First Edition: July 17, 2020

Kaiser Health News: Lost On The Frontline 
America’s health care workers are dying. In some states, medical personnel account for as many as 20% of known coronavirus cases. They tend to patients in hospitals, treating them, serving them food and cleaning their rooms. Others at risk work in nursing homes or are employed as home health aides. “Lost on the Frontline,” a collaboration between KHN and The Guardian, has identified 815 such workers who likely died of COVID-19 after helping patients during the pandemic. (7/17)

Kaiser Health News: Montana Rodeo Goes On, Bucking Fears On Fort Peck Reservation 
Cowboys lined the metal chutes that released bucking horses and their riders into the arena, Miss Rodeo Montana signed autographs for fans, and coronavirus warning signs ended with “Face mask usage is of personal choice.” Most of the rodeo riders and audience at the Wolf Point Wild Horse Stampede appeared to skip masks, despite public health recommendations and increasing pressure to stem the spread of COVID-19 cases spiking across Montana and much of the U.S. (Houghton, 7/17)

Kaiser Health News: Disease-Carrying Mosquitoes Fly Free As Health Departments Focus On Coronavirus
Bug spray, swollen welts, citronella. It’s mosquito season. And in a normal year, the health department serving Ohio’s Delaware County would be setting out more than 90 mosquito traps a week — black tubs of stagnant water with nets designed to ensnare the little buggers. But this year, because of COVID-19, the mosquitoes will fly free. (Barry-Jester and Weber, 7/16)

Kaiser Health News: KHN’s ‘What The Health?’: The Trump Administration’s War On Fauci 
Not only does the Trump administration lack a comprehensive plan for addressing the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, it spent much of the past week working to undercut one of the nation’s most trusted scientists, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Reporters were given “opposition research” noting times when Fauci was allegedly wrong about the course of the pandemic, and Peter Navarro, a trade adviser to President Donald Trump, published an op-ed in USA Today attacking Fauci personally. (7/16)

Kaiser Health News: Listen: A Bureaucratic Shuffle For Hospital COVID Data
Julie Rovner, KHN’s chief Washington correspondent, on Wednesday joined Rob Ferrett, host of “Central Time” on Wisconsin Public Radio, to discuss the Trump administration’s announcement that hospital data on coronavirus cases will no longer be routed to the Centers for Disease and Control and Prevention and instead will go to the Department of Health and Human Services. (Rovner, 7/16)

The Washington Post: U.S. Blows Past Coronavirus Record With More Than 70,000 New Cases In One Day
There was a time in the United States when 50,000 coronavirus cases in a day seemed like an alarming milestone. That was a little over two weeks ago. Now, the number of new cases reported each day is reaching dizzying new heights — and topped 70,000 for the first time Thursday, according to data tracked by The Washington Post. Nebraska, Utah and Oregon each shattered their previous single-day records, pushing the total number of infections detected nationwide past 3.5 million. (Noori Farzan, Armus and Noack, 7/17)

The New York Times: U.S. Shatters Its Record Of New Coronavirus Infections As India’s Caseload Hits A Million
As clashes over face-covering mandates and school reopening plans intensified throughout the United States, the country shattered its single-day record for new cases on Thursday — more than 75,600, according to a New York Times database. [And] India on Friday surpassed a million confirmed infections and 25,000 deaths, weeks after the government lifted a nationwide lockdown in hopes of getting the economy up and running. (7/16)

The Wall Street Journal: Coronavirus Cases Rise In The U.S. As Officials Squabble Over Mask-Wearing
Confirmed cases of coronavirus infections in the U.S. neared 3.6 million, as the country posted a single-day record of more than 77,000 new cases on Thursday, while surges elsewhere took the pandemic to new heights around the world. ... World-wide, a single-day record of 249,800 new infections was tallied Thursday, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University, more than the previous high of around 230,000 set a day earlier. The U.S. had 77,300 new confirmed cases Thursday and the death toll there rose to 138,359, Johns Hopkins said. (Yap, 7/17)

Reuters: U.S. Shatters Coronavirus Record With Over 77,000 Cases In A Day 
The loss of 969 lives was the biggest increase since June 10, with Florida, South Carolina and Texas all reporting their biggest one-day spikes on Thursday. More than 138,000 Americans have died from COVID-19, a toll that experts warn will likely surge following recent record spikes in case numbers and an alarming rise in hospitalizations in many states. (Shumaker, 7/16)

Reuters: Over 1 Million: India Joins U.S., Brazil In Grim Coronavirus Club
India on Friday became the third country in the world to record more than one million cases of the new coronavirus, behind only the United States and Brazil, as infections spread further into the countryside and smaller towns. Given India’s population of around 1.3 billion, experts say, one million is relatively low - but the number will rise significantly in the coming months as testing increases, further straining a healthcare system already pushed to the brink. (Siddiqui, 7/17)

AP: New Virus Outbreaks Raise Alarm As India Cases Hit 1 Million
New coronavirus outbreaks, even in places as far flung as China’s western Xinjiang region, are prompting moves to guard against the pandemic, as the number of cases globally approaches 14 million. India on Friday said it had surpassed 1 million cases, third only to the United States and Brazil, with more than 25,000 deaths. That followed Brazil’s announcement that it has passed 2 million cases and 76,000 deaths — 1,000 fatalities a day, on average, since late May on a gruesome plateau yet to fall. (Kurtenbach and Merchant, 7/17)

AP: Brazil Tops 2 Million Coronavirus Cases, With 76,000 Dead
A thousand deaths a day. Since late May, three months after Brazil’s first reported case of the coronavirus, it has recorded more than 1,000 daily deaths on average in a gruesome plateau that has yet to tilt downward. On Thursday evening, the federal health ministry reported that the country had passed 2 million confirmed cases of virus infections and 76,000 deaths. (Savarese and Biller, 7/16)

NPR: U.S. Says Russian Hackers Are Trying To Steal Coronavirus Vaccine Research
The National Security Agency, as well as its counterparts in Britain and Canada, all said Thursday that they're seeing persistent attempts by Russian hackers to break into organizations working on a potential coronavirus vaccine. The Western intelligence agencies say they believe the hackers are part of the Russian group informally known as Cozy Bear. The intelligence agencies refer to it as APT29. (Myre, 7/16)

The New York Times: Russian Hackers Trying To Steal Coronavirus Vaccine Research 
The National Security Agency said that a hacking group implicated in the 2016 break-ins into Democratic Party servers has been trying to steal intelligence on vaccines from universities, companies and other health care organizations. The group, associated with Russian intelligence and known as both APT29 and Cozy Bear, has sought to exploit the chaos created by the coronavirus pandemic, officials said. American intelligence officials said the Russians were aiming to steal research to develop their own vaccine more quickly, not to sabotage other countries’ efforts. There was likely little immediate damage to global public health, cybersecurity experts said. (Barnes, 7/16)

AP: Russia Is Hacking Virus Vaccine Trials, US, UK, Canada Say
It was unclear whether any useful information was stolen. But British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said, “It is completely unacceptable that the Russian Intelligence Services are targeting those working to combat the coronavirus pandemic.” He accused Moscow of pursuing “selfish interests with reckless behavior.” (Tucker, Lawless and Kirka, 7/17)

The Wall Street Journal: Russian Hackers Blamed For Attacks On Coronavirus Vaccine-Related Targets 
Efforts to develop a vaccine have become an international arms race, with winners seen as benefiting from access to treatments that would help improve national health and economic stability. Those factors make the scientific secrets behind vaccine development valuable. (Strasburg and Volz, 7/16)

The Washington Post: U.S., Britain And Canada Say Russian Cyberspies Are Trying To Steal Coronavirus Vaccine Research 
The hackers, who belong to a unit known variously as APT29, "the Dukes" or "Cozy Bear," are targeting vaccine research and development organizations in the three countries, the officials said in a joint statement. The unit is one of the two Russian spy groups that penetrated the Democratic Party's computers in the lead-up to the 2016 presidential election. “It is completely unacceptable that the Russian intelligence ­services are targeting those working to combat the coro­navirus pandemic,” British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said. (Nakashima, Booth and Coletta, 7/16)

The New York Times: USA Today, After Fracas, Says Op-Ed Attacking Fauci Fell Short Of Standards 
In a note published Wednesday evening, a day after the article was posted online, Bill Sternberg, the editorial page editor of USA Today, wrote that several of Mr. Navarro’s attacks on Dr. Fauci “were misleading or lacked context.” He concluded that the op-ed, which appeared in the paper’s Wednesday print edition, “did not meet USA Today’s fact-checking standards.” Mr. Sternberg did not elaborate on the fact-checking process that might have occurred before publication, nor did he say how the paper’s editorial review had broken down. (Grynbaum, 7/16)

The Washington Post: USA Today Says Peter Navarro Opinion Piece Attacking Anthony Fauci Did Not Meet Standards 
Facing intense criticism on social media, USA Today has admitted errors in an opinion piece written by a White House official that attacked Anthony S. Fauci, the federal government’s top infectious-disease expert, saying in a post-publication note attached to the piece that it “did not meet USA TODAY’s fact-checking standards.” ... On Wednesday evening, editorial page editor Bill Sternberg added a note that explained the piece’s origins as well as its mistakes. (Barr, 7/16)

Stat: NIH Director Defends Fauci Amid White House Criticism 
Francis Collins, the director of the National Institutes of Health, defended the beleaguered disease researcher Anthony Fauci in an interview this week, calling the prospect of firing or demoting him “unimaginable.” Fauci, who has led the National Institute on Allergy and Infectious Diseases for 36 years, has recently come under fire from President Trump, an array of White House aides, and other Trump allies. But Collins, who is nominally Fauci’s boss, implied he would not follow orders to dismiss Fauci, should they come. (Facher, 7/16)

The Hill: Meadows Says Fauci Wrong To Compare Coronavirus To 1918 Pandemic 
White House chief of staff Mark Meadows said on Thursday that Anthony Fauci was wrong to liken the coronavirus to the 1918 flu pandemic, calling his remarks “false” and “irresponsible.” Meadows made the comments on Fox News after rebuking White House trade adviser Peter Navarro’s decision to pen an op-ed criticizing Fauci, the top U.S. infectious disease expert, which the chief of staff said was “not appropriate.” Meadows went on to argue that not everything that Fauci says is correct. (Chalfant, 7/16)

Reuters: Fauci Implores Young People To Stay Vigilant On Coronavirus Risk 
The leading U.S. expert on infectious diseases, Dr. Anthony Fauci, on Thursday implored younger people to continue social distancing and other measures to curtail spread of the novel coronavirus, which has surged in some parts of the country. “Please assume the societal responsibility of being part of the solution, not part of the problem,” he said in a live interview with Facebook Inc Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg. (Beasley, 7/16)

Politico: Who Took Down The CDC’s Coronavirus Data? The Agency Itself. 
After the Trump administration ordered hospitals to change how they report coronavirus data to the government, effectively bypassing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, officials at the CDC made a decision of their own: Take our data and go home. The sudden disappearance of the CDC’s coronavirus dashboards on Wednesday — which drew considerable scrutiny before the agency restored them on Thursday afternoon — has become the latest flashpoint in the extraordinary breakdown between the Washington, D.C.-based federal health department and the nation’s premier public health agency, located in Atlanta. (Diamond, Cancryn, Roubein and Tahir, 7/16)

The Washington Post: Disappearance Of Covid-19 Data From CDC Website Spurs Outcry 
On the eve of a new coronavirus reporting system this week, data disappeared from a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website as hospitals began filing information to a private contractor or their states instead. A day later, an outcry — including from other federal health officials — prompted the Trump administration to reinstate that dashboard and another daily CDC report on the pandemic. And on Thursday, the nation’s governors joined the chorus of objections over the abruptness of the change to the reporting protocols for hospitals, asking the administration to delay the shift for 30 days. In a statement, the National Governors Association said hospitals need the time to learn a new system, as they continue to deal with this pandemic. (Sun and Goldstein, 7/16)

Politico: Democrats Use Inspector General Report To Renew Calls For Medicare Chief's Ouster 
Congressional Democrats on Thursday condemned Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Seema Verma after a watchdog report found she mishandled millions of dollars in government contracts, with some lawmakers renewing or issuing new calls for President Donald Trump to replace his controversial Medicare chief. The Health and Human Services inspector general on Thursday found that a set of contracts Verma approved with outside communications consultants violated federal contracting rules, concluding that the contracts were not appropriately managed and led to “questionable” payouts, like $150,000 for a canceled bus tour. (Diamond and Cancryn, 7/16)

Stat: How New Hospital Data Reporting Rules Will Affect U.S. Covid-19 Response
It’s a fight over something as seemingly mundane as government data collection. But with precious hospital supplies and patient outcomes at stake, it sparked a scandal. The Department of Health and Human Services changed the rules, quietly, earlier this week: Hospitals would be required to report data on Covid-19 patients and deaths directly to their agency, rather than to both HHS and the CDC, as they had been doing. (Florko and Boodman, 7/16)

The Hill: Governors Urge Trump To Delay Changes To Hospital COVID-19 Reporting 
The National Governors Association (NGA) on Thursday called on the Trump administration to postpone planned alterations to hospital reporting requirements for 30 days. “The administration has stated that they plan to utilize this data to better allocate supplies and drugs to states,” the NGA said in a statement. (Budryk, 7/16)

Politico: CDC To Recommend Against Retesting Coronavirus Patients Before They End Isolation 
“This is a remnant of very early on when we had cruise ships and people in quarantine that said the first way to get out of quarantine was to have two negative tests 24 hours apart,” HHS testing czar Brett Giroir told reporters Thursday. “That is no longer needed, and it is medically unnecessary.” He said that most patients can emerge from isolation after three days without symptoms, as long as it has been at least 10 days since their symptoms began. (Lim, 7/16)

Politico: Georgia Governor Sues To Stop Atlanta Mask Mandate 
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp sued Thursday to stop Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms from mandating masks be worn in the city to prevent the spread of coronavirus. The legal actions comes after prominent Democratic mayors in the state pledged to challenge an executive order by Kemp barring local mask mandates. Bottoms defiantly declared, “I am not afraid of the city being sued.” (Cohen, 7/16)

AP: Georgia Gov Sues To End Cities' Defiance On Mask Rules
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp is suing Atlanta’s mayor and city council to block the city from enforcing its mandate to wear a mask in public and other rules related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Kemp and Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr, in a suit filed in state court late Thursday in Atlanta, argue that Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms has overstepped her authority and must obey Kemp’s executive orders under state law. (Amy and Nadler, 7/16)

AP: Pritzker Lawsuit Seeks Face Mask Order For Illinois Schools
Gov. J.B. Pritzker took the unusual step Thursday of preemptively filing a lawsuit to ensure school children wear face coverings to prevent the spread of the coronavirus when schools reopen in a few weeks. ... “As a father, I would not send my children to a school where face coverings are not required because the science is clear: face coverings are critical to prevent the spread of coronavirus,” Pritzker said in a prepared statement. (O'Connor, 7/16)

The Hill: Masks Win Political Momentum Despite GOP Holdouts 
The political momentum behind mask mandates is growing quickly, with more governors issuing orders that people wear face coverings in public and major retailers uniting behind them. Cloth masks or face coverings are now required in public in about half of the states, but some governors — mostly Republicans — are still resisting calls to issue statewide mandates, leading to a patchwork of rules across the country. (Hellmann, 7/16)

NPR: Target, CVS Shoppers Will Be Required To Wear Masks
Target and CVS are the latest national retail chains requiring customers to wear masks as the number of COVID-19 cases continues to skyrocket. The companies announced the new policies on Thursday following similar moves by a growing number of retailers acting to fill a void left by local, state and federal agencies that have so far refused to set mandatory face coverings policies. (Romo, 7/16)

The New York Times: Mask Rules Expand Across U.S. As Clashes Over The Mandates Intensify 
As images of people wearing surgical masks flashed across the screen, Morgan Freeman’s deep, soothing voice delivered a message to America: “When you wear a mask, you have my respect. Because your mask doesn’t protect you, it protects me.” Using familiar actors, stirring background music and the arresting eyes of people peering out above their masks, a broad national ad campaign unveiled on Thursday by New York State, once the center of the coronavirus pandemic, aimed to educate people about how covering their mouths and noses could save lives. (Mervosh, Fernandez and Robertson, 7/16)

NPR: Shoddy Surgical Masks Often Bear Bogus FDA Certificates 
When the order of 100,000 masks arrived at an unnamed factory for use in protecting workers against COVID-19, they were covered in dirt, dust and mysterious stains. In short, they were "not fit to be used," according to a complaint filed with the Food and Drug Administration in late March. The masks came from Shenzhen Newstar Optical Electronic Technology, a company in Shenzhen, China, that appears primarily to make LED displays. Because the report was filed in the FDA database for medical device problems, the complainant's name and other facts have been redacted. (Lupkin, 7/16)

The Washington Post: Sun Belt Hospitals Are Feeling The Strain From Virus’ Surge — And Bracing For Worse 
In California, doctors are ­shipping patients as many as 600 miles away because they can’t be cared for locally. In Florida, nurses are pouring in from out of state to reinforce exhausted medical workers. And in Texas, mayors are demanding the right to shut down their cities to avoid overwhelming hospitals. In a nation gripped by a record number of coronavirus cases — with severe outbreaks across multiple states and regions — medical systems are increasingly showing the strain, with short­ages of critically needed personnel, equipment and testing. (Witte and Weiner, 7/16)

The New York Times: How Novavax Won $1.6 Billion To Make A Coronavirus Vaccine 
Novavax just received the Trump administration’s largest vaccine contract--$1.6 billion. In the Maryland company’s 33-year history, it has never brought a vaccine to market. How that happened. (Thomas and Twohey, 7/16)

Stat: Novartis To Provide Drugs For Covid-19 At No Cost, But Fails To Share Prices
As companies face pressure to ensure access to medicines during the pandemic, Novartis (NVS) plans to sell more than a dozen older drugs at cost to dozens of mostly poor countries, a move that was met with mixed reaction from consumer advocates because pricing was not disclosed. The drug maker is creating a nonprofit to sell 15 generic and over-the-counter medicines that treat various symptoms of Covid-19 to low-income and lower-middle-income countries. Among the medicine are several antibiotics as well as dexamethasone, a steroid that recent top-line study data suggests ... may improve the odds of survival in the sickest Covid-19 patients. (Silverman, 7/16)

The Hill: Trump Health Officials To Recommend Against Retesting COVID-19 Patients 
Top Trump administration officials are preparing guidance that will recommend people who test positive for COVID-19 do not need to get retested to prove they no longer have the disease. The move, previewed in a call with reporters by the administration's testing coordinator Brett Giroir, comes as the U.S. testing system faces severe strains and a national backlog of results. (Weixel, 7/16)

Stat: Doctors Hope Social Distancing Will Limit A Rare Polio-Like Disease In Children
If the pattern from recent history holds, starting next month, doctors in the U.S. will begin seeing a spike in cases of a polio-like condition in children that leaves them with muscle weakness, paralysis, and, in the most severe cases, trouble breathing. But 2020, if you haven’t noticed, is not your average year. (Joseph, 7/17)

Stat: New Covid-19 Study Adds To Case Against Hydroxychloroquine 
Hydroxychloroquine did not lead to faster symptom improvement among patients who had Covid-19 symptoms and were not hospitalized, according to a new study published Thursday in the Annals of Internal Medicine. The study, a randomized controlled trial led by researchers at the University of Minnesota, adds to the evidence that the malaria drug, heralded as a treatment based on scant data early in the pandemic, has little utility in treating Covid-19. (Herper, 7/16)

The New York Times: The Flu May Linger In The Air, Just Like The Coronavirus 
The coronavirus is not the flu. But the two viruses have something crucial in common: Both have been described as spreading primarily through close contact with symptomatic people or the surfaces they’ve touched. Mounting evidence may be starting to turn the tide on that message. Last week, the World Health Organization modified its stance on coronavirus transmission, acknowledging that the virus may also hop from person to person by lingering in the air, trapped inside tiny aerosols that can traverse the length of room. (Wu, 7/14)

CIDRAP: Mumps Outbreak In Chicago Disproportionately Affected Gay Men, People With HIV
In 2018, men who have sex with men (MSM) and people living with HIV made up a large proportion of the 116 cases of mumps in adults in Chicago, which surpassed the number seen during the previous 5 years combined, according to a report released today in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR). Nineteen of the 116 mumps infections (17%) occurred in people living with HIV. Twenty-nine (31%) of 93 respondents to a supplementary questionnaire sent to adults diagnosed as having mumps in 2018 were women who have sex with men, 27 (29%) were men who have sex only with women, and 37 (34%) identified as MSM. (7/17)

Reuters: Australian Researchers Invent 20-Minute Coronavirus Blood Test 
Researchers in Australia have devised a test that can determine novel coronavirus infection in about 20 minutes using blood samples in what they say is a world-first breakthrough. The researchers at Monash University said their test can determine if someone is currently infected and if they have been infected in the past. (7/17)

NPR: Safe Pregnancy As COVID-19 Surges: What's Best For Mom And Baby? 
Carissa Helmer and her husband had been trying to get pregnant for five or six months by early April, when COVID-19 started to spike in the Washington, D.C., area where they live. Maybe, they mused, they should stop trying to conceive for a few months. But then a pregnancy test came back positive. In some ways, she says, there are a few convenient aspects to being pregnant now – starting with being able to work from home. But other aspects of the pregnancy have been tougher than she expected. For one thing, she's had to go to all of her doctor's appointments by herself. (Wamsley, 7/17)

The Washington Post: What Went Wrong At The Virginia Nursing Home With The Most Coronavirus Cases
The line of nursing home employees waiting to report for duty formed around 6:45 a.m. one day in early May, stretching from the reception desk to the sidewalk. But there was no one to take their temperatures, as required by federal regulations to minimize the spread of the coronavirus. “I can’t do this,” said one exasperated employee at Annandale Healthcare Center, leaving the line and heading into the facility. The Annandale facility was one of at least 27 Virginia nursing homes cited recently by inspectors, who paused inspections nationwide at the start of the pandemic but now must examine infection-control practices at all facilities by July 31 in order for states to receive funding for nursing homes through the Cares Act. (Chason, 7/16)

AP: Days Grow Long At Nursing Homes As Virus Lockdowns Drag On
In the activity room, where birthdays were celebrated and Sunday services were held, the aquarium and its brightly colored tropical fish are the only signs of life. Off quiet hallways, Southern Pines residents pass the time with word-search books or a nap. Meals once were a social time enjoyed at tables of neighbors; now most are delivered bedside. Visitors are resigned to muffled conversations through windowpanes, and the only tickets out may be a trip to dialysis or an ambulance ride to the hospital — or something worse. (Sedensky, 7/17)

AP: CDC Extends US Ban On Cruise Ships Through September
Federal health officials are extending the U.S. ban on cruise ships through the end of September as coronavirus infections rise in most U.S. states, including Florida. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Thursday that it was extending a no-sail order that had been scheduled to expire July 24. In the order signed by CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield, the agency said the cruise industry hasn’t controlled transmission of the virus on its ships. (7/16)

NPR: CDC School Guidance Won't Be Released This Week
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will not release a set of documents this week aimed at giving schools advice on how to reopen to students after coronavirus shutdowns, NPR has learned. Instead, the full set will be published before the end of the month, a CDC spokesperson says. "These science and evidence-based resources and tools will provide additional information for administrators, teachers and staff, parents, caregivers and guardians, as together we work towards the public health-oriented goal of safely opening schools this fall," the spokesperson said. (Ordonez, 7/16)

The Washington Post: After Last-Minute Change, D.C. Says It Wants Students Back But Will Wait And Watch Virus 
All week, parents and teachers in the nation’s capital expected the city to make its long-awaited announcement, revealing what school would look like in the fall. Many younger students would return to in-person learning twice a week, Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) would announce, and older students could go back once a week. It wasn’t normal school, but it was more class time than many other districts were offering. That was the plan as late as Wednesday evening, when city officials laid out in interviews how it would work. But an hour before Thursday’s scheduled news conference, officials said plans had changed. And when the city finally made its announcement, it added a big caveat — and a lot of uncertainty: The health department will now announce on July 31 whether schools will even be allowed to reopen in the fall, or if schools will need to go all virtual. (Stein, 7/16)

The New York Times: In The Same Towns, Private Schools Are Reopening While Public Schools Are Not 
In Honolulu, nearly all public schools are planning to allow students to return for just part of the week. But at Punahou, a private school for grades kindergarten through 12, school will open full time for everyone. The school has an epidemiologist on staff and is installing thermal scanners in the hallways to take people’s temperatures as they walk by. It has a new commons area and design lab as well as an 80-acre campus that students can use to spread out. There were already two teachers for 25 children, so it will be easy to cut classes in half to meet public health requirements for small, consistent groups. (Miller, 7/16)

Reuters: Despite Trump's Pressure, Most Americans Think It Is Unsafe To Reopen Schools: Reuters/Ipsos Poll 
Only one in four Americans think it is safe for public schools to reopen this fall as U.S. coronavirus cases climb, and four in 10 parents said they would likely keep their children home if classes resume, a new Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll shows. The July 14-15 national online poll was conducted as the country’s 13,000 school districts grapple with how to safely resume instruction after closing in the spring as infections spread. The results suggest President Donald Trump’s demand to fully reopen schools is at odds with how most Americans feel. (Kahn, 7/16)

Los Angeles Times: Latino And Black Students Hit By Online Learning Disparities 
More than 50,000 Black and Latino middle and high school students in Los Angeles did not regularly participate in the school system’s main platform for virtual classrooms after campuses closed in March, a reflection of the deep disparities faced by students of color amid the COVID-19 pandemic and of the difficulties ahead as L.A. Unified prepares for continued online learning. The numbers, reflected in a first-of-its-kind report by Los Angeles Unified School District analysts examining student engagement during campus closures, paint a stark picture of students in the nation’s second largest school district struggling under the new pressures of online learning. (Esquivel and Blume, 7/16)

Stat: A Yearslong Push To Remove Racist Bias From Kidney Testing Gains New Ground
For years, physicians and medical students, many of them Black, have warned that the most widely used kidney test — the results of which are based on race — is racist and dangerously inaccurate. Their appeals are gaining new traction, with a wave of petitions and papers calling renewed attention to the issue. (Gaffney, 7/17)

The Washington Post: Police Chokehold Bans: How George Floyd’s Killing Prompted Departments To Change 
At least 26 of the nation’s 65 largest police departments have banned or strengthened restrictions on the use of neck restraints since the Memorial Day death of George Floyd after a Minneapolis police officer held his knee to Floyd’s neck for more than seven minutes, a Washington Post analysis shows. The swift response followed protests across the nation — sometimes on the steps of police departments’ headquarters — and were often announced in splashy news releases or at press conferences to quickly spread the word and reassure stressed communities. (Mellnik, Schaul and Kindy, 7/16)

AP: US Prison Populations Down 8% Amid Coronavirus Outbreak
There has been a major drop in the number of people behind bars in the U.S. Between March and June, more than 100,000 people were released from state and federal prisons, a decrease of 8%, according to a nationwide analysis by The Marshall Project and The Associated Press. The drops range from 2% in Virginia to 32% in Rhode Island. By comparison, the state and federal prison population decreased by 2.2% in all of 2019, according to a report on prison populations by the Vera Institute of Justice. (Sharma, Li, Lavoie and Lauer, 7/16)

AP: NCAA Lays Out Plan For Playing But Warns Of Surging Pandemic
The NCAA handed down its latest guidelines for playing through a pandemic while also sounding an alarm: The prospect of having a fall semester with football and other sports is looking grim. If the games can go on, the NCAA says college athletes should be tested for COVID-19 no more than 72 hours before they play, players with high-risk exposures to the coronavirus should be quarantined for 14 days and everybody on the sideline should wear a mask. The nation’s largest governing body for college sports released an updated guidance Thursday to help member schools navigate competition, but it comes as the pandemic rages on. Around the country, the number of COVID-19 cases are on the rise and many states have slowed reopenings or reinstated social-distancing restrictions on some businesses. (Russo, 7/16)

AP: Referees Gearing Up For Their Return To NBA Games, Too
NBA referees have not had the same opportunities as players have to knock off the rust from the shutdown caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Players have been back on the court for a few weeks, with the majority of that time spent getting in individual workouts before practices could resume when the 22 teams arrived at the Walt Disney World bubble. The referees didn’t have that chance. (Reynolds, 7/16)

The Hill: Missouri Spending $15M In Coronavirus Relief Funds On Boosting Tourism 
Missouri plans to spend $15 million in federal coronavirus aid on promoting tourism in the state, Gov. Mike Parson (R) announced Thursday. Parson called the tourism industry “a great way to support Missouri businesses” in his press briefing Thursday, adding “With all the other things going on, it’s still important people need to get out and enjoy life a little bit.” (Budryk, 7/16)

AP: Wolf Yanks Virus Funding From Rebellious County
Gov. Tom Wolf followed through on his threat to yank COVID-19 funding from a county that defied his shutdown orders, while his administration targeted bars, restaurants and large gatherings statewide Thursday in an effort to prevent a wider resurgence of the virus that officials say could jeopardize students’ return to school. The state’s largest teachers union, meanwhile, asked Wolf to order schools to plan for online-only instruction, citing mounting concern among educators and parents about the “significant health risks” posed by sending kids back to the classroom. (Rubinkam and Levy, 7/17)