More than 1.01 million Americans have been confirmed to have fallen ill with COVID-19, according to the latest data.
The total number of coronavirus cases worldwide is officially at 3.04 million, which means that the US makes up a third of that count.
The growing coronavirus count comes as the federal government seeks to spur parts of the country to get back to work while simultaneously trying to make testing more readily available.
The White House released new guidelines on Monday aimed at answering criticism that America’s coronavirus testing has been too slow, and President Donald Trump tried to pivot toward a focus on ‘reopening’ the nation.
Still, there were doubts from public health experts that the White House´s new testing targets were sufficient.
Monday’s developments were meant to fill critical gaps in White House plans to begin easing restrictions, ramping up testing for the virus while shifting the president’s focus toward recovery from the economic collapse caused by the outbreak.
The administration unveiled a ‘blueprint’ for states to scale up their testing in the coming week – a tacit admission, despite public statements to the contrary, that testing capacity and availability over the past two months have been lacking.
The new testing targets would ensure states had enough COVID-19 tests available to sample at least 2.6 per cent of their populations each month – a figure already met by a majority of states.
Areas that have been harder hit by the virus would be able to test at double that rate, or higher, the White House said.
The testing issue has bedevilled the administration for months.
Trump told reporters on March 6 during a visit to the CDC in Atlanta that ‘anybody that wants a test can get a test,’ but the reality has proved to be vastly different.
The initial COVID-19 test developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was contaminated, and early kits operated only on platforms able to perform a small number of tests per day.
While the rate of testing increased as tests developed for higher-capacity platforms, they were still limited by shortages of supplies, from nasal swabs to the reagents used to process the samples.
Administration officials maintained on Monday that the limiting factor now is actually the availability of samples from people who have been tested – either because guidelines on who could be tested are too stringent or because there are not enough health workers able to take nasal swab samples from them.
The CDC moved to address one of those concerns Monday, expanding the list of people to be prioritized for virus testing to include those who show no symptoms but are in high-risk settings like nursing homes.
And Trump met with leaders of businesses including CVS, Walmart and Kroger, who said they were working to expand access to tests across the country.
‘Testing is not going to be a problem at all,’ Trump said later in the Rose Garden.
However, many of the administration’s past pledges and goals on testing have not been met.
Meanwhile, local governments across the country are eager to try and get back to normal.
Restaurants opened up to dine-in patrons in at least three states on Monday and the governor of Texas allowed movie theatres, malls and eateries to start letting customers trickle into their establishments later this week.
Across the country, an ever-changing patchwork of loosening stay-home orders and business restrictions took shape Monday.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott outlined a slow reopening of one of the world’s largest economies amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Restaurants in Tennessee, Georgia and Alaska’s biggest city began opening their doors to dine-in customers, with new rules such as temperature checks at the door and logging of customer information for possible contact tracing.
Construction workers are being allowed back on the job in Vermont and other states.
Ohio Governor Mike DeWine’s first steps toward reopening will require masks for workers and shoppers.
‘No masks, no work, no service, no exception,’ DeWine said.
Regional officials aiming to re-open their economies next month should make sure testing is up to speed and that there are enough local hospital beds available, New York Governor Cuomo said.
The governor outlined re-opening guidelines as statewide hospitalization rates and deaths continue to decline from peaks earlier this month.
The 337 deaths recorded statewide Sunday was the lowest daily tally this month and down from a high of 799 on April 8.
More than 17,000 people have died in New York since the start of the outbreak.
Cuomo said at his daily news briefing that statewide stay-at-home restrictions set to expire May 15 will likely be extended in many parts of the state.
‘But in some parts of the state, some regions, you could make the case that we should un-pause on May 15,’ said Cuomo.
The governor, like elected officials around the nation, is facing calls to ease restrictions soon.
Floyd Rayburn, who employs 30 people at his Canandaigua-based masonry business, doesn’t see a need to wait until mid-May.
He didn’t think the widespread shutdowns were necessary in places with lower numbers of cases.
‘It’s time to open up the whole state, the whole country. Open it up,’ Rayburn said by phone Monday.
He is still paying employees as part of the Paycheck Protection Program, the relief fund that Congress created to help small businesses through the crisis, but said he would rather open back up and put them back to work.
Cuomo said decisions will be made and monitored based on rates of hospitalizations, antibody testing, diagnostic testing and data on infection rates.
Regional officials need to be prepared to make sure there are enough workers to trace the contacts of infected people, enough places to isolate infected people and enough hospital capacity.
Preliminary results of statewide antibody tests, which check for substances the immune system makes to fight the virus, suggest the coronavirus is far less prevalent in some upstate areas compared New York City, a pandemic hotspot.
While almost a quarter of people in New York City tested positive for antibodies, the rate was below 2 per cent in northern and central New York, according to preliminary estimates.
Construction and manufacturing jobs that represent low risks for workers will be among the first to resume once New York state begins reopening, Cuomo said Sunday.
(Daily Mail)
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