Here’s what you need to know:
- State and local leaders issue grim warnings as U.S. cases shatter records and deaths rise.
- Where are Americans wearing masks? Check our map.
- India hits a million cases in a surge that has forced a return to lockdowns.
- As the C.D.C. delays releasing school guidelines, Chicago leans against full-time in-person classes.
- Republicans will propose liability protection for businesses, schools and hospitals in the next aid bill.
- Johnson says Britain could reach a ‘significant return to normality’ by Christmas.
- China is offering unproven vaccine candidates to workers at state-owned companies and the armed forces.
State and local leaders issue grim warnings as U.S. cases shatter records and deaths rise.
State and local leaders issued dire warnings on Thursday as new case reports in the United States surged above 75,000 nationwide for the first time and as deaths continued to trend upward.
“If you do the math, it is easy to see why the alarm,” said Barbara Ferrer, the public health director in Los Angeles County, Calif. With community spread rampant, she warned that the more than 4,000 new cases the county registered on Thursday “could lead to over 18,000 infected people in a few weeks.”
“And this is just from one day of new cases,” Dr. Ferrer said. “Without aggressive action on the part of every person, we will not get back to slowing the spread.”
More than 75,600 cases were reported on Thursday, according to a New York Times database, the 11th time in the past month that the U.S. daily record was broken. The previous single-day record, 68,241 cases, was announced last Friday.
The number of daily cases has more than doubled since June 24, when the country registered 37,014 cases after a lull in the outbreak had kept the previous record, 36,738, standing for two months. Daily virus fatalities had decreased slightly until last week, when they began rising again.
Four states — Idaho, Nevada, Oregon and Texas — set single-day case records on Thursday. And three states set single-day death records on Thursday — Florida, South Carolina and Texas — with Florida and Texas alone combining for more than 300.
Seven others reached death records this week: Alabama, Arizona, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Utah. Many of the states that reopened early are the ones seeing the biggest increases, while New York, the country’s hardest-hit city, has seen a 64 percent drop since June 1.
Public health experts have pointed to a few factors that help explain why the death count was initially flat. Treatment has improved and young people, who are less likely to die from Covid-19, make up a larger share of new cases.
Additionally, more widespread testing means cases are caught sooner, on average. That means that the lag between diagnosis and death would be longer than in March, when tests were in critically short supply.
In Kentucky, where the daily case average reached its highest point earlier this week, Gov. Andy Beshear warned that the grim circumstances in Arizona, Florida and Texas could soon materialize there.
“We are seeing state after state not just facing escalating cases, but facing devastation,” said Mr. Beshear, whose state reported a record number of children under age 5 testing positive. He added: “When you put up record numbers of cases, while our hospitals are working really hard, we will see more death.”
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More than 130,000 Americans have died from the coronavirus. One of them was Craig Breimhorst.Where are Americans wearing masks? Check our map.
Mask use is high in the Northeast and the West, and lower in the Plains and parts of the South.
Face coverings are widely worn in the District of Columbia, but there are sections of the suburbs in both Maryland and Virginia where norms seem to be different. In St. Louis and its western suburbs, mask use seems to be high. But across the Missouri River, it falls.
This information is charted in a New York Times map of the United States that shows the odds of whether, if you encountered five people in a given area, all of them would be wearing masks. The data comes from a large number of interviews conducted by the survey firm Dynata.
As cases have soared, cities and more than half of the states are issuing mask requirements to try to stop the spread. Gov. Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas, a Republican, announced a face covering requirement on Thursday, after previously taking a more hands-off approach. Gov. Jared Polis of Colorado, a Democrat, also issued a mask order on Thursday, after questioning whether such a mandate would be enforceable.
But there remains firm resistance in many circles, including from some Republican leaders who view mask requirements as a threat to personal liberty.
Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia, who announced this week that he was suspending all local mask mandates, filed a lawsuit on Thursday challenging the authority of leaders in Atlanta to require masks inside their city’s limits.
The variations of mask use across the country may also reflect local idiosyncrasies. Elizabeth Dorrance Hall, an assistant professor of communications at Michigan State University, cited peer pressure: If most everyone is wearing a mask, reluctant people may go along. If few people are, that can influence behavior, too.
Despite these variations, and despite the flare-ups over the issue that pepper social media, the rates of self-reported mask use in the United States are high. Several national surveys in recent weeks have found that around 80 percent of Americans say they wear masks frequently or always when they expect to be within six feet of other people.
India hits a million cases in a surge that has forced a return to lockdowns.
India surpassed a million confirmed infections and 25,000 deaths on Friday, weeks after the government lifted a nationwide lockdown in hopes of getting the economy up and running.
In March, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government was one of the first to impose a national lockdown to slow the pandemic. But that drove many migrant workers out of crowded cities and back to their home villages, where some of them spread the virus.
The lockdown came at a steep economic cost, and Mr. Modi lifted it last month. Now India is recording about 30,000 new cases a day, almost three times as many as a month ago, and with testing still sparse, the true figure is likely to be much higher.
Critics say that Mr. Modi imposed the lockdown before it was needed, then lifted it too soon. In his defense, he has pointed to wealthier countries where the official death toll has been 20 to 50 times as high, relative to the size of their populations, as in India.
Regardless, India now ranks third in the world — behind only the United States and Brazil — in both total infections and the number of new ones recorded each day.
The rate of new cases in India is on track to soon overtake Brazil, which surpassed two million cases on Thursday but where the spread of the virus has leveled off. Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology estimate that by the end of next year, India will have the worst outbreak in the world.
“We have paid a price for laxity,” said K. Srinath Reddy, president of the Public Health Foundation of India, a nonprofit organization of public health experts and academics.
As the C.D.C. delays releasing school guidelines, Chicago leans against full-time in-person classes.
As the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention postponed releasing new guidance for reopening schools amid a clash with President Trump over whether or how students should return to classrooms this fall, more schools districts said Friday that they planned to buck the president’s wishes for full-time, in-person instruction.
Leaders of Chicago’s public school system, the nation’s third largest school district, announced a hybrid plan for school in the fall, mixing some days in classrooms with others of remote instruction. But Chicago Public Schools officials also stressed that the announcement was only a tentative framework, with a final plan expected in August.
The question of whether to reopen schools amid a worsening outbreak has intensified. California’s two largest districts, Los Angeles and San Diego, have announced plans to teach online only, and Houston, Nashville, Atlanta, and Arlington, Va., have also announced plans to start the school year remotely. New York City, the nation’s largest school district, is working on a hybrid schedule where students might be able to spend between one and three days a week in school.
Others continued to press for more in-person learning. Gov. Kim Reynolds of Iowa, a Republican, said Friday that “Iowa law says that in-person instruction is the presumed method of instruction for the school year” and called on schools to “prioritize in-person learning for core academic subjects including science, math, reading and social studies,” while issuing a proclamation explaining the circumstances in which remote learning is acceptable.
Federal guidance on the safety of reopening schools has been unsteady. Earlier this month, Mr. Trump — who has been insistent that schools reopen in the fall — clashed with the C.D.C. over its proposed guidelines as “very tough and expensive” and demanded that they be revised. A copy of the draft rules to which Mr. Trump apparently objected, outlined in a document obtained by The New York Times and marked “For Internal Use Only,” warned that fully reopening schools remained “the highest risk” for spreading the virus.
But the agency said Friday that it would not release its revised guidelines this week, as expected, a delay initially reported by N.P.R. The agency said it would publish them before the end of the month.
Under Chicago’s preliminary framework, students at school would be grouped into pods of 15 to limit contact. Most students would go to school two days a week, and many high school juniors and seniors would work mainly from home.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker of Illinois, a Democrat, filed a lawsuit Thursday seeking a judge’s approval to his existing order that children, teachers and staff wear face coverings in schools throughout the state this fall. His authority had been challenged by one public school district and two private schools.
In a statement, Mr. Pritzker called face coverings “critical to prevent the spread of coronavirus,” particularly indoors, a position supported by public health officials.
Republicans will propose liability protection for businesses, schools and hospitals in the next aid bill.
Senate Republicans plan next week to propose sweeping liability protections for businesses, schools, hospitals, charities, government agencies and front-line medical workers trying to navigate the coronavirus pandemic.
The plan, which Republicans have said must be the centerpiece of the next round of coronavirus relief, would bar employees and patients who became infected with the virus at work or injured during treatment from suing employers or health care providers except in cases of “gross negligence or intentional misconduct.”
It would move the jurisdiction of negligence cases into the federal courts, cap potential damages and set a high burden of proof for those suing. Other changes would protect employers from agency investigations and liability for injuries caused by workplace coronavirus testing.
The New York Times obtained a copy of a summary of the plan, written with Senator John Cornyn of Texas. Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, has billed the protections as vital to reopening the economy and insisted he will not advance any additional relief legislation unless they are included.
“Nobody should have to face an epidemic of lawsuits on the heels of the pandemic that we already have related to the coronavirus,” Mr. McConnell told reporters this week.
Democrats have taken the opposite approach, proposing new protections for workers facing increased health and safety risks, rather than for employers. They are likely to oppose Mr. McConnell’s proposal outright, potentially snarling broader talks that begin in earnest next week over how to prop up the sputtering economy and the nation’s straining health care system.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi said this week that the Republicans’ proposal “just isn’t fair” to workers, and said Democrats would be insisting on increasing the standards for workplace protections under the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
Elsewhere in the United States:
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New York City’s mayor said Friday that “we are moving forward” with easing some restrictions on Monday, but said that state officials would make a formal announcement later. The mayor said some outdoor businesses could reopen, like botanical gardens and zoos, but that several indoor activities would not.
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Restaurants in New York City will also be able to use sidewalks, streets and parking spaces for outdoor dining through Oct. 31, the mayor said Friday. The city also announced that 26 more locations will be closed off to driving but open for dining on weekends.
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In Puerto Rico, where the situation has been steadily worsening after promising early signs of containment, Gov. Wanda Vázquez rolled back part of the economic opening on Thursday. Beginning on Friday restaurants were again required to operate at half capacity. Alcohol sales will be banned after 7 p.m. Bars, theaters, nightclubs, casinos, gyms and marinas have to close. Beach access will be allowed only for people engaged in physical activity.
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In Florida, more than 11,400 cases and more than 125 deaths were reported on Friday.
Global Roundup
Johnson says Britain could reach a ‘significant return to normality’ by Christmas.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson outlined a road map on Friday to ease lockdown restrictions in Britain and to contain the spread of the coronavirus in the coming months, as he warned that there won’t be any “significant return to normality” until November at the earliest, and “possibly in time for Christmas.”
All schools in England will reopen in September, Mr. Johnson said at a news conference from Downing Street, and concert halls and theaters might welcome visitors again in the fall, as well as stadiums. Indoor gyms and pools will also be allowed to reopen by the end of July.
Nightclubs and indoor playgrounds will remain closed, and wedding receptions will remain limited to 30 people, Mr. Johnson said, as the authorities toe the line between what may be possible, and what won’t be. Local authorities will also be granted extended powers to enforce local lockdowns when areas face an uptick in virus cases. Leicester, in central England, has seen one in recent weeks.
“I know some will say this plan is too optimistic, that the risks are too great and that we won’t overcome the virus in time,” said Mr. Johnson, who warned that all measures were optional and could be pulled back at any time.
With at least 45,000 deaths, Britain has been one of the worst-hit countries in the world, and the authorities have announced that masks will be required in shops and supermarkets starting next week. Pubs and restaurants reopened in England and Wales earlier this month, and Mr. Johnson said the authorities would gradually encourage employees to go back to offices, and may not warn against taking public transportation anymore.
Britain should “hope for the best,” Mr. Johnson said, but “plan for the worst.”
In other news around the world:
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Iran will enforce new restrictions starting Saturday in its capital, Tehran, responding to a surge of cases. A health ministry official said gatherings such as funerals, wedding and religious ceremonies would be banned, gyms and pools would close and the government work force would be reduced by a third.
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Japan has asked the U.S. military to quarantine all of its personnel arriving at American bases in Japan for two weeks and then test them for the coronavirus, the country’s defense minister, Taro Kono, said on Friday. There has been an outbreak of cases on U.S. military bases on the island of Okinawa.
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European Union leaders are meeting to negotiate a massive economic aid package. The major sticking point is how much latitude to give those countries receiving the aid. The talks in Brussels are the first time that E.U. leaders have held an in-person meeting since the start of the pandemic.
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The residents of Barcelona, Spain, were told on Friday to stay indoors in order to help contain a new coronavirus outbreak in the Catalonia region in the northeastern part of the country. The authorities also announced a ban on outdoor gatherings of 10 people or more in Barcelona, the capital of Catalonia.
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In Australia, the state of Victoria reported 428 new cases on Friday, another single-day record. “We are in the fight of our lives,” Victoria’s health minister, Jenny Mikakos, told reporters in Melbourne, the locked-down state capital.
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The authorities in the Philippines said that foreigners with long-term visas could begin entering the country in August, for the first time since March. They will be quarantined, monitored and tested.
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A 27-year-old woman in Tunisia was found guilty of “inciting hatred between religions” and sentenced to six months in jail and a $700 fine after she shared another Facebook user’s post about the coronavirus that mimicked Quranic iconography.
China is offering unproven vaccine candidates to workers at state-owned companies and the armed forces.
The offer to employees at the state-owned oil giant was compelling: Be among the first in China to receive a coronavirus vaccine.
The employees at PetroChina could use one of two vaccines “for emergency use” to protect themselves when working overseas as part of China’s ambitious infrastructure program, according to a copy of the notice, which was reviewed by The New York Times. They would effectively be guinea pigs for testing the unproven vaccines outside official clinical trials.
The offer was backed by the government. It stressed that data from clinical trials showed that the products, both made by Sinopharm, were safe. It did not mention the possible side effects or warn against the false sense of security from taking a vaccine that had not been approved by regulators.
“I don’t think this is right ethically,” said Joan Shen, the Shanghai-based chief executive of the pharmaceutical firm I-Mab Biopharma.
The unorthodox move, to test people separately from the normal regulatory approval process, reflects the formidable challenge facing China as it races to develop the world’s first coronavirus vaccine.
Eager to find a long-term solution to the outbreak and burnish their scientific credentials, Chinese companies are rushing to get as much data as possible on their vaccines to prove they are safe and effective. In China, they are selectively testing their vaccines on small pools of people like the PetroChina employees — an approach that does not count toward the regulatory process but that could bolster their own confidence in the vaccines.
Queen Elizabeth briefly emerges to knight a 100-year-old hero. Princess Beatrice marries in a small ceremony.
Bearing a sword that had belonged to her father, George VI, Queen Elizabeth II tapped Tom Moore on both shoulders with a sword at Windsor Castle on Friday, confirming the knighthood of a 100-year-old man whose achievements during the pandemic had propelled him into the ranks of Britain’s most exalted citizens.
Neither wore a mask, though the sword was long enough for the two to keep some distance. Buckingham Palace banned the public, though Mr. Moore was allowed to bring his family.
The ceremony brought together two of Britain’s greatest living links to World War II: the queen who worked as a wartime driver and truck mechanic, and a decorated Army officer who fought in the infamous Burma campaign and who found celebrity this year raising $40 million for Britain’s National Health Service by walking 100 laps of his garden.
It also brought the queen, 94, out of seclusion for her first face-to-face meeting with a member of the public since March 19, when she left Buckingham Palace as the coronavirus bore down on London. Her physical absence has become a wistful theme of British tabloids, with one writing in a headline: “Queen heartbreak. Will we ever see the queen in public again?”
Windsor was also the site of a surprise wedding on Friday for the elder daughter of Prince Andrew, Princess Beatrice, who married a British property developer, Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi. The queen and Prince Andrew witnessed the ceremony, which Buckingham Palace said was private and socially distanced but still somewhat upstaged Mr. Moore’s investiture.
Learn about 20 of the most talked-about possible coronavirus treatments with this new tracking tool.
Companies and researchers worldwide are rushing to test hundreds of possible treatments meant to prevent or quell coronavirus infections. Some they hope will block the virus itself, nipping a burgeoning infection in the bud, while others are aimed at mimicking the immune system or quieting an overactive immune response.
The New York Times is cataloging some of the most talked-about drugs, devices and therapies in a new tracker that summarizes the evidence for and against each proposed treatment. The tracker includes 20 treatments so far; five have strong evidence of efficacy, three are pseudoscience, and the rest fall somewhere in between.
Israel’s government, under fire for its management of the crisis, tightens restrictions.
The Israeli government announced new coronavirus restrictions on Friday as the number of cases in the country continued to swell and the government faced further criticism for its handling of the pandemic.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office and the Health Ministry said in a statement that gyms would be closed and almost all restaurants would be limited to takeout and delivery services, starting at 5 p.m. on Friday.
Beaches, they said, would be inaccessible during most of the weekends, starting July 24.
The new restrictions come after Israel reimposed other measures to stem the spread of the virus last week.
Since late June, infections in Israel have soared. The nation is averaging more than 1,500 cases a day, up from 664 two weeks ago, and unemployment stands at more than 20 percent.
In the past several weeks, Mr. Netanyahu’s government has come under sharp criticism for its management of the virus crisis, especially its economic fallout. Last Saturday, thousands of Israelis rallied in Tel Aviv to protest the government’s handling of the pandemic’s economic fallout.
Deluged by mail-in ballots because of the pandemic, New York State is swimming in uncounted votes.
More than three weeks after the New York State primaries, election officials have not counted an untold number of mail-in absentee ballots, leaving numerous closely watched races unresolved, including two key Democratic congressional contests.
The absentee ballot count — greatly inflated this year because the state expanded the vote-by-mail option because of the pandemic — has been painstakingly slow, and hard to track, with no running account of the vote totals available.
The delays in New York’s primaries raise huge concerns about how the state will handle the general election in November and may offer a cautionary note for other states as they weigh whether to embrace, and how to implement, a vote-by-mail system.
The primary reason for the delays is the sheer number of absentee ballots: In New York City, 403,203 ballots were mailed for the June primary; as a comparison, just 76,258 absentee and military ballots were counted in the 2008 general election, when Barack Obama was elected president.
But other factors also have played a part.
Election officials said they were left scrambling when the governor decided in late April to send absentee ballot applications to every registered voter; a May court decision that reinstituted a June presidential primary also complicated matters.
Reporting was contributed by Lilia Blaise, Troy Closson, Nicholas Fandos, Manny Fernandez, Luis Ferré-Sadurní, Jeffrey Gettleman, Erin Griffith, Josh Katz, Mark Landler, Lauren Leatherby, Jesse McKinley, Sarah Mervosh, Jennifer Miller, Raphael Minder, Azi Paybarah, Elian Peltier, Kevin Quealy, Adam Rasgon, Motoko Rich, Campbell Robertson, Margot Sanger-Katz, Mariana Simões, Karan Deep Singh, Mitch Smith, Kaly Soto, Matina Stevis-Gridneff, Sheryl Gay Stolberg, Eileen Sullivan and Sui-Lee Wee.
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Coronavirus Live Updates: Officials Sound Alarm After U.S. Daily Record of 75,600 New Cases - The New York Times
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