The New York City Health Department is now reporting “probable” Covid-19 deaths of people who have not been tested for the coronavirus but are presumed to be positive.
The new and supplemental data reflects “probable” deaths from March 11 through April 13 and is listed separately from the confirmed deaths in New York City, according to the city website.
Through April 13, there have been 6,589 confirmed coronavirus deaths and 3,778 “probable” deaths, according to the city website. The total number of confirmed and “probable” coronavirus deaths is 10,367.
A spa, a beauty parlor and a vape shop are among 10 businesses that Los Angeles has filed prosecutions against for failing to comply with the safer at home order after being warned, Los Angeles City Attorney Mike Feuer announced in a news conference Tuesday.
This is in addition to four prosecutions filed previously and there are more filings yet to come, Feuer said.
Feuer also announced that his office has successfully defended the safer at home order against a push to block enforcement of the order regarding gun shops.
“There have been teams of gun rights activists and others who have sought to open gun shops,” Feuer said. “The mayor’s order is clear that all non-essential businesses must close. Gun shops and all other non-essential businesses must close.”
“This will enable us all to flatten the curve and my office is deeply committed to continuing to defend, as well as enforce the order,” he added.
LA offers same or next day testing: Mayor Eric Garcetti has announced there is now rapid testing available for anyone with coronavirus symptoms across Los Angeles.
Previously the vulnerable population was being prioritized but now anybody with symptoms can be tested regardless of age or pre-existing health conditions. Some 9,400 people a day can be tested, Garcetti said.
Mexico recorded 74 coronavirus deaths in the 24 hours to Tuesday evening — the highest number in a single day during the outbreak in the country — health officials said during their nightly news conference.
The death toll in the country stands at 406.
A total of 5,399 people have tested positive for the virus in Mexico from 40,091 tests.
The world is battling the coronavirus pandemic, but in South Korea, that hasn’t stopped them holding an election.
South Korea’s coronavirus outbreak peaked early, prompting praise for the government’s handling of the pandemic. The country isn’t in lockdown, and of the more than 10,500 confirmed cases, at least 7,400 have recovered.
Nevertheless, the country has taken precautions.
What’s the election for? Around 44 million people are registered to vote in South Korea’s legislative election, where they will elect 300 members of the National Assembly. At least 26% of registered voters cast their vote early.
How are voters being kept safe? When voters head to the polls today, they will have their temperature checked at the door. They’ll need to stand at least one meter apart from each other as they line up. Polling booths will be regularly disinfected and anyone with a temperature of more than 37.5 degrees Celsius (99.5 degrees Farenheit) will have to vote in a special booth. About 20,000 additional workers will be dispatched to put in place the extra measures.
What about voters who are still in quarantine? Special voting booths have been set up at government-run isolation centers, and those under self-quarantine will be allowed to leave their house to vote after polling booths close to the public at 6 p.m.
How did the run-up to the election differ from normal? Politicians still held rallies and hit the streets to meet voters, but it was definitely different from normal campaign periods, which often involve K-pop style dance troupes. This time around, politicians wore gloves and face masks — one even wore a face visor.
Will turnout be lower than normal? One of the big concerns with running an election during a pandemic is that people may decide not to vote as they’re afraid of getting sick. Statistics from the National Election Commission show that so far, turnout is actually slightly higher than it was at the last election.
Some voters CNN talked to in the lead-up said the pandemic made voting even more important.
Read more here:
The governor of Oregon joined with Washington and California this week to discuss a plan for ending the coronavirus economic shutdown, but Gov. Kate Brown says people shouldn’t expect everything to be back to normal all at once.
“This is not a light switch going on or off,” Brown told CNN’s Anderson Cooper Tuesday night. “This is going to be making a change, testing it, modeling it, seeing whether it works, and then if it does, you can make another change.”
Gov. Brown says Oregon needs to “roughly double” its testing capacity before she would feel comfortable with a broad lifting of restrictions, in addition to making sure health care workers have enough personal protective equipment.
Brown says there may be some adaptations made in response to the pandemic that don’t go away even after businesses reopen.
“I think you’re going to see broader cultural changes. For example, handshaking,” said Brown. “I think you’re going to see a move to a more Asian style of head bowing. I think you’re going to see folks really limiting large gatherings for a long period of time — months.”
“It’s going to be different”: It comes as Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine said that there would be a long path before all coronavirus restrictions were lifted and the state returned to normal.
DeWine said that there were currently no plans to restart basketball, college and universities in Ohio.
“Until there is a vaccine — this monster is going to be working around us. When we start opening businesses and schools back up, it’s going to be different,” Gov. DeWine said.
The US coronavirus death toll reached 25,757 on Tuesday evening, an increase of 2,129 deaths today — the highest number of fatalities in a single day.
Previously, the most US coronavirus deaths reported in a single day was 2,074, on April 10, according to data supplied by Johns Hopkins University.
There are now more than 605,000 cases of the novel coronavirus in the US — the largest single epidemic worldwide.
CNN is tracking US coronavirus cases here:
The World Health Organization “must be supported,” the UN Secretary General said in a statement Tuesday evening, after US President Donald Trump cut funding to the organization.
“It is my belief that the World Health Organization must be supported, as it is absolutely critical to the world’s efforts to win the war against COVID-19,” Antonio Guterres said.
“It is also not the time to reduce the resources for the operations of the World Health Organization or any other humanitarian organization in the fight against the virus,” Guterres added.
“As I have said before, now is the time for unity and for the international community to work together in solidarity to stop this virus and its shattering consequences.”
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced Tuesday that the state will have access to 1 million N95 masks.
“Today, in consultation from the White House, we have received or will receive a total of 1 million N95 masks, those are probably the most sought after piece of PPE right now, there’s obviously been a worldwide run on that. Working with the White House, they’ve earmarked us a million,” DeSantis said at a news conference Tuesday.
He said Florida’s Emergency Management Department will also be delivering 1.2 millionprocedure masks, 100,000 face shields, 500,000 gloves, 60,000 containers of hand sanitizer, and 35,000 gowns.
In total, DeSantis said the state will have distributed:
- 8 million masks
- 5.5 million gloves
- 564,000 shoe covers
- 615,000 face shields
- 300,000 gowns
- More than 100,000 containers of hand sanitizer
- 47,000 goggles
- 22,000 coveralls
US President Donald Trump’s trade adviser Peter Navarro appeared on Fox News after the White House briefing to defend the President’s WHO funding halt and discuss how it could impact US-China relations.
“The World Health Organization is a single failure during this epidemic. They basically hid information from the public, they failed to call this a pandemic long after others had rightfully done so. There is blood on their hands. I think President Trump is absolutely correct to have a full investigation of how that happened and what China’s role might’ve been to that,” Navarro said.
Pressed on how this could impact future trade negotiations with China, he called those “interesting questions” but went on to talk about supply chains.
Asked again later in the interview how coronavirus will impact the US-China relationship, Navarro said, “We have to find out where it originated. We have to understand why China did not tell us for six weeks in which we lost precious time preparing for a pandemic.”
“This is something we will not forget: China was basically vacuuming up the world’s PPE around the world so that we didn’t have it in New York and people didn’t have it in Milan,” he said. “That’s a question that has to be answered. The question going forward is will they provide the PPE to the world as we go through this crisis without strings?”
