The latest on the coronavirus pandemic.

WASHINGTON — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi lashed out Thursday at Trump administration officials and congressional Republicans seeking to slow work on a fresh round of coronavirus relief. The White House responded minutes later with a threat that President Trump would veto the $3 trillion economic package Democrats have proposed.

The bill already had zero chance of passing the Republican-controlled Senate and reaching Trump, making the veto threat a symbolic gesture. Along with caustic criticism by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, the exchange underscored the deep election-year gulch over what Congress’ next response to the crisis should be.

But Pelosi’s proposal served as an opening move and is likely to eventually produce negotiations among congressional leaders and the White House.

At a Capitol news conference, Pelosi, D-Calif., lambasted Republicans who’ve said they want to hold off for now on more relief spending. “It’s amazing to me how much patience and how much tolerance someone can have for the pain of others,” she said.

Pelosi told reporters she believed both parties “and even down Pennsylvania Avenue” – a reference to the White House – understand “the hardships Americans are feeling.” She called the Democratic proposal “our offer” and said while she’s had no recent negotiations with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, the administration’s chief bargainer, “I’m sure that they’ll come with something.”

White House officials quickly released a statement of their own. It said the legislation Pelosi unveiled Tuesday is “more concerned with delivering on longstanding partisan and ideological wishlists than with enhancing the ability of our Nation to deal with the public health and economic challenges we face.”

Read the full story on the latest relief bill here.

Trump says he’ll replenish stockpile for future pandemics

ALLENTOWN, Pa. – President Trump said Thursday that he intends to prepare for future pandemics by replenishing the national stockpile and bringing manufacturing of critical supplies and equipment back to the U.S. His comments came the same day a whistleblower told Congress the Trump administration had failed to properly prepare for the current pandemic.

During a visit to a Pennsylvania distributor of medical equipment, Trump said, “My goal is to produce everything America needs for ourselves and then export to the world, including medicines.”

Trump had complained about supply chains in a television interview that aired before he left Washington for the trip to Owens and Minor Inc. in Allentown.

“These stupid supply chains that are all over the world – we have a supply chain where they’re made in all different parts of the world,” Trump said in the interview with Fox Business Network. “And one little piece of the world goes bad, and the whole thing is messed up.”

“We should have them all in the United States,” he said.

It was Trump’s second trip outside Washington in as many weeks as he tries to convince the public that it’s time for states to begin to open up again, even with the virus still spreading. Trump’s remarks came as federal whistleblower Rick Bright testified before a House panel on Thursday about his repeated efforts to jump-start U.S. production of respirator masks that he says went nowhere.

Read the full story about the president’s trip here.

Officials release edited, partial guidance on coronavirus reopenings

NEW YORK — U.S. health officials on Thursday released some of their long-delayed guidance that schools, businesses and other organizations can use as states reopen from coronavirus shutdowns.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention posted six one-page “decision tool” documents that use traffic signs and other graphics to tell organizations what they should consider before reopening.

The tools are for schools, workplaces, camps, childcare centers, mass transit systems, and bars and restaurants. The CDC originally also authored a document for churches and other religious facilities, but that wasn’t posted Thursday. The agency declined to say why.

Early versions of the documents included detailed information for churches wanting to restart in-person services, with suggestions including maintaining distance between parishioners and limiting the size of gatherings. The faith-related guidance was taken out after the White House raised concerns about the recommended restrictions, according to government emails obtained by the AP and a person inside the agency who didn’t have permission to talk with reporters and spoke on condition of anonymity.

On Thursday, a Trump administration official also speaking on condition of anonymity said there were concerns about the propriety of the government making specific dictates to places of worship.

The CDC drafted the guidance more than a month ago and it was initially shelved by the Trump administration, the Associated Press reported last week.

The agency also had prepared even more extensive guidance – about 57 pages of it – that has not been posted.

That longer document, which the AP obtained, would give different organizations specifics about how to reopen while still limiting spread of the virus, including by spacing workers or students 6 feet apart and closing break rooms and cafeterias to limit gatherings. Many of the suggestions already appear on federal websites but they haven’t been presented as reopening advice.

Some health experts and politicians have been pushing for the CDC to release as much guidance as possible to help businesses and organizations decide how to proceed.

Read the full story about the documents here.

