In Tennessee, the Governor has opted to reopen restaurants today, on the same day that the state experienced its largest increase in new cases since the start of the COVID-19 crisis.
Tennessee state officials say that the increase in numbers is due to more testing, and they are not worried about the impact of reopening businesses. There are just under 10,000 confirmed cases of the virus in Tennessee
In New York, however, which has been the state hit hardest by the virus, Governor Andrew Cuomo warned against moving too quickly with reopening businesses. Cuomo said this morning that his stay-at-home order will likely be extended beyond May 15th in many parts of New York state.
He added that restrictions could be relaxed in some regions if they have sufficient hospital capacity and meet other criteria.
In the past twenty four hours, 337 people in New York died from the virus. This is the lowest death rate reported in the state since March 30th.
New Zealand’s Prime Minister, who set the strongest measures worldwide at the beginning of this outbreak, has declared the nation free of community spread of the coronavirus.
Prime Minister Arden imposed border restrictions in early March, and conducted testing of people coming in to the island nation to track the spread of the virus before it could spread in the community. The country also engaged in aggressive contact tracing to track anyone who had been in contact with known cases, to inform them of the contact and ask them to isolate for fourteen days.
She says those measures appear to have worked, and is now lifting some restrictions – any businesses that reopen in New Zealand must be no-contact – and restrictions on air travel into the country remain in place.
Sweden, on the other hand, has taken the opposite approach – leading to criticism from other European Union members. The country has left shops, restaurants and gyms open, while asking people to maintain social distancing. The country is hoping to achieve herd immunity to the virus. Sweden has nearly nineteen thousand confirmed cases of the virus.
The number of cases of COVID-19 worldwide reached 3 million last night, just eleven days after hitting the two million mark on April 15th. Nearly a third of the cases worldwide are in the US, with 993,000 people having testing positive for the coronavirus across the country. Spain is a distant second, with just over two hundred thousand cases.
This morning, U.S. banks began a chaotic rush to grab some of the three hundred ten billion dollars in small business funds that were released by the federal government this morning. The Trump administration has assigned Bank of America and JP morgan, two of the worst offenders in the 2008 crisis, to be in charge of most of the funds.
The administration also changed the rules on who would be eligible late last night, leaving small businesses to scramble this morning to re-submit applications.
The E-TRAN online system used by the federal government for the small business loan program crashed within two minutes of going live this morning.
This is an expected outcome of requiring everyone to apply online at the exact same time.
In Oregon, a report by the state Sheriff’s association has statd that the average daily population in Oregon’s jails is down by forty five percent.
Fewer people are being arrested and coming into jails.
So far, no inmates in county jails have tested positive for the virus. But only seventeen have actually been tested.
Four sheriff’s deputies have tested positive.
Governor Kate Brown has still not followed Washington and California’s lead to order widespread early release of vulnerable and non-violent prisoners.
The New York Board of Elections today decided to remove Senator Bernie Sanders from the state's presidential primary ballot, and to cancel the Democratic presidential primary in the state -- a move criticized by many in the party as having a chilling effect on democracy.
The Board was allowed to take the unprecedented step of removing Sanders from the ballot - despite the fact that he is qualified to have his name listed - because of an emergency provision announced by Governor Andrew Cuomo on April 13th.
Journalist Steven Wolf of the Daily Kos wrote today that the justification given, to protect public health, made no sense, because the state had already decided to mail absentee ballots to every registered voter in order to allow vote-by-mail.
The board's decision came just hours after the legal team representing the Sanders campaign warned New York election officials that removing the Vermont senator from the ballot would quot " sow needless strife and distrust, impeding Senator Sanders' efforts to unify the Democratic Party in advance of November elections."
A reminder to all our listeners that the Governors of Oregon and Washington have issued executive orders for all residents to stay home unless doing essential work or going out to make essential purchases. This helps slow the spread of this virus, and appears to be working in both states – as long as people continue to follow the orders to remain home and stay separated from other people.
- KBOO