Riverside County medical personnel administer a coronavirus test to a driver at a drive-though testing facility at Diamond Stadium on March 21, 2020 in Lake Elsinore, California. Those tested have symptoms or have had a risk of exposure.
(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)
The latest updates from our reporters in California and around the world
The Los Angeles Times will provide around-the-clock updates on COVID-19 from across Southern California and around the world.
There will be no fond farewell for one of L.A.’s most venerable restaurants.
Amid a statewide restaurant shutdown with no clear end in sight, Suzanne Goin and Caroline Styne have decided to permanently close Lucques, their 21-year-old Californian-Mediterranean restaurant, more than a month and a half early.
Goin said in an Instagram post Sunday that the duo had laid off their staff, spent the last few days packing up the Melrose Avenue space and were now closed for good.
“Definitely not how @carolinestyne and i had envisioned it,” she wrote. “When we announced a week ago wednesday we had a job planned for every lucques employee—72 hours later we were in the unimaginable position of laying off our staffs at all the restaurants—people we love like family, people who can not sustain this shutdown...our hearts are broken.”
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced Monday that Japan will require a 14-day quarantine to all visitors from the United States, including the Japanese and Americans, effective Thursday and until the end of April.
Abe made the announcement at a government task force on the coronavirus, citing the escalating COVID-19 infections around the world, especially in the U.S. and Europe in recent weeks.
Japan on Sunday raised a travel advisory for the U.S., urging the Japanese citizens not to make nonessential trips to the U.S.
He said the U.S. recently took similar measures and urged Americans not to make nonessential trips to Japan, requiring a 14-day quarantine for entrants.
Abe said Monday’s quarantine requirement is in line with measures taken by other countries, including the U.S., and shows Japan’s commitment to join international effort to stop the further spread of the coronavirus.
He said Japan will continue to launch “flexible border control measures without hesitation” and urged his ministers to keep their caution levels up high.
The Norwegian Jewel cruise ship docks at Honolulu Harbor on Sunday.
(Associated Press)
A cruise ship that had to cut short its trip because of the coronavirus and mechanical problems docked Sunday in Honolulu’s harbor.
The Norwegian Jewel, which carried about 2,000 passengers, docked in the late afternoon, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser reported.
The ship has problems with its propulsion, which will be repaired at Honolulu’s harbor, the Hawaii Department of Transportation said. The repairs to the ship must be made without passengers aboard, the department added.
“A detailed plan is being developed with Norwegian Cruise Line that keeps passengers isolated to avoid any potential strain on Hawaii’s resources, while also addressing the well-being of the cruise line passengers who have been at sea for a very long time,” said Jade Butay, director of the Hawaii Department of Transportation.
The ship had to cut short its 23-day cruise of Australia and French Polynesia because many ports were closed due to the coronavirus, the ship’s owner, Norwegian Cruise Line, said in a statement. The passengers last disembarked in Fiji on March 11, the transportation department said.
Charter flights have been arranged for ship passengers on Monday and Tuesday to Los Angeles, Sydney, London and other cities, the company said.
The first inmate within California’s prison system has tested positive for COVID-19.
The prisoner is at California State Prison, Los Angeles County, state corrections officials announced on Sunday night.
The officials also said that five prison workers have COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. Two are at California State Prison, Sacramento, outside of Folsom; one is at Folsom State Prison; and two are at the California Institution for Men in Chino.
The prisoner in L.A. County was in stable condition and being treated on site, according to a statement from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. The department said the prisoner reported feeling unwell and was put into isolation Thursday, was tested Friday, and the results came back Sunday. The agency would not provide information on the health of the infected workers.
Johnny Luna of Los Angeles works with with his music and entertainment equipment at his apartment March 19.
(Jason Armond/Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)
On March 12, Johnny Luna showed up for work at Lodge Room in Highland Park. The 33-year-old father of two is the lighting director for the club, a 500-capacity independent music venue right off a popular stretch of Figueroa Street. He runs the lighting boards at the Wiltern, the El Rey and other venues too, but that evening, he was booked to DJ in Lodge Room’s adjacent restaurant, Checker Hall.
But fears of the coronavirus had been circulating all week, and the club’s usual crowds had thinned out. Only two people were in the restaurant. The venue’s general manager gave Luna a free dinner and sent him home.
I need a sound of spring. This being the formerly opening week of the postponed baseball season, I crave the melodious tones of the ballpark, the bunting, the hope.
The Canadian Olympic Committee says it won’t send athletes to the Tokyo Games unless they’re postponed for a year, becoming the first country to threaten such a move in the face of the coronavirus outbreak.
The committee sent out a statement Sunday evening saying it was willing to help the International Olympic Committee search for alternatives, but that it was not safe for athletes, “their families and the broader Canadian community for athletes to continue training for these Games.”
“In fact, it runs counter to the public health advice which we urge all Canadians to follow.”
Gov. Gavin Newsom asked President Trump on Sunday for a declaration of a “major disaster” in California to help the state respond to the COVID-19 pandemic with mass care and emergency assistance, unemployment assistance and disaster legal services, among others.
“Unfortunately, California has been disproportionately impacted by COVID-19,” Newsom wrote to Trump. “Besides California being home to nearly 40 million people, which itself poses significant logistical issues few other states face, California partnered with the federal government in several extremely complex and challenging repatriation missions, which strained California’s resources and impacted California’s healthcare delivery system.”
Newsom noted in the letter that he has issued 10 executive orders in the last week to facilitate a quick response to the outbreak.
SEOUL —President Trump sent a personal letter to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, seeking to maintain good relations and offering cooperation in fighting the coronavirus outbreak, Kim’s sister said Sunday.
The latest correspondence came as Kim observed the firing of tactical guided weapons over the weekend, drawing criticism from South Korea, as nuclear talks remained deadlocked.
In a statement carried by the North’s official Korean Central News Agency, Kim’s sister and senior ruling party official, Kim Yo Jong, praised Trump for sending the letter at a time when “big difficulties and challenges lie ahead in the way of developing ties” between the countries.
Bourbon Street is empty early last week. After ordering bars, restaurants and other businesses to close, Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards has issued a stay-at-home order.
(Chris Graythen / Getty Images)
Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards issued a stay-home order Sunday and closed nonessential businesses statewide as the state’s coronavirus infection cases skyrocketed.
“This emergency is going to get worse before it gets better,” Bel Edwards said. “We’re in a race against time with this coronavirus and its spread in Louisiana.”
Louisiana now has the third-highest number of cases per capita after New York and Washington, the governor said. Since the first case was reported about two weeks ago, 830 cases have been reported and 20 deaths.
“We have the fastest growth rate of confirmed cases in the world,” Bel Edwards said, showing charts that compared the spread of the virus in Louisiana to countries in Europe where hospitals have been overwhelmed.
“There’s no reason to believe we won’t be the next Italy,” he said.
More than half the state’s cases and all but five of the deaths have been in the New Orleans area, including the Lambeth House nursing home, where 24 residents have been infected and seven have died.
The virus has spread to more than half of the state’s parishes. So far, only 2,113 people have been tested.
The governor said projections show the state could run out of healthcare capacity in as soon as a week. He canceled elective procedures and said the state was trying to add 200 intensive care beds as soon as possible.
“We have to take more aggressive measures now and limit our social contact,” he said.
The governor said he issued the order, which lasts from Monday night until April 12, after speaking Friday with Vice President Mike Pence and Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
He said he made sure Pence and the president knew how fast the coronavirus had been spreading in Louisiana and that the state needed federal help in dealing with shortages of doctors, nurses, ventilators, masks and other protective equipment for healthcare workers.
“This fight has taken place simultaneously across the country, and so, from where are we going to get more doctors and nurses?” Bel Edwards said. “Louisiana cannot compete with New York and its purchasing power” for medical supplies.
California’s sweeping stay-at-home order to slow the spread of the coronavirus resulted in a weekend like no other, with people staying indoors and keeping six feet apart when outside.
Complaints of noncompliance have popped up on social media and apps such as the neighborhood forum Nextdoor.com. The Marin County Sheriff’s Office on Saturday tweeted out a photo of people congregating on the coast, imploring residents to stay home.
“We understand the communities’ frustrations with the LARGE amount of people traveling to the Coast today and NOT practicing social distancing. We are working with the Public Health Officers to address the issue. Please stay at home!” the Sheriff’s Office said.
While traffic was free-flowing in much of Southern California, there were still some backups Saturday on Pacific Coast Highway in the Santa Monica area.
The sense of fear seemed distant as the shadows lengthened over Santa Monica State Beach on Saturday afternoon. Alan Cohn, 90, and his partner, Elaine Cohen, 80, looked over a scene of people tanning and working out. One man did yoga. A group of four played volleyball.
“Would you believe we’re in the middle of a pandemic right now?” Cohen asked.
In the midst of the coronavirus outbreak, public health officials have made it clear: There is no pill, vaccine or supplement that can cure or prevent the virus.
But that hasn’t stopped scam artists from trying to take advantage of people’s fears.
In Peru, a curandero claiming to have “a pact with the devil” promised to treat coronavirus among other ailments. On Craigslist, a now-removed post claimed: “I think I found how to prevent coronavirus ... from my grandmother’s herbal remedy recipe card.” And a televangelist recently promoted his “Silver Solution” on his show, suggesting the concoction would boost the immune system and kill the virus within 12 hours.
These are just a few examples of people who are trying to capitalize on the coronavirus panic, and there are countless others — from price gougers selling hand sanitizer for hundreds of dollars to fake at-home coronavirus test kits coming from out of the country.
Officials are aggressively pursuing scammers, threatening legal action if they continue.
The FDA has issued warning letters to seven entities that it says have made false claims about coronavirus cures or treatments, including “The Jim Bakker Show,” which is already facing legal action from federal and state agencies.
Los Angeles City Atty. Mike Feuer and L.A. County Dist. Atty. Jackie Lacey have formed a coronavirus task force dedicated to scouring the internet and brick-and-mortar stores for fraudsters and price gougers.
Feuer’s office is already investigating two Los Angeles companies: CEN Group LLC., which on its website, SafeBabyHealthyChild, promoted vitamin C as a coronavirus treatment, and the website modernbeyond.com, which was selling face masks.
Sen. Rand Paul is 1st U.S. senator to test positive for coronavirus
Rand Paul announced Sunday that he was infected with COVID-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus. The Republican from Kentucky becomes the first U.S. senator to test positive for the illness.
Senator Rand Paul has tested positive for COVID-19. He is feeling fine and is in quarantine. He is asymptomatic and was tested out of an abundance of caution due to his extensive travel and events. He was not aware of any direct contact with any infected person.
Tara Eames never thought she would get married at home, livestreaming to virtual guests.
Eames, 46, a marketing consultant in Devon, Pa., had planned to marry Anthony Durante, 49, at her sister’s house, followed by a larger reception. But last week, as the state’s courthouses started to close, they got nervous. They worried about what would happen if one of them became seriously ill with the coronavirus and they were not yet married. Pennsylvania has a “self-uniting” marriage license that doesn’t require an officiant, but you still need the license.
On Tuesday, they drove to Allentown and got their license. The next day, the state’s courthouses closed.
“We got it just under the wire,” Eames said.
They still needed two witnesses. Eames said her 20 year-old son, home from college and taking classes online, volunteered, along with a family friend.
“It feels like love being stronger than fear,” she said.
The groom, a Marine veteran who works in economic development, agreed.
“It’s been a dark couple of weeks. We figured people could use some happiness and hope,” he said.
The pair used the online-meeting tool Zoom to broadcast their nuptials Saturday afternoon. Eames wore a flowered dress; Durante, a suit.
“We told people in our invitation you can wear a tuxedo or your pajamas,” she said.
Durante fashioned his bride a bouquet out of red roses picked up at the grocery store. Their witness brought a cake. Tuxi, their black-and-white cat, served as ring bearer. Friends snapped screen shots.
LAPD personnel assemble personal safety kits for field officers earlier this month.
(Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times)
The Los Angeles Police Department is expected to switch to 12-hour shifts for its officers in the coming weeks and cancel all vacations as a way to staff up in response to the coronavirus outbreak, a law enforcement source told the L.A. Times.
The department is also planning to assign officers to each of the city’s new emergency shelters, which are expected to grow in number, according to the source familiar with the plans who was unable to speak publicly about them.
The plans are still being finalized but are part of a larger effort by the LAPD to mobilize and be of assistance during the public health crisis.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious-diseases specialist, said Sunday that although the United States was “not necessarily” on the same trajectory as that of Italy — which has the world’s highest coronavirus death toll — “we’re going to get hit. There’s no doubt about it.”
Italy’s death toll stands at more than 4,800, including 793 on Saturday alone, Italian officials said.
Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health, said in an interview on CBS’ “Face the Nation” that some aspects of Italy’s crushing death toll were not yet fully understood by scientists.
“If you look at the dynamics of the outbreak in Italy, we don’t know why they are suffering so terribly,” he said, adding that “many of us believe that early on they did not shut out as well the input of infections that originated in China and came to different parts of the world.”
U.S. prospects might have been improved by bans on travel from China and Europe.
“We have from the beginning been able to put a bit of a clamper” on outside cases, he said.
U.S. cases are concentrated on the West and East coasts, and New York City is home to about one-third of cases. New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, appearing on NBC’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday, said, “New Yorkers and all Americans deserve the blunt truth: It is only getting worse.“ And in fact, April and May are going to be a lot worse,” he said.
Fauci said federal resources were being “clearly directed toward hot spots that need it most.”
The new coronavirus has traveled unseen paths from Wuhan, China, to virtually all corners of the globe. Evidence of its movements abound, from the proliferation of people wearing face masks to the sudden absence of toilet paper on store shelves.
How did a virus that didn’t even exist just a few months ago manage to infect more than 300,000 people and cause more than 13,000 deaths? How exactly does this pathogen spread?
Here’s what scientists have learned so far about the virus known as SARS-CoV-2, which causes the disease known as COVID-19.
On Wednesday morning, Los Angeles Trade Technical College student Milagro Jones logged onto his laptop from a one-bedroom apartment in South Los Angeles to attend an online class on human evolution. His 5-year-old daughter, Lydia, at home from preschool, played nearby.
To Jones’ surprise, nobody else — not even the teacher — was online.
“I didn’t know why,” he said.
At the nation’s largest community college district, communication about the coronavirus has been confusing. Less than half of the faculty had been trained in “distance education” before the pandemic hit. Employees lacked access to systems to enable working from home. There were not enough laptops for students and teachers to access online instruction.
When he strode to the bench inside the Compton courthouse Friday morning, Superior Court Judge Michael J. Shultz was wearing two items more necessary than his pleated black robe: a pair of latex gloves and a face mask.
Miles north in downtown Los Angeles, caution tape had been placed over entire rows inside the criminal justice center’s notoriously hectic arraignment court to put as much distance as possible between those in the gallery.
Even the simplest of courthouse functions had to be altered. When an attorney asked to approach Superior Court Judge Emily Garcia Uhrig as she worked her way through more than 100 items on her calendar in a Van Nuys courtroom Friday, the judge seemed to eye the bench cautiously, taking stock of the risks of having others so close to her.
Misti Kemmer, a fourth-grade teacher at Russell Elementary School in South Los Angeles, is working hard to keep her students learning now that schools are closed. She shares detailed lesson plans on Google Drive, sends messages to families every day and delivers YouTube lectures from her home.
But only three or four of her 28 students accessed their schoolwork last week, she said. Some don’t have computers and others are without internet access. One student can only open assignments on her father’s phone when he gets home from work.
“She’s trying to look at all this stuff on a tiny cellphone after dinner hours,” Kemmer said. “How much is a 9- year-old going to get done?”
“There’s this whole distance-learning thing, but how much learning is actually going on?” she added.
All public and private gatherings are prohibited anywhere within the jurisdiction of the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, which, the order said, includes all unincorporated areas and cities in the county except Long Beach and Pasadena, which have their own health departments.
Previously, only gatherings of 10 or more people were banned.
Nail and hair salons are ordered shut
On Thursday night, Los Angeles County had classified personal grooming services as an essential retail business exempt from an earlier order to close non-essential stores. On Saturday night, the county clarified that personal grooming services “are non-essential services that are closed.”
Golf courses ordered shut
On Saturday morning, golfers took refuge in golf courses around the county. By Saturday night, the county said in a statement that golf courses are ordered closed.
Indoor malls and shopping centers
Indoor malls and shopping centers must shut.
Essential businesses in outdoor malls and shopping centers can remain open.
How essential businesses must operate
Essential businesses need to take the following precautions:
Require customers, visitors and workers to be separated by 6 feet, to the extent feasible;
Provide hand sanitizer with at least 60% alcohol or hand-washing facilities with soap and water;
post a sign at the entrance instructing people to go away if they are sick, such as having a fever or cough;
SACRAMENTO — Gov. Gavin Newsom on Saturday urged Californians to abide by his statewide order to stay at home and, if they choose to venture outside for necessities or recreation, to keep a safe distance from others to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus.
Newsom also said his administration is working to clear up confusion over whether his historic executive order issued Thursday conflicted with more stringent mandatory restrictions by some California counties and cities. Negotiations with local governments are underway to sort through the “deeply complex” issues involved, he said.
Newsom’s plea for residents to avoid unnecessary social contact comes after scattered reports across the state that some people have been flocking to the coast, gathering with friends or failing to keep proper social distance from others.
The governor stressed that even those who don’t show any symptoms of COVID-19, including young adults who appear to be less likely to become gravely ill if they do contract it, need to cooperate for the good of others in their communities.
“Be a good neighbor. Be a good citizen. Those young people that are still out there on the beaches thinking this is a party time — grow up,” Newsom said during a news conference on Facebook and Twitter on Saturday afternoon. “It’s time to wake up, time to recognize it’s not just about the old folks. It’s about your impact on their lives. Don’t be selfish, recognize you have a responsibility to meet this moment.”
The NBA’s reach extends across the globe, broadcasting to more than 200 countries and territories while generating almost $9 billion in annual revenue. Its top players are the most powerful in sports, able to reach tens of millions and spark change with a single social media post. The behemoth’s reach and influence across cultures and time zones is built on a massive sum of interconnected parts.
It is a fragile behemoth too, those same woven connections vulnerable to the chain reactions upon which a pandemic preys.
However, a pandemic didn’t seem to be on the minds of players as recently as the first week of March, when the insouciance of the NBA mirrored that of sports at large and the rest of the country.The games went on, with the usual casual human contact: hugs, high-fives, news conferences in cramped locker rooms, charter flights, hotel stays. Life went on, with grocery shelves still filled with cans of beans, bags of pasta, toilet paper. The spread of the novel coronavirus, which had reached the front pages, nonetheless still felt like someone else’s problem.
California’s battle to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus has been joined by some of the state’s most prominent technology companies, Gov. Gavin Newsom said on Saturday, while its health officials are looking to pay new attention to what he called “targeted” testing of the state’s residents.
In an afternoon update, Newsom said the ramp-up of testing should include gauging the effectiveness of state and local efforts to get a handle on community-acquired infections.
“We need to have, I think, a different conversation in this country around testing,” Newsom said in a briefing streamed live on social media. “And that is smart testing, targeted testing. And really delineate what is the purpose of testing.”
Newsom, who has made late afternoon or evening updates to Californians a semi-regular occurrence in recent days, also praised offers of help from tech industry leaders and other business executives across the state. He said Tim Cook, chief executive officer of Apple, has pledged one million medical masks to be donated specifically to California’s coronavirus efforts. And he said manufacturers in Los Angeles’ garment district and in Northern California had reached out to sew additional masks if needed.
A key need in California and across the country is ventilators, necessary for some of the most serious COVID-19 patients, and the governor cited new efforts by two entrepreneurs to assist in producing the medical equipment. Newsom said that Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, Inc. and Space X, has promised to use the supply chains that support his companies for help in assembling ventilators. The governor also said that K.R. Sridhar, the CEO of Bloom Energy, agreed to help quickly modernize some 200 older ventilators that the state has on hand. The original manufacturer, Newsom said, had estimated doing so would take about a month.
A third Los Angeles police officer has tested positive for the coronavirus and was exhibiting symptoms inside an LAPD station for several days this week, according to law enforcement officials who spoke to The Times on Saturday on condition of anonymity.
The officer, who had recently returned from a vacation out of the country, was “coughing and sweating” during roll call in Central Division, which patrols areas that include downtown L.A., two of the officials said.
Despite protests from several officers in the station, the affected officer was allowed to work for at least two days this week, according to the officials. It was not immediately clear if the officer went out on calls or otherwise interacted with the public.
The officer was tested for the virus, and a positive result came back Saturday, according to three law enforcement officials. Additional officers who worked with the afflicted patrol officer are expected to be quarantined, officials said.
Early release from prison is on the table as a state task force begins discussions on how to navigate California’s incarcerated population through the coming storm of the novel coronavirus.
U.S. District Judge Kimberly Mueller on Friday ordered the task force during a telephone status hearing. The hearing was for updates on prison mental health but instead dwelt almost entirely on COVID-19. The task force’s first meeting was Saturday, involving lawyers for the governor’s office, corrections department, Department of State Hospitals and those representing prisoners in long-running litigation over prison conditions.
At Mueller’s direction, said plaintiff’s attorney Michael Bien, “population is on the table.”
The corrections department has steadfastly declined to answer questions about how many inmates are under watch with influenza-like illness, how many have been tested for COVID-19 and how many are under quarantine.
Palestinians report first two cases of coronavirus in Gaza Strip
By Associated Press
GAZA CITY — The Palestinian Health Ministry announced the first two cases of the coronavirus in the Gaza Strip early Sunday.
In a news conference, Yousef Abu Rish, a Health Ministry official, said the two confirmed coronavirus cases in the Gaza Strip were in two citizens who returned from Pakistan on Thursday.
Abu Rish said both individuals had been in quarantine in a school in Rafah, a city in the southern Gaza Strip, since their return and did not enter public areas in the Gaza Strip. They have been transferred to a newly built, dedicated isolation ward in the Rafah field hospital.
Hamas, the militant group that controls the Gaza Strip, announced it was stopping prayer in mosques and closing restaurants, cafes and wedding halls in the strip.
The developments added to fears of a potential outbreak in the crowded enclave, which has an overstretched healthcare system after years of an Israeli-Egyptian blockade and Palestinian political division.
The blockade has rendered Gaza off-limits to foreign tourists, and Israel and Egypt have shut their borders with the territory as part of measures aimed at containing the virus.
Palestinians returning home can still enter Gaza, but they are sent to quarantine centers.
Special correspondents Noga Tarnopolsky in Jerusalem and Rushdi Abu Alouf in Gaza City contributed to this report.
As the number of confirmed coronavirus cases continues its steep climb in California, many local emergency rooms remain eerily quiet, doctors say, giving them time to prepare but also time to agonize about what could be coming their way.
The L.A. County-USC Medical Center, the flagship hospital of the second-largest municipal health system in the country, can often feel like a war zone, said a physician who works there and spoke on the condition of anonymity. But in recent days, it has been strangely quiet.
