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Coronavirus Watch: US deaths decrease two days in a row

Jay Cannon   | Paste BN

The U.S. coronavirus death toll decreased for a second consecutive day, while President Donald Trump ignited controversy by quote tweeting a call to "#FireFauci."

This is Monday's Coronavirus Watch newsletter, courtesy of the Paste BN Network. Here's the latest information, as of 2 p.m. ET. 

  • U.S. coronavirus deaths hit a daily high on Friday, but decreased in the proceeding two days. Friday's mark of more than 2,000 deaths was followed by 1,877 deaths on Saturday and 1,557 on Sunday, per Johns Hopkins coronavirus data.
  • "A decrease in mortality rates for two consecutive days is welcome news definitely, but one that should be received with a lot of cautious optimism," said Ogbonnaya Omenka, a public health specialist at Butler University's College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences. "While a decline in deaths is an important measure, an even more important benchmark is a wane in new transmissions."
  • President Trump caused a stir when he quote tweeted a message from former congressional candidate DeAnna Lorraine that called for the firing of Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases that has been at the forefront of the federal response to the outbreak. Trump, however, did not explicitly endorse the idea of removing Fauci from his position.
  • Trump was apparently not happy with Fauci's comment to CNN on Sunday, saying that lives could have been saved if the country had implemented measures to contain the virus earlier.
  • A sailor on the USS Theodore Roosevelt died of coronavirus, the Navy announced Monday. As of Sunday, 585 of the 4,800-member crew had tested positive for the virus. The commander of the ship, Capt. Brett Crozier, was fired after pleading for help, and acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly resigned under fire for dismissing Crozier.
  • The U.S. eclipsed 560,000 confirmed cases and 22,800 coronavirus deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins University database.
  • Globally, nearly 1.9 million cases have been confirmed and 117,000 people have died from the virus.
  • A month after Trump announced a national emergency, Americans' views of the coronavirus pandemic have shifted dramatically. A new Paste BN/Ipsos Poll found that the number of Americans who say the virus poses a threat to them personally as well as the nation has doubled.
  • George Stephanopoulos revealed on "Good Morning America" that he tested positive for COVID-19, but said he doesn't feel any symptoms.
  • Amazon says it has another 75,000 job openings needing to be filled after adding 100,000 workers in the past few weeks.

We're all coping with a new reality. Paste BN has launched a twice-a-week newsletter full of wisdom, mental health tips, home workouts and fun distractions called Staying Apart, Together. You can subscribe here.

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– Jay Cannon, Paste BN Network, Wires Editor, @JayTCannon on Twitter

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