Coronavirus pandemic in the US

West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice announced today that the state has 510 active cases of coronavirus and 667 recovered cases.

He said they have not had any coronavirus-related deaths since Saturday.

“Our overall trend line is still trending in a good way,” Justice said, referencing the number of positive cases of Covid-19.

The governor spoke more about the “West Virginia Strong” comeback plan, saying they would enter the next phase of reopening on Monday.

The governor also said that people who have exhausted their unemployment benefits can now apply for pandemic emergency unemployment compensation, which gives them a 13-week extension of their unemployment benefits.

Several small schools are planning to reopen in parts of Montana as soon as this Thursday, according to local education officials. The schools have under 100 students each, and have come up with comprehensive plans to ensure student and teacher safety, they say.

Montana Gov. Steve Bullock said schools may reopen as soon as May 7, although it's up to the local districts to decide whether or not they wish to open, according to a release distributed April 22.

Willow Creek School, which has between 50 to 60 students in grades K-12, will be opening May 7, according to Gallatin County Superintendent of Schools, Matthew Henry.

While Willow Creek is not in his district, Henry confirmed to CNN that Willow Creek's board "had voted unanimously to reopen and practice the social distancing guidelines."

In Garfield County, the Cohagen Elementary School, grades K-8, will also reopen on May 7. 

According to Garfield County Superintendent Heather Gibson, it is a one-teacher schoolhouse with 14 students, who come from 4 families. Gibson said she believes all 14 students plan on coming back.

Three other schools in Gallatin County are either reopening or finalizing plans to reopen later in May.

Gallatin County currently has zero active coronavirus cases.

Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo announced today that she will sign an executive order directing all residents to wear a cloth face mask in a public place.

The order will go in to effect Friday. 

Raimondo said residents in indoor or outdoor public places will have to wear face coverings, with an exception for children, the "developmentally unable" and those with underlying breathing conditions that will make it difficult to wear a mask. 

By the numbers: Raimondo also reported 281 new coronavirus cases and 14 deaths in the state, adding that hospitalizations and Covid-19 cases are "flattening out."

"In the context of Covid-19 crisis, I feel good about where we are," Raimondo said. 

As of Tuesday, the state has a total of 9,933 positive Covid-19 cases and 355 deaths. 

Gold’s Gym is filing for bankruptcy after closing 30 corporate locations.

CEO Adam Zeitsiff says franchises are not impacted and that the closings are only for company owned locations.

“This is strictly focused on our company and giving us a chance to restructure and get through this pandemic,” Zeitsiff told CNN’s John King.

Gold's Gym said in a statement that it's "absolutely not going anywhere" and doesn't intend to permanently close any more gyms than the 30 it shuttered last month.

For the first time since March 25, Louisiana has less than 200 patients with Covid-19 on ventilators.

Today's report by the Louisiana Department of Health showed that people hospitalized with the virus went up slightly to 1,512 while the total ventilator usage dropped by 26 to 194.

Statewide numbers: The total number of cases in the state went up over the past day, bringing the total number of cases to 29,996.

The number of deaths is now at 2,042, up 51 from Monday's report. 

New Jersey reported 2,494 new cases of Covid-19 on Tuesday, bringing the statewide total to 130,593, Gov. Phil Murphy said.

The governor cautioned that there are still some “lagging results” from the past couple of days, so the numbers could change. 

The state is also reporting 334 new deaths. New Jersey has now reported a total of 8,244 total coronavirus-related deaths.

New Jersey has seen a slow-down in the rate of new cases reported, Murphy said, and hospitalizations have started to tick down as well.

Hospitalizations: At least 5,328 patients are currently being treated in hospitals – a decrease of nearly 3,000 over the last three weeks. There has also been one full week of declining numbers of patients being treated in intensive care units, with about 1,534 patients currently being treated.

Murphy cautioned, however, that there is still a ways to go before the state can fully reopen safely.

“This is the fight of our lives, it’s not two dimensional,” Murphy said.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced today that antibody tests will be deployed to drive-through testing sites. 

"We're also going to be announcing this week the deployment of antibody tests at our drive-through testing facilities. So the antibody tests test whether your body has developed antibodies which means that you have had the disease in the past," DeSantis said. 

The governor said they've "already received 200,000 antibody tests for serological testing."

"We're also going to likely do our own state of Florida study where we can try to determine the prevalence in different parts of the state," he added.

An experimental coronavirus vaccine entering into human trials in the US, could be available in “many millions” of doses by the end of 2020, the CEO of BioNTech told CNN. 

The German drug maker has partnered with US giant Pfizer to distribute a potential vaccine which is already in human trials in Germany. Uğur Şahin believes the regulatory approval process could be sped up from what is historically an 18-month time frame due to the global pandemic. 

He believes Covid-19 will be responsive to a vaccine which is he calls the “most important aspect” of vaccine development. He said the second aspect is the “very encouraging” preclinical data.

“We see vaccine responses, we see strong vaccine responses at even low doses. And we believe that this vaccine response, since we have seen that in different animal models will also translate into vaccine responses in human subjects," he said. 

If it is approved by the regulators, Sahin said the partners are “prepared to go as fast as possible" to get the vaccine to the population.

Since the reopening of parks last Wednesday, Miami-Dade Police have issued 459 violations and has made one arrest, according to the department’s press office.

According to the department, the violations included verbal warnings for noncompliance of reopening rules, like wearing masks, social distancing, no picnics and no large gatherings. Strict operation hours are also enforced. In one case, there were about 30 people congregated at a park taking graduation pictures, per police.

As for the arrest, Miami-Dade Police say a 35-year-old man was arrested Saturday at Hobie Beach for resisting an officer without violence and a health and safety violation, two misdemeanors. Police say the man was running with his dog on a closed beach. An officer told the man to run on the pavement. Later, the officer saw the same man with his dog on the waterline. At that point, the man provided the officer with a fake name and ignored the officer’s command, per police.

Miami-Dade Police say there is no booking photo because the man was issued a promise to appear.

According to MDPD no parks have been closed in the county due to non-compliance by park goers.

Yesterday, Miami Beach Police announced it had issued nearly 8,000 warnings over the weekend for people violating social distancing and face mask rules. Miami Beach Police announced the closure of South Pointe Park until further notice, due to non-compliance.

Miami Beach is in Miami-Dade County.