Republican senator Lindsay Graham said he agrees with Trump that Georgia is reopening businesses too quickly. In a statement, he said: I have great respect for Governor Kemp and believe that future re-openings can occur rather quickly but we must get Phase I right. I totally understand Governor Kemp’s desire to allow businesses to reopen as small business owners are under great stress... We are fifty individual states but when it comes to the virus we are all in this fight together. Because of the sacrifices we have made as a nation there is light at the end of the tunnel. Better days are ahead.” The briefing has ended. Stay tuned for more news and analysis. Fact checks: A few quick ones “We had the greatest economy in the history world,” Trump said. This is a gross exaggeration. Also, the GDP growth rate during the Trump administration was lower than the peak growth rate during the previous administration. Trump referred to the pandemic of 1917. Spanish Influenza spread globally in 1918 and 1919. “This wasn’t the flu, you know, they like to say the flu,” Trump said. But he was the “they” who repeatedly compared coronavirus to the flu. Good news for pet owners: our favorite fluffy friends are unlikely transmitters of coronavirus, according to Dr Fauci. Pets and animals can get infected with the virus, but “there’s no evidence that the virus is transmitted from a pet to a human,” Fauci said. “Anything is possible,” Fauci added, but right now it seems unlikely. In these extraordinary times, the Guardian’s editorial independence has never been more important. Because no one sets our agenda, or edits our editor, we can keep delivering quality, trustworthy, fact-checked journalism each and every day. Free from commercial or political bias, we can report fearlessly on world events and challenge those in power. Your support protects the Guardian’s independence. We believe every one of us deserves equal access to accurate news and calm explanation. No matter how unpredictable the future feels, we will remain with you, delivering high quality news so we can all make critical decisions about our lives, health and security – based on fact, not fiction. Support the Guardian from as little as $1 – and it only takes a minute. Thank you. “Testing asymptomatics will be key,” Dr Birx added, in response to a question about whether California is right to expand testing efforts to everyone, not just those who show symptoms of Covid-19. In California, one small town is trying to test every single resident this week, but for the infection and for antibodies against it. A similar program will soon begin in San Francisco’s Mission district. States should start by testing vulnerable people in nursing homes, indigenous communities and other underserved communities, Birx noted. Testing is “fundamental”, she said. Read more: “We’re building infrastructure and capacity ... to bring testing to scale,” Dr Birx said. Trump interjected, “but without anything new, they have tremendous capability” for testing, undercutting the public health official’s point. Fact check: Michelle Obama Trump named Michelle Obama as one of the public figures who campaigned for Stacey Abrams, a Democrat and voting rights advocate, during her gubernatorial run against Georgia’s Brian Kemp. CNN’s Daniel Dale helps us out with this one: Fact check: Testing “Not everybody believes as strongly on testing,” the president said. Maybe so, but most disease experts say that testing is key to learning more about how the disease spreads and safely reopening the country. “As we look to reopen, we should have in place a system where we can much more easily, quickly test more people,” Art Reingold, who heads the epidemiology and biostatistics division at UC Berkeley’s school of public health, told the Guardian. “Then we can determine who is infected, isolate those individuals, and the people they were in contact with.” Trump also claimed, once again, that the US is the “best” in the world at testing. That’s not true. Overall, the US had administered more than 4.5m coronavirus tests, according to the Covid Tracking Project. From a very slow start, the US, with a population of 329m, had ramped up to a testing rate of one in every 80 people – a bit better than to South Korea’s rate of 1 in every 90 people. Germany has done even better, testing every 1 in 63 people. In America, despite the recent increase in testing, backlogs are reported in labs across the country, and many people with symptoms – including health workers – are still struggling to access tests. Asked about Rick Bright, the vaccine expert who said he was ousted for questioning the effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine, Trump said he didn’t know Bright. “Maybe he was, maybe he wasn’t,” Trump said. “I’ve never heard of him.” Dr Anthony Fauci: “We will have coronavirus in the fall. I am convinced of that.” Whether or not the outbreak in the fall will be “big or small is going to depend on our response ... Nobody can predict what’s going to happen with an outbreak.” Fauci’s statement seems to contradict what Donald Trump said earlier when the president tried to downplay the threat in the fall and winter and said that a second wave of illness “might not happen”. More on the immigration executive order: Medical and other essential workers from abroad will be exempt, as will the spouses and minor children of American children, and “certain other aliens”. The administration will review guest worker programs. “The administration will continue to monitor the labor market to amend or extend the proclamation if needed,” per the White House. The president said that he is establishing a new council to help black and Latino communities and other underserved communities access testing and care. The council will be headed by housing secretary Ben Carson.