weekend, a promising sign of recovery for the nation’s tourism sector as it trudges out of the coronavirus pandemic.
After shutdowns of up to three months paralyzed the industry, Chinese officials have attempted to encourage residents to travel domestically to revive the economy. According to data reported on Wednesday by travel agencies and the tourism industry, that effort is off to a strong start.
Chinese travel operators earned $6.74 billion over the five-day holiday, according to Reuters, and the number of trips surpassed expected totals by nearly 28 percent.
“We can see that everyone’s confidence is gradually recovering,” Liang Jianzhang, head of a Chinese online travel agency, Trip.com, told state broadcaster CCTV.
While trips were still down compared with last year, the site’s data showed that many Chinese, particularly younger people, traveled to destinations such as the cities of Chengdu and Shanghai, as well as to a scenic national park in Sichuan province.
Transportation by car seemed to be especially popular, offering a clue on how the pandemic may affect travel worldwide in the long term. Even as overall tourism dropped 41 percent compared with last year, car rentals at Trip.com were up by 10 percent, and government officials said nearly two-thirds of all trips for May Day were taken by car.
In another sign of the country’s recovery, tens of thousands of students returned to school on Wednesday in Wuhan, where months of strict lockdown began lifting last month.
More than 120 schools in the city of 11 million — where the coronavirus emerged late last year — reopened for high school seniors, CNN reported, as they prepare for China’s university exam. Younger grades will be phased in over the coming weeks.
Social isolation (and video chat) is bringing renewed attention to the art of the bookshelf
Bookshelves are having a moment.
Not long ago, their epitaph was being written. Ikea’s redesign of its Billy unit to accommodate objects other than books was cited as evidence that we had turned the page on possessing print.
Now, that story has a sequel.
Self-isolation has people rediscovering the value of having hardcovers at home. In addition, television networks’ shift to interviews via Skype, rather than in a studio, is revealing the bookcase backdrops of pundits, news anchors and celebrities at home.
Read more here.
People with disabilities should be at center of coronavirus recovery efforts, U.N. head says
People with disabilities are among the hardest hit by the coronavirus and need to be at the center of recovery efforts, the head of the United Nations said Wednesday.
Around the world, roughly 1 billion people with disabilities are already at an economic disadvantage and often lack access to adequate health care, U.N. Secretary General António Guterres said. The coronavirus outbreak is “intensifying these inequalities, and producing new threats,” he said in a video message released alongside a policy brief that calls on governments to provide more support.
Guterres noted that lack of accessible public health information and barriers to basic hygiene measures make people with disabilities especially vulnerable to the coronavirus, and that the virus tends to be deadlier for people with preexisting health conditions. People with disabilities are also more likely to live in nursing homes and long-term-care facilities, where some of the worst outbreaks have occurred.
In addition, some countries ration health care “based on discriminatory criteria, such as age or assumptions about quality or value of life, based on disability,” Guterres said. “We cannot let this continue.”
The U.N.'s report calls for governments to reduce the number of people in institutions that could potentially become coronavirus hot spots, and consider expanding disability benefits to more people or increasing payments. People with disabilities should be prioritized in any recovery plan, since they are disproportionately likely to live in poverty, the brief says.
Not even a pandemic could stop this D.C. artistic leader from building the acting school of her dreams
On Tuesday morning in Columbia Heights, a small crowd gathered — within the guidelines for mass gatherings in the District — for an event that by any measure has to be considered an act of extreme optimism: a groundbreaking.
Undaunted by the possibility that the building won’t be usable even after renovations are complete in August, the Studio Acting Conservatory forged ahead with a variation of the traditional shovel-in-the-ground ceremony. A bottle of champagne was broken over the front steps — a bubbly endorsement of an uncertain future. But it’s one that Joy Zinoman, the 44-year-old conservatory’s founding director, continues to believe in. The fact is, she has to.
“It’s about resilience,” says Studio Theatre’s founding artistic director. “That’s what this is about.”
Read more here.
Arizona tells scientists to stop work on modeling after announcing plan to ease restrictions
Scientists who were modeling the spread of coronavirus in Arizona were told to stop work on Monday, hours after Gov. Doug Ducey (R) announced that restaurants and hair salons would be allowed to reopen in a matter of days.
