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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
World
Lois Beckett (now) and Daniel Strauss (earlier)

Trump says he's 'not determined' to open the country in May – as it happened

Donald Trump speaks during a coronavirus taskforce briefing at the White House on 10 April.
Donald Trump speaks during a coronavirus taskforce briefing at the White House on 10 April. Photograph: Evan Vucci/AP

Evening summary

We’re closing up the US politics blog for tonight. An updated summary:

  • Donald Trump said whether to ease physical distancing guidelines is the biggest decision he’ll ever make. He also said his appearances at the coronavirus taskforce briefings are the “saddest” ones he’s had to do.
  • New York’s governor, Andrew Cuomo, is cautiously optimistic the infection rate is slowing in his state. New York City crossed 5,000 confirmed coronavirus cases as of 5pm tonight.
  • State officials are moving forward with vote-by-mail steps despite Trump’s unsubstantiated warnings. Meanwhile, Wisconsin health officials are studying how many coronavirus cases may be linked to the state’s in-person voting day.
  • A major coronavirus outbreak at a homeless shelter in San Francisco renewed demands from advocates that the city prevent a devastating spread of infection by housing the homeless in the city’s many empty hotel rooms.
  • Activists and family members are holding socially distant protests to demand the release of loved ones incarcerated in prisons and jails across the United States. In New York tonight, activists held a candlelight vigil over social media. In Richmond, Virginia, they rallied in their cars. “My son is essential to me,” one mother of a jailed 19-year-old wrote on her protest sign.

Updated

Another image for the end of this day:

Need a bit of comfort at the end of another long week? (Not even sure what the end of a week feels like any more?)

My colleague (and journo-dad) Mario Koran has a lovely piece from earlier today about parenting, pandemics and the wise advice of the people behind Sesame Street.

Updated

More than 5,000 confirmed coronavirus deaths as of 5pm tonight in New York City alone. And that is almost certainly an undercount, with many people dying of coronavirus in their homes not being counted in the official figures.

Updated

Socially distant car protest for prisoner safety in Richmond, Virginia

Another way to organize a protest under a stay-at-home order? Protest in your car.

Dozens of people rallied from their cars in Virginia’s state capital Friday afternoon to address the state’s failure to keep incarcerated inmates safe during the coronavirus pandemic, ABC 8News Richmond reported.

“I don’t want my son to die alone…free my son,” Shontrese Otey, who has a 19-year-old son in Richmond City Jail, told 8News. She was holding a sign that read, “My son is essential to me.”

'Light a candle' protest to free all New York state's prisoners

What does protest look like under a stay-at-home order?

This evening, activists are lighting a candle in solidarity with more than 90,000 people typically incarcerated in state prisons and jails in New York state, as coronavirus threatens to turn crowded, unsanitary prisons into death traps.

The protest is being organized by New York prison abolition activists, under the hashtag #FreeThemAll4PublicHealth. The protesters are calling on New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and other local and state leaders to use their power to release everyone incarcerated in the state.

Move homeless into hotel rooms, advocates plead after major shelter outbreak

Advocates have been pleading for weeks that San Francisco move people out of homeless shelters and into hotel rooms, given that the conditions inside these facilities are often unsanitary and crowded, making it easy for a virus to quickly spread.

Now, there has been a major coronavirus outbreak inside a homeless shelter in San Francisco: nearly 70 residents at MSC South have tested positive, which is roughly half of all the people who were tested.

San Francisco’s mayor, London Breed, said the city is now moving the rest of the MSC South residents who have not tested positive into hotel rooms and quarantining those with Covid-19 inside the shelter.

Jennifer Friedenbach, the director for the Coalition on Homelessness in San Francisco, said these kinds of outbreaks will happen at every shelter if the city doesn’t immediately move all residents to hotels. Some have suggested the coronavirus fatality rate for unhoused people could be significantly higher than the general population, with a 10-20% dying and 30% hospitalized, she noted.

“This was preventable and predictable. You can’t leave people in congregate settings, you just can’t,” said Friedenbach, adding that the city needs to test residents of all shelters given their potential exposure at this point. “They’ve waited so long.”

Those who remain in other shelters are now also facing strict lockdowns, where they are even more at risk of contracting the virus, said Leah Simon-Weisberg, an attorney with the Eviction Defense Collaborative.

“Locking them in a congregate shelter and packing hundreds of people into one place is only endangering their lives,” she said.

Updated

Drone footage: pandemic San Francisco

The effect of the three-week-long lockdown on daily life in San Francisco is revealed in drone footage showing empty streets and deserted landmarks. San Francisco and the counties around it was the frist region in the US to announce a ‘stay-at-home’ order on 16 March, restricting all but essential activities.

Black doctor says he was handcuffed outside his own home in Miami

A black doctor who has been testing homeless people for coronavirus in Miami was handcuffed by a police officer outside his own home, and only released after his wife emerged from the house with identification, he told the Miami Herald.

The doctor said he was putting old cardboard outside of his home for pickup.

“Miami police, informed of the doctor’s claims, said Henderson had not called the department to complain but that they were sending an investigator to the house to look into what happened,” the newspaper reported. Read the full story.

Report: Wisconsin tracking cases of coronavirus linked to voting day

The Wisconsin state health department is tracking new cases of the coronavirus to determine whether it was spread among voters during Tuesday’s spring election, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in this report spotted by my Guardian colleague Kenya Evelyn.

“The state Department of Health Services and local public health officials are “monitoring” the relationship between new cases in the coming weeks and voting in person, agency officials said.

