Live reporting on the coronavirus in the US continues on Monday’s blog:
Closing remarks
Our chief reporter writes:
We are now wrapping up our coverage of the day’s coronavirus news in the US and Donald Trump’s Rose Garden performance. You can keep reading the latest on coronavirus in the US and around the world in our global news blog. David Smith, the Guardian’s Washington bureau chief, will file a full report on the Trump extravaganza shortly.
Trump’s latest press briefing bore all the hallmarks we have become used to – misleading comments, exaggerations and ugly remarks directed at journalists trying to do their jobs including, again, Yamiche Alcindor of PBS and a representative of CNN.
The main news line to emerge was that the president has bowed to the inevitable and accepted that his ambition of 12 April, Easter, as a date on which social distancing restrictions on Americans could start to be lifted was always a pipe dream.
The new date he gave was the end of April. Whether that sticks remains to be seen.
The president’s address was peppered with boasts – he compared “ratings” for his briefings to “Monday Night Football and the Batchelor finale” – and bizarre flights of fancy. Perhaps the strangest was his suggestion that hospitals in a coronavirus crisis city like New York were somehow stealing hundreds of thousands of surgical masks. He asked how the numbers of masks requested could shoot up from 10,000 to 300,000 overnight and said: “Are they going out the back door?”
According to researchers at Johns Hopkins University, New York has recorded 965 of 2,433 coronavirus deaths in the US so far, and nearly 60,000 of close to 140,000 confirmed cases.
Trump also started invoking the figure of 2.2m possible deaths in America if nothing were done to mitigate the disaster – a figure drawn from modeling by scientists at Imperial College London earlier this month.
Trump pulled that statistic out of his bag of tricks to try to minimize the political fallout of an earlier statement from Dr Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who said that up to 200,000 Americans could die even when the benefits of social distancing are taken into account.
In Trump’s world, 2.2m is such a scary number it might put people off thinking that 200,000 is also pretty shocking. It might in turn give the impression that he is doing a great job, and not presiding over a historic failure of federal leadership.
Time will tell on that as well.
Summary
Here’s a summary of the latest events:
- Trump declares he will be extending the virus guidelines to 30 April. The president said the “peak and death rate is likely to hit in two weeks” during the daily coronavirus task force briefing. “Nothing would be worse than declaring victory before the victory is won,” Trump said. “That would be the greatest loss of all.”
- Fauci warns coronavirus could kill as many as 200,000 Americans. Dr Anthony Fauci, the leading US government infectious disease expert, offered a grim prediction on the Covid-19 death toll on Sunday morning, but cautioned the figure is a ‘moving target’ that could easily be wrong.
- Pelosi accuses Trump of costing US lives with coronavirus denials and delays. The top Democrat in Congress delivered a devastating critique of Donald Trump, accusing the president directly of costing American lives through his constant denials and delays in response to the coronavirus outbreak.
- Andrew Cuomo says he expects ‘rolling apex’ of cases in New York. “The number of cases are still going up, so you’re still going up towards an apex,” the New York governor said. “But the rate of the doubling is slow, which is good news.”
-
Donald Trump in ‘near tie’ with Joe Biden, new poll finds. A new Washington Post-ABC News poll puts former vice-president ahead by 49% to 47% among registered voters.
Trump concludes the daily briefing by saying “the enemy is death” and “it’s very unpleasant”, but “the level of competence, the level of caring, the level of love ... is brilliant”.
Vice-president Mike Pence finally takes the dais and says every American should have a “grateful heart” for all of the front-line healthcare workers. He says he understands the extension of the guidelines to 15 April may be received with disappointment, but there is hope on the horizon.
“What the president laid out today, while I’m sure for many Americans that were hoping we would be with this sooner, there may be a modest sense of frustration and disappointment,” Pence says. “But what I hear speaking to these healthcare experts is that there is light at the end of the tunnel as the American people continue to put into practice the president’s coronavirus guidelines for Americans.”
Updated
Fact check
Donald Trump accused a reporter of fake news when he asked the president about his hostility towards Democratic governors based on a verbatim quote from Trump himself.
In his rambling answer, Trump repeated his assertion that he has decided not to call governors like Jay Inslee in Washington state who he described as a “failed presidential candidate” who he doesn’t like.
But he insisted he never told senior White House staff including Mike Pence, the vice-president, not to call.
“Mike Pence and the head of [Federal Emergency Management Agency] call, I don’t stop them,” Trump said. “Did I ever ask you to do anything negative, Mike, to the state of Washington?”
He did in fact tell Pence not to call Democratic governors like Inslee. We know that as a fact because Trump told us so himself in his briefing on Friday.
Then, Trump said: “I say, ’Mike, don’t call the governor of Washington. You’re wasting your time with him.’”
Here’s Washington bureau chief David Smith’s report about that briefing:
Trump is asked to respond to the decisions of some network affiliates to cease airing the daily coronavirus task force briefings due to the inability to fact-check his statements in real time. In a surreal twist, the president likens the ratings of the briefings to Monday Night Football or the finale of the The Bachelor, two of the the highest rated TV programs in America. He goes on to note that Fauci and Birx have become “big stars” through the pandemic.
Trump brags about how his press briefings about a deadly pandemic that is killing Americans get ratings comparable to "The Bachelor" or "Monday Night Football" pic.twitter.com/d3WCvQpSDL
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 29, 2020
Updated
Trump is asked about potential deaths from the economic consequences of the pandemic and whether he believes those deaths will outpace the death toll of the virus.
“You’re going to have massive depression, meaning mental depression,” the president says. “You’re going to have depression in the economy, also. You’re going to have large numbers of suicides. Take a look of what happens in a really horrible recession or worse. So you’re going to have tremendous suicides, but you know what you’re going to have more than anything else? Drug addiction. You will see drugs being used like nobody’s ever used them before and people are going to be dying all over the place from drug addiction. Because you would have had a wonderful job at a restaurant or even owned a restaurant ... and in one day they have nothing. They’ve gotten wiped out. One day. From our enemy, this invisible, horrible scourge.”
He adds: “Hopefully, we’re not going to have that.”
Updated
Fact check
Trump flatly denied that he had suggested a quarantine of New York was likely to happen, saying he only floated it as a possibility.
On a pedantic level, he is quite correct. What he said on Saturday was that “there’s a possibility that some time today we’ll do a quarantine, short-term, two weeks on New York. Probably New Jersey, certain parts of Connecticut.”
But when you are president of the United States, and you are standing in front of TV cameras broadcasting to millions of Americans, and you then say that “some time today” it is possible the federal government will put a ring of steel round the entire New York area, you are bound to induce a reaction. That word “possibility” gets lost amid the noise.
In the end, Trump backed down. Federal health officials issued an advisory urging New York, New Jersey and Connecticut residents to refrain from non-essential domestic travel for two weeks.
But his original proposal certainly had an impact. On Sunday, Andrew Cuomo, the governor of New York state, said Trump’s words had an instant impact on large numbers of New Yorkers. He said he was inundated with worried calls.
“People are so on edge, it really panicked people,” he said.
Trump says General Motors is “doing a fantastic job” and we don’t need to worry about them anymore.
When asked why Florida has received 100% of the supplies it’s requested from the national strategic stockpile as opposed to states like Massachusetts, Trump says: “I was on the call yesterday with the governors and they were happy with the job we are doing. Florida has been taken care of and Michigan has been taken care of.”
When further pressed on Florida’s success rate, Trump responds: “They’re very aggressive in trying to get things.”
Trump lashes out at PBS NewsHour correspondent Yamiche Alcindor when asked about his statement on Sean Hannity’s show that some governors don’t need the equipment they’re requesting.
“Why don’t you people ask ... why don’t you act a little more positive? It’s always trying to getcha’. Getcha’, getcha’. That’s why you used to work for the Times and now you work for somebody else. Look, let me tell you something: Be nice. Don’t be threatening. Be nice.”
👀
— Marcus Baram (@mbaram) March 29, 2020
Trump attacks @Yamiche again for asking a tough but fair question:
“Why don’t you people...you act in a little more positive. It’s always trying to get you, get you...” pic.twitter.com/NTnIh1QS66
He adds: “Just so you know: you, me, everybody, we’re all on the same team.”
Fact check
To illustrate his allegation that he inherited a “broken” system of medical testing, Trump wheeled out a familiar – but false – tale about a general claiming in the president’s first week in office that the US military had no ammunition.
“I’ll never forget the day when a general came and said, ‘Sir’ – my first week in office – ‘we have no ammunition.’ That was the military and we’ve now rebuilt our military… you wouldn’t believe how much ammunition [we have now],” Trump said.
The Washington Post gave the story three Pinocchios when it fact-checked the claim in October 2019.
The Post found that over time and repeated tellings, the president exaggerated the story from “low ammunition” to “no ammunition”. It also found that although there had been concern among military leadership that stockpiles of certain munitions had been running low, US officials were taking steps to address the situation before Trump took office.
“When you hear that 2.2 million people could have died if we didn’t go through all of this, and now the number will be much lower number,” Trump says. “Hopefully it’s going to be the numbers that were talking about.”
He adds: “I don’t want approval ratings from this. I wish we could have our old life back. We had the greatest economy that we’ve ever had and we didn’t have death. We didn’t have this horrible scourge, this plague, call it whatever you want: the virus. But we’re working very hard, that’s all I know. I see things, I see numbers, they don’t matter to me. What matters to me is that we have a victory over this thing as soon as possible.”
Updated
Dr Anthony Fauci, the top infectious disease expert in the American government, says he believes the mitigation and social distancing efforts are “having an effect”.
“It’s very difficult to quantitate it because you have two dynamic things going on at the same time,” he says. “You have the virus going up and you have the mitigation trying to push it down. But the decision to extend this mitigation process until the end of April was a wise and prudent decision.”
Trump begins to take questions and is immediately asked about his suggestion that New York hospitals have made inappropriate use of their masks.
“I want the people of New York to check – Governor Cuomo, Mayor De Blasio – that when a hospital that’s getting 10,000 masks goes to 300,000 masks in a rapid period, I would like to check that. I hear stories like that all the time. We’re delivering millions and millions of products and all we hear is: ‘Can we get some more?’ I heard that from one of the great companies of the world at doing this.”
He adds: “I think people should check that because there’s something going on. I don’t think it’s hoarding, I think it’s maybe worse than hoarding. Check it out, check it out. I don’t know, I think that’s something for others to figure out.”
A serious accusation but thin on specifics.
Fact check
Sometimes it’s hard to fact-check Trump when he says things so out of the blue they leave you scratching your head, wondering what he is talking about. So it is with his comment just now about the number of masks being requested by hospitals in places like New York. He said the leap from a normal demand of up to 20,000 masks to today’s level was inexplicable.
“How do you go from 10 to 20 to 30,000, to 300,000 – even though this is different. Something is going on. And you ought to look into it as reporters. Where are the masks going? Are they going out the back door.”
The suggestion that people are essentially pilfering masks at a time of national crisis will not only be profoundly offensive for the thousands of frontline health workers who are daily putting their own health and lives at risk to save others in the absence of sufficient protective gear.
It also raises questions about where the president is getting his information. As he himself said, coronavirus is “different”. It is a highly contagious virus that is lethal at high rates for older and vulnerable people with pre-existing conditions. In order to protect health workers vast numbers of masks are required to keep them safe.
If Trump needs any clarification on that point he might listen to his own Department of Health and Human Services that has estimated that the US would need up to 3.5bn – yes, billion – N95 respirator masks over a year of pandemic.
Trump declares he will be extending the virus guidelines to 30 April, saying “peak and death rate is likely to hit in two weeks”.
“Nothing would be worse than declaring victory before the victory is won,” the president says. “That would be the greatest loss of all. Therefore the next two weeks, and during this period it’s very important that everyone follow the guidelines.”
He adds: “The better you do, the faster this whole nightmare will end.”
Trump says “something is going on” with mask usage in New York, openly wondering if they’re “going out the back door” of hospitals.
“Something is going on and you ought to look into it as reporters,” he says, seemingly breaking from his prepared remarks. “Are they going out the back door? How do you go from 10,000 to 300,000?”
He also accuses New York hospitals of hoarding ventilators, then says he spoke with restauranteur Wolfgang Puck today before directing his staff “to use any and all authority available to give restaurants, bars and clubs incentives to stay open”.
He adds: “You’re going to lose all these restaurants and they’re not going to make it back. They have to get going. What I’m doing is I’m going to tell secretary Mnuchin, also our great Secretary of Labor, to immediately start looking into restoring the deductibility of meals and entertainment costs for corporations. That set the restaurant business a lot when it was done originally not so long ago.”
Updated
Fact check
Donald Trump has made a habit of broadcasting misleading comments in his White House coronavirus briefings. True to form, he went straight into controversial waters right at the start of today’s event in the Rose Garden.
He said that the numbers of confirmed cases coming through – the current tally is 137,294 according to John Hopkins – is because “we’ve been doing more testing than any other country in the world. Because we’ve been doing more testing, so we have bigger numbers to look at.”
That is a misleading description of what has happened in the US. It’s true that it is hard to make direct comparisons between countries, given that each country has different criteria for testing and some countries are probably failing to disclose the full extent of the pandemic in their area.
But to say that the US is testing more people than anywhere in the world is to give a false reckoning of what has happened in a country where testing has come on stream very late in the day. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention botched the original roll-out and the Trump administration was slow to allow private and state laboratories to develop their own tests.
Governors in states around the country continue to complain that they have woefully inadequate testing. Even Washington state, which saw the first confirmed case and death in the US, has insufficient tests to tell how many people really are infected.
The comparison that is most revealing continues to be with South Korea, which by contrast began mass testing very quickly and aggressively. South Korea has tested more than five times as many of its population per capita than the US.
Updated
Trump says FEMA is working with private companies to launch Project Airbridge, to expedite the movement of critical supplies from other countries to the United States.
“The first flight arrived at JFK airport in New York this morning filled with 80 tons of personal protective equipment, including 130,000 N95 respirators – hose are the ones that we were talking about before – 1.8 million face masks and gowns, 10.3 million gloves and many other things. Millions and millions of different items.”
He says FEMA has scheduled 19 additional flights and is adding more daily and hopes to have 50 such flights scheduled.
Trump praises the US Army Corps of Engineers for their work in building “2,900 beds’ worth of hospital” at the Javits Center on the West Side of Manhattan.
He says that 1,100 people in NY are being administered hydrochloroquine and “we will see what happens”.
The president also says he is seeking FDA approval on a technology being developed in Ohio that will allow the repeated use of PPE masks: “I kept saying why aren’t they able to use that mask a second, third, fourth time? And Mike DeWine, the great governor of Ohio, called me and said there’s a company that is in the final process of getting approval for the sterilization of masks. Some of these masks are very strong. They’re able to sterilize the masks up to 20 times, so I guess it’s like getting 20 masks. I got involved and the FDA is now involved and we’re trying to get a fast approval.”
Updated
Donald Trump has taken the dais for the White House coronavirus task force press briefing.
He says the FDA has authorized a new test developed by Abbott Labs that can deliver results in as quickly as five minutes. “That’s a whole new ball game,” he says. “They’ve been working round-the-clock. Normally this approval process from the FDA would take 10 months and even longer, but we did it in four weeks.”
He says Abbott will begin delivering 50,000 tests each day starting this week.
Updated
As the White House briefing has been pushed to 5.30pm, New York mayor Bill de Blasio is addressing New Yorkers.
“If anyone is feeling anxious or fearful, that is entirely normal at this point,” De Blasio says. “What’s so important is to talk it through with each other and seek good and real and accurate information, which we will provide constantly. To support each other, listen to each other’s concerns, particularly how we can help those in greatest need and that’s what New Yorkers do so well. We’ve seen it time and time again: after 9/11, after Sandy, so many times when when seniors needed help, folks with disabilities, folks who couldn’t get out of their apartment. Time and time again, everyday New Yorkers answered the call. And we’re going to need that again as we’re going to be at this again for weeks and months.
“But I’ll tell you something. I really believe that, even though we are the epicenter – and I want to be real, real honest about that: we are now in New York City at the epicenter of this crisis in the United States of America. I am not happy to tell you that and you’re not happy to hear it. But I’ll tell you something else: There is no place in the United States of America, no place on earth, where there are stronger, tougher, more resilient people. Where there is more spirit and compassion. This is the place where people can handle anything thrown at them. That’s who New Yorkers are, that’s who all of you are. And that gives me a lot of hope.
“And I’ve been real honest about the fact that I’m not satisfied by our nation’s response to this crisis. I don’t feel that there’s been anywhere near the response to any place in this nation deserves. Especially our nation’s largest city, with 8.6 million people on the front line. But I am at the same time as I’m deeply concerned and troubled and angry and frustrated at the lack of federal response, I am inspired by the response right here in New York City from everyday New Yorkers, from our public servants, from all the people who protect us and keep us healthy, so many good people who are stepping up.”
Updated
The Associated Press reports of a nursing home resident in the Maryland town of Mount Airy who has died after contracting Covid-19 in an outbreak that has sickened dozens of the facility’s residents:
A man in his 90s who was a resident at the Pleasant View Nursing Home died Saturday night after testing positive for Covid-19, Carroll County Health Health Officer Ed Singer said at a news conference.
Singer said 66 residents have tested positive and 11 were hospitalized, the same numbers that were reported the previous night.
Outside the nursing home on Sunday, a sheriff’s deputy and state trooper parked their patrol vehicles and checked all incoming vehicles to make sure people were authorized to enter the premises.
The nursing home with 104 beds is also facing a staffing shortage as staff members say they can’t come to work.
They’re struggling to be able to do their administration and to be able to staff and take care of their patients, Singer said.
Singer said that to his knowledge, no staff members have tested positive for the virus but some say symptoms are keeping them from coming in.
Updated
Donald Trump has just completed a meeting with supply chain distributors to discuss the response to Covid-19 at the White House, according to a pool report.
The president and and vice-president were seated at a table in the Cabinet Room with nine others spaced several feet apart. The company officials in attendance included Gina Adams of FedEx, Ed Pesicka of Owen & Minor and Charles Mills of Medline.
“In the next 100 days, America will make or require three times more ventilators than we normally do in an entire year and far more than that, depending on what happens with the Defense Production Act and some of the companies where we’re using it,” Trump said, according to the report.
Trump went on to thank General Motors, which he said seems to be working very hard. He also praised Boeing, Ford and Honeywell & Hanes, saying many others are repurposing factories to produce respirators and protective masks.
The meeting came ahead of today’s coronavirus task force press briefing, which, for a change of scenery, appears to be taking place outdoors in the Rose Garden and not in the Brady press briefing room. It’s scheduled to begin at 5pm local time or about 10 minutes from now.
Updated
Texas governor Greg Abbott has expanded an executive order on travel into his state. It means there will be restrictions on travel from Louisiana, which is one of the centers of the Covid-19 outbreak in the US. The restrictions are also in place for travel to Texas from Miami, Atlanta, Detroit, Chicago, California and Washington.
@GovAbbott expands Executive Order to add restrictions on air and land travel from any location in State of Louisiana into Texas. #txlege
— Speaker Dennis Bonnen (@RepDennisBonnen) March 29, 2020
Rhode Island revised a similar policy regarding New Yorkers traveling to the state after the threat of legal action from New York governor Andrew Cuomo.
Updated
My colleagues Erin McCormick and Patrick Greenfield have the latest on the Zaandam cruise ship, on which four have died. The crew are hoping the ship will be able to dock in Florida
The Port of Everglades has said a Covid-19-stricken cruise ship has not yet been given approval to dock in Florida after it was granted passage to pass through the Panama canal and travel towards Fort Lauderdale.
Four people have died on the Zaandam cruise liner and dozens are ill with flu-like symptoms after it became stranded at sea when Latin American countries closed their ports in response to the global pandemic.
On Saturday, Panamanian authorities reversed a decision to stop the Zaandam in the canal to travel to port in Fort Lauderdale. Hundreds of symptomless passengers have been transferred to its sister ship, the Rotterdam, during the weekend.On Sunday, the Panama canal indicated that both ships would be allowed to travel together although there has been no official confirmation from the Panamanian government.
In a statement to the Guardian, Port Everglades said it would take about three days for the ship to reach south Florida, and that Holland American, the boats’ owners, must then submit a plan before arrival to enter the port that meets “a long list of Unified Command requirements”.
The ships’ owners, Holland America Line, have not responded to requests for updates on the health of passengers onboard or the current travel plans.
CBS News journalist Maria Mercader has died in a New York hospital from Covid-19, the network has confirmed. The 54-year-old had suffered from cancer over the last 20 years and had been on medical leave for a condition separate to Covid-19 since February.
Maria Mercader, our beloved CBS News colleague, died from COVID-19 on Sunday at age 54.
— CBS News (@CBSNews) March 29, 2020
"It's nearly impossible to be someone EVERYONE loves, but Maria was." https://t.co/HEKNnnBNlj pic.twitter.com/uvFKMGKBg8
“Even more than her talents as a journalist, we will miss her indomitable spirit,” said Susan Zirinsky, CBS News president and senior executive producer. “Maria was part of all of our lives. Even when she was hospitalized – and she knew something was going on at CBS, she would call with counsel, encouragement, and would say ‘you can do this.’ I called Maria a ‘warrior,’ she was. Maria was a gift we cherished.”
Mercader had worked for CBS since 1987 and won a Business Emmy for a report on computer spam. She worked on the national and foreign desks at CBS and covered events including the 9/11 attacks and the death of Princess Diana.
An emergency field hospital is now being constructed in Manhattan’s Central Park, local news station NY1 reports. The 68-bed facility is located across from Mt Sinai Hospital’s location in the Upper East Side neighborhood. It will feature a “respiratory care unit with ICU capability,” and is due to be “fully operational” by Tuesday morning, NY1 said.
Bloomberg’s Tom Keene tweeted a photo of the hospital tents:
setting up tents. my sinai pic.twitter.com/XgTXS8ikMP
— tom keene (@tomkeene) March 29, 2020
Per NY1, trucks packed with equipment and supplies parked along Fifth Avenue Sunday morning. Workers from Samaritan’s Purse, a Christian organization from North Carolina, have since started building the temporary medical shelter. Dr Elliott Tenpenny, who heads the team, reportedly said that state officials green-lit the plan after Mount Sinai requested assistance.
