Here’s what you need to know:
- The rise in testing is not driving the rise in U.S. virus cases. Here’s why.
- California surpasses New York for the most reported cases of any state.
- Republicans weigh short-term jobless aid extension as they struggle to find consensus on a relief bill.
- The U.S. announces a nearly $2 billion contract for millions of doses of a vaccine that is not yet approved.
- More mask orders are issued, a day after Trump, in a shift, urged Americans to cover up.
- In the U.S., the Northeast now stands out in virus control.
- At Niagara Falls, Canadian boats are limited to six passengers while U.S. boats carry hundreds.
The rise in testing is not driving the rise in U.S. virus cases. Here’s why.
As coronavirus cases have surged in recent weeks, President Trump has repeatedly said the growing case count is a result of increased testing, not a worsening outbreak. An analysis by The New York Times, however, shows the rise in cases far outpaces the growth in testing.
About 21,000 cases were reported per day in early June, when the positive test rate was 4.8 percent. As testing expanded, the positive test rate should have fallen. Even if it had stayed the same, there would have been about 38,000 cases reported each day. Instead, the positive test rate has nearly doubled, and more than 66,000 cases are now reported each day.
The average number of tests conducted nationwide has grown by 80 percent since early June, to 780,000 per day. Daily case counts have grown by 215 percent in the same period.
Florida, the state with the largest discrepancy, is reporting more than 11,000 new cases per day, on average, while only about 2,400 cases each day would be expected because of increased testing. California and Texas numbers are also far above what would be expected.
In some states with smaller outbreaks, case growth outpaces testing growth by large percentages. In Idaho, there are more than five times as many cases as would be expected with expanded testing. In Nevada, there are six times as many.
In 14 states and Washington, D.C., however, testing has increased faster than cases have, meaning positive test rates are falling. Many of those states are in the Northeast. In New York — the epicenter of the outbreak early on — cases have continued to decline, even with more than 60,000 tests performed daily.
California surpasses New York for the most reported cases of any state.
California, where the virus is surging, has now reported more cases than New York, the early center of the pandemic in the U.S., where the spread of the virus has slowed.
There have now been more than 417,000 cases announced in California over the course of the pandemic, the most of any state, according to a New York Times database. New York, with more than 413,000 known cases, had the most until Wednesday.
While California has overtaken New York in reported cases, it is difficult to know which state has actually had more total infections. Both states had significant outbreaks very early on, when testing was severely limited, and the C.D.C. has said that huge numbers of infections went undetected, dwarfing the number of known cases.
For example, in a recent study of antibody prevalence, the C.D.C. found evidence that as many as 2.8 million people in the New York City area had been infected by May 6 — 10 times the number of cases reported by then. The figure for San Francisco in late April was 9 times.
Gov. Gavin Newsom of California said on Wednesday that as the state greatly expanded testing, it expected to find many more cases. The challenge for the state, he said, was to sustain its virus response.
“We are not going to let off in our day-to-day monitoring and our technical assistance,” he said. “We’ll see those numbers increase and as a consequence, we need to be more vigilant and more aware of our personal behaviors and our collective behaviors.”
Mr. Newsom said the state’s stay-at-home order and its efforts to increase hospital capacity bought California some time. Now, as the partly reopened state contends with climbing case numbers, he said, it is in a better position than before to distribute protective equipment and tailor restrictions to allow some businesses to reopen outside.
New York remains by far the hardest-hit state by another measure: It has recorded 32,228 deaths related to Covid-19, according to a Times database — more than the next three states (New Jersey, Massachusetts and California) combined.
Republicans weigh short-term jobless aid extension as they struggle to find consensus on a relief bill.
Senate Republicans and White House officials are discussing proposing a short-term extension of enhanced unemployment benefits beyond their expiration at the end of the month, an indication that the party is still divided over a broader relief package.
With Republicans at odds over the cost and contents of their opening offer for the next round of virus aid — expected to be around $1 trillion — and bracing for an intense negotiation with Democrats who are demanding three times as much spending, the discussions reflected a growing awareness that a quick resolution is unlikely.
A weekly $600 supplement to unemployment benefits provided as part of the stimulus law is set to expire at the end of July, providing a deadline for Congress to act on another round of economic relief before tens of millions of laid-off workers lose their aid.
It was not clear on Wednesday how long the extension that Republicans are weighing would last, or whether it could gain broad enough support in the party to materialize. Nor was it known whether Democrats would embrace such a temporary fix, which would alleviate much of the political pressure on Congress to quickly produce another economic stabilization measure.
But such a bare-bones proposal might be all that Republicans can coalesce around. Several of them told administration officials on Tuesday during a private policy lunch that they had concerns about a steep price tag for another round of relief, as well as objections to several policy provisions pushed by the White House, including a payroll tax cut. Payroll taxes fund Social Security and Medicare, and critics argue cuts would mostly benefit people with jobs, and not the unemployed.
Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, has said he hopes to unveil a relief package in the coming days that would include $105 billion for schools to reopen, another round of stimulus checks and additional funds for a popular federal loan program for small businesses. Negotiations continued on Wednesday on the details.
The White House will not only have to reconcile their differences with Republicans, but with Democrats, led by Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who responded to President Trump’s briefing on Tuesday by calling the crisis the “Trump virus.”
Top Democrats on Capitol Hill said they would be willing to negotiate with their Republican counterparts once they put forward an opening piece of legislation. For now, they are standing by the $3 trillion stimulus law Democrats pushed through the House in May, which also included aid to help cash-strapped state and local governments avoid layoffs.
Gov. Larry Hogan of Maryland, a Republican who is the chairman of the National Governors Association, a bipartisan group, said that the drop in economic activity and tax receipts had left state budgets “in tatters.”
“Governors have already cut budgets and reduced our payrolls by 1.5 million people,” he said in a joint statement with Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York, a Democrat, “but without Senate action, we will need to make steeper cuts and reduce payrolls even more, at precisely the time when these services are needed most.”
The U.S. announces a nearly $2 billion contract for millions of doses of a vaccine that is not yet approved.
The Trump administration on Wednesday announced a nearly $2 billion contract with the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and a smaller German biotechnology company for up to 600 million doses of a potential coronavirus vaccine. If the vaccine proves to be safe and effective in clinical trials, the companies say, they could manufacture the first 100 million doses by December.
The administration’s decision to strike a deal for millions of doses of a not-yet-finished vaccine is unusual in two ways. The private sector purchases most vaccines in the United States, not the government. And when the government does buy vaccines — typically on behalf of low-income children — it almost always pursues contracts with drugmakers who have already gotten safety and efficacy approval from the Food and Drug Administration.
Large-scale safety and efficacy trials are to begin this month, with regulatory review set for as early as October. Before a vaccine could be distributed, it would first need at least emergency approval by the F.D.A. The agreement is the largest contract yet for “Operation Warp Speed,” the Trump administration’s effort to hurry coronavirus vaccines to the market.
Under the arrangement, the federal government would obtain the first 100 million doses for $1.95 billion, or about $20 a dose, with the rights to acquire up to 500 million more. Americans would receive the vaccine for free.
“Depending on success in clinical trials, today’s agreement will enable the delivery of approximately 100 million doses of vaccine being developed by Pfizer and BioNTech,” Alex M. Azar II, the health secretary, said in a statement announcing the deal.
Some experts said that widespread government purchasing of coronavirus vaccines may ultimately lower their price in the United States. That’s what happens in other countries, like Canada and those in Europe, where large, national health systems routinely buy vaccines, prescription drugs, and all kinds of medical services on behalf of citizens. Adopting such an approach is an unusual tack to take for a Republican administration that had often railed against nationalized health care, and lauded the private sector.
Experts in vaccine financing policy did acknowledge that the Pfizer contract was risky because the drug could fail future trials. But they generally felt the risk was warranted because a large investment could jump-start vaccine manufacturing, and may ultimately yield lower prices for Americans.
“It’s a gamble, but a reasonable one,” said Walter Orenstein, an epidemiologist at Emory University who worked for the Clinton administration as director of the United States Immunization Program. “They’re helping gear up production so that if this vaccine is licensed, it will be available in large quantities.”
More mask orders are issued, a day after Trump, in a shift, urged Americans to cover up.
For months, public health officials have urged the public to wear masks to curb the spread of the virus. And for months the issue has been politicized. But as the virus has surged across the U.S. in recent days, major retailers, state and local officials and even Mr. Trump have all shifted course and urged, and in some cases ordered, people to wear masks.
New statewide mask orders were issued on Wednesday by the Republican governors of Ohio and Indiana and by Minnesota’s governor, a Democrat. And city officials in Washington, D.C., and Baltimore issued new, tougher new mask orders as well.
The latest mask mandates came a day after Mr. Trump, who has long resisted wearing masks and at times even disparaged them, made his most robust call for wearing them yet, urging: “When you can, use a mask.” Some of the nation’s largest retail chains, including Walmart, Winn-Dixie and Whole Foods, have also moved to require customers to wear them.
“We’ve got to get this virus under control,” Gov. Mike DeWine of Ohio said Wednesday as he issued a statewide mask order that will take effect Thursday evening. “Wearing a mask is going to make a difference.”
“We all want kids to go back to school, we want to see sports, we want to see a lot of different things, we want to have more opportunities in the fall,” said Mr. DeWine, who had previously ordered people only in the state’s hardest-hit counties to wear masks. “And to do that, it’s very important that all Ohioans wear a mask.”
Gov. Eric Holcomb of Indiana, a Republican, said Wednesday that he would sign an order mandating masks in most public settings beginning Monday. “As we continue to monitor the data, we’ve seen a concerning change in some of our key health indicators,” he said on Twitter. “Hoosiers have worked hard to help re-open our state & we want to remain open.”
In Minnesota, Gov. Tim Walz signed an executive order Wednesday requiring residents to wear masks in indoor stores and other public indoor spaces beginning Saturday. Mr. Walz said that the state would distribute masks to people and businesses in underserved communities.
Minnesota’s lieutenant governor, Peggy Flanagan, whose brother died of Covid-19, acknowledged that masks had turned into “a political football,” but said the mandate could prevent the virus from spreading. “I just simply don’t want anyone else to endure what my family has endured,” she said. “It is really that simple.”
In recent weeks, several Republican governors have issued mask orders, including Gov. Kay Ivey of Alabama and Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas, who had previously not only resisted a mandate but who had blocked local officials from imposing their own. But some continue to resist mandates: Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia filed a lawsuit arguing that Atlanta lacked the authority to require masks within city limits.
In the U.S., the Northeast now stands out in virus control.
In just over two months, the Northeast has gone from the America’s worst virus hot spot to its most controlled.
Along the East Coast, from Delaware through Maine, new case reports remain well below their April peak. As of Tuesday, five of the country’s nine states with flat or falling case levels are in that Northeastern corridor.
“It’s acting like Europe,” Dr. Ashish Jha, the director of the Harvard Global Health Institute, said.
Like Europe, the Northeast suffered a devastating wave of illnesses and deaths in March and April, and state leaders responded, after some hesitation, with aggressive lockdowns and big investments in testing and tracing efforts.
But it remains true that the Northeast is the corner of America that has suffered most from the virus.
New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island have reported the country’s most deaths per capita over the course of the pandemic, with more than 61,000 combined. And the economic wounds from prolonged shutdowns are deep: Massachusetts’s unemployment rate in June climbed to 17.4 percent, the worst in the country, according to federal data.
Global Roundup
At Niagara Falls, Canadian boats are limited to six passengers while U.S. boats carry hundreds.
The different approaches by Canada and the United States to the pandemic have been on display this month in the churning waters where their border meets at the foot of Niagara Falls.
On some days in recent weeks, the Maid of the Mist VII tour boat, which sets sail from the American side, could be seen carrying as many as 230 plastic-poncho-covered passengers to the roaring cascade. Across the way, the Niagara Thunder and Niagara Wonder were each limited by the province of Ontario to six passengers.
The contrast has been cited by many Canadians on social media as an example of their country’s superior approach to infection control. “No surprise that the #US #coronavirus death toll climbs,” a woman from Toronto posted with a photo of the passing ships on Twitter on Wednesday.
While there has been a slight upturn in new cases over the past week in some parts of Canada, the rise has not approached the recent surges in several U.S. states.
New York State limits the Maid of the Mist to 50 percent of capacity, or 230 people. The company said that its average load since sailings began again on June 26 had been 165 people. The gap between the two ship lines will narrow on Friday, however. Ontario is further easing restrictions, and Hornblower Niagara Cruises, the Canadian operator, will be able to carry 100 passengers on ships equipped for 700 people.
In other news from around the world:
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The United States ordered China to close its diplomatic consulate in Houston within 72 hours, dealing another blow to the rapidly deteriorating relations between the two countries. China promptly vowed to retaliate, calling the move illegal. Consulates principally process visas for travelers visiting China, but travel between the two countries has been severely limited in any case because of the pandemic.
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Hong Kong will require travelers from the United States and Kazakhstan to show proof that they have tested negative for the virus within 72 hours of boarding a flight to the city. The government had already introduced this regulation for travelers from seven other countries it deemed high-risk, including Bangladesh, India, South Africa and the Philippines.
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As cases hit a record in one Australian state, a top official chastised residents who show symptoms but don’t isolate themselves. “I’m very unhappy and very sad to have to report that nearly nine in 10 of 3,400 cases did not isolate between when they first felt sick and when they went to get a test,” said Victoria’s premier, Daniel Andrews. And more than half of those who did get tested, he said, then went about their normal business before getting the results.
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The average number of new daily cases in Spain has more than tripled in the month since the country ended its state of emergency. Spain now has 224 local outbreaks, the health minister, Salvador Illa, told Parliament on Wednesday. Many of the cases have been traced to young people.
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After four months of lockdown, Nepal is lifting most restrictions and will soon open schools, restaurants, international flights and mountain trekking. The government said the number of new coronavirus infections was decreasing, from a daily high of 700 a few weeks ago to 150 now or lower. The country of 30 million people has reported 17,994 infections and 40 deaths.
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British travelers are being urged to postpone applying for a passport, as the government works to process a logjam of more than 400,000 applications, the BBC reported. The United States is experiencing similar delays: In June, there was a backlog of 1.7 million Americans waiting for passports after the State Department shut down most of its consular services.
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Prince Philip, the 99-year-old husband of Queen Elizabeth II of Britain who officially retired from public life in 2017, briefly stepped back into royal duty on Wednesday to hand over a ceremonial military role. In an event reimagined to allow for social distancing, Philip transferred his role as Colonel-in-Chief of The Rifles, the largest infantry regiment in the British Army, to Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, who was 85 miles away.
U.S. ROUNDUP
A pair of siblings in Florida who were in their early 20s died of the virus within days of each other.
Mychaela Francis was home with her brother Byron when she saw he was struggling to breathe. Paramedics rushed him to Florida Medical Center on June 27. He died that day of the coronavirus. He was 20.
Three days later, Ms. Francis, 22, began complaining of headaches and a fever, according to her family. Terrified, she insisted that her mother take her to the hospital. She died on July 8, according to the Broward County Medical Examiner’s Office, which confirmed that the cause of death for both siblings was Covid-19.
The deaths of the two young siblings, within 11 days of each other, have devastated their large family in Lauderhill, Fla.
They have also underscored two disturbing developments in the outbreak: the surge of cases in states like Florida that reopened swiftly, and the rising number of people in their 20s, 30s and 40s who are testing positive. In Florida, the median age of residents testing positive has dropped to 40, down from 65 in March.
On Wednesday, the state announced more than 9,780 cases and more than 130 deaths. There have been at least 369,826 cases over all in Florida, according to a New York Times database. As of Wednesday morning, at least 5,205 people had died.
Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has resisted issuing a statewide mask order and who once boasted of the low numbers of cases in the state compared with places like New York, has pushed back against the idea that hospitals have been overwhelmed with cases. “I think we’re going to get through it,” he said at a briefing Tuesday in Tallahassee. “I think we’re on the right course.”
Byron and Mychaela Francis became ill less than two weeks after they got back from a family trip to Orlando, according to Darisha Scott, their cousin, who had joined them with her children.
Because state officials had lifted restrictions, the family felt reasonably secure leaving Broward County, where masks are mandatory and a curfew has since been put in place to deal with the pandemic.
“We said, ‘Let’s go get the kids out of the house,’” Ms. Scott, 31, said. “And then all this happened.”
Here’s what else is going on across the nation:
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North Dakota reported on Wednesday its single-day record for cases, with 160. And Alabama announced its single-day record for deaths, with more than 60.
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Governor DeSantis, who has been sued by a Florida teachers union over his plan to reopen schools next month, insisted on Wednesday that schools should provide instruction in person, as long as parents want to send their children and teachers feel comfortable teaching. “If a school district has to delay the opening of school for a few weeks so everything will be in good shape, have at it,” he said.
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A third of American museums may not survive the pandemic, their directors said. In a survey of museum directors published on Wednesday by the American Alliance of Museums, 16 percent of respondents said there was a high risk that their museums could close for good in the next 16 months. Another 17 percent said they did not know if they would survive without further financial help from governments and private donors.
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Harvard, along with dozens of other universities and 20 states, bitterly fought an effort by the Trump administration to make international students go back to their home countries or to deny them re-entry if they were studying online only. That fight ended in an agreement last week that the students could stay. But Harvard said on Tuesday that the agreement did not cover about 200 new international students Harvard had accepted for the fall.
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The governor Louisiana is extending virus-related restrictions, including a statewide mask order, through Aug. 7.
CULTURE AND SPORTS ROUNDUP
Streaming concerts have evolved, but will people pay for them?
Since the concert industry shut down in mid-March, the livestream has become ubiquitous. Diplo performed from his dimly lit living room floor. John Legend took requests on Instagram Live in his bathrobe. Keith Urban played in his warehouse with his wife, Nicole Kidman, dancing in and out of the frame.
The format has evolved quickly and somewhat haphazardly, but, generally, there’s been an observable developmental timeline. At first, the streams were mostly free — with the main goal simply to ease both artists’ and fans’ nerves — or they were soliciting tips to raise money for aid groups. After a few weeks of streams with rudimentary production values, they got more ambitious, and some were embellished with better lighting and multiple camera angles.
Though artists initially gravitated toward familiar social media platforms like YouTube, Instagram Live or Facebook Live, they soon started making the leap to online stages fans may not have heard of before.
As the pandemic has stretched on, and it’s become clear that concerts full of tightly packed fans won’t be returning in a significant way until 2021, there’s new pressure on these streams, and new questions about them: Can the technology be improved? Can the streams edge closer to the experience of a real show — with fans interacting with one another, paying for better views or more access? Can artists adjust to playing to a screen, rather than a crowd of screaming fans?
And, perhaps most critically: Will people pay for them?
Here are other cultural and sports related developments:
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The @NBABubbleLife Twitter account has amassed more than 100,000 followers in less than two weeks with quirky commentary on the social media posts of basketball’s biggest stars. So who’s behind the #wholesomecontent?
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The Citi Open in Washington, D.C., which was scheduled to restart the men’s tennis tour next month, has been canceled for 2020. The tournament was set to begin on Aug. 14 and serve as a lead-in event for the United States Open.
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The Indianapolis 500, now rescheduled to Aug. 23, will be held in front of about 75 percent fewer spectators who will all be required to wear masks.
Reporting was contributed by Ian Austen, Peter Baker, Graham Bowley, Luke Broadwater, Julia Calderone, Emily Cochrane, Michael Cooper, Matthew Conlen, Jill Cowan, Maria Cramer, Gillian Friedman, Vanessa Friedman, Rick Gladstone, Michael Gold, Anemona Hartocollis, Sarah Kliff, Patrick J. Lyons, Iliana Magra, Sapna Maheshwari, Apoorva Mandavilli, Tiffany May, Raphael Minder, Claire Moses, Heather Murphy, Steven Lee Myers, Derek M. Norman, Bhadra Sharma, Mitch Smith, Eileen Sullivan, Daniel Victor, Noah Weiland and Will Wright.
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