Coronavirus pandemic in the US

140,000 New Yorkers will undergo antibody tests beginning next week, as New York City is launching its own antibody survey in partnership with BioReference to understand the spread of the coronavirus, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Thursday morning.

Up to 5,000 people will be tested per day, he said, and test results are expected within 48 hours. Up to 70,000 people will be tested within the first two weeks.

Tests will be focused on people in the general area of test sites, de Blasio said, adding initial testing sites will be located in the Morrisania neighborhood in the Bronx, East New York, Upper Manhattan, Concord, and Long Island City.

Earlier this week, the city announced a separate 140,000 antibody tests for health care workers and first responders.

Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont said he’d like to hear from CDC experts about reopening the US economy, and he said he bases decisions about his states on scientific recommendations.  

“What do you got to hide? I think it would be very helpful for us,” Lamont said in response to the Trump administration’s decision to not implement the Centers for Disease Control’s 17-page draft recommendation for reopening America.

“Let us hear from the experts. I think we'll be able to make much better decisions accordingly. Don't politicize this,” he added.  

With Connecticut set to begin reopening on May 20, Lamont said the state is “making baby steps as we slowly reopen our economy.”

He outlined what businesses will be able to open at that time:

Lamont also said the state will look at opening summer camps at an appropriate time, and those would also have an educational component. “I’ve got to continue to ramp up the education, so [by] September 1, kids are ready to go back to school,” he said. 

Ultimately, the reopening will be shaped by the residents of Connecticut themselves, and Lamont says he trusts them to do the right thing. 

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US stocks kicked off higher today, as investors chose to focus on the gradual reopening of the US economy.

As in previous weeks, the market shrugged off the bleak weekly jobless claims data, which showed that more than 1 in 5 Americans has now filed for first-time unemployment benefits since mid-March.

Here's how the markets opened:

Moderna — the company that announced earlier today the FDA cleared its vaccine for the novel coronavirus for a second trail phase — said a 600-participant phase 2 study is expected to begin shortly.

During an investor call this morning, Moderna said it added people older than 55 to the phase 2 study. It said the first batches of the vaccine are expected to be manufactured in July, with the goal to enable manufacturing of up to 1 billion doses per year.

What the phases mean: The first phase of vaccine trials examines safety. The second phase expands the number of participants. In the third phase, the vaccine is given to many more people and tested for efficacy and safety. 

According to the World Health Organization, there are 100 vaccines in preclinical evaluation globally, and eight vaccines in clinical trials. One other vaccine was already in phase 2, and several others are doing simultaneous phase 1 and phase 2 trials. 

Moderna’s vaccine, which was developed by the company and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, used a genetic platform called mRNA. According to the National Institutes of Health, the vaccine directs the body’s cells to express a virus protein that researchers hope will elicit an immune response. Moderna has never brought a product to market, or gotten any of its vaccine candidates approved for use by the FDA.

Science journalist Laurie Garrett has been warning about a pandemic like Covid-19 for decades and predicts the coronavirus pandemic could possibly last for three years. 

Garrett said we should look at places like South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong, which have been able to stem the pandemic.  

“These places have figured out this virus will come in waves. It's not going to be a giant tsunami that just sweeps over America all uniform all at once, then retreats, then all comes back all at once across America again. It's going to be more like little brush fires popping up here, there, and everywhere,” she said. 

Garrett also slammed US coronavirus policies and the Trump administration’s decision to not implement the Centers for Disease Control’s 17-page draft recommendation for reopening America. "The CDC ought to be in leadership," she said.

“It’s just madness. We're acting as if you can wish away an epidemic. You can't just say, ‘I want the economy going and the virus will cooperate.’ It doesn't work that way,” Garrett said. 

She said that the pandemic has changed the world’s perception of the US. 

The idea of testing everyone is not realistic and possibly not necessary, Garrett said, but it needs to be targeted to be effective. 

“We're going to have to do testing that's really smart, that's targeted, that follows basic principles of science,” she said. “…We're not doing any smart testing. There's only a handful of places in the country where testing is following the kind of scientific principles that means that what the results of what the testing are are valid.” 

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The Trump administration will not implement the Centers for Disease Control’s 17-page draft recommendation for reopening America, a senior CDC official confirmed to CNN.

What was in the document: The guidance provided more detailed suggestions beyond the reopening guidelines the administration had put forth last month, including specific suggestions for schools and churches.

A senior CDC official confirms to CNN that last night it was clear that the White House was not going to implement their 17-page draft recommendation for reopening America – after it asked for it.  

“We are used to dealing with a White House that asks for things and then chaos ensues. A team of people at the CDC spent innumerable hours in response to an ask from Debbie Birx,” said the source, referring to White House coronavirus task force official Dr. Deborah Birx. “The 17-page report represents an ask from the White House Task Force to come up with these recommendations. That’s our role. To put together this guidance.”

A task force official provided CNN with the following statement:

Another administration official told CNN that CDC leadership had not seen the document before it was leaked.

A senior administration official said the draft document obtained by CNN last week was the subject of heated internal debate over the last week, but ultimately, members of the task force felt it was too specific and might not be helpful as nationwide guidance given the vastly different situations in each state.

The White House has also been subject to an intensive lobbying effort from certain sectors who were looking to influence the guidelines, the senior official said.

At the White House briefing yesterday, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany reiterated the White House’s initiative to let the nation’s governors implement their own guidelines.

“This is a governor-led effort. The president has said that governors make the decisions as to move forward and we encourage them to follow our phased approach,” McEnany said

The CDC official told CNN that this is part of the ongoing friction that has gone on between the top US health agency and the White House. 

The decision was then made by the CDC to pivot and try to get their recommendations implemented at the state level via state agencies. 

Part of the debate over the recommendation had to do specifically with what was recommended for businesses.

“The CDC, the White House task force and White House principles were in disagreement on how strongly a public health response should still be in place,” said the official.

According to the CDC official, the agency was told by US Department of Labor officials – who are all part of the government process – that under the agency’s proposed guidelines, some of the restrictions that would have to be placed on entities like churches, and businesses were too stringent, and businesses would be left vulnerable to legal liability if a worker contracts or dies from Covid-19 on the job.

“In the absence of law, it’s regulation, and in the absence of regulation, it’s recommendations. They think it’s left too much open to be interpreted by the courts if something happens on the job. It doesn’t matter if OSHA is playing ball or not,” the CDC source said.

Another 3.2 million Americans filed for first-time unemployment benefits in the week ended May 2.

In total, more than 33.5 million people have filed first-time claims since mid-March as the coronavirus pandemic is forcing businesses to close and lay off workers.

That represents 21% of the March labor force. 

Moderna’s investigational vaccine for the novel coronavirus has been cleared by the US Food and Drug Administration to proceed to second phase of a study, the company said today in a press release.

The next phase of the trial is expected to begin shortly, it said. 

The vaccine, mRNA-1273, was the first US vaccine to start clinical trials in the United States. Moderna said it is finalizing protocol for a phase 3 study, which is expected to begin in early summer. 

CNN has reached out to the FDA.

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