Our live coverage of the coronavirus pandemic in the US has ended for the day. Get the latest updates from around the globe here.
President Trump’s decision to sever ties with the World Health Organization is senseless and harmful, the American Medical Association said Friday.
“This senseless action will have significant, harmful repercussions now and far beyond this perilous moment, particularly as the WHO is leading worldwide vaccine development and drug trials to combat the pandemic,” the statement said.
Harris also said coronavirus “does not respect borders” and “defeating it requires the entire world working together.”
“In the strongest terms possible, the American Medical Association urges the President to reverse course and not abandon our country’s leadership position in the global fight against Covid-19,” Harris said.
During a news conference Friday, President Trump announced the United States would remove some of Hong Kong’s special exemptions as the territory “is no longer sufficiently autonomous” from China.
Trump didn’t mention further tariffs or the phase one trade deal with Beijing. This boosted stocks in the last hour of trading.
Here is where things stood at closing:
California plans to have 10,000 workers trained by July 1 to contact trace coronavirus cases, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced in a news conference on Friday.
The first phase commitment of 10,000 workers will be able to track 3,600 new cases per day, Newsom said.
Newsom noted the importance of contact tracing as the state reopens because it will meet the substantial needs of the counties that are reopening.
The state’s testing capacity has substantially increased from 2,000 to 50,000 tests every day. There has been an increase in the number of positive cases due to the increase in testing capacity, Newsom explained.
The contact tracing workforce is being developed in partnership with the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and the University of California San Francisco (UCSF).
President Trump has terminated the partnership between the World Health Organization and the US, according to remarks he made today outside the White House.
Trump blamed WHO’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic in China as part of the reason.
Los Angeles will reopen further after attesting to the stability in the county’s coronavirus rates and hospital capacity.
This approval to reopen grants Los Angeles County residents to begin dining in restaurants and shopping in retails stores.
It also requires some modifications including face coverings, physical distancing and increased sanitization.
There has been almost 50,000 coronavirus cases in Los Angeles County, and more than 2,200 deaths due to the virus, according to the California Department of Public Health.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was “never blind” to the early spread of coronavirus in the United States, the agency’s director Dr. Robert Redfield said during a phone call with reporters on Friday.
Redfield defended the CDC’s surveillance for coronavirus.
“The reality is the surveillance systems that CDC had developed over the years for respiratory viral diseases, particularly the influenza-like illness, really did give us eyes on this disease as it began to emerge,” Redfield said. “Independent of testing, we had pretty good eyes on whether there was any new respiratory influenza-like illness occurring in our country.”
Redfield was discussing a new CDC report that shows the virus was already spreading some in January and early February in Washington state and other Pacific northwest areas, much earlier than when the first case of community spread was confirmed in the United States in late February.
The CDC previously has been criticized for its slow response to the coronavirus outbreak.
The new research, published in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report on Friday, suggests that there was some community transmission of the novel coronavirus in the United States between the latter half of January and the beginning of February – as researchers had previously thought – and the virus likely was introduced from China.
New Jersey is creating a short-term rental assistance program for low and moderate income families, Gov. Murphy announced on Friday.
The state will be applying at least $100 million to the program, which is aimed at helping families financially impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic keep their homes.
The latest numbers: The state reported at least 1,117 new cases of Covid-19 on Friday, bringing the statewide total to approximately 158,844 cases. The daily positivity rate continued at 6%.
The state reported an additional 131 coronavirus deaths, bringing the total to at least 11,531.
Of the total cases reported, at least 32,097 have been in long-term care facilities, the governor noted, and there have been approximately 5,009 deaths in long-term care facilities to date.
No new cases of multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C) in children were reported on Friday –– the total number of cases in the state remains at 26 and no children have died from the disease.
New York Gov. Cuomo said today that five New York regions are cleared to move to phase two of reopening based on the data the state has been seeing.
Reopening in New York City is more complicated, he said, but the city is on “track to meet all the metrics” and enter phase one of reopening on June 8.
Here are the metrics that the city needs to focus on, according to Cuomo:
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy is signing an executive order that will allow for the resumption of childcare services, organized sports practice and youth day camps over the next several weeks.
Specifically, childcare services can resume on June 15. Organized sports practices can restart on June 22 – however the governor specified that activities will be limited to sports activities outdoors and there can be no contact activities for the time being. Youth day camps, including municipal summer recreation programs, can resume July 6.
Horse racing will also resume in the state, with the first competitive races as early as next weekend, the governor announced.
Fans will not be allowed to watch in the stands.
New York state reported 67 new coronavirus-related deaths over the past 24 hours, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said in a news conference today.
Hospitalizations due to the virus are also down as are new Covid-19 cases, the governor said.
“The facts are good,” Cuomo said.
Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont announced new guidance on social gatherings, casinos and houses of worship on Friday, as coronavirus metrics “continue in the right direction.”
As numbers still come in, Lamont said “we had probably one of our largest drops in hospitalizations we’ve seen in months. Seventy-one fewer hospitalizations. We’re 75% off our peak now.”
Going forward: Lamont said individuals may now have gatherings of up to 10 people inside their home and 25 people outside while maintaining social distancing.
“Just give you a sense, we’re easing the restrictions as long as people follow the protocols,” he said.
Lamont said casinos can “really start opening tomorrow,” but with some restrictions.
Here is some of the guidance:
Houses of worship will also be allowed to start reopening.
Here are the guidelines the governor is suggesting:
There have been at least 1,725,656 cases of coronavirus in the US, and approximately 101,706 people have died from the virus, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.
Johns Hopkins reported 3,903 new cases and 90 deaths on Friday.
The totals include cases from all 50 states, the District of Columbia and other US territories, as well as repatriated cases.
Pentecostal and Baptist churches in California and Illinois were pushing for the US Supreme Court on Friday to stop their states’ governors from limiting the number of people that can attend religious services as part of coronavirus social distancing measures, according to new filings sent to the court.
The churches are asking the court to stop the worship restrictions before this Sunday, the Christian holy day of Pentecost. The Supreme Court could act as soon as Friday.
How the churches got here: In recent days, both states have lifted social distancing measures that relaxed limitations on churches. But the churches say they still need the court’s intervention.
California recently loosened its restrictions to allow up to 100 people to meet for religious services.
In Illinois, Gov. J.B. Pritzker lifted the state’s restrictions on religious worship on Thursday.
The state previously had prohibited more than 10 people from gathering for religious services. But Elim Romanian Pentecostal Church and Logos Baptist Ministries said they fear that if the state has another wave of Covid-19 cases this summer and fall, Pritzker could restrict their services again.
“What changed? The governor was summoned to the steps of this Court to give an account. But the governor’s sudden change has no permanency or force of law, and both his public statements and his new policy strongly signal an impending return to his old ways.
Absent a pronouncement from this Circuit Justice, or the Court, there can be no reasonable expectation that the Governor will not once again infringe Churches’ constitutional rights,” the churches in Illinois wrote.
The President’s perspective: President Trump called on governors to reopen religious institutions for services last week after issuing guidance deeming places of worship “essential.”
Trump even threatened to “override” governors if their states did not follow the new guidance from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention which released guidance for religious institutions on Friday.
Governors have gradually been reopening some businesses and other community gathering places in their states after months of lockdown and some plateaus of Covid-19 cases. The churches have claimed they shouldn’t be treated differently than retail business.
Mayor Bill de Blasio said the city has measurements in place that could trigger a possible need to dial back the restart and reinstate restrictions.
The test and trace initiative will be a positive X factor, he added.
“If our thresholds were exceeded the wrong way, that’s the situation where, unless there are other extenuating circumstances, we would have to take a step back to where we are right now,” de Blasio said.
Here are the indicators the city will monitor:
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio was pressed on whether he can narrow down the potential phase one start date as June commences next week.
“We are confident that we will be able to go to phase one in the first two weeks of June. This is going to be based, of course, on the tangible indicators and thresholds from the state and the city. So that’s what will lead the decision. We have to have that factual evidence,” he said at a news conference on Friday.
The percentage of New York City residents who have tested positive for coronavirus is at 5%, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Thursday.
The mayor assessed the daily indicators by threshold and would like to see this number under a 15% threshold.
The daily number of people admitted to hospitals for suspected Covid-19, which the mayor would like to see under a 200 threshold, is at 61.
“A very good number,” de Blasio said.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio delved into protections and initiatives for businesses, workers and consumers as the city begins planning for a phase one restart in either the first or second week of June.
De Blasio outlined what the city is doing to make sure businesses are ready to reopen. The mayor said face coverings for all employees and customers is absolutely necessary for every business to succeed and be safe.
The NYC Department of Consumer and Worker Protection, Small Business Services and Citywide Administrative Services will coordinate pickup and delivery of 2 million face coverings for businesses and workers with more to come.
A strong restart, he added, is making sure businesses can come back “quickly” and “effectively.”
Business owners big and small need help “making sense of all this.”
The city is also working to make sure businesses have a supply of cleaning fluids at an affordable price.
Other reopening efforts: De Blasio reiterated that the city is training a group of small business compliance units to go out and work with businesses.
The city’s Department of Consumer and Worker Protection will also send teams out to talk directly to people working with unions, worker centers and immigrant rights organizations. They plan to listen to their needs and give out helpful information.
“Workers have every right to be safe when they return to work,” de Blasio said.
A worker protection hotline will be launched next week, the mayor added.
De Blasio also said that starting next week, the city will have a testing initiative focused particularly on non-profit staff with an aim to reach nearly 31,0000 nonprofit human service provider staff beginning June 1.
These tests are voluntary and the city intends to provide up to 4,000 a day. Mobile testing sites will be launched mid-June.
US stocks were mixed at the start of Friday’s session, with the Dow and the S&P 500 adding onto losses from the prior day.
Rising tensions between the United States and China are weighing on investor sentiment.
President Trump is expected to hold a news conference later today in response to China’s Hong Kong crackdown.
The Trump administration has also been critical of China’s handling of the coronavirus outbreak, which could come up again.
Here is where things stood at opening:
The Dow opened down 0.5%, or 134 points.
The S&P 500 kicked off 0.3% lower.
The Nasdaq Composite opened higher, climbing a modest 0.1%.
American consumer spending slowed dramatically during the coronavirus lockdown, and that is a massive problem for the spending-addicted US economy.
April’s personal consumption data showed a 13.6% drop in consumer spending, according to a Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) report released Friday. That’s equal to $1.89 trillion.
In total the personal consumption expenditures (PCE) index fell 0.5% from the prior month. Excluding food and energy, for which prices can change more rapidly, the index slipped 0.4%.
It was the largest month-to-month decline since the BEA began tracking the data in 1959. And it followed a similarly steep, revised 6.9% drop in March when the lockdown began.
Some more perspective: About two-thirds of America’s economy runs on consumer spending, so this doesn’t bode well for the start of the quarter. The steep drop in spending is just the latest sign of an economy in a dire, pandemic-linked recession.
Millions of people have lost their jobs and businesses are reliant on government stimulus, while more than 100,000 lives have been claimed by Covid-19.
Gross domestic product, the broadest measure of economic performance, is expected to drop as much as 40% on an annualized basis between April and June. That would be the worst quarter on record.
But this data won’t be released until the quarter is over. Until then, economists have to fall back on other numbers like the PCE index to paint a picture.
April’s data showed that as Americans didn’t spend money, they saved a lot more. Personal savings as a percentage of disposable income soared to 33% in April, up from some 13% in March.
The dramatic increase was due in part to the increase in government benefits during the pandemic, the BEA said.
The country went into lockdown in the second half of March to limit the spread of coronavirus. Businesses shut down and laid off millions of workers.
