May 6 coronavirus news

The city of Houston, Texas could furlough all of its employees except for police and firefighters, Mayor Sylvester Turner said at a news conference on Tuesday.

The furloughs are likely to take place to make up for a $200 million budget shortfall and would likely start on July 1, Turner said.

Turner reiterated that the city is looking at the possibility of utilizing some of those dollars to prevent furlough in some categories. 

Some background: Late last month, Turner said Houston was facing a budgetary shortfall due to the coronavirus, and it was "the worst in the city's history."

He said both reopening the economy and extending the stay-at-home order is in the hands of Gov. Greg Abbott.

On Tuesday, Abbott announced that certain business sectors would be allowed to reopen in the coming weeks, albeit with restrictions.

Japan recorded 123 new cases of the novel coronavirus and 22 deaths on Tuesday, according to the country's health ministry.

That brings the national total to 16,066 cases and 556 deaths. Of that total, 712 cases and 13 deaths are linked to the Diamond Princess cruise ship, which was docked under quarantine for several weeks in February.

Tokyo, the hard-hit capital, made up 58 of the new cases on Tuesday.

Case numbers in Japan spiked last week and into the weekend, with new daily case numbers jumping past 100 and reaching 289 on Saturday.

That fell back to 218 on Sunday, and 174 on Monday. Tuesday's count of 123 continues the downward trend past the peak of the spike.

China recorded two new coronavirus cases on Tuesday, both imported from overseas, according to the country's National Health Commission.

In addition, 20 new asymptomatic cases were recorded. A total of 903 asymptomatic patients are still under medical observation. 

The total number of cases officially recorded in mainland China now stands at 82,883, including 4,633 deaths.

The vast majority of patients have recovered and been discharged from hospital, the NHC said. Some 339 cases remain active.

Bookings for cruise line cabins in 2021 are down by 25.1% compared to the same time last year, according to the CEO of cruise website CruiseCompete.com.

CruiseCompete.com is a platform where 500 member travel agencies compete for the business of cruise line travelers. 

According to those member agencies, the biggest fear cruise travelers are experiencing right now is “getting stuck on a ship” and getting quarantined, said CEO Bob Levinstein.

While he said that the cruise line industry will go through some bumps in the road, he believes the major cruise lines will survive the Covid-19 pandemic 

One of the cruise lines with very loyal customers is Norwegian Cruise Line, said Levinstein. Even though Norwegian warned investors that it might be forced to go out of business in an SEC filing, Levinstein is optimistic that "there will be a Norwegian cruise line when this is done."

A new genetic analysis of the virus that causes Covid-19 taken from more than 7,600 patients around the world shows the virus has been circulating in people since late last year, and must have spread extremely quickly after the first infection.

Researchers in Britain looked at mutations in the virus and found evidence of quick spread, but not evidence the virus is becoming more easily transmitted or more likely to cause serious disease.

How they conducted the study: Balloux and colleagues pulled viral sequences from a giant global database that scientists around the world are using to share data. They looked at samples taken at different times and from different places, and said they indicate that the virus first started infecting people at the end of last year.

What this means: “This rules out any scenario that assumes SARSCoV-2 may have been in circulation long before it was identified, and hence have already infected large proportions of the population,” Balloux’s team wrote in their report, published in the journal Infection, Genetics and Evolution. 

“Our results are in line with previous estimates and point to all sequences sharing a common ancestor towards the end of 2019, supporting this as the period when SARS-CoV-2 jumped into its human host,” the team wrote in the report, published Tuesday. 

The virus reached the West long before it was officially reported: The researchers also found genetic evidence that supports suspicions the virus was infecting people in Europe, the US and elsewhere weeks or even months before the first official cases were reported in January and February.

The US Congress moved so quickly this spring to approve a staggering amount of money to respond to the coronavirus crisis that most members barely had a chance to read the bills before they voted to send them to President Donald Trump’s desk.

But efforts to oversee how the federal government is spending nearly $3 trillion of taxpayer money are sputtering along.

A new oversight panel established by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has yet to get off the ground as Republican leaders weigh boycotting the panel amid accusations it is designed to hurt Trump.

A five-member commission to oversee $500 billion for big companies has only done preliminary work in part because congressional leaders have not yet agreed on a chair to lead the group, even though the law was enacted more than a month ago.

And the White House said coronavirus task force members are so consumed by responding to the crisis that they would not be available to testify before Congress this month unless explicitly approved by White House chief of staff Mark Meadows.  

With control of the White House and Congress on the line in a high-stakes election less than six months away, the distrust is running high -- especially since the outcome is likely to be determined by how voters view Trump’s leadership amid the unprecedented economic and public health crisis. 

Read the full story:

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Congress slow to oversee US response to crisis amid partisan battles

California's weekly death toll from coronavirus has declined for the first time since the outbreak began.

Data provided by California’s Department of Public Health shows a quick rise in deaths in March and the first part of April, and numbers plateauing in the past three weeks, with just over 500 fatalities reported each week.

The week ending May 3 saw 505 deaths, a slight drop from the prior week’s report of 527 deaths.

Gov. Gavin Newsom said on Monday he’s feeling optimistic based on the apparent stabilization of these numbers, but advised that reports of deaths typically lag behind confirmation of coronavirus cases.

US President Donald Trump appeared to back off his claim that a coronavirus vaccine would be developed by the end of the year.

Trump added that “we are doing really great” and he is getting daily reports from companies working to develop a vaccine.

On Sunday, Trump told a Fox News town hall, "We are very confident we are going to have a vaccine by the end of the year."

At least 1,203,502 cases of coronavirus have been recorded in the US, including 71,031 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University's tally of cases. 

The totals include cases from all 50 states, the District of Columbia and other US territories, as well as repatriated cases.

CNN is tracking US coronavirus cases here:

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Tracking Covid-19 cases in the US