COVID-19 News from Around the Web

The United States topped 1 million confirmed cases of coronavirus Tuesday – nearly a third of the world's cases – as health authorities here and around the globe try to understand the full scope of who is at risk and who has been infected. Reaching seven figures – 1,002,498 to be exact – is the latest milestone for the U.S., which has topped 57,000 deaths during the pandemic, according to the Johns Hopkins University dashboard.

President Donald Trump on Tuesday plans to order meat processing plants concerned about coronavirus outbreaks to stay open to protect the food supply in the United States, drawing a backlash from unions who said at-risk workers required more protection. With concerns about food shortages and supply chain disruptions, Trump is expected to sign an executive order using the Defense Production Act to mandate that the plants continue to function, a senior administration official said. … The world’s biggest meat companies, including Smithfield Foods Inc, Cargill Inc, JBS USA and Tyson Foods, have halted operations at about 20 slaughterhouses and processing plants in North America as workers fall ill, stoking global fears of a meat shortage.

U.S. cases of the novel coronavirus were approaching 1 million on Tuesday, having doubled in 18 days, and made up one-third of all infections in the world. More than 56,000 Americans have died of the highly contagious respiratory illness COVID-19 caused by the virus, an average of about 2,000 a day this month. The actual number of cases is thought to be higher. About 30% of the cases have occurred in New York state, the epicenter of the U.S. outbreak, followed by New Jersey, Massachusetts, California and Pennsylvania. Globally, coronavirus cases top 3 million since the outbreak began in China late last year.

Across the country, an ever-changing patchwork of loosening stay-home orders and business restrictions took shape Monday. Construction workers are being allowed back on the job in Vermont and other states. The much anticipated return to normalcy in Ohio will happen slowly, with the reopening of many health care offices on Friday. Retail stores will need to wait two weeks before they can open, the governor said Monday. He also imposed a strict mask requirement.

The Trump administration on Monday unveiled a “blueprint” to increase capacity for coronavirus tests nationwide, the latest step in the White House’s effort to help states gradually roll back dramatic lockdown measures. While the blueprint itself contains few specifics, a number of private companies, including CVS and Walgreens, pledged to work with the federal government to quickly add capacity to conduct millions of tests per month. Top Trump health aides pledged at Monday’s White House briefing that the new effort would create capacity to conduct as many as 2 million tests per week by the end of May. The 2-million-tests-per-week pledge would represent a dramatic testing capacity increase for the U.S., where roughly 5.4 million coronavirus tests have been conducted to date. Yet it also represents the low end of what many public health officials estimate the country will require to safely reopen.

The number of confirmed U.S. infections is approaching 1 million, with at least 54,000 reported deaths. Nearly 3 million confirmed cases and more than 200,000 deaths have been reported worldwide.

Nations and U.S. states have begun easing coronavirus lockdowns, each pursuing their own approach but all with a common goal: restarting their economies without triggering a new surge of infections. Restrictions are being lifted in a piecemeal fashion with no clear signs of coordination among countries. Some have restarted construction work, while others never shut down building sites in the first place. Hair salons and restaurants were reopening in some U.S. states, while elsewhere such steps are still weeks away. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was back at work Monday after a bout with the virus that by his own account nearly cost the 55-year-old leader his life. His government was resisting the trend toward reopening. Johnson said Britain was starting to “turn the tide” on the outbreak but added “it is also the moment of maximum risk” because easing the lockdown that now lasts until May 7 could produce a second spike in infections. “I refuse to throw away all the effort and the sacrifice of the British people and to risk a second major outbreak and huge loss of life and the overwhelming of the NHS (National Health Service),” he said. “I ask you to contain your impatience.” Technology is likely to play an important role in helping countries ease their restrictions, although the use of such apps is raising privacy concerns. In Australia, which has seen a particularly low number of COVID-19 deaths, Chief Health Officer Damian Murphy said Monday he was “really excited” by the early popularity of an app designed to accelerate contact tracing for coronavirus. Within 12 hours of the Australian-developed COVIDsafe app becoming available, 1.13 million of Australia’s 26 million people had downloaded it onto their smartphones, despite some privacy concerns. The government says at least 40% of Australia’s population needs to use the technology based on Singapore’s TraceTogether app for it to be effective. Authorities hope the app will help Australia safely reopen the economy by enabling health officials to quickly identify and contain new outbreaks.

New Zealand's Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says that the island nation has defeated — for the present — the coronavirus as her government announced the lifting of most restrictions imposed to halt the spread of COVID-19. "There is no widespread undetected community transmission in New Zealand. We have won that battle," Ardern said Monday. "But we must remain vigilant if we are to keep it that way." Asked if New Zealand had eliminated COVID-19, Ardern replied: "currently." Coronavirus in New Zealand has been trending down since April 5, when 89 confirmed cases were announced. On Sunday, there were no new cases announced for the first time in weeks, but another five were reported on Monday. A total of 19 people have died in New Zealand from COVID-19. The country's director-general of health, Ashley Bloomfield, said the small number of new cases in recent days "does give us confidence that we have achieved our goal of elimination." Bloomfield and Ardern said that declaring the virus eliminated did not mean there would be no new cases, but that the numbers would be manageable with the help of aggressive contact tracing, which the prime minister said had been scaled up "significantly" with the capacity to make up to 10,000 calls per day. Ardern's remarks came as New Zealand, a country of just 5 million people, downgraded its COVID-19 alert to level 3 — meaning most, but not all, businesses are being allowed to reopen. Businesses and professions that require face-to-face contact, such as hairdressers, sales people, masseuses and public gyms will remain closed until the alert level is reduced another notch, Ardern said. "Your business must be contact-less. Your customers can pay online, over the phone or in a contact-less way," she said. "Delivery or pick-up must also be contact-less." Exceptions include supermarkets, dairies, gas stations, pharmacies or other permitted health services, according to the New Zealand Herald.

