Brazil's death toll tops 84,000 – as it happened

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Hi, Helen Sullivan with you now. I’ll be bringing you the latest from around the world for the next few hours. As always, suggestions, questions and news from where you live are welcome.

Get in touch on Twitter @helenrsullivan or via email: helen.sullivan@theguardian.com.

Home-made face coverings need to be at least two layers and preferably three to curb the spread of Covid-19, new research suggests.

Experts found one layer of cotton T-shirt material is fairly effective as a barrier against droplets expelled during speaking, but two are “significantly better at reducing the droplet spread caused by coughing and sneezing”.

Three layers would be even better, the researchers said, and their study found surgical disposable masks offer the best protection of all.

In England, the Department of Health has published guidance for the public on how to make a home-made mask. It recommends “two or three 25cm x 25cm squares of cotton fabric” sewn together and attached to the ears with elastic.

The UK government and the World Health Organisation (WHO) have been keen to advise people to make their own cloth face coverings in the hope surgical masks will be reserved for health workers.

For the new study, published in the journal Thorax, experts from the University of New South Wales in Sydney, tested three types of masks.

Their one-layer face covering was made using a cotton T-shirt material, the two-layer covering was prepared by sewing two strips together, and the third was a surgical mask.

A tailored LED lighting system and a high-speed camera were used to capture the light scattered by droplets and aerosols expelled during speaking, coughing and sneezing while wearing the different types of mask.

The volunteer who took part was healthy with no respiratory infection. Tissue paper was put up the nose to stimulate sneezing.

The researchers concluded: “From the captured video it can be observed that, for speaking, a single-layer cloth face covering reduced the droplet spread but a double-layer covering performed better.

“Even a single-layer face covering is better than no face covering.

“However, a double-layer cloth face covering was significantly better at reducing the droplet spread caused by coughing and sneezing.

“A surgical mask was the best among all the tested scenarios in preventing droplet spread from any respiratory emission.

“These visualisations show the value of using face masks and the difference between types of masks.”

Mothers who have Covid-19 infection are unlikely to pass the virus to their newborns if appropriate hygiene precautions are taken, a small study suggests.

The findings, which involved 120 babies and their mothers, suggest that mothers can breastfeed and stay in the same room as their newborns, if they use face coverings and follow infection control procedures.

The research is published in The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health journal.

Lead author Dr Christine M Salvatore, from the Weill Cornell Medicine-New York Presbyterian Komansky Children’s Hospital in the US, said: “Data on the risk of Covid-19 transmission during pregnancy or while breastfeeding are limited to a small number of case studies.

“Consequently, guidelines for pregnant women and new mothers vary.

“We hope our study will provide some reassurance to new mothers that the risk of them passing Covid-19 to their babies is very low.

“However, larger studies are needed to better understand the risks of transmission from mother to child.”

The death toll in Brazil has risen to 84,082, compared to 82,771 yesterday, according to the country’s health ministry.

The country has registered 2,287,475 cases of the virus, up from 2,227,514 yesterday.

Former UK prime minister Tony Blair believes coronavirus will not be eliminated.

He urged the UK government to focus on containment measures to see the country through a second wave.

In an interview with the PA news agency, Blair described the crisis as “the biggest challenge logistically and practically” a government has ever faced, but criticised ministers for not yet putting in place an “infrastructure of containment”.

He said: “The reality is that we’re going to be living with Covid-19 - we’re not really going to be able to eliminate it.

“And when you look at what has been happening in other countries, as lockdown has been eased, then more and more problems have appeared and many countries, having gone into lockdown then easing it, are finding spikes in the disease.

“You can’t be sure of this but there’s at least a 50/50 chance that you have a resurgence of the disease in the autumn and that’s why it is absolutely essential now to prepare for that.

“And to put in place every single last bit of containment infrastructure that you possibly can to make sure that if that happens you are able to control the disease, because you’re not going to be able to go back into the lockdown that we endured in March, April and May.”

A new report by his think tank, the Tony Blair Institute, calls for public confidence to be rebuilt “on the knowledge that every possible step has been taken to mitigate risk” - requiring containment measures in the absence of a “game changer” vaccine or treatment.

