August 23 coronavirus news

A police investigator stands at the site, on August 23, where 13 people were killed during a raid on a nightclub in Lima on August 22.

At least 15 partygoers who were arrested for attending an unauthorized party in Lima, which ended in a deadly stampede, have tested positive for coronavirus, Peru’s Health Ministry said Sunday.?

The country’s Minister of Interior Jorge Montoya said police had arrested the owners of the club where 13 people were killed on Saturday, Peru’s official news agency Agencia Andina reported.

Three others were injured in the stampede, when partygoers attempted to escape a police raid on the venue, according to Orlando Velasco Mujica, general of the Peruvian National Police.?

Police were called to the Thomas Restobar in the Los Olivos district of Lima on Saturday evening to shut down an illegal party that more than 120 people were attending.?

Social distancing measures are mandated in Peru, large social gatherings are banned and there is a nationwide 10 p.m. curfew in an effort to slow the spread of the coronavirus.?

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews speaks to the media Melbourne, Australia on August 24.

The Australian state of Victoria recorded 116 new cases of coronavirus in the past 24 hours, the lowest single-day increase in seven weeks, Victorian State Premier Daniel Andrews said Monday.

The total number of cases reported in Victoria is now 18,330, Andrews said.

The state has been under a tight lockdown, including an 8 p.m. curfew, since a new outbreak in July which quickly spread to thousands of people.

Andrews said that 15 new coronavirus deaths were reported on Sunday, raising the state-wide death toll to 430. All the new deaths were linked to outbreaks in aged-care facilities.

The Premier said 629 Victorians remain in hospital, of which 31 are receiving intensive care.

Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, president of Mexico speaks at Palacio Nacional in Mexico City, on August 13.

Mexico’s President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said the pandemic “is losing steam” in a YouTube video Sunday, adding that there are now enough hospital beds for the sick.

New cases: Mexico’s Health Ministry reported 3,948 new coronavirus cases on Sunday, bringing the country’s total number of confirmed infections to 560,164.

The ministry also reported 226 new deaths, taking the total number of coronavirus-related fatalities to 60,480.

Mexico has reported the third-highest number of coronavirus cases in Latin America, behind Brazil and Peru.

New Zealand recorded eight new coronavirus cases in the past 24 hours, seven of which were locally transmitted, the country’s top health official announced on Monday.

The total number of confirmed cases in New Zealand now stands at 1,332. No new deaths were recorded in the past 24 hours, leaving the countrywide death toll at 22.

All seven of the new local cases were linked to the existing cluster in Auckland, New Zealand’s Director General of Health Dr. Ashley Bloomfield said at a news conference. He added that one imported case was also reported.???

Bloomfield said 4,589 coronavirus tests were conducted on Sunday, bringing the total number of tests administered across the country to 697,070. Nearly 100,000 tests have been conducted in the past week, according to Bloomfield.??

Lockdown decision: The new cases come as New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is set to make a decision later today on whether to extend coronavirus restrictions in the country, after they were reimposed on August 14 following the new outbreak.

US President Donald Trump and Health and Human Services Secretary, Alex Azar look on as FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn addresses the media during a press conference in James S. Brady Briefing Room at the White House on on August 23, in Washington, DC.

US Food and Drug Administration commissioner Dr. Stephen Hahn said that his organization makes decisions “on data only,” denying he was pressured by the White House to issue an emergency use authorization (EUA) for convalescent plasma.

The FDA issued an EUA for blood plasma taken from coronavirus survivors as a treatment for Covid-19 infections late Sunday, just before a White House briefing where US President Donald Trump called the decision “historic.”

Several medical experts told CNN Sunday?that the EUA decision seemed to have been made under pressure.?Speaking at the briefing, Trump tacitly admitted he pressured the agency.?

Trump said he believed there were officials at the FDA and in the Department of Health and Human Services “that can see things being held up and wouldn’t mind so much.”

“It’s my opinion, very strong opinion, and that’s for political reasons,” Trump said at Sunday’s briefing.

Hahn denied the decision was made for anything other than legitimate medical reasons.

Venezuela reported 607 new coronavirus cases on Sunday, bringing the total number of cases in the country to 39,564, according to Vice President Delcy Rodriguez.

Rodriguez reported six new coronavirus-related deaths, bringing the total death toll to 329.

The White House may have bullied the US Food and Drug Administration into giving emergency use authorization to using blood plasma from coronavirus survivors as a treatment for new patients, a prominent vaccine expert said Sunday.

Moving things along quickly is fine, Offit told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, but it’s the FDA’s job to hold products to a standard of safety and efficacy. Offit said he worries that the FDA, like other science-based agencies “get bullied to do what Donald Trump wants them to do, and I think it’s a dangerous game he plays.”

The potential side effects of convalescent plasma are not known, Offit said. While he said he thinks it is likely that it is generally a safe product, “until something has been shown clearly to work, we shouldn’t put it out there.”

It makes sense that administering a serum with high levels of neutralizing antibodies to a person who is mildly ill would help, but “the trick is proving that it makes a difference,” Offit said minutes after the White House announcement about the EUA.

The data so far have not proved that the plasma makes a difference, said Offit, which is why the FDA was “loath” to approve the treatment.

In making the announcement, the FDA and Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar cited data from a study posted online to a pre-print server, meaning it had not been peer-reviewed, on August 12. Offit questioned whether there was newer data that the FDA had not shared.

Offit said that what worries him the most is the repercussions this could have on vaccines.

Nurse Lina Acevedo checks the plasma donated by a man who recovered from Covid-19 on August 14 in Bogota, Colombia.

The US Food and Drug Administration gave emergency use approval to convalescent plasma as a treatment for coronavirus Sunday, but some experts say there is not a lot of solid data to support its use.

Trump administration officials cited a Mayo Clinic-led study that showed a 35% improvement in survival among people given the highest doses of the treatment early on in their illness compared to those who were treated later. Reiner?pointed out this is not the same as a randomized placebo-controlled clinical trial, medicine’s gold standard, which can demonstrate whether the treatment really works better than not treating people.

“While the data to date show some positive signals that convalescent plasma can be helpful in treating individuals with COVID-19, especially if given early in the trajectory of disease, we lack the randomized controlled trial data we need to better understand its utility in COVID-19 treatment,” said Dr. Thomas File, president of the Infectious Diseases Society of America.?“For this reason, IDSA supports the continued collection of data in randomized clinical trials to better understand the benefits of convalescent plasma treatment before authorizing its wider use in patients with COVID-19.”

Art Caplan, founding head of the Division of Medical Ethics at NYU School of Medicine, told CNN he did not think the evidence was sufficient for an emergency use authorization.

At a White House briefing Sunday night, President Trump and Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar urged coronavirus survivors to donate plasma.

Caplan?said he’s worried about whether there’s a large enough supply of convalescent plasma, which relies on donations from Covid-19 survivors. Under an emergency use authorization, doctors will be more likely to give convalescent plasma without tracking data, so it will then be difficult to determine which donors have the most effective plasma, and which patients are the best candidates to receive it.?

Dr. Stephen Hahn, commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration, speaks during a media briefing at the White House on Sunday, August 23.

US Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Dr. Stephen Hahn says studies have shown convalescent plasma is safe and the treatment has been given to patients with infectious diseases for more than a hundred years.

Emergency use authorization is not the same as full approval, but it will allow more people to try the treatment.

“We are waiting for more data,” Hahn said. “We are very pleased with these results.”

He described one Mayo Clinic-led study that showed that patients who got the highest doses of convalescent plasma were 35% more likely to survive that other patients, although the trial was not a randomized controlled trial – the gold standard for determining whether a treatment really works. The trial compared people who were treated earlier to those who were treated later – not people who were treated versus those who were not treated.

Some researchers have said trials haven’t shown clearly how well the treatment works.

“We have seen a great deal of demand for this from doctors around the country,” Hahn said

The FDA has encouraged coronavirus survivors to donate their blood in the hope that immune system proteins they developed while fighting off infection will help newly infected patients.

President Donald Trump points to reporter to ask a question during a briefing at the White House on Sunday, August 23.

President Donald Trump told reporters Sunday he believed “political reasons” created a slowdown of approval for a coronavirus treatment at the Food and Drug Administration – but said he “broke the logjam” over the last week.

Trump’s remarks amount to tacit confirmation that he applied pressure on the agency ahead of its announcement Sunday that it was issuing an emergency use authorization for?convalescent plasma to treat Covid-19.

He said he believed there were officials at the FDA and in the Department of Health and Human Services “that can see things being held up and wouldn’t mind so much.”

Trump insisted his focus on treatments for coronavirus – which has slowed the American economy and caused his poll numbers to sink – was apolitical.

Earlier in the briefing, Trump seemed enthusiastic when asked by a reporter from Fox News whether patients should have access to treatments or vaccines before they reach the end of trials.

“We have all of these great,?seemingly great answers that are?ready to come out, but because?of the process it takes – can we?use some of this early under right?to try?” he asked, referring to legislation that allows patients access to drugs that are still in the investigational phase.

FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn declined to answer when asked by Jim Acosta as the briefing concluded whether there was pressure on him to approve?the emergency use of convalescent plasma.

President Donald Trump said Sunday the emergency use authorization of convalescent plasma to treat Covid-19 patients was a “truly historic announcement” that will “save countless lives.”

On Sunday, Trump thanked Dr. Stephen Hahn, the Food and Drug Administration commissioner, saying the agency had really stepped up “especially over the last few days” in getting the authorization done.

Last week, Trump accused some health officials of playing politics regarding the emergency authorization for convalescent plasma. When asked about the FDA not having granted one, Trump said the reason was political.

The University of Kentucky began a second phase of Covid-19 testing Sunday, testing 5,500 students who belong to fraternities and sororities, according to a letter from the university’s president.

The university?previously mandated?Covid-19 testing for all students on campus, offering testing between August 3 and 22.

The?second-phase of?testing comes following a roughly 3% positivity rate for Covid-19 among fraternities and sororities in initial testing, approximately triple the roughly 1% positivity rate for the general student population. Of?the 49 students currently in isolation following a positive Covid test, 30 come from two fraternity houses, university spokesman Jay Blanton said in a news release.

In a letter written to the campus community and provided to CNN, University President Eli Capilouto cautioned against blaming the students for the higher positivity rate.

“Retesting has always been a part of our restart plan,” Capilouto wrote. “We will begin that process with the students for whom the data indicate retesting is most appropriate.”

Capilouto said that 21,000 students had been tested in the initial phase. The university lists its enrollment as “more than 30,000 students.”

According to the most recent data from Kentucky Public Health, the state has had a total of 43,529?Covid-19 cases since the pandemic began.

NOTE: These numbers were released by the state of Kentucky, and may not line up exactly in real time with CNN’s database drawn from Johns Hopkins University and the Covid Tracking Project.

Peru’s Health Ministry reported 3,706 new coronavirus cases on Sunday, bringing the total number of cases in the country to 594,326.

The ministry reported 210 new deaths, bring the number of coronavirus-related deaths to 27,933 since the pandemic started.

On Saturday, at least 13 people were killed in a stampede at a nightclub in Lima, as partygoers attempted to escape a police raid on the venue. Police were called to shut down an illegal party with more than 120 people in attendance.

Social distancing measures are mandated in Peru, large social gatherings are banned and there is a nationwide 10 p.m. curfew to slow the spread of the virus.

Brazil’s Health Ministry has reported 23,421 new Covid-19 cases over the past 24 hours, bringing the total number of cases in the country to 3.6 million.

The ministry reported 494 new coronavirus deaths on Sunday, raising the country’s death toll to 114,744.

Brazil is second only to the United States in the highest total number of coronavirus cases and deaths worldwide.

A statue outside of Bryant-Denny Stadium at the University of Alabama before a football game on September 22, 2018, in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

University of Alabama President Stuart R. Bell asked students, faculty and staff to work together to follow safety protocols so the university can finish the fall semester with in-person classes. Bell said there will be consequences, including suspension, for not following the rules on and off campus.

According to the letter,?university police and the Tuscaloosa Police Department will partner to monitor bars, restaurants and off-campus housing to ensure the city’s Covid-19 ordinances and university guidelines are followed.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson attends a ceremony in Alrewas, England, on August 15 to mark the 75th anniversary of Victory over Japan Day.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Sunday that it is “vitally important” to get children back in the classroom when schools reopen next week.

Referring to comments made earlier Sunday by Chris Whitty, the UK’s chief medical adviser, Johnson said it is “far more damaging” than the virus itself for pupils to stay out of school for any longer.

The Prime Minister thanked school staff who have been making preparations for a full return in September and reiterated his previous statements about “the moral duty to reopen schools to all pupils safely.”

On Sunday, the chief medical officers and deputy chief medical officers of England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales released a statement on risks and benefits of schools and child care centers reopening.

The statement also said international real-world evidence suggests that schools reopening have usually not been followed by a surge of Covid-19.

The US Food and Drug Administration on Sunday issued an emergency use authorization for convalescent plasma for the treatment of Covid-19 in hospitalized patients.

The agency said it concluded that the product may be effective in treating Covid-19 and that “the known and potential benefits of the product outweigh the known and potential risks of the product.”

President Donald Trump is expected to discuss the announcement during a Sunday media briefing.

Convalescent?plasma?is created from the blood of people who have recovered from Covid-19, and it has shown some success in two other deadly coronaviruses: MERS and SARS. It has also been used to treat flu and Ebola.

Emergency use authorization from the FDA does not require the same level of evidence as full FDA approval. At the end of March, the FDA created a pathway for scientists to try convalescent?plasma?with patients and study its impact.?

Physicians have been using the treatment since. So far, more than 60,000 people in the United States have been treated with convalescent?plasma.

One of President Donald Trump’s nightly appearances at the Republican National Convention will be with a group of doctors, nurses and EMTs who helped respond to the coronavirus crisis, according to a person familiar with the planning.

Trump will honor their heroism and highlight other frontline workers who are responding to the pandemic.?

CNN reported earlier Sunday Trump is expected to make some type of appearance during each night of this week’s Republican Convention.

The RNC is expected to focus heavily on Trump’s accomplishments in his current term and lay out a second-term vision for the administration. The convention will present “a complete change in the perception that I believe the media tries to tell of what a Trump supporter looks like, or who a Trump supporter is,” Trump campaign senior adviser Jason Miller said.

