Most people in the United States are still highly susceptible to catching the new coronavirus, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says. As the virus silently spreads, scientists are scrambling to study its prevalence, broadcast the latest guidance, develop a vaccine and invent new ways to test people for antibodies.

In Washington state, most registered voters said in a new poll that they wear masks regularly and believe reopening should be at least paused for the time being.

Throughout Wednesday, on this page, well be posting updates on the pandemic and its effects on the Seattle area, the Pacific Northwest and the world. Updates from Tuesday can be foundhere, and all our coronavirus coverage can be foundhere.

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. As parts of the nation struggle with a worse coronavirus outbreak than during its high points last spring in other states, Illinois, where officials continue to congratulate residents for keeping the new virus in check, announced Wednesday an increasing number of newly confirmed infections.

Gov. J.B. Pritzker and his state public health director, Dr. Ngoze Ezike, made public pleas to wear masks when outside the home and continue physical distancing and conscientious hygiene to stem the spread of the highly contagious and potentially deadly coronavirus.

The state on Wednesday reported Julys highest one-day total at nearly 1,600 new confirmed cases of COVID-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus, prompting a warning from the Democratic governor.

States including Arizona, California, Florida, Louisiana and Texas have seen some July surges that surpassed what any of the hardest-hit states saw in April. Meanwhile, Illinois, which many believe was slower and more deliberate in re-opening its economy and reducing restrictions on social interaction, had kept numbers of new cases steady.

Associated Press

Oregon Gov. Kate Brown announced Wednesday that she is expanding the states current COVID-19 mask order to also apply to children as young as 5 and that she is decreasing the allowed capacity of indoor venues from 250 people to 100.

The governor said these new mandates, which go into effect Friday, are necessary to help slow the increasing spread of coronavirus. On Tuesday, the total number of confirmed and presumptive virus cases in the state topped 15,000.

When we see the numbers rise, we must respond, Brown said.

Currently, anyone who is 12 years or older must wear masks inside public spaces and in outdoor areas where they can not stay six feet away from others. The mandate will now apply to anyone 5 years or older.

These younger children can be infected by COVID-19. These younger children live with families, said Dr. Dean Sidelinger, epidemiologist for the Oregon State Health Authority.

In conjunction with the mask expansion, Oregons Department of Education announced that students will be required to wear face coverings during in-person instruction if they return to the classroom in the fall. The department will distribute 5 million face coverings to school districts for students and employees to wear to help with the new requirement.

Read the full story here.

The Associated Press

To give businesses, shoppers and diners more room outside, the City of Seattle will soon waive permit costs for restaurants and retail stores that want to close streets near their establishments.

We must all fight the rising numbers of COVID-19 cases in our region," Mayor Jenny Durkan said in a statement. "As we are seeing increasing cases from social gatherings and indoor dining, we can create additional opportunities for our restaurants and businesses to safely operate outdoors."

For qualifying businesses, the city will waive usual permit costs, but businesses will still have to cover other expenses like barricades and temporary no-parking signs. Those applying to close a portion of the street will have to demonstrate support from neighboring businesses and residents of proposed street closures, the mayors office said in a news release.

Its the latest effort to keep people outside as the city returns to shopping and dining. Last month, Seattle announced it would waive sidewalk permit fees to make it easier for restaurants to seat people outdoors.

So far, the Seattle Department of Transportation has received 92 applications for sidewalk cafs and curb space permits, the city said. The city has yet to release more details about which businesses will be eligible for the new street closure fee waivers. Businesses can start applying July 29.

Heidi Groover

State health officials confirmed 672 new COVID-19 cases and three more deaths in Washington as of Monday night.

The update brings the states totals to 49,247 cases and 1,468 deaths, meaning about 3% of people diagnosed in Washington have died, according to the state Department of Health (DOH). The data is as of 11:59 p.m. Tuesday.

So far, 855,152 tests for the novel coronavirus have been conducted in the state, per DOH, with about 5.8% of those coming back positive. Over the past week, about 5.5% of tests in Washington have been positive.

In King County, the state's most populous, state health officials have confirmed 13,627 diagnoses and 638 deaths, accounting for 43.5% of the states COVID-19 death toll.

Brendan Kiley

Fearing another grim wave of nursing home deaths as COVID-19 cases rebound, President Donald Trump on Wednesday announced his administration will provide $5 billion to help facilities counter the virus.

The move follows Democratic presidential candidate Joe Bidens recent unveiling of a family caregiver plan that aims to greatly expand and subsidize alternatives to institutional care for frail older adults. Both men are competing for seniors votes against a backdrop of eroding political support for Trump among older Americans.

I want to send a message of support and hope to every senior citizen, Trump said at the White House. The light is starting to shine and we will get there very quickly.

The $5 billion announced Wednesday is part of a package, including efforts to facilitate ongoing testing of nursing home staff, providing states a weekly list of facilities with increased COVID-19 cases, and offering additional training and support for the homes.

Advocates and industry have been pressing the administration and Congress for weeks to provide more financial assistance and support for nursing homes. An earlier White House recommendation to test all residents and staff has had mixed results. Nursing homes already have received $4.9 billion from pandemic relief funds approved by Congress.

Read the full story here.

The Associated Press

When Sophie Cunningham, a guard for the WNBAs Phoenix Mercury, returned to training last week after a bout with COVID-19, she made an announcement that startled fans. She said she believed she had been infected twice once in March and then again in June or July.

They said you can only get it once, but Ive had it twice, she told reporters Thursday. Hopefully, Im done with it.

As the United States marks its sixth month since the arrival of the virus, Cunninghams story is among a growing number of reports of people getting COVID-19, recovering and then falling sick again assertions, that if proved, could complicate efforts to make a long-lasting vaccine, or to achieve herd immunity where most of the population has become immune to the virus.

Doctors emphasize there is no evidence of widespread vulnerability to reinfection and that it is difficult to know what to make of these cases in the absence of detailed lab work, or medical studies documenting reinfections. Some people could be suffering from a reemergence of the same illness from virus that had been lurking somewhere in their body, or they could have been hit with a different virus with similar symptoms. Their positive COVID-19 tests could have been false positives a not-insignificant possibility given accuracy issues with some tests or picked up dead remnants of virus, as authorities believe happened in hundreds of people who tested positive after recovering in South Korea.

You cant extrapolate those anecdotal, first-person observations to the entire population and make sweeping conclusions about how the virus works, said Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at Columbia University.

There is still not enough evidence, or sufficient time since the virus first struck to draw firm conclusions about how people develop immunity to COVID-19, how long it might last or what might make it less robust in some individuals than in others.

Read the full story here.

The Washington Post

Virtual instruction. Mandated masks. Physical distancing. The start of school will look very different this year because of the coronavirus and thats OK with the vast majority of Americans.

Only about 1 in 10 Americans think daycare centers, preschools or K-12 schools should open this fall without restrictions, according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs. Most think mask requirements and other safety measures are necessary to restart in-person instruction, and roughly 3 in 10 say that teaching kids in classrooms shouldnt happen at all.

The findings are a sharp contrast to the picture that President Donald Trump paints as he pressures schools to reopen. The Republican president claims to have wide support for a full reopening, arguing that Democrats oppose it for political reasons.

Few schools, however, plan to return to business as usual.

Read the full story here.

The Associated Press

New research suggests that antibodies the immune system makes to fight the new coronavirus may only last a few months in people with mild illness, but that doesnt mean protection also is gone or that it wont be possible to develop an effective vaccine.

Infection with this coronavirus does not necessarily generate lifetime immunity, but antibodies are only part of the story, said Dr. Buddy Creech, an infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt University. He had no role in the work, published Tuesday in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The immune system remembers how to make fresh antibodies if needed and other parts of it also can mount an attack, he said.

Read the full story here.

The Associated Press

Self-collected swabs that only go partway up the nostril are almost as good as swabs administered by health care workers in identifying serious cases of the novel coronavirus, a new study from the University of Washington found.

Among people with "meaningful" viral loads, the home swabs detected 95% of the cases that were detected by clinical tests, the study found. The home swabs, which patients can use to test themselves, are less invasive than the nasopharyngeal swabs typically used by health care workers testing for the virus, which go much deeper in the nostril.

In total, the home tests identified 80% of the cases detected by clinical tests.

It matters less if swabs dont detect the cases with very little virus, because theyre not likely to be very symptomatic and less likely to infect others, said Dr. Helen Chu, a UW professor of medicine and the study's senior author.

There are several advantages in accurate home testing for the virus: Patients don't have to go out if they're not feeling well, which reduces the chances of the disease spreading and also preserves protective equipment used by health care workers to conduct tests.

"This approach is safe and scalable in the pandemic setting, permitting widespread testing of symptomatic participants early in illness and the potential for prompt self-isolation and contract tracing," the study's authors wrote in JAMA Network Open, published by the American Medical Association.

The study involved 185 participants who were tested with self-administered tests, clinician-collected tests or both.

David Gutman

Police in Bolivias major cities have recovered the bodies of hundreds of suspected victims of the coronavirus from homes, vehicles and, in some instances, the streets. Hospitals are full of COVID-19 patients and short of staff, keeping their gates closed and hanging out signs that say: There is no space.

And the Bolivian government says the peak of the outbreak is not expected until August.

Desperation is growing in one of Latin Americas poorest countries, which seems overwhelmed by the virus even as it endures political turmoil stemming from a flawed election and the ouster of President Evo Morales last year. A plan to hold elections in September, seen as a key to stabilizing its democracy, is increasingly in doubt as the pandemic worsens.

Read the full story here.

The Associated Press

As a result of the global COVID-19 pandemic, the University of Washingtons mens basketball game vs. Tulane in China has been canceled, the Pac-12 announced Wednesday.

The Pac-12 China Game was scheduled to be played Nov. 14 atthe BaoshanSports Center in Shanghai, which hosted Arizona State and Colorado in the 2019 game.

The decision to cancel the 2020 Pac-12 China Game is hardly surprising considering the coronavirus impact on sports.

Two weeks ago, the Pac-12 canceled nonconference games in football, mens and womens soccer and womens volleyball.

Read the full story here.

Percy Allen

A new snapshot of the frantic global response to the coronavirus pandemic shows some of the worlds largest government donors of humanitarian aid are buckling under the strain: Funding commitments, for the virus and otherwise, have dropped by a third from the same period last year.

The analysis by the U.K.-based Development Initiatives, obtained in advance by The Associated Press, offers a rare real-time look at the notoriously difficult to track world of aid.

At a time when billions of people are struggling with the pandemic and the ensuing economic collapse on top of long-running disasters like famine, drought or unrest more, not less, money is urgently needed. New virus protection equipment must be bought for almost everything, from maternity wards in African villages to womens shelters in Syrian refugee camps.

We have not seen substantial funding for COVID, yet the situation is going to get worse, Rosalind Crowther, South Sudan country director for the aid group CARE, told the AP in May, saying some donors have backtracked on earlier commitments. The group runs two dozen health centers, more than 40 feeding centers and a safe house in one of the worlds most fragile countries after civil war.

During the first five months of this year, overall aid commitments from the largest government donors were $16.9 billion, down from $23.9 billion in the same period last year, according to the new analysis, which drew on data from the United States, the United Kingdom, European Union institutions, Germany, France, Canada and others.

Many of these donors notably the U.K., whose aid commitments have dropped by nearly 50% from last year, according to the analysis are struggling as their economies contract.

Read the story here.

Cara Anna, The Associated Press

With coronavirus cases rising in Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser said Wednesday she will issue an executive order making face masks mandatory outside homes an unprecedented step in the nations capital.

Bowser said the order would include enforcement language detailing possible fines for violations.

After saying they had successfully blunted the infection curve in the city earlier this summer, health officials say the infection numbers have slowly crept upward, reaching triple digits on Wednesday for the first time in weeks.

Limited exceptions to the order, according to material distributed by Bowsers office, include children under age 3, people actively eating or drinking and people vigorously exercising outdoors while not close to anyone else.

In most cases, if youre outside your home. you should have a mask on, Bowser said.

Health Department director Dr. LaQuandra Nesbitt says her office is particularly concerned with data that show most new infections arent coming from people in quarantine or on the contact trace list of an infected person. That, she said, indicates a high level of community spread. Nesbit also said the percentage of people hospitalized who are under age 40 has nearly doubled in the month of July.

Read the story here.

The Associated Press

Bellevue School District will hold classes online in the fall, after similar announcements from other Seattle-area districts such as Kent and Northshore.

In an email sent to staff members on Wednesday, Bellevue superintendent Ivan Duran said he made the call after meeting with county health officials.

Last week, a report from the Bellevue-based Institute for Disease Modeling warned against reopening schools in King County unless transmission rates decrease.

Dr. Jeffrey Duchin, King County health officer, called the report "sobering."

Seattle Public Schools haven't made an announcement regarding its plans, but the district is facing pressure to start the school year remotely from its teachers union.

Dahlia Bazzaz

Gov. Jay Inslee's effort to use catchphrases from the 2004 teen comedy "Mean Girls" to make masks popular is meeting mixed reviews from the Twitterverse.

On Wednesday, Inslee posted a picture of himself behind a pink mask on Twitter with the words: "Stop trying to make 'fetch' happen. Make masks happen. #OnWednesdaysWeWearPink"

The lines about "fetch" and wearing pink on Wednesday are uttered by Regina George, the super popular mean girl leader of the Plastics clique in Tina Fey's movie about social acceptance.

In the movie, George informs newcomer Cady Heron about the group's color dress code and tells her insecure friend, Gretchen Wieners, that it's pointless to keep using "fetch" as a synonym for "cool."

"Gretchen, stop trying to makefetch happen!" George says unkindly.

The idea for using the Mean Girls pink line came from U.S. Rep. Suzan DelBene, D-Wash., who is leading the effort on Capitol Hill.

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Coronavirus daily news updates, July 22: What to know today about COVID-19 in the Seattle area, Washington state and the world - Seattle Times