Summary
- United States overtakes Italy as country with most coronavirus deaths. The US has suffered more confirmed coronavirus deaths than any other country, and on Saturday was poised to soon reach 20,000 Covid-19 fatalities, new data indicated.
- Cuomo undercuts De Blasio bid to keep New York schools shut until September. New York governor Andrew Cuomo and New York City mayor Bill de Blasio once again had differing opinions on who has authority to implement certain Covid-19 policies.
- Every US state is now under a disaster declaration. Wyoming has become the 50th, and final, US state to be under a disaster declaration following approval by Donald Trump on Saturday. That means for for the first time in history every US state is under a disaster declaration, which allows federal funds to be used by state and local governments during the pandemic.
- Republican who floated virus conspiracy says ‘common sense has been my guide’. Arkansas senator Tom Cotton told Fox News he did not believe virus originated in Wuhan market and said bioweapons link should not be ruled out
With the realities of the coronavirus pandemic’s disproportionate effect on America’s black communities becoming more apparent with each passing day, NFL star Malcolm Jenkins has shared a video telling African Americans that “we must look out for ourselves”.
#dearblackpeople We are the most impacted, yet the focus of resources aren’t being invested in us. We cannot wait for a government that has NEVER prioritized us. We must look out for ourselves. Take care of you first, share resources, protect the elderly, and stay home! pic.twitter.com/Gcc6kJBC4U
— Malcolm Jenkins (@MalcolmJenkins) April 11, 2020
“Thank you to all of our first responders, our doctors and nurses who are on the front lines,” said Jenkins, a two-time Super Bowl champion and one of the most visible political activists in the sports world. “You are our heroes. We thank you, we pray for you, we owe you a great debt. This message is for my black brothers and sisters: We must survive. This pandemic is real and the damage that is left in the wake of the coronavirus is realized mostly in our communities. Bad policy, institutional neglect and overexposure place us disproportionately in arm’s reach of the dangers of this deadly virus.
“We are the essential worker. We are the most impacted. Yet the focus of the resources aren’t being invested in us. We cannot wait for a government that has never prioritized us; we must look out for ourselves. So take care of you first, share your resources, protect the elderly and stay home as much as possible. Please stay safe, stay healthy and survive. Because whether they know it or not, the world needs us – and we need us.”
The US Air Force Air Thunderbirds conducted a flyover in celebration of frontline workers, flying past all the major hospitals throughout the Las Vegas valley.
Brigadier general Robert Novotny said: “We were looking at how we could continue to fly and also give back to the community with a salute to the real heroes out there on the front lines who are keeping us safe from the virus.”
Oklahoma State University football coach Mike Gundy has apologized for comments he made during a teleconference this week about the national response to the Covid-19 pandemic.
“I have been made aware that comments from my press conference have offended some,” Gundy said in a statement issued on Saturday. “It was never my intention to offend anyone and I apologize. My first priority is and will always be the student-athletes and doing what is best for the program and the university.”
Gundy has come under criticism since a Tuesday conference call with reporters where he said he hoped to have the team return to the on-campus football facilities on 1 May, in defiance of federal social-distancing guidelines. He said the the media has been overly negative in its coverage of what he called the “Chinese virus and added that if one of his players or coaches were to test positive after then, they would be “quarantined just like we do people that get the flu”.
“We get people that get the flu during the season, we quarantine them, we treat them, we make sure they’re healthy, we bring ‘em back,” Gundy said. “It would be the same thing here, but at some point, we’ve got to go back to work. We’ve got to get these guys back in here. ... From what I read, the healthy people can fight this, the antibodies make it better. They’re doing some blood transplants now with the people that have already gotten the disease, that have gotten over it that have the antibodies that can fight it. There’s a lot of people who can figure this out. May 1’s our goal. Don’t know if it will happen. Players will come in after that.”
The remarks prompted a swift statement from the university, which said: “We will adhere to the advice of public health experts who are making informed decisions in the best interest of the citizens of our nation and state based on sound scientific data.”
It’s not the first time Gundy, whose annual salary is $5.13m, has whipped up controversy over his right-wing views. But USA Today’s Dan Wolken made a salient point in a Wednesday op-ed that Gundy’s political ideology is immaterial:
Hey, according to “Dr. Gundy,” what’s the harm in 18-, 19-, 20-, 21-year-olds possibly getting exposed to coronavirus? If they’re healthy, it’s all good, right? At any rate, we’ve got to get moving, Gundy suggested, because paying salaries and “continuing the economy in this state” relies on the bodies of unpaid amateurs and people will “feel better” watching football on TV.
Herd immunity, right? That’s actually what Dr. Gundy was getting at. In fact, he referred to players as “the herd of healthy people” who can fight the virus, even though that is, uh, not exactly the way any of this works.
None of this should be a surprise. Gundy has been edging toward the cliff of absurdity for a while now. In November 2018, he blamed “liberalism” for players transferring, saying “I’m a firm believer in the snowflake.” He acknowledged Tuesday he’s getting a lot of his information these days from the ultra-conservative One America News Network, an outlet he described as objective and non-political despite its history of pushing debunked right-wing conspiracy theories related to the murder of Seth Rich, and Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting survivor David Hogg.
But this isn’t really about Gundy’s political ideology or his sources of information. It’s about him saying the quiet part out loud regarding how many college coaches view their players.
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Arkansas senator Tom Cotton, who floated a conspiracy theory which said the Chinese government created Covid-19 in a weapons lab claimed on Saturday that “common sense has been my guide” since he first learned of the outbreak in mid-January.
“Not Chinese communist lies. Not ‘the models’. Not so-called ‘public-health experts’. Just common sense. Many elected leaders have also been guided by common sense. Others haven’t.”
The virus is believed to have originated in a market in Wuhan in which wild animals were sold. But in an appearance on Fox News in February, Cotton floated a conspiracy theory which suggests the virus was manufactured in a Chinese bioweapons facility.
“Here’s what we do know,” he said. “The virus did not originate in the Wuhan animal market. Epidemiologists … have demonstrated that several of the original cases did not have any contact with that food market. That the virus went into that food market before it came out of that food market.
“So we don’t know where it originated. But we do know that we have to get to the bottom of that. We also know that just a few miles away from that food market is China’s only biosafety level four super-laboratory, that researches human infectious diseases.
“We don’t have evidence that this disease originated there but because of China’s duplicity and dishonesty from the beginning, we need to at least ask the question to see what the evidence says, and China right now is not giving evidence on that question at all.”
A federal judge has ruled Kentucky’s largest city cannot halt a drive-in church service planned for Easter. From the Associated Press:
On Fire Christian Church had sued Louisville mayor Greg Fischer and the city after Fischer announced drive-in style religious gatherings were not allowed on Easter.
US district judge Justin Walker sided with the church.
“On Holy Thursday, an American mayor criminalized the communal celebration of Easter,” Walker wrote in his sternly worded 20-page opinion. “That sentence is one that this Court never expected to see outside the pages of a dystopian novel, or perhaps the pages of The Onion.”
Walker added that “The mayor’s decision is stunning. And it is, ‘beyond all reason,’ unconstitutional.”
Fischer had argued that drive-in church services weren’t “practical or safe” for the community. However, Walker noted that drive-thru restaurants and liquor stores were still allowed to operate.
Coronavirus continues to tear through New York City’s jails. The city’s Department of Correction said that 318 detainees, and 562 staff members, have tested positive for Covid-19 as of Saturday morning; two jailed persons have died from the virus. According to the New York Times, seven jail staffers have died due to coronavirus as of Wednesday.
New Jersey governor Phil Murphy has issued an executive order requiring face coverings for all customers entering restaurants and bars to pick up carry-out food in the state.
Murphy’s order, which goes into effect on Monday at 8pm, comes as New Jersey’s numbers continue to surge with at least 58,151 cases and 2,183 deaths due to Covid-19 – including 3,599 new positive tests and 251 new fatalities in the last 24 hours – second only to New York nationally.
“Some may view this as another inconvenience,” Murphy said during his daily press briefing on Saturday in Trenton. “But you know what would be really inconvenient, is if you ended up in hospital with Covid-19 or if you infected a family member. We accept this is inconvenient.”
The order also includes a directive for NJ Transit and private carriers to cut all rail and bus capacity by 50% in an effort to curb the spread and for all transit workers to be provided face masks and gloves.
Every US state is now under a disaster declaration
Wyoming has become the 50th, and final, US state to be under a disaster declaration following approval by Donald Trump on Saturday. That means for for the first time in history every US state is under a disaster declaration. The US Virgin islands, the Northern Mariana Islands, the District of Columbia, Guam and Puerto Rico are also under disaster declarations, which allow federal funds to be used by state and local governments during the pandemic.
“Though Wyoming has not reached the dire situations of some states, this declaration will help us to prepare and mobilize resources when we need them,” said Wyoming’s governor, Mark Gordon, in a statement after requesting the declaration earlier this week.
There have been 253 confirmed cases of Covid-19 in Wyoming to date. Wyoming is the least populated state in the US. So far there have been no deaths from Covid-19 among its 578,000 residents.
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The US government has executed the Defense Production Act for the law’s first project during the Covid-19 outbreak. The act allows the government to order private industry to assist in the defense of the nation. The $133m project will “increase domestic production capacity of N95 masks to over 39m in the next 90 days,” according to a government press release. The release said that the companies involved in the project will be released in the coming days.
Coronavirus continues to take its toll on the emergency services. The New York Fire Department says that 714 of its members have tested positive for Covid-19 and approximately 2,700 of the department are currently sick or on medical leave. That’s a striking number given that the FDNY has a total of 17,000 members, a number that includes firefighters EMS and civilians.
The archbishop of New Orleans, Gregory Aymond, is one of nearly 20,000 residents of Louisiana to have tested positive for Covid-19, so it’s no surprise he took precautions when giving his Good Friday blessing.
The Times-Picayune/New Orleans Advocate reports that the 70-year-old, who has now recovered from the virus, sprinkled holy water from a second world war-era biplane above the city. “When I first did it, the water came back on me,” Aymond said, “but then I got situated.”
He was not the first religious leader to fly above the city this month. Rabbi Lexi Erdheim of the Congregation Gates of Prayer Synagogue in Metairie flew in the same plane as the archbishop to offer a Passover blessing. “It was really powerful, seeing everything at once,” she said, “especially after being inside the same four walls for so long.”
Aymond said he was cautious at first about flying in a plane that is older than himself. “I asked some questions about the plane,” he said. “Eventually my questions became trust.”
The US navy dismissed Brett Crozier, the commander of the USS Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier, earlier this month after he raised the alarm about an outbreak of coronavirus on his ship. The acting secretary of the US navy, Thomas Modly, subsequently resigned after he said Crozier was “too naive or too stupid” to captain the ship.
Meanwhile, Crozier’s concerns continue to look justified. CNN reports that 550 of the ship’s sailors have tested positive for Covid-19. Fox News reports that that figure is 75% of the total number of members of the US navy to have tested positive for the virus worldwide. One member of the ship’s crew is understood to be in intensive care in Guam.
New Jersey has the second most deaths from Covid-19 of any state in the US. The state’s governor, Phil Murphy, has said customers entering restaurants and bars for takeouts must now wear a facemask, while capacity on public transport will be cut by 50% in an effort to control the outbreak. Murphy said on Saturday that 251 people had died of the virus in New Jersey over the last 24 hours, bringing the total to 2,183 since the outbreak began.
Over the past 24 hours, we’ve lost 251 more New Jerseyans to #COVID19 related complications.
— Governor Phil Murphy (@GovMurphy) April 11, 2020
We’ve lost a total of 2,183 members of our New Jersey family.
It is for them, and for every family, that we are committed to defeating this invisible enemy.
Murphy added that he believed measures to slow the spread of the virus are working but there is still work to do. “The curve is flattening,” he said. [But] we’re not in the end zone folks, we cannot spike any footballs, we’re not even first and goal.”
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Richard Luscombe has an update from behind the scenes at the White House.
A devastating New York Times report published on Saturday chronicles Donald Trump’s repeated failures over several months to take the coronavirus crisis seriously, and how his suspicion of the so-called Deep State “colored” his tortoise-paced response even as the death toll from Covid-19 began to soar.
The newspaper paints a picture of a chronically divided White House, with scientists and medical experts at odds with, and often losing out to, Trump’s political, economic and financial advisers in the battle for the president’s ear.
The internal wranglings, the Times says, slowed any clear, consistent or timely decision-making against the backdrop of Trump’s impeachment and trial in the US Senate.
“Mr Trump’s response was colored by his suspicion of and disdain for what he viewed as the ‘Deep State’ - the very people in his government whose expertise and long experience might have guided him more quickly toward steps that would slow the virus, and likely save lives,” the report, compiled and written by six New York Times reporters, claims.
“The shortcomings of Mr Trump’s performance have played out with remarkable transparency as part of his daily effort to dominate television screens and the national conversation,” it adds, referring to the president’s rambling and falsehood-ridden press briefings from the White House, which even Republican allies believe are hurting his popularity.
The Times article adds more recent detail to the Guardian’s in-depth investigation of Trump’s missing six weeks published two weeks ago. Our reporting found that a botched rollout of testing, the administration’s decision to disband the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s pandemic response team and Trump’s reliance on his own hunches over professional medical advice contributed to the confusion and lack of leadership at a critical moment for the US.
Specifically, the Times notes that it was Trump’s fear of, and belief in the existence of a ‘Deep State’ – a conspiracy theory dismissed by even his closest allies as “for nut cases” – that caused him to ignore warnings from government experts. “He could have seen what was coming,” the Times headline says.
New York governor Andrew Cuomo and New York City mayor Bill de Blasio once again had differing opinions on who has authority to implement certain Covid-19 policies.
This time, it involved De Blasio’s announcement on Saturday morning that New York City schools would remain closed for the rest of the school year. De Blasio said his administration is forging a “comprehensive plan” to safely reopen schools in September and that “next year is going to have to be the greatest academic year New York public schools have ever had.”
At Cuomo’s daily press briefing shortly thereafter, however, the governor contended “there has been no decision on [closing New York City] schools.”
Cuomo added: “When we made the decision to close the schools, we made it for the entire region. Any decision to reopen them will also be a coordinated decision.”
Cuomo was then pressed on the topic and De Blasio’s earlier statements. “That’s his opinion. He didn’t close them and he can’t open them,” Cuomo said “It happened on a metropolitan-wide basis and we’ll act on a metropolitan basis, coordinating with Nassau, Suffolk and Westchester [counties].”
