April 14 coronavirus news

Another 778 people died across New York state from coronavirus yesterday, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said.

That's up from 671 on Sunday.

At least 10,834 people in New York have died from coronavirus since the pandemic began.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said the three-day average for coronavirus hospitalizations is down slightly, adding that officials believe the apex is here.

However, while the rates are down, the volume of patients coming in daily is still high, Cuomo added.

"We still had 1,600 new people come in yesterday," he said. "The volume is still high."

Watch:

New York City will purchase 50,000 coronavirus testing kits per week from Aria Diagnostics, a biotech firm in Indiana, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced this morning.

"I'm sure New Yorkers wouldn't have thought the cavalry would have come from Carmel, Indiana, but it has. It's going to be a big piece of the solution going forward," he added.

The test kit components include nasal swabs, viral transport medium (VTM), and tubes.

This follows a previously announced a donation of 50,000 testing kits for New York City by Aria Diagnostics.

Italian police issued fines to more than 42,000 people during the Easter weekend for breaking coronavirus containment rules, the Italian Interior Ministry said today.

The crackdown occurred between Saturday and Monday.

On Monday alone, 16,545 containment fines were given. That's the highest daily number recorded by the Ministry since the lockdown was introduced in Italy in order to combat the coronavirus outbreak.

Italy was the first country outside of mainland China to implement strict restrictions to prevent the spread of the virus, even bringing in military personnel to help enforce those laws.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said that, as of Monday, hospitalizations for coronavirus are down, but both positive cases and ICU admissions are up.

Here's how he spelled it out in a news conference: 

President Trump has responded to New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who told CNN this morning he would refuse and legally challenge a potential order from the President to reopen the state's economy if doing so would put its residents at risk of being exposed to Covid-19. 

Trump tweeted that Cuomo has been “begging for everything,” and now “seems to want independence.” 

Some background: Trump told reporters yesterday that he had “total authority” to reopen state economies after coronavirus closures. Legal experts say that isn't supported by the Constitution.

Cuomo, whose state is currently seeing the effectiveness of its restrictions as the number of cases there begin to level off, said a "dictatorial" and "partisan" order from Trump to reopen New York's economy "would be the worst possible thing he could do at this moment."

Cuba's second group of medical personnel landed in Turin, Italy, today at the request of Italian authorities and Italy's Ministry of Health.

Italian Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio tweeted about the arrival, calling it "good news."

The medical team left Cuba yesterday, arriving in Turin, the regional capital of Piedmont this morning. Piedmont's Governor Alberto Cirio expressed his deep appreciation for the team's arrival on his Facebook page.

Italy is not the only country to seek help from Cuba during this pandemic.

Cuban health care "brigades" have received recent invitations from Italy, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Suriname, Jamaica and Grenada as those systems are strained to the point of collapse due to the coronavirus.

The first group of Cuban medical workers sent to help Italy landed on March 22 and have been working there ever since.

The US Food and Drug Administration has authorized a saliva test for diagnosing Covid-19 in emergencies.

Rutgers University, where the test was developed in collaboration with other groups, announced the FDA authorization today after formally receiving it over the weekend.

What this means: Using saliva to diagnose novel coronavirus infections could expand testing capacities across the United States. So far, testing for Covid-19 has usually involved nose or throat swabs.

"It means we no longer have to put health care professionals at risk for infection by performing nasopharyngeal or oropharyngeal collections," Andrew Brooks, chief operating officer and director of technology development at the university's RUCDR Infinite Biologics lab, said in a news release. 

According to Rutgers University's news release, this is the first such saliva test to receive emergency use authorization from the FDA. Brooks, a professor at the university, called the impact of the authorization "significant."

Across the United States, which has faced a shortage of tests, several other laboratories have been working on developing saliva tests and other types of diagnostic testing for Covid-19. 

So far during the coronavirus pandemic, the FDA has worked with more than 300 test developers who have said they plan to submit emergency use authorization requests to the agency for their diagnostic tests, the agency announced on Monday.

According to the FDA, 34 emergency-use authorizations have been issued for diagnostic tests to date.

At least 12,107 people have died from coronavirus in the UK’s hospitals, according to the latest figures from the Department of Health and Social Care.

That’s an increase of 778 since the last update. The figures are current as of 5 p.m. local time yesterday.

Remember: It only includes those who died in hospital. These numbers do not include the people who died in nursing homes or elsewhere. 

Other figures released by the UK’s Office of National Statistics on today suggest the true death toll is significantly higher than the Department of Health and Social Care’s tally because there can be a lag in recording some deaths.

The department says at least 93,873 people have tested positive to coronavirus.