Our live coverage of the coronavirus pandemic in the US has ended for the day. Follow developments from around the globe here.
Los Angeles is set to reopen beaches on Wednesday, according to a tweet from the county.
New rules will be in place, very similar to those implemented in other parts of Southern California.
Physical activity like running, swimming and surfing will be allowed, but sedentary activity like sunbathing and picnicking will be prohibited. Masks or face coverings must be worn unless you’re in the water.
In an effort to keep people from congregating, parking lots, piers, concessions and boardwalks will remain closed.
Read the tweet:
The coronavirus pandemic, directly or indirectly, may have killed far more people in New York City than the official Covid-19 death toll shows, according to a report released Monday by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The report looked at excess mortality in the city and found that 24,172 more people died since mid-March compared to what would normally be expected.
About 19,000 of these were either confirmed or probable coronavirus deaths. But more than 5,000 of the city’s excess deaths had no explicit connection to Covid-19, the team, led by Donald Olson of the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, reported.
It’s difficult to know why exactly those deaths occurred. But Olson’s team noted that people with underlying conditions, such as heart disease and diabetes, are more likely to die from coronavirus infections and such deaths may not have been directly attributed to Covid-19.
The findings add to a growing body of evidence showing how the coronavirus pandemic may be killing people without ever infecting them. For example, experts have said that a decline in reported heart attacks and strokes in the US is likely the result of people avoiding emergency rooms.
“Tracking excess mortality is important to understanding the contribution to the death rate from both COVID-19 disease and the lack of availability of care for non-COVID conditions,” the researchers, from the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene and the CDC, wrote in their report.
Multiple outlets, including the New York Times and ESPN, are reporting that Major League Baseball owners have agreed on a proposal to begin the 2020 season in early July with games being hosted in spectator-free home stadiums.
Reports of the proposal follow a Monday meeting between MLB executives and team leadership. The New York Times cited unnamed baseball officials while ESPN cited sources familiar with the situation.
According to the reports, the owners and league management have agreed upon an 82-game regular season, down from the traditional 162 games. Other details being reported are a second spring training starting next month, teams hosting games in their home stadiums as long as state legislation and health officials allow, use of the designated hitter in both the American and National Leagues, and expanded rosters which could utilize up to 50 players.
All of these proposed ideas would need to be agreed upon by the Major League Baseball Players Association in order to proceed with this unprecedented season. That could prove to be difficult as lines are already being drawn regarding key financial terms previously outlined in a March agreement on how much players would be paid in a shortened season.
Under the terms of the March agreement, MLB players received a $170 million salary advance. In exchange for that advance, the MLBPA agreed not to challenge the loss of the players’ 2020 salaries if the season were to be canceled and to accept prorated salaries if a partial season is played.
An excerpt of that March agreement, provided to CNN by a source with knowledge of MLB operations, indicates that if MLB games cannot be staged in teams’ home stadiums in front of spectators, the MLB and MLBPA agree to hold good faith discussions about the economic feasibility of playing games in the absence of spectators or at neutral sites. MLB’s position is that those discussions could include asking players to take further salary reductions.
The MLBPA is balking at the idea of reopening the discussion of players’ salaries.
The potential financial snag could create a public relations nightmare for the sport at the worst possible time. As unemployment hits depression era levels, and the world economy struggles to reopen, this is not the kind of game that the fans want to see being played.
A separate source with knowledge of the MLBPA’s position tells CNN that MLB owners are in no need of a financial bailout from MLB players. The source echoes Clark’s position that the salary issue was previously settled in the March agreement, which provided the owners with flexibility to adjust their revenue sharing this season.
Multiple outlets are reporting that MLB commissioner Rob Manfred will present the proposal to the MLBPA this week, potentially as early as Tuesday.
CNN has reached out to MLB multiple times without a reply.
South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster announced today that close contact service providers, fitness and exercise centers, commercial gyms, and public or commercial pools will be able to open in a limited capacity on May 18.
The governor said Monday that he also wants some state employees to return to work.
He added the first group will return no later than June 1 and when there is enough personal protective equipment to go around on site.
Restaurants are now open for limited dine-in services, he said in a statement on Monday.
The governor has also lifted restrictions on boating, short-term rentals, beaches, and visitors to the state.
There are at least 7,792 positive cases of coronavirus and 346 Covid-19-related deaths in South Carolina, according to the state’s Department of Health and Environmental Control’s website.
Even though the city’s Covid-19-related deaths are trending down, Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan said they will focus their efforts to stop the spread on people over the age of 60.
The Detroit Health Department is planning on sending teams into apartment buildings and facilities, “where people over the age of 60 are clustered” to test for the virus, the mayor said
Duggan said that in many instances, “it’s so much easier to go through the apartment building and take everybody’s swab and send them to a lab than to get all those folks to get into the car” and get tested.
Detroit’s Chief Public Health Officer, Denise Fair, added that “this is going to be a massive undertaking. We have about 10,000 units in the city of Detroit.”
Here are some of the top coronavirus headlines from this afternoon you may have missed:
Just moments after President Trump declared that his administration has “prevailed” on coronavirus testing, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey rejected the President’s claim, saying “we have not prevailed” on testing.
At the White House briefing on Covid-19 testing, Trump announced that his administration will allocate $11 billion from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act to help states increase their testing ability.
The Minneapolis mayor said that testing will be “critical” to reopening his city safely.
“It’s got to be testing, followed by tracing, followed by isolating for those who have come back with positive tests,” Frey said. “We hope to get up to 20,000 tests per day. Right now, we are hovering around 5,000. In order to do this properly, in order to do this with our eyes wide open and responding to the data, we’re going to need more tests.”
Watch:
The Vermont Department of Health is investigating a report of possible Covid-19 exposure at the Vermont School for Girls in Bennington, a residential treatment center for girls with special needs, Health Commissioner Dr. Mark Levine said this morning.
Public Health Communication Officer Ben Truman said this doesn’t necessarily mean a widespread “outbreak” is occurring at the facility.
According to Levine, everyone at the school, including all students and staff, has been tested for Covid-19, as it is Vermont’s practice to conduct universal testing in any congregate facility, no matter how large, if a positive case is reported.
“Working with the facility, our Epidemiology team conducted an investigation and recommended universal testing of staff and students. At each step, the school provided support and information for their students and staff, allowing our trained staff to conduct the specimen collection effort quickly, and for all concerned to receive appropriate guidance,” Truman said.
Levine said a small number of people at the school tested positive for the virus, but in order to protect individual private health information, the Vermont Department of Health will not be releasing test figures.
The number of organ transplantations fell dramatically during the coronavirus pandemic, according to a new study published today.
In early April, the number of deceased donor organ transplants dropped by 51.1% in the United States and 90.6% in France when compared to a month earlier, the study said.
Kidney transplantations had the greatest decrease in numbers, but heart, lung and liver transplantations also had substantial reductions, the authors said. The study, published in the medical journal The Lancet, combined organ procurement data from federal agencies in the United States and France.
One explanation for the reduction could be concern that transplant recipients are more susceptible to infection, according to the researchers.
Another concern is that there aren’t enough resources in terms of staff or equipment in hospitals to care for patients after transplantation.
Decisions about how to use limited medical resources “could be especially devastating for the thousands of patients in need of an organ transplant,” the authors wrote. “While living donor organ transplants could presumably be rescheduled for a future date, deceased donor organs must be procured immediately or the opportunity is lost.”
There wasn’t a clear association between reductions in organ transplantation rates and Covid-19 hotspots, suggesting a global and nationwide effect beyond local infections, the researchers said.
Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak declared a “fiscal emergency” for Nevada, allowing him to tap into the state’s reserve fund to make up part of the difference
The governor’s budget office expects the shortfall in the current budget year could top $900 million.
Sisolak advised state agencies last month to start planning cuts in their departments.
The non-partisan Tax Foundation says Nevada’s reserve fund – also known as the Rainy Day Fund – had nearly $400 million in it when the current budget was approved.
President Trump said he may mandate all nursing homes conduct coronavirus tests on their residents.
He added that he thinks all the states should be testing nursing home residents and that they have the capacity to conduct that testing.
Members of the task force: Earlier today, on a video call with Vice President Mike Pence, members of the White House Coronavirus Task Force and the nation’s governors, both Pence and Dr. Deborah Birx also addressed the issue.
Moving forward, Birx said, the administration is looking to test key areas, nursing homes in particular.
“We really believe that all 1 million nursing home residents need to be tested within the next two weeks as well as the staff,” she said, noting that there should be “probably weekly testing” after that.
Pence reiterated Birx’s comments, telling the governors that they should develop plans to test all nursing home residents whether their states have reached phase one reopening plans or not.
“We are recommending very strongly that as you all have been rapidly expanding testing… is that you sit your teams down today and figure out a strategy to make sure whether you’re in phase one or not… we’re calling on states across the country, start now deploying those testing resources to test the residents and staff at your nursing homes as quickly as you can get up to weekly testing,” he said.
Twitter said Monday it plans to put labels and warning messages on some tweets that contain disputed or misleading information related to Covid-19, even if it’s tweeted by President Trump.
Twitter announced in March that it would remove Covid-19 tweets that could cause a “direct risk to people’s health or well-being.”
Starting Monday, it will use labels and warning messages “to provide additional explanations or clarifications in situations where the risks of harm associated with a Tweet are less severe but where people may still be confused or misled by the content.”
Trump, possibly Twitter’s most prolific user, will also be subject to the rules, according to Yoel Roth, Twitter’s head of site integrity.
“These labels will apply to anyone sharing misleading information that meets the requirements of our policy, including world leaders,” Roth wrote in a tweet Monday in response to a question about how the policy would apply to Trump and other elected officials.
Summer school classes and certain programs in North Dakota will be able to take place beginning June 1, potentially bringing over 20,000 students statewide back to buildings and facilities closed for months in response to the coronavirus pandemic, Gov. Doug Burgum announced Monday.
In an executive order signed by the governor, public and non-public school facilities may offer on-site summer school classes, extended school year programs, Head Start programs, child care programs licensed by the Department of Human Services, and the administration of academic standardized tests such as the ACT, at the discretion of local school boards and school superintendents.
There are more than 120,000 students in North Dakota schools, according to the governor.
A 10-year-old who has tested positive for Covid-19 is on a ventilator, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear announced today.
According to Kentucky’s Health Commissioner, Dr. Steven Stack, the boy has what doctors are referring to as “pediatric multisystem inflammatory syndrome,” a condition that has hospitalized dozens of children.
With this syndrome, the immune system of a child becomes overactive, causing extensive inflammatory response in their body, and some cases have been gastrointestinal, while others are respiratory, Stack said.
Some context: Three children in New York have died from this mysterious inflammatory syndrome, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said. The state is investigating 93 other cases.
A hospital in Connecticut also reported three cases earlier today.
Chicago hopes to increase its testing capacity from 3,000 residents per day to 4,500 by the end of the month, Dr. Allison Arwady, the commissioner of the Chicago Department of Public Health, said Monday.
Arwady said the current rate of positive tests is 24.6% with over 100,000 people tested so far. Within Chicago, they have set a specific goal of being able to test at least 5% of residents in the city each month.
New test sites: Mayor Lori Lightfoot announced Chicago will be launching six new coronavirus testing sites across the city starting later this week, which would help the city expand its testing.
One of the new sites will be specifically for first responders and health care workers, and the other five will be “located within communities disproportionately impacted by the disease,” Lightfoot said.
Actor Sean Penn’s non-profit CORE (Community Organized Relief Effort), which brings emergency medical supplies to areas in need around the world, will assist with the operation of the new testing network, she said.
“We are thrilled to announce that our first sites will launch later this week,” the mayor said, going on to say, “These new sites represent a major step in our city’s fight against COVID-19”
When an Asian-American White House reporter asked President Trump about him saying the US is testing for coronavirus more than any other country, he responded by asking her to ask China and then ended the news conference abruptly.
“You’ve said many times that the US is doing far better than any other country when it comes to testing. Why does that matter? Why is this a global competition to you if every day Americans are still losing their lives and we’re still seeing more cases every day?” the reporter from CBS, Weijia Jiang, asked Trump.
Trump responded: “Well they’re losing their lives everywhere in the world and maybe that’s a question you should ask China, don’t ask me, ask China that question, OK? When you ask them that question, you may get a very unusual answer.”
Trump then called on another reporter, but Jiang followed up: “Sir, why are you saying that to me specifically? That I should ask China?”
“I’m telling you. I’m not saying it specifically to anybody, I’m saying it to anybody who would ask a nasty question like that,” Trump responded.
CNN’s Kaitlan Collins then tried to ask Trump two questions but he cut her off and abruptly ended the news conference. Trump then immediately left the White House Rose Garden.
Watch here:
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf said discretionary funding to fight Covid-19 will not go to counties putting people at risk by “operating illegally.”
He said the funding put aside to help combat the crisis will go to those who “do their part.”
“That includes the CARES act funding which will be used to support counties that are following the orders to prevent the spread and medical communities,” he said.
Wolf said other discretionary funding will not go to counties that “put us all at risk by operating illegally” and instead to those that are “doing everything they ought to do to keep their citizens safe.”
When asked about President Trump’s tweet from earlier in the day saying the people of Pennsylvania “want their freedom” and that the “Democrats are moving slowly all over the USA, for political purposes,” Wolf said, “I don’t know how you stay safe and move quickly. We’re trying to move deliberately.”
Surveillance video at a Target store in Van Nuys, California, shows two men assaulting an employee after they were confronted about not wearing masks, the Los Angeles Police Department told CNN.
The two suspects, 31-year-old Phillip Hamilton and 29-year-old Paul Hamilton, have been arrested and face felony battery charges. Their bail was set at $50,000, the police department said.
The two suspects were escorted out of the store on the morning of May 1 after refusing to wear face coverings, according to LAPD officers.
As they approached the exit, one suspect, suddenly without provocation, turned and punched a store employee, causing him and the suspect to fall to the floor. While on the ground, the store employee broke his left arm.
The Los Angeles Fire Department paramedics had to transfer the store employee to a local hospital where he was treated for his injuries.
President Trump said that Vice President Mike Pence has tested negative for coronavirus again today.
“The vice president first of all has been tested and he’s negative and he was tested yesterday, tested today and he is negative. He’s in very good shape and I think that that’s going to be fine,” Trump said.
Both Trump and Pence are now being tested for coronavirus daily.
Pence was at the White House today but was not at the Rose Garden event.
