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Hawaii has seen a 98% decrease in travelers arriving at airports since the state’s 14-day quarantine rule was put in place, Gov. David Ige said during a press conference Saturday.
About 100 travelers are still arriving every day which is why the extension of the quarantine order for visitors to the state was necessary, Ige said.
The screening process for visitors includes a temperature check and verification of hotel accommodations while at the airport. Each visitor must provide a phone number for their hotel accommodations and they will not be allowed to leave the airport if their accommodation isn’t confirmed by an employee at the hotel, Ige said.
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It might be necessary to start manufacturing coronavirus vaccines even before they have been fully tested to see if they can protect people from infection, said Richard Hatchett, the CEO of Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI).
CEPI is a non-profit put together organization formed to speed the development of vaccines.
Manufacturing could begin even while some of the Covid-19 vaccines are in the first phase of human clinical testing, which are designed to demonstrate only safety, Hatchett said Saturday.
This plan could cut time without cutting corners or sacrificing efficacy or safety, Hatchett said on a National Academy of Sciences Covid-19 Update webcast.
Large-scale manufacturing doesn’t usually start until after a vaccine has passed all three phases of clinical trials, a process that usually takes years. CEPI first published outlines of the plan to accelerate the process in The New England Journal of Medicine in March.
It may be more expensive to do things this way, Hatchett said.
“If we want to deliver vaccine at scale within … our stipulated targets of 12 to 18 months from the initiation of the program, we’re going to have to be comfortable with those risks,” he said. He estimated that tens of billions of dollars will be spent over the next several years for vaccine delivery.
“If we shorten the pandemic by a month, we’re saving hundreds of billions of dollars. And that’s the calculus the elected leaders need to make,” Hatchett said.
CEPI has funded several Covid-19 vaccine research projects, including all three of the vaccines currently being tested in people. Two of the vaccines are in phase one clinical trials – vaccines from Moderna and Inovio – and only China’s CanSino Bio vaccine advanced to the second phase of clinical trials earlier this month.
Moderna already intends to use funding from the US federal government’s Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority to help fund a scale-up of its manufacturing process, according to a statement from the company earlier this month.
The statewide stay at home order for Hawaii set to expire April 30 has been extended until May 31, Gov. David Ige announced during a press conference Saturday.
Ige said he has extended the order that travelers quarantine for 14 days after their arrival to the state until May 31.
The Army will proceed with this year’s graduation ceremony at the US Military Academy, or West Point, according to a statement from Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy.
McCarthy said the Army is “putting the appropriate measures in place to respond to the Covid-19 crisis and to protect our Force, Cadets and Families.”
President Donald Trump said earlier this month that he would be attending the ceremony.
Below is the full statement from Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy:
Approximately 9.8% of the New York Police Department’s uniformed workforce – or 3,554 members – were out sick on Saturday. This is down from a high of 19.8%, according to a daily coronavirus report from the NYPD.
As of Saturday, 3,363 members of the NYPD have returned to work full-time after recovered from a positive Covid-19 test, while 1,098 uniformed members and 325 civilian members are still out sick with a Covid-19 diagnosis.
In total, 4,820 NYPD members have tested positive for Covid-19 to date, the NYPD said.
In a fiery interview with Politico centered on the stimulus and economic recovery after the pandemic, Joe Biden unloaded on banks and big businesses and said that the coronavirus stimulus needs to be a “hell of a lot better” than $2 trillion dollars.
He accused the Trump administration of already “wasting a hell of a lot of money” and expressed indignantly why he believes there needs to be more oversight in the implementation of the CARES Act.
In the article, Politico senior staff writer Michael Grunwald writes that Biden repeatedly unloaded on big business and big banks, noting that “this is the second time we’ve bailed their asses out,” accusing the Trump administration of managing the stimulus for their benefit.”
