COVID-19 News from Around the Web

Russia has confirmed 232,000 cases of coronavirus - the second highest toll in the world after the US. In the last 24 hours the country has reported 10,899 infections, the tenth consecutive day that number has been above 10,000. Among the infected is President Vladimir Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov, local media report. He is the latest high profile official to test positive, after Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin caught the illness. The news comes the day after President Putin eased the country's lockdown.

In the email, sent around to West Wing employees Monday afternoon, staffers are told they must wear a mask upon entry, keep social distance from colleagues whenever possible and can only not wear a mask when they are seated at their own desks. Staffers have also been told, according to sources, that the White House will provide a mask to anyone who needs it. The new rules come after two White House staffers tested positive for the coronavirus last week. Another measure under consideration is that aides must maintain a six-foot social distance during meetings, including meetings with President Donald Trump. There is also an internal list of more than a dozen people who work in the West Wing who will be tested for coronavirus daily before reporting to work in the West Wing.

Even as President Donald Trump urges getting people back to work and reopening the economy, thousands of new coronavirus infections are being reported daily, many of them job-related. Recent figures show a surge of cases in meat-packing and poultry-processing plants. There’s been a spike of new infections among construction workers in Austin, Texas, where that sector recently returned to work. Even the White House has proven vulnerable, with positive coronavirus tests for one of Trump’s valets and for Vice President Mike Pence’s press secretary.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, is warning Congress that if the country reopens too soon during the coronavirus pandemic, it will result in “needless suffering and death.” Fauci is among the health experts testifying to a Senate panel. His testimony comes as President Donald Trump is praising states that are reopening after the prolonged lock-down aimed at controlling the virus’ spread. Fauci, in a statement to The New York Times, warned that officials should adhere to federal guidelines for a phased reopening, including a “downward trajectory” of positive tests or documented cases of coronavirus over two weeks, robust contact tracing and “sentinel surveillance” testing of asymptomatic people in vulnerable populations, such as nursing homes.

Twitter announced Monday it will start alerting users when a tweet makes disputed or misleading claims about the coronavirus. The new rule is the latest in a wave of stricter policies that tech companies are rolling out to confront an outbreak of virus-related misinformation on their sites. Facebook and Google, which owns YouTube, have already put similar systems in place.

Three senior officials guiding the U.S. response to the coronavirus pandemic were in self-quarantine on Saturday after coming into contact with someone who had tested positive for the disease, their agencies and spokesmen said. Anthony Fauci, a high-profile member of the White House coronavirus response team, is considered to be at relatively low risk based on the degree of his exposure, according to a representative for the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Fauci, the 79-year-old director of that institute, has tested negative for COVID-19 and he will continue to be tested regularly, the official said in an emailed statement. Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), “will be teleworking for the next two weeks” after a “low-risk exposure” on Wednesday to a person at the White House who has the disease, the CDC said in a statement. U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Stephen Hahn, who is 60, is also in self-quarantine for a couple of weeks after coming into contact with someone who tested positive for the illness, an FDA spokesman told Reuters late on Friday.

One of the leading models for measuring the impact of the coronavirus is now projecting a total of 137,184 cumulative COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. through the beginning of August, an increase of roughly 2,700 deaths from its previous forecast May 4. Christopher Murray, the director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, predicted the number of cases to particularly increase in areas where people become more mobile. "What's driving the change is, simply put, the rise in mobility, and that's the key driver," Murray said on "Face the Nation" on Sunday. "We're seeing in some states, you know, a 20-percentage-point increase in just 10 days in mobility. And that will translate into more human contact, more transmission." Murray said states which have "big increases in mobility" may see a significant uptick in cases in the coming weeks. The top five states with increased mobility are Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota and Georgia, Murray said. "We're seeing just explosive increases in mobility in a number of states that we expect will translate into more cases and deaths in 10 days from now," Murray said. Murray said there was a decrease in projected cases coming from New York, New Jersey and Michigan, which have been epicenters of the pandemic, but that there was an increase in states like Illinois, Arizona, Florida and California.