Cuomo insisted school closures and reopenings were his call. “It is my legal authority in this situation,” he told reporters.
Freddi Goldstein, De Blasio’s press secretary, took issue with Cuomo’s comments.
The Governor's reaction to us keeping schools closed is reminiscent of how he reacted when the Mayor called for a shelter in place. We were right then and we're right now.
— Freddi Goldstein (@FreddiGoldstein) April 11, 2020
Schools will remain closed, just like how we eventually - days later - moved to a shelter in place model.
“The Governor’s reaction to us keeping schools closed is reminiscent of how he reacted when the Mayor called for a shelter in place. We were right then and we’re right now,” she tweeted. “Schools will remain closed, just like how we eventually – days later – moved to a shelter in place model.”
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A TV news channel in Mississippi has found a church pastor who says he plans to hold an in-person Easter Sunday service – in contravention of a mayor’s executive order – because he’s upset that more people will be at home improvement stores tomorrow than would be permitted in his congregation.
“It’s kinda hard for me to understand why I can only have 10 in a worship service when I go to Lowe’s, Home Depot, and there are more than 10,” Jesse Horton Sr, pastor at Jackson’s Emmanuel Baptist missionary church, told WAPT-TV.
“Why is it that everything else can be open?”
Chokwe Antar Lumumba, the mayor of Jackson, has taken a hard line on a coronavirus lockdown, challenging the authority of Tate Reeves, the Mississippi governor, and threatening to cut off electricity to any businesses that defy his instructions.
“If you live in the city of Jackson, you take my executive order,” said Lumumba, who has signed a directive outlawing gatherings of more than 10 people. Conversely, as in many other states, Reeves’ own stay-at-home order appears to exempt religious services at houses of worship.
Horton says he plans to press ahead with his Easter service tomorrow, but promises to shut it down if Jackson cops show up to enforce the order.
“We will likely have more than 10. We will be sitting in space. I’m going to say to the congregation, ‘Let’s be as safe as possible. Let’s not do anything foolish’,” he said.
Horton’s is not the only Mississippi church making waves in the debate over religious freedoms during the pandemic. Greenville’s Temple Baptist Church is suing the city government and mayor for breaking up a drive-in service it recently staged, and issuing $500 fines to attendees, according to the Washington Times.
The church insists it followed state and federal guidelines and that those who attended remained in their vehicles with windows fully closed, turning into the service on their car radios.
“This is government overreach,” Kristen Waggoner, general counsel of the Alliance Defending Freedom, a religious rights law firm, said in a tweet.
“If [the] government allows waiting in a car at Sonic it should permit a drive-thru Easter service. [The] first amendment is not completely suspended, nor does government have unlimited authority to target churches however they please.”
The Greenville mayor Errick Simmons told the newspaper he hadn’t seen the lawsuit but that the city’s actions were to save lives and not intended to restrict religious freedoms.
Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau says his country faces a “fork in the road” after public health officials revealed a projected death toll between 11,000 and 22,000.
“We will not be coming back to our former normal situation; we can’t do that until we have developed a vaccine and that could take 12 to 18 months,” Trudeau said in an address to the House of Commons in Ottawa. “We don’t exactly know how long – we hope it’s earlier rather than later.”
He adds: “Over the coming weeks and months, we will face a number of obstacles. We will go through periods of uncertainty. Fear and uncertainty will continue to be a part of our daily lives. And unfortunately, together, we will mourn the loss of loved ones. Even if we take every possible precaution, the situation may get worse before it gets better. That is the sad reality our country faces. Our determination to put an end to this virus and our commitment to look out for one another will be put to the test, but I know that we are up to the challenge.”
US passes Italy to record most coronavirus deaths
The US is poised to reach 19,000 confirmed coronavirus deaths – more than any other country, new data indicates.
On Saturday morning, Johns Hopkins University’s tally of US Covid-19 fatalities was at 18,860. Italy followed in fatalities, with 18,849.
The US was also the first country to report 2,000 deaths in a single day, with 2,108 people dying in the previous 24 hours.
The US outbreak, now exceeding a half-million confirmed cases, outpaces Spain, the country with the second-most confirmed cases, by approximately 340,000.
“To the extent it’s flattering I appreciate it,” Cuomo says of the speculation about his running for higher office, before going out of his way to shut it town. “There is no politics here. I have no political agenda, period. I’m not running for president, I’m not running vice-president. I’m not running anywhere. I’m not going to Washington. I’m staying right here. I said to the people of this state, unequivocally, when I was running for governor, I will serve as your governor. Well they all say that, and then they do something different.
“I’m not that person. I am going to do what i said I was going to do.”
Cuomo says “there has been no decision on (closing New York City) schools”, appearing to trump De Blasio’s announcement from earlier this morning,
“When we made the decision to close the schools, we made it for the entire region,” Cuomo says. “Any decision to reopen them will also be a coordinated decision.”
When pressed, the governor is more explicit: “That’s his opinion. He didn’t close them and he can’t open them. It happened on a metropolitan-wide basis and we’ll act on a metropolitan basis, coordinating with Nassau, Suffolk and Westchester (counties).”
Cuomo has spent a good deal of time on the weight of the re-opening decision.
“Re-opening is both a public health question and an economic question, and I’m unwilling to divorce the two,” Cuomo says. “There is no economic answer that does not attend to public health. In my opinion, you can’t ask the people of this state and this country to choose between lives lost and dollars gained, No one is going to make that quid pro quo. I understand the need to bring back the economy as quickly as possible, I understand people need to work. I also know we need to save lives and we have. One cannot be at the expense of the other.”
He adds: “The worst thing that can happen is we make a misstep and we let our emotions get ahead of logic and fact and we go through this again.”
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“There’s no doubt I have worked hand in glove with the president here,” says Cuomo, who stresses the need to keep politics out of any decision to re-open. “[Trump] has really responded to New York’s needs.”
The governor elaborates on the multiple models and forecasters that have projected greater death tolls than what have been realized so far, emphasizing that it’s far too soon to tell when everything will be over and when things can go back to normal.
“I say it’s too soon to tell, it’s too soon for Monday morning quarterbacking, because the game isn’t even over yet,” Cuomo says. “What do you think we’re in, the sixth inning for baseball? You think were at halftime if it’s a football game? You don’t know yet what the actual issue is going to be, and you don’t know yet how this turns out, because many decisions have to be made. You have to re-open, you have to decide how to re-open, you have to decide when to re-open. And that is going to be impactful. We don’t know if there’s going to be a second wave or not. All of these things are yet to come, so anyone who wants to say, well, here’s the score at halftime and I’m going to now claim try to collect my bet because it’s halftime, it doesn’t work that way. The game has to be over and this game isn’t over.”
New York governor Andrew Cuomo starts with the good news at his daily coronavirus briefing from Albany: “The curve of the increase is continuing to flatten. The number of hospitalizations appears to have hit an apex and the apex appears to be a plateau.”
With the US on the edge of passing Italy as the country with the most coronavirus deaths – by some counts it already has – the governor announced 783 deaths in New York on Friday, raising the total to 8,627.
Cuomo said the death rate in the state was “stabilizing” but was clear that this is still a terrible outbreak: the death rate was stabilizing “at a horrific rate”, he said, causing ‘incredible loss and pain’.
“People ask: well, when is it over, when is it over, when it is over?” Cuomo says. “Winston Churchill said: Now this is not the end, it is not even the beginning of the end, but it is perhaps the end of the beginning. It’s just a great Churchill quote, it’s precise and how he uses language. I think that’s a fair statement of where we are now.”
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A federal judge on Friday granted temporary bail to Michael Avenatti after the former Stormy Daniels lawyer voiced coronavirus concerns at the Manhattan federal jail where he was being held. Avenatti was convicted in the Southern District of New York this February of trying to extort sportswear titan Nike.
He was arrested in California shortly before this trial for allegedly violating bail, leading to his detention in Manhattan’s Metropolitan Correctional Center. Avenatti still faces another federal trial in Manhattan, for allegedly defrauding Daniels, as well as a federal fraud trial in California.
In arguing for bail, Avenatti’s lawyer said in an 18 March court filing that he is among the “most-at-risk for contracting Covid-19” both because he is a “detained prisoner, and therefore far more susceptible to the virus” as well as a recent bout of pneumonia.
Central District of California judge James Selna agreed to release Avenatti for 90 days on a $1m bond. Avenatti is also required to be quarantined in a federal Bureau of Prisons facility for 14 days. He must wear a “location monitoring bracelet” and is not allowed to “possess, use, or access any digital devices that offer or allow internet access”.
Avenatti also is not permitted to “open, either directly or indirectly, any new bank accounts, credit card accounts, or other financial Accounts,” or conduct “any financial transactions exceeding $500” without prior approval, Selna said in his decision.
A report from our man in Miami, on Donald Trump’s man in Florida, Republican governor Ron DeSantis, and his uneven response to the coronavirus crisis…
It’s been another bumpy week for Florida’s governor Ron DeSantis, previously criticised for his slow response to the pandemic and now under fire for falsely claiming that nobody under 25 had died of coronavirus.
Teachers in South Florida fear that DeSantis’s incorrect statement, made at a roundtable discussion on Thursday, indicated his desire to reopen schools in the state soon.
“I don’t think nationwide there’s been a single fatality under 25. For whatever reason it just doesn’t seem to threaten kids,” the governor said, before going on to say such “data” should be a factor in a decision to reopen schools in two-week increments.
The statement was not true.
Dr Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious diseases expert, debunked it at Friday’s White House press briefing and warned that students would likely get infected if schools opened too early. DeSantis himself tried to walk back the comment at his own Friday briefing, insisting he had meant nobody under 25 had died in Florida, which is true.
But it didn’t save him a dressing-down from the United Teachers of Dade union, which accused the governor of gambling with the health of students and school employees.
“The notion that reopening our schools is an option because ‘if you’re younger, it just hasn’t had an impact’ is not only completely contradictory to what we know to be the facts of this pandemic, it is dangerous for our communities at large,” union president Karla Mats said in a statement.
“It takes teachers, administrators, bus drivers, cafeteria workers, custodians, and a host of other folks to make sure [schools] function and run accordingly. Many would be placed at great risk through this type of exposure, not to mention their families.”
The missteps appear to be taking a toll on DeSantis’s popularity, according to the Tampa Bay Times. In an article on Saturday, the newspaper says support for the governor has plummeted while that for his counterparts in other states has soared, linking to a Microsoft News poll that ranked DeSantis third-worst nationwide at handling the pandemic.
De Blasio closes by wishing New Yorkers a happy Easter despite the outbreak and lockdown.
“God bless all New Yorkers in the middle of this incredibly difficult crisis,” he says, leaving the stage.
De Blasio is asked about the impact of the coronavirus crisis in the Bronx, the poorest of the five boroughs of New York City.
“There are real disparities in how this crisis is playing out,” he says, citing “a cycle of unfairness that’s playing out very painfully and deeply”.
The question focuses on education needs in the Bronx with the New York public schools system shut down until September.
Once again – here’s Ed Pilkington and Ankita Rao’s report about the Bronx and its place within the crisis in New York City:
In the New York presser, De Blasio is asked if social distancing guidelines in the city might be tightened further. He would do so if it became necessary, he says. For example he could tighten the definition of what is essential work even further, or limit the number of people who are allowed to do it.
But De Blasio adds: “I don’t think it’s healthy to do theoreticals either way”, referring to being asked to describe how social restrictions might alternatively be loosened.
“Here is a plan that New Yorkers are actually making work,” he adds, even though the city is not out of the woods yet. He wants strict enforcement and sustained progress, before talking about “some loosening up”.
US poised to pass Italy as country with most coronavirus deaths
Our reporter takes a look at grim milestone expected today, and what Donald Trump and federal experts have said about prospects of returning to normalcy:
The US was poised on Saturday to reach 19,000 confirmed coronavirus deaths – more than any other country, new data indicate. The US outbreak, now exceeding a half-million confirmed cases, outpaces Spain, the country with the second-most confirmed cases, by approximately 340,000.
On Saturday morning, Johns Hopkins University’s tally of US Covid-19 fatalities was at 18,777. Italy continued to lead in fatalities, with 18,849, but the US was also the first country to report 2,000 deaths in a single day, with 2,108 people dying in the previous 24 hours.
Researchers at John Hopkins have tallied a total of 501,615 confirmed US cases. Spain follows with 161,852. Italy ranks third, at 147,577. There have been 29,191 reported recoveries in the US, the researchers also said.
Worldwide coronavirus deaths now total 103,795. Confirmed cases have reached 1,712,674. Recorded worldwide recoveries total 353,706.
The US coronavirus crisis is widely recognized to have been exacerbated by slow federal responses and patchwork state-level approaches.
White House expert Dr Deborah Birx has said there are positive signs that the outbreak is stabilising, but warned: “We have not reached the peak.”
Dr Anthony Fauci, the top US expert on infectious diseases, recently said the US outbreak will approach its end when new infections number almost zero, with the number of deaths close behind.
“I believe that in a few months, hopefully, that we’ll get it under control enough that it won’t be as frightening as it is now, but it will not be an absent threat,” Fauci told The New York Times.
On MSNBC on Friday, Fauci was asked about the presidential election: “If you had your way, and I know November to a lot of people seems a long time from now, would people in all 50 states have the right and ability to vote by mail?”
Fauci indicated that was not his area of expertise, according to Mediaite, replying: “I would hope that by November we would have things under such control that we could have a real degree of normality. That’s my interest and my job as a public health person.”
Questions about normalcy are especially fueled by the stalled US economy, as coronavirus-related business closures and slowdowns have caused 16 million people to lose their jobs.
Donald Trump has pushed for a reopening of the economy and reportedly hopes to do so by May. But the president has qualified this hope somewhat, saying at Friday’s press briefing: “I want to get it open as soon as possible … I would love to open it. I’m not determined.”
Trump is expected to next week announce a council of medical and business leaders who will assist him with the “biggest decision I’ve ever had to make”: When to reopen America for business amidst a global pandemic.
Health experts have warned that prematurely lifting stay-at-home restrictions could prompt a “deadly resurgence” of coronavirus.
Answering questions from the press, De Blasio says New York can plan to reopen its public school system, the largest in the US, in September as that may be a time when “things will get more back to normal” in the city.
But it isn’t a hard target or a sure one, of course.
