 Welcome to the coronavirus weekly brief where your hosts, I'm David Sturman and I'm Alyssa Sallick-Virk with New America. Here are the headlines you need to know. The pandemic continues to spread both in the United States and globally. As of Monday morning, there have been more than 2,549,069 coronavirus cases in the United States and 125,803 people have died according to Johns Hopkins University's tracking. Worldwide, the number of coronavirus cases surpassed 10 million on Saturday. There have been 10,154,984 confirmed cases of coronavirus worldwide with 502,048 deaths. Over the weekend, several U.S. states reported record high increases in new coronavirus cases as the United States' daily infection rate rose to 40,173, according to data by Johns Hopkins University. 36 states saw an upward trend of new coronavirus cases since one week prior, while only two states saw an overall downward trend. On Friday, at least five states had their highest record number of coronavirus cases, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Tennessee, and Utah. Between Friday and Saturday, California recorded its single highest day of new coronavirus cases at 5,972 cases. At least 11 states, Arizona, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Idaho, Louisiana, Maine, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, and Texas have halted or delayed their planned reopenings because of the surge in cases. In New Mexico, health officials confirmed that three people died and another became permanently blind from methanol poisoning after they all drank hand sanitizer. Another three individuals are in critical condition for the same reason. These cases were reported to the New Mexico Poison Control in May and were the result of alcoholism. New Mexico Health Secretary Kathy Kunkel said, quote, if you think you may have used or consumed hand sanitizer containing methanol, please seek medical care, unquote, adding, quote, an antidote to methanol poisoning is available, but the earlier someone gets treated for methanol poisoning, the better the chance of recovery, unquote. This past week, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration suggested that individuals should not use any hand sanitizer made from ESC Biochem SA. According to CNN, exposure to significant amounts of methanol can result in nausea, vomiting, headache, blurred vision, permanent blindness, seizures, coma, permanent damage to the nervous system or death. Polling by the Pew Research Center shows the partisan's blood and views regarding the coronavirus is growing. According to the poll, an increasing number of Republicans believe the U.S. has turned a corner with the virus, with 61% saying the worst is behind us, while in early April, 56% said the worst was still to come. In contrast, only 23% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents say the worst is behind us. Republicans are also less concerned that they were in April, that they might unknowingly spread the virus or get a severe case of COVID-19, while Democratic views have stayed relatively similar across the time period. To prevent another coronavirus outbreak, frequent testing is more important than test-sensitivity scientists find. Communities such as universities, where COVID-19 cases could quickly spiral out of control, should frequently test large numbers of people for the new coronavirus, even if that means using a relatively insensitive test rights nature. Scientists at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health modeled various scenarios for surveillance testing, taking into account the changes in viral load over the course of infection, test sensitivity, frequency, and turnaround time for test results, which was released as a pre-print manuscript. In their model, they found that weekly testing and isolating identified cases could limit an outbreak. Test sensitivity didn't change the results very much, but slowing testing to every 14 days allowed case numbers to rise almost as high as a scenario with no testing. The turnaround time is also important. Even a one-day delay, as opposed to a test with on-the-spot results, lowered the effectiveness of surveillance. They concluded that testing surveillance should prioritize test accessibility, frequency, and turnaround time. Yemen's Houthi rebels are scapegoating African migrants for the country's coronavirus outbreak, according to a report in The New York Times based on phone interviews with a half-dozen migrants now in Saudi prisons. The report recounts one such incident, quote, The Yemeni militiamen rumbled up to the settlement of Al-Garb in the morning firing their machine guns at the Ethiopian migrants caught in the middle of somebody else's war. They shouted at the migrants, Take your coronavirus and leave the country or face death, unquote. According to the report, many migrants were forced to the Saudi border, where some encountered gunfire from Saudi border guards. Being targeted out of coronavirus fears compounds a range of struggles facing migrants in Yemen, a country wracked by war. COVID is just one tragedy inside so many other tragedies that these migrants are facing, commented Afro Nasser, a Yemen researcher at Human Rights Watch. The Times writes that the migrants every year during their torture, rape, extortion, bombs, and bullets in their desperation to get to Saudi Arabia, adding, This spring, once a pandemic made them convenient scapegoats for Yemen's troubles, they lost even that slender hope. Coronavirus mutations are unlikely to make a vaccine ineffective, say scientists who are monitoring the virus for genetic changes. And they now have a large data set to underpin the conclusion reports NPR. In January, scientists had just one complete SARS-CoV-2 genome sequence, but today there are over 47,000 coronavirus genomes and international databases. Scientists are adding new ones every day and subjecting them to close examination. What we're looking for in the data is similarity between the virus that first emerged and the genome that had been deposited and any changes that have occurred in the virus, says Peter Thielen, a senior scientist at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory. Some viruses, like influenza, mutate relatively quickly, hence the need for seasonal flu shots that keep pace with changes in the virus. Scientists were concerned that SARS-CoV-2 may change at a similar pace. And NPR notes, quote, But unlike many similar viruses, the coronavirus uses a proofreading system to catch any errors in the genetic code when it begins generating copies of itself. To see our daily brief, go to the address in our show notes and follow us on Twitter at New America ISP. And tune in next Monday for our next episode.