Morning Edition

As COVID-19 continues to sweep the nation, Latinx people are among those who are being hit the hardest.

"I would equate what we've seen with the Latino population as kind of the perfect storm," said Dr. Joseph Betancourt, the vice president and chief equity and inclusion officer at Massachusetts General Hospital, in an interview with NPR's Morning Edition.

Updated 8:15 p.m. ET

How severe is the spread of COVID-19 in your community? If you're confused, you're not alone. Though state and local dashboards provide lots of numbers, from case counts to deaths, it's often unclear how to interpret them — and hard to compare them to other places.

Mississippi is seeing a sharp uptick in new coronavirus cases. The state is reporting double the number of new cases that it was seeing just two weeks ago. The average number of new cases each day this week is just over 600. And on June 25, the state reported more than 1,000 cases in a single day for the first time.

Hospitals in Texas are inundated by coronavirus patients. On Monday, the state reported almost 6,000 people hospitalized with COVID-19. That's a record, as cases spike following the state's reopening of bars, restaurants and stores in early May. Because of this latest surge, Texas Gov.

It's a grim year for fans of summer fairs. The 165th annual Big Butler Fair in Pennsylvania's Butler County has been called off due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The week of fair games, fried food and barns full of prize-winning animals has been a tradition for Butler County since the American Civil War.

Canceled fairs are an obvious blow to local 4-H and Future Farmers of America clubs who have been training animals for months to compete in livestock shows. But it's a big hit to food vendors, too.

Mississippi plans to fly a new state flag — a flag without the Confederate battle emblem in the corner. The state House and Senate voted Sunday to retire the current flag, and Mississippi Republican Gov. Tate Reeves is expected to sign the measure.

Democratic state Sen. Derrick Simmons voted for the bill, which calls for a nine-member commission to design a new flag that includes the phrase "In God We Trust."