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U.S. Cases Rise 2.3%; Pence’s Aide Tests Positive: Virus Update

Track the latest news and updates related to the spread of the novel coronavirus from across the globe here. 

U.S. Cases Rise 2.3%; Pence’s Aide Tests Positive: Virus Update
A coronavirus screening tent stands outside of an express medical clinic in Chicago, Illinois, U.S. (Photographer: Christopher Dilts/Bloomberg)

(Bloomberg) -- New York City will hire 10,000 people for an unprecedented effort to trace contacts by people infected with the virus. U.S. unemployment reached the highest rate since just after the Great Depression. U.S. cases rose 2.3%.

Florida’s hardest-hit and most populous county plans to start reopening May 18. Vice President Mike Pence’s press secretary tested positive for the virus.

The U.K. government dampened expectations the lockdown will be significantly rolled back as scientists warned the infection rate has crept higher in recent days.

Key Developments

Subscribe to a daily update on the virus from Bloomberg’s Prognosis team here. Click VRUS on the terminal for news and data on the coronavirus. See this week’s top stories from QuickTake here.

U.S. Cases Rise 2.3%; Pence’s Aide Tests Positive: Virus Update

Democratics Ask Five Companies to Repay Aid (6:08 a.m. HK)

Democratic members of a new House panel created to oversee coronavirus relief spending demanded that five publicly owned companies immediately return taxpayer funds the lawmakers said were intended for smaller businesses. The Republican members of the panel didn’t sign the letters, and Representative Steve Scalise, the second-ranking House Republican and a member of the committee, blasted Democrats for making the panel’s first official act “blindly sending harassing letters to individual companies that followed the law.”

The letters were sent to EVO Transportation & Energy Services Inc.; Gulf Island Fabrication Inc.; MiMedx Group Inc.; Universal Stainless & Alloy Products, Inc.; and Quantum Corp. The companies didn’t immediately return messages seeking comment. A statement by the panel, led by Chairman Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, said the companies all are publicly owned, have market capitalization of more than $25 million, have more than 600 employees, and sought and received loans through the Paycheck Protection Program for small business of at least $10 million.

Pence Press Secretary Tests Positive (5:30 p.m. NY)

Vice President Mike Pence’s press secretary, Katie Miller, tested positive for Covid-19 on Friday, President Donald Trump said, briefly delaying the vice president’s departure for a trip to Iowa.

She is the second person working in the executive residence to test positive this week.

Pence’s trip was delayed for more than an hour Friday amid concern over the test result, though Miller wasn’t aboard the flight and the staffers who had contact with her left the aircraft. They later tested negative. Miller hasn’t recently had direct contact with Trump, according to a senior administration official, but she is married to one of Trump’s closest aides, Stephen Miller.

Honda Reopens U.S., Canada Plants Next Week (5:20 p.m. NY)

Honda Motor Co. will resume operations at its vehicle and auto-parts factories in the U.S. and Canada starting Monday, joining a caravan of other carmakers restarting North American production this month for the first time since mid-March.

The Japanese automaker said it will gradually ramp up output and stagger its reopening to allow workers to get used to new safety practices, including temperature checks and social-distancing measures. Honda closed plants on March 23 as the outbreak forced the shutdown of virtually all auto manufacturing on the continent.

California Plans Mail-In Vote (4:41 p.m. NY)

Every California voter will receive a mail-in ballot for the November election as a way to ensure public safety during the pandemic, state officials reported. Governor Gavin Newsom signed an executive order Friday directing counties to send ballots to all registered voters while also drafting plans to maintain physical polling places.

Voting by mail has turned into a partisan issue, with Republicans claiming it can be subject to fraud. Newsom has cast it though as vital to protecting public health. California Secretary of State Alex Padilla called for young, healthy volunteers to staff polling sites for the Nov. 3 election, saying many people who have volunteered in the past are elderly and face greater risk from the coronavirus.

Dash for U.S. Paycheck Loans Slows (4:30 p.m. NY)

The pace of loan processing from a relief program for U.S. small businesses has slowed abruptly, allaying worries that funding for virus-related losses would be drained in days. The initial $349 billion for the Paycheck Protection Program ran out in 13 days, finishing at a clip of more than $30 billion a day. The initiative relaunched April 21 with an added $320 billion, with loans of $175.7 billion approved in five days. The Small Business Administration reported processing $10 billion since then -- a daily pace of $2.4 billion. At the current rate, it would take 10 weeks to exhaust the remaining funding.

South Africa Reports Record New Cases (4:25 p.m. NY)

A record 663 new infections have been detected in South Africa, bringing the total to 8,895, while the death toll has risen by 17 to 178, Health Minister Zweli Mkhize said. The Western Cape province, which includes Cape Town, the second-biggest city and main tourist attraction, has emerged as the epicenter of the disease in the country, accounting for about half the infections and fatalities.

The number of cases has risen over the past 10 days, as screening and testing stepped up. About 5% of those diagnosed with Covid-19 have been hospitalized, with 77 currently in intensive care and 40 of them on ventilators, Mkhize said.

Tesla Can’t Reopen California Plant (4:15 p.m. NY)

Tesla Inc. was told by the California county that’s home to its lone U.S. auto-assembly plant that it can’t reopen the facility this afternoon, hours after Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk made plans to do so.

“We have not said that it’s appropriate to move forward,” Erica Pan, Alameda County’s health officer, said of Tesla on Friday during a web conference. The county said in an emailed statement that it informed Tesla it didn’t meet criteria to reopen.

U.S. Cases Rise 2.3%, Matching One-Week Average (4 p.m. NY)

U.S. cases increased 2.3% over the past 24 hours to 1.27 million, according to data collected by Johns Hopkins University and Bloomberg News. That was slightly lower than Thursday’s rate of 2.4% and matched the average daily increase over the past week of 2.3%. Deaths rose 1.9% to 76,475.

  • Cases in New York rose by 2,938, to 330,407, according to the state’s website.
  • Florida infections rose 1% to 39,199 while deaths climbed 4.3% to 1,669, according to the state’s health department.
  • California’s cases increased 3.1%, to 62,512 while deaths climbed 3.2% to 2,585, according to the state’s website.
  • Texas deaths rose above 1,000 as the state reported the biggest daily increase in cases since its April 10 peak of 1,441. Cases rose by 1,219 to 36,609 Friday, with fatalities totaling 1,004, according to the state’s health department.

Ousted Whistle-Blower Should Be Reinstated: Watchdog (3:19 p.m. NY)

Rick Bright, the ousted former head of the U.S. agency in charge of developing medical countermeasures to crises such as the coronavirus, should return to his job for now, the Office of Special Counsel determined.

The federal watchdog told Bright and his lawyers that it recommended to the Department of Health and Human Services that he be reinstated as the head of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority for 45 days while it investigates Bright’s complaint.

The office determined that it’s possible Bright was moved to a lower position at the National Institutes of Health out of retaliation, his lawyers at Katz, Marshall & Banks said in a statement Friday.

Bright filed a complaint with the special counsel Tuesday alleging instances where he clashed with his HHS bosses, most notably over his concern that malaria drugs pushed by the administration as Covid-19 treatments were unsafe.

Apple Opening Some U.S. Stores (3:15 p.m. NY)

Apple Inc. will start to reopen some stores next week in Idaho, South Carolina, Alabama and Alaska, the company said in a statement. The retail locations will add safety measures, including temperature checks, social distancing and face coverings. The company will limit the numbers of shoppers in a store.

France Deaths Rise; Transit Limits Set (2:10 p.m. NY)

France reported 243 deaths and 1,525 new infections on Friday, the public health agency said. Total deaths rose to 26,230 and total cases reached 210,969.

Authorities outlined measures to sharply limit the number of passengers on public transportation starting Monday when the country is set to ease lockdown measures. About half of the Paris Metro’s stations will stay closed as the capital’s commuter network is considered a risk for a new wave of infections.

N.J. Expands Testing to Asymptomatic People (2:06 p.m. NY)

New Jersey will begin testing some residents not showing Covid-19 symptoms as the state seeks to broaden monitoring, Governor Phil Murphy said Friday. Health-care workers will still get priority, but including asymptomatic residents is part of “a step forward” as New Jersey looks to begin reopening its economy, Murphy said at a news briefing.

