States ease their lockdowns
GRETNA, La. — More than a dozen states let restaurants, stores or other businesses reopen Friday in the biggest oneday push yet to get their economies up and running again, acting at their own speed and with their own quirks and restrictions to make sure the coronavirus doesn't come storming back.
People in Louisiana could eat at restaurants again but had to sit outside at tables 10 feet (3 meters) apart with no waiter service. Maine residents could attend church services as long as they stayed in their cars. And a Nebraska mall reopened with plexiglass barriers and hand- sanitizing stations but few shoppers.
“I feel like I just got out of jail!” accountant Joy
Palermo exclaimed as she sat down with a bacongarnished bloody Mary at the Gretna Depot Cafe outside New Orleans.
Meanwhile, the first drug shown to help fight COVID- 1 9 won emergency approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. In a major study, remdesivir shortened patients' recovery time from 15 days to 11 on average and may have also reduced deaths.
The virus has killed more than 230,000 people worldwide, including over 64,000 in the U.S. and more than 20,000 each in Italy, Britain, France and Spain, forcing lockdowns that have shuttered factories and businesses, thrown tens of millions out of work and throttled the world's economies.
President Donald Trump said Friday that he' s hoping the total number of COVID- 19 death sin the United States will be below 100,000, which he acknowledged is a “horrible number.” Trump's predictions of the expected U.S. death toll have changed over time, with his earlier 60,000 projection now being eclipsed. But he said at a White House event that “maybe millions of lives” have been saved by shutting down the economy.
With the crisis stabilizing in European din many places in the U.S., countries and states are gradually ea sing their restrictions amid warnings from health experts that a second wave of infections could hit unless testing for the virus is expanded dramatically.
In much of Colorado, people could get their hair cut and shop at stores again, though stay-athome orders remained in place in Denver and surrounding counties. Wyoming let barbershops, nail salons, gym sand daycare centers reopen. In Maine, golf courses, hairdressers and dentists opened.
Hotels near South Carolina beaches opened and state parks unlocked their gates for the first time in more than a month. But in Myrtle Beach, the state's most popular tourist destination, hotel elevators will be restricted to one person or one family — a potential inconvenience at the area's 15- and 20- story resorts.
Texas' reopening got underway with sparse crowds at shopping malls and restaurants allowing customers to dine in, though only at 25% capacity in most places. A video posted on social media showed a city park ranger in Austin getting shoved into the water Thursday while asking people in a crowd to keep 6 feet (2 meters) apart from each other. Police charged a 25-year-old man with attempted assault.
At Gattuso's Restaurant in Gretna, Louisiana, Kent and Doris Alimia and their daughters, Molly and Emily, celebrated Molly Alimia's 22nd birthday at one of the outdoor tables, which were screened by plants in wooden planters 5 feet high.
“It's a nice change of scenery to actually get out of the house,” Molly Alimia said.
Outside Omaha, Nebraska, Jasmine Ramos was among a half-dozen shoppers wandering