COVID-19 News from Around the Web

It still remains unclear how easily kids are able to spread COVID-19. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday released a long-awaited update to guidelines for getting children back into the classroom this fall, but it left many details of how to do so safely up to officials at the local level. "Let the individual jurisdictions see how the different strategies that we've put out can be best employed," Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the CDC, said during a call with reporters Friday. There's no question that in-person learning is important to the growth and development of children. The question is how to do so safely. "Children get much more than academics at school," members of the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Federation of Teachers, the National Education Association and The School Superintendents Association wrote this month in a joint statement. "They also learn social and emotional skills at school, get healthy meals and exercise, mental health support and other services that cannot be easily replicated online."

Another day, another mind-boggling milestone: 4 million people in the U.S. have tested positive for the coronavirus. The U.S. hit the 3 million mark just 15 days ago. That's according to a tracker from Johns Hopkins University. More than 143,700 people have died from the virus in the U.S. — nearly twice as many as Brazil, the country with the second-highest number of fatalities. Case numbers continue to rise in most U.S. states and territories. While confirmed cases have surpassed 4 million, federal health officials have said the actual number is likely many times higher. "Our best estimate right now is that for every case that was reported, there actually were 10 other infections," Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the CDC, said last month.

More Americans are currently hospitalized with Covid-19 than at any prior point in the pandemic, a grim milestone that indicates the coronavirus pandemic is not slowing down in the US. On July 22, 59,628 people across the United States were in the hospital after testing positive for the novel coronavirus, according to the Covid Tracking Project; that total surpassed the previous daily high of 59,539 on April 15, when the New York City area was the epicenter of the US outbreak.

The United States on Thursday recorded more than 1,000 deaths from COVID-19, marking the third straight day the nation passed that grim milestone as the pandemic escalates in southern and western U.S. states. Fatalities nationwide were recorded at 1,014 on Thursday, with not all states reporting. Deaths were 1,135 on Wednesday and 1,141 on Tuesday. Even though deaths are rising in the United States for a second week in a row, they remain well below levels seen in April, when 2,000 people a day on average died from the virus.

Public schools should delay reopening in coronavirus hotspots, but should open fully if they want to receive tens of billions of dollars in new federal aid, President Trump said in a White House briefing. At the news conference on Thursday, Trump talked in more detail than he has in the past about school reopening. He also announced new guidance from the CDC on reopening schools. He had previously called the existing guidance "very tough & expensive," while Vice President Mike Pence said "we don't want the guidance from CDC to be a reason why schools don't open." The new guidance emphasizes the "critical" importance of opening schools in-person. For example, it removes a statement from the previous document that "virtual-only classes, activities, and events," are "lowest risk." It also provides an update on emerging evidence that children are less likely to become seriously ill from the virus: "As of July 21, 2020, 6.6% of reported COVID-19 cases and less than 0.1% of COVID-19-related deaths are among children and adolescents less than 18 years of age in the United States," the new guidance says.

Bowing to the coronavirus threat, President Donald Trump on Thursday scrapped plans for a four-night Republican National Convention celebration in Florida that had been set to draw more than 10,000 people to a pandemic hot spot to mark his renomination. Trump had already moved the convention’s public events out of North Carolina because of virus concerns. But the spiking virus shifted south, too, and the planned gathering in Jacksonville increasingly appeared to be both a health and political risk. Trump and his advisers feared that going forward with big parties and “infomercial” programming in Florida would ultimately backfire on the president.

The nation got another dose of bad economic news Thursday as the number of laid-off workers seeking jobless benefits rose for the first time since late March, intensifying concerns the resurgent coronavirus is stalling or even reversing the economic recovery. And an extra $600 in weekly unemployment benefits, provided by the federal government on top of whatever assistance states provide, is set to expire July 31, though this is the last week recipients will get the extra funds. It is the last major source of economic help from the $2 trillion relief package that Congress approved in March. A small business lending program and one-time $1,200 payment have largely run their course. With the count of U.S. infections passing 4 million and the aid ending, nearly 30 million unemployed people could struggle to pay rent, utilities or other bills, and economists worry that overall consumer spending will drop, adding another economic blow.