April 5 coronavirus news

Death Valley National Park, which runs through California and Nevada, has closed as of April 4 citing public health concerns aimed at limiting the spread of Covid-19.

All park facilities, restrooms, viewpoints, trails, roads, and campgrounds are closed until further notice, a notice on the National Park Service’s website said.

CA-190 and Daylight Pass are open to pass-through traffic, the website added. Additionally, all permits to the park are cancelled and no new permits are being issued to limit the spread of Covid-19.

An employee at a Prescott, Arizona, hospital was arrested after being accused of stealing $1,700 worth of protective equipment and cleaning supplies, Prescott Police said in a statement on Saturday.

Keith Brown, 49, was arrested and booked into the Yavapai County Jail on one count of felony theft and one count of fraud, police said.

Brown worked in the housekeeping department of the Yavapai Regional Medical Center West Campus, who contacted police on Friday regarding suspicions that Brown had been stealing supplies.

While being interviewed by police, Brown admitted to stealing gloves, hand sanitizer, surgical scrubs, wash cloths, paper towels, masks, bleach cleaner, toilet paper, and an automatic hand sanitizer over the last three weeks, Prescott Police said.

According to Prescott Police, Brown has also been terminated from his job at the Yavapai Regional Medical Center West Campus.

Police say they are working with the hospital to return the items as soon as they are deemed safe to use.

The president of the American Medical Association (AMA) said she agrees that this upcoming week could be potentially one of the worst of the coronavirus pandemic so far.

AMA President Dr. Patrice Harris stressed the importance of being prepared with personal protection equipment for healthcare workers and ventilators in hospitals.

Harris said it is also important for people to continue social distancing and only going out for essential needs.

"There are things about this epidemic, pandemic, that we cannot control, but there are some things that we can control, and that is the physical distancing," she said. "As this epidemic evolved I have always said that individual actions lead to collective impact."

Some context: The US surgeon general said this week is going to be the "hardest and saddest" for "most Americans' lives," describing the upcoming period of the pandemic in the United States as a "Pearl Harbor moment" and a "9/11 moment."

There have been 321,762 confirmed cases and 9,132 deaths due to the coronavirus in the US, according to Johns Hopkins University.

In a memo to Defense Department staff Sunday, Defense Secretary Mark Esper said all individuals operating on Defense Department property worldwide should "wear cloth face coverings when they cannot maintain six feet of social distance in public areas or work centers," effective immediately.

Esper said the directive would not apply to a service member’s personal residence on a military installation. 

More than one million face shields were made over the past week at the Ford subsidiary Troy Design and Manufacturing’s facility in Plymouth, Michigan, Ford spokesman Dan Barbossa told told CNN.

Ford is now making a face shield every 10 seconds at its facility outside Detroit, Barbossa added.

Over 120,000 face shields have been delivered to New York and the tri-state area already, and the millionth face shield produced is being delivered today to the New York City Procurement Center, Barbossa said.

There are 120 workers helping at the facility.

These face shields have been delivered to hospitals and first responders in over 16 states, Barbossa said.

Louisiana could run out of ventilators by the end of the week if the number of confirmed coronavirus cases continues to surge, Gov. John Bel Edwards told CNN today.

Edwards received "an additional 200 ventilators from the federal Strategic National Stockpile" on Saturday, Edwards said. But looking to the future, "we definitely see that we will exceed our ventilator capacity," he said. 

Louisiana currently has 12,496 confirmed cases and 409 deaths, according to a tally from Johns Hopkins University.

Adding to a growing list, President Trump has approved disaster declarations for Delaware and South Dakota.

These are the 46th and 47th disaster declarations approved by the President in response to the coronavirus pandemic, including 42 states, the US Virgin islands, the Northern Mariana Islands, the District of Columbia, Guam and Puerto Rico.

New Jersey has recorded another 3,482 positive Covid-19 cases to bring the state total to 37,505.

There have been 917 deaths in the state, up from 846 reported yesterday, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy tweeted.

Read Murphy's tweets:

According to Johns Hopkins University's tally of cases in the United States, there are at least 321,762 cases of coronavirus in the US and 9,132 people have died.

On Sunday, there have been at least 9,517 new cases and at least 636 new deaths reported in the country.

On Friday, there were 1,169 new deaths reported in the US. On Saturday, 1,344 people died from the disease.

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

Wyoming is the only state not reporting a death from coronavirus.