Immune To COVID? New Study Suggests Why

The U.S. is closing the border with Mexico to all nonessential travel effective at midnight Saturday, at the same time a previously announced shutdown of the Canadian border goes into effect.

The announcement was made Friday afternoon during the White House's daily coronavirus press briefing. The move is an attempt to stop the spread of COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the novel coronavirus, among both the general population and those work in Homeland Security.

"The department has a number of front line officers who have tested positive as well as others that are being quarantined," Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf told reporters at the briefing.

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(MORE: U.S. Faces Severe Blood Shortage as Coronavirus Scares Donors Away, Forces Cancellation of Blood Drives)

On Friday night, the press secretary for Vice President Mike Pence announced that a member of his office tested positive for the virus, but both Pence and President Donald Trump had not been in close contact with that person.

Meanwhile, the deadline to file U.S. income taxes has been extended to July 15, governors in three states have ordered their residents to stay home and the global death toll from the novel coronavirus has now topped 11,000 as the nation and the world continue to reel from the pandemic.

More than 18,500 people in the U.S. had tested positive for COVID-19 as of late Friday afternoon, according to data tracked by Johns Hopkins. At least 227 people have died in 28 states and Washington D.C., which announced its first death on Friday.

Some 271,000 people around the globe have been infected.

The World Health Organization made this sobering statement in its most recent coronavirus update: "The number of confirmed cases worldwide has exceeded 200,000. It took over three months to reach the first 100,000 confirmed cases, and only 12 days to reach the next 100,000."

Latest Developments

United States:

-With more than 5,000 confirmed cases, New York City has nearly one-third of the total number of cases in the U.S. "We are now the epicenter of the crisis," Mayor Bill de Blasio told reporters Friday evening.

-In New Orleans, where cases have skyrocketed in the second half of this week, Mayor LaToya Cantrell issued a "stay home" mandate for all of the city's residents, saying they should only go out for critical needs.

-All Miami Beach hotels have been ordered to close by the end of Monday night.

-Delta Airlines reported that its second-quarter revenue could drop by 80%, equal to $10 billion, due to the coronavirus outbreak, according to CNBC.

-Southwest Airlines canceled most of its flights to and from Chicago's Midway International Airport after airspace there was restricted when a control tower closed down because at least one employee tested positive for COVID-19, The Associated Press reported. The airline suspended about 170 of its 250 daily flights serving Midway.

-Illinois became the latest state to tell all of its residents to stay home except for essential business. Gov. J.B. Pritzker said the order takes effect on Saturday and covers the states 12.6 million residents, according to the AP.

-The first death in from COVID-19 in Washington D.C. was a 59-year-old man with underlying health conditions who was admitted to a local hospital last week, Mayor Muriel Bowser said.

-The U.S. has pushed the deadline for filing federal income taxes from April 15 to July 15, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin announced Friday morning. Mnuchin encouraged all Americans expecting refunds to file now to get their money.

-New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo told all New Yorkers to stay inside as much as possible and ordered that no one go to work, except for those employed in essential services like pharmacies and grocery stores. New York has more than 7,100 confirmed cases of COVID-19, and 38 people there have died. Cuomo had previously ordered that 75% of all workers stay home.

-The U.S. State Department is suspending all routine visa services at U.S. embassies and consulates. The agency said all routine immigrant and nonimmigrant visa appointments will be canceled as of today. On Thursday, the State Department has issued its most serious warning, a level 4 travel advisory, for all international travel.

-The Food and Drug Administration is considering testing the anti-malarial drug chloroquine as a treatment for patients with COVID-19, the Washington Post reported. The drug is one of many being researched around the world. Trump on Thursday called chloroquine a "game changer," but the FDA said the drug needs further testing.

-Kohl's Corp. is closing all of its more than 1,100 stores nationwide until at least April 11, the company announced. Kohl's is the second-largest clothing retailer in the country in terms of sales, according to the National Retail Federation. The largest is TJX Companies, parent company of T.J. Maxx and Marshall, which announced on Thursday it was closing its stores worldwide.

-California Gov. Gavin Newsom said all of his state's 40 million residents should stay home. The order doesn't apply to essential errands such as grocery shopping. It also didn't mandate the closure of schools, although local officials have closed many districts across the state. At least sixteen counties in the state had already issued similar orders, including Los Angeles, before Newsom's directive. Newsom made the announcement Thursday night. There are at least 1,030 confirmed cases in California and 18 people have died, according to the Johns Hopkins coronavirus dashboard.

-Officials in Monroe County, Florida, have ordered all hotels, vacation rentals and short-term RV parks in the Florida Keys to shut down by 6 p.m. Sunday. The move essentially blocks tourists from visiting the Keys and comes amid increasing criticism of Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has refused to issue an order closing beaches statewide. Instead, DeSantis has left that decision up to local governments, who are grappling to stem the flow of spring break tourists. Several counties and cities across the state have made the choice to close beaches, and others are considering it.

-Beaches will also be closed in Broward and Palm Beach counties, as well as in Panama City Beach, adding to a growing list in the state. DeSantis also ordered all restaurants statewide to serve food via take-out or delivery only.

-The U.S.-led coalition in Iraq has suspended training of Iraqi forces, Reuters reported. The move comes at the same time a troop drawdown was announced and troops are being consolidation onto fewer Iraqi bases.

-A control tower at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York has been shut down for cleaning after an employee there tested positive for COVID-19, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. The airport remains open.

-NBC News reported that one of its longtime employees died after being diagnosed with COVID-19. Larry Edgeworth had spent 25 years as an audio technician at the network and most recently worked in an equipment room at NBC News' 30 Rockefeller Plaza headquarters in New York.

-Lawmakers continue working on a sweeping $1 trillion economic stabilization package that would include checks for Americans, but the proposal is coming under increasing fire for limiting payments to poorer Americans and not going far enough to restrict some corporate bailout funds, the Washington Post reported.

Worldwide:

-The British government called on 65,000 retired nurses and doctors to come back to work.

-Zimbabwe reported its first case of COVID-19 on Friday.

-Italy, Spain, Germany Iran and the U.S., in that order, had the highest confirmed cases outside of mainland China as of Friday afternoon, according to Johns Hopkins. Italy, the hardest hit of those countries, has more than 47,000 cases and some 4,000 deaths. The country reported 627 new deaths Friday, the biggest single-day rise since the outbreak began, the AP reported.

-Spain's coronavirus death toll jumped by 30% in one day, according to the Post. The country now has more than 18,000 cases and at least 833 people have died.

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