Twenty-four hours after New York and the entire U.S. saw the deadliest day yet from the coronavirus, government and public health officials warned not to let up on social distancing even as the measures were working to prevent new cases.
Meanwhile, the head of the World Health Organization brushed off criticism from President Donald Trump, who accused the group of being “China centric” and misstepping in its response to the pandemic.
In New York, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said social distancing was “flattening the curve,” but he stressed Wednesday: “If we stop what we are doing you will see that curve change. That curve is purely a function of what we do day in and day out.”
Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus response coordinator, said California and Washington’s curves have been “persistently flat and that’s very encouraging.” But also she warned against ending social distancing practices too early.
“If people start going out again and socially interacting, we could see a very acute second wave very early,” Birx said in an interview with the “TODAY” show.
The U.S. had surpassed 432,000 confirmed cases and 14,800 deaths early Thursday, according to the Johns Hopkins University data dashboard. Worldwide, there nearly 1.5 million confirmed cases and more than 88,500 deaths.
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Ousted Navy secretary Thomas Modly’s trip to Guam cost $243,000
Any way you slice it, Thomas Modly’s trip to Guam last weekend came at an enormous price.
The then-acting Navy secretary’s journey to address sailors aboard the coronavirus-stricken USS Theodore Roosevelt cost taxpayers more than $243,000 for the 35-hour round trip on a Gulfstream 550, according to a Navy official.
Modly was forced out Tuesday after word spread about his profanity-laced speech to the sailors, during which he branded the fired captain of the aircraft carrier as “too naive or too stupid” to helm the ship because of how he sought aid. Modly is now in quarantine for visiting the Roosevelt.
Modly flew aboard a business jet modified for military use at a cost of $6,946.19 per hour, according to the Navy official who was not authorized to speak publicly. Flight time for the Guam trip was about 35 hours for a cost of $243,116.65.
– Tom Vanden Brook
Tuesday was nation’s deadliest coronavirus day: Nearly 2,000 deaths
Nearly 2,000 people died Tuesday because of complications from COVID-19, according to data from Johns Hopkins University, the World Health Organization and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
A USA TODAY tracker of new coronavirus-related deaths in the United States by day showed at least 1,939 deaths Tuesday. The grim number came as New York City’s death count surpassed the 9/11 death toll.
90% of federal protective equipment stockpile depleted, new documents show
According to new documents released Wednesday by the House Oversight Committee, 90% of the federal personal protective equipment stockpile had been depleted as the Health and Human Services Department made its “final shipments” of N95 respirators, surgical and face masks, face shields, gowns, and gloves.
The remaining 10%, HHS said, would be reserved for federal workers and would not be sent to the states.
The documents, which report the distribution of personal protective equipment to state and local governments, show that only 11.7 million N95 respirator masks have been distributed across the nation, and only 7,920 ventilators have been distributed — both small fractions of the estimated amount of protective equipment needed by frontline medical workers.
The Committee also said the private sector was determining how supplies were allocated, rather than the federal government.
“The federal government is not taking control of the supplies flown into the United States in ‘Project Airbridge’ or directing private sector suppliers to send supplies to particular hospitals with urgent needs,” the Committee said.
– Nicholas Wu
More than 50,000 Americans flown home after coronavirus outbreak
The government has flown more than 50,000 Americans home in a massive effort to evacuate citizens from countries around the world after the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Wednesday.
The massive airlift, which began Jan. 29, involved 490 flights in coordination with foreign governments, militaries, airport authorities and others, Pompeo revealed at the daily White House press briefing on the coronavirus crisis.
The update comes after an outcry in Congress last month the effort was unfolding too slowly, with Americans left stranded in Peru, Morocco, the Philippines and other nations.
Most COVID-19 patients put on ventilators will not survive
While governors, mayors and hospital officials conduct much-publicized life-and-death struggles to acquire ventilators, for most COVID-19 patients the oxygen-providing apparatus will merely serve as a bridge from life to death.
