June 9 coronavirus news

Chicago announced Tuesday all large outdoor events across the city are canceled through Labor Day, including Lollapalooza music festival, Chicago Jazz Festival, most programs at the Chicago Riverwalk and others, due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

“We must provide ways for people to enjoy the spirit of a Chicago summer while prioritizing health and safety,” Mayor Lori Lightfoot said in a statement. “As difficult as it is to remove these in-person events from our calendar, we are pulling out all the stops for an inventive, engaging and fun festival season this summer.” 

The city previously canceled its annual Memorial Day Parade, and house music, gospel and blues festivals.

Lollapalooza said in a statement on its webpage it would host virtual events on the days they had planned to have the festival. 

The city also said many of the canceled events would be “reimagined” and “at-home dance parties, drive-in movies, virtual concerts and community meals for frontline workers — in lieu of summer festivals.”

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy is signing an executive order today that will increase the number of people permitted to gather outdoors to 100, and will permit the number of people to gather indoors to 25% of the building’s capacity or 50 people – whichever number is lower, he said in a news conference and on Twitter. 

All outdoor recreational and entertainment businesses in New Jersey — except for amusement parks, water parks, and arcades — will be permitted to open on June 22, Murphy said.

The governor said he anticipates being able to raise the limit on “non-protest” and “non-religious” activities to 250 people on June 22 and 500 people on July 3.

“School districts planning graduations should prepare for a 500-person limit to be in place by the time graduations can resume on July 6,” he said.

People who have attended a protest should self-quarantine and monitor for coronavirus symptoms, according to a tweet from Los Angeles County Tuesday morning.

The tweet reiterated L.A. County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer’s advice to self-quarantine for two weeks. She said those who found themselves in a very crowded situation for more than 15 minutes and who were near others without face coverings should isolate for the full incubation period.

As of Monday, L.A. County has 64,644 cases, including 2,655 deaths.

Retail outlets can reopen starting June 15 as long as they comply with government coronavirus-secure guidelines, UK Business Secretary Alok Sharma said Tuesday.

Shops for essential items, such as food and medicines, were allowed to remain open during the lockdown but this announcement means outlets selling nonessential items can now reopen. 

Sharma said that stores should display in their shop window or outside their door a sign to show their customers that they have read and taken steps to follow the government guidance on reopening.

“If a shop reopens without putting in place responsible steps to reduce transmission of the virus, we can take a range of actions including issuing enforcement notices. Local authorities and the health and safety executive regularly carry out checks and respond to requests from the public regarding risks in the workplace,” Sharma said.

Restaurants, pubs and bars, as well as hairdressers, barbers, nail bars and related services will remain closed. Sharma said the government’s goal is to reopen these business sectors starting July 4 at the earliest.

The Department of Health and Human Services said Tuesday that it is taking additional steps to provide federal coronavirus relief funding to health care providers and hospitals that care for the poor and uninsured.

The agency, which has come under fire in recent weeks for delays in distributing the $175 billion in federal support that Congress authorized in late March and April, expects to dole out about $15 billion to providers that participate in Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program but have not yet received payments from the relief fund that Congress authorized. The money is intended to compensate those that lost revenue or had increased expenses because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The additional funding is expected to support several hundred thousand more providers, including pediatricians, obstetrician-gynecologists, dentists, opioid treatment and mental health specialists, assisted living facilities and other home and community providers.

Also, safety net hospitals that serve a large share of low-income Americans and the uninsured will receive $10 billion this week.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that the NYC Care program will expand to Queens and Manhattan four months ahead of schedule in order to help fight health care disparities exposed by Covid-19.

De Blasio said the virus taught “painful lessons” on disparity and lack of equality in the city, adding that Covid-19 did “horrific” damage in communities of color.

The approximately $37.5 million expansion is expected to reach 54,000 residents – with 44,000 in Queens and 10,000 in Manhattan.

The program provides access to low-cost and no-cost primary care for those who are ineligible or can’t afford insurance.

It currently is serving the Bronx, Brooklyn and Staten Island.

The program is part of the ongoing city's initiative to guarantee health care for everyone regardless of immigration status, according to previous CNN reporting on the health care initiative.

The city will hire 26 providers to ensure a new primary care appointment in two weeks.

There is a strong focus on mental health as well, De Blasio said.

His wife, first lady Chirlane McCray, said NYC will reach 10,000 residents in the hardest hit neighborhoods from July to December working with 270 frontline community and faith-based organizations.

The city will deliver one-hour virtual trainings on mental health and disaster response and coping mechanisms.

Calling it an “extraordinary” day for the city, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said the percentage of people citywide who tested positive for Covid-19 – which needs to be under the threshold of 15% – is at 1%.

The mayor said this is “unbelievably good news.”

All of the city's markers for indicators of the Covid-19 virus are under their thresholds, de Blasio said Tuesday.

People admitted to hospitals for suspected Covid-19 – which needs to be under the threshold 200 – is at 52. The daily number of people in intensive care units – which needs to be under the threshold 375 — is today at 337.

The mayor's update comes one day after New York City began reopening in phase one.

Wearing masks will continue to be mandatory even after Spain’s state of emergency is lifted on June 21, and the country enters a period of “new normality.”

The Spanish Cabinet approved today a health safety measures decree that will be implemented immediately following the end of the state of emergency. The decree law will go to the Spanish Parliament tomorrow, where it's expected to be approved.

In it, Covid-19 is declared an “urgent mandatory notifiable disease,” with an emphasis on prevention, containment and coordination to keep the spread of the coronavirus in check.

Spain’s 17 regions must continue reporting relevant health information to Madrid to guarantee the National Health System’s ability to respond to public health emergencies.

PCR tests must be performed on all suspected Covid-19 carriers as urgently as possible, to contain and prevent any possible future outbreaks. Health officials have said that the current time between noticeable symptoms and a diagnosis has been reduced to just two days on average, far quicker than earlier during the height of the pandemic in Spain.

Provisions to guarantee coordination with the national health system and contingency plans for residences housing seniors and people living with disabilities are to be put in place, in order to facilitate early detection of possible cases among those residents and the workers who take care of them, and to have their contact information readily available.

Obligatory use of masks in public spaces will continue, with possible fines up to 100 euros for not complying with the measure. Spain's prime minister said on Sunday that this would apply to everyone six years and older.

Here's what else to expect, according to the decree:

The norms outlined in the decree do not have an expiry date. The government’s chief spokesperson and Finance Minister María Jesús Montero said at a press conference Tuesday, that “Although we have better control of the illness, and we’re better prepared as a country, until we have a vaccine, or an effective treatment, the virus will continue being a threat to our security.”

Doctors dosed a healthy volunteer on Monday with an antibody treatment developed by Eli Lilly and Chinese company Junshi Biosciences to fight Covid-19.

The trial is underway in China. Lilly will start a complementary Phase one study in the United States in the next few days, the company said. 

Scientists will first test to see if this antibody treatment, called JS016, is safe to be used in humans. If so, it will be tested to see if it if effective. 

If this first phase is successful, more trials will run to determine how to use it most effectively. 

The companies will also experiment to see if the antibody could be used on its own or if it would be more effective used in combination with other antibody candidates. JS016 appeared to neutralize the virus in the lab. Lilly and Junshi scientists are testing other potential antibodies in the lab to see which work best. 

This is the second such antibody therapy trial from the Indianapolis-based pharmaceutical company. Lilly is testing another antibody treatment called LY-COV555 that the company developed with AbCellera.

Junshi Biosciences is leading development in greater China, according to Lilly, and Eli Lilly has exclusive rights to it in the rest of the world.

There are several other companies trying to create antibody therapies to fight Covid-19, including Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, which has said it expects to begin clinical trials this month.

Some background: Antibodies are proteins your body makes in the thousands that naturally fight off infection. To make an antibody therapy, scientists have to sort through thousands of antibodies to determine which work best to neutralize a particular threat.

Typically, drug developers will pick one and then clone it until there are enough monoclonal antibodies to put in a medicine.

Antibody treatments are currently used to treat some cancers, eye problems, chronic and infectious disease. The treatments can be used to treat symptoms or potentially as a protective medicine to prevent infection in vulnerable populations like the elderly or in health care workers.