Our live coverage of the coronavirus pandemic has moved here.
The dramatically scaled-down Republican National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, will be closed to the press, a convention spokesperson and Republican official familiar with the plans tell CNN.
Reporters will not be allowed on site as RNC delegates vote to formally nominate President Donald Trump as the 2020 Republican presidential nominee, but the vote will be livestreamed, the Republican official said.
The restriction is unprecedented in modern American political history, but Republican officials said they were forced to limit attendance due to social distancing restrictions imposed by the governor of North Carolina.
The news was first reported by the Arkansas Democrat Gazette.
The coronavirus pandemic has forced numerous changes to the nominating process and RNC plans have repeatedly shifted – with more changes potentially to come. Trump canceled convention activities in Jacksonville, Florida, late last month.
Read the full story:
China registered 49 new coronavirus cases on Saturday, the National Health Commission said on Sunday morning.
Of those, 33 were classed as locally transmitted, with 30 cases in the far western region of Xinjiang.
The other three locally transmitted cases were reported in Liaoning, a northeastern province bordering North Korea.
Some 20 asymptomatic cases were also recorded, the NHC said.
The NHC also reported 16 imported cases, found in regions across China including Shanghai, Shandong and Hubei.
Mexico recorded its highest daily increase of new coronavirus cases Saturday, with 9,556 infections reported in the past 24 hours, the country’s health ministry said.
The total number of Covid-19 cases in the country stands at 434,193.
The ministry also reported a new daily high of 784 fatalities related to the virus, bringing the death toll to 47,472.
This comes a day after Mexico surpassed the United Kingdom’s total number of coronavirus deaths, becoming the country with third highest number of Covid-19 fatalities, according to Johns Hopkins University data.
CNN is tracking worldwide coronavirus cases here:
Major League Baseball announced the postponement of Sunday’s scheduled doubleheader between the St. Louis Cardinals and the Milwaukee Brewers just hours after postponing Saturday night’s game between the two teams.
From the MLB’s press release:
A Delta flight was forced to return to the gate when two of their customers wouldn’t wear masks, according to Delta Air Lines spokesperson Emma Protis.
Protis told CNN in an email that Flight 1227 on July 23 was on its way from Detroit to Atlanta when they were forced to turn around.
Delta released the following statement to CNN:
The two passengers were removed from the plane, Protis said.
According to Delta’s website, “Delta customers and employees are required to wear a face mask, or appropriate cloth face covering over their nose and mouth throughout their travel, aligning with best practice guidelines from the CDC.”
No one attending this year’s scaled-back Hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia has contracted Covid-19 so far, the country’s health ministry said Saturday.
The Muslim ritual, which started on Tuesday and ends on Sunday, normally hosts more than 2 million people, but after the coronavirus outbreak, Saudi authorities were forced to ban international visitors wishing to perform Hajj this year.
The Kingdom started preparing for the scaled down Hajj in February and after selecting 1,000 pilgrims – Saudis and foreign residents in the country, between the ages of 20 and 50 – enforced a 14-day pre-Hajj quarantine, tested them, provided trainings on social distancing and monitored the pilgrims, Dr. Abdullah Assiri, assistant deputy minister for preventative health at the Saudi Ministry of Health, told CNN in an interview on Wednesday.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization, congratulated Saudi Arabia Thursday for the steps it took, calling it a “powerful demonstration of the kinds of measures that countries can – and must – take to adapt to the new normal.”
According to the Saudi health ministry, the kingdom registered 1,573 new coronavirus cases and 21 deaths on Saturday.
Saudi Arabia has the highest number of cases in the Arab world with 277,478 infections, according to the ministry’s latest tally.
South Africa’s National Department of Health reported over 10,000 new Covid-19 cases Saturday, bringing the total number of infections recorded in the country to more than 500,000.
A total of 503,290 cases have been confirmed in the country, including more than 8,100 deaths, according to the Health Department.
South Africa is the hardest hit country on the continent. It has recorded the fifth highest number of cases in the world, according to Johns Hopkins University.
Colombia reported a new record of daily coronavirus cases after 10,673 new infections were recorded on Saturday, bringing the total to 306,181, its health ministry said.
The ministry also registered 225 coronavirus-related deaths, the lowest death toll in 10 days, raising the country’s deaths to 10,330.
Despite the surge of coronavirus cases in the past two weeks, the Colombian government is pushing for a lockdown of only the most affected communities, while large parts of the country have started partially reopening.
The state of emergency in Colombia is set to last through August 30.
Brazil recorded 45,392 new coronavirus cases in the past 24 hours, bringing the total to 2.7 million, its health ministry announced Saturday.
The country reported 1,088 new deaths due to the virus, raising the nationwide death toll to 93,563.
Brazil has the second most Covid-19 cases and deaths worldwide after the United States, according to Johns Hopkins University data.
Kuwait suspended flights from 31 countries Saturday due to the coronavirus pandemic, just as the country reopened its airport for operations, the state-run Kuwait News Agency (KUNA) reported Saturday.
Citing a statement by Kuwait’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), KUNA reported the barred list included the following countries:
The DGCA was advised by Kuwait’s health ministry to suspend the flights until further notice, according to KUNA.
The Kuwait International Airport resumed commercial flights on Saturday as part of a phased reopening after a five-month suspension, KUNA reported.
Kuwait’s health ministry recorded an additional 491 Covid-19 cases on Saturday, bringing the country’s overall total to 67,448 confirmed infections.
Detroit Lions quarterback Matthew Stafford has been placed on the NFL’s Reserve/Covid-19 list by his team. This move does not necessarily indicate that Stafford himself has tested positive for Covid-19.
The NFL describes the Reserve/Covid-19 category as a roster status created for a player who either tests positive for Covid-19 or who has been quarantined after having been in close contact with an infected person or persons.
If a player falls into either of these categories, their team is required to immediately place the player on the Reserve/Covid-19 list. Per the agreed upon NFL-NFLPA policy, clubs are not permitted to comment on player’s medical status other than referring to roster status. Clubs may not disclose whether player is in quarantine or is positive for Covid-19.
Health experts are recommending planning and caution when making decisions about whether to send kids back to school, amid New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s announcement Saturday that he will make a decision on reopening schools in New York this week.
Cuomo noted that he is monitoring the infection rate across the state. Health experts have cautioned against reopening in areas across the US where Covid-19 transmission levels are still high.
Emergency medicine physician Dr. Daniel Fagbuyi said Saturday that planning is key when considering reopening. He recommends communities consider reopening once they have met certain requirements, including reaching a positivity rate less than 5%, mandating face masks, and implementing rapid testing, social distancing and regular hand washing.
Fagbuyi noted that the measures “seem basic, but if you don’t have any of these all in place at the same time, there’s always a loophole, and once you have a loophole, it’s game over.”
In this case, “game over” can be fatal.
Experts say considering these potential consequences of reopening can be helpful.
Saag said leaders have to be willing to act on plans that are made.
“Once a plan is made, the implementation has to follow in lockstep,” said Saag. “If it doesn’t, we should be expecting cases in schools, and it won’t be news that somebody in Mississippi or somebody in another school system became infected.”
Hotez recommended waiting for coronavirus cases to reach containment in states before schools reopen. Saag noted that New York’s cases dropped to near pre-epidemic levels before they considered reopening schools.
Cuomo said Saturday that even in New York, parents are understandably concerned.
Saag noted that it’s a tough decision, “The question is, what are we willing to live with?”
Major League Baseball officially postponed Saturday’s game between the Milwaukee Brewers and St. Louis Cardinals in Milwaukee due to positive Covid-19 test results.
The announcement was made in a statement issued by the league on Saturday. After two Cardinals players tested positive, Major League Baseball said that rapid test results indicated “one additional Cardinals player and multiple staff members may be positive.”
The Philadelphia Phillies – whose games this week were postponed out of “an abundance of caution” surrounding the Miami Marlins outbreak – will resume play on Monday against the Yankees in New York. Two of the three positive results from Phillies staffers were “false positives,” according to the MLB. The league said it remains unclear whether the third individual “contracted COVID-19 from Marlins players and staff based on the timing of the positive test.”
The league’s statement added that the Marlins have reported no new positive test results on July 31. The team has been quarantining in Philadelphia since July 26. Miami is set to resume play against the Baltimore Orioles on August 4 in Baltimore.
Milwaukee Brewers center fielder Lorenzo Cain has opted out of the remainder of the 2020 season, the team announced Saturday.
Cain’s decision comes after the team’s previous two games were postponed due to multiple members of the St. Louis Cardinals tested positive for Covid-19.
Cain also released a statement:
About 17,000 people marched in a protest against coronavirus restrictions in central Berlin Saturday. The majority of the demonstrators did not observe the rules of distance and hygiene.
The march, which was named by organizers as “Day of Freedom – The End of the Pandemic,” included anti-vaccine groups and some far-right and neo-Nazi organizations.
Mississippi holds the highest percentage of Covid-19 positive tests in the country at 21.11%, according to Johns Hopkins University and the Covid Tracking Project.
According to the Mississippi State Department of Health, as of 7 p.m. on July 31, the state had a total of 59,881 positive coronavirus cases and 1,693 deaths.
Of the total positive cases, 53.9% were comprised of African-Americans, according to the Mississippi State Department of Health.
California’s Department of Public Health reported 219 Covid-19-related deaths, the most reported in a single day in the state.
The state previously reported a high of 197 deaths in one day on Tuesday, according to numbers released by the department.
A total of 9,224 people have died in California from complications due to Covid-19, based on numbers released by the department.
Note: Reporting from the department may include cases and deaths that occurred outside the most recent 24-hour period due to the possibility of reporting delays. These numbers were released by the California’s 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.
Rep. Raul Grijalva, of Arizona, has tested positive for the coronavirus, according to a statement from him released by his office.
Some context: Grijalva said earlier in the week that he would quarantine himself and get tested after fellow Congressman Louie Gohmert, of Texas, tested positive for coronavirus.
Gohmert is the ranking member of the House Natural Resources Committee, which Grijalva is chair of. Grijalva criticized Gohmert at the time for refusing to wear a mask in the hearing.
“This stems from a selfish act by Mr. Gohmert, who is just one member of Congress,” Grijalva said.
New Jersey has reported 393 new cases of Covid-19 and 11 deaths from the virus, according to a tweet from Gov. Phil Murphy.
The state has recorded a total of 182,029 Covid-19 cases 13,955 deaths from the virus, the tweet said.
Note: These numbers were released by the state of New Jersey and may not line up exactly in real time with CNN’s database drawn from Johns Hopkins University and the Covid Tracking Project.
A Mississippi high school student has tested positive for coronavirus during the first week of classes, according to the Corinth School District.
“We have had an initial test positive at Corinth High school,” district officials said on Friday.
After conducting contact tracing at the school, anyone who came in contact with the student was asked to quarantine at home for 14 days, according to social media posts from the district.
Students who were asked to quarantine “should continue working digitally in order to be counted present,” the district said on social media.
