Live reporting on the coronavirus in the US continues on Tuesday’s blog:
Summary
That’s all for our live coverage today, thanks for following along. You can continue following our live global Covid-19 coverage here. Some key links and developments from the day in US politics and coronavirus:
- New York’s governor said the number of cases were now in a “descent”.
- Anti-lockdown protests emerged in Pennsylvania, California and elsewhere.
- Nearly 100 American transit workers have died from the coronavirus as basic measures to keep employees safe have lagged in cities across the United States, a Guardian US investigation has found.
- US oil prices dipped below zero for first time on record.
- Anthony Fauci has warned that if the US moves too quickly to end stay-at-home orders there could be another surge in Covid-19 cases.
- Maryland’s Republican governor directly obtained 500,000 tests from South Korea, prompting criticisms from Trump.
- Some states, including Georgia and South Carolina, announced plans to soon reopen businesses.
- The WHO’s director general said that no details about the coronavirus outbreak were hidden from the US by the organization.
- The Senate failed to reach a deal on the next coronavirus relief bill.
- Mike Bloomberg, the former New York mayor who had a short-lived campaign for president, spent more than $1bn on the race, according to filings out today.
- A number of former Bernie Sanders’ supporters in Congress have officially endorsed Joe Biden.
From the Guardian’s Washington DC bureau chief, a recap of today’s press confernece:
Donald Trump delivered another White House briefing that suggested while he does not have much of a pandemic strategy, he does have a political one.
The US president framed state governors’ demand for ventilators as merely the latest strategic attempt to tear him down, as if akin to the Russia investigation or his impeachment. “It was all ventilators, and the reason it was all ventilators – they said, ‘There’s no way he’ll be able catch this one’. And not only did we catch it, we are now the king of ventilators all over the world.
“We have thousands being made a week and they’re very high quality and that wasn’t playing well, so then they said, ‘Testing, testing, ah, we’ll get him on testing’. Well, testing is much easier than ventilators.”
In fact governors’ demands for ventilators were based on the White House’s own projections and, far from being new, their pleas for testing go back many weeks. Trump’s words are also unlikely to comfort the afflicted for whom a ventilator is a lifeline.
Later at Monday’s briefing, the president’s ability to show empathy was again in question.
Yamiche Alcindor of PBS News recalled one of her interviewees: “A man said his entire family got sick because they listened to you and didn’t stay home. Are you concerned that downplaying the virus got people sick?”
Trump’s stunning reply: “A lot of people love Trump, right. A lot of people love me, you see them all the time, right. I guess I’m here for a reason. To the best of my knowledge, I won, and I think we’re gonna win again. I think we’re gonna win in a landslide.”
The president went on to tout his travel restrictions on China, adding that “before March” he also banned travel from Europe (it was in fact announced on 11 March). The back and forth continued. Trump asserted: “I haven’t left the White House in months except for a brief moment to give a wonderful ship, the Comfort –”
Alcindor interjected, accurately: “You held a rally in March.”
Caught red-handed, the president said: “I don’t know. Did I hold a rally? I’m sorry, I hold a rally. Did I hold a rally?”
For a moment, the illusionist’s mask had slipped. And it was at a briefing where, improbably, Trump had earlier invoked George Washington by declaring: “I cannot tell a lie.
More on Trump’s attacks on Maryland’s governor, Larry Hogan, over his decision to purchase tests from South Korea due to a shortage in his state: While the president claimed earlier that Hogan didn’t “understand” the list of labs available to do testing, Hogan actually said he was “in contact with every one” on the list, and wasn’t able to use certain labs that were federally run, according to an ABC reporter:
Trump says Gov. Hogan “did not really understand the list" provided by admin of labs in MD.Actually, per audio obtained, Hogan said he was “in contact with every one” of them & said he wasn't able to use some bc certain labs were federally run or controlled by DoD&were off limits
— Katherine Faulders (@KFaulders) April 20, 2020
Trump’s new press secretary did not dispute what ABC reported in a tweet response:
To you, he’s not Trump, he’s PRESIDENT Trump! https://t.co/EIgPTPDIuO
— Kayleigh McEnany (@PressSec) April 20, 2020
Bloomberg spent more than $1bn on failed campaign
Mike Bloomberg, the former New York mayor who had a short-lived campaign for president, spent more than $1bn on the race, according to filings out today:
We now know the total amount Bloomberg spent on his roughly 100-day campaign for president:
— Tarini Parti (@tparti) April 20, 2020
More than $ 1 billion https://t.co/CT543cfnhH
Bloomberg, one of the richest people in the world, dropped out after he lost race after race, ultimately only winning the tiny island territory of American Samoa in the Pacific.
Updated
The president has ended today’s briefing citing a range of different numbers for the potential deaths the US could have experienced, saying if the country hadn’t done lockdowns, there could have been 700,000 deaths, a million deaths, or maybe “millions”.
As of today, there have been more than 41,000 deaths recorded in the US. Experts fear that the country could experience surges and second waves if states reopen too soon and if there is not enough testing and contact tracing in place.
Fact check: Trump's campaign rallies
Defending his coronavirus record, Trump said: “I haven’t left the White House for months.”
In fact, he held a campaign rally in March. Asked about this, he responded, “Did I hold a rally? Sorry I held a rally.”
Fact check: Travel restrictions
Asked why he didn’t take the virus seriously in the early phases of its spread in the US, the president repeated his claims about that his travel restrictions against China made a difference and saved many lives: “People should say I acted very early.”
In fact, the administration’s travel policy did not cut off all travel from China. Although non-US citizens were prohibited from entering the country if they had traveled to China within the previous two weeks, American citizens, permanent residents and their immediate family members were exempt. Similarly, Trump’s European travel restrictions exempted citizens, residents and their families. And initially, the restrictions didn’t apply to the UK and Ireland, as well as most Eastern European countries.
Epidemiologists have told the Guardian that these policies likely had little impact, as they were enacted after the virus was already spreading within the US.“Unfortunately, travel bans sound good,” noted Bill Hanage, an epidemiologist at Harvard’s TH Chan School of Public Health, after Trump announced European restrictions. “But we’re way past the point where simply restricting travel is a reasonable response.”
The few studies so far that have investigated the impact of travel restrictions have found that such policies may have at best delayed the spread of disease by a few days or weeks. A recent article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that travel restrictions and airport screenings in several countries “likely slowed the rate of exportation from mainland China to other countries, but are insufficient to contain the global spread of COVID-19. And in China, where officials shut down travel both in and out of Wuhan, the city where the Covid-19 outbreak began, the travel ban barely slowed the spread of diseases, according to a report published in Science.
But there is no evidence that travel restrictions ultimately stopped the spread of coronavirus, or significantly reduced the contagion’s death toll.
Read more:
Trump has claimed that the criticisms of testing are “mostly partisan” and “not bipartisan”, then he discussed the criticisms by Maryland’s governor, Larry Hogan, who is a Republican: “He didn’t really know [about federal laboratory testing capacity]. Mike [Pence] doesn’t like to get into this stuff, he’s less controversial than I am.”
The governor has said he had to get tests from South Korea due to a shortage.
Trump on big businesses getting loans
A reporter asked Trump about the reports that large corporations are getting small business loans while actual small businesses are struggling to get the funds they desperately need. (Shake Shack, Ruth’s Chris and other chain restaurants have won loans while independent restaurants have spoken out about their difficulties accessing the support.)
Trump responded by joking that he didn’t win a loan: “I know one thing, I didn’t get any.” Regarding the loans to big businesses, he said:
We’ll look into. Some people will have to return it, if we think it’s inappropriate ... If somebody got something that they think is inappropriate we will get it back...”
Trump criticizes Maryland governor
Reporters have again asked about Maryland’s governor, Larry Hogan, ordering 500,000 tests from South Korea due to shortages. Brett Giroir, with the US Department of Health and Human Services, said there was “excess capacity” for testing and claimed he wasn’t sure why the governor made that deal. Vice president Mike Pence similarly said he has been in communication with Hogan, but also wasn’t sure why he did that.
Trump then attacked Hogan for securing tests, saying, “He could’ve saved a lot of money ... He needed to get a little knowledge, that would’ve been helpful.”
Regarding testing facilities in his state, Hogan just told CNN “more than half [of those listed by the federal government] in Maryland were federal facilities that we have desperately been trying to get help from, or military facilities”.
Trump on oil prices
Asked about oil prices, the president said: “It’s more of a financial thing than an oil situation.”
He also downplayed the news of oil prices tanking, saying “It’s very short term.”
A reporter has asked president about owners of small businesses who can’t access loans because of their criminal record. The reporter cited a specific case of someone who was previously convicted of a non-violent felony and employs people reentering society who has been forced to lay off employees because he can’t access loans.
The president responded, “He’s a criminal and he wanted to get a loan? I’ll look into that…”
Dr Deborah Birx, the coronavirus response coordinator for the White House, was just asked about South Carolina’s decision to reopen some businesses even though the state hasn’t yet met the criteria set by the task force guidelines. Dr Birx avoided criticizing the state, but said:
We have asked every governor to follow the guidelines.”
Fact check: states' tests
Vice president, Mike Pence, is speaking and has praised the testing efforts in Arizona, Florida, California, Michigan, and other states. He also claimed the US currently has “enough testing capacity” for every state to start phase one of the White House recommendations for re-opening their economies.
In fact, a number of governors have expressed concerns that the testing capacity is not yet adequate for reopening the country. Most prominently this week, Republican governor Larry Hogan of Maryland has said his state was dealing with a shortage and negotiated to get 500,000 tests from South Korea.
Maryland’s GOP governor pushes back on Trump’s criticism at briefing
At the briefing, the president defended the administration against complaints from some state governors, from both parties, that the federal government is not helping them get the type of testing for the spread of the virus that will help states plan for careful reopening of their economies.
Trump singled out Illinois’ governor JB Pritzker, a Democrat, and Maryland’s governor Larry Hogan, a Republican and the chairman of the national governors association.
Trump said that the federal government had sent to each state a lost of the testing facilities in their state, but claimed that Pritzker and Hogan didn’t understand what they had been told even though it was “very simple”.
Hogan moments ago went on CNN for a live interview and said that, as governor, he was well aware of the testing facilities in his state.
“We already know where the lab facilities are,” Hogan said. He added: “More than half [of those listed by the federal government] in Maryland were federal facilities that we have desperately been trying to get help from, or military facilities.”
Maybe someone fed those comments swiftly back to vice president Mike Pence in the WH briefing room, because he just declared that the administration would make such federal and military facilities “available to governors across the states.”
Updated
Fact check: testing quality
Trump is complaining, again, about the media’s coverage of ventilators, while also claiming that testing is going to be even easier for the US to handle than ventilators, since “ventilators are big machines” and “you need a group of people that really know what they are doing.” Complaining about the press, he said, “It used to be ventilators, ventilators, ventilators. Now it’s, testing, testing, testing.”
But, he claimed, “we are way advanced” on testing.
In fact, some of the initial coronavirus tests sent out to states were seriously flawed. Part of the problem came from the CDC shunning the World Health Organization (WHO) template for tests, and insisted on developing a more complicated version that correctly identified Covid-19, but also flagged other viruses – resulting in false positives.
Other countries – after their first coronavirus case – swiftly asked private companies to develop their own tests. South Korea, which recorded its first case on the same day as the US, did so within a week. The US only allowed laboratories and hospitals to conduct their own tests on 29 February, almost six weeks after the first case was confirmed.
Updated
Fact check: personal protective equipment
Trump is back at the podium and has claimed that there is no shortage or issue with personal protective equipment (PPE). Regarding masks and gloves and other critical supplies, the president said: “What we’re doing is delivering a number that nobody anywhere in the world is delivering.”
In fact, for weeks healthcare workers have been speaking out and even demonstrating outside hospitals at the life-threatening shortages of PPE.
Medical staff are reusing and recycling masks and gowns. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has already published crisis guidelines, which include workers potentially wearing homemade masks.
Doctors, nurses and other frontline health workers in the coronavirus crisis have taken to begging for equipment online, using the Twitter hashtag #GetMePPE.
In New York City, healthcare workers have been instructed to keep working, even if they have had high-risk exposure to coronavirus patients.
Here’s the CDC on 10 April:
PPE is used everyday by healthcare personnel (HCP) to protect themselves, patients, and others when providing care. PPE helps protect HCP from potentially infectious patients and materials, toxic medications, and other potentially dangerous substances used in healthcare delivery.
PPE shortages are currently posing a tremendous challenge to the US healthcare system because of the Covid-19 pandemic. Healthcare facilities are having difficulty accessing the needed PPE and are having to identify alternate ways to provide patient care.”
Read more:
Todd Semonite, the Army Corps of Engineers chief, is here at the press conference talking about hospital work during coronavirus. Trump took a break from talking about the pandemic to request that Semonite provide an update on construction of the president’s border wall, which continues during the Covid-19 crisis.
Trump told Semonite he could stay to keep watching the press conference, but Semonite declined, saying he had a lot of building to continue doing.
Read more on the continued construction of the border wall:
Fact check: testing access
The president also said there are efforts to ensure Americans have access to tests, including African Americans and Latinos who have been particularly hard hit by coronavirus.
Overall, the US had administered more than 3.5m coronavirus tests so far, according to the Covid Tracking Project. Recently, it matched the rate of testing per capita of South Korea, though countries, including Germany, have tested a larger proportion of its population.
From a very slow start, the US, with a population of 329 million, had ramped up to a testing rate of one in every 100 people — similar to South Korea. Germany has done even better, testing every 1 in 63 people.
The UK, however, is behind, having tested only 1 in 230 people.
In America, despite the recent increase in testing, backlogs are reported in labs across the country, and many people with symptoms — including health workers — are still struggling to access tests.
Read more:
Trump praised a conservative journalist, Rich Lowry, the editor of National Review, calling him “respected”. CNN’s fact checker notes that the president is not always a fan:
Trump cites a media-criticizing article from conservative journalist Rich Lowry, the editor of National Review. He calls Lowry "a respected journalist and person."
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) April 20, 2020
Trump's opinion of Lowry appears to depend on what Lowry has said most recently. pic.twitter.com/jBAVqMqzL9
Fact check: Ventilator shortages
Trump has complained again about the media coverage of ventilators, saying, “Ventilators, ventilators, ventilators! ... It was all ventilators ... We did a great job with the ventilators.” He said “at some point soon”, the US would be helping Mexico and Italy with ventilators.
It is true that some states, so far, have ended up with more ventilators than they originally projected they would need. California has loaned 500 ventilators to states like New York. California hospitals managed to increase their stock from 7,500 machines to more than 11,000, according to the state’s governor, Gavin Newsom. “That has put less strain and pressure on the state’s effort to procure additional ventilators,” Newsom said.
However, that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a national shortage. The US has roughly 173,000 ventilators, according to the Center for Health Security at Johns Hopkins University. Experts from Harvard Medical School predict that the US could end up needing 31 times that number to treat coronavirus patients.
An article in the New England Journal of Medicine published on Wednesday 25 March categorically concluded that the US does not have enough ventilators to treat patients with Covid-19 in the coming months.
The authors, American public health experts, wrote: “There is a broad range of estimates of the number of ventilators we will need to care for U.S. patients with Covid-19, from several hundred thousand to as many as a million. The estimates vary depending on the number, speed, and severity of infections, of course, but even the availability of testing affects the number of ventilators needed.... current estimates of the number of ventilators in the United States range from 60,000 to 160,000, depending on whether those that have only partial functionality are included. The national strategic reserve of ventilators is small and far from sufficient for the projected gap. No matter which estimate we use, there are not enough ventilators for patients with Covid-19 in the upcoming months.”
Read more:
Fact check: Andrew Cuomo's comments
Trump said New York’s governor, Andrew Cuomo, is coming to the White House tomorrow, and also implied Cuomo praised him today and that states like New York have the supplies they need.
The governor of New York, however, said in a late March briefing that the Trump administration had forced the states into a bidding war: “You have 50 states competing to buy the same item,” he said.
“We all wind up bidding up each other and competing against each other, where you now literally will have a company call you up and say, ‘Well, California just outbid you.’ It’s like being on eBay with 50 other states, bidding on a ventilator.”
Yesterday, Trump played misleading clips of a Cuomo press conference:
Fact check: Death rate
Trump claimed at the start of the press conference that the coronavirus death rate was better in the US than many other places in the world.
While the death rates in the US, both in comparison to the number of confirmed cases and in comparison to the population, are relatively good, they are not the best in the world (as Trump has said several times at recent briefings), based on the most reliable available data - which even experts agree may not be all that reliable.
Research by the US’s Johns Hopkins University showed that as of April 13, the death rate in the US was 4% of cases and 6.73 deaths per 100,000 population. That is significantly better than rates in hard hit countries such as Italy, Spain, the UK and France, and similar overall to Iran, which was also an early hotspot. But death rates are higher in the US than Germany, South Korea, Japan, Australia, and many other countries.
The death rate in China had been recorded as 4% of cases and 0.2 deaths per 100,000 population. That was before the Chinese government increased the official death toll from Wuhan, the original base of the outbreak, by 50%. And there are ongoing questions about all of China’s reported numbers in relation to the coronavirus.
Meanwhile, the New York Times has published a long and useful article detailing the enormous difficulties in pinpointing death rates in different countries and even different areas and populations within countries.
The virus swept in so quickly and is still so relatively new that we are only now grasping that there may be huge numbers of people who have or had Covid-19 without showing symptoms, have not been tested or who died at home or in a care home without that death ever being verified as resulting from coronavirus.
The New York Times gives a rough rule of thumb that, according to various unofficial Covid-19 trackers that calculate the death rate by dividing total deaths by the number of known cases, about 6.4% of people infected with the virus have now died worldwide. But it adds that “health officials and epidemiologists have estimated there are five to 10 people with infections for every confirmed case in some communities, and at least one estimate suggests there are far more”.
So ultimately the worldwide death rate, if it can ever be verified, is likely to be a much, much lower number than currently understood. And data for the US and other countries could change a lot going forward.
Updated
Trump press conference begins
The president is at the podium now, talking about his guidelines for reopening the country.
Joe Biden gets progressive House endorsements
While we wait for the White House briefing to begin, here’s some quick non-coronavirus news: a number of former Bernie Sanders’ supporters in Congress have officially endorsed Joe Biden:
New! Progressive House members lead by @RepBarbaraLee -- and joined @RepRoKhanna, who was formerly co-chair of @BernieSanders campaign -- are formally endorsing @JoeBiden today. pic.twitter.com/x4vwyhBk5x
— Carla Marinucci (@cmarinucci) April 20, 2020
Here’s my colleague Lauren Gambino’s report from the weekend on the questions of whether progressive favorite Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez will endorse Biden:
Republican convention moving 'full steam ahead'
Republican officials said the party’s national convention was going “full steam ahead”, CNN reports:
Republican Party Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel: RNC moving "full steam ahead" with convention plans but could reassess this summer https://t.co/H0otfKusQn pic.twitter.com/zVXHvAGbCw
— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) April 20, 2020
“We do not think at this time we have to switch to an alternative plan, but of course, we will monitor circumstances and adjust accordingly,” said the GOP chairwoman, Ronna McDaniel. The convention is currently scheduled for August in North Carolina.
Updated
Georgia's governor reopening businesses this week
Brian Kemp, the Republican governor of Georgia, has just announced that he plans to allow gyms, barbers, and hair stylists to reopen on Friday and that theaters and restaurants will be allowed to reopen the following week:
BREAKING: Gov. Kemp says business like gyms, barbers and hair stylists will be allowed to reopen Friday, April 24th. Theaters, restaurants to follow Monday, April 27. pic.twitter.com/5GOgbUBuik
— Jennifer Bellamy (@JBellamyTV) April 20, 2020
He said bars, nightclubs and performance venues would remain closed, and that elderly and at-risk populations should continue sheltering. At a press conference, he said the businesses should encourage precautions such as masks and social distancing.
His move to quickly reopen a wide range of public businesses is in sharp contrast to many other states that are continuing to do lockdowns to control the spread of the virus. The announcement has caused swift backlash and concerns that it will exacerbate the public health crisis:
Covid has killed nearly 700 Georgia residents and cases loads are still growing but that won’t stop Brian Kemp who cares more about showing his slavish loyalty to Trump than he does the people of his state. https://t.co/L6bVrm44xS
— b-boy bouiebaisse (@jbouie) April 20, 2020
Kemp recently faced scrutiny after admitting he had newly learned about the possibility of asymptomatic transmission, even though experts have warned about this from the start of the pandemic.
Eighteen days ago, Kemp said he'd just learned about asymptomatic transmission. https://t.co/o585z6WHaz
— Philip Bump (@pbump) April 20, 2020
More protests in California
Demonstrators protesting California’s stay-at-home order converged on the state capitol in Sacramento, the latest in a series of nationwide actions against government measures meant to curb the spread of coronavirus.
The protesters stood outside the statehouse, waving American flags, and generally were not practicing physical distancing. They held signs that ranged from “You Don’t Own Me” to “Give My Daughter Her Senior Year” to a Trump/Pence banner.
One livestreamer shouted that California governor, Gavin Newsom, “is a dictator”.
At his daily briefing, Newsom said his understanding of the protest was that the California Highway Patrol issued a permit for a 500-person protest because it would have physical distancing and the demonstrators would protest from their cars. “If you’re going to protest and practice your right of free speech, do so in a way that protects your health and the health of others.
However, while some circled the block in cars, honking, dozens more congregated on the street, standing closely to one another. A number of far-right groups have been involved in the the anti-lockdown demonstrations across the US.
Last week, Newsom provided a cautious glimpse at what it would take before he would consider modifying the state’s stay-at-home measures. He reminded the protesters that “there are many other parts of the globe that precipitously did move forward by opening up their economies again because of that frustration and angst only to see that they had had to pull back again”. Newsom noted Singapore, specifically.
“I deeply understand folks’ anxiety,” he said. “But we must have a health-first focus if we’re ultimately going to come back economically.”
There were 30,978 positive cases in California as of today, with 1,208 total deaths.
Updated
Los Angeles antibody study says Covid-19 more widespread
In Los Angeles, officials have released results of a key antibody study, estimating that 4.1% of the county’s population could have antibodies to coronavirus:
LA County just released the results of their antibody study. Tests found that 4.1% of the county's population has
— Soumya (@skarlamangla) April 20, 2020
antibodies to the coronavirus. That figure is 55 times higher than what is suggested by the official case count.
That estimate is significantly higher than the official number of Covid-19 cases in the county, which has suffered a substantial outbreak, and could mean the death rate and hospitalization rates are much lower than initial projections. It would also mean that more people recovered from coronavirus without getting tested or without knowing they were infected.
So the new antibody study shows upto 442,000 could have already gotten #Coronavirus in LA County. That means the death rate, hospitalization rates are far lower and a lot of people overcame without knowing or without getting tested.
— Richard Winton (@LAcrimes) April 20, 2020
The study suggests that the fatality rate in LA county could be between .09% and 0.15%, as opposed to current estimates of 4%, one LA Times reporter noted. There are, however, some important caveats to the data, and more research is needed:
The L.A. County Public Health Department cautioned healthcare providers last week against interpreting results from such tests “until there is additional data on their best use because of concerns of both false negative and false positive results.”
— Javier Panzar 🦅 (@jpanzar) April 20, 2020
https://t.co/gw8Vfd6sRg
A similar study in northern California last week also suggested the number of people infected with coronavirus may be tens of times higher than previously thought. Here’s my colleague Kari Paul’s report on this Stanford research:
Updated
Sam Levin in Los Angeles here, taking over our live coverage for the rest of the day. Trump’s press conference is due to begin at around 5:30pm EST, in about an hour. We’ll be covering live with fact checks and analysis.
In the meantime, the president’s company, the Trump Organization, has tweeted out a video where golfer John Daly falsely suggested that drinking a bottle of vodka a day could “kill” coronavirus, the Washington Post noted:
NEW: @realdonaldtrump's company tweeted out a video where pro golfer John Daly suggested you can "kill" coronavirus by drinking a bottle of vodka every day.https://t.co/Fo2CNgsggd
— David Fahrenthold (@Fahrenthold) April 20, 2020
Daly played golf with Trump last year.
Today so far
That’s it from me today. My west coast colleague, Sam Levin, will take over for the next few hours.
Here’s where the day stands so far:
- Andrew Cuomo said the federal government needed to provide assistance in navigating the “quagmire” of supply-chain issues around coronavirus testing. The New York governor agreed with Trump that states should take the lead on expanding testing capacity, but Cuomo emphasized states could not singlehandedly address gaps in the national supply chain of medical equipment needed to conduct tests.
- Maryland obtained 500,000 tests from South Korea, Republican governor Larry Hogan announced. Hogan said the acquisition followed weeks of negotiations with South Korea, and the announcement raised questions about governors circumventing the federal government to obtain medical equipment.
- A benchmark for crude oil prices entered negative territory for the first time on record. Demand for oil has collapsed amid the pandemic, forcing suppliers to try to find a way to store an unprecedented oversupply of crude.
- Anti-lockdown protests continued across the country. Demonstrators converged on the steps of the state capitol in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, to protest the statewide stay-at-home order, even as health experts have warned that relaxing restrictions too quickly could lead to a surge in coronavirus cases.
Sam will have more coming up, so stay tuned.
Two Democratic governors facing protests over their stay-at-home orders asked for the vice president’s help in communicating the need to practice social distancing, according to a report from ABC News.
ABC News reports:
After Trump both said it was up to governors how and when to implement or lift the orders -- but then criticized governors he said had gone too far -- the governors of Michigan and North Carolina asked Vice President Mike Pence to reiterate the need for social distancing, and Pence agreed to ‘make a point’ to do so.
The made the comments on a videoconference call with Pence focused on testing, according to an audio recording obtained by ABC News. ...
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, said she understood people in her state were getting frustrated and wanted to ‘do the wonderful American tradition of dissent and demonstration, but it’s just so dangerous to do that.’ She said she was worried about ‘spikes’ in cases spurned from protesters traveling from demonstrations to other parts of the state with lower infection rates.
The governors’ request comes after Trump sent a series of tweets Friday suggesting states should be liberated from stay-at-home orders, echoing messaging from right-wing protesters and raising concerns about the president’s supporters feeling encouraged to ignore the orders.
The Guardian’s Kenya Evelyn has more background on Maryland’s surprise deal to acquire 500,000 Covid-19 tests from South Korea:
Called “Operation Enduring Friendship,” the effort was launched on March 28. First lady Yumi Hogan, who is originally from South Korea, apparently played an integral role in negotiations.
Maryland governor Larry Hogan said, “When I asked my wife Yumi to join me on a call with Korea’s ambassador to the United States, we spoke of the special relationship between Maryland and the Republic of Korea, and we made a personal plea, in Korean, asking for their assistance.”
Hogan added the call was followed by “22 straight days of vetting, testing, negotiations and protocols” before a Korean Airlines jet flew the supplies to Baltimore-Washington International Airport on Saturday.
The operation was done in secret, a stark go-around of Trump, who has contradicted his own remarks on states’ dependency on the federal government to improve national testing deficits.
“The administration is trying to ramp up testing,” the governor said in an earlier CNN interview. “But to try to push this off, to say the governors have plenty of testing and they should just get to work on testing, somehow we aren’t doing our jobs, is just absolutely false.”
Hogan called the deal a ”game-changing step forward” in combating the state’s outbreak. Maryland had nearly 13,000 confirmed cases of the coronavirus as of Monday, resulting in 486 deaths.
According to state officials, 500,000 new tests is more than the total amount of tests completed by four of the top five states with confirmed cases in the country.
Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell wore a mask on Capitol Hill today, marking the first time the Kentucky Republican has been seen covering his face as he works on the next coronavirus relief bill.
Mitch McConnell wore a face mask today while at the Capitol. He’s 78 and had triple heart bypass surgery in 2003. (📸: Michael Reynolds/ EPA) pic.twitter.com/JGjovk9FRr
— Kristin Wilson (@kristin__wilson) April 20, 2020
House members have been wearing masks recently as they preside over pro forma sessions, but senators have been more reluctant to adopt the practice.
However, McConnell has been observing six feet of physical distancing while speaking to congressional reporters in recent weeks.
Progressive congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez raised concerns about the next coronavirus relief bill not being expansive enogh.
Ocasio-Cortez suggested the next bill should include far more money for the small business loan program known as the Paycheck Protection Program and another round of direct payments to American families.
Rent doesn’t wait on Congress.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) April 20, 2020
I understand the idea of an “interim” patch bill, but if Congress doesn’t know when it will next convene, we need to vote on a bigger fix now.
We need WAY more for PPP, $2000 monthly cash payments (plus $1k for each child), & cover health bills.
Negotiations continue between Democratic congressional leadership and the Trump administration about the next relief bill, but it is expected to include $370 billion for PPP, $75 billion for hospitals and $25 billion for testing.
Democrats have also pushed for more money for state and local governments, but that request seems likely to go unfulfilled.
The White House said it would give federal funding to a Maine medical supplies company to ramp up production of swabs needed for coronavirus tests.
“Title III of the [the Defense Production Act] has been used frequently by the Trump administration over the last three years to provide funding for companies essential to our industrial base and critical to national security,” senior trade adviser Peter Navarro told CNN.
“In the case referenced by President Trump, [the Defense Department] is finalizing negotiations under DPA Title III with Puritan, a small company in Guilford, Maine. With DPA support, Puritan will be able to increase its industrial capacity in machine tooling, people, and facilities with the broader goal of increasing nasal swab production from 3 million to more than 20 million within 30 days of the contract award.”
Navarro’s statement comes a day after Trump said he would use the DPA to compel a company to produce swabs, mysertiously claiming the administration had run into “difficulty” with the firm.
“We’ve had a little difficulty with one so we’ll call in -- as we have in the past as you know -- we are calling in the Defense Production Act, and we’ll be getting swabs very easily,” Trump said.
The Senate failed to reach a deal on the next coronavirus relief bill today, but it set up another pro forma session for tomorrow, when a proposal could be approved.
Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell said Democratic leadership was still in talks with the Trump administration about what to include in the next bill.
The proposal is expected to include $370 billion for the small business loan program known as the Paycheck Protection Program, which ran out of money last week, and it may also include $75 billion for hospitals and $25 billion for testing.
Democrats had lobbied for more funding for state and local governments as well, but Republicans have pushed back against that request.
“At this hour, our Democratic colleagues are still prolonging their discussions with the administration, so the Senate regretfully will not be able to pass more funding for Americans’ paychecks today,” McConnell said today.
If the Senate can pass the bill by unanimous consent this week, it will move on to the House, but Republican congressman Thomas Massie has threatened to object to the unanimous consent proposal, which would force lawmakers to return to Washington to vote on the bill.
The Guardian’s Jillian Ambrose and Martin Farrer report:
US oil prices turned negative for the first time on record on Monday as North America’s oil producers run out of space to store an unprecedented oversupply of crude left by the coronavirus crisis.
The price of US crude oil collapsed by more than 105% to -$2 per barrel in a matter of hours, forcing oil producers to pay buyers to take the glut of crude which they cannot store, as rising stockpiles of crude threaten to overwhelm oil storage facilities.
The crash in demand caused by the Covid-19 pandemic also forced Canada’s benchmark oil price to plunge into negative territory for the first time on Monday.
“The problem of the global supply-demand imbalance has started to really manifest itself in prices,” Bjornar Tonhaugen, head of oil at Rystad Energy said. “As production continues relatively unscathed, storages are filling up by the day. The world is using less and less oil and producers now feel how this translates.”
Oil price goes negative for the first time in history
A benchmark for crude oil prices entered negative territory for the first time in history today, as demand for oil collapsed amid the coronavirus crisis.
The AP reports:
Stocks were also slipping on Wall Street in afternoon trading, with the S&P 500 down 0.9%, but the market’s most dramatic action was by far in oil, where benchmark U.S. crude for May delivery plummeted to negative $3.70 per barrel, as of 2:15 pm. Eastern time.
Much of the drop into negative territory was chalked up to technical reasons — the May delivery contract is close to expiring so it was seeing less trading volume, which can exacerbate swings. But prices for deliveries even further into the future, which were seeing larger trading volumes, also plunged. Demand for oil has collapsed so much due to the coronavirus pandemic that facilities for storing crude are nearly full.
Tanks could hit their limits within three weeks, according to Chris Midgley, head of analytics at S&P Global Platts.
Benchmark U.S. crude oil for June delivery, which shows a more ‘normal’ price, fell 14.8% to $21.32 per barrel, as factories and automobiles around the world remain idled. Big oil producers have announced cutbacks in production in hopes of better balancing supplies with demand, but many analysts say it’s not enough.
Maryland governor Larry Hogan specifically thanked his wife, Yumi Hogan, for helping to ensure the acquisition of 500,000 tests from South Korea.
“She truly is a champion of this operation,” Hogan said. “It’s why we have, and we’re so proud to have, such a special bond with South Korea.”
Hogan noted his wife is not only Maryland’s first Asian-American first lady but also the first Korean-American first lady of any state.
The governor added that he would be releasing his plan to reopen the state later this week, and he emphasized these additional tests will play a vital role in safely restarting the economy.
Maryland obtains 500,000 tests from South Korea
Maryland governor Larry Hogan confirmed the state has obtained 500,000 coronavirus tests from LabGenomics in South Korea, following weeks of negotiations.
Speaking in Annapolis alongside Maryland first lady Yumi Hogan, the Republican governor said a Korean Air passenger plane arrived at BWI Airport on Saturday carrying the tests.
On Saturday, First Lady Yumi Hogan and I stood on the tarmac at @BWI_Airport to welcome the first ever Korean Air passenger plane, carrying a very important payload of LabGun #COVID19 test kits which will give MD the capability of performing half a million coronavirus tests. pic.twitter.com/Elf0ADIRnJ
— Governor Larry Hogan (@GovLarryHogan) April 20, 2020
Hogan said insufficient testing remained “the most serious obstacle to safely reopening our states” and celebrated the “exponential, game-changing step forward” that Maryland is taking.
Maryland has already conducted more than 71,000 tests, so this acquisition represents a substantial increase in their capacity to identify new cases of coronavirus.
Pennsylvania governor Tom Wolf announced some steps the state will take in the next few weeks to start the process of reopening.
The Democratic governor said construction projects would be able to resume on May 8, as long as sites observe strict guidelines. The state will also start allowing curbside pick-up at liquor stores, which have been closed, and the online sale of vehicles.
Today I’m announcing that we will now allow:
— Governor Tom Wolf (@GovernorTomWolf) April 20, 2020
✅ Restart of construction projects with strict guidance (May 8)
✅ Curbside pickup at Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board stores
✅ Online vehicle sales pic.twitter.com/J4a2MbRhBs
“Over the past six weeks, Pennsylvanians have come together like never before to halt the spread of COVID-19,” Wolf said. “It has not been easy, but it has paid off. Today, we are taking small steps toward a degree of normalcy.”
But the governor emphasized the statewide stay-at-home order remained in effect, as protesters converged on the steps of the state capitol to protest the order.
World Health Organization says "nothing hidden from US"
The WHO’s director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has said that no details about the coronavirus outbreak were hidden from the US by the organization, and they knew all the details “immediately” because of staff from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention being seconded to WHO.
“Everything is open, all countries get information immediately,” he said in a press conference a little earlier.
This backs up the Washington Post story that we reported on earlier.
Tedros said: For WHO, we are open we don’t hide anything... We want all countries to get the same message immediately because that helps countries to prepare well and to prepare quickly... Not only the US but all countries get information immediately.”
There are more details in our global coronavirus blog, here.
Updated
New York gay pride parade canceled on 5oth anniversary
Some more details on the fact that the New York City LGBT parade this June won’t be happening as planned.
The parade in 1970 sparked the modern gay pride movement, the year after the Stonewall riots in the city.
“This year is the 50th anniversary of the pride parade, and it’s a very, very big deal,” city mayor Bill de Blasio said this morning.
“That march is such an important part of life in this city, but this year in particular it was going to be something that was a historic moment.”
Last year’s NYC Pride March drew an estimated 5 million people.
Instead of an in-person pride march this year, Heritage of Pride endorsed an effort led by InterPride, an international organization comprised of local, regional and national pride planning organizations, to hold a 24-hour virtual “Global Pride” event on June 27, to be broadcast around the world, NBC reported.
Today so far
Here’s where the day stands so far:
- Andrew Cuomo said states need federal assistance to wade through the “quagmire” of supply-chain issues surrounding coronavirus testing. The New York governor said he supported states taking the lead on expanding testing capacity, but he emphasized the federal government still needed to play a role to coordinate the national supply chain that provides vital medical equipment to conduct tests.
- New York City announced all non-essential, permitted events in June would be canceled. The announcement means Pride Week and the Puerto Rican Day Parade, among other events, will not go on as planned.
- Anti-lockdown protesters have convered at the Pennsylvania capitol in Harrisburg. The demonstration mirrors similar protests in Michigan and Minnesota, which have raised concerns about participants spreading coronavirus by ignoring social distancing guidelines.
The blog will have more coming up, so stay tuned.
Anti-lockdown protesters converge on Pennsylvania capitol
Several hundred demonstrators have converged on the steps of the Pennsylvania capitol in Harrisburg to protest the statewide stay-at-home order currently in place.
As protesters gather on Capitol steps cars and bikers honking and beginning to clog streets around the building. pic.twitter.com/clUEXelKNT
— Miguel Marquez (@miguelmarquez) April 20, 2020
Footage of the protest showed participants waving American flags and at least one Trump campaign flag. Many of the protesters were standing closely together and not wearing masks, defying social distancing recommendations.
The demonstrators also carried signs calling on Democratic governor Tom Wolf to “re-open PA.” One attention-grabbing sign read, “Jesus is my vaccine.”
The protest mirrors similar demonstrations in Michigan and Minnesota, which also raised concerns about participants spreading coronavirus by ignoring social distancing guidelines.
The president’s tweets last week calling to “liberate” states under stay-at-home orders intensified fears that his supporters would feel empowered to ignore the orders.
Updated
Cuomo briefing summary
New York governor Andrew Cuomo has just concluded his daily briefing on the state’s response to coronavirus.
Here’s some of what he covered:
- Cuomo said states need federal assistance to work through the “quagmire” of supply-chain issues for coronavirus testing. The governor noted he agreed with Trump that the states should take the lead on expanding testing, but he argued the federal government still had to be involved because states could not singlehandedly manage issues in the national supply chain of medical equipment needed to conduct tests.
- New York appears to be on “the descent” of its coronavirus curve, Cuomo said. Net hospitlizations and intubations have been on the decline for several days, but the governor said it was still unclear how long it woud take to travel along that downward slope. “The number’s coming down, but how fast is it coming down?” Cuomo said.
- Another 478 New Yorkers died of coronavirus yesterday. The figure, while devastating, represents a slight decline from last week’s daily death tolls, all of which exceeded 500.
- Cuomo said a group of New York hospitals would submit the results of their hydroxychloroquine trials to federal health officials today. Cuomo provided no indication of the results of the trials, which are meant to determine whether the anti-malaria drug can effectively treat coronavirus. The current data on hydroxychloroquine as a potential treatement is very limited, but that hasn’t stopped Trump from suggesting it could be a potential “game changer” in fighting the virus.
New York governor Andrew Cuomo said it would be a “major, major undertaking” to develop a plan on reopening the state’s schools.
Cuomo emphasized no school district was allowed to reopen at the moment, as the state has mandated schools to remain closed for now.
Cuomo said, “If we make a decision to reopen schools, we then would need a whole plan on how to reopen a school.” That plan would include sanitization standards and social distancing protocols, Cuomo said.
New York governor Andrew Cuomo said some hospitals in the state would send the results of its hydroxychloroquine trials to federal health officials today.
Cuomo declined to describe the results of the trials, focused on whether the anti-malaria drug can help treat coronavirus patients.
Trump has pushed the drug as a potential “game changer” in the treatment of coronavirus, but evidence of its effectiveness has been described as anecdotal.
New York governor Andrew Cuomo reiterated that the federal government needs to provide assistance to the states in expanding testing capacity.
Cuomo’s comments came in response to a new tweet from the president, which said, “States, not the Federal Government, should be doing the Testing - But we will work with the Governors and get it done.”
The New York governor said in response, “I think the president is right when he says the states should lead.” But Cuomo added states were facing “a quagmire” when it came to getting the necessary medical supplies, such as swabs, to expand testing.
“I would like the federal government to help on those supply-chain issues,” Cuomo said.
Governor Andrew Cuomo told New Yorkers that they have the power to control the spread of the virus through their actions.
“The future is really in our hands,” Cuomo said. “We can control the beast.”
Cuomo again emphasized the state would aim to reopen the economy while incorporating the lessons learned from this cris.
“We’re going to set the bar high, and we’re going to reimagine,” the governor said. “Build back better.”
New York governor Andrew Cuomo suggested frontline workers should receive hazard pay for continuing to report to work amid the coronavirus crisis.
Cuomo applauded the contributions of essential workers, noting that two-thirds of them are women and one-third come from low-income households.
The governor suggested an immediate 50% bonus for frontline workers. Cuomo said he supported getting government funds to suffering bsuinesses, but he argued frontline workers should also receive relief now.
New York governor Andrew Cuomo emphasized that the state would determine when towns and cities can start reopening and the response would be coordinated across the state.
“Everything is closed unless we say otherwise,” Cuomo said.
The governor previously stressed that he recognizes New Yorkers’ desire to return to normal. “Nobody disagrees that we want to get out of this situation. Nobody,” Cuomo said. “You don’t need protests to convince anyone in this country that we have to get back to work.”
Governor Andrew Cuomo announced he was forming a Reimagine New York Task Force to focus on downstate New York, which has been the most affected part of the state.
Cuomo said there were lessons to be learned from this crisis to imporve public transportation, technology and medicine for the future.
Local downstate officials, including New York mayor Bill de Blasio, will serve on the task force.
Cuomo: 'The numbers would suggest we’re seeing a descent'
New York appears to be on “the descent” of its curve of coronavirus cases, governor Andrew Cuomo announced at his daily briefing.
Cuomo noted there have now been several says of reductions in the net number of hospitalizations and intubations, and there has been anecdotal evidence that New York’s emergency rooms are not as overwhelmed as they were.
“The numbers would suggest we’re seeing a descent,” Cuomo said. “The number’s coming down, but how fast is it coming down?”
The governor also noted the daily death toll remains the worst news coming out of the state. Another 478 New Yorkers died of coronavirus yesterday.
A new poll found Michigan residents have approved of governor Gretchen Whitmer’s response to coronavirus more so than Trump’s.
According to the poll done for the Detroit Regional Chamber, 57% of Michigan residents approve of the Democratic governor’s handling of the crisis, while 44% said the same of the president’s.
The poll comes day after thousands of demonstrators descended on Michigan’s capital to protest Whitmer’s stay-at-home order, an event that received national attention.
The president has also lashed out against the Michigan governor, calling her “Gretchen ‘Half’ Whitmer” and suggesting she was “way in over her” head and “doesn’t have a clue.”
Whitmer has taken some of the most aggressive steps of any governor to limit the spread of coronavirus in Michigan, which has seen more than 2,000 deaths from the virus. Only New York and New Jersey have recorded more coronavirus fatalities.
Despite some criticism of the measures Whitmer has taken, the poll indicates residents of Michigan, a swing state that narrowly voted for Trump in 2016, still trust her over the president amid this crisis.
The administration official overseeing coronavirus testing efforts was pushed out of his vaccine development role at Texas A&M University over performance issues, according to a report from the Washington Post.
The Post reports:
[A]fter eight years of work on several vaccine projects, [Brett] Giroir was told in 2015 he had 30 minutes to resign or he would be fired. His annual performance evaluation at Texas A&M, the local newspaper reported, said he was ‘more interested in promoting yourself’ than the health science center where he worked. He got low marks on being a ‘team player.’
Now President Trump has given Giroir the crucial task of ending the massive shortfall of tests for the novel coronavirus. Some governors have blasted the lack of federal help on testing, which they say is necessary to enact Trump’s plan for reopening the economy.
That criticism has focused attention on Giroir and whether he can deliver results under pressure. His years as director of the Texas vaccine project illustrate his operating style, which includes sweeping statements about the impact of his work, not all of which turned out as some had hoped.
During two recent interviews with The Washington Post, Giroir blamed his ouster on internal politics at the university, not on any problems with the project.
Many public health experts have said that the economy cannot fully reopen until coronavirus testing becomes widely available; otherwise the country will risk seeing a surge in cases once stay-at-home orders are relaxed.
Trump said he had “a very nice call” with Minnesota governor Tim Walz, despite the president’s recent calls to “liberate” states like Minnesota that are under stay-at-home orders.
“We are working closely on getting him all he needs, and fast,” Trump said of Walz in a tweet. “Good things happening!”
The president’s message comes three days after he sent a series of tweets suggesting Minnesota, Michigan and Virginia should be liberated from social distancing restrictions.
Those tweets echoed messaging from right-wing protesters and raised concerns that the president was encouraging his supporters to ignore stay-at-home orders.
Walz said Friday that he had been unable to reach the president or the vice president to elaborate on the meaning of the tweets, despite multiple efforts.
House Democrats and Republicans continue to squabble over the next coronavirus relief bill, raising concerns about the approval of funds for the small business loan program and hospitals.
House minority leader Kevin McCarthy accused speaker Nancy Pelosi of playing politics with American jobs by holding up the bill.
How many more millions of Pelosi's layoffs will we have to endure before she will put people before politics?
— Kevin McCarthy (@GOPLeader) April 20, 2020
But a spokesperson for Pelosi replied that it was Republicans who were delaying the funds’ approval because they may want a recorded vote, rather than passing the bill by unanimous consent.
We've noticed floor action for as soon as Wednesday. Could pass by unanimous consent in the House tomorrow but you cannot control your Members who want a recorded vote. The delay will be on your end @GOPLeader. https://t.co/DRSpbn2qh1
— Drew Hammill (@Drew_Hammill) April 20, 2020
When the House took up the coronavirus stimulus pacakge last month, Republican congressman Thomas Massie objected to the unanimous consent bill, insisting on a recorded vote.
Massie’s move forced members to return to Washington to get the bill approved, and it has been severely criticized, especially since several members announced after the vote that they had contracted coronavirus.
New York City cancels non-essential events in June
New York mayor Bill de Blasio has just announced all non-essential permitted events in the city will be canceled for the month of June.
De Blasio had already said all May events would be canceled, and he warned last week that he was thinking of extending the restrictions into the summer.
The announcement means Pride Week, which was supposed to mark its 50th anniversary of celebrating LGBTQ rights this year, will not take place as planned. The Puerto Rican Day Parade scheduled for June has also been canceled.
But de Blasio said he hoped to reschedule the June events, including Pride Week, once the virus was more under control.
Updated
Richard Luscombe reports for the Guardian from Miami, Florida:
Marine life researchers in Florida say that coronavirus restrictions keeping humans and harmful waste off beaches are having a beneficial effect on the numbers of endangered leatherback sea turtles in the state.
With the summer nesting season barely two weeks old, staff from the Loggerhead MarineLife Center in Juno Beach have already found and marked 76 nests of the world’s largest species of sea turtle on the nine and half mile stretch they monitor, a “significant” increase from the same stage last year.
The elevated numbers are raising hopes of a bumper nesting season for leatherbacks, and also vulnerable loggerhead turtles that begin to arrive to lay eggs before the end of May.
“We’re excited to see our turtles thrive in this environment,” Sarah Hirsch, the center’s senior manager of research and data, told West Palm Beach news channel 12.
“Our world has changed, but these turtles have been doing this for millions of years and it’s just reassuring and gives us hope that the world is still going on.”
Treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin applauded the burger chain Shake Shack for returning its small business loan.
I was glad to see that @shakeshack will be returning the #ppploan #CARESAct @SBAgov
— Steven Mnuchin (@stevenmnuchin1) April 20, 2020
Shake Shack and other larger businesses received criticism for receiving assistance from the Paycheck Protection Program, which ran out of money last week.
Shake Shack’s CEO, Randy Garutti, and its founder, Danny Meyer, announced this morning that they would return the $10 million the company had received, going on to criticize the government for its handling of the small business loan program.
“Shake Shack was fortunate last Friday to be able to access the additional capital we needed to ensure our long term stability through an equity transaction in the public markets,” Garutti and Meyer wrote in a statement.
“We urge Congress to ensure that all restaurants no matter their size have equal ability to get back on their feet and hire back their teams. We are an industry of 660,000 restaurants with nearly 16 million employees. ... Until every restaurant that needs it has had the same opportunity to receive assistance, we’re returning ours.”
The Guardian’s Kenya Evelyn reports:
In a faux campaign ad appearing to mock Joe Biden, Donald Trump tweeted a 2017 clip of the former vice president recalling his time at a community pool in his home state of Delaware.
“So I learned about roaches, I learned about kids jumping on my lap,” Biden told the Delaware audience at the time. “And I loved kids jumping on my lap.”
Biden went on to discuss peers rubbing his wet, blonde leg hair in a bizarre memory of the community pool at a ceremony commemorating its reopening. The dedication is the same event where the vice president detailed his run-ins with a neighborhood bully named Corn Pop.
The rant became a source of ridicule for Biden within conservative media. He has drawn criticism for, at times, seemingly nonsensical segues during speeches.
Perhaps the most controversial element, however, is that the Biden clip appears as a commercial that four black men watch in annoyance. One of those men is Barack Obama, with the formre president’s head spliced onto the actor’s body. Obama retorts “what” when confronted with stares about Biden’s comments.
Critics immediately called out the tweet:
What is the racist hell is this?! https://t.co/YDRkVmm1kU
— G O L D I E. (@goldietaylor) April 20, 2020
Supporters of Trump pushed back against the criticism, retorting in the comments that it is merely a joke referring to Obama’s embarrassment at promoting Biden as the current Democratic nominee for the 2020 presidential election:
This is the best ad yet. Anyone would be embarrassed to be associated with a Creep like Joe Biden.
— DeAnna Lorraine 🇺🇸 (@DeAnna4Congress) April 20, 2020
Former FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb warned this morning that the US will likely not have widespread coronavirus testing until the fall.
“We’re not going to be there. We’re not going to be there in May, we’re not going to be there in June, hopefully we’ll be there by September,” Gottleib told the “Today” show.
“I think a good rule of thumb would be (to test) about 1% of the population on a weekly basis – so the ability to test about 3 million people. We’re not going to be there. … Hopefully, we’ll be there by September.” -@ScottGottliebMD pic.twitter.com/N2gUfzjw68
— TODAY (@TODAYshow) April 20, 2020
Many public health experts have said that without widespread testing, the country could see a surge in coronavirus cases once social distancing guidelines are relaxed.
But Gottleib argued it would not be realistic to wait to reopen until testing is widely available. “If we wait until we have sort of the optimal framework for testing, we’ll be waiting until the fall and that’s just not going to be possible from an economic, social or public health standpoint,” he said.
Dr Anthony Fauci warned that if the US moves to quick to end stay-at-home orders there could be another surge in Covid-19 cases in an interview with ABC this morning.
Fauci’s remarks were much more cautious than those from Donald Trump, who has previously downplayed the outbreak and pushed to open the US quickly.
“If you jump the gun and go into a situation where you have a big spike, you’re gonna set yourself back. So as painful as it is to go by the careful guidelines of gradually phasing into a re-opening, it’s going to backfire,” Fauci said. “That’s the problem.”
