The latest on the coronavirus pandemic

Dozens of New York bars and restaurants face charges related to Covid-19 violations week, including 10 that received license suspensions, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced. 

Nearly 1,100 compliance checks were conducted between July 21 and July 23 and violations were found at 84 establishments, which could lead to fines up to $10,000 per violation, Cuomo announced. 

Since the start of the pandemic, the state has filed 443 charges and 33 Emergency Orders of Suspension for non-compliance with Covid-19 regulations.

The secretary of health in Bolivia's Santa Cruz region passed away on Friday after contracting coronavirus, according to a statement by the local government.

Oscar Urenda died in the city of Santa Cruz de la Sierra after being hospitalized for 46 days. He was "leading and fighting this pandemic," the statement said. Urenda was 72, according to local media. 

Urenda is the 13th government official in Bolivia, among them interim President Jeanine Áñez, who authorities have said has contracted coronavirus. Urenda is the first one who has died from the virus. 

Áñez expressed her condolences in a video and messages she shared on her official Twitter account.

Áñez, said Urenda fought for the health of the residents of Santa Cruz and all Bolivians. "We are left with his example," she added. 

Santa Cruz is the country's most affected region by the pandemic. It has nearly half of the country's total number of cases, which stands at more than 65,252 cases, according to the latest data from the Ministry of Health.

Arkansas is working to decrease the positivity rate from the 8% reported today to 5% as recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines for reopening schools, Gov. Asa Hutchinson said during a news conference Friday afternoon.

The governor already pushed the start date for schools back to August 24 because of the virus, he said. 

Hutchinson said that schools should be prepared to go back to online learning during the school year if needed.

"We'll continue to work with the Department of Health as well as Education and try to give the right guidance to the local school districts," the governor said. "But it still remains the point that every place that we want to be able to have in classroom instruction, knowing that we're going to have to shift to online from time to time this year. That's the game plan we're going to continue to refine that and to look at where we are in terms of the coronavirus in the coming weeks." 

The latest numbers: At least 990 new cases of coronavirus were reported in the state Friday, Hutchinson said.

Florida Republican Rep. Vern Buchanan announced this morning that a longtime staffer, Gary Tibbetts, has died from Covid-19.

Tibbetts died at Manatee Memorial Hospital in Bradenton, Florida, just outside Tampa. 

Buchanan wrote in a statement posted to his official social media feeds Friday that he is devastated by the loss. 

The Tampa Bay Times had reported earlier this week that Tibbetts had been hospitalized. Buchanan said Tibbetts had worked for him since 2011.

São Paulo’s Carnival has been postponed until May or June next year due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the city’s Mayor Bruno Covas announced during a news conference on Friday.

The decision involves both the parade of the samba schools and the street blocks that last year attracted 15 million people during three weeks, according to the mayor.

The mayor also announced two other events in the city were canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic. The March for Jesus, a religious event that gathers the faithful of all Brazilian Christian churches, was initially pushed back from June to Nov. 2, and has now been canceled. Last year, the event attracted 3 million people, according to Covas.

The LGBTQ Pride Parade, São Paulo’s annual gay pride parade, was celebrated virtually in June with the actual parade postponed until Nov. 29, but that event was canceled, too.

About the numbers: São Paulo City reported a total of 202,571 Covid-19 cases and 9,168 deaths on Thursday afternoon. In the state of São Paulo, 44% of 20,532 registered deaths were reported in its capital, according to the last report released by City Hall. 

São Paulo’s mayor said on Friday the city has seen an improvement in the fight against the pandemic but the fight is not over yet.

A pandemic may intensify the divisiveness that already exists in the country, but scientists need to stay firm with facts, even when people push back, Dr. Anthony Fauci said Friday.

“We need to stick with the science and let everything we do, vis-a-vis recommendations, vis-à-vis recommendations, vis-à-vis guidelines, to be guided by the evidence and by the facts,” said Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

Fauci said throughout history, situations like the Covid-19 pandemic put a stress on society that can create a “supercharged atmosphere.” People have become confused and some fail to understand how the economy and public health are intertwined. 

“They perceive public health measures almost as the enemy of economic recovery and getting back to normal,” Fauci said. Instead, people should realize that public health measures will help the economy recover. “We should utilize those tools to help us rather than to interpret that these are obstacles,” he said.

Fauci said it is the duty of public health officials to help people understand their responsibility to society and to help change minds people’s minds if they refuse to wear masks or stay out of crowded bars.

“We’ve got to make sure people really understand the responsibility that they have to help out to get out of this predicament we’re in, as opposed to intensify it,” Fauci said.

According to Johns Hopkins University's tally of cases in the United States, there have been at least 4,073,243 cases of coronavirus since the start of the pandemic. At least 144,780 people have died in the US from coronavirus.   

The totals include cases from all 50 states, the District of Columbia and other US territories, as well as repatriated cases. 

As of 3 p.m. ET today, Johns Hopkins has reported 34,495 new cases and 476 new deaths. 

Here's a look at the pandemic across the country:

Arizona reported at least 3,349 new Covid-19 cases Friday, bringing the state's total to 156,301, according to state's Health Department. 

The state also added 79 new deaths from the virus, bringing the statewide death toll to at least 3,142. 

This comes after Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus task force coordinator, said on Friday that some states, including Arizona, were "starting to see some plateauing."

 Here's a look at new daily cases in Arizona for the past two weeks:

New York City has reported 18,836 confirmed and 4,629 probable coronavirus deaths as of July 24, according to the most recent data on the city website.

The New York City Health Department defines probable deaths as people who did not have a positive Covid-19 laboratory test, but their death certificate lists as the cause of death “Covid-19” or an equivalent.

The total number of confirmed coronavirus deaths and probable coronavirus deaths in New York City since the start of the pandemic is 23,465.

There have been 219,641 coronavirus cases in the city, and 55,893 people have been hospitalized, according to the city.

The data is from the New York City Health Department and was updated on July 24 at 1 p.m., according to the website.

To note: The figures may not line up exactly in real time with CNN’s database drawn from Johns Hopkins University and the Covid Tracking Project.