An email obtained by the Arizona Republic and ABC 15 shows that the Arizona Department of Health Services abruptly asked a team of roughly two dozen experts from Arizona State University and the University of Arizona to “pause” their work on coronavirus projections. Those volunteer researchers had been compiling “the most robust public model in Arizona of covid-19,” according to the Republic, and found that cases were likely to dramatically increase unless social distancing requirements remained in place until the end of May.
The scientists were also informed that they would be losing access to all the special data sets that they were using. No explanation was given for the abrupt change.
Cara Christ, the state’s health director, told the Republic that the team hadn’t been disbanded, and could be brought back in the fall “to look at modeling during flu season.” In the meantime, the state plans to rely on a model from the Federal Emergency Management Agency that hasn’t been released to the public.
The decision was assailed by the nonprofit Arizona Public Health Association, which said that the team had been composed of top talent in the field. In a Tuesday blog post, executive director Will Humble questioned whether the researchers were told to stop their work because it was “producing results that were inconsistent with other messaging and decisions being made by the executive branch.”
Tyson will resume limited production at largest pork plant in U.S.
Tyson Foods will reopen the country’s largest pork processing facility on Wednesday, after an outbreak of the novel coronavirus prompted a two week closure.
The Waterloo, Iowa plant, which processes 19,500 hogs a day and represents about 4 percent of the country’s pork processing capacity, had been under heavy pressure to close its doors amid a rise in infections.
More than 180 cases of the virus were linked to the plant’s employees, and production lines began to slow down in April as many other workers called in sick last month.
As The Washington Post reported, the company had failed to provide masks to workers at its Waterloo pork facility in March and early April, even as the coronavirus was rapidly spreading. Some workers told The Post they were given confusing instructions about when to return to work or told to come in while sick.
But on April 22, Tyson announced it would shutter the facility, though its chairman of the company’s executive board, John H. Tyson, also warned that the “food supply chain is breaking” and the nation’s supply of meat could be at risk.
But a week after President Trump signed an executive order compelling meat processors to remain open, the company has slowly started to reopen its facilities. On Monday, it reopened its pork plant in Perry, Iowa, where more than 700 of the facility’s workers had tested positive for the virus.
Tyson said employees will be screened on a daily basis, and the Waterloo facility will also maintain an on-site medical clinic.
All employees returning to work have tested negative for the coronavirus, while all those who tested positive will remain home on sick leave until they have been cleared by health officials.
“Our top priority is the health and safety of our team members, their loved ones and our communities,” Tom Hart, the facility’s manager, said in a statement late on Tuesday.
Coronavirus could unleash an ‘avalanche’ of lawsuits over family leave, discrimination
In March, Stephanie Jones, a single mom in West Chester, Pa., with an 11-year-old son, had several conversations with her employer about child-care concerns while schools were closed because of the novel coronavirus pandemic. According to a lawsuit filed April 16, she asked higher-ups at Eastern Airlines, where she worked as director of revenue management, if she could have two hours a day of flex time to focus on her son amid the long hours and weekends she was working.
Jones alleged that after a human resources official said her options were to take leave or resign, she asked about taking leave under the Families First Coronavirus Response Act. The official responded with an email that said he was “also well aware of the various new laws that you’ve had time to look up while at home” and that the law was “there as a safety net,” the lawsuit alleges.
Read more here.
‘Where’s the beef?’ Hamburgers vanish from Wendy’s menus amid shortages of fresh beef
The chain that asked “Where’s the beef?” is now running out of beef.
As of Tuesday, roughly 1 out of every 5 Wendy’s restaurants had taken hamburgers off the menu, according to an analysis from the financial firm Stephens, which reviewed menus from each of the chain’s 5,500 U.S. locations. The company told CNBC that “beef suppliers across North America are currently facing production challenges,” and “some of our menu items may be temporarily limited at some restaurants.”
On social media, disappointed diners posted photographs of handmade signs at Wendy’s drive-throughs, warning that there was no beef on the menu because of a supplier issue. “We have many chicken products available for you to purchase,” one Ohio location offered instead.
Wendy’s famously guarantees that its beef patties are fresh and never frozen, but keeping that promise has grown complicated as coronavirus outbreaks force meatpacking plants across the country to close.