Beaches stand a “good chance” of reopening by the Memorial Day holiday weekend, but with crowd limits, he said in an earlier “Good Day New York” interview on Fox 5 television.

Texas Reports Most Cases in Month (2 p.m. NY)

Texas reported 1,219 new cases, the most in almost a month, as the total reached 36,609 on Friday. Fatalities climbed to 1,004. State cases peaked at 1,441 on April 10.

Governor Greg Abbott has said the data he reviews shows the pandemic is under control in Texas. A nonprofit research group, Texas 2036, built a website to track Covid-19 juxtaposed with its economic impact. The data shows cases on a rising trend on a 14-day basis.

EU Keeps Border Shut Until Mid-June (1:23 p.m. NY)

The European Union plans to prolong until June 15 a ban on most travel into the bloc, saying the pandemic situation “remains fragile both in Europe and worldwide.” Maintaining the restriction on non-essential travel into the EU for another 30 days is necessary to contain the spread of the coronavirus, said the European Commission, the bloc’s executive arm in Brussels. The measure was introduced in mid-March for 30 days and extended a first time last month until May 15.

N.Y. ‘Finally Ahead’ of Virus: Cuomo (12:55 p.m. NY)

Governor Andrew Cuomo declared New York is “finally ahead of the virus” after playing catch-up. Total hospitalizations are down to 8,196, from more than 18,000 at the peak. The daily death toll is at about 200, down from a high of nearly 800.

“Finally, our destiny is in our hands. And it’s not subject to the whims of the virus. We are in control of the spread of the virus,” he said at his daily briefing.

The state has 73 cases of children being affected with the virus with symptoms similar to Kawasaki disease, Cuomo said. New York has had at least one death of a child from the illness, and there may be others, he said.

Italy Cases Decline Slightly (12:48 p.m. NY)

Italy reported the fewest new cases and daily fatalities in three days on Friday, as the country debates how to pursue a gradual easing of a national lockdown.

Deaths surpassed the 30,000 threshold, with a total of 30,201 since the start of the pandemic in late February. Civil protection authorities reported 1,327 cases for the 24-hour period, compared with 1,401 a day earlier. Confirmed cases now total 217,185.

Regional leaders are urging Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte to allow businesses including shops to open earlier than May 18, as planned, but the government is insisting it must await data on the spread of the virus since an initial easing of a national lockdown on May 4.

Euro Area Agrees on Credit Lines (12:45 p.m. NY)

Euro-area finance ministers agreed to let the region’s bailout fund extend credit lines to member governments on concessionary terms, paving the way for countries including Italy to draw cheap liquidity amid an unprecedented spending spree.

The deal reached Friday is a key part of the response to a crisis that’s put the European Union on track for the steepest recession in its history. The arrangement lets euro-area governments have access to cheap funds worth up to 2% of their output, without the onerous belt-tightening terms attached to the loans during the sovereign debt crisis.

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U.K. Deaths Exceed 31,000 (12:40 p.m. NY)

The U.K. reported an additional 626 deaths on Friday, bringing its total to 31,241, Environment Secretary George Eustice said at the government’s daily briefing on the pandemic.

Miami-Dade Eyes May 18 Reopening (11:55 a.m. NY)

Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez plans to start reopening Florida’s most populous county on May 18.

“We’ll hopefully start opening up certain sectors of our economy on that date,” Gimenez told reporters Friday.

Gimenez said he was hopeful that the reopening would include restaurants, but he said he was still working on the plan. He also stressed that the mid-May date was just a “target.”

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis started opening the state on Monday, but he excluded three South Florida counties that have been coronavirus hot spots, including Miami-Dade. Florida reported 39,199 Covid-19 cases on Friday, up 1% from a day earlier. Deaths among Florida residents reached 1,669, an increase of 4.3%.

NYC to Hire Thousands for Tracing (11:30 a.m. NY)

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said the city would embark on an unprecedented diagnostic-testing program, hiring as many as 10,000 public-health workers to trace contacts of people who are infected.

The city, which is conducting about 14,000 daily tests, will need to increase its capability to 20,000 a day by May 25, with a goal of reaching 50,000 in the next few a months, the mayor said. Those who test positive will be placed in hotels if their homes are so crowded that they run the risk of infecting others, de Blasio said. Salesforce.com Inc. will help create a call center for tracing, he said.

The city, which will use its sprawling Health and Hospitals Corp. to run the effort, has received about 7,000 applications for contact-tracing jobs, the mayor said.

Amtrak to Restore Acela Service (10:55 a.m. NY)

Amtrak said it will resume high-speed Acela service in the Northeast Corridor June 1 on a modified schedule of three weekday roundtrips to meet an anticipated increase in demand. Slower Northeast Regional service also will increase to 10 roundtrips from eight, the passenger railroad said Friday. Amtrak on Thursday said riders will need to cover their faces at stations and when walking through train cars. Amtrak has limited bookings to 50% of seats on Acela service.

Portugal Has Big Case Rise for Third Day (10:50 a.m. NY)

Portugal, which began easing confinement measures on Monday, reported a bigger increase in new cases for a third day on Friday while the number of patients in intensive-care units fell for a second day. There were 553 new cases, taking the total to 27,268, the government said. Total deaths rose by nine to 1,114. Deaths so far indicate a fatality rate of 4.1%, the health minister, Antonio Lacerda Sales, said in Lisbon on Friday.

Swiss Plan to Track Restaurant Diners (10:20 a.m. NY)

Swiss restaurant diners will be asked to provide their names and phone numbers before the meal in a move designed to track the spread of possible new infections as an eight-week lockdown continues to ease. Patrons will get a voluntary questionnaire on personal details so they an be contacted in case a fellow guest is later diagnosed with the virus, Swiss Interior Minister Alain Berset said in Bern on Friday.

The data collected will be destroyed after two weeks. Restaurants will allow up to four people to share a table with at least two meters (6.5 feet) of separation, or a physical partition, from the next group of diners.

U.K. Nations to Ease at Different Times (9:50 a.m. NY)

England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland could start easing U.K.-wide restrictions at different times if medical evidence shows it’s necessary, Scotland First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said Friday after speaking with Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Sturgeon, who has warned against lifting limits too soon, welcomed Johnson’s acknowledgment that parts of the country “may well need to move at different speeds” if the evidence dictates. Johnson is expected to announce plans to ease the lockdown on Sunday.

Russia Mortality Remains Low: Minister (9:45 a.m. NY)

Russia’s mortality rate is low even as infections surge toward 200,000, a sign the hospital system is coping with the outbreak, Health MinisterMikhail Murashko told the United Russia party Friday, according to the state-run Tass agency. Russia has averaged more than 10,000 daily cases in the past week, pushing its tally past Germany to rank sixth globally.

Trump: WHO Is ‘Puppet for China’ (9:15 a.m. NY)

President Donald Trump said the U.S. will soon announce plans on funding for the World Health Organization, which he says was complicit in the spread of the virus by accepting China’s claims about the severity of the outbreak.

“They’re a puppet for China,” Trump said on “Fox & Friends” on Friday. “We’ve been paying so much more than anybody else. And I blame that on our politicians. To be honest with you, our politicians probably could’ve exerted a lot of force.”

Trump last month temporarily suspended U.S. payments to the United Nations agency amid criticism from Democrats over his administration’s response to the virus crisis. The U.S. gives $450 million to WHO, the president said, while China pays $38 million.

U.S. Jobless Rate Triples to 14.7% (8:30 a.m. NY)

U.S. employers cut an unprecedented 20.5 million workers in April as the coronavirus-forced lockdown reversed a decade of labor-market gains in a single month.

The Labor Department’s report showed the jobless rate more than tripled to 14.7% from 4.4% a month earlier, a far cry from the 3.5% rate in February that was the lowest in five decades.

Canada, meantime, lost 2 million jobs last month, the biggest decline on record but only about half what economists had expected. The jobless rate jumped to 13%.

Lagarde Says EU Must Stand Together (7:56 a.m. NY)

The ECB president urged politicians to come up with a common response to the economic havoc created by the coronavirus, or risk fragmenting the euro zone. Speaking in a webcast about the pandemic, Lagarde said a “swift, sizable and symmetrical” European tool to fund the recovery is necessary, and that ECB will “play its part.”

Officials in Brussels predict the worst recession in the EU’s history this year, and have warned that an uneven shock across the euro area threatens the stability of the bloc.

Turkey Plans Half-Million Antibody Tests (7:50 a.m. NY)

Turkey plans to conduct over half a million coronavirus antibody tests to help monitor and contain the spread of the outbreak, according to an official familiar with the matter.

The nation’s state-run statistics agency has randomly selected 150,000 households -- or about one in every 165 -- for the tests, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The one-month program begins in two weeks and will improve data on who has already been exposed, said Ates Kara, a member of Turkey’s Science Board, which advises the government on coronavirus measures.

Spain Reports New Jump in Cases (6:48 a.m. NY)

Spain reported 1,095 new cases in the last 24 hours, the biggest increase in nearly a week, as the country goes through the first phase of a plan to relax its lockdown after eight weeks of confinement.

The total number of cases, adjusted to include changes in data for the Madrid region, rose to 222,857, according to Health Ministry data. Fatalities rose by 229 to 26,299. That compares with an increase of 213 on Thursday.

Austria’s Kurz Optimistic on Lifting German Border Checks (6:18 a.m. NY)

Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz is “optimistic” that checks and restrictions at the country’s border with Germany can be lifted in coming weeks, he told journalists in Vienna. Keeping the checks, which currently impose a two-week quarantine for people entering Germany from Austria, would be a blow for Austria’s summer season, where German tourists are the most important group.

Kurz said lifting the checks would also be crucial for commuters in regions close to the border and for business trips in the countries’ closely linked industries.

Irish Unemployment Soars (6:17 a.m. NY)

Ireland’s unemployment rate may have surged to 28.2% in April, by far the highest on record, the nation’s statistics office said. Joblessness jumped from 15.5% in March if all people receiving virus-related state payments are classed as unemployed. The rate stood at 4.8% in February.

Intel Accused by Workers of Prioritizing Chip Output Over Safety (6 a.m. NY)

Intel compromised worker safety at some of its factories to maintain chip production in the midst of the pandemic, according to complaints filed with government agencies and employees at one of the sites.

At a plant in Chandler, Arizona, the world’s largest semiconductor maker did not isolate staff that worked closely with teammates who had tested positive and did not institute tests, people who work there said. Factory managers also dismissed concerns that social-distancing guidelines were not being followed properly, according to the people,

The company said it responded with new policies to improve employee safety and kept factory output high because its products are essential.

Sweden Starts Criminal Probe Into Care Home (2:30 pm HK)

Swedish prosecutors have launched an investigation into an elderly care home in Stockholm where more than a third of residents have reportedly died after the novel coronavirus spread at the facility.

Since the Covid-19 outbreak started, 35 residents at the home have passed away, according to a report from public broadcaster SVT. The facility came under scrutiny after a union safety representative filed a report with authorities, saying staff had moved between infected and healthy residents without changing protective gear.

One Million in Johannesburg Need Food Aid (2:15 pm HK)

Almost one million people in Johannesburg, South Africa’s commercial hub, are in need of food aid due to movement restrictions imposed to curb the coronavirus pandemic, according to its mayor. While South Africa has less than 9,000 infections, it’s still one of the highest numbers on the continent.

Covid Is Type of Virus That Starts in Bats: WHO (2 pm HK)

The novel coronavirus belongs to a group of viruses that begin in bats, and it’s still unclear what animal may have transmitted it to humans, Peter Ben Embarek, a WHO expert in animal diseases that jump to humans, said Friday in a briefing with reporters. The virus probably arrived in humans through contact with animals while raising food, though it’s unclear which species, he said.

Cats and ferrets are susceptible to the virus, and dogs to a lesser extent, and it’s important to find which animals can get it to avoid creating a “reservoir” in another species, he said. The first human cases were detected in and around Wuhan, and most people had contact with the animal market, though not all, Ben Embarek said.

Questions about the origin of Sars-CoV2, the virus that has caused the pandemic, have burned hotter since U.S. President Donald Trump suggested that it came from a lab in China. Scientists who have studied the issue maintain that the virus originated in an animal, and probably entered the human population in November.

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