• Gov. Kay Ivey announced her new “safer at home” order on Tuesday, allowing a gradual reopening of parts of the state’s economy and will replace the current stay-at-home order that is set to expire at 5 p.m. Thursday.
• This new order still encourages individuals to stay at home and social distance themselves from others whenever possible, but allows all retail stores to open as long as they remain at or below 50% their maximum occupancy rate. Some businesses may open subject to sanitation and social-distancing guidelines.
• Ivey emphasized that this is just the first phase of a multi-phase process for reopening the state and urged Alabamians to keep taking the threat of COVID-19 seriously.
• “We’re still seeing the virus spread and all of our people are susceptible to the infection,” Ivey said. “….We must continue to be vigilant in our social distancing both today and for the foreseeable future.”
• Elective medical procedures will now be allowed to resume, Ivey and State Public Health Officer Dr. Scott Harris said. The state's beaches will also reopen, but gatherings of 10 people or more are still prohibited.
• Entertainment venues and athletic facilities will still remain closed as well as close-contact services like barber shops, hair salons, nail salons and tattoo shops. Bars will still be closed and restaurants will still be limited to delivery or curbside service.
• Harris said that the relatively flat rate of new cases seen in recent days has been an encouraging factor in deciding to go forward with this first phase of reopening. Newly diagnosed cases in Alabama are now around 200 per day.
• There has also been no shortage of ventilators or ICU bed capacity and overall hospital capacity has not been strained, Harris said.
• "It's definitely reasonable to begin a reopening like this," Harris said. "We do have adequate ICU beds and the ability to care for people within the four walls of the hospital and have not needed the alternative care sites that we had prepared for. So all these things are very encouraging to us."
• Read more from ADN's Caroline Beck and me HERE.

• AlabamaWorks! is here as a resource for the people and businesses in our state during this difficult time.

• Important workforce resources, tools and updates regarding COVID-19 can be found all in one place on our website.

• Visit www.AlabamaWorks.com for more information on small businesses, unemployment information, state agency updates as well as information for those recently unemployed on how to establish a career pathway or reskill.

• The U.S. economy shrank at a 4.8% annual rate last quarter as the coronavirus pandemic shut down much of the country and began triggering a recession that will end the longest expansion on record.
• The Commerce Department estimated Wednesday that the gross domestic product, the total output of goods and services, posted a quarterly drop for the first time in six years. And it was the sharpest fall since the economy shrank at an 8.4% annual rate in the fourth quarter of 2008 in the depths of the Great Recession.
• The drop in the January-March quarter will be only a precursor of a far grimmer GDP report to come on the current April-June period, with business shutdowns and layoffs striking with devastating force. With much of the economy paralyzed, the Congressional Budget Office has estimated that GDP will plunge this quarter at a 40% annual rate.
• That would be, by a breathtaking margin, the bleakest quarter since such records were first compiled in 1947. It would be four times the size of the worst quarterly contraction on record set in 1958.
• In just a few weeks, businesses across the country have shut down and laid off tens of millions of workers. Factories and stores are shuttered. Home sales are falling. Households are slashing spending. Consumer confidence is sinking. 
• The GDP report showed that the weakness was led by plummeting consumer spending, which accounts for 70% of economic activity. Consumer spending tumbled at an annual rate of 7.6% in the first quarter — its steepest decline since 1980.
• Business investment was also weak: It sank 2.6%, with investment in equipment down a sharp 15.2%.
• A rare bright spot in the report was trade, which added 1.3 percentage points to GDP activity in the quarter. Government spending was up 0.7% in the first quarter, a figure that will likely accelerate with all of the support Congress has approved for rescue packages.
• Full story HERE.

• Everyone wants to know: When, oh when, will it go back to normal? 
• As some governors across the United States begin to ease restrictions imposed to stop the spread of the coronavirus, hopes are soaring that life as Americans knew it might be returning. But plans emerging in many states indicate that “normal” is still a long way off.
• White House adviser Dr. Deborah Birx says social distancing will be with Americans through the summer. Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards warns of a “different way of life” until there is a widely available vaccine — maybe not until next year. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo says: “There is no return to yesterday in life.”
• From the beginning, the pandemic forced impossible choices: physical health or mental health? Economic well-being or medical safety? Most states joined the world and turned the dial down hard, closing shops and restaurants, factories and schools. Asking people to largely keep to their homes. Now, the dial is beginning to inch in the opposite direction.
• Full story HERE.