Despite a surging number of new coronavirus cases, President Donald Trump said Tuesday afternoon that he will be putting a lot of pressure on governors to get schools open this fall.

“We hope that most schools are going to be open” in the fall, Trump said at a White House event called a "National Dialogue on Safely Reopening America's Schools."

“We don’t want people to make political statements or do it for political reasons. They think it’s going to be good for them politically, so they keep the schools closed,” he said. “No way. We’re very much going to put pressure on governors and everybody else to open the schools, to get them open.”

“And it’s very important. It’s very important for our country, it’s very important for the well being of the student and the parents. So we’re going to be putting a lot of pressure on you to open your schools in the fall,” he said.

Earlier in the day, U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos also told the nation's governors the administration wants schools to reopen fully in the fall.

On a call that included Vice President Mike Pence, DeVos said "a couple of hours of week of online school is not OK."

She also said, "Ultimately, it's not a matter of if it needs to open, it's a matter of how and they must be fully operational and how that happens is best left to education and community leaders."

Their calls to reopen schools came despite Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top U.S. expert on infectious disease and member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, warned on Monday, "We are still knee-deep in the first wave of this."

In a live-streamed interview with his boss, National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins, Fauci said circumstances associated with states and cities trying to open up "has led to a situation where we now have record breaking cases.”

“So within a period of a week and a half, we've almost doubled the number of cases," Fauci said.

In Europe, countries saw cases go up and then come back down to a baseline. But in the U.S., Fauci said, "We went up, never came down to baseline, and now it's surging back up. So it's a serious situation that we have to address immediately.”

In the U.S., there have been 2.97 million confirmed cases, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. There have been more than 130,900 deaths in the U.S.

Worldwide, more than 11.7 million infections have been reported with more than 540,157 deaths.

Latest Developments

United States:

-On Tuesday, Fauci said he does not foresee the government mandating a coronavirus vaccine for the general public. "I don't see it on a national level, merely because of all the situations you have encroaching upon a person's freedom to make their own choice of their own health,” Fauci told Sen. Doug Jones during a Facebook Live event.

-Florida Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran issued a sweeping order saying “school districts and charter school governing boards must provide the full array of services that are required by law so that families who wish to educate their children in a brick and mortar school full time have the opportunity to do so.” The only option for schools to not be physically open in August is if local Department of Health officials say schools cannot open, according to the emergency order.

-Mississippi’s Lt. Governor Delbert Hosemann tested positive for the new coronavirus hours after Gov. Tate Reeves announced his own test for the highly contagious virus had come back negative. Over the weekend, House Speaker Philip Gunn, 57, announced he had tested positive for COVID-19.

-Dr. Peter Hotez, dean of tropical medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, told CNN cases of COVID-19 are rising so quickly across parts of the South and Southwest, contact tracing is no longer possible.

-Five people who work in California's state Assembly have tested positive for the coronavirus. Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon said the Assembly will stay in recess until further notice.

-Maryland biotech company Novavax has been awarded a $1.6 billion contract as part of the government's "Operation Warp Speed" COVID-19 vaccine program. It is the fourth company to receive federal funds to conduct large-scale Phase 3 clinical trials and manufacturing of the vaccine. The others are AstraZeneca, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson.

-Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced that international students who are pursuing degrees in the United States will have to leave the country or risk deportation if their universities switch to online-only courses.

-Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms announced she, her husband, and one of her children have tested positive for the new coronavirus. She told CNN on Monday that she had “no idea” how the family was exposed.

Worldwide:

-A six-week Stage 3 lockdown of the Australian city of Melbourne begins at 11:59 p.m. Wednesday, Victoria State Premier Daniel Andrews announced. People will be allowed to leave their homes only to buy food, go to work, receive or give care, and do exercise, Andrews said.

-South Africa’s health ministry reported 8,971 new cases on Monday, bringing the total to 205,721.

-India's rate of new virus infections and deaths are now rising at their fastest pace. The country reported 467 new deaths in the last 24 hours, taking the toll to 20,160. It also recorded 22,252 new infections, increasing the total to 719,665.

-Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro has tested positive for COVID-19, CNN reported. Bolsonaro, who has repeatedly downplayed the seriousness of the virus, went to a hospital for a lung scan after developing symptoms, including a fever and an abnormal blood oxygen level. His press office said he was being treated with hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin.

For the latest coronavirus information in your county and a full list of important resources to help you make the smartest decisions regarding the disease, check out our dedicated COVID-19 page.