By Jessie Yeung, Steve George, Melissa Macaya, Meg Wagner and Fernando Alfonso III, CNN
From CNN’s Jamiel Lynch
In an order issued today, Broward County, Florida, is enacting a curfew for the entire county, including incorporate and unincorporated areas, to help mitigate the spread of Covid-19.
The curfew is effective immediately from 11 p.m. to 5 a.m. ET nightly through Aug. 1, the order said.
According to the order, during curfew, no persons shall make use of any street or sidewalk in Broward County.
The order also prohibits gatherings of more than 10 people.
From CNN's Jacob Lev
Major League Baseball free agent Yasiel Puig says he has tested positive for Covid-19.
In a statement posted on social media Friday, the Cuban-born outfielder said he was currently asymptomatic and will remain in quarantine.
"I would have never believed looking in the mirror that I had Covid-19," Puig tweeted. "I urge everyone to take this pandemic seriously, this can happen to anyone, even the healthiest athlete. Wear a mask, social distance, and follow your local protocols. Please take care of yourselves. I will see you all very soon when I return to play ball."
Some context: On Friday, the MLB and Major League Baseball Players Association released the latest testing results as of July 16, in which six out of 10,548 samples came back positive for Covid-19.
Five of the positive tests were players, and one was a staff member. The MLB season is scheduled to resume on July 23.
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From CNN’s Janine Mack
Arkansas has reported 31,762 positive cases of coronavirus and 353 deaths, Dr. Nate Smith, Arkansas cabinet secretary for the Department of Health, said during a news conference on Friday.
That total includes an increase of 648 Covid-19 cases since Thursday. There have been 12 deaths reported from June 12 to June 24, Smith said.
Arkansas has conducted 5,861 Covid-19 tests, Smith added.
“You know in this business of fighting Covid, you can't get cocky,” Gov. Asa Hutchinson said. “When you see it going well one day, the next day, it’s not going so well.”
Former Arkansas governor and US Senator David Pryor, who tested positive for Covid-19, was released from the hospital and is in good health, Hutchinson said.
Note: These figures were released by Arkansas 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.
From CNN's Lauren del Valle
A class action federal lawsuit has been filed on behalf of families who lost loved ones to Covid-19.
The lawsuit is against five staff members primarily charged with the care of these people at a veterans' home in Massachusetts.
The lawsuit filed Friday comes after a recent investigation revealing substantial missteps in the handling of the virus at the state-run Holyoke Soldiers' Home.
At least 76 Soldiers’ Home veterans who were Covid-19 positive died in the 11-week period between March 25 and June 12, the lawsuit said.
Massachusett’s Executive Office of Health and Human Services released a statement to CNN Friday.
“The events that took place at the Holyoke Soldier’s Home are tragic and Attorney Mark Pearlstein was hired to conduct a thorough, independent investigation of what occurred. The Baker-Polito Administration has announced a series of reforms to strengthen the oversight and operations of the Home and does not comment on pending litigation," the human services spokesperson said.
Gov. Charlie Baker, who commissioned the report, previously called the findings gut-wrenching and hard to read.
“The events that took place in march are horrific and tragic,” Baker said.
The lawsuit demands $176,000,000 in damages to benefit each of the families who lost someone to Covid-19 in the home.
There are no current cases of Covid-19 among staff and residents at the facility, according to state data.
From CNN's Sarah Moon
The majority of schools in California will not be reopening for in-person education this fall, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced in a news conference today.
All private and public schools in 33 of California's 58 counties will be required to close under Newsom’s new guidance. Those 33 counties represent more than 80% of the state’s population.
Newsom on Monday asked these counties — which are on the state's watch list — to close indoor activities, such as gyms, places of worship, offices for non-critical sectors, hair salons and barbershops, and indoor malls.
Schools in these counties will need to meet strict criteria in order to reopen, including physical distancing measures and the use of face coverings. Newsom also recommended regular testing and “rigorous distance learning” which includes daily live interaction with teachers and other students.
Under the new guidance, staff and students in 3rd grade and above will be required to wear face coverings in classrooms. Students from Kindergarten through 2nd grade are not required, but encouraged to wear them.
Schools can only reopen for in-person education if the county has been off the monitoring list for 14 consecutive days.
Earlier this week, some of the largest school districts in the state announced they would continue with full distance learning in the fall, instead of returning students to campuses. The decisions by Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco and Sacramento school districts, meant more than 1 million students would not be returning to classrooms in August.
These are the 33 counties on the watch list:
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From CNN’s Jenn Selva
San Francisco has joined more than 30 other counties on California’s “watch list” due to a rise in Covid-19 hospitalizations, Mayor London Breed said today.
“On April 11, we had 94 people in the hospital. By mid-June we were down to as low as 26 people. We’re now back up to 80 people in the hospital,” Breed said.
When a county is added to the state’s “watch list,” officials are required to close all indoor activities. Because of San Francisco’s early stage of reopening, the main difference will be closing all malls and non-essential offices.
Breed said the county will continue to pause its reopening indefinitely.
The mayor also announced a new health order starting July 20, that requires private health care providers to increase testing by providing same-day testing for patients with coronavirus symptoms and those who have had close contact with people confirmed to have Covid-19.
“Additionally, private hospitals must provide testing to asymptomatic workers in jobs with risk of exposure,” Breed said. “The delays we’re seeing in testing cannot continue.”
San Francisco Department of Public Health Director Grant Colfax warned that the average age of people hospitalized with Covid-19 symptoms since July 1 is 41 years old.
As of today, San Francisco has reported a total of at least 4,985 confirmed cases and at least 52 deaths.
From Mia Alberti
The infection rate of Covid-19 in Brazil has stabilized, the World Health Organization said on Friday, a day after Brazil surpassed 2 million cases of the disease.
"The virus is not in a sense doubling itself in the community as quickly as it was before. So the rise in Brazil is no longer exponential, it has plateaued, but the cases and deaths continue to occur, and there is absolutely no guarantee that that will go down by itself," Dr. Mike Ryan, director of WHO's Health Emergencies Programme, said during a press briefing in Geneva Friday.
Ryan said Brazil now has an "opportunity" to "push the disease down" and take control of the pandemic in the country if the government acts swiftly.
"Up to now, in many countries including Brazil, the virus has been in charge, the virus sets the rules. We need to set the rules for the virus and there is an opportunity once those numbers have stabilized to drive transmission downwards and I think that opportunity exists now for Brazil to do that but it's going to take a very sustained and concerted action," Ryan said.
Latest numbers: Brazil has registered a total of 2,012,151 cases of Covid-19, according to the latest data released by the country’s Health Ministry on Thursday. The total number of fatalities is 76,688.
Brazil is the second country in the world with most coronavirus cases, after the US.
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From CNN's Jim Acosta and Manu Raju
The House Education Committee accused the White House Friday of blocking US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials from testifying before their committee next week on reopening the nation's schools.
"This lack of transparency does a great disservice to the many communities across the country facing difficult decisions about reopening schools this fall," committee chair Rep. Robert Scott said in a statement.
CNN has reached out to the White House and Vice President's office for comment.
The committee sent a letter to CDC Director Robert Redfield on July 9 inviting him to testify.
How to reopen schools this fall has become a divisive issue. President Trump, in recent weeks, has repeatedly called for schools to reopen, even as the coronavirus pandemic surges across parts of the country. Meanwhile, teachers, health care professionals and more cautious political leaders are wary of rushing the process.
The CDC confirmed yesterday that it is delaying the release of new reference documents on safely reopening schools.
From CNN's Shawn Nottingham
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said he won’t close the state’s gyms, claiming a healthy lifestyle will put people at lower risk for developing severe cases of coronavirus.
“If you are good shape you have a very, very low likelihood of ending up in significant condition as a result of the coronavirus," DeSantis said during an afternoon news conference in Apopka, Florida.
Remember: Coronavirus has more severe outcomes on older people, Blacks and Hispanics, and people with underlying health conditions, according to demographic data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But health officials are warning that a rise in younger people testing positive for coronavirus will hit vulnerable populations.
As the number of coronavirus cases climb in Florida, DeSantis today said 21% of the state’s hospital beds remain available. The governor said that number is actually higher than the number of beds available in the state in March of this year.
Additionally, DeSantis said he has been told by the White House that a new shipment of Remdesivir is being expedited to state. He says he hopes the shipment of the coronavirus treatment drug will be delivered by this weekend.
The governor lauded the state’s test capacity, saying Florida is currently testing more than 100,000 people a day.
He went on to say that the state’s positivity rate has stabilized and even declined. DeSantis says the state’s positivity rate is currently at about 12-13%.
Some background: DeSantis' comments come as the state averages just over 55 cases per 100,000 people, according to an analysis of Johns Hopkins University data. For five consecutive days, Florida has led the nation in coronavirus cases per capita.
Florida took over the top spot from Arizona on Monday. Arizona — which had held the top spot for over a month — dropped to third, behind Louisiana.