“We will continue this important work to ensure that every case is followed up on, contacted, and anyone who may have been exposed notified,” Department of Human Services secretary Andrea Palm said in a statement. “We hope the extraordinary efforts taken by local clerks, public health, voters, and poll workers helped minimize any transmission but we stand prepared to respond if that isn’t the case.”

Palm said if voters were exposed to the virus, DHS and local public health officials will see new cases beginning next week.

“This information will allow our surveillance epidemiologists the opportunity to identify if the election had any impact on the spread of Covid-19 in Wisconsin,” she said. But a full picture of whether in-person voting led to more cases won’t be known for several weeks, Palm said.

Thousands of voters came to the polls Tuesday after a failed last-minute attempt by [Democratic] governor Tony Evers to postpone the election.

Public health experts warned before and after the election took place that allowing people to vote in person could reverse progress the state has made to contain the spread of the virus.

From earlier today, a bigger picture look at Wisconsin from Sam Levine:

Updated

Coronavirus in a major homeless shelter; stay-at-home extended in LA

Lois Beckett here picking up our live US politics coverage from the West Coast.

Here in California, Los Angeles county has announced an extension of its stay-at-home order until 15 May.

And in San Francisco, one of northern California’s largest homeless shelters is experiencing a serious coronavirus outbreak, the city’s mayor said.

Read more background on how San Francisco has failed its homeless population from my colleague Vivian Ho.

Updated

Summary

That’s it for me. The blog is now in the capable hands of my west coast colleague Lois Beckett.

To recap:

  • Trump said whether to ease physical distancing guidelines is the biggest decision he’ll ever make.
  • New York’s governor, Andrew Cuomo, is cautiously optimistic the infection rate is slowing in his state.
  • State officials are moving forward with vote-by-mail steps despite Trump’s unsubstantiated warnings.
  • Trump said his appearances at the coronavirus taskforce briefings are the “saddest” ones he’s had to do.

Updated

A fascinating report from CNN, about Trump trade adviser, China hawk and coronavirus tsar Peter Navarro…

In short, Navarro …

…publicly said Americans had “nothing to worry about” while he privately warned the White House that the coronavirus pandemic could cost trillions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of American lives.

Axios and the New York Times reported the Navarro memos earlier in the week. So, CNN went and looked at Navarro’s comments to the media around the time he wrote those memos. Em Steck and Andrew Kaczynski report, in part:

In Navarro’s second memo, dated 23 February, he urged for immediate funding to “minimize economic and social disruption”.

“Any member of the Task Force who wants to be cautious about appropriating funds for a crisis that could inflict trillions of dollars in economic damage and take millions of lives has come to the wrong administration,” Navarro wrote.

But at a press gaggle on 24 February, Navarro assured that coronavirus was “nothing to worry about for the American people” under Trump’s leadership.

“Since the day that President Trump pulled down the flights from China to the US, he has been actively leading the situation in terms of this crisis with the task force. Nothing to worry about for the American people.

“This country’s done a beautiful job under [the] president’s leadership [sic] in terms of managing this situation. He’s working on a daily basis with the task force and we’re taking steps to anticipate … where the puck’s gonna be. We’re skating there in defense of the American people and the American economy. So you can be sure you’re that in great hands with the Trump administration.”

Our own Julian Borger has a lot more on the kind of hands you’re in with the Trump administration in the following profile of Navarro, including:

  • Five of Navarro’s books cited a China hand with a particularly pithy turn of phrase called Ron Vara, who turned out not to exist. The name is an anagram of Navarro and the imaginary expert operated as an alter ego, confirming the author’s views.
  • A former campaign adviser, Larry Remer, says: “I wouldn’t trust him to go out to get lunch and come back with everybody’s sandwich and drink order correctly. I don’t know how he could be put in charge of logistics.
  • Former spokeswoman Lisa Ross says: “Peter can be a real bully and maybe that’s why Trump picked him. He wanted a bully to do the job.”

Here’s the piece in full. It’s a hell of a read, under a hell of a headline:

Updated

A coalition of companies, consumer advocacy groups, and research organizations submitted a letter to Mike Pence and other executive branch leaders on Thursday arguing that more should be done to thwart online fraud surrounding the coronavirus pandemic.

Spearheaded by the National Consumers League and the Alliance for Safe Online Pharmacies, the letter encouraged new guidelines around online domain registrars and other fraud prevention techniques. It was signed by more than 30 entities.

Guidelines suggested include requiring domain name registrars to validate names and registration information, and to make that data accessible to federal agencies and law enforcement.

This could more easily prevent scams like one case brought by the Department of Justice against coronavirusmedicalkit.com last month. The website was targeting scared consumers with misinformation, offering them fake “vaccine kits” for coronavirus for $4.95 when in fact there is no vaccine.

“The Department of Justice will not tolerate criminal exploitation of this national emergency for personal gain,” the assistant attorney general Jody Hunt of the Department of Justice’s civil division said regarding the case.

The letter also suggested Congress require all US-based domain name registrars to “immediately lock and suspend any domain name used to facilitate coronavirus and other public health scams”.

In addition to monitoring domain activity, the groups suggested the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission crack down on phishing campaigns – enticing consumers to click on malicious links – that exploit economic fears. From the letter:

“Launch a nationwide public service campaign to educate consumers about common scams targeting the economically vulnerable. Over the next several weeks, most consumers will receive checks of $1,200 or more because of the recently enacted Cares Act. Scammers are already defrauding consumers by claiming they can expedite the receipt of these funds. The FTC and IRS should dramatically increase their efforts to educate consumers about these scams, and the Department of Justice should prioritize investigation and prosecution of the criminals behind them.”

Updated

About 74 miles of city streets will be blocked off for joggers and bikers to enjoy for Easter weekend after Libby Schaaf, the mayor of Oakland, California, announced a “slow streets initiative”.

The move will give residents a way to get outdoors at a time when the record number of visitors who flocked to beaches and parks prompted officials to close popular recreational spots.

“Because of the reduction in car traffic, we will be closing off a number of streets so that bicyclists and pedestrians can spread out and take in fresh air safely on Oakland streets, free of cars,” Schaaf said Thursday. Officials at the moment have no plans to enforce the street closures through citations.

Aboout 11% of the city’s land is made up of 6,000 acres of parks. Streets and sidewalks make up another 20-30%, said a city official, adding that the city wanted to take advantage of its space for the sunny, holiday weekend that’s expected.

The initiative comes as data shows promising trends for the efforts to slow the spread of the virus in California. Across the state, the amount of travel has dropped precipitously, perhaps most dramatically in Los Angeles, where residents have witnessed the rare sight of traffic-free interstates and sunsets without smog.

The data on residents’ movement is part of what suggests to officials the state’s coronavirus peak – expected in May – may not be as high as health experts initially feared. The rate of hospitalizations and admissions to the ICU has appeared to slow since last week, according to numbers the governor provided Friday.

Updated

Trump just departed the briefing room. Friday’s coronavirus taskforce press conference has ended.

Updated

Fact Check: medical supplies

Trump claimed the US has enough beds, ventilators, and personal protective equipment (PPE) including masks. “We’re in great shape,” he said.

Reports of PPE shortages continue to be reported by healthcare staff and other essential workers in many parts of the country, who are reusing and recycling masks and gowns. This is taken from the CDC website:

Strategies to Optimize the Supply of PPE and Equipment

“PPE is used everyday by healthcare personnel (HCP) to protect themselves, patients, and others when providing care. PPE helps protect HCP from potentially infectious patients and materials, toxic medications, and other potentially dangerous substances used in healthcare delivery.

PPE shortages are currently posing a tremendous challenge to the US healthcare system because of the Covid-19 pandemic. Healthcare facilities are having difficulty accessing the needed PPE and are having to identify alternate ways to provide patient care.”

Updated

Trump: these are the saddest news conferences that I’ve ever had

Pressed on whether the United States has enough medical equipment and whether Trump offers too rosy a picture at these coronavirus taskforce briefings, Trump said he believed he the country has enough equipment and that he did not enjoy speaking at these pressers.

The comments from the president came in response to a question from CNN’s Jim Acosta.

“These are the saddest conferences I’ve ever had,” Trump said. I don’t like doing them. Why? Because I’m talking about death ... there’s no happy talk, Jim. This is the real deal. And I’ve got to make the biggest decision of my life and I’ve only started thinking about that. This is by far the biggest decision of my life.”

Trump went on to say the country has enough equipment.

“It’s not ‘no, no, no’, it’s ‘yes, yes, yes’,” Trump said.

Updated

Fact check: what is coronavirus?

Trump once again seemed to confuse bacteria with viruses when answering a question about a spike in coronavirus cases at a food processing plant in Denver.

“Antibiotics used to solve everything, but the germ has gotten so brilliant that antibiotics can’t keep up,” said Trump.

Fact: coronavirus disease (Covid-19) is an infectious disease caused by a newly discovered coronavirus called Sars-CoV-2. Nothing to do with bacteria.

Updated

Trump on easing social distancing: I would say without question it’s the biggest decision I’ve ever had to make

The president said that deciding whether to ease recommendations on social distancing might be one of the biggest decisions, if not the biggest one, he’ll have to make.

Trump: I have ‘absolute’ authority to issue stay-at-home order

Trump stressed he has “absolute” authority to issue a national stay at home order but so far he’s chosen not to use it. He said he preferred to let governors make that call and currently 95% of the country is under a stay at home order.

“Ninety-five per cent of the country is stay at home,” Trump said, pointing first to Texas, where the governor, Greg Abbott, has issued one. “He had a very strong stay at home. Ninety-five to 96% has it. South Carolina has it ... 95% of the country is covered.”

Trump added: “Constitutionally, from a federal standpoint – if I thought there was a problem I would handle it.”

Trump continued: “I have great authority to use it ... I have absolute authority to use it but so far our relationship with governors, I haven’t had to do it.

Updated

Trump to attend Robert Jeffres service

Trump said he will attend the online service of Pastor Robert Jeffres. He said he would attend Easter service digitally on a laptop.

“I’m going to be with him on Easter meaning I’m going to be with him watching on a laptop,” Trump said.

Updated

Fact check: Boeing hasn’t asked for aid

Trump was asked if Boeing should be penalised for mass layoffs despite receiving federal aid. Trump claimed that Boeing, which he described as “probably the greatest company in the world”, was yet to ask for aid, though he anticipated that the company would.

Fact: On 17 March, Boeing requested $60bn in government aid for the aerospace industry hit by coronavirus. The company has not yet applied for a slice of the $2tn rescue package after the chief executive apparently balked at the possibility of government equity stakes in exchange for the relief.

Updated

Trump plans to include governors on his new council looking at when to reopen the government.

He said that includes Democrats. The president then name-checked a number of governors he gets along with. He said he just finished a phone call with New York’s Andrew Cuomo.

He also mentioned Phil Murphy of New Jersey.

“I’ve actually become friends with some of the Democrat governors that I wouldn’t have gotten to know. Governor Murphy of New Jersey’s a very liberal guy. I’m not ... Gavin Newsom. Honestly, fight or never,”

Trump added: “I’ve really developed a lot of good friendships with the governors. I think Mike DeWine, a Republican, I think he’s doing a great job.

