April 17 coronavirus news

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said that he is signing a new executive order today that outlines "how we go about opening Texas economy" at a news conference today.

State parks will reopen on April 20 but visitors will be required to observe social distancing, wear masks and gather in groups of no more than five, Abbott said.

Starting on April 22, current medical restrictions for surgery will be loosened, Abbott said. Procedures that do not "deplete the hospital capacity or the PPE needed to cope with Covid-19" will be permitted, a statement from the governor's office said. 

On April 24, retail stores in Texas should be able to operate “to-go,” Abbott said.

Under this model, reopened businesses are "required to deliver items to customer's cars, homes, or other locations to minimize contact," the statement said.

However, despite some loosing of restrictions, Abbott also announced that schools —including public, private, and higher education institutions — will remain closed for rest of the school year. 

Actor Sean Penn’s disaster relief charity has teamed up with the Los Angeles mayor’s office to offer free coronavirus testing in California, as well as training volunteers to run drive-through testing sites to relieve first-responders and firefighters from being at the sites.

Penn and his charity, Community Organized Relief Effort (CORE), have been involved in the Haiti earthquake and US hurricane relief. Penn told CNN’s Anderson Cooper the infrastructure already existed to put them in a place to easily offer assistance.

“We had the infrastructure and when we came into play, we came into a highly function governmental response in Los Angeles,” Penn said, commending Mayor Eric Garcetti and Gov. Gavin Newsom’s response to the virus.

Penn said that it’s a fluid situation as testing continues to evolve in the country, but added the federal government is key to organizing and distributing proper equipment. 

“Testing is the essential, complementary component to what the heroes in the hospitals are doing,” he said.

Boston is using brochures, phone calls and trucks with speakers to broadcast crucial information to residents in the hardest hit areas, the city's Mayor Marty Walsh said Friday.

The messages are being broadcast and printed in several languages including English, Spanish, Creole and Vietnamese, Walsh said at a news conference.

The city is also contacting seniors twice a week by phone to make sure they have the information they need, he said.

The European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation, Europol, warned Friday that organized crime groups have been taking advantage of the coronavirus outbreak and are selling counterfeit and substandard medical equipment.

Among the counterfeit products being sold illegally are face masks, coronavirus test kits, disposable latex gloves, alcohol-based gels, disinfectants and even some pharmaceuticals that do not meet quality standards, Europol said in a report on Friday.

In France, police took down several websites offering screening tests that claimed to deliver results within two minutes. Investigators in Romania seized nearly 2,000 substandard masks that were destined for medical use. The masks were labeled with the brand of a Rio de Janeiro-based company. 

Read Europol tweet:

Public health officials are working closely with Tyson plants in Columbus Junction and Waterloo to test all employees and conduct contact tracing for all positive cases, Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds said at a news conference today.

Reynolds said the state's Department of Public Health and Tyson have stepped up testing at the Waterloo and Columbus Junction plants "in an effort to test all employees and conduct contract trace contact tracing for all positive cases."

Testing will conclude today at Tyson Foods Columbus Junction, and 2,700 tests will be sent today to the Tyson plant in Waterloo. The state hygienic lab will be running all completed tests over the weekend," Reynolds said.

So far, 1,500 tests went to three clinics in the Waterloo area in an effort to expand testing in the community, Reynolds said.

Iowa Department of Public Health Deputy Director Sarah Reisetter said that they "providing and facilitating surveillance testing" for both symptomatic and asymptomatic employees.

"The goal of that is to keep sick individuals out of the workplace so that the manufacturing and food processing can continue," she said.

By the numbers: The state reported 191 new coronavirus cases and four deaths Friday, the governor said. The state now has 2,332 total confirmed cases of Covid-19 and 64 deaths, according to the state Department of Public Health.

There is a “critical” shortage of clinical gowns in the UK and “some [health] trusts will run out of fully fluid repellent gowns this weekend,” according to an organization that represents National Health Service hospitals and other state health care services.

In a statement issued Friday, Saffron Cordery, the deputy chief executive of NHS Providers, said that NHS trusts had sought “emergency deliveries from other countries,” but were met with a global shortage in personal protective equipment. 

Speaking during a daily government news briefing at Downing Street on Friday, the UK's Business Secretary, Alok Sharma, said the government is aware of the "global supply issue," and added that "everyone is trying to get access" to PPE. 

"I completely understand that people will be worried if there are shortages, I am aware of the supply issues that are being raised," Sharma told reporters. 

"We need to be on top of it, that is why we are working night and day in terms of making sure we procure more PPE," he added. 

Comic Con International has canceled its premiere event in San Diego due to the coronavirus pandemic, according to a post on the event’s official website.

Organizers initially held out on cancellation with hopes that the July event could still go on.

Passholders will have the option of being refunded, or using their badges for admission to next year’s event, scheduled for July 22-25.

San Diego’s Comic-Con has been held annually for 50 years, and hosts approximately 130,000 attendees.

In one Chinese hospital, most pregnant women with Covid-19 had a relatively mild form of the disease, according to research published Friday in The New England Journal of Medicine.

Looking at a hospital in Wuhan, China, researchers found that 109 women – out of 118 total – had a "mild" form of coronavirus. That’s about 92% of the women, who were considered to have Covid-19 based on a positive test result or a CT scan of the chest.

Nine women – 8% of those in the study – had severe cases of coronavirus, with abnormally low levels of oxygen in their blood. One patient required a noninvasive form of mechanical ventilation, which researchers considered to be “critical” form of the disease.

Severe cases of coronavirus developed most often after women had given birth, developing after delivery in six of the nine women. There were no deaths, according to the study.

Researchers also tested eight newborns, none of whom were positive for the virus. And breast-milk samples from three mothers also tested negative.

The role of gender: The researchers pointed out that women in general seem to have lower rates of severe Covid-19 compared to men. And pregnant women tend to be younger, too: the median age of the women in the study was 31 years old, and Covid-19 is often more severe in people who are older.

There’s a lot we don’t know about coronavirus and pregnancy, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But based on available information, the agency says “pregnant people seem to have the same risk as adults who are not pregnant.”

It’s also unlikely that women will pass the virus to their children during childbirth, according to the CDC. “Mother-to-child transmission of coronavirus during pregnancy is unlikely, but after birth a newborn is susceptible to person-to-person spread.”

President Trump has been tweeting that states should be liberated which may be in reference to stay-at-home orders that he feels are overly restrictive.

Trump tweeted about three states so far, Minnesota, Michigan and Virginia, all of which have Democratic governors.

Michigan had a large protest earlier this week over its stay-at-home order. Trump has sparred with Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer throughout the coronavirus pandemic.

Trump was asked if he would urge those protesting to listen to local authorities at yesterday’s coronavirus task force briefing. He said that the protesters “seem to be protesters that like me” before adding that he thinks just about all of the governors share his opinion that they want to open the country.

Read Trump's tweets: