May 15, 2020 / By Kim Bellware, Mark Berman, Miriam Berger, John Wagner, Brittany Shammas, Candace Buckner, Keith McMillan and Colby Itkowitz
As the confirmed U.S. death toll surpassed 86,000, the scattershot reopening of America continued Friday and beyond this weekend. New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced that beaches will reopen in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Delaware for the Memorial Day holiday weekend, allowing people to come back under restricted circumstances.
Meanwhile, one of the world’s oldest and best-known medical journals slammed President Trump’s “inconsistent and incoherent national response” to the pandemic and accused the administration of relegating the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to a “nominal” role.
The Lancet’s unsigned editorial concluded that Trump should be replaced. “Americans must put a president in the White House come January, 2021, who will understand that public health should not be guided by partisan politics,” said the journal, which was founded in Britain in 1823.
Here are some significant developments:
- President Trump formally announced Friday that he has tapped the former head of vaccines at GlaxoSmithKline and an Army four-star general to run a White House-led drive to try to swiftly develop and manufacture a vaccine for the novel coronavirus.
- U.S. retail sales dropped by 16.4 percent in April, as businesses shut down and shoppers stayed home. Friday’s data release from the Census Bureau blew past analyst expectations and smashed March’s revised decline of 8.3 percent.
- With many Americans anxious about safely resuming their lives, the CDC issued six pages of recommendations to guide schools, businesses and others into the pandemic’s next phase.
- Democrats are gearing up to push a $3 trillion coronavirus relief bill through the House on Friday. The legislation, which would boost funding for state and local governments as well as the U.S. Postal Service, faces roadblocks in the Senate, and Trump has threatened a veto.
- The Food and Drug Administration warned of inaccuracies in the rapid Abbott coronavirus test hailed by Trump and used by the White House.
