June 10 coronavirus news

Disneyland is proposing reopening its Southern California resort on July 17, according to a post on the park's official website.

The three main elements of their Anaheim, California, campus will begin with the reopening of the shopping district in Downtown Disney on July 9, theme parks Disneyland and California Adventure on July 17, and hotels Paradise Pier and Grand Californian on July 23.

As theme park capacity will be limited, Disneyland will implement a new reservation system along with new health and safety protocols.

The proposal is subject to the approval of the Orange County Health Department.

Some context: Disney CEO Bob Chapek previously told CNN that there will be “layers upon layers upon layers of defenses against the virus.”

This will include temperature checks for employees, or as Disney calls them, cast members.

Florida’s Disney World is set to reopen on July 11.

In the past five days alone, Brazil confirmed more than 100,000 new cases of the novel coronavirus.

The health ministry reported another 32,000 confirmed coronavirus cases in the past 24 hours, bringing the country's total to at least 772,416.

The country is also nearing 40,000 deaths from the virus, after recording 1,274 new Covid-19 deaths Wednesday. 

The coronavirus death toll in Brazil stands at 39,680.

Brazil is Latin America's hardest-hit country by the virus, holding the second-highest number of cases globally behind the US.

The US federal government said Wednesday it’s investing to help a company develop an at-home saliva test to look for antibodies to coronavirus.

It’s given OraSure $629,000 to develop the test, which would be specially designed for rapid-scale analysis. Antibody tests look for evidence of past infection with coronavirus and can give public health officials an idea of the extent of the pandemic. It’s not clear whether past infection protects people from future infections with the virus.

“Currently there are no SARS-CoV-2 antibody tests based on oral fluids available for high-throughput ELISA screening,” the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), part of the US Department of Health and Human Services, said in a statement.

It's the second test that OraSure is developing for BARDA’s coronavirus efforts. It also made an at-home saliva test to diagnose active coronavirus infections.

Hispanics are disproportionately hurt by the coronavirus pandemic due to their jobs as essential workers and multi-generational living conditions, according to a panel of health experts at Duke University.

“We're talking about people who have, during this pandemic, have been essential in working in meatpacking plants and manufacturing. They have been involved in cleaning, maintenance construction jobs,” Dr. Viviana Martinez-Bianchi, a primary care doctor and associate professor in family medicine and community health at Duke, said during the discussion Wednesday afternoon.

Rosa Gonzalez-Guarda, an associate professor at the Duke University School of Nursing, agreed that the primary way the Hispanic population is contracting coronavirus at disproportionate rates is by “simply going to work.”

Another problem: multi-generational homes. “In this country in particular, the similarities of people living together of different ages, with some of the members of their family being essential workers, going to work and then bringing, getting sick at work and then bringing it home,” Martinez-Bianchi said.

Gonzalez-Guarda said people need better on-the-job protections.

“This means not only providing mask and social distancing measures in the workplace, but also putting pressure on business owners to provide paid sick leave to workers so that people don't have to make the decision between going to work while they're sick and potentially infecting others, or paying rent or providing food at home,” she said.

Another problem is access to testing, the panelists said. Barriers to testing include financial issues and access to insurance.

“We need more investment of resources and attention from leaders and government and health care institution and business owners,” Gonzalez-Guarda said.

United Airlines said Wednesday it now requires all passengers to self-certify their health prior to boarding a flight.  

The airline is the first to require all passengers to complete a health questionnaire to screen for coronavirus as part of checking in.  

The questionnaire includes asking passengers to certify they have not experienced coronavirus symptoms in the last 14 days nor tested positive for the virus in the past 21 days.  

It also asks passengers to agree to wear a face mask during the flight, which is an airline policy but not a federal requirement.  

A United Airlines flight attendant, Susannah Carr, testified before the House Transportation Committee on Tuesday that her colleagues have discussed “the fact that passengers don’t like to wear the mask, might take it off for a longer period than just to eat or drink. It’s definitely an issue that we need to address.”  

The airline said customers who “are not able to confirm these requirements” will be “able to reschedule their flight.”  

There are no government or industry-wide requirements for this broad type of health screening.  

The airlines have asked the Transportation Security Administration to conduct temperature screening of passengers, but so far the agency has not decided to do so.   

There's been health screening by government officials at some airports, particularly for incoming international passengers, and Frontier says it takes the temperature of each passenger to check for a fever prior to boarding.  

New TV shows will be coming your way soon, as Los Angeles will allow many sectors, including film and entertainment production, to resume Friday.

Zoos, museums, swimming pools and hotels can reopen Friday as well, according to the county's Health Director Dr. Barbara Ferrer.

Outdoor recreation as a whole has been given the green light to reopen, but all sectors require certain safety protocols, which will be publicly released Thursday.

Visitors and employees will need to wear face coverings and maintain physical distancing, Ferrer said.

There have been four churches in West Virginia linked to an outbreak of coronavirus that infected 24 people, Gov. Jim Justice said during a news conference Wednesday.

Justice said that since churches have resumed services, there have been at least four church-related outbreaks across the state, each with five to eight cases.

Justice asked that congregations follow guidelines for social distancing and wearing masks.

"We love our church activities and we treasure them the most of all and there is the number one thing in our lives that should be always," Justice said.

Reopening plans: Outdoor concert venues will be allowed to open on July 1, he announced Wednesday. Outdoor open air concerts at fairs and festivals can also resume the same day.

The guidelines for fairs, festivals, and outdoor concert venues will be the same, Justice said. 

Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson announced today that the state will move into phase two of its reopening plan on Monday.   

“We have [already] opened gyms, bars, casinos tattoo parlors, and we are now wide open with certain restrictions on size and spacing limitations, but we have reopened youth activities, camping, and many outdoor and indoor venues as well,” Hutchinson said.

Nate Smith, director of the Arkansas Department of Health, said venues have been limiting capacity to a third. Those places will go to two-thirds "as long as they can maintain that six-foot physical distancing," he said.

Hutchinson said there were at least 288 new cases of coronavirus in the last 24 hours. But, he said, “the state is best served moving together even though we have various regions with a current spike in cases.” 

The governor stated there will be “additional support to target the surge, assigning additional testing, training and public health support to those areas.” 

He said that the emergency order in place now expires in mid-June, and he will continue it for an additional 45 days.

Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo announced Wednesday that all school districts in the state will reopen for school on August 31.

She continued: "It'll probably involve mask wearing of some kind, certainly for the adults in some way. It's also going to mean, we all have to understand, no one can go in the school building sick."