Tag Archives: Pandemic

Supplies for coronavirus field hospital held up at U.S.-Mexico border

By Julia Love and Mica Rosenberg

(Reuters) – Red tape and rules on exporting medical gear have delayed work on a field hospital for migrants in an asylum camp near Mexico’s border with Texas, undercutting efforts to prepare for the coronavirus pandemic, according to organizers of the project.

Migrants are seen waiting at clinic of Global Response Management at a migrant encampment where more than 2,000 people live while seeking asylum in the U.S., while the spread of Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) continues, in Matamoros, Mexico April 9, 2020. REUTERS/Daniel Becerril

Mexican authorities approved construction of the 20-bed field hospital on April 2. But since then, a trailer laden with supplies for the project has been parked in Brownsville, Texas, less than a block from the U.S.-Mexico border.

Global Response Management, the nonprofit sprearheading the project, said the trailer contains an X-ray machine, cots, heart monitors, medical tents, generators and other equipment. Its staff fear time is running out to prepare for a coronavirus outbreak.

“If we are trying to set up the hospital in the middle of the epidemic, it’s too late,” Andrea Leiner, director of strategic planning for the organization, told Reuters on Tuesday.

“We are in a situation where containment and quarantine are not possible, so we need to be aggressive on prevention.”

There are no confirmed cases yet in the camp on the banks of the Rio Grande that houses about 2,000 migrants, mostly Central Americans seeking asylum in the United States. The camp also holds Cubans, Venezuelans and Mexican asylum seekers along with other nationalities.

But testing has been limited. Health experts say the migrants are exceedingly vulnerable, their immune systems worn down after months living in closely packed tents.

Due to a U.S. order banning the export of key protective medical gear, the nonprofit had to remove equipment such as gloves, surgical masks and N95 masks from the trailer in Brownsville. It is now trying to source what it can from Mexico.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection have said they are trying to prevent brokers and intermediaries from diverting critical medical resources overseas.

In a rule issued on Friday, FEMA said it would consider the “totality of the circumstances,” including humanitarian considerations, when determining whether to detain shipments of medical gear.

Global Response said U.S. authorities cleared its remaining supplies on Sunday, but it is now awaiting a letter from the Matamoros mayor’s office certifying the equipment will only be brought into the country for six months, so the shipment can be approved by Mexican customs.

Mexico’s customs agency, the Matamoros mayor’s office and the National Migration Institute (INM) did not respond to requests for comment.

In addition to the trailer, Global Response has collected hundreds of cloth masks sewn by volunteers for the camp, but it has only been able to bring them in three at a time, the quantity deemed for “personal use” and thus not subject to import duties in Mexico.

The group has accumulated 3,500 rapid tests for the coronavirus to use in the camp, said executive director Helen Perry.

Many in the camp are awaiting U.S. hearings under the Trump administration’s Migrant Protection Protocols policy. All hearings under the program have been suspended until May 1.

In Matamoros, which has a population of about half a million people, the five public hospitals have 25 ventilators and 11 intensive care beds between them, according to figures provided to Reuters by the state government last month.

A Mexican government plan to relocate the migrants to a stadium was abandoned, Global Response’s Leiner said.

The nonprofit and INM are now working to fence off the camp and conduct temperature checks as people enter, she said.

(Reporting by Julia Love in Mexico City and Mica Rosenberg in New York, additional reporting by Verónica G. Cárdenas and Daniel Becerril in Matamoros,; Writing by Julia Love; Editing by Tom Brown)

Coronavirus clue? Most cases aboard U.S. aircraft carrier are symptom-free

By Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Sweeping testing of the entire crew of the coronavirus-stricken U.S. aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt may have revealed a clue about the pandemic: The majority of the positive cases so far are among sailors who are asymptomatic, officials say.

The possibility that the coronavirus spreads in a mostly stealthy mode among a population of largely young, healthy people showing no symptoms could have major implications for U.S. policy-makers, who are considering how and when to reopen the economy.

It also renews questions about the extent to which U.S. testing of just the people suspected of being infected is actually capturing the spread of the virus in the United States and around the world.

The Navy’s testing of the entire 4,800-member crew of the aircraft carrier – which is about 94% complete – was an extraordinary move in a headline-grabbing case that has already led to the firing of the carrier’s captain and the resignation of the Navy’s top civilian official.