According to the news outlet, the setup is “an exact replica” of an emergency field hospital which Samaritan’s Purse launched on 20 March in coronavirus-stricken northern Italy.
The hospital said in a statement to the Guardian, “Samaritan’s Purse, in partnership with Mount Sinai Health System and intergovernmental agencies, are constructing an Emergency Field Hospital in East Meadow in Central Park to provide care for patients seriously ill with Covid-19. The new hospital will open on Tuesday.”
The establishment of the temporary medical center comes amid increasing strains on New York City’s medical system, ranging from an influx of coronavirus patients to healthcare workers’ lack of access to protective gear.
Nurses at Mt Sinai West, another Mt Sinai hospital that’s across Manhattan, posted a now-viral photo to social media showing them wearing garbage bags due to a lack of protective gear. Kious Kelly, an assistant nursing manager there, died earlier this week after contracting coronavirus.
The Associated Press has news on Detroit’s preparations for a rise in Covid-19 cases:
The federal government says a convention center in Detroit will be turned into a 900-bed medical site. The US Army Corps of Engineers said construction at TCF Center will begin after contracts are wrapped up in 24 to 36 hours. The June auto show has been canceled.
Michigan and the communities surrounding Detroit are among the hardest-hit areas in the nation. Michigan had 4,650 cases of the coronavirus on Saturday and 111 deaths.
Ohio’s Republican governor, Mike DeWine, says the Covid-19 outbreak has shown America needs to put more money into public health. “I think when we come out of this, one of the lessons we are learning as a country is that we have to invest more public health. It’s not a Democrat problem, it’s not a Republican problem,” he wrote on Twitter.
I think when we come out of this, one of the lessons we are learning as a country is that we have to invest more public health. It's not a Democrat problem, it's not a Republican problem.
— Governor Mike DeWine (@GovMikeDeWine) March 29, 2020
He also said that Ohio did not have enough N95 masks for its health workers. “We have a huge problem as we look at the surge coming at us. We do not have enough N95 masks. They’re usually round and are actually fitted to the face to work to make sure air doesn’t leak out around the bridge of your nose and under your chin,” wrote DeWine.
He said he had had a “good conversation” with Donald Trump about the matter and that the president had promised help.
My colleague Richard Luscombe in Miami has news of positive tests in the cruise industry.
More coronavirus troubles for the cruise industry with news on Sunday that 14 crew members aboard Royal Caribbean’s Oasis of the Seas tested positive and were unloaded in Miami.
The Miami Herald obtained a crew member’s recording of the captain making the announcement over the vessel’s public address system on Saturday.
The vessel, like numerous others since the industry shut down earlier this month, is currently at anchor off the Bahamas with only crew aboard. The last of its passengers disembarked in Miami on 15 March, the newspaper said, before the ship sailed for the Bahamas.
“At the moment, we have 14 that have tested positive for Covid-19 onboard the Oasis of the Seas out of all we have tested,” the captain said in the recording, according to the Herald.
It reported that the ship made another short stopover in Miami on 24 March to let some non-essential workers off, then departed again later that day.
On Thursday, some passengers who were on the ship’s most recent cruise received an email from Royal Caribbean advising them that an unidentified person aboard the voyage that began 8 March had tested positive for Covid-19. The email recommended the passengers quarantine themselves for 14 days.
Meanwhile, the Holland America ship Zaandam, which has dozens aboard with the virus and at least four dead, looks set to dock in Fort Lauderdale’s Port Everglades early this week after initial uncertainty about its landing.
The South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported Sunday that port authorities had given the go-ahead after securing safety assurances from the cruise line. In addition, healthy passengers are being transferred to a sister ship, Holland America’s Rotterdam, while at anchor close to the Panama Canal, the newspaper said.
Donald Trump has, in typically self-effacing manner, lauded the high ratings for his daily press briefings on Covid-19. While he is pleased with the platform he is given every night, critics fear that it lets the president spread misleading claims while promoting his own views. Yesterday my colleague Oliver Milman looked at five of the most misleading claims Trump has made during his Covid-19 briefings.
‘It’s going to disappear. One day it’s like a miracle – it will disappear’
Trump’s reaction to coronavirus has spanned disbelief, a severe understating of the problem and an optimism that appears unmoored from reality.
In February, Trump said the virus could “maybe go away. We’ll see what happens. Nobody really knows.” He predicted it is “going to disappear. One day it’s like a miracle – it will disappear.”
This position has been repeatedly contradicted by public health experts who predicted the sharp increase in Covid-19 infections, blunted only by social distancing measures and the shut down of large gatherings.
Even in China, which instituted the most severe crackdown on the movement of people, it has taken several months for cases to start tapering off.
“You’ve got to be realistic, and you’ve got to understand that you don’t make the timeline, the virus makes the timeline,” Dr Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said recently.
Stephen King, who is considered an expert on the Coronavirus outbreak by some because he once wrote a (pretty good) book about a pandemic, has attacked the lack of preparation for Covid-19.
“Just in the last three or four weeks people are saying to me, ‘We are living in a Stephen King world,’ and boy, all I can say is I wish we weren’t,” King told CNN.
“This has been waiting in the wings for a long, long time. I wrote The Stand about a pandemic that wipes out most of the human race, and thank God this one isn’t that bad, but I wrote that in 1979 and ever since then this has just been waiting to happen. The fact that nobody really seemed prepared still mystifies me.”
The Stand, one of King’s most popular books, details a pandemic that kills 99.94% of the world’s population. Unlike the current outbreak, it has supernatural elements and culminates in a showdown between forces of good and evil in Las Vegas (although the Las Vegas Raiders could still play the New England Patriots in the upcoming NFL season).
You can read more of King’s thoughts below:
Drivers entering Florida face checks from police in an effort to curb the spread of Covid-19 in the state. Travellers coming from states hit particularly hard by the virus – Louisiana, New York, New Jersey and Connecticut – will have to isolate for a period of 14 days after entering Florida. As a result cars on I-10 and I-95 will be pulled aside and may be required to undergo further screening.
To assist with the implementation and enforcement of the Executive Order, #FHP will staff the checkpoint at I-10 at the Alabama/Florida line, 24 hours a day with approximately 16 troopers in 12-hour shifts. Learn more: https://t.co/0viKTM2IIT. pic.twitter.com/gwwfvlGfaA
— FLORIDA DOT (@MyFDOT) March 29, 2020
“Failure to complete the form and failure to follow any isolation or quarantine order from DOH are a violation of Florida law,” the Florida Department of Transportation said in a statement.
While the most obvious effect of the Coronavirus outbreak on sports has been the shutdown of professional (and amateur) leagues across the country, Covid-19 has also taken its toll on athletes themselves. News emerged over the weekend that former NFL player Orlando McDaniel had died from complications due to the virus on Friday night. McDaniel, who was 59 at the time of his death, played briefly for the Denver Broncos. He was also a track star during his time at LSU. After the end of his football career he became a track coach in Texas. He fell ill after visiting family in Washington DC.
“He was one of the most important people in our sport,” LSU track and field coach Dennis Shaver told ESPN. “He had to persuade youth to spend their summers doing something productive. Orlando had essentially dedicated his life to it. They’d come to summer meets and have two busloads full of people. It was a real impressive group of people. He’s sorely going to be missed.”
