VOA NEWS

April 24, 2020

This is VOA news. Reporting by remote, I'm David Byrd.



The Trump administration said Thursday that heat, light and humidity might speed up the death of the coronavirus.

Speaking at the daily White House briefing, William Bryan, the undersecretary for science and technology at the Department of Homeland Security, said the virus survives best indoors and in dry conditions. However, he said that the virus dies the quickest in direct sunlight and in high humidity conditions.

"This is just another, another tool in our tool belt, but another, another weapon in the fight that we can add to it and in the summer, we know that summer-like conditions are going to create an environment where the transmission can be decreased and that's an opportunity for us to get ahead."

Bryan warned, however, that it would be irresponsible to say that the summer months will eliminate the virus. But he said that those months will provide an opportunity to get ahead of the disease.



Americans continue losing their jobs with the economy all but shut down because of the coronavirus. AP Washington correspondent Sagar Meghani reports.

Another 4.4 million laid-off workers applied for jobless benefits last week. The total across five weeks is now roughly 26 million people - about one in six American workers since mid-March. It's easily the worst string of lay-offs on record amid the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, when the unemployment rate hit 25 percent.

Some economists say it could reach 20 percent this month even as some states start to ease restrictions and let some businesses reopen. It's unlikely to lead to much re-hiring, especially if Americans are too wary of leaving their homes.

Sagar Meghani, Washington.



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The U.S. House of Representatives has overwhelmingly approved a $484 billion coronavirus relief bill on Thursday funding small businesses and hospitals and pushing the total spending response to the outbreak to an unprecedented near $3 trillion.

The measure passed the Democratic-led House by a vote of 388 to 5. House members were meeting for the first time in weeks because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Lawmakers, many of them wearing masks, approved the bill during an extended period of voting intended to allow them to remain at a distance from one another in line with public health recommendations.

The House actions sent the latest of four relief bills to the White House, where Republican President Donald Trump has promised to sign it into law.



The northern Italian region of Lombardy has been the epicenter of the European coronavirus outbreak. On Thursday, it began an antibody testing program as it looks to begin opening up its economy after weeks of lockdown. Reuters Joe Davies reports.

Authorities hope it'll give them a clearer picture of the spread of the virus and show who has already had it.

Luca Dure is the mayor of Cisliano. "Our volunteers help the most fragile people, the elderly, and they bring them meals and groceries at home. We had the doubt that those volunteers carrying on these services could have been, in some way, in contact with the virus and this worried us a lot. So we tried to give some answers."

Lombardy is the latest of a patchwork of individual testing programs in Italy. The neighboring regions of Veneto and Emilia Romagna began their own earlier this month.

The number of deaths and infections have started to flatten out in Italy. But in the absence of a cure or a vaccine, a successful antibody testing program offers some hope of a way out of lockdown and a pathway to a reboot of the economy.

That's Reuters Joe Davies.



Some schools in Germany have begun reopening their doors after being closed for weeks because of the coronavirus pandemic. AP correspondent ??? reports.

Some students in ???, a small town in the eastern German state of Saxony-Anhalt, returned for the first time after the break in line with the country's strict social distancing guidelines.

A school principal in ??? said a five-feet distance rule is being imposed and entry and exit doors have special looks to ensure social distancing. Schools will reopen gradually depending on individual states.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel says that she understands the urge to relax restrictions as soon as possible but criticized some states are moving too quickly.

I'm ???.



Reporting by remote, I'm David Byrd, VOA news.