Coronavirus updates: U.K. leader tests positive as U.S. states seek help

The U.N.’s humanitarian aid chief, Under Secretary-General Mark Lowcock told CBS News on Friday that the world needs to watch for a coronavirus “boomerang” effect. He said that if the countries in the throes of the pandemic now start to get over it just as the poorest countries are hit, it could come back to batter the U.S. and other developed nations for a second round.

“The point really is that as more developed countries, including those in East Asia, including Europe, including North America, gradually, as I think will happen over time, get the virus under control… it will not make those countries safe, because if the virus is allowed to get a grip in the unstable places, it’s going to be a permanent threat to everybody,” he said.

“Human beings move around and, as we’ve seen, this virus is carried by people who may not have symptoms,” Lowcock told CBS News, adding there was also a risk that if the disease becomes, “embedded in places, it could mutate or evolve and be progressively hard to deal with.”

There’s hope, but Italy’s coronavirus epidemic hasn’t peaked yet. Silvio Brusaferro, President of the country’s Higher Institute of Health, acknowledged Friday that Italy was seeing “positive signals” —  in particular the decrease in the rate of new daily infections rates.

“We are not in a downward phase, but in a phase of the slowing down of growth,” he explained, adding that the peak was expected in the coming days. 

Brusaferro attributed the decelerating growth rate directly to the “stay at home” measures adopted throughout Italy. “We are observing clear signals of the clear efficacy of the containment measures, he said.”  He warned Italians, however, not to lower their guard now.

In the same press conference, the president of the Ministry of Health’s research arm, Franco Locatelli, dismissed rumors that the new coronavirus could have been created in a lab as “bio-terrorism” science fiction. 

“We have clear indications that there is no possibility that the SarsCoV2 was generated in a laboratory,” he said, noting a lack of any scientific basis for such theories.

– Anna Matranga

Longtime actor Mark Blum has died at the age of 69 of complications from the coronavirus, the Screen Actors Guild – American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) said Thursday in a statement. He was known for his roles in the television shows “Succession” and “Law & Order” as well as movies “Desperately Seeking Susan” and “Crocodile Dundee.” 

Matt Hancock, Britain’s Health Secretary, has confirmed his own positive test for the COVID-19 disease right on the heels of his boss, Prime Minister Boris Johnson, doing the same. 

Johnson became the first world leader to confirm his coronavirus diagnosis Friday morning, in a video message posted to Twitter. Less than two hours later Hancock posted a very similar video saying he, too, was working from home and experiencing only mild symptoms.

Click here for the full story on the COVID-19 cases in Britain’s government. 

A 16-year-old girl has become France’s youngest victim of COVID-19. The high schooler lived in Essonne, an outer Paris suburb that’s been one of the hardest-hit regions in a country where almost 1,700 have died of the coronavirus.

Her sister told the local edition of Le Parisien newspaper that Julie — only her first name has been released  — had no pre-existing conditions. She said that she had a light cough last week but didn’t think it was serious. By Monday, Julie was feeling worse and went to see a doctor, who diagnosed breathing difficulties and sent her to the hospital.

There her condition deteriorated rapidly, and she died in the early hours of Wednesday.

Her sister told the newspaper: “We have to stop believing it only affects old people. No one is invincible against this virus.”

The owner of a southwest Florida restaurant is trying to figure out who left a $10,000 tip for its employees just before the state’s eateries were ordered to close their dining rooms during the coronavirus pandemic.

The 20 staff members at the restaurant were able to split the cash, each taking home an extra $500 the day before they were laid off from their jobs.

Ross Edlund, who the Naples Daily News says owns the Skillets restaurant chain, told the newspaper the man who handed a manager the wad of cash is a regular customer, and he thinks his name might be Bill or Bob. He says the man likes to eat on the patio on weekdays and on weekends he often brings his family for brunch. They’d like to thank him.

–Associated Press

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Dr. Priscilla Chan are stepping up to help battle the coronavirus pandemic through their charitable group, The Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative. They announced plans to partner with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, “contributing $25 million with Gates and others” to begin exploring possible COVID-19 treatments. 

“I’m really proud to share that CZI’s gonna be joining Gates and others to put together something they’re calling the ‘therapeutics accelerator to fight coronavirus,” Chan told “CBS This Morning” co-host Gayle King in an exclusive interview. 

Chan explained that the collective’s goal will be “to fund a group to screen all the drugs that we know have potential effects against coronavirus.” 

Many of the nearly 3.3 million Americans who filed for unemployment last week are worried about paying bills, and what comes after the coronavirus pandemic is brought under control.

Michelle Jarol, of Chicago, is normally focused on fitness. But these days the 42-year-old mother of two is worried about her family’s finances. The studio where she works as a fitness instructor shut down last week. Her husband’s pay has been cut, too.

“I’m very scared,” she told CBS News correspondent Jericka Duncan. 

Click here for Duncan’s full report on the strain many Americans are feeling under the COVID-19 shutdown. 

The House of Representatives is expected to approve a massive relief bill Friday to respond to the economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic. The vote is expected at the end of a week that saw a record number of Americans file unemployment claims as the U.S. topped China as the country with the most confirmed COVID-19 cases.

The bill is expected to pass with bipartisan support.

The streets of Paris are eerily empty. All of France has been under a strict lockdown since March 17, ordered by President Emmanuel Macron in a bid to curb the spread of the coronavirus. On Friday the Paris police posted drone video online that perfectly captures the atmosphere: the grand avenues and boulevards of the French capital completely deserted.

The aerial video shows iconic landmarks isolated — not a human being in sight, and almost no traffic. The Arc de Triomphe, usually at the center of scores of cars jostling for position, stands in solitary splendor; the Place de la Concorde is deserted; and just a few dozen vehicles are visible on the 1.2 miles of the Avenue des Champs-Elysées.

The police tweet brought numerous replies, including one comparing the empty streets to Paris under Nazi occupation in 1940. Others remarked on the magnificent images, and one summed up the scenes well: “beautiful and sad at the same time.”

Prime Minister Boris Johnson of the U.K. has become the first world leader to confirm he’s tested positive for the new coronavirus disease. 

In a tweet sent Friday morning, Johnson said in a video statement that he had only mild symptoms and that he would continue to lead Britain’s COVID-19 response while adopting the necessary isolation measures.

Johnson said he had “a temperature and a persistent cough. And on the advice of the chief medical officer, I’ve taken a test that has come out positive. So I am working from home, I’m self isolating, and that’s entirely the right thing to do.”

“But be in no doubt that I can continue, thanks to the wizardry of modern technology, to communicate with all my top team to lead the national fight back against coronavirus,” he said.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said early Friday that Tesla boss Elon Musk was “donating hundreds of ventilators to New York City and State, including our public hospitals.”

In a tweet, de Blasio said Musk had made the pledge in a phone call Friday evening, for which the mayor said he was “deeply grateful. We need every ventilator we can get our hands on these next few weeks to save lives.”

New York is the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak in the U.S., with more than 39,000 cases and at least 457 deaths. Hospitals in hard-hit New York City have already been overwhelmed with patients, forcing the set-up of makeshift tent facilities outside some wards.

President Trump, however, said Thursday that he didn’t believe the state needed the 30,000 ventilators Governor Andrew Cuomo has requested. 

Roughly half of Americans are under stay-at-home orders as coronavirus cases climb, with officials urging the public to go out only for groceries and other essentials. 

So how can you keep your grocery trips safe and efficient? Carolyn Cannuscio, director of research at the Center for Public Health Initiatives at the University of Pennsylvania, offers six tips for food shopping during the coronavirus pandemic.  

R&B singer R. Kelly cited the novel coronavirus in asking a federal judge Thursday to free him from a federal jail in Chicago as he awaits trial on child pornography and other charges, a court filing by his lawyers saying scant precautions to stem the spread of the disease behind bars are putting Kelly’s life at risk.

Sanitizer and even soap are hard to come by in the Metropolitan Correctional Center, with most of its 700 inmates held in small, two-man cells that make the kind of social distancing called for to thwart the transmission of COVID-19 impossible, the filing in U.S. District Court in Chicago says.

Kelly, 53, faces several dozen counts of state and federal sexual misconduct charges in Illinois, Minnesota and New York, from sexual assault to heading a racketeering scheme aimed at supplying him with girls. The Grammy Award-winning singer has denied ever abusing anyone.

–Associated Press

At the height of Japan’s cherry blossom season, as Tokyo residents were being asked to give up their cherished annual rite of picnicking under the cherry trees, another headache for Prime Minister Abe was a-bloomin’. A photo on the NEWS Post Seven website showed wife Akie Abe right smack where her fellow citizens would love to be — partying with friends under a lush bower of pink blossoms.

In parliament today, the prime minister was sharply questioned over the actions of Mrs. Abe, who, to add insult to injury, was described as enjoying an evening with a model, a pop star and other celebrities.

“This did not constitute hanami in a public park, but a photo snapped in the garden of a restaurant,” the prime minister said, arguing the activity did not flout the no-hanami rule. 

“Do you really feel this behavior is appropriate,” an opposition member retorted, “when citizens are being asked to exercise restraint?”

While some online commentors sympathized with Mrs. Abe, many said it appeared not only tone-deaf, but that it undercut the government’s exhortations to avoid poorly ventilated rooms. “Isn’t it safer to party outdoors, at a park, than in an enclosed space like a restaurant?” one said.

President Trump tweeted early Friday that he spoke with Chinese President Xi Jinping about the coronavirus.

Mr. Trump wrote, “Just finished a very good conversation with President Xi of China. Discussed in great detail the CoronaVirus that is ravaging large parts of our Planet. China has been through much & has developed a strong understanding of the Virus. We are working closely together. Much respect!”

Chinese State TV said Xi told Mr. Trump that Beijing is willing to work with all parties on stopping the disease’s spread, including the U.S., according to the Reuters news service.

Mr. Trump has been criticized for referring to COVID-19 as “the Chinese virus,” which some see as racist. When pressed by reporters on his use of the term, he’s countered by pointing out that China is where COVID-19 originated.

Relations between the two nations have been strained in recent months over numerous issues, including the pandemic.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo commended JetBlue on Thursday for donating flights to medical volunteers heading to New York to help combat the coronavirus pandemic. “So grateful for the help,” Cuomo said in a tweet.

The airline told CBS News it “remains committed to meeting travel needs, some of which are critical.”

“JetBlue is currently working with many of our community non-profit partners and government agencies to help get medical professionals and much-needed supplies to the places where they are needed most,” the airline said.

Cuomo said Wednesday that more than 40,000 doctors, nurses, respiratory therapists and other medical professionals have signed on to join a surge health care force to help battle the outbreak. 

Calling ventilators “very expensive” and comparing buying them to purchasing a car, President Trump has questioned New York’s need for thousands more of the devices to handle a surge in coronavirus cases. 

“I don’t believe you need 40,000 or 30,000 ventilators,” Mr. Trump said in an interview with Sean Hannity Thursday night. 

“You know, you go into major hospitals, sometimes they’ll have two ventilators. And now all of a sudden they’re saying, ‘can we order 30,000 ventilators?'”

“Think of this, you know you go to hospitals that have one in a hospital and now all of a sudden everyone’s asking for these vast numbers,” Mr. Trump continued.

Mr. Trump also slammed the governors of Michigan and Washington, claiming they should be doing more for their states. He mocked Washington Governor Jay Inslee’s failed presidential bid and criticized Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer for “[sitting] there and [blaming] the federal government.”

The country’s top infectious disease doctor on Thursday night called President Trump’s desire to reopen the country for business by Easter “aspirational.”

“I think what the president was trying to do, he was making an aspirational projection to give people some hope. But he’s listening to us when we say we’ve got to reevaluate in real time and any decision we have to make has to be based on the data,” Fauci said on CNN. 

He noted that with cases increasing in areas like New York City and New Orleans, lifting the national restrictions on businesses wasn’t necessarily the best plan to combat COVID-19, at least not everywhere.

After issuing an earlier caution this week that Mr. Trump’s suggested Easter timeline would be tempered by medical data and the spread of the virus, Fauci told Fox News that the president was remaining “flexible” and listening to his coronavirus task force.

Mr. Trump, in a briefing this week, said while he would like to see life return to normal by Easter, “we’ll only do it if it’s good.” He said the administration was “very in touch” with medical experts and would follow “whatever they would do.”