Birx says she wishes US had locked down like Italy

White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx speaks to reporters in the rotunda of the State Capitol in Lincoln, Neb., Friday, Aug. 14, 2020, after meeting with Gov. Pete Ricketts and community and state health officials. Nati Harnik/AP

Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus task force coordinator, said Monday that she wished the US shutdown had looked like Italy's, which was under a total lockdown.

In a roundtable discussion hosted by Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, Birx said she has learned what Americans are willing to do to combat the virus, and that we must meet people where they are.

She explained how the strategy worked for Arizona, where people were still able to go to malls and restaurants at reduced capacity, but gyms and bars were closed, mask mandates were implemented and gatherings of more than 10 people were prohibited. 

“People were interacting, people were out, but people, by just not doing those careful things, were able to drop the cases significantly, probably by more than 80%,” said Birx. 

She said that kind of behavioral change is something every American can do.

“Tens of thousands of lives can be saved if we wear masks, and we don't have parties in our backyards … taking those masks off.” 

“Somehow we always believe our family’s safe and our friends are safe. You cannot tell who's infected with the virus,” Birx added. “You need to keep your mask on.”

People get tested for COVID-19 at a free walk-up testing site on July 11 in Atlanta. Elijah Nouvelage/Getty Images

The Georgia Department of Public Health reported 1,843 new cases of Covid-19 on Monday. The statewide case total is now 238,861.

Georgia DPH reported 25 new deaths. The total number of deaths attributed to Covid-19 in the state is now 4,727. 

There were also 46 new Covid-19 related hospitalizations recorded.

One thing to note: These numbers were released by the Georgia Department of Public Health and may not line up exactly in real time with CNN’s database drawn from Johns Hopkins University and the Covid Tracking Project.

A lab technician sorts blood samples inside a lab for a COVID-19 vaccine study at the Research Centers of America in Hollywood, Florida, on August 13. Chandan Khanna/AFP/Getty Images

Vaccine skeptics and vaccine hesitancy can hurt efforts to protect Americans if and when a coronavirus vaccine comes out, Dr. Anthony Fauci said Monday. But he said the experience with getting people to trust in treatments and preventions for HIV/AIDS provide a roadmap for gaining trust.

“Society is not just jumping around waiting to get a vaccine. It’s not,” Fauci added. “We have got to change that.” 

Fauci said clinical trial networks that get into the community, get the word out and generate enthusiasm will play a big role in improving the trust of Americans in an eventual coronavirus vaccine.

“Those same clinical trial groups that we built for HIV are now being used for the vaccine trials,” he said. 

Fauci said once the right distribution of people have been enrolled in trials, and the trials have shown a vaccine is safe and effective, the next step is to win confidence. That’s the time to “reach out the community, to be transparent and explain to them the individual and societal benefits,” he said.

People in their 70s are being enrolled as volunteers in coronavirus vaccine trials because “there is no age limit” for these tests, Dr. Anthony Fauci said Monday.

Early stage safety trials only accepted volunteers who were 18 to 65, but more advanced trials need a broader study group, said Fauci, who is director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

Now that some studies have moved into later phases, “we are already enrolling people who are in their 70s,” Fauci said during a briefing with the American Society for Microbiology.

Calgary Flames' Dillon Dube is chased by Dallas Stars' Mattias Janmark during second-period NHL Western Conference Stanley Cup hockey playoff action in Edmonton, Alberta, on August 16. Jason Franson/The Canadian Press/AP

The National Hockey League announced that it has received no new positive Covid-19 test results during the past week inside the league’s two hub cities of Toronto and Edmonton. 

Every member of each team’s traveling party was tested on a daily basis between Aug. 9 and Aug. 15. 

Since entering its two hub city “bubbles,” the league has not returned a positive test from any of the teams participating in the NHL’s return to play. 

The NHL season returned to play with 24 teams participating and has now progressed to the Stanley Cup Playoffs with 16 teams still competing.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, testifies before a House Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis hearing on July 31 in Washington, DC. Kevin Dietsch/Pool/Getty Images

The top infectious disease doctor in the US, Dr. Anthony Fauci, said Monday, “We’d better be careful when we say ‘Young people who don’t wind up in the hospital are fine, let them get infected, it’s OK.’ No, it’s not OK."

Fauci said subsequent check-ups show that many “have a substantially high proportion of cardiovascular abnormalities, evidence of myocarditis by MRI and PET scans, evidence of emerging cardiomyopathies.” 

He said this is “really troublesome” because it is evolving on a day by day basis.   

“These are people that supposedly recovered from Covid-19,” Fauci said.  

“I'll guarantee you if we have this conversation again, six months to a year from now, we’ll be reviewing the literature about talking about the long-term deleterious effects of non-hospitalized patients,” Fauci said.

Passengers walk in the terminal building at the airport in Abuja, Nigeria, on July 8. Olatunji Obasa/Xinhua/Getty Images

Nigeria will reopen airports for international flights starting Aug. 29, Aviation Minister Hadi Sirika said in a Monday tweet. 

"Glad to announce the resumption of international flights from the 29th of August, 2020. Beginning with Lagos and Abuja as we did with the domestic flight resumption. Protocols and procedures will be announced in due course. We thank you for your patience," Sirika tweeted.

Airports have been closed since March 23, following the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority's announcement of a ban on all international flights in an effort to contain the spread of coronavirus, with the exception of essential or emergency flights.

Nigeria, which is the most populous nation in Africa, has reported 49,068 confirmed coronavirus cases and 975 deaths, according to the latest data from Johns Hopkins University. 

Former Commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration Dr. Margaret Hamburg speaks onstage during NY Times Cities For Tomorrow Conference on July 21, 2015 in New York City.  Larry Busacca/Getty Images for New York Times

A former US Food and Drug Administration commissioner has called the US response to Covid-19 “disappointing” and said there was no good excuse for it because people have been practicing for this very scenario.

“There have been efforts now over a number of decades, truly, to better prepare our nation against a range of biological threats, to invest in certain critical resources, but also to practice against simulations of threats,” former FDA commissioner Dr. Margaret Hamburg said Monday during a American Society for Microbiology briefing.

“I think where dropped the ball was, you know, first the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] test turned out not to work well there were issues around that test,” Hamburg added. Though “surprising” the CDC had those issue, they were “undeniable,” she said.

There are a number of lessons to be learned — including “fundamental — about taking the threat seriously.”

And also the importance of strong leadership, along with “rapid and comprehensive response,” while using and engaging the tools of science and technology, she said.

A patient drops off a sample at a Texas Division of Emergency Management free COVID-19 testing site at Minute Maid Park August 8 in Houston. David J. Phillip/AP

The recent fluctuation in the Texas positivity rate is attributable to a myriad of coding errors by labs, an upgrade in the state's data processing system, and a decrease in demand at free community testing sites, according to Lara Anton, spokesperson for the Texas Department of State Health Services.  

As CNN has reported, the positive infection rate jumped from 12% at the end of July to nearly 25% last week. It's now back down to 11.25%. The governor announced last week the state was investigating the massive spike.  

Anton told CNN on Monday that a large number of test results came in at the beginning of last week after a coding error was detected by the state in a major lab's reporting process. After that backlog of results started pouring in last week, this caused a spike in the positivity rate because the positive cases had gotten out of sync with other test results. 

Two days later, they got another backlog of results from a large hospital system, which decreased the rate. 

Over the weekend, a national pharmacy chain fixed a data error that also led to a decrease in the positivity rate. 

Additionally, a system upgrade on Aug. 1 started allowing the state to process more than 100,000 tests a day, which is also partly why the state is able to process these backlogs.  

Anton said the state is still investigating other potential factors that have caused data fluctuations in recent weeks and making sure other labs and hospitals don't have coding errors. It's unclear yet whether we'll see more backlogs pour in.