Live updates: Coronavirus crushes China’s economy as Wuhan death toll revised higher; Trump tells governors to ‘call your own shots’

Here are some significant developments:

The death toll in Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak in China, was revised upward by 50 percent on Friday. The change followed widespread criticism of China’s data, although officials offered several reasons for the revision, including at-home deaths that were not included in earlier statistics.

U.S. stocks soared as investors responded to a report that Gilead’s antiviral medicine Remdesivir is showing success against severe covid-19 symptoms. But the trial involved only 125 people, and the preliminary results have not been peer-reviewed.

“It’s not a slam dunk by any means. I don’t think it’s a cure for the virus,” former Food and Drug Administration commissioner Scott Gottlieb said of Remdesivir.

Outbreaks in the United States have sickened workers and forced closures at some of the country’s biggest meat-processing plants, sparking fears of a beef shortfall.

Britain extended a national lockdown for least three more weeks, as virus-stricken Prime Minister Boris Johnson recovers out of the hospital. Some other countries in Europe have started to reopen slowly.

April 17, 2020 at 10:13 AM EDT

Schumer says ‘key thing’ is missing from Trump’s reopening plan: Testing

Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) on Friday credited President Trump with putting forward a reopening plan that is “a little more measured” than he has previously advocated but argued that it still has a crucial deficiency.

“There’s a key thing missing in all of this.… It’s called testing,” Schumer said during an appearance on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” program. “If we don’t have a strong, adequate testing regime, we’re going to have real trouble.”

Schumer’s comments came a day after Trump released federal guidelines for a three-phased reopening of businesses, schools and other gathering places in states and local jurisdictions that satisfy broad criteria on symptoms, cases and hospital loads.

Schumer used his MSNBC appearance to continue pressing for a Democratic proposal to add $30 billion in funding to bulk up coronavirus testing to emergency legislation that would replenish a loan fund to help small businesses respond to the pandemic.

“The testing regime is scattershot and totally inadequate for what’s needed to get the country back to work,” Schumer said. “Each state can’t come up with its own test.”

Democrats also want to add funding for hospitals and state governments to the legislation, while Republicans have said those needs can be addressed later.

“We’ve had constructive talks,” Schumer said. “I don’t see any reason why we can’t come to an agreement soon.”

In a tweet later Friday morning, Trump blamed Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) for not agreeing to GOP-backed legislation to replenish the small-business loan fund before it maxed out Thursday.

“Today people started losing their jobs because of Crazy Nancy Pelosi, Cryin’ Chuck Schumer, and the Radical Left, Do Nothing Democrats, who should immediately come back to Washington and approve legislation to help families in America,” Trump wrote.

By John Wagner

April 17, 2020 at 10:12 AM EDT

Spain changes how it counts covid-19 cases

â€" Spain’s health ministry on Friday changed the way it counts confirmed cases of covid-19 and the official death toll, pushing all regions to use the same criteria and provide more details to central authorities to avoid gaps or overlap in the categories.

“We have published the figures and are trying to correct the series because one of the regions has been offering two different sources of information, and in the past few days we had discrepancies between which of these two series to use,” the head of Spain’s Emergency Health Response Fernando Simon explained. “The variance was small, it isn’t substantial, but some of the figures stand out.”

Authorities said the official death toll jumped to 585 new deaths in 24 hours, with a total of 19,478 lives lost since the pandemic began, using the new method. Using the previous method, the daily toll would have been 348 deaths, compared to the previous day’s 551 deaths.

Simon said Spain was revising its data from the start of the crisis “over the next few days,” and that there would be some “incoherence” in the coming days, but that the “data had been consistent” until now.

Regions will now provide which diagnostic test was used, and delineate hospitalizations or at-home care, asymptomatic and symptomatic confirmed cases and other details not included previously.

With the new method of reporting, Spain posted 188,068 total confirmed cases of novel coronavirus, an increase of 2.9 percent since the day before thanks to 5,252 fresh cases.

By Pamela Rolfe

April 17, 2020 at 10:05 AM EDT

Governors will have to consider face masks in reopening, surgeon general says

Wearing masks to protect others is an action governors across the country will have to consider in their reopen effort, said U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams in a Friday interview with “Fox and Friends."

Masks help prevent asymptomatic spread of the novel coronavirus and show a sign of respect for knowledge of that fact, he said.

“This comes back to safety, and I’m so glad the president emphasized this yesterday,” he said. “This is not about the economy. This approach is about doing it in a safe way with the recognition that we can’t keep the economy closed forever.”

On Thursday, New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo (D) said people in his virus-ravaged state will be required to wear masks in public when it’s not possible to be at least six feet from others.

By Lateshia Beachum

April 17, 2020 at 10:04 AM EDT

China faces new censorship accusations

More than three months after China reported the world’s first known coronavirus cases, Beijing’s initial handling of the outbreak is facing new scrutiny.

Chinese authorities said Friday that the coronavirus death toll in Wuhan â€" the initial epicenter of the outbreak â€" was almost 50 percent higher than previously confirmed. Even though local officials said the discrepancy was due to human error or patients dying at home who were not originally reflected in the statistics, the announcement came amid new concerns that Chinese officials deliberately misled the public regarding key facts.

The Human Rights Watch NGO had warned Thursday that there is a “tremendous danger that censorship is going to permit the virus to reactivate” in China, according to the organization’s executive director Kenneth Roth.

French President Emmanuel Macron echoed those concerns, telling the Financial Times in an interview published on Thursday that “let’s not be so naive as to say (China has) been much better at handling this."

“We don’t know. There are clearly things that have happened that we don’t know about,” he said.

“I think it is incumbent upon China to answer those questions and provide the information so that people can have clarity about exactly what happened,” Australia’s Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton told the Nine Network.

“We do want more transparency,” he said.

Trump also has accused the World Health Organization of having “pushed China’s misinformation about the virus.” He suspended payments to the agency and doubled down on criticism on Friday morning via Twitter.

A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said Thursday that according to the WHO, there is no evidence that the coronavirus was created in a lab. On Friday, the spokesman also rejected claims that the revised Wuhan death toll indicated a government coverup. Instead, he said, the update was the result of a standard verification effort.

By Rick Noack

April 17, 2020 at 9:27 AM EDT

Drug that’s causing cautious optimism ‘not a slam dunk,’ former FDA chief says

There is guarded optimism about remdesivir, a drug that halts viral replication, following reports of early success with severely ill covid-19 patients in a study that has not been peer-reviewed.

But Scott Gottlieb, a former Food and Drug Administration commissioner, said Friday that while he welcomes early encouraging signs of its efficacy, it is not a silver bullet for the novel coronavirus even if it is later proved effective.

“It’s not a slam dunk by any means. I don’t think it’s a cure for the virus,” Gottlieb said on CNBC. “I don’t think this is going to be the one-drug answer. But it can change the contours of the disease and mitigate the worst outcomes for some patients.”

The early signs come from a small study of just 125 infected patients at a Chicago hospital, part of a broader trial for the Gilead Science drug. Of those patients, 113 had severe complications, STAT News reported. Most of the patients have been discharged, although two people died, according to STAT News.

Remdesivir, if it is shown to be a valid treatment, would be most effective as early intervention to curb covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, from spreading in the body, and as an urgent use for patients with high-risk factors, Gottlieb said.

Gottlieb was an FDA commissioner in the Trump administration and is on the board of directors for Pfizer, the pharmaceutical giant.

By Alex Horton

April 17, 2020 at 9:26 AM EDT

Astronauts return from space to a whole new world

Astronauts who have been in space for months returned to Earth on Friday and were greeted by masked and gloved crews because of the novel coronavirus pandemic.

American astronaut Jessica Meir and Russian cosmonaut Oleg Skripochka landed in Kazakhstan after completing a 205-day mission, along with U.S. astronaut Andrew Morgan, an Army emergency physician who wrapped up 272 days in the great beyond.

The Earth they returned to is quite different from the one they left last summer, when barbecues and family reunions abounded.

Seeing this new world, where video chats have replaced physical interaction and lives have been claimed by the virus, is an unusual experience, Meir told reporters, according to the BBC.

“It’s quite surreal to see it unfolding on Earth below,” she told reporters during a recent video call from space, the BBC reported. “From here, Earth looks just as stunning as usual, so it’s hard to believe all of the changes that have taken place since we left.”

Coronavirus has also changed how the space crew will get home and greet their loved ones.

Instead of using an airport to fly home, Meir and Morgan will leave Kazakhstan on a NASA plane because Kazakhstan’s state of emergency has closed down airports, the BBC reported.

Adjusting to life on Earth will involve a customized treatment along with new directions about socializing with family and friends. The new health precautions could have a different effect on the astronauts, who are used to spending lots of time alone, Meir told reporters before leaving the International Space Station.

“I think I will feel more isolated on Earth than here. We’re busy with amazing pursuits and tasks and don’t feel the isolation,” she said.

By Lateshia Beachum

April 17, 2020 at 9:21 AM EDT

These apes and monkeys escaped poaching and trafficking. Now they must battle a pandemic.

Each day at the Sanaga-Yong Chimpanzee Rescue in Cameroon begins at 5:30 a.m., when volunteers and staff wake and start washing fruits and vegetables. Soon, gates and latches clang as the primates are released from their protective night cages, and eight troops of chimps begin pant-hooting for their breakfast.

Electric fencing twice as tall as a human zigzags around the sanctuary’s 225 acres of the tropical Mbargue Forest, both to keep out hunters and wildlife traffickers and to keep in the sanctuary’s vulnerable animals â€" all orphaned when poachers killed their mothers or rescued from abusive owners who kept them as pets.

Taking care of these primates is daunting work, and margins are thin in a good year. Sanaga-Yong, like most of the 22 other facilities in a network known as the Pan African Sanctuary Alliance, is sustained by international donations and the labor of visiting volunteers. But now the sites are facing a new existential threat: the worldwide spread of covid-19.

The pandemic has already had a profound effect on zoos and wildlife refuges around the world. But facilities housing primates are a particular concern, scientists say, because of the animals’ susceptibility to human respiratory diseases, and because all great apes are endangered in the wild.

By Jason Bittel

April 17, 2020 at 8:50 AM EDT

Air travel down 95 percent in Los Angeles, biggest drop in LAX history

Los Angeles, home to the fourth busiest airport in the world, has seen 95 percent of its air travel stop as the global pandemic continues to wreak havoc on the aviation industry, Mayor Eric Garcetti (D) said.

The sharp decline in flights is the largest drop in the history of the Los Angeles International Airport, Garcetti said at a Thursday news conference. The previous record was 55 percent, following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, he said, noting that it took a decade for travel to return to normal afterward.

“It gives you an idea of the scale and the scope of how devastating this is,” he said.

Airlines and airports have been among the hardest hit by coronavirus-related travel restrictions, forcing many to lay off or furlough countless employees.

On Thursday, Garcetti stressed that city officials are doing everything they can to support the hundreds of thousands of people who “depend on the economy of our airport.”

Beyond rent reductions and deferrals, LAX has been slated to receive more than $323 million from the federal Coronavirus, Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, Garcetti said. He added that airlines and contractors will also receive $29 billion in federal funds, under the condition that they retain almost all their employees through the end of September.

“We cannot let our workforce bear the brunt of this emergency,” he said. “We have to help them.”

By Allyson Chiu

April 17, 2020 at 8:46 AM EDT

‘Better to be six feet apart right now than six feet under,’ Michigan governor says

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) vigorously defended her continuing stay-at-home order Friday after thousands of protesters converged on the capital, Lansing, and four northern Michigan sheriffs said they would not strictly enforce it.

“You know what? I can take it,” Whitmer said during an appearance on ABC’s “Good Morning America.” “If it makes people feel better to take their frustrations out on me, that’s fine. All I ask is let’s not get overly political here. Let’s focus on the public health. … I know that there are a lot of businesses and people that are hurting right now. But the fact of the matter is it’s better to be six feet apart right now than six feet under.”

During her appearance on ABC, Whitmer noted that the sheriffs were only four among 83 in the state. Whitmer stressed that she is the governor of a state with nearly 10 million people and more than 28,000 confirmed cases of the coronavirus.

Asked whether she could envision relaxing some social distancing restrictions by May 1, Whitmer said she hopes that is a possibility. But she said the situation is so fluid that it’s hard to predict what actions Michigan will take in a week, much less two weeks.

By John Wagner

April 17, 2020 at 8:43 AM EDT

Pro wrestling? Beaches? Golf? Guns? In coronavirus-closed America, it’s all essential somewhere.

Florida made an exception for professional wrestling. South Carolina cut a break to sex shops, before it didn’t. And across the country, golf courses are more likely to be open than not.

Despite sweeping orders that mandate closures of all nonessential businesses and activities in a bid to combat the spread of the novel coronavirus, the list of exemptions in most states is long, curious and controversial â€" a launchpad for endless debates over what really matters at a time when so much is being sacrificed.

With every category that is included, another set of jobs may be saved, another wave of economic dislocation avoided. But each addition also carries a threat: There may be so many exemptions that the overall strategy of keeping people apart is undermined and viral spread runs rampant.

By Griff Witte and Hannah Knowles

April 17, 2020 at 8:11 AM EDT

In National Army Day parade, Iran pays tribute to those fighting coronavirus

BEIRUT â€" On this year’s National Army Day, Iran decided to stage a different kind of parade: Named “Defenders of the Homeland, Helpers of Health,” the celebration touted Iran’s services dedicated to combating the spread of the coronavirus and praised the efforts of health workers and the army in fighting the pandemic.

Floats drove around a training center, one carrying workers in full-body protective gear standing next to various hospital beds. Another blew a stream of disinfectant liquid behind it, according to footage broadcast by Iran’s state-funded Press TV. Rows of men in hooded fatigues and face masks carried backpack sanitizer sprayers.

Iran typically uses its National Army Day to boast of its weaponry and military prowess, complete with missiles, submarines and warplanes. But amid the pandemic, the country dedicated the day to those fighting covid-19, which has ravaged the heavily sanctioned country.

In a message disseminated on state media on Friday, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said doctors and nurses are the ones standing on the front lines of today’s battlefield.

“Our people should know that although this year is a hard one â€" and as I have said many times â€" we are fighting two viruses: sanctions and coronavirus,” Rouhani said, according to the semiofficial Fars News Agency.

On Friday, Iran reported that the number of cases in the country has reached 79,494, with 1,499 new cases reported overnight, as well as 89 new deaths. Nearly 5,000 people have died of the virus in the country.

President Trump has reimposed sanctions on Iran, further crippling its economy in the pursuit of a “maximum pressure” policy to force Tehran to curb its nuclear and missile capabilities, as well as its regional activities.

By Sarah Dadouch

April 17, 2020 at 7:52 AM EDT

Puerto Rico, struggling with virus response, faces calls for more testing

As crowds descended on several state capitols to protest to stay-at-home orders and other restrictions, demonstrations in the United States’ largest territory are bucking the trend: They want their government to do more.

On Wednesday, dozens of people in San Juan, Puerto Rico, lined up in their cars outside a public television station to call for more testing â€" just one of several demonstrations this week pushing back on the island’s government.

As of earlier this week, Puerto Rico had conducted only about one test for every 392 people, according to El Nuevo Día newspaper, a per capita testing rate lower than that of any U.S. state and less than half the U.S. national average.

Puerto Rico initially implemented one of the earliest and boldest responses to the outbreak in the United States and its territories, with Gov. Wanda Vázquez instituting a nightly curfew and lockdown on March 15. The island’s already fragile health system was crippled by Hurricane Maria nearly three years ago, and fears were rampant that the virus could prove just as deadly.

Vázquez and a task force for the island have said that initial testing results seem to indicate that her strict social distancing measures were starting to slow the pace of infections.

But if the government’s response was effective, it has not come without accusations of corruption.

Earlier this month, federal agencies launched a probe into members of Vázquez’s administration, who allegedly tried to purchase $38 million in testing kits from a construction company. That firm has ties to her political party, but no record of manufacturing medical products.

Also on Wednesday, paramedics and EMTs staged a drive-by protest ending at the governor’s mansion in San Juan, demanding that they be covered in the territory’s economic relief package.

By Teo Armus

April 17, 2020 at 7:32 AM EDT

U.S. stocks surge after clinical trial fuels hopes for coronavirus drug

Global stocks flashed green as investors seized on early reports that the antiviral medicine remdesivir was proving effective in a small clinical trial with severely ill covid-19 patients and on signs that the United States was moving to restart parts of the economy.

The three major U.S. indexes surged at Friday’s open, with the Dow Jones industrial average jumping roughly 600 points, positioning them for a second straight week of gains. The rally comes a day after dismal economic numbers showed the United States had erased all job gains of the past decade because of the coronavirus pandemic, which continues to force tens of millions of Americans to stay home and disrupt entire industries.

By Rachel Siegel

April 17, 2020 at 7:14 AM EDT

A Wyoming health-care worker took a covid-19 test and attended parties. Then, it came back positive.

Mayor Steve Freel of Casper, Wyo., had just watched a Facebook video of a party that took place over the weekend showing partygoers “flat out thumbing their noses” at public health guidelines, he said. And worse: The party was attended by a health-care worker with a pending coronavirus test, as the Casper Star-Tribune earlier reported.

The health-care worker’s roommate, an employee at the Wyoming Behavioral Institute â€" home to one of the largest clusters of cases in Wyoming â€" tested positive for the virus last Friday. Because of evident exposure, the unidentified health-care worker then sought a covid-19 test that same day.

Despite a self-quarantine recommendation, the worker decided to go to a party on Friday night, Freel said. On Saturday, the worker went to another party. And finally, on Monday, the health-care worker got the test results back, Freel said: positive for the coronavirus.

By Meagan Flynn

April 17, 2020 at 7:10 AM EDT

Ten days into Tokyo’s half-hearted emergency, virus cases rise by new daily record

TOKYO â€" Ten days after Japan placed Tokyo under a state of emergency, the number of new coronavirus cases rose by more than 200 on Friday, as the government acknowledged that its measures have not gone far enough in reducing contacts between people.

“Without further cooperation, [the restrictions] will have to drag on for a long time, and we will not be able to stop the spread of infection â€" and that would prolong the economic slowdown,” said Tokyo’s governor, Yuriko Koike. “For the coming weekend, please do not go out. [The state of emergency] has just begun. I hope people think it’s too early to get tired.”

Facing a collapse of the health-care system in Tokyo, Koike has been consistently arguing for stronger measures to contain the virus, but she has been opposed by the central government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

Critics say Abe is too concerned with trying to limit economic damage and has failed to take the decisive measures needed to bring the coronavirus under control.

Data culled from cellphones shows the number of people in normally crowded locations in Tokyo has fallen by about 45 to 70 percent compared to the pre-virus period, while rush-hour traffic on city metro lines has fallen by more than 60 percent.

Abe says social contacts need to fall by 70 to 80 percent during the state of emergency to bring the virus under control. On Thursday, he extended the state of emergency to cover all 47 of Japan’s prefectures, and on Friday he again appealed to people to refrain from going out.

Abe has promised to every resident of Japan a cash payout of 100,000 yen ($930), which he says will help support a “V-shaped” economic recovery.

But a similar cash payout after the 2008 financial crisis was widely seen as a failure because most people simply put the money into their savings.

By Simon Denyer

April 17, 2020 at 6:58 AM EDT

Pandemic upends years of planning for international adoptions and surrogacy births

Andrea Hoffmann’s mad dash to America began shortly after 2 a.m. on March 12 in Munich, when her husband roused her from sleep and said, “We have to get on a plane now.”

The Hoffmanns wanted to be in Maryland for the birth of their son to a surrogate who was due in late May. But Christian Hoffmann realized their plans had to be changed after watching President Trump on television as he announced travel restrictions on Europeans to limit the spread of the novel coronavirus.

The measures, imposed with little advance notice, have interrupted plans for prospective new families around the world. As a result, many people overseas with surrogates in the United States are either stranded thousands of miles away or stuck in the United States, unable to bring their newborns home. And Americans who were about to fly abroad for international adoptions cannot enter the countries where children wait for them, often in orphanages.

By Carol Morello

April 17, 2020 at 6:56 AM EDT

After Fauci urged caution in reopening the economy, Fox News turned to Dr. Phil for a second opinion

After Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious-disease expert, explained the White House’s new guidelines for states to slowly reopen their economies in a three-phase process, Fox News host Laura Ingraham sought another opinion later in the show.

She turned to Phil McGraw, better known as Dr. Phil, television psychologist to the masses.

He acknowledged that the novel coronavirus is killing Americans â€" more than 33,000 as of early Friday â€" but also wondered why the economy would shut down over the pandemic but continues to function as people die of lung cancer and in car crashes and pool drownings.

By Katie Shepherd

April 17, 2020 at 6:54 AM EDT

Holocaust survivor dies of coronavirus 75 years after she was liberated

If Margit Buchhalter Feldman had not lied about her age to the Nazis, the 15-year-old would have been murdered with her family at Auschwitz.

In fear of joining her parents and nearly 70 family members who died in the gas chambers, Feldman, a Hungarian teen known only to the Nazis by the “A23029” tattoo on her left arm, told them she was 18 and was assigned to forced labor. After she was liberated in 1945, Feldman, who could still picture “big heaps and mounds of dead bodies laying all around,” moved to the United States, where the Holocaust survivor made a life of her own in New Jersey. Years later, she eventually turned to teaching young people about the millions who died during the atrocities of the Holocaust.

Feldman, who dedicated her life to educating children about the Holocaust, died of complications from covid-19 this week, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy announced Thursday. The 90-year-old Holocaust survivor of Somerset, N.J., died Tuesday, one day before the 75th anniversary of her liberation.

By Timothy Bella

April 17, 2020 at 6:44 AM EDT

Leftover fabric from AIDS memorial quilt being used to make cloth masks

During one viral outbreak, it was meant to remember those who died. Decades later, as another deadly virus overtakes the globe, it has taken on a new life: keeping people from getting sick.

The elderly organizers of the AIDS Memorial Quilt say they are repurposing fabric from the patchwork remembrance to create protective cloth masks for front-line workers facing the coronavirus pandemic.

“During the AIDS crisis, I could go and do something,” Gert McMullin, the project’s chief coordinator, told People magazine. “But now, I can’t. I’m not used to sitting around and not helping people.”

The collaborative quilt, a decades-long effort that is now the world’s largest piece of folk art, was first conceived in the 1980s as a way to mourn the gay men dying of HIV/AIDS and raise awareness of the disease.

As that epidemic killed scores of people, the project grew, receiving more than 48,000 submissions from around the globe to commemorate dead loved ones, in cloth panels the same size as coffins. No one sewed more of those than 64-year-old McMullin.

In April, the quilt was due to return to its birthplace in San Francisco, but the coronavirus pandemic put those plans on hold. And the new outbreak started to give McMullin “a feeling of horror,” she told NBC News, “like: ‘Not again. I can’t go through this again.’”

So she turned to her leftover fabric and her old sewing machine instead.

Alongside a dozen other volunteers, McMullin has made more than 800 protective masks for doctors and nurses in the San Francisco Bay area, as well as the clients of an Oakland nonprofit that works on housing and substance abuse.

“I never would’ve guessed I would go through two pandemics,” she told NBC, “and I’d be able to sew for both of them.”

By Teo Armus

April 17, 2020 at 6:39 AM EDT

Coronavirus spreads to the Philippines’ overcrowded prison system

MANILA â€" The coronavirus pandemic has reached the Philippines’ notoriously overcrowded jails, after 18 inmates and personnel tested positive for the virus in the Metro Manila capital region.

The nine detainees and nine personnel in the Quezon City Jail have since been isolated, the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology announced Friday.

Local news site Rappler reported that the jail houses more than 3,800 inmates â€" despite having a holding capacity of 800. Overcrowding is a common problem in the country’s prisons, with some of them 400 to 600 percent above capacity.

Criminal arrests have also spiked since President Rodrigo Duterte took office in 2016. His self-declared “war on drugs” has left thousands dead.

Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director of Human Rights Watch, said the spread of the coronavirus at the Quezon City Jail “shows why it’s so critical the government actively pursues early release of detainees charged with low-level, nonviolent offenses, as well as the sick and older inmates.”

The Supreme Court convened online on Friday to discuss a petition on the release of prisoners on humanitarian grounds amid the pandemic. The Department of Interior and Local Government said it will comply with the court’s directive.

Human Rights Watch has also called for the release of prisoners in other countries with similar conditions in the region, including Cambodia and Thailand.

By Regine Cabato

April 17, 2020 at 6:32 AM EDT

German hospitals consider cutting working hours, as tens of thousands of beds are empty despite crisis

BERLIN â€" German hospitals are warning that the coronavirus pandemic has resulted in a problematic surplus rather than a shortage of hospital beds, forcing some of them to consider cutting staff working hours amid a lack of patients.

Germany has almost 140,000 confirmed coronavirus cases but has recorded far fewer deaths than nations with comparable tallies. So far, at least 4,093 people have died of the virus in Germany. By comparison, France has only a slightly higher number of infections but more than four times the number of deaths.

