Coronavirus live updates: Daily death toll could hit 3,000 on June 1; California moves toward reopening; J.Crew files for bankruptcy

John Bacon and Jorge L. Ortiz, USA TODAY
·13 min read

The country’s most populous state announced a major step toward reopening Monday, but two new projections indicate the coronavirus’ deathly toll may continue to grow at a rapid pace.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who had resisted pressure to join some of his counterparts in lifting restrictions, said certain retail stores will be able to return to business by Friday if they meet specific conditions. He also said lightly affected parts of the state would be given freer rein to restart their economies.

Public health experts fear a loosening of social distancing mandates will send rates of coronavirus cases and deaths shooting back up, and even before the full effects of the reopenings are felt, signs point in that direction.

A Trump administration report has privately projected nationwide casualties of the virus could climb from the current average of 1,750 a day to 3,000 by June 1, according to the New York Times. In addition, a model frequently cited by the White House nearly doubled its forecast death total from 72,000-plus to more than 134,000.

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Here are the most important developments Monday:

  • New data from within the Trump administration is privately projecting a steady rise in the number of cases and deaths, potentially reaching about 3,000 daily deaths on June 1, according to The New York Times. The White House is disputing the report.

  • The number of new COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and intubations are continuing their slow but steady decline in New York state, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said.

  • The Food and Drug Administration announced plans to bolster oversight of antibody tests by requiring commercial test makers to meet new standards of accuracy and submit new information proving the testing quality.

Good news: Amid a pandemic, teachers are finally getting the respect they deserve. "How most teachers are being viewed right now is right up there with health care workers," said Ruth Faden, a professor of biomedical ethics at Johns Hopkins University. Here are a few of their stories.

A question you might have: Did the Obama administration send $3.7 million to a Wuhan lab? No, here are the facts.

California study: Coronavirus exploits 'pre-existing vulnerabilities'

More than half of the residents who tested positive for the new coronavirus in a San Francisco-based community screening initiative were asymptomatic, according to data released Monday by the University of California San Francisco.

The University of California, in collaboration with the city and county of San Francisco and the San Francisco Department of Public Health, tested nearly 3,000 residents and workers in the city’s Mission District. Of those, 62 people tested positive, and 53% of them said they weren’t experiencing COVID-19 symptoms.

The study, called Unidos En Salud, was conducted in a majority Hispanic/Latinx community. None of the positive cases were from the nearly 1,000 white/Caucasian people tested, while 95.1% of the people who tested positive were Hispanic or Latinx, according to the study.

Most of the people, nearly 89%, who tested positive were also from homes with a total household income less than $50,000, according to study data.

“The virus exploits pre-existing vulnerabilities in our society,” Dr. Diane Havlir, chief of the UCSF Division of HIV, Infectious Diseases and Global Medicine at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center said in a statement.

COVID-19’s prevalence in minority and low-income neighborhoods is well-documented. A USA TODAY analysis of ZIP code data from health departments in 12 states showed infections rates were five times higher in majority-minority ZIP codes than in ZIP codes with less than 10% nonwhite populations.

– Jordan Culver

Daily death toll could reach 3,000 on June 1, New York Times reports

Analysis of data from within the Trump administration is privately projecting the prospect of a steady rise in the number of coronavirus cases and deaths, potentially reaching about 3,000 daily deaths on June 1, according to an internal document obtained by The New York Times. The projections, based on modeling by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, forecast about 200,000 new cases each day by the end of the month, up from about 25,000 cases now.

The report showed that the rate of test results in Georgia and Florida, both of which have partially reopened their economies, dropped in the last two weeks of April. Public health officials say widespread testing is key to preventing another wave of infections.

The White House, which has been encouraging states to begin reopening their economies, quickly issued a statement challenging the report. The statement says the report had not been presented to the coronavirus task force or gone through interagency vetting.

"This data is not reflective of any of the modeling done by the task force or data that the task force has analyzed," the statement said. "The president’s phased guidelines to open up America again are a scientific driven approach that the top health and infectious disease experts in the federal government agreed with."

Influential UW model cited by White House hikes death projections

A predictive model frequently cited by the White House in public estimations of how many Americans may die because of the coronavirus nearly doubled its forecast.

Through Monday morning, the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation had predicted 72,433 deaths by Aug. 4. That changed Monday afternoon, when the projection skyrocketed to 134,475 by the same date. The model had never forecast more than 93,000 deaths, but now estimates the U.S. will reach 100,000 by May 21.

The IHME said on its website that it has switched to a hybrid model that “involves estimating COVID-19 deaths and infections, as well as viral transmission, in multiple stages.''

The institute’s previous projections have been criticized as too optimistic and its methodology was questioned by those in the modeling community.

California takes next step in reopening

California Gov. Gavin Newsom said the state would enter the second stage of its four-phase reopening this week, when some retails stores are allowed to get back to business with some modifications.

Stores that can open by Friday include sellers of clothing, sporting goods, toys, books and flowers. They will be required to provide curbside pickup. Offices and malls will remain closed, and dine-in restaurant service is still not allowed. Further details on guidelines will be announced Thursday.

Newsom, the first governor in the country to issue a statewide stay-at-home order, had previously resisted pressure to join other states in partially reopening.

“This is a very positive sign and it’s happened only for one reason: The data says it can happen,” Newsom said.

FDA tightens standards for antibody tests

The Food and Drug Administration on Monday announced plans to bolster oversight of antibody tests by requiring commercial test makers to meet new standards of accuracy and submit new information proving the quality of their tests. The new policy is a reversal of the agency's March 16 policy that allowed antibody test makers to sell their products without the normal step of sharing data with the agency to validate test accuracy.

