Here's what we know about the WHO team in China

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson visits the headquarters of the London Ambulance Service NHS Trust in England on July 13. Ben Stansall/WPA Pool/Getty Images

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Monday that people should wear face coverings inside shops, adding that the UK government would outline how it plans to enforce its advice on masks over the next few days. 

"I do think that in shops it is very important to wear a face covering if you are going be in a confined space and want to protect other people and receive protection in turn," Johnson said during a televised interview on Monday.

"In terms of how we do that, whether we'll be making it mandatory, we'll be looking at the guidance, we'll be saying a little bit more in the next few days," he added. 

The Prime Minister's remarks came just a day after his cabinet minister, Michael Gove, said he did not believe the use of face masks should be made compulsory. 

"I don't think mandatory, no, but I would encourage people to wear face masks when they're inside in an environment where they're likely to be mixing with others," Gove told the BBC on Sunday. 

"It's always better to trust people's common sense," he added. 

What's the situation in the UK? The UK is one of the countries worst hit by coronavirus. With almost 45,000 fatalities, it stands third behind Brazil and the United States.

"The UK is way behind many countries in terms of wearing masks," Venki Ramakrishnan, the head of the Royal Society, Britain's national academy of sciences, said last week.

Ramakrishnan argued that not wearing a mask should be regarded as antisocial as drink-driving, reasoning that there is a "growing body of evidence that wearing a mask will help protect others -- and might even protect you."

Despite this, the only places where face masks are compulsory in England is on public transport, a measure brought in on June 15, and in healthcare settings.

Government considers enforcement measures: While the Prime Minister said Monday that members of the public had shown "amazing sensitivity" to others over the course of the pandemic, he confirmed that the government is looking into enforcement measures.

"We'll be looking in the next few days about how exactly how, with what tools of enforcement, we think we want to make progress," Johnson said. 

"As the virus comes down in incidence and we have more and more success, face coverings are a kind of extra reassurance that we can all use to stop it coming back and stop it getting out of control again," he added.

As the number of new coronavirus cases continues to rise sharply in the United States, the Trump administration persists in its messaging about children returning to classrooms in the fall.

A source close to the Coronavirus Task Force told CNN's Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta: "With regard to schools, each community will have to evaluate the status of the outbreak in their particular area.

"While there are no hard and fast rules, if a particular community has had a five day sustained increase in community spread, they probably should not be opening schools until they pass through the basic gating criteria of a 14 day downward trajectory. That guidance has not changed.”

These comments come after Education Secretary Betsy DeVos on Sunday refused to say whether schools should follow guidelines from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on reopening, saying those guidelines are meant to be "flexible."

"There is nothing in the data that would suggest that kids being back in school is dangerous to them," DeVos said, when asked by CNN’s Dana Bash if she can assure parents and students that schools will be safe when meeting in full-size, in-person classes -- doubling down on a similar comment she made last week.

Two experts from the World Health Organization have arrived in Beijing to work with their Chinese counterparts on tracing the origin of Covid-19, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) confirmed Monday.

"We have a basic consensus with the WHO -- that is: Source tracing is a scientific issue, and should be assessed and cooperated by scientists all over the world," MOFA spokesperson Hua Chunying said at a press conference.

"The WHO also believes that this is an ongoing process and it may concern multiple countries and localities, and the WHO will conduct similar inspections to other countries and regions based on its need."

No further details of the WHO team's schedule while in China has been released.

CNN's Kristie Lu Stout said this is what we know about the team so far:

According to the WHO, the two individuals will try to answer two critical questions: 

The visit comes at a time of fraught political tensions between the US, China and the WHO:

"We know the WHO has been under fire for its relationship with China, we know that the US under President Donald Trump is withdrawing from the WHO," Lu Stout said.

"So there's a lot of scrutiny and pressure on this two-person advance WHO team in China to see whether or not they're going to get access to data, to samples, to files from Chinese authorities to Chinese scientists as well as, critically, answers just to find out what happened."

Louisiana reported more than 1,300 new coronavirus cases Sunday -- 99% of which were spread through the community, and more than a third of which involved people aged 29 or younger, officials said. 

The numbers match wider patterns across the US, with both local and state leaders saying in recent weeks that new cases appear to be largely driven by Americans who have opted to resume gatherings and outings to bars.

Young people affected: In many states, the average age of new cases has shifted downward, with more young people testing positive than ever before. 

Mask mandates and closures: Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards announced a mask mandate will go into effect Monday morning following an uptick in cases. Many of the new cases are being traced to backyard get-togethers and other gatherings, the governor said. 

Bars will also be closed for on-site alcohol consumption, after at least 36 outbreaks and more than 400 cases were traced back to bars in the state.

At least 36 states now have some type of mask requirement order in place, and more than half of US states have paused or rolled back their reopening plans in efforts to contain the spread of the virus, which some experts have said is now out of control.

Read the full story:

People walk in Hong Kong on July 10. Roy Liu/Bloomberg/Getty Images

Hong Kong Health officials reported 52 new cases of Covid-19 in the city on Monday, with 41 locally transmitted infections.

Of the 52 new cases, officials said 11 were imported and 20 of the local infections come from "unknown sources."

This is the highest number of daily local cases so far in Hong Kong's "third wave," which began in early July following weeks of registering zero local transmissions.

Schools shut: Hong Kong last week announced that all schools in the city would be suspended following a surge in locally-transmitted coronavirus cases. On Monday, kindergarten, primary school and secondary schools started their summer holidays early.

