Coronavirus Live Updates: U.S.-China Tensions Threaten to Dominate W.H.O. Meeting

Today is the deadline for public companies in the U.S. to decide whether to return PPP loans.Right NowAbout 1.5 million people in the United States have been infected with the coronavirus and at least 89,500 have died, according to a New York Times database.The World Health Organization is holding its first global assembly since the outbreak of the pandemic on Monday, an extraordinary virtual meeting of heads of state and health experts from around the world to try to coordinate an effective international response to a crisis that is far from over.Even as nearly every state across the United States eased restrictions on movement and European nations pushed to restart stalled economies, the virus was still spreading rapidly in other parts of the world, including in Brazil, which has seen explosive growth in new cases in recent days.Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director general of the W.H.O., said the gathering was perhaps the most important for the world body since it was founded in 1948.But there is a risk that the gathering serves to underscore division rather than promote unity as the United States and other countries will call for the W.H.O. to investigate China’s response to the coronavirus outbreak.President Xi Jinping of China addressed the assembly Monday morning and defended his nation’s handling of the outbreak, saying that officials had acted with transparency.“We have done everything in our power to support and assist countries in need,” he said.President Trump and some other world leaders have accused the Chinese authorities of allowing the virus to spread worldwide by suppressing or withholding vital information about it after it emerged in Wuhan, China, in December. The United States has by far the world’s worst known outbreak, accounting for more than 1.4 million cases of the global total of about 4.6 million, and nearly 90,000 of the global total of more than 314,000 deaths.Mr. Trump has sought to deflect some of the criticism aimed at him by stirring anger at China and the W.H.O. Last month, after repeatedly claiming that the organization had been too quick to believe the information about the virus coming from China, he ordered his administration to halt funding for the organization — a loss of hundreds of millions of dollars, although his administration has raised the possibility of partly restoring it.A detailed county map shows the extent of the coronavirus outbreak, with tables of the number of cases by county.When big companies got loans backed by the federal government’s $660 billion Paycheck Protection Program, outrage ensued. Illinois, Michigan and New Jersey remain fully shut down.But governors in states where some rules have been eases are still concerned about a resurgence of the virus.Gov. Gavin Newsom of California, a Democrat, said on CNN that he understood “the stress and anxiety that people have,” citing upended dreams and depleted savings.“The question is,” he added, “how do you toggle back and make meaningful modifications to the stay-at-home order?”In New York, state and city officials are calling on many more residents to get tested to help the state reopen.To underscore this point, Gov. Andrew M. In telephone comments during a golf broadcast on Sunday, he said he missed sports and wanted “big, big stadiums loaded with people.”A late morning drive down Fifth Avenue, starting at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where the lanes are normally choked with inching traffic, now passes by almost impossibly quickly.The notorious F.D.R. Drive along the East River, prone to random standstills throughout its long stretch, now feels more like a Grand Theft Auto game.In Brooklyn, turn a corner and see a line of people standing six feet apart and still as stone, masked, awaiting permission to enter Whole Foods.The virus has transformed the experience of operating a motor vehicle in New York City.With no office to go to or friends to visit, and facing stern orders to stay home, a vast majority of drivers have left their vehicles idle, creating something altogether new: open road, miles and miles of it.It cannot last, of course; drivers are already seeing an increase in traffic from a month ago, with much more to follow as people venture out of quarantine, wary of public transportation.But for now, an emptiness remains.