A woman and her son walk by a discarded face mask in Long Beach, California on August 22.

California reported 146 new Covid-19-related fatalities Sunday, bringing the state’s total number of coronavirus-related deaths to 12,134.?

The state reported 6,777 new Covid-19 cases, bringing the state’s total number of cases to 663,669.?

The California Department of Public Health noted that the numbers may not represent true day-over-day change as reporting of test results can be delayed.

California’s Covid-19 seven-day positivity rate is 5.7%, and the 14-day positivity rate is 6.4%.

Note: These numbers were released by the California Department of Public Health and may not line up exactly in real time with CNN’s database drawn from Johns Hopkins University and the?Covid?Tracking Project.

The Hattiesburg Police Department in Mississippi has sandbags and face masks available for people head of Hurricane Marco and Tropical Storm Laura, according to a Facebook post from the department.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said in a news conference Sunday that officials are staging??helicopters, C-130 transport aircraft, high-profile vehicles, sheltering teams, disinfecting teams and mobile testing squads?to help mitigate the spread of Covid-19 during?Hurricane Marco and Tropical Storm Laura.

Abbott said he has issued a state disaster declaration for 23 counties ahead of the storms, and is asking for an emergency declaration from President Trump and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

The Gulf Coast is forecast to be walloped by two hurricanes this week, bringing torrential rain, fierce winds and ferocious storm surges.

First up: Marco, which strengthened from a tropical storm to a Category 1 hurricane Sunday. Marco is expected to make landfall on the Louisiana coast Monday.

Marco will be followed by Tropical Storm Laura, which is expected to strengthen to a hurricane before it makes landfall on the US mainland late Wednesday or early Thursday. Laura is forecast to make landfall on or near the Louisiana coast.

Georgia is reporting 1,739 new Covid-19 cases and 42 additional deaths on Sunday, according to the Georgia Department of Public Health.

The department’s latest status report states that as of Sunday, there have been 253,949 total confirmed cases and 5,132 deaths in Georgia. At least 2,360 people are currently hospitalized with Covid-19 in the state.

NOTE: These numbers were released by Georgia’s public health agency, and may not line up exactly in real time with CNN’s database drawn from Johns Hopkins University and the Covid Tracking Project.

A nurse administers a Covid-19 test on F Street in Washington, DC, on August 14.

There are at least?5.6 million cases of coronavirus in the US and at least?176,583?people have died, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

As of 3 p.m. ET, Johns Hopkins has reported?19,193?new cases and?230?reported deaths.?

The total includes cases from all 50 states, the District of Columbia and other US territories, as well as repatriated cases.?

France has reported 4,897 new coronavirus cases on Sunday, the highest daily increase post-lockdown, according to?France’s national health agency (Santé Publique France).?

This brings the total Covid-19 case count in the country to 242,899 as of Sunday.??

There was also one coronavirus death reported, bringing the total death toll to 30,513, according to the national health agency.

Over the last 20 days, The University of Notre Dame has confirmed more than 400 coronavirus cases in its campus community.

There has been 408 confirmed cases since Aug. 3, the school said on its?online dashboard.?

The city of Houston, Texas, has reported 437 new cases of Covid-19, as well as 14 new deaths, according to?Mayor Sylvester Turner.?

Turner, citing data from the Houston Health Department, said in a tweet this afternoon that the total positive cases of Covid-19 for Houston now totals 60,943. The total number of dead is 730.?

The Texas Department of State Human Services reported that, as of yesterday, there have been a total of 573,139 positive Covid-19 cases and 11,266 deaths.?

Read Turner’s tweet:

Georgia Tech has reported 33 new cases of Covid-19, including 17 members of a Greek organization.

This brings the total number of coronavirus cases at the university to 251.

Tonight’s White House press conference is expected to be about an emergency use authorization (EUA) for a convalescent plasma to treat Covid-19, according to two sources with knowledge of the situation.

Last week, President Trump accused some health officials of playing politics regarding the EUA for convalescent plasma. When asked about the US Food and Drug Administration not having granted a EUA, Trump said it was political.

Today, one of the sources who is close to the White House Coronavirus Task Force, said the FDA has reviewed additional data to inform its impending EUA decision. This official has not personally reviewed the data. The source said the FDA is under no obligation to consult anyone outside the agency about its decision.?

The science: Convalescent plasma is created from the blood of people who have recovered from Covid-19, and it has shown success in two other deadly coronaviruses: MERS and SARS. It has also been used to treat the flu and Ebola.?

Emergency use authorization from the FDA does not require the same level of evidence as full FDA approval.

At the end of March, the FDA created a pathway for scientists to try convalescent plasma with patients and study its impact. Physicians have been using the treatment since. So far, more than 60,000 people in the United States have been treated with convalescent?plasma.

Twitter appended a label to a tweet from President Trump for “making misleading health claims that could potentially dissuade people from participation in voting.”

Trump claimed in posts on Twitter and Facebook early Sunday morning that mail drop boxes for voting “are not Covid sanitized” as well as claiming they are a “voter security disaster.”

Five hours after Trump sent the tweet, Twitter took action, saying, “We placed a public interest notice on this Tweet for violating our Civic Integrity Policy for making misleading health claims that could potentially dissuade people from participation in voting.”?

Now accompanying the Tweet is the full security notice: “This Tweet violated the Twitter Rules about civic and election integrity. However, Twitter has determined that it may be in the public’s interest for the Tweet to remain accessible.”

Trump’s tweet puzzled at least one scientist who noted that people are unlikely to catch the virus from touching such a box. People can just wash their hands or use hand sanitizer after touching any objects, including mail drop boxes, noted?Erin Bromage, an associate professor of biology at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, and a CNN contributor.

“You can completely minimize the risk of infection by sanitizing your hands after you drop in your ballot,” Bromage told CNN.

What the science says: The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said that the main way Covid-19 spreads is from person to person and that while there is a possibility of infection from someone touching a surface and then their mouth, nose or potentially their eyes, this is not the main way the virus spreads.

The larger risk of transmission comes when people are crowded into indoor spaces together.

“So while there is a theoretical possibility for viral transfer from a voting drop box, in reality the chances of this occurring and it leads to an infection are low,” Bromage said.?

Although the exact same message was posted to the President’s Facebook account, the company has not taken specific action on the post by Sunday afternoon.?

Facebook says it affixes links to voter information to posts from politicians about the election — a policy which could cause more confusion, as CNN has previously reported. Unlike Twitter, Facebook does not fact-check politicians.?

CNN has reached out to Facebook for comment.

Read the tweet:

Yulia Tymoshenko attends a news conference in Kiev, Ukraine, on August 3.

Former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko has tested positive for Covid-19 and is in a serious condition, her press secretary said in a Facebook post Sunday.

The leader of Ukrainian political party?“Batkivshchyna,” or “Fatherland” in English, has a temperature up to 39 degrees Celsius (102 degrees Fahrenheit), according to her spokeswoman, Marina Soroka.

“She is struggling,” Soroka wrote.

Some background: Tymoshenko is one of Ukraine’s most prominent politicians and supports integration with the European Union.

She was the first woman appointed as prime minister in Ukraine and?served from January to September 2005, and again from December 2007 to March 2010. She also co-led the Orange Revolution in 2004-2005.

The National Football League is investigating Covid-19 testing results after several teams?that use the same laboratory?received positive tests on Saturday.?

The Chicago Bears and Cleveland Browns canceled practice Sunday.

The Bears announced that nine players and staff members tested positive for the coronavirus. However, after following the league and union protocol, the team said the nine results turned out to be false positives.?As a result, the Bears postponed Sunday’s morning practice.

The Browns said?testing conducted Saturday?initially?indicated?multiple presumptive positive cases from players, coaches and support staff.?The team said since returning to its facility last month it has received “encouraging results from daily testing.”??

Cleveland will contact trace and self-isolate those who tested positive and others even though all are asymptomatic.?The Browns will pause all activities in its facility, including practice, Sunday and will conduct virtual meetings instead.??

Around the league: New York Jets head coach Adam Gase told reporters that he canceled Saturday’s walkthrough practice after 10 false positives, but the team was able to practice Sunday after receiving negative test results this morning.

Minnesota Vikings head coach Mike Zimmer said that 12 people, including eight players, have presumptive positive coronavirus tests. Those players will not practice Sunday.?

Pittsburgh Steelers general manager Kevin Colbert said in a statement Sunday, “On Saturday, we had six players absent from practice due to our adherence to NFL Covid-19 protocol. None of those players were required to be placed on Reserve/Covid-19 and will be returning to meeting today and practice on Monday.”

NFL hasn’t responded to CNN’s request on how many teams use the New Jersey lab.?However, Buffalo Bills general manager Brandon Beane said his team was one of at least 10 impacted. Beane said a few Bills players would miss Sunday’s practice.

East Carolina University Interim Chancellor Ron Mitchelson announced in a letter today that they are moving to online classes, just two weeks after welcoming students back on campus.

The letter went on to say that undergraduate classes have been suspended Monday and Tuesday of this week. Online classes begin on Aug. 26.?

Florida?health officials reported 2,974 new Covid-19 cases and 51 additional resident deaths on Sunday, the lowest single day figures since June, according to the?state’s health department.

The state has reported 594,287 coronavirus cases among?Florida?residents and?600,651?total cases across the state, according to the data.

The total Covid-19 death toll in the state stands at 10,325, the state said.?

To note: These numbers were released by?Florida’s public health agency and may not line up exactly in real time with CNN’s database drawn from Johns Hopkins University and the Covid Tracking Project?.

New York state is experiencing its lowest rates of Covid-19 hospitalizations, intensive care unit patients and intubations since mid-March, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said in a statement Sunday morning.

Of the 74,043 coronavirus test results reported to the state Saturday, 0.77% of them were positive.

There were five coronavirus-related deaths in the state Saturday – none of those deaths were in New York City.

The number of people who have tested positive for Covid-19 in France recently tripled in one month, according to data from France’s national health agency (Santé Publique France).

In its weekly epidemiological report dated July 23, the agency reported 4,397 people tested positive for the virus in the week July 13-19.

The agency said 15,706 people tested positive between August 10-16, according to its report issued on Thursday.

More details: On Thursday, France reported 4,711 new Covid-19 cases, the highest daily increase post-lockdown.

On the same day, President Emmanuel Macron said France didn’t plan to lockdown the country again, “but we’re going to have to live with the virus and make sure it doesn’t spread, especially not faster, and that it doesn’t affect older people, who we know are the most vulnerable.”

A total of 1,210 Covid-19 cases have been recorded across Italy as of Sunday, the highest figure since May 12, according to new government data.??

Sunday’s official figures recorded seven new Covid-19 deaths.

There were 1,071 Covid-19 cases reported on Saturday.?

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi?told CNN Sunday?that her caucus is standing together in its approach to negotiating another round of?coronavirus relief legislation with the Trump administration.

This?follows after almost half of House Democrats signed a letter?last week?calling on Pelosi to pass a stand-alone unemployment insurance bill and restart talks with the White House to find bipartisan solutions?to pass another coronavirus stimulus bill.?

Pelosi criticized the Trump administration’s stance against providing additional funds for state and local government.?The White House has firmly opposed including $1 trillion in state and local aid which Democrats said must be part of a new stimulus bill.

“What they say to us is why should one state help another state that may have needs? Well, we welcome them to the United States of America,” the speaker said.

Iraq on Sunday reported 3,291 new coronavirus cases and 75 new deaths, according to the country’s health ministry.

The daily new cases count for Sunday is down from Saturday’s figure of 3,965 coronavirus cases, which took the country past the 200,000 mark for the first time.??

The latest numbers are also notably down from last Tuesday’s record of 4,576.

Iraq’s total number of confirmed cases now stands at 204,341.?There is a total of 6,428 confirmed coronavirus deaths nationwide.

President Trump would be willing to sign a bill that included Postal Service funding and reform – but only if Democrats agreed to include other economic relief measures along with it, White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows said Sunday.?

Meadows said he planned to call Pelosi later on Sunday and noted he met with a number of congressional Democrats on Capitol Hill on Saturday.?Meadows told reporters he had tried to see the speaker, but she was in a meeting and so he left a note. There was no meeting on the books, CNN reported, so there was no expectation of them seeing each other.?

More context: Lawmakers had returned to the Hill for a rare Saturday vote on a bill that provided $25 billion for the US Postal Service, as well as a pause on cost-cutting measures by the USPS Democrats charged would hamper delivery of mailed ballots in the fall.

Meadows called the legislation, which passed the House 257-150 yesterday, a “largely messaging bill” that Pelosi knew had no chance of becoming law.

“It has everything to do with a political statement,” Meadows said on Fox News. “Here’s how I know. Because in the privacy of the negotiating room, I offered $10 billion plus reforms for the Postal Service that actually they’ve been asking for for a long time, to Speaker Pelosi and Chuck Schumer.”

Trump’s chief of staff also criticized Pelosi for previously rejecting the idea of passing individual bills to deal with aspects of economic relief that the two sides could potentially agree on – such as enhanced unemployment benefits and support for small businesses – but then embracing a standalone bill for the Postal Service. He criticized her for bringing the House back on a Saturday to vote on a mail bill, but not for relief funds.

“Why didn’t she come in and do enhanced unemployment?” Meadows said on Fox. “Why didn’t she come in and do money for education and daycare?”

CNN has reached out to Pelosi’s office for comment.

The Czech Republic on Friday recorded its highest single-day increase in Covid-19 cases since March, according to figures from the country’s health ministry.

The country recorded 506 new Covid-19 cases on Friday. The previous daily record was 373 cases on March 27.

The health ministry noted in a tweet that Friday’s record number corresponds with an increased number of tests carried out that day, targeting areas where infections have already been detected.

On Friday, 8,532 tests were carried out. This compares to 5,695 on Thursday and 7,312 on Wednesday.

A total of 411 Covid-19 deaths have been recorded in the Czech Republic, according to the health ministry.

At least 13 people have been killed and three others injured in a stampede at a nightclub in Lima, Peru, as partygoers attempted to escape a police raid on the venue, according to Orlando Velasco Mujica, general of the Peruvian National Police.

Police were called to the Thomas Restobar in the Los Olivos district of Peru’s capital city on Saturday evening to shut down an illegal party that more than 120 people were attending.

Social distancing measures are mandated in Peru, large social gatherings are banned and there is a nationwide 10 p.m. curfew in an effort to slow the spread of the?coronavirus.