Many of the locations that ran out of burgers this week are located in states like Ohio, Michigan, Tennessee and New York where plant closures have disrupted the supply chain, according to the Stephens report. Other states, including Arizona and Nevada, haven’t seen widespread shortages.
Other fast-food chains haven’t run into the same problem because frozen beef remains widely available.
See you in Melbourne? Tennis world, including U.S. Open, confronts grim outlook.
A combination of factors particular to tennis complicates its resumption before the development of a vaccine or, at minimum, significant strides in managing the pandemic.
Tennis is a global sport, with men’s and women’s tournaments scheduled this July through November in Europe, North America and Asia. Its athletes and officials live in all corners of the globe, which means any tournament would require extensive air travel.
And it’s governed by seven entities that would have to reach a consensus, including the Association of Tennis Professionals, the Women’s Tennis Association, the International Tennis Federation and organizers of the two Grand Slam events remaining on the 2020 calendar, the U.S. Open and the French Open.
Read more here.
Protect and compensate federal workers on the front lines, senators say
Stronger steps are needed to protect and compensate federal employees in front-line positions at risk of exposure to the coronavirus, a group of senators said in a letter sent Tuesday to senior Trump administration officials.
Federal agencies also should be further pushed to allow full-time telework by all employees eligible to work remotely and to keep employees in paid status if they cannot telework but must stay home because they personally are at high risk, says a letter from Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) and 18 other senators, most of them Democrats.
Read more here.
Baseball resumes in South Korea, bringing innings to a world starved for sports
SEOUL — At least the game sounded the same.
The leathery pop of a strike into the catcher’s mitt was no different than before. A solid hit to center field still had that satisfying clap.
But little else was familiar Tuesday as South Korea’s professional baseball league began play in the sports-starved season of covid-19. There were no fans — although there were cheerleaders, all wearing masks, dancing to 25,000 empty seats in Seoul’s Jamsil stadium.
Read more here.
Masks are here to stay. And they’re quickly becoming a way to express ourselves.
Fashion always finds a way. Human beings are undaunted in their search for ways to stand out, to communicate, to thrive in a treacherous environment. And so the face mask — once purely functional, once perceived as an exotic accessory — has evolved at breakneck speed into something more.
It’s more essential because the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has recommended that Americans wear a mask when interacting with others. It’s more aesthetically pleasing. It’s also a more complicated cultural proposition. And, of course, the face mask is political because both the president and the vice president have refused to wear one on highly public occasions, and because some protesters have insinuated that masks are un-American.
As the country moves toward reopening, masks are assuredly part of our future. And in some ways, their evolution is the perfect encapsulation of how much life has changed in a blink of an eye — and how challenging, both intellectually and emotionally, it will be for us to go forward.
Read more here.
For those needing in-home care, a dire decision amid a pandemic
Annie Kelleher has been making tough medical decisions for years now, ever since she was diagnosed with terminal breast cancer.
The coronavirus pandemic pushed another anvil-size health-care decision onto her shoulders: Should she continue to welcome into her home the health aides who help her survive, even though they could be carrying the virus? Or should she eliminate all possible carriers of the virus and hope her husband can bear the load instead?
“They are so fundamental to my well-being at this point,” said Kelleher, 61, of Canton, Conn. “Even though I have a husband and he’s wonderful, they help me with things that he can’t.”
Thousands of Americans have faced a similar dilemma in the weeks since covid-19 paralyzed the nation, forced to choose between isolating themselves to guard against contracting a potentially fatal disease and continuing to receive the much-needed help of home health workers.
Read more here.
Americans deeply wary of reopening as White House weighs ending coronavirus task force
Americans remain deeply wary of eating at restaurants, shopping at stores and taking other steps to return to normalcy, a poll shows, even as the White House is contemplating shutting down its coronavirus task force.
With several covid-19 models taking a wrenching turn toward bleaker death forecasts in recent days because of reopening moves in some states, most Americans say they worry about getting the virus themselves and oppose ending the restrictions meant to slow its spread, according to the Washington Post-University of Maryland poll.
Experts around the country are revising their forecasts about the spread of the virus, and several models in the past three days suggest that resuming normal activity would spur a significant increase in the number of cases and deaths.
Read more here.