‘Covid is clearly not done with us’ warns CDC as cases rise sharply among unvaccinated – as it happened

That’s all from me today. Here’s a rundown of the biggest stories of the day:

• The White House urged state and local governments to enact protections against evictions after announcing that the CDC lacks the legal authority to put in place a new moratorium after the previous one expired on 31 July. Millions of Americans were protected from eviction during the Covid-19 pandemic thanks to a moratorium imposed by the CDC, but both the White House and Congress failed to act ahead of the weekend deadline.
• Coronavirus cases continued to rise, especially among the unvaccinated, prompting some localities to reinstate indoor mask mandates. Louisiana became the second state to renew a statewide mandate while seven counties in the San Francisco bay area joined Los Angeles and Sacramento in reinstating indoor mask rules. New York City mayor Bill de Blasio declined to reinstitute a mandate, but encouraged New Yorkers to mask up indoors anyway.
• The CDC reported that 70% of adults in the US have received at least one dose of the Covid-19 vaccine, achieving a milestone that Joe Biden had hoped to hit by 4 July. Vaccination rates plummeted over the summer, but that have increased by 70% in the past week, especially in states with the highest rates of Covid.
• Senators unveiled the text of a nearly $1tn infrastructure package. Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer said a vote could be held on the bipartisan bill “in a matter of days”.

A National Labor Relations Board hearing officer has recommended that a new union election should be held for the Amazon warehouse workers in Bessamer, Alabama, due to illegal interference by Amazon, the Washington Post reports.

The union drive at the warehouse in a suburb of Birmingham drew national attention in April, as labor leaders and Democratic politicians looked to the workers to revive the hopes of a unionized Amazon.

But the pro-union vote fell well short of the majority required following an intense anti-union campaign by the $1.6 trillion company.

The Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union quickly filed charges against Amazon with the NLRB, the agency tasked with enforcing federal labor law, alleging that Amazon had engaged in “egregious and blatantly illegal” conduct. Amazon denied the claims, which were examined during a three-week hearing before the NLRB this May.

The officer who oversaw the hearing submitted her findings to the NLRB’s regional director on Monday, according to the RWDSU, and recommended that the election results be set aside and a new election be held.

“Throughout the NLRB hearing, we heard compelling evidence how Amazon tried to illegally interfere with and intimidate workers as they sought to exercise their right to form a union. We support the hearing officer’s recommendation that the NLRB set aside the election results and direct a new election,” said Stuart Appelbaum, president of the RWDSU, in a statement.

“Amazon’s behavior throughout the election process was despicable. Amazon cheated, they got caught, and they are being held accountable.”

An Amazon spokesman told the Washington Post that it plans to appeal to ensure that the initial election results stand.

Amazon employs nearly 1 million people in the US. While its minimum wage for direct employees is $15 per hour – more than double the federal minimum wage – it is notorious for punishing workloads, high injury rates, and excessive turnover.

A federal appeals court ruled Monday that Indiana University’s vaccine mandate for students and staff does not violate the constitution, the highest court decision on the subject to date.

“Indiana does not require every adult member of the public to be vaccinated,” judge Damon R Leichty, a Trump-appointee, wrote in the ruling. “Vaccination is instead a condition of attending Indiana University. People who do not want to be vaccinated may go elsewhere.”

The case was brought by rightwing attorney James Bopp on behalf of a group of Indiana University students, who objected to the school’s decision to require vaccination. Bopp was involved in some of the legal efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election using false allegations of election fraud.

“Once again, the court has affirmed our legitimate public health interest in assuring the safety of our students, faculty and staff and we are excited to welcome our community back for the fall semester,” the university said in a statement Monday, according to the AP.

A Washington DC police officer has become the third law enforcement officer who defended the US Capitol during the 6 January attack to kill himself.

My colleague Hugo Lowell reports:

Officer Gunther Hashida, who was assigned to the emergency response team within the special operations department, was found dead at home on 29 July, the department said.

Hashida, 44, joined the force in May 2003 and was among those who responded to the Capitol attack, spokesperson Brianna Burch confirmed to the Guardian.

“We are grieving as a department and our thoughts and prayers are with Officer Hashida’s family and friends,” Burch said.

Hashida is survived by his wife, Romelia, and three children, his sister and other members of a “wonderful family”, according to an online fundraising campaign established in his memory.

Last week, several officers who were on duty on 6 January testified about the intense trauma of the day before a special committee investigating the events.

“I was grabbed, beaten, Tased, all while being called a traitor to my country. I was at risk of being stripped of and killed with my own firearm, as I heard chants of ‘Kill him with his own gun,’” said Michael Fanone, during the hearing. Fanone, an officer with the Metropolitan police department, was beaten by the pro-Trump mob and suffered a heart attack and brain injury. “I can still hear those words in my head today.”

• In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is at 800-273-8255 and online chat is also available. You can also text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis text line counselor. In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at www.befrienders.org

Hello everyone, this is Julia Carrie Wong in Oakland, California, picking up the live blog for the rest of the afternoon.

Public health officials for seven San Francisco Bay area counties have just announced that they are reinstating an indoor mask mandate amid a “sharp increase” in coronavirus cases attributed to the highly transmissible Delta variant.

The indoor mask rules, which will apply to everyone regardless of vaccination status, will go into effect Tuesday and cover more than 7 million people across the region, which includes San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose.

“Indoor masking is a temporary measure that will help us deal with the Delta variant, which is causing a sharp increase in cases, and we know increases in hospitalizations and deaths will follow,” said Dr Naveena Bobba, San Francisco’s acting health officer, in a statement. “When we all wear face coverings indoors, we are protecting our fellow residents and helping our healthcare workers.”

Bobba stressed that Covid-19 vaccines are highly effective at preventing serious illness and hospitalization, but noted that the CDC has found that even fully vaccinated people may spread the Delta variant to others.

The reinstatement comes just six weeks after California relaxed coronavirus restrictions on 15 June. The Bay Area counties follow Los Angeles, Yolo and Sacramento counties in reinstating indoor mask mandates since then.

Daily cases of Covid-19 in the Bay Area have increased more than 500% since 1 July, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, while hospitalizations have increased about 400%.

Here’s a quick summary of everything that’s happened so far today:

• The White House released a statement saying that Joe Biden does not have the executive authority to extend the eviction moratorium, contradicting Congressional lawmakers who have said he has the authority and urged executive action.
• Senate Lindsay Graham said he tested positive for Covid-19 despite being vaccinated. Graham said that his symptoms, which are akin to a sinus infection, would be worse had he not gotten the vaccine.
• Louisiana reinstated its indoor mask mandate, becoming the second state to renew a statewide mandate.
• The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said, as of today, 70% of the population has gotten at least one dose of the Covid-19 vaccine. Health officials say that vaccination rates are going up as people in states with high case numbers are going in to get their shots.

Stay tuned for more live updates.

The US is seeing an average of 72,000 new cases of Covid-19 per day, a 44% increase compared to the last seven-day moving average, said Dr Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention at a White House coronavirus task force press briefing. Hospitalization and deaths are also seeing increases.

“While we desperately want to be done with this pandemic, Covid-19 is clearly not done with us, and so our battle must last a little longer,” Walensky said.

Walensky said that the science is making it clearly that Delta variant is highly contagious – someone with the Delta variant can infect twice as many people compared to if they had the original virus strain.

The CDC director emphasized that while vaccinated people can spread the virus if they get a breakthrough infection, “the odds of them getting sick in the first place are far lower than those who are unvaccinated.”

Speaking about breakthrough infections, Dr Anthony Fauci said that the number of breakthrough cases is “not a critical number” and those with breakthrough infections are having asymptomatic or mild cases.

Health officials say that there are hopeful signs that more people are getting vaccinated as the highly contagious Covid-19 Delta variant spreads throughout the country.

The seven states with the lowest vaccination rates make up 17% of new Covid cases, though their populations make up 8.5% of the country’s total population, said Jeffrey Zients, coordinator of the White House’s coronavirus task force, during a task force press conference. One in three new cases are coming from Florida or Texas, he added. About 19m Americans who are eligible for the vaccine remain unvaccinated.

On the flip side, states with low vaccination rates and high Covid-19 case counts are seeing an increase in new vaccination. In the last seven days, 3m Americans got their first shot, Zients said, a 70% increase in the average number of people getting vaccinated over the last few weeks. The eight states with the highest Covid rates have seen a 171% increase of people getting vaccinated over the last three weeks, he said.

“Americans are seeing the risk and impact of being unvaccinated and responding with action, and that’s what’s going to take to get us out of this pandemic,” Zients said.

The state of Louisiana will be under an indoor mask mandate starting Wednesday, governor John Bel Edwards announced this afternoon. The state will be the second state to reimplement a mandate after Nevada reinstated its mandate last week.

“Covid-19 cases and hospitalizations continue to rise across Louisiana, threatening the ability of Louisiana’s hospitals to deliver care during this fourth surge of Covid. Louisiana is currently in the worst surge of the Covid-19 pandemic so far in terms of case growth rate, percent positivity and hospitalizations,” the governor’s office said in a statement.

The mandate will apply to everyone ages five and older and will be in place until 1 September, with the potential of an extension.

Though the White House released a statement this afternoon that says Joe Biden does not have the executive authority to extend the eviction moratorium, Biden “has not given up the option of legal action”, Jen Psaki said at a press briefing this afternoon.

“We are using every tool we have … We’re still looking at legal authorities to see what is possible but he’s not going to take a step without the legal authority to do so,” Psaki said. “The (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) extended the moratorium, not once but three times. We made clear when we did the last extension that that would likely be the last extension because of legal limitations.”

Psaki said that the White House has been in contact with state and local officials about the delays in federal aid assistance, criticisms of which have bolstered calls to extend the moratorium.

The White House is fielding questions on its statement that Joe Biden does not have the executive authority to extend the eviction moratorium – which expired 31 July – without congressional authorization.

The statement, released this afternoon, leaves Democrats pointing fingers at each other on who can extend the moratorium. House speaker Nancy Pelosi at a press conference yesterday said the White House has the authority to extend the authorization without Congress.

Gene Sperling, White House coordinator for implementing the $1.9tn American Rescue Plan that was passed in the spring, said at a press briefing this afternoon that the White House is urging state and local governments to extend their own eviction moratorium. Sperling cited a Supreme Court decision from June that upheld the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention eviction moratorium until the end of July.

“We are doing whatever we can with the tools we have,” Sperling said, citing federal aid that is meant to help struggling renters. Responding to criticism that the government has been slow on distributing the $46bn of rental aid, Sperling said, “Our country did not have a national infrastructure for doing this” and said that some state and local governments have made it difficult to access the funds.

Senator Lindsay Graham just announced on Twitter that he is sick with a breakthrough case of Covid-19. Graham said that he feels like he has a sinus infection and that he will be quarantining for 10 days.

In a Tweet, he said he is “glad I was vaccinated because without vaccination I am certain I would not feel as well as I do now. My symptoms would be far worse.”

The White House has released a new statement saying Joe Biden was considering a new 30-day eviction moratorium over the weekend, given the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic and its economic fall out. But the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) was not able to find legal justification for executive action, the statement says.

“Given the rising urgency of containing the spread of the Delta variant, on Sunday, the President asked the CDC to consider once again the possibility of executive action. He raised the prospect of a new, 30-day eviction moratorium—focused on counties with High or Substantial case rates—to protect renters,” the statement from White House press secretary Jen Psaki reads.

“To date, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky and her team have been unable to find legal authority for a new, targeted eviction moratorium. Our team is redoubling efforts to identify all available legal authorities to provide necessary protections.”

Tennessee’s Department of Education released guidance late last week on the state’s new law that bans critical race theory.

The department says that only current students, parents and employees can file complaints if they feel like the law has been violated. Complaints must be filed within 30 days of a concept being introduced in a classroom.

The law, which came into effect on 1 July, bans instructors from saying that “an individual, by virtue of the individual’s race or sex, is inherently privileged, racist, sexist or oppressive, whether consciously or subconsciously.” The state’s education commissioner can withhold from schools that are found to be violating the law.

In its guidance, the department put forth a formula for how the state should withhold funds from schools depending on how many violations a state has been cited for. Each violation would result in an additional 2% of funding or $1m – whichever is less – of funds being withheld from the school.

Denver has become the latest US city to mandate that all its employees and private sector workers in high-risk settings must be vaccinated against Covid-19, as delta variant cases continue to rise.

The move applies to more than 10,000 municipal employees like police officers, firefighters, teachers and sheriff’s deputies.

Mayor Michael Hancock said the order included nursing homes, homeless shelters, hospitals, and correctional facilities. It also applies to employees of public and private schools and higher education institutions in the county.

The measure will come into force on 30 September, after which, workers who do not get vaccinated but are required to do so under the mandate will not be allowed to work on site.

“Denver is now experiencing the most infectious strain of the virus – the delta variant, which is responsible for 90% of new cases statewide,” Hancock said.

“To achieve the highest level of protection and recovery from the pandemic, especially among high-risk and vulnerable groups, we need to maximize vaccinations as quickly as possible, and mandates will do just that.”

Nearly a fifth of Americans in a new Monmouth University poll said that they will never get the vaccine if they can avoid it.

In a survey taken at the end of July, 17% of respondents said that they will not get the vaccine – a drop from June when 21% of respondents said they will not get the vaccine. tHe vast majority – 70% – of those who said they will not get the vaccine identified as Republicans.

Opinions on whether mask and social distancing mandates should be reinstated differed widely by party, with 85% of Democrats being at least somewhat supportive of stricter measures and 73% of Republicans opposed. Most respondents agreed that messaging from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which updated its guidelines last week to say that everyone should wear masks indoors regardless of vaccination status.