Please Note
The Washington Post is providing this important information about the coronavirus for free. For more free coverage of the coronavirus pandemic, sign up for our Coronavirus Updates newsletter where all stories are free to read.
The United States has entered a “new phase” of the coronavirus pandemic, Deborah Birx, the physician overseeing the White House coronavirus response, told CNN on Sunday. Outbreaks are increasing in both rural and urban areas, touching isolated parts of the country that once counted on their remoteness to keep them safe.
“What we’re seeing today is different from March and April,” Birx said. “It is extraordinarily widespread.”
Alaska, Hawaii, Missouri, Montana and Oklahoma are among the states witnessing the largest surge of infections over the past week, according to a Washington Post analysis of health data. Experts also see worrisome trends emerging in major East Coast and Midwest cities, and anticipate major outbreaks in college towns as classes resume this month.
At least 4,641,000 coronavirus cases and 151,000 fatalities have been reported in the United States since February. Close to 50,000 new cases and 478 deaths were reported on Sunday, a day of the week when numbers are often artificially low because some jurisdictions do not report data.
Here are some significant developments:
- The prospects for a new coronavirus relief package — and a deal that would restore $600-a-week emergency unemployment benefits — look dismal. White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows said Sunday that he was “not optimistic that there will be a solution in the very near term,” while House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin made clear in separate interviews that they were nowhere near reaching consensus.
- A Houston Chronicle investigation found that Texas health officials were not counting the results of rapid-response coronavirus tests in the state’s tally of covid-19 cases, suggesting that the hotspot has tens of thousands more infections than previously disclosed.
- Sturgis, S.D. is expecting more than 250,000 bikers to attend its annual motorcycle rally next week, potentially making it the largest event to take place during the pandemic. Naturally, there are health concerns.
- Victoria, the epicenter of Australia’s coronavirus outbreak, declared a “state of disaster” on Sunday. Stricter lockdown protocols were announced for the city of Melbourne, where residents will be virtually banned from going outside.
- Montgomery County, Md., has ordered private schools to go online-only in the fall — making it one of the first jurisdictions in the United States to do so.
August 3, 2020 at 1:17 AM EDT
Melbourne confines people to their homes, institutes curfew to snuff out raging outbreak
Lockdown measures in Melbourne. Australia’s second-largest city, intensified over the weekend as officials declared a “state of disaster” and banned most excursions outside the home.
“Where you slept last night is where you’ll need to stay for the next six weeks,” Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews said on Sunday, as 671 new coronavirus cases were reported in the state. Another 429 new cases were expected to be added to tally on Monday, according to Australian media outlets.
Under the new regulations, residents can only leave their homes to shop food and other essential supplies, and to exercise for up to an hour a day. Both activities must take place within roughly three miles of their homes. A curfew will also be in place from 8 p.m. to 5 a.m. each night, with exceptions for caregivers and medical workers. Another loophole allows those who are in an “intimate personal relationship” to visit their romantic partners, even after curfew hours.
The restrictions, similar to those which successfully stamped out community transmission in neighboring New Zealand, also require most nonessential businesses to shut down. Schools are largely moving online, bars are closing and restaurants are switching to takeout and delivery only, and all workers who can do their jobs remotely must do so. No more than two people can gather in public at a time.
More than 5 million people in greater Melbourne have already been subject to some form of lockdown restrictions since early July, and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Thursday that the country was “not getting the results we would hope for” from those measures. The new regulations will be in place until mid-September.
By Antonia Farzan
August 3, 2020 at 12:45 AM EDT
D.C. pastor tests positive for coronavirus, as health officials struggle to stop its spread
The pastor of a Catholic church on Capitol Hill who urged people not to “cower in fear” of the novel coronavirus has contracted covid-19, the disease the virus causes, prompting D.C. health officials to tell about 250 staff and parishioners to self-quarantine for two weeks.
Monsignor Charles Pope of Holy Comforter St. Cyprian Catholic Church on East Capitol Street was admitted to the hospital on July 27 after experiencing a high fever. He tested positive for the coronavirus after a rapid diagnostic test that afternoon.
On Friday, the D.C. health department issued a letter saying that “additional individuals have been identified as having been exposed to the virus.” Parishioners who participated in Communion at the church — where wafers and wine are shared to represent the body and blood of Christ — between July 25 and July 27 were told to stay home for 14 days and monitor themselves for symptoms.
By Rebecca Tan
August 3, 2020 at 12:19 AM EDT
A coronavirus vaccine won’t change the world right away
But public health experts are discussing among themselves a new worry: that hopes for a vaccine may be soaring too high. The confident depiction by politicians and companies that a vaccine is imminent and inevitable may give people unrealistic beliefs about how soon the world can return to normal — and even spark resistance to simple strategies that can tamp down transmission and save lives in the short term.
By Carolyn Y. Johnson
August 3, 2020 at 12:17 AM EDT
Pelosi, Mnuchin, Meadows point to disagreements as deal on unemployment benefits, coronavirus relief remains elusive
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and White House chief of staff Mark Meadows made clear in separate interviews Sunday that they remain far apart on a coronavirus relief deal that would restore expired unemployment benefits for millions of Americans.
The three spoke a day after a rare weekend meeting at the Capitol yielded some signs of progress. They plan to meet again on Monday, but pointed to multiple areas of disagreement that suggest consensus remains elusive, even while saying they would continue to work toward a deal.
“We still have a long ways to go,” Meadows said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “I’m not optimistic that there will be a solution in the very near term.”
By Erica Werner and Eli Rosenberg
August 3, 2020 at 12:15 AM EDT
Coronavirus threat rises across U.S.: ‘We just have to assume the monster is everywhere’
The coronavirus is spreading at dangerous levels across much of the United States, and public health experts are demanding a dramatic reset in the national response, one that recognizes that the crisis is intensifying and that current piecemeal strategies aren’t working.
This is a new phase of the pandemic, one no longer built around local or regional clusters and hot spots. It comes at an unnerving moment in which the economy suffered its worst collapse since the Great Depression, schools are rapidly canceling plans for in-person instruction and Congress has failed to pass a new emergency relief package. President Trump continues to promote fringe science, the daily death toll keeps climbing and the human cost of the virus in America has just passed 150,000 lives.
By Joel Achenbach, Rachel Weiner and Chelsea Janes