In the past 13 days, Miami-Dade County has seen a staggering increase in the number of Covid-19 patients being hospitalized (65%), in the number of ICU beds being used (67%) and in the use of ventilators (129%), according to the latest data released by Miami-Dade County Government.

As of Sunday, there were 1,898 Covid-19 patients, 393 patients in ICU beds, and 206 patients on ventilators, according to data from the county government.

Highest number of new cases in a day: In Florida as a whole, health officials on Sunday reported a shocking record of new cases in a single day: 15,300 -- the highest single day figure for any US state since the coronavirus pandemic began.

Officials reported a 14-day average Covid-19 positivity rate of 26% on Sunday, according to data released by Mayor Carlos Gimenez's office. The positivity rate is tracked daily by county.

Gimenez's office has said the goal is to not exceed a daily positivity rate of 10%. The county has exceeded a daily 22% mark for the past 14 days.

A medical worker takes a Covid-19 swab sample as they test travelers inside the arrivals hall at Rafic Hariri International Airport in Beirut, Lebanon, on July 1. Hasan Shaaban/Bloomberg/Getty Images

Lebanon has seen a surge in coronavirus cases, less than two weeks after it virtually ended its lockdown. 

Early in the pandemic, the eastern Mediterranean country took aggressive measures to stem the spread of the virus.

It has had 36 deaths from Covid-19 since the first reported case in February. 

But less than two weeks after the capital’s airport reopened, infections have risen rapidly. Yesterday the country reported 166 new cases -- a record high for the country. 

In interviews with local television stations, Health Minister Hamad Hassan said 122 of those cases were from an unnamed cleaning company, adding that the government would continue to contain cluster breakouts, and would avoid stepping up lockdown measures.

"Our admitting capacities in government hospitals are acceptable and the departments are ready," Hassan told local television channel LBCI on Sunday, according to the state-run National News Agency. "Despite the high number of coronavirus cases, matters are still within the set plan," he added.

Economic fears: Officials in Lebanon, which is in the throes of its worst economic crisis in decades, have also been keen to avoid a lockdown.

Late last month, the country’s currency lost most of its value, but it began to rise again, days after the reopening of Beirut’s international airport. 

Healthcare workers' warning: Healthcare workers say the situation could take a dangerous turn. Hospitals -- already grappling with long power cuts and medicinal shortages -- may buckle under the strain of a growing caseload, doctors say. 

"Two days (ago) we had … almost 20 hours of power cuts a day, and that was very brutal on us because it consumed a large chunk of our stored fuel," said Firass Abiad, head of Rafik Hariri University Hospital, where the majority of Beirut's coronavirus cases are treated. 

Abiad told CNN’s Ben Wedeman he expects the situation to become "more difficult," in the days and weeks to come. "Whether we will be able to keep finding solutions … I do not know."

Cars wait in line at a drive-thru Covid-19 testing site at the Miami Beach Convention Center in Florida on July 10. mpi04/MediaPunch/IPX/AP

Florida's staggering new single-day US state record of coronavirus cases underscores how the aggressive opening strategy championed by President Donald Trump and allied governors is turning into one of the worst political and economic calls in modern history.

The Sunshine State recorded more than 15,000 new infections on Sunday -- the highest number of new cases in a single day by any state -- as the pandemic raged across southern and western heartlands including Texas, Georgia and Arizona.

The surge came two months after many states, disregarding government guidelines, opened up bars, gyms, hair salons and other businesses.

Fresh controversy is boiling meanwhile over Trump's aggressive push to get schools fully operational within weeks, after Education Secretary Betsy DeVos failed repeatedly to outline a plan to do so safely in a CNN interview Sunday. 

The White House also intensified a stunning whispering campaign against the nation's top infectious disease specialist, Dr. Anthony Fauci, accusing him of making mistakes and of refusing to prioritize the President's interests.

Trump's fixation on his electoral prospects and desire to ignite an economic comeback were behind his assurances that it was safe to ease stay-at-home orders without waiting for infection curves to properly flatten. The push was eagerly embraced by some GOP governors, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is now facing heavy criticism as his state sees runaway infection rates.

Read Collinson's full analysis:

A Spanish judge has blocked the Catalan regional government’s order to require home confinement as a way to contain the spread of Covid-19 in the provincial capital of Lleida and 7 nearby towns.

The ruling, which came late Sunday, explained that the confinement was part of the state's jurisdiction, and not the regional government's. It added that the president of Catalonia "could ask the (Spanish) Government to declare a state of alarm."

The judge, an investigating magistrate in Lleida, noted that the state prosecutor had opposed the implementation of the Catalan government’s stay-at-home order.

The measure would have confined 156,000 people to their homes, with few exceptions, after Segría county -- including Lleida city -- tallied 1,438 new cases of Covid-19. The cases have all been recorded since June 21, when Spain's state of emergency ended following three months of nationwide confinement.

A week ago, Catalonia ordered Segría's 200,000 residents to stay inside the county, which is a two-hour drive from Barcelona. But as the outbreak kept spreading, authorities issued a home confinement order for the majority of people.

Lleida's Mayor, Miquel Pueyo, warned in a statement that home confinement would have "a huge economic and emotional impact on the territory," and asked the Catalan government to "guarantee the salaries of the workers from outside Lleida who for 15 days wouldn't be able to come to work in Lleida" because of the confinement order.