The confirmed U.S. death toll from COVID-19 has topped 176,000, with over 5.7 million recorded infections. On Sunday, the Food and Drug Administration issued an emergency use authorization for blood plasma in the treatment of COVID-19, saying “the known and potential benefits of the product outweigh the known and potential risks of the product.” Over 70,000 patients have already been treated with plasma from recovered patients. The news came just one day after President Trump accused the FDA of delaying approval of coronavirus vaccines and being part of the “deep state” — without any evidence. Some top health officials, including White House coronavirus adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci, have questioned whether the data on the blood plasma study was still too weak, with no randomized studies, to grant an FDA approval.

This comes amid rising concern over outbreaks in schools around the country as at least three dozen states so far have reported cases on college campuses.
Meanwhile, ProPublica reports that meatpacking companies — another major source of coronavirus clusters — were regularly warned about the potential for a pandemic as early as 2006, but executives ignored, and in some cases mocked, recommendations for handling one.

Here in New York City, a protest under the banner “March for the Dead” took place Friday to memorialize the over 175,000 lives lost so far.

Protesters: “Fight for the living! March for the dead!”

Families of victims of COVID-19 called out Trump for his mishandling of the pandemic, as they marched across the Brooklyn Bridge to the Trump Building in Lower Manhattan.