The declaration is the foundation for Whitmer’s stay-at-home measure, which will remain in effect through May 15, and other directives aimed at slowing the spread of the coronavirus. It has infected more than 41,000 Michigan residents and contributed to the deaths of 3,789. The virus and the steps taken to curb it, including the closure of nonessential businesses, have had a devastating effect on the economy.
The House and Senate voted along party lines for a bill — which she will veto — that would temporarily codify many of Whitmer’s orders but not her stay-at-home directive. Restaurants could begin dine-in service on May 16, when bars, casinos, gyms and other places of public accommodations also could reopen. Businesses open to the public would have to adhere to social distancing and other mitigation measures until May 30.
Republicans accused Whitmer of ignoring their input.
“We can no longer allow one person to make decisions for 10 million people,” said Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey of Clarklake.
House Speaker Lee Chatfield, of Levering, said the death toll is “terrible,” but other lives have been “negatively impacted unnecessarily because of how we have handled this pandemic. We believe we you can prioritize public health yet be reasonable in your approach to fighting COVID.”
Democrats opposed the legislation as an unconstitutional “political stunt” and called the pending legal action a wasteful expense amid plummeting tax revenues.
“We must ensure that our state can respond quickly and decisively to a situation that changes day by day,” said state Rep. Tyrone Carter, a Detroit Democrat who recovered from COVID-19. “That means ensuring that our governor has the emergency powers necessary to lead us in this fight.”
Outside the Capitol, speakers took turns addressing a crowd on the lawn. Meanwhile, drivers leaned on their horns as they traveled past, a repeat of what occurred April 15 but not close to the thousands who participated in vehicles at that time, which paralyzed traffic for miles.
Protesters’ placards read, “Shut down the lockdown,” “No work no freedom,” and “Tyrants get the rope.” Some people wore the “Don’t Tread On Me” flag as a cape. Others chanted, “Lock her up,” in reference to the governor. Some wore President Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” hats or carried signs supporting him.
“The virus is here. It’s going to be here. … It’s time to let people go back to work. That’s all there is to it,” said Joni George, of Flushing.
Some angry protesters — many without face coverings — entered the Capitol and demanded to be let onto the House floor, which is not allowed. The gallery was closed to the public to allow room for representatives and reporters to spread apart. Several demonstrators in the Senate gallery were openly carrying guns, which is legal in the Statehouse. One state senator said some armed men shouted at her, and several senators wore bulletproof vests for protection.
Shanon Banner, a state police spokeswoman, estimated there were 400 to 700 protesters and said they were “peaceful” overall. People who did not wear masks or distance themselves were not issued tickets. One demonstrator was arrested for assaulting another protester.
Whitmer, whom the public has supported in polling, on Wednesday rejected Senate Republicans’ proposal for a pair of one-week extensions of the emergency in exchange for giving legislators a say in any future stay-at-home restrictions.
Republicans want her to allow elective medical and dental procedures again and certainty on the date she plans to reopen the economy on a regional basis. Meanwhile, the governor has allowed some businesses, such as lawn-care companies and greenhouses, to resume operating.
Whitmer said Wednesday that Republicans “are acting as though we’re in the midst of a political problem. … This is a public health crisis.” Commercial and residential construction will resume next week.
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California Gov. Gavin Newsom said he plans to close state and local beaches in Orange County, calling the images of huge crowds that occupied the beaches over the weekend “disturbing.”
“Orange County has been on our list of health concern and they’ve done a wonderful job down there, I just think we can tighten that up a little bit. So we’re going to have a temporary pause down there,” Newsom said at a press conference on Thursday.
Newsom said beaches in the southern part of California, including those in Orange, Los Angeles and San Diego counties, have raised alarm bells, including images of people who were congregating there and not following physical distancing guidelines. He said the state wants to work closely with local officials, and if they can create better guidelines, the beaches can “reopen very very quickly.”
“My job as governor is to keep you safe, and when our health folks tell me they can’t promise that if we promote another weekend like we had then I have to make this adjustment,” Newsom said.
An additional 95 people died from Covid-19 on Wednesday, he said. The state saw a 5.2% increase in confirmed cases since yesterday for a total of 48,917.
“Why undo all the great progress? Let’s move this state forward together,” Newsom said.
Previous reports before Newsom’s order indicated he planned to close all of the state’s beaches, which drew widespread criticism from some state officials. When asked what changed his mind on closing all state beaches, Newsom said that they “never did and this is exactly the conversations we were having.”
The Michigan Court of Claims has said Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s stay-at-home order does not infringe on the constitutional rights of residents.
The lawsuit, brought by plaintiff Steve Martinko and others, claimed that Whitmer’s initial “Stay Home, Stay Safe” executive order, as well as the recently adjusted version of the order, violated the rights of Michigan residents.
The orders were introduced to curb the spread of COVID-19 in Michigan, where there are 40,399 confirmed cases and the death toll has reached 3,670, according to data from Johns Hopkins.
The plaintiffs in the case claimed that the “mandatory quarantine,” along with interstate travel restrictions listed in an earlier version of the order, violated their rights to both procedural due process and substantive due process.
“But those liberty interests are, and always have been, subject to society’s interests—society being our fellow residents,” said Court of Claims Judge Christopher M. Murray.
“They—our fellow residents—have an interest to remain unharmed by a highly communicable and deadly virus, and since the state entered the Union in 1837, it has had the broad power to act for the public health of the entire state when faced with a public crisis.”
Whitmer announced an extension of the state’s stay-at-home order through to May 15.JEFF KOWALSKY/AFP via Getty Images
Murray stated that issuing injunctive relief “would not serve the public interest, despite the temporary harm to plaintiffs’ constitutional rights.”
The plaintiffs also alleged that the Emergency Management Act is an unconstitutional delegation of legislative power to the Governor.
But the Court noted the act does not provide the Governor with “uncontrolled, arbitrary power.” Instead, Judge Murray indicated that the act provides for very specific procedures and criteria for the Governor to declare a state of disaster or emergency, and what conditions qualify as a disaster or emergency.
Attorney General Dana Nessel announced: “I am pleased with the court’s decision. This pandemic has already taken more than 3,600 lives in Michigan and many more around the world. The primary goal of the ‘Stay Home, Stay Safe’ order has always been to protect human life.”
Whitmer described the extension—which includes the lifting of some personal and economic restrictions—as a “step forward” for the state. Discussions to lift additional restrictions would depend upon the number of cases continuing to decrease statewide and the state’s ability to boost its testing and contact tracing efforts, Whitmer said.
“We’ve got to do everything we can to avoid a second wave of COVID-19 spread,” Whitmer said during a news briefing. “As hard as this moment is for us right now, as isolated as we feel and as stressed as we are about getting back to work, reopening our businesses, we know that if we do it too fast, a second wave is likely and would be even more devastating than the moment we are in.”
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is single — and ready to mingle!
“I am eligible,” Cuomo said on 1010WINS Thursday.
The 62-year-old dad of three was asked about a new survey by matchmaker Maureen Tara Nelson, which found that he and his little brother, CNN anchor Chris Cuomo, are hot commodities among New York City women.
“Now that you raise it, most-wanted eligibility, my brother is married, I am not married, so I don’t think he would qualify as eligible. However, I am eligible,” Cuomo responded, chuckling.
And he didn’t need to look very far for his next date.
When anchor Susan Richard pointed out that both she and the governor are Sagittariuses from Queens, he replied: “Sounds good to me. It all started in Queens, Susan.”
Cuomo and his longtime girlfriend, chef and author Sandra Lee, split last fall.
“As we do in all crises, the Community’s experts respond by surging resources and producing critical intelligence on issues vital to U.S. national security,” the statement reads. “The IC will continue to rigorously examine emerging information and intelligence to determine whether the outbreak began through contact with infected animals or if it was the result of an accident at a laboratory in Wuhan.”
Current and former national security officials said they were surprised by the release, and suggested it could be a sign that the intelligence community feels it is being pulled into a political battle. The administration has been pressuring analysts, particularly at the CIA, to search for evidence that the virus came from a lab and that the World Health Organization helped China cover it up, according to a person briefed on the discussions.
“I thought it was a terrific statement,” former acting CIA director Michael Morell said during an event hosted by George Mason University on Thursday. “A lot of people have been concerned about politicization [of the intel community], and you have senior administration officials all over the map about the origins of the virus…it was perfectly appropriate and a very good idea for ODNI to put this out.”
ODNI’s statement does not rule out the possibility that the virus spread after a lab accident, but it emphasizes the fundamental role of the spy agencies: to collect and analyze information, not to search for a particular conclusion. There is currently no evidence to support the theory that it came from a lab, said people briefed on the intelligence, but there is also no intelligence that would allow the agencies to explicitly rule out the possibility.
“If you think about it, uncovering the actual truth — whether it passed from animal to human, or came from a lab — is probably something we’ll never know,” Glenn Gerstell, who served as the National Security Agency’s general counsel from 2015-2020, said during the same GMU event on Thursday. “We’d have to find some kind of smoking gun…I wouldn’t be surprised if we never end up with the actual definitive answer.”
In an op-ed published on Tuesday, three intelligence veterans who either rarely criticize the administration or rarely comment on it at all — Morell, former White House deputy national security adviser Avril Haines, and former deputy CIA director David S. Cohen — warned of what they say are Trump’s ongoing efforts to politicize the intelligence community, most recently by firing the IC inspector general who informed Congress of the whistleblower complaint against him.
“This pattern of politicization is particularly concerning now,” they wrote, “as the country confronts the coronavirus pandemic.
“The answers to key intelligence questions—Did the coronavirus emerge from nature or escape from a Chinese lab? To what extent did the Chinese government misrepresent the scope and scale of the epidemic?—will have profound implications for the future of U.S. national security policy, especially concerning China. We know Trump’s preferred answers to those questions. What we don’t know is whether the career analysts in U.S. intelligence agencies will be allowed to speak the truth when they uncover it.”
Morell noted separately on Thursday that if the virus leaked from a Wuhan lab, the U.S. would shoulder some of the blame since it funded research at that lab through government grants from 2014-2019.
The National Institutes of Health said in a statement on Thursday that a $3.4 million grant awarded to EcoHealth Alliance, which in turn awarded funds to the Wuhan Institute of Virology over the last 6 years, had been terminated but didn’t say why. “Any questions related to the origins of the outbreak should be directed to ODNI,” the statement said.
“If it did escape from the lab, not only bad on China but also bad on the U.S. for giving funding to a lab with safety concerns,” Morell said, referring to State Department cables from early 2018 that warned of the lab’s risky coronavirus experiments and shortage of trained technicians.
“So if it did escape,” he added, “we’re all in this together.”
There’s a lot of sport made on social media over the fact that Donald Trump Jr., in his desperation to be more like his sociopathic father, is dating his stepmother’s doppelganger, in both age and looks. But spare some palace-intrigue armchair psychoanalysis for the fact that Trump’s daughter Ivanka grew up to marry a man who is startlingly like her daddy.
Jared Kushner’s softer voice and ability to dress himself fooled many political observers into thinking he would be a moderating presence on his father-in-law in the early days. But by now even the most appearance-bamboozled pundits must accept that in all ways that matter, Jared is virtually identical to Papa Trump: He’s as arrogant as he is incompetent, he’s assured of his own expertise on matters he has barely paid attention to, he’s shameless in his lying, and he’s fully confident he can bulldoze his way past his myriad failures simply by declaring himself successful.
“This is a great success story, and I think that’s really what needs to be told,” Kushner said on Fox News Wednesday, struggling to hold back a smile. And yes, he really was talking about the Trump administration’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. Seriously.
Kushner bragged about how the ” federal government rose to the challenge” and “achieved all the different milestones that are needed” and then, to make the whole thing even more of a rhetorical nightmare, predicted that by July “the country’s really rocking again.”
He said this on the week that a certain “milestone” had, indeed, been achieved: The United States surpassed one million confirmed coronavirus cases, more than four times the number in Spain, which has the second-highest official case count. (No one is quite sure how badly China has been hit, with a government that is notoriously secretive, and a population several times larger than ours.) The U.S. death toll has already topped 60,000, which is no doubt a significant undercount, as analysis of overall death rates in the country suggest a lot of people are dying of COVID-19 and not getting officially counted.
Another “milestone” for the “great success story” Kushner is touting: More than 30 million unemployment claims filed in six weeks, which is nearly one in five American workers.
Kusher, like his father-in-law, comes from the sleazier corners of the real estate world and so no doubt has developed the same habits of smoothly lying about serious problems with properties and wildly exaggerating the value of his assets while bamboozling investors. Kushner is, after all, a notorious slumlord.
Now he’s just doing to the entire country what he did to his unfortunate tenants. But instead of ignoring rats and cockroaches and leaky plumbing while posing as a real estate mogul, Kushner is now shrugging off thousands dead and millions infected or unemployed, while trumpeting his “great success story.”
That Trump would let anyone as boastful as himself come so close has always been a surprise — narcissists don’t like competition — but ultimately, it appears he’s so flattered that Ivanka wanted to marry someone like Dear Old Dad that he keeps Jared around as a constant reminder.
Kushner’s preening is all the more disturbing because there’s good reason to believe that he’s second only to Trump in causing this crisis to spiral as badly out of control as it has.
In a piece headlined “Inside Donald Trump and Jared Kushner’s Two Months of Magical Thinking,” Vanity Fair reporter Gabriel Sherman reports that Kushner “shared Trump’s view that the media and Democrats were hyping the crisis for political purposes,” and spent months encouraging the president to ignore more than a dozen warnings, dating back to last year, from intelligence officials and health agencies about the virus and its likely economic impact.
One White House official even went as far as to tell Sherman that Kushner “is running everything” and is the “de facto president,” an accusation that is entirely believable in light of reports that Trump is too lazy and self-obsessed to do any work besides tweeting, watching TV to “monitor” his own press, and ranting at reporters in daily press conferences that were originally supposed to be opportunities for serious public officials and health experts to share news about the coronavirus.
Not that Kushner getting involved and running things has helped the situation. If anything, it appears to be making things worse. Sherman reports that Kushner’s “famously unshakable belief in his own judgment” led him to repeatedly tell federal officials that there was no need to take the coronavirus too seriously. Kushner simply assumed his desire to believe this wasn’t a real problem constituted a stronger understanding than that provided by actual experts in epidemiology.
Like Trump, Kushner has spent his life surrounded by people who, because his family has money, are willing to pretend his failures were successes. Kushner famously didn’t have the grades to get into Harvard, so his father paved his way in with a generous donation. He’s been failing up ever since, from annoying the harried journalists at the New York Observer with his mansplaining after he bought the paper with Daddy’s money to finding himself as de facto White House chief of staff for no other reason than that he married well.
Kushner’s “great success story” is being compared to George W. Bush’s infamous “Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job” line, uttered to FEMA director Michael Brown in the wake of the 2005 Hurricane Katrina disaster that left bodies floating in the streets and people camped for days in hellish conditions in the Superdome. That line was memorable because “Brownie” had failed so utterly, for which he eventually resigned, but also because Bush’s frat-style nickname was a reminder that Brown had gotten his position not because any expertise or relevant experience, but because Bush liked giving cushy jobs to Republican loyalists.
This situation with Kushner is arguably even worse. Unlike with a hurricane, which can only be predicted a few days in advance (and not with much precision), Kushner he had months of warnings that the pandemic was coming, and blew it off because the preparation needed to minimize its impact would have taken hard work and expertise of the sort that Kushner has spent his life avoiding. Instead, it was clearly easier for him to ignore the problem in hopes that it would go away.
In fact, as this interview shows, Kushner is still ignoring the problem, choosing to assure the public that things will be back to normal in July, even though that is literally impossible. Even if we already had the testing and tracing protocols needed to begin considering a return to normal life (which we don’t), the process would be gradual. The economic impact of what will likely be a 20% unemployment rate, if not higher, doesn’t vanish overnight, but will reverberate for years to come.
But even talking about this alternate universe where we have sufficient testing is a joke. Trump, with Kushner at his side, made damn sure that the testing was slowed down because he wanted to artificially deflate the official coronavirus caseload. The president clearly continues to believe that we don’t actually need mass testing, and that simply lying to the public and claiming we have tests when we don’t will suffice.
All the White House gift-shop commemorative coins in the world — surreal and delusional as they are — can’t hide the dead bodies and the lost jobs. Jared Kushner may have failed upward his entire life, no amount of self-congratulation will fool people into seeing this coronavirus disaster as anything but the epic fuck-up it truly is.
Here’s what seniors need to know about their COVID-19 stimulus checks.
Getty
One of the most widely anticipated provisions of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act are the one-time stimulus checks promised to Americans in the coming weeks. But some seniors and disabled adults have been left understandably confused about whether and how they will receive the $1,200 per adult checks.
After seeing a variety of headlines and conflicting information, millions of seniors might be anxious over what’s true. Do they get a stimulus check? Yes, definitely. Do they need to file a tax return if they don’t normally have to do so because their income is low? Not if they get Social Security benefits, but they might want to anyway in certain cases.
Here’s what seniors need to know about their COVID-19 stimulus checks—and what they need to keep an eye on as the situation continues to develop.
Start at the beginning. What happened?
President Donald Trump signed the CARES Act into law on March 27. This stimulus package included numerous provisions to grant Americans financial relief during the coronavirus crisis, including one-time stimulus payments to help keep them afloat. The payments are $1,200 per adult (meaning $2,400 for a married couple filing jointly), plus an additional $500 per qualifying child. These payments get lower as incomes rise; the total phaseout amounts, meaning adjusted gross income is too much to qualify for a stimulus payment, are $99,000 for single filers and $198,000 for married couples filing jointly. (That’s for couples without qualifying children; payments for children begin to phase out at those levels.)
One key thing to know: The stimulus checks will be based on 2019 tax returns (or 2018, for those who filed in 2018 but haven’t yet filed for 2019).
So what about the 20 million or so Americans who rely on Social Security and don’t file tax returns each year because their income is too low for them to owe taxes? The CARES Act includes a special provision to make sure these individuals still receive checks. The act clearly stated the Treasury could use information contained on 2019 SSA-1099s—a form reporting Social Security benefits to both the recipient and the IRS— or similar RRB-1099s, to send stimulus payments to those individuals.
But on March 30, the IRS issued guidance that went against the CARES Act, stating “some seniors and others who typically do not file returns will need to submit a simple tax return to receive the stimulus payment.”
Then, the confusion (and outrage) began. Making these individuals file tax returns seemed to go against the explicit wording in the CARES Act and to present logistical challenges forseniors who might not have internet access or a way to get help filing even a simple return, what with tax preparation businesses and volunteer tax assistance centers shuttered.
Was the IRS wrong?
Yes, it appears so.
Forbes contributor Kelly Phillips Erb, a tax attorney, reached out to the federal government asking for guidance on the confusing IRS language. It turns out she wasn’t the only one; 41 U.S. Senators wrote a letter to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and the Social Security Administration expressing alarm over the guidance, and demanded it be fixed.
On April 1, after normal business hours, the Treasury and IRS issued a statement backtracking on the requirement of tax returns for Social Security beneficiaries.
“The U.S. Department of the Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service today announced that Social Security beneficiaries who are not typically required to file tax returns will not need to file an abbreviated tax return to receive an Economic Impact Payment. Instead, payments will be automatically deposited into their bank accounts,” reads the statement.
So, I don’t need to file a tax return?
According to the most recent IRS statement, no. Social Security beneficiaries do not need to file a tax return in order to receive their stimulus payments.
But I heard I need to do something if I have qualifying dependents.
That is correct.
Individuals who don’t normally file tax returns but have dependents were instructed to use the Non-Filers Tool to send additional information to the IRS, since qualifying dependents are eligible for an additional $500 in stimulus payment. The deadline for Social Security and railroad retirees (RRB recipients) to provide this information was April 22. If you are included in this group but did not file additional information to the IRS, you can receive your extra $500 per qualifying dependent after filing a tax return (for 2020) next year.
Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and Veterans Affairs (VA) beneficiaries who don’t normally file tax returns and have qualifying dependents have until May 5 to provide additional information to receive the $500 per qualifying dependent. You can provide your information using the Non-Filers Tool on the IRS website.
What if I get my Social Security benefits on a government debit card instead of direct deposit? How will I receive my stimulus check?
If you qualify for a stimulus check, you will receive it on your existing Direct Express card. If you don’t have a Direct Express card, you cannot sign up now to receive your stimulus payment on the card.
This federally-issued debit card is designed specifically for Social Security and other federal beneficiaries who don’t have bank accounts. Some 4.5 million Americans use Direct Express and most of them are unbanked, meaning they don’t have bank accounts to receive direct deposits.
Now, the IRS has and Direct Express have confirmed that these cards will be loaded with stimulus payments.
“IRS will pay Economic Impact Payments automatically to the existing Direct Express® card accounts of most eligible Social Security, Supplemental Security Income (SSI), Veterans, and Railroad Retirement Board recipients,” reads the Direct Express FAQ on stimulus payments, which can be found as a PDF on the website’s homepage.
The Direct Express FAQ adds that cardholders can sign up for text or email alerts for deposit information, or can log on to their account online and check there. Cardholders also have the option of calling the toll-free phone number on the back of their card, but due to the COVID-19 situation, call wait times will probably be longer than usual. If you have access to the internet, you’re probably better off logging online and checking your account.
So when can I expect my money?
It depends.
Direct Express’ FAQ says most eligible recipients with a card will receive their stimulus payments by early May.
SSI and VA beneficiaries likely won’t see payments until after May 5, which is the deadline for providing additional information about qualifying dependents.
Those who are waiting for paper checks will have to wait even longer to see their money. The IRS will begin sending out paper checks at a rate of 5 million per week, starting in early May. Low-income households will be first on the list to have checks mailed to them.
The IRS does have a tool that lets individuals check on the status of their stimulus checks, called the “Get My Payment” tool. This tool is notoriously glitchy, and since the deadline for SSI and VA beneficiaries to submit additional information about qualifying dependents hasn’t passed yet, those individuals cannot check the status of their payment
So far, the IRS has delivered over 89 million stimulus checks, equaling $160 billion. That’s more than half of the 150 million payments expected to be sent out in total.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Gov. Gavin Newsom will order all beaches and state parks closed starting Friday after people thronged the seashore during a sweltering weekend despite his social distancing order that aims to slow the spread of the coronavirus, according to a memo sent to police chiefs around the state.
Eric Nuñez, president of the California Police Chiefs Association, said it was sent to the group’s members Wednesday evening so they have time to plan ahead of Newsom’s expected announcement Thursday.
A message to the governor’s office seeking comment wasn’t immediately returned.
While most state parks and many local beaches, trails and parks have been closed for weeks, Newsom’s order is sure to ignite pushback from communities who argue that they can safely provide some relief to residents who are starved of fresh air.
Pressure is building to ease state and local restrictions that have throttled the economy, closing most businesses and adding nearly 4 million people to the unemployment rolls.
On Wednesday, six San Francisco Bay Area counties that imposed the first broad stay-at-home orders in California because of the coronavirus loosened them slightly to allow for landscaping, construction and other outdoor businesses, such as flea markets and nurseries, so long as social distancing is maintained.
And in what could be a critical addition for many parents, it specifies that summer camps are allowed, but only if kids stay in small groups and their parents are considered to hold essential jobs under the state order, such as health care workers.
Some recreational bans also were eased, but not all in exactly the same way. For instance, tennis will be OK in Sacramento starting Friday, but not in San Francisco.
Compounding the confusion: Some elements of the revised orders won’t take effect because they conflict with the statewide stay-at-home order, which is still in place.
In Riverside County, authorities said its local order will end Thursday and be replaced by less-restrictive measures. Trails and parks will be open for hiking, biking and horseback riding as long as visitors wear masks.
Health officials, however, warn that more mingling also brings the potential for more infection and the government should tread gingerly when easing restrictions so as not to ignite another surge in coronavirus cases.
Newsom’s beach order follows a weekend in which some 80,000 people flocked to Newport Beach in Orange County, south of Los Angeles, with additional thousands gathering at open beaches in Ventura County, north of LA.
An Orange County supervisor, Donald P. Wagner, issued a statement saying he believes Newsom has the power to close local beaches but “it is not wise to do so.”
“Orange County citizens have been cooperative with state and county restrictions thus far. I fear that this overreaction from the state will undermine that cooperative attitude and our collective efforts to fight the disease,” he said.
Beaches in Los Angeles County remain closed.
Lifeguards said most people appeared to be heeding social distance safety rules such as limiting groups and not lingering on the sand. But the crowds irked Newsom, who has said California’s 40 million residents should try to stay home as much as possible.
“This virus doesn’t take the weekends off, this virus doesn’t go home because it’s a beautiful sunny day around our coasts,” he said Monday.
The same day, beaches across San Diego County reopened. A day later, Newport Beach officials rejected a plan to close the city beaches for three consecutive weekends.
California is approaching 50,000 confirmed coronavirus cases and nearly 2,000 deaths, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University, although the number of infections is thought to be far higher because many people have not been tested.
However, virus hospitalizations have been virtually flat for several weeks in California and the state has dodged the dreaded massive surge of patients experienced by New York and several other states.
Newsom has praised Californians for helping “flatten the curve” of the outbreak through social distancing but he also is reluctant to follow the examples of Georgia, Florida and several other states that are moving more rapidly to restart their economies.
Newsom reiterated Wednesday it would be weeks before he makes the first significant modification to the state order, urging people to remain at home to prevent unintended outbreaks among the state’s most high-risk populations, including nursing homes.
“It won’t be on the basis of pressure, it won’t be on the basis of what we want, but what we need to do,” Newsom said. “And what we need to do from my humble perspective is listen to the public health experts.”
But each of the state’s 58 counties have their own public health experts, and many are starting to ask Newsom to open up the state. This week, seven rural Northern California counties with low numbers of COVID-19 cases have asked Newsom to let them reopen.
In the San Francisco Bay Area, Santa Clara County Health Director Dr. Sara Cody said local officials have come up with their own metrics to measure infection rates, hospitalizations and testing to ensure that infections don’t start rising again. If that happens, she said, stricter rules will be back.
“I wish I could give you a set timeline for when this was going to end. My family asks me, my friends ask me — we don’t have a date,” she said, noting that there still is no vaccine, so “we are going to need to have protections in place for a very, very long time.”
Dazio reported from Los Angeles. The Associated Press writers Janie Har and Juliet Williams in San Francisco contributed reporting.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo speaking at a press conference in New York on March 30, 2020 (Photo … [+] by John Lamparski/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
NurPhoto via Getty Images
As a new task force takes center stage to help boost the New York economy, Broadway has been banished to the balcony.
In a recent press conference, Governor Andrew Cuomo announced the creation of an advisory board to help guide the government’s strategy to resurrect New York following the COVID-19 pandemic. Known as the New York Forward Re-Opening Advisory Board, the group includes over 100 “business, academic, community and civic leaders from across the state,” he confirmed.
In addition to university presidents, the council contains top executives from many of the leading financial institutions, real estate firms, hospitality groups, sports teams, and entertainment companies. James Dolan from the Madison Square Garden Company and Jane Rosenthal from Tribeca Enterprises, which organizes the Tribeca Film Festival, were chosen to join the group.
“This board includes many of our state’s most dynamic leaders, and I thank the Governor for his wisdom in putting together this diverse group,” commented Orinthia Montague, the president of Tompkins Cortland Community College.
But, despite selecting individuals from a wide range of industries and backgrounds, Governor Cuomo did not choose a single person from the Broadway community.
“I was shocked to see that Broadway didn’t have a seat at this important table, considering how our industry is not only an economic engine for the city and state, but it’s also an important symbol of the health of New York to the rest of our country and to the world,” stated producer Ken Davenport. Drawing millions of tourists from all over the world to New York, more people attended Broadway shows last season than the games of all professional sports teams in New York and New Jersey combined, contributing over $14.7 billion to the local economy and supporting about 96,900 jobs.
When data from touring productions are included, the numbers are much greater. “I think it is safe to say that this business provides millions of dollars in economic impact across all markets, and generates numerous local hires, including stagehands,” statedAlbert Nocciolino of the upstate presenter NAC Entertainment. For example, one touring production of The Lion King pumped more than $14 million into the local economy when it launched in Syracuse two years ago.
Despite the large economic impact of Broadway in New York, Governor Cuomo has appeared to be at odds with the industry over the past few weeks.
When the Broadway League national trade association decided to extend its shutdown of shows through Sunday, June 7, Governor Cuomo dismissed the news. “I wouldn’t use what Broadway thinks as a barometer of anything unless they’re in the public health business and have seen better numbers and models,” he quipped.
Staying at home during the pandemic, “we barely see the sun these days, but even we know that’s a burn,” commented one writer.
However, Charlotte St. Martin, the president of the Broadway League, explained that the date was not tied to when Broadway shows would resume performances. “We said we were exchanging and refunding tickets up to June 7,” she confirmed, and “every couple of days our guesstimates go further out.” “It really depends on the elected officials, and we know very well that Governor Cuomo will be the one to tell us when we can come back,” St. Martin said.
According to the politician, Broadway might be one of the last industries to return.
In outlining his steps to reopen businesses in New York, Governor Cuomo warned that “you should make sure that you do not … open up a facility or an attraction that could bring people from outside the region to you.” “You have all this pent-up demand in the Tri-state region,” and business owners should “make sure that [they] don’t open up something that could bring hundreds of people from the outside in,” he said.
Last week, while putting together the advisory board, Governor Cuomo asked prolific producer Scott Rudin and theater owner James L. Nederlander to share their ideas for raising the curtain again on Broadway. But, while both professionals volunteered to help the government in any way that they can, the governor did not invite them to join his high-profile think tank in the room where it happens.
On the date when nominations for the Tony Awards were originally scheduled to be announced, it looks like Broadway as an industry was snubbed.
A federal judge in Oregon refused to suspend President Donald Trump’s recent executive order that put a 60-day ban on green cards for most immigrants due to the coronavirus crisis.
The ruling came from U.S. District Judge Michael Simon, who sided last fall with the same plaintiffs when they sued over a separate immigration proclamation issued by the president. That policy would deny visas for people who can’t pay for their own health insurance or foreseeable medical costs, although Simon temporarily stopped its implementation. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals is now weighing that injunction.
Simon also granted the plaintiffs, who are immigrants, class-action status in that case, and in this new petition they had hoped to piggy-back on his previous ruling. They contended that the coronavirus-related freeze on visas could delay applications for some of these same immigrants whom Simon backed last fall.
Johnson has only recently returned to work after himself recovering from Covid-19. His government has been heavily criticized over its handling of the health crisis, with some claiming it failed to adequately distribute personal protective equipment and scale up testing.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock set out an ambitious target of reaching 100,000 coronavirus tests by the end of April, but just 52,000 tests were carried out on Tuesday. However, the U.K. appears to be much closer to that aim now, with 81,611 people having been tested on Wednesday.
The country’s coronavirus death toll now stands at 26,711, Johnson said in the daily briefing, an increase of 674 from the previous day. More than 171,000 people have tested positive for the disease.
President Trump will end his months-long confinement at the White House with a visit next week to the presidential battleground state of Arizona, he announced Wednesday.
During a roundtable with business executives at the White House, Trump confirmed he’d “start to move around” the country and said he hoped that, eventually, he could hold more of his trademark rallies.
“I think I’m going to Arizona next week and we look forward to that, and I’m going, I hope, to Ohio very soon,” Trump told reporters.
Earlier Wednesday, The Post detailed how Trump’s aides were looking at possible travel for the president, who has grown frustrated with being confined amid the coronavirus pandemic — leaving the White House only once in the past seven weeks.
He said the Arizona event would be at an industry site because it was “too soon to for everybody to get together and stand next to each other.”
Bloomberg News reported that the visit could be a tour of a facility manufacturing personal protective equipment, such as face masks.
Advisers and other people close to the president have been encouraging him to visit businesses involved in the fight against COVID-19 in an attempt to turn the tide of negative press about his daily briefings, sources told The Post.
With the November election looming, Trump said he longed to hold more of the raucous rallies, some of which he was forced to cancel at the start of the outbreak.
“Hopefully, in the not too distant future, we’ll have some massive rallies and people will be sitting next to each other. I can’t imagine a rally where you have every fourth seat full, every six seats are empty for every one you have full. That wouldn’t look too good,” he said.
“I hope we’ll be able to do some good old-fashioned, 25,000-person rallies where everybody is going wild because they love our country,” he continued.
Trump is eager to reconnect with everyday Americans affected by the outbreak and wants to travel as soon as possible, sources said.
The president announced earlier this month that he would deliver the commencement address at United States Military Academy’s 2020 graduation ceremony at West Point on June 13.
Vice President Mike Pence has recently made trips, including a visit to staff and infected patients at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., Tuesday.
Pence toured the facility without a mask, although the clinic requires all visitors to wear masks to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
And earlier this week, the University of California, San Francisco launched an effort of its own to offer diagnostic and antibody Covid-19 testing to 5,700 residents who live in a specific section of the Mission District, San Francisco’s densest neighborhood.The initiative, which is being done through a partnership with the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub, is intended to gather data on the prevalence of Covid-19 in the area.
Across the country, states say that Covid-19 testing is increasing but there still aren’t sufficient tests available. As the U.S. starts to re-open, medical experts say that testing will need to pickup speed, alongside contact tracing and other efforts to quickly isolate those who might be contagious before they can spread the virus to others.
Los Angeles accounts for almost half of the state’s coronavirus cases. It has more than 20,000 confirmed cases, of the 45,031 total in California.
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