Coronavirus pandemic in the US

San Francisco will not lift stay-home restrictions until May 18, Mayor London Breed said.

The city will not join the rest of California in reopening on Friday.

“Retailers like bookstores, florists, & music stores will be the first allowed to operate storefront pickup,” she added.

The stay-at-home order for seven Bay Area jurisdictions, which began on May 4, still remains in effect. 

“The Bay Area orders do not currently permit curbside pickup from non-essential, non-outdoor businesses, and that is not allowed to begin on Friday, May 8,” the counties said in a statement. 

“We appreciate that the Governor recognizes that California communities are impacted differently by coronavirus and can make decisions at the local level,” they added.

The areas covered in the regional order are Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, San Francisco, San Mateo, and Santa Clara counties, along with the city of Berkeley. 

“The coronavirus pandemic is still well underway,” the statement said. “Our communities will be dealing with it for a long time to come. We expect outbreaks to continue, especially among vulnerable populations.”

Following the announcement of Shanghai Disneyland's reopening on May 11, Disney announced today that Disney Springs, an outdoor shopping, dining and entertainment area in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, will begin a phased reopening on May 20. 

The statement said the reopening would include “increased cleaning procedures, the use of appropriate face coverings by both cast members and guests, limited-contact guest services and additional safety training for cast members.”

Theme parks and resort hotels will remain closed.

Florida began allowing restaurants to begin dine-in service on May 4, but restaurants at Disney Springs did not reopen on that date.

Dr. Richard Besser, former acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, issued a warning this afternoon on the White House's decision not to implement the latest CDC guidelines on when businesses could begin to safely reopen.

Besser's remarks came after reports the Trump administration had decided not to implement a 17-page draft recommendation from the CDC for reopening America, a document which provided more detailed suggestions beyond the reopening guidelines the administration had put forth last month, including specific suggestions for schools and churches. 

Besser went on to say that as states move to quickly reopen, they face the potential for further coronavirus outbreak.

“If you look at the trends around the nation, and you look at the number of states that are opening up their economy, it’s a really risky proposition,” Besser said. “I worry that we’re going to see very significant outbreaks in many of those places.”

Restaurants will be able to reopen with outdoor seating and 33% capacity on May 22, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said Thursday.

He said movie theaters and fitness centers will be allowed to reopen on June 1. Campgrounds will reopen on June 11.

The state’s goal is to allow childcare along with low-touch and outdoor youth sports by June 15, he said.

Beshear said phase three of the reopening plan will begin in July and plans include bars and groups of 50 people.

Beaches in Southern California’s Orange County will reopen starting today for active recreational use, county officials announced Thursday.

The announcement comes just a week after California Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered all beaches in Orange County to close when large crowds gathered one weekend. 

Newsom gave the county permission to reopen and announced in an earlier press conference on Thursday that an agreement was made for a “very thoughtful reopening.”

The state reviewed and approved the county’s phased beach reopening plan this morning, director of Orange County Community Resources Dylan Wright said.

It is consistent with the governor’s order, Wright added. 

Orange County supervisor Michelle Steel said she’s still confused as to the governor’s motives on singling out their county.

“I want to reiterate that the governor’s actions on this front were clearly arbitrary and capricious and completely unnecessary,” Steel said.

Arkansas will allow the state's three casinos to resume limited operations May 18, Gov. Asa Hutchinson said Thursday.

Southland Casino Racing in West Memphis, Oaklawn Racing Casino Resort in Hot Springs and Saracen Casino Resort in Pine Bluff have been closed since mid-March.

"On May 18, we will be working to provide new guidance for the three gaming casinos in Arkansas so that they can renew limited operations," he said. "They will be opening on May 18 at one-third capacity, one-third capacity with social, with stringent, social distancing requirements in place."

Hutchinson said this is part of his phase one plan to reopen the state during the coronavirus pandemic.

Georgia Insurance and Safety Fire Commissioner John King announced the creation of a task force to communicate and educate critical information and important coronavirus measures in Spanish.  

King said he wants the workers at the town’s poultry plants to practice the same precautions at home as they are required to at work.

“I've toured local poultry plants firsthand to see the safety measures that have been put in place to protect workers while maintaining the supply. Now the next step is to ensure workers continue maintaining these same practices while at home in their communities," King said.

A team at Johns Hopkins school of public health is starting a trial to see if so-called convalescent plasma, or plasma from Covid-19 survivors, can help prevent infections in frontline health care workers.

A second team at the school will test plasma in people who are not sick enough to be hospitalized to see if the plasma might help keep them out of the hospital.

The idea of using blood plasma from people who have recovered from an infectious disease isn’t new, Dr. Arturo Casadevall, chair of molecular microbiology and immunology at the school, said during a briefing. Blood plasma contains antibodies that people have developed over time to fight off an infection, and they can be used to kickstart someone else’s response.

But it’s rare for anyone to conduct a controlled clinical trial to prove it actually helps people recover, or acts to prevent disease. An informal network of researchers is working to coordinate donations from coronavirus survivors across the US and study what happens to people who receive it.

Several teams have been testing donated plasma in extremely ill patients. The two Johns Hopkins trials will seek to show whether it helps at earlier stages. The teams will recruit 150 people for the trial to see if plasma protects frontline workers, and 1,000 patients for the trial aimed at showing whether plasma helps prevent serious illness from developing.

“You are really looking for that proportion of individuals who get sick and then progress,” Casadevall said. That is a minority of patients, so at least 1,000 will be needed to randomize them and treat half with convalescent plasma and half with blood plasma not taken from Covid-19 survivors, he said.

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, a Democrat, said mail-in ballots for everyone in the state will be “essential” for November’s general election.

Pritzker suggested such a law would be a priority for the state legislature later this year

He added that in-person voting will take place with input from the Illinois Department of Health.