In talking about President Trump firing the Pentagon inspector general chosen to oversee the stimulus package, Biden leaned into his hiring of Earl Devaney to oversee the Recovery Act as contrast, saying, “I wanted to bring in the toughest son-of-a-bitch in the country—I really mean it, I’m not joking—because we wanted to make sure we did it by the numbers with genuine oversight,” Biden said. “Right now, there’s no oversight. [Trump] made it real clear he doesn’t have any damn interest in being checked. The last thing he wants is anyone watching that $500 billion going to corporate America, for God’s sake.”
Grunwald wrote that in his interview with Biden, “he denounced corporate America as ‘greedy as hell,’ echoing the structural critiques of the modern economy that fueled the Sanders and Warren campaigns.”
Continuing his critiques of big banks and big businesses, Biden said, “We knew from the beginning that the big banks don’t like lending to small businesses.” He continues in the article, “I’m telling you, though, if Main Street businesses don’t get help, they’re gone.”
The Internal Revenue Service is requesting, but not requiring, several thousand employees to return to work to help open mail, process paper returns and perform several other duties, according to a statement released by the IRS on Saturday.
The statement said employees who return to work will be offered “incentive pay” and will be required to wear face coverings. The IRS statement said the agency is working to obtain personal protective equipment and expects many items to be delivered as soon as this weekend.
Mobile testing units will travel around the UK to increase access to coronavirus testing, the government announced in a statement on Sunday.
The network of testing units will be operated by the military and target vulnerable sites such as care homes, police stations and prisons.
The Department of Health statement said the new units will operate alongside existing drive-through test sites in order to “rapidly increase the number of tests done each day.”
Specially trained military personnel will collect swabs at the mobile sites, before they are sent to mega-labs for processing. Those tested will receive results within 48 hours.
Rapid expansion of a network of mobile test units is now underway, according to the statement, with new units being fielded in the coming weeks and at least 96 ready to be deployed by the start of May.
Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont announced on Saturday a new program that would help to get face masks to eligible, essential small businesses in Connecticut with fewer than 50 employees.
“The more proactive measures we can take to prevent the spread of this virus and keep everyone healthy, the sooner we’ll be able to reopen operations,” Lamont said in a news release. “We were able to secure over 4 million masks this week that have replenished our supplies and put us in a position to support small businesses. I appreciate our partners at (Connecticut Business and Industry Association) and CONNSTEP for partnering with us on this effort to get those needed face coverings out to essential employees.”
Eligible businesses must apply online and are allowed to request a maximum of two free masks per employee, according to the release.
The requested masks will be distributed as soon as next week.
There are at least 933,050 cases of coronavirus in the US and at least 53,391 people have died, according to Johns Hopkins University’s tally of cases in the United States.
The totals includes cases from all 50 states, the District of Columbia and other US territories, as well as repatriated cases and those in the US military, veterans hospitals and federal prisons.
CNN has an interactive map tracking coronavirus cases in the US.
Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Gimenez told CNN’s Ana Cabrera on Saturday that officials plan to enforce new social distancing guidelines in “open spaces” once Miami begins to ease lockdown restrictions.
These new guidelines include hiring 400 people to “have eyes on the basketball court on the tennis courts” and violators will get citations if they do not follow the guidelines.
The mayor added that people can play tennis, but only singles.
As far as basketball, Gimenez said “you cannot have a contact basketball game, you can shoot your own ball at a rim with three people in half court. But you cannot have a game. You can have a game of horse. And that is about it.”
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said Saturday that the US should increase testing by twice as much and thinks this will be possible.
Appearing on a Covid-19 update webcast by the National Academy of Sciences, Fauci noted he was referring to diagnostic testing of the coronavirus, not antibody testing.
Fauci estimated that the US is conducting between 1.5 and 2 million coronavirus tests per week. “We probably should get up to twice that as we get into the next several weeks and I think we will,” Fauci said.
“Testing is an important part but it’s not the only part,” Fauci said while highlighting the need for identification, isolation, and contact tracing. People don’t want to be “fixated” on a number of tests you need, he said.
But officials want to “have enough to be able to respond to the outbreaks that will inevitable occur as you try and ease your way back into the different phases.”
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will return to work on Monday after recovering from coronavirus, a Downing Street spokesperson told CNN.
Dominic Raab will step aside as acting Prime Minister, allowing Johnson to make a full return.
Downing Street confirmed that Johnson is “raring to go.”
Johnson left hospital on Easter Sunday after contracting the disease and has spent several days recovering further at Chequers, the prime minister’s countryside retreat.
A Michigan state senator is apologizing for wearing a face mask with what appeared to be a Confederate flag pattern.
State Sen. Dale Zorn, a Republican from Ida, apologized in a pair of Twitter posts Saturday for the face mask that he wore on the Michigan Senate floor on Friday.
Zorn, in an interview with CNN affiliate WLNS, said his wife made the face mask for him and it was not a Confederate flag. He said that even if it were a Confederate flag, it represents a part of our history and we should be teaching about the “atrocities that happened during that time” so it doesn’t happen again.
He told WLNS the mask was a pattern like that of either the Kentucky or Tennessee flag.
White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow told Fox News host Laura Ingraham Friday night that his friend got a barbershop to open, allowing him to get a haircut.
Ingraham then teased Kudlow and said, “you are special you got a haircut, the rest of us are just, you know, we’re dealing with it.”
Barbershops in the Washington, DC, are are closed due to the public health emergency.
“I don’t have much to work with but it looks much better because I wanted to look good on the Laura Ingraham show,” Kudlow told Ingraham.
Kudlow went on to say that he did not have a temperature going into the White House on Friday, and tested negative for coronavirus last week. Kudlow is director of the National Economic Council.
At least 2,600 health care workers have tested positive for the coronavirus in Illinois, state Public Health Director Dr. Ngozi Ezike said during a Saturday afternoon press conference.
There were 2,119 new cases reported statewide Saturday for a total of 41,777 and 80 new deaths reported for a total of 1,874, Ezike said.
As of midnight, there were 4,699 people hospitalized with coronavirus statewide with 1,244 in intensive care units. Of those patients in intensive care, 763 were on ventilators, according to Ezike.
In the last 24 hours, there have been 11,985 tests performed and the state is continuing to ramp up testing efforts, she said.
In a speech on Saturday evening, Spain Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez announced he will present his plan for the “de-escalation phase” in his country next Tuesday.
Sánchez told Spaniards that the country has had a small and modest victory, but there is a still a long way to go before they win the battle against the coronavirus.
Sánchez also announced that if Spain continues to show a favorable evolution of the pandemic, citizens will be allowed to go outside to play sports and walk with family members in early May. The country’s health minister will oversee the arrangements and guidance, he said.
The process would be gradual, “asymmetrical” and coordinated, Sánchez emphasized.
“It will depend on the region you live since some regions have been affected more than others,” Sánchez said adding that the pandemic has spread unequally across the country.
“Caution and unity should guide us,” Sánchez said. “Victory is not close, but we have started to win.”
French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe will present the government’s plan to ease the country’s confinement measure to the French National Assembly on Tuesday, a spokesperson for the Prime Minister told CNN on Saturday.
Philippe’s announcement will be followed by a debate and a vote, the spokesperson said.
French confinement measures implemented on the March 17 are scheduled to be lifted on the May 11.
Last Sunday, Philippe warned that “France will not return to normal for a long time.”
There has been a significant increase in calls to poison control in the state of Illinois in the last two days, Illinois Public Health Director Dr. Ngozi Ezike said during a Saturday afternoon press conference.
Such calls included someone using a detergent based solution for a sinus rinse and another person gargling with a bleach and mouthwash mixture to kill germs, Ezike said.
She urged people to not use cleaning chemicals to try and kill the virus.
This comes after President Donald Trump suggested Thursday the possibility of injecting disinfectants to treat people with coronavirus.
