New Sweeping COVID-19 Guidelines Announced

The White House announced sweeping new guidelines Monday (March 16th) to deal with the coronavirus, announced by a President Trump who was more somber than he's been in recent days and weeks.

Trump urged for the next 15 days that people avoid gathering in groups of more than 10 people, stay away from restaurants, bars and food courts, do not do any unnecessary travel or make unnecessary social visits, and that children's schooling be done at home. He also urged older people to stay at home. Trump suggested that we could be dealing with the virus until "July or August" before we see it subside, quote, "if we do a really good job," and acknowledged for the first time that the economy might be sent into a recession. In an indication that infections are expected to surge, Surgeon General Dr. Jerome Adams said we are on the trajectory about where Italy was two weeks ago, but said we can mitigate the spread.

The San Francisco Bay Area instituted a "shelter in place" order that the toughest in the country yet until April 7th for 6.7 million people in the counties of San Francisco, Santa Clara, San Mateo, Marin, Contra Costa, and Alameda. People can only leave their homes for essential reasons like shopping for grocery and necessary supplies, for health care, providing aid to family members, or working in an essential service. They will also be able to go outside for walks or exercise, but will have to keep six feet between themselves and others.

The House adopted a resolution to make what were described as technical changes to a measure meant to speed up testing for the virus and give sick leave to workers who become ill. However, it went into recess before adopting it. It's likely to pass the Senate at some point this week. Meanwhile talks are already underway on another bill to try to deal with the damage being done to the economy.

In other developments:

• Republican Senator Mitt Romney is calling for the federal government to send $1,000 checks to every American to help them pay their bills amid the financial fallout of the coronavirus and also help boost the economy. It would cost at least $100 billion. Romney said he'd be open to sending such checks more than once.
• Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that Canada will close its borders to anyone who isn't a citizen, a permanent resident, or a U.S. citizen.
• Testing of an experimental coronavirus vaccine developed in record time began yesterday (March 16th) with the first shots given to four volunteers by scientists at the Kaiser Permanente Washington Research Institute in Seattle. The trial will ultimately give 45 volunteers two doses, a month apart. However, even if the research goes well, a vaccine for widespread use wouldn't be available for 12 to 18 months. Dozens of other research groups around the world are also racing to try to develop a vaccine.