The latest
More than half of global COVID-19 cases are in U.S., India, Brazil
It took six months for the world to reach 10 million confirmed cases of the coronavirus. It took just over six weeks for that number to double.
The worldwide count of known COVID-19 infections climbed past 20 million on Monday, with more than half of them from just three countries: the U.S., India and Brazil, according to the tally kept by Johns Hopkins University.
The average number of new cases per day in the U.S. has declined in recent weeks but is still running high at over 54,000, versus almost 59,000 in India and nearly 44,000 in Brazil.
The severe and sustained crisis in the U.S. — over 5 million cases and 163,000 deaths, easily the highest totals of any country — has dismayed and surprised many around the world, given the nation’s vaunted scientific ingenuity and the head start it had over Europe and Asia to prepare.
The real number of people infected by the virus around the world is believed to be much higher — perhaps 10 times higher in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — given testing limitations and the many mild cases that have gone unreported or unrecognized.
News
2:14 p.m. Coronavirus spending spawns record $2.81 trillion US budget deficit
SILVER SPRING, Md. — The U.S. budget deficit climbed to $2.81 trillion in the first 10 months of the budget year, exceeding any on record, the Treasury Department said Wednesday.
The nation’s budgetary shortfall is expected to eventually reach levels for the fiscal year more than double the largest annual deficit on record.
The federal government rang up a $63 billion deficit in July, the department reported. That’s a relatively modest amount compared to red ink that spilled in the spring months when the government tried to revive an economy that all but ground to a halt due to the coronavirus outbreak.
Last month’s deficit was sharply lower than June’s $864 billion, in part because the government collected a record amount tax revenue in July — $563 billion — after extending the filing deadline to July 15. That extension allowed Americans more time to sort through the economic havoc wrought by the pandemic.
So far this budget year, government receipts total $2.82 trillion, off just 1% from the same period last year, Treasury officials said, crediting the “income replacement” provided by various government aid packages. In other words, unemployment benefits and other aid are still taxable.
2:11 p.m. Big 12 decides to play football this fall
The Big 12 Conference reaffirmed its decision to press on with college football and other fall sports Wednesday, joining the Atlantic Coast and Southeastern conferences in taking the field amid the coronavirus pandemic.
The move came one day after the Big Ten and Pac-12 announced they would not be participating this fall. There is a chance the other two Power Five leagues will push their seasons to the spring, but that remains to be determined.
In the meantime, the Big 12 board of directors approved a plan to begin fall sports after Sept. 1 with football playing a schedule in which each team can play one non-conference game before league play begins Sept. 26. The schools will all play each other to give them 10 total games with the Big 12 title game scheduled for Dec. 12.
2:09 p.m. Big Ten football coaches and players needed to be saved from themselves
College football players’ voices are rarely heard by the people who make decisions about their lives. If their voices were heard, they might be walking around campus with more money in their pockets. That extra money would be siphoned from the ocean of cash that universities and TV networks make off them.
For once, though, I’m happy that their opinions have been disregarded. The Big Ten has shut down football because of the pandemic, despite fervent pleas from players and coaches who want to do what they love to do. But when football can lead to sickness or death, it follows that football needs to take a long vacation. Hence the Big Ten’s stunning decision.
Players and coaches across the nation had mounted #WeWantToPlay and #WeWantToCoach Twitter campaigns, hoping to sway the university presidents who would be deciding their football fate. In the case of the Big Ten and the Pac-12, the presidents did the right thing, choosing to protect their athletes from the effects of COVID-19.
Before you attack me with your foam Ohio State No. 1 hand, I am not generally in favor of depriving people of the thing that brings them joy. But I know football players, and I know football coaches. And they can’t always be trusted to make healthy decisions.
Read more from Rick Morrissey here.
1:58 a.m. Pandemic parody of ‘Goodnight Moon’ children’s book is coming in October
A popular online spoof of the children’s favorite “Goodnight Moon,” reworked for the age of the coronavirus and widespread working from home, will be coming out In Octoberl.
“Good Morning Zoom,” written by Lindsay Rechler and illustrated by June Park, is scheduled for Oct. 6, according to publisher Penguin Random House’s Philomel Books imprint.
Currently self-published, “Good Morning Zoom” ($14.99) takes Margaret Wise Brown’s beloved bedtime story for young kids and turns it into a narrative about Zoom, bread baking, home schooling and other familiar parts of life during the pandemic.
Rechler is a banking executive and mother of two who lives in Manhattan. Park is a graphic designer and illustrator who lives in Brooklyn.
According to the publisher, the net author proceeds will be donated to coronavirus relief charities.
“COVID-19 is a difficult topic, especially for young children,” Rechler said. “I wanted to tell my children a relatable story — a story that would help them become familiar with their new everyday lives and, within that story, touch upon what was happening in the outside world. I thought a lot about the contrast between quarantining safely inside versus what was happening outside my window.”
8:01 a.m. Pritzker wins mask face-off: Enforcement rule for businesses survives challenge as state reports 1,549 more COVID-19 cases
Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s expanded masking enforcement rules for businesses survived a challenge in Springfield Tuesday as health officials announced another 1,549 people have tested positive for COVID-19 across Illinois.
The new rules announced by the Democratic governor’s office last week give local authorities leeway to fine businesses up to $2,500, or hit them with a misdemeanor charge, if they don’t enforce Pritzker’s statewide face covering mandate or social distancing guidelines.
Six state lawmakers on the bipartisan Joint Committee on Administrative Rules voted to suspend the rules they complain offer “extraordinary discretion,” two votes shy of wiping Pritzker’s rules off the books.
The governor said his edict will “provide multiple opportunities for compliance before any penalty is issued and will help ensure that the minority of people who refuse to act responsibly won’t take our state backward.
“These rules will ensure that there is a commonsense way to enforce public health guidelines with an emphasis on education first so that Illinois can continue to make substantial progress in our fight against COVID-19,” Pritzker said in a statement.
New Cases
Analysis & Commentary
8:16 a.m. Teachers are ‘scared’ or feel ‘in danger’ as they ponder return to classroom
Printing letters has gone the way of pounding out copy on a manual typewriter. Just as well, it was mostly a summertime strategy for work-averse columnists to dispatch their duties without much effort.
However. My column Monday discussing the wisdom of the Archdiocese of Chicago holding in-person classes during an epidemic drew insights from a number of school personnel.
So I picked three, condensing for space and scrubbing their messages of any track-’em-down-and-fire-’em details that vindictive school administrators — are there any other kind? — could use to go after them.
From a CPS social studies teacher:
“I am befuddled by the school systems that are disregarding the pandemic. It seems the reopeners fall into three groups, people who believe: 1. COVID is not a real crisis, 2. If we just go back to normal everything will go back to normal, or 3. We have no choice, and/or this is an opportunity for us.
