Fauci says he wasn’t invited to White House briefing – ABC News

The novel coronavirus pandemic has now killed more than 613,000 people worldwide.

Over 14.8 million people across the globe have been diagnosed with COVID-19, the disease caused by the new respiratory virus, according to data compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. The actual numbers are believed to be much higher due to testing shortages, many unreported cases and suspicions that some governments are hiding or downplaying the scope of their nations' outbreaks.

The United States has become the worst-affected country, with more than 3.8 million diagnosed cases and at least 141,845 deaths.

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Here is how the news is developing today. All times Eastern. Check back for updates.

Younger people are continuing to drive new COVID-19 infections in Los Angeles County, health department officials said.

The county reported 2,741 new cases of COVID-19 on Tuesday, of which 57% were people under age 41.

However an overwhelming majority of all deaths -- nearly 75% -- are in people over the age of 65, Director of Public Health Barbara Ferrer said. That age group accounts for 11% of all cases.

"The tragedy of what we are witnessing is that many of our younger residents are interacting with each other and not adhering to the recommended prevention measures, while our older residents continue to experience the results of this increased spread with the worst health outcomes, including death," Ferrer said.

The county has 161,673 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 4,154 deaths.

Statewide, California reported 400,769 total cases on Tuesday. That number will likely edge out New York's statewide total -- currently at 408,181 -- on Wednesday.

Texas reported a new record number of COVID-19 hospitalizations on Tuesday.

There are 10,848 patients currently hospitalized statewide, according to state data. Hospitalizations have remained above 10,000 since July 10.

The state saw 9,305 new cases on Monday, for a total of 341,739. There were 131 new fatalities, bringing the statewide total to 4,151.

The testing positivity rate was 15.05% as of Monday.

At President Donald Trump's first briefing focused on the coronavirus crisis in nearly three months, he encouraged people to wear masks and said that the pandemic will "get worse before it gets better."

"Whether you like the mask or not, they have an impact," said Trump, who, except on rare occcasions is usually seen not wearing one. At Tuesday's briefing, he said he wears a mask "when I need."

President Donald Trump points to a reporter for a question during a coronavirus disease (COVID-19) response news briefing at the White House in Washington, July 21, 2020.

The return of the briefings comes as cases of the coronavirus have surged in the country, particularly in the South.

"It will probably, unfortunately get worse before it gets better," Trump said. "That's the way it is."

The president said getting a vaccine "remains a top priority." Two vaccine candidates are entering clinical trials this month, and four others will in the coming weeks, Trump said. The military is ready to distribute them whenever they're ready, he added.

Dr. Anthony Fauci and Dr. Deborah Birx, fixtures at past briefings, were not in attendance Tuesday. Birx was "right outside," Trump said when a reporter asked where they were.

The briefing lasted about half an hour, in contrast to previous briefings, some of which came close to two hours long.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told CNN Tuesday afternoon that he had not been invited to President Donald Trump's 5 p.m. White House briefing.

"I was not invited up to this point," Fauci said prior to the briefing. "I'm assuming that I'm not going to be there, because it's going to be in just a short while, and I'm still here at the NIH [National Institutes of Health]."

Asked when was the last time he spoke to the president, Fauci said he had a "good, long conversation with him towards the end of last week."

A nurse beckons to people in a car at a newly opened mega drive-thru site at El Paso Community College Valle Verde campus on July 21, 2020 in El Paso, Texas.

Fauci also responded to Trump's characterization on Fox News on Sunday that the nation's top expert on infectious diseases is an "alarmist."

"People have their opinion about my reaction to things," Fauci said. "I consider myself more of a realist than an alarmist."

Five months into the pandemic, Fauci said the U.S. testing system is "patchy."

People exercise on the lawn of the state capitol in Lansing, Mich., July 21, 2020. The fitness workout and rally on the Michigan State Capitol lawn is intended to spotlight the benefits of exercise during the COVID-19 pandemic.

"It isn't as uniform as we would like," he said. "We need to do better, particularly when you're dealing with the surges that we're seeing now in some of the southern states."

Asked what Americans need to do to slow the spread, Fauci said universal mask wearing, closing bars, physical distancing and good hand hygiene.

"It's not rocket science," he said.

As hospitalizations rise, Louisiana is extending its Phase 2 restrictions until Aug. 7, Gov. John Bel Edwards announced Tuesday.

For the next two weeks, masks are mandatory across the state, crowds are limited to 50 people, and bars must be take-out only.

Maria Jones, center, sits at an outdoor table with her mother Stacey Jones at El Paso Mexican Grill on Magazine Street in New Orleans, July 9, 2020. A sharp increase in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations is forcing bars in the good-time-loving, tourist-dependent city to shut down again just a month after they were allowed to partially reopen.

Louisiana is ranks second in the nation per capita in COVID-19 cases, the governor said.

The Nobel Prize banquet has been canceled for the first time in over 60 years due to the pandemic, the Nobel Foundation said Tuesday.

Usually all the Laureates and their families gather in Stockholm and Oslo in December and a traditional Nobel Banquet is held at the Stockholm City Hall.

This year, the award ceremony will still take place in Oslo and Stockholm on Dec. 10, but with "new formats that both comply with social distancing restrictions and take into account that only some or perhaps no Laureates will participate on site," the foundation said in a statement.

The banquet will be canceled because the event hosts over 1,000 people in an indoor space, the foundation said.

The Nobel Prizes will be announced in October as usual.

From the outset, officials in hard-hit California have envisioned reopening as a "dimmer switch," making modifications based on the ongoing data, California Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly said Tuesday.

Insignia Hair Salon stylist Regina Muslimova gives a haircut in the parking lot behind the salon, July 21, 2020, in Walnut Creek, California. The salon reopened its doors to clients for haircuts a day after California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced guidance for barbershops and hair salons to offer haircuts in an outdoor setting. According to the new guidelines, "outdoor operations may be conducted under a tent, canopy, or other sun shelter as long as no more than one side is closed, allowing sufficient outdoor air movement."

"The overall health and well-being of Californians will always guide our decisions," he said, adding that state officials are open to adapting approaches.

A medical worker wears protective clothing in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of St John's Regional Medical Center in Oxnard, Calif., July 9, 2020.

Motorists line up to take a coronavirus test at Dodger Stadium, July 16, 2020, in Los Angeles.

"Our goal has always been to box the virus in with clear sector guidance ... as well as testing and contact tracing," Ghaly said.

Regarding contact tracing, Ghaly said, "we need to continue to scale it up ... even despite the fact that high levels of transmission have made traditional contact tracing impractical and difficult to do."

From left, manager Dave Roberts, Bob Geren, and Dino Ebel line up for the National Anthem for a preseason game against the Arizona Diamondbacks during the COVID-19 pandemic at Dodger Stadium on July 20, 2020, in Los Angeles.

"Contact tracing is a tried-and-true method in public health," Ghaly said. "At the level of transmission that we're seeing across the state, even a very, very robust contact tracing program ... will have a hard time teaching out to every single case."

Thousands of state staff members have been trained and are ready to be deployed to counties, Ghaly said.

A San Diego county nurse works at a newly opened drive through testing site at a closed high school in Imperial Beach, Calif., July 16, 2020.

"As we build up the capacity county by county ... there are gonna be some novel and important approaches to reach out to contacts," he continued.

If COVID-19 positive people can make "that initial reach out ... that's another important way to reduce transmission," he said.

The Trump administration says it is working with hospitals on accommodations for religious leaders to visit patients and health care workers.

Roger Severino, director of the Office for Civil Rights at the Health and Human Services Department, told reporters Tuesday that the administration has helped to resolve several issues so far, including a medical student who didn't want to shave his beard but was told the N95 respirator wouldn't fit properly otherwise.

The student, who was on rotation at Staten Island University Hospital in New York City, was allowed to use a powered air purifying respirator instead, Severino said.

"This was a win-win situation," Severino said. "It avoided the difficult and painful situation of having to force someone to choose between their deeply held religious beliefs and pursuing the practice of medicine."

In another case, the Trump administration intervened when a Maryland woman was told in June that her husband couldn't receive visitors after being in a serious motorcycle accident. The hospital did not believe he was close to death and thought visitors presented safety concerns.

The Health and Human Services Department intervened and a priest was allowed to visit, Severino said.

"Spiritual needs don't exist only at the point of death" Severino said.

The South Carolina National Guard is sending about 40 medics to five hospitals to help respond to a COVID-19 surge, officials said Tuesday.

Georgetown County and Horry County have reported over 4,000 new coronavirus cases since July 1, hospital officials said.

All local hospitals are at or near capacity in their ICU, emergency and inpatient care departments, officials said.

Ten new states have been added to New York and New Jersey's travel advisory list.

The new states are: Alaska, Delaware, Indiana, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Virginia and Washington.

Seattle Mariners outfielder Kyle Lewis, center right, stretches with teammates at baseball practice in Seattle, July 7, 2020.

Diane Tomey cleans a classroom at McClelland Elementary School, June 22, 2020, in Indianapolis.

Those states join: Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Idaho, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, New Mexico, Nevada, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and Wisconsin.

Minnesota has been removed from the list.

Travelers headed to New York, New Jersey or Connecticut from those states must quarantine for two weeks.

People gather at the beach in Ocean City, Md., on July 3, 2020.

The quarantine applies to states with a positive test rate higher than 10 per 100,000 residents over a one-week average, or any state with a 10% or higher positivity rate over a one-week average.

In Highlands County, Florida, parents must sign a COVID-19 waiver for students to take part in extracurricular activities this summer and during the upcoming school year, reported ABC affiliate WFTS.

The waiver asks that parents agree to check their children's temperature each day, visually inspect their children for signs of illness and confirm that the children have not been in contact with a coronavirus-positive person in the last two weeks. Parents also must agree to promptly pick up their children if they show signs of illness and to keep their children at home until they are illness-free for at least 72 hours without medicine.

The waiver is meant to remind parents that participating in any activity now carries a risk, Deputy Superintendent Andrew Lethbridge told WFTS.

In hard-hit Florida, five counties -- Hernando, Monroe, Nassau, Okeechobee and Putnam -- had no available ICU beds as of Tuesday morning, according to the state's Agency for Healthcare Administration.

Of the adult ICU beds across the state, just 16.47% are available, the agency said.

Those numbers are expected to fluctuate throughout the day.

At least 21,780 coronavirus patients in Florida have been hospitalized since the pandemic began -- up 517 from Monday, according to the state's Department of Health.

A National Guard troop directs cars as people are tested by healthcare workers at the COVID-19 drive-thru testing center at Hard Rock Stadium, in Miami Gardens, Fla., as the coronavirus pandemic continues, July 19, 2020.

Florida's positivity rate is now at 13.62% as the state's number of COVID-19 cases reaches 369,834.

Miami-Dade County, which includes Miami, and Bay County, which includes Panama City, are especially hard hit.

Juan Carlos, a host at Ocean 10 restaurant, stands at the entrance of the restaurant to turn customers away as a curfew from 8pm to 6am is put in place on July 18, 2020, in Miami Beach, Fla. The city put the curfew back into place to fight the spread of the coronavirus which has spiked in after the reopening of businesses.

A Miami Beach police officer directs people out of the entertainment district as a curfew from 8pm to 6am is put in place to combat the spread of the coronavirus on July 18, 2020, in Miami Beach, Fla.

Miami-Dade County has a positivity rate of 19.2% while Bay County's positivity rate stands at 24.4%, according to the state's Department of Health.

A DMV licensing center in Wayne, New Jersey, is closing for one week after an employee tested positive, state officials announced Tuesday.

The facility will be sanitized and the employee will quarantine for two weeks.

Officials in Calhoun County, Alabama, about 70 miles east of Birmingham, are pleading with residents to wear masks as COVID-19 cases surge in the area.

Of the county's 814 coronavirus cases, 430 of those were reported in just the last two weeks, Michael Barton, Director of Emergency Management for Calhoun County, said Monday.

"This is alarming," Barton said, adding that hospitals are at an "all-time high in reaching our capacity."

One local hospital had five COVID-19 patients two weeks ago. That hospital now has 44 patients.

Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey issued a mandatory statewide mask requirement last week.

"Make sure that you wear your mask and you adhere to all of the standards and guidelines that you possibly can," urged Joe Weaver, CEO at the local Stringfellow Memorial Hospital. "We know it's restrictive, but at the same time, there's no other thing. There's nothing else that we can do at this point in time."

Russia's first vaccine against the novel coronavirus is ready, First Deputy Defense Minister Ruslan Tsalikov told Argumenty i Fakty newspaper.

The vaccine was created by military specialists and scientists of the Gamaleya National Research Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology.

"Final assessments on the results of testing by our specialists and scientists of the National Research Center have been already made. At the moment of release all volunteers without exception developed immunity against the coronavirus and felt normal. So, the first domestic vaccine against the novel coronavirus infection is ready," Tsalikov told the newspaper.

The U.S. Bureau of Prisons announced late Monday a third COVID-related death at FMC Carswell, a specialized federal medical prison for women in Fort Worth, Texas.

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Fauci says he wasn't invited to White House briefing - ABC News