Soon, more than 1 in 5 Americans will be under orders to stay mostly indoors.
One by one, U.S. localities and now some of the nation’s biggest states are beginning to limit people’s movements, as they struggle to curb the spread of the coronavirus.
In New York, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo moved Friday to sharply limit outdoor activity across the state, including by ordering nonessential businesses to keep all of their workers home. His wide-ranging executive order, which takes effect on Sunday at 8 p.m., was issued as the number of known cases in the state jumped to over 7,800.
“These provisions will be enforced,” Mr. Cuomo said at a briefing in Albany.
Then, within the space of an hour Friday afternoon, several other big states followed suit. Gov. Ned Lamont of Connecticut issued an order similar to Mr. Cuomo’s, and Gov. Philip D. Murphy of New Jersey said he planned to order on Saturday that all nonessential businesses in that state shut down as well.
And in Illinois, Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced a statewide “stay at home” order on Friday, asking all 12 million residents to leave the house only when necessary.
“I fully recognize that, in some cases, I am choosing between people’s lives and saving people’s livelihood,” Mr. Pritzker said. “But ultimately, you can’t have a livelihood if you don’t have your life.”
Their moves were announced as California woke up Friday to new rules closing the state’s nonessential retail shops and sharply limiting outdoor movement, after Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered Californians — all 40 million of them — to stay in their houses as much as possible. There was initially confusion there over how the order would be enforced and interpreted, but Californians were told they could still take walks or go to the beach, as long as they were able to practice social distancing.
Mayor LaToya Cantrell of New Orleans also issued a stay at home order on Friday, asking the city’s 390,000 residents to go out for “critical needs only.”
Senators came close to reaching a deal on a $1 trillion rescue plan.
Senators plan to work through the weekend hashing out a bipartisan deal on a sweeping $1 trillion economic stabilization package to respond to the coronavirus pandemic that could be enacted within days.
Democratic and Republican negotiators, who huddled with top administration officials throughout the day and into the evening Friday, said they had made significant progress on a number of issues. But ultimately they fell short of the ambitious goal set by Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, who had pushed to strike a deal in principle by midnight on Friday.
Mr. McConnell has begun clearing procedural hurdles on the Senate floor in order to vote on the Senate package on Monday, leaving senators and President Trump’s top economic advisers until Saturday afternoon to craft legislative text, said Eric Ueland, the White House director of legislative affairs.
Senators will reconvene Saturday morning to continue talks, negotiators said. Mr. Ueland said that there was “a lot of near consensus” on how to provide aid to industries seeking relief from the impact of the pandemic, assistance to small businesses, boost health care facilities and send direct aid to the American people.
Without bold action, U.S. could be overwhelmed, researchers say.
Even if the United States cuts its rate of transmission in half — a tall order — some 650,000 people might become infected in the next two months.
Those was the conclusion of Columbia University researchers who used a New York Times database of known cases and Census Bureau transportation data to model how the outbreak could evolve. The estimates are inherently uncertain, and they could change as the United States adopts additional measures to control the outbreak.
Death tolls mount in Italy and Spain, and Britain closes its pubs.
Italy reported 627 new coronavirus deaths on Friday, its highest number in a single day, pushing the death toll above 4,000. Spain became the second European nation to register more than 1,000 deaths, and officials there warned that the country’s health care system could soon be overwhelmed.
French officials continued to tighten restrictions on movement ahead of the expected peak of the epidemic there. In Germany, authorities in the southern state of Bavaria issued an order asking people to stay indoors in most cases — the most far-reaching measure in the country so far.
And Britain reluctantly agreed to shutter one of the symbols of the nation: the pub. Prime Minister Boris Johnson told the country’s cafes, pubs and restaurants to close Friday night, along with nightclubs, theaters, gyms, movie theaters and sports facilities.
Blunders made months ago have caused worldwide testing disparities.
Experts now say that the decisive moment in halting the global spread of coronavirus, when aggressive testing might have allowed officials to stay ahead of the disease, passed more than a month ago.
Delays cannot be blamed on science. Researchers say a viral test is relatively easy to develop. Rather, scientists say, the chasm between the testing haves and have-nots reflects politics, public health strategies and blunders.
As the virus reached into the United States in late January, President Trump and his administration spent weeks playing down the potential for an outbreak. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention opted to develop its own test rather than rely on private laboratories or the World Health Organization.
The outbreak quickly outpaced Mr. Trump’s predictions, and the C.D.C.’s test kits turned out to be flawed, leaving the United States far behind other parts of the world.
A famous Australian beach is closed after crowds defy social distancing rules.
One of Australia’s best-known destinations, Bondi Beach in Sydney, was ordered closed on Saturday, after crowds gathered there in defiance of social distancing recommendations.
“I for one, as the police minister, cannot sit by,” David Elliott, the police and emergency services minister for the state of New South Wales, who ordered the closure, said at a news conference. “The photos that we saw this morning were a clear breach of faith,” he said, referring to images of crowds on the beach Friday.
Of Australia’s 1,023 confirmed coronavirus cases, 436 have been in New South Wales, including 83 announced on Saturday. Six of the country’s seven deaths from the virus have been in the state.
Australia’s restrictions on movement in response to the pandemic have been less strict than those in parts of Europe and the United States, but it has banned gatherings of more than 500 people outdoors and more than 100 people indoors.
The crowds at Bondi Beach on Friday, seeking relief from 95-degree heat, appeared to number well beyond 500. Photos of the crowds circulated on social media and drew considerable criticism.
Some beachgoers told Australian news outlets that they were being careful to keep a distance from others. “I’m trying to apply some reasonable risk management,” Keith McNaughton told The Sydney Morning Herald. “But for me it’s important for my mental health to keep doing exercise.”
The problem is hardly limited to Australia. Crowds of young beachgoers in the Florida Keys have raised similar concerns.
Can surgical masks be sterilized for reuse?
Surgical masks are supposed to be used just once. But doctors in Nebraska are facing a dire shortage and are attempting a novel experiment.
Administrators at the University of Nebraska Medical Center plan to use each mask for a week or longer. To the knowledge of the program’s administrators, the medical center is the first to disinfect and reuse masks.
When administrators made the decision, they knew the procedure violated regulations promulgated by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But late Thursday night, the agency issued new guidance, saying that such measures “may be necessary.”
Find a little joy in these tough days.
Feeling anxious about the coronavirus is understandable, but a little respite is also important. Try hosting a remote happy hour, for instance, or learning a new song — one you can sing while washing your hands.
Some industries are in dire need of a bailout. And others see a rare chance to win special breaks at a moment when the fiscal spigots are open.
There are the restaurants who say they need $325 billion in federal assistance. Boeing wants $60 billion. The travel industry has requested $250 billion and manufacturers are seeking $1.4 trillion in loans to deal with the economic devastation being wrought by the coronavirus.
Then there are the casinos, airlines and franchise owners, all of whom have signaled that they, too, will need relief from the federal government to survive.
There are also the industries and companies that do not immediately come to mind as front-line casualties but are nonetheless lobbying for their causes to be addressed as Congress prepares to allocate $1 trillion or more in response to the crisis.
The prospect of a bailout of a scale without precedent has set off a rush to the fiscal trough.While the halls of the Capitol are eerily quiet, lobbyists are burning up the phone lines and flooding email inboxes trying to capitalize on the stimulus bills moving quickly through Congress.
The Trump Organization reduced staff at some of its hotels.
Reeling from the global fallout of the coronavirus pandemic, President Trump’s family business has cut staff from hotels in New York and Washington, halted new reservations at a hotel overlooking the Las Vegas Strip and closed golf courses in Los Angeles and the Miami area, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
The cutbacks, expected to continue in coming days, also included the closure of the Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, which normally would be at a peak right now, with regular seasonal visits by Mr. Trump himself.
Yet the Trump Organization, which is also pushing to keep other properties open and promote them on social media, has avoided the widespread shutdowns some larger hotel chains have implemented. Generally, the company has folded the tent only when local authorities mandated it, despite a growing national urgency to limit social gatherings and close nonessential businesses.
In an interview, Eric Trump, the president’s son who manages the family business, said the company was trying to limit shutdowns to keep thousands of employees and contract workers on the job.
“As an organization we are following federal, state and local direction and guidance very carefully,” he said.
Reporting was contributed by Julie Bosman, Jesse McKinley, Matt Apuzzo, Salem Gebrekidan, Kenneth P. Vogel, Catie Edmondson, Jesse Drucker, Ben Protess, Steve Eder, Eric Lipton and Alissa J. Rubin.