US parents face tough decisions over childcare

Parents in the United States are facing difficult decisions over childcare as most licensed day care programs are closed or are available only to essential workers as the novel coronavirus pandemic rages on.

Across the nation, states, cities and counties are organizing childcare programs for millions of parents who must head back to work following state lockdowns. Those parents must get childcare because most school districts have announced that they will offer online classes and some in-classroom education in the fall.

"So many parents have said they can't make it work if they don't get more childcare," New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said. "We've been trying to find every way to create new childcare－and to build it from scratch, honestly, because we're having to create something that didn't exist before on this scale."

New York City, the nation's largest public school district with 1.1 million students, will offer 100,000 children in preschool through eighth grade free day care in unused classrooms when schools partially reopen. Only 15 students will be allowed in each room.

Two of California's largest school districts, Los Angeles with more than 600,000 students, and San Diego with 121,000 students, won't fully reopen for in-person classes.

To provide parents with childcare, some California school districts will use empty classrooms with adult supervisors in them. Parents will drop off their children at a school in the morning where they can do their schoolwork online.

The Long Beach Unified School District, which has 72,000 students, will offer the same program. Each room will have one adult for every five children. All children will have their temperatures checked and the bottom of their shoes sprayed with disinfectant.

As of Monday morning, more than 146,900 people in the US had died of COVID-19－nearly a quarter of the global total－and there were over 4.2 million cases in the country, according to data collected by Johns Hopkins University.

New York state saw just 637 people hospitalized on Saturday for COVID-19, which is the lowest daily number since mid-March, Governor Andrew Cuomo said on Sunday.

"That's a new low for us since March 18, so really great news," Cuomo said in a conference call.

New York City alone recorded four new COVID-19 hospitalizations on Friday, its lowest number since March 1.

By contrast, Florida became the second state after California to surpass New York on the weekend as the worst-hit state in the country, according to a Reuters tally.

Total coronavirus infections in Florida rose by 9,300 to 423,855 on Sunday, just one place behind California (a state with almost twice Florida's population), which now leads the country with 448,497 cases. New York is third with 415,827 cases.

Relief bill

The latest vaccine news is that Moderna drugmaker said on Sunday it has received an additional $472 million from the US government's Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority to support development of its coronavirus vaccine.

The US-based company said the additional funding will support its late-stage clinical development including the expanded phase 3 study of its vaccine candidate.

Top Trump administration officials on Sunday raised the possibility of Congress passing narrower, piecemeal coronavirus relief legislation－an approach opposed by Democrats－as a deadline looms on the expiration of enhanced unemployment benefits.

A day before Senate Republicans were due to introduce a $1 trillion coronavirus relief bill that includes reduced federal unemployment benefits, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said he believed the party could work quickly with Democrats on getting legislation passed.

Chen Yingqun in Beijing contributed to this story.