AP News in Brief at 6:04 a.m. EDT
AP Exclusive: CDC docs stress plans for more virus flareups
GAINESVILLE, Fla. (AP) — Advice from the nation’s top disease control experts on how to safely reopen businesses and institutions in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic included detailed instructive guidance and some more restrictive measures than the plan released by the White House last month. The guidance, which was shelved by Trump administration officials, also offered recommendations to help communities decide when to shut facilities down again during future flareups of COVID-19.
The Associated Press obtained a 63-page document that is more detailed than other, previously reported segments of the shelved guidance from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It shows how the thinking of the CDC infection control experts differs from those in the White House managing the pandemic response.
The White House’s “Opening Up America Again” plan that was released April 17 included some of the CDC’s approach, but made clear that the onus for reopening decisions was solely on state governors and local officials.
By contrast, the organizational tool created by the CDC advocates for a coordinated national response to give community leaders step-by-step instructions to “help Americans re-enter civic life,” with the idea that there would be resurgences of the virus and lots of customization needed. The White House said last week that the document was a draft and not ready for release.
It contains the kinds of specifics that officials need to make informed decisions, some experts said.
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Wuhan to test all residents after handful of new infections
BANGKOK (AP) — Authorities in the Chinese city where the coronavirus pandemic began were moving forward Wednesday with efforts to test all 11 million residents for the virus within 10 days after a handful of fresh infections were found there.
The U.S. government’s top infectious disease expert, meanwhile, issued a blunt warning that cities and states could see more COVID-19 deaths and economic damage if they lift stay-at-home orders too quickly -- a sharp contrast to President Donald Trump, who is pushing to right a free-falling economy.
“There is a real risk that you will trigger an outbreak that you may not be able to control,” Dr. Anthony Fauci warned a Senate committee and the nation Tuesday as more than two dozen states have begun to lift their lockdowns.
The tension in balancing people’s safety from the virus against the severe economic fallout is playing out in many other countries, too. Italy partially lifted lockdown restrictions last week only to see a big jump in confirmed coronavirus cases in its hardest-hit region. Pakistan reported 2,000 new infections in a single day for the first time after the easing of its lockdown saw crowds of people crammed into markets throughout the country.
China, the first nation to put a large number of its citizens under lockdown and the first to ease those restrictions, has been strictly guarding against any resurgence.
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Exhaustion, uncertainty mark coronavirus survivors' journeys
An angelic voice singing “Hallelujah” echoes off the stately stone and brick canyons of a narrow Montmartre street.
Still struggling with COVID-19 complications two months after falling ill, Parisian soprano Veronica Antonelli wanted the impromptu performance from her third-floor balcony to project hope. Hours earlier, her doctor had delivered troubling news: The lung scarring that sometimes makes her too tired to sing may last for months. Or maybe years.
“It makes things a bit complicated, given my profession,” Antonelli said sadly.
The virus that has sickened over 4 million people around the world and killed more than 280,000 others is so new that patients face considerable uncertainty about what they can expect in recovery and beyond.
“The short answer is that we’re still learning,” said Dr. Jay Varkey, an infectious disease specialist at Emory University in Atlanta. “What we know has been gathered mostly by anecdotal reports from COVID-19 survivors.”
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As Europe reopens, key virus protections are still elusive
ROME (AP) — Italy’s virus reopening was supposed to be accompanied by a series of measures to limit infections in the one-time epicenter of Europe's pandemic: the distribution of millions of inexpensive surgical masks to pharmacies nationwide, a pilot project of 150,000 antibody tests and, eventually, the roll-out of a contact-tracing app.
None of these is in place as Italy experiments with its second week of loosening restrictions and looks ahead to Monday's reopening of shops and in some regions, bars and restaurants.
Italy's commissioner for the emergency, Domenico Arcuri, went on the defensive Tuesday to respond to mounting criticism of his Phase II roll-out.
He insisted “Italians know well what to do” to protect themselves, even if they don't have the tests, masks, contact-tracing or other measures that public health authorities deemed necessary for Italy to reopen.
“Sometimes I make mistakes for which I expect criticism and, if necessary, reprimand, from Italians,” Arcuri said. But he directed the blame at others and repeated that he was working solely in the public’s interest.
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Flynn case boosts Trump's bid to undo Russia probe narrative
WASHINGTON (AP) — When Michael Flynn was forced from the White House, Vice President Mike Pence said he was disappointed the national security adviser had misled him about his talks with the Russian ambassador. President Donald Trump called the deception unacceptable.
Now Pence says he’d welcome Flynn back to the administration, calling him a “patriot,” as Trump pronounces him exonerated.
What a difference three years makes. The Justice Department’s move to dismiss the criminal case against Flynn marks another step in his transformation, in the eyes of Trump and his allies, from rogue adviser to victim of runaway law enforcement.
The dismissal rewrites the narrative of the case that Trump's own Justice Department had advanced for the last three years in a way that former law enforcement officials say downplays the legitimate national security concerns they believe Flynn posed and the consequences of the lies he pleaded guilty to telling.
It's been swept up in a broader push by Trump and his Republican allies to reframe the Russia investigation as a “deep state” plot to sabotage his administration, setting the stage for a fresh onslaught of election year attacks on past and present Democratic officials and law enforcement leaders, too.
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Ahmaud Arbery case puts spotlight on community's race legacy
The people who call Brunswick, Georgia, home say it’s not the monstrous place it might appear to be in the wake of the slaying of Ahmaud Arbery after a pursuit by two armed white men.
Yes, it is one of Georgia’s poorest cities where much of the black working population has struggled to find opportunities for advancement and where one black resident says he walks on tip toes to avoid racist insults.
But it's also a city with a black mayor and one where longtime residents say black and white people — all the way back to the civil rights movement — have long worked together to solve thorny questions about racial equality.
Now, Arbery's slaying as well as the subsequent investigation criticized for being too slow have put Brunswick in the national spotlight and raised questions about whether recent events reflect something rotten in the coastal city's culture.
On the contrary, residents say, Brunswick has often stood out for its ability to work through troubled times peacefully, though it is far from perfect.
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UK on course for 'significant' recession after March slump
LONDON (AP) — The U.K. government warned Wednesday of a “significant” recession after official figures showed the economy shrank 2% in the first quarter of the year even though it included just one week of the coronavirus lockdown.
The Office of National Statistics found that the slump was getting deeper as the quarter came to an end, with output down by 5.8% in March alone, the month when curbs on everyday life started being put in place by the British government. Prime Minister Boris Johnson put the U.K. into full lockdown on March 23, days after closing pubs and restaurants and schools.
The March figure illustrates the scale of the coronavirus slump to come, with the Bank of England, for example, warning of the biggest annual slump since 1706.
“With the arrival of the pandemic, nearly every aspect of the economy was hit in March, dragging growth to a record monthly fall,” said statistician Jonathan Athow.
During March, the only sectors that did grow reflected the needs of a country dealing with a pandemic - IT support, soaps and cleaning products, and the manufacture of pharmaceuticals.
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Built for a global economy, Dubai now threatened by virus
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Dubai built a city of skyscrapers and artificial archipelagos on the promise of globalization, creating itself as a vital hub for the free movement of trade, people and money worldwide — all things that have been disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic.
Now, with events canceled, flights grounded and investment halted, this sheikdom in the United Arab Emirates is threatened both by the virus and a growing economic crisis. Under pressure even before the outbreak, Dubai and its vast web of state-linked industries face billions of dollars in looming debt repayments.
And though it was bailed out a decade earlier, Dubai may not be able to count on another cash infusion, given the crash in global oil prices.
“They facilitate the transport and the buying of things and the movement of people,” said Karen E. Young, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute who studies Gulf Arab economies. “That’s not the world we’re living in right now.”
Dubai's dedication to global trade is memorialized in the first sentence of the first article of its 50-Year Charter, something created last year by its ruler, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, who has overseen much of the city's growth.
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AP PHOTOS: Spanish ambulance workers fear virus rebound
MADRID (AP) — For the first time in weeks, Dr. Mónica Rodríguez has found some respite. But even as she enjoys card games and magic tricks at her ambulance team’s base in Madrid, the emergency doctor is not letting her guard down.
Her team is only catching its breath before the next urgent call comes in, whether coronavirus-related or not.
“The virus is out there and will remain. It’s not going to disappear,” Dr. Rodríguez said during an AP photographer's recent visit with the team.
After helping to flatten one of Europe’s sharpest contagion curves in the coronavirus pandemic, exhausted ambulance workers in Madrid fear that a resurgence in infections could mean another frantic period on the front line.
“We fear a rebound,” Dr. Rodríguez said as Spain takes its first steps to phase out a strict 7-week confinement after roughly 27,000 reported coronavirus fatalities. “Unfortunately, people are not taking enough precautions because they are not aware or they don’t have a real vision of what’s going on.”
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Wear a mask? Even with 20,000 dead, some New Yorkers don't
NEW YORK (AP) — Eric Leventhal felt a sneeze coming and panicked.
The Brooklynite left his cloth face mask at home for a morning run in a park last week. Walking home, he turned toward an empty street and let the sneeze out, hoping no one would notice.
Too bad for him, there’s no hiding without a mask in virus-stricken New York City.
“I picked my head up and I caught eyes with a woman who was wearing a mask, an older woman,” Leventhal recalled recently. “She was just kind of shaking her head.”
Leventhal, 36, is caught in the middle of a debate over when and where, exactly, it is necessary to wear a mask in a city where COVID-19 has now claimed more than 20,000 lives.