Poor people who often use the emergency room as a combination urgent care and doctor’s office have stayed away, he said. “They have stepped up and the nonemergency [patients] that used to overwhelm our waiting room really have stayed home. The ER waiting room has never been this empty.”
Another physician, at Kaiser in Los Angeles, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the joke among the staff is that the only people showing up in their emergency room, “have coronavirus or are having a heart attack.”
An emergency room physician working at hospitals in San Bernardino County told The Times on Saturday morning, “patients are actually listening and the ER is just being used for emergencies.”
Like other journalism organizations, Fox News has gone into overdrive to cover the coronavirus crisis in recent weeks, hiring medical experts and expanding its live broadcast hours to give viewers up-to-date information. The network has also moved aggressively to protect the health of its employees, allowing most of its anchors to broadcast from their homes.
It’s a sharp turn from the attitude of its prominent conservative opinion hosts on the network such as Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham, who earlier in the month were saying the COVID-19 outbreak was being overplayed by the media and used as a political weapon by Democrats against President Trump. Fox Business Network anchor Trish Regan, who described the pandemic as an “impeachment scam” on March 9, has been put on hiatus.
But their colleague Tucker Carlson took a different path after a government official warned him that the pandemic was potentially dangerous and devastating. He warned his viewers of the dangers of the virus while steering clear of criticizing the Trump administration.
When it didn’t appear that the White House was listening, Carlson went to the president in person to deliver the message. While conservative and provocative — his problematic remarks on immigration have alienated many major advertisers from his nightly program — Carlson has become the least predictable cable news talking head. He spoke to The Times on Friday from his Florida home where he has been broadcasting in recent weeks.
WASHINGTON — Fear was growing in hospitals across the country in 2009 as a frightening epidemic that came to be called the H1N1 swine flu swept across the globe.
From Galveston, Texas, where a hospital ran out of test kits, to Loma Linda University Medical Center in San Bernardino, which had to set up tents to handle a crush of patients, to New York, where hospitals scrambled to bring on extra emergency staff, it appeared the nation’s healthcare system would be overwhelmed.
The worst did not materialize. The lesson, though, was clear: The nation needed larger caches of standby medical supplies and hospitals that were better prepared to handle a surge of infected patients.
A decade later, the coronavirus crisis is exposing many of the same gaps. Inadequate supplies of protective masks, ventilators, intensive care beds and other medical resources are forcing mass closures of schools and businesses and restrictions on everyday activities as public officials rush to slow the virus so America’s medical system isn’t overwhelmed.
“So much that was predicted has come to pass,” said Marcia Crosse, former head of the healthcare section of the Government Accountability Office. Since the early 2000s, the GAO, the federal government’s leading internal watchdog, has issued a steady stream of reports about poor pandemic planning.
As the current crisis has widened, President Trump has attempted to deflect responsibility for his administration’s poor planning, suggesting the coronavirus outbreak was inconceivable.
“Nobody knew there would be a pandemic or epidemic of this proportion,” the president said Thursday.
The opposite is true. The GAO, public health experts and others issued a steady drumbeat of warnings that America would sooner or later face a widespread infectious disease outbreak or a major bioterrorism attack and was woefully unprepared.
UC Irvine announced that a non-student resident living in campus family housing tested positive for coronavirus but is in good condition.
“The risk to the general campus population remains low,” UCI said in a statement. “As testing becomes more available in the coming weeks, it is likely that we will become aware of additional positive cases within the UCI community.”
The Federal Aviation Administration is temporarily halting flights to New York City-area airports because of coronavirus-related staffing issues at a regional air-traffic control center.
In an alert posted online, the agency advised air traffic controllers to “stop all departures” to Kennedy, LaGuardia, Newark and other airports in the region.
The directive also affects Philadelphia International Airport.
California’s order to stay at home doesn’t replace stricter local rules
The intersection of the 101 and 110 freeways in downtown Los Angeles on March 20, 2020.
(Carolyn Cole/Carolyn Cole/Los Angeles Times)
SACRAMENTO — After a day of confusion about the reach of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s historic executive order telling residents to remain at home to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus, the state announced that more stringent sets of mandatory restrictions implemented by some California counties and cities will remain in place.
“This is a statewide order. Depending on the conditions in their area, local officials may enforce stricter public health orders. But they may not loosen the state’s order,” state health officials said in a statement released late Friday night.
The governor’s stay-at-home order will remain in effect until “further notice” and could be changed as conditions warrant, the statement said. Issued under broad powers granted to the governor in the state’s Emergency Services Act, Newsom’s executive order is enforceable by law.
Anyone who violates the order could be charged with a misdemeanor, but Newsom said that he did not believe that would be necessary.
Californians learn what is ‘essential’ during the coronavirus outbreak
San Jose police Chief Eddie Garcia gave a livestream lesson Friday in what an “essential service” is — and what it isn’t. In the previous 48 hours, he said, his officers had discovered 55 violations, most by businesses that kept their doors open when they should have been closed to help stop the spread of the coronavirus.
The offenders included flower shops and gyms, a video game store, a flea market, a car wash, a gun store, eight smoke shops — and a billiards hall.
“A billiards hall? Are you kidding me?” Garcia asked, visibly frustrated during the Friday morning news conference. “I mean, I don’t know how a billiards hall thought they could be open during this time. Education is going to turn to enforcement very soon.”
It was almost all quiet on the western front Friday, as Californians navigated Day One of an Oregon-to-Mexico stay-at-home order issued Thursday by Gov. Gavin Newsom. Ever in the vanguard, for better or worse, the Golden State was the first in the country to shut down because of novel coronavirus. Northern California municipalities such as San Jose and San Francisco beat California to it, issuing shut-down orders even earlier in the week.
See 8 hauntingly beautiful shots of Hollywood under ‘stay home’ order
By Times Staff
On Thursday evening, Gov. Gavin Newsom issued a statewide “stay at home” order. Newsom’s executive order also marks the first mandatory restrictions placed on the lives of all 40 million residents in the state’s fight against the novel coronavirus. The order also prohibits gatherings in enclosed spaces of more than 10 people.
Los Angeles Times photographer Jay L. Clendenin and videographer Mark Potts document the first night of the order in Hollywood.
The rapid spread of the novel coronavirus has many people wondering what environmental factors, beyond age and underlying health problems, make some individuals more vulnerable to COVID-19 than others.
That’s especially true in California, where residents have long struggled with the nation’s worst-polluted air.
Men are faring worse than women in the coronavirus pandemic, according to statistics emerging from across the world.
On Friday, White House COVID-19 Task Force director Dr. Deborah Birx cited a report from Italy showing that men in nearly every age bracket were dying at higher rates than women. Birx called it a “concerning trend.”
Intensive care beds at Los Angeles County’s emergency-room hospitals are already at or near capacity, even as those facilities have doubled the number available for COVID-19 patients in recent days, according to newly released data obtained by The Times.
Fewer than 200 ICU beds were available Wednesday, with most ICU beds occupied by non-coronavirus patients, according to the data which covers the roughly 70 public and private hospitals in Los Angeles County that receive emergency patients.
Los Angeles County health officials advised doctors to give up on testing patients in the hope of containing the coronavirus outbreak, instructing them to test patients only if a positive result could change how they would be treated.
The guidance, sent by the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health to doctors on Thursday, was prompted by a crush of patients and shortage of tests, and could make it difficult to ever know precisely how many people in L.A. County contracted the virus.
The department “is shifting from a strategy of case containment to slowing disease transmission and averting excess morbidity and mortality,” according to the letter. Doctors should test symptomatic patients only when “a diagnostic result will change clinical management or inform public health response.”
The guidance sets in writing what has been a reality all along. The shortage of tests nationwide has meant that many patients suspected of having COVID-19 have not had the diagnosis confirmed by a laboratory.
In addition to the lack of tests, public health agencies across the country lack the staff to trace the source of new cases, drastically reducing the chances of isolating people who have been exposed and thereby containing the outbreak.
Testing for Covid-19 is going on at UCLA Medical Center, where people can drive up and get tested if they have the symptoms. Photograph taken on March 18, 2020.
(Carolyn Cole/Carolyn Cole/Los Angeles Times)
Intensive care beds at Los Angeles County’s emergency-room hospitals are already at or near capacity, even as those facilities have doubled the number available for COVID-19 patients in recent days, according to newly released data obtained by The Times.
Fewer than 200 ICU beds were available Wednesday, with most ICU beds occupied by non-coronavirus patients, according to the data which covers the roughly 70 public and private hospitals in Los Angeles County that receive emergency patients.
The figures, which haven’t been disclosed previously, offer the first real-time glimpse of capacity levels at hospitals from Long Beach to the Antelope Valley and raise fresh worries that the hospital system, which is already strained by shortages, could soon run short of beds.
“I am very concerned. We have a limited number of ICU beds available in L.A. County,” said Supervisor Janice Hahn, who urged residents to heed social-distancing orders to reduce infection rates and strain on medical resources. “I would like to begin exploring every possible solution to increase the capacity of our hospital system, including building pop-up hospital sites.”
As businesses and schools close in response to the coronavirus pandemic, some of Los Angeles’ most visible signs of human activity are fading. Freeways are open. Skies are clear. Ports are slowed.
SACRAMENTO —The final results from California’s presidential primary might not be known until late April, after Gov. Gavin Newsom gave local elections officials additional time to tally the votes due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Newsom issued an executive order on Friday adding 21 days for California counties to report results from the March 3 statewide primary. By law, counties normally have 30 days after an election to complete the official count and submit those numbers to the secretary of state.
SACRAMENTO —Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday deployed the California National Guard to assist food banks statewide serving residents whose needs have not been met due to food shortages during the novel coronavirus pandemic.
Newsom said the short-term deployment will initially assist a food bank distribution warehouse in Sacramento County and will also assess the needs of other California counties that have requested assistance with their food bank programs.
“It’s in these times of crisis that Californians are at their best, coming to the aid of those in their community who are most in need. Food banks provide a critical lifeline for families, and are needed now more than ever,” Newsom said in a statement released Friday night. “Families across our state are suddenly losing work, and millions of Californians most vulnerable to COVID-19 are staying home to protect their health and the health of others.”
As Los Angeles hustled to convert some of its shuttered recreation centers into shelters for homeless people at high risk from the coronavirus, some homeless people said they had concerns about the new facilities and how they would be protected from COVID-19.
“All over the city they’re telling people not to congregate, yet they’re telling homeless people to congregate in these recreation centers,” said David Busch, a longtime activist who is homeless in Venice. “What protection are we going to have?”
Busch, 64, said he had been trying to isolate himself in his tent since the virus began to spread.
Like other homeless people in the city, the shutdowns have had particular impact on his daily life: As libraries and coffee shops shuttered in Venice, Busch has struggled to find somewhere to charge his phone, ultimately resorting to a bus with charging ports.
“I ended up riding the bus for five hours, for two days in a row, just to get my electronics charged,” Busch said.
In Chatsworth, Rita Dunn said she and other homeless people have nowhere to shower after Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti ordered gyms to shut down. Last night, some of them went to a grocery store and found little left on the shelves. The only milk left at the store, Dunn said, was Snickers-flavored.
Despite those hardships, Dunn was not eager to go to a shelter. “I don’t think that cramming in beds is going to be effective,” she said.
Dunn, an artist who is running for her neighborhood council, believes she already got the virus earlier this year, when she suffered pain in her joints and a cough that was “like glue in my lungs.” The same symptoms had swept through an entire group of homeless people after they were ejected from another spot in Chatsworth, she said.
“Everybody here could hear hacking and coughing all night,” Dunn said. “Nobody had any concern about us then.”
And in Van Nuys, Jennifer Freilich was wrestling with whether she would go to a shelter, weighing the possible risk of a bigger crowd against a roof over her head. She wondered out loud why the city hadn’t set up more shelters long before the pandemic.
“Why does it take a virus to do that?” Freilich asked.
On Wednesday, in a letter asking President Trump for help handling the novel coronavirus, Gov. Gavin Newsom made a startling prediction: More than half of Californians could be infected with the fast-moving sickness in two-month period.
That would be 25.5 million people, with the potential for more than 5 million — 20% — requiring hospitalization. The state is attempting to build capacity in its hospitals to about 100,000 beds.
“Crip Camp,” a documentary about a “summer camp for the handicapped run by hippies” that inspired the disabled rights movement, opened the Sundance Film Festival in January with volunteers turning away ticket holders because every seat in the Eccles Theater was spoken for.
Outside, there was a massive scrum with rumors flying that Barack and Michelle Obama, executive producers on the film through their company Higher Ground, might be attending. That proved to be wishful thinking, but their absence didn’t dampen the response to the movie. “Crip Camp” left Sundance with the festival’s Documentary Audience Award, great reviews and the feeling that it could follow the path of “American Factory,” the Netflix/Higher Ground film that won the documentary Oscar this year.
“Crip Camp” might still wind up at the Oscars. But if it does (provided the Oscars actually take place), it will be traveling a different path — as might every movie with awards aspirations in 2020, owing to the current COVID-19 pandemic.
Ridership on California’s largest transit system has fallen by more than half during the coronavirus outbreak as life in Los Angeles County has all but ground to a halt, officials said Friday.
On Wednesday, trips on the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s six rail lines were down nearly two-thirds compared with a typical day, and bus ridership was down by about 53%, the agency said.
Metro does not plan to shut down the system, which is a “lifeline” for people who still need to commute to essential jobs, take care of relatives, go to medical appointments and run errands, Chief Executive Phil Washington said Friday.
Each winter, some of Mexico’s wealthiest residents flock to the snowy slopes of Colorado to ski, shop and socialize.
This year, at least 14 — and likely many more — came home infected with the coronavirus.
In a country that has not yet been hard hit by the pandemic, the travelers have become a focal point of efforts to prevent the virus from spreading widely.
ICU beds already near capacity with non-coronavirus patients at L.A. County hospitals
By MATT STILES, IRIS LEE
Intensive care beds at Los Angeles County‘s emergency-room hospitals are already at or near capacity, even as those facilities have doubled the number available for COVID-19 patients in recent days, according to newly released data obtained by The Times.
Fewer than 200 ICU beds were available Wednesday, with most ICU beds occupied by non-coronavirus patients, according to the data which covers the roughly 70 public and private hospitals in Los Angeles County that receive emergency patients.
The figures, which haven’t been disclosed previously, offer the first real-time glimpse of capacity levels at hospitals from Long Beach to the Antelope Valley and raise fresh worries that the hospital system, which is already plagued with shortages, could soon run short of beds.
After an outbreak in China, the coronavirus pandemic has killed thousands and reached nearly every corner of the world, including California.
Scientists say the true number of U.S. cases is probably far above the official tally of positive tests. But here’s what we know so far about the statewide spread of the virus that causes COVID-19.
“Hamilton” at the Hollywood Pantages Theatre has suspended nearly three more weeks of performances because of the coronavirus.
Lin-Manuel Miranda’s hit musical, part of the Pantages-Dolby Theatre Broadway in Hollywood lineup, has scrapped shows through April 19. The production announced Friday afternoon that it has automatically initiated refunds for ticket holders of these performances and is encouraging patrons to rebook seats for a later date in the run, which ends Nov. 22.
To combat the spread of the coronavirus, authorities ordered the suspension of collection of tolls by cash on the seven state-owned bridges in the Bay Area, including the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge.
Toll collection will now only be done electronically.
Drivers without Fastrak electronic transponders will be mailed a bill for the toll, using information gathered by the bridges’ toll booth camera system.
The Golden Gate Bridge, which is not operated by the state, switched to all-electronic tolls in 2013.
In January, as Singapore racked up the highest numbers of coronavirus infections outside China, an alarmed Shasta Grant searched for flights back home to Indianapolis.
The 44-year-old American writer, who moved to this island city-state with her family eight years ago, worried that their adopted home would be ravaged again by a runaway disease and that the school where her husband teaches and their 12-year-old son studies would be closed. She feared food shortages, overwhelmed hospitals and travel bans.
But her husband persuaded her not to flee. Two months later, Singapore and other Asian nations have largely corralled their outbreaks while the virus roars across North America and Europe, leaving Grant dumbstruck at how quickly the U.S. went from a distant spectator of the epidemic to one of its primary victims.
In a dramatic sign of the coronavirus’ anticipated toll, the Army Corps of Engineers is planning to convert vacant hotels, college dormitories and other facilities into intensive care wards with tens of thousands of makeshift hospital beds, first in New York but probably expanding to California and other states.
That announcement Friday at a Pentagon news conference by Lt. Gen Todd T. Semonite, commander of Army Corps of Engineers, marks an escalation of the U.S. military role. Already it is providing 2,000 ventilators and 5 million protective masks and preparing to dispatch hospital ships on both coasts. Governors are calling up thousands of National Guard troops.
Yet, the armed forces face serious limitations in joining the response to the COVID-19 outbreak, current and former officials warn, not least because their expertise is in handling battlefield injuries, not infectious disease. Military doctors are already providing essential services to a more than a million service members and their families, and medical personnel in the reserves are hard at work —in their own communities.
We are very sorry to announce two deaths from #COVID19, bringing the total to 8. The seventh death was an adult male in his 80s. The eighth death was an adult male in his 70s. We express our condolences to their families and friends. Read more: https://t.co/lcx5wwZSFKpic.twitter.com/oXME82bfik
Yosemite National Park shut down to all visitors Friday, according to a park release. The park closed at 3 p.m. “at the request of the local health department,” the statement said.
There will be no access permitted into the park until further notice. The closure will be enforced 24/7.
One week after the Trump administration promised a massive expansion of free coronavirus testing, the commercial labs tasked with the effort say they need emergency funding to meet rapidly increasing demand, marking the latest snag in the problem-plagued program.
In a letter sent to congressional leaders Wednesday, the industry trade group for the laboratories requested $5 billion and expressed concern over whether they would bear the costs of the administration’s promise that testing would be free for all Americans.
Major League Soccer on Friday extended its moratorium on organized team practices through March 27 in response to the continued spread of the novel coronavirus.
MLS placed a four-day ban on training sessions last week, then extended that into the weekend before adding another week to the moratorium Friday. Under the ban, team training facilities can be accessed for physical therapy purposes only and players cannot work out together because that would violate social-distancing practices.
The Trump administration announced Friday that states will be allowed to cancel federally mandated standardized tests in K-12 schools for the current year, as part of an ongoing disruption of familiar student performance measures caused by the coronavirus outbreak.
Also, high school students will be able to take Advanced Placement tests at home and the SAT college admissions test is canceled through May, among other schedule changes.
Chaz Manzanares and Andrew Luna stood beneath gray skies Friday morning in the nearly empty parking lot at the closed Del Amo Fashion Center. Their voices carried through the vast, empty parking lot, which usually has valet parking and idling drivers stalling for elusive parking spaces.
The two were waiting for a quick employee meeting. Manzanares works as a restaurant server in the mall, as does Luna’s girlfriend.
Loren Pochirowski, who runs a small manufacturer of radio equipment and power supplies in Irvine, Calif., watched Gov. Gavin Newsom’s statewide stay-at-home order on television with intense interest Thursday. He was left scratching his head.
He’d hoped for clarity on the most important question in his life right now: Should he close his business, or keep it open?
For more than 100 years, California Floral Co. has stood sentinel in downtown Los Angeles.
The florist predates the founding of Warner Bros, UCLA and the first concerts at the Hollywood Bowl. It made it through World War II and closed for only a day or two during the 1992 L.A. riots. But the novel coronavirus could bring California Floral to its knees.
UCLA Chancellor Gene Block has walked back his earlier decision to cancel traditional graduation ceremonies as a safety measure against the coronavirus outbreak, apologizing to students for not consulting with them first.
He pledged to work with student leaders to jointly plan an alternative course for graduation ceremonies, which he had announced Wednesday would be celebrated only online in June. That news shocked and devastated many seniors, who said they felt robbed of the chance to celebrate the iconic rite of passage with classmates, family and friends.
Buffeted by the coronavirus outbreak, the Walt Disney Co. on Friday said it planned to raise nearly $6 billion in a debt offering.
The move, which comes one week after Disney closed its domestic theme parks and pulled a high-profile movie release, underscores the magnitude of the damage to the Burbank entertainment giant from the novel coronavirus.
You can’t eat out at restaurants right now but you can — and should, according to Mayor Garcetti — support them (and eat well!) with takeout and delivery orders.
I’ve always been, let’s call it fastidious, about food safety in the kitchen, like many chefs and cooks. Restaurants and delivery services are enacting even more food safety measures than those they already had in place. And while nothing in life is guaranteed and little is certain at this time, the guidelines at the city and state level recognize delivery and takeout food as safe for you and your family.
In a state alarmed by the rapid spread of coronavirus, open spaces seem to be about the only things that haven’t closed.
But with more than 1,000 cases of coronavirus infection now confirmed in California, and awareness surrounding hygiene and cleanliness of common-touch surfaces at an all-time high, even local parks can’t escape the drastic efforts local governments are taking to stem the spread of COVID-19.
Officials confirmed 61 new coronavirus cases.. The new cases bring the county’s total to 292 amid the growing outbreak.
Here is what you need to know:
TESTING: Testing continues to pick up in L.A. County. So far, about 2,400 people have been tested in L.A. County. Roughly 10% of those have tested positive, health officials said. They said an individual would need to go to a medical provider, who would then authorize a test. They stressed to not go to a hospital to be tested.
Formula One is setting up a series of virtual races to replace postponed or canceled Grand Prix events because of the coronavirus pandemic.
The series says a “number of current F1 drivers” will take part in the races, with the first set for Sunday. That’s the day when the Bahrain Grand Prix was supposed to take place.
The last few days have seen a subtle but important shift in tone as Olympic leaders and Japanese officials discuss the upcoming 2020 Summer Games in Tokyo.
While insisting there is still time to make a decision, they have softened their language about pressing full-speed ahead and are beginning to talk about contingency plans.
With so many of you having to stay home and cook for the first time — ever or more than you have in a long time — we get that it can be overwhelming to have to cook all your meals from scratch. So we’re here to get you started.
Each weekday, we’re going to post a new skill here and go into detail about how to do it — a resource for cooking basics so you can get food on the table and get through this.
The nation’s second-largest municipal health system has told its staff that it is essentially abandoning hope of containing the coronavirus outbreak and instructed doctors not to bother testing symptomatic patients if a positive result won’t change how they would be treated.
The guidance, sent by the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services to its doctors on Thursday, was prompted by a crush of patients and shortage of tests, and could make it difficult to ever know precisely how many people in L.A. County contracted the virus.
LeAnn Rimes has dance parties. David Chang is glued to ‘Westworld.’ What celebs are doing in quarantine
By ALISON BROWER
So you’ve got some time on your hands thanks to increasingly strict social-distancing recommendations from the CDC. While you’re consuming hours of Netflix, what about all the people who make those shows — and write the books, direct the films and play the music that’s keeping you sane in isolation? The Times reached out to stars, artists, filmmakers, showrunners and some of L.A.’s leading culture figures to find out what they’ll be digging into for the next few weeks — at least.
Hank Azaria Actor, “Brockmire” I’m a fan of Robert B. Parker’s detective fiction, so I’m really looking forward to Mark Wahlberg’s take on Spenser on Netflix. And I’m going to play a lot more poker than I’ve been able to in years, especially now that my poker game has discovered how to play together online through a Zoom meeting. All the fun of cards and none of the germs!
Yet in an unusual twist for the country-music legend, who at 86 still tours as enthusiastically as folks a fraction of his age, Nelson wasn’t actually on the road Thursday night as he delivered his signature song about “going places that I’ve never been.” Instead, he was streaming online from his digs outside Austin, Texas, flanked by his two sons in what looked like a very cozy living room.
Pandemic pop: At home and around the world, black-humored new songs about coronavirus go viral
By Jody Rosen
It should probably come as no surprise that the first hit song to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic is, yes, a viral phenomenon. It is also not surprising, to anyone who has paid attention to pop culture in recent years, that Cardi B, the irrepressible rapper and entertainer, has a hand — or, rather, a raspy, emphatic voice — in the new anthem.
“Coronavirus (feat. Cardi B)” began its life as ashort video, posted on Instagram, in which Cardi B airs her fears of COVID-19 with a typical mix of screwball humor and curse words. The clip ends with Cardi B bursting into a singsong chant: “Coronavirus! Coronavirus! I’m telling you, s— is real! S— is gettin’ real!” The video captivated the internet, and DJ iMarkkeyz, a producer from Brooklyn who specializes in setting memes to music, quickly assembled a remix, placing Cardi B’s exclamations over a skittering trap beat punctuated by the sounds of coughing and panting. The result is comical and eerie, a song that plays the coronavirus for dark laughs while capturing the dread that everyone, everywhere, is experiencing — the sirens wailing in our heads as we confront a terrifying and invisible menace.
Gov. Gavin Newsom said his executive order includes an extensive list of businesses, jobs and operations that are exempted from a new statewide requirementdirecting all Californians to stay at home amid the coronavirus outbreak.
The mandatory order allows Californians to continue to visit gas stations, pharmacies, grocery stores, farmers markets, food banks, convenience stores, takeout and delivery restaurants, banks and laundromats. People can leave their homes to care for a relative or a friend or seek healthcare services.
Daniel Dae Kim, Lana Condor, Mark Ruffalo, Henry Golding, George Takei, Celeste Ng and Jonathan Van Ness are among Hollywood stars who are taking to social media to denounce racism toward Asian Americans fueled by the coronavirus outbreak.
Kim, the “Lost” and “Hawaii Five-0” star, shed a light on the issue before and after revealing he tested positive for COVID-19. Prior to his Thursday announcement video, Kim explained on Twitter that he had originally been “silent in the face of the blatant acts of racism against Asian people” because “there have been so many it’s been too heartbreaking to comment on.”
The morning sun warmed the ground as golfers teed up Friday morning at Rancho Park Golf Course in Cheviot Hills. Golf carts zipped along the grass and balls soared out of the driving range stalls.
Beverlywood resident Ron Losch was getting ready to play 18 holes at Rancho Park, just as he does every week. He knew that Gov. Gavin Newsom had ordered Californians to stay home the night before.
“If we can take hikes, if we can go on walks, we can play golf,” Losch said. “They should leave it open. Otherwise, people will go insane.”
In the world of alternative weeklies, the foul-mouthed journalism genre that saw its heyday during the 1990s but which has struggled to adapt to the Internet age, the Stranger is the gold standard.
The Seattle paper long ago diversified its revenue stream with innovations — a ticketing service, film festivals, reader events, even the creation of a content management system — that helped the publication pivot away from relying solely on ads.
It was just a week ago that Felix Mohen landed in Florida, hopped in an Uber and headed straight for Ocean Drive, the famed South Beach promenade of open-air poolside bars, topless sunbathing and neon-lit Art Deco hotels across from 2½ miles of beaches that swell with thousands of revelers each March for spring break.
An 18-year-old French student enrolled at Hult International Business School in Cambridge, Mass., he came with four college friends for a quick escape from the winter in New England, where temperatures were still regularly below freezing.
While the world turns on Netflix for entertainment during the coronavirus crisis, the Los Gatos-based streaming giant is lending a helping hand to workers who’ve lost their jobs from production cancellations.
One of the most painful busts in the history of crude oil happened just six years ago when a sharp price drop cost 200,000 roughnecks, almost half the entire workforce, their jobs.
And now, the spread of the coronavirus coupled with an oil-price war between Russia and Saudi Arabia threatens to devastate the oil services industry and its workers once again.
Tens of thousands of Texans are being laid off across the state in places like the Permian Basin shale fields in West Texas as companies shut down their drilling rigs, according to Ryan Sitton, a state oil and gas regulator. Read more>>>
While the world turns on Netflix for entertainment during the coronavirus crisis, the Los Gatos-based streaming giant is lending a helping hand to workers who’ve lost their jobs from production cancellations.
Lawmakers race to reach coronavirus stimulus deal despite disagreements over checks to taxpayers
By Chris Megerian, Jennifer Haberkorn
WASHINGTON —The Senate and White House are scrambling to cut a deal on a potentially $1 trillion-plus stimulus plan to help the economy survive the COVID-19 pandemic, with a goal of reaching an agreement by Friday night.
President Trump said at a White House briefing that progress was being made and that he had recently spoken with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.).
“The Democrats are very much wanting something to happen, and the Republicans likewise are very much wanting something to happen,” he said. “There’s a tremendous spirit to get something done, so we’ll see what happens.” Read more>>>
Polls released over the last week have found that Democrats were much more likely than Republicans to see the coronavirus as a threat to the country’s health, to fear for their family’s well-being, to see major life changes ahead, and to think that the worst is yet to come. They were even more likely to look online for hand sanitizer. Read more>>>
The chairman of the California Coastal Commission, who recently tested positive for COVID-19, has been admitted to an intensive care unit, according to his family and staff.
At least one other person who attended the coastal commission meeting last week has since tested positive for COVID-19 and is currently isolated. All commissioners and commission staff are now self-isolating and monitoring their health for signs of illness.
“After experiencing worsening symptoms, Steve Padilla was admitted to UCSD Thornton Hospital ICU where he is receiving additional treatment, including a respirator to aid with difficulty breathing associated with COVID-19,” his daughter, Ashleigh Padilla, wrote in a statement late Thursday. Read more>>>
Huntington Beach doctor running drive-through testing
By Hillary Davis
Gloved, goggled and masked, Dr. Matthew Abinante walks out of an emergency exit with a medical assistant holding the door. The physician steps up to whatever car is idling and asks the driver to roll down the window enough for his or her arm to fit.
“Look straight ahead,” Abinante says, guiding a swab into the patient’s nostril. “Don’t cough.”
A few seconds later, he seals the swab in a biohazard bag. And it’s over. Within two or three days, the patient will know whether he or she has the coronavirus that causes COVID-19. Read more>>>
The San Francisco Bay Area called its coronavirus health order a “shelter in place” order; New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo avoided using that term to describe his own order to the public to “remain indoors to the greatest extent to protect physical and mental health.”
Is there a difference? Not really.
The Bay Area’s “shelter in place” order was already immediately defined as a “stay at home” order, meaning stay at home as much as possible but with certain exceptions, including going out for a walk or a jog, getting groceries or doing other essential activities, like working at a hospital. For most of the Bay Area, it did the job in communicating the urgency of the order, the strongest and first of its kind in the nation when it was ordered on Monday.
While some officials in other places criticized the wording as raising the specter of mass shootings or a nuclear attack, in most of the Bay Area, there wasn’t much criticism of the language locally. In the Bay Area, it has been used to tell residents to stay at home, for instance, when a wildfire was sweeping through and it was more safe to stay at home.Since then, some jurisdictions have avoided that phrase; Solano County called its version a “shelter at home” order.
“This is not ‘shelter in place’ like a school shooting, this is stay at home because you’re safer at home,” Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said of his own order instructing L.A. residents to stay home as much as possible.
What has coronavirus done to travel plans? Readers share heartbreak and hope
Japan. Italy. Mexico.
Spring break, wedding plans and family trips.
These are but some of the places and plans that had Times Travel readers packing and anticipating. Now, the novel coronavirus has derailed some of those plans.
But not all.
We asked readers about their plans, and they responded generously with their stories. Travel, for many, is not just a respite; it’s a way of life. Their stories remind us of the joy of travel — and the hope that the world will reopen to them in the coming months. Read more>>>
Shipboard sailors won’t be tested unless they meet CDC threshold, Navy says
By Andrew Dyer
SAN DIEGO —Navy sailors on ships at sea and in port won’t be tested for COVID-19 unless they meet the same benchmarks for testing as their civilian counterparts, according to Naval Medical Forces Pacific.
Those benchmarks, set by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, include a fever of at least 100.4 degrees, symptoms of acute respiratory illness and a connection with a known COVID-19 case or recent travel to a high-risk area, according to Regena Kowitz, a Naval Medical Forces Pacific spokeswoman.
Those measures will remain in place despite concerns that the virus can spread from people who are not showing symptoms, or whose symptoms are mild. Read more>>>
Third coronavirus cluster found in San Diego County
By San Diego Union-Tribune Staff
A third cluster of COVID-19 patients in San Diego was announced Thursday, as the local count of virus cases jumped from 80 to 105 and efforts to house vulnerable people in local hotels progressed.
It was the second day in a row that the region has set a single-day record for newly reported cases of novel coronavirus in the community.
Public health officials shed little light Thursday on the particulars of how the newest group of individuals were infected, saying only that the cluster’s illness was connected to travel. Read more>>>
LONDON — The British government is ordering all pubs, restaurants, movie theaters and gyms to close in sweeping new restrictions to fight the spread of coronavirus.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson said those venues, as well as nightclubs, theaters and leisure centers, should close Friday and not reopen until further notice. His advice to anyone considering one last trip out on Friday night: “Please don’t.”
Johnson said the situation would be reviewed every month to see if the measures can be relaxed.
Restaurants can continue to serve takeout food.
Britain has already asked people to avoid unnecessary contact with others and avoid pubs, restaurants and other venues, and urged Londoners to use public transport only for essential journeys. While many people have complied, some have not.
Officials unveiled a massive economic support package to protect workers through the coronavirus pandemic.
Treasury chief Rishi Sunak called the economic intervention an “unprecedented” response by a British government and that it is one of the most comprehensive in the world. It will involve for the first time in the history of the British state the government helping to pay the wages of those in the private sector.
Also announced: Support measures for those who have lost their jobs and for those who are self-employed. A series of taxes, including those on sales, have been deferred while a business interruption loan scheme, worth 330 billion pounds, will be interest free for 12 months.
As of Friday, Britain had recorded 177 deaths among people with the virus, 40 more than the day before.
“I think about our children who are growing up part of a generation — this will be their 9/11,” Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said in a news conference Thursday. “We have to explain this to them. We have to safeguard them. We have to hold them. I call it generation C, this generation that’s out there right now looking and feeling and wondering: Mom, Dad, whoever takes care of them, ‘What is this all about?’ And we need to step up for them.”
Here is advice from experts on how to help children understand what’s happening and cope with the changes around them: Read more>>>
In Alameda County, officials announced 247 people were being released from the Santa Rita Jail in Dublin. San Diego County officials have announced similar moves, as have San Francisco, San Mateo and other counties.
The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department has reduced its inmate population by 6% in the last three weeks and Dist. Atty. Jackie Lacey said her office would consider reducing bail for thousands of nonviolent offenders.
As of Thursday morning, there were no confirmed cases of the virus inside L.A. County jails, where the number of inmates was down to 16,017 inmates from 17,076 on Feb. 28. Read more>>>
GENEVA — The head of the World Health Organization has sent a message to young people about the new coronavirus: “You’re not invincible.”
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus says health officials are continuing to learn about the virus that causes COVID-19 disease. He said older people are hardest hit but “younger people are not spared.”
He said data from many countries shows people aged 50 and under make up a “significant proportion” of patients who need hospitalization.
“Today I have a message for young people: You’re not invincible,” Tedros said. “This virus could put you in hospital for weeks or even kill you. Even if you don’t get sick, the choices you make about where you go could be the difference.”
He also advised people to be mindful of mental health at a time of rising anxiety about the outbreak, offering some suggestions.
“Listen to music. Read a book or play a game, and try not to read or watch too much news if it makes you anxious,” Tedros said.
Illinois governor to issue shelter-in-place order, report says
By Dan Petrella, Gregory Pratt, Stacy St. Clair and Jamie Munks
Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker plans to issue a shelter-in-place order for the entire state starting Saturday, essentially commanding residents to stay in their homes as the officials take drastic measures to slow the spread of the coronavirus, sources told the Chicago Tribune.
Pritzker is expected to announce the directive at a 3 p.m. (Eastern) Friday news conference along with Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot. Details are still being worked out, sources said. Residents can still go to the grocery stores, put gas in their cars, take walks outside and make pharmacy runs.
All local roads, including the interstate highways and tollways, will remain open to traffic, as well. Illinois will be the second state to impose a shelter-in-place directive, after California Gov. Gavin Newsom issued one Thursday night. The San Francisco area was placed under one Tuesday.
A drive-through facility for coronavirus testing will open at a baseball stadium in Lake Elsinore this weekend.
Testing at the Lake Elsinore Diamond stadium will take place from 9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday and Sunday in parking lot C, Riverside County health officials announced in a news release. Those who want to be tested must have symptoms or a risk of exposure and must make an appointment by calling (800) 945-6171.
“This is going to take extreme measures, and it is our turn to step in and offer our support to ensure a coordinated and collaborative approach to best serve and protect all of Riverside County,” Lake Elsinore Mayor Brian Tisdale said in a statement. Lake Elsinore’s city manager declared a public emergency Tuesday. Read more>>>
TORONTO — Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says his government has received 500,000 applications for employment insurance compared to just 27,000 for the same week last year.
Trudeau says they are receiving a historic number of calls from concerned Canadians amid the pandemic.
Those laid off are able to access employment insurance. The criteria for those eligible was expanded earlier this week.
With so many of us being asked to work from home — and remain at home during nonwork hours — video games have become a source of entertainment and a way to connect. But it’s worth remembering that the way games play to a developer, to an avid player and to a newcomer are often extremely different. This was one lesson from the Game Developers Conference, which was expected to draw close to 30,000 people before the pandemic hit hard but instead had to live online only.
In conversations and game showcases that would have been presented in San Francisco this week , an underlying themed emerged: Games must be better at speaking to the unconverted.
It was somewhat of an accidental theme. Read more>>>
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump says the Department of Education will not enforce standardized testing requirements for students in elementary through high school for the current year.
Trump said students have already been through a lot with schools opening and closings.
He says his administration also has temporarily waived all interest on federally held student loans and he says he’s directed Education Secretary Besty DeVos to tell federal lenders to allow borrowers to suspend their student loans and loan payments, without penalty for at least the next 60 days.
This week, he launched LiveWire, a line of canned cocktails featuring his own recipes and ones from a slew of other local bartenders.
“Part of the reason I started LiveWire was to ensure financial stability for the bartenders involved,” Polsky said. “I’m letting them use their intellectual capital as opposed to their labor capital.” Read more>>>
Former White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer was spotted at the press conference this afternoon. He asked the President about reports of senators dumping stocks ahead of the pandemic.
Video: Trump takes two questions from.......Sean Spicer?
Coronavirus confinement is a great time to have a zombie movie on your resume. Just ask actor-comedians Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, who’ve revised a scene from their 2004 horror comedy “Shaun of the Dead” to suit current coronavirus protocols.
As far as PSAs go, it’s cute.
In the original, Pegg and Frost’s characters, Shaun and Ed, urgently make a plan together to rescue Shaun’s mom, whack his stepdad, rescue his ex-girlfriend and make it to a safe place where they can sit down and wait it out over a nice cup of tea — or perhaps a pint. Read more>>>
Trump halts most traffic on U.S. border with Mexico
By Eli Stokols, Kate Linthicum, Molly Hennessy-Fiske
WASHINGTON — The United States and Mexico have agreed to restrict all nonessential travel across their shared border in an effort to slow the spread of the coronavirus, President Trump said Friday, adding that he was invoking the Defense Production Act to increase output of badly needed medical supplies.
The tax filing deadline has been extended from April 15 to July 15, Trump added at the news conference, noting that people who have refunds due can still file early.
The border restrictions with Mexico, along with those with Canada that were announced Wednesday, “will protect the health of all three nations and reduce the incentive for a mass global migration that would vastly deplete the resources that are all needed,” Trump said.
“We are treating both borders equally ... northern and southern borders,” Trump said. Read more>>>
Within the first minute of Debbie Allen’s live Instagram dance class Wednesday, more than 14,000 people had already tuned in.
Standing alone in her Debbie Allen Dance Academy studio, the director and choreographer called out, “While all of us are dealing with this uncertainty … we will bring this light.”
Allen then began an energetic warmup with head rolls, hip circles and some virtual encouragement to the theme song of the 1982 TV series “Fame,” in which she starred. As more people from across the country and abroad logged in to take the class (or perhaps to watch from their couch), Allen taught simple choreography phrases to a playlist of pop hits by Mariah Carey, Beyoncé and Bruno Mars. Read more>>>
But there I was — 17 weeks pregnant with my first child — with tears streaming down my face as I stood among a crowd of anxious shoppers in a Long Beach Target. I had tried to push down that all-too-familiar lump that rises in my throat before the tears began, but a mix of hormones and coronavirus-induced anxiety proved too much.
My colleagues at The Times have written extensively about the apprehension surrounding the outbreak, including people flocking to stores to stockpile food and other essentials. So when my husband and I walked into the store that day, we expected certain aisles would be empty. I didn’t anticipate nearly all the infant Tylenol would be gone. Read more>>>
WASHINGTON —Facing calls for his resignation over the selling of hundreds of thousands of dollars in stocks weeks before the market crashed, the Senate Intelligence Committee chair has asked congressional investigators to probe whether his actions amounted to insider trading.
Republican Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina, who as the Intelligence committee chair was sitting in on regular confidential briefings about the corornavirus, sold his stocks even as he publicly downplayed the risk of the outbreak to voters. Burr sold as much as $1.72 million, records show, with large amounts in companies that later would be slammed in the market selloff.
The senator’s stock sales, revealed in public disclosures that lawmakers are required to file, were first reported by ProPublica. Read more>>>
Players on 40-man rosters were given three options: remain where their clubs hold spring training — in Arizona or Florida — travel to their club’s base city or travel home.
Some major leaguers — and, left with little choice, nearly all minor leaguers — elected to return home to wait out the crisis. Home for the majority of players is the United States. Home for many more is in Latin America, where the spread of the coronavirus, weeks behind the U.S., could overwhelm the region’s countries and territories. And home for a handful of players are countries in Asia and Europe, where the virus has spread. There have been an array of responses. Read more>>>
ALBANY, N.Y.— New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Friday he is ordering all workers in nonessential businesses to stay home and banning gatherings statewide.
The Democratic governor took the dramatic actions as confirmed cases in New York climbed to more than 7,000. Cuomo reported that the state’s number of fatalities had increased to 35. Johns Hopkins University, which has been tallying deaths globally, put the state’s fatality count at 38.
“We’re going to close the valve, because the rate of increase in the number of cases portends a total overwhelming of our hospital system,” Cuomo said at a news conference.
Nonessential gatherings of individuals of any size or for any reason are canceled or postponed. Cuomo also mandated that all people should stay at least 6 feet away from other people when they are out in public.
And only essential businesses can have workers commuting to the job or on the job, Cuomo said.
The rules will take effect Sunday evening. The executive order he will sign Friday tightens previous work-from-home exemptions that exempted businesses providing certain services, including media, warehouses, grocery and food production facilities, pharmacies, health care providers, utilities and banks.
Cuomo said people can still go out for solitary exercise to protect their physical and mental health.
“You can’t say to someone, You must be locked in your apartment 24 hours a day for the foreseeable future.′ Look what you’re saying to people. This could be going on for months,” he said.
Disney has announced the early digital release of yet another title amid the coronavirus outbreak. Pixar’s “Onward,” featuring the voices of Tom Holland and Chris Pratt, will be available for digital download in the United States Friday night before landing April 3 on Disney+.
The surprise comes less than a month after the highly anticipated film hit theaters on March 6. Due to widespread public health concerns and cinema closures, the pandemic has heavily disrupted the openings of “Onward” and many other projects. Read more>>>
An NBC News employee has died after testing positive for the coronavirus.
In a memo sent Friday to staff, NBC News Chairman Andy Lack said longtime audio technician Larry Edgeworth died on Thursday after being diagnosed earlier in the week. His age was not disclosed.
Lack said Edgeworth had worked at NBC for 25 years out of its Rockefeller Center headquarters in Manhattan. According to his wife Crystal, Edgeworth suffered from other health issues that made him vulnerable to the virus.
The surreal scenes of 40-million Californians staying at home
By L.A. Times Staff
The lights are on but the Santa Monica Pier is closed to the public on Thursday, Mar. 19. Gov. Gavin Newson has ordred California residents to stay home as a precaution against the spread of the coronavirus.
(Luis Sinco/Luis Sinco)
Gov. Gavin Newsom has ordered Californians to stay at home, the first mandatory restrictions placed on all 40 million of the state’s residents in the fight against the novel coronavirus.
With businesses and popular destinations throughout the Southland closed, Los Angeles Times visual journalist Luis Sinco documented the surreal scenes.
A disaster foretold: Shortages of ventilators and other medical supplies have long been warned about
By Noam N. Levey, Kim Christensen, Anna M. Phillips
WASHINGTON —Fear was growing in hospitals across the country in 2009 as a frightening epidemic that came to be called the H1N1 swine flu swept across the globe.
From Galveston, Texas, where a hospital ran out of test kits, to Loma Linda University Medical Center in San Bernardino, which had to set up tents to handle a crush of patients, to New York, where hospitals scrambled to bring on extra emergency staff, it appeared the nation’s healthcare system would be overwhelmed.
The worst did not materialize. The lesson, though, was clear: The nation needed larger caches of standby medical supplies and hospitals that were better prepared to handle a surge of infected patients. Read more>>>
In a letter to Congress, the leaders of the National Governors Assn., citing the “significant and costly” steps states and territories have taken to curb the spread of the coronavirus, are asking for $150 billion in federal aid.
“Providing aid directly to states and territories gives governors the flexibility they need to try innovative approaches to protect a wide range of services such as: addressing the increase in unemployment, minimizing the economic impact of business closures, ensuring all students have access to education, meeting the child care and housing needs of residents, and maintaining public transportation and social welfare programs,” the group’s chairman, Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, and vice chair, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, wrote.
The governors also called on Congress to increase the federal share of Medicaid funding for states by adjusting the Federal Medical Assistance Percentage (FMAP) to levels seen during the great recession in 2009. They also urged Congress to eliminate the Medicaid Fiscal Accountability Rule.
Californians always rise to the occasion in troubled times, and so they have in the age of coronavirus. Across such platforms online platforms as NextDoor, we see people offering to help quarantined neighbors. On other social media, encouraging words and bits of humor are shared. On that all-important grocery store run, a stranger cedes the last rolls of toilet paper to someone else.
We’d like to hear more about the acts of kindness, small and large, that you’ve seen or have performed. They are the network of hope that may come to define this era as one of kinship and kindness.
Fill out the form below (first and last name, please) and tell us about those life-affirming moments. Share your photos too. You can also email your response to travel@latimes.com or leave a comment at the bottom of this story.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Friday that the Trump administration has decided to push the income tax filing date to July 15 from April 15.
California announced a similar move regarding state taxes Wednesday, citing the coronavirus pandemic.
Mnuchin announced the federal decision in a tweet saying that at President Trump’s direction “we are moving Tax Day from April 15 to July 15. All taxpayers and businesses will have this additional time to file and make payments without interest or penalties.”
At @realDonaldTrump’s direction, we are moving Tax Day from April 15 to July 15. All taxpayers and businesses will have this additional time to file and make payments without interest or penalties.
The administration had announced earlier in the week that it would delay the payments, a move that Mnuchin said would leave $300 billion in the economy at a critical time.
“We’re going to see an increase in positive cases today, tomorrow and for the foreseeable future,” L.A. County Public Health Department Director Dr. Barbara Ferrer said. “We cannot stop the spread of COVID-19. All of our strategies are aimed at slowing the spread.”
Los Angeles County on Wednesday confirmed 46 new cases of the novel coronavirus, including eight in Long Beach and two in Pasadena. The new cases bring the county’s total to 190. All new patients have been isolated, and their close contacts are being quarantined. Officials are hoping the extraordinary regulations that closed dine-in restaurants, curtailed public gatherings and shuttered schools and bars will slow the spread. Read more>>>
As U.S. scientists race to stave off a tidal wave of COVID-19 patients, they are showing renewed interest in a little-known medicine with ancient roots and many modern applications: convalescent plasma.
It’s medicine now coursing through the veins of at least 86,690 people in China and elsewhere, all of whom have joined a fraternity of potentially powerful healers. These are people who have been infected with the novel coronavirus and survived.
Scientists believe the antibodies generated by these recovered patients’ immune systems will protect them from reinfection, at least for a while. Read more>>>
U.S. stock indexes were mixed in early trading Friday, shedding some of their gains from a day earlier as Wall Street rounded out another turbulent week.
After an initial upward move as trading opened, the major indexes were wavering between small gains and losses. Around 7:15 a.m. Pacific time, the Dow Jones industrial average was up 0.3% and the Standard & Poor’s 500 index essentially flat. The Nasdaq, heavily weighted with technology stocks, was up 1.4%.
Following several punishing drops, the indexes are still on track for heavy weekly losses for the second week in a row. Investors are weighing the likelihood that the global economy is entering a recession because of the massive shutdowns and layoffs caused by the coronavirus outbreak against steps by central banks and governments to ease the economic pain. Read more>>>
The team behind Andrew Lloyd Webber took to Twitter to ask which song from his mega-selling musical catalog his legions of fans would like him to perform. The answer came back “All I Ask of You” from “The Phantom of the Opera.” Sir Andrew graciously obliged.
With us all spending a bit more time at home, which ALW musical number would you like to see Andrew play? - #TeamALWpic.twitter.com/OcIuE27hk9
Of all the semi-impromptu performances that have erupted on the internet since COVID-19 locked us inside our homes, Lloyd Webber’s offering is the one that brought me closest to tears. “Phantom,” my dad’s favorite musical, has never been my most cherished show. But the sound of this Puccini-esque waterfall momentarily eased the clenched state I didn’t even know I was in. Read more>>>
As the coronavirus exploded around the world last week, people who work on the trading floor inside Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s Manhattan skyscraper caught fevers.
One of them, a managing director, rattled colleagues while trying to decide whether to stay at the office. The executive went home, came back to work Monday, then left again with chest pains. Meanwhile, an associate who woke up with a fever worried about letting down bosses but stayed away.
This wasn’t a Goldman Sachs problem. Wall Street’s nonstop aggressiveness is clashing with the demands of a deadly pandemic. As government officials, doctors and companies tell people around the world to stay home, interviews with bankers and traders inside the industry’s giants show many feel torn between public health and private profit. Read more>>>
The Scripps National Spelling Bee won’t be held as scheduled this year because of the coronavirus.
Scripps informed The Associated Press of its decision Friday morning, citing recommendations against large gatherings by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the ongoing state of emergency in Maryland.
The bee was scheduled for the week of May 24 at its longtime venue, a convention center in Oxon Hill, Maryland, just outside Washington.
Scripps said it would try to reschedule the bee for later this year but it did not commit to a new date. It’s possible the bee won’t be held at all.
Rescheduling would potentially require adjustments to eligibility rules and qualifying. Some local and regional bees have been postponed because of the virus, preventing spellers from qualifying for nationals. And the bee has historically been open to students only through the eighth grade. A bee held this fall would presumably include ninth-graders.
I cooked dinner at home last night for the first time in months.
It’s not that I don’t enjoy cooking — I’m a competent if unimaginative cook, with more cookbooks than time to use them all. I stopped cooking regularly five years ago when I came on as the restaurant critic at the Phoenix New Times, the scrappy alt-weekly newspaper in Arizona that once got dragged to court for publishing the home address of Sheriff Joe Arpaio on its cover.
That job taught me many small but important lessons: When you spend four or five nights a week eating in restaurants, you should cease buying a week’s supply of fresh produce (there will never be enough time to cook and eat them all). Leftovers can easily be converted into a terrific breakfast (throw a runny egg on it). Always tip more than seems necessary, especially if you just ordered half the menu. And never assume you know who’s going to show up for dinner (once I spotted “Show Me Your Papers” Arpaio himself inhaling a combo platter at Comedor Guadalajara in south Phoenix). Read more>>>
Watching animals helps. A lot. Here are the best webcams
By Terry Gardner
With the coronavirus crisis shuttering favorite places, there has never been a better time to take a virtual trip, whether you want to see wildlife at an aquarium or zoo, or appreciate art.
Before you “go,” remember than wildlife may not appear when you tune in (that’s what videos are for). Just like domestic cats, their wild counterparts appear only when it suits them. Here are places easy to visit from an armchair as well as virtual visits around California and the West. Read more>>>
“The Hunt” should have been Betty Gilpin’s big Hollywood breakthrough, but then a lot of things were different a year ago, a month ago and even last week. With it the actress stars in her meatiest film role to date, in a career that took off three years ago when she began playing soap actress-turned-pro wrestler Debbie Eagan on the Netflix series “GLOW.”
The 2,400 employees at MicroStrategy Inc. make and sell analytics software from the publicly traded company’s offices in Tysons Corner, Va., Toronto and elsewhere. On Monday, everyone received a three-page memo from the chief executive, Michael Saylor, urging the staff to “run toward the crisis, not away from it.” The message compared the global spread of the new coronavirus to the flu, an analogy that has been repeatedly contradicted by health experts.
Even in the middle of a national emergency that has prompted authorities across the U.S. to try to prevent gatherings larger than 10 people, MicroStrategy told its employees to be at their desks.
“If we wish to maintain our productivity, we need to continue working in these offices,” Saylor wrote. “It is soul-stealing and debilitating to embrace the notion of social distancing and economic hibernation.” (MicroStrategy did not respond to requests for comment. After being contacted by Bloomberg, Saylor sent a message to employees saying his initial memo was “off-the-mark” and encouraged remote work.) Read more>>>
Delivery, child care and other gig jobs are open amid unemployment caused by coronavirus
By Kathy Kristof
Thousands of people are getting furloughed as companies and schools all over the country cancel events, restrict travel and shutter campuses to slow the spread of the new coronavirus. For those without a safety net, such as paid time off or a healthy emergency fund, these actions can cause devastating financial pain.
The good news is that many organizations are also enlisting independent contract workers. If you’re not worried about getting sick, these are places where you may be able to find work quickly. Read more>>>
‘What happens if I end up on a ventilator?’ — Doctors, nurses brace for coronavirus onslaught
By Emily Baumgaertner, Soumya Karlamangla
As hospitals prepare for a possibly overwhelming number of COVID-19 patients in the coming weeks, doctors and nurses in all departments are being told they may have to start working in emergency rooms and intensive care units, a directive that has sent shock waves through the medical community.
Health workers say they are concerned about their ability to perform duties they haven’t done in decades, or perhaps ever, as well as for their own health and safety.
“Anxiety is an understatement. I’d be terrified,” said a surgical nurse at California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco. There, a looming staff shortage caused by COVID-19 could mean a labor pool to redistribute nurses to the intensive care unit, she said.
“No reasonable person would ever expect me to do that under normal circumstances,” said the nurse, who, like others interviewed for this article, spoke on condition of anonymity because she was not authorized to speak to the media. Read more>>>
The most familiar observation about the human reaction to abject terror is the one stating that “there are no atheists in foxholes.”
We’re about to see how that aphorism applies in modern American politics.
In recent days, alarm about the economic effect of the novel coronavirus have turned conservatives who weeks ago were boasting about the shrinking of the U.S. government into raving Keynesians, proclaiming the virtues of deficit-financed economic stimulus. Read more>>>
It’s happened at schools, stores and offices, warehouses and city halls: Someone who might be infected with the coronavirus passes through.
The building often closes. Then come the calming words: deep cleaning.
The idea is that a thorough cleaning and disinfecting could help prevent people from getting sick. The virus is spread mainly through person-to-person contact, though people can also catch it from droplets exhaled when an infected person coughs or sneezes. Those droplets can stick to surfaces, and the virus can survive for hours or days, according to health officials. Read more>>>
TORONTO — A union official says Air Canada is laying off more than 5,000 flight attendants as the country’s largest airline cuts routes and parks planes amid the pandemic.
Wesley Lesosky, who heads the Air Canada component of the Canadian Union of Public Employees, says the carrier is laying off about 3,600 mainline employees as well as all 1,549 flight attendants at Rouge, Air Canada’s discount brand.
He say the layoffs will take effect by April and affect roughly 60 percent of flight attendants at the two segments.
Air Canada says the layoffs are temporary and employees will be returned to active duty status when the airline is able to ramp up its network schedule.
The Montreal-based company said Wednesday it will suspend the majority of its international and U.S. flights by March 31.
LONDON — Britain is asking 65,000 retired nurses and doctors to return to work to help fight the coronavirus.
The government is sending letters to 50,000 former nurses and 15,000 retired doctors, and Health Secretary Matt Hancock said he hoped “many, many thousands will respond” to the appeal. He said volunteers would be given training over the next few weeks before being allocated to hospitals.
Final-year nursing and medical students could also be drafted to bolster health care staff.
Britain’s coronavirus outbreak is not expected to peak for several weeks. Already, some hospitals have complained about overworked staff and shortages of ventilators and protective equipment such as face masks.
The U.K. has 3,269 confirmed cases of COVID-19, and 144 people have died.
The first flights with the medical equipment from China landed in Prague.
Interior Minister Jan Hamacek said the 1.1 million respirators that were taken to the Czech capital by the China Eastern airline will be distributed to hospitals and other parts of the health sector.
