Coronavirus: Polis meets with Trump to secure coronavirus supplies

Live updates for Wednesday, May 12, continue below:

Polis meets with Trump to secure coronavirus supplies

Update 11:50 p.m. EDT May 13: Gov. Jared Polis said Wednesday that President Donald Trump has committed to sending 96,000 tests for the coronavirus to Colorado in the next couple of days.

Polis met with the president in the White House earlier in the day to seek federal support for Colorado’s response to the coronavirus and to try to secure additional testing supplies and personal protective equipment.

“I need to pursue all possible options that can provide lifesaving supplies for the people of Colorado and make sure that our president is not just sequestered in the White House and really has the knowledge of what’s really going on in the states on the ground,” Polis said after the meeting.

The Democratic governor said the supplies will help the state reach its goal of testing at least 8,500 people a day.

Meanwhile, the Federal Emergency Management Agency is expected to deliver masks and personal protective equipment to nursing homes and senior centers across the state Monday. Another shipment is expected to arrive later in the month.

For most people, the coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough that clear up in two to three weeks. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia, and death.

Some Hawaii hotels concerned about quarantine enforcement

Update 10:50 p.m. EDT May 13: Some Hawaii hotels say they need more guidance about how to enforce a 14-day quarantine on travelers, including what to do if guests refuse to comply or how to participate if they still use physical keys instead of cards.

The Hawaii Tourism and Lodging Association recently asked hotels to give out room key-cards that are only good for checking in, so that if a guest leaves the room, they need a new one to re-enter — signaling to hotel staff that a guest defied the quarantine.

Gov. David Ige mandated the traveler quarantine starting on March 26 in an attempt to curb the spread of coronavirus. As of Wednesday, the state reported 638 coronavirus cases and 17 deaths.

Some visitors who allegedly violated the quarantine have been arrested.

According to the tourism authority, 264 visitors arrived in Hawaii Tuesday. During the same time last year, about 30,000 passengers would arrive in the tourism-dependent state daily.

When travelers arrive, officials verify their accommodation arrangements by contacting hotels directly and giving them a heads-up that a visitor has arrived. Call center workers from the Hawaii Visitors and Convention Bureau and the Hawaii Tourism Authority follow-up numerous times to verify travelers are in quarantine. When call center workers can’t contact someone, they alert law enforcement.

Of 91 open hotels contacted last week, 63 are complying with the room key program, according to a tourism report presented to the state Senate Special Committe on COVID-19. Four were listed as “declined” and 24 as “pending.”

Wisconsin high court tosses out governor’s stay-home order

Update 9:45 p.m. EDT May 13: The Wisconsin Supreme Court struck down Gov. Tony Evers' coronavirus stay-at-home order Wednesday, ruling that his administration overstepped its authority when it extended the mandate for another month without consulting legislators.

The 4-3 ruling essentially reopens the state, lifting caps on the size of gatherings, allowing people to travel as they please and allowing shuttered businesses to reopen, including bars and restaurants. The Tavern League of Wisconsin swiftly posted the news on its website, telling members, “You can OPEN IMMEDIATELY!”

The decision let stand language that had closed schools, however, and local governments can still impose their own health restrictions. In Dane County, home to the capital of Madison, officials quickly imposed a mandate incorporating most of the statewide order. City health officials in Milwaukee, meanwhile, said a stay-at-home order they enacted in late March remains in effect.

Evers told reporters during a conference call Wednesday night that the state was doing well in the fight against the coronavirus, but the court ruling will lead more counties to adopt their own restrictions. He said the state will descend into a confusing patchwork of ordinances that will allow infection to spread.

“Today, Republican legislators convinced four members of the state Supreme Court to throw the state into chaos,” Evers said. “They have provided no plan. There’s no question among anybody that people are going to get sick. Republicans own that chaos.”

Chief Justice Patience Roggensack wrote for the majority that health secretary Andrea Palm’s order amounted to an emergency rule that she doesn’t have the power to create on her own, and also imposes criminal penalties beyond her powers.

“Rule-making exists precisely to ensure that kind of controlling, subjective judgement asserted by one unelected official, Palm, is not imposed in Wisconsin,” Roggensack, part of the court’s 5-2 conservative majority, wrote.

Rebecca Dallet, one of the court’s liberal justices, dissented. She wrote that the court’s decision will “undoubtedly go down as one of the most blatant examples of judicial activism in this court’s history. And it will be Wisconsinites who pay the price.”

Dallet also took aim at the potential delay set up by a rule-making process, writing: “A review of the tedious multi-step process required to enact an emergency rule illustrates why the Legislature authorized DHS to issue statewide orders to control contagion.”

State Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, both Republicans, said in a joint statement that they’re confident businesses can safely reopen by following guidelines calling for letting workers stay home if they’re sick, making workers wash their hands and implementing telework and social distancing and postponing travel and events.

Minnesota letting ‘stay-at-home’ expire Monday

Update 8:55 p.m. EDT May 13: Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said he will let his stay-at-home order expire as scheduled Monday, though he'll leave key restrictions in place to keep up the state's fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Don’t get me wrong — we believe that the safest place we can be is at home,” Walz said in a televised address Wednesday. “But we know we can’t continue like this forever.”

Walz made the announcement after health officials released updated modeling — couched in caveats — that showed the potential effects of various scenarios he could have chosen. The Democratic governor has been under increasing political pressure to loosen up the restrictions, and some business owners have threatened defiance if they remain in place.

Walz said his new order brings back some of the social interactions “that are so important in life.”

While the stay-at-home order will expire, the changes he announced amount to only a gradual relaxation of the state’s restrictions. Bars, restaurants, and other places where people gather in large numbers won’t be allowed to reopen for business as usual just yet. But gatherings of 10 people or fewer, such as family celebrations, will be allowed. Retailers that had been shuttered as nonessential will be allowed to reopen with restrictions on how many people can be allowed inside.

Trump presses for schools to reopen, takes dig at Fauci

Update 7:40 p.m. EDT May 13: President Donald Trump called on governors across the nation Wednesday to work to reopen schools that were closed because of the coronavirus, pointedly taking issue with Dr. Anthony Fauci's caution against moving too quickly in sending students back to class.

The president accused Fauci of wanting “to play all sides of the equation,” a comment that suggested he is tiring of the nation’s top infectious disease expert.

“I think they should open the schools, absolutely. I think they should,” Trump told reporters at the White House, echoing comments he had made in a television interview. “Our country’s got to get back and it’s got to get back as soon as possible. And I don’t consider our country coming back if the schools are closed.”

Fauci had urged caution in testimony before a Senate committee Tuesday, although he made clear that he believes reopening decisions will likely differ from one region to the next.

“We don’t know everything about this virus and we really better be pretty careful, particularly when it comes to children,” Fauci told the committee. At one point, he told members that “the idea of having treatments available or a vaccine to facilitate the re-entry of students into the fall term would be something that would be a bit of a bridge too far.”

Fauci later clarified that he was not implying students should be barred from returning to class until a COVID-19 vaccine is developed. But his comments were nonetheless seized on by conservative commentators, as well as Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who called the notion “kind of ridiculous.”

Virus spikes could emerge weeks after US economic reopenings

Update 5:50 p.m. EDT May 13: U.S. states are beginning to restart their economies after months of paralyzing coronavirus lockdowns, but it could take weeks until it becomes clear whether those reopenings will cause a spike in COVID-19 cases, experts said Wednesday.

The outbreak’s trajectory varies wildly across the country, with steep increases in cases in some places, decreases in others and infection rates that can shift dramatically from neighborhood to neighborhood.

“Part of the challenge is although we are focused on the top-line national numbers in terms of our attention, what we are seeing is 50 different curves and 50 different stories playing out,” said Thomas Tsai, assistant professor at the Harvard Global Health Institute. “And what we have seen about COVID-19 is that the story and the effect is often very local.”

A handful of states started easing their lockdowns about two weeks ago, ranging from shopping malls in Texas to beach hotels in South Carolina to gyms in Wyoming. Georgia was one of the first states where some businesses were allowed to open their doors again, starting April 24 with barber shops, hair salons, gyms, bowling alleys and tattoo parlors.

But it may be five to six weeks from then before the effects are known, said Crystal Watson of Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.

“As we saw early in the year, epidemics of COVID-19 start slow and take some time to build and become evident,” Watson said in an email.

