Health News at Your Fingertips

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.