 Welcome to the Coronavirus Weekly Brief. I'm your host, Melissa Salikverk with New America, and here are the headlines you need to know. The Congressional Budget Office announced Wednesday that the U.S. budget deficit grew to $863 billion in June, tripling federal spending during the coronavirus outbreak. The majority of government spending was concentrated in payments for the Paycheck Protection Program loans and increased unemployment benefits. The U.S. budget gap now sits at $2.7 trillion, triple what it was in 2019, according to the Wall Street Journal. Further, states are looking to Congress to estimate what additional economic relief they might receive, as every state in the country now faces a budget gap reports CNBC. States are cutting funding for government jobs, education, and community services. Some Georgia school districts rely on the state to cover 70% of their expenses, while Maryland cut higher education spending by 8% reports the Wall Street Journal. Reduced budgets and low gas revenues have also weighed heavily on transportation projects, with experts estimating a $50 billion deficit across the country for essential projects, such as bridge repairs. Speaking to the challenges posed by public health, as well as the wavering support from the federal government, Tracy Gordon from the Urban Institute said, quote, I don't think you can overstate the amount of uncertainty that states are dealing with, unquote. The World Health Organization has decided to independently review the global COVID-19 response. At a Thursday press conference, the WHO Director General announced that former Liberian president and Nobel laureate Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark will lead the review process called the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response. WHO member countries can nominate individuals to serve as members of the committee report stat news. And the team will issue an interim report by November and a substantive report in May 2021 at the World Health Assembly meeting. The review committee concept has widely been applauded by health experts. Council on Foreign Relations Director of Global Health, Tom Boyke says of the action, quote, at the end of the day, this will be about mobilizing global support around a shared vision of pandemic preparedness and response in the future. And a credible independent and rigorous review is the most likely to do that, unquote. And Center for Global Development Executive Vice President Amanda Glassman believes that this is a step in the right direction for the WHO because country heads will participate in the investigation and not solely health and science experts. Glassman notes, quote, it will be important to include known critics of the WHO, not just supporters, unquote. And on Sunday, the United States daily rate of new coronavirus cases rose to 61,352 and Florida announced its single highest daily rate of new coronavirus cases with more than 15,000, according to Johns Hopkins University data and the New York Times. On Friday, the United States daily rate of new coronavirus cases rose to 66,627, according to Johns Hopkins. This is the highest daily rate the country has seen thus far in the pandemic. Governors across the country are facing a difficult choice as to whether or not they should reinstitute, stay at home orders and locations that have seen coronavirus surges. According to the University of Minnesota Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, the United States daily coronavirus case counts range between 50,000 to 63,000, which is double of what was seen in April. Last week, White House Coronavirus Task Force member Anthony Fauci said of the United States upward trend in new cases that some states, quote, should seriously look at shutting down, unquote. In response to the United States increasing coronavirus numbers, University of Arizona College of Medicine Phoenix Director of Public Health for Shad Fani Marvosti said, quote, stay at home is a blunt instrument. But when you're leading the world in new cases and things don't seem to be getting better, you may have to use that blunt instrument, unquote. South Carolina, Texas and Louisiana all hit records of new coronavirus cases respectively and California had a new record of hospitalized COVID-19 patients report CNN. Harvard Global Health Institute implemented a tracker of coronavirus cases in the United States and found that as a Friday evening, 14 states are considered accelerated spread, indicating it's advisable to have stay-at-home orders implemented and or test and contact tracing programs and six states are considered at a tipping point, indicating stay-at-home orders are necessary. These six states include Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, South Carolina and Texas. International humanitarian organization Save the Children has warned that nearly 10 million children around the world may not go back to school once coronavirus lockdowns are lifted and that girls will be disproportionately affected, reports The Washington Post. Save the Children said that Yemen, Afghanistan and several African countries will be especially vulnerable since the distance learning options that are available to children in wealthier countries are unavailable to those in poor countries. Quote, this is an unprecedented education emergency and governments must urgently invest in learning, unquote, Save the Children CEO said in a press release, adding, quote, instead we are at risk of unparalleled budget cuts, which will see existing inequality explode between the rich and the poor and between boys and girls, unquote. To see our daily brief, go to the address and our show notes and follow us on Twitter at New America ISP and tune in next Monday for our next episode.