AP News in Brief at 9:04 p.m. EDT
Virus exposes US inequality. Will it spur lasting remedies?
WASHINGTON (AP) — The sick who still go to work because they have no paid leave.
Families who face ruin from even a temporary layoff.
Front-line workers risking infection as they drive buses, bag takeout meals and mop hospital floors.
For years, financial inequality has widened in the United States and elsewhere as wealth and income have become increasingly concentrated among the most affluent while millions struggle to get by. Now, the coronavirus outbreak has laid bare the human cost of that inequality, making it more visible and potentially worse.
Congress, the Trump administration and the Federal Reserve have mounted the largest financial intervention in history — a full-scale drive that includes mandating sick leave for some, distributing $1,200 checks to individuals, allocating rescue aid to employers and expanding unemployment benefits to try to help America survive the crisis.
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What you need to know today about the virus outbreak
New York’s coronavirus death toll topped 10,000 Monday even as the absence of fresh hot spots in the U.S. or elsewhere in the world yielded a ray of optimism in global efforts against the disease, though a return to normal was unlikely anytime soon.
Officials around the world worried that halting the quarantine and social distancing behaviors could easily reverse hard-earned progress. Still, there were signs countries were looking in that direction.
Spain permitted some workers to return to their jobs and a hard-hit region of Italy loosened its lockdown restrictions. France extended its strict lockdown until May 11, but President Emmanuel Macron noted “hopeful signs” the spread of the virus may be stabilizing.
Here are some of AP’s top stories Monday on the world’s coronavirus pandemic. Follow APNews.com/VirusOutbreak for updates through the day and APNews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak for stories explaining some of its complexities.
WHAT’S HAPPENING TODAY:
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Storms tear through South amid pandemic; more than 30 dead
CHATSWORTH, Ga. (AP) — Storms that killed more than 30 people in the Southeast, piling fresh misery atop a pandemic, spread across the eastern United States on Monday, leaving more than 1 million homes and businesses without power amid floods and mudslides.
In Alabama, people seeking shelter from tornadoes huddled in community shelters, protective masks covering their faces to guard against the new coronavirus. A twister demolished a Mississippi home save for a concrete room where a married couple and their children survived unharmed, but 11 others died in the state.
About 85 miles (137 kilometers) from Atlanta in the mountains of north Georgia, Emma and Charles “Peewee” Pritchett laid still in their bed praying as a suspected twister splintered the rest of their home.
“I said, ‘If we’re gonna die I’m going to be beside him,’” the woman said Monday. Both survived without injuries.
Nine died in South Carolina, Gov. Gov. Henry McMaster said, and coroners said eight were killed in Georgia. Tennessee officials said three people were killed in and around Chattanooga, and others died under falling trees or inside collapsed buildings in Arkansas and North Carolina.
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Confirmed cases of coronavirus surpass 2M worldwide
WASHINGTON (AP) — New York's coronavirus death toll topped 10,000 even as the lack of fresh hot spots in the U.S. or elsewhere in the world yielded a ray of optimism and fueled discussions Monday about how some places might begin to reopen.
The brunt of the disease has been felt most heavily in New York, Italy, France, Spain and the United Kingdom, but grim projections of a virus that would spread with equal ferocity to other corners of America and the world have not yet materialized after more than a month of measures meant to blunt its impact. Even so, the number of confirmed coronavirus cases worldwide surpassed 2 million on Monday.
The death toll in populous states such as Florida and Pennsylvania was on par with some individual counties outside New York City. Houston, the nation’s fourth-largest city and a hub for immigrant communities and business travelers in the energy industry, has been largely spared compared to other parts of the U.S. As Colorado deaths surpassed 300 on Monday, Gov. Jared Polis compared that figure to New York's thousands and called it “a tragic indication of our success in Colorado.”
Officials around the world worried that halting quarantine and social-distancing measures could easily undo the hard-earned progress that those steps have achieved in slowing the spread.
Still, there were signs countries were looking in that direction. Spain permitted some workers to return to their jobs, while a hard-hit region of Italy loosened its lockdown restrictions. Governors on both coasts of the U.S. announced that they would join forces to come up with a coordinated reopening at some point, setting the stage for a potential conflict with President Donald Trump, who asserted that he is the ultimate decision-maker for determining how and when to reopen.
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Virus closes some meat plants, raising fears of shortages
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Some massive meat processing plants have closed at least temporarily because their workers were sickened by the new coronavirus, raising concerns that there could soon be shortages of beef, pork and poultry in supermarkets.
The meat supply chain is especially vulnerable since processing is increasingly done at massive plants that butcher tens of thousands of animals daily, so the closure of even a few big ones can quickly be felt by customers. For instance, a Smithfield Foods plant that was forced to close in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, after nearly 300 of the plant’s 3,700 workers tested positive for the virus produces roughly 5% of the U.S. pork supply each day.
In addition, conditions at plants can be ripe for exploitation by the virus: Workers stand shoulder-to-shoulder on the line and crowd into locker rooms to change their clothes before and after shifts.
The virus has infected hundreds of workers at plants in Colorado, South Dakota, Iowa, Pennsylvania, Mississippi and elsewhere. The capacity of plants that remain open has also been hurt by workers who are sick or staying home because of fears of illness — though it's not clear by how much.
While company owners promise to deep clean their plants and resume operations as quickly as possible, it's difficult to keep workers healthy given how closely they work together.
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Trump claims 'total' authority to reopen economy, over govs
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump claimed the “total” authority Monday to decide how and when to reopen the economy after weeks of tough social distancing guidelines aimed at fighting the new coronavirus. But governors from both parties were quick to push back, noting they have the primary constitutional responsibility for ensuring public safety in their states and would decide when it's safe to begin a return to normal operations.
Democratic leaders in the Northeast and along the West Coast announced separate state compacts to coordinate their efforts to scale back stay-at-home orders or reopen businesses on their own timetables, even as Trump argued it was his call.
“When somebody is president of the United States, the authority is total," Trump said at Monday's White House coronavirus briefing. “The governors know that."
But he would not offer specifics about the source of that claim, which governors asserted was a vast power grab, or his plan to reopen the economy. The president’s guidelines have little force. Governors and local leaders have issued orders that carry fines or other penalties, and in some jurisdictions extend into the early summer.
“We’re going to write up papers on this," Trump said, brushing aside questions about his claim of absolute authority to order states to reopen, adding, “The governors need us one way or the other."
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Voters reject Trump's pick in chaotic Wisconsin court race
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A liberal challenger on Monday ousted a conservative Wisconsin Supreme Court justice endorsed by President Donald Trump, overcoming a successful push by Republicans to forge ahead with last week's election even as numerous other states postponed theirs due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Joe Biden also emerged victorious, as expected, in the state's Democratic presidential primary. Biden’s easy victory became academic when Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders dropped out, one day after Wisconsin held in-person voting.
But the absentee-ballot-fueled victory by liberal Supreme Court candidate Jill Karofsky was a huge win for Democrats. It reduced conservative control of the court to 4-3, giving liberals a chance to take control in 2023.
Karofsky will now be on the court when the Republican-controlled Legislature goes about the task of redistricting next year, a fight that many expect to be decided by the state Supreme Court.
Her win will also certainly be seen as a bellwether in battleground Wisconsin ahead of the November presidential election. Trump barely carried the state four years ago, and both parties see it as critical this year.
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British PM's praise for health service could boost its cause
LONDON (AP) — His skin pale and his eyes hooded from a week in the hospital with the coronavirus, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson looked into the camera and paid tribute to the two nurses who never left his bedside for 48 hours, a time when his fight to survive "could have gone either way.″
Jenny McGee from New Zealand and Luis Pitarma from Portugal, he said, embodied the caring and sacrifice of National Health Service staff on the front lines of the pandemic, which has already killed 11,329 people in Britain.
“The reason, in the end, my body did start to get enough oxygen was because, for every second of the night, they were watching and they were thinking and they were caring and making the interventions I needed,” he said in an address to the nation Sunday. “So that is also how I know, that across this country, 24 hours a day, for every second, for every hour, there are hundreds of thousands of NHS staff who are acting with the same care and thought and precision as Jenny and Luis.’’
Johnson's statement could mean the NHS has a powerful new advocate as it seeks to reverse a decade of austerity that has left Britain's doctors and nurses struggling to treat the flood of coronavirus patients with inadequate supplies of protective gear. At least 19 NHS workers have died in the outbreak.
It also was notable for Johnson’s unabashed praise of two immigrants. He has staked his career on Brexit, a cause closely bound up with the desire of many in Britain to control immigration, and his words could mean a change in his government's tone.
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Could old vaccines for other germs protect against COVID-19?
WASHINGTON (AP) — Scientists are dusting off some decades-old vaccines against other germs to see if they could provide a little stopgap protection against COVID-19 until a more precise shot arrives.
It may sound odd: Vaccines are designed to target a specific disease. But vaccines made using live strains of bacteria or viruses seem to boost the immune system's first line of defense, a more general way to guard against germs. And history books show that sometimes translates into at least some cross-protection against other, completely different bugs.
There’s no evidence yet that the approach would rev up the immune system enough to matter against the new coronavirus. But given that a brand-new vaccine is expected to take 12 to 18 months, some researchers say it's time to put this approach to a faster test, starting with a tuberculosis vaccine.
“This is still a hypothesis,” said Dr. Mihai Netea of Radboud University Medical Center in the Netherlands. But if it works, “it could be a very important tool to bridge this dangerous period until we have on the market a proper, specific vaccine.”
The World Health Organization issued a stern warning Monday not to use the TB vaccine against COVD-19, unless and until studies prove it works.
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VIRUS DIARY: Connecting to the world from a balcony in Rome
ROME (AP) — Balconies are a kind of extension of a window on the world. During Month One of lockdown in Italy, stepping out onto mine kept me connected to a drastically shrunken daily universe.
Like millions of others these weeks in Italy, I am working from home, part of nationwide efforts to contain coronavirus' spread. To take a break, I go out on my balcony, in the afternoon, when the sun won’t blind me. I peer below to catch precious glimpses of everyday life, which is barely the everyday life we always knew.
People-watching means catching sight of citizens outside for severely limited circumstances — heading to shop for food, taking a brief stroll, walking the dog.
Early in the lockdown, residents emerged at the stroke of 6 p.m. on their balconies, terraces or rooftops to sing and clap in a nationwide, simultaneous affirmation that they were alive and healthy. Soon, the novelty wore off. I was glad. That hour is when Italian authorities read out the numbers of the thousands of new cases, of the critically ill fighting for their lives against a virus that steals away breath, of the dead who lost the fight. One evening, someone shot off a firecracker just when the death toll was announced. I slammed shut the balcony’s doors.
One day, I spotted the driver of a utility truck deliver a pair of metal canisters to the apartment building directly across the street. Why would someone be ordering fire extinguishers at this time? Don’t they have enough to worry about?