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Coronavirus Live Updates - The New York Times

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Credit...Benjamin Norman for The New York Times

The protests against police brutality and racism that have spread across the United States since the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis have spurred fears that they could result in a resurgence of the virus. Concerns have forced people sympathetic to the movement to weigh the risks of attending demonstrations, where there is often little social distancing.

“The police violence against black people — that’s a pandemic, too,” said Kelli Ann Thomas, 31, a community organizer who joined protests in Miami. “People are willing to risk their lives, to risk their health, to show solidarity with black people.”

Because of delays between exposure to the virus and symptoms, the effects of the protests on the spread of the virus will not be known for several weeks. But epidemiologists said the protests would almost certainly lead to more cases.

Health experts know that the virus is far less likely to be spread outdoors than indoors. And masks reduce the chance of transmitting respiratory droplets that contain the virus. But yelling, shouting and singing can increase how far those droplets are projected. Crowds also increase the risk of transmission. Police tactics such as spraying tear gas — which causes people to cough — herding protesters into smaller areas for crowd control and placing arrested individuals in buses, vans and holding cells also increase the risk of infection.

Tay Anderson, a protest leader and city school board member in Denver, said he had been worried about the disparate effects of the virus on black Colorado residents as thousands marched through the city and rested shoulder to shoulder on the lawn of the State Capitol in silent demonstrations to decry Mr. Floyd’s death.

He put out a call on social media for all protesters to join him in getting tested for the virus on Saturday morning at the Pepsi Center, a concert arena where Denver has been running free, large-scale testing.

“WE ARE STILL IN A PANDEMIC,” he wrote on Twitter.

In Los Angeles, where city leaders have voiced support for the right of demonstrators to gather, Mayor Eric Garcetti has warned the gatherings could become “super-spreader events” — not unlike during the 1918 flu pandemic when, after the first wave of infections, some cities held parades and large gatherings that led to a second, more deadly wave of infections.

New York officials, including Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, have raised similar concerns. “Express your outrage,” Mr. Cuomo said, referring to the protests. “But be responsible, because the last thing we want to do is see a spike in the number of Covid cases.”

As the city proceeds with plans to begin reopening on Monday, Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Tuesday that he was “very worried” that the virus could be spreading at protests.

In interviews and on social media, many public health experts emphasized that police violence against black people in America was also a public health crisis. The anger at economic, social and health disparities fueling the protests, health experts said, was reflected in sharply higher rates of Covid-19 death and illness among black Americans. Several advised a “harm reduction” approach that would allow people to join the demonstrations in as safe a way as possible.

“Last week, all the news was about Covid; this week, all the news is about the protests,” said Eleanor Murray, an assistant professor of epidemiology at Boston University School of Public Health. “But really, these are two pieces of the same conversation.”

Credit...Pool photo by Salwan Georges

The Senate voted largely along party lines on Tuesday to confirm Brian D. Miller, a White House lawyer, to be the inspector general in charge of overseeing the Treasury Department’s $500 billion pandemic recovery fund.

The confirmation puts Mr. Miller at the center of the politically charged effort to distribute government money to a broad swath of businesses that have been crippled by the pandemic. And it comes at a moment when Mr. Trump’s management of the bailout is under intense scrutiny.

In his role as inspector general, Mr. Miller will be required to monitor the flow of government funds and report any wrongdoing to Congress.

Mr. Miller was confirmed by a vote of 51 to 40. Senator Doug Jones of Alabama was the only Democrat to join Republicans in voting in favor of the nominee.

The fund that Mr. Miller will be overseeing was created as part of the $2 trillion economic relief package Congress approved in March. It includes money to backstop the Federal Reserve’s emergency lending facilities and funds for loans and grants to support airlines and businesses that are critical to national security. Mr. Trump’s political opponents have already criticized the disbursement of funds as benefiting rich companies over small businesses and have accused the president of corporate cronyism.

As part of the legislation, lawmakers created a three-pronged oversight structure. It includes a special inspector general within the Treasury Department, a committee of inspectors general and the Congressional Oversight Commission, which is selected by the majority and minority leaders of the Senate as well as the House Speaker and minority leader.

Democrats have been wary of Mr. Miller’s appointment. He worked in the White House Counsel’s Office during Mr. Trump’s impeachment proceedings, and on at least one occasion he stonewalled an oversight request. Mr. Trump has also demonstrated a penchant for firing inspectors general, raising concerns about whether anyone who tries to conduct independent oversight will be stymied.

Credit...Bryan Anselm for The New York Times

As the United States begins what is expected to be a slow climb out of lockdowns, economists and researchers are questioning whether the government’s response to help companies will prove sufficient in the longer run.

Highly indebted public companies that employ millions of people are largely excluded from direct relief options that Congress, the Federal Reserve and the Treasury have designed to help companies through the pandemic downturn, an analysis from a group of Harvard University economists found.

Policymakers have prioritized getting help to businesses that entered the crisis in good health. That lowers the chances that taxpayers will foot the bill to save big companies that had loaded up on risky debt, and it could help officials to deflect the kind of angry criticism that surrounded 2008 bank and auto company bailouts.

But it also leaves a large slice of U.S. companies fending for themselves in the sharpest downturn since the Great Depression, leaving them at greater risk of bankruptcy — and their workers at greater risk of job loss.

Publicly traded firms that employ about 8.1 million people — about 26 percent of all employment at tracked publicly traded companies — are all or mostly left out of direct government relief, according to research by Samuel Hanson, Jeremy Stein and Adi Sunderam of Harvard, along with Eric Zwick at the University of Chicago.

Some of the firms that government programs miss — like the Gap, Dell Technologies and Kraft Heinz — are household names with huge workforces. If such companies were to run into problems accessing cash, it could precipitate job cuts, the researchers said.

“We’re trying to flatten the bankruptcy curve, or flatten the financial distress curve,” said Mr. Hanson, who refined the analysis for The New York Times. If a large number of companies go out of business, “it’s likely to be very costly and leave permanent scarring to our productive capacity.”

Coronavirus in the U.S.: Latest Map and Case Count

A detailed county map shows the extent of the coronavirus outbreak, with tables of the number of cases by county.

Credit...Mark Makela for The New York Times

Mr. Trump has relentlessly attacked mail voting, falsely calling it a free-for-all for cheating and a Democratic scheme to rig elections.

But as eight states and the District of Columbia vote on Tuesday in the biggest Election Day since the virus forced a pause in the primary calendar, it is clear that Mr. Trump’s message has sunk in deeply with Republicans, who have shunned mail ballots.

An unintended result of the president’s fear-mongering about mail ballots could hurt his party’s chances, and his own, Trip Gabriel reports.

In Indiana, Iowa, New Mexico and Pennsylvania — all states that are voting on Tuesday that broadly extended the option to vote by mail this year — a higher share of Democrats than Republicans have embraced mail-in ballots.

“If the Republicans aren’t playing the same game, if we’re saying we don’t believe in mail-in voting and are not going to advocate it,” said Lee Snover, the Republican chair of Northampton County in Pennsylvania, “we could be way behind.”

Credit...Scott Olson/Getty Images

Several months of social distancing and stay-at-home orders have resulted in fewer people donating blood, which is now leading to shortages in the United States.

The American Red Cross, which usually has enough blood supplies to meet the nation’s needs for five days, now has less than two days’ worth.

For a while, the drop in donations was not critical because supply and demand fell in tandem, as most surgeries were canceled and far fewer people were getting injured in car crashes and other accidents.

But now, even as hospitals have resumed elective surgeries and many Americans are venturing out of their homes again, the rate of blood donations has yet to bounce back. The result is what Chris Hrouda, president of biomedical services for the Red Cross, which collects about 40 percent of the country’s blood donations, called a “staggering” drop in supply.

Hurricane season, which is underway and is projected to be even more devastating than usual, may also increase the need for blood supplies while making it more difficult to collect.

Further aggravating the shortage is that many hospitals are performing surgeries at a faster clip than before the pandemic, as they work through a backlog of operations.

On Sunday, the Red Cross stopped sending hospitals around the country the full amount of blood requested in their standing orders, instead providing just 75 percent of the requests.

Without an increase in donations in the next week or two, the Red Cross will have to send hospitals just half their requested amounts.

At least 15 of the graduating cadets who returned to West Point ahead of President Trump’s commencement speech in June tested positive for the coronavirus, according to a U.S. Army spokeswoman.

None of those cadets had coronavirus symptoms, and the virus had not spread from them to any other cadets among the class of 1,106 since they returned to the U.S. Military Academy last week, the spokeswoman, Col. Sunset Belinsky, said on Tuesday. She said that the academy learned that the 15 had the coronavirus after all cadets were tested immediately upon arriving on campus. The cadets who tested positive were immediately isolated.

“The Army and West Point have done meticulous planning to ensure the health and safety of the returning cadets of the U.S. Military Academy’s class of 2020,” Colonel Belinsky said. “There is mandatory screening for all, and we’ve had a small number — about 1.5 percent — test positive. This was anticipated.”

In April, Mr. Trump abruptly said he would speak at West Point after the cadets had already been sent home because of concerns about the coronavirus. The president’s announcement came one day before Vice President Mike Pence delivered the commencement address at the Air Force Academy graduation ceremony in Colorado.

The College Board said Tuesday that it would postpone plans to offer an online SAT test for high school students to take at home this year, further muddying a traditional ritual of the college application process that has already been thrown into chaos by the virus.

After canceling test dates this spring, the board announced in mid-April that it was developing a digital version of the SAT to be introduced if the pandemic continued to require social distancing in the fall, which would make it hard for the nonprofit organization to provide enough testing dates and centers.

But in its latest statement, the board said the technological challenges of developing an online test that all students could take had led to the decision to drop it.

“Taking it would require three hours of uninterrupted, video-quality internet for each student, which can’t be guaranteed for all,” the board said, adding that it would continue to deliver an online version of the SAT at some schools, but would not “introduce the stress that could result from extended at-home testing in an already disrupted admissions season.”

The College Board asked colleges and universities on Tuesday to “show flexibility” to the millions of students who were not able to take the SAT this spring because of cancellations. It asked colleges to extend deadlines for receiving test scores and to give equal consideration to students who were unable to take the test because of the pandemic.

Its decision came after the organization had a rocky experience last month introducing a digital version of the Advanced Placement exams, which it also administers. Many students complained that they were not able to submit their answer sheets electronically, and their tests were disqualified.

The SAT’s rival exam, the ACT, announced on Tuesday that it still planned to offer a remote option in the fall.

A pet dog has been tested and confirmed positive for the coronavirus for the first time in the United States, the Department of Agriculture said on Tuesday.

Since the outbreak of the pandemic, there have been confirmed infections in the United States of a tiger, a lion and two pet cats. Two dogs tested positive in Hong Kong, but there had been no confirmed dog infections in the United States.

The dog, a German shepherd in New York, is expected to recover.

There was a false alarm in April, when a low amount of the virus was detected in the saliva of Winston, a pug in North Carolina. But the U.S.D.A. laboratory performed its own tests on Winston and released the results on May 27. “No virus was isolated, and there was no evidence of an immune response,” said Joelle Hayden, a U.S.D.A. spokeswoman.

This time, the German shepherd in New York tested positive at the U.S.D.A.’s National Veterinary Services Laboratories.

One of the dog’s owners has tested positive for coronavirus, and the dog had showed some signs of respiratory illness, the U.S.D.A. said. That prompted testing at a private veterinary facility, and the presumptive positive results were reported to government officials.

Those results were confirmed using swabs as well as blood tests for antibodies.

Another dog in the German shepherd’s household had showed no symptoms but was also tested and found to have coronavirus antibodies, suggested it had been exposed to the virus.

In its statement on Tuesday, the U.S.D.A noted that “there is currently no evidence that animals play a significant role in spreading the virus,” and the risk of animals passing it to humans is considered to be low. It would appear that people with Covid-19 can spread the virus to their pets if they are in close contact, but routine testing for animals is not recommended.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, pets, like humans, should be isolated from members of their household who get sick. There is no need for them to be outfitted with face coverings or wiped down with disinfectants.

Credit...Benjamin Norman for The New York Times

Starting Tuesday, most New York City residents will be required not only to stay at home because of restrictions related to the pandemic, they will also be under a nightly curfew from 8 p.m. until 5 a.m. through Sunday.

Mayor Bill de Blasio issued an emergency executive order after looting in the city’s central business district on Monday night.

The order cites both the threat of the virus and the citywide demonstrations against police brutality, noting that “violent acts have been happening primarily during the hours of darkness.”

Those exempt from the curfew include police officers, firefighters, emergency medical workers, homeless people, anyone seeking medical treatment or supplies, and people who do essential work such as food delivery, transit and health care. For others, it is OK to take a pet outside briefly to relieve itself, but food runs to the bodega or walks around the block are prohibited.

Additionally, car travel in Manhattan will be banned below 96th Street during curfew hours, except for local residents, essential workers, buses and truck deliveries.

In other news from the New York metropolitan region:

  • New York City is now offering universal, free testing at its 150 testing sites, the mayor’s office announced Tuesday. Previously, testing was available only to people who had symptoms, people who had contact with someone who tested positive, or essential workers.

  • New York reported an additional 58 virus deaths — the eighth straight day with under 100 fatalities — while New Jersey reported 51 deaths and Connecticut eight deaths.

  • In New Jersey, the number of children with multisystem inflammatory syndrome, which appears related to the virus, has increased to 32, with nine new cases in the past week. Seven children remained hospitalized. In New York, state officials are investigating 190 reported cases and three deaths from the syndrome.

  • Two more parts of New York, the Buffalo region and the Albany region, are entering a second reopening phase this week in which offices and many retail stores and salons can open, with restrictions, and restaurants can offer outdoor dining.

Global Roundup

Credit...Emilio Morenatti/Associated Press

Spain did not announce any new Covid-19 deaths on Monday or Tuesday, a first since the start of the outbreak. The news came with a caveat, however: How to tally deaths has been a topic of heated debate in Spain, and several regional governments did include new deaths in their own counts.

Here’s a look at what else is happening around the globe:

  • A dozen passengers on a Qatar Airways flight from Doha tested positive for the virus when they landed in Athens, and the Greek authorities said all 91 passengers aboard the flight would be quarantined. The episode highlighted the challenges that European nations will face as they try to reopen their borders and salvage the economically crucial summer tourist season.

  • An outbreak at the Pasteur Institute in Dakar, Senegal, a research center whose work has been crucial in efforts to contain the virus in West Africa, has killed at least one staff member.

  • A preliminary analysis by Public Health England concluded that black people were most likely to be diagnosed with the coronavirus and that deaths have been highest among black and Asian people.

  • British lawmakers returned on Tuesday to find themselves obeying pre-pandemic rules that require voting in person. So a line of members of Parliament waiting to vote stretched around an ancient hall, out through a cobbled courtyard and along an underground passage before snaking around an atrium to the cafeteria — all told, it was over half a mile in length.

  • The Hong Kong government extended restrictions on public gatherings and travelers as the city recorded new local infections. Rules limiting gatherings to no more than 8 people were extended to June 18. A 14-day quarantine will remain in effect for arrivals from mainland China, Macau and Taiwan until July 7, and for other travelers until Sept. 18.

  • The Chinese city of Wuhan, where the virus first emerged, has completed a sweeping push to test almost all of its 11 million residents in the span of a few weeks, Chinese officials said on Tuesday.

  • Black Americans in China are caught in a wave of xenophobia stemming from the coronavirus — and getting little help from the State Department.

  • Citing the pandemic, the Indonesian government will not allow its citizens to travel to Mecca, Saudi Arabia to attend this year’s hajj, which is supposed to begin in late July. The nation with the world’s biggest population of Muslims, Indonesia sends the largest number of pilgrims on the hajj each year. The Saudis have not yet decided whether it will proceed as planned.

Credit...Karsten Moran for The New York Times

In an unusual attempt to save two of the top events in American tennis during the pandemic, the United States Tennis Association has proposed staging a doubleheader in New York.

The move, under consideration by the men’s and women’s tours, could allow foreign players to remain in one place for the duration of their stay in the United States and establish a safer bubble for competitors similar to proposals by the N.B.A. and other sports leagues.

The proposal would move the Western & Southern Open, a combined men’s and women’s event near Cincinnati, to the U.S.T.A. Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in New York. But it would keep its general window on the calendar, leading into the U.S. Open, which would be held at the same venue. The Western & Southern Open is currently scheduled for Aug. 17 to 23 while the main draw of the U.S. Open is slated for Aug. 31 to Sept. 13. Spectators would likely be barred.

It is far from certain that either tournament can be played this year, but the maneuver is designed to help draw the needed support of government and public health officials. It is also unclear, especially given quarantine guidelines, whether enough players would be prepared to travel to New York, one of the disease’s epicenters.

Credit...Christophe Petit Tesson/EPA, via Shutterstock

From luxurious carriage-trade establishments like Cafe de Flore on the Left Bank to everybody’s grimy neighborhood bar, Paris reconnected on Tuesday with a key element of urban life: Cafes were allowed to reopen and Parisians could once again sit down with one another, separately. No cafes were allowed to serve inside, however, and the tables on the outdoor terraces had to be at least three feet apart.

“It’s obviously the most important turning point for returning to true Parisian life,” said Michel Wattebault, a retired employee of the Bank of France. He was sitting with a friend at one of the handful of outdoor tables at L’Avant-Première, near the Palais Royal. “We’ve been waiting for this moment with impatience,” said his friend, Amélie Juste-Thomas.

The cafe’s owner, Sébastien Fumel, echoed the excitement. “Oh yeah, it was necessary,” he said. “Mental reasons. Personal reasons. Professional reasons. Human reasons. Just a mix of things, you know. This is all about the human. About exchanging.”

Virtual repairs can help you fix what’s broken without exposing yourself to the virus, while interior design shops can help you upgrade your look without an in-person visit. Or take matters into your own hands and organize your closet.

Reporting was contributed by Ian Austen, Anne Barnard, Hannah Beech, Julie Bosman, Graham Bowley, Alan Burdick, Stephen Castle, Christopher Clarey, Michael Cooper, Maria Cramer, Nicholas Fandos, Christopher Flavelle, Luis Ferré Sadurní, Jacey Fortin, Trip Gabriel, David Gonzalez, James Gorman, Amy Harmon, Anemona Hartocollis, Mike Ives, Julia Jacobs, Annie Karni, Ruth Maclean, Jacob Meschke, Raphael Minder, Andy Newman, Adam Nossiter, Richard C. Paddock, Azi Paybarah, Eduardo Porter, Roni Caryn Rabin, Alan Rappeport, Dagny Salas, Jeanna Smialek, Mitch Smith, Kaly Soto, Matina Stevis-Gridneff, Vivian Wang, Elizabeth Williamson, Devin Yalkin, Elaine Yu and Karen Zraick.

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