AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Stores in Texas can soon begin selling merchandise with curbside service, and hospitals can resume nonessential surgeries. In Florida, people are returning to beaches and parks. And protesters are clamoring for more.
Governors eager to rescue their economies and feeling heat from President Donald Trump are moving to ease restrictions meant to control the spread of the coronavirus, even as new hot spots emerge and experts warn that moving too fast could prove disastrous.
Adding to the pressure are protests against stay-at-home orders organized by small-government groups and Trump supporters. They staged demonstrations Saturday in several cities after the president urged them to “liberate” three states led by Democratic governors.
Protests were planned in Republican-led states, too, including at the the Texas Capitol and in front of the Indiana governor’s home. Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has already said that restrictions will begin easing next week. Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb — who signed an agreement with six other Midwestern states to coordinate reopening — said he would extend his stay-at-home order until May 1.
Meanwhile, infections kept surging in the Northeast.
Rhode Island, sandwiched between the hot spots of Massachusetts and New York, has seen a steady daily increase in the number of infections and deaths, with nursing home residents accounting for more than 90 of the state’s 118 deaths. The state’s death rate of around 10 people per 100,000 is among the highest per capita in the nation, according to data compiled by the COVID Tracking Project.
Massachusetts had its highest number of deaths in a single day on Friday with 159. Republican Gov. Charlie Baker said it would be premature for states to begin lifting restrictions when deaths are still climbing. Citing the advice of health experts, he said states should look for infection rates and hospitalizations to be on the decline for about two weeks before acting.
Trump, whose administration waited months to bolster stockpiles of key medical supplies and equipment, appeared to back protesters.
“LIBERATE MINNESOTA!” “LIBERATE MICHIGAN!” “LIBERATE VIRGINIA, ” Trump said in a tweet-storm in which he also lashed out at New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, for criticizing the federal response. Cuomo “should spend more time ‘doing’ and less time ‘complaining,’” the president said.
At his Saturday briefing with reporters, Cuomo cited more progress. The daily increase in deaths in New York state fell below 550 for the first time in more than two weeks as hospitalizations continued to decline.
But the crisis is far from over: Hospitals are still reporting nearly 2,000 new COVID-19 patients per day, and nursing homes remain a “feeding frenzy for this virus,” he said.
“We are not at a point when we are going to be reopening anything immediately,” Cuomo said.
In Texas, several hundred people rallied on steps of the state Capitol and called for an end to social restrictions. Many of the protesters sought an immediate lifting of restrictions and chanted “Let us work!” in a state where more than 1 million people have filed for unemployment since the crisis began.
The rally was organized by a host of Infowars, which is owned by conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who joined protesters on the Capitol steps. Jones is being sued in Austin over using his show to promote falsehoods that the 2012 Sandy Hook school massacre in Connecticut was a hoax.
The crowd included anti-vaccine activists and was no larger than a typical weekday rally over issues such as guns or teacher pay, when the Legislature is in session.
Elsewhere, a few hundred demonstrators cheered and waved signs outside the Statehouse in New Hampshire, which has had nearly 1,300 cases of the virus and more than three dozens deaths through Friday.
“Even if the virus were 10 times as dangerous as it is, I still wouldn’t stay inside my home. I’d rather take the risk and be a free person,” said one of the protesters, talk show host Ian Freeman.
Trump is pushing to relax the U.S. lockdown by May 1, a plan that hinges partly on more testing.
Public health officials said the ability to test enough people and trace contacts of those who are infected is crucial before easing up on restrictions, and that infections could surge anew unless people continue to take precautions.
In Asia, some nations that until recently appeared to have the outbreak under control, including Singapore and Japan, reported a fresh increase in cases Saturday.
Japan’s total case number rose above 10,000. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has voiced concern that people are not observing social distancing and announced a 100,000-yen ($930) cash handout to each resident as an incentive to stay home.
Singapore reported a sharp, one-day spike of 942 infections, the highest in Southeast Asia, mostly among foreign workers staying in crowded dormitories. That brought the total to almost 6,000 in the tiny city-state of 6 million.
In a joint statement Saturday, foreign ministers from 13 countries, including Canada, Brazil, Italy and Germany, called for global cooperation to lessen the economic impact of the pandemic.
“It is vital that we work together to save lives and livelihoods,” they said.
The statement was also backed by Britain, France Indonesia, Mexico, Morocco, Peru, South Korea, Singapore and Turkey. It said the countries were committed to “coordinate on public health, travel, trade, economic and financial measures in order to minimize disruptions and recover stronger.”
Those efforts include maintaining “air, land and marine transportation links” to ensure the continued flow of goods including medical equipment and aid, and the return home of travelers, they said after a virtual meeting late Friday.
There have been tentative signs that measures to curb the outbreak are working, with the rate of new infections slowing across Europe.
France and Spain started dismantling some field hospitals, while in Germany the number of active cases has slowly declined over the past week as people recover.
France’s national health agency said Saturday that the number of virus patients in intensive care dropped for the 10th day straight, and the number of overall virus hospitalizations has fallen for three consecutive days. The country has seen almost 20,000 virus deaths.
The agency urged the French public to stick to the country’s strict confinement measures, which have been extended until at least May 11: “Together, we will vanquish the pandemic. Don’t relax our efforts at the moment when confinement is bearing fruit.”
Spain’s children have been confined to their homes for five weeks, prompting some parents to ask that they be to allowed to at least take a daily walk. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said the government will seek to extend the state of emergency to May 9 but will start easing the total confinement of children beginning April 27. Children are thought to be a major source of transmission even if they rarely fall ill from the virus.
Sánchez announced in a televised news conference late Saturday that the government would allow children “to get out of their houses for a period on a daily basis,” but the specifics needed to be ironed out with experts.
The national lockdown would be rolled back only when the country’s embattled health system is ready for a possible rebound of infections, he said.
While most of those sickened by the virus recover, the outbreak has killed at least 155,000 people worldwide, according to a Johns Hopkins University tally based on figures supplied by government health authorities around the globe.
The number almost certainly underestimates the actual toll. Nearly everywhere, thousands have died with COVID-19 symptoms — many in nursing homes — without being tested for the virus, and have thus gone uncounted.
