By Nectar Gan, Adam Renton, Melissa Macaya, Meg Wagner and Mike Hayes, CNN
From CNN’s Andy Rose
New Mexico's coronavirus case count topped 20,000 on Wednesday after adding 352 new Covid-19 cases.
The state is now reporting a total of 20,136 coronavirus cases.
Some context: The milestone comes two days after New Mexico reported a new one-day record of confirmed cases, with 467.
Note: The figures above were released by the New Mexico 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 Manu Raju
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has announced a new mandatory mask policy requiring all members and staff to wear face covering in the House.
"Members and staff will be required to wear masks in the halls of the House," she said during remarks on the House floor.
Lawmakers can take off their masks temporarily when they are speaking, Pelosi added.
Members and staff will not be allowed in the House if they don't wear masks. The speaker said she has the authority to direct the House sergeant-at-arms to tell members to leave if they aren't wearing a face covering.
From CNN's Pierre Meilhan
Florida’s state-supported Covid-19 testing sites will temporarily close in anticipation of a potential tropical storm, the Florida Division of Emergency Management (FDEM) announced Wednesday.
The agency said drive-thru and walk-up Covid-19 testing sites will temporarily close at 5 p.m. on Thursday in anticipation of impacts from potential tropical cyclone nine, the storm currently located at sea in the southeastern part of the Caribbean.
The FDEM said it made the decision “out of an abundance of caution to keep individuals operating and attending the sites safe. All sites have free standing structures including tents and other equipment, which cannot withstand tropical storm force winds, and could cause damage to people and property if not secured.”
The storm is expected to begin impacting South Florida as early as Friday with heavy rains and strong winds, according to the agency.
All states-supported Covid-19 testing sites “will remain closed until they are safe to reopen, with all sites anticipated to be reopened at the latest by 8 a.m. on Aug. 5,” according to a FDEM statement.
From CNN’s Janine Mack
Minnesota has 310 people who are currently hospitalized due to Covid-19, including 143 in intensive care units, according to the state’s Department of Health.
“The last time we had hospitalization and ICU, ICU usage, this high was a month ago,” said Kris Ehresmann, the director of Minnesota's Department of Health Infectious Disease. “The bottom line is that yet we're continuing to see more cases in bars and restaurants. So certainly the ones that you've heard about, but we've added many more."
The median age for these establishments are people in their 20s, Ehresmann said.
She added that the state is also seeing cases from social gatherings.
By the numbers: Minnesota has reported 52,947 positive cases of coronavirus and 1,589 deaths since the pandemic began, Ehresmann said.
“The ultimate success or failure of this coincides is largely in the hands of each and every individual Minnesota. No one in Minnesota is on the sidelines, but the fights are all directly involved and have choices to make every time,” she said.
Note: The numbers above were released by the Minnesota 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 Naomi Thomas
The US needs to reset its response with policy actions at the federal, state and local level to get control of the Covid-19 pandemic, scholars at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security said in a new report Wednesday.
“Unlike many countries in the world, the United States is not currently on course to get control of this epidemic,” the report says. “It is time to reset.”
The report includes 10 recommendations that include universal mask mandates, federal leadership to improve testing and, in places where transmission is worsening, stay-at-home orders.
Nonpharmaceutical measures, like universal mask use and social distancing, should be the same in the US as they have been in other successful countries around the world. Without these, it will be difficult to maintain control on outbreaks.
The report says state, local and federal leaders should mandate non-medical mask use in public and limit large indoor gatherings. Leaders at all levels should also “speak in unison in support of these core public health approaches to controlling this disease.”
States should stop high risk activities and settings in areas that have rising test positivity, but no signs of crisis in hospitals or rising deaths. In areas where the situation is worse, stay-at-home orders should be reinstated, the report says.
The US response to the epidemic will be severely constrained without a reliable and efficient testing system, the report says. One of the things the authors suggest to combat this is the federal government working with states and commercial labs to identify challenges in quickly returning tests and work out a way to overcome these.
A vaccine will “dramatically change the course of the response and offer the opportunity to enhance protection of those most vulnerable individuals,” the report says.
There is also a lot to be done around community acceptance of any eventual coronavirus vaccine, the report says.
