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- The U.S. reported 40,458 new cases and 1,195 additional deaths.
- More than 22 million coronavirus cases have now been recorded globally, including nearly 800,000 deaths, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
- The CDC launched a new program that will help monitor the spread of Covid-19 using sewage testing.
- Testing is “still not completely fixed” across the entire nation, Dr. Anthony Fauci said during a town hall with Healthline.com.
“The other thing that’s a problem – still not completely fixed, but fixed in many areas of the country, but not all – is the delay between the time you do the test and you get the result back,” he said.
- In the Early stages of the pandemic, the U.S. forced major manufacturers to build ventilators. Now they’re piling up unused in a strategic reserve. Months into a $3 billion U.S. effort, the vast majority of ventilators are going unused. The Department of Health and Human Services said it had handed out 15,057 ventilators by Friday, and there were 95,713 ventilators in the federal stockpile. Of those, 94,352 came from contracts signed since the beginning of the pandemic.
- New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern hit back at President Trump’s comments calling her country’s surge in Covid-19 cases “terrible.”
“I don’t think there’s any comparison between New Zealand’s current cluster and the tens of thousands of cases that are being seen daily in the United States,” Ardern told reporters.
- CNN’s Anderson Cooper got into a heated on-air clash with MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, an ardent President Trump supporter, for pushing an unproven therapeutic treatment for coronavirus.
“You really are a snake oil salesman. I mean, you could be in the Old West standing on a box telling people to drink your amazing elixir that there’s no proof,” Cooper told Lindel.
“I do what Jesus has me do,” he told Cooper.
- MLB announced that Tuesday’s Cincinnati Reds game against the Royals in Kansas City, Missouri, has been postponed. The Reds previously said a player on the team had tested positive for Covid-19, forcing the postponement of two weekend games.
- The Chicago Bears will not play home games in front of fans when the 2020 NFL season begins.
- Eight members of the Greek life system have tested positive for Covid-19 at North Carolina State University.
- The University of Notre Dame suspended in-person classes for two weeks, eight days after the school’s fall semester began and after 146 students and a staff member tested positive for the coronavirus.
- Michigan State University will conduct the fall semester as online-only instruction, its president announced Tuesday afternoon, days before students were set to move in for the fall.
- Iowa State University said in a news release that 175 students living in residence halls and campus apartments have tested positive for Covid-19.
- Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R) said that all sports will go forward this fall.
- The University of Alabama announced that spectators will be allowed at home football games.
Approximately 20% of the seating capacity at Bryant-Denny Stadium (approximately 20,000 fans) could be filled, but school officials have prohibited tailgating on campus.
- New York City’s public schools plan to open their doors to students for some in-person learning when the school year starts in just a few weeks, but more than 300,000 students are opting to stay home for all online learning instead.
- Pennsylvania will roll out a Covid-19 contact tracing app for residents in September, Health Secretary Dr. Rachel Levine announced Tuesday.
The app, COVID Alert PA, will use Bluetooth technology and notify Pennsylvanians if they spent 15 minutes or more in close proximity to another person who later tested positive for the virus.
- Florida reported 3,838 new cases and 219 additional deaths.
- On a phone call with school district superintendents, Florida Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran told them not to close a school without calling state officials first to discuss it.
“Before you get to that point of closing a classroom or closing a school, we want to have that communication with you because we want to be as surgical as possible,” Corcoran said.
One district leader, who was on the call and who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of fear of reprisal from the state, said some district leaders would now be reluctant to shut down a school and send all students home for remote learning.
- The board of directors of the Florida High School Athletic Association voted late last week to allow schools to start fall sports Aug. 24 — a decision that ignores a recommendation from the organization’s own medical advisory panel, which had called for delaying fall sports until at least the end of September.
- Louisiana reported 664 new cases and 28 additional deaths.
- The positivity rate in Louisiana has dropped below 10%, Gov. John Bel Edwards said at a news conference.
The positivity rate for the state is 9.4%, Edwards said, dropping the state to the “yellow zone” as classified by the White House coronavirus task force.
- Hawaii reported 134 new cases on Tuesday, with most in Oahu. The rate of daily new cases is seven times higher than it was a month ago.
- Honolulu tightened its restrictions on public gatherings as coronavirus cases surge in Hawaii.
“There can be no social gatherings — indoors or outdoors — on the island of Oahu,” Mayor Kirk Caldwell announced in a news briefing Tuesday.
Sources: ABC News, Associated Press, The Atlantic, Axios, Bloomberg, CBS News, CNN, Chicago Tribune, Financial Times, Fox News,The Hill, Independent, NBC News, NJ.com, NPR, NY Times, Politico, Reuters, Salon, Slate, Vanity Fair, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post
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