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- A group of 239 scientists representing 32 countries is reportedly preparing to ask the World Health Organization to revise its recommendations for the novel coronavirus due to evidence that they say supports the claim the disease is airborne.
The scientists are expected to publish an open letter making the request in a scientific journal next week, according to The New York Times. The letter is set to offer evidence that supports the position that smaller particles of the coronavirus can travel through the air and infect people.
- Stephen Hahn, the Food and Drug Administration commissioner, said on Sunday it was not clear whether it will be safe to hold the Republican National Convention in Jacksonville next month, as Florida sees record numbers of coronavirus cases.
- The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Sunday reported 2,841,906 cases of new coronavirus, an increase of 52,228 cases from its previous count, and said the number of deaths had risen by 271 to 129,576.
- Public health experts and officials on Sunday disputed President’s Trump’s characterization of the seriousness of the coronavirus.
In an Independence Day speech on Saturday at the White House, Mr. Trump sought to dismiss widespread criticism of his administration’s slow and ineffective response to the virus. He repeated his false claim that an abundance of testing made the country’s cases look worse than they were, and he asserted that 99 percent of the nation’s cases were “totally harmless.”
- Mr. Trump and other administration officials have also highlighted the country’s declining death rate.
Dr. Ashish Jha, the director of the Harvard Global Health Institute, said improvements in care may have caused the decline, but also described deaths as a “lagging indicator.”
“By the time somebody gets infected, it takes a couple weeks before they get hospitalized and get really sick, and another week or 10 days before they die, ” he said.
- Broadway star Nick Cordero died on Sunday at age 41 after battling coronavirus and subsequent health problems for several months, his family said Sunday.
- Penn State University announced 21-year-old student Juan Garcia died of respiratory failure from coronavirus complications last month.
The university is now contact tracing anyone who may have been around Garcia while he was sick.
- Houston’s mayor, Sylvester Turner, issued the same two-week warning in an appearance on the CBS program “Face the Nation,” noting that roughly one in four virus tests in the city was now positive and that the demand for testing was exceeding capacity.
- Austin, Texas Mayor Steve Adler on CNN on infection numbers in his city: “If we don’t change the trajectory, then I am within two weeks of having our hospitals overrun. And in our ICUs, I think we could be ten days away from that.”
- Mr. Adler said that the most important thing about the order Governor Abbott signed on Thursday making masks mandatory in most counties was that people would now be getting the same guidance from both state and local officials.
“It’s the messaging,” he said. “It’s the singular voice from both parties saying to our community, ‘This is important, you have to do it, it works.’”
- The State of Arizona added few deaths – four – to its total on Sunday morning, July 5, compared to its previous and regular double digits, but 3,536 new confirmed cases of the coronavirus edged the state ever closer to the 100,000 mark, according to the Arizona Department of Health Services website.
- Mayor Kate Gallego of Phoenix said on Sunday that with cases and death counts soaring in Arizona, testing sites in her city and surrounding Maricopa County are overwhelmed, but the Federal Emergency Management Agency has rebuffed her pleas for help.
She raised the issue on the ABC program “This Week,” saying that it “feels like they’re declaring victory while we’re in crisis mode.”
- Ms. Gallego also said that the pace of Arizona’s reopening indicated to some residents that the coronavirus crisis was over and, in turn, spurred a record number of new cases.
“We opened way too early in Arizona. We were one of the last states to go to stay at home and one of the first to reemerge, and we reemerged at zero to 60,” Gallego said “We had crowded nightclubs handing out free champagne, no masks. Our 20- to 44-year-olds, which is my own demographic, really led the explosion, and we’ve seen such growth in that area. We’re seeing a lot of people go to large family gatherings and infect their family members.”
- Tokyo confirmed 111 new coronavirus infections on Sunday, the fourth straight day that the tally of fresh cases has exceeded 100
- Visitors to the Taj Mahal will have to wear masks at all times, keep their distance and not touch its glistening marble surfaces when India’s 17th-century monument to love reopens on Monday after a three-month COVID-19 shutdown.
- Indonesia reported 82 new coronavirus deaths on Sunday in its highest daily tally.
- The Philippines reported its biggest single-day jump in new coronavirus cases on Sunday, adding 2,434 confirmed infections and taking the total count to 44,254.
- Russia on Sunday reported 6,736 new cases of the novel coronavirus, raising the nationwide tally to 681,251.
- The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Germany increased by 239 to 196,335.
- The northwestern Spanish region of Galicia imposed restrictions on about 70,000 people on Sunday following a COVID-19 outbreak, a day after Catalonia also introduced a local lockdown to curb the spread of the coronavirus.
- Britain is putting 8.4 million pounds ($10.49 million) into a new study to examine the long-term effects of COVID-19 on patients.
- Britain will invest nearly $2 billion in cultural institutions and the arts to help a sector that has been crippled by the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Sunday.
- People in England appear to have broadly behaved themselves as pubs reopened this weekend, Britain’s health minister Matt Hancock said on Sunday after the latest step towards a return to normality from the coronavirus lockdown.
- Ireland will ease quarantine restrictions on people travelling from abroad on July 20, with people arriving from a “green list” of countries with low COVID-19 rates to be exempt from isolating themselves for 14 days.
- Greece will not allow Serbian visitors to enter from July 6 until July 15, the government said on Sunday, as it moved to contain the spread of coronavirus during its peak tourism season.
- Britain’s death toll from confirmed COVID-19 cases has risen by 22 to 44,220, the department of health said on Sunday.
- A military plane carrying Canadian troops to Latvia as part of a NATO mission turned around midflight after the military learned that someone who might have come in contact with the passengers tested had positive for the virus.
- Iran recorded its highest number of deaths from COVID-19 within a 24-hour period, official health ministry figures showed on Sunday.
The 163 deaths reported on Sunday exceed the previous record from last Monday.
- Saudi Arabia’s coronavirus infections have passed 200,000 and neighbouring United Arab Emirates passed 50,000, with the number of new cases climbing after the Arab world’s two largest economies fully lifted curfews last month.
- Bolivia’s Health Minister María Eidy Roca has tested positive for COVID-19.
- Coronavirus cases and deaths are surging along Colombia’s Caribbean coast as the region becomes the epicenter of the pandemic in the Andean country, with doctors warning many deaths are going undetected.
- Chilean President Sebastian Pinera announced on Sunday a new $1.5 billion package of measures to help keep the country’s ailing middle class afloat as the coronavirus pandemic continues to ravage the economy of the world’s top copper producer.
- El Salvador’s presidential office on Sunday postponed the second phase of the economy’s reopening by two weeks, citing a still-rising number of coronavirus infections.
Sources: ABC News, The Atlantic, Axios, Bloomberg, CBS News, CNN, Financial Times, Fox News,The Hill, NBC News, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, NJ.com, NPR, NY Times, Politico, Reuters, Salon, Slate, Vanity Fair, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post
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