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President Trump on Sunday extended the social distancing guidance until the end of April. He agreed "right away" to the extension after his task force presented him with data that showed the coronavirus could cause between 100,000 and 200,000 U.S. deaths even with the current guidelines in place, according to Anthony S. Fauci, the nation's top infectious diseases expert.
More than 1,000 people have died in New York alone, the state said Sunday, with the number of confirmed cases climbing above 6,000. Howard A. Zucker, the New York health commissioner, said the state's known death rate is hovering around 1 percent. The actual rate could be lower because health officials don't know how many people have the virus — testing priority is given to those who are health-comprised or exhibiting obvious symptoms.
Trump seemed to embrace the projections he once downplayed, saying between 100,000 and 200,000 deaths would represent a victory. On March 13, Trump criticized the Obama administration's response to the 2009 swine flu, which killed 14,000 people in the United States. The model the White House is now using to predict the virus's spread assumes guidelines for social distancing will stay in effect until the end of May.
The FDA authorized widespread use of malaria drugs to treat the coronavirus, though they remain unproven. Millions of doses of hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine will be distributed to hospitals across the country. Cardiac death is a possible risk in taking the drug, doctors say. The FDA's approval does not include long-term use to prevent an infection.
Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R), Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam (D) and D.C. mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) all issued stay-at-home orders Monday that prohibit people from leaving except for essential trips such as venturing out for groceries or medicine. The number of known coronavirus cases in the District, Maryland and Virginia exploded to just under 3,000 on Monday, up from around 1,300 on Thursday.
Officials in Virginia and Maryland have criticized the federal response to the outbreak, which Virginia Finance Secretary Aubrey Layne called "abysmal." Senate Republicans shortchanged the District in the stimulus bill by treating it like a territory instead of a state, which Congress normally does with such appropriations. Because of that, the District will get $491 million instead of a minimum of $1.25 billion granted to states.
In an op-ed, Hogan and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) outlined what they believe states need to battle the virus.
A new piece from The Washington Post's Fact Checker team explains what went wrong in U.S. testing. Missteps were ignored by leaders at the highest level of government, they write, which allowed cases to go undetected and contributed to the virus's spread.
A Vincent van Gogh painting was stolen from a Dutch museum. In the pre-dawn hours on Monday, van Gogh's birthday, thieves broke into the Singer Laren, which has been closed due to the outbreak. The alarm went off when they smashed the glass, but they got away before police arrived. The stolen painting, "The Spring Garden," had been loaned to the Singer Laren for a temporary exhibit.
Macy's furloughed most of its 125,000 employees because of virus-related store closures. It shuttered its 775 Macy's, Bloomingdales and Blue Mercury locations on March 18. Meanwhile, retail workers in their 60s, 70s and 80s say they're worried about contracting covid-19, but they continue to work because they need the money.
The Justice Department is investigating stock trades made by at least one member of Congress – Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) – during the early days of the global outbreak. As the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Burr received frequent briefings and reports on the threat. In mid-February, Burr sold 33 stocks that were estimated to be worth between $628,033 and $1.7 million.
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Tracking U.S. deaths and cases
The Post is now tracking covid-19 deaths and confirmed cases at the county level. Below is the New York region, the epicenter in the United States. Click through to see cases in your state and how the virus is spreading. We're updating this page several times a day.
(Joe Fox, Brittany Renee Mayes, Kevin Schaul and Leslie Shapiro)
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Live updates
Submit a question and The Post may answer it in a future story, live chat or newsletter.
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Your questions, answered
We've received an uptick in questions about microwaving things to kill the virus, including these two today:
"If you have a face mask with no metal in it. Can you sterilize it in the microwave or with UV light for re-use?" — Van Lewis, Virginia
"Our mail is about the only thing we have coming into our home. Can we disinfect it, like by putting it in the microwave for one minute?" — Jack Elwell, California
We asked Benjamin Neuman, the chair of the Biological Sciences department at Texas A&M University at Texarkana. Neuman said there is actually some research that shows some viruses can be killed by being microwaved.
"One study from 2004 demonstrated that microwaving on high in a 900-watt microwave for as little as 5 seconds was able to inactivate a chicken coronavirus on cotton swabs," Neuman told us via email.
But those experiments were done in a controlled lab setting, and the scientists knew exactly what they were microwaving and how much virus was on the swabs. There are a lot of unknowns in our own kitchens — how much wattage our microwaves are actually pumping out, how much virus is on the material and what that material is really made of.
"But any inactivation protocol would probably have to take into account the size and material to be sterilized," Neuman said. "And microwaving could be hard on some kinds of mail — there are some kinds of paper that print via heat rather than ink, and those would probably become unreadable if microwaved."
Even if microwaving the virus kills it, which scientists haven't verified, there's still risk in microwaving anything other than food.
First, many masks — especially the super-effective N95 ones — have a little metal bar across the top that the wearer is supposed to use to form a seal around the top of the nose. Neuman said there's also a plastic box that holds the filter that will melt. So N95 masks absolutely cannot go in a microwave.
Second, the materials in other masks, even non-N95 masks, could be damaged by the heat of the microwave, rendering them ineffective.
Finally, mail and other paper could be damaged or even catch on fire if put in the microwave.
Some reassuring news: even though the virus lives on paper or cardboard surfaces for some amount of time, the risk of catching the virus from those surfaces is very low, according to Joseph G. Allen, an assistant professor of exposure and assessment science at Harvard University's T.H. Chan School of Public Health. You can read his excellent op-ed on that subject here.
If you can't get past the idea of opening mail during the outbreak, the safest thing to do would probably be to quarantine it in a closet for two or three days and open it after the virus dies naturally.
Thanks to reporter Joel Achenbach for helping get to the bottom of these very good reader questions. |
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Today's top reads
Find more stories, analysis and op-eds about the outbreak on our coronavirus page, including:
- What a stay-at-home order actually means
- Tips on home-school plans that are realistic
- D.C.'s patient zero: A priest's journey from the intensive care unit to a reunion
- The now-arrested megapastor who kept his church open, said closings are for 'pansies'
By Ariana Eunjung Cha, Brittney Martin and Steven Mufson ● Read more »
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Please don't try this at home
An astrophysicist wound up in the hospital with magnets stuck up his nose, after attempting to invent a coronavirus device that would warn the wearer if they were about to touch their face, the Guardian reports.
Daniel Reardon, a research fellow at a Melbourne university, said he put magnets on the inside and outside of his nose, but the two inside stuck together. He then used the remaining magnets to try to remove them, but they locked on to the ones that were already up there.
According to hospital records, "two doctors applied an anaesthetic spray and manually removed the magnets," the Guardian reports.
Reardon told the Guardian he is done with magnets, and will find other ways to pass the time at home.
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