July 14 coronavirus news

Young people’s behavior is playing a key role in some of the resurgence of Covid-19 cases in the Southern states, and they need to take their societal role much more seriously, Dr. Anthony Fauci said Tuesday.

To get it under control means you don’t let yourself get infected and you don’t spread to anybody else,” added Fauci, who is director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

Fauci said he has watched video of young people at bars and other crowded places, congregating and not wearing masks, and while he said it is “understandable” that people would rather be “sipping a Margarita” than staying home.

“What they need to understand is that given the nature of this outbreak, even if you get infected and have no symptoms at all, and never get sick, you are inadvertently propagating the pandemic,” he said.

“I say that with some trepidation, because I’m not blaming anyone and I think people do this innocently. They don’t mean to be part of the problem, but inadvertently, they are a part of the problem,” Fauci said.

A French team has reported transmission of Covid-19 across the placenta after a mother become infected during the last trimester of pregnancy.

Both the mother and her newborn tested positive for coronavirus, according to the report, published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications.

The woman was admitted to a French hospital in March with symptoms including fever and a severe cough. Genetic evidence of coronavirus were detected in her blood and in nasopharyngeal and vaginal swabs. Doctors decided to deliver the baby by cesarian section.

Tests also detected SARS-CoV-2 in the newborn. And days after birth, the child also developed neurological complications, including irregular muscle contractions. The infant’s cerebral spine fluid tested negative for coronavirus or any other germ. At 11 days after birth, an MRI of the child’s brain showed abnormalities in some white matter regions.

Analysis of the placenta detected coronavirus at much higher levels than in either the mother’s or child’s blood or in the intact amniotic fluid surrounding the fetus before birth. That suggested to the researchers that the virus crossed the placenta and infected the baby in the womb.

The mother was discharged in good condition six days after delivery, and the child was discharged after 18 days. Roughly two months later, the child showed improved neurological condition with an otherwise normal clinical exam, the researchers reported.

Other researchers have described potential Covid-19 transmission during the period immediately before or after birth. The authors of the Nature Communications study said these cases had unaddressed issues, such as an unclear route for transmission of the virus. 

“It is important to clarify whether and how SARS-CoV-2 reaches the fetus, so as to prevent neonatal infection, optimize pregnancy management and eventually better understand SARS-CoV-2 biology,” they wrote.

Commuters line up June 16 at the San Ysidro crossing port in Tijuana, Mexico.

Mexico is extending for the third time its US border restrictions until August, according to the Mexican Foreign Ministry. 

“After checking the rise of the COVID-19 spread, Mexico proposed to the US the extension of all non-essential traffic restriction at the common border for 30 more days,” the Foreign Ministry announced on its official Twitter account Tuesday.

The restrictions will continue under the same terms it was first implemented on March 21, permitting essential travel.

“Both countries will continue looking to coordinate the sanitary measures at the border region. The measures will be valid until August 21, 2020,” the ministry added.

This comes after Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said the pandemic “is losing intensity” after meeting with his health cabinet on Sunday.  

“I want to tell you that the report is positive, is good, the conclusion is that the pandemic is decreasing, is losing intensity,” López Obrador said in a video address to the nation.

The US border with Canada border is also expected to remain closed until at least August 21, two Canadian government sources with knowledge of the situation told CNN, extending the ban on nonessential travel between the two countries for another month.

The extended restrictions will include stepped-up enforcement and surveillance at most Canadian land borders in the coming weeks, said the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity as they are not authorized the speak publicly on the matter.

Dr. Anthony Fauci speaks during a Georgetown University Global Health Initiative webinar on Tuesday.

Schools should bring students back to class, but local leaders will need to watch local infection rates, Dr. Anthony Fauci said Tuesday.

“We should try as best as possible to keep the children in school for the reasons that the unintended downstream ripple effect consequences of keeping the kids out of school and the impact on working families, and on other aspects of society can be profound,” Fauci said during a Georgetown University Global Health Initiative webinar. “However, that’s going to vary from where you are in the country and what the dynamics of the outbreak are in your particular region.”

The safety of the children and the welfare of the teachers are paramount, Fauci said. He added that local leaders need to make decisions based on safety.

President Trump said it would be a “terrible decision” if schools don’t open on time in the fall, ignoring possible concerns from those who view it as unsafe.

When asked what he would tell parents and teachers who don’t think it’s safe to return to school, Trump said he would tell those people to find new decision makers.

He did not say what he meant when he said people are “dying from that trauma too.”

Trump again claimed that people are playing politics with schools reopening in the fall. He touted the economic recovery from coronavirus, what he called a V-shaped recovery, and said Democrats don’t want that to happen.

“I also say a decision like that is politics. Because we’re starting to do very well in the polls because I’m for law and order. I’m for strong business. Our jobs are coming back at a record level, we’ve never seen anything like this. We’re heading up, it’s turning out to be the V. I built it once before, the strongest economy ever, I’m doing it again. And they don’t want that to happen,” Trump said. “They is the Democrats,” he added.

Trump continues to push for schools to reopen in the fall, despite a record number of new coronavirus cases across the country. 

In a call with governors on Monday, Vice President Mike Pence reiterated the administration’s desire that states move to open their schools in time for the fall semester, but made it clear that those decisions will ultimately be made at the local level.

The suggestion that schools are currently on track to open safely has been dismissed as fantasy by top teachers unions and medical organizations. 

Many of those groups and others have called for a more comprehensive reopening plan, a say in crafting it, and the funding necessary to retrofit American schools and adapt curriculum. 

CNN’s Gregory Krieg contributed to this report.

Watch here:

Nurses in Lawrence, Massachusetts, care for victims during the Spanish flu epidemic in 1918.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease specialist and prominent member of the White House coronavirus task force, said Tuesday that Covid-19 is a “pandemic of historic proportions.”

Fauci added he hopes the interventions that are being tested currently will help prevent such a disaster. 

The challenge in the country now is the resurgence of infections in the South and Southwestern part of the country. Fauci said California, Florida, Arizona and Texas are the states to watch now.

“They’re seeing record numbers of cases, mostly interestingly, among young individuals,” Fauci said.

The rise in cases suggest a link to the lifting of restrictions in those states, he said.

“Individuals, mostly young people, were seen at bars congregated in crowded places, many of them without masks, which really adds fuel to the fire,” Fauci said.

Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam holds a coronavirus briefing on Tuesday.

Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam announced plans to step up enforcement of coronavirus restrictions statewide, citing an increase in cases especially in the tourist area of Hampton Roads.

“There’s clearly some substantial community spread. A lot of that increase is driven by people socializing, without wearing masks, especially young people. As a matter of fact, the increase in the age group of 20 to 29-year-olds from here, compared to early June, is up 250%,” he said. “And it is very concerning.”

Virginia’s Department of Health will immediately deploy 100 additional inspectors to ramp up enforcement of mask-wearing and social distancing. The governor also called on restaurant and business owners to take action, warning their licenses will be on the line. 

Health Commissioner Dr. Norman Oliver said the overwhelming majority of Virginians have been “doing the right thing,” which is why the state has not seen a spike in coronavirus cases like Florida or Texas.

“However, there are a number of people who have in fact not been following the guidelines and, as the governor says, we are going to get much stricter in enforcing those guidelines,” he said.

During a news conference on July 9, Mississippi State Health Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs sits in front of a chart showing a spike in the state's coronavirus cases.

Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves said the Covid-19 hospitalization numbers Tuesday were by far the largest number in the state since the first case was reported on March 11.

Reeves said 805 are hospitalized for Covid-19 and 254 additional hospitalizations are suspected Covid-19 positive and are waiting for their test results.

State Health Official Dr. Thomas Dobbs said there is increasing stress on the hospital system.  

Dobbs said in the past five days, the total confirmed hospitalized patients in Mississippi has gone up by 119 cases. In the past five days, there has been 40 additional intensive care unit patients and 22 additional patients requiring ventilation.

“If we look at hospital capacity, today there are 10 ICUs in Mississippi that have zero beds available. It has become a real issue,” Dobbs said.

Dobbs added that 25 hospitals in Mississippi have less than 25% capacity.

The director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said without a “biological countermeasure” such as a vaccine, “we’re going to have to go through two or three years of wrestling with this virus.” 

When it comes to a coronavirus vaccine, CDC director Dr. Robert Redfield said, “I’ve never seen the government move faster.”

“It’s clear that this first experience is really going to still leave over 75% of the American public susceptible to this virus,” he said during a webinar with the Buck Institute on Tuesday.   

A health worker administers a Covid-19 test in Waukee, Iowa, on Tuesday.

Testing everyone in a small community may be one way to get on top of the coronavirus pandemic, Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said Tuesday.

“If there’s 10,000 people in the community…what it would take if we just tested all 10,000 – figure out in a three to five day period who’s infected, who isn’t – and see if that’s a strategy that can help bring the outbreak under control in that community?” Redfield said during a JAMA interview.

Experts have said repeatedly that the only way to control the virus will be to test, find new cases, isolate those people and then find people they have been in contact with and quarantine them to stop onward transmission.

“The challenge that we have with traditional public health diagnosis, contact tracing, isolation of course, is the biological nature of this virus being so asymptomatic,” said Redfield. “I think now that it’s moved into the younger age group, we probably have over 50% of infections lack symptoms.”

Testing everyone in a community could help health officials find those without symptoms who could be passing along the virus without knowing it. 

Redfield said he’s noticed a trend in Hispanic communities being disproportionately impacted by the virus. 

“Something’s going on in the Hispanic community about community transmission that… we don’t have our hands around,” he said. 

People line up to buy groceries in Caracas, Venezuela, on Monday.

Venezuela’s capital, Caracas, will go back under total lockdown Wednesday, the country’s Vice President Delcy Rodríguez announced on Twitter. 

Venezuela started a gradual reopening since early June, but after a rise in new coronavirus cases reported over the last several days, embattled President Nicolás Maduro announced his decision to reimpose a total lockdown on the Capital District and surrounding Miranda state, Rodriguez tweeted Tuesday. 

Venezuela currently has 9,707 confirmed cases of novel coronavirus, according to data collected by Maduro’s government. Of those cases, 1,970 were recorded in Caracas and the surrounding Miranda state. 

The Venezuela opposition as well as international organizations have questioned the government’s ability to properly track and report Covid-19 cases. 

New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu speaks on Tuesday.

New Hampshire has released guidance for how schools should approach safely reopening in the fall, Gov. Chris Sununu announced on Tuesday.

The guidance does not prescribe an overarching requirement for schools to reopen in the state and instead gives districts and teachers the ability to design models that work for their specific situations. The guidance noted the wide disparities between rural and urban and suburban areas of the schools in the state.  

Sununu said the goal was to keep things “flexible so they can open today,” but then to “remain dynamic as they go through the fall semester.” 

Here are some of the details in the reopening guidance: 

“We feel confident all students can come back in a safe, productive manner,” Sununu said. 

The guidelines were developed by a task force put together earlier this year that consisted of parents, teachers, administrators and students and surveyed districts across the state, Sununu said. 

North Carolina schools will be open for both in-person and remote learning this fall with key safety precautions being put in place, Gov. Roy Cooper said during a news conference today. 

Face coverings will be required for every K-12 staff member, teacher and student. The state will be providing at least five reusable face coverings for every student, teacher and staff member, Cooper added.

Schools must limit the number of people in the building to enforce social distancing — that might mean alternating days or weeks that kids are in school. Children must also be screened before they enter the building, Cooper said. Teachers will have to limit the sharing of materials and build time into the day to allow for frequent hand-washing and cleaning. Nonessential visitors will also be limited and large gatherings such as assemblies should be suspended.  

A two-month supply of personal protective equipment (PPE) and thermometers has already been sent to school nurses, the governor said. 

If local districts are not comfortable following the state’s Plan B, they can opt for Plan C which is all remote learning. 

Cooper warned that if the trends spike, and in-person schooling cannot be done safely, North Carolina will move to all remote learning. 

Lines of cars wait for coronavirus testing at a drive-through site in Miami Gardens, Florida, on July 5.

Speaking during a webinar with the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director, Dr. Robert Redfield, said he does not think reopening is “what’s driving the current Southern expansion right now.”

Redfield pointed to a spike in coronavirus cases around June 12-16. 

“It all simultaneously kind of popped,” he said. 

Redfield said this surge was independent of when states reopened to varying degrees across the region, “so we’re of the view that there was something else that was the driver,” he said. The CDC director said the potential spike could have been from travel during the Memorial Day weekend.

“A lot of Northerners decided to go south for vacations. The Southern groups had never really taken the mitigation steps that seriously, because they really didn’t have an outbreak,” he said.

Redfield’s comments come as surges in US cases have forced state and local officials to ponder more restrictions and, in some cases, consider a second round of shutdowns. More than half of US states have now halted or rolled back their reopening plans in hopes of preventing further spread. 

In Houston, where hospitals are already overwhelmed with patients and hitting intensive care unit capacity, Mayor Sylvester Turner said Monday he proposed a two-week shutdown to the governor following a surge in cases.

“I do think we are going to need to shut down for a period of time. I am proposing two weeks, or at the very minimum, to return to phase one,” Turner said.

Harrison Barnes plays for the Sacramento Kings in March.

Sacramento Kings forward Harrison Barnes has revealed via social media that he has tested positive for Covid-19 and is “primarily” asymptomatic.

The NBA champion who leads the team in minutes this season, says he tested positive last week before the Kings left for the isolated campus at Disney World.

Barnes said that he is currently in quarantine and hopes to join the rest of the team in Florida when cleared to do so. 

Read his tweet:

The government has agreed to rescind its policy of denying international students’ visas if the schools they attended only offered online classes, US District Judge Allison Burroughs said Tuesday.

Burroughs, who was joined by attorneys for Harvard, MIT and the government in a hearing conducted via Zoom, said the agreement between parties would make a July 6 directive rescinded “on a nationwide basis.”

A view of the Harvard University campus on July 8.

More on this: Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology sued the Trump administration over its guidance not allowing foreign students to take online-only courses in the US this fall semester.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement said last week that students who fall under certain visas “may not take a full online course load and remain in the United States,” adding, “The U.S. Department of State will not issue visas to students enrolled in schools and/or programs that are fully online for the fall semester nor will U.S. Customs and Border Protection permit these students to enter the United States.”

CNN’s Priscilla Alvarez contributed to this report.

Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said he thinks “the fall and the winter of 2020 and 2021 are going to be the probably one of the most difficult times that we experienced in American public health.”

Speaking Tuesday during a webinar with the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), Redfield said this is all due to the potential co-occurrence of Covid-19 and the flu.

“Keeping the health care system from being overstretched, I think, is really going to be important. And the degree that we’re able to do that, I think, will define how well we get through the fall and winter,” he said.

Watch here:

Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett speaks to the media on Tuesday.

Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Mayor Tom Barrett signed a mandatory mask ordinance today that requires residents to wear mask in public spaces.

The ordinance also applies to public spaces that are indoors, as well as outdoors when residents cannot maintain a safe social distance.  

“The reason this is happening is because we cannot say that we’ve conquered Covid-19 in Milwaukee, in Milwaukee County, in the state of Wisconsin or the United States,” Barrett said. 

The Milwaukee Common Council adopted the ordinance on Monday and it goes into effect on Wednesday. 

Barrett said the ordinance is intended to protect the health and safety of all residents in the city. 

“I don’t know this virus,” Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said in an interview with the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) on Tuesday. “I just got introduced to it, you know, six months ago.”

Redfield said he’s reluctant to make predictions about the virus, because past predictions haven’t always been accurate.

“I was really one of the individuals who thought we would get a little break in July and August,” he said. “Well, we didn’t get a break in July and August, so I’m reluctant to predict.”

Redfield’s comments come as the US continues to see a surge in cases and at least 37 states are reporting an increase in new cases compared to the previous week, according to Johns Hopkins University data.

More than 3.3 million people have now tested positive nationwide  — but the true number of infections could be much higher, experts have said, as at least 40% of those who contract the virus show no symptoms, according to a new estimate by the CDC.

Here’s a look at where cases are increasing across the country:

Delaware today outlined school reopening guidance for three scenarios of Covid-19 spread in the state. 

The state expects an early August decision on which scenario school will start under,  Delaware Department of Education Secretary Susan Bunting said.

According to Bunting, districts and charters will use guidance to support the continued development of their individual reopening plans.

“We are hoping for as much in-person instruction as we can possibly provide,” she added.

Delaware Gov. John Carney said that Delaware’s priority is testing teachers and staff as widely as possible to start the school year off, with periodic testing thereafter.

Face coverings will be required for grades 4 and older and for all adults, while strongly encouraged for younger children, especially if less than six feet apart, according to Dr. Karyl Rattay, Director of Delaware’s Division of Public Health.

People get tested for coronavirus at a walk-up testing site in Atlanta, Georgia, on July 11.

The Georgia Department of Public Health (GDPH) reported 3,394 new confirmed cases of Covid-19 in the state on Tuesday.

This brings the state total to 123,963 confirmed cases. 

The GDPH reported 28 new coronavirus deaths today, and 209 additional hospitalizations. 

The state has reported a total of 3,054 Covid-19 related deaths.  

Dr. Robert Redfield, the head of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, estimated that “between March and April and May, we probably actually had 20 million infections in the United States.”

“We went back and looked, using antibody testing to get an understanding of how extensive the infection was,” Redfield said during a webinar with the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) on Tuesday.

While the US only officially diagnosed 2 million cases, he said “in that period of time, it was probably 10 to 1.”

Redfield said the US could have been having 150,000 to 200,000 infections a day, “even though we were only diagnosing 20,000 a day.” 

The current situation is a “very, very significant problem right now,” he added.

“This is a serious issue, as you know. We’re currently diagnosing, say, 60,000 cases a day. I don’t know how many infections that really represents,” Redfield said.

The Brazilian state of Mato Grosso ran out of available intensive care unit beds on Monday, the state’s public prosecutor said.

According to the state’s health secretary, there were only five available ICU beds on Monday, but later that day, Alexandre Guedes, a prosecutor at the State Public Prosecution Office, told CNN that demand for the 332 total ICU beds in the state had exceeded supply.

There have been 37 lawsuits filed by Covid-19 patients at the Mato Grosso State Court of Justice for more ICU beds to be made available, according to a judge of the Specialized Health Court of Mato Grosso, José Luiz Leite Lindote.

Some background: Since the pandemic started in Brazil in mid-March, Mato Grosso Gov. Mauro Mendes refused to build field hospitals, saying that the money is better spent by bolstering existing health facilities and adding ICU beds there. In a statement to CNN Monday, the state government press office said “that will benefit the population of Mato Grosso, not only during the pandemic.”

Other than Sinop, a thriving agribusiness city in the north of the state, there are no field hospitals outside the state capital Cuiabá. This means patients from the countryside need to travel to the capital for adequate health treatment.  

“And there is still no prospect of opening a field hospital in Cuiabá,” Guedes said Monday.

As of Monday, Brazil has at least 1,884,967 cases of the virus and 72,833 deaths.

Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro said he eliminated tariffs on 34 additional materials used to fight Covid-19 in a Facebook post Tuesday. 

He said there is now a total of 549 medicines, pieces of equipment and machinery items used to fight the virus that have no tariff.

The resolution mandating this was published in the country’s official gazette on Monday and said the action “grants a temporary reduction, to zero percent of the import tax rate under the terms of article 50,” continuing to say the objective was to “facilitate the fight against the Corona Virus/Covid-19 pandemic.”

Among the materials on the list is ivermectin, which Bolsonaro advocated the use of as a treatment for Covid-19 in a Facebook Live last Thursday. The following day, Brazil’s National Health Surveillance Agency, Anvisa, released a statement saying, “it is necessary to make it clear that there are no conclusive studies that prove the use of this medication for the treatment of Covid-19, as well as there are no studies that refute this use.”

The resolution also eliminated tariffs on machinery for the production and packaging of disposable respiratory protection masks.

Hospitalizations and intensive care unit admissions for coronavirus patients continue to rise in California, setting a new record with a total of 6,745 hospitalizations and 1,886 ICU admissions, according to data from the California Department of Public Health.

The state reported 260 new hospitalizations on Tuesday, which reflects a 4% increase from Monday. There was an increase of 53 new ICU patients, reflecting a 2.9% rise from Monday.

The majority of the hospitalizations are in Los Angeles County, according to the public health agency.

The state added 7,346 new positive cases, a 2.2% increase from the previous day. The total of cases statewide stands at 336,508

There were 47 new deaths, a 0.7% increase from the previous day, bringing the statewide total to 7,087. 

The positivity rate over a two-week period is 7.1%, according to the public health agency.

Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said although the United States has made major gains when it comes to coronavirus testing, it’s not time yet to do a “happy dance.” 

“The reality is that the need for testing is obviously still there,” he added.

Redfield said having to wait a week to get results back won’t do any good, as “by the time you take the test results back they are no longer actionable.”

The goal, he said, is to get results back in 48 to 72 hours.  

“I can just tell you we’re continuing to work to try to continue to expand that,” Redfield added. 

Boston Mayor Marty Walsh speaks at a press conference at Boston City Hall on July 2.

Boston Mayor Marty Walsh, who is a Democrat, talked about the federal court hearing scheduled this afternoon over the Department of Homeland Security’s plan to deny visas to international students taking online college classes. 

Walsh said he and Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti led a group of cities to file an amicus brief in support of Harvard and MIT’s lawsuit to stop the policy. 

“My message is clear and has been clear: this policy has no basis in public health or national interest. It’s an attempt to put pressure on colleges and universities to open up. It puts politics in the place of public health,” Walsh said. “It’s not fair to students who looked to Boston as a place of educational opportunity and it’s a blow to our economy at a time when we can least afford it.”

The mayor said there are 70,000 international students in Massachusetts, the majority of whom live or study in Boston, and they contribute roughly $3.2 billion to the state’s economy and support 39,000 jobs.

Remember: Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced last week that international students who are pursuing degrees in the US will have to leave the country or risk deportation if their universities switch to online-only courses.

The move may affect thousands of foreign students who come to the United States to attend universities or participate in training programs, as well as non-academic or vocational studies.

Palm Beach County Mayor Dave Kerner said he’s going to stop alcohol and food sales after 11 p.m. ET to try and curb the spread of coronavirus in his county.

“We have experienced increased levels of compliance in our county, the one difficulty we had was restaurants turning into bars and DJ clubs after midnight. By having a broad restriction on these facilities being open after 12, it will make it much easier to enforce against these bad actors,” Kerner said.

With the Florida Restaurant and Lodging Association and large establishments in the county lending their support to Kerner, he said that restaurant owners are willing to support the mayor’s decision.

“There’s a lot that concerns me, the growing numbers … also our positivity rate day over day has started to decline. It’s aspirational right now, but it’s turned and it’s a positive sign. I’m encouraged by the compliance that the community has demonstrated so far,” Kerner said.

US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Robert Redfield said the key to opening schools is masks, saying “the data is really clear — they work.” 

Speaking during a Buck Institute briefing on Tuesday, Redfield said the CDC will be coming out with some additional resources this week on how to reopen schools.

One of the resources will look at “how to really take advantage of face coverings. Because to me, face coverings are the key. If you really look at it, the data is really clear — they work,” Redfield said. 

“We’re not defenseless against this virus. We actually have face coverings and I do think the more confidence that the American public has — that face coverings are not a symbol, but they’re actually a very important preventive intervention that can really block this virus,” he said.  

Redfield added, “we are getting more and more data so I can be more and more aggressive in relating that.” 

Redfield said some of the other resources will be aimed toward parents to help them make decisions on whether to send their kids to schools. The other will be aimed at school administrators on how to keep schools safe.  

See if your state requires people to wear masks when out in public here.

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, a close ally of President Trump, defended Dr. Anthony Fauci on Tuesday after the White House made a concerted effort to discredit the infectious disease expert this past weekend.

“Getting in a contest with Dr. Fauci about whether he was right or wrong, doesn’t move the ball forward,” Graham added. 

The South Carolina lawmaker went on to say that it’s more important to focus on where the US is as a nation right now.

“The infection rate is going up. We shut the whole country down. It’s time to open up smartly… We have to deal with reality that we’re not as prepared as we need to be, but moving in the right direction,” he said.

Graham said the US needs “better testing” and urged the Trump administration’s coronavirus task force “to do whatever they can to ramp up the components of testing” because it will be critical, particularly, if schools reopen in the fall.

He also raised the question of whether the Defense Production Act should be used differently than it’s being used today in order to achieve this testing goal. Because Graham said, “The shortage in testing, is the shortage in the reagents you need to perform a reliable test.”

“We don’t have enough testing in real time for the population as a whole,” he said, pointing to possibly including an incentive for pool testing in the next Covid-19 relief bill.

On masks, Graham said, “Whether or not you need to mandate masking, does that turn the corner? I don’t know, but I do know this: if people would take this more seriously it would help us much as in any single thing I can do.”

Watch here:

From left, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and German Chancellor Angela Merkel deliver a statement ahead of a meeting in Berlin, Germany, on Tuesday.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez agreed at a news conference in Berlin on Tuesday that an agreement in Europe is needed “as soon as possible.” 

Merkel acknowledged that “the differences in opinions persist” but said that “we have to find a solution” and urged that “time is running out.”

“It is important to invest in the future, in the digital transformation, in climate change,” she added.

Sanchez insisted that “July is the month of the agreement.”

“I know we have a difficult negotiation ahead of us, but union has never being achieved through vetoes, but through dialogue, and that is what we are called to do on the 17th and 18th of July, if we delay the agreement the crisis will worsen,” he said.

There are 993 new Covid-19 cases today in Oklahoma, bringing the total to 21,738, according to the state’s Department of Health.

This is a record high of reported cases, according to data release by the health department. 

Oklahoma also reported an additional four deaths, bringing the total number of fatalities in the state to 428. 

Tulsa County has 5,448 total cases, up 181 from Monday, while Oklahoma County, which includes Oklahoma City, is reporting an additional 273 cases for a total of 5,259.

Note: These numbers were released by the Oklahoma State Department of Health, and may not line up exactly in real time with CNN’s database drawn from Johns Hopkins University and the Covid Tracking Project. 

Dr. Robert Redfield, the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said the CDC is working to “deploy point of care tests to every nursing home in this country.” 

He said this new technology is something the CDC is “in the process of deploying.”

Hopefully the deployments will begin later this week or early next week “so they can start doing their own testing,” Redfield said during a webinar with the Buck Institute on Tuesday.

He said the long-term goal is to allow for the return of visitors to nursing homes.

Maintaining human interaction is particularly important for people in long-term health care facilities.

“When you do remove that, there is a clinical consequence,” he added.

Commuters in Boston wear masks at South Station on July 14.

Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, discussed the importance of wearing masks during a webinar with the Buck Institute for Research on Aging on Tuesday.

“These face coverings, simple face coverings, really do work in interrupting this transmission,” he said. “And I think the American public is getting closer to accepting face coverings.”

Redfield said that “we’re not defenseless” when it comes to Covid-19.

Wearing masks, social distancing and washing your hands are all things that can help when it comes to transmission. When social distancing, he noted that masks are the most important thing.

He described masks as a powerful tool.

Boston Mayor Marty Walsh said in a news conference today that there are 111,827 cases of coronavirus in the state and 8,330 people have died due to Covid-19. That is an increase of 230 cases and five deaths since yesterday in Massachusetts. 

In Boston, the mayor reported 13,723 total cases of Covid-19 and said the city has been averaging about 16 new cases per day, with 50 new cases reported since Friday.

Walsh said 9,710 people in Boston have fully recovered from the virus and 715 people in the city have died from the virus in total, with no new deaths reported this week. 

One thing to note: These numbers were released by the Boston mayor’s office and may not line up exactly in real time with CNN’s database drawn from Johns Hopkins University and the Covid Tracking Project.

Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said “a majority of counties in this country” are in a place where they can reopen their schools.

He added that he thinks a majority of counties would meet the criteria to reopen, as long as teachers, administrators and parents had the confidence to do so.

“It has to be done safely. It has to be done with the confidences of the teachers. It has to be done with the confidence of the parents,” Redfield said. 

One of the things the CDC has tried to do, he said, is “allow people how to understand how to do their own risk assessment” – something that is very important as local school districts are going to have to make their own decisions. Remember: The CDC has released guidelines for schools as they reopen.

While Redfield said he didn’t want people to overestimate the risk of serious illness for children, he did point out there needs to be ample considerations to vulnerable individuals – for example, teachers or students who have existing co-morbidities. 

“I’m of the point of view, and I weigh that equation as an individual who has 11 grandchildren, that the greater risk is actually for the nation to keep these schools closed,” Redfield said, highlighting that many children get mental health and nutritional services along with the teaching method and social aspect.

Moderna headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Moderna, an American biotech company, expects to start their largest study yet of its Covid-19 vaccine candidate on July 27, according to details released Tuesday on a government database that tracks clinical trials conducted around the world.

Here is how the vaccine trial will work:

The study will be conducted at 87 locations across the United States.

Remember: Moderna’s vaccine candidate is one of 23 in clinical trials around the world, according to the World Health Organization.

Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine candidate is expected to be the first in the United States to begin phase three trials.

Vice President Mike Pence has arrived in Louisiana, where he was greeted Gov. John Bel Edwards, Sens. Bill Cassidy and John Kennedy, and Rep. Steve Scalise, among others. Everyone wore masks.

Pence is expected to deliver remarks at the State Emergency Operations Center at 1 p.m. ET and receive a coronavirus briefing after that. While in Louisiana, he will also participate in a roundtable on higher education and hold a press briefing.

Coronavirus cases have been increasing in Louisiana: Last week, Edwards said the gains the people of Louisiana made against Covid-19 in June had been wiped out in a matter of weeks.

The state has reported almost 80,000 cases of coronavirus since the pandemic began. Here’s the parish-by-parish look of where those cases have been recorded:

As the coronavirus surges across the US, Virginia Rep. Morgan Griffith, a Republican, has tested positive for coronavirus.

After developing symptoms, he took a test and has since been isolating, according to his office. He does not currently have “significant symptoms,” the statement said.

Griffith’s office said the congressman “will continue to self-isolate as he performs his duties on behalf of Virginia’s Ninth Congressional District.”

CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield testifies at a Senate Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies Subcommittee hearing in Washington, DC, on July 2.

Dr. Robert Redfield, the head of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said the nation is in a much better place than it was in the spring, because it has a much lower mortality rate, but said “we’re not out of the woods for this.”

Speaking during a webinar with the Buck Institute on Tuesday, Redfield said there is still “obvious transmission” occurring throughout the nation right now.

“While we’ve made a lot of progress, we still have a ways to go in terms of getting this under control,” the CDC director said.

Joggers run by the Pan American Health Organization building in Washington, DC, on May 21.

The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) is working with member states to ensure “equal access” to future Covid-19 and treatments when they are available, PAHO Director Dr. Carissa Etienne said on Tuesday.

Etienne said the US, Canada, Brazil and Argentina are part of clinical trials for some of the vaccine candidates, and encouraged other countries in the region to “participate in this global effort to accelerate the development of vaccines that are safe and effective for everyone.”

She added that PAHO is engaged with the regulatory authorities of its member states regarding clinical trials.

PAHO is using its revolving fund to play a “strategic role” in the access to a future Covid-19 vaccine. Etienne said the Americas “is the only region with a shared mechanism for purchasing and delivering vaccines.”

The PAHO director also touted efforts such as the Covid-19 Global Vaccine Access Facility (COVAX Facility), saying that PAHO member states will act as a “bloc” and join the effort through the PAHO Revolving Fund. 

“We already have 30 countries and territories joining the facility through PAHO’s Revolving Fund, and we are excited to see more expressions of interest from our member states in the coming days. The more countries that join, the stronger we will be,” Etienne said.

She added PAHO is also working with GAVI and other partners “to guarantee that the most vulnerable countries in our region receive the vaccine against Covid-19 in a subsidized manner and at an affordable price.”

First Lady Melania Trump tweeted an image of herself today from early April wearing a face mask, along with a reminder for people to continue to wear them, and adhere to social distancing guidelines.

“Even in the summer months, please remember to wear face coverings & practice social distancing,” she tweeted.

See her tweet:

Some background: Masks have become a political flash point as some Americans argue the requirement infringes upon their civil liberties. But the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention urges everyone to wear a “cloth face cover when they have to go out in public,” noting that masks are critical in areas where social distancing is difficult to maintain since the coronavirus can spread between asymptomatic people and through respiratory droplets in the air.

CNN’s Kelly Mena and Veronica Stracqualursi contributed to this report.

Florida health officials reported 132 Covid-19-related deaths on Tuesday, breaking the record for most deaths in a single day due to coronavirus, according to numbers released by the state’s Department of Health.

The previous record for coronavirus-related deaths in one day was 120 deaths reported on July 9. 

One thing to note: These numbers were released by Florida’s public health agency, and may not line up exactly in real time with CNN’s database drawn from Johns Hopkins University and the Covid Tracking Project.

WATCH:

Israel crossed 41,000 coronavirus cases, according to the Ministry of Health, as the country set a new single-day record for infections with 1,681 people testing positive on Monday.

Almost a quarter of the total number of cases have come within the last week, as Israel has averaged more than 1,000 new cases a day. The number of patients in serious condition has also nearly doubled from 93 to 177 in the last week.

As of Tuesday morning, Israel has 41,235 confirmed cases of coronavirus, according to the Ministry of Health, and 368 people have died as a result of the disease.

The Palestinian Authority has also seen a significant rise in cases, with 293 new cases on Tuesday, the Palestinian Ministry of Health said. There have been 7,734 total cases since the beginning of the outbreak, the Ministry said, and 45 people have died as a result of the disease.

Officials in Fort Bend County, Texas, said today that the county is elevating its risk alert status to red — the highest level category — effective immediately. 

Fort Bend County is located southwest of Houston and is part of the Houston-metro area.

Cases have seen a sharp increase over the past month, according to Judge KP George. He said the county has had at least 5,015 total positive cases, with at least 2,613 of those cases reported since June 30.

George said that the red category means the county is in the highest possible level of risk and asks for all residents to assume personal responsibility in helping mitigate the virus. It translates to stay home, stay safe guidance, according to the county website. After 14 days of improvement on the indicators, including decreased daily hospital and intensive care unit admissions as well as a decreased trend in deaths, the county can downgrade to orange, according to the guidance posted online. 

Meanwhile, the Fort Bend Independent School District said it will start the school year with online-only learning.

According to an announcement, this will “give students, parents and staff an opportunity to adjust to online learning and safety procedures.” The district also announced that all in-person extracurricular activities — including all athletics and fine arts — will not be allowed to take place during this time.   

The Board of Trustees met via Zoom on Monday night to vote on the changes to the start of the school year. The first day of school is Aug. 12 in the district. 

They said during the meeting that they will phase-in face-to-face student groups over time and based on guidance from local health officials, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and others. 

Five people across New York died from coronavirus Monday, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s office announced today, bringing the statewide death toll to at least 24,994.

More than 900 the 60,045 — or 1.5% — of the tests conducted across the state were positive, bringing the statewide total of confirmed cases to 403,175.

One thing to note: These numbers were released by the state and may not line up exactly in real time with CNN’s database drawn from Johns Hopkins University and the Covid Tracking Project.

Colombia’s largest cities have reimposed lockdown measures, after a surge in cases during the last seven days pushed the Latin American country beyond 150,000 total cases.   

Colombia is currently the 5th most affected country with Covid-19 cases in Latin America and more than 20% of total cases were registered in the last seven days, including a record 6,803 new cases last Friday, according to data collected by the Colombian Health Ministry.

On Monday evening, the country reported 3,832 new Covid-19 cases, bringing the total number of cases to 154,277. The death toll stands at at least 5,455.  

In Bogota, the capital city where more than 30% of cases were registered, local mayor Claudia López announced a localized lockdown, dividing the city into three areas that will go under total lockdown on a two-week rotation.

During the lockdown in these areas, only essential shops are allowed to open and only a single member per family is allowed to leave the house to buy food, medicine and other supplies. 

Medellin, Colombia’s second largest city, also reimposed a partial lockdown Monday, despite it having one of the lowest increase of Covid-19 earlier in the pandemic.

The coronavirus pandemic remains highly localized in Colombia. Two key areas, Bogota and the north Atlantic coast, account for more than 50% of total registered cases, while several regions have registered only a limited amount of cases, according to data by the Colombian Health Ministry. 

The Colombian government is under pressure to open up new parts of the economy, especially in regions that have not seen a surge in cases in order to limit economic damage triggered by the lockdown. 

Unemployment has more than doubled in Colombian urban areas reaching almost 25% in May, according to DANE, the country’s National Administrative Department of Statistics. 

Minnesota, New Mexico, Ohio and Wisconsin have been added to the list of states included in New York’s travel advisory requiring individuals traveling to the Empire State from those locations to quarantine for 14 days, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced in a press statement Tuesday morning.

The statement notes: “Yesterday, Governor Cuomo announced a travel enforcement operation will commence today at airports across the state to help ensure travelers are following the state’s quarantine restrictions and to help contain the rates of COVID-19 transmission in New York State.”

Here is the updated list of states included in the travel advisory:

Note: Delaware has been removed from New York’s travel advisory, per the governor’s office.

Ecuador’s Galapagos islands’ tourist sites have reopened to visitors, the country’s Ministry of Environment and Water said in a statement today.

Tourists will have to wear masks and use disinfectant gel when visiting the UNESCO World Heritage site, the statement notes, adding that visits to recreational places near the ports, will be restricted to three hours, maximum .

The Galapagos were closed to all visitors starting on March 16, in an effort to control the spread of Covid-19.

At least 183 land and marine sites of the Galapagos National Park have reopened, according to the ministry of environment.

The Galapagos are home to some of the most unique and scientifically significant ecosystems on earth. The archipelago of 127 islands, is about 1,000 kilometers, or 600 miles off Ecuador’s coast in the Pacific Ocean.

The Galapagos Islands are one of the world’s premier destinations for wildlife viewing. However, conservationists have increasingly voiced concern that the Galapagos and its delicate ecosystem are under threat from over-tourism. 

Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves is urging people in his state to weak masks and spoke out against residents in the state who don’t believe in the reality of coronavirus.

“The President is wearing a mask. I’m wearing a mask. We’re all doing it. It’s got to happen, or we’re going to find ourselves in a place as bad as we can imagine,” Tate wrote in one Facebook post. 

President Trump had long refused to wear a mask in public but this weekend, he finally wore one in front of cameras during a visit to wounded service members at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. 

In a subsequent post on Facebook Reeves, spoke to people who refuse to wear masks or speak out against face coverings saying, “mask-shaming in either direction is dumb and counterproductive.”

He ended the post with a unifying message saying, “Our enemy is the virus - NOT EACH OTHER!”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said it is “absolutely urgent” to approve a new coronavirus stimulus package. During an interview with CNN’s Jim Sciutto on Tuesday, she reiterated the Democratic priorities, including extending enhanced unemployment insurance benefits and sending another round of direct payments to Americans.

Asked if she is willing to consider Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s demand that liability protections be included for businesses, Pelosi said Republicans should instead join Democrats in approving an Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) provision to protect workers.

She also said she is willing to cut into the planned August recess to get the bill finalized.

“Oh we absolutely have to,” she said. “The timetable is the timetable of the American people.”

Regrading the surging cases across the country, Pelosi said local leaders should look to other countries that shut down seriously to begin with and were able to stop the spread of the coronavirus, as states across the US experience surges after taking steps to open up.

She said it’s a regional decision, but “unless you have a very, very low percentage of incidence of the infection, you really have to consider locking down.”

Asked if California opened too quickly, Pelosi said she believes Gov. Gavin Newsom “has done an excellent job,” but she added that he was under pressure from different regions of the state that were experiencing the virus differently.

Watch Speaker Pelosi on liability protections:

Coronavirus cases are soaring in Florida. Across the state, at least 48 hospitals have zero ICU beds available, and Miami is “now the epicenter of the pandemic,” an infectious disease expert with the area’s Jackson Health System said.

The situation is so serious in Florida, the state has more cases than all but eight entire countries — including some of the pandemic’s first hotspots.

Six months ago, the world thought this new coronavirus was contained to China — specifically, the Wuhan area. 

But now, the entire country of China has less than 1/3 the total Covid-19 cases that Florida does, according to Johns Hopkins University data. As of Monday, China had 85,117 total cases since the pandemic started, compared to Florida’s 282,435.

After the China outbreak, Italy came under worldwide scrutiny for its handling of Covid-19 as the disease quickly spread out of control. 

But after strict government mandates, the country has managed to quell the virus and has largely returned to normal. 

As of Monday, Italy (population 60 million) had 243,230 cases from throughout the pandemic. Florida (population 21 million) has already surpassed that number, at 282,435.

Florida’s death toll, however, remains lower than Italy’s — 4,277 in Florida, compared to 34,954 in Italy.

There’s been an attempt to downplay the coronavirus, Miami Beach Mayor Dan Gelber said, decrying “mixed messages” from federal leaders and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.  

Miami is “now the epicenter of the pandemic,” according to an infectious disease expert with the area’s Jackson Health System.

In Florida, there are currently at least 48 hospitals that have reached their ICU capacity and show zero ICU beds available, according to data released by the Agency for Health Care Administration.

Gelber said that Miami-area leaders will enforce new stay-at-home orders soon if hospitals cannot care for all people, not just Covid-19 patients.

“I suspect if, in a week of or two, this is not changed in any way, then we’re all going to do it — whether or not the governor wants us to or not,” he said. 

Watch the interview:

The mayor’s fund to advance New York City has raised $54.5 million for Covid-19 emergency relief. Over 9,000 donors contributed to this fund to help frontline workers and vulnerable New Yorkers, Mayor Bill de Blasio said.

First lady Chirlane McCray added that the funds will also assist in saving businesses, aid immigrants and support youth.

In particular, she touted the Restaurant Revitalization Program as part of the fund, which will support 1,000 unemployed and underemployed restaurant workers, and approximately 100 restaurants.

The city also is creating micro-grants to directly support survivors of domestic violence, McCray said, adding that “the pandemic has brought new horrors for those who shelter in place with an abusive partner.”

The immigrant emergency relief fund has so far provided 13,000 households across 180 zip codes representing 41,0000 New Yorkers with one time emergency financial relief, an official said.

The daily Covid-19 indicators are all under desired thresholds, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said Tuesday.

“Again, today very good news, continued progress in the city thanks to all of you,” de Blasio said. 

Here’s a look at the latest numbers:

The majority of the customs lanes at the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel remain closed on April 10. The US-Canada border has been closed to all non-essential traffic since March.

The US-Canada border is expected to remain closed until at least Aug. 21, two Canadian government sources with knowledge of the situation tell CNN.

There will be stepped-up enforcement and surveillance at most Canadian land borders in the coming weeks, the sources add.

By mutual agreement, the US-Canada border has been closed to all non-essential traffic since March.

The sources spoke on the condition of anonymity, as they are not authorized to speak publicly on the matter. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is expected to formally announce the decision later this week.

CNN has reached out to US officials for comment.

President Trump and Prime Justin Minister Trudeau discussed the matter briefly during a phone call Monday morning, according to Trudeau’s office. 

Also on Monday, Trudeau said Canada recognizes that the US coronavirus pandemic is a “complex” situation.

About the current closure: Truck drivers, healthcare workers, flight crews and others including most recently sports professionals, are currently exempt from Canada’s mandatory 14-day quarantine. 

According to one poll, a large majority of Canadians say the US-Canada border should remain closed for the foreseeable future. 

At least 1,705 Mexicans have died of Covid-19 in the United States, Mexico’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement released late Monday night. 

Of the US states, New York is the deadliest one for Mexicans. At least 758 people have died from the virus in the state, according to Mexico’s statement. The tally is based on information from the consulates and is subject to change, the statement adds.  

At least 245 urns with the remains of Mexican citizens who have died from the virus were repatriated to Mexico on Saturday, flown in from New York to Mexico City on a Mexican Air Force plane.

Vice President Mike Pence has departed Washington for Baton Rouge, Louisiana, a coronavirus hotspot, where he is expected to meet with Gov. John Bel Edwards, Sens. Bill Cassidy and John Kennedy and local and state officials.

Pence will deliver remarks at the State Emergency Operations Center at 1:00 pm ET, receive a coronavirus briefing at 1:30 pm ET, participate in a roundtable on higher education reopening at 2:45 pm ET, and hold a press briefing at 4:00 pm ET, returning to Washington in the evening. 

Heather Valentine, a 24-year-old ICU nurse who cared for coronavirus patients, ended up getting hospitalized for Covid-19 herself. 

She had a fever, cough and experienced some pain in her lungs. She received both an antibody and coronavirus test, and both initially were negative, but Houston’s United Memorial Medical Center Chief Medical Officer Dr. Joseph Varon decided to do a CT scan of her lungs. 

“He told me, worst-case scenario, it’s possible I could have required intubation if I would have waited a couple days more,” said in an interview from her hospital bed on CNN’s “New Day.”  

She said she was shocked, and urged others to take the virus seriously.  

Her message to others: “No matter how healthy you are, no matter how young you are, you have to be careful. I mean, these are crazy times, and you never think it’s going to happen to you, but I’m a perfect example. Just take every precaution. Wear a mask. Don’t go out if you don’t have to. It’s not worth it.”  

Watch:

Dr. Anthony Fauci prepares to testify at a Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing in Washington, DC, on June 30.

A “misstep” in communicating to the public the benefits of wearing a mask early in the Covid-19 pandemic has hurt its “credibility” as public health tool, said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. 

Fauci on Tuesday said that in the beginning of the pandemic, health officials in the country were trying to make sure health care workers had enough personal protective equipment, including masks, as hospitals filled with Covid-19 patients.

“What got, I think, a little bit misrepresented in that message was not that it was just we wanted to preserve them, but they don’t really work that well anyway,” Fauci said in an interview with CNN Contributor Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, host of the Crooked Media podcast “America Dissected.”

As new data started to come out showing the effectiveness of wearing masks to reduce the spread of the virus and on the significant percentage of people infected with the virus who are asymptomatic, it became even more clear that everybody should wear a mask, Fauci said. 

“It’s almost as if we should say everybody should assume that you’re an asymptomatic infected person. And that’s the reason why you should wear a mask. But unfortunately that misstep in the beginning, when the connection between saving a short supply was equated with ‘they don’t have much benefit anyway, so why wear it?’ … I mean, that was the misstep. And you’re right, it made it now a real challenge in communication,” Fauci said.

A woman is tested for coronavirus at a hospital in Patna, India, on July 13.

A 16-day lockdown will begin in the Eastern Indian state of Bihar starting on July 16, the Bihar government announced in an order on Tuesday. 

The lockdown was issued in view of the “alarming surge in Covid-19 positive cases in State of Bihar in last three weeks wherein positivity rate has also been considerably high,” the order read. 

During the statewide lockdown, all government offices, commercial and private establishments, transport services, educational institutions, places of worship and parks will remain shut with the exception of certain essential services. 

All hospital and medical facilities will remain open, agricultural activities, construction activities, industrial establishments will continue, with the implementation of necessary precautions and social distancing norms, according to the order. 

Bihar has 17,959 cases of coronavirus including 160 deaths as of Tuesday, according to the Indian Ministry of Health.

Meanwhile, the northern state of Punjab issued a complete ban on public gatherings, a statement issued by the government of Punjab on Monday said. 

The eastern states of Jharkhand and West Bengal and the western state of Maharashtra had also issued lockdowns which are due to end on July 31 and Uttar Pradesh announced a weekend lockdown till the end of July. 

The lockdown in Bengaluru, the capital of South Indian state of Karnataka, is also set to start Tuesday at 8pm local after a sudden surge of coronavirus cases in that region.

India currently has more than 900,000 total cases of coronavirus including 23,727 deaths and 571,460 recoveries according to the Indian Ministry of Health. The country has the third highest number of total cases in the world, behind US and Brazil, according to Johns Hopkins University data.

Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney is seen during a City Hall press conference on March 6.

Philadelphia has cancelled all large public events through February 28, 2021, Lauren Cox, deputy communications director in Mayor Jim Kenney’s office, told CNN Tuesday morning.

“This is in regards to events that the City permits on public property (like parades and festivals), it does not apply to events on private property—including sports stadiums and concert venues,” she said.

“Decisions on how to resume those types of events will be based on current public health guidance as the situation in Philadelphia progresses,” she added.  

Additional details will be shared during the mayor’s press conference later today at 1 p.m. ET.

A woman passes the New York Stock Exchange on Monday.

US stocks opened lower Tuesday after big banks warned of significant challenges to the economic recovery.

Here’s how things looked as the market opened:

More context: The shaky start comes after Wall Street suffered a sharp reversal Monday. A 563-point rally for the Dow fizzled following California’s decision to close bars, restaurants and other indoor spaces because of the pandemic. 

JPMorgan Chase kicked off bank earnings season Tuesday by saying its profits plunged 51% as provisions for credit losses spiked. CEO Jamie Dimon warned, “We still face much uncertainty regarding the future path of the economy.” 

Wells Fargo’s stock tumbled 6% after the troubled bank suffered its first quarterly loss since 2008 and warned it will likely slash its dividend by 80%. That would make Wells Fargo the first big bank to lower its dividend during the recession.

Four former directors of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have written that they have never seen science be so influenced by politics, in an op-ed published Wednesday in The Washington Post.

One of the roles of the CDC is to provide sound public health guidance, which is essential during a pandemic. 

Speaking about the school reopening guidelines from the CDC, the former directors said that while it is not unusual for guidelines to be altered or changed after going through a clearance process, it is “extraordinary for guidelines to be undermined after their release.”

Guidelines should only be changed for new information and science, not because of politics, they said.

Writing about reopening schools and businesses amid a worsening pandemic, they said that public health experts face two opponents, “Covid-19, but also political leaders and others attempting to undermine the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.”

Remember: The President, against the advice of some of the nation’s top health officials, has repeatedly called for schools to reopen as coronavirus cases surge across the country.

On Wednesday, while Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert, warned that the country has to maintain control over the pandemic to get children back to school in the fall, Trump slammed the CDC’s existing guidelines.

He tweeted they were “very tough” and “expensive,” while in another tweet threatened to cut off school funding if they resisted opening, though the federal government’s ability to do so is limited.

Dr. Anthony Fauci listens during a Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing in Washington, DC, on June 30.

Doctor Anthony Fauci is staying on with the White House coronavirus task force despite the recent White House attempts to discredit him, a source familiar with the situation told CNN.

Some background: The White House has made a concerted effort to discredit Fauci as he becomes increasingly vocal about his concerns over reopening the country.

The tension between Fauci and Trump — who are no longer speaking, CNN reported last week — has grown publicly as they have responded to one another through interviews and statements.

But remember: Trump does not plan to dismiss Fauci, and probably couldn’t directly fire him if he wanted to, White House officials have determined. He insisted on Monday that his relationship with the doctor remains strong.

Adm. Brett Giroir speaks during a Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing in Washington, DC, on June 30.

Point of care tests should help reduce the burden on testing labs later in the year, said Admiral Brett Giroir, assistant secretary for health at the US Department of Health and Human Services, on Tuesday.

Speaking on NPR’s “Morning Edition” about the burden of testing on labs as schools work on reopening and workplaces request more testing as they reopen, Giroir said these point of care tests are “going to dramatically reduce the burden.”

He also said that at present, almost half of the tests that are done are point of care tests.

It’s Tuesday morning in the US, where more than 3.3 million cases of coronavirus have been reported since the pandemic began.

If you’re just reading in, here’s what you need to know about the pandemic to start your morning:

A medical technologist processes coronavirus test samples at a lab in Tampa, Florida, on June 25.

Admiral Brett Giroir, assistant secretary for health at the US Department of Health and Human Services and member of the White House coronavirus task force, on Tuesday conceded there are delays in Covid-19 tests results coming from big commercial laboratories, saying the demand is still very high.

Giroir explained the government is working with these laboratories to “actively start” pooling samples, and it will also lean into places that need a lot of testing, such as nursing homes, to do more point-of-care testing.

“That will alleviate millions of tests from those commercial labs,” Giroir said.

Bodies of coronavirus victims are loaded onto a truck on July 11 to be transported from a hospital in Baghdad to a cemetery in Najaf, Iraq.

Iraq on Tuesday recorded at least 2,022 new coronavirus cases, according to the country’s health ministry.

This brings the total number of Covid-19 cases in Iraq to more than 81,700 according to the health ministry.

The health ministry also reported at least 95 new Covid-19-related deaths, bringing the total to at least 3,345 deaths across the country.

The ministry also said in a statement that 3,784 cases have recovered Tuesday from Covid-19, and total of 50,782 cases have recovered across the country since the pandemic began.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell leaves after a closed door briefing at the Capitol on July 2.

A new plan under development by the White House and Senate Republicans to deal with the fallout from the coronavirus pandemic is expected to include financial incentives to push schools to reopen while also shielding health care workers and companies against lawsuits, Republicans said Monday, a move that will spur a fight with Democrats.

This liability protection is essential, according to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, but House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said it would remove responsibility from employers and institutions. 

Senate GOP leaders and senior administration officials have been privately trading proposals and exchanging plans before formally introducing a Republican proposal as soon as next week, with just three weeks before Congress adjourns for its summer recess.

The measure, expected to cost around $1.3 trillion, would amount to the GOP’s latest response to the crisis  — after roundly dismissing House Democrats’ $3 trillion-plus plan that passed their chamber two months ago.

But to get to Trump’s desk, it would require the two parties in both chambers to resolve major differences — over the size and scope of the plan as well as the details in it — in the heat of an election year, meaning many are skeptical a deal can be reached with the number of days dwindling before the August recess.

The GOP measure expected to provide aid to businesses, hospitals and schools in an effort to jumpstart the economy with millions still out of work.

But even before it’s introduced, it is already prompted an outcry from Democrats, who contend the measure is far smaller in scope than what’s needed and is expected to include measures their party won’t accept.

Remember: Some of America’s largest school districts say they won’t resume in-person classes at the start of autumn, despite Trump’s calls to reopen.

French President Emmanuel Macron arrives for a group picture during the G5 Sahel summit in Nouakchott, Mauritania, on June 30.

French President Emmanuel Macron said he is “in favor” of making wearing face masks mandatory in enclosed public spaces to limit the spread of coronavirus, adding during a televised interview that the measure could be enforced as early as August 1.

“There are risks that [the outbreak] could be starting again and we need to be prepared,” he added, recommending that “all citizens wear masks as much as possible, outside as well as inside.”

The president’s remarks come just a day after the UK government announced that wearing face masks in shops and supermarkets in England would become compulsory starting July 24.

Admiral Brett Giroir, assistant secretary for health at the US Department of Health and Human Services, speaks during a White House Coronavirus Task Force press briefing in Washington, DC on July 8.

Admiral Brett Giroir, assistant secretary for health at the US Department of Health and Human Services, said Tuesday that US health officials are “very concerned” about the Covid-19 outbreak, but some early indicators point to “some early light at the end of this tunnel.” 

During an interview on “Today” on NBC, Giroir, who is a member of the White House coronavirus task force, said that the government’s response to the current outbreak is better than when the pandemic first started. “We are in a much different place now than we were several months ago – [a] much better place,” he said.

Giroir reiterated some early indicators – including positivity rates leveling off and visits to the ER going down in some of the hotspots – show that the country may be turning a corner on the current outbreak, with the help of social distancing measures and wearing masks.

“None of us feel comfortable, nobody is doing a victory lap. We are all very concerned, all hands on deck in the field,” Giroir said. “This doesn’t mean we’ve turned the corner, and I want everybody to really understand. You’ve got to physically distance, wear your mask, avoid bars, close bars in those hot areas, reduce restaurant capacity. If we keep doing those things, these early indicators will turn into successes for us. We are not there yet but we are seeing some early light at the end of this tunnel.”

Workers move the coffin of a Covid-19 victim in Bogota, Colombia, on July 4.

Latin America and the Caribbean have now recorded more coronavirus deaths than the US and Canada, a CNN analysis of Johns Hopkins University data shows.

As of Tuesday, Latin America and the Caribbean have reported at least 146,515 deaths due to Covid-19. The United States and Canada combined have recorded at least 144,451 coronavirus deaths. 

CNN’s analysis is based on Johns Hopkins figures as of 4 a.m. ET today. The data for “Latin America and the Caribbean” includes the following countries: Brazil, Peru, Chile, Mexico, Colombia, Argentina, Ecuador, Bolivia, Panama, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Venezuela, Costa Rica, Haiti, Paraguay, Nicaragua, Cuba, Uruguay and Jamaica.

Remember: The region includes other countries and territories, but they have had few or no coronavirus deaths.

Clarification: The headline has been updated to replace “North America” with “US and Canada.”

WATCH:

Coronavirus cases soared by more than a million globally in just five days as the numbers continue to accelerate from week to week, according to figures from Johns Hopkins University.

Reported cases increased by 1,046,200 from July 6 through July 10, up from a 994,400 increase over the five days from July 5 through July 9.

While some countries that were hit early in the outbreak have managed to contain the virus, the number of cases globally has been accelerating fairly steadily.

There have now been more than half a million deaths from the virus worldwide, according to JHU data.

The World Health Organization’s director-general on Monday warned there would be “no return to the old normal for the foreseeable future.”

“We need to reach a sustainable situation where we do have adequate control of this virus without shutting down our lives entirely, or lurching from lockdown to lockdown,” Tedros said.

Wearing face masks in shops and supermarkets in England will be compulsory from July 24, with those failing to comply with the new regulation facing fines of up to £100 ($125), the UK government was set to announce Tuesday.

“There is growing evidence that wearing a face covering in an enclosed space helps protect individuals and those around them from coronavirus,” a Downing Street spokesperson said.

“The Prime Minister has been clear that people should be wearing face coverings in shops and we will make this mandatory from July 24.”

The UK is one of the worst-hit countries by coronavirus, with almost 45,000 fatalities, putting it third behind Brazil and the United States.

The report’s authors warn that Covid-19 is “more likely to spread in winter with people spending more time indoors and the virus able to survive longer in colder, darker winter conditions.”

In the document, experts warn that “intense preparation” is urgently needed in the remaining summer months to reduce the risk of the health service being overwhelmed and to save lives this coming winter.

Scientists said that a combination of the possibility of a flu epidemic, a backlog of patients needing treatment and the disruption already created in the health system by Covid-19 posed a “serious risk to health in the UK.”

Read more here:

LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM - JULY 13: Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson, wearing a face mask or covering due to the COVID-19 pandemic, visits the headquarters of the London Ambulance Service NHS Trust on July 13, 2020 in London, England. (Photo by Ben Stansall-WPA Pool/Getty Images)

Related article Face masks in shops to be compulsory in England

The shack sits just down a narrow dirt alleyway, visible from a main road in Khayelitsha, near Cape Town. This is where the suspected killer is alleged to have hidden the body of his girlfriend, packed in between a corrugated iron siding and a concrete wall, just feet away from where he lived.

Prosecutors say he put 36-year-old Sibongiseni Gabada’s corpse in a bag and covered it with garbage.

Gabada was missing for two weeks before her body was found. Every day people would walk past, until finally the smell of decomposing remains became stronger than the stench of the trash piled on top.

“When the people asked what is going on there. He said, ‘No, it is rubbish, I am going to throw it away.’ That is the kind of person he was – an animal,” says Gabada’s grandmother, Mavis Gabada.

She gingerly moves forward to stare at the spot, sobbing. “Why was my granddaughter killed like a dog?” she asks.

What’s happening: Since South Africa’s strict lockdown was lifted, Gabada’s case is just one of scores of high-profile cases of gender-based violence against South African women and children to have come to light.

Read the rest of the report here:

Sibongiseni Gabada was killed in Khayelitsha, near Cape Town; her body was dumped in an alleyway.

Related article The 'war on women' didn't stop when South Africa locked down over Covid-19

The Kadena Air Base, pictured on June 22.

An additional case of Covid-19 was reported Tuesday at the US Kadena Air Base on the Japanese island of Okinawa, a statement from the base said.

The additional case means a total of 99 US military personnel and their families have now been diagnosed with Covid-19 across six US military facilities in Japan since July 7.

US military personnel on Okinawa are on virtual lockdown after cases emerged from several bases on the island.

The lockdown order, which was issued Saturday morning, bans almost all off-base movement by the tens of thousands of US military personnel unless approved by an officer with the rank of lieutenant colonel or above.

Read more:

The US Marine Corps Air Station Futenma in Ginowan in Japan's southern island prefecture of Okinawa.

Related article US military bases in Okinawa hit by Covid-19 outbreak

John spent his 16th birthday the same way he’s spent every day during the UK’s Covid-19 lockdown — alone in a cell for 23 hours, with no visits, no internet and few phone calls. He is one of hundreds of children locked up in UK prisons, the forgotten casualties of the pandemic.

“It gives you a lot of time to think and my thoughts aren’t always positive,” John tells his lawyer, Jude Lanchin, on the rare occasion that she gets access to the prison video link service. “I struggle to sleep,” he adds.

In the UK, teens and children aged 18 and younger are held in what the government refers to as secure children’s homes, secure training centers and young offender institutions. The lawyers CNN spoke to universally refer to such institutions as prisons.

A CNN crew was allowed to observe Lanchin’s call with her client and has changed his name due to UK reporting restrictions for ongoing criminal cases involving children.

I get thirty minutes out a day and then apart from that I’m just in my cell, just thinking,” John says. “There’s a lot of time to think, and it messes with your head a little bit.”

The restrictions have been imposed by the UK government as part of the Covid-19 lockdown. Visits have been temporarily suspended and time outside of prison cells has been severely reduced, as part of broader measures to enforce social distancing in prisons due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

According to multiple lawyers and experts CNN has spoken to, these restrictions have left children like John in solitary confinement.

The United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, known as the Mandela rules, define solitary confinement as 22 hours a day or more without meaningful human contact.

Read the rest of the report here:

UK prison

Related article 16 years old and stuck in solitary confinement 23 hours a day because of coronavirus

A health worker outside a residential building in Hong Kong where a case was confirmed on July 11.

Hong Kong on Tuesday reported 48 additional coronavirus cases, comprised of 40 locally transmitted cases and 8 imported cases.

The news comes after the government announced new social distancing measures to contain the latest outbreak, which will come into force at midnight on Wednesday.

Officials say 24 of the new locally transmitted cases could not be traced, and worries are high about about the number of asymptomatic cases.

Dr. Chuang Shuk-kwan, of Hong Kong’s Centre for Health Protection, said several of the new cases were linked back to clusters at elderly care home facilities and restaurants. 

She warned that “there are lots of unknown sources in the community that can spread easily, and they may be asymptomatic.”

“We are facing challenges of increasing infection control measures within the hospital authority,” said Chuang, who added that a patient in a general ward of Queen Elizabeth hospital was among the newly confirmed cases today, whilst another was a cleaner at another hospital.

The new cases brings the city’s total up to 1,569.

An entrance at Jackson Memorial Hospital is shown on July 9 in Miami.

As the number of Covid-19 cases continues to surge in the Miami area, staffing has become a challenge for Jackson Health in Miami.  

Nearly 200 Jackson Health employees are currently out with Covid-19, according to senior director of communication Jennifer Piedra. Most employees who test positive are out for 10 to 12 days.

Since July 1, 887 Jackson Health employees have been symptomatic or exposed to Covid-19, the hospital spokeswoman said. The positivity rate of employees who have been tested is 23%.

On Monday, the health system’s infectious disease expert said “Miami is now the epicenter of the pandemic,” as she compared the south Florida metropolitan area to where the pandemic originated.

“What we were seeing in Wuhan – six months ago, five months ago – now we are there,” Lilian Abbo, with the Jackson Health System, said during a news conference Monday.

Read more here:

Mandatory Credit: Photo by CRISTOBAL HERRERA/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock (10709557d) People enjoy a warm day at the beach in Miami Beach, Florida, USA, 12 July 2020. Florida reports 15,300 new Coronavirus cases, a record for one day anywhere in the US. Coronavirus in Miami, USA - 12 Jul 2020

Related article Miami is now the coronavirus epicenter as cases surge, one expert says

Cars line up as drivers wait to be tested for Covid-19 at the Miami Beach convention center on Monday.

Miami-Dade County has continued to see staggeringly high Covid-19 positivity rates and an increase in the number of hospitalizations and ventilator use, according to the latest data released by the county’s government.

Officials also reported a 28% Covid-19 positivity rate on Monday. The county has exceeded the 22% mark for the past two weeks, and the current 14-day average is 26%, the data shows.

The positivity rate – how many of those tested are actually infected – is tracked daily by the county. Mayor Carlos Gimenez’s office has said the goal is to not exceed a positivity rate of 10%.  

Here is a breakdown of the hospitalization data released by the county government:

Covid-19 patients:

6/30: 1,202

7/13: 2,023

Patients in ICU beds:

6/30: 245

7/13: 413 

Patients on ventilators:

6/30: 103

7/13: 215

A fisherman wades in rising sea water at a port in Navotas city, Philippines, as a typhoon approached the region on May 14.

One of the 16 cities that make up Metro Manila will go into lockdown for two weeks from Thursday after it saw coronavirus cases “suddenly inflate,” the Mayor of Navotas said Monday on his official Facebook page.

The lockdown will begin at 5 a.m. (5 p.m. ET) on July 16 and end on July 29 at 11:50 p.m., Toby Tiangco said on Facebook.

Navotas had a total of 981 confirmed cases on Monday, Tiangco wrote. The city has a population of 249,463, according to the city government’s website.

“Due to the continuous increase of our patients, our community isolation facilities have been filled … even some hospitals in Metro Manila have reached full capacity,” Tiangco said. “We are hoping that through lockdown, we can slow the increase of cases in our city.”

A 30-year-old man in San Antonio, Texas, died in a city hospital after attending a “Covid party,” where people intentionally get infected.

San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg discussed the case with CNN on Monday, saying these parties were happening in other states, too.

“This was a Memorial Day party at the lake. Five days later, this young man got sick and again the last thing he said to that hospital tech nurse is that he was wrong. And unfortunately, too many young people are wrong.”

Dr. Jane Appleby, chief medical officer at San Antonio’s Methodist Hospital, confirmed over the weekend that a patient died after getting sick at a Covid party.

Covid parties: Reports first emerged in early July that some young people in Alabama are throwing Covid-19 parties, a disturbing competition where people who have coronavirus attend and the first person to get infected receives a payout.

Cyclists riding along Marina Bay overlooking the financial business district in Singapore on July 14.

Singapore has fallen into a deep economic slump — and it’s even worse than many had predicted.

The government said Tuesday that GDP likely shrank 12.6% in the second quarter compared to the same time the previous year, marking “the steepest drop on record,” according to economists.

GDP shrank by 41.2% in the second quarter compared to the previous three months, more than most analysts had expected.

That officially pushed the country into a recession. Singapore’s GDP had already fallen by 0.3% in the first quarter on a year-on-year basis. A recession is defined as two consecutive quarters of negative growth.

The latest decline was due to strict government restrictions, known locally as “circuit breaker” measures, which were enforced from April to June as the country dealt with a sudden spike in coronavirus cases.

This included the shutdown of many businesses, including “the suspension of nonessential services and closure of most workplace premises,” the Ministry of Trade and Industry noted in a statement.

Officials had already been bracing for bad news. Prior to the new numbers, the government had slashed the country’s economic forecast three times this year alone.

But “it’s not all gloom and doom,” Yun Liu, an economist at HSBC, wrote in a report to clients.

Some analysts believe the worst is over for Singapore, particularly since the government has deployed billions of dollars in stimulus measures to shore up the flagging economy.

“Looking ahead, Q2 will mark the trough,” Alex Holmes, Asia economist at Capital Economics, wrote in a research note Tuesday.

“The key reason for optimism is the huge size of the government’s stimulus package, which is equivalent to around 20% of GDP.”

An employee at the Clevelander bar and restaurant stacks chairs as they have shut down due to public health concerns caused by Covid-19 in Miami Beach, Florida on July 13.

While US President Donald Trump obsesses about his reelection hopes in his White House bubble, state and local leaders are frantically reversing state reopenings that he demanded, which turned America into the world’s biggest coronavirus hotspot.

As emergency rooms filled and the virus quickened its relentless march across southern and Western states, Trump stuck to the fiction that the worst is already over: “We had to close it down; now we’re opening it up,” the President said of the economy at the White House, patting himself on the back for saving “millions of lives.”

As new cases of the disease reach 60,000 a day nationwide, many leaders in both parties, including those who supported Trump’s aggressive approach, now have little choice but to prioritize science over politics, leaving the President looking out of touch with reality.

The picture is of a nation that is beginning to shut down again in defiance of the President’s triumphant but misleading claims that a “transition to greatness” is under way.

Restrictions imposed on cities as large as Houston and Los Angeles could set back the surprising revival in the economy last month. Modest job gains, trumpeted by the President, could turn into permanent job losses.

Read the full analysis here:

Related article America shuts down again -- choosing reality over Trump's false claims

Healthcare workers move a patient in the Covid-19 Unit at United Memorial Medical Center in Houston on July 2.

People who have been infected with coronavirus could see their immunity decline within months, studies have found – which is just “what we were afraid of,” Dr. William Haseltine told CNN today.

Haseltine, a former professor at Harvard Medical School and Harvard School of Public Health, said the studies demonstrated long-suspected fears.

“This (virus), like its sister coronaviruses, the ones that give us colds, are very different from the childhood viruses,” he said.

When you get childhood viruses like measles and mumps, you’re then protected from re-infection for life. But Haseltine said it’s a different story with the cold viruses, because you get them and then your body “forgets” it was ever infected. 

“That’s what we were afraid of,” he said.

If the findings are confirmed to be true, they could have significant implications for sick patients, for vaccine development, and for the idea that populations could achieve herd immunity.

Read more here:

Medical staff from myCovidMD provide free COVID-19 virus antibody testing in observance of Juneteenth at the Faith Central Bible Church, in the predominately African American city of Inglewood, California on June 19, 2020

Related article Covid-19 immunity from antibodies may last only months, UK study suggests

Pedestrians wearing protective masks walk across a road in Hong Kong, China, on July 10.

Hong Kong is tightening travel restrictions and social distancing measures as it battles a “third wave” of cases.

The city reported 52 new cases on Monday, 41 of which were local transmissions and the other 11 with travel history. This raises the total number of confirmed cases to 1,521.

The past seven days alone have seen 236 new cases – an alarming surge in Hong Kong, which has been lauded for its quick and effective response to the pandemic. For many weeks before this surge, cases were down to single digits, and sometimes zero, every day.

Under the new restrictions announced Monday:

An aerial view of San Quentin State Prison in San Quentin, California as seen on July 08.

At least ten incarcerated people at the San Quentin Prison in Northern California have died from coronavirus complications, according to data from California’s Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR).

San Quentin is the site of the worst coronavirus outbreak in California’s prison system, with nearly 1,400 inmates who have tested positive. 

The prison population is currently at about 4,000 inmates. It has been reduced by almost 10,000 inmates since March, through expedited transitions to parole and suspended intake from county jails, said CDCR.

There are 2,423 infected incarcerated people in California. There are also 755 CDCR employees who have tested positive across the state.

Victoria Premier Daniel Andrews speaks to the media in Melbourne, Australia on July 14.

The Australian state of Victoria recorded 270 new cases on Monday, according to Premier Daniel Andrews.

The state has been conducting mass testing in response to a spike in cases; it conducted 30,195 tests on Saturday, 22,943 tests on Sunday, and 21,995 tests on Monday.

The decline in cases could be due to stay-at-home order in the cities of Melbourne and Mitchell Shire, Andrews said. Melbourne’s lockdown, imposed last Wednesday, will be in place for six weeks – affecting almost 5 million people.

The state now has 1,803 active cases. Of the new cases discovered Monday, 242 are still being traced.

Fears are growing that the Victoria outbreak may have spread to the neighbouring state of New South Wales, where 13 new cases were reported on Tuesday. 

In the US state of Michigan, 43 new coronavirus cases have been linked to a large house party from early July in Washtenaw County, health officials said in a press release Monday.

Most of the new cases are young people between the ages of 15 and 25, said the release. The party is believed to have taken place between July 2 and 3.

Spread from the party has impacted people outside the county and even the Midwestern state, according to the release.

Health officials are now asking anyone who attended the party to self quarantine and monitor themselves for symptoms of the virus for 14 days.

There were an additional 66 people who are believed to have had face-to-face contact with a confirmed case. That number does not include family members who are immediate household contacts of the newly identified cases, the release said.

Read the full story here:

43 new cases of coronavirus have been linked to a large party.

Related article 43 new coronavirus cases have been linked to one large house party in Michigan

An Indian health worker collects nasal swab samples at a Covid-19 testing center in Gauhati, India on July 12.

More than 100,000 people in India have tested positive in just the past four days, said the Indian Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on Tuesday.

The country recorded 28,498 new cases and 553 new deaths in the last 24 hours, said the ministry. That raises the country’s total to 906,752 cases and 23,727 deaths.

Not all these cases are active: More than 571,000 have recovered from the virus, leaving 311,565 cases still active.

More than 12 million tests have been conducted nationwide, according to the Indian Council of Medical Research.

Healthcare workers wearing personal protective equipment (PPE) administer tests at a Covid-19 drive-thru testing site in Tucson, Arizona on July 13.

Surging coronavirus cases across the United States are causing delays in getting test results from laboratories, according to Quest Diagnostics, a leading provider of diagnostic services.

“Soaring demand” for a Covid-19 molecular test is “slowing the time” the company can provide test results even after rapidly scaling up its capacity, Quest said Monday.

Increased capacity: The company has already doubled its testing capacity from two months ago, and now is able to perform 125,000 molecular diagnostic tests a day. By the end of the month, it expects to have the capacity for 150,000 tests a day.

Despite this increase in capacity, it’s taking up to a day to process test results for its priority patients: hospital patients, pre-operative patients in acute care settings and symptomatic healthcare workers. For all other cases, it’s taking on average seven or more days, said Quest in a press release.

The company is facing challenges in trying to ramp up testing: Global supply constraints are still an issue, the company said. 

The lab network is trying to add new technology platforms and is considering an expansion of its lab referral program.

But the company cautioned that it can’t reduce its turnaround time on testing results as long as Covid-19 cases continue spiking across the country.

This winter, the coronavirus pandemic could create a perfect storm.

In many places, health care systems already struggle in winter; conditions such as asthma, heart attacks and stroke tend to worsen in colder temperatures, and some infectious diseases like influenza spread more easily.

Scientists are warning that countries need to prepare for a potential winter uptick in coronavirus cases that could be more serious than the initial outbreak.

Why winter could see a rise: In cold weather we spend more time indoors in poorly ventilated spaces — exactly the conditions that are likely to make the novel coronavirus spread more easily.

What’s more, coronavirus cases will likely become more challenging to track and trace given Covid-19 symptoms are similar to those of winter respiratory bugs.

Expert forecast: As many as 119,900 people could die of coronavirus in UK hospitals between September 2020 and June 2021, warned the UK’s Academy of Medical Sciences.

This projection, which the academy called a “reasonable worst-case scenario,” is more than double the 45,000 deaths the UK has experienced so far.

This number does not include potential deaths in care homes, which have accounted for 30% deaths in England.

Read more here:

Related article Prepare now for a winter Covid-19 peak, warns UK's Academy of Medical Sciences

Health personnel care for a child infected with Covid-19 at the Intensive Care ward of the Felipe Urriola Hospital in on July 8 Iquitos, Peru.

Peru surged past 330,000 confirmed Covid-19 cases on Monday. It remains the country with the second highest number of cases in Latin America, behind Brazil.

The Peruvian Health Ministry reported 3,797 new cases and 184 new deaths in the past 24 hours.

This raises the country’s total to 330,123 cases and 12,054 deaths since the pandemic began.

Volunteers spray disinfectant in an alleyway as a precaution against coronavirus on July 12 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Brazil has seen more than 260,000 new coronavirus cases in the past week alone, according to data from the Brazilian Health Ministry.

On Monday, the ministry recorded 20,286 new cases, bringing the country’s total number of confirmed cases to 1,884,967.

261,683 of those cases came from the past seven days.

The nationwide death toll stands at 72,833.

President tests positive: Among the new cases recorded in the last week was Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who announced he tested positive for the virus on Tuesday.

Bolsonaro will take another Covid-19 test this week, the official doctor for the presidency told CNN affiliate CNN Brasil on Monday, and reported he is “doing well.”

The President also announced that day he had taken hydroxychloroquine on the advice of his medical team and posted a video on his official Facebook page later showing himself taking what he claimed was a third dose of the drug.

Drivers wait to be tested for Covid-19 at a testing site on July 13 in Miami Beach, Florida.

The United States now has at least 3,361,042 cases of coronavirus and 135,582 related deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University.

On Monday, the US reported 56,100 new cases and 377 deaths. 

The totals include cases from all 50 states, the District of Columbia and other US territories, as well as repatriated cases. 

Follow our live tracker of US cases here:

Doctors and a respiratory therapist assist a Covid-19 patient at the Juarez de Mexico Hospital, in Mexico City, on July 8.

Mexico confirmed 4,685 new Covid-19 cases on Monday, bringing the total number of infections to 304,435.

The Mexican Health Ministry also reported 485 new deaths, bringing the country’s coronavirus death toll to 35,491.

President claims progress: Earlier Sunday, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said claimed the pandemic “is losing intensity.” 

The president made the comments before the Sunday figures were released, but the country has reported consistent daily increases in cases throughout the pandemic.

The National Basketball Association and its players’ union said in a joint statement on Monday that two more players have tested positive for Covid-19 at the league’s Orlando campus.

A total of 21 NBA players have tested positive for the virus since July 1.  

Two players returned positive tests while still under initial quarantine after arriving at the NBA’s campus in Orlando. Those players have left the league’s campus to isolate at home or in isolation housing.

The other 19 players tested positive before traveling to the league’s Orlando campus and are in self-isolation at home until being cleared to travel.