De Blasio details new moves being taken to protect New York City’s homeless from the coronavirus outbreak. By 20 April, he says, 6,000 single adult New Yorkers who are homeless will have been moved to hotels rather than normal homeless shelters. Those transferred to hotels and afforded isolation conditions will include seniors and those with Covid-19, the mayor says.
Here again is Ed Pilkington and Ankita Rao’s piece on coronavirus and the “Two New Yorks”…
“Having to tell you that we cannot bring our schools back for the remainder of this school year is painful, but I can also tell you it is the right thing to do,” De Blasio said.
He adds that the city will work with parents towards reopening the city’s public schools in September. He says the city will ensure every child who needs an iPad or computer will have one by the end of April, as so many children do not have such devices of their own: De Blasio says 240,000 more will go out.
Helplines for parents in multiple languages will be expanded, he says, and a lot more creative at-home programming is coming too. Seniors looking forward to graduating high school will be supported in order to graduate on time – a full plan will be out next week, the mayor says.
De Blasio says his administration is working on a “comprehensive plan” for reopening in September in a safe way and in a way that will help disadvantaged students and everyone affected.
“Next year is going to have to be the greatest academic year New York public schools have ever had,” De Blasio adds.
Updated
New York schools to stay closed for rest of school year
In New York, Mayor Bill de Blasio has announced that public schools will stay closed for the rest of the academic year. Here’s a link to his press conference:
BREAKING: @NYCMayor and @DOEChancellor Carranza announce @NYCSchools will remain closed for the remainder of the school year.
— City of New York (@nycgov) April 11, 2020
Tune in for more: https://t.co/urXDXoyKlw
I’m a parent of two children in such schools and one in a pre-school subject to the same rules. So the attempt to teach Spanish at the kitchen table will continue until June. Ah, well.
And now, Monty Python-style, the news for giraffes. And for humans seeking good news amid so much bad.
The Audobon Nature Institute in New Orleans, a city hit hard by Covid-19, has announced the birth of a giraffe named Hope, to a giraffe named Sue Ellen.
“What name could be more fitting than ‘Hope’ in these challenging times?” Audobon president and chief executive Ron Forman told the Associated Press.
“Hope is what has sustained our community through seemingly insurmountable crises in the past and what we must hold onto as we continue on in the coming days and weeks. May we all take comfort in the reminder that, even in the darkest of days, life continues, undaunted.”
The teetering ruminant was born 6ft tall, weighing 189lbs.
Like other zoos, aquariums and wildlife parks, the Audubon Nature Institute has been forced to close its facilities to the public during the coronavirus outbreak and, the AP reports, is asking the federal government for funds.
Here’s Jonathan Watts on some other heartwarming zoo news:
Congressional Republican leaders Mitch McConnell (Senate) and Kevin McCarthy (House) are out with a statement seeking to pressure Democrats over relief efforts for the staggering US economy.
The Republicans want a “clean” increase in funding, under the CARES Act stimulus bill passed last month, for the Paycheck Protection Program, which aims to help small businesses.
Democrats Chuck Schumer (Senate) and Nancy Pelosi (House) want more money for hospitals and state and local governments.
That is of course putting things absurdly simply.
Here’s the Republican statement in full, via CNN’s Phil Mattingly:
Joint @senatemajldr/@GOPLeader statement in additional small business loan program funds: “We will continue to seek a clean PPP funding increase.” pic.twitter.com/iFQrUsgM1r
— Phil Mattingly (@Phil_Mattingly) April 11, 2020
Andrew Cuomo, the governor of New York, hasn’t announced the time for his daily briefing yet but usually they come along around 11am ET, an hour or so from now.
Cuomo’s handling of the crisis in the worst-hit US state has been generally praised, even to the extent of insistent reports that some Democrats would like him to replace Joe Biden as the party’s likely nominee to face Donald Trump in November. For what it’s worth, Cuomo has flatly denied any interest in that. (And done so to his brother, Chris Cuomo, a CNN anchor who has coronavirus himself.) Here’s the New York Times on how Cuomo and Biden get along.
On Friday, meanwhile, Governor Cuomo did what a lot of US politicians like to do and quoted Winston Churchill:
“Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” —Winston Churchill
— Andrew Cuomo (@NYGovCuomo) April 10, 2020
Churchill quotes are notoriously tricky things, because he often didn’t say what most people now believe he did. Cuomo, at least, is on safe ground here: it’s from a speech on 10 November 1942, after Britain had managed a victory over Nazi Germany, at El Alamein, but when as it would turn out there were nearly three years left to fight.
The New York numbers again, according to Johns Hopkins:
- 174,489 cases
- 7,887 deaths
And here’s Ed Pilkington and Ankita Rao’s devastating piece on how when it comes to the coronavirus there are two New York Cities, with drastically different experiences:
The coronavirus outbreak has ravaged the US economy and pitched hundreds of thousands of households into peril, without paychecks and with even food supply uncertain. From Texas, a stunning story and images from the San Antonio Express-News:
In perhaps the most sobering reminder yet of the economic fallout caused by the coronavirus pandemic, the San Antonio Food Bank aided about 10,000 households Thursday in a record-setting giveaway at a South Side flea market.
