Coronavirus Live Blog - May 5, 2020

Tuesday, May 5, 2020

5:44 pm ET: Former Airline CEO Slams Government's Relief Deal With Industry

David Banmiller, an airline industry insider and former CEO of Pan Am, doesn't like referring to the $25 billion of relief the airline industry got from the federal government as a 'bailout.'

"When we use the words 'bailout,' I think that's a bit of a misnomer," Banmiller told Cheddar Tuesday, adding that it reminds people of the 2008 financial stimulus. "It's a financial support mechanism to get us through these extremely difficult times."  Read more...

— Taylor Craig

5:02 pm ET: U.S. Infection Rate Rising Outside New York as States Open Up

Take the New York metropolitan area’s progress against the coronavirus out of the equation and the numbers show the rest of the U.S. is moving in the wrong direction, with the known infection rate rising even as states move to lift their lockdowns, an Associated Press analysis found Tuesday.

New confirmed infections per day in the U.S. exceed 20,000, and deaths per day are well over 1,000, according to figures from Johns Hopkins University. And public health officials warn that the failure to flatten the curve and drive down the infection rate in places could lead to many more deaths — perhaps tens of thousands — as people are allowed to venture out and businesses reopen. Read more...

— The Associated Press

4:52 pm ET: Production Shutdowns Shrink Meat Supplies at Stores

U.S. meat supplies are dwindling due to coronavirus-related production shutdowns. As a result, some stores like Costco and restaurants like Wendy’s are limiting sales.

As of Monday, U.S. beef and pork processing capacity was down 40% from last year, according to Jayson Lusk, head of the department of agricultural economics at Purdue University. Multiple U.S. meatpacking facilities have closed in the last two weeks due to coronavirus outbreaks among workers.  Read more...

— The Associated Press

4:43 pm ET: Stocks End Higher on Wall Street Even After Late-Day Stumble

Stocks closed higher on Wall Street but gave up about half of their early gains in a late-afternoon bout of selling. The S&P 500 rose 0.9% Tuesday after being up 2% earlier. Overseas markets also rose as more countries relaxed restrictions on businesses and stay-at-home orders, raising hopes for a recovery from the historic plunge sweeping the global economy. Crude oil closed sharply higher, continuing its mini-rally after falling to record lows late last month. Lockdowns and travel restrictions put in place to slow the spread of the coronavirus have caused demand for energy to crash and led to widespread job losses. Read more...

— The Associated Press

3:34 pm ET: Task Force Winding Down?

Vice President Mike Pence says the White House coronavirus task force could wind down its work by early June. Read more...

— The Associated Press

2:11 pm ET: Teachers Doing 'Exceptional Job', but Kids to Be in Class: Union President

Social distancing orders have forced millions of students across the U.S. to adopt remote learning, or tele-schooling, to continue their education amid the coronavirus pandemic. Since then, schools have been grappling with how to continue hands-on courses like chemistry and physical education while classes are on the cloud. Read more...

— McKenzie Marshall

12:10 pm ET: Flyers and Sixers Set to Offer Refunds

The Philadelphia Flyers and 76ers are set to offer refunds or credits for unplayed regular-season games at their shared arena because of the coronavirus pandemic. Read more...

— The Associated Press

11:54 am ET: As Trump Resumes Travel, Staff Takes Risks to Prepare Trip

For much of the last two months, President Donald Trump has rarely left the grounds of the White House as he’s dealt with the fallout of the coronavirus pandemic and sought to minimize his own exposure to the disease.

But that changed Tuesday: Trump revved up Air Force One and headed to Arizona to visit a Honeywell facility that makes N95 masks in what the president suggests will mark the return to more regular travel.  Read more...

— The Associated Press

10:19 am ET: Reopening Rally for Stocks Stretches From Hong Kong to New York

Stocks are rallying worldwide on Tuesday as more countries relaxed restrictions on businesses, raising hopes for a recovery from the historic plunge sweeping the global economy. The S&P 500 was up 1.5% in the first few minutes of trading following similar gains in Paris, London and Hong Kong. Crude oil also continued its mini-rally after falling to record lows late last month. The stock market’s gains were widespread, and smaller stocks were doing better than the rest of the market. That’s a sign of rising expectations for coming economic growth. So is a climb in longer-term Treasury yields. Read more... 

— The Associated Press

8:45 am ET: Here Come COVID-19 Tracing Apps — and Privacy Trade-Offs

As governments around the world consider how to monitor new coronavirus outbreaks while reopening their societies, many are starting to bet on smartphone apps to help stanch the pandemic.

But their decisions on which technologies to use — and how far those allow authorities to peer into private lives — are highlighting some uncomfortable trade-offs between protecting privacy and public health.

“There are conflicting interests,” said Tina White, a Stanford University researcher who first introduced a privacy-protecting approach in February. “Governments and public health (agencies) want to be able to track people” to minimize the spread of COVID-19, but people are less likely to download a voluntary app if it is intrusive, she said.

