June 3 coronavirus news

Lincoln Premium Poultry reports an additional 15 cases of Covid-19 at its poultry plant in Fremont, Nebraska, today, bringing their total cases to 88.  

LPP processes poultry for Costco Wholesale. 

According to company spokesperson, Jessica Kolterman, “We have watched Covid-19 cases come in each week, but we continue to keep the curve flat within our facilities and are working to improve our mitigation efforts. As we ease into the next phase and what we consider a ‘new normal’ we will report total cases to the public once a month.” 

That “new normal," according to a written statement sent to CNN, is the continued use of masks, temperature checks, social distancing and additional “interventions.” The company also states that of all their employees tested in Fremont, 110 of those tests came back negative.

According to their website, the company was established in 2016 in collaboration with Costco to serve as the poultry management for this poultry plant in Fremont, Nebraska.  

UK Business Secretary Alok Sharma has been tested for coronavirus and is self-isolating, after looking visibly unwell while giving a statement at the UK Parliament earlier on Wednesday. 

Sharma was seen profusely sweating and repeatedly wiping his face with a handkerchief and holding his forehead during his speech at the House of Commons.

“Secretary of State Alok Sharma began feeling unwell when in the chamber delivering the second reading of the Corporate Governance and Insolvency Bill. In line with guidance he has been tested for coronavirus and has returned home to self-isolate,” the press office for Sharma's Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy told CNN.

Hundreds of MPs returned to UK Parliament to take part in a socially-distanced voting procedure on Wednesday.

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said the death of a 9-month-old child is now on the list of Covid-19-related deaths.

He said while the leading cause of death in this case was not Covid-19, it was a contributing factor.

Kentucky Health Commissioner Dr. Steven Stack said in normal world without Covid-19, SIDS, or Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, would have been considered the cause of death — but because the child tested as positive for novel coronavirus, the state’s reporting methodology has this case listed as a Covid-related death.

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf will allow the stay-at-home order to expire at 11:59 p.m. on Thursday evening.

He renewed the 90-day disaster declaration which was originally signed March 6. The declaration was set to expire Thursday.

The declaration provides the state extra support to respond to coronavirus and for recovery during reopening. 

Sao Paulo's government projected that the coronavirus cases in the state could double by the end of June. 

At the end of May, Sao Paulo state – which includes the city of Sao Paulo – had reported a total of 109,698 cases and the government projected that by the end of June the cases could reach between 190,000 to 265,000, the state’s Vice-Gov. Rodrigo Garcia said at a news conference Wednesday.

The state on Tuesday reported a record 327 daily coronavirus-related deaths. 

Claiming the advance of the epidemic is "within the predicted dimension,” Garcia said, “this increase we've seen in the past few days is not surprising. In April, the epidemic grew 10 times. In May, 3.6 times. For June, we expect the number of cases to grow between 1.7 and 2.4 times.”

On Wednesday, Sao Paulo reported 5,188 new coronavirus cases, bringing the total number of cases in the state to 123,483.

Last week, the mayor of Sao Paulo city announced a gradual reopening of certain sectors, despite the continued spike of infections and deaths.

US stocks finished higher after rallying all day. Both the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite logged their fourth straight day of gains. For the Dow, it was the third up day.

Market sentiment was boosted by a much better than expected ADP employment report, which shored up hopes that the worst might be over for America’s battered labor market.

Here's how the markets closed today:

On the heels of several studies showing hydroxychloroquine doesn’t help patients in the hospital with Covid-19, a new study – the first of its kind – shows the drug doesn’t work to prevent infection with the virus, either.  

The study of 821 people is a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial, considered the gold standard in medicine. The study was expected to be published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The researchers assigned about half the study subjects to take hydroxychloroquine and half to take a placebo, or a pill that does nothing. Neither the researchers nor the study subjects knew who was taking hydroxychloroquine and who was taking a placebo. They found the drug didn’t make a difference – over the next two weeks, the study subjects came down with Covid symptoms in equal amounts. 

The study’s senior author, Dr. David Boulware, says that on May 9, the White House physician sent him an email asking his opinion of hydroxychloroquine as a preventive measure against Covid-19.   

Boulware, an infectious disease expert at the University of Minnesota, says he advised Trump’s physician that there was no published research showing hydroxychloroquine worked preventatively and shared that people in his study who took hydroxychloroquine had higher rates of side effects, mostly gastrointestinal problems such as nausea and vomiting.  

On May 18, Trump announced that he’d been taking the medicine for a week and a half.   

The Trump administration has selected five companies as the most likely to produce a Covid-19 vaccine, a White House Coronavirus task force source tells CNN.

The same source added that the decision came from "Operation Warp Speed," which seeks to quickly ramp up production, organize distribution and determine who gets the first doses of a potential vaccine.  

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease expert, has previously suggested January as a potential date for a vaccine, but vaccines typically take years to produce.

The New York Times first reported that the administration had selected five companies most likely to produce a vaccine. 

The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday it is "very concerned" about the evolution of the Covid-19 pandemic in Haiti.

"What has been common to many regions has been intense community transmission and it is clear that once community transmission has been established it's very difficult to root the virus out", Ryan added.

By the numbers: Haiti has reported at least 2,507 confirmed cases of Covid-19 and at least 48 deaths, according to the latest report by the Haitian Ministry of Health from June 1.