Coronavirus pandemic in the US

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem said she is anticipating "substantial decreases" to state sales tax revenue and says the federal relief funds that have been allocated to her state come with too many conditions to be of use.

"Congress did send South Dakota $1.25 billion to us, but they tied our hands on how we can spend it," Noem said today at a news conference. 

But, she explained that "the only way I can spend this money is on Covid relief."

Noem wants to able to use the money "to replace revenue loss." 

The governor asserted that Congress wants her to "go out and create a bunch of new government programs" with the relief fund.

"You listen to members of Congress and the White House — they say they don't want to bail out States that have been irresponsible. I understand that," Noem added.

However, Noem, whose state constitution requires it maintain a balanced budget, contends that her state has been responsible.

"It is not conservative to force a governor to spend money in areas that's not necessary and not allow me just to conduct business in a responsible manner that South Dakota always has," she explained.

She added: "I need Congress to allow states like South Dakota that have made good decisions, wise decisions that have balanced our budgets to make sure that we have the flexibility to do what's responsible."

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said the country is in a "very critical time right now" as it pulls back from coronavirus mitigation.

Fauci said the country is dealing with different stages of the disease, and there is no one-size-fits-all approach.

"We have to realize that we're a large country that has outbreaks in different regions, different states, different cities, that have different dynamics, and different phases in which they are in. And that was the reason why when we put together the guidelines for, as we say the opening America, it was very, very careful and very conservative in making sure that you pass certain gateway points, checkpoints, before you go to the next phase," he said.

Fauci added: "I think sometimes and understandably, people might think that when you get back to normal, it's like a light switch that you turn on or off. It isn't really that at all."

California is pulling back on issuing permits for events and activities, including protests, at all state facilities, California Highway Patrol Officer John Ortega told CNN. 

California Highway Patrol manages security at state sites and requires organizers to obtain a free permit for a protest to be staged.

Some background: On Monday, protesters gathered at the state capitol in Sacramento to demonstrate against California’s continuing stay-at-home order.

Protest organizers received a permit for the assembly and initially stated that they intended to practice physical distancing, saying they would simply drive around the state capitol in their cars, honking their horns.

However, aerial video from CNN affiliate KCRA showed dozens of protesters outside of their vehicles, standing close to one another, with only some wearing face coverings.

California Highway Patrol provided a statement regarding protests during the coronavirus pandemic:

Rep. Maxine Waters, a California Democrat and chairwoman of the House Financial Services Committee, said Thursday that her sister is dying of coronavirus in a hospital in St Louis, Missouri.

While speaking, Waters lowered her face mask to be heard, one of multiple lawmakers seen wearing face masks today.

About the bill: Waters was speaking in support of the already passed Paycheck Protection Program and the pending Health Care Enhancement Act, which is expected to pass a House vote on Thursday.

President Trump has publicly supported the bill, indicating he will sign it when it reaches the Oval Office. This legislation would provide $370 billion in funding for small business loans and $100 billion for hospitals and additional coronavirus testing.

Waters is not the only member of Congress who has personally experienced the pain of the virus. This morning, Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts shared that her brother passed away after testing positive for coronavirus.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease expert said, he is “not overly confident right now at all," when it comes to coronavirus testing.

Speaking during a Time 100 Talk today, Fauci said, “We absolutely need to significantly ramp up, not only the number of tests, but the capacity to actually perform them, so that you don't have a situation where you have a test, but it can't be done because there's not a swab, or not an extraction media or not the right vial, all of those things got to be in place.”

Fauci added: “I think anybody that has any realistic evaluation of what's going on in the trenches will tell you again we're doing better. And I think we're going to get there, but we're not there yet.” 

Dekalb County CEO Michael Thurmond issued an executive order Thursday that urges residents and businesses to take additional steps beyond Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp’s mandates as the state reopens.

Dekalb County is Georgia’s fourth most populous county.

The executive order...

Thurmond acknowledged that Kemp’s statewide executive order preempted local leaders’ ability to mandate stronger restrictions and conceded “there is no debating that.”

But Thurmond said he “urges, advises, encourages, and implores” residents and business to heed his recommendations.

Thurmond’s order also requests that Kemp support an investigation of the Covid-19 outbreak in black communities and other communities of color.

Dekalb County has the state’s second largest black population.

Zoom will begin rolling out a long-awaited security update this weekend to deal with widespread complaints of video-conferencing interruptions and other potential meeting vulnerabilities, the company said Wednesday. 

As more people have come to rely on Zoom for work and socializing in recent weeks, there has also been more scrutiny of the company's privacy and security shortcomings.

The issue of "Zoombombing," in particular, even prompted the FBI to warn the public about video-conferencing calls getting interrupted by "pornographic and/or hate images and threatening language."

The update, known as Zoom 5.0, will allow meeting hosts to report misbehaving users to Zoom for review. It also includes support for a more sophisticated encryption standard, which the company said will help protect sensitive data as it moves from point A to point B. All users will be switched to the new encryption standard by May 30, the company said.

Some context: Eric Yuan, Zoom's founder and CEO, apologized earlier this month for the company having "fallen short" of its users' expectations on these fronts and promised to spend the next 90 days focusing solely on addressing privacy issues. The latest announcement is part of that effort. 

Even with the criticisms, Zoom's usage continues to spike. The company now hosts 300 million meeting participants a day, Yuan said on Wednesday. Zoom previously said it crossed 200 million daily meeting participants in March.

Zoom's announcement did not address support for full, end-to-end encryption, the technology that would prevent even Zoom from being able to decipher the content of meetings.

The company has said it's working to deliver that capability in the future. But by upgrading the level of its existing encryption now, Zoom hopes to resolve some criticisms about its security, including from researchers at the University of Toronto who said its old setup contained "significant weaknesses." 

Those concerns, along with the "Zoombombing," have also attracted the attention of policymakers and government officials.

Tyson Fresh Meats announced the company will temporarily stop production at a beef processing facility in Washington state.

The plant has been linked to 91 cases of Covid-19, according to the Walla Walla county health department.

According to Tyson Fresh Meats, the facility produces enough beef in one day to feed four million people.

The beef plant, located in Pasco, Washington, had their first case of the disease on April 1, Walla Walla county health officials said in a statement. Tyson began to put mitigation efforts in place five days later on April 6, the statement added.

The cases are now spread out over the two county Benton-Franklin Health District and Walla Walla county, officials for both areas say.

Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker and hospital officials from around the state expressed concern that reduced emergency room visits for non-coronavirus issues could lead to a “second toll” caused by the pandemic.

Gregg S. Meyer, interim CEO of the Newton-Wellesley hospital system, said that they saw a 48% drop in emergency department volume since January.

Nancy Shendell-Falik of Baystate Medical Center said they had seen an 80% drop in stroke patients.

All of the executives said that they believe that while there has been a drop in some kinds of injuries – for example, there are fewer motor vehicle accidents due to social distancing – they believe people are not reporting to the emergency room because of fears surrounding Covid-19.

They also described patients who waited too long to report to the emergency room and now have lasting damage as a result.

Massachusetts currently has had nearly 43,000 coronavirus cases, Baker said. The state has 1,745 new cases, and 3,977 people are hospitalized.