COVID-19 News from Around the Web

Legislation to provide direct financial checks to many Americans, expand unemployment insurance, offer health-care providers additional resources. Negotiators strike deal on massive coronavirus rescue package. The announcement, which came around 1 a.m., capped five days of tense, marathon talks between senators and the White House. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell vowed that the Senate will pass the bill later Wednesday, while House leaders are eyeing an expedited process to get the massive emergency package to President Donald Trump’s desk for signature before the end of the week. Sticking points included everything from the structure of loans to the airline industry to details about an enhanced fund for state and local governments. Democrats said they won in the negotiations was an agreement that the pot of money will be overseen by an inspector general and a congressional panel. They also secured $150 billion for a state and local fund, $130 billion for hospitals, and beefed up unemployment insurance that will give Americans four months-worth of their income if they are furloughed or lose their job due to the coronavirus crisis. The version of the massive rescue package that was initially unveiled by the GOP provides direct payments to qualified individuals and families with checks of up to $1,200 and $2,400, based on income, and allocates $367 billion in federally guaranteed loans for small businesses. Stocks soared as trading closed Tuesday afternoon, with the Dow Jones Industrial average surging more than 2,000 points, as investors eyed an imminent deal.

"I want America to understand this week it's going to get bad," U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams said Monday morning, speaking about the COVID-19 pandemic and efforts to stop the coronavirus from infecting more people in the U.S. Adams also urged people to stay home to prevent the respiratory virus from spreading — and he said too many people in New York and other states are ignoring guidance to observe social distancing and avoid close contacts with others. Adams also noted that COVID-19 seems to be acting differently in the U.S. and other countries than it did in China, where it was detected in December. In an important shift, the virus seems to be affecting young people at higher rates. In New York, the epicenter of the disease in the U.S., Gov. Andrew Cuomo recently said that people who are between the ages of 18 and 49 represent 53% of the state's cases.

The World Health Organization warning the pandemic was still in a nascent stage with infections expected to increase “considerably.” Some 85% of new infections came from Europe and the United States, according to the WHO, with Spain registering a record daily increase of 6,584 new infections and a leap of 500 in the death toll to 2,696. A Japanese TV network reported that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe would propose postponing the upcoming Tokyo Olympics by a year because of the outbreak. In Geneva, WHO spokeswoman Margaret Harris cited a “glimmer of hope” in hard-hit Italy after two days of slight declines in the number of new cases and deaths, while cautioning it’s “early days yet” — and the trend needed to be monitored.

Three weeks after its first coronavirus infection was discovered, the New York City region reached an alarming milestone on Sunday: It now accounts for roughly 5 percent of the world’s confirmed cases, making it an epicenter of the pandemic and increasing pressure on officials to take more drastic measures. Moving to stem the crisis on multiple fronts, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York pleaded with federal officials to nationalize the manufacturing of medical supplies and ordered New York City to crack down on people congregating in public. He suggested some streets could be closed, allowing pedestrians more space.

State Department officials told reporters Monday that they are organizing 16 flights in the next few days, deploying an emergency fund to charter flights and discussing the use of Defense Department and Department of Homeland Security planes to transport stranded Americans, some 13,500 of whom have reached out for help getting home and are now being tracked by the department.

New York health officials plan to begin collecting plasma from people who have recovered and injecting the antibody-rich fluid into patients still fighting the virus. Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced the plans during a news briefing Monday. The treatment, known as convalescent plasma, dates back centuries and was used during the flu epidemic of 1918 — in an era before modern vaccines and antiviral drugs. Some experts say the treatment, although somewhat primitive, might be the best hope for combating the coronavirus until more sophisticated therapies can be developed, which could take several months.

Trump last week ratcheted up his rhetoric against China over the coronavirus, saying Beijing should have acted faster to warn the world after the disease outbreak there. He also dismissed criticism that his labeling it the “Chinese virus” was racist. On Monday, Trump tweeted: “It is very important that we totally protect our Asian American community in the United States, and all around the world. “They are amazing people, and the spreading of the Virus.... is NOT their fault in any way, shape, or form. They are working closely with us to get rid of it. WE WILL PREVAIL TOGETHER!”

A series of missteps at the nation’s top public health agency caused a critical shortage of reliable laboratory tests for the coronavirus, hobbling the federal response as the pandemic spread across the country like wildfire. In the critical month of February, as the virus began taking root in the U.S. population, CDC data shows government labs processed 352 COVID-19 tests — an average of only a dozen per day, an Associated Press review found. Outside observers and federal health officials have pointed to four primary issues that together hampered the national response — the early decision not to use the test adopted by the World Health Organization, flaws with the more complex test developed by the CDC, government guidelines restricting who could be tested and delays in engaging the private sector to ramp up testing capacity.

Nearly one in three Americans was under orders on Sunday to stay home to slow the spread of the coronavirus pandemic as Ohio, Louisiana and Delaware became the latest states to enact broad restrictions, along with the city of Philadelphia. The three states join New York, California, Illinois, Connecticut and New Jersey, home to 101 million Americans combined, as cases nationwide topped 32,000, with more than 415 dead, according to a Reuters tally. Dallas County in Texas, home to over 2.5 million people, and Philadelphia, with 1.6 million residents, told non-essential businesses on Sunday to close and residents to stay home.

Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky has tested positive for the novel coronavirus, becoming the first case of COVID-19 in the Senate and raising fears about the further transmission of the virus among Republicans at the Capitol. Paul, an eye surgeon, went into quarantine Sunday after learning his results. He said he has not had symptoms and was tested out of an abundance of caution due to his extensive travel and events. He said he was not aware of any direct contact with any infected person.

As Senate Republicans try to push through a $1.8 trillion coronavirus relief bill this week, they are doing so without a handful of votes in the closely divided chamber: Sens. Rand Paul, Mitt Romney and Mike Lee.

Facing a rapid increase in the number of confirmed coronavirus cases, Gov. Andrew Cuomo says New York state is ready for the Army Corps of Engineers to start building temporary hospitals in the state immediately. Cuomo said he had toured and formally approved four sites in the state, including the Javits Center in Manhattan and others in Westchester County and Long Island.

In a wide-ranging, digressive news conference Sunday evening, President Trump said he has activated the National Guard to assist New York, California and Washington, states that so far have been hit hardest by the rapidly spreading coronavirus. The Federal Emergency Management Agency will fund the deployment of the Guard, which Trump said will give states "maximum flexibility to use the Guard against the virus without having to worry about costs and liability. And [it frees] up state resources to protect the health and safety of the people in their state."

Drive-thru sites have been opening around the United States to make it quicker and safer to test people for the new coronavirus. But much like the rest of the U.S. response to the pandemic, the system has been marked by inconsistencies, delays, and shortages. Many people who have symptoms and a doctor’s order have waited hours or days for a test. More than a week after President Donald Trump promised that states and retail stores such as Walmart and CVS would open drive-thru test centers, few sites are up and running, and they’re not yet open to the general public. Some states are leaving it to the private sector to open test locations; others are coordinating the effort through state health departments. The slow ramp-up of the COVID-19 testing and the spotty nature now of the system makes it hard for public health officials to track the spread of the disease and bring it under control.

Health officials in New York, California and other hard-hit parts of the country are restricting coronavirus testing to health care workers and the severely ill, saying the battle to contain the virus is lost and the country is moving into a new phase of the pandemic response. As cases spike sharply in those places, they are bracing for an onslaught and directing scarce resources where they are needed most to save people’s lives. Instead of encouraging broad testing of the public, they’re focused on conserving masks, ventilators and intensive care beds — and on getting still-limited tests to health-care workers and the most vulnerable. The shift is further evidence that rising levels of infection and illness have begun to overwhelm the health care system.

The Food and Drug Administration late Friday approved the first coronavirus test that can be conducted entirely at the point of care for a patient — and deliver results in 45 minutes. The FDA granted “emergency use authorization” to Cepheid, a California company that makes a rapid molecular test for the coronavirus. The turnaround time for Cepheid’s product is far shorter than for the tests being used, which are typically sent to centralized labs that may not return results for days. The FDA authorization is for use in “patient care settings,” including doctors’ offices, but the test initially will be used primarily by hospitals and emergency departments, the company said.