First Edition: July 15, 2020

Kaiser Health News: Conspiracy Theories Aside, Here’s What Contact Tracers Really Do
In the midst of the COVID-19 epidemic, contact tracing is downright buzzy, and not always in a good way.Contact tracing is the public health practice of informing people when they’ve been exposed to a contagious disease. As it has become more widely employed across the country, it has also become mired in modern political polarization and conspiracy theories. (Appleby, 7/15)

Kaiser Health News: California School Districts Grope For Sensible Reopening Plans 
School leaders in Elk Grove, California, wanted to leave as little to chance as possible. So they brought nearly 150 voices into their decision-making process, and canvassed the parents of the estimated 63,000 students in the district to ask how they wanted their children taught. The result was a four-item menu of instruction choices for the coming academic year, none featuring a full campus. About 45 minutes down Interstate 5 in California’s Central Valley, seven trustees in Manteca took a 5-2 vote: School would resume on campus, at full classroom capacity, five days a week. Parents would have the option to enroll children in a 100% online academy — although it didn’t yet exist. After a protest from teachers and the health department, the district later relented and agreed to put students on campus for five days every two weeks. (Kreidler, 7/15)

The Washington Post: Caseloads Soar Outside Of Hot Spots As States Report Record Numbers Of Fatalities 
It’s not just Florida, Arizona and Texas anymore. States including Oklahoma and Nevada are reporting record numbers of new coronavirus cases, hospitalizations and deaths, according to data tracked by The Washington Post. More than 62,000 new infections were reported nationwide on Tuesday, pushing the total count since the pandemic began past 3.41 million. Outside of the United States, that kind of explosive growth can be found only in the developing world, in countries that lack the United States’ wealth and resources. The number of new cases reported in Florida alone over the past week outstrips the total count in most European nations. (Noori Farzan and Armus, 7/15)

The New York Times: Trump Administration Strips C.D.C. Of Control Of Coronavirus Data 
The Trump administration has ordered hospitals to bypass the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and send all Covid-19 patient information to a central database in Washington beginning on Wednesday. The move has alarmed health experts who fear the data will be politicized or withheld from the public. (Gay Stolberg, 7/14)

The Hill: White House Tells Hospitals To Bypass CDC On COVID-19 Data Reporting 
Hospitals will begin sending coronavirus-related information directly to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), not the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), under new instructions from the Trump administration. The move will take effect on Wednesday, according to a new guidance and FAQ document for hospitals and clinical labs quietly posted on the HHS website. (Weixel, 7/14)

The Washington Post: New HHS Hospital Reporting Protocols For Covid-19 Data Eliminates CDC As Recipient 
In a letter to the nation’s governors that says the National Guard could help improve hospitals’ data flow, HHS Secretary Alex Azar and Deborah Birx, the White House’s Coronavirus Task Force response coordinator, say they ordered the changes because some hospitals have failed to report the information daily or completely. That portrayal, and the involvement of the National Guard, have infuriated hospital industry leaders, who say any data collection problems lie primarily with HHS and repeatedly shifting federal instructions. (Sun and Goldstein, 7/14)

The Hill: Coronavirus Testing Czar Pushes Back After Trump Targets Health Officials: 'None Of Us Lie' 
The official leading the Trump administration's coronavirus testing efforts on Tuesday rebuffed the notion that health experts are lying after President Trump retweeted a Twitter post saying that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and others were spreading falsehoods about the virus. "We may occasionally make mistakes based on the information we have, but none of us lie," Adm. Brett Giroir, the assistant secretary of Health and Human Services, said on NBC's "Today." (Wise, 7/14)

The Hill: Trump Adviser Knocks Fauci: Wrong About 'Everything' 
The economic adviser pointed to Fauci's past comments on using the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19, comments about the falling mortality rate in the country and other remarks. "So when you ask me whether I listen to Dr. Fauci’s advice, my answer is: only with skepticism and caution," he wrote. (Moreno, 7/14)

Politico: Peter Navarro Blasts Fauci In Op-Ed
Peter Navarro, President Donald Trump‘s top trade adviser, blasted Dr. Anthony Fauci on Tuesday, claiming that the nation’s top infectious disease expert and the public face of the White House‘s coronavirus response has been consistently wrong while advising on how to contain the disease. In a brief op-ed published in USA Today, Navarro said: “Dr. Anthony Fauci has a good bedside manner with the public, but he has been wrong about everything I have interacted with him on.“ (Choi, 7/14)

The New York Times: Trump Aide Dan Scavino Posts Cartoon Mocking Fauci 
White House officials this week have denied trying to undermine Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease expert, for his stark analysis of the coronavirus pandemic. But Dan Scavino, the White House deputy chief of staff for communications, undercut that message by posting a cartoon mocking Dr. Fauci by an artist whose work has been criticized for its anti-Semitic imagery. (Rogers, 7/14)

The Hill: Fauci: 'I Think You Can Trust Me' On My Track Record 
Anthony Fauci said the public can trust him when he provides guidance on the coronavirus based on his track record as he comes under increasingly public attacks from some administration officials. “I believe, for the most part, you can trust respected medical authorities,” Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert, said Tuesday during a Georgetown Institute of Politics and Public Service event. “I believe I’m one of them, so I think you can trust me.” (Axelrod, 7/14)

The Hill: Fauci: Young People Have 'Societal Responsibility' To Avoid COVID Infection 
Young people have an important role to play in stopping the spread of COVID-19 and protecting those at risk for serious illness, Dr. Anthony Fauci said Tuesday. Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, told Georgetown University students that a high number of infections are being confirmed in young adults, who are unlikely to become seriously ill from COVID-19 but can pass it to more vulnerable people if they don't wear masks or practice social distancing. (Hellmann, 7/14)

Stat: Mask-Wearing Can Bring Covid-19 Under Control, CDC Director Says 
“Like herd immunity with vaccines, the more individuals wear cloth face coverings in public places where they may be close together, the more the entire community is protected,” Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and two colleagues wrote in an editorial in the Journal of the American Medical Association, also published on Tuesday. Because cloth face coverings can also allow states to more safely ease stay-at-home orders and business closings, Redfield told a JAMA Live webcast Tuesday, “If we could get everybody to wear a mask right now, I really think in the next four, six, eight weeks, we could bring this epidemic under control.” (Begley, 7/14)

The Hill: CDC Director Says Trump, Pence Should Wear Masks To Set Example 
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Robert Redfield said Tuesday the president and vice president need to wear masks to set an example for the public. President Trump wore a mask in public for the first time over the weekend, nearly three months after the CDC issued guidance recommending the use of face coverings when social distancing isn’t possible. Trump has previously argued he doesn’t need to wear a mask because he is routinely tested for COVID-19. (Hellmann, 7/14)

Los Angeles Times: How Trump Went From Shunning To Wearing A Mask In The Pandemic 
When President Trump wore a face mask in public for the first time this weekend, his supporters were exultant.“Goodnight, Joe Biden,” tweeted Boris Epshteyn, a campaign advisor. “Game on,” declared Sebastian Gorka, an official who recently rejoined the administration. Campaign manager Brad Parscale simply tweeted a photo of the masked president touring Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., with the familiar Trump slogan #AmericaFirst. With all the crowing, you’d think Trump and his orbit had long seen wearing a mask as a no-brainer and political win. But Trump’s journey to don a mask is far more circuitous than what his allies portray. (Mason, 7/14)

The Hill: Poll: Plurality Of Voters Believe Trump's Refusal To Wear Masks In Public Deters Americans From Wearing Masks Themselves 
Forty-four percent of voters in a new poll said people are less likely to wear masks when President Trump does not wear a mask in public to lower the spread of the coronavirus. The July 7-10 Hill-HarrisX poll survey was taken before Trump donned a face mask during a visit to Walter Reed Hospital, the first time he did so in front of cameras since the CDC recommended face masks to slow the spread of the COVID-19 disease. Thirty-two percent of registered voters said the president's refusal to don a mask makes people more likely to wear a mask, while 24 percent said it has no effect. (7/14)

Los Angeles Times: As Millions Lose Health Insurance, Trump Offers Little Help 
As millions of people lose jobs in the coronavirus outbreak, jeopardizing their health benefits, the Trump administration and many states are doing little if anything to connect Americans with other insurance coverage. The U.S. Health and Human Services Department hasn’t launched any special effort to publicize the availability of Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program or health plans being sold on marketplaces created by the Affordable Care Act. (Levey, 7/14)