Roughly 60 percent of the over 600 sailors who tested positive so far have not shown symptoms of COVID-19, the potentially lethal respiratory disease caused by the coronavirus, the Navy says. The service did not speculate about how many might later develop symptoms or remain asymptomatic.

“With regard to COVID-19, we’re learning that stealth in the form of asymptomatic transmission is this adversary’s secret power,” said Rear Admiral Bruce Gillingham, surgeon general of the Navy.

The figure is higher than the 25% to 50% range offered on April 5 by Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a member of President Donald Trump’s coronavirus task force.

‘DISCONCERTING’ DATA FOR PENTAGON

Defense Secretary Mark Esper, speaking in a television interview on Thursday, said the number of asymptomatic cases from the carrier was “disconcerting.”

“It has revealed a new dynamic of this virus: that it can be carried by normal, healthy people who have no idea whatsoever that they are carrying it,” Esper told NBC’s “Today” morning show.

Such data present challenges to the Pentagon, which is deployed around the world, sometimes in confined environments like submarines, ships and aircraft.

Testing the entire military is not yet feasible, given still-limited testing capacity, officials say, and detecting enough cases without tests is impossible if most cases are asymptomatic.

The U.S. coronavirus death toll – the highest in the world – surged past 31,000 on Thursday after doubling in a week.

It also claimed the life of a sailor from the Theodore Roosevelt this week. Five other members of the crew are hospitalized.

NUMBERS UNKNOWN

Still, the case of the Theodore Roosevelt offers a case study for researchers about how the virus spreads asymptomatically in a confined environment among mostly younger adults.

That cohort has been somewhat underrepresented in the epidemiological data so far, said William Schaffner, an infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

“The findings are of enormous interest because the proportion of people who are asymptomatic is just simply not known,” Schaffner said, when asked about the Navy’s data.

Vice Admiral Phillip Sawyer, a deputy chief of naval operations at the center of the Navy’s coronavirus response efforts, presented the 60% figure in a call with a small group of reporters on Wednesday.

But he declined to speculate about the implications.

“I don’t know if we’re proving something different,” Sawyer said.

“I do agree that we are providing some data that some other organizations might not have.”

(Reporting by Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali; Editing by Mary Milliken and Jonathan Oatis)

Face masks may be ‘new normal’ in post-virus life as U.S. prepares gradual reopening

By Maria Caspani and Jessica Resnick-Ault

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The death toll from the coronavirus pandemic in the United States approached 31,000 on Wednesday as governors began cautiously preparing Americans for a post-virus life that would likely include public face coverings as the “new normal.”

The governors of Connecticut, Maryland, New York and Pennsylvania each issued orders or recommendations that residents wear face masks as they emerge from isolation in the coming weeks.

“If you are going to be in public and you cannot maintain social distancing, then have a mask, and put that mask on,” said New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat.

Similar orders were imposed in New Jersey and Los Angeles last week and face coverings were recommended by Kansas Governor Laura Kelly on Tuesday.

California Governor Gavin Newsom has said residents across the nation’s most-populous state would likely be wearing masks in public for some time to come.

“We are going to be getting back to normal; it will be a new normal,” Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont said, echoing a phrase used by at least two of his fellow governors in recent days.

U.S. Midwest governors were also making plans together to restart their economies, said Jordan Abudayyeh, a spokeswoman for Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker.

In Michigan, hundreds of cars flooded the streets around the state Capitol in Lansing on Wednesday to protest Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s stay-at-home orders, some of the strictest in the country.

Some protesters, in the demonstration organized by conservative and pro-President Donald Trump groups, left their cars to gather on the lawn in front of the Capitol building, many of them not wearing masks or practicing social distancing.

TOLL ON HEALTHCARE STAFF

As of Wednesday night, 30,885 people in the United States had died of COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the novel coronavirus, according to a Reuters tally.

That includes more than 4,000 deaths newly attributed to the disease in New York City after health officials revised their counting methods to include “probable,” but unconfirmed, cases.

Healthcare workers have faced unique health threats while working on the front lines trying to tackle the pandemic.

Reuters has identified more than 50 nurses, doctors and medical technicians who have died after being diagnosed with COVID-19 or showing symptoms of it. At least 16 were in New York state.

“The emergency room is like a war zone,” said Raj Aya, whose wife, Madhvi Aya – a physician’s assistant in Brooklyn – was one of the healthcare workers who died in New York.

As the outbreak begins to slow, political leaders have bickered over how and when to begin the process of unwinding unprecedented lockdowns that have damaged the economy and largely confined Americans to their homes.

Washington state Governor Jay Inslee told an afternoon news conference the largest obstacle to a return to normalcy was a shortage of coronavirus tests.

“We simply haven’t had enough test kits – they simply do not exist anywhere in the United States right now,” Inslee said, adding the state had purchased about a million swabs, along with vials and test medium but they were just starting to arrive.

At his daily White House briefing hours later, Trump boasted that the United States had “the most expansive testing system anywhere in the world”. But, he said, testing was a problem for the states and not the federal government.

“We can’t be thinking about a Walmart parking lot,” where some testing is being done, but the states and cities should do that, he said.

Senate Democrats on Wednesday unveiled a $30 billion plan to vastly increase nationwide testing for the coronavirus.

‘ALMOST IN FREE FALL’

Trump, citing data suggesting the peak of new infections had passed, said he would announce guidelines on Thursday for reopening the economy.

The sweeping closures of businesses have left millions of Americans unemployed and store owners struggling to pay rent.

Government data released on Wednesday showed that retail sales dropped by 8.7% in March, the biggest decline since tracking began in 1992. Consumer spending accounts for more than two-thirds of U.S. economic activity.

In addition, output at U.S. factories declined by the most since 1946 as the pandemic fractured supply chains.

“The economy is almost in free fall,” said Sung Won Sohn, a business economics professor at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.

The United States, with the world’s third-largest population, has now suffered the greatest number of reported fatalities from the coronavirus, ahead of Italy and Spain.

Globally, the number of infections has crossed the 2 million mark and over 136,000 people have died, a Reuters tally shows.

The pathogen emerged last year in China.

Trump said on Wednesday his government was trying to determine whether the coronavirus emanated from a lab in Wuhan, China, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Beijing “needs to come clean” on what they know. The official death toll released by the Chinese government stands at about 3,600.

The source of the virus remains a mystery. General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on Tuesday that U.S. intelligence indicated the coronavirus likely occurred naturally, as opposed to being created in a laboratory in China, but there was no certainty either way.

(Reporting by Nathan Layne, Lucia Mutikani, Doina Chiacu, Susan Heavey, Maria Caspani, Lisa Shumaker, Gabriella Borter, Peter Szekely, Kristina Cooke, Jessica Resnick-Ault, Sharon Bernstein, Steve Gorman and Dan Whitcomb; Writing by Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Bill Tarrant, Cynthia Osterman, Peter Cooney and Himani Sarkar)

U.S. coronavirus death toll tops 30,000, New Yorkers told to wear masks

By Maria Caspani and Doina Chiacu

NEW YORK/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. coronavirus death toll – the highest in the world – surged past 30,000 on Wednesday after doubling in a week, while the hardest-hit state of New York ordered residents to wear masks in certain settings to combat the pandemic.

The sobering milestone was reached at a time when states spared the worst of the pandemic were mulling a partial lifting of restrictions on business and social life by May 1, a target date promoted by President Donald Trump.

The goal of getting the country back to work took on more urgency with the release of two government reports showing plummeting retail sales and factory output last month.

U.S. deaths on Wednesday stood at 30,400, according to a Reuters tally, with 630,000 confirmed coronavirus cases. After the first U.S. death, reported on Feb. 29, it took 38 days to reach 10,000 deaths and nine days to jump from 10,000 fatalities to 30,000.

A University of Washington model, often cited by the White House, this week predicted the total U.S. deaths in the pandemic could reach about 68,800 by early August. That suggests the United States has not even reached the halfway point in possible fatalities.

Italy, with more than 21,000, has the second-most reported deaths caused by the pathogen that first emerged last year in China, followed by Spain with more than 18,500. Worldwide, the pathogen has killed at least 133,000 people.

After saying earlier this week that New York had passed the worst of the crisis, Governor Andrew Cuomo on Wednesday ordered his state’s 19 million residents to wear masks or substitutes when in any public situation that may not allow them to be at least six feet away from others. New Yorkers will have three days to comply with the order, aimed at ensuring the mask wearer does not infect others.

Cuomo said 752 people died in his state in the past day – down slightly from the previous day but still high, although hospitalizations declined in a sign the crisis was easing.

“If you are going to be in public and you cannot maintain social distancing then have a mask, and put that mask on,” Cuomo told a news briefing.

New York is following the lead of a few places that already have policies regarding face coverings in certain circumstances, including Los Angeles. Health experts have recommended the use of face masks after initially discouraging the public from wearing them, out of concern over a short supply for medical professionals treating coronavirus patients.

Cuomo also gave an outline of how he would begin to reopen businesses, starting with the most essential and those where the risk of infection spread was smallest.

With evidence that the outbreak is slowing in states like New York, political leaders have engaged in an acrimonious debate over when to try to reopen the economy without paving the way for a deadly second wave of infections.

States and local governments have issued “stay-at-home” or “shelter-in-place” orders affecting about 94% of Americans to curb the spread of COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the virus.

ECONOMIC CALAMITY

The restrictions have battered the U.S. economy, with mandatory business closures aimed at curbing the pathogen’s spread leaving millions of Americans unemployed.

Fresh government data released on Wednesday gave another glimpse at the damage. Retail sales dropped by 8.7% in March, the government reported, the biggest decline since tracking began in 1992. Consumer spending accounts for more than two-thirds of U.S. economic activity.

In addition, output at U.S. factories declined by the most since 1946 as the pandemic fractured supply chains.

Economists believe the economy entered recession in March.

“The economy is almost in free fall,” said Sung Won Sohn, a business economics professor at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.

Trump, who initially downplayed the coronavirus threat and then called for a reopening of the economy by April 12, now has embraced May 1 target date.

“There are a number of states – 19, 20 states – that really have had limited impact from it. So I think we will see some states that are – the governors feel that they’re ready – we’re poised to assist them with that reopening,” Robert Redfield, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

Healthcare workers have faced unique health threats while working on the front lines trying to tackle the pandemic. Reuters has identified more than 50 nurses, doctors and medical technicians who have died after being diagnosed with COVID-19 or showing symptoms of it. At least 16 were in New York state.

“The emergency room is like a war zone,” said Raj Aya, whose wife Madhvi Aya – a physician’s assistant in Brooklyn – was one of the healthcare workers who died in New York.

(Reporting by Nathan Layne, Lucia Mutikani, Doina Chiacu, Susan Heavey, Maria Caspani, Lisa Shumaker, Gabriella Borter, Peter Szekely, Kristina Cooke and Jessica Resnick-Ault; Writing by Will Dunham and Maria Caspani; Editing by Frank McGurty, Alistair Bell and Cynthia Osterman)

Pandemic could trigger social unrest in some countries: IMF

Pandemic could trigger social unrest in some countries: IMF
By Andrea Shalal

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – New waves of social unrest could erupt in some countries if government measures to mitigate the coronavirus pandemic are seen as insufficient or unfairly favoring the wealthy, the IMF (International Monetary Fund) said in a new report on Wednesday.

Governments had already spent nearly $8 trillion to combat the pandemic and mitigate the economic fallout, but more fiscal stimulus would be needed once the crisis abated, the global lender said in its semi-annual Fiscal Monitor.

The spike in spending would sharply widen fiscal deficits, with global public debt set to rise 13 percentage points to more than 96% of gross domestic product in 2020, it said.

On Tuesday, the IMF forecast the global economy to shrink 3.0% during 2020 as a result of the pandemic, but warned that its forecasts were marked by “extreme uncertainty” and outcomes could be far worse.

Efforts to halt the disease have shut down large swaths of the global economy, with emerging market and developing countries likely to be hardest hit.

While mass protests are unlikely with strict lockdowns in place, unrest could spike when the crisis appeared to be under control, Vitor Gaspar, director of the IMF’s fiscal affairs department, told Reuters in an interview.

To avert further unrest following numerous protests in many parts of the world over the past year, policymakers must communicate with affected communities to build support for measures to tackle the virus, he said.

“This is something we have emphasized: it is crucial to provide support to households and firms that are made vulnerable by the crisis,” he said. “The goal is to support and protect people and firms that have been affected by shutdowns.”

Tensions are already becoming evident as lockdowns leave day laborers and many in the informal economy without jobs or food.

In India’s commercial capital of Mumbai, thousands of jobless migrant workers protested on Tuesday at a railway station, demanding to be allowed to return to their homes in the countryside, after Prime Minister Narendra Modi extended a lockdown of the population of 1.3 billion.

Unemployment has almost doubled to around 14.5% in India since the lockdown began in late March, according to the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy, a private think-tank.

In India and elsewhere, shutdowns have sparked an exodus of millions of workers from city jobs in small industries and service jobs back to their home villages.

Daily wage earners are particularly vulnerable, and many are already having to skip meals, say World Bank officials.

IMF chief economist Gita Gopinath said previous crises and disasters had fostered solidarity, but there could be a different outcome this time.

“If the crisis is badly managed and it’s viewed as having been insufficient to help people, you could end up with social unrest,” she told Reuters.

To avoid future protests, she said it was critical for the international community to play a supportive role for poorer countries through concessional financing and debt relief.

The report said government spending to date included direct fiscal costs of $3.3 trillion, public sector loans and equity injections of $1.8 trillion, plus $2.7 billion in guarantees and other contingent liabilities of $2.7 trillion.

It forecast lower output and said government revenue was now forecast to be 2.5% of global GDP, lower than was projected in October.

Gaspar said it was hard to predict how much more spending would be needed, but broad-based fiscal stimulus would be an important tool to foster recovery once the outbreak abated.

(Reporting by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)

Latest on the spread of the coronavirus around the world

(Reuters) – More than 1.7 million people have been reported to be infected by the novel coronavirus globally and 108,252 have died, according to a Reuters tally, as of 0200 GMT.

DEATHS AND INFECTIONS

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

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

EUROPE

* Pope Francis called for global solidarity in fighting the pandemic and its economic fallout, urging the relaxation of international sanctions, debt relief for poor nations and ceasefires in all conflicts.

* Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he owed his life to hospital staff, in his first comments since leaving intensive care for coronavirus treatment, while his government came under mounting pressure to explain why the death toll was rising so fast.

* Spain registered its lowest one-day increase in deaths from the disease since March 23 on Saturday, as thousands of businesses prepared to reopen under a loosening of nationwide lockdown restrictions.

* Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte extended a nationwide lockdown until May 3, though he said a few types of shops would be allowed to re-open next week.

AMERICAS

* The United States surpassed Italy on Saturday as the country with the highest reported coronavirus death toll, recording more than 20,000 deaths since the outbreak began, according to a Reuters tally.

* The two top Republicans in the U.S. Congress vowed to oppose Democrats’ demands to match a $250 billion proposal to aid small businesses with the same amount for hospitals and state and local governments.

ASIA AND THE PACIFIC

* China is stepping up scrutiny of inbound foreigners and tightening border control after the number of single-day imported coronavirus cases set a record, helping double the daily number of newly detected infections.

* Bangladesh announced a relief package worth about $1.7 billion to help farmers struggling because of restrictions imposed to stem the spread of the coronavirus. Neighbouring India is expected to further extend its nationwide lockdown.

* North Korea called for tougher and more thorough countermeasures to keep citizens safe from the coronavirus at a meeting where leader Kim Jong Un presided, state media said.

* Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Sunday prompted an angry response from some Twitter users after sharing a video of himself lounging on a sofa with his dog, drinking tea and reading, along with a message telling people to stay at home.

MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA

* African ambassadors in China have written to the country’s foreign minister over what they call discrimination against Africans as the country seeks to prevent a resurgence of the coronavirus.

* South Africa, which banned the sale of all alcohol and cigarettes under a lockdown that triggered a wave of lootings of liquor shops, said on Sunday it had caught police officers who were complicit in illegal alcohol sales.

* With Jerusalem under lockdown, Easter Sunday was marked at the traditional site of Jesus’ death and resurrection by just a handful of Christian clerics.

* Iran’s death toll from COVID-19 has risen by 117 in the past day to 4,474, health ministry spokesman Kianush Jahanpur said on Sunday.

ECONOMIC FALLOUT

* India and other South Asian countries are likely to record their worst growth performance in four decades this year due to the pandemic, the World Bank said on Sunday.

