Live Covid-19 Updates – The New York Times

U.S. health agencies announce moves to confront the flu season and plummeting child vaccination rates.

Two top U.S. health agencies have announced tangible steps in trying to confront health issues that are byproducts of the coronavirus pandemic — plummeting childhood vaccination rates and concern about the approaching flu season.

The Department of Health and Human Services is giving permission to pharmacists nationwide to administer all scheduled shots to children as young as 3 — including boosters for measles and other diseases — a step that makes immunization more convenient for parents. The flu vaccine is also an available option for children.

Protecting against the impending flu season in the United States is foremost in the minds of public health officials, who worry about the confluence of cases of flu and Covid-19 hitting hospitals this fall and winter.

And the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Thursday that a high-dose flu shot aimed at better protecting people 65 and older will guard against four strains of the virus this year, rather than three.

On Wednesday, Massachusetts announced that it will require all students, ranging from six-month-olds in day care centers to those under 30, to get flu shots by Dec. 31. It is the first state to institute such a sweeping requirement for the shot, which is rarely mandated in the U.S.

This year, because restrictions imposed by the pandemic have shuttered workplaces and school health clinics where millions get their shots, officials have loosened their timing recommendations, which usually point to a window from the middle of September till the end of October. Many public health experts recommend to get the shot as soon as you reasonably can.

The new emergency rule allowing state-licensed pharmacists to give federally scheduled vaccines to children ages 3 through 18 is supposed to encourage widespread immunization as schools open during the pandemic and to resolve a patchwork of state laws that govern shots and age limits.

The state of Florida reached a grim threshold on Thursday as its death toll from the coronavirus exceeded 10,000 people, according to a New York Times database.

Florida is the fifth state to report 10,000 or more deaths. The others are New York, New Jersey, California and Texas.

It was a widely expected inflection point. Florida, as of Thursday morning, had identified more than 588,000 cases, and while the number of new cases per day has declined since mid-July, the state is still identifying more than 4,700 new cases per day, on average, in the last seven-day period ending Wednesday.

Public and private-sector efforts to navigate the continuing crisis have been closely scrutinized in the United States’s third most-populous state, where a quarter of the state’s population of more than 21 million is older than 60.

Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, was criticized for waiting until April 1 to issue a statewide stay-at-home order, after many states had done so. Disney World opened to visitors in July, but the Republican National Convention in Jacksonville was canceled. And last week, more than a dozen counties reopened their schools in accordance with a statewide order for all schools to offer in-person instruction by the end of the month.

The state’s most populous county, Miami-Dade, has suffered the largest number of cases, with 1 in 18 people testing positive.

Mr. DeSantis has stressed that the state’s virus crisis is largely limited to the very old. But the disease appears to be taking a relatively small but increasing toll on the young: More Floridians in the 25-44 age group died in July than had died in the previous four months of the pandemic combined, a review of Florida Department of Health data shows. Records also show the people who died from the virus in Florida among the young were disproportionately Black.

Nationwide, the pandemic has killed so many Americans that the patterns of death in nearly every state look aberrant when compared with recent history. Nationwide, 223,900 more people than usual have died from March 15 to Aug. 8, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates.

The Food and Drug Administration has granted emergency use authorization to a coronavirus test made by a British company that gives results in about 12 minutes.

It is an antigen test, the third one of that type that the F.D.A. has authorized.

Antigen tests work by rapidly detecting fragments of virus in a sample. They are speedy, but they tend to miss more infections than do slower tests based on a technology called polymerase chain reaction, or P.C.R.

In its authorization letter to LumiraDx, the British company, the F.D.A. noted that negative results from the antigen test do not rule out an infection, and that a positive test should not be used as the sole basis for treatment.

The new test, which must be administered by a health care professional, is performed using a brick-size device made by LumiraDx, and depends on swab samples collected from a patient’s nasal cavity. It is intended to be used for patients who have developed Covid-19 symptoms within the past 12 days; the authorization does not address using it to screening people without symptoms.

“Actionable diagnostic results at the point of care lead to better health outcomes,” said Ron Zwanziger, chief executive of LumiraDx, in a statement. The company said it would start shipping the tests by the end of August, and produce 10 million tests by December.

A spokeswoman said that LumiraDx was also seeking F.D.A. emergency use authorization for an antibody test that could be performed using the same machine. Antibody tests indicate whether someone has been exposed to the virus in the past, not whether they are currently infected.

Mississippi’s governor bans tailgating outside college stadiums.

One of the greatest tailgating scenes in all of college football — the Grove at the University of Mississippi — will not happen this fall.

Gov. Tate Reeves of Mississippi on Thursday banned all game day “social gatherings outside college and university stadiums,” including tailgates and picnics. Mr. Reeves said he would allow games to be held, but he barred stadium seating bowls from being more than 25 percent full.

The decision followed a series of rulings from schools across the South about how they would handle tailgating festivities, a rite of autumn Saturdays in the region’s college towns. The University of Alabama and Auburn University forbade tailgating on their campuses, but Florida State University said Thursday that it would allow it, at least for now.

Mr. Reeves’s order will unquestionably reshape game days at Mississippi. Located in Oxford, the university is famed for the Grove, a 10-acre, oak-filled expanse at the heart of campus that bubbles on game days with red and blue tents, extravagant food spreads and cheering hollers.

The order will also affect game days at Mississippi’s other Football Bowl Subdivision schools, Mississippi State University and the University of Southern Mississippi.

“I’d still rather be in the SEC with no tailgates than the Pac-12 or the Big Ten with no football,” Mr. Reeves said, jabbing at two marquee conferences that canceled their fall seasons.

James Baker, a former secretary of state, and Bill Cassidy, a senator, contract the virus.

Former Secretary of State James A. Baker III and his wife, Susan Baker, have contracted the virus, his office said on Thursday, though they appear to have relatively mild cases and are resting at home in Houston.

Mrs. Baker began feeling sick about a week ago, and her husband fell ill a few days later, according to John B. Williams, a senior adviser to Mr. Baker. Mr. Williams said the former secretary was able to joke about the couple’s situation: “He’s telling friends that thank goodness, he was only 90 when they got it.”

Mr. Baker served as White House chief of staff and secretary of the Treasury under President Ronald Reagan and secretary of state under President George Bush; he also ran five presidential campaigns.

Also on Thursday, Senator Bill Cassidy, Republican of Louisiana and a medical doctor, confirmed that he has tested positive for the virus. He is the second senator found to test positive, after Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, though others have shown signs of past exposure in antibody tests.

A number of House members have also tested positive for the virus in recent weeks, fanning fears that the virus was circulating in the Capitol. But with most lawmakers now scattered across the country for the August recess, Mr. Cassidy is unlikely to pose an immediate risk to his colleagues.

“I am strictly following the direction of our medical experts and strongly encourage others to do the same,” he said in a statement on Thursday.

The statement did not specify where the senator was or when he had been exposed to the virus, only that he had been informed of the possibility Wednesday evening. According to his Twitter account, Mr. Cassidy held a campaign event in Shreveport, La., on Wednesday. A spokesman for the senator said he began experiencing mild symptoms shortly before being tested.

The Puerto Rico Senate shut down on Thursday as a precaution after a number of members of the Legislature were found to be infected. Thomas Rivera Schatz, the Senate president, ordered the chamber shut until Sept. 8, without saying how many cases were found.

Carlos J. Méndez Núñez, the House speaker, and Representative José Zamora Torres announced on Tuesday that they had tested positive. Their separate announcements came two days after Puerto Rico’s primary, when politicians attended election-night events to await results.

Mr. Méndez, a leader of the New Progressive Party, spent time with the party’s nominee for governor, Pedro R. Pierluisi, and with Jenniffer González-Colón, Puerto Rico’s nonvoting representative in Congress. Both said they had tested negative in recent days and would be tested again over the weekend.

About 1.1 million American workers filed state jobless claims last week, the Labor Department said on Thursday, an increase after two weeks of declines and a reminder that the labor market remains fragile five months into the pandemic.

“We won’t see a renewal of hiring until the pandemic is under much better control,” said Carl Tannenbaum, chief economist at Northern Trust in Chicago. “We have made substantial and rapid improvement in the last three months, but improvement from here will prove slower and more difficult.”

There were 543,000 new claims last week for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, a separate program aimed at self-employed people, gig workers and others not covered by traditional unemployment benefits.

The crosscurrents in the economy are striking. The unemployment rate remains dangerously high at 10.2 percent, and sectors like leisure and hospitality are experiencing huge losses in employment. Hotels and airports are nearly empty and many restaurants remain closed. But home building is booming and retail sales are back to levels that preceded the pandemic. The stock market is hitting record highs.

Economists, however, warn that conditions could easily deteriorate if Washington doesn’t offer more support.

Republicans and Democrats have been unable to agree on a new coronavirus relief package to augment the CARES Act, passed in March. A $600 weekly federal supplement to state unemployment insurance expired at the end of last month, and a $300-a-week replacement engineered by President Trump is having trouble getting off the ground, with only 11 states so far participating.

“Federal support is crucial to underpinning the virtuous cycle we’ve had,” said Michael Gapen, chief U.S. economist at Barclays. “The longer negotiations stall, the more likely there will be a hiccup in spending.”

Elsewhere in the United States:

• Philadelphia’s health commissioner, Dr. Thomas Farley, announced on Thursday that indoor dining will return on Sept. 8, albeit at restricted capacity. Restaurants will only be permitted to function at 25 percent their normal volume, and only four people or fewer can sit at a table. Movie theaters will also be allowed to reopen then, and indoor gatherings of up to 25 people will be permitted. Additionally, the commissioner said on Tuesday that the state was immediately opening up bowling alleys, arcades and game areas such as mini-golf, escape rooms and ax-throwing.

• A survey of nearly 2,200 members of the largest federal employees’ union found that more than 70 percent of those who have returned to on-site work felt their agencies were not keeping them safe. The report, which was prepared by the union and released Wednesday, comes as many federal agencies have begun directing employees who had been working remotely at the beginning of the pandemic to return to offices. Only 56 percent of those surveyed said their employers had provided adequate personal protective equipment.

• Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease expert, underwent outpatient surgery on Thursday morning to remove a polyp from his vocal cord, and is now resting at home. In a brief text exchange, Dr. Fauci said he underwent general anesthesia and is “doing fine.”

• Experts say new research, sponsored by Eli Lilly and the National Institutes of Health, is among the first large clinical trials to involve nursing home residents. And the scientists are delighted.

• North Dakota reported on Thursday 274 new cases, and Nevada reported 37 new deaths, a single-day record in each state.

• Connecticut’s governor, citing the latest virus figures, said Thursday that the state was on track to reopen schools in two weeks. Gov. Ned Lamont said the state might have changed course if testing had showed 10 or more new cases per 100,000. “We are way below those metrics,” Mr. Lamont said at a news conference, “which implies to us that you can open our schools safely.”

• While the moving industry is fractured among numerous small-business owners, and official statistics are tough to come by, one thing is clear: From professionals who are downsizing following a job loss, to students moving back in with their parents, to families fleeing the city for the suburbs, New Yorkers are changing their addresses in droves.

After a Mets player and a staff member tested positive for the coronavirus, Major League Baseball postponed the team’s game in Miami on Thursday and the Friday opener of their series with the Yankees at Citi Field. The Mets did not identify who tested positive but said both people and anyone found to have been in close contact with them would stay behind in Miami.

The Mets said the rest of the team would fly back to New York on Thursday night, following safety and testing protocols.

The Mets become the fourth M.L.B. team to have a player test positive since the truncated season began on July 23. The Miami Marlins and the St. Louis Cardinals have had large-scale outbreaks (20 overall positive cases for the Marlins, 18 for the Cardinals), and the Cincinnati Reds had one positive test last Saturday. The Marlins missed a week of games, the Cardinals missed two weeks, and the Reds had three postponements.

M.L.B. did not issue all of those postponements at once; in each case, the teams had a longer break than the league initially announced. Based on those precedents, it is safe to wonder if any of the Subway Series games against the Yankees will be played this weekend.

The Mets were not the only team affected by the virus on Thursday. The Pittsburgh Pirates’ president, Travis Williams, announced that he had tested positive but had not had recent contact with players, coaches or the baseball operations staff.

The U.S. Virgin Islands halts tourism as cases surge.

The U.S. Virgin Islands is halting visits by tourists for a month, shutting nonessential businesses and restoring stay-at-home orders, while struggling with some of the highest per capita case numbers in the United States.

The territory, which includes the Caribbean islands of St. Croix, St. John and St. Thomas, registered 165 cases over the last seven days as of Thursday, bringing the total number of cases to 869.

Those figures position the U.S. Virgin Islands behind only Texas in the ranking of states and territories where per capita cases are climbing fastest. The territory, whose economy relies heavily on tourism, had reopened for leisure visitors on June 1.

Gov. Albert Bryan Jr. announced last week that as of Wednesday, hotels and Airbnb operators would be prohibited from accepting new guests for 30 days. Mr. Bryan also ordered bars, nightclubs and cabarets to shut down until Aug. 31.

The territory, which has 103,000 residents, was already trying to bounce back after being hit in 2017 by two Category 5 storms, Irma and Maria. Tourism, which accounts for a third of the U.S. Virgin Islands economy, is the territory’s largest source of employment.

Hit early and hard by the virus, Iran is in the middle of a second wave.

Iran’s health ministry announced Wednesday that it had reached 20,000 deaths from the virus, but health experts inside and outside Iran — and even members of the Iranian Parliament — suggest that the number may be many times higher.

To understand what’s going on, Farnaz Fassihi, who covers Iran for The Times, answered some pressing questions and painted a picture of an outbreak still out of control.

What’s the situation in the country?

It’s very bad. It’s in the thick of a second surge worse than the first one in March. The majority of provinces, including the capital, Tehran, are “red zones.” Doctors are saying hospitals and I.C.U. beds are full. At the same time, there are some restrictions for public gatherings but, generally, it’s open for business.

Even by the government’s own numbers, cases are on the rise. What happened?

They opened too soon. When the virus first arrived in the country, they closed down for just two weeks during the New Year holiday in mid-March. They didn’t meet any of the benchmarks when they reopened. There’s no contact tracing. There’s no quarantine.

What are Iranians feeling?

In the early months, people were very scared. They were self-isolating and staying home and not sending their kids to school, even when the schools were still open. But I think as time has passed, like a lot of places, we see that people are becoming more reckless.

There’s also a nuanced dynamic here. This is a government that for 40 years has told people what to do, how to dress, how to behave — and many people’s mind-set is to always defy what the government says. So now, when there’s a pandemic, and the government tells them, “Stay home, wear a mask,” they’re like: “No. We don’t trust you. And you don’t tell us what to do.”

And so for Iran, I think the challenge to contain a pandemic may be greater than it is for other countries because the government is dealing with 70 million people whose default mode is to defy it.

New York will allow voters to cast mail-in ballots.

New York State will allow most voters to cast their ballots by mail in the November general election, joining a growing list of states that have expanded mail-in voting to address the potential spread of the virus at polling places.

The governor signed a bill on Thursday allowing voters to request an absentee ballot if they cannot show up at a polling location because of the risk of contracting or spreading an illness, effectively permitting the state’s more than 12 million registered voters to vote by mail.

The challenges of administering an election predominantly by mail will be especially pronounced in New York, following the state’s uneven handling of its primary just two months ago. To ease the blow of an influx of mail-in ballots, officials are encouraging voters to cast their ballots in person at early polling sites, which open statewide on Oct. 24.

