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More than 15,000 people have died in Brazil after contracting the novel coronavirus, the country’s health ministry says.
Health officials reported 816 new deaths on Saturday, bringing the total to 15,633.
The number of cases in Brazil continues to rise. There are 233,142 cases of the virus in the country and 14,919 new cases were reported in the 24-hour period between Friday and Saturday, the ministry said.
Brazil has the fourth-highest number of Covid-19 cases in the world, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. The latest uptick pushed Brazil’s case count past Spain and Italy.
The 145th Preakness Stakes has been rescheduled for October 3 at the Pimlico in Baltimore, Maryland. The race, part of horse racing’s Triple Crown, was postponed because of the coronavirus pandemic.
“We all wish we could have been together today to celebrate the Preakness but we stayed home and stayed safe and now we can look forward to Preakness 145 on October 3rd,” said Belinda Stronach, the chairwoman and president of the Stronach Group, which owns the Pimlico.
The Preakness Stakes, typically held on the third Saturday in May, was postponed in March.
The other two Triple Crown races, the Kentucky Derby and the Belmont Stakes, were also postponed. The Kentucky Derby has been rescheduled for September 5 and organizers for the Belmont Stakes have not announced a new date.
Authorities in the Chinese city of Wuhan, where the novel coronavirus was first reported, suppressed key details about the magnitude of the initial outbreak, according to Dr. Zhong Nanshan, the Chinese government’s senior medical adviser.
“The local authorities, they didn’t like to tell the truth at that time,” Zhong said. “At the very beginning they kept silent, and then I said probably we have (a larger) number of people being infected.”
Zhong said he became suspicious when the number of officially reported cases in Wuhan remained at 41 for more than 10 days — despite infections emerging overseas.
China has reported more than 82,000 coronavirus cases, with at least 4,633 deaths, according to data from the country’s National Health Commission. The number of new infections surged quickly in late January, prompting city lockdowns and nationwide travel bans.
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Dr. Zhong Nanshan, the top respiratory authority in China, says the country still faces a “big challenge” of a potential second wave of Covid-19 infections.
“The majority of … Chinese at the moment are still susceptible of the Covid-19 infection, because (of) a lack of immunity,” Zhong said in an exclusive interview with CNN. “We are facing (a) big challenge, it’s not better than the foreign countries I think at the moment.”
Zhong, the Chinese government’s senior medical adviser and the public face of the country’s fight against Covid-19, said Chinese authorities should not be complacent.
Lockdowns have eased and some schools and factories have already reopened across the country.
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Hotels and some public spaces in Spain will be allowed to reopen by Monday, the Spanish government said.
Saturday’s government communiqué spelled out the how provinces, cities and autonomous regions are allowed to reopen business according to a classification system of “phases” outlined by the Health Ministry which is leading and guiding other government agencies in this transition period.
Most of the nation will remain on phase one, meaning that gatherings may not include more than 10 people. Hotels and public spaces may open but with caveats, including limited occupancy and closed common areas.
The biggest change comes for regions in Spain that will be classified as phase 2. Sporting and outdoor activities will be allowed to take place freely except during hours reserved for the elderly. That includes the Balearic Islands of Formentera and La Graciosa, and La Gomera and El Hierro, two islands that are part of the Canary Islands.
Densely populated areas, including the cities of Madrid and Barcelona, will remain under lockdown.
A home health aide in New Jersey is facing five counts of endangerment after an 80-year-old woman she cared for died after contracting Covid-19.
The aide, Josefina Brito-Fernandez, 49, was asked to self-quarantine by health officials after testing positive for the virus at a Camden testing site in mid-April, the New Jersey attorney general’s office said in a statement.
Instead, Brito-Fernandez continued treating the woman and two developmentally disabled siblings in their home without personal protective equipment the next day, the attorney general said.
Home video appears to show the health aide without PPE taking vital signs, feeding and sponge-bathing the woman, according to the attorney general’s office. The aide’s employer had mandated all employees wear PPE when treating patients, the attorney general’s office said.
The elderly woman and four other members of the household later tested positive for the virus. The woman was hospitalized and died days after the home visit.
The Camden County Prosecutor’s Office declined to confirm whether Brito-Fernandez tested positive for the virus citing medical privacy laws, but it is known that she was in contact with someone who had Covid-19 before experiencing symptoms, according to the press release.
The New Jersey attorney general’s office and New Jersey State Police also declined to confirm that Brito-Fernandez received a positive Covid-19 test result.
CNN reached out to the state Division of Consumer Affairs to confirm Brito-Fernandez has an active nursing license but did not immediately hear back.