Peru was one of the first nations in the Americas to take strict preventative coronavirus measures, but is now one of the worst affected countries in Latin America, with more than 576,000 cases, according to figures from?Johns Hopkins University. More than 27,000 have died of the virus so far, JHU reports.

Read the full story here.

Keeping UK schools shut would likely be more harmful for children than the coronavirus, said the country’s chief medical adviser, Professor Chris Whitty, amid a debate over the safety of reopening schools.?

Whitty said the evidence was “overwhelmingly clear” that children dying from the virus was low risk.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson previously said there was a “moral duty” to reopen schools in the autumn.

Whitty acknowledged that students returning to the classroom was “likely to put some pressure” on the reproduction rate — or the R rate — which measures how much the virus is being transmitted in the community. An R rate of 1, for example, means every one person with the virus infects one other person, on average. Many countries are trying to keep their R rates below 1 to prevent the virus from snowballing.

On Friday, the UK government updated its guidance to say the country’s R rate was somewhere between 0.9 and 1.1.

The government’s main scientific advisory body on the pandemic, SAGE, also said Friday it “does not have confidence that R is currently below 1 in England.”?

During the interview, Whitty went on to say they were always going to have to balance keeping transmission rates low while doing “the least social economic damage to achieve that.”

School student Olivia Styles, 18, from Basingstoke, sets her final-year A-level results on fire during a peaceful protest in Parliament Square, London, in response to mass downgrading.

Related article UK government makes dramatic exam results U-turn after national outcry

A worker disinfects a Yoido Full Gospel Church in Seoul, South Korea, amid concerns over the spread of coronavirus, on August 21.

South Korea recorded 397 new cases of Covid-19 on Saturday,?the highest single day increase since early March, South?Korea’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) has announced.

All but 10 of the new cases were locally transmitted, with the majority of them reported in the Seoul Metropolitan area, according to Director Jung Eun-kyeong of the KCDC. Jung said that as of today, 841 cases have been linked to a cluster of infections linked to an outbreak at the Sarang-jeil church.?

South Korea led the world with its model coronavirus response, carrying out a rigorous testing, tracing and quarantining program that enable the country to prevent case numbers spiralling.

But more recently it has struggled to deal with small outbreaks. It has shut down most entertainment venues and beaches nationwide after several clusters of cases.

Jung warned that South Korea had yet to see the peak of this new wave of infections despite the country recording 10 consecutive days of a triple-digit increases in confirmed cases.?

South Korea has 17,399 confirmed cases and the death toll remains at 309, JHU reports.

Soldiers from the 4th Military Region of the Brazilian Armed Forces take part in the cleaning and disinfection of the Municipal Market in the Belo Horizonte in Minas Gerais on August 18.

The number of people who have been infected with the novel coronavirus globally surpassed 23 million on Saturday, according to the Johns Hopkins University. JHU is reporting more than 801,000 people have died from the virus.

The United States has the highest numbers of coronavirus infections and deaths in the world, followed by Brazil.?The US confirmed another 44,572?new cases and?983?new deaths in United States in a 24-hour period on Saturday, keeping the US firmly in the position of the worst-affected country in the world.?

The US has now confirmed more than 5.6 million cases and at least?176,353?people have died.

In other parts of the world:

A health care worker collects a nasal swab sample from a patient to test with Rapid Antigen Test (RAT) for the COVID-19 infection in New Delhi, India, on August 22.

India’s top health official has claimed that the country could have a Covid-19 vaccine by end of this year.

On Sunday, India surpassed 3 million confirmed cases of coronavirus, after reporting 69,239 new infections in 24 hours, according to the ministry.

Indian Minister for Health and Family Welfare Harsh Vardhan said that one of the country’s Covid-19 vaccine candidates was in its third phase of clinical trial. “We are very confident that a vaccine will be developed by the end of this year,” the minister said on Saturday.

“I am happy to say that in the eighth month of the battle, India has the best recovery rate of around 75%. A total of 2.2 million patients have recovered and gone home and another 700,000 are going to be cured very soon.”

In India, patients with mild and moderate symptoms are considered?no longer active?after 10 days of symptom onset if they meet certain conditions. A test to confirm that they no longer have the virus is not required. Severe cases can only be discharged after one negative coronavirus test.

Pop singer Tim Bendzko performs during a large-scale experiment of the University Medicine Halle/Saale in the Arena Leipzig on August 22.

Ever since the?coronavirus pandemic?shuttered clubs, bars and concert halls around the world, music fans have been dreaming of the day they can once again visit a busy, sweaty venue to enjoy?a gig with friends.

With infection rates rising in many European countries, this dream could be far off. But some music fans in Leipzig, Germany, have been given the chance to rock for a day in the name of science – with the help of some glowing hand sanitizer and electronic trackers.