“I’d like to have some representative governors on the council,” Trump said. “So far everyone’s said yes. I think everyone would like to be on that council. It’s a very important council.”

Updated

Fact check: more jobs for African Americans since Trump took office

Trump said that African Americans have more jobs under his administration.

Before the pandemic, the unemployment rate was falling overall but increasing for African Americans. For example, in December 2019, the unemployment rate had fallen 3.5% for all Americans and increased to 5.9% for black Americans. So far, the mass layoffs seem to have been proportionally higher for Asians and Hispanics. Last week’s unemployment benefits claims’ figures showed that while whites and blacks saw job loss rates rise at the same pace, the unemployment rate for blacks stood at 6.7% - 65% higher than for whites.

Updated

Trump: 'I’m not determined' to open up the ​​country

Asked whether he would open up the US again next month if his advisers presented him with evidence that there would be a dramatic spike of coronavirus cases Trump said he wants to get it open as soon as possible. But he isn’t determined, the president said in response to a question from CNN’s Jim Acosta.

“I do say this Jim: I want to get it open as soon as possible,” Trump said. “I would love to open it. I’m not determined.”

He said that he would unveil a new taskforce of counsel to advise him on dealing with coronavirus and when to reopen the country. He said he would discuss it more next week Trump said it would be bipartisan.

“The one thing I didn’t ask ‘are you a Republican or Democrat’ and I want their views on what they think,” Trump said.

Updated

Trump is not backing away from comments he made vowing to look at funding to the World Health Organization. The president said he would discuss it more next week. He also sounded that he was open to cutting funding to the organization.

Updated

Surgeon General Adams was asked about urging African Americans to avoid alcohol and tobacco. He said: “If not for yourself, then for your abuela. Do it for your grand-daddy. Do it for your big mama. Do it for your pop-pop.”

Adams was asked if that language was appropriate. He said he felt it was because that’s the language used in his family.

“That was not meant to be offensive. That’s the language that I use and we use,” Adams said. But he added that he would make those recommendations to all American.

“All Americans need to avoid these substances at all times,” Adams said.

Updated

Fact check: Testing

Trump said “there’s not a lot of issues with testing”... “We’ve done more testing than any country in the world.”

While the US has ramped up testing, it still lags behind other countries, including South Korea and Germany. South Korea has administered 486,003 tests, according to the Korean Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. With a population of 51.5m, the country has tested about 1 in every 102 people. Germany has done even better, testing every 1 in 63 people. The UK is still way behind, having tested only 1 in 230 people by Wednesday 8 April.

Meanwhile, the United States, with a population of 329 million, has administered at least 2,391,119 tests, according to the Atlantic’s Covid Tracking Project — so the US has tested about 1 in every 138 people.

Epidemiologists prefer to use tests per capita to compare countries: “I think the important clarification is that we should be considering the number of cases per 1 million population and considering a rate of people tested and not the absolute numbers,” Jennifer Horney, founding director of the University of Delaware’s epidemiology program, told CNN. “The absolute number of tests is not very meaningful.”

And despite the increase in testing, backlogs are reported in labs across the country, and many folks with symptoms - including health workers - are still struggling to access tests.

Fact check: testing

Trump bragged about the quality of tests in the US, boasting that “we’ve made the best tests in the world”.

In fact, some of the initial coronavirus tests sent out to states were seriously flawed. Part of the problem came from the CDC shunned the WHO template for tests, and insisted on developing a more complicated version that correctly identified Covid-19, but also flagged other viruses – resulting in false positives.

Other countries – after their first coronavirus case – swiftly asked private companies to develop their own tests. South Korea, which recorded its first case on the same day as the US, did so within a week. The US only allowed laboratories and hospitals to conduct their own tests on 29 February, almost six weeks after the first case was confirmed.

Updated

Trump on warnings about reopening by 1 May: I will certainly listen

Trump was pressed on whether he would heed the warnings of health officials, including some who advise him, as to whether the country could reopen by early May. Trump has reportedly been hoping to see that. At first he digressed.

“I listen to them about everything,” Trump said. “I have great respect for these people. All of them.

Trump joked: “In fact I told Tony Fauci, why don’t you move to New York, run against AOC, you will win easily. I kid, you know that.”

Asked again he didn’t budge.

“I can only say this: I have tremendous respect for these doctors and we’ve done very well,” Trump said. “I have great respect for these people. I’m never saying bad about these people.”

And then pressed a third time, Trump said: “I will certainly listen. I will certainly listen. There are two sides. Remember, I understand both sides of an argument very well.”

Updated

Fact check: oil reserves

Trump said the US probably has the biggest oil reserves in the world.

According to the World Population Review, Venezuela has the biggest crude oil reserves, followed by Saudi Arabia, Canada, Iran and Iraq. The US is 11th – sandwiched in between Nigeria and Kazakhstan.

Updated

Mike Pence just now just urged churches and other religious “to heed the guidelines” and avoid gatherings of more than 10.

“We’re grateful that so many churches, synagogues, and places of worship have continued to do that,” Pence said.

Some churches and religious locations have held gatherings larger than the recommended guidelines in recent days.

Updated

Factcheck: rate of spread

More on Trump’s claim that the rate of the virus spread is slowing down across the country, “without exception”. While the number of confirmed cases and hospital admissions have leveled off or dropped in some states including Louisiana, New York and New Jersey, the number of cases continues to increase in many states including Nebraska, Alabama, Kentucky, Texas and Arizona.

Updated

Dr Jerome Adams, the US surgeon general, took the podium. He said that he helped lead a conference call with more than 400 hundred leaders in the African American community to discuss the disproportionate impact of coronavirus on the American minority community.

He ticked off stats of where there is a larger number of African Americans or Hispanics who have the virus.

“You’ve heard the stats in New York City, Hispanics represent the majority of deaths,” Adams said, going on to say: “So what’s going on? Well, it’s alarming but it’s not surprising that people of color have a higher burden of chronic health conditions.”

Adams explained that “the chronic burden of medical ills is likely to make people of color” more vulnerable “to the ravages”.

“We tell people to wash their hands, but as studies show, 30% of the homes in Navajao nation don’t have running water,” Adams said. Adams added: “But let me be crystal clear, we do not think people of color are biologically or socially prone to” [getting the disease].

Updated

Fact check: hospital admissions and death rate

Trump claimed that the rate of the virus spread is slowing down across the country, “without exception” and that the death rate in the US was lower than anywhere else in the world.

According to one source, the global death is 13 per million people.

The US death rate is currently 54 per million, much higher than Germany at 31 per million, Portugal at 43 per million and 14 per million in Canada, but lower than Spain, France, Italy and the UK.

A few minutes later Dr Deborah Birx said: “We have not reached the peak.”

Updated

Trump: the stock market thinks we’ve done well

Trump said that the stock market’s recent swings show that his administration is doing well in responding to the pandemic.

“In four days, we had the biggest stock market increase that we had in 50 years. That tells you that there’s a pent up demand. They want to get back,” Trump said. “So think of it, in this horrible, dark period where this monster came and worked its horrible horrible spell over the world.

Trump added: “We’ve done well and I guess the market thinks we’ve done well because had the biggest stock market increase” recently.

Updated

Trump once again touted hydroxychloroquine as a coronavirus cure.

In the week beginning 30 March, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) provided hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malarial drug that is also used to treat autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis and lupus, with an “emergency use authorization” to use on coronavirus patients in some circumstances.

Clinical trials to test the drug’s effectiveness in treating coronavirus have begun across the world, and in the US. However, experts, including US public health officials, have warned that it is too early to know if hydroxychloroquine works.

So far, the evidence that it’s an effective cure for coronavirus is anecdotal and mixed. An initial French study that appeared to have launched the Trump administration’s obsession with the drug has since been discredited.

The drug is considered relatively safe for people without an underlying illness, but it’s unclear if it is safe for severely sick Covid-19 patients, who may have incurred organ damage due to the virus.

The surge in demand for the unproven hydroxychloroquine also risks shortages of the drug for those who need it most. It is used to help patients manage the chronic autoimmune disease lupus, but some are already complaining the drug is harder to come by.

Updated

Fact check: death toll will be under 100,000 in the US

Trump said his government’s aggressive strategy had saved “countless lives and that great progress is being made”. He claimed that the final death toll would be substantially under 100,000.

Last week, the Whitehouse taskforce experts estimated the final death toll would likely be between 100,000 and 220,000 based on modelling.

This week, the main model used lowered the estimated expected deaths toll by August to 60,400. But, Dr Anthony Fauci and others have warned that this depends on strict social distancing being implemented for months.

The current death toll stands at 17,831.

Updated

Trump ticked off a number of areas around the country that have seen welcome declines on the coronavirus pandemic. He said: “Detroit has really started to go up and now it is stabilizing.” He said he spoke with Louisiana’s governor, John Bel Edwards, and that New Orleans and the state is less in need of hospital beds.

And in Washington state Trump said: “We’re making enough progress that the governor is able to return an army field hospital so we’re going to take that hospital.”

Updated

Fact check: Mexican troops at the border wall

Trump thanked president of Mexico, Andreés Manuel López Obrador for sending 27,000 troops to the Mexico-US border.

Fact: in January Amlo announced that 15,000 military and national guard would be deployed to the northern border. About 6,500 others are deployed to Mexico’s southern border with Guatemala.

Updated

The coronavirus taskforce press conference has begun. Donald Trump is here again. He began his remarks recounting his conversation with Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador on oil.

Then he pivoted to coronavirus.

“Tremendous progress is being made. I just spoke with Governor Cuomo, we had a good talk,” Trump said. He said the numbers of death are “horrible”. “Now on the other side we have the number of beds being used, we were just saying are being substantially reduced.”

Trump added: “We’re saving hundreds of lives compared to what it could have been.”

Updated

Dr Anthony Fauci speaks during a press briefing
Dr Anthony Fauci speaks during a press briefing Photograph: REX/Shutterstock

Dr Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, urged caution even as some parts of New York hit hardest by coronavirus begin to recover.

Via Reuters:

The top US infectious disease expert warned on Friday that even though hard-hit spots like New York are showing positive results in the battle against coronavirus, it is too early to relax restrictions on Americans.

The warning from Dr Anthony Fauci came as the Trump administration’s top economic officials said on Thursday they believe the US economy could start to reopen for normal business in May, despite health experts’ urging for continued social distancing measures to defeat the coronavirus.

Donald Trump, seeking re-election on 3 November, wants to get the economy going as soon as possible.

“Hopefully we’re going to be opening up ... very, very, very, very soon, I hope,” he said on Thursday at the White House coronavirus briefing.

Fauci, however, warned against relaxing restrictions too soon.

“What we’re seeing right now is favorable signs,” Fauci said in an interview on CNN, citing progress in hard-hit New York. But he added, “the one thing you don’t want to do is you don’t want to get out there prematurely and then wind up back in the same situation”.

With many Americans celebrating the Easter holiday on Sunday, Fauci said it was important to keep social distancing measures in place.

“Now is no time to back off,” he said.

“Obviously we’re looking for the kinds of things that would indicate that we can go forward in a gradual way to essentially reopen the country to a more normal way,” Fauci said, but that depends on a number of factors.

House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi also warned Trump against trying to get back to normal prematurely.

“I would hope that the scientific community would weigh in and say, ‘You can’t do this, it is only going to make matters worse if you go out too soon,’” Pelosi said in an interview with Politico late on Thursday.

Updated

Virginia advancing gun safety measures

Virginia Governor Ralph Northam has signed several new gun restrictions he championed during this year’s legislative session, cementing gains by gun control advocates they hope will serve as a “blueprint” for states around the country.

The Old Dominion has been the center of the nation’s gun debate after Democrats took full control of the General Assembly last year on an aggressive gun control platform, The Associated Press writes.

Tens of thousands of gun owners from around the country rallied against new gun restrictions at the state Capitol in January while lawmakers ultimately approved seven out of eight of Northam’s gun-control package.


The governor announced Friday he’d signed bills that include requiring universal background checks on gun purchases, a red flag bill to allow authorities to temporarily take guns away from people deemed to be dangerous to themselves or others, and limited handgun purchases to one a month.

“This is an exciting day for me,” Northam said on a conference call with gun-control advocates.

Virginia was once a socially conservative state where lawmakers in both parties viewed gun rights as sacrosanct and the National Rifle Association held great sway.

But as the state has grown more urban and suburban, the gun lobby’s influence has waned.

A mass shooting last year in Virginia Beach made gun control a front-burning issue in Virginia and heavy spending by groups backed by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg helped Democrats flip control of the legislature in November.

Gun-control advocates said Friday they’re planning to replicate their success in Virginia in other states.

John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety, said his group plans to spend heavily in key battleground states this year like Arizona, North Carolina and Pennsylvania to elect lawmakers who support new gun restrictions.

Feinblatt said polling shows a gun-control agenda is popular in those states and that Virginia is a “bellwether” of what’s to come.

The coronavirus faskforce press briefing has been moved back to 1.30pm. We’ll be blogging it here. Stay tuned.

Updated

Trump encourages prayer and healing this Easter even as some churches plan gatherings

The president just spoke in the Oval Office to give an Easter blessing on Good Friday, where he was joined by Maryland Bishop Harry Jackson.

Trump said, according to the pool report: “Our people are making tremendous sacrifices to end this pandemic. Though we will not be able to gather together with one another as we normally would on Easter, we can use this sacred time to focus on prayer, reflection and growing.”

He did not, however, make a point of putting out a message that churches should not be holding in-person services on Sunday.

While many religious leaders plan to hold services remotely, there are plentiful reports of churches coast to coast planning to defy physical distancing orders or guidelines and encouraging congregations to attend, risking the further spread of the coronavirus.

Bishop Harry Jackson, Donald Trump and Mike Pence in the Oval Office moments ago.
Bishop Harry Jackson, Donald Trump and Mike Pence in the Oval Office moments ago. Photograph: Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images

Trump also said: “Our brave doctors, nurses and responders, first responder, responders of all, are fighting to save lives, our workers are racing to deliver critical medical supplies. Our best scientists are working around the clock to develop life-saving therapeutics and I think they’re doing really well in doing so.”

Updated

Today so far

  • The president would like to see the US open back up sometime next month but economists think things could get worse.
  • The Navajo Nation is increasing its efforts to slow down the coronavirus spread.
  • New York governor Andrew Cuomo argued that the country needs to make an “unprecedented mobilization” of both private industry and the federal government to combat the coronavirus.
  • A new CBS poll found Americans’ view of how Trump is handling the pandemic continues to dip.

The blog will be back soon. The daily Coronavirus Task Force press briefing is at 1 p.m.

In capping off this press conference Cuomo addressed the disparities in coronavirus infections among African Americans and latinos. There have been multiple reports that the pandemic has disproportionally hit the American minority community.

“I don’t think there is a surprise that we have a disparity among the African American and Latino community,” Cuomo said. He noted that systemic racism is an ongoing problem in the country and in New York. Cuomo also noted that the disparity isn’t as bad in New York as other places in the country.

“We are going to do more testing in African American and Latino communities.”

Asked about the state’s stockpile of personal protective equipment (PPE) and ventilators, Cuomo sounded a calming note.

“We’re okay right now. We’re okay. We have a stockpile where we are now relatively comfortable,” Cuomo said. “Compared to how we are operating under these circumstances we are relatively comfortable on ventilators and PPE if.” the hospitalization rate remains down.

Cuomo is punting on Trump’s repeated argument that the World Health Organization deserves some blame for the coronavirus pandemic’s spread.

“The president’s point is the World Health Organization should’ve been more aggressive,” Cuomo said. “This is not my field. I don’t know.”

Trump has repeatedly criticized the WHO saying it is “China-centric.” Trump, during a press conference on Tuesday, said first that he would put on hold funding to the WHO and then later said his administration would consider that.

Cuomo: We are flattening the curve

Throughout this conference Cuomo has stressed caution in moving forward even as New York sees incremental progress.

“Is there going to be a second wave? Let’s look at the countries that have gone through this process and what can we learn from them,” Cuomo said. He pointed to Hong Kong:

“Hong Kong recorded the biggest rise of cases and a new wave of infections. Is that true? Could it happen here? Article yesterday: Italy has seen a bump in a number of cases. Before we take this step we need to make sure we are more sure and more aware than we were in the past.”

But Cuomo added that New York is making progress.

“So where do we go from here? First keep doing what we’re doing. Stay home because that works. We are flattening the curve. We must continue flattening the curve,” Cuomo said. “We need both diagnostic testing and anti-biotic testing and we need millions and millions of them and we need them in a matter of weeks, not months.”

He also said “we need to be more prepared as a nation.”

“I don’t want a second wave, I don’t want a third wave, I want this to be it.”

Updated

Cuomo: US needs 'unprecedented mobilization' on testing

Cuomo in this press conference is offering some of his most direct arguments he’s ever made on testing and whether the private sector can carry most of the burden in providing tests and help to the public on the coronavirus. He thinks it cannot.

“We need an unprecedented mobilization where government can produce these tests in the millions. New York state is doing several thousand. We need 9 million people to get back to work,” Cuomo said. “Private sector on their own I don’t believe will be able to come to scale.”

Cuomo added “you’re going to need government intervention to make that happen and the federal government is in the best position to do that.”

The New York governor also took aim at the stimulus bills Congress has passed to help businesses weather the crisis.

“They’ve passed a couple already. Bu you need a fair federal stimulus bill that is not a federal pork barrel bill,” Cuomo said. “I understand the dynamics of the US senate but this is not a time to be passing bills to make sure your home state gets enough funding. That’s not what this is about. This is about helping your state come back.”

Updated

Cuomo urges Trump administration to set up a “heroes compensation fund”.

Just now Cuomo urged the Trump administration to set up a “heroes compensation fund” to help those working on the front lines of the coronavirus crisis. He added that “saying thanks is nice. Actually providing assistance is even better.”

Cuomo went on to say that the return to normalcy will be a gradual process. It won’t be an immediate thing. That’s in contrast to the hopes of Trump who has privately signaled to his colleagues that he would like things to start returning to normal by next month.

“The key to reopening is going to be testing,” Cuomo said. “It’s not going to be a light switch like you flip the economy like a light switch. It’s going to be a gradual phased process and it’s going to be reliant on testing.”

Updated

Cuomo: Cautiously optimistic we are slowing the infection rate

Cuomo stared his Friday presser with some mild optimism. He said that “we are cautiously optimistic that we are slowing the infection rate.”

Cuomo went on to say that “ICU admissions is actually a negative number for the first time since we started this journey.” But he added that the change in intibations “is a little tick higher than it’s been in the past few days. The three day average is also down. The bad news is we continue to lose a tremendous number of lives and endure great pain as a state —775 lives lost.”

He then noted a comparison to September 11th and that the lives lost “should exceed 9/11 is beyond my capacity to understand.”

Updated

State officials forge ahead to expand vote-by-mail despite Trump’s warnings.

Without evidence the president has repeatedly charged voting by mail would dilute the election process and open voting up to rampant fraud. The Associated Press reports:

President Donald Trump is warning without evidence that expanding mail-in voting will increase voter fraud. But several GOP state officials are forging ahead to do just that, undermining one of Trumps arguments about how elections should be conducted amid the coronavirus outbreak.

While Trump has complained that voting by mail was ripe for fraud,” Republican state officials in Iowa, Ohio and West Virginia have all taken steps to ease access to mail-in ballots, following health officials warnings that voting in person can risk transmission of the deadly virus. The Republican governor of Nebraska urged voters to apply for absentee ballots. Florida’s GOP chairman says the party will continue to run a robust vote-by-mail program.

The disconnect between Trump and Republican state officials illustrates the abrupt, hard turn the president and his national political allies have taken on the issue. Before the coronavirus hit, many in the GOP had warmed to mail-in voting, agreeing that it can be conducted without fraud and even used to their political advantage.

But Trump’s hard line appears to be driven by his personal suspicions and concerns about his own reelection prospects. Statewide mail-in voting doesnt work out well for Republicans,” he tweeted this week.

Trumps comments put his Republican allies in states in the awkward position of trying to defend their practices without criticizing the president. Some said they agreed with Trump, even as their actions seem to suggest otherwise. Others suggested Trump was out of line.

Updated

New York governor Andrew Cuomo is holding his daily press conference live at 11:30 ET. I will be liveblogging it. At 1 p.m. today Trump is holding his own daily press conference and I’ll be liveblogging that one as well. Stay tuned.

Top Republicans urge Trump to let advisers speak more

A growing set of Republicans are urging Trump to cool it on the daily press conferences. They’re arguing that a lighter touch would benefit the president more.

There’s Nikki Haley, the former Trump administration ambassador to the United Nations and a potential 2024 presidential candidate, who said Trump should let “his experts speak.” In an interview on Fox & Friends Haley praised Trump’s ability to “over-communicate.”

“I think he should go and set the tone. I think he should let them put out the data. I think they should answer any questions that the press has. And then they should leave,” Haley said. “I don’t think they need to be too long. I don’t think he needs to feel like he needs to answer everything.”

Trump’s advisers are also beginning to worry about the ripple effect of Trump’s long daily press conferences. It sometimes “drowns out his message,” South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham told the New York Times. He’s urged Trump to cut down to a once-a-week presser.

Trump, it should be noted, enjoys doing the press conferences.

Updated

Donald Trump’s reelection campaign included an image of former Obama administration ambassador to China Gary Locke in a new attack ad. Locke, a former two-term governor of Washington, is a third generation Chinese-American who was born in Seattle.

The subject of the attack ad is Joe Biden and China. The use of Locke’s image implies that he is some kind of Chinese official. According to The New York Times (bolds mine):

The image, which appears briefly, was pulled from a 2013 event in Beijing, where Mr. Biden, now the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, shared a stage with Gary Locke, the former governor of Washington, who also served as President Barack Obama’s commerce secretary and ambassador to China. Mr. Locke is Chinese-American.

“During America’s crisis, Biden protected China’s feelings,” the online ad says, presenting a montage of clips of Mr. Biden complimenting and praising the Chinese, including the country’s leader, Xi Jinping, and of a news segment accusing Mr. Biden of helping his son Hunter profit off Chinese investments. The picture of Mr. Biden and Mr. Locke is spliced in among the clips.

