March 24 coronavirus news

Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks will be closed to visitors until further notice during the coronavirus outbreak.

"The National Park Service listened to the concerns from our local partners and, based on current health guidance, temporarily closed the parks,” said Yellowstone Superintendent Cam Sholly and Grand Teton Acting Superintendent Gopaul Noojibail said in a statement.

They added: “We are committed to continued close coordination with our state and local partners as we progress through this closure period and are prepared when the timing is right to reopen as quickly and safely as possible.”  

President Trump said Tuesday that he still has a good relationship with Dr. Anthony Fauci, the coronavirus task force member who leads the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases. 

“I think it’s very good,” he said of his relationship with Fauci. “You would have heard about it if it wasn’t.”

Asked why Fauci wasn’t at the town hall today, Trump said, “You know, they have other things to do. And yesterday we weren’t really talking about what he’s an expert on. We were talking about other things.”

The President complained that when a task force member isn’t seen at a briefing or meeting, the press is quick to ask why they aren’t there.

“I respect all of these people. These are great people,” Trump said. He called Dr. Deborah Birx and Fauci “extraordinary.”

Earlier in the town hall, Surgeon General Dr. Jerome Adams asserted that the President listens to his health experts, including Fauci, about the coronavirus.

According to CNN Health’s tally of US cases that are detected and tested in the United States through public health systems, there are at least 49,070 cases of the novel coronavirus in the United States. 

At least 624 people have died.

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

An emergency room nurse who works at a hospital in Virginia said the conditions at her hospital are “exceptionally chaotic.”

The nurse, who requested anonymity, said the rules about the personal protective equipment they are required to wear are changing “if not daily, hourly.” 

She said that nurses and doctors in her hospital who have auto-immune disorders and underlying conditions are being asked to wear the same protective equipment – one n95 mask for the entirety of their shift – as healthy nurses and doctors. She feels this is putting workers with underlying conditions at higher risk of contracting coronavirus. 

She said last week, hospital staff used N95 masks as they are supposed to be used, one time and then you throw them away. This week, they are using the N95 masks until they are soiled because they are running out of supplies.

She said they are seeing “60, 70, 80 patients” in one shift, “the majority of them have cough, fever, shortness of breath, and you are out there, and you have full garb and you have that one measly mask for all of those patients.” 

She feels like the hospital and the government were not prepared for the outbreak and the needs it would impose on hospitals.

“They should have been preparing when this outbreak happened in China,” she added.

In her emergency room, patients who potentially have Covid-19 are waiting in the same waiting room as people coming into the emergency room for other unrelated issues. This is where she believes the highest risk is for patients.

She also said they are not testing patients in her emergency room. If you are suspected to have Covid-19, you are separated into a room with other people who potentially have it. She said people are not getting tested unless they meet strict criteria, simply because there are not enough tests to test everyone who has the symptoms.

“On my shift, I think we tested 10 people yesterday when we should have tested probably 50 to 60 just to identify community spread,” she added.

She said she’s also putting her family at risk by being exposed to patients who potentially have Covid-19 every day. Her 18-year-old daughter is home from college for the rest of the semester since classes have been suspended. She said she has not hugged her daughter since this started, for fear she may pass anything on to her.

President Trump suggested negotiators working on a stimulus bill are “doing pretty well” Tuesday, going on to rail against New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo for “complaining” as his state faces critical shortages of ventilators.

“I hear just from a few minutes ago that they’re doing well. It’s for the workers, it’s for the people of the country, and I hear they’re doing pretty well so we’ll see how it comes out,” Trump said of the bill.

Trump then referenced a New York Post opinion piece from former New York Lt. Gov. Betsy McCaughey, who wrote last week about public health officials in a 2015 task force: “In 2015, the state could have purchased the additional 16,000 needed ventilators for $36,000 apiece, or a total of $576 million.” 

“I watched Gov. Cuomo and he was very nice, we’re building him hospitals, we’re building him medical centers, and he was complaining about – we’re doing probably more, definitely more than anybody else and he was talking about the ventilators,” Trump said of Cuomo.

He continued:

President Trump said he wants the nation "opened up and just raring to go by Easter," a date just over two weeks away that few health experts believe will be sufficient in containing the spread of coronavirus.

Speaking during a Fox News town hall, Trump reiterated he was eager to see the nation return to normal, even as doctors warn the nation will see a massive spike in cases if Americans return to crowded workplaces or events.

Despite announcing the new guidelines under the banner "The President's Coronavirus Guidelines for America," Trump seemed to distance himself from the practices during the town hall.

"Somehow, the word got out that this is the thing we are supposed to be doing," he said, noting the country had "never done a thing like this before." 

"But we had to do it. It's been very painful for our country and very destabilizing," he said.

As his advisers prepare options for returning the country to work, Trump suggested that Americans would still be able to exercise good health practices while still returning to normal.

"We have to go back to work much sooner than people thought. People can go back to work and they can also pass it on my practice good judgment," he said.

Trump again compared coronavirus to the flu and auto accidents, despite warnings from his health advisers that such analogies make little sense.

"We lose thousands and thousands of people to the flu. We don’t turn the country off," he said, adding: "We lose much more than that to automobile accidents."

Last week, Dr. Anthony Fauci said comparing coronavirus to auto accidents was a "false equivalency" and said it was important to "face the fact" that coronavirus is more lethal than the flu.

The UK government has launched a new volunteer program to support the country's National Health Service (NHS) and medical professionals on the frontline of the fight against coronavirus, Health Secretary Matt Hancock announced Tuesday during a news briefing at Downing Street. 

"The NHS Volunteer Responders is a new scheme set up so that people can come and help to make sure the NHS, and local services that are needed, get all the support they need," Hancock said. 

Following an earlier call by the government for retired healthcare professionals to return to the NHS, Hancock confirmed that more than 10,000 people have so far responded and agreed to rejoin the health service. 

Republican senators told CNN that President Trump should listen to medical professionals before opening up economy.

Here's what they're saying:

Athletes from around the world reacted Tuesday with a mixture of relief, sadness and goodwill to the postponement of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The Olympics have never been delayed in their 124-year modern history, though they were canceled altogether in 1916, 1940 and 1944 during World War I and World War II.

Here's how athletes are reacting: