By Helen Regan, Steve George, Laura Smith-Spark, Ed Upright, Melissa Macaya, Mike Hayes and Meg Wagner, CNN
From CNN's Melissa Alonso
Florida health officials are reporting at least 9,989 new Covid-19 cases for the state on Wednesday, according to data from Florida Department of Health.
The record for the most daily coronavirus cases in a single day in the state, which was set last week, is more than 11,400.
From CNN's Darya Tarasova and Zamira Rahim
Authorities have dug double trenches around the rural Siberian village of Shuluta to prevent people from entering and exiting the area during its coronavirus quarantine.
Dozens of villagers have contracted Covid-19 during the pandemic, reported Reuters news agency. Officials believe the disease spread in Shuluta after residents took part in a traditional shaman ritual on June 10 performed by an infected woman, according to Reuters.
The twin trenches were constructed on June 29 after people tried to enter the remote village by car, said Dora Khamaganova, a local administration official. They also prevent tourists who are visiting the nearby Tunka National Park from entering Shuluta.
"Double trenches, in fact, fairly deep double ditches, surrounded the village with an almost closed ring," Khamaganova wrote in a Facebook post on June 29.
"Disinfection of residential and non-residential buildings in both villages has been made in full. The disinfectors... are working day and night, practically without any breaks."
Khamaganova's post added that authorities are doing everything they can to limit the entry and exit of people from Shuluta.
At least 37 people living in the village have contracted coronavirus, out of a population of 390, reported Reuters.
According to Khamaganova's post, Ivan Alheev, the head of administration for the Tunka region, said that two residents of the villages of Shuluta and nearby Torah had known about their positive coronavirus results and will face prosecution at the end of quarantine.
Russia has 699,749 cases of coronavirus, the fourth highest total in the world, according to Johns Hopkins University.
From CNN Health's Jacqueline Howard
The United States is still on track to possibly have a Covid-19 vaccine by the end of year or early next year, but the nation's top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, warned there is still some uncertainty.
In a video message and presentation shown during a virtual panel held by the United Nations Academic Impact initiative on Wednesday, Fauci noted that many vaccine candidates currently are being studied, including the biotechnology company Moderna's mRNA vaccine, whose phase three trial was recently delayed to start later this month or in early August.
Promising results so far from that vaccine candidate and some others "makes me cautiously optimistic, although you can never, ever predict with any certainty whether a vaccine is going to be safe and effective," Fauci said during the presentation.
He continued:
"The early data on these trial have us have a cautious optimism that we will be successful at least in developing a vaccine with some degree of efficacy by the end of the year, beginning of 2021."
Watch more:
From CNN's Nick Valencia
Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms is expected to sign an executive order that will mandate facial coverings in the city.
Michael Smith, a spokesperson for the mayor told CNN that “details are forthcoming.”
The face mask development was first reported by WABE.
From CNN's Kristina Sgueglia
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said Wednesday that if schools reopen in the fall, the approach will be “blended learning” — meaning “at some points in the week, you're learning in person in the classroom; at other points of the week, you’re learning remotely.”
“Most schools will not be able to have all their kids in school at the same time” de Blasio said, adding that most students will be in school 2 or 3 days a week.
Remember: New York state has not decided if schools will be open in September but has asked each of the 700 districts to come up with a plan.
From CNN's Betsy Klein
President Trump tweeted Wednesday his disagreement with the US Centers from Disease Control and Prevention's guidelines for safely reopening schools, calling their recommendations "very tough" and "expensive."
He also threatened he "may cut off funding" to schools that do not reopen, though the bulk of public school funding comes from state and local governments.
"I disagree with @CDCgov on their very tough & expensive guidelines for opening schools. While they want them open, they are asking schools to do very impractical things. I will be meeting with them!!!" the President tweeted.
The CDC's guidelines encourage hygiene, the use of cloth face coverings and staying home when appropriate. It also suggests staggered scheduling, a back-up staffing plan, modified seating layouts to allow social distancing, physical barriers and closing of communal spaces.
Trump, who has advocated for reopening states as cases surge, said Tuesday he would pressure governors to reopen schools this fall during a discussion with educators, administrators, students, and parents.
"We hope that most schools are going to be open," Trump said at a White House event, baselessly claiming that some places will want to stay closed "for political reasons."
"They think it's going to be good for them politically, so they keep the schools closed," the President alleged without evidence. "No way."
"We're very much going to put pressure on governors and everybody else to open the schools, to get them open," Trump said, who has been anxious to reopen America to kickstart the economy and otherwise move on from the pandemic, despite its resurgence.
About school funding: Most funding for America's schools comes from the state and local level — over 90%, according to Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, but schools do get some targeted funding from the Department of Education. That federal funding often affects the nation's most vulnerable students.
But educators and administrators have called on the federal government to supplement funding for personal protective equipment and other resources, such as additional school buses, to reconfigure classrooms in order to safely reopen.
Republicans in the Senate are planning to unveil a stimulus bill that includes federal spending to re-open schools and childcare facilities. Democrats have also included proposals to get schools re-opened in their stimulus proposals.
Trump told Nextstar in an interview Tuesday that he had time to consider school reopening.
"Well, we have a long time to think about the school stuff. Because, you know. But we want to have the schools open," Trump said. "I would say that when we talk about the fall, that seems like a long time. It's a long time."
But many school districts in the south, where coronavirus cases are rising, begin the school year in just a few short weeks.
And while the President is hopeful the pandemic will improve over the next month, a trusted model from the University of Washington is forecasting an uptick in deaths this fall and increased its death toll projection to over 208,000 deaths by November.
CNN's Sara Murray, Kristen Holmes, Maegan Vazquez, Ben Tinker and Fredreka Schouten contributed to this report.
WATCH ORANGE COUNTY, FLORIDA TEACHERS UNION PRESIDENT RESPOND:
From CNN's Sara Weisfeldt, Rosa Flores and Melissa Alonso
The federal government on Tuesday deemed Jacksonville, Florida a Covid-19 hotspot and said it will temporarily increase surge testing efforts there, according to a Department of Health and Human Services press release.
Jacksonville is one of three cities identified by the department as having "significant increases" in coronavirus cases and hospitalizations, according to a HHS press release. The other two hotspots are Baton Rouge, Louisiana and Edinburg, Texas.
Jacksonville Mayor Lenny Curry is currently in quarantine after coming into contact with someone who had tested positive for coronavirus.
The current situation in Florida is a stark contrast from two months ago, when Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis defended the reopening of beaches and asked critics to send apologies.
At a press briefing on May 4th, DeSantis said this about Jacksonville:
“The facts are that since this has happened hospitalizations, ICU, rate of positivity, ventilators that has all declined, those people were wrong, and the folks in Duval County behaved appropriately. I think apologies can be sent to city of Jacksonville attention Mayor Curry, you may want to CC the mayors of Neptune Beach, Jacksonville Beach and Atlantic Beach, but I won't hold my breath on that happening.”
Remember: Many Republicans are expected travel to Jacksonville next month for the GOP convention.
From CNN Health's Jacqueline Howard
US Surgeon General Dr. Jerome Adams has called wearing a mask or face covering "the most important thing" that people can do right now to allow the nation to open and stay open.
"We have the ability to slow the spread of Covid if we wear face coverings. It's the most important thing in my opinion that we can do that will allow us to open and stay open," Adams told the local news station FOX 5 in Washington, DC, on Wednesday morning.
"Coronavirus can get bad really quickly, but I want people to understand that we can improve the coronavirus rates really quickly in the course of two to three weeks," Adams said. "There are studies that show that you can decrease the spread of coronavirus by 60%, 70% if you can get 80-plus% of people wearing face coverings when they go out in public."
Yet Adams added that he still does not support a nationwide mandate for face coverings — he said that someone has to explain how such a mandate would "actually function" and he worries about "over-policing."
"Someone has to explain to me how a nationwide mandate would actually function. ... We aren't going to send in the National Guard or the Army to enforce a national mandate. We don't have an enforcement mechanism really to do that," Adams said.
"I support local and state mask mandates if governors and mayors want to do that, but I think we have to help educate people. We've got to make sure the enforcement mechanism is something that's not going to be overly onerous. People are more likely to cooperate if they know why they're doing that and if they actually know how they're going to benefit," Adams said. "I'd rather help educate you and have you choose to do it than to force people to do it."
It's just past midnight in Melbourne, which means the Australian city has gone into a six-week lockdown following a rise in coronavirus cases.
Melbourne has a population of almost five million people who will be affected by the measure.
Under the new "Stay at Home" stage three lockdown, the only reasons residents will be able to leave home is for grocery shopping, caregiving, exercise or work. Police and the army will monitor roadblocks to clamp down on people who do not need to be outside.
Before today, 31 local government areas of Metropolitan Melbourne were already at stage 3, and a residential block housing around three thousand residents were in hard lockdown.
Victoria State Premier Daniel Andrews posted on his verified Facebook page that "I know people will be feeling a lot of different emotions tonight. No one wants to be in this situation. But in the absence of a vaccine, the only way to defeat this virus is to deprive it of what it needs to spread."
Andrews warned in a post that "for every restriction that you break and all the health advice that you ignore – the consequence maybe someone’s life. Now more than ever, we need Victorians to play their part. Lives are counting on it."
