June 10 coronavirus news

There have been four churches in West Virginia linked to an outbreak of coronavirus that infected 24 people, Gov. Jim Justice said during a news conference Wednesday.

Justice said that since churches have resumed services, there have been at least four church-related outbreaks across the state, each with five to eight cases.

Justice asked that congregations follow guidelines for social distancing and wearing masks.

"We love our church activities and we treasure them the most of all and there is the number one thing in our lives that should be always," Justice said.

Reopening plans: Outdoor concert venues will be allowed to open on July 1, he announced Wednesday. Outdoor open air concerts at fairs and festivals can also resume the same day.

The guidelines for fairs, festivals, and outdoor concert venues will be the same, Justice said. 

Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson announced today that the state will move into phase two of its reopening plan on Monday.   

“We have [already] opened gyms, bars, casinos tattoo parlors, and we are now wide open with certain restrictions on size and spacing limitations, but we have reopened youth activities, camping, and many outdoor and indoor venues as well,” Hutchinson said.

Nate Smith, director of the Arkansas Department of Health, said venues have been limiting capacity to a third. Those places will go to two-thirds "as long as they can maintain that six-foot physical distancing," he said.

Hutchinson said there were at least 288 new cases of coronavirus in the last 24 hours. But, he said, “the state is best served moving together even though we have various regions with a current spike in cases.” 

The governor stated there will be “additional support to target the surge, assigning additional testing, training and public health support to those areas.” 

He said that the emergency order in place now expires in mid-June, and he will continue it for an additional 45 days.

Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo announced Wednesday that all school districts in the state will reopen for school on August 31.

She continued: "It'll probably involve mask wearing of some kind, certainly for the adults in some way. It's also going to mean, we all have to understand, no one can go in the school building sick."

At least 245 people with Covid-19 have died in the past 24 hours in the United Kingdom, the country's Health department reported. 

This brings the official government total number of deaths in the UK to 41,128. 

In addition, 170,379 Covid-19 tests were carried out on June 9, with another 1,003 positive test results returning. In total, 290,143 people have tested positive in the UK.

However, according to statistic bodies from all the nations within the UK, the Covid-19 death toll is higher. The total number of deaths with Covid-19 listed on a death certificate is at 50,413, according to data from the Office of National Statistics of England and Wales, combined with data from statistics bodies in Northern Ireland and Scotland. 

One thing to note: The ONS figure exceeds Johns Hopkins University’s estimate because JHU’s number comes from the UK Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC). That figure does not include all deaths that occurred outside hospitals and does not include cases that were diagnosed post-mortem. Additionally, the ONS only reports deaths a week after they occur, which allows them to capture a more comprehensive picture.

The Trump administration is closely monitoring the impact coronavirus is having on economies in Latin America, Acting Homeland Security Deputy Secretary Ken Cuccinelli said Wednesday.

“We are worried about Covid-19 south of the border, all the way to South America,” Cuccinelli said during a webinar hosted by The Heritage Foundation. “We’re worried about what it’s doing to their economies, just like we worry about what it’s doing to ours. The difference being when their economies have struggles, their migration — illegal migration — to our country expands. So we’re watching that very closely and tracking the intelligence in that area as well.”

CNN reported over the weekend that Latin America recorded nearly 1.2 million coronavirus cases and more than 60,000 deaths.

There are at least 1,988,491 cases of coronavirus in the US and at least 112,311 people have died, according to Johns Hopkins University's tally of cases in the United States.

The totals include cases from all 50 states, the District of Columbia and other US territories, as well as repatriated cases. 

On Wednesday, Johns Hopkins reported 2,821 new cases and 22 deaths.  

The New York Philharmonic has canceled all performances through early January 2021, according to a letter from President and CEO Deborah Borda. 

New York Philharmonic is a symphony orchestra that performs at the David Geffen Hall at the Lincoln Center in the city. 

As New Jersey enters phase two of reopening next week, Gov. Phil Murphy announced that the state will bring on additional contact tracers.

The state will hire up to 1,600 additional contact tracers this month. New Jersey currently employs 900 contact tracers. 

“We are fully prepared to bring on as many as 4,000 or more should we see the need and should Covid-19 begin to make a second tour of New Jersey,” Murphy said. 

New Jersey reported 611 new cases of Covid-19, bringing the statewide total to at least 165,346. At least 74 new fatalities related to Covid-19 were reported, bringing the total number of deaths to 12,377, Murphy announced.

The US Food and Drug Administration said Wednesday it has issued an emergency use authorization (EUA) to Illumina, Inc. for the first Covid-19 diagnostic test that also uses next generation genetic sequencing technology to look for changes in the virus.

Illumina, a company that focuses on genomic sequencing, has designed its COVIDSeq test for use on swabs taken from the mouth or nose, as well as samples taken from further down the respiratory tract. It can diagnose a patient with coronavirus and also gather some information about the particular sequence of the virus infecting the patient, which in turn is useful for research tracking the pandemic.

Several teams of scientists have been gathering and sharing sequences of the virus, which can be used as a kind of fingerprint to see where particular versions of the virus may have originated. For instance, these sequencing studies have shown an outbreak in New York City was seeded by viruses that were also circulating in Europe, while another analysis showed small outbreaks across California were often set off by individual travelers and not by spread from within the state.

None of the genetic studies has shown that the virus is mutating in a way that makes it more or less harmful.