(NEW YORK) — Here’s the latest information on the COVID-19 coronavirus as of 9:30 a.m. ET.
Latest reported numbers globally per Johns Hopkins University
Global diagnosed cases: 4,369,410
Global deaths: 297,569. The United States has the most deaths of any single country, with 84,136.
Number of countries/regions: at least 188
Total patients recovered globally: 1,562,239
Latest reported numbers in the United States per Johns Hopkins University
There are at least 1,390,764 diagnosed cases in 50 states + the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and Guam. This is more than in any other country.
U.S. deaths: at least 84,136. New York state has the greatest number of reported deaths in the U.S., with 27,477.
U.S. total patients recovered: 243,430
U.S. total people tested: 9,974,831
The greatest number of reported COVID-19 cases in the U.S. is in New York, with 338,485 confirmed cases out of a total state population of 19.5 million. That is the most reported cases than in any other single region in the world. New Jersey is next, with 140,917 reported cases out of a total population of 8.88 million.
Latest reported deaths per state
Visit https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html for the latest numbers.
School closures
For a state-by-state interactive map of current school closures, please visit the Education Week website, where numbers are updated once daily.
There are 98,277 public schools and 34,576 private schools in the U.S., according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Those schools educate almost 50.8 million public school students and 5.8 million private school students.
The latest headlines
Another 2.9 million people apply for unemployment; total now 36 million
A further 2,981,000 people applied for unemployment in the week ending May 9, according to data released this morning by the U.S. Department of Labor. That means more than 36 million Americans have applied for unemployment in the eight weeks since COVID-19 began prompting businesses to close and employers to subsequently furlough workers. While today’s number of unemployment claims is lower than the record high of nearly seven million claims filed in a single week in March, it’s still much higher than any single week of claims filed prior to the pandemic. This week’s number is also 195,000 lower than the previous week’s level, which itself was subsequently revised up, from 3.169 million claims to 3.176 million. There are increasing concerns that many of these jobs aren’t coming back for a long time, perhaps not until 2024 or later. Many small businesses are already out of business. As of now, job losses are expected to continue and the unemployment rate is expected to climb even higher.
Whistleblower warns “window of opportunity is closing” to slow COVID-19
The COVID-19 pandemic has killed nearly 300,000 people worldwide and infected over 4.3 million, according to Johns Hopkins University. And in Senate testimony today, the man formerly in charge of the federal agency developing a vaccine will sound a warning that the worst may be yet to come. In prepared testimony released to the news media, Rick Bright, who was removed from his position as the head of the federal agency developing a vaccine for the virus, cautions we may see “darkest winter in modern history” without an effective vaccine. Bright filed a whistleblower complaint last week, claiming he was removed from his former position as head of the federal Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority out of “retaliation” when he criticized the Trump administration’s handling of the coronavirus crisis. “Our window of opportunity is closing. If we fail to develop a national coordinated response, based in science, I fear the pandemic will get far worse and be prolonged, causing unprecedented illness and fatalities,” Bright will say in a prepared statement to the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health, scheduled to begin today at 10 a.m. ET. Bright also warns that there will be a resurgence of COVID-19 in the fall, which will complicate the “challenges of seasonal influenza and putting an unprecedented strain on our health care system,” and calls for more widespread testing and contact tracing to prevent further spread of the virus.
CVS to open 1,000 COVID-19 test sites by end of May
Drug retailer CVS announced Thursday morning that they intend to open “up to 1,000” COVID-19 testing sites across the U.S. by the end of May. At least 50 sites will open at “select CVS Pharmacy drive-thru locations across Arizona, Connecticut, Florida, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania,” the company declared, adding that “hundreds of additional test sites across the country” would be announced over the next two weeks. CVS says they expect to have up to 1,000 locations open by the end of the month, “with the goal of processing up to 1.5 million tests per month subject to availability of supplies and lab capacity.” The company currently operates large-scale rapid test sites in coordination with five states, which can process a total of nearly 30,000 tests per week. Anyone wanting a test can register online at CVS.com beginning Friday. Customers will administer the test themselves at the CVS drive-thru under the supervision of a pharmacy team member, with results expected in about three days.
Good news!
Denver man tips stylist, barbershop $5,800
Who would have thought one of the things we’d miss the most during the COVID-19 lockdown would be getting our hair done? KMGH in Denver, Colorado reports one mystery man made no secret of how pleased he was to finally get his hair cut. He was a walk-in customer at Floyd’s 99 barbershop last Saturday, when hair salons were finally allowed to reopen in the state. Stylist Monica Alcon not only managed to squeeze him in, she stayed late to cut his hair. “[H]e was pretty happy about it,” Alcon says. That’s an understatement: he left her a $2,500 tip. Alcon was so thrilled, she forgot about social distancing and gave the man a hug. But his generosity didn’t stop there. He returned to Floyd’s 99 later and gave Alcon another $500, gave the manager $1,000 and a further $100 to each employee. Total tip: $5,800. And they still don’t know his name. Said Alcon, “We thanked him and then he went off. It was really awesome.”
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