Daily Coronavirus Update - 4/30/2020

California’s Reopening Plan

Domestic Updates

1. Dr. Fauci says that he expects the FDA to approve emergency use of Remdesivir for Covid patients after it showed promising results in speeding up recovery times. The FDA has yet to approve any drug for Covid treatment, so this would be a monumental step. 

2. Referencing Remdesivir to Tamiflu (meaning that it doesn’t cure patients but may lessen how long they are sick), Dr. Fauci said that results from the preliminary trial show remdesivir improved recovery time from 15 to 11 days. The results also showed that the group who received remdesivir had a mortality rate of 8.0% vs. 11.6% for the placebo group.

3. Alabama, Maine, Tennessee, Texas, Iowa, North Dakota and Wyoming will join Georgia, Oklahoma and South Carolina in partially reopening or fully lifting their restriction orders, today and Friday.

4. President Trump will not renew the federal guidelines on social distancing, set to expire on Friday.

5. According to a leaked memo sent to California’s police departments, Gov. Newsom is preparing to close all beaches and parks in CA, effective on Friday, May 1st. This is coming after weeks of reports that beaches and public parks have been packed with people. Newsom has not confirmed this as of yet but is expected to announce the decision today. 

6. Mayor Garcetti of LA said that LA will offer free testing to all residents, regardless of whether they have symptoms. LA will become the first major US city to do so. 

7. Gov. Cuomo of NY reported the lowest 24-hour death toll (306 fatalities) since March 30th. He also stated that the # of Covid patients in hospitals has dropped 40% since mid-April. Total # of hospitalized is now around 12,000, down from around 19,000 in Mid-April.

8. Former NYC Mayor, Mike Bloomberg, will lead NYC’s contact-tracing initiative, in partnership with Johns Hopkins University. Bloomberg appeared via video conference in Gov. Cuomo’s press briefing today. 

9. NYC’s subway service will halt service from 1 am- 5 am every night for disinfection services. “Essential connector” services, such as shuttle busses, will be available for people during this time period. 

10. Florida will begin its gradual reopening on Monday. The reopening order excludes Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties, the lockdown order will remain in place for these 3 counties, meaning businesses will not reopen and beaches will remain closed, for now.

11. For the rest of the Florida, on May 4, restaurants will be able to seat patrons outside, but inside they will only be allowed to fill 25% of their seating. Lower-risk retail will reopen but only at 25% customer capacity. Schools will remain closed as will large venues and high-risk retail-like barbershops and beauty salons. Elective surgeries can resume statewide. Gov. DeSantis is rec. that everyone continue social distancing and not socialize in groups of 10 or more. He is calling for the elderly and vulnerable to stay home as much as possible.  

12. Gov. Murphy of NJ will meet with President Trump in Washington today to discuss funding for NJ, testing and reopening. 

13. The C.D.C released a new study which looked at a sample # of patients from eight hospitals in Georgia, including seven in Atlanta and one in southern Georgia. More than 83.2% of hospitalized patients were Black. Countrywide, C.D.C data continues to show that Black people are dying from the virus at disproportionate rates.

Global Updates

1. South Korea announced that it has no new domestic cases and only 4 imported cases. This is the first time that there have been no new domestic cases reported in South Korea since Feb. 29.

2. Hong Kong continues to report no new cases, for the 5th straight day in a row. 

3. AUS reported only 9 new cases as of Wednesday and NZ only 2 over the last week. The relatively controlled and similarly-paced outbreaks in both countries are met with contrasting reopening plans.

4. The World Bank predicts that by the end of the year, 8% of the worlds population will be living under extreme poverty, and that sub-Saharan Africa could see 50% of jobs lost across the continent. 

5. Recent aerial footage over the slums of Mooiplaas and Spruit, on the outskirts of the capital Pretoria, South Africa, showed a line miles long of hundreds gathered to receive charity food aid.

6. Yemen has reported its first Covid cluster in the port city of Aden. Officials are increasingly concerned about a widespread outbreak in Yemen as the country is experiencing civil war, widespread hunger and a cholera outbreak. Aden has imposed a 2 week lockdown and mosques are closed. 

7. Boris Johnson has claimed that he will release a plan next week that will outline reopening for businesses and schools. He also said that the UK is past the peak and their Rt hovers around 0.7. 

8. Japan’s PM Shinzo Abe will extend Japan’s State of Emergency declaration. It is set to expire on May 6. 

9. Italy has officially fallen into recession after the economy dropped 4.7% in the first quarter of 2020. Spain is seeing the largest GDP drop in recent history- 5.2% in the first quarter of the year. France is witnessing similar slumps, as their economy has shrunk by 5.8% in the first quarter compared to the previous. 

10. French PM Philippe further specified how his reopening plans would take shape, (beginning on May 11). France has been divided into red or green zones, depending on case #s, testing abilities and healthcare capacity. The red zones will remain under stricter lockdown for longer, while restrictions in the green zones will be loosened. For all zones, see what changes below.

11. All across China’s major cities, tourist destinations (like the National Museum of China in Beijing), are set to open for the first time in 3 months. The destinations will have new restrictions in place such as a limit on daily visitors.

12. Germany's coronavirus Rt currently stands at 0.76 on average, down from a worrying increase earlier this week. Germany is now testing around 850,000 people per week.

13. Russia reported its highest one-day jump in number of cases, with around 7000 confirmed on Thursday. Russia’s prime minister, Mikhail V. Mishustin said on Thursday that he was sick with Covid-19.

14. Britain’s AstraZeneca announced that it will be partnering with the University of Oxford on Thursday to help develop, produce and distribute a potential vaccine. The partnership is hoping to distribute 100 million vaccinations by the end of the year, with emergency doses available as early as September. 

15. There are conflicting reports and studies on whether children can pass the virus onto adults. A new report says that the levels of the virus in children’s lungs are just as high as in adult lungs, so the transmission should be the same. An older report says that because most children do not exhibit symptoms, their lack of coughing drastically limits the transmission rate. In Switzerland, Daniel Koch, head of the Swiss infectious diseases unit, declared that children should hug their grandparents as they cannot pass the virus onto them. 

Insights curated by @jamieplancher