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» » Coronavirus Live Updates: U.S. Official Says Some Areas Will Have to Wait for Medical Supplies; National and Global Tolls Rise - The New York Times

Coronavirus Live Updates: U.S. Official Says Some Areas Will Have to Wait for Medical Supplies; National and Global Tolls Rise - The New York Times

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President Trump’s top emergency management official, confronting growing cries from governors and other elected officials for more hospital masks, ventilators and other medical supplies, said on Sunday that localities not severely affected by the outbreak would simply have to wait.

“There’s hundreds of requests — virtually every state in the union looking for the same thing, and it’s not just the demand nationally, it’s a demand globally for these items,” said Peter T. Gaynor, the administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Speaking on CNN’s “State of the Union,” he added, “If you don’t need it right away, you’re going to be a little bit farther down the list.”

The number of reported cases in the U.S. was more than 24,300 on Sunday. Mr. Gaynor said the government was focusing on the states hit hardest: New York, Washington and California.

The number of identified cases across the country, however, has been limited by the availability of testing. In places like New York that have increased their testing capacity, the number of cases has soared.

There are now 15,168 confirmed cases of the coronavirus in New York State, up 4,812 since Saturday, and 114 deaths, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said in a news conference on Sunday. That means the state now accounts for nearly 5 percent of the world’s roughly 300,000 cases.

Mr. Cuomo said that 18- to 49-year-olds made up more than half of the state’s cases.

More than 9,000 of the cases were in New York City, Mr. Cuomo said, a density he called “wholly inappropriate,” urging city officials to close some streets to traffic and reduce gatherings in parks and other outdoor spaces. “I don’t know what I’m saying that people don’t get,” Mr. Cuomo said. “This is not life as usual.”

Mr. Cuomo also said that FEMA would erect four hospitals inside the Jacob K. Javits Center in Midtown Manhattan.

Local elected officials around the country have called on Mr. Trump to use his authority under the Defense Production Act to mobilize the private sector to increase production of scarce goods. Mr. Trump has so far declined to do so, Mr. Gaynor said, and is instead using the threat of the act as “leverage to demonstrate that we can.”

Mr. Trump said in a tweet on Sunday that Ford, General Motors and Tesla were being approved to make ventilators and other “metal products.”

“Go for it auto execs, lets see how good you are?" Mr. Trump said.

Pressed on the number of supplies like masks that the government has distributed, Mr. Gaynor declined to say.

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat of New York, said there were still not enough supplies at hospitals in her district, and argued that places where the epidemic was not as severe could ill afford to wait.

“The fact that the president has not really invoked the Defense Production Act for the purposes of emergency manufacturers is going to cost lives,” she said on “State of the Union.”

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Sunday that bipartisan negotiations over an economic relief package were nearing completion and that he expected a vote on stimulus legislation on Monday morning.

It is set to be the third piece of stimulus legislation passed by Congress in recent weeks.

The package, which is expected to approach $2 trillion dollars, is designed to help small businesses keep their workers employed and offer direct payments to many Americans as more and more of the U.S. economy comes to a halt because of the coronavirus.

“We’ve ordered a major part of the economy to shut down, and the president wants to protect them,” Mr. Mnuchin said on “Fox News Sunday.”

Mr. Mnuchin said the latest relief package would include loans for small businesses, enhanced unemployment insurance benefits, and a direct deposit to most Americans. The current plan includes one such payment, and Mr. Mnuchin said another would be considered if the crisis persists.

Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, said he hoped to finalize the bill’s text as early as possible on Sunday to ensure that senators could review it before a procedural vote at 3 p.m. “Republicans and Democrats have worked together to produce a compromise that should be able to pass the Senate with an overwhelming bipartisan majority,” he said on Saturday.

A spokesman for Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the minority leader, said on Saturday night that an agreement on the draft legislation had not yet been reached, but that Democrats looked forward to “negotiating a bipartisan compromise.”

The Federal Reserve, Mr. Mnuchin said, is prepared to wield its emergency lending powers more broadly to assist large corporations, a move aimed at injecting trillions of dollars in liquidity into the economy.

He said that the hospital industry would probably receive about $110 billion in federal funds to help medical centers manage the influx of patients.

The government hopes the stabilization efforts can buttress the economy for the next 90 to 120 days so that businesses can quickly reopen and the economy can experience a sharp rebound once the virus is contained, Mr. Mnuchin said.

As California officials told hospitals to restrict coronavirus testing and a hospital in Washington State warned that it could run out of life-preserving ventilators by early next month, the U.S. airline industry said this weekend that it would postpone mass layoffs and major stock moves if Congress provided a sufficient bailout.

In California, even as officials have pushed for widespread testing, health authorities have told hospitals to restrict testing, amid a dearth of testing kits and crucial medical supplies.

The shift in the state, which has over 1,500 confirmed cases, suggests that the state may never get a handle on exactly how many people are infected. Many who have only mild symptoms or believe they were in contact with an infected person but are not themselves sick are being told they do not qualify for testing.

U.S. officials say it is too late to pursue the strategy of South Korea, which instituted widespread testing to contain the pandemic. Instead, the focus is on identifying those who are the most sick and trying to save lives.

In Washington State, which has over 1,600 confirmed coronavirus cases, the chief medical officer at Virginia Mason Memorial in Yakima said on Saturday that the hospital could run out of ventilators by April 8 if the case projections do not improve and the hospital cannot acquire other machines.

The official, Dr. Marty Brueggemann, said he had witnessed a jarring juxtaposition of what is going on inside the hospital — which is controlling visitors and preparing for an onslaught of patients — and out in the community, where people hav​e​ been gathering in large groups.

“We will have to decide who gets a ventilator and who doesn’t,” Dr. Brueggemann said. “That’s only 19 days away.”

​The state’s Department of Health has told local leaders that only the highest-priority areas will have access to the government’s reserves of protective equipment, including N95 masks. Federal grant programs have helped hospitals, states and the Veterans Health Administration develop what are essentially rationing plans for a severe pandemic. Now those plans, some of which may be outdated, are being revisited.

Airlines, which are struggling to save their companies and the jobs they provide, have meanwhile told congressional leaders that they would postpone mass layoffs and stock buybacks and dividends if Congress secured a large enough bailout for their industry.

“We are united as an industry and speaking with one voice,” the chief executives of major airlines, UPS and FedEx said in a letter to congressional leaders on Saturday. “We urge you to swiftly pass a bipartisan bill with worker payroll protections to ensure that we can save the jobs of our 750,000 airline professionals,” wrote the group, which included the heads of Southwest Airlines, Delta Air Lines, United Airlines and American Airlines.

If Congress approves at least $29 billion in grants for the industry, the executives said they would commit to no furloughs or layoffs through August. If an equal amount in loans is passed, they would commit to limiting executive compensation and freezing stock buybacks and dividends for the life of the loan.

The pandemic is also leading to a strain on the country’s sewer lines.

As Americans clean and sterilize countertops, doorknobs, faucets and other frequently touched surfaces in their homes, many people are then tossing disinfectant wipes, paper towels and other paper products into the toilet.

The result has been a surge in backed-up sewer lines and overflowing toilets, say plumbers and public officials, who have pleaded with people to spare the nation’s pipes from further strain.

Most urban sewage systems were not designed to accommodate disinfectant wipes and paper towels, which do not break down easily, officials say. Many say the problem has been compounded by the dearth of toilet paper on store shelves, which is leading some to use paper towels, napkins or baby wipes instead.

Some 3,500 doctors and other health workers in Spain have tested positive for the coronavirus, accounting for roughly 12 percent of the country’s roughly 28,500 cases, the Spanish health ministry said on Sunday, as authorities moved to extend countrywide emergency measures two more weeks.

The toll on health workers came amid some reports that hospital staffs had been forced to work without face masks and other basic protective gear. The number of dead in Spain rose by about 400 overnight to reach 1,753 on Sunday.

In the coming days, the Spanish army will also be deployed in greater numbers across the country, including to help transfer patients to hospitals.

“The wave that we’re going to suffer will be very hard, very hard in the coming weeks,” Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said in a televised news conference on Sunday.

The World Health Organization’s top emergency expert said on Sunday that lockdowns could not prevent a resurgence of the virus.

“What we really need to focus on is finding those who are sick, those who have the virus, and isolate them, find their contacts and isolate them,” the expert, Mike Ryan, said in an interview on the BBC’s “Andrew Marr Show.” “If we don’t put in place the strong public health measures now, when those movement restrictions and lockdowns are lifted, the danger is the disease will jump back up.”

  • Among the dead in Spain was Lorenzo Sanz, a former president of the soccer powerhouse Real Madrid, who died on Saturday, becoming the most prominent person to succumb to the virus in Spain to date. Mr. Sanz, 76, led the soccer club from 1995 to 2000. The Madrid region has been the epicenter of the Spanish coronavirus crisis, with more than 800 deaths.

  • Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis of Greece on Sunday announced “a ban on all unnecessary movement by citizens across the country.” As of 6 a.m. Monday, only those who are going to or from work, buying food, visiting a doctor or pharmacy, taking brief exercise or walking a pet will be allowed on the streets, Mr. Mitsotakis said. All citizens must carry their police identity cards or passports with them. Greece reported a total of 624 cases.

  • A quake struck on Sunday near the Croatian capital, Zagreb, complicating quarantine measures and sending residents pouring into the streets during a partial lockdown. A 15-year-old was reported to be in critical condition and others were injured, news outlets reported. It was the strongest earthquake to hit the city since 1880. Croatia has 235 cases.

  • Uzbekistan, which has reported 42 cases, said the country’s borders with Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan and Tajikistan would be closed to everyone except foreign citizens leaving the country and international cargo haulers. From Wednesday, anyone not wearing a mask in a public place will be fined.

  • In Iran, the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, rejected a reported offer of U.S. assistance, citing an unfounded conspiracy theory that the virus was “created by America.” The country has more than 21,000 cases. The French medical charity M.S.F., or Doctors Without Borders, said it was setting up a 50-bed emergency center to treat severe Covid-19 cases.

  • Cases in the Czech Republic rose to 1,047, Health Ministry data showed, and 15,584 people had been tested as of Saturday.

  • Belgium is heading into “the peak of the epidemic, after which the curve will go down,” the country’s health minister, Maggie de Bock, said on Twitter. There were 3,400 confirmed cases and 75 deaths as of Sunday in the nation of 10 million, which hosts the European Union institutions. Over the weekend, police vans were deployed in Brussels neighborhoods asking people to stay indoors.

  • France, one of the countries in Europe hit the hardest, raised its totals to 14,459 confirmed cases and 562 deathsy, and said it had ordered more than 250 million face masks from French and foreign suppliers. In an interview on French TV on Sunday, Health Minister Olivier Véran announced the first death of a French doctor from the virus. Inmates in several prisons have protested the government’s confinement measures.

  • In Pakistan, where Prime Minister Imran Khan has resisted implementing a total lockdown, provincial governments are calling for one that comes with strict measures for those who violate it. Several provinces have sought help from the military, which is setting up temporary medical facilities and deploying doctors to help provide civilian medical services.

  • India observed its first so-called people’s curfew on Sunday, with millions staying indoors and emerging only for a few minutes at 5 p.m. to ring bells and bang on steel plates. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had urged residents to stay inside to check the spread of the coronavirus. The country has reported around 350 cases, relatively low for its population of 1.3 billion. Many streets of New Delhi, the capital, were spookily quiet, deserted except for dogs and monkeys lounging on the asphalt. The authorities also shut down metro lines and interstate passenger trains on Sunday.

  • Afghanistan on Sunday confirmed the first death in the country from the coronavirus — a 40-year-old man in northern Balkh Province — as the total number of confirmed cases in the country rose to 34. Testing remains extremely low — 600 tests since the outbreak — and many experts fear the full extent of the spread is not known. With as many as 15,000 people arriving daily from Iran, one of the worst-hit countries, Afghanistan remains extremely vulnerable to the spread of the disease. The country’s health system has also been gutted by the raging conflict.

  • At the Vatican, Pope Francis on Sunday called for a moment of collective prayer: He asked all Christians to recite the Lord’s Prayer together at noon on March 25. “Let’s remain united,” the pope said, “and be close to those who are alone and in greatest need.” He said he would preside over a moment of prayer this Friday and give a special blessing that is normally given on Christmas and Easter. He then went to the window in the Apostolic Palace, where he usually delivers his blessings, and blessed an empty St. Peter’s Square.

President Trump sent a letter to North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, expressing willingness to help the North battle the coronavirus, according to North Korea, which responded by expressing gratitude.

“I would like to extend sincere gratitude to the U.S. president for sending his invariable faith to the Chairman,” Kim Yo-jong, the North Korean leader’s sister and policy aide, said in a statement carried by the North’s state-run Korean​ Central​ News Agency. Ms. Kim lauded Mr. Trump’s decision to write the letter as “a good judgment and proper action.”