Oil, manufacturing had best luck getting pandemic loans

Almost 75 percent of small businesses applied for help from a federal loan program designed to keep workers employed during the coronavirus pandemic, but only 38 percent of small businesses received any money, according to results from a U.S. Census Bureau survey released Thursday.

Oil extraction and mining businesses had the best success in getting loans from the Paycheck Protection Program with more than half of businesses surveyed in that sector reporting getting some help, according to the Census Bureau’s Small Business Pulse Survey.

Just under half of small businesses in manufacturing and about 45 percent of small businesses in accommodations and food services reported receiving loans, the survey said.

Utilities fared the worst of all sectors with less than a quarter of small businesses in that sector getting loans, according to the survey.

The Paycheck Protection Program administered by the Small Business Administration has dispensed more than $530 billion in low-cost loans to millions of small businesses to cushion them from the sharp downturn induced by the coronavirus.

The Census Bureau survey showed that nearly two-thirds of small businesses in Arkansas, Maine and Oklahoma, had received loans, among the highest in the nation. Trailing the rest of the nation was California, where just over a fifth of small businesses received the emergency loans.

When asked about the disparities in an email, SBA press director Carol Wilkerson said the agency didn’t have a comment to provide.

The Census Bureau launched the Small Business Pulse Survey last month in order to capture the impact of the pandemic on small businesses in near real-time. The release on Thursday was the first of what will be weekly updates. The initial survey was sent to 100,915 small businesses, and 22,449 small businesses responded from April 26 to May 2.

Almost three-quarters of the small businesses surveyed said they had experienced a drop in revenue, and more than a quarter said they had decreased the size of their workforce. More than 11 percent of the small businesses reported missing a loan payment, but that rose to 30 percent for small businesses in accommodations and food services, according to the survey.

AMC to close all White Mountain huts for the 1st time ever

CONCORD, N.H. — The Appalachian Mountain Club closed its high huts in New Hampshire’s White Mountains for the rest of the year because of the coronavirus, the first time all eight of them have been closed, a spokesperson said.

About 50 staff members work in the hut system during the summer.

“The decision was not easy to come to and was made over several weeks in consultation with our board and leadership as well as evolving state and federal guidance,” Nina Paus-Weiler told the Caledonian-Record on Tuesday.

She said during World War II, Lakes of the Clouds, Zealand Falls and Madison Spring Hut remained open, while the other huts were closed intermittently.

Like the huts, the AMC White Mountain Hiker Shuttle will also be closed for the 2020 season.

Virus whistleblower tells lawmakers they should be worried U.S. has no vaccine plan

WASHINGTON — The U.S. lacks a plan to produce and fairly distribute a coronavirus vaccine when it becomes available, says a government whistleblower who alleges he was ousted from a high-level scientific post after warning the Trump administration to prepare for the pandemic.

Testifying before a congressional panel, Dr. Rick Bright said, “We don’t have (a vaccine plan) yet, and it is a significant concern.” Asked if lawmakers should be worried, right responded, “absolutely.”

Bright, a vaccine expert who led a biodefense agency in the Department of Health and Human Services, said the country needs a plan to establish a supply chain for producing tens of millions of doses of a vaccine, and then allocating and distributing it fairly. He said experience so far with an antiviral drug that has been found to benefit COVID-19 patients has not given him much distribution confidence. Hospital pharmacies have reported problems getting limited supplies.

The White House has launched what it calls “Operation Warp Speed” to quickly produce, distribute and administer a vaccine once it becomes available.

Bright, wearing a protective mask, testified Thursday before the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Aspects of his complaint about early administration handling of the crisis were expected to be backed up by testimony from an executive of a company that manufactures respirator masks.

A federal watchdog agency has found “reasonable grounds” that Bright was removed from his post as head of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority after sounding the alarm at the Department of Health and Human Services. Bright alleged he became a target of criticism when he urged early efforts to invest in vaccine development and stock up on supplies.

“Our window of opportunity is closing,” Bright said in his prepared testimony.. “If we fail to develop a national coordinated response, based in science, I fear the pandemic will get far worse and be prolonged, causing unprecedented illness and fatalities.”

Bright’s testimony follows this week’s warning by Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease expert, that a rushed lifting of store-closing and stay-at-home restrictions could “turn back the clock,” seeding more suffering and death and complicating efforts to get the economy rolling again.

Read the full story here.

CVS offering self-swab testing at dozens of sites; hundreds to follow

CVS Health announced Thursday that it would open dozens of coronavirus testing sites this week, with hundreds more to follow in the coming weeks.

These tests, the company said, will not require people to actually go inside a CVS location. Instead, people who register online will be given self-swabbing tests at pharmacy drive-through windows, the company said, with a CVS employee watching to make sure it is administered properly. Results should be available about three days later.

This announcement came as the United States is still falling short in testing capacity, with health experts saying that expanded testing is the only way to safely let communities reopen. The Trump administration this week announced plans to distribute $11 billion to states to facilitate testing, an acknowledgment that testing capacity lags behind where it is needed even as states and localities lift restrictions.

According to the Covid Tracking Project, the United States had conducted nearly 10 million tests by Thursday morning — a staggering number, but one that only scratches the surface in a country of more than 329 million. In some other countries, the level of per capita testing continues to outpace that of the United States.

CVS said it planned to open more than 50 testing sites Friday in five states — Arizona, Connecticut, Florida, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania — with hundreds following in the next two weeks. By month’s end, the company said, it expects to have as many as 1,000 places offering self-swabbing tests.

After Wisconsin court ruling, crowds cram into bars, ignoring pandemic

On Wednesday night in the heart of downtown Platteville, Wis., just hours after the Wisconsin Supreme Court threw out the state’s stay-at-home order, Nick’s on Second Street was packed wall to wall, standing room only.

It was sometime after 10 p.m. when “Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress” by the Hollies came over the sound system and a bartender took out his camera. In a Twitter broadcast, he surveyed the room of maskless patrons crammed together, partying like it was 2019. A few were pounding on the bar to the beat. Some were clapping their hands in the air and some were fist-pumping, a scene so joyous they could have been celebrating the end of the worst pandemic in a century.

Instead, as Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers (D) knew, they were just celebrating the apparent end of his power over them — at least for now.

“We’re the Wild West,” Evers told MSNBC’s Ali Velshi on Wednesday night, reacting to the state Supreme Court’s ruling and the scenes of people partying in bars all across Wisconsin. “There are no restrictions at all across the state of Wisconsin. … So at this point in time … there is nothing compelling people to do anything other than having chaos here.”

Nearly 3 million laid-off workers applied for U.S. unemployment benefits last week

WASHINGTON — Nearly 3 million laid-off workers applied for U.S. unemployment benefits last week as the viral outbreak led more companies to slash jobs even though most states have begun to let some businesses reopen under certain restrictions.

Roughly 36 million people have now filed for jobless aid in the two months since the coronavirus first forced millions of businesses to close their doors and shrink their workforces, the Labor Department said Thursday.

Read the full story.

EU: Possible virus drug approval ‘before the summer’

LONDON — The European Medicines Agency predicted that there could be licensed drugs to treat the new coronavirus in the next few months and that a vaccine might even be approved in early 2021, in a “best-case scenario.”

Dr. Marco Cavaleri, who heads the European regulator’s vaccines department, told a media briefing on Thursday that approving medicines to treat COVID-19 might be possible “before the summer,” citing ongoing clinical trials. Recent early results for the drug remdesivir suggested it could help patients recover from the coronavirus faster, although longer-term data is still needed to confirm any benefit.

Although it typically takes years to develop a vaccine, Cavaleri said that if some of the shots already being tested prove to be effective, they could be licensed as early as the beginning of next year.

Cavaleri cautioned, however, that many experimental vaccines never make it to the end and that there are often delays.

“But we can see the possibility that if everything goes as planned, vaccines could be approved a year from now,” he said.

More than 140 heads of states and health experts, including South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan and Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz issued an appeal Thursday calling on all countries to unite behind a “people’s vaccine” against COVID-19, to ensure any effective treatments and vaccines be available globally to anyone who needs them, for free.

At the moment, there are about a dozen vaccine candidates being tested in China, Britain, Germany and the U.S. The World Health Organization has estimated it could take about 12 to 18 months for an effective vaccine to be found.

Trump says critics want to keep country closed through election to hurt him politically

President Trump said in an interview broadcast Thursday that his critics would like to keep the country’s economy closed through the November election to damage him politically.

“Yeah, I do, I do. I think it’s a political thing,” Trump said when asked about that prospect during an interview on the Fox Business Network in which he emphasized his view that it’s time for governors to move forward with reopening their states.

“The people that want to see the right thing happen, they agree with me,” Trump said. “We have to get our country open. You know, if it was up to some people, ‘Let’s keep it closed for a long time, okay, a long time, and watch the United States go down the tubes.’ Not going to happen. Never going to happen on my watch.”

In a previously aired segment of the interview, Trump called Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, “a very good person” but said he has disagreed with him on several issues, including how quickly schools should be reopened.

“I think that we have to reopen our schools,” Trump told host Maria Bartiromo during the interview, which was recorded Wednesday. “Young people are very little affected by this. … Now, we want to do it safely, but we also want to do it as quickly as possible. We can’t keep going on like this. You’re having bedlam already in the streets. You can’t do this. We have to get it open. I totally disagree with him on schools.”

France urges pharmaceutical giant not to give U.S. priority access to potential COVID-19 vaccine

PARIS — France’s government said Thursday it was “unacceptable” that French multinational pharmaceutical giant Sanofi would serve the United States with a potential COVID-19 vaccine first.

The government pushback came after comments that Sanofi CEO Paul Hudson made Wednesday.

“The U.S. government has the right to the largest pre-order because it’s invested in taking the risk,” Hudson told Bloomberg News. The United States, Hudson said, expanded its investment in the company’s vaccine research in February and thus expects that “if we’ve helped you manufacture the doses at risk, we expect to get the doses first.”

Those comments did not sit well in Paris, where France’s state secretary for economy and finance, Agnès Pannier-Runacher, took the company to task on Thursday.

“For us, it would be unacceptable if there were privileged access from this or that country under a pretext that would be a monetary pretext,” she said, speaking to France’s Sud Radio.

By late Thursday morning, Sanofi appeared to backpedal and to use Hudson’s comments to prod European governments to invest more in vaccine research.

Olivier Bogillot, head of Sanofi’s French division, said Thursday on France’s BFMTV network that the vaccine would be available to Europeans at the same time as Americans if the European Union were as “efficient” a partner.

“If we discover a vaccine, it will be accessible to everyone — the Americans and the Europeans will have it at the same time,” Bogillot said. “The words of Paul Hudson were misunderstood; he was just calling on the European Union to be more efficient.”

“For me, the debate is closed,” he said. “The vaccine, if discovered, will be made available to French patients.”

Britain OKs antibody test approved by U.S., EU

LONDON — British health authorities have for the first time approved an antibody test that shows whether people have previously been exposed to the new coronavirus.

The test, manufactured by Swiss pharmaceutical firm Roche, has already been approved for use in the United States and the European Union.

Public Health England says government scientists found the test to be 100% accurate. It shows whether people have been exposed to the virus that causes COVID-19 and have developed antibodies against it, which may provide some immunity.

The British government says it is working on plans to offer antibody tests to health care workers and the public.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said an antibody test could be a “game changer” in allowing the U.K. to end its national lockdown. But attempts to find a reliable test have been troubled. Some 17.5 million tests ordered from various suppliers all failed to meet U.K. standards.

Schools reopen in Finland

HELSINKI — Finland has reopened elementary and secondary schools after a two-month hiatus amid the government’s strict distancing and hygiene guidelines for students and teachers in efforts to avoid a rise in COVID-19 infections.

The Nordic country introduced a lockdown in mid-March, including the mandatory closure of schools for all children older than 10 and a recommendation for younger children to stay home.

After weeks of remote classes and distance learning, schools reopened Thursday for two weeks before the summer break starts in early June.

Students are being kept at a safe distance from each other in classrooms, frequent hand-washing is required and only one class at a time is allowed to stay outside during breaks.

Principal Jorma Kauppila from the Katariina school in the southern city of Turku told Finnish news agency STT that “kids and youngsters have been happy to return here. Arrangements have worked out as planned.”

EU monitoring governments lifting of emergency powers

BRUSSELS — The European Union’s top rule of law official says the bloc is monitoring whether governments remove emergency powers enacted to combat the coronavirus, amid deep concern about measures in Hungary.

EU Values and Transparency Commissioner Vera Jourova said Thursday that as countries ease confinement, “the general states of emergency with exceptional powers granted to governments should gradually be removed or replaced by more targeted and less intrusive measures.”

Jourova told EU lawmakers that “the case of Hungary raises particular concerns” and that “on a daily basis, we are assessing whether we can take legal action.”

In late March, Hungary’s parliament endorsed a bill giving Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s government extraordinary powers during the pandemic, including a measure against the spread of false information about the virus, and setting no end date for them.

Orban was invited to take part in Thursday’s debate but declined. The assembly rejected an offer to hear Hungary’s justice minister instead.

Greece, over objections, to install cameras in classrooms

ATHENS, Greece — Greece’s center-right government says it will install cameras in high school classrooms when schools reopen next week to provide live-streaming to allow for reduced classroom attendance. The move comes despite strong opposition from teaching unions and opposition parties on privacy grounds.

A powerful privacy watchdog says live-streaming is legal under special circumstances but that the material cannot be recorded or stored.

The online coverage will allow schools to rotate classroom attendance and allow distancing between students. But Greece’s main left-wing opposition party described putting cameras in schools as posing “a serious risk” to attending students and promised to raise the issue in the European Parliament.

Parents have until later Thursday to decide whether to let their children attend classes or rely only on online teaching material.

Schools have been closed since March 11.

Virus complicates evacuation as typhoon hits Philippines

MANILA, Philippines — A strong typhoon slammed into the eastern Philippines on Thursday after authorities evacuated tens of thousands of people while trying to avoid the virus risks of overcrowding emergency shelters.

The first typhoon to hit the country this year rapidly gained force as it blew from the Pacific then barged ashore in San Policarpio town in Eastern Samar province around noon. Video showed fierce rain and wind swaying coconut trees, rattling tin roofs and obscuring visibility. Some towns lost power.

Typhoon Vongfong was packing maximum sustained winds of 150 kilometers per hour (93 miles per hour) and was forecast to blow northwestward and barrel across densely populated eastern provinces and cities before exiting in the north Sunday.

The Philippines remains under a lockdown to fight the coronavirus.

Governors say social distancing will be nearly impossible in emergency shelters. Some shelters are now serving as quarantine facilities, and they may have to be turned back into emergency storm shelters.

The typhoon is forecast to largely bypass Manila, but authorities say tents being used as temporarily medical facilities in the capital might be damaged in strong winds.

Japan to lift state of emergency earlier than planned

TOKYO — Experts on the Japanese coronavirus task force approved a government plan Thursday lifting an ongoing state of emergency ahead of schedule in most areas, except for Tokyo and several other high-risk areas.

Economy Minister Yasutoshi Nishimura, after attending the task force meeting, said the experts approved a plan to lift the state of emergency in 39 of the country’s 47 prefectures, while keeping the measure in place for eight others, including Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto and Hokkaido, where risks still remain high.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe declared a month-long state of emergency on April 7 in Tokyo and six other urban prefectures and later expanded it to the whole country through May 31. With signs of the infections slowing, Abe is seeking to relax the measure while balancing disease prevention and the economy. Japan now has more than 16,000 confirmed cases, with about 680 deaths. The number of new cases has significantly decreased nationwide.

Abe is expected to explain details later Thursday. Experts are also expected to provide basis for easing the measure, as well as its possible tightening in case of a resurgence of the outbreak.

The Ehime prefecture in western Japan, which was hit by an in-hospital outbreak of about 20 nurses, patients and their families a day earlier, will have the state of emergency lifted on the condition containment measures are taken and the infections are closely investigated, Nishimura said.

Experts and officials have urged people to adopt “new lifestyles” and continue practicing distancing measures such as remote working and avoid out-of-town trips, even after the state of emergency is lifted.

Australia continues to push for inquiry into origins of coronavirus

CANBERRA, Australia — Australia says it will continue to push for an inquiry into the origins of the coronavirus, even if it hurts trade relations with China.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison had been accused of playing “deputy sheriff” to the United States after calling for the inquiry. On Thursday, he brushed off the criticism.

“We have always been independent, we have always pursued our national interests, and we always will,” he told reporters. “We will always be Australians in how we engage with the rest of the world, and we will always stand our ground when it comes to the things that we believe in and the values that we uphold.”

China has suspended beef imports from four abattoirs and plans to impose tariffs on Australian barley, after warning the inquiry could harm two-way trade ties.

China reports 3 new cases

BEIJING — China reported three new coronavirus cases Thursday while moving to reopen for business and schools.

The National Health Commission said 101 people remain in treatment for COVID-19, while 716 are isolated and being monitored for being suspected cases or for having tested positive for the virus without showing symptoms.

China plans to restart classes for most students on June 1, with other grades to resume at a later date, depending on conditions. No announcement has been made on when university classes will resume.

China has reported a total of 4,633 deaths among 82,929 cases of the virus.

 

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