June 27 coronavirus news

New York state has reported that less than 1% of the people tested for Covid-19 were positive, according to data released by Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

Of the roughly 73,000 tests conducted Friday, .96% were positive, the governor’s office said in a release.

New York City’s positivity rate is at 1% for Friday – down from 1.4% reported the day prior.

The state added 703 Covid-19 cases, bringing the statewide total to 391,923.

People who visited a bar in East Lansing, Michigan, are being asked to self-quarantine because roughly 85 people contracted Covid-19 after visiting the establishment this month, a health official says.

That number is up from the 34 previously reported on June 24 and Ingham County Health officer Linda S. Vail is expecting that number to rise, she said.

The Health Department made the decision after residents visited Harper’s Restaurant & Brew Pub between June 12 and June 20 and reported cases of Covid-19, the statement said.

The bar followed all Covid-19 safety guidelines for employees, including the restaurant’s capacity guidelines and table spacing, according to the statement. 

The restaurant opted to close down temporarily to install air purifying technology in the HVAC system and to create a strategy to eliminate lines at the establishment, according to a post on their Facebook page.

Pennsylvania announced a procedure to ease restrictions in long-term care facilities.

These facilities, which include nursing and personal care homes, will have to meet several prerequisites before proceeding into the official three-step process of reopening, according to a statement from the state.

Here are some of the prerequisites, according to the guidance:

But even after a facility checks all of these boxes, the county it is in must be in the "yellow" or "green" phase of the governor's reopening plan in order to move forward with actually allowing visitors, the statement said.

Once a facility meets the prerequisites, it then enters a three-step process of reopening:

According to the statement, each step of the plan includes "specific criteria for conducting dining, activities, non-essential personnel, volunteers, visitors and outings."

The coronavirus pandemic is causing uncertainty for those working to become American citizens, including Maria Méndez who was fortunate enough to take the oath recently.

When coronavirus hit, Méndez didn't think she would be able to finish the naturalization process until next year.

During the ceremony, she said everyone stood 6 feet apart. The whole process, which usually takes more than an hour, took less than five minutes.

"It was really surreal and a strange experience, but I'm very grateful that, you know, like I said, I was one of the lucky ones that got to still partake, despite, you know, the extreme circumstances that we're living right now," Méndez said.

Living in fear: Méndez has lived in the US most of her life. She came here when she was young as an undocumented immigrant from Mexico.

She said she considers Austin, Texas, her home – which is where she grew up and currently lives.

Méndez said the fear that something would happen to her and her family was one thing that motivated her to become a citizen.

"That was part of why I really wanted to be a US citizen so, one, I could vote in a country that, you know, I lived my whole life basically. And, two, to feel that weight kind of be lifted off," she said.

More than 9.8 million cases of coronavirus have been confirmed worldwide and at least 494,841 people have died due to the virus.

Here are the latest developments with the pandemic:

Schools in Italy will reopen on September 14 with social distancing measures in place, Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte and Education Minister Lucia Azzolina announced Friday.

According to the government’s announcement, schools will be required to stagger morning arrivals and seat students one meter apart from each other. Meals must also be eaten in classrooms, rather than in school cafeterias. 

"These guidelines will allow us to send back to school our daughters and sons in maximum safety,” Conte said during a press conference.  

While home-schooling will only be permissible for older students, the government says it will make use of decommissioned schools and encourage more outdoor activities, including field trips, to tackle the lack of available space for other grades. 

"Let the students breathe culture…why not? Take the smaller children to parks when the weather allows it and let them be close to nature,” Azzolina said.

In order to prepare for the safe resumption of classes in September, Prime Minister Conte said the government would invest an extra 1 billion euros ($1.12 billion) to renovate schools, procure protective sanitation products and provide training to educators. 

"This money is not aimed only to face the coronavirus. We dream of a different school, a school where finally money is invested to improve it,” Italy’s Education Minister said. 

"Kindergarten and primary school children have suffered the most during the lockdown…and also the disabled. They are the ones who have suffered most, and they are the ones to whom schools will need to give a stronger answer in September,” she added. 

Shortfalls in humanitarian aid funding due to the pandemic may push "millions of children in Yemen" to "the brink of starvation," according to a new report by UNICEF, the United Nations' (UN) children's agency, on Friday.

The report said an additional 30,000 children could develop life-threatening severe acute malnutrition over the next six months and the overall number of malnourished children under the age of 5 could increase to total of 2.4 million. 

An additional 6,600 children under the age of 5 could die from preventable causes by the end of the year, the report warned.

The “Yemen five years on: Children, conflict and Covid-19” report indicated that the health system is closer to collapse and after years of conflict; only half of health facilities are operational, with huge shortages in medicine, equipment and staff.

“Poor access to water and sanitation is stoking the spread of Covid-19. Around 9.58 million children do not have sufficient access to safe water, sanitation, or hygiene,” the report added.

The report also highlights that crucial water and sanitation services for 3 million children and their communities will begin to shut down from the end of July unless $45 million is secured.

In total, UNICEF is calling for $461 million for its humanitarian response in Yemen, with an additional $53 million for its Covid-19 response alone. So far, the Covid-19 appeal is only 10% funded and the humanitarian appeal is only 39% funded.

Ten days after announcing he had coronavirus, Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández participated in a Zoom conference call with health officials on Friday to discuss the country's Covid-19 response. 

Although other people on the conference call were streaming video, Hernández could not be seen in person; instead his official portrait was shown on the screen. It was not immediately clear where he was calling from and whether he was still in the hospital where he has been receiving treatment. 

"I started having symptoms and thought it was something else and lost three to four important days of treatment. I thought it was something similar. But, I am the proof that it is necessary to be precise in going to the doctor, tell him the symptoms and make the doctor attend us. That's clear. It's urgent to be attended to as faster as possible."

Hernández is the first president in Latin America to have tested positive for the virus. According to the President's verified Twitter page, the leader had been on the mend since Wednesday. 

In downtown Buffalo, New York, crossing the border into Ontario, Canada, used to be as easy as driving one mile across the Peace Bridge over the Niagara River. But that's now a forbidden route.

In the coronavirus era, New York residents and out-of-state road trippers aren't allowed to cross the border for leisure travel.

Since the United States has more confirmed coronavirus cases than anywhere else in the world, with numbers increasing in some states each day, US travelers are unlikely to be allowed in any time soon.

"The US's chances are close to zero," an EU diplomat told CNN. "With their infection rates ... not even they can believe in that possibility."

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