The latest on the coronavirus pandemic

So many modes of transmission come into play in close, overcrowded, indoor environments, and people need to understand and manage their risk in these situations, said Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of the World Health Organization's Health Emergencies Programme.

While the best combination of interventions remains unknown, Ryan said that if individuals and communities are aware of the risks – and authorities take actions to ensure safety in places such as schools, buildings and restaurants – countries can control the virus.

“It’s not one thing,” Ryan said. “It is a combination of measures in which the community, in partnership with each other and in partnership with the authorities, come to a sustainable way of controlling and suppressing the transmission of the virus, and living with the virus in a way that normal human activity can resume in a successful way.”

Science continuing to understand human transmission and how it happens is very important for this, as it will help to ensure how the measures being put into place need to be adapted, he said.

Lowes and Home Depot will soon require customers to wear masks in their stores. The mask order begins on Monday at Lowes and Wednesday at Home Depot. 

Home Depot said about 85% of its stores already require masks due to local and state regulations. Associates across all stores are required to wear masks, according to a press release.

Associates at Lowes already are required to wear masks.

“As a retailer offering essential goods, we have a responsibility to our associates, customers and small businesses in communities nationwide to help provide a safe shopping experience," said Marvin R. Ellison, Lowe's president and CEO. "Throughout this pandemic, our associates have worked tirelessly so customers could get the goods and services they needed for their homes and small businesses. For the safety of everyone in our stores, we ask that customers wear masks, and to make this new standard less restrictive, we will make masks available to those who need them."

The home improvement giants are the latest US retailers to require customers wear masks. CVS, Target and Walmart all announced their own mask orders this week.

There are 140 Miami Police (MPD) employees and 41 Miami Beach Police (MBPD) officers currently under quarantine, public information officers from both departments tell CNN.

MPD has 140 employees currently quarantined because they have tested positive, are awaiting test results or came in contact with someone who has coronavirus, according to MPD Public Information Officer Kenia Fallat. Of the 140 employees quarantined, 68 are police officers who have tested positive for coronavirus, Fallat said.

In Miami Beach, there are 41 officers under quarantine, according to Miami Beach Police Public Information Officer Ernesto Rodriguez. This includes 12 officers who have tested positive and 29 officers who have possibly been exposed, Rodriguez tells CNN.

MPD has 1371 full-time sworn positions and more than 400 civilian positions, according to its 2020 operating budget.

Meanwhile, MBPD has 400 sworn officers on its force, Rodriguez says.

A Long Island, New York, man left the hospital Thursday after a 106-day battle with Covid-19, where he had to be intubated three times. 

Hafeez Rehman, 43, was taken out of Long Island Jewish Medical Center on a stretcher late Thursday, as hospital workers lined the hallway and cheered, as captured in footage released by the hospital. Rehman headed to a rehabilitation facility where he will continue his treatment.

Fatima Rehman, his sister-in-law, said she and the rest of his family have waited for this day after months of praying. 

Northwell Health, which has 23 hospitals in the area, said his stay was the longest Covid-19-related stay the entire health system has seen.

England’s Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty told the House of Lords on Friday that social distancing is likely to be necessary for a “long period of time.”

Speaking at the Select Committee on Science and Technology, Whitty said measures like social distancing, washing hands, isolation, contact tracking and face masks were all measures that needed to continue.

Whitty said he would be “very surprised” if in four or five months’ time we still had the same coronavirus strategy as we have today. Adding that the government will still require people to isolate if they have symptoms, wear face masks and have local responses to an outbreak.

“In terms of the wider strategy and how we do the maximum damage to the virus to the minimum damage to our society, that will evolve over time,” he said. 

Earlier on Friday, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson indicated a possible return to normality by “November at the earliest.” 

“It is my strong and sincere hope that we will be able to review the outstanding restrictions and allow a more significant return to normality from November at the earliest – possibly in time for Christmas,” Johnson said.

Dr. Anthony Fauci defended the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as a good source for Americans to get coronavirus data.  

During a US Chamber of Commerce Foundation virtual event on Friday, Fauci was asked about the best source of data about coronavirus for cities, business owners and the American people.

Fauci said CDC provides information about the outbreak for the country as a whole, down to the city level.  

“So I would point you to the CDC website, to get the kind of information that I think would be very valuable to you,” he said. 

Why this matters: Earlier this week, the US Department of Health and Human Services instructed hospitals to stop providing coronavirus data directly to CDC, saying the agency was posting the information too slowly. Instead, the hospital data was to be rerouted directly to the Trump administration.

Some information was missing from the CDC website mid-week, but HHS directed the agency to put it back up.  

A preliminary plan that gives the framework for reopening the city's schools was released on Friday by Chicago Public Schools (CPS), the third-largest school district in the nation with 642 schools and 355,000 students, according to CPS. 

CPS is seeing feedback from parents and the community over the next two weeks on the proposal, which includes a hybrid learning model that has most students learning from home and attending school a limited number of days a week, provided its safe to do so based on guidance from public health officials. 

Here is how the hybrid learning model would work, according to the release:

"Through a hybrid 2-1-2 scheduling model, each student pod will spend the same two consecutive days each week learning at school, the same two days learning independently at home, and each Wednesday they will participate in real-time virtual instruction with their classroom teacher," the model says.

Other safety measures: CPS also outlined daily increased screening and cleaning protocols, including face covering requirements, daily temperature checks and health screenings.

Cloth face coverings will be provided to all students and staff and disinfectant wipes and hand sanitizer will be available in all classrooms and throughout school buildings. The district is also hiring approximately 400 additional custodians to bolster cleaning and disinfection protocols.

CPS says that the health and safety of the students and staff is a priority and that it has disinfected over 50,000 rooms and secured sanitation and health resources that are needed to safely reopen in September. 

“Our framework is designed to maximize critical instructional time while prioritizing the health and safety of students and staff,” CPS Chief Education Officer, LaTanya D. McDade, said in the release. "As a next step, we are eager to hear and incorporate feedback from families to ensure we have the best possible plan in place to meet the needs of all students.”

Along with the online survey that solicits feedback on the plan, CPS will be holding meetings for parents in both English and Spanish to answer any questions regarding the preliminary framework. 

 Mayor Lightfoot said earlier this week that she plans on announcing the reopening plan in August. 

Scientists and clinicians from all over the world are doing research to see if someone who had Covid-19 can get reinfected, Maria Van Kerkhove, the World Health Organization's technical lead for coronavirus response and head of the emerging diseases and zoonoses unit, said Friday.

"What we don't know right is how strong that protection is and for how long that protection will last. And we need answers to those questions to be able to determine if someone can be reinfected after that immunity wears off. So this is an area of active, active research for the specific SARS-CoV-2," she said.

Dr. Anthony Fauci said when it comes to reopening schools, his advice is to “go to 40,000 feet and look at the big picture.”

During a US Chamber of Commerce Foundation virtual event on Friday, Fauci said there are “well-known, downstream, unintended consequences that are ripple effects of keeping children out of school” – notably the impact on children themselves, as well as the logistical impact of caregivers’ inability to go back to work.

Safety is paramount, but Fauci said we need “to have our default position to get the children back to school.”

Fauci said this is where it gets complicated in a “geographically and demographically diverse” country, such as the United States.

“There'll be parts of the country where the level of virus activity is so low that you don't have to modify anything at all – just send the children back to school,” he said.

“But clearly if you just look at what's going on right now, there are parts of the country that have a significant degree of viral activity that make you want to pause,” he added. 

Fauci said in those instances, “we may want to modify logistically” by separating desks, having children wear masks or rotating schedules.