Absentee ballots will not be mailed automatically to voters in New York; voters will have to request a mail-in ballot online, over the phone, in person or by mail. The deadline to apply by mail is Oct. 27, although officials are urging voters not to wait until the last minute. Ballots need to be postmarked by Election Day.

Election officials are encouraging voters to apply for a ballot online, rather than by mail, to expedite the process of mailing ballots to voters. The state’s Board of Elections is expected to unveil an online portal by the end of the month.

North Korea said on Thursday that the triple punches of the pandemic, international sanctions and flood damage had significantly delayed plans to improve the country’s economy.

During a meeting in Pyongyang, the capital, the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party attributed the delay to “severe internal and external situations and unexpected manifold challenges,” and noted that people’s living standards had “not been improved remarkably.”

The assessment was an unusual admission by the isolated country that its economic plans had faltered.

In 2016, when Mr. Kim adopted his economic plan, the North’s economy grew 3.9 percent, the highest since a devastating famine hit the country in the late 1990s, according to estimates by South Korea’s central bank, the Bank of Korea.

But as the United Nations tightened sanctions, the North’s economy shrank 4.1 percent in 2018, with its exports to China plummeting 86 percent.

North Korea’s economy recovered slightly last year, growing 0.4 percent, as Pyongyang invented ways of easing the pain of the sanctions, such as smuggling banned cargo across the Chinese border or between ships on the high seas.

But this year, the coronavirus forced the country to shut down the border with China, which had accounted for more than 90 percent of the North’s external trade. North Korea’s exports to China fell to $27 million in the first half of this year, a 75 percent drop from a year earlier, according to the Korea Institute for National Unification in Seoul. Imports from China dropped 67 percent, to $380 million.

In other developments around the world:

• A large virus outbreak in South Korea linked to a church is spreading through Seoul and beyond, threatening the country’s success in fighting the pandemic. The Sarang Jeil Church attracts politically active conservatives who oppose the country’s liberal president, Moon Jae-in. Mr. Moon has accused his most vocal critics of spreading the infectious disease and putting the entire nation in danger; conservative activists, in turn, have accused him of trying to scapegoat the church to divert attention from his weak approval ratings.

• Health officials in China issued new guidelines on Thursday that exempt residents of Beijing, the capital, from wearing masks outdoors unless they come into close contact with strangers. The country has reported fewer than 300 infections over the past week, according to a New York Times database.

• India’s coronavirus crisis is now spreading to the hinterlands along its southern coastline. The country recorded at least 69,000 new cases on Wednesday, its largest daily caseload of the pandemic, and nearly a thousand deaths, according to a New York Times database and the ministry of health. The South Indian states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu now account for nearly a third of new cases in the country.

• In a tweet, Hua Chunying, a spokeswoman for China’s Foreign Ministry, weighed in on images of a recent pool party in Wuhan — the city where the pandemic began — that have touched a nerve in countries where many people remain under lockdown. “The city only emerges stronger,” she wrote. Global Times, a popular state-run tabloid, also said that international criticism of the party amounted to “foreign sour grapes.”

Reporting was contributed by Sarah Almukhtar, Peter Baker, Alan Blinder, Choe Sang-Hun, Emily Cochrane, Kimiko de Freytas-Tamura, Julia Echikson, Nicholas Fandos, Richard Fausset, Luis Ferré-Sadurní, Robert Gebeloff, Astead W. Herndon, Jan Hoffman, Sheila Kaplan, Josh Katz, Gina Kolata, Hari Kumar, Danielle Ivory, Lisa Lerer, Dan Levin, Denise Lu, Tiffany May, Patricia Mazzei, Zachary Montague, Claire Moses, Elisabetta Povoledo, Frances Robles, Simon Romero, Margot Sanger-Katz, Julie Satow, Nelson D. Schwartz, Karan Deep Singh, Sheryl Gay Stolberg, Jonathan Wolfe and Lauren Wolfe.