Live reporting on the coronavirus continues in Friday’s blog:
Summary
- Donald Trump implied that he’d seen evidence proving the unproven theory that the coronavirus originated at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. He also repeated claims that China favored Joe Biden over him in the election, during a White House event to review the government’s efforts to protect senior citizens. Trump announced the creation of the Coronavirus Commission for Safety and Quality in Nursing Homes.
- The office of the director of national intelligence said the intelligence community does not believe coronavirus was manmade. The new statement comes amid reports that Trump has asked intelligence officials to investigate whether the virus originated from a Chinese government laboratory.
- Armed protestors demonstrated against the extension of shelter in place orders in Michigan. The demonstrators, some of whom were carrying assault rifles, compared the state’s Democratic governor Gretchen Whitmer to Hitler.
- Another 3.8 million Americans filed for unemployment benefits last week, according to the latest data from the labor department. More than 30 million Americans have submitted unemployment claims in the past six weeks.
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Georgia will lift its statewide shelter-in-place order for most residents starting tomorrow. Republican governor Brian Kemp said the order remained in effect for the elderly and the “medically fragile,” and he urged residents to still stay at home as much as possible.
Looking for coronavirus updates from around the world? Catch up on The Guardian’s global liveblog:
Armed protesters demonstrate against Covid-19 lockdown at Michigan capitol
Hundreds of protesters, some armed, gathered inside Michigan’s state capitol on Thursday as state lawmakers debated the Democratic governor’s request to extend her emergency powers to combat coronavirus.
A tightly packed crowd of protesters, some carrying rifles, attempted to enter the floor of the legislative chamber, and were held back by a line of state police and capitol staff, according to video footage posted by local journalists.
“Let us in! Let us in!” the protesters chanted, as they stood shoulder-to-shoulder inside the statehouse. Few of them were wearing face masks.
Some of the protesters shouted anti-government slogans, including comparing the state’s Democratic governor, Gretchen Whitmer, to Hitler.
Updated
Joe Biden is expected to address allegations of sexual misconduct tomorrow on MSNBC.
Tomorrow in a @Morning_Joe exclusive, former Vice President @JoeBiden joins @JoeNBC, @morningmika & @WillieGeist to respond for the first time to the recent allegation of sexual assault.
— MSNBC Public Relations (@MSNBCPR) April 30, 2020
In recent days, new information has emerged about an allegation of sexual assault against Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, made by Tara Reade, a former aide. A former neighbor od Reade’s told NPR on Wednesday that the two had spoke about the alleged assault 25 years ago.
Coronavirus antibody tests explained: what are they and do they work?
Health officials in Germany, the UK and the US are looking at antibody testing to figure out when and how their countries could open back up. Some authorities are even considering issuing “immunity passports” that would help key workers safely and quickly return to their jobs.
But some early Covid-19 antibody tests, and the research that hinges on them, have been deeply flawed. Infectious disease experts warn that while reliable antibody tests could eventually reveal much about how the disease spreads and how deadly it is, it is too early to draw any definitive conclusions from screening studies.
Here’s what you need to know:
The Democratic National Committee’s War Room director condemned Trump’s scapegoating of China.
“Trump finally admitted the truth: he rolled over for China. Trump put his political fortunes first and our public health last,” said Daniel Wessel in a statement to The Guardian. “He refused to call out China on its coronavirus response and delayed taking action to mitigate the crisis out of fear of upsetting his trade deal that has gone largely unfulfilled. Now Americans are suffering the consequences.”
Although Trump has taken an increasingly hostile stance toward China in recent days, a month ago, the president complimented the country’s handling of the coronavirus crisis.
Just finished a very good conversation with President Xi of China. Discussed in great detail the CoronaVirus that is ravaging large parts of our Planet. China has been through much & has developed a strong understanding of the Virus. We are working closely together. Much respect!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 27, 2020
Updated
During the White House event, Trump said that China would want his opponent Joe Biden to win the election. The president has recently been pushing the idea that China’s handling of the coronavirus is proof that Beijing “will do anything they can” to make him lose his re-election bid in November.
The Guardian’s Alison Rourke and Lily Kuo report:
In an interview with Reuters, the US president said he was looking at different options in terms of consequences for Beijing over the virus. “I can do a lot,” he said, without going into detail.
Trump has increasingly blamed China for the pandemic and on Wednesday again said Beijing should have let the world know about the coronavirus much sooner. He also speculated about retaliation: “There are many things I can do,” he said. “We’re looking for what happened.”
For the first time, Trump linked Beijing to his re-election chances in November. “China will do anything they can to have me lose this race,” he said, adding that he believed China wants his Democratic opponent, Joe Biden, to win the race to ease the pressure on US-China trade relations.
“They’re constantly using public relations to try to make it like they’re innocent parties,” he said of Chinese officials.
Donald Trump has concluded his White House event to address protections for seniors. Although this was not billed as a coronavirus briefing, like his White House event yesterday — it really seemed like one.
Trump veered off-topic, took questions from reporters, made the same misleading assertions he’s made at previous coronavirus briefings ( I’ve fact-checked a few of them below).
Before signing off the president wondered out loud whether he should wear a mask when he travels to Arizona next week, leaving Washington for the first time in more than a month, in order to visit a Honeywell aerospace facility that has transitioned to producing N-95 masks.
“I’ll have to see the climate,” Trump said, adding that he would “have no problem wearing a mask.”
“Should I speak in a mask?” he asked. “Is that politically correct?
A Democratic congressional candidate is arguing that a member of the committee in charge of overseeing stimulus money should step down over past comments she made on vaccines.
The Guardian’s senior political reporter Daniel Strauss reports:
The candidate, Democrat Suraj Patel, is running for New York congresswoman Carolyn Maloney’s seat. On Wednesday, Maloney was appointed to the select committee on the coronavirus crisis, a new oversight committee.
Here’s Patel’s statement:
Carolyn Maloney spent decades as an anti-vaccine movement leader giving validity to a dangerous creed threatening public health and the most vulnerable.
The history of Maloney’s anti-vaccine stances is long and dangerous: she authored ani-vaccine legislation; angrily berated a CDC Director during a congressional hearing because the CDC Director would not agree that vaccines cause autism; led a radical group of activists in a ‘Green the Vaccine’ rally outside of the steps of Congress; hosted radical anti-vaccine activists in Congress; and regularly claimed vaccines were as dangerous as smoking.
It is dangerous and unthinkable to elevate her anti-science voice during the coronavirus crisis. The world is waiting on a vaccine to bring this horror to an end. This is no time to hand the mic to someone who endangers public health by questioning science. Appointing her to this position begs the question: How is a committee tasked with overseeing the development of a COVID-19 vaccine credible if Maloney, an anti-vaccine activist that questions the CDC’s scientific findings on vaccines, is one of its leaders?
Now more than ever we need elected officials who trust doctors, medicine, and science. Maloney does not fit the bill. I call on Speaker Pelosi to remove Representative Maloney from the Select Committee on the Coronavirus Crisis sending a message to America’s doctors and scientists: we will always follow your lead.
Maloney, who’s been a member of Congress for over 25 years, has had to walk back past statements questioning the safety of vaccines for children. In a 2012 congressional testimony on autism, according to the New York Post, Maloney said:
And you’ve got to listen, you know, to — I remember smoking. I was on the City Council. I sat through so many hearings where they vowed smoking was not bad for your health. It’s common sense it was bad for your health...The same thing seems to be here with vaccinations. There’s too much verbal evidence coming from parents where they break down,[and say], ‘I had a normal child, I gave him a vaccination, and then they came down with autism.’
More recently a spokesperson for Maloney has said she does not believe there’s a link between vaccinations and autism.
On Wednesday Maloney was named by the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, to the bipartisan select committee on the coronavirus crisis. Maloney is one of seven Democrats named to the committee. The committee is a high profile perch for a member of Congress. It is charged with oversight of the coronavirus stimulus package passed in Congress.
Updated
Fact check: Is the virus manmade?
Trump said he can’t say why, but he’s confident that the coronavirus originated from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
But the office of the director of national intelligence has said the intelligence community does not believe coronavirus was manmade. In a statement, the Office of the DNI said: “The Intelligence Community also concurs with the wide scientific consensus that the Covid-19 virus was not manmade or genetically modified.”
“The IC will continue to rigorously examine emerging information and intelligence to determine whether the outbreak began through contact with infected animals or if it was the result of an accident at a laboratory in Wuhan.”
Updated
Fact check: Travel ban
Trump says the US is “very lucky” that he enacted a travel “ban” on China and a “ban on Europe”.
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:
Updated
Fact check: Testing
The president, as he’s done at multiple coronavirus press briefings, noted that the US has conducted about 6m coronavirus tests. “You add up everybody together they don’t add up to that,” Trump said, implying, as he’s done before that the US has done more testing than other countries combined.
This is not true. Countries around the world have together conducted more than 6m tests.
Moreover, while testing in the US has ramped up after an initially slow start, the US lags behind other countries in testing per capita. Currently, the US is testing about 1 in every 52 people.
Updated
Trump said he'll 'certainly consider' bringing Michael Flynn back into his administration
The president said he hasn’t ruled out pardoning Flynn, a former national security adviser who pled guilty to lying to the FBI about communicating with a Russian ambassador.
During a White House event addressing how the government will protect seniors, Trump once again complained about the treatment of Flynn.
Hi there, this is Maanvi Singh – blogging from the west coast.
Donald Trump is still speaking at a White House event, where he has been delivering remarks on protecting America’s seniors, and is taking questions from reporters.
Updated
Today so far
That’s it from me today. My west coast colleague, Maanvi Singh, will take over the blog for the next few hours.
Here’s where the day stands so far:
- Another 3.8 million Americans filed for unemployment benefits last week, according to the latest data from the labor department. More than 30 million Americans have submitted unemployment claims in the past six weeks.
- The office of the director of national intelligence said the intelligence community does not believe coronavirus was manmade. The new statement comes amid reports that Trump has asked intelligence officials to investigate whether the virus originated from a Chinese government laboratory.
- The New York subway will close for nightly cleaning. The transit system will close between 1 am and 5 am ervery night to allow the subway cars to be thoroughly disinfected.
- Another protest broke out at Michigan’s state capitol. The demonstrators, some of whom were carrying assault rifles, railed against Democratic governor Gretchen Whitmer’s stay-at-home order.
- Georgia will lift its statewide shelter-in-place order for most residents starting tomorrow. Republican governor Brian Kemp said the order remained in effect for the elderly and the “medically fragile,” and he urged residents to still stay at home as much as possible.
Maanvi will have more coming up, so stay tuned.
Trump just announced he will sign a proclamation today declaring the month of May to be Older Americans Month.
Speaking at the White House, the 73-year-old president joked about his age, saying, “I don’t know if I’m in that category. I have a feeling I am. But I feel good.”
Trump’s announcement comes as polls indicate that Americans who are 65 or older are increasingly critical of the president’s handling of the pandemic.
Trump will need the support of older Americans to have any chance of winning the presidential election in November, so this proclamation is likely meant to appease some of his elderly supporters.
In his speech announcing the proclamation, the president also took credit for a 2014 bill that was signed into law by Barack Obama.
During somnambulant coronavirus speech at the White House, Trump takes credit for Veterans Choice legislation that was actually signed into law by President Obama in 2014 pic.twitter.com/Bgfa1e6UNz
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 30, 2020
The Guardian’s Mario Koran reports on the latest from California:
Californians in many parts of the state are breathing a sigh of relief after governor Gavin Newsom announced temporary closures of beaches only in Orange County, south of Los Angeles, instead of closures of beaches statewide, like previous reports had indicated.
San Diego mayor Kevin Faulconer welcomed the news on Twitter after chiding the governor for the expected statewide beach-ban.
Great news: the Governor heard us. San Diego beaches WILL STAY OPEN under our plan approved by lifeguards and health officials. In a time of great crisis we don't need knee-jerk policies. We need to keep a steady hand. It’s the only way to keep the public’s trust. Keep it up, SD!
— Kevin Faulconer (@Kevin_Faulconer) April 30, 2020
But the news is sure to provoke residents of Orange County, where more than 200 protestors last weekend took to the streets, in defiance of statewide restrictions, to call for a reopening of the economy. And reports are already emerging of another rally planned for noon tomorrow.
BREAKING: Governor Newsom has just announced he will order ALL beaches in ONLY Orange County closed, rather than all beaches in state as memo said. He called recent crowds at OC beaches “disturbing”. There is a protest planned at Huntington Beach pier tomorrow at noon. @FOXLA
— Bill Melugin (@BillFOXLA) April 30, 2020
While health experts hold firm on the importance of social distancing and hygiene, the reaction to beach closures has been mixed. This week, public health experts and epidemiologists told the Guardian’s Sam Levin that some of the backlash and concern may be unwarranted.
One public health professor said he was initially shocked by the photos showing densely packed beaches, but said it was possible that those who are grouped together could be from the same household. Other experts pointed out that some of the conditions at beaches — like salt water, sand and sunlight — could make it more difficult for the virus to spread from person to person. Experts say the virus doesn’t survive long in ultraviolet light, although light cannot kill a virus already in the body, as Trump has suggested.
“If allowing people to have access to sunshine and recreation is what’s going to keep them from protesting and violating laws, that may be a trade-off worth making,” said Wendy Parmet, a Northeastern University health policy expert.
Mike Pence said he found the government’s treatment of Michael Flynn to be “deeply troubling,” as the president signals he is considering a possible pardon of his former national security adviser.
NEWS: Asked about Mike Flynn, Pence tells us: “When you see the nature of abusive actions by justice department officials toward him, it's deeply troubling.” He stopped short of saying Flynn shouldn’t have been fired. pic.twitter.com/wOyf8sryBX
— Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) April 30, 2020
“I think Gen. Michael Flynn is a patriotic American who served with great distinction in the armed forces,” Pence told reporters while visiting a General Motors plant in Indiana.
“I’m deeply troubled by the revelations of what appears to have been investigative abuse by officials in the Justice Department and we are going to continue to look into that very carefully.”
Trump renewed speculation about whether he would pardon Flynn earlier today, when he sent a tweet criticizing the government for its handling of the Flynn case.
What happened to General Michael Flynn, a war hero, should never be allowed to happen to a citizen of the United States again!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 30, 2020
It’ s important to note that Flynn himself pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his contacts with the Russian ambassador to the US and went on to cooperate with special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.
But many of the president’s supporters now claim the prosecution of Flynn’s case was unjust and have urged Trump to pardon the former official, raising concerns about the president using his power to protect his allies.
Newsom announces closure of Orange County beaches
The Guardian’s Mario Koran reports on the latest from California:
California governor Gavin Newsom announced today that beaches in Orange County would be closed starting Friday, after pictures showed dense crowds of beach-goers last weekend.
Unlike earlier reports — which said the governor would close all parks and beaches statewide -- the closure is targeted to Orange County, south of Los Angeles.
“Orange County has been on our list of health concerns,” Newsom said at a news conference, adding that the county is among the top four problem areas of the state.
Newsom said that the previous, erroneous reports were not generated by his office and that he’s been clear and consistent about his plans.
"Bottom line, that was their memo, but that memo never got to me. We've been consistent, clear, transparent, talking about this every day, and we're just trying to focus on where there's a problem in a smart and strategic way. This is our determination to be led by data."
— Emily Hoeven💫 (@emily_hoeven) April 30, 2020
Reports of the statewide beach closures sparked outrage in pockets across the state and even drew pushback from mayors. San Diego mayor Kevin Faulconer welcomed the apparent turn of events.
San Diegans have been following the rules set by our public health officials and lifeguards since beaches reopened this week. A sudden state ban on every single beach — regardless of the facts on the ground — sends the wrong message to regions where people are acting responsibly. https://t.co/CLJkPgEGlx
— Kevin Faulconer (@Kevin_Faulconer) April 30, 2020
Joe and Jill Biden joined World Cup champion Megan Rapinoe on Instagram live for a 40-minute conversation that touched on the coronavirus pandemic, equal pay and national unity.
After a glitchy start, the Bidens beamed into Rapinoe’s Instagram from their home kitchen. Jill Biden excitedly showed off a newly-dyed purple streak in her hair, which she said was in solidarity with pay equity.
.@mPinoe jokes that if he's looking for a VP, she's available for an interview and will find a way to make it work with her soccer schedule.
— Marianna Sotomayor (@MariannaNBCNews) April 30, 2020
"My granddaughter would love it," @JoeBiden said.@DrBiden chimed in, "Every young girl in America is saying, 'yes!'" pic.twitter.com/WZfpxj4bj9
Rapinoe reminded Biden that she endorsed Elizabeth Warren during the primary but said she was now proudly Team Biden. She nodded to his embrace of some of Warren’s policies and said she looked forward to him championing the “most progressive” platform in the party’s history.
Asked about the coronavirus, Biden said: “I don’t want to be constantly criticizing the president because I want to get things done. But I’ve been very disappointed.” He urged Trump to “Take responsibility. This is a national crisis.”
