June 18 coronavirus news

Dr. Sanjay Gupta returned to CNN’s Atlanta headquarters to show people how to safely navigate the office during the pandemic.

Office workers can expect to see a lot more hand sanitizing stations and should try and take the stairs more often, Gupta said during CNN’s global coronavirus town hall Thursday evening.

Watch:

Dr. Ala Stanford administers a COVID-19 swab test on a person in the parking lot of Pinn Memorial Baptist Church in Philadelphia, Wednesday, April 22.

One of the reasons why Covid-19 is disproportionately infecting Black Americans is because of testing limitations, Dr. Ala Stanford, the founder of the Black Doctors Covid-19 Consortium, told CNN Thursday evening during its global coronavirus town hall.

What the data shows: As of May 11, 17,155 Black Americans are known to have died due to Covid-19, according to an analysis from the American Public Media (APM) Research Lab.

That’s out of nearly 65,000 deaths for which race and ethnicity data was available. More than 80,000 people total had lost their lives to the coronavirus at the time of the analysis.

APM compiled its data from the 39 states and the District of Columbia that are reporting the race and ethnicity of residents who have died of Covid-19.

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New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo says he would not permit a large political rally in his state like the one planned by President Trump’s campaign in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Saturday.

“No, no,” said Cuomo when asked by CNN’s Anderson Cooper if he’d permit such event an event in New York, which could draw up to 19,000 people to an indoor arena without requiring masks. “That’s not only going to hurt the economy, it’s also going to cause more Americans to die.”

Cuomo went on to say Trump was disregarding the science and sending the wrong signal to the nation. 

“The President… knowing that the models now say another 30,000 people die by October, still insists that we shouldn’t be careful, that we shouldn’t follow the science: don’t worry about the public health, have a political arena,” the governor said.

“It makes no sense and it’s the exact wrong signal, he added.

Watch:

The National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) has announced Thursday that a player from one of its teams has tested positive for Covid-19. 

“The health and safety of the players and staff is of utmost importance and the NWSL is doing everything to ensure the affected player is receiving proper care,” the league said in a statement.

The statement also said there are no planned changes to the 2020 NWSL Challenge Cup schedule.

The 2020 NWSL Challenge Cup will mark the return to action for all nine teams. The 25-game tournament will kick off on June 27 at Zions Bank Stadium in Herriman, Utah, and will be held without spectators.

California recorded 4,084 new coronavirus cases today, an all-time high on the same day Gov. Gavin Newsom issued a statewide mask order. 

This daily record-high surpasses the previous 3,705 cases recorded on May 30, according to data from the California Department of Public Health.

The high number of cases is attributed to an increase in testing capacity and delayed testing results coming in from an earlier period, state health officials said in a statement.

“As testing capacity continues to increase across the state, an increase in the number of positive cases has been expected,” state health officials said.

By the numbers: Thursday’s count brings the total number of cases in California to 161,099. 

There have been 5,290 Covid-19 deaths in California since the start of the pandemic, according to state data.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo said he is considering a mandatory 14-day quarantine for people coming to New York from states with high infection rates saying, “it is doable.”

He pointed out that at the beginning of the pandemic other states implemented quarantines for travelers coming from New York.

“The tables have turned,” he said.

Earlier today, Cuomo said that while he hasn’t made a decision yet, he has “had experts advise me of that. It is a real concern, you’re right it could happen and it’s something I’m considering.”

Watch:

Gov. Andrew Cuomo praised the effort across New York to bring its coronavirus infection rate to below 1%.

Cuomo said he fears that rate could increase as “people who get on airplanes and they come to New York, and they could bring the infection with them.”

Watch:

People are already lining up outside of the Bank of Oklahoma Center in Tulsa about 48 hours before a President Trump’s campaign rally.

CNN reports that about 20,000 people are expected to attend the event in the convention center on Saturday, and another 40,000 people to be in the overflow section outside the venue — giving the rally the potential to be the largest gathering in the country since the start of the pandemic.

CNN Political Correspondent Abby Phillip reported that local officials are saying up to 100,000 people could be coming to the city for the rally, but also for other counter-events happening a few blocks away.

The Trump campaign has said they will be giving out hand sanitizer and masks, but they won’t be required.

Some context: As of this morning, Tulsa County currently has the most cases – 1,825 total – of any county in the state, according to the Oklahoma State Department of Health.

New cases in Tulsa County have also been climbing, and the county is now seeing its highest seven-day average for new cases at 73.9, according to the Tulsa Health Department.

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Dr. Sanjay Gupta implored people to continue wearing masks because Covid-19 can be spread by asymptomatic people “even if they’re not showing symptoms.”

The virus is “still very contagious,” Gupta said Thursday evening during CNN’s global coronavirus town hall.

To put the number of deaths in perspective, Gupta said “essentially two jumbo jets of people every 24 hours” die from the virus.

Some context on infections: Just as much of the US was improving, 10 states are seeing their highest seven-day average of new coronavirus cases per day since the pandemic started months ago, according to a CNN analysis of data from Johns Hopkins University.

The data includes new cases reported by Johns Hopkins through Tuesday. The states seeing record-high averages are Alabama, Arizona, California, Florida, Nevada, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina and Texas.

Texas also reported a record-high number of daily Covid-19 hospitalizations on Monday, with 2,326.

Los Angeles County, which accounts for almost half of California’s cases, on Wednesday reported another single-day high of new cases, though officials said the spike was due to lagging test reports.

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An ensemble forecast published by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now projects 135,461 coronavirus deaths in the United States by July 11, with deaths increasing in nine states. 

This week’s national forecast relies on 21 individual forecasts from outside institutions and researchers. The new projections, published Thursday, forecast a possible range of 129,000 to 145,000 deaths.

“For other states, the number of new deaths is expected to be similar or decrease slightly compared to the previous four weeks,” the CDC added.

Some context: Unlike some individual models, the CDC’s ensemble forecast only offers projections for the next month.

The previous ensemble forecast, published last Friday, predicted 130,000 deaths from coronavirus in the US by July 4. So far, according to Johns Hopkins University, more than 118,000 people have died in the US.

The National Football League Players Association has responded to comments from Dr. Anthony Fauci who told CNN that unless players are in isolated a bubble, “it would be very hard to see how football is able to be played this fall.”

NFL Players Association (NFLPA) medical director, Dr. Thom Mayer, said the comments from the nation’s top infectious disease doctor “carry important weight as he has served our country with expert guidance and moral clarity through many crises,” according to a statement from the NFLPA.

Mayer said the NFLPA “will continue to update you as we move forward through the summer.”

A free public Covid-19 testing site opens at Judiciary Square in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, June 17.

There are now at least 2,185,873 cases of coronavirus in the US, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.

Approximately 118,334 people have died from the virus.

So far on Thursday, Johns Hopkins reported 22,583 new cases and 617 additional deaths.

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

Michigan State University in East Lansing.

Michigan State’s athletics department said in a statement that an athlete has tested positive for Covid-19 after the school tested 124 student-athletes on Monday. The statement does not specify which sport the athlete is a part of.

Additionally, a student-athlete did not report to campus after testing positive for the virus at home last week.

The statement said the student will be isolated for 10 to 14 days.

Michigan State Athletics also said players who tested negative will be tested again on June 22 and “a second negative test result is required before being cleared to take part in voluntary workouts.” 

When San Francisco implemented its shelter-in place order in mid-March, coronavirus continued to spread through the city’s Hispanic population in parts of the densely populated Mission District, researchers at the University of California, San Francisco reported Thursday.

For the first six weeks the ordinance was in place, the virus continued to spread among the low-income Latino population in a crowded 16-block area of the district, they found.

The team at UCSF worked with the San Francisco Department of Health, the state of California and community organizers on an initiative offering free Covid-19 tests, both nasal swab tests to diagnose active infections and antibody tests to find past infections. They reached almost 4,000 people in the area between April 25-28.

The results: They found that 2% of those given a PCR test – the most accurate type of diagnostic test – were infected with Covid-19 at the time of the test.

Among those who tested positive, infection rates were almost 20 times higher for Hispanic residents than non-Hispanics and 3.5 times higher among immigrant workers than for residents in the district.

Antibody tests indicated 6% of residents had contracted the virus at some point since the beginning of the pandemic, the researchers said in their pre-print report, which has not yet been peer-reviewed.

After comparing the tests, researchers reported, “the vast majority (96%) of new infections were occurring in the Latinx community, whereas those infected earlier in the pandemic were somewhat more representative of the neighborhood as a whole (67% Latinx, 16% white and 17% other).” 

Many of those infected could not work from home and could not miss work. Other risk factors for those contracting the virus later, in late April, for example, included frontline service work, unemployment and a household income of less than $50,000 a year.

People register to be tested for Covid-19 at the West Perrine Health Center on Thursday, May 28, in Miami.

Jackson Health System in Miami, Florida, has seen a 46% increase in Covid-19 patients in the past 10 days, according to a hospital spokesperson.

On June 8, Jackson Health reported 104 Covid-19 patients. Today, they have 152. 

Jackson Health has discharged a total of 683 Covid-19 patients since the pandemic began. Jackson Health System is a non-profit academic medical system.

Miami Mayor Francis Suarez told CNN that the city is “extremely concerned” about the increase in coronavirus cases and hospitalizations.

Suarez said that in the last eight days, Florida has reached record case numbers, with 3,200 people who reported positive Wednesday.

The mayor noted that number is nearly three times the 1,300 case threshold that caused the state to shut down months ago.

On Monday: Suarez announced that the city would not go into phase three of reopening because it had not met criteria to do so, including a decreased in cases and hospitalizations.

The city will be stepping up enforcement of protective measures for businesses to try to slow the spread, Suarez said.

He said that stricter measures could be brought back if the virus is out of control.

“Everything has to be on the table,” if hospitalizations increase further, Suarez said. 

Watch:

Brazil is nearing 1 million confirmed coronavirus cases after another daily spike Thursday.

The country’s health ministry reported another 22,765 new cases Thursday, bringing its total number of cases to 978,142.

The ministry also confirmed 1,238 new deaths from the virus on Thursday, bringing the country’s total to 47,748.

An employee of the Mugda Medical College and Hospital sprays disinfectant on gloves after a nasal swab Covid-19 test was administered in Dhaka on June 17.

Bangladesh on Thursday registered 3,803 new coronavirus cases, bringing the national total to 102,292, according to the country’s Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).

It recorded an additional 38 fatalities related to Covid-19, raising the death toll to 1,343.

The densely populated South Asian country has recently seen a spike in the number of coronavirus cases, with at least 3,000 cases registered daily for the last five days, according to the DGHS data.

Dhaka district, which includes the capital, is the worst affected with more than 26,000 cases.

MLS club Atlanta United has announced that a player has tested positive for Covid-19.

The positive result was confirmed Thursday following mandatory club testing.

According to a statement, Atlanta United medical staff have continued to work directly with local infectious disease specialists to treat the player, who was asymptomatic and has been observing isolation protocols since receiving the result.

The team will conduct testing Friday morning prior to resuming training in adherence with MLS health and safety protocols.

Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards answers questions during a news conference on Monday, June8, in Baton Rouge.

Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards said in a news conference on Thursday the state added 4,200 Covid-19 cases in seven days. 

“Since June 10, we’ve added more than 4,200 new Covid-19 cases across the state, that is in seven days,” he said. “Most of these new cases did not come from nursing homes or other congregate settings. And what that means is they were the result of community spread.”

The governor said he wanted to share this information as there is a lot of talk in the state and nationally about a second wave in the fall. 

“Today, we didn’t know we’re still very much in the first wave. Coronavirus hasn’t left. It is still very much here with us, and it is present in every community across the state of Louisiana,” he said. 

Asked if he thought about making masks mandatory as some other states have, Edwards said, “I am not going to tell you that we haven’t thought about it. But at the end of the day, those states that went there quickly reversed course. It is just not something that you can enforce. And I think you end up doing more harm than good by trying to make it mandatory.”

Here are the numbers: There are at least 48,634 cases of Covid-19 in the state, and at least 2,950 people have died. 

In this November 14, 2019 file photo, President Donald Trump pauses speaking at a rally in Bossier City, Louisiana.

Days before hosting a massive rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, President Trump said in a Wall Street Journal interview that some people at the rally this Saturday may catch coronavirus, but added “it’s a very small percentage.”

The President’s words come as Oklahoma is seeing a steady increase in its average of new confirmed cases per day.

According to a CNN analysis of Johns Hopkins University data, Oklahoma averaged about 203 new cases per day over the week ending June 17, which is up approximately 110% from the previous seven-day period.

As of Thursday morning, Tulsa County currently has the most cases — 1,825 total — of any county in the state, according to the Oklahoma State Department of Health. New cases in Tulsa County have also been climbing, and the county is now seeing its highest seven-day average for new cases at 73.9, according to the Tulsa Health Department.

Trump also claimed, according to the Journal, that some Americans wore face masks as a political statement against him and not as a preventative measure.

However, guidance from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) makes it clear that Americans should wear a mask. 

Rally attendees will not be required to maintain social distance or wear masks, despite the Trump administration’s top public health officials stressing the importance of both measures in preventing the spread of coronavirus.

Campaign manager Brad Parscale tweeted on Monday that the campaign plans to check the temperature of everyone who enters the venue. They will also be providing hand sanitizer, and each attendee will receive a mask provided by the campaign, although they will not be required to wear it. 

Local and campaign officials tell CNN that more than a million people have RSVP’d to the rally. A local official involved in planning said they expected 100,000 to show up at the Bank of Oklahoma Arena on Saturday. The venue can hold just under 20,000.

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Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez will crack down on businesses and rental homes that violate safety orders such as wearing masks and maintaining social distancing, he said in a video message Thursday.

There is currently a 8.95% positive rate for testing and hospitalizations have risen to more than 600 in the county, Gimenez said.

Due to the uptick in cases and hospitalizations the mayor said authorities will shut down vacation rentals being used as “party homes,” Gimenez said.

Businesses will also need to comply or face enforcement and shut downs. 

“We’re not going back, we’re going to get tough,” Gimenez said. “People are getting way too comfortable…that does not mean that we can start breaking the rules”

Gimenez said that he has seen social media posts with people aggressively challenging business owners and neighbors when asked to use masks and wants people to enforce mask use.

He said that businesses should refuse to serve people who challenge their orders to use a mask.

The mayor also reminded everyone that the safer at home order is still in place and people should be staying at home whenever possible.

Scottsdale, Arizona, mayor Jim Lane is working with the municipal legal team to develop a mandatory public mask ordinance, according to the city.

In a series of tweets on Thursday, the city said “given the rise in COVID-19 cases throughout Maricopa County,” the mayor started working “with the city’s legal team to develop a mandatory public mask ordinance in Scottsdale.” 

No details were provided about where people might be required to wear face coverings. 

This announcement comes after Arizona reported a new record number of Covid-19 cases in a single day for the second time in this week, according to the Arizona Department of Health Services.

Here are the numbers: Maricopa County, where Scottsdale is located, represents more than half of the total confirmed Covid-19 cases in the state with 23,880 infections.

In this Feb. 27 photo, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine gives an update on coronavirus preparedness at MetroHealth Medical Center in Cleveland, Ohio.

Ohio reported 700 new Covid-19 cases on Thursday, bringing the statewide total to 43,122, according to Gov. Mike DeWine.

While there was a jump in cases over the last 24 hours, DeWine said statewide cases remain on a downward trend.

However, DeWine pointed out, that southwest Ohio is presenting as an exception to that downward trend.

The governor said the trendlines in Montgomery, Clark, Warren, Greene and Hamilton counties are “worrisome.”

In order to address the rising cases in those counties, the state is moving in more heavily with the Ohio National Guard to assist with testing at different sites and working with hospitals in the region to increase testing.

DeWine also announced a new personal protective equipment stockpile which will be compiled and stored by Ohio hospitals throughout the state and will be distributed to residents and staff at long-term care facilities should they see a spike in Covid-19 cases.

Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson speaks at a news conference at the state Capitol on Thursday, March 12.

Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson is extending the state’s public health emergency for another 45 days, he announced at a news conference on Thursday.

He also said there have been an additional 322 cases of Covid-19 on Thursday, bringing the total to 13,928. He added there are 11 new fatalities on Thursday, bringing the total to 208. Of the 11 new deaths, 10 people were age 65 and over.

Hutchinson highlighted a part of his executive order saying any restrictions put in place by cities and counties cannot be more restrictive than those put in place by the state.

The governor also said hospitals statewide are equipped to handle surges saying, “we do have in each of the hospitals, a surge plan. We have a statewide surge plan so if there’s any hospital that gets close to their limit on whether it’s ventilators or ICU units, then we have a plan to address that.”

North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper delivers a briefing on North Carolina's coronavirus pandemic response on Monday, June 15, in Raleigh, North Carolina.

North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper said during a press conference today that 1,333 new positive cases were identified and there are a total of 48,188 lab confirmed cases statewide.

He said there are 857 people in the hospital and a total of 1,170 people have died.

North Carolina’s Secretary of Health and Human Services Dr. Mandy Cohen said the hospitalization number was an all-time high. 

Cohen said the increase in positive cases is not solely due to increased testing as the percent positive rate for it is around 9%.

Cohen said the increase in cases is primarily among the younger population, between the ages 25 and 49.

People enter an office building in downtown Dallas, Texas, on May 27.

A new report published Thursday in the New England Journal of Medicine outlines what businesses and other institutions can do to safely resume operations amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

Employees and customers should do all the well-documented things known to help protect against the spread of disease: washing hands frequently, wearing masks, staying apart and making sure people stay home if they don’t feel well. But the report suggests employers may take disciplinary action against employees who don’t abide by these guidelines.

The report, written by healthcare lawyer Mark Barnes of Ropes & Gray LLP and Dr. Paul Sax, head of infectious diseases at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, also advises employers to offer or extend sick-leave benefits to encourage workers to stay at home when feeling sick.

Businesses can also place partitions or barriers between workers or between employees and customers and improve ventilation and air circulation, Barnes and Sax advised.  

Staggered work schedules can keep employees safer, as can accommodations to workers at a higher risk of getting seriously ill from the virus, including the option to work from home. Learning institutions should offer remote learning opportunities for students with underlying medical conditions.

There should be coordination between businesses and local governments about reopening schools, day care, and day treatment centers.

The use of mass transportation, as well as the social, religious and leisure activities of workers outside work hours are other big challenges businesses face when reopening, according to the report, which notes that many businesses have adopted daily temperature checks and health questionnaires to determine if an employee or customer represents a risk. For residential colleges or schools, the report recommends the institution provides a place where students can isolate before traveling home.

As for testing in the workplace, the report notes it “holds promise for controlling workplace transmission but also has serious limitations,” adding that when widely available, “antigen tests probably will have greater specificity but may have reduced sensitivity” compared to other tests. Once there’s an increase in testing capacity, employers can also deploy contact tracing in the workplace, the report said.

In this October 12, 2019 file photos, a Texas Longhorns flag waves during the 2019 AT&T Red River Showdown in Dallas, Texas.

The University of Texas confirmed on Thursday that 13 football student-athletes have tested positive or are “presumed positive” for Covid-19.

The statement released by the university added all 13 players are now self-isolating. Ten other football players will self-isolate due to contact tracing, “all of whom are asymptomatic at this time.” 

The 13 confirmed cases also include two positive cases which were reported in initial surveillance testing done by the university last week.

The university also said four other football student-athletes have tested positive for the Covid-19 antibody.

Some context: Big 12 conference football players were able to return to campuses for voluntary workouts on Monday. Kansas State reported eight student-athletes tested positive for coronavirus on Wednesday.

Women wearing face masks exit a shopping mall where a sign is posted at an entrance reminding people of the mask requirement Westfield Santa Anita shopping mall in Arcadia, California, on June 12.

A new, statewide order is in place requiring face coverings to be worn in most public settings, particularly those indoors, according to a news release from the governor’s office.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom is implementing the order in an effort to maintain the progress made in reopening the state’s economy, he said in the release.

Health personnel transfer a patient with symptoms of the new COVID-19 coronavirus after being admitted at a hospital in Santiago, Chile, on June 18.

Chile has recorded 4,475 new coronavirus cases and 226 fatalities, bringing the total number of cases in the country to 225,103 and the total deaths to 3,841, the Ministry of Health announced on Thursday.

Chile is currently the third country in Latin America with the highest number of cases after Brazil and Peru, and ranks ninth globally, according to the latest numbers by Johns Hopkins University. 

Authorities said there are currently 1,845 patients intensive care units, with 399 of them remaining in critical condition. Over the last 24 hours, 16,997 tests have been conducted, bringing the total number to 903,166.

Gov. Roy Cooper delivers a briefing on North Carolina's coronavirus pandemic response at the N.C. Emergency Operations Center in Raleigh, North Carolina on June 15.

All North Carolina Department of Corrections staff and inmates will be tested for coronavirus, Gov. Roy Cooper said during a news conference Thursday.

Testing has already begun for all 31,200 inmates and should take around 60 days to complete, Commissioner of Prisons Todd Ishee said during the news conference.

The testing will cost an estimated $3.3 million, Ishee said.

Tests will be analyzed by LabCorp and results will be directly uploaded to the corrections health system, according to Ishee.

So far 717 offenders have tested positive of the 2,809 that were tested, Ishee said.

Almost 10% of the population has already been tested, he said.

New Jersey reported 442 new positive cases of Covid-19 on Thursday, bringing the statewide total to 268,107 cases, Gov. Phil Murphy said in his daily presser.

Hospitalizations were back down in the state after an increase was reported on Wednesday.

The daily positivity rate and the transmission rate remained steady in the state at 2.94% and 0.75% respectively. 

The state reported 38 new deaths on Thursday, bringing the total number of lives lost to 12,800. Nearly half of those deaths — 6,117 — have been in long term care facilities, the governor noted. 

The National Football League has issued a statement regarding Dr. Anthony Fauci’s comments on Thursday saying, “football may not happen this year.”

Dr. Allen Sills, NFL chief medical officer, said in a statement that the organization will “make adjustments as necessary to meet the public health environment as we prepare to play the 2020 season.”

Sills continued: “Make no mistake, this is no easy task. We will make adjustments as necessary to meet the public health environment as we prepare to play the 2020 season as scheduled with increased protocols and safety measures for all players, personnel and attendees. We will be flexible and adaptable in this environment to adjust to the virus as needed.”

Some background: Earlier this week, Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told CNN’s Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta, “Unless players are essentially in a bubble — insulated from the community and they are tested nearly every day — it would be very hard to see how football is able to be played this fall. If there is a second wave, which is certainly a possibility and which would be complicated by the predictable flu season, football may not happen this year.”

In May, the NFL canceled all planned international games due to the pandemic, moving them instead to the US. The league had previously planned to play four games in London and one game in Mexico City.

Hear more:

A view of the empty parking lot at the Westfield Garden State Plaza in Paramus, New Jersey, on March 18.

The indoor portions of retail shopping malls in New Jersey may reopen on June 29, Gov. Phil Murphy announced Thursday in his daily news conference.  

All mall customers will be required to wear face coverings at all times while inside, and stores will be limited to 50% capacity.

Theaters and arcades will remain closed, and restaurants may provide take out or outdoor dining.

“Certainly malls are part of New Jersey culture and lure. I think as much here if not more so than any American state,” Murphy said.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo speaks at a daily news conference in New York, on June 18.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is considering a possible quarantine on people entering New York state as the virus continues to spread.

Reminding reporters about other states, including Florida, which issued a mandatory quarantine on New Yorkers coming to their states approximately 100 days ago, Cuomo acknowledged that experts have advised him to issue a quarantine for people coming to the state and he is considering it now.

He called it a “full 180.”

Arizona health officials have reported a new single-day high for coronavirus cases for the second time in this week, according to the state Department of Health Services.  

Thursday’s case count marks the state’s highest total reported in a single day, behind Tuesday’s 2,392, according to the health website. 

More than 75% of Florida’s Adult Intensive Care Unit beds are occupied, according to state data provided by the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration.

Today, the state reported having 22.86% availability of adult ICU beds available in hospitals across the state, the report stated. The data is current as of 10:30 a.m. ET Thursday.

General hospital beds are at nearly 75% capacity across the state, according to AHCA. 

This comes as Florida reported more than 3,000 new cases of Covid-19 on Thursday. 

A teacher collects personal belongings and supplies needed to continue remote teaching through the end of the school year at Yung Wing School P.S.124 in New York, on June 09.

New York state is issuing guidelines Thursday to allow some residential and face-to-face programming for fall reopenings, according to Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

Colleges and universities planning for fall returns must develop plans and submit those to the state for approval.

Those colleges and universities must submit reopen plans, monitor plans, containment plans and shutdown plans.

Cuomo cautioned the state still needs more data, but it is starting to prepare plans for K-12 schools as well.

He did not provide specifics on K-12 schools.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo speaks at a daily news conference in New York, on June 18.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is signing two executive orders to help enforce social distancing rules and regulations as the state, and New York City, continue to reopen. On Thursday, Cuomo cited the two biggest issues statewide: Compliance by people and enforcement by local government.

The first executive order will allow the State Liquor Authority (SLA) to immediately suspend alcohol licenses if bars or restaurants are violating the rules. For other businesses violating the rules, they could have an immediate shut down order.

The second executive order makes bars responsible for the area immediately in front of their premises including the sidewalk and SLA can enforce this.

The governor said he wants to help ensure there is not a slide back and people don’t get careless.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo speaking during his daily press conference on June 18, 2020.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said that yesterday the state tested the most people in one day, yet and had the lowest percent positive test results “since we have started.”

By the numbers: On Wednesday, Gov. Cuomo said New York conducted 68,541 tests and only 618 came back positive — a .90% positivity rate across the state.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said that while a final decision will not be made until tomorrow, New York City businesses should prepare to begin phase two of reopening on Monday.

Cuomo said experts will review the city’s data to determine if it’s meeting key metrics for reopening — but added that “all the indications are good.”

Earlier today, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio told reporters the city is set to begin phase two next week.

Here’s a look at what will reopen under phase two:

A resident has their blood drawn for an antibody test for the coronavirus - also called a serology test - on June 16, 2020 in Washington, DC. 

People who have coronavirus infections but never develop symptoms could have weaker immune responses to the virus, a new study suggests.

The small study, published in the journal Nature Medicine on Thursday, found that a group of about three dozen Covid-19 patients who were asymptomatic had levels of antibodies that were significantly lower than what was found among patients who had mild symptoms — a finding that suggests the asymptomatic patients had weaker immune responses.

The researchers, from various institutions in Chongqing, China, also found that the asymptomatic patients had a significantly longer duration of viral shedding — in which they could spread the coronavirus to others – than the symptomatic patients.

The new study included data on 37 Covid-19 patients who were diagnosed before April 10 and developed no symptoms while isolated at a hospital in the Wanzhou District of Chongqing, China. Their health data, taken from blood samples and other tests, were compared with 37 other Covid-19 patients who had mild symptoms.

The data showed that, even though the asymptomatic patients were experiencing no symptoms, they were still shedding the coronavirus — meaning they were infectious — for a median duration of 19 days. That duration of viral shedding was significantly longer than what was found among the patients with mild symptoms, which was 14 days, according to the study.

The data also suggested that certain antibody levels among the asymptomatic patients were significantly lower relative to the symptomatic patients. Antibodies, which are proteins that circulate in your blood to help fight off infections, can hold clues to your body’s immune response.

Among the asymptomatic patients, 81.1% had reductions in their neutralizing antibody levels during the eight weeks after being discharged from the hospital — compared with 62.2% of the symptomatic patients. The researchers found some other differences in the patients’ health data, suggesting that “asymptomatic individuals had a weaker immune response” to the coronavirus. 

The study had some limitations, including that it involved a small number of patients and antibody testing itself is not always 100% accurate. But overall, the researchers wrote in their study that the findings suggest there are potential risks to using “immunity passports” based on antibodies and “support the prolongation of public health interventions, including social distancing, hygiene, isolation of high-risk groups and widespread testing.”

Eleanor Riley, a professor of immunology and infectious disease at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, said that the new study’s findings are not surprising.

“The data are in line with several recently reported studies suggesting that those with mild or asymptomatic infections make a less robust antibody response to SARS-CoV-2 than those with more severe disease,” Riley said in a written statement distributed by the UK-based Science Media Centre on Thursday.

“The really interesting question, to which we don’t yet have an answer, is why some people develop such mild infections,” Riley said in part. “It may be that they are genetically less susceptible to infection or that they have some pre-existing immunity due to prior infection with related seasonal coronaviruses.”

Beachgoers on South Beach on June 10, 2020 in Miami Beach, Florida as the area eased restrictions put in place to contain COVID-19.

The Florida Department of Health is reporting an additional 3,207 cases of coronavirus on Thursday, bringing the state total to 85,926, according to data released by the state. 

As of Wednesday, the state of Florida had reported a total of 82,719 cases. 

Thursday’s numbers mark the highest number of reported cases in a single day the state has seen, according to to the Florida Department of Health. 

A shopper wearing a face mask walks through the Mall of America on June 16, 2020 in Bloomington, Minnesota, after some of the shops at the mall reopened on June 10.

States need to figure how to protect people from Covid-19 while still continuing to reopen economically, Dr. Colleen Kraft, associate chief medical officer at Emory University Hospital, said on CNN today.

Kraft said she doesn’t think the US “can survive another shelter-in-place economically” when asked about the uptick in new coronavirus cases in places like Florida. 

Kraft urged people to wear masks and carry hand sanitizers in an effort to reduce transmissions, despite claims from President Trump that the virus “is dying out.” 

“Please understand that you have within your abilities to make a difference and diminish transmission. Wearing a mask or not wearing a mask shouldn’t be how you’re going to vote in the upcoming election. It’s really about protecting yourself from an infection,” she said.

An empty restaurant is seen in Brooklyn on May 12.

New York City is set to begin phase two of reopening on Monday, Mayor Bill de Blasio said.

The mayor said he woke up to good news of the city’s Covid-19 indicators being down and that means the city is ready to enter phase two. 

Phase two includes opening restaurants for outdoor seating, hair salons and barbershops along with a host of other businesses, de Blasio said.

De Blasio also said he signed an executive order this morning allowing restaurants to open and have outdoor seating. 

Restaurants will be able to use outdoor areas for seating. Here are some of those details:

Businesses will work with the Department of Transportation to work on seating. 

New coronavirus cases are spiking in some states across the US, even as President Trump claimed the virus is “dying out.”

“If you look, the numbers are very minuscule compared to what it was. It’s dying out,” Trump said yesterday.

But as coronavirus cases remain high in the US, other countries in Europe and across the world are seeing clear downward trends in the number of new confirmed coronavirus cases.

Here’s a look at where things stand:

And here’s a closer look the number of new confirmed cases across the US and in other countries:

Residents have their blood drawn for coronavirus antibody tests in Washington on June 16.

A new report from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health offers up a national strategy for expanding coronavirus antibody testing across the United States, and recommends that the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lead a “consistent, standardized effort” to perform such testing nationwide.

Antibody tests, also called serologic tests or serosurveys, look for evidence of an immune response to coronavirus infection and then use that evidence to determine if you have been infected with the virus in the past, even if you never developed symptoms or had an official diagnosis. A serosurvey then can show what proportion of the population has been previously infected.

The new report, published online Thursday and authored by eight experts affiliated with Johns Hopkins University, describes the value of serosurveys and provides recommendations for the US government and states on how to effectively perform these tests amid the Covid-19 crisis.

The report acknowledged that “budget must be carefully considered” when designing serosurveys, which can be expensive – possibly costing up to millions of dollars, depending on the size, cost of tests and storing samples, among other factors. Serosurveys for the common flu can cost about $3.53 million for one project, for example, and surveillance studies for HIV can cost about $708,000 for one project, according to the report.

The report also noted that once serosurveys are conducted, the US government should create a central repository or database for the new data being collected to reside – and the CDC could lead the way in designing the serosurveys and their protocols.

“A central repository, similar to that found in ClinicalTrials.gov, would be a valuable resource to include all serosurveys, including their methodology, timelines, and purpose. A systematic method of entering data on serosurveys would then allow studies to be easily compared and could also allow individuals to access serosurveys in their area,” the researchers wrote in the report. “Right now, states are designing and initiating their own studies, but having a consistent protocol for carrying out serosurveys would make findings more valuable.”

The report added that employers and universities using antibody tests “should be strongly encouraged to register their studies” in that central repository.

The report also emphasized that validating serological tests remains critical for ensuring that tests are indeed producing accurate results. In early May, the US Food and Drug Administration announced that the National Cancer Institute would be helping to validate antibody tests on the market – yet no results from those validation studies so far have been made public, according to the Johns Hopkins report. The report says, “The FDA, NIH, CDC, and NCI should release the results of their antibody test validation study.”

Overall, the researchers wrote that “serosurveys can generate valuable data on the true prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 infection that can better inform public health decisions at a population level.”

People walk by the New York Stock Exchange on June 15.

US stocks opened lower on Thursday, with the Dow and the S&P on track to add onto their losses from the prior session. Both indexes snapped a three-day winning streak Wednesday as momentum in the market fizzled out.

Stocks had been rallying on high hopes for the reopening of the economy. But rising numbers of Covid-19 cases in some areas around the world put a damper on this optimism.

Jobless claims data didn’t move the needle much for stocks, either. Another 1.5 million Americans filed for first-time unemployment benefits last week, bringing the total number of initial claims to more than 45 million since mid-March.

Here’s how the markets opened:

On Wednesday, President Trump supporters are seen camping outside the venue for his upcoming rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Days before President Trump is set to hold a massive campaign rally in Tulsa, the city and Oklahoma are seeing record numbers of new coronavirus cases.

Oklahoma is among nine other states that are seeing record-high seven-day averages of new coronavirus cases per day, according to a CNN analysis of data from Johns Hopkins University.

In Tulsa, ninety-six residents tested positive for Covid-19 in the past day, Dr. Bruce Dart of the Tulsa Health Department said yesterday in a news conference.

That was a new daily record for the county, according to Dart. He said the number of cases reported are continuing to set new records. 

Trump’s campaign is moving forward with plans for Saturday night’s event in Tulsa despite complaints from local officials and dire warnings from public health experts about the dangers of packing 20,000 people into cramped indoor quarters amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Dart issued a warning yesterday ahead of the rally saying that “anyone planning to attend a large scale gathering will face an increased risk of becoming infected with Covid-19.”

Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt said in a news conference yesterday that more than 1 million requests have been made to attend the rally.

Stitt will be at a roundtable today at the White House on reopening, according to White House deputy press secretary Judd Deere. 

Some background: Rallygoers that RSVP for the event ahead of time must agree to a disclaimer that is designed to absolve the campaign of liability should an attendee contract the virus. 

Campaign officials say they have plans to take the temperature of every person who enters the building as well as offer hand sanitizer and masks. Wearing the masks, however, will not be required and the campaign concedes that there will be no attempt at social distancing.

A judge on Tuesday denied an emergency motion to stop Trump’s campaign rally. The decision came after local lawyers asked the court to block the event unless organizers agreed to take steps to adhere to the administration’s own social distancing recommendations to limit the spread of coronavirus.

Despite these concerns, the Trump team said it believes now is the time to turn the page on the coronavirus.

“The freedom of speech, the right to peacefully assemble is enshrined in the First Amendment of the Constitution and the President and I are very confident that we’re going to be able to restart these rallies to tell the story of what the President has done thorough these unprecedented times but also over the last three and a half years,” Pence told Fox.

Kansas State announced on Wednesday that eight of its student-athletes tested positive for Covid-19. The university confirmed the positive cases after testing 130 student-athletes through June 17. 

“Kansas State Athletics has confirmed that a total of eight student-athletes have tested positive for active COVID-19 following PCR (polymerase chain reaction) testing of approximately 130 student-athletes through June 17,” the university said.

The school added: “Each student-athlete that tests positive is medically managed according to current local, state, national, and CDC guidelines, which begins with self-isolation for 10 days and until the patient is without fever for 72 hours without medication, whichever takes longer. These guidelines would also include quarantine for any individuals known to have been in contact with someone who tested positive.”

After Kansas State reported two student-athletes had tested positive for coronavirus one day before on Tuesday, the school’s athletic director Gene Taylor said in a statement: “We will always keep our focus on the health and well-being of our student-athletes and staff, a small number of positive tests was something that we were anticipating based on what we are seeing from across college football, and our medical staff and coaching staffs are well-prepared for the next steps. While we know this is a very fluid situation, we have a great plan in place and all of our student-athletes have done their part in following the correct procedures to return to campus.”

Football players had returned to the school for voluntary workouts on Monday but after the most recent cases, student-athletes will not be allowed to work out on campus until July 1.

People walk past empty chairs at the beach Benidorm, Spain, on June 15.

The Spanish government announced a plan to boost its hard-hit tourism sector, worth 4.25 billion euros, nearly $4.8 billion, on Thursday.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez announced “an essential plan to help tourism,” calling tourism “one of our biggest strengths.”

Tourism has been among the hardest hit economic sectors by the Covid-19 pandemic, representing about 12% of the country’s GDP, and employing more than 13% of Spain’s workers, according to the government’s statistics.

Some 1.2 million people will benefit from the plan, which is part of Spain’s social and economic Covid-19 reconstruction scheme as it transitions out of the crisis, according to the government’s press release.

Some 200,000 euros will go toward health safety schemes and measures to prevent the spread of Covid-19, including practical steps such as disinfection and cleaning, to “ensure safe and sustainable tourism,” as outlined in the government’s plan.

The provisions in the plan include loan guarantees for businesses in the tourism industry, to benefit both companies and workers, some 25 million euros worth of incentives for airlines, Spain’s airports authority AENA will reduce landing fees, 859 million euros will go to sustainability and renewable energies, as well as modernizing and digitalizing the industry.

The government says the plan announced today will bring the aid committed to the tourism sector since the start of the pandemic to a total of 19.53 billion euros.

Spain will reopen its borders from most European Union countries on June 21, when the country’s state of emergency, in place since mid-March, will be lifted.

Dr. Anthony Fauci attends a White House coronavirus briefing in April.

The process of getting a United States coronavirus vaccine candidate into a Phase I trial was at record speed, according to the nation’s top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci.

Here is how the process went, according to Fauci:

Fauci explained that there are “a number of steps to develop a vaccine” and the reason the US was able to do the process so quickly was because they proceeded at “what’s called at-risk. Not at-risk for safety, not at-risk for scientific integrity, but at-risk for finances.”

Fauci continued: “What happens is that in the standard way of developing a vaccine, you don’t jump to invest in the next step until you’re pretty sure that the step you’re in is working,” Fauci said. “Given the fact that we needed to do this as quickly as possible without sacrificing safety or scientific integrity, the federal government partnered with multiple of these companies and said, ‘Guess what, we’re going to move fast and we’re going to assume we’re going to be successful. And if we are, we’ve saved several months. And if we’re not, the only thing we’ve lost is money. But better lose money than lose lives by delaying the vaccine.’ So, right now, the initial data from the study showed that — it makes me cautiously optimistic that we can induce a response that would be protective.”

Winnie Byanyima is the executive director of The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS).

The coronavirus pandemic could set back some HIV preventions 10 years, Winnie Byanyima, executive director of The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), said during a Thursday briefing.

Byanyima said if countries continue to face financial pressure and drop important HIV health services in order to fight the coronavirus pandemic, it could be catastrophic.

“We’ve estimated that within six months, we could have additional deaths, AIDS related deaths, of up to half a million — on top of what we have already,” she continued.

 “So there is a need to keep both to get the fight against both epidemics, going at the same time,” Byanyima added.

“Coronavirus has found Africa weak health-wise and weak economically,” she said. “We have the highest burden of HIV in the whole world. And also, highest burden or other diseases as well.”

 “Africa has a difficult situation. And this is not to mention locusts, floods, landslides, droughts — that have also been hitting us as we fight the coronavirus,” she said.

If more people wore masks in the United States, that could be key in slowing the spread of Covid-19, Dr. Scott Gottlieb, former commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration, said during an appearance on “Morning Joe” Thursday.

“Another study that came out recently, a mathematical modeling study, looked at the same question and found if you can get 50% of people to wear effective masks, you would get the reproduction number under one,” Gottlieb continued. “Any mask is helpful, but the more protective the mask, the better.”

Some background: Earlier this month, the World Health Organization recommended nations encourage the general public to wear masks in areas where there continues to be intense spread of the novel coronavirus — and for all health workers and caregivers to wear masks during their shifts.

The new guidance recommends for a healthy person to wear fabric masks — which can be homemade — that are at least three layers: an inner layer of an absorbent material such as cotton; a middle layer that acts like a filter or barrier, such as non-woven material polypropylene; and an outer layer of a non-absorbent material, such as polyester or polyester blend.

WHO currently recommends medical masks for health workers, anyone with symptoms, someone caring for someone who is sick, and people who are considered “at-risk,” which includes adults 60 and older, and anyone with underlying health conditions.

Mounted police officers sit in outside the Royal Exchange and the Bank of England in London on June 17, 2020.

The British central bank said Thursday it is expanding its bond buying program by an additional £100 billion pounds — about $125 billion — to boost the country’s economy during the pandemic and try to meet its inflation target.

Thursday’s expansion brings the BOE’s bond buying program to a total of £745 billion pounds, or $928 billion.

The announcement comes days after the UK reported grim GDP numbers with the UK economy contracting 20.4% in April.

The Bank of England said it expects that GDP will start to recover after April as consumer spending picks up but warned that the employment outlook for the coming quarters remains weak, adding that a greater number of workers are likely to be furloughed in the second quarter.

The BOE said that the lifting of restrictions, along with recent additional announcements of monetary easing and fiscal policy, will help support the global economy but that risks remain “from the spread of Covid-19 within emerging market economies and from a return to a higher rate of infection in advanced economies.”

The bank kept interest rates unchanged at the record low of 0.1%

Covid-19 hot spots are growing in the south and southwest regions of the United States, Dr. Scott Gottlieb, former commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration, said during an appearance on “Morning Joe” Thursday.

“Certainly in the states where you haven’t seen as much infection to date, that weren’t as hard hit, I think there’s more complacency and there’s higher risk of spread. I think that’s what’s happening in the south and the southwest,” Gottlieb continued. “There are parts of the country right now that have full-blown outbreaks underway. When you look at what’s happening in parts of Florida; parts of Texas, Houston and the Austin area; when you look at what’s happening in Arizona as well, Alabama, South Carolina — those are outbreaks”

Gottlieb added that “we have a lot of persistent infection in this country; we’re diagnosing 20,000 cases a day,” and he said that targeted measures, such as limiting the capacity of bars to 50% or less, would be needed to help curb outbreaks.

“We’re not really implementing the kind of tough measures, targeted measures, that can get those outbreaks under control yet,” Gottlieb said.

A City of Tshwane Health official stands at the mobile testing unit while waiting to conduct tests for the COVID-19 coronavirus at the Bloed Street Mall in Pretoria Central Business District, on June 11, 2020.

Eight countries account for 84% of the coronavirus cases across the African region, Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, World Health Organization Regional Director for Africa said during a Thursday briefing.

Across the 47 countries in the Africa region, there are more than 265,000 cases and 7,000 people have died, Moeti said.

“The majority of new cases are being reported in specific hotspot, provinces and districts in the countries concerned,” she said. Those countries include South Africa, Nigeria, Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire and Cameroon.

But other countries in the region are seeing little to no cases, Moeti said. “There is great disparity in the way that countries are affected by the pandemic.”

“Seychelles, for example, has not reported a new case for more than 70 days — that’s over a couple of months. Mauritius has not reported a new case in 10 days. And countries like Namibia and the Gambia are reporting very few new cases.”

Moeti said a cluster of cases in refugee camps in South Sudan is “a matter of great concern.”

“The situation in which people are living in refugee camps, the type of housing that they have, and the challenges that could arise then with interventions like social distancing” make refugee camps a top priority, she said.

Moeti said WHO is “working on a global humanitarian response plan that was launched by the Secretary General, to mobilize the resources that are needed to make sure that the interventions that need to be put in place, are put in place in refugee camps first.” 

Labor organizations circle around the US Capitol during a car caravan for racial and economic justice on June 17, 2020 in Washington, DC.

At least 1.5 million Americans filed for first-time unemployment benefits last week, bringing the total claims filed to 45.7 million since mid-March, when the coronavirus pandemic forced the US economy to shut down

Continued jobless claims, which count workers who filed for benefits for at least two weeks a row, slipped to 20.5 million, from 20.6 million in the week prior.

The head of the House’s select committee on the coronavirus crisis is demanding unemployment and economic projections that the Trump administration had planned to leave out of its traditional mid-session economic forecast.

Democratic Rep. Jim Clyburn, the committee chairman, sent a letter on Wednesday requesting “the unemployment and economic projections that the White House has reportedly decided to omit from the annual mid-session budget update so Congress can seek effective solutions to help struggling Americans and prevent further economic damage.”

The “mid-session review” usually comes over the summer after the winter release of the President’s budget proposal, and includes updated projections on unemployment and growth.

Clyburn sent the letter to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, acting Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers Tomas Philipson and acting Director of the Office of Management and Budget Russell Vought, requesting that they tell the committee by June 21 “whether the Administration will include a comprehensive set” of the projections consistent with previous years.

If they don’t confirm the projections’ inclusion, Clyburn added, the committee requests that they provide by July 2 “all economic projections for calendar years 2020 to 2030,” projections by industry or sector and all documentation on “whether to issue economic forecasts this year.”

CNN has reached out to the Treasury Department and OMB for comment.

The letter cites news from last month that the White House will forgo issuing the economic projections, which would likely show the effects of the coronavirus downturn, as two officials familiar with the matter told CNN. The Washington Post first reported on the decision to forgo the usual forecast this year.

The officials told CNN at the time that the coronavirus had injected too much uncertainty into the economy to allow for accurate projections. Instead, the report will likely include a summary of the current economic conditions and information about relief legislation enacted by the administration.

Clyburn said in the letter that President Trump and the administration had characterized the economy as improving, “yet the Administration is withholding underlying economic and employment projections that every other modern President, Democrat and Republican, has released to the public.”

He added that in light of congressional programs like the $600 weekly unemployment increase ending in July, “it is essential to have comprehensive data in order to assess the effectiveness of enacted programs in ameliorating economic pain and to determine what more Congress should do.”

Beachgoers sunbathe in Miami Beach, Florida on June 16, 2020.

The potential for Florida to emerge as an epicenter of Covid-19 “could have catastrophic consequences,” said Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo, director of the division of infectious diseases at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

Marrazzo explained the spike of new cases in Florida is concerning because of the state’s aging population and the prevalence of nursing homes, geriatric care centers and retirement communities. 

Dr. Anthony Fauci listens during a speech by President Donald Trump about coronavirus vaccine development in the Rose Garden of the White House on May 15, 2020 in Washington, DC. 

As the coronavirus pandemic continues to spread in the US, the nation’s top infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci says that anti-science bias in the country is causing problems.

“So when they see someone up in the White House, which has an air of authority to it, who’s talking about science, that there are some people who just don’t believe that – and that’s unfortunate because, you know, science is truth,” said Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

Fauci, who has served six US administrations so far, was seemingly referring to his appearances in White House press conferences during the coronavirus pandemic.

“It’s amazing sometimes the denial there is, it’s the same thing that gets people who are anti-vaxxers, who don’t want people to get vaccinated, even though the data clearly indicate the safety of vaccines,” Fauci added. “That’s really a problem.”

A Dallas Cowboys helmet at AT&T Stadium on October 14, 2018 in Arlington, Texas.

 Dr. Anthony Fauci says it’s “very hard to see how” football could be played this fall.

This comes as the defending Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs are scheduled to kick off the 2020 regular season at home on September 10 against the Houston Texans. Players are due to NFL training camp on July 22 with the Hall of Fame Game taking place in Canton, Ohio, on August 6.

And the NCAA, which began to allow voluntary athletics activities in all Division I sports this month, on Wednesday approved a plan for summer athletic activities and preseason practice for the upcoming 2020 college football season, which is slated to get underway on August 29.

On Monday, several Dallas Cowboys and Houston Texans players tested positive for coronavirus, according to NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport and Tom Pelissero. None of the players were in the teams’ facilities, and both teams followed proper health protocols, per the report.

When asked how the positive tests impact the league planning in terms of beginning training camps and the upcoming season, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell told ESPN on Monday, “We expect we are going to have positive tests. That is part of the increased testing that we will be going through and that is something that we just want to make sure that our protocols are working and to date. We are seeing very positive reactions in the sense that we are making sure we respond quickly, protect the personnel that may be impacted by that and others that may be in contact with them.” 

In a memo in May, Goodell provided protocols on a gradual reopening of team facilities, starting with a limited amount of employees, and later moving on to players. The league expanded the reopening earlier this month to allow coaches to return to training facilities.

In May, the NFL canceled all planned international games due to the pandemic, moving them instead to the US. The league had previously planned to play four games in London and one game in Mexico City.

If both NFL and college football seasons are able to finish, the Super Bowl will be played on February 7 in Tampa, Florida. The College Football Playoff National Championship game takes place on January 11 in Miami Gardens, Florida. 

A man wearing a face mask to curb the spread of the coronavirus takes the opportunity to sell umbrellas as it rains in Beijing on Thursday, June 18, 2020. 

The novel coronavirus has infected more than 8.3 million people worldwide and caused more than 449,000 deaths. Here’s what you need to know:

UK accuses Russia of trying to exploit pandemic: British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said Thursday that Russia and others were trying to exploit the opportunities and challenges created by Covid-19.

China says Beijing outbreak is under control: The country’s Center For Disease Control and Prevention says that while new cases are likely to emerge in the coming days, these are unlikely to be caused by fresh transmission.

Indigenous Amazon chief dies: Paulinho Paiakan, a chief from an indigenous community in Brazil, has died in an area where several tribal elders have died of Covid-19. It is not known whether Paiakan died of coronavirus.

Doctors in Egypt face harassment: Amnesty International has urged the Egyptian government to stop jailing medical workers who criticize the country’s response to the pandemic.

Seven million airline jobs at risk in Europe: The International Air Transport Association said Thursday that the European airline industry could face a $23.1 billion loss in 2020.

People wait to take a swab for COVID-19 at a testing site in Beijing on June 18.

China’s Center For Disease Control and Prevention [CDC] has said a new outbreak in Beijing is now under control.

A sudden outbreak of the disease in the Chinese capital has been linked to the city’s largest wholesale food market, Xinfadi. The flare-up is the worst coronavirus resurgence in China since the initial epidemic was largely brought under control in March.

Chief epidemiologist Wu Zunyou said Thursday that the situation was under control, adding that newly confirmed cases linked to the market would likely emerge in the coming days, but that these were unlikely to be caused by fresh transmission.

The CDC chief epidemiologist said other outbreaks could happen across China because of the nature of the global pandemic and the risk of imported cases.

“The global pandemic is still at a high level. On average, there are more than 100,000 new cases reported every day. As long as there are risks of imported cases, imported infections and small-scale clusters caused by imported infections might occur anywhere in China,” he said.  

The expert praised the actions of the Beijing authorities in taking rapid action to cut off the transmission of the virus. 

Beijing has embarked on a mass testing spree of some 356,000 people connected to the market. The site itself has been closed and several nearby neighbourhoods were sealed to contain the outbreak.

Hospital beds are prepared to receive COVID-19 patients at a field hospital in Cairo, Egypt, on June 17.

Human rights group Amnesty International called on the Egyptian government Thursday to stop jailing and harassing doctors who criticize the government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic.

“Health care workers have to make an impossible choice: risk their lives or face prison if they dare to speak out,” Philip Luther, Amnesty International’s Research and Advocacy Director for the Middle East and North Africa said in a statement.

At least eight health workers have been “arbitrarily detained” in Egypt since March for “expressing their health-related concerns” on social media, according to the rights advocacy group.

Medical workers face charges such as “spreading false news” and “terrorism,” Amnesty International added.

The Egyptian Doctors’ Syndicate said Wednesday that at least 73 medical workers had died in the country due to coronavirus.

The group sent an official letter on Sunday to the country’s Prosecutor General demanding the release of medical workers who were jailed for “expressing their opinion” about the pandemic.

Health care workers in Egypt are also subjected to attacks by patients’ angry family members, the syndicate said.

Dar al-Iftaa, the country’s highest religious authority, has issued a religious edict – a fatwa – against assaulting medical workers.

Egypt has recorded 49,219 cases of coronavirus and 1,850 deaths according to Johns Hopkins University.

Travelers wait in a departure lounge at Berlin Shoenfeld Airport on June 15.

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) has warned that the economic fallout from the pandemic may not be over for European airlines.

IATA predicts a $23.1 billion loss for the European airline industry in 2020, with passenger demand declining by half, putting up to 7 million jobs at risk in Europe alone.

Air traffic remains much lower than last year and the recovery is going to be very slow despite a slight upturn since a low point in April, IATA said on Thursday.

IATA repeated its calls for a coordinated response from European governments as countries begin to open their borders. The group also called for continued financial support for the industry. 

The association reiterated that quarantine measures were damaging for airlines, adding that 70% of people in France, 76% in Germany and 83% in the UK will not travel if they remain in place, according to a survey.

Argentine President Alberto Fernandez is pictured speaking at a press conference about coronavirus lockdown measures in Olivos, Argentina, on May 23.

Argentinian President Alberto Fernandez is self-isolating from Wednesday at his official residence Quinta de Olivos, according to a statement released by the Casa Rosada, seat of executive power in the country.

The measure was recommended by Dr. Federico Saavedra from Argentina’s Presidential Medical Unit.

According to a statement released by Saavedra, Fernandez will “continue to carry out his usual tasks in his residence and to restrict as much as possible interpersonal contact.” 

Face-to-face meetings will only be held if they are matters of vital importance.

As part of the isolation measures Fernandez will not travel to the port city of Rosario to attend celebrations marking the Day of the Flag, a traditional Argentinian holiday.

Several Argentinian politicians have tested positive for coronavirus, including several mayors who were supposed to meet Fernandez last week.

Argentina currently has more than 35,500 confirmed Covid-19 cases and 913 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University. 

German Chancellor Angela Merkel addresses parliament in Berlin, Germany, on Thursday, June 18.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel says the coronavirus pandemic has deepened inequality within the European Union (EU) and has called on member states to agree on an economic recovery package before the end of July.

Speaking in Germany’s lower house of parliament – the Bundestag – on Thursday, Merkel said the EU’s approach to the crisis will determine the region’s place in the world. 

Merkel also laid out her vision of Germany’s presidency of the European Union in the second half of this year.

She said the coronavirus pandemic and economic fallout remains “the biggest challenge in the EU’s history.” The German leader also warned that the union needs to work together to keep EU member states from drifting apart.

Merkel added that the situation has also exacerbated differences in EU member states’ economies and budgets.

EU leaders are debating a proposal for a 750 billion euro aid package designed to help the 27 member states to recover from the coronavirus pandemic. 

European finance ministers have previously struggled to agree a response to the economic impact of Covid-19.

Merkel said she would join her counterparts on a video conference on Friday to debate the proposal, which needs the backing of all individual EU member states. The German Chancellor said she was expecting an agreement on the recovery plan in July. 

Merkel warned that the bloc must also take on more global responsibility and speak with one voice to China to represent its values. 

“At this time, the world needs Europe’s strong voice for the protection of human dignity, democracy and freedom,” Merkel said.

Indigenous leader Paulinho Paiakan of the Kayapo community takes part in a demonstration for indigenous people's rights in Brasilia, Brazil, in April 2017.

A chief of Brazil’s indigenous Kayapó community has died, according to advocacy group Articulation of the Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (APIB). 

Paulinho Paiakan, 66, died Wednesday in Redenção, a town in Brazil’s southern Pará state. He had recently been hospitalized for coronavirus, Brazil’s Health Ministry said.

Several tribal elders have died of coronavirus in the state and the disease has been spreading among indigenous communities there, according to CNN Brasil. It is not known whether Paiakan died of coronavirus.

Paiakan was known for his environmental activism, particularly for drawing attention to the cost of building the Belo Monte hydroelectric plant on the Amazon’s Xingu River in the 1980s. 

Brazil’s indigenous people are dying at an alarming rate from Covid-19. The mortality rate is double that of the rest of Brazil’s population, according to APIB, which tracks the number of cases and deaths among the country’s 900,000 indigenous people.

The country has the second-highest number of cases globally. At least 955,377 coronavirus cases have been recorded in Brazil and 46,510 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University.

Many diseases, including Covid-19, can attack men and women in different ways. Why this is depends on a complex mix of biology and behavior that can be difficult to untangle.

But we do know that these differences are more likely to be considered if medical research involves female scientists, which makes the current state of scientific endeavor on Covid-19, where women are more underrepresented as authors than ever, all the more worrying.

The numbers are clear: Some 1,370 papers have been published in medical journals about Covid-19 involving 6,722 authors but only 34% of these were female, according to research published last week by Ana-Catarina Pinho-Gomes, a researcher at The George Institute for Global Health at the University of Oxford.

It’s a problem that goes beyond gender equity and fairness. It could impact how we understand the coronavirus itself, said Pinho-Gomes.

The numbers skew a playing field that wasn’t level before the pandemic. And it’s not just female scientists underrepresented — even the lab rats are likely to be male.

Read more here.

An American Airlines plane at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport on March 20, 2020 in Dallas, Texas.

Tension over wearing face masks led to a passenger’s removal from an American Airlines flight as airlines enforce stricter safety measures.

Passenger Brandon Straka was asked to get off a flight from New York to Dallas after he refused to wear a face covering as required by American Airlines policy, the airline confirmed in a statement. 

This is the first known incident of this type since the airlines announced plans to more strictly enforce mask wearing. 

Wearing face coverings on planes is not mandated by law, but airlines have instituted their own mask requirements for crew and passengers. This week, several major US carriers, including American Airlines, pledged that they will take a harder line on enforcing their policies.

“This is insane. Absolutely insane,” Straka said in a Periscope post on social media. “We don’t even have a choice anymore.”

Read the full story:

Planes sit on the tarmac at La Guardia Airport on January 25, 2019 in New York. - The Federal Aviation Administration has stopped flights into La Guardia Airport in New York due to major staff shortages amid the partial government shutdown. Airport delays are reported across the northeast due to air tragic controller shortage. (Photo by KENA BETANCUR / AFP) (Photo credit should read KENA BETANCUR/AFP via Getty Images)

Related article A passenger was removed from a flight for refusing to wear a face mask

British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said that Russia and others are trying to exploit the opportunities and challenges created by the coronavirus pandemic.

But he said that he doesn’t think their actions have had an impact in the UK.

Nursultan Nazarbayev, the first president of Kazakhstan, is self-isolating after testing positive for coronavirus, his office said in a statement today.

The statement added that Nazarbayev is working remotely.

Nazarbayev has dominated politics in the Central Asian republic for three decades. The Kazakh leader stepped down as president in 2019 but retains the chairmanship of the country’s Security Council and wields substantial power behind the scenes. 

German Chancellor Angela Merkel speaks during a sitting of the Bundestag, Germany's lower house of parliament in Berlin on June 18.

Germany will keep its social distancing rules in place and extend the ban on large events until at least the end of October to curb a potential second wave of coronavirus infections, Chancellor Angela Merkel said.

She was speaking after a meeting in Berlin with the premiers of Germany’s 16 states. Merkel urged caution as the country moved toward further easing of coronavirus restrictions. 

Physical distancing rules will remain in place across Germany and large events – where contact tracing and distancing are not possible – will remain banned until at least the end of October, the chancellor said.

Merkel added that infection numbers have stabilized at low levels.

Outbreak at a meat plant: In northern Germany, Toennies – the owner of one of the country’s biggest meat processing plants – said it was closing after an abattoir registered that some 400 of its workers tested positive for the virus. The local authority closed schools and kindergartens as a precaution.

Economic woes: Merkel said that the pandemic has hit the German economy hard. “The negative impact on the economy is the most serious we have ever experienced in the history of the federal republic,” Merkel said.

Germany has managed to keep its coronavirus death toll relatively low despite a high number of cases. The country’s Robert Koch Institute for infectious diseases reported 580 new cases within the past 24 hours and 26 deaths.

The number of confirmed cases in Germany stands at 187,764, with 174,100 recoveries, according to the institute.

Global trade is facing another coronavirus crisis just as economies begin to reopen: 200,000 seafarers stranded for months by port closures and the collapse in long-haul aviation could refuse to keep working.

Many seafarers extended their contracts by several months to keep supplies of food, fuel and medicine flowing around the world during the pandemic, according to shipping companies and labor unions. 

But the months at sea without a break are taking their toll on crews. Fatigue and mental illness is a growing threat to safety and many seafarers now want off their ships.

Richard Barnes, the captain of a chemical tanker, said he is fortunate to work for a “very good” European shipping company, but that the conditions and atmosphere onboard ships vary, and people may suffer loneliness if they don’t feel they can talk to their captain or crew.

The International Transport Workers’ Federation, which represents about half the world’s seafarers, said emergency extensions to contracts expired on Tuesday and the organization will now do everything it can to help crew exercise their legal rights to stop working and return home.

About 80% of world goods trade by volume is carried on ships, according to the United Nations World Conference on Trade and Development. The pandemic has thrown the shipping industry into chaos.

Watch:

More than 8.3 million cases of novel coronavirus have been recorded worldwide, including at least 449,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University.

If you’re just joining us, here are the latest developments:

A nurse wearing a protective suit and mask takes a nucleic acid test for Covid-19 at a testing facility on June 17, in Beijing, China.

Two new Covid-19 patients in China’s northern Hebei province were traders at the Xinfadi market in Beijing, the Hebei Center for Disease Control said today.

China reported a total of 24 new locally transmitted cases on Wednesday. Three were reported outside of Beijing, where officials are racing to contain a new cluster of more than 150 infections linked to an outbreak at Xinfadi, the city’s largest wholesale food market.

The third new case outside of the capital is from Tianjin city, and is a 22-year-old man who works as a dishwasher at a hotel restaurant. He has no travel history in the past 14 days and has not been in contact with confirmed or suspected cases, according to the Tianjin CDC. Contact tracing is ongoing. 

Tianjin is a provincial-level city with a population of 15.61 million, according to 2019 census records. 

More restrictions on travel: Beijing health officials today added three groups of people who are now not permitted to leave the city: 

Four provinces in China – Hebei, Zhejiang, Sichuan and Liaoning – have confirmed cases related to the Beijing cluster, according to each of their local governments.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the country is facing “dark times” as he announced unemployment figures in a news conference today.

Morrison said 838,000 Australians have lost jobs and experienced “hard days” in the past three months during the coronavirus pandemic. 

Earlier, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) released unemployment figures of 227,700 in May alone. Women and younger workers have been particularly impacted during this period, it said.

Morrison estimates that it will take Australia “around two years to get the economy back to where it was before Covid hit,” and said “coronavirus is the reason people have lost their jobs.”

Last Friday, the Australian government announced further easing of social distancing rules set to take place in July. Morrison said the “priority is to get Australians back to work.” 

Australia has confirmed a total of 7,370 cases of the virus, including 102 deaths, according to the Department of Health. Some 6,870 people have recovered.

Director-General of Health Dr. Ashley Bloomfield makes an exit after a news conference at the National Library Auditorium on June 18, in Wellington, New Zealand.

New Zealand has reported one new Covid-19 case, a man in his 60s who flew to the country from Lahore, Pakistan, the health ministry said.

The man is in a quarantine facility in Auckland. 

He flew from Lahore to Doha, and then from Doha to Melbourne, Australia on June 11. He then flew from Melbourne to Auckland on June 13. 

New Zealand’s health ministry said it is following up on any potential contacts, including every passenger on the Air New Zealand flight to Auckland.

The man did not show any symptoms when he checked into a managed isolation facility on his arrival. Two days later he developed symptoms and was transferred to a quarantine facility.

He tested positive for coronavirus on June 16.

The total number of confirmed cases in New Zealand is now 1,157, according to the health ministry.

On Tuesday, New Zealand reported its first coronavirus cases in more than three weeks after two women who traveled to the country from the UK were found to have Covid-19.

Qantas planes are parked on the tarmac at Sydney Airport on April 22, in Sydney, Australia.

Australia’s Qantas Airlines announced today that it has canceled most of its international flights until late October. 

Qantas said if travel between Australia and other countries begins to open back up and demand returns, the airline could add more flights to its schedule.

A spokesperson for Qantas said that despite the cancellation of most international flights, the airline is seeing increasing demand for travel within Australia, as local restrictions are slowly lifted.

Qantas Group’s domestic passenger numbers within Australia doubled this week to 64,000 from 32,000 passengers last week, according to the spokesperson.

US President Donald Trump’s reelection rally, scheduled for Saturday is a “recipe for disaster,” the Tulsa County Commissioner Karen Keith told CNN’s Don Lemon.

The rally is being held amid a spike in Covid-19 cases in the city.

According to Keith, the city expects more than 100,000 people to attend the rally, many of whom live outside of Tulsa.

“The outcome is not something that’s going to be good for this area,” Keith said, “I just don’t see how that works out well for us.”

A woman sunbathes at the beach next to her husband, both wearing face masks, in Miami Beach, Florida on June 16.

Florida has “all the markings of the next large epicenter” of coronavirus transmission, with the risk being the “worst it has ever been” according to new projections.

The other areas of concern for additional widespread community transmission include the Carolinas, Texas, and Arizona.

The model was put together by a team of scientists at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the University of Pennsylvania.

The version of this model used local data from 517 counties with active outbreaks to provide short-term forecasts of where Covid-19 cases would be.

Florida’s Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has attributed the recent spike in cases in his state to aggressive testing and blames outbreaks in prisons, agricultural communities and long-term care facilities.

Experts said the numbers of new infections are definitely increasing and it’s not just because there’s more testing.

Miami and some of Florida’s southeastern counties, along with the Tampa and Fort Myers area and Orlando can expect to see a widespread transmission event and case numbers will likely then rise in the rest of the state, according to the model.

It also predicts problem spots for vacation areas like Galveston, Texas and Lake Charles, Louisiana.

Bright spots: Despite reopening early, one bright spot in the model includes Atlanta and much of Georgia, which seem to have kept cases in check. The Midwest and Northeast, which have remained in lockdown longer than other areas of the country, also are predicted to see a decline in case counts through July.

Director-General of Health Dr. Ashley Bloomfield speaks to media during a news conference at the National Library Auditorium on June 18, in Wellington, New Zealand.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said the two new coronavirus cases from two people who traveled to the country from the UK was an “unacceptable failure of the system,” and measures have been taken to ensure it doesn’t happen again.

On Tuesday, New Zealand reported its first coronavirus cases in more than three weeks after two women traveled to the country to visit a dying relative.

They were placed in an isolation hotel in Auckland upon arrival but were permitted to leave it on compassionate grounds.

“This case represents an unacceptable failure of the system. It should never have happened and it cannot be repeated,” Ardern said in a news conference Wednesday.

Ardern has appointed a military official to oversee the country’s quarantine and border operations.

The assistant chief of defence Air Commodore Darryn Webb will “oversee all quarantine and managed isolation facilities including the processes around the exit of those who have been in these facilities,” Ardern said.

In addition, Ardern said they will continue the suspension of compassionate exemptions.

“I know this will be upsetting to some New Zealanders returning home to visit dying relatives and loved ones. However, the risk to our collective efforts to eliminate Covid are simply too great.”

Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez wears a face mask in Tegucigalpa, Honduras on June 15.

Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández is being treated for pneumonia after having “slight leaks in the lungs.”

The President is “stable, in good spirits and receiving medication,” according to Francis Contreras, a spokesman for the Honduran Health Regulation Agency.

President Hernández said Wednesday he and his wife had tested positive for Covid-19. 

Honduran First Lady, Ana García de Hernández, is stable and without symptoms, according to Chancellor and Commissioner for the pandemic, Lisandro Rosales.

Hernández is the first president in the world to announce he has tested positive for the virus.

A medical worker prepares to administer a Covid-19 virus test at a drive-thru care testing site at the Derry Medical Center on Wednesday, June 17, in Derry, New Hampshire.

At least 25,583 new Covid-19 cases and 755 deaths were reported in the United States on Wednesday, according to Johns Hopkins University.

The national totals now stand at 2,163,290 cases, including at least 117,717 virus-related fatalities, according to JHU.

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

CNN’s interactive map is tracking the US cases:

The Washington Department of Health has revised the state’s number of Covid-19 deaths and the number of negative tests, the agency said.

Health officials said they removed seven deaths from its tally as these cases tested positive for Covid-19 but the virus did not cause their deaths. 

The department said it “is working on changes to provide more context to death reporting and report death counts that reflect deaths where COVID-19 caused or contributed to the death.”

On Wednesday, the department removed seven deaths – three of which were homicides, two were suicides and two were overdoses.

The state agency also said it overreported the number of people who have only tested negative for Covid-19 by 13% since April 21.

“Data have been updated to remove the antibody testing results,” the DOH said in a statement.         

As of Wednesday, Washington counted 26,784 coronavrius cases and 1,226 deaths, according to the DOH.

China recorded 24 locally transmitted cases of Covid-19 on Wednesday, according to the country’s National Health Commission

Beijing has 21 new cases, Hebei has two, and there is one case in Tianjin. 

Officials in Beijing are racing to contain a new cluster of infections linked to an outbreak at Xinfadi, the city’s largest wholesale food market.

The new Beijing cases bring the total number of infections linked to the cluster to 158. 

Authorities in Beijing have imposed a soft lockdown on the entire city.

Read more on Beijing’s new outbreak:

A resident waits for a delivery he ordered online inside the Yilanyuan residential area which is under lockdown after a COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak at the nearby closed Xinfadi market in Beijing on June 14, 2020. - The domestic COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak in China had been brought largely under control through strict lockdowns that were imposed early this year -- but a new cluster has been linked to Xinfadi market in south Beijing. (Photo by NOEL CELIS / AFP) (Photo by NOEL CELIS/AFP via Getty Images)

Related article Beijing extends residential lockdowns as coronavirus infections spread

The top government health experts in the United States have been mostly missing from public discussions and updates on the coronavirus pandemic for weeks now.

Former White House medical team adviser under George W. Bush, Dr. Jonathan Reiner, said it’s because “they tell the truth.” 

White House coronavirus response coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx, Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Dr. Stephen Hahn, the director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Robert Redfield, and top infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci have given few updates on the US’ Covid-19 response and given few interviews on the state of the pandemic.

Reiner said that the experts’ opinions on the state of the pandemic go against messaging by the Trump administration.

“The vice president in his op-ed yesterday spoke about that he’d not only marshaled the whole government, but a whole-of-America response to this, but he really hasn’t,” Reiner said. 

“If he was doing that, if the administration was doing that, they would ask the American people to do something very difficult, which is to protect each other. And the way we protect each other is through social distancing and wearing masks and it’s hard to do, and, and it’s decidedly abnormal, but that’s how we put this pandemic down.”

A health worker makes door-to-door visits to carry out Covid-19 tests in Mexico City, on June 16.

Mexico is closing in on 20,000 deaths from coronavirus, according to its health ministry Wednesday.

The ministry reported 770 new deaths from the virus, bringing the country’s death toll to 19,080.

Mexico also recorded 4,930 new confirmed cases in the past 24 hours, bringing the total number of cases to 159,793.

People wearing face masks ride the subway on June 16, in Santiago, Chile.

Chile’s health ministry reported an additional 31,000 Covid-19 cases Wednesday that had not previously been counted after the government discovered a backlog of positive test results dating back to March.

The ministry also reported 4,757 newly confirmed cases Wednesday, bringing the country’s total to 220,628.

Authorities have tightened lockdown measures in the greater Santiago area, the country’s capital with more than 6 million residents.

Residents will only be allowed out of their homes twice a week now, down from the previous five, and only under strict conditions.

People found violating quarantine measures can now face up to five years in prison for doing so.

Chile also reported an additional 232 deaths on Wednesday, raising the country’s total to 3,615.