Pandemic to shrink world economy by 3.2%, UN says

Update 5:50 p.m. EDT May 13: The United Nations is forecasting that the coronavirus pandemic will shrink the world economy by 3.2% this year, the sharpest contraction since the Great Depression in the 1930s.

The U.N.’s mid-year report released Wednesday said COVID-19 is expected to slash global economic output by nearly $8.5 trillion over the next two years, wiping out nearly all gains of the past four years.

In January, the U.N. forecast a modest growth of 2.5 percent in 2020.

The United Nations World Economic Situation and Prospects report said the pandemic is also “exacerbating poverty and inequality,” with an estimated 34.3 million people likely to fall below the extreme poverty line in 2020 — 56 percent of them in Africa.

It said an additional 130 million people may join the ranks of people living in extreme poverty by 2030, dealing a “huge blow” to global efforts to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger by the end of the decade.

Tennessee’s private prisons lag in coronavirus reporting

Update 4:50 p.m. EDT May 13: Two weeks after a large number of coronavirus cases at a privately run Tennessee prison prompted Gov. Bill Lee to announce that all inmates would be tested, two of the state's other three privately run prisons are still reporting results for only a handful of inmates.

Coronavirus testing results posted to the Tennessee Department of Correction website show 2,500 inmates at the state's 14 prisons as either positive for the coronavirus or recovered. More than half of those are at the CoreCivic-run Trousdale Turner Correctional Center. The company reported two weeks ago that 1,299 prisoners and 50 staff there had tested positive. The numbers were high enough to give Trousdale County the highest per capita rate of cases in the U.S.

They also prompted Lee to call for universal testing of inmates. TDOC updated those numbers on Tuesday. They show the 10 state-run prisons with 519 tests still pending out of more than 13,000 inmates tested. Of the CoreCivic run prisons, only Trousdale and the Hardeman County Correctional Facility are reporting results for the vast majority of their inmates.

Johnsonville plant closed in Kansas after employees test positive for COVID-19

Update 3:40 p.m. EDT May 13: Officials with Johnson Foods told reporters the company has had to temporarily suspend production at its meat-processing facility in Holton, Kansas, after several employees tested positive for COVID-19, according to multiple reports.

The shutdown will affect the about 220 people employed at the facility, which is Holton's largest employer, according to The Wichita Eagle.

Stephanie Dlugopolski, public relations and social media manager for Johnsonville, told The Topeka Capital-Journal that five employees tested positive on Monday for coronavirus infections. She said that the plant in Holton closed Wednesday and would remain that way "for a brief time."

The company will continue to pay its employees during the closure, WIBW reported.

In recent weeks, several meat manufacturers have been forced to close plants after workers tested positive for coronavirus infections. Last week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated that there were 4,913 cases of COVID-19 at 115 meat plants in the U.S., according to The Wall Street Journal. At least 20 people have died, the newspaper reported.

In a full-page ad published in three newspapers last month, including The New York Times, Tyson Foods board chairman John Tyson warned that the closures prompted by coronavirus show “the food supply chain is breaking.”

“As pork, beef and chicken plants are being forced to close, even for short periods of time, millions of pounds of meat will disappear from the supply chain,” he said.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order last month requiring meat processing plants to stay open under the Defense Production Act.

Yellowstone National Park to begin reopening May 18

Update 3:10 p.m. EDT May 13: Officials with the National Parks Service announced Wednesday that Yellowstone National Park will reopen on a limited basis beginning May 18.

The reopening is part of a three-phase plan unveiled by authorities which will start with the opening of the South and East entrances of the park in Wyoming, allowing visitors to explore the lower loop of the park.

State officials had asked for the reopening of park entrances in the state, according to the NPS.

“The park’s goal is to open safely and conservatively, ensure we take the right actions to reduce risks to our employees and visitors, and help local economies begin to recover,” Superintendent Cam Sholly said. “Our goal is to get the remaining entrances open as quickly and safely as possible.”

GNC considering filing for bankruptcy protection

Update 2:40 p.m. EDT May 13: Officials with GNC are considering filing for bankruptcy protection as early as this week, WPXI reported.

The company is trying to delay payment of $50 million to its lenders, according to TribLIVE. The money is due Saturday, but that deadline could be delayed if officials with the health and nutrition store file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, WPXI reported.

