Tuesday was the second day in a row that the United States reported more than 1,000 coronavirus fatalities, with Florida, Arkansas, Oregon and Montana witnessing their highest single-day death tolls yet.

The leader of a conservative think tank in Texas came under fire after tweeting a call to open schools in the fall after updated data on coronavirus fatalities showed that elderly and Hispanic people are overrepresented in the states death toll.
Why not #openschools, end universal mandates, target vulnerable & check those from #Mexico, Vance Ginn, chief economist for the Texas Public Policy Foundation, tweeted on Tuesday. Ginn punctuated the tweet with a GIF of Britains Prince Harry miming a mic drop and saying, Boom.
Ginn previously served as associate director for economic policy at the Office of Management and Budget in the Trump administration.
The tweet sparked backlash even from a former Republican lawmaker, who cited the death of his grandfather from covid-19. Jason Villalba, who was a state representative from 2013 to 2019, said children who lived with his grandfather also caught the virus, although they survived the infection.
W/ great respect, the death of elderly Hispanics does not necessarily make the schools safe to open, Villalba said in a reply to Ginns original tweet.
Ginn has since deleted the tweet and apologized.
I apologize for how I poorly communicated as I believe strongly based on my deep faith that every life is precious, Ginn said in a follow-up tweet. My intent was to highlight the positive development of more data available to make better policy decisions and help the vulnerable.
Since the start of the pandemic, Texas has reported more than 394,000 coronavirus cases and 5,877 deaths. About 47 percent of the states fatalities have been among Hispanic patients, the state reported this week in revised data. Hispanic residents make up about 40 percent of the states population. Just 3 percent of deaths occurred in people under 40.
Meanwhile, some officials are urging schools to reopen. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton issued new guidance on Tuesday that prevents local health authorities from closing schools and threatens to pull funding from schools that spend more than eight weeks opting for remote learning over in-person instruction in the fall.