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The coronavirus pandemic raged in Florida on Monday as the state reported more than 10,000 new infections for a sixth day in a row, but California saw improvement, with cases and hospitalizations beginning to stabilize after a surge. Florida has become the epicenter of the latest COVID-19 surge, prompting the state’s teachers union to sue Republican Governor Ron DeSantis over his plan to reopen schools for in-class instruction. (Trotta and Whitcomb, 7/20)

California Gov. Gavin Newsom told his citizens,"You have bent the curve." But then Memorial Day came around. By early June the numbers started creeping back up. The seven- day average for daily coronavirus cases totaled more than 2,600. Then they skyrocketed. ... By July 13, Newsom ordered the shutdown of bars, indoor dining, movie theaters, wineries and some other businesses across the state again. So what went wrong? (Sidner and Kravarik, 7/21)

President Trump’s announcement Monday that he would resurrect the White House coronavirus task force briefings is the culmination of weeks of debate among his aides about how best to turn around — or explain away — his administration’s failed response to the pandemic. As the number of infected Americans surges and as Trump’s coronavirus-related approval ratings plummet, the president is pledging to “get involved” in the daily messaging campaign in a more direct way by returning to the stage where he headlined controversial news conferences in March and April. (Olorunnipa and Dawsey, 7/20)

President Donald Trump on Monday tweeted a photo of himself wearing a mask, saying, "many people say that it is Patriotic to wear a face mask when you can't socially distance" and "There is nobody more Patriotic than me, your favorite President." It wasn't clear what message, if any, he might be sending his nearly 84 million Twitter followers and supporters, but it came just hours after he said he'd resume coronavirus task force briefings at the White House amid more bad poll numbers for his handling of the coronavirus crisis. (Cathey, 7/20)

Also —

The test Trump took, as described by his physician in early 2018, was the Montreal Cognitive Assessment, or MoCA, a tool used by health professionals to identify signs of dementia or cognitive impairment. It is a one-page assessment that typically takes about 10 minutes to complete and can yield a score of up to 30 points. The test poses a series of questions and challenges, including drawing a copy of a given shape, naming images of animals and repeating a series of words from memory. (Santucci, 7/20)

The Trump administration has restored public access to coronavirus data reported by hospitals to the federal government, after an outcry over missing data and controversy over a change in the agency that collects it. The information is now being published on the Department of Health and Human Services's (HHS) site, HHS Protect, instead of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) National Healthcare Safety Network. The change was necessary, officials said, because they believed the CDC's system was too slow, and wasn't able to keep up with the constantly changing information about the virus. (Weixel, 7/20)

The system replaces a CDC system and relies on outside vendors who have received at least $35 million combined. Democrats and public health experts have expressed alarm about the move, concerned it would sideline the federal public health agency and cause confusion among hospitals and states amid a pandemic. (Roubein, Diamond and Tahir, 7/20)

U.S. health officials are cracking down on fruity disposable electronic cigarettes popular with teenagers, saying the companies never received permission to sell them in the U.S.The Food and Drug Administration sent a letter Monday telling the company behind Puff Bar e-cigarettes to remove them from the market within 15 business days, including flavors like mango, pink lemonade and strawberry. An undated notice on the company’s website says online sales and distribution have ceased “until further notice.” (Perrone, 7/20)

Puff Bar flavors include watermelon, strawberry banana, pink lemonade and sour apple. The other companies were cited for marketing e-cigarettes or liquid flavors that are directly marketed at and appeal to children. Some imitate packaging for Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal, Twinkies and Cherry Coke, while others feature cartoon characters. The move comes months after public health advocates and many lawmakers warned that disposable e-cigarettes were a gigantic loophole in the administration's ban on certain e-cigarette flavors. (Weixel, 7/20)

In other FDA news —

The Food and Drug Administration has pushed back by six months the deadline by which clinics that offer stem cell-based treatments must start complying with FDA drug development rules, citing the coronavirus pandemic. The agency originally said in November 2017 that companies making stem cell products for patients had three years to start following FDA rules for developing treatments, including filing paperwork for clinical trials. (Joseph, 7/20)

Senate Republicans are clashing with the White House over whether to include new money for coronavirus testing in the next relief package, which lawmakers estimate could swell to $2 trillion once Democratic demands are included. The intraparty tension in the GOP could give Democrats leverage as congressional discussions intensify over the next couple weeks. (Bolton, 7/20)

While President Trump has repeatedly mused that the U.S. should slow down testing for the coronavirus as the surging case count has earned the United States the unenviable distinction as having the most reported cases in the world, he now appears to be acting to do just that. Sources tell ABC News that the administration is proposing zeroing out funding for coronavirus testing and contact tracing, as well as funds for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health in a coronavirus relief package, as an opening offer in negotiations over the forthcoming relief package. (Phelps and Gittleson, 7/21)

Trump convened GOP leaders at the White House on Monday as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell prepared to roll out his $1 trillion package in days. But the administration criticized the legislation’s money for more virus testing and insisted on a full payroll tax repeal that could complicate quick passage. The timeline appeared to quickly shift. (Mascaro, 7/21)

Congress looks unable to protect patients from "surprise" medical bills before the election, despite a push from key health committee chairs and the Trump administration to include a fix in a new coronavirus relief package. Senate Republicans are expected to unveil a skinny package of rescue measures this week that will largely skirt contentious health issues but include protections for hospitals from lawsuits over coronavirus exposure and possibly money for Covid-19 testing that private insurers won't cover. (Luthi and Roubein, 7/20)

Republicans are eyeing more than $70 billion in help for schools as part of the next coronavirus aid package currently being negotiated. "There is going to be over $70 billion that this president has already authorized to work with Congress to try to make sure we not only keep the classrooms safe, but the students safe," White House chief of staff Mark Meadows told Fox News of the forthcoming GOP proposal for the fifth coronavirus relief legislation. (Carney, 7/20)

Top administration officials signaled on Monday night that a payroll-tax cut, a top priority for President Trump, is in the forthcoming Republican coronavirus aid proposal, at least for now. Asked if the payroll-tax cut had to be in the Republican bill, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told reporters "it's in the bill." "So we'll see," he added. "We look forward to meeting with everybody." (Carney, 7/20)

Planned Parenthood Action Fund launched a six-figure ad campaign Monday pressuring several vulnerable GOP senators to pass the next coronavirus relief legislation. Senators return this week from a two-week recess with a steep path to negotiating a bill both parties have vowed to pass by August. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is expected to share the GOP proposal with fellow Republicans on Tuesday. (Bikales, 7/20)

Two of the lawmakers tasked with grilling pharmaceutical executives on the development of Covid-19 vaccines also own stock in one or more of the companies, creating potential conflicts of interest as drug manufacturers race toward lucrative scientific breakthroughs. Reps. Joe Kennedy and Michael Burgess are members of the House subcommittee that will question officials from Pfizer, Merck, Johnson & Johnson, AstraZeneca, and Moderna on Tuesday. Each member holds shares in at least one of the companies. Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat, owns as much as $1.7 million of stock in three of them, according to his most recent financial disclosure. (Garde, 7/20)

Pharmaceutical companies racing to develop coronavirus treatments and vaccines have upped their lobbying presence in the past three months, as drug companies work to combat the pandemic and fend off many lawmakers’ longstanding quest to lower drug prices via regulation. Takeda, which is working to produce a plasma treatment for Covid-19, more than doubled its lobbying expenditure in the second quarter of 2020 compared to the same period a year ago: From $570,000 to $1.33 million. (Facher, 7/20)

In other vaccine news —

At a time when some Americans are concerned about the safety of a COVID-19 vaccine, tens of thousands have already volunteered to help bring oneinto existence. As of Monday , more than 138,600 people had signed up to take part in testing. “That’s why we’re optimistic that we’re going to be able to get the trials enrolled in an expeditious way. I think we can do what we need to do,” said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. (Weise, 7/20)

Almost daily, President Trump and leaders worldwide say they are racing to develop a coronavirus vaccine, in perhaps the most urgent mission in the history of medical science. But the repeated assurances of near-miraculous speed are exacerbating a problem that has largely been overlooked and one that public health experts say must be addressed now: persuading people to actually get the shot. A growing number of polls find so many people saying they would not get a coronavirus vaccine that its potential to shut down the pandemic could be in jeopardy. (Hoffman, 7/18)

California joined a lawsuit with 22 other states against the Trump administration on Monday seeking to protect anti-discrimination language in the Affordable Care Act that the White House last month moved to eliminate. California Attorney General Xavier Becerra at a press conference warned that the Trump administration’s policy change could open vulnerable people to discrimination by health care providers and insurers. (Kristoffersen, 7/20)

A new federal rule will allow health care providers and insurers to discriminate against certain vulnerable and protected populations, Attorney General Maura Healey and 22 of her counterparts allege in a lawsuit they filed against the Trump administration Monday. The lawsuit said that a rule published in June "arbitrarily and unlawfully strips health care rights....from transgender people, women and other individuals seeking reproductive health care or with pregnancy-related conditions, [limited English proficiency] individuals, individuals with disabilities, and other individuals experiencing discrimination." (Lannan, 7/20)

A coalition of 23 Democratic state attorneys general are suing the Trump administration over a rule that scraps ObamaCare's nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ patients. Led by Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey, New York Attorney Letitia James and California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, the lawsuit alleges that the new rule allows providers and insurers to discriminate against certain vulnerable and protected populations. (Weixel, 7/20)

CMS' recent proposal to loosen Medicaid rules to facilitate value-based contracts for drugs could have wide-ranging implications for the 340B program, independent physicians' Medicare drug reimbursement, and patients' expenses. Drugmakers are concerned that CMS' new rule could lower the price they are allowed to charge hospitals in the 340B drug discount program. The Biotechnology Innovation Organization asked CMS to provide clarity on how part of the rule establishing multiple "best price" points for Medicaid rebates would apply to the 340B program. (Cohrs, 7/20)

An experimental coronavirus vaccine triggered an immune response against COVID-19 in study participants, and it has only minor side effects, according to new data published in the medical journal The Lancet. The vaccine, called AZD1222 for now, is being developed by Oxford University and AstraZeneca. It uses a different, harmless virus to deliver biological instructions for how to fight off the coronavirus. According to a phase one/phase two study of more than 1,000 patients, the vaccine triggered two immune responses: an increase in antibodies and a T-cell response. This, scientists said, is a good sign. (Harris and Lupkin, 7/20)

Early stage trials explore only safety and dosing and cannot determine a vaccine's effectiveness, but signs indicate that all four candidate vaccines are leading to immune responses similar to those experienced by people infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus. About 17 candidate vaccines are being tested in people around the world. (Weintraub and Hjelmgaard, 7/20)

While the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, known as AZD1222, has moved most rapidly into larger-scale studies of any major contender — and AstraZeneca has said that billions of doses could be manufactured — the new data represent the first glimpse researchers have gotten at its efficacy. They show a relatively safe vaccine — though side effects were greater than for a meningitis vaccine, to which it was compared — that engages the immune system to fight the virus. AstraZeneca said that, because of the results, it is likely that future studies will test giving patients two doses of the vaccine. (Herper, Garde and Branswell, 7/20)

The race for a vaccine against the coronavirus intensified on Monday as three competing laboratories released promising results from early trials in humans. Now comes the hard part: proving that any of the vaccines protects against the virus, and establishing how much immunity they provide — and for how long. Two of the vaccine developers — the first, a partnership between Oxford University and the British-Swedish drug maker AstraZeneca; the second, the Chinese company CanSino Biologics — published their early results as peer-reviewed studies in The Lancet, a British medical journal. (Kirkpatric, 7/20)

With coronavirus cases and hospitalizations climbing nationally, state and local officials from all over the country are sounding the same alarms heard early on in the pandemic: They’re missing key resources to confront the surge. They are weighing new restrictions and complaining of persistent backlogs in the mass-testing systems considered key to tracking and containing the virus, as the Trump administration seeks to block billions of dollars for states to conduct testing and contact tracing and billions more that Republicans lawmakers want to give the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Labs in some places are taking a week or more to provide results, and health experts say such wait times render tests near-useless in controlling the virus’s rampant spread. (Hawkins, Sonmez and Knowles, 7/19)

Five months into the coronavirus pandemic, people in Massachusetts and across the country are often waiting up to a week or more to learn the results of their COVID-19 tests, seriously endangering efforts to contain and control future infections. The delays are largely being driven by a backlog at some of the nation’s largest laboratories, which process many of the tests from Massachusetts community health centers and businesses. The labs are struggling to keep up with demand caused by surging coronavirus cases in Southern and Western states. (Lazar and Moore, 7/20)

When Madeline Santiago decided to take her 12-year-old daughter on vacation to see relatives in Puerto Rico, she didn’t count on a stressful side trip into the surreal world of COVID-19 testing. Puerto Rico now requires all visitors to prove they tested negative for infection no more than 72 hours before arriving in the U.S. island commonwealth — even though test processing in the United States is so backed up that getting results typically takes a week or two. (McCullough, 7/17)

The state of Georgia on Monday announced a partnership with a North Carolina company to help alleviate a testing logjam that’s led to prolonged waits for coronavirus test results. The dramatic surge in coronavirus infections over the past month in Georgia has led to long waits for appointments and long lines at testing centers. Further complicating matters, Georgia residents have complained of waits of one to two weeks to get results from labs overwhelmed by demand. (Trubey, 7/20)

More Americans are testing positive for coronavirus all over the US at record-breaking numbers and the surge is slowing down testing. Labs across the country are now facing what seems like an almost "infinite" demand, one expert says. (Maxouris, 7/21)

Gap Inc. will soon require masks in all of its U.S. stores, which include Old Navy, Athleta, Banana Republic, Intermix, Janie and Jack and its namesake Gap stores. The new requirement will start Aug. 1, the same day Target will start its nationwide mask mandate. (Tyko, 7/20)

Surgeon General Jerome Adams on Monday implored Americans to wear masks to slow the spread of the coronavirus and acknowledged he was wrong to discourage the use of face coverings in the early days of the pandemic. “I’m pleading with your viewers. I’m begging you,” Adams told the hosts of “Fox & Friends” in an interview. “Please understand that we are not trying to take away your freedoms when we say, ‘Wear a face covering.’” (Forgey, 7/20)

The American Hotel & Lodging Association (AHLA), which represents the hotel industry, says several major chains nationwide will require face masks for guests in all public spaces. The group released industrywide guidelines for enhanced health and safety protocols during the coronavirus pandemic last week, with members including Marriott, Hilton, Hyatt, IHG, Loews Hotels, Radisson and Wyndham all set to mandate masks and social distancing. (Gangitano, 7/20)

An ice cream store manager in New York said his employer recently fired him for not serving a customer who wasn’t wearing a mask, despite a state mandate issued months ago requiring all residents to wear face coverings in public amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Thomas DeSarle, who previously worked at a Carvel ice cream store in Long Island, told local station WABC in an interview this week that he was fired earlier this month following the incident with the customer. (Folly, 7/20)

And on the Georgia mask fight —

In a campaign ad in 2018 boasting that he was “so conservative,” Brian Kemp brandished a chain saw and declared his tool “ready to rip up some regulation.” Two years later, the regulation to which Georgia’s Republican governor is turning his attention is a municipal order requiring people to wear masks in Atlanta, among other precautions designed to arrest transmission of the novel coronavirus, which has sickened nearly 150,000 Georgians. (Stanley-Becker and Witte, 7/20)

Since officials announced Georgia's first confirmed cases of COVID-19 on March 2, the state has drawn national attention over the coronavirus pandemic. It was one of the first states in the country to begin reopening its economy, and has since joined others in pausing its phased approach amid rising numbers of new cases and hospitalizations. Most recently, its Republican governor, Brian Kemp, has become engaged in a legal dispute with the mayor of Atlanta over mask mandates, which more states and cities have been issuing as coronavirus cases rise. (Deliso, 7/21)

Florida’s largest teachers union sued top state officials Monday over an order mandating a return of in-person schooling, drawing the courts into an increasingly politicized nationwide debate over when and how kids can return to class amid the coronavirus pandemic. The suit from the Florida Education Association asked a judge to stop Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) and Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran from requiring the return of in-person schooling without first reducing class sizes and ensuring that educators have adequate protective supplies. (Zapotosky, 7/20)

Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly (D) signed an order Monday mandating all students, teachers, faculty and visitors to public or private K-12 school buildings or facilities wear face coverings. “I will continue to use every resource and tool available to this administration to protect Kansans and keep our economy open for business, regardless of the political pushback,” Kelly said in a statement. (Klar, 7/20)

The Archdiocese of St. Louis on Monday announced plans to resume in-person classes next month as one area Catholic school deals with a coronavirus outbreak. At least 19 St. Dominic High School students and two guests tested positive for COVID-19 after attending an outdoor graduation ceremony July 8 and prom July 10, according to the O’Fallon school. The school cancelled student activities through Aug. 9. (Salter, 7/21)

Andrew Asemota is a paraprofessional with Atlanta Public Schools. In this guest column, Asemota says schools ought to open for face-to-face instruction. He says the best evidence thus far suggests that students and teachers would not be endangered. This is a view that I am hearing from some parents, who believe children will be at greater risk from remote learning than from returning to school buildings, an opinion shared by the president, the U.S. secretary of education and many state governors. (Downey, 7/20)

As scientists study the burden of COVID-19 around the globe, it's pretty clear that despite some cases of serious illness, kids tend to get infected with the coronavirus less often and have milder symptoms compared to adults. "It seems consistently, children do have lower rates of infection than adults," says Dr. Alison Tribble, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at C.S. Mott Children's Hospital at the University of Michigan. (Aubrey, 7/20)

In related news —

Will school start again this fall? How many tests do we really need to tackle covid-19? How long should people quarantine if they do contract the virus?Adults have all of these questions, but so do kids. William Haseltine, a medical researcher and public health veteran with a history of pioneering ambitious projects to tackle HIV/AIDS, cancer and genomics, is tackling those issues with “A Family Guide to Covid.” (Blakemore, 7/20)

The school has been closed to students for months, but every morning it opens its doors to a steady brigade of children ready to have their forehead scanned for a fever. The four-story brick building, known as PS/IS 128 in Queens, New York, has been repurposed into what is known as a "Regional Enrichment Center" -- one of a number of child care centers throughout the state that has remained open during the coronavirus pandemic for the children of parents who cannot work from home and are considered "essential" workers. (Jarrett, 7/20)

America's poor diet isn't just bad for us. It's now considered a threat to national security. Diet-related illnesses are a growing burden on the United States economy, worsening health disparities and impacting national security, according to a white paper published Monday in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Poor nutrition is the leading cause of illnesses in the US, with unhealthy diets killing more than half a million people each year, a group of experts who have formed the Federal Nutrition Research Advisory Group wrote in the paper. (Crespo, 7/20)

Kaiser Health News: Pandemic-Inspired Food Labeling Raises Alarms For Those With Food Allergies
As the mother of a child with food allergies, Heather Sapp was well versed in reading labels and calling manufacturers to verify ingredients. For years, she kept her daughter’s diet free of the peanuts and tree nuts that could kill her. But when a bite of lemon-ginger hummus three years ago sent Sapp herself into life-threatening anaphylactic shock, her dependence on labeling accuracy became more complicated. Testing determined that Sapp, now 43, had developed adult-onset anaphylactic allergies to chickpeas, sesame and cilantro. More recently, Sapp, who lives in Phoenix, had an anaphylactic reaction to parsley. (West, 7/21)

Californians will be allowed to get their hair cut and their nails done outdoors, Gov. Gavin Newsom said Monday, a week after he ordered personal care services shuttered again in most of the state amid a surge in coronavirus cases. New state guidelines issued Monday cover barbershops and hairstyling except for shampooing and chemical treatments such as straightening, coloring and perms, which cannot be done outdoors. Massages and beauty services, including facials, waxing and manicures, can move outside, while tattoos, piercings and electric hair removal are excluded because of hygiene requirements. (Koseff, 7/20)

Early results from a new study on mental health among journalists covering the pandemic were so worrisome that the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism decided to publish the preliminary data. “This is early data on a vital topic,” wrote Meera Selva, the study’s co-author and the Institute’s director of the Journalist Fellowship Program, on Twitter. Selva and her colleagues surveyed 73 journalists from international news organizations in June. All of them had “worked on stories directly related to the pandemic.” The survey had a 63 percent response rate. Of the group responding, about 70 percent said they were suffering from psychological distress. More than a quarter of respondents demonstrated symptoms like worry, feeling on edge, insomnia, poor concentration and fatigue that were “clinically significant” and compatible with the diagnosis of generalized anxiety disorder. (Scire, 7/20)

Kaiser Health News: Behind The Byline: ‘Reporting From A Distance’
Although the coronavirus pandemic shut down many organizations and businesses across the nation, KHN has never been busier — and health coverage has never been more vital. We’ve revamped our Behind The Byline YouTube series and brought it to Instagram TV. Journalists and producers from across KHN’s newsrooms take you behind the scenes in these bite-size videos to show the ways they are following the story, connecting with sources and sorting through facts — all while staying safe. (Almendrala, 7/21)

Faced with patients on ventilators and seemingly endless treatments, Selena Srabian, an ICU nurse at the University of California San Francisco Medical Center, easily finds herself getting stressed. Knowing healthcare workers nationwide are in need of personal protective equipment, in addition to a morale boost, Srabian and her sister, Anna Ryan, an emergency department nurse at Sutter Medical Center in Sacramento, started Protect with Heart. (Burke, 7/20)

The Associated Press called it a “lower-profile issue,” but to more than 400,000 children in America’s foster care system, the state of child welfare in the U.S. is anything but low profile. An executive ordered issued by the White House June 25 aims to strengthen child welfare programs nationwide. Let’s hope it’s not too late. (Reyes and Macon, 7/21)

Both planning for pregnancy and raising children can create stress for parents and parents-to-be during normal times, but taking on either of these roles during a pandemic can be even more taxing. Many couples looking to have children during the COVID-19 crisis are worried about the risks associated with getting pregnant at this time, but they are also concerned about waiting too long to conceive. (Farber, 7/20)

The deadly outbreak of COVID-19 at San Quentin State Prison resulted from a mass transfer of inmates from a virus-plagued prison in Southern California, a transfer approved by J. Clark Kelso, the court-appointed receiver in charge of health care in the state’s penal institutions. A legislator whose district includes San Quentin says Kelso should be fired from the job he has held since 2008. (Egelko, 7/20)

Kaiser Health News: Lost On The Frontline 
America’s health care workers are dying. In some states, medical personnel account for as many as 20% of known coronavirus cases. They tend to patients in hospitals, treating them, serving them food and cleaning their rooms. Others at risk work in nursing homes or are employed as home health aides. “Lost on the Frontline,” a collaboration between KHN and The Guardian, has identified 836 such workers who likely died of COVID-19 after helping patients during the pandemic. We have published profiles for 149 workers whose deaths have been confirmed by our reporters. (7/21)

Picture the scene in its nostalgic innocence, the way it’s always been captured in photo albums and home movies: family and friends huddled together, voices raised in song; a smiling face illuminated by flickering flames atop a colorful cake; a momentary darkness when the music ends and the room fills with the distinctive whiff of blown-out birthday candles. Now imagine it again, this time having spent a 100-something days in quarantine, barraged by news graphics detailing the spit-plume that erupts from our faces every time we speak, laugh, sing or cough. Visualize that same gathering of loved ones, hovering shoulder-to-shoulder, cheering as someone forcibly exhales a blast of aerosolized germs across the surface of a communal dessert. (Gibson, 7/20)

In other public health news —

A California appeals court on Monday upheld a groundbreaking verdict that Monsanto’s widely used weed killer caused cancer in a school groundskeeper but the panel also slashed the damage award from $78.5 million to $21.5 million. The 1st District Court of Appeal said there was evidence to support a California jury’s 2018 decision that “Monsanto acted with a conscious disregard for public safety,” but it reduced the damages to Dewayne Johnson of Vallejo because state law doesn’t allow damages for reduced life expectancy, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. (7/21)

New research by scientists from Kansas State University's College of Veterinary Medicine shows that mosquitoes are unlikely to be a vector for transmission of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, according to a study published late last week in Scientific Reports. The scientists inoculated three common species of mosquito—Aedes aegypti, Aedes albopictus, and Culex quinquefasciatus—with SARS-CoV-2, with the hypothesis that if the virus did not replicate in the mosquitoes under an extreme viral challenge, the lack of replication would preclude the possibility of biological transmission.

Sophia Garabedian had been dealing with a persistent fever and painful headache when her parents found her unresponsive in her bed one morning last fall. Doctors ultimately diagnosed the then-5-year-old Sudbury, Massachusetts, resident with eastern equine encephalitis, a rare but severe mosquito-borne virus that causes brain swelling. (Marcelo, 7/20)

Mosquitoes are biting in Maine, and public health authorities in the state say it’s a good time to exercise precautions to limit exposure to diseases they carry. Mosquitoes can carry diseases such as Eastern Equine Encephalitis and West Nile virus. The risk of contracting the diseases increases in late summer and early fall. The Maine Department of Health and Human Services said Monday that residents should take steps such as wearing long sleeves and pants, using repellent on skin and clothes and taking extra care at dusk and dawn. It’s also a good idea to drain artificial sources of standing water, because that’s where mosquitoes lay eggs, the department said. (7/21)

Any hopes that summer’s high temperatures might slow the spread of the coronavirus were smashed in June and July by skyrocketing cases across the country, especially in some of the warmest states. Colin Carlson wasn’t a bit surprised that summer heat failed to curb the virus that causes COVID-19, which has claimed more than 138,000 lives in the U.S. That notion, no matter how many times it was repeated, was never supported by science, said Carlson, an assistant research professor at Georgetown University who studies the relationship between climate change and infectious disease. (Voyles Pulver, 7/17)

Boston is in the middle of its first heatwave of the summer. Usually, there are many ways to escape the heat, be it turning on the air conditioning, going to the mall or movies, or visiting a community center or pool. But for those who don't have air conditioning in their homes, or can't afford to run it, this year is particularly hard, because COVID-19 restrictions and physical distancing guidelines have limited where people can go to cool off. So what do they do? (Alston and Dearing, 7/20)

An East Coast heat wave that's triggered advisories and excessive heat warnings, combined with the U.S.'s ongoing COVID-19 outbreak, could force vulnerable people into making hard choices about their health, experts say. This week's heat index, which refers to how hot it feels outside, is expected to exceed 100 degrees in cities including New York, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. (Schumaker, 7/20)

The NFL on Monday offered to eliminate its preseason entirely while agreeing with its players’ union on a novel coronavirus testing program for players. The moves to resolve the key remaining issues between the two sides came as rookies for the Kansas City Chiefs and Houston Texans reported to their training camps. The league’s concessions on the preseason and daily testing of players, at least at the outset of training camps, increased the likelihood that all teams’ camps will open fully by July 28 as scheduled. The NFL previously cut the preseason from four games per team to two and was planning for testing every other day. But the NFL Players Association had been adamant about daily testing for players and no preseason at all. (Maske, 7/20)

The bleakest picture to date of football’s uncertain future amid the coronavirus pandemic was painted by the NCAA, which posted on Twitter last week a graph illustrating the wide gap between two points: one, where the NCAA “thought we’d be” in terms of flattening the national curve of confirmed cases; and two, “where we are,” with cases surging nationwide since the end of June.“ Although testing and contact tracing infrastructure have expanded considerably,” read the accompanying text, “the variations in approach to reopening America for business and recreation have correlated with a considerable spike in cases in recent weeks.” (Myerberg, 7/20)

NBA players and coaches have espoused a type of blind faith in the NBA’s health and safety protocols, the document governing the league’s attempted reboot amid a global pandemic. And Monday, that faith was rewarded with something concrete. Since July 13, the NBA has tested 346 players inside its Orlando bubble, and none have shown evidence of the coronavirus, the league announced in coordination with the NBPA, the union that represents the league’s players. (Woike, 7/20)

Also —

Anthony Fauci, health care superstar and baseball superfan, will throw the ceremonial first pitch on Opening Day for the Washington Nationals, the team announced Monday. "Dr. Fauci has been a true champion for our country during the Covid-19 pandemic and throughout his distinguished career, so it is only fitting that we honor him as we kick off the 2020 season and defend our World Series Championship title," the Nationals announced in a statement. (Choi, 7/20)

When dermatologist Jenna Lester learned that rashes on skin and toes were a symptom of Covid-19, she started searching the medical literature for images of what the rashes looked like on Black skin so she’d recognize it in her Black patients. She couldn’t find a single picture. (McFarling, 7/21)

Kaiser Health News: NIH Project Homes In On COVID Racial Disparities 
While the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on Black and Hispanic Americans is no secret, federal officials have launched studies of the disparity that they hope will better prepare the country for the next great epidemic. The National Institutes of Health began the ambitious “All of Us” research project in 2018 with the goal of enrolling at least a million people in the world’s most diverse health database. Officials saw it as an antidote to medical research that traditionally has skewed heavily white, well-off and male. (Gold, 7/21)

The Black middle class has made strides in recent years toward economic parity with whites in 34 states, a new Stateline analysis has found. But the pandemic threatens that progress, as Black professionals and businessowners lose their livelihoods at greater rates than their white counterparts. (Henderson, 7/21)

Don Udan spent almost three weeks on a ventilator while hospitalized with COVID-19, but he has been slowly returning to his normal life since being discharged April 21. Every so often, though, he has a wake-up call that life may be different for a while. “When I had my appointment to get an ultrasound on my leg, the tech found out I was in a hospital diagnosed with COVID, and she right away left the room,” Udan said. “She kind of freaked out.” (Warth, 7/20)

Seniors make up 80 percent of COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. and run a greater risk than most venturing outside their homes, according to the Centers for Disease Control. But even when sheltered, some elders face a lonely, disconnected reality: Half the country’s senior population doesn’t have internet access, and one-fourth live alone, according to the Census Bureau. Loneliness itself is a health risk for older adults, but experts and providers worry now more than ever that the technological divide is reducing seniors’ access to health care. Without a statewide effort specifically aimed at helping low-income seniors during the pandemic, existing programs and Bay Area nonprofits are trying to fill a tech gap made life-threatening by COVID-19. (Du Sault, 7/20)

About 82 percent of Americans who are 50 and older say they have experienced prejudice, discrimination and stereotyping based on their age, according to new research. Ageism, as it is commonly called, can occur as jokes about memory or hearing, comments about difficulty using cellphones or computers, or even passively through advertising and other forms of messaging about undesirable signs of aging, such as wrinkles or gray hair. (Searing, 7/20)

The Navy veteran stands passively in Portland, Oregon, amid swirling tear gas. One of the militarized federal agents deployed by President Donald Trump swings a baton at him with full force. With both hands. Five times. Under the assault, 53-year-old Christopher David seems like a redwood tree — impervious to the blows. But in a video shot by a reporter, another officer — wearing green military camouflage, a helmet and gas mask — sprays David full in the face with what appears to be pepper gas. Video of the Saturday night incident has gone viral. Accounts of it have been reported by news outlets in the United States and around the world. (Selsky, 7/20)

Hotel groups are suing San Francisco over a law passed this month that mandates daily, intensive room cleanings to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. The suit, filed Monday in San Francisco Superior Court, seeks an injunction to void the Healthy Buildings ordinance, which hotel groups say endangers workers by exposing them to surfaces that may be contaminated. The groups also allege that the law will financially burden hotels that are already struggling and that it improperly overrides state and federal health guidelines. The daily cleanings are the strictest requirements in the country. (Li, 7/20)

More than 700 healthcare workers at a Providence St. Joseph Health hospital in Santa Rosa, Calif., have started a five-day strike over COVID-19 safety concerns and contract negotiations. The 740 striking workers at Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital include nursing assistants, respiratory therapists and medical technicians. They are represented by the National Union of Healthcare Workers. (Christ, 7/20)

Hundreds of health care workers began a planned five-day strike Monday at Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital to protest what union officials said were an inadequate supply of protective gear, benefit cuts and “unsafe staffing levels.” The walkout at Santa Rosa Memorial comes amid a surge of coronavirus cases around the region, state and nation that has retriggered concerns over hospital capacity, supplies of personal protective equipment and staff exhaustion. Across California, 107 health care workers have died from COVID-19 and nearly 20,000 have tested positive as of Sunday, according to state data. (Kramer, 7/20)

Across the country Monday, nursing home, fast food and janitorial workers are rallying to strike and demand more from their workplaces for Black lives — Detroit included. Workers at six nursing homes in Detroit will walk off the job to protest the working conditions Black communities have been subjected to during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a news release. (Dale, 7/20)

Also —

When Marali Rubio arrived in Michigan the last week of May, the immigrant from Venezuela was eager to help the Midland area recover from its flood by cleaning up buildings. But the 50-year-old woman from Florida and others said they grew concerned when they were not provided adequate safety equipment, social distancing rules, and were crowded into hotel rooms, two for each bed. Even without a pandemic, the work conditions were hazardous, but with the coronavirus spreading, it was even more worrisome, they said. Rubio was one of about 200 legal immigrant workers who arrived from Texas and Florida to work in MidMichigan Medical Center — Midland, which had hired a company to bring laborers to clean up their buildings, including a morgue with bodies and body parts. (Warikoo, 7/21)

A Washington judge Friday upheld coronavirus-related housing rules for farmworkers, rejecting claims by a union that the state bowed to the agricultural industry and adopted unsafe standards. The Department of Labor and Industries and Department of Health strove to protect workers from a disease about which little was known, Thurston County Superior Court Judge John Skinder said. (7/20)

Millions of Americans who managed to hold onto their jobs amid the coronavirus pandemic have seen their incomes drop as employers slashed wages and hours to weather what they expected to be a short-term shutdown. Now, with the virus raging and the recession deepening, those cuts that were meant to be temporary could turn permanent — or even pave the way for further layoffs. That could portend deep damage to the labor market and the economy because so many workers who have kept their jobs have less money to spend than a few months ago. (Cassella, 7/19)

John Jolley never thought he'd be sleeping in his car awaiting unemployment benefits. But there he was, the owner of a once-successful advertising agency, taking a sweaty nap in a Subaru wagon in a convention center parking lot at 1:45 a.m. on a Wednesday. The pandemic sent his business into a free fall, and now Jolley wanted to be first in line for an unemployment claims event beginning in five hours. He barely dozed, afraid that if he fell into a deep sleep, he would miss the early-morning handout of tickets for appointments with state agents. (Gowen, 7/20)

Louisiana’s coronavirus rental assistance program was temporarily suspended just four days after it launched due to overwhelming demand. A notice on the Louisiana Housing Corporation website states that the program has been temporarily suspended due to “overwhelming response.” The housing corporation advises residents to add their emails to be notified when the application process reopens. (Klar, 7/20)

Kaiser Health News: Watch: COVID Patients And Families Battle To Get Benefits 
As COVID cases in the U.S. continue to soar, health care workers on the front lines are increasingly getting sick and even dying of the disease. KHN’s Christina Jewett and Hari Sreenivasan of PBS NewsHour discuss what often happens and how some employers evade paying benefits. (7/20)

Covid-19 isn’t expected to slow the pace of health care construction in New York City. A new report from the New York Building Congress projects spending to increase 38% through 2023 compared with the previous four-year period. The city’s hospitals and other medical providers spent $6.8 billion on construction projects from 2016 to 2019, and that spending is expected to total $9.4 building from 2020 to 2023, the Building Congress said. (Lamantia, 7/20)

In a series of focus groups conducted with primary care providers in four US cities, most participants consistently identified antibiotic resistance as a lower priority compared with other health concerns, and suggested that urgent care, retail clinics, and patient demand were the key drivers of inappropriate prescribing, researchers reported last week in BMJ Open. The eight focus groups, which were conducted by the Pew Charitable Trusts and the American Medical Association in Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and Birmingham, included family medicine and internal medicine physicians and pediatricians. In each focus group, an independent moderator asked the participants to rank a number of public health issues in terms of importance, then asked questions aimed at understanding physicians' attitudes and perceptions around antibiotic use and stewardship. A total 52 primary care providers participated in the recorded discussions. (7/14)

Blue Cross and Blue Shield insurers once again racked up some of the largest risk-adjustment payments under an Affordable Care Act program meant to discourage individual and small-group insurers from cherry-picking healthy employees, CMS data show. Blue Shield of California is set to receive the largest single risk-adjustment payment of $1.04 billion across the individual, catastrophic and small-group markets, according to Modern Healthcare's analysis of CMS data released Friday. The analysis excluded the high-cost risk pools and merged markets. (Livingston, 7/20)

Cordant Health Solutions agreed to pay nearly $12 million to settle allegations that it paid kickbacks to boost its urine testing business, the U.S. Justice Department said Monday. Denver-based Cordant allegedly paid millions of dollars to Northwest Physicians Laboratories and Genesis Marketing Group from 2013 to 2015 in exchange for referrals of urine tests that were funded by federal healthcare programs. The settlement, which stemmed from a 2015 whistleblower lawsuit, specifically applies to two Cordant operated labs: Sterling Reference Laboratory in Tacoma, Wash., and Forensic Laboratories in Denver. (Kacik, 7/20)

The sheriff of Jacksonville, Fla., said he can’t provide security for the Republican National Convention because of a lack of clear plans, adequate funding and enough law enforcement officers. “As we're talking today, we are still not close to having some kind of plan that we can work with that makes me comfortable that we're going to keep that event and the community safe,” Duval County Sheriff Mike Williams told POLITICO. (Caputo, 7/20)

He whiffed on a question about the death of civil rights icon John Lewis. Hecklers disrupted him. And he awkwardly distanced himself from his own administration’s back-to-school order. Faced with a bad and worsening outbreak, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has lost his coronavirus swagger. (Dixon, 7/20)

A Kentucky couple says they've been placed under house arrest for refusing to sign self-quarantine documents. It all started when Elizabeth Linscott planned to visit her parents and decided to get tested for COVID-19 before traveling. After testing positive on July 11, Elizabeth was contacted by Kentucky's Hardin County Health Department. (Roberts, 7/20)

Several Maryland county health officials asked Gov. Larry Hogan (R) to reimpose some coronavirus restrictions in a Monday letter driven by the rise in coronavirus cases the state has seen in the past week. The health officials from Maryland’s five largest counties and Baltimore City sent a letter that was obtained by The Baltimore Sun to Fran Phillips, a deputy health secretary. (Coleman, 7/20)

Gov. Larry Hogan on Monday defended his decision to hold a traditional election in November, despite growing concerns from voting rights advocates and election officials about the impact of his choice amid a global pandemic. Hogan (R) said he opted for a “normal” election instead of a “vote by mail only” because of the chaos that occurred during the June 2 primary, when the state mailed ballots to every voter and opened only a few polling sites in each jurisdiction. Far more voters than expected opted to cast their ballots in person, leading to huge lines and hours-long waits in many places. (Wiggins, 7/20)

Chicago announced Monday it will tighten coronavirus restrictions, including for bars, restaurants, gyms and personal services, as it experiences a rise in COVID-19 cases. The city’s reinstitution of restrictions, which will go into effect Friday at 12:01 a.m., comes as Chicago has seen a boost in its seven-day average of new cases, reaching above 200 per day. (Coleman, 7/20)

Two more deaths have been tied to an outbreak of COVID-19 at a Montana care facility, officials said Monday. The weekend deaths bring to 12 the number of residents of Canyon Creek Memory Care in Billings who have died from the respiratory virus in the past two weeks, Yellowstone County health officials said. (7/20)

Three more Indiana residents have died from COVID-19 while another 658 Hoosiers have been diagnosed with the respiratory disease caused by the coronavirus, state health officials said Monday. The state’s 658 newly diagnosed cases of COVID-19 brings the total number of Indiana residents known to have the illness to 57,206, the Indiana State Department of Health said. (7/20)

Numbers gathered by Nebraska health officials show another day of more than 100 cases of coronavirus confirmed in the state. Nebraska’s online coronavirus tracker shows 102 cases were confirmed Sunday, bringing the state’s total to 22,583 since the outbreak began. The state’s total number of deaths remained unchanged at 301. (7/20)

The Oregon Health Authority reported 277 new confirmed and presumptive coronavirus cases in the state Monday. In addition there were two new deaths, increasing the state’s death toll to 262 people. Following the increase, Oregon’s total coronavirus cases since the start of the pandemic is now nearing 15,000. (7/20)

Nearly 393,000 people in Nevada have been tested for the COVID-19 illness, state health officials said Monday, and more than 36,700 have tested positive. One more death was reported since the weekend, bringing the total to at least 648 since the coronavirus pandemic began, according to state Department of Health and Human Services figures. (7/21)

Nearly 800 cases of COVID-19 have been reported in Washington state, bringing the state total number of cases to 47,743.The Washington State Department of Health on Sunday also reported six additional deaths. In Washington, 1,453 people have now died from the disease. (7/21)

Dallas County reported at least 1,000 new coronavirus cases for the 18th consecutive day Monday, as well as one additional death. The latest victim was a Dallas man in his 80s who was a resident of a long-term care facility. (Jones, 7/20)

Thirty-nine inmates at the Nelson Coleman Correctional Center in Killona have tested positive for COVID-19, and results are pending on some others, the St. Charles Parish Sheriff's Office said Monday. The agency began conducting the tests over the last several days after medical staffers recognized symptoms in some of the inmates, according to Cpl. James Grimaldi, a Sheriff's Office spokesman. The Sheriff's Office is still waiting for the test results of other inmates who have been tested.  (Hunter, 7/20)

After nearly five days of intense haggling, European Union leaders early on Tuesday stepped up to confront one of the gravest challenges in the bloc’s history, agreeing to a landmark spending package to rescue their economies from the ravages of the pandemic. The 750 billion euro ($857 billion) stimulus agreement, spearheaded by Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and President Emmanuel Macron of France, sent a strong signal of solidarity even as it exposed deep new fault lines in a bloc reshaped by Britain’s exit. (Stevis-Gridneff, 7/20)

Passengers of China-bound flights must provide negative COVID-19 test results before boarding, China’s aviation authority said on Tuesday, as the government looks to further reduce the risk of imported coronavirus cases amid increased international travel. Nucleic acid tests must be completed within five days of embarkation, the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) said on its website. Tests should be conducted at facilities designated or recognised by Chinese embassies in host countries, it said. (7/21)

Day traders seeking help for gambling addiction have tripled in number in South Korea, as COVID-19 social distancing and working-from-home has freed up more time for online stock market trading, data showed. ... The trend is a worrying sign of things to come should social distancing practices such as work-from-home become the norm, experts said, as isolated individuals have even fewer mechanisms such as peer support to check addictive behaviour. (Lee, 7/20)

In bullfighting, the dying animal is put out of its suffering with a quick dagger blow by the puntillero. Now, after years of decline, the whole industry may be about to receive its own coup de grâce — at the hands of the coronavirus. The pandemic struck Spain in March, just as the bullfighting season was about to get underway. A strict lockdown was introduced for the next three months, meaning the cancellation of all corridas, including major fiestas such as Seville’s Feria de Abril and San Isidro in Madrid. (Hedgecoe, 7/20)

After months of hype, the world finally has human trial data from a front-running vaccine collaboration between the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca Plc. Spoiler alert, it’s good news. The data, published in The Lancet Monday, showed that the vaccine produced an encouraging immune response. Just as crucially, perhaps, no significant safety issues emerged. Investors took these developments as a cue to bid up AstraZeneca shares as they did with Moderna Inc.’s stock last week on its positive vaccine news. And there are indeed elements of the Oxford-Astra shot’s profile that may make it especially promising. But it's important to remember that this early stage in the process, every piece of vaccine data is still just part of a thesis that needs confirmation. (Max Nisen, 7/20)

Wanting to get kids back to school and being able to do so safely are not the same thing. We have learned in the coronavirus pandemic that most of the big outbreaks occur when large numbers of people gather indoors for an extended period of time — as they do in schools. Still, it is possible to get kids back to school safely — and we must do everything we can to make it so. This was also the conclusion of two recent reports, one from the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine and the other from the American Association of Pediatrics. (Ashish K. Jha, 7/20)

My children were born here and attended public schools in central Phoenix from kindergarten through high school. In that time our family came to know a number of great teachers, coaches, counselors, administrators and others, witnessing first-hand the limited resources they dealt with and the sacrifices they were willing to make. These are experiences that President Donald Trump and his children and grandchildren cannot identify with. Under normal circumstances, that’s perfectly okay. If you have the money, enrolling your children in any hoity-toity private school or academy is no one’s business but yours.But these are NOT normal circumstances. (EJ Montini, 7/20)

Pretty much everyone hopes schools can reopen this fall. We know that children need to be educated and that some at-risk children need attention they get only at school. We also have a desperate desire to get “back to normal.” The daily and annual predictability of school schedules provide order and routine. We all want that right about now. But the novel coronavirus doesn’t care what we want.And school superintendents should not care what politicians want.In making plans for the upcoming school year, Iowa education leaders must focus on facts, including local data about viral spread and advice from public health experts. (7/17)

Few Americans disagree with the sentiment that kids need to be back in the classroom, but President Donald Trump and Missouri Gov. Mike Parson can’t seem to grasp that the mechanics are far more complicated than simply putting students behind desks. If handled badly — and the administration’s track record makes that a virtual certainty — an even worse explosion of coronavirus cases looms on the horizon. (7/20)

It’s good news that the death rate from Covid-19 has trended dramatically downward since April, even as the number of new cases is surging. But it’s far from the whole story. Unlike common colds caused by other coronaviruses, Covid-19 is more than a transient, self-limited respiratory infection. There have been numerous reports of nonrespiratory manifestations, including loss of smell or taste, confusion and cognitive impairments, fainting, sudden muscle weakness or paralysis, seizures, ischemic strokes, kidney damage, abnormal blood-coagulation tests, transmission to an unborn child via the placenta, and a severe (though rare) pediatric inflammatory syndrome. Recovery is sometimes incomplete, with some patients experiencing long-term adverse effects that resemble a condition variously known as myalgic encephalomyelitis or chronic fatigue syndrome. As the name suggests, CFS is group of symptoms that seem to define an illness, even if we don’t know how they’re related or what causes them. (Henry I Miller, 7/20)

Some survivors of acute bouts of Covid-19 experience a range of persistent medical issues — some lasting for weeks, or even months — that include profound exhaustion, trouble thinking or remembering, muscle pain, headaches, and more. One survivor described it as feeling like she was “hit by a truck.” Anthony Fauci, the country’s top infectious diseases expert, acknowledged this month that the symptoms in many of these unrecovered patients are “highly suggestive” of myalgic encephalomyelitis, the disabling illness also commonly called chronic fatigue syndrome or ME/CFS. “This is something we really need to seriously look at,” said Fauci. (David Tuller and Steven Lubet, 7/21)

Like almost all department stores, Macy’s was in financial trouble even before the coronavirus hit. The pandemic didn’t help matters: Revenue fell 45 percent in the first quarter of 2020. Late in June, Macy’s laid off 3,900 corporate employees. Tragic, but unavoidable, right? Except two weeks later, the store’s board of directors granted the C-suite management team more than $9 million in stock. When covid-19 first hit this country, many observers suggested there could be a bright side for our epic societal breakdown. We would likely emerge, they said, with a firmer government safety net and a smaller divide between rich and poor. Those making this argument sometimes pointed out that in western Europe, the Black Death led to gains for workers. What they either left out or ignored is that in eastern Europe, nobles took advantage of the chaos to consolidate power. And so far, economic and social chaos is allowing the wealthy in the United States to increase their holdings and power. (Helaine Olen, 7/20)

First, there was very good news on the vaccine front Monday... But there's still a very long way to go until we're all getting one. That's why the US Surgeon General got on Fox News and begged Americans to wear face masks in public. "I'm pleading with your viewers. I'm begging you," Jerome Adams said during the appearance before the conservative audience on "Fox & Friends." "Please understand that we are not trying to take away your freedoms when we say, 'Wear a face covering.'" (Zachary B. Wolf, 7/21)

It’s sobering to recall that only six months ago, it looked highly plausible that President Trump could run for reelection largely on the good economy (which he mostly inherited) with no serious crises to contend with. Even after the coronavirus began taking hold, that still looked like a real possibility, as the virus appeared confined to just a few mostly blue-leaning and urban areas. But now, with the coronavirus again surging across different parts of the country, both the seriousness of the crisis and its shifting political geography are ensuring that it is infecting the 2020 election on just about every level. A new report from the moderate Democratic group Third Way underscores the point: It finds that coronavirus cases are now swelling in the 42 most competitive Democratic-controlled House districts that will determine which party controls the lower chamber next year. (Greg Sargent, 7/20)

After primary night in New York, June 23, Democratic Rep. Carolyn Maloney held a 648 vote lead over progressive challenger Suraj Patel. Almost a month later the winner in the 12th District, which covers eastern Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn and Queens, remains unknown. It’s a dark omen for November. (7/20)

D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) recently posted on social media, “Our power is in peace, in our voices, and in the ballot box.” That’s a fine sentiment, but one that rings hollow after a disastrous primary that saw thousands of poor and elderly D.C. residents disenfranchised because of a hasty and poorly planned decision to move to a mostly vote-by-mail election. Thousands of D.C. residents who requested an absentee ballot were never sent one. (Trevor M. Stanley, 7/17)

With COVID-19 cases spiking in Florida, Republican convention goers will have to take an “in-home” COVID-19 test before they depart for Jacksonville, paid for by the Republican National Committee, the Chicago Sun-Times has learned. Convention attendees will have to agree to be tested twice — at home and when they get to Florida. This comes as President Donald Trump — who moved the main convention venue to Florida from North Carolina to escape coronavirus pandemic restrictions — is confronted with the reality that Florida COVID-19 cases are surging at some 10,000-a-day. ...Still, Trump’s convention will not mandate masks. The memo said, when it comes to masks, “We will follow the local and state health guidelines in place at the time of the convention.” (Lynn Sweet, 7/20)

Donald Trump's sudden rediscovery of the pandemic, his endorsement of masks and the return of his notorious briefings suggest a belated realization that public scorn over his denial-plagued leadership could end his presidency. Trump suggested Monday that "many people say" that wearing a mask to prevent the spread of the disease is patriotic, in a tweet using ambiguous language that hinted at his discomfort over the reversal. The grudging move followed weeks of the President politicizing and undermining government advice on face coverings. Once he shared a tweet mocking his Democratic rival Joe Biden for wearing one. (Stephen Collinson, 7/21)

Negotiations on the next round of economic recovery legislation will begin in earnest Monday. Posturing on Capitol Hill and White House chaos and veto threats have made it seem plausible that the whole thing will fall apart just as the nationwide explosion in coronavirus cases makes it clear how desperately it will be needed. Ignore the noise: There will be a bill in the near future. The question is what Congress will and should put in it. The forthcoming bill, dubbed “Phase 4” because it follows three other rounds of legislation to address the virus and its economic effects, will build off the $1.8 trillion “Phase 3” Cares Act that Congress passed in March. The Cares Act added a $600 weekly payment from the federal government to supplement standard, state-provided unemployment benefits. This extra payment expires at the end of July. A major point of conflict between Republicans and Democrats will be what to do next with unemployment benefits. (Michael R. Strain, 7/20)

Americans stayed at home and sacrificed for months to flatten the curve and prevent the spread of the coronavirus. That gave us time to take the steps needed to address the pandemic — but Donald Trump squandered it, refusing to issue national stay-at-home guidelines, failing to set up a national testing operation and fumbling production of personal protective equipment. Now, Congress must again act as this continues to spiral out of control. Those who frame the debate as one of health versus economics are missing the point. It is not possible to fix the economy without first containing the virus. (Sen. Elizabeth Warren, 7/21)

A federal program providing financial aid to 30 million jobless Americans is set to expire this week. The money has helped struggling families pay their bills and put food on the table — and kept many retailers and landlords afloat.Unless Congress acts fast, America’s fragile economic recovery is poised to nosedive off a cliff. (Catherine Rampell, 7/20)

Over the next few weeks, as Congress gets serious about an additional round of pandemic relief, they must dedicate the funds to ensure low-income Americans impacted by COVID-19 do not get cut off from their utilities. Without power, phones, gas, water and other essentials to daily life, we risk deepening the despair for too many of our neighbors. (Mark Wolfe and Cassandra Lovejoy, 7/20)

The next two weeks are critical for our nation’s recovery from the economic symptoms of COVID-19, and Michigan is facing a huge budget deficit and devastating cuts over the next two fiscal years unless leaders in the U.S. Senate make the right moves. To help ensure that happens, we have to make sure Senators Debbie Stabenow and Gary Peters are aware of Michigan residents’ needs during and after the COVID crisis. (Gilda Z. Jacobs, 7/17)

Are we doing everything we can to fight the pandemic? Or are we ignoring obvious opportunities to help our communities survive and recover from this disaster? Right now, Congress has a chance to support local communities overwhelmed in the wake of COVID-19 by supporting the CORPS Act, recent legislation that would expand national service programs where they’re needed most. (Jim Balfanz and AnnMaura Connolly, 7/21)

We’re now at the stage of the Covid-19 pandemic where Donald Trump and his allies are trying to suppress information about the coronavirus’s spread — because, of course, they are. True to form, however, they’re far behind the curve. From a political point of view (which is all they care about), their disinformation efforts are too little, too late. Where we are: In just a few days millions of Americans are going to see a drastic fall in their incomes, as enhanced unemployment benefits expire. This calls for urgent action; but avoiding economic calamity was always going to be hard, because Republicans in general have balked at providing the aid workers idled by the pandemic need. (Paul Krugman, 7/20)

Concerned with the recent surge in the state’s COVID-19 case, nearly half of metro leaders say it is time that all Georgians be required to wear face masks in public. Others who responded to the Atlanta Power Poll survey want more drastic action, with one in five saying Georgians should return to full sheltering in place until health conditions improve. “We have become lax and complacent, and we are not doing enough to protect our communities,” Fulton County School Board President Julia Bernath said in comments to Power Poll. “Unfortunately, we are now paying the price.” (Nancy Badertscher, 7/17)

Four years ago, Donald Trump promised to “Make America Great Again.” Today, we’re living with the mirror image of that promise. America is stretched to the breaking point by a president who mismanaged a pandemic raging out of control and an economy teetering on the edge of a new Great Depression. Does Trump’s America feel great to you? His failures are so broad and the damage he inflicted on our nation is so deep that his skeptics could hardly imagine the devastation. Even Trump’s critics couldn’t foresee losing loved ones because of his lackadaisical response to a public health crisis. No one expected this president would invest his political capital in fanning the flames of lurid conspiracy theories, undermine his public health experts or refuse to follow medical professionals’ advice inside and out of government. (Rick Wilson, 7/20)