Mississippi reports over 10,000 coronavirus infections

Update 2:15 p.m. EDT May 13: The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases has topped 10,000 in Mississippi, WHBQ-TV reported, citing state health officials.

As of Wednesday, authorities said 10,090 coronavirus infections have been confirmed in the state, where the virus has claimed 465 lives.

1,028 new cases of COVID-19 reported in New Jersey

Update 2:10 p.m. EDT May 13: Gov. Phil Murphy of New Jersey said Wednesday that 1,028 new coronavirus infections have been reported, raising the total number of COVID-19 cases in the state to 141,560.

Officials also reported 197 new fatal COVID-19 cases. Statewide, 9,702 people have died of coronavirus.

Whistleblower expected to tell House panel Trump administration was unprepared for pandemic

Update 2 p.m. EDT May 13: The ousted former director of a government unit focused on countermeasures to infectious disease and bioterrorism is expected to tell Congress on Thursday that President Donald Trump's administration was unprepared for the coronavirus pandemic and that without further intervention the country will face "unprecedented illness and fatalities," CNN reported.

Dr. Rick Bright is scheduled to testify beginning at 10 a.m. Thursday before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.

"Our window of opportunity is closing," Bright is expected to say Thursday, according to prepared testimony obtained by CNN. "Without clear planning and implementation of the steps that I and other experts have outlined, 2020 will be darkest winter in modern history."

CNN reported that he will also reiterate his belief that he was removed from his position in retaliation for opposing widespread use of an unproven drug that Trump touted as a remedy for COVID-19.

Bright headed the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority. He had received a job performance review of outstanding before he was summarily transferred last month. The agency is a unit of the Department of Health and Human Services.

Louisiana officials report 612 new coronavirus cases

Update 1:25 p.m. EDT May 13: Officials in Louisiana reported 612 new coronavirus infections Wednesday, raising the state's total number of infections to 32,662.

Officials said that statewide, at least 2,315 people have died of COVID-19 and 22,608 people have recovered from the viral infection.

FBI sounds alarm on Chinese hacking linked to coronavirus

Update 1:10 p.m. EDT May 13: The Federal Bureau of Investigation on Wednesday warned researchers doing work on the novel coronavirus to be aware of increased hacking efforts by groups tied to the Chinese government, warning those working on vaccines, treatments or general research to be wary of possible computer intrusions.

“Health care, pharmaceutical, and research sectors working on COVID-19 response should all be aware they are the prime targets of this activity and take the necessary steps to protect their systems,” the FBI said in a statement.

Less than 80,000 active coronavirus cases reported in Italy

Update 1 p.m. EDT May 13: The number of active coronavirus cases dipped below 80,000 in Italy for the first time in weeks on Wednesday, according to numbers released by national health officials.

Authorities said 78,457 active infections were confirmed as of Wednesday at 6 p.m. local time. The virus has claimed 31,106 lives in Italy. Officials said 112,541 people have recovered from COVID-19.

DC mayor extends stay-at-home order through June 8

Update 11:50 a.m. EDT May 13: Mayor Muriel Bowser of Washington D.C. on Wednesday extended her previously issued stay-at-home order until June 8.

“Based on the data, I can revise this order at any time to reflect a phased reopening,” she said in an announcement posted on social media.

As of Wednesday, 6,584 people have been diagnosed with coronavirus infections in the Washington area. Officials said 350 people have died in the area of COVID-19.

166 new fatal coronavirus cases reported in New York

Update 11:45 a.m. EDT May 13: Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York said Wednesday that 166 more people have died of COVID-19 statewide, continuing a downward trend in fatal coronavirus cases.

The number was slightly less than the 195 new fatal cases reported one day earlier.

“It’s not just a number,” Cuomo said in a Twitter post. “These are people whose families are in immense pain today. We share in their heartbreak.”

UK overtakes Spain with most COVID-19 cases in Europe

Update 11:35 a.m. EDT May 13: Officials in the United Kingdom reported 3,242 new coronavirus infections Wednesday morning, raising the country's total number of infections to 229,705 and making it the country hardest hit by COVID-19 in Europe.

Officials said that as of 9 a.m. local time, 33,186 people had died nationwide of COVID-19.