Brito-Fernandez is not currently in custody, according to Colby Gallagher, a spokeswoman with the Camden County Prosecutor’s Office.
A court appearance has not been scheduled yet, and it is not known if she has retained an attorney at this time, Gallagher said.
John Costa, president of the largest labor union representing public transit employees in the US and Canada, said at least 45 members have died after testing positive for the novel coronavirus.
“My concern is we don’t need to lose any more of our members. Our members know this job is essential. They know when they took this job, it’s 24/7,” Costa, president of the Amalgamated Transit Union told CNN’s Ana Cabrera on Saturday.
“We keep the cities moving. We keep the economy moving. We keep the front lines moving. But we need to be protected. We didn’t sign up to die when we took those jobs,” he added.
More than 1,000 union members from New York to Seattle have tested positive for the virus, according to the union.
Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said the country must approach the re-opening of the economy with “prudence.”
“We are facing a calculated risk, knowing that the epidemiological curve could rise again,” Conte said.
“The epidemic curve is encouraging … we are now in the condition to face this new phase with faith and responsibility,” he added.
Health officials in Italy reported 153 new coronavirus deaths on Saturday — the lowest increase of coronavirus deaths since the lockdown was imposed in March.
The country has been easing some measures and the lockdown will be further relaxed on Monday. Retail stores, restaurants and hotels will be advised to do temperature checks, require face coverings and maintain social distancing among customers.
Conte announced travel restrictions will be lifted for those traveling from European countries by June 3.
Eight additional sailors who had returned to the USS Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier have retested positive for coronavirus, a defense official told CNN.
The sailors were initially removed from the ship to self-quarantine and were allowed back on board after testing negative twice.
The official said it is not clear if the sailors were reinfected or if very low levels of the virus remained in their bodies that testing had not detected.
The news comes after five other sailors retested positive earlier this week.
The new positive tests were first reported by Politico.
Some background: In March, more than 1,000 sailors from the carrier’s nearly 4,900-member crew tested positive following an outbreak aboard the ship. The Navy had been returning sailors to the Roosevelt following a period of quarantine and isolation in the hopes of getting the aircraft carrier to sea as soon as possible.
The Navy said Thursday that more than 2,900 sailors have been moved back on board.
Former President Barack Obama criticized the “folks in charge” for the handling of the coronavirus pandemic while delivering a virtual commencement address for historically black colleges and universities on Saturday.
He addressed how the coronavirus pandemic has disproportionately affected black communities.
He urged graduates to care about each other. “Our society and our democracy only works when we think not just about ourselves but about each other.”
The New York Racing Association welcomed the decision from Gov. Andrew Cuomo to reopen horse racing tracks by June 1 without fans.
“This is a reasoned and responsible decision by Governor Cuomo that will enable horse racing to resume in a way that prioritizes health and safety while recognizing that NYRA is the cornerstone of an industry responsible for 19,000 jobs and $3 billion in annual economic impact,” NYRA President/CEO Dave O’Rourke said in a statement.
O’Rourke says the group has developed a comprehensive safety plan to protect the community and plans to announce race dates for the 2020 spring/summer meet at Belmont Park in the “very near future.”
Some context: Belmont Park hosts the Belmont Stakes, traditionally the third leg of horse racing’s Triple Crown. The event was originally scheduled for June 6.
The NYRA had not officially postponed the event and it’s unclear whether the organization will keep the same schedule for the race.
The other two Triple Crown races, the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness Stakes, were postponed. The Kentucky Derby has been rescheduled for September 5 and organizers for the Preakness Stakes announced on Saturday that it will be held on October 3.
Health authorities in Canada have approved the country’s first clinical trial for a Covid-19 vaccine, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said.
While Trudeau did not discuss where the possible vaccine was being developed, the National Research Council announced earlier this week that it would collaborate with CanSino Biologics Inc, a company based in China.
The company’s vaccine effort is backed and funded in part by the Chinese government.
The race to stop the virus: As of Friday, there were at least 118 potential Covid-19 vaccines in the works around the world but only eight were in clinical trials, the World Health Organization said.
The website for Arkansas’ Pandemic Unemployment Assistance Program has been shut down after a data breach, Gov. Asa Hutchinson said.
Hutchinson said at a news conference this afternoon that an applicant “seems to have illegally accessed the system.”
When it was discovered, it was necessary to shut the system down and contact authorities, he said.
Hutchinson added that if during the investigation it became evident that any personal, sensitive data was compromised, additional steps would be taken, including notifying the applicants or anyone that may have had their personal information compromised.
