July 10 coronavirus news

West Virginia currently has the highest rate of transmission of Covid-19 in the country, the state's coronavirus czar Dr. Clay Marsh said during a news conference Friday.

Marsh said the state has a rate of transmission of 1.37.

"We have moved, unfortunately, from number two to number one. We now have the highest RT number in the country," Marsh said. "Per that calculation, the virus is spreading faster person to person in West Virginia right now than any other state in the country."

The daily positivity rate is now 3.86% in the state, which Gov. Jim Justice said is "not where we want to be."

Justice said people need to continue to wear masks and socially distance to help prevent further spread so that hospital systems in the state aren't overwhelmed by a potential surge. 

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, continues to contradict President Trump on coronavirus, including sharing differing descriptions about the seriousness of the pandemic in the US.

While President Trump has pushed to reopen schools and downplay the surge of cases, Fauci warned in a Wall Street Journal podcast yesterday that states with resurging coronavirus cases "should seriously look at shutting down." Fauci later noted that states with spiking coronavirus cases still can contain them by pausing their reopening processes, rather than shutting down a second time.

In an interview published earlier today, Fauci said he's "trying to figure out" where President Trump got the number behind his claim that 99% of coronavirus cases were "harmless."

On July 4, Trump sought to downplay the surge in Covid-19 cases by falsely claiming that testing in the US shows 99% of cases "are totally harmless."

Fauci told FT that he last saw Trump on June 2 at the White House, and hasn't personally briefed him in at least two months.

Here's a sampling of how Fauci has contradicted the President's misinformation on-camera:

The Louisiana Department of Health is reporting 2,642 new Covid-19 cases on Friday, the single highest day of new cases since the pandemic began. 

According to the Department of Health, there was one other day that reported a higher number of cases, but many of those were backlogged cases from weeks prior.

The positivity rate for tests coming in on Friday is 10.52%. The agency reported that 97% of cases today are due to community spread and 39% of the new cases are for people who are under 29 years old. 

Hospitalizations increased by 75, bringing the total number of patients in the hospital due to Covid-19 to 1,117. Hospitalizations have been trending up since mid-June, according to data released by the agency. 

Note: These numbers were released by Louisiana Department of Health, and may not line up exactly in real time with CNN’s database drawn from Johns Hopkins University and the Covid Tracking Project.

After Dr. Anthony Fauci said that new coronavirus hotspot Florida opened too soon, Gov. Ron DeSantis said "there was no justification to not move forward." 

DeSantis defended the move to reopen, saying Florida had a "very low prevalence" of Covid-19 in May and early June, "particularly in the 64 counties outside of southern Florida." 

"We did put southern Florida on a different pathway," DeSantis said at a Friday news conference in Orlando. 

DeSantis said cases are on the rise in other parts of the country as well, not just Florida. Across the Sunbelt, "this is something that we're dealing with," said DeSantis.   

The governor did not mention Florida's 11,433 new positive cases reported today during the news conference. This marks the second time the state's single-day tally of cases topped more than 11,000, according to CNN's count.

Florida health officials reported 11,458 cases on July 4, according to CNN's tally. 

Major League Baseball and the Major League Baseball Players Association jointly announced in a statement Friday that 1.8% of team personnel have tested posted for coronavirus in the final intake screening through the end of July 9.

According to the statement, there were 66 positive tests out of 3,748 total samples tested. At least 58 were players and eight staff members, and 27 of the 30 teams had an individual test positive.

With the intake process completed, individuals have moved on to monitoring testing, which will test tier one individuals every other day and tier two individuals multiple times per week. 

More about the intake screening: A total of 7,401 monitoring samples have been collected and tested to date. Seventeen samples, which is 0.2%, tested positive. Thirteen of the 17 positives have been from players, four were staff members.

Since the beginning of intake screening on June 27, there have been 83 positive tests (0.7%) out of 11,149 samples. Among the 83 positive tests, 71 were players and 12 were staff members. 

At least 28 different teams have had an individual test positive in intake screening or during monitoring testing.

South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster, speaking at a news conference today, said he plans to reopen schools this fall.

Public Health Director Dr. Joan Duwve said 15% of the 50,458 confirmed Covid-19 cases in South Carolina have occurred in people ages 20 and under, and 42% of the state’s total cases have been reported in the past two weeks.

“Please think about that. Nearly half of the Covid-19 cases in the state of South Carolina have occurred in the past two weeks and think about what those numbers are going to look like two weeks from now," Duwve said.

The governor said the state cannot enforce a mask-wearing provision with 5 million residents, but encouraged people to wear masks, socially distance and wash their hands frequently.

“Wear your mask, wear your mask, wear your mask,” he said. “Wash your hands, keep that distance. Follow those rules and we’ll get through this.”

Asked about the increased risks that come with opening schools, McMaster said, “Our plan is to have the schools open and a lot of discussion’s going on about that right now.” 

He said of the state’s students, “We need to get ‘em back in. People have to go to work. Parents have to go to work. Teachers want to go to work. Everybody wants to get the schools started. But we have to be sure that we’re doing so safely.”

It is unlikely that the world can eradicate or eliminate coronavirus any time soon, a World Health Organization official said on Friday.

"We’ve seen countries who’ve managed to get to zero or almost zero re-import virus from outside. So there’s always a risk — either from within or from bringing disease back in — and therefore, it is a given that there is always a risk of further cases," Ryan said. "The transmission that occurs in that situation can be single, sporadic cases, which can be relatively easily isolated and quarantined. A more worrying pattern is large clusters of cases that could occur in association with super spreading events — events in which large crowds gather."

Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO's technical lead for coronavirus response and head of its emerging diseases and zoonoses unit, also said in Friday's briefing that "this is something we all need to anticipate — that there's the possibility that there could be a resurgence, there could be these small outbreaks."

The American Apparel & Footwear Association sent a letter to President Trump requesting that the administration institute federal face mask guidelines to assist retail stores as the country continues efforts to safely reopen.

The organization, which represents hundreds of clothing and footwear companies and their suppliers, added that “with differing standards throughout the country, out members are facing situations where their employees need to educate customers on what is required to enter their stores, or even turn customers away.

One simple, consistent standard at the federal level, mandated and enforced at the state and local level, would go a long way in addressing this confusion and keeping the economy open.”

Versions of the letter were also sent to the heads of the National Governors Association, National Association of Counties, and the US Conference of Mayors.

The World Health Organization said Friday it will keep a close eye on the impact of Covid-19 during pregnancy, as some recent studies point to pregnant women with underlying health conditions being at higher risk of getting severely ill from the virus.

Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO's technical lead for coronavirus response and head of its emerging diseases and zoonoses unit, said during a news briefing that pregnant women "don't seem to develop a different type of disease than women of the same age who are not pregnant."

In a recent report, the US Centers of Disease Control and Prevention said pregnant women who get infected with novel coronavirus are more likely to be hospitalized, admitted to an intensive care unit and put on a ventilator. While the CDC said the study included the largest cohort of pregnant women with lab-confirmed coronavirus, it's not clear whether the pregnant women who were hospitalized were in the hospital because of complications related to Covid-19 or for pregnancy-related reasons.

"We need to ensure that we keep a close eye on [this] and ensure that pregnant women have the right care throughout their pregnancy," Van Kerkhove said at the briefing.