July 14 coronavirus news

A "misstep" in communicating to the public the benefits of wearing a mask early in the Covid-19 pandemic has hurt its "credibility" as public health tool, said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. 

Fauci on Tuesday said that in the beginning of the pandemic, health officials in the country were trying to make sure health care workers had enough personal protective equipment, including masks, as hospitals filled with Covid-19 patients.

"What got, I think, a little bit misrepresented in that message was not that it was just we wanted to preserve them, but they don't really work that well anyway," Fauci said in an interview with CNN Contributor Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, host of the Crooked Media podcast "America Dissected."

As new data started to come out showing the effectiveness of wearing masks to reduce the spread of the virus and on the significant percentage of people infected with the virus who are asymptomatic, it became even more clear that everybody should wear a mask, Fauci said. 

"It's almost as if we should say everybody should assume that you're an asymptomatic infected person. And that's the reason why you should wear a mask. But unfortunately that misstep in the beginning, when the connection between saving a short supply was equated with 'they don't have much benefit anyway, so why wear it?' ... I mean, that was the misstep. And you're right, it made it now a real challenge in communication," Fauci said.

A 16-day lockdown will begin in the Eastern Indian state of Bihar starting on July 16, the Bihar government announced in an order on Tuesday. 

The lockdown was issued in view of the "alarming surge in Covid-19 positive cases in State of Bihar in last three weeks wherein positivity rate has also been considerably high," the order read. 

During the statewide lockdown, all government offices, commercial and private establishments, transport services, educational institutions, places of worship and parks will remain shut with the exception of certain essential services. 

All hospital and medical facilities will remain open, agricultural activities, construction activities, industrial establishments will continue, with the implementation of necessary precautions and social distancing norms, according to the order. 

Bihar has 17,959 cases of coronavirus including 160 deaths as of Tuesday, according to the Indian Ministry of Health.

Meanwhile, the northern state of Punjab issued a complete ban on public gatherings, a statement issued by the government of Punjab on Monday said. 

The eastern states of Jharkhand and West Bengal and the western state of Maharashtra had also issued lockdowns which are due to end on July 31 and Uttar Pradesh announced a weekend lockdown till the end of July. 

The lockdown in Bengaluru, the capital of South Indian state of Karnataka, is also set to start Tuesday at 8pm local after a sudden surge of coronavirus cases in that region.

India currently has more than 900,000 total cases of coronavirus including 23,727 deaths and 571,460 recoveries according to the Indian Ministry of Health. The country has the third highest number of total cases in the world, behind US and Brazil, according to Johns Hopkins University data.

Philadelphia has cancelled all large public events through February 28, 2021, Lauren Cox, deputy communications director in Mayor Jim Kenney’s office, told CNN Tuesday morning.

“This is in regards to events that the City permits on public property (like parades and festivals), it does not apply to events on private property—including sports stadiums and concert venues,” she said.

“Decisions on how to resume those types of events will be based on current public health guidance as the situation in Philadelphia progresses," she added.  

Additional details will be shared during the mayor's press conference later today at 1 p.m. ET.

US stocks opened lower Tuesday after big banks warned of significant challenges to the economic recovery.

Here's how things looked as the market opened:

More context: The shaky start comes after Wall Street suffered a sharp reversal Monday. A 563-point rally for the Dow fizzled following California’s decision to close bars, restaurants and other indoor spaces because of the pandemic. 

JPMorgan Chase kicked off bank earnings season Tuesday by saying its profits plunged 51% as provisions for credit losses spiked. CEO Jamie Dimon warned, “We still face much uncertainty regarding the future path of the economy.” 

Wells Fargo’s stock tumbled 6% after the troubled bank suffered its first quarterly loss since 2008 and warned it will likely slash its dividend by 80%. That would make Wells Fargo the first big bank to lower its dividend during the recession.

Four former directors of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have written that they have never seen science be so influenced by politics, in an op-ed published Wednesday in The Washington Post.

One of the roles of the CDC is to provide sound public health guidance, which is essential during a pandemic. 

Speaking about the school reopening guidelines from the CDC, the former directors said that while it is not unusual for guidelines to be altered or changed after going through a clearance process, it is “extraordinary for guidelines to be undermined after their release.”

Guidelines should only be changed for new information and science, not because of politics, they said.

Writing about reopening schools and businesses amid a worsening pandemic, they said that public health experts face two opponents, “Covid-19, but also political leaders and others attempting to undermine the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.”

Remember: The President, against the advice of some of the nation's top health officials, has repeatedly called for schools to reopen as coronavirus cases surge across the country.

On Wednesday, while Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's leading infectious disease expert, warned that the country has to maintain control over the pandemic to get children back to school in the fall, Trump slammed the CDC's existing guidelines.

He tweeted they were "very tough" and "expensive," while in another tweet threatened to cut off school funding if they resisted opening, though the federal government's ability to do so is limited.

Doctor Anthony Fauci is staying on with the White House coronavirus task force despite the recent White House attempts to discredit him, a source familiar with the situation told CNN.

Some background: The White House has made a concerted effort to discredit Fauci as he becomes increasingly vocal about his concerns over reopening the country.

The tension between Fauci and Trump — who are no longer speaking, CNN reported last week — has grown publicly as they have responded to one another through interviews and statements.

But remember: Trump does not plan to dismiss Fauci, and probably couldn't directly fire him if he wanted to, White House officials have determined. He insisted on Monday that his relationship with the doctor remains strong.

Point of care tests should help reduce the burden on testing labs later in the year, said Admiral Brett Giroir, assistant secretary for health at the US Department of Health and Human Services, on Tuesday.

Speaking on NPR’s “Morning Edition” about the burden of testing on labs as schools work on reopening and workplaces request more testing as they reopen, Giroir said these point of care tests are “going to dramatically reduce the burden.”

He also said that at present, almost half of the tests that are done are point of care tests.

It's Tuesday morning in the US, where more than 3.3 million cases of coronavirus have been reported since the pandemic began.

If you're just reading in, here's what you need to know about the pandemic to start your morning:

Admiral Brett Giroir, assistant secretary for health at the US Department of Health and Human Services and member of the White House coronavirus task force, on Tuesday conceded there are delays in Covid-19 tests results coming from big commercial laboratories, saying the demand is still very high.

Giroir explained the government is working with these laboratories to "actively start" pooling samples, and it will also lean into places that need a lot of testing, such as nursing homes, to do more point-of-care testing.

"That will alleviate millions of tests from those commercial labs," Giroir said.