Coronavirus pandemic in the US

The New York State Board of Elections voted to cancel the presidential primary scheduled for June 23 during a call with the board on Monday. 

Douglas Kellner, the co-chair of the New York State Board of Elections, told CNN the two Democratic election commissioners — himself and Andrew Spano — have the power under the election law to cancel the election.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo issued an executive order last month moving the primary from its originally scheduled date of April 28 to June.

He responded to the board’s vote in his news conference today, saying, “I’m not going to second guess the board of elections there are a number of, I know there are a lot of election employees, employees of boards of elections who are nervous about conducting elections. But I’ll leave it up to the board of elections.”

Jay Jacobs, chairman of the New York State Democratic Committee, told CNN in a phone interview Monday afternoon that he agreed with the decision to cancel the state's presidential primary contest.

Jacobs said it was a "necessary move" by the New York election officials to protect the health and safety of voters and poll workers.

He noted that the outcome was essentially “pre-determined” since Sen. Bernie Sanders dropped out of the Democratic race and emphasized the need to protect voters amid the coronavirus pandemic.

"We've stopped all non-essential business. This certainly is a non-essential primary if ever there was one," Jacobs said.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis warned at a news conference Monday that it "is going to be slow and steady wins the race" as the state moves forward during the pandemic.

DeSantis said there are about 400 coronavirus patients on ventilators in the state.

"In the state of Florida right now, we have 6,408 ventilators that are just simply sitting idle. In fact, the total number of patients we have on ventilators for Covid-19 statewide is about 400, as of last night," DeSantis said.

Los Angles County will open a decontamination center to disinfect N95 masks, LA County Sheriff Alex Villanueva said at a press conference this morning.

He said the shortage in the supply chain, as well as the growing market for counterfeit masks is a concern.

The new center will be able to decontaminate more than 30,000 masks per day, and allow each mask to be used up to 20 times, said Sheriff Villanueva.

An airtight container, the size of a small dishwasher, will decontaminate masks using hydrogen peroxide vaporization. Within a few hours, the masks will be cleaned without compromising any protective properties.

The LASD is the first in the nation to implement this type of a center, said the sheriff.

Officials will be conducting scaling tests this week. It is not clear when the decontamination center will be completely operational.

The number of coronavirus cases have now topped 3 million globally, according to a running tally from Johns Hopkins University. Nearly a third of all cases are in the US.

The US has at least 972,969 confirmed cases, according to Johns Hopkins

Spain follows the US with the second highest count of Covid-19 cases worldwide with 229,422.

Spain is followed by Italy, France, Germany and the UK as countries with the most coronavirus cases globally.  

Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds announced today that 77 of the state's 99 counties can reopen restaurants, fitness centers, retail stores and enclosed malls at 50% capacity beginning May 1.

Reynolds also said that she is lifting the ban on religious gatherings of more than 10 people. 

This approach takes "a targeted approach to loosening restrictions" and focuses on counties "where there is no virus activity or where virus activity has been consistently low and shown a downward trend," Reynolds said.

Counties where Covid-19 activity is higher will have their closures extended through May 15, the governor said.

She added that business and churches approved for reopening "must also adhere to social distancing, hygiene, public health measures, and business guidelines from the department of public health" to reduce the spread of Covid-19.

Reynolds also said that restaurants will have to keep tables at least six feet apart and limit the number of people that can be at a table. 

An additional $130 million in funding will be allocated to Massachusetts' nursing homes and long-term care facilities to implement coronavirus precautions, Gov. Charlie Baker said.

The money will be used for additional staff, personal protective equipment and cleaning and disinfecting of the facilities, he said.

Baker also announced that all residents and staff in the commonwealth’s nursing homes and long-term care facilities will now be tested for coronavirus as part of new mandatory criteria.

Baker also said additional guidelines including procedures for infection control and mandates on personal protective equipment in facilities will be implemented. The facilities will be audited to make sure they are meeting the requirements, Baker said.

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy said while it’s too early to tell whether reopening will be on a regional or statewide basis, he prefers the latter.

“My bias will be leaning toward making state decisions — statewide decisions," he said, adding “unless we see a real unique reason to do otherwise, or unless we see a really bifurcated reality in terms of the virus and its impact on the state.”

The reopening will begin in work places and venues where the state has a “high degree of confidence” that social distancing and other related norms can be effectively executed.

While Murphy did not have a clear picture of what would come back online first, he mentioned the “food chain” and other essential elements. He added that as much as he loves music, concerts are not going to be coming back “anytime soon.” 

Murphy noted that some decisions will likely be made in harmony with other states, giving the example that he does not imagine that a restaurant in Jersey City, New Jersey, would have a different protocol than one on the lower west side of Manhattan.

Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, the technical lead for the coronavirus response with the World Health Organization, said there isn’t enough research yet to determine if someone is immune to Covid-19 once they recover from the virus.

"At the present time, four months into this pandemic, we’re not able to say that an antibody response means that someone is immune," Van Kerkhove said.

Van Kerkhove said officials expect that people infected with Covid-19 will have some level of protection. "What we don’t know right now is, how strong that protection is and if that’s seen in everybody that is infected, and for how long that lasts," she said.

Early results from several countries “suggest that a large proportion of the population remains susceptible," Van Kerkhove said. She added that it is "an important feature because that means that there still are people that this virus can infect."

There have been at least 972,969 cases of coronavirus in the US and at least 55,118 people have died, according to a tally from Johns Hopkins University.

On Monday, Johns Hopkins reported 7,184 new cases and 237 reported deaths. 

The totals include cases from all 50 states, the District of Columbia and other US territories, as well as repatriated cases.