Police block Sydney BLM protest on health grounds

New South Wales police in Australia arrested six people on Saturday in a "significant" operation to block a Black Lives Matter protest from going ahead on health grounds, according to Assistant Police Commissioner Michael Willing. 

The police operation is continuing, Willing said.

The protest in central Sydney on Tuesday was organized for 500 people to protest the 2015 death of Indigenous man David Dungay Jnr. It drew a small crowd after it was declared "unauthorized" by a NSW Supreme Court ruling on Sunday.

Five of those arrested were issued with a fine of 1,000 Australian dollars ($713) for breaches of the Covid-19 public health order that currently bans crowds of more than 20 people. 

The sixth arrestee was issued with a criminal infringement notice for foul language. 

In June, tens of thousands of protesters turned out for a similar Black Lives Matter demonstration in Sydney, after a successful appeal against a NSW Supreme Court injunction.

The coronavirus is "easily the most severe" public health emergency the World Health Organization (WHO) has ever faced, its director-general said Monday, as countries that previously appeared to have the pandemic under control recorded an uptick in cases.

Across the Asia-Pacific region, where countries were among the first hit by the virus and the first to contain it, there have been new and in some cases seemingly unexplained increases in the number of infections. Governments that had previously been lauded for their response to the pandemic now seem to be struggling.

All this is concerning news for those where the first wave of the virus has yet to come fully under control, let alone in the disaster zones of the United States and Brazil. It's especially scary as there are only a few more weeks of summer left in parts of the northern hemisphere, and many epidemiologists expect the virus to peak again in winter.

What happened? Many of the most recent waves of the virus, in Hong Kong, Australia, China and elsewhere, have come as a surprise to officials. While there are a number of flaws to point out in various governments' responses, the numbers did not explode until very recently -- potentially because a more virulent strain of the virus had been introduced, or that cases were simply building up undetected and suddenly reached a tipping point.

Hard task ahead: The difficulty even countries in Asia-Pacific -- the region of the world with perhaps the best coronavirus response -- are having points to the potentially insurmountable task of getting the virus under control in other parts of the world, at least until a vaccine becomes available.

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The United States recorded 56,336 new Covid-19 cases and 1,076 virus-related deaths on Monday, according to Johns Hopkins University's tally.

In total, at least 4,290,259 coronavirus cases have been recorded in the US, including at least 148,011 deaths, according to JHU.

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

CNN is tracking US coronavirus cases here:

A video featuring a group of doctors making false and dubious claims related to the coronavirus was removed by Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube after going viral online Monday.

The video, published by the right-wing media outlet Breitbart News, featured a group of people wearing white lab coats calling themselves "America's Frontline Doctors" staging a press conference in front of the US Supreme Court in Washington, DC.

US President Donald Trump shared multiple versions of the video with his 84 million Twitter followers Monday night despite the dubious claims running counter to his administration's own public health experts. Spokespersons for the White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

During the press conference, a speaker who identifies herself as a doctor makes a number of dubious claims, including that "you don't need masks" to prevent spread of the coronavirus, and that recent studies showing hydroxychloroquine is ineffective for the treatment of Covid-19 are "fake science" sponsored by "fake pharma companies."

The claims run contrary to multiple studies on the anti-malarial drug and advice from public health officials to prevent spread of the virus.

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US President Donald Trump walks on the South Lawn of the White House on July 24 in Washington, DC. Drew Angerer/Getty Images

US President Donald Trump and his allies on Capitol Hill are still fighting the pandemic they wish existed, rather than a virus that unfolds at its own pace and is oblivious to their artificial political and economic timetables.

Despite his supposed turn to taking the coronavirus more seriously, Trump on Monday warned some governors should be quicker in opening up their states, ignoring the fact his previous advice on such lines helped spark a surge in cases in the sunbelt.

New stimulus bill: The Senate Republican Party meanwhile split over a new $1 trillion stimulus bill, with some conservatives warning that maintaining federal unemployment benefits at current rates would deter a return to work as the virus rages and delay the restoration of economy.

Still, the impasse predated exceedingly difficult negotiations with Democrats and will inevitably degenerate into a hyper-partisan struggle given the stakes of the approaching election. But any delay could could see millions of Americans who lost jobs in lockdowns deprived of most of a $600 a week federal government lifeline -- that has already paid out for the last time at previous levels.

It also emerged Monday that Trump's national security adviser Robert O'Brien, who works in the President's mask-free West Wing, tested positive for the coronavirus, in a sign of how flaunting basic precautions leaves no one safe from infection even if such steps are politically unpalatable.

Crisis continues: The machinations in Washington unfolded against a backdrop of a crisis that is nowhere near fading despite Trump's upbeat rhetoric. While there are signs the latest explosion of sickness in southern and western states may be cresting, the situation remains dire. By late Monday night, the daily toll stood at 53,972 new infections and 581 reported deaths.

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A house party in New Jersey was so packed with partygoers openly flouting the state's Covid-19 crowd guidelines this weekend that it took police officers over five hours to break it up.

The bust occurred on Sunday at around 8:30 p.m., when police officers arrived at a house in Jackson that was being rented out through Airbnb, according to a statement by Captain Steven Laskiewicz posted on the Jackson Police Department's Facebook page.

Still, the party continued to grow, with the crowd surging to an estimated 700 people with well over 100 vehicles parked in the area, according to the statement.

It took police until 1 a.m. to fully clear the residence. The homeowner and two party organizers were each issued summons, the statement said.

Murphy's executive order limits indoor gatherings to 100 people and outdoor gatherings to 500.

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Passengers wearing face masks queue up for check-in at the departures terminal of Da Nang International Airport in Vietnam on July 27. Hoang Khanh/AFP/Getty Images

Vietnam has suspended all domestic passenger flights to and from popular tourist destination Da Nang for 15 days, starting from Tuesday, according to Chinhphu, the official state-run newspaper of the Vietnamese government.  

This comes after the country reported 11 new locally transmitted Covid-19 cases on Monday evening, including four healthcare workers. A total of 16 new cases had been reported in the past three days, the news report said.  

About 80,000 tourists are stranded in Da Nang. Earlier, domestic airlines were asked to increase the number of flights to evacuate them, but they had to depart before midnight Tuesday local time, according to Chinhphu.

Reemergence of the virus: Da Nang witnessed a surge in cases since July 25, after the country had reported no local infections for 100 days. Authorities suspended road passenger transport both within the city and to and from Da Nang, except for the transportation of patients, workers, experts for business establishments, food, and goods.  

Reimposed restrictions: In a series of social-distancing measures imposed from midnight Tuesday, residents in six districts of Da Nang are required to stay at home. They can go out for food, medicine, emergencies and work. When they are out, they are required to keep a distance of at least 2 meters from each other.  

A ban on gatherings of more than two people was imposed outside offices, schools, hospitals and other public places.  

The government of Australia’s Victoria state is transferring elderly care residents into public and private hospitals to protect them from Covid-19, Premier Daniel Andrews said Tuesday.

Around 200 patients have already been moved from aged care homes, where there are 769 active cases.

All but the most serious surgeries have been suspended to make space for the at-risk individuals.

Victoria announced 384 new Covid-19 cases from 18,521 tests conducted Monday, down on Sunday’s daily high count of 532.

There are 4,775 active cases in Victoria, among whom 414 are health workers.

The Victorian government believes that Covid-19 patients refusing to isolate are driving the spread of the disease, despite a stay-at-home order imposed on metro Melbourne and the neighboring Mitchell Shire. 

Soldiers employed to knock on the doors of Covid-19 patients to enforce quarantine and contact tracing are "sadly finding some people who are positive who are not at home, which is a real concern," Andrews said.

Chinese epidemic control workers wear protective suits as they disinfect each other after performing nucleic acid swab tests for Covid-19 on citizens at a government testing site in Xicheng District on June 24 in Beijing. Kevin Frayer/Getty Images

China reported 68 novel coronavirus cases on Monday, including 64 locally transmitted infections, the country's National Health Commission said on Tuesday morning.

This is the second consecutive day that China has reported the highest number of local cases since March 6. On Monday, the country reported 57 new local infections for Sunday.

Among the 64 locally transmitted cases reported on Tuesday, 57 were in Xinjiang, six in Liaoning, and one in Beijing. China also reported a further 34 new asymptomatic infections, which are not included in its overall tally.

The far western region of Xinjiang has seen a fresh coronavirus outbreak in its capital Urumqi since July 15, after nearly five months of no new cases.

The total number of confirmed infections across China now stands at 83,959, according to the National Health Commission. The death toll remains at 4,634.