The loans convert to grants if used for covering employee salaries, rent, paid leave, utility payments, health insurance premiums or other necessities or worker protections. The legislation includes guardrails aimed at preventing business owners from pocketing the money being lent. Loans given to firms with tipped employees, such as bars and restaurants, could be forgiven if they are used to provide additional wages to their employees. Nonprofits can also apply for these funds.
The death toll in the United States topped 1,000 on Wednesday night as the novel coronavirus continues to spread across the country.
America’s first death was reported on Feb. 29 and the rate has spiked over the past two weeks as extreme public health measures go into effect to combat the virus. The U.S. death count eclipsed 600 on Tuesday and 900 early Wednesday before reaching 1,050 early Thursday, according to the Johns Hopkins University data dashboard..
States and cities have instituted shelter-in-place and stay-at-home orders in an effort to curb the spread of COVID-19. The number of cases continues to rise rapidly as testing expands nationwide.
The worldwide death count surpassed 21,000 on Wednesday.
Five other countries have death tolls higher than the U.S. — Italy, Spain, Iran, China and France. Italy’s number more than doubles that of Spain.
The Senate came to a deal Wednesday on a $2 trillion aid package that includes $150 billion for hospitals and medical centers to handle the surging case loads.
Governors and local governments are playing an outsized role during the crisis as states enjoy broad autonomy under the Constitution and the Trump administration has left most of the decision-making to them.
The U.S. had more than 69,000 confirmed coronavirus cases early , more than every country but China and Italy.
The rise in the number of people in recent years who file their tax returns electronically, complete with their banking information, means the IRS can turn around their payments quickly.
“Within a matter of a few weeks,” a Republican Finance Committee aide said in a briefing today with reporters.
“Paper checks take a bit longer because the Bureau of [the] Fiscal Service can only process and push out so many paper checks a week,” the aide said. “It’s a pretty significant number but it would probably take, I think they were estimating four or five weeks to get the balance out.”
That’s why the IRS is looking into whether it might issue some payments instead “through debit cards or other medium.”
“Theoretically it could be faster than having Fiscal Service have to cut checks,” the aide said.
A coronavirus relief package now pending in the Senate would send tens of millions of Americans payments of up to $1,200 per adult and $500 per child.
Claims for unemployment benefits are spiking around the country as businesses shut down to stem the spread of the coronavirus.
Andrew Kelly/Reuters
hide caption
toggle caption
Andrew Kelly/Reuters
Claims for unemployment benefits are spiking around the country as businesses shut down to stem the spread of the coronavirus.
Andrew Kelly/Reuters
More than 3 million Americans are expected to have filed for unemployment benefits last week as the coronavirus pandemic shut down much of the country, economic forecasters say.
That number would be well above the levels seen during the darkest days of the Great Recession, and the worst isn’t over yet, they say.
The crisis has cut a giant swath through the energy, travel, transportation, hotel and restaurant sectors, with large and small companies suddenly forced to furlough employees.
States that depend heavily on tourism, such as Nevada and Florida, as well as oil-and-gas towns like Midland, Texas, will be especially hard hit, but the damage will be felt almost everywhere, according to a Brookings Institution report.
The hotel industry alone as lost as many as 1 million jobs this month, the American Hotel and Lodging Association says.
“It is a huge shock and we are trying to cope with it and keep it under control,” says James Bullard, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.Earlier this week, he said unemployment would hit 30%. But he tempered those remarks Wednesday, saying he expected the number to fall again quickly.
The job losses haven’t been reflected in data released so far by the federal government, but the weekly report by the Labor Department on employment claims Thursday morning is expected to show an unprecedented surge in people seeking benefits.
The Economic Policy Institute estimated 3.4 million people filed for first-time claims during the week ending March 21. That compares to an average of 225,000 a week during the past six months.
The projected number is nearly five times as many initial claims as were recorded during the peak of the Great Recession. In the week ended March 28, 2009, about 665,000 new claims were filed. That was second only to the week ended Oct. 2, 1982, when 695,000 first-time claims were filed. The Labor Department’s records go back to 1967.
“This will dwarf every other week in history,” the EPI report says.
The loss of that many jobs would push unemployment to 5.5% — a level it last reached in 2o15 — but it’s likely to climb even further. Goldman Sachs has predicted that the jobless rate could approach 13% during the next few months.
“If the number of new claims is as high as predicted and if it remains high in coming weeks, unemployment will skyrocket,” according to a report from the Joint Economic Committee of Congress.
The collapse of the job market has been unprecedented in size and speed.
Adam Hill of Worcester, Mass., worked until recently as a graphic designer at a company that organizes trade shows.
“A couple of weeks before this happened, we had a [company] meeting where we heard about how we did the previous year, and revenue was up. Everyone was pretty excited for the next year,” he says.
“Then all of a sudden, this show canceled, and then another one and then another one. And within two weeks, I think, 155 shows had canceled. No shows, no money,” he says. “I guess I wasn’t too surprised when we got laid off.”
Hill says he expects to be called back to work when the economy recovers, but no one is sure when that will be.
In the meantime, Congress is set to approve a $2 trillion economic rescue package that broadly expands unemployment benefits, extending them to gig workers and freelancers. It would also include more generous benefits and extend eligibility for benefits by 13 weeks.
Madrid, Spain – Spain now has the world’s second-highest tally of coronavirus deaths after Italy, surpassing the number of dead in China, health authorities said on Wednesday.
The number of people who have lost their lives because of the infection in Spain has reached 3,434, compared with 3,285 in China.
Italy still has the grim distinction of holding the highest count, at 6,820.
Spanish health authorities said on Wednesday that 738 more people had died in the past 24 hours, the largest leap in deaths in one day since the outbreak started.
The number of infections also rose by 20 percent, to 47,610.
The news came as the Spanish Confederation of Medical Unions (CESM) presented a legal demand to Spain’s Supreme Court asking the health ministry to provide sufficient protective equipment as soon as possible.
CESM alleged the ministry had so far failed to provide professional health workers with sufficient protection to carry out their work in a manner which reduces the risk of catching coronavirus.
The complaint alleged that the ministry violated a World Health Organization recommendation which stated that doctors and nurses and other auxiliary workers should be able to carry out their duties with enough security without becoming ill.
The Supreme Court responded on Wednesday, throwing out the challenge, saying the health ministry was doing everything possible in an emergency situation to ensure the safety of workers.
Medics in other European countries, including Italy and the United Kingdom, have made similar allegations in recent weeks.
Protecting health workers
In a separate case in Madrid, a judge sitting in a local court ordered the regional government to provide sufficient protective equipment for health workers in the Spanish capital within 24 hours.
That order came after the Association of Medical Staff of Madrid launched a legal complaint against the Madrid regional government, which is responsible for providing healthcare.
Health authorities must now provide impermeable coats, protective masks, glasses and large containers to dispose of infected material.
In a legal order seen by Al Jazeera, the judge said the health authorities “had a legal obligation” to protect doctors, nurses and other staff.
“This order implies the obligation to protective clothing so that [staff] can carry out their work in conditions of minimum security,” the judicial order states.
“Authorities are obliged to deliver immediately within 24 hours these protective measures, so that doctors or health workers can carry out their work in a way in which they can avoid risk of contagion.”
Such a ruling is necessary, said health workers.
“All the medical staff are complaining they have not got enough protective equipment. We need to make sure they are properly protected as soon as possible,” Tomas Toranzo, president of CESM, told Al Jazeera.
Dr Natalia Silva, who works at the San Juan de Deu Hospital near Barcelona, said their staff were forced to use masks which did not offer sufficient protection.
“We have to wear masks which we should throw away once they have been used once. Instead, we have to wear them for days. We have also protective glasses that do not fit and we have to pass them around from one doctor to another,” she told Al Jazeera.
Across Spain, people have been rallying to support health workers by making masks or protective gear.
The Bon Soleil school near Barcelona was using its 3D printer to make reusable protective masks and urging parents to make protective wear for doctors out of refuse liners or old plastic bags.
Inditex, the Spanish high-street fashion giant, has also started producing protective masks.
The claim: A meme claims that no Democrats voted in favor of a coronavirus stimulus package
A meme that went viral on Facebook states: “Not ONE DEMOCRAT, not ONE … voted for the Stimulus package.” It was posted late on March 22.
USA TODAY has reached out to the Facebook user who posted the meme and has yet to hear from him.
Senate votes
Let’s look at what votes had occurred on coronavirus-related legislation at that time.
That evening, the Senate was stalled on a coronavirus economic stimulus bill, failing to pass an initial procedural hurdle by a 47-47 party-line vote. The motion needed the votes of at least three-fifths of the full Senate, or 60 votes.
The vote at hand is called cloture – a procedural vote to move forward with debate on an under-discussion stimulus package and toward a yea or nay for final approval.
Speaking on the Senate floor before the March 22 vote, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell suggested the final bill was not yet ready, saying “discussions continue on the package.”
McConnell, R-Ky., set up a vote anyway, one that was doomed to fail without Democratic support. His effort was also hurt by the absence of five Republican senators who were self-quarantining.
The cloture vote came up again on March 23, and failed 49-46, with Democratic Sen. Doug Jones of Alabama voting to move the stimulus package forward.
Days of bipartisan negotiations followed those votes, leading to the $2 trillion economic stimulus package working its way through Congress on March 25.
Earlier coronavirus votes in Congress
Before debate over stimulus packages, Congress passed, and President Donald Trump signed, two bills aimed at coronavirus relief.
A funding bill, the Coronavirus Preparedness and Response Supplemental Appropriations Act, was introduced in the House on March 4, passing 415-2, with Republicans voting against it. It quickly moved to the Senate, where it was approved a day later by a 96-1 vote, with only Republican Sen. Rand Paul voting nay. Trump signed the bill on March 6.
The Families First Coronavirus Response Act was adopted 363-40, with every House Democrat and most Republicans voting in favor of the measure on March 14. The vote was conducted following two days of around-the-clock negotiations between Democratic leaders and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin.
The Senate adopted the measure, 90-8, on March 18, with all Democrats voting yes. Trump signed the bill into law the same day.
Our ruling: False
The claim put forth on March 22 that no Democrats had voted in favor of a coronavirus stimulus package is FALSE, based on our research. Votes on March 22-23 in the Senate that drew Democratic nays were procedural in nature and were not a vote on the package itself, which was still being drafted – no formal bill existed. At this time, the stimulus bill had not come up for final approval in Congress.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom said Wednesday that the state has seen 1 million unemployment claims in less than two weeks as the coronavirus pandemic has led to businesses being shut down across the state.
“We just passed the 1 million mark, in terms of the number of claims, just since March 13,” Newsom said.
Newsom’s announcement comes one day before a key national data release on new jobless claims for the United States, which some have projected to be in the multimillions. The initial claims data has never before surpassed 1 million, and it was 285,000 last week.
The San Francisco area was the first region in the country to install a “shelter-in-place” order, on March 16. Newsom signed a “stay-at-home” order for the whole state three days later.
The governor praised the proposed Senate relief bill to help fight the coronavirus pandemic. California provides up to $450 per week for unemployment insurance, Newsom said, and the proposed Senate bill would add $600 per week for up to four months.
“This bill will be very helpful, and it’s very timely,” Newsom said.
California and its cities will get $10 billion from a block grant portion of the proposed relief bill in the Senate, not including the benefits to workers and individuals, Newsom said.
Four Republican senators have said they oppose the unemployment benefits provision in the bill, and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., announced he would oppose the bill if the Republicans did not drop their complaints.
While California’s 40 million residents are ordered to stay at home, the state’s estimated 108,000 homeless are unable to comply. Governor Gavin Newsom ordered $50 million be used to convert the state’s now mostly empty motels and hotels into shelters where homeless people could be isolated.
Reuters brings you the latest business, finance and breaking news video from around the globe. Our reputation for accuracy and impartiality is unparalleled.
“We tried, you’ll remember, from the opening days to get our scientists, our experts on the ground there so that we could begin to assist in the global response to what began there in China, but we weren’t able to do that. The Chinese Communist Party wouldn’t permit that to happen,” he said.
President Trump’s daily White House coronavirus briefings are a ratings hit.
The president, who has taken the lead in the task force’s daily updates to the nation, has attracted an average audience of about 8.5 million viewers on cable news — about the number of viewers who watched the season finale of “The Bachelor,” The New York Times reported on Wednesday, citing Nielsen numbers.
And as the outbreak continues to surge across the country and more Americans abide by shelter-in-place orders in a number of states, the viewership is increasing.
Monday’s briefing drew 12.2 million people on CNN, MSNBC and Fox News, ratings similar to those of “Monday Night Football.”
Fox News has benefited from the briefings, with the cable network attracting 6.2 million viewers on Monday, numbers on par with popular prime-time shows.
The newspaper said millions more are watching on the traditional networks — ABC, CBS and NBC, as well as online — but they offer less reliable numbers than the cable stations because of the way Nielsen ratings are measured.
New York’s Gov. Andrew Cuomo has also grabbed the spotlight with his daily updates about the coronavirus in the Empire State, but comparison ratings numbers were not available.
Trump initially held the COVID-19 briefings from the Oval Office and in the Rose Garden but permanently moved them inside the White House on March 14.
Vice President Mike Pence, who heads up the White House task force, once began the briefings, but the president soon began making announcements at the outset and fielding questions from reporters.
While Cuomo typically holds his in late morning, Trump schedules his in the White House briefing room for around 5 p.m. and they routinely bleed into the 6 o’clock hour or later.
The COVID-19 virus has claimed more than 20,000 lives across the globe, as of Wednesday, according to the latest figures from Johns Hopkins University.
The virus, which was first reported in Wuhan, a city in China’s Hubei province, has infected more than 451,000 people, while nearly 112,000 have recovered. China has more than 81,600 cases, with around 3,200 fatalities and nearly 73,000 recoveries. With more infections now reported outside China than within, the country claims the outbreak has been largely contained.
Following a slight dip in new fatalities on Monday, Italy’s death toll doubled that of China on Wednesday. The country reported around 6,820 deaths, while China has nearly 3,200.
The total fatalities in the U.S. surged past 800 on Wednesday, making it the fifth largest death toll outside China. Most of the deaths in the U.S. have been in New York, which has seen at least 265 fatalities, while Washington state has reported at least 134.
Italy has more deaths than any other country and remains the worst-hit nation outside China, with nearly 69,200 confirmed cases. However, the country also reports the second highest number of recoveries outside China, after Iran. Italy has seen more than 8,300 people recover from infection.
Spain’s death toll has also overtaken that of China, with 738 new fatalities recorded on Wednesday, Reuters reports, bringing its total to at least 3,434 deaths.
Madrid’s skating rink has reportedly been made into a makeshift morgue, while dozens have died in nursing homes across the country. Spain began its 11th day of a 15-day lockdown on Wednesday, which is likely to be extended to 30 days, Reuters reports.
Schools, bars, restaurants and most shops are closed, while social gatherings are banned and residents are required to remain in their homes.
“We have achieved a near total reduction in social contact,” the director of Spain’s health emergency coordination center, Fernando Simón, said at a press conference Wednesday.
Spain is near the peak of the outbreak, Simón added, with the country reporting more than 47,600 confirmed cases on Wednesday.
“If we are not already at the peak, we are very close,” he said. “I cannot say that we have reached it.” He added it would be “counterproductive” to think about easing restrictions in the country anytime soon, the Associated Press reports.
The outbreak also devastated Iran, which has the third highest death toll outside China and the fourth highest in the world. The virus has killed at least 2,077 people in Iran, while more than 27,000 cases have been confirmed in the country, as of Wednesday. Iran also has the highest number of recoveries outside China, with more than 9,600 having recovered from infection.
France has more than a thousand fatalities, with its death toll at 1,100 on Wednesday. It has the third highest number of deaths in Europe and the fourth highest outside China. Over 22,600 people have been infected in the country.
Data on COVID-19 cases is from Johns Hopkins University unless otherwise stated.
The graphics below, provided by Statista, illustrate the recovery curve compared to the infection curve of the virus, and the spread of the COVID-19 virus across the world
President Donald Trump will not be eligible for any federal assistance for his businesses as part of the coronavirus stimulus package that the Senate agreed upon early Wednesday morning, draft text of the bill showed.
That draft text includes a provision to prohibit businesses controlled by the president, vice president, members of Congress, heads of executive departments and their immediate family members — spouses, children and in-laws — from receiving loans or investments from Treasury programs as part of the stimulus package.
That measure came out of negotiations on a portion of the bill providing $500 billion in loans to distressed industries. That fund would be under the Treasury Department’s control and could include bailout payments to hard-hit businesses like hotels and cruise lines.
Speaking on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., was pressed on whether the provision was unfair.
“I think the danger is much greater the other way, Joe, that if they get a financial interest then they’ll make policy decisions leaning and bending in that direction,” Schumer said. “Look, I’ve always believed … that those who make the laws shouldn’t directly benefit monetarily from those laws. We’ve tried to get better and better and better at that, and this is just another example. It’s not aimed just at Donald Trump, but at anyone in high office.”
On CNN’s “New Day,” Schumer said the provision was aimed not just at Trump “but any major figure in government, Cabinet, Senate, congressmen, if they have majority, they have majority control, they can’t get grants or loans and that makes sense.”
Trump’s private businesses have been under intense scrutiny during his presidency with critics accusing him of attempting to profit off his office. Trump did not divest from the Trump Organization, which is now run by his two adult sons Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump.
According to The Washington Post, six of Trump’s seven highest revenue-generating clubs and hotels have shuttered in recent weeks because of measures meant to slow the spread of COVID-19.
Trump was asked during Sunday’s White House coronavirus task force press conference if he would commit that none of the stimulus money would go toward his business. The president then lamented that “nobody cared” or said “thank you very much” that he has forgone the president’s annual salary in excess of $400,000.
Download the NBC News app for full coverage and alerts about the coronavirus outbreak
“Look, I ran and everybody knew I was a rich person,” Trump said. “I built a great company and people knew that. But I agreed to do things I didn’t have to. I still don’t have to. But my company — I told the kids, who are running it — I’m not running it. But I told them, ‘Don’t deal with foreign companies. Don’t deal…’ I didn’t have to do that. I could have just ran and I have — I didn’t have to do that at all.”
“And instead of being thanked for, again, not agreeing to do, but just not doing it, I get excoriated all the time,” Trump continued. “So I’ve learned — let’s just see what happens because we have to save some of these great companies. They can be great companies, literally, in a matter of weeks. We have to save them.”
Early Wednesday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said he expected the deal to pass the Senate later in the day while Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told reporters the president would “absolutely” sign it.
Chances for a planned Senate vote on a historic $2 trillion relief package in response to the coronavirus pandemic appeared to dwindle Wednesday as senators threatened to delay it over a key unemployment insurance proposal.
Earlier in the day, four Republican senators — Lindsey Graham and Tim Scott of South Carolina, Ben Sasse of Nebraska and Rick Scott of Florida — threatened not to support the chamber’s push to pass the rescue package through fast-track procedures. They argued a plan to add $600 per week to unemployment insurance for up to four months, a core provision of the near-final legislation, could encourage companies to lay off workers and Americans to stay unemployed.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., then said he would delay the bill if his GOP colleagues did not drop their opposition, calling it an “outrage” to prevent Americans from getting emergency unemployment insurance. In a statement, he said he is “prepared to put a hold on this bill” to lobby for tighter restrictions on companies receiving aid from a taxpayer pool of $500 billion.
The prospect of an impasse in the Senate appeared to hit U.S. stock indexes at the end of Wednesday’s session. Investors hoped Congress could quickly approve the legislation, which gives direct payments to Americans, loans to businesses large and small and resources to states and hospitals to fight the outbreak.
Lawmakers moved swiftly to put together the stimulus plan, which the Senate hopes to pass by Wednesday night after several false starts during frenzied negotiations in recent days. After Democrats blocked an earlier version of the legislation twice to try to secure concessions, Republicans accused them of delaying aid desperately needed to boost a reeling economy and health care system.
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said Wednesday he would give representatives 24 hours’ notice before a vote on the relief package. By about 4:15 p.m. ET, the Senate had not released the final version of its legislation.
The emergency unemployment insurance provision, a compromise reached between Republicans and Democrats, aims to help workers hit by widespread layoffs as regular businesses in the U.S. ground to a halt to slow the pandemic’s spread. Earlier Wednesday, the four Republican senators called for an amendment to cap the benefit at 100% of a worker’s previous pay.
“Let’s just make sure we make people whole. Let’s not increase their salary because you can’t afford to do that,” he told reporters.
In response to the lawmakers’ concerns, a senior GOP aide said “we’ll have to do something” to secure their support.
A spokesperson for the Senate Finance Committee, the panel that drafted the unemployment insurance provision, did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request to comment on what changes the Senate could potentially make.
— CNBC’s Kayla Tausche and Lauren Hirsch contributed to this report
This is breaking news. Please check back for updates.
Cases of the coronavirus in the U.S. surged past 55,000 on Wednesday, while the death toll has climbed past 800, with 354 recoveries, according to the latest figures from Johns Hopkins University.
Nearly half of the total U.S. cases are in New York, which has reported more than 260 deaths, as of Wednesday. U.S. health experts from the COVID-19 virus task force led by Vice President Mike Pence, are “deeply concerned” about the outbreak in New York.
While cases in the U.S. continue to rise, it is unclear how many in the U.S. have officially recovered from infection. Speaking to Newsweek, a spokesperson for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it does not “have the current numbers for recovered patients at this time, and CDC has not included this data in our ongoing case counts as of yet” but the CDC “may put it [the data on recoveries] together in the future.”
The World Health Organization warned on Tuesday that the country has the potential to experience a widespread outbreak. When asked whether the U.S. could become the new epicenter of the virus, WHO spokeswoman Margaret Harris told reporters: “We are now seeing a very large acceleration in cases in the U.S. So it does have that potential,” Reuters reports.
The virus, which was first reported in Wuhan, a city in China’s Hubei province, has affected more than 435,000 people across 170 countries, while over 111,000 have recovered. More infections have been reported outside China than within.
The country has more than 81,600 cases, with around 3,200 fatalities and nearly 73,000 recoveries. China, which from today has lifted outbound travel restrictions in Hubei, claims the outbreak has been mostly contained.
America has over 55,000 cases, nearly half are in New York
The number of cases has reached over 55,200 confirmed cases to date, as of Wednesday.
New York has 25,665 cases, according to the office of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo.
New York City has around 14,094 cases, as of Tuesday, according to the office of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo.
About 56 percent of all U.S. cases are in the New York metropolitan area, Dr. Deborah Birx, a physician and health expert on the COVID-19 virus task force, confirmed at a White House press briefing on Tuesday.
About one per thousand people in New York are infected, which is “about 8 to 10 times more than in other areas,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and a member of the U.S. COVID-19 virus task force, said at the briefing.
Birx noted at the briefing: “We remain deeply concerned about New York City and the New York metro area. About 56 percent of all the cases in the United States are coming out of that metro area, and 60 percent of all the new cases are coming out of the metro New York area, and 31 percent of the people succumbing to this disease.
“It means, because they [New York] still are at 31 percent mortality compared to the other regions of the country, that we can have a huge impact if we unite together. This means, as in all places, they [New Yorkers] have to be following the presidential guidelines that were put out eight or nine days ago. And this will be critical,” she added.
Fauci added: “It’s a very serious situation [in New York]…what we’re seeing now is that, understandably, people want to get out of New York. They’re going to Florida. They’re going to Long Island…when they go to another place, for their own safety, they’ve got to be careful, monitor themselves.
“Self-isolating for two weeks will be very important, because we don’t want that to be another seeding point to the rest of the country, wherever they go.”
370,000 virus tests completed in U.S.
The U.S. conducted 370,000 virus tests, the majority of which were done in the last eight days, Birx confirmed at the Tuesday White House press briefing.
“The majority of those—over 220,000 in the last eight days, which, those of you who have been tracking the South Korea numbers, put us equivalent to what they did in eight weeks that we did in eight days,” she said at the briefing.
Birx also noted that the government is working on being able to allow people to take their own sample for testing. “That does not mean home testing. That means taking your own sample in the front of your nose with available swabs into normal saline that can be transported to the laboratories,” she explained.
“That will allow and free up all of the drive-throughs to be very sparing on PPE [personal protective equipment], because you’ll be able to do that with gloves rather than the full PPE outfits. This will allow for more of that PPE to be dedicated to our hospitals,” she added.
Death toll passes 800, cases rising in Louisiana and New Jersey
The death count in the country has soared past 800. New York, Washington state and California have dominated the death count, but Louisiana and New Jersey have also seen a surge.
Louisiana is reported to have the third highest rate of confirmed cases per capita, after New York and Washington state, Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards confirmed in a letter to President Donald Trump requesting approval for a disaster declaration in the state.
“I have determined that this incident [the outbreak] is of such severity and magnitude that effective response is beyond the capabilities of state and local governments,” the governor noted.
The cases were reported to be concentrated in the New Orleans region, which is expected to run out of hospital capacity for patients by April 4, the governor confirmed.
New Jersey has also seen a sharp rise in cases recently, with 800 new cases from Monday to Tuesday, bringing its total cases to 3,675, with 45 deaths, as of Wednesday, according to the state’s department of health.
New Jersey has the second highest number of cases in the country and its cases increased tenfold last week, CNN reports.
The graphic below, provided by Statista, illustrates the spread of COVID-19 across the U.S.
Latest COVID-19 death toll in the U.S.
New York – 265 (192 in New York City, 73 others)
Washington state – 134 (94 in King County, 40 others)
California – 48 (11 Los Angeles, 37 others)
Louisiana – 46
New Jersey – 45
Georgia – 38
Michigan – 23
Florida – 22
Illinois – 16
Connecticut – 12
Indiana – 12
Colorado – 11
Massachusetts – 9
Nevada – 6
Vermont – 6
Arizona – 5
Texas – 5
Kentucky – 4
Ohio – 4
Oregon – 4
Pennsylvania – 4
Virginia – 4
Kansas – 4
Missouri – 3
Wisconsin – 3
South Carolina – 2
Tennessee – 2
Maryland – 2
Washington, D.C. – 2
Arkansas – 2
Minnesota – 1
Mississippi – 1
New Hampshire – 1
Hawaii – 1
Iowa – 1
Data on COVID-19 cases is from Johns Hopkins University unless otherwise stated.
The bill, tentatively approved early Wednesday, “would really be terrible for the state of New York,” Cuomo said at his daily briefing in Albany.
Cuomo’s criticism came as White House officials made clear that President Donald Trump plans to sign the massive relief bill into law as soon as Congress sends it to him.
Cuomo said the bill provides $3.8 billion for New York State, of which only $1.3 billion will be sent to New York City.
“Sounds like a lot of money,” Cuomo said. But it’s far below the shortfall in revenue that the state projects it will face, which the governor said could total $15 billion.
“That is a drop in the bucket” compared with what New Yorkers need, he said. “How do you plug a $15 billion hole with $3.8 billion? You don’t.”
Cuomo’s spokeswoman Dani Lever suggested in a statement later Wednesday that the Senate bill would give New York even less than what the governor initially outlined.
“Based on initial reports, New York State government gets approximately $3.1 billion,” Lever said in the statement. “As a percent of our total state budget – 1.9% – it is the second lowest amount in the nation.”
“The gross political manipulation is obvious,” Lever said. “Compounding this inequity is the fact that New York State contributes more to the federal government than any other state in the nation. It is just another case of politics over sound policy.”
New York has become the epicenter of the U.S. coronavirus outbreak.
Stephanie Grisham, White House Press Secretary, responds to Gov. Andrew Cuomo calling out President Trump over medical supplies and where how testing in the U.S. compares to South Korea
Get all the latest news on coronavirus and more delivered daily to your inbox.Sign up here.
President Trump wants to send a message of hope to Americans by raising the possibility of scaling back restrictions from the coronavirus shutdown by Easter, White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said on Wednesday.
“I think he would love it if we were open up for business yesterday. After the 15 days, when we see the data come in, we’ll see where we’re at and I think the president will make his decision now, but he is hopeful,” Grisham told “Fox & Friends.”
Trump said Tuesday during a Fox News virtual town hall that he wants the country’s economy reopened by Easter Sunday, which is on April 12, amid questions over how long people should stay home and businesses remain closed to slow the spread of coronavirus.
Speaking from the Rose Garden alongside others on his coronavirus taskforce, Trump said he “would love to have the country opened up and just ready to go by Easter.”
Trump argued he doesn’t want “to turn the country off” and see a continued economic downfall from the pandemic. He also said he worries the U.S. will see “suicides by the thousands” if coronavirus devastates the economy.
“We lose thousands and thousands of people a year to the flu. We don’t turn the country off,” Trump said during the interview.
Trump added: “We lose much more than that to automobile accidents. We don’t call up the automobile companies and say stop making cars. We have to get back to work.”
Grisham said she was quarantined for two weeks and that it was “tough.”
“I imagine a lot of people want to try to get out here and get back to work as long as they’re social distancing. We’ll see what happens once the 15 days go past and we’ve got new data sets.”
Grisham said that Trump listens to his medical team and the White House coronavirus task force and would heed their recommendations regarding when to recommend lifting the public shutdown.
“They’ll make recommendations and he’ll make, ultimately, the final decision.”
Grisham said there will be far more information available after the United States ramped up testing in recent weeks. She noted that there have been more tests conducted in the U.S. in the last eight days than South Korea conducted in eight weeks.
“And South Korea was the gold standard,” she said.
This is a widget area - If you go to "Appearance" in your WP-Admin you can change the content of this box in "Widgets", or you can remove this box completely under "Theme Options"