The Hill: Trump Administration Asks Supreme Court To Reinstate Arkansas Medicaid Work Requirements 
The Trump administration on Tuesday asked the Supreme Court to reinstate Medicaid work requirements in Arkansas. The Department of Justice in a filing said a federal appeals court was wrong to block the Department of Health and Human Services from approving work requirements in Arkansas, and the decision "reflects a fundamental misreading of the statutory text and context." (Weixel, 7/14)

Modern Healthcare: HHS Approves Substance Abuse Care Coordination Rule
HHS on Monday signed off on a final rule to improve care coordination for substance use disorder, despite concerns that it might make people less willing to seek treatment. The final rule will retain a basic framework to protect the records of patients with substance use disorder, but will remove barriers to coordinated care and enable providers to share more patient information, according to HHS' Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. (Brady, 7/13)

Reuters: In Surprise Move, Trump Administration Reverses Course On Barring Many Foreign Students 
In a stunning reversal of policy, the Trump administration on Tuesday abandoned a plan that would have forced out tens of thousands of foreign students following widespread condemnation of the move and pressure from colleges and major businesses. U.S. officials announced last week that international students at schools that had moved to online-only classes due to the coronavirus pandemic would have to leave the country if they were unable to transfer to a college with at least some in-person instruction. (Rosenberg and Hesson, 7/14)

The New York Times: Government Rescinds Plan To Strip Visas From Foreign Students In Online Classes 
The loss of international students could have cost universities millions of dollars in tuition and jeopardized the ability of U.S. companies to hire the highly skilled workers who often start their careers with an American education. Two days after the policy was announced on July 6, Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology filed the first of a litany of lawsuits seeking to block it. (Jordan and Hartocollis, 7/14)

Los Angeles Times: Trump Says It's A 'Mistake' Not To Reopen L.A. Schools 
President Trump called the decision by Los Angeles schools to not reopen campuses next month a “mistake” during a CBS News interview on Tuesday. Los Angeles Unified School District Supt. Austin Beutner announced Monday that the nation’s second-largest school system will continue with online learning until further notice because of the worsening coronavirus outbreak in Los Angeles. (Blume, 7/14)

The Wall Street Journal: Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Is Hospitalized For Possible Infection 
Justice Ginsburg’s latest hospitalization comes two months after she was admitted to the same hospital for treatment of a benign gallbladder condition and a gallstone that caused an infection. (Kendall, 7/14)

Politico: Ginsburg Hospitalized For 'Possible Infection'
The Supreme Court’s oldest justice, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 87, was admitted to the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore early Tuesday morning after being evaluated Monday night at Sibley Memorial Hospital in Washington due to symptoms that included “fever and chills.” “She underwent an endoscopic procedure at Johns Hopkins this afternoon to clean out a bile duct stent that was placed last August. The Justice is resting comfortably and will stay in the hospital for a few days to receive intravenous antibiotic treatment,” said court spokesperson Kathleen Arberg. (Gerstein, 7/14)

Los Angeles Times: Clinical Trial Shows Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine On Right Track 
Within 12 hours of getting the second dose of an experimental COVID-19 vaccine being developed by Moderna Inc., Ian Haydon began to feel chills. Then came nausea, headaches, muscle pain and delirium. He took his temperature: 103.2 degrees. With fluids and rest, the symptoms faded. ... A day and half after getting the shot, he felt fine. Similar side effects of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine were described in a report published Tuesday by the New England Journal of Medicine. Its findings confirm the company’s preliminary announcement in May that the candidate vaccine prompted the production of coronavirus antibodies in human testers. (Curwen, 7/14)

AP: First COVID-19 Vaccine Tested In US Poised For Final Testing
The first COVID-19 vaccine tested in the U.S. revved up people’s immune systems just the way scientists had hoped, researchers reported Tuesday — as the shots are poised to begin key final testing. “No matter how you slice this, this is good news,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, the U.S. government’s top infectious disease expert, told The Associated Press. (Neergaard, 7/15)

Reuters: Moderna Phase 1 Results Show Coronavirus Vaccine Safe, Induces Immune Response 
The U.S. government is supporting Moderna’s vaccine with nearly half a billion dollars and has chosen it as one of the first to enter large-scale human trials. A successful vaccine could be a turning point for Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Moderna, which has never had a licensed product. (Steenhuysen, 7/14)

The Washington Post: Moncef Slaoui Is Allowed To Maintain Drug Investments Under An Inspector General Decision 
The co-director of President Trump’s Operation Warp Speed can maintain extensive investments in the drug industry and avoid ethics disclosures while he continues to make decisions about government contracts for promising coronavirus vaccines under a decision this week by the Health and Human Services inspector general. Monday’s ruling by the Office of Inspector General came in response to a complaint filed by the advocacy groups Public Citizen and Lower Drug Prices Now. The groups said the Trump administration has carved out an improper exception to federal conflict of interest rules for Moncef Slaoui, a venture capital executive and former high-ranking official at drug giant GlaxoSmithKline. (Rowland, 7/14)

Politico: Vaccine-Makers’ ‘No Profit’ Pledge Stirs Doubts In Congress
Some of the pharmaceutical companies developing Covid-19 vaccine candidates have pledged to not take a profit. But neither the companies nor the U.S. government bankrolling a great deal of the vaccine research has defined precisely what forgoing a profit means or how long that will last. And that’s feeding skepticism and uncertainty among industry watchers and doubts in Congress about who will end up paying what could be a very large tab. “A drug company’s claim that it’s providing a vaccine at cost should be viewed with the same skepticism as that by a used car salesperson,” Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas), a leading critic of the industry in Congress, told POLITICO in an email. (Brennan, 7/13)

Stat: Ohio Sues Express Scripts For 'Egregiously' Overcharging For Medicines
The Ohio Attorney General has filed a lawsuit alleging Express Scripts overcharged a state pension plan for generic drugs and “silently” pocketed millions of dollars, the second time in two years the state has accused a big pharmacy benefit manager of overcharging for medicines. Specifically, Express Scripts failed to satisfy pricing guarantees in a contract with the Ohio State Highway Patrol Retirement System and “repeatedly misclassified” generic drugs as brand-name medicines. (Silverman, 7/14)

Stat: Sanofi And MD Anderson Team Up To Speed Cancer Drug Testing 
In another sign of its renewed emphasis on cancer, Sanofi (SNY) said Tuesday it will partner with the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center to speed oncology research and testing of its experimental cancer drugs. The five-year alliance, whose contractual details were not disclosed by the French pharmaceutical company or the Houston academic medical center, will bring together MD Anderson’s clinical trial system with Sanofi’s pipeline of potential cancer treatments. (Cooney, 7/14)

The Washington Post: Decades Of Research On An HIV Vaccine Boosts The Bid For One Against Coronavirus 
The discovery of HIV was a long-awaited moment, and Health and Human Services Secretary Margaret Heckler vowed that the scourge of AIDS would soon end. A vaccine would be ready for testing within two years, she proclaimed. ... Thirty-six years later, there still is no HIV vaccine. But instead of being a cautionary tale of scientific hubris, that unsuccessful effort is leading to even greater confidence in the search for a coronavirus vaccine, from some of the same researchers who have spent their careers seeking a cure for AIDS. (Johnson and Bernstein, 7/14)

Stat: Sun Pharma Employee Says She Was Fired For Sample Shipping Complaint
A former Sun Pharmaceutical sales rep filed a lawsuit arguing she was fired from her job after complaining that a district manager improperly distributed samples to physicians, the latest instance in which the drug maker has allegedly run afoul of laws governing product sampling. In her lawsuit, Jeannine Umpleby claimed that, after moving last year from one territory to another in the Cleveland area, she received a call from a physician’s office saying a district manager unexpectedly shipped samples of a medicine. Since federal law stipulates that samples may only be sent in response to a written notice from a physician, Umpleby reported the incident to her supervisor. (Silverman, 7/14)

Stat: Experts Offer Playbook For How Hospitals Should Respond To Patient Bias
All too often, health care workers are the target of biased or bigoted behavior from the patients they’re caring for — but many medical centers don’t have formal policies in place to help clinicians handle those incidents or the impact on staff. A new set of recommendations, published Monday in the Annals of Internal Medicine, offers health systems a blueprint for better responding to incidents of patient bias. They say a “one size fits all” approach won’t work, and instead urge health systems to take a sweeping set of actions to make sure they’re prepared to handle such problems, which have long been documented. (Spinelli, 7/13)

