April 19 coronavirus news

US President Donald Trump on Sunday called people who are protesting their governors’ social distancing measures “great people.”

Trump said this despite the fact the states are following recommendations of federal health officials to institute the distancing guidelines.

In recent days Trump has encouraged governors to relax those guidelines as soon as they feel it’s safe to do so.

Trump was asked on Sunday if he is worried that his tweets about liberating Kentucky, Michigan and Virginia are in any way helping to incite potential violence, as some governors have reportedly received death threats.

“Their life was taken away from them,” he said. “These people love our country, they want to get back to work.”

United States President Donald Trump has called the country's Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's early work a "mess" -- but said things had improved.

“CDC had obsolete tests, old tests, broken tests and a mess,” said Trump at a White House news briefing on Sunday.

He was responding to a question about failures in testing at the CDC.

Multiple health officials told CNN this weekend that contamination in manufacturing at the CDC caused weeks of delays that slowed the US response to the coronavirus pandemic. The problem stemmed in part from the CDC not adhering to its own protocols, a Food and Drug Administration spokesperson said on Saturday.

But things have since improved, Trump said.

Without citing evidence, however, Trump blamed prior administrations for the CDC’s early failures during the pandemic.

“I told you we inherited a lot of garbage, we took, they had tests that were no good, they had all this stuff was no good,” said Trump, who has been President for three and a half years.

Iran reported 87 more coronavirus-related fatalities on Sunday, bringing the nationwide total to 5,118 deaths, according to the Iranian Health Ministry.

Over the past 24 hours, 1,343 new cases have tested positive in the country, which brings the total number of reported infections in Iran to 82,211.

As the coronavirus numbers slowly decline, the Iranian government is considering taking steps to reopen their economy in the coming weeks.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani urged Iranians to continue social distancing and abide by the recommendations of the health ministry on Saturday, according to the Iranian News Agency report.

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro joined a rally in the country's capital on Sunday, where protesters called for an end to quarantine measures and some urged military intervention to shut down Congress and the Supreme Court.

Congress and the Supreme Court have supported social isolation measures imposed by governors.

The President didn’t wear a mask and coughed several times while speaking to the crowd of a couple of hundred supporters in Brasilia.

The rules in Brazil: National and local governments in the country have issued mixed messaging on how to behave during the pandemic. While Bolsonaro has been pushing against strict restrictions, state and local governments in some of Brazil's hardest-hit areas have closed schools and all but essential businesses, with firefighters and police in the streets urging people to stay indoors.

Last week, Bolsonaro fired his health minister after weeks of clashes over social isolation measures. During a news conference to introduce his new minister, he reiterated that businesses need to be reopened to ensure that the economic fallout isn’t worse than the virus. Polls, however, show that a majority of Brazilians support social isolation.

On Sunday, Bolsonaro's supporters also organized caravans in different cities.

The background: Brazil has the most confirmed coronavirus cases in Latin America. As of Sunday, the country had reported 38,654 cases and 2,462 deaths, according to health officials.

President Donald Trump admitted Sunday that he excluded Sen. Mitt Romney from the bipartisan congressional task force focused on reopening the country because he maintains a grudge against Romney who voted in favor of Trump’s impeachment.

When asked at Sunday’s coronavirus task force briefing if the decision to shut Romney out of the task force shows that he still holds a grudge against Romney, the only Republican senator left off the congressional task force, Trump said yes.

Romney voted to convict Trump on the first article of impeachment -- abuse of power. Romney was the only Republican Party senator to vote in favor of either articles of impeachment.

Seema Verma, administrator for The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, has announced that nursing homes will be required to report to patients, their families and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) when they have any coronavirus cases.

Verma added that the government will be paying labs to go to nursing homes to collect samples.

Hospitals that want to move toward reopening for elective surgeries and other non-covid medical procedures still need to be able to handle potential surges from coronavirus infections, according to new guidelines announced Sunday by Seema Verma, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Verma said that since some hospitals said they have unused capacity, the new guidelines will be folded into phase one of reopening the US.

Verma said that this will be a “gradual process” and that “health care officials across the country and health care systems need to decide what services should be made available, and ultimately doctors and patients need to make decisions about their health care services.”

When pressed by CNN’s Jeremy Diamond as to why he was taking time during the daily coronavirus task force briefing to discuss praise he has received while more than 22 million Americans are currently unemployed and more than 40,000 people have died from coronavirus, Trump said he was “standing up for the men and women who have done such an incredible job,” not for himself.

“I'm sticking up for those people," Trump said. "I am also sticking up for doctors and nurses and military doctors and nurses.”

When further pressed by Diamond, Trump said “those people have been excoriated by the fake news.”

“It's not about me. Nothing is about me," he said. "You are never going to treat me fairly, many of you, and I understand that.”

The clips Trump played at the briefing praised himself and not health care workers.

President Trump announced Sunday that he will compel a US company to make swabs under the Defense Production Act.

Two people familiar with the decision told CNN that company is Puritan Medical Products, which is based in Maine. It is known for making "flocked swabs," which it says are better at collecting specimens than other types.

Trump said the administration had experienced "difficulty" with the company, but did not elaborate further. Puritan did not immediately respond to CNN's request for comment.

"We’ve had a little difficulty with one so we'll call in -- as we have in the past as you know -- we are calling in the Defense Production Act and we'll be getting swabs very easily,” Trump said.