Louisiana has been particularly hard hit by the Covid-19 outbreak, with around 150 deaths in the state so far. On Sunday, churchgoers defied the state ban on public gatherings when around 500 people attended a ceremony at Life Tabernacle church in Central, near Baton Rouge. “Other congregations are using the internet, Skype, and other safe ways to congregate. Why can’t they? What makes them so special?” one local resident Paul Quinn told the Associated Press.
Louisiana’s governor, John Bel Edwards, told CBS earlier today that he was worried about the lack of ventilators in the state. “We’re doing everything that we can,” Edwards said. “This is the biggest issue in the near term, however … ventilator capacity. And it’s the one thing that really keeps me up at night right now.”
You can read more about the outbreak in Louisiana here:
Three clergymen of the Church of God in Christ have died from Covid-19 in Michigan, according to their families. Robert Smith Sr, Kevelin Jones and Myron Lett all died in the past few days. Smith Sr and Jones were based in Flint, which Lett was from Detroit. “What we know about the new coronavirus is that no one is immune to it,” wrote Smith’s family on Facebook.
Donald Trump, the president, has taken to Twitter to praise Donald Trump, the TV star.
“Because the ‘Ratings’ of my News Conferences etc. are so high, ‘Bachelor finale, Monday Night Football type numbers’ according to the @nytimes, the Lamestream Media is going CRAZY. ‘Trump is reaching too many people, we must stop him.” said one lunatic. See you at 5:00 P.M.!’”, he wrote.
It’s a little odd that Trump is happy to cite a story from the “Lamestream Media” he is denigrating, but there you go.
Because the “Ratings” of my News Conferences etc. are so high, “Bachelor finale, Monday Night Football type numbers” according to the @nytimes, the Lamestream Media is going CRAZY. “Trump is reaching too many people, we must stop him.” said one lunatic. See you at 5:00 P.M.!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 29, 2020
Cuomo ends a daily briefing where he reported that coronavirus deaths have climbed to 965 from 728 in New York, the largest single-day increase of the outbreak so far.
He also extended his order for all non-essential workers to remain home until 15 April and refused to “paper over” the stark economic reality facing the state, instead reminding New Yorkers of their strength and urging them to “try to find a silver lining in all this”.
Cuomo delivers some hard truths when pressed on the economy, saying: “This is not going to be a quick down, quick up. You’re looking at weeks or months.”
“You can sort of paper over it and come up with expectations,” he says. “‘Well, we believe the next federal bill will actually deliver money to the state of New York.’ Yeah, you could say that. And you could say I believe that Santa Claus is real. But I’m not comfortable doing it, especially since the federal government just passed the bill and that’s what we were just hoping for, and the federal government just did the exact opposite and handed us a goose egg. ‘Well, we expect the economy is going to rebound in nine months and that it’s going to be what they call a ‘V curve’: it’s going to be a quick down, it’s going to be a quick up, and in nine months all those revenues going to come flooding back so we’re going to be fine. That’s another way of papering over the hole. I don’t want to do that either, because I don’t to believe it and I don’t believe anyone’s going to believe it. And I don’t believe credit agencies are going to believe it. And I believe postponing a problem – in government, in life – you just make it worse. You just make it worse. You just make it worse. Let’s not deceive ourselves.
“You’re not going to get saved by the federal government. If they were going to do it, they would have done it. They played their own politics. Shocker. This is not going to be a quick down, quick up. You’re looking at weeks or months and I don’t know how quick the recovery [will be] and the recovery is going to be complicated. And everybody says it. So I’m not going to say to the people of this state there is a theory of economics that I don’t believe. I believe we have to actually deal with the numbers that are presented, by the way, like every family in this state has to deal with the numbers.”
Asked if he doesn’t regret taking action sooner, Cuomo says: “Shutting it down is a very drastic measure, but I think we were one of the first. Also, you want to do it in a way that doesn’t create more fear and more panic. You’re fighting two things. We’re still fighting two things. Last night we were fighting two things. We’re fighting the virus and we’re fighting the fear. I can’t tell you how many people called all night long about the mandatory quarantine comment that the president made as he was getting into a helicopter, which was inconclusive by the way. But people are so on edge. It really panicked people. They were going to leave the city last night.”
Cuomo discusses the particular challenges of nursing homes, which have accounted for about a quarter of the coronavirus deaths in New York state.
“Frankly, we are lucky that it’s only one quarter,” the governor says. “Coronavirus and a nursing home is a toxic mix. We’ve said that from day one. We saw that in Washington state. This virus preys on the vulnerable, it preys on seniors, it preys on people with compromised immune systems and underlying illnesses. And coronavirus in a nursing home can be like fire through dry grass. The state has put in different precautions. We’re not even allowing visitors into nursing homes – which is really harsh, frankly – unless there are what we call exigent circumstances. The staff is being tested before they go in. So we’re doing everything we can, but this is a truly terrible virus to stop and that combination is lethal. Coronavirus in a nursing home is lethal.”
Cuomo closes his prepared remarks by telling New Yorkers: “There is no state in the nation that is better prepared or better mobilized than what we’re doing.”
He says: “Yes, New York is the epicenter and these are different times and many people are frightened. Some of the reactions you get from individuals, even from governments, are frightening and suggesting that they’ll take abrupt actions against New York. But look: This is New York and we are going to make it through this. We have made it through far greater thing. We are going to be OK. We specialize in stamina and strength and in stability and that’s just what we’re doing now. We are strong, we have endurance and we have stability. And we know what we’re doing, we have a plan, we’re executing the plan. Any thing, any obstacle that we come across, we will manage that obstacle and we have.
“I can’t sit here and say to anyone you’re not going to see people pass away. You will. That is the nature of what we’re dealing with and that’s beyond any of our control. But, New York is going to have what it needs and no one is going to attack New York unfairly and no one is going to deprive New York of what it needs. That’s why I’m here that’s why we have a state full of very talented and professional people. So a deep breath on all of that. We are doing exactly what we need to do. There is no state in the nation that is better prepared or better mobilized than what we’re doing. And I feel that deeply and having studied everything that every other state has done. Federal officials have even remarked to me that they’re surprised how quickly a state as big and complicated as New York has actually mobilized. So feel good about that.”
Cuomo says the CDC has ordered a travel advisory for the people of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, clarifying that it is not an enforceable quarantine as floated by President Trump on Saturday. He also says Rhode Island has repealed an executive order on forced quarantine of New Yorkers and door-to-door searches.
“This is disorienting,” he admits. “It’s frightening, it’s disturbing. Your whole life is turned upside down overnight. Do the best you can. You find a way to create some joy. You try to find a silver lining in all of this.”
Cuomo says there are 59,513 confirmed Covid-19 cases in New York with 8,503 hospitalizations and 3,572 patients having been discharged overall. The death toll has grown from 728 to 965. That’s 237 deaths in a single day.
“The number of cases are still going up, so you’re still going up towards an apex,” he says. “But the rate of the doubling is slow, which is good news.”
He says that 76,000 healthcare volunteers have stepped up to help the effort.
Cuomo says he’ll speak with New York City mayor Bill de Blasio, city comptroller Scott Stringer and private hospitals to discuss greater collaboration.
“I’m going to be meeting with them tomorrow to talk about having those hospitals organized to get out of their silos, get out of their identities, to work together,” he says. “And then overall you have these local health systems, the state’s role which we’ve never really done before is getting those health systems to work with one another, so if New York City gets overwhelmed we will ask the upstate systems to be a relief valve for the downstate.”
The governor says Wadsworth and the New York State department of health have developed a “less intrusive salive and short nasal swab test” which requires less PPE and limits exposure for healthcare workers. “It should start as soon as next week,” he says.
New York governor Andrew Cuomo has just started his daily briefing from Albany. He starts off by saying healthcare providers will see a “rolling apex” in coronavirus cases across the state.
“Providers should be watching what’s going on in different parts of the state and anticipating what’s going to happen,” he says. “This is going to be a phenomenon of a rolling apex. The apex of the curve will occur at different times in different places.”
He adds: “No hospital is an island. No hospital in this situation can exist unto themselves. We really have to have a new mental culture of hospitals working with one another.”
Updated
Dr Anthony Fauci, the leading US government infectious disease expert, offered a grim prediction Sunday: nationwide coronavirus deaths could number in the hundreds of thousands.
“I mean, looking at what we’re seeing now, I would say between 100,000 and 200,000 cases. But I don’t want to be held to that, because it’s – excuse me – deaths,” Fauci said Sunday morning on CNN’s State of the Union. “But I – I just don’t think that we really need to make a projection, when it’s such a moving target, that you can so easily be wrong and mislead people.”
Host Jake Tapper also asked Fauci about Trump’s discussion of quarantining New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. Trump ultimately abandoned his “enforceable quarantine” idea in favor of a strong advisory urging residents of these states not to engage in non-essential travel.
“We had very intensive discussions last night at the White House with the president. As you know, the original proposal was to consider seriously an enforceable quarantine. After discussions with the president, we made it clear, and he agreed, that it would be much better to do what’s called a strong advisory,” Fauci said. “And the reason for that is that you don’t want to get to the point where you’re being – enforcing things that would create a bigger difficulty, morale and otherwise, when you could probably accomplish the same goal.”
“One of the issues is that the infection rate in New York City, in the New York City area, is about 56% of all of the new infections in the country are coming from that area. That’s terrible suffering for the people of New York, which I feel myself personally, as a New Yorker,” Fauci said.
“So what was trying to be done is to get people, unless there’s necessary travel, so, all nonessential travel, to just hold off, because what you don’t want is people traveling from that area to other areas of the country, and inadvertently and innocently infecting other individuals,” he continued.
“We felt the better part of – way to do this would be an advisory, as opposed to a very strict quarantine. And the president agreed. And that’s why he made that determination last night. And I believe he tweeted it out last night.”
Dr Deborah Birx, White House coronavirus task force coordinator, said on NBC’s Meet The Press that Covid-19 would impact the entire US.
“We’ve been raising the alert in all metro areas and in all states. No state, no metro area will be spared,” she said.
“The sooner we react, and the sooner the states and the metro areas react and ensure that they put in full mitigation, at the same time understanding exactly what their hospitals need,” Birx continued, “then we’ll be able to move forward together and protect the most Americans”.
Fauci and Birx’s comments this morning stand in contrast with Trump’s previous expressions of optimism.
His statements suggesting that parts of the US could reopen by Easter conflict with public health officials, as well as state and local authorities, who have repeatedly emphasized that things are poised to get far worse, not better, in the near future.
Updated
On NBC’s Meet the Press, host Chuck Todd questioned Joe Biden about the fine line between constructive criticism and “back-seat driving” in a time of national crisis.
“The line for me is to tell the truth,” Biden said. “If I see something that’s not happening I think it’s my obligation to step up and say, ‘This is what we should be doing’.
“Look, the coronavirus is not the president’s fault but the slow response, the failure to get going right away, the need to do the things that needed to be done quickly, they are the things that can’t continue.
“We’re going to go through another phase of this and we have to be ahead of the curve.”
Biden would not be drawn on whether there was blood on Trump’s hands, as House speaker Nancy Pelosi suggested earlier. But he did urge the president to stop acting on impulse.
“He should stop thinking out loud and start thinking deeply, listening to the scientists before he speaks, he should listen to health experts, he should listen to his economists,” he said.
“He should right now be thinking about how to get those small business loans out the door, he should be focusing on making sure we’re in a situation where we’re able to see to it that unemployment benefits can get to people. What’s the IRS doing to get those $1,200 checks to people? That’s where the focus should be, and it should be laser focus.”
Todd finished by asking if it was time for Bernie Sanders, his sole remaining rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, to drop out.
“Bernie Sanders has poured his heart and soul into this campaign, he has moved the ball along on a number of issues that relate to what a government’s responsibilities are and I think it’s up to Bernie to make the judgement whether he should stay in the race or not stay in the race,” Biden said. “It’s a tough decision for Bernie to make.”
And on the news that Trump has closed the gap in opinion polls?
“That’s a typical American response. In every single crisis we’ve had going back to Jimmy Carter and the hostages all through to this moment the president’s ratings have always gone up in a crisis.
“[It’s] that old expression. The proof is going to be in eating the pudding.”
Further reading: Daniel Strauss and Lauren Gambino report from Washington on what Democratic strategists want Biden to do better:
More on treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin’s interview with Fox News Sunday…
Host Chris Wallace also asked Mnuchin about corporate payouts in the $2.2tn coronavirus relief package – and concerns about oversight.
“How much discretion do you and the president have on deciding which corporations, and under what terms?” Wallace asked.
“Chris, there’s two parts to this program,” Mnuchin said. “There’s approximately $50bn that we can make direct treasury loans that are subject to the president’s and my approval – those are specifically designed for the airline business and the cargo business. Taxpayers will be fully compensated for those loans.”
Mnuchin said the other part of the package involves working with the Federal Reserve.
Wallace pointed out that “one of the big sticking points when you were negotiating with Democrats in the Senate is they wanted an inspector general”. Two hours after Trump signed the bill, Wallace noted, the president “put out a statement that he will only allow that inspector to report to Congress under presidential supervision”.
“Didn’t that basically violate the deal?” Wallace asked.
“I don’t think that’s the case, Chris,” Mnuchin said. “There’s constitutional issues. We’re going to have full transparency … .full transparency in reporting.”
Wallace pressed, asking if the inspector general will be allowed to report to Congress without impediment.
“Chris I’m going to leave that to the lawyers... and to Congress to figure out,” Mnuchin said.
Over on CNN, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi signaled the combat to come, saying the president’s stance was “ridiculous”:
This is about America’s families, how they deal with the health challenge that they have, about their lives, and about their livelihood. And part of this bill was about making sure that we put workers first.
The bill that the Republicans put forth was a gift to corporate America that would trickle down to the workers.
We did jujitsu on it. We turned it around into a bill that put workers and families first, and, by that doing that, to have, again, conditions placed on any money that would go to corporate America…
The president wants to dismiss that. And in doing so, that is one of the things that the American people are so upset about, that money is going to these big firms and the rest without any conditions.
First of all, let’s not even go into whether he’s allowed to do it. But we don’t accept that. We don’t accept that. We will have our oversight in the Congress. We have a panel that we’ve established.
So much for the political fights to come. Here’s Lauren Aratani’s look at the stimulus and what it means for you:
Biden slams Trump response
Joe Biden has appeared on NBC’s Meet the Press, speaking about Donald’s Trump’s failure to deliver crucial equipment quickly, and the likely need for more economic stimulus.
“I would make sure he uses the Defense Production Act, all the things that are first responders and nurses and doctors need,” the former vice-president and likely Democratic presidential nominee said. “Why are we waiting? We know they’re needed.
“Look at what’s happening here. You’ve got nurses showing up wearing garbage bags as protection. We need to get them the help they need right away.
“I’d also be talking about the next stage of the funding we’re going to need. We’ve gone through three stages, that’s not going to be enough to get us through this.”
Biden does not see the country opening up quickly, as Trump would like: “The first thing we should do is listen to the scientists, secondly we should tell them the truth, the American people have never shied away from being able to deal with the truth.
“The worst thing you could do is raise false expectations and watch them get dashed,” he said, referring to Trump’s optimistic predictions that the US could be open by Easter.
As for the scientists he sees stifled by Trump: “We should let them speak.”
Biden was talking as a new Washington Post-ABC poll saw him lose ground to Trump in the race for the White House, his lead now 49% to 47%. The same poll in February put the president seven points behind.
The governor of Washington state has called for a second-world-war-style mobilisation of the manufacturing base of the US, to provide basic testing and medical equipment he said were desperately needed.
Jay Inslee told CNN’s State of the Union: “We have got to mobilise the entire manufacturing base of the US like we did in world war two for things as simple as testing kits. We have a desperate need for all kinds of equipment.”
Inslee’s plea carries extra weight because his state was where the coronavirus crisis in the US began. It was the first state to report a confirmed case of the disease, and it was the first to record a death.
Washington state is still suffering a perilous dearth of basic materials, starting with the test kits that are essential for isolating and containing the spread of Covid-19.
Inslee, a Democrat, has been in a war of words with Donald Trump. The president has ridiculed the governor for “chirping” about the stuttering federal response.
On Friday Trump said at a press conference he had advised Mike Pence, the vice-president leading the White House coronavirus task force, to ignore Inslee because of his lack of “appreciation”.
“I say, ‘Mike, don’t call the governor of Washington, you’re wasting your time with him’.”
Inslee would not be drawn further into the dispute. He emphasised instead the good working relationship he has with the US army, which over the weekend has set up a temporary hospital in Seattle, and he said he hoped to still be talking to Pence.
Further reading: a troubling story from Washington state, by Hallie Golden:
Updated
Our southern bureau chief reports from New Orleans…
In Louisiana, a major Covid-19 hotspot with the second-highest per-capita death rate in the country, Governor John Bel Edwards has reiterated his expectation that ventilators will run out in the city of New Orleans within a week.
Louisiana has recorded 137 deaths, well over half in New Orleans, and 927 hospitalisations due to the virus, a third receiving treatment on ventilators.
Edwards told CBS’s Face the Nation the state had received no ventilators from the national stockpile, administered by the Trump administration, and had placed orders for around 12,000 with private manufacturers. It has received only 192, he said.
“We’re doing everything that we can,” Edwards said. “This is the biggest issue in the near term, however… ventilator capacity. And it’s the one thing that really keeps me up at night right now.”
He added that if the curve was not flattened then Louisiana would reach its entire bed capacity by roughly 10 April.
In an indication of the ferocious spread of Covid-19, Edwards’ office announced on Saturday that a 33-year-old staff member, April Dunn, had died due to the virus.
“She brightened everyone’s day with her smile, was a tremendous asset to our team and an inspiration to everyone who met her,” the governor said in a statement.
Louisiana, a deep south state with the highest incarceration rate in the nation, was also the location of the first federal inmate death, at a low security prison in Oakdale. The fatality was announced by the Bureau of Prisons on Saturday evening. Five other inmates have contracted the virus.
Further reading: Oliver and Alexandra Villareal report on fear and tension in America’s immigration detention facilities:
Updated
Mnuchin: Trump was serious about New York quarantine
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has appeared on Fox News Sunday – and faced questions from host Chris Wallace about Trump’s abandoned quarantine idea.
“The president did very seriously consider it,” Mnuchin said of the potential New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut quarantine, which Trump withdrew after a furious response from New York governor Andrew Cuomo, offering instead a federal advisory against unnecessary travel in the Tri-State area.
“The task force met yesterday, Mnuchin said. “It was the unanimous recommendation of the task force to go forward with the advisory.”
Wallace asked Mnuchin about why Trump didn’t go through with his quarantine idea.
“I think the president wanted to consider all the options. He was obviously concerned what was going on with New York,” Mnuchin said. “He spoke to the task force, he spoke to the governors, and he was comfortable that people would take this advisory very seriously and would not travel.”
Wallace also asked about Trump’s comments about reopening large parts of the US by Easter, despite the fact that health officials have said coronavirus continues to spread – necessitating social-distancing.
“Chris, I’m going to leave that decision to the medical professionals and the president,” Mnuchin said. “My full time focus right now is we couldn’t be more pleased that the Senate and House reacted very quickly, signed an enormous package to support US workers and the US economy.”
Wallace pressed on.
“There’s been a lot of pushback from public health experts about the idea of reopening parts of the country where there’s a lower incidence of the virus, opening them up perhaps within two weeks,” the host said.
“If the virus spread from China to Italy, can’t it spread from Chicago to Iowa? And if we were to open, reopen parts of the country too soon, wouldn’t that be the worst thing for the economy, if we see the virus spreading into more areas?”
Mnuchin: “Chris, I can assure you the president’s No1 objective is the health of the American public, and protecting the American public, and we’re going to do everything to support the economy.
“The task force will be reviewing it, it’ll be discussing it with the president, there hasn’t been any recommendation made yet, so again, let me just emphasize: the president wants to make sure that we kill this virus.”
Here’s our columnist Robert Reich, a former US labor secretary, on why those who want to rush to reopen the US economy are wrong as well as callous:
And here’s David Smith’s interview with Wallace, one of the toughest questioners on US TV, from earlier this month:
You’ve got to hand it to Gretchen Whitmer, the Democratic governor of Michigan. Not only is she now in the thick of the coronavirus storm, with 1,000 new confirmed cases on Saturday alone and many hospitals at capacity, but she is also being virulently trolled by Donald Trump.
The president calls her “the woman from Michigan” and has said he refuses to talk to her because she is insufficiently “appreciative” of his efforts.
On Sunday, Whitmer impressively refused to rise to the bait. Asked by Jake Tapper on CNN to respond to Trump’s insults, she said: “I don’t have energy to respond to every slight. I’m trying to work well with the federal government and we are stressed because people are dying right now.”
She said Detroit was already in a dire situation that “is getting worse by the minute”. But at least there were signs of an improving relationship with the Trump administration. On Saturday some 112,000 masks provided by the federal government arrived in her state.
“That will get us through the weekend,” she said.
On Saturday, Whitmer issued an executive order suspending water shutoffs in Michigan. The Guardian’s environmental justice reporter Nina Lakhani has written extensively about such shutoffs and the devastating effects they have on people’s lives even when there isn’t a pandemic in progress:
Dr Deborah Birx, a senior member of the White House coronavirus task force, has been speaking to NBC’s Meet the Press. Her comment which follows seems interesting in light of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s comments to CNN about his city being set to run out of key supplies and personnel just a week from today:
At this moment, we are asking every single governor and every single mayor to prepare like New York is preparing now.
Know where every hospital is: public, private. Know where every one of your surgical centers are. That’s where your anesthesia ventilators are. Know how to change those anesthesia ventilators up to supportive ventilators to take care of people.
Know where every piece of equipment is in the state. Know how to move that around the state based on need. The one thing that we can do as Americans is we know how to innovate. So it’s not just what you have inside your doors today. It’s how you can surge and move things around.
“We know this epidemic moves in waves. Each city will have its own epidemic curve. And so we can move between states, we can move within states, to meet the needs of everyone.
Here’s Amanda Holpuch’s profile of Dr Birx, from what seems like a very long time ago:
De Blasio: New York will run out of supplies and personnel by 5 April
Bill de Blasio, the mayor of New York, says the city will run out of essential medical supplies and personnel on 5 April, a week from today.
De Blasio told CNN the city was facing “a sharp escalation ahead … We are watching an escalation we’ve never seen in our lives, the only comparison is a hundred years ago with the Spanish influenza pandemic.”
The mayor said that with the city recording more than 30,000 confirmed cases of Covid-19, and with the death toll standing at 672, only the US military could respond to the crisis on the scale that was needed.
Ventilators were already in short supply, he said, and there was a need for large numbers of military and civilian doctors and nurses to be brought in to relieve the overstretched local medical staff.
He called the recent spat with Donald Trump over whether or not to impose a quarantine on the city a distraction.
“I want to know whether we are going to get the ventilators and the [personal protective equipment] and the doctors and nurses to save lives here in New York – that’s the standard to me. Are we going to save every life we can?”
The New York police department has released new information on coronaviruses cases among its members, reporting that 608 uniformed members and 88 civilian employees have tested positive. Department data also revealed that 4,342 NYPD uniformed members – 12% of the NYPD’s uniformed force – have called in sick.
On Saturday, the NYPD reported its third death from Covid-19, Manhattan detective Cedric Dixon.
It is with great sadness that the NYPD announces the death of another member of our family stemming from the Coronavirus Pandemic. Det. Cedric Dixon, assigned to the @NYPD32Pct Detective Squad, died on Saturday, March 28, 2020. Det. Dixon became a member of the NYPD on 12/8/1997 pic.twitter.com/rKO7qaxu9h
— NYPD NEWS (@NYPDnews) March 29, 2020
Officials also provided data on monitoring of local businesses, reinforcing bans on large gatherings and checking compliance of closure orders.
The statistics provided a glimpse of how New York City has slowed to a halt.
Of 2,620 supermarket visits from 8am Friday to 8am Saturday, officers found that 1,284 were closed. During the same period, officers also visited 7,200 bars and restaurants – which are only permitted takeout and delivery service – and recorded 4,814 closed.
Department officials continued to urge social distancing measures.
New York city is now experiencing more than half the new infections of coronavirus in the US.
The shocking news that 56% of all new infections are being confirmed in the nation’s largest city and its surrounding area was revealed by Dr Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
He told CNN’s State of the Union New York was now well beyond any hope of containing the disease. The challenge was now all about mitigation, he said.
“New York city has about 56% of all new infections in the country. That’s terrible suffering for the people of New York. I feel that personally as a New Yorker,” Fauci said.
He added that on Saturday night he and other top health officials persuaded Trump that his idea of imposing a forced quarantine on New York City was not a good idea. Instead, he agreed to a travel advisory that New Yorkers and others in the Tri-State area should “refrain from non-essential domestic travel for 14 days”.
“You don’t want to get to a point of enforcing things which would create a big difficulty for morale and otherwise when you could probably accomplish the same goal” voluntarily, he said.
In addition to New York and New Orleans, which is on the verge of a major crisis, Fauci also put the spotlight on Detroit, Michigan.
“We are going to see places like Detroit and other cities starting to get into trouble. The curve is going way up,” he said.
Pelosi: Trump inaction cost American lives
Nancy Pelosi, the top Democrat in Congress, has just delivered a devastating critique of Donald Trump on CNN’s State of the Union, accusing him directly of costing American lives through his constant denials and delays.
“The president’s denial at the beginning was deadly,” she said. “His delay in getting equipment to where it’s needed is deadly … As the president fiddles, people are dying.”
Asked by host Jake Tapper if she was saying Trump’s early downplaying of the severity of the coronavirus crisis “cost American lives” Pelosi replied: “Yes I am. I’m saying that.”
She said that after the crisis was over, there would need to be an investigation into Trump’s handling of the pandemic.
“What did he know?” Pelosi asked. “When did he know it?”
But for now it was a question of making sure he stopped failing to act.
“We still don’t have adequate testing,” Pelosi said, “and we still don’t have protective equipment for our health workers who are risking their own lives to save lives.”
Pelosi ended on this note: “Don’t fiddle while people die, Mr President.”
Such a direct accusation is certain to inflame Trump. Expect fireworks later.
Updated
House speaker Nancy Pelosi is first up on CNN’s State of the Union, speaking from an echoing spot on Capitol Hill. She’s critical of Trump’s response to the coronavirus outbreak, of course.
“What did he know and when did he know it?” she asks, adding “as the president fiddles, people are dying”, which means that in one breath she’s compared Trump to Richard Nixon and Nero. Not bad going.
She confirms she holds Trump responsible the loss of lives in America, which now has more than 2,000 Covid-19 deaths as the rate of confirmed cases increases dramatically.
More to come…
Trump and Biden in 'near tie' – new poll
A new Washington Post-ABC News poll has found Donald Trump in a near-general election tie with Joe Biden, the presumptive-if-not-confirmed Democratic presidential nominee. Seems unlikely but there it is:
I think – and many might not – that the following quote from Nate Silver of fivethirtyeight.com will bear repeating over the next few weeks and months, however much pundits might criticise Biden’s grasp of tech and the possibilities of working at home during a pandemic:
Almost nothing about what Joe Biden is doing for the next few weeks is gonna matter much for November. And almost everything about what Donald Trump is doing is going to matter a lot.
Here’s our report about what Trump did yesterday:
The US morning shows are imminent, promising a mix of updates on efforts to contain the spread of Covid-19 and raw, nasty politics.
Louisiana governor John Bel Edwards has been booked by NBC and ABC to discuss the fraught situation in his state, while treasury secretary and key stimulus negotiator Steven Mnuchin will appear on Fox and CBS.
CNN, up first, have booked Nancy Pelosi and Dr Anthony Fauci – he of medical expertise and tribute donut fame – as well as Bernie Sanders, New York City mayor Bill de Blasio and Washington governor Jay Inslee. Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer is appearing on NBC’s Meet the Press.
Donald Trump does not have anything on his public schedule until this afternoon, which will end with a White House briefing. The president is not a fan, to put it mildly, of Inslee and Whitmer.
So we’ll all be watching for tweets.
Good morning…
… and welcome to another day of coverage of the coronavirus outbreak in the US. There are now nearly 125,000 cases confirmed in the US and more than 2,000 deaths. New York state is by far the worst hit.
In Trump’s America, Saturday saw an ordinarily extraordinary procession of events. First, Donald Trump ignored official advice against unnecessary travel and went to Norfolk, Virginia, to see off the USNS Comfort, a huge ship headed for New York harbour to provide extra hospital beds to a city health system on the verge of collapse.
As he did so, the president floated without fanfare the idea of some sort of quarantine for New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. This first took New York’s governor, Andrew Cuomo, by surprise, then made him angry. The dubious legality of such a move aside, Cuomo said, it would lead to “chaos and mayhem” and amount to a “federal declaration of war” on the states involved.
Trump backed off, but the federal CDC later issued stern advisory against non-essential travel in the tri-state area. In Rhode Island, all the while, national guard troops were knocking on doors, looking for New Yorkers to quarantine. Cuomo wasn’t happy about that, either.
And so on Sunday the US awoke to another day of fear and uncertainty. In Illinois, the first US infant death from coronavirus has been reported. In immigration detention facilities across the country and particularly in the south, tension is rising. Many immigrants dare not use public health services. And as our national correspondent Tom McCarthy explains here, Democratic states seem to be taking public measures to stop the spread of the virus more seriously than those run by Republicans.
Bryan Armen Graham will be here later to take you through the day. In the meantime, here’s our columnist Robert Reich, a former US labor secretary, on why “back to work” calls from the bankers and billionaires who benefit from the Trump economy – and the president who owns it – should be ignored:
