The Wall Street Journal: U.S. Covid-19 Death Toll Tops 160,000
The U.S. death toll from the coronavirus pandemic passed 160,000, as parts of the country showed signs that the virus’s spread was easing. The U.S. reported more than 59,000 new coronavirus cases, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. Globally, the total number of confirmed cases surpassed 19 million, with the U.S. making up about a quarter of the tally. (Hall, 8/7)

The Wall Street Journal: U.S. Daily Coronavirus Case Count Stays Below Recent Highs
The number of newly reported coronavirus cases across the country remained short of highs seen in late July, but a drop in testing in some states could be obscuring the extent of the virus’s spread. (Prang and Calfas, 8/7)

Los Angeles Times: California Tops 10,000 Coronavirus Deaths 
The death toll from the coronavirus in California surpassed 10,000 people on Thursday, a mark that underscores how a state that was once hailed as a pandemic success story is now struggling to slow outbreaks. The surge of the coronavirus in California over the last two months had several causes, including the reopening of the economy that allowed COVID-19 to spread rapidly among low-wage workers, many of them Latino essential workers whose employers haven’t followed new infection control rules. But summer celebrations among young people is also a recurring problem, and one particularly frustrating to officials trying to slow outbreaks. (Greene, Lin II, Shalby and Lee, 8/6)

A new model warns of many more deaths by the end of the year —

Reuters: University Of Washington Forecasts 300,000 U.S. COVID-19 Deaths 
Nearly 300,000 Americans could be dead from COVID-19 by Dec. 1, University of Washington health experts forecast on Thursday, although they said 70,000 lives could be saved if people were scrupulous about wearing masks. The latest predictions from the university’s widely cited Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) comes as top White House infectious disease advisers warned that major U.S. cities could erupt as new coronavirus hot spots if officials there were not vigilant with counter-measures. (Chiacu and McKay, 8/6)

In global news —

AP: India Hits 2 Million Cases As Health Volunteers Strike
As India hit another grim milestone in the coronavirus pandemic on Friday, crossing 2 million cases and more than 41,000 deaths, community health volunteers went on strike complaining they were ill-equipped to respond to the wave of infection in rural areas. Even as India has maintained comparatively low mortality rates, the disease trajectory varies widely across the country with the burden shifting from cities with relatively robust health systems to rural areas, where resources are scarce or nonexistent. (Schmall, 8/7)

AP: Africa Passes 1M Confirmed Virus Cases; True Number Far More
Africa’s confirmed coronavirus cases have surpassed 1 million, but global health experts say the true toll is likely several times higher, reflecting the gaping lack of testing for the continent’s 1.3 billion people. While experts say infection tolls in richer nations can be significant undercounts, large numbers of undetected cases are a greater danger for Africa, with many of the world’s weakest health systems. More than 22,000 people have died of COVID-19. (Anna, 8/6)

Stat: Trump Orders Government To Buy Certain Drugs Solely From U.S. Factories, Setting Up Major Shakeup For Industry
President Trump signed an executive order Thursday directing the federal government to buy certain drugs solely from American factories. The so-called “Buy American” order could represent a seismic shakeup of the drug industry: No one knows exactly how much of the American drug supply chain is produced abroad, but some experts insist up to 90% of critical generic drugs are made at least partially abroad. (Florko, 8/6)

Modern Healthcare: Trump To Boost Domestic Production Of Drugs, Medical Supplies
President Donald Trump on Thursday signed an executive order directing federal agencies to boost onshore production of essential medicines, medical supplies and medical equipment. The broad directive is supposed to ensure the U.S. has enough medical countermeasures to respond to pandemics and chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear threats. (Brady, 8/6)

NPR: 'All Bark And No Bite': Trump Holds Prescription Drug-Pricing Order In Search Of Deal 
Two weeks after President Trump signed an executive order "Lowering Drug Prices By Putting America First," the White House still hasn't released the text of the order. The unorthodox move is apparently a leverage play, an attempt to squeeze drug companies into offering concessions, but so far there's little indication Trump is getting the deal he was after. Trump had American flags and women in white lab coats behind him, his big presidential sharpie marker in hand when he signed the order July 24. (Keith, 8/7)

The Washington Post: State Department Lifts Blanket International Travel Advisory After Nearly Five Months 
The State Department lifted its blanket international travel advisory Thursday, almost five months after first urging Americans against overseas travel due to the coronavirus pandemic. Instead, the department will revert to issuing recommendations on a country-specific basis. The department cited “health and safety conditions improving in some countries and potentially deteriorating in others” in its decision to alter the advisory system and said the change in method will allow travelers to make “informed decisions” based on the situation in specific countries. (O'Grady, 8/6)

The Hill: State Lifts Global Travel Warnings Amid COVID-19 
The State Department on Thursday lifted its global warning for U.S. citizens traveling internationally amid the coronavirus pandemic, saying it would rate countries on a case-by-case basis given improving health and safety conditions in some areas. The agency’s Level 4 Health Advisory, its highest threat warning, was implemented in mid-March and warned Americans against any international travel. The warning came as countries around the world began shuttering their borders to limit the spread of COVID-19. (Kelly, 8/6)

In related news —

The Washington Post: ‘Love Is Not Tourism’: Couples Separated By Pandemic Travel Bans Are Fighting To Be Reunited 
When Corsi Crumpler, a U.S. citizen from Texas, got pregnant last year, she never thought she would be delivering the baby without her fiance Seán Donovan at her side. But because of the U.S. and E.U. travel ban due to the pandemic, he had to remain in his home country of Ireland, forced to witness the birth of their first child by FaceTime in July. Crumpler and Donovan met in Dublin while she was on vacation and have been together since 2019. Before the travel ban, they never went more than six weeks without seeing each other, going back and forth between Ireland and the United States. (Lalisse-Jespersen, 8/5)

Politico: Fauci Says Nation Can Survive Covid-19 Without Another Shutdown
Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious-disease expert, says the United States is facing a "concerted challenge" to navigate the resurgent Covid-19 outbreak — but if Americans band together, the nation can avert another extended shutdown. "There seems to be a misperception that either you shut down completely and damage a lot of things, mental health, the economy, all kinds of things, or let it rip and do whatever you want," Fauci told POLITICO’s “Pulse Check” podcast on Wednesday. "There's a stepwise fashion that you can open up the economy successfully." (Diamond, 8/6)

The Hill: Fauci: It's 'Entirely Conceivable' We Could Be 'Way Down' On Level Of Cases By November 
Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious diseases expert, said early Thursday that he believes coronavirus cases could be “way down” by the time the elections come in the first week of November. “It’s up to us. It’s really in our hands. I really do believe based on the data we see in other countries and in the United States, in states and cities and counties that have done it correctly, that if we pay attention to the fundamental tenets of infection control and diminution of transmission, we could be way down in November. It is entirely conceivable,” Fauci said on CNN's "New Day." (Axelrod, 8/6)

The New York Times: With Old Allies Turning Against Her, Birx Presses On Against The Coronavirus 
As Dr. Deborah L. Birx was taking heat from both President Trump and Speaker Nancy Pelosi this week, the Democratic governor of Kentucky spoke up in her defense. Dr. Birx, the White House coronavirus response coordinator, had visited his state in late July, after he issued a statewide mask order and was contemplating even more aggressive steps, including closing down bars, Gov. Andy Beshear recounted on a private conference call with Vice President Mike Pence and the rest of the nation’s governors. It was a difficult move for a Democrat in a Republican state, but Dr. Birx provided him cover. (Gay Stolberg, 8/6)

Also —

CIDRAP: Stop Attacking Public Health Officials, Experts Plead
In a commentary published yesterday in JAMA, experts from Stanford and Johns Hopkins universities implored the public and elected official to stop the recent wave of attacks on US public health officers amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Across the United States, public health officers have been subjected to armed people protesting on their front lawns, vandalism, harassing phone calls and social media posts, threats of violence or death, and doxing (the publication of private information to help others target the officer for harassment). Even some White House officials and members of Congress have joined in the fray, criticizing leading public health officials such as Anthony Fauci, MD, and Deborah Birx, MD. (Van Beusekom, 8/6)

ABC News: With String Of Attacks On Doctors And Experts, Trump Takes Aim At Science: ANALYSIS 
With the novel coronavirus pandemic impossible to ignore out of existence, President Donald Trump has found a new foil -- in science. The Union of Concerned Scientists has documented 11 times across nine federal agencies when it says the Trump administration's attacks on science have directly undermined the federal government's response to the crisis, including the stalling of Centers of Disease Control and Prevention guidance and changing COVID-19 data collection services to be housed under the Department of Health and Human Services instead of the CDC. (Cathey, 8/6)

ABC News: 5 Former CDC Directors On Where US Went Wrong In Its COVID-19 Response 
Five former directors of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who came together to speak about the coronavirus on Thursday said repeatedly that the United States is still struggling to deal with the pandemic because of one thing: mixed messages from leadership. "This is the first public health response where the ground rules weren't set up that we would be driven by the best available public health science," said Dr. Richard Besser, who served as acting director of the CDC in 2009. (Rivas, 8/7)

The Washington Post: White House, Democrats Fail To Reach Agreement On Virus Relief Bill, And Next Steps Are Uncertain 
White House officials and Democratic leaders ended a three-hour negotiation Thursday evening without a coronavirus relief deal or even a clear path forward, with both sides remaining far apart on critical issues. “We’re still a considerable amount apart,” said White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows after emerging from the meeting with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. President Trump called into the meeting several times, but they were unable to resolve key issues. (Werner, Stein and Kane, 8/6)

AP: Virus Aid Talks On Brink Of Collapse, Sides 'Very Far Apart'
“There’s a handful of very big issues that we are still very far apart” on, said Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. He talked of impasses on aid to states and local governments and renewing supplemental unemployment benefits in the Thursday night meetings. Both sides said the future of the talks is uncertain. President Donald Trump is considering executive orders to address evictions and unemployment insurance, but they appear unlikely to have much impact. (Taylor, 8/7)

The Hill: Trump Preparing 'Aggressive' Actions If No Deal Reached With Congress 
White House chief of staff Mark Meadows said Thursday that President Trump is preparing "aggressive" executive action on coronavirus stimulus if the sides fail to solidify a deal on emergency legislation in the coming days. Heading in to yet another closed-door meeting with top Democratic leaders in the Capitol, Meadows said he hopes the parties can iron out their differences and preempt such a unilateral action by the White House. But he also warned that those differences remain substantial, not least the more than trillion-dollar gap in the overall size of the latest coronavirus aid package. (Lillis, 8/6)

The Washington Post: In A Divided Capitol, Lawmakers Can’t Agree On Coronavirus Safety Measures — Down To The Best Kind Of Thermometer 
As coronavirus cases continue to mount, the Senate Rules Committee has drafted a preliminary plan for a rapid testing system for that side of the U.S. Capitol — but on the other end of the building, the House Administration Committee has deemed the approach impractical for such a massive complex. Other safety issues have been punted to the Office of Attending Physician of Congress, run by a reclusive doctor who is accountable only to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). That has meant health and safety guidance that often differs depending on location, with masks mandatory on the House floor and only recommended for the Senate. (Kane and Bade, 8/6)

AP: US Adds 1.8 Million Jobs In A Sign That Hiring Has Slowed
The United States added 1.8 million jobs in July, a pullback from the gains of May and June and evidence that the resurgent coronavirus is stalling hiring and slowing an economic rebound. With confirmed viral cases still elevated in much of the nation and businesses under continued pressure, many employers appear reluctant or unable to hire. Even counting the hiring of the past three months, the economy has now recovered only about 42% of the 22 million jobs it lost to the pandemic-induced recession, according to the Labor Department’s jobs report released Friday. (Rugaber, 8/7)

CNBC: U.S. Jobs Rise By 1.763 Million In July, Vs 1.48 Million Expected
Two months of record-setting payroll growth slowed in July but was still better than Wall Street estimates even as a rise in coronavirus cases put a damper on the struggling U.S. economy. The total nonfarm payroll increased of 1.763 million for the month. The unemployment rate fell to 10.2% from its previous 11.1%, also better than the estimates from economists surveyed by Dow Jones. An alternative measure that includes discouraged workers and the undermployed holding parttime jobs for economic reasons fell from 18% to 16.5%. (Cox 8/7)

AP: 'Worst Nightmare': Laid-Off Workers Endure Loss Of $600 Aid
An unemployed makeup artist with two toddlers and a disabled husband needs help with food and rent. A hotel manager says his unemployment has deepened his anxiety and kept him awake at night. A dental hygienist, pregnant with her second child, is struggling to afford diapers and formula. Around the country, across industries and occupations, millions of Americans thrown out of work because of the coronavirus are straining to afford the basics now that an extra $600 a week in federal unemployment benefits has expired. (Skidmore Sell and Wiseman, 8/7)

Politico: A Growing Side Effect Of The Pandemic: Permanent Job Loss
Tens of millions of Americans have lost their jobs in the coronavirus recession, but for many of them the news is getting even worse: Their positions are going away forever. Permanent losses have so far made up only a fraction of the jobs that have vanished since states began shutting down their economies in March, with the vast majority of unemployed workers classified as on temporary layoff. But those numbers are steadily increasing — reaching 2.9 million in June — as companies start to move from temporary layoffs to permanent cuts. The number is widely expected to rise further when the Labor Department reports July data on Friday. (Cassella, 8/6)

The New York Times: ‘It’s Time For A Change’: Workers Idled By The Virus Try New Careers 
As a national lockdown was imposed in March, a food deliverer, Hanna Scaife, watched her weekly hours plummet from 30, to five, then zero as restaurants across Teesside, in northeast England, shut their doors. Business hasn’t gotten much better since then. “It’s been really tough,” said Ms. Scaife, who has worked for over a year delivering food by car to customers’ doorsteps. (Abdul, 8/6)

Burlington Free Press: COVID-19: Vermont Ski Towns See Highest Local Unemployment
The five Vermont towns that reported the highest rates of unemployment in June are all home to major ski resorts — towns which rely heavily on tourism, an economic driver hindered this summer by COVID-19 safety concerns and state travel restrictions. Dover, which the Vermont Department of Labor reported to have a 25.5% rate of unemployment in June, is home to Mount Snow. (Last June, Dover had an unemployment rate of just 5.2%.) Londonderry, home to Magic Mountain, reported 18.1% unemployment. (Board, 8/6)

The New York Times: Amid Dire Jobless Numbers, Small-Business Relief Program Nears End 
In early April, three weeks after Connecticut issued shutdown orders, Ken Bodenstein borrowed $148,000 from the federal government to help cover payroll expenses at the Westport day care center he runs with his wife, Kristen. The small-business loan, along with the Bodensteins’ own cash reserves, allowed the couple to continue to pay their 21 workers for nearly three months. But by June 5, the day the money ran out, only 11 of the 75 children who attended the day care before the pandemic had returned, forcing the Bodensteins to furlough or lay off all but nine employees. (Cowley, 8/6)

The Washington Post: Center For Voter Participation Absentee Ballot Applications Spark Panic In Virginia 
A voter registration group with a history of sending error-ridden mailers has again sown confusion in Virginia, this time tapping into concerns about mail-in ballots sparked by President Trump’s repeated allegations — without evidence — of election fraud. The Washington-based Center for Voter Information, a nonprofit geared toward increasing voter participation among underrepresented groups, mailed 2.25 million applications for absentee ballots to voters across the state, with a quarter of them containing a return envelope addressed to the wrong election office, the group said Thursday. (Olivo, 8/6)

The Washington Post: More States Are Using Ballot Drop Boxes For Absentee Voters, But The Boxes Are Already Drawing Skepticism 
Elections officials across the country are accelerating their efforts to install ballot drop boxes, a move they hope will make absentee voting simple and safe for those wary of the mail or fear exposure to the novel coronavirus at polling places. The efforts come as voters voice concerns about timely delivery of mail ballots. Already, postal workers are reporting days-long backlogs of mail across the country, calling into question whether ballots will arrive at elections offices in time to be counted in November. President Trump has also ramped up attacks on the integrity of mail voting, in a year when more voters than ever are expected to choose that method because of the pandemic. (Ye Hee Lee, 8/6)

Politico: The World Has Shown It's Possible To Avert Covid-Caused Election Meltdowns. But The U.S. Is Unique.
With less than six weeks before early voting starts in the U.S. presidential election, the risk of an electoral meltdown is rising along with the country’s coronavirus caseload. As they scramble to avert disaster, American officials may want to look overseas for guidance. Since the pandemic shut down daily life around the globe in March, 17 countries have managed to pull off successful nationwide elections, albeit on a far smaller scale than the U.S. one scheduled for Nov. 3. (Heath, 8/6)

AP: Montana Allows Counties To Hold All-Mail Voting In November
Montana will allow counties to hold all-mail voting in November to limit the spread of the coronavirus, said Democratic Gov. Steve Bullock, who is running for the U.S. Senate. The order was issued in a response to a request from the Montana Association of Clerks and Recorders and the Montana Association of Counties. Republicans say voters should have the right to go to polling places. (Samuels, 8/6)

Stat: FDA Chief Pressured To Stick To Science For Covid-19 Vaccine Approvals
As pressure mounts to develop a successful Covid-19 vaccine, Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Stephen Hahn insisted any agency approval would “adhere to standards” that ensure safety and effectiveness. But Hahn left the door open to a so-called emergency use authorization, raising concerns the FDA might still face political pressure to approve a vaccine before the November elections. (Silverman, 8/6)

ABC News: Dems Want Expert Panel To OK Coronavirus Vaccine Before Mass Use 
House Democrats are calling on the Food and Drug Administration to empower an independent panel of experts to review and sign off before a coronavirus vaccine is distributed to the general public, a move aimed at quelling some health experts' fears the Trump administration might ram through a vaccine candidate ahead of the November election. A new legislative proposal obtained by ABC News would require the FDA to seek input from the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee in a public hearing before giving an emergency authorization for the widespread use of any COVID-19 vaccine. (Siegel, Bruggeman and Rubin, 8/6)

CNN: Fauci 'Satisfied' With Enrollment For The First Week Of Covid-19 Vaccine Trial
Dr. Anthony Fauci said he's "satisfied" with the enrollment in the first week of the first US Phase 3 clinical trial of a Covid-19 vaccine. CNN has obtained part of a Friday, July 31 email from Moderna, the company running the trial, that states 1,290 people were randomly assigned to get either the vaccine or a dummy shot as of that date. The trial began on Monday, July 27. (Cohen and Vigue, 8/7)

NPR: Vaccine Prices For COVID-19 Begin To Emerge 
How much will vaccines against the coronavirus cost? Even though none has finished clinical testing, some clues about pricing are starting to emerge. Cambridge, Mass.-based Moderna, one of the leading horses in the vaccine race, has already made deals at between $32 and $37 per dose of its experimental coronavirus vaccine in agreements with some foreign countries, rattling consumer advocates, who fear an unfair deal for U.S. taxpayers. (Lupkin, 8/6)

Kaiser Health News: Test Sites Quickly Attract Thousands For COVID-19 Vaccine Study
Dr. Eric Coe jumped at the chance to help test a COVID-19 vaccine. At his urging, so did his girlfriend, his son and his daughter-in-law. All received shots last week at a clinical research site in central Florida. “My main purpose in doing this was so I could spend more time with my family and grandchildren,” Coe said, noting that he’s seen them only outside and from a distance since March. (Galewitz and Aleccia, 8/7)

NPR: A Key Ingredient For Making A COVID-19 Vaccine Work 
There are many approaches to making a vaccine against COVID-19. Some use genetic material from the coronavirus, some use synthetic proteins that mimic viral proteins and some use disabled versions of the virus itself. But before any of these approaches can generate the antibodies to the coronavirus that scientists say are essential to protecting people from getting sick, the immune system has to be primed to make those antibodies. Palca, 8/6)

Stat: The Story Of A Scientist’s Mea Culpa On Covid-19 Vaccines
The development of Covid-19 vaccines is progressing at an unprecedented speed. Vaccines that were mere blueprints in January when the coronavirus began spreading globally already have advanced into massive Phase 3 clinical trials. The U.S. government wants hundreds of millions of doses of Covid-19 vaccine or multiple vaccines ready to distribute by January. Many experts have raised concerns about this highly compressed development schedule. (Feuerstein, Robbins, Garden, 8/7)

In vaccine news from other nations —

AP: The Latest: Switzerland Signs Vaccine Deal With Moderna
The Swiss federal government has struck a deal with Moderna to supply Switzerland with 4.5 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine if the U.S. biotech firm successfully develops one. The Federal Office of Public Health says the agreement aims “to guarantee Switzerland early access to the vaccine of Moderna” and is one of the first such deals by any government with the company. (8/7)

AP: Russia's Race For Virus Vaccine Raises Concerns In The West
Russia boasts that it’s about to become the first country to approve a COVID-19 vaccine, with mass vaccinations planned as early as October using shots that are yet to complete clinical trials -- and scientists worldwide are sounding the alarm that the headlong rush could backfire. Moscow sees a Sputnik-like propaganda victory, recalling the Soviet Union’s launch of the world’s first satellite in 1957. But the experimental COVID-19 shots began first-in-human testing on a few dozen people less than two months ago, and there’s no published scientific evidence yet backing Russia’s late entry to the global vaccine race, much less explaining why it should be considered a front-runner. (Litvinova, 8/7)

Stat: Italy Will Require Pharma To Disclose Public Funding For R&D
Amid growing clamor for more transparency from the pharmaceutical industry, Italy has become the first country to require drug makers to disclose data about public funding for any of their medicines during negotiations over pricing and reimbursement. As a result, the Italian Medicines Agency, known as AIFA, will have insight into various costs, such as R&D and marketing, that drug companies incur, as well as data on revenue, patents, and prices offered to other countries, according to a decree published last week. (Silverman, 8/6)

Also —

MarketWatch: Pfizer To Help Manufacture Gilead's Remdesivir
Shares of Pfizer Inc. PFE, -0.46% gained 1.0% in premarket trading on Friday after it announced that it will help manufacture Gilead Sciences Inc.'s GILD, -0.27% COVID-19 treatment remdesivir as part of a multi-year agreement. Gilead's stock was up 0.6% on Friday before the market opened. This is a rare manufacturing deal between two of the world's largest drugmakers. (Lee, 8/7)

San Francisco Chronicle: Drugmaker AbbVie To Pay $24 Million To Settle California Insurance Fraud Allegations 
The California Insurance Commissioner’s Office settled a case with drugmaker AbbVie it brought almost two years ago over allegations the company gave perks and payments to health care providers so they would prescribe the arthritis drug Humira, resulting in health insurers paying $1.2 billion in fraudulent insurance claims. AbbVie will pay $24 million to settle the claims and agreed to a range of reforms but continues to deny the allegations, the office of state Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara said Thursday. The company has locations in San Francisco, Redwood City, and Sunnyvale. (DiFeliciantonio, 8/6)

Stat: Biogen Pay Denali $1 Billion For Parkinson’s Drug Rights, Delivery Systems
Biogen said Thursday it will pay more than $1 billion to the biotech firm Denali for rights to a Parkinson’s drug based on an approach that was nearly abandoned by several major pharmaceutical firms in recent years but that has since shown potential to help treat the disease. The deal also includes rights to a Denali technology for delivering medicines to the brain. (Herper, 8/6)

CNN: Coronavirus Infections Among Younger Populations Are Skyrocketing, WHO Says 
The Covid-19 pandemic is moving into younger populations, health experts said Thursday, with cases skyrocketing among children, teens and young adults. Early in the outbreak, health experts stressed that older adults were most at risk for the virus that has infected more than 4.8 million people in the United States, but new data from the World Health Organization shows that most cases -- by far -- are reported in people ages 25 to 64. The proportion of cases in teens and young adults has gone up six-fold, and in very young children and babies the proportion has increased seven-fold, WHO said. (Holcombe, 8/7)

The New York Times: Even Asymptomatic People Carry The Coronavirus In High Amounts 
Of all the coronavirus’s qualities, perhaps the most surprising has been that seemingly healthy people can spread it to others. This trait has made the virus difficult to contain, and continues to challenge efforts to identify and isolate infected people. Most of the evidence for asymptomatic spread has been based on observation (a person without symptoms nevertheless sickened others) or elimination (people became ill but could not be connected to anyone with symptoms). (Mandavilli, 8/6)

The New York Times: The Coronavirus Is New, But Your Immune System Might Still Recognize It
Eight months ago, the new coronavirus was unknown. But to some of our immune cells, the virus was already something of a familiar foe. A flurry of recent studies has revealed that a large proportion of the population — 20 to 50 percent of people in some places — might harbor immunity assassins called T cells that recognize the new coronavirus despite having never encountered it before. (Wu, 8/6)

Also —

AP: US Kids, Parents Perform DIY Tests For Coronavirus Science
In a comfy suburb just outside Nashville, a young family swabs their noses twice a month in a DIY study seeking answers to some of the most vexing questions about the coronavirus. How many U.S. children and teens are infected? How many kids who are infected show no symptoms? How likely are they to spread it to other kids and adults? “The bottom line is we just don’t know yet the degree to which children can transmit the virus,” said Dr. Tina Hartert of Vanderbilt University, who is leading the government-funded study. (Tanner, 8/7)

Modern Healthcare: July-Reported Breaches Affect 1.1 Million Patients
Healthcare providers, insurers and their business associates reported 28 data breaches affecting more than 1.1 million patients to the federal government last month. 2020 is on track to be the year with the second-highest number of reported data breaches involving 100,000-plus people since HHS' Office for Civil Rights began maintaining its database of healthcare data breaches in 2010. (Cohen, 8/6)

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Wisconsin COVID-19 Testing: Aurora To Stop Testing At Most Sites
Advocate Aurora Health will stop testing some patients for COVID-19 before surgery and will close all but one of its community testing sites in Wisconsin. The changes are temporary and due to a shortage of tests, according to the hospital system. It is experiencing a "delay in anticipated shipments" of supplies, according to a news release. (Carson, 8/6)

State House News Service: State Report Offers 'First Look' At Pandemic Impacts On Hospitals
Massachusetts hospitals experienced sharp declines in financial well-being at the onset of the pandemic, and many ended April and May in the red despite receiving a boost from federal stimulus money, according to a new analysis. Several dozen hospitals that participated in a Center for Health Information and Analysis survey reported a median profitability of -28.9% in March, followed by CARES Act-boosted margins of -14.9% in April and -3.3% in March, the center said in a Thursday report. (Lisinski, 8/6)

Modern Healthcare: Oak Street Health Share Price Spikes 90% On Day One
Investor confidence in newly public Oak Street Health was obvious on the primary care provider's first day of trading Thursday, with share value spiking 90%. Oak Street initially priced its shares at $21, yielding a valuation of $328 million, and they topped out at $40 at market close. The Chicago-based provider has operated at a loss since its inception in 2012, but investors are betting that its capitated model of managing care for high-needs Medicare patients eventually will turn a profit. (Bannow, 8/6)

Modern Healthcare: Geisinger-Evangelical Deal Raises Red Flags, Antitrust Experts Say
The Justice Department has a strong case as it looks to prove that Geisinger Health's partial acquisition of Evangelical Community Hospital will likely reduce competition, merger and acquisition experts said. Danville, Pa.-based Geisinger's 30% acquisition of the neighboring independent hospital in Lewisburg will lead to less independent expansion, sharing of competitively sensitive information, lower quality care and higher prices, the DOJ outlined in a complaint filed Wednesday that aims to block the deal. (Kacik, 8/6)

Boston Globe: Mass. Regulators Fine Revolutionary Clinics $120,000 For Selling Tainted Marijuana Vapes 
A Fitchburg marijuana company, Revolutionary Clinics, will pay Massachusetts $120,000 to settle charges it sold vaporizers containing excessive levels of ethanol to six other dispensaries, several of which then sold dozens of the tainted devices to consumers. The Cannabis Control Commission voted unanimously Thursday to approve the fine and impose a four-month probation for the company over various violations related to the wholesale vape transactions, which occurred from December 2018 to early 2019. (Adams, 8/6)

In obituaries —

Modern Healthcare: David Hunter Remembered As A 'Giant Of Healthcare'
David Hunter, a former hospital CEO and executive of Voluntary Hospitals of America, died Sunday at the age of 75 after a bout with pancreatic cancer. Hunter, who started a consulting firm in the late '80s that specialized in turning around embattled academic medical centers, had a way of breaking tough news in an honest and relatable way, said Larry Scanlan, who worked for Hunter at the Hunter Group. (Kacik, 8/6)

CNN: Georgia Student Suspended After Posting A Photo Of A Crowded School Hallway Says It Was 'Good And Necessary Trouble'
A viral photo showing students in a Georgia high school crowded in hallways and with few visible masks resulted in the sophomore who posted it being suspended, she said.Hannah Watters, a student at North Paulding High School in Dallas, Georgia, saw a photo of packed halls on the first day of school go viral. And when she saw that little had changed after that, she told CNN's Laura Coates on Thursday, she felt she had to share what it looked like inside the school. So, she took a photo of the scene and posted it to social media. (Holcombe, 8/7)

The Washington Post: Virus Keeps Spreading As Schools Begin To Open, Frightening Parents And Alarming Public Health Officials 
Even before President Trump admonished his top coronavirus adviser for saying the country was entering a "new phase" of widespread infection, patients at Mississippi's only Level 1 trauma hospital were already on a wait for ICU beds. “Our ICUs have been full for weeks,” LouAnn Woodward, a vice chancellor at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson, said Thursday. “It’s a very acute issue we’re facing here.” (Fowler, Gearan and Weiner, 8/6)

The New York Times: ‘I Was A Little Scared’: Inside America’s Reopening Schools
It was the purple Powerade that convinced her. Kennedy Heim’s first day of high school was last Thursday. By the weekend, her school in central Indiana had already closed its doors, after a staff member tested positive for the coronavirus and other employees were required to quarantine. Kennedy’s mother got a call from a contact tracer saying her daughter, a 14-year-old freshman, might have been exposed. So on Monday, they went for testing at the National Guard Armory, just down the street from her school. Wednesday morning, they got the results: Kennedy had tested positive. (Wren and Levin, 8/6)

The Hill: 8 In 10 Teachers Concerned About Returning To K-12 Classes In The Fall: Poll 
The overwhelming majority of teachers have concerns about returning to in-person classes in the fall as the coronavirus pandemic rages across the country, according to a new NPR-Ipsos poll. Eighty-two percent of K-12 teachers surveyed said they are concerned about holding in-person classes in the new school year, and 66 percent would rather teach their classes remotely. (Axelrod, 8/6)

The New York Times: How To Proactively Prepare For Distance Learning
Normally we rely on teachers and counselors or coaches and people in our communities to help us spot problems, then identify solutions. We try to build a village to not have to do everything alone. But now the village is quarantined, and it’s increasingly clear it’s still on us to try and make the best decisions for our families — though it feels like there are 200,000 new choices to make every day. (Anderson, 8/5)

States and schools plot their reopening plans —

AP: Utah No Longer Recommends Modified Quarantine In Schools
Utah will no longer recommend that schools allow students who have been exposed to COVID-19 to come to class following pushback from doctors and educators, state officials said Thursday. The state issued a new recommendation Thursday that any student or teacher who has come into close contact with a confirmed case should quarantine at home for 14 days. (Eppolito, 8/6)

AP: Arizona Sets Virus Spread Guidelines For School Reopenings
Arizona’s top health official and the state’s education chief laid out a series of guidelines Thursday that public schools were urged to use when deciding whether coronavirus infection rates are low enough to safely reopen for full in-person learning. The officials, however, said parents should not expect to see a return to normal at their child’s school anytime soon. (Cooper and Christie, 8/7)

Detroit Free Press: Gretchen Whitmer Orders Masks For Children At Camps, Daycare Centers
Children and staff at child care centers and camps will have to wear masks while riding a bus or walking down a hallway, with more stringent requirements for older children, under an executive order issued by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer on Thursday. “Child-care workers have been on the front lines of this crisis and have worked tirelessly to provide a safe place for our children and families during this time," Whitmer said in a news release. (Boucher, 8/6)

GMA: School Buses Adapt To Keep Kids Safe During COVID-19 Crisis 
School is back in session in some parts of the country, raising major questions about how to transport kids safely to class amid the pandemic. With 26 million bus-riding students, districts are taking extra precautions to help stop the spread of COVID-19. (8/6)

The Washington Post: Johns Hopkins University Takes Classes Online Because Of Covid-19 
Johns Hopkins University will hold its fall semester entirely online for undergraduates, a reversal of plans and the latest sign of the turmoil caused by the coronavirus pandemic. School officials strongly urged students not to return to Baltimore. They also acknowledged the change of plans — coming just weeks before classes resume — would create a real hardship for many families and announced efforts to ease that burden. (Svrluga, 8/6)

AP: Evers Hands UW $32 Million To Prepare For Students' Return
Gov. Tony Evers divvied out about $32 million in federal aid Thursday to University of Wisconsin System schools to cover coronavirus tests and personal protective equipment when students return to campuses next month. The money will come from the coronavirus relief bill that Congress passed in May. UW-Madison will receive about $8 million. The other 12 regional campuses will get $24 million. (8/6)

Los Angeles Times: California Colleges Scramble To Open Lacking State Rules 
Just days before the fall semester is set to begin, California colleges and universities are scrambling to finalize reopening plans that affect thousands of students as top leaders say the state’s lack of guidance for weeks has frustrated efforts to bring back limited in-person learning and dorm living. Many campuses, including USC and Claremont McKenna, say the lack of clear and timely state guidance has caused them to spend enormous energy and money preparing for varying reopening scenarios — without knowing what will be allowed amid a surge of COVID-19 infections. (Watanabe, Agrawal and Willon, 8/6)

Also —

AP: S. Korean Doctors Strike Over Med School Plan Amid Pandemic
Thousands of young doctors in South Korea staged a one-day strike Friday against government medical policy, causing concerns about treatment of patients amid the coronavirus pandemic. The striking doctors are interns and resident doctors who oppose the government’s plan to expand admissions to medical schools to resolve the shortage of physicians in South Korea. (8/7)

CNN: A 7-Year-Old Boy In Georgia Died Of Covid-19, The Youngest Victim In The State 
A 7-year-old African American boy has died of Covid-19 in Georgia, the youngest victim of the virus in the state, according to data compiled by the state health department. The boy was from Chatham County on Georgia's coast, and had no underlying health conditions. "Every COVID-19 death we report is tragic, but to lose someone so young is especially heart-breaking," Dr. Lawton Davis, the Health Director for the Coastal Health District, said in a statement. (Lynch and Waldrop, 8/6)

The Hill: New Jersey Officials Say 7-Month-Old Tested Positive For COVID After Death 
New Jersey officials this week reported the death of a 7-month-old who had been diagnosed with COVID-19, though they said the primary cause of death was unclear. The fatality was reported during Gov. Phil Murphy’s (D) news briefing on Wednesday. “Sadly today we are reporting the death of a 7-month-old baby who, after death, tested positive for COVID-19. However, we do not know the primary cause of this death at this point in time,” New Jersey health commissioner Judy Persichilli said during the briefing. (Klar, 8/6)

In news from South Dakota, Texas and Ohio —

ABC News: Sturgis Motorcycle Rally Could Draw 250,000 People In South Dakota Despite COVID Pandemic 
Despite concerns about large gatherings during the COVID-19 pandemic, as many as 250,000 motorcycle enthusiasts from around the country are expected to roll into western South Dakota for the 80th annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally beginning Friday and lasting 10 days. Such a crowd would make it the largest event in the country to take place during the pandemic. (Fies, 8/7)

The Hill: Two Cats Test Positive For Coronavirus In Texas 
Two cats in Brazos County, Texas, have tested positive for the novel coronavirus. Texas A&M University researchers said both cats were asymptomatic and lived with people who have also tested positive, according to a statement from the university. The results suggest transmission is possible for pets in “high-risk” environments, researchers said. (Budryk, 8/6)

Columbus Dispatch: Ohio COVID-19 Outbreaks Linked To At Least 50 Bars And Restaurants, 11 Child Care Centers
Dozens of coronavirus outbreaks in Ohio have been traced back to bars, restaurants and other gathering locations, new information released by the Ohio Department of Health reveals. At least 50 bars and restaurants have had outbreaks across Ohio since July 1. Outbreaks have also occurred in at least 11 day care facilities, eight churches and four schools or universities, according to the state. (Filby, 8/6)

Cincinnati Enquirer: Should Local Health Officials Have The Option To Reject Ohio's Mask Mandate, Other State Orders?
If local Ohio health officials don't like a state order requiring masks or closing schools, they could vote to ignore it under a new proposal from GOP lawmakers. Senate Bill 348, introduced Tuesday, would allow a local health board – with approval from two-thirds of its members after consultation with state health officials – to reject an Ohio Department of Health order during a health crisis. (Balmert, 8/6)

In other public health news —

The Washington Post: Released From Jail At Height Of Pandemic, Alexandria Rape Suspect Allegedly Killed His Accuser 
The incident in Karla Dominguez’s apartment last October was violent, and it was not consensual, she testified in Alexandria District Court in December. The man she accused was indicted on charges including rape, strangulation and abduction and jailed without bond in Alexandria. Then the coronavirus pandemic hit. Ibrahim E. Bouaichi’s lawyers argued that the virus was a danger to both inmates and their attorneys, and that Bouaichi should be freed awaiting trial. On April 9, over the objections of an Alexandria prosecutor, Circuit Court Judge Nolan Dawkins released Bouaichi on $25,000 bond, with the condition that he only leave his Maryland home to meet with his lawyers or pretrial services officials. (Jackman, 8/6)

ABC News: As Coronavirus Spreads Through Nation's Jails And Prisons, Lawmakers Demand More Transparency On Toll 
Citing the growing toll from a hidden side of the coronavirus pandemic, top Democratic lawmakers are looking to require state and federal prisons to open their books on the number of cases behind bars. Democratic Senators Elizabeth Warren, Patty Murray, and Cory Booker led a group introducing legislation Thursday that would require the array of agencies that administer the nation’s jails and prisons to collect and report publicly detailed information about the spread of COVID-19 in their facilities. (Simpson and Barr, 8/6)

The New York Times: Why Influencers Won’t Stop Partying Anytime Soon 
In late July, dozens of social media stars flocked to the Hype House, a Hollywood Hills mansion where several top TikTok creators live, for a birthday party. The décor was glittery and pink, with balloons and silver streamers strewn about. Hello Kitty strobe lights pulsed over a crowded dance floor. The scene, as portrayed on social media, had an air of pre-pandemic normalcy. In several videos from the party, no one is wearing a mask. (Lorenz, 8/6)

The Washington Post: A Pregnant Woman With Covid-19 Was Dying. With One Decision, Her Doctors Saved Three Lives.
On a bright October day last fall, Ebony Brown-Olaseinde and her husband, Segun Olaseinde, found out that their longtime dream had finally been realized: They were going to be parents. After three years spent trying to conceive, they had succeeded through in vitro fertilization — and they soon learned that their twins, a boy and a girl, were due in June 2020.By the beginning of March, Ebony, 40, an accountant in Newark, was feeling grateful that her high-risk pregnancy had progressed so easily. Segun, 43, an operations manager for UPS, couldn’t wait to be a father. Ebony’s doctors told the couple that she’d reached an important milestone: At 24 weeks, their twins were viable, more likely to survive if they arrived early. (Gibson, 8/6)

The New York Times: She Was Pregnant With Twins During Covid. Why Did Only One Survive?
In March, with the coronavirus lockdown in full swing, Chrissy Sample was feeling anxious. Furloughed from her job and stuck at home with her 8-year-old son, she was also pregnant with twins, who were due in mid-July. Although she often felt immobilized by an intense pain in her legs and lower abdomen, her doctor regularly told her these feelings were normal. Ms. Sample had seen her regular obstetrician, but as a 34-year-old woman carrying more than one child, she was supposed to frequently see a high-risk obstetrician. But the earliest in-person appointment she could get was in late March, when she was already 25 weeks pregnant. “I felt like I needed my hand held for this pregnancy, but they never had time to see me,” she said. (Bobrow, 8/6)

Kaiser Health News: Your Favorite Store Or Restaurant Is Open. How Do You Know It’s OK To Go In? 
Just because many businesses are open again doesn’t mean the pandemic is over. The coronavirus is still on the loose — actually surging in many locations — which means people have to make serious choices about their health all day, every day. Nothing in life is without risk, and decisions ultimately hinge on individual calculations. But, according to the public health experts we consulted, there are steps you can take — and signs to look for — to make you feel comfortable and help you decide whether to open the door and walk in. Sometimes, you may want to opt out. First and foremost, assess your personal situation. (Appleby, 8/7)

New Orleans Times-Picayune: Having Cancer And Coronavirus Is A Dangerous Combination, Studies Show
Cancer patients with coronavirus infections are dying at a much higher rate than the general population, according to new studies, and researchers pointed to both the toll cancer takes on the body as well as the impact of some cancer treatments as potentially adding to patients' risks. (Woodruff, 8/6)

CIDRAP: First US Case Of Resistant Bacterial Meningitis Noted 
A new study in the Journal of the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society describes what is believed to be the first case of bacterial meningitis caused by beta-lactamase–producing, ciprofloxacin-resistant Neisseria meningitidis in the United States. The case occurred this January in a previously healthy 5-month-old Maryland boy who was treated in the emergency department at Children's National Hospital in Washington, DC. Although the boy was treated with broad-spectrum antibiotics and released after 7 days in the hospital, susceptibility testing of bacterial samples from the boy revealed resistance to five antibiotics—including penicillin and ciprofloxacin, which are typically used for treatment of people with confirmed N meningitidis infections and for prevention in those who've been in close contact with infected patients. (Dall, 8/6)

GMA: Parents Of AFM Survivors Share 5 Things Parents Should Know As CDC Warns Of Outbreak 
Rachel Scott's son Braden was 5 years old when he was diagnosed in 2016 with acute flaccid myelitis, or AFM, a rare, rapid-onset neurological disease affecting the spinal cord leading to paralysis. Josh and Gretchen Trimble's youngest daughter, Opal, was just 4 months old when she was diagnosed with AFM, one of the youngest patients ever to be diagnosed with the disease. (Kindelan, 8/7)

The New York Times: Is Your Child An Orchid, A Tulip Or A Dandelion? 
The new mother from a rural area near Burlington, Vt., noticed that her toddler’s behavior didn’t seem to fit the descriptions in the child-rearing books she was reading. Her daughter would burst into tears when she heard a loud bird call or a person singing out of tune, or if she wore scratchy clothes. And she always demanded to be carried by her mother and never left alone. These constant demands were exhausting. (Schiffman, 8/6)

The Washington Post: Union Says 56 NFL Players Have Tested Positive For The Coronavirus Since Training Camps Opened 
The NFL Players Association announced that 56 players had tested positive for the novel coronavirus since the opening of training camps, in the first set of results released publicly since the NFL and its players’ union put their testing program into effect. The NFLPA said the results were from July 21 through Wednesday. The figure represents about 2 percent of the approximately 2,600 players on training camp rosters for the 32 NFL teams. (Maske, 8/6)

The Wall Street Journal: The Marlins Return From Coronavirus—With 17 New Players 
They will participate in their fourth game of the season on Tuesday with 30 players in the clubhouse—except more than half of them will be different, effectively turning the Marlins into a patchwork cover band of themselves. “Some of the guys I’ve never met,” manager Don Mattingly said Monday, about 24 hours before they would be sitting an appropriate social distance away from him in the Marlins’ dugout. That is because Mattingly, like all of the Marlins, spent the better part of the past week quarantined in his Philadelphia hotel room after his team’s coronavirus outbreak threw the entire industry into turmoil. (Diamond, 8/4)

Los Angeles Times: UCLA's Chip Kelly Tested Positive For Coronavirus In March 
The UCLA football coach tested positive for the novel coronavirus in late March after campus was shut down, according to multiple people close to the football team who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss a private health issue.Kelly does not know how he contracted the virus, the people close to the team said. He was tested after experiencing mild symptoms and having followed all public health recommendations, including physical distancing, wearing a mask outside his home and not socializing or going anywhere except to obtain essentials such as groceries. His wife, Jill, also tested positive and recovered at home. (Bolch, 8/6)

Also —

The Hill: First Alaska Cruise Of Season Cut Short Following Positive Coronavirus Test 
The first Alaska cruise of the already abridged season was abruptly cut short this week after a positive coronavirus case from a passenger on board. A passenger aboard the Wilderness Adventurer received a positive COVID-19 test result on Tuesday, the UnCruise Adventures line said on its website. After the positive test, the cruise line said it has decided to suspend all future Alaska departures for the year. (Klar, 8/6)

CIDRAP: Vulnerable Parents Report Less Well-Being Amid Pandemic
Moods have deteriorated among US hourly service workers and their children since the COVID-19 pandemic began—especially in those experiencing hardships, according to 30-day survey results published today in Pediatrics. Researchers at Duke University and Barnard College collected survey data from 645 workers living in a large city with a child 2 to 7 years old from Feb 20, before the US epidemic escalated, to Apr 27, when it was well under way. A subsample of 561 parents completed a one-time survey on the effects of the pandemic on mental health from Mar 23 to Apr 26. (Van Beusekom, 8/6)

GMA: Michelle Obama Says She's Suffering From 'Low-Grade Depression' Amid The Pandemic 
The COVID-19 pandemic has been stressful for many people, including Michelle Obama. The former first lady opened up about her mental health in the newest episode of her eponymous podcast. (Stone, 8/6)

Boston Globe: The Multitude And Magnitude Of Coronavirus Stressors On Children
We’re months into the “new normal” of the coronavirus pandemic: social distancing, economic lockdowns, isolating ourselves from one another. But this new normal creates stress and even trauma, especially in Black, Latinx, and immigrant communities. And while we are hearing about the devastating emotional impact that COVID-19 has had on adults in these communities, it also has long-term emotional and physical impacts on children. (Barry Zuckerman and Katherine Gergen Barnett, 8/7)

Los Angeles Times: L.A. Homeless People Are Taking Their Lives By Hanging 
Increasingly, homeless people in Los Angeles and its environs are dying by hanging. Over 4½ years ending in mid-June, 196 people experiencing homelessness in Los Angeles County took their lives. In 2016, 40% of the suicides were by hanging; so far this year, it’s 55%, according to a Times analysis of coroner’s reports. Many homeless people hanged themselves in public — on a freeway off-ramp or sidewalk, in an alley, field or vacant lot — but their deaths went largely unremarked. (Holland, 8/6)

The New York Times: Five-Minute Coronavirus Stress Resets
In this emotional equivalent to an ultramarathon, it’s key to have some stress-reducing strategies available that work quickly and efficiently to help you hit the reset button. Here’s why: Struggling with chronic worry gets in the way of effectively managing your emotions. Unfortunately, many people who experience distress try to escape their unpleasant emotions by distracting themselves in ways that ultimately backfire. (Taitz, 8/6)

Stat: As Headspace Booms, The App's Popularity Outpaces Its Evidence
This has, by all accounts, been a banner year for Headspace. Demand for the mindfulness and meditation app has skyrocketed since the Covid-19 pandemic and its ripple effects began taking a brutal toll on mental health. Downloads have jumped dramatically in recent months, and Headspace has been flooded with requests from companies looking to buoy their staffs’ well-being while they work from home. (Isselbacher, 8/7)

The New York Times: Gov. Mike DeWine Of Ohio Tests Positive, Then Negative, For Coronavirus 
Gov. Mike DeWine tested negative for the coronavirus hours after a positive rapid-result test had prevented him from welcoming President Trump to Ohio on Thursday, a whiplash reversal that reflected the nation’s increasingly complex state of testing. In a high-profile example of a new testing frontier, Mr. DeWine first received an antigen test, which allows for results in minutes, not days, but has been shown to be less accurate. The positive result came as a “big surprise,” said Mr. DeWine, a Republican, who had not been experiencing symptoms other than a headache. (Mervosh, 8/6)

The Hill: Ohio Governor Tests Negative In Second Coronavirus Test 
Hours after Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R) tested positive for the novel coronavirus, the governor announced a second test had come back negative. “In a second COVID-19 test administered today in Columbus, Governor Mike DeWine has tested negative for COVID-19,” the governor’s Twitter account tweeted Thursday evening. “First Lady Fran DeWine and staff members have also all tested negative.” (Budryk, 8/6)

In other testing and tracing news —

AP: Kansas House Speaker Had Coronavirus; Governor To Get Tested
A top Republican legislator in Kansas was hospitalized last month after testing positive for the novel coronavirus and didn’t disclose it to colleagues until this week. The state’s Democratic governor declared Thursday that she’ll get tested because the two of them attended a meeting together after he was hospitalized. Kansas House Speaker Ron Ryckman Jr.’s delayed acknowledgment of his hospitalization — in an email to fellow House Republicans after Tuesday’s primary — concerned colleagues, particularly Democrats. Gov. Laura Kelly called his decision to attend a July 29 meeting at the Statehouse “reckless and dangerous.” (Hanna, 8/7)

The Oklahoman: Stitt Says He Got COVID-19 From Tulsa Friends
Gov. Kevin Stitt contracted COVID-19 after hugging some friends from Tulsa who were visiting him, the governor said Thursday. “I thought I got it down in Lawton because I was touring different facilities,” Stitt said in a brief interview at the state Health Department's new contact tracing center in Oklahoma City. “But anyway, some of my buddies from — some older gentlemen from Tulsa came down to see me. They wanted to talk to me about a new ministry that they had in Tulsa between the police and the African American community and building bridges and so they came down to see me. I hadn’t seen them in a long time and broke my own rule, gave them all hugs. I’ve known them for years. And they ended up having it. So that’s how I got it.” (Casteel, 8/7)

The New York Times: Fast, Less Accurate Coronavirus Tests May Ease The U.S. Backlog, Experts Say 
For months, the call for coronavirus testing has been led by one resounding refrain: To keep outbreaks under control, doctors and researchers need to deploy the most accurate tests available — ones reliable enough to root out as many infections as possible, even in the absence of symptoms. That’s long been the dogma of infectious disease diagnostics, experts say, since it helps ensure that cases won’t be missed. During this pandemic, that has meant relying heavily on PCR testing, an extremely accurate but time- and labor-intensive method that requires samples to be processed at laboratories. (Wu, 8/6)

NPR: Survey Of Contact Tracing Workforce Shows Little Growth, Despite Surging Cases
The country needs as many as 100,000 contact tracers to fight the pandemic, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told Congress in June. We need billions of dollars to fund them, public health leaders pleaded in April. But in August, with coronavirus cases increasing in more than half of states, America has neither the staff nor the resources to be able to trace the contacts of every new case — a key step in the COVID-19 public health response. (Simmons-Duffin, 8/7)

The Associated Press: State Spent Millions On Arena Hospital That Saw 9 Patients
Doctors arrived at an arena-turned-medical center in Sacramento in mid-April and were told to prepare for 30 to 60 coronavirus patients to arrive within days. They spent the weekend working feverishly to get ready. State officials envisioned the cavernous Sleep Train Arena and an adjoining facility as a place where hundreds of patients could be treated, but in the first week just one arrived. The pace never increased, and the 250 assembled medical workers — physicians, nurses, pharmacists and administrative staff — found themselves wondering what to do. ... Ultimately, just nine patients arrived over 10 weeks. The cost to care for them was a staggering $12 million. (Ronayne, 8/6)

Idaho Statesman: Idaho Likely Stuck Again In Stage 4 Of COVID-19 Reopening Plan
Idaho began Stage 4 of Gov. Brad Little’s Idaho Rebounds plan on June 13. The state has since been unable to exit the final stage three times, and it appears poised to fail a fourth straight time, according to an analysis of data published by the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare. (Roberts, 8/5)

CNN: Arizona Was A Covid-19 Hot Spot A Month Ago. Here's How It's Turning Things Around 
In late June, Arizona was confronting a dramatic rise in Covid-19 cases, forcing officials to reimpose a slew of coronavirus restrictions about two months after the state started reopening its economy. Today, that decision appears to have paid off. A CNN analysis of Covid-19 data from Johns Hopkins University shows that on July 8, Arizona averaged about 3,501 daily new cases over a seven-day period. That average has been steadily declining week-over-week, and on Wednesday, the state averaged 1,990 daily new cases over a seven-day period. (Andone, 8/6)

The Oklahoman: Coronavirus In Oklahoma: Governor Announces New Regional Surge Plan, Opposes Additional Federal Bailout
Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt announced Thursday that he is opposed to an additional federal stimulus package at the current time."I don't think we need another package, no," Stitt said.Stitt said Oklahoma hasn't yet been able to fully distribute the $1.2 billion it was allocated earlier. (Ellis, 8/7)

Dallas Morning News: Texas Businesses Back Cornyn’s Proposed COVID-19 Liability Shield; Critics Call Idea ‘Mean-Spirited’
[Ian] MacLean, as a result, is among the many business owners in Texas and beyond who are pushing Congress to bolster liability protections to buffer their firms from coronavirus-related lawsuits, so long as they don’t wantonly disregard safety guidelines. Texas Sen. John Cornyn, a Republican facing a tough reelection, has taken up the cause, saying it’s necessary to allay businesses’ fears as they operate amid the pandemic. (Benning, 8/6)

In prison news from California and Ohio —

San Francisco Chronicle: California Prison Workers File Grievance Accusing CDCR Of Failing To Prevent Coronavirus Outbreaks 
A union representing thousands of California prison employees has filed a wide-ranging grievance against the state corrections department and its health care system, charging that officials are exposing staffers to “uncontrolled” coronavirus outbreaks inside state-run prisons. SEIU Local 1000, which represents health care workers, clerical staff, custodians and other prison employees, said corrections officials have propelled a system-wide outbreak by recklessly moving prisoners and failing to follow health and safety guidelines. (Cassidy, 8/6)

Cincinnati Enquirer: COVID Cases Climb, Worrying Families Of Ohio's Prison Inmates
Conditions in Ohio's pandemic-stricken prisons are helping ensure the spread of COVID-19 rather than stop it, putting entire communities at greater risk, according to data crunchers, inmate advocates and prison workers throughout the state. Ohio's prisons have a 9% rate of infection, compared with less than 1% for the rest of the population, according to data released by the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction and analyzed by the UCLA COVID-19 Behind Bars Data Project. (Hunt, 8/6)

In mask news from Utah and Mississippi —

The Hill: Utah Governor To Allow Local Governments To Issue Mask Mandates 
Utah Gov. Gary Herbert (R) announced Thursday he will not impose a statewide mask mandate but will allow local officials to impose mandates of their own. Herbert said Thursday that local governments will be permitted to institute masking rules as long as they properly notify the state Department of Health. (Budryk, 8/6)

ABC News: Gov. Reeves Takes Action As Mississippi Shapes Up To Become Nation's Next COVID-19 Hot Spot
Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves has ordered some residents to wear masks, bowing to political pressure as COVID-19 infection rates continue to shatter records in the state which saw 1,775 new cases in a single day. Reeves made the announcement on Tuesday as the coronavirus infection rate shot up to 23.3%, pushing the state one step closer to becoming the nation's next COVID-19 hot spot. (Allen, 8/6)

In news from Missouri, Georgia, the Mid-Atlantic and New York —

Kaiser Health News and KBIA: In Rural Missouri, Latinos Learn To Contain And Cope With The Coronavirus 
Francisco Bonilla is a pastor in Carthage, Missouri, tending to the spiritual needs of the town’s growing Latino community. He’s also a media personality, broadcasting his voice far beyond the walls of Casa de Sanidad. Bonilla runs a low-power, Spanish-language radio station from the church. He mainly uses the station to broadcast sermons and religious music. But these days he is also focused on COVID-19: explaining the illness and its symptoms, updating his listeners with the newest case counts and bringing on guests. He has broadcast interviews with a local nurse and with investigators from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Martinez Valdivia, 8/7)

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Kemp Approves COVID Protections For Ga. Businesses
Gov. Brian Kemp signed a bill into law late Wednesday that shields businesses and health care providers from COVID-19-related lawsuits. Senate Bill 359 blocks negligence suits as long as companies follow social distancing, disinfection and other safety protocols outlined by public health officials. Customers and employees can still file cases if they can prove “gross negligence, willful and wanton misconduct, reckless infliction of harm, or intentional infliction of harm,” a higher standard of proof, as well as workers compensation claims. (Hallerman, 8/6)

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Kemp’s Call For Special Session Raises Skepticism Among Lawmakers
Gov. Brian Kemp’s push for a special legislative session to fix a legal problem in a Hurricane Michael relief measure that even his office said was no “fatal flaw” triggered criticism from lawmakers and raised concerns about an ulterior motive for the summons. The governor said in a five-paragraph statement late Wednesday that an incorrect tracking number in a tax break bill requires an immediate fix from the General Assembly, though he also pointedly added that he could direct lawmakers to also tackle “budgetary and oversight issues.” (Bluestein, 8/6)

The Washington Post: Coronavirus Cases Plateau Across D.C. Area As Region’s Caseload Surpasses 200,000 
The number of known coronavirus cases in the greater Washington region surpassed 200,000 Thursday, even as health experts noted signs of optimism that the region might be turning a corner after a recent surge of infections. The seven-day average of new daily cases in D.C., Maryland and Virginia more than doubled during July, starting the month below 1,000 and ending above 2,000. But daily caseloads have ticked downward in recent days as hot spots such as Virginia’s Hampton Roads region and the Baltimore area notched slight dips from recent peaks. (Hedgpeth, 8/6)

The Wall Street Journal: There’s A New Quarantine Sheriff In Town, As New York Ramps Up Compliance
The Sheriff’s office of New York City is assuming new duties to control the spread of the coronavirus pandemic, including social-distancing enforcement and the operation of checkpoints, to ensure compliance with quarantine orders applying to out-of-state visitors. The new roles are an expansion of responsibilities for the Sheriff’s office, a division of the city’s Department of Finance led by Sheriff Joseph Fucito—a career law-enforcement officer who began working in the Sheriff’s office at age 18 and was appointed to his current role by Mayor Bill de Blasio in 2014. (Chapman, 8/6)

Indianapolis Star: Indiana Nursing Homes, Assisted Living Centers Bear Brunt Of COVID-19
More than two-thirds of Indiana's coronavirus deaths were residents of nursing homes and assisted living facilities, according to new numbers released today by the Indiana State Department of Health. At least 1,903 COVID-19 deaths have been reported in long-term care facilities, which is up by 285 from the last tally released by the state on July 28. Those deaths represent 68% of the 2,811 death listed on the ISDH dashboard. (Hopkins and Evans, 8/6)

Dallas Morning News: Texas To Begin Allowing Visitation At Nursing Homes With No Active COVID-19 Cases
Some Texas nursing homes and other long-term care facilities will be allowed to begin having visitors for the first time in months, according to new rules from the state health department. The reopening is limited to facilities with no confirmed staff cases of COVID-19 in two weeks and no active cases in residents, the Texas Health and Human Services Commission said. At nursing homes, the staff must also be receiving weekly coronavirus tests to reopen. (McGaughy, 8/6)

AP: Inslee Releases Virus Guidelines For Nursing Home Visitors
Calling it a “big step forward,” Washington Gov. Jay Inslee on Thursday announced how visitors may return to nursing homes and other long term care operations — six months after the country’s first known coronavirus outbreak devastated a Kirkland facility. “We have come far enough in both our restraint in the pandemic and in our ability to develop protocols that will work,” Inslee said at a news conference. (Ho, 8/6)

Also —

Stat: Nursing Homes Grapple With Preparing For Hurricane Season Amid Covid-19
Nursing homes face an impossible decision during hurricane season this year — whether or not to evacuate their residents amid the Covid-19 pandemic, risking the health and well-being of their patients and staff in the process. Even in normal times, evacuation decisions are tough: Research shows that moving frail residents can exacerbate already burdensome health conditions and increase hospitalizations... This year, as the coronavirus pandemic rages across the Southeast in particular, that decision is even harder — hospitals are already overburdened and social distancing isn’t necessarily possible in evacuation vans or temporary shelters. (Ortolano, 8/7)

Reuters: Hong Kong To Offer Free Coronavirus Testing For All Residents 
Hong Kong will offer free voluntary coronavirus testing for residents, leader Carrie Lam said on Friday, as the global financial hub races to contain a resurgence of the virus over the past month. The plan, which will enable citywide testing for the first time, is likely to be implemented in two weeks at the earliest, Chief Executive Lam said. (8/7)

The Hill: The Problem With Holding Up Sweden As An Example For Coronavirus Response 
We still may not fully understand for months whether certain approaches by Sweden’s government were enough for controlling the spread of COVID-19. The facts currently are that the country experienced a lot of deaths during March through June, many at care homes and many of which may have been preventable. Earlier in the pandemic, Sweden did not go through a strict lockdown like many other countries. Younger children continued to go to school, and businesses and restaurants stayed open at limited capacities. (Hou, 8/6)

Reuters: Egypt's Sex Assault Accusations Spotlight Social Stigmas 
When dozens of Egyptians began posting accounts of sexual assault on social media last month, activists sensed a “#MeToo” moment in a nation where women have long felt disadvantaged. Like high-profile trials in the United States where the now global women’s rights hashtag took off, prosecutors launched charges in Egypt’s best-known recent case: a student from a wealthy background facing multiple accusations. (Shams Eldin, 8/7)

The New York Times: The Mask Slackers of 1918
The masks were called muzzles, germ shields and dirt traps. They gave people a “pig-like snout.” Some people snipped holes in their masks to smoke cigars. Others fastened them to dogs in mockery. Bandits used them to rob banks. More than a century ago, as the 1918 influenza pandemic raged in the United States, masks of gauze and cheesecloth became the facial front lines in the battle against the virus. But as they have now, the masks also stoked political division. Then, as now, medical authorities urged the wearing of masks to help slow the spread of disease. And then, as now, some people resisted. (Hauser, 8/3)

The New York Times: Wear Your Mask. Please. No, Not On Your Chin.
Rachel Kobylas longs for the days when her job as a code enforcement officer in the laid-back Florida town of Key West meant that she drove around making sure people turned off noisy power tools after 7 p.m. She went after overgrown grass, unpermitted construction and boats illegally parked on the street. That all changed this summer, when her main challenge became convincing the tourists, bartenders, T-shirt shop sales clerks and fishermen who flock along Key West’s sweltering streets in shorts and flip-flops that they should also be wearing a mask.And not just on their chin. (Robles, 7/31)

The Atlantic: The Pandemic's Biggest Mystery Is Our Own Immune System 
There’s a joke about immunology, which Jessica Metcalf of Princeton recently told me. An immunologist and a cardiologist are kidnapped. The kidnappers threaten to shoot one of them, but promise to spare whoever has made the greater contribution to humanity. The cardiologist says, “Well, I’ve identified drugs that have saved the lives of millions of people.” Impressed, the kidnappers turn to the immunologist. “What have you done?” they ask. The immunologist says, “The thing is, the immune system is very complicated …” And the cardiologist says, “Just shoot me now.” (Yong, 8/5)

The New York Times: How To Think Like An Epidemiologist 
There is a statistician’s rejoinder — sometimes offered as wry criticism, sometimes as honest advice — that could hardly be a better motto for our times: “Update your priors!” In stats lingo, “priors” are your prior knowledge and beliefs, inevitably fuzzy and uncertain, before seeing evidence. Evidence prompts an updating; and then more evidence prompts further updating, so forth and so on. This iterative process hones greater certainty and generates a coherent accumulation of knowledge. (Roberts, 8/4)

The New York Times: Native Americans Fight Coronavirus And Deficient Data 
As the coronavirus outbreak in Washington State’s Yakima County worsened last month, Tashina Nunez recognized more and more of the patients who arrived in her hospital. They had coughs, fevers and, in some severe cases, respiratory failure. And many of them were her acquaintances and neighbors, members of the tribes that make up the Yakama Nation. Ms. Nunez, a nurse at a hospital in Yakima County and a Yakama Nation descendant, noticed that Native Americans, who make up about 7 percent of the county’s population, seemed to account for many of the hospital’s virus patients. Because the hospital does not routinely record race and ethnicity data, she said, it was hard for Ms. Nunez to know for certain. (Conger, Gebeloff and Oppel Jr., 7/30)

Los Angeles Times: The Grim Business Moving Latino Coronavirus Victims In Texas 
The family is waiting on the lawn when Juan Lopez arrives. He walks into the house, down a hall, through a door. Amalia Tinoco lies on a bed, a 91-year-old grandmother dead after battling the coronavirus. The family won’t admit it at first, but Lopez, a man so familiar with death that funeral directors call him by a nickname, knows the story. His business is moving bodies. The grim glide of his black Cadillac Escalade is a frequent sight these days on the back roads and city streets of the Rio Grande Valley. The pandemic has brought an unrelenting tide of death to the borderlands: He has gone from transporting 15 bodies a week to 22 a day. (Hennessy-Fiske, 8/2)

The New York Times: Opera Goes On In Salzburg, With Lots And Lots Of Testing 
A poster advertising this year’s Salzburg Festival bears a quotation from one of the festival’s founders, the poet and dramatist Hugo von Hofmannsthal: “Wo der Wille erwacht, dort ist schon fast etwas erreicht.” Roughly translated: “Where there’s a will, there’s a way.” Plenty of will — along with political and financial resources few other classical music organizations could possibly deploy — is evident here this summer. For its 100th anniversary season, Salzburg, bucking the coronavirus-prompted trend of canceling cultural events or presenting them only with onstage social distancing, is going ahead with performances featuring casts interacting closely and full orchestras in the pit. (Miller, 7/31)

In other issues —

The New York Times: ‘The Biggest Monster’ Is Spreading. And It’s Not The Coronavirus. 
It begins with a mild fever and malaise, followed by a painful cough and shortness of breath. The infection prospers in crowds, spreading to people in close reach. Containing an outbreak requires contact tracing, as well as isolation and treatment of the sick for weeks or months. This insidious disease has touched every part of the globe. It is tuberculosis, the biggest infectious-disease killer worldwide, claiming 1.5 million lives each year. (Mandavilli, 8/3)

Politico: What Ebola Taught Susan Rice About The Next Pandemic
In October 2014, national security adviser Susan Rice was steeling herself to resign. Ten months into a vicious outbreak of Ebola, a terrifying virus that caused some victims to bleed from their eyeballs, the United States was struggling to contain its spread across West Africa. The disease had seemed to vanish in the spring only to return with a vengeance in June, to the surprise of health experts. The World Health Organization and international NGOs had proven unequal to the task. Cable networks were airing footage of corpses left to rot in the streets. President Barack Obama had sent U.S. troops to Africa, but they had yet to deploy in full. (Hounshell, 8/6)

Politico: New York City Was On The Verge Of Tackling Its Trash Problem. Then Covid Hit.
For a brief moment in early March, New York City seemed poised to tackle one of its biggest quality-of-life issues — the mounds of black trash bags that line the sidewalks every day, broiling in the summer sun and luring rats in broad daylight. City Council Speaker Corey Johnson had proposed moving forward with legislation requiring residents to separate their food and yard scraps for composting. The program, already mandated in several West Coast cities, was designed to eliminate one of the single biggest sources of waste: organic material. (Muoio, 7/30)

The Washington Post: The Fast One Or The Accurate One? How We Can Get More Out Of Our Covid-19 Test Options.
A friend of mine went to get tested for covid-19 recently and was asked, “Do you want the faster one or the more accurate one?” The faster test would give her a result within 24 hours. It had a very low false positive rate but a 20 percent false negative rate, meaning that if the result was positive, she almost certainly had covid-19, but if it came back negative, she still had a 20 percent chance of having the disease. The more accurate test had a very low false and false negative rate, but because of the testing backlog, she wouldn’t get the result for 10 days.As I thought through the decision with her, I saw the question she was asked as the key to our national testing strategy. (Leana S. Wen, 8/6)

USA Today: Compulsory Vaccination For Everyone Is The Only Way To Defeat COVID-19
To win the war against the novel coronavirus that has now killed over 158,000 people in this country, the only answer is compulsory vaccination — for all of us.And while the measures that will be necessary to defeat the coronavirus will seem draconian, even anti-American to some, we believe that there is no alternative. Simply put, getting vaccinated is going to be our patriotic duty. (Dr. Michael Lederman, Maxwell J. Mehlman and Dr. Stuart Youngner, 8/6)

The Washington Post: What If The Coronavirus Vaccine Doesn’t Arrive Soon?
Vaccine optimism is understandable in these days of anxiety about the virus. Almost every day, there are upbeat reports about a vaccine starting a new phase of clinical trials, and the worldwide research effort spans technologies old and new. Surely a safe and effective vaccine must arrive before too long — as promised, in “warp speed,” such as later this year or early next?A dose of realism would be prudent. Vaccines are truly remarkable medicine and have proved effective in stopping diseases such as measles and polio. But they are not simple to discover, manufacture or distribute. Many research efforts fail. The first clinical trial for an HIV vaccine was in 1987, and there still isn’t one, despite much hard work. (8/5)

CNN: Trump's Dreams Of A Vaccine As His October Surprise Aren't Rooted In Reality 
President Donald Trump is desperately hoping to turn a Covid-19 vaccine, for which the entire world is longing, into his October Surprise. He predicts a vaccine breakthrough multiple times a day, assures Americans he has the military on standby to rush it out and promises 100 million, 250 million, even 500 million individual doses will be very quickly available. He hails a "tremendous" vaccine that is "very close" and will be ready "very, very early, before the end of the year, far ahead of schedule." (Stephen Collinson, 8/7)

Boston Globe: As Bad As The Spread Of The Coronavirus Is, There’s Reason To Believe It Will Get Worse
President Trump was right. On July 21, in the first televised briefing on the coronavirus pandemic held by the White House since April, he projected that America “will probably, unfortunately, get worse before it gets better.” Unlike some of his prior assessments of the situation, this one is right on the mark. As bad as the situation is right now, it will probably get worse. But whether it will get better is by no means for certain. More than 80 percent of the states are reporting increased numbers of COVID-19. Those numbers are now reaching all-time highs — exceeding those reported pre-shutdown. Some states are seeing more cases than hard-hit New York overall. Deaths and hospitalizations, which initially appeared to be lower than those reported in the spring, are starting to rise, as public health experts cautioned these lagging indicators would. As bad as the spread of the coronavirus is, there is reason to believe it will get worse. (Jennifer Nuzzo, 8/6)

The Wall Street Journal: America Is A Coalition Of The Worried 
People who haven’t worried in years are worried, and it’s not about regular things, it’s about big and essential things. It’s a whole other order of anxiety. That’s all this is about. How anxious everyone is, and how deep down they know they’re going to be anxious for a long time.We’re in the middle (perhaps—nobody knows) of a world-wide pandemic, a historic occurrence that for everyone alive has been without precedent. We are in the middle (perhaps—nobody knows) of a severe economic contraction that looks likely to produce a long recession. We’ve experienced a national economic shutdown, again without precedent. The virus continues, and everyone fears it will turn worse in the fall when it starts to collide with the flu. (Peggy Noonan, 8/6)

Des Moines Register: COVID-19 In Iowa: When Governor Ignores Media, She Ignores All Iowans
It’s time for Gov. Kim Reynolds to hold a real news conference. This would not look like her half-hour COVID-19 briefings. Those tend to feature a business owner or political supporter who talks about how great things are going amid a pandemic. The final minutes are dedicated to allowing questions from a few reporters.Iowans need a real meeting with the governor — one in which she and her staff are publicly called on to provide comprehensive answers to questions about the novel coronavirus and the state’s response to it. (8/7)

Houston Chronicle: For Trans, Non-Binary Folk, Health Care Anxieties Can Make COVID-19 Worse 
When I tested positive for the coronavirus, I went straight to Google and read articles and personal essays about the varying degrees of symptoms individuals had. The takeaway was that this virus affects everyone’s body differently. For three week’s this virus physically debilitated me, but the greatest impact was how it affected my mental health. (Eric Edward Schell, 8/7)

The Washington Post: Trump Doesn’t Seem To Understand That Opening Schools Would Make A Bad Situation Worse 
Is it possible that President Trump could do a worse job handling the covid-19 pandemic, causing even more needless illness and death? I fear we’re about to find out. “OPEN THE SCHOOLS!!!” he tweeted again this week, for the umpteenth time. That’s the equivalent of chugging blindly down the Niagara River, approaching the lip of the falls — and giving the order to proceed full speed ahead. Aided and abetted by Republican governors, Trump is pushing hard for in-person classroom instruction this fall in all of the nation’s schools, some of which have already started the new year. He has threatened to withhold federal funding from public school districts that don’t fully open; and while the official White House position acknowledges that “flexibility” is needed, Trump continues to bully local officials to “open 100 percent.” (Eugene Robinson, 8/6)

St. Louis Post Dispatch: SEC Officials Succumb To The Heartbreak Of Coronavirus-Callousness Syndrome
Epidemiologists should be concerned about an apparent new side effect of the pandemic: Coronarvirus-callousness syndrome. It appears to cause wealthy and politically influential, mainly white people to lose all sense of perspective on whether human lives are more important than the pursuit of dollars. The latest victims of this terrible disease are the football coaches and officials of the Southeastern Conference.Coronavirus-callousness syndrome is a devastating affliction in which the uncontrolled swelling of the patient’s bank account leads to a sudden, steep hemorrhaging of empathy and compassion. (8/6)

Seattle Times: We Don’t Know Enough About COVID-19 To Send Our Kids Back To School
The kids will be fine. That’s what many elected leaders and some school officials are telling us. Sure, they acknowledge, teachers and staff members in schools across the nation will have to accept some degree of risk when schools reopen for in-person learning. But kids only very rarely get sick from COVID-19, they say, and so it’s in the best interest of the children to get them back into the classroom. Yet we have absolutely no idea what the long-term consequences of COVID-19 will be for children who become infected. This should give us pause. (Leroy Hood and Matthew D. LaPlante, 8/5)

Las Vegas Review Journal: Reopen CCSD Schools. Day Camps By Clark County Show It Can Be Done Safely. 
If you want proof that it’s safe for children to return to school, consider the day camps Clark County is now offering parents. Earlier this week, the county, which is separate from the Clark County School District, unveiled its “School Daze” program. It’s for children between 5 and 12 years old and runs from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. It includes learning time, crafts and sports. Bringing kids together to learn and play sounds like a familiar concept. Oh wait. It’s usually called school. If it’s safe for children to go to day camps, why isn’t it safe for them to return to school? Answer: It’s safe for them to return to school. (Victor Joecks, 8/6)

Arizona Republic: Gov. Doug Ducey Should Require Schools To Meet Reopening Benchmarks
The recommendations made by Department of Health Services Director Cara Christ and state schools Superintendent Kathy Hoffman should NOT be voluntary. They should be requirements. ...According to state data no county yet meets all the criteria. (EJ Montini, 8/6)

Indianapolis Star: Indiana School Reopenings Turn Children Into Guinea Pigs
Guinea pigs. It’s the term parents, teachers and epidemiologists are using to describe the thousands of Indiana students who have returned to the classroom during the novel coronavirus pandemic. There’s immeasurable uncertainty and anxiety, but worse is the lack of transparency, accountability and flow of information from state officials. Bringing students safely back into the classroom during a pandemic is a complex undertaking. Indiana is rushing back to in-person schooling with no clear path forward and with no state oversight. (Suzette Hackney, 8/7)

Houston Chronicle: Do Your Job. Congress, Trump Must Reach COVID Relief Deal Now. 
The crisis demands urgency. An estimated 32 million people — about 1 in 5 workers — were drawing unemployment in July, many having been displaced from jobs that no longer exist and may never return. Millions of families are facing eviction notices that could push homeless figures to levels unseen since the Great Depression. The idea of holding back on another round of stimulus in hopes that the pandemic will go away and things will get better is delusional. (8/6)

Los Angeles Times: Trump's Move To Help The Jobless Is Wrong On So Many Levels
President Trump says he’ll ride to the rescue of jobless Americans if Congress fails to act, telling reporters that he will soon sign an executive order restoring at least some of the extra unemployment benefits that expired at the end of July.For Democrats, it’s kind of like having an uncle they barely know show up at a family reunion and expect a hug. They would look churlish if they complained about an increase in benefits, and yet having Trump provide it unilaterally would be wrong on a bunch of levels. (8/6)

USA Today: Coronavirus Ride: Four Ways America Can Get Back On Track
A leading science institute forecasts that U.S. coronavirus deaths will exceed 200,000 by Election Day. Dr. Deborah Birx, President Donald Trump's COVID-19 response coordinator, says the epidemic has entered a new phase and is extraordinarily widespread. "Right now, the virus is winning and Americans are losing," says Dr. Tom Frieden, former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And an America with 4% of the world's population accounts for more than 22% of global lives reported lost to the disease.  Never mind Trump optimism Never mind the president's fanciful optimism. It is. time to reset the nation's fight against the coronavirus. (8/6)

CNN: The Mystery Of Dr. Birx
As the Covid-19 debacle continues to worsen, Dr. Deborah Birx, who entered the scene in March as Corona Task Force Chair Vice President Mike Pence's "right arm," has emerged as a new person to blame. Initially, and widely, viewed as someone of experience, savvy and integrity, she currently finds herself in a crossfire hurricane, equally disparaged by President Donald Trump, who called her "pathetic," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi who announced she had "lost confidence" in Birx, and a number of professional peers who once welcomed her appointment. (Kent Sepkowitz, 8/6)

The Wall Street Journal: How Lockdowns Fuel Inequality
Business Insider, known for click-bait, last weekend tweeted out a nine-minute video on inequality and billionaire wealth during the pandemic. President Trump took the bait, perhaps because Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos had a cameo, and he retweeted the video with a comment: “Too much income disparity. Changes must be made, and soon!” Bernie Sanders couldn’t have said it better. Politicians want to blame the rich, but their policies are contributing to these wealth disparities. Some corporate executives have become richer on paper as their stock prices rise, while government lockdowns and pandemic legislation have created winners and losers in the real economy. (8/6)

Stat: ICE Must Stop Using Solitary Confinement For Covid-19 Quarantine 
After months of social distancing, many of us are feeling its effects. Experts have delineated the mental and physical health impacts of isolation caused by the pandemic, and those who have experienced home quarantine have been particularly vulnerable to loneliness and depression. (Samara Fox, Ellen Gallagher and J. Wesley Boyd, 8/7)

The Hill: Coronavirus Flattens Workers And Business As Government Expands 
The federal government is a little like the Energizer Bunny. In this case, it just keeps growing and growing and growing. It expands through sickness and health, through good times and bad. (Stephen Moore, 8/6)

The Hill: The Destructiveness Of Science Mimicking Social Media 
Publicity about progress on COVID-19 research has highlighted how a social media mindset is seeping into science with potentially disastrous consequences. Researchers at academic institutions and biotech companies have rushed to share findings on COVID-19, even though they know (or ought to know) that the available data aren’t yet sufficient to support their theories or products. These symptoms reflect an insidious problem.  Researchers and companies have fallen prey to a celebrity culture whereby the quest for five minutes of fame is more alluring than the painstaking restraint and rigor that the scientific method demands. (Dr. Kim-Lien Nguyen, 8/6)

Bloomberg: Coronavirus: The U.S. Needs An Airplane Mask Mandate 
In a country where Covid-19 remains out of control, it’s wrong for anyone not to wear a mask on a commercial airplane. Increasing evidence shows that good cloth face coverings significantly lower the spread of the novel coronavirus at close quarters — and that not wearing them is risky, because this germ is so often breathed into the air by people who don’t yet know they have it. One passenger on a flight from Singapore to Hangzhou, China, was infected by neighboring passengers when he merely let his mask slip below his nose while talking with his family. It is one thing for people to take chances with their own health. It’s quite another when their reckless behavior also puts others at risk. The evidence clearly shows that this is the case with masks during the pandemic. (8/6)

The Washington Post: Covid-19 Threatens To Overwhelm The Developing World
As covid-19 burns its path across the United States, we have seen how a high level of infection in a city or region can overwhelm hospitals, swamp testing services, strain supply chains for protective equipment, crowd out surgeries and generally cause havoc with health infrastructure. Now consider those challenges vastly magnified, with casualties measured in millions. The covid-19 storm has arrived in the developing world. (Michael Gerson, 8/6)

Cincinnati Enquirer: Mercy Health Committed To Addressing Health Care Inequality
Cincinnati is not unlike many communities across the country, struggling to make sense out of what has happened to those impacted by racial inequality and injustice – and how we will pull together to move forward, to heal and to learn. (Dave Fikse, 8/6)