Coronavirus US live: Trump demands churches, synagogues and mosques reopen 'right now'

From our global coronavirus blog:

The US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has treated 1,300 coronavirus patients with the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine, which a study has tied to an increased risk of death.

The Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, who received the information from the VA in response to questions he submitted on the issue, said he was “deeply troubled” by the data.

Trump has urged use of hydroxychloroquine against the virus and recently said he has been taking it himself, despite evidence that the treatment could be harmful.

A study published on Friday in the medical journal Lancet tied the drug to an increased risk of death in hospitalised patients with Covid-19.

The US is planning a large testing effort involving more than 100,000 volunteers and the most promising vaccine candidates in hopes of producing a safe and effective one by the end of 2020, according to a new report in Reuters.

The scientists involved say they aim to take only months to complete a process that is typically completed in a 10-year time frame. Leading vaccine makers will be sharing data and other resources. Vaccine candidates that prove to be safe in initial studies will be tested in larger trials, and that process will begin in July, Reuters said.

“If you don’t see a safety problem, you just keep going,” said Dr Larry Corey, with the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle, who is helping design the trials.

Here’s the Guardian’s science editor on the long road ahead in the search for an effective vaccine:

Hello – Sam Levin in Los Angeles here, taking over our live coverage for the rest of the day as we head into the long weekend.

Trump still hasn’t completed his annual physical six months after he started it, and the White House is declining to explain why, according to an NBC News report. Some are raising questions about the lack of a physical after the president has continued to assert that he is taking the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine as protection against coronavirus despite federal regulators warning of potentially serious, even fatal, dangers.

In early March, when Trump was asked about his physical, he suggested he would complete it in the next three months, telling reporters, “I’m so busy, I can’t do it.”

A study out today showed that hydroxychloroquine has increased deaths in patients treated with it in hospitals around the world. More from the Guardian’s health editor:

Joe Biden has apologised for his comment earlier today that if African Americans “have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black”. At the same time, Donald Trump is seeking to press home Republican attacks on the matter.

“I shouldn’t have been such a wise guy,” Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, said on a call with the US Black Chambers, an African-American business group. “I shouldn’t have been so cavalier.”

The president, meanwhile, retweeted Senator Tim Scott’s view that Biden’s comments “are the most arrogant and condescending thing I’ve heard in a very long time” and commended an African American Fox News host, Harris Faulkner, as “A GREAT AMERICAN”.

Faulkner said Biden’s comment was “more than just a little offensive, it is short sighted, it is a blind spot for this former vice-president. He should’ve got up immediately on whatever venue, microphone he had.”

She then read a statement from Black Voices for Trump. The statement was authored by Katrina Pierson, a Trump spokeswoman who spoke to reporters with Senator Scott earlier and according to the New York Times “grew defensive in response to questions about Mr Trump’s own history of racist remarks”.

The Times added:

I know the president and I know his heart and I know his intent,’ she said, accusing the news media of taking Mr Trump ‘out of context’.

At the White House earlier, Donald Trump cited “liquor stores and abortion clinics” as services some governors have deemed essential and allowed to stay open during the coronavirus pandemic.

“It’s not right,” the president said, announcing his decision to “call houses of worship essential” and call upon governors to allow such places “to open right now”.

Trump does not like liquor. He is a teetotaler, and vocally so, and claims never to have taken a drink.

Trump does not like abortion, vocally so since he declared his run for the presidential nomination of a party committed to achieving its end.

Back in 2016, however, he wasn’t very vocal when a New York Times columnist asked if any woman he had been involved with had ever had an abortion.

“Such an interesting question,” Trump told Maureen Dowd. “So what’s your next question?”

There’s also the perennial question of just how religious Trump is, and what support for him says about evangelical Christians in particular. Here’s John S Gardner’s review of a recent attempt to make the Christian case for Trump:

Yahoo News and YouGov are out with a startling poll, which among its findings says 44% of Republicans believe Microsoft founder Bill Gates “is plotting to use a mass Covid-19 vaccination campaign as a pretext to implant microchips in billions of people and monitor their movements”.

Gates has given $300m to fund efforts to find a vaccine for the coronavirus, which has killed nearly 100,000 people in the US and nearly 336,000 worldwide. Earlier this month he participated in a global summit which the Trump administration skipped.

The idea that Gates is pushing vaccine efforts out of some sinister, world-dominating motive is actually a conspiracy theory too outlandish even for the Trump administration and Fox News, which have not pushed it. (Trump supporters Diamond and Silk did go there in April, on their own live stream, after their last Fox Nation show.)

To some Americans, that doesn’t seem to matter. Among those who say their primary source of news is Fox News, the new poll says, the figure for believing the Gates conspiracy theory is 50%.

The Yahoo/YouGov poll found widespread concern about the spread of misinformation amid the coronavirus pandemic. A majority of Democrats blamed the Trump administration while Republicans blamed the mainstream media.

The tendency to believe and spread conspiracy theories is “more widespread on the right”, Yahoo reported, “although liberals also believe some false narratives (including that Covid-19 deaths have already surged in states that were quick to reopen)”.

Joe Biden has apologized for his comments earlier on Friday.

Christian leaders in several states were already making plans to open to congregants on the week of Pentecost, May 31, despite restrictions in those states, and evidence of heightened risks of spreading Covid-19

They, and others, are likely to be emboldened President Trump’s remarks on Friday about opening “essential” houses of worship. The Associated Press reports:

The president suggested on Thursday that friction over the issue was more common in states run by Democrats because “churches are not being treated with respect” by many of their governors.

One of those Democrats, California governor Gavin Newsom, was warned this week by Trump’s Justice Department that the state’s phased-in plan to restart economic activity puts an “unfair burden” on worship by not permitting churches to open earlier in the process.

More than 1,200 California pastors are planning to restart worship on May 31 despite Newsom’s stay-at-home orders, which he has said would likely allow for religious gatherings within weeks.

In Florida, Rodney Howard-Browne – arrested in March for holding a large in-person service at his church, charges that were later dropped – is preparing to reopen with an outdoor service on Pentecost.

Catholic and Lutheran churches in Minnesota, meanwhile, have notified that state’s Democratic governor that they plan to resume Mass this week in advance of the holiday, in defiance of his order.

And an evangelical pastor who’s been a key Trump backer, Jack Graham, plans to reopen his Texas megachurch on Pentecost weekend.

But while Pentecost promises to escalate the number of churches seeking to reopen, many other houses of worship are still expecting to wait until June or beyond to resume in-person services with restrictions aimed at protecting public health.

Trouble continues for Joe Biden over his remarks to radio host Charlamagne tha God this morning.

The Democratic presumptive nominee said that “if you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black”.

Michigan Republican and candidate for Senate John James has put out a furious tweet.

Here’s the clip.

The FBI said on Friday that the agency’s director Christopher Wray had ordered an internal review into possible misconduct in the investigation of former Trump administration national security adviser Michael Flynn.

This follows the Justice Department’s controversial decision earlier this month to move to dismiss the criminal case against Flynn, who had pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI.

Judge Emmet Sullivan, however, has put a hold on attorney general William Barr’s attempt to drop the case against Flynn, and appointed a retired judge, John Gleeson, to argue against the motion to dismiss.

The FBI review announced on Friday will examine whether any employees engaged in misconduct during the course of the investigation and evaluate whether any improvements need to be made, the bureau said.

The move to drop the case was condemned by almost 2,000 former justice department figures.

Returning to White House coronavirus task force resource coordinator Deborah Birx’s lengthy presentation for a moment.

She mentioned that people shouldn’t go to religious services if they are experiencing symptoms of coronavirus.

But she and all the other experts have said repeatedly that people can be asymptomatic while still having coronavirus and be shedding the virus, potentially infecting people, for days without realizing it.

Here’s one of the other points Donald Trump just made in his exceedingly short address to the press.

“Some governors have deemed liquor stores and abortion clinics essential, but have left out churches … it’s not right. So I am correcting this injustice and am calling houses of worship essential,” the president said.