Former FDA commissioner, other officials warn mass protests could cause spikes in infections

As nationwide protests sparked by the death of a black man in police custody stretched into their sixth day, current and former government officials warned Sunday that the mass demonstrations could lead to new waves of coronavirus infections.

“There’s going to be a lot of issues coming out of what’s happened in the last week, but one of them is going to be that chains of transmission will have become lit from these gatherings,” former Food and Drug Administration commissioner Scott Gottlieb said in an interview on CBS News’s “Face the Nation."

Meanwhile, as the U.S. death toll from the coronavirus pandemic climbed above 100,000, President Trump spent the month of May desperate to change the subject from a crisis he could not control. “He’s been over coronavirus for a long time,” said one veteran Trump adviser.

Here are some significant developments:

• Pockets of Americans across the country appeared to shrug off instructions to wear masks and practice social distancing over the weekend, gathering in large groups to protest, dine or enjoy the warm weather.
• Dentists in New York may resume normal operations on Monday, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced Sunday.
• A physician who contracted with the state of Florida to provide coronavirus test results for thousands of people was removed from his post after officials realized he had been put on probation by the state medical board for improperly treating HIV patients.
• In the first large-scale study examining coronavirus antibodies in children, researchers in Washington state found roughly 1 percent of children who visited a Seattle hospital in March and April were infected with the novel coronavirus, even though most were not symptomatic.
• President Trump said Saturday he will postpone until at least September the annual Group of Seven meeting of world leaders. He had planned to hold the summit in-person by the end of June.

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