April 13 coronavirus news

People in New York City, Seattle, New Orleans and San Francisco are listening to orders to stay home, according to a report issued Monday by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"When you put in these social distancing measures, they do seem to work," said study coauthor Kathleen Ethier, leader of the CDC's community mitigation task force for the Covid-19 response. 

While there are early indications that social distancing has helped slow the spread of the coronavirus, experts warn that if people don't continue to adhere to the orders, the virus could surge again in some areas. 

The CDC report looked at data in New York City, Seattle, New Orleans and San Francisco, four cities with substantial numbers of coronavirus patients early in the outbreak that mandated people stay at home in mid- to late-March.

The report found that, in all four cities, the percentage leaving home was close to 80% on February 26. By April 1, that declined between 20% and 40% in each city, with mobility decreasing each time a new social distancing order was issued, starting with bans on mass gatherings, and then later restaurant and school closures and finally stay at home orders. 

 The CDC tracked mobility by looking at whether devices such as cell phones were brought more than 500 feet from the places they usually spend the night. Using anonymized publicly available data from a company called SafeGraph, the CDC looked at phones, tablets and watches belonging to between 3.6% and 6.4% of the population in each city.

Six states in the Northeast are working together to design a coordinated plan that would allow businesses to reopen following the coronavirus shutdown.

The six governors — New York's Andrew Cuomo, New Jersey's Phil Murphy, Connecticut's Ned Lamont, Pennsylvania's Tom Wolf, Delaware's John Carney and Rhode Island's Gina Raimondo — announced today they're forming a working group to develop the plan.

Each state will name a public health official and an economic official who will sit on the group. Each state's chief of staff to the governor will also be in the group.

Connecticut Gov. Lamont thanked Cuomo for getting together the governors.

He referenced transportation as a main issue, as many from his state commute to New York. He noted the “commuter corridor” has become the “Covid corridor," and stressed that it’s important to “make sure you don’t pull the trigger too early.”

“Working together makes the most sense,” he added.

Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon has confirmed the state's first coronavirus-related death. The state had been the last one in the US to not have a confirmed death from the disease.

The US has at least 568,176 confirmed coronavirus cases and 22,861 deaths, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

The number of people who died with Covid-19 has risen to 20,446; an increase of 566 since the day before, the Italian Civil Protection Agency said Monday.

The number of active cases in the country on Monday was 103,616. There were 1,363 more people infected since Sunday, one of the lowest increase in the last week. 

The number of patients in ICU continues to drop. There are now at least 3,260 people receiving intensive care.

The total number of cases in Italy is at least 159,516. 

The United States surpassed Italy for the first time last Saturday with the highest total number of confirmed deaths in the world. As of Monday, the total number of deaths in the United States reached 22,861 according to Johns Hopkins University.

French President Emmanuel Macron has extended coronavirus emergency measures for another month.

In a live address to the nation, Macron said the strict measures will remain in place and the borders will be closed until May 11. 

Macron continued: “The epidemic is not yet mastered, we must continue our efforts and continue to apply the rules. The more that these rules are respected, the more lives we will be able to save.”

Schools will start to reopen “progressively” beginning May 11, he said.

“In the four weeks to come, the rules which the government has implemented should continue to be respected," Macron said.

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy said Monday while positive tests have flattened, they are still "not yet there" in the fight against coronavirus.

Murphy, who called into a joint news conference with New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, went on to say the decision to reopen the state should be "based on the facts, the data, the science."

The timing, however, has to be right, he added.

"You could have inadvertent unintended consequences, which could be grave," Murphy said.

He added: "This is the fight of our lives. Let there be no doubt about it, and we're not out of the woods yet, and reopening ourselves back up will be equally as challenging, beyond the shadow of a doubt."

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said the state is looking at a plan to reopen after the coronavirus shutdown that is in coordination with other surrounding states.

"We've been talking today about the fact that New York believes we have reached a plateau," he said at a news conference. "We should start looking forward to reopening, quote unquote, but reopening with a plan and a smart plan."

He added: "If you do it wrong, it can backfire."

Cuomo said New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Delaware and Rhode Island will appoint a public health official and an economic adviser to a working group that will design the reopening plan.

President Trump has no intention of firing Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease expert, White House deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley said Monday.

The statement comes after Trump fueled speculation about Fauci's future on Sunday, retweeting a conservative who called for the expert to be fired after he said in a CNN interview more could have been done to prevent the spread of coronavirus.

Trump has disputed that his administration was slow to respond, despite increased scrutiny of his initial handling of the crisis as it's been revealed that administration and health officials were sounding alarms for weeks before the President took decisive actions such as calling for social distancing measures.

The US Food and Drug Administration has issued emergency use authorizations for two blood purification devices that may help treat coronavirus patients.

The devices perform “extracorporeal blood purification” –��� essentially taking blood from a patient’s body, removing harmful inflammatory substances and then returning it.

Elevated levels of these substances – called cytokines – may cause problems with the immune system, according to the FDA.

Use of the devices is limited to patients 18 years or older, with confirmed Covid-19, who have been admitted to the intensive care unit with confirmed or imminent respiratory failure.

But the devices comes with risks: Among other side effects, the FDA says that heart problems, blood loss, infection and allergic reactions are all possible.

Still, in letters authorizing the devices, the FDA said they may help some patients during the coronavirus pandemic.

The known and potential benefits of the systems, according to the FDA’s authorization letters, outweighed the known and potential risks.

One of the systems green-lit by the agency is made by CytoSorbents, and the other is from Terumo BCT and Marker Therapeutics AG.

How helpful the devices might be, though, remains unclear, and there is currently no FDA-approved treatment for COVID-19.