Vox Sentences - Reopening gone wrong

The coronavirus is surging in some US states; Brazil surpasses 50,000 Covid-19 deaths.

Tonight's Sentences was written by Cameron Peters.

• The number of coronavirus cases in the US is rising rapidly: At least 12 states have reported record-high numbers of new cases since Friday, according to ABC News, and hospitalizations from the virus are increasing in 17 states. [ABC News / Meredith Deliso and Arielle Mitropoulos]
• The US has reported more than 120,000 Covid-19 deaths since the pandemic began, and a World Health Organization official warned Monday that the coronavirus is “definitely accelerating” in the US. [AP / Tamara Lush, Nathan Ellgren, and Tammy Webber]
• Though major cities in the US, many of which are overwhelmingly Democratic, were hard hit by the virus early on, many of the states that have seen a severe spike in recent days, including Florida, Texas, and Arizona, have a more conservative bent. [NPR / Domenico Montanaro]
• And the surge comes as the US moves toward reopening from lockdown; stay-at-home orders in many states expired last month, and restaurants, gyms, and more are open again, albeit with social distancing in place. [New York Times]
• It’s not a second wave, however. As Vox’s Dylan Scott writes, the states hardest hit by the resurgent pandemic are only now experiencing a surge “because they had constrained the virus by adopting stay-at-home orders and other distancing measures” initially. [Vox / Dylan Scott]
• There are plenty of factors that can be attributed to the US failure to quell the pandemic, but a slow, disjointed federal response and a president eager to move past the crisis are front and center as cases continue to rise. [Politico / Dan Diamond and Sarah Wheaton]
• That was especially clear this weekend. In Oklahoma, where President Donald Trump held a rally on Saturday for the first time since the pandemic struck, cases increased by 140 percent over the week of June 12 to 18 compared to the previous week. [Tulsa World]
• At the rally in Tulsa, the president told supporters that he had asked staffers to "slow the testing down" in order to keep the number of US coronavirus cases low. The remark drew widespread condemnation from public health experts, who say that testing should be integral to the US pandemic response. [Washington Post / Yasmeen Abutaleb, Taylor Telford, and Josh Dawsey]
• The reality is that testing has been one of the key failures in the Trump administration's response to the pandemic: The US as a whole has only recently hit the 500,000-tests-a-day threshold that experts say is necessary, and many states are still falling short of the mark. [Vox / German Lopez]

• The coronavirus pandemic is still running rampant in Brazil: On Sunday, the country surpassed 50,000 reported deaths from the virus — though the real number could be much higher — and became only the second nation to hit that tragic milestone, joining the US. [BBC]
• Brazil has also flown past 1 million cases — again, likely an undercount — as President Jair Bolsonaro continues to resist a national lockdown or social distancing measures. On Monday, the world passed 9 million total cases of Covid-19. [Reuters / Stephanie Nebehay and John Revill]
• Many experts believe things will only get worse from here for South America’s largest country. With cases ticking upward at a rate of about 30,000 per day, Brazil could surpass the US coronavirus death toll before too long. [CNN / Flora Charner]
• As in the US, the coronavirus crisis in Brazil began in major cities. Now, the pandemic is growing worse in less urban areas that in many cases lack adequate health care infrastructure. [AP / Mauricio Savarese]
• The severity of the pandemic in Brazil has been driven by Bolsonaro’s non-response to the crisis. The president has fired one health minister (whose successor subsequently resigned) and resisted implementing basic public health measures. He has also boosted the disproven antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine as a possible remedy and joined anti-lockdown protests. [Vox / Zeeshan Aleem]

[Vox / Ian Millhiser]

• What a Trump administration takeover of Voice of America could mean for state-funded broadcasters. [Atlantic / Anne Applebaum]
• A close look at Facebook’s relationship with Donald Trump. [NYT / Ben Smith]
• Work-from-home could be here to stay. [NPR / Uri Berliner]
• With sports on hold, pro cyclists are finding other ways to entertain themselves — like climbing Mount Everest twice in one week. [WSJ / Jason Gay]

Tobacco and Covid-19: Protecting Health and Equity

Join Vox Media & Bloomberg Philanthropies in partnership with the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids Tuesday, June 23, at noon for a discussion on tobacco use and the pandemic. RSVP for the free event here.

[Former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge, a Republican, on Trump's false claims about vote-by-mail / NPR]

The way America does health care isn’t the only way to do health care. It's not the best way. Or the second best, or the third. [Spotify / Ezra Klein]