Health News at Your Fingertips

Here is the full story on Dr Fauci’s underwhelming first pitch at the Nationals-Yankees game on Thursday night:

The Nationals and Yankees knelt in unison before the first game of the baseball season as part of an opening day ceremony Thursday night that featured references to the Black Lives Matter movement, the coronavirus pandemic – including an off-the-mark first pitch by top US infectious diseases expert Dr Anthony Fauci – and the home team’s 2019 championship.

Fauci was invited by the Nationals to throw out the ceremonial first pitch – a fitting choice during the current medical crisis. Wearing a mask on the mound, Fauci sent his toss well wide of home plate, and the ball bounced past his “catcher”, Washington reliever Sean Doolittle.

Afterward, Fauci and Doolittle tapped gloves, instead of shaking hands.

Fauci’s effort drew light-hearted comparisons to other public figures whose first pitches went awry through the years, including Cincinnati mayor Mark Mallory, rapper 50 Cent, Olympic hero Carl Lewis, Miss Texas 2014 and Canadian pop icon Carly Rae Jepsen:

Australia’s National cabinet meets on Friday and is expected to discuss steps to combat the clusters as well as financial measures to shore up its economy.

Reuters reports that Australia’s budget is set to plunge into its biggest deficit since World War Two this year as the coronavirus crisis knocks the country into its first recession in three decades and forces policymakers to roll out hundreds of billions of dollars in stimulus.

Meanwhile, a law firm on Friday said it has filed a class action in an Australian court against Carnival Corp’s Ruby Princess cruise ship alleging mishandling of a coronavirus outbreak on board the ship.

The cruise ship has also become part of a homicide investigation in Australia as one of the country’s deadliest virus infection sources.

“It is not our intention to respond to the assertions of class action lawyers,” a Carnival Corp spokesman said in an emailed statement.

Restrictions were reintroduced in Australia’s most populous state of New South Wales on Friday as authorities battle to control fresh coronavirus clusters that have emerged in Sydney over the last several days, Reuters reports.

Group bookings at restaurants, cafes and clubs will be limited to 10 people and patrons inside a venue will be capped to 300 in rules that take effect amid a growing cluster stemming from a restaurant in suburban Sydney.

Wedding and corporate events will be limited to 150 people with strict social distancing rules including a ban on singing, dancing and mingling, while only 100 can attend funerals and places of worship.

Australia has so far escaped the high Covid-19 casualty numbers of other nations, with just over 13,000 infections and 133 deaths from the virus as of Thursday.

But a spike in community-transmitted cases in its two most populous states in recent weeks has alarmed authorities.

The devastating economic toll the coronavirus crisis is taking around the world could spark huge waves of fresh migration once borders reopen, the head of the Red Cross warned in an interview with AFP.

Jagan Chapagain, head of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), told AFP he was deeply concerned about the secondary effects of the pandemic.

The pandemic and the lockdowns and border closures imposed to halt the spread of the virus have been destroying livelihoods around the planet and are expected to drive many millions more into poverty.

Many people are already faced with the choice of risking exposure to coronavirus or going hungry, Chapagain said, warning that the desperation being generated could have far-reaching consequences.

“What we hear is that many people who are losing livelihoods, once the borders start opening, will feel compelled to move,” he said.

“We should not be surprised if there is a massive impact on migration in the coming months and years.”

More migration forced on people by desperate circumstances, he said, will result in numerous “tragedies along the way”, including more deaths at sea, human trafficking and exploitation.

The Australian state of New South Wales, which borders Victoria, the state fighting an outbreak causing three-digit daily case rises, has confirmed just 7 new coronavirus cases overnight, the first the cases have been under double digits just over a week:

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

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.

The Guardian’s Phillip Inman and Rob Davies report:

In the UK, fears of rising redundancies and concerns about the health risks of high street shopping have hit consumer confidence, according to a closely watched survey that flatlined last month.

The GfK barometer for July showed confidence petering out, despite rising in May and June. It came as a senior Bank of England policymaker warned Britain’s recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic would be hampered while concerns about catching the virus and fears of redundancy limited spending.

In a message that casts doubt on a V-shaped recovery, Jonathan Haskell said a fear of redundancy was likely to prey on the minds of workers, meaning they will save vital funds and not spend them over the coming months:

US infectious diseases expert Anthony Fauci has thrown out the first pitch at a Nationals-Yankees game, and it didn’t go amazingly well, but it did lead to some okay Covid-19 jokes:

The director-general of the World Health Organization has hit back at US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, after British media reported that Pompeo made a comment about the health agency chief having been bought by China, the AP reports.

In one of his most stern responses to months of criticism from Washington, Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the WHO was focused on saving lives.

“The comments are untrue and unacceptable, and without any foundation for that matter,” Tedros told reporters in Geneva. “If there is one thing that really matters to us and which should matter to the entire international community, it’s saving lives. And WHO will not be distracted by these comments.”

Critics say the Trump administration has been trying to distract attention from its own failings in managing the coronavirus outbreak in the United States, which has the most confirmed cases and virus-related deaths in the world.

In recent months, the administration has repeatedly criticized WHOs handling of the pandemic and its alleged deference to Beijing. President Donald Trump has ordered the United States to withdraw next year from the agency it has bankrolled and supported for decades.

Pompeo was not asked about his reported comments at a news conference in Denmark on Wednesday. Before that appearance, The Times of London, citing unidentified attendees, reported he told a gathering of British lawmakers that the U.S. had intelligence suggesting Tedros had been bought by Chinas government and that his election as WHO chief in 2017 had led to the death of British nationals.

The State Department did not immediately respond to queries from The Associated Press about the British reports and Tedros remarks, which included blaming partisan politics for worsening the pandemic.

Hello and welcome to today’s live coverage of the coronavirus pandemic with me, Helen Sullivan.

I’ll be bringing you the latest from around the world for the next few hours. As always, suggestions, questions and news from your part of the world are welcome.

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

The director-general of the World Health Organization has hit back at US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, after British media reported that Pompeo made a comment about the health agency chief having been bought by China.

In one of his most stern responses to months of criticism from Washington, Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the WHO was focused on saving lives.

“The comments are untrue and unacceptable, and without any foundation for that matter,” Tedros told reporters in Geneva. “If there is one thing that really matters to us and which should matter to the entire international community, it’s saving lives. And WHO will not be distracted by these comments.”

Here are the key developments from the last few hours:

• There are 15.3m known cases worldwide, according to Johns Hopkins University, and over 626,000 deaths.
• US President Donald Trump has cancelled the Jacksonville Republican national convention. 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, concerned that a crowded event would accelerate the spread of disease in a state that is already a coronavirus hotspot.
• 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.
• Bolsonaro criticised for lack of distancing, despite positive test. Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, is again coming under fire after being caught on camera chatting with cleaners without a mask – despite testing positive for the coronavirus only yesterday. Meanwhile Brazil’s death toll passed 84,000. The country has registered 2,287,475 cases of the virus, up from 2,227,514 yesterday.
• South Africa’s president Cyril Ramaphosa says the country’s coronavirus cases have risen to over 400,000. Ramaphosa said the cabinet has decided that all public schools should be closed for the next four weeks from Monday with some exceptions.
• Covid-19 cases in the US passed four million on Thursday according to Johns Hopkins University’s tracker, the highest in the world. The US has confirmed 4,005,414 cases since the start of the pandemic.
• Fresh coronavirus restrictions have been introduced in some areas of Spain amid surging infection rates. Murcia, in the south-east of Spain, sealed off 30,000 people in the town of Totana on Thursday, barring anyone from entering or leaving, while Madrid authorities have urged citizens to wear a mask even at home when they are with people they don’t live with.
• A French hospital is trialling a breathalyser-style coronavirus test. The National Centre of Scientific Research at la Croix-Rousse hospital in Lyon is testing patients with the machine that enables them to breathe into a tube to see if they have the virus in a matter of seconds.
• Global cases of Covid-19 have passed 15.2m. According to the Johns Hopkins University coronavirus map, the total number of recorded global cases stands at 15,291,554, while global deaths total 624,742.
• South Africa has recorded 60% more excess deaths than expected. The country saw about 17,000 extra deaths from natural causes – or 50% more than would normally be expected between early May and mid-July, scientists have said, suggesting many more people are dying of Covid-19 than shown in official figures.
• Record 366 new coronavirus infections reported in Japan’s capital. Thursday’s figure took cumulative infections to more than 10,000 in Tokyo, topping a daily high of 293 cases last week, as the city’s government declared its highest alert against the disease.