Wash your hands and stay at home as much as you can. When you go out, please wear a mask. Please be careful. I love you.

NEW RESOURCES – MEDICAL/HEALTH

BusinessWire: Milken Institute Launches New Tool Providing a Holistic View of What Makes Communities More Vulnerable to COVID-19. “The COVID-19 pandemic continues to ravage communities across the country as government leaders open up parts of the economy. In response, the Milken Institute published an interactive COVID-19 Community Explorer, allowing users to determine what community-wide risk factors can make certain areas more vulnerable to the virus.”

NEW RESOURCES – OTHER

WPVI: University of Pennsylvania alum creates job site for those unemployed due to COVID-19. “Aaron Fishkind recently graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a job lined up, but his verbal offer fell through. ‘Once the coronavirus hit and I followed up with them they were like, “We don’t have anything open at the time. We are firing not hiring,”‘ Fishkind said. Fishkind became active on a new site created by fellow Penn Students which links job seekers with recruiters.”

UPDATES

BBC: Coronavirus: India overtakes Russia in Covid-19 cases. “India has recorded more than 24,000 new cases of Covid-19 in the past 24 hours, taking its total above that of Russia. The country now has the third-largest number of confirmed cases in the world, 697,413. There have been 19,693 deaths.”

KETV: Douglas County COVID-19 test site in South Omaha closed due to national supply shortages for labs. “As the Douglas County Health Department (DCHD) works to find new testing materials, a national supply shortage forced health officials to shut down their testing site in South Omaha. DCHD said it comes down to priority — labs in communities with surging case counts of COVID-19 get more supplies. That means the site at 50th and G streets is out of luck.”

FACT CHECKS

San Francisco Chronicle: No, wearing a mask does not cut off your oxygen. Here are the facts.. “Health care professionals say wearing a face covering is one of the most effective ways to slow the spread of the coronavirus. So why do so many people refuse to do it? The Chronicle scoured social media for the most common excuses in circulation and ran them by local infectious disease experts to see whether they hold up.”

New York Times: Trump Falsely Claims ‘99 Percent’ of Virus Cases Are ‘Totally Harmless’. “His remarks about a virus that has already claimed nearly 130,000 lives were perplexing. The coronavirus is surging across the Sunbelt states and has rebounded in California. At least 2.8 million Americans are known to be infected, and public health officials have said the real number of infections may be 10 times higher.”

INSTITUTIONS

CNN: Penn State is tracking those in contact with a 21-year-old student who died of Covid-19 complications. “Penn State University announced 21-year-old student Juan Garcia died of respiratory failure from coronavirus complications last month. ‘We are profoundly saddened to learn about Juan’s untimely death during this pandemic,’ Vice President for Student Affairs Damon Sims said in a statement.”

BBC: Coronavirus: Louvre reopens with masks and one-way system. “The Louvre museum has reopened in Paris after its closure nearly four months ago due to the coronavirus pandemic. Masks are compulsory, a one-way system is in place and numbers of visitors will be controlled. There will also be a spaced queue to view Leonardo Da Vinci’s famous Mona Lisa painting.”

BUSINESS / CORPORATIONS

Computer Business Review: Fujitsu to Slash Office Space by 50% As Remote Shift Becomes Permanent. “­­­­­­Technology firm Fujitsu has announced that it will be cutting its office space by 50 percent over the next two years in a bid to promote a ‘work life shift’. Amid a global climate of ongoing realignment around working environments, 80,000 workers will be asked to primarily work from home, the multinational said in a Japanese language release today.”

Washington Post: Overwhelmed nursing homes kept taking new patients. Some got sick and died.. “Governments in New York and other states have been lambasted for forcing nursing homes to accept covid-19 patients to free up hospital beds, but less attention has been paid to the implications of nursing homes choosing to accept non-covid-19 patients into their ranks. For these facilities, closing the door to new residents means shutting off a precious source of revenue and turning away people in desperate need of care. But continuing admissions risks exposing new and existing residents to the coronavirus, especially if the facility is unable to properly isolate patients or lacks staff and protective gear.”

CNBC: Small business coronavirus relief loan database contains some big errors, firms say. “They can’t show you the money because they didn’t get it — despite what the government says. Several companies that purportedly received forgivable loans as part of a federal relief program said that they did not apply for — much less get — the funds that are detailed in a database of loans released Monday.”

BBC: Coronavirus: Three England pubs close after positive tests. “A number of pubs in England have shut after customers tested positive for coronavirus. At least three establishments announced they had shut their doors again just days after reopening at the weekend. They were among hundreds of venues that welcomed customers after three months as lockdown measures were eased – most apparently with no problem.”

GOVERNMENT

CNN: As Florida sets records for Covid-19 cases, health authorities often fail to do contact tracing. “When Shaila Rivera and her new husband returned home from their honeymoon and tested positive for Covid-19, they expected a phone call from their local health authorities in Florida asking for a list of people they’d been near so that contact tracing could begin. The Riveras waited for that phone call. And waited. And waited. But the call never came.”

Gothamist: Cuomo Mum On How Quarantines For Hotspot Visitors Get Enforced. “Governors Andrew Cuomo, Phil Murphy and Ned Lamont added eight states to an initial list of eight high-infection states last week. The governors maintain the quarantine order is legal, and several legal scholars agree. But there’s active debate on whether it’s practical, desirable, or enforceable.”

Haaretz: Coronavirus Israel Live: Government Decides to Close Bars, Gyms, Limit Public Transportation. “Israel and the West Bank are dealing with a renewed outbreak of the coronavirus, leading to proposals and measures intended to curb its spread and mitigate the economic ramifications of the crisis by both the Israeli and the Palestinian authorities. 30,162 people in Israel have so far tested positive for the coronavirus; 332 people have died.”

Business Insider: Sweden’s prime minister orders an inquiry into the failure of the country’s no-lockdown coronavirus strategy. “Sweden’s prime minister has ordered an inquiry into the country’s decision not to impose a coronavirus lockdown after the country suffered thousands more deaths than its closest neighbours.”

INDIVIDUALS / BANDS / GROUPS

Israel Hayom: Head of Israel’s Public Health Service resigns. “Professor Siegal Sadetzki, head of Public Health Services in the Health Ministry, resigned Tuesday morning, voicing harsh criticism of the ministry’s handling of the second wave of coronavirus.”

SPORTS

NBC News: 35 NHL players test positive, Nationals suspend camp as sports try to return amid coronavirus surge. “The NHL has tested 396 players and 23 were positive, plus the league is aware of 12 other players who have separately tested positive since June 8, officials said. The league and players union on Sunday night agreed on protocols to start training camps and resume the season. Safety precautions include daily testing once games get under way for players, coaches and staff.”

EDUCATION

CBS DFW: Fewer Students Applying For Federal College Aid After Access To Resources Cut Off During Pandemic. “When school buildings suddenly closed in the spring the number of high school seniors applying for U.S. federal college aid plunged soon after. In addition to being forced from the classroom, closures meant students were cut off from school counselors during a critical time. The pandemic has also forced families hit with financial setbacks to reconsider plans for higher education.”

HEALTH

New York Times: 239 Experts With One Big Claim: The Coronavirus Is Airborne . “The coronavirus is finding new victims worldwide, in bars and restaurants, offices, markets and casinos, giving rise to frightening clusters of infection that increasingly confirm what many scientists have been saying for months: The virus lingers in the air indoors, infecting those nearby.”

New York Times: The Fullest Look Yet at the Racial Inequity of Coronavirus. “Early numbers had shown that Black and Latino people were being harmed by the virus at higher rates. But the new federal data — made available after The New York Times sued the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — reveals a clearer and more complete picture: Black and Latino people have been disproportionately affected by the coronavirus in a widespread manner that spans the country, throughout hundreds of counties in urban, suburban and rural areas, and across all age groups.”

ProPublica: Agonizing Lag in Coronavirus Research Puts Pregnant Women and Babies at Risk. “The CDC had been asserting that pregnant women don’t seem to be at higher risk for severe complications from the virus. As recently as late May, a spokesperson told ProPublica, ‘Current evidence shows pregnant women have the same risk of severe illness from COVID-19 as adults who are not pregnant.’ Then, the agency abruptly changed its tone. In its first examination of U.S. data on COVID-19 in pregnancy, the CDC found that expectant mothers with the virus had a 50% higher chance of being admitted to intensive care and a 70% higher chance of being intubated than nonpregnant women in their childbearing years.”

The Guardian: Think a ‘mild’ case of Covid-19 doesn’t sound so bad? Think again. “Conventional wisdom suggests that when a sickness is mild, it’s not too much to worry about. But if you’re taking comfort in World Health Organization reports that over 80% of global Covid-19 cases are mild or asymptomatic, think again. As virologists race to understand the biomechanics of Sars-CoV-2, one thing is becoming increasingly clear: even ‘mild’ cases can be more complicated, dangerous and harder to shake than many first thought.”

New York Times: Months Into Virus Crisis, U.S. Cities Still Lack Testing Capacity. “Lines for coronavirus tests have stretched around city blocks and tests ran out altogether in at least one site on Monday, new evidence that the country is still struggling to create a sufficient testing system months into its battle with Covid-19.”

Vox: Covid-19 cases are rising, but deaths are falling. What’s going on?. “The numbers are genuinely strange to the naked eye: On July 3, the US reported 56,567 new Covid-19 cases, a record high. On the same day, 589 new deaths were reported, continuing a long and gradual decline. We haven’t seen numbers that low since the end of March. When laypeople observe those contradictory trends, they might naturally have a follow-up question: If deaths are not increasing along with cases, then why can’t we keep reopening? The lockdowns took an extraordinary toll of their own, after all, in money and mental health and some lives. If we could reopen the economy without the loss of life we saw in April and May, then why shouldn’t we?”

OUTBREAKS

WLOX: Speaker Philip Gunn, several House members diagnosed with COVID-19. ” The Mississippi State Department of Health is investigating several cases of COVID-19 (coronavirus) among lawmakers of the Mississippi Legislature. This investigation comes after a historic week as lawmakers spent several days in the state capitol voting to change the state flag.”

Newsweek: 4 Hospitals in Fla. County Run Out of ICU Beds as State Sets Another Record in New Daily COVID Cases. “All intensive care unit (ICU) beds are currently occupied at four hospitals in Pinellas County, Florida, as the state continues to see a record spike in new cases and hospitalizations related to the novel coronavirus.”

Reuters: Hospitalizations jump 50% in California as coronavirus infections soar. “New coronavirus cases soared in California over the July Fourth weekend, stressing some hospital systems and leading to the temporary closure of the state capitol building in Sacramento for deep cleaning, officials said on Monday.”

RESEARCH

Vox EU: Unmasked! The effect of face masks on the spread of COVID-19. “Confronted with a novel, aggressive coronavirus, Germany implemented measures to reduce its spread since March 2020. Requiring people to wear face masks in public places has, however, been a subject of controversy and isolating the effect of mask-wearing on the spread of COVID-19 is not simple. This column looks at the town of Jena and other German regions that introduced face masks before the rest of the country to see whether the requirement makes a difference in the number of new COVID-19 cases. Requiring face masks to be worn decreases the growth rate of COVID-19 cases by about 40% in Germany.”

National Academies: Troubleshooting the Pandemic: Engineers Pitch Innovative Solutions to Help Address COVID-19. “While the world waits for a vaccine to prevent COVID-19 infection, international and multigenerational teams of engineers have come together through the National Academy of Engineering’s COVID-19 Call for Engineering Action to find creative solutions to problems caused by the pandemic. Their ideas aim to prevent the spread of the virus, help people most at risk, and make life easier under social distancing protocols.”

Phys .org: COVID-19 lockdowns could lead to social unrest, according to new research. “Written by Dr. Roxana Gutiérrez-Romero and published as part of Queen Mary’s Center for Globalization Research (CGR) working paper series, the findings are drawn from data incorporating 24 countries. The results show that the probability of riots, violence against civilians, food-related conflicts, and food looting has increased since lockdowns. The analysis used georeferenced data for 24 African countries with monthly local prices and real-time conflict data reported in the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED) from January 2015 until early May 2020.”

CRIME / SECURITY / LEGAL

BBC: Bayonne: Bus driver left brain dead after ‘attacked over face masks’. “A bus driver in the south-west of France has been left brain dead after reportedly being attacked by passengers who refused to wear face masks. The driver in Bayonne had refused to allow several people – who had no tickets and were not wearing masks – to board the bus on Sunday night, a police source told AFP news agency.”

BBC: India coronavirus: Life-saving Covid-19 drugs sold on Delhi black market. “A BBC investigation has found that two life-saving drugs used to treat Covid-19 patients in India – remdesivir and tocilizumab – are in short supply and being sold for excessive rates on a thriving black market. Vikas Pandey reports from the capital Delhi.”

OPINION

The Conversation: Rethinking the boundaries between economic life and coronavirus death. “As governments around the world begin to reopen their borders, it’s clear that efforts to revive the economy are redrawing the lines between who will prosper, who will suffer and who will die. Emerging strategies for restoring economic growth are forcing vulnerable populations to choose between increased exposure to death or economic survival. This is an unacceptable choice that appears natural only because it prioritizes the economy over people already considered marginal or expendable.”

Washington Post: Trump is responsible for our unfolding coronavirus disaster. “The United States is entering dangerous, uncharted territory. With a little more than 4 percent of the world’s population, our country has about 25 percent of coronavirus infections. Over the course of five months, more Americans have lost their lives to this disease (127,000 and counting) than died in World War I (116,516). New infections have reaccelerated and are rising toward some unknown peak. And we have a president who doesn’t appear to give a damn.”

POLITICS

Reuters: Too soon to say if safe to hold Republican convention in Florida, U.S. official says. “A top Trump administration health official said on Sunday it was not clear whether it will be safe to hold the Republican National Convention in Jacksonville next month, as Florida sees record numbers of coronavirus cases.”

AP: Trump’s leadership is tested in time of fear, pandemic. “On Feb. 6, in California, a 57-year-old woman was found dead in her home of natural causes then unknown. When her autopsy report came out, officials said her death had been the first from COVID-19 in the U.S. The ‘invisible enemy’ was on the move. And civil unrest over racial injustice would soon claw at the country. If that were not enough, there came a fresh round of angst over Russia, and America would ask whether Trump had the backs of troops targeted by bounty hunters in Afghanistan.”

AP: Trump-connected lobbyists reap windfall in COVID-19 boom. “Forty lobbyists with ties to President Donald Trump helped clients secure more than $10 billion in federal coronavirus aid, among them five former administration officials whose work potentially violates Trump’s own ethics policy, according to a report.”

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