Tag Archives: Economy

U.S. companies discover the dark side of a COVID-19 business boom

By Timothy Aeppel

(Reuters) – Kevin Kelly has discovered the many ways a deadly pandemic can be both a boom and a burden on some U.S. businesses.

As the nation clamped down with stay-at-home orders, Kelly said his company, Emerald Packaging Inc. in Union City, Calif, saw demand for the factory’s output explode. Emerald churns out plastic bags for produce, like baby carrots and iceberg lettuce, and Kelly attributed the growth, in part, to the perception that packaged produce is a safer alternative to unwrapped items.

Emerald represents the other side of the current novel coronavirus crisis, which has seen unemployment surge to levels not seen since the Great Depression. The jobless rate hit 14.7% in April. While many companies face a slump, some are rushing to add workers, including delivery services like Instacart. A recent survey by the Atlanta Fed concluded there have been three jobs added to the U.S. economy for every 10 layoffs.

Eric Schnur, CEO of specialty chemical maker Lubrizol Corp., owned by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Corp, said he anticipates “many millions in extra costs associated with responding to COVID-19.” Lubrizol’s business boom includes a three-fold increase in its output of the gelling agent used to make hand sanitizer.

Schnur said the extra costs go beyond stepped up cleaning and safety equipment and includes “significant increases in supply chain and logistics costs as we work to get our materials to those who have the greatest need.”

Another company facing added costs is Calumet Electronics Corp., in Calumet, Mich., which said it has spent $80,000 on everything from soap to mobile desks to keep workers safe through the crisis. For more on Calumet, click here:

For Emerald, orders surged 150% in March and were up another 7% in April. But there’s a dark side to that surge, both in terms of cost and complexity.

All the steps the company has taken — both to boost output and keep workers safe — are expected to add at least $350,000 to costs by the end of the year. This doesn’t include the lost production time, which adds up to at least an hour each day, that machines have to be shut down for cleaning. Kelly, Emerald’s chief executive officer, said he hasn’t figured out what this will do to his profits, but he expects a big hit to his margins. Emerald is a family-owned business with annual sales of about $85 million.

One of the biggest costs for Emerald was $50,000 Kelly spent on an automated temperature scanner. When the crisis first hit, Emerald implemented a regimen that included workers getting their temperature taken at the start and end of each shift.

But Kelly soon realized there was a problem having 40 people at the start of each shift waiting to be checked, one by one, by someone standing close to each employee as they were screened.

“It also just isn’t comfortable,” he said. “You know it’s a temperature gun, but you basically are holding a gun up to someone else’s head. It just made everyone uncomfortable.”

The new system will be a scanner that flashes a red warning signal if someone walks by with a body temperature over 100.4 degrees.

COVID-RELATED COSTS

Another big-ticket item is the cleaning, which accounts for $75,000 of the added costs. This includes assigning six workers — two on each shift — to constantly scrub and sanitize surfaces and $10,000 for six backpacks that these workers now use to hose floors with cleanser. The company, which was founded in 1963 by Kelly’s father, has added 10 workers to its staff of 240 and is heaping on overtime as well to get the orders out the door.

Even the company’s rag bill exploded. They used to buy 2,000 rags a week. Now it’s 7,000. The cost of that one item has jumped from $300 a month to $1,000, while disposable glove use has tripled.

Michael Rincon, Emerald’s director of operations, says each week brings new twists. For instance, they’ve discovered that having workers constantly wiping surfaces with isopropyl alcohol erodes signs and buttons — but they only realized that after it was too late. On one machine in the factory, the word “danger” printed in bright red has blurred.

Rincon said the faded labels will be repainted. But he’s also had to replace buttons on machines that have had the lettering rubbed away. The cost of a new button isn’t much, but the repairs mean costly shutdowns on lines that run around the clock. Some buttons can be replaced in a few minutes, but others take longer, said Rincon.

Kelly said he even thought about trying to put through a price increase to offset some of these expenses. But a few weeks ago, his biggest customer let him know that was a non-starter. The customer told Kelly he was going to see who else might be able to supply him with produce bags, presumably at a better price.

Besides the costs, there are also plenty of unpredictable management challenges. The company made masks mandatory eight weeks ago, at the very beginning of the crisis, but Kelly and other managers still find workers in the plant who aren’t wearing them or are wearing them incorrectly.

One problem is the nature of their factory, which is dominated by large, noisy machines. The only way to communicate in many parts of the factory is to lean your head right next to your coworker. “I’m constantly walking through the factory — throwing my arms apart — to remind people,” said Kelly.

Emerald has had three false alarms, with workers either calling in sick or falling sick at work and being sent home. However, none tested positive for COVID-19, the illness caused by the novel coronavirus.

Kelly said that in a country that regulates so many things, there’s still no good government guidance beyond general guidelines.

“The toughest thing is that there isn’t much direction from the state or the federal government,” Pallavi Joyappa, Emerald’s chief operating officer, said. “You are kind of making it up as you go along.”

(Reporting by Timothy Aeppel; editing by Diane Craft)

‘There is a real risk’ of new outbreak if U.S. states reopen too soon: Fauci

By Makini Brice and Richard Cowan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Leading U.S. infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci on Tuesday warned Congress that a premature lifting of lockdowns could lead to additional outbreaks of the deadly coronavirus, which has killed 80,000 Americans and brought the economy to its knees.

Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told a U.S. Senate panel that states should follow health experts’ recommendations to wait for signs including a declining number of new infections before reopening.

President Donald Trump has been encouraging states to end a weeks-long shuttering of major components of their economies. But senators heard a sobering assessment from Fauci, when asked by Democrats about a premature opening of the economy.

“There is a real risk that you will trigger an outbreak that you may not be able to control and, in fact paradoxically, will set you back, not only leading to some suffering and death that could be avoided but could even set you back on the road to try to get economic recovery,” Fauci said.

The COVID-19 respiratory disease caused by the new coronavirus has infected more than 1.3 million Americans and killed more than 80,600.

Fauci, a member of Trump’s coronavirus task force, told the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee that the nation’s efforts to battle the deadly virus and the COVID-19 disease it triggers should be “focused on the proven public health practices of containment and mitigation.”

Fauci, 79, testified remotely in a room lined with books as he self-quarantines after he may have come into contact with either of two members of the White House staff who were diagnosed with COVID-19. He noted that he may go to the White House if needed.

“All roads back to work and back to school run through testing and that what our country has done so far on testing is impressive, but not nearly enough,” Lamar Alexander, the Republican chairman of the Senate committee, said in an opening statement to Tuesday’s hearing.

Alexander is also self-quarantining in his home state of Tennessee for 14 days after a member of his staff tested positive. Alexander chaired the hearing virtually.

Democrats on the health committee largely concentrated on the risks of opening the U.S. economy too soon, while Republicans downplayed that notion, saying a prolonged shutdown could have serious negative impacts on people’s health and the health of the economy.

Trump, who previously made the strength of the economy central to his pitch for his November re-election, has encouraged states to reopen businesses that had been deemed non-essential amid the pandemic.

His administration has largely left it to states to decide whether and how to reopen. State governors are taking varying approaches, with a growing number relaxing tough restrictions enacted to slow the outbreak, even as opinion polls show most Americans are concerned about reopening too soon.

Senator Patty Murray, the senior committee Democrat, criticizing aspects of the administration’s response to the pandemic, said Americans “need leadership, they need a plan, they need honesty and they need it now, before we reopen.”

Others testifying on Tuesday included U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield, Assistant Secretary for Health Brett Giroir and Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Stephen Hahn. Each testified remotely.

Meanwhile, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, a Democrat, told reporters that a Democratic bill to provide significant new federal aid in response to the coronavirus pandemic could be unveiled later on Tuesday, with a possible House of Representatives votes on it on Friday.

(GRAPHIC: Tracking the novel coronavirus in the U.S. – https://graphics.reuters.com/HEALTH-CORONAVIRUS-USA/0100B5K8423/index.html)

(Reporting by Richard Cowan, Makini Brice, Doina Chiacu and Tim Ahmann; Editing by Scott Malone and Alistair Bell)

Factbox: U.S. COVID-19 tests – What’s out there and how well do they work?

By Carl O’Donnell

(Reuters) – Health policy experts say the United States must dramatically increase the availability of tests for the coronavirus if it is to safely reopen its economy.

U.S. regulators have moved speedily to authorize many new tests, but concerns still remain about tests’ accuracy, and some policymakers say new testing technologies need to proliferate to fully contain the virus.

MOLECULAR DIAGNOSTIC TESTS

Molecular diagnostic tests show who has contracted the virus. Most rely on samples collected from patients using nasal swabs. The samples are then analyzed using a method called polymerase chain reaction (PCR), which detects viral RNA. These tests can be highly accurate, in some instances detecting the virus in 95% of cases.

The first diagnostic tests to get U.S. regulatory approval required that a sample be shipped back to a laboratory to be analyzed, slowing the speed at which patients could receive results. More recently approved diagnostic tests can be conducted at the same location where the sample is taken and provide results in minutes.

Examples:

– Roche Cobas SARS-CoV-2

Authorized for use by U.S. regulators in March, Roche’s website says it is currently shipping around 8 million tests per month. It requires a sample taken by nasal swab be sent back to a lab for analysis. Roche says studies show it can detect very low levels of the virus with 95% accuracy.

– Abbott ID Now

Approved in late March, Abbott’s rapid, point-of-care molecular diagnostic test can provide results on-site to patients within minutes. As of May 4, Abbott said it is producing 50,000 of these tests per day, and plans to ramp up to 2 million by June. A study conducted by the Cleveland Clinic showed the test detected the virus in around 85% of cases.

ANTIGEN TESTS

Earlier this month, U.S. regulators authorized the first antigen test, a new category of diagnostic test. This type of test scans for proteins that can be found on or inside of a virus. They test samples taken from the nasal cavity using swabs. Antigen tests can detect the virus very quickly and can potentially be produced at lower cost.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration says antigen test production can potentially scale to millions per day. But they produce false negatives at a higher rate than molecular diagnostics tests.

Examples:

– Quidel Corporation Sofia 2 SARS Antigen FIA

Authorized for use earlier this month, Quidel said the test picks up around 80% of COVID-19 cases.

ANTIBODY TESTS

Antibody tests take small samples of patients’ blood and scan them for antibodies, which the immune system produces in response to a virus. They can be conducted in labs or through on-site tests that provide results in minutes.

Antibody tests, also known as serological tests, are not as effective as molecular diagnostic tests in catching COVID-19 at early-stages, when patients may not yet be producing antibodies. But they can confirm if patients previously had the virus and have antibodies that might protect them against future infection.

The FDA recently tightened rules on serological test developers after a proliferation of unauthorized tests raised questions about their reliability. Researchers have not confirmed whether recovered patients who are producing antibodies are fully immune to COVID-19.

Examples:

– Abbott Architect SARS-CoV-2 IgG Assay

Researchers at the University of Washington School of Medicine say the test, which Abbott launched in April, has a specificity of 99.9% and a sensitivity of 100%, suggesting very few false positives and no false negatives. Abbott has already shipped more than 10 million antibody tests to hospitals and labs.

(Reporting by Carl O’Donnell; Editing by Lincoln Feast.)

More Americans return to work; concerns grow of a second virus wave

By Ben Klayman

DETROIT (Reuters) – Factory workers began returning to assembly lines in Michigan on Monday, paving the way for the reopening of the U.S. auto sector but stoking fears of a second wave of coronavirus infections as strict lockdowns are eased across the country.

With millions of Americans thrown out of work and economic activity cratering, a growing number of states are ending the tough restrictions that were put in place in March and April to slow the spread of the outbreak.

Some auto suppliers in Michigan, a Midwest industrial powerhouse hard hit by the pandemic and its economic fallout, reopened plants on Monday with skeleton crews to get ready for the planned May 18 restart of auto production.

“We’re starting up our foundry this week in anticipation of the orders coming in next week,” Joe Perkins, chief executive of Busche Performance Group, an engineering, casting and machining firm, said in a telephone interview. Busche had been making parts for non-auto customers deemed essential, such as Deere & Co and Emerson Electric Co, but is now firing up its furnaces for auto customers and training employees on how to be safe during the pandemic.

Detroit’s Big Three automakers – General Motors Co, Ford Motor Co and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV – have said they plan to restart vehicle production at their North American plants on May 18.

The auto sector accounts for 6% of U.S. economic output and employs more than 835,000 Americans. The government of Mexico, another important link in North America’s automobile production chain, is expected to make an announcement this week regarding its plans for the industry.

Overall, more than 80,000 Americans have died in the pandemic out of more than 1.34 million known U.S. infections tallied since Jan. 20, according to a Reuters tally. Michigan has counted more than 4,500 deaths related to COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the coronavirus, ranking fourth among the 50 U.S. states.

In Ohio, another highly industrial state, the vast majority of retail shops can start serving customers on Tuesday.

Even New York, the epicenter of the U.S. crisis, was set to relax social distancing measures by week’s end in some parts of the state outside Greater New York City.

NEW YORK PHASE-IN

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said he expected several parts of the state to begin a phased-in reopening as soon as this weekend after his stay-at-home order expires on May 15.

Certain low-risk businesses and activities like landscaping, tennis courts and drive-in theaters will open, Cuomo told a news conference. “We took the worst situation in the nation and changed the trajectory,” he said.

Rural parts of New York will begin to emerge from the statewide lockdown first. But New York City and its suburbs still must clear some formidable hurdles, including forging a safety plan for its regional subway and commuter rail system.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said restrictions for non-essential businesses may relax next month.

Nearly all of the 50 states have begun loosening restrictions on daily business and social life under growing economic pressure. The pandemic has put more Americans out of work than any time since the Great Depression of the 1930s and prompted the U.S. Congress to pass trillions of dollars in emergency aid for workers and businesses.

Republican President Donald Trump, criticized by Democrats for his playing down and mishandling the outbreak, has been pushing for the reopening of the economy, which is seen as key to his chances of re-election in the Nov. 3 election.

In a Monday tweet, Trump again accused Democrats of taking their time lifting restrictions to embarrass him, a charge they have previously denied.

Public health experts have warned that moving too quickly to reopen, without vastly expanded diagnostic testing and other precautions firmly in place, risks fueling a resurgence of the virus. Polling shows a majority of Americans also concerned.

A surge of new infections in Germany and South Korea, both of which had been praised for acting aggressively after the outbreak spread from China early this year, suggested early efforts to lift restrictions could be premature.

Trump and officials from his administration scheduled a 4 p.m. (2000 GMT) news briefing on Monday to discuss testing.

The White House has directed staff to wear masks at all times in the building, except when they are at their own desks, a senior administration official said on Monday. Trump’s valet and Vice President Mike Pence’s press secretary both tested positive for the coronavirus last week.

(Reporting by Ben Klayman in Detroit, Maria Caspani in New York, Doina Chiacu and Lisa Lamber in Washington and Nathan Layne in Wilton, Connecticut; Writing by Steve Gorman and Paul Simao; Editing by Howard Goller)

Pandemic inflicts historic U.S. job losses, as states struggle to reopen

By Lucia Mutikani and Maria Caspani

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The coronavirus pandemic triggered the steepest monthly loss of U.S. jobs since the Great Depression, government data showed on Friday, while Michigan and California prepared to put people back to work after a manufacturing shutdown.

Labor Department data for April showed a rise in U.S. unemployment to 14.7% – up from 3.5% in February – demonstrating the speed of the U.S. economic collapse after stay-at-home policies were imposed in much of the country to curb the pathogen’s spread.

Worse economic news may yet come. White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett said the unemployment rate is likely to move up to around 20% this month.

The economic devastation has put a sense of urgency into efforts by U.S. states to get their economies moving again, even though infection rates and deaths are still climbing in some parts of the country.

At least 40 of the 50 U.S. states are taking steps to lift restrictions that had affected all but essential businesses.

Two manufacturing powerhouses, Michigan and California, outlined plans on Thursday to allow their industrial companies to begin reopening over the next few days.

Public health experts said reopening prematurely risks fueling fresh outbreaks. They also have raised concerns that a state-by-state hodgepodge of differing policies confuses the public and undermines social distancing efforts.

“If we make a mistake and react too quickly, the situation is only going to get worse,” New York Governor Andrew Cuomo told a news conference. “We have people who are dying.”

The virus has killed nearly 76,000 Americans with more than 1.26 million confirmed cases, according to a Reuters tally.

An astounding 20.5 million U.S. jobs were lost in April – the steepest loss since the Great Depression some 90 years ago – and the jobless rate broke the post-World War Two record of 10.8% in November 1982, the government said.

Just as the pathogen itself has hit black and Hispanic Americans particularly hard – they are overrepresented in the U.S. death toll relative to their population size – minorities also have suffered greater job losses during the crisis.

The April unemployment rate was 14.2% for white Americans, but the rate reached 16.7% among African Americans and 18.9% among Hispanic Americans, the data showed.

Adding to the pain, millions of Americans who have lost their jobs have been unable to register for unemployment benefits. A survey released last week by the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute found that up to 13.9 million people have been shut out of the unemployment benefits system.

‘JUST SO TENSE’

Rita Trivedi, 63, of Hudson, Florida, was furloughed as an analyst at Nielsen Media Research on April 23 and has struggled to secure benefits from the state’s troubled unemployment system. Trivedi worries that she does not have enough money to cover her husband’s medical bills and other expenses.

“I’m more than anxious, I’m more than worried – it’s ‘can’t sleep’ kind of anxious,” Trivedi said in an interview. “I’m just so tense thinking about these things and how to manage.”

