Texas reports 5,747 new coronavirus cases today
From CNN’s Melissa Alonso
Texas health officials reported 5,747 new cases of Covid-19 on Saturda, bringing the total case count to 143,371 cases, according to the state’s health agency website.
A total of 2,366 people have died in the state.
On Thursday, Texas reported 5,996 new cases, its highest number of new cases in a single day.
Texas has performed more than 1.9 million tests, according to the state’s Health and Human Services Department.
For a nationwide and global scale of the coronavirus, check out CNN’s interactive map and Johns Hopkins University’s Covid-19 tracking project.
Trump campaign postpones Vice President’s events in Florida and Arizona due to surge in coronavirus cases
From CNN’s Jason Hoffman, DJ Judd and Sam Fossum
The Trump campaign has postponed Vice President Mike Pence’s campaign events in Florida and Arizona next week “out of an abundance of caution,” the campaign told CNN.
The decision to postpone the events comes as both states and the country experience a surge in coronavirus cases. Pence had a handful of campaign and political-related events scheduled as part of his trips to both states.
The Vice President’s office did not provide an updated schedule for Pence’s trips.
“The Vice President is still traveling to Texas, Arizona, and Florida this week as he said he is meeting with the Governors and their healthcare teams,” a spokesperson from the office said in a statement to CNN.
The Associated Press and NBC first reported the schedule changes.
During Friday’s White House coronavirus task force briefing Pence said that he will be traveling to Texas, Arizona and Florida, three of the states hardest hit in recent weeks by the pandemic, so he could “get a ground report.”
Pence on Sunday will travel to Dallas where he will speak at First Baptist Church to participate in a “Celebrate Freedom Rally,” which his office bills as a celebration of American freedom and spirit. He will then meet with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott about Covid-19.
When pressed Friday by reporters over the wisdom of holding campaign rallies, even as public health officials continue to warn against large gatherings, Pence described it as a personal decision outside the government’s purview.
“The freedom of speech, the right to peaceably assemble is enshrined in the Constitution of the United States,” Pence said when asked why he and President Donald Trump moved forward with campaign events.
“We have an election coming up this fall,” Pence said. “And President Trump and I believe that, taking proper steps — we created screening at recent events — and giving people the very best counsel that we have, we still want to give people the freedom to participate in the political process. And we respect that.”
Washington state to pause moving to phase 4 as Covid-19 cases rise, governor says
From CNN’s Artemis Moshtaghian
Washington state Gov. Jay Inslee announced that he’s pausing the state’s planned move into phase four of reopening due to rising cases across the state and concerns about the continued spread of Covid-19, according to a statement released on Saturday.
“Phase four would mean a return to normal activity and we can’t do that now due to the continued rise in cases across the state,” Inslee said in the statement. “We all want to get back to doing all the things we love in Washington during the summer, and fully open our economy, but we aren’t there yet. This is an evolving situation and we will continue to make decisions based on the data.”
European Union pledges $6 billion to help vulnerable countries “devastated” by coronavirus
From CNN’s Zahid Mahmood in London
The president of the European Council, Ursula Von Der Leyen, said on Saturday that the European Union will pledge 4.9 billion Euros ($6 billion) to help vulnerable countries “devastated” by the coronavirus pandemic.
During the summit “Global Goal – Unite for our Future,” Von Der Leyen said the EU needs to “rebuild communities,” and pledged the money alongside a partnership with the European Commission and the European Investment Bank.
“We will only end this pandemic when it has been ended everywhere,” Von Der Leyen said. “That means every person in the world having access to tests, treatments and vaccines, no matter where they live, where they are from or what they look like.”
Von Der Leyen said the EU must “invest in producing vaccines at unprecedented speed and scale.” Von Der Leyen added that she was a “firm believer” in vaccine multilateralism, saying that you cannot beat the virus by only “vaccinating your own people while neglecting others.”
“We live in a very connected world,” she said.
Von Der Leyen also said she is trying to convince high income countries to reserve vaccines not only for themselves, but also for low and middle income countries, adding it is a “stress test for solidarity.”
Miami-Dade County mayor is concerned about spike in Covid-19 cases among younger people
From CNN’s Deanna Hackney
Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Gimenez said he is concerned about the rising percentage of coronavirus cases in the region.
“We were running around 8%, and now we’re running, last two weeks, over 14%, so that’s what’s causing me a little bit of concern,” he told CNN on Saturday. “It’s the younger people that are getting infected, which then may give it to their parents or their grandparents, which again is the age group that we’re really concerned about.”
Gimenez said they are seeing a spike in the 18-to-34 and 35-to-44 age groups.
Miami-Dade beaches are closing on the July 4 weekend as a pro-active measure to prevent “a spike on top of a spike” in positive coronavirus cases, the mayor said.
“Here in Miami-Dade we expected huge crowds to be at the beach, it would have been very hard for us to control our social distancing and having people abide by the rules,” Gimenez said.
Statewide numbers: Florida health officials reported at least 9,585 new coronavirus cases on Saturday, according to the Florida Department of Health. This is the highest single-day increase the state has seen since the start of the pandemic.
Flight attendant union wants protective equipment for airline staff
Sara Nelson, the international president of the Association of Flight Attendants, is calling for more protections and federal support for airline staff – including things like a mask mandate for passengers and personal protective equipment for attendants.
“We’re aviation’s first responders. Because of supply chain issues, and our health care professionals on the front line don’t even have full access to N95 masks; we don’t have access to those either – but we should have those as well,” she told CNN on Saturday.
Nelson also said flight attendants need to be able to social distance when working.
“So if our workspace is within 6 feet of passengers’ seats, those seats should be blocked out,” she said.
On the issue of passengers wearing masks, she said flight attendants are the ones enforcing individual airline’s policies without the backing of federal leadership. This makes it difficult, Nelson said.
“The federal government had led people to believe that this is a political issue rather than a public health issue. So we’re dealing with conflicts there, just in enforcing this policy that keeps everyone safe,” Nelson said.
Dominican Republic tops 30,000 coronavirus cases
From CNN’s Ana Cucalon and Tatiana Arias
The Dominican Republic’s Ministry of Health reported 855 new cases of the novel coronavirus on Friday, bringing the country’s total number of cases to 30,619.
Six new deaths were also reported on Friday, bringing the Caribbean country’s death toll to 718, according to health authorities.
The Dominican Republic’s Covid-19 death rate is currently 2.34% of the total number of confirmed cases, according to a health report published Saturday on the ministry’s Twitter account.
California records single day increase of nearly 6,000 positive cases of Covid-19
From CNN’s Artemis Moshtaghian
The California Department of Public Health (CDPH) has reported a single day increase of 5,972 positive cases of coronavirus, with 60 deaths from Friday to Saturday, according to an update released Saturday morning.
The CDPH also reported that the Golden State’s rate of positive testing is trending modestly upward in the 14-day average.
Covid-19 has infected many times more people than reported in US, antibody survey estimates
From CNN’s Gisela Crespo and Michael Nedelman
The total number of Covid-19 infections may be six to 24 times greater than reported, according to a survey of blood samples in six areas across the country conducted by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The survey looked for Covid-19 antibodies in blood samples from commercial laboratories – which were collected for reasons unrelated to Covid-19, between March 23 and May 3 – in Connecticut, South Florida, the New York City metro area, Missouri, Utah and western Washington State.
In Connecticut, the survey estimated that 5% of people had antibodies to Covid-19 between April 26 and May 3, which meant there were six times more cases than reported.
In the New York City metro area, that number was 7% of people around late March – 12 times higher than the number of cases reported then. And the survey estimates that 2.65% of Missourians had antibodies in late April. In that case, there were nearly 162,000 cases by April 26 in the state – 24 times higher than the 6,800 reported at the time.
CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield hinted at preliminary results on Thursday when he told reporters, “The estimates that we have right now … is that’s about 10 times more people have antibody.”
Redfield said that earlier testing efforts may have missed mild and asymptomatic cases, instead focusing on people who were ill in hospitals or nursing homes.
Moving forward: The seroprevalence survey is ongoing, and the CDC says it plans to test about 1,800 samples every three to four weeks from these areas, in addition to four additional states: California, Louisiana, Minnesota and Pennsylvania.
The agency says these samples may not be representative of the total populations in these areas, and the survey didn’t look at risk factors among those sampled – such as a person’s occupation or underlying health conditions.
The survey suggests that while the estimated number of infections may be much greater than official numbers, the vast majority of people have not been infected with the virus.
The jury is still out when it comes to what antibodies mean for immunity to this virus.
“Other studies are planned to learn more about SARS-COV-2 antibodies, including how long they last, whether or not they provide protection against getting infected again, and if you get infected again, whether or not they can make that illness milder,” the agency said.
The CDC adjusted its estimates to account for false positive and false negative results, which may occur frequently in some areas, and cautions against interpreting results on an individual basis for this reason.
