Days after President Donald Trump defended his administration’s “incredible” handling of the coronavirus outbreak in a widely viewed interview, the nation’s top health official called the country’s response “disparate” and “not as well suited” to the dynamics of the pandemic.
“What happened when the rubber hit the road on this, and we did get hit, we had the kind of response that was not as well suited to what the dynamics of this outbreak is,” Dr. Anthony Fauci said during a Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health forum Wednesday. “What happened is, we had a bit of a disparate response.”
The disparate response has allowed the nation’s daily COVID-19 case count to plateau at an “unacceptable level,” Fauci said, warning that the U.S. will continue to “smolder” without a unified effort to stop the virus.
Here are some developments:
Figures Figures today: The United States has recorded more than 157,000 deaths and only about 4.8 million instances of COVID-19, according to Johns Hopkins University. Globally, there have been more than 702,000 deaths and 18.6 million cases.
? What we read: children are less likely to die of coronavirus. But some experts say that the lack of data on how COVID-19 contracts and transmits will leave the country unprepared when schools are reopened.
Our live blog is updated on the day. Update the latest news and get updates in your inbox with The Daily Briefing.
The NCAA on Wednesday launched a set of needs for all schools wishing to complete an upcoming sporting competition. Although the NCAA left the resolve to organize fall sports to individual divisions, it said the divisions will have the prestige of the fall championships through August 21.
“The council has expressed serious considerations about the continued high degrees of COVID-19 infection in many parts of the country,” the NCAA said. “The Board of Directors has made the decision that it will only help the progress of the fall championships and other postseason games if they are met and meet strict situations.”
Two of the needs include coverage for players who choose to retire. First, the school is required to honor the scholarship of any retiring athlete, and each department will have to make a decision until August 14 on how the withdrawal or shortened season would be eligible and inform players of that decision.
– Aria Gerson
A large and fatal explosion that shook the Lebanese capital, Beirut, put more pressure on the country’s fitness system, which was already lacking a non-public protective apparatus and suffered from more than 5,200 cases of COVID-19.
Several hospitals were broken in the explosion, which killed at least 135 other people and injured thousands, and those still in operation were beaten with patients, the International Red Cross Committee said in a series of tweets.
“After months of spiral economic crisis and the opposite fight against the coronavirus pandemic, Lebanon is already in a fragile state,” the ICRC said. “The fitness care formula is already suffering to meet fitness development needs. Today, he’s totally overwhelmed.
Two suburban Atlanta school districts that started Monday’s face-to-face categories with optional mask policies face more questions about COVID-19 safety protocols after on-campus footage showed academics shoulder to shoulder.
In Cherokee County, dozens of seniors joined in two of the district’s top six schools to take classic photographs of seniors on the first day of school, with students gathered in black suits. In Paulding County, photographs of students taken Monday and Tuesday show crowded hallways at North Paulding High School in Dallas, Georgia. Less than part of the scholars represented wear masks.
In Columbia County, the School District has already showed its first COVID-19 case.
– Miguel Legoas, The Augusta Chronicle; The Associated Press
Virginia became wednesday the first state to implement a smartphone app to automatically inform others if they might have been exposed to the coronavirus. The new generation of pandemics, created through Apple and Google, will be available at Apple and Android app outlets starting Wednesday. The app relies on wireless Bluetooth generation to stumble when someone who downloaded the app spent time close to some other user of the app who then tested positive for the virus. State officials said the app did not track the user’s location or collect non-public telegraphy.
“We are employing every single technique imaginable to combat this virus and keep Virginians healthy,” Virginia Governor Northam said in a statement.
When Milwaukee won the 2020 Democratic National Convention more than a year ago, city leaders expected another 50,000 people to come to the city for four days and nights of non-stop politics. Now, not even the party candidate leaves.
Officials announced that Joe Biden will accept the party’s nod from his home in Delaware – and the other convention speakers won’t travel to Wisconsin, either. Organizers cited the “worsening coronavirus pandemic.”
“This convention will look different than any previous convention in history,” said Joe Solmonese, the convention’s chief executive. “It will reach more people than ever before, and truly be a convention across America for all Americans, regardless of which party you belong to or who you’ve voted for in previous elections.”
– Bill Glauber, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
When the Trump administration waived most federal hospital inspections and suspended hospital infection reporting in March due to the coronavirus pandemic, patient safety advocates warned it could lead to big increases in hospital-acquired infections. Jumps in infections at two hospitals in New York and St. Louis – up to five times higher – suggest they may have been right.
“Many establishments will gain benefits from these exemptions” because their infection prevention staff have been unable to pleasantly monitor patients for serious infections, Kathleen McMullen and her co-authors wrote in an observation in the American Journal of Infection Control. Control of the spread of COVID-19 in hospitals, the authors wrote, took the maximum time from infection prevention personnel.
– Jayne O’Donnell
Florida is the right time to verify more than 500,000 COVID-19 instances. The State Department of Health reported 5,409 new instances on Wednesday, bringing the state total to 502,739. California leads the country with more than 526,000 instances, according to knowledge collected through Johns Hopkins University.
Florida also announced 225 more deaths, bringing the state’s seven-day moving average for reported deaths to a record 184.86. The death toll in the state is now 7627.
– Cheryl McCloud, Treasure Coast Newspapers
Chicago Public Schools are joining a lengthening line of major school systems that will start the academic year fully online. The district, which had initially planned to launch a hybrid online and in-person model starting Sept. 8, said Wednesday the continued uptick in coronavirus cases and concerns from parents urged them to adjust the plan.
Tens of thousands of families said in a district survey that they did not aim to send their children to school. And the city’s teachers’ union has threatened to go on strike because of considerations about the face-to-face classes. The district said it would switch to a hybrid learning style in the quarter, which will begin on November 9.
Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco and Miami are among the other major cities that started the online-only school year.
The cruise industry has voluntarily extended its hiatus in operations in U.S. waters to “at least” on October 31, one month after the expiration date of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s non-navigation order. CLIA member lines bring 95% of the world’s ocean cruises. The new order will apply to all CLIA member ships capable of carrying 250 or more passengers.
“It is prudent at this time to voluntarily expand the suspension of ocean cruise operations in the United States until October 31,” the International Cruise Line Association, the industry’s leading ocean cruise line organization, said in a statement.
– Morgan Hines
As many school districts prepare to reopen campuses, some experts are concerned that exam rooms are just the next incubators for primary coronavirus outbreaks. Supporters of consistently resuming school, adding to President Donald Trump, have consistently said that young people are less likely to broadcast COVID-19 and that the benefits outweigh the risks. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 6 out of 100,000 school-age youth are hospitalized for COVID-19, compared to an overall rate of another 130 people in line with another 100,000 people. However, a recent review estimated that the closure of schools in March reduced the rate of new COVID-19 instances by 66%.
“We show that it has made a difference in cases and deaths,” said the study’s lead author, Dr. Katherine Auger, an associate professor at the University of Cincinnati School of Medicine. “It was a very vital thing the company did.”
– Jayme Fraser and Dan Keemahill
The University of Connecticut football team has become the first bowl point program to cancel its 2020 season on Wednesday, presenting an “unacceptable risk point” faced by student-athletes. UConn, who plays as a freelancer, had games opposed to Illinois, Indiana, Maine and Mississippi that were withdrawn from the calendar due to “conference-only” schedules played through schools. Games opposed to North Carolina and Virginia may have run the same fate. Players issued a joint statement through the school to provide “total resolution assistance not to compete in 2020.”
Several in the declining divisions of school football, adding up the entire Ivy League, also canceled their seasons.
Chris Bumbaca
One of the first cruises to resume night sailing in U.S. waters since the end of the pandemic, the cruise industry reported a case of COVID-19. Passengers are quarantined aboard the UnCruise Adventures Wild Adventurer “until the state of Alaska believes it is safe to return home,” according to an alert posted on the cruise line website. The ship was able to circumvent the federal order not to board because its capacity is less than 250 passengers and team members.
“The guest shows no symptoms and no other visitor or team member shows external symptoms of any kind,” the cruise line said. “All visitors have been informed and will be quarantined until the state of Alaska believes they should return to their homes.”
– Hannah Yasharoff and Morgan Hines
Johnson & Johnson announced a deal with the U.S. government for 100 million doses of its SARS-CoV-2 vaccine candidate, Ad26.COV2.S, for use in the United States – if and when the vaccine wins Food and Drug Administration approval. The government may also purchase an additional 200 million doses, the company said in announcing the $1 billion deal. A clinical trial is underway, and the company said it is evaluating one- and two-dose regimens. The plan is to provide more than 1 billion non-for-profit doses globally through the course of 2021.
“We are scaling up production in the U.S. and worldwide to deliver a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine for emergency use,” said Dr. Paul Stoffels, Johnson & Johnson’s chief scientific officer.
More than 500 inmates in the Tucson Whetstone Unit in the state of Arizona have tested positive for COVID-19, the government said. The 517 inmates, nearly a portion of the unit’s 1,066 population, are accommodated in a combination in separate spaces and receive medical care, according to a statement from the Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Rehabilitation. The branch did not respond without delay to the questions, adding when the tests were conducted and whether all inmates were evaluated there. Tests took up position after inmates in the Whetstone unit staged a nonviolent march last week due to virus problems.
– Audrey Jensen, Republic of Arizona
Biotech giant Moderna said Wednesday it expects to fully enroll 30,000 volunteers in the crucial Phase 3 study of its COVID-19 vaccine next month. Moderna’s vaccine candidate, backed by almost $1 billion in federal funding, last week became the nation’s first to begin such a large trial. It’s being tested at scores of sites in the U.S., with results expected as soon as October.
“We have started talks with several countries for agreements for mNR-1273 (vaccine candidate) and as of July 31, we have earned approximately $400 million in visitor deposits for a potential matrix,” Moderna said in a statement.
The announcement came a day after Novavax launched the promising effects of a small initial trial. AstraZeneca, Pfizer and an organization of Chinese researchers have launched promising initial test effects, and China has begun offering its candidate vaccine to members of its armed forces.
Top Democrats and White House negotiators expressed optimism Tuesday that a deal on another coronavirus stimulus package could be done by the end of the week. The movement followed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., meeting for another day with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows.
“While there are still a number of unresolved issues, I would describe the conversations as productive and a step in the right direction,” Meadows said after the assembly. “Probably the maximum production production had.”
Christal Hayes
A USA TODAY research into Johns Hopkins’s knowledge through Tuesday night shows that a state set records for new instances in a week, while three states recorded a record number of deaths in a week. New case records have been established in Hawaii as well as Puerto Rico. A record number of deaths have been reported in California, Florida and Georgia. The United States reported 4,771,080 cases and 156,801 deaths.
Mike Stucka
Although Clorox officials said in May that they expected retail shelves to be stocked by this summer, they now anticipate it will take longer.
Linda Rendle, president and CEO-elect of The Clorox Co., says it could take until year’s end to reach supply levels “that we need to be at.” Rendle and Clorox CEO and chairman Benno Dorer said the demand for the company’s disinfecting wipes has outpaced expectations and isn’t expected to slow.
“We’re certainly not at all happy with our service levels for our retail customers on many products, as demand for our products exceeded our own expectations in the face of this persistent pandemic,” Dorer said during the call. “We have a high sense of urgency on this with all hands on deck.”
– Kelly Tyko
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Contributing: The Associated Press