April 17 coronavirus news

President Trump laid out the administration’s swab testing efforts during Friday’s briefing. 

In the next few weeks, he said, the federal government will “be sending out 5.5 million testing swabs to the states.”

The swabs, he said, “can be done easily by the governors themselves. Mostly it’s cotton. It’s not a big deal, you can get cotton easily, but if they can’t get it, we will take care of it.”

People might soon be able to perform their own test swabs for Covid-19 at home with a newly designed, Q-tip-style swab, the FDA said Thursday.

CNN reported the FDA said it had worked with US Cotton to design the swabs, which are shorter than the swabs used by technicians, doctors or nurses to collect samples to test people for Covid-19 infection. The FDA also said US Cotton plans to manufacture large quantities of these swabs.

President Trump announced Friday that the Department of Agriculture will be implementing a new multi-billion dollar relief program to deal with the fallout of the coronavirus pandemic.

“Today I’m also announcing that … the Department of Agriculture will be implementing a $19 billion relief program for our great farmers and ranchers as they cope with the fallout of the global pandemic,” Trump said during Friday’s White House press briefing. 

The coronavirus food assistance program will have two main missions: to issue direct payments to farmers and to purchase food to be distributed to food banks and community and faith-based organizations.

“The program will include direct payments to farmers as well as mass purchases of dairy, meat and agricultural produce to get that food to the people in need. The USDA will receive another $14 billion in July,” Trump said. 

Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said, “American agriculture has been hard hit like most of America with the coronavirus and President Trump is standing with our farmers and all Americans to make sure we all get through this national emergency.”

Montana Gov. Steve Bullock said there is no way his state could meet the standards set to reopen.

"Even the gating criteria (of two straight weeks with new cases slowing down) that the President put out yesterday — we haven't met those criteria,” Bullock said at a news conference Friday.

During the news conference, Bullock focused on the phased-in plan released by the President’s task force.

“The President told us that we governors will call the shots in our own states,” Bullock said. “First I want to say thank you, Mr. President, for recognizing that every state is different.”

Montana’s statewide stay-at-home order is in effect until April 24.

“After April 24, we will move forward with a phased reopening,” he said.

There are at least 692,169 cases of coronavirus in the US and at least 36,721 people have died, according to Johns Hopkins University's tally of cases.

On Friday, Johns Hopkins reported 21,018 new cases and 3,453 reported deaths. 

The totals include cases from all 50 states, the District of Columbia and other US territories, as well as all repatriated cases. 

Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards said the state is not ready for a Phase 1 reopening and that there is still "work to do." 

Edwards, speaking at a news conference Friday, said the state has not reached the threshold that must be passed to get to the Phase 1 reopening — including not having 14 days where the number of cases, tests and deaths are moving in the right direction.

Speaking from Louisiana State University where he toured a personal protective equipment production center, Edwards said he hopes the state can get to Phase 1 within the next few weeks. 

"I can't tell you that we will get to Phase 1 by May 1st, but I hope we do," he said.

"We aren’t going to be successful in opening the economy if we see a spike in cases and can’t deliver healthcare,” he added 

The US Navy currently assesses that the first cases of coronavirus aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt originated with the aircraft carrier’s air wing and the Navy’s top doctor said the virus may have come aboard on routine “supply flights that come out to the ship." 

The Navy’s surgeon general Rear Adm. Bruce Gillingham cautioned on Friday that the Navy doesn’t know for sure how the virus came aboard.

“We don't know for sure how the virus got started,” Gillingham said. 

Gillingham said there's evidence to suggest that the first two sailors to test positive may have contracted the disease during a port visit.

"We also know that those sailors were from the aircrew portion of the crew," he said.

Gillingham said it is "likely that it may have come aboard on the routine ... supply flights that come out to the ship."

While Gillingham later said that he did “not personally have knowledge about the initial individuals,” a Navy official later confirmed to CNN that the first two cases were among the ship’s air wing.

The air wing is responsible for operating the fighter jets, helicopters and other aircraft on board the carrier. 

The number of coronavirus cases aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt have skyrocketed in recent days, with 660 sailors testing positive as of Friday, and seven sailors have been hospitalized in Guam.

Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont has moved the state's 2020 presidential primary election to August 11 due to the coronavirus pandemic.

This is the second time the governor has rescheduled the election.

The White House is helping provide data and feedback to the institute behind an influential coronavirus model, which currently predicts about 60,000 deaths in the United States by August.

Dr. Christopher Murray, director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington, described the relationship Friday in a virtual press briefing.

Asked whether the White House had any input or influence on new tools from the model, Murray said, “We have very regular discussions with the task force at the White House.”

Murray’s institute on Friday released new projections saying that some states could begin reopening as early as May 4, so long as measures are in place to prevent a resurgence of the virus.

Murray said the White House has been “extremely helpful in helping get us better data, and by making contacts through different parts of the government, or with state governments, or in fact with networks of hospital providers, or providers of mobility data.”

Working with the task force has “been a very helpful route for us getting extra, or better data, and getting data faster,” Murray said. He pointed out that for his modeling approach, “the data is the most important thing.”

While the White House and others have often cited the model, Murray said that states should rely on a variety of projections when deciding when to reopen.

Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont responded Friday to President Trump’s tweet about states needing to do more testing. 

He went on to say the federal government should help states with testing, but added that he’s taking it upon himself to make sure his state has everything it needs to make it happen.  

“I can’t wait for the feds any longer,” he said.