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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
World
Maanvi Singh (now) and Joan E Greve in Washington (earlier)

Trump undermines CDC masks guidance at combative briefing – as it happened

Donald Trump speaks at a Coronavirus briefing at the White House.
Donald Trump speaks at a Coronavirus briefing at the White House. Photograph: REX/Shutterstock

Live reporting on the coronavirus in the US continues on Saturday’s blog:

Summary

  • The CDC issued new recommendations for people to wear masks or face coverings while in public. The president undermined the guidelines almost immediately after announcing them, insisting that he wouldn’t wear masks because “they’re not for me”.
  • During the daily coronavirus task force briefing, Donald Trump attacked the idea of voting by mail, despite having requested an absentee ballot in 2020. The president said, citing no evidence, that mail-in voting encouraged cheating.
  • Asked whether he could reassure New Yorkers that the state would receive enough ventilators, the president said, “No.”. The state is seeking 15,000 ventilators before the peak of cases hits. Today, New York reported the largest single-day increase in its coronavirus death toll, with nearly 3,000 residents having already lost their lives.
  • Nancy Pelosi said Congress should pass another economic relief bill. The House speaker said Congress should build upon the $2tn stimulus package passed last month.
  • The unemployment rate rose to 4.4% last month, according to the US jobs report released this morning. Economists expect that figure to rise steeply as more companies lay off workers amid the pandemic.
  • The supreme court announced it will postpone oral arguments scheduled for this month. The court had already delayed cases that were scheduled to be argued in March.
  • Congressman Adam Schiff drafted a bill to establish a commission to probe the coronavirus response. The Democratic lawmaker said the commission would seek to gather lessons for future crises, but Trump dismissed the idea of a commission yesterday as a “witch-hunt”.

Updated

And here’s a roundup of the Guardian’s coronavirus coverage from across the country:

1) In California, food banks are struggling to keep up with growing demand, even as they run into volunteer shortages and rising food prices.

2) In Michigan, a public bus driver died less than two weeks after expressing concern about passenger coughing without covering her mouth.

3) In New York, workers at Bellevue hospital, which has fought against epidemics for centuries, say they can see a breaking point coming as coronavirus cases rise.

4) In Florida, passengers from an ill-fated cruise were carefully freed from their cabins and allowed to touch dry land.

Here’s a round-up of Guardian opinion pieces, to help you digest this week in politics:

1) Lloyd Green on Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law as public health adviser...

2) David Heymann on face masks...

3) Heidi Shierholz on the economy...

4) And finally, The Guardian view on Trump’s coronavirus response...

Updated

Here’s more from the reporter who Trump attacked during the briefing. The president told Weijia Jiang of CBS that she “oughtta be ashamed” for asking what the president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner meant when he said that the federal stockpile was “ours”.

The president has habitually lashed out at reporters of color, and particularly women. The Guardian’s David Smith has also found that the pattern extends to lawmakers and public figures of color.

My colleague Sam Levine circles back to the moment during today’s coronavirus briefing when Trump bashed the idea of voting by mail...

As Donald Trump was explaining that he won’t be wearing a mask, because he doesn’t want to greet “presidents, prime ministers, dictators, kings queens,” with his face covered, Melania Trump tweeted an appeal for “everyone” to take the CDC guidelines seriously:

I missed this moment, from earlier, when Trump discusses models:

Well, that’s all the briefing we’re getting today.

My colleague Joanna Walters has one last fact check for us:

Fact check: the federal stockpile

A reporter at the White House briefing asked Trump why Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser, referred to “our stockpile” yesterday when asked about states struggling to get key medical supplies, especially ventilators, from the federal government. (Kushner had said: “The notion of the federal stockpile was it’s supposed to be our stockpile. It’s not supposed to be states’ stockpiles that they then use.”)

Trump just gave a very confusing response, saying: “You know what ‘our’ means? The United States of America. Our, our, and then we take that ‘our’ and we distribute it to the states.”

The reporter responded: “So why did he say it’s not supposed to be states’ stockpiles?”

Trump: “Because we need it for the government, we need it for the federal government. To keep for our country because the federal government needs it, too, not just the states. But out of that we choose oftentimes, as an example, we have almost 10,000 ventilators and we are ready to rock...we are going to bring them to various areas of the country that need them. But when he says ‘our’ he is talking about “our country” he is talking about the federal government. You should be ashamed of yourself...don’t make it sound bad...you just asked your question in a very nasty way.”

In fact, yesterday reporters quickly noted the stockpile is indeed meant as a resource for the states, as noted on the department of health and human services’ website.

“When state, local, tribal, and territorial responders request federal assistance to support their response efforts, the stockpile ensures that the right medicines and supplies get to those who need them most during an emergency,” the website read.

But this morning, that language had been removed from the HHS website. “The Strategic National Stockpile’s role is to supplement state and local supplies during public health emergencies,” the website now says. “Many states have products stockpiled, as well.”

Updated

Fact check: Mail-in voting

“A lot of people cheat” with mail-in voting, Trump said. People should go to the voting booth, “proudly display yourself” and have an ID, he added. “All sorts of bad things can happen”, when people vote by mail, the president said.

But there is no evidence of widespread cheating when people vote by mail, and on the contrary, there is evidence that removing barriers to voting by mail can make it easier for many people – including those with disabilities, and work and childcare responsibilities – to vote.

