May 10 coronavirus news

About 90% of the state of Ohio is set to open even after a recent uptick in new Covid-19 cases, Gov. Mike DeWine announced on Fox News Sunday.

“I look at kind of a 21-day rule. We are really at a plateau with hospitalizations. We are at a plateau with deaths. We are at a plateau in regard to new cases, so they do go up and down," he said.

DeWine said "it's really a risk no matter what we do."

He said part of doing two things at once is continuing safety measures that are already in place.

"The virus is still out there, it's still very, very dangerous. We have to keep the distancing. People should wear masks, wash their hands. I mean, these are basic things that we have to do. We can't let up," DeWine said.

Trump administration officials continued to predict dire, depression era-level unemployment numbers for the month of May, days after the April unemployment rate hit 17%. 

White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett told CNN on Sunday that he thinks the United States unemployment rate will "probably" be "close to 20%" in the May jobs report, noting this number will depend on what happens with the virus and with the economy as some states begin to reopen.

Hassett said that the middle of the summer will be a "transition phase." He hopes the Congressional Budget Office's prediction for growth in the third and fourth quarters of the year will be right.

"If you remember that we basically stopped the greatest economy on Earth to save lives and I think that we're very glad we've saved lots of lives. We're very glad that we've done that," Hassett said, adding that the CBO's projection for growth in the second half of the year is not a mystery.

Larry Kudlow, the chairman of the White House’s National Economic Council, also acknowledged challenges for May but projected some optimism moving forward. 

Economic rebound: Several of the administration’s economic advisers also predicted a rebound in the second half of the year. 

Kudlow predicted “20 percent economic growth” in the last six months of 2020.

During an interview on “Fox News Sunday,” Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin acknowledged that the US is likely to have a “very, very bad second quarter” followed by what he predicted would be a “bounce back.”

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio responded to recent New York Police Department interactions with the public that involved social distancing or mask-wearing measures.

He referenced one interaction in particular that was caught on video last weekend. De Blasio called the "troubling" video from the lower east side "an instance of the wrong approach to policing."

CNN previously reported on this video. 

While he championed the success the city has had in “deescalating” and lowering the temperature between police and community and improving relationships, de Blasio noted, “We certainly have seen one video in particular and there have been some others that have raised concern."

The city said it is increasing public servants who are educating, providing face coverings, reminding of the rules and “helping people to get it right.” 

He also noted that the numbers of summonses and arrests are “extraordinarily low” given the population of New Yorkers.

Some context: More than 80% of those who were issued summonses for social distancing violations in New York City were people of color.

The data revealed 374 summonses were handed out from March 16 to May 5, averaging less than 10 summonses a day over the 42-day period.

And of that total, 193 of those issued summonses were black and 111 were Hispanic, according to the New York Police Department.

All told, 81% of people issued summonses were black and Latino.

Healthcare giant Johnson & Johnson is looking to produce a billion coronavirus vaccines for next year, according to Dr. Paul Stoffels, the company’s chief scientific officer.

“We start clinical trials in September and hopefully have data by the end of the year,” Stoffels said Sunday on ABC, adding that the company is “now working towards one billion vaccines for next year.”

Johnson & Johnson is upscaling manufacturing and will start producing the vaccine later this year, he said.

Stoffels said “clinical trials will need to be done to show that it is effective, and that will take some time.”

New York City is reporting at least 38 cases of a multi-system inflammatory syndrome in young children that could be related to coronavirus, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Sunday during a news briefing.

Of the verified cases, 47% have tested positive for Covid-19 and of those who tested negative, 81% of the children had the antibodies, de Blasio said.

There are nine other pending cases being investigated across the city, de Blasio said.

At least one child has died from multi-system inflammatory syndrome in New York City, which the mayor called “deeply, deeply troubling."

The mayor said Health and Hospital systems will be conducting antibody testing for all children who exhibit any of the symptoms related to multi-system inflammatory syndrome.

The guidance was also given to city pediatricians.

Statewide: New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said yesterday that three children died from this inflammatory syndrome in the state.

These children had symptoms similar to Kawasaki disease and toxic-shock like syndrome, more generally, inflammation that ultimately causes heart problems, Cuomo said.

When it comes to aiding in Covid-19 testing, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker told CNN that he has “not been counting on the White House.”

Illinois has the second most testing in the nation among the top 10 most populous states for Covid-19, Pritzker said.

“What we are focusing on is positivity rates — the rate at which people are testing positive — and that rate is going down in Illinois,” Pritzker added.

He said the state is keeping a close eye on the number of new people entering hospitals, which remains stable, and keeping an eye on the number of hospital beds that are available “in the event that there’s a surge.”

More context: Illinois is ramping up its Covid-19 tracing efforts and has hired a former Outbreak Intelligence Service expert from the Centers for Disease Control and prevention to have a “massive contact tracing effort up in the next few weeks,” Pritzker said.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said he has reached out to White House officials and sent a letter to the federal government to try to speed up the shipment of remdesivir to the city.

This comes after the city said the medicine seems to be decreasing the average hospital stay from 15 to 11 days in severely ill Covid-19 patients.

Some background: The federal government began shipping "tens of thousands" of treatment courses of remdesivir at the beginning of May.

The federal government is in charge of deciding where the medicine goes, according to Daniel O'Day, chairman and CEO of Gilead Sciences, the maker of the drug.

The leaders of the United Kingdom’s devolved nations – Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland – have rejected Boris Johnson’s revised coronavirus guidance, which now advises citizens to “stay alert” as opposed to “stay-at-home” to control the outbreak, the Press Association (PA) reported Sunday.

According to the Press Association, the three leaders said they had not been consulted over the new government guidance ahead of a national security meeting on Sunday morning.

In a Tweet, Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said that she had first seen the prime minister’s new “stay alert” slogan in the Sunday newspapers.

“It is of course for him to decide what’s most appropriate for England but, given the critical point we are at in tackling the virus, #StayHomeSaveLives remains my clear message to Scotland at this stage,” Sturgeon added.

Her Welsh counterpart, Mark Drakeford, said that Wales will not be dropping the “stay-at-home” message from its policy on containing the spread of coronavirus, while Northern Ireland First Minister Arlene Foster said she will continue to promote the “stay at home” message, according to the PA. 

“We’re not out of the woods. It’s about steady progress, rather than making a dash for the exit,” Foster tweeted.

As just over half of Spain’s population prepares to move ahead with the next step in de-escalation on Monday, the latest figures on coronavirus cases indicate why the two largest cities, Madrid and Barcelona, will continue to enforce stricter movement and mobility measures for now, a top health official said Sunday.

The Health Ministry reported at least 621 new Covid-19 cases across Spain since Saturday, and 64% of them are in the Madrid region, in Catalonia – where Barcelona is located, and in two other regions adjacent to Madrid.

Of the 143 new deaths reported since Saturday, 72% of them were in the same four regions that Simón mentioned at the government’s daily technical briefing and press conference. 

By the numbers: Overall, there are now at least 224,390 cases confirmed by PCR (polymerase chain reaction) testing, and approximately 26,621 deaths from coronavirus, the Health Ministry reported.  

According to Simón, the latest increase in confirmed cases is 0.28%, while the increase in deaths is 0.5%, the lowest since early March, a continued weeks long decline for both categories.

He said that in the two Castilla regions, their close contact to Madrid and frequent movement of people between the regions and the capital city have led to more cases in those two regions.

The entire country remains under strict home confinement rules under a state of emergency that’s just been extended through May 23, for a total of 10 weeks.