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The Past 24 Hours or So – Coronavirus/COVID-19 Update

Read Time: 7 Minutes

  • The U.S. reported 42,401 new cases and 1,032 additional deaths.
  • At least 37 states are reporting positive cases at colleges or universities – infecting more than 25,000 students and campus staff.
  • As the White House coronavirus task force privately warned state officials that they faced dire outbreaks over the summer, Trump and his administration publicly downplayed the threat of Covid-19, documents released Monday by the House Select Subcommittee on Coronavirus show.

The subcommittee published eight weeks of internal White House coronavirus reports, which are prepared by the task force and sent privately to governors. The newly published reports begin on June 23 and the most recent report that’s published is from Aug. 9. The White House has declined to make all the reports public.

“Rather than being straight with the American people and creating a national plan to fix the problem, the President and his enablers kept these alarming reports private while publicly downplaying the threat to millions of Americans,” subcommittee Chairman James Clyburn (D-SC) said in a statement.

  • A panel of experts convened by the National Institutes of Health said that there is no evidence that a treatment for coronavirus touted by President Trump works. 

The treatment in question, known as convalescent plasma, was issued an Emergency Use Authorization by the FDA in August, a move highlighted by Trump at a White House press conference.  

  • The Trump administration said it will not join a global effort to develop, manufacture and equitably distribute a coronavirus vaccine, in part because the World Health Organization is involved, a decision that could shape the course of the pandemic and the country’s role in health diplomacy.

More than 170 countries are in talks to participate in the Covid-19 Vaccines Global Access Facility, which aims to speed vaccine development and secure doses for all countries and distribute them to the most high-risk segment of each population.

  • Top infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci is calling on Americans to follow public health guidelines during Labor Day weekend festivities, urging people to prevent coronavirus outbreaks in the coming weeks resulting from large parties and gatherings for the holiday. He cautioned it could determine the fate of a resurgence of the virus this fall.
  • Admiral Brett Giroir said that if Americans do what they are supposed to during the Labor Day weekend, the U.S. should be in “really good shape going into the fall.”

“Labor Day is coming up and we need to stress personal responsibility,” said Giroir, who is leading the Trump administration’s Covid-19 diagnostic testing efforts. “So avoiding crowds, outdoors for family gathers are much — much better than indoors —wearing the mask and protecting the vulnerable.”

  • The CDC issued an order banning landlords from evicting tenants from properties they can no longer afford to rent due to income lost to the coronavirus pandemic.

The order would make it illegal to evict any individual who expects to make less than $99,000 or a joint-filing couple that expects to make less than $198,000 in 2020.

  • More than $3 billion in loans issued through the coronavirus emergency relief program for small businesses may have gone to firms that already received support or should have been excluded from the program.

The report from the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis examined the Trump administration’s dissemination of more than 5.2 million PPP loans totaling $525 billion since April. It found that:

– Some 10,000 loans totaling more than $1 billion went to companies that received more than one PPP loan, a violation of the program.

– More than 600 loans totaling about $96 million were given to firms that have been excluded from doing business with the government because they’ve been “debarred or suspended” from receiving federal contracts.

– More than 350 loans totaling $195 million were awarded to businesses that have been flagged for “significant performance and integrity issues.”

– More than 11,000 loans totaling about $3 billion were given to companies that did not include complete information from applicants.

  • FEMA officials said the agency will end federal funding for cloth face masks in schools around the country because they do not apply to direct emergency protective measures.
  • Nurses across the country are still struggling to get the personal protective equipment they need to safely treat patients during the coronavirus pandemic, a new survey shows. Many are still re-using PPE, even though it’s not safe to do so,
  • Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is facing criticism from Republicans over her recent visit to a San Francisco hair salon, whose owner claimed the visit violated citywide COVID-19 restrictions prohibiting indoor service at the establishments.
  • People who regularly watch Fox News or listen to conservative talk radio are significantly less likely to wear face masks than the population at large, a new poll from the University of New Hampshire found.
  • A study from West Health and Gallup found that half of all U.S. adults are concerned that a major health event among those in their household could lead to bankruptcy.
  • The number of jobless people saying that unemployment insurance does not cover basic expenses including food, clothing, and housing nearly doubled after key benefits expired in July. According to a new poll, 50 percent of unemployed people said their benefits fell short of them covering basic expenses, up from 27 percent in July.
  • Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt blasted the “failure of leadership” in America’s coronavirus response and warned of more hardship to come, unless dramatic steps are taken to crush the virus.

“People have died unnecessarily because government was slow to react to common and simple things like mask wearing and social distancing.”

  • Philadelphia Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie has criticized the US government’s handling of the issues of systemic racism and the coronavirus pandemic, labeling them a “tragic embarrassment.”
  • Politico reported that the U.S. Health and Human Services Department is planning to offer a $250 million contract to a communications firm to help it “defeat despair and inspire hope” about the pandemic.
  • The NFL reported four new confirmed positive tests among players and six new confirmed positive test results among team personnel.
  • MLB postponed another Oakland Athletics game. The team has had four games postponed since a reported Covid-19 positive test. 
  • Foster Farms temporarily closed its main poultry processing plant in Livingston, California on Tuesday night following an outbreak that led to nearly 400 coronavirus infections and accounted for eight deaths, as health officials say the plant failed to follow its advice on coronavirus earlier in the year.
  • James Madison University reported 138 new cases among its students and employees since Monday.
  • At least 1,017 students at the University of South Carolina currently have Covid-19, according to the university’s latest update.
  • The University of Missouri has at least 424 active student Covid-19 cases. 
  • Utah State University found elevated amounts of Covid-19 in sewage samples collected from four residence halls on campus.

The university issued a safety alert on Sunday calling for mandatory testing and quarantine of all 287 students living in those four dorms.

  • Rhode Island Gov. Gina M. Raimondo (D) announced her extensive coronavirus testing plan to reopen schools to in-person learning. Nearly every school district in Rhode Island will reopen on Sept. 14 to in-person learning except for the Providence and Central Falls school districts.
  • New York City’s schools will delay the start of in-person classes until Sept. 21, averting the threat of a teacher strike — and putting the nation’s largest school district on track to be the only major urban district in the country to start the fall term with kids in classrooms.
  • Maryland will allow indoor theaters and outdoor venues to reopen Friday with capacity restrictions. 
  • White House tours, which were suspended on March 12, are set to resume September 12. Face coverings will be required.
  • Gyms and museums in North Carolina can open starting Friday. 
  • South Carolina will allow limited, outdoor visitation at select long-term care facilities in the state.
  • The Florida Department of Health and the Florida Division of Emergency Management are severing all ties with Quest Diagnostics after Quest’s failure to follow Florida law and report all COVID-19 results in a timely manner.
  • More than 600 students and staff members in two Florida counties are in quarantine or isolation.
  • Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) announced that he will lift the state’s ban on visiting nursing homes that has cut off vulnerable seniors from family since mid-March over fears of spreading the new coronavirus.
  • A White House coronavirus task force report sent to officials in the state of Iowa warned of dire new case increases across rural and urban areas and called for a mask mandate, the closure of bars, and a plan from universities as the pandemic intensifies in the Midwest.
  • Oregon Gov. Kate Brown (D) has extended the Covid-19 state of emergency in Oregon until November 3. 
  • San Francisco will relax restrictions on businesses under the state’s new four-tiered coronavirus reopening system. 

The classification allows hair salons, nail salons, and massage parlors to resume operations outdoors on Tuesday, according to Mayor London Breed, and outdoor gyms will be allowed to reopen as early as Sept. 9.   

Breed also announced the immediate reopening of indoor shopping malls in the city.

Sources:  ABC News, Associated Press, The Atlantic, Axios, Bloomberg, CBS News, CNN, Chicago Tribune, Financial Times, Forbes,  Fox News,The Hill, Independent, MSNBC, NBC News, NJ.com, NPR, NY Times, Politico, Reuters, Salon, Slate, Vanity Fair, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post

The Past 24 Hours or So – Coronavirus/COVID-19 Update

Read Time: 3 Minutes

  • The U.S. reported 36,679 new cases and 1,147 additional deaths.
  • The scientific community warned that the Trump administration “grossly misrepresented” its claim that convalescent blood plasma curtails COVID-19 deaths by 35%. Experts were perplexed by the source of that figure since it does not appear in any of the documents issued by FDA or by the Mayo Clinic, which led the study on which emergency authorization was based. 

The brunt of the criticism was leveled at FDA Commissioner Stephen M. Hahn, MD, who said that 35 out of 100 COVID-19 patients “would have been saved because of the administration of plasma.” Several statisticians and scientists criticized what they said was a gross overstatement of the benefits, with some calling for him to walk back his comments. Hahn did so on Monday.

  • The World Health Organization warned that the use of plasma from recovered coronavirus patients as a treatment for COVID-19 does not provide “conclusive” results and remains experimental despite President Trump issuing emergency authorization and touting it as a “breakthrough.”
  • Since August 6, when the last report came out, there have been 74,160 new cases in children in the U.S., bumping the total from 358,469 to 432,629, an increase of roughly 21% in only 14 days.
  • Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, is warning against prematurely distributing a potential coronavirus vaccine through emergency use authorization, saying it could negatively harm the testing for other vaccines.
  • State and local government officials say FEMA has indicated it might no longer provide reimbursements for personal protective equipment and other supplies needed to fight coronavirus.
  • As part of new guidance for workplace safety, the CDC said employees at retail and service industry jobs should not attempt to force customers to follow COVID-19 prevention policies, such as wearing a mask, if the customers appear to be upset or violent. 

“Don’t argue with a customer if they make threats or become violent,” the CDC said.

  • The North Dakota Department of Health says COVID-19 cases linked to the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally earlier this month in South Dakota have been confirmed in eight states. Cases linked to the massive rally have quickly climbed, initially starting with a dozen cases reported to now more than 100.
  • Iowa State University announced it has 130 reported cases of Covid-19 on campus after the school’s first week of class. 
  • Los Angeles Chargers, Los Angeles Rams and SoFi Stadium announced that Rams and Chargers games will be held without fans in attendance until further notice.
  • Three Republicans in the Ohio House have prepared articles of impeachment against GOP Gov. Mike DeWine, alleging he violated residents’ civil liberties by issuing a stay-at-home order and requiring them to wear masks, claiming the face-covering rule “promotes fear, turns neighbors against neighbors, and contracts the economy by making people fearful to leave their homes.”
  • Georgia reported 2,236 new cases and 107 additional deaths.
  • For the second week in a row, Georgia is among the worst in the nation for new coronavirus cases. Georgia is currently third in the country for the seven-day average of new cases per 100,000, with 23.40 cases per 100,000.

Governor Brian Kemp (R) remains unwilling to mandate masks statewide, something public health officials say would help improve the state’s abysmal standing.

  • Florida confirmed nearly 9,000 new COVID-19 cases among children within 15 days in August as schools reopen, according to state data released Tuesday.

The Florida Department of Health recorded a total of 48,730 confirmed coronavirus cases among children, according to a report with data through Monday. The data shows an increase of 8,995 confirmed cases since the previous report, which included data from 15 days earlier, on Aug. 9.

  • Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Giménez (R) announced that restaurants can resume indoor dining at 50% capacity starting Monday.
  • Mississippi reported 801 new cases and 67 additional deaths.

There were 144 new cases involving teachers and 292 involving students in Mississippi during the week of Aug. 17 to 21. There were 31 outbreaks last week and 584 teachers and 3,913 students are currently quarantined due to Covid-19 exposure. 

  • Shelters in Texas will be stocked with PEE, use social distancing to separate people and have testing available, Gov. Greg Abbott (R) said in a press conference as the state prepares for Hurricane Laura.
  • San Francisco International Airport will become the first U.S. airport to provide free on-site rapid coronavirus testing for its employees. SFO announced Monday that it will use Dignity Health’s GoHealth Urgent Care to administer testing inside the airport, with results in about 15 minutes.
  • Los Angeles County reported 989 new confirmed cases of the coronavirus Tuesday — the first time since June it has reported fewer than 1,000 new cases in a day.

Sources:  ABC News, Associated Press, The Atlantic, Axios, Bloomberg, CBS News, CNN, Chicago Tribune, Financial Times, Forbes,  Fox News,The Hill, Independent, MSNBC, NBC News, NJ.com, NPR, NY Times, Politico, Reuters, Salon, Slate, Vanity Fair, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post

The Past 24 Hours or So

Read Time: 5 Minutes

Coronavirus/COVID-19 

  • The U.S. reported 46,295 new cases and 1,024 additional deaths. At least 6,913 Americans died this week as a result of COVID-19.
  • The number of people who have been infected with the novel coronavirus globally surpassed 23 million on Saturday, according to Johns Hopkins University. JHU is reporting more than 801,000 people have died from the virus.

The United States has the highest numbers of coronavirus infections and deaths in the world.

  • The World Health Organization said children aged 12 and over should wear masks to help tackle the COVID-19 pandemic under the same conditions as adults, while children between six and 11 should wear them on a risk-based approach.
  • President Trump accused the FDA of making it difficult for drug companies to test possible coronavirus vaccines and therapeutics on people.

“The deep state, or whoever, over at the FDA is making it very difficult for drug companies to get people in order to test the vaccines and therapeutics. Obviously, they are hoping to delay the answer until after November 3rd. Must focus on speed, and saving lives!” Trump tweeted.

  • Schools across the U.S. are facing shortages and long delays, of up to several months, in getting this year’s most crucial back-to-school supplies: the laptops and other equipment needed for online learning, an Associated Press investigation has found.

The world’s three biggest computer companies, Lenovo, HP and Dell, have told school districts they have a shortage of nearly 5 million laptops, in some cases exacerbated by Trump administration sanctions on Chinese suppliers, according to interviews with over two dozen U.S. schools, districts in 15 states, suppliers, computer companies and industry analysts.

  • Rep. Dan Meuser (R-PA) announced on Saturday he has tested positive for COVID-19. 

The Pennsylvania Republican said that he is complying with health guidelines and postponing public events following his diagnosis.

  • Springfield, Massachusetts police are looking for a man who allegedly gave a Walmart shopper a “Covid hug.” 

The suspect, whom the victim had never seen before, took an item out of his hand and then gave him a hug.

“Just giving you a Covid hug. You now have Covid,” the suspect said before laughing and walking away, according to the Springfield Police Department.

The victim is a cancer survivor, the police department said, adding that the suspect did the same thing to several other customers.

  • New Jersey reported its lowest number of coronavirus-related hospitalizations since March 24.
  • Georgia surpassed 5,000 COVID-19 deaths since the start of the pandemic.
  • A 6-year-old girl from Hillsborough County became the youngest person to die from coronavirus complications in Florida.
  • The number of Covid-19 hospitalizations in Mississippi dropped below 1,000 for the first time in two months.
  • Covid-19 hospitalization rates in Los Angeles County are the lowest since April.

Trump Administration

  • Maryanne Trump Barry was serving as a federal judge when she heard her brother, President Trump, suggest on Fox News, “maybe I’ll have to put her at the border” amid a wave of refugees entering the United States. At the time, children were being separated from their parents and put in cramped quarters while court hearings dragged on.

“All he wants to do is appeal to his base,” Barry said in a conversation secretly recorded by her niece, Mary L. Trump. “He has no principles. None. None. And his base, I mean my God, if you were a religious person, you want to help people. Not do this.”

Barry, 83, was aghast at how her 74-year-old brother operated as president. “His goddamned tweet and lying, oh my God,” she said. “I’m talking too freely, but you know. The change of stories. The lack of preparation. The lying. Holy shit.”

Barry also said at one point, “It’s the phoniness of it all. It’s the phoniness and this cruelty. Donald is cruel,” according to the audio scripts and recordings.

According to the Washington Post, Barry said to Mary: “He went to Fordham for one year and then he got into University of Pennsylvania because he had somebody take the exams.” “No way!” Mary responded. “He had somebody take his entrance exams?”

Barry then replied, “SATs or whatever…I even remember the name. That person was Joe Shapiro,” Barry said.

  • The U.S. was further isolated over its bid to reimpose international sanctions on Iran with 13 countries on the 15-member U.N. Security Council expressing their opposition, arguing that Washington’s move is void given it is using a process agreed under a nuclear deal that it quit two years ago.
  • The House on Saturday passed legislation that would prevent the U.S. Postal Service from making any changes to its operations that could slow delivery of mailed-in ballots for this fall’s elections.

It would also provide $25 billion for Postal Service operations, which is an amount originally recommended by the agency’s board of governors. House Democrats also included the funding in the $3.4 trillion coronavirus relief package that they passed in May.

  • A California Superior Court judge has ordered President Donald Trump to pay $44,100 to Stephanie Clifford, also known as Stormy Daniels, to reimburse her attorneys’ fees in the legal battle surrounding her nondisclosure agreement.
  • TikTok plans to sue the Trump administration over its executive order banning transactions between U.S. companies and the popular video-sharing app as well as its Chinese parent company, ByteDance.

Protests/Racial and Social Issues

  • Federal authorities on Saturday forced demonstrators away from a plaza near a federal building as dueling demonstrations in Portland by right-wing and left-wing protesters turned violent. No arrests were reported.
  • A Kansas City police sergeant has been indicted on a felony charge of third-degree assault after he allegedly kneed a 15-year-old boy on his neck and head and forced his head into the pavement while the teenager repeatedly said “I can’t breathe,” a Missouri prosecutor announced Friday.
  • Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan (D) said she will veto City Council-approved proposals that would include reducing the police department by as many as 100 officers through layoffs and attrition.
  • Westerly, Rhode Island Police said Friday that they caught two people red-handed trying to vandalize a statue of Christopher Columbus.

Westerly Police Chief Shawn Lacey said the two had been among a group that tried to spray paint on the Columbus statue across from town hall at around 3:30 a.m. on Thursday.

  • Someone sprayed black paint on a giant mural of George Floyd at the Minneapolis intersection where he died in May. A Minneapolis police spokesman said the department hasn’t taken any reports about the vandalized mural.

Sources:  ABC News, Associated Press, The Atlantic, Axios, Bloomberg, CBS News, CNN, Chicago Tribune, Financial Times, Fox News,The Hill, Independent, MSNBC, NBC News, NJ.com, NPR, NY Times, Politico, Reuters, Salon, Slate, Vanity Fair, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post

The Past 24 Hours or So – Coronavirus/COVID-19 Update

Read Time: 6 Minutes

  • New data from the Kaiser Family Foundation suggests 1.47 million education professionals could face serious cases of coronavirus if schools resume. In response, some teachers are choosing early retirement, or leaving the field altogether.
  • People who have recovered from COVID-19 may lose their immunity to the virus within months, according to research released this month that found levels of antibodies that destroy the virus quickly declined and sometimes disappeared completely after peaking several weeks after patients exhibited symptoms.
  • Many people who suffered supposed “mild” cases of coronavirus and the health experts who treated them are warning people not to assume “mild” means an easy case of the virus, as many find themselves suffering long-term consequences such as lung problems among other painful issues.
  • A new study released by the Centers for Disease Control analyzed the impact a single traveller with no symptoms can have. A woman in China carrying coronavirus but not showing a single symptom took a 60-second trip in an elevator on her own which led to the infection of 71 people.
  • Drugmakers partnered with the U.S. government are on track to begin actively manufacturing a vaccine for COVID-19 by the end of the summer, an unidentified  senior administration official said on Monday.
  • Anthony Fauci blamed the surge in U.S. coronavirus cases to the country’s failure to shut down completely, then a rush to reopen too soon, and urged a commitment to guidelines to snuff out the disease.

He stressed basic protections including physical distancing, wearing masks, avoiding crowds and washing hands. “Those things, as simple as they are, can turn it around. I think we can do that and that’s what we’ve got to do,” he said.

  • Top White House aide Dan Scavino publicly attacked Anthony Fauci, sharing a cartoon of the nation’s top infectious disease expert depicted as a faucet spewing statements like “indefinite lockdown,” and “no NFL season” and also accusing him of “cowardly” voicing disagreement through leaks in the media.
  • President Trump retweeted a message from game show host Chuck Woolery that attacks the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and claims the agency and others are lying about the coronavirus pandemic, the latest example of Trump undercutting the guidance of his administration’s own public health organizations.
  • The White House is insisting that it is not sidelining Anthony Fauci after it was revealed that the nation’s top infectious disease expert has not briefed President Trump about the coronavirus pandemic in two months, even as cases surge in many parts of the country.
  • Nearly 60 public and private universities have filed a legal brief supporting a lawsuit seeking to block the Trump administration rule announced by ICE last week that would strip foreign students of visas and threaten to deport them if their colleges choose to hold virtual over in-person classes this fall due to the coronavirus pandemic.
  • The World Health Organization announced it would launch a massive investigation analyzing the global response into the coronavirus pandemic: “The magnitude of this pandemic, which has touched virtually everyone in the world, clearly deserves a commensurate evaluation.”
  • The coronavirus pandemic is raging out of control in the U.S. and will continue unless “proven measures” are taken against it, according to the World Health Organization: “If the basics aren’t followed, there is only one way this pandemic is going to go: It is going to get worse, and worse, and worse.”
  • The coronavirus pandemic stripped an estimated 5.4 million Americans of their health insurance between February and May, a stretch in which more adults became uninsured because of job losses than have ever lost coverage in a single year.
  • More than 930 employees of private contractors running U.S. immigration detention centers have tested positive for the novel coronavirus
  • Case numbers are rising in all but a handful of states. Hospitals are running out of beds. And some of the country’s biggest urban centers — Atlanta, Dallas, Los Angeles, Miami, Phoenix, Jacksonville, Fla. — have seen out-of-control growth with few concrete signs of progress.
  • New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said he’s issuing an emergency health order that requires out-of-state travelers from states with rising coronavirus cases to give local authorities their contact information when they arrive.
  • Monday, Florida added more than 12,600 additional cases, its second-highest total recorded for a single day in the pandemic.
  • Florida has 47 hospitals with no open ICU beds. Each of 25 other hospitals have just one available ICU bed. 
  • In Miami-Dade County, six hospitals have reached capacity as virus cases spike. The increase in cases caused the mayor there to roll back reopening plans by imposing a curfew and closing restaurants for indoor dining.
  • Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) admitted there are serious risks in reopening schools as coronavirus cases in the state breaks records. Rubio looked at the situation from a “cost-benefit analysis” perspective, and said while students eventually need to go back to in-person classes, right now: “The risks in reopening schools are not insignificant, but the costs of not doing so are extraordinary.”
  • As new cases continue to mount in the Southeast and West, troublesome signs are emerging elsewhere in the country. The county that includes Oklahoma City has been averaging twice as many cases as it was just two weeks ago.
  • Texas reported a small drop in COVID-19 hospitalizations on Monday, the first decline in two weeks as health officials scramble to slow the spread of the disease.

The state reported 10,405 people hospitalized with confirmed infections, down from a high of 10,410 on Sunday. While the dip itself may seem insignificant, the growth of hospitalizations has been slowing for several days now, a possible sign that it is nearing a peak.

Confirmed deaths and total cases were also down Monday; the state reported 43 deaths and 5,655 new cases.

  • “Providers in our region have urgently requested additional staffing and a myriad of medical supplies including oxygen, ventilators, personal protective equipment, and dialysis machines” Texas lawmakers wrote in a dire plea for federal help as the state battles climbing coronavirus cases. “The rapid deployment of federal resources would go a long way to alleviate and augment the local response as we continue to experience increases in COVID-19 cases.”
  • Hard-hit Houston has hit a 25.2% positivity rate, according to city health director Dr. David Persse.
  • Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner announced 1,544 new cases on Monday, bringing the city’s total to 30,965.
  • In Arizona, ICUs are 90% full, according to the Arizona Department of Health Services.
  • Arizona reported 1,357 new cases on Monday, bringing the state’s total cases to 123,824. Arizona’s positivity rate stands at 21.7%.
  • With cases surging in California, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced one of the most sweeping rollbacks of any state’s reopening plans, saying Monday that he would move to close indoor operations statewide for restaurants, wineries, movie theaters, zoos and card rooms, and bars.
  • Los Angeles and San Diego school districts will start the school year next month offering only virtual classes, a decision that comes as President Trump and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos push for classes to be in-person and have threatened to withhold funds.
  • Ontario will ease coronavirus restrictions further in most regions excluding Toronto on July 17, moving to stage three of reopening in Canada’s most populous province, Premier Doug Ford said. 
  • Hong Kong Disneyland will reclose on Wednesday to comply with a government-directed rollback of public activities in the region following an increase in coronavirus infections

The city that seemed like one of the most successful places in controlling the virus, announced Monday evening that it would close gyms and cinemas and ban public gatherings of more than four people in response to a new wave of locally transmitted infections.

Sources: ABC News, The Atlantic, Axios, Bloomberg, CBS News, CNN, 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

The Past 24 Hours or So – Coronavirus/COVID-19 Update

Read Time: 7 Minutes

  • After President Trump criticized the CDC’s guidelines on reopening schools, Vice President Pence suggested the agency would release new guidance. But in a tense exchange with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos on Thursday, the CDC’s director said new guidance would not be “a revision of the guidelines.”
  • Keeping schools closed in the coming academic year is a greater risk to children’s health than reopening them, even amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Robert Redfield, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.
  • Education Secretary Betsy DeVos encouraged school districts to “think creatively” about how to reopen: “This doesn’t have to look like exactly like it did a year or two ago. Think creatively about how you do it, but do it. This has to happen.”
  • Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she is “very confident” Democrats and Republicans in Congress will agree on strong new coronavirus relief legislation after lawmakers return from their July break.
  • The World Health Organization released new guidelines on the transmission of the coronavirus that acknowledge reports of airborne transmission of the virus that causes COVID-19, but stopped short of confirming that the virus spreads through the air.
  • In an emotional address World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus Tedros urged nations to unify in the fight against the coronavirus. “We must come together in a global conversation to take these hard-won lessons and turn them into action. My friends, make no mistake, the greatest threat we face now is not the virus itself, rather, it’s the lack of leadership and solidarity at the global and national levels.” 
  • U.S. states that have driven a record surge in coronavirus cases may now be slipping backward in their economic recovery, as cell phone data shows retail visits in high case-growth locations falling below the rest of the country.
  • Trump complained on Hannity tonight that the media keeps reporting on coronavirus cases. He said, “All the time, ‘cases.’ And those cases get better. In most — most cases — in almost — I mean, literally, in most cases, they automatically cure. They automatically get better.”
  • Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert and a key member of the White House coronavirus task force, called on U.S. states experiencing a surge in coronavirus infections to “seriously look at shutting down.”

“We’ve got to tighten things up,” Fauci said.

  • Later, Fauci walked back his statement, saying instead that states like California, Arizona, Texas and Florida should think about “pausing their opening process… I don’t think we need to go back to an extreme of shutting down.”
  • A reporter who works at the White House has tested positive for the coronavirus, in the first known case among the White House press corps.
  • More than 1,000 employees of the TSA have tested positive for the coronavirus, about 900 of those are airport screeners. More than 640 of the employees have recovered while six have died. 
  • The surge in coronavirus cases, which as of Wednesday had set new daily-case records five times in nine days, is being driven largely by states that were among the first to ease virus restrictions as they moved to reopen their economies.

Epidemiologists had warned that reopening could lead to waves of new infections if it was done before the virus was contained, and before contact tracing was sufficiently ramped up enough to contain future outbreaks.

  • Hospitals across the South and West are being flooded with virus patients, forcing them to cancel elective surgeries and discharge patients early as they try to keep beds available.

“When hospitals and health care assistants talk about surge capacity, they’re often talking about a single event,” said John Sinnott, chief epidemiologist at Tampa General Hospital. “But what we’re having now is the equivalent of a bus accident a day, every day, and it just keeps adding.”

  • At least five states set single-day records for new cases on Thursday: Alabama with 2,200, Idaho with 527, Missouri with 950, Montana with 95, and Oregon with 371.
  • Average daily cases in New York are down 52 percent since the state began to reopen in late May.
  • Mayor Bill de Blasio extended New York City’s prohibition on large public gatherings through Sept. 30, adding the West Indian American Day Parade, the Dominican Day Parade and the Feast of San Gennaro will be canceled.
  • Cases in Massachusetts are down 83 percent.
  • Gov. Andy Beshear announced that Kentuckians will be required to wear face coverings in many public settings, including any indoor space in which it is difficult to maintain six-foot social distancing.
  • South Carolina, one of the first states to let retail stores reopen, has seen its average daily case count rise to 1,570, up from 143 from when the state began to reopen in late April, a 999 percent increase.
  • In South Carolina, National Guard troops are being called in soon to help insert intravenous lines and check blood pressure. At the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, patients can wait as long as four hours before being seen in emergency rooms.
  • Tennessee recorded its highest single-day death toll on Thursday, with 22.
  • In Georgia, where the governor’s moves to reopen swiftly in late April were criticized as too aggressive by Mr. Trump — who had generally been pushing states to move faster to reopen — cases have risen by 245 percent.
  • Florida coronavirus death toll hit 4,000 and set a record for single day deaths with 120. More than 8,900 new cases were confirmed, bringing total positive cases to 232,718.
  • When asked about the rising numbers of cases in Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis said, “There’s no need to be panicked. There’s no need to be fearful.” 
  • Florida Gov. DeSantis: “If you can do Home Depot, if you can do Walmart, you can definitely do the schools.”

NOTE: Most people don’t spend 7 hours a day, 5 days a week in retail establishments.

  • In Florida, more than 40 intensive care units in 21 counties have hit capacity and have no beds available.
  • At Miami television station, WPLG Local 10, at least nine employees, including a news anchor, have come down with Covid-19 or tested positive, and another 150 people linked to the station were awaiting test results.
  • Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves (R) issued an executive order for 13 counties in the state to require face masks and put limits on businesses as coronavirus cases climb. The order bans indoor social gatherings larger than 10 people, and outdoor gatherings of more than 20 people, among other restrictions on businesses. As of Thursday, Mississippi health officials have confirmed 33,591 cases of coronavirus and 1,204 deaths.
  • In Mississippi, five of the state’s largest hospitals have already run out of I.C.U. beds for critical patients.
  • Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is threatening to impose stricter mask laws amid a spike in coronavirus cases and mounting evidence that some residents aren’t taking precautions seriously.
  • The state of Wisconsin reported 754 new coronavirus cases on Thursday, its highest number of reported cases in one day since the pandemic began.
  • On Wednesday, Texas recorded 119 deaths from the virus, the most in a single day in the state. Thursday the state added another 105 deaths. Texas has recorded more than 235,000 cases and more than 2,990 deaths.
  • Nearly 9,700 people were in Texas hospitals on Thursday, the highest number since the pandemic began.
  • Dr. Diego Maselli Caceres at University Hospital in San Antonio, Texas, said he had watched a sevenfold increase in Covid-19 patients needing intensive care over the past month, filling up three floors of the hospital instead of one.
  • In an effort to free up hospital bed space, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott extended a ban on elective procedures to new sections of the state.
  • A state judge on Thursday declined to reverse Houston’s decision to cancel the Texas Republican convention’s in-person events because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Judge Larry Weiman rejected the state GOP’s request for a temporary restraining order.

  • California, once seen as a model for how to contain the virus, has seen an alarming increase in new cases, which are up 275 percent since May 25.
  • California reported an average of 8,077 new cases a day for the past week, as of Wednesday, according to a NY Times database. The state’s positivity rate has been 7.3 percent per day, on average over the past week.
  • The top Republican in New Hampshire – where Mr. Trump is scheduled to hold a rally on Saturday –  has already said he would skip the large gathering as a health precaution.

“I’m not going to put myself in the middle of a crowd of thousands of people,” Gov. Chris Sununu of New Hampshire said.

  • One day after Harvard and MIT sued to stop the policy change from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra announced they intend to file a lawsuit against the Trump administration to block it from forcing out international students whose schools in the U.S. move their courses online because of the coronavirus pandemic.
  • The Big Ten will adopt a conference-only scheduling model for the 2020 college football season stemming from concerns of playing amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
  • Starbucks said it would require face masks inside all U.S. locations beginning July 15. It said that in some locations not under government mandates, customers without masks would be able to place orders at drive-throughs or with curbside pickup.
  • The intensive care unit at the Papa Giovanni XXIII hospital in Bergamo, one of the Italian provinces most affected by the virus, hit a milestone this week: It had no Covid-19 cases, for the first time in 137 days.
  • Since the pandemic began, aid groups warned that the virus might prove devastating for a rebel-held Syrian province packed with displaced people and hampered by battered medical facilities.

On Thursday, medics there reported the first confirmed case.

  • Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday that Israel had reopened parts of its economy too early, as virus cases in the country have continued to rise sharply.

“I take responsibility for this measure and I take responsibility for fixing it.”

  • India recorded nearly 25,000 new infections on Thursday, its highest single-day total.

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

The Past 24 Hours or So – Coronavirus/COVID-19 Update

Read Time: 6 Minutes

  • 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

The Past 24 Hours or So

Read Time: 9 Minutes

Protest News

  • Mourners gathered for a final public memorial to George Floyd in his hometown of Houston for a six-hour viewing at The Fountain of Praise Church. His killing has sparked global protests over police mistreatment of communities of color.
  • Bail has been set at $1.25 million for Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer accused of murdering George Floyd.
  • Democrats unveiled a broad police reform bill, pledging to transform law enforcement. The Justice in Policing Act of 2020 would ban chokeholds, limit qualified immunity, establish a national database to track police misconduct, require body cams, and prohibit certain no-knock warrants.
  • The Minnesota Department of Public Safety has confirmed reports and viral video showing law enforcement officers in Minneapolis slashing the tires of parked cars during recent protests over the death of George Floyd. The department claimed this was done to stop vehicles “driving dangerously at high speeds in and around protesters and law enforcement.

One video from a journalist covering the protesters shows all four tires of his rental vehicle were slashed along with tires on cars surrounding his in the parking lot.

  • President Trump and his allies on Monday lashed out at activists and some Democrats for their support of the “defund the police” movement, seeking to draw a contrast with the administration’s embrace of law enforcement amid nationwide protests.

“There won’t be defunding. There won’t be dismantling of our police, and there’s not going to be any disbanding of our police. Our police have been letting us live in peace, and we want to make sure we don’t have any bad actors in there,” Trump said during a meeting with law enforcement officers and police chiefs at the White House, adding that he believes “99 percent” of officers are “great people.”

  • White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said Monday that the White House has no regrets about how federal law enforcement forcibly cleared protesters from Lafayette Square the week prior.

“There’s no regrets on the part of this White House,” McEnany said at a briefing Monday afternoon. “I’d note that many of those decisions were not made here within the White House. It was [Attorney General William] Barr who made the decision to move the perimeter. Monday night Park Police had also made that decision independently when they saw all the violence in Lafayette Square.”

NOTE: According to all reports, the protest Monday night was peaceful.

  • Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic Leader Charles Schumer are demanding President Trump reopen Lafayette Square to the public, saying it currently resembles a “militarized zone.”

The two Democratic leaders sent Trump a letter on Monday, insisting he “tear down these walls, reopen Lafayette Square,” which is located across the street from the White House, so that the public can “gather there for you and all the world to hear their voices.”

  • A Virginia man who allegedly drove his truck into a crowd of peaceful protesters over the weekend is an “admitted leader” of the Ku Klux Klan, officials said Monday. 

Henrico Commonwealth Attorney Shannon Taylor described the man, Harry Rogers, 36, as “a propagandist of Confederate ideology.” A “cursory glance” at his social media and his own admissions to authorities revealed that he was a leader of the white supremacist group.

  • Contradicting the president’s claim that he only went to inspect the bunker earlier in the day, Attorney General Barr told Bret Baier that President Trump went to the bunker that Friday evening because of the protests outside the White House. “Things were so bad that the Secret Service recommended the president go down to the bunker. We can’t have that in our country.”

Administration News

  • The U.S. economy officially entered a recession in February, according to The National Bureau of Economic Research, which announced that a 128-month expansion officially ended then. The expansion, which had begun in June 2009 after a recession, was the longest on record.
  • U.S. plans to withdraw troops from Germany “shake the pillars of the transatlantic relationship”, Peter Beyer, the German coordinator for transatlantic ties, told Reuters on Monday.
  • Freddy Ford, a spokesman for former president G.W. Bush, told The Texas Tribune that Bush would steer clear of speaking publicly on his presidential vote and called The New York Times assertion false.

“This is completely made up,” Ford said in an email. “He is retired from presidential politics and has not indicated how he will vote.”

It is unclear whether Bush will instead be voting for Joe Biden, Trump’s Democratic rival. Both of the Bush brothers — and their parents, former President George H.W. Bush and First Lady Barbara Bush — said in 2016 they didn’t vote for Trump.

  • The President plans to resume campaign rallies within the next two weeks. The Trump team expects to face criticism for large crowds, but says the support of packed protests will make them easier to defend.
  • President Trump released an analysis from McLaughlin & Associates, a pollster allied with his campaign, seeking to knock down recent surveys showing him trailing former Vice President Joe Biden in the race for the White House. 

“I have retained highly respected pollster, McLaughlin & Associates, to analyze todays CNN Poll (and others), which I felt were FAKE based on the incredible enthusiasm we are receiving,” Trump tweeted. “Read analysis for yourself.”

“This is the same thing they and others did when we defeated Crooked Hillary Clinton in 2016. They are called SUPPRESSION POLLS, and are put out to dampen enthusiasm. Despite 3 ½ years of phony Witch Hunts, we are winning, and will close it out on November 3rd!”

  • Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy is now “open” to renaming the service’s 10 bases and facilities that are named after Confederate leaders, an Army official told POLITICO, in a reversal of his previous position.

“The Secretary of the Army is open to a bipartisan discussion on the topic,” said Army spokesperson Col. Sunset Belinsky Monday.

As recently as February, the Army said the service had no plans to rename the facilities

  • The Netflix original comedy “Space Force,” which is based on the new branch of the military launched by President Trump, reportedly obtained trademark rights for the name before the government.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the show secured trademark rights to “Space Force” in multiple places, including Europe, Australia and Mexico, while the Air Force owns only a pending application for registration in the United States. That means the show has more confirmed trademark rights than the U.S. military.

  • Over the past month, the Trump campaign has spent slightly more than $400,000 on cable news ads in the Washington, D.C., area. The Trump campaign said the ad buys were an attempt to reinvigorate and reassure the president’s supporters in the nation’s capital. However, two knowledgeable sources – one a Trump campaign adviser, the other an individual close to the president – said the ads had another purpose as well: to put the president himself at ease.

These sources also said the campaign is hoping to counter-program recent ads by the Lincoln Project, a super PAC run by a group of dissident conservatives, that have driven the president to public outbursts.

  • In an interview, retired Admiral Bill McRaven, the former commander of the U.S. Special Operations Command, best known as the Navy SEAL who oversaw the 2011 raid that killed Osama bin Laden, said, “This fall, it’s time for new leadership in this country — Republican, Democrat or independent.” He continued,  “President Trump has shown he doesn’t have the qualities necessary to be a good commander in chief.”

Coronavirus/COVID-19

  • Shutdown orders prevented about 60 million novel coronavirus infections in the United States and 285 million in China, according to a research study published Monday that examined how stay-at-home orders and other restrictions limited the spread of the contagion.

A separate study from epidemiologists at Imperial College London estimated the shutdowns saved about 3.1 million lives in 11 European countries, including 500,000 in the United Kingdom, and dropped infection rates by an average of 82 percent, sufficient to drive the contagion well below epidemic levels.

  • New research from the University of California, Berkeley finds that shutdowns and other interventions prevented 60 million coronavirus infections in the United States and that the policies had “large health benefits.”

The eye-popping numbers illustrate that the shutdowns, while controversial and onerous, were effective at slowing the spread of the virus, the study says.

  • The Trump administration has not disbursed over 75% of the $1.6 billion in Covid humanitarian aid approved by Congress back in March. 

In March, lawmakers approved $1.6 billion in pandemic assistance to be sent abroad through the State Department and the United States Agency for International Development.

As of last week, $386 million had been released to nations in need. Of that, only a meager $11.5 million in international disaster aid had been delivered to private relief groups, even though those funds are specifically meant to be rushed to distress zones.

  • A top World Health Organization official on Monday said that it appears “very rare,” for an asymptomatic person with coronavirus to transmit the virus to another person, a potential bit of good news in the fight against the virus. It marks a major turn from past warnings that suggested asymptomatic people were spreading the virus.
  • More than 136,000 people tested positive for the coronavirus across the globe on Sunday, a new apex that has officials at the World Health Organization (WHO) warning that the worst of the pandemic is still ahead.

Speaking to reporters in Geneva on Monday, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the number of confirmed cases is rising rapidly in South America and South Asia, which accounted for three-quarters of Sunday’s new cases.

  • Exactly 100 days since its first case of coronavirus was confirmed, New York City, which weathered extensive hardship as an epicenter of the worldwide outbreak, is set to take the first tentative steps toward reopening its doors on Monday. As many as 400,000 workers could begin returning to construction jobs, manufacturing sites and retail stores in the city’s first phase of reopening.
  • Russia is partially reopening its borders for several kinds of trips, Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin announced in a Monday meeting with the country’s coronavirus response council. Russians will be able to travel abroad to care for relatives, undergo medical treatment, to work or study. Foreigners will also be able to enter Russia for medical purposes.
  • Researchers at Harvard Medical School say that satellite data and internet search traffic indicate that the coronavirus pandemic may have begun in Wuhan, China, months before authorities alerted the World Health Organization.

Study authors told ABC News that analysis of data from as far back as October of last year indicated a surge in vehicle traffic around hospitals in the city, a spike that coincided with a rise in internet search traffic for “certain symptoms that would later be determined as closely associated with the novel coronavirus” from residents of the city.

“Something was happening in October,” Dr. John Brownstein, the study’s leader, told ABC. “Clearly, there was some level of social disruption taking place well before what was previously identified as the start of the novel coronavirus pandemic.”

Sources:  ABC News, Axios, CBS News, CNN, Financial Times, Fox News,The Hill, NBC News, NPR, NY Times, Politico, Reuters, Salon, Slate, Vanity Fair, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post