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But easing restrictions now may come with a heavy price.
“It’s the balance of something that’s a very difficult choice,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country’s leading infectious disease expert, told CNN Monday night. “How many deaths and how much suffering are you willing to accept to get back to what you want to be some form of normality, sooner rather than later?”
At least 42 states will have eased restrictions by this coming Sunday, ranging from simply opening state parks to allowing some businesses to restart. This includes California — the first state to implement a sweeping stay-at-home order — where some stores will be allowed to reopen this week.
States are easing restrictions even though many areas have yet to hit their projected peaks — meaning there’s plenty of room for overwhelming infection rates, said Dr. Manisha Juthani, an infectious diseases physician at the Yale School of Medicine.
“(People’s increased) mobility and bringing the virus potentially from one area of the state to another area of the state is something that can really change this entire trajectory” for the worse, Juthani told CNN’s “New Day” Tuesday.
Discarding social distancing measures too quickly can result in a rebound of cases, Fauci said. And a rebound is highly likely with a virus that can spread “like wildfire.”
More coronavirus vaccine candidates are tested in the US
Researchers continue to race for a potential coronavirus vaccine — and another group of candidates is being tested in people in the United States.
US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and German biotechnology company BioNTech have begun testing four coronavirus vaccine candidates in humans in New York and Maryland, the companies said Tuesday.
The first stage of the US trial will enroll up to 360 healthy adults, starting with ages 18 to 55 and eventually including ages 65 to 85, the companies said.
These companies aren’t the first with a vaccine program this far along.
The World Health Organization says 108 potential Covid-19 vaccines are in development around the world — up from 102 on April 30. Eight of the potential vaccine programs have been approved for clinical trials, WHO says.
Meanwhile, researchers may be learning more about how soon Covid-19 spread outside China.
If verified, this finding would show that the virus was already circulating in Europe at that time — well before the first known cases were diagnosed in France or hotspot Italy.
The first official reports of Covid-19 in France had come on January 24, in two people who had a history of travel to Wuhan, China.
How governors are moving forward
California was one of the states where crowds gathered over the weekend as thousands of protesters descended on the state’s Capitol and an Orange County beach to protest social distancing orders.
The governor on Monday announced retail shops in the state — including clothing stores, florists and book shops — can begin to reopen Friday, after health officials said the state was meeting important metrics including sufficient test and tracing capacity.
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said he didn’t think his city would reopen this week, saying Monday that despite the governor’s announcement, different parts of the state may see different time lines for reopening.
In Michigan, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said the lockdown will continue “until at least May 15,” warning that reopening the state too soon could lead to a second shutdown.
Reeves’ plan also allows dining service in restaurants, as long as the institutions follow guidelines provided by the state, including a mandatory deep cleaning.
“I don’t want to wait if there are steps that we believe we can safely take now to ease the burden on Mississippians fighting this virus,” he said.
Protests against masks
CNN’s Jason Hanna, Frederick Pleitgen, Jacqueline Howard, Elizabeth Cohen, Cherri Mossburg, Sarah Moona and Jennifer Hendersoncontributed to this report,
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