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Hi, Helen Sullivan with you now. I’ll be bringing you the latest from around the world for the next few hours. As always, suggestions, questions and news from where you live are welcome.

Get in touch on Twitter @helenrsullivan or via email: [email protected].

Home-made face coverings need to be at least two layers and preferably three to curb the spread of Covid-19, new research suggests.

Experts found one layer of cotton T-shirt material is fairly effective as a barrier against droplets expelled during speaking, but two are “significantly better at reducing the droplet spread caused by coughing and sneezing”.

Three layers would be even better, the researchers said, and their study found surgical disposable masks offer the best protection of all.

In England, the Department of Health has published guidance for the public on how to make a home-made mask. It recommends “two or three 25cm x 25cm squares of cotton fabric” sewn together and attached to the ears with elastic.

The UK government and the World Health Organisation (WHO) have been keen to advise people to make their own cloth face coverings in the hope surgical masks will be reserved for health workers.

For the new study, published in the journal Thorax, experts from the University of New South Wales in Sydney, tested three types of masks.

Their one-layer face covering was made using a cotton T-shirt material, the two-layer covering was prepared by sewing two strips together, and the third was a surgical mask.

A tailored LED lighting system and a high-speed camera were used to capture the light scattered by droplets and aerosols expelled during speaking, coughing and sneezing while wearing the different types of mask.

The volunteer who took part was healthy with no respiratory infection. Tissue paper was put up the nose to stimulate sneezing.

The researchers concluded: “From the captured video it can be observed that, for speaking, a single-layer cloth face covering reduced the droplet spread but a double-layer covering performed better.

“Even a single-layer face covering is better than no face covering.

“However, a double-layer cloth face covering was significantly better at reducing the droplet spread caused by coughing and sneezing.

“A surgical mask was the best among all the tested scenarios in preventing droplet spread from any respiratory emission.

“These visualisations show the value of using face masks and the difference between types of masks.”

Mothers who have Covid-19 infection are unlikely to pass the virus to their newborns if appropriate hygiene precautions are taken, a small study suggests.

The findings, which involved 120 babies and their mothers, suggest that mothers can breastfeed and stay in the same room as their newborns, if they use face coverings and follow infection control procedures.

The research is published in The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health journal.

Lead author Dr Christine M Salvatore, from the Weill Cornell Medicine-New York Presbyterian Komansky Children’s Hospital in the US, said: “Data on the risk of Covid-19 transmission during pregnancy or while breastfeeding are limited to a small number of case studies.

“Consequently, guidelines for pregnant women and new mothers vary.

“We hope our study will provide some reassurance to new mothers that the risk of them passing Covid-19 to their babies is very low.

“However, larger studies are needed to better understand the risks of transmission from mother to child.”

Former UK prime minister Tony Blair believes coronavirus will not be eliminated.

He urged the UK government to focus on containment measures to see the country through a second wave.

In an interview with the PA news agency, Blair described the crisis as “the biggest challenge logistically and practically” a government has ever faced, but criticised ministers for not yet putting in place an “infrastructure of containment”.

He said: “The reality is that we’re going to be living with Covid-19 – we’re not really going to be able to eliminate it.

“And when you look at what has been happening in other countries, as lockdown has been eased, then more and more problems have appeared and many countries, having gone into lockdown then easing it, are finding spikes in the disease.

“You can’t be sure of this but there’s at least a 50/50 chance that you have a resurgence of the disease in the autumn and that’s why it is absolutely essential now to prepare for that.

“And to put in place every single last bit of containment infrastructure that you possibly can to make sure that if that happens you are able to control the disease, because you’re not going to be able to go back into the lockdown that we endured in March, April and May.”

A new report by his think tank, the Tony Blair Institute, calls for public confidence to be rebuilt “on the knowledge that every possible step has been taken to mitigate risk” – requiring containment measures in the absence of a “game changer” vaccine or treatment.

It recommends the rollout of mass testing, mandated use of face masks in all enclosed public environments, and suggests introducing an individual risk categorisation – with A showing those most at risk, to people with low health risks and a low transmission risk in category D.

Trump also bragged that the US has conducted more coronavirus tests than any other country.

Here is some context on this from the Johns Hopkins University coronavirus resource center: “In order for governments to identify new cases and effectively respond to the pandemic through tracing and treatment, testing programs should be scaled to the size of their epidemic, not the size of the population.”

Part of the reason that US needs to conduct so much testing – even more than it is already doing – is because it has had more cases of coronavirus than anywhere else in the world.

The number of cases has reached 4,026,288, according to Johns Hopkins University.

During his press briefing in Washington, Trump has reiterated his call for schools in the US to reopen.

“Districts may need to delay reopening for a few weeks,” he said.

If public schools do not reopen, Trump said that funding should “follow” students to private and charter schools.

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have warned about the “lasting” mental health impact of Covid-19 as their foundation awarded almost £1.8 million to support frontline workers and others affected by the pandemic in the UK.

The Duchess said the couple are “in awe” of the efforts of frontline and emergency responders during the outbreak, as they spoke to some of the 10 UK organisations who have benefited from the grants.

The couple’s Royal Foundation Covid-19 Response Fund is helping a range of projects, from ensuring all emergency workers have access to individual grief trauma from Hospice UK, to helping early years charity Best Beginnings support an extra 20,000 new mothers.

Kate and William spoke privately earlier this week with two emergency responders and two mental health counsellors whose organisations are being supported by the fund.

During the open-air meeting at the Queen’s Sandringham estate, the duchess told them: “Over recent months we have all been in awe of the incredible work that frontline staff and emergency responders have been doing in response to Covid-19.

“But we know that for many of them, their families, and for thousands of others across the UK, the pandemic will have a lasting impact on their mental health.”

Donald Trump has called off the GOP National Convention in Florida, citing the “flare-up” of coronavirus but the North Carolina events will still take place to formally renominate him on August 24.

Trump said that it is “not the right time” for a big convention in Jacksonville.

Jacksonville, Florida residents filed a lawsuit against the city, the Republican National Committee and the Trump campaign earlier this month to stop the convention in August over concerns that a big event would accelerate the spread of disease in a state that is already a coronavirus hotspot.

US governors were priming for battle against coronavirus as early as February but Donald Trump’s lackadaisical approach to the spreading disease hindered a national response, according to Maryland governor Larry Hogan, chairman of the National Governors Association.

Trump initially was downplaying” the threat and saying this virus is going to disappear,” despite grave warnings from top national experts, Hogan told The Associated Press.

“All of the leaders in the administration, the experts and the public health doctors at the (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), they were aware and providing this information. And yet it seemed as if the president was downplaying it and saying, you know, this virus is going to disappear,” Hogan said.

The biggest mistake in the first couple of months, the governor said, was not developing a national testing strategy.

“Throughout the pandemic, it (the federal government) was not assisting the states enough with testing and now as its spiking back up again and we have a resurgence of this virus all across the country, the number one thing we can do is to put more into testing and contact tracing to identify and stop the spread,” Hogan said.

There have been more than 915,000 new cases in last two weeks in the US.

As states continue to dial back reopening efforts, nearly every metric for tracking the coronavirus outbreak has shown a worsening spread.

“I don’t see this disappearing,” Dr Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told tuberculosis researchers during a live stream on Wednesday.

“It is so efficient in its ability to transmit from human to human that I think we ultimately will get control of it. I don’t really see us eradicating it.”

More than 915,000 new cases have been confirmed in just the past two weeks, totaling more than the entire month of June. The US has now exceeded 140,000 deaths, with Texas alone reporting a state record 197 new fatalities on Wednesday.

Related: US surpasses 4m Covid-19 cases as states dial back reopening

New York City has reached its goal of performing 50,000 coronavirus tests a day and its contact tracing effort has potentially prevented thousands of new infections, officials said.

Mayor Bill de Blasio said four new clinics operated by the urgent care company MedRite will bring the total citywide daily testing capacity to 50,000.

“This is the number we’ve been wanting to get to for quite a while. We will now have that capacity,” he said.

Dr Ted Long, the head of the city’s contact tracing effort, said the average wait for test results citywide is now two days, down from more than double that a week ago, but he acknowledged that waits at some testing sites have been much longer.

The African Development Bank said it would provide 5 million in aid to Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritania, Niger and Chad to help them fight the coronavirus pandemic.

The aid was being provided within the framework of a -billion Covid-19 response facility unveiled by the AfDB in April.

Niger would receive support of 8.8 million, Burkina Faso .6 million and Mali .9 million in both loans and grants, a statement said.

Chad would receive .2 million and Mauritania .2 million in the form of grants.

“The board of directors of the AfDB has approved budgetary support of 4.8 million to help the efforts of the Sahel countries – Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Chad – in implementing their response plans to the Covid-19 pandemic and economic recovery,” the pan-African bank said.

The aid “is particularly important for the G5 Sahel countries which are already suffering from climate, humanitarian and security shocks,” said the bank’s director general for West Africa, Marie-Laure Akin Olugbade.

Bolivia’s general election will be pushed back until October 18 due to the pandemic.

The head of the electoral tribunal said on Thursday that the vote would be postponed from the previously scheduled September 6 date to ensure the safety of voters, with hospitals and cemeteries straining under the impact of the virus.

“This election requires the highest possible health security measures to protect the health of Bolivians,” tribunal President Salvador Romero told a news conference in La Paz.

The vote is key to the political future of the Andean nation of 11.5 million people after a fraught election last year sparked widespread protests and led to the resignation of the country’s long-term leftist president Evo Morales.

In a political vacuum and amid deadly conflicts on the street, right-wing lawmaker Jeanine Anez was ushered into power, pledging to hold quick new elections, originally planned for May before being delayed by the pandemic to September.

Anez is running in the election, while Morales is pulling the political strings from exile in Argentina with his Movement for Socialism party, whose candidate Luis Arce leads in some polls.
Morales wrote on Twitter the delay “will only harm the people” and blamed the interim government for its response to the pandemic. He added the move was unconstitutional and a tactic for his opponents to “gain more time.”

Anez said she would accept the new date.

“Whatever the date, the government calls for promoting economic revival, the fight against the virus and the consolidation of democracy,” she wrote on Twitter.

The new election schedule would see a second-round held on November 29 if there was no clear winner in the first-round vote.

It took only 15 days for the total number of coronavirus cases in the US to go from 3 million to 4 million.

In contrast, the number of US coronavirus cases surpassed 1 million 99 days after the country’s first case was confirmed.

The US currently accounts for about a quarter of all confirmed coronavirus cases worldwide, according to the data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

The US hit the grim milestone of four million cases a day after Fox News aired an interview with Trump in which the president argued coronavirus tests are “overrated.”

“To me, every time you test a case it gets reported in the news, we found more cases,” he said.

“If instead of 50 we did 25, we have half the number of cases. So I personally think it’s overrated, but I am totally willing to keep doing it.”

As the US passes 4 million coronavirus cases, Donald Trump is expected to address the media shortly in Washington.

Meanwhile, Florida, which reported a record one-day increase in Covid-19 deaths on Thursday with 173 lives lost, has been sued by a teachers union to stop schools reopening for in-person instruction, which the union says poses an imminent threat to the health, safety and welfare of children, staff and parents.

Florida’s commissioner said early in July that schools must reopen, but on Thursday Governor Ron DeSantis said parents and teachers had a choice.

“We need to provide all options,” DeSantis told a news conference.

Trump, who has threatened to withhold federal funding if schools do not reopen, told a press briefing on Wednesday the decision would ultimately be up to state governors.

Administration officials have said a quicker reopening is essential to get the cratering economy moving again, another central plank of Trump’s re-election campaign.

Here are some more comments from the South African president Cyril Ramaphosa’s address to the nation.

He said it is investigating dozens of alleged corruption cases involving theft or misappropriation of funds earmarked to fight the coronavirus pandemic.

A special investigating team had been set up to look into “allegations of corruption in areas such as the distribution of food parcels, social relief grants, the procurement of personal protective equipment and other medical supplies,” Ramaphosa said.

“At least 36 cases are currently at various stages of investigation and prosecution.”

In April, the government announced an unprecedented 500-billion-rand (.7bn) economic stimulus and social relief package to cushion the impact of coronavirus.

But some of those funds have been stolen, misused or relief food aid has been diverted from households in need.

Ramaphosa vowed that all alleged corruption cases would be “thoroughly investigated”, culprits prosecuted and the stolen money recovered.

Corruption involving state assets worsened during the nine-year tenure of the former president Jacob Zuma.

Zuma was forced to resign in February 2018 over graft scandals and Ramaphosa took over vowing to tackle corruption.

South Africa’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, has said public schools will close again for a month from Monday to limit the spread of coronavirus.

The country has now recorded 408,052 coronavirus cases, the fifth-highest in the world. More than 6,000 people have died from the virus.

Rising infections have caused concern among teaching staff, with unions calling on the government to revoke its decision to reopen schools for certain grades in June.

“Cabinet has decided today that all public schools should take a break for the next four weeks,” Ramaphosa said during an address to the nation, adding that the academic year that is due to end in December would be extended.

Schools will be closed from 27 July and scheduled to reopen on 24 August.

“We have taken a deliberately cautious approach to keep schools closed during a period when the country is expected to experience its greatest increase in infections,” Ramaphosa said.

The president also announced a “historic” R500 billion (bn) social relief and economic support package to fund the health response and assist “those in greatest need”.

The director general of the World Health Organization has criticised the US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, for “untrue and unacceptable” allegations” about the health agency chief’s relationship with China.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said WHO was focused on saving lives as he condemned the reported comments by Pompeo at a closed-door event this week in London.

British newspapers reported that Pompeo claimed Tedros had been bought by the Chinese government.

“The comments are untrue and unacceptable, and without any foundation for that matter,” Tedros told reporters in Geneva.

“If there is one thing that really matters to us and which should matter to the entire international community, its saving lives. And WHO will not be distracted by these comments.”

Critics say the Trump administration has been trying to deflect attention from its own failings in managing the coronavirus outbreak in the US, which has the most confirmed cases and virus-related deaths in the world.

In recent months, the administration has repeatedly criticised WHO’s handling of the pandemic and its alleged deference to Beijing.

Donald Trump has ordered the US to withdraw next year from the agency it has bankrolled and supported for decades.

The White House has released a readout from Donald Trump’s call today with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin.

“Today, President Donald J Trump spoke with President Vladimir Putin of Russia. President Trump and President Putin discussed efforts to defeat the coronavirus pandemic while continuing to reopen global economies,” the readout says.

“The two leaders also discussed critical bilateral and global issues. President Trump reiterated his hope of avoiding an expensive three-way arms race between China, Russia, and the United States and looked forward to progress on upcoming arms control negotiations in Vienna.”

The readout makes no mention of Trump pressing Putin on reports that Russia offered bounties to Taliban insurgents to kill American troops.

The US president also does not appear to have asked his Russian counterpart about allegations that Kremlin-backed hackers targeted coronavirus vaccine researchers in the US, the UK and Canada.

This is an interesting finding. Covid-19 lockdowns worldwide led to the longest and most pronounced reduction in human-linked seismic vibrations ever recorded, sharpening scientists’ ability to hear earth’s natural signals and detect earthquakes according to a study.

In the research, published in the journal Science, scientists found that human-linked earth vibrations dropped by an average of 50% between March and May this year.

“The 2020 seismic noise quiet period is the longest and most prominent global anthropogenic seismic noise reduction on record,” they wrote.

Beginning in China in late January, and followed by Europe and the rest of the world in March to April, researchers saw “a wave of quietening” as worldwide lockdown measures to slow the coronavirus pandemic took hold.

The relative quiet allowed scientists to “listen in” in more detail on the earth’s natural vibrations, said Stephen Hicks, a seismologist at Imperial College London who co-led the work.

France’s public health authority said on Thursday there had been a significant rise in new cases of people suffering from Covid-19, as the number of deaths in the country edged up.

The number of deaths in France from Covid-19 rose by 10 from the previous day to 30,182, the sixth highest toll in the world.

The number of confirmed cases rose by 1,000, as people adhered less to social distancing measures and increased testing led to the discovery of new clusters in parts of the country.

Berlin’s bondage studios and erotic massage parlours can reopen for business, after a court decided that appending them to a blanket closure of brothels to help contain the coronavirus pandemic was discriminatory.

Thursday’s ruling came after the owners of a parlour offering intimate massages and a BDSM studio sought an injunction to overturn a city-wide ban on all sex work.

The court agreed that the risk of spreading the virus in a brothel was far higher, and that the applicants’ businesses could reopen, provided they adhered to all sanitation rules, including the wearing of masks.

“In [their] case … there is no especially close contact between the service provider and the client,” the court said. “The service is strictly limited to contact by hand, ensuring greater distancing as a rule.”

Brothels were different for other reasons, the court added, including the fact that sex involved a dramatically elevated breathing rate, which increased the risk of spreading infection.

Last month, sex workers in the port of Hamburg demonstrated in protest against rules preventing them from working during the pandemic. The ban was discriminatory since other entertainment businesses had been allowed to reopen, they said.

Kuwait will shorten its nightly curfew and reopen hotels and mosques next week in the latest relaxation of its coronavirus restrictions, the government said on Thursday.

The Gulf country said it would enter “phase three” of its coronavirus restrictions on 28 July, enabling taxis to operate and resorts as well as hotels to reopen.

In addition, all mosques would be open for Eid al-Adha prayers, the Center for Government Communication (CGC) said on Twitter. Muslims expect the holiday to begin on 31 July. Until now, only some mosques had been allowed to operate.

The curfew put in place to limit the spread of the virus will begin an hour later at 9pm (1800 GMT), and end two hours earlier at 3am (midnight GMT), it said. The decision will be reviewed by the cabinet after the Eid al-Adha break.

The cabinet also decided to end the isolation of the Farwaniya district on Sunday. It is the last isolated area in the country, which has recorded 61,872 coronavirus infections, and 421 deaths.

Regional authorities across Spain have introduced fresh coronavirus restrictions aimed at stamping out a surge in infections that continues to defy efforts at containment and is damaging tourism.

New cases had slowed to a trickle in June, before a nationwide lockdown was lifted, but since then more than 280 clusters have been detected, with wealthy Catalonia the worst affected, leaving hotels largely empty and bars shutting down.

Health ministry data showed 2,615 new cases across Spain on Thursday, compared with a daily average of just 132 in June.

In Catalonia, nearly 8,000 cases were diagnosed in the last 14 days – almost half of the 16,410 detected throughout the country – despite guidelines for residents of regional capital Barcelona to stay at home.

Murcia, in the south east of Spain, sealed off 30,000 people in the town of Totana on Thursday, barring anyone from entering or leaving after 55 cases linked to a bar were detected there.

And, in a deepening spat between regional and central authorities, Madrid is pushing the central government to impose stricter controls on the city’s Barajas airport after more than 70 passengers landed in the capital while infected.

Madrid authorities also urged citizens to wear a mask even at home, when they are with people they don’t live with.

Promoting a similar message, the Canary Islands launched a graphic publicity campaign in which a family party turns into tragedy when the grandfather ends up lying unconscious on a hospital bed after contracting Covid-19. “A simple family gathering can bring you as a present 40 days in a coma, or even death,” the slogan reads.

Failing to bring the epidemic under control could spell disaster for Spain’s tourism sector, which accounts for some 12% of economic output and has begun a tentative reopening after hotel occupancy more than halved in the first six months of the year.

Fitbit and other wearable devices typically linked to exercise are being studied as ways to identify people who are potentially infected with Covid-19 before symptoms appear, when they can unknowingly spread the disease.

Changes in heart rate, respiratory rate, and other biometrics measured constantly by the devices may flag the early stages of virus infection, so an otherwise healthy-looking person knows to self-isolate and seek a coronavirus test, researchers say.

“When you get ill, even before you know it, your body starts changing, your heart rate goes up,” said Professor Michael Snyder of Stanford University School of Medicine.

Stanford researchers are among several groups examining whether wearable fitness devices such as the Fitbit or Apple Watch can provide an early warning. Snyder’s team enrolled 5,000 people in the study and studied historical smartwatch data from 31 users who tested positive for the virus.

Of those 31, all of their data indicated infection before symptoms appeared. Wearable devices picked up the signals of infection early – before symptoms appeared – in an average of three days.

In one case, the team found that a smartwatch was able to spot the first signal of potential Covid-19 infection nine days before more obvious symptoms were reported.

“We can tell when someone’s getting ill before symptoms. That’s super powerful,” Snyder said. “You can tell people to stay at home. Don’t go out, infect other people.”

An influential former Chinese property executive and critic of Xi Jinping has been ousted from China’s ruling Communist party, a notice from the Beijing district government said on Thursday.

Ren Zhiqiang, the former chairman of the state-controlled property developer Huayuan Real Estate Group, called Xi a “clown” over a speech he made in February about government efforts to battle the coronavirus.

Ren went missing in March, three of his friends told Reuters at the time. Beijing’s municipal anti-corruption watchdog later said he was under investigation for a “serious disciplinary violation”.

In a notice on Thursday night, the watchdog said Ren had been ousted from the party because he was in “severe violation of discipline and law”.

It accused Ren of “losing faith”, “not being aligned with the party on important matters of principle”, “vilifying the image of party and country” and being disloyal and dishonest to the party.

According to the notice, Ren also used official funds on golf expenses, used office and residential spaces provided for free by businessmen, and unlawfully earned huge profits.

Ren’s “unlawful gains” have been confiscated and he will be charged in court, the notice said.

The notice made no mention of the article in which Ren also said a lack of free press and speech had prevented the coronavirus outbreak from being tackled sooner, causing the situation to worsen.

The total number of coronavirus cases reported in the United States passed 4 million on Thursday, reflecting a rapid acceleration of infections detected in the country since the first case was recorded on 21 January, a Reuters tally of state totals has shown.

It took the country 98 days to reach 1 million cases, but just 16 days to go from 3 million to 4 million, according to the tally.

The average number of new US cases is now rising by more than 2,600 every hour, the highest rate in the world.

As the pandemic has spread widely over the country, moving from the early epicentre of New York to the south and west, federal, state and local officials have clashed over how to fight it, including over how and when to ease social and economic restrictions aimed at curbing the infection rate.

Whether to order the wearing of masks, a common practice in the rest of the world and recommended by the federal government’s own health experts, has become highly politicised, with some Republican governors in hard-hit states particularly resistant.

Donald Trump, who faces falling poll numbers over his handling of the health crisis ahead of an election in November, has long resisted wearing a mask but this week encouraged Americans to do so.

The Miami mayor, Francis Suarez, said on Thursday said he believed his city’s strict rule on mask-wearing is making a difference, citing improving numbers there.

“The remediation efforts that we’ve taken, including the mask in public rule, are working,” he told CNN.

Florida reported a record one-day increase in Covid-19 deaths on Thursday with 173 lives lost, according to the state health department.

On Wednesday, Covid-19 deaths rose by more than 1,100 for a second day in a row, including record single-day increases in fatalities in Alabama, California, Nevada and Texas.

The daily death tally is still well below levels seen in April, when on average 2,000 people a day died from the virus.

The World Health Organisation is seeing “intense transmission” of Covid-19 in relatively few countries, director general Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said during the briefing.

“Two-thirds of all cases are from 10 countries. Almost half of all cases reported so far are from just three countries,” he said.

So far, there have been over 15 million recorded cases of the virus across the world, and 624,370 reported deaths.

According to John Hopkins University, the US has recorded the largest number of cases to date – at 3.9m – while Brazil has the second highest number at 2.2m, and India has the third, at 1.2m.

The other seven countries with the highest official coronavirus caseloads are as follows: Russia (793,720), South Africa (394,948), Peru (366,550), Mexico (362,274), Chile (334,683), United Kingdom (297,952), and Iran (284,034).

The Democratic presidential candidate, Joe Biden, and the former president Barack Obama blasted Donald Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic in a video aired on Thursday, as the Biden campaign tapped the star power of America’s first black president.

Obama and Biden, who served as his vice-president, sat down facing each other in chairs from across a room for a “socially distanced” conversation.

Both men released the video on Twitter, where Obama has 120.8 million followers, the most on the platform.

“Can you imagine standing up when you were president, saying: ‘It’s not my responsibility?’” Biden asked Obama, referring to Trump’s efforts to evade blame for the pandemic.

“Those words didn’t come out of our mouths when we were in office,” Obama replied.
The Trump campaign did not immediately comment.

With traditional campaigning still in limbo due to the pandemic, the video offered a glimpse of how Obama, still overwhelmingly popular among Democratic voters, may be deployed to build enthusiasm for November’s presidential election.

During their first in-person meeting since Biden became presumptive Democratic nominee, they spoke about the need to expand on the Affordable Care Act.

They noted that the Trump administration is trying to convince the US supreme court to invalidate the ACA, also known as “Obamacare”, their administration’s signature programme that vastly expanded US health insurance coverage.

Obama said:

It is hard to fathom anybody wanting to take away people’s health care in the middle of a major public health crisis.”

They also discussed Biden’s ability to empathise, a trait his campaign has stressed to contrast him with Trump. Biden said:

I don’t understand his inability to get a sense of what people are going through. He can’t relate in any way.”

Obama said: “It is a sign of leadership when you are willing to hear other people’s experiences.”

“Just because cases might be at a low level where you live, that doesn’t make it safe to let down your guard. Don’t expect someone else to keep you safe,” WHO director general Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus continued.

“We all have a part to play in protecting ourselves and one anoth