April 12 coronavirus news

Starting Monday, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio is requiring all city workers who come in contact with the public while on duty to wear face coverings.

De Blasio said the city has already provided 1.4 million face coverings to city workers and will provide more as necessary. 

Addressing the economic hardship that the city is facing, New York City is establishing a new initiative to hire New Yorkers to do “absolutely crucial and heroic work in our hospital systems,” and that will be expanded to voluntary and independent hospitals as well, the mayor said.

To all New Yorkers looking for work, de Blasio said, “join a team of heroes.”

New York City Health & Hospital will be hiring 500 non-clinical staff for roles like patient transport, clerical staff and cleaning staff.

These will be temporary jobs beginning with a 90 day assignment, the mayor added.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said he wants to have community testing for coronavirus available by the end of next week.

De Blasio said at a press conference Sunday he will be asking for 110,000 individualized tests from the federal government to make this a reality while setting up new testing centers in targeted communities.

By the end of next week, de Blasio intends to set up Health and Hospitals testing centers in East New York, Brooklyn; Morrisania Bronx; Harlem, New York; Jamaica, Queens and Clifton, Staten Island.

This push for widespread community testing is part of "phase two," de Blasio said.

He said communities of color, lower income communities, immigrant communities, and vulnerable “folks who haven’t had the healthcare they needed and deserved throughout their life” have been impacted.

These new testing centers also provide an opportunity to put some people back to work. De Blasio said the new sites, as well as public hospitals, and eventually private and voluntary systems, are hiring temporary, non-clinical staff.

These will include things like helping to transport patients, cleaning and maintenance of facilities.

"I want to do everything I can to give people back their livelihood," de Blasio said.

Dr. Anthony Fauci said some lives would have been saved if mitigation efforts to control the coronavirus pandemic had been instituted earlier.

Fauci, the nation’s top infectious doctor, was responding to a question after reports that he and other federal health officials were recommending mitigation efforts like social distancing to President Trump as early as mid-February.

When asked why the President didn’t recommend social distancing guidelines until mid-March – about three weeks after the nation’s top health experts wanted to recommend they be put in place – Fauci said, “We look at it from a pure health standpoint. We make a recommendation. Often, the recommendation is taken. Sometimes it’s not. But we – it is what it is. We are where we are right now.”

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said “based on everything we know” the city will have enough ventilators to get through this coming week.

The rate of increase this past week in ventilator use has slowed with an average of 70 more intubations daily, down from 200 to 300, the mayor said.

De Blasio said he thought this week was going to be “much worse," saying it was a “different” week than the one expected.

Once this crisis hit he said the city went into a “crisis standard." Based on this standard, the city will have N95 surgical masks and gloves for the week ahead. He said, however, there will be barely enough face shields and surgical gowns for the week ahead, said de Blasio.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo started his Easter morning by returning ventilators to the Pathways Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Niskayuna, New York.

The governor said earlier in the coronavirus crisis, the state needed ventilators and at least 35 of them came from an unexpected place, the nursing home.

Cuomo went on to thank the nursing home for its generosity during a rough time and proceed to walk up to the window of the nursing home to put his hand on the glass.

You could hear Cuomo in the background saying, “in my heart, you made a difference.”

"When things are at their worse sometimes people are at their best," Cuomo said.

By the numbers: New York now has 181,825 confirmed coronavirus cases and 8,650 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University.

Cuomo said at a press conference Saturday morning that while the curve is beginning to flatten and the hospitalization rate is down, there is still a high number of people getting infected.

Citing numbers from the New York metropolitan area, Dr. Anthony Fauci told CNN he has "cautious optimism" the nation may be seeing a decrease in the rate of hospital admissions, patients admitted to intensive care and those needing intubation – resulting in the curve of cases decreasing.

Fauci did say the nation is still seeing some hot spots in various locations. 

White House Coronavirus Task Force Coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx had said Friday officials believed the nation had its peak, but more data was needed to confirm the status.

As the President debates when to recommend the guidelines instituted by governors across the nation should be relaxed, Fauci told CNN there has to be a “gradual re-entry” or a “rolling re-entry.”

“You’re trying to balance two things: you wanna make sure you don’t do something prematurely and precipitously, at the same time you pay attention to the need to get back to normal,” he said.

Fauci, the nation’s top infectious expert, added the nation cannot at one time drop the various restrictions put in place or there is an “extraordinary risk” of another major outbreak. He said different parts of the country will have to do it in different ways, partly depending on whether those locations have seen major outbreaks already or are facing future ones.

The top infectious disease doctor in the US says reopening the country will be a gradual process and restrictions will be lifted depending on where you are in the country.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told CNN this is not a "one size fits all" decision.

Fauci said he believes this approach is needed to try to prevent a "rebound" or second wave of coronavirus cases. He said there will be people who do get infected after restrictions are loosened, but by reopening gradually, there will be time to identify those cases and isolate them.

"If you start, and when one starts, to relax some of the restrictions, we know that there will be people who will be getting infected. I mean, that is just reality," Fauci said.

Fauci said "it's so difficult to make those kinds of predictions" regarding when these measures will begin, but he hopes to reassess the situation at the end of April.

"We are hoping that at the end of the month, we can look around and say, okay, is there any element here that we can safely and cautiously start pulling back on? If so, do it. If not, then just continue to hunker down," he said.

Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte says this Easter is like none other because of the coronavirus outbreak.

Conte shared his sympathy to those affected by the crisis in an Easter message on Facebook.

“To those who suffer today, to those who have an empty chair in front of them, to those who struggle in the hospital wards to remove tears and pain from their community,” he said.

He said that while this Easter is different, we will get through this together.

“Today will not be like the other times, and tomorrow won’t be either, when we hold on to what we care about. Together we will do it," Conte said.

Italy has reported more than 19,000 coronavirus deaths, according to a tally from Johns Hopkins University.

United Kingdom Prime Minister Boris Johnson has been discharged from the hospital, a Downing Street spokesperson said.

“The PM has been discharged from hospital to continue his recovery, at Chequers,” the spokesperson said. “On the advice of his medical team, the PM will not be immediately returning to work. He wishes to thank everybody at St. Thomas’ for the brilliant care he has received."

The spokesperson added: “All of his thoughts are with those affected by this illness.”

Johnson's fiancée, Carrie Symonds, thanked the British National Health Service after a "very dark" week, she said Sunday in a series of tweets following his discharge from the hospital.

Symonds said, "I cannot thank our magnificent NHS enough. The staff at St Thomas’ Hospital have been incredible. I will never, ever be able to repay you and I will never stop thanking you." 

Johnson issued a statement Saturday thanking the National Health Service staff at St. Thomas' Hospital following his treatment for coronavirus, saying "I can't thank them enough. I owe them my life," according to the UK Press Association.

This is the first known statement from the Prime Minister since he entered hospital last Sunday night.

Some context: Johnson announced he tested positive for the novel coronavirus on March 27. He said he was experiencing "mild symptoms" and would continue leading the country, while self-isolating in his apartment in Downing Street.

But 10 days later, 10 Downing Street announced the 55-year-old was not getting better and was taken to St. Thomas' Hospital in London. He was moved to an intensive care unit (ICU) the next day after his condition deteriorated.

Johnson spent three nights in intensive care and received "standard oxygen treatment," according to his spokesman, but did not require mechanical or invasive ventilation.

He was moved out of the ICU on Thursday night. On Friday, a spokesperson said the Prime Minister was "able to do short walks" in between periods of rest and waved his thanks to staff.