* JPMorgan Chase & Co <JPM.N>, the largest lender in the United States by assets, is raising borrowing standards this week for most new home loans as the bank moves to mitigate lending risk stemming from the coronavirus disruption.

* Brazil’s 2020 deficit is approaching 500 billion reais ($96 billion), or 7% of gross domestic product, even before a state aid proposal of up to 222 billion reais to tackle the coronavirus is factored in, the economy ministry said.

(Compiled by Frances Kerry)

Coronavirus forces U.S. churches to offer Easter Sunday services unlike any before

By Rich McKay

(Reuters) – U.S. church leaders peppered their Easter homilies with references to the coronavirus on Sunday, in masses held online, on television and even in parking lots to people sheltering in cars to maintain social distancing during the pandemic.

For the world’s largest Christian population, the coronavirus pandemic has meant observing an Easter Sunday unlike any Americans have lived through before.

“Today as we hear the Easter bells as a call to solidarity among all the members of our community in the face of the pandemic, we might respond to witness to the power of the Resurrection, the power of love that is stronger than death, and faith in a provident God who can always bring good out of evil,” Boston’s Cardinal Sean O’Malley said in his homily on BostonCatholic.org.

Governors and health authorities across the United States have broadly asked residents to avoid gathering in large numbers, leading to the closure of schools, businesses and churches.

The COVID-19 respiratory disease caused by the novel coronavirus has claimed more than 20,500 lives across the United States and infected more than 525,000 people.

Major U.S. religious institutions, including Roman Catholic dioceses and Protestant churches, have found alternatives to safely celebrate the holiest day on the Christian calendar.

In Easley, South Carolina, the 2,200 members of the Rock Springs Baptist Church were among the many U.S. churchgoers who turned to technology and the airwaves for help.

Reverend Jim Cawthon, 46, said he expected hundreds to spend Easter services in their cars in his megachurch’s parking lot, watching the proceedings on big outdoor screens and listening to its broadcast over local radio.

More will likely watch online, which Cawthon said should be easier as the church recently upgraded its video and internet systems.

“Just prior to this all going crazy, we were already set up,” Cawthon said. “It’s all about the cross and celebrating Easter even in a pandemic.”

Some older adults in retirement communities celebrated Holy Week by playing music and video broadcasts of services. Some communities held contests, asking residents, for instance, to decorate golf carts for Easter and leave them parked outside for judging, instead of holding annual golf cart Easter parades.

Curtis James, a youth pastor at the Tate Springs Baptist Church in Arlington, Texas, dreamed up the idea of holding a safe Easter egg hunt for children with the online videogame Minecraft. Other churches have joined in as the plan garnered national attention.

The Home Moravian Church in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, has held a sunrise Easter service for almost 250 years, weathering even the Revolutionary and Civil Wars, as well as the two World Wars. But for the pandemic, the service was canceled. It was to be replaced by an online and locally broadcast service with just a preacher and few choir and band members providing music.

A handful of churches have bucked social distancing rules aimed at slowing the disease’s spread and planned to go ahead with in-person services on Sunday, with some pastors predicting divine protection from the disease.

Most Catholic dioceses across the United States shut down all such live services, however.

Archbishop Jose Gomez of the Los Angeles diocese wrote to priests and parishioners across the nation online to hold steadfast.

“Future generations will look back on this as the long Lent of 2020, a time when disease and death suddenly darkened the whole earth,” Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles diocese wrote to priests and parishioners across the nation online.

“This Holy Week will be different. Our churches may be closed but Christ is not quarantined and his Gospel is not in chains.”

In Columbus, Georgia, the St. Anne Catholic Church found a unique way to fill up its pews for Easter Sunday.

More than 650 members of the 1,500-strong congregation sent in “selfie” photos of themselves that the priests taped to the pews, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.

“Now we look out and see faces,” pastor Robert Schlageter told the newspaper.

(Reporting by Rich McKay in Atlanta; Editing by Scott Malone, Rosalba O’Brien and Tom Brown)

With 20,500 coronavirus deaths, U.S. spends Easter Sunday on lockdown

(Reuters) – Americans spent Sunday on lockdown as the U.S. toll from the novel coronavirus pandemic surpassed 20,500 deaths and more than half a million confirmed cases over the Easter weekend.