Nearly two million Australians rushed to download an app designed to help medical workers and state governments trace close contacts of COVID-19 patients, as Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s approval rating soared on his pandemic response. Australia has been one of the most successful countries in fighting the coronavirus pandemic, recording just 83 deaths and 6,700 cases, because of border closures, movement restrictions and a stay-at-home policy. It has lowered the daily infection growth rate to less than 1%, down from the 25% seen in March. Some Australian states have begun easing social distancing restrictions and Australia will soon begin testing people regardless of symptoms, firstly focusing on young adults and health workers. Health Minister Greg Hunt said 1.89 million Australians have downloaded the tracing app CovidSafe as of 1600 (0600 GMT) on Monday, more than 7% of the country’s population. The near 2 million downloads came within 16 hours of the app’s launch. “This effort will help protect ourselves, our families, our nurses and our doctors,” Hunt Tweeted.

The World Health Organization has pushed back against the theory that individuals can only catch the coronavirus once, as well as proposals for reopening society that are based on this supposed immunity. In a scientific brief dated Friday, the United Nations agency said the idea that one-time infection can lead to immunity remains unproven and is thus unreliable as a foundation for the next phase of the world's response to the pandemic. "Some governments have suggested that the detection of antibodies to the SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, could serve as the basis for an 'immunity passport' or 'risk-free certificate' that would enable individuals to travel or to return to work assuming that they are protected against re-infection," the WHO wrote. "There is currently no evidence that people who have recovered from COVID-19 and have antibodies are protected from a second infection."

The parent company of Lysol and another disinfectant warned Friday that its products should not be used as an internal treatment for the coronavirus after President Donald Trump wondered about the prospect during a White House briefing. Trump noted Thursday that researchers were looking at the effects of disinfectants on the virus and wondered aloud if they could be injected into people, saying the virus “does a tremendous number on the lungs, so it would be interesting to check that.” That prompted a strong warning from the maker of disinfectants Lysol and Dettol, which said it was issuing a statement to combat “recent speculation.”

The House passed a nearly $500 billion interim coronavirus bill on Thursday that includes additional money for the small-business loan program, as well as for hospitals and testing, making way for the legislation to become law by the end of the week. The bill passed by a 388-5-1 bipartisan vote. … The bill includes more than $320 billion for the Paycheck Protection Program created by the CARES Act, which was passed late last month.

New York's first survey of coronavirus antibodies shows that 13.9% of those tested in the state had coronavirus antibodies in their system, meaning they have contracted and recovered from the virus, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said Thursday. That suggests that 2.7 million people have been infected statewide. The survey was taken from a sample size of about 3,000 people found outside their homes, shopping at essential businesses, such as grocery stores, which remain open. Results show antibodies in 12% of women and 15.9% of men, but a disproportionate rate of antibodies in black and Latino New Yorkers.

A new study of people in the New York City area who have been hospitalized with COVID-19 reveals that most of them have more than one underlying illness, some of which seem to increase their risk for bad outcomes. In the new study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), researchers wanted to learn more about people who are hospitalized after contracting the novel coronavirus. They looked at electronic health records data from 5,700 people with COVID-19 who had been admitted to hospitals within the Northwell Health system—which currently has the largest number of COVID-19 cases in the country—in the New York City area in March and early April. The median age of patients was 63 years old, and 94% of them had at least one comorbidity, meaning that they had at least one other disease in addition to COVID-19. The most common were hypertension (affecting about 53% of all COVID-19 patients), obesity (affecting about 42% of patients with BMI data) and diabetes (affecting about 32% of all patients).

For the fifth week in a row, millions of American workers applied for unemployment benefits, seeking financial relief as businesses remained closed during the coronavirus pandemic. First-time claims for unemployment benefits totaled 4.4 million in the week ending April 18, after factoring in seasonal adjustments, the US Department of Labor said. Without those adjustments — which economists use to account for seasonal hiring fluctuations — the raw number was 4.2 million. No matter how you look at the data, the last five weeks have marked the most sudden surge in jobless claims since the Department of Labor started tracking the data in 1967. American workers filed 26.5 million initial claims since March 14, according to the seasonally adjusted numbers.

By the end of the week, residents in Georgia will be able to get their hair permed and nails done. By Monday, they will be cleared for action flicks at the cineplex and burgers at their favorite greasy spoon. And it will almost certainly lead to more novel coronavirus infections and deaths. As several states — including South Carolina, Tennessee and Florida — rush to reopen businesses, the sudden relaxation of restrictions will supply new targets for the coronavirus that has kept the United States largely closed down, according to experts, math models and the basic rules that govern infectious diseases. “The math is unfortunately pretty simple. It’s not a matter of whether infections will increase but by how much,” said Jeffrey Shaman, a leading epidemiologist at Columbia University.