WASHINGTON – U.S. President Donald Trump will hold a White House coronavirus task force news briefing at 5 p.m. on Tuesday for the first time since April.
Watch the briefing live at 5 p.m. Tuesday in the video player below.
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The task force has held news briefings since then, but President Trump has not participated in them.
Trump’s resumption of the coronavirus task force news briefings comes as coronavirus (COVID-19) cases are spiking across the country.
The U.S. has been reporting significant increases in COVID-19 cases in recent weeks and has the highest numbers of cases and deaths in the world: 3,831,591 and 140,914, respectively.
COVID-19 cases in the U.S. have been increasing by about 400,000 new cases each week since June 29.
Record numbers of confirmed infections and deaths have emerged again in states in the South and West, and hospitals have become overwhelmed with new patients.
States like Florida, Texas and California have been reporting significant COVID-19 case spikes in recent weeks as economies reopened to the public. As of July 21, Florida has reported an increase of nearly 78,000 COVID-19 cases over the last seven days. Texas reported an increase of 74,000 cases and California reported an increase of 64,000 additional cases in the last week.
Check out our weekly recounts of states with the highest numbers of COVID-19 cases and deaths on the dates listed below:
Michigan has also seen a recent spike in COVID-19 cases this month.
As of July 20 the state is reporting 74,152 cases and 6,126 deaths -- an increase of 489 new cases since July 19. On July 15 the state reported it’s highest daily increase in COVID-19 cases since May.
Responses to the increasing threat of COVID-19 across the country have been handled by individual state leaders as the federal government has been addressing the issue less frequently in recent weeks. The country’s coronavirus aid package is slated to end soon, but plans for a new aid package have not yet been agreed upon.
The federal government’s rhetoric has been somewhat confusing amid the worsening pandemic, as the Trump administration has been recently pushing for K-12 schools to reopen in the fall -- even as health experts warn that it may not be safe.
A number of school districts across the country are preparing for online or hybrid learning options instead of in-person learning. Some large districts in Los Angeles, Houston and Washington have already announced that they will not return to in-person learning in the fall at all.
Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer has said that she will not allow schools to reopen to in-person learning in the fall if it is unsafe to do so. The state is currently in phase 4 of the governor’s reopening plan, and if the state moves backward into phase 3, all K-12 schools must move classes online.
Read more: Here’s what Michigan school districts have planned for the fall amid the pandemic