COVID-19 News from Around the Web

With school reopenings just a few weeks away, a report on how the new coronavirus spread rapidly through a summer camp in Georgia suggests kids transmit the virus very well. Nearly 600 young campers and counselors attended the camp in late June, and of the 344 who were tested for COVID-19, 76% tested positive by mid-July. Three-quarters of the COVID-19 cases for which information was available involved symptoms, including sore throat, headache and fever. The camp opened for staff on June 17 and kids started arriving four days later. The first known case involved a teen camp staff member who developed chills on June 23 and tested positive for COVID-19 the next day. After that, the camp was quickly disbanded and it closed on June 27. Campers, who averaged 12 years of age, hadn't been required to wear masks although camp staff wore masks, the researchers said. There was also a "variety of indoor and outdoor activities, including daily vigorous singing and cheering" -- prime activities for the spread of breath droplets laden with coronavirus. Campers were also housed closely together -- 15 to a cabin, on average -- according to a team led by Christine Szablewski, of the Georgia Department of Public Health. Among the 31 cabins, the COVID-19 infection rate averaged 50%.

White House coronavirus task force coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx said on Sunday that the U.S. is in a "new phase" of the pandemic, urging people to follow public health guidance as cases continue to climb in many parts of the United States. "What we're seeing today is different from March and April," Birx said on CNN's State of the Union. "It is extraordinarily widespread — it's into the rural as equal urban areas." The U.S. has surpassed more than 4.6 million confirmed cases of the coronavirus and 154,000 deaths, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. Cases have skyrocketed in many Southern and Western states in recent months, and members of the White House's coronavirus task force are warning of emerging hot spots in the Midwest.

The United States is in a new phase of the novel coronavirus outbreak with infections “extraordinarily widespread” in rural areas as well as cities, White House coronavirus experts said on Sunday. Coronavirus cases continue to surge in some parts of the country and the public health officials are trying to work with governors to tailor responses for each state. “We are in a new phase,” said Dr. Deborah Birx. “What we are seeing today is different from March and April. It is extraordinarily widespread” in rural as well as urban areas. “To everybody who lives in a rural area: You are not immune or protected from this virus,” Birx said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” Birx, the White House task force coordinator, said people living in multigenerational households in an area that is experiencing an outbreak should wear masks inside the home to protect the elderly or those with underlying conditions.

Dr. Scott Gottlieb, former head of the Food and Drug Administration, warned Sunday that the country's rate of coronavirus infections indicates "it's going to be hard to keep the virus out." "I think there's a lot of infection around the country," Gottlieb said in an interview Sunday with "Face the Nation." "It's going to be hard to keep the virus out. Even in the Northeast right now, it's going to be hard for that part of the country not to get re-seeded, and so you're just seeing it rotate through different parts of the country." While New York City and parts of the Northeast were the early epicenter of the coronavirus epidemic in the U.S., states across the Sunbelt then began to experience a surge in cases. Gottlieb said that as those states began to impose measures to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus, including by implementing mask mandates and requiring bars to close again, they are now reporting a decline in new cases or seeing infections level off. Gottlieb attributed the decline to "the collective action of individuals" who limited their activities and were more diligent about wearing masks in public. "I think we're likely to see this continue where there is going to be these epidemics in different parts of the country and in compensatory action to get it under control," he said. "And it's going to be this slow burn, unfortunately, for the rest of the year."

The US is now in the middle of what can only be described as a national Covid-19 epidemic, with cases across the country rising at alarming rates in recent weeks. Public health experts look at a few markers to determine how bad things are in each state: the number of daily new cases; the infection rate, which can show how likely the virus is to spread; and the percentage of tests that come back positive, which should be low in a state with sufficient testing. A Vox analysis indicates the vast majority of states report alarming trends across all three benchmarks for coronavirus outbreaks. Most states still report a high — sometimes very high — number of daily new Covid-19 cases. Most still have high infection rates. And most have test positive rates that are too high, indicating they don’t have enough tests to track and contain the scope of their outbreaks. (The US overall has seen a plateau in new cases in recent days, but at a level much too high.) Across these benchmarks, only three states — Maine, New York, and Vermont — fare well on all three, meaning their epidemics are relatively under control for now.

U.S. coronavirus deaths rose by over 25,000 in July and cases doubled in 19 states during the month, according to a Reuters tally, dealing a crushing blow to hopes of quickly reopening the economy. The United States recorded 1.87 million new cases in July, bringing total infections to 4.5 million, for an increase of 69%. Deaths in July rose 20% to nearly 154,000 total. The biggest increases in July were in Florida, with over 310,000 new cases, followed by California and Texas with about 260,000 each. All three states saw cases double in June.

The federal government will now reimburse doctors who tell their patients to isolate while they wait for their test results to come back. Self-isolating while waiting for COVID-19 test results could dramatically slow the spread of the virus, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says. In fact, data from CDC models are so compelling that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services will now reimburse doctors who encourage people to self-isolate until their test results come back. The financial incentive, announced Thursday by the CDC and CMS, rewards doctors who tell patients to stay away from others from the time they are tested until they receive their test result. Of course, if the test is positive, the patient should continue to isolate.

Shannon Dunn has to report in person to her job this week as a cafeteria manager at an elementary school in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, but she has no idea what she’ll do when her daughter starts kindergarten with online-only instruction. As a new school year begins this week in some states, Dunn, like many working parents, is struggling to balance her job with her child’s school work as the coronavirus pandemic continues to cause upheaval in school districts around the country. Dunn’s East Baton Rouge school district has asked school employees to begin work this week, while students are set to begin virtual classes next week. School officials have said they hope to begin in-person classes after Labor Day.

McDonald's and Marriott franchises are among hundreds of businesses that have illegally denied paid sick leave during the pandemic, records show. Lucie Joseph started to feel sick on April 28 as she rang up customers at a Shell gas station in Delray Beach, Florida. Joseph said her boss wouldn't give her time off without a doctor's note. But the owner of the gas station, Sun Gas Marketing and Petroleum, didn't offer her health insurance, so she didn't go to the doctor. Joseph, a single mother with a 10-year-old son, kept working — seven more shifts over 10 days. Joseph's symptoms worsened, so she decided to get tested for COVID-19. On May 9, Joseph learned she had tested positive, and a nurse told her to quarantine. Over the next six weeks, Joseph tested positive twice more and texted the results to a manager. As instructed, she didn't return to work until she had two consecutive negative tests. On June 15, however, she was fired. "I was stunned," said Joseph, who showed the Center for Public Integrity images of the text messages with her employer and a document indicating she'd tested positive for COVID-19. Joseph, who earned $13 an hour, didn't realize she had a legal right to job protection. Lucie Joseph with her 7-year-old son. Joseph said she was fired at a gas station in South Florida when she took time off to recover from COVID-19.Courtesy Lucie Joseph Two months before she was fired, President Donald Trump signed the Families First Coronavirus Response Act, which requires certain small and medium-sized businesses to pay a worker's full salary for two weeks if they become infected with COVID-19 and prohibits businesses from firing employees for taking leave. But Joseph, who was eventually paid two weeks' wages, didn't know about the law until she consulted a lawyer. Many other workers are equally uninformed. Sun Gas owner Richard Vogel did not respond to requests for comment. Meanwhile, hundreds of U.S. businesses have been cited for illegally denying paid leave to workers during the pandemic, according to documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request. As of June 12, nearly 700 companies had violated the law's paid-leave provisions and owed back wages to hundreds of employees, according to Labor Department records. Violators include six McDonald's franchises and the franchise owners of a Comfort Suites, Courtyard by Marriott and Red Roof Inn.