Trump claims the US has 'really done it right' with virus response

President Donald Trump speaks during an event with students, teachers and administrators about how to safely re-open schools on July 7 in Washington, DC. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

President Trump said the US is “not closing, we’ll never close,” as he once again pushed the country to fully reopen on Tuesday.

“We’re at 130,” Trump said at an event on reopening schools, referring to the more than 130,000 Americans who have now died from the virus. “I think we could have been 2 and a half or 3 million people,” he said. 

“We’ve saved literally hundreds of thousands of lives,” the President said.

Trump was responding to an event attendee who was advocating for what sounded like a modified herd immunity. She talked about protecting “the vulnerable,” while pushing “interaction that helps to get that immunity” for others. 

“Now we’re open,” Trump said. “The vulnerable, we understand who has the biggest problem with it, and we watch that group and that age group, and also people who aren’t feeling so well.” 

He said the US has "really done it right" and now is the time to stay open, adding, "we will put out the fires as they come up but we have to open our schools."

He went on to admit that some places will “have difficulty and they’ll do what they have to do.” 

“That will be largely up to the governors,” he said, emphasizing the word largely, “but it’s also, they’re in very strong consultation with us.” 

Trump earlier in the event said he was going to put pressure on governors to reopen their schools. 

Additional medical help is coming to the San Antonio-area to assist with the rising number of hospitalizations due to Covid-19, according to the Southwest Texas Regional Advisory Council. 

Executive Director Eric Epley said there are 39 medical personnel from varying medical background and disciplines from Fort Carson, Colorado, coming to help staff area hospitals. An additional 200 RNs are being assigned to San Antonio, the Texas Department of State Health Services said on Monday. 

University Hospital spokesperson Leni Kirkman told CNN the staff has been stretched thin for the past few weeks and the additional help is "a big relief here." 

She said that it's easy to convert operating beds into ICU beds, but the hard part is actually getting the additional personnel to staff them.

San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg said in a press conference Monday evening there are 1,168 Covid-19 patients hospitalized in the city and that hospital bed availability is currently at 12%.

Bexar County has seen a 25% increase in positive cases over the past week, according to the DSHS, with 15,102 total cases reported since the start of the pandemic.  

The city is experiencing a very recent slowdown in new cases, but officials are saying it's too early to tell if the cases are plateauing.

“It remains to be seen if this decline is going to be sustained,” said Dr. Anita Kurian, the San Antonio Metropolitan Health District’s assistant director, at a press conference Monday night. 

As CNN previously reported, the US military announced Monday it is sending approximately 50 medical and support personnel to the San Antonio area.

Angela Weiss/AFP/Getty Images

US stocks ended in the red on Tuesday, pulling back after the prior session’s rally. Worries about rising Covid-19 infections across America weighed on the market.

Here's where the market closed:

White House coronavirus response coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx attends a press briefing in April in Washington, DC. Drew Angerer/Getty Images

China’s delay in disseminating basic information at the start of the pandemic affected the global response to Covid-19, White House coronavirus response coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx said Tuesday.

“One quick comment on China… I have to say if we had known about the level of asymptomatic spread, I think we would have all looked at this differently,” Birx said at an online event put on by the Atlantic Council to discuss the shaping the post-Covid world.  

“And I think, not figuring that out until the depth of that asymptomatic disease — we always knew it was 15 to 20% but finding out that it's 40 or more percent — I think if we had known that, and that's usually the initial country's responsibility to really get out information about the spectrum of disease, and I think that did delay across the board our ability to really see or look for this," she said.

On the whole, Birx praised the international community’s willingness to get information out and to cooperate on therapeutics and the vaccine effort. 

Daniel Shirey/Getty Images

The San Francisco Giants have suspended Tuesday’s planned summer camp workout session due to a delay in receiving Covid-19 testing results.

Three other Major League Baseball teams, the Houston Astros, St. Louis Cardinals, and Washington Nationals, were forced to halt their practices on Monday while waiting on coronavirus test results. 

“The Giants are suspending workouts at Oracle Park, pending the results of tests conducted this past weekend," the Giants said in a statement.

CNN has reached on to MLB on the issue.

On Monday, the league said the delay in testing results for the previous three teams was due to the July 4 holiday delivery disruptions.

In response to surges in coronavirus cases, the Department of Health and Human Services announced Tuesday the launch of new testing sites in three hotspots — Jacksonville, Florida; Baton Rouge, Louisiana; and Edinburg, Texas. The sites will offer 5,000 tests per city each day, according to an HHS press release. 

On a call with reporters Tuesday, US Assistant Secretary for Health Brett Giroir acknowledged that wait times for test results at commercial labs are generally increasing, though he said the US is now doing an “unprecedented” level of tests and is averaging more than 600,000 per day.

Three large testing labs have reported increased wait times for test results.

Giroir said test turnaround times in Montana and the District of Columbia are averaging four to five days, whereas other states have shorter average waits. 

“The most critical factor is personal discipline. It’s the physical distancing, wear a mask, avoid crowds,” Giroir said.  

Giroir said greater availability of rapid “point of care” tests in comings months should lower the burden on some laboratories. He said he expects that by August or September, the point-of-care test market will grow to 10 to 20 million tests per month, though he said such tests are slightly less sensitive than lab-based tests. 

Arkansas saw the largest jump in hospitalizations for a single day with 32 people hospitalized, bringing the statewide total to 369, Gov. Asa Hutchinson said during a news conference Tuesday. 

The state reported at least 24,512 cases of coronavirus and at least 301 deaths, according to Hutchinson. Additionally, the state reported at least 259 new cases of Covid-19 and nine deaths over the last 24 hours.

Hutchinson also said new unemployment claims are trending downward.

“We've dispersed about $330 million dollars as a state so we are seeing those funds move, and hopefully that's getting into the pockets of those who needed it, so desperately,” said Arkansas Secretary of Commerce Mike Preston.

Preston added that Arkansas is seeing an uptick in unemployment identify fraud, with 14,000 accounts flagged within the pandemic unemployment cases, and another 6,000 in regular unemployment fraud. 

He added that they are investigating these unemployment fraud cases.

White House coronavirus response coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx attends a "National Dialogue on Safely Reopening America's Schools," event at the White House on July 7 in Washington, DC. Alex Brandon/AP

White House coronavirus response coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx said Tuesday that several aspects of the coronavirus pandemic remain surprising and unusual. 

“I think what surprised all of us in the developed world is how much of an impact this virus, and this respiratory pandemic, is having disproportionately on high income and upper-middle income countries,” Birx said at an online event put on by the Atlantic Council to discuss the shaping the post-Covid world. 

Birx also said no one anticipated the community spread in the 18- to 35-year-old age group. 

“I think that this is an age group that was so good and so disciplined through March and April, but when they saw people out and about on social media, they all went out and about. So, we right now have a really significant cases in people under 45," she said.

A World Health Organization sign is seen outside of their headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, in April. Fabrice Coffrini/AFP/Getty Images

The head of the United Nations Foundation is calling the Trump administration's withdrawal from the World Health Organization a "short-sighted, unnecessary, and unequivocally dangerous" move.

The Trump administration notified Congress on Tuesday that it is formally withdrawing the United States from WHO amid the coronavirus pandemic. President Trump initially announced his intention to withdraw from WHO in May and now it appears that decision is moving forward.

"The U.S. already has more confirmed cases of COVID-19 than any country in the world, and as cases continue to surge in hotspots at home and abroad it’s painfully clear that this pandemic is far from over," the statement added.

Cousens said that WHO was created with US leadership nearly 75 years ago.

"As the world faces the global emergency of COVID-19, we need to strengthen, not weaken, the bonds of international cooperation and solidarity," Cousens said in the statement. "Now, more than ever before, the world needs to unite with common purpose and work shoulder to shoulder to emerge from these challenging times stronger and more united than ever before. This is not a time to retreat, it’s a time for leadership."