Coronavirus pandemic in the US

National Parks will begin reopening, President Trump announced today, as he urged states to reopen after coronavirus closures.

The President made the remarks on the South Lawn of the White House during a ceremony marking Earth Day and Arbor Day.

“We’re starting to open our country again,” the President said, “thanks to our significant progress against the invisible enemy, I’m pleased to announced that in line with my administration’s guidelines for opening up America again, we will begin to reopen our National Parks and public lands for the American people to enjoy.”

He then called on Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt to comment with more details, but Bernhardt did not come to the podium or have a microphone, so his comments were inaudible.

Vice President Mike Pence later commented that the administration would “work closely with governors” to reopen parks and public lands, “so that the American people can enjoy the blessings of those extraordinary places.”

Pence told the Trump that the American people are, “anxious to get back to enjoying all those public parks, and will greatly welcome your leadership.”

It's unclear the degree to which the President's announcement will affect states and other localities. 

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said President Trump agreed to waive the state match for the costs related to using the Federal Emergency Management Agency during their meeting yesterday.

“Normally, a state has to pay 25% of the FEMA cost. That would be a cruel irony for New York and adding insult to injury,” Cuomo explained. “New York had the highest number of coronavirus cases in the country. Therefore, our cost of FEMA was the highest cost in the nation.”

He said it’ll save the state hundreds of millions of dollars. Cuomo also said he talked to Trump about getting more state funding into the next stimulus bill. 

“This was not the time for baby steps. This is when you should be taking bold action,” he said.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo said he understands that local officials may feel political pressure to reopen their economies.

Cuomo said reopening prematurely would set back the progress that has been made flattening the curve. He warned communities that have not been hard-hit by coronavirus to keep certain restrictions in place, saying a second wave could "knock you down."

Hear what he said:

New York will work with New Jersey and Connecticut to launch a "nation-leading contact-tracing program," Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced this morning.

"This is going to be a massive undertaking," he said.

Former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg will help develop the first-ever testing/tracing/isolation programs, Cuomo said.

John’s Hopkins University and Vital Strategies will help with the tracing operation, he added.

Contact tracing is a virus containment strategy that involves finding sick people, isolating them and then tracing everyone with whom they've been in contact with. Those contacts are then put into quarantine.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said he had a “productive” meeting with President Trump yesterday at the White House.

“To me, a productive visit means we spoke truth. We spoke facts. We made decisions, and we have a plan going forward. And that was accomplished yesterday. And I feel good about it personally,” Cuomo said.

The governor said political differences were placed on the back burner during the meeting. 

Cuomo referred to his call to keep politics out of the health pandemic: “When you're at war, you're in a foxhole. … I don't care what your politics are. I don't care what you think about my politics. It doesn't matter. We both have a job to do. Let's do the job. That was the spirit of the meeting yesterday,” Cuomo said.

Watch the moment:

Vermont is reporting a downward slope of coronavirus cases and less Vermonters are going into the urgent care or hospital emergency settings with symptoms that might sound like Covid-19, officials said today.

"As you’ve been hearing, our efforts to flatten the curve are starting to make a difference, but this isn’t over yet, and continuing to take action to protect yourself and those around you is really still critical," said Vermont Commissioner of Health Dr. Mark Levine said. 

A month ago, 6% of urgent care or ER visits were for Covid-19 type-symptoms. Now those visits are in the 1% to 2% range, Levine said.

There have been approximately 40 coronavirus deaths in Vermont, Levine said, and they have assessed the first 29 deaths.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said at least 474 people died across the state from coronavirus yesterday.

That is down from 481 deaths in the state on Monday.

The governor said the death toll updates are "the worst news that I have to deliver every day, and the worst news that I've ever had to deal with as governor as New York."

However, he said death rates are no longer increasing every day and the toll "seems to be on a gentle decline."

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said that, while it feels like the state has been under restrictions for "terribly long," New York is now "in a much better place."

"When you look at the reality of the situation, We are actually in a much better place," he said.

"We're at a relatively good place," he added.

Hospitalization and intubation rates are down. However, the number of new people going into the hospital each day is still "troublingly high," Cuomo said.

A Tyson Fresh Meats plant in Washington state is now linked to 91 cases of Covid-19, a local health department reports.

The beef plant, located in Wallula, had their first case of the disease on April 1, Walla Walla County health officials said in a statement. Tyson began to put mitigation efforts in place 5 days later, on April 6, the statement added.

The cases are now spread out over the two-county Benton-Franklin Health District and Walla Walla County, officials for both areas said.

The Walla Walla County health department, the agency that oversees the plant, said they have "been in daily communication with Tyson to ensure the required mitigation measures are put in place" since April 6.

"In addition to the prevention measures we have required Tyson to implement, we are also requiring Tyson to allow the DCH to test all employees for COVID-19,” said Meghan DeBolt, Director of the department, in the later statement.

The plant remains open at this time.

Earlier, today, Tyson said it will suspend operations at its Waterloo, Iowa, pork plant after nearly 200 coronavirus cases were linked to the plant.