Birx says U.S. underestimated community spread of coronavirus, spurred by young people

President Trump’s supporters who plan to attend his Saturday campaign rally at the airport in Portsmouth, N.H., will not be required to wear masks despite concerns that large crowds could spread the novel coronavirus in one of the few states with declining case numbers.

New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu (R) said at a news conference Tuesday that he believes the event will be safe. Campaign staff will provide hand sanitizer and strongly encourage attendees to wear a mask provided when they arrive at the event. Still, Sununu said he will not mingle with the crowd to be “extra cautious” about his own exposure to the virus.

“I will not be in the crowd of thousands of people, I’m not going to put myself in the middle of a crowd of thousands of people …” he said. “I have to be extra cautious as the governor. I try to be extra cautious for myself, my family.”

Despite his personal concerns, he defended the decision not to require masks, pointing to other large gatherings, including recent protests, that did not inspire orders to mandate wearing one.

“To have a mask order for one and not the other isn’t fair,” he said.

Although some officials in Portsmouth have pushed for stricter precautions at the rally, its mayor has stood by the decision to give attendees a choice and said the city could not enforce an order requiring masks.

“I don’t know how I would enforce it,” Mayor Rick Becksted told New Hampshire Public Radio.

Concerns that the rally could spread the virus follow reports that six staffers who attended a Trump rally in Tulsa last month tested positive for the virus hours before the event.

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And then the Washington Nationals were back again, for a full-squad morning workout that included grounders, pop flies — the sort of drills that feel from a much simpler time.

But Tuesday wasn’t simple for the Nationals. Right now, nothing is.

On Monday, Washington shut down Nationals Park amid concerns over baseball’s coronavirus testing model. Like teams around the sport, the Nationals had yet to receive results from testing on Friday. Like the Houston Astros and the St. Louis Cardinals, they paused summer training until those results came. Then General Manager Mike Rizzo said in a statement: “Major League Baseball needs to work quickly to resolve issues with their process and their lab. Otherwise, Summer Camp and the 2020 season are at risk.”

That was still true Tuesday morning, when dozens of players squeezed onto the field.

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ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — As the coronavirus savaged other parts of the country, Florida, buoyed by low infection rates, seemed an ideal location for a nation looking to emerge from isolation. The Republican National Convention moved from Charlotte to Jacksonville, the NBA eyed a season finale at a Disney sports complex near Orlando and millions packed onto once-empty beaches.

Weeks later, the Sunshine State has emerged as a coronavirus epicenter. Nearly 1 out of every 100 residents is infected with the virus, hospital intensive care units are full or filling up and big-name visitors who chose Florida for their first post-isolation events are now mired in questions and controversies about safety.

Amid escalating infections, Florida, once held up by President Trump as a model for how to manage the novel coronavirus, is faring poorly. Residents worry the situation will get much worse. Florida is now one of a handful of states whose spiking numbers are driving a major resurgence of the virus in the United States, which is approaching 3 million cases.

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Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R) on Tuesday said the state’s Department of Health will mandate face coverings in seven counties with spiking coronavirus cases designated as “Red Alert Level 3,” which indicates the areas have a high risk of exposure and spread.

Butler County is one of those seven — and in response to the health department’s order, county Sheriff Richard K. Jones said Tuesday that his department would not enforce it, WLWT5 reported.

“I can tell you this — I am not the mask police. I am not going to enforce any mask-wearing. That is not my responsibility. That is not my job. People should be able to make those choices themselves,” the sheriff said during a news conference Tuesday, according to the station.

He added: “I’m not a scientist, but I want you to know the police are busy … Don’t call 911 because someone is not wearing a mask. If the health departments want to control who is not wearing a mask, let them put a little yellow light on their car and they can stop people and go in.”

Other counties at Red Alert Level 3 include Cuyahoga, Franklin, Hamilton, Huron, Montgomery and Trumbull, according to DeWine’s office.

Under the new mandate, Ohioans in these counties must wear masks in any indoor location that is not a residence, when using ride-share or public transit and if they are unable to socially distance while outdoors.

Jones is far from the only sheriff to scoff at mask requirements. As The Post previously reported, sheriffs in Washington, Nevada, Texas, California and North Carolina have rebelled against mask mandates, some calling them “unconstitutional and unenforceable.”

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The new push by Trump administration officials for schools to reopen amid a spike in coronavirus cases drew a sharp rebuke Tuesday from the National Education Association and five other groups representing parents and educators.

In a joint statement, the groups said that “public school educators, students and parents must have a voice in critical conversations and decisions on reopening schools,” warning that the president “should not be brazenly making these decisions.”

The groups — which include the NEA as well as the National Parent Teacher Association, the American Federation of Teachers, the Council of Administrators of Special Education, the National Association of Secondary School Principals and the National Association of State Directors of Special Education — argued that the Trump administration has “zero credibility” on the issue of reopening due to its “vacuum of leadership” throughout the pandemic.

“The White House and the CDC have offered at best conflicting guidance for school reopening, and today offered little additional insight,” the groups said.

“Without a comprehensive plan that includes federal resources to provide for the safety of our students and educators with funding for Personal Protective Equipment, socially distanced instruction, and addressing racial inequity, we could be putting students, their families, and educators in danger,” the statement continued.

The most populous county in Tennessee, which includes Memphis, is reversing parts of its reopening, joining the state capital of Nashville — and state and local governments around the country facing coronavirus spikes — in re-closing bars.

Starting Wednesday, bars in Shelby County must close until further notice, the county health department announced Tuesday. Restaurants must shut down each evening by 10 p.m.

Announcing the new measure, county health department director Alisa Haushalter said the local positivity rate — the share of coronavirus tests taken that are coming back positive — has pushed above 12 percent, well over what health officials want to see.

“We anticipate two weeks from now we’re going to have a significant number of cases that will be very difficult to manage from a hospital perspective and from a public health perspective,” she said at a news conference.

Shelby County recently mandated that people wear masks in public.

Nashville and its surrounding county, Tennessee’s second-largest, also renewed some restrictions on business. Officials there announced ahead of the Fourth of July weekend that bars would have to shutter, while restaurants, barber shops and other establishments would have to operate at reduced capacity.

“Contact tracing in Nashville and Davidson County has connected the origin of multiple clusters of COVID-19 infections to bars and restaurants, affecting employees, musicians, and patrons,” read the order from the top public health official for the metropolitan area. “The large number of patrons in close proximity creates an environment conducive to spread, and crowds are often not being managed for compliance with appropriate social distancing.”

As coronavirus cases and hospitalizations reached new highs in the state, the Texas Education Agency on Tuesday released guidance for the upcoming school year that says it will offer both in-person learning and remote learning, and that it will leave it up to parents to decide.

Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath said in a statement that the health and safety of students and staff is his priority, which “is why the guidance laid out today will provide flexibility to both parents and districts to make decisions based on the ever-changing conditions of this public health crisis.”

The agency’s guidance says parents can choose to keep their children home for remote learning ahead of the first grading period but will be able to switch to in-person schooling before each new grading period during the year. Masks will be required in schools, and “all students, teachers, staff, and visitors coming to campus must be screened before being allowed on campus.”

Texas on Tuesday reported 10,028 new coronavirus cases, another single-day record for the state. Nearly 600 more people were reported hospitalized in the state on Tuesday, according to Washington Post tracking, bringing current coronavirus-related hospitalizations to a record of nearly 9,300.

Parents and teachers in the United States have been anxiously awaiting news from their districts about the upcoming school year. The Trump administration this week is pushing for all schools to reopen, arguing that they can do so with protections in place for particularly vulnerable students and staff. “Nobody should hide behind CDC’s guidance” to avoid reopening schools, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said Tuesday.

Florida’s top school official issued a sweeping executive order on Monday requiring all schools in the state to reopen their buildings for in-person instruction for the coming school year, even as coronavirus cases in the state continue to rise.

Moriah Balingit and Michael Brice-Saddler contributed to this report.

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The head of Texas’s Republican Party said Tuesday that he will not cancel the group’s in-person convention, slated to bring more than 6,000 people to Houston next week, ignoring pleas from the city’s mayor to hold a virtual event instead.

“We have taken every precaution we can, within reason, to make sure our convention is a model for all future large events in this pandemic,” James Dickey, the state party chair, said in a video address.

Dickey shrugged off the “outside pressure” from Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner, a Democrat, who asked the party to reconsider its plans in an effort to stop the spread of the virus, which is surging in the city. Dickey accused Turner of “trying to shame us and our sponsors.”

Turner said Monday that he wrote a letter to state Republican Party leaders asking them to call off the convention scheduled for July 16 to 18.

“If they are going to host an in-person convention, they must follow the governor’s guidelines, including wearing a face mask and maintain social distancing,” Turner wrote Monday on Twitter. “I do not think it is wise or prudent to hold a convention of 6,000 or more.”

Health inspectors will be dispatched to monitor the convention, Turner said, and they will be authorized to shut down the event if attendees do not follow social distancing protocols.

But Dickey said the state Republican Party’s executive committee voted to proceed despite the mayor’s entreaty. Attendees will be required to wear face masks, he said, but only when they can’t be six feet apart. And, he assured, the party would “protect your rights.”

A virtual convention will still be the party’s “backup plan” in case of emergency.

Virus patients have rushed to hospitals in Houston and across the state, and the demand for intensive care unit beds and ventilators has soared in recent weeks. Texas has reported more than 200,500 infections — more than 40,500 in the past week alone. The virus has killed at least 2,655 people in the state.

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