July 1 coronavirus news

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp says there is no plan at this time for a statewide mandate for face masks. 

During a press conference on Wednesday, Kemp said the issue of mask mandates is being "over politicized." The governor says they shouldn't need a mandate for people to do the right thing.

Kemp said he will continue to monitor the data on Covid-19 infections across the state, however he doesn't think a mandate will be necessary. 

However, while there's no mandate, Kemp is asking people to wear masks: The governor said he is traveling around the state today to encourage people to wear a mask when they're in public. He's also urging them to socially distance and wash.

Read which states are requiring people to wear masks when out in public here.

Surges in new Covid-19 infections have paused or rolled back reopening plans in at least 19 states as the nation's top infectious disease doctor offered a bleak warning: Americans need to take sensible measures to curb the spread or risk seeing 100,000 new cases a day.

Turning it around will take a coordinated, collaborative effort, he said at the hearing, not the "disparate responses" the nation has shown so far.

Only two US states — New Jersey and Rhode Island — are showing a downward trend in cases compared to the last week while at least 37 states have seen an increase in cases. At least 12 states of those states are seeing a 50% or more increase in cases.

Here's where cases are increasing across the US:

Peyton Chesser, a 23-year-old Texas resident who recently recovered from coronavirus, says she thinks the state opened too soon, and it’s been a challenge to sift through conflicting messages about the virus from federal and state officials.

“For me, it was hard to decide what is appropriate if some states are completely locked down and my state is almost operating at full capacity, it was hard to know exactly where the line stood, just because there was so much conflicting information that I was receiving," she added. 

Chesser said she doesn’t know exactly how she contracted the virus, as she largely stayed home and followed guidelines for months.

She said she was sick for about eight days, and she experienced a sore throat, skin sensitivity and a cough. She lost her sense of smell and taste about four days into the virus, but she never experienced a high fever while she was sick.

As the state has experienced a jump in cases, Gov. Greg Abbott has closed bars in an attempt to prevent large crowds from congregating.

“I think taking a step back has made a lot of other people realize how serious it really is. And so my message to everyone in general is just do your part and take care of everyone in the community,” Chesser said. 

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has defended his government's response to a coronavirus outbreak in Leicester, the first city in UK to have a local lockdown imposed because of its high Covid-19 infection rate.

"We acted decisively and I think it was the right thing to do," UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said about the decision to reimpose a lockdown in the city.

He was challenged by opposition Labour leader Keir Starmer over the length of time it took to lockdown the city after concerns were first raised about an outbreak.

During Prime Minister’s Questions in Parliament, Starmer also raised issues with testing data in Leicester saying "there was a lost week while the virus was spreading" and there are now fears of more local lockdowns across the country.

Johnson said Starmer was "mistaken" and data had been shared with local authorities.

WATCH: 

More than 10.4 million people worldwide have been infected with Covid-19, according to Johns Hopkins University (JHU).

In the US, which has the highest number of cases and the world's worst death toll, Dr. Anthony Fauci said he is "very concerned" with the increase in cases in some parts of the country and said he wouldn’t be surprised if the US begins to see new cases coming in at 100,000 a day, given current trends.  

According to JHU, there are more than 2.6 million cases of coronavirus in the US and more than 127,400 people have died.

Here's what you need to know about the outbreak around the world today:

United Airlines announced Wednesday that it is adding 25,000 more flights in August than it plans for July, tripling the schedule it ran in June.

While this is a significant uptick and a sign that the airline expects passenger demand to pick up, this is still just 40% of its schedule from a year ago, due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

United says the new flights in August include “more flights to mountain and national park destinations like Aspen, Colorado; Bangor, Maine; Bozeman, Montana; and Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Internationally, United's August schedule will include a return to Tahiti and additional flights to Hawaii, the Caribbean and Mexico. Across the Atlantic, United will add more flights and options to Brussels, Frankfurt, London, Munich, Paris and Zurich.”

The German interior ministry and the Czech foreign ministry have published a list of countries outside the European Union whose citizens will be allowed entry.

The set of countries for Germany is:

Meanwhile, the Czech Republic also published its travel list on Tuesday, which is down to eight countries:

EU opens its borders -- but not to Americans: The European Union Tuesday formally agreed a set of recommendations allowing travelers from outside the bloc to visit EU countries, months after it shut its external borders in response to the outbreak of Covid-19.

The list of countries included in the EU recommendations are: Algeria, Australia, Canada, Georgia, Japan, Montenegro, Morocco, New Zealand, Rwanda, Serbia, South Korea, Thailand, Tunisia, Uruguay.

As had been widely expected, the list of 14 countries did not include the United States, whose current Covid infection rate does not meet the criteria set by the EU for it to be considered a "safe country."

The criteria requires that confirmed Covid cases in countries on the list are similar or below that of the EU's per 100,000 citizens over the previous 14 days (starting from June 15).

Countries must also have a "stable or decreasing trend of new cases over this period in comparison to the previous 14 days," while the EU will consider what measures countries are taking, such as contact tracing, and how reliable each nation's data is.

The US has not only the highest number of reported coronavirus infections of any nation, but also the highest number of deaths, according to the latest data from Johns Hopkins University.

US infection rates will need to dramatically drop if Americans are to be allowed entry to EU countries, just as the European tourism industry enters what are traditionally its peak months.

Spain and Portugal reopened their joint land border to all travelers on Wednesday, after a three-month closure due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Spain had wanted to reopen all of its borders on June 21, but Portugal insisted that the border between the two countries remain closed until July 1.

In a series of tweets early on Wednesday, Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa said: "Today we mark at the highest level the normalization of terrestrial traffic at the border between Portugal and Spain. It's a reunion between neighbors which are brothers and friends."

He said: “It is essential for both countries that the contacts gradually acquire the dimension and dynamic that preceded the outset of the pandemic. I think in particular of the border populations, which cross the border daily".

"The pandemic offered us a vision of a past to which we do not want to return: a continent of closed borders. Freedom of circulation has solidified itself in the spirit of European citizens as one of the fundamental principles of the idea of Europe," Costa added.

The number of Jewish burials in the UK during March to May 2020 was more than double that of last year, as senior figures warn that the Jewish community has "disproportionately" suffered losses from Covid-19.

There were 811 burials in March to May this year, compared to 358 in the previous year -- an increase of 127%, according to the Board of Deputies of British Jews.

Last month, analysis from the UK's Office For National Statistics (ONS) found that people who identified as Jewish showed higher Covid-19 mortality rates than other groups, along with Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs.

When adjusting for region, population density, socio-demographic and household characteristics and ethnic background, ONS found that those who had identified as Jewish at the time of the 2011 population census showed an increased risk of a death involving Covid-19 compared with the Christian population, with Jewish men at twice the risk of Christian men.

The Board of Deputies said that their research suggested the Jewish community had suffered two and half times as many deaths as its proportion of the general population alone would have predicted.

"The reopening of some synagogues this Shabbat will come as a relief to many of us, as some aspects of our Jewish way of life return to normal," President of the Board of Deputies Marie van der Zyl said in a statement on Tuesday.

"But as these figures show, we have disproportionately lost loved ones, friends and family as a community. It is critical we follow Government guidance and caution going forward to save lives," she added.

As of the week ending June 26, the Board of Deputies said it has recorded 501 Jewish funerals carried out where the deceased contracted Covid-19.