In the letter, Mr. Trump “wished the family of the Chairman and our people well-being,” Ms. Kim said, referring to her brother by one of his official titles. She said Mr. Trump had also expressed a desire to move relations between the two countries forward.

The White House confirmed that Mr. Trump had sent Mr. Kim a letter but did not comment on its specifics.

Mr. Trump and Mr. Kim have repeatedly touted their unusual relationship. But relations between Pyongyang and Washington ​have cooled since the leaders’ second summit meeting, held in Vietnam in February of last year, collapsed over differences regarding how quickly North Korea should dismantle its nuclear weapons program and when Washington should ease sanctions.

The move came as the White House has signaled that American companies are increasing efforts to restock hospitals with crucial supplies during the pandemic, but it has stopped short of more assertive steps that some state and local leaders have been demanding.

Vice President Mike Pence said at a news conference at the White House on Saturday that the federal government had ordered hundreds of millions of N-95 masks for health care facilities, but he did not say when they would be delivered.

The White House’s moves appeared unlikely to satisfy calls for more aggressive action as the nation grappled with a reorientation of American life. More than 21,000 cases have been confirmed in the United States, a number expected to soar in the coming weeks.

Gov. David Ige of Hawaii has ordered a mandatory 14-day quarantine for everyone arriving in Hawaii, including tourists and returning residents.

Starting on Thursday, returning residents are to quarantine in their homes, and visitors are to stay in their hotel rooms or rented lodgings. They are to leave only to seek medical care.

“The threat of Covid-19 is extremely serious, and it requires extreme actions,” Mr. Ige said in a news conference on Saturday.

Mr. Ige said in a Facebook post that failure to follow the order would be punishable by a fine of up to $5,000, up to a year’s imprisonment or both. The Hawaii Department of Health on Saturday reported 48 cases of coronavirus in the state, an increase of 11 from the day before.

The governor said the delay in putting the order in place was to give tourists time to cancel or postpone their trips, which he said he hoped they would do.

“We know that our economy will suffer from this action,” he said, adding that the move was necessary so that the state’s health care system is not overwhelmed.

On Sunday, Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain had stern advice for the nation as it celebrated Mother’s Day: Don’t visit your mother.

“If your mother is elderly or vulnerable, then I am afraid all the statistics show that she is much more likely to die from the coronavirus,” Mr. Johnson wrote in an opinion article published by The Times of London. “We cannot disguise or sugarcoat the threat.”

The message came as local news outlets reported that the National Health Service planned to send personally addressed letters to 1.5 million people judged most likely to die from the disease, saying they should isolate themselves for the next 12 weeks.

People with any of more than a dozen serious conditions — including cancer and respiratory diseases — and transplant patients will receive the letter from their general practitioners in the next 24 hours. Of those affected, 40 percent are over the 75, The Sunday Times reported. All people over 70 in the country had already been advised to observe stringent social distancing.

The move came after the N.H.S. said it had struck a deal with independent hospitals on Saturday for about 20,000 extra staff members; 8,000 more hospital beds across England, of which at least 2,000 will be in London; about 1,200 extra ventilators; and more than 10,000 nurses and 700 doctors joining the system to help tackle the pandemic.

It is the first time such a deal has been agreed to, the N.H.S. said.

“We’re dealing with an unprecedented global health threat and are taking immediate and exceptional action to gear up,” Simon Stevens, the services’s chief executive, said in a statement.

The measures came after the government had for days refused more stringent measures. But Mr. Johnson then announced the shutdown of pubs, cafes, restaurants, clubs, gyms and theaters from Friday night. As of Sunday, the country had more than 5,000 cases and 233 deaths.

The government is also working to repatriate hundreds of Britons who have been stranded in Peru since that country announced a lockdown last week. Britain’s Foreign Office said in an email on Sunday that a flight would leave Peru for Britain early this week and that it was working to arrange further flights in the coming days.

To fight the economic effects of the outbreak, Germany is effectively suspending a long-held tradition — some would say obsession — with balanced budgets. Officials are preparing to make available another 150 billion euros, more than $160 billion, to help the country weather the fallout.

The budget plan, which includes measures to help companies survive the looming recession and secure millions of jobs, is expected to be passed Monday.

“We have a big challenge ahead of us,” said Olaf Scholz, the finance minister. Justifying the decision to borrow more than 10 times what Germany’s normally strict budget rules would allow for, he said that “150 billion is a very big sum, but it gives us the opportunities that we need now.”

Not all Germans have been following the social-distancing guidance to stem the outbreak, with several cities and states reporting groups of people socializing. As a result, Chancellor Angela Merkel will discuss the prospect of harder curfews with the premiers of Germany’s 16 states on Sunday afternoon.

Ms. Merkel, meanwhile, was spotted at her local supermarket in Berlin this weekend, demonstrating what responsible shopping looks like in times of the coronavirus. Keeping her distance from other shoppers, a smiling Ms. Merkel had cherries, soap, several bottles of wine and toilet paper — one pack — in her shopping cart, photos on social media showed.

She paid by card, effectively discarding another German tradition: paying cash. Many stores have become averse to exchanging coins and notes during the outbreak.

Officials on Sunday reported the first two coronavirus cases in the densely populated Gaza Strip, where aid workers say the virus’s spread could quickly lead to a public health disaster.

Two Palestinian men who had been in Pakistan and then entered Gaza via Egypt have tested positive for the virus, said Yousef Abu Al-Reesh, the deputy health minister in Gaza. The men, ages 62 and 79, are being treated in a field hospital in Rafah.

Health officials said they had quarantined a number of people who interacted with the men.

International aid groups have been bracing for the arrival of the coronavirus in Gaza, an impoverished coastal enclave where medical facilities have eroded under a 13-year blockade maintained by Israel and Egypt.

The United Nations has been leading an effort to obtain testing kits and protective gear for medical workers for Gaza, and a team was headed there on Sunday to assess whether its quarantine and intensive care facilities were up to the task, said Jamie McGoldrick, the U.N.’s humanitarian coordinator for Palestine.

He said that about 1,000 people had returned to Gaza from abroad during the coronavirus pandemic; 2,000 more are still expected and will need to be screened and quarantined as they arrive.

Officials of Hamas, the militant group that controls Gaza, said this weekend that they would close all restaurants, wedding halls and weekly markets.

Just days ago, funerals in Gaza were still drawing large crowds, Mr. McGoldrick said. “Hopefully, this will ring an alarm bell and people will become much more worried and disciplined in how they move around,” he said.

Italy has imposed a lockdown, deployed the army and risked its economy to try to stop the spread of the coronavirus. Yet its toll is growing more staggering by the day: By Sunday the country had more than 53,500 cases and over 4,800 deaths, surpassing China as the country with the highest death toll.

Italy’s struggle is increasingly being seen as a tragic warning for other countries to heed, in part because it is paying the price of early mixed messages by scientists and politicians. The people who have died in staggering numbers recently were mostly infected during the confusion of a week or two ago.

The government has sent in the army to enforce the lockdown in Lombardy, the northern region at the center of the outbreak, where bodies have piled up in churches. On Friday night, the authorities tightened the nationwide lockdown, closing parks, banning outdoor activities including walking or jogging far from home.

On Saturday night, Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte announced another drastic step in response to what he called the country’s most difficult crisis since World War II: Italy will close its factories and all production that is not absolutely essential, an enormous economic sacrifice intended to contain the virus and protect lives.

“The state is here,” he said in an effort to reassure the public.

If Italy’s experience shows anything, it is that measures to isolate affected areas and limit the movement of the broader population need to be taken early, put in place with absolute clarity and then strictly enforced.

Reporting was contributed by Niki Kitsantonis, Austin Ramzy, David M. Halbfinger, Katrin Bennhold, Iyad Abuheweila, Matina Stevis-Gridneff, Choe Sang-Hun, Damien Cave, Jeffrey Gettleman, Mujib Mashal, Fahim Abed, Joe Orovic, Iliana Magra, Yonette Joseph, Maggie Haberman, Motoko Rich, Alan Rappeport, Emily Cochrane, Katie Rogers, Mariel Padilla, Vanessa Friedman, Jessica Testa, Kate Taylor, Matt Futterman, Amelia Nierenberg, Mike Baker, Sheri Fink, Derrick Bryson Taylor, Niraj Chokshi, Aurelien Breeden, Melissa Eddy, Raphael Minder, Joanna Berendt, Jason Horowitz, Elisabetta Povoledo, Maria Abi-Habib, Tim Arango, Michael Levenson, Emily Badger, Kevin Quealy and Sheryl Gay Stolberg.

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