Trump says it’s safe to reopen states, while Birx finds protesters with no masks or distancing ‘devastatingly worrisome’

As the U.S. death toll from the coronavirus pandemic passed 67,000 on Sunday, President Trump said his administration is confident that the United States will have a coronavirus vaccine by the end of the year. Health officials have said they expect a vaccine to take a year to 18 months, at best, as scientists worldwide race to expedite the normally years-long process.

“The doctors would say, ‘Well, you shouldn’t say that.’ I’ll say what I think,” Trump said about his vaccine timeline prediction during a Fox News virtual town hall at the Lincoln Memorial.

Anthony S. Fauci, the top U.S. infectious disease specialist, confirmed Thursday that the Trump administration is working to develop a coronavirus vaccine and aiming to produce hundreds of millions of doses by January, an effort dubbed Operation Warp Speed.

Fauci, who spoke on NBC’s “Today” show, said the goal is to develop a vaccine that is safe, effective and able to scale up rapidly to meet the January timeline.

“We want to go quickly, but we want to make sure it’s safe and its effective,” he said. “I think that is doable if things fall in the right place.”

Asked Sunday evening about human trials for the sped-up vaccine development, Trump did not voice any concerns.

“Because they are volunteers. They know what they’re getting into,” he said.

Trump on Sunday revised his estimate for the country’s death toll yet again, estimating that 75,000 to 100,000 people could die of covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. Two weeks ago, he estimated that the death toll would be 50,000 to 60,000 — something he acknowledged.

“It’s gone up,” Trump said Sunday. “I used to say 65,000 and now I’m saying 80 or 90 [thousand], and it’s going up and it’s going up rapidly.”

Trump also said there will be a report from the administration “in two weeks” about how the coronavirus has disproportionately affected minority communities. Analysis by The Washington Post in early April showed that majority-black counties have three times the rate of infections and almost six times the death rate of counties where white residents are in the majority.

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Vice President Pence said Sunday that he should have worn a mask during a clinic visit where he apparently broke the facility’s policies, after previously defending the move by saying he and those around him are regularly tested for the coronavirus.

His appearance Tuesday at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., drew criticism after footage showed Pence, who leads the White House coronavirus task force, speaking to staff members and patients without the face coverings that everyone else around him wore and that federal health officials recommend in public settings where social distancing is difficult.

Pence, President Trump and other officials have regularly appeared at White House coronavirus briefings standing close to one another and without masks. After outcry over the Mayo Clinic visit, Pence wore a face covering to a General Motors facility days later. During a Sunday town hall with the president on Fox News, he acknowledged a misstep.

The Mayo Clinic wrote in a now-deleted tweet that Pence and his team were aware of the mask policy ahead of Tuesday’s tour.

Allyson Chiu contributed to this report.

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On Sunday night, “60 Minutes” correspondent Lesley Stahl revealed that she was hospitalized for days with covid-19 but has since recovered with the help of health-care workers.

Stahl, 78, who has been with the TV news program since 1991, said she spent two weeks at home in bed, fighting pneumonia while “weak” and “really scared.” Ultimately, she went to a hospital, where she tested positive for the coronavirus.

Stahl also revealed that she wasn’t the only “60 Minutes” employee to contract the virus. One infected co-worker was asymptomatic, she said.

“One of the rules of journalism is don’t become part of the story,” Stahl said. “But instead of covering the pandemic, I was one of the more than 1 million Americans who did become part of it.”

Stahl emphasized the challenges medical workers face, as well as their successes. Although her hospitalization lasted “days” — she did not reveal the exact duration — she said she discovered “an overworked, nearly overwhelmed staff” that still showed great sympathy to and concern for her as a patient.

After beating the virus, Stahl said, she was wheeled out of the hospital as medical workers formed a wall beside her, cheering and applauding.

“In the face of so much death, they celebrate their triumphs,” Stahl said. “Thanks to them, like so many other patients, I am well now. Tonight, we owe them our gratitude, our admiration and in some cases, our lives.”

Seven Northeastern states that are collaborating on reopening plans will band together to buy equipment and supplies to fight the novel coronavirus, as governors scramble for scarce materials in the absence of federal coordination.

On Sunday, New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo (D) announced a partnership with six neighboring states — Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island — to jointly buy $5 billion worth of personal protective equipment, ventilators, tests and other standard medical equipment. The states seek to maximize their buying power as a collective and end bidding that has pitted officials around the country against one another and other nations.

“These vendors on the other side, they’re dealing with countries, they’re dealing with the federal government,” Cuomo said. “Why should they do business with one state, right, when they can do business with an entire country? So, this consortium will help us get the equipment and get it at a better price. ”

New York will spend $2 billion on medical supplies this year, mostly purchased from China, Cuomo said. But the Northeastern group, he said, plans to buy American-made products and no longer deal with vendors that Cuomo said acted as brokers during an international health crisis.

Northeastern states have worked together before on coronavirus supplies. In early April, Massachusetts procured 1.2 million N95 masks — flown in from China on the charter plane of the New England Patriots, according to CNN — and shared some of the equipment with New York.

Cuomo was joined via video conference call at Sunday’s briefing by the governors of Connecticut, Delaware, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

“The notion of coordinating together as a region makes an enormous amount of sense,” said New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy (D). “So sign me up and sign New Jersey up.”

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A New York City police officer threw a man to the ground and struck him repeatedly Saturday in an incident that authorities say began during an effort to enforce social distancing restrictions. Startling footage of the confrontation, which involved the arrests of three people, went viral on social media, and police said they will investigate.

The video, which was independently verified by the news organization Storyful, shows police wrestling a man to the ground in New York’s East Village. One officer then points a stun gun at an approaching man and tells him to move back before forcing him to the ground and striking him. Another officer then jumps in to handcuff the bystander.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio tweeted Sunday night that he was “really disturbed” by the footage. “The behavior I saw in that video is simple not acceptable,” he wrote.

Storyful said the video was shot by Daquan Owens, who did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

NYPD said in a statement to Storyful that officers, who have not been identified, asked a group “in violation of social distancing orders” to disperse but that some refused to do so.

Police said Ashley Serrano, 22, attempted to intervene during the arrest of Sahkiem Brunson, 31. An officer then ordered Donni Wright, 33, to disperse, but he allegedly took a “fighting stance against the officer and was also taken into custody.”

Police said all three were charged with resisting arrest and disorderly conduct, with Brunson and Serrano facing additional charges of weapons possession.

The Post could not immediately reach Brunson, Serrano or Wright, and it was not immediately clear whether they had attorneys.

NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea said at a news conference Sunday that the incident in the video started out as a social distancing violation before it escalated and that the NYPD Internal Affairs Bureau is investigating.

Shea added that the NYPD issued 51 summonses Saturday for social distancing violations.

One of the officers involved in the incident was placed on modified duty, according to local news site Gothamist.

The toll of the pandemic has been especially steep in New York state, where at least 316,000 coronavirus cases have been reported and at least 24,000 people have died since March 14.

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Some officials are backing off requirements that people wear masks inside businesses, as cities, counties and states — left to devise their own guidelines — run into limits on their ability to maintain public health precautions with stay-at-home orders easing.

The issue pushed a small Oklahoma city into the national spotlight over the weekend, after leaders quickly withdrew a mandate to don masks inside reopened stores and restaurants, citing threats of violence and physical abuse directed at employees. The mayor of Stillwater apologized to businesses for putting them in a dangerous position, as some people responded with hostility to the rules.

“We don’t have the kind of police force that can go out and try to deal with every single one of the people who may not be willing to wear the masks,” Mayor Will Joyce said Sunday on MSNBC. “And so it’s been a struggle [to] make people understand that wearing that face covering is an easy and an effective way to help slow the spread of this virus.”

Read more here.

Who better to valiantly send a class of graduates off into the unknown of the real world than the man who saved Private Ryan?

On Saturday, Academy Award-winning actor Tom Hanks shared a message of hope for theater and art graduates at Wright State University in Ohio during its virtual commencement. In the taped speech, which lasted a little more than five minutes, Hanks referred to the class of 2020 as the “chosen ones” for crossing into adulthood during the covid-19 pandemic.

“Part of lives will forever be identified as ‘before,’ ” he said. “In the same way other generations tell time like, ‘Well, that was before the war,’ or ‘That was before the Internet,’ or ‘That was before Beyoncé.' The word ‘before’ is going to carry great weight with you.”

Much like Hanks, other celebrities have joined the rush to honor the graduates whose ceremonies have been canceled because of the covid-19 pandemic.

On May 16, NBA superstar LeBron James will host a prime-time special, “Graduate Together,” that will air simultaneously on ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC. Also, the podcast “Commencement: Speeches for the Class of 2020” has enlisted the help of Jimmy Fallon, Hillary Clinton and Pitbull to share encouragement to graduates. And on Sunday, Lisa Price, the founder of the natural hair-care product Carol’s Daughter, held a virtual commencement speech on her Facebook page.

In closing his remarks, Hanks said: “The future is always uncertain, but we who celebrate what you have done, who celebrate all of your achievements, we are certain on this day: You will not let us down.”

The first Saturday in May featured horse racing in Arkansas rather than in Kentucky, but it carried with it the promise the Run for the Roses would still take place this year, even though it surrendered its usual spot on the calendar for the first time since World War II.

The Kentucky Derby is scheduled for Sept. 5 at Churchill Downs, but a great deal of uncertainty remains. Will the race be run before empty stands because of the novel coronavirus pandemic? Will it be run at all if conditions haven’t significantly improved by late summer?

Read more here.