Health News at Your Fingertips

The six deaths recorded in the Australian state of Victoria overnight are a record for the state. Here is the full story:

Senior Olympic official John Coates has reiterated that Tokyo must stage a simplified summer Games next year with the health and safety of athletes the most important consideration in the planning, Reuters reports.

Australian Coates heads up the International Olympic Committee’s coordination commission for the Tokyo 2020 Games, which have been postponed until 2021 because of the global Covid-19 pandemic.

“The good news is that all 42 Games venues … have been re-secured. The competition schedule is the same,” the IOC vice president wrote in the Daily Telegraph on Friday, a day after the one-year countdown to the opening ceremony.

“But we must reduce the cost impact of postponement as well as simplify the Games to ensure they can be organised efficiently, safely and sustainably, in this new context.

“With one year to go, there is no clear picture of what shape the simplified Games will take. The situation with Covid-19, both domestically and internationally, is constantly changing.”

Bolivia’s general election will be pushed back until 18 October amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The decision could fan tensions between the interim conservative government and the socialist party of former President Evo Morales, Reuters reports.

The head of the electoral tribunal said on Thursday that the vote would be postponed from the previously scheduled 6 September 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 leader Morales.

Podcast: ‘When Italy cried for Covid-19 help there was silence’

When coronavirus swept through the European Union, member states called on Brussels to help. But as Daniel Boffey discovered, the distress calls too often went unanswered:

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: