With the presidential election less than six months away, recent national polls show presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden with a lead over President Donald Trump.
According to a new Quinnipiac University poll, 50 percent of voters said they would vote for Biden if the election were today, while 39 percent favored Trump. The former vice president’s 11-point lead over Trump is an increase from a previous Quinnipiac poll, published April 8, that showed Biden with a 49 percent to 41 percent lead over Trump.
“What does the 11-point Biden lead tell us? At best for Team Trump, it says voter confidence in President Trump is shaky. At worst for them, as coronavirus cases rise, Trump’s judgement is questioned—and November looms,” Quinnipiac University polling analyst Tim Malloy said in a statement. The poll surveyed 1,323 registered voters from May 14 to 18 and had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.7 percentage points.
In another recent poll, conducted by CNBC/Change Research, Biden has a slightly smaller advantage over the president. This poll surveyed 1,424 likely voters from May 15 to 17 and found Biden receiving 48 percent, while 45 percent went for Trump. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points.
The Economist/YouGov also conducted a poll from May 17 to 19 and found Biden with a 5-point lead over Trump, as the former vice president received 47 percent and Trump 42 percent. This poll surveyed 1,500 U.S. adults and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
Both the Quinnipiac poll and the CNBC/Change Research survey showed Biden ahead of Trump in terms of who Americans think would better handle the coronavirus outbreak. According to the Quinnipiac poll, 55 percent of registered voters said Biden would better handle the outbreak, while 39 percent favored Trump. In the CNBC/Change Research poll, 50 percent said Biden, compared with 43 percent for Trump.
The Economist/YouGov poll did not ask respondents who they think would better handle the outbreak, but it did reveal Americans’ confidence in Trump’s response. According to the poll, 37 percent said they felt confident with that response, but 51 percent said they felt uneasy.
Despite Biden’s lead over Trump nationally, another poll conducted by CNBC/Change Research, shows the president with a slim lead over Biden in a number of key battleground states. It surveyed 5,408 likely voters in Arizona, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania and found Trump had a 48-46 percent lead over Biden.
Nurses, bus drivers and EMTs across the country said they all fear going to work every day.
Several workers told the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis on today that they lack the personal protection equipment they need, suffer physical exhaustion and are worried about bringing the virus home to their families.
“We did not have enough nurses in the ICU before the pandemic hit and we certainly do not have enough now,” Talisa Hardin, a registered nurse at the University of Chicago Medical Center said at the hearing.
Eric Colts, a bus driver with the Detroit Department of Transportation, said he works his entire shift on a “40-foot incubator.”
“The biggest fear for me while I’m driving, trying to pay attention to the road, is you’ll have someone in the back either sneeze or cough,” Colts said. There is no way to properly socially distance on a bus, he added.
Diana Wilson, an emergency medical technician with the New York City Fire Department, said she’s had to send her sons to live with loved ones to keep them safe from coronavirus.
Wilson, who became a widow in 2019, said she hasn’t seen her three kids in 10 weeks.
“On a normal EMS shift, we respond to one or two cardiac arrests. Since Covid-19 has ravaged our state, we are now responding to calls by six to 10 cardiac arrests in an eight-hour tour,” Wilson said. “Despite our best efforts to save lives, we are finding patients dead in their homes, sometimes even in their cars.”
Marcos Aranda, a custodian at Pacific Gas and Electric, said he wears latex gloves and dust masks to try to protect himself.
“My job has always been essential to protecting the public’s health and safety, even before the Covid-19 pandemic,” he said.
“We now have to make sure we disinfect every frequently touched surface – from phones to elevators, to microwave handles. We do a detailed job to make sure that people coming into work in our buildings during this crisis stay safe,” he added.
The level of continuing claims painted a clearer picture of how unemployment is persisting even as states are increasingly taking steps to bring their economies back on line. The total for the week ending May 9 was 25.07 million, an increase of 2.52 million from the previous week.
The four-week moving average also increased sharply, jumping by 2.3 million to just above 22 million.
Markets reacted little to the news, with Wall Street indicating a modestly lower open for stocks.
“Net, net, the states may be opening back up, but the labor market is still closed for millions across America and the loss of the income and spending of those without jobs will be a considerable headwind for this economic recovery,” said Chris Rupkey, chief financial economist at MUFG Union Bank.
At the state level, the biggest drop came in Georgia, which saw a decline of 66,224 from a week earlier, according to data not adjusted for seasonal factors. The biggest gain was in California, which saw an increase of 33,448.
Though the total national numbers are on the decline, the unemployment numbers remain staggering and well beyond anything the U.S. has seen before. Along with the 25 million unemployed as indicated by the continuing claims, there are another 2.23 million claims under the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program and 167,727 under the Pandemic Emergency Unemployment program.
The programs provide funding for states to pay up to 39 weeks of unemployment benefits for workers who either aren’t eligible for standard benefits or have exhausted their regular compensation.
The World Health Organization reported 106,000 new coronavirus cases over the course of Tuesday — the most global cases to be reported in a single day.
The grim tally is a reminder that as wealthy nations begin to climb out of their outbreaks, the pandemic continues to rage in poorer countries — an especially concerning progression to world health leaders.
“We still have a long way to go in this pandemic,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a news conference Wednesday. “We are very concerned about rising cases in low- and middle-income countries.”
The massive daily spike comes as the number of worldwide coronavirus cases approaches 5 million and as the WHO continues to face mounting criticism from the Trump administration over its handling of the pandemic.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health OrganizationSalvatore Di Nolfi/Keystone via AP, file
President Trump penned a letter to the WHO this week threatening to withdraw from the organization and permanently withhold funding if it doesn’t commit to reforms in the next 30 days. Trump has claimed the WHO mishandled the virus because it has been beholden to China, where the outbreak began.
Tedros acknowledged he received the letter and was “looking into it,” declining to elaborate further.
He said the WHO has long been seeking new funding sources but that it pledges to conduct a review of its response to the pandemic. He did not say when that review would begin.
“I said it time and time again that WHO calls for accountability more than anyone. It has to be done and when it’s done, it has to be a comprehensive one,” Tedros said of the review.
But Tedros went on to defend the WHO’s operations, calling its $2.3 billion budget “very, very small” for a global organization and about the same as a medium-size hospital in a developed country.
Dr. Mike Ryan, the WHO’s chief of emergencies, said he preferred to wait to reflect when the pandemic subsided.
“I for one would prefer, right now, to get on with doing the job of an emergency response, of epidemic control, of developing and distributing vaccines, of improving our surveillance, of saving lives and distributing essential PPE to workers and finding medical oxygen for people in fragile settings, reducing the impact of this disease on refugees and migrants,” he said.
Ryan indirectly took a jab at Trump during the news conference when he advised that, outside of clinical trials, people should refrain from taking the anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine.
The president revealed earlier this week that he had been taking the drug for weeks to prevent coronavirus infection even as health experts questioned its efficacy.
“At this stage, [neither] hydroxychloroquine nor chloroquine have been as yet found to be effective in the treatment of COVID-19 nor in the prophylaxis against coming down with the disease,” Ryan said. “In fact, the opposite, in that warnings have been issued by many authorities regarding the potential side effects of the drug.”
The Illinois state House reportedly voted to remove a Republican lawmaker from a legislative session Wednesday after he refused to comply with a requirement for lawmakers to wear a mask during the special session.
The state House voted 81-27 to remove Rep. Darren Bailey after he refused to put a face mask on following the chamber voting to adopt the rule, NBC Chicago reported.
“I can not sit in there and be part of just a puppet game,” Bailey told reporters after he was removed from the session.
Gov. JB Pritzker (D) rebuked Bailey for not wearing a mask.
“The representative has shown a callous disregard for life, callous disregard for people’s health,” Pritzker reportedly said. “You just [ask] a doctor [to] tell you why people wear masks in the first place. It’s to protect others. So clearly, the representative has no interest in protecting others.”
The vote was bipartisan, with several House Republicans voting in favor of removing their colleague.
“We cannot ignore nor compromise the health and safety of every member in the General Assembly, their family members, and every one of our staffers who work tirelessly for us,” House Republican Leader Jim Durkin said, according to NBC Chicago.
Bailey told reporters outside the session he had also refused to take a coronavirus test, according to NBC Chicago. The outlet noted tests were not required, but lawmakers were reportedly asked to take a test.
Other Republican state lawmakers reportedly threatened not to wear masks, but later conceded that they would if the rule were adopted.
China threatened to take “necessary countermeasures” against the U.S. after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo congratulated Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, who was sworn in on Wednesday.
“On Pompeo’s congratulation to Tsai Ing-wen on her inauguration, we express strong indignation and condemnation. China will take necessary countermeasures, and the consequences will be borne by the U.S. side,” said Zhao Lijian, a spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry.
Tsai, who has vowed to not let Beijing “downgrade” Taiwan, secured a second term after a landslide win in January.
“Congratulations to Dr. Tsai Ing-wen on the commencement of your second-term as Taiwan’s President. Taiwan’s vibrant democracy is an inspiration to the region and the world. With President Tsai at the helm, our partnership with Taiwan will continue to flourish,” Pompeo tweeted Tuesday.
Congratulations to Dr. Tsai Ing-wen on the commencement of your second-term as Taiwanâs President. Taiwanâs vibrant democracy is an inspiration to the region and the world. With President Tsai at the helm, our partnership with Taiwan will continue to flourish.
In remarks read at her inauguration ceremony, Pompeo called Tsai’s “courage and vision” an “inspiration to the region and the world.”
“As we look toward the future, I am confident that with President Tsai at the helm, our partnership with Taiwan will continue to flourish,” Pompeo said.
Tsai has become an increasing challenge to China with the U.S.’s recent praise of the island state’s first female president and her refusal to accept Beijing’s “one country, two systems” policy. She has encouraged Taiwan’s independence and actively rejected China’s goal of unification.
In a statement Wednesday, China’s Ministry of National Defense called Taiwan “inalienable” and said that “the actions of the United States seriously violate the one-China principle.”
The one-China policy maintains that there is only one Chinese government, a policy the U.S. has recognized. The U.S.’s ties with China are formal, as opposed to its ties with Taiwan, which are unofficial.
Diplomatic relations between the U.S. and China have declined during the coronavirus pandemic, as President Donald Trump has blamed the Asian nation for the pandemic and accused Beijing of concealing the severity of its initial outbreak, which was in the city of Wuhan.
Support from Pompeo for Taiwan has increased tensions between the two superpowers. China views Taiwan as its territory even though it has long been a self-governed state.
Taiwan has gained recent global attention because of its quick and effective response to the coronavirus outbreak there. As early as December 31, the island began monitoring and screening incoming travelers, enacting mandatory quarantines and tracking citizens through their phones. Taiwan has not reported a new confirmed case in three weeks.
“They were unmasking anyone and everyone so that they could leak information to a press that was willing to take that illegal information to build a fake, phony narrative, to set up numerous people on the Trump team, not just General Flynn,” Rep. Devin Nunes (Calif.), the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, told Fox News last week.
Three people were shot Wednesday night in a popular and prominent shopping complex near Phoenix and the shooter was in custody, according to police in suburban Glendale.
Police responded to the Westgate Entertainment District around 7:25 p.m. after receiving multiple reports of a shooting in the area, according to Glendale police spokesperson Tiffany Ngalula.
Ngalula said that three people were shot with one in critical condition at a nearby hospital. The two other victims received non-life threatening injuries.
The shooting was no longer active when police arrived at the scene, Ngalula said.
The shooter, whom Ngalula did not identify, was found in the Westgate area. Ngalula said police “challenged” him and were able to safely take him into custody.
A video circulated on social media Wednesday night, appearing to show a man claiming to be the shooter. One of the videos showed the man with a semi-automatic rifle.
Police were aware of the video, Ngalula said.
State Sen. Martin Quezada tweeted that he witnessed a shooter in the area armed with an assault weapon.
“I just witnessed an armed terrorist with an AR-15 shoot up Westgate,” he wrote. “There are multiple victims.”
Numerous other videos showed store employees and guests sheltering in place.
“Our hearts and prayers are with the individuals and families impacted tonight, as well as the first responders and police officers who are on the scene,” Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey said via Twitter. “The state is here to continue to offer its full support to the victims and to the community.”
YAM Properties, a commercial real-estate company owned by GoDaddy founder Bob Parsons, bought the Westgate Entertainment District in 2018.
Amber Liptai, a spokeswoman for Parsons’ parent company BIG YAM, said in a statement that property management and security is working with the Glendale Police Department.
“We are deeply troubled by this incident and our thoughts and prayers go out to the victims and their families,” Liptai said. “Westgate will continue to work closely with the Glendale Police Department and in-house security to best ensure the safety of our customers, tenants and residents.”
Westgate opened in 2006 just ahead of the Arizona Cardinals’ first season playing in Glendale. The complex is next to State Farm Stadium, which has hosted two Super Bowls.
Sports are at the center of Westgate, which is adjacent to Gila River Arena, a NHL hockey and concert venue.
Westgate, with its signature fountains, features many restaurants, bars, shops and offices. It’s one of the area’s notable entertainment destinations and annually is filled with college football fans in town for the Fiesta Bowl.
New York faces enormous challenges in its attempts to implement one of the largest contact tracing schemes in the US, as the city prepares to reopen after nearly two months of coronavirus lockdown.
The New York governor, Andrew Cuomo, has said the state is recruiting an “army of people to trace each person who tested positive” for an “unprecedented, nation-leading contact tracing programme”. The New York city mayor, Bill de Blasio, announced a new test and trace corps, which he said would “lead the way in creating testing and tracing on a level we’ve never seen before in this city or this country”.
Contact tracing is considered to be a key pillar of safely lifting stay-at-home orders, and involves asking Covid-19 patients to recall everyone they have had close contact with while they may have been infectious, and asking those people to quarantine themselves to help prevent the virus from spreading. In countries such as South Korea and Germany, early contact tracing has been credited with successfully minimising outbreaks.
But as New York authorities roll out their plans to hire and train thousands of contact tracers, experts warn of the difficulties of pulling it off in thecity of 8.6 million in which the pandemic that has killed more than 20,000 people.
And De Blasio, who is hiring his own team of 5,000 contact tracers – separate from the 6,400 to 17,000 being recruited by New York state – is facing mounting questions over its organisation.
Dr Tom Frieden, the former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the former commissioner of the New York City health department, said: “There are enormous challenges in New York City – ranging from the extent of the outbreak here, which is still very large, to the mobility of population in metro areas.
“This is the biggest health emergency in more than a century and New York City has had a heartbreaking number of deaths.”
Frieden, who is now president and CEO of Resolve to Save Lives, which is working on the state’s contact tracing effort, said other challenges include population density, reliance on public transport, and the amount of travel into the city.
“All the things that we love about New York City … make it more susceptible and more challenging to do contact tracing.”
Large crowded housing, including in nursing homes, correctional facilities and homeless shelters, is also an issue, he said.
New York state said contact tracing was already under way, while New York City said it plans to have hired 1,000 tracers by 1 June. Neither city nor state have said how much their programmes will cost. Other US states developing tracing programmes include neighbouring New Jersey and Connecticut, as well as Massachusetts and California.
New York City said although previous experience in public health is preferred for tracers, new recruits will be supported and trained by experienced “disease detectives”. Tracers, they said, will do most of their work on the phone.
Frieden said contact tracing is “not an easy job” and requires an understanding of patient confidentiality, medical terms, principles of exposure, infection and symptoms as well as interpersonal skills and cultural sensitivity.
The mayor has come under fire for putting NYC Health and Hospitals (H+H), the city’s public healthcare system, in charge of contact tracing rather than the department of health and mental hygiene (DOHMH), which has historically done it – including for diseases like tuberculosis and HIV.
A group of New York politicians, including senator Gustavo Rivera, have called on De Blasio to reverse the decision. Such was the concern that the city council speaker, Corey Johnson, who said the plan “raises a lot of alarm bells”, held a hearing on Friday to investigate.
Frieden said the move was “a big mistake”. Adding: “Moving it to an agency that has no experience with it, no legal mandate to do it, no institutional memory of how to do it, will make something that’s very difficult even harder.”
Avery Cohen, a spokeswoman for the mayor, said it was done to “prioritise continuity, speed and the ability to break down bureaucratic barriers” by “housing testing, tracing and isolation under a single, streamlined entity”.
A contact tracer with Turkey’s health ministry, clad in protective gear, visits a home in Istanbul. It is expected that New York’s contact tracers will do most of their work on the phone. Photograph: Emrah Gürel/AP
New York state, which is working with the former New York mayor and businessman Michael Bloomberg and Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, has specified that every region must have at least 30 tracers for every 100,000 residents in order to reopen.
It said all tracer applicants will take an online introductory Covid-19 contact tracing course, devised by Johns Hopkins University and available free on Coursera, for which they will have to score at least 85.
The contact tracing process will begin in labs, which will report Covid-19 cases to contact tracers, who will then interview the positive patient to identify everyone they may have had contact with over the past two weeks. The tracer notifies and interviews each contact, tells them to quarantine for two weeks, and monitors them by text to see if they are showing symptoms.
Dr Kelly Henning, who leads Bloomberg Philanthropies’ public health programme, which is assisting in the hiring process, said the initial interview with the person who has tested positive is key.
“We recognise that it won’t be 100% [effective] but the goal is to get as many contacts identified and pulled into the system as quickly as possible to break those chains of transmission.”
And if people refuse to cooperate? Henning said with a good rapport, ongoing contact and education, she has found “compliance is very high”.
Dr Sung-il Cho, a professor of epidemiology at Seoul National University, who is on the consultation committees of Korea Centres for Disease Control and Prevention and Seoul city’s coronavirus responses, said: “In the Korean legal system, the police give great help tracking credit card usage, transportation paths, mobile communication signals and CCTV analysis, just as any criminal investigation.”
But in the US, digital tracing technology such as the initiative by Apple and Google has prompted data privacy fears. On Thursday, five Democrats introduced a bill to protect the health data of consumers using contact tracing technology.
Katharina Kopp, deputy director of the Center for Digital Democracy, said: “History has taught us that the deployment of technologies is often driven by forces that tend to risk privacy, undermine fairness and equity, and place our civil rights at risk.”
A woman displays her phone to doorman, to confirm using a mobile application to help contact-tracing at the entrance to the upmarket shopping mall Siam Paragon in Bangkok, Thailand, on Sunday. Photograph: Gemunu Amarasinghe/AP
At Friday’s hearing, Dr Mitch Katz, president and chief executive officer of Health and Hospitals, said they are working on an app, but that “we are absolutely committed that none of the data that is collected will be shared.”
When asked about quarantine enforcement, he said: “We believe that carrots are much better than sticks.”
Bloomberg has said the public health non-profit Vital Strategies, funded by Bloomberg Philanthropies, is developing three smartphone apps for New York state. But Henning said initially the focus would be on using human contact tracers and that all information would be kept “fully private”.
She said: “The idea of using humans is the tried and true public health strategy so we have confidence that that will be a successful model – assuming we have the right number of contact tracers and they’re well-trained and well-supervised.”
Amid record unemployment, there has been no shortage of applications. New York City said it had had more than 10,000 people apply and the state has had over 30,000.
The online course, which takes five hours to complete and is open to anyone, had 150,000 enrolments in its first week.
Student Shernidane Romelus applied to both the state and city to be a contact tracer. The 24-year-old is now waiting to hear back.
“It’s safe. It’s also a way to help, so I feel like it’s a good job for people to do at home and then still earning some money,” she said.
China threatened to take “necessary countermeasures” against the U.S. after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo congratulated Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, who was sworn in on Wednesday.
“On Pompeo’s congratulation to Tsai Ing-wen on her inauguration, we express strong indignation and condemnation. China will take necessary countermeasures, and the consequences will be borne by the U.S. side,” said Zhao Lijian, a spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry.
Tsai, who has vowed to not let Beijing “downgrade” Taiwan, secured a second term after a landslide win in January.
“Congratulations to Dr. Tsai Ing-wen on the commencement of your second-term as Taiwan’s President. Taiwan’s vibrant democracy is an inspiration to the region and the world. With President Tsai at the helm, our partnership with Taiwan will continue to flourish,” Pompeo tweeted Tuesday.
Congratulations to Dr. Tsai Ing-wen on the commencement of your second-term as Taiwanâs President. Taiwanâs vibrant democracy is an inspiration to the region and the world. With President Tsai at the helm, our partnership with Taiwan will continue to flourish.
In remarks read at her inauguration ceremony, Pompeo called Tsai’s “courage and vision” an “inspiration to the region and the world.”
“As we look toward the future, I am confident that with President Tsai at the helm, our partnership with Taiwan will continue to flourish,” Pompeo said.
Tsai has become an increasing challenge to China with the U.S.’s recent praise of the island state’s first female president and her refusal to accept Beijing’s “one country, two systems” policy. She has encouraged Taiwan’s independence and actively rejected China’s goal of unification.
In a statement Wednesday, China’s Ministry of National Defense called Taiwan “inalienable” and said that “the actions of the United States seriously violate the one-China principle.”
The one-China policy maintains that there is only one Chinese government, a policy the U.S. has recognized. The U.S.’s ties with China are formal, as opposed to its ties with Taiwan, which are unofficial.
Diplomatic relations between the U.S. and China have declined during the coronavirus pandemic, as President Donald Trump has blamed the Asian nation for the pandemic and accused Beijing of concealing the severity of its initial outbreak, which was in the city of Wuhan.
Support from Pompeo for Taiwan has increased tensions between the two superpowers. China views Taiwan as its territory even though it has long been a self-governed state.
Taiwan has gained recent global attention because of its quick and effective response to the coronavirus outbreak there. As early as December 31, the island began monitoring and screening incoming travelers, enacting mandatory quarantines and tracking citizens through their phones. Taiwan has not reported a new confirmed case in three weeks.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (left) talks to Vice President Pence as they wait for their lunch at Beth’s Burger Bar in Orlando, Fla., on May 20.
Chris O’Meara/AP
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Chris O’Meara/AP
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (left) talks to Vice President Pence as they wait for their lunch at Beth’s Burger Bar in Orlando, Fla., on May 20.
Chris O’Meara/AP
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is defending the firing of the state’s top data scientist tracking the coronavirus pandemic. Rebekah Jones was ousted from her position with the Department of Health on Monday. She says she was let go for refusing to manipulate data to support the state’s reopening.
When first asked about Jones’ dismissal, DeSantis on Monday called it a “nonissue.” He said he understood from an email she sent her supervisor that “she was tired and needed a break.”
In a statement later that day to The Miami Herald, DeSantis’ communications director, Helen Aguirre Ferré, said, “Rebekah Jones exhibited a repeated course of insubordination during her time with the department, including her unilateral decisions to modify the department’s COVID-19 dashboard without input or approval from the epidemiological team or her supervisors.”
In Orlando on Wednesday, where he was with Vice President Pence, DeSantis took up the charge of insubordination and attacked Jones’ claims that she created the state’s highly praised COVID-19 portal. “She is not the chief architect of our Web portal. That is another false statement, and what she was doing was she was putting data on the portal, which the scientists didn’t believe was valid data.”
Until her dismissal, Jones was the manager of the geographic information system team at Florida’s Department of Health. She helped create a data portal that for months has provided easily accessible and detailed information on COVID-19 cases broken down by ZIP code. The Florida COVID-19 dashboard has been praised by researchers in the state and by Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House’s coronavirus task force coordinator.
Last week, Jones notified public health researchers in an email that she’d been removed from the project. “As a word of caution,” she wrote, “I would not expect the new team to continue the same level of accessibility and transparency that I made central to the process during the first two months. After all, my commitment to both is largely (arguably entirely) the reason I am no longer managing it.”
After she was fired Monday, Jones told CBS12 News in West Palm Beach, Fla., that it was because she refused to “manually change data to drum up support for the plan to reopen.”
In Orlando on Wednesday, DeSantis said, “Our data is available. Our data is transparent. In fact, Dr. Birx has talked multiple times about how Florida has the absolute best data. So any insinuation otherwise is just typical partisan narrative trying to be spun.”
DeSantis says he has also learned since her firing that Jones faces criminal stalking charges. According to court documents, the charges stem from a relationship Jones had with another student that turned contentious while she pursued a doctorate at Florida State University. “I’ve asked the Department of Health to explain to me how someone would be allowed to be charged with that,” DeSantis said, “and continue on because this was many months ago.”
Jones’ removal from the project and her subsequent dismissal have raised questions among researchers about the impartiality and transparency of Florida’s COVID-19 dashboard.
Ben Sawyer, director of LabX at the University of Central Florida, which is investigating how local health systems are coping with COVID-19 cases, said her ouster is “quite disturbing to me as a scientist and as a citizen.”
“Regardless of what you think about reopening Florida, you would like to know what’s going on,” Sawyer said. “This data is our ability to see what’s happening. I think there are enormous questions that arise when you don’t know if what you see [is] fair or accurate.”
Jones’ dismissal has also drawn criticism from Democrats. Congresswoman Kathy Castor, who represents the Tampa area, is asking the governor to provide immediate answers as to why Jones was fired.
“Amidst pressure to ‘reopen’ the state regardless of data and science,” Castor wrote, “transparency is vital to keeping our neighbors safe and ensuring that they have confidence that our government is reporting honestly.”
State Senator José Javier Rodríguez from Miami is calling for an investigation by Florida’s chief inspector general. “Floridians must have confidence that critical public health information produced and published on behalf of the state is accurate, complete and reliable. It is especially important during this period of economic reopening that decision-makers in the private and public sector — whether they be leaders of institutions, employers or parents — have access to accurate information as they make decisions impacting the lives and livelihoods of our families and communities.”
Later in the day, the State Department announced that it had approved the sale of advanced torpedoes to the Taiwanese military, a move sure to draw a rebuke from Beijing, which regards the island as a renegade province. The department said it had informed Congress of the $180 million sale of heavy-weight torpedoes, spare parts, support and testing equipment, which “will help improve the security of (Taiwan) and assist in maintaining political stability, military balance, and economic progress in the region.”
While pushing back on China, Trump has sometimes uttered contradictory statements. He has talked about having a great personal relationship with Chinese President Xi Jinping, yet has repeatedly denounced China for not doing more to stop the virus from spreading across the world. He’ll criticize China, then say he wants Beijing to sign Phase II of a trade deal and join the United States and Russia in a three-way nuclear arms control treaty.
Late Wednesday, Trump wrote on Twitter that China’s “massive disinformation campaign” is intended to help Joe Biden win the 2020 presidential election.
In the past 20 years, the U.S. believed that if it opened its markets wider, invested more money in China, and provided greater access to top U.S. technology and training for Chinese military officers that somehow this would cause China to liberalize, the official said.
Instead, China is more authoritarian than at any time since Beijing killed anti-government protesters on Tiananmen Square in 1989, and the Chinese Communist Party is increasingly asserting its political ideas across the globe.
The U.S. and China established diplomatic relations during the Nixon administration.
“More than 40 years later, it has become evident that this approach underestimated the will of the Chinese Communist Party to constrain the scope of economic and political reform in China,” the report said. “Over the past two decades, reforms have slowed, stalled, or reversed.”
According to the report, the Trump administration sees “no value” in engaging with Beijing for symbolism and pageantry. “When quiet diplomacy proves futile, the United States will increase public pressure” on China.
The latest example of U.S. and China power competition is playing out at the World Health Organization. At the U.N. health agency’s annual assembly this week, Xi joined by video conference to offer more money and support. Meanwhile, Trump railed against the WHO in a letter accusing it of covering up the coronavirus outbreak with China — and threatening to permanently halt U.S. funding that has been its main financial lifeblood for years.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has always warned that “it may be possible” to become infected with coronavirus by touching contaminated surfaces or objects.
It just “does not spread easily” in that manner, the agency now says, nor by animal-to-human contact, or vice versa.
“COVID-19 is a new disease and we are still learning about how it spreads,” says the CDC’s recently updated guidelines. “It may be possible for COVID-19 to spread in other ways, but these are not thought to be the main ways the virus spreads.”
Dr. John Whyte, chief medical officer for the healthcare website WebMD, told Fox News that the CDC’s slight update brings clarity and helps to reduce fears.
“Many people were concerned that by simply touching an object they may get coronavirus and that’s simply not the case. Even when a virus may stay on a surface, it doesn’t mean that it’s actually infectious,” Whyte was quoted.
“I think this new guideline helps people understand more about what does and doesn’t increase risk. It doesn’t mean we stop washing hands and disinfecting surfaces. But it does allow us to be practical and realistic as we try to return to a sense of normalcy,” he said.
The CDC still warns that the main way the virus is spread is through person-to-person contact, even among those who are not showing any symptoms.
The main way to prevent infection, the CDC says, is by practicing social distancing and staying at least 6 feet away from others, washing your hands with soap and water, and cleaning and disinfecting frequently-touched areas.
It can live up to four hours on copper, up to 24 hours on cardboard and up to 2-3 days on plastic and stainless steel, according to the study.
The CDC, however, has said that catching the coronavirus from boxes delivered by Amazon or on your takeout food bag is highly unlikely “because of poor survivability of these coronaviruses on surfaces.”
Contributing: N’dea Yancey-Bragg and David Oliver, USA TODAY
With a minor heatwave expected to hit the area over the long Memorial Day Weekend, L.A. County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer sought to remind residents that restrictions are still in place.
“We’re gonna approach a holiday weekend, and I want to encourage everyone to take some time and celebrate safely,” said Dr. Ferrer. “Many of our beautiful outdoor spaces are open, and we can enjoy them while we practice physical distancing. We can also enjoy our beautiful weather in our own neighborhoods and our own backyards.”
“I want to remind folks that gatherings and events of any kind are nor permitted,” said the director. “Unfortunately, there have been recent parties and gatherings that did result in a number of newly infected people.”
“Being together from a distance is currently our new normal,” she emphasized.
Following Ferrer’s remarks, the County Public Health Department tweeted an update that included the following caution:
“While many outdoor spaces are open, public and private gatherings of any number of people outside of a single household unit are not permitted. Everyone must continue to follow distancing and infection control protocols.”
This comes a day after Malibu residents reported large-scale violations of county-imposed beach restrictions over the weekend.
“Seventy to ninety percent” of those on Zuma Beach did not have masks, Malibu-based journalist and KBUU radio station manager Hans Laetz reported. Local beach gates were “pried open,” parking nightmares abounded and people threw loud parties at night to watch bioluminescence in the waves.
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