June 25 coronavirus news

After three months of encouraging tourists to stay away from Hawaii, the US state will begin easing its mandatory quarantine on August 1.

Currently, anyone travelling into Hawaii from out of state must self-quarantine for 14 days. But the new program will allow visitors to avoid that quarantine as long as they test negative for coronavirus within 72 hours of their arrival. 

It comes as Hawaii faces a legal challenge claiming the quarantine is unconstitutional because it targets out-of-state residents.

Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell said it’s critical to his community’s economy to get tourism back on track. “We need to return to welcoming visitors to our shores,” said Caldwell.

State Health Director Bruce Anderson says the state is in good shape to prepare for reopening, as he believes most residents have been following social distancing recommendations.

A set of premature triplets born in Mexico are "stable" and "evolving favorably" after testing positive for Covid-19, according to local health officials.

The triplets were born in the central Mexican state of San Luis Potosí and tested for coronavirus on June 17 in compliance with the state's health protocols on premature births, according to the state's Health Secretary Monica Rangel. The test results came back positive three days later, heath authorities said.

The parents of the triplets both tested negative for coronavirus, according to Rangel. She said they have been able to see their newborn babies through video calls.

"What we need to look at is a situation where perhaps (the virus) is being transmitted through the placenta. That's not something that we can be sure of. Those are theories that we have to look at. It's a new virus. There still is not literature available internationally on this issue, but it will be worth reviewing," Rangel said.

Read the full story:

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Newborn triplets diagnosed with Covid-19 in stable condition, say Mexican health officials

Japan reported 89 coronavirus cases and five deaths on Wednesday, according to its health ministry.

The total number of people infected with Covid-19 in Japan stands at 18,822, with 712 from the Diamond Princess cruise ship. At least 981 people have died from coronavirus, with 13 of those from the ship.

The ministry said 16,921 patients have either been discharged from hospitals or recovered by Tuesday.

The capital Tokyo reported 55 new cases on Wednesday, marking the highest rise since May 5.

Germany's flag carrier, Lufthansa, has reached a cost-cutting deal with the representatives of its flight attendants, both the airline and the flight attendants' union said in news releases. 

According to the airline, the package will entail cost cuts of about 500 million euros ($562 million).

The German flight attendants' union (UFO) said the deal involves a guarantee that there will be no layoffs for four years.

Any reduction in cabin personnel will be reached via buyouts and early retirement plans, both news releases say. 

The deal comes as the airline gets set for an extraordinary shareholders' meeting, which has been called to approve a 9 billion euros ($10 billion) bailout from the German government for the ailing carrier.

Boston Red Sox President and CEO Sam Kennedy said he hopes that fans will at some point be able to watch games at Fenway Park this season.

“I would say it’s a possibility,” Kennedy said to reporters on Wednesday, according to MLB.com.

“If it were to become a reality, it would be because of the great work that the state of Massachusetts and the city of Boston have done."

Kennedy said Boston's leaders have been "under fire and under the gun day in and day out for four months."

Kennedy said he doesn’t known when baseball fans might be allowed back in Fenway, which is home to the Red Sox, but says he hopes it's "as soon as humanly possible."

Ecuador's vice president warned on Wednesday that public hospitals in the country's capital, Quito, have reached capacity from the coronavirus pandemic. 

Speaking at a news conference, Vice President Otto Sonnenholzner said that hospitals in Quito are feeling the strain after seeing an increase of Covid-19 patients. 

Sonnenholzner said that Ecuador plans to increase availability of intensive care units and hospital beds to help mitigate the strain.

Sonnenholzner also said they have learned from the city of Guayaquil, where overwhelmed hospitals prevented many people impacted by the virus from receiving treatment in March and April.

The vice president said Ecuador's changes will bring a higher possibility that a patient will get the medical care they need. 

Quito is now second after Guayaquil with the most number of confirmed Covid-19 cases, according to the country’s health ministry. On June 3 the capital entered a “yellow light” phase, considered as mid-level risk, which allows some mobility restrictions to be lifted and the reopening of some businesses. 

Ecuador has reported 51,643 coronavirus cases, and 4,274 deaths from the virus, according to Johns Hopkins University. 

Delhi on Wednesday surpassed Mumbai as the worst-hit Indian city by the coronavirus pandemic. 

Delhi has so far reported a total of 70,390 coronavirus cases while Mumbai has seen 69,625 cases, according to health authorities. 

The chief minister of Delhi, Arvind Kejriwal, said at a news briefing Monday that testing in the city had been ramped up to 18,000 tests per day. 

Meanwhile, India reported 16,922 new coronavirus cases on Thursday -- the highest single-day jump so far, bringing the total number of cases found in the country to 473,105, according to its health ministry. India also registered 418 virus-related deaths in the past day, raising the death toll to 14,894. 

India has now recorded over 12,000 daily new cases for the eighth consecutive day.

More than 270,000 people have so far recovered from the virus, the ministry said. 

Some experts say the recent surge in new cases in India, and Delhi in particular, is due to the unplanned easing of lockdown measures.  

The US city of Houston could be the worst-hit in the entire country if the current trajectory in Covid-19 cases continues as it has, a health expert has warned.

Dr. Peter Hotez, the dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine, said that new infection rates are also accelerating in Dallas, Austin and San Antonio, and that case numbers could rival those in Brazil.

Hotez, who is also a professor of pediatrics and molecular virology and microbiology at Baylor College of Medicine is working on a potential Covid-19 vaccine. 

He said the models are showing that Houston could have a four-fold increase in the number of daily cases by July 4.

Houston does have hospital bed capacity now, but Hotez said he is concerned about the future. “We have more room, but who wants to go there?” 

Something is needed to stop community transmission, he said. 

On Thursday, Texas announced 5,551 new Covid-19 cases -- the state's highest single-day rise. Florida and California also reported their biggest single-day increase in cases.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott warned residents on Tuesday that because the spread of the novel coronavirus is so rampant right now the safest place for citizens to be is at home. He did not issue an official order to stay home.

Reopening could have contributed: Hotez said the state was aggressive with social distancing at the start of the pandemic, which kept the number of cases down, but the state reopened at the end of April and right after Memorial day the number of cases started to rise. Hotez said the state did not put a “sufficient level” of public health infrastructure in place.

The United States reported 34,516 coronavirus cases and 751 deaths on Wednesday, according to Johns Hopkins University.

The national total now stands at 2,381,538 confirmed infections, including at least 121,979 deaths from the virus, per JHU.

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

CNN’s interactive map is tracking the US cases:

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Tracking Covid-19 cases in the US