The CDC presents expansive guidelines for reopening American offices. Infections and deaths are still rising in a dozen states. And for the first time ever, the Boston Marathon is canceled. Here’s the latest news on coronavirus:
- Worldwide we’ve had more than 5.8 million confirmed cases of COVID-19. More than 361,000 people have died, and over 2.4 million have recovered. In the U.S., 1.72 million cases have been confirmed, with close to 102,000 deaths and almost 400,000 recoveries. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention projects that by June 20 the death toll in the U.S. will reach about 123,000.
- Let’s talk reopening: The CDC has issued sweeping new guidelines on the safest ways to reopen offices. In New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio expects up to 400,000 residents to head back to work in the first half of next month, as the city prepares to begin lifting some of its most stringent coronavirus restrictions. Illinois is joining many of its neighboring Midwest states in reopening some retail shops, restaurants, salons, and other businesses today, but Chicagoans will have to wait.
- Infections and deaths are rising in more than a dozen states, an ominous sign that the pandemic may be entering a new phase. Wisconsin saw a record number of new coronavirus cases and deaths reported in a single day, two weeks after the state’s Supreme Court struck down its statewide stay-at-home order. Sparsely populated Lowndes County, deep in Alabama’s old plantation country, has the sad distinction of having both the state’s highest rate of COVID-19 cases and its worst unemployment rate.
- The panel assembled by President Donald Trump to confront the pandemic has been sharply curtailed while the White House looks ahead to reopening.
- U.S. hospitals said they have pulled way back on the use of hydroxychloroquine, the malaria drug touted by President Donald Trump as a COVID-19 treatment, after several studies suggested it is not effective and may pose significant risks. The Department of Veterans Affairs, too, has drastically scaled back its use of the drug to treat veterans with coronavirus infections.
- Children with the perplexing syndrome linked to COVID-19 may be experiencing a deadly “cytokine storm,” says a new study.
- Requiring patients to visit a hospital, clinic, or medical office to get an abortion pill is needlessly risking their health during the COVID-19 pandemic, a group of physicians allege in a lawsuit that seeks to suspend the federal rule.
- Organizers canceled the Boston Marathon for the first time in its history, ending a 124-year run that had persisted through two World Wars, a volcanic eruption and even another pandemic.
- Even as the pace of new infections quickens — with nearly 700,000 new known cases reported in the last week after the pathogen found greater footholds in Latin America and the Gulf States — many countries are sputtering into reopenings at what experts fear may be the worst time. In South Korea, more than 500 schools closed again as the country moves to stamp out a resurgence of the coronavirus in the capital, Seoul, and its surrounding metropolitan area.
- Inside a COVID-19 hospital in India, doctors see no end in sight.
- Moscow health authorities have revised the city's coronavirus death toll for April, revealing that more than twice as many people died than previously reported.
- A French study found 1 in 10 COVID-19 patients that had diabetes died within a week of being hospitalized.
- A New York Times reporter and photographer are driving more than 3,700 miles to document life as Europe reopens, where surreal moments now seem normal, and normality surreal.
- How one French town made going to the beach safe again.
- This remarkable “Hairspray” video raises the roof. Even better, it raises money for entertainers in need.
- Would you quarantine together after just one date?