With most of the country under stay-at-home orders to curb the spread of the disease, many turned to online church services to mark the holiest day in the Christian calendar.

“Future generations will look back on this as the long Lent of 2020, a time when disease and death suddenly darkened the whole earth,” Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles wrote to priests and parishioners nationwide, urging them to hold steadfast. “Our churches may be closed but Christ is not quarantined and his Gospel is not in chains.”

A few people take to the plaza at the Lincoln Memorial during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, where normally thousands of Christians would gather for worship at Easter sunrise, in Washington, U.S. April 12, 2020. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

The United States has seen its highest death tolls to date from the COVID-19 disease caused by the coronavirus, with roughly 2,000 deaths a day reported for the last four days in a row, the largest number in and around New York City. Even that is viewed as understated, as New York is still figuring out how best to include a surge in deaths at home in its official statistics.

As the death toll has mounted, President Donald Trump mulled over when the country might begin to see a return to normality.

His administration sees May 1 as a target date for relaxing the stay-at-home restrictions, Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Stephen Hahn said on Sunday. But he cautioned that it was still too early to say that target would be met.

“We see light at the end of the tunnel,” Hahn told ABC’s “This Week,” adding, “Public safety and the welfare of the American people has to come first. That has to ultimately drive these decisions”

The top U.S. infectious disease expert said he was cautiously optimistic that some of the country is starting to see a turnaround in the fight against the outbreak.

Dr. Anthony Fauci pointed to the New York metropolitan area, which had its highest daily death toll last week alongside a decrease in hospitalizations, intensive care admissions and the need to intubate critically ill patients.

“Not only is it flat, it’s starting to turn the corner,” Fauci said on Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

“Once you turn that corner, hopefully you’ll see a very sharp decline and then you can start thinking about how we can keep it that way and prevent it from resurging,” he said.

The Trump administration renewed talk of quickly reopening the economy after an influential university research model cut its U.S. mortality forecasts to 60,000 deaths by Aug. 4, down from at least 100,000, assuming social-distancing measures stay.

However, new government data shows a summer surge in infections if stay-at-home orders are lifted after only 30 days, according to projections first reported by the New York Times and confirmed by a Department of Homeland Security official.

https://graphics.reuters.com/HEALTH-CORONAVIRUS-USA/0100B5K8423/index.html

(Reporting by Barbara Goldberg, Doina Chiacu, Ross Colvin and Christopher Bing; Writing by Daniel Wallis; editing by Diane Craft)

Millions filed for U.S. unemployment – many are still waiting for the cash

By Jonnelle Marte and Andy Sullivan

(Reuters) – A shocking 16.8 million people filed for U.S. unemployment benefits in the last three weeks as the country shut down to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus, overwhelming state labor departments and creating a large backlog of pending applications.

A month after the virus was declared a pandemic, many newly jobless Americans are still waiting desperately for their unemployment checks.

After going weeks without a paycheck, they are falling behind on their bills and drastically ratcheting back spending. The delays come as other federal stimulus, including a small business lending program, also experience hiccups.

The slow federal response could ultimately make the economic hit from the shutdown worse, economists warn.

Zaborah Roane, 48, a laid off daycare worker from Raleigh, North Carolina, said her application for unemployment benefits was still pending Thursday, about two weeks after she applied.

“Every day you just have to see what that day brings to help you decide what your next move is going to be,” said Roane, who was able to buy groceries with help from the National Domestic Workers Alliance, a nonprofit group raising money for workers affected by the virus.

The North Carolina Department of Commerce says people typically receive payment within 14 days of filing their initial claim.

The $2.3 trillion stimulus act signed March 27 includes a $600 a week across-the-board unemployment payout. Some states have started issuing the benefits, but it could take until May in some states for this money to filter through creaky federal and state bureaucracies into the bank accounts of Americans.

STATE OFFICES REV UP

The unemployment benefits program is administered by states using guidelines set by federal law.

States facing a surge in applications are increasing staff, expanding call center hours and changing their application processes to make it easier for people to file for benefits.

Some states, including Illinois, Michigan, New Hampshire and New York, are asking people to apply on certain days of the week based on their name.

Others, including Maine, have told independent contractors, who are supposed to be eligible for benefits under the stimulus package, that their benefits are not yet available but they are coming.

