July 22, 2020

Back at the podium, Trump again urges masks and social distancing and repeats that things will worsen before improving, saying that if people are close together he would put a mask on. The same day the government agrees to pay Pfizer and BioNTech $2 billion for 100 million doses of a vaccine that does not yet exist, with an option for hundreds of millions more, one of several large public bets placed on private drugmakers before any trial has proven a shot works.

Fauci warns the virus will never be fully eradicated and that officials see no end in sight, and he agrees to testify before a House panel the following week. Southwest and United tighten mask rules for passengers as the carriers brace for revenue stuck near half of normal.

The tally of the lockdowns’ economic damage keeps climbing, with an estimated 4,400 businesses closed in the Chicago area, 2,400 of them saying they will never reopen, and more than 1,200 shuttered around Tampa Bay. Pew finds Republicans still far less likely than Democrats to call the virus a major threat, a partisan split that colors how the same numbers get read.