States and beaches reopen ahead of Memorial Day weekend

After weeks under stay-at-home orders, Americans should feel free to go outside and enjoy Memorial Day weekend as long as they practice social distancing and follow other guidelines, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert said.

“We’ll be having people who want to get out there and get fresh air,” Dr. Anthony Fauci said at a CNN coronavirus town hall. “You can do that. We’re not telling people to just lock in unless you’re in a situation where you have a major outbreak going on, we don’t have too much of that right now in the country.”

But that does not mean throw caution to the wind.

“Go out, wear a mask, stay six feet away from anyone so you have the physical distancing,” he said Thursday night. “Go for a run. Go for a walk. Go fishing. As long as you’re not in a crowd and you’re not in a situation where you can physically transmit the virus.”

As of Friday afternoon, more than 1.6 million people in the United States have tested positive for coronavirus and more than 95,000 have died, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

Also on Friday, 11 states confirmed that at some point during the coronavirus pandemic, they have combined viral testing numbers with antibody testing numbers in their reported testing totals, which means there’s a risk these states are inflating overall testing totals. Viral infection tests are used to determine if a person currently has an active case of the coronavirus whereas antibody tests are used to look for traces of a past infection.

All 50 US states have now taken steps to ease stay-home restrictions. In some states, that effort includes reopening beaches in some states for the weekend, the unofficial start of summer. But officials have issued social distancing restrictions and capacity limits to keep beachgoers and communities safe due the threat of the coronavirus.

Public and private beaches in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Delaware reopened Friday with certain restrictions, the governors of those states said in a joint announcement. Farther south, most Florida beaches will be open, while those in hard-hit areas like Fort Lauderdale and Miami-Dade County will remain closed.

“Please, as you go out this weekend, understand you can go out, you can be outside, you can play golf, you can play tennis with marked balls, you can go to the beaches if you stay six feet apart,” said Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus response coordinator, at a briefing Friday.

“But remember that that is your space, and that’s a space that you need to protect and ensure that you’re social distancing for others,” she said.

Mayor Derrick Henry of Daytona Beach, Florida, told CNN’s Alisyn Camerota that beachgoers should stay at least 10 feet apart this holiday weekend. But even though masks are advised, Henry said it’s “not realistic or practical to ask people to go to the beach and wear a mask.”

Some local officials are wary, like Paul Kanitra, the mayor of Point Pleasant Beach, New Jersey. He told CNN that police will be on the beach this weekend to enforce social distancing by giving warnings or asking people to leave.

“Nobody wants to be the mayor from ‘Jaws’ who lets everyone back in the water a little too soon, right?” he said.

Beaches aren’t the only thing that may reopen as the weather warms up. In Nevada, Gov. Steve Sisolak says he hopes to be able to allow casinos to reopen on June 4. Sisolak announced Friday that the state’s Gaming Control Board will make a final decision in its next meeting on Tuesday, May 26. Nevada casinos have been closed since March 17.

Trump says houses of worship are essential

Meanwhile, President Donald Trump announced his administration would deem houses of worship as “essential,” and said the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) would provide guidance for their reopening.

“Some governors have deemed liquor stores and abortion clinics essential, but have left our churches and houses of worship,” Trump said. “It’s not right. So I’m correcting this injustice and calling houses of worship essential.”

Trump went on to call on governors to “allow churches and places of worship to open right now,” and threatened to “override” governors if their states did not follow the recommendations — though he does not have the authority to do so. The recommendations are voluntary.

According to the CDC’s guidance, religious institutions should provide soap and sanitizers, clean facilities daily and encourage worshipers to use cloth masks if they want to open while the virus is still spreading.

While the Interfaith Alliance said Trump’s statement “flies in the face of medical and scientific advice” that would discourage such a move, the Southern Baptist Convention indicated its support.

“With pastors, church leaders, and church members adhering to proper social distancing practices, our churches should be permitted to open as soon as possible while doing so in a safe and responsible manner,” said the Rev. Ronnie Floyd, president of the convention’s executive committee.

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp tweeted his support for Trump Friday.

“I wholeheartedly agree with @realDonaldTrump: Places of worship – especially during these difficult times – are ESSENTIAL! #gapol” Kemp tweeted.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom said he welcomes places of worship opening in a safe manner and he has been working with the faith community on guidelines. Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo said her state is not ready to reopen worship centers.

In Vermont, Gov. Phil Scott said his state will open churches at 25% capacity. And in Virginia, Gov. Ralph Northam said churches are continuing to either hold outdoor services or drive-through services.

“Just because we’ve allowed places of worship to open up, with those new guidelines, that doesn’t mean that they have to,” Northam said. “So if they’re more comfortable continuing the practices that they’ve been using over the past few weeks, they can do that.”

Drug touted by Trump as treatment linked to greater risk of death, study finds

Seriously ill Covid-19 patients treated with hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine were more likely to die or develop dangerous heart arrhythmias, according to a large observational study published Friday in the medical journal The Lancet.

Researchers looked at data from more than 96,000 Covid-19 patients from 671 hospitals. All were hospitalized from late December to mid-April and had died or been discharged by April 21. Just below 15,000 were treated with the antimalarial drugs hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine, or one of those drugs combined with an antibiotic.

Those treatments were linked with a higher risk of dying in the hospital, the study found. About 1 in 6 patients treated with chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine alone died in the hospital, compared to 1 in 11 patients in the control group.

About 1 in 5 patients treated with chloroquine and an antibiotic died and almost 1 in 4 treated with hydroxychloroquine and an antibiotic died.

“Previous small-scale studies have failed to identify robust evidence of a benefit and larger, randomised controlled trials are not yet completed,” Dr. Frank Ruschitzka, director of the Heart Center at University Hospital Zurich and the study’s coauthor, said in a statement.

“However, we now know from our study that the chance that these medications improve outcomes in Covid-19 is quite low,” he said

President Trump has repeatedly touted hydroxychloroquine as a potential coronavirus treatment. Earlier this week he said he was taking daily doses of it as a prophylaxis to prevent infection.

Fauci ‘cautiously optimistic’ about Moderna vaccine

Meantime, the race for a vaccine continues with more than 124 potential vaccines in development around the globe, according to the World Health Organization. Ten potential vaccines are in clinical trials.

Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, is “cautiously optimistic” about a vaccine candidate from Moderna, he said Thursday.

The company, which is working with NIAID, announced this week that early data from its phase 1 clinical trial showed positive results in volunteers who received the vaccine. Of the dozens of study participants, eight developed neutralizing antibodies at levels reaching or exceeding those seen in people who have naturally recovered from Covid-19.

Neutralizing antibodies bind to the virus, disabling it from attacking human cells.

“Importantly, it induced the kind of response that you would predict would be protective against the virus,” Fauci said.

“So although the numbers were limited,” he added, “it was really quite good news because it reached and went over an important hurdle in the development of vaccines.”

Moderna’s vaccine received clearance to begin Phase 2 trials — and it’s not alone.

A vaccine developed by CanSino Biological Inc. and the Beijing Institute of Biotechnology has begun a phase 2 trial in Wuhan, China.

CDC issues new guidance on symptoms

About a third of coronavirus infections have no symptoms, the CDC said in new guidance.

The CDC said its “best estimate” is that 0.4% of people who show symptoms and have Covid-19 will die. And an estimated 40% of coronavirus transmission occurs before people feel sick.

In the most severe scenario, the CDC assumes that 1% of people overall with Covid-19 and symptoms will die. In the least severe scenario, it puts that number at 0.2%.

The guidance is intended for modelers and public health officials. The CDC notes that its numbers could change as it learns more about Covid-19, saying they do not “reflect the impact of any behavioral changes, social distancing or other interventions.”

The new numbers are based on real data received before April 29, it said. It characterized the numbers as preliminary estimates from federal agencies.