Our live coverage of the coronavirus pandemic has moved here.
US President Donald Trump on Monday sent a campaign email, typically used for soliciting donations, to make a different request of his supporters: consider wearing a mask.
The rare move comes after Trump avoided wearing a mask in public for months until he tweeted a photo of himself wearing one in a stark messaging pivot in July – though footage later surfaced of Trump not wearing a mask later that day.
The shift to encouraging mask-wearing was primarily motivated by floundering poll numbers, a source familiar with the President’s thinking told CNN last month, and came nearly three months after he publicly announced new mask recommendations from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention – and two months since he mocked his election rival Joe Biden for wearing one.
In Monday’s email, Trump highlighted mask wearing as a potential means of accelerating a return to normal life, lamenting the effects of the coronavirus using a stigmatizing and inaccurate term for the virus.
Read the full story:
At a press briefing in Geneva on Monday, World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus spoke about Friday’s meeting of the Emergency Committee on Covid-19.
He detailed the rise in cases since this initial meeting, going from fewer than 100 cases and no deaths outside China on January 30, to more than 17.5 million cases and 680,000 deaths.
Tedros said that in addition to the direct toll of Covid-19, it is also having a social, economic and political impact.
“The committee put forward a number of recommendations for countries to continue to implement to bring the virus under control,” he said.
According to Tedros, these range from sharing best practices, to enhancing political commitment, and leadership for national strategies.
Tedros also highlighted that a number of vaccines are in promising stages of development.
He gave examples which, among others, included testing, isolating and treating patients, informing communities, keeping physical distance and wearing a mask – urging everyone to “do it all.”
“And when it’s under control, keep going,” Tedros said.
This week, WHO is also launching a mask challenge with partners from around the world, Tedros said, where they are encouraging people to post photos of themselves wearing masks.
“As well as being one of the key tools to stop the virus, the mask has come to represent solidarity,” he said.
Wearing a mask sends a powerful message, he said, that everyone is in this together.
Australia’s Defense Department will deploy 500 more troops to enforce stay-at-home orders in the state of Victoria, according to State Premier Daniel Andrews.
Andrews also announced new penalties for people found to be in breach of directions from the chief health officer, including a newly increased $3,540 on-the-spot fine for people who breach isolation orders, the largest instant penalty in Victoria.
Andrews added that people who conduct in “particularly selfish behavior” may also be taken to court, where they can be fined up to $14,290.
Andrews said the new fines were being imposed because of the 3,000 door knocks on infected people – who are meant to be self isolating – 800 patients were not home.
Victoria’s Minister for Police Lisa Neville also warned that Victorian Police will be out in force to find people who are in breach of coronavirus restrictions, saying officers “will not hesitate” to fine people or even detain them in certain cases.
Victoria recorded 439 new Covid-19 cases and 11 fatalities in the past 24 hours, Andrews said. That brings the total number of cases reported in the state to 12,335 and the total death toll to 147.
Read more about coronavirus restrictions in Victoria here:
Mexico recorded 4,767 new coronavirus cases and 266 deaths on Monday, according to the country’s Health Ministry.
This brings Mexico’s total to 443,813 cases and 48,012 recorded fatalities.
On Monday, the Mexican Education Minister Esteban Moctezuma also announced that the 2020-21 school year will begin with remote learning across the country.
Colombia reported 367 new coronavirus-related deaths over the past 24 hours, bringing its total death count to 11,017, according to the country’s Ministry of Health on Monday.
This is Colombia’s second-highest single day death count, after recording 380 deaths on July 29.
The country also recorded 10,199 new Covid-19 cases on Monday, bringing the overall case total to 327,850.
CNN is tracking the global spread of coronavirus here:
Major League Baseball’s “Field of Dreams” game, which was to be played August 13 in Dyersville, Iowa, has been postponed until 2021, according to a source familiar with the planning.
The game was scheduled to take place at the site where the iconic 1989 baseball movie was filmed.
Originally, the teams scheduled to play in the game were the Chicago White Sox and the New York Yankees. However, when the 2020 season was condensed from 162 games to 60 games because of the coronavirus pandemic, the St. Louis Cardinals replaced the Yankees.
As nations around the world grapple with how to safely reopen schools amid the coronavirus pandemic — or whether to reopen at all — two new studies highlight strategies that could be key in bringing children back to the classroom: scaled-up testing for cases, effective tracing of the contacts of those who test positive, and isolation of those who test positive or have symptoms.
Researchers in Britain found that schools could reopen safely so long as enough contact tracing is in place. Contact tracing strategies involve enough testing to find cases, isolating those people, then tracking down and quarantining their contacts. And a team in Australia found that even though schools remained open in New South Wales between late January and early April, children and teachers did not contribute significantly to the spread of Covid-19 — because good contact tracing and control strategies were in place.
Both studies, published in the journal The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health on Monday, aim to help inform global discussions around reopening schools.
The researchers at University College London and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical medicine ran a variety of scenarios to see just how much contact tracing would need to be done for schools to reopen safely.
Her team’s study suggests that, depending on the scenario, between 59% and 87% of symptomatic people in the community would need to get tested at some point during their infection, their contacts would need to be traced and those with illness would need to be isolated in order to prevent an epidemic rebound.
“It’s important to note that our model looked at the effects of school reopening alongside the loosening of the restrictions across society, as school reopening is likely to go hand in hand with more adults returning to work and other relaxed measures across society,” Griffiths added. “Therefore, our results are reflective of a broader loosening of lockdown, rather than the effects of transmission within schools exclusively, suggesting an effective test–trace–isolate offers a feasible alternative to intermittent lockdown and school closures to control the spread of COVID-19.”
The Australian researchers found that although 27 children or staff at 25 schools and daycares had attended while infectious with Covid-19, only 18 other people later became infected.
Through contact tracing, 1,448 close contacts were identified and called. They were told to get tested if they showed any symptoms. Overall, 633 did get tested. But just 18 of them tested positive — an attack rate of 1.2%.
It’s possible some cases were missed, the researchers said, but they said others can use their studies as they decide whether and how to reopen schools.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order Monday aimed at expanding access to telehealth and improving rural health care.
In March, the Trump administration temporarily expanded benefits to reimburse doctors for certain telehealth services for Medicare beneficiaries.
The policy proposal is aimed at making some of these changes permanent, but several of these steps would require congressional approval.
While telehealth technology has been around for a while, the practice hadn’t really taken off until the pandemic, according to a report from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Pre-pandemic, on average, only 13,000 Medicare beneficiaries had a telemedicine visit in a week; whereas during the pandemic, between March and July to 10.1 million have had one.
The need to reduce staff and patients’ exposure to Covid-19 increased interest, plus now doctors get reimbursed for certain types of telehealth appointments. Several professional medical associations have also endorsed the practice.
Verma said that telehealth “solves a variety of problems,” making medical care more convenient and accessible.
During the pandemic the temporary rule has allowed Medicare patients to have doctor’s visits and even emergency visits by phone. It added 135 services that are reimbursed, including nursing home visits and mental health services. It also expanded the kinds of providers who can offer telehealth to include physical and occupational therapists, and speech and language pathologists.
The proposed rule would make those 135 services available through telehealth permanently, including office visits and mental health services. It also proposes to make telehealth for home health services permanently available. CMS is proposing allowing lower level emergency department visits, psychological testing and nursing facility discharge visits through telemedicine through the end of the calendar year when the public health emergency ends.
Verma said her department is asking for public comment about what telehealth services should be added beyond the public health emergency.
The executive order also launches a rural health action plan to encourage new models for care in those communities and requires CMS to work with the Department of Agriculture to promote better rural access to telehealth via broadband.
Verma said Congress will need to make changes in the law to make this expansion of telehealth permanent. “The legislative branch then has an essential role to play in following through on this historic opportunity,” Verma said. “Without a change to the statute, telehealth will refer to a rural benefit that can only be utilized from a health care facility, rather than from one’s home.”
At the briefing, US Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said that Congress has been reluctant to make changes to telehealth reimbursement rules in the past because of fears it would cost too much and because of concern too many patients might be tempted to seek more doctor visits. Azar suggested this use of telemedicine during the pandemic should provide real-world evidence that those fears are unfounded.
President Trump was asked on Monday afternoon about his tweet criticizing Dr. Deborah Birx, in which he claimed that the coronavirus task force coordinator “took the bait” and “hit us.”
Asked what he meant in his tweet, Trump said during Monday’s White House press briefing, “Well, I think that we’re doing very well and we have done as well as any nation.”
The President expressed his frustration at media coverage of the US handling of the pandemic, saying that he doesn’t see other countries’ plunders in handling the pandemic while reading or watching the news.
Earlier Monday, Trump lodge a rare criticism of Birx, writing on Twitter, “So Crazy Nancy Pelosi said horrible things about Dr. Deborah Birx, going after her because she was too positive on the very good job we are doing on combatting the China Virus, including Vaccines & Therapeutics. In order to counter Nancy, Deborah took the bait & hit us. Pathetic!”
Trump’s criticism followed Birx sounding the alarm during an appearance on CNN, saying the pandemic has reached a new phase and is “extraordinarily widespread” in rural and urban communities.
Brazil has reported 16,641 new coronavirus cases Monday, according to the country’s health ministry. The total number of confirmed cases in the country is now 2,750,318.
Another 561 fatalities were also reported Monday, bringing the country’s confirmed death toll to 94,665.
This comes after Brazil reported 25,800 new cases on Sunday. The number of deaths and infections reported in Brazil has been consistently lower on weekends and on Mondays than during the week throughout the pandemic.
Earlier on Monday another Brazilian minister, Braga Netto, tested positive for Covid-19. He is the seventh of 23 ministers to test positive since the start of the pandemic in Brazil.
Communities that mandated the use of face masks in public saw an ongoing decline in the spread of coronavirus, but it takes a little time, researchers reported Monday.
Once mask mandates had been in place for about three weeks, the daily growth rate slowed by about 2% on average, researchers reported in the journal Health Affairs.
Their estimates suggest that these percentage decreases could add up. They calculate that between 230,000 and 450,000 Covid-19 cases could have been averted by May 22 by mask mandates.
“One of the most contentious issues being debated worldwide in the response to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is the value of wearing masks or face coverings in public setting,” wrote the researchers from the Department of Health Management and Policy at the University of Iowa College of Public Health.
“These effects are observed conditional on other existing social distancing measures and are independent of the CDC recommendation to wear facial covers issued on April 3,” they added.
The slowing of the growth rate started within five days. The growth rate slowed by just under 1% after five days of a face covering mandate, they found. After 21 days, growth rates slowed by 2% a day.
Between April 8 and May 15, governors of 15 states and the mayor of Washington, DC, had signed orders that mandate all individuals who are able to medically tolerate face masks do so in public settings. The researchers compared what happened in these states to the spread in states that did not mandate mask use.
These estimates represent nearly 16% to 19% of the total effect of other measures, such as school closures and bans on large gatherings, the researchers found.
It is important to clarify, they say, that “the suggested benefits from mandating face mask use are not substitutes for other social distancing measures and how communities are complying with them.” In communities where masks are required, people may be more likely to follow other recommended measures such as social distancing and hand hygiene.
Getting to herd immunity – when so many people are immune to a virus that it stops circulating – is a great thing, but the cost of getting there can be very high, Dr. Anthony Fauci said Monday.
“Herd immunity is something that’s always discussed — but one of the things you’ve got to be careful of is as follows: When children get infected, even though statistically they have a much, much lower chance of getting a severe outcome and requiring hospitalization… the only thing is that there still is a risk,” Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said at a briefing with Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont.
“Children can get seriously ill. It’s a rare event, but it is not zero — particularly the thing that we’re learning about the … hype-inflammatory syndrome some children get. So we should never take it lightly, going for herd immunity by getting the children infected,” he said. Multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children or MIS-C has affected several hundred children in the US and while treatable, can put kids into the intensive care unit for days or weeks. And at least six children have died, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Fauci said that while in the big picture a community wants to reach herd immunity, it should not be at the expense of the children, or at those who would be put at risk if a child infected them.
Herd immunity can be achieved in two ways – after most of a population has been infected and either died or recovered, or through mass vaccination.
Testing is the key to reopening college campuses safely, Dr. Anthony Fauci said Monday.
Fauci said reopening plans should include, “mainly testing people before they get there, once they get there, testing them and even keeping them quarantined for the amount of time of the quarantine, which as you know is about 14 days.”
Fauci said colleges should proceed with caution.
“But I think if they maintain the guidelines that are put together for people coming back, that they should be fine.”
During a call with governors Monday, Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus task force coordinator, warned Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear that his state would likely see an increasing number of deaths from coronavirus in the coming two weeks.
“Arizona moved through that,” she told Beshear and the other governors, “we believe that you also will.”
Birx said the increased mortality “shows how important it is to be aggressive on the front end to have an impact on mortality on the back end.”
“The new phase” of the coronavirus pandemic that White House coronavirus task force coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx discussed on Sunday refers to areas that are experiencing community spread, and that’s harder to fight than contained outbreaks, Dr. Anthony Fauci said Monday.
Birx said Sunday the US is in a new phase in its fight against the coronavirus pandemic, adding that the virus is now more widespread than it was in March and April.
“When you have community spread, it’s much more difficult to get your arms around that,” Fauci said during a briefing with Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont.
Fauci explained why it can be so difficult to contain community spread of the virus.
Fauci said asymptomatic transmission is a driving factor in community spread.
“That’s what [Dr. Birx] meant by a ‘different phase’ of where we’re going right now, because it isn’t easily identifiable who these spreaders are,” said Fauci. “That makes it much more difficult to contain.”
Northwestern University stopped football workouts on Monday after a student-athlete tested positive for coronavirus, a school spokesperson confirmed to CNN.
Northwestern is now the third Big Ten conference school to stop football workouts due to positive Covid-19 test results. Michigan State and Rutgers are the other two schools.
Read the university’s statement:
Schools need to open when they can, but safety comes first, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said Monday.
“Number two, there are important, negative downstream effects that are unintended but can occur, of a ripple effect on the parents, who have to dramatically modify their own work schedule, when you keep children at home,” Fauci added.
“Having said that, there’s a big however there. And that however is the primary consideration should always be the safety, the health of the welfare of the children, as well as the teachers and the secondary effects for spreading [to] the parents and other family members,” he said.
Jails can be a large source of coronavirus spread, both inside the facility and in the surrounding communities, researchers reported Monday.
Inmates going in and out of Chicago’s Cook County Jail appear to have carried the infection as they went, the researchers reported in the journal Health Affairs.
Data suggests that more than 4,700 cases of coronavirus in Illinois up through April 19 were associated with 2,129 individuals going through the Cook County Jail in March, the researchers from Harvard University’s Department of Anthropology and the Center National de la Recherche Scientifique in Paris said.
The jail may be linked with 15.7% of all documented cases of Covid-19 in Illinois and 15.9% in Chicago, they said.
Cook County Jail was the largest known source of spread of Covid-19 before being surpassed by an Ohio state prison, according to the researchers.
Many facilities and jurisdictions have begun to release certain low risk offenders, the researchers said, but this does not address how arrest and pre-trial detention may be contributing to community spread.
The researchers looked at the relationship between Covid-19 case rates and five variables: jail inmates released in March, proportion of Black residents, poverty rate, public transit utilization rate and population density.
For the state as a whole, all of the five variables that the researchers looked at were significantly positively correlated with Covid-19, they said.
They found that Chicago zip codes are poorer, use public transit more, have a higher proportion of Black residents and higher population density compared with the rest of the state.
“The criminal justice system in the United States is just one among many existing social structures that are being subjected to renewed scrutiny during the COVID-19 pandemic because of the public health hazards they pose. Pandemic reality has brought us to an unprecedented collective realization of national and global interconnectedness in which the risks of vulnerability to disease for America’s incarcerated and the world’s poor, for example, threaten all of us, although clearly not equally,” the researchers wrote.
The researchers looked at booking, release and Covid-19 data from the Cook County Jail, demographic data from the US Census and the American Community Survey and Covid-19 data from the Illinois Department of Public Health to examine the epidemiological connection between jail and community at the zip code level.
Connecticut is doing the right things to control the spread of coronavirus, Dr. Anthony Fauci said Monday.
“This is a very serious situation that our country is facing. I know you don’t need anybody to tell you that — you just need to look at the numbers,” Fauci added.
He praised Connecticut for not letting down its guard. “You’re not pulling back on your vigilance, and making sure you don’t have resurgence of cases that would put you back, rather than stay where you are and going forward,” he said.
Fauci said that the state maintained five or six of “the very important things that we need to stay ahead of the virus.” These are: are universal use of masks, maintaining social distancing, trying to stay away from indoor spaces, hand hygiene and closing bars.
The last one’s important, Fauci said. “I know that’s difficult from an economic standpoint, but that’s a big spreader of infection,” he said.
”Those five or six things are very important, have been successful in maintaining outbreaks, as well as preventing the resurgences,” he added.
The Georgia Department of Public Health reported 2,271 new cases of Covid-19 on Monday.
The statewide Covid-19 case total is now 195,435.
The public health agency reported two new deaths on Monday. The total death toll for Georgia is now 3,842.
There were 60 new Covid-19-related hospitalizations recorded Monday, according to the public health agency. There are currently 19,124 hospitalizations.
Note: These numbers were released by the Georgia Department of Public Health and may not line up exactly in real time with CNN’s database drawn from Johns Hopkins University and the Covid Tracking Project.
