Overnight Healthcare: Fauci: US seeing ‘disturbing’ new surge of infections | Fauci: We need more testing, not less | CDC director: US needs 100K contact tracers
Welcome to Tuesday’s Overnight Health Care.
Key members of the White House coronavirus task force testified before a House committee, and they denied that President Trump told them to slow down COVID-19 testing so it looked like the U.S. had fewer cases.
Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said the U.S. needs more testing, not less. And the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) gave an update on how many contact tracers the U.S. currently has as it prepares for the fall.
Let’s start with Fauci:
Fauci: US seeing ‘disturbing’ new surge of infections
Anthony Fauci, the administration’s top infectious disease doctor, told a House panel on Tuesday that the country’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic has been a “mixed bag,” adding that a new increase in cases is “disturbing.”
“In some respects, we’ve done very well,” Fauci said during an Energy and Commerce Committee hearing, specifically praising the way New York has been containing the worst outbreak in the country to date.
“However, in other areas of the country, we are now seeing a disturbing surge of infections that looks like it’s a combination, but one of the things is an increase in community spread. And that’s something I’m really quite concerned about,” Fauci said.
There are now about 30,000 new cases per day in the United States. The number of new cases had leveled off at about 20,000, and stayed there for weeks before rising this past weekend.
Areas of concern: Fauci specifically noted surges in cases in Texas, Arizona and Florida, but said he’s worried about other states, too. He urged people to wear masks and practice social distancing when they’re in public.
Related: California, Texas, Idaho record daily highs in new COVID-19 cases on Monday
On testing: Fauci says more is better than less, but no Trump orders to slow down
Fauci said the nation needs to do more testing for the coronavirus, adding that to his knowledge, he and other top administration officials have never been told to slow down testing, as President Trump suggested during a campaign event on Saturday.
“I know for sure that, to my knowledge, none of us have ever been told to slow down on testing,” Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told a House hearing when asked about Trump’s comments. “That just is a fact. In fact, we will be doing more testing.”
Trump sparked outrage when he said during a rally in Tulsa, Okla., that more testing makes the country look bad by identifying more coronavirus cases, adding that he had told his staff to slow down testing.
“I don’t kid,” Trump said on Tuesday when asked whether he made the comments in jest.
But Fauci said Trump’s comments do not reflect the administration’s actual actions.
Related: Trump: ‘I don’t kid’ on coronavirus testing
Trump: ‘With smaller testing we would show fewer cases’
We also need more contact tracers, says CDC Director Redfield
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield told the hearing that the United States has about 28,000 contact tracers, falling short of the 100,000 that are needed.
Redfield said that the number of contact tracers has increased from around 6,000 in January to around 28,000 as of early June. But he said the country needs to “continue to increase in my view towards 100,000.”
“That’s going to be critical for what we’re doing,” he said.
Reminder: Contact tracing often gets less attention than COVID-19 testing but experts say it is also an urgent priority to stem the spread of the disease.
Speaking of Arizona … Organizer expects crowd to wear masks at Trump Arizona speech
The organizers behind President Trump’s scheduled speech on Tuesday say they expect the majority of 3,000 young Arizonans to wear face masks in accordance with local ordinances.
Trump is set to travel to Arizona to visit Border Patrol agents and check in on construction of the border wall before speaking to a crowd of predominately young people in Phoenix.
A spokesman for Students for Trump told The Arizona Republic that those attending will comply with a city ordinance passed on Friday requiring masks in crowded spaces.
Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego (D) earlier this week urged attendees to wear masks, which will also be distributed at the event’s check-in.
Not a great sign…EU may block Americans from entering as it reopens borders: NYT
The European Union may block Americans from entering its member countries as the bloc plans to reopen its borders on July 1 and the U.S. infection rate remains high, The New York Times reported Tuesday.
The EU has produced two draft lists of acceptable travelers to its member countries, which the Times obtained through an official involved in talks.
To determine who qualifies for the list, the EU uses its own benchmark, based on epidemiological criteria. The country bloc compares its average of new infections over the past 14 days per 100,000 people, which currently is 16. The first list, which would allow people from 47 countries to enter, includes nations with a lower average case rate than the union.
A second list allows travelers from countries that have had an average of 20 new infections in the past two weeks per 100,000 people.
The U.S.’s two-week average of new infections per 100,000 people amounts to 107, grouping the country with Brazil, which has an average of 190, and Russia, which has an average of 80, according to Times data.
The Hill event
On Tuesday, June 30 The Hill Virtually Live hosts a Pride month summit to discuss the fragility of civil rights in America today with a focus on the LGBTQ+ community. Olympic medalist Adam Rippon, Rep. Sharice Davids, Chasten Buttigieg, Alphonso David, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and more join Editor-at-Large Steve Clemons. Register Now!
What we’re reading
Trump aides consider a CDC overhaul as virus cases surge (Politico)
The hidden deaths of the COVID pandemic (Kaiser Health News)
How ‘superspreading’ events drive most COVID-19 spread (Scientific American)
State by state
Local leaders warn Texas is heading down a dangerous path as coronavirus cases and hospitalizations surge in big cities (The Texas Tribune)
Fear in the elevators, plexiglass in the mailroom: Coronavirus has spread inside D.C.’s largest apartment building (Washington Post)
Florida coronavirus deaths rise by 65; governor warns that ‘grim reaper’ is coming for out-of-line businesses (South Florida Sun-Sentinel)
‘Spread is so rampant,’ Texas hits all-time high of more than 5k new COVID-19 cases, Gov. Greg Abbott says (Dallas Morning News)
The Hill op-eds
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