Numbers released by the Department of Health and Social Care showed the country had one of the highest numbers of cases in the world and the worst in Europe. Officials in Spain, which had been the hardest-hit country in the region, had about 228,000 cases of COVID-19 confirmed as of Wednesday.

The U.S. has the most number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the world with over 1.3 million infections, followed by Russia, where more than 242,000 cases have been reported, according to numbers compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

More than 6,500 cases of COVID-19 reported in DC

Update 11:25 a.m. EDT May 13: Mayor Muriel Bowser of Washington D.C. said Wednesday that 99 new coronavirus infections have been reported in the area, raising the total number of cases in the area to 6,584.

Bowser also said 14 more people between the ages of 47 and 97 died of COVID-19. As of Wednesday, 350 Washington D.C. residents have died of coronavirus, officials said.

Texas deploys self-administered tests to inmates

Update 10:55 a.m. EDT May 13: Officials with the Texas Department of Criminal Justice said tens of thousands of self-administered COVID-19 tests were being deployed as a measure to stop the spread of the virus in the prison system.

Officials said Wednesday that nearly 1,500 of the oral-swab tests, manufactured by Curative Inc., had been administered in the first few hours of testing. They said they expect to see a rise in confirmed coronavirus cases, “like has occurred in virtually every area where large scale asymptomatic testing has taken place.”

As of Wednesday, 652 employees, contractors or staff members of TDCJ have tested positive for coronavirus infections, authorities said. Officials said 1,733 offenders have also tested positive for COVID-19.

At least 30 offenders and seven staff members have died of the virus in the prison system. Authorities said Wednesday that they were awaiting the results of 23 other autopsies to determine whether those deaths were also caused by COVID-19.

Several prisons in the state were placed under lockdown as a precaution to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus.

Nearly 40% of households making less than $40,000 annually lost a job in March, Fed chairman says

Update 10:35 a.m. EDT May 13: More government spending might be necessary to avoid long-term economic damage from the coronavirus pandemic, Federal Reserve System Chair Jerome Powell said Wednesday.

During a speech Wednesday at a virtual event for the Peterson Institute for International Economics, Powell said the “economic response has been both timely and appropriately large” but he noted that “the path ahead is both highly uncertain and subject to significant downside risks.”

“The scope and speed of this downturn are without modern precedent, significantly worse than any recession since World War II,” Powell said. “We are seeing a severe decline in economic activity and in employment, and already the job gains of the past decade have been erased.”

Since the coronavirus pandemic began to force business closures nationwide, 20 million people have lost their jobs in the U.S., Powell said. At least one job was lost in 40% of households making less than $40,000 a year.

Research shows airflow needed to prevent spread of COVID-19 in businesses and restaurants

Update 10:05 a.m. EDT May 13: Researchers from the University of Oregon have determined that airflow can make a big difference in the spread of viruses like COVID-19 when people are inside closed spaces, according to WFXT.

“It’s really just the notion that the particles may be caught up in airstreams and pushed further than you might anticipate,” said Kevin Van Den Wymelenberg, professor of architecture at the University of Oregon and one of the authors behind the new study.

Van Den Wymelenberg’s team created a video to show how a virus can easily spread indoors from person to person across a room without air filtration or fresh air.

"I think we should be looking for ways to increase the outdoor air flow," Van Den Wymelenberg said, according to WFXT. "Then in the scenarios where that's difficult, there are secondary strategies that we could pursue, including increased filtration, access to sunlight, potentially some indoor humidification and perhaps some in-room filtration if central, mechanical filtration is not possible."

Stocks open lower on Wall Street as Powell urges more action

Update 9:45 a.m. EDT May 13: Stocks opened lower Wednesday on Wall Street as traders assessed what new steps the government might need to take to prevent more wreckage to the economy because of shutdowns related to the coronavirus pandemic. The S&P 500 fell 0.9% in early trading.

Shortly before trading opened, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell urged Congress and the White House to take more action to prevent long-term economic damage, warning that many small businesses and households could still go bankrupt. At the same time, new clusters of infections have appeared as nations struggle to balance reopening economies with preventing a second wave of deaths.

