Coronavirus pandemic in the US

Poll workers will be wearing masks at polling centers throughout the state in June and voters who arrive at centers without masks will be provided one and asked to wear it, New Mexico Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver said Friday.

Voters are encouraged to cast their votes either by mail or ballot drop off, Oliver said.

People who have to vote at a center will be provided sanitized pens and masks. Each voting booth will be sanitized between uses, she said.

The state's primary election is set for June 2.

State parks in Kentucky will be allowed to reopen on June 1, Gov. Andy Beshear said.

The reopening includes lodging, cabins and golfing, he said.

The plan excludes state parks that have been designated to help provide temporary housing for some Covid-19 patients.

The state will also be resuming auto or dirt track racing, fishing tournaments, and reopening aquatic centers and bowling alleys on June 1, he said.

Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the US Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, said the department's forecasting models predict deaths from Covid-19 exceeding 100,000 by June 1.

He tweeted: “CDC tracks 12 different forecasting models of possible #COVID19 deaths in the US. As of May 11, all forecast an increase in deaths in the coming weeks and a cumulative total exceeding 100,000 by June 1.”

His tweet comes after researchers at the University of Washington revised the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation model on Tuesday — often cited by the White House — upward to 147,000 coronavirus deaths in the United States by August 4.

As of 5:40 p.m. ET on Friday, Johns Hopkins University counts 87,184 coronavirus deaths in the United States.

There are at least 1,439,231 cases of coronavirus in the US and at least 87,184 people have died, according to a tally from Johns Hopkins University. 

Johns Hopkins on Friday reported 21,457 new cases and 1,286 deaths. 

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

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said today that sports are not over, but watching the games on television may last a while. 

Whitmer also stressed the "need a vaccine."

"And we need to have mass quantities available, or we need to be able to test and acknowledge that we've got some immunity that's built up. We're not there yet," she said.

The governor said the organizers of leagues understand how important it is to act responsibly. 

"We can have sports, just the way we observe them may look a little different," Whitmer added. 

The governor also addressed recent threats against her, saying, "It is never acceptable to make threats of violence to anyone, but our officeholders as well. And so we take them very seriously."

"I've never felt unsafe because I know that the State Police is a serious organization that is incredibly professional and has got my safety at the center of some of the work that they do," Whitmer added. 

By the numbers: Michigan has a total of 50,079 Covid-19 cases and 4,825 deaths.

All retailers in New Mexico — with the exception of those in three counties — can operate at 25% of their fire code capacity starting Saturday, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said Friday.

Cibola, McKinley and San Juan counties are not included in the new guidance because case counts are still too high in that region, Lujan Grisham said.

Retailers are considered any business that sells good directly to the consumer. Entertainment venues, such as movie theaters, concert halls and amusement parks, are not considered retail businesses, Lujan Grisham said.

Houses of worship are also allowed to operate at 25% capacity, she said.

Other nonessential businesses, such as office spaces and call centers, can also operate with 25% of pre-crisis staffing levels, according to the new guidance.

Cases of coronavirus are still "too high" in New Mexico, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said during a Friday news conference.

Lujan Grisham said that she will "do whatever it takes" to protect vulnerable communities from increased spread. 

She warned that another shutdown could be possible if people don't work to mitigate the spread of coronavirus. 

There are 223 people who are hospitalized with coronavirus and 49 of them are on ventilators, Lujan Grisham said.

So far, 253 people have died in New Mexico from coronavirus, Lujan Grisham added.

The coronavirus is nothing like the flu, and continued comparisons are misleading, a senior American Heart Association official said Friday.

Covid-19 is new, people have no immunity to it, there’s no vaccine to prevent it and no good treatment for infection, Dr. Eduardo Sanchez said in a commentary on the American Heart Association website.

Plus, the new coronavirus is more dangerous in several ways, Sanchez said.

“Covid-19 seems to be more contagious,” he wrote.

And despite constant references to how many people are killed by seasonal influenza every year, Covid-19 has killed more people, faster, said Sanchez, who is chief of the American Heart Association’s Center for Health Metrics and Evaluation.

“(Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) estimates that 24,000 to 62,000 flu deaths occurred during the 2019-2020 flu season (October 1, 2019 through April 4, 2020). This is a wide range because flu is not a reportable disease in most areas of the country, and the estimate is derived from a mathematical model based on flu-associated hospitalizations,” he wrote.

Covid-19 deaths are counted one by one, Sanchez noted. More than 86,000 people have died from Covid-19 in the US, according to Johns Hopkins University, and they have died in the span of just three months.

“Our understanding of the virus is rapidly evolving, but so far, COVID-19 appears to pose a greater risk to the public’s health than the flu,” Sanchez said.

At a ceremony honoring "the hard work, heroism, and hope that Americans from all walks of life have exemplified during the Covid-19 pandemic" this afternoon, President Trump asked a nurse how she was able to avoid catching coronavirus.

The nurse, Amy Ford, thought it was because of personal protective equipment.

Ford is a nurse from West Virginia who is working in New York City during the pandemic. She described holding a phone up to her patients so they could hear from family they weren't able to see in person.

She called it one of the "most emotionally challenging things" she'd ever been through.