White House coronavirus task force cracks down on universities in state reports

CNN reached out to all 50 states for their weekly task force reports, which the White House has declined to make public, and obtained responses from 13 states as of Friday morning. Alabama was the only state to explicitly decline to provide its report. Other states referred CNN to other sources or did not respond.

The case numbers put Delaware 32nd nationwide, up from 43rd last week, and there was a significant increase -- 96.8 per cent -- in case numbers from last week. The report also recommended increasing testing capacity with two measures: Ensuring hospitals move elective surgeries and admissions testing to pooling in order to reserve tests for community outreach and to expand outpatient testing, pooling specimens where appropriate," and "utilizing all university, veterinary, and research platforms for surveillance and testing of students and, if needed, the surrounding communities.

The recommendations for universities included increasing testing capacity through public-private partnerships, requiring universities and colleges to have a plan for rapid testing and contact tracing, recruiting students to expand public health messaging on masks and social distancing on campus, and considering utilizing "focused wastewater surveillance to detect cases early."

The number of new Covid-19 cases in Missouri is up 15 per cent from the previous week, per the report. Both new cases and the test positivity rate have decreased over the last week, the report said. 97.3 per cent of new cases are in Clark County, Washoe County, and Elko County, which include the Las Vegas, Reno and Elko metro areas.

The report also provided recommendations for university settings, including increasing testing capacity, a plan for testing and contact tracing, and ensuring "Residential cases and contacts should not be sent home to isolate or quarantine.

The task force also recommended "outreach to restaurant and bar owners in college communities to enforce masking and limitations on occupancy."The task force report expressed concern regarding persistent case increases in the state of Utah, which is in the task force-defined "yellow zone" with 10 to 100 new cases per 100,000 population and a test positivity rate between 5 per cent and 10 per cent.

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