As the confirmed U.S. death toll surpassed 86,000, the scattershot reopening of America continued. Beaches will reopen in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Delaware for the Memorial Day holiday weekend, allowing people to come back under restricted circumstances.
Here are some significant developments:
- The meager guidelines for safely reopening the country released by the CDC this week are the latest sign of the Trump administration’s efforts to sideline the agency, and the increasing tension between it and the White House.
- Clinical trials, academic research and scientific analysis indicate that the danger of hydroxychloroquine is a significantly increased risk of death for certain patients.
- One of the world’s oldest and best-known medical journals slammed President Trump’s “inconsistent and incoherent national response” to the pandemic and accused the administration of relegating the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to a “nominal” role.
- Many of the states moving most quickly to roll back rules designed to slow the spread of the virus lack benchmarks that would require them to reimpose restrictions if infections spike.
- Although the Wisconsin Supreme Court has thwarted the governor’s stay-at-home order, the curve of positive cases in the state continues to rise. On Friday, Wisconsin Department of Health Services reported 410 new cases, the second-highest one-day increase since the outbreak began.
Sign up for our coronavirus newsletter | Mapping the spread of the coronavirus: Across the U.S. | Worldwide | What you need to know about the virus | Has someone close to you died of covid-19? Share your story with The Washington Post.
As stay-at-home order is extended, D.C. police say enforcing social distancing can be a struggle
One Friday this month, District authorities saw people congregating while waiting for takeout orders at a Mexican restaurant on the Wharf. Two days later, a group of people outside an apartment building in Brightwood Park refused to disperse.
D.C. police officers intervened in both instances — two examples in the ongoing struggle to enforce social distancing restrictions put in place to slow the spread of the coronavirus.
At the Wharf, police said they told the restaurant manager he was “in violation of the mayor’s social distancing order” and the Alcoholic Beverage Regulatory Administration issued a verbal warning. In Brightwood Park, police gave several people citations.
The city has taken a soft approach to dealing with social distancing scofflaws, aiming to issue citations or make arrests only as a last resort.
Read more here.
Polio was almost eradicated. Then came the coronavirus.
For decades, the United States has worked with the World Health Organization and others to quash polio, beating back to near extinction a merciless disease that once paralyzed hundreds of thousands of children each year.
That progress is in danger as the pandemic forces health-care providers to suspend door-to-door vaccination campaigns that have slashed the number of infections.
New cases have emerged in Niger and Chad, and fears have mounted about a resurgence in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Although the number of new polio infections has been small — 155 confirmed cases since January — even blips are worrisome, public health experts say, because small increases can trigger explosive outbreaks, especially in poor countries without the resources to combat the virus alone.
Read more here.
The pandemic grounded cruise ships indefinitely. But bookings are still rolling in.
Lori Cooper got to thinking last week about late autumn in Canada, where it’s cold, and in other parts of the world, where it’s not. So the 61-year-old resident of Pickering, near Toronto, booked a Holland America Line cruise to the Caribbean in November.
“I was looking for some warmth,” said Cooper, who tries to cruise a couple of times a year. She also recently booked a transatlantic sailing for April 2021, with stops including the Azores, Ireland and Brussels — with the full understanding that there’s no guarantee when ships will start sailing again, and what the experience will be like.
“Hopefully, we’ll be cruising again,” she said.
Read more here.
California nursing homes are examples of how cruel the pandemic can be
DINUBA, Calif. — The gravesite still has no marker. No grass has grown over the dry ground here, in a flat cemetery surrounded by some of the richest citrus groves in the country, where Hortensia Sosa and her husband, Luis, are buried together.
The grave is too new for that. Just dug. Just filled.
Dying last month of the novel coronavirus, Hortensia’s body was kept for 10 days in quarantine. At first, the family was not allowed to leave their cars during her burial, finally receiving permission to do so but only if they stood well away from the tiny patch of ground where Hortensia’s coffin was lowered slowly on top of Luis’s casket. Hortensia Sosa is among the 1,058 residents of skilled nursing facilities who have died in California as a result of the coronavirus, a quickly escalating toll that accounts for about 40 percent of the state’s overall deaths from the infection.
Read more here.
The coronavirus is upending cash economies. Mobile money could emerge as the winner.
When Lagos went into lockdown last month, banks in Nigeria’s bustling financial hub shut their doors. But many agents who offer financial services informally, crucial commerce for the city’s impoverished communities, continued to work using mobile payment apps on their phones, helping customers transfer money and pay bills.
“We’re a country where people live day-to-day and barely have savings,” said Tayo Oviosu, CEO of Paga, a Nigerian mobile money company.
In the United States and elsewhere, mobile money services like Apple Pay, Google Pay and PayPall, along with its subsidiary Venmo, are rising in popularity by offering mobile wallets that allow users to send money digitally. A similar model has taken off in developing countries, particularly in Africa, targeting those with no or limited access to the banking and financial system. Experts and members of the industry say the pandemic is likely to escalate that trend.
Read more here.
NFL will allow teams to reopen facilities beginning next week
NFL teams were told in a memo from the league Friday that they can begin reopening their facilities next week.
The memo from NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said that teams can reopen their facilities beginning Tuesday if they are permitted to do so under state and local guidelines and are in compliance with the health and safety protocols previously outlined by the league. Coaches and most players are not permitted to be in the facilities during this initial phase of reopening.
“This first phase of reopening is an important step in demonstrating our ability to operate [safely] and effectively, even in the current environment,” Goodell wrote in the memo. “After we implement this first phase, and as more states and localities enact policies that allow more club facilities to reopen, I expect that additional staff, likely including coaching staff, will be allowed to return to club facilities in a relatively short time.”
Read more here.
Poultry plants in Eastern Shore of Virginia experience surge in positive cases
As Virginia loosens shutdown measures, positive coronavirus tests continue to pop up inside two prominent poultry plants in Accomack County.
On Friday, the Eastern Shore Health Department reported that approximately 18 percent of workers at the Perdue and Tyson poultry plants had tested positive for the virus. In mass testing conducted last week, 3,100 people at the two plants were examined.
The health department reported that not all of the people who tested positive reside in Virginia, and as of Friday, only 85 of the 510 confirmed cases have been added to the total case count for Accomack and Northampton counties, the department said in a statement.
In April, officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention offered assistance to the plants during the outbreak and workers joined labor rights activists and others in a car rally outside the Perdue facility, protesting alleged deficiencies in personal protective equipment for staff.
Around the time of the rally, the plants made up more than 50 percent of the positive coronavirus cases on the Eastern Shore.
As of midnight Thursday, Gov. Ralph Northam (D) relaxed certain restrictions for nonessential businesses. However, he approved requests from Accomack County and the City of Richmond to postpone “Phase 1” reopenings until May 29. More populous regions like the Northern Virginia cities surrounding Washington also remained under stay-at-home orders.
House Democrats pass $3 trillion relief bill despite Trump’s veto threat
House Democrats on Friday passed a $3 trillion tax cut and spending bill aimed at addressing the devastating economic fallout from the coronavirus outbreak by directing huge sums of money into all corners of the economy.
But the White House and Senate Republicans have decried the measure’s design and said they will cast it aside, leaving uncertain what steps policymakers might take as the economy continues to face severe strains.
The sweeping legislation, dubbed the “Heroes Act, passed 208-199. Fourteen Democrats defected and opposed the bill, reflecting concerns voiced both by moderates and liberals in the House Democratic caucus about the bill’s content and the leadership-driven process that brought it to the floor. The bill won support from just one Republican: Rep. Pete King of New York.
Read more here.
Texas Supreme Court temporarily halts decision allowing voters to cast absentee ballots while citing virus fears
The Texas Supreme Court has temporarily halted election officials from allowing voters to cast absentee ballots while citing fears of the coronavirus, blocking a state appeal court’s ruling and backing Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.
In a filing Wednesday, Paxton argued that officials in five counties overstepped their authority by recommending that voters who are concerned about contracting the coronavirus at polling locations use the state’s “disability” excuse to obtain an absentee ballot.
“Each misapplication of Texas election law damages the integrity of our elections and increases the risk of voter fraud,” Paxton said in a written statement. “It is unfortunate that certain county election officials have refused to perform their duties and have instead unlawfully gone beyond the Legislature’s determination of who is eligible to vote by mail.”
A legal battle is brewing over how Texans will vote during the coronavirus pandemic. Democrats have sued in state and federal court to loosen restrictions on absentee voting for upcoming elections, and they won a favorable ruling last month from a state district judge. Paxton has appealed the decision.
Chad Dunn, general counsel for the Texas Democratic Party, earlier accused Paxton of trying to “upset the election process” after thousands of Texans have already requested mail-in ballots.
“Apparently, none of the counties agree with Ken Paxton’s view that everybody under age 65 has to vote in person during a pandemic and the court shouldn’t either. The Legislature provided for vote-by-mail in these pandemic circumstances,” Dunn said in a written statement.
The state Supreme Court has yet to examine the merits of the case, the Texas Tribune reported.
U.S. military faces more coronavirus fallout: Budget cuts
Pentagon officials have scrambled to adjust everything from basic training to submarine deployments to prevent the coronavirus from taking a lasting toll on the military’s ability to respond to adversaries.
But the crisis could yield a different sort of long-term impact on the military, one outside the Pentagon’s ability to control: a possible reduction in military spending resulting from the country’s emerging economic meltdown.
Pentagon leaders are requesting a defense budget of $705 billion for fiscal 2021, probably once again ensuring that U.S. military spending is far greater than that of any other country.
But current and former officials say a sustained reduction, even if modest, could make it harder for the Pentagon to achieve its long-deferred goals of modernizing military operations and competing more effectively with China at a time when the United States remains tied down in insurgent conflicts in Afghanistan and the Middle East.
U.S. deaths could exceed 100,000 by June 1, according to forecasting models
In the latest national forecasting models, tracked by the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, the United States is projected to experience a steady rise in coronavirus-related deaths next month.
On Thursday, the CDC published the updated models of 12 individual forecasts. Though the projected rates of death differ, as some make assumptions about degrees of social distancing and other preventive measures, the forecasts all suggest the possibility that the U.S. death toll could exceed 100,000 deaths by June 1.
CDC tracks 12 different forecasting models of possible #COVID19 deaths in the US. As of May 11, all forecast an increase in deaths in the coming weeks and a cumulative total exceeding 100,000 by June 1. See national & state forecasts: https://t.co/PI1AtLCCmt pic.twitter.com/iylBnom5U0
— Dr. Robert R. Redfield (@CDCDirector) May 15, 2020
The state-level models also collaboratively forecast a significant rise in deaths in states that have already been greatly impacted by the outbreak.
On the same day the agency released the forecasts, it also outlined limited checklists addressing best practices for schools, workplaces, day-care facilities, restaurants, mass transit and camps as states continue to reopen.
As of Friday, U.S. infections have eclipsed 1.4 million, and more than 86,000 people have died of covid-19, the disease the virus causes, according to tracking by The Washington Post.
Trump said honking truckers demonstrating at the White House were supporting him. They weren’t.
Scores of truck drivers and others from the trucking industry continued their series of driving and honking demonstrations Friday in front of the White House, Capitol Hill and the Justice Department, appealing to President Trump and his administration to require more openness on shipping fees taken by brokers.
Truck drivers and their supporters are “protesting price gouging by brokers. We’re fighting for transparency,” said Sergey Karman, a fleet management provider and one of the organizers of the demonstrations, which have stretched through much of the month. “Something needs to be done. This is the last battle for some of these guys out here.”
The trucking industry has been hit hard by demand during the outbreak, as consumers flock to e-commerce while they avoid shopping in public spaces.
White House chief of staff Mark Meadows spoke to some of the demonstrators in recent days, and he said he would look into the concerns they outlined in a letter to the Justice Department, Karman said. “We’re still waiting. We’re supporting the White House” and the president, Karman said, but added “some of these guys have no fuel, no nothing.”
One demonstrator, Janet Sanchez, with the group the Disrespected Trucker, streamed some of the remarks and truckers holding signs including “Regulate Brokers” and “Make Trucking Great Again. No Cheap Freight.”
With horns echoing, Trump said from the White House on Friday: “Those are truckers that are with us all the way. They’re protesting in favor of President Trump.”
“Things are getting twisted. We’re not here to support Trump. We’re here for him to support us,” Sanchez said. “We’re supporting if he supports us.”
A key issue is whether the Trump administration’s Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) is allowing shipping brokers to evade regulations requiring them to share information on how much the brokers earn per load, according to a letter Karman’s attorney submitted to the Justice Department on behalf of his logistics firm, Ezlogz.
Instead of releasing that financial information, “brokers have banded together to conceal from drivers the compensation cut the brokers are taking in brokering the loads. The result on the operators (many of whom barely make enough money to support their families) is wage suppression for the drivers,” according to the letter.
The FMCSA did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday. Earlier in the week, spokesman Kyle Bonini said the agency had not “received any notice that any Agency regulations have been violated.” He said the agency “supports America’s truck drivers” and is pursuing policies to help them, including changing rules on how they have to take required breaks and manage the hours they work.
Oprah addresses 2020 graduates, whose commencements were upended by outbreak, in live stream
During a star-studded virtual graduation ceremony, celebrities honored members of the class of 2020 who have had their traditional rite of passage disrupted by the ongoing pandemic.
On Friday, Facebook and Instagram hosted the multihour #Graduation2020. During the live-streamed event on Facebook, Oprah Winfrey delivered a commencement address.
“My hope is you will harness your education, your creativity and your valor, your voice, your vote,” Winfrey told the graduates, “and use it to create more equity, more justice and more joy in the world.”
Winfrey, the final speaker, took a line from actor Tom Hanks who previously delivered a virtual speech to Wright State University graduates. During his May 2 words, Hanks called the class “the chosen ones,” a thought echoed by Winfrey.
“I know you may not feel like it, but you are indeed the chosen class for such a time as this,” Winfrey said. “Of course, this is not the graduation ceremony you envisioned. You’ve been dreaming about that walk across the stage, your family and friends cheering you on, the caps flung joyously in the air."
With the recorded and edited messages from a slew of famous actors, athletes, musicians, the online commencement was intended to give the Class of 2020 “the graduation you deserve.” Rapper Cardi B offered congratulations and advice on how high school graduates should pick college courses. Miley Cyrus performed her song, “The Climb.” Also, actor Matthew McConaughey told graduates: “You were originals. Enjoy that. There will always be only one graduating class of 2020 who did it the way you’re doing it now.”
Trump promises hundreds of millions of vaccine doses by January, but scientists doubt it
President Trump formally unveiled an initiative Friday afternoon aimed at making hundreds of millions of doses of a coronavirus vaccine broadly available by year’s end — a goal that many scientists say is unrealistic and could even backfire by shortchanging safety and undermining faith in vaccines more broadly.
The Rose Garden news conference added to a week of confusing and contradictory remarks about the prospects and timeline for a vaccine, which is seen as the key to returning to normal life. A day earlier, a former top U.S. vaccine official testified before Congress that he was doubtful about the 12-to-18-month time frame frequently touted as a goal. The head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases who testified Tuesday said that 12 to 18 months was possible, but there was no guarantee a vaccine would work at all.
Read more here.
House allows remote voting for the first time in its 231-year history
The House has changed its rules during the coronavirus pandemic to allow remote voting for the first time in the chamber’s 231-year history.
Democratic leaders say the changes are temporary as the House tries to balance its constitutional responsibility with health risks related to the virus. They pushed forward with the changes this week after failing to come to terms in two weeks of negotiations with Republicans, who firmly opposed several key measures in the proposal.
The changes will allow proxy voting for roll-call votes in the House and permit members to participate in committee hearings remotely.
J.C. Penney files for bankruptcy, plans to close some stores
Department store chain J.C. Penney filed for bankruptcy protection on Friday and said it would permanently close some of its 850 locations, making it the latest major retailer felled by the coronavirus pandemic.
The filing came the same day that Commerce Department data showed the industry’s devastating decline. Retail sales fell 16.4 percent in April, by far the steepest drop on record, with sales at clothing stores — down 89 percent from a year ago — taking the biggest hit.
Read more here.
Drug promoted by Trump as a ‘game changer’ increasingly linked to deaths
For two months, President Trump repeatedly pitched hydroxychloroquine as a safe and effective treatment for coronavirus, asking would-be patients, “What the hell do you have to lose?”
Growing evidence shows that, for many, the answer is their lives.
Clinical trials, academic research and scientific analysis indicate that the danger of the Trump-backed drug is a significantly increased risk of death for certain patients. Evidence showing the effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine in treating covid-19 has been scant. Those two developments pushed the Food and Drug Administration to warn against the use of hydroxychloroquine outside a hospital setting last month, just weeks after it approved an emergency use authorization for the drug.
Read more here.
Coronavirus sweeps through Congress, transforming the archaic institution
Like much of America, Congress slowly adapted to the new normal as the coronavirus swept across the country and into the halls of the Capitol. On a late Friday night in mid-March, more than 400 lawmakers packed the House floor, approving the second major rescue plan. No one wore a mask, all stood or sat shoulder to shoulder, maybe elbow-bumping instead of shaking hands.
By early May, everything had changed — the House was deemed unsafe because it has so many members, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), wearing a mask, began convening daily GOP huddles across the street in a massive hearing room so senators could follow social-distancing guidelines.
See the changes in this visual story.
Detroit man charged with making credible threats to kill Michigan’s governor and attorney general
A Detroit man was arrested in April after making credible threats to kill Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) and Attorney General Dana Nessel in April, according to a news release from the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office.
The man, identified by prosecutors as 32-year-old Robert Sinclair Tesh, was charged April 22 with false report or threat of terrorism, which carries a maximum penalty of 20 years. News of the arrest comes as protesters continue to gather at Michigan’s Capitol in defiance of coronavirus-related restrictions in the state.
At a protest Thursday, reporters observed increasingly violent rhetoric as well as signs that said “Stop Whitmer now” and “Dangerous safety is better than safe tyranny.” The tension reached its zenith when a fight broke out over a doll that dangled from a noose tied to a pole, The Post reported Friday.
The Detroit Metro Times reported Monday that Whitmer had become the target of dozens of threats on private Facebook groups.
The Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office did not specify the content of Tesh’s threat, and it wasn’t clear Friday whether he’d retained an attorney.
In a statement, prosecutor Kym Worthy said the facts in Tesh’s case laid out a “very disturbing scenario.”
“We understand that these times can be stressful and upsetting for many people,” she said. “But we will not and cannot tolerate threats like these against any public official who are carrying out their duties as efficiently as they can.”
She added: “You can disagree with their positions or their methodology, but you absolutely cannot act as this defendant allegedly acted or you will be charged criminally.”
Restaurant patrons in Washington state must give personal information for contact tracing
Restaurants offering dine-in services in Washington state will now be required to take down the personal information of all patrons.
Reopening restaurants and taverns must “create a daily log of all customers and maintain that daily log for 30 days, including telephone/email contact information, and time in,” the state’s “Phase 2” guidelines state. Officials say the effort will help with contact tracing, if necessary: working with a covid-19 patient to determine who they’ve been in close contact with while infected and alerting those potentially exposed.
Eight Washington counties have been approved to enter Phase 2 of reopening. Any establishment that desires to host people — at 50 percent capacity or less — must adhere to the contact tracing guidelines, but some wonder whether patrons will comply.
“I’m not sure how many customers will be very comfortable giving their names and phone numbers, for privacy reasons,” cafe owner Niko Raptis told KING5 News in Seattle.
A similar mandate in Austin has met backlash, and the Texas Restaurant Association recently sent a letter to the mayor saying that the guideline is unfair for small businesses and that customers may not comply, local news stations reported.
Contact tracing represents a “key strategy” in fighting the covid-19 outbreak, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and it has been viewed as an important element in reopening states. However, the time-sensitive work requires an army of investigators and lots of money.
According to the National Association of County and City Health Officials, the United States will need $3.7 billion to finance the work of 100,000 tracers — a number recommended by public health officials.
Rory McIlroy says he won’t golf again with President Trump, criticizes his leadership
Professional golfer Rory McIlroy had already expressed doubts about any future rounds of golf with President Trump, saying in April 2017 that he’d have to “think twice” about it after receiving a considerable amount of heat for his round with the president two months earlier at Trump’s club in West Palm Beach, Fla.
The four-time major winner erased any of that doubt Thursday, however, telling the McKellar Golf Podcast that he had been invited to play again with Trump but had declined “out of choice.”
McIlroy, who hails from Northern Ireland but has a home near Trump’s club in Florida, criticized the president’s leadership during the novel coronavirus pandemic.
Analysis: With the Abbott coronavirus tests, Trump is yet again exaggerating a possible solution
When it comes to curing, treating or even testing for covid-19, President Trump has stepped out in front of the science multiple times — only to have the science eventually show just how overly optimistic he was. The latest example comes with a rapid, more mobile test for the novel coronavirus that Trump has touted enthusiastically and is used in the White House, including for him, daily.
The tests made by Abbott Laboratories can produce a result in minutes rather than hours or days, and the devices that process the samples are the size of a toaster rather than a washing machine, The Washington Post reports. Trump has said they are a “game changer.”
But two days later, a preliminary study found that Abbott tests may miss as much as half of positive coronavirus cases that a rival testing company picked up. The study is just an initial one, and Abbott pushed back on its finding. But there are indications Abbott was missing a sizable amount of coronavirus cases, and on Thursday the Food and Drug Administration issued guidance that if a patient comes in and has symptoms of the virus and tests negative with an Abbott test, they should get a second opinion with another test.
Read more here.
White House adds five new coronavirus task force members
The White House added five more members to its coronavirus task force on Friday aimed at helping to address challenges associated with reopening the country and getting Americans back in the workplace.
The five new members are Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health; Sonny Perdue, secretary of agriculture; Gene Scalia, secretary of labor; Peter Marks, the Food and Drug Administration’s director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research; and Thomas Engels, administrator of the Health Resources and Services Administration.
“The new members of the White House Coronavirus Task Force will add expertise in the fields of vaccines and therapeutics as well as worker safety as the Task Force renews its focus on getting Americans back to work,” Vice President Pence said in a statement.
The additions come as President Trump is eager to reopen businesses and workplaces, even though the U.S. infection and death rate has yet to significantly drop and deaths have topped 85,000.
Biden campaign hits back at Trump White House claims that Obama pandemic plans were lacking
Former vice president Joe Biden’s campaign spokeswoman Kate Bedingfield hit back against President Trump and his allies who have alleged that the pandemic plan left by the Obama administration was inadequate.
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany began her remarks at a briefing Friday by describing the Obama plan as a “thin packet of paper” that the Trump administration decided to disregard. Instead, she said, it wrote its own plans.
"Some have erroneously suggested that the Trump administration threw out the pandemic response playbook left by the Obama/Biden administration,” she said.
“What the critics fail to note however is that this thin packet of paper was replaced by two detailed pandemic response reports commissioned by the Trump administration, so we exchanged this one ... for these two pandemic response plans,” she said, holding up Obama’s plan as a packet of papers and Trump’s plan in binders.
Bedingfield responded to McEnany by pointing to reporting that revealed the Trump administration had defunded an Obama program created to specifically anticipate new public health threats from China.
“What’s not in @PressSec binder? Not only did the Obama-Biden WH leave Trump a response playbook and an NSC pandemic response office (which he dismantled), but we also launched a program LITERALLY called PREDICT that tracked new coronaviruses in China — which Trump got rid of,” Bedingfield tweeted.
The Los Angeles Times reported in early April that the Trump White House allowed the $200 million program to run out of funding in September, forcing organizations working with the PREDICT program to lay off scientists and analysts.
Stocks flip-flop as investors meander through economic, pandemic crosscurrents
Stocks finished two weeks of somersaults Friday, heading into the weekend on an up note as investors displayed ambivalence over the reopening of the U.S. economy after weeks of coronavirus paralysis.
The Dow Jones industrial average closed Friday at 23,685.42, up 0.3 percent, but finished the week in the negative column. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index and Nasdaq composite also ended the session higher. Stocks have flip-flopped the past two weeks in dramatic, intraday swings as bad news piles up, broken by notes of optimism on the medical research front, rising consumer sentiment and stirrings from businesses. Despite market jitters, all three indexes have powered back from their March lows.
“Investors have been accentuating the positive ever since late March, evidenced by the rebound in stock prices,” said Ed Yardeni, president of Yardeni Research. “Now they are consolidating those gains, awaiting news on whether the opening of state economies will go smoothly or be interrupted by setbacks and virus flare-ups.”
Wisconsin’s new coronavirus cases climb shortly after court overturns stay-at-home order
Although the Wisconsin Supreme Court has overturned the governor’s stay-at-home order, the curve of positive coronavirus cases in the state continues to rise.
On Friday, Wisconsin Department of Health Services reported 410 new cases, the second-highest one-day increase since the outbreak began. The state also reported 11 additional deaths. Overall, Wisconsin’s death total has climbed to 445. On May 1, the state had its highest single reporting day, with 460 cases and 11 deaths.
Through the month of May, Wisconsin has experienced a rising trend in cases, but the state no longer operates under Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’s “Safer at Home” order. On Wednesday, Wisconsin’s highest court ruled 4-3 against the extension of order, which was set to expire May 26. By striking down the order, the court lifted restrictions for businesses and restaurants.
Since the ruling, many Wisconsin bars have experienced a rush of crowds — to the dismay of Evers.
According to the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, symptoms of covid-19, the illness caused by the virus, may take two to 14 days to appear, so it is unlikely that Friday’s spike in cases reported is a direct result of the court ruling.
Growing friction between White House and CDC hobbles pandemic response
The meager guidelines for safely reopening the country released this week are the latest sign of the Trump administration’s efforts to sideline the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the increasing tension between the White House and the world-renowned public health agency.
With Americans waiting for expert advice on how to resume a semblance of normal life during the pandemic, the CDC released just six short “decision trees” Thursday while the rest of its lengthy proposal remains under review at the White House, where it has been for weeks.
Instead of assuming its traditional lead role in a public health crisis, the 74-year-old agency has become one of many voices providing often contradictory instructions to a confused and imperiled public.
Read more here.
Head of MLB details testing plans in bid to return to play
The head of Major League Baseball on Thursday detailed the league’s plans for a return to play this year amid the novel coronavirus pandemic. Commissioner Rob Manfred said that frequent testing would be a “key” element, and that a positive test for a player would not necessarily force an entire team into quarantine.
Speaking on CNN, Manfred said he was “hopeful” that MLB can start its season in the summer, after it suspended spring training in March while almost every other major sports league worldwide enacted similar shutdowns.
“We are making plans about playing in empty stadiums,” Manfred told CNN, “but as I’ve said before, all of those plans are dependent on what the public health situation is, and us reaching the conclusion that it’ll be safe for our players and other employees to come back to work.”
Read more here.
With stay-at-home orders lifting, a cautious reopening begins in Virginia and Maryland
Virginia and Maryland dipped their toes into reopening Friday as governors of both states gave the yellow light for some businesses and houses of worship to carefully restart operations after the deadly coronavirus pandemic forced a shutdown that lasted more than six weeks and wreaked economic havoc across the region.
The changes took effect at midnight in Virginia and will begin at 5 p.m. Friday in Maryland. But with the orders come much trepidation as coronavirus cases continue to rise across the region. Some jurisdictions postponed reopening until new cases decline and testing protocols are improved.
The District and its suburbs remain in a virtual lockdown. Much of Northern Virginia kept stay-at-home orders in place, as did suburban Maryland, where coronavirus outbreaks have been most severe.
Read more here.
Study: Areas without social distancing have 35 times more likely coronavirus spread
Areas in the United States that do not adhere to any social distancing policies face 35 times more cases of the novel coronavirus, according to a study published Thursday in a peer-reviewed health-care journal.
The study, published in the journal Health Affairs, looked at the policies mandating social distancing, and found that the longer a measure was in effect, the slower the daily growth rate of covid-19, the illness caused by the virus. Researchers from the University of Kentucky, University of Louisville and Georgia State University looked at confirmed coronavirus cases in the United States between March 1 and April 27, totaling about 1 million reported instances at the time, illustrating “the potential danger of exponential spread in the absence of interventions.”
For social distancing policies that lasted at least 16 to 20 days, the daily rate of infection dropped by more than nine percentage points, according to the study. Policies lasting 15 days or fewer also saw declines in the daily infection rate, researchers found. Such social distancing measures, mandated by 95 percent of the country, include shelter-in-place orders, school closures, bans on large events and the closure of gyms, bars and restaurants.
Read more here.
Rural Florida county worries about reopening as cases spike at nursing home
LIVE OAK, Fla. — The annual Blueberry Festival is the high point of the year here. Thousands of people visit the grounds of the Wellborn Baptist Church on the first Saturday in June, where they can get blueberry pancakes, blueberry muffins, blueberry preserves and cartons of freshly picked blueberries from nearby farms.
This year it’s canceled because of the novel coronavirus. At the same time that Gov. Ron DeSantis’s (R) phased reopening of most of the state began earlier this month, organizers of the festival decided they didn’t want to risk it.
Cases of covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, have been increasing statewide and in Suwannee County. More than 43,000 Floridians have tested positive for the virus, and more than 1,800 have died as of Thursday. In Suwannee County, 151 people have tested positive, and 18 have died. All of the deaths have occurred inside a local nursing home, the Suwannee Health and Rehabilitation Center.
Read more here.
More parts of Spain to open, but not Madrid or Barcelona
MADRID — The Spanish government said Friday all of Spain would progress to Phase 1 of relaxing the nationwide lockdown starting May 18, with the exception of the metropolitan areas of Madrid and Barcelona, as well as parts of the Castilla Leon region, which will all remain in Phase 0.
Malaga, Granada, Valencia and other parts of Spain joined the provinces announced last week in the first stage of deconfinement that allows the opening of outdoor cafes at 50 percent occupancy and small social gatherings. Parts of the Canary Islands and Baleares Islands advanced to Phase 2, which further opens commercial, social and religious activity.
It is the second time health authorities rejected Madrid’s bid to move into the first stage of easing the lockdown in effect since March 15. Instead, Health Minister Salvador Illa said Spain’s two main cities could take baby steps to open small shops, but no restaurants, bars or cafes and no social gatherings.
Fernando Simon, who heads Spain’s Coordinated Health Response, cited “prudence” in refusing to let the cities move to Phase 1, saying that Barcelona still had a lot of fresh infections and Madrid had to switch its health-care focus to early diagnosis, referring to the lack of test kits and undetected cases.
The Madrid and Catalonia regions combined represent 200 of the 549 new cases announced Friday, and 43 percent of the country’s 230,183 confirmed coronavirus cases.
“Madrid started off with a lot more cases than the rest. But even though the evolution is favorable, it is still the region with the most number of daily cases along with Catalonia,” Simon said, highlighting the Spanish capital’s “spectacular” response to the pandemic.
Rick Bright is set to return to work at NIH next week, though his actual role remains unclear
Rick Bright, a former top federal medical researcher, will return to work next week, more than a month since being removed as director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority. But it’s unclear exactly what his job will be.
An unnamed source at the Department of Health and Human Services told CNN Thursday the role is “second-in-command of the Accelerating Covid-19 Therapeutic Interventions and Vaccines” at the National Institutes of Health. Debra Katz, an attorney for Bright, said he was never given a defined job description or title in his new role, including the one referenced by CNN.
“We have never heard of this job title before. It was never discussed with [Bright],” Katz told The Post on Friday. HHS had only discussed a “generic” titled senior adviser role that emphasized diagnostics and not vaccines, Bright’s area of expertise.
Bright alleged in a May whistleblower complaint that he was ousted and demoted for resisting political pressure to promote President Trump’s push of hydroxychloroquine, an untested drug to treat covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. He has been on accrued leave since.
Bright criticized the administration’s handling of the pandemic during a Thursday congressional hearing on the matter. Officials like White House adviser Peter Navarro cast Bright as merely a “disgruntled employee.”
“He was asked to move to NIH to be the field general for a billion-dollar testing effort to protect and defend the American people, and he refused that assignment so he could cling to his old job,” Navarro said.
Katz said Bright has never refused an assignment.
“He’s actively engaged in discussions for work. He never deserted his post. And yes, he continues to fight to be returned to the director of BARDA,” Katz said.
“That’s where he should be given his experience,” Katz added. “To have him sidelined during this pandemic is a tragic waste of his expertise. ”
Trump announces leaders of Operation Warp Speed vaccine initiative
President Trump formally announced Friday that he has tapped the former head of vaccines at GlaxoSmithKline and an Army four-star general to run a White House-led drive to try to swiftly develop and manufacture a vaccine for the novel coronavirus.
Trump announced in the Rose Garden at the White House that Moncef Slaoui, former vaccines chairman for the British-based pharmaceuticals company, will become chief scientist for what the White House has dubbed Operation Warp Speed.
The chief operating officer of the vaccine initiative will be Gen. Gustave F. Perna, the commanding general of the Army’s Materiel Command.
At the end of April, the White House announced the Warp Speed initiative, combining the work of government agencies, private companies and the military, with the goal of having hundreds of millions of doses of a vaccine effective against the coronavirus by January — a time frame many experts have said is overly ambitious.
“It’s called Operation Warp speed. That means big, and it means fast,” Trump said Friday at the Rose Garden event. “Nobody’s seen anything like what we’re doing."
During brief remarks, Slaoui said he is optimistic about the prospects for delivering large quantities of a vaccine by the end of the year. Perna acknowledged meeting the goal would be “a herculean task” but said he, too, was confident about the likelihood of success.
Trump also suggested Friday that the coronavirus could be eradicated without a vaccine, an idea that he has pushed for months even as health experts emphasize the need to develop one.
“Other things have never had a vaccine, and they go away," Trump said. "So I don’t want people to think this is all dependent on a vaccine, but a vaccine would be a tremendous thing.”
“With or without a vaccine, we’re back,” Trump declared at another point as he argued his administration has made great progress fighting the virus.
As Trump spoke, loud honking could be heard in the Rose Garden. Trump claimed it was coming from truckers who are supportive of him — in a “sign of love” — not from people protesting his administration’s performance.
State beaches reopening in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Delaware for Memorial Day weekend
Beaches will reopen in four states — New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Delaware — for the Memorial Day holiday weekend, allowing people to come back under restricted circumstances, New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said Friday.
Cuomo (D) described his area as “one multi-state region” where each state’s actions affect its neighbors’, something he described as significant when it came to beaches.
“One state doesn’t open beaches, another state does open beaches, you will see people flood to that state,” Cuomo said. He added, “If New Jersey opens beaches or Connecticut opens beaches and we didn’t open beaches, you would see a flood of people to Connecticut and New Jersey.”
Cuomo said authorities had come to an agreement to let state beaches reopen Friday, May 22, for the holiday weekend. Each state will have its own specific rules within the same general framework, he said. The restrictions Cuomo outlined included capping beaches at 50 percent capacity and enforcing social distancing, while concession stands will remain closed. Group activities such as volleyball will not be allowed, Cuomo said.
Some of these states had already announced plans to reopen their beaches before Cuomo’s remarks. New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy (D) had said Thursday that the Jersey Shore would be open May 22 with limitations in place. Delaware Gov. John Carney (D) similarly announced Thursday that beaches could reopen May 22, albeit with restrictions including face coverings on boardwalks.
Local authorities can also reopen beaches under city or county control if they choose, Cuomo said, but must at least follow the state restrictions. They can also impose more guidelines if they want to, he added.
Haiti, spared a major coronavirus outbreak so far, is now a ‘tinderbox’ set to explode
For a while, the land border that separates Haiti and the Dominican Republic was also the demarcation point between two very different coronavirus outbreaks.
In the Dominican Republic, which draws tourists from around the world, cases surged to the highest level in the Caribbean. In Haiti, which had grown more isolated during a year of political violence, the population appeared to have been largely spared.
But over the past few weeks, that has begun to change, as tens of thousands of Haitian workers have returned from the Dominican Republic to their own country, many bringing the virus with them. That flow of returnees is expected to spark an outbreak that the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere will be unable to fight.
“This epidemic is a tinderbox in the process of burning and will explode in the coming weeks,” said Jean William Pape, a doctor who is the co-director of Haiti’s presidential commission on the novel coronavirus.
Read more here.
Dutch National Health Institute recommends single people find a ‘cuddle buddy’ to sustain social distancing
The Netherlands is gradually reopening businesses, gyms, restaurants and schools but still recommending that people keep 1.5 meters, or nearly five feet, away from others, including when friends are visiting in private homes.
That rule complicates intimate relationships between people not already living or partnered together, the Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment, known as RIVM, has acknowledged. So it has come up with a recommendation: Single people in need should find a “cuddle buddy” or “sex buddy” with whom they can safely partner during the pandemic.
“Discuss how best to do this together,” RIVM suggested, according to the Guardian’s translation. “For example, meet with the same person to have physical or sexual contact (for example, a cuddle buddy or ‘sex buddy’), provided you are free of illness. Make good arrangements with this person about how many other people you both see. The more people you see, the greater the chance of [spreading] the coronavirus.”
The health institute also cautioned that people should refrain from physical relations with someone suspected to have the virus, which spreads easily through close contact and enclosed spaces.
“Don’t have sex with your partner if they have been isolated because of [suspected] coronavirus infection,” RIVM said. “Sex with yourself or with others at a distance is possible.”
Brazil loses its second health minister in less than one month
RIO DE JANEIRO — Brazil’s top health official resigned Friday following reported disagreements with President Jair Bolsonaro over the efficacy of the anti-malarial drug Chloroquine in curbing the rapid rise of the coronavirus in Latin America’s largest country.
The departure of oncologist Nelson Teich, who resigned less than one month after becoming health minister, further unsettled what has been Brazil’s erratic and disorganized response to the coronavirus pandemic. Last month, Bolsonaro fired Teich’s predecessor, the popular and technocratic Luiz Henrique Mandetta, after the pair publicly clashed over the need for social distancing.
The repeated shake-ups at the highest levels of Brazil’s health agency have come at a particularly critical time in Brazil. The country is in the grip of the worst coronavirus outbreak in the Southern Hemisphere. More than 200,000 people have been infected, 14,000 of whom have died. The public health system has reach capacity in numerous cities. People are spending their last days in arm chairs. Ambulances race around with nowhere to take patients.
Bolsonaro, however, has repeatedly downplayed the disease as a little flu. He has called on businesses to reopen, saying Thursday he was at “war” with state governors, who have instituted quarantine policies and closed nonessential businesses.
The president has also been clashing with his newly appointed health minister over Chloroquine, according to local media reports. Bolsonaro has wagered heavily on the drug, ordering its mass production, despite serious questions over its efficacy and side effects. He has been urging wider use.
“People voted for me to decide,” Bolsonaro said Thursday. “Everything is good with [Teich], but we are going to solve this problem. It can change, and it will change.”
New York City police will focus on large gatherings, not people without masks, mayor says
Police in New York City will focus their coronavirus-related enforcement efforts on large gatherings rather than people without face coverings, Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) said Friday morning.
In a news briefing that came amid increasing criticism of how police had been enforcing the restrictions, de Blasio called for a “reset in our approach,” saying the New York Police Department would zero in on gatherings while hoping to avoid issuing summonses.
“The bigger the gathering, the more that needs to be done by the NYPD,” he said.
The goal, de Blasio continued, is to make sure large gatherings do not happen. Summonses will still be given if people do not disperse as directed, he added.
De Blasio’s remarks were made as law enforcement officials in the city and beyond have faced scrutiny for how they are enforcing restrictions spurred by the virus. Advocates have worried that the rules are being disproportionately enforced for minorities, with some footage of arrests circulating widely and drawing criticism.
Dermot Shea, the NYPD commissioner, wrote in a message to the department Friday morning that they would “no longer issue summonses or make arrests for infractions related to face coverings — absent of a crime or other violation being committed.”
In his message, Shea praised the department for its “dedicated service” to the city and said police would still tout the benefits of face coverings and work to break up groups “unable, or unwilling, to practice responsible social distancing.”
In New York City, police data showed that between mid-March and early May, officers visited locations and issued 374 summonses “for acts likely to spread disease and to violate emergency measures” — with a significant share of those stemming from social gatherings, the department said. Four in five of those summonses were issued to black and Hispanic people, the police data show.
New York state Attorney General Letitia James this week asked police for more information and said police “must better ensure that a New Yorker’s race, color, and neighborhood does not determine how they are patrolled.” Shea has called the viral videos of arrests “disheartening” but defended the department’s overall response.
A majority of Americans going to work fear exposing their household to the coronavirus
A Washington Post-Ipsos poll of more than 8,000 adults in late April and early May found that nearly 6 in 10 Americans who are working outside their homes were concerned that they could be exposed to the virus at work and infect other members of their household.
Nearly 1 in 3 Americans — and over half of those with jobs — have continued to leave the house for work at least once a week as the virus spread and states issued stay-at-home orders, the poll found.
Read more here.
Malaysian mothers stranded in Singapore are shipping their frozen breast milk back home
About half a million Malaysians live and work in neighboring Singapore and frequently commute back home. Or at least they did before the coronavirus pandemic.
When borders tightened in March, many Malaysian workers decided to stay in Singapore to keep their jobs. This posed a particular conundrum for breast-feeding mothers, who suddenly could no longer easily return home to feed their children in Malaysia.
Breast milk has many health benefits for mother and child, including that it can boost a baby’s immune system — a factor now of even greater concern amid the covid-19 pandemic.
So mothers banded together via social media to create a workaround: sharing the burden of shipping their frozen breast milk to babies back home.
“We sought help from all the mummies, and we tried to save and share the cost, because it’s not really cheap to send back the milk,” Jazerel See, a 32-year-old Malaysian accountant and mother of a 7-month-old, told Reuters.
So far, about 200 Malaysian women in Singapore have sent four shipments totaling around 7,000 kilograms (1,813 gallons) of breast milk, Malaysian lawmaker Andrew Chen Kah Eng told Reuters. He represents Juhor state, where many migrant workers are from.
The customs authority told him it has never seen this done before.
A noose, an ax and Trump-inspired insults: Anti-lockdown protesters ratchet up violent rhetoric
Rain drizzled as a crowd of about 200 people gathered in front of the Michigan state Capitol in Lansing on Thursday to urge Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) to lift coronavirus restrictions. The protesters — some carrying guns, few wearing masks — held up signs that said, “Stop Whitmer now,” and “Dangerous safety is better than safe tyranny.”
Near the Capitol steps, one man had strung an American flag onto a fishing rod. Below the flag, a brunette doll dangled from a noose tied to the pole. When another protester reached to grab the doll, a fight broke out. A video captured people wrestling over the flag and doll, shoving one another and shouting. Nearby, two people struggled over an ax.
Whitmer is a white woman with dark hair.
“Where is Capitol police right now?” a woman can be heard shouting into a microphone in a video published by MLive. “We have an issue. Can we have the police come up to the steps please? Where are the cops?”
Read more here.
Retail sales plunged 16.4 percent in April, a record drop
Retail sales plunged 16.4 percent in April, a record drop and another reflection of how the novel coronavirus pandemic continues to stifle the U.S. economy.
Data released Friday from the Census Bureau blew past analyst expectations, smashing March’s revised decline of 8.3 percent. Shoppers may continue to hunt for cleaning supplies and other basic pantry items, but consumer spending, which typically drives 70 percent of the nation’s economy, remains largely hollowed out.
The April figure reflects the weeks in which most states were still shut down due to the pandemic. Last month, 20.5 million people abruptly lost their jobs and the national unemployment rate jumped to 14.7 percent, the highest level since the Great Depression.
U.S. markets were dragged down by the staggering retail decline. The Dow Jones industrial average was down 200 points, or about 1 percent, as markets opened. The Standard & Poor’s 500 and Nasdaq composite indexes also traded lower.
Whitmer says she sought Pence’s help in discouraging protesters from congregating closely
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) on Friday confirmed reports that she asked Vice President Pence to publicly discourage those protesting shutdown orders from congregating closely at state capitols due to the risk of spreading the coronavirus.
“I’ve asked a couple of times, and both times it was acknowledged I made the request,” Whitmer said during an appearance on CNN, implying that Pence had not agreed to follow through.
Pence’s office did not immediately comment on Whitmer’s remarks.
Michigan has been home to protests over shutdown orders, including one Thursday that police said drew about 200 people and led to a fight among some demonstrators. Whitmer’s actions are widely popular in the state, polling shows, but demonstrators have included some from areas unaffected by the virus itself but hit hard by the economic fallout.
During her CNN interview, Whitmer was asked about reports that she sought Pence’s help during a conference call with governors earlier this week. She suggested that was not the only time she relayed her request.
“It’s the congregating of big groups of people who aren’t wearing masks, who aren’t six feet apart, that will perpetuate the community spread,” Whitmer said. “When people come from around the state and congregate, don’t do it so [irresponsibly] and then go home. That’s what contributes to community spread, and I think it’s a very real concern.”
What’s opening in the United States this weekend
The scattershot reopening of America continues Friday and into the weekend, with more areas relaxing restrictions imposed due to the coronavirus.
Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards (D) said that starting Friday, his stay-at-home order will be lifted and more businesses will be able to reopen — with limitations. Restaurants, bars, malls, gyms, movie theaters and museums can all reopen with occupancy caps and distancing limitations in place. (In New Orleans, restrictions will stay through Saturday.)
Beginning Friday, Iowa restaurants can reopen with half their normal capacities and groups capped at six people. Gyms can reopen, but with reduced capacities. Malls can welcome back shoppers, but food courts and play areas have to stay shuttered.
Wyoming will let restaurants reopen with limitations, allow gatherings of up to 25 people and let movie theaters reopen — albeit with limits on the number of viewers. Arizona’s stay at home order is ending Friday, two days after pools, gyms and spas were able to reopen.
In Oregon, most of the state’s counties are cleared Friday to reopen restaurants, bars, gyms and hair salons — with some restrictions, including fewer customers, requirements for face coverings and mandated distancing. Gatherings of up to 25 people will be allowed in these locations as well.
In other states, specific restrictions are being lifted. Some businesses and beaches in Hawaii can reopen Friday, as can ice cream stores and trucks in Delaware, a state that is keeping its beaches closed for another week. Idaho gave the green light for more of the state’s businesses to resume activity on Saturday, when restaurants, gyms and salons can reopen. (Movie theaters and concert venues will still remain shuttered.)
In the Washington region, much of Virginia and Maryland can lift restrictions Friday, although they will remain in place in both the District and the populous suburbs surrounding it.
For India’s stranded workers, an impossible choice: Destitution or a dangerous road home
NEW DELHI — Tens of millions of Indian migrant workers are stranded in large cities without an income, longing for the refuge of homes hundreds of miles away. The choices they make will reshape their lives, with profound consequences for India’s economy and the country’s fight against the coronavirus.
Over the past two months, men, women and children have walked, bicycled, hitchhiked, pulled handcarts and stuffed their bodies into concrete mixers in desperate bids to get home. Dozens have perished in accidents or from sheer exhaustion. Last week, a group of migrant workers was crushed to death by a freight train after they fell asleep on a railway track after walking for miles.
The dangers of the journey mean that for migrants, it is “no longer a trade-off between lives and livelihoods but between lives and lives,” said a report last month from researchers trying to alleviate the plight of stranded workers. Their latest report found that nearly half of the workers who contacted them had less than a day of food supplies left.
Read more here.
Most Americans not ready to send their children back to school, new poll finds
Despite President Trump’s eagerness to reopen the nation’s schools, nearly 7 in 10 parents with children living at home aren’t ready to send them back, according to an ABC-Ipsos poll released Friday.
The poll finds that 69 percent of Americans who have a child under age 18 living at home who had been enrolled in school before the pandemic are not currently willing to send them back to school.
The finding comes during a week in which Trump downplayed advice from Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s top infectious-disease official. Fauci told a Senate committee that policymakers should be cautious about opening up schools, which closed across the country this spring to try to stem the spread of the novel coronavirus. The following day, Trump told reporters that Fauci’s comments were “not acceptable” and that schools should reopen soon. He argued that children are practically immune to the disease.
The question on returning to school was part of a broader ABC-Ipsos survey. The sample size of those with school-age children was relatively small, and the result carries an error margin of plus or minus roughly 10 percentage points.
Disney’s ‘Frozen’ is first major Broadway show to close permanently due to pandemic
In the first ground-shaking Broadway closing of the pandemic, the musical “Frozen” will not return to Times Square after the shutdown ends, Walt Disney Co. officials announced Thursday.
The show, based on an Oscar-winning, billion-dollar Disney movie franchise, opened on Broadway in March 2018 and played for 851 performances — barely a blink of an eye in megahit terms. Such blockbusters as “The Lion King” and “Aladdin” — the other Disney properties waiting out Broadway’s shuttering — have been running robustly for 22 and six years, respectively.
Disney officials say the stoppage does not signify a failing enterprise: The show, directed by Michael Grandage, was bringing in about $1.5 million a week at the St. James Theatre and grossed more than $150 million over its run. (Estimates put the show’s initial costs at $25 million to $30 million.) Rather, it was a belief that when Broadway comes back, the audiences to sustain multiple Disney productions will not be returning in sufficient numbers.
Read more here.
Small businesses in high-rent cities face disaster
The novel coronavirus is threatening the survival of thousands of independently operated stores, restaurants, bars and other enterprises in cities with vibrant, walkable neighborhoods and soaring commercial rents.
Washington, D.C., for example, where the shutdown was just extended until June 8 by Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D), has an estimated 38,000 small businesses, according to the D.C. Policy Center. Some were already being pushed out by corporate chains before the pandemic brought the nation’s economy to a halt.
“I hate to be bleak, but we’re certainly going to see independent small businesses go quickly,” said Amanda Ballantyne, the Seattle-based executive director of Main Street Alliance, an advocacy group for small businesses. “When the economy recovers, it won’t recover with the same level of diversity. We already have these dynamics in cities like Seattle, the Bay Area and D.C., and the virus will only accelerate it — this loss of culture that residents came to know and love about their neighborhoods.”
Read more here.
Well-known medical journal suggests change is needed in the White House
President Trump is under fire from the Lancet, among the world’s oldest and best-known medical journals, which accuses him in a new editorial of injecting partisan politics into his response to the coronavirus pandemic and suggests that a change is in order in the White House.
“Americans must put a president in the White House come January, 2021, who will understand that public health should not be guided by partisan politics,” the editorial says.
The publication, which has offices in London, New York and Beijing, criticizes the Trump administration’s “inconsistent and incoherent national response” to the coronavirus outbreak and accuses it of relegating the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to only a “nominal” role in the U.S. response.
“The Administration is obsessed with magic bullets — vaccines, new medicines, or a hope that the virus will simply disappear,” the editorial says. “But only a steadfast reliance on basic public health principles, like test, trace, and isolate, will see the emergency brought to an end, and this requires an effective national public health agency.”
House poised to push through $3 trillion relief legislation, historic rules changes
The Democratic-led House is poised to push through a pair of measures Friday that would direct an additional $3 trillion toward coronavirus relief and authorize historic rule changes in the chamber in response to the pandemic.
A bill, which the White House has threatened to veto, includes additional aid for state and local governments and health systems, a second round of stimulus checks to millions of Americans, more funding for the Postal Service and a range of other initiatives.
Senate Republicans have balked at the legislation, advocating a pause in further federal action until the impact of previous legislative response can be measured. In a veto message, the White House said the new House bill is “more concerned with delivering on longstanding partisan and ideological wishlists than with enhancing the ability of our Nation to deal with the public health and economic challenges we face.” President Trump, however, has left the door open to additional measures in the future to spur the economy, including direct aid to Americans.
The House is already expected to adopt rule changes opposed by Republicans that would authorize proxy voting in the chamber and allow for official committee proceedings to be conducted remotely during the ongoing public health crisis.
Slovenia says its coronavirus epidemic is over, highlighting regional differences in Europe
Even though much of western Europe is still under lockdown or restrictions, parts of Central and Eastern Europe are becoming increasingly vocal in proclaiming victory over the coronavirus, as case numbers there remain low.
In the first such move in Europe, Slovenia announced Thursday that it has reached the end of its epidemic, highlighting stark differences in how the continent has been affected by the coronavirus so far.
For the past two weeks, the nation of 2 million has kept the number of daily new confirmed cases in the single digits.
“Slovenia has tamed the epidemic over the past two months. ... Today Slovenia has the best epidemiologic picture in Europe,” Prime Minister Janez Janša said, according to Reuters.
Unlike New Zealand or Taiwan, Slovenia and other Central and Eastern European nations with similarly low figures have rarely been heralded internationally as role models, resulting in a sense in some of those nations that they have been overlooked.
While Spain, for instance, has reported more than 27,000 deaths attributed to the virus, five nations farther east — the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovenia, Bulgaria and Romania — have confirmed only about 2,000 deaths in all, even though their combined population is similar to Spain’s. Farther north, Europe’s three Baltic states Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia reversed travel restrictions on Friday, allowing their 6 million citizens to travel freely again among their countries.
Many of those countries imposed restrictions early on, such as requiring residents to wear masks, but some of them are ill-suited as role models.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán secured sweeping emergency powers, arguing that they were needed to confront the pandemic. His critics say the move was really a ploy to crack down on them. In Slovenia, the country’s strict lockdown measures prompted similar criticism, with some comparing the government’s ambitions to Orbán’s approach.
As some of those restrictive measures are now being eased, Slovenia and other countries could still see a resurgence of the virus as they embark on the difficult balancing act between opening up their economies and keeping new infections low.
In Yemen, deaths with coronavirus-like symptoms spike as hospitals shut down
CAIRO — The number of people dying with covid-19 symptoms has dramatically spiked in war-riven Yemen, triggering fears that coronavirus infections are considerably higher than official figures, the Save the Children charity said Thursday.
At least 385 people have died over the past week with coronavirus-like symptoms in the southern port city of Aden, the group said, citing Yemeni officials.
As of Wednesday, the number of confirmed cases in Aden of covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, was 41, with five deaths, according to official figures. Nationwide, the World Health Organization says there are 72 confirmed cases, with 13 deaths.
Read more here.
Australians move into first phase of reopening — and head to the pub
In Sydney, people flocked to sit in sparsely populated cafes. In Melbourne, restaurants were still offering only takeout. And in the Northern Territory, a desert region of Australia known as the home of Crocodile Dundee, pubs opened to full capacity.
“The beers are here,” said Michael Gunner, the territory’s chief minister, “and the jobs are back.”
Australians emerged from quarantines and ventured back into eateries and other businesses Friday, as the first part of a three-stage plan to reopen the country’s economy took effect after nearly two months of lockdown.
Each region is moving at a different pace. The Northern Territory, which has reported no deaths and fewer than 30 cases, allowed beauty salons, gyms and houses of worship to open with few rules. Harder-hit New South Wales, the most populous state, expanded public gatherings from two to 10 people, according to Reuters.
The relaxed measures are a sign of the country’s relative success in battling the coronavirus: With fewer than 100 fatalities, only a few dozen people remained in hospitals, authorities said Friday, crediting early quarantine orders and the rapid closure of borders.
But Gladys Berejiklian, the premier of New South Wales, warned residents to stay vigilant.
“Easing restrictions has failed in so many places around the world,” she said. “I want people to have personal responsibility for the way we respond.”
The pain may just be starting. Officials on Thursday announced Australia’s biggest monthly jobs decline on record, as many economists forecast a recession for a country that had been in its third decade of uninterrupted growth.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who has ordered most measures to be eased by July, warned that the worst was still to come.
“While there isn’t too much to be celebrating with the difficult circumstances we face,” he said, “it is welcome sign that we are on the way back.”
American pilot jailed for leaving his Singapore hotel room to buy medical supplies
An American FedEx pilot has been jailed in Singapore after he was found to have violated lockdown restrictions by leaving his hotel room to purchase medical supplies.
On April 21, 44-year-old Brian Dugan Yeargan, of Alaska, was charged with an offense under the (Covid-19 Stay Orders) Regulations 2020, the Straits Times reported, noting that those convicted can be jailed for up to six months and fined up to $7,000.
On Wednesday, Yeargan was sentenced to four weeks behind bars, making him the first foreigner imprisoned in the country for breaching the stay notice. Singaporeans have also been charged in recent weeks for violating such orders.
According to local media, Yeargan arrived in Singapore from Sydney on April 3, and was issued with both a 30-day visit pass and also a stay order, instructing him not to leave his hotel until April 17. Officials say that on April 5, Yeargan left his hotel and took the train to Chinatown Point shopping center to buy items such as face masks and a thermometer. They allege he was out walking, shopping and catching the train for a total of three hours.
Employees of the home visit team checked his room at the Crowne Plaza Changi Airport hotel on April 5, only to find he was not there.
Deputy Public Prosecutor V Jesudevan told Senior District Judge Ong Hian Sun that Yeargan’s actions were “unreasonable,” while defense lawyer Ronnie Tan told the judge that Yeargan had made an “error of judgment.”
According to Tan, Yeargan was concerned for the well-being of his wife back home at the time he committed the offense. His wife had been experiencing health issues but had tested negative for the infection.
With over 26,000 cases of the coronavirus, Singapore had one of the region’s largest outbreaks, although in comparison to other countries, the death toll of 21 remains relatively low.
Texas appeals court rules against attorney general, allows expansion of voting by mail
A Texas appeals court has ruled against the state’s attorney general, allowing voters who fear exposure to the coronavirus to receive a mail-in ballot.
The Thursday ruling upheld a lower court’s decision to expand voting by mail to any qualified voters who aren’t immune to covid-19 — in other words, most of the state’s population. Texas has one of the nation’s strictest vote-by-mail laws, and typically only people who are over 65, live outside the country, are in jail or have a disability can receive a mail-in ballot.
Advocacy groups and the Texas Democratic Party sued the state in March, saying that in-person voting during this year’s July and November elections could present a threat to public health. They contend that the law’s definition of a disability as “a sickness or physical condition that prevents the voter from appearing at the polling place on election day without a likelihood of needing personal assistance or of injuring the voter’s health” is broad enough to include people who could potentially contract the coronavirus.
Republicans, meanwhile, are pushing for a narrow interpretation of the state’s election code. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has argued that people who lack a “qualifying sickness or physical condition” and simply fear contracting the virus do not count as disabled, as far as the law is concerned.
The dispute has inspired a flurry of litigation, and Thursday’s ruling from the Fourteenth Court of Appeals is unlikely to be the end of the drawn-out battle. Paxton separately asked the Texas Supreme Court on Wednesday to stop election officials from recommending that voters with concerns about the coronavirus request absentee ballots.
Greta Thunberg urges help for virus-stricken city in Amazon
Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg urged world leaders Thursday to aid the ailing Brazilian city of Manaus, a metropolis of 2 million in the Amazon rainforest that has been ravaged by the coronavirus.
In a video shared online Thursday by the city’s mayor, Thunberg and a dozen other teenagers with the “Fridays for Future” campaign pleaded for lesser-hit countries to share resources with Manaus, where burials have tripled in recent weeks.
“The Amazon rainforest needs your help,” Thunberg said in the video, adding that the consequences of both human deaths and natural destruction will be global.
O mundo precisa entender que nós formamos os povos da floresta, que a mantemos viva e de pé, não só para benefício da nossa região, mas de todo o planeta. Esses treze jovens ambientalistas, de diferentes partes do mundo, juntam-se a nós e clamam por ajuda. pic.twitter.com/5BRoNrHCth
— Arthur Virgílio Neto (@Arthurvneto) May 14, 2020
Manaus, the capital of Amazonas state, has struggled to secure protective equipment and ventilators, authorities said. More than 2,000 people died in April, four times the national rate.
Yet the pandemic has also spread farther, to the highly vulnerable indigenous communities around Amazonas state. Scattered, isolated and severely lacking resources, residents of those communities must travel from across the region to Manaus to seek specialized medical help — even as the city runs out of hospital beds and coffins.
Neighboring countries are seeing infections spiral, too. Colombia said Thursday it would send troops to fortify its border with Brazil and lock down its neighboring rainforest state, where tribal groups are concentrated.
Arthur Virgílio Neto, the mayor of Manaus, had reached out for help to 17-year-old Thunberg, who rose to prominence as she called on world leaders to take a stand against climate change.
In the video, several teen activists from Brazil joined her in asking for help to defend indigenous people from both outside invaders and their government’s “irresponsible actions.”
“The world must understand that we, the people of the forest, keep it alive — not only for the good of our region but for the good of the planet,” Neto wrote on Twitter.
Airlines instruct flight crews to avoid letting masks lead to in-flight disruptions
U.S. airlines have all rolled out new policies requiring travelers to wear masks when they board and fly in an effort to keep passengers and employees as safe as possible from the coronavirus.
But crew members are being told to avoid escalating a situation once in the air if a passenger refuses to keep the mask on. There are exceptions for those who are very young or who have a medical condition.
Read more here.
Taiwan beat covid-19 and won friends. At the WHO, it’s still fighting for a seat at the table.
TAIPEI — With just 440 reported coronavirus cases and seven deaths, Taiwan looks to have conquered the coronavirus. The island has won praise for its effective response and donations of medical equipment, including millions of face masks — the fruits of a campaign to combine health diplomacy and relief with an effort to bolster Taiwan’s international image.
One symbol of recognition remains elusive: an invitation for Taiwan to observe next week’s World Health Assembly. Despite a growing pro-Taiwan coalition backing their inclusion, health officials in this self-ruled democracy remain sidelined from the World Health Organization’s decision-making body at the urging of China’s government, which claims sovereignty over Taiwan and has sought to sever its international contacts.
With Washington and Beijing vying for influence within global organizations, the United States, joined by European allies and other democracies, has led calls for WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus to invite Taiwan. That has happened alongside some of the closest official U.S. contacts with Taiwan since Washington switched diplomatic recognition to Beijing in 1979.
Read more here.
Rauhala reported from Delaware.
Colorado’s new tourism campaign asks visitors to stay home
Colorado’s tourism bureau has launched a new campaign encouraging people to explore the state’s natural wonders — later.
The “Waiting to CO” campaign aims to keep the state “top of mind as a beloved vacation destination” while also encouraging would-be visitors to stay home, Cathy Ritter, the head of the Colorado Tourism Office, said in a statement. While Colorado has begun easing coronavirus-related restrictions and has permitted some state park campgrounds to reopen, the state has yet to say when tourism can resume.
In the meantime, tourism officials are encouraging people to listen to a Colorado-themed playlist, plan a future vacation, and post pictures of themselves trying out their favorite Colorado activities (such as kayaking or roasting marshmallows) at home. The “Waiting to CO” campaign is intended to be a “grass roots promotion” and will not involve any paid advertisement, the statement said.
Tourism has typically been a major economic driver for Colorado, contributing roughly $1.3 billion in tax revenue in 2018. But fears that out-of-state visitors could spread the coronavirus prompted Gov. Jared Polis (D) to shut down the state’s ski resorts in March. Some mountain communities went even further by banning non-locals from driving on their roads or ordering people who had fled to their ski houses to leave.
Many of those orders were later softened amid legal pressure, but restrictions on travel and nonessential businesses remain in place.
Md. gives ‘staggering’ forecast of economic damage; Va. reports large monthly loss
Maryland and Virginia are already seeing enormous tax losses from the coronavirus pandemic, according to new data released Thursday, with economic forecasters painting a dim portrait of a prolonged recovery.
Virginia’s monthly tax receipts dived by 26.2 percent in April, compared with the previous year, according to the first monthly revenue report to reflect the economic ravages of the pandemic. State officials attributed the drop to extended tax deadlines that let companies and people delay payments until June 1.
Read more here.
Live updates: CDC offers few guidelines for reopening safely as U.S. death toll surpasses 85,000
President Trump announced Thursday a plan to reconfigure the government’s chronically undersupplied stockpile of emergency gear to help combat the coronavirus pandemic, accelerating manufacturing and broadening the array of supplies it houses.
The president said his administration is launching what he termed a “groundbreaking initiative” to “replenish and modernize” the government’s stores of masks, ventilators and other essential pandemic-fighting medical equipment to create a 90-day reserve.
In keeping with his “America First” mantra, Trump and his aides said the manufacturing would be carried out by U.S. companies, diminishing the reliance on foreign factories that have been the stockpile’s major sources.
Read more here.
Utah mayor and congressional candidate defies state to allow protest concert
A Utah mayor and Republican congressional candidate plans to defy state health orders by allowing a protest group to host a country music concert, the Salt Lake Tribune reported.
“We have to start making steps toward normalcy,” Katie Witt, the mayor of Kaysville, told the paper.
Kaysville is roughly 20 miles north of Salt Lake City in Davis County, which moves to a “yellow” risk level this weekend. That designation allows gatherings of up to 50 people, but Witt told the Tribune that she expects the crowd for country star Collin Raye to be much larger.
The outdoor concert will take place in a city park on May 30. Witt told the Tribune that all attendees will be asked to wear masks and practice social distancing, making the event no less safe than shopping at Costco, in her view.
The event is being organized by Utah Business Revival, a group whose April rally at the state capitol drew more than 1,000 people. Like other protest groups around the nation, the group demands that health restrictions be overturned so that nonessential businesses can reopen. The Kaysville concert will feature an outdoor marketplace where vendors who fall into that category can ply their wares, organizers said.
Witt is one of four candidates vying for the GOP nomination in Utah’s first congressional district. One of her opponents, Davis County Commissioner Bob Stevenson, told the Tribune that her decision to defy state officials was a “political maneuver” and that he found it “sad.”
Witt categorized it differently, telling the paper that she was giving people space to exercise their First Amendment rights.
In Brazil, a desperate search for an open bed
Brazil’s failure to provide enough hospital beds for the surging number of critical coronavirus patients is yielding increasingly grim results across the country, but particularly in Manaus, a city of 2 million people on the Amazon River deep in the rainforest.
More than 2,000 people died in Manaus in April, more than four times the monthly average. Now, the city is running out of coffins. Hundreds are dying at home, either because they can’t get treatment at the hospitals or because they fear they won’t. Ambulances race down streets with no clear destination, waiting for someone to die and relinquish a hospital bed.
Read more here.
As parts of D.C. region prepare to reopen, top Md. Democrats say it’s too soon
As swaths of the greater Washington region prepared to reopen Friday, with business owners scrambling for cleaning supplies and protective equipment, officials in Maryland’s most populous jurisdictions questioned Republican Gov. Larry Hogan’s decision to ease his “stay-at-home” order.
Their worries about adequate supplies of tests and safety equipment, as well as the continued wave of novel coronavirus infections, were also the focus of a letter sent to Hogan by Maryland Senate President Bill Ferguson (D-Baltimore City) and House Speaker Adrienne A. Jones (D-Baltimore County).
Read more here.
Ousted vaccine official testifies country still lacks master plan amid pandemic
A former top U.S. vaccine official and an executive of a medical mask maker in Texas each told Congress on Thursday they believe lives were lost because of missteps by the Trump administration in its early handling of the novel coronavirus pandemic.
Rick Bright, who filed a whistleblower complaint after he was removed from a senior post at the Department of Health and Human Services last month, said his superiors dismissed urgent warnings in January and early February about an impending shortage of N95 respirator masks. Bright also said the administration delayed potential work on a U.S.-made vaccine by not acting fast enough or forcefully enough to press China for samples of the virus. And Bright said his removal showcased how, generally, politics overtook science as President Trump took center stage in responding to the U.S. crisis.
Read more here.
Mexican president pushes back on government report predicting pandemic could impoverish millions
Mexico’s president dismissed Thursday a government report indicating the coronavirus pandemic could drag millions in his country into extreme poverty.
Despite a record one-day rise in infections, his government has moved to lift restrictions for parts of the country next week and gradually reopen other areas at the start of next month.
Coneval, an independent government organization, said in a report this week that between 6.1 and 10.7 million Mexicans could fall into extreme poverty — defined as a lack of food, water, health and other basic needs — by the end of this year.
“We’re working so that doesn’t happen,” President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said at a news conference. “Perhaps the projections, the Coneval forecast, was made using old assumptions or using older plans. Now it’s different.”
The predictions would sharply reverse moves by Mexico’s economy and social sectors over the past decade. From 2008 to 2018, the number of Mexicans in extreme poverty fell by about one-quarter, down to about 9.3 million.
López Obrador’s administration has been issuing millions of aid loans to small businesses, but the Coneval report seemed to indicate that much more could be done.
“We face a window of opportunity to act at the three levels of government,” the organization said in a statement to Reuters, “otherwise a decade of social development could be lost.”
Also on Thursday, authorities delayed a restart date for the country’s key auto and mining industries by two weeks.
Carmakers and government officials in the U.S. had been pressing Mexico to reopen its automotive factories quickly to reconnect to supply chains north of the border.
The government initially indicated that could happen as soon as next week but went on to face criticism from some lawmakers in López Obrador’s ruling party.
Arkansas music venue backs down from plan to hold 229-person concert on Friday
An Arkansas concert venue that planned to defy Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R) and host a Travis McCready concert on Friday has backed down after having its liquor license suspended.
TempleLive, a 1,100-seat hall in Fort Smith, Ark., had claimed it could safely hold the country-rock show by grouping attendees in socially distanced “fan pods” and keeping the building at just above 20 percent occupancy. The venue also promised to make masks mandatory and take concertgoers’ temperatures at the door.
But the event would have violated Hutchinson’s stay-at-home order, which bars indoor performance venues from reopening until next week. Even once the restrictions are lifted, audiences are limited to fewer than 50 people. TempleLive had planned to host as many as 229, pointing out that in-person church services had been allowed to resume and there was no scientific reason to believe the virus was more likely to spread at a concert.
Arkansas health officials issued a cease-and-desist order Tuesday. On Thursday, the state’s Alcoholic Beverage Control Division suspended TempleLive’s liquor license, and the venue reluctantly agreed to postpone the show.
“At the end of the day we fought the law, and the law won,” Mike Brown, TempleLive’s vice president, told KWNA.
Still, the standoff may not be over. TempleLive has proposed moving the concert to Monday, and it’s unclear whether the state will be willing to grant an exception to the 50-person maximum capacity rule. The venue has also threatened to sue.
New York barber who defied orders and ‘illicitly’ cut hair tests positive for coronavirus
A Upstate New York barber who continued to “illicitly” cut hair in defiance of stay-at-home orders has tested positive for coronavirus and may have infected customers, health officials said Wednesday.
The Ulster County Department of Health and Mental Health did not identify the barber or their business, but said that anyone who had received a haircut at a barbershop in Kingston, N.Y., over the past three weeks should contact their doctor or call a state hotline to be tested.
“Learning that a barbershop has been operating illicitly for weeks with a COVID-19 positive employee is extraordinarily disheartening,” Carol Smith, Ulster County’s health commissioner, said in a statement. “As much as we would all like to go out and get a professional haircut, this kind of direct contact has the potential to dramatically spread this virus throughout our community and beyond.”
New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo (D) ordered barbershops, hair salons and other nonessential businesses to close on March 22. Some areas of the state that have met key metrics, such as a decline in hospitalizations, are beginning to reopen on Friday. But the mid-Hudson region, where Ulster County is located, has not yet hit those benchmarks.
FDA warns of inaccuracies in test hailed by White House
A rapid coronavirus diagnostic test that has been used widely, including at the White House, may be indicating potentially false results, the Food and Drug Administration warned Thursday.
The Abbott ID NOW point-of-care test, which is supposed to detect the novel coronavirus in a matter of minutes, may return false negative results and incorrectly tell sick patients they are virus-free, the agency said in a statement.
Tim Stenzel, who oversees in vitro diagnostics for the FDA, said his office was working with Abbott, an Illinois-based lab company, to evaluate the exam and its results. The company’s future testing devices will be tried out on confirmed coronavirus patients.
The Trump administration, which has hailed the test as a critical way to curb the pandemic, has been using the device for daily testing at the White House. But earlier this week, one study found that the Abbott test had missed between a third and almost half of all positive samples caught by a rival firm.
Although Abbott’s test can correctly identify many positive cases in minutes, Stenzel said, “negative results may need to be confirmed with a high-sensitivity authorized molecular test.”
Patients who received a negative result from Abbott ID NOW but have still shown symptoms of covid-19 should take a different coronavirus test, the federal agency said, although no diagnostic exam is 100 percent accurate.
The FDA is studying whether the types of swabs used or the material used to transport the patient’s specimen may have created the inaccuracies. But the agency also pushed back on external scientific studies, noting that those studies may be limited.
Analysis: Is a U.S.-China Cold War already underway?
How does a Cold War begin? In Washington, an accumulation of anti-Beijing animus hangs like a dark cloud over the capital. Before the pandemic, there was no shortage of experts warning of emergent fault lines between the United States and China. That sense of a looming clash between the 21st century’s heavyweights has only accelerated since the novel coronavirus paralyzed much of the world.
In an interview aired Thursday morning by the right-wing Fox Business Network, President Trump floated the idea that the United States “could cut off the whole relationship” with China in the aftermath of the pandemic, in reference to discussions over the lingering trade differences between both countries. He also argued that the economic toll of the pandemic offered further proof that the United States needed to do more to disconnect itself from global supply chains that thread through China.
Officials in Washington and Beijing periodically insist they don’t want a new Cold War, but the geopolitical head winds appear to be blowing in that direction.
Read more here.
More pajamas, please: Online comfort shopping sales spike
Gone are the days when a single pair of pajamas would suffice. Now we need work pajamas, lounging pajamas, sleeping pajamas — or so sharp increases in online shopping for comfort items would suggest.
As the pandemic continues to keep most Americans at home more often than not, online sales are soaring, according to the Adobe Digital Economy Index, which studies digital consumers.
Online daily sales increased an average 49 percent through mid April, compared with early March, thanks in large part to stay-at-home orders prompted by the coronavirus pandemic. Grocery sales spiked 110 percent in online daily sales as more people tried to avoid long lines and crowds at stores.
Read more here.
Lots of talk — but so far no action — about second $1,200 stimulus check for U.S. households
Nearly 130 million Americans have received direct payments of up to $1,200 from the Treasury Department, a centerpiece of the federal response to the coronavirus pandemic. But prospects are uncertain for another round of these stimulus checks.
President Trump has left the door open to the idea, saying earlier this week that “we’re talking about that with a lot of different people.” House Democrats included a new and more generous round of payments in a $3 trillion relief bill that is scheduled for a floor vote Friday.
But Republicans have declared the House Democrats’ bill dead on arrival, and some have voiced skepticism about the need for any more individual payments.
Read more here.