Still, Trump has long-opposed measures to expand vote by mail. My colleague Sam Levine reported earlier this week:

Donald Trump admitted on Monday that making it easier to vote in America would hurt the Republican party.

The president made the comments as he dismissed a Democratic-led push for reforms such as vote-by-mail, same-day registration and early voting as states seek to safely run elections amid the Covid-19 pandemic. Democrats had proposed the measures as part of the coronavirus stimulus. They ultimately were not included in the $2.2tn final package, which included only $400m to states to help them run elections.

“The things they had in there were crazy. They had things, levels of voting that if you’d ever agreed to it, you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again,” Trump said during an appearance on Fox & Friends. “They had things in there about election days and what you do and all sorts of clawbacks. They had things that were just totally crazy and had nothing to do with workers that lost their jobs and companies that we have to save.”

Updated

Fact check: Is the previous administration to blame?

Donald Trump has repeatedly blamed the “previous administration” for his government’s lack of preparation for the coronavirus crisis. “Speak to the people from the previous administration. The shelves were empty,” he said when asked why the US failed to stockpile enough medical supplies to meet current needs.

But Trump, who has been president since 2017, ignored early warnings that a pandemic was coming, including from his own HHS secretary. Three months before the first cases of coronavirus began spreading through China, the Trump administration ended a $200m early warning program designed to alert it to potential pandemics.

Will the government guarantee that New York will have enough ventilators? “No,” the Trump said.

“We are doing the best we can... We happen to think [governor Andrew Cuomo] is well served with ventilators. We are going to find out.”

Trump added that other states like Michigan and Louisiana made need ventilators, too.

We found Dr Fauci...

He’s on PBS NewsHour, providing context and guidance on the new mask guidelines.

Updated

Context: Antibody tests

Dr Deborah Birx said that tests that can detect whether people have had the infection and developed immunity will be important going forward. “We want those tests to be like what we use for HIV and Malaria,” she said, which uses a finger prick of blood to detect whether a person’s immune system has developed antibodies to fight the infection.

Yesterday, the FDA approved an antibody test that is more complicated, and requires a lot more than just a finger-prick of blood. The test, developed by Cellex, takes 15 to 20 minutes to get a result.

“It’s really important to test for immunity,” Robert Siegel, a professor of microbiology and immunology at Stanford University, told me yesterday because people who are immune could return to work without endangering themselves or others. “They could more safely work as frontline healthcare providers,” Siegel said.

Updated

Trump is growing increasingly hostile toward reporters in the briefing room. Asked to clarify what the president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner meant when he said the national stockpile was “our stockpile” and not for states, Trump snapped that she “oughtta be ashamed” of herself.

“We need it for the federal government,” he said, of the national emergency stockpile. He’s repeatedly said that states should depend on the federal government for aid unless it’s a “last resort” and has blamed states for a shortage of medical supplies.

Updated

Context: Oracle and Covid-19 treatments

Trump said, “many providers are trying different experimental treatments.” The health secretary Alex Azar added: “Today, Oracle has developed and donated to the government and the American people a web portal and platform to gather crowdsourced and real-time information from providers about how patients respond to potential therapeutics.”

As the New York Times reported on 24 March: The White House is preparing to use software provided by the technology giant Oracle to promote unproven coronavirus treatments, including a pair of malaria drugs publicized by Trump, potentially before the government approves their use for the outbreak, according to five senior administration officials and others familiar with the plans.

An online platform designed by Oracle, in collaboration with the White House, is still taking shape, but it is likely to be used to collect information about off-label use of the drugs, chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine, which are not yet approved by the Food and Drug Administration to treat Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.

Trump has tried to reassure Americans that what he has called a “game changer” treatment is imminent, but his language has alarmed senior health officials and public health experts, who say that the Oracle program would amount to a sprawling, crowdsourced clinical trial without the usual controls of the FDA.

Updated

The president boasted about his administration’s shipments of medical masks to New York. Compared to the homemade masks that the CDC is reccomending that the public wear, the N-95 masks are “more expensive, more complicated, better, whatever”, Trump said.

Updated

Why is it we don’t have enough masks? “The previous administration,” Trump said. “Speak to the people from the previous administration. The shelves were empty.”

“I don’t know,” said Trump in response to a question asking where Dr Anthony Fauci is today. Fauci, Trump’s leading public health adviser, has jot joined in the briefing today.

“Whenever he’s not here,” Trump complained, “the fake news” will ask about him.

Updated

The masks are more for the protection of other people than oneself, the surgeon general clarified Jerome Adams. Wearing a cloth face covering will help contain your coughs and sneezes, reducing chances that you’ll spray infectious droplets into the air, and risk transmitting the disease the others, noted Dr Adams.

Still “maintaining 6ft of social distancing remains key”, he said. Masks are “not a replacement for social distancing”.

Also important: don’t put a mask on with dirty hands.

“If you choose to wear a face covering, wash your hands first,” Adams said.

Updated

“I won’t be doing it, personally,” Trump said about masks - it wouldn’t suit his position.

He doesn’t want to greet world leaders, “presidents, prime ministers, dictators, kings, queens”, he continued, while wearing a face covering. “I don’t know, somehow, I don’t see it for myself.”

Updated

CDC guidance on masks

Here’s more from the CDC:

“CDC recommends wearing cloth face coverings in public settings where other social distancing measures are difficult to maintain (eg, grocery stores and pharmacies) especially in areas of significant community-based transmission”

People should continue to maintain a 6ft distance between themselves and others, and remain diligent about washing and sanitizing hands.

Updated

All Americans, including those without health insurance, will be able to receive treatment without worrying about the cost, according to Mike Pence. The administration has repeatedly ignored calls from Democratic lawmakers to reopen the Obamacare exchanges to allow the uninsured to purchase insurance.

Instead, Pence said that hospitals that treat uninsured would get paid for at Medicare rates.

Updated

Fact check: hydroxychloroquine

Trump once again touted hydroxychloroquine as a coronavirus cure, “I don’t know it’s looking like good results,” he said. But public health experts including Trump’s top infectious diseases adviser, Dr Fauci, have previously warned that there was only “anecdotal evidence” that the drugs could be helpful.

My colleague Oliver Milman reported that a French study of 40 coronavirus patients found that half experienced clearing of their airways after being given hydroxychloroquine. Experts have warned that the study is small and lacks sufficient rigor to be classed as evidence of a potential treatment. The French health ministry has warned against the use of hydroxychloroquine for Covid-19.

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. Trump’s pushing of the treatment has reportedly caused stockpiling of hydroxychloroquine.

CDC now recommends public wear non-medical grade masks while outside

White House aide Judd Deere provided more clarification:

Updated

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now recommends masks for the public, Trump said, though Trump repeatedly undermined the recommendation.

“I’m choosing not to do it,” he said, repeatedly noting that wearing non-medical grade masks is a “voluntary” option.

Updated

Briefing begins

Donald Trump has taken the podium.

New York City residents all received a push alert, calling on all licensed healthcare workers to support facilities in need.

My colleague Alexandra Villarreal reported, earlier:

New York City’s mayor, Bill de Blasio, has called for a national enlistment program for doctors and nurses, to handle an expected surge in coronavirus cases in New York and across the US.

“If we’re fighting a war, let’s act like we’re fighting a war,” he said.

Hi there, it’s Maanvi Singh, blogging from the West Coast.

Soon, we’re expecting Donald Trump to speak at the daily coronavirus briefing at 5:30.

Alabama has just issued a stay at home order for the entire state, starting at 5pm Saturday. Governor Kay Ivey issued the order after initially resisting calls. The state has reported more than 1,400 cases of coronavirus.

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:

  • Nancy Pelosi said Congress should pass another economic relief bill. The House speaker said Congress should build upon the $2 trillion stimulus package passed last month to help Americans who are struggling financially because of coronavirus.
  • The unemployment rate rose to 4.4% last month, according to the US jobs report released this morning. Economists expect that figure to rise steeply as more companies lay off workers amid the pandemic.
  • New York governor Andrew Cuomo is signing an executive order to redistribute respirators to hospitals in need. New York reported the largest single-day increase in its coronavirus death toll, with nearly 3,000 residents having already lost their lives.
  • The Supreme Court announced it will postpone oral arguments scheduled for this month. The court had already delayed cases that were scheduled to be argued in March.
  • Congressman Adam Schiff drafted a bill to establish a commission to probe the coronavirus response. The Democratic lawmaker said the commission would seek to gather lessons for future crises, but Trump dismissed the idea of a commission yesterday as a “witch-hunt.”

Maanvi will have more coming up, so stay tuned.

Wisconsin governor Tony Evers is calling on lawmakers to cancel in-person voting for the state’s presidential primary on Tuesday.

Evers expressed fear that primary voters could spread coronavirus at polling places if they are asked to cast ballots in person.

The Democratic governor called on legislators to hold a special session tomorrow to make the primary an entirely mail-in election.

“This is a significant concern and a very unnecessary public health risk,” Evers told reporters. “I can’t move this election or change it on my own. My hands are tied.”

Wisconsin has already seen a surge in requests for mail-in ballots. Wisconsin Democrats and civil rights have also sued the state to get officials to loosen requirements for absentee voting.

Supreme Court postpones April oral arguments

The Supreme Court has said it will postpone oral arguments scheduled for this month because of the pandemic.

Reuters reports:

The court, which already had delayed cases due to be argued in March, has yet to say how it will proceed. The court’s current term is due to conclude at the end of June.

Court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg said that the nine justices - including oldest member Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 87 - are all healthy.

The court is due to issue rulings online only on Monday, as it has in the last two weeks.

The governor of Pennsylvania is asking all state residents to wear face masks if they go outside.

The recommendation from governor Tom Wolf comes amid some conflicting messages about whether all Americans should be wearing face coverings.

Health officials originally said widespread mask usage would not help mitigate the spread of the virus, but that thinking appears to be changing as early evidence indicates coronavirus can be spread even through talking.

The White House is expected to soon issue federal guidance on all Americans wearing face coverings.

Lawmakers from both parties criticized the reported barriers that small businessowners are experiencing as they try to receive funds from the stimulus package.

Applications opened today for the $350 billion small business loan program that was estblished in the $2 trillion stimulus package, but some businessowners said they were being blocked from applying to certain banks.

Republican senator Marco Rubio specifically criticized Bank of America for its requirements of loan applicants.

Democratic senator Ben Cardin similarly accused banks of “creating artificial barriers” that block much-needed funds from reaching struggling businesses.

“The small business provisions in the CARES Act were written to get funds into the hands of American small business owners as quickly as possible so they can keep employees on payroll and avoid financial ruin while we work to combat COVID-19,” Cardin said in a statement. “Creating artificial barriers that block businesses from much-needed capital is redlining by another name.”

Meanwhile, the Small Business Administration said that more than $2 billion in loans have already been processed through the program.

Updated

The Guardian’s Sam Levin reports on the latest from California:

California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, has announced that the state has now secured 7,000 hotel rooms for homeless people during the pandemic, with the goal of procuring 15,000 total.

At a briefing in Sacramento, he also said the state now has 10,710 total positive Covid-19 cases, 2,188 people hospitalized, and 901 in the ICU (a 10.4% hike from yesterday).

Newsom said the federal government would cover 75% of the costs of hotels through Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) reimbursement. He said 869 people total have been housed through the state program so far, and that the rooms are for people who have tested positive, been exposed or are high risk.

“We want to relieve the stress in our shelter system so we can separate individuals and relieve the impact on our medical delivery system,” the governor said, standing outside a facility where 30 homeless people have now been housed.

There are questions about whether the state’s efforts to prevent major outbreaks in homeless communities will be fast enough and at a large enough scale.

More than 150,000 people are homeless in the state, with an estimated 40,000 in crowded shelters on a given night where there are major concerns about potential spread. Some previous reporting on the subject:

Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell celebrated House speaker Nancy Pelosi shifting her focus away from a massive infrastructure bill.

The Kentucky Republican said Pelosi had been trying “to use this crisis to push unrelated left-wing priorities,” even though Trump himseld voiced support for an infrastructure bill.

Pelosi released a statement earlier today saying the next coronavirus bill should focus on economic relief, expanding upon the $2 trillion stimulus package signed into law last month, as the country confronts mass job losses.

“While I’m very much in favor of doing some things we need to do to meet the needs — clean water, more broadband, the rest of that — that may have to be for a bill beyond this,” Pelosi told CNBC earlier today.

The description of the Strategic National Stockpile on a government website was changed after Jared Kushner mischaracterized the program.

Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser, said yesterday, “And the notion of the federal stockpile was it’s supposed to be our stockpile. It’s not supposed to be states’ stockpiles that they then use.”

Reporters quickly noted the stockpile is indeed meant as a resource for the states, as noted on the department of health and human services’ website.

“When state, local, tribal, and territorial responders request federal assistance to support their response efforts, the stockpile ensures that the right medicines and supplies get to those who need them most during an emergency,” the website read.

But this morning, that language had been removed from the HHS website. “The Strategic National Stockpile’s role is to supplement state and local supplies during public health emergencies,” the website now says. “Many states have products stockpiled, as well.”

News outlets were quick to note the change, but the agency said the language revision was in the works for weeks, a claim that was met with much skepticism on Twitter.

The actual coronavirus death toll in Wuhan, China, may have exceeded 40,000, according to estimates based on the activity of the region’s funeral homes.

The official death toll in Wuhan, the first region to experience an outbreak of coronavirus, is 2,563.

The Washington Post reports:

The Hankou Funeral Parlor’s crematorium was operating 19 hours a day, with male staff enlisted to help carry bodies. In just two days, the home received 5,000 urns, the respected magazine Caixin reported. ...

Using photos posted online, social media sleuths have estimated that Wuhan funeral homes had returned 3,500 urns a day since March 23. That would imply a death toll in Wuhan of about 42,000 — or 16 times the official number. Another widely shared calculation, based on Wuhan’s 84 furnaces running nonstop and each cremation taking an hour, put the death toll at 46,800.

The US intelligence community has reportedly concluded that China under-reported coronavirus cases and deaths.

Health experts have similarly said the death tolls in Italy and Spain suggest China may not have reported all of its data on the virus.

The White House is stepping up its precautions to ensure the president and vice president don’t get coronavirus.

The AP reports:

Starting Friday, anyone who is expected to be in ‘close proximity’ to either President Donald Trump or Vice President Mike Pence will be given a quick COVID-19 test ‘to evaluate for pre-symptomatic or asymptomatic carriers status to limit inadvertent transmission.’ ...

All visitors to the White House complex already have their temperatures taken when entering the building and if they will be in close proximity to either Trump or Pence.

Trump took the new COVID-19 test on Thursday and the White House doctor said results were back in 15 minutes. He tested negative.

Trump and Pence were both tested for coronavirus themselves last month, after they both came into contact with individuals who later tested positive.

New Jersey governor Phil Murphy raised the possibility of delaying the state’s presidential primary, which is currently set for early June.

“I’ll be stunned if we stay at June 2,” Murphy said.

Eleven primaries are currently set to be held on June 2, after several states delayed their April and May primaries in order to avoid spreading coronavirus at polling places.

But if New Jersey pushes its primary past June 2, it will likely put pressure on those other states to follow suit.

The Democratic National Committee similarly announced yesterday that its convention, originally scheduled to start July 13, would be delayed a month because ofthe pandemic.

Joe Biden applauded a Navy captain who was dismissed from his post after raising concerns about the spread of coronavirus on his ship.