The agency said commercial test makers will have 10 business days to submit new data and seek the agency's emergency-use authorization. The agency also will require test makers to meet accuracy, or "sensitivity and specificity" standards.

– Ken Alltucker

Senate back in session; House taking a pass for now

The Senate convened Monday – more than a month since members last gathered – before proceeding to executive session to confirm the nomination of Robert Feitel as inspector general of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Later in the week judiciary nominations will take center stage. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., says senators are essential workers and it's time to go to work. Democrats balked, arguing that convening would put other workers at risk. The Democratic-led House won't be meeting this week.

Carl Tobias, a professor at the University of Richmond School of Law, says it will be interesting to see how many senators actually show up.

"Given the fact that half the senators are 65 (or older), they may be reluctant to return when few safety measures are in place," Tobias told USA TODAY.

Most Americans support voting by mail during pandemic, new poll shows

Two-thirds of Americans support voting by mail as an alternative to voting in person on Election Day during the coronavirus pandemic, according to a new poll from USA TODAY and Suffolk University.

But while Democrats and independent voters overwhelmingly back vote-by-mail, the majority of Republican voters oppose it. The poll found 65% of Americans support vote-by-mail as an alternative, a greater than 2-to-1 margin over the 32% of Americans who oppose the option.

"I think it shows that people are open to alternative methods of voting, provided that they're safe," said David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center.

– Joey Garrison

Hotel association unveils new rules for return of guests

The American Hotel & Lodging Association unveiled safety guidelines Monday to standardize cleanliness when travel become a thing again.

The report outlines baseline hotel practices and procedures, including but not limited to hand-washing and hand sanitizer use, signage reminding employees and guests regarding how to wear, handle and throw away masks, and intensified cleaning practices for elevators, front desk check-in stations and public bathrooms.

"It's really an effort to make sure that no matter if you're staying at an extended-stay economy hotel or you're staying at the nicest luxury resort, that there will be at a minimum common standards across the entire industry," Chip Rogers, the association's president and CEO, told USA TODAY.

– David Oliver

Italy eases some of the world's tightest coronavirus-related restrictions

More than 4 million Italians returned to work Monday after two months on the sidelines as the nation of 62 million people began to tenuously emerge from its unprecedented lockdown.

Construction and manufacturing restarted, although most stores are scheduled to remain closed for two more weeks. The pandemic has claimed the lives of almost 30,000 Italians, but daily death tolls have declined in recent days.

"I wouldn't like the message to come across that it is all over and that we are starting afresh as if nothing had happened," Health Minister Roberto Speranza said. "Unfortunately, the epidemic is still here, although it is in some ways diminished."

J.Crew, Gold's Gym fall victim to COVID-19, file for bankruptcy protection

Fashion retailer J. Crew's parent company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Monday, plunged into crisis mode by the impact of COVID-19 on top of an unsustainable amount of debt from a private-equity buyout deal in 2011. As of Monday, J. Crew Group Inc. had 181 J. Crew retail stores, 140 Madewell locations and 170 factory stores in addition to its websites. Company officials said online sales would continue, with plans to reopen stores when it is safe to do so.

The mostly franchised Gold's Gym, which recently closed 30 company-owned locations permanently, said its bankruptcy "will have no further impact on current operations." The brand has nearly 700 fitness centers.

– Nathan Bomey and Brett Molina

Delays in road, bridge reconstructions 'a very large concern'

The coronavirus pandemic had prompted a catastrophic decline in state and local transportation funding, which officials say threatens to bring road and bridge construction to a screeching halt for the next year and a half. Governments big and small are postponing projects as roads, bridges and tunnels continue to crumble. Collections of gas taxes and tolls that fuel construction have plummeted as motorists stay home. Despite historically low interest rates, voters and their governments are leery of borrowing because of uncertainty about repaying the debt.

“It’s a very large concern,” said Patrick McKenna, director of the Missouri Department of Transportation and president of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials. “This is a pressing, immediate issue.”

– Bart Jansen

Infection controls at nursing homes could be curbed despite pandemic

The federal government is considering rolling back infection control requirements in U.S. nursing homes despite the heavy toll COVID-19 is having on residents and workers.

A rule proposed last year by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services would modify the amount of time an infection preventionist must devote to a facility from at least part time to "sufficient time," an undefined term that lets the facility decide how much time should be spent. The regulation has not been finalized, but CMS last week defended its proposal.

"It makes no sense at all – prior to pandemic, but more so now during a pandemic," said Lindsay Heckler, a supervising attorney at the Center for Elder Law & Justice, a civil legal services agency in Buffalo, New York. "They should be strengthening these infection and control requirements."

– Marisa Kwiatkowski and Tricia L. Nadolny

Home sales expected to plunge; home prices not so much

Home sales will likely plunge this spring in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic but bounce back by the end of next year, according to a new forecast from real estate search site Zillow. Sales will likely plummet by up to 60%, as stay-at-home mandates and overall worries about the economy take the steam out of what was previously expected to be a robust spring home-buying season, according to Zillow's economists and analysts.

But prices will likely experience a much slighter slide and a quicker recovery. Zillow expects prices to drop no more than 3% by the end of this year and then creep back up throughout 2021.

– Charisse Jones

State reopenings: Arkansas, Montana, Kansas take steps toward normalcy

Monday brought a flurry of reopenings across the country, including gyms, fitness centers and indoor athletic facilities in Arkansas and restaurants, bars, casinos, breweries and distilleries in Montana.

Kansas will begin a three-phase reopening strategy upon the expiration of its statewide stay-at-home order, and Colorado and Minnesota will begin opening nonessential businesses. Find the latest on your state here.

More coronavirus headlines from USA TODAY

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Contributing: The Associated Press

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Coronavirus updates: Senate relief bill; J. Crew bankruptcy; hotels