Researchers in the German city of Leipzig staged a 1,500-person experimental indoor concert on Saturday to better understand how Covid-19 spreads at big, busy events, and how to prevent it.

At the gig, which featured a live performance from musician Tim Bendzko, fans were given respiratory face masks, fluorescent hand gel and electronic “contact trackers” – small transmitters that determine the contact rates and contact distances of the individual experiment participants.

Using data from the contact trackers, scientists from The University of Halle will monitor the number “critical contacts” had by each participant during specific times and locations, while the residue left by fluorescent hand gel will identify frequently touched surfaces.

Researchers hope to use the data to find ways to bring big events,?including sports,?back safely.

Professor Michael Gekle, the dean of the university’s medical faculty and a professor of physiology, told CNN the experiment was being conducted to better prepare authorities on how to conduct events in the upcoming autumn and winter seasons.

Read the full story here.

A health worker takes a nasal swab sample to test for COVID-19 in Hyderabad, India, on Saturday, August 22.

India surpassed three million confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus on Sunday, after the country reported 69,239 new infections, according to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

India has now recorded 3,044,940 cases and 56,706 deaths, with 912 new fatalities reported Sunday.?

It took India close to 6 months to reach 1 million confirmed cases of the virus, another 21 days to reach 2 million and just 16 more days to get to 3 million cases, according to data from the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.?

The Ministry said 801,147 coronavirus tests were conducted in the country on Saturday, bringing the total number of tests conducted nationwide since the beginning of the pandemic to 35,292,220.

India is the third hardest-hit nation in terms of confirmed coronavirus cases behind the United States and Brazil.

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Former Vice President Joe Biden, Democratic presidential nominee, speaks during the Democratic National Convention at the Chase Center in Wilmington, Delaware, U.S., on Thursday, August 20.

Democratic presidential nominee?Joe Biden?said, if elected, he would be willing to shut down the country again should there be a second wave of coronavirus in the US and scientists recommend the move to slow its spread.

Biden said he would “be prepared to do whatever it takes to save lives, because we cannot get the country moving until we control the virus.”

He called it the “fundamental flaw” of the Trump administration’s handling of the pandemic, which has claimed the lives of?more than 175,000 Americans.?

Read more here.

The Philippines reported 4,933 new cases of coronavirus on Saturday, according to the country’s Department of Health.

The Philippines has now recorded 187,249 cases, of which 69,362 are active, according to the Department of Health. The department also reported 26 new deaths, bringing the country’s death toll to 2,966.?

Another 33,672 coronavirus tests were conducted on Saturday, bringing the total number of tests conducted in the country to 2,276,622, according to the Department of Health.

New Zealand on Saturday reported three new coronavirus cases, the Ministry of Health announced on Sunday morning.?

Of the three new cases, only one was a locally transmitted infection found in the community, according to the Ministry of Health.

The locally transmitted case is epidemiologically linked to the cluster in Auckland as a household contact of a previously reported case. The remaining two cases were imported from overseas, according to the ministry.

The country has now recorded 1,324 cases, of which 114 are active. Nine of the active cases are being treated in hospital, six are in a stable condition and three are in intensive care.

On Saturday, New Zealand conducted 7,005 coronavirus tests bringing the total number of tests conducted nationwide to 692,481.

Read more about New Zealand’s outbreak here.

Japan reported 986 new coronavirus cases nationwide on Saturday, bringing the total number of cases in the country to 62,459, the country’s health ministry announced on Sunday morning.?

Seven deaths were reported across Japan on Saturday, raising the nationwide death toll to 1,189.

Of the 986 new cases, 256 were reported in Japan’s capital Tokyo, marking the third day in a row that the city has seen a daily increase of over 200 cases. Over 60% of the new cases in Tokyo were in their 20s and 30s, according to the Tokyo Metropolitan Government. The capital now has 19,121 confirmed cases of coronavirus.

President Trump will hold a news conference at 6 p.m. ET Sunday to discuss “a major therapeutic breakthrough” regarding coronoavirus, White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany announced.

She said Alex Azar, Secretary for US Health and Human Services, Stephan Hahn, the head of the Food and Drug Administration, would be in attendance.

On Saturday, President?Donald Trump?accused the US Food and Drug Administration of deliberately delaying coronavirus vaccine trials without providing any evidence.

“The deep state, or whoever, over at the FDA is making it very difficult for drug companies to get people in order to test the vaccines and therapeutics,” Trump?tweeted, continuing to push his unfounded theory that there is a “deep state” embedded within the government bureaucracy working against his reelection.

He accused the agency of delaying a vaccine for the virus until after the fall election, tweeting: “Obviously, they are hoping to delay the answer until after November 3rd. Must focus on speed, and saving lives!” Trump ended his tweet by tagging the Twitter account of Hahn, who he?nominated?last year to take up the role.

Hahn?assured?Americans earlier this month that the agency “will not cut corners” to approve a vaccine.

Read more here.