“It was a rough one today,” said Food Bank president and CEO Eric Cooper after the largest single-day distribution in the nonprofit’s 40-year history. “We have never executed on as large of a demand as we are now.”
Thursday’s drive-thru at Traders Village was the fourth such event for the Food Bank since 31 March … about 6,000 households preregistered for Thursday’s distribution on the Food Bank’s website, Cooper said. But thousands more showed up, hoping to put something on their tables.
Here’s a screengrab of the front page of the paper:
Here, meanwhile, is Adam Gabbatt’s recent report about what the coronavirus crisis means for local papers such as the Express-News. It’s not good, as Penny Abernathy, Knight chair in journalism and digital media economics at the University of North Carolina, predicts a swath of newspaper and website closures.
“I think there’ll be hundreds, not dozens,” Abernathy said. “An extinction-level event will probably hit the smaller ones really hard, as well as the ones that are part of the huge chains.”
A worrying report from the Associated Press, about how the coronavirus is affecting the Navajo Nation, about whose attempts to tackle the outbreak Nina Lakhani reported earlier this month:
Two leaders of the largest Native American reservation in the US are in self-quarantine as the Navajo Nation prepares for a weekend-long curfew aimed at curbing the coronavirus outbreak.
The virus has swept with ferocity through the Navajo Nation, a 27,000-square-mile reservation which spans parts of Arizona, New Mexico and Utah. The tribe has recorded nearly 600 cases and 22 deaths.
Navajo president Jonathan Nez and vice-president Myron Lizer are quarantining themselves as a precaution after being in close proximity with a first responder who later tested positive. They say they donned masks and gloves while visiting communities and are following protocols to isolate.
Their decision came as the tribe prepared for the 57-hour reservation-wide curfew that began Friday at 8pm. Strict enforcement has been promised, with Navajo police able to issue citations that may include fines up to $1,000 or jail time.
“With the number of positive cases rising, it’s imperative that we make smart decisions to protect the ones we love,” Nez said on Friday. “Please think of our grandmothers and grandfathers and those with underlying conditions. Let us also remember that we … are strong, our ancestors overcame many atrocities, for us to be here today – let’s honor their sacrifices by making good decisions.”
Access to healthcare and medical supplies is a concern on the Navajo Nation and in other tribal communities in the south-western US that have seen spikes in the number of cases over the past week.
A philanthropic effort announced by former New Mexico governor Bill Richardson is the latest aimed at getting more supplies to the Navajo Nation. The national guard in Arizona and New Mexico have helped.
Former Navajo president and chairman Peterson Zah said his community had resorted to curfews appropriately to avoid panic but the reaction to the first faraway US coronavirus outbreaks was too gradual.
“It’s like rain,” he said. “You’re way out in the desert, like on the Navajo Nation, and you look out during the summer and you know that the rain is coming because the clouds are billowing up and you’ve got to prepare. People started running around when it started raining. Before the rain came, we should have been all in sync with one another.”
Here’s Nina’s report in full:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/apr/02/navajo-nation-grassroots-self-help-coronavirus
Good morning …
… and welcome to another day of coverage of the coronavirus outbreak in the US.
Sobering news this Saturday morning, as researchers at Johns Hopkins University put the US on course to overtake Italy as the country with the most confirmed Covid-19 deaths, with nearly 19,000, after recording more than 2,000 deaths in one day. By Johns Hopkins’ count there have been more than 102,000 deaths worldwide, 18,849 of them in Italy.
The same count says there have been more than 500,000 cases confirmed in the US, with New York at nearly 175,000 cases and nearly 8,000 deaths. In New York on Friday, Governor Andrew Cuomo reported a leap of more than 700 deaths, but also reported that hospitalisations are remaining relatively flat.
New Jersey has recorded nearly 2,000 deaths and Michigan nearly 1,300.
At the White House on Friday, task force member Dr Deborah Birx said that despite encouraging signs that the outbreak in the US is beginning to level off, “We have not reached the peak.”
Here’s our interactive map, based on those Johns Hopkins figures:
At the same White House briefing, Donald Trump mused further about the need to reopen the US economy, although he did indicate he would defer to experts including Dr Birx as the end of current federal social distancing guidelines, on 30 April, draws near. Here’s Washington bureau chief David Smith’s report.
There is no coronavirus taskforce briefing on the White House schedule today. Of course, that can change if the president decides he wants to talk to the press – and chase his precious ratings, particularly as his polling numbers drop. He did so last Sunday.
Debate continues in the US over whether major broadcasters and news outlets should carry the briefings, at which the president is somewhat prone to make misleading claims, attack journalists and indulge in rather naked electioneering.
More to come – in the meantime here’s David Smith again, with a look at the symbiotic relationship between Trump and Fox News, and how it has shaped America’s Covid-19 response:
