Government health experts have cautioned states to take social distancing seriously over Labor Day weekend, with the goal of avoiding another surge in COVID-19 cases.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease expert, warned governors of Midwestern states that they should be particularly vigilant over the holiday weekend. If people are “careless,” Fauci said, there could be another jump in cases this fall.
“Those states are starting to see an increase in the percent positive of their testing; that is generally predictive that there’s going to be a problem,” Fauci said during a Wednesday interview with CNBC.
Memorial Day weekend and the Fourth of July were turning points for Sun Belt states, which saw a massive uptick in cases. The national test positive rate two weeks after the Fourth of July weekend increased from about 7% to nearly 8.5%. Fauci fears the weekend will make the Midwest the next coronavirus epicenter.
Several Midwest and Great Plains states have all experienced increases in their daily average number of new COVID-19 cases over the last two weeks. Nebraska has seen the smallest rise at 3%, followed by Montana at 9%. South Dakota, meanwhile, topped the list at a 142% increase.
“The issue that we’re facing right now is we’re entering in a day or two right now into the Labor Day weekend, and we know from prior experience that when you get into holiday weekends … there’s a tendency of people to be careless,” Fauci said.
Meanwhile, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield warned people to be vigilant and “smart about crowds,” in an interview Wednesday with Yahoo Finance.
“If we have a spreading event right now, with Labor Day, three to four weeks later, we’re going to have that surge of new cases, and it’s going to be really complicated,” Redfield said.
Currently, there are over 6.1 million confirmed COVID-19 cases in the United States, and more than 186,400 people have died.
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer announced Thursday that gyms and pools across the state can reopen on Wednesday after over five months of closures. The facilities will have to abide by safety precautions such as mandatory masks at all times and operating capped at 25%.
“I urge everyone who plans to hit the gym after these orders go into effect to take these precautions seriously and do everything in their power to protect themselves and their families. Be smart and stay safe,” she added.
The University of South Carolina has reported 1,017 students have tested positive for the coronavirus and are active cases. Though the university advised students to take social distancing seriously and pledged to boost on-campus testing and contact tracing, the school will remain open.
The university took disciplinary action against 15 students as well as six Greek life organizations earlier this week for violating student conduct rules by throwing large parties. The school is now encouraging students to get tested voluntarily for the coronavirus. The test positive rate on campus has already exceeded 27%.
SUNY Oneonta became the latest university to shift all in-person instruction to virtual platforms just four days after the school reported 100 cases following several large parties on campus. Five students were suspended for holding parties against the college policy, while three campus organizations were suspended, according to the Oneonta Daily Star.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer sent a letter to Senate Democrats on Thursday in which he slammed the coronavirus relief package drawn up by Republicans as “emaciated,” saying that it lacked relief money for housing assistance, food stamps, state and local health services, and enhanced unemployment benefits.
“Republicans may call their proposal ‘skinny,’ but it would be more appropriate to call it ‘emaciated.’ Their proposal appears to be completely inadequate and, by every measure, fails to meet the needs of the American people,” Schumer wrote.
Schumer encouraged Congress to devise a “comprehensive, bipartisan” relief package. Talks about another bill stalled out last week when both parties could not come together on the price of such a bill. The GOP plan would allocate a small fraction of the Democrats’ proposal, which comes to $3.4 trillion. The White House also rejected the Democrats’ compromise to cut $1 trillion off their package, arguing that their plan didn’t actually scale back on the proposed benefits.
Dr. Albert Bourla, Pfizer’s CEO, said Thursday that the company expects to know whether its vaccine is effective by the end of October and would apply for regulatory approval immediately if the vaccine is deemed safe, according to CNBC.
The federal government announced a deal in July to pay Pfizer and BioNTech $1.95 billion for 100 million doses of their vaccine. Bourla said the company has already enrolled 23,000 volunteers in the phase three trial that began in late July but plans to enroll another 3,000.
The number of unemployment claims fell to 881,000 last week, the lowest since mid-March. The drop, though, was the result of the changes the Labor Department made to its calculation of jobless claims, which remain extremely high by historical standards.
An additional 760,000 workers applied for benefits through the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program, which provides for unemployment insurance for people sidelined by the epidemic who normally wouldn’t be eligible for benefits, such as gig workers whose business dried up.
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany demanded that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi issue a public apology for going to a hair salon for in-person service over the weekend, caught on video footage, despite coronavirus restrictions. “She wants small businesses to stay shut down but only reopen for her convenience,” McEnany said. “’Do as I say, not as I do,’ says Nancy Pelosi.”
Libertarian-minded members of Congress, led by Sen. Rand Paul, have come out against the Trump administration’s moratorium on evictions issued on Tuesday using the CDC’s quarantine authority, calling it illegal and unconstitutional.
“CDC does not have the authority to do this. It’s dangerous precedent and bad policy,” said Paul, a Republican from Kentucky who has supported President Trump.
