Air New Zealand freezes ticket bookings to Australia until 28 August Charlotte Graham-McLay reports for the Guardian: New Zealand’s national airline, Air New Zealand, has frozen all new ticket bookings to Australia until 28 August. In a statement, the airline said the hold was due to Australian government restrictions on the number of passengers arriving in the country. The limits were introduced to alleviate pressure on quarantine facilities, and mean airports like Brisbane can only accept 70 passengers per day, while services bringing Australians back to Sydney are limited to as few as 30 travellers per flight. International passenger arrivals into Melbourne are not permitted until 8 August. Cam Wallace, a spokesman for the airline, said that while the Australian government restrictions are in place until 8 August, the airline is placing a longer freeze on future bookings to “help prevent disruptions” to travelers’ journeys should the restrictions be extended. Air New Zealand’s current trans-Tasman flights are from Auckland to Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne, with flights to Melbourne only carrying cargo. Moderna Inc is planning to price its coronavirus vaccine at US$50 to $60 per course higher than other vaccine makers have agreed to charge governments, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday. The price would apply to the United States and other high-income countries, according to the report. Moderna was not immediately available for comment. You can see how close we are to a coronavirus vaccine with the Guardian’s tracker below: Covid-19: Florida reports record one-day deaths as concerns grow for other states Florida reported another record one-day rise in coronavirus deaths on Tuesday, and cases in Texas passed the 400,000 mark, fueling fear that the United States is still not taking control of the outbreak and adding pressure on Congress to pass another massive economic aid package. Public health experts are becoming concerned about the levels of infection in states such as Ohio, Indiana, Tennessee and Kentucky, while the surge in Florida along with Texas, Arizona and California this month has strained many hospitals. The increase in cases has forced a U-turn on steps to reopen economies after the end of lockdowns put in place in March and April to slow the spread of the virus. Florida has had 191 coronavirus deaths in the last 24 hours, the highest single-day rise since the start of the epidemic, the state health department said: US officials say Russian intelligence services are using a trio of English-language websites to spread disinformation about the coronavirus pandemic, seeking to exploit a crisis that America is struggling to contain ahead of the presidential election in November. Two Russians who have held senior roles in Moscow’s military intelligence service known as the GRU have been identified as responsible for a disinformation effort reaching American and western audiences, US government officials said on Tuesday. They spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. The information had previously been classified, but officials said it had been downgraded so they could more freely discuss it. Officials said they were doing so now to sound the alarm about the particular websites and to expose what they say is a clear link between the sites and Russian intelligence: Trump storms out of press conference Maanvi Singh Trump ended his press conference abruptly on Tuesday after sustained questioning from CNN’s Kaitlan Collins over a video he had shared by a doctor who said masks don’t work and that there is a cure for Covid-19. In past videos, said Collins, the doctor has claimed that medicines are made from “alien DNA”. “I thought she was very impressive,” Trump said of the woman in the disinformation video he promoted. Here’s more background from colleagues Joan E Greve and Martin Pengelly: The video in question featured Dr Stella Immanuel, a physician from Houston, Texas, speaking on the steps of the US Capitol in Washington, surrounded by members of a rightwing doctors’ group. Immanuel made baseless claims about coronavirus, including hailing hydroxychloroquine as a “cure”, even though the drug, which has been repeatedly touted by the president, has not been found to be an effective treatment. The Houston doctor has also dismissed mounting evidence that face masks substantially help limit the spread of coronavirus. Before Trump walked off, he said he did not know why Twitter and Facebook removed the hydroxychloroquine video he promoted: .@kaitlancollins: The woman you say is a ‘great doctor’ said masks don’t work & doctors make medicine using DNA from aliens- TRUMP: “I can tell you this: She was on air, along with many other doctors, & they were big fans of hydroxychloroquine. I thought she was very impressive” pic.twitter.com/nSui8DOLDL — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar)July 28, 2020 Trump blames US case surge on protestors Maanvi Singh At a White House Press briefing late on Tuesday, US President Donald Trump blamed surging infections on the Black Lives Matter and George Floyd Protests, despite epidemiologists not conclusively linking the protests following the police killing of George Floyd to the huge spike in cases, my colleague Maanvi Singh reports. The surge in cases across the US came as cities reopened businesses and indoor venues, where the coronavirus transmits more effectively. Last week, Dr Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus task force co-ordinator recently linked the surge in cases to the Memorial Day weekend, which saw businesses opening up and people travelling again. Trump was also asked about the persistent absence of Dr Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, at Donald Trump’s briefings. In response, the president mused about his health official’s approval rating. Fauci has “got a very good approval rating and I like that”, Trump told reporters. And Fauci was working with the administration, “so why don’t I have a very high approval rating?” the president wondered out loud. “But nobody likes me,” Trump said. “It can only be my personality, that’s all.” This morning, Fauci was asked about the coronavirus disinformation that Trump has promoted on social media during an interview with ABC. “I don’t tweet, I don’t even read them. I don’t really want to go there,” he told Good Morning America. “I just will continue to do my job, no matter what comes out, because I think it’s very important.” Hello and welcome to today’s coronavirus liveblog. My name is Helen Sullivan and I’ll be bringing you the latest news from around the world for the next few hours. Get in touch on Twitter @helenrsullivan or via email: helen.sullivan@theguardian.com. More than 149,000 people have died of coronavirus in the US, according to the tally by Johns Hopkins University. More than 4.3m cases of the virus have been recorded in the country, by far the highest number worldwide. At a White House Press briefing late on Tuesday, US President Donald Trump blamed surging infections on the Black Lives Matter and George Floyd Protests, despite epidemiologists not conclusively linking the protests following the police killing of George Floyd to the huge spike in cases, my colleague Maanvi Singh reports. The surge in cases across the US came as cities reopened businesses and indoor venues, where the coronavirus transmits more effectively. Last week, Dr Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus task force co-ordinator recently linked the surge in cases to the Memorial Day weekend, which saw businesses opening up and people travelling again. Meanwhile Italy’s prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, has extended the country’s state of emergency until October, meaning he will continue to have the power to impose a lockdown and other safety measures without needing the approval of parliament. Conte told the Senate that the extension was “inevitable” despite the infection rate falling significantly. The WHO says Covid-19 pandemic is “one big wave”, not seasonal. It warned against complacency in the northern hemisphere summer since the infection does not share influenza’s tendency to follow seasons. Air travel is not expected to recover until 2024. Global air travel is recovering more slowly than expected and it will take until 2024 to return to pre-pandemic levels, the trade association for the airline industry has said. Italy extended its state of emergency until October. This means the prime minister will continue to have the power to impose a lockdown and other safety measures without needing the approval of parliament. Over half people living in Mumbai slums have had Covid-19, according to a city-commissioned study. Blood tests on 6,936 randomly selected people found that 57% of slum-dwellers had virus antibodies. Covid-19 infection rate higher among California Latinos. Latinos make up 39% of the population in the US state, but account for 56% of Covid-19 infections and 46% of deaths, prompting new outreach and data collection efforts as cases surge. Spain insisted it was still a safe destination for tourists despite tackling 361 active outbreaks and more than 4,000 new cases. Several countries have nonetheless imposed quarantines on people returning from Spain, including its biggest tourist market, Britain. An urgent track and trace operation is under way in Berlin after a couple tested positive for coronavirus after returning from Manchester. Fifty people who have had contact with the couple since their return are in quarantine, of whom 13 have so far tested positive.