It’s worth noting that this Fox News “virtual town hall” as they are calling it, is a very controlled interview environment, compared with President Trump’s usual daily White House briefings. He is being interviewed with two Fox news anchors and taking some phone calls. Fox has selected the questions to put to Trump from “thousands” of video questions and calls it has received from viewers over the past week. When asked about why he didn’t act on the virus earlier, he was quick to point out that many people, including he says, disease expert Anthony Fauci, said Covid-19 “was going to pass”. He indicates the US intelligence community will release a report on the virus on Monday. He’s now being asked about what measures are being taken to protect nursing homes: “The nursing home issue is ground zero” “What we’re doing is legislation immediately about how many people can be in (visit) ... it’s the one thing about this disease that everyone has learned ... is that it’s so contagious.” He reminds viewers that nursing homes are a matter for states. He’s saying elective surgery must recommence, but again, it’s up to the state governors. “They have to get back,” he says. “You think they’re making a lot of money? They’re losing a fortune. they have to get back to elective surgery.” More on Trump’s town hall now, from AP: Trump declared Sunday that he believed a vaccine could be available by year’s end, despite his own pandemic task force predicting it could be another 18 months. Anxious for an economic recovery, President Donald Trump fielded Americans’ questions about decisions by some states to allow nonessential businesses to reopen while other states are on virtual lockdown due to the coronavirus. After more than a month of being cooped up at the White House, Trump returned from a weekend at the Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland and participated in a virtual town hall, hosted Sunday night by Fox News Channel, from inside the Lincoln Memorial. He pushed for an economic reopening, one his advisers believe will be essential for his reelection chances this November. “We have to get it back open safely but as quickly as possible,” Trump said. Though the administration’s handling of the pandemic, particularly its ability to conduct widespread testing, has come under fierce scrutiny, the president defended the response and said the nation was ready to begin reopening. “I’ll tell you one thing. We did the right thing and I really believe we saved a million and a half lives,” the president said. But he also broke with the assessment of his senior adviser and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, saying it was “too soon to say if the federal government was overseeing a success story.” Trump’s impatience also flashed. While noting that states would go at their own pace in returning to normal, with ones harder hit by the coronavirus going slower, he said of some states, “frankly I think aren’t going fast enough” and singled out Virginia, which has a Democratic governor and legislature. And he urged the nation’s schools and universities to return to classes this fall. This is the setting for Tump’s Fox News town hall, by the way: In these extraordinary times, the Guardian’s editorial independence has never been more important. Because no one sets our agenda, or edits our editor, we can keep delivering quality, trustworthy, fact-checked journalism each and every day. Free from commercial or political bias, we can report fearlessly on world events and challenge those in power. Your support protects the Guardian’s independence. We believe every one of us deserves equal access to accurate news and calm explanation. No matter how unpredictable the future feels, we will remain with you, delivering high quality news so we can all make critical decisions about our lives, health and security – based on fact, not fiction. Support the Guardian from as little as $1 – and it only takes a minute. Thank you. Trump says he is "very confident" there will be vaccine by end of the year President Trump is giving a sit-down interview with Fox news, and taking calls from viewers about the coronavirus. Asked about a Covid-19 vaccine, he says: “We are very confident we are going to have a vaccine by the end of the year.” Trump is asked about schools going back in the US in September: “We have to go back,” he says, adding that he is concerned about some older teachers and their possible exposure to the virus. He’s criticising the Democrat’s response to the pandemic, implying it would suit their political purposes if the virus outcome was worse. He talks about hydroxychloroquine, reminding viewers that he doesn’t own shares in the company that produces it: “We don’t lose anything with hydroxy .... people aren’t dying from it.” He’s asked why he didn’t act earlier on the virus, and says his intelligence was that “on January 23 I was told there could be a virus coming but it was of no real import,” and then reminds viewers he stopped flights from China early. Trump is speaking now on Fox news, we’ll have more on this shortly. In the meantime, he has said this, referring to deaths in the US: The current US death toll, far higher than any other country, is 67,674 people. Hello and welcome to our global coverage of the coronavirus pandemic. I’m Helen Sullivan, with you for the next few hours. You can get in touch with me on Twitter @helenrsullivan with comments, questions and news from where you live. US secretary of state Mike Pompeo has claimed in a TV interview that there is ‘enormous evidence’ coronavirus originated in a Chinese laboratory, but did not provide any of this alleged evidence. But, writes the Guardian’s Julian Borger, “when he was reminded that US intelligence had issued a formal statement noting the opposite – that the scientific consensus was that the virus was not manmade or genetically modified – Pompeo replied: ‘That’s right. I agree with that.’” Meanwhile in Brazil, far-right president Jair Bolsonaro has been encouraging his supporters to protest, even as the country’s cases pass 100,000. Here are the main developments from the last few hours: Bolsonaro fuels protests in defiance of health advice. Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, has spent another weekend stirring up street protests in defiance of his own health ministry’s appeals for citizens to stay at home because of coronavirus. Brazil passes 100,000 confirmed cases. There have been 4,588 new cases of the coronavirus in Brazil and 275 deaths over the last 24 hours, the health ministry said on Sunday, bringing total confirmed cases in the country to over 100,000. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo claimed there is “enormous evidence” coronavirus originated in a Chinese laboratory – but did not provide any of the alleged evidence. Italy reports lowest toll since first day of lockdown. Italyhas reported 174 new coronavirus deaths, its lowest toll since 168 fatalities were registered when the country’s lockdown started on March 10. The 1,389 new infections were also the lowest since the first week of March UK to trial new tracing programme. The UK will trial a new coronavirus tracing programme next week on the Isle of Wight, just off the south coast of England, cabinet minister Michael Gove has announced as the government looks to minimise the risk of a second wave of infection. France’s tracing app expected to enter testing week on Monday. France’s state-supported ‘StopCOVID’ contact-tracing app should enter its testing phase a week on Monday when the country starts to unwind its lockdown, a government minister has said. Portugal downgrades state of emergency. Portugal has downgraded its state of emergency to a category of “calamity”, as the rate of new coronavirus infections reached its lowest since the beginning of the outbreak, six weeks after a state of emergency was declared. Singapore records 657 new infections, the vast majority of them foreign workers living in dormitories, taking the city-state’s total to 18,205. The Pope has called for any successful Covid-19 vaccine to be shared worldwide. He said international scientific cooperation would be important in discovering a vaccine, stressing that it is “important to unite scientific capabilities, in a transparent and impartial way”. NHS England has announced a further 327 deaths of people who tested positive for Covid-19. The total number of confirmed reported deaths in hospitals in England is now 21,180. A coalition of artists, celebrities, scientists and intellectuals has warned that Brazil’s indigenous peoples are at grave risk of a Covid-19 “genocide”. Madonna, Oprah Winfrey, Brad Pitt, David Hockney and Paul McCartney are among those who have signed an open letter to the country’s president, Jair Bolsonaro. Vietnam has confirmed its first Coronavirus case in nine days, meaning its total now stands at 271. The country’s lockdown was eased in late April and it is yet to record a Covid-19 death. Footballers in Serie A, Italy’s top division, will be allowed to start individual training sessions from Monday. It is the latest step in a series of cautious moves towards restarting top-level sport across Europe, which has also seen players in England and Germany permitted different degrees of training ground work. One third of 500 random coronavirus tests in Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul, have come back positive. It has raised fears that one of the world’s most fragile states may be harbouring widespread undetected infections.