Brett Crozier was relieved from his post as captain of the the USS Theodore Roosevelt yesterday after a letter he wrote to senior officials, which demanded crew members be allowed to quarantine, was made public.

“We are not at war,” Crozier wrote in the letter. “Sailors do not need to die. If we do not act now, we are failing to properly take care of our most trusted asset — our Sailors.”

The acting Navy secretary said Crozier had shown “poor judgment” by sending the letter outside his chain of command, but Biden applauded the captain’s courage and loyalty.

Videos shared on social media last night showed hundreds of crew members cheering for Crozier as he departed from the ship.

Early data on coronavirus cases and deaths indicates that in the US, African Americans are being worst affected by the pandemic.

ProPublica reports:

As of Friday morning, African Americans made up almost half of Milwaukee County’s 945 cases and 81% of its 27 deaths in a county whose population is 26% black. Milwaukee is one of the few places in the United States that is tracking the racial breakdown of people who have been infected by the novel coronavirus, offering a glimpse at the disproportionate destruction it is inflicting on black communities nationwide.

In Michigan, where the state’s population is 14% black, African Americans made up 35% of cases and 40% of deaths as of Friday morning. Detroit, where a majority of residents are black, has emerged as a hot spot with a high death toll. As has New Orleans. Louisiana has not published case breakdowns by race, but 40% of the state’s deaths have happened in Orleans Parish, where the majority of residents are black.”

Updated

Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell said there will be “glitches” with distributing funds from the stimulus package.

“There are bound to be problems,” McConnell told McClatchy. “You can’t pass a bill of this magnitude in a week and have a perfect implementation of $2.2 trillion, so sure there are going to be glitches.”

McConnell’s comments come as banks report a flood of applicatnts for the small business loan program, which started accepting applications today, and Americans await their direct cash payments.

According to a memo House Democrats are reportedly ciculating, some Americans may not receive their payments for nearly five months, a disappointing timeline considering nearly 10 million people have filed for unemployment in the past two weeks.

Treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin said $875 million in small business loans have already been processed as part of the Paycheck Protection Program created by the $2 trillion stimulus package.

That $875 million represents a small fraction of the $349 billion the program, which began accepting application today, is expected to distribute.

Some major banks are already reporting a flood of applications that raised concerns about how small businesses would be able to quickly receive the much-needed funds.

Bank of America said it received 10,000 applications by 10 am ET, and some banks have not even opened their application portals yet.

Pelosi calls for another economic relief bill amid mass job losses

House speaker Nancy Pelosi has issued a statement calling for another bill to build on the $2 trillion stimulus package to help Americans who are suffering financially during the coronavirus pandemic.

“The acceleration of the coronavirus demands that we double down on the downpayment we made in CARES by passing a CARES 2 package,” Pelosi said in a statement. “We must extend and expand this bipartisan legislation to meet the needs of the American people.”

The Democratic speaker called for more direct payments to American families, additional funding to process unemployment claims and resources for the overwhelmed healthcare system. The statement comes one day after the labor department announced nearly 10 million people have filed for unemployment benefits in the past two weeks.

“The coronavirus is moving swiftly, and our communities cannot afford for us to wait,” Pelosi said.

The speaker added that Demorats will also continue working on a potential infrastructure package, which she has referred to as “phase four” of Congress’ coronavirus response.

Updated

CNN host Brooke Baldwin said she has tested positive for coronavirus, becoming the second CNN host this week to announce a diagnosis.

“I am OKAY,” Baldwin wrote on Instagram, noting she has no underlying conditions to complicate her illness. “It came on suddenly yesterday afternoon. Chills, aches, fever.”

CNN host Chris Cuomo, the brother of New York governor Andrew Cuomo, announced earlier this week that he had also been diagnosed with the virus.

Updated

Today so far

Here’s where the day stands so far:

  • New York governor Andrew Cuomo said he would sign an executive order to seize ventilators from hospitals with fewer coronavirus cases. The order, which will allow the state to redistribute ventilators to overwhelmed hospitals, comes as New York reported its highest single-day increase yet in the coronavirus death toll.
  • Congressman Adam Schiff has drafted a bill to form a commission to probe the coronavirus response. Schiff said the purpose of the commission would to gather lessons for future crises, but Trump dismissed the idea of a commission yesterday as a Democratic “witch-hunt.”
  • The unemployment rate rose to 4.4% as the US reported 701,000 job losses. The figure is only expected to rise in the coming months, with the Congressional Budget Office predicting unemployment will surpass 10% this financial quarter.

The blog will have more coming up, so stay tuned.

Updated

The Guardian’s Stephanie Kirchgaessner reports:

The removal of a US naval captain who expressed alarm over sailors on his ship because of the threat of the Covid-19 virus may have violated whistleblower protection laws, according to a lawyer who has studied the issue.

Captain Brett Crozier was relieved of his command of the USS Theodore Roosevelt days after a letter he wrote, which had warned that an outbreak of the virus aboard the aircraft carrier could lead to deaths, was leaked in the press.

The letter, first reported by the San Francisco Chronicle, warned “if we do not act now, we are failing to properly take care of our most trusted asset - our sailors”.

Thomas Modly, the Navy secretary, announced Crozier’s dismissal due to loss of confidence and not using his chain of command.

While Modly accused Crozier of creating a “panic”, online videos showed what the Navy Times dubbed a “hero’s farewell”.

Stephen Kohn, a Washington DC-based attorney who represents whistleblowers (but is not representing Crozier) said military law permitted Crozier to inform officials of “life-threatening conditions” as well as “gross mismanagement” by the US Navy.

“Consequently, Captain Crozier’s memorandum to the Navy was a protected disclosure under law,” Kohn said.

CNN has reported that the Navy was concerned that Crozier had used an “unsecure system” to email his memo, increasing chances that it could be leaked.

Kohn said the justification appeared to raise the spectre of illegal retaliation.

“Under military law, whistleblower disclosures made by Captain Crozier would only lose their protection if they were ‘unlawful.’ The Navy has not alleged that any of Captain Crozier’s communications violated the law,” Kohn said.

Updated

Washington may not see its peak of coronavirus hospitalizations until July, mayor Muriel Bowser announced in a briefing on the capital city’s response to the pandemic.

Bowser said Washington would need more than 2,700 new ICU beds by early July to address the surge in hospitalizations. The city has less than 100 ICU beds available now.

Officials estimate that Washington will see 93,000 cases of coronavirus over the course of the pandemic and up to 1,000 fatalities. More than 700 cases have already been confirmed in the city, and 15 residents have died.

Bowser also unsurprisingly confirmed that the city’s schools will not reopen on April 27, as previously hoped, but a final decision on that matter will be issued later.

Updated

The Guardian’s Andrew Roth reports from Moscow:

Hundreds of US citizens have been stranded in Moscow after an evacuation flight to New York was grounded at the last moment due to a Russian ban on all international flights.

The Aeroflot flight was meant to carry US citizens seeking to leave Russia, and then repatriate hundreds of Russians stranded in the United States.

Russia has closed its international borders for most travellers, and this afternoon announced that it would impose a ban on all international flights in and out of Russia as of Saturday morning.

The flight cancellation came after passengers had already boarded the flight. Some had been trying to leave Russia for weeks. Others had been living in Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport for days, waiting for a chance to leave the country.

Nicholas Mackay, a ballet photographer who lives in Russia, said that he has been trying to travel to the United States for several weeks to reach his father, who is sick with cancer.

“We were already on the flight, and then a flight attendant came on over the intercom and told us that we are not flying out, the flight is cancelled and all flights are cancelled by the Russian government,” he said by telephone.

“There’s no information. We’re not even able to get any money back from our flight. We’re only able to change for a different day. A different day is no day, because no one knows when international travel will be OK in this whole situation.”

A US embassy spokesperson said: “The US Embassy is aware of the inexplicable cancellation of today’s Aeroflot flight to New York. The flight was full of US citizens anxious to get home. We are awaiting an explanation from the Russian Federation. We continue to work to find ways to help US citizens return home.”

During his daily briefing, New York governor Andrew Cuomo said the temporary hopsital at the Javits Center would be converted into a coronavirus facility because there are so few non-coronavirus cases right now.

“We don’t have non-Covid people to any great extent in the hospitals,” Cuomo said. “Hospitals have now turned into effectively ICU hospitals for Covid patients.”

Cuomo’s comments come as reports indicate the Navy hospital ship Comfort, which is in New York to treat non-coronavirus patients, has only received 20 patients so far.

Meanwhile, the city’s emergency rooms are overrun with coronavirus patients, and medical professionals are working long hours to confront the surge in cases.

Cuomo briefing summary

New York governor Andrew Cuomo just wrapped up his daily briefing on the state’s coronavirus response.

Here’s what he covered:

  • Cuomo will sign an executive order to allow the state to take ventilators from hospitals with fewer coronavirus cases and give them to hospitals in need. Cuomo pushed back against a reporter who said the state would “seize” the medical equipment, but that seems like an accurate description considering the National Guard will be used for the operation.
  • New York has recorded 2,935 deaths linked to coronavirus, up from from 2,373 a day earlier, marking the largest single-day increase in the death toll since the crisis struck the state. New York has also confirmed 102,863 cases of the virus.
  • Officials offered a mixed message on whether everyone should wear face coverings to limit the spread of the virus. State health commissioner Howard Zucker noted there was no data to confirm face coverings help prevent transmissions, but Cuomo said it “couldn’t hurt” to wear them.
  • Cuomo once again expressed bafflement and anger that the state has to rely on China for the production of medical equipment. “It is unbelievable to me that in New York state, in the United States of America, that we can’t make these materials,” Cuomo said.
  • The temporary hospital at the Javits Center will begin receiving coronavirus patients, even though officials originally said the facility would treat non-coronavirus patients. Cuomo said there simply aren’t enough non-coronavirus cases right now to make that plan worthwhile.

Updated

New York governor Andrew Cuomo closed his press conference on a message of hope, saying the state will “find the light” at the end of this crisis.

“This is hard personally,” Cuomo said of the state’s rising coronavirus death toll. “It’s hard to stay in this all day and then it’s hard staying up all night watching the numbers go up … and knowing that you’re in charge of the ship.”

But the governor emphasized the state would make it through the pandemic. “Once you go through darkness, you will find the light,” Cuomo said. “We will find the light.”

Moments ago, New York officials painted a mixed picture on whether all residents should wear face coverings to limit the spread of the virus.

“There’s no data to support the effectiveness of face masks,” said Dr Howard Zucker, the New York state health commissioner.

But governor Andrew Cuomo then suggested it might be worth wearing face coverings considering the lack of clear evidence on the matter. “The masks couldn’t hurt,” Cuomo said.

New York governor Andrew Cuomo dismissed concerns that the state may be sued over his executive order to take ventilators from hospitals with fewer coronavirus cases.

“If they want to sue me for borrrowing their excess ventilators to save lives, then let them sue me,” Cuomo said of the plan.

Cuomo noted the state would return the ventilators to their owners or reimburse them for the cost of the equipment.

New York governor Andrew Cuomo pushed back against the word “seize” to describe the redistribution of ventilators from less-stressed hospitals to the hospitals with the most coronavirus cases.

“It’s sharing of resources,” Cuomo said of the executive order he plans to sign.

But that characterization seems dubious, considering Cuomo said the National Guard would be used to take the ventilators.

New York governor Andrew Cuomo said 20,000 medical professionals from other parts of the country have volunteered to help the state as it confronts this crisis.

Cuomo emphasized the state would send similar aid to “any community in this nation that needs it” once New York passes its peak number of coronavirus cases.

New York mayor Bill de Blasio suggested earlier today that the country needs a national enlistment program for medical professionals to deploy staff to the most stressed regions as the crisis develops.

New York governor Andrew Cuomo said ventilators would be seized from less-stressed hospitals to give them to areas where they are “urgently required to save lives.”

The use of military members to seize medical equipment sends a clear message that New York is entering a new phase of the coronavirus crisis, coming as the state recorded its highest single-day death toll yet.

Cuomo to sign executive order to seize medical equipment as necessary

New York governor Andrew Cuomo said he would sign an executive order to seize medical equipment from hospitals that are not as overwhelmed with coronavirus patients right now.

Cuomo said the National Guard would be used to take ventilators and personal protective equipment to help hospitals that are particularly hard hit right now, presumably those in New York City and Long Island.

Cuomo said the equipment would be returned or reimbursed, but the move is likely to spark outcry from hospitals in upstate New York, which has seen fewer coronavirus cases.

New York governor Andrew Cuomo said the temporary hospital constructed at the Javits Center in Manhattan would now receive coronavirus patients.

The orignal plan was for the convention center to receive non-coronavirus patients to help free up space in the city’s hospitals, but Cuomo said there were simply not enough non-coronavirus patients right now to make that plan worthwhile.

Cuomo also warned that the city is running dangerously low on ventilators. “We don’t have enough,” the governor said. “Period.”

Cuomo said yesterady that the state was expected to run out of ventilators in less than a week.

Cuomo: It is 'unbelievable' US cannot make medical equipment

New York governor Andrew Cuomo expressed bafflement and anger that the US cannot produce its own medical materials as hospitals run dangerously low on personal protective equipment.

“It is unbelievable to me that in New York state, in the United States of America, that we can’t make these materials,” Cuomo said.

The governor implored companies yesterday to shift production toward medical equipment, promising to pay “a premium” for the materials.

Updated

New York reports nearly 3,000 coronavirus deaths

New York has recorded 2,935 deaths linked to coronavirus, up from from 2,373 a day earlier, governor Andrew Cuomo announced.

Cuomo said the increase in the death toll represented the highest single-day rise since the coronavirus crisis struck the state.

New York has also confirmed 102,863 cases of coronavirus, far more than any other US state.

Congressman Adam Schiff said in a statement that the proposed commission to probe the coronavirus response would not be aimed at “scoring political points.”

“This is not an exercise in casting blame or scoring political points, but something that the American people should rightly expect from their government as an exercise in accountability,” Schiff said.

“In designing such a commission, I believe that the 9/11 Commission provides an established and proven model, one which Congress should adapt to the purposes of the Coronavirus.”

But Trump has already made clear he is steadfastly opposed to the idea, dismissing any potential review commission as another “witch-hunt.”

Schiff proposes commission to investigate coronavirus response

House intelligence committe chairman Adam Schiff has drafted a bill to form a commission, in the style of the 9/11 commission, to investigate the US response to coronavirus.

Schiff said the commission would be comprised of 10 members from both parties and would not be formed until February 2021, “hopefully after the pandemic has been overcome and after the presidential election.”

Bennie Thompson, the chairman of the House homeland security committee, has already drafted a similar bill, but it’s unclear whether House speaker Nancy Pelosi supports the proposal.

Pelosi announced yesterday that a House select committee would be formed to ensure appropriate use of government funds in the $2tn stimulus package, but she did not commit to supporting a review commission when asked about the matter by reporters.

Trump dismissed the idea out of hand during the daily White House press conference yesterday, arguing the proposal was a partisan attack strategy.

“This is not the time for politics,” he told reporters. “You see what happens. It’s witch-hunt after witch-hunt after witch-hunt and, in the end, the people doing the witch-hunt have been losing, and they’ve been losing by a lot. It’s not any time for witch-hunts.”

Updated

A Navy captain who was relieved from his post after raising concerns about the spread of coronavirus on his ship was celebrated by his crew members as he departed.

Captain Brett Crozier was dismissed yesterday for showing “poor judgment” after a letter he wrote warning about a coronavirus outbreak on the USS Theodore Roosevelt was leaked to the press.

In the letter, Crozier wrote, “We are not at war. Sailors do not need to die. If we do not act now, we are failing to properly take care of our most trusted asset — our Sailors.”

Most of the ship’s crew members were allowed to disembark and quarantine after the letter became public, but the incident cost Crozier his job.

Last night, hundreds of sailors gathered to wish Crozier farewell, and videos posted to social media showed crew members chanting the captain’s name as he departed.

A Navy ship hospital docked in New York to help the city amid the coronavirus crisis has only received 20 patients.

The Comfort’s arrival into New York Harbor was celebrated on Monday, but a laborious process to receive patients has hobbled the hospital ship’s usefulness as many of the city’s emergency rooms are overwhelmed with coronavirus patients.

The New York Times reports:

On Thursday, though, the huge white vessel, which officials had promised would bring succor to a city on the brink, sat mostly empty, infuriating executives at local hospitals. The ship’s 1,000 beds are largely unused, its 1,200-member crew mostly idle.

Only 20 patients had been transferred to the ship, officials said, even as New York hospitals struggled to find space for the thousands infected with the coronavirus. Another Navy hospital ship, the U.S.N.S. Mercy, docked in Los Angeles, has had a total of 15 patients, officials said.
‘If I’m blunt about it, it’s a joke,’ said Michael Dowling, the head of Northwell Health, New York’s largest hospital system. ‘Everyone can say, ‘Thank you for putting up these wonderful places and opening up these cavernous halls.’ But we’re in a crisis here, we’re in a battlefield.’ ...

Ambulances cannot take patients directly to the Comfort; they must first deliver patients to a city hospital for a lengthy evaluation — including a test for the virus — and then pick them up again for transport to the ship.

The Comfort was originally supposed to treat non-coronavirus patients, but that theory has been difficult to put into practice, and hospital executives complain the hospital ship serves little purpose if it cannot help address the surge of coronavirus cases.

The company 3M has responded to Trump’s criticism of its production of N95 masks after the president implied 3M was negatively impacting the US coronavirus response.

Trump issued an order under the Defense Production Act yesterday to have 3M step up its production of face masks and then sent this mysterious tweet:

The CEO of 3M fiercely pushed back against Trump’s criticism this morning, saying the company started doubling its production of masks in late January in response to coronavirus.

“The narrative that we aren’t doing everything we can as a company is just not true,” CEO Mike Roman said.

New York mayor Bill de Blasio called for the creation of an enlistment program for medical professionals to help combat the pandemic.

“Next week in New York City is going to be very tough — next week in New York City and Detroit and New Orleans and a lot of other places,” de Blasio told MSNBC this morning.

“And unless the military is fully mobilized and we create something we’ve never had before, which is some kind of national enlistment of medical personnel moved to the most urgent needs in the country constantly, if we don’t have that we’re going to see hospitals simply unable to handle so many people who could be saved.”

New York governor Andrew Cuomo has similarly asked for medical professionals from other parts of the country to come to New York as the state sees the highest number of coronavirus cases, promising to “return the favor” once the virus hits their communities.

Dr Anthony Fauci said this morning that Americans can use face coverings to lower their risk of getting coronavirus.

The federal government is expected to soon revise its recommendations on face coverings, after health officials initially saying masks were not necessary for the general public.

But Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said the coverings could be helpful for instances when people are not able to stay six feet apart, like at pharmacies.

“Because of that and because of some recent information that the virus can actually be spread even when people just speak, as opposed to coughing and sneezing, the better part of valor is that when you’re out, and you can’t maintain that six-foot distance, to wear some sort of facial covering,” Fauci told Fox News.

But the senior official emphasized Americans should still practice social distancing, adding that medical professionals would still have the highest priority in getting face masks.

Unemployment rises to 4.4%

The US jobs report released this morning shows that the unemployment rate has risen to 4.4% after the country lost 701,000 jobs last month.

The latest figure marks a 0.9% increase from last month’s rate of 3.5%, which was a 50-year low in the US unemplyment rate.

The jobs report also ends a decade of job growth since the financial crisis, as the country braces for another recession because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Adding to the disappointing news, the unemployment rate is expected to only go up. Nearly 10 million people have filed for unemployment benefits in the past two weeks, and the Congressional Budget Office predicted yesterday that unemployment in the second quarter of this year would pass 10%.

Read more on the numbers from the Guardian’s Dominic Rushe:

Fauci: 'I don't understand why' every state has not issued stay-home order

Good morning, live blog readers!

About 90% of Americans are under stay-at-home orders as states try to mitigate the spread of coronavirus by enforcing social distancing guidelines.

However, a handful of governors are still resisting issuing statwide orders, and Donald Trump has been hesitant to issue a federal order to enforce the guidelines.

Last night on CNN, Dr Anthony Fauci, the country’s top infectious disease expert, said he was baffled as to why every state does not have an order in effect.

“I don’t understand why that’s not happening,” Fauci told CNN’s Anderson Cooper, saying the governors who have not issued statewide orders “really should” reconsider.

But the official made clear he was not explicitly calling for a federal order. “You know, the tension between federally mandated versus states’ rights to do what they want is something I don’t want to get into,” he said. “But if you look at what’s going on in this country, I just don’t understand why we’re not doing that.”

Fauci’s comments came as the US reported 1,169 coronavirus deaths, the highest one-day death toll of any country so far, although that record is bound to be quickly broken.

Updated

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