August 2 coronavirus news

Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson told CNN the state will not shut down bars and restaurants despite the recent spike in cases.

When asked Sunday if the state's high number of new cases and deaths could have been prevented had there been restrictions imposed earlier, Hutchinson said the "economy and people cannot be shut down for that long." 

The governor said bars and restaurants would remain open at "limited capacity" because "so far we have not seen any correlation between an increase in cases and lifting of restrictions."

"We're going to be dealing with this for some time and so you can't shut down the economy," Hutchinson said, adding that he's issued a mask mandate and "of course the most important about that is that people comply with it."

More context: The state of Arkansas reported a 10% positivity rate for new coronavirus cases Friday and currently has 43,173 total cases and 458 deaths.

Dr. Deborah Birx said the US is in a new phase in its fight against the coronavirus pandemic, saying that the virus is more widespread than when it first took hold in the country earlier this year.

Birx's comments come as the US has reported more coronavirus cases and deaths than any other country.

More context: As of Sunday, the US had reported more than 4.6 million cases of Covid-19 and at least 154,449 Americans have died, according to data from the Johns Hopkins University. 

Read more here.

Covid-19 infections hit a milestone in the Philippines on Sunday with 103,185 recorded cases of the disease. 

Health officials reported a record 5,032 new daily cases, which pushed the Philippines over 100,000.

The total number of deaths from coronavirus in the Philippines is 2,059. 

According to Johns Hopkins University, the Philippines have the second highest case count in southeast Asia, following Indonesia.

White House Coronavirus task force coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx said that Americans who have gone on vacation recently to a Covid-19 hotspot should "assume you're infected."

Birx told CNN that over the last three weeks she has traveled to 14 states.

She added that anyone who has "chosen to go on vacation into a hot spot" should "assume you're infected."

India's Bollywood star, Amitabh Bachchan, says he tested negative for Covid-19 on Sunday and is back home. 

He said “the excellent care and nursing at Nanavati (hospital) made it possible for me to see this day.”

Bachchan along with his son, Abhishek Bachchan, tested positive for coronavirus on July 1 while his daughter-in-law, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, and granddaughter tested positive the next day.

While the other three are back home, Abhishek is still in Mumbai's Nanavati Hospital.

Abhishek Bachchan tweeted, “I, unfortunately, due to some comorbidities remain Covid-19 positive and remain in hospital. Again, thank you for your continued wishes and prayers for my family.”

He said he was very humbled and indebted by the good wishes and added, “I’ll beat this and come back healthier! Promise.”

India's Minister of Home Affairs Amit Shah has tested positive for coronavirus on Sunday.

He said he has been admitted to a Delhi hospital after doctors' advice.

According to the minister’s office, Shah was last with India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi on July 29 at the prime minister’s residence in New Delhi for a union cabinet meeting.

Two passengers on board a KLM flight from Amsterdam to Ibiza were arrested after refusing to wear mandatory face masks during the flight, KLM spokesperson Paul Weber told CNN on Sunday.

The two passengers, described as “unruly” and “having drunk too much,” were refusing to wear masks on a KLM flight to the Spanish island on Friday, Weber said. They were also “troubling other passengers physically and verbally," he added.

The KLM spokesperson said the captain of the flight decided to arrest them onboard, shortly before landing in Ibiza. Local authorities arrested the two passengers on arrival.

Some context: According to its website, KLM is currently requiring passengers to wear a face mask from the first boarding call until they have gone through the arrival gate at their destination.

The premier of Victoria plunged Australia's second-largest state into a "state of disaster" on Sunday, announcing even stricter lockdown measures, introducing a nightly curfew and banning virtually all trips outdoors after the region announced 671 new infections in a single day.

Daniel Andrews told Victorians at a news conference that "we have to do more, and we have to do more right now," as the state battles to contain a devastating coronavirus outbreak that had already stripped residents of their freedoms, livelihoods and social interactions and made it an outlier from the rest of the country.

"Where you slept last night is where you'll need to stay for the next six weeks," he added, while announcing a curfew between 8 p.m. and 5 a.m. beginning Sunday evening.

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Victoria declares 'state of disaster,' locking down millions in Melbourne

Seven months into the coronavirus pandemic, the scientific community has learned many things about the SARS-CoV-2 virus and the disease it causes, Covid-19.

But there are still many gaps in our understanding.

One big mystery: Why do some people get very sick and even die from their illness, while other similar people show no symptoms and may not realize they've been infected at all?

We know some of the big factors that put people at higher risk of having a severe, even fatal, course of disease: being over 60; being overweight or obese; having one or more chronic diseases such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, kidney or lung disease, and cancer; and being a person of color -- Black African American, Latino Latinx or Native American.

But might the opposite also be true: Could certain people actually have some type of protection?

A recently published summary article in the journal Nature Reviews Immunology put forth a tantalizing possibility: A large percentage of the population appears to have immune cells that are able to recognize parts of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, and that may possibly be giving them a head start in fighting off an infection. In other words, some people may have some unknown degree of protection.

"What we found is that people that had never been exposed to SARS Cov2 ... about half of the people had some T-cell reactivity," co-author of the paper Alessandro Sette from the Center for Infectious Disease and Vaccine Research at La Jolla Institute for Immunology, told CNN.

Read more here.