July 10 coronavirus news

As President Trump visits Florida's Miami-Dade County today, the area is seeing a staggering increase in the number of Covid-19 patients being hospitalized in the past 13 days, according to the latest data released by Miami-Dade County government.

There has been a 74% increase in Covid-19 patients being hospitalized, an 88% increase in the number of intensive care unit beds being used and a 123% increase in the use of ventilators, data shows.

With regards to its positivity rate, county officials reported a 28% Covid-19 positivity rate on Friday, according to data released by Mayor Carlos Giménez's office.  

Giménez's office has said the goal is to not exceed a positivity rate of 10%. The county has exceeded the 18% mark for the past 14 days. The current 14-day average is 25%, the data shows.

Remember: The positivity rate is the percentage of people who test positive for the virus of those overall who have been tested. So, as more and more people are being tested, the focus is shifting to the positivity rate  — how many of those tested are actually infected.

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy reported that the daily positivity rate for Covid-19 tests in the state is 2.23%, which he said is an improvement over the last few days. That percentage is for tests conducted on July 6.

Murphy also announced the rate of transmission has dipped to 0.98%. 

“Thank God, let’s keep it there,” Murphy said during his news conference Friday.

New Covid-19 cases have increased slightly to 367. That’s up from 335 announced on Wednesday. The total number of coronavirus cases in New Jersey since March 4 stands at 176,628.

The total number of Covid-19 deaths in the state is now 13,352, with probable deaths at 1,947.

The governor has urged residents to go out and get tested because he says the more testing, the more precise the number gets.

There are currently 244 Covid-19 testing sites across the state, and on Monday and Tuesday, the state partnered with Montclair to provide free coronavirus tests, Murphy said.

Note: The figures above were released by the New Jersey governor’s office and may not line up exactly in real time with CNN’s database drawn from Johns Hopkins University and the Covid Tracking Project.

More than 300,000 coronavirus cases have been confirmed in California, with 7,798 new cases reported today, according to state's Department of Public Health.

About 40% of the state's 304,297 reported cases have been recorded in Los Angeles County. 

Hospitalization and intensive care unit rates continue to reach record highs with more than 6,000 patients currently being treated for Covid-19.

The number of deaths recorded in the last day is 140, bringing the state’s cumulative total to at least 6,851. The only day with a higher number of deaths was yesterday, when the state reported 149.

California’s positivity rate as a 14-day average is climbing and currently stands at 7.4% with people between the ages of 18 and 49 accounting for almost 60% of all cases. That age group makes up only about 43.5% of California’s population.

Note: These numbers were released by California Department of Public Health and may not line up exactly in real time with CNN’s database, which is drawn from Johns Hopkins University and the Covid Tracking Project.

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has sent a letter to President Trump requesting he authorize the use of Michigan National Guard forces through December 31, according to a statement from the governor’s office.

According to the statement, an extension of authority would also mean that many Michigan National Guard members will qualify for federal retirement and education benefits made available under the GI Bill. 

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, speaking at a news conference Friday, said the cost of "not giving kids an option to be able to have in-person instruction is enormous."

DeSantis said reopening schools "should not be a political issue, it should be based on the facts and if we see that this is very low risk, and we see, I think overwhelmingly, in every study that the school kids are not vectors of transmission."

Schools have opened in other parts of the world and "have not seen major problems but you can always have an outbreak," said DeSantis.

Harris County Public Health closed testing at 12 p.m. local time due to a heat advisory in the area. 

According to their social media accounts, anyone who had an appointment for this afternoon can return Saturday to get tested. Normal testing hours will resume Saturday, according to a post on the HCPH website. 

Temperatures in the area are forecast to climb between 105 to 110 degrees today, according the National Weather Service in Houston.

Read the tweet:

New York state will send remdesivir, the drug used to fight Covid-19, to Florida to help the state fight the resurgence of Covid-19 cases, a statement from Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s office said.

The statement issued Friday said the drug should arrive in Florida on Saturday and that New York is sending enough of the medication to help state care for at least 280 Covid-19 patients while it waits for federal aid. 

"We will stand by our fellow Americans every step of the way as our nation fights COVID-19 together," he added.

Remember: In the US, remdesivir  — currently administered intravenously through infusions  — is the only drug that has an emergency use authorization from the US Food and Drug Administration to treat coronavirus infections. Gilead originally studied remdesivir as a potential treatment for Ebola, but lab experiments suggested it might be active against the coronavirus that causes Covid-19.

According to a study published in May by the New England Journal of Medicine, data showed remdesivir shortened the course of illness from an average of 15 days to about 11 days. The maker of the drug, Gilead, later announced in a statement that claimed remdesivir could also be helpful in treating moderate Covid-19 pneumonia.

CNN's Nadine Schmidt contributed to this report.

West Virginia currently has the highest rate of transmission of Covid-19 in the country, the state's coronavirus czar Dr. Clay Marsh said during a news conference Friday.

Marsh said the state has a rate of transmission of 1.37.

"We have moved, unfortunately, from number two to number one. We now have the highest RT number in the country," Marsh said. "Per that calculation, the virus is spreading faster person to person in West Virginia right now than any other state in the country."

The daily positivity rate is now 3.86% in the state, which Gov. Jim Justice said is "not where we want to be."

Justice said people need to continue to wear masks and socially distance to help prevent further spread so that hospital systems in the state aren't overwhelmed by a potential surge. 

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, continues to contradict President Trump on coronavirus, including sharing differing descriptions about the seriousness of the pandemic in the US.

While President Trump has pushed to reopen schools and downplay the surge of cases, Fauci warned in a Wall Street Journal podcast yesterday that states with resurging coronavirus cases "should seriously look at shutting down." Fauci later noted that states with spiking coronavirus cases still can contain them by pausing their reopening processes, rather than shutting down a second time.

In an interview published earlier today, Fauci said he's "trying to figure out" where President Trump got the number behind his claim that 99% of coronavirus cases were "harmless."

On July 4, Trump sought to downplay the surge in Covid-19 cases by falsely claiming that testing in the US shows 99% of cases "are totally harmless."

Fauci told FT that he last saw Trump on June 2 at the White House, and hasn't personally briefed him in at least two months.

Here's a sampling of how Fauci has contradicted the President's misinformation on-camera: