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Outdoor meeting places used for recreation in Nevada will be closed until further notice in order to curb the spread of Covid-19, Gov. Steve Sisolak said Thursday.
The order includes public gyms, swimming pools and golf courses. Sisolak said people can continue to play sports on their own private property.
Additionally, as most Christian denominations begin to celebrate the Easter week, Sisolak is prohibiting public worship services, except those that can be done with no more than 10 people.
The new Nevada orders also close retail showrooms for businesses like car dealerships and furniture stores.
Sisolak said these areas “encourage customers to wander around and touch products, and that sort of shopping experience can lead to a higher likelihood of spreading the disease.”
Although grocery stores can continue to operate as essential businesses, they can no longer sell food on open display, such as salad bars, bulk candy and freshly-ground coffee.
Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards said the state was “trending in the right direction” at a news conference on Wednesday.
Overall, Louisiana had 746 new cases on Wednesday, bringing the state’s total to 17,030. There were 70 new deaths reported.
Edwards noted that there are currently 1,983 hospitalized patients who have tested positive, down from yesterday, which was at 1,996.
Louisiana testing center closes temporarily: The Alario Center coronavirus testing site announced that it would close today, due to a lack of test kits, the Jefferson Parish said on Wednesday.
“A new supply shipment, which was expected to arrive today, is now delayed,” the parish announced via Twitter, before mentioning that it is anticipating a reopening on Friday.
More than 400 coronavirus cases are linked to one jail in Chicago, local officials said, making the Cook County Jail the largest known source of infections in the US outside of medical facilities.
The Cook County Sheriff’s office said Wednesday that 251 detainees and 150 staff members have tested positive for the virus. Of the detainees infected in the outbreak, 22 are hospitalized for treatment and 31 others have been moved to a recovery facility.
One detainee has died of “apparent” complications of Covid-19, sheriff’s officials said, but an autopsy remains pending.
The jail has created a quarantine “bootcamp” to keep detainees that are infected separate from the rest of the jail population.
The jail complex currently houses about 4,700 detainees according to the sheriff’s office. Jail officials have previously said they planned to screen and release nonviolent pretrial defendants.
Peyton Manning, on behalf of the Manning family, donated 140 meals from Drago’s Seafood Restaurant to feed health care workers at Tulane Health System in New Orleans on Wednesday.
New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu expressed his frustration with obtaining crucial medical supplies from the federal government during a press conference in Concord on Wednesday.
The state received 15 Abbott rapid-testing devices last week, as part of the Granite State’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic, according to Sununu.
However, the Republican governor said they received only a limited number of the cartridges required to perform the tests, and a portion of those must be used for training and calibration purposes.
Sununu hoped to stock two machines with cartridges and get them into the field “fairly quickly,” but when the state requested additional cartridges for the remaining 13 machines, he was told to expect approximately 15% of his requested cartridges.
Sununu also said he doesn’t know when to expect that portion of cartridges.
“It’s incredibly frustrating because there’s a lot of talk about this device, there was a lot of hype on it nationally, how it was it wonderful, and when they showed up, expectations were set really high, as they should be,” the governor said. “But to actually have 13 of these devices and have no way to use them. I’m banging my head against the wall. I really am. It’s really frustrating.”
Ahead of Passover and Easter, the Department of Homeland Security warned the faith-based community about an “increase in online hate speech intended to encourage violence” or use the ongoing coronavirus pandemic situation as an excuse to spread hatred.
In a letter to community members Wednesday, the department reminded houses of worship to review security plans and procedures ahead of congregant gatherings, acknowledging that many people are worshipping remotely at this time.
“[T]here has been an increase in online hate speech intended to encourage violence or use the ongoing situation as an excuse to spread hatred,” read the letter from the department’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, obtained by CNN.
Additionally, stressors caused by the pandemic may contribute to an individual’s decision to commit an attack or influence their target of choice, according to DHS.
The letter is aimed at providing the faith community with guidance for planning of “restoration of normal operations, whenever that may be.”
Some context: Officials at DHS have been grappling with how to address concerns about targeted violence amid the ongoing health crisis. The department is trying to balance resources needed to respond to Covid-19 across the country and the need to remind people to be vigilant of potential violence, a DHS official said.
Social distancing creates opportunity to become isolated, more glued to the TV and computer and less social engagement, said the official, adding “no doubt we are all experiencing stress.”
Officials are concerned that someone who is already vulnerable could easily be recruited by violent ideologies or that the situation becomes precursor to them carrying out attack.
In addition, the department is aware of individuals using Covid-19 to propagate conspiracy theories, said the official.
