White House: No end soon for distancing

Virus coordinator at odds with VP, upbeat governors

WASHINGTON — Some form of social distancing will probably remain in place through the summer, Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus task force coordinator, said Sunday — even as several governors expressed optimism about the course of the virus and outlined their plans for a piecemeal reopening of their economies.

It was the latest instance of conflicting signals coming not just from state and federal leaders but also from within the Trump administration amid a pandemic that has claimed the lives of almost 55,000 Americans. Last week, Vice President Mike Pence predicted that “we will largely have this coronavirus epidemic behind us” by Memorial Day weekend, in late May.

But on Sunday, Birx said in an interview on NBC News’ Meet the Press that “social distancing will be with us through the summer to really ensure that we protect one another as we move through these phases.” She cited the need for further testing to be

developed after a potential scientific “breakthrough.”

Americans are entering a confusing and uncertain new phase in the crisis. After weeks of being told to simply stay home, individuals and business owners are now facing more complex decisions about how to proceed in the absence of clear guidance from their leaders.

In places where restaurant dining rooms are reopening, is it safe to go? Is it a good idea to return to the hair salon for a much-needed trim? And for business owners facing a litany of new guidelines about how to reopen without endangering their workers or customers, are the risks worth it?

Emily Landon, chief infectious-disease epidemiologist at University of Chicago Medicine, said those calculations are tricky for people because of the continued lack of widespread testing and the inability to effectively track people who might have been infected.

“I wouldn’t go,” Landon said. “And I wouldn’t recommend that my family went. I would recommend that people stay home.”

Landon said that in her view, it’s still not safe for states to fully reopen — or for Americans to try to resume their lives as they were before the pandemic hit.

“This is a brand-new virus, and we have to do these things in a measured way,” she said. “Without requirements for things like [personal protective equipment], social distancing and really thoughtful policies for how to do these openings, it’s not the time to do them.”

The U.S. is likely to reach 1 million confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus in the next few days, the world’s highest total. Globally, the case total is nearing 3 million, with more than 206,000 deaths.

GOVERNORS ON DEFENSIVE

In its broad guidelines for states to follow, the White House has recommended that a number of criteria, such as increasing capacity for testing and contact tracing, should be met before proceeding. Across the country, however, some states are already relaxing their social-distancing restrictions amid pressure from protesters, business groups and others.

On Sunday, several governors defended their decision to do so, arguing that their states’ closures have successfully achieved their goal of building hospital capacity, acquiring personal protective equipment and reducing the spread of the pandemic’s growth.

“The facts in our state are: March 30, we peaked in hospitalizations, with 560 across the state,” Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt, a Republican, said on Fox News Sunday. “Today we have 300 across the state in our hospitals. We think it’s time for a measured reopening.”

Stitt said more than 55,000 Oklahomans have been tested and that the positive rate was 6.3%. He also noted that no one is obliged to reopen a business.

“I’m giving guidance. If a restaurant doesn’t feel like they’re ready to reopen,” he said, “they don’t have to.”

On CNN’s State of the Union, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat, also defended his decision to partially reopen, and maintained that he is focused on social-distancing measures that are sustainable for the coming weeks and months.

“We’ve really been laser-focused on figuring out how we can endure and sustain these kinds of social distancing measures,” Polis said. “If we can’t succeed in doing that, the stay-at-home was for nothing.”

Polis said an apparent spike in cases in Colorado was attributable to previous tests that were just confirmed and added to the total, and does not reflect the present situation.

In Montana, some churchgoers returned to Sunday services as a general stay-athome order expired. At Christ the King Lutheran Church in Billings, every other pew was kept empty. Roughly 100 people streamed into St. Anthony Catholic Church in Laurel, where ushers tried to keep families separate from one another and hand sanitizer was available.

“It’s like being given life again,” said church member Jack Auzqui. He said being unable to attend had been spiritually difficult for him and his wife.

In Florida, beaches have reopened on a limited basis, with police urging visitors to keep moving and avoid congregating.

In Oklahoma, Stitt gave salons, barbers and pet groomers the green light to resume business late last week, and restaurants will be allowed to reopen their doors Friday.

In Georgia, businesses including bowling alleys, tattoo parlors, gyms and hair salons have already been allowed to reopen, with movie theaters and dine-in restaurants expected to follow suit today.

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican, has come under fire for the speed with which he has rolled back social-distancing restrictions, and on Sunday, former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said the state is opening up too early.

“Georgia is certainly jumping the gun, I think here, getting started too early relative to where they are in the epidemic,” Gottlieb said on CBS News’ Face the Nation.

OTHERS NOT READY

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, told ABC that her state is not ready and needs more robust testing, community tracing and a plan for isolating people who get sick.

“We’ve got to be nimble and we have to follow the science and be really smart about how we reengage,” she said, “because no one — no one, even if you’re a protester or you’re the sitting governor or you’re on another side of the issue — we know that no one wants a second wave.”

Nor is New York ready, though it registered its fewest deaths in a day since late last month. Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Sunday that construction and manufacturing businesses outside the New York City region might be able to reopen after May 15, when the state’s stayhome order is set to expire.

Cuomo said that implementing a safe reopening of the economy would require changes at a societal level. “People don’t like change,” he said. “It’s hard to make change in your own life, let alone on a societal collective level.”

In California, some jumped the gun. A lingering heat wave in the state lured people to beaches, rivers and trails Sunday, prompting warnings that defiance of stay-at-home orders could reverse progress.

TRUMP TWEETS

While Pence and President Donald Trump have voiced optimism about the speed with which they expect the country to be able to reopen, Birx and Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, have voiced caution.

On Meet the Press on Sunday, Birx was asked about Pence’s remark last week that “if you look at the trends today, that I think by Memorial Day weekend we will largely have this coronavirus epidemic behind us.”

She appeared to contradict that, projecting that social distancing will continue through the summer, and said the country needs to have a “breakthrough” in testing for antigens — molecules or molecular structures that trigger an immune response — to get on track toward normalcy.

Trump did not appear in public over the weekend, but Sunday he continued to tweet angrily about the media, lashing out at reporters who he said “have received Noble Prizes for their work on Russia, Russia, Russia, only to have been proven totally wrong.”

Trump appears to have misspelled the Nobel Prize, though journalists recognized for their coverage of the Russia investigation received a different prize, the Pulitzer.

He later deleted the tweets and then tweeted that he was being sarcastic, writing: “Does anybody get the meaning of what a so-called Noble (not Nobel) Prize is, especially as it pertains to Reporters and Journalists? Noble is defined as, ‘having or showing fine personal qualities or high moral principles and ideals.’ Does sarcasm ever work?”

Despite Trump’s efforts to change the topic, Democrats continued to hammer him for his remarks about disinfectants as a possible cure for the virus.

“You know what they call that? They call that embalming,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said on CNN’s State of the Union. “That’s the medical term.”

Birx said Trump understands that disinfectant isn’t a treatment for covid-19.

“It bothers me that this is still in the news cycle,” she said on the same show. “I think I’ve made it clear that this was a musing” on the president’s part.

CHILDREN PLAY

Spain on Sunday allowed children to go outside for the first time in six weeks in the midst of one of Europe’s strictest lockdowns.

The streets echoed again with shrieks of joy and the clatter of bicycles after youngsters under 14 were allowed out of their homes with one parent for up to an hour of play. “This is wonderful! I can’t believe it has been six weeks,” Susana Sabate, a mother of 3-year-old twin boys, said in Barcelona. “Today when they saw the front door and we gave them their scooters, they were thrilled.”

Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez will present a detailed plan Tuesday for the “de-escalation” of Spain’s lockdown, but he said it would be cautious. His French counterpart plans to do the same.

As Italy recorded its lowest 24-hour death toll since midMarch, Premier Giuseppe Conte laid out a long-awaited timetable for getting back to normal, announcing that factories, construction sites and wholesale supply businesses can resume activity as soon as they put safety measures in place.

Conte also said that starting May 4, parks and gardens will reopen, funerals will be allowed, athletes can resume training, and people will be able to visit relatives in the same region. If all goes well, stores and museums will open May 18, and restaurants, cafes and salons on June 1, he said.

But he warned that if people don’t wear masks and obey other social-distancing rules, “the curve of contagion can rise again, it will go out of control, deaths will climb and we’ll have irreparable damage” to the economy.

After Italian bishops complained that these latest rules didn’t allow for public Masses, Conte’s office said a plan for such worship would be released.

China’s state-run media said that hospitals in Wuhan, the original epicenter of the disaster, no longer have any covid-19 patients. Wuhan said all major construction projects have resumed as authorities push to restart factory production and other economic activity. Information for this article was contributed by Felicia Sonmez, Paige Winfield Cunningham, Meryl Kornfield, Kim Bellware, Peter Whoriskey, Siobhan O’Grady and Pamela Rolfe of The Washington Post; by Amy Forliti and Joseph Wilson of The Associated Press; by Hailey Waller of Bloomberg News; and by Kurtis Lee of The Los Angeles Times.