AP: Profile Of A Killer: Unraveling The Deadly New Coronavirus
What is this enemy? Seven months after the first patients were hospitalized in China battling an infection doctors had never seen before, the world’s scientists and citizens have reached an unsettling crossroads. Countless hours of treatment and research, trial and error now make it possible to take much closer measure of the new coronavirus and the lethal disease it has unleashed. But to take advantage of that intelligence, we must confront our persistent vulnerability: The virus leaves no choice. (Geller and Ritter, 7/15)

Stat: Google Pledges Not To Use Fitbit Health Data To Target Ads
With the clock ticking on a European Commission probe into Google’s $2.1 billion bid for Fitbit, the tech giant offered regulators a concession late Monday, agreeing not to use Fitbit’s trove of health data to help target ads. Google had been staring down the possibility of a sweeping antitrust investigation by European regulators that was the latest in a series of probes into its deal with Fitbit announced last November. But the tech giant had a potential way to avoid the full thrust of the investigation: A promise, in the form of a binding pledge, not to use Fitbit’s fitness data for ad-targeting. (Brodwin, 7/14)

NPR: Loneliness Hasn't Increased Despite Pandemic, Research Finds. What Helped? 
When COVID-19 barreled into the U.S. this year the predominant public health advice for avoiding infection focused on physical isolation: No parties, concerts, or sports events. No congregating inside in bars or restaurants. No on-site family reunions. No play dates for kids. Just keep away from other people. Meanwhile, although social scientists supported that medical advice, they feared the required physical distancing would spark another epidemic — one of loneliness, which was already at a high level in the U.S. (Silberner, 7/15)

ProPublica: “I Can’t Breathe.” It Happens At Schools, Too. 
A 16-year-old boy in Kalamazoo, Michigan, died this spring after workers pinned him to the floor at the residential facility where he lived — after he’d thrown a sandwich at lunch. While held on the ground, he told them: “I can’t breathe.” At least 70 people have died in law enforcement custody in the last decade after saying the words “I can’t breathe,” a recent New York Times investigation found. But just as adults have died after being restrained, so have children. (Smith Richards and Cohen, 7/10)

AP: Fired VA Staffer Admits To Murdering 7 Patients With Insulin
A former staffer at a veterans hospital in West Virginia pleaded guilty Tuesday to intentionally killing seven patients with fatal doses of insulin, capping a sweeping federal investigation into a series of mysterious deaths at the medical center. Reta Mays, a former nursing assistant at the Louis A. Johnson VA Medical Center in Clarksburg was charged with seven counts of second-degree murder and one count of assault with the intent to commit murder of an eighth person. She faces life sentences for each murder. (Izaguirre, 7/14)

The Washington Post: Former Nursing Assistant At VA Hospital In West Virginia To Plead Guilty In Deaths Of Seven Veterans
In her three years as a nursing assistant on the overnight shift at the local Veterans Affairs hospital here, Reta Mays tended to elderly veterans with the ailments of old age. She took their vital signs and glucose levels on the graveyard shift, sitting vigil at their bedside while medical staffing was thin. Few saw her go in and out of patients' rooms. No one watched while she injected them with lethal doses of insulin during an 11-month killing rampage in 2017 and 2018, which she admitted to Tuesday in federal court, pleading guilty to second-degree murder in the deaths of seven veterans and an intent to murder an eighth who died two weeks later. (Rein and Born, 7/14)

AP: 'Mythbusters' Star Grant Imahara Dies From Brain Aneurysm
Grant Imahara, the longtime host of Discovery Channel’s “Mythbusters,” died from a brain aneurysm, the network said Tuesday. Imahara died Monday at the age of 49.“ We are heartbroken to hear this sad news about Grant,” the network said in a statement. “He was an important part of our Discovery family and a really wonderful man. Our thoughts and prayers go out to his family.” (7/14)

Los Angeles Times: Naya Rivera Death Was An Accidental Drowning, Medical Examiner Rules 
The Ventura County medical examiner on Tuesday determined the cause of death of “Glee” star Naya Rivera, whose body was found Monday in Lake Piru, was an accidental drowning. Rivera disappeared Wednesday during a boat outing with her young son. Authorities have long believed her death was an accident. (Wigglesworth and Fry, 7/14)

ProPublica: Opioid Overdoses Keep Surging In Chicago, Killing Black People On The West Side 
Cook County residents continue to die at a staggering rate from opioid-related overdoses, and Black residents from Chicago’s West Side account for a disproportionate number of those deaths. County political and public health officials on Tuesday sounded the alarm about what they said was a preventable crisis that has been overshadowed by the COVID-19 pandemic. “Whatever crisis faces our communities, people of color bear the brunt of it,” Toni Preckwinkle, the Cook County Board president, said at a news conference. (Eldeib and Sanchez, 7/14)

The New York Times: What’s Missing In The Effort To Stop Maternal Deaths 
According to the best data available, as summarized in a report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the United States could prevent two-thirds of maternal deaths during or within a year of pregnancy. Policies and practices to do so are well understood; we just haven’t employed them. (Frakt, 7/13 )

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Businesses Face Few Mandates When Employees Test Positive
For businesses that have reopened to customers, there are few federal mandates specific to COVID-19. State restrictions have been relaxed since earlier in the pandemic, and enforcement has been light. Crucially, there are few hard-and-fast legal requirements for how businesses must respond if employees test positive. Many can remain open and don’t have to inform all employees or customers. (Yamanouchi and Hallerman, 7/13)

The New York Times: Bottleneck For U.S. Coronavirus Response: The Fax Machine 
Public health officials in Houston are struggling to keep up with one of the nation’s largest coronavirus outbreaks. They are desperate to trace cases and quarantine patients before they spread the virus to others. But first, they must negotiate with the office fax machine. (Kliff and Sanger-Katz, 7/13)

AP: Best Buy To Require Customers To Wear Masks Amid Virus Spike
Best Buy, the nation’s largest consumer electronics chain, will require customers to wear face coverings at all of its stores nationwide, even in states or localities that don’t require them to do so. The retailer, based in Richfield, Minnesota, joins a growing but still short list of major retailers that have instituted mask mandates throughout their chains. (D'Innocenzio, 7/14)

ABC News/GMA: Gyms Stay Open As COVID-19 Cases Rise: What To Know About Safety
Whether or not it is safe to return to the gym has become a puzzling question for people as the number of COVID-19 cases continue to rise in many states. In Florida, one of the epicenters of the pandemic, where the positivity rate now stands at 18.3%, the state's phase 2 reopening order that went into effect in June allows gyms to operate at full capacity. (Kindelan, 7/14)

AP: Care Home Refused Free Tests. Now, Nearly Everyone Has Virus
It was meant to be a last line of defense to protect the most vulnerable as the coronavirus spread across the United States: Montana officials offered free testing in May for staff and residents at assisted living and long-term care facilities. But not all of them followed through, according to state data, including a facility in Billings, Montana’s largest city, that cares for people with dementia and other memory problems. The virus has infected almost every resident there and killed eight since July 6, accounting for almost a quarter of Montana’s 34 confirmed deaths. Thirty-six employees also have tested positive. (Brown and Hanson, 7/14)

AP: In Virus Era, Back-To-School Plans Stress Working Parents
For generations, school has been an opportunity for American children to learn and make friends. For many parents today, though, it’s something that’s elemental in a very different way: a safe place that cares for their children while they are at work — or a necessity for them to be able to work at all. (Loller, 7/15)

The New York Times: Most Big School Districts Aren’t Ready To Reopen. Here’s Why. 
As education leaders decide whether to reopen classrooms in the fall amid a raging pandemic, many are looking to a standard generally agreed upon among epidemiologists: To control community spread of the coronavirus, the average daily infection rate among those who are tested should not exceed 5 percent. But of the nation’s 10 largest school districts, only New York City and Chicago appear to have achieved that public health goal, according to a New York Times analysis of city and county-level data. (Goldstein and Shapiro, 7/14)

AP: AP Sources: About 10 MLB Umpires Opt Out Over Virus Concerns
About 10 Major League Baseball umpires have opted out this season, choosing not to work games in the shortened schedule because of concerns over the coronavirus. Two people familiar with the situation told The Associated Press about the decisions on Tuesday. The people spoke on condition of anonymity because there was no official announcement. (Walker, 7/14)

Los Angeles Times: L.A. County COVID-19 Rule Could Put Dodgers At A Disadvantage 
Los Angeles County law stipulates that people who come into close contact with someone with COVID-19 must quarantine for 14 days even if they don’t test positive or exhibit symptoms. MLB and the Dodgers have engaged in discussions with the L.A. County Department of Public Health about the team receiving an exemption, but the team hasn’t received one, according to people with knowledge of the situation. The Washington Nationals, who are holding training camp at Nationals Park in the District of Columbia, are the only one of the other 29 clubs dealing with a similar rule enforced by a local government entity. (Castillo, 7/14)

The New York Times: Florida Breaks Its Record For Most Coronavirus Deaths In A Day 
After Florida reported a record 132 deaths on Tuesday, a group of mayors from Miami-Dade County, the center of the state’s crisis, warned Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, that local officials are running out of time to avoid another painful economic closure. “There is a significant amount of pressure for us to shut down,” Mayor Francis Suarez of Miami told Mr. DeSantis at an event in the city. “We have between one week and four weeks to get this thing under control, or we will have to take some aggressive measures.” (7/14)

The Washington Post: Virginia, Maryland Governors Take Actions As Coronavirus Cases Tick Upward In D.C. Region 
The governors of Virginia and Maryland moved Tuesday to enforce mask and social distancing requirements inside bars and other businesses after an increase in coronavirus cases stirred worries that the region is facing a resurgence of the virus seen in other parts of the country. The seven-day average of new infections in the District, Maryland and Virginia increased for an eighth consecutive day Tuesday, jumping to 1,421 — about where the region stood last month before shutdown restrictions for nonessential businesses were further loosened. The region’s largest daily caseloads of the past month have occurred in the past five days. (Olivo, Hedgpeth, Cox and Wiggins, 7/14)

The Washington Post: Arlington Public Schools Switches To Remote Learning For Fall, Reversing Course 
In a surprise move, Arlington Public Schools is scrapping a plan to offer in-person and virtual learning this fall and will instead require its 28,000 students to start the school year 100 percent online. The district’s superintendent, Francisco Durán, announced the switch in an email to families Tuesday afternoon, citing a recent increase in coronavirus cases nationwide. He also wrote that he is proposing that the school system push back the start of the school year by about a week to give teachers and administrators more time to prepare. (Natanson, 7/14)

Los Angeles Times: California's New Rules On Who Can Be Tested For COVID-19 
State officials adopted new guidelines Tuesday outlining who should be prioritized for COVID-19 testing in California as cases surged and counties reported delayed lab results. The new rules mark a move away from the Newsom administration‘s plans for anyone, including those without symptoms, to be tested for the virus in California. The guidelines instead adopt tiers that prioritize the testing of hospitalized patients with coronavirus symptoms, other symptomatic people, and then higher-risk asymptomatic individuals, according to state health officials. (Luna, 7/14)

AP: Let The Good Times ... Hold. Virus Recloses New Orleans Bars
It’s a fresh taste of bitter medicine for New Orleans: A sharp increase in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations is forcing bars in the good-time-loving, tourist-dependent city to shut down again just a month after they were allowed to partially reopen. Louisiana had been an international hot spot for the new coronavirus in March, and New Orleans was its focal point. But hospitalizations began dropping after an April peak and it appeared that the closure of a wide array of businesses, including dine-in restaurants, gyms, tattoo parlors and bars, had flattened the curve. (McGill and McConnaughey, 7/15)

AP: Recent Blip Lands Minnesota On New York Quarantine List
A recent spike in confirmed coronavirus cases in Minnesota has landed the state on the quarantine list for New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Tuesday that Minnesota and three other states — New Mexico, Ohio and Wisconsin — were added to the list as officials in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut try to contain the spread of the coronavirus from regions of the country where infection rates are growing. (7/14)

AP: Chicago Officials Expand Quarantine Order For Visitors
People traveling from Iowa and Oklahoma to Chicago will have to quarantine for two weeks upon arrival or face possible fines starting Friday. Chicago first issued a quarantine order early this month for 15 other states based on increasing numbers of confirmed cases of the coronavirus. The city updated the order Tuesday, bringing the total number of affected states to 17. (7/14)