But there are some signs of recovery on the horizon: Mastercard spending data suggests that American consumers were shopping at nearly pre-pandemic levels in May, with many of those sales taking place online.
At least 111,000 people in the United States have died of the coronavirus, and nearly 2 million cases have been reported. More than 7,380,000 cases and 414,000 deaths have been reported worldwide, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
Here are some significant developments:
- President Trump on Wednesday announced plans to hold campaign rallies in several states that are battling new surges of coronavirus infections, including Florida, Texas, Arizona and North Carolina.
- A Republican Ohio state lawmaker is facing backlash for suggesting that African Americans might be disproportionately impacted by the coronavirus pandemic because of their personal hygiene.
- Unrelated people can now spend the night at each other’s homes as Britain lifts restrictions in its new “support bubbles” policy, prompting the tabloids to hail the end of the “sex ban.”
- As Russia lifts its last restrictions on nonessential movement, cases have passed the half million mark. Next month will see a key vote to extend President Vladimir Putin’s powers.
- Disneyland plans to reopen its California theme parks in July — but there will be no meet-and-greets with Snow White.
- The European Union on Wednesday accused China of sowing disinformation about the coronavirus, its sharpest criticism yet of Beijing’s handling of the pandemic.
June 11, 2020 at 7: 57 AM EDT
‘It’s not a second wave. They never really got rid of the first wave,’ warns ex-FDA commissioner Gottlieb over Texas, Arizona and the Carolinas
Former Food and Drug Administration commissioner Scott Gottlieb on Thursday warned that a resurgence of coronavirus cases in several states is a sign that authorities there “haven’t been able to isolate what the source of the infection is.”
“I think we should be concerned,” Gottlieb said on the CNBC show “Squawk Box” about the rising number of cases in some states.
“It’s not a second wave, they never really got rid of the first wave,” says @ScottGottliebMD on #COVID19 outbreaks in Arizona, Texas, South Carolina and North Carolina. “The more concerning part is they haven’t been able to isolate what the source of the infection is.” pic.twitter.com/u7ycJFCJ9F
— Squawk Box (@SquawkCNBC) June 11, 2020
“When you look at states like Arizona and Texas, South Carolina, North Carolina — those are where the big outbreaks are right now; Florida to some degree seems to be going up — it’s not a second wave. They never really got rid of the first wave,” Gottlieb added.
“If you look at Texas and Arizona, for example, they really weren’t that hard hit relative to other states during February and March. And so, they just had some infection, they had persistent infection. Now, we’re starting to see it go back up as they reopen,” he said, adding that authorities there “haven’t been able to do the contact tracing to find a source or a group of activities that they’re able to take action on.”
By Rick Noack
June 11, 2020 at 7: 43 AM EDT
Coronavirus threatens supplies of Britain’s beloved sticky spread, Marmite
LONDON — A shortage of brewer’s yeast amid the coronavirus pandemic has forced Marmite manufacturers to halt production of large size jars of the famous sticky spread.
Known for its unique taste and famous “love it or hate it” slogan, the brown food product, which is often spread on toast, is made from concentrated yeast extract — a by-product of brewing beer.
And with bars, restaurants and pubs forced to close their doors in March as a result of the nationwide lockdown, breweries also dialed down production lines, a move that has directly impacted the controversial paste.
On Sunday, a Marmite fan identified as Tim Robey on Twitter, reached out to the company to ask where he could purchase bigger size jars of the spread. Robey declared he needed access to the spread “like oxygen” and was in search of a 400 gram (14 oz.) size pot.
“Hi Tim, due to brewers yeast being in short supply (one of the main ingredients in Marmite) Supplies of Marmite have been affected,” the company’s official Twitter account said Wednesday in response, adding that the production of all sizes apart from the 250g (9 oz.) jar had been halted temporarily.
News of the shortage hit fans of the product particularly hard with some using the hashtag #marmageddon to voice their concerns. One user seemingly summed up the mood of many, simply tweeting: “NOOOO.”
With more people preparing food at home under the government’s stay home policy, Marmite owner Unilever told the BBC that people were also buying more of the product but promised a full range of jars would return to supermarkets “very shortly.”
But while Sky News referred to the shortage as a “sticky situation,” the Guardian, reassured the public that Marmite supplies were the “yeast of our worries.”
By Jennifer Hassan
June 11, 2020 at 7: 23 AM EDT
Surgeons perform first known U.S. lung transplant for covid-19 patient
A former covid-19 patient has received a double-lung transplant, a surgery believed to be the first of its kind in the United States since the pandemic began, medical officials announced Thursday.
Northwestern Medicine in Chicago said the recipient, a woman in her 20s who would not have survived without the transplant, is in intensive care recovering from the operation and from two previous months on lung and heart assistance devices.
Ankit Bharat, chief of thoracic surgery and surgical director of Northwestern’s lung transplant program, said organ transplantation may become more frequent for victims of the most severe forms of covid-19. The disease caused by the new coronavirus most commonly attacks the respiratory system but also can inflict damage on kidneys, the heart, blood vessels and the neurological system.
By Lenny Bernstein and Martine Powers
June 11, 2020 at 7: 05 AM EDT
The coronavirus pandemic isn’t ending — it’s surging
As restrictions are lifted around the world, the sense of urgency surrounding the novel coronavirus pandemic has weakened. Hundreds of millions of students have returned to school. Restaurants, bars and other businesses are slowly reopening in many countries. In parts of Europe, vaccine researchers worry that they will not have enough sick people for testing.
But this historic pandemic is not ending. It is surging. There were 136,000 new infections reported Sunday, the highest single-day increase since the start of the pandemic. There are more than 7 million confirmed cases so far. The number of deaths is nearing half a million, with little sign of tapering off, and global health experts are continuing to sound the alarm.
By Adam Taylor
June 11, 2020 at 6: 39 AM EDT
Tanzania urged to update coronavirus figures after president says virus ‘eliminated’
The Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention expressed hope Thursday that Tanzania would start sharing data on coronavirus infections again, a month after it stopped reporting new infections.
The country confirmed 509 coronavirus cases and then just stopped reporting new cases after a spike in April, according to official counts. Opposition members say the outbreak is still growing.
The U.S. Embassy in Tanzania issued a health alert earlier this month, writing that the “Tanzanian government has not released aggregate numbers on COVID-19 cases or deaths since April 29.” It added that given “the presumed ongoing community transmission in [the city of] Dar es Salaam and other locations in Tanzania, the risk of contracting COVID-19 remains high.”
“There have been instances during the COVID-19 outbreak when hospitals in Dar es Salaam reached full capacity due to the high volume [of] COVID-19 cases,” the alert read.
The World Health Organization (WHO) said in a briefing Thursday that the virus spread is “accelerating” in several other parts of the continent, with capital cities hit particularly hard, according to Reuters.
Despite repeated WHO warnings, Tanzanian President John Magufuli has declared the epidemic over in his country and has applauded citizens who refrained from wearing face masks.
“The corona disease has been eliminated thanks to God,” he recently said at a church, according to the BBC.
Based on data shared by governments across Africa, 10 countries currently account for three-quarters of all confirmed cases in the region, according to the WHO. Out of more than 200,000 confirmed infections, more than 5,000 people have died.
Researchers continue to disagree, however, about how quickly the virus is spreading on the continent and how many people could eventually die.
By Rick Noack
June 11, 2020 at 6: 18 AM EDT
Parents meet their babies born to Ukrainian surrogates for the first time
Newborn babies who had been stranded inside hotels in the care of a Ukrainian surrogacy clinic during the nation’s coronavirus lockdown finally met their parents Wednesday after officials allowed foreign nationals to enter the country to collect the children.
Ukraine is one of the few countries that allow surrogate mothers to be paid to carry babies for couples struggling with infertility. Under strict restrictions, more than 100 babies recently born to surrogates in Ukraine and their foreign parents have been kept apart since the country closed its borders on March 17 to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus.
The government began allowing parents to enter the country following a two-week quarantine after the largest surrogacy company in the country, BioTexCom, posted a video that showed dozens of babies crying in cribs crowded together in a hotel. Many more surrogates will be giving birth in the coming weeks and months.
On Wednesday, a group of parents who had been granted exceptions to enter Ukraine met their babies for the first time. The government required them to quarantine for two weeks and test negative for the coronavirus before the meeting and again before returning home.
Parents from the United States, Canada, Argentina and other countries traveled to Ukraine to retrieve the babies in recent weeks.
By Katie Shepherd
June 11, 2020 at 6: 00 AM EDT
‘Support bubbles’ in Britain to help single people reunite with loved ones
LONDON — As Britain continues to exit its nationwide lockdown, Prime Minister Boris Johnson has outlined further easing of coronavirus restrictions, announcing one significant adjustment aimed at helping those living alone to integrate with others once again.
Starting this weekend, single-adult households in England will be able to form what the government is calling a “support bubble” with one other household. This includes the elderly, single parents and single people.
“Support bubbles must be exclusive, meaning you can’t switch the household you are in a bubble with or connect with multiple,” Johnson said during a coronavirus briefing on Wednesday.
Those who form such bubbles will not have to observe the two-meter social distancing rule and can spend the night at another house that is not their home. If anyone reports symptoms, individuals must follow government advice to isolate for 14 days.
The move is likely to help elderly citizens who have been struggling with living alone. Under the new rule, a grandparent living alone can meet with family members or have grandchildren over to their house.
Earlier this month, the government altered its coronavirus rules, making it illegal for two or more people from different households to meet up indoors or spend the night in private together, sparking widespread mockery of what many dubbed a “sex ban” on social media.
“Singletons can hook up at last!” exclaimed the front page of Thursday’s Metro newspaper. “Boris Johnson lifts lockdown sex ban,” wrote the Sun.
Starting Monday, outdoor attractions such as safari parks and drive-in cinemas will also reopen, based on the fact that transmission of the virus is lower in outdoor spaces.
Places of worship for individual prayer only will also open this weekend.
Some Canadian jurisdictions began allowing two separate households to pair up in “double bubbles” in May, leading to hurt feelings among those who were left out.
By Jennifer Hassan
June 11, 2020 at 5: 42 AM EDT
The ‘Happiest Place on Earth’ returns: Disney plans to reopen its California theme parks July 17
The self-proclaimed “Happiest Place on Earth” will no longer be one of the world’s emptiest places starting next month. Disney on Wednesday announced plans to reopen its Disneyland and Disney California Adventure theme parks July 17 — the same date the original park opened in 1955.
As it has done around the world, the company plans a phased ramp-up, with the Downtown Disney District shopping and dining complex starting to come online July 9 and some on-site hotels opening their doors July 23.
All the plans are subject to state and local government approvals, the entertainment giant said. If Disney gets the green light, its California and Florida parks will reopen within days of one another, giving the company a chance to salvage the busy summer season.
By Hannah Sampson
June 11, 2020 at 5: 07 AM EDT
Australian officials threaten to arrest protesters for defying health orders
Australian officials are threatening to arrest protesters who defy public health restrictions banning large gatherings to demonstrate against police brutality over the weekend.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison warned Thursday that a second wave of infections could cost the country’s economy $25 billion, and he accused those planning to take part in demonstrations over the weekend of “showing a great disrespect to their fellow Australian.” Failing to arrest and charge protesters would amount to a “double standard” in how public health orders are enforced, he said.
Protests against police brutality in the United States have inspired similar demonstrations in Australia, although without the vandalism and unrest that have been reported in many American cities. Australian activists hope to draw attention to the country’s long history of mistreating Aboriginal people and to the number of indigenous people who have died in police custody.
Health officials revealed Thursday that a man who attended a rally in Melbourne on Saturday has tested positive for covid-19. Since the man began experiencing symptoms within 24 hours of the rally, he probably did not contract the virus at the event, said Brett Sutton, chief health officer for the state of Victoria. But he could have been infectious, despite wearing a mask, and authorities are attempting to track down anyone he may have come in contact with.
In New South Wales, where thousands of people are expected to join a Friday night rally in Sydney, police have warned that anyone attending the unauthorized gathering could be issued fines of $700. Those who ignore instructions to move along will be arrested, he said.
Last week, authorities in New South Wales attempted to rescind permission for a march protesting police brutality against black and indigenous people, saying the event had grown too large. But a last-minute ruling from an appeals court authorized roughly 20,000 people to take to the streets in Sydney on Saturday.
By Antonia Farzan
June 11, 2020 at 5: 03 AM EDT
Britain’s death toll would have been halved if it had locked down a week earlier, former government adviser says
LONDON — At least half of the lives lost to the coronavirus in Britain would have been saved if the country had entered lockdown a week earlier, former government adviser Neil Ferguson said Wednesday as Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced the lifting of more coronavirus restrictions.
With more than 41,000 deaths, Britain is the worst-hit country in Europe and has the second-highest death toll in the world after the United States.
“The epidemic was doubling every three to four days before lockdown interventions were introduced. So had we introduced lockdown measures a week earlier, we would have then reduced the final death toll by at least a half,” Ferguson told Parliament’s Science and Technology Committee.
Ferguson resigned in May after violating the lockdown rules he had advised the government to implement so he could meet his married lover.
Johnson has been widely criticized for his handling of the health crisis, with critics blasting him for dithering about implementing the nationwide lockdown on March 23.
John Edmunds, an epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, also told the BBC last weekend that the failure to enter lockdown earlier “cost a lot of lives” on British soil.
The prime minister has dismissed the criticisms as premature.
“We will have to look back on all of it and learn the lessons that we can,” Johnson said Wednesday.
By Jennifer Hassan
June 11, 2020 at 4: 44 AM EDT
Russian covid-19 cases total half a million as country prepares for vote to keep Putin in power until 2036
MOSCOW — Russia’s coronavirus cases passed the half-million mark Thursday, reaching 502,436, as most isolation measures were lifted, enabling citizens to exercise, shop, go to hair salons and travel in taxis and public transport.
The number of cases, the third highest in the world after the United States and Brazil, have continued to rise by almost 9,000 daily.
Critics, such as opposition figure Alexei Navalny, say Moscow’s decision to abruptly lift almost all restrictions this week was political, designed to raise people’s spirits in the lead-up to a national vote next month on constitutional amendments that could allow President Vladimir Putin to stay in office until 2036.
“The virus, having seen the unanimous desire of all Russians to vote for the life presidency of Putin, started to take a step back,” said Navalny on Instagram on Wednesday. He claimed figures were being manipulated, showing sharp drops in new Moscow cases as soon as the date for the vote was announced.
“Nothing like this has been happening in any country of the world but it is happening in Russia. And this is all thanks to Vladimir Vladimirovich — our national leader,” he said, referring to Putin. “The only problem is that they are lying and forging the statistics for the sake of this voting.”
Russia’s celebration of the 75th anniversary of Victory Day was rescheduled from May 9 to June 24 and will be followed by the nationwide vote on July 1. In an unprecedented move, authorities are allowing Russians a week to cast their ballots because of the covid-19 pandemic, raising suspicions that this could allow the manipulation of voting figures.
Navalny said that going ahead with the Victory Day parade and celebrations would probably result in many elderly people attending, putting their lives at risk.
Although Russia’s case numbers are high, there is skepticism over its low mortality rate of just 6,532 deaths. But presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov brushed off suggestions that the figures were manipulated in an interview with CNN on Wednesday.
“Have you ever thought about the possibility of Russia’s health-care system being more effective?” he said.
By Robyn Dixon
June 11, 2020 at 4: 12 AM EDT
A beloved surgeon treated covid-19 patients until he became one
Even as his symptoms worsened, Ronald Verrier refused to go to the hospital.
It wasn’t that he didn’t know how serious covid-19 was. The 59-year-old surgeon had seen it firsthand at St. Barnabas Hospital in New York, where he had worked for two decades. He was obsessively reading medical research, looking for anything that might help as patients kept dying.
But when he got sick, Verrier told his family he did not want to take a bed from someone who needed it more. He believed he would beat the virus and be back at St. Barnabas, doing what he did best. From home, he called into meetings, offering advice while deflecting questions about his health.
On April 8, his family convinced him to go to a hospital. He died that afternoon.
By Rachel Weiner
June 11, 2020 at 3: 50 AM EDT
Notorious Houston serial murder accomplice killed by the virus
One of the then-teenaged accomplices to serial killer Dean Corll, who murdered at least 28 young men and boys in the early 1970s, died from complications of a covid-19 infection while serving a life sentence at the Allan B. Polunsky Unit in Livingston, Tex.
David Brooks, 65, died Tuesday after being hospitalized on May 12 and testing positive for the virus on May 28, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice said in a statement. Brooks had served 45 years in prison when he died.
Known in the news media as the “Candy Man killer,” Corll used two teenage boys, Brooks and Elmer Wayne Henley Jr., to lure young victims, all between 13- and 20-years-old, into his home in the Houston area. Corll then raped, tortured and killed them.
Henley eventually fatally shot Corll in August 1973. He told police he shot Corll in self-defense and confessed his and Brooks’s role in the murders. Police suspected Corll may have killed other boys whose bodies may not have been discovered, but because he died before the murders were uncovered officers could not prove the theory. Brooks and Henley had allegedly been paid $10 to $200 by Corll to find boys to bring back to the 33-year-old electrician.
Brooks appeared before a parole board dozens of times since his conviction, but was never approved for release as families of the victims showed up every 18 months to oppose his appeals.
More than 100,000 inmates have been tested for coronavirus in Texas state prisons, with 7.5 percent of the tests coming back positive. Forty-nine people incarcerated in the state prison system have died from the virus, according to state officials.
By Katie Shepherd
June 11, 2020 at 3: 13 AM EDT
Maryland governor expands Phase 2 to include wave of reopenings, including day cares, gyms and casinos
In the state’s most sweeping wave of reopenings so far, Maryland day cares, gyms, malls, school buildings, casinos, amusement parks and restaurants will be authorized to resume operations within the next 10 days, Gov. Larry Hogan (R) announced Wednesday.
Starting at 5 p.m. Friday, restrictions will be lifted on indoor dining and outdoor amusement activities, including miniature golf and go-cart tracks.
The other businesses and buildings can reopen a week later, on June 19. Gyms and other fitness centers must first undergo a thorough deep cleaning. High school sports teams can launch outdoor practices and outdoor pools can increase capacity from 25 to 50 percent.
Nothing will be open under pre-pandemic conditions, with masks, crowd limits and social distancing rules required.
By Erin Cox, Patricia Sullivan, Dana Hedgpeth and Rebecca Tan
June 11, 2020 at 2: 47 AM EDT
Iowa State Fair canceled for first time since World War II
For the first time since World War II, aspiring politicians won’t have the opportunity to awkwardly choke down corn dogs at the Iowa State Fair this summer. The annual event, which was slated to take place in August, has been canceled — or, as the fair board puts it, postponed until 2021.
While other states including Kansas, Nebraska and Michigan still intend to host state fairs this summer, Iowa officials told reporters on Wednesday that there was no way that the event known for its butter cow sculptures and pork chops on a stick could take place safely and still break even. Between social distancing requirements, limitations on crowd size and an anticipated drop in attendance, having the fair take place this summer would be just as costly as not holding it at all.
Canceling the event is likely to cost the Des Moines economy around $110 million, according to the local tourism board. But Iowa State Fair CEO Gary Slater said Wednesday that the 2020 fair would have been only a “shadow” of itself, the Des Moines Register reported.
Postponing the event to the fall, or adding more dates in an effort to space out visitors, wasn’t possible because of the complicated nature of organizing an event that requires working around the schedules of a massive number of volunteers, carnival workers, vendors and performers, officials said.
The Iowa State Fair has long been considered a mandatory stop for aspiring presidential candidates because of the state’s first-in-the-nation primary. It’s also consistently one of the largest state fairs in the country, with more than a million annual visitors, and has become globally famous for its diverse selection of fried foods.
The fair has been canceled only five times in its 165-year history — first in 1898 when the competing World’s Fair took place in Omaha, then again from 1942 to 1945. Other pandemics, such as the 1918 flu, didn’t have such a significant impact.
By Antonia Farzan
June 11, 2020 at 2: 23 AM EDT
Hawaii extends quarantine requirements for out-of-state visitors through July
“We are working very hard toward re-opening out-of-state travel, but we’re not there yet. We are being very cautious,” Ige (D) said in a statement. “There are new virus flare-ups in key mainland markets — including California where more than 2,000 new cases were reported yesterday. Oregon, Arizona and Texas are also reporting their highest number of new daily cases.”
Hawaii, on the other hand, has had relatively few coronavirus cases. The state has reported 685 cases and 17 related deaths.
Ige lifted a ban on inter-island travel on June 16, allowing residents and visitors to travel within the state’s borders without quarantining if they have not left Hawaii in the past two weeks and are not experiencing covid-19 symptoms.
Those arriving from out-of-state will still be required to quarantine for 14 days. The state is also implementing temperature checks and facial recognition technology inside airports to prevent the spread of the virus, the Associated Press reported.
Violations of Ige’s order can result in criminal charges.
By Katie Shepherd
June 11, 2020 at 1: 57 AM EDT
Her pregnancy was already high risk. Then she gave birth on a ventilator.
BATON ROUGE — A new baby was coming, so the aunts, uncles and cousins arrived by the dozens for a gender reveal party, waiting to learn whether Kenna Allen was having a boy or a girl.
It was Saturday, March 7, just days before they would learn how dangerous gatherings like this one had become. In 48 hours, Louisiana would report its first case of a lethal new virus, a distant worry that no one mentioned as they boiled crawfish and took photos in matching shirts with the words “He or she, what will baby bee?”
Kenna, a 34-year-old single mother navigating a high-risk pregnancy, took a selfie of her baby bump at about 18 weeks. The party was one of the last days before she started seeing stories on the news about people sickened at the same Mardi Gras parades she’d gone to in New Orleans, before her boss, worried about her pregnancy, told her to stay home from her job at the Shell plant, before the virus began ripping through black communities like hers. Before the day in mid-March when she started feeling a tightness in her chest.
By Samantha Schmidt
June 11, 2020 at 1: 30 AM EDT
Arizona’s White Mountain Apache Tribe surpasses Navajo Nation in per capita coronavirus cases
Arizona’s White Mountain Apache Tribe now has more coronavirus cases per capita than the Navajo Nation, which emerged as one of the worst-hit hotspots in the United States this spring.
The tribe surpassed 1,000 covid-19 cases on Monday, meaning 6.4 percent of the Fort Apache Reservation has tested positive, according to the Arizona Republic. On the Navajo reservation, which is located a few hours to the north and previously had the nation’s highest per capita infection rate, 3.5 percent of the population has tested positive.
On Monday, the most recent day tallies were posted, White Mountain Apache Tribe’s emergency operations center said 11 tribal members had died of the coronavirus. Slightly more than 3,000 tests have been administered, suggesting about 19 percent of the tribe’s population had been tested, the Republic reported.
Earlier this week, the Navajo Nation’s president said the tribe appears to be “flattening the curve” and removed strict weekend curfews for the first time in two months. But Arizona as a whole has seen an alarming rise in new cases since reopening in May. During the weekend, amid a surge of new hospitalizations, the state’s health director urged hospitals to once again activate their emergency plans.
By Antonia Farzan
June 11, 2020 at 12: 50 AM EDT
Under court order, Brazilian government puts coronavirus data back online
RIO DE JANEIRO — Bowing to public outrage and an order from the supreme court, the Brazilian government has resumed publishing coronavirus case and death counts that show the cumulative toll of the country’s devastating outbreak.
The data, which offered a robust and detailed look at the spread and reach of the virus, was removed from a government website late last week and replaced with a chart that showed only cases and deaths reported in the previous 24 hours.
The abrupt reduction in publicly available data at a time when the virus is exploding in the country outraged many Brazilians, who saw it as attempt by President Jair Bolsonaro to obscure the severity of an outbreak he has repeatedly sought to minimize.
By Terrence McCoy
June 11, 2020 at 12: 23 AM EDT
What the Labor Department is doing about the ‘error’ that led to a lower unemployment rate
The government agency that compiles the official U.S. unemployment rate — the Bureau of Labor Statistics — said it is still working to fix an unprecedented data-collection error that has badly skewed the rate, dismissing suggestions that data had been manipulated.
The May jobs report included an unusual note saying that the unemployment rate would have been 16.3 percent, not the official rate of 13.3 percent, if not for errors made during the data’s collection, a problem that also plagued monthly reports in March and April. Both the official and corrected May unemployment rates showed improvement compared with April figures. The errors have sowed doubt among some parts of the public about the integrity of the figures, as the economy has cratered during the pandemic.
William W. Beach, an appointee of President Trump who became Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner in 2019, said that the agency is working to improve its data-collection process during the pandemic. Any questions about whether the unemployment rate had been tampered with stem from an “enormous ignorance” of how his agency works, he said.
By Eli Saslow and Heather Long
June 11, 2020 at 12: 22 AM EDT
Coachella, Stagecoach music festivals canceled over fears of ‘fall resurgence’
Public health officials in Riverside County, Calif., announced Wednesday that the annual Coachella and Stagecoach music festivals will not be held in Indio, Calif., this year because of concerns that the large crowds could lead to coronavirus outbreaks.
The music festivals, which had previously been delayed from April to October, were canceled over fears of a “fall resurgence” of coronavirus cases, officials said. The popular music festivals draw hundreds of thousands of concertgoers from all over the world. As many as 125,000 attendees show up each day of Coachella.
The Riverside health officer’s order said the size of the crowds and the nature of the festival venue would make it “infeasible, if not impossible” to do contact tracing if someone infected with the virus unwittingly attended and spread it to others.
Riverside County has had 9,590 coronavirus cases and 365 related deaths, officials said. Hospitalizations have been on the rise in California since Memorial Day.
Goldenvoice, the promoter for Coachella and Stagecoach, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. It is unclear whether the festivals will take place next spring or whether refunds will be offered for tickets to this year’s canceled events.
By Katie Shepherd
June 11, 2020 at 12: 15 AM EDT
Federal Reserve predicts slow recovery with unemployment at 9.3 percent by end of 2020
Federal Reserve leaders predict a slow recovery for the U.S. economy, with unemployment falling to 9.3 percent by the end of this year and to 6.5 percent by the end of 2021, after tens of millions of Americans lost their jobs in the stunning recession caused by the outbreak of the novel coronavirus.
Fed Chair Jerome H. Powell stressed Wednesday that more aid from Congress and the central bank is likely to be needed, especially since a substantial number of Americans may never get their jobs back.
“Unemployment remains historically high,” Powell said during a news conference Wednesday. “My assumption is there will be a significant chunk … well into the millions of people, who don’t get to go back to their old job … and there may not be a job in that industry for them for some time.”
By Heather Long
source https://jobsearchtips.net/live-updates-fed-chair-says-millions-of-americans-may-never-get-their-jobs-back-predicts-slow-recovery-from-coronavirus/
No comments:
Post a Comment