July 26 coronavirus news

White House officials painted a rosy picture of the nation's economic recovery on Sunday as the administration continues to negotiate a new phase of coronavirus relief legislation with Senate Republicans and the US prepares to enter its sixth month of the pandemic. 

Kudlow mentioned a slew of indicators of recovery, including booms in the housing, retail and auto markets and a rise in new business applications.

He claimed "the jobs picture remains strong," calling last week's rise in unemployment claims a "seasonal adjustment problem."

"I don't know the July number. We'll learn it in a week or so, but I do think that the odds favor a big increase in job creation and a big reduction in unemployment," Kudlow said.

More context: In an interview on Fox News Sunday, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said “we always said the second quarter was going to be a very bad quarter.”

However, he said he still believes the third quarter will be much better, “we expect the third quarter, the consensus is 17% GDP, so we do think you are going to see a very big rebound.”

“There are parts of the economy that are doing very well, there are parts of the economy that aren’t,” Mnuchin said.

He also noted “we got to 30” million Americans unemployed, “but we never got to 40 or 60.” He said that since then the US has created almost 10 million jobs.

Kudlow acknowledged that in hot spot states like Texas, Arizona, Florida and California there will be  "some impact" on recovery, but he said he doesn't think it will be "huge."

The second quarter GDP numbers will be released this Thursday.

The federal government has sent money to states to support their contact tracing plans, Admiral Brett Giroir, a member of the White House’s coronavirus taskforce, told CNN Sunday. 

Giroir also said that he does not think that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention needs to improve its guidelines on contact tracing, but that wearing masks is more important than contact tracing. 

As Republicans are gearing up to release their new coronavirus stimulus bill, GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham had a stark prediction for the vote.

In an interview on Fox News Sunday, Graham said of the bill, “I think we will come together before August the 5th to get this done.” 

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said today that New York state reported three deaths and, of 53,568 total Covid-19 tests administered, 536 of them came back positive, marking a 1% positivity rate in testing.

The governor called the state's progress on all statistics, “really great, great news."

Cuomo added the state continues to record a decrease in hospitalizations, marking 637 hospitalized as of yesterday’s report – the newest low since March 18.

One thing to note: These numbers were released by the NY state public health agency and may not line up exactly in real time with CNN’s database drawn from Johns Hopkins University and the Covid Tracking Project.

White House officials and Senate Republicans are finalizing a bill that would offer $1,200 checks to many Americans and that would not renew the full unemployment insurance enhancement that is set to expire officially this week as part of the proposal for the next stimulus bill set to be unveiled Monday, several top administration officials said Sunday. 

White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow told CNN that $1,200 checks to Americans will be part of the new recovery package, in addition to re-employment bonuses, retention bonuses and tax credits for small businesses and restaurants.

Kudlow said the Republican proposal will lengthen the federal eviction moratorium that is lapsing just as the additional $600 a week unemployed Americans have relied upon is also set to expire.

“The original benefits will not” be in the new bill, White House chief of staff Mark Meadows said on ABC. “The original unemployment benefits actually paid people to stay home.”

Meadows said the proposal will involve offering enhanced unemployment benefits that would replace a laid-off worker’s wages up to 70%, although he acknowledged challenges some states will face in administering such a complicated benefit. He said he has worked with Mnuchin and Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia to ensure “antiquated computers” in some state benefit offices don’t stop people from receiving their benefits.

More details: The chief of staff also confirmed he and Mnuchin will return to Capitol Hill on Sunday to continue going over the details of the bill.

Administration officials dropped a push for the payroll tax cut that President Trump has repeatedly demanded after failing to secure support for it from enough Senate Republicans and after acknowledging it was a non-starter for Democrats.

"I would have preferred a payroll tax cut on top of that check, but be that as it may, politically it doesn't work but the check is there," Kudlow said.

Admiral Brett Giroir told CNN that Covid-19 testing must be brought under control as it relates to access and turnaround times.

Giroir, a member of the White House’s coronavirus task force, said "we are not going to stop our efforts until testing is exactly where we want it to be with rapid turnaround times."

Giroir said that over 54 million tests have been done, 770 thousand a day, which is a “140 fold increase in terms of turnaround.”  

Around a quarter of the tests are point of care, with a 15 minute turnaround and that another quarter are done at local hospitals and labs, with a general turnaround of 24 hours, according to Giroir.  

“The delays that most people talk about are at the large commercial labs that perform about half the testing in our country,” he said. 

The data says that the average turnaround is about 4.27 days, according to Giroir.

“I follow that morning and evening, I know exactly when it’s ordered and when it’s resulted,” he said. “We are trying to bring that down.”

This week, pool testing was authorized at Quest and LabCorp, which will improve efficiency, Giroir said.

Admiral Brett Giroir, a member of the White House’s Coronavirus task force, told CNN that there is no-one-size-fits-all when it comes to reopening schools.

New US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines on education and child care favor the opening schools, saying children don't suffer much from coronavirus, are less likely than adults to spread it and suffer from being out of school.

But the new guidelines posted Thursday do recommend that local officials should consider closing schools, or keeping them closed, if there is substantial, uncontrolled transmission of the virus.

The CDC has been promising new guidelines for more than a week, after demands from President Trump that the agency alter its recommendations for opening schools.

Rep. Karen Bass, a Democrat from California, says that Los Angeles County should return to a stay-at-home order as cases surge.

Bass told CNN, "yes, I would go back" to stay-at-home in LA, adding, "I would reopen very conservatively."

Some context: California surpassed New York with the most cases in the nation this past week.

Los Angeles County alone has more than 172,000 confirmed cases — the most of any county in the nation — according to the latest count from Johns Hopkins University.

On Wednesday, Los Angeles County health officials announced that the virus is on track to be the second leading cause of death in the county — with at least 3,400 fatalities in the first six months of the year.

The Spanish government is focused on dialogue with Britain in order to have the Canary and Balearic Islands excluded from the UK's new quarantine rules, according to Spain's Foreign Minister Arancha Gonzalez Laya. 

Speaking to reporters in Madrid on Sunday, Gonzalez Laya said the popular holiday destinations should be excluded because the epidemiological Covid-19 data there is "extremely positive" and "well below data in the UK."

Gonzalez Laya added that the Spanish government would not be retaliating against the UK government's decision, saying it is "not a tit-for-tat exercise." 

"If we think that in any country in Europe the epidemiological data requires stricter measures on our side we will do this," Gonzalez Laya added.