March 24 coronavirus news

The Nevada primary scheduled for June 9 will go ahead as scheduled, but will be conducted only with absentee ballots, Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske announced Tuesday evening. This decision does not affect the results of Nevada’s presidential caucus that took place in February. 

The state said all active registered voters will automatically receive a ballot in the mail. Voters can either mail in their ballot or drop it off at a designated location in each county. 

Every county will have at least one poll worker in at least one location to accommodate voters who registered too late to receive an absentee ballot. Mail-in ballots can be postmarked by Election Day, but must be received by election officials within the following seven days to be counted.

More half of New Orleans' medical emergency services personnel is under quarantine due to the coronavirus pandemic, the city’s mayor told CNN’s Erin Burnett on Tuesday. 

With New Orleans hospitalizations expected to exceed their capacity in 11 days, according to the Louisiana Gov. John Bell Edwards, New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell said she is looking for the federal government’s major disaster declaration to get a long-awaited relief.

There have been at least 375 cases of coronavirus and 26 deaths in New Orleans so far, the mayor said.

Universal Orlando Resort and Universal Hollywood Resort announced Tuesday that they will extend their closures until April 19, according to both resorts’ websites. 

A Disney Global Parks and Consumer Products spokesperson told CNN that Disney has not officially announced any extension of closures at this time.

Australia banned overseas travel and extended social restrictions in order to tackle the spread of the novel coronavirus, Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced on Tuesday.

The decision to ban overseas travel is aligned with Australia's upgraded "Level 4: do not travel" and comes under the Biosecurity Act of 2015, Morrison said.

To that effect, the Australian prime minister unveiled stricter social distancing measures that include weddings with a maximum attendance of no more than five people and funerals with no more than 10 people, with one person per 4 square metre (or at least 6 feet apart).

Australia reported a jump of 429 new confirmed cases of novel coronavirus on Wednesday, taking the national tally to 2,252 cases of which eight have died, according to the country's Department of Health. 

Chicago Police Department has six confirmed Covid-19 cases, Supt. Charlie Beck announced Tuesday.

"Two of these cases came from the same facility. And two of the officers are hospitalized," he said.

As for law enforcement since Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker issued a stay-at-home order last week, Beck said, "We have issued zero citations and zero arrests for violations of the health order. We have also seen significant evidence that Chicago is staying home."

Beck also said that 911 calls are down 30% this month. 

Brandon Waltman went to visit his newborn baby girl in the neonatal intensive care unit of an Alabama hospital Monday night. His daughter Emmarie Grace Waltman has been in NICU at the University of South Alabama Women’s Hospital for the past month, but last night, he was told she had been moved to a different part of the hospital.

Waltman said he was told Emmarie was taken to a different room because a nurse tested positive for coronavirus and is being isolated as a precaution. After watching the news about the spread of the virus over the last few weeks, Waltman said he wasn’t surprised.

“I felt like it was inevitable,” he told CNN. Born February 20, Emmarie was in the NICU for issues associated with feeding, her father said.

Now he and his wife can only visit Emmarie one at a time in a low pressure room in order to prevent any potential spread of coronavirus.

Gary Mans, an associate vice president for Marketing and Communications at USA Health, said in a statement that a staff member within the health system had tested positive, but declined to say in which department. 

Waltman said he is anxious to get his daughter home to Mississippi to quarantine together as a family, but he isn’t sure when Emmarie will be released. The family’s home is about an hour away from the hospital.

He said his daughter isn’t showing any symptoms of Covid-19 and he hopes it’ll stay that way.

“I don't think she's going to test positive,” he said. “She's one of the, probably the biggest and the healthiest babies in the NICU.”

London's Mayor Sadiq Khan has hit back at government criticism over the capital's tube network running a reduced service amid the Covid-19 outbreak, telling local news outlets that Transport for London (TFL) is operating the maximum number of tube services it can, while maintaining safety. 

"We’re running the maximum tubes we can, as safely as we can. That roughly means that there are 55% of the tubes running," Khan said Tuesday in an interview with Channel 4 News. 

The London's mayor's remarks come after images of London's tube services circulated Tuesday morning depicting crowded trains, despite the virtual lockdown imposed by the government on Monday. 

Earlier on Tuesday, UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock criticized Transport for London's decision to run a reduced service, suggesting that an increase in the number of tubes running would allow members of the public to adhere to the government's social-distancing guidelines, while traveling on the underground network.

"TFL should have the tube running in full so that people travelling on the tube can be spaced out and further apart, obeying the two metre rule as best possible," Hancock said during the government's daily COVID-19 press briefing. 

"There is no good reason in the information that I've seen that the current levels of tube provision should be as low as they are. We should have more tube trains running," the Health Secretary added. 

Speaking to BBC London, Khan denounced the "blame game being played" by Hancock, highlighting the "heroic" work being carried out by TFL staff, and the pressure placed on TFL by the number of staff members who are off work.

"About a third of TFL staff are off work, mainly because of themselves having COVID-19, or members of their family having the symptoms, which means they are self-isolating...TFL are running the maximum service they’re able to do safely, with the number of staff that they have got," Khan asserted. 

As states compete for valuable medical resources like testing kits, face masks and ventilators, some are turning to their senators to help with supply shortages.

Behind the scenes, lawmakers are overwhelmed by the stories they are hearing back home, and stepping in to troubleshoot. Senators are relying on their closer relationships with the White House and federal officials to get states what they need. 

Sen. Tina Smith, a Democrat from Minnesota, recounted that in her state, the public health department had been approved to receive more than 55,000 N95 masks, nearly 122,000 surgical masks, 23,145 face shields, more than 18,000 gowns and more than 67,000 gloves from the strategic stockpile. But when health officials opened up their shipment Friday, they saw just 657 pairs of gloves.

They called her office.

For the rest of the weekend, Smith and her staff were on the phone with Department of Health and Human Services, troubleshooting with the governor’s office and trying to understand what had gone wrong.

Just days later, after the weekend calls, Minnesota public health officials received another shipment that contained the items they had been approved for. But, Smith said public health officials in her state still warn it’s not likely to be enough for the long haul. She also said that her state still has not received a single ventilator from the stockpile. Other hotspots like New York, California and Washington continue to be top priorities as the government seeks to slow to spread of Covid-19 there.

Smith says she doesn’t blame career officials at HHS or the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

“I feel like the career staff are trying their hardest. I don’t blame them,” she said. “It feels as if the administration’s response is haphazard… I cannot help but think that if they had started to prepare for this in early February…we would have been in a better spot…”

It’s not just places like Minnesota that state officials are asking senators with closer ties to the federal government to help. 

In South Dakota, Sen. John Thune, the second-ranking Republican in the Senate, stepped in to try and help his state. According to an aide familiar, Thune helped South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem lean on both the White House and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last week when the state needed more reagents required to complete the Covid-19 tests.

White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham, who has been quarantined since coming in contact with Brazilian officials almost two weeks ago and has been working from home, has received negative Covid-19 test results and will be back to work Wednesday, deputy White House press secretary Judd Deere told reporters tonight. 

Fabio Wajngarten, the press secretary for Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, tested positive for coronavirus earlier this month.

Wajngarten was with Bolsonaro on a US trip earlier this month, during which the Brazilian president dined with President Trump at Mar-a-Lago.