Steve Guest, the rapid response director for the Republican National Committee tweeted that Locke is not the point of the ad. Guest was responding to a tweet from Biden campaign spokesman T.J. Ducklo:

Similarly, the Trump reelection team’s communications director said the reason the image was included in the ad was the Chinese flag behind Biden and Locke.

Updated

In a rare appearance in front of a group of mayors former President Barack Obama urged them to use experts and speak truth when publicly discussing the coronavirus pandemic.

Here’s the CNN report (bolds are from me):

Former President Barack Obama on Thursday gave some advice to a group of mayors on how to deal with the coronavirus outbreak, saying that “the biggest mistake any (of) us can make in these situations is to misinform.”

Obama was speaking during a virtual meeting organized by Bloomberg Philanthropies.”Speak the truth. Speak it clearly. Speak it with compassion. Speak it with empathy for what folks are going through,” Obama said, according to a press release on the virtual meeting.Obama also pushed the mayors to bring in as many smart advisers and experts as possible.

“The more smart people you have around you, and the less embarrassed you are to ask questions, the better your response is going to be,” Obama said. This is the fourth virtual meeting Bloomberg’s group has held with mayors. Two of the previous meetings have featured speeches by former Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton. Obama has repeatedly weighed in on the response to the virus, largely offering a more cautious message than that of President Donald Trump and advocating for protecting public health over re-starting economic activity.

And Obama also urged the mayors to pay special attention to the most vulnerable. Here’s his remark according to a press release from Bloomberg Philanthropies:

“We’re seeing disparities in how people are affected in cities and towns and communities across the country. Look out for the vulnerable. When you start looking at issues of domestic abuse and you start looking at racial disparities that are popping up in your cities, paying attention to that is the kind of leadership I know all of you aspire to. You have to be intentional about it, and dedicate folks to thinking about those issues.”

Updated

Here’s a sign of the times:

There’s been an ongoing concern about how Capitol Hill lawmakers can legislate amid the coronavirus. In an interview with Politico, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi signaled the chamber is unlikely to return later this month (bolds mine):

Speaker Nancy Pelosi signaled Thursday that the House is unlikely to return to session later this month, her clearest indication yet that Congress — like the rest of the country — could remain shuttered for weeks or even longer as the coronavirus crisis continues.

In a half-hour interview, Pelosi issued a stark warning to President Donald Trump, urging him not to prematurely rush to reopen major segments of the country before the coronavirus is under control, which she said could further send the U.S. economy into a tailspin.

“Nobody can really tell you that and I would never venture a guess. I certainly don’t think we should do it sooner than we should,” Pelosi said when asked if she still planned to bring the House back on April 20, which is the current target date.

“This has taken an acceleration from when we started this…Little did we know then that at this point, we’d be further confined.”

Navajo Nation steps-up strict measures to slow down the coronavirus spread

The Navajo Nation is gearing up for a 57-hour curfew which comes into effect at 8pm tonight, and will continue until 5am on Monday. The weekend long curfew, the first of its kind within the United States geographical borders, will be enforced by tribal police, who have been authorized to sanction violators with a fine of up to $1000 and/or 30 days in jail. Essential workers such as medical staff are exempt, but must carry a letter from their employer.

On Thursday, Navajo president Jonathan Nez and vice-president Myron Lizer, announced that they were going into self-quarantine after recently coming into contact with a first responder who later tested positive for the virus. “This is real and no-one is immune from contracting the virus. We will continue to fight for our people as we self-quarantine - this is a precautionary measure,” said Nez during an online town hall meeting.

The Navajo government was quick to implement prevention and mitigation measures after reporting its first case on 17 March, in an effort to minimize spread through its vast territory which stretches over parts of Arizona, New Mexico and Utah. This included issuing a stay at home order just two days after California, followed by an 8pm to 5am curfew. But, the virus is spreading rapidly with 558 confirmed cases including 20 deaths as of Thursday 9 April.

Last month, the US federal government approved $8bn for native communities and tribal services in its third coronavirus rescue package, but tribal leaders fear that they won’t see the money until summer due to red tape and paperwork. Nez told Arizona news outlet ABC15: “To know that those dollars allocated and signed into law are supposed to go to all US citizens, but yet the first citizens of this country are being ignored by Washington.”

A new CBS poll finds Americans’ views on Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic is dipping again.

According to the poll:

Views on President Trump’s handling of the outbreak response have ticked down for the second consecutive week. The president is seen doing a good job by 47%, down four points from 51% last week and 53% the prior week. Now is the first time more say he’s doing a bad job than a good one.

The president gets comparably better marks on his handling of the economic impact of the outbreak, specifically, with 51% saying he’s doing a good job.

Trump wants to reopen the country next month

Good morning, readers.

Donald Trump wants to reopen the country next month despite concerns from both economists and health experts that the coronavirus pandemic is nowhere near over.

Trump, according to a Washington Post report, wants to restart business by 1 May. He’s worried about how the volatile stock market and unemployment numbers will reflect his chances for reelection.

Publicly, Trump seems to have the backing of some of his top aides. In an interview on CNBC on Thursday, treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin said “I do” when asked if he thought the country could reopen in about a month.

But health experts worry that reopening the government prematurely could dramatically reverse some of the progress the country has made in fighting the virus.

Trump’s concerns about a struggling economy are likely to only get worse. Economists are expecting the United States to “suffer its largest-ever contraction this quarter and the unemployment rate to soar to a post-Depression record, followed by a recovery that will be moderate and drawn out” according to Bloomberg News.

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