CNN: Officials Say States Like Arizona And Texas Reopened Too Quickly After Soaring Covid-19 Cases
After a muted holiday weekend -- which saw both measured celebrations and packed crowds -- the country faces a deep coronavirus crisis as cases continue to climb and more hospitals report they're nearing capacity. This week marks about two months since many states kicked off their reopening plans -- which now officials across the country say came too quickly. (Maxouris, 7/6)

The Washington Post: Coronavirus Updates: Seven-Day Average Case Total In The U.S. Sets Record For 27th Straight Day 
Officials in states with surging coronavirus cases issued dire warnings and blamed outbreaks on early reopenings Sunday as the seven-day average for daily new cases in the United States reached a record high for the 27th straight day. “We don’t have room to experiment, we don’t have room for incrementalism when we’re seeing these kinds of numbers,” said Judge Lina Hidalgo (D), the top elected official in Harris County, Tex., which encompasses the sprawling Houston metro area. “Nor should we wait for all the hospital beds to fill and all these people to die before we take drastic action.” (Hawkins, Iati and Dupree, 7/5)

The Wall Street Journal: U.S. Coronavirus Death Toll Nears 130,000 As Infection Rate Surges 
The U.S. death toll from the coronavirus pandemic neared 130,000, as surging infection rates in many parts of the country heaped more pressure on overstretched hospitals. The U.S. added more than 49,000 new cases on Sunday, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. Cases in the U.S. account for about a quarter of the global total of more than 11.4 million infections. (Hall, 7/6)

The New York Times: 239 Experts With 1 Big Claim: The Coronavirus Is Airborne
The coronavirus is finding new victims worldwide, in bars and restaurants, offices, markets and casinos, giving rise to frightening clusters of infection that increasingly confirm what many scientists have been saying for months: The virus lingers in the air indoors, infecting those nearby. If airborne transmission is a significant factor in the pandemic, especially in crowded spaces with poor ventilation, the consequences for containment will be significant. Masks may be needed indoors, even in socially-distant settings. Health care workers may need N95 masks that filter out even the smallest respiratory droplets as they care for coronavirus patients. (Mandavilli, 7/4)

The Washington Post: Scientists Urge WHO To Consider Airborne Coronavirus In Clinical Infectious Diseases Paper 
More than 200 scientists from over 30 countries are urging the World Health Organization to take more seriously the possibility of the airborne spread of the novel coronavirus as case numbers rise around the world and surge in the United States. In a forthcoming paper titled “It is Time to Address Airborne Transmission of Covid-19,” 239 signatories attempt to raise awareness about what they say is growing evidence that the virus can spread indoors through aerosols that linger in the air and can be infectious even in smaller quantities than previously thought. (McAuley and Rauhala, 7/5)

Los Angeles Times: Scientists Challenge WHO On Risk Of Coronavirus Aerosols 
They say multiple studies demonstrate that particles known as aerosols — microscopic versions of standard respiratory droplets — can hang in the air for long periods and float dozens of feet, making poorly ventilated rooms, buses and other confined spaces dangerous, even when people stay six feet from one another. “We are 100% sure about this,” said Lidia Morawska, a professor of atmospheric sciences and environmental engineering at Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia. (Read, 7/4)

Reuters: Hundreds Of Scientists Say Coronavirus Is Airborne, Ask WHO To Revise Recommendations: NYT 
“We are aware of the article and are reviewing its contents with our technical experts,” WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic said in an email reply to a Reuters request for comment. (7/5)

The Hill: Hundreds Of Scientists Write Letter To WHO Arguing Coronavirus Is Airborne: NYT 
Airborne transmission would reportedly become a significant factor for response efforts. Masks would possibly be necessary in all indoor settings, regardless of whether social distancing was maintained. Health care workers would also likely require N95 masks that can filter out minuscule coronavirus particles. (Wise, 7/5)

CNN: Nick Cordero, Broadway Actor, Dead At 41 
Nick Cordero, a Broadway actor who had admirers across the world rallying for his recovery, has died after a battle with Covid-19, according to his wife, Amanda Kloots. He was 41. (France, 7/5)

The New York Times: Broadway Actor Nick Cordero Dead At 41 Of Coronavirus 
[Kloots] did not cite a cause, but he had been hospitalized for three months after contracting the coronavirus. Mr. Cordero’s experience with the virus, which included weeks in a medically induced coma and the amputation of his right leg, was chronicled by Ms. Kloots on Instagram. (Paulson, 7/5)

CNN: FDA Commissioner Refuses To Defend Trump Claim That 99% Of Covid-19 Cases Are 'Harmless' 
The commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration on Sunday declined to defend President Donald Trump's unfounded claim that 99% of coronavirus cases are "totally harmless" and repeatedly refused to say whether Trump's remark is true or false. "I'm not going to get into who is right and who is wrong," Dr. Stephen Hahn, a member of the White House coronavirus task force, told CNN's Dana Bash on "State of the Union." (Stracqualursi and Westwood, 7/5)

ABC News: FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn Won’t Confirm Trump’s Promises On Vaccine Timing
During a Fourth of July address in Washington on Saturday, Trump struck a more optimistic tone, both on the speed of virus treatment research and development, and on the impact COVID-19 is having upon individuals who test positive. "We are unleashing our nation's scientific brilliance and we'll likely have a therapeutic and/or vaccine solution long before the end of the year," Trump said, after earlier touting the nation's testing efforts and claiming, without evidence, that "99%" of coronavirus cases "are totally harmless." (Kelsey, 7/5)

Politico: Trump’s ’99 Percent’ Coronavirus Comment Finds Little Support 
On ABC’s “This Week,” co-anchor Martha Raddatz asked Hahn whether Trump’s statement was accurate. “Well, let’s talk about where we are right now. We’re seeing cases around the Sun Belt,” he said. “We are certainly concerned, at the White House corona task force, about this … We’ve sent teams into those states to actually help with taking care of the patients who are now with Covid-19.” (Dugyala and Forgey, 7/5)

AP Fact Check: Trump Falsely Says 99% Of Virus Cases Benign
President Donald Trump is understating the danger of the coronavirus to people who get it, as more and more become infected in the U.S. In his latest of many statements playing down the severity of the pandemic, Trump declared that 99% of cases of COVID-19 are harmless. That flies in the face of science and of the reality captured by the U.S. death toll of about 130,000. Trump also sounded a dismissive note about the need for breathing machines. (Yen and Woodward, 7/6)

The New York Times: Trump Falsely Claims ‘99 Percent’ Of Virus Cases Are ‘Totally Harmless’ 
Experts say the president appears to have seized only on a death rate estimate of 1 percent or less that does not capture the entire impact of the disease, and excludes a multitude of thousands who have spent weeks in the hospital or weeks at home with mild to moderate symptoms that still caused debilitating health problems. That death rate is narrowly focused on the number of people who die as a percentage of the total number of people affected — including those who are asymptomatic and do not experience any illness, and those with mild cases, who experience fleeting symptoms. (Caryn Rabin and Cameron, 7/5)

AP: Trump’s Leadership Is Tested In Time Of Fear, Pandemic
These are times of pain, mass death, fear and deprivation and the Trump show may be losing its allure, exposing the empty space once filled by the empathy and seriousness of presidents leading in a crisis. Bluster isn’t beating the virus; belligerence isn’t calming a restive nation. (Lemire and Woodward, 7/6)

Politico: Supreme Court Sidesteps Abortion Cases, Shortly After Striking Louisiana Restrictions
The Supreme Court on Thursday declined to take up several abortion cases, just days after striking down a Louisiana law in the first major abortion decision since President Donald Trump’s two appointees joined the bench. (Ollstein, 7/2)

Politico: Democrats Dodge Abortion Fight With Plan To Keep Hyde Amendment 
House Democrats will keep a decades-old ban on government funding for abortion in spending bills this year, dodging an election-year clash with Republicans and disappointing liberal lawmakers and activists. Senior Democrats had been considering scrapping the so-called Hyde amendment, which has restricted federal funding for most abortion services since 1976, amid a hard push from the party’s left flank. (Ferris and Caygle, 7/2)

Politico: Health Secretary Focuses Trips On Swing States Needed By Trump 
In the midst of a coronavirus pandemic, the nation’s top health official is focused on showing his face in states that President Donald Trump needs to win for reelection. Since late April, HHS Secretary Alex Azar has made 11 trips to states — including nine to key battlegrounds in the 2020 campaign: Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Maine and North Carolina, as well as two trips apiece to Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. One of the other two trips was a visit to Buffalo, N.Y., the hometown of a top aide who recently joined the department at Trump’s request and personally arranged Azar’s visit to the city. The other was to Boston, the media market for yet another battleground state, New Hampshire. (Diamond, 7/2)

AP: Trump To Hold Outdoor Campaign Rally In Portsmouth, N.H.
President Donald Trump is set to hold an outdoor rally Saturday in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, according to the president’s campaign. The campaign rally at Portsmouth International Airport will come three weeks after an indoor rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the president’s first of the COVID-19 era, drew a smaller-than-expected crowd amid concerns of rising infections in the region. (Madhani and Miller, 7/6)

Politico: Kim Guilfoyle, Campaign Official And Girlfriend Of Trump Jr., Tests Positive For Coronavirus In South Dakota 
Kim Guilfoyle, the girlfriend of Donald Trump Jr. and a top Trump campaign official, tested positive for coronavirus ahead of the president’s speech in South Dakota on Friday, POLITICO confirmed. Guilfoyle, who traveled to Mount Rushmore to attend President Donald Trump’s July 4 kickoff address, was not in contact with the president and did not travel on Air Force One. (Muller, 7/3)

In news from Joe Biden's campaign —

The New York Times: Joe Biden Supporters Are Worried About The Health Risks Of Voting
Identifying likely voters is a challenge for pollsters in every election. This year, the coronavirus, mail voting and a surge in political engagement may make it even harder than usual. For now, Joe Biden’s nine-point lead across the critical battleground states is so significant that it is essentially invulnerable to assumptions about turnout, according to New York Times/Siena College surveys of the states likeliest to decide the election. But Mr. Biden’s supporters are far more likely to be concerned about in-person voting during the pandemic, and his wide polling lead among registered voters could narrow if their concerns persist to the election. (Cohn, 7/3)

ABC News: Congress Is On Recess For 2 Weeks. Here’s Where They Leave Off On COVID-19 Relief. 
While America’s financial leaders may be split about whether the U.S. is on its way to economic recovery, both Democrats and Republicans largely agree that additional measures -- including another stimulus package -- is inevitable. It will all have to wait, however, until after Congress returns from its Fourth of July recess, a two-week vacation that leaves legislation at a standstill. (Haslett and Pecorin, 7/3)

Politico: Congress Stares Down Funding Cliff For Coronavirus Aid 
As the U.S. enters its sixth month of grappling with the coronavirus pandemic — with cases soaring and unemployment claims hovering in the millions — Congress is again facing a double-barreled dilemma: how to address both the health and economic catastrophes threatening the country. And in typical Congress fashion, lawmakers have teed up a crunch time crisis this month, giving themselves just a few weeks to wrangle together a massive bipartisan coronavirus relief deal and ship it to President Donald Trump. (Caygle, Levine and Ferris, 7/2)

Meanwhile, members of Congress increasingly respond to the on-the-ground political issues that accompany the novel coronavirus -

The Hill: Democrats Fear US Already Lost COVID-19 Battle 
Democrats are increasingly concerned that the country has lost the fight against the novel coronavirus. For months, beginning in March, public health officials had promoted — and local policymakers had imposed — strict stay-at-home orders and social distancing guidelines that appeared to contain the spread of COVID-19. But in the last two weeks, as states threw open the doors to their economies and consumers emerged from isolation, the number of cases has skyrocketed in states around the country, leading to a record daily spike that topped 57,000 for the first time on Friday. (Lillis and Wong, 7/5)

The Washington Post: Coronavirus Vaccine Research: Scientists Pursue RNA To Trigger Covid Immune Response
In the global race to beat back the coronavirus pandemic, scientists in Britain, Germany, China and the United States are pushing to develop, and possibly manufacture, millions of doses of vaccine in a completely new way. This promising — but unproven — new generation of vaccine technologies is based on deploying a tiny snip of genetic code called messenger RNA to trigger the immune system. It has never before been approved for use. But almost overnight, these cutting-edge RNA vaccine efforts have leaped forward as top candidates to fight covid-19. (Booth and Johnson, 7/5)

Reuters: Britain Nears $625 Million Sanofi/GSK COVID-19 Vaccine Deal: Report 
Britain is close to a $624 million supply deal with Sanofi and GlaxoSmithKline for 60 million doses of a potential COVID-19 vaccine, the Sunday Times reported. Clinical trials are due to start in September and Sanofi has said it expects to get approval by the first half of next year, sooner than previously anticipated. (Smout, 7/5)

The Wall Street Journal: Coronavirus Researchers Compete To Enroll Subjects For Vaccine Tests 
Vaccine researchers are trying new tacks in an unprecedented effort to recruit the tens of thousands of healthy volunteers needed to finish testing coronavirus shots in late stages of development. Quickly lining up all the subjects for so many studies at the same time poses several challenges, creating competition among companies. (Hopkins and Loftus, 7/5)

Stat: Data Show Panic, Disorganization Dominate The Study Of Covid-19 Drugs
In a gigantic feat of scientific ambition, researchers have designed a staggering 1,200 clinical trials aimed at testing treatment and prevention strategies against Covid-19 since the start of January. But a new STAT analysis shows the effort has been marked by disorder and disorganization, with huge financial resources wasted. (Herper and Riglin, 7/6)

The Hill: Lobbying Battle Brewing Over Access To COVID-19 Vaccine 
The race for a COVID-19 vaccine is setting off a different kind of competition in Washington: Who will get it first? Food suppliers argue their workers should be near the front of the line. Fifteen trade groups recently made their pitch to President Trump, citing his declaration that the food and agriculture sector is a critical component of the nation's infrastructure. Trump administration officials have signaled they will take a “tiered approach” to giving out the vaccine when it is ready and said that, depending on the results of clinical trials, high-risk individuals, people with pre-existing health conditions, and front-line health care workers will be prioritized. (Gangitano, 7/5)

San Francisco Chronicle: Bay Area Doctors Explain The COVID-19 Treatments They’re Using Now 
There is no cure or vaccine yet for COVID-19, but Bay Area doctors now have months of experience treating the illness, using what they’ve learned from similar respiratory diseases while absorbing new research and trying out different drugs to help people heal. These front-line health professionals say the shelter-in-place orders put in place back in March bought them valuable time to learn how to treat the disease before seeing more cases. (Moench, 7/3)

In related news —

The Wall Street Journal: Chinese Research Papers Raise Doubts, Fueling Global Questions About Scientific Integrity 
Internationally peer-reviewed journals published more than 100 scientific research papers from China-based authors that appear to have reused identical sets of images, raising questions about the proliferation of problematic science as institutions fast-track research during the coronavirus pandemic. The cache of 121 papers, credited to researchers from hospitals and medical universities across roughly 50 cities in China, all shared at least one image with another—a sign that many were likely produced by the same company or “paper mill,” said Elisabeth Bik, a California-based microbiologist and image-analysis expert who identified the trove. (Xiao, 7/5)

CNN: Coronavirus Pandemic Could Mean 1 Million Extra Deaths From Other Diseases, Experts Warn 
As health services around the world continue to focus their resources on ending the coronavirus pandemic, they threaten to derail decades of hard-won progress in the response to HIV, TB and many other diseases. That's according to a new report by the International AIDS Society publishing this week. (Senthilingam, 7/6)

CNN: Study Finds Hydroxychloroquine Helped Coronavirus Patients Survive Better 
A surprising new study found the controversial antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine helped patients better survive in the hospital. But the findings, like the federal government's use of the drug itself, were disputed. A team at Henry Ford Health System in southeast Michigan said Thursday their study of 2,541 hospitalized patients found that those given hydroxychloroquine were much less likely to die. (Fox, Cane and Cohen, 7/3)

Fox Business: Hydroxychloroquine Helps Coronavirus Patients Recover, New Study Shows 
Researchers at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit saw a "significant reduction" in mortality rates with patients who were hospitalized between March 10 and May 2 and treated with the drug compared to those who were not. Hydroxychloroquine has been a topic of controversy since President Trump touted its effectiveness as early as March. The president also said he had been taking the drug. "The results of this study demonstrate that in a strictly monitored protocol-driven in-hospital setting, treatment with hydroxychloroquine alone and hydroxychloroquine [and] azithromycin was associated with a significant reduction in mortality among patients hospitalized with COVID-19," researchers wrote in the study published July 1 in the International Journal of Infectious Diseases. (Conklin, 7/3)

Bridge Magazine and Michigan Radio: Hydroxychloroquine Saved Coronavirus Patients, Henry Ford Study Shows
Early treatment with hydroxychloroquine cut the death rate significantly in certain sick patients hospitalized with COVID-19 — and without heart-related side effects, according to a new study published by Henry Ford Health System. The study, published Thursday in the International Journal of Infectious Diseases, is another curve in the continued research — and its sometimes conflicting results — into whether a drug that seemed promising at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic really works. (Erb and Wells, 7/3)

The Hill: WHO Halts Hydroxychloroquine Trials After Failure To Reduce Death 
The World Health Organization (WHO) announced Saturday it is halting its trials of the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine and HIV treatment lopinavir-ritonavir in patients hospitalized with the coronavirus after results showed the drugs did not reduce mortality rates. “These interim trial results show that hydroxychloroquine and lopinavir/ritonavir produce little or no reduction in the mortality of hospitalized COVID-19 patients when compared to standard of care. Solidarity trial investigators will interrupt the trials with immediate effect,” the WHO said in a statement, referencing multicountry trials it is conducting. (Axelrod, 7/4)

The New York Times: Texas Governor Reverses Course And Orders Face Masks 
Gov. Greg Abbott on Thursday ordered all Texans to wear face coverings in public, with a limited number of exceptions, a sharp reversal that underscored the severity of the coronavirus outbreak that has surged out of control in Texas. The executive order, announced the afternoon before the Fourth of July holiday weekend, followed sustained lobbying from leaders in the state’s largest cities, who are mostly Democrats, and came in the face of likely opposition from Republicans in the state, many of whom already chafed at Mr. Abbott’s mandates from Austin. (Montgomery and Goodman, 7/2)

The Hill: Kansas Governor Calls On GOP County Chair To Remove Cartoon Comparing Mask Order To Holocaust 
Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly (D) is calling on a Republican state official to remove a cartoon from his newspaper's Facebook page that compares her recent order requiring face masks in public to the Holocaust. The cartoon was published on Friday on the Facebook page of the Anderson County Review, a newspaper owned by Anderson County Republican Party Chairman Dane Hicks. The cartoon features a woman wearing a mask with a Star of David attached to it in front of a line of people entering a cattle car. (Wise, 7/5)

ABC News: Masks Are A Flashpoint Amid The Coronavirus Pandemic. Here's What Science Says About Them. 
Masks have become a symbol of the coronavirus pandemic -- at first largely foreign to Americans, then treated skeptically by officials looking to preserve protection for health workers and then embraced by a public desperate to stem the overwhelming tide of the virus in northeastern cities. Since then, they have become a political flashpoint, a source of defiance and confusion, all while a debate raged about what type to wear and their effectiveness. (Adigun, Carrington, Farber, Johnson and Salzman, 7/5)

WBUR: Widespread Use Of Face Masks Could Save Tens Of Thousands Of Lives, Models Project 
More widespread wearing of face masks could prevent tens of thousands of deaths by COVID-19, epidemiologists and mathematicians project. A model from the University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation shows that near-universal wearing of cloth or homemade masks could prevent between 17,742 and 28,030 deaths across the US before Oct. 1. (Jingnan and Kelly, 7/3)

Kaiser Health News and Politifact HealthCheck: Social Media Image About Mask Efficacy Right In Sentiment, But Percentages Are ‘Bonkers’ 
A popular social media post that’s been circulating on Instagram and Facebook since April depicts the degree to which mask-wearing interferes with the transmission of the novel coronavirus. It gives its highest “contagion probability” — a very precise 70% — to a person who has COVID-19 but interacts with others without wearing a mask. The lowest probability, 1.5%, is when masks are worn by all.The exact percentages assigned to each scenario had no attribution or mention of a source. So we wanted to know if there is any science backing up the message and the numbers — especially as mayors, governors and members of Congress increasingly point to mask-wearing as a means to address the surges in coronavirus cases across the country. (Knight, 7/6)

The Wall Street Journal: Masks And Makeup Don’t Mix, So Cosmetic Fans Seek Permanent Fix 
After months of living in a pandemic, Liqing Ye got fed up with her lipstick always smearing under a face mask—revealed when unmasking at dinner with friends or in meetings. She hit upon a solution: getting her lips tattooed with a semi-permanent coral hue. (Li and Perez, 7/5)

Dallas Morning News: Masks Are Now Required In Texas. What If You Can’t Wear One Because Of A Medical Condition?
Wearing masks, a practice that health experts say is one of the most effective ways to slow the spread of COVID-19, is now required across the state. But what if you’re unable to wear a mask because of a legitimate medical condition or disability? Can a business refuse to serve you? Here’s what you need to know. (Marfin, 7/5)

Dallas Morning News: No, Wearing A Mask Doesn’t Have Any Negative Health Effects
With masks now required in Dallas County and in many places across the country, misinformation has spread about their effectiveness in the fight against COVID-19. Viral posts on social media in recent weeks have claimed that masks can have harmful effects, including depriving a person’s body of oxygen, causing a person to breathe dangerous levels of exhaled carbon dioxide or weaken a person’s immune system. (Marfin, 7/5)

California Healthline: ‘Please Tell Me My Life Is Worth A LITTLE Of Your Discomfort,’ Nurse Pleads
When an employee told a group of 20-somethings they needed face masks to enter his fast-food restaurant, one woman fired off a stream of expletives. “Isn’t this Orange County?” snapped a man in the group. “We don’t have to wear masks!” The curses came as a shock, but not really a surprise, to Nilu Patel, a certified registered nurse anesthetist at nearby University of California-Irvine Medical Center, who observed the conflict while waiting for takeout. Health care workers suffer these angry encounters daily as they move between treacherous hospital settings and their communities, where mixed messaging from politicians has muddied common-sense public health precautions. (Almendrala, 7/6)

CIDRAP: Review Details Protocols For Decontamination, Reuse Of N95 Respirators
Amid scarcity of N95 respirators for healthcare workers due to the COVID-19 pandemic, exposure to ultraviolet light, microwave steam, dry oven heat, ethylene oxide, or vaporized hydrogen peroxide, as well as allowing 72 hours for the virus to become nonviable before reuse, appear to be feasible options for decontamination, according to a review published today in JAMA Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery. (7/2)

Reuters: British Consortium Ends After Making Over 13,000 Ventilators 
A British consortium formed by a group of aerospace, automotive and engineering firms to build ventilators for the country’s health service said on Sunday it would end after delivering over 13,000 devices. VentilatorChallengeUK said its production had more than doubled the stock of ventilators available for use in the National Health Service. (7/5)

AP: Czech Volunteers Develop Functioning Lung Ventilator In Days
Tomas Kapler knew nothing about ventilators — he’s an online business consultant, not an engineer or a medical technician. But when he saw that shortages of the vital machines had imperiled critically ill COVID-19 patients in northern Italy, he was moved to action. “It was a disturbing feeling for me that because of a lack of equipment the doctors had to decide whether a person gets a chance to live,” Kapler said. “That seemed so horrific to me that it was an impulse to do something.” And so he did. “I just said to myself: ‘Can we simply make the ventilators?’” he said. (Janicek, 7/6)

The New York Times: China Dominates Medical Supplies, In This Outbreak And The Next
Alarmed at China’s stranglehold over supplies of masks, gowns, test kits and other front-line weapons for battling the coronavirus, countries around the world have set up their own factories to cope with this pandemic and outbreaks of the future. When the outbreak subsides, those factories may struggle to survive. China has laid the groundwork to dominate the market for protective and medical supplies for years to come. (Bradsher, 7/5)

Politico: White House 'Free Marketeers' Raised Concerns Over Coronavirus Price-Gouging Crackdown 
In late March, the Justice Department rolled out a task force that would focus on hoarding and price-gouging. Attorney General William Barr touted its work at a White House news conference, and deputized Craig Carpenito — the U.S. attorney for New Jersey — to lead the nationwide effort. But behind the scenes, according to people familiar with the discussions, some White House officials expressed reservations and concerns about the task force’s approach, and some disagreed with DOJ officials about how to use one particular legal authority. The people helming the response faced a brave new legal challenge: how to target price-gougers and hoarders under the Defense Production Act, a decades-old law that grants the feds broad authority over the private sector during national emergencies. (Woodruff Swan and Gerstein, 7/3)

Politico: Why The U.S. Still Hasn't Solved Its Testing Crisis 
The United States still doesn’t have a handle on testing six months into the coronavirus pandemic. The nation has conducted more than 4 million tests in the past week, more than ever before. But big jumps in testing capacity have been effectively erased by record-breaking increases in new infections as states reopen their economies. The supply chain problems that hampered testing early on never entirely went away and still threaten the ability of labs to conduct testing for everyone asking. (Lim and Miranda Ollstein, 7/5)

CNN: Pooled Testing: What It Is And How It Can Be Used For The Coronavirus 
US health officials are increasingly proposing pooled testing -- mixing several people's biological samples and examining them in a single test -- to drastically boost the country's capacity to identify and contain coronavirus cases. The benefits could be plenty. Health experts say more surveillance testing -- especially to find infected people who are without symptoms -- could help contain the spread and let places like schools stay open safely. (Hanna, 7/6)

In places such as Arizona and Florida where case counts are soaring, on-the-ground reports indicate that testing sites are overwhelmed and contact-tracing efforts are falling short -

The New York Times: Phoenix Mayor Says FEMA Refused to Help With Testing
Mayor Kate Gallego of Phoenix said on Sunday that with cases and death counts soaring in Arizona, testing sites in her city and surrounding Maricopa County are overwhelmed, but the Federal Emergency Management Agency has rebuffed her pleas for help. She raised the issue on the ABC program “This Week,” saying that it “feels like they’re declaring victory while we’re in crisis mode.” (7/5)

CNN: Florida Contact Tracing: As Covid-19 Cases Spike, Florida Health Authorities Often Fail To Do Contact Tracing 
When Shaila Rivera and her new husband returned home from their honeymoon and tested positive for Covid-19, they expected a phone call from their local health authorities in Florida asking for a list of people they'd been near so that contact tracing could begin. The Riveras waited for that phone call. And waited. And waited. But the call never came. (Cohen and Vigue, 7/6)

Also, the New York Times offers a view into the life of a tracer -

The New York Times: How A Covid-19 Contact Tracer Spends Her Sundays 
Kimberly Jocelyn is a contract tracing supervisor with New York City Health and Hospitals Test & Trace Corps, which has, since May, employed more than 3,000 researchers, callers and field workers in an attempt to stop the spread of Covid-19. Earlier this year, Ms. Jocelyn, 29 and a recent graduate of Columbia University’s School of Public Health, worked at the CDC Quarantine Station at Kennedy International Airport. Now she is working from her home in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, where she leads a team of 15 contact tracers. Most Sundays she is on the job, but she doesn’t mind. (La Gorce, 7/3)

The New York Times: DNA Linked To Covid-19 Was Inherited From Neanderthals, Study Finds 
A stretch of DNA linked to Covid-19 was passed down from Neanderthals 60,000 years ago, according to a new study. Scientists don’t yet know why this particular segment increases the risk of severe illness from the coronavirus. But the new findings, which were posted online on Friday and have not yet been published in a scientific journal, show how some clues to modern health stem from ancient history. (Zimmer, 7/4)

The New York Times: Did A Mutation Help The Coronavirus Spread? More Evidence, But Lingering Questions 
For months, scientists have debated whether a variant of the coronavirus that has come to predominate in much of the world did so partly because it is more transmissible than other viruses. On Thursday, a team of researchers reported new evidence that is likely to deepen the debate rather than settle it, experts said; too many uncertainties remain, in a pandemic that changes shape by the day. (Carey, 7/2)

The New York Times: The Fullest Look Yet At The Racial Inequity Of Coronavirus 
Early numbers had shown that Black and Latino people were being harmed by the virus at higher rates. But the new federal data — made available after The New York Times sued the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — reveals a clearer and more complete picture: Black and Latino people have been disproportionately affected by the coronavirus in a widespread manner that spans the country, throughout hundreds of counties in urban, suburban and rural areas, and across all age groups. (Oppel Jr., Gebeloff, Lai, Wright and Smith, 7/5)

AP: Virus, Floyd Death Merge In Brutal Blow To Black Well-Being
Doctors have known it for a long time, well before the resounding cries of “Black Lives Matter”: Black people suffer disproportionately. They face countless challenges to good health, among them food, transportation and income. The stress of living with racism has very real, physical effects. And they are especially prone to diabetes, hypertension and other chronic diseases that can be tricky to manage even in normal times. (Tanner, 7/5)

Reuters: Gap In U.S. Black And White Unemployment Rates Is Widest In Five Years 
The United States saw the widest gap in unemployment rates for African Americans and whites in five years in June, underscoring an uneven nascent recovery from historic job losses triggered by the coronavirus pandemic. (Marte, 7/2)

Stat: ‘It Just Weighs On Your Psyche’: Black Americans On Mental Health, Trauma, And Resilience
I’m feeling it, my friends and family are feeling it: the weight of this moment is immeasurable. Black Americans have been disproportionately affected by the coronavirus pandemic. This has been compounded by the tragic deaths of Black men and women — lives cut short at the hands of police and vigilantes. (Milner, 7/6)

The Washington Post: Hospital Ratings Often Depend More On Nice Rooms Than On Health Care
As research findings go, this was a Holy Yikes. A study of 50,000 patients throughout the United States showed that those who were the most satisfied with their care (the top quartile) were 26 percent more likely to be dead six months later than patients who gave lower ratings to their care. The most satisfied patients not only died in greater numbers but racked up higher costs along the way. (Glicksman, 7/4)

Kaiser Health News: 2021 Health Plans Granted Leeway To Limit Consumers’ Benefit From Drug Coupons 
Without medication to manage her plaque psoriasis, Jennifer Brown’s face, scalp, trunk and neck periodically become covered in painful red, flaky patches so dry they crack and bleed. She has gotten relief from medications, but they come at a high price. For a while she was on Humira, made by AbbVie, with an average retail price of roughly $8,600 for two monthly injections. When that drug stopped working for her, Brown’s doctor switched her to a different drug. Today she is using another injectable, Skyrizi, also by AbbVie, which costs about $36,000 for two quarterly injections — nearly 40% more annually than Humira. (Andrews, 7/6)

Modern Healthcare: Mich. Health Plan Profits Dropped In Q1
More than half of health plans in Michigan experienced a financial downturn during the first three months of the year—due to losses in the stock market and one-time federal taxes—as the COVID-19 pandemic was beginning to explode in Michigan in late March. Despite lower medical expenses, the 17 health plans reported a total net loss of $38 million, or a negative 0.8 percent total margin, and four other health insurers lost $34 million for a negative 1.4 percent total margin during the first quarter ended March 31, according to an analysis of state data by Allan Baumgarten, a Minneapolis-based consultant who also publishes the Michigan Market Review. (Greene, 7/4)

Dallas Morning News: More Health Workers Are Getting COVID-19, But UTSW Says They’re Safer On The Job Than Out And About
UT Southwestern Medical Center, a leader in academic medicine, has reported a sharp rise in coronavirus cases among its employees, including 59 new cases in the past two weeks. Four of the infections came from contact with patients, about the same number infected by patients over the previous 3.5 months. But the vast majority of employee cases, over 84%, can be traced to the community, not the UT Southwestern campus. (Schnurman, 7/3)

The Washington Post: Medical Assistants, Cooks And Cleaners Also Face Risks On The Front Lines Of The Covid-19 Crisis, But With Low Pay And Little Recognition 
When a Waldorf car dealership advertised discounts for medical workers battling the novel coronavirus, Latasha Currie hoped to eke out a hard-won benefit after months on the front lines. The medical assistant, 31, didn’t tell the salesman how her 10-year-old cried for days after patients with covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, began to roll into the D.C. clinic where she works. “She kept saying she didn’t want mommy to die,” Currie said. (Jouvenal, 7/4)

Dallas Morning News: For Nearly Two Dozen Nurses, Leaving Parkland Early Comes At A Cost
Elder is one of at least 22 nurses sued by Parkland since 2017 because they left too early or were fired. The hospital is seeking to collect up to $20,000 in damages from the former nurses, on the grounds that it’s entitled to recoup its investment in them. Most have either paid, settled or defaulted. (Krause, 7/3)

The Wall Street Journal: After Reopenings Stall, Can Restaurants Survive A Second Coronavirus Blow?
Restaurants that survived the coronavirus hit in March and April are reeling from a second punch that could put more eateries out of business.Many restaurants that were just starting to recover some sales are bracing for another, potentially existential round of restrictions as a resurgence in coronavirus cases in the U.S. prompts a pullback in reopening plans. (Haddon, 7/5)

The New York Times: All Eyes On Bars As Virus Surges And Americans Go Drinking
When the bars in Michigan reopened in June, Tony Hild forgot about face masks, social distancing and caution and headed out to Harper’s Restaurant and Brewpub, a popular spot in the college town of East Lansing. There was a line out the door. Inside were 200 people dancing, drinking and shouting over the music. “It was just so crowded, and I’m like, ‘This is going against everything I’m told not to do,’” Mr. Hild, 23, a college student, said. “But I didn’t think I was going to get it.” (de Freytas-Tamura, Searcey and Healy, 7/2)

The New York Times: Bettors Gamble With Their Money, And The Virus, As Atlantic City Reopens
Terril Tate left his house an hour before dawn on Thursday to be one of the first players at a craps table when the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino reopened at 6 a.m. He was hoping for a win, and maybe a date. But Mr. Tate, 41, said he was also on a mission to pave the way for people who don’t yet feel safe enough — he called them “worry bots” — to venture into indoor recreational and leisure spaces. (Tully, 7/3)

The New York Times: Are Protests Unsafe? What Experts Say May Depend On Who’s Protesting What 
As the pandemic took hold, most epidemiologists have had clear proscriptions in fighting it: No students in classrooms, no in-person religious services, no visits to sick relatives in hospitals, no large public gatherings. So when conservative anti-lockdown protesters gathered on state capitol steps in places like Columbus, Ohio and Lansing, Mich., in April and May, epidemiologists scolded them and forecast surging infections. When Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia relaxed restrictions on businesses in late April as testing lagged and infections rose, the talk in public health circles was of that state’s embrace of human sacrifice. (Powell, 7/6)

NPR: Are Gyms Safe Right Now? What To Know About COVID-19 Risk While Working Out 
Exercise is good for physical and mental health, but with coronavirus cases surging across the country, exercising indoors with other people could increase your chance of infection. So, as gyms reopen across the country, here are some things to consider before heading for your workout. (Neighmond, 7/5)

Kaiser Health News: What Seniors Should Know Before Going Ahead With Elective Procedures 
For months, Patricia Merryweather-Arges, a health care expert, has fielded questions about the coronavirus pandemic from fellow Rotary Club members in the Midwest. Recently people have wondered “Is it safe for me to go see my doctor? Should I keep that appointment with my dentist? What about that knee replacement I put on hold: Should I go ahead with that?” (Graham, 7/6)

Politico: Fire Season Could Raise Stakes In Battle Against Covid-19 
As states begin to hit their peak wildfire season, experts and officials are warning about another level of concern this year: air pollution that threatens to increase Covid-19 in states already struggling with an explosion in cases. (Bustillo, 7/5)

The New York Times: Is The Five-Day Office Week Over? 
Most American office workers are in no hurry to return to the office full time, even after the coronavirus is under control. But that doesn’t mean they want to work from home forever. The future for them, a variety of new data shows, is likely to be workweeks split between office and home. Recent surveys show that both employees and employers support this arrangement. And research suggests that a couple of days a week at each location is the magic number to cancel out the negatives of each arrangement while reaping the benefits of both. (Miller, 7/2)

The Wall Street Journal: Businesses Tackle Internet Shortfalls As Remote Work Grows More Remote 
Companies are facing added difficulty staying connected to work-from-home employees in remote areas, where internet services can be slow and at times patchy, technology executives and analysts say. Though not new, the problem has become more pressing as the number of Covid-19 cases surges in rural states that had largely been spared the pandemic. The increase has prompted local officials to impose preventive measures that will likely keep employees at businesses headquartered in these regions from returning to the office. (Loten, 7/2)

The Wall Street Journal: How The Coronavirus Has Affected Family Planning 
Trish Bordeaux, 32, gets anxious every time she puts on her green Starbucks apron. As a person with asthma and as a woman trying to get pregnant, she is worried about contracting Covid-19. But she needs the work because her primary job, as a second-grade teaching assistant, doesn’t offer health insurance that covers fertility treatments. Neither does her husband Derek’s job as a machine operator at a beverage manufacturing company. The Bordeaux, who live in Marietta, Ga., have been struggling to get pregnant for two years. Despite their anxiety, they didn’t want to put their efforts on pause because of the pandemic. (Pohle, 7/2)

Kaiser Health News: ‘I Couldn’t Let Her Be Alone’: A Peaceful Death Amid The COVID Scourge 
As her mother lay dying in a Southern California hospital in early May, Elishia Breed was home in Oregon, 800 miles away, separated not only by the distance, but also by the cruelty of the coronavirus. Because of the pandemic, it wasn’t safe to visit her mom, Patti Breed-Rabitoy, who had entered a hospital alone, days earlier, with a high fever and other symptoms that were confirmed to be caused by COVID-19. (Aleccia, 7/6)

New Orleans Times-Picayune: Landlords Breathe Sigh Of Relief, Advocates Warn Of Unsafe Conditions, As Eviction Courts Reopen 
Now that evictions have resumed, some tenants are worried that they won’t have a place to sleep. Advocates said they are concerned both by the number of evictions that have been filed and the physical conditions in New Orleans-area courtrooms. They’re calling on judges to slow down the pace of evictions to prevent a public health crisis inside the courtrooms and out on the streets. (Sledge, 7/3)

In other public health news —

New Orleans Times-Picayune: Are Louisiana Fish Safe To Eat? State Mercury Testing Program In Peril As Fishing Surges During Pandemic 
If there was a particularly bad time for Louisiana to stop testing waterways for toxic fish, it would be now. Fishing is booming amid the coronavirus pandemic, with stay-at-home orders and social distancing guidelines inspiring Louisianans to take up rods and reels in numbers not seen in nearly a decade. ...But the state Department of Environmental Quality’s fish-testing program, which helps advise all those freshly licensed anglers where fish are safe to catch and eat, will soon run out of money. (Baurick, 7/5)

New Orleans Times-Picayune: Parkinson's Disease Risk In Louisiana Linked To Use Of Two Herbicides And A Pesticide: Study 
A new study of individuals treated for Parkinson’s disease in Louisiana found a clear correlation between the disease and the use of two types of herbicide and one pesticide in rural areas dominated by forestry, woodlands and pastures. The study also found that Parkinson’s disease has become less common in areas of the state where cotton, corn and soybean farmers have switched to the use of the herbicide glyphosate, sold under the brand name of Roundup — although that product has recently been linked to some forms of cancer, which the study did not examine. (Schleifstein, 7/5)

Kaiser Health News: Coronavirus Crisis Disrupts Treatment For Another Epidemic: Addiction 
Shawn Hayes was thankful to be holed up at a city-run hotel for people with COVID-19. The 20-year-old wasn’t in jail. He wasn’t on the streets chasing drugs. Methadone to treat his opioid addiction was delivered to his door. Hayes was staying at the hotel because of a coronavirus outbreak at the 270-bed Kirkbride Center addiction treatment center in Philadelphia, where he had been seeking help. (Bruce, 7/6)

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Kids Are Going To Bed Later And Later, With Possible Consequences
Alicia Simpson’s daughter may be precocious, having skipped a grade, but mom is worried that her 8-year-old is advancing too quickly in an unhealthy way. Bradley, a rising fourth grader, used to be an early-to-bed kid but has been going to bed later since COVID-19 upended her life. She is now getting nine or 10 hours of sleep when she used to get nearly a dozen. (Tagami, 7/5)

The Washington Post: Kids May Lessen Anxiety If They Can Take Some Risks 
“Helicopter parenting” has gotten a bad rap for producing children who leave the nest with few real-world skills. But what if its drawbacks go beyond kids’ inability to, say, find a summer job or do chores? Psychologist Anne Marie Albano suggests that managing your child’s life could have another drawback — it could set the stage for a serious problem with anxiety. (Blakemore, 7/4)

WBUR: Why Some Young People Fear Social Isolation More Than COVID-19 
There is a simmering tension between young people's desire to gather socially, and the growing threat from the coronavirus in the United States. The virus is now infecting more people in their teens and 20s than it had earlier in the pandemic, and that's contributing to outbreaks, especially in states in the South and West. As a result, public health officials are imploring young adults to limit social contact and take precautions to help protect their more vulnerable elders. But many young people see continued social isolation as a much greater risk than COVID-19 to their own mental health. (Noguchi, 7/4)

NBC News: Keeping COVID-19 Outside Of Summer Camps Is A Nearly Impossible Challenge
As summer camps debated whether and how to operate during the coronavirus pandemic this spring, Kanakuk Kamps, a prominent network of Christian sports camps in Missouri, announced that its five overnight camps would open to over 20,000 kids starting May 30. ... On its website, the camp reassured parents: "We are focused on taking all reasonable measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in our Kamps." But now even cautious hopes that COVID-19 might be kept outside Kanakuk Kamps' gates have already been dashed. On Wednesday, parents were notified by email that one of the camps, known as K-2, was shutting down. (Golden, 7/5)

AP: Fewer Will Attend Camp This Summer; Some Camps Won't Survive
Camp Winnebago was founded during the Spanish Flu and weathered all manner of health scares from polio to the swine flu over a century. It wasn’t about to let the coronavirus stop the fun. But things will be different this summer at this camp and others that buck the trend and welcome children. The vast majority of overnight camps are closed due to the pandemic. (Sharp, 7/5)

CIDRAP: Antibiotic Use, Duration Questioned For Kids' Pneumonia In Low-Resource Areas 
A study today in the New England Journal of Medicine shows that a shorter regimen of antibiotics in young African children diagnosed with severe pneumonia may be sufficient. The double-blinded, randomized controlled trial, conducted in 3,000 children under the age of 5 in Malawi who had severe pneumonia but were not infected with HIV, found that 3 days of twice-daily treatments with amoxicillin was non-inferior to the 5-day regimen recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO). (Dall, 7/1)

Dallas Morning News: Foster Care Plaintiffs Say Texas ‘Shockingly’ Disobeys Federal Judge, Ask Her For Sanctions
Plaintiffs in a long-running child-welfare lawsuit are again asking a federal judge to hold Texas in contempt of court, this time for what they cite as ignoring “glaring safety risks” in state foster care pointed out by her own monitors. Lawyers for foster children have urged U.S. District Judge Janis Graham Jack to require the Department of Family and Protective Services, and a separate unit that inspects foster homes and other care facilities, to show why they shouldn’t be held in contempt for failing to make sweeping changes she’s demanded. (Garrett, 7/5)

Politico: 'How The Hell Are We Going To Do This?' The Panic Over Reopening Schools 
From social distancing to health checks, the list of concerns is seemingly endless as school districts draft their plans, many of which are still in the development stages. Those concerns are only intensifying as Covid-19 cases begin to skyrocket. "There are no plans for most of these places,” said Lily Eskelsen García, president of the National Education Association, the nation’s largest union. “People are panicked and parents should be panicked.” (Gaudiano and Perez Jr., 7/4)

The Hill: Reopening Schools Seen As Vital Step In Pandemic Recovery 
Public health experts are increasingly calling for the reopening of schools in the fall, citing the educational and social damage to children if they are kept away, even if such a move would require tradeoffs to safeguard public health. The extent to which schools can reopen depends in large part on the severity of the coronavirus outbreak in the surrounding area, making steps such as closing bars to reduce the spread of the pandemic critical ahead of the fall. (Sullivan, 7/4)

AP: Debates Turn Emotional As Schools Decide How And If To Open
School districts across America are in the midst of making wrenching decisions over how to resume classes in settings radically altered by the coronavirus pandemic, with school buses running below capacity, virtual learning, outdoor classrooms and quarantine protocols for infected children the new norm. The plans for the upcoming school year are taking shape by the day, and vary district to district, state to state. The debates have been highly emotional, with tempers flaring among parents and administrators, and have been made all the more vexing by record numbers of COVID-19 cases being reported each day. (Whittle and Thompson, 7/5)

Colleges and universities also face a variety of challenges, ranging from a dwindling number of applicants to mask- wearing policies and even the unique issues that come with trying to curb the spread of the virus on campus —

AP: Amid Pandemic, Fewer Students Seek Federal Aid For College
The number of high school seniors applying for U.S. federal college aid plunged in the weeks following the sudden closure of school buildings this spring — a time when students were cut off from school counselors, and families hit with financial setbacks were reconsidering plans for higher education. In the first weeks of the pandemic, the number of new applications fell by nearly half compared to last year’s levels, fueled by a precipitous decline among students at low-income schools, according to an Associated Press analysis of federal data. The numbers have risen as states and schools have launched campaigns urging students to apply for aid, but they remain down overall from last year. (Binkley and Fenn, 7/6)

NPR: Georgia Universities Won't Require Face Masks This Fall — And Faculty Are Livid
As the coronavirus infection rate in the U.S. surpasses 50,000 new cases a day, colleges and universities around the country are trying to figure out how to educate their students this fall while still keeping their campus communities safe. That balancing act sometimes causes consternation. At the Georgia Institute of Technology, which is scheduled to hold in-person classes, more than 800 of its 1,100 faculty members have published a letter outlining their concerns. The letter, reported by Georgia Public Broadcasting, criticizes the state university system for mandating statewide reopenings this fall that "do not follow science-based evidence, increase the health risks to faculty, students and staff, and interfere with nimble decision-making necessary to prepare and respond to Covid-19 infection risk." (Schwartz, 7/5)

NPR: 121 University Of Washington Students Infected In Greek Row Outbreak
The University of Washington announced on Sunday that at least 112 fraternity house residents north of its Seattle campus have tested positive for COVID-19, bringing the total number of students infected on Greek Row so far to 121. The nine additional students who tested positive were close contacts of the residents, but do not live in the fraternity houses, according to a statement from The University of Washington. (Treisman, 7/5)

The New York Times: Chicago Gun Violence Spikes And Increasingly Finds The Youngest Victims 
As Yasmin Miller drove home from a laundromat in Chicago’s Englewood neighborhood last weekend, a gunman in another car peppered her red Hyundai sedan with bullets, grazing her head and striking her son, Sincere Gaston, in the chest. Sincere died in his car seat. He was 20 months old. On June 20, a man fired gunshots through the back of a dark blue SUV, wounding the 27-year-old man driving and hitting his stepson, Mekhi James, in the back, killing him. Mekhi was three. (MacFarquhar and Chiarito, 7/5)

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Gun Violence Spikes In Atlanta Amid Debate Over Police Brutality
Ninety-three people were shot in Atlanta during the four-week period of May 31 to June 27, up drastically from 46 in the same period last year, the latest complete data available. And fourteen people died of homicide in that span, compared to six during the same time frame in 2019. Those shot have included a 10-year-old boy who survived, an 18-year-old who may have been selling water on the street in Midtown when he was killed, and an 80-year-old man who died as the unintended target of a drive-by in his home. The numbers are still climbing. (Sharpe, 7/5)

The Hill: Mayors Blame Federal, State Officials For Mixed Messaging As Coronavirus Cases Surge 
The mayors of cities seeing massive spikes in coronavirus cases pushed back Sunday on optimistic projections about the pandemic, saying mixed messages at different levels of government led to confusion among residents, many of whom began to believe the crisis was over and it was safe to return to pre-pandemic norms. They said the aggressive reopening timelines pursued by state officials in Texas, Florida and Arizona allowed people to crowd into newly-reopened bars, restaurants and other venues where coronavirus is easily spread. At the same time, state officials were preventing local leaders from implementing more restrictive policies at the city or county level than those in place statewide. (Budryk, 7/5)

Palm Springs Desert Sun: Calif. Sends Strike Teams To Enforce COVID Rules; Worker Complaints Rise
About 200 state inspectors fanned out across California over the July 4 holiday weekend to enforce health orders related to coronavirus, including about 100 from the Alcohol Beverage Control agency and the rest from the Division of Occupational Safety and Health and other state licensing entities. They are part of new "strike teams" from 10 state agencies that Gov. Gavin Newsom on Wednesday said would focus on counties with the most restrictions, including Riverside and San Bernardino. (Daniels, 7/4)

Los Angeles Times: L.A. County Coronavirus Cases Hit One-Day High Over July 4th Weekend 
Los Angeles County public health officials on Sunday reported 7,232 more cases of COVID-19 and 30 related deaths, numbers that account for Thursday, Friday and Saturday of last week. On Friday alone, 3,187 new cases of COVID-19 were reported — the highest daily total since the pandemic began, officials said. (Newberry, 7/5)

Boston Globe: As Cases Spike In California, A Warning For Massachusetts
A state that was once considered a road map for fighting COVID-19 now looks more like a warning sign.Just one month ago, California seemed to have the coronavirus pandemic under control. Its cities were among the first in the country to implement strict lockdowns, and the state escaped the worst of COVID-19 in the spring. But in recent weeks, a dramatic surge in cases has torn through the state, from the beaches of San Diego to the streets of San Francisco. (Moore, 7/4)

San Jose Mercury News: Bay Area Hospitals Receiving Imperial County COVID Patients
For years, the company has helped the state move patients from hospital to hospital, flying people who had suffered bad heart attacks or traumatic injuries that required more care than the county’s two hospitals could provide to places like San Diego or Palm Springs. Then COVID-19 hit. In recent weeks the company has been transferring patients overwhelmingly battling the highly infectious disease to distances farther than before — including to places such as Silicon Valley. (Deruy, 7/5)

The New York Times: As The Virus Surged, Florida Partied. Tracking The Revelers Has Been Tough. 
Miami’s flashy nightclubs closed in March, but the parties have raged on in the waterfront manse tucked in the lush residential neighborhood of Belle Meade Island. Revelers arrive in sports cars and ride-shares several nights a week, say neighbors who have spied professional bouncers at the door and bought earplugs to try to sleep through the thumping dance beats. They are the sort of parties — drawing throngs of maskless strangers to rave until sunrise — that local health officials say have been a notable contributing factor to the soaring coronavirus infections in Florida, one of the most troubling infection spots in the country. (Mazzei, 7/6)

The Hill: Miami Mayor Says City 'Breaking Record After Record After Record' Of Coronavirus Cases 
Miami Mayor Francis Suarez (R) said Sunday he's hopeful measures put in place to curb the spread of the coronavirus will prevent city officials from needing to enact even more dramatic restrictions in the coming weeks. Both Miami and Florida are seeing record numbers of new COVID-19 infections. Florida reported a record 11,458 cases on Saturday, and as of Friday, 1 in 5 coronavirus tests in the Miami-Dade region was coming back positive. (Zilbermints, 7/5)

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: A Look At Major Coronavirus Developments Over The Past Week
As COVID-19 cases rapidly multiply in Georgia, government leaders and public health experts are urging residents to wear masks and stay diligent about frequent hand-washing and social distancing to try to slow the spread of the disease. Savannah became the first city in the state to require the use of masks, implementing a $500 fine for violations. (Oliviero, 7/4)

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: COVID-19 Slows Medical Service For Atlanta Veterans
The Veterans Affairs hospital in Decatur is struggling to limit COVID-19 exposure, and the shutdown of most other health care services during the pandemic has kept many veterans from getting needed help, say staff and patients. Staff are concerned about lax screening of people entering the hospital, the mixing of veterans being tested for the coronavirus with surgery patients and inadequate cleaning of exam rooms after positive tests, among other problems, according to internal emails from doctors and nurses reviewed by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. (Quinn, 7/5)

Boston Globe: Boston Hotels Make A Push To Bring Back Indoor Gatherings In Phase 3 
Several Boston hotels are finally turning the lights on again as they awake from their slumbers this spring. But some of the biggest ones will stay dark, with no sign of indoor events returning. So the Greater Boston Convention & Visitors Bureau went to Governor Charlie Baker’s administration last week with an ambitious request: bring back the meetings and events business. (Chesto, 7/5)

WBUR: Crisis Hotlines In Mass. See Rise In Calls, Texts During Pandemic
Some suicide prevention hotlines in Massachusetts have seen a significant increase in calls in the first six months of 2020, with the most notable jump happening since the pandemic began in March. Samaritans in Boston reports an 84.1% increase in text messages to its crisis line during the period of March 12 to June 30 this year, compared to the same time last year. Phone calls to the hotline went up 23.5% — from 28,768 to 35,535. (Jolicoeur, 7/6)

Detroit Free Press: More Coronavirus Testing, Clusters Drive Numbers Higher In Michigan
Michigan's coronavirus curve continues to climb upward as 543 newly confirmed cases were reported Thursday, the highest number of new cases in the state since May 29. Calling it "one of the highest case counts we've reported in several weeks," Lynn Sutfin, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Health and Human Services, said a few things might have contributed to the rise in cases. Among them is testing. (Shamus and Tanner, 7/3)

The Texas Tribune: Several Texas Cities Worry Hospitals May Run Out Of Beds In Two Weeks Or Sooner
Local officials and experts in Austin, San Antonio, Houston and Fort Worth have expressed concerns in recent days that increasing coronavirus hospitalizations could overwhelm their intensive care capacities, with some saying it could happen in less than two weeks. As Texas hit another record high Sunday, reporting 8,181 people hospitalized for the new coronavirus, local officials predicted cities could soon run out of space to care for the sickest patients. The state reported that there still are 13,307 available staffed hospital beds, including 1,203 available staffed ICU beds statewide, but hospital capacity varies greatly by region. (Olivares, 7/5)

Houston Chronicle: Presumed COVID-19 Patients Often Sent Home From Houston Hospital ERs Without Testing, Doctors Report 
As the nation’s fourth-largest city shudders under the virus’ renewed fury, “hundreds” of emergency room patients at two of Houston’s major health systems are often not tested even if they appear sick with COVID-19, according to multiple doctors at those hospitals, some speaking on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution from their institutions. (Deam, 7/4)

Dallas Morning News: Dallas County Reports Record 1,103 Coronavirus Cases, Continuing Its Skyward Trajectory
Dallas County reported 1,103 new coronavirus cases Saturday, setting a daily record for the fourth time this week and continuing the sharp rise of recent days. The county also reported two deaths: of a Balch Springs man in his 70s and a woman in her 80s who lived in a long-term care facility in Dallas. The county recorded 44 deaths for the week, making it the deadliest of the pandemic so far. (Marfin, 7/4)

Also, issues of care, disability and race surround the story of this Texas man's death -

The Washington Post: Disability Rights Activists Rally Around Wife Of Quadraplegic Man With Covid-19 Who Sought Continued Treatment 
Michael Hickson, a 46-year-old father of five from Texas, was sick with covid-19 when doctors reached a crossroads in his treatment. He had pneumonia in both lungs, a urinary tract infection and sepsis — a dangerous immune response leading to multisystem organ failure. He needed a ventilator to help him continue breathing, but the hospital felt further intervention for the disabled man was futile. A doctor explained to the family that there was little hope Hickson would survive or regain “quality of life.” (Cha, 7/5)

AP: Stimulus Money Could Pose Dilemmas In Nursing Homes
Nursing home residents are among the Americans getting $1,200 checks as part of the U.S. government’s plan to revive the economy. But with many long-term care facilities under lockdown to prevent COVID-19 outbreaks, what are the rules around how the money is handled? The situation underscores the vulnerability of many elderly residents and potential confusion about what homes can and can’t do with residents’ money. (Choi, 7/5)

WBUR: Warren, Markey Report Finds ‘Crisis’ In Nation’s Assisted Living Facilities 
The lawmakers surveyed the top 11 assisted living operators in the country — which collectively house over 153,000 older adults, or about a sixth of the nation’s assisted living population — and found, in the words of Markey, that “we are simply not doing enough to protect our seniors or workers in assisted living homes from this deadly virus.” (Wasser and Atkins, 7/3)

Boston Globe: Nursing Homes Say R.I. Was Slow To Test At Outset Of Pandemic
Rhode Island was slow to start coronavirus testing on patients coming from hospitals to nursing homes, it was slow to test nursing home workers and residents, and even now it is slow in providing test results. Those were some of the statements that the Rhode Island Health Care Association made Friday in responding to Governor Gina M. Raimondo’s proposals to revamp long-term care and make the state’s nursing homes “better, stronger, and safer.” (Fitzpatrick, 7/3)

Billings Gazette: Visits To Long-Term Care Homes Once Again Restricted In Yellowstone County, Health Officer Orders 
Visitation to long-term care facilities in Yellowstone County is once again restricted, under a Friday order from health officer John Felton. In the week since Gov. Steve Bullock lessened restrictions on long-term care facilities across the state, Billings has seen about a dozen COVID-19 cases in seven care facilities, Felton said in a press conference Friday. (Hamby, 7.3)

Dallas Morning News: Foster Care Plaintiffs Say Texas ‘Shockingly’ Disobeys Federal Judge, Ask Her For Sanctions
Plaintiffs in a long-running child-welfare lawsuit are again asking a federal judge to hold Texas in contempt of court, this time for what they cite as ignoring “glaring safety risks” in state foster care pointed out by her own monitors. Lawyers for foster children have urged U.S. District Judge Janis Graham Jack to require the Department of Family and Protective Services, and a separate unit that inspects foster homes and other care facilities, to show why they shouldn’t be held in contempt for failing to make sweeping changes she’s demanded. (Garrett, 7/5)

Politico: UK To Allow Quarantine-Free Travel With Nearly 60 Countries — But Not The U.S. 
English holidaymakers can travel to Paris, Berlin and a host of other destinations from July 10 without restrictions, but the U.S. and China are not included. The British government on Friday unveiled a list of safe destinations from where travelers will not be required to self-isolate for 14 days when they enter England. The list covers 59 countries and 14 British Overseas Territories including Austria, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Malta, Poland and Spain. (Gallardo, 7/3)

AP: Australia To Shut State Border As Melbourne Infections Surge
Australian authorities were preparing to close the border between the country’s two largest states, as the country’s second-largest city, Melbourne, recorded two deaths and its highest-ever daily increase in infections on Monday. The border between the states of New South Wales — home to Sydney — and Victoria — home to Melbourne — is due to be shut late Tuesday. (Brownbill and McGuirk, 7/6)

AP: Egypt Arrests Doctors, Silences Critics Over Virus Outbreak
A doctor arrested after writing an article about Egypt’s fragile health system. A pharmacist picked up from work after posting online about a shortage of protective gear. An editor taken from his home after questioning official coronavirus figures. A pregnant doctor arrested after a colleague used her phone to report a suspected coronavirus case. As Egyptian authorities fight the swelling coronavirus outbreak, security agencies have tried to stifle criticism about the handling of the health crisis by the government of President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi. (7/6)

The Wall Street Journal: Developing World Loses Billions In Money From Migrant Workers 
Migrant workers—from Polish farmhands working the fields of southern France to Filipino cruise-ship workers in the Caribbean—who lost their jobs because of the pandemic’s economic impact are running out of cash to send home, dealing a blow to the fragile economic health of the developing world. Tens of millions of Indians, Filipinos, Mexicans and others from developing countries working overseas sent a record $554 billion back to their home countries last year. That’s an amount greater than all foreign direct investment in low- and middle-income countries and more than three times the development aid from foreign governments, according to the World Bank. (Emont, 7/5)

The Washington Post: Mexican Border States Raise New Concern About Americans Bringing Coronavirus South 
For years, officials in northern Mexico watched as a border wall rose just north of the Rio Grande, and as the White House threatened repeatedly to freeze cross-border traffic. Now, with coronavirus cases soaring in the southwestern United States, it’s Mexican leaders who are asking for tighter border enforcement to keep their communities safe. (Sieff, 7/3)

AP: Pakistan Minister Tests Positive For Coronavirus
Pakistan’s Minister of State for Health Zafar Mirza tested positive for the coronavirus, the latest high profile government minister to contract the virus.Foreign Minister Moahmood Qureshi announced Friday that he too tested positive for the virus. (7/6)

Reuters: Bolivia's Health Minister Tests Positive For COVID-19 
Bolivia’s Health Minister María Eidy Roca has tested positive for COVID-19 though is in stable condition, the ministry said on Sunday, as a sharp rise in cases of the novel coronavirus strain hospitals and cemeteries in the South American country. (Ramos, 7/5)

The Washington Post: India Coronavirus: The 17-Member Family That Lived Together, Ate Together And Got Covid-19 Together 
When Mukul Garg learned that one member of his family had tested positive for the novel coronavirus, he immediately knew it was only the beginning. His extended family had stayed inside for weeks during a nationwide lockdown, eating together and playing together in the home they share in India’s capital. They were 17 people in all, ranging in age from 3 months to 90 years. (Slater, 7/5)

Reuters: India Puts Back Taj Mahal Reopening Citing COVID-19 Risks 
India has withdrawn a planned reopening of the Taj Mahal, citing the risk of new coronavirus infections spreading in the northern city of Agra from visitors flocking to see the 17th century monument to love. (7/5)

The New York Times: Bubonic Plague Is Diagnosed In China 
A herdsman in Inner Mongolia was confirmed to be infected with bubonic plague, Chinese health officials said, a reminder of how even as the world battles a pandemic caused by a novel virus, old threats remain. The Bayannur city health commission said the plague was diagnosed in the herdsman on Sunday, and he was in stable condition undergoing treatment at a hospital. (Ramzy, 7/6)

CNN: The Bubonic Plague Is Back Again In China's Inner Mongolia 
Authorities in the Chinese region of Inner Mongolia are on high alert after a suspected case of bubonic plague, the disease that caused the Black Death pandemic, was reported Sunday. The case was discovered in the city of Bayannur, located northwest of Beijing, according to state-run Xinhua news agency. A hospital alerted municipal authorities of the patient's case on Saturday. By Sunday, local authorities had issued a citywide Level 3 warning for plague prevention, the second lowest in a four-level system. (Yeung, 7/6)

Stat: To Save Lives, Get Partisanship Out Of Public Health Science 
Despite troubling reports of harassment and threats targeted at public health officials over the past few months, public confidence in the science community has remained strong for several decades. In a recent Pew Research Center survey, 79% of Americans said they had a great deal or a fair amount of confidence in scientists to act in the best interests of the public, while only 25% said the same about elected officials. If we respect and trust scientists, why do we give politicians more power for decision-making about issues that directly affect our health? (Brian C. Castrucci, 7/4)

The Washington Post: Schools Need To Reopen. The Question Is How. 
A recent nationwide survey of school superintendents showed that 94 percent of them aren’t ready to announce when they’ll reopen classrooms for the 2020-2021 school year. That uncertainty is extremely concerning. Too much learning has already been lost because of the abrupt school shutdown in mid-March caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Students have lost ground, and racial and economic gaps in achievement have widened. Schools need to reopen. How to do that safely, though, is a confounding question. The threat from the deadly virus — for which there is currently no effective therapy or vaccine — has by no means diminished, evident in the spike in infections in states that rushed to reopen without adequate safeguards. (7/5)

Stat: Blame Our Late Response To Covid-19 On Our Culture And Brain Wiring 
From the recent rise in Covid-19 cases linked to reopening in states across the country to the models showing that shutting down the country even two weeks earlier would have saved almost 55,000 lives, this pandemic is shining a spotlight on our inability to act early and preventively. It reminds me of the fable about the ant and the grasshopper. In it, the ant works prudently all summer and is prepared when winter hits, while the grasshopper lives it up during times of warmth and abundance only to suffer when things freeze up. Why are humans like the grasshopper, frequently not seeing the need to act until it’s too late? (Nat Kendall-Taylor, 7/6)

The Washington Post: No Wonder The Trump Administration Doesn’t Want Anthony Fauci On TV
On CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday morning, host Margaret Brennan gave viewers an unusual peek behind the booking curtain. “We think it’s important for our viewers to hear from Dr. Anthony Fauci and the Centers for Disease Control,” she said to the camera. “But we have not been able to get our requests for Dr. Fauci approved by the Trump administration in the last three months, and the CDC not at all. We will continue our efforts.” CBS isn’t the only media outlet with this issue: Fauci and other key health-policy figures on the administration’s coronavirus task force have been largely pulled from the airwaves in recent weeks while cases surge nationwide. Their absence makes sense, though, when you realize that even in the midst of this deadly pandemic, the administration’s top priority is the president’s image. (James Downie, 7/5)

Detroit Free Press: COVID-19: American Hospitals Should Serve The Public, Not Private Owners
In just a few months, the coronavirus pandemic has highlighted deeply troubling failures of American democracy. Among the most revealing is the pandemic’s demonstration that debates about the future of the U.S. health care system have been tragically narrow in their focus on health insurance coverage alone. The public debate over health policy must go much farther, to include the ways that we organize and finance our hospitals — and even how we think of their larger role in our economy and society. (Guian A. McKee, 7/5)

The New York Times: Borders Won’t Protect Your Country From Coronavirus 
The coronavirus has hit the poorest the hardest, but until recently, they have mostly been in wealthy countries. Now, even as the pandemic continues to claim lives in high-income countries — and especially the United States — it’s spreading with ferocity in lower- and middle-income countries. The virus has infected at least 1.5 million people in Brazil and claimed more than 60,000 lives there. India ended June with around 600,000 cases; it started the month with just under 200,000. With limited health resources, widespread poverty, large debt burdens and, in some cases, political instability and conflict, developing countries are the new front line in the pandemic. For countries like the United States and Britain, helping the developing world fight the virus and avoid a humanitarian catastrophe is a moral imperative. (Robert E. Rubin and David Miliband, 7/6)

Sacramento Bee: Sacramento And CA Pay Price For Rushed COVID-19 Reopening
After an unwise and unscientific rush to reopen the state, COVID-19 infections are spiking in California, including here in Sacramento. The California miracle has become the California nightmare. We bent the curve and avoided the worst-case scenario in March, April and May with an unprecedented statewide stay-at-home order. (7/3)

Sacramento Bee: Newsom Now Owns The COVID-19 Pandemic 
Just a few weeks ago, Gov. Gavin Newsom was boasting about California’s apparent success in suppressing COVID-19 infections in implicit contrast to other states, such as New York, that were being clobbered by the pandemic. He called it “bending the curve” of the infection rate and decided to reopen vast sections of the economy that he had shuttered in March. (Dan Walters, 7/5)

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Action Steps For Businesses As COVID-19 Continues
Political pundits and healthcare researchers can argue if it’s a second wave or simply a continuation of the original COVID-19 pandemic. However, the fact remains that the virus which hit us so hard in the spring continues to be a potent force as we head into the summer months. (Chris Clark. 7/3)

The Houston Chronicle: Mask Up, Texas. That’s An Order From Your Governor — Finally. 
With COVID-19 infections soaring and hospital ICU capacity reaching critical levels, Gov. Greg Abbott finally did the right thing Thursday and ordered everyone in most Texas counties to wear a mask in public. The order requires those in counties with 20 or more positive COVID-19 cases to wear a covering over the nose and mouth whenever social distancing is not possible. That includes inside businesses or other buildings open to the public as well as outdoor public spaces. The order takes effect at noon Friday. It is expected to impact almost 200 of Texas’ 254 counties. (7/2)

The Wall Street Journal: Antibodies Can Be The Bridge To A Vaccine 
America’s coronavirus epidemic has taken a turn for the worse, with many more states showing sharp increases in daily cases compared with two weeks ago. How long will it take for researchers to catch up and develop more effective therapies against Covid-19? The federal government’s Operation Warp Speed is working with drugmakers to accelerate the development and manufacturing of vaccines. Five candidates are in clinical trials, including one from Pfizer (on whose board one of us, Dr. Gottlieb, sits). More vaccines are expected to enter such trials soon. A safe and effective vaccine is the best hope for ending the pandemic and fully restoring the economy. Everyone is hoping for success—and quickly. But the path to a vaccine can be long and complex. (Luciana Borio and Scott Gottlieb, 7/5)

Fox News: Coronavirus Drug Cost – Ignore Critics. Here's Why The Price Is Right
Last week, Gilead Sciences announced that it would sell a five-day course of its coronavirus drug, Remdesivir, for just over $3,100. The antiviral, currently the only medication proven to speed recovery from COVID-19, received FDA approval in May. Some Democratic lawmakers and policy experts attacked remdesivir's price as soon as it was announced. They claim that Gilead could sell the drug for as little as $1 per dose – and that the higher price reflects nothing more than the pharmaceutical company's desire to capitalize on the crisis. That critique makes little sense. Even some of the drug industry's most prominent critics have acknowledged that Remdesivir's price is fair, as the value it delivers could end up being a lot higher than its price tag.  (Sally Pipes, 7/5)

The New York Times: Will We Be Hostages To Drug Makers’ Covid Vaccine Pricing?
Yes, of course, Americans’ health is priceless, and reining in a deadly virus that has trashed the economy would be invaluable. But a Covid-19 vaccine will have an actual price tag. And given the prevailing business-centric model of American drug pricing, it could well be budget breaking, perhaps making it unavailable to many. The last vaccine to quell a global viral scourge was the polio inoculation, which ended outbreaks that killed thousands and paralyzed tens of thousands each year in the United States. The March of Dimes Foundation covered the nominal drug cost for a free national vaccination program, estimated at $50,000. (Elisabeth Rosenthal, 7/6)

The Washington Post: I’ve Watched In Alarm As My Fellow Republicans Shun Masks. It’s Selfish.
I’ve watched in alarm and dismay as the course of action recommended by almost all of our nation’s infectious-disease experts has been shunned by many of my fellow conservatives and Republicans. President Trump, Vice President Pence and many governors either refuse to wear a mask or wear one only occasionally, sending inconsistent messages about the importance of citizens wearing masks even as covid-19 spreads at record levels. I live in Austin, where our state pushed to reopen absent clear communication and guidelines about the concerted individual and collective actions that would be essential to reopening safely. When leaders said “We are open for business,” too many citizens heard “Life is back to normal.” Although some Republicans are now speaking up, for weeks there were mixed or no messages about everyone’s personal responsibility to don a mask in public. (Karen Hughes, 7/1)

Bloomberg: Covid-19 Cases In Arizona, Florida, Texas Aren't On Same Scale 
When New York City’s Covid-19 epidemic peaked in late March and early April, the city was reporting more than 5,000 new confirmed cases a day, and more than 60% of tests for the disease were coming back positive. In Arizona, which has a similar if somewhat smaller population (7.3 million versus 8.3 million), new cases are currently averaging about 3,000 a day and about 20% of tests are positive. Things may keep getting worse in Arizona, and its Covid outbreak may eventually surpass New York City’s. But it’s a long, long way from getting there, and I’m guessing that it won’t. That isn’t to say that things are looking good in the Grand Canyon State, or in Texas, Florida, Southern California or any of the other places now experiencing big growth in coronavirus cases. But the specific conditions that enabled the awful explosion of the disease in New York City are not being replicated. (Justin Fox, 7/1)

CNN: As Trump Gaslights America About Coronavirus, Republicans Face A Critical Choice 
The gulf between reality and President Donald Trump's delusional vision of a waning coronavirus threat was on full display this weekend, as cases soared in key hotspots while he delivered speeches at Mount Rushmore and at the White House, with little physical distancing and few masks, directly contradicting the advice from his public health experts. Playing with fire at a time when experts say the spread of the virus appears to be spiraling out of control, Trump continued gaslighting Americans about the threat to their health during a Fourth of July speech from the South Lawn of the White House, where he minimized the dangers of Covid-19 with a baseless statement that 99% of coronavirus cases are "harmless," a claim his Food and Drug Administration chief could not back up Sunday morning. (Maeve Reston, 7/6)

Boston Globe: Tougher Oversight Key To Protecting State’s Elderly 
Even as Massachusetts takes some satisfaction in its latest coronavirus trends, there is one unavoidable fact it must wrestle with: 63 percent of all COVID-19 deaths here thus far have been among residents or staff at long-term care facilities, compared with under 40 percent nationally. And that raises the critical question of what more can be done to protect the state’s most vulnerable population in the event of a second wave of the virus. (7/5)

Stat: People In Mental Health Crises Need Help, Not Handcuffs 
A mental health crisis can be a frightening thing to the individual experiencing it as well as to people witnessing it. Those in its throes need help, but all too often get handcuffs. We have seen that scenario play out from the inside and the outside. It’s time for it to change. (Bill Carruthers and Dan Gillison, 7/3)