Category: Corona Virus

As Congress resumes work on a new coronavirus financial relief package, nearly 100 Texas mayors are pressing the states congressional delegation for more funding to address revenue losses incurred due to the economic downturn brought by COVID-19.

Texas received $11 billion in funds from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act, which were distributed among the state, counties and cities. Some Texas mayors said these have to be spent before the end of the year and for expenditures related to the pandemic response and dont address government entities losses in anticipated revenues related to decreased economic activity. Others said theres been conflicting information about how the money can be spent.

Since March, the economic slowdown has directly hit cities revenues. According to the state comptroller, local sales tax allocations for cities in June dropped by 11.1% compared with the same month last year.

The budget calamity looming over local governments is real and it requires extraordinary measures, said a letter signed by 97 Texas mayors and directed to members of Congress. We therefore fear that state and local revenue is going to take time to rebound. We also fear that if we do not stabilize our economy, we could see a drop in property tax revenue next year.

In the letter, which included signatures of leaders from urban, suburban and rural areas, the mayors asked for direct and flexible fiscal assistance to all cities.

What were asking [is] for direct assistance for state and local governments. Not for things like pension measures, none of that, but as a result of lost revenue as a result of coronavirus itself, Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said at a press conference Monday. We are the infrastructure that supports the public and private sector, and at this point in time, we are needing direct assistance."

Before the summer recess that ended Monday, the U.S. House of Representatives approved a Democratic plan to provide $3 trillion in aid on top of what was in the CARES Act. That bill includes nearly $1 trillion for local governments. But unlike the CARES Act, the proposal hasnt received bipartisan support and has stalled in the Republican-controlled Senate, according to The Washington Post.

Were going to work with our mayors and county judges and the governor to see what the need is, and where theres a real need we will respond, U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said on a call with the media earlier this month.

According to NPR, one of the main disagreements between Republicans and Democrats is how much aid should go to local governments and whether this money should be limited to helping only in pandemic-related costs, like the CARES Act, or could be used for filling the budgetary gaps that cities have experienced since the economic downturn. Texas mayors said that although they know they can use the funding from the CARES Act in areas directly related to the health crisis, they do not have clarity on whether they can use it on other areas that are financially strained.

Weve had conflicting directions, Austin Mayor Steve Adler said. "If you look at the words themselves [in the CARES act], it suggests that you cant use this money for things that were already in your budget, but then the Treasury suggested in the guidance that you can. The flexibility we are seeking is to use funding to fill budgetary shortfalls that cities are experiencing because of the virus.

Fort Worth Mayor Betsy Price explained that flexibility could help her city promote employment, which she cant directly do under the current CARES Act regulations.

What we want is the ability to use it in infrastructure projects to create jobs, Price said. Cities need to be able to apply that money in the best way they see to provide help to their communities.

Arlington Mayor Jeff Williams said his city which spearheaded the letter is facing a projected $20 million shortfall due to revenue losses from shutdowns and decreased economic activity. Although the funding was helpful for costs related to COVID-19, such as testing, it did not address the losses in revenue due to shutdowns and decreased economic activity. Overall, COVID-19 expenditures are vastly outpaced by the citys revenue losses, Williams said.

This virus is a natural disaster, just like a hurricane, tornado or flooding. And so consequently, were requesting aid for emergency services and medical relief, but then also help rebuilding our city as a result of the virus, just as you would if we had had a major flood or tornado, he said.

Another issue that mayors have pointed out is how the funds have been distributed so far. While the CARES Act provided direct funding from the U.S. Department of the Treasury to cities with populations larger than 500,000 people, smaller cities are receiving these funds through the state and the counties.

Arlington is one of those cases. The citys population is just under 400,000 not reaching the 500,000 threshold required to receive direct funding from the CARES Act and instead receiving funds funneled from the state. Mayors like Williams, in these smaller cities, said the process of getting the funds needed to be sped up to avoid going through several layers of government.

Cities are one of the most important economic engines in the country. And so, if we dont help cities now, were not going to be able to help our citizens and our businesses, Williams said. It actually is going to cost the country more later if were not helped now.

The call from mayors to the congressional delegation comes as cities are starting to debate their budgets and considering possible cuts for next fiscal year. Laredo Mayor Pete Saenz said his city, which has a population of about 262,000, is projecting $26 million in revenue losses through December, which could mean drastic layoffs for city employees. The ripple effects of these losses could also have long-term effects on the city budget, he said.

We foresee, easily, a two-year impact or more, depending on how quickly the vaccine comes out and how quickly we can open up our businesses, Saenz said.

Saenz said hes concerned that because many residents may be furloughed or unemployed, the city may see a surge in delinquent property tax payments, further impacting revenue. This, coupled with the decline of sales tax revenue and other revenues, will further impact the local economy as well, he said.

Many mayors worry that without these federal funds, the economic crisis residents are facing will deepen.

We are struggling really hard now not to have to cut our workforce or reduce our services, Adler said. And it is important that local governments are able to keep providing services to local communities, or else it will exacerbate the challenges.

Meena Venkataramanan contributed to this story.

Disclosure: The Texas Tribune, as a nonprofit local newsroom and a small business, applied for and received a loan through the Paycheck Protection Program in the amount of $1,116,626.

Steve Adler, a former Texas Tribune board chairman, and the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts have been financial supporters of the Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

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Texas mayors plead with Congress for coronavirus relief funding - The Texas Tribune

This spring, as countries around the world told people to stay home to slow the spread of the coronavirus, doctors in neonatal intensive care units were noticing something strange: Premature births were falling, in some cases drastically.

It started with doctors in Ireland and Denmark. Each team, unaware of the others work, crunched the numbers from its own region or country and found that during the lockdowns, premature births especially the earliest, most dangerous cases had plummeted. When they shared their findings, they heard similar anecdotal reports from other countries.

They dont know what caused the drop in premature births, and can only speculate as to the factors in lockdown that might have contributed. But further research might help doctors, scientists and parents-to-be understand the causes of premature birth and ways to prevent it, which have been elusive until now. Their studies are not yet peer reviewed, and have been posted only on preprint servers. In some cases the changes amounted to only a few missing babies per hospital. But they represented significant reductions from the norm, and some experts in premature birth think the research is worthy of additional investigation.

These results are compelling, said Dr. Denise Jamieson, an obstetrician at Emory Universitys School of Medicine in Atlanta.

About one in 10 U.S. babies is born early. Pregnancy usually lasts about 40 weeks, and any delivery before 37 weeks is considered preterm. The costs to children and their families financially, emotionally and in long-term health effects can be great. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, babies born premature, especially before 32 weeks, are at higher risk of vision and hearing problems, cerebral palsy and death.

The best way to avoid these costs would be to prevent early births in the first place, said Dr. Roy Philip, a neonatologist at University Maternity Hospital Limerick in Ireland.

Dr. Philip had been vacationing abroad when his country entered lockdown on March 12, and he noticed something unusual when he returned to work in late March. He asked why there had been no orders while he was gone for the breast milk-based fortifier that doctors feed to the hospitals tiniest preemies. The hospitals staff said that there had been no need, because none of these babies had been born all month.

Intrigued, Dr. Philip and his colleagues compared the hospitals births so far in 2020 with births between January and April in every year since 2001 more than 30,000 in all. They looked at birth weights, a useful proxy for very premature birth.

Initially I thought, There is some mistake in the numbers, Dr. Philip said.

Over the past two decades, babies under 3.3 pounds, classified as very low birth weight, accounted for about eight out of every thousand live births in the hospital, which serves a region of 473,000 people. In 2020, the rate was about a quarter of that. The very tiniest infants, those under 2.2 pounds and considered extremely low birth weight, usually make up three per thousand births. There should have been at least a few born that spring but there had been none.

The study period went through the end of April. By the end of June, with the national lockdown easing, Dr. Philip said there had still been very few early preemies born in his hospital. In two decades, he said, he had never seen anything like these numbers.

While the Irish team was digging into its data, researchers in Denmark were doing the same thing, driven by curiosity over a nearly empty NICU. Dr. Michael Christiansen of the Statens Serum Institut in Copenhagen and his colleagues used newborn screening data to compare births nationwide during the strictest lockdown period, March 12 to April 14, with births during the same period in the previous five years. The data set included more than 31,000 infants.

The researchers found that during the lockdown, the rate of babies born before 28 weeks had dropped by a startling 90 percent.

Anecdotes from doctors at other hospitals around the world suggest the phenomenon may have been widespread, though not universal.

Dr. Belal Alshaikh, a neonatologist at the University of Calgary in Alberta, said premature births across Calgary dropped by nearly half during the lockdown. The change was across the board, though it seemed more pronounced in the earliest babies, he said.

At Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, Dr. Irwin Reiss, a neonatologist, saw a smaller drop-off in premature births.

At Mercy Hospital for Women outside Melbourne, Australia, there were so few premature babies that administrators asked Dr. Dan Casalaz, the hospitals director of pediatrics, to figure out what was going on.

In the United States, Dr. Stephen Patrick, a neonatologist at Vanderbilt Childrens Hospital in Nashville, estimated there were about 20 percent fewer NICU babies at his hospital than usual in March. Although some sick full-term babies would stay in the NICU, Dr. Patrick said preterm babies usually made up most of the patients, and the drop-off seemed to have been driven by missing preemies.

When Dr. Patrick shared his observation on Twitter, some U.S. doctors shared similar stories. Others said their NICUs were as busy as ever. Some groups in other countries have said they didnt see a change, either.

If lockdowns prevented early births in certain places but not others, that information could help reveal causes of premature birth. The researchers speculated about potential factors.

One could be rest. By staying home, some pregnant women may have experienced less stress from work and commuting, gotten more sleep and received more support from their families, the researchers said.

Women staying at home also could have avoided infections in general, not just the new coronavirus. Some viruses, such as influenza, can raise the odds of premature birth.

Air pollution, which has been linked to some early births, has also dropped during lockdowns as cars stayed off the roads.

Dr. Jamieson said the observations were surprising because she would have expected to see more preterm births during the stress of the pandemic, not less.

It seems like we have experienced tremendous stress in the U.S. due to Covid, she said.

But all pregnant women may not have experienced the lockdowns in the same way, she said, as different countries have different social safety nets in general, and the stress of unemployment and financial insecurity may have affected communities unevenly.

Some later premature births also might have been avoided during lockdowns simply because doctors werent inducing mothers for reasons like high blood pressure, Dr. Jamieson said. But that wouldnt explain a change in very early preterm births, as the Danish and Irish authors found.

The causes of preterm birth have been elusive for decades, and ways to prevent preterm births have been largely unsuccessful, Dr. Jamieson said. According to the C.D.C., premature births in the United States rose in 2018 for the fourth straight year. White women had about a 9 percent risk of premature birth in 2018, while African-American womens risk was 14 percent.

If the trends in the data are confirmed, the pandemic and lockdowns could be something like a natural experiment that might help researchers understand why premature birth happens and how to avoid it. Maybe some maternity leave should start before a mothers due date, for example.

The Danish and Irish researchers have now teamed up and are building an international group of collaborators to study how Covid lockdowns affected early births.

For years, nothing has advanced in this very important area, Dr. Christiansen said, and it seems it took a virus attack to help us get on track.

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During Coronavirus Lockdowns, Some Doctors Wondered: Where Are the Preemies? - The New York Times

Medical professionals from the U.S. Navy were deployed Sunday to aid hospitals in four cities across southern Texas and the Rio Grande Valley, according to Gov. Greg Abbott's office, as nearly half the state's counties have recently been designated "red zones" by the White House Coronavirus Task Force.

Early on in the pandemic, hot spots were mainly tied to outbreaks in enclosed spaces, like meatpacking plants and nursing homes. Health experts are increasingly seeing small outbreaks in the community from families and friends gathering to people congregating at summer tourist destinations.

Five U.S. Navy teams were sent to four locations across Texass southern region: Harlingen, Del Rio, Eagle Pass, and Rio Grande City.

"The support from our federal partners is crucial in our work to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 in our communities throughout Texas," Abbott said in a written statement.

As the state continues to see record-high numbers of people hospitalized with the virus, local hospitals particularly the Rio Grande Valley and the Coastal Bend are being pushed to their limit because of the rapid spread of the coronavirus in recent weeks.

Ambulance operators in the Rio Grande Valley area described wait times of up to 10 hours to deliver patients to packed emergency rooms. Doctors and nurses are working extra shifts and have had to label and save their face masks for reuse.

As of Saturday, the four-county region that includes Harlingen had just 24 ICU beds available for a population of about 1.4 million people, according to the latest state data.

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Texas coronavirus hot spots get help from U.S. Navy teams - The Texas Tribune

In our state, coronavirus cases continue to rise, with 920 new confirmed cases recorded Saturday. Elsewhere, Texas and Florida are struggling to keep up as new cases overwhelm emergency rooms.

Throughout Sunday, on this page, well be posting Seattle Times journalists updates on the outbreak and its effects on the Seattle area, the Pacific Northwest and the world. Updates from Saturday can be found here, and all our coronavirus coverage can be found here.

A total of 920 new cases of COVID-19 were reported in Washington on Sunday, bringing the state's total to 46,946. The Washington State Department of Health also reported three additional deaths. In Washington, 1,447 people have now died from the disease.

In King County, 13,153 cases and 635 deaths have been reported, an increase of 200 cases and two deaths from the day before.

The data reported Sunday was updated as of 11:59 p.m. Saturday.

A total of 809,339 tests have been conducted in the state, with 5.8% of them coming back positive.

Seattle Times staff

More than 6 million people enrolled in food stamps in the first three months of the coronavirus pandemic, an unprecedented expansion that is likely to continue as more jobless people deplete their savings and billions in unemployment aid expires this month.

From February to May, the program grew by 17%, about three times faster than in any previous three months. Among the 42 states for which The New York Times collected data, caseloads grew in all but one.

Read more from the New York Times.

The New York Times

President Donald Trump declined to say whether he will accept the results of the November election, claiming without evidence that mail-in voting due to the coronavirus pandemic could rig the outcome.

In a wide-ranging interview with Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace, the president also continued to play down the severity of the coronavirus crisis in the country, declined to say whether he is offended by the Confederate flag and dismissed polls showing him trailing former vice president Joe Biden by a significant margin.

Several states switched to primarily vote-by-mail primaries earlier this year, and the U.S. Postal Service is bracing for an onslaught of mail-in ballots this fall as states and cities seek alternatives to in-person voting.

In the Fox News Sunday interview, Wallace asked Trump whether he considers himself a gracious loser. Trump replied that he doesnt like to lose, then added: It depends. I think mail-in voting is going to rig the election. I really do. Trumps comment echoed unfounded claims he has made in recent weeks that mail-in voting is susceptible to widespread fraud. Read the full story here.

The Washington Post

President Donald Trump sought to draw a hard line on the coronavirus relief bill Sunday, saying it must include a payroll tax cut and liability protections for businesses, as lawmakers prepare to plunge into negotiations over unemployment benefits and other key provisions in coming days.

I would consider not signing it if we dont have a payroll tax cut, Trump said in an interview on Fox News Sunday. Democrats strongly oppose a payroll tax cut, and some Republicans have been cool to it, but Trump said a lot of Republicans like it.

Trumps comments come as Senate Republicans are exploring new limits on emergency unemployment benefits for people who were high earners before losing their jobs, according to two people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss details of internal planning.

If the White House and Senate GOP priorities make it into the bill, the legislation would effectively cut taxes for people who have jobs while cutting benefits for the unemployed. Read the full story for more details about the $1 trillion-plus stimulus proposal, which may extend federal unemployment benefits for a limited period of time.

The Washington Post

With coronavirus cases rising across the country and the U.S. death toll topping 137,000, President Donald Trump on Sunday dismissed concerns about the spike in infections, telling Fox News that many of those cases shouldnt even be cases.

Many of those cases are young people that would heal in a day, the president told Fox News host Chris Wallace in an interview. They have the sniffles and we put it down as a test.

Trumps remarks came after another week of grim data highlighting the uncontrolled spread of the virus. Infections rose in states from every region of the country, with more than a dozen states on Saturday reaching record highs in their seven-day averages for new daily cases.

Georgia, Missouri, Wisconsin, North Carolina and Kentucky reported new single-day case records on Saturday, while states from Vermont to North Dakota to Oregon showed significant increases in their weekly averages, according to tracking by The Washington Post. Read the full story here.

The Washington Post

NFL training camps are still on schedule to start July 28 for most teams, with rookies set to report this week.

But much about how camps and the preseason will be conducted including how COVID-19 testing will work and whether there will be exhibition games remains unsettled. And on Sunday morning, many of the NFLs top players including Seahawks Russell Wilson, Bobby Wagner and Bruce Irvin took to Twitter to state their concerns about camps starting with so much remaining uncertain.

Many, including Wilsons, came with the hashtag #WeWantToPlay, making it clear it was part of a coordinated effort. Tweeted Wilson: I am concerned. My wife is pregnant.@NFLTraining camp is about to start. And theres still No Clear Plan on Player Health & Family Safety. We want to play football but we also want to protect our loved ones.#WeWantToPlay.

Read the full story about questions other Seahawks players hope will be cleared up before they're set to report to training camps. Prominent players from several other teams also took to social media on Sunday to express concerns, which you can read about in another story here.

Bob Condotta

AUSTIN, Texas A health official on the Texas Gulf Coast said 85 infants have tested positive for the coronavirus.

Corpus Christi Nueces County Public Health Director Annette Rodriguez said Friday that the 85 infants are each younger than 1, but offered no other details, including how the children are suspected to have become infected.

These babies have not even had their first birthday yet. Please help us to stop the spread of this disease by staying home except for necessary trips, socially distancing and wearing masks in public, Rodriguez said during a public health update in Corpus Christi.

Texas health officials reported more than 10,000 new cases for a fifth consecutive day on Saturday and said 130 more people have died due to COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus, bringing the number of reported cases to 317,730 and the number of deaths to 3,865. Read the full story here.

The Associated Press

It stands as the biggest economic rescue in U.S. history, the $2.2 trillion coronavirus relief bill swiftly approved by Congress in the spring. And its painfully clear now, as the pandemic worsens, it was only the start.

With COVID-19 cases hitting alarming new highs and the death roll rising, the pandemics devastating cycle is happening all over again, leaving Congress little choice but to engineer another costly rescue. Businesses are shutting down, schools cannot fully reopen and jobs are disappearing, all while federal emergency aid expires. Without a successful federal plan to control the outbreak, Congress heads back to work with no endgame to the crisis in sight.

Its not going to magically disappear, said a somber Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., during a visit to a hospital in his home state to thank front-line workers.

Lawmakers return Monday to Washington to try to pull the country back from the looming COVID-19 cliff. While the White House prefers to outsource much of the decision-making on virus testing and prevention to the states, the absence of a federal intervention has forced the House and Senate to try to draft another assistance package. Read the full story about the $1 trillion-plus stimulus proposal.

The Associated Press

SAN DIEGO Gregory Arnold walked into the wardens office April 1 as the novel coronavirus ripped through one of the largest immigration detention centers in the United States. Waiting with about 40 guards to begin his shift, he heard a captain say face masks were prohibited.

Incredulous, he and a guard who recently gave birth wanted to hear it from the boss. Arnold told Warden Christopher LaRose that he was 60 years old and lived with an asthmatic son.

Well, you cant wear the mask because we dont want to scare the employees and we dont want to scare the inmates and detainees, Arnold recalls the warden saying.

In the weeks that followed, Otay Mesa Detention Center would see the first big outbreak at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcements 221 detention centers. The origins of the outbreak are uncertain, but accounts of workers and detainees reveal shortcomings in how the private company that manages the center handled the disease: There was an early absence of facial coverings, and a lack of cleaning supplies. Symptomatic detainees were mixed with others. Read more about the outbreak here.

The Associated Press

When the coronavirus forced Washington school buildings to close in March, the changes to education were swift and complete. Class went online. Parents became de facto teachers. Lesson plans were replaced by a focus on student well-being and safety.

The transformation left many wondering: Why havent we made changes overnight or even over decades so education is truly equitable for all children?

Puget Sound education leaders, especially people of color who have long known schools set up Black and brown children for failure, say its past time to reimagine how education could better serve their communities.

But they see a dawning awareness among mostly white leaders that the countrys education system is rife with racism and inequity. The inequities are structural the training and diversity of teachers, what children are taught and how they are disciplined and are all rooted in methods that harm Black and Latino students more than their peers and fail to help them succeed.

The pairing of a pandemic that changed the basic structure of school indeed, no ones certain whether or how schools will reopen in just a few weeks with a simultaneous conscience-raising social movement has opened a window where radical change is possible. Read more here about what this change could look like.

Hannah Furfaro and Katherine Long

Its always the personal stories that bring events to life. So how are future generations going to learn about the pandemic of 2020? The statistics and charts show the catastrophic figures, but, after a while, the numbers seem to meld into each other.

Now, theSeattle Public Library,along with the Museum of History and Industry (MOHAI), theWashington State Historical Societyin Tacoma and the Southwest Seattle Historical SocietysLog House Museumare among those asking you to send in your COVID-19 stories and photos to chronicle the pandemics effects on ordinary life.

For now, at least, that means through their websites. At some later date, when its possible, your contributions might be accepted in person.

We are living in this historic moment, and we need to try and capture that. I was surprised at how thoughtful the submissions were, says Maggie Wetherbee, head of collections for the Historical Society museum in Tacoma. Read more about the project here.

Erik Lacitis

Tom Fox, owner of Martini Cleaners in Burien, has doubts about the future of business casual.

Dress shirts, slacks and other office garb made up more than half of Foxs dry cleaning, pressing and tailoring business before the pandemic. Today, he sees only a fraction of that, thanks largely to COVID-related work-from-home regimens that have left office workers everywhere in sweatpants and T-shirts.

Like many businesses, Fox has limped along by cutting staff hours and thinks he can stay open at least through the end of year. But he has no idea whether that will be long enough for business casual to return to business as usual.

Anxieties like these are now standard operating procedure for business owners and managers, who know they face months of uncertainty until a vaccine or other treatment is widely available. That leaves them in constant fear of a COVID-19 outbreak among staff or customers, or another statewide lockdown. Read the full story here.

Paul Roberts

April Berg, a Democrat and Everett school board member, was trying to get elected to the Legislature without being in the same room as her campaign manager. COVID-19 and social-distance guidelines had kept them apart.

Berg, vying for a 44th Districtopen seatin the House, was in Mill Creek. Katharine Gillen, just graduated from Whitman College, lived in Walla Walla. They were spending a lot of time on the phone and emailing, when Berg had an idea: Gillen could move in with Berg's family. If they lived together, they could be in the same bubble, social distancing with outsiders but not each other.

Thats not to say all the challenges of the campaign are gone as Washingtons Aug. 4 primary looms, with ballots now arriving at voters homes. The novel coronavirus pandemic has made almost every candidates life more difficult but also sparked innovation as many campaigns shift, like everything else these days, online. Read more about candidates' creative campaign strategies here.

Nina Shapiro

Teaching changed almost instantly due to COVID-19. Class went online. Parents became de facto teachers. Lesson plans were replaced by a focus on student well-being and safety. So why haven't we made changes overnight or even over decades so education is truly equitable for all children? Education Lab explores what nearly a dozen education experts said theyd like to see change as schools reopen.

How do you campaign during COVID-19? The novel coronavirus pandemic has made almost every candidates life more difficult but also sparked innovation as many campaigns shift, like everything else these days, online. Washingtons Aug. 4 primary looms, with ballots now arriving at voters homes.

If the COVID-19 shutdown didnt kill your business, trying to reopen might. Many businesses are bracing for months of lower revenue from health restrictions, consumer uncertainties, and the complicated economic ripple effects of stay-at-home and other social changes during the pandemic.

Older children can spread the coronavirus just as much as adults, a new study found. In theheated debate over reopening schools, one burning question has been whether and how efficiently children can spread thecoronavirusto others. A large new study from South Korea offers an answer: Children younger than age 10 transmit to others much less often than adults do, but the risk is not zero. And those between the ages of 10-19 can spread the virus at least as well as adults do.

The Trump administration is trying to block billions of dollars for states to conduct testing and contact tracing in the upcomingcoronavirusrelief bill, The Washington Post reported Saturday. The administration is also trying to block billions of dollars that GOP senators want to allocate for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and billions more for the Pentagon and State Department to address the pandemic at home and abroad, according to people familiar with the talks.

Police in Barcelona closed down access to a large area of the citys beaches on Saturday after too many sunbathers ignored authorities request to stay at home amid a new wave of surging coronavirus infections.

How will future generations remember what we're all going through? TheSeattle Public Library,along with the Museum of History and Industry (MOHAI), theWashington State Historical Societyin Tacoma and the Southwest Seattle Historical SocietysLog House Museumare among those asking you to send in your COVID-19 stories and photos to chronicle the pandemics effects on ordinary life. Find out more on how to participate.

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Coronavirus daily news updates, July 19: What to know today about COVID-19 in the Seattle area, Washington state and the world - Seattle Times

The explosion of new coronavirus tests that could help to end the pandemic  Nature.com

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The explosion of new coronavirus tests that could help to end the pandemic - Nature.com

To speed turnaround times, Dr. Collins said, health officials are pushing for more point-of-care testing on the spot tests designed to be done rapidly and easily, without the need for specialized laboratory equipment or personnel.

Some of these tests could be completed in a doctors office, or perhaps even at home, in under an hour. Simple, speedy tests could prove to be a boon for institutions and communities that care for large numbers of vulnerable people, such as nursing homes. They could also help health workers bring testing supplies to populations that have often been denied access to testing and reliable health care, including those marginalized by race, ethnicity or socioeconomic status.

A handful of point-of-care tests have been greenlighted for emergency use by the Food and Drug Administration.

We need to invest a lot of money, and the government is willing to do so, in scaling those up, Dr. Collins said on Sunday. Thats the kind of thing that I personally, along with many others in other parts of the government, are working on night and day to try to do a better job of.

But Dr. Prosper pointed out that speed often comes at the price of accuracy an issue that has plagued some point-of-care tests in the past. Though rapid testing can still play a substantial role in mitigating the spread of the coronavirus, researchers will need to remain wary of these trade-offs, she said.

As testing efforts continue to ramp up, Dr. Martinez cautioned that the nation will need to maintain its vigilance for some time yet. The effects of social distancing are reversible, she said. If people give up on those strategies too soon, Its likely that we will observe a third or a fourth peak. And that could have big implications.

In an interview on Sunday with CBSs Face the Nation, Dr. Scott Gottlieb, the former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, reiterated the potentially devastating consequences of failing to rein in the virus, noting spikes in cases in states like California, Texas, Arizona and Florida. He warned that other states, like Georgia, Tennessee and Kentucky, could follow similar patterns.

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Testing Backlogs May Cloud the True Spread of the Coronavirus - The New York Times

Swedish Red Cross volunteers deliver goods to elderly residents in Nacka, near Stockholm on April 29, 2020, to protect them from exposure to the new coronavirus.

Jonathan Nackstrand | AFP | Getty Images

CNBC is looking at how places around the world have tackled Covid-19. By talking to a wide range of experts, as well as everyday citizens, we're taking stock of what's gone well and what hasn't.

Sweden, the fifth subject of our series, has confirmed more than 76,000 cases and more than 5,500 deaths in a population of 10 million. The country did not go into lockdown, instead issuing recommendations about social distancing and working from home while allowing many schools and businesses to stay open. Sweden's mortality rate per 100,000 ishigher than the United States, but it has fared better than the United Kingdom.

Mental health

Sweden kept its country open relative to its neighbors. Some citizens worked from home, and many bicycled rather than taking public transit. Schools, particularly for younger children, remained open, as did many businesses. Because of the lack of enforcement and feeling of normalcy, some citizens say they didn't feel as stressed and anxious as they might have otherwise.

"There's a mental health aspect to lockdown," said Nils Mattisson, founder of Minut, a home monitoring start-up based in London andMalmo, Sweden. "All the fear can have adverse effects on people's health."

Ramping up ICU beds

Back in the spring, Sweden needed far more intensive care beds to care for a potential flood of Covid-19 patients. According to Dr. Jonathan Ilicki, head of medical operations at health start-up Doktor24, the situation did improve somewhat.

"In a short period of time, we did see a huge increase in ICU beds per capita, particularly in Stockholm," he said. Swedish officials quickly ordered the construction of a field hospital in a convention complex just south of the city centerin early April. That hospital closed in June as demand for care eased in the region.

However, there has been some controversy about whether vulnerable elderly patients were provided with these beds when they needed them. Some health-care workers have pointed to a reluctance to admit elderly patients who came down with the virus in their nursing homes.

People play chess at a park in Stockholm on May 29, 2020, amid the coronavirus Covid-19 pandemic.

JONATHAN NACKSTRAND

Daily briefings ... for a while

Sweden's top health authorities provided a daily briefing in the hardest months of the pandemic, which some residents appreciated. But that all changed in late June, when state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell shared that some of the responses were flawed. Updates are now provided just two days a week on Tuesdays and Thursdays. As Bloomberg reports, the briefings had turned into "daily grillings" where Tegnell had to justify his decisions.

Still, citizens say they appreciated the information, particularly when it came from a high-ranking scientist. "It was a source of comfort, and it was helpful and relatively straightforward," said Mattisson.

An engaged and compliant public

Many in Sweden say that public health officials didn't mandate certain behaviors, in part because they didn't need to. Restaurants, bars and salons might have remained open, but they were relatively empty compared with the months before the pandemic. Moreover, many people avoided gathering in large groups, particularly indoors.

"There's a strong trust in Sweden between the government and the people," said Dr. Arvin Yarollahi, the head of the orthopedic department ata hospital group in the country calledNU-sjukvarden.Yarollahi said people took the recommendations seriously, even if they weren't enforced.

"I think we had a response that suited our culture," said Fredrik Soder, CEO of a Swedish health-tech company called Health Integrator. "We take the authorities seriously." Soder said that many people chose to work from home if they could feasibly do so, and they took pains to socially distance. Swedish people were also encouraged to refrain from seeing their elderly relatives, who were at high risk for Covid-19.

That said, public health experts feel that the health officials in Sweden could have pushed for more behaviors to suppress infection. That includes wearing masks, or avoiding discretionary travel.

The economy

Sweden's economy hasn't been unscathed but its contraction seems to be less dramatic than what other countries are facing. A Capital Economics report from mid-June noted that Sweden's GDP would likely shrink 8%, compared with the harder-hit countries with late lockdowns like the U.K., where the contraction would be closer to 25%. That said, other reports have found that Sweden's economy didn't perform all that differently than its neighbors, including Denmark. Despite less stringent lockdowns, unemployment still rose and consumer spending fell.

That's probably because people did take precautions, despite the relatively mild government-imposed restrictions. "We were told to use our common sense," said Soder. "And that meant a lot less shopping at stores, and a lot more staying at home.

State epidemiologist Anders Tegnell of the Public Health Agency of Sweden gives a news conference on a daily update on the coronavirus Covid-19 situation, in Stockholm, Sweden, on June 3, 2020.

ANDERS WIKLUND

PPE and availability of tests

At the onset of the pandemic, some medical staff have noted that there wasn't sufficient personal protective equipment available to keep them safe. There were also urgent calls, and investigations from local journalists, for more PPE to be provided to those who care for the elderly in nursing homes and other facilities.

Similarly, Sweden struggled to ramp up tests and some residents with symptoms have shared with publications like Business Insider as late as June that they couldn't get tested. Some even went to hospitals, only to be asked to wait hours for a test -- and then be told that they weren't available.

"The speed and scale of distribution of PCR-based testing and screening of health-care workers could have been managed better, faster and more efficiently, especially in elderly care," acknowledged Johannes Schildt, CEO of a Sweden-based health-care start-up called Kry.

Policy around masks

Dr. Cheng Xu, a gastroenterologist in Sweden who treated many elderly patients, recalls honeymooning in Asia in late January and spotting many people wearing masks.

Back in Sweden, Xu hasn't seen most citizens sport a face covering in crowded public spaces. And although he stocked up in the early months, anticipating a potential pandemic, he fears that there's less value in him wearing one if others are neglecting to do so.

People enjoy the warm evening at Sundspromenaden in Malmo, Sweden, on May 26, 2020, amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Johan Nilsson | AFP | Getty Images

"There's an aggregated net positive effect," he said. "We need a more significant percentage wearing them, especially those who have symptoms."

The vulnerable elderly population

Care home deaths have accounted for nearly half of all fatalitiesin Sweden, even though the country recommended for people to avoid seeing their elderly relatives. One of the problems is that some staff were not provided adequate protective equipment, and may have gone to work despite having symptoms of the virus.

Prime Minister StefanLofven admitted in June that the country did not go far enough to protect its most vulnerable, and many public health experts agree.

"Sweden kept many of its schools open and the restrictions were mild, but there were a lot of elderly deaths," said Dr. Andrew Azman,a research associate in infectious disease epidemiology at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, who is based in Switzerland. "It wasn't one of the better responses overall."

Others say that the outcome has brought to light a deeper need for new policies when it comes to caring for nursing home residents. "The lack of nursing staff has been a problem, and there's also poor wages and poor working conditions," said Yarollahi. "Many things have come to the surface and I'm hoping they can get better."

Lack of tracking and data collection in schools

A woman walks through the Kungstradgarden in Stockholm on May 8, 2020, amid the new coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic.

Jonathan NACKSTRAND | AFP

Sweden made a relatively unique decision in keeping schools open, particularly for younger children. Many countries, including the United States, are weighing opening up schools after the summer holiday -- and are eager to learn from countries like Sweden.

But epidemiologists say there wasn't sufficient data collected about infections among school-age children.

"It's really frustrating that we haven't been able to answer some relatively basic questions on transmission and the role of different interventions," Carina King, an infectious disease epidemiologist at the Karolinska Institute told Science Magazine. King shared that her team had been hampered by "the lack of funding, time, and previous experience of conducting this sort of research."

Achieving herd immunity

With its relatively open strategy, some public health experts have wondered whether it resulted in greater immunity. The vision of so-called herd immunity might be a ways off, recent studies suggest.

"We know that large parts of the population are unprotected, as they haven't been infected," Karin Tegmark Wisell, head of the Public Health Agency's microbiology department, sharedwith reporters earlier this week. That means there remains a "large susceptibility in the population," she said.

We asked every expert we spoke to for their score out of 10. (1 is the extremely poor and 10 is ideal.) It's an extremely subjective measurement, but the average across all of them was 5.5.

Sweden was one of the most polarizing countries from our series with some rating it as a 10/10 and others giving it as low as a 2/10. Those who have treated Covid-19 patients tended to dole out the lower scores.

"I think Sweden's health officials missed an opportunity to communicate suggested recommendations more clearly," saidAzman, who gave Sweden a lower score. "They didn't suggest face mask use, for instance."

"I'd give it good marks for transparency, reassuring communications and finding a mix of restrictions that were sustainable in the long term yet effective in slowing the spread of the virus," said Mattisson, who gave Sweden a 7 overall. "But bad marks for not protecting the care homes, not isolating people who arrived from places like Italy sooner and not being smarter about masks."

SEE ALSO:

How the UK fought the coronavirus

How Canada is fighting Covid-19: ramping up PPE production, travel ban from the U.S., and Bonnie Henry.

Why Israel's "second wave" of Covid-19 is worse than its first

How Taiwan beat the coronavirus

Correction:Dr. Arvin Yarollahi is head of the orthopedic department at NU-sjukvarden. An earlier version misspelled his name.

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Sweden kept its country relatively open during the coronavirus pandemic, but its elderly paid a price - CNBC

It was still early in Californias coronavirus outbreak when Lina Ili started feeling the symptoms that would soon turn her familys life upside down.

Coughing and running a fever, she holed up inside the bedroom of her Long Beach home for weeks. But breathing grew increasingly difficult, Ili, 46, said. You couldnt even lie down because it felt like a heaviness on your chest.

On April 5, her husband, Aoga Ili Jr., decided it was time to take her to the hospital, where she tested positive for COVID-19.

The next day, her 22-year-old son, Taylor, was hospitalized. A few days later, her husband was too. In a matter of days, three of the five members of their household were put in the intensive care unit. Lina had it worst and spent four days on a ventilator.

I wouldnt wish it upon my worst enemy, she said. Just as simple a thing as to breathe, I dont take it for granted anymore.

The Ilis, whose parents came from Samoa more than 40 years ago, are among nearly 1,400 Californians with ancestry in Hawaii, Samoa, Fiji, Tonga and other Pacific islands who have been infected with the coronavirus, which is sickening and killing members of the small but close-knit community in disproportionate numbers.

In L.A. County, Pacific Islanders suffer the highest infection rate of any racial or ethnic group, more than 2,500 per 100,000 residents. Thats six times higher than for white people, five times higher than for Black people and three times higher than for Latinos, according to county health demographic data that exclude Long Beach and Pasadena, which have their own health departments.

Health experts say the reasons are similar to why Black people and Latinos are falling ill and dying at higher rates: reduced access to healthcare; higher levels of poverty; crowded housing; multigenerational households that make it more difficult to physically distance or quarantine; and higher rates of underlying health conditions that increase risk for severe illness from COVID-19, such as heart and lung disease, asthma and diabetes. Many Pacific Islanders also work in frontline jobs, such as food service, hospitality and healthcare, where they are more likely to contract the virus and bring it home.

But community leaders say there are other factors that are unique to the culture of Pacific Islanders, and they say that public health officials have failed to adequately address them.

Among these factors are cultural traditions that center on large family gatherings, in-person church services, funerals and birthday celebrations that, in some cases, have continued despite orders to maintain social distance. Leaders in the Pacific Islander community say also that a cultural stigma associated with a positive diagnosis may be facilitating the spread of the virus.

The shame factor of it is real, said Dr. Raynald Samoa, an endocrinologist at City of Hope in Duarte who battled COVID-19 himself. People are not getting their families tested. Theyre not speaking out, theyre not getting identified because theyre afraid that theyre going to have to stay home from work or that its going to negatively impact their family.

Samoa has helped raise awareness by speaking about his experience in Facebook videos and other appearances and urging Pacific Islanders to take the virus seriously and heed health guidelines.

Samoa faulted health officials for taking no proactive measures to reduce rates of transmission and infection in Pacific Islander communities.

I wish there were things in place, but there was nothing, Samoa said. That left it to Pacific Islander groups to assemble their own COVID-19 response team, devise their own strategy and messaging based on past work with chronic diseases such as diabetes and cancer, and push the county to use it.

California is home to nearly 317,000 Pacific Islanders, and more than 55,000 of them reside in Los Angeles County, according to census data that include people who identify as multiracial, which is common in the community.

Statewide, Pacific Islanders have experienced infections and deaths at higher rates than most other groups, but the disparities arent as pronounced as they are in L.A. County. Their statewide infection rate is three times higher than that of white Californians, and 20% higher than Latinos infection rate, while their death rate is nearly 60% higher than that of white people but lower than that of Black residents.

Although numbers remain small overall California has reported 35 deaths and 1,389 confirmed cases among Pacific Islanders as of July 15 they reveal an outsize toll on a community that already experiences higher rates of underlying health conditions. Sixteen Pacific Islander residents in L.A. County have died, for a rate of 83 per 100,000 people twice as high as white and Latino county residents.

Health officials say they are not surprised by the high rates of illness.

Sadly, these disparities are consistent with other health disparities we see and reflect deeply rooted and pervasive inequities in our society that are in part fueled by racism, xenophobia, and a lack of opportunities and resources to support optimal health, Natalie Jimenez, a spokeswoman for the L.A. County Department of Public Health, said in an email.

The county Health Department has examined statistics on Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders from the beginning of the COVID epidemic but did not initially report them to protect confidentiality due to the low numbers of reported cases and deaths, Jimenez said.

Local health officials began releasing data on infections and deaths among Pacific Islanders at the urging of community groups who saw a lack of targeted response. Pacific Islander leaders began pushing officials, county by county, to release data on their community rather than lumping them together with Asians.

In L.A. County, health officials began publishing those numbers in late April, two days after Pacific Islander groups requested it in a Zoom meeting.

Jimenez, the department spokeswoman, said the reason we began publishing the disaggregated data was that, based on the communitys input and the unprecedented threat posed by the COVID epidemic, we felt that the benefits outweighed the risks of posting the statistics.

Those statistics have been crucial for getting people in the community to take the threat seriously, said Alisi Tulua, a program manager with the Orange County Asian and Pacific Islander Community Alliance, which pushed for their release. Weve been using the data as our biggest, most convincing talking point.

With the partial reopening and recent surge in cases, however, community groups and faith leaders fear theyll only see the trend compounded as waves of the virus spread through their families and churches.

Our community is back to work and more exposed. So its going to be twice as hard to quarantine and try to get tested, Tulua said. While its flattening for other people, its still climbing in our community. If we bring it home, maybe were OK, but our parents will suffer. And if were not careful, were going to kill off a whole generation of our people.

Pastor Kitione Tuitupou, left, livestreams services from inside First United Methodist Church of Bellflower, whose congregation of about 100 is majority Tongan.

(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

Jimenez said the L.A. County Health Department has been working with Pacific Islander groups for a few months to create culturally relevant and sensitive materials that resonate with the community. That includes tailored outreach with educational graphics that will be shared on social media in the Tongan, Samoan, Chamorro and Marshallese languages, public service announcement videos featuring Tongan, Samoan and Chamorro community leaders and photos of Pacific Islander families wearing masks. Those materials are being distributed to community leaders, she said.

Because health officials had not yet released data on Pacific Islanders, the Ilis didnt know their community was seeing higher rates of coronavirus infection when they started getting sick.

The oldest son, Pele Ili, 26, quickly became the only healthy adult in his household, and suddenly found himself the caretaker for his whole family, tending to his sick parents and brother while trying to protect his 12-year-old brother, Solo, from falling ill too.

On Easter Sunday, Pele, a service manager at a payroll company who also blogs, posted about his familys experience on Instagram in an effort to get others to take the stay-at-home orders seriously.

I was naive to think this couldnt touch my family. I was ignorant to think that me feeling healthy meant that I was okay to attend a few small gatherings but little did I know my house was compromised, Pele wrote on April 12. ... This could happen anywhere, anytime, and to anyone whenever youre not home. No one is above this.

Being outspoken was important to combat the stigma, Pele later said. Pacific Islanders have this sense of pride, where they can take care of themselves and they want to keep everything in house, you know, just to not draw as much attention on our family.

He documented his familys ordeal, shooting extensive video and posting it to YouTube, and now looks back on it as one of the most overwhelming and emotional times of his life.

There were times where I didnt know if they were ever gonna come back out, he said. They could barely talk. And I think the hardest part was just not knowing what was going to happen.

Dr. Samoa and other leaders worry that, in addition to being exposed to the virus at the workplace, people are being exposed to COVID-19 at churches that are the heart of many Pacific Islander communities.

Although some have taken health precautions, others have seemingly ignored them, including one church that held an in-person fundraiser last month that was also streamed online, Samoa said. I didnt see a mask in that place, and the social distancing was minimal.

Churches are where people congregate; its the village center, Samoa said. So if the village leadership is not promoting safe behaviors, then the community suffers.

Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, First United Methodist Church of Bellflower Pastor Kitione Tuitupou now livestreams Sunday services.

(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

The Rev. Kitione Tuitupou, pastor of First United Methodist Church of Bellflower, a multiethnic congregation of about 100 people that is majority Tongan, has been playing it safe, livestreaming Sunday services since stay-at-home orders were issued in March.

Although people are eager to return, they are also fearful, he said. Peoples faith really holds them up at this time. So even though they really want to come back to church, we remind them to be patient.

For the Ilis, the sudden suspension of in-person gatherings has been difficult and isolating.

They had to halt their weekly attendance at St. Cornelius Church and the meals they shared with extended family afterward in favor of a livestreamed Mass. Yet theyve adopted new traditions to stay connected, like a 5:30 p.m. Zoom prayer hour with out-of-state family members.

Were learning to be creative, Pele said.

Lina Ili, now recovered, to this day doesnt know where she contracted the virus but is still dealing with the stigma.

People are still kind of afraid to be in the same area as us, she said. But, at this point, she said she only regretted trying to fight off the illness at home for too long.

She, like her oldest son, now speaks at webinars urging other Pacific Islanders who may be feeling symptoms to get tested and seek medical help.

The hardest part for our culture is admitting you need help, Lina said. You could be helping someone else, or saving a life.

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Pacific Islanders hit hard by the coronavirus - Los Angeles Times

Each week, we answer "frequently asked questions" about life during the coronavirus crisis. If you have a question you'd like us to consider for a future post, email us at goatsandsoda@npr.org with the subject line: "Weekly Coronavirus Questions."

The best laid plans of coronavirus caregivers can go kaflooey.

When Marie Loveheim was recovering from COVID-19, alone in her apartment in Washington, D.C., she didn't have a thermometer. So her son bought her one.

It registered a fever of 107.

"Was I dead?" she wondered.

Thermometer number two came from her daughter, who ordered it as part of a grocery delivery from a supermarket.

But what came was a meat thermometer. Lovenheim's sister suggested she check to see if she measured "medium-rare."

When a loved one gets sick, our gut response kicks in like second nature: Provide as much care and comfort as possible. Send a thermometer, a soup, you pick: It feels like a no-brainer.

But how do you care for a loved one struck by a fast-spreading virus that means it's high risk to have face-to-face contact with a patient lest you get sick yourself?

NPR spoke to medical professionals and COVID-19 recoverees about the trial and error of caregiving: What works, what doesn't and what might provide hope and humor even at the unlikeliest of moments.

To begin, there are the practical considerations.

Dr. Paul Sax, clinical director of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Brigham and Women's Hospital, says if a loved one has COVID-19, the first step is home isolation. If possible, the infected family member should remain quarantined in a separate room where they will eat and sleep, and they should use a separate bathroom.

It's OK to go into the infected party's room to drop off food, Sax advises, but both the patient and the caregiver should wear a mask, and if possible, an inexpensive plastic face shield or lab goggles to cover your eyes in addition to your nostrils and mouth eyes are a potential entry point for the virus.

For milder cases, at-home treatment largely addresses the symptoms.

"Given that we don't have any verified therapy that we can give people early on in the course, our main management is focused on symptomatic relief for coughs, fevers, muscle pains and the like," says Harvard Medical School physician Dr. Abraar Karan. "Over-the-counter Tylenol for fevers and pain, or anti-cough medications are both options for people who don't have significant medical conditions that would prevent them from taking these medications."

Sax says it's a good idea to go into your loved one's room three or four times a day, say hi and see how they're doing. It's "completely fine" to prepare food for them; just make sure to wash the dishes and your hands afterward with soapy water. You should check temperatures twice a day and expect a higher number in the afternoon than early morning.

Another helpful tool is a pulse oximeter, which can be used to measure oxygen levels. Look for numbers in the high 90s to 100s when monitoring your loved one. A number in the low 90s is alarming, Sax and Karan say, and if those are the results you're noticing, seek medical attention for your loved one. But you shouldn't be falsely reassured by good numbers either, medical experts warnand there are some noted problems with getting good readings to begin with.

Dr. James Aisenberg, a gastroenterologist and clinical professor of medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, was diagnosed with COVID-19 in March and has since recovered. For him, it was important to keep the communication flowing with his physician and keep meticulous notes on his condition and recovery progress.

"The caregiver should have a physician or a health-care contact whom they can email because it's a bumpy and long recovery process," Aisenberg says. "It's very helpful to have someone to reach out to for reassurance and counsel who knows the natural history of the coronavirus infection, who can say 'That's a red flag, come to the hospital'."

Sax says that at home, there are some clear things to watch out for when it comes to symptoms: if your loved one has a harder time breathing, if fever is spiking (especially in older people), if there's delirium or signs of dehydration like fatigue, dizziness or overly-yellow urine.

Because the recovery process is slow, taxing and done in isolation, Aisenberg says it was important for him to find nourishing moments of human connection with family between the stretches of alone time.

"You want to be together in a moment where you cannot touch each other; to be close at a moment where you can't physically be close," he notes. "Because both parties the patient and the family need that closeness. So the most important thing for a caregiver is to be "attentive, supportive and presentbut observe social distancing (at least 6 feet even with a mask on) and hygiene."

Though it may be hard to physically connect while you have the virus, our sources who'd coped with COVID-19 found moments of joy in video chats, phone calls and other expressions of love and care, from cards to homemade soup to gifts of food and flowers.

Dr. Jasmine Eugenio, a pediatrician in Los Angeles, California, who recovered from COVID-19, says she was brought to tears when people drove past her bedroom window to wave hello. And when she got a mango, it was an epiphany!

"I lost my sense of taste until Day 6 when I asked for a mango and the taste exploded in my mouth," Eugenio says. That led her to fresh fruit and popsicles.

Dr. Madhuri Reddy, a geriatrician at Harvard Medical School and Hebrew SeniorLife, stresses it's important for caregivers to take care of themselves too,

"Be easy on yourself," says Reddy. "This is a difficult time for everybody and caretakers provide such an immense service."

Pranav Baskar is a freelance journalist and U.S. national born in Mumbai.

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What A COVID-19 Patient At Home Needs From Family And Friends : Goats and Soda - NPR

With case counts rising, U.S. leaders push stricter measures.

Across the United States, leaders grappling with surging caseloads and a rising death toll on Friday introduced new measures intended to curb the coronavirus outbreaks severity, some in places where the virus had looked to be in retreat.

For the second time, more than 70,000 coronavirus cases were announced in the United States, according to a New York Times database. A day earlier, the country set a record with 75,600 new cases, the 11th time in the past month that the daily record had been broken.

The outbreak is so widespread that 18 states have been placed in a so-called red zone because they have more than 100 new cases per 100,000 people per week, according to an unpublished report distributed this week by the White House coronavirus task force, which urged many states to take stricter steps to contain the spread.

The states Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nevada, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Utah constitute more than a third of the country.

In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced new rules on Friday that would force many of the states districts to teach remotely when school starts next month and require most of its more than six million students to wear masks when they do attend class. This week, the state also announced a sweeping rollback of plans to reopen businesses.

More than 10,100 cases were announced on Friday in California, the states second-highest daily total yet.

In Florida, where more than 11,400 cases and more than 125 deaths were reported on Friday, some localities added curfews. With its hospitals reaching capacity, Broward County imposed a curfew from 11 p.m. to 5 a.m. beginning Friday. Curfews were also imposed in the city of Miami Beach and the rest of Miami-Dade County.

Noting the rise in cases, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin testified before a House committee that he thought Congress should consider automatically forgiving all small loans that had been given to businesses through the Paycheck Protection Program.

The record for U.S. daily cases has more than doubled since June 24, when the country registered 37,014 cases, after a lull in the outbreak that kept the previous record, 36,738, standing for two months. Daily virus fatalities had decreased slightly until last week, when they began rising again.

Some of the states in the red zone are not following the unpublished reports recommendations for curbing the spread.

With cases rising across Georgia, the report had some clear recommendations, including: Mandate statewide wearing of cloth face coverings outside the home.

But while Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia, a Republican, said Friday that he believed that residents should wear face masks, he added that he would not require them to do so. And he is working to prevent local governments from issuing their own mask orders: He filed a lawsuit challenging the authority of leaders in Atlanta to require masks within their citys limits.

Now I know that many well-intentioned and well-informed Georgians want a mask mandate and while we all agree that wearing a mask is effective, Im confident that Georgians dont need a mandate to do the right thing, Mr. Kemp said Friday.

The report on the red zone was originally published by the Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit newsroom based in Washington, and was later obtained by The New York Times.

The report called for mask mandates in Alabama and Arkansas, and those states governors, who are both Republicans, issued new orders this week. More than half of the United States now has some form of mask requirement in place.

China reports infections in its far west, where security is already tight.

The authorities in Chinas far western Xinjiang region announced on Friday that 13 coronavirus infections had been found in the regions capital, the latest hint that China may not have been able to snuff out the pandemic completely.

Five of the 13 people have symptoms, according to the state news media. The confirmed cases on Friday followed the discovery of four infections in the capital, Urumqi, on Thursday, three of which are asymptomatic so far.

The highest political body in the region, the Chinese Communist Party Standing Committee of Xinjiang, ordered contact tracing and called for the management of people entering or leaving the region to be strictly enforced.

One of Urumqis municipal subway lines was closed, and hundreds of scheduled flights in and out of the city were immediately canceled.

Caixin, an influential newsmagazine, also said on Friday that residential compounds in Urumqi had been placed under lockdown.

We must resolutely overcome the paralysis and loosen our thoughts, draw lessons and make all the difference, be prudent and never relax, grasp the normalization of epidemic prevention and control, and resolutely safeguard the safety and health of the people, the standing committee declared, according to the official Xinjiang Daily.

Xinjiang is already under very tight security, as the authorities have in recent years rounded up as many as a million members of predominantly Muslim ethnic minorities and confined them in barbed-wire compounds. They have also made Xinjiang an incubator for high-tech surveillance and increasingly intrusive policing systems.

Beijing has said that such measures are needed to combat religious extremism and to teach vocational skills.

As for the virus, Beijing insists it is under tight control across the Chinese mainland. But outbreaks have nonetheless occurred in northeastern China and in the city of Beijing itself, although the government says these have been quickly tamed.

Hong Kong has also reported a rising number of locally transmitted infections in recent days, including a record single-day tally of 67 on Thursday.

Once the center of the pandemic, New York City will enter a limited version of its fourth phase of reopening next week, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said Friday.

Starting Monday, outdoor venues like zoos and botanical gardens will be allowed to operate at a limited capacity, Mr. Cuomo said. But citing rising case numbers in other large states, like Texas and Arizona, he said stringent limits would remain on indoor activities.

Malls, museums and cultural institutions, for example, will stay closed. Indoor dining will also remain on hold.

The second wave is going to be the confluence of the lack of compliance and the local governments lack of enforcement, plus the viral spread coming back from the other states, Mr. Cuomo said. It is going to happen.

Mr. Cuomo said the state would revisit the citys relatively curtailed Phase 4 as the facts change.

The rest of New York State, which has already moved into Phase 4, does not have the same limitations on indoor businesses. But New York City will be allowed to have groups of up to 50 people, as well as indoor religious gatherings operating with capacity constraints. Outdoor film productions and professional sports events without audiences can also resume.

Elsewhere in the United States:

In Ohio, more than 1,600 new cases were reported on Friday, a single-day record.

Two days after Gov. Kevin Stitt of Oklahoma announced he had tested positive, Lt. Gov. Matt Pinnell and four officers who are members of Mr. Stitts security team were self-isolating at home. Mr. Pinnell said that he had been showing absolutely no symptoms, but sometimes that doesnt matter. One of the troopers has exhibited symptoms.

Joseph R. Biden Jr., the presumptive Democratic nominee, released a five-point road map Friday for reopening schools, an implicit rebuke of Mr. Trump, who has pushed them to resume in-person classes as soon as possible. The Biden campaign said the decision should be made by state, tribal and local officials, based on science, and Mr. Biden urged federal agencies to establish national guidelines and called for emergency funding for public schools.

In Kentucky, Gov. Andy Beshear said 36 new virus cases were traced to a single football team in a news conference Friday. The governor, a Democrat, said team members were not wearing masks in a weight room and as a result 18 players, three coaches and 15 family members were sickened.

Officials in Arkansas reported 12 new deaths today for a single-day record, according to a New York Times database. Gov. Asa Hutchinson, a Republican, issued an executive order requiring residents to wear face coverings in public on Thursday after resisting a statewide mandate and opposing stay-at-home orders for months. The state has recorded more than 31,000 cases and 353 deaths since the pandemic began.

A federal judge handed the Republican Party of Texas a surprise legal victory on Friday, ruling that it can proceed with holding an in-person convention in Houston after city officials canceled the face-to-face gathering. Although the judge cleared the path for the party to meet in person, Republican leaders said they planned to keep meeting virtually but would use the in-person option as a last-resort method. The party had already switched to an online-only format and held the opening day of its virtual convention on Thursday.

Lowes and Home Depot on Friday became the latest retailers that will begin requiring all their customers to wear masks. Lowes said the new policy would take effect on Monday, adding that it would supply masks to any customer who needed one. Home Depots mask requirement will start Wednesday. The company said children and customers with medical conditions would not be required to wear facial coverings.

Iran will start enforcing new restrictions in Tehran on Saturday as it sees a surge of coronavirus cases that health officials say is even worse than the first wave that hit the capital city in March.

A third of government employees will work from home. Large gatherings such as funerals, weddings and religious ceremonies will be banned. Gyms, swimming pools, amusement and water parks, cafes and the zoo will also be closed, a health ministry official said. Restrictions in the capital city could last several weeks as the number of new infected cases, deaths and hospitalizations spiked.

Local hospitals are at full capacity and at one public hospital, 172 medical staff members are currently ill from the virus, officials said.

Iran imposed a brief two-week lockdown in April that coincided with the annual New Year holiday. The government chose to reopen the country in May, amid concerns that the countrys economy was in danger of collapsing, before it had met recommended benchmarks such as a steady decline in cases or having a contact-tracing system in place.

Iranians have largely resumed everyday life, returning to work, socializing at one anothers homes and gathering at public places such as parks and shopping malls. In light of the new surge in cases, the government announced a nationwide mask order and urged people to practice social distancing.

In other news around the world:

Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain on Friday outlined a road map on Friday to ease lockdown restrictions and to contain the spread of the virus in the coming months, as he warned that there wont be any significant return to normality until November at the earliest, and possibly in time for Christmas. All schools in England will reopen in September, Mr. Johnson said, and concert halls and theaters might welcome visitors again in the fall, as well as stadiums.

India surpassed a million confirmed infections and 25,000 deaths on Friday, weeks after the government lifted a nationwide lockdown in hopes of getting the economy up and running. India is now recording about 30,000 new cases a day, almost three times as many as a month ago, and with testing still sparse, the true figure is likely to be much higher. The country ranks third in the world behind only the United States and Brazil in both total infections and the number of new ones recorded each day.

The United Nations is calling on wealthier countries to provide billions of dollars more in aid to poorer nations to prevent widespread suffering. The issue will be prominent at the upcoming G20 meeting of finance ministers in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, according to Mark Lowcock, the U.N.s top humanitarian aid official.

Japan has asked the U.S. military to quarantine all of its personnel arriving at American bases in Japan for two weeks and then test them for the coronavirus, the countrys defense minister, Taro Kono, said on Friday. There has been an outbreak of cases on U.S. military bases on the island of Okinawa.

European Union leaders are meeting to negotiate a huge economic aid package. The major sticking point is how much latitude to give those countries receiving the aid. The talks in Brussels are the first time that E.U. leaders have held an in-person meeting since the start of the pandemic.

The residents of Barcelona, Spain, were told on Friday to stay indoors in order to help contain a new coronavirus outbreak in the Catalonia region in the northeastern part of the country. The authorities also announced a ban on outdoor gatherings of 10 people or more in Barcelona, the capital of Catalonia.

In Australia, the state of Victoria reported 217 new cases on Saturday, after a record 428 cases on Friday.

The authorities in the Philippines said that foreigners with long-term visas could begin entering the country in August, for the first time since March. They will be quarantined, monitored and tested.

A 27-year-old woman in Tunisia was found guilty of inciting hatred between religions and sentenced to six months in jail and a $700 fine after she shared another Facebook users post about the coronavirus that mimicked Quranic iconography.

The Israeli government announced new coronavirus restrictions on Friday as the number of cases in the country continued to swell and the government faced further criticism for its handling of the pandemic. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus office and the Health Ministry said in a statement that gyms would be closed and almost all restaurants would be limited to takeout and delivery services, starting at 5 p.m. on Friday. Beaches, they said, would be inaccessible during most of the weekends, starting July 24.

Xingcheng, an out-of-the-way factory town on Chinas northeastern coast, claims to make a quarter of the worlds swimwear. But when China forced its people to stay home to stop the coronavirus, its production of trunks, bikinis and one-pieces ground to a halt.

Across the globe, pools, beaches and water parks are reopening only cautiously. Travel and tourism are still mostly nonstarters. Perhaps never in recent history has so little of humankind had any need for new swimwear.

Now, with a peak seasons worth of sales already largely lost, Xingchengs factories are scraping by an order at a time, waiting for governments to get a grip on the illness and for more people to venture back into the water.

Its the same abroad and at home theres still no spending power, said Hao Jing, a trader who sells swimsuits from Xingcheng to international buyers.

Xingcheng is not a particularly well-known town even within China. But it produced $2 billion worth of swimwear in 2018, according to the governments official Xinhua news agency. There are 1,200 swimwear companies in the town, Xinhua says, employing as many as 100,000 people, or one in five residents.

The global contraction is hitting all of Chinas giant export sector hard. The countrys exports were up only 0.5 percent in June from a year earlier, even as the overall economy rebounded more strongly. But as Chinese industrial towns go, Xingcheng may take longer than most to recover.

What if summer comes and goes and swimsuit sales still dont pick up in a major way?

Supposing theres no work for another year, I guess Ill just have to scrimp and make do, said Qi Lei, who owns a Xingcheng factory that cuts fabric for swimsuits. I dont have any other ideas.

Companies and researchers worldwide are rushing to test hundreds of possible treatments meant to prevent or quell coronavirus infections. Some they hope will block the virus itself, nipping a burgeoning infection in the bud, while others are aimed at mimicking the immune system or quieting an overactive immune response.

The New York Times is cataloging some of the most talked-about drugs, devices and therapies in a new tracker that summarizes the evidence for and against each proposed treatment. The tracker includes 20 treatments so far; five have strong evidence of efficacy, three are pseudoscience, and the rest fall somewhere in between.

Reporting was contributed by Katie Benner, Lilia Blaise, Keith Bradsher, Troy Closson, Michael Cooper, Michael Corkery, Maria Cramer, Nicholas Fandos, Farnaz Fassihi, Manny Fernandez, Luis Ferr-Sadurn, Jeffrey Gettleman, Erin Griffith, Josh Katz, Mark Landler, Lauren Leatherby, Patricia Mazzei, Jesse McKinley, Sarah Mervosh, Jennifer Miller, Raphael Minder, Azi Paybarah, Elian Peltier, Kevin Quealy, Alan Rappeport, Adam Rasgon, Motoko Rich, Campbell Robertson, Margot Sanger-Katz, Mariana Simes, Karan Deep Singh, Mitch Smith, Kaly Soto, Matina Stevis-Gridneff, Sheryl Gay Stolberg, Eileen Sullivan, David Waldstein, Sui-Lee Wee, Will Wright and Carl Zimmer.

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U.S. Reports More Than 70,000 New Coronavirus Cases for the Second Time - The New York Times