April 13 coronavirus news

Air travel has now dropped in the US each of the last five weeks.  

The Transportation Security Administration is now screening about 4% of the number of people it did this time last year. 

On Sunday, its officers screened 90,510 people, compared to more than 2.4 million on the same day in 2019. That’s a 96% drop from last year’s traffic. 

Those numbers have fallen week-by-week. TSA began March screening just above last year’s travelers, but on the last day of the month, the agency screened about 6% of the equivalent day in 2019. 

The steepest drop-off came in the third week of March, when traffic dropped from 61% to just 18% of last year’s traffic. 

There are now 52% fewer international flights and 86% fewer domestic flights taking off weekly, according to Airlines for America, an industry group. 

Overall, airlines are flying 71% fewer seats than one year ago, it said. Airlines have parked more than 1,900 planes since the pandemic hit the United States. 

Dr. Melanie Malloy has one of the toughest jobs out there right now. She is an attending physician at Mount Sinai Brooklyn hospital and spends her days in the emergency department treating the scores of desperately sick patients who flood in with Covid-19.

The hospital, which is relatively small, has been inundated with more than 1,250 coronavirus cases since the pandemic began, pushing the hospital to 150% of its capacity at one point. 

In a sense, she is one of the luckier New York health workers — her hospital still has enough personal protective equipment and ventilators. But her shifts are long and brutal, and the challenges don’t stop when she goes home. Malloy is also a widow, raising three children on her own.

CNN asked Malloy to make a video diary taking us through her day as she struggles to save others’ lives while protecting her own.

Watch:

A sailor who tested positive for Covid-19 on the USS Theodore Roosevelt has died from the virus, the US Navy said in a statement Monday. 

The sailor was admitted to an intensive care unit in Guam on Thursday and died today, the Navy said.

As of Sunday, 585 sailors from the USS Theodore Roosevelt had tested positive for coronavirus, according to a statement from the US Navy. About 92% of the USS Theodore Roosevelt crewmembers have been tested for coronavirus, the statement said.

Some background: The commander of the Roosevelt was ousted earlier this month by the now former acting secretary of the Navy Thomas Modly for his “poor judgement," Modly said. 

Captain Brett Crozier had written to Navy leadership flagging his concerns about the Roosevelt's crew of more than 4,000, alerting them to the challenges of trying to contain the disease aboard the ship and urgently requesting that sailors be allowed to quarantine on land.

"We are not at war. Sailors do not need to die. If we do not act now, we are failing to properly take care of our most trusted asset: our Sailors," Crozier wrote in a memo that three US defense officials confirmed to CNN.

Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said this morning on the "Today" show that the US needs to reopen carefully and gradually when asked about concerns of a second wave of coronavirus infections.  

Redfield thanked the American people for following social distancing guidelines.

"As you've seen with the original models we had in terms of the potential mortality of this virus on our nation, it could have easily been 250,000, 500,000, a million," he said.  

"I think the social distancing that the American people all embraced to the reality we see overall mortality, while sadly too high, was far less than we anticipated," Redfield said, adding that relaxing guidelines "has to be done very carefully." 

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson tested negative for coronavirus before being discharged from hospital, his official spokesman said Monday.

No update on his health has so far been issued on Monday, but his spokesperson said that on the advice of his medical team, he is not immediately returning to work.

Johnson spent a week in the hospital for persistent coronavirus symptoms.

Upon leaving hospital on Sunday, Johnson released a deeply personal video message thanking his nurses, saying “things could have gone either way.”

His words painted a much starker picture of his battle with Covid-19 and his fiancée referenced a “very dark week” in a post on her Twitter account.

Asked why the public was told Johnson was in “good spirits” while in ICU, his spokesman said: “All the information we gave to you was provided by St. Thomas’ hospital. Anything which we released to you was cleared with St. Thomas’.”

Johnson is now recovering at the PM’s official countryside residence, Chequers, in Buckinghamshire. This is considered to be “a suitable place for the PM to continue his recovery,” his spokesman said. He noted that there are no scheduled visitors. 

Around 300,000 non-essential workers have gone back to their jobs Monday in the Madrid region, a spokesman for Madrid's regional government told CNN.

Despite still reporting hundreds of new infections every day, the Spanish government announced it would begin rolling back some of its tough lockdown restrictions after the Easter holiday.

Spain’s General Workers Union, GTU, a major trade union, raised concerns over the safety of those returning to work. The union, which has 940,000 members according to its website, called for employers to be responsible for providing personal protection equipment.

Here's some background: The country has now recorded more than 17,400 total deaths, with more than 87,000 active cases. Today, Spain recorded its second-lowest daily rise in deaths for three weeks: 517 in the past 24 hours.

A partial lifting of restrictions came into effect today. Workers who cannot work from home, such as those working in construction and other industries, were permitted to return to work. However, shops, bars, and restaurants and other businesses considered non-essential, remain closed.

Lebanese Army units deployed throughout the country will on Tuesday begin distributing aid packages to citizens who have lost their income because of coronavirus, the army says.

The Lebanese government had earlier pledged to allocate 75 billion Lebanese Liras (about US$4.97 million) in social aid to those in need.

Lebanon has recorded 630 coronavirus cases and 20 deaths, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry.

Dr. Robert Redfield, the director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said the United States is "nearing the peak right now" of the coronavirus pandemic.  

"We are stabilizing across the country in terms of the state of this outbreak," he added.

Dr. Robert Redfield, the director of US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said Monday "it's important to look at the country as many different separate situations" when asked on the "Today" show if it was conceivable to relax social distancing guidelines by May. 

Redfield told NBC's Savannah Guthrie that in his view, a number of things need to happen before reopening the country, including increasing public health capacity to do early case identification, isolation and contract tracing.  

He added officials also need to "start working to rebuild confidence in the community, so the community has confidence to reopen."