 Welcome to the Coronavirus Weekly Brief. We're your hosts. I'm David Sturman. And I'm Melissa Sallick-Burk with New America. Here are the headlines you need to know. Trump administration political appointees at the Department of Health and Human Services interfered with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports on the coronavirus, seeking and obtaining the right to review CDC products Politico reported on Friday. Politico writes the health department's politically appointed communications aides have demanded the right to review and seek changes to CDC's weekly scientific reports, charting the progress of the coronavirus pandemic, and what officials characterized as an attempt to intimidate the report's authors and water down their communications to health professionals. Emails from communications aides for CDC director Robert Redfield revealed complaints that the CDC's reports would undermine the Trump administration's effort to present an optimistic picture of the situation. While CDC officials initially resisted such editing, according to three people familiar with the emails that spoke to Politico, they quote have increasingly agreed to allow the political officials to review the reports and in a few cases compromised on the wording. In one email, an aide to Michael Capputo, a Trump campaign figure with no medical experience who was installed as HHS's spokesperson, accused the CDC of trying to quote, hurt the president, unquote. A research letter from Harvard University, published in JAMA internal medicine and penned by seven doctors, highlighted that out of 3,222 young adult Americans between the ages of 18 through 34 who were hospitalized with COVID-19, 2.7% or 88 died, one out of five needed intensive care, and one out of 10 required the use of a ventilator. Further, 3% of those patients who survived the disease or 99 could not be sent home from the hospital and were transferred to facilities for ongoing care or rehabilitation, writes in New York Times. JAMA deputy editor Mitchell H. Katz, also a doctor, wrote an editorial that aligned with the research letter, noting that the research quote establishes that COVID-19 is a life-threatening disease in people of all ages and that social distancing, facial coverings and other approaches to prevent transmission are important in young adults as an older person's unquote. According to the Harvard data, the average age of the 3,222 individuals was 28.3 years old and 57.6% were men and 57% were black or Hispanic. Further, 36.8% were considered obese, 24.5% were considered morbidly obese, 18.2% were diabetics and 16.1% had hypertension. As debates raged over the risks of in-person learning and the effectiveness of alternative remote methods, for many West Virginian students, remote schooling remains out of reach due to a lack of internet access in the state. The Wall Street Journal notes in West Virginia between 30% and 50% of K-12 students don't have internet access at home according to the state's Department of Education. Only nine of West Virginia's 55 counties are currently holding school fully online, though the others have adopted a hybrid model that still requires access to the internet. The state is seeking to rapidly expand access, lifting a $50 million cap on what it can draw from an FCC fund aimed at bringing broadband access to rural areas and setting up almost 850 Wi-Fi hotspots around the state. Smoke from wildfires blazing across multiple U.S. Western states is worrying doctors as the coronavirus remains a pressing concern in the country. According to Los Angeles County, USC Medical Center Chief Medical Officer Brad Spellberg, quote, multiple studies have shown a correlation between higher levels of pollution in the air and greater spread and severity of COVID-19 cases, unquote. Adding, quote, some studies have also shown that exposure of lung tissue to pollution may increase susceptibility to viral infections, unquote, reports CNN. The smoke can irritate lung tissue, which can result in susceptibility to lung infections, notes Cedars-Sinai Hospital Infectious Disease Specialist Ray Comworthy. Doctors are worried that because of the thick smoke, individuals will spend more time indoors instead of outdoors, which could yield virus spread if people come into regular contact with individuals outside of their immediate household. Cuban authorities announced on Saturday that the government is shutting down all inter-provincial transportation and extending lockdown restrictions in the capital of Havana as the island nation attempts to stop the disease from spreading outside the capital. The country began returning to relatively normal conditions at the end of June, as authorities largely succeeded in containing the initial wave, but a spike in cases in Havana that began in August triggered a return to lockdown conditions on September 1. Havana's new wave of infections has yet to subside, with 200 cases reported in the cities this week. New outbreaks have also recently been reported outside Havana. Cuba's total case count stands at 4,684 with 108 deaths. In a survey conducted by the Higher School of Economics in Moscow, 45.6 percent of polled Russians said they would not accept a vaccine regardless of its origin. This number rose from 37.7 percent in a June survey conducted by the same university. Only 13.2 percent of respondents said they would be willing to vaccinate, with another 19 percent saying they would prefer to wait until next year to decide. The same survey also showed 43.4 percent of respondents believing the pandemic to be either exaggerated or quote-unquote invented, up from 32.8 percent in late May. Russia last month was the first country in the world to approve a vaccine for public use despite the drug still in the early phases of testing. Experts around the world have derided the vaccine's quick turnaround, arguing that it was declared safe and effective far too early in the trials. With more than a million cases, Russia has the world's fourth largest coronavirus outbreak, reports the Moscow Times. To see our daily brief, go to the address in our show notes and follow us on Twitter at New America ISP. The coronavirus weekly brief was produced by Shannon Lynch and Jason Stewart and was edited by Shannon Lynch. This podcast is brought to you by New America and Arizona State University.