Containing infectious disease outbreaks boils down to a simple mantra: test, trace and isolate. Today, that means identifying people who test positive for the novel coronavirus, tracking down others they might have infected, and preventing further spread by quarantining everyone who might be contagious.

That second step requires an army of healthcare workers to question coronavirus carriers about recent contacts so those people can be tested and potentially isolated.

Smartphone apps could speed up that process by collecting data about your movements and alerting you if you've spent time near a confirmed coronavirus carrier. The more detailed that data, the more it could help regional governments identify and contain emerging disease “hot spots.” But data collected by governments can also be abused by governments — or their private-sector partners. Read more...

— The Associated Press

8:00 am ET: Need2Know: New Death Projections, SCOTUS Goes Virtual & $28-a-Day Cruise

Get your news over easy every morning by listening to the Need 2 Know podcast (Stitcher, iTunes) and signing up for our morning newsletter.

COVID-19: LATEST DEVELOPMENTS: The Trump administration is privately forecasting a steady rise in coronavirus cases and deaths, even as more states begin to loosen lockdown restrictions. An internal government document obtained by the New York Times projects the country’s daily death toll will reach 3,000 by the end of this month (the White House says it's not an official prediction). A separate model, often cited by the White House, has nearly doubled its projected death toll to 135,000, citing relaxed social distancing and increased mobility. Overseas, doctors in France say they retested old samples from pneumonia patients and found that one of them was positive for COVID-19 as early as Dec. 27, a month before France had its first confirmed case. NY TIMES

REOPENING LATEST: Two of the biggest states in the U.S. are set to begin a slow, phased process of reopening their economies. California Gov. Gavin Newsom says some retail businesses can reopen by the end of the week if they meet certain criteria. In hard-hit New York, Gov. Andrew Cuomo outlined a four-phase plan based on a complex set of criteria for what sectors can open and where. New York City and its suburbs will be excluded for now. Meanwhile, Starbucks says it will reopen more than 85 percent of its U.S. locations by the end of this week, but only for takeout or delivery. LA TIMES

SUPREME COURT GOES VIRTUAL: The Supreme Court’s first attempt at hearing oral arguments via teleconference went off mostly without a hitch, though there were a few long pauses after questions — suggesting the justices and lawyers arguing their cases in front of the high court forgot to unmute their phones. Justice Thomas, normally silent during arguments, even asked some questions. The case currently in front of the court involves whether Booking.com should be allowed to trademark its name. Arguments continue for the next two weeks, broadcast on C-SPAN. THE HILL

CHINA PREPPING FOR BACKLASH: China’s top leaders, including President Xi, were reportedly given an internal report last month warning that “anti-China sentiment” around the world is at the highest level since the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989 over its handling of the coronavirus outbreak. The report concludes that China needs to be prepared for a worst-case scenario: an armed conflict with the United States in the years ahead. U.S.-China relations, already battered before coronavirus, are now widely thought to be at their worst point in decades. REUTERS

AMAZON EXEC QUITS IN PROTEST: A prominent engineer at Amazon has quit over how the company has handled recent incidents of employee dissent. Tim Bray, a VP of Amazon’s cloud computing arm who helped invent the XML coding language, says he resigned after Amazon fired several workers who publicly complained about safety at the company’s warehouses during the pandemic. Amazon says those employees were fired for violating internal policies. Bray cited a “vein of toxicity running through the company culture.” TECHCRUNCH

CONTACT TRACING APPS: Apple and Google have shared some more information about their contact-tracing partnership, which hopes to be able to alert you if your smartphone has been in the vicinity of someone who has tested positive for COVID-19. The new info is primarily aimed at developers, who will get access to the notification system to build user-facing apps. The two tech giants are banning the use of location tracking, relying on Bluetooth technology exclusively. They released some mock-up screenshots of what the system may look like when it’s finally rolled out: SEE THEM

IN MEMORIAM: DON SHULA: The legendary Hall of Fame NFL coach Don Shula has died. Shula led the Miami Dolphins to the only perfect season in NFL history, coached in six Super Bowls, won two of them, and set a league record of 347 wins. He was 90. OBIT

CAGE TO PLAY THE KING: Nicolas Cage is set to star in his first-ever regular television role: a scripted series about Joe Exotic, the eccentric star of the hit Netflix docuseries Tiger King. Cage will play Exotic in the eight-part series being developed by CBS TV. VARIETY

'TWILIGHT' RETURNS: The author of the smash hit Twilight book series has announced the release of the highly-anticipated prequel, fifteen years after the first book hit shelves. Stephenie Meyer recorded a message to fans that aired on Good Morning America, saying Midnight Sun would be out in August. The book tells the love story at the heart of the franchise from the perspective of Edward Cullen. GMA

LEFTOVERS: ALL ABOARD: Carnival Cruise plans to resume sailing on Aug. 1, and is offering some serious deals to woo cruisers back onto its ships. If you don’t mind the idea of being one of the first to set sail, you can currently score $28-a-night fares from Galveston to Cozumel -- all-inclusive. That’s cheaper than staying home for many people. BLOOMBERG

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