Jason Suggs, an unemployment claims processor for the state of Maryland, estimates that the state has lost two-thirds of its claims processing staff over the past decade to retirement and attrition.

“The first thing someone says to you when you answer the phone is, ‘I’ve been on hold for four hours,” Suggs said on a conference call organized by public sector employee unions.

Simon Tung, 38, and his wife Christina shut down their two Manhattan macaron bakeries and a cat cafe on March 15 and had to lay off their more than 20 employees.

Some employees have not been able to apply for unemployment benefits, Tung said Thursday, while other employees have received full benefits.

Filing their own claims was an odyssey, Tung said. He first filed for unemployment online on March 22, but was notified he needed to call to submit more information.

He called hundreds of times. When he did get through, sometimes he would get a message saying the system was overwhelmed and to call back. On April 2, he received his first direct deposit from New York state – for $0.

“It got to a point where it went from anxiety to frustration to defeat, and you’re just laughing at everything,” he said.

The New York State Department of Labor launched a streamlined application process Thursday with a “call back” system for people who need to submit additional information.

Other workers faced several weeks of anxiety before securing benefits.

Desiré Nesmith, 24, who was laid off as a substitute teacher and child-care worker in Fort Worth, Texas received a payment last week but was immediately told she needed to send the money back after the department struggled to contact one of her former employers.

It was a frustrating turn after weeks of struggling to have her claims processed online. Nesmith placed about 400 phone calls into the Texas employment office on Tuesday alone, she said, before she received a call in the afternoon letting her know the error was cleared up and her payments were approved.

“I was on the verge of tears,” she said of the relief she felt.

(Reporting by Jonnelle Marte. Additional reporting by Hilary Russ and Andy Sullivan. Editing by Heather Timmons and Chizu Nomiyama)

Sign of the times: Mile-long line of cars outside California grocery giveaway

By Lucy Nicholson

VAN NUYS, Calif. (Reuters) – A pop-up food pantry in Southern California on Thursday drew so many people that the line of cars waiting for free groceries stretched about a mile (1.6 km), a haunting sign of how the coronavirus pandemic has hurt the working poor.

Hundreds of other people, many wearing trash bags to shelter from the rain, arrived at the one-day grocery giveaway on foot, forming a blocks-long queue in Van Nuys, in the central San Fernando Valley region of Los Angeles.

People pick up fresh food at a Los Angeles Regional Food Bank giveaway of 2,000 boxes of groceries, as the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) continues, in Los Angeles, California, U.S., April 9, 2020. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson

Organizers said they had enough groceries to hand out to more than 2,500 families, with each receiving a 36-pound (16-kg) box of rice, lentils and other staples as well as frozen chicken, oranges and other foods.

“I have six kids and it’s difficult to eat. My husband was working in construction but now we can’t pay the rent,” said Juana Gomez, 50, of North Hollywood, as she waited for her turn.

The COVID-19 pandemic has shut down nonessential businesses across the United States, with more than 90% of Americans under some kind of stay-at-home order, depriving millions of a paycheck.

The northeast part of Los Angeles, home to many working poor Latino families, has been especially hard hit.

LA Regional Food Bank supplied the food donated outside Van Nuys City Hall. Its president, Michael Flood, said such giveaways were becoming an increasingly important way to help feed people in need, with “one or two a day” being held in different locations in Los Angeles County.

Thursday’s food giveaway — coordinated by Los Angeles City Council President Nury Martinez in partnership with the Los Angeles Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO, the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank and Labor Community Services — was open to anyone in need.

“This food saves me money because my little income goes to my rent,” said Daniel Jimenez, 40, an independent contractor for golf tournaments whose young children joined him to pick up food.

“I haven’t been working for three weeks. I have a little money saved but I’m paying rent, gas, and cellphone bills. I don’t even know when we’re going back to work,” he said.

As he spoke, volunteers shouted constant reminders to those who walked up to maintain social distancing.

“For a lot of people, they are new to the situation of needing help and not knowing where to turn,” Flood said, noting many people were now suddenly filing for unemployment and government food assistance programs.

“But that may take some time for them to get those benefits. We want to do what we can to get food in the hands of families, just so they can eat,” he said.

(Writing by Barbara Goldberg in New York; Editing by Frank McGurty and Tom Brown)