As Biden continued to rail against the president’s response, Jill Biden interjected: “Let’s not talk about him. Let’s talk about us.”
A number of the comments on the livstream urged Rapinoe to ask Biden about the sexual assault allegation against him, a charge that his campaign has forcefully denied. The topic did not come up.
At the end of the conversation, Rapinoe pitched herself for the No. 2.
“If you need a vice president, I’m just saying, I’m available for an interview,” she said, as Jill Biden lit up with excitement.
“I would love that,” she said.
Democratic congressman Ted Lieu criticized Trump for pushing a nonsensical claim that his administration inherited “broken” coronavirus tests from the Obama era.
The California Democrat noted that the Trump administration had created the first version of the coronavirus test, which was unusable as a result of contamination.
“Stop making up stuff,” Lieu said. “You are the President. Act like it. Accept responsibility for your mistakes.”
Dear @realDonaldTrump: It was YOUR Administration that created the #COVID__19 test. First version failed. That’s why tests were “broken.” Because your Administration screwed up.
— Ted Lieu (@tedlieu) April 30, 2020
Stop making up stuff. You are the President. Act like it. Accept responsibility for your mistakes. https://t.co/s0ptkquBIl
Trump has previously claimed he inherited faulty tests from the Obama administration, which is obviously incorrect because the virus only emerged in the past several months.
The president has repeatedly tried to deflect widespread criticism of his administration’s early response to the virus by blaming everyone from Obama to China and the World Health Organization for the crisis.
Maryland governor Larry Hogan’s decision to keep the state’s coronavirus tests guarded at an undisclosed location comes after reports emerged earlier this month that the federal government was confiscating shipments of medical equipment.
Colorado governor Jared Polis said earlier this month that the state’s order of 500 ventilators had been “swept up” by FEMA. “We’re competing against any other state, every other country,” Polis told CNN. “Now we’re even competing against the federal government.”
Officials in other states, including Massachusetts and Kentucky, have similarly said the federal government confiscated shipments of personal protective equipment.
Maryland governor Larry Hogan said he is keeping the 500,000 coronavirus tests he obtained from South Korea guarded at a secure, undisclosed location.
While discussing his fears that the tests would be seized before reaching Maryland, the Republican governor said the tests were being guarded by the National Guard and state police at an undisclosed location.
Maryland @GovLarryHogan on whether he was concerned that the federal government would seize the tests the state procured from South Korea. He says the tests are being guarded by the National Guard at an undisclosed location. https://t.co/uGcUi6U5rL pic.twitter.com/15BhHmLzql
— Washington Post Live (@postlive) April 30, 2020
Hogan announced earlier this month that he had successfully negotiated directly with South Korea to acquire 500,000 additional tests for the state, which he praised as an “exponential, game-changing step forward.”
The remarkable move raised questions about governors circumventing the federal government to address supply chain issues, even though Trump has repeatedly insisted it’s up to the states to expand testing.
Georgia to lift statewide shelter-in-place order Friday
Goergia governor Brian Kemp intends to lift the statewide shelter-in-place order for most of the state’s residents starting on Friday.
Kemp said Georgians should still try to stay at home as much as possible, and the shelter-in-place order still applies to the elderly and the “medically fragile.” Safety restrictions for businesses will also remain in effect until at least May 13.
“What we’ve done has worked,” Kemp told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “It’s given us time to build our hospital infrastructure capacity, get ventilators and ramp up testing. That’s what really drove our decision.”
Kemp has received some criticism for allowing non-essential businesses like hair salons and barbershops to start reopening, raising concerns about a potential surge in coronavirus cases.
Trump similarly said yesterday that the federal guidelines aimed at limiting the spread of the virus, which are set to expire tonight, would be “fading out.”
Mike Pence is wearing a mask as he visits a General Motors plant in Indiana, just two days after the vice president was criticized for not covering his face while visiting the Mayo Clinic facilities in Minnesota.
anyways, pence wearing a mask at today's visit to gm pic.twitter.com/kmKMIfdzKQ
— Justin Sink (@justinsink) April 30, 2020
The vice president has generally avoided wearing a mask for public appearances, even though the CDC has recommended face coverings to limit the spread of coronavirus, so this represents a rare reversal from Pence.
The Mayo Clinic said in a since-deleted tweet that Pence was informed of its policy requiring masks before he visited, and the vice president appeared to be the only one not covering his face.
The vice president oddly defended his actions by saying he wanted to look frontline workers in the eye to say thank you. It’s very unclear as to how a mask would prevent Pence from looking frontline workers in the eye.
Pelosi speaks up for Biden over sexual assault allegation
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has given a robust defense of presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden - as some within her party urged him to directly address a woman’s sexual assault accusation against him that his campaign already has denied.
Biden is facing growing pressure to publicly address an allegation of sexual assault made by Tara Reade, a former aide to his Senate office.
The former vice-president has remained silent about the accusation, a position that is seen as increasingly untenable in the wake of new reporting. Many major Democratic women’s organizations and prominent feminists have also declined to comment publicly on Reade’s claim that Biden, then a senator from Delaware, assaulted her in 1993.
Biden’s deputy campaign manager, Kate Bedingfield, said in a statement this month that “this absolutely did not happen”, but she has not commented further.
Pelosi, the top Democrat in Congress, formally endorsed Biden for president on Monday. On Thursday, Pelosi said she continued to fully support Biden, Reuters writes.
She noted that staffers who ran Biden’s Senate office have said they had no recollection of a sexual assault complaint. Pelosi also highlighted Biden’s long history of supporting policies to stop the abuse of women.
“I have complete respect for the whole #MeToo movement,” Pelosi said at a news conference.
“There is also due process and the fact that Joe Biden is Joe Biden.”
