Latin America records 5m cases – report Latin America broke through 5 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 on Monday according to a Reuters tally, underscoring the region’s position as the area of the world hardest hit by the novel coronavirus pandemic. Reuters says the more than 10,000 new cases Colombia’s health ministry reported on Monday pushed the region past the 5m mark, a day after the Andean nation reported a record 11,470 cases. Mexico has also racked up record numbers of new confirmed infections in recent days, registering more than 9,000 daily cases for the first time on Saturday, a day after Mexico overtook Britain as the country with the third-highest number of deaths caused by the coronavirus pandemic. The region, which has now topped over 200,000 deaths, is struggling to stall the spread of the virus, with infections picking up pace in many countries even as governments look to ease lockdowns and revive economic growth Brazil president"s chief of staff tests positive The chief of staff to Jair Bolsonaro, General Walter Souza Braga Netto, has tested positive for Covid-19, his office said on Monday, becoming the seventh Brazilian minister to have contracted the disease. Braga Netto is doing well and has no symptoms, the office said in a statement. He will remain in isolation until a new examination and medical evaluation is carried out, and will continue to work remotely. Last week, Bolsonaro’s wife tested positive. Bolsonaro also contracted the disease in early July. On Monday he told reporters he was fine and was already cured, after last week saying he was on antibiotics for an infection. Brazil has the second-worst coronavirus outbreak in the world after the United States, with more than 2.75m and 94,665 deaths, according to health ministry data. President Trump has rejected a national lockdown to bring the coronavirus pandemic in the US under control at one of his White House press briefings. “It’s important for all Americans to understand that a permanent lockdown is not a viable path towards producing the result that you want,” Trump said, arguing that lockdowns cause more harm than good. The president said the US had done “very well” fighting the virus. He also announced he had signed an executive order expanding access to tele-health services for 57 million Americans in under-served rural areas and elsewhere, after virtual visits soared during the coronavirus pandemic. Trump, who is counting on votes from backers in rural areas in the presidential election, said the new order would ensure that tele-health services expanded during the pandemic remained in place even after the public health emergency ended. As our Guardian US blog, Lois Becket writes: “As Trump touts his administration’s efforts to keep rural hospitals functioning during the pandemic, it’s worth noting that the number of rural hospitals that closed permanently this year rose to 13 today, according to the NC Rural Health Research Program. In all, 130 rural hospitals have closed in the past decade. WHO warns there may never be a Covid-19 ‘silver bullet’ The World Health Organization chief has said he is pleased about the progress that has been made in in identifying treatments that can help people with the most serious forms of Covid-19 recover. However, he has warned that there may never be an effective vaccine. “A number of vaccines are now in phase three clinical trials and we all hope to have a number of effective vaccines that can help prevent people from infection,” the WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said. “However, there’s no silver bullet at the moment and there might never be.” Speaking in Geneva, he said for now, stopping outbreaks comes down to the basics of public health and disease control. “Testing, isolating and treating patients, and tracing and quarantining their contacts. Do it all,” he said. “Inform, empower and listen to communities. Do it all.” For individuals, it’s about keeping physical distance, wearing a mask, cleaning hands regularly and coughing safely away from others. Do it all. The message to people and governments is clear: do it all. And when it’s under control, keep going! Keep strengthening the health system.Keep improving surveillance, contact tracing and ensure disrupted health services are restarted as quickly as possible. Keep safeguards and monitoring in place, because lifting restrictions too quickly can lead to a resurgence. You can read his full remarks here. Hello and welcome to our live coverage of the coronavirus pandemic with me, Alison Rourke. There might never be a “silver bullet” for Covid-19 in the form of a perfect vaccine, and the road to normality could be long, the World Health Organization has said. In a news conference in Geneva, the WHO director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said: “A number of vaccines are now in phase 3 clinical trials and we all hope to have a number of effective vaccines that can help prevent people from infection. However, there’s no silver bullet at the moment – and there might never be.” Donald Trump meanwhile held another of his coronavirus briefings, in which he said the US is doing “very well” in fighting the virus. “We have done as well as any nation,” he said, pointing to other countries battling second waves. “China’s having a massive flare up right now,” he said. The president also pushed back against the idea of a national lockdown to stop the spread of the virus: “It’s important for all Americans to understand that a permanent lockdown is not a viable path towards producing the result that you want,” Trump said, arguing that lockdowns cause more harm than good. In other coronavirus developments: Confirmed cases of coronavirus passed 18 million, according to the tally kept by the US-based Johns Hopkins University. The university’s coronavirus resource centre had counted 18,178,736 cases at the time of writing, with 691,111 deaths. The worst affected countries by caseload were, in order, the US, Brazil, India, Russia and South Africa. The US Treasury Department plans to borrow $947bn to cover coronavirus impact. Congress has already allocated about $3tn for coronavirus-related economic aid so far. Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro’s chief of staff has tested positive for coronavirus, becoming the seventh Brazilian minister to have contracted the disease. Spain on Monday reported 968 new coronavirus infections in the past day, showing a slower pace of contagion than last week when the country reported more than 1,000 new cases for three days in a row. One person is dying from Covid-19 every seven minutes in Iran, state television said on Monday, as the country’s health ministry reported 215 new deaths from the disease. The combined death toll in Iran rose to 17,405 on Monday, Sima Sadat Lari, the health ministry spokeswoman, said, while the number of confirmed cases rose by 2,598 to 312,035. Of those, 270,228 have recovered. The number of coronavirus patients admitted to intensive care units in Belgium has doubled in a month and the epidemic is spreading “intensively”, health officials warned on Monday. On average 2.7 people died of Covid-19 every day in Belgium in the last week of July, up by about a third from two in the previous seven days. At least 9,845 have died since the epidemic arrived. The Russian government said it aims to launch mass production of a coronavirus vaccine next month and turn out “several million” doses per month by next year. “We are very much counting on starting mass production in September,” the industry minister, Denis Manturov, said. Russia is pushing ahead with several vaccine prototypes. Covid-19 cases and hospitalisations are falling in California. Governor Gavin Newsom said the state’s Central Valley agricultural hub was still being hit disproportionately hard by the pandemic and there was not yet enough data to consider lifting pandemic restrictions.