Coronavirus US live: experts urge caution on first holiday weekend of summer as deaths pass 94,000

Good morning, US live blog readers, welcome to another vigorous day of politics and coronavirus news, with all the up-to-the-minute developments covered here. Here’s is what’s foremost today so far:

• America’s top public health expert Anthony Fauci, the head of the White House coronavirus task force, urges caution as millions head out of doors for the Memorial Day weekend, the first weekend that signals the start of the summer holiday season. All 50 states have reopened for business in some fashion – some much more restricted than others – and the public is heading to the beaches, bars and bowling alleys. There is potential for chaos and risk of infection. Fauci said last night: “Go out, wear a mask. Stay six feet away from anyone you see.” Not everyone will be taking that advice and some local leaders are not echoing that message. Donald Trump last night ordered flags to fly at half staff on federal buildings and national monuments over the weekend, to mark the deaths from coronavirus and to honor America’s military dead.
• Donald Trump hit out last night at the attorney general of Michigan, Dana Nessel, after she severely criticized his refusal to don a mask for the cameras at the Ford factory he visited in the state yesterday, as an example to others and to comply with Michigan law, even if he, as he said, had tested negative for coronavirus that morning. She called him a “petulant child”, he called her a “wacky do nothing”, so that’s all useful stuff. Pictures did emerge, as the president predicted they would, of him wearing a mask behind the scenes before he stepped in front of the assembled media and told them he didn’t want to give the press the pleasure of seeing it.
• Democratic congressional leaders Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer had asked the president to lower the flags to mark the grim milestone of 100,000 US deaths from coronavirus, which will be reached any day now. Trump chose his own way of doing it. The number of confirmed cases of Covid-19 in the US has now surpassed 1.57m and the death toll has surpassed 94,000.
• The US has called on the World Health Organization (WHO) today to begin work immediately on investigating the source of the coronavirus, as well as its own handling of the response to the pandemic.
  Brett Giroir, US Assistant Secretary for Health, told the WHO’s executive board in a written statement: “There is no time to waste to begin on the reforms needed to ensure such a pandemic never happens again.”
  An independent, comprehensive review of the WHO-led global response – as agreed in a resolution adopted by the WHO’s annual ministerial assembly on Tuesday – should seek “complete and transparent understanding of the source, timeline of events, and decision-making process for the WHO’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic”, he said.
  
• White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany has scheduled a press briefing at 2pm ET.

Read the original article at The Guardian