“He is the personification of hope and optimism and authenticity for our country - a person of great values,” Pelosi added.
Reuters has not been able to independently confirm Reade’s accusations and also was unable to reach Reade or a representative for her for comment.
Updated
More protests in Michigan
People are demonstrating at the Michigan capitol, angry at governor Gretchen Whitmer’s efforts to extend social and business restrictions for May in response to the coronavirus crisis.
Earlier today hundreds of people were outside the capitol building in Lansing.
Some protestors could be seen not wearing masks or social distancing as instructed by the governor’s executive order. Protestors not practicing safety precautions could face fines, local station WXYZ reported.
The state of emergency in Michigan was due to end today. It was the place where demonstrations first bubbled up earlier this month, with people demanding they be allowed to go back out and about and open up the paralyzed economy again.
“Let us in!” chants permeate the halls of the Michigan legislature as protesters refuse to let up here in Lansing #michiganshutdown #MichiganProtest #michigancoronavirus pic.twitter.com/H3PrSeZFhM
— Brendan Gutenschwager (@bgutenschwager) April 30, 2020
But many protesters wore or carried paraphernalia supportive of Donald Trump, and many wore camouflage and carried assault rifles, leading to tense scenes and an obvious lack of social distancing, per federal guidelines and state orders.
And it became clear that protests there and in other states were being stoked by right-wing causes and even by the president in an extraordinary advocacy of civil disobedience and contrary to his own government policy.
Updated
Hospital ship leaves New York
The USNS Comfort treated just 182 people as a surge in cases in the hard-hit city fell short of the worst-case projections.
The last dozen patients on the ship were discharged or transferred to other hospitals over the weekend, The Associated Press reports.
Eleven people that were treated on the ship died from coronavirus, the Defense Department said.
Several ship personnel came down with coronavirus while deployed to New York.
A Pentagon spokesman called the ship’s departure “a sure sign of modest progress in mitigating the virus in the nation’s hardest hit city and is a welcome sign.”
Governor Andrew Cuomo said last week that he and Donald Trump agreed the Comfort was no longer needed in New York City.
“I believe Comfort not only brought comfort but also saved lives,” Cuomo said.
The Comfort and its 620 doctors, nurses and other crew members will return to the homeport in Norfolk, Virginia, where the ship will be restocked and be readied for another possible assignment.
More than 18,000 people in the state have died from coronavirus, most of them in New York City. That total doesn’t include more than 5,300 deaths in the city that were attributed to the virus on death certificates but weren’t confirmed by a lab test.
The Defense Department said it did not have information on how much the Comfort’s mission to New York cost.
The Comfort has a capacity of up to 1,000 hospital beds, but according to New York City’s Office of Emergency Management, it had 427 set up for the coronavirus crisis.
Updated
Republican senator Rick Scott escalated his ongoing feud with New York governor Andrew Cuomo over additional funding for state governments.
The feud started earlier this week, when Scott wrote a Wall street Journal op-ed arguing government funding should not be used “to save liberal politicians from the consequences of their poor choices.”
That sparked fury from Cuomo, who noted Scott’s homestate of Florida is more reliant on federal funding than New York is. “They’re not bailing us out,” Cuomo said. “We bail them out every year.”
Scott has now come out swinging again, saying in a new statement, “Governor Cuomo used his daily briefing as an opportunity to attack me to distract from the fact that he wants his state bailed out by Florida taxpayers.”
Congressional leaders continue to spar over the details of the next coronavirus relief bill, but the National Governors Association has said states need another $500 billion.
Today so far
Here’s where the day stands so far:
- Another 3.8 million Americans filed for unemployment last week, according to new figures from the labor department. More than 30 million Americans have submitted unemployment claims in the past six weeks as the economy suffers the effects of the pandemic.
- Trump claimed he had done a “spectacular” job handling the pandemic, despite widespread criticism of his administration’s early response to the virus. The president’s comments come as the US coronavirus death toll stands at 61,288.
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The New York subway will close for nightly cleaning, governor Andrew Cuomo announced at his daily briefing. The transit system will be closed from 1 am to 5 am to thoroughly disinfect all subway cars.
The blog will have more coming up, so stay tuned.
The interim president of the New York City Transit system said the subway closures for nightly cleaning would be in effect for “the duration of the pandemic.”
NEW: Buses will NOT be included in the MTA service shutdown, but will be included in the disinfection/new cleaning protocols.
— Bernadette Hogan (@bern_hogan) April 30, 2020
Effective date is May 6 for subway shutdown.
End date? @FeinbergSarah says for the “duration of the pandemic.”
“The duration of the pandemic” could be interpreted in a number of different ways, but if the plan remains in effect until a coronavirus vaccine is developed, the closures could last for several more months.
New York subway to close for nightly cleaning
The Guardian’s Kenya Evelyn with a recap of New York governor Andrew Cuomo’s daily press briefing:
For the first time in decades, New York City will no longer be “The City that never sleeps.”
The governor, along with New York City mayor Bill de Blasio, who patched in remotely, announced a partnership that the city will halt train service every night from 1 am to 5 am for disinfecting and cleaning.
“We’re going to find a way to make our subway system cleaner that it has ever been in its history, probably,” de Blasio said. “It’s not going to be easy, no one said it would be easy.”
Cuomo and de Blasio have not had the warmest relationship, to say the least. The two leaders have not shared a stage together since 2 March, one day after New York reported its first confirmed coronavirus case.
The governor reported that hospitalizations and new cases are down, and while 306 deaths are down from 330 Wednesday, Cuomo still called the number “terrible”.
“Optimist would say that’s a number on the decline, realists would say that’s a tremendous amount of grief for a loved one,” he said.
New York State had more than 300,000 confirmed cases of the virus and 18,000 deaths as of midday Thursday.
“Today’s another day to be better and do better,” Cuomo said.
Before expanding on details of state tracing efforts, Cuomo reiterated that the key to reopening states is keeping the infection rate down and hospital capacity high.
“If we do this right, this is a science reopening,” he said.
Cuomo was also joined by former New York City mayor and Democratic presidential candidate, Michael Bloomberg, who’ll lead the state’s case tracing efforts.
NEW: @NYGovCuomo says that the contact tracing will be coordinated with NJ and CT.
— Jesse McKinley (@jessemckinley) April 30, 2020
With no interaction with Cuomo, however, the mayor’s delivery garnered questions of whether the video was pre-recorded.
Striking how scripted Bloomberg sounds, next to Cuomo's fluid off-cuff delivery
— Corey Kilgannon (@coreykilgannon) April 30, 2020
Cuomo’s interaction with de Blasio, meanwhile, was obviously polite but noticeably cold - with both leaders taking no-so-subtle shots at each other’s infrastructure and management mixed in with heaps of praise.
While meeting with New Jersey governor Phil Murphy, Trump also reiterated his nonsensical claim that his administration “inherited” broken coronavirus tests.
.@Acosta: You say you had "broken tests" from Obama -- the coronavirus is a new virus, so how could the tests be broken?
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 30, 2020
TRUMP: "We have broken tests. We had tests that were obsolete. We had tests that didn't take care of people." (None of this makes sense.) pic.twitter.com/r7oobJNFU2
“We have broken tests,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. “We had tests that were obsolete. We had tests that didn’t take care of people.”
Considering this virus only emerged in the past several months, it is obviously impossible for the Obama administration to have left Trump “broken tests.”
Trump says he's done a 'spectacular' job handling coronavirus
The president said he thought the White House had done a “spectacular” responding to coronavirus, despite widespread criticism of the administration’s early response.
Trump claims his government's handling of the coronavirus has been "spectacular" pic.twitter.com/bHfzCIC5UL
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 30, 2020
During an Oval Office meeting with New Jersey governor Phil Murphy, Trump told reporters, “I think our whole group has been spectacular.”
But the administration has been criticized for fumbling its early response to the virus by failing to make testing more widely available.
Trump noted the US has now conducted more tests than any other country, but the country has still conducted far less tests per capita than Italy.
The Trump administration is reportedly considering retaliatory actions against China for its handling of the coronavirus outbreak.
The Washington Post reports:
Senior officials across multiple government agencies are expected to meet on Thursday to begin mapping out a strategy for seeking retaliatory measures against China, two people with knowledge of the meeting said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to disclose the planning. Officials in American intelligence agencies are also involved in the effort. ...
In private, Trump and aides have discussed stripping China of its ‘sovereign immunity,’ aiming to enable the U.S. government or victims to sue China for damages. George Sorial, who formerly served as a top executive at the Trump Organization and is now involved in a class-action lawsuit against China, told The Washington Post he and senior White House officials have discussed limiting China’s sovereign immunity. Legal experts say an attempt to limit China’s sovereign immunity would be extremely difficult to accomplish and may require Congressional legislation.
The president has repeatedly tried to deflect criticism of the White House’s early response to coronavirus by blaming China for not being forthcoming about the outbreak.
House speaker Nancy Pelosi was careful not to criticize Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell for calling senators back to Washington starting next week.
Pelosi and majority leader Steny Hoyer originally said the House would also return next week, but they reversed that decision after a consultation with the Capitol’s attending physician.
“We’re 430 members,” Pelosi said during her weekly briefing call. “The decision was made on the strength of our numbers and people coming together.”
The speaker added, “Now, what they advised the Senate, I don’t know. They are 100, we’re four times that.”
DNI believes virus 'was not manmade or genetically modified'
The office of the director of national intelligence has released an unusual statement saying officials do not believe coronavirus was manmade, echoing many health experts.
“The Intelligence Community also concurs with the wide scientific consensus that the COVID-19 virus was not manmade or genetically modified,” the statement reads.
The statement added, “The IC will continue to rigorously examine emerging information and intelligence to determine whether the outbreak began through contact with infected animals or if it was the result of an accident at a laboratory in Wuhan.”
Trump has reportedly asked intelligence officials to investigate whether coronavirus was created in a Chinese government laboratory, even though many public health experts have said they think the virus came about naturally.
Updated
The vice president is traveling to Indiana today to visit a General Motors plant that has shifted its production focus to make more ventilators.
VP Pence walks in the wind and rain from Marine Two to board Air Force Two for his flight to Kokomo, IN to visit GM Ventec ventilator plant. No facemask. No umbrella. pic.twitter.com/xo4QY1ce0c
— Mark Knoller (@markknoller) April 30, 2020
Pence has made several trips out of Washington in recent weeks, most recently visiting the Mayo Clinic facilities in Minnesota earlier this week, where he was criticized for not wearing a face mask as he met with staffers and patients.
Trump is reportedly anxious to leave the White House as well, and he has openly mused about when he might be able to once again hold campaign rallies.
Joe Biden’s campaign said he and Bernie Sanders had reached an agreement to ensure Sanders’ supporters and proposals are adequately represented at the party’s convention.
Biden’s team argued the agreement, which involves supporters of Sanders filling some delegate slots to reflect the results of primarie, would help to bring the party together before the convention. The campaign also specified that Sanders’ supporters would be represented in the New York delegation, even though the state canceled its primary.
Biden’s campaign said in a statement, “While Senator Sanders is no longer actively seeking the nomination, the Biden campaign feels strongly that it is in the best interest of the party and the effort to defeat Donald Trump in November to come to an agreement regarding these issues that will ensure representation of Sanders supporters and delegate candidates, both on the floor and in committees.”
Sanders suspended his campaign earlier this month, but he had said he will remain on states’ ballots to continue to win delegates in order to influence the party’s platform at the convention.
The Senate’s oldest member is urging majority leader Mitch McConnell to reconsider his decision to reconvene the chamber on Monday.
California senator Dianne Feinstein, who is 86, noted the House has backed off its initial plan to call members back to Washington next week.
“The Attending Physician of Congress, Dr. Brian Monahan, advised House leadership that he recommends against resuming their session,” Feinstein said in a statement.
“Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Hoyer did the right thing by heeding this public health advice and are setting the right example for the country.
“That’s why I ask the majority leader to reconsider his plan to reconvene the Senate. He would bring 100 senators and many more staff members and reporters into close proximity while Washington itself remains under a stay-at-home order. There is no way to do this without increased risk. This is the wrong example for the country.”
The Washington metropolitan region is seeing a rising number of coronavirus cases, raising further concerns about asking senators, most of whom are over 50, to return to Capitol Hill.
Sen Rick Scott: Senate is coming back next Monday: "That's what McConnell said...he didn't say how long we're coming back, but he said we're coming back."
— Kristin Wilson (@kristin__wilson) April 27, 2020
86 senators are 50+ years old
39 in their 60s, 22 in their 70s, 6 in their 80s
All flying in from all over the country
Updated
This is Joan Greve, taking over for Jo Walters.
The latest cover of Time magazine features an altered “open” sign reading “nope,” a nod to the difficult road ahead as the country starts to look toward reopening the economy.
TIME's new cover: How the real experts — scientists — are navigating the way out https://t.co/ZPhCnXiQWs pic.twitter.com/s6E7qYPjhr
— TIME (@TIME) April 30, 2020
The magazine’s cover story dives into the potential danger of reopening the country too quickly:
There is both promise and peril in being a pioneer, and the people of Hokkaido have learned both lessons well over the past few months. After infections of COVID-19 on the Japanese island exploded following its annual winter festival this year, officials in February declared a state of emergency to control the disease. Soon after, new daily cases plummeted, and Hokkaido’s quick action was heralded as a beacon for the rest of Japan to follow.
But it wasn’t just infections that dropped; over the next month, agriculture and tourism business also dried up, and Hokkaido’s governor decided to ease social restrictions. However, compliance with limits on social interaction after weeks of sequestering was harder this time around. Within a month, Hokkaido’s new COVID-19 infections jumped by 80%, and the governor had to reinstate lockdown policies.
There are similar stories from Singapore, Hong Kong and Germany, and all serve as sobering lessons for the decision-makers in the U.S. who are under increasing pressure to reopen the country to reactivate its stalled economy.
The story comes as the federal guidelines aimed at limiting the spread of the virus are set to expire, and some governors are already taking steps to reopen their states, potentially risking another surge in coronavirus cases.
Updated
Roger Stone appeals
Long-time Republican fixer Roger Stone has just filed notice that he is appealing his conviction last year.
Up to the DC Circuit we go: Roger Stone has just filed notice that he's appealing his conviction pic.twitter.com/pwIbjt3Gsf
— Zoe Tillman (@ZoeTillman) April 30, 2020
Stone, a longtime confidant and former aide to Donald Trump, was convicted in November of seven felonies in an attempt to interfere with a congressional inquiry. He was sentenced to 40 months in prison.
He was denied his request in January for a new trial.
The president tweeted about Stone this morning.
Does anybody really believe that Roger Stone, a man whose house was raided early in the morning by 29 gun toting FBI Agents (with Fake News @CNN closely in toe), was treated fairly. How about the jury forewoman with her unannounced hatred & bias. Same scammers as General Flynn!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 30, 2020
Another 3.8 million Americans file for unemployment
Another 3.8 million people lost their jobs in the US last week as the coronavirus pandemic continued to batter the economy. The pace of layoffs appears to be slowing, but in just six weeks an unprecedented 30 million Americans have now sought unemployment benefits and the numbers are still growing.
The latest figures from the labor department released on Thursday showed a fourth consecutive week of declining claims. While the trend is encouraging, the rate of losses means US unemployment is still on course to reach levels unseen since the Great Depression of the 1930s.
The figures are also still undercounting the number of people out of work. Some states are still dealing with backlogs of claims after their systems were overwhelmed by the massive volume of applications.
Florida has become a notable black spot. As of Tuesday the state had received more than 1.9 million claims and processed just over 664,000, one of the slowest rates in the nation.
Updated
White House pushes 'Operation Warp Speed'
Public health official Anthony Fauci this morning confirmed he is a member of a secretive team rushing to develop a vaccine for the coronavirus.
“I’m part of the team,” Fauci told NBC’s Today. The team is called Operation Warp Speed. Subtle.
Background: the Trump administration is planning to speed up development of a coronavirus vaccine with the goal of having 100 million doses ready by the end of 2020, a senior unnamed administration official said on Wednesday, Reuters reported.
Executives and other experts have previously suggested that clinical trials to guarantee a vaccine is safe and effective could take a minimum of 12 to 18 months.
Several agencies within the Department of Health and Human Services announced plans earlier in April to partner with more than 15 drug companies as well as European regulators in an effort to spur development of vaccines and treatments for the disease.
The latest Trump administration efforts to speed vaccine development were originally reported by Bloomberg News, citing people familiar with the matter.
The project will join private pharmaceutical companies with government agencies and the military in trying to cut the development time for a vaccine by as much as eight months, Bloomberg News said, with some folks comparing it to the Manhattan Project that developed the nuclear bomb.
Fauci said the best case scenario was a widely-available vaccine by January 2021.
“We are in the early, phase one, of the trial, the next phase is to find out whether it works and is safe,” he said.
If it goes to plan, who will be there to welcome it? President Trump or President Biden.
Updated
Donald Trump says China “will do anything they can” to prevent his reelection in November.
The Guardian’s Alison Rourke and Lily Kuo have this report from an exclusive Reuters interview with Donald Trump in the Oval Office.
The US president said he was looking at different options in terms of consequences for Beijing over the virus. “I can do a lot,” he said, without going into detail.
Trump has increasingly blamed China for the pandemic and on Wednesday again said Beijing should have let the world know about the coronavirus much sooner. He also speculated about retaliation: “There are many things I can do,” he said. “We’re looking for what happened.”
For the first time, Trump linked Beijing to his re-election chances in November. “China will do anything they can to have me lose this race,” he said, adding that he believed China wants his Democratic opponent, Joe Biden, to win the race to ease the pressure on US-China trade relations.
“They’re constantly using public relations to try to make it like they’re innocent parties,” he said of Chinese officials.
Trump said the trade deal that he concluded with Chinese president Xi Jinping aimed at reducing chronic US trade deficits with China had been “upset very badly” by the economic fallout from the virus.
California governor Gavin Newsom will order all beaches and state parks closed again from tomorrow.
A memo by the California Police Chiefs Association outlining the decision said it was initatiated “after the well-publicized media coverage of overcrowded beaches this past weekend.”
The governor was reportedly concerned after tens of thousands of people flocked to state shores last weekend during a heat wave, in violation of California’s mandatory stay-at-home order.
Newsom targeted beachgoers in Orange and Ventura counties as setting a poor example if the state wants to continue its progress fighting the coronavirus.”Those images are an example of what not to see, what not to do if we’re going to make the meaningful progress we’ve made the past couple of weeks,” Newsom told local station KABC.
Local leaders shot back at criticism over keeping the beaches open.
Donald Wagner, member of the Orange County board of supervisors said on Wednesday that closing the beaches was the governor’s right, but added “it is not wise to do so.”
“Medical professionals tell us the importance of fresh air and sunlight in fighting infectious diseases, including mental health benefits,” Wagner wrote.
There is no scientific or medical evidence that sunlight or fresh air play any role in combating the coronavirus.
Fauci gives more cautious praise for virus treatment
Dr Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the top public health official on the White House coronavirus task force, had more to say this morning about the preliminary results of the most promising trial yet of the drug remdesivir to treat Covid-19.
A relatively large study conducted by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) showed some hopeful results for remdesivir, an experimental antiviral produced by the US pharmaceutical company Gilead, initially as a potential treatment for the Ebola virus.
The main finding is that the drug reduced the amount of time that patients with severe coronavirus had to spend in hospital from 16 days (with a placebo) to 11 days.
The clinical trial has not been peer-reviewed and these are strictly preliminary results. It’s early days.
But Fauci told ABC’s Good Morning America today that the results were “clearly positive” if “modest”.
“It’s a first step in what we project will be better and better drugs coming along, alone or in combination. So it’s good news but...this is not the total answer.”
It is expected to be approved as an emergency treatment by the US regulator the Food and Drug Administration “relatively soon”, Fauci said.
Donald Trump is on Twitter this morning once again railing against the conviction of his former national security adviser Michael Flynn.
There has been talk that Flynn could beat the rap as early as this week with a pardon from the president, which Trump has been hinting at/not denying periodically for ages.
Flynn was, very briefly, Trump’s first national security adviser but he was fired and pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his dealings with the Russian ambassador before Trump took office.
Flynn has been awaiting sentence and in January tried to withdraw his guilty plea.
What happened to General Michael Flynn, a war hero, should never be allowed to happen to a citizen of the United States again!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 30, 2020
Trump also just retweeted his son, Don Jr, who yesterday said:
Not only should general Flynn’s charges be dropped immediately but the treasonous actors who set him up should be in jail!!!
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) April 29, 2020
Flynn originally cut a deal as part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russian election interference and links between Trump and Moscow.
He initially cooperated with the investigation, which concluded last year without establishing criminal conspiracy but did lay out extensive evidence of contact between Trump aides and Russia and possible obstruction of justice by the president himself.
Flynn hired a new lawyer, earlier this year, Fox News pundit Sidney Powell, a longtime critic of the Mueller inquiry who has peddled numerous false conspiracy theories on the investigation and other Trump policies and issues in prime time interviews.
In March Trump tweeted: “So now it is reported that, after destroying his life & the life of his wonderful family (and many others also), the FBI, working in conjunction with the Justice Department, has ‘lost’ the records of General Michael Flynn. How convenient.
“I am strongly considering a Full Pardon!”
As the president often says, we’ll see.
Federal guidelines on social distancing set to expire tonight
Good morning, US blog readers. Your primary blogger Joan Greve will be with you shortly but we’ll get the day started with some of the leading news around US politics and the coronavirus.
Federal guidelines on social distancing are set to expire at midnight tonight and at least two dozen states are set to begin reopening with greater social movement and business activity tomorrow or over the weekend.
While Donald Trump is keen for this to happen, his own public health experts are urging extreme caution about states relaxing their own stay-at-home orders (as opposed to mere guidelines). There were more than 2,600 new deaths in the US from coronavirus yesterday.
And last night California announced it was going to close its beaches and state parks just days after allowing them to open, after people crowded there in an unsafe way.
And:
- Top public health expert Anthony Fauci this morning said the preliminary results from early trials of the drug remdesivir in treating coronavirus were “clearly positive” though “modest” and were a “first step in what we project will be better and better drugs” to treat Covid-19.
- Presumed Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has formed his “vetting team” to search for his best vice presidential candidate – while calls for him to address directly a recently elevated accusation of sexual assault in the past are growing.
- The latest unemployment figures in the US are due out at 8.30 and our business team will cover that separately. They will not make good reading.
