Coronavirus pandemic in the US

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced today an emergency rule requiring businesses to follow the existing stay-at-home order.

"Under the current Illinois Department of Public Health Act, when a business violates an IDPH rule and puts public health at risk, the business has committed a class A misdemeanor," Pritzker said in a news conference.

This rule can only impact a business, not an individual, and is a response to only a select type of violation, according to the governor. 

Pritzker also announced today that the Illinois Contact Tracing Collaborative will "massively" scale up contact tracing. 

Latest numbers: Illinois has a total of 96,485 Covid-19 cases, with 4,234 deaths in the state. 

The College Board says it's taking steps to avoid a repeat of the problems that are forcing thousands of high school students to retake their Advanced Placement exams if they want to get college credit.

Students are taking the AP tests online this year because the coronavirus pandemic has closed schools and made it unsafe to gather at in-person testing sites.

Some students who took the tests last week reported not being able to upload their exams, a problem the College Board blamed on users' outdated browsers and other technical issues.

The organization set up an alternate email submission process for students who have browser problems, according to The College Board website. That system went into effect today.

If students get the message "We Did Not Receive Your Response," they will get instructions to email their submissions to a unique email address.

The organization said that less than 1% of students weren't able to submit their results in the early days of testing.

Read the tweet:

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis said he wished President Trump would ask Americans to wear face masks in an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer.

Asked his reaction on Trump saying he is taking hydroxychloroquine, a drug that treats and prevents malaria, Polis responded, “Well at least he won’t be getting malaria anytime soon."

Hydroxychloroquine is a drug Trump has long touted as a potential coronavirus cure even as medical experts and the US Food and Drug Administration question its efficacy and warn of potentially harmful side effects.

Polis continued: “When he says something like that it creates a run on the drug. He has a lot of people that listen to every word he says. I really wish he would use this platform to say, ‘Let’s all wear mask.'"

“I just hope he uses that soapbox he has to talk about the need for staying apart from others six feet and wearing masks when we’re in public,” he said.

The University of Notre Dame announced in a statement today that students will return to campus for their fall semester during the week of August 10, two weeks earlier than originally scheduled.

The university also announced that it will forgo fall break in October and end the semester before Thanksgiving.

Notre Dame students were sent home in mid-March due to the Covid-19 pandemic and completed their spring semester through remote learning.

“By far the most complex challenge before us is the return of our students to campus for the resumption of classes in the fall semester,” the university’s president, Rev. John I. Jenkins, said in the statement.

The university said its plan for the fall will include comprehensive Covid-19 testing, contact tracing, quarantine and isolation protocols, social distancing and mask requirements, and enhanced cleaning of all campus spaces.

As part of its planning, the university has identified facilities to isolate students who test positive and quarantine students who have been in close contact. These protocols will continue throughout the semester and as long as necessary, the university said. 

Other schools: Purdue University, Rice University and Creighton University all announced plans to cancel fall breaks and end “face-to-face” instruction before Thanksgiving earlier today.

In California and across the United States, recent data shows many children are missing their vaccines during the coronavirus pandemic. 

The California Department of Public Health said the number of shots given to children up to 18 years old in California decreased by more than 40% in April 2020 in comparison to April 2019.

More on this: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published a report today on the decreasing number of childhood vaccinations nationwide since the pandemic began.

Using Michigan as a case study, the CDC found a 22% decrease in the the number of non-flu vaccine doses administered to children overall. The study also found that less than half of all five-month-olds were up to date on their vaccines this May. 

The CDC and the California Department of Public Health both emphasize parents should make sure their children are up-to-date on their immunizations so they can be protected against serious preventable diseases, especially while the Covid-19 emergency is ongoing.

Joshua Tree National Park, located near Palm Springs, California, has partially reopened to the public, according to the National Park Service.

The park, which closed to help control the spread of Covid-19, will reopen roads, parking lots, trails, most bathrooms and family campsites, the park’s website said.

Entrance stations will also be staffed, though fees will not be collected, the site added.

The visitor center and group campsites will remain closed. All programs and permits for special use activities through May 31 have been canceled.

It's almost 6 p.m. in New York. Here are some of the top coronavirus headlines you may have missed.

President Trump deflected when asked if he agreed with Peter Navarro’s assertion that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention let the country down in terms of testing.

“I think they work very hard,” Trump said of the CDC, when asked about his economic adviser’s comments.

“Don’t forget, they’ve been here for many years. They don’t work for me. They work for the country,” he said during a White House meeting with restauranteurs.

“Now we have the best tests anywhere in the world. I think – I give ourselves a lot of that credit," he added.

Some background: Navarro on Sunday condemned the CDC’s early pandemic response, saying that “not only did they keep the testing within the bureaucracy, they had a bad test and that set us back.”

Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar called those comments, “inaccurate and inappropriate.” The CDC falls under HHS.

Vice President Mike Pence weighted in on Navarro’s comments, saying, “I think Peter Navarro’s point was that CDC and our public health labs at the state level were operating with an arcane testing system, and it was one of the reasons that early on we brought in all of the commercial labs around the country, the President created a consortiums of these labs, and we reinvented testing in America." 

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear reported two new cases of a troubling new syndrome that may be associated with Covid-19 infection.

The cases include a 5-year-old, who was admitted to the hospital on Saturday but is now able to go home, and an 11-year-old who is currently hospitalized.

The state’s first case, a 10-year-old, is still hospitalized, Beshear said.

“We had hoped there wouldn’t be problems for children, that they would do well, and it appears, overwhelmingly, they do well, but not all of them,” Kentucky Health Commissioner Dr. Steven Stack said.

He continued: “And for those who get this syndrome, this is very serious. This is essentially a situation where weeks after the child would have gotten over the initial infections, their immune system becomes overactive and attacks the blood vessels in their own body and causes a number of problems.”