August 19 coronavirus news

After what Southwest Airlines called a “modest improvement” in bookings in August, the airline is cutting back on the flights it will offer this fall.

Southwest said in a filing Wednesday that its available seats will be down 40% in September, compared to a year ago. It had previously said its capacity would only be down 20% to 25% in the month. And the reduced capacity will continue into October, when available seats will be down 40% to 50%.

The airline said the reduced flight plans are being implemented because “passenger demand and booking trends remain inconsistent.”

The company said the modest improvement in revenue and the efforts to cut costs have allowed it to trim its cash burn rate in the third quarter. Therefore it disclosed Wednesday that it will not need an additional $2.8 billion in federal loans this fall for which it was eligible. It said it has $15.2 billion in cash on hand as of Tuesday.

Shares of Southwest rose 3% in early trading Wednesday on the news.

Schools in Gwinnett County in Georgia and UNC-Chapel Hill saw new coronavirus cases after resuming in-person classes. Seeing this, the superintendent of Miami-Dade County Public Schools Alberto Carvalho said his decision to reopen schools for remote learning is “vindicated.”

“I think we cannot compromise the health and well-being, the safety, the security of our kids or the ones who teach them.”

Classes in the Miami-Dade County will start online on Aug. 31 after a week of intensive training on a single platform that all teachers and students can use, Carvalho added.

Despite the decision being at odds with the state's mandate for in-person classes and the Trump administration’s push to reopen schools, Carvalho says he has not felt any political pressure from the state or federal levels.

“I never really felt intimidated over the potential loss of funding,” he said. “We have been informed from the very beginning by the only type of information that should guide decisions about reopening of schools in a gradual, protective way which is science, data.”

Watch:

New York City reported its lowest percent of positive Covid-19 test results on Wednesday since the coronavirus crisis began in March, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced in his daily presser. The city reported a positivity rate of 0.24%.

The city’s other indicators continued to remain below the thresholds as well. There were 64 confirmed Covid-19 hospital admissions reported, and the 7-day average of new reported coronavirus cases was 320. 

City officials are mobilizing a concentrated testing and tracing outreach in the Borough Park neighborhood in south Brooklyn after seeing an uptick in the last few days, however. De Blasio stressed it was a very recent, small uptick, citing a group of 16 cases, some of which are linked to a recent large wedding in the community. Similar to how officials reacted when they saw an uptick in neighboring Sunset Park, the city is mobilizing a targeted, flood-the-zone type of approach to test and trace residents.

De Blasio said he was working hand-in-hand with community leaders in the neighborhood in the testing and tracing efforts.

Maryland Governor Larry Hogan announced today that Maryland has submitted an application to receive the additional $300 per week in federal unemployment benefits for Marylanders who are unemployed due to the Covid-19 pandemic, according to a release from Hogan’s office.

Once FEMA reviews and approves the state’s grant application, they will fund the $300 per week benefit and Maryland will fulfill the 25% state match through funding that is already paid to claimants in regular unemployment insurance benefits, the release said. 

According to the release, Maryland’s unemployment rate is currently at 8%.

White House economist Joe Lavorgna cast an optimistic tone during an appearance on CNBC this morning regarding both the coronavirus and the economy. 

“More work to do, but we like what we see,” he added. 

Asked about school reopenings, he pressed the need for stimulus funding for schools, and added, “Some of the data we’re seeing in the hotspots have really improved and we’re hoping that, in some instances, people will be able to go back to school safely,” citing “momentum” in decreasing cases and suggesting more students may go back to school than expected.

On the economic front, following the President’s executive actions, he said, “We’re in good shape right now, and that’s important,” later adding that there’s been “hardship and pain, but we’re moving in the right direction.”

He reiterated the need for stimulus negotiations to resume: “The talks that have stalled – we’d like them to occur.”

He also predicted that markets would “wobble” in a Biden administration.

More than 22 million people have been infected with coronavirus worldwide since the pandemic began, and countries around the world are at different points in the fight against the virus.

Here's a look at where the pandemic stands across the world:

Atlanta's 51st AJC Peachtree Road Race will be a completely virtual event in 2020, the Atlanta Track Club announced in a statement Wednesday.  

The Club, which organizes the "world's largest 10K" race, had previously postponed the event from July 4 to Thanksgiving Day, according to the statement.  

"The curve is no longer flattened and we have significant community spread of the virus here in the city of Atlanta and the state of Georgia," said Dr. Jonathan Kim, the Peachtree's Co-Medical Director. 

The virtual race will still be held on Thanksgiving Day, Nov. 26, the release said.  

"Those who had already registered for the Peachtree will be automatically placed into the virtual event," said the release. 

A version of this story appeared in the August 19 edition of CNN's Coronavirus: Fact vs. Fiction newsletter. Sign up here to receive the need-to-know headlines every weekday.

"UNC has a clusterf**k on its hands."

The editorial board for the student newspaper at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill didn't mince words in its assessment of the school's coronavirus response. The university was forced to cancel in-person classes after at least 130 students tested positive for Covid-19 in the first week of classes.

The university's chancellor blamed off-campus activities for the outbreak, but the newspaper saw it differently. "We all saw this coming," the Daily Tar Heel editorial board wrote. "Though these students are not faultless, it was the University's responsibility to disincentivize such gatherings by reconsidering its plans to operate in-person earlier on."

UNC is just one of many universities across the US experiencing outbreaks just days after students started returning to campuses. Indiana's University of Notre Dame was forced to announce yesterday that all undergraduate classes will be remote for the next two weeks as it tries to get its own recent spike in cases under control.

The World Health Organization said yesterday young people are "increasingly driving" the pandemic.

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Just days before classes are slated to resume, colleges across the country are finding it may be next to impossible to create a coronavirus-free environment on campus.

Young people -- who US officials say helped drive a nationwide surge of new coronavirus cases over the summer -- are now returning to college campuses across the country. With them have come reports of hundreds of infections. Despite efforts to keep the virus at bay, outbreaks have been traced to off-campus gatherings, sororities and fraternities, and dorms, leaving schools to reassess how to proceed with the fall semester.

At Appalachian State University, a cluster was associated with the football team. Iowa State University said 175 students tested positive for the virus -- about 2.2% of those tested -- during move-in.

"It's just extremely difficult to consider yourself to be in a bubble when there is a very high level of community spread around you or when people are coming from all over the country and congregating on college campuses," said Dr. Leana Wen, the former Baltimore City Health Commissioner. "You can't keep coronavirus out."

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