Tom Bossert, Trump’s former White House homeland security adviser, said the national trend of new cases outside New York – where the situation has stabilized – was of great concern.

“What we’re looking for now is red flags for reopening, and unfortunately we’re seeing those red flags – about a 2 to 4% daily increase in the rest of the country when you take New York out of the analysis,” Bossert told ABC News.

That increase, if not contained, could lead to “really devastating results in the next 72 days,” Bossert added.

Governor Gretchen Whitmer on Thursday gave the go-ahead to Michigan manufacturers to restart on Monday, removing a major obstacle to North American automakers seeking to bring thousands of idled employees back to work this month.

In California, her fellow Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom unveiled rules permitting manufacturers in his state – ranging from makers of computers, electronics and textiles to aerospace and chemical plants – to reopen as early as Friday.

President Donald Trump, seeking re-election in November, initially played down the threat posed by the coronavirus and has given inconsistent messages about how long the economic shutdown would last and the conditions under which states should reopen businesses.

“Those jobs will all be back, and they’ll be back very soon,” Trump told Fox News on Friday.

A member of Vice President Mike Pence’s staff has tested positive for the virus, briefly delaying Pence’s Friday flight to Iowa and prompting some fellow passengers on Air Force Two to disembark, according to a White House official.

Trump said certain White House staff members have started wearing masks, one day after the White House said his personal valet had tested positive.

As many as 75,000 Americans could die due to alcohol or drug misuse and suicide triggered by the pandemic, according to a report by the Well Being Trust, a national foundation working on mental health and wellbeing.

(Reporting by Lucia Mutikani, Jeff Mason, Mari Caspani, Andy Sullivan, Lisa Shumaker, Rajesh Kumar Singh and Susan Heavey; Writing by Will Dunham, Editing by Howard Goller)

Texas back in business? Barely, y’all, as malls, restaurants empty

By Brad Brooks

AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) – The Domain mall in Austin, Texas, is open for business – unlike most of its 100 upscale shops – as the state entered its first work week of eased pandemic restrictions in the hopes of rekindling the economy.

A dozen or so people were strolling about the sprawling open-air shopping center Monday afternoon, with three seated on the patio of a Tex-Mex restaurant. Only one shopper wore a mask, and the loudest noises were from songbirds perched in the live oak trees along the deserted pedestrian thoroughfares.

“I’ve seen one customer today – they didn’t buy anything,” said Taylor Jund, who was keeping watch over an empty Chaser clothing store. “There’s absolutely no one coming around here.”

While protests across the United States demand state governments allow business to reopen and people to get back to work, the vast majority of Americans balk at relaxing stay-at-home orders too quickly, according to Reuters/Ipsos opinion polling.

Texas, Georgia, and other southern states are leading the way in letting stay at home orders expire and gradually allowing people to go about their business. But the early days of the opening in Texas show that many residents might want to stay home anyway.

“The cases of coronavirus aren’t really going down, so I suspect people aren’t comfortable going to malls or getting back to normal life,” David Tamayo said while sitting on a shaded bench with his girlfriend at The Domain, where he said they came to relax outdoors.

Restaurants, retail stores, and malls in Texas are now allowed to open at 25% capacity in most areas. Stores in rural counties with five or fewer cases can operate at 50%. A second phase is planned for May 18 if infection rates decline.

On Monday, Texas reported that it had 884 deaths from COVID-19 and 32,332 cases total, though it has among the lowest per capita testing rate of any state.

PLEXIGLASS BARRIERS

With temperatures in the 90s, Texans flocked to parks, beaches and rivers over the weekend. Beachgoers packed the shore in the resort town of Galveston, though police said most people seemed to be practicing social distancing.

A large gathering of youth at a lake outside Lubbock, in West Texas, prompted authorities to say on Sunday they were closing the beach there back down.

Still, in most spots in the state – which is larger than France – there has been plenty of room for outdoor recreation and social distancing.

Christy Armstrong, who works for a food distribution company, made the rounds with her restaurant clients across the Houston area on Monday. During a stop at Arnaldo Richards’ Picos Mexican restaurant in central Houston, she saw a handful of customers sitting at a bar, separated from one another by Plexiglas barriers.

“It’s sad to know that this is the first Monday we’ve reopened, and a lot of the places are still very empty,” Armstrong said. “I’m a little shocked it’s so dead out.”

But patience, and even closing down again if there are coronavirus flare-ups, should be foremost on business owners’ minds, said Laura Hoffman, president of Austin’s Chamber of Commerce.