It recommends the rollout of mass testing, mandated use of face masks in all enclosed public environments, and suggests introducing an individual risk categorisation - with A showing those most at risk, to people with low health risks and a low transmission risk in category D.

Trump also bragged that the US has conducted more coronavirus tests than any other country.

Here is some context on this from the Johns Hopkins University coronavirus resource center: “In order for governments to identify new cases and effectively respond to the pandemic through tracing and treatment, testing programs should be scaled to the size of their epidemic, not the size of the population.”

Part of the reason that US needs to conduct so much testing - even more than it is already doing – is because it has had more cases of coronavirus than anywhere else in the world.

The number of cases has reached 4,026,288, according to Johns Hopkins University.

During his press briefing in Washington, Trump has reiterated his call for schools in the US to reopen.

“Districts may need to delay reopening for a few weeks,” he said.

If public schools do not reopen, Trump said that funding should “follow” students to private and charter schools.

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have warned about the “lasting” mental health impact of Covid-19 as their foundation awarded almost £1.8 million to support frontline workers and others affected by the pandemic in the UK.

The Duchess said the couple are “in awe” of the efforts of frontline and emergency responders during the outbreak, as they spoke to some of the 10 UK organisations who have benefited from the grants.

The couple’s Royal Foundation Covid-19 Response Fund is helping a range of projects, from ensuring all emergency workers have access to individual grief trauma from Hospice UK, to helping early years charity Best Beginnings support an extra 20,000 new mothers.

Kate and William spoke privately earlier this week with two emergency responders and two mental health counsellors whose organisations are being supported by the fund.

During the open-air meeting at the Queen’s Sandringham estate, the duchess told them: “Over recent months we have all been in awe of the incredible work that frontline staff and emergency responders have been doing in response to Covid-19.

“But we know that for many of them, their families, and for thousands of others across the UK, the pandemic will have a lasting impact on their mental health.”

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Donald Trump has called off the GOP National Convention in Florida, citing the “flare-up” of coronavirus but the North Carolina events will still take place to formally renominate him on August 24.

Trump said that it is “not the right time” for a big convention in Jacksonville.

Jacksonville, Florida residents filed a lawsuit against the city, the Republican National Committee and the Trump campaign earlier this month to stop the convention in August over concerns that a big event would accelerate the spread of disease in a state that is already a coronavirus hotspot.

US governors were priming for battle against coronavirus as early as February but Donald Trump’s lackadaisical approach to the spreading disease hindered a national response, according to Maryland governor Larry Hogan, chairman of the National Governors Association.

Trump initially was downplaying” the threat and saying this virus is going to disappear,” despite grave warnings from top national experts, Hogan told The Associated Press.

“All of the leaders in the administration, the experts and the public health doctors at the (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), they were aware and providing this information. And yet it seemed as if the president was downplaying it and saying, you know, this virus is going to disappear,” Hogan said.

The biggest mistake in the first couple of months, the governor said, was not developing a national testing strategy.

“Throughout the pandemic, it (the federal government) was not assisting the states enough with testing and now as its spiking back up again and we have a resurgence of this virus all across the country, the number one thing we can do is to put more into testing and contact tracing to identify and stop the spread,” Hogan said.

There have been more than 915,000 new cases in last two weeks in the US.

As states continue to dial back reopening efforts, nearly every metric for tracking the coronavirus outbreak has shown a worsening spread.

“I don’t see this disappearing,” Dr Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told tuberculosis researchers during a live stream on Wednesday.

“It is so efficient in its ability to transmit from human to human that I think we ultimately will get control of it. I don’t really see us eradicating it.”

More than 915,000 new cases have been confirmed in just the past two weeks, totaling more than the entire month of June. The US has now exceeded 140,000 deaths, with Texas alone reporting a state record 197 new fatalities on Wednesday.

23 Jul 202017.00 EDT

Bolsonaro criticised for lack of distancing, despite positive test

Tom Phillips

Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, is again coming under fire after being caught on camera chatting with cleaners on the grounds of his official residence without a mask - despite testing positive for the coronavirus only yesterday.

The far-right populist, whose dismissive response to the pandemic has been globally condemned, first announced he had been diagnosed with Covid-19 in early July, when Brazil had suffered more than 65,000 deaths and 1.6m confirmed cases.

Since then Brazil’s death toll has risen to nearly 83,000 - the second highest in the world – and the number of cases to 2.2m, a record 67,860 of which were recorded yesterday.

Brazil’s president again tested positive for the coronavirus on Wednesday and has supposedly been in isolation since 6 July.

Despite that Bolsonaro – who has undermined social distancing efforts and repeatedly downplayed the illness as a “bit of a cold” – was on Thursday spotted by a Reuters photographer roaming the estate around Brasília’s Palácio da Alvorada on a motorbike and talking to cleaners without gear to protect them.

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New York City has reached its goal of performing 50,000 coronavirus tests a day and its contact tracing effort has potentially prevented thousands of new infections, officials said.

Mayor Bill de Blasio said four new clinics operated by the urgent care company MedRite will bring the total citywide daily testing capacity to 50,000.

“This is the number we’ve been wanting to get to for quite a while. We will now have that capacity,” he said.

Dr Ted Long, the head of the city’s contact tracing effort, said the average wait for test results citywide is now two days, down from more than double that a week ago, but he acknowledged that waits at some testing sites have been much longer.

The African Development Bank said it would provide $285 million in aid to Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritania, Niger and Chad to help them fight the coronavirus pandemic.

The aid was being provided within the framework of a $10-billion Covid-19 response facility unveiled by the AfDB in April.

Niger would receive support of $108.8 million, Burkina Faso $54.6 million and Mali $48.9 million in both loans and grants, a statement said.

Chad would receive $61.2 million and Mauritania $10.2 million in the form of grants.

“The board of directors of the AfDB has approved budgetary support of $284.8 million to help the efforts of the Sahel countries - Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Chad - in implementing their response plans to the Covid-19 pandemic and economic recovery,” the pan-African bank said.

The aid “is particularly important for the G5 Sahel countries which are already suffering from climate, humanitarian and security shocks,” said the bank’s director general for West Africa, Marie-Laure Akin Olugbade.

Bolivia’s general election will be pushed back until October 18 due to the pandemic.

The head of the electoral tribunal said on Thursday that the vote would be postponed from the previously scheduled September 6 date to ensure the safety of voters, with hospitals and cemeteries straining under the impact of the virus.

“This election requires the highest possible health security measures to protect the health of Bolivians,” tribunal President Salvador Romero told a news conference in La Paz.

The vote is key to the political future of the Andean nation of 11.5 million people after a fraught election last year sparked widespread protests and led to the resignation of the country’s long-term leftist president Evo Morales.

In a political vacuum and amid deadly conflicts on the street, right-wing lawmaker Jeanine Anez was ushered into power, pledging to hold quick new elections, originally planned for May before being delayed by the pandemic to September.

Anez is running in the election, while Morales is pulling the political strings from exile in Argentina with his Movement for Socialism party, whose candidate Luis Arce leads in some polls.
Morales wrote on Twitter the delay “will only harm the people” and blamed the interim government for its response to the pandemic. He added the move was unconstitutional and a tactic for his opponents to “gain more time.”

Anez said she would accept the new date.

“Whatever the date, the government calls for promoting economic revival, the fight against the virus and the consolidation of democracy,” she wrote on Twitter.

The new election schedule would see a second-round held on November 29 if there was no clear winner in the first-round vote.

It took only 15 days for the total number of coronavirus cases in the US to go from 3 million to 4 million.

In contrast, the number of US coronavirus cases surpassed 1 million 99 days after the country’s first case was confirmed.

The US currently accounts for about a quarter of all confirmed coronavirus cases worldwide, according to the data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

The US hit the grim milestone of four million cases a day after Fox News aired an interview with Trump in which the president argued coronavirus tests are “overrated.”

“To me, every time you test a case it gets reported in the news, we found more cases,” he said.

“If instead of 50 we did 25, we have half the number of cases. So I personally think it’s overrated, but I am totally willing to keep doing it.”