Texas governor says "in hindsight" he reopened bars too soon
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott KVIA
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott acknowledged on Friday that he had allowed the state's bars to reopen too soon.
“If I could go back and redo anything, it probably would’ve been to slow down the opening of bars," he said in an interview with CNN affiliate KVIA.
"Now seeing in the aftermath of how quickly the coronavirus spread in the bar setting – you know, a bar setting in reality just doesn’t work with a pandemic. People go to bars to get close and to drink and to socialize. And that’s the kind of thing that stokes the spread of the coronavirus. So, sure, in hindsight it may have been better to have slowed the opening of the bar setting," he said.
Texas has seen its case numbers spike dramatically this week. The state reported its highest daily jump in new cases on Thursday, while Friday saw 5,707 new cases and 28 more related deaths.
3:33 a.m. ET, June 27, 2020
Every single beauty salon worker in Beijing is being tested for the coronavirus
From CNN's Shawn Deng in Beijing and Isaac Yee in Hong Kong
A man wearing a face mask gets his hair cut by a barber in Beijing on March 6. (Photo by STR/AFP via Getty Images) STR/AFP/Getty Images
China recorded 21 new coronavirus cases on Friday -- including 17 which were locally transmitted in Beijing, according to the country's National Health Commission.
The other four were imported cases, reported in Guangdong, Shanghai and Gansu.
Twelve more asymptomatic cases were also confirmed nationwide. The NHC counts these asymptomatic positive cases separately.
The new cases come after Beijing’s Hairdressing and Beauty Association issued an emergency notice requiring all staff at hair, nail and beauty salons to be tested for the virus, according to the state-run Beijing Daily newspaper.
The report added that customers entering salons will continue to have their temperature taken and present their health QR codes, which are color-coded to represent a person's health status and risk level.
2:11 a.m. ET, June 27, 2020
Los Angeles health care system risks being overwhelmed, county health director warns
An aerial view of people in cars lined up to be tested for COVID-19 at Dodger Stadium amid the coronavirus pandemic on June 26, in Los Angeles, California. Mario Tama/Getty Images
Los Angeles County's health care system could be overwhelmed “without immediate actions to slow the spread" of Covid-19, a public health expert has warned.
The county has a total of 93,232 cases and 3,267 deaths so far.
“While we did anticipate increases in cases as sectors reopened, we did not expect the increases to be this steep this quickly,” county Department of Public Health Director Dr. Barbara Ferrer said in a press release on Friday. “Without immediate actions to slow the spread, we risk having too many people requiring hospital care and possibly overwhelming our healthcare system."
The department has reported increases in cases, hospitalizations and the positivity rate for testing in recent weeks, according to the press release.
##Reopening
1:49 a.m. ET, June 27, 2020
Alaska's largest city is making public face coverings mandatory
From CNN’s Andy Rose
Larry Love, right, the manager at Hair Doctors in Anchorage, Alaska, gives an airman a haircut on Monday, April 27. Mark Thiessen/AP
The mayor of Anchorage, Alaska, issued an order Friday requiring people to wear face coverings in public.
The order will go into effect at 8 a.m. Monday morning local time.
“Unfortunately, not enough people are practicing the distancing needed to keep the curve flat, so we have a choice between doing nothing, hunkering down, or masking up,” Mayor Ethan Berkowitz said in a statement.
Anchorage has experienced a significant increase in new cases over the past week, according to the city’s health department. Officials say some of the cases come from non-residents who are in the state as seasonal workers in the seafood industry.
1:28 a.m. ET, June 27, 2020
Fact check: As pandemic situation worsens, Pence paints a deceptively rosy picture
Analysis from CNN's Daniel Dale
At Friday's press briefing by the White House's coronavirus task force -- the first in nearly two months -- Vice President Mike Pence painted a rosy picture of a country steadily getting safer and back to normal.
It was a picture at odds with reality.
Leaving out critical information, Pence delivered a more polished version of the upbeat, all-is-well dishonesty that was a hallmark of previous briefings by President Donald Trump, who did not attend the Friday session.
"Despite what you heard, we are in the middle of a public health disaster," CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta said on air after the briefing.
Pence boasted that "we flattened the curve."
Fact check: The curve for the number of new confirmed cases did decline and plateau in April and May, but has headed sharply upward again in June.
Pence claimed that "all 50 states" are "opening up safely and responsibly."
Pence claimed the country is finished with the painful part of the pandemic, saying "we're in a much better place" than two months ago and the US is no longer "in a time of great losses and great hardship."
Fact check: He was right that the current number of daily deaths is substantially lower than it was at its peak -- but the pandemic is still killing more than 500 Americans a day. The May unemployment rate was 13.3%. In other words, the loss and the hardship continue.
Months into the pandemic, a number of US states are still reporting their highest daily rise in new cases
From CNN’s Jennifer Henderson and Jamiel Lynch
At least six US states reported their highest single-day jump in new coronavirus cases on Friday, according to data from Johns Hopkins University:
Georgia: 1,900 new cases (state total: 72,995 cases and 2,770 deaths)
Tennessee: 1,410 new cases (state total: 39,444 cases and 577 deaths)
Utah: 676 new cases (state total: 20,050 cases and 166 deaths)
Idaho: 283 new cases (state total: 4,865 cases and 90 deaths)
Florida: 8,938 new cases (state total: 122,960 cases and 3,366 deaths)
Arkansas: 678 new cases (state total: 18,740 cases and 249 deaths)
South Carolina also had its second-highest one-day jump on Friday.
1:28 a.m. ET, June 27, 2020
The latest White House coronavirus briefing has health experts worried
From CNN's Andrea Kane
Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, speaks as Vice President Mike Pence, left, and Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, listen during a White House briefing on Friday. Erin Scott/Bloomberg/Getty Images
On Friday, the White House coronavirus task force held its first public briefing in two months -- but health experts expressed concern afterward, saying Vice President Mike Pence offered little guidance for the country.
“This is a sad moment,” epidemiologist Dr. Larry Brilliant told CNN. “In all the modeling we did, in all the projections, we never modeled a federal government that didn't take charge, that didn't have a strategy. It's really disheartening."
The US recorded more than 40,000 new cases on Friday alone, and infection rates are going up in more than 30 states, forcing several to dial back their reopening efforts -- which Pence didn't address in the briefing.
"This is the all-time high we've had since the beginning of the pandemic and we squandered five months,” Brilliant said.
“What I worry about now is the Fourth of July,” he added. “We had Memorial Day; three or four weeks after that we had a peak in cases. Two or three more weeks from now, we'll have a peak in deaths.”
Michael Osterholm, director of the Center of Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, warned that the US was "still just in the very beginning of the pandemic."
Only about 5-7% of the US population has been infected so far, he said, and herd immunity would require about 60-70% be infected. "So, when you think about all the pain, suffering, death, economic disruption we've had, think about how much more we have to go," he added.
4:08 p.m. ET, June 27, 2020
Mexico reports more than 5,000 new cases
From CNN’s Matt Rivers in Mexico City and Taylor Barnes in Atlanta
A health care worker looks at a chest X-ray of a Covid-19 patient at a hospital in Mexico City, Mexico, on June 26. Eduardo Verdugo/AP
Mexico’s health ministry reported 5,441 new cases of the coronavirus Friday, bringing the country’s total to 208,392.
The ministry also reported 719 more virus deaths, raising Mexico's death toll to 25,779.
Mexico has the fourth-highest number of cases in Latin America. On Thursday, Mexican Finance Minister Arturo Herrera announced he had tested positive for Covid-19.
12:44 a.m. ET, June 27, 2020
The US reported more than 40,000 cases on Friday, the highest single-day jump so far
Lines of cars wait at a coronavirus testing site outside of Hard Rock Stadium, Friday, June 26, in Miami Gardens, Florida Wilfredo Lee/AP
The US had its biggest one-day jump in new coronavirus cases on Friday, with 40,173 cases reported nationwide, according to data from according to Johns Hopkins University.
That brings the national total to 2,462,472 cases and 125,045 related deaths.
The first known US coronavirus-related death was on February 6 -- 141 days ago, according to CNN reporting.