Dennis Carroll, who led the U.S. Agency for International Development’s infectious disease unit for more than a decade, told USA TODAY perhaps one-third of COVID-19 patients on ventilators survive.
But, for many, ventilators represent their last chance.
“If you were one of the one-third, I suspect you’d be very appreciative that that capability was available,” Carroll said.
Some patients may be on a ventilator for only a few hours or days, but experts say COVID-19 patients often remain on the ventilators for 10 days or more.
– John Bacon
Social distancing disrupts Passover
The matzo, bitter herbs, blessings and storytelling will still be part of Seders this year, but a major element of the traditional Passover dinner will be missing – extended families getting together.
As with so many disruptions in these troubled times, the coronavirus is to blame.
The pandemic that has killed more than 86,000 people worldwide and nearly 14,000 in the U.S. has prompted religious leaders to advise against the large family-and-friend gatherings that are such a major part of Passover. The Jewish holiday, which commemorates the exodus from slavery in Egypt more than 3,000 years ago, begins Wednesday at sundown.
“We made an unequivocal statement to stay at home. Do not travel. Do not go to your neighbor. Don’t go to your brother,” Rabbi Aaron Kotler, president of Yeshiva Beth Medrash Govoha in Lakewood, New Jersey, told the Asbury Park Press. “We know, for the last 20 years, you’ve been observing Passover as a family. But do not leave your home for the Passover holiday.”
New York state, with an estimated Jewish population of 1.75 million, has by far the most cases of coronavirus in the U.S. at 140,000-plus. New Jersey ranks second with more than 44,000. Its Jewish population is estimated at more than 500,000.
More coronavirus news and information from USA TODAY
WHO chief brushes off Donald Trump: ‘Please quarantine politicizing COVID’
World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said he wouldn’t play politics after President Donald Trump sharply criticized the group, saying it made mistakes in handling the coronavirus outbreak.
“Why would I care about being attacked when people are dying?” Tedros said while also warning that politicizing the pandemic could be dangerous. “If you don’t want many more body bags, then you refrain from politicizing it.”
At a press briefing and on Twitter on Tuesday, Trump complained that the U.S. gave large sums of money to fund the global health group but that it was “China-centric.” He said the U.S. would hold off on funding the WHO.
“They called it wrong. They missed the call,” Trump said at the press briefing.
Tedros said the agency was made up of humans “who make mistakes” but advised “please quarantine politicizing COVID.”
US testing too limited to know when normalcy will return, expert says
It took nearly 11 weeks for Wuhan, the Chinese city at the heart of the coronavirus outbreak, to return to a semblance of normalcy. When that might happen in the U.S. remains a mystery because of the testing shortage.
That assessment comes from Harvard epidemiologist Marc Lipsitch, who told the USA TODAY Editorial Board that when officials ease social distancing measures – allowing students return to school and workers to their jobs – the U.S. may see a second wave of cases.
“If we relax restrictions … there’s every reason to expect a resurgence of cases and we’re back in the same problem,” Lipsitch said.
Lipsitch, an expert in public health interventions, said he believes a large portion of the population must be immune to the virus either through infection or vaccinations before the country can be “reopened.”
– Adrianna Rodriguez
Thousands in Louisiana infected by untested patients with symptoms
Coronavirus spread to thousands of Louisiana residents from sick patients who showed symptoms in early March, while their infections went unreported because of too few tests and limits on who got them, state health department data show.
When Louisiana reported its first confirmed case of COVID-19 in New Orleans on March 9, more than 200 people who would later be confirmed to have the disease were already showing symptoms, the state health data shows.
As the state’s reported caseload grew to 2,747 patients by March 27, more than 13,250 people were actually infected with the virus and showing symptoms, based on case studies reported to the state health department.
