May 9 coronavirus news

All bars in Seoul have been ordered to close until further notice after a spike in coronavirus cases linked to nightclubs in the South Korean capital.

At a briefing Saturday, Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon said that clubs and bars would all need to shut, effective immediately.

A spike in cases: The order follows a surge in cases connected with nightclubs in Itaewon, a popular nightlife district in Seoul.

On Thursday, a 29-year-old man from the city of Yongin -- on the outskirts of Seoul -- tested positive for the virus. The person visited several clubs in Itaewon on the night of May 1 and the early hours of May 2, according to the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC).

Since then, 40 others believed to be connected to the case have tested positive. Of those, 27 are from Seoul.

Tracking partygoers: South Korea has not introduced a nationwide lockdown, but has brought in additional measures to control the coronavirus outbreak. At nightclubs, for instance, people must provide their full name and phone number before entry.

According to Park, 1,946 names were listed on the registry books of the three clubs the 29-year-old visited. Only 647 of those people have been identified.

More cases possible: Kwon Joon-wook, deputy director of the KCDC, also said there may have been more than one source of infection behind the nightclub outbreak. Some of the people who have been confirmed positive visited clubs on different nights from the 29-year-old.

“We’ve put in much efforts and made a lot of sacrifices," Park added Saturday. "Are we just to let this all go to waste because of few people’s carelessness?”

A setback in South Korea: Before the nightclub-related spike, new coronavirus cases had been trending down in the country. On Tuesday, South Korea reported its lowest number of new cases for more than two months.

According to Johns Hopkins University, South Korea has reported more than 10,800 coronavirus cases and 256 deaths. The vast majority of South Korea's cases have recovered, the KCDC said earlier this week.

Fighter Ronaldo “Jacaré” Souza has been withdrawn from Saturday’s UFC 249 preliminary card after he tested positive for Covid-19.

Souza, whose two cornermen were also flagged as positive, was to fight Uriah Hall in a middleweight bout.

Here's what the UFC said in a statement on its website:

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has no plans to defer the Tokyo Olympics again, according to John Coates, the head of the IOC's inspectorate for the Games.

In March, the IOC and the Japanese government postponed the Games until July 2021 due to the coronavirus outbreak.

The background: Last month, Tokyo 2020 President Yoshiro Mori said the Olympics could be canceled if the Covid-19 pandemic continues into next year.

Mori reiterated that organizers are still working towards holding the Games next year.

Read more here.

Taiwan's professional baseball league played before spectators Friday for the first time since the coronavirus pandemic began. 

A thousand fans were allowed to attend Xinzhuang Baseball Stadium in New Taipei, where the home-team Fubon Guardians won 7-6 against the Uni-President Lions, state-run news agency Focus Taiwan reported. 

Special rules: Fans had to wear face masks, sit in designated seats based on social distancing guidelines, and could not eat or drink, according to the article published on Friday.

US Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Stephen Hahn will self quarantine for the next 14 days after coming in contact with someone who tested positive for the coronavirus, FDA spokesman Michael Felberbaum told CNN.

While the FDA would not name the person Hahn came into contact with, President Donald Trump announced earlier Friday that Vice President Mike Pence's press secretary Katie Price had tested positive.

An official familiar with situation inside the White House Coronavirus Task Force told CNN that it’s unclear whether some on the panel will go into quarantine. 

The United States has at least 1,283,929 confirmed coronavirus cases, including 77,180 deaths, according to the tally from Johns Hopkins University (JHU).

On Friday, the US reported 26,906 new cases and 1,518 additional deaths, according to the JHU count.

The totals include cases from all 50 states, the District of Columbia and other US territories, as well as repatriated cases.

For the latest JHU US numbers, check here. CNN’s map, using JHU data, continues to refresh every 15 mins.

The United States has scaled back its role on the world stage, taken actions that are undermining efforts to battle the coronavirus pandemic and left the international community without a traditional global leader, according to experts, diplomats and analysts.

The US -- usually at the head of the table helping to coordinate in global crises -- has declined to take a seat at virtual international meetings convened by the World Health Organization and the European Union to coordinate work on potentially lifesaving vaccines.

Former world leaders warn that the Trump administration risks alienating allies by politicizing the deadly pandemic with its push to punish China and have other nations choose sides.

The administration's decision to halt funding for the WHO, the world body best positioned to coordinate the global response to the raging pandemic, has appalled global health officials.

Incredulity and sadness: And where US presidents have in the past offered a steadying voice, observers from the Asia Pacific to Europe expressed incredulity, amusement and sadness at President Donald Trump's briefings on the virus, saying they are deeply damaging to the US image abroad. 

US officials push back, touting both funding to fight Covid-19 as well as work Trump is doing through the Group of Seven and bilaterally -- leading more than 50 calls with world leaders. But experts say funding without full global coordination can slow overall progress. 

At a time when nearly 4 million people worldwide have been infected with the virus, diplomats say many countries are yearning for the firm US leadership they've seen at historic moments and in prior epidemics, citing President Barack Obama's response to Ebola and President George W. Bush's work on HIV/AIDS.

Read the full story here.

With much of the American economy in self-imposed shutdown to prevent the spread of coronavirus, April's colossal surge in unemployment delivered a historic blow to workers.

The US economy lost 20.5 million jobs in April, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said Friday — by far the most sudden and largest decline since the government began tracking the data in 1939.

Those losses follow steep cutbacks in March as well, when employers slashed 870,000 jobs. Those two months amount to layoffs so severe, they more than double the 8.7 million jobs lost during the financial crisis.

For many Americans who lost their jobs and their homes in the 2008 financial crisis, this moment reopens old wounds. It took years to rebound from those setbacks. When the economy eventually did crawl back, US employers added 22.8 million jobs over 10 years — a victory for all those who had weathered the Great Recession.

Now, the coronavirus pandemic stings not only because of the public health crisis it has inflicted — but also because it wiped out nearly that whole decade of job gains in just two months.

Read more here.

The US Food and Drug Administration on Friday issued an emergency use authorization for the first at-home Covid-19 test that uses saliva samples, the agency said in a news release.

Rutgers University's RUCDR Infinite Biologics lab received an amended emergency authorization late Thursday. With the test, people can collect their own saliva at home and send samples to a lab for results.

Testing for Covid-19 so far has usually involved nose or throat swab samples.

In April, Rutgers University announced the FDA authorized the saliva test that it developed with other groups for "emergency use" for diagnosing Covid-19.

Read the full story here.