(Almost) everyone ordered to stay home

Americans in all but about a dozen states are under orders to stay at home to stymie the spread of COVID-19. Five states—Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, Nevada, and Pennsylvania—implemented or expanded stay-at-home orders on Wednesday. President Donald Trump has largely deferred to governors to implement lockdowns. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who had resisted issuing a statewide order, said he reversed course after consulting with the White House.

What about the rest of the world? Most world leaders have taken significant steps to try to curb the spread of the new coronavirus with one notable holdout: Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro. He has dubbed COVID-19 “a little flu” and suggested the disease already had infected most Brazilians who had natural immunity. “The Brazilian needs to be studied,” Bolsonaro said last week. “He doesn’t catch anything. You see a guy jumping into sewage, diving in, right? Nothing happens to him.” He did admit in a televised address on Tuesday that the virus is “the greatest challenge of our generation” but didn’t impose any preventative measures. Johns Hopkins University on Thursday reported more than 7,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 250 deaths in the country.

Dig deeper: Read Laura Edghill’s report about how stay-at-home orders affect U.S. students.