The Latest: Dr. Fauci: Any crowd without masks is virus risk

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WASHINGTON — Dr. Anthony Fauci is fighting back against questioning from a Republican lawmaker over whether recent protests increased the spread of coronavirus.

Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio repeatedly pressed the top health official on whether protests in Portland and other cities against police brutality and racial discrimination should be curbed to stop the virus spread.

Jordan complained that government officials “are stopping people from going to church,” but not shutting down protests.

Fauci refused to be drawn into the politically sensitive debate while testifying before House lawmakers on the federal response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Instead, he reiterated, “Any crowd, whether it’s a protest, any crowd when you have people close together without masks is a risk.”

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HERE’S WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE VIRUS OUTBREAK:(backslash)

— Dr. Fauci: Thousands signing up for virus trials in U.S.

— Rep. Clyburn calls on Trump for national virus plan

— Britain PM Boris Johnson postpones easing lockdown

— Virus testing turnaround times reveal wide disparity

— Americans struggling amid the economic fallout are worrying about paying for food and rent. An extra $600 in weekly unemployment benefits to help pay their bills is expiring.

— Scientists at Imperial College London say they are immunizing hundreds of people with an experimental coronavirus vaccine in an early trial after seeing no worrying safety problems in a small number vaccinated so far.

— Champagne is losing its fizz. For months, the lockdown put the cork on weddings, dining out, parties and international travel — all key sales components for the French luxury wine marketed for decades as a sparkling must at any celebration.

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Follow AP’s pandemic coverage at http://apnews.com/VirusOutbreak and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak

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HERE’S WHAT ELSE IS HAPPENING:

WASHINGTON — Dr. Anthony Fauci says 250,000 people have registered on a National Institutes of Heath website to take part in experimental vaccine trials.

The study of the first vaccine involving 30,000 people began this week. The U.S. government plans to launch studies of additional vaccines every month through the fall.

Trials are pivotal for establishing the safety and effectiveness of the vaccines. Not all patients who volunteer for clinical trials are eligible to participate.

Fauci is testifying before House lawmakers on the federal response to the pandemic, alongside the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the government’s testing czar. With hospitalizations and deaths on the rise, Fauci says Americans most again embrace public health basics such as social distancing and mask wearing.

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NEW YORK — A student’s positive test for the coronavirus in New York City schools will trigger a classroom shutdown under a back-to-school plan for the nation’s largest public school system.

Mayor Bill de Blasio’s plan released Thursday says if there’s a single confirmed case, the entire classroom will self-quarantine for 14 days. Students will have the option for online learning.

Every New York City school will have an isolation room for students with coronavirus symptoms.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has said it is up to him to decide whether any of the state’s 700 school districts can open in September. Friday is the deadline to submit reopening plans to the state.

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ATLANTA — Georgia’s governor says one of the nation’s largest convention centers will reopen on Monday with “surge beds” to treat COVID-19 patients.

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp says the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta will begin receiving patients on Monday. There will be 60 beds with an increase to 120 beds, if needed.

Kemp says the beds will provide relief to nearby health care facilities.

Reopening the convention center comes as Georgia hospital officials are concerned about bed space following a surge of cases. The Georgia World Congress Center says it’s the fourth-largest convention center in the U.S.

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WASHINGTON — A top Democrat lawmaker is calling on the Trump administration to release a comprehensive plan to combat the coronavirus, blasting the national response effort as the U.S. death toll recently surpassed 150,000

South Carolina Rep. James Clyburn warned another 150,000 Americans could lose their lives “if we do not make drastic changes now.” Clyburn chairs the House subcommittee overseeing the COVID-19 response.

His Republican counterpart on the panel countered that thousands of lives could have been saved if governors had followed the Trump administration’s guidelines. Republican Steve Scalise of Louisiana brandished a stack of federal documents on testing and reopening schools and nursing homes to demonstrate the detailed scope of the administration’s response.

The lawmakers are questioning top federal health officials, including National Institutes of Health infectious disease chief Dr. Anthony Fauci, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Dr. Robert Redfield and Health and Human Services testing czar Adm. Brett Giroir.

New COVID-19 cases spiked this month across much of the South and West, pushing the nation’s daily case count back to the 60,000-70,000 range. Those outbreaks appear to have peaked, but health officials are warning of new upticks in the Midwest.

(This item has been corrected to show James Clyburn represents South Carolina.)

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HONG KONG — Beijing will send personnel to Hong Kong to assist in coronavirus testing and the building of treatment centers.

The Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office say help will be sent to Hong Kong at the request of the city’s government. The personnel will help in large-scale testing and screening and assist in speeding up construction of temporary isolation and treatment facilities.

Hong Kong has reported a total of 3,273 coronavirus infections and 27 deaths since the start of the pandemic. The infections have more than doubled since July 1.

The city has tightened social distancing measures, implementing a dine-in ban from 6 p.m. and restricting public gatherings to two people.

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TOKYO — Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is expressing concern about the recent increase in coronavirus cases.

“We are very carefully watching the surge in infections. First, we need to step up with tests,” he said.

Okinawa Gov. Denny Tamaki issued the region’s own emergency declaration, with daily confirmed cases reaching a record 71 people Friday.

Tamaki says Okinawa was taking its own action, as cases were showing up among citizens in their 20s and 30s, but also in families and workplaces. He pleaded with people to not go out. He noted the prefecture’s ability to treat patients was limited.

Reported cases nationwide reached a record 1,463 people, topping the 1,305 cases confirmed by the health ministry on Thursday.

On Friday, 463 were in Tokyo, a record for the capital’s daily count.

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ROME — Italy’s president says don’t confuse freedom with the right to make others ill during the coronavirus pandemic.

President Sergio Mattarella issued the caution to citizens in a speech on Friday, a few days after Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli said he felt “humiliated” by Italy’s lockdown and violated stay-at-home restrictions.

While describing the value of freedom as central to democracy, Mattarella says one must consider “the duty to balance that with the value of life, avoiding confusing freedom with the right to make others sick.”

Italy, once the epicenter of the coronavirus in Europe, has experienced increasing clusters of coronavirus cases after relaxing three months of a severe lockdown.

Mattarella noted four months ago, more than 800 COVID-19 deaths were registered in one day in Italy. On Thursday, there were three. Overall, Italy has confirmed more than 35,000 deaths.

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LONDON — British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is postponing some planned measures to ease the lockdown because coronavirus cases are on the rise for the first time since May.

The government is scrapping plans to allow venues such as casinos, bowling alleys and skating rinks to open on Monday. A plan to allow a limited number of fans back into sports stadiums is on hold.

Johnson says the measures will be reviewed after two weeks.

He says a rule requiring face coverings worn in shops and on public transit will be extended to museums, galleries, cinemas and places of worship.

On Thursday, the government re-imposed restrictions on social life in a swath of northern England because of a surge in cases, barring households from visiting one another.

Scientists say they are no longer confident the R number, which measures how many people each infected person passes on the disease, is below 1 in England. A number above 1 means the virus will exponentially spread.

Britain’s official coronavirus death toll stands at more than 46,000, the third-highest total in the world after the United States and Brazil.)

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NICOSIA, Cyprus — Cyprus is making mask-wearing compulsory in all indoor areas where people gather in large numbers and ramping up random coronavirus testing at two main airports.

Health Minister Constantinos Ioannou says a rollback of restrictions combined with a low infection rate led to “excessive complacency” by some people he blamed for “choosing to recklessly violate health protocols” and “put public health at risk.”

The internationally recognized part of Cyprus confirmed 1,084 COVID-19 infections and 26 deaths.

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TOKYO — Japanese leaders are grappling with how to contain flareups in coronavirus cases while trying to avoid shutdowns that might push the economy deeper into recession.

Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike said the confirmed number of new cases hit a daily record of 463 on Friday, up nearly 100 from Thursday’s 367. Nationwide, cases have recently topped 1,000 a day, and some areas that had avoided any cases at all, such as Iwate prefecture in the northeast and Sado island off the Japan Sea coast, have confirmed cases.

Koike says, “You might have plans or events for summer, but unfortunately this summer will be different from last summer. We cannot loosen our grips on (anti-infection) measures and I want to share this mindset with you all.”

Earlier this week, Koike asked bars and restaurants to close by 10 p.m. Legal limits on what the government can demand of the private sector and individuals mean authorities largely must rely on social pressure and persuasion to compel people to comply with anti-disease precautions.

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BERLIN — German authorities have added Catalonia and two other northern Spanish regions to a long list of risk areas, days after the foreign ministry advised against nonessential travel to the area.

The designation on Friday by the Robert Koch Institute, Germany’s national disease control center, comes as authorities prepare to make coronavirus tests for people arriving from risk areas compulsory as of next week. It affects the inland Aragón and Navarra regions as well as Catalonia.

Most countries in the world are currently on the high-risk list, though most of Germany’s partners in the European Union and the rest of the Schengen travel zone are not — except neighboring Luxembourg, where new infections have exceeded a level that is considered risky.

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LONDON — Britain’s health secretary has defended a decision to reimpose restrictions on social life in a swath of northern England.

Matt Hancock told Sky News that while he understands it is not the “sort of decision that anybody would want to take,’’ the government had to do whatever it could right way to prevent the coronavirus from spreading.

Under the new restrictions, people from different households in Greater Manchester, England’s second largest metropolitan area, have been asked to not meet indoors. The same orders applies to the surrounding areas of Lancashire and West Yorkshire counties.

Hancock told the BBC that “one of the terrible things about this virus is it thrives on the sort of social contact that makes life worth living.”

The affected region has a large Muslim population, and the restrictions come ahead of the Eid al-Adha holiday on Friday.

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JOHANNESBURG — South Africa’s number of confirmed coronavirus cases is edging close to a half-million, with the Health Ministry reporting 11,046 new cases overnight.

That brings the country’s caseload to 482,169, including 7,812 deaths.

Corruption in the country’s pandemic response is also a growing problem. On Thursday, the health minister in the country’s epicenter of Gauteng province was forced to step down over corruption allegations related to government contracts for COVID-19 personal protective equipment.

President Cyril Ramaphosa has warned that now, more than ever, South Africa’s persistent problem with widespread graft is endangering people’s lives. South Africa makes up well over half the cases on the African continent and has the world’s fifth highest virus caseload.

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HONOLULU—Hawaii’s Board of Education has approved an agreement to delay the start of public schools.

Students across Hawaii were originally scheduled to return to school on Aug. 4. But the statewide teachers union led an effort to delay, saying the state Department of Education didn’t sufficiently plan for safely reopening schools during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

Parent Burke Burnett says delaying in-person instruction is necessary because Hawaii is seeing a spike in cases.

Parent Genna Javier opposes a delay. She says students who don’t want to return to school have a distance learning option.

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KATHMANDU, Nepal — Nepal is opening its Himalayan peaks, hoping to bring back Western climbers who were unable to visit during a spring lockdown.

The government, expedition workers and businesses are hoping foreign climbers who bring some $300 million annually to Nepal will return during the autumn climbing season that begins in September.

Commercial flights to Nepal will resume in August.

Rudra Singh Tamang, director general of Nepal’s tourism department, said mandatory test results and quarantines when needed are among the measures being used to ensure tourism returns safely.

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HANOI, Vietnam — Vietnam reported a daily high of 45 more cases Friday, all of them connected to a Da Nang hospital where the first case surfaced last week after more than three months.

All of the infected are hospital staff, current or former patients and their family members.

Vietnam reacted quickly to try to contain the spread from Da Nang, a popular destination where thousands of tourists were vacationing on its golden beaches. Other cases this week were confirmed in Hanoi and other cities and provinces.

Da Nang was put under lockdown on Tuesday and testing and business restrictions increased in other areas. The city on Friday began setting up a makeshift hospital in a sport auditorium and doctors have been mobilized from other cities to help.

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NEW DELHI — A record surge of 55,079 new cases in the past 24 hours took India’s coronavirus caseload past 1.6 million, as the government decided to lift a nighttime curfew that has been in force since late March.

The Health Ministry on Friday also reported 779 additional deaths, taking total fatalities to 35,747. The ministry said more than 1 million people have recovered from the virus at a rate of 64%.

The night curfew will be lifted this weekend and yoga institutes and gyms will reopen on Aug. 5, according to the Home Ministry. The government also removed interstate restrictions on movement of people and goods.

Hotels in the Indian capital will reopen as they no longer serve as quarantine facilities. After a peak of nearly 3,500 new cases a day earlier this month, the surge has come down to around 1,000 cases.

Lockdown remains in place across all containment zones.

Subways, cinemas, swimming pools, entertainment parks, bars, theaters, auditoriums and other social gathering places will remain closed till Aug. 31.

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DENPASAR, Indonesia — Indonesia’s resort island of Bali has reopened to domestic tourists after an almost four-month lockdown for the coronavirus pandemic.

Bali’s governor has been impatient to revive the economy and began easing restrictions on public activities three weeks ago.

Under the easing that took effect Friday, Indonesians visiting Bali will face stringent rules at hotels, restaurants and beaches. Foreign tourists will be allowed on the island beginning Sept. 11.

Tourism is the main source of income for Bali, which had 6 million tourists from abroad and 10 million from Indonesia last year. The pandemic has caused the numbers to dive.

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