Interior Minister Jan Hamacek says more flights are coming. Another plane is scheduled to arrive on Saturday with 7 million face masks. Also Saturday, Ukraine’s giant transport An-124 Ruslan plane will bring over 106 metric tons (117 tons) of the equipment, including 2 million of respirators, 5 million face masks, 80,000 pairs of glasses and 120,000 protective suits.
Prime Minister Andrej Babis says he “hopes this will calm the situation down.”
Travelers wearing masks make their way through the Tom Bradley International Terminal at Los Angeles International Airport this month.
(Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times)
California public health officials have repeatedly warned over the last decade that federal budget cuts were weakening their ability to respond to a widespread health crisis like the current coronavirus pandemic.
Despite the warnings, elected leaders cut millions of dollars in federal grants and other funding to California state and county health agencies, reducing the number of medical workers, including epidemiologists, and jeopardizing the ability to do lab tests and quickly set up mobile hospitals, according to interviews and records reviewed by The Times.
The budget woes have left California desperate for more resources, including test kits and hospital beds.
A year ago, Riverside County Public Health Director Kim Saruwatari warned state lawmakers at a public hearing that the staff and budget cuts would be a serious problem in the face of an emergency such as a pandemic.
Financial advisors thought they’d seen it all. But with coronavirus, they’re in uncharted territory
Even for financial advisors who have lived through Black Monday in 1987, the dot-com bust and the global financial crisis of 2008, the coronavirus-induced market meltdown is uncharted territory.
On the front lines of investing, these advisors have been trying to guide their clients in fathoming the gut-wrenching market correction.
For every panic-stricken retiree who’s seen his or her budget implode, there are market timers poised to put their cash to work, they say.
Here’s how they’re shepherding clients through the crisis.
Congressional leaders could shut the Capitol down and move operations online as coronavirus spreads through the once-crowded, close-talking halls of Congress, leaving two House members infected so far and many more in quarantine.
Proposals are swiftly being drafted to have lawmakers patch in for votes and debate from afar, raising a question Washington has pondered over the years but never before so directly confronted: Is a virtual Congress possible?
“It’s time for us to turn to this,” said Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), speaking on the Senate floor Thursday after unveiling a bipartisan resolution to allow for remote voting.
“We have the ability to do it in a secure way, an encrypted way, in a way that would protect the fundamental right to vote, and I think it’s important we move forward.”
Global stock markets and U.S. futures rose Friday on hopes government and central bank action can shield the world economy from a looming recession caused by the coronavirus.
London and Frankfurt opened more than 4% higher and Shanghai, Hong Kong and other Asian markets advanced. Seoul surged 7.4%.
On Wall Street, the future for the benchmark S&P 500 index rose 2.8% and that for the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 3.2%. The S&P 500 gained 0.5% on Thursday in a relatively modest change after wild price swings over the past week.
Hopes are rising that there will be progress in finding virus treatments and that “a boatload of stimulus by both central banks and governments will put the global economy in position for a U-shaped recovery,” said Edward Moya of Oanda in a report.
Records show that Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) and his wife sold as much as $1.7 million in stocks in more than 30 separate transactions in late January and mid-February.
(Associated Press)
Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.) sold as much as $1.7 million in stocks just before the market dropped in February amid fears about the coronavirus epidemic.
Senate records show that Burr and his wife sold between roughly $600,000 and $1.7 million in more than 30 separate transactions in late January and mid-February, just before the market began to fall and as government health officials began to issue stark warnings about the effects of the virus. Several of the stocks were in companies that own hotels.
The stock sales were first reported by ProPublica and the Center for Responsive Politics. Most of them came on Feb. 13, just before Burr made a speech in North Carolina in which he predicted severe consequences from the virus, including closed schools and cutbacks in company travel, according to audio obtained by National Public Radio and released Thursday.
They live in overcrowded facilities, sometimes jammed into tiny spaces in groups of three. Sanitary conditions can be an afterthought. Social distancing is rarely an option.
For the nearly 2.3 million people held in prisons and jails nationwide and the guards who work inside, a scramble is underway to prevent the coronavirus from seeping within.
In letters to the U.S. Department of Justice and local leaders, the ACLU has called for the immediate release of inmates whose sentences would be completed within the next two years and who fall within a category deemed as particularly vulnerable: over the age 65 or having an underlying condition. In the letter dated March 18, the American Civil Liberties Union also asked local law enforcement to temporarily stop arresting people for minor offenses and instead issue citations. Those in jail on low-level nonviolent offenses should be released, according to the letter.
“The urgency of deliberate and thoughtful action,” the letter reads, “cannot be overstated.”
Here are the new rules as Newsom orders all Californians to stay at home
Gov. Gavin Newsom’s sweeping order for Californians to stay home to slow the spread of the coronavirus outbreak will dramatically restrict public movement.
The governor’s office provided a list of how the order will play out:
In a dramatic bid to slow the spread of the coronavirus, Los Angeles County and city officials announced new orders Thursday that severely restrict public movements.
The Los Angeles County order requires all indoor malls, shopping centers, playgrounds and nonessential retail businesses to close and prohibits gatherings of more than 10 people in enclosed spaces.
The city of Los Angeles order is much more restrictive. It requires all nonessential businesses to close, with companies able to operate only through work-at-home arrangements. The order also bans all public gatherings of any size outside homes.
“All businesses, including museums, malls, retail stores, for-profit companies and nonprofit organizations, must stop operations that require workers to be present in person,” Garcetti said. “No public and private gatherings of any size that would occur outside of a single home will be allowed, with clear exceptions.”
Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday ordered all Californians to stay at home, marking the first mandatory restrictions placed on the lives of all 40 million residents in the state’s fight against the novel coronavirus.
The governor’s action comes at a critical time in California, where 19 people have died and an additional 958 have tested positive for the disease.
The mandatory order allows Californians to continue to visit gas stations, pharmacies, grocery stores, farmers markets, food banks, convenience stores, take-out and delivery restaurants, banks and laundromats. People can leave their homes to care for a relative or a friend or seek health care services.
No time frame was set for when the order would end.
The “safer at home” emergency order just announced by Los Angeles County and the cities within its borders at a Thursday evening news conference requires all indoor malls, shopping centers, playgrounds and nonessential retail businesses to close effective midnight tonight through at least April 19.
Allowed to operate — as long as they observe proper social-distancing guidelines and do not include more than 10 people in one place — are a list of essential services including city and county government services, grocery stores, hardware stores and, wait for it, cannabis dispensaries.
Unlike the confusion surrounding cannabis businesses in the Bay Area “shelter in place” order that was announced Monday (which had dispensaries closing only to open the next day after a handful of cities — including San Francisco and San Jose — clarified that they could remain open), the city of Los Angeles’ coronavirus FAQ lists as essential healthcare services “cannabis dispensaries, or any related and/or ancillary healthcare services.”
It was an unusual scene Thursday in the ordinarily staid chambers of federal court: Local officials lined up to have a judge grill them about finding as many beds as possible to quickly get homeless people off the streets of Los Angeles County amid the coronavirus outbreak.
The emergency hearing was called by U.S. District Judge David O. Carter for a lawsuit filed last week by the L.A. Alliance for Human Rights, a group of business owners, downtown residents and others who are demanding solutions to what they call unsafe and inhumane conditions in encampments.
Skid row advocacy groups also are involved in the case, worried that any decision could undermine a previous settlement related to the personal property rights of homeless people.
No decisions about the lawsuit were made Thursday, but the extraordinary two-part, nearly five-hour session featured an array of Los Angeles leaders, including Mayor Eric Garcetti, City Atty. Mike Feuer, Police Chief Michel Moore,county Supervisor Kathryn Barger and City Council President Nury Martinez.
In 1632, when the bubonic plague was spreading death across Europe and killed at least one member of every family in a small Bavarian Alpine town, distraught villagers in Oberammergau made a vow to God to perform a Passion play depicting the death and resurrection of Christ if their lives could be spared.
As the legend goes, no further deaths were recorded and the Passionspiele — reenacting the end of the life of Jesus — has been staged every decade, or 41 times, since 1634.
The coronavirus pandemic has now forced the cancellation of the 2020 edition — a total of 109 five-hour-long performances scheduled to run from May 16 to October 4. Officials announced Thursday that the world-famous open-air production, which features 2,500 residents from the town of 5,400, would be postponed two years, to May 2022.
The city of Los Angeles on Thursday released the locations of 13 recreation centers that will become temporary shelters for homeless people as the coronavirus pandemic continues to grow.
The shelters will open Friday, and the city’s Department of Recreation and Parks is preparing gymnasiums, finalizing 24-hour schedules for employees and ordering supplies.
Beds will be placed 6 1/2 feet apart, department spokeswoman Ashley Rodriguez said, but she couldn’t immediately say how many would be provided.
“The department will provide beds, offer personal hygiene kits and make showers accessible,” Rodriguez said. “Meals will be provided with the support from other government agencies and nonprofit organizations.”
Mayor Eric Garcetti’s latest citywide mandate imposes an even stricter set of restrictions on daily life in Los Angeles than the one issued Sunday night — and it almost certainly means the end of business for good for many restaurants and bars.
Thursday evening’s announcement that the city would be placed under a “Safer at Home” ordinance — essentially, a modified version of the “shelter-in-place” guidelines already in effect in the Bay Area — extended the date that restaurants are prohibited from allowing diners to eat in: The new restrictions are in place through April 19, from an original order of March 31.
Although Angelenos are allowed to go to “essential businesses, such as grocery stores, and to pick up takeout food at restaurants,” that 19-day extension will suffocate restaurants and other food-service businesses, depriving them of revenue essential to covering fixed costs such as rent. Restaurant workers, most of whom found themselves out of work on Sunday at midnight, will be without income for even longer.
This week, as chefs struggled to transition their businesses to survive only on revenue from takeout and delivery, many warned that although they might be able to hold on until the end of the month, they wouldn’t be able to be financially viable beyond that.
Evelin Pineda, her brother and her friends pause for a selfie prior to the flight cancelations and border closures.
(Evelin Pineda)
While vacationing, Evelin Pineda learned Peru’s president haddeclared a national emergencybecause of the coronavirus, and she made a desperate attempt to get back home to California.
Pineda, her brother and two friends hired a private driver to take them from Cusco to Lima, the capital, some 18 hours away. They’d hoped it would be easier to catch a flight back to Los Angeles from there, but it did not work out.
President Martín Vizcarra’s declaration Sunday night of a 15-day nationwide state of emergency and border closure became effective at the end of the next day.
The announcement came as Peru had 71 confirmed cases of COVID-19. Since then, the number of cases in the country has climbed to at least 234, with one confirmed death, according to the federal government.
Some travelers said they were unable to leave the country because there was not enough time to make arrangements from when the government made its announcement to when all international travel was suspended to help contain the spread of the coronavirus.
Pineda, 28, of Whittier, Calif., and the others in her group were among hundreds of U.S. citizens who found themselves with no way to leave.
A photo of Dr. Li Wenliang is displayed during a vigil on Feb. 7. Wenliang was officially reprimanded for warning about the coronavirus outbreak and later died of the disease.
The party’s top disciplinary body said the police force in Wuhan had revoked its admonishment of Dr. Li Wenliang that had included a threat of arrest.
It also said a “solemn apology” had been issued to Li’s family and that two police officers, identified only by their surnames, had been issued “disciplinary punishments” for the original handling of the matter.
In death, Li became the face of simmering anger at the ruling Communist Party’s controls over information and complaints that officials lie about or hide disease outbreaks, industrial accidents, natural disasters and financial frauds, while punishing whistleblowers and independent journalists.
After seeing thousands of new cases daily at the peak of the city’s outbreak a month ago, Wuhan on Friday had its second consecutive day with no new confirmed or suspected cases.
