New York adds eight states to quarantine
ALBANY, N.Y. » New York is urging travelers from eight additional states to self- quarantine for 14 days as it awaits a decision on the reopening of indoor dining in New York City.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo said in a Tuesday television interview that he plans to send state police and health and liquor officials to New York City Tuesday night ahead of his decision expected Wednesday.
The governor said he worries about lack of compliance with requirements to wear a mask and keep 6 feet (2 meters) away from others amid reports that dining in closed, indoor areas with airconditioned systems could lead to spikes in COVID-19.
“Tonight we’re going to have state police, we’re going to have department of health monitors, we’re going to have State Liquor Authority monitors, but they’re going to be looking all throughout the city to see if New York
ers are complying,” Cuomo said. “And I’ve said to the local governments in New York, also on Long Island we have an issue, they have to enforce the compliance ... I don’t want to be a hardedge, but it’s the law.”
The Democratic governor’s concerns about indoor dining and lack of compliance with distancing and masks rules come as he raises repeated worries about travelers visiting New York from states where COVID-19 appears to be spreading.
Cuomo, along with his counterparts in New Jersey and Connecticut, announced a travel advisory last week that requires individuals from states with “increased prevalence of COVID-19” to quarantine for 14 days. Cuomo’s advisory applies to states with a positive test rate higher than 10 per 100,000 residents, or a test positivity rate higher than 10%.
Cuomo’s of f ice announced Tuesday that California, Georgia, Iowa, Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nevada and Tennessee now meet the metrics under New York’s travel advisory. Those states join Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas and Utah.
Cuomo has warned that those out- of- state travelers could lead to a rise in infections in a state that’s seen a gradual decline in COVID-19 reported hospitalizations, fatalities and cases.
Nearly 900 people are hospitalized with COVID-19 in hospitals in New York, according to the state Department of Health, and 13 individuals who had tested positive for COVID-19 died Monday in hospitals or nursing homes.
Just 1% — or 524 — of 52,025 individuals tested for COVID-19 on Monday were positive, an amount that has shrunk even as the state has tested tens of thousands more people since the spring.
Individuals who violate a state or local quarantine or isolation order under the advisory can face a civil penalty of up to $10,000, according to Cuomo’s executive order.
Cuomo said he wants a “snapshot” of compliance with mask and distancing requirements in New York City, where he said he has chastised people not following the rules.
“And I say to people on the street, when I see they don’t have a mask or I see these groups of people in front of a bar: ‘ What are you thinking? How short a memory. Learn the lesson. Give me a break,’” Cuomo said.
Fauci: U.S. ‘going in wrong direction’
The U.S. is “going in the wrong direction” with the coronavirus surging badly enough that Dr. Anthony Fauci told senators Tuesday in Washington that some regions are putting the entire country at risk — just as schools and colleges are wrestling with how to safely reopen.
With about 40,000 new cases being reported a day, Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease expert, said he “would not be surprised if we go up to 100,000 a day if this does not turn around.”
“I amvery concerned,” he told a hearing of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee.
Infections are rising rapidly mostly in parts of the West and South, and Fauci and other public health experts said Americans everywhere will have to start following key recommendations if they want to get back to more normal activities like going to school.
“We’ve got to get the message out that we are all in this together,” by wearing masks in public and keeping out of crowds, said Fauci, infectious disease chief at the National Institutes of Health.
Connect the dots, he told senators: When and how school buildings can reopen will vary depending on how widely the coronavirus is spreading locally.
“I feel very strongly we need to do whatever we can to get the children back to school,” he said.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention plans more guidelines for local school systems, Director Robert Redfield said.
But in recommendations for colleges released Tuesday, the agency said it won’t recommend entry testing for all returning students, faculty and staff. It’s not clear if that kind of broadstroke testing would reduce spread of the coronavirus, CDC concluded. Instead, it urged colleges to focus on containing outbreaks and exposures as students return.
Lawmakers also pressed for what Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, the committee’s top Democrat, called a national vaccine plan — to be sure the race for the COVID-19 vaccine ends with shots that really are safe, truly protect and are available to all Americans who want, one.
“We can’t take for granted this process will be free of political influence,” Murray said. She cited how President Donald Trump promoted a malaria drug as a COVID-19 treatment that ultimately was found to be risky and ineffective.
The Food and Drug Administration released guidelines Tuesday saying any vaccine that wins approval will have to be at 50% more effective than a dummy shot in the final, required testing. That’s less effective than many of today’s vaccines but independent experts say that would be a good start against the virus.
FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn said vaccine makers also must test their shots in diverse populations, including minorities, the elderly, pregnant women and those with chronic health problems.
“We will not cut corners in our decision-making,” Hahn told senators.
About 15 vaccine candidates are in various stages of human testing worldwide but the largest studies — including 30,000 people each — needed to prove if a shot really protects are set to begin in July. First up is expected to be a vaccine created by the NIH and Moderna Inc., followed closely by an Oxford University candidate.
At the same time, the Trump administration’s “Operation Warp Speed” aims to stockpile hundreds of millions of doses by year’s end, so they could rapidly start vaccinations if and when one is proven to work.
Redfield said the CDC already is planning how to prioritize who is first in line for the scarce first doses and how they’ll be distributed.
But a vaccine is at the very least many months away. For now, the committee’s leading Republican stressed wearing a mask — and said Trump, who notoriously shuns them, needs to start because politics is getting in the way of protecting the American people.
“The stakes are too high for the political debate about pro-Trump, anti-Trump masks to continue,” said Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, who chaired Tuesday’s hearing.
Alexander said he had to self- quarantine after a staff member tested positive for the virus but that he personally was protected because his staffer was wearing a mask.
“The president has plenty of admirers. They would follow his lead,” Alexander said. “The stakes are too high” to continue that fight.
US not permitted to travel to EU
Elsewhere around the world, the European Continent decided to reopen to visitors from 14 countries — but not the U.S. The European Union also kept its ban in place for visitors from China and from countries such as Russia, Brazil and India where infections are running high.
“We have to remain vigilant and keep our most vulnerable safe,” tweeted European Council President Charles Michel.
President Donald Trump suspended the entry of most Europeans in March.
Americans make up a big share of Europe’s tourism industry, and summer is a key period. More than 15 million Americans travel to Europe each year, while some 10 million Europeans head across the Atlantic.
The news was a blow to struggling shopkeepers hoping for a summertime boom.
“Americans were 50% of my clientele,” lamented Paola Pellizzari, who owns a mask and jewelry shop on the Saint-Louis island in the heart of Paris and heads its business association. “We can’t substitute that clientele with another.”
Across the English Channel, things are also headed in reverse in places.
Britain reimposed a lockdown in Leicester, a city of 330,000 people that officials said accounted for 10% of all new coronavirus cases in the nation last week. Stores closed their doors, and schools prepared to send children home.
“I opened my shop last week for the first time and saw an instant increase in orders, and now I worry this change will go back to no orders,” said James West, who runs a design and printing business in Thurmaston, just outside Leicester.