Man accused of threatening Pennsylvania governor over coronavirus business closures

Update 9:40 a.m. EDT May 13: Police in Pennsylvania arrested a 28-year-old man on suspicion of threatening the life of Gov. Tom Wolf over business closures prompted by the coronavirus pandemic, WPXI reported.

According to the York Dispatch, Rocco Anthony Naples will face charges of third-degree felony of threats and other improper influence in official and political matters, as well as misdemeanor making terroristic threats and harassment charges.

Naples was upset because Wolf has closed down businesses around the state but kept his own business — all under the umbrella of Wolf Home Products — up and running, according to police documents, the Dispatch reported.

Police said Naples called the company's customer service line on Friday and said he and his friends "have a bullet waiting" for Wolf, according to WPXI.

Paul Manafort released from prison amid COVID-19 concerns

Update 8:18 a.m. EDT May 13: President Donald Trump's ex-campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, was released from a federal prison in Pennsylvania amid the coronavirus pandemic, multiple news outlets are reporting.

ABC News first reported that Manafort, who had been serving a 7 1/2-year sentence at FCI Loretto in Cambria County, was released Wednesday morning. He is now in home confinement, where he will serve the rest of the sentence.

Worldwide cases surge toward 4.3M, total deaths top 292K

Update 8:08 a.m. EDT May 13: The global death toll attributed to the novel coronavirus reached 292,376 early Wednesday, according to a Johns Hopkins University tally.

In the four months since the virus was first identified in Wuhan, China, it has infected at least 4,281,838 people worldwide. Meanwhile, nearly one in every four deaths reported worldwide has occurred in the United States, and 10 nations now have total infection counts higher than China's 84,021.

The 10 nations with the highest number of infections recorded to date are as follows:

• The United States has reported 1,370,016 cases, resulting in 82,389 deaths.

• Russia has confirmed 242,271 cases, resulting in 2,212 deaths.

• Spain has confirmed 228,030 cases, resulting in 26,920 deaths.

• The United Kingdom has reported 227,741 cases, resulting in 32,769 deaths.

• Italy has reported 221,216 cases, resulting in 30,911 deaths.

• France has confirmed 178,349 cases, resulting in 26,994 deaths.

• Brazil has recorded 178,214 cases, resulting in 12,461 deaths.

• Germany has reported 173,274 cases, resulting in 7,755 deaths.

• Turkey has recorded 141,475 cases, resulting in 3,894 deaths

• Iran has recorded 112,725 cases, resulting in 6,733 deaths.

Coronavirus cases reported at NC farm that helped feed hundreds of families in April

Update 6:33 a.m. EDT May 13: Coronavirus cases have been reported at a meat processing plant in Burke County, North Carolina.

According to state officials, at least two cases of COVID-19 have been reported at Case Farms in Morganton, which is the same farm that helped feed hundreds of families at discounted prices last month.

UNICEF projects dire consequences for world’s poorest children if coronavirus left unchecked

Update 5:40 a.m. EDT May 13: UNICEF published a report on Tuesday estimating as many as 6,000 children could die daily from preventable causes over the next six months if the novel coronavirus pandemic continues to overburden health care providers and disrupt routine care.

The U.N. children's agency compiled its report, published in The Lancet Global Health journal, by analyzing research from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Specifically, the organization’s worst-case scenario projects as many as 1.2 million additional deaths in children under the age of 5 in 118 low- and middle-income countries. The research also indicates as many as 56,700 additional maternal deaths could occur during the same six months due to reductions in routine health coverage.

According to the modeling, the 10 countries that could potentially have the largest number of additional child deaths include Bangladesh, Brazil, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Uganda and Tanzania, CNN reported.

California health officials say Tesla factory can operate if safety measures met

Update 5:21 a.m. EDT May 13: Health officials in California's San Francisco Bay area appear to have resolved a dispute with Tesla CEO Elon Musk regarding operation of the company's Fremont factory amid lingering coronavirus concerns.

The Alameda County Public Health Department announced early Wednesday that, with the addition of a few safety precautions, Tesla's plan for resuming operations at the Fremont plant could be realized as early as next week.

7 workers at Virginia ramen noodle factory test positive for COVID-19

Update 4:09 a.m. EDT May 13: A Virginia ramen noodle plant is among the latest food production facilities to experience an outbreak of the novel coronavirus.

