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Friday, May 15

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CDC RELEASES WATERED DOWN REOPENING GUIDANCE U.S. health officials released long-delayed guidance that schools, businesses and other organizations can use as states reopen from coronavirus shutdowns. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention posted six one-page “decision tool” documents that use traffic signs and other graphics to tell organizations what they should consider before reopening. The tools are for schools, workplaces, camps, child care centers, mass transit systems, and bars and restaurants. [AP]

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TRUMP: TESTING IS 'OVERRATED' President Donald Trump griped about the pressure he’s facing to increase the ability to test people for the coronavirus, saying that testing might be “overrated” anyway. “We have the best testing in the world. Could be that testing is, frankly, overrated. Maybe it is overrated,” Trump said during a visit to Owens & Minor, a medical supply company in Allentown, Pennsylvania, that distributes masks and other products.“ Trump did not wear a mask during his visit, nor did his chief of staff, Mark Meadows. Everyone else did. [HuffPost]

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REPUBLICANS: THAT'S ENOUGH RELIEF FOR NOW The U.S. keeps shedding jobs by the millions, a deepening economic collapse that has the Federal Reserve pleading with Congress to keep its foot on the gas in providing Americans additional fiscal relief amid the coronavirus pandemic. But to many Republicans, the daunting situation calls for introspection and no further legislative action on major programs to help people struggling to make ends meet. Since returning to Washington two weeks ago, the Republican-controlled Senate has done no legislating directly related to the coronavirus pandemic. [HuffPost]

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Get the latest coronavirus updates on our dedicated page

WHISTLEBLOWER DOC: NO NATIONAL PLAN Dr. Rick Bright, the whistleblower abruptly fired after pushing back against the Trump administration, described an urgent need to develop a national plan to combat the coronavirus to avoid disastrous overlap with the regular flu season. Failure to do so will be “devastating for our health care systems,” he said in congressional testimony. “I believe we could have done better ... I believe there were critical steps we did not take in time,” he added. Trump has faced relentless criticism for his administration’s delay in forming a coherent federal response to the crisis. [HuffPost]

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MCCONNELL ON OBAMA: 'I CLEARLY MADE A MISTAKE' Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he was wrong to claim former President Barack Obama didn’t leave a “game plan” to deal with a pandemic when he left the White House to President Donald Trump. “I was wrong,” McConnell told Fox News’ Bret Baier. “They did leave behind a plan, so I clearly made a mistake in that regard. As to whether or not the plan was followed, or who’s the critic and all the rest, I don’t have any observation about that because I don’t know enough about the details.” [HuffPost]

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WOMAN MARRIES MAN WHO SAVED HER IN VEGAS SHOOTING 

Austin Monfort didn’t make the best first impression when he met Chantal Melanson at a Las Vegas country bar in September 2017. “I was with my girls and I gave him a hard time for not wearing cowboy boots at a country bar,” Melanson, 29, said. Despite that setback, Monfort, 24, did enough right that Melanson asked him to meet her the next night at a country music festival outside the Mandalay Bay Hotel. That’s where a gunman opened fire on 22,000 concertgoers from his room, killing at least 58 people and injuring hundreds. Monfort’s first instinct was to protect Melanson. [HuffPost]

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BALTIMORE'S MOST-HATED COP AND ME This is an All-American story about two kids from the east side of Baltimore. There’s me, D., a Black man straight outta the guts of systemic poverty, smothered by racism, educated in a stereotypical collection of dilapidated schools and nourished in a literal food desert where salads for dinner meant a four mile trip from home. I was raised in the crack era. The other is Danny Hersl. He was one of six kids, and he lost his father when he was only 7. He took it rough, but he had four brothers and a sister and, with the support of their tight-knit community, the Hersl made it through. [HuffPost]

WHAT'S BREWING

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CDC ISSUES ALERT ABOUT COVID-19 IN KIDS AS TRUMP PUSHES TO OPEN SCHOOLS Surging cases of a mysterious illness in children linked to COVID-19 has triggered an alert by the CDC warning physicians what to look out for. Seventeen states have reported cases of what’s now labeled multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C), which has been fatal in rare instances. New York has reported 102 cases. Three of the children died. The troubling news comes as Trump is pushing for schools to reopen. [HuffPost]

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GRAHAM'S NEW PROBE OF FLYNN COULD TARGET BIDEN Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said his Judiciary Committee is about to launch an investigation into the FBI probe of booted national security adviser Michael Flynn — and take a new look at Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. The hearings could end up targeting Democratic presidential front-runner Joe Biden. But Graham pushed back on Trump's demand that Obama be called to testify about the mysterious “Obamagate” issue that Trump has been yapping about to distract his base from his coronavirus bungling. [HuffPost]

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4TH USDA FOOD INSPECTOR DIES A fourth food safety inspector for the U.S. Department of Agriculture has died of COVID-19 as cases continue to surge at meat processing plants across the nation. About 10,000 COVID-19 cases have been linked to workers at the plants and their contacts. The cases involve about 170 plants in 29 states. At least 30 workers have died. Of the 30 counties in the U.S. with the highest per capita COVID-19 cases last week, 10 have major meatpacking plants. [HuffPost]

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STATE GOVERNMENTS AREN'T DOING ENOUGH TO HELP RENTERS Times have not been good for American renters for a while, but they have never been this bad. In April, a quarter of tenants couldn’t pay their full rent; in May, the proportion has risen to nearly a third. With the economy still frozen and roughly 36 million newly unemployed workers in the last two months, June will likely see that percentage rise even higher. Government officials have attempted to address the crisis, but so far their efforts offer only partial relief. A temporary pause on evictions has protected millions of renters, but landlords have begun to find loopholes. [HuffPost]

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COVID-19 FOUND IN BANGLADESH CAMP HOLDING 1 MILLION The coronavirus has been detected in one of the southern Bangladesh camps that are home to more than a million Rohingya refugees, as humanitarian groups warned the infection could devastate the crowded settlement. An ethnic Rohingya refugee and another person have tested positive for COVID-19, a senior Bangladeshi official and a U.N. spokeswoman said. It was the first confirmed case in camps more densely populated than most crowded cities on Earth. Infections have been gathering pace in Bangladesh, which has reported 18,863 cases of COVID-19 and 283 deaths. [Reuters]

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100 PROMINENT HEALTH OFFICIALS SIGN OPEN LETTER TO MAKE MASKS MANDATORY More than 100 prominent health officials have signed an open letter urging governors to make wearing cloth masks in public mandatory, citing a “preponderance of evidence” they greatly reduce the transmissibility of COVID-19. The letter was written by Jeremy Howard, a research scientist who has studied the efficacy of masks at length. Research suggests mask-wearing could effectively halt the spread of the virus ― but only if at least 80%, and ideally all people, wear them. [HuffPost]

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Illustrated PSA

The world is trying to cope with the coronavirus, from the serious to the mundane. We’re dealing with jamming full lives into one apartment or house, and trying to stay calm about a world full of an invisible virus. We’re trying to learn how to homeschool our kids, or to make bread for ourselves. It’s a whole new world, and HuffPost is launching a new illustrated series about how to live in it.

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Each week, we’ll feature an artist offering their vision for how to handle the world as it is today. We hope they make you think, make you smile, or just offer something to do other than staring wistfully out the windows.

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Click on the image to see a full-size version. See previous entries in the series here.

Illustration by Erik Carter

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