Coronavirus updates: More states easing lockdowns as U.S. deaths near 55,000

Selling Girl Scout cookies is normally a foolproof business model, but the coronavirus outbreak cooled sales of the treats in Alaska.

The Girl Scouts of Alaska sought assistance, and the organization got a federal recovery loan to help compensate for lost cookie sales.

First National Bank Alaska facilitated the federal Paycheck Protection Program loan, The Anchorage Daily News reported Sunday.

Leslie Ridle, head of one of two Girl Scouts councils in Alaska, said fears of girls becoming infected with COVID-19 forced the organization to cut its six-week sales season in half. Click here to read more.

Ellis McKennie III’s dream of becoming a professional football player didn’t come true this weekend, but his prayers had already been answered. His father, Ellis McKennie Sr., was discharged from the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) after fighting the coronavirus for nearly a month.

The man McKennie describes as his superhero was wheeled out of the hospital to thunderous applause, then took his first steps after surviving COVID-19. Click here to read more.

The latest data from Johns Hopkins University researchers shows that as of Monday morning, more than 2.98 million people have tested positive for the new coronavirus disease across the globe, with almost a third of those cases — 965,933 patients — recorded in the United States.

The death toll in the U.S. also dwarfs those reported by all other countries, at 54,877 as of Monday morning. While the true number of fatalities from COVID-19 is feared to be much higher in virtually every corner of the world, the overall global death toll confirmed as of Monday morning was 206, 640.   

Of the nearly 1 million people to test positive for the virus in the U.S., Johns Hopkins says more than 107,000 are known to have recovered.

The prime minister of Great Britain returned to work Monday after fighting off COVID-19 to deliver his country a message of hope as it endures its fifth week of lockdown.

“Everyday I know that this virus brings new sadness and mourning to households across the land and it is still true that this is the biggest single challenge this country has faced since the war,” Prime Minister Boris Johnson said outside his office at 10 Downing Street in London. 

He said the virtually complete shutdown of Britain’s economy had helped deliver the nation close to “the end of the first phase of this conflict,” successfully preventing a crippling epidemic like the ones seen in Italy and Spain, where national health services were overwhelmed.

“We have so far collectively shielded our NHS” from such an inundation of COVID-19 cases, Johnson said, adding that Britons had “collectively flattened the peak” of the outbreak in the country.

He warned the nation, however, that everyone must continue to respect the lockdown measures set to remain in place for another two weeks, or risk facing a new wave of disease that could quickly undo all the gains made over the last month.

With millions of people filing for unemployment due to the effects of the coronavirus outbreak, many are looking for jobs and wondering where they might find them.

Essential services, remote jobs and quick gigs are prevailing right now as millions of furloughed employees search for work, CBS New York reports.

“Temporarily, you should be willing to take a job below your level,” career counselor Eileen Sharaga told the station.

Sharaga said now more than ever, finding work is about tailoring the skills you already have to the jobs that are available.

“The important thing is how to translate your area of expertise so that it lends itself to a teleconferencing remote situation,” Sharaga said. “You need to revisit your LinkedIn profile because that LinkedIn profile needs to be adjusted to the world out there.”

Read more here.  

Ecuador is seeing one of the world’s worst coronavirus outbreaks, with possibly thousands dead. But that hasn’t been enough to convince the president of Latin America’s largest country, Brazil, to take the threat seriously.

Manuel Bojorquez reports in the video below:

The White House released a schedule Sunday night that shows there will be an on-camera Coronavirus Task Force briefing at 5 p.m. ET on Monday, April 27.

It’s unclear if President Trump will be in attendance.