Seven workers at Maruchan Virginia Inc.'s factory in Chesterfield have tested positive for COVID-19, WRIC-TV reported Wednesday. Those employees are now under quarantine, the company said.

Read more here.

Model often cited by White House forecasts US coronavirus death toll will top 147K by August

Update 3:43 a.m. EDT May 13: A coronavirus forecasting model often cited by White House officials predicts that the novel coronavirus death toll in the United States will surpass 147,000 by August, an increase of nearly 10,000 fatalities compared with a prior projection.

Researchers with the University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation attribute the projected increase to the easing of social-distancing policies and changes in testing protocols.

"It is worth noting that the full potential effects of recent actions to ease social distancing policies, especially if robust containment measures have yet to be fully scaled up, may not be fully known for a few weeks due to the time periods between viral exposure, possible infection, and full disease progression," the institute said in its Tuesday update.

California Target worker breaks arm struggling with customers not wearing masks

Update 2:30 a.m. EDT May 13: A security guard at a Los Angeles Target broke his arm during a May 1 confrontation with two customers who refused to wear masks, police said.

According to the Los Angeles Police Department, Phillip Hamilton, 31, and Paul Hamilton, 29, both face felony battery charges after one of the men punched a store employee as the duo was being escorted from the store for refusing to comply with novel coronavirus protective measures.

Security footage of the incident released by the LAPD shows a brawl erupting immediately, pitting the two men against three security guards.

CDC prepping warning to docs to look out for kids’ inflammatory syndrome possibly linked to COVID-19

Update 1:49 a.m. EDT May 13: The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention could issue an alert as early as Wednesday warning doctors to be vigilant for signs of a dangerous inflammatory syndrome in children that may be linked to the novel coronavirus, CNN reported.

The illness – marked by persistent fever, inflammation and compromised function of one or more organ – is believed to have claimed the lives of at least three children in New York, where 100 possible cases have been documented statewide to date.

"We will provide a working case definition of what cases look like. They'll be asked to report cases to state and local health departments so we can try to learn as much about this syndrome as we can," a CDC spokesman told CNN.

US coronavirus cases climb toward 1.4M, deaths top 82K

Update 12:33 a.m. EDT May 13: The number of novel coronavirus cases in the United States continued to climb past 1.3 million early Wednesday across all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

According to a Johns Hopkins University tally, there are at least 1,369,574 confirmed U.S. cases of the virus, which have resulted in at least 82,376 deaths.

The hardest-hit states remain New York with 338,485 cases and 27,284 deaths and New Jersey with 140,917 cases and 9,531 deaths. Massachusetts, with 79,332 cases, has the third-highest number of deaths with 5,141, while Illinois has the third-highest number of cases with 83,021. Only 16 states and territories have confirmed fewer than 4,000 cases each.

Nine other states have now confirmed at least 30,000 novel coronavirus cases each, including:

• California: 70,978 cases, resulting in 2,879 deaths

• Pennsylvania: 61,310 cases, resulting in 3,914 deaths

• Michigan: 48,021 cases, resulting in 4,674 deaths

• Florida: 41,923 cases, resulting in 1,779 deaths

• Texas: 41,432 cases, resulting in 1,146 deaths

• Georgia: 34,924 cases, resulting in 1,498 deaths

• Connecticut: 34,333 cases, resulting in 3,041 deaths

• Maryland: 34,061 cases, resulting in 1,756 deaths

• Louisiana: 32,050 cases, resulting in 2,347 deaths

Meanwhile, Virginia, Ohio and Indiana each has confirmed at least 25,000 cases; Colorado, Washington state, Tennessee and North Carolina each has confirmed at least 15,000 cases; Iowa and Minnesota each has confirmed at least 12,000 cases; Arizona and Rhode Island each has confirmed at least 11,000 cases; Wisconsin, Alabama and Missouri each has confirmed at least 10,000 cases, followed by Mississippi with 9,908 and Nebraska with 8,532; South Carolina and Kansas each has confirmed at least 7,000 cases; Kentucky, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Utah and Nevada each has confirmed at least 6,000 cases, followed by New Mexico with 5,212; and Oklahoma and Arkansas each has confirmed at least 4,000 cases.

Click here to see CNN's state-by-state breakdown.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.