July 10 coronavirus news

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:

The Louisiana Department of Health is reporting 2,642 new Covid-19 cases on Friday, the single highest day of new cases since the pandemic began. 

According to the Department of Health, there was one other day that reported a higher number of cases, but many of those were backlogged cases from weeks prior.

The positivity rate for tests coming in on Friday is 10.52%. The agency reported that 97% of cases today are due to community spread and 39% of the new cases are for people who are under 29 years old. 

Hospitalizations increased by 75, bringing the total number of patients in the hospital due to Covid-19 to 1,117. Hospitalizations have been trending up since mid-June, according to data released by the agency. 

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

After Dr. Anthony Fauci said that new coronavirus hotspot Florida opened too soon, Gov. Ron DeSantis said "there was no justification to not move forward." 

DeSantis defended the move to reopen, saying Florida had a "very low prevalence" of Covid-19 in May and early June, "particularly in the 64 counties outside of southern Florida." 

"We did put southern Florida on a different pathway," DeSantis said at a Friday news conference in Orlando. 

DeSantis said cases are on the rise in other parts of the country as well, not just Florida. Across the Sunbelt, "this is something that we're dealing with," said DeSantis.   

The governor did not mention Florida's 11,433 new positive cases reported today during the news conference. This marks the second time the state's single-day tally of cases topped more than 11,000, according to CNN's count.

Florida health officials reported 11,458 cases on July 4, according to CNN's tally.