July 14 coronavirus news

By Jessie Yeung, Steve George, Tara John, Meg Wagner, Mike Hayes and Melissa Macaya, CNN

Updated 0450 GMT (1250 HKT) July 15, 2020
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7:11 a.m. ET, July 14, 2020

Another case detected at US Air Base in Okinawa

From CNN’s Ivan Watson in Hong Kong

The Kadena Air Base, pictured on June 22.
The Kadena Air Base, pictured on June 22. Kyodo News/Getty Images

An additional case of Covid-19 was reported Tuesday at the US Kadena Air Base on the Japanese island of Okinawa, a statement from the base said.

The additional case means a total of 99 US military personnel and their families have now been diagnosed with Covid-19 across six US military facilities in Japan since July 7.

US military personnel on Okinawa are on virtual lockdown after cases emerged from several bases on the island.

The lockdown order, which was issued Saturday morning, bans almost all off-base movement by the tens of thousands of US military personnel unless approved by an officer with the rank of lieutenant colonel or above.

Read more:

8:08 a.m. ET, July 14, 2020

This teen is stuck in solitary confinement 23 hours a day because of coronavirus

From CNN's Phil Black, Katie Polglase, Barbara Arvanitidis, Gianluca Mezzofiore and Alex Platt in London

John spent his 16th birthday the same way he's spent every day during the UK's Covid-19 lockdown — alone in a cell for 23 hours, with no visits, no internet and few phone calls. He is one of hundreds of children locked up in UK prisons, the forgotten casualties of the pandemic.

"It gives you a lot of time to think and my thoughts aren't always positive," John tells his lawyer, Jude Lanchin, on the rare occasion that she gets access to the prison video link service. "I struggle to sleep," he adds.

In the UK, teens and children aged 18 and younger are held in what the government refers to as secure children's homes, secure training centers and young offender institutions. The lawyers CNN spoke to universally refer to such institutions as prisons.

A CNN crew was allowed to observe Lanchin's call with her client and has changed his name due to UK reporting restrictions for ongoing criminal cases involving children.

I get thirty minutes out a day and then apart from that I'm just in my cell, just thinking," John says. "There's a lot of time to think, and it messes with your head a little bit."

The restrictions have been imposed by the UK government as part of the Covid-19 lockdown. Visits have been temporarily suspended and time outside of prison cells has been severely reduced, as part of broader measures to enforce social distancing in prisons due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

According to multiple lawyers and experts CNN has spoken to, these restrictions have left children like John in solitary confinement.

The United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, known as the Mandela rules, define solitary confinement as 22 hours a day or more without meaningful human contact.

Read the rest of the report here:

6:40 a.m. ET, July 14, 2020

Hong Kong confirms 48 new cases. Half of them can't be traced

From Vanesse Chan and Isaac Yee in Hong Kong

A health worker outside a residential building in Hong Kong where a case was confirmed on July 11.
A health worker outside a residential building in Hong Kong where a case was confirmed on July 11. Qin Louyue/China News Service/Getty Images

Hong Kong on Tuesday reported 48 additional coronavirus cases, comprised of 40 locally transmitted cases and 8 imported cases.

The news comes after the government announced new social distancing measures to contain the latest outbreak, which will come into force at midnight on Wednesday.

Officials say 24 of the new locally transmitted cases could not be traced, and worries are high about about the number of asymptomatic cases.

Dr. Chuang Shuk-kwan, of Hong Kong’s Centre for Health Protection, said several of the new cases were linked back to clusters at elderly care home facilities and restaurants. 

“The number of cases is quite high, [it] is around 50 [per day] in recent few days. More worrying is the proportion of unknown cases among those reported cases,” said Chuang.

She warned that “there are lots of unknown sources in the community that can spread easily, and they may be asymptomatic.”

“We are facing challenges of increasing infection control measures within the hospital authority,” said Chuang, who added that a patient in a general ward of Queen Elizabeth hospital was among the newly confirmed cases today, whilst another was a cleaner at another hospital.

The new cases brings the city's total up to 1,569.

8:13 a.m. ET, July 14, 2020

Nearly 200 Jackson Health System employees in Miami have Covid-19

From CNN’s Rosa Flores

An entrance at Jackson Memorial Hospital is shown on July 9 in Miami.
An entrance at Jackson Memorial Hospital is shown on July 9 in Miami. Wilfredo Lee/AP

As the number of Covid-19 cases continues to surge in the Miami area, staffing has become a challenge for Jackson Health in Miami.  

Nearly 200 Jackson Health employees are currently out with Covid-19, according to senior director of communication Jennifer Piedra. Most employees who test positive are out for 10 to 12 days.

Since July 1, 887 Jackson Health employees have been symptomatic or exposed to Covid-19, the hospital spokeswoman said. The positivity rate of employees who have been tested is 23%.

The state of Florida has dispatched 100 temporary nurses to Jackson Health. More than half of these nurses are already on site, and the rest are expected to be on board this week, according to Piedra. Jackson Health has also recently hired 100 nurses.

On Monday, the health system's infectious disease expert said "Miami is now the epicenter of the pandemic," as she compared the south Florida metropolitan area to where the pandemic originated.

"What we were seeing in Wuhan -- six months ago, five months ago -- now we are there," Lilian Abbo, with the Jackson Health System, said during a news conference Monday.

Read more here:

8:13 a.m. ET, July 14, 2020

Cases and ventilator use continue to soar in Miami-Dade County

From CNN’s Rosa Flores

Cars line up as drivers wait to be tested for Covid-19 at the Miami Beach convention center on Monday.
Cars line up as drivers wait to be tested for Covid-19 at the Miami Beach convention center on Monday. Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Miami-Dade County has continued to see staggeringly high Covid-19 positivity rates and an increase in the number of hospitalizations and ventilator use, according to the latest data released by the county's government.

In the past 13 days, Miami-Dade County has seen a 68% increase in the number of Covid-19 patients being hospitalized, a 69% increase in the number of ICU beds being used, and a 109% increase in the use of ventilators.

Officials also reported a 28% Covid-19 positivity rate on Monday. The county has exceeded the 22% mark for the past two weeks, and the current 14-day average is 26%, the data shows.

The positivity rate -- how many of those tested are actually infected -- is tracked daily by the county. Mayor Carlos Gimenez's office has said the goal is to not exceed a positivity rate of 10%.  

Here is a breakdown of the hospitalization data released by the county government:

Covid-19 patients:

6/30: 1,202

7/13: 2,023

Patients in ICU beds:

6/30: 245

7/13: 413 

Patients on ventilators:

6/30: 103

7/13: 215

9:27 a.m. ET, July 14, 2020

Lockdown returns to a Manila city from Thursday

From CNN’s Sophie Jeong in Seoul

A fisherman wades in rising sea water at a port in Navotas city, Philippines, as a typhoon approached the region on May 14.
A fisherman wades in rising sea water at a port in Navotas city, Philippines, as a typhoon approached the region on May 14. Francis R. Malasig/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

One of the 16 cities that make up Metro Manila will go into lockdown for two weeks from Thursday after it saw coronavirus cases “suddenly inflate,” the Mayor of Navotas said Monday on his official Facebook page.

The lockdown will begin at 5 a.m. (5 p.m. ET) on July 16 and end on July 29 at 11:50 p.m., Toby Tiangco said on Facebook.

"Residents will have a scheduled day to go out of the house and shop for groceries, medicine and other needs. Only those holding a home quarantine pass will be allowed to leave their homes. Essential workers are allowed to go to work, but no mass gatherings will be permitted," he added.

Navotas had a total of 981 confirmed cases on Monday, Tiangco wrote. The city has a population of 249,463, according to the city government’s website.

“Due to the continuous increase of our patients, our community isolation facilities have been filled ... even some hospitals in Metro Manila have reached full capacity,” Tiangco said. “We are hoping that through lockdown, we can slow the increase of cases in our city.”

5:54 a.m. ET, July 14, 2020

A Texas man, who thought coronavirus was a hoax, dies after attending "Covid party"

From CNN’s Joe Sutton

A 30-year-old man in San Antonio, Texas, died in a city hospital after attending a "Covid party," where people intentionally get infected.

San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg discussed the case with CNN on Monday, saying these parties were happening in other states, too.

"It comes from the fact that people have been hearing that from politicians that this might be a hoax," he said. "And so we saw in this particular case ... a young person attended a Covid party with a known positive case because they thought they were invincible, that this wouldn’t affect them."

"This was a Memorial Day party at the lake. Five days later, this young man got sick and again the last thing he said to that hospital tech nurse is that he was wrong. And unfortunately, too many young people are wrong."

Dr. Jane Appleby, chief medical officer at San Antonio's Methodist Hospital, confirmed over the weekend that a patient died after getting sick at a Covid party.

Appleby said the patient told the nurse, “I think I made a mistake. I thought this was a hoax, but it’s not.”

Covid parties: Reports first emerged in early July that some young people in Alabama are throwing Covid-19 parties, a disturbing competition where people who have coronavirus attend and the first person to get infected receives a payout.

9:25 a.m. ET, July 14, 2020

Singapore's recession is officially here

From CNN's Michelle Toh in Hong Kong

Cyclists riding along Marina Bay overlooking the financial business district in Singapore on July 14.
Cyclists riding along Marina Bay overlooking the financial business district in Singapore on July 14. Roslan Rahman/AFP/Getty Images

Singapore has fallen into a deep economic slump — and it's even worse than many had predicted.

The government said Tuesday that GDP likely shrank 12.6% in the second quarter compared to the same time the previous year, marking "the steepest drop on record," according to economists.

GDP shrank by 41.2% in the second quarter compared to the previous three months, more than most analysts had expected.

That officially pushed the country into a recession. Singapore's GDP had already fallen by 0.3% in the first quarter on a year-on-year basis. A recession is defined as two consecutive quarters of negative growth.

The latest decline was due to strict government restrictions, known locally as "circuit breaker" measures, which were enforced from April to June as the country dealt with a sudden spike in coronavirus cases.

This included the shutdown of many businesses, including "the suspension of nonessential services and closure of most workplace premises," the Ministry of Trade and Industry noted in a statement.

Officials had already been bracing for bad news. Prior to the new numbers, the government had slashed the country's economic forecast three times this year alone.

But "it's not all gloom and doom," Yun Liu, an economist at HSBC, wrote in a report to clients.

Recession is here, but it's a short one," she added.

Some analysts believe the worst is over for Singapore, particularly since the government has deployed billions of dollars in stimulus measures to shore up the flagging economy.

"Looking ahead, Q2 will mark the trough," Alex Holmes, Asia economist at Capital Economics, wrote in a research note Tuesday.

"The key reason for optimism is the huge size of the government’s stimulus package, which is equivalent to around 20% of GDP."

9:27 a.m. ET, July 14, 2020

America shuts down again — choosing reality over Trump's false claims

Analysis from CNN's Stephen Collinson

An employee at the Clevelander bar and restaurant stacks chairs as they have shut down due to public health concerns caused by Covid-19 in Miami Beach, Florida on July 13.
An employee at the Clevelander bar and restaurant stacks chairs as they have shut down due to public health concerns caused by Covid-19 in Miami Beach, Florida on July 13. Lynne Sladky/AP

While US President Donald Trump obsesses about his reelection hopes in his White House bubble, state and local leaders are frantically reversing state reopenings that he demanded, which turned America into the world's biggest coronavirus hotspot.

As emergency rooms filled and the virus quickened its relentless march across southern and Western states, Trump stuck to the fiction that the worst is already over: "We had to close it down; now we're opening it up," the President said of the economy at the White House, patting himself on the back for saving "millions of lives."

As new cases of the disease reach 60,000 a day nationwide, many leaders in both parties, including those who supported Trump's aggressive approach, now have little choice but to prioritize science over politics, leaving the President looking out of touch with reality.

  • In Texas, Houston's mayor proposed a two-week shutdown, days after Gov. Greg Abbott raised the possibility of more stringent measures.
  • In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered the closure of all indoor restaurants, wineries, movie theaters, zoos, museums and shut all bars.
  • Oregon banned gatherings of more than 10 people inside because of an "alarming rise" of Covid-19 cases in the state.
  • Florida now has more Covid-19 cases than all but eight entire countries.

The picture is of a nation that is beginning to shut down again in defiance of the President's triumphant but misleading claims that a "transition to greatness" is under way.

Restrictions imposed on cities as large as Houston and Los Angeles could set back the surprising revival in the economy last month. Modest job gains, trumpeted by the President, could turn into permanent job losses.

Read the full analysis here: