BitGou: Thursday Morning Briefing: Trump's coronavirus social media posts pulled

What you need to know about the coronavirus today

Trump social media posts pulled
Facebook took down a post by U.S. President Donald Trump, which the company said violated its rules against sharing misinformation about the coronavirus.

The post contained a video clip from an interview with Fox & Friends in which Trump said children are "almost immune" to COVID-19.

A tweet containing the video that was posted by the Trump campaign's @TeamTrump account and shared by the president was also later hidden by Twitter for breaking its COVID-19 misinformation rules.

YouTube said it had also pulled down the video for violating its COVID-19 misinformation policies.

However, the original interview remained available on the Fox News page on the platform.

Fauci says politics and vaccine won't mix
U.S. regulators have assured scientists that political pressure will not determine when a coronavirus vaccine is approved, the country's leading infectious diseases expert Anthony Fauci said on Wednesday, even as the White House hopes to have one ready ahead of the November presidential election.

Fresh lockdown fears in Germany
The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Germany has breached the 1,000 threshold for the first time since early May, in the latest sign that slackening social distancing is raising the risk of a second wave of the disease.

The lockdown and social distancing pushed the number of new cases down to as low as 159 in mid-July but numbers have been rising since, fueled by local outbreaks, including one centered on a slaughterhouse that required restrictions to be placed on the entire town of Guetersloh.

New surge in Philippines
The Philippines recorded another jump in coronavirus infections to overtake neighboring Indonesia as the country with the highest number of recorded COVID-19 cases in East Asia.

A recent surge in cases in and around the capital Manila has pushed authorities to reimpose a lockdown affecting around a quarter of the country's 107 million people.

The Philippines recorded 3,561 new infections on Thursday, taking its total confirmed cases to 119,460.

Melbourne enters six-week lockdown
Australia's second-biggest city of Melbourne began the first day of a six-week total lockdown on Thursday with the closure of most shops and businesses raising new fears of food shortages, as authorities battle a second wave of coronavirus infections.

Abattoirs are one of the few businesses allowed to stay open in the city of about 5 million people, though with a reduced workforce, under the "stage four" lockdown which took effect at midnight on Wednesday.

From Breakingviews: Corona Capital - Nintendo, E-commerce IPO, UK banks
Read concise views on the pandemic’s financial fallout from Breakingviews columnists across the globe.

Reuters reporters and editors around the world are investigating the response to the coronavirus pandemic.

We need your help to tell these stories. Our news organization wants to capture the full scope of what’s happening and how we got here by drawing on a wide variety of sources. Here’s a look at our coverage.

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Top news

Lebanon mourned on Thursday the victims of the most powerful blast to hit a country that has already been struck down by an economic crisis, as rescuers searched for those missing since the explosion flattened Beirut port and devastated the city.

French President Emmanuel Macron, making the first visit by a foreign leader since Tuesday’s blast which killed at least 145 people and injured 5,000, arrived in Beirut along with specialist rescue personnel and equipment.

Dozens are still missing and up to a quarter of a million people were left without homes fit to live in after shockwaves smashed building facades, sucked furniture out into streets and shattered windows several miles inland.

As U.S. Congress wrangles over aid, millions of renters get desperate
Amanda Geno accepted what felt like a dream job offer on March 13 from a college near Holyoke, Massachusetts, putting an end to a six-month search after she was laid off in the fall. Or so she thought.

Three days later, the college told the 39-year-old fundraiser that the promised job would need to be put on hold.

At the end of April, she was notified the team she was to join wouldn’t be hiring until 2021.

Bells tolled in Hiroshima on Thursday for the 75th anniversary of the world’s first atomic bombing, with ceremonies downsized due to the coronavirus and the city’s mayor urging nations to reject selfish nationalism and unite to fight all threats.

The city said the significance of the anniversary of the bombing that killed 140,000 people before the end of 1945 had prompted its decision to hold the ceremony despite the spread of the virus, but taking strict precautions.

See the Reuters Graphic: In a flash, a changed world

COVID Science

Shenzhen Kangtai Biological Products will produce AstraZeneca’s potential COVID-19 vaccine in mainland China, the British drugmaker said on Thursday, its first deal to supply one of the world’s most populous countries.

To meet market demand in China, Shenzhen Kangtai will ensure it has annual production capacity of at least 100 million doses of the experimental shot AZD1222, which AstraZeneca co-developed with researchers at Oxford University, by the end of this year, AstraZeneca said.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has granted NeuroRx Inc's Investigational New Drug permission to test RLF-100 (aviptadil) for inhaled use in patients with moderate and severe COVID-19 to prevent progression to respiratory failure, it and partner Relief Therapeutics Holdings said on Thursday.