“Clearly this is something that this is hurting …. but unless we get the virus under control, the real recovery, economically, is not going to happen.” — NIAID director Dr. Anthony Fauci on protests against stay-at-home orders. pic.twitter.com/n7x3cunEAm
— Good Morning America (@GMA) April 20, 2020
Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), also warned: “Unless we get the virus under control, the real recovery economically is not going to happen.”
Fauci and Trump’s relationship is a study in contrasts, as the Guardian’s Tom McCarthy wrote this weekend:
The deadly Covid-19 pandemic, has now created a most unlikely and delicate partnership between Trump and Fauci on which the future of the country hinges. The two men appear to share little by way of philosophy, but each night they share a stage in front of a scared nation in the grip of a terrifying pandemic; a nation looking to these two very different men to save it from further disaster.
This is Joan Greve in Washington, taking over for Martin Pengelly.
The Washington Post reported yesterday that the US had more than a dozen experts working at the World Health Organization’s headquarters when coronavirus first emerged in late 2019.
The experts’ presence at the WHO undercuts Trump’s claim that the organization failed to adequately warn countries about the threat of the virus, out of alleged deference to China.
The Post reports:
More than a dozen U.S. researchers, physicians and public health experts, many of them from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, were working full time at the Geneva headquarters of the World Health Organization as the novel coronavirus emerged late last year and transmitted real-time information about its discovery and spread in China to the Trump administration, according to U.S. and international officials.
A number of CDC staff members are regularly detailed to work at the WHO in Geneva as part of a rotation that has operated for years. Senior Trump-appointed health officials also consulted regularly at the highest levels with the WHO as the crisis unfolded, the officials said.
A department of health and human services spokesperson responded to the story by arguing that “just because you have Americans embedded in WHO providing technical assistance does not change the information you are getting from WHO leadership.”
The WHO is, of course, only the latest target of Trump’s ire since coronavirus struck the US. The president has tried to deflect blame for his administration’s early response to the virus, which has been widely criticized, by trying to put the onus on China, state governments and now the WHO for allegedly failing to adequately prepare the country for the crisis.
Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg has argued social media sites are uniquely positioned to help with Covid-19 data collection, amid discussions about how much personal data Americans could share, and under what terms, to combat the outbreak.
In an opinion piece for the Washington Post, Zuckerberg announced the preliminary findings of an attempt with Carnegie Mellon University to survey the symptoms of Facebook users in the US, in order to create preliminary reports on where outbreaks could get worse.
While some health and technology experts are arguing for data collection to aid the outbreak response, others have warned there is a need for increased protection of health data, out of concern it could be accessed by marketers or hackers.
So far, the Facebook surveys have been opt-in and Zuckerberg said the site does not have access to the information, which so far has correlated well with test-confirmed cases of the disease, according to the researchers at Carnegie Mellon. The researchers said they were hoping these estimates could be used to help hospitals and health officials in the coming weeks.
Zuckerberg argued Facebook and other social media sites are uniquely positioned to assist researchers, because the survey is being distributed to “people whose identities we know”.
The piece ends with Zuckerberg insisting such data collection should be done with people’s privacy in mind.
In July, the US government handed Facebook a $5bn penalty for “deceiving” users about their ability to keep personal information private, in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica data breach.
Months earlier, Zuckerberg announced the firm’s new focus was privacy.
Here’s some related reading from the UK:
Updated
Here comes Donald with a Twitter post guaranteed to cause controversy: it uses doctored footage meant to show (in a clearly satirical and low-fi fashion) Barack Obama embarrassed by footage of Joe Biden, his vice-president and the presumptive Democratic nominee in November, speaking in public.
It seems to be footage of Biden speaking in Wilmington, Delaware in 2017 which has circulated on the right for a while. Trump, notoriously erratic and rambling as he can be, has made targeting Biden’s faculties a key part of campaign attacks so far.
Presidential the tweet is not, at least by any normal standards which of course ceased to exist once Donald Trump mounted his run for the White House five years ago.
I won’t link to it here, but it’s there.
Congress stirred, Shake Shack shaken
A deal is expected in Washington on Monday to boost small-business loans made available under the $2.2tn Cares Act stimulus package, funds which have proved inadequate to meet demand from businesses crippled by the coronavirus pandemic.
According to the Associated Press, “the emerging accord links the administration’s effort to replenish the small-business fund with Democrats’ demands for more money for hospitals and virus testing.
“It would provide $300bn for small-business payroll program, and $50bn would be available for small business disaster fund. Additionally, it would bring $75bn for hospitals and $25bn for testing, according to those involved in the talks.”
The AP also reports that the national burger chain Shake Shack will return its $10m small-business loan, according to its chief executive, after attracting criticism.
Shake Shack has “laid off or furloughed hundreds of its employees and needed the assistance, CEO Randy Garutti and founder Danny Meyer said in a statement seen Monday”, the AP said. “But the company was able to get extra funding late last week through an ‘equity transaction’ and decided to ‘immediately return’ the $10m.”
The AP continues:
Shake Shack has 189 restaurants in the US that employ nearly 8,000 people. It said it is still operating many outlets while closing its dine-in facilities. Union Square Hospitality Group, with more than 2,000 employees, suspended business in March. Like many big companies, both qualified for the government loans, the statement said, because their outlets employ fewer than 500 workers each.
Garutti and Meyer said: “We urge Congress to ensure that all restaurants no matter their size have equal ability to get back on their feet and hire back their teams.
“Fund it adequately. It’s inexcusable to leave restaurants out because no one told them to get in line by the time the funding dried up. That unfairly pits restaurants against restaurants.”
Good morning
…and welcome to another day of coverage of the coronavirus epidemic in the US. First, the figures according to Johns Hopkins University:
- US cases: 759,600
- US deaths: 40,601
- New York cases: 248,417
- New York deaths: 18,298
- New Jersey deaths: 4,362
- Michigan deaths: 2,391
Other states are hard-hit too, of course: there have been more than 1,000 deaths in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, California, Illinois, Connecticut and Louisiana.
On Sunday night, Donald Trump held another controversial White House coronavirus task force briefing, hyping praise for the federal government from Andrew Cuomo, for example, and of course ignoring the New York governor’s many stringent criticisms. Washington bureau chief David Smith’s report is here:
There’s a briefing on the White House schedule for Monday, 5pm ET.
New York mayor Bill de Blasio, meanwhile, said on Sunday: “There was that famous Daily News cover that said ‘Ford to City: Drop Dead.’” So my question is, Mr Trump, Mr President, are you going to save New York City or are you telling New York City to drop dead? Which one is it?”
For what might be filed under lighter reading, meanwhile, at least for Brits, a new spin on the old US political saying, “What’s the matter with Kansas?” If like me you regularly wake up wondering what’s the matter with Piers Morgan?, it seems that today the matter is that possibly Trump’s premier British fan is… not a fan of how the president is handling the pandemic.
This is from CNN’s Reliable Sources, where Morgan said he was watching Trump’s progress with “mounting horror”, and also addressed the president directly:
He’s turning these briefings into a self-aggrandizing, self-justifying, overly defensive, politically partisan, almost like a rally to him – almost like what’s more important is winning the election in November.
“You will win the election in November if you get this right. If you stop making it about yourself and make it about the American people and show that you care about them over yourself, you will win. And, conversely, you will lose the election in November if you continue to make it about yourself, you continue playing silly politics, continue targeting Democrat governors because that suits you for your electoral purposes.”
So there’s that.
As further reading as the day gets going, here are new entries in two Guardian series: the ER diary of a nurse on the front line, and what it’s like to have cancer during a pandemic.
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