She said the most important thing for businesses was to figure out how to safely reopen and for the Chamber to help them do that, sharing lessons learned at places that have stayed open all along, such as grocery stores.

“We have to look at this pandemic as a long-term condition,” she said. “We must strike the balance between keeping people healthy and reopening.”

(Reporting by Brad Brooks in Austin; Additional reporting by Callaghan O’Hare in Houston; Editing by Bill Tarrant and Gerry Doyle)

U.S. Treasury’s Mnuchin says Trump eyeing restaurant tax changes, travel boost

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on Monday said bipartisan discussions are underway over whether more U.S. government relief funding is needed amid the nation’s novel coronavirus outbreak, but that President Donald Trump is focused on taxes and travel.

In an interview on Fox Business Network, Mnuchin said the Trump administration was prepared to back additional coronavirus stimulus money for American businesses if needed, but that right now it was carefully monitoring the economy as some states restart activity.

Mnuchin said Trump wanted tax changes to make businesses’ entertainment expenses “fully tax deductible like it used to be … to get people to go back to restaurants.”

“The president’s also looking about ways to stimulate travel,” he added. “As the economy opens up, I think you’ll see demand coming back,” for domestic travel, he said, although it’s “too hard to tell” if international travel could open up later in 2020.

Congress has already passed several major coronavirus relief bills worth nearly $3 trillion during the pandemic, but Democratic lawmakers and both Republican and Democratic governors have called for billions more to help shore up local governments battered by the outbreak as they grapple with infections and historic waves of unemployment.

“We’ve put $3 trillion out, if we need to put more money out to support American business and American workers, the president’s absolutely prepared to do that,” Mnuchin said. “We’re also going to take into account what the economic impact is as we open up the economy.”

“We’re beginning to have conversations on a bipartisan basis, we’re going through the issues, we’re going to have very detailed discussions,” he added, when asked if June could be a target for the next wave of federal aid from Congress.

On Sunday, White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said he would not rule out anything in a new relief bill, including more money for state and local governments and small businesses.

(Reporting by Susan Heavey; additional reporting by Lisa Lambert; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Jonathan Oatis)

Warm weather draws crowds in some cities as parts of U.S. start easing coronavirus lockdowns

By Doina Chiacu and Jonathan Allen

(Reuters) – Sunny days and warm weather are proving to be as challenging to manage as restaurants, hair salons and other businesses, as about half of U.S. states partially reopen their economies after the coronavirus lockdown.

On Saturday, thousands of people gathered on the National Mall in Washington to view a U.S. Navy flyover to honor healthcare workers and others battling the pandemic.

In New York City, the warmest weather yet this spring caused picnickers and sunbathers to flock to green spaces in Manhattan, including crowded conditions at the Christopher Street Pier in Greenwich Village, according to photos on social media.

Last week, California ordered beaches in Orange County to close, after crowds defied public health guidelines to throng the popular shoreline. Police in the county’s Huntington Beach said people were complying on Sunday.

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said there were “some real issues” near the pier and police would increase patrols.

Dr. Deborah Birx, response coordinator for the White House coronavirus task force, said on “Fox News Sunday” that massing on beaches was not safe unless people kept at least 6 feet (1.8 m) apart. She also weighed in against allowing such businesses as beauty salons and spas to reopen in the first phase.

“We’ve made it clear that that is not a good phase one activity,” she said, as the number of U.S. cases topped 1.1 million and the death toll rose to more than 67,000 on Sunday.

Protesters gathering, as they did last week in Michigan and other parts of the country to demonstrate against stay-at-home restrictions, posed a huge risk, she said.

“It’s devastatingly worrisome to me personally if they go home and infect their grandmother or their grandfather who has a comorbid condition and they have a serious or a very – or an unfortunate outcome, they will feel guilty for the rest of our lives,” Birx said.

Scott Gottlieb, a former Food and Drug Administration commissioner, said on Sunday the country was seeing a “mixed bag” of results from coronavirus mitigation efforts. He said there were about 20 states seeing a rising number of new cases including Illinois, Texas, Maryland, Indiana, Virginia, North Carolina and Tennessee. Virginia reported a record number of deaths on Sunday, up 44 for a total of 660.

“We expected that we would start seeing more significant declines in new cases and deaths around the nation at this point. And we’re just not seeing that,” he said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “If we don’t snuff this out more and you have this slow burn of infection, it can ignite at any time.”

‘PUTTING A TOE BACK IN’

Even in the face of rising cases, some Americans are eager to return to jobs, classrooms, socializing and large gatherings.

In a town hall event hosted by Fox News on Sunday night, President Donald Trump said he understood people’s desire to go back to work and school and that he expected classrooms to reopen in September.

But he said more needed to be done to ease the economic hit of the pandemic and that more help was coming for people who were unemployed.

In sports, the National Football League said it would announce its schedule for the upcoming season this week including its season-opening game on Sept. 10 and the Super Bowl, which is scheduled to be played in Tampa, Florida, on Feb. 7.

“We are planning on playing the 2020 NFL season as scheduled,” NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy said in an email, noting that the most popular U.S sports league would adjust to government regulations.

On the other side of the spectrum was Boston Mayor Marty Walsh in Massachusetts, which has not begun reopening and is seeing coronavirus cases still climbing. Massachusetts also has issued a statewide order telling people to wear masks in public.

He said the rallies against coronavirus mitigation efforts were causing confusion and making his job harder.

“I don’t understand it. That makes messaging really confusing. … It’s the wrong message, because we’re still very much in the beginning days of coronavirus. Even if you’re a state that is seeing numbers go down,” Walsh said.

In New Mexico, where numbers have yet to see a sustained decline and Native Americans represent more than half of the cases, Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham extended road closings into the city of Gallup to stem the state’s largest outbreak.

The shutdowns will continue until Thursday to slow infections in McKinley County, which is straddled by the Navajo Nation, an area suffering one of the highest per capita case rates in the country relative to U.S. states.

(GRAPHIC: Tracking the novel coronavirus in the U.S. – https://graphics.reuters.com/HEALTH-CORONAVIRUS-USA/0100B5K8423/index.html)

(Reporting by Doina Chiacu in Washington and Jonathan Allen in New York; Additional reporting by Ben Klayman in Detroit; Writing by Lisa Shumaker and Andrew Hay; Editing by Daniel Wallis, Peter Cooney and Gerry Doyle)

Factbox: Latest on the worldwide spread of the new coronavirus – May 1st

(Reuters) – More than 3.27 million people have reportedly been infected by the novel coronavirus globally, and 232,200 have died, according to a Reuters tally as of 0200 GMT on Friday.

DEATHS AND INFECTIONS

* For an interactive graphic tracking the global spread, open https://tmsnrt.rs/3aIRuz7 in an external browser.

* For a U.S.-focused tracker with state-by-state and county map, open https://tmsnrt.rs/2w7hX9T in an external browser.

EUROPE

* Britain was now past the peak of its coronavirus outbreak, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said, promising to set out a plan next week on how the country might start gradually returning to normal life.

* Death toll in Italy climbed by 285, while the daily tally of new infections fell to 1,872.

* Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin has been diagnosed with the coronavirus, as confirmed cases surged past the 100,000-mark.

* Ukraine reached 10,000 cases.

AMERICAS

* More than 1.07 million people have been infected with the new coronavirus in the United States and 62,891 have died, according to a Reuters tally as of 0200 GMT on Friday.

* Half of all U.S. states forged ahead with their own strategies for easing restrictions on restaurants, retail and other businesses shuttered by the coronavirus crisis.

* U.S. President Donald Trump said on Thursday his hard-fought trade deal with China was now of secondary importance to the coronavirus pandemic and he threatened new tariffs on Beijing, as his administration crafted retaliatory measures over the outbreak.

* California ordered beaches in Orange County to close after crowds defied public health guidelines to throng the popular shoreline last weekend.

* Canada’s coronavirus curve is flat but worrying trends are emerging, according to its top medical officer, as Alberta unveiled a plan to reopen its economy gradually.

* Brazil reported a record 7,218 cases in the last 24 hours and 435 additional fatalities.

* Peruvian authorities closed a busy food market in Lima after mass rapid testing confirmed more than 160 positive cases.

ASIA-PACIFIC

* China reported 12 new cases for April 30, up from four a day earlier, bringing the national tally to 82,874.

* Japan will formally decide as early as Monday whether to extend its state of emergency, which was originally set to end on May 6.

* Thailand reported six new cases and no new death.

* Malaysia will allow majority of businesses to resume operations from May 4.

* Australia will consider next Friday whether to relax coronavirus-related mobility restrictions.

MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA

* Turkey’s death toll rose by 93 in the last 24 hours to 3,174, with 2,615 new cases of the virus.

* The International Monetary Fund (IMF) approved $411 million in emergency assistance for Ethiopia.

ECONOMIC FALLOUT

* Initial claims for state unemployment benefits totalled a seasonally adjusted 3.839 million for the week ended April 25, the U.S. Labor Department said, while the Commerce Department said consumer spending slumped by a record 7.5% in March.

* Irish manufacturing activity suffered its sharpest monthly decline on record in April as output collapsed, while British factory output risks falling by more than half during the current quarter, a trade body said.

* South Korean exports plunged at their sharpest pace since the global financial crisis in April.

* Consumer prices in Japan’s capital city fell for the first time in three years in April and national factory activity slumped, increasing fears that the pandemic could tip the country back into deflation.

* France suffered its sharpest economic contraction since records began in 1949 in the first quarter.

* Democratic Republic of Congo has cut its 2020 economic growth forecast to -1.9% and is expecting its economy to contract, its central bank said.

* Chile’s unemployment rate rose to 8.2% in the first quarter from the same period a year ago, hitting a decade high.

(Compiled by Vinay Dwivedi and Uttaresh.V; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta and Sriraj Kalluvila)

Hundreds protest in Michigan seeking end to governor’s emergency powers

By Michael Martina and Seth Herald

DETROIT/LANSING, Mich. (Reuters) – Hundreds of protesters, some armed, gathered at Michigan’s state Capitol in Lansing on Thursday objecting to Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s request to extend emergency powers to combat COVID-19, an appeal Republican lawmakers ignored.

The protest appeared to be the largest in the state since April 15, when supporters of President Donald Trump organized thousands of people for “Operation Gridlock,” jamming the streets of Lansing with their cars to call out what they said was the overreach of Whitmer’s strict stay-at-home order.

The slow reopening of state economies around the country has taken on political overtones, as Republican politicians and individuals affiliated with Trump’s re-election promoted such protests in electoral swing states, such as Michigan.

Many people at Thursday’s “American Patriot Rally”, including militia group members carrying firearms and people with pro-Trump signs, appeared to be ignoring state social-distancing guidelines as they clustered together within 6 feet of each other.

“Governor Whitmer, and our state legislature, it’s over with. Open this state,” Mike Detmer, a Republican U.S. congressional candidate running for the state’s 8th District spot held by Democrat Elissa Slotkin, told the crowd. “Let’s get businesses back open again. Let’s make sure there are jobs to go back to.”

Police allowed more than a hundred protesters to peacefully enter the Capitol building around 1 p.m., where they crammed shoulder-to-shoulder and sought access to legislative chambers, some carrying long guns, few wearing face masks.

People had their temperature taken by police as they entered. Inside, they sang the national anthem and chanted: “Let us work.”

Other speakers at the event, which had different organizers than the mid-April protest, questioned the deadliness of COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the novel coronavirus.

They also said Whitmer’s stay-at-home order violated constitutional rights, and urged people to open their businesses on May 1 in disregard of her order.

‘FREEDOM OF SPEECH’

State authorities have warned that protesters could be ticketed for violating social-distancing rules. The mayor of Lansing, Andy Schor, said in a statement on Wednesday that he was “disappointed” protesters would put themselves and others at risk, but recognized that Whitmer’s order still allowed people to “exercise their First Amendment right to freedom of speech.”

State legislative approval of Whitmer’s state of emergency declaration, which gives her special executive powers, is set to expire after Thursday.

She had asked for a 28-day extension, though Republican lawmakers in control of the statehouse instead voted on bills to replace the state of emergency and her executive orders with “a normal democratic process,” according to a statement from Republican House Speaker Lee Chatfield.

Whitmer is likely to veto moves to limit her authority, and state Democrats denounced the Republican efforts as political theater.

Whitmer contends that her emergency powers will remain in place regardless under other state laws. The stay-at-home order is set to continue through May 15, though she has said she could loosen restrictions as health experts determine new cases of COVID-19 are being successfully controlled.

Whitmer has acknowledged that her order was the strictest in the country, but she defended it as necessary as Michigan became one of the states hardest hit by the virus, having already claimed 3,789 lives there.

Protesters, many from more rural, Trump-leaning parts of Michigan, have argued it has crippled the economy statewide even as the majority of deaths from the virus are centered on the southeastern Detroit metro area.

Many states, including Georgia, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Ohio, have already moved to restart parts of their economies following weeks of mandatory lockdowns that have thrown nearly one in six American workers out of their jobs.

(Reporting by Michael Martina in Detroit and Seth Herald in Lansing, Mich.; Editing by Matthew Lewis and Jonathan Oatis)