The new information offers the first definitive look at how quickly the virus spread in Louisiana and the impact limited testing had on quantifying and containing the virus’ spread. Louisiana has the fifth-largest total of coronavirus cases in the nation, with more than 17,000, despite ranking 25th in population (4.6 million).
– Andrew Capps, Lafayette Daily Advertiser
Stocks surge after Bernie Sanders’ departure from Democratic race
Stocks rose after Sen. Bernie Sanders dropped out of the U.S. presidential race, adding to early gains as hopes grew the number of new coronavirus cases were beginning to fall.
The Dow Jones industrial Average climbed 779.71 points to close at 23,433.57, a day after it suffered its worst intraday reversal since 2008. The Standard & Poor’s 500 rose 3.4% to end at 2,749.98, driven by gains in beaten-down energy, real estate and utility shares. The broad index has jumped nearly 23% since it hit a low 2 1/2 weeks ago.
A strong showing by former Vice President Joe Biden in the Democratic primaries buoyed investors who view him as a more business-friendly alternative to Sanders, a strong critic of Wall Street.
– Jessica Menton
Donald Trump wants GM to ramp up production of ventilators amid crisis
The Trump administration Wednesday directed General Motors to deliver 30,000 ventilators by August, using the federal government’s vast wartime powers amid the coronavirus pandemic.
The order, announced by the Department of Health and Human Services, will require the Detroit automaker to build more than 6,000 ventilators by June as governors in some states say they are woefully short of the lifesaving units and unable to buy more.
It’s the first time the administration has invoked the Korean War-era Defense Production Act as lawmakers in both parties had been pushing it to do. The GM order follows combative remarks from the president in which he accused GM of reneging on an initial voluntary agreement.
GM spokesman Jim Cain said the company is working “with speed and urgency” to build the units.
– John Fritze and Phoebe Wall Howard
Disney is considering temperature checks at parks upon reopening
Bob Iger, the Disney Chairman and former CEO, described possible new measures Disney parks could take when reopening to return to “some semblance of normal.”
In an interview with Barron’s, Iger said park visitors will have to feel safe, and he suggested temperature checks may be part of Disney’s plan.
“Some of that could come in the form ultimately of a vaccine, but in the absence of that it could come from basically, more scrutiny, more restrictions,” he said. “Just as we now do bag checks for everybody that goes into our parks, it could be that at some point we add a component of that that takes people’s temperatures, as a for-instance.”
Walt Disney World and Disneyland temporarily shut down in March.
Coronavirus in Florida: Sunshine State travelers with coronavirus visited 46 U.S. states, 75 foreign destinations before diagnosis
– Sara M. Moniuszko
What could be in next coronavirus emergency aid package?
Americans have yet to receive their $1,200 stimulus checks from the federal government, but another round of cash payments could be coming their way.
Talks are under way between the Trump administration and Congress on another recovery package to blunt the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic. A second round of cash payments to Americans is part of the discussions.
Among the other provisions that might be included in the next stimulus bill: hazard pay for health workers, infrastructure spending, mail-in and absentee voting.
– Michael Collins and Christal Hayes
British PM Boris Johnson remains in ICU but ‘responding to treatment’
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is “responding to treatment” after he spent a second night in intensive care with COVID-19, his office said Wednesday.
Johnson, 55, is being cared for in St Thomas’ Hospital in central London, where he is in stable condition and remains in “good spirits,” Downing Street said in a statement.
Chancellor Rishi Sunak said Johnson was sitting up in bed and “engaging positively” with the hospital staff.
The prime minister’s spokesman, James Slack, said Johnson is continuing to receive “standard oxygen treatment” and is breathing without a ventilator or other assistance. Slack said Tuesday that the prime minister does not have pneumonia.
– Kim Hjelmgaard
Coronavirus news from USA TODAY
Contributing: The Associated Press.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Coronavirus update: Thomas Modly; Andrew Cuomo, New York, WHO chief