E3: Coronavirus US live: Trump says he's signed order restricting immigration
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“Testing asymptomatics will be key,” Dr Bix added, in response to a question about whether California is right to expand testing efforts to everyone, not jsut those who show symptoms of Covid-19.
In California, one small town is trying to test every single resident this week, but for the infection and for antibodies against it. A similar program will soon begin in San Francisco’s Mission District.
Related: 'We hope to be a model': the California town testing every resident for coronavirus
“We’re building infrastructure and capacity ... to bring testing to scale,” Dr Birx said.
Trump interjected, “but without anything new, they have tremendous capability” for testing, undercutting the public health official’s point.
Fact check: Michelle Obama
Trump named Michelle Obama as one of the public figures who campaigned for Stacey Abrams, a Democrat and voting rights advocate, during her gubernatorial run against Georgia’s Brian Kemp. CNN’s Daniel Dale helps us out with this one:
Michelle Obama did not go to Georgia to campaign for Stacey Abrams. Trump has said this repeatedly. He keeps adding her to the list with Oprah and Barack Obama. It just didn't happen.
Fact check: Testing
“Not everybody believes as strongly on testing,” the president said.
Related: 'We hope to be a model': the California town testing every resident for coronavirus
Asked about Rick Bright, the vaccine expert who said he was ousted for questioning the effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine, Trump said he didn’t know Bright.
“Maybe he was, maybe he wasn’t,” Trump said. “I’ve never heard of him.”
Dr Anthony Fauci: “We will have coronavirus in the fall. I am convinced of that.”
Whether or not the outbreak in the fall will be “big or small is going to depend on our response ... Nobody can predict what’s going to happen with an outbreak.”
More on the immigration executive order:
The president said that he is establishing a new council to help black and Latino communities and other underserved communities access testing and care. The council will be headed by housing secretary Ben Carson.
Fact check: Employment
Before the crisis hit, Trump boasted that the US had the “best employment numbers ever, including for African Americans.”
“I just signed it before walking into the room,” Trump said.
The move has been expected. The president said yesterday that he would sign an order temporarily blocking green card applicants.
Trump said he will be holding a July 4 celebration in Washington, DC’s national mall, like last year.
“On July 4, we will be doing what we had at the Mall. As you know, we’re gonna be doing it. Last year was a tremendous success and I would imagine we’ll do it, hopefully, I can use the term ‘forever.’ That was a great success, as you remember,” he said.
Reopening “spas, beauty salons, barbershops, and tattoo parlors” is ill-advised., Trump said.
“I love ‘those people who use all of those things,” he added. “I love ‘em, but they can wait just a little bit longer. Because safety has to predominate.”
The president says he told Georgia governor Brian Kemp that he disagreed “very strongly” with the decision to reopen businesses in the state. “I think it’s too soon,” he says. Georgia has not yet met the requirements to enter “Phase 1” of the White House plan to reopen the country, Trump noted.
Trump and his public health officials seem to be saying two different things. Despite disagreement over the semantics of “difficult” versus “devastating”, Redfield and Dr Deborah Birx both noted that there is a potential for a second wave of coronavirus in the fall.
“We are assured that the CDC is putting in place today what we are going to need in the fall ... if the virus comes back,” Birx said. Redfield noted that it’s important to prepare for two viruses circulating in the fall.
The Washington Post’s headline, “CDC director warns second wave of coronavirus is likely to be even more devastating” was misleading because it should have said “difficult” rather than “devastating”, Redfield noted.
But “I’m accurately quoted in the Washington Post,” the director said.
The fall and winter could be “more difficult, more complicated”, with two respiratory illnesses – Covid-19 and the seasonal flu – circulating at the same time.
“I didn’t say that this was going to be worse,” Redfield said. “I said it was going to be more difficult and potentially complicated.” Distancing measures and other hygiene guides will keep the coronavirus at bay, he noted.
The president said that Robert Redfield, the CDC director, was “totally misquoted” saying that there would be a second wave of coronavirus in the autumn. The Post’s headline was “totally inaccurate”, Trump said. “As I say, it’s fake news.”
Trump has invited Redfield to explain.
Stay tuned for live coverage and fact-checking.
Trump has indeed been touting hydroxychloroquine quite a lot – to the point where a company that makes tonic water had wrote up an FAQ after “receiving increasing numbers of questions from consumers asking whether there is a similarity to the quinine we use in our tonic waters and hydroxychloroquine”.
Fever Tree has clarified:
Whilst hydroxychloroquine and quinine are both used in anti-malarial drugs, the quinine we use is naturally derived from the bark of the Cinchona tree. Hydroxychloroquine is a synthetically manufactured drug, used to treat malaria and developed based on the chemical structure of quinine.
My colleague David Smith in DC has more on Rick Bright, the vaccine expert who said he was ousted for his skepticism of hydroxychloroquine:
In a stunningly candid statement, Bright highlighted his refusal to embrace hydroxychloroquine, a malaria drug relentlessly promoted by the president and Fox News despite a lack of scientific studies.
Related: Top vaccine expert claims he was fired for resisting Trump on hydroxychloroquine
Donald Trump and conservative supporters have backed away from hyping the hydroxychloroquine as a potential cure for the coronavirus, The Guardian’s Kenya Evelyn reports:
Fox News staffers have also pivoted from promoting the anti-malarial drug.
Related: Trump stops hyping hydroxychloroquine after study shows no benefit
Hi here, it’s Maanvi Singh blogging from the West Coast.
The doctor who was of the federal agency overseeing research into a coronavirus vaccine said he was ousted from his post after he questioned the effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine, the anti-malarial drug that the president has often touted.
Mail-in ballots can still be delivered without a stamp, the Guardian’s Sam Levine reports:
Ballots without postage will still be delivered to local boards of elections, the United States Postal Service said in a statement Wednesday. “As required by federal law, appropriate postage must be affixed to all mailpieces entering into the US postal service mail stream. It is the postal service’s policy not to delay the delivery of completed absentee or vote-by-mail ballots even if no postage has been affixed or if the postage is insufficient,” Martha Johnson, a USPS spokeswoman said in a statement.
In a first step toward easing lockdown restrictions and reopening the economy, California hospitals will begin to schedule essential surgeries effective immediately, governor Gavin Newsom announced today.
California is not yet prepared to open wide swaths of society, he said, but the details on six key indicators for when and how communities will reopen – which include testing capacity and hospitalization data – are beginning to come into focus.
Two pet cats in New York state have tested positive for the coronavirus, marking the first cases in companion animals in the United States, the Department of Agriculture and the Centers for Disease Control announced Wednesday.
The cats, which had mild respiratory illnesses and are expected to fully recover, are believed to have contracted the virus from people in their households or neighborhoods, officials said. The tests on the felines did not come at the expense of humans as they are conducted veterinary labs using different chemicals.
Montana governor Steve Bullock announced the first phase of a staggered reopening for the state on Wednesday, lifting some of the restrictions that went into effect nearly a month ago.
Bullock said churches will be permitted to hold services on Sunday and restaurants, breweries, distilleries and bars can reopen beginning Monday as long as they practice social distancing. Local school districts will have the option to return to in-classroom teaching starting on 7 May, the governor added.
Starting this Sunday, the stay at home order will be lifted and we will begin PHASE ONE of our plan to reopen the Big Sky. pic.twitter.com/pJ0QqmFjhD
That’s it from me today. My colleagues, Bryan Graham and Maanvi Singh, will take over the blog for the next few hours.
Here’s where the day stands so far:
The Republican governor of Oklahoma, Kevin Stitt, has just announced that the state’s personal care businesses, including hair salons and barbershops, may start reopening on Friday.
Stitt said restaurants, churches and gyms could start reopening on May 1 as long as the establishments took proper precautions to limit the spread of coronavirus. Bars will not yet be allowed to reopen.
On the advice of our local public health experts, it is our intent to follow the spirit of the White House criteria for potentially entering a new phase after April 30th.
Carolyn Goodman, the independent mayor of Las Vegas, said she believed the city’s casinos, hotels and stadiums should quickly reopen in an interview that is already attracting widespread criticism.
“I want our restaurants open. I want our small businesses open. I want people back in employment,” Goodman told a clearly flabbergasted Anderson Cooper.
Las Vegas Mayor: " I'd love everything open because I think we've had viruses for years that have been here." (The financial duress is profound. It's so real. And yet this interview is totally insane.) pic.twitter.com/qSN6atlFiL
I have seen many Nevada officials stumble on national TV. But that was the single most embarrassing thing i have seen by a NV pol in 35 years here. The mayor just showed the country she is unfit for office, and the commentary and shock and disgust here bears that out. My God.
Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell said he would support letting states declare bankruptcy over the costs of the coronavirus response, as the Kentucky Republican expresses opposition to Congress allocating more funding to the states.
“I would certainly be in favor of allowing states to use the bankruptcy route. It saves some cities. And there’s no good reason for it not to be available,” McConnell told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt.
A new poll shows Americans still overwhelmingly support stay-at-home orders to limit the spread of coronavirus, despite recent protests against the orders.
A new AP/NORC poll found that the majority of Americans (61%) said the steps taken by government officials to limit the spread of the virus in their area are about right, and another 26% said the measures adopted do not go far enough. Only 12% said the restrictions go too far.
Change of plans: the House will not vote tomorrow on a measure that would temporarily allow members to vote by proxy.
House speaker Nancy Pelosi reportedly told her leadership team in a phone call this morning that the chamber would not vote on the measure tomorrow, and she would instead form a bipartisan task force to further examine remote voting.
Former vice president Al Gore has endorsed Joe Biden’s presidential campaign and will appear alongside the presumptive Democratic nominee for a virtual Earth Day event in about 30 minutes.
I am proud to endorse my friend Joe Biden for President, and I'm looking forward to our virtual #EarthDay50 event at 2:30pm ET today. WATCH HERE: https://t.co/dzFziVVgWc
Someone should warn the animals. Donald Trump and Melania Trump were planting a tree outside the Oval Office and the president happened to drop in the remark that national parks will reopen soon.
Related: Crisis in our national parks: how tourists are loving nature to death
The White House is dubiously claiming the CDC director was misquoted when he warned that the second wave of coronavirus could be worse than the first.
The newly installed White House press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, claimed CDC director Robert Redfield was referring to the seasonal flu when he warned about the danger of a second wave this winter.
One of the main themes at today’s World Health Organisation press conference is the major role that US experts and officials play inside the WHO.
This follows multiple accusations from Donald Trump and his officials that the WHO was privy to information about Covid-19 which it hid from the US.
Related: Caught in a superpower struggle: the inside story of the WHO's response to coronavirus
Related: Trump turns against WHO to mask his own stark failings on Covid-19 crisis
Here’s where the day stands so far:
New York governor Andrew Cuomo has just wrapped up his daily briefing on the state’s response to coronavirus.
Here’s some of what he covered:
New York governor Andrew Cuomo said he thought it was “madness” that the US is “wholly dependent on China” for the production of medical equipment.
Cuomo said he hoped one of the lessons learned from this crisis is that the US needs to develop their own supply chains for that equipment.
New York governor Andrew Cuomo criticized the arguments from demonstrators who are protesting his stay-at-home order outside the state capitol.
A reporter who spoke to some of the protesters said they have complained of economic harship due to the crisis, and they argued “the cure cannot be worse than the illness.”
New York officials said billionaire Mike Bloomberg would offer a financial investment of “upwards of $10 million” to develop a testing and tracing program.
New York governor Andrew Cuomo predicted that testing would show the infection rate is “about 10 percent in high infection areas,” such as New York City, and lower upstate.
New York governor Andrew Cuomo said he would not allow political pressure to determine the timetable on when to reopen the economy.
“This is not going to be over anytime soon,” Cuomo said of social-distancing restrictions, warning the state risked a surge in coronavirus cases if they became complacent.
New York governor Andrew Cuomo said billionaire Mike Bloomberg has volunteered to help develop the first-ever testing/tracing/isolation program.
Bloomberg, who previously served as mayor of New York, will help build a tracing army to identify new cases of coronavirus and quickly isolate those people to avoid further spread.
New York governor Andrew Cuomo referred to the state’s coronavirus crisis as “a profound moment in history,” once again emphasizing that New Yorkers’ actions will “shape our future.”
This is a profound moment in history.
Our actions shape our future.
If we get reckless today, we’ll suffer the consequences tomorrow.
New York governor Andrew Cuomo said he had a “very productive” meeting with Trump at the White House yesterday, despite the pair’s recent disagreements.
Cuomo acknowledged the president and his team “don’t like me” politically, noting that Trump has said “very unkind things about me and my brother,” referring to CNN anchor Chris Cuomo.
New York governor Andrew Cuomo said the state is in a “relatively good place” as coronavirus hospitalizations and intubations continue to decline.
But the governor noted the number of new coronavirus hospitalizations remains “troublingly high,” even as many coronavirus patients are released from the hospital. Cuomo said the rate of new hospitalizations is “better than it was but still problematic.”
New York governor Andrew Cuomo opened his daily briefing by noting it has been 53 days since the state confirmed its first case of coronavirus.
Cuomo described the 53 days since the first case as a “disorienting period,” but he said it was “nothing” compared to other times of harship for the world, such as the six years of World War II.
New York governor Andrew Cuomo is scheduled to deliver his daily briefing in about 15 minutes after meeting with Trump at the White House yesterday.
Cuomo said the president recognized in the meeting that the federal government had to be involved in procuring vital medical supplies to help states expand coronavirus testing.
The President and I also discussed much-needed funding for the states.
We immediately need federal funding to fill the hole COVID has put NYS in.
The White House team understood our need.
The House rules committee will meet at 5 pm ET today to discuss the measure that would temporarily allow members to vote by proxy.
The panel will gather in Room 1100 of the Longworth House office building to mark up the proposal, which has been endorsed by Democratic leadership.
Joe Biden said he would name his advisory panel to help him select a running mate, which will consist of three or four people, by May 1.
Biden told last night James Corden on “The Late Late Show” that the panel would interview the final contenders for the VP slot after the list has been narrowed down to “somewhere between two and five people.”
Jay Inslee, the governor of Washington state and a former Democratic presidential candidate, has endorsed Joe Biden.
Inslee told Biden in an interview for the presumptive nominee’s podcast, “I’m proud to endorse you for being the next president of the United States for many reasons. I know that you have a willingness to follow science and really help us get us out of the COVID-19 crisis. ... You’re going to be honest with us, which we don’t have right now in the White House.”
Folks, we just launched a special #EarthDay episode of Here's the Deal! Governor @JayInslee joins me for a discussion on COVID-19, climate change, and why he's supporting our campaign.
Listen to the full episode now: https://t.co/gfVHzRcDXo pic.twitter.com/DRJyrZ5njV
Trump is expected to sign an executive order today to impose a 60-day ban on immigrants seeking to live and work in the US permanently.
The president announced the planned executive order yesterday after hinting at the proposal in an unexpected tweet on Monday night. Speaking at his press conference yesterday, Trump noted he may extend the order past 60 days “based on economic conditions at the time”.
Treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin predicted that “most if not all” of the US economy would reopen later in the summer.
“We’re looking forward to by the time we hit later in the summer having most of the economy if not all of the economy open,” Mnuchin told Fox Business Network this morning.
House speaker Nancy Pelosi said the chamber would approve the nearly $500 billion coronavirus relief bill tomorrow.
The House is also expected to vote tomorrow on a proposal that would allow members to vote by proxy, even as the Senate remains steadfastly opposed to the idea of remote voting.
The House measure will allow members who cannot travel to Washington amid the pandemic to designate a proxy (another member) to cast their vote on proposed legislation.
This is Joan Greve in Washington, taking over for Jo Walters.
The House is expected to take up the next coronavirus relief bill tomorrow, after the nearly $500 billion legislation passed the Senate yesterday by voice vote. Trump has already indicated he would sign the bill.
Now that the Senate has passed the interim coronavirus relief bill, the House will take it up on Thursday. Thanks to Democrats’ insistence, it includes $120B billion more for small business relief as well as funding for hospitals and expanded testing. https://t.co/jMtBSlFc8n
Donald Trump has hopped onto Twitter. As the debate rages over where, when and how to reopen the US economy amid the coronavirus pandemic, the president once again appears to be jumping the gun.
His tweet moments ago speaks for itself.
States are safely coming back. Our Country is starting to OPEN FOR BUSINESS again. Special care is, and always will be, given to our beloved seniors (except me!). Their lives will be better than ever...WE LOVE YOU ALL!
I have instructed the United States Navy to shoot down and destroy any and all Iranian gunboats if they harass our ships at sea.
Related: Iranian boats come 'dangerously' close to US navy warships
Good day to our US live blog readers, another lively day in store for politics and coronavirus news.
Health officials now say that two people died with the coronavirus in California weeks before the first official reported death from the disease in the US.
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