The Latest: Major New Orleans jazz festival canceled

The Latest on the coronavirus pandemic. The new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms for most people. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness or death.

TOP OF THE HOUR:

— White House guidelines call for phased reopening.

— Trump to governors: “You’re going to call your own shots.”

— Italy to start immunity tests in early May.

— Virus reaches “long plateau” in France, health agency chief says.

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NEW ORLEANS — This year’s New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival has been canceled, the latest economic and entertainment industry casualty in Louisiana’s fight to halt the spread of the new coronavirus.

Organizers had already postponed the festival, which usually spans two spring weekends, until the fall. But they announced Thursday on the festival website that they would not attempt this year to hold the event.

The festival, which celebrated its 50th anniversary last year, draws more than 400,000 visitors to the Fair Grounds Race Course for music on multiple stages, a variety of cuisines at dozens of food booths and an arts and crafts fair.

The announcement came as Gov. John Bel Edwards announced the creation of an 18-member commission to help the state plot a course for eventually reopening businesses shuttered during the fight against the coronavirus.

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WASHINGTON — The Trump administration has announced it will provide $5 million to the Palestinians to help them combat the coronavirus pandemic.

It’s the first new U.S. assistance to the Palestinians since the administration slashed and then virtually eliminated all aid to them as it moved to coordinate its policy with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman announced the move in a tweet on Thursday. He said the money would go to Palestinian hospitals and households to “meet immediate, life-saving needs in combating COVID-19.” He said the United States “is committed to assisting the Palestinian people” during the crisis.

Friedman has been a main proponent of the administration’s pro-Israel stance, promoting the recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, moving the U.S. embassy there from Tel Aviv, eliminating American assistance to the Palestinian Authority and ending funding for the U.N. agency responsible for Palestinian refugees.

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WASHINGTON — The Trump administration has issued new guidelines for states, individuals and employers on how to ease up on social distancing to deal with the coronavirus in areas where COVID-19 are on the decline.

The guidelines distributed to governors are published under the headline “Opening Up America Again.”

The guidelines say states or regions should meet certain criteria before moving to a phased opening. For example, there needs to be a downward trajectory of documented COVID-19 cases within a 14-day period and a robust testing program in place for at-risk health care workers.

For states and regions that satisfy the criteria for a “phase one” opening, the guidelines recommend that vulnerable individuals should continue to shelter in place. Others who go out should avoid socializing in groups of more than 10 people in places that don’t provide appropriate physical distancing. Trade shows are cited as an example.

For specific types of employers, it’s recommended that bars remain closed as part of phase one. However, theaters, sporting venues and churches can open “under strict physical distancing protocols.”

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TIRANA, Albania — Health ministers of the Western Balkan countries have agreed to facilitate any joint action in the fight against the coronavirus, according to the Kosovo Health Ministry.

A statement Thursday said Kosovar Health Minister Arben Vitia had telephone calls with his colleagues in the region in which they agreed that “transport routes for goods, health personnel and medical equipment remain free.”

All countries are in a lockdown and only goods can cross their borders.

COVID-19 has infected 8,801 people and killed 233 in the six Western Balkan countries — Kosovo, Albania, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Serbia — as of Thursday, according to John Hopkins University figures.

The six countries are at different stages of integration into the European Union, which already has offered financial and material support in their fight against the virus.

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LOS ANGELES — Cinematographer Allen Daviau, who shot three of Steven Spielberg’s films including “E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial,” has died from COVID-19 complications. He was 77.

A representative from the American Society of Cinematographers said Daviau died Tuesday night.

A five-time Oscar nominee, Daviau was also behind the camera on Speilberg’s “Empire of the Sun” and “The Color Purple.” Other noteworthy movies he worked on include “Bugsy,” “Avalon” and “Defending Your Life.”

Daviau started his career alongside Spielberg. One of his earliest credits was on Spielberg’s short film “Amblin,” from 1968.

ASC president Kees van Oostrum wrote in an email to members Wednesday that Daviau will be remembered fondly for his sense of humor and unmistakable laugh.

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WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump has told the nation’s governors “you’re going to call your own shots” as he prepared to unveil national guidelines on when and how the country starts to recover economically from the coronavirus pandemic.

Trump is set to issue new guidelines aimed at clearing the way for an easing of restrictions in areas with low transmission of the coronavirus, while keeping them in place in harder-hit places. Ultimately, decisions on when to ease up will rest with governors.

Trump talked to governors before he unveils the guidelines to the public in the evening. The announcement comes on the same day the government said 5.2 million more Americans applied for unemployment benefits last week.

Trump said on Monday that his “authority is total” to reopen states but has since backed away from that claim after governors pointed out the Constitution does not grant the president that power.

Trump told the governors some of them are in good shape to open their states quickly, but others are in tough shape. He remarked that requests for ventilators have gone away, adding, “I say that respectfully.” He also asserted that “we’re in excellent shape” on testing, which many health care officials have disputed.

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LANSING, Mich. — Seven Midwestern governors announced Thursday that they will coordinate on reopening their state economies, after similar pacts were made earlier this week in the Northeast and on the West Coast.

Thursday’s announcement covers Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, Indiana and Kentucky.

The governors say they will work with experts and take a “fact-based, data-driven approach to reopening our economy in a way that protects families from the spread of COVID-19.”

Altogether, the 17 states covered by the three pacts are home to nearly half the U.S. population.

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ROME — Italy will begin administering experimental coronavirus immunity tests on an initial 150,000 people nationwide in early May as part of its efforts to reopen after a weekslong shutdown.

Italy’s commissioner for the pandemic, Domenico Arcuri, told state-run RAI news Thursday that the government hopes the first wave of tests will progressively grow in number and become the national standard.

Italy, the European epicenter of the pandemic, has imposed a lockdown and production shutdown through May 3.

Individual regions and even companies are already gunning to start antibody tests to accelerate the reopening. But Arcuri made clear the government wants a unified approach in testing, which he said would be one of the “fundamental pillars” of moving into the next phase of the emergency.

Arcuri said another pillar involved rolling out a voluntary contact-tracing cellphone application, to provide real-time data on movements of people and possible new clusters of infection. A pilot program would begin in some regions and then extend nationwide, he said.

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PARIS — French President Emmanuel Macron says China hasn’t been fully transparent about its handling of the coronavirus.

In an interview appearing Friday in the Financial Times, Macron said: “Let’s not be so naive as to say (China) has been much better at handling this.”

Macron continued: “We don’t know. There are clearly things that have happened that we don’t know about.” He didn’t elaborate.

The comments come amid growing international questions about how China released information about the virus. Internal documents obtained by The Associated Press show that China’s top health agency knew it was facing a likely pandemic but didn’t alert the public for six key days.

Macron is trying to rally international cooperation to fight the virus more effectively, but growing tensions with China may complicate that.

France’s foreign minister summoned China’s ambassador this week to express his “clear disapproval” of recent Chinese comments over how France is dealing with the virus crisis.

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MOSCOW — The Russian government has allowed the controversial medication hydroxychloroquine to be used in the treatment of coronavirus infection.

The antimalarial drug has been touted, notably by President Donald Trump, as potentially effective against the virus, but clinical studies are inconclusive.

The drug is not registered for use in Russia, but a Chinese pharmaceutical company provided a large supply to the National Medical Research Center for Cardiology, according to an order from Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin reported by Russian news agencies on Thursday. The order authorizes the center to provide the medication free to institutions treating coronavirus infections.

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PARIS — The coronavirus appears to be receding in France, one of the world’s hardest-hit countries.

National Health agency chief Jerome Salomon said Thursday that the virus epidemic looks to have reached a “long plateau” that is “evolving slowly downward,” instead of hitting a peak followed by a sharp drop.

Two weeks ago, France saw a 58% weekly jump in deaths nationwide as COVID-19 claimed more and more lives.

Salomon said it was unclear how much of the “excess mortality” reported from March 30-April 5 in comparison to previous years was linked to the virus.

But the rise corresponded with an increase in deaths attributed to the virus in hospitals and care homes, which is now at 17,920. France has not been counting people who die with the virus at home.

More than 6,000 people are still in intensive care but the number has dropped every day for a week, and the number of people hospitalized fell Thursday for a second day.

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LONDON — British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab says China will have some “hard questions” to answer about how the coronavirus pandemic started.

The virus emerged in Wuhan, China, at the end of 2019. Raab said Thursday the world will need to find out what happened in China in the early days of the pandemic.

Raab is filling in for Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who is convalescing after a weeklong hospital stay to be treated for COVID-19. The foreign secretary said there will have to be a “deep dive” review of the crisis, including how the outbreak came about.

He said the review of all aspects of the pandemic, including its origins, will have to be based on the science and conducted in a “balanced way,” and added that there “is no doubt we can’t have business as usual after this crisis.”

Raab did credit cooperation from Beijing in relation to bringing home stranded Britons in Wuhan and in supplying equipment to deal with the pandemic.

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CAIRO — Egypt’s government will introduce movement restrictions targeted specifically at the holiday of Sham el-Nessim on Monday.

The holiday traditionally includes a festival of social gatherings in parks and gardens that signals the arrival of spring.

Egyptian Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly announced on Thursday that all public transportation, public spaces and stores will close for the occasion to encourage the country’s 100 million people to stay indoors.

The holiday follows Orthodox Easter on Sunday, which will see muted celebrations in Egypt as the Coptic Orthodox Church decided to suspend Easter prayers and gatherings at churches nationwide. Christians constitute around 10% of Egypt’s predominately Muslim population.

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MALE, Maldives — The Maldives government has placed the archipelago state’s capital island, Male, and two nearby islands under a two-day lockdown after authorities found signs of community spread of the new coronavirus.

Officials said three people tested positive for COVID-19 in Male on Wednesday and Thursday and it was not clear how the virus entered the community.

The Indian Ocean country is known for its luxury tourist resort islands. Before this week, the Maldives had only found positive cases of COVID-19 at the resorts. There have been 23 confirmed cases overall, including 15 foreigners.

Some resorts and hotels have been converted into quarantine centers.

The capital island is tiny, with more than 100,000 people packed into 1 square mile (2.5 square kilometers).

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ISTANBUL — Turkey’s health minister has reported 125 new COVID-19 fatalities in the past 24 hours.

That’s the highest number of daily deaths in the country since the start of the coronavirus pandemic and brings the total death toll to 1,643.

Health minister Fahrettin Koca also tweeted Thursday that the number of infections in the country has increased by 4,801 and the total number of confirmed cases is 74,193.

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JOLIET, Ill. — A nursing home in northern Illinois became the latest such facility in the United States to see its death toll climb past 20.

Symphony of Joliet said a death toll that stood at three as recently as last week had jumped to 23. A spokeswoman for the facility where 22 residents and one staff member have died said the surge occurred despite its efforts to follow government guidelines and despite moving healthy residents to other facilities.

But siblings of one resident who died said the care was woefully inadequate and that they were not even told that their 65-year-old sister had contracted the virus until a representative of a hospital where she was taken told them.

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Follow AP news coverage of the coronavirus pandemic at https://apnews.com/VirusOutbreak and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak