July 26 coronavirus news

There is not a uniform threshold when it comes to reopening schools, Health and Human Service Secretary Alex Azar said on Sunday. 

“We don’t believe that there are uniform thresholds for school reopenings,” he said on CBS Sunday, when asked why there wasn’t a benchmark on when schools should shut down.. 

The 5% threshold that is laid out by the administration that defines a hotspot refers to positive testing, he said. 

Azar described communities with 5% positive testing as yellow communities and 10% positive testing as red communities. 

“That’s an epidemiological early warning sign of potential spread of disease,” he said. “That’s not been defined as a threshold for reopening of any kind.” 

Florida has reported 9,259 new cases of Covid-19 among Floridians and 77 additional deaths on Sunday, according to Florida Department of Health (DOH).   

This marks the 23rd day this month that the state has reported more than 9,000 new cases in a single day, according to CNN's tally.    

The state's total cases of Floridians with coronavirus is 418,844, according to DOH. The statewide resident death toll is now 5,854, DOH added.

There are currently 8,868 people hospitalized in Florida with with Covid-19, down from above 9,000 for weeks now, according to the Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA).

To note: These figures were released by Florida's 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.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Congress should stay in session until a stimulus deal is reached. 

“We’ve been anxious to negotiate for two months and 10 days,” Pelosi said Sunday, criticizing the Republicans for taking so long to propose another stimulus package. 

Pelosi also said she would prefer to see enhanced unemployment benefits paid at a flat rate, not as a portion of a worker’s lost wages as Republicans are preparing to propose. 

“Let me just say: the reason we had $600 was its simplicity,” Pelosi said, noting that calculating 70% of someone’s lost earnings would be difficult for administrators. “Why don’t we just keep it simple? Unemployment benefits and the enhancement... is so essential right now.”

Pelosi declined to say whether Democrats would be willing to accept an unemployment insurance enhancement that is lower than the $600 number; that benefit officially expires on July 31, but Americans on unemployment insurance would have received their final check under the program this past week. 

More context: Republicans are finalizing a bill that would cap the enhanced unemployment benefit at 70% of a person’s lost wages. They do not plan to renew the existing $600-per-week enhancement.

Citations issued by Miami Dade Police (MDPD) to face mask violators and others has gone up, Det. Alvaro Zabaleta told CNN.

To date, MDPD officers have issued 150 citations to businesses and 174 citations to individuals, Zabaleta said.  

Some context: Miami Dade announced its Covid-19 mask ordinance on July 16, which included $100 fines for individuals and $500 fines for businesses, CNN reported. 

The fine is given to those who do not follow the face mask mandate in both indoor and outdoor public spaces, Miami Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez has said.

Admiral Brett Giroir, a member of the White House’s coronavirus task force, said on Sunday that the US has enough tests to complete testing goals, if they are used in the right way. 

“What is true now, is that anyone who needs a test can get a test,” he said. “I feel like going somewhere, so I need a test, that is not where we are.”

Giroir said that we are in the middle of a serious pandemic, which we are trying to, and starting to control, in hotspot states. Data shows that the percent positivity is being flattened or decreased and hospitalizations are going down, he said.

“But let me be clear, we need to prioritize testing,” Giroir said. “Everyone who needs a test, we’re prioritizing that and they will get it.” 

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.