Whereas other countries in Europe saw their hospitals and ICU units quickly overwhelmed by coronavirus patients, more extensive testing and other mitigation efforts reduced the burden on Germany’s health system early on. Germany already had one of the highest per capita numbers of ICU beds in Europe when the pandemic reached the country two months ago. Since then, health officials have offered hospitals compensation if they delay surgeries for non-life-threatening conditions. Additional ICU beds were created.

Germany’s hospital association estimates that 150,000 empty hospital beds are now empty out of a total of about half a million in the country. There are at least 10,000 empty ICU beds out of 40,000 total beds.

While hospitals argue that government compensation has not been sufficient, health officials have stuck to the current approach, suggesting that the current surplus may provide a false sense of security. Only a slight increase in the current basic reproduction rate of the virus, Chancellor Angela Merkel said this week, could mean that the German health system will reach its capacity by summer.

Germany’s hospital association does not consider an overload likely in the short run, however.

“If the current trend continues, we don’t expect any overload of patients within the next two or three weeks,” said Joachim Odenbach, a spokesman for the hospital association. “We should now carefully resume surgeries that were put on hold.”

Luisa Beck and Loveday Morris contributed to this report.

By Rick Noack

April 17, 2020 at 5:56 AM EDT

Duke and Duchess of Cambridge cheer on 99-year-old fundraising hero

LONDON â€" The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, more fondly known as Prince William and Catherine, sent Tom Moore, the British veteran who has raised more than 18 million pounds ($22 million) for the National Health Service, a message on Friday in which they called his efforts “incredible.”

Prince William, who is second in line to the British throne after his father, Prince Charles, called Moore a “one-man fundraising machine.”

“I think it’s absolutely amazing that my super prince can say something like that,” a humble Moore responded after watching the royal couple’s comments.

Moore, who turns 100 at the end of the month, has walked 100 lengths of his 25-meter-long garden in Bedfordshire, England, to raise funds for health-care workers battling the coronavirus in Britain. On Thursday, he completed his final length, which was live-streamed by the BBC.

Known as “Captain Moore” on social media, the veteran has captured the heart of a nation and garnered huge international interest, with more than 900,000 supporters donating to his cause. He has vowed to “keep on going,” despite reaching his target.

More than 13,000 people have lost their lives in the United Kingdom as a result of the virus, including 27 NHS workers. All funds raised by Moore will go to NHS Charities Together.

By Jennifer Hassan

April 17, 2020 at 5:01 AM EDT

‘It was supposed to be such a beautiful year’: An oral history of the coronavirus

In just a matter of months, the coronavirus outbreak has changed the way the entire world lives, works, interacts, even grieves.

The Washington Post has collected stories of how this moment has changed us. This updating collection of voices offers a window into the impact of a crisis that has touched every corner of the globe.

By Washington Post Staff

April 17, 2020 at 4:42 AM EDT

Facebook to cancel planned events of 50 or more people through June 2021

Facebook will cancel all planned events involving 50 or more people through June 2021, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced Thursday.

The decision was included in a lengthy Facebook post shared to Zuckerberg’s personal page detailing how the social media giant plans to move forward as the United States continues working toward gradually reopening amid the ongoing pandemic.

Citing guidance from health experts, Zuckerberg wrote that large public gatherings would either be canceled or to turned into virtual events.

Additionally, most of Facebook’s employees will be required to keep working from home through at least the end of May, Zuckerberg wrote. He added that the company does not “expect to have everyone back in our offices for some time.”

“We’re slowing our plans to return to the office in order to prioritize helping the rest of our community and local economy to get back up and running first,” he wrote.

By Allyson Chiu

April 17, 2020 at 4:31 AM EDT

Mexican workers call on U.S. companies to shut border factories

Workers at U.S.-owned plants along the border in Mexico erupted into protests this week, citing a series of deaths they say were the result of the coronavirus and should result in their factories being shut down.

These “maquiladoras,” as they are known, form a key part of the cross-border trade with the United States, as they churn out heating controls, car seats and assorted technology for owners and consumers to the north.

In Ciudad Juárez, which sits across from El Paso, more than 250,000 people work in such factories, the Dallas Morning News reported, and 12 of the city’s 20 fatalities were linked to the maquiladoras.

Although many laborers have been furloughed, some plants in cities like Juárez have remained open, as companies like Honeywell say their production lines remain vital during the pandemic, according to Reuters.

Even after the Mexican government ordered nonessential industries to suspend operations, one U.S. manufacturing association has pushed for changes to Mexico’s list of “essential” industries so more factories can reopen, the news agency reported.

Protesters at plants across the Mexican border this week, however, have called for shutdowns with full pay. They pointed to poor health conditions inside the plants and a series of employee deaths.

None of the companies directly attributed these fatalities to the virus, though demonstrators have insisted otherwise.

In Juárez, workers at a plant for the carmaker Lear died of “respiratory illnesses,” the company told Reuters, adding that it halted employee activity in the city by the start of April.

Across from San Diego in Tijuana, a worker at Honeywell plant died after failing a medical screening, being turned away from work, and quarantining themselves, though the manufacturers said covid-19 had not been confirmed as the cause of death.

Honeywell told Reuters that it closed the factory two days for cleaning.

By Teo Armus

April 17, 2020 at 4:08 AM EDT

Colin Kaepernick starts covid-19 relief fund to help communities of color, donates $100,000 himself

Former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick launched a coronavirus relief fund Thursday aimed at helping communities of color, donating $100,000 of his own money to the effort.

“Black and brown communities are being disproportionately devastated by covid-19 because of hundreds of years of structural racism,” Kaepernick, 32, said in a video shared on Twitter. The fund is affiliated with Kaepernick’s Know Your Rights Camp, a youth initiative.

As The Washington Post reported earlier this month, the novel virus appears to be infecting and killing African Americans nationwide at an alarmingly high rate. Majority-black counties have three times the rate of infections and nearly six times the rate of deaths compared to counties that are made up of mostly white residents, according to The Post’s analysis of available data and census information.

In recent weeks, lawmakers, medical professionals and activists have called for the federal government to release detailed figures disclosing race and ethnicity data related to testing, patients and their health outcomes, The Post reported. This information, they say, is critical to ensuring equal access to testing and treatment, and developing proper policies to protect the vulnerable groups.

On Thursday, Kaepernick, a vocal civil rights activist, wrote on Instagram that his fund was not only created to provide monetary relief, but also to raise awareness of how the coronavirus is ravaging communities of color.

“We need each other now more than ever,” he wrote.

By Allyson Chiu

April 17, 2020 at 4:07 AM EDT

China cracks down on shoddy mask manufacturing amid criticism of defective products

Chinese authorities are cracking down on fraudulent activity involving face masks, arresting dozens of people for hoarding materials and driving up prices, and closing down a factory accused of making substandard masks.

China is a key producer of surgical masks and the advanced N95 masks used by medical workers, but countries that have bought Chinese masks and test kits, including the Netherlands and Spain, have rejected tens of thousands of them as defective.

A total of 42 people were arrested for criminal activities involving the fraudulent production and sale of melt-blown fabric, the synthetic polymer material used to filter out particles. Melt-blown fabric is in short supply globally because of skyrocketing demand for masks and the difficulty of producing the nonwoven fabric.

China’s Ministry of Public Security arrested the people in Guangdong and three other provinces for hoarding and trying to drive up prices, seizing material worth almost $5 million, the ministry said in a statement Friday.

“The public security organs will always maintain a ‘zero tolerance’ approach to crimes involving protective materials related to the epidemic,” an unnamed ministry official said.

Separately, Jiangsu provincial officials shut down factories producing melt-blown fabric in the city of Yangzhong after reports they were producing inferior-quality masks for export. The city had seen a sudden proliferation of melt-blown fabric producers as prices for the material skyrocketed. The wholesale price of melt-blown fabric has increased from $2,260 to as much as $97,500 per ton in less than six months, according to the Yicai financial news website.

The Commerce Ministry also revoked the licenses of two exporters of personal protective equipment that it said were tarnishing the image of “Made in China.” One of the companies, Shenzhen-based AIPO, was producing earphones and microphones until it switched to producing face masks, disinfectant and protective suits in February. The other, Beijing-based Tus-Digital Group, had been a blockchain tech firm.

A total of 3,517 people were arrested for epidemic-related offenses, according to the Supreme People’s Procurate, China’s highest prosecutorial agency.

By Anna Fifield

April 17, 2020 at 4:01 AM EDT

Here are the drugs that could treat coronavirus. But don’t expect a silver bullet.

The journey of EIDD-2801, from laboratory to the mouth of a human, unfolded with head-snapping speed.

On March 23, a division of Emory University in Atlanta licensed the experimental drug to a Miami company owned by a wealthy hedge-fund manager and his wife. Just three weeks later, a pill was given to a person for the first time in a test of its safety, in Britain.

It marked the beginning of an accelerated testing regimen that will determine whether EIDD-2801 will emerge as a true weapon against SARS-CoV-2 â€" or wind up as one of many hopeful bids in a field of long-shot treatments. If it works, the pill could be given to people as soon as they show symptoms of covid-19, Wayne Holman, the founder of privately held Ridgeback Biotherapeutics, said in an interview. Holman has deep experience investing in drug companies and set up Ridgeback Bio with his wife, Wendy, in 2015.

By Christopher Rowland

April 17, 2020 at 3:54 AM EDT

Video of crowd applauding health workers on London’s Westminster Bridge sparks fury

LONDON â€" At 8 p.m. each Thursday in Britain, people take to their front gardens, porches and windows to salute the health-care workers saving lives during the deadly coronavirus outbreak. Cars honk their horns, emergency vehicles flash their lights, and neighbors bang saucepans in the streets.

The #ClapForCarers movement is a unifying act intended to show Britons’ support for the National Health Service, which has struggled for years from chronic underfunding. It is a brief moment during the lockdown that brings a socially distanced country together in gratitude.

The government’s message? “Stay home, protect the NHS, save lives.”

But this week, a video shared from London’s Westminster Bridge sparked fury on Twitter, as it appeared that many of those clapping were not adhering to the lockdown rules, which had just been extended for an additional three weeks.

Viewed more than 2.1 million times on Twitter, the video prompted many Britons to share their disbelief that people, including police officers, were congregating in close proximity.

Radio presenter Matthew Stadlen described it as “absolutely bizarre.” Another comment read, “Clapping for carers in a large crowd so they’ll have even more work to do.”

At least 27 NHS workers have lost their lives to the disease so far, intensifying calls for better protection for those on the front lines. Health-care workers have frequently taken to social media to urge the public to stay home during the crisis, which has claimed 13,729 lives in the United Kingdom.

By Jennifer Hassan

April 17, 2020 at 3:29 AM EDT

How the coronavirus has unleashed economic havoc in Michigan

Charles Johnson was only supposed to be stuck home for about a week. His manufacturing plant, which makes aluminum parts for Ford pickup trucks, shut its doors in March, like many others in Michigan, to arrest the spread of the novel coronavirus.

A week lapsed into a month, after Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) closed most businesses statewide. Out of a job for the foreseeable future, and running out of cash, the 46-year-old Johnson joined the ranks of more than 1 million Michigan workers seeking help in a state that’s faced immense economic hardship amid a deadly pandemic.

“Almost everybody I know is out of work, or working only a couple of hours a week,” Johnson said.

By Tony Romm

April 17, 2020 at 3:08 AM EDT

Poland looks to tighten abortion laws, drawing protests

Polish lawmakers are debating restrictive abortion measures this week, as critics say the country’s antiabortion advocates are taking advantage of the coronavirus pandemic to push their legislative agenda.

The deeply Catholic country already boasts some of the most restrictive abortion laws in Europe, allowing the practice in only three cases: rape and incest; danger to the mother; or severe damage to the fetus, Deutsche Welle reported.

Yet draft laws considered this week would strike out the third exception, which makes up the vast majority of abortions in Poland. Although a similar piece of legislation had been proposed in 2018, Poland’s ruling Law and Justice party ultimately bowed to widespread protests against it.

Two years later, however, leaders told the Associated Press the legislature is fulfilling its democratic mandate by looking at the law, a citizens’ initiative, even as it has banned gatherings of more than 5 people amid the outbreak.

Activists on the other side of the debate have accused them of trying to use the lockdown to further their socially repressive agenda, including another bill that would criminalize sex education in schools and equate homosexuality with pedophilia.

Despite fines designed to enforce social distancing, demonstrations broke out across the country earlier this week, as people protested while biking and waiting in lines at grocery stores or from cars and their balconies.

President Andrzej Duda has indicated he would support the bill, according to CNN, though it remains unclear whether the ruling party to which he belongs will do the same. Law and Justice has been caught between its loyalty to the socially conservative Catholic Church and secular citizens in favor of greater liberalization.

By Teo Armus

April 17, 2020 at 2:58 AM EDT

Australians should get used to social distancing ‘for the foreseeable future,’ prime minister says

Australians should expect to continue social distancing for up to a year, even as other coronavirus-restrictions may be lifted, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Friday.

“Social distancing is something we should get very used to for the foreseeable future,” Morrison said in an interview with 3AW’s Neil Mitchell. “It could be a year, I’m not speculating about that.”

Morrison’s comments come one day after he announced that actions aimed at stemming the spread of the novel coronavirus would remain in place for a minimum of four more weeks, pending review. At that point, Morrison said the restrictions could be lifted if there had been improvements in testing and contact tracing, among other requirements.

Such measures have so far spared the country of nearly 25 million from seeing high numbers of coronavirus infections. As of Friday, Australia had roughly 6,500 reported cases of coronavirus and 66 deaths.

When asked Friday about whether social distancing would still be encouraged despite other aspects of public life returning to normal, Morrison said he anticipated the practice to continue “until there’s a vaccine.”

“Certainly while the virus is prevalent across the world, that should be a natural instinct for us,” Morrison said.

By Allyson Chiu

April 17, 2020 at 2:36 AM EDT

Analysis: Trump’s pandemic response underscores the crisis in global politics

There are understandable reasons for President Trump’s anger with the World Health Organization. The Geneva-based U.N. body has struggled to combat the coronavirus pandemic and, as my colleagues have reported, gave too much credence to China’s initial messaging around the outbreak. The WHO’s seeming acquiescence in its dealings with Beijing stoked the ire of not just Trump supporters in the United States, but critics elsewhere. Japan’s deputy prime minister recently called the WHO the “China Health Organization.”

But Trump’s dramatic declaration this week that he would halt critical funding to the WHO in the middle of the pandemic is proving unpopular. It puts him at odds with his own administration’s officials in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the State Department â€" major agencies that recognize the importance of supporting and influencing the WHO in a time of shared crisis. And it underscores, yet again, Trump’s penchant for punishing or weakening multilateral, international institutions, even when it’s unclear what the United States gains from such disruption.

By Ishaan Tharoor

April 17, 2020 at 2:18 AM EDT

U.S. gives nearly $5 million to Palestinians to fight coronavirus

BEIRUT â€" The United States is donating about $5 million to Palestinian hospitals and households in an effort to combat the novel coronavirus, as part of a $508 million commitment in aid to help various countries deal with the pandemic, the U.S. State Department announced Thursday.

“I’m very pleased the USA is providing $5M for Palestinian hospitals and households to meet immediate, life-saving needs in combating COVID-19,” David M. Friedman, the U.S. ambassador to Israel, announced late Thursday via Twitter. “The USA, as the world’s top humanitarian aid donor, is committed to assisting the Palestinian people, & others worldwide, in this crisis.”

The donation, which will come from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in the form of international disaster assistance, comes on the heels of the United States cutting hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to the Palestinians since 2018.

In an effort to pressure Palestinians to negotiate the Trump-sponsored peace plan, which was unveiled in January, the Trump administration has cut funding to the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, which funds schools, health care and food for impoverished Palestinians, as well as slashing other programs in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza.

The donation package by the State Department and USAID also designated aid disbursements to other countries in the region. War-torn Syria will receive nearly $18 million; Lebanon, struggling with an acute economic crisis and large numbers of Syrian refugees, will receive $13.3 million. Afghanistan will also receive $18 million, while Iraq is set to receive the second-largest donation worldwide, set at over $25.6 million.

By Sarah Dadouch

April 17, 2020 at 1:45 AM EDT

San Diego doctor charged with peddling false coronavirus ‘miracle cure’ that included hydroxychloroquine, prosecutors say

The email advertisements from Skinny Beach Med Spa in San Diego started flooding inboxes late last month. Only instead of hawking beauty-related services, the promotions allegedly proffered a false “miracle cure” for the novel coronavirus, federal prosecutors said Thursday.

In the latest case of alleged coronavirus-related fraud, Jennings Ryan Staley, a licensed physician and the spa’s operator, was charged Thursday with mail fraud after authorities say he attempted to sell “covid-19 treatment packs,” claiming that the “concierge medicine experience” could both cure those with the virus and ensure immunity from infection for at least six weeks.

Customers willing to shell out $3,995 would receive enough medication for a family of four, according to a statement from the U.S. attorney’s office in the Southern District of California. Authorities said the packs included hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin, a combination of medicine that has been touted by President Trump as a potential treatment, among other drugs. So far there is no scientifically proven treatment for coronavirus.

“We will not tolerate covid-19 fraudsters who try to profit and take advantage of the pandemic fear to cheat, steal and harm others,” U.S. Attorney Robert S. Brewer Jr. said in the statement. “Rest assured: those who engage in this despicable conduct will find themselves in the crosshairs of federal prosecutors.”

The FBI began investigating Staley, 44, after receiving a tip about the treatment packs and installed an undercover agent to pose as a potential buyer, the statement said.

In a recorded phone call with the agent, Staley touted the medicine as a “magic bullet,” insisting that it would cure covid-19 “100 percent,” according to prosecutors.

“It’s preventative and curative. It’s hard to believe, it’s almost too good to be true,” Staley allegedly told the agent. “But it’s a remarkable clinical phenomenon.”

Staley, who later allegedly denied making such statements, is also accused of smuggling hydroxychloroquine from China.

The charge against Staley comes just days after the FBI issued a warning to the public about health-care fraud schemes emerging amid the ongoing pandemic.

An attorney representing Staley did not respond to a request for comment. The physician faces up to 20 years in prison and is scheduled to be arraigned in federal court Friday afternoon.

By Allyson Chiu

April 17, 2020 at 1:13 AM EDT

Coronavirus advice from those who have endured social distancing in the extreme

Don’t count the days. Tallying them, like etches on a prison wall, will only serve as a reminder of how interminable the coronavirus quarantine is, how insufferably abnormal.

“I have no idea how many days I’ve been in quarantine. None,” said Scott Kelly, the former NASA astronaut who spent 340 days in space, the record for the longest single spaceflight. “I don’t think about it. I just think this is my reality. This is my mission. And it will some day be over.”

Astronauts have a lot to teach us about how to survive the great covid-19 lockdown of 2020. So do explorers and scientists. And the researchers who study them say their experiences â€" confined in a spacecraft in orbit, a ship at sea or an outpost in Antarctica â€" can shed light on how we can best navigate an unsettling time that in its darkest moments can feel like an unjust incarceration.

By Christian Davenport

April 17, 2020 at 12:50 AM EDT

As testing outcry mounts, Trump cedes to states in announcing guidelines for slow reopening

President Trump released federal guidelines Thursday night for a slow and staggered return to normal in places with minimal cases of the novel coronavirus, moving to try to resume economic activity even amid an outcry from political and health leaders about the nation’s testing capacity.

Despite Trump’s desire for a May 1 reopening, his plan does not contain a date for implementation and is a vague set of recommendations for a three-phased reopening of businesses, schools and other gathering places in jurisdictions that satisfy broad criteria on symptoms, cases and hospital loads.

“America wants to be open and Americans want to be open,” Trump said.

By Philip Rucker, Josh Dawsey and Yasmeen Abutaleb

April 17, 2020 at 12:34 AM EDT

Wuhan’s death toll was almost 50 percent higher than previously reported, Chinese authorities say

China has revised up the number of people who died from coronavirus in Wuhan by almost 50 percent, saying Friday that the death toll at the epicenter of the pandemic now stands at 3,869.

The figure was previously 2,579, a number that many analysts and ordinary citizens said appeared far too low. U.S. intelligence agencies had also reportedly concluded that China’s official numbers are much lower than reality.

The Wuhan municipal headquarters for the novel coronavirus disease epidemic prevention and control added 1,290 to the death toll on Friday â€" at the same time attention was focused on China’s much-anticipated economic statistics, which showed that growth contracted by a whopping 6.8 percent in the first quarter.

The agency said the discrepancy in Wuhan’s fatality figures was the result of many patients dying at home in the early stages of the epidemic rather than being treated in hospitals, so their deaths were not included in medical figures.

For those who died in hospitals, medical staff were preoccupied with treating patients, “resulting in belated, missed and mistaken reporting,” according to a statement from the agency. There were repetitions, mistakes and omissions in the reporting of deaths during the height of the outbreak in Wuhan, it said.

“Life and people are what matter most,” the statement concluded. “Every life lost in the epidemic is not only a loss to their family but also a grief for the city. Our sincere condolences go to the families of those who deceased in the covid-19 epidemic, and we express deep sorrow to the compatriots and medical workers who lost their lives in the epidemic.”

By Anna Fifield

April 17, 2020 at 12:28 AM EDT

Pandemic delivers crushing blow to China’s economy

HONG KONG â€" The coronavirus pandemic is sending China’s economy, long the world’s growth engine, into a tail spin.

Gross domestic product fell at an annual rate of 6.8 percent in the first quarter, the first contraction since the country began releasing the figures in 1992, official data showed Friday. That’s a dramatic reversal for the world’s second-largest economy, which had been slowing in recent years but had still achieved growth rates of around 6 percent or more.

China’s leaders locked down swaths of the country in January to prevent the spread of infection, weeks after the coronavirus emerged in the city of Wuhan.

As authorities fought back the pandemic in China, the ruling Communist Party has pressed to get business gradually returning to normal without unleashing a second wave of infections. That’s proving a challenge. Beijing has also grown concerned as imported cases trickle in from abroad, notably among Chinese nationals returning from Russia.

Businesses that have resumed operations have often faced higher costs associated with hygiene measures and supply-chain disruptions. And with export markets in the United States and Europe facing a severe downturn, China’s policymakers face an uphill battle to right the ship.

“The scale and breadth of China’s economic contraction are staggering, and its ramifications for global growth are already becoming apparent,” Eswar Prasad, professor of economics at Cornell University and former head of the China division at the International Monetary Fund, said in an email. “China’s economic collapse is a bellwether of what the data for other major economies will reveal in the coming weeks.”

Unlike after the global financial crisis, there is little prospect of China driving a revival of global growth, Prasad added.

Asian markets had traded higher Friday and were little moved after China’s GDP figures. Benchmark indexes in Japan, Hong Kong and Australia were each about 2 percent higher, while U.S. stock futures were up 3 percent.

By David Crawshaw and Anna Fifield

April 17, 2020 at 12:27 AM EDT

New Zealand’s new coronavirus cases drop to single digits amid nationwide lockdown

After several weeks under a strict nationwide lockdown, New Zealand’s number of new coronavirus cases fell to single digits over the past 24 hours, officials said Friday.

The country reported eight new cases of the novel coronavirus Friday, two confirmed and six probable, down from 15 the previous day, Caroline McElnay, director of public health, said at a news conference. New Zealand now has a total of 1,409 cases.

“We all need to continue to play our part to contribute to the elimination of this virus from New Zealand by staying home, staying in your bubble, breaking the chain of transmission and saving lives,” McElnay said.

New Zealand’s “elimination” approach to fighting the outbreak has largely stopped the virus from spreading among its population of nearly 5 million, but is expected to have a crushing impact on the country’s economy. Leaders plan to announce on April 20 whether New Zealand can begin easing out of lockdown or if the restrictive measures will continue.

On Friday, McElnay reported two new coronavirus-related deaths, both involving elderly patients in their 80s and 90s, bringing the country’s death toll to 11. But she noted that the number of cases of people who have recovered from the virus increased by 46 from the day before.

McElnay also announced that researchers from the Medical Research Institute of New Zealand have received funding to co-lead three scientific trials aimed at assessing potential therapeutic agents to fight covid-19. Hydroxychloroquine, the anti-malarial drug that has recently been touted by President Trump, is among the therapies that will be studied, she said.

By Allyson Chiu

April 17, 2020 at 12:27 AM EDT

China reports 26 new coronavirus cases as number of imported and domestic infections drops

China reported 26 new coronavirus cases in the past 24 hours, the National Health Commission said Friday, a drop from the previous day as border closures and restrictions on international travel continue.

After tallying 46 new cases for two days in a row, the country saw decreases in both imported cases and locally transmitted infections on Thursday and reported no new deaths.

The number of cases linked to people who have been abroad recently was cut by more than half, with 15 new cases on Thursday compared to 34 from a day earlier. Domestic cases also went down slightly, dropping from 12 to 11, health officials said.

Meanwhile, asymptomatic cases continue to rise. The country tracks those cases separately and does not include them in its count of confirmed cases. On Thursday, there were 66 new asymptomatic cases, an increase from 64 reported a day earlier.

By Allyson Chiu