By Helen Regan, Adam Renton, Luke McGee and Peter Wilkinson, CNN
There are at least 2,143,193 cases of coronavirus in the US, and at least 117,129 people have died, according to a tally from Johns Hopkins University.
So far on Wednesday, Johns Hopkins reported 5,486 new cases and 167 deaths.
The totals include cases from all 50 states, the District of Columbia and other US territories, as well as repatriated cases.
From CNN’s Kay Jones
Dr. Bruce Dart of the Tulsa Health Department issued a warning ahead of President Trump's campaign rally on Saturday: "Anyone planning to attend a large scale gathering will face an increased risk of becoming infected with Covid-19."
Dart said he shared the same concerns as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention regarding large in-person gatherings. The CDC warns that "the more people an individual interacts with at a gathering and the longer that interaction lasts, the higher the potential risk of becoming infected with COVID-19 and COVID-19 spreading."
He went on to say that he supports the right to assemble but asked those who are part of a vulnerable population to stay at home and to seek other ways to participate in the event virtually.
Dart also recommended that anyone attending the rally wear a mask covering correctly, covering your nose and mouth.
From CNN’s Kay Jones, Ryan Nobles and Kristen Holmes
Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt said in a news conference today that more than 1 million requests have been made to attend President Trump's campaign rally in Tulsa on Saturday.
Stitt will be at the White House on Thursday to meet with the President prior to the rally, he told reporters.
“I haven’t decided if I’m going to wear a mask,” Stitt said when responding to a question regarding wearing a mask while at the White House.
He went on to say that he won’t wear one when he introduces the President at the rally.
Stitt acknowledged that Covid-19 is in Oklahoma and they would have to learn how best to live with that.
Some context: A judge on Tuesday denied an emergency motion to stop Trump's campaign rally in Tulsa on Saturday. The decision came after local lawyers asked the court to block the event unless organizers agreed to take steps to adhere to the administration's own social distancing recommendations to limit the spread of coronavirus.
Saturday's rally is still scheduled to take place at BOK Center, but the campaign is exploring an additional venue designed to work as an overflow location to help accommodate the overwhelming response of supporters hoping to see the President speak.
During an interview on Fox News, Vice President Mike Pence suggested that the additional venue could be outdoors.
Oklahoma is among at least 21 states that are seeing upward trends in newly reported cases from one week to the next.
From CNN’s Mirna Alsharif
Schools across Michigan will be allowed to resume in-person instruction this fall with strict safety measures in place, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer announced in a news conference Wednesday.
Whitmer said the "Return to Learn" advisory council has been hard at work coming up with a safe plan to reopen schools.
The governor will release an executive order and the "Michigan Return to School Roadmap" on June 30 to outline details on what will be required and recommended for schools to reopen.
The roadmap will set minimum health and safety requirements, Whitmer said, adding school districts may choose to enact more aggressive ones.
From CNN's Jacqueline Howard
The hydroxychloroquine arm of the World Health Organization’s Covid-19 Solidarity Trial will end based on a recommendation from the agency’s Data Safety and Monitoring Committee, according to a WHO official.
Dr. Ana Maria Henao-Restrepo, a medical officer at WHO's Department of Immunization Vaccines and Biologicals, said during a media briefing in Geneva on Wednesday that the decision was made based on preliminary information from a separate hydroxychloroquine study in the United Kingdom that showed no benefit of the antimalarial against Covid-19, and early data from the Solidarity Trial itself.
"Today, just five minutes ago, we finalized a call with all the investigators in the trial," Henao-Restrepo said during Wednesday's briefing.
"A decision was made to stop the randomization with the hydroxychloroquine trial on the basis of two pieces of information. The first, the data that was published by the UK trial and second, the data that was available to us from the Solidarity Trial," Henao-Restrepo said, later clarifying in the briefing that "they have concluded that the hydroxychloroquine arm will be stopped from the Solidarity Trial."
In May, WHO temporarily paused the hydroxychloroquine arms of its Solidarity Trial due to concerns surrounding the safety of hydroxychloroquine and in order to review its own data. Then earlier this month, after that review, WHO announced that it would resume studying hydroxychloroquine as a potential Covid-19 treatment in the Solidarity Trial.
Yet in the days following, a separate trial in the United Kingdom, called the Recovery Trial, announced plans to stop using hydroxychloroquine in its study due to "no evidence of benefit," according to the researchers. That spurred WHO to conduct another review of the hydroxychloroquine arm in its Solidarity Trial, which led to this most recent decision to drop hydroxychloroquine from the trial.
This latest announcement from WHO comes just days after the US Food and Drug Administration on Monday revoked its emergency use authorization for the drugs hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine for the treatment of Covid-19.
From CNN's Nicky Robertson
Washington, DC, Mayor Muriel Bowser announced today that the District will enter into phase two of reopening on Monday if the current trends in Covid-19 metrics continue.
“We are trending in the right direction,” Bowser told reporters at a press conference this morning.
The mayor said she expects to be able to announce this Friday whether or not the District will be ready to enter phase two Monday.
Officials said three out of the four key metrics used to decide if DC is ready to move into phase 2 have been met, barring a spike in community spread cases of coronavirus over the coming days.
The fourth metric is that the contact tracing force has a 90% success rate contacting positive cases within one day —that is yet to be met.
Director of DC Public Health LaQuandra Nesbitt explained that the government has a new digital system and has increased the number of contact tracers, which Bowser said “gives us confidence in saying that we are hitting, going to hit, where we need to be.”
As of today, Washington, DC, has at least 9,847 positive community spread cases of the coronavirus, and 523 people have died from the virus.
When asked if the District should wait to enter phase two until the effects of protests are clear on the spread of the coronavirus, Bowser said “we always have the ability to turn up or turn down our reopening.”
“This virus is not gone, it is still here,” Bowser added.
From CNN's Shawn Nottingham
The Oklahoma Department of Health has reported an additional 259 cases of Covid-19 since Tuesday.
The state now has at least 8,904 confirmed positive cases of coronavirus according to data from the state’s Department of Health. The jump represents a 3% increase since Tuesday.
From CNN's Elizabeth González and Tatiana Arias
Panama will extend the suspension of all international flights for 30 more days due to the Covid-19 pandemic, according to a statement from the country's civil aviation authority published Tuesday.
"Humanitarian and necessary flights for the transport of medicines, vaccines or other essential health-supplies are exempted from these restrictions," the statement said.
The extension of the travel ban on international flights is scheduled to start on June 22 at midnight.
Currently, Panama reports 21,962 cases of coronavirus and 457 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University data.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said today that Friday will be his last daily coronavirus briefing.
The governor said that his office would still hold briefings on Covid-19 when it's necessary moving forward.