A prestigious scientific panel told the White House on Tuesday that it doesn’t look coronavirus will go away once the weather warms up.
President Donald Trump has claimed that “when it gets a little warmer [the virus] miraculously goes away.”
In their letter to the White House, members of a National Academy of Sciences committee said data is mixed on whether coronavirus spreads as easily in warm weather as it does in cold weather, but that it might not matter much given that so few people in the world are immune to coronavirus.
The letter noted, for example, that a study of the outbreak in China showed that even under maximum temperature and humidity conditions, the virus spread “exponentially,” with every infected person spreading it to nearly two other people on average.
The scientists sent the letter to Kelvin Droegemeier at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.
The letter from the NAS scientists notes that some laboratory studies have shown reduced transmission of the virus under warmer and more humid conditions, but that it’s still a concern.
The letter points out that in the real world, the virus is still transmitting in countries with warm weather.
“Given that countries currently in ‘summer’ climates, such as Australia and Iran, are experiencing rapid virus spread, a decrease in cases with increases in humidity and temperature elsewhere should not be assumed,” the letter said.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Robert Redfield issued new guidelines for essential workers who have been exposed to the coronavirus, saying individuals would need to be asymptomatic to return to work
The guidelines, he said, are aimed at keeping essential workers including first responders, health care workers, employees in the food supply chain and others at work – even if they might have been exposed to someone who has coronavirus.
“These are individuals that have been within six feet of a confirmed case or a suspected case so that they can, under certain circumstances, they can go back to work if they are asymptomatic,” Redfield said.
Redfield said those individuals could return to work if they take their temperature before work, wear a face mask at all times and practice social distancing at work.
He reiterated that individuals should stay home if they feel sick, they should not share items used on or near their face and they should refrain from congregating in break rooms and other crowded places.
The CDC’s new guidelines also outlined steps employers should take, including checking temperatures before employees start work, sending anyone who becomes sick home and cleaning commonly touched surfaces more frequently, among others.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Wednesday that it was not the time for a leadership change at the World Health Organization, but did not dispute President Donald Trump’s earlier call to potentially scale back funding for the organization.
“In the meantime what our task is is to preserve and protect the American taxpayers to make sure that our resources don’t go to places that aren’t going to deliver on behalf of the American people and the world,” Pompeo continued. “And President Trump and I are determined to do that.”
Some context: In a Wednesday interview with “The Wendy Bell Show,” Pompeo said that “it’s pretty clear that the World Health Organization hasn’t lived up to its billing, it hasn’t been able to achieve what it was designed to achieve, and we just can’t continue to permit that to go on.”
“It performs important functions, important global health and pandemic functions, and we can see in this case we haven’t been able to deliver on that,” he said on the radio show. “So we need a global health organization that can achieve that and if this one can’t do it, then it’s not appropriate for American taxpayer dollars to go towards it.”
Despite Pompeo’s suggestion that the US is not looking to replace WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus for the time being, a senior administration official on Wednesday said that WHO’s leadership was part of their problem.
“The problem is not the WHO system. The system has good people… It’s about comments made from the leadership—which went beyond what I am told their own staff wanted to say,” the official said.
Dr. Deborah Birx and Dr. Anthony Fauci pushed back on conspiracy theories suggesting that coronavirus deaths in the US are being inflated, especially among those dying with existing underlying conditions.
“Having an underlying condition and getting this virus, we know, is particularly damaging to those individuals,” Birx added.
Fauci took things a step further, saying, “You will always have conspiracy theories when you have very challenging public health crises. They are nothing but distractions.”
“I would just hope that we just put those conspiracy stuff — and let somebody write a book about it later on, but not now,” he continued.
Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus response coordinator, said models projecting the number of American deaths from coronavirus have dropped dramatically in recent days because Americans have drastically changed their behavior.
Birx said the US was doing “much better in many cases than several other countries, and we’re trying to understand that.”
“I think what has been so remarkable I think to those of us that have been in the science field for so long,” Birx continued, “is how important behavioral change is, and how amazing Americans are at adapting to and following through on these behavioral changes.”
The nation’s top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, later said the changing models proved that social distancing steps are working.
“We know that mitigation does work. The reason that we know it works, is the question that was asked about the numbers…why they came down with the projections,” Fauci said. “What you do with data will always outstrip a model. You redo your models depending upon your data.”
“Our data is telling us that mitigation is working,” Fauci said. “Keep your foot on the accelerator, because that is what’s going to get us through this.”
Some context: As CNN previously reported, an influential model tracking the coronavirus pandemic in the United States now predicts that fewer people will die and fewer hospital beds will be needed compared to its estimates from last week.
As of Wednesday, the model predicted the virus will kill 60,000 people in the United States over the next four months. That’s about 33,000 fewer deaths than the model estimated last Thursday.
While the US is still expected to face a shortage of about 16,000 hospital beds, it will need 168,000 fewer beds than previously expected, according to the new analysis.
Vice President Mike Pence said he was briefed Wednesday that Philadelphia is “an area of particular concern” for the coronavirus outbreak.
“An area of particular concern we were briefed on this morning is the city of Philadelphia. I spoke today to (Pennsylvania) Gov. Tom Wolf and as we begin to see early trend lines in Philadelphia, I assured him that we were going to continue to flow resources and support to that community,” Pence said at the daily White House briefing on the outbreak.
Pence emphasized that people in Philadelphia need to practice social distancing “now more than ever.”
“Our message to the people of the Philadelphia area is now more than ever, practice the social distancing so that Philadelphia, and to some extent even Pittsburgh, do not have to endure what other communities before them have had to endure,” Pence said.
Dr. Deborah Birx, the coronavirus response coordinator for the White House coronavirus task force, added that the Philadelphia metropolitan area is seeing 1,400 cases per day and the Baltimore/Washington, DC, area is seeing a 15% positivity rate with 500 cases per day in DC and 200 cases per day in Baltimore.
Companies will soon be blocked from exporting critical medical supplies needed by the US for the coronavirus response, unless the Federal Emergency Management Agency gives approval for overseas shipments, according to a federal draft regulation.
The combined effort between FEMA and US Customs and Border Protection, which oversees trade and travel, comes as the United States seeks to shore up equipment for hospitals treating coronavirus patients.
Late last week: White House trade adviser Peter Navarro previewed these actions, saying there is “a black market which you have described, where we’re having people bid against each other, brokers come in, they’re bidding and bidding on all this different (personal protective equipment).”
In a joint statement Wednesday, the two agencies, both of which fall under the Department of Homeland Security, said they’re “working together to prevent domestic brokers, distributors, and other intermediaries from diverting these critical medical resources overseas.”
Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards urged people to keep social-distancing for the Easter holiday.
“This Easter is not going to look like previous Easters, but it doesn’t mean that you can’t find some significant way to meaningfully worship and to celebrate,” Edwards, a Democrat, said. “There was no Easter exemption from the stay-at-home order. There was no Easter exemption from the 10 person limit. Because that virus isn’t going to honor that.”
President Donald Trump on Wednesday renewed his attacks on the World Health Organization after the head of the organization asked him not to “politicize the virus.”
At a press conference earlier Wednesday, WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus responded to attacks from Trump about how his organization handled the coronavirus outbreak.
“Please don’t politicize this virus… If you don’t want many more body bags, then you refrain from politicizing it. My short message is: Please quarantine politicizing Covid,” Ghebreyesus said.
At Wednesday’s White House briefing, Trump declared it was Ghebreyesus who was politicizing the coronavirus and said he believes the organization favors China.
Trump implied that there would have been fewer coronavirus deaths if the WHO gave a “correct analysis.”
“I think when you say more body bags, I think we would have done, and he would have been much better serving the people that he’s supposed to serve if they gave a correct analysis,” Trump said.
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The city of Miami said Wednesday it has mandated all employees and customers in grocery stores, restaurants, pharmacies and convenience stores to wear masks at all times while on premises, effective today at 11:59 pm ET.
In a statement, the city said this “citywide order to wear masks extends to those performing construction work on job sites, as well as food delivery workers.”
The novel coronavirus has infected more than 1.5 million people and killed more than 87,000 worldwide, according to a tally from Johns Hopkins University.
There are at least 424,945 cases of coronavirus in the US and at least 14,529 people have died from the disease in the country.
New York City has 5,603 new coronavirus cases and 716 new deaths, according to the city website.
The city now has a total of 80,204 coronavirus cases and 4,260 deaths.
President Donald Trump says it will be safe to reopen the country when “we can say we have to be on that down side of that slope.”
“We can do it in phases, go to some areas where — you know, some areas are much less affected than others,” he said at a Wednesday coronavirus task force briefing. “But it would be nice to be able to open with a big bang and open up our country, or certainly most of our country.”
CNN reported earlier Wednesday that discussions are underway at the task force level about how to reopen the US economy.
Trump said he believes the US is “ahead of schedule” in efforts to slow the spread of coronavirus.
“You hate to say it too loudly because all of a sudden things don’t happen. But I think we will be sooner rather than later,” Trump said.
“But we’ll be sitting down with the professionals. We’ll be sitting down with many different people making a determination,” he went on. “And those meetings will start taking place fairly soon.”
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