Also, if necessary, a credit monitoring program for those that might have been impacted could be offered.
“This is something we’ve had some experience with,” Hutchinson said. “It’s one of the reasons that we have a good cyber insurance program here in the state.”
In terms of the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance Payments, a team will continue to work through the weekend to get the system up, payments processed, with the goal of getting “money out the door, next week,” Hutchinson said.
It’s about 3 p.m. in New York. Here are the top coronavirus headlines you may have missed this afternoon.
The Spanish government will re-open some airports on several islands and in the southern part of the country to international travel, the country’s Transport Minister Jose Luis Abalos, announced on Saturday
More details are expected Sunday, Abalos said.
Some context: The announcement from the Transport Ministry comes as roughly 70% of Spaniards enter either phase one or two of de-escalation, as the government eases coronavirus restrictions in some areas.
The remaining 30% of people live in or around the two largest Spanish cities, Barcelona and Madrid, and will remain in phase zero.
Spain limited the points of entry for international travel as it imposed a strict nationwide lockdown to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus.
Government restrictions of non-emergency travel will continue until June 15, according to Spain’s official government bulletin.
As coronavirus cases began spiking in New York City in March, officials worried that the city’s notorious jail system on Rikers Island could become a powder keg inside the epicenter of the pandemic.
In the weeks since, correctional officials handed out masks. They increased cleaning. And with a focus on creating more space for social distancing, the city pushed through the release from its jails of more than 2,600 people considered at low risk to commit a crime and high risk to contract the disease, with many of the inmates gaining their release through court decisions argued by advocacy groups.
Despite these efforts, critics say there is still not enough sanitizing, social distancing and wearing of masks to stamp out an outbreak among 362 people currently incarcerated and more than 1,300 Department of Correction workers, according to data released by the Board of Correction on Friday.
Since March, three inmates and 10 correction officers have died, according to New York City’s Department of Corrections.
Across 37 states, 88 inmates and 15 correctional staffers died from Covid-19 between January 21 and April 21, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported. In all, 4,893 inmates tested positive, as did 2,778 correctional staff.
“Jail is inherently not a place where you can socially distance. It’s just not built that way,” said Caitlin Miller, an attorney with Legal Aid Society’s parole revocation defense unit.
Law enforcement officials say releasing inmates to curtail a public health crisis behind bars has increased the risk of crime, with the New York Police Department reporting about 150 people released from Rikers having been rearrested, some more than once. Some crimes were violent offenses, including domestic violence and attempted rape, police said.
Advocates and a watchdog agency for the jail system contend that while correction officers wear masks, inmates don’t nearly as often. Correction workers also warn their jobs are more unsafe than ever, as the number of employees with the coronavirus continues to climb.
Prosecutors have dropped the charges against the Tampa pastor who held church services despite stay-at-home orders to limit the spread of Covid-19, according to a statement from Hillsborough State Attorney Andrew Warren’s office.
In March, deputies arrested pastor Rodney Howard-Browne, who continued to host large church services despite public orders against large gatherings.
Howard-Browne had been charged with two second-degree misdemeanors: unlawful assembly and a violation of health emergency rules.
Three Disney owned business will reopen on May 27, one week after Disney already announced that third-party operators can reopen at Disney Springs in Lake Buena Vista, Florida.
Beginning with the initial reopenings on May 20, Disney has now updated its guest policy to include temperature screenings and face coverings upon arrival to Disney Springs.
All guests age 3 and older will be required to wear appropriate face coverings on the property. In addition, they will also institute temperature screenings, and any guests showing a temperature of 100.4 degrees or higher will not be admitted, nor will their party.
More details: On May 27, three Disney-owned and operated stores and venues will reopen: World of Disney, D-Luxe Burger for mobile orders and the Marketplace Co-Op.
Spraying disinfectants outside or across broad spaces indoors to try to kill coronavirus can do more harm than good, the World Health Organization advised Saturday.
And spraying people is a really bad idea, WHO said in an updated advisory on infection control.
WHO cited studies showing that trying to spray bleach or other chemicals over a wide area is ineffective. The same goes for ultraviolet light disinfecting, the agency said.
Some governments have fogged streets and some groups have been washing down sidewalks, but WHO said it’s probably a waste of effort.
“Spraying or fumigation of outdoor spaces, such as streets or marketplaces, is also not recommended to kill the COVID-19 virus or other pathogens because disinfectant is inactivated by dirt and debris and it is not feasible to manually clean and remove all organic matter from such spaces,” the agency said.
