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Japan’s Health Ministry recorded 1,490 Covid-19 infections on Thursday, the second-highest number of cases the country has identified in a single day during the pandemic and yet another worrying sign that its latest outbreak shows no signs of abating.
Thursday marks the 10th straight day the country has recorded more than 900 cases of the novel coronavirus. Authorities have now identified at least 44,527 cases of Covid-19, more than half of which have been reported since the beginning of July.
Seven deaths were reported Thursday, bringing the nationwide death toll to 1,046.
Trouble in Tokyo: Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike urged people in the Japanese capital to refrain from traveling during the upcoming Obon summer vacation season to stop the infection spread.
Authorities reported 360 new infections in Tokyo on Thursday, the 10th consecutive day of more than 200 cases in row.
To date, more than 14,500 cases of Covid-19 have been identified in the Japanese capital.
Infections spiking elsewhere: Kanagawa, a prefecture that neighbors Tokyo, crossed the triple digit threshold for the first time Thursday, reporting 119 infections. Osaka also posted its highest number of cases in a single day Thursday, with 225.
Five former directors of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) criticized the contradictory messages put out by President Donald Trump’s administration Thursday.
Here’s what some of them said:
Dr. Thomas Frieden said that the CDC had been sidelined early on in the pandemic and described Trump’s contradictory messages as “chaotic leadership,” which has led to partisanship, confusion and increased spread of the virus.
Dr. Jeffrey Koplan said that “every one of those falsehoods” damages the nation’s mitigation efforts against the virus.
Frieden added that Americans want information from the CDC. “Americans are voting with their clicks. There have been 1.6 billion clicks on the CDC website,” said Frieden. “The more we learn, the more we know, the better we can control it.”
Dr. Richard Besser said the federal response to the pandemic has been “absolutely unacceptable” considering the US is the wealthiest nation on the planet.
He also criticized politicians for viewing CDC guidelines as an obstacle.
“If you have politicians saying that CDC guidance is a barrier to getting children back into school, instead of the roadmap for doing it safely, the whole system breaks down,” said Besser, who was an acting CDC chief during the H1N1 swine flu pandemic in 2009.
Dr. Julie Gerberding, who headed the CDC under former president George W. Bush, said she hopes that the government can learn from this crisis.
“I really do hope that finally it’s gotten so bad that we will reinvent how we think about our health security in the context of our national security,”
Dr. David Satcher, a former US Surgeon General who headed the CDC under former president Bill Clinton, said communities of color that have been hit harder by the pandemic are going to require particular attention during recovery efforts
“It’s going to say a lot about us as a nation, whether we step up to this challenge, and remove many of the structural barriers to health that people in this country face,” he said.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story misattributed Dr. Thomas Frieden’s remarks to Dr. Jeffrey Koplan. Frieden said that Americans want information from the CDC, and “Americans are voting with their clicks. There have been 1.6 billion clicks on the CDC website. The more we learn, the more we know, the better we can control it.”
The coronavirus pandemic is starting to move into younger populations, the World Health Organization says.
WHO posted new data on the pandemic that shows the most cases, by far, are among people aged 25 to 64. Since February 24, the proportion of reported cases in very young children and babies has increased seven-fold, WHO said. The share of cases among teens and young adults has gone up six-fold.
The global coronavirus caseload now looks like this, WHO said:
Mexico recorded another 819 fatalities from Covid-19, the Health Ministry said Thursday, bringing the countrywide death toll from the virus to 50,517.
This is the third consecutive day that Mexico has reported more than 800 deaths, the first time it has done so since the outbreak began in the country.
The ministry said it also identified another 6,590 new infections on Thursday, bringing the country’s total number of confirmed coronavirus cases to 462,690.
CNN is tracking worldwide coronavirus cases here:
A three-hour meeting between senior administration officials and Democratic leaders yielded little progress tonight as both sides seemed resigned to the likelihood that Congress won’t reach a major stimulus deal amid an economic crisis.
Both sides emerged trading blame for the sputtering talks — and the administration officials warned that President Trump would take executive action if no deal is reached by Friday.
It’s unclear if the two sides will meet on Friday.
“We had a consequential meeting that was one way we could see the difference in values that we bring to the table,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said.
Pelosi said that White House chief of staff Mark Meadows slammed his hand on the table and stormed out of the room at one point, something that Meadows denied.
The differences remain as they have been: Democrats want to do “something big,” in the words of Pelosi, and the Trump administration wants a “skinny bill,” in the words of Meadows.
One of the biggest sticking points: Aid to state and local governments.
Schumer said, “We are very disappointed in the meeting …They were unwilling to meet in the middle.”
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Meadows indicated they are “very far apart” on some major issues.
“I think there’s a lot of issues we are close to a compromise position on and I think there’s a handful of very big issues that we are still very far apart,” Mnuchin said.
Trump called the two officials three times during the meeting and urged them to continuing negotiating, Meadows said.
Mnuchin said that if “they could conclude tomorrow without a deal,” Trump will take executive action.
Masks continue to be one of the most effective ways to prevent Covid-19 transmission and there are many different types that serve this purpose, Dr. Sanjay Gupta explained Thursday during CNN’s global coronavirus town hall.
Gupta showed viewers how to wear masks properly while sharing some data on how they help prevent Covid-19 infection.
Watch:
Michael Phelps, the 23-time Olympic gold medalist, credited his wife with helping him through the coronavirus pandemic.
Keeping a routine and exercising every day while “understanding that it’s OK to not be OK” has made all the difference, Phelps told CNN during its global coronavirus town hall tonight.
Watch:
Dr. Andrew Wilhelm is one of the thousands of physicians on the frontlines facing a surge in Covid-19 cases in the US.
As director of the University of Mississippi Medical Center’s Intensive Care Unit, Wilhelm lives in a state that has the fifth-highest recorded case count per 100,000 people, behind only Louisiana, Arizona, Florida and New York, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
More from Mississippi: Gov. Tate Reeves announced a face-covering mandate in all counties for public gatherings and retail settings for the next two weeks.
Also, all adults and kids in schools must wear masks, unless there is a medical reason not to.
“I (had) taken a piecemeal approach (to masks) because I believe firmly that this was the best way to get the most number of people to participate,” Reeves told reporters Tuesday.
A face mask is one of the most simple and “inexpensive” things people can wear to help fight the spread of Covid-19 in the US, said Dr. Chris Murray, a researcher behind an influential coronavirus model from the University of Washington.
Murray’s perspective has been shared countless times by health experts since the start of the pandemic who are still baffled over the sight of groups of people refusing to wear face coverings.
Argentina and Colombia saw a record increase in coronavirus cases on Thursday, according to their health ministries.
Argentina’s health ministry announced 7,513 new cases of Covid-19, a record increase for the country. This brings the total number of cases in Argentina to 228,195.
At least 11,996 new cases of Covid-19 were reported on Thursday, a record increase for the country, according to Colombia’s health ministry. This brings the total number of cases in Colombia to 357,710.
The death toll stands at 11,939 in Colombia, with 315 new fatalities reported Thursday. These numbers come after Colombian President Ivan Duque defended his government’s strategy in the fight against Covid-19 earlier in the day, saying that Colombia is in much better shape than other countries in the region.
In Argentina, at least 4,251 people have died from the virus.
Buenos Aires’ metropolitan area remains by far the biggest hotspot in the country, with over 6,000 of the 7,513 new cases.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert, said he’s “satisfied” with the enrollment in the first week of the first US Phase 3 clinical trial of a Covid-19 vaccine.
CNN has obtained part of a Friday, July 31 email from Moderna, the company running the trial, that states 1,290 people were randomly assigned to get either the vaccine or a dummy shot as of that date. The trial began on Monday, July 27.
The email was sent to sites across the US that are participating in the Moderna trial. Moderna plans to enroll 30,000 people at its 89 sites.
“We hope within a period of a few months, a couple of months, that we’ll be able to enroll hopefully by the end of the summer so that we can start getting some results,” Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases, said July 27 when he announced the start of the Phase 3 trial. Fauci told CNN that he expects “to get an answer” about whether the vaccine works in November or December. “Maybe we’ll get an answer as early as October, but I doubt it,” he said.
If the pace of enrollment in the first week of the trial – 1,290 over five days – were to continue, the study wouldn’t be fully enrolled until late fall or early winter. But Fauci told CNN he expects the enrollment numbers to increase as the study continues.
Each participant receives two injections spaced about 28 days apart.
In a statement, Moderna said they are “on track to complete enrollment in September, 2020. The company will provide an update when enrollment is complete.”
At the July 27 briefing, Fauci said he hoped for much higher enrollment numbers – but he now says he was joking.
“We’d like to have 15,000 by the end of the week. I’m not sure that we’re going to get there, but hopefully we’ll get as many as we possibly can in order to keep our timelines where we need to be,” Fauci said at the briefing. But Thursday he told CNN he meant that “tongue-in-cheek.”
President Trump said Thursday that he was “optimistic” a vaccine would be ready around election day on November 3. “I believe we’ll have the vaccine before the end of the year, certainly, but around that date, yes. I think so,” Trump told reporters. On Monday, Trump said “we’re on pace to have a vaccine available this year, maybe far in advance of the end of the year.”
New Mexico will allow outside visitations to assisted living facilities with new restrictions in place starting next week, Katrina Hotrum-Lopez, New Mexico’s secretary of Aging and Long Term Services, said during a news conference today.
The new guidance will apply to facilities that are in counties with less than a 5% positivity rate, Hotrum-Lopez said.
Visits will only be allowed at facilities that have no positive cases. The visits will take place by appointments and visitors will be screened, she said.
The new guidelines will require acrylic glass barriers, social distancing, and appropriate personal protective equipment for visitations to occur.
The goal is that families will be able to visit their loved ones once a month, Hotrum-Lopez said.
Pennsylvania’s health and education departments jointly recommended that pre-K-12 school and recreational youth sports be postponed until at least Jan. 1 “to protect children and teens from Covid-19,” according to a release from Gov. Tom Wolf’s office.
According to the release, the guidance is not an order or mandate and school administrators and locally elected school boards should make their own decisions.
A potential coronavirus vaccine should not have any “political spin attached to it,” Dr. Francis Collins, the director of the National Institutes of Health, told CNN today.
Collins said he was encouraged by an opinion piece in the Washington Post Thursday by Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Dr. Stephen Hahn who said “he absolutely was not going to judge any vaccine safe and effective until he had seen the data and it was absolutely convincing.”
“That’s the standard we need to follow and I think in this country that’s the standard we will follow,” he said. “Sooner would be better, but it’s not going to get tied to any other timetables, other than making sure we’ve got something that work and it’s safe.”
Some context: President Trump said Thursday he was “optimistic” a potential coronavirus vaccine could be ready by Nov. 3, noting that, while “It wouldn’t hurt” his chances for reelection, he was doing it “to save a lot of lives.”
Recent storms and IT issues have contributed to a decline in testing across the United States, according to the Covid Tracking Project (CTP).
But as CTP said on Twitter, the problem “is much more widespread, even in places that have large outbreaks and are opening schools, like Mississippi.”
Analysis of CTP data shows 29 states are down on testing this week compared to last: Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington and Wyoming.
In California, the state has “discovered an under-reporting of COVID-19 cases due to technology issues with the electronic laboratory reporting system,” according to a statement from the California Department of Public Health (CDPH).
CDPH has a team working to address the issue and has “instructed all laboratories in California to manually report all positive cases to the local public health departments.”
In Florida, several testing sites were closed for some time as Hurricane Isaias rolled through. By Monday of this week, the Florida Department of Emergency Management said at least 15 state-supported testing sites were reopened following the weekend closure.
On Thursday, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said he wishes testing for Covid-19 in the country had worked out better.
Speaking during an interview on the POLITICO Pulse Check podcast, Fauci said, “It is very difficult. It’s been this way from the very beginning of the issue – of defending things that have to do with testing – when you’re given an example like you just gave me about waiting five to seven days. You know, I would be noncredible, and I wouldn’t be true to myself, if I say oh that’s okay. It’s not okay – period. And we need to do better. And I wish we had done better.”
Several states are showing their frustration with testing, and have entered into the Interstate Testing Compact; the goal is to ensure more and faster testing for the states involved.
The states include: Maryland, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Utah and Virginia.
Out of a total of 2,880 players in the National Football League, there are 66 who have opted out of the upcoming season due to the coronavirus pandemic, a league spokesperson said.
Players had until 4 p.m. ET on Thursday to decide whether they would opt out of the 2020 season.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention does not recommend people use masks with valves or vents during the Covid-19 pandemic, according to new mask recommendations on the agency’s “About Masks” section of its website.
The one-way valves may provide the wearer more comfort, since the valves allow air to escape from the mask and can keep people cooler, but the valves also allow the virus to escape from the mask.
The CDC encourages people to wear masks so they don’t infect others. Covid-19 spreads mainly through respiratory droplets when a person talks, sneezes, sings or coughs. Masks can help stop those respiratory droplets.
Some context: The CDC had recommended against using these masks in health care settings on its website earlier in the pandemic.
Delta airlines’ mask policy spells out that the ventilated versions are not approved as an acceptable face mask for customers traveling on any Delta operated flight.
It’s “very dangerous” to give specific dates on when a coronavirus vaccine may be available, former US Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer Thursday.
President Trump said Thursday he was “optimistic” a potential coronavirus vaccine could be ready by Election Day on Nov. 3.
The former surgeon general cautioned that there are two critical requirements for a successful vaccine. “One is that it is safe and the other is that it is effective and we cannot cut corners in getting there,” he said.
“We can’t sacrifice our standards because if we do, it not only hurts people, but it’s going to damage people’s faith in vaccine efforts,” Murthy added.
Murthy said he’s bothered by polls showing nearly 50% of people said they had either decided against getting a Covid-19 vaccine or were uncertain about it.
And that makes it all the more important that any vaccine that is approved or authorized has to be reviewed by the Food and Drug Administration’s external vaccine advisory committee and it has to be deliberated upon in a public forum, he said.
“That’s also why we have to be very clear with people about what the distribution plan is for this vaccine because it will take months to get this vaccine out, even under optimal circumstances, which is why the vaccination campaign we develop has got to be top-notch and executed well.”
The total number of deaths attributed to Covid-19 in Georgia is now 4,026.
The Georgia Department of Public Health reported 42 new coronavirus deaths on Thursday and 3,250 new cases of the virus.
The statewide total of Covid-19 cases is now 204,895.
At least 214 new Covid-19-related hospitalizations were recorded.
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.
Texas reported another high day of fatalities with 306 deaths on Thursday and a jump in the positive infection rate to above 17%, according to the Department of Health State Services.
The latest data, however, also showed a decrease in hospitalizations for the third day in a row and a decline in new cases. Texas is currently reporting 8,302 hospitalizations, down 153 from the day before, and 7,598 new positive cases, which is down 1,108 from the day before and 1,202 from the week before.
The positivity rate continues to climb, as it’s done all week, with the rate at 17.05% as of Aug. 5. (Texas testing data lags one day behind.) That’s the second highest rate reported by Texas during the pandemic, with the peak being 17.43% in mid-July.
The positivity rate was just 12.09% one week ago.
