March 31 coronavirus news

There have been at least 770 new coronavirus deaths reported in the US on Tuesday, according to a count from CNN Health.

This is the most reported deaths in the United States in a single day since the coronavirus outbreak.

There have been a total of 3,774 deaths reported in the US since the outbreak. 

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau acknowledged the challenge facing nearly every world leader right now, finding live-saving medical supplies that are dwindling around the globe.

The Canadian government is spending $1.4 billion to “support diagnostic testing and to purchase ventilators and protective personal equipment, including for bulk purchases with provinces and territories.

Personal protective equipment includes things like more masks and face shields, gowns, and hand sanitizer.” said a written statement released to CNN.

Government officials characterized it as one of the most broad-based and aggressive procurement processes in Canadian history.

Small business owners will be able to apply for loans to weather the economic downturn set off by Covid-19 on a first-come, first-serve basis beginning Friday as part of the newly-passed stimulus package.

The Payroll Protection Program aims to provide $349 billion in forgivable loans to small businesses, to help them maintain employee payroll, make rent or interest payments on their mortgages, pay utilities or cover other overhead costs, according to administration officials. Businesses are expected to receive their checks within three weeks of applying, administration officials said. 

Borrowers will be charged 0.5% interest as part of the Trump administration’s efforts to offer funding to small businesses so they continue operating during the current slowdown, according to the Treasury Department.

The new legislation also provides a “generous” processing fee that’s paid by the government for facilitating these loans to incentivized banks and other lenders to issue the loans, administration officials said Tuesday.

Administration officials hope that the loans will help small businesses meet payroll and cover overhead, provide incentives for larger businesses to keep employees on the payroll, provide enhanced unemployment insurance for workers who are laid off and protect distressed industries that are critical for the country’s national and economic security. 

All loan payments will be deferred for six months and receive a 100% guarantee from the Small Business Administration. 

Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky said they would comply with Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb’s executive order to postpone or cancel all elective or non-urgent procedures, including abortions, to conserve medical equipment.

Holcomb said Tuesday that he would leave it up to a doctor to determine if postponing or cancelling any of those procedures would cause harm to the patient.

“Any and all medical expertise and PPE first needs to go toward defeating Covid-19 in this window and the sooner the better for all of us,” he said. 

Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky CEO Chris Charbonneau said they would comply with the governor’s directive but noted that their top priority is “ensuring that every person can continue accessing essential health care, including abortions.”

Los Angeles County has lost its first health care worker to coronavirus.

The health care worker was under the age of 60, county Health Director Barbara Ferrer announced in a press conference.

At least 10 people have died of the virus in Los Angeles County in the past day, Ferrer announced, and an additional 548 new cases have been confirmed. The total number of cases in Los Angeles County now stands at 3,011.

In just a week, the number of positive cases has tripled. Likely, that’s reflective of testing capacity, which has also tripled, according to Ferrer.

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot announced on Tuesday that the city will be providing $100 million in low-interest loans through Chicago Small Business Resiliency Fund to support the city's small businesses that are losing revenue because of the coronavirus pandemic. 

The fund was set up to provide immediate stopgap relief to thousands of small businesses in Chicago.

Some background: The Chicago Small Business Resiliency Fund was created last week through an up to $50 million in capital commitment from the Catalyst Fund to be determined by the board, a $25 million grant from the City of Chicago, as well as $10 million from Goldman Sachs’ Urban Investment Group, $1 million from Fifth Third, $250,000 from Clayco and $15 million from additional private funding sources.

Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont said today that the national strategic stockpile is empty.

Lamont said the state has received 50 ventilators from the federal government, but said, “Now, we are on our own.”

Lamont said Connecticut still needs more personal protective equipment and supplies, saying he felt like a general sending soldiers into battle without proper protection.

Lamont also said that Connecticut is the fourth most Covid-19 infected state in the country, per capita, behind New York, New Jersey and Louisiana. He urged everyone to think of the Covid-19 epicenter as a region, the New York Metro region, instead of state-by-state.

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Based on modeling in California, Gov. Gavin Newsom says the peak number of cases in hospitals throughout the state will come in mid-May.

Preparations for a potential surge of 50,000 needed hospital beds are underway with an expectation that about 10,000 of those beds will be in intensive care units, requiring ventilation support.

Dr. Mark Ghaly, the state's Health and Human Services secretary, says the model takes into account how residents perform with physical distancing efforts across the state.

Wisconsin is moving forward with plans to hold its primary election next Tuesday, creating a chaotic scenario that's left state and local election officials scrambling to hold a primary in the middle of a pandemic.

Wisconsin elections officials are trying to keep up as absentee ballots surge, poll workers drop out and supplies are in short demand a week away from a primary in which in-person voting is still set to proceed — despite Democratic Gov. Tony Evers' stay-at-home order and 1,351 confirmed cases of coronavirus in the state as of this afternoon.

Other states with April primaries have postponed them or shifted those contests to vote-by-mail only.

But in Wisconsin, the governor has said he won't delay the election. Republicans who control the state legislature have enacted strict voter identification laws in recent years, meanwhile, are refusing Evers' request — made last week, 11 days before the election — to quickly enact a law that would send absentee ballots to every voter in the state. 

This has left some Wisconsin voters to decide between exercising their constitutional right to vote and their safety and local election officials searching for poll workers and supplies. And a last-minute flurry of lawsuits — five were filed in recent days — could still change the rules.