“With misinformation and vaccine hesitancy remaining prominent issues affecting public health, vaccination campaigns will not be successful if they are not executed with sensitivity to the current climate around trust of public institutions and if they do not incorporate multidisciplinary expertise in decision-making groups,” the report says.
From CNN's Nikki Carvajal
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos argued Wednesday against the need for national leadership on reopening schools, praising one private academy for not waiting for guidance on how to reopen safely.
“You know, there’s not a national superintendent nor should there be, therefore there’s not a national plan for reopening,” DeVos said at a roundtable on schools in North Carolina with Vice President Mike Pence. The event was held at Thales Academy, a year-round private school where Pence and DeVos also met with a small classroom of fourth graders.
“Thales is a great example more schools could emulate,” DeVos said. “You didn’t wait for guidance from the Department of Education. You didn’t ask for permission. Your families wanted kids back in school, you wanted kids back in school, teachers wanted to be back in school, so you figured out ways to do it, or do it safely.” Private schools in general have smaller class sizes than most public schools, just one reason why it could be easier for them to create reopening plans.
“More education leaders here in North Carolina can pivot as well, and do what it takes to keep everyone safe and do what’s right for all students,” DeVos continued. “There’s too many schools in this state and others that are ignoring parents and students and keeping schools closed.”
She went on to argue for school choice, and said that for parents who took their children out of public schools, “the tax dollars meant to support their education should go with them.”
DeVos said she’d called for school choice for more than three decades, and added that the pandemic “really welcomes it.”
“It frankly demands it,” DeVos said. “Students need it, families are demanding it, and teachers need it.”
From CNN's Manu Raju, Ali Zaslav and Phil Mattingly
White House chief of staff Mark Meadows told reporters Wednesday that – as negotiations on a stimulus package continue to fall apart – he doesn’t know that there is any other plan other than “no deal.”
“No deal certainly becomes a greater possibility the longer these negotiations take,” he said.
Meadows emerged from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office this afternoon with a dire assessment of where negotiations stand, saying they made no progress. Pelosi rejected the short-term unemployment insurance idea and the federal enhancement of unemployment, which will expire at the end of the week.
Asked what would unlock the current impasse, Meadows said, “I don’t know that anything does.”
More from the Capitol: Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, after meeting with top White House negotiators on the next round of coronavirus relief legislation, explicitly rejected any short-term measure to extend the expiring federal unemployment enhancement and attacked Republicans for having no plan to address the issues.
Schumer, after the third meeting in as many days, said Republicans are “tied in a knot because of the disunity in their caucus, because of their inability to gather votes, because the President says one thing one day and says another thing the other.”
“They have no coherent plan, they have no comprehensive plan,” Schumer said. “They have tried to come up with a ‘skinny bill’ that doesn’t address the moment and they can’t even pass that in their own Senate.”
From CNN's Raja Razek
All indoor bar areas in Minneapolis must close for regular service starting Aug. 1, according to an emergency regulation issued by Mayor Jacob Frey.
"The data has become clear that in both urban and rural areas, bars are very high-risk locations for Covid-19 outbreaks in Minneapolis," Frey said. "We know at least nine bars that have been tied to patron outbreaks. At least three bars have been tied to employee outbreaks."
Frey said that since bars and restaurants have been open, the city has seen its seven-day weekly average go up "pretty significantly."
"A night out at the bar is too often leading to nights in the hospital for family, for friends, and for neighbors," he added. "By focusing on bar areas, which are proven to be hotbeds for congregation and community spread, we can help keep both Minneapolis and Minnesotans safe and help keep trends stable."
The closure would also cover taprooms, distilleries, and nightclubs, Frey said. Restaurants with a bar area are also required to keep their bars closed for the duration of the emergency regulations.
From CNN’s Kay Jones
There have been at least 403,307 cases of Covid-19 in Texas since the start of the pandemic, according to the latest figures released by the Department of State Health Services.
This is an increase of 9,042 from Tuesday’s report, according to the dashboard. At least 9,595 Covid-19 patients are hospitalized statewide, according to the department's dashboard.
The department also said at least 6,190 people have died from the virus in the state since the pandemic started.
Note: These numbers were released by Texas Department of State Health Services and may not line up exactly in real time with CNN’s database drawn from Johns Hopkins University and the Covid Tracking Project.
