June 23 coronavirus news

Asked whether his comment on slowing down testing was a joke, President Trump told reporters “I don’t kid" as he departed the White House for campaign events in Arizona.

Trump again said that testing is a "double-edged sword" and praised the country's testing program saying the US has the "greatest testing program anywhere in the world."

What this is about: In a shocking admission during his Tulsa, Oklahoma, rally on Saturday night, Trump said he had told officials in his administration to slow down coronavirus testing because of the rising number of cases in America.

Some administration officials had tried to downplay Trump's remarks from Saturday's rally.

An administration official told CNN later Saturday that the President was "obviously kidding," and White House trade adviser Peter Navarro said Sunday that the remark was made "in jest." On Monday, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany also told reporters that Trump was speaking "in jest."

"He has not directed (coronavirus testing to be slowed), and, in fact, I would note that first we continue to test about 500,000 per day, about half a million people per day," McEnany said in the briefing. "$1.8 billion dollars is invested in NIH to find new testing capabilities, any suggestion that testing has been curtailed is not rooted in fact."

"It was a comment that he made in jest," McEnany added.

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Dr. Preeti Malani, a fellow with the Infectious Diseases Society of America and Chief Health Officer at the University of Michigan, said contact tracing "will be essential, especially in the fall."

Malani said as children return to school, contact tracing will be especially important. And as it is now, "There's a lot of work that needs to be done between now and then, in terms of just making this functional," she said while speaking at a briefing Tuesday morning.

Malani said this is new territory, but "the role of technology is going to be very important."

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, says "a safe and effective vaccine for SARS-CoV-2 will be essential to stopping the spread of infection, reducing rates of morbidity and mortality, and preventing future outbreaks."

In his opening statement prepared for the House Energy and Commerce Committee and posted online, Fauci says NIAID is working with several partners — including Moderna and Rocky Mountain Laboratories — on a potential Covid-19 vaccine.

Additionally, the National Institutes of Health is working to find therapeutics to fight coronavirus.

"The National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) is leveraging the NCATS Pharmaceutical Collection, a compilation of every drug approved for human use by major regulatory agencies worldwide, and other collections of small molecules and compounds to identify potential SARS-CoV-2 therapeutics for further investigation," Fauci says.

The United States has performed nearly 22 million tests for Covid-19 since the pandemic began, says Admiral Brett Giroir, the assistant secretary for health at the US Department of Health and Human Services.

In his opening statement, prepared for his testimony before the House Energy and Commerce Committee and posted online, Giroir says the US is "now at a rate of between 400,000 and 500,000 tests per day, and this number will continue to increase."

Keep in mind: Giroir doesn't specify which type of test he is referring to – those that check for current infection or those that check for past infection. It is also important to note many individuals have received multiple tests.

The US Food and Drug Administration continues to grant emergency use authorizations for Covid-19 tests in "record number," Giroir says. "The amount and expediency in which EUAs were issued for Covid-19 tests far exceed past viral outbreaks."

Giroir says in 2016, during the Zika outbreak, the FDA issued 20 test EUAs. In 2009, for H1N1, there were 17 test EUAs.

"As of June 12, 2020, FDA has issued more than 135 Covid-19 test EUAs,” Giroir said.

As Covid-19 cases rise among young people in the United States, there has been debate around whether a natural herd immunity may emerge since the nation doesn't have a vaccine yet — but scientist and author William Haseltine said on Tuesday that the coronavirus can be complex.

He continued: "Every year, the same four coronaviruses come back to give us colds. ... If you have one of those coronaviruses, it can cause the exact same disease a year later," Haseltine said." We now know from studies that you can just watch immunity fade over a two-month period. It doesn't disappear, but it fades in that short of period. So, there isn't such a thing as herd immunity. It's a fantasy. It happens for some viruses. It doesn't look like it's going to happen for this one."

No state has effectively transitioned from lockdown "to a public health model of testing, tracking, isolating and quarantining" during the Covid-19 pandemic, said Dr. Richard Besser, former acting director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Speaking today on CNN’s New Day, Besser said to control the spread of the virus, states "need a public health system that's working. You need messaging lined up around that."

"In New York where they've hired thousands and thousands of contact tracers, we are hearing that there's problems – that people don't want to tell them who they had contact with," Besser explained. "I think part of that is that a lot of the social benefits in terms of income support, eviction protection, foreclosure protection, are going away – and so for somebody to go into quarantine – it could mean losing their job."

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Novak Djokovic, the men's world number one tennis player has tested positive for coronavirus, he announced Tuesday in a statement on his website.

The Serbian tennis star had been taking part in the Adria Tour, a mini-tennis tournament he set up to raise funds for those in need while simultaneously allowing players to get back into shape ahead of the resumption of the tennis calendar. 

On Sunday, Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov, who had been taking part in the tournament, announced that he had tested positive for the virus, forcing a canceation of the final scheduled later that day.

On Monday, Croatian Borna Coric announced he too tested positive after attending the tournament. 

Ready Djokovic's full statement here.

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Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, says getting a flu vaccine this year will be more important than ever. 

"Getting a flu vaccine is more important now that [sic] ever. Getting a flu vaccine will help keep you and your loved ones out of a doctor’s offices and hospitals and help conserve scarce medical resources to care for Covid-19 patients," he said.

Redfield said the CDC is working with public health officials across the United States to increase the number of people who get the flu vaccine.

"Ongoing Covid-19 activity may affect where and how flu vaccines are given. CDC is working with manufacturers to maximize flu vaccine supply and with providers and health departments to develop contingency plans so that people can be vaccinated in a safe environment," Redfield says.

Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is expected to testify this morning that the agency "has developed a new laboratory test that checks for three viruses at the same time, two types of influenza viruses (A and B) and SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19."

What this means: In his opening statement, prepared for the House Energy and Commerce Committee and posted online, Redfield said, "testing for all three viruses simultaneously will allow public health laboratories to continue surveillance for influenza while testing for Covid-19. This will save public health laboratories both time and resources, including testing materials that are in short supply."

Redfield said the single test for all three viruses will also help find co-infections, "which is important for doctors to diagnose and treat people properly."