Associated Press: Congress created virus aid, then reaped the benefits At least a dozen lawmakers were both authors and beneficiaries of one of the biggest government programs in U.S. history, reports the Associated Press. Government data, released this week after the Trump administration faced pressure from congress and outside groups, has revealed the names of some loan recipients who benefited from the $659 billion Paycheck Protection Program, meant to help smaller businesses keep staff employed during the pandemic. The list includes names of both democrats and republicans and traces money that flowed to hotels, car dealerships, casino companies, fast food franchises and political consultants. Members of congress and their families are not barred from receiving loans under the program, but observers say it could undercut public trust in the federal government’s response to the pandemic just as congress debates another round of coronavirus relief. “It certainly looks bad and smells bad,” said Aaron Scherb, a spokesperson for the watchdog group Common Cause. Mario Koran here in California, picking up the blog from my colleague Maanvi Singh to close out the day. Steny Hoyer, majority leader of the US House of Representatives, has weighed in on Trump administration’s move to formally withdraw the United States from the World Health Organization, calling the decision “self-defeating and dangerous”. “To withdraw the United States from the World Health Organization (WHO) at the height of a global pandemic that has already killed more than 133,000 Americans is self-defeating and dangerous”, wrote Hoyer in a statement. “Not only will this withdrawal hurt global efforts to develop and deploy critical vaccines, but it will also remove our ability to have a say in the operations and future of that organization, yielding much influence to China.” The statement echoes one made in earlier in the day by Elizabeth Cousens, president of the United Nations Foundation, who said the “move to formally withdraw from WHO amid the greatest public health crisis that Americans and the world have faced in a century is shortsighted, unnecessary, and unequivocally dangerous.” In an interview with Greta Von Susteren, Donald Trump insisted that despite what the leading public health official on the coronavirus task force says, the US is in a “good place” in managing the pandemic. In two, three or four weeks time, “I think we’re going to be in very good shape,” Trump said, despite evidence to the contrary, adding that he disagreed with Fauci and touted his travel restrictions, enacted against the advice of health experts. Five states and the District of Columbia are suing US education secretary Betsy DeVos over a rule she issued that would diver to private schools money that Congress provided to help public schools. California, Maine, New Mexico, Wisconsin, DC, and Michigan have joined a lawsuit over how pandemic relief money is distributed to schools. “Michigan kids cannot afford for Betsy DeVos to be playing politics with their education,” said Attorney General Dana Nessel of Michigan. DeVos lashed out at school districts who wouldn’t commit to reopening in the Fall despite the surge of cases across the country, deriding leaders who wouldn’t accept the risks of opening schools. Updates from around the world: Jair Bolsonaro tests positive for Covid-19; WHO acknowledges ‘evidence emerging’ of airborne spread of Covid-19; WHO warns crisis is accelerating: Lawrence Gostin, the director of the WHO’s Collaborating Center on National & Global Health Law, said Trump’s decision to withdraw from the global health agency was “among most ruinous presidential decisions in history”. He added that the move would counterproductively benefit China, leaving the country to fill the leadership gap left by the US. More than 5,600 companies in the fossil fuel industry have taken a minimum of $3bn in coronavirus aid from the US federal government, according to an analysis by Documented and the Guardian of newly released data. The businesses include oil and gas drillers and coal mine operators, as well as refiners, pipeline companies and firms that provide services to the industry. The Small Business Administration (SBA) on Monday released the data under pressure for further transparency, including from journalism outlets that had sued demanding the public records. The $3bn figure is probably far less than the companies actually received. The SBA did not disclose the specific amounts of loans and instead listed ranges. On the high end, fossil fuel companies could have received up to $6.7bn. At least 475 fossil fuel companies received at least $2m, according to the data the SBA released that it collected from banks. This analysis only includes loans over $150,000, because the SBA did not disclose which companies received smaller loans. The administration has already begun looking for other channels to spend the $450m it pays annually in WHO membership dues and voluntary contributions. It is unclear what will happen to US officials who work with the global health body. Jeff Merkley, the top Democrat on the Senate foreign relations subcommittee that oversees multilateral institutions, called the move “a huge win for China and a huge blow to the American people”. “By pulling out of the WHO, President Trump is strengthening Chinese leadership and power, both within the WHO and more broadly within the international community,” Merkley said. “Cutting the United States out of the WHO in the middle of the worst global pandemic in a century makes Americans more vulnerable. By abandoning the efforts to control the virus abroad, we’re ensuring that far more Americans will get sick, either through foreign travelers coming to the US, or through Americans traveling abroad.” Republican members of Congress have also urged Trump to keep the US inside the WHO to support reform. The administration has received almost no support for withdrawal from US allies, with the exception of the Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, who confirmed he had tested positive for coronavirus on Tuesday. Joe Biden, Trump’s Democratic challenger for the presidency, said he would return the US to the WHO once elected. In a live-streamed news conference with Alabama senator Doug Jones, Antony Fauci, the top public health expert on the coronavirus task force, said that to tout the falling death rate of coronavirus was to tout a “false narrative” - even as Donald Trump did just that. US communities reopened “a bit too soon, sometimes jumping over some of the checkpoints”, Fauci said - leading to the spike in cases the country is facing today. Hi there, it’s Maanvi Singh, reporting from the west coast. First, a timeline of the US withdrawal from the WHO: The US moved to quit after more than 70 years of membership to the 194-nation organization. In April, Donald Trump halted funding for the WHO after accusing the organization of becoming a puppet of China. On 18 May, Trump sent the WHO a letter, threatening to withdraw the US if it didn’t commit to reforms within one month. Less than two weeks later, he announced the US would quit the WHO. The UN confirmed that the US would leave the WHO on 6 July 2021, after giving a one-year notice as required by a 1948 joint resolution of Congress that obliges the US to pay financial support to the international agency. Today so far... It’s been such a lively day we forgot to bring you a middle of the day summary of the news. Sorry about that. Handing over to my west coast colleague, Maanvi Singh, now, who will take you through events in US political news in the coming hours. Here are the main items from today: The United Nations Foundation said that the Trump administration’s “move to formally withdraw from WHO amid the greatest public health crisis that Americans and the world have faced in a century is shortsighted, unnecessary, and unequivocally dangerous”. Donald Trump is pushing for schools to reopen in the fall despite there being no plan of how to do so safely for children, teachers and administrative staff. The US has formally informed the United Nations that it intends to pull out of the World Health Organization, the global public health body under the UN’s umbrella. Atlanta mayor KLB says Governor Kemp blocked her plan to mandate face masks in the city. Mary Trump, niece of the president, dissects what she says was Donald Trump’s emotionally abusive childhood to explain such traits as bullying, lying, self-aggrandizement, narcissism, in her new book, out soon, but already in the Guardian’s sticky hands. New York State announced a penalty of $150m to be paid by Deutsche Bank in a settlement for legal failures in its handling of money for Jeffrey Epstein, the late financier and sex offender who’s former amour Ghislaine Maxwell is now in prison facing charges related to conspiracy, trafficking and sex abuse. America’s top public health expert and lead non-political name on the White House coronavirus task force, Anthony Fauci, followed up numerous warnings about the ongoing major risks of coronavirus with the stark assessment that the US is “still knee deep in the first wave of the pandemic”. UN-linked body calls US plan to quit WHO "shortsighted" and "dangerous" There has been no response from the World Health Organization yet to the formal notice given by the US to the United Nations today, also informing Congress, that it will officially withdraw from the WHO, which comes under the UN umbrella. However, the president of the United Nations Foundation, a charitable body set up by CNN founder Ted Turner to support UN causes, Elizabeth Cousens, said in a statement that the Trump administration’s “move to formally withdraw from WHO amid the greatest public health crisis that Americans and the world have faced in a century is shortsighted, unnecessary, and unequivocally dangerous.” The WHO was founded in 1948 by the United Nations and is the premier global public health body. Meanwhile, the director-general of the WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, warned this afternoon that the coronavirus outbreak is “accelerating, and we have clearly not reached the peak of the pandemic.” At a briefing, he said: “More than six months in, the case for national unity and global solidarity is undeniable,” he said at a WHO briefing Tuesday. “We cannot afford any divisions.” For those wishing the US to stay in the WHO, the next thing to watch will be the presidential election in November, bearing this in mind: “The United States’ notice of withdrawal, effective July 6, 2021, has been submitted to the UN Secretary-General, who is the depository for the WHO,” a senior administration official told the New York Times. By law the United States must give the organization a year’s notice if it intends to withdraw, and meet all the current financial obligations in the current year - although the US has been holding back funding from the WHO under the Trump administration. Joe Biden hasn’t commented on the WHO news yet but it would be staggering if he didn’t immediately tear up all the decisions by Trump to vacate the US’s role in and funding for the WHO, if he wins in November. If that happens, plenty of time to reverse all this after his inauguration in January, 2021. More from White House coronavirus task force coordinator Deborah Birx. She said a few moments ago that the United States and other countries could have had a stronger initial response to Covid-19 if China had been more forthcoming about key features of the virus. At a panel held by the Atlantic Council, a US think tank, Birx said the United States would have been more focused on identifying Covid-19 patients without symptoms if China has shared information about the frequency with which Covid-19 patients, particularly young people, are asymptomatic, Reuters reports. “I have to say if we had known about the level of asymptomatic spread, we would have all looked at this differently,” Birx said at the panel. “That’s usually the initial countries’ responsibility ... and I think that did delay across the board our ability to really see or look for this.” Birx said that public health officials had originally assumed that only 15 to 20% of Covid-19 patients are asymptomatic when in fact that number is at least 40%. “We were looking for people with symptoms. We should have looked for anyone who would have been exposed,” she said. Such points are important, but seem less important than America’s six lost weeks of downplaying the threat of the virus and then showing inadequate leadership from Washington on down on testing and supplies of medical equipment for hospitals and their workers. Unfriend Organizers of a growing Facebook advertising boycott said they saw “no commitment to action” after meeting with Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg earlier today. More than 900 advertisers have signed on to the “Stop Hate for Profit” campaign, organized by social justice groups including the Anti-Defamation League and Free Press, to pressure the world’s largest social media network to take concrete steps to block hate speech and misinformation. “Facebook approached our meeting today like it was nothing more than a PR exercise,” Free Press co-chief executive Jessica González said in a statement, Reuters reports. “But boycott coalition leaders and advertisers understand that the #StopHateForProfit effort is about the lives, safety and freedom of our communities.” The campaign, which calls for advertisers to pause their Facebook advertising for the month of July, has outlined 10 changes it wants to see from Facebook, including allowing victims of severe harassment to speak with a Facebook employee and giving refunds to brands whose ads show up next to offensive content that is later removed. Facebook did not immediately respond to a request for comment. As the news came about the formal US withdrawal from the WHO, the White House coronavirus coordinator, Deborah Birx was speaking at a Atlantic Council roundtable with a group of ambassadors. She was not asked about the withdrawal. In her remarks, Birx sought to explain the relentless rise of infections in the US. “It [initially] hit really very much in the northeast, Chicago, Detroit and New Orleans, and much of the rest of the country was spared. And I think many of the governors and mayors thought they would be forever spared from this... “And I think none of us really anticipated the amount of community spread that began in our 18-to-35 year old age group and 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.” Birx also pointed out how richer countries had higher death rolls. “I don’t think any of us thought that 80% of the cases would be in high income and upper middle income countries and almost all the mortality, probably 90% of the mortality is in upper middle and upper income countries, probably due to our great co-morbidities,” she said. “We have a lot of hypertension, diabetes and obesity in the United States and I think it’s really pointed out how we have to become a healthier nation together.” Here are some paradoxical pieces from the Guardian about Birx. And, from the start of the outbreak in the US. Reactions are coming in on the Trump administration formally giving notice that the US will withdraw from the World Health Organization. Donald Trump had flagged his intention in late May during a Rose Garden presser at the White House. California Democrat and former presidential candidate Eric Swalwell isn’t mincing words. Here’s what this health scientist had to say. Trump demands schools reopen Donald Trump is pushing for schools to reopen in the fall and is hosting White House events on the topic today, despite a steady increase in coronavirus infections across the country and rising hospitalizations in many states. Trump tweeted: “SCHOOLS MUST OPEN IN THE FALL!!!”, as local officials across the country began pausing or scaling back their re-openings due to the surge in infections. Florida yesterday issued a sweeping executive order for children to return to school this fall, despite sharply rising new Covid-19 cases and hospitalizations there, Reuters writes. Business and conservative groups have urged safe school reopenings as important for getting their parents back to work and reviving the US economy, although there is no blueprint yet for what a safe reopening looks like, either for children or teachers and admin staff. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Robert Redfield noted today that the CDC never recommended closing schools. “We need to reopen the schools. We can do this safely. We need to commit to it and we need just to get it done,” Redfield said Most working parents of school-age children have been helping or supervising their kids home-schooling for months via online teaching, but they depend on in-person instruction on school premises to allow them to work without such a burden. But an alarming surge in new infections in the United States as it has rushed to open up, especially among younger people going out to socialize without masks or distancing, has raised concerns about the increased risk of spread by children to vulnerable adults at home as well as to older teachers and school staff. Cases are rising in 31 states and there is a surge of hospitalizations of more serious cases in some places, especially Florida, Arizona and Texas. Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer said it was too soon to decide on schools given the nature of the resurgent outbreak. If Trump wants schools to reopen, he should call for masks to be worn nationwide, she told CNN, calling mask wearing “a simple, cost effective” solution to mitigate virus spread. Protective gear for doctors and nurses in short supply again The personal protective gear that was in dangerously short supply during the early weeks of the coronavirus crisis in the US is running low again as the virus resumes its rapid spread and the number of hospitalized patients climbs. A national nursing union is concerned that gear has to be reused, The Associated Press reports. A doctors association warns that physicians’ offices are closed because they cannot get masks and other supplies. And Democratic members of Congress are pushing the Trump administration to devise a national strategy to acquire and distribute gear in anticipation of the crisis worsening into the fall. “We’re five months into this and there are still shortages of gowns, hair covers, shoe covers, masks, N95 masks,” said Deborah Burger, president of National Nurses United, who cited results from a survey of the union’s members. “They’re being doled out, and we’re still being told to reuse them.” When the crisis first exploded in March and April and New York City became the world hotspot for Covid-19, the situation was so desperate that nurses turned plastic garbage bags into protective gowns. The lack of equipment forced states and hospitals to compete against each other, the federal government and other countries in desperate, expensive bidding wars. In a letter to Congress last week, the health department in DuPage County, Illinois, near Chicago, said all hospitals in the county are reusing protective gear “in ways that were not originally intended and are probably less safe than the optimal use of PPE.” The DuPage County department is a supplier of last resort that steps in when facilities have less than two weeks’ worth of gear. As of Monday, it had only nine days of some supplies at the current request level. A rise in new infections could make the supply go much faster. The American Medical Association wrote to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Vice President Mike Pence and members of Congress calling for a coordinated national strategy to buy and allocate gear.