July 20 coronavirus news

The National Zoo in Washington, DC, and National Air and Space Museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia, will reopen on Friday, the Smithsonian announced today.

Both buildings will reopen with multiple safety measures in place.

Here are some of those safety measures:

Indigenous people in the Americas are especially vulnerable to Covid-19, the World Health Organization said on Monday.

As of July 6, more than 70,000 indigenous people in the Americas had been infected with Covid-19 and more than 2,000 had died, according to WHO.

"Like other vulnerable groups, indigenous peoples face many challenges. This includes a lack of political representation, economic marginalization, and lack of access to health, education, and social services. Indigenous people often have a high burden of poverty, unemployment, malnutrition, and communicable and incommunicable diseases, making them more vulnerable to Covid-19 and its serious outcomes," Tedros said.

Tedros said WHO is working with regional indigenous organizations in the Amazon river basin "to step up the fight against Covid-19" and urged governments to invest in contact tracing strategies.

"One of the key tools for suppressing transmission in indigenous communities and all communities is contact tracing. No country can take control of its epidemic if it doesn't know where the virus is," Tedros added. 

UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock has reiterated the government’s call for global access to a successfully developed coronavirus vaccine, telling lawmakers in the House of Commons on Monday that the government “rejects narrow nationalism” in the race to find a vaccine. 

“We reject narrow nationalism. We support a global effort because this virus respects no borders and we’re all on the same side,” he added. 

The health secretary’s remarks come after preliminary results from trials carried out by the University of Oxford showed that a newly developed vaccine induced a strong immunity response in patients. 

“I can report to the House that the trial shows that the Oxford vaccine produces a strong immunity response in patients, in terms of both antibody production and T-cell responses, and that no safety concerns have been identified,” Hancock told members of parliament.  

“This is promising news and it takes us one step closer to finding a vaccine that could potentially save lives all around the world,” he added.

Intensive care unit capacity in Miami-Dade County, Florida, is now at 130.20%, up from 127% on Sunday, according to the county's Covid-19 dashboard. 

As of Monday, 513 Covid-19 ICU admissions were recorded. The ICU bed capacity in the county is 394, according to county data. 

Data released by the county on Monday also shows 2,278 Covid-19 patients are currently hospitalized in Miami-Dade. Out of the 513 patients in ICU beds, 293 of those are currently on ventilators. 

The World Health Organization supports the use of masks as part of a comprehensive strategy for Covid-19, but they cannot be used as a substitute for other public health measures, said Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO’s technical lead for Covid-19. 

Van Kerkhove said WHO is hearing about changes in policies from many governments, who are applying mask use as part of their Covid-19 strategy, particularly in areas with active transmission or where physical distancing is not possible.

Everything has to be done as a part of a comprehensive approach, Van Kerkhove said.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' coronavirus news conference was met with loud protests this afternoon.

DeSantis is currently holding a news briefing about his state's response to the pandemic, and shouting can be heard throughout the governor's remarks.

Protesters chanted "Shame on you Ron DeSantis!" and "You are lying to the public!" during the news conference.

DeSantis stopped speaking momentarily while the men were escorted out by sheriff's deputies. "We will not be defunding the police," the governor quipped when he began speaking again.

Watch the moment:

Venezuela is returning to planned lockdown measures, as the country reported 20% of its total number of coronavirus infections in just the past week, according to data collected by the government of embattled President Nicolas Maduro.

Venezuela reported more than 1,000 cases of coronavirus in the past three days and more than 2,000 cases in the past week.

In total, the country has reported 11,891 coronavirus cases. More than 20% of those – 2,426 cases – were reported in just the last seven days. At least 112 people are reported to have died from the coronavirus in Venezuela.

The majority of cases and deaths reported are concentrated in the two main urban areas of Caracas and Maracaibo, according to data collected by the Maduro government.

The Venezuelan opposition and international organizations have questioned the government's capacity to trace and report coronavirus cases.

Speaking on Sunday in Caracas, Maduro urged Venezuelans to respect social distancing measures as the country returned to total lockdown from Monday. Venezuela has established a planned "7+7 lockdown approach" under which lockdown measures are relaxed for seven days and reintroduced for the following seven days.

Maduro also defended his government policy to limit the number of migrants allowed to return to Venezuela. The Maduro government has previously labeled illegal migrants as "biological weapons" and "bioterrorists."

Some background: Since the beginning of the pandemic, the Maduro government has allowed only a few hundred Venezuelan migrants to return home each day, as an estimated tens of thousands have been attempting to return with lockdown measures imposed across South America.

More than 70,000 migrants have returned since March, Maduro said Sunday. He said migrants who crossed the border illegally will "infect" Venezuela with coronavirus.

At least 1,136 Venezuelan citizens have been detained after returning to the country illegally, the Armed Forces Chief of Staff Admiral Remigio Ceballos said Sunday.

President Trump says he'll resume regular coronavirus briefings as the country experiences a resurgence of cases.

The acknowledgement came as Trump's advisers debate a return to the daily briefings, which were a hallmark of the pandemic's earlier days. They ceased after Trump repeatedly found himself sparring with reporters and going on tangents, including one about ingesting disinfectant.

Now, however, many of Trump's aides worry he appears absent as the crisis continues to rage. Trump no longer attends daily coronavirus task force meetings and hasn't held an event specifically focused on the virus in two weeks.

Trump said the revival of briefings would allow him to tout advancements on therapeutics and vaccines and explain the "positive things" his administration is doing to combat the virus.

"I think it’s a great way to get information out to the public," Trump said, adding they would likely resume on Tuesday at 5 p.m. ET — the same time he typically briefed in the spring.

"We had a good slot. A lot of people were watching," Trump said, using television ratings lingo to describe the sessions: "We had record numbers watching," he said. "In the history of cable television there’s never been anything like it."

Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said the Trump administration hopes to pass a phase four stimulus package before the end of the month, and said that negotiations for the package will start with “another trillion dollars.”

Mnuchin said the focus of this package will be “kids and jobs and vaccines," echoing Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's repeated framing of the forthcoming Republican proposal. Mnuchin also claimed there will be a vaccine before the end of the year for emergency use. 

Mnuchin said they want to tweak the enhanced unemployment insurance so they “don’t pay people more money to stay home than go to work.” 

He also said the new package will have “tax credits that incentivize business to bring people back to work. We’ll have tax credits for PPE for safe work environments, and we’re going to have big incentives, money to the states, for education for